Indian-origin CEO slammed for ‘abandoning’ startup to join Google: ‘A generational villain’
Windsurf’s Indian-origin CEO Varun Mohan is facing backlash for joining Google after a deal to sell the startup to OpenAI for $3 billion fell through.
Windsurf’s Indian-origin CEO Varun Mohan is facing backlash for joining Google after a deal to sell the startup to