The story of Varun Mohan, former co-founder and CEO of Windsurf, an AI startup, previously known as Codeium, is one of the most vivid in the rapidly changing field of artificial intelligence. Particularly now, as he left Windsurf along with another co-founder, Douglas Chen to join Google’s journey in enhancing its AI coding tools / generation capabilities, AI developer tools and its Gemini AI project. Prior to joining Google, Varun built a strong career in the tech world, and also turned Windsurf into an AI-powered unicorn relied upon by hundreds of thousands of developers and dozens of Fortune 500 firms in just three and a half years since its founding. These AI talent acquisitions reflect the latest trend known as, ‘acquihire’, among the big tech circle. Here is a deep dive into Varun’s journey, his strategies, decisions that drove Windsurf’s booming growth and a bit on the latest trend in the big tech community called, ‘acquihire’.

Strong Background in Tech

Indian-born Varun Mohan grew up in Sunnyvale, California, with parents who immigrated from India. He went to The Harker School in San Jose and obtained a Bachelor of Engineering and Master of Engineering degree in Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He did engineering internships at some of Silicon Valley's most renowned companies and later helped build Quora's data infrastructure as a software engineering intern in 2016.He also contributed to the development of S3 storage infrastructure while he was employed at Cloudian Inc. He then worked as a machine learning systems intern at Databricks in 2017.

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The following year, Varun joined an autonomous vehicle startup Nuro for more than three years prior to founding Windsurf. He began working for the company as a software engineer, and by August 2019, he was elevated to tech lead for autonomy infrastructure. In 2020, he eventually rose to the position of tech lead manager for Autonomy Infrastructure at Nuro.

In 2021, Varun co-founded Windsurf, along with a group of engineers and researchers which was originally known as Codeium. The Mountain View-based startup soon became well-known for creating AI solutions that optimize software development processes. The group came to the realization that their world-class optimized deep learning serving software, along with recent developments in generative models, could offer consumers the best AI-based products at the most affordable prices. Windsurf swiftly gained recognition as one of the most promising brands in AI infrastructure under his direction. 

A Shift in AI Landscape - Strategies Taken to Navigate through the Change

An unexpected change in the AI landscape happened in the middle of 2022 which necessitated some rethinking. Windsurf’s infrastructure offering had come under the danger of becoming commoditized due to the emergence of Transformer architectures, which served as the basis for models such as GPT. The crew realized this and took a risk by using their knowledge of infrastructure to create Codeium, an AI-powered tool for software development.

Turning a business around is absolutely no cake walk, especially when it is already making money.

However, Varun’s decision was based on an idea that is said to be important to him, and that is, intellectual integrity.

 

In general, startups cannot be able to afford to disregard market signals, in contrast to larger companies that have the means to weather setbacks. Instead of sticking to their initial plan, Varun and his team decided to take action after seeing the possibility of commoditization.

The Decision to Offer Codeium for Free and Still Kept the Cash Coming

Varun and the crew chose to become an application firm rather than an infrastructure provider, taking inspiration from tech giants like Google and Amazon to support the change. Seeing GitHub Copilot as ‘the tip of the iceberg’ for AI-augmented software engineering, they also drew on their experience as early adopters of the platform. Their risky decision to launch Codeium for free, made possible by their cost-effective infrastructure, allowed them to quickly gain users and test their theory.

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Although Codeium's roadmap is believed to cover every stage of the software development lifecycle, including design, review, deployment, debugging, testing, and more, it now primarily functions within the IDE (Integrated Development Environment). Rapid developments in GPU technology, which Varun points out advances 100 times faster than more conventional hardware like SSDs, serve as the foundation for this vision.

Companies Caught Wind of Windsurf’s Rapid Growth

OpenAI took notice of Windsurf and was in advanced negotiations to buy the startup this year. However, by employing its core team, Varun and Chen, Google was able to prevent OpenAI's bid and pull off a strategic achievement.

The decision to prioritize cooperation over acquisition has generated discussion and brought attention to Mohan's preference for long-term effects over immediate profits. Additionally, Varun may be set to revolutionize AI coding in the future with Google's support.

On the other hand, the narrative became even more complicated when AI firm Cognition Labs revealed that it was acquiring Windsurf, just after Google had acquired the company's key executives. Scott Wu, a rising star in the field of AI coding, is the leader of Cognition, which is well-known for developing the AI software engineer Devin.

The Windsurf squad was left in chaos as the top leadership abruptly walked away. The following weekend saw the finalization of an acquisition agreement by the AI company Cognition, which provided a last-minute rescue. Jeff Wang, the head of business at Windsurf, was named interim CEO after Varun Mohan and Douglas Chen left Google. The company's vice president of international sales, Graham Moreno, has taken over as president. Approximately 250 workers are still at Windsurf despite the well-publicized departures.

Acquires - The Brutal and Useful Trend in the AI Talent War

The Windsurf incident is yet another instance of how Big Tech continues to battle for market dominance in AI expertise and technologies through strategic license agreements and hires rather than outright acquisitions. Google's action reminded us of Microsoft and Meta's recent ‘acquihire-style’ moves.

The capacity to develop scalable AI solutions that can be incorporated into business processes across a range of industries—for both small and large enterprises—is what makes the AI field so much more than just talent and technology.

As big businesses like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon aggressively seek AI startups, the competition for AI expertise is getting more fierce. To avoid typical acquisition procedures and regulatory scrutiny, these tech titans are securing top AI talent through strategic licensing agreements and partnerships, a practice known as ‘pseudo-acquisitions’ or ‘reverse acquihires’. Talent and innovations are being sought from AI startups ranging from New York to San Diego. These collaborations between startups and Big Tech will continue to influence the direction of AI technology as AI solutions become increasingly integrated into businesses' everyday operations.