Overview
- Interim CEO Jeff Wang led weekend negotiations that produced a letter of intent Friday and a finalized acquisition by Monday morning.
- Cognition’s purchase guarantees payouts for every Windsurf employee, voids vesting cliffs and accelerates equity vesting for existing shares.
- Co-founders Varun Mohan and Douglas Chen departed to Google DeepMind under a $2.4 billion reverse acqui-hire licensing deal without transferring company equity.
- Industry players are increasingly using licensing and reverse acqui-hire structures to avoid regulatory hurdles and swiftly secure AI talent and technology.
- Investors and executives warn that these split-deal frameworks could undermine the Silicon Valley social contract and chill future startup hiring incentives.