[JoshTriplett]

I appreciate that in this case, the developers who were hired away considered it their responsibility to keep the project and company going independently of themselves, and ensuring it could continue to employ the ~dozen developers who are staying with it to maintain and develop the project.

That seems substantially better than the usual approach (of either an acquihire leading to an immediate shutdown or an acquisition leading to an inevitable "our incredible journey" shutdown later).

[goldsteinq]

I think at least some skepticism about independency is warranted when the board of directors is 3/4 Anthropic employees. Zulip is an awesome tool, and I want to assume good faith here, but it’s really hard to interpret this as anything other than acquihiring, especially given how industry is prone to using intermediary non-profits for things they actually control.