Kenneth Ng

Building @Seam_AI • Previously @AlibabaGroup @genentech

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

Big Tech just paid ~$40 billion in two years to avoid buying anything.

The math is absurd. Google spent $2.4B on Windsurf to hire 40 people. That works out to $60M per head. Microsoft paid $650M to gut Inflection and take 70 employees. Amazon spent $400M+ on Covariant for three founders and 40 engineers. Google dropped $2.7B on Character AI to rehire Noam Shazeer, who they’d let walk in 2021. Now Nvidia announces $20B for Groq just three months after it raised at $6.9B.

Every single one of these companies explicitly stated “we are not acquiring this company.” Jensen Huang literally told employees: “While we are adding talented employees to our ranks and licensing Groq’s IP, we are not acquiring Groq as a company.” Microsoft said the same about Inflection. Google said the same about Character AI and Windsurf. Amazon said the same about Adept and Covariant.

The semantic gymnastics exist for one reason: antitrust.

Traditional acquisitions trigger Hart-Scott-Rodino filing requirements. Regulators review. Competitors object. Deals take 12-18 months to close. In an AI arms race where model capabilities improve every 6 months, that regulatory timeline is existential. By the time a deal clears, the tech is already outdated.

So Big Tech invented the “reverse acquihire.” Pay billions to license IP, hire the founding team, leave a shell company behind with a new CEO and a skeleton crew. Google did it with Character AI (Noam Shazeer + 30 researchers, left behind a co-op structure). Microsoft with Inflection (Mustafa Suleyman + 70 staff, left Sean White as CEO of nothing). Amazon twice with Adept (David Luan + research team) and Covariant (three co-founders + 25% of staff). Now Nvidia with Groq (Jonathan Ross + senior leadership, Simon Edwards inherits a cloud business).

A whistleblower complaint filed with the FTC, DOJ, and SEC in January 2025 alleged that the Amazon-Covariant deal was “deliberately and unlawfully structured” to dodge antitrust review. The complaint claimed Covariant’s new CEO told employees that if Amazon had tried to buy them outright, regulators would have killed it. The deal terms reportedly restrict which licenses Covariant can sell without paying Amazon a fee.

The FTC opened investigations into Microsoft-Inflection and Amazon-Adept. Both appear to be at a standstill. Amazon’s Adept deal closed without further action.

The exposed logic: buying a company twice (once for talent, once for the husk) now costs less than waiting for regulatory approval of a single acquisition. Windsurf got split three ways in 72 hours. Google paid $2.4B for leadership and license. Cognition paid ~$250M for what remained. OpenAI walked away with nothing after Microsoft objected to IP terms.

Big Tech found a loophole wide enough to drive $40 billion through while regulators debate whether hiring someone’s entire executive team and licensing all their IP counts as “control.”

[Kenneth Ng @KennethLNg]

Don’t be this guy. The user is never wrong. Feedback is feedback, no matter how much it stings. This is founder 101

[Harjot Gill @harjotsgill]

Aiden - you clearly have no idea about what you are talking about. We have more users than everyone you just mentioned (combined). See https://t.co/oXIySEAk9K

Still, I am curious how we can make it simpler and fool proof for indie developers. Maybe simpler controls and a lot of handholding can help.

[Kenneth Ng @KennethLNg]

🔥 Hot new site just dropped for @Seam_AI

Check it out https://t.co/DsdCleNn94

[Geoff Charles @geoffintech]

At Ramp we ship a new major feature every day - it's impossible for leaders stay up to speed.

To keep a high bar without slowing folks down, teams can ship to early access tier whenever they want but need review for general release.

Crazy fact: 10% of customers opt into early access because they can't get enough. That's 5000+ businesses. Plenty to work with.

