Sundar Pichai-Led Google Pips OpenAI To Hire AI Startup Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan And Staff For $2.4 Billion

Amid the AI poaching war between Meta and OpenAI, Sundar Pichai-led Google has paid $2.4 billion to Windsurf AI CEO and team for a non-exclusive license to certain technology. The Varun Mohan-led startup was earlier in talks with Sam Altman’s OpenAI for a $3 billion acquisition deal. Setback for the ChatGPT maker that has lost quite a few talents to Mark Zuckerberg’s poaching for Meta Superintelligence Lab.

Google DeepMind’s CTO Koray Kavukcuoglo took to X/Twitter and stated that Windsurf AI’s co-founders Varun Mohan and Douglas Chen have joined Alphabet’s AI subsidiary “to help advance (Google’s) work in agentic coding in Gemini.”

Sharing the same, co-founder and CEO of Google DeepMind and Nobel Laureate Demis Hassabis welcomed the duo and the rest of the engineers from Windsurf AI. He wrote, “Excited to be working with them to turbocharge our Gemini efforts on coding agents, tool use, and much more.”

Very excited to share that @windsurf_ai co-founders @_mohansolo & Douglas Chen, and some of their talented team have joined @GoogleDeepMind to help advance our work in agentic coding in Gemini. Welcome to our new team mates from Windsurf! https://t.co/obSwzXy6t5
— koray kavukcuoglu (@koraykv) July 11, 2025

Thrilled to welcome @windsurf_ai founders @_mohansolo & Douglas Chen and some of the brilliant Windsurf eng team to @GoogleDeepMind. Excited to be working with them to turbocharge our Gemini efforts on coding agents, tool use and much more. Great to have you on board! https://t.co/7LZ6MtO2p4
— Demis Hassabis (@demishassabis) July 11, 2025

Scoop: OpenAI’s Windsurf deal is off. The startup’s CEO, co-founder & some R&D team members are all going to Google DeepMind to support its AI efforts and work on Gemini.https://t.co/0OD8u16jMO
— Hayden Field (@haydenfield) July 11, 2025

BREAKING: OpenAI’s acquisition of Windsurf is off.

CEO and other members of the team are headed to Google DeepMind.

Source: The Verge pic.twitter.com/xyxHsq8Qs2
— TBPN (@tbpn) July 11, 2025

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Here’s how the internet is reacting to the news. One user jibed, “Congrats! Will it be Deepsurf or Windmind?” Another wrote, “Crazy that y’all bought the windsurf CEO for half a Jony.” Yet another remarked, “Let’s bring back Silicon Valley immediately. We have 10 seasons written up already.”

crazy that yall bought the windsurf ceo for half a jony
— conor brennan-burke (@conor_ai) July 12, 2025

pic.twitter.com/idvBLXIadV
— Live 📿 (@LiveMatrixCode) July 11, 2025

Congrats! Will it be Deepsurf or Windmind? 👀
— TestingCatalog News 🗞 (@testingcatalog) July 11, 2025

Let’s bring back Silicon Valley immediately. We have 10 seasons written up already.
— Joy Guo (@Joyyguo) July 11, 2025

POV: You just told Sam you’re rather joining Google pic.twitter.com/s2RDKWQQOK
— piet (@piet_dev) July 11, 2025

pic.twitter.com/yxmOiAFTWm
— Sucheth Jabagere (@Suchethyj) July 11, 2025

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