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OpenAI’s Windsurf deal is off, and Windsurf’s CEO is going to Google

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Re: OpenAI’s Windsurf deal is off, and Windsurf’s CEO is going to Google

#641
post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think that’s a viable strategy. It is very very hard and not many people can do it. Just look at how much Meta is paying to poach the few people in the world capable of training a next gen frontier model.

Why are there actually only a few people in the world able to do this? The basic concept is out there. Lots of smart people studying hard to catch up to also be poached. No shortage of those I assume. Good trainingsdata still seems the most important to me. (and lots of hardware) Or does the specific training still involves lots of smart decisions all the time? And those small or big decisions make all the difference…

There are plenty of people theoretically capable of doing this, I secretly believe some of the most talented people in this space are randos posting on /r/LocalLlama.

But the truth is to have experience building models at this scale requires working at a high level job at a major FAANG/LLM provider. Building what Meta needs is not something you can do in your basement.

The reality is the set of people who really understand this stuff and have experience working on it at scale is very, very small. And the people in this space are already paid very well.

Re: OpenAI’s Windsurf deal is off, and Windsurf’s CEO is going to Google

#642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a cheap version for hobbyists? Or what’s the best thing for hobbyists to use, just cut and paste?

cursor on a $20/month plan (if you burn thru the free credits) or gemini-cli (free) are 2 great ways to try out this kinda stuff for a hobbyist. you can throw in v0 too, $5/month free credits. susana’s free tier can give you a db as well.

*supabase

Re: OpenAI’s Windsurf deal is off, and Windsurf’s CEO is going to Google

#643
post #30

I never knew anyone who used Windsurf. These AI acquisitions have been unbelievable(in a bad way). WIX acquired some garbage Lovable.dev clone for 80 million. I think many of us are waiting for this bubble to pop(economy will likely pop too)

It’s the modern day dotcom boom and all these agents are the modern day Dreamweaver.

Re: OpenAI’s Windsurf deal is off, and Windsurf’s CEO is going to Google

#644
post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your take, but I still don't excuse anti consumer practices like that. It annoys me because this is a repeat problem in this space, where these companies don't take into account the market dynamics, or costs of their service. From the start I've been looking at these $20.00 subscriptions, and then my own personal api per token costs and been wondering how they aren't all bankrupt. Look no further than fo…

I think any "value add" business that has a primary product built on top of another larger business' non-commodity service(s) runs the risk of having to re-do their pricing in ways that are outside their control. This is nothing new. I'm not sure if it's "anti-consumer" as much as it's just a risky play from a brand and customer happiness viewpoint. Because your prices can be forced up by your supplier, and your cust…

I think my primary concern are the customers who paid $220 for a yearly subscription, only for it to get nerfed and asked to pay $200.00 a month to get similar output.

Re: OpenAI’s Windsurf deal is off, and Windsurf’s CEO is going to Google

#645
post #56

IMO other than the Microsoft IP issue, I think the biggest thing that has shifted since this acquisition was first in the works is Claude Code has absolutely exploded. Forking an IDE and all the expense that comes with that feels like a waste of effort, considering the number of free/open source CLI agentic tools that are out there. Let's review the current state of things: - Terminal CLI agents are several orders of…

I strongly agree with you. I’m more of a CLI guy, and Claude Code just works. Most good projects have a CLI anyway (gcloud, GitHub CLI, Vercel, etc.). I prefer CLI vs MCP’s. I’m on the $200 plan, and it’s absolutely worth it (never thought I’d say this for a CLI app).

Re: OpenAI’s Windsurf deal is off, and Windsurf’s CEO is going to Google

#646
post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to offer a different perspective, I use Cursor at work and, coming from emacs (which I still use) with copilot completions only when I request them with a shortcut, Cursor’s behavior drives me crazy.

Which Emacs Package do you use for CoPilot, i tried using Copilot.el a long while ago, but had problems with it. Is there something new or does copilot.el fulfill your needs?

Just copilot.el (I checked to be sure and I'm pulling from github.com/zerolfx/copilot.el)

My config is quite simple:

     (progn
       (require 'copilot)
       (add-hook 'prog-mode-hook 'copilot-mode)
       (add-hook 'git-commit-mode-hook 'copilot-mode)
       (add-hook 'org-mode-hook 'copilot-mode)
       (define-key copilot-completion-map (kbd "y") 'copilot-accept-completion)
       (define-key copilot-completion-map (kbd "n") 'copilot-next-completion)
       (define-key copilot-completion-map (kbd "c") 'copilot-clear-overlay)
       (global-set-key (kbd "C-M-S-s-u") 'copilot-complete)
       )
I only get suggestions if I use that key (the prefix looks huge but I have a Keyboardio Model 100 and I have that bound to the Any key, so I intentionally picked a crazy-long prefix hoping to avoid collision with other shortcuts) and that's the way I like to use these tools (which is why the behaviour in Cursor drives me crazy, though I admit I haven't spend time looking at its configuration, maybe it's something that can be turned off).

(Edit: formatting)

Re: OpenAI’s Windsurf deal is off, and Windsurf’s CEO is going to Google

#647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would also happen if OpenAI developed the same thing internally, right? I don't see how not acquiring them improves anything.

I guess building it internally is cheaper

If that's true today it was true the day they made the original offer. Microsoft didn't change that.

Re: OpenAI’s Windsurf deal is off, and Windsurf’s CEO is going to Google

#648

So Google, Meta, and Microsoft will just hollow out the best AI startups of their talent instead of buying them - out of fear of monopoly lawsuits I'm assuming? Nice plan I guess. Kind of obvious to spot though.

“Buying the startup” just means handing over megabucks to do-nothing investors. If Google isn’t buying any product or technology, why should investors get a talent fee?

The investors are getting paid in this deal. Just the employees getting screwed.

Re: OpenAI’s Windsurf deal is off, and Windsurf’s CEO is going to Google

#649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, this is a lot of full-scale reading and (re)writing, without any rules, promots, "agents"/code to limit your resource usage, right? Nobody's asking for $200 in single-line diffs in less than a day - right?

It’s not about a single line diff but the same prompts with cursor does not end costing that much

Yes - do you understand why?

Re: OpenAI’s Windsurf deal is off, and Windsurf’s CEO is going to Google

#650
post #56

IMO other than the Microsoft IP issue, I think the biggest thing that has shifted since this acquisition was first in the works is Claude Code has absolutely exploded. Forking an IDE and all the expense that comes with that feels like a waste of effort, considering the number of free/open source CLI agentic tools that are out there. Let's review the current state of things: - Terminal CLI agents are several orders of…

I strongly agree with you. I’m more of a CLI guy, and Claude Code just works. Most good projects have a CLI anyway (gcloud, GitHub CLI, Vercel, etc.). I prefer CLI vs MCP’s. I’m on the $200 plan, and it’s absolutely worth it (never thought I’d say this for a CLI app).

But CC is more work to setup, especially if you want to use multiple models. Not even sure it supports all the models that the IDE products do.
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