Roden Crater, James Turrell. Photographed by Agostino De Rosa, 2009.
Today, The Browser Company of New York is entering into an agreement to be acquired by Atlassian in an all-cash transaction. We will operate independently, with Dia as our focus. Our objective is to bring Dia to the masses.
Now that the headline is out of the way, we have to admit: it’s an odd experience writing an acquisition announcement. How do you fit five years of sweat, risk, and late nights into a few paragraphs? Especially when we still feel at the beginning of what we set out to do.
In truth, this piece forced us to ask a hard question “What does it mean to win?” It can be uncomfortable to confront your true motivations and your full aspirations. This experience forced us to do just that. Why are we here?
For us, our bet has always been about the web browser as the future of computing — to make the quality of our lives online better. From Arc to Dia, our unwavering belief has been that the browser is the most important — and most neglected — software in modern life. It’s the center of gravity on our computers, and yet it hadn’t evolved in over a decade.
And from the beginning, we chose to tell our story publicly because we want to ask these questions openly. Even when that left us more vulnerable to judgment. For five years, across three products and two brands, we’ve shared the highs and the lows, the good and the ugly. Which is why we feel an obligation to follow through now, at the most important moment in our company’s life so far.
But first, and most importantly, we want to explain what this means for the products so many of you have come to know, love, and help build alongside us:
Dia will remain our focus , with new resources to bring it to other platforms faster.
Arc and Arc Search will continue to exist , and we’ll share a long-term plan soon.
Our largest vision, a cross-platform browser as an OS, is now closer than ever.
And as always, we’ll keep sharing openly with you as we go.
With that, here’s why we decided to enter an agreement to be acquired by Atlassian — to go faster than ever before — and the three questions we asked ourselves in making this decision.
Let’s get into it.
1. What does it mean to win.
At the simplest level: we did this to win.
Anyone building a technology company today knows that building the best product is no longer enough. Being the first to the field isn’t enough. Creativity and craft alone aren’t enough. Making Dia into the category‑winning AI browser demands distribution — not just scale but speed to match it. Atlassian brings both in spades.
Atlassian needs no introduction for their excellence in the workplace. They serve millions of people, millions of teams, and over 80% of the Fortune 500 — the kind of distribution engine that takes decades to build.
For two decades, they’ve built tools trusted by the world’s most important leaders and teams. People we respect and admire. They’re disciplined, profitable, and relentlessly long-term minded.
We chose Atlassian because their strengths complement our gaps.
And most importantly, like us, they believe the browser is becoming the new operating system.
In our very first YouTube video , in summer 2022, we shared our vision for the internet computer, a browser as an OS.
In short, this deal is about winning, together. And we are not ashamed of our unwavering desire to win. That’s why we’re unapologetic about teaming up with a partner who is world-class in the ways we are not. Bringing real advantages to Dia at the exact moment they matter most, just as the AI browser wars begin.
Together, Dia has a real shot at becoming central to the next great platform shift.
Together, we’re taking our seat at the table.
2. What are we sprinting towards.
Rocket fuel doesn’t mean much without direction.
Through this acquisition, Dia remains the future — this deal simply accelerates it. In the coming months, we will bring Dia to every platform faster than we could have previously imagined. Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, enterprise. We’ll invest even more in security, sync, and privacy. We will grow both our team and its ambitions.
And continuity matters, too. I will still be CEO of The Browser Company. Hursh will still be CTO. Our full team remains intact. Arc and Arc Search will continue. We’ll keep pushing the boundaries of building products with creativity and care. We’ll continue running the same kinds of bold storytelling experiments that have defined us. And we’ll keep striving to show, in big and small ways, that it’s possible to build both good and well. That you don’t have to compromise.
But honestly, you should expect more than continuity. You should expect acceleration.
In the immediate term, that means three things:
More focused. We’ve always believed the best of AI should be accessible to anyone. With Dia’s early learnings and Atlassian’s decades of expertise, we now know AI’s greatest impact will be in the work we do every day. What it has done for developers, it can and should do for everyone — from analysts to filmmakers. Everyone deserves to do their best work. And work starts in the browser.
