Windsurf CEO opens up about ‘very bleak’ mood before Cognition deal
Windsurf CEO 坦言：与 Cognition 达成交易前，公司氛围“一度非常惨淡”

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 AI 编程初创公司 Windsurf 宣布被 Cognition 收购几天后，其高管 Jeff Wang 在 X 平台上发文，披露了这笔交易背后更多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.
此前有报道称，Windsurf 曾与 OpenAI 洽谈收购事宜，但交易最终告吹。随后，谷歌 DeepMind 反而聘请了该公司的 CEO Varun Mohan、联合创始人 Douglas Chen 以及部分顶尖研究员。据称，谷歌将在一项价值 24 亿美元的交易中获得 Windsurf 的技术授权，但不会持有其股权。

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“反向人才收购”新趋势下的又一案例——大型科技公司为了规避反垄断审查，不再直接收购初创公司，而是选择雇佣其核心团队成员并获取技术许可。

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该何去何从呢？正如我们在最新一期的 Equity 播客中讨论的那样，一位创业公司的创始人将 Windsurf 离职的高管们比作在沉船之际弃船员而去的船长。

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.” 
Mohan 离职后，原为 Windsurf 业务负责人的 Wang 出任公司临时 CEO。他在 X 上发文，对 Mohan 和 Chen 表示了些许同情，称他们是“了不起的创始人”，并表示当时的情况“对他们来说也一定很艰难”。

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，Wang 还是回忆起 6 月 11 日（周五）召开的一次全员大会。当时，大多数团队成员都以为会听到公司被 OpenAI 收购的消息，结果他却不得不宣布公司与谷歌达成协议以及随之而来的人员离职。

“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.”
“当时的气氛非常沉重，”Wang 说道，“有些人因为经济损失或同事离职而感到沮丧，也有些人对公司的未来忧心忡忡。有几个人当场就哭了，问答环节的气氛也变得充满敌意，这完全可以理解。”

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“痛失了几位优秀人才，士气也遭受了重创”，但他们仍然拥有“全部的知识产权、产品和强大的人才团队，包括一个出色的市场推广（GTM）机器”。因此，Windsurf 仍然可以尝试继续融资、寻求出售，或者干脆坚持下去。

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，就在那天晚上，王接到了 Cognition 公司高管 Scott Wu 和 Russell Kaplan 的电话。他表示，Windsurf 的领导层“从一开始就非常认真地对待 Cognition 抛出的橄榄枝，并立即投入了谈判”。据他描述，接下来是一个疯狂的周末，他们一边与 Cognition 紧张地讨论，一边还要考虑其他潜在收购方的意向，同时还要与公司剩下的工程师开会，说服他们不要离开。（而就在这一切发生的同时，“社交媒体上早已是各种梗图和评论满天飞了。”）

The two companies are a good fit, Wang argued, in part because of complementary teams.
王认为，两家公司堪称天作之合，团队的互补性是原因之一。

“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.”
他表示：“坦白说，Cognition 在工程方面投入过剩，但在市场推广（GTM）和营销方面却投入不足，而我们在这两个领域的团队堪称世界一流。另一方面，我们当时正缺一个核心工程团队，而 Cognition 麾下的 AI 工程师阵容，无人能出其右。”

Plus, Wang said he and Wu (pictured together above) were aligned on the need to “take care of all Windsurf employees.”
此外，Wang 还表示，他和 Wu（见上图合影）在“妥善安顿好 Windsurf 所有员工”这件事上想法一致。

“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.
他说：“这促成了交易的一个关键部分：调整交易结构，为每位员工提供一笔补偿金，取消所有期权悬崖期，并加速所有 Windsurf 股权的兑现。”

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.
据悉，收购协议于周一早上 9:30 签署，随后在另一次全员会议上向团队宣布，紧接着便向公众公开了这一消息。

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.”
在接受彭博社采访时，Wang 形容那个周五的全员大会“大概是 250 人这辈子最黑暗的一天”，而紧接着的周一又成了“大概是最好的一天”。