Sunset in eight bits

Mistral's mark is an M assembled from square blocks, painted in bands from yellow to red. It looks like it was lifted from a 1980s arcade cabinet or a home computer boot screen.

That nostalgia is a sharp move for a company whose pitch is openness and independence. It says hacker, not hyperscaler. It also makes Mistral the only big lab whose logo you could stitch on a jacket.

The risk is that retro is a costume. For now it works because nobody else in the category is wearing it.