I've Sold Out

I read most of the post, went to the linked project and still don't have an idea what this is about.

In light of all the stuff about Thiel and friends, I'd really stay away from Tolkien/Middle-Earth themed startup names for now...

Why does everything have to be named after Lord of the bloody Rings

> Why would you do that?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-0kcet4aPpQ

I went to Earendil website and github and I still don't know what this is. Someone care to explain?

I guess Earendil sounds a lot like Anduril - had to check and now I understand they are not defense contractors!

Mario, You are allowed to sell out.

Just take the negative reactions, (if any) as warnings. They have seen it all before like you have:

+ VC funded

+ LoTR name (really?)

+ “We are not evil I promise”

And the biggest red flag:

> None of the early-stage investors are on my naughty list, quite the opposite.

For now.

The ear endil website runs at like 2fps on my phone. Still have no idea what the company does

> The one thing that differentiated Armin from other internet trolls was the way he conducted himself in these heated discussions. He was never emotional or aggressive. Our discussions would either end in cordial disagreement, or a newfound common understanding. That's extremely rare on the internet.

Ah haha so armin is also an Internet troll, right? For example if I said, one thing that sets the "Concorde apart from other commercial airliners, ..." I am saying the Concorde is a commercial airliner.

Such an indirect writing style.

I know people hate LLM writing but at least it gets to the point and gives some background context. I have no idea what this guy is talking about. It's an article aimed at people who know him personally, it seems.

Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47688206

Waiting for the Anschluss of the Austrian School of Vibecoding to ClosedAI. They already got ClosedClaw.

Incidentally pi stopped working today - under the Claude subscription ban for other harnesses. Awaiting a plugin that fixes it.

At least they didn't call it Open pi.

Happy for Mario, Pi is the best harness I've ever tried. But overall disappointed by this decision. "This time everything is different" until it's not.

> You cannot imagine what people called me on social media and via email, despite me having zero control over the situation

Well, perhaps they were right. Naturally when it comes to open source, people don't have any control over what others do with their own time. If they do not contribute financially (or their own time into improvement a project) then even less so. Still, it is a decision that has been made because of prioritising one's own personal goals. This is fine; but to expect that others share the same 1:1 opinion is not logical.

> Like me, he thinks open-source and open protocols are a necessity, not just lipstick on a corporate pig.

I think the description is also painting lipstick on a pig. I've seen too many who promote open source but then sell out suddenly. Github? And what is the influence Shopify is doing in the ruby ecosystem? But anyway, that is all their own personal thing. To assume any community needs to share those personal success stories ... it makes no sense.

> Earendil's products are built on top of pi.

Ok, so ... that is lipstick. Aka promo. I don't understand why he critisizes others but then does the same himself. Which is fine; I just don't get the assessment he is doing.

> Despite its Tolkien-inspired name, Earendil is not a tech company with fascist tendencies.

Here he refers to Palantir clearly. Thiel is abusing Tolkien IMO. Or he sees himself as Sauron or whatever. But he is more a clown Sauron, just like his mad orange king is.

> who think software, and specifically AI, should serve humans, not the other way around.

Does AI serve humans? Or does it serve those who control it?

> Finally, and most importantly to me, almost everyone on the team has kids.

So what? I mean, many people who are not so well in the head, had kids. I am not saying that refers to the blog author here, mind you - I refer to the "my criterium is that all have kids". Pity on those fools who don't have kids then?

> pi is owned by Earendil, the company.

Ultimately people will derive value from it, or not; but it is clearly a private project. Even if open source, we can see that with chrome + Google. Google makes most decisions. Yes, you can build on top of it; I use thorium right now, for instance. But I am not fooled one second who effectively controls a project here.

Best luck of success to him.