> Second, to our investors, especially Casey Aylward from Accel, who led our Seed and Series A, and Jennifer Li from Andreessen Horowitz, who led our Series B
They are buying out investors, it's like musical chairs.
The liquidity is going to be better on OpenAI, so it pleases everyone (less pressure from investors, more liquidity for investors).
Are you implying that the revenue multiple on this acquisition is lower than openAIs and that they'd be making money by acquiring and folding into their valuation multiple? I think that's not the case and I would wager non existent.
This was an acquihire (the author of ripgrep, rg, which codex uses nearly exclusively for file operations, is part of the team at Astral).
So, 99% acquihire , 1% other financial trickery. I don't even know if Astral has any revenue or sells anything, candidly.
It means the company almost reached their runway, so all these employees would have to find a job.
It's a very very good product, but it is open-source and Apache / MIT, so difficult to defend from anyone just clicking on fork. Especially a large company like OpenAI who has massive distribution.
Now that they hired the employees, they have no more guarantees than if they made a direct offer to them.
So I don't see how the acquisition is collateral - it's an acquihire plain and simple, if anything else it would be supply chain insurance as they clearly use a lot of these tools downstream. As you noted the licensing is extremely permissive on the tools so there appears to be very little EV there for an acquirer outside of the human capital building the tools or building out monetized features.
I'm not too plugged into venture cap on opensource/free tooling space but raising 3 rounds and growing your burn rate to $3M/yr in 24 months without revenue feels like a decently risky bag for those investors and staff without a revenue path or exit. I'd be curious to see if OpenAI went hunting for this or if it was placed in their lap by one of the investors.
OpenAI has infamously been offering huge compensation packages to acquire talent, this would be a relative deal if they got it at even a modest valuation. As noted, codex uses a lot of the tooling that this team built here and previously, OpenAI's realization that competitors that do one thing better than them (like claude with coding before codex) can open the door to getting disrupted if they lapse - lots of people I know are moving to claude for non-coding workflows because of it's reputation and relatively mature/advanced client tools.
A brief note, your numbers are way off here — Astral subsequently raised a Series A and B (as mentioned in the blog post) but did not announce them. We were doing great financially.
It seems you are one of the most active contributors there.
I would sincerely have understood better (and even wished) if OpenAI made you a very generous offer to you personally as an individual contributor than choose a strategy where the main winners are the VCs of the purchased company.
Here, outside, we perceive zero to almost no revenues (no pricing ? no contact us ? maybe some consulting ?) and millions burned.
Whether it is 4 or 8 or 15M burned, no idea.
Who's going to fill that hole, and when ? (especially since PE funds have 5 years timeline, and company is from 2021).
The end product is nice, but as an investor, being nice is not enough, so they must have deeper motives.
To raise $4m seed from AAA partners usually requires connections + track record/credability of the founders - looks like they have that here since they raised 3 rounds with zero revenue.
From an outside-US point of view, both of these links border on the satirical. The DHS one, with it's no-longer-funded/maintained banner, and the entire content, complete with the quote is just eye-brow raising.
I wonder if anyone did read through the accordian FAQs, especially this one:
> How will exit bonuses be issued to participants?
DHS is working with Project Homecoming partners on the disbursement of exit bonuses. Illegal aliens will receive the exit bonuses after they land in the country of arrival.
The delivery method will vary based on country-specific guidelines and regulations. However, no bank account is necessary for illegal aliens to receive their exit bonus. In most instances, illegal aliens will collect their exit bonus in their home country.
I had heard of that but it wasn’t until you posted the link that I actually read through it.
My question after actually reading it though is simple - how does it prevent fraud? Like you just need GPS and a selfie to verify. No bank account required! Since the nominal case is undocumented you don’t have ground truth to check against. What is stopping someone from using an eSIM, OpenClaw, and an emulator from self-deporting thousands of virtual persona at $2600 profit
It just seems poorly considered. I don’t know if they really thought this through.
The object is to create metrics that are plausible (or more specifically for which the knowledge of falsification is plausibly deniable), not to actually self deport people (although that could be viewed as a desirable side effect).
