| ▲ | jjordan 4 hours ago |
| I don't really see how Bun fits as an acquisition for an AI company. This seems more like "we have tons of capital and we want to buy something great" than "Bun is essential to our core business model". |
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| ▲ | gkoberger 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| If Anthropic wants to own code development in the future, owning the full platform (including the runtime) makes sense. Programming languages all are a balance between performance/etc and making it easy for a human to interact with. This balance is going to shit as AI writes more code (and I assume Anthropic wants a future where humans might not even see the code, but rather an abstraction of it... after all, all code we look at is an abstraction on some level). |
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| ▲ | hobofan 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Even outside of code development, Anthropic seems to be very strongly leaning into code interpreter over native tool calling for advancing agentic LLM abilities (e.g. their "skills" approach). Given that those necessitate a runtime of sorts, owning/having access to a runtime like Bun that could e.g. allow them to very seamlessly integrate that functionality into their products better, this acquisition doesn't seem like the worst idea. | |
| ▲ | Kwpolska 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | They will own it, and then what? Will Claude Code end every response with "by the way, did you know that you can switch to bun for 21.37x faster builds?" | | | |
| ▲ | singularity2001 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | "the full platform"
there are more languages than ts though?Acquisition of Apple Swift division incoming? | | |
| ▲ | tomashubelbauer 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | TypeScript is the most popular programming language on the most popular software hosting platform though, owning the best runtime for that seems like it would fit Pareto's rule well enough: https://github.blog/news-insights/octoverse/octoverse-a-new-... | |
| ▲ | gkoberger 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I think there's a potential argument to be made that Anthropic isn't trying to make it easier to write TS code, but rather that their goal is a level higher and the average person wouldn't even know what "language" is running it (in the same way most TS devs don't need to care the many layers their TS code is compiled via). | |
| ▲ | 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | giancarlostoro 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | According to a JetBrains dev survey (I forget the year) roughly 58% of devs deploy to the web. That's a big money pie right there. | | |
| ▲ | vlovich123 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Bun isn’t on the web. It’s a server runtime. | | |
| ▲ | giancarlostoro 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It's a JS runtime, not specifically servers though? They essentially can bundle Claude Code with this, instead of ever relying on someone installing NodeJS and then running npm install. Claude will likely be bundled up nicely with Bun in the near future. I could see this being useful to let even a beginner use claude code. Edit: Lastly, what I meant originally is that most front-end work happens with tools like Node or Bun. At first I was thinking they could use it to speed up generating / pulling JS projects, but it seems more likely Claude Code and bun will have a separate project where they integrate both and make Claude Code take full advantage of Bun itself, and Bun will focus on tight coupling to ensure Claude Code is optimally running. | | |
| ▲ | rounce 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | They could do that already, nothing in the license prohibited them from doing so. | | |
| ▲ | giancarlostoro 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Sure, but Bun was funded by VCs and needed to figure out how to monetize, what Anthropic did is ensure it is maintained and now they have fresh talent to improve Claude Code. |
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| ▲ | vlovich123 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Server here I used loosely - it obviously runs on any machine (eg if you wanted to deploy an application with it as a runtime). But it’s not useful for web dev itself which was my point. Frontend work by definitions n doesn’t happen with either Node nor Bun. Some frontend tooling might be using a JS runtime but the value add of that is minimal and a lot of JS tooling is actually being rewritten in Rust for performance anyway. |
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| ▲ | 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | bigyabai 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Why acquire Swift when you can write iOS apps in Typescript instead? | | |
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| ▲ | BoorishBears 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It doesn't make sense, and you definitely didn't say why it'd make sense... but enough people are happy enough to see the Bun team reach an exit (especially one that doesn't kill Bun) that I think the narrative that it makes sense will win out. I see it as two hairy things canceling out: the accelerating trend of the JS ecosystem being hostage to VCs and Rauch is nonsensical, but this time a nonsensical acquisition is closing the loop as neatly as possible. (actually this reminds me of Harry giving Dobby a sock: on so many levels!) |
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| ▲ | logsr 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Claude Code running on Bun is an obvious justification, but Buns features (high performance runtime, fast starts, native TS) are also important for training and inference. For instance, in inference you develop a logical model in code that maps to a reasoning sequence, and then execute the code to validate and refine the model, then use this to inform further reasoning. Bun, which is highly integrated and highly focused on performance, is an ideal fit for this. Having Bun in house means that you can use the feedback from all of automation driven execution of Bun to drive improvements to its core. |
