Windsurf’s CEO goes to Google; OpenAI’s acquisition falls apart
OpenAI’s deal to acquire the viral AI coding startup windsurf for $ 3 billion fell apart on FridayAccording to the Verge.
In a shocking turn, Google now hires Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan, co-founder Douglas Chen, and some of the best researchers in the startup. A Google spokesperson confirmed the hiring of Windsurf leaders in a statement to WAN.
“We are delighted to welcome some top AI coding talent from Windsurf’s team to Google DeepMind to promote our work in agent coding,” said Google spokesperson Chris Pappas in an e -mail to WAN.
Google in particular does not take an interest in windsurf and has no control over the company. As part of the deal, however, Google will have a non -exclusive license for certain windsurf technology, although the AI -coding startup remains free to suffer its technology to others.
The deal represents the newest reverse Acquihire of the AI ecosystem, in which a company hires the top talent from a startup and reads its technology but does not reject the company. Google has previously held a similar deal as a rental character. CEO Noam Shazeer, just like Microsoft to hire Mustafa Suleyman. These deals have helped several large technology companies to increase their position in the AI race without signing regulatory research.
“We are pleased to get to Google DeepMind together with a part of the windsurf team,” Mohan and Chen said in a statement to WAN. “We are proud of what Windsurf has built over the past four years and are pleased to see it going ahead with their world -class team and to start the next phase.”
From Friday, Windsurf will take over the company head, Jeff Wang, the Interim -CEO of the startup, he announced in a Post on social media. The majority of the 250 -person team from Windsurf is not on the way to Google DeepMind and will continue to offer its AI coding aids for business customers.
The OpenAI deal to acquire Windsurf has reportedly been an important voltage point in the Chatgpt maker’s contract again with Microsoft. Microsoft currently has access to all intellectual property of OpenAI, but OpenAI did not want the largest backer to also get the AI coding technology from Windsurf, according to earlier reporting of the Wall Street Journal.
Earlier on Friday, Fortune reported that the Exclusivity period on OpenAi’s range to acquire Windsurf had expiredWhich means that windsurf would now be free to explore other offers. It seems that windsurf has not waited long.
In recent months, Windsurf has been one of the most popular AI coding startups on the market. In April, the Arring of the startup reached around $ 100 million, WAN reported previous, an increase of approximately $ 40 million months earlier. Those rapid growth attracted frees such as OpenAi, and apparently Google.
The addition of Mohan, Chen and other windsurf -leaders could considerably stimulate the ability of Google to build AI coding tools. In recent months, AI model providers have focused more on offering AI coding applications to seduce developers. Anthropic has considerably stimulated his income on the back of his AI coding tool, Claude Code, while OpenAi Codex continues to pitch, his AI coding agent, for software ingieurs.
Windsurf, on the other hand, lags in a much uncertain position as a result of this deal. Other AI startups that are reverse-acquiehed have difficulty retaining the same momentum that they had in advance. Scale AI lost customers as a result of the deal with metaWhile bending had to run completely from consumers AI after his deal with Microsft.
It seems likely that windsurf could suffer a similar fate.
