With a $2.4 billion agreement to license technology and hire top talent from AI coding startup Windsurf, Google has stepped up its efforts to dominate artificial intelligence. Varun Mohan, the CEO and co-founder of Windsurf,

In a very agile, clever, and surprising move, Google's parent company Alphabet (GOOGL) swept into the debris of OpenAI's bid for the AI coding startup Windsurf and came out with the latest and greatest of prize possessions: top talent.

Explore Cognition AI’s acquisition of Windsurf and its impact on AI, software development, and employee ownership in the tech industry.

As of Friday, Windsurf’s head of business, Jeff Wang, will take over as the startup’s interim CEO, he announced in a post on social media. Most of Windsurf’s 250 person team is not headed to Google DeepMind and will continue offering its AI coding tools for enterprise customers.

Alphabet's Google has hired several key staff members from AI code generation startup Windsurf, the companies announced on Friday, in a surprise move following an attempt by its rival OpenAI to acquire the startup.

The move is the culmination of a turbulent period for Windsurf, and indicates that agentic IDEs have become a new battleground.

In a surprising move, Cognition– the makers of autonomous coding tool Devin— acquired what was left of its rival Windsurf after the company’s cofounders Varun Mohan and Douglas Chen and other staff members were poached by Google DeepMind for $2.