Windsurf CEO opens up about ‘very bleak’ mood before Cognition deal
风帆冲浪公司首席执行官谈及与 Cognition 交易前“非常严峻”的局面

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.
人工智能编程初创公司 Windsurf 宣布被 Cognition 收购数日后，Windsurf 高管 Jeff Wang 在 X 平台发文，进一步披露了这笔交易背后的戏剧性情节和不确定性。

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.
风帆冲浪（Windsurf）此前曾被报道与 OpenAI 处于收购谈判阶段，但该交易最终破裂。随后，谷歌旗下 DeepMind 收购了该初创公司的首席执行官瓦伦·莫汉（Varun Mohan）、联合创始人道格拉斯·陈（Douglas Chen）以及部分顶尖研究人员。据报道，谷歌将作为 24 亿美元交易的一部分，获得风帆冲浪的技术许可——但不会收购该公司股权。

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.
这看起来像是“反向收购”趋势的最新案例，即大型科技公司为了避免反垄断审查，选择聘请初创公司核心团队成员并授权其技术，而非直接收购初创公司。

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. 
但那些被抛在后面的初创公司和员工又会怎样呢？正如我们在《Equity》最新一期节目中讨论的那样，一位初创公司创始人将离开 Windsurf 的高管比作在沉船上弃船的船长。

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，曾担任风帆冲浪公司（Windsurf）的业务负责人，在莫汉离职后成为该公司临时首席执行官。他在 X 平台上发文，对莫汉和陈表示同情，称他们是“伟大的创始人”，并表示“这对他们来说也一定是个艰难的处境。”

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.
然而，王仍回忆起 6 月 11 日（星期五）的一次全体会议，当时大多数团队成员都期待听到关于 OpenAI 收购的消息。然而，他不得不分享关于与谷歌达成协议以及随之而来的离职消息。

“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.”
“气氛非常低落，”王说，“有些人对财务结果或同事离职感到不满，另一些人则对未来感到担忧。有几个人甚至流下了眼泪，问答环节也变得不可避免地充满敌意。”

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.
在王的观点中，尽管公司“失去了部分优秀人才，士气遭受重创”，但仍拥有“全部知识产权、产品以及包括卓越的[市场拓展]团队在内的强大人才储备”。因此，Windsurf 仍可尝试继续融资、出售公司，或坚持运营下去。

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，王某从 Cognition 高管 Scott Wu 和 Russell Kaplan 处获悉相关情况，并表示 Windsurf 管理层“自始至终高度重视 Cognition 的方案，并立即展开谈判”。据他所述，随后是一个紧张的周末，与 Cognition 进行密集讨论的同时，还要应对其他潜在收购方的意向，并会见 Windsurf 剩余工程师以说服他们留任。（而在此期间，“时间线被各种 memes 和评论刷屏。”）

The two companies are a good fit, Wang argued, in part because of complementary teams.
王认为，两家公司是理想的合作伙伴，部分原因在于双方团队具有互补性。

“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.”
“尽管[Cognition]在工程方面投入过多，但在 GTM 和营销方面却明显投入不足，而我们在这些领域的团队堪称世界一流，”他表示。“另一方面，我们目前缺乏核心工程团队，而 Cognition 所组建的 AI 工程师团队堪称业界顶尖。”

Plus, Wang said he and Wu (pictured together above) were aligned on the need to “take care of all Windsurf employees.”
此外，王表示，他和吴（上图两人合影）在“照顾所有风帆冲浪员工”的问题上意见一致。

“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.
“这导致了交易的关键部分：将交易结构设计为向每位员工发放奖金、豁免所有递延支付条款，并加速所有 Windsurf 股权的归属，”他说道。

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.
收购协议显然于周一上午 9:30 签署，随后在另一场全体会议上向团队宣布，之后不久便向公众宣布 。

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.”
在与彭博社的采访中，王描述了上周五的全员会议是“可能是250人一生中最糟糕的一天”，而周一则“可能是最好的一天”。