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Posted by seekdeep 9 hours ago

Cirrus Labs to join OpenAI(cirruslabs.org)
205 points | 105 commentspage 3
pxc 5 hours ago|
Tart is really cool, impressive, and useful. Best of luck to the team!
a1o 4 hours ago||
That is a bit sudden, it would be great if it was possible to get an extra month for migration.
fidotron 8 hours ago||
Am I reading this right?: a CI company that shuts down CI services with such short notice?

Do service providers not think customers have other things to do than simply maintain their existing infrastructure?

fkorotkov 8 hours ago||
Cirrus CI was on a downhill in terms of users and revenue for years now. Most of the customers moved to GHA already.

Plus migration is super easy with Cirrus CLI -- tool to run our CI task definitions locally or in any CI. See https://github.com/cirruslabs/cirrus-cli

999900000999 8 hours ago|||
Realistically this is what you agree to when you want to use someone else's computer. They can just as easily ran out of money.
JCharante 8 hours ago|||
but they're not

> We are no longer accepting new customers for Cirrus Runners but will continue supporting the service for existing customers through their existing contract periods.

mcmcmc 8 hours ago|||
I don’t think they care about their customers at all, from the statement they consider their business a “byproduct”.
8cvor6j844qw_d6 8 hours ago||
Same thoughts. Guess the migration team responsible will have to kick up the gear.
dennisy 7 hours ago||
Congratulations!

Can you talk a bit more about your journey without raising funds?

Also what does HN think of that path today when trying to launch a new AI startup?

fkorotkov 6 hours ago|
Thank you! Full journey is too long for a comment here.

It was hard and I was lucky with my previous pre-IPO gigs at Airbnb and Twitter so I had some bootstrap fund. In retrospective a dev tools startup in 2017 with no network and no VC support was a crazy idea but I was young and didn’t think thought too much.

Then it was long 8 years of raw work and constant questioning this choice. Then finally a third component: luck. In 2024-2025 it kind of grew organically due to market changes and back in October 2025 I finally stopped questioning the future of Cirrus Labs.

My only advice if I may, try to get your first dollar from your startup while you are employed.

dennisy 2 hours ago||
That is good advice!

I am too late for that as I am full time but also lucky to have had a previous exit.

I am planning to go the VC route this time, because the problem I am going after feels VC size.

However I feel bootstrap or small F&F round gives you more flexibility when it comes to exits.

Congrats again!

fnord77 8 hours ago||
> I wanted to work on fun and challenging engineering problems, in the hope of bootstrapping a business as a byproduct.

> We never raised outside capital

I guess it worked out though

Philip-J-Fry 5 hours ago||
We have AI companies constantly fear-mongering that their next model is somehow too dangerous to release. But they just continue to go on an acquisition spree.

This just confirms to me that we are no where near AI being able to write any complicated software. I mean, if it could woudln't OpenAI just prompt it into existence? ;)

neuronexmachina 5 hours ago|
> We have AI companies constantly fear-mongering that their next model is somehow too dangerous to release

I'm guessing you're referring to this recent report of the security vulnerabilities Mythos found and submitted patches for? That just seems like they don't want the negative press and/or liability if their new model ends up being used to create 0-days that cause widespread damage.

https://red.anthropic.com/2026/mythos-preview/

diimdeep 6 hours ago||
Looks like tech and talent grab for "Computer use" project

https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/guides/tools-computer...

https://github.com/cirruslabs/mtell

loevborg 8 hours ago||
What was the USP of their CI service?
Maxious 7 hours ago||
Ability to virtualize on Apple devices and linux with GPUs https://github.com/scipy/scipy/issues/24990
rvnx 7 hours ago|||
To create an ephemeral (docker-like) MacOS VM on a Mac with full performance and access (e.g. GPU) you have to use a virtualization API provided by Apple.

For most CI use, you can choose between:

  Anka, a "contact-us for pricing" closed-source projet, where you have to pay expensive license (easy 3000 USD/yr per machine)
or

  tart, which is a lightweight wrapper around the official Apple API.
But you have to know that on MacOS, there is an artificial limit of 2 VMs per Mac... but well:

https://github.com/cirruslabs/orchard/commit/3cfa2445500f45f...

With https://khronokernel.com/macos/2023/08/08/AS-VM.html

Some people might find it very attractive:

  Instead 25 Mac Mini you might need only 5.
  + No licensing to pay to Anka.

Even without bypassing the limit it is great actually
jeltz 7 hours ago||
Better UX than their competitors and support for many different images.
dude250711 6 hours ago||
AI companies need a surprising amount of people.

It's kind of like electric cars charged with electricity from coal power plants.

dangus 7 hours ago|
I just love how companies like this gaslight the whole world with announcements like this.

We started a company to make a big difference in the world and build an engineer’s dream company, and that’s why we have now decided to do the exact opposite and become employee numbers 32,463 through 32,510 at one of the largest tech companies in the world because money is nice.

Look, I’d have done the same thing, I’m not criticizing the choice. I just think we don’t need this kind of weird unnatural rhetoric.

Please just stop with the tech industry puffery. You’re not Steve Jobs, you’re just the DevOps team at OpenAI now. You’re dumping your worthless code on GitHub, and you’re kicking your customers to the curb.

There’s no PR spin left to do anymore. You’re not a company anymore and you’re not a founder anymore.

trollbridge 7 hours ago||
Making a statement like this is generally part of the terms of the acquisition.
dangus 7 hours ago||
Sure, but I imagine the terms of the acquisition doesn’t say you have to write it in this specific style.

I’m sure there’s a way to say the same thing without coming across as a bullshitter.

dbalatero 7 hours ago||
I just don't think there's much upside to telling it how it is in the press release that gets buried after a week and everyone moves on. For better or worse.
dangus 4 hours ago||
Why is telling it like it is not the rational default?

If this is a forgettable press release isn't it lower effort than coming up with this type of nonsense?

bartekpacia 7 hours ago||
More like employees number 32,463 and 32,464 - they’re two people from what I seen on GitHub over the years. (Incredibly strong two people)
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