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| ▲ | nurumaik 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Looks like they are acquiring the team rather than the product |
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| ▲ | simonw 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | No, they're clearly acquiring the technology. They're betting Claude Code on Bun, they have an invested interest in the health of Bun. | | |
| ▲ | LunaSea 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Why would they want to bet on nascent technology whereas Node.js bas existed for a god 15 years? | | |
| ▲ | simonw 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Because they needed something that could produce a single binary that works on every platform. They started shipping Claude Code with Bun back in July: https://x.com/jarredsumner/status/1943492457506697482 | | |
| ▲ | LunaSea 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | They could use the Node.js equivalent: https://nodejs.org/api/single-executable-applications.html#s... | | |
| ▲ | zstscrs an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Every time I see people mention things like this in node vs bun or deno conversations I wonder if they even tried them. >The single executable application feature currently only supports running a single embedded script using the CommonJS module system. >Users can include assets by adding a key-path dictionary to the configuration as the assets field. At build time, Node.js would read the assets from the specified paths and bundle them into the preparation blob. In the generated executable, users can retrieve the assets using the sea.getAsset() and sea.getAssetAsBlob() APIs. Meanwhile, here's all I need to do to get an exe out of my project right now with, assets and all: > bun build ./bin/start.ts --compile --outfile dist/myprogram.exe > [32ms] bundle 60 modules > [439ms] compile dist/myprogram.exe it detects my dynamic imports of jsons assets (language files, default configuration) and bundles them accordingly in the executable. I don't need a separate file to declare assets, declare imports, or do anything other than just run this command line. I don't need to look at the various bundlers and find one that works fine with my CLI tool and converts its ESM/TypeScript to CJS, Bun just knows what to do. Node is death through thousand cuts compared to the various experiences offered by Bun. Node adds quite the startup latency over Bun too and is just not too pleasant for making CLI scripts. | |
| ▲ | simonw 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | They evidently evaluated Node.js in comparison to Bun (and Deno) earlier this year and came to a technical decision about which one worked best for their product. | | |
| ▲ | dvtkrlbs 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | I highly doubt that the JS ecosystem is driven mostly by hype so I highly doubt the nodejs solution even put on a table in an internal issue tracker. | | |
| ▲ | simonw 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Claude Code shipped on top of Node.js for the first four months of its existence. Why wouldn't they consider their options for bundling that version into a single binary using Node.js tooling before adopting Bun? |
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| ▲ | jitl 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | it starts fast and does better job than nodejs for their product | |
| ▲ | stonogo 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Because Microsoft already owns that. | | |
| ▲ | Octoth0rpe 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Are you referring to node? MS doesn't own that. It's maintained by Joyent, who in turn is owned by Samsung. | | |
| ▲ | simonw 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Joyent handed Node.js over to a foundation in 2015, and that foundation merged into the JS Foundation to become the OpenJS Foundation in 2019. I'm not sure if Joyent have any significant role in Node.js maintenance any more. | | |
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| ▲ | 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | giancarlostoro 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | That was my thinking is, this would be useful for Claude Code. |
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| ▲ | rvz 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| It does actually. Claude Code is a 1B+ cash machine and Anthropic directly uses Bun for it. Acquiring Bun lowers the risk of the software being unmaintained as Bun made $0 and relied on VC money. Makes sense, but this is just another day in San Francisco of a $0 revenue startup being bought out. |
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| ▲ | sankalpmukim 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Does this acquisition mean Claude Code the CLI is more valuable than entiriety of Bun? |
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| ▲ | simonw 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Claude Code has an annual run rate of $1bn. Bun currently has an annual run rate of $0. | |
| ▲ | gehsty 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It certainly generated more revenue, so this is not surprising? | | |
| ▲ | re-thc 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | > It certainly generated more revenue, so this is not surprising? Anything is greater than 0 |
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| ▲ | throwaway290 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | No, just that people who borrowed bun 7 million dollars want some of it back... |
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| ▲ | 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
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