So companies like this one are being acquired because they just have really good/niche system prompts? I mean, they all use the same models as everyone else, right?
We're Joining OpenAI
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Re: We're Joining OpenAI
#32The failed Windsurf bid and this makes me think OpenAI feels they need to focus more on the coding agent use case. Still thinking about the endgame. Its not obvious to me if OpenAI/Anthropic will become competitors to coding startups like Cursor or continue to be model providers.
In my view Anthropic is already a competitor to Cursor, while also being a model provider to them.
OpenAI has been trying to get into the space with their multiple product offerings all called “codex” but execution has been lacking.
So this is very much a play at becoming more competitive in the space.
Re: We're Joining OpenAI
#33The failed Windsurf bid and this makes me think OpenAI feels they need to focus more on the coding agent use case. Still thinking about the endgame. Its not obvious to me if OpenAI/Anthropic will become competitors to coding startups like Cursor or continue to be model providers.
I think the endgame is a shift toward a platform of services that tightly bind users to a single LLM provider.
Right now, many small startups are essentially just thin wrappers around ChatGPT. Once it becomes clear which ideas and solutions gain real traction, providers like OpenAI/Anthropic can simply roll out those features natively removing any need for a third party.
In a sense, a lot of what happened with the mobile market. For example, there's no need for a QR scanner or document scanner app anymore, if your phone starts to offer it natively.
Re: We're Joining OpenAI
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Au contraire, based on their recent hires, they're just beginning their Facebook phase. Expect to see a lot of ads 2 years from now, and expect to see a LOT of money being made by the company a year after that. If they can maintain runway until then.
> Expect to see a lot of ads 2 years from now I think I am just slow today - but could you please elaborate?
I wrote about this idea here: https://digitalseams.com/blog/the-ai-lifestyle-subsidy-is-go...
Quick summary, I believe consumer AI experiences will feature ads because the profit opportunity is too large and company valuations depend on it. The hiring of Fidji Simo (ads at Facebook) at OpenAI + and just this week, Vijaye Raji/Statsig also point that way.
Re: We're Joining OpenAI
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
If your iOS project has more than 700 files... you might be doing it wrong?
https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/3h52yk/someone...
In fairness, as a mere generator of eyeball time that gets mis-sold* to advertisers, I'd say the FB user experience is very much "doing something wrong".
* dick pills and boob surgery, also government announcements for a country I don't live in, also offers to help renounce a citizenship I never had in the first place
Re: We're Joining OpenAI
#36At this rate it’s better to start a company and get aquihired vs applying and getting hired. Seems like OpenAI speed ran through the Facebook phase and are out of ideas
I love your username. So many good memories from that show.
Re: We're Joining OpenAI
#37I totally do not understand why Apple did not buy them. It’s not that they have anything like that already.
Re: We're Joining OpenAI
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Au contraire, based on their recent hires, they're just beginning their Facebook phase. Expect to see a lot of ads 2 years from now, and expect to see a LOT of money being made by the company a year after that. If they can maintain runway until then.
Are people really going to keep using these AI tools if they start shoving ads down our throats?
Do you use any free web search tool?
Re: We're Joining OpenAI
#39So companies like this one are being acquired because they just have really good/niche system prompts? I mean, they all use the same models as everyone else, right?
I'm speculating here, but my guess is that the urgency for OpenAI isn't that the Alex team has a "secret prompt." It's that they've already done the heavy lifting to make LLM coding assistants actually usable in a domain (Apple platforms) where OAI doesn't have integrations yet.
Acquiring them gives OAI:
- ready-made team that understands the IDE plumbing and the developer UX at a deep level
- head start in a platform ecosystem that's hard to crack
3. team that knows how to push the models into productized, developer-ready experiences
So it's not the prompts. It's engineering the scaffolding and UX around the model so it feels like magic to the user. That's what OpenAI is buying.
Also possible that Alex solved a lot of UX and integration challenges that could translate to other Apple contexts (productivity apps, design tools, even consumer-facing AI on macOS/iOS).
Without having used Alex myself (I don't do iOS or macOS development), I would guess that all the retrieval, context slicing, editor integration yada yada that they've built aren't necessarily unique to coding. Same scaffolding could support things like AI-driven writing, design, or general productivity in an Apple-native way.