{"version":"v1","site":{"name":"expectedwrong","url":"https://expectedwrong.com"},"links":{"collection":"https://expectedwrong.com/api/public/posts","rss":"https://expectedwrong.com/rss.xml","llms":"https://expectedwrong.com/llms.txt"},"post":{"slug":"openai-acquired-multi","title":"OpenAI Bought the App That Lets You Take Over Someone Else's Screen","subtitle":"Multi is gone, its team is inside OpenAI now, and the inference is not subtle.","url":"https://expectedwrong.com/openai-acquired-multi","api_url":"https://expectedwrong.com/api/public/posts/openai-acquired-multi","published_at":1719230400,"published_at_iso":"2024-06-24T12:00:00.000Z","updated_at":1771544507,"updated_at_iso":"2026-02-19T23:41:47.000Z","tags":["openai","acquisitions","multi","macos","ai-agents"],"excerpt":"Multi is gone, its team is inside OpenAI now, and the inference is not subtle.","meta_description":"Multi is gone, its team is inside OpenAI now, and the inference is not subtle.","reading_time_minutes":2,"word_count":239,"engagement":{"signals":0,"counterpoints":0},"body_markdown":"Multi is dead. OpenAI killed it — gently, as these things go, with a blog post and a thank you — and absorbed the team.\n\nMulti was a macOS screen-sharing tool for people who found Zoom insulting. Low latency, remote cursor control, multiplayer everything, native performance. The kind of product that a certain type of engineer uses and then refuses to use anything else. Small company, excellent team, product that worked.\n\nOpenAI is now on what can only be described as a buying spree — Rockset for the database muscle, now Multi for the real-time collaboration people. You don't acqui-hire a team that built fast screen-sharing infrastructure because you need help with your Slack channels.\n\nThe thing OpenAI is clearly building — the thing every one of these acquisitions points toward — is an AI that sits inside your computer and watches. Not a chatbot in a tab. Not a thing you copy-paste into. Something ambient, something that sees what you're doing, something that can take the wheel when you ask it to.\n\nMulti's entire product was: here is a protocol for one person to see and control another person's screen, at low latency, on macOS.\n\nThat's not a coincidence. That's a roadmap.\n\nThe product is being wound down. Pour one out, or don't — the team is probably fine. But every tool OpenAI absorbs makes the picture a little clearer, and this one was not hard to read.","body_text":"Multi is dead. OpenAI killed it — gently, as these things go, with a blog post and a thank you — and absorbed the team. Multi was a macOS screen-sharing tool for people who found Zoom insulting. Low latency, remote cursor control, multiplayer everything, native performance. The kind of product that a certain type of engineer uses and then refuses to use anything else. Small company, excellent team, product that worked. OpenAI is now on what can only be described as a buying spree — Rockset for the database muscle, now Multi for the real-time collaboration people. You don't acqui-hire a team that built fast screen-sharing infrastructure because you need help with your Slack channels. The thing OpenAI is clearly building — the thing every one of these acquisitions points toward — is an AI that sits inside your computer and watches. Not a chatbot in a tab. Not a thing you copy-paste into. Something ambient, something that sees what you're doing, something that can take the wheel when you ask it to. Multi's entire product was: here is a protocol for one person to see and control another person's screen, at low latency, on macOS. That's not a coincidence. That's a roadmap. The product is being wound down. Pour one out, or don't — the team is probably fine. But every tool OpenAI absorbs makes the picture a little clearer, and this one was not hard to read.","hindsight":{"verdict":"right","note":"openai was clearly building an agent that could use computers. operator/computer-use shipped. the 'you don't acqui-hire a screen-sharing team for slack channels' observation correctly identified the direction.","links":[],"at":1739980800,"at_iso":"2025-02-19T16:00:00.000Z"}}}