Google hires Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan and team amid AI talent war; skips $3billion OpenAI deal

On Friday, Google announced it hired Varun Mohan, co-founder and CEO of AI coding startup Windsurf. This move is part of a big battle between tech companies trying to grab the best AI talent. Google is not buying Windsurf or investing in it. Instead, it will license some of its technology, but non-exclusively, meaning Windsurf can still share it with others, according to the report by CNBC.

Google is also hiring some senior research and development staff from Windsurf, not just the CEO. A Google spokesperson said the company is excited to add talent from Windsurf to Google DeepMind to help with agentic coding, which helps software developers using Gemini tools, as per the reports.

Other companies also want AI talent

Windsurf was earlier in talks with OpenAI about a possible $3 billion acquisition, but the deal didn’t happen.OpenAI didn’t comment when asked about this new deal with Google. This deal increases the intense competition in AI hiring between big tech firms, as mentioned in the report by CNBC.


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Recently, Meta, Facebook’s parent company, gave big job offers to some OpenAI staff and even hired Alexandr Wang, founder of Scale AI, to lead their AI strategy. Meta invested $14.3 billion into his startup. Douglas Chen, another Windsurf co-founder, is also joining Google as part of this deal, as per the reports.

Jeff Wang, who was head of business at Windsurf for 2 years, is now the interim CEO.He said that most of Windsurf’s team will stay at the company and continue building their product to help businesses, as per the reports.

Vibe coding is getting popular

Windsurf got popular in 2024 for its work in “vibe coding”, which is about using new AI tools to write code easily.This trend is being used by both developers and beginners, which helped increase Windsurf’s revenue, according to the report by CNBC.

Other companies like Cursor, another coding AI startup, are also gaining popularity. OpenAI also considered buying Cursor. Because of all this interest, investors are now giving higher valuations to such AI startups. Google has done similar hiring moves before, like last year with Character.AI, as per the reports.

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Other tech giants are doing the same, Amazon hired AI people via its Adept deal, and Microsoft did it through its Inflection deal.

Microsoft is now offering “agent mode” in Visual Studio Code to support vibe coding. In April, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said 30% of Microsoft’s code is now written by AI. The Google-Windsurf deal was first reported by The Verge earlier on Friday, as per the report by CNBC.

FAQs

Q1. Did Google buy Windsurf?
No, Google only hired Windsurf’s CEO and some staff and licensed some of its technology.

Q2. Why is Windsurf in the news with Google and OpenAI?
Windsurf was in talks for a $3B deal with OpenAI but instead made a talent and tech deal with Google.