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OpenAI reaches agreement to buy Windsurf for $3B

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

#301

Post by maccard »

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,…

> Ultimately, the future isn't about a smarter editor, it's about a smarter teammate. Tools like GitHub Copilot or future agents will handle entire engineering tickets: generating PRs with tests, taking feedback, and iterating like a real collaborator.

I disagree, but would love to be wrong. These tools exploded onto the scene and were massive productivity helpers, but since their initial integrations they’ve churned rather than improved in the last 2 years. They are even worse when you try to iterate rather than just get them to one shot the problem space.

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

#302

Post by samdjstephens »

lolinder wrote: post #281
samdjstephens wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just consider what it fundamentally is: a company at the leading edge of a product category that has found absurdly strong technology/use-case fit, and is growing insanely fast. Looking for a moat in the technology is always a bit of a trap - it’s in the traction, the brand awareness, the user data etc.

> Looking for a moat in the technology is always a bit of a trap - it’s in the traction, the brand awareness, the user data etc. Traction, brand awareness, and user data do not favor Windsurf over GitHub Copilot. The few of us who follow all the new developments are aware that Windsurf has been roughly leading the pack in terms of capabilities, but do not underestimate the power of being bundled into both VS Code and…

Definitely take that point. But this valuation is perhaps more about how much that traction, brand and data is worth to OpenAI, who cannot buy Copilot. $3bn doesn’t seem so disproportionate in that context especially given the amount of money being attracted to the space.

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

#303

Post by ukuina »

knes wrote: post #152

does that mean that Windsurf will only support OpenAI models going forward? I doubt OpenAI will pay to have users use Gemini/Claude? Especially as all of these Ai coding tools (Windsurf, Augment, Cursor) are heavily subsidizing the users. I wonder what Anthropic makes of this. Windsurf was like a top 3 customers of them, might be a big revenue blow too?

Maybe Anthropic will buy Cursor to level the field.

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

#304

Post by rchaud »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #226
rchaud wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These deals are mostly in stock, not cash. $3b cash is not something most companies can afford to part with, and additionally, making deals that are stock-heavy creates an incentive for the leadership of the acquired company to keep working towards the general interest of OAI, and not instantly retire.

> These deals are mostly in stock, not cash How are you defining “these deals”? Most acquisitions of startup by larger companies in America over the last decade, at least, have been all cash.

I'd define them as a large company acquiring a private startup. Slack >> Salesforce was a cash-and-stock deal. Postmaters >> Uber, all stock.

In cases where the company being acquired is already publicly traded, those deals would have to be all cash as their shareholders would need to be bought out. IBM paid cash for Hashicorp, and Doordash will acquire Deliveroo in cash.

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

#305

Post by franze »

here is the thing, even those editors are relict of the pasts, the code is still in the center in these editors. thats something we need now, but not in the near (2 years, 5 years, 10 years?) future.

then the prompt is the coding, the reasoning is the execution, the code just an abstract layer that we do not care to much about i.e.: like assembly, machine instructions.

we know it exists, bit even here on hackernews i would guess only a small fraction know how it really works on a detailed level.

there will still be coding, instructions (prompt) -> execution (reasoning and AI code and code execution -> feedback (debugging to AI then and one point to the user)

bur actual looking at the code, well, thats only when this cycle annoyingly fails.

so current IDEs are still built from an code first mindset. this will not be the IDE of the future.

so basically OpenAI bought a Dinosaur

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

#306

Post by kyawzazaw »

ctkhn wrote: post #169
beardedwizard wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a close call - I make this based on the fact that GitHub is viewed as an anti-choice by some in the community, a huge change from the "you don't use GitHub?!?!" energy they had pre-acquisition. The MS acquisition traded the developer community to briefly appeal to enterprises, then quickly let both down.

Both the startups I worked at and the mega corps are all on github or moving there from bitbucket. They are in a bit of autpilot mode in terms of useful new features aside from actions but I can't think of any new bitbucket feature since I graduated and started working.

i concur

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

#307

Post by prpl »

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 view this as an another step in the push/pull between local things, remote things, local things remotely, thin clients, network partitioning, cloud, zero trust, etc...

The last cycle I remember of this IMO is iPython -> Jupyterhub/Jupyterlab. Of course, iPython has existed for a long time, though that change was made because data was too big to analyze locally and it turns out it was more convenient to centrally manage kernels/images/libraries for convenience.

MCP servers and Cursor/Windsurf changed that a bit, but it will end up centralized again at some point (or at least aggregated, if it's not already?). People are passing around lists of interesting MCP servers now, and that will be out of fashion in less than 12 months.

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

#308

Post by jychang »

alasano wrote: post #263
oofbaroomf wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP didn't say Cline/Roo charged anything on top.

The comparison table on the kilo site says "OpenRouter without 5% markup" and only puts a checkbox next to kilo.

Roo/Cline doesn't offer Openrouter, markup or not.

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

#309

Post by hnlurker22 »

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 just abandoned Windsurf because I found copy/pasting code with ChatGPT's web interface significantly better in terms of results.

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

#310

Post by joshwcomeau »

FuckButtons wrote: post #234
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 think you’re being overoptimistic about the skill ceiling that this generation of Ai is likely to have.

++. Was surprised I had to scroll so far to find someone saying this!
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