Windsurf CEO opens up about ‘very bleak’ mood before Cognition deal
Windsurf 首席执行官谈及 Cognition 交易前的“非常黯淡”的心情

Days after AI coding startup Windsurf announced that it’s being acquired by Cognition, Windsurf exec Jeff Wang took to X to offer more details about the drama and uncertainty around the deal.
在人工智能编码初创公司 Windsurf 宣布将被 Cognition 收购几天后，Windsurf 的高管 Jeff Wang 在 X（前身为 Twitter）上分享了更多关于此次交易的曲折和不确定性。

Windsurf was previously reported to be in acquisition talks with OpenAI, but that deal fell apart, with Google DeepMind instead hiring the startup’s CEO Varun Mohan, co-founder Douglas Chen, and some of its top researchers. Google would reportedly license Windsurf’s technology as part of the $2.4 billion deal — but not take an equity stake in the company.
此前有报道称 Windsurf 曾与 OpenAI 进行收购谈判，但该交易未能达成。随后，据称谷歌 DeepMind 以 24 亿美元的价格聘用了 Windsurf 的首席执行官 Varun Mohan、联合创始人 Douglas Chen 以及一些顶尖研究人员。据报道，谷歌将在交易中获得 Windsurf 技术的使用许可，但不持有该公司股份。

This looked like the latest in the trend of “reverse acqui-hires,” in which large tech companies seek to avoid antitrust scrutiny by hiring key startup team members and licensing their technology, rather than acquiring startups outright.
这似乎是“反向收购人才”趋势的最新案例。在这种模式下，大型科技公司为了规避反垄断审查，会选择聘用初创公司的核心团队成员并获得其技术使用许可，而不是直接收购初创公司。

But what happens to the startups and the employees who get left behind? As we discussed on the latest episode of Equity, one startup founder compared the departing Windsurf executives to a captain abandoning his crew on a sinking ship. 
但那些被留下的初创公司和员工又会怎样呢？正如我们在最新一期 Equity 播客中讨论的那样，一位初创公司创始人将 Windsurf 离职的高管比作船长抛弃船员，独自逃离沉船。

Wang, who had been Windsurf’s head of business, became the company’s interim CEO after Mohan’s departure. In his post on X, he offered some sympathy to Mohan and Chen, who he described as “great founders” in a situation that “must have been difficult for them as well.” 
王曾担任 Windsurf 的业务主管，在 Mohan 离职后成为公司的临时 CEO。他在 X 上发帖，对 Mohan 和 Chen 表示同情，称他们是“伟大的创始人”，并表示这种情况“对他们来说肯定也很艰难”。

Still, Wang recounted an all-hands meeting on Friday, June 11, where most team members were expecting to hear about the OpenAI acquisition. Instead, he had to share the news about the Google deal and resulting departures.
尽管如此，王回忆了 6 月 11 日星期五的一次全员会议，当时大多数团队成员都期望听到关于 OpenAI 收购的消息。然而，他却不得不分享关于谷歌交易以及随之而来的人员离职的消息。

“The mood was very bleak,” Wang said. “Some people were upset about financial outcomes or colleagues leaving, while others were worried about the future. A few were in tears, and the Q&A had been understandably hostile.”
“当时气氛非常低迷，”王说。“有些人对财务结果或同事离职感到不满，而另一些人则对未来感到担忧。有几个人在哭，问答环节也确实充满了敌意。”

In Wang’s view, although the company “had lost some great people and taken a serious blow to morale,” it still had “all of our IP, product, and strong talent including an excellent [go-to-market] machine.” So Windsurf could still try to raise more money, sell, or just keep going.
在王看来，尽管公司“失去了一些优秀人才，士气受到严重打击”，但它仍然“拥有我们所有的知识产权、产品以及包括优秀市场推广团队在内的强大人才”。因此，Windsurf 仍然可以尝试筹集更多资金、出售公司，或者继续运营下去。

That evening, however, Wang heard from Cognition executives Scott Wu and Russell Kaplan, and he said Windsurf leadership “took the Cognition approach very seriously from the start and launched right into negotiations.” In his telling, what followed was a frantic weekend of discussions with Cognition, while considering inbound interest from other potential acquirers and meeting with Windsurf’s remaining engineers to convince them not to leave. (And as all that was happening, “the timeline was exploding with memes and commentary.”)
然而，当晚王（Wang）接到了 Cognition 高管 Scott Wu 和 Russell Kaplan 的消息，他说 Windsurf 的领导层“从一开始就非常认真地对待 Cognition 的提议，并立即开始了谈判”。据他所述，接下来是一个与 Cognition 紧张的周末讨论，期间还要考虑其他潜在收购方的意向，并与 Windsurf 剩余的工程师会面，说服他们不要离开。（而这一切发生的同时，“时间线充斥着各种表情包和评论。”）

The two companies are a good fit, Wang argued, in part because of complementary teams.
王认为，两家公司非常契合，部分原因在于团队的互补性。

“While [Cognition] had overinvested in engineering, they had frankly underinvested in GTM and Marketing, and our teams in those functions are nothing short of world class,” he said. “On the other hand, we now were missing a Core Engineering team, and there’s no better group of AI engineers than the lineup Cognition has assembled.”
“虽然[Cognition]在工程方面投入过多，但坦白说，他们在市场推广和营销方面投入不足，而我们在这两个职能部门的团队堪称世界一流，”他说。“另一方面，我们现在缺少核心工程团队，而 Cognition 组建的 AI 工程师阵容是无与伦比的。”

Plus, Wang said he and Wu (pictured together above) were aligned on the need to “take care of all Windsurf employees.”
此外，王还表示，他和吴（两人合影如上）都认为有必要“照顾好 Windsurf 的所有员工”。

“That resulted in a key part of the deal: structuring it to give a payout to every employee, to waive all cliffs, and to accelerate all vesting for Windsurf equity,” he said.
“这促成了交易的一个关键部分：将其结构化，向每位员工支付报酬，免除所有等待期，并加速 Windsurf 股权的所有归属期，”他说。

The acquisition agreement was apparently signed at 9:30 am on Monday morning, announced to the team shortly afterwards at another all-hands, then announced to the public shortly after that.
收购协议据称于周一上午 9:30 签署，随后在另一次全体会议上向团队宣布，紧接着又 向公众宣布 。

In an interview with Bloomberg, Wang described that Friday all-hands as “probably the worst day of 250 people’s lives,” followed Monday by “probably the best day.”
王在接受《彭博社》采访时表示，那个周五的全员大会“可能是 250 位员工一生中最糟糕的一天”，而周一则是“可能是最好的一天”。