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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

#331
post #329

Here’s the crazy thing. All MSFT has to do is build in connections to every AI provider for VS Code and they win. Embrace & Extend will never die.

> Embrace & Extend will never die

Spread too thin is often the final result of embrace and expand.

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

#332
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?

The queries made to other models is the juice of the data they will have access.

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

#333
post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> If they start walling off features like TypeScript 7.0 from forks, the open source pushback will be fierce—and that could backfire hard. Do they have the man power to compete with Microsoft ? Linux managed to do it but Linux is the biggest, most successful free software project there is. Firefox and its forks are a better example. If Mozilla stopped working on Firefox, the forks would be pretty much dead in the wat…

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

#334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is: we should not need standalone editors just to use AI coding agents. They could be just plugins, but Microsoft does not want to bend the plugin API enough for that. Windsurf has a "plugin edition" for JetBrains IDEs that works really, really well[0] (they also have a VSCode plugin[1] but it's lacking in comparison). However, given that JetBrains also have their own AI offering[2], I'm not sure how long t…

There are already a bunch of open source, free, and popular "AI coding agent" extensions for VS Code: 1) Cline (1.4mil downloads) 2) Roo Code (a fork of Cline, 450k downloads) Still a drop in the bucket compared to Cursor in terms of # of users, but they're growing pretty fast. Disclaimer: I maintain Kilo Code, which competes with 1) and 2) so I'm pretty familiar with this space/the growth patterns.

I am constantly surprised how seldom aider is mentioned in threads like this. I understand that it's not directly integrated into the editor, but the "editor + parallel CLI tool chain" paradigm feels so natural to me because we drop to terminal for so many other parts of building software. If you haven't tried it (particularly the architect/editor modality), it's worth a couple of hours of experimenting.

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

#335
post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a company can align it's business model with user goals, then it can work in the long run. Apple has somewhat aligned it's integrated hardware sales business model with user privacy. Google and Meta are advertising companies and capturing user data and attention will always drive the business.

Apple does ads as well, it just keeps all metadata to themselves.

Yes, but it's not a meaningful part of their revenue unlike Google where it's' their entire revenue.

They are very different companies in structure and it certainly is a "pick your poison" but it's completely stupid to act like they're the same on this front. Apple is better on user privacy

...unless you care about state actors, which you should, in which case your data is the US government's either way.

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

#336

But is there a secret sauce in any of the coding agents (Copilot Agent, Windsurf, Claude Code, Cursor, Cline, Aider, etc)? Sure, some have better user experience than others, but what if anything makes one "better at coding" than another? As this great blog post lays bare ("The Emperor Has No Clothes", https://ampcode.com/how-to-build-an-agent ), the core tech of a coding agent isn't anything magic - it's a set of LL…

But one could have said the same thing of Whatsapp when they got acquired by Facebook, no? Just a messaging app, anyone can replicate.

Yes and no. A messaging app with 450m users has very strong network effects. Users are sticky in a way they aren’t going to be with a VS Code fork which will be increasingly incompatible with the VS Code ecosystem. There are a lot of equally good alternatives to Windsurf and you don’t have to persuade all your friends and relatives to switch too.

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

#337
post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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

Okay, in that category of M&A in practically any category, the vast majority of deals are all cash. Deferred, for executives, in most cases. But cash.

> 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

Not true. Preferable. Easier. Not not a requirement.

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

#338
post #280

Who are these people that give OpenAI all this money? Aren't Microsoft, SoftBank, Nvidia publicly traded? Don't they owe a fiduciary duty to their investors? I'm surprised it's legal to just hand over a blank check to random private companies to make nonsense purchases. This isn't going to end well. If I were any of these companies I would be suing OpenAI to try to get my money back. Thrive, ARK, Tiger and the others…

Long term investments exist.

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

#339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a little late to jump on the cursor bandwagon but finally downloaded it because i liked the LLM chat interface in the sidebar. By the time my free trial ran out, VSCode had added a LLM chat interface in the sidebar. Yes Cursor had a bit better auto complete and maybe a few other things but it wasnt good enough that it was worth paying for. But I'm glad OpenAI is getting into the tooling space in this way. I can…

> By the time my free trial ran out, VSCode had added a LLM chat interface in the sidebar. I am guessing you are talking about GitHub Copilot when you say VSCode. GitHub Copilot is far far inferior product when compared to Cursor, Windsurf or Augment Code. Most people who try almost any Copilot alternative for a reasonable amount of time end up canceling their Copilot subscription. I did, after two months of using bo…

there is now an integrated agent mode in vscode as of 3 weeks ago https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dutyOc_cAEU&pp=ygURYWdlbnQgbW9...

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

#340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I’m still just copying and pasting. Was considering trying it. Is it really not any better?

It wasn't any better for me. It deleted all my code. The answers were like it was a completely different model. I used Windsurf once and never opened it again
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