TWS #016: OpenAI rejects Windsurf; Nvidia hits $4T valuation; Cloud Seeding; AI models becoming parity
and much more...
Every week, get the latest curated high signals on news, insights, and ideas around technology, science, and business to help you become a better builder and thinker. Thanks for reading!
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Here’s this week’s scoop:
Windsurf Acquisition: Cognition buys Windsurf’s assets to boost its AI coding ecosystem.
Nvidia hits $4T: becomes the first company to reach the market cap.
Vercel AI Survey: AI teams use multiple providers and flexible tools for rapid progress.
China rapidly expands renewable energy and electric vehicle adoption.
The controversy around Cloud Seeding
Leading AI models are converging in capability, creating an industry oligopoly.
📝 Essay: The Browser Wars
“I’ll say it again: Browsers remain the primary interface between users and the internet. Controlling this interface is so critical because it allows companies to shape how information is accessed and consumed. It’s becoming clear that AI has enhanced the browsing experience by enabling predictive personalization, improving search accuracy, and generating dynamic content, reducing reliance on other tools. It’s all in one. You can imagine your browser curating information but also having an LLM model directly monitoring, managing, and learning from all of your browsing history and patterns”
Read the full post below 👇
Note: Essays are free for a limited time only.
🔥 Nuggets for the Road
A Wandering mind is an unhappy mind — interesting research paper showing how people who think about what’s NOT happening in the present may not lead to content and happiness in the long run [LINK]
BlackRock's assets hit record $12.53 trillion [LINK]
Reflections on OpenAI — a behind-the-curtain look at how a former senior OpenAI engineer describes the company’s maniacal engineering culture of progress and speed [LINK]
Solano Foundry: A new home for frontier tech in Silicon Valley — a new high-tech manufacturing hub is being built in California to rival that of Shenzhen. [LINK]
A Neuroscientist’s Guide to Influence (Thing Fast Talk Smart Podcast) — how to understand your audience's psychology to craft communication that resonates [LINK]
AARRR (Pirate) Metrics: The 5-Stage framework for growth (
) — how to track and optimize user acquisition, activation, retention, revenue [LINK]Distinguished Engineer at Waymo unpacks the breakthroughs and bottlenecks of self-driving (Unsupervised Learning Podcast) [LINK]
The Bitter Lesson — an article written by Rich Sutton (2019) that suggests that AI systems perform the best when left to it’s own devices of discovery rather than relying on human knowledge. [LINK]
📡 The Signal
The AI Coding Race: Understanding the Windsurf Acquisition
The main issue in the tech world right now is that builders need better tools to help them code faster, especially as projects get bigger and complex. Usually, you try to solve this using smarter code editors + plugins, but these often fall flat because they can’t handle the scope of what you need, like understanding large codebases, refactoring multiple files, or even managing projects. It doesn’t move the needle. Windsurf is one company trying to solve this. If you’ve heard of Cursor ($9B val), well, Windsurf is one of their biggest competitors. In the past week, another coding startup, Cognition, has agreed to buy what’s left of Windsurf. Here’s what happened: first, OpenAI tried to buy Winsurf for $3B, but that deal fell through because of disagreement over IP with Microsoft. Then, Google swooped in and hired Windsurf’s CEO and its core team, paying around $2.4B to license some of their technology, but NOT acquiring the company itself. Finally, Cognition stepped in and acquired the remaining assets, which included the product, brand, and user base. The move is pretty good because Cognition has an AI agent (Devin), so adding an AI coding editor will probably help them build an ecosystem to help devs build AI agents using the editor, which could be like an App Store for different types of use cases. [TC, LINK]
Nvidia hits $4T
It’s always hard to predict the future, but I think this time it’s the exception. Nvidia is the first company ever to hit a market valuation of $4 trillion, and it’s all thanks to its crucial role in powering the AI revolution. Usually, most companies try to grow by splurging on new tech and R&D, but this strategy can fail when the market doesn’t catch on. But Nvidia’s success is different as it’s been able to carve out a unique space with its AI chips and the entire software ecosystem that encapsulates it. For perspective, Nvidia’s market cap is now bigger than all publicly listed companies in the UK combined 🤯. For a company that built and sold graphics cards for gaming, they’ve certainly come a long way. [LINK]
Vercel: The State of AI Survey
People building AI apps are figuring out how to use the best models/tools without getting stuck with one provider or overspending. Because the AI space is moving so quickly, providers change, new features come out, so what works today might be stale tomorrow. So, going all in on one provider can be expensive and slow. Vercel’s survey discovered that the most successful teams keep things flexible. They use more than one model provider at a time and are ready to switch if something better comes along. 60% of them switched providers in the last six months. Also, instead of building huge AI departments, most startups rely on their existing product teams and use tools that late them build and update AI features quickly. There’s still plenty of hype, so builders are being realistic and think current tools are a bit overhyped, but nonetheless, they can already see that it’s making a big difference in the work they do. The nice thing is that the survey confirms that you don’t need a huge budget or a big team to make decent progress with AI. [VERCEL]
China is racing ahead in Clean Energy
When it comes to clean energy, the big issue is how countries can move quickly away from fossil fuels and build up enough renewable sources. Usually, governments try to help with tax credits, subsidies, and grants, but these usually fall short, which slows progress. China is doing the exact opposite and tripling down on renewables. China created nearly 900 GW (gigawatts) of solar capacity by 2024 and added another 198 GW in just five months! It’s crazy to think that just a decade ago, China was lagging behind with bad press around its contribution to global pollution. Boy, the tables have turned. [LINK]
On EVs, China is close to having 50% of all new cars being sold as electric, and also exporting them worldwide. Even people at Ford are openly saying China is ahead on both tech and price.
What is Cloud Seeding? The Rainmaker Controversy
Did cloud seeding cause the most recent Texas floods? When disasters like this happen, people look for a scapegoat, and a startup called Rainmaker is being blamed. Cloud seeding is basically a process of being able to modify the weather where certain chemicals like silver iodide, potassium iodide, or even simple table salt are released into the clouds to help them produce more rain or snow. The idea is that these particles act as “seeds” where moisture in the cloud can gather and form droplets. All of this has led to plenty of finger-pointing and out-of-hand media outlets embellishing the story. Meteorologists have since debunked the claims, explaining the real cause was due to leftover moisture from tropical storms. In any case, you should watch the video on Cloud Seeding to see how it works — interesting stuff.
Are AI Models reaching parity?
On the back of a few recent AI model releases in the past week, like xAI’s Grok 4, the folks at Artificial Analysis we’re now starting to see an interesting pattern towards the convergence of intelligence across the incumbent models. It appears that for now, Grok 4 is leading, but the question remains: for how long and by how much? Every six months (sometimes less), new improvements are made and I suspect that over the long term, a few models will begin to stand out while being on par with each other, while the others, due to constraints (like money, compute, etc.), will start to trail behind. It remains to be seen which one particular model will take a massive lead. The LLM model space is becoming an oligopoly where only a few companies have the resources to compete. What does it mean for startups, and does this mean that only a few players will hold the keys to AGI? Something I’m watching closely…
Side note: You can read Interconnect’s insightful take on Grok 4’s performance here.
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