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

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776 points rcchen | 10 comments | 11 Jul 25 21:35 UTC | HN request time: 0.98s | source | bottom
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extr ◴[11 Jul 25 22:21 UTC] No.44537358[source]▶
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 magnitude less $$$ to develop than forking an entire IDE.

- CC is dead simple to onboard (use whatever IDE you're using now, with a simple extension for some UX improvements).

- Anthropic is free to aggressively undercut their own API margins (and middlemen like Cursor) in exchange for more predictable subscription revenue + training data access.

What does Cursor/Windsurf offer over VS Code + CC?

- Tab completion model (Cursor's remaining moat)

- Some UI niceties like "add selection to chat", and etc.

Personally I think this is a harbinger of where things are going. Cursor was fastest to $900M ARR and IMO will be fastest back down again.

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1. nikcub ◴[11 Jul 25 22:35 UTC] No.44537465[source]▶
Cursor see it coming - it's why they're moving to the web and mobile[0]

The bigger issue is the advantage Anthropic, Google and OpenAI have in developing and deploying their own models. It wasn't that long ago that Cursor was reading 50 lines of code at a time to save on token costs. Anthropic just came out and yolo'd the context window because they could afford to, and it blew everything else away.

Cursor could release a cli tomorrow but it wouldn't help them compete when Anthropic and Google can always be multiples cheaper

[0] https://cursor.com/blog/agent-web

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2. extr ◴[11 Jul 25 22:46 UTC] No.44537553[source]▶
I think this is an interesting and cool direction for Cursor to be going in and I don't doubt something like this is the future. But I have my doubts whether it will save them in the short/medium term:

- AI is not good enough yet to abandon the traditional IDE experierence if you're doing anything non-trivial. Hard finding use cases for this right now.

- There's no moat here. There are already a dozen "Claude Code UI" OSS projects with similar basic functionality.

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3. madeofpalk ◴[11 Jul 25 22:50 UTC] No.44537574[source]▶
I have a whole backlog of trivial tasks I never get around to because I’m working on less trivial things.
4. Aeolun ◴[11 Jul 25 23:43 UTC] No.44537947[source]▶
> Anthropic just came out and yolo'd the context window because they could afford to

I don’t think this is true at all. The reason CC is so good is that they’re very deliberate about what goes in the context. CC often spends ages reading 5 LOC snippets, but afterwards it only has relevant stuff in context.

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5. nsonha ◴[11 Jul 25 23:54 UTC] No.44538012[source]▶
Heard a lot of this context bs parroted all over HN, don't buy it. If simply increasing context size can solve problem, Gemini would be the best model for everything.
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6. SamDc73 ◴[12 Jul 25 00:18 UTC] No.44538135{3}[source]▶
Gemini tends to be better at bug hunting, but yes everything else Claude is still superior
7. ec109685 ◴[12 Jul 25 02:08 UTC] No.44538701[source]▶
Background of how it works: https://kirshatrov.com/posts/claude-code-internals

Prompt: https://gist.github.com/transitive-bullshit/487c9cb52c75a970...

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8. RainyDayTmrw ◴[12 Jul 25 02:18 UTC] No.44538752{3}[source]▶
I'm always surprised how short system prompts are. It makes me wonder where the rest of the app's behavior is encoded.
9. anon7000 ◴[12 Jul 25 03:00 UTC] No.44538937[source]▶
I’ve definitely observed that CC is waaaay slower than cursor
10. manmal ◴[12 Jul 25 05:32 UTC] No.44539575{3}[source]▶
Also check out claude-trace, which injects fetch hooks to get at the data: https://github.com/badlogic/lemmy/tree/main/apps/claude-trac...