In a surprising move, Google has announced an agreement to bring in Varun Mohan, co-founder and CEO of artificial intelligence coding startup Windsurf AI.
As part of the deal, the Alphabet-owned firm will also employ other senior Windsurf research and development employees.
A report suggested that Google will not invest in Windsurf, but the search giant will take a nonexclusive license to specific technology.
Windsurf remains free to license its technology to others.
Google is reportedly paying $2.4 billion in licensing fees and for compensation.
The deal between Alphabet-owned Google and Windsurf AI follows the AI coding startup's discussions of a $3 billion acquisition deal with OpenAI, as reported by CNBC in April.
Taking to X (formerly Twitter), Jeff Wang, the startup’s new interim CEO, stated, "Under Google’s agreement, Varun Mohan, the chief executive of Windsurf, and Douglas Chen, another co-founder, will be part of Google DeepMind."
Wang continued, “Most of Windsurf’s world-class team will continue to build the Windsurf product to maximise its impact in the enterprise.”
Notably, this isn’t the first time Google has hired employees out of a startup. Previously, the company hired people from Character.AI.
On Friday, the Google-Windsurf deal was reported earlier by The Verge.
