AI-encoding startup Windsurf announced it has been recognized for a few days after Windsurf Exec Jeff Wang Go to X Provide more details on the drama and uncertainty of the deal.
Windsurf reportedly negotiated an acquisition with OpenAI, but the deal collapsed, and Google DeepMind hired Varun Mohan, the startup’s CEO, co-founder Douglas Chen, and some of its top researchers. Google will report that it will license Windsurf’s technology as part of a $2.4 billion deal, but will not charge the company’s equity.
This looks like the latest trend in the “anti-acquisition” trend where large tech companies try to avoid antitrust scrutiny by hiring key entrepreneurial team members and licensing their technology instead of buying startups directly.
But what happens to lagging startups and employees? As we discuss in the latest Fair , a startup founder will leave Wind Vessel executive with a captain abandoning the crew on the sinking ship.
Wang, formerly head of business at Windsurf, became the company’s interim CEO after Mohan left. In his post on X, he expressed sympathy for Mohan and Chen, who he described as “the great founders” and “must be hard for them, too.”
Still, Wang talked about a full-hand meeting on Friday, June 11, and most team members want to hear about the OpenAI acquisition. Instead, he had to share news about Google transactions and the departure events that led to it.
“The mood is very bleak,” Wang said. “Some people are concerned about financial results or colleagues leaving, while others are worried about the future. Some people cry and the Q&A is hostile.”
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Wang believes that while the company “lost some great people and severely hit morale”, it still has “all our IP, products and strong talent, including a great (on-market) machine”. So, winding and twists can still try to raise more money, sell or move on.
However, that night, Wang heard the voices of cognitive executives Scott Wu and Russell Kaplan, who said that winding leadership “takes cognitive approach very seriously from the start and begins negotiations.” In his account, a crazy weekend followed by a discussion of cognition and cognition, while considering inbound interests of other potential acquirers and meeting with the remaining engineers at Windsurf to convince them not to leave. (And everything that happened, “the schedule exploded in memes and comments.”)
Wang believes that the two companies are very suitable, partly because of the complementary team.
“Although (cognitive) overinvestment in engineering, frankly, they underinvest in GTM and marketing, and the teams we work on these functions are nothing more than world-class,” he said. “On the other hand, we are now missing a core engineering team, and there is no better AI engineer than lineup cognitive assembly.”
In addition, Wang said that he and Wu (together with the picture above) had to “take care of all the surfing employees.”
“This leads to a key part of the deal: building it to provide payments for every employee to abandon all cliffs and accelerate all attributions to Windsurf Equity,” he said.
The acquisition agreement was clearly signed at 9:30 am on Monday, announced to the team shortly thereafter and, shortly thereafter, to the public.
exist Bloomberg interviewWang described Friday’s full hand as “probably the worst day of life for 250 people” and then Monday was “probably the best day.”