We can be sure that the weakness in this scheme is being exploited, since it was designed to maximise metrics, not results.
Objectively, which is hard to say because I’m just obviously not in this position, but if I were in the United States legally and I’m looking at three options…
1. I take self-deportation offer. At Christmas it was $3000 a person, but usually $1000, a commercial plane ticket anywhere, and I can come back to the US upon following the legal method. I can say goodbye to people I can sell my things. I can do this on my own timeline within reason.
2. I’ve risk it and trying to invade ice for the next three years minimum. If Vance wins, I need to make it to at least 2032 without showing up on any radar. I’m careful and looking over my shoulder constantly and work is a never ending dread.
3. I am caught by ICE. I have absolutely no claim to stay in the US. I can sit in a detention center while an NGO funded lawyer tells me that I do. And in high likelihood, I am sent back with no money on a cargo jet and I’m banned from the United States forever. This happens at any moment.
Practically speaking, I just cannot picture taking option two which could be three at any time. The fact is, I would know without a doubt, unfair or not that I am here legally, that my state would apply in any European country as well. I cannot fathom how option one is not the best option. Perhaps I’m too risk adverse.
"A commercial plane ticket anywhere" != the legal right to go anywhere
Pretty much you go back to your country of origin
Typically people take on the immense risk and challenge of leaving their country of origin to come here because their country of origin has really bad problems
Those problems likely still exist or have gotten worse over the last several years due to (if nothing else) COVID further separating the US economy from the rest of the world's
>> Pretty much you go back to your country of origin
I'm completely out of my depths there, can you explain how will they know my country of origin if I'm undocumented?
> Pretty much you go back to your country of origin
Is this not just? Is this not what every other country in the world would do? Is there a European country you can stay in illegally? Do any of them run remigration programs with cash and free flights to where you came from?
I didn't say it was unjust, nor did I say it was unique to the US, etc. etc.
I said that your logic tree elides the fact that they would be going back to a place that they already accepted an immense amount of risk and effort to leave.
In other words: for many people, the US + ICE risk (relatively low risk of catastrophic outcome) is still far better than their home country (high risk of pretty bad outcome)
1. You will be deported to your country of origin one way ticket; there is no picking and choosing here
3. If you are detained by ICE even if you do have legal status they will endlessly pressure you into singing away your rights, you will be lucky to even speak to you NGO lawyer because every few days you are shipped between detention locations. Even if you choose to self-deport you have to be detained by ICE and could be in custody for a number of days before you are shipped out of the country. The lawyer is not going to sugar coat your situation but if you want to fight there are legal avenues to do so. Also you cannot be banned from the USA forever the max the DHS can issue is a 10-year ban
Them: If you are detained by ICE even if you do have __legal status__
You: doesn’t that just prove my point that if you are here __illegally__
They're talking about the now well-established fact that ICE is pursuing people who have legal status in this country and using all sorts of tricks (both legal and illegal) to prevent them from exercising their rights.
I’m sure there is a better example that makes the point you are going for.
Without muddying, the discussion is if you are here illegally, it seems better to self-deport and control your own destiny than to risk ICE for the next 3-11+ years.
Sorry to clarify. You are moved around the country continually so that it is exceedingly difficult to get in front of a judge and also speak to your lawyer. This is basically torture to most people, you are then pressured and repeatedly asked (in some cases lied to) to sign documents agreeing to be deported
The definition of being "illegal" in the eyes of the law is not actually really well defined at all. It is pretty much a vibe check
Entered via a port of entry and visa overstay? "illegal"
Entered via a port of entry and visa overstay, but now you have legal status? "Maybe you are illegal"
Entered not via a port of entry? "You are illegal"
Entered via a port of entry with legal status? "Legal but you might get detained for several days"
Entered via a port of entry with legal status but you attended a protest? "Legal but the government doesn't like you so expect to be detained"
Born and raised in the United States but don't carry your passport? "Legal but expected to be detained"
Entered via a port of entry with legal status BUT you have a traffic ticket and a bench warrant out of state "Illegal and criminal! Expect to be deported"
Might I add that only one of these above conditions is valid for deportation and a ban and every other is a violation of your rights
This administration changes its tune based on what business/tech leaders are telling them[0][1]. There's no doubt that ICE will be used for selective enforcement (as we've seen them used at American protests) but some immigrants are probably staying based on the reality that business interests are more important.
