OpenAI’s Windsurf deal is off — and Windsurf’s CEO is going to Google

Hayden Field, for The Verge:

OpenAI’s deal to buy Windsurf is off, and Google will instead hire Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan, cofounder Douglas Chen, and some of Windsurf’s R&D employees and bring them onto the Google DeepMind team, Google and Windsurf announced Friday.

Mohan and the Windsurf employees will focus on agentic coding efforts at Google DeepMind and work largely on Gemini. Google will not have any control over nor a stake in Windsurf, but it will take a non-exclusive license to some of Windsurf’s technology.

Effective immediately, Jeff Wang, Windsurf’s head of business, has become interim CEO, and Graham Moreno, its VP of global sales, will be Windsurf’s new president.

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“We are excited to be joining Google DeepMind along with some of the Windsurf team,” Mohan and Chen said in a statement. “We are proud of what Windsurf has built over the last four years and are excited to see it move forward with their world class team and kick-start the next phase.”

Google didn’t share how much it was paying to bring on the team. OpenAI was previously reported to be buying Windsurf for $3 billion.

Never a good sign when the CEO and several other key staff start to abandon a startup. How long before Windsurf is a thing of the past?