To release to general public, teams need to prove this product works and get sign off for heads of eng, product and design. Here is our template:

1. What did we build and why
2. What's the demo in < 3mn (loom)
3. Did we meet our goals in early access (hex dash)
4. Are customers raving about this (LLM on Zendesk tickets, Sprig surveys, and Gong transcripts)
5. Will customers easily discover and start using it (first time user journey)
6. Is sales ready to sell, AM ready to activate, and support ready to troubleshoot
7. Do we have a clear rollout plan (launch tier, pricing, coms)

This helps us document decisions, serves as a strong checklist, and feeds our release notes. Most importantly, it keeps the bar high (we expect at least 1 rev of feedback).

The best part: most of this template is automated using AI connected to the rest of our business sytems.

Leadership has 48h to review or it ships.

We think it's a great way to balance speed & empowerment with process and quality.

[Nikita Bier @nikitabier]

The only thing that matters in consumer software is velocity of shipping. You will regularly be wrong about what people want: no one is a perfect psychologist. But if you are out at the frontlines with concepts everyday, your team will have their finger on the pulse of users and know where to add fuel.

[Rowan Cheung @rowancheung]

This story is insane.

The founders of Fireflies AI (now worth $1B+) pretended to be an AI notetaker before the tech existed.

The founders would:

> Join meetings on mute as "Fred from Fireflies"
> Take notes by hand while sitting silently
> Send the "AI-generated" notes 10 minutes later

They did this for 100+ meetings to pay rent, before actually building the product that went on to become a unicorn.

[Kenneth Ng @KennethLNg]

iCloud’s Hide My Email has been pivotal for getting rid of spam. Can’t live without it

[Nick Scavone @nvscavone]

Today, I'm excited to announce the next phase of @Seam_AI - Our AI sales prospecting agents.

[TechCrunch @TechCrunch]

Seam wants to make customer data accessible to every business user https://t.co/KNRO7GahW2

[Nick Scavone @nvscavone]

A year ago @MikhielT, José Barrueta, and I founded a Newco to advance how business teams use data through AI.

Today, we are excited to launch @Seam_AI and announce we've raised $5M led by @BessemerVP w/ participation from Colle Capital, @f7Ventures, @RitualVC, and @umamicapital.

[Ben South @bnj]

Lots of alpha in taking old UI patterns and applying them to AI:

Instead of chat, why can’t I manage AI agents and tasks via a Kanban board?

Instead of a thread, why can’t I browse responses from many models in a feed?

[Charlie Holtz @charlieholtz]

David Attenborough is now narrating my life

Here's a GPT-4-vision + @elevenlabs python script so you can star in your own Planet Earth:

[Nick Scavone @nvscavone]

Recently we decided to shut down Freeflow and pivot the business. This comes with mixed emotions as we depart from our original plans and head towards a new opportunity for growth.

I wanted to timestamp this moment and make a thread on my learnings so far as a founder...

[Nick Scavone @nvscavone]

Excited to share that after a year of beta iteration, we are finally launching our Early Access program for @freeflow_hq.

Now for a quick story on what we built and why…
https://t.co/EM5sQLwyAU

[Kenneth Ng @KennethLNg]

I’ve been following the sentiment on bitcoin in Reddit for a while. Kinda insane how accurate this graph is

[Kenneth Ng @KennethLNg]

@candyonhulu #stop

[GREG ISENBERG @gregisenberg]

Starbucks just announced they are adding NFTs to their loyalty program

With 26 million members on their loyalty program already, Starbucks could create one America's most used crypto wallets

Starbucks could move from being just a coffee company to a crypto company ;)

[Kenneth Ng @KennethLNg]

Stuff like this gets me excited. Reminds me of how easy it was to use particle effects in Unity for games.

[Philip Davis @philipcdavis]

UI on fire.

Here’s a fire effect built in SwiftUI using particles and blend modes.

[Kenneth Ng @KennethLNg]

I’m occasionally reminded what an amazing feat TikTok’s algorithm is. I introduced my wife to TikTok and now she’s watching BTS videos for hours at a time

[Balaji @balajis]

Every social network and messaging app will get a web3 variant.

Why? Because DAOs are just obviously more useful than Facebook groups, subreddits, group chats, or bulletin boards. They allow you to level up from recreational discussion to resource allocation.