More integrated. If you’ve been with us a while, you know we often say our tabs are now our apps. Some of our most impactful features, like Github Live Folders and Calendar Previews, came from simply making those apps better in the browser. Our latest prototypes streamline workflows you repeat dozens of times a day, every day — whether asking Dia about your email or calendar, or building Skills that connect apps with a sentence. Your tabs are your work, and we’ll be deepening integrations with the tools you use every day.
More protected. One of the most important things to our team: you will never be the product. Atlassian’s mission is in building and selling exceptional software for teams. That means our incentives are aligned with yours: protect your privacy, your time, your trust. Enterprise-grade security. No targeted ads. Ever. We’d rather a business model that bets on being so good your boss will want to foot the bill for more of it — any day of the week.
Even in it’s earliest stages, Dia has always been about rethinking what we can do when we see our apps and tools as tabs.
In short, this is our chance to finally deliver on the idea that brought us together from the start, with even more focus and direction: that the browser can be reimagined for how we work today. And hope to work in 2030.
We (still) believe the browser is the future of computing. And with Atlassian, we have the opportunity to make that vision real, for you and hopefully many millions more.
3. What are our non negotiables.
For us, we had three non negotiables: our team, our vision, and our values.
And while we weighed each one equally — our team remains independent, everyone will have a home at Atlassian, and our vision for Dia remains at the center — a large part of why we chose Atlassian is values. Now more than ever. Not the kind you hang on a wall, but the ones you see in the work itself.
For twenty years they’ve built software trusted by the world’s most important teams — consistently, profitably, and with the long view in mind. They believe in utility over noise, in building things that last. They believe in teams (it’s literally their stock ticker). Their founder, Mike, even offered to help us out during the SVB banking crisis, without us even asking. That’s who they are.
And that matters. Because what we build in these next few years — how we choose to bring AI into the world — will have far-reaching consequences. For our workday. For our jobs. For what our kids get educated to do. The partner we choose here shapes the version of that future we get. Or at least the one that we wake up every day to go build.
The founding idea of The Browser Company was simple: the browser is the future of computing. But underneath that was a deeper conviction: better is possible. We were a group of people who grew up loving the internet — but also felt how much it had let us down. Instead of connection, it gave us noise. Instead of creativity, it gave us endless notifications and busywork. Something had been taken from us, individually and collectively.
So for five years, while we built Arc, then Dia, there was always more at stake than just software. We wanted to prove that you could build tools that put people first again. Tools that gave back freedom, focus, and joy. This deal is fuel for that mission. It’s not about selling out. It’s about scaling up — so the vision we’ve been chasing doesn’t stay small, but reaches many, many millions.
With Atlassian, we get the resources to keep pushing, without compromising who we are or what we stand for.
“ Is this the future of Web Browsing ,” New York Times, July 2025. The work continues, there is a whole lot more to do.
So now, back to work.
Our job now? To deliver this vision, in a way that only we can.
And that means, more Dia. More useful, for more workflows, on more platforms, sooner. This new energy all starts next month — with our biggest Dia release since our beta.
It also means more Browser Company. More of the team that you’ve grown to know, the values we’ve tried to live up to, the feeling we hope to bring to software — remaining independent while growing alongside our new partners.
And finally, it means hiring aggressively in the coming months — especially in ML, AI engineering, design, GTM, context engineering, security, and PM roles — and looking for trial partners for our Teams offering. Please get in touch if either sounds of interest to you, I’m [email protected].
In our Internet Computer video, I shared that my personal mission was to realize our “internet computer” vision before my son turns ten. He turns five in a few months. We have our work cut out for us over the next five years, and we promise to never forget why we’re here.
In the meantime, we’re gonna get back to work. There’s a whole lot more to do.
Thank you for being here with us.
And we’ll see you on the internet,
— Josh & Hursh