Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

OpenAI reaches agreement to buy Windsurf for $3B

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

521–530 of 604 posts

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

#521

Post by shortrounddev2 »

retornam wrote: post #240

I'm skeptical about this VSCode fork commanding a $3 billion valuation when it depends on API services it doesn't own. What's their moat here? For comparison, JetBrains generates over $400 million in annual revenue and is valued around $7 billion. They've built proprietary technology and deep expertise in that market over decades. If AI (terminology aside) replaces many professional software engineers and programmers…

> What am I missing here?

That AI is in a bubble akin to the crypto craze from a few years ago, and the valuation of these companies is divorced from their underlying business fundamentals

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

#522

Post by boringg »

sagarpatil wrote: post #416
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…

I’ve been a WindSurf customer since day one. It was my first true AI agentic experience. [Dev mode] While working on Alembic migrations I broke one of my migration files. After an hour of manual debugging I handed the task to WindSurf. It methodically checked every config file, applied the migrations one by one, and narrowed the issue to a single file. It rewrote the migration, verified the fix, wrote tests, ensured…

If he's (Sam) trading equity on a grossly inflated OpenAI for the acquisition then he's likely not paying real money for the company and thus he is expanding his roadmap for cheap.

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

#523

Post by hadesarchitect »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #352
boleary-gl wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our plan is to be a superset of Cline and Roo's features (we already have all the major features from both) [0] We also have our own provider, which means no need to bring your own API keys (you can if you like, but it is batteries included by default) and we're not charging anything on top of the API pricing. Instead of monetizing on individual developers, we want it to be free for them and make money eventually off…

maybe you could answer a question about kilo usage: If I choose Google Gemini as the API provider and give it my Gemini API key, why does it say that I'm low on credits (and I get API request failures immediately)? As far as I understand gemini 2.5 pro preview is free to use. (and in Cline I'm able to choose Google Gemini as the API provider & provide my API key and it will successfully make API requests)

We added it to the issues: https://github.com/Kilo-Org/kilocode/issues/349

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

#524

Post by m3kw9 »

I use ChatGPT’s “work with” code helper and one of my biggest uses on ChatGPT. It’s a good first line before I pull out the big guns(APIs). Sadly the code canvas is rarely as it’s geared mostly for single page web app functionality useless demo tests. Maybe this is where Windsurf can come in

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

#525

Post by pyuser583 »

mike_hearn wrote: post #474
ninetyninenine wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel jetbrains is squandering an opportunity here. Cursor is significantly easier to build then any IDE in the jetbrains ecosystem. The technology jetbrains is very hard to replicate. While the technology cursor uses should be trivial to replicate. If jetbrains can combine there IDE technology with cursor technology, that would be ideal. I think the problem is jetbrains tech is sort of already very biased in a cert…

JetBrains launched their cursor competitor a few weeks ago. I prefer Claude Code still because it has access to more tools - Junie seems unable to fetch URLs and do other things. But that's a tiny gap that JetBrains can close quickly, and the Junie UI is quite pretty. Plus, inside the IDE they can equip the model with far more advanced tools than Claude Code will have from the CLI: inside Code Claude has to explore t…

I trust Jetbrains. Only company I really trust. They work for me, and have showed it again and again.

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

#526

Post by saalweachter »

petesergeant wrote: post #475
mike_hearn wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber has already been replaced, at least in some parts of the world. We recently went on holiday to Malta and on check-in the hotel staff told us not to bother with Uber, Bolt worked way better and had more drivers (Bolt is a European Uber competitor based in Estonia). So we signed up for Bolt and sure enough drivers were plentiful, the app worked great and there was no downside over Uber. I'll certainly be trying it…

Uber feels like such an apt comparison to OpenAI to me. The service they provide is obviously going to be absolutely huge, but no guarantees at all that they’ll win it or be last man standing. I don’t see a world in which generative AI doesn’t continue to be a massive disrupting force, but no particular reason to think Anthropic or OpenAI will still be independent entities in a few years. I’m even more bearish on Ube…

I feel like the value-proposition of Uber was three-fold.

1. Solving a pain-point of many people re: hailing a cab, via an app that works everywhere.

2. Using VC funds to (initially) pay drivers more than you, the customer, were paying them.

3. Ignoring local regulations and passing the savings/convenience on to you.

1 is nice but I don't think they established much of a moat (both drivers and customers are willing to use multiple apps); 2 isn't sustainable in the long-term, and they failed to leverage 3 to establishing a permanent right to operate as they had been in most markets.

I think this makes Uber an even more interesting benchmark for other unicorns, since besides "solving a real problem without establishing a moat" they are also often burning through VC cash to prop up their business model while ignoring some laws which they may not be able to get away with ignoring long-term.

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

#527

Post by pc86 »

dayjah wrote: post #520
sagarpatil wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been a WindSurf customer since day one. It was my first true AI agentic experience. [Dev mode] While working on Alembic migrations I broke one of my migration files. After an hour of manual debugging I handed the task to WindSurf. It methodically checked every config file, applied the migrations one by one, and narrowed the issue to a single file. It rewrote the migration, verified the fix, wrote tests, ensured…

I was involved in an M&A once; my role was to evaluate the technology and determine how long it would take us to build a competitive product. If it was less than some X then we’d build it, greater than X and we’d buy. The function for X was not clear to me from my perspective; it had legal fees involved, etc. The person leading M&A said an intangible aspect of the price is what it does to the adjacent market. If the…

That's a really interesting thought, I'd love to get involved in software PE/M&A on the technical analysis side but I don't have the academic pedigree for it (it seems every shop that does this work is 90% Ivy and Ivy-adjacent universities and FAANG-level work history).

So if I'm understanding your point then part of the value in paying $3B for Windsurf is that it acts as a pricing anchor on future raises (and presumably acquisitions as well) for competing products? So Cursor is less likely to raise at a $30B valuation if Windsurf is 95% as good and just sold for 1/10 that.

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

#529

Post by bcx »

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…

Incredible timeline - also helpful to understand the OpenAI side.

1) OpenAI is valued at 300B (as of March 31st) https://openai.com/index/march-funding-updates/

2) OpenAI recently raised 40B from SoftBank and others.

3) Windsurf is getting roughly 1% of OpenAI's valuation.

OpenAI needs to keep moving fast to outpace MS, Google, and others -- and I think we can all agree that agentic coding is a major trend -- that is likely to keep growing really fast -- and super high leverage in that the folks doing the coding are well paid -- and more likely to be early adopters than any other field. (e.g. if openAI wants a fast way to grow beyond $20-$200/month, owning a tool like windsurf is a good move)

Some folks have been speculating the cash/equity split. I'd be confident whatever number they arrived at de-risks things for windsurf, and preserves the right amount of cash on hand for openAI.

Even if OpenAI is burning 10-20B a year, with the recent raise would buy them between 1-2 years, and given the pace of AI development that's a pretty long time.

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

#530

Post by globnomulous »

retornam wrote: post #240

I'm skeptical about this VSCode fork commanding a $3 billion valuation when it depends on API services it doesn't own. What's their moat here? For comparison, JetBrains generates over $400 million in annual revenue and is valued around $7 billion. They've built proprietary technology and deep expertise in that market over decades. If AI (terminology aside) replaces many professional software engineers and programmers…

> If AI (terminology aside) replaces many professional software engineers and programmers like some of its fierce advocates say it would, wouldn't their potential customer base shrink?

This is such a good point. The best reply available to the AI hype-men would probably be that LLMs "democratize" coding and therefore that even more people will use IDEs in the future, but that sounds like BS to me -- not unlike AI/hype itself.

Post reply on HN