Also, I would be hesitant to say that immigrants being targeted by ICE are "illegal" as we saw some be detained/deported after speaking out against the war in Gaza[2]. Also, a lot claim asylum at the border which is a legal process.
> and I can come back to the US upon following the legal method
That process in reality takes a really long time due to the federal immigration system being strained. The 2024 border bill tried to address this by adding more immigration judges and asylum officers but Trump told Republicans to kill it because it'd make Biden look good. So far all we got was a massive DHS funding increase that allowed Kristi Noem to funnel $100M+ to herself and her friends and kill two American citizens with ICE.
> Again, objectively, it does look bad that bill was to secure the border but Trump Admin seems to have done that without a bill.
This is a matter of simply breaking the law.
The border is secured in the sense that Trump has made the US such an unappealing destination that fewer people want to risk it. It's a valid strategy (if awful) except in that doing so essentially requires the government to violate laws.
Turns out it's easy to "solve problems" when you aren't constrained by laws. Not an insight whatsoever.
Specific laws being violated:
* Due Process protections
* Equal Protection
* Asylum laws
Actually towards the end of the Biden administration, they engaged in similar law-breaking because immigration was obviously going to be such a political liability going into the election. Those moves have since been found to be illegal: https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/district-court-strikes-d...
Most of the Trump admin's moves to make the US so unappealing that no one wants to risk coming here will also ultimately be found to be illegal.
1. If ICE isn't getting paid, how likely is it that you, as an illegal alien, would be? And who says you wouldn't simply be detained anyway when you go to claim your check/prepaid gift card? That's what happened to people when they were lined up outside immigration court and following the agreed-upon process.
I never get why people think these things will work. The only ones who take deals like this are honest people who are struggling. Criminals don’t self deport, they want to stay, not leave. It’s the same in Europe, they make laws to deport people for small bureaucratic details, honest people say “yes sir” and leave, but the criminals don’t give a shit, they just stay. So you deport the good ones and keep the bad ones, what the hell do you get from that? I guess the real point is that nobody in politics really cares about illegal aliens and criminals, they only want the power that comes from populism.
That thing in the lake in the China poster, is that some AI nightmare hybrid between a Japanese Shinto shrine and a Chinese pagoda (EDIT: no, it seems to be real: https://img.visiontimes.com/2022/01/hangzhou-ge36163601_1920... - it's just the color that looks more like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Itsukushima_Shrine_Torii_...)? And of course the Taj Mahal in the India poster only has one tower. But I wouldn't put it past the current administration if they really printed 100,000 of these low-effort AI slop posters. The designer probably got a boatload of money for them too, after all the extremely generous budget increase for ICE has to go somewhere...
I can't believe the official US gov posts these things. Between this, the CoD inspired war propaganda and Hegseth semi-irgasning on live TV while describing how they're going to kill and destroy everything "evil" we're really scraping the bottom. Is there anyone in these organizations who has an ounce of morality or humanity left? Or even just any sense taste really
If you are a company based in Europe it is silly to give your data security and privacy to a company based in Europe.
If you are in Iran, you don't want to give your data to your government.
If you are in France, you don't want to give your data to your government.
etc
If you are in France, and you host your e-mails in a datacenter in Hong-Kong, well good luck for the authorities to get it.
If you host it in "secure France", on the paper you will have more privacy and laws behind you, but in reality you are jumping into the mouth of the shark.
This is why governments are promoting: "yes yes, host here don't worry, we will protect you"
This flat out isn't true. Police forces / investigative authorities have been collaborating with one another since 1923: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpol . We have tons of examples of this working for the digital world as well (like Proton complying with Swiss legal orders at the behest of non-Swiss police forces for illegal activities in other countries).
