Days after AI coding Startup Windsurf announced that it purchased Cognition, Windsurf Exec Jeff Wang took x Provides more information about drama and uncertainty around the store.
Windsurf was previously reported to be in procurement negotiations with Openai, but the trade broke down when Google Deepmind instead hired Varun Mohan, Douglas Chen, the founder of the startup, and Douglas Chen, the founder of some of its best researchers. Google announced that Windsurf technology as part of a $ 2.4 billion store – but would not take share capital from the company.
This seemed like the latest “reverse acquisition” trend in which large technology companies sought to avoid control of competition law by hiring members of the key business group and by licensing their technology instead of getting startup companies directly.
But what happens to startup businesses and employees who remain? As we discussed the last episode of capital, one startup founder compared the outgoing Windsurf leaders to the captain, who rejected his crew on a sinking ship.
Wang, who had been a business manager for Windsurf, became a temporary company after the departure of Mohan. In his role, he offered sympathy for Mohan and Chen, which he described as “big founders” in a situation that “must have been difficult for them as well.”
Still, Wang announced the All Hands meeting on Friday, June 11, where most team members expected to hear about Openai. Instead, he had to share the news of the Google Agreement and the resulting output.
“The atmosphere was very gloomy,” Wang said. “Some people were shocked by the removal of financial results or colleagues, while others were concerned about the future. A few were in tears and Q&A was understandably hostile.”
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In Wang’s opinion, even though the company “had lost some great people and took a serious attack on morals”, it still had “all IP, our products and strong abilities, including excellent (going to the market) machine”. So Windsurf could still try to raise more money, sell or just continue.
That night, however, Wang heard Scott Wu and Russell Kaplan, and he said that during his report, a passionate weekend was followed in cognition, taking into account the incoming interest and meeting of other potential acquisitions with Windsurf’s remaining engineers to convince them. (And like everything happened, “The timeline exploded with memes and comments.”
Both companies agreed well, Wang claimed partly due to complementary groups.
“Although (cognition) had invested technology, they had frankly subjugated GTM and marketing, and the teams in these tasks are only world -class,” he said. “On the other hand, we now lacked a core technology group, and there is no better group of AI engineers than the configuration coincidence is assembled.”
In addition, Wang said he and Wu (in the picture above) were in line with the need to “take care of all the winds”.
“It led to the central part of the trade: it was structured to pay every employee, give up all the cliffs, and accelerate all the capital of the sailboat village,” he said.
The procurement agreement was apparently signed on Monday morning at 9.30am, was notified to the team shortly thereafter in each hand, then announced to the public shortly after.
Internal- Interview with BloombergOn Friday, Wang described all hands “probably on the worst day of the 250 people,” followed by “probably the best day” on Monday.