Is Cluely a Meme or the Future of Startups?

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The re:Start Pod

59 episodes

2 weeks ago

Three founders. One exit. Countless new beginnings. We sold our AI company — and now we’re back at square one, figuring out our next re:Starts. Every week, join Damon Burrow, Lakshya Bakshi, and Shashi Mudunuri as we digest the biggest stories in AI, tech, and innovation while also sharing the behind-the-scenes of building what’s next. From brainstorming new ventures to collaborating across industries and hosting candid conversations with fellow builders, The re:Start Podcast is where post-exit founders trade playbooks, predictions, and lessons learned for the sake of discovering their next

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Is Cluely a Meme or the Future of Startups? - Ep 58

The re:Start Pod

36 minutes 1 second

3 months ago

Is Cluely a Meme or the Future of Startups? - Ep 58

In this episode of the ScholarAI Founders Pod, the founders dive into one of the most controversial collapses in recent SF startup history: the failed $3B acquisition of Windsurf by OpenAI. What went wrong? Who got left behind? And why are top engineers calling it “morally bankrupt”?

They break down the shift in power between founders, early engineers, and big tech suitors—especially as Cognition Labs swoops in to salvage scraps while Google walks away with the crown jewels. From the broader future of AI dev tools (Cursor, Claude Code, Codex) to what Cluey’s “cheat on everything” ethos says about the next generation of tech, this episode is part exposé, part forecast.

Also: toothpaste thefts in SF, why building with Claude Code feels like vibe coding, and the new playbook where startups win with storytelling—not just software.

(0:00) Intro - Welcome to San Francisco

(3:36) Windsurf Acquisition Collapse

(10:52) Shakeups in the IDE meta

(17:41) Labor v Capital: Silicon Valley Power Dynamics

(19:45) Claude Code on the Come-up

(26:10) Cluely's New Playbook

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#AI #Design #Code #Claude #UX #ProductDesign #Windsurf #DevTools #Startup #FoundersPod #Google #Vercel #Startups #TechNews #Cluely #buildinpublic