 The long-standing view on the origin of eukaryotes is: A. That they arose from a merger of a bacterium and an archaeon; and B. That this unique lineage flourished and carved out its own “domain” space in phylogeny (see  Table 1).  Being a domain is at least partly justified by the diversity and complexity of the organisms that comprise eukaryotes (Butterfield 2014): plants, animals, fungi and protists. Recently, however, discoveries have been made of a diverse group of Archaea, known as the Asgard clade. Theoretically important eukaryotic features have been inferred from their genes (Eme et al. 2017). These gene-based inferences indicate that eukaryotes fit firmly within the domain of Archaea, where they form a rather morphologically heterogeneous group, but nevertheless remain subordinated to their basic archaeal identity (Williams et al. 2020). The same inferences also suggest that eukaryotes originated gradually, driven by gene diversification of various sorts (including gene transfers), and that the endosymbiotic acquisition of the bacterium that became the mitochondrion possibly occurred late in the evolutionary story (Pittis &amp; Gabaldón 2016). In other words, this “transition” is not primarily driven by a transformation in individuality, and is first and foremost a story about diversification within Archaea. Many details are still to be divulged about the extant relatives of the group of Archaea closest to eukaryotes, but a clear message is already available: understanding the origin of eukaryotes requires understanding the evolution of Archaea.