According to Theeverge, on Friday, Google announced jointly with the initials of AI, Windsurf: OpenAI blew up the buyout of Windsurf. As an alternative, Google will hire the co-founder and CEO of Windsurf, Varun Mohan, another co-founder, Douglas Chen, and part of the Windsurf ‘ s research and development team, and integrate it into the Google DeepMind team.
According to the announcement, team members from Mohan and Windsurf joining Google will focus on Google DeepMind ‘ s smart body programming project and will work mainly on the Gemini model. Google will not gain control or equity over Windsurf, but will receive a non-exclusive licence for part of Windsurf ‘ s technology. Windsurf also announced management changes: Jeff Wang, Chief of Operations, immediately took over as interim CEO, while Graham Moreno, Vice-President of Global Marketing, became CEO of the company.
Google spokesman Chris Pappas said to the media: “Gemini is one of the best models of the day, and we continue to invest in enhancing its high-level abilities towards developers. We are very pleased to welcome the top AI programmer from the Windsurf team to Google DeepMind to advance our work in the area of intelligent body programming.” In a statement, Mohan and Chen said, “We and some of the Windsurf team are happy to join Google DeepMind. We are proud of the achievements of Windsurf over the past four years and look forward to seeing his world-class team lead the company forward and start a new chapter.”
Google did not disclose the costs incurred to solicit the team. However, it has been reported that the Google parent company Alphabet has reached an agreement to obtain a non-exclusive licence for the technology of the artificial intelligence programmer Windsurf at approximately $2.4 billion. As previously reported, OpenAI plans to buy Windsurf at $3 billion. The deal marked the failure of OpenAI ‘ s previous plan to buy Windsurf at $3 billion because of the disagreement between OpenAI and Microsoft, the largest investor, on intellectual property sharing. Google does not have a controlling or equity interest in Windsurf, which will continue to operate independently, and Jeff Wang as interim CEO and Graham Moreno as Managing Director, focusing on business client innovation.
