Cloudflare’s 2025 Annual Founders’ Letter

Matthew Prince, Michelle Zatlyn · 21 Sept 2025

Matthew Prince, Michelle Zatlyn did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
The future will increasingly be answers, not searches, whether people like it or not.

Their wordsWhether you like it or not, the future will increasingly be answers not searches.
Our reading
An AI agent’s visit to a site should be governed by different rules than a human’s visit.

Their wordsA visit from an agent isn’t the same as a visit from a human and therefore should have different rules of the road.
Our reading
The answer to content being free for some AI companies and paid for by others is not that no one pays, but that everyone who benefits from the ecosystem contributes back in proportion to their size.
Mental modelCollective action problems

Their wordsBut it’s also critical to realize that the right solution to that current conundrum isn’t that no one pays, it’s that, new or old, everyone who benefits from the ecosystem should contribute back to it based on their relative size.

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The other pieces are the ones whose claims are worded most like this one's. That measures language, not agreement: they may argue the opposite.