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Windsurf SWE-1: Our First Frontier Models

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Re: Windsurf SWE-1: Our First Frontier Models

#11

Post by jjani »

dyl000 wrote: post #10
firejake308 wrote: post #2

I'm confused why they are working on their own frontier models if they are going to be bought by OpenAI anyway. I guess this is something they were working on before the announcement?

openAI models have an issue where they are pretty good at everything but not incredible at anything. They're too well rounded. for coding you use anthropic or google models, I haven't found anyone who swears by openAI models for coding... Their reasoning models are either too expensive or hallucinate massively to the point of being useless... I would assume the gpt 4.1 family will be popular for SWE's Having a smalle…

> openAI models have an issue where they are pretty good at everything but not incredible at anything. They're too well rounded.

This suggests OpenAI models do have tasks they're better at than the "less rounded" competition, who have taks they're weaker in. Could you name a single sucg task (except for image generation, which is an entirely different usecase), that OpenAI models are better at than Gemini 2.5 and Claude 3.7 without costing at least 5x as much?

Re: Windsurf SWE-1: Our First Frontier Models

#12

Post by seunosewa »

firejake308 wrote: post #2

I'm confused why they are working on their own frontier models if they are going to be bought by OpenAI anyway. I guess this is something they were working on before the announcement?

They were working on the model before the acquisition. It makes sense to test it and see how it does instead of throwing the work away. Their data will probably be used to improve gpt-4.1, o4 mini high, and other OpenAI coding models

Re: Windsurf SWE-1: Our First Frontier Models

#13

Post by rfoo »

riffraff wrote: post #6
allenleee wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems OpenAI acquired Windsurf but is letting it operate independently, keeping its own brand and developing its own coding models. That way, if Windsurf runs into technical problems, the backlash lands on Windsurf—not OpenAI. It’s a smart way to innovate while keeping the main brand safe.

But doesn't this mean they have twice the costs in training? I was under the impression that was still the most expensive part of these companies' balance.

mid/post training does not cost that much, except maybe large scale RL, but even this is more of an infra problem. If anything, the cost is mostly in running various experiments (i.e. the process of doing research).

It is very puzzling why "wrapper" companies don't (and religiously say they won't ever) do something on this front. The only barrier is talents.

Re: Windsurf SWE-1: Our First Frontier Models

#15

Post by antirez »

So because they need to have a better business model, they will try to move users to weaker models compared to the best available? This "AI inside the editor" thing makes every day less sense in many dimensions: it makes you not really capable of escaping the accept, accept, accept trap. It makes the design interaction with the LLM too much about code and too little about the design itself. And you can't do what many of us do: have that three subscriptions for the top LLMs available (it's 60$ for 3, after all) and use each for it's best. And by default write your stuff without help if LLMs are not needed in a given moment.

Re: Windsurf SWE-1: Our First Frontier Models

#16

Post by visarga »

antirez wrote: post #15

So because they need to have a better business model, they will try to move users to weaker models compared to the best available? This "AI inside the editor" thing makes every day less sense in many dimensions: it makes you not really capable of escaping the accept, accept, accept trap. It makes the design interaction with the LLM too much about code and too little about the design itself. And you can't do what many…

> it makes you not really capable of escaping the accept, accept, accept trap

The definition of vibe coding - trust the process, let it make errors and recover

Re: Windsurf SWE-1: Our First Frontier Models

#17

Post by anshumankmr »

rfoo wrote: post #13
riffraff wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But doesn't this mean they have twice the costs in training? I was under the impression that was still the most expensive part of these companies' balance.

mid/post training does not cost that much, except maybe large scale RL, but even this is more of an infra problem. If anything, the cost is mostly in running various experiments (i.e. the process of doing research). It is very puzzling why "wrapper" companies don't (and religiously say they won't ever) do something on this front. The only barrier is talents.

You might be underestimating the barrier to hiring the really smart people. Open AI/Google etc would be hiring and poaching people like crazy, offering cushy bonuses and TCs that would make blow your mind.(Like say Noam Brown at Open AI) And some of the more ambitious ones would start their own ventures (like say Ilya etc.).

That being said I am sure a lot of the so called wrapper companies are paying insanely well too, but competing with FAANGMULA might be trickier for them.

Re: Windsurf SWE-1: Our First Frontier Models

#18

Post by ipnon »

antirez wrote: post #15

So because they need to have a better business model, they will try to move users to weaker models compared to the best available? This "AI inside the editor" thing makes every day less sense in many dimensions: it makes you not really capable of escaping the accept, accept, accept trap. It makes the design interaction with the LLM too much about code and too little about the design itself. And you can't do what many…

I don't think they are targeting software engineers as users. They are seeking those on the software engineering margins, users who know what Python and for-loops are but don't care to configure Aider and review each of the overwhelming number of models released daily. They want to tell the editor to add function foo to bar.py. I suspect this latter market segment is much larger than the former!

Re: Windsurf SWE-1: Our First Frontier Models

#19

Post by [deleted] »

antirez wrote: post #15

So because they need to have a better business model, they will try to move users to weaker models compared to the best available? This "AI inside the editor" thing makes every day less sense in many dimensions: it makes you not really capable of escaping the accept, accept, accept trap. It makes the design interaction with the LLM too much about code and too little about the design itself. And you can't do what many…

[deleted]

Re: Windsurf SWE-1: Our First Frontier Models

#20

Post by OtherShrezzing »

allenleee wrote: post #5
firejake308 wrote: post #2

I'm confused why they are working on their own frontier models if they are going to be bought by OpenAI anyway. I guess this is something they were working on before the announcement?

It seems OpenAI acquired Windsurf but is letting it operate independently, keeping its own brand and developing its own coding models. That way, if Windsurf runs into technical problems, the backlash lands on Windsurf—not OpenAI. It’s a smart way to innovate while keeping the main brand safe.

This is effectively how Microsoft is treating OpenAI.
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