The trick is to host your data in a country with a strong rule of law, and avoid illegal / geopolitical lines. If you're an American company hosting stuff in Russia, you can bet the GRU/SVR would be very happy to abuse it. If you're running a torrent site in Ukraine, you can bet the US would be very happy to claim extraterritorial magic jurisdiction and get you extradited from Poland.
As a French company, you're already beholden to French law and French legal decisions. "Data is hosted in Hong Kong" doesn't matter in the slightest, it only exposes you to more risk.
The question is how one stands on the monopolistic collection by a commercial entity.
I personally don't mind to share GPS traces and other data with i.e. open streetmap, as I directly benefit from the data as well and it's more or less equal between different entities.
I try not to give too much to Google and similar companies as this increases their competitive advantage, while my benefit is small.
Exactly this. I think a hybrid approach is going to be mandatory before long, if it's not already. A well-prompted frontier-lab LLM would catch things like this easily.
While I think education matters, I also think at some point if something is purely negative for society one should restrict it, rather than try to reach an ideal state were people are educated enough to handle it right.
It Is illiberal but I don't see an argument beyond the slippery slope one at this point in my life.
Just trying to get normies to understand that slot machines aren't "hot" and "due" for a jackpot because nobody has won recently is virtually impossible. Stats class is hard and people don't really trust what they've learned anyway. A huge portion of the public even believes in such a thing as a person having "good luck". It's nonsensical, tantamount to believing the god of fortune is going to intercede on your behalf, but people really do think this way.
Pretty sure the solution that US politicians will find will be to create new dollars out of thin air, so instead of increasing taxes they increase the money supply.
Of course this is going to increase prices, but then they can blame China / Russia / Iran whoever is the scapegoat at that time.
It would cause inflation, isn’t that sort of a tax on people who have more wealth than income? (Which includes people like retirees, so, I’m not saying this is a universally good thing).
> isn’t that sort of a tax on people who have more wealth
Classically, yes, particularly when that wealth is closer to productive capital. In modern economies, the rich also hold a lot of debt, which lets them benefit from inflation.
Theoretically yes, but in practice the wages of people already not making much have not tracked inflation and there's no reason to believe that they will now. That means any inflation is also a tax on them.
Poor people are hit a lot harder, but rich still have to pay capital gains on inflation even despite having no real change in value. So the rich pay inflation at the rate * 0.2. Poor pay it at the rate * 1.0 (5x the rate of the rich).
> rich still have to pay capital gains on inflation
“Pay” is doing a lot of work there. My house is half equity half debt. The debt gets to be paid off with inflated dollars. And I pay no capital gains on the appreciation. I can, however, tap it for liquidity if I need it.
Rich people don't tend to have a sizeable portion of their worth tied up in their primary residence (and even then, IIRC there is a cap on capital gains exception), otherwise property tax would turn into a wealth tax for them which obviously they want to avoid. Non-primary residences still require paying capital gains. The inflated value you paid off with debt for a non-primary residence still gets captured as capital gain in the end when you actually want to sell the house for money.
Oh, definitely. They could put the foot down and end this pointless charade swiftly. But if Google and Apple had the balls to go against the big media, the world would look very differently.
They are, in fact, the big media themselves now. They have the power, and more than enough of it. No streaming service can afford to skip having an app on iOS or Android - all Apple has to do is crack the whip. Say "this DRM is no longer compliant with our device policy and will be phased out by 2030" and there goes that.
But they still act like they're weird web teens who can't raise a voice against the big media boys without getting bullied for it.
That, or they believe this DRM charade serves them - and user experience can go suck a dick.
FYI Samsung was paid by MS to add DRM to the Galaxy devices ~2010. Source: I was part of the team that had to implement the customer-facing part, carrier billing integration and backend 4-way revshare accounting in zero time. Harder than it sounds, and probably never repeated since unless you're preloading it's against terms to introduce payments on Android. IIRC the real heroes were the Indian embedded engineers who were 10x better than the Koreans.
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