I still don’t get why Stripe needs OpenRouter. Last I checked, they were doing just fine routing payments between businesses without pretending to be an AI model marketplace. OpenRouter, on the other hand, is a gateway that lets you swap between 300+ models with a single API call—kind of like if Stripe let you pay with Bitcoin, Visa, and carrier pigeon in one checkout flow. So yeah, the news that OpenRouter is joining Stripe feels odd, unless you realize this isn’t about payments. It’s about what happens when the next wave of AI-driven software isn’t just adding features but rewiring how we build them. And if that’s the case, the real question is whether Stripe’s infrastructure—built for money—can handle the chaos of routing requests instead of transactions. Technical Overview OpenRouter’s value isn’t some abstract market hype—it’s in the daily grind of developer workflows. The $7 billion acquisition price tag looks steep unless you’ve watched teams waste weeks wrestling wit...

I've been following the news about Stripe's reported $7B acquisition of OpenRouter, and one thing that really caught my attention is how it's going to affect the valuation of similar businesses. Take fal.ai, for example - they recently raised funds at an $8B valuation, which seems pretty steep considering they have significantly less traffic than OpenRouter. It makes me wonder, what's driving these valuations, and are they really justified? The more I think about it, the more I'm not sure I buy into the idea that these valuations are entirely rational. I mean, we've seen this story play out before - a company gets a high valuation, and then suddenly everyone else in the space is worth just as much, if not more. It's like the whole industry is playing a game of valuation limbo, where the goal is to see how high you can go without getting knocked off. But what happens when the music stops, and these companies actually have to start delivering on their ...