Bun's Release Hype - A Step Towards Getting Acquired
Last Friday, Bun 1.0 was released - moving the conversation from DHH and TypeScript towards Node.js and a new competitor. Just like the battle that waged before it - this one was fueled by hype and passion. As the hype train rolled through Twitter, many were excited about a shiny new runtime, while others voiced concerns.
I *really* like what @jarredsumner is doing with Bun, but I'm a bit frustrated by their compatibility claim with @nodejs. It's not fully compatible, and many inner details are different. This results in many random issues over my repos asking for fixes for Bun incompatibilities,… pic.twitter.com/p8t72natBF
— Matteo Collina (@matteocollina) September 9, 2023
Matteo’s chief complaint about Bun could have been resolved with clearer messaging by Jarred and his team - especially surrounding the 1.0 release itself.
I found myself wondering why would they make this mistake? Why did they even need to release a 1.0 without certain drop-in compatibility? Why did they even need a production-grade video to introduce Bun (don’t we all already know about it)?
While discussing this on Discord, a user pointed out the obvious - they’re ready to raise more capital (or get acquired).
What is Driving Bun’s ROI?
The plan is to run our own servers on the edge in datacenters around the world. Oven will leverage end-to-end integration of the entire JavaScript stack (down to the hardware) to make new things possible.
Bun’s business model relies on building Oven - their own edge computing platform. I don’t know much about build a PaaS or the capital required to establish one, but I can imagine that $7m might not make it very far. Additionally - what makes a brand new PaaS so exciting and relevant (hint: its not a runtime that anyone can support)? I would expect Oven to need significant investment in time and resources building the various pieces a PaaS requires: DNS management, cert management, routing and proxies, databases, storage, and elegant/branded UIs to configure and simplify all the above.
It wouldn’t surprise me if they skip the work required to build Oven altogether - I mean, why are they only hiring low level systems programming engineers if they were expecting to ship a major service?
Only time will tell - but my guess is they’re positioned to be acquired - and I would rank Vercel as one of the top buyers.