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by freedomben 54 days ago
Very interesting, I had no idea. That's probably going to be a very painful lesson learned by all the startups that have been pumping out AI code. I know of several just among my peer groups that will be shocked and dismayed by this. Thanks for sharing that!
1 comments
senaevren 54 days ago
That is exactly the gap the piece is aimed at. The M&A conversation is where this becomes concrete very fast, and most founders shipping AI-assisted code have not had it yet.
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mbesto 54 days ago
Eh, it does and it doesn't. PE investors actively are asking why more of the portfolio companies aren't generating codebases using Claude Code. You are right that lawyers are asking about code generated by LLMs but this is more of a CYA out of ignorance more than anything else (btw - many purchase agreements have funny representations like "your code is free of bugs" which is downright hilarious).

So these two things are squarely at odds with eachother...meaning, I don't know any PE acquirers who are actively terminating deals because the target acquisition's code is generating by an LLM even if the lawyers try to get a rep about it in the purchase agreement.

For the record, I still have yet to have an M&A lawyer explain to me unilaterally that AI generated code is an infringement...hence the question "who owns the code Claude Code writes" is still open.

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senaevren 54 days ago
The tension you are describing is real and the piece does not capture it well enough. PE acquirers pushing portfolio companies toward Claude Code while their lawyers are adding AI code reps to purchase agreements is exactly the gap that will produce the first painful deal. The rep usually survives unsigned because neither side has done the analysis. When the first deal falls apart or a rep is breached post-close because of GPL contamination in an AI-assisted codebase, that will set the market standard faster than any court ruling.
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mbesto 54 days ago
> When the first deal falls apart or a rep is breached post-close because of GPL contamination in an AI-assisted codebase, that will set the market standard faster than any court ruling.

Assuming it ever does...first, GPL is hardly enforced and second, I feel like there is going to be enough money (e.g. Anthropic's own code it uses for the harness) that pushes back against it being problematic. We'll see.

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