OpenAI reaches agreement to buy Windsurf for $3B • Hacker News Board

Re: OpenAI reaches agreement to buy Windsurf for $3B

#51

Post by bfeynman » Tue, May 06, 2025, 1:06 PM UTC

bko wrote: post #29

Incredible timeline to a $3B exit > Windsurf began in 2021 as Exafunction, founded by MIT graduates Varun Mohan and Douglas Chen. The company initially focused on GPU optimization before pivoting to AI-assisted coding tools, launching Codeium, which later evolved into Windsurf. > Series B (January 2024): $65 million at a $500 million valuation. > Series C (September 2024): $150 million, led by General Catalyst, at a…

talented and smart folks for sure but can't not notice how much luck it is especially because its like 100% just better models. Windsurf raised a ton of money and then said they pivoted which they had millions raised to just do something completely different that likely wouldn't have been easier to raise for. Even in an interview with the cursor founder he kind of dumbly rambles that they launched and then basically lost a ton of traction until GPT4 came out. They have some core features like autocomplete but I'm struggling to see vision other than getting training data for iterative dev is a partial moat compared to just seeing commits and final code bases.

Re: OpenAI reaches agreement to buy Windsurf for $3B

#52

Post by bix6 » Tue, May 06, 2025, 1:07 PM UTC

timabdulla wrote: post #45

Androider wrote: post #28

Windsurf and Cursor feel like temporary stopgaps, products of a narrow window in time before the landscape shifts again. Microsoft has clearly taken notice. They're already starting to lock down the upstream VSCode codebase, as seen with recent changes to the C/C++ extension [0]. It's not hard to imagine that future features like TypeScript 7.0 might be limited or even withheld from forks entirely. At the same time,…

I mean, the fact that OpenAI, at the bleeding edge of it all, has decided to buy an IDE is a rather strong hint that the future of agents handling entire engineering tickets might be further out than many believe. If autonomous agents were just around the corner, then why wouldn't OpenAI bet on their own Codex product obviating (most) need for an IDE and save themselves the $3 billion?

It sounds like the openAI team is overburdened (I guess they aren’t AI super users yet) so this may be their only option. Easy entry into a key segment, at least for now, and locks out competitors.

Re: OpenAI reaches agreement to buy Windsurf for $3B

#53

Post by arjunaaqa » Tue, May 06, 2025, 1:08 PM UTC

robinhood wrote: post #46

Androider wrote: post #28

Windsurf and Cursor feel like temporary stopgaps, products of a narrow window in time before the landscape shifts again. Microsoft has clearly taken notice. They're already starting to lock down the upstream VSCode codebase, as seen with recent changes to the C/C++ extension [0]. It's not hard to imagine that future features like TypeScript 7.0 might be limited or even withheld from forks entirely. At the same time,…

"riddled with bugs". "incredibly poorly implemented". Man, what are you talking about? Your comment seems based on nothing but what you read online. Have you used Cursor on a daily basis? I have. Every day for six months now. I haven't encountered a single bug that prevent me to work. Moreover, while Microsoft tries to catch up lately, it's still very far behind, especially on the "tab autocompletion" front.

Plus, cursor & windsurf excel in user experience which is an alien concept to Microsoft.

Re: OpenAI reaches agreement to buy Windsurf for $3B

#54

Post by doix » Tue, May 06, 2025, 1:11 PM UTC

Androider wrote: post #28

Windsurf and Cursor feel like temporary stopgaps, products of a narrow window in time before the landscape shifts again. Microsoft has clearly taken notice. They're already starting to lock down the upstream VSCode codebase, as seen with recent changes to the C/C++ extension [0]. It's not hard to imagine that future features like TypeScript 7.0 might be limited or even withheld from forks entirely. At the same time,…

> At the same time, Microsoft will likely replicate Windsurf and Cursor's features within a year. And deliver them with far greater stability and polish.

I agree with the first part, I'm much less optimistic about the second part. I suspect they will create something that is worse, but cheaper if you already pay for Github/Office 365/whatever. Then many large enterprises will switch to save money whilst the engineers complain, just like with Teams.

Re: OpenAI reaches agreement to buy Windsurf for $3B

#55

Post by tom_y » Tue, May 06, 2025, 1:12 PM UTC

Fortunately it is not the cursor. I am using the cursor and I don't want it to be sold.

Re: OpenAI reaches agreement to buy Windsurf for $3B

#56

Post by preciousoo » Tue, May 06, 2025, 1:13 PM UTC

doix wrote: post #54

Androider wrote: post #28

Windsurf and Cursor feel like temporary stopgaps, products of a narrow window in time before the landscape shifts again. Microsoft has clearly taken notice. They're already starting to lock down the upstream VSCode codebase, as seen with recent changes to the C/C++ extension [0]. It's not hard to imagine that future features like TypeScript 7.0 might be limited or even withheld from forks entirely. At the same time,…

> At the same time, Microsoft will likely replicate Windsurf and Cursor's features within a year. And deliver them with far greater stability and polish. I agree with the first part, I'm much less optimistic about the second part. I suspect they will create something that is worse, but cheaper if you already pay for Github/Office 365/whatever. Then many large enterprises will switch to save money whilst the engineers…

If the VS Code team are delivering the product, I have some amount of trust. If it’s the VS team, good luck to everyone involved

Re: OpenAI reaches agreement to buy Windsurf for $3B

#57

Post by Szpadel » Tue, May 06, 2025, 1:13 PM UTC

Androider wrote: post #28

Windsurf and Cursor feel like temporary stopgaps, products of a narrow window in time before the landscape shifts again. Microsoft has clearly taken notice. They're already starting to lock down the upstream VSCode codebase, as seen with recent changes to the C/C++ extension [0]. It's not hard to imagine that future features like TypeScript 7.0 might be limited or even withheld from forks entirely. At the same time,…

For someone that never used windsurf, what features does it have that GitHub copilot does not? Reading their webpages I didn't spot any "killer feature" that would convince me to switch.

I always felt that cursor and windsurf should be just extension to vscode instead of a fork. Was there some missing functionality is vscode that was missing? Is it still missing?

There are some extensions that work in this way and allow to use multiple implementations depending on task at hand without any long term commitment.

I feel like such fragmentation is by artificial just to lock users in single ecosystem.

Re: OpenAI reaches agreement to buy Windsurf for $3B

#58

Post by codyvoda » Tue, May 06, 2025, 1:13 PM UTC

arjunaaqa wrote: post #53

robinhood wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"riddled with bugs". "incredibly poorly implemented". Man, what are you talking about? Your comment seems based on nothing but what you read online. Have you used Cursor on a daily basis? I have. Every day for six months now. I haven't encountered a single bug that prevent me to work. Moreover, while Microsoft tries to catch up lately, it's still very far behind, especially on the "tab autocompletion" front.

Plus, cursor & windsurf excel in user experience which is an alien concept to Microsoft.

yeah Microsoft could never conceivably develop an extensible source available IDE people love so much they even fork to build $3B companies on the scraps of. absolutely alien!

Re: OpenAI reaches agreement to buy Windsurf for $3B

#59

Post by whywhywhywhy » Tue, May 06, 2025, 1:15 PM UTC

crimsonnoodle58 wrote: post #19

$3B for a fork of an IDE which Microsoft keeps crippling by the day by making it's best extensions not work with forks (eg. C++, Python, C#, Remote SSH, etc)..

It's easy to downplay as a fork because it's such a young product but ultimately if people use Cursor or Windsurf instead of VSCode then it is VSCode that needs to worry about being upstream from them and Cursor or Windsurf making their extensions no longer work with VSCode.

Re: OpenAI reaches agreement to buy Windsurf for $3B

#60

Post by arresin » Tue, May 06, 2025, 1:17 PM UTC

Androider wrote: post #28

Windsurf and Cursor feel like temporary stopgaps, products of a narrow window in time before the landscape shifts again. Microsoft has clearly taken notice. They're already starting to lock down the upstream VSCode codebase, as seen with recent changes to the C/C++ extension [0]. It's not hard to imagine that future features like TypeScript 7.0 might be limited or even withheld from forks entirely. At the same time,…

Copilot owns the platform, had an amazing head start and yet still is the worst option available. I don’t mean to be harsh but this was a titanic fumble.