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The OpenAI agreement to acquire the Windsurf viral coding startup for $ 3 billion It crumbled on FridayAccording to the edge.
In a shocking turn, Google Deepmind is now hiring the Windsurf CEO, Varun Mohan, co -founder Douglas Chen and some of the main researchers of the startup. A Google spokesman confirmed the hiring of Windsurf leaders in a statement to TechCrunch.
“We are excited to welcome some main coding talents of the Windsurf team to Google Deepmind to advance our work in agent coding,” said Google Chris Toppas spokesman in an email to Techcrunch.
In particular, Google is not taking a participation in Windsurf and will not have any control over the company. However, as part of the agreement, Google will have a non -exclusive license for some Windsurf technology, which means that the coding startup is still free to license its technology to others.
The agreement represents the latest inverse acquihire of the AI ecosystem, in which a company hires the best talent of a startup and license its technology, but does not directly acquire the company. Google made a similar treatment to hire character. The CEO of AI, Noam Shazeer, as well as Microsoft to hire Mustafa Suleyman. These agreements have helped several large technology companies to increase their position in the career of AI without drawing regulatory scrutiny.
“We are excited to join Google Deepmind along with some of the Windsurf team,” Mohan and Chen said in a statement to Techcrunch. “We are proud of what Windsurf has built in the last four years and we are excited to see what progress with his world class team and start the next phase.”
Until Friday, Windsurf Business Chief Jeff Wang, will assume the position of Interim CEO of the startup, announced in a Publish on social networks. The majority of the team of 250 people from Windsurf does not go to Google Deepmind and will continue to offer their AI coding tools for business clients.
According to the reports, the Operai agreement to acquire Windsurf has been an important point of tension in the contractual renegotiations of the ChatGPT manufacturer with Microsoft. Microsoft currently has access to all the intellectual property of Openai; However, Operai did not want his largest sponsor to also obtain Windsurf’s coding technology, according to previous reports of the Wall Street Journal.
Earlier Friday, Fortune reported that the The period of exclusivity in Openai’s offer to acquire Windsurf had expiredWhich means that Windsurf would now be free to explore other offers. It seems that Windsurf did not expect much.
In recent months, Windsurf has been one of the new most popular AI coding companies in the market. In April, the Rard of the startup reached around $ 100 million, TechCrunch reported, compared to approximately $ 40 million before. That rapid growth attracted suitors as OpenAi and apparently Google.
The addition of Mohan, Chen and other Windsurf leaders could significantly boost Google’s ability to build AI coding tools. In recent months, AI models have focused more on offering AI coding applications to attract developers. Anthrope has increased its income significantly in the back of its AI coding tool, Claude Code, while OpenAi continues to launch Codex, its AI coding agent, to software engineers.
Windsurf, on the other hand, is left in a much more uncertain position as a result of this agreement. Other new AI companies that have seen their contracted leaders have fought to maintain the same impulse they had in advance. AI scale lost customers as a result of its agreement with goalWhile the inflection had to completely pivot the AI of the consumer after its agreement with Microsoft.
Windsurf seems likely to suffer a similar destination.
