Less than a year ago, in springtime Vienna, Armin and Colin met at Vogel Kaffee to write. We had landed on a name, Earendil. We didn't yet have a company or an office. We were at the beginning, and felt the most natural place to begin was with a shared idea of what our Company should exist to do. After working and reworking the sentences, stressing and asking questions of each word, this is where we landed: Earendil exists to strengthen the agency of humanity by crafting software and open protocols that bridge division and ignorance and cultivate lasting joy and understanding. It was a lofty set of goals, but we meant each specific clause. In a world that every day feels more divided and violent, these words ring both distinct and universal. In a world that every day feels more afraid, these words ring both strong and peaceful. This was intended. Fast forward to today and we are proud to have three announcements to make. Firstly, Earendil has acquired Pi, and Mario Zechner has joined Earendil. Secondly, we are announcing Lefos, a new kind of entity designed to be both capable and trustworthy. Thirdly, we wanted to acknowledge our early backers. Prior to founding Earendil, both of us had worked in our last jobs for almost a decade. We believe in planting trees and nurturing them over time. All three of these announcements reflect those principles, though in different ways. Firstly, there is Mario. Armin has known Mario since he was in college. Mario has honed his craft, writing software, over many years. Both the creation of Pi and the adoption of Pi by Earendil are a function of years of dedication on one hand to honing a craft and on the other hand of building trust between two human beings. Pi is at once both at the white hot center of AI but is also a stellar example of handcrafted software. It couldn't be a more fitting example of one of Earendil's core principles. Secondly, there is Lefos. Lefos really began with a question: How can a machine entity earn the trust of a human? How should it be built so that over years and decades, that trust compounds rather than erodes? The power of the machines being built today is undeniable, but to really serve humanity we think a core set of principles should be rethought. Firstly, these machines should be built in the open, and on open protocols. Secondly, people should be able to tune these entities to their own preferences and constraints. Finally, companies should not presume to take user trust for granted. For anyone lucky enough to have ever worked with an assistant, you probably did not give him or her all the passwords to your email account on their first day. That trust was earned over time. We operate on a similar principle. We want Lefos to prove to you over time that it is worthy of your trust. We hope it does and are looking forward to your feedback. Finally, our backers. Earendil was backed from the beginning by Accel (Daniel Levine), Balderton (Daniel Waterhouse) and the Founders of n8n (Jan Oberhauser), OpenClaw (Peter Steinberger), Revolut (Vlad Yatsenko), Sentry (David Cramer), and Slack (Cal Henderson) among many others. The individuals we are working with across the board are friends and mentors, colleagues and partners. They have all invested in deep, longitudinal relationships with the both of us, and many of them have invested years in the firms and companies they have built themselves. We are proud to be associated with them. Armin & Colin — Read more about our announcements today: Mario's blog on why he joined Earendil
Armin's RFC on our plan for Licensing Pi
Armin's blog on Mario
Colin's blog on Partnership
Earendil's Press Release