DDoS

July 14, 2025
Windsurf is, to put it bluntly, an AI-powered IDE. Its CEO is a guy called Varun Mohan, who co-founded Windsurf along with another guy, Douglas Chen. Windsurf was in talks with OpenAI recently, another AI company, that wanted to buy out Windsurf at a valuation of around $3 billion. Those talks fell through, and now Windsurf is being bought out by a different AI company, Cognition, for a yet-undisclosed amount. All well and good, you might say, but there's a small caveat. Windsurf's aforementioned co-founders, along with other top staff, have already been poached by Google a few days prior, in a $2.4 billion deal that also includes license fees for Windsurf.

To kind of understand this, one must briefly explain the concept of an "acquihire", which has become all too commonplace. Let's assume you're a top mind in your field, and I want to hire you. You know that I know that if I hire you, you will add let's say $1 billion value to my company. This money is a mix of investor speculation (investors love you and know you can deliver) and real-world results (you will deliver instead of lazing around because part of your compensation is in company stock). You therefore ask for a $500 million hire package. I would love to do that, but it's impossible for me to just hire someone for $500 million - what will the rest of my workers say, after all? Will they start shopping around or asking for raises too? So I tell you, "you should start a start-up, your idea sounds cool" and when you do, I buy your start-up (and hire you) at a valuation of $500 million plus some change. Everyone's happy and this generally skirts the anti-trust regulation. Except everyone isn't happy, because, well, anti-trust regulators are aware that you might be trying to skirt anti-trust regulations. And Google especially is currently very wary of getting on the bad side of anti-trust regulators.

So, now what? Well, this is mere speculation on yours truly, but since Google is merely licensing the Windsurf codebase (and hiring a few people and throwing the venture capital investors of windsurf a bone as well), there is no real issue. Google is actually getting 0% of Windsurf (as a company) and the licensing deal is non-exclusive. But it is getting what is widely considered the top talent as part of that deal. And Cognition is getting the rest, in a more straightforward acquisition.

The troupe of Hackers viewing the Windsurf acquisition by Cognition is confused. Surely the fundamentals make no sense, say some - AI is a bubble, point out others. What if you build an AI engineer that builds a better Windsurf? Truly, the mind of the Hacker operates outside the box and offers fresh insights every day. The words "dot com" appear in many a comment, in a semi-obscure reference to the "dot com bubble", a stock market phenomenon that the elder Hackers recall sometimes. Amongst the doom and gloom, though, a few rays of light shine through, by other Hackers that try to explain why it's really, not a bubble for their favorite AI agents. The author knows that for all the talk of Dead Internet Theory, only real Hackers could be writing such theses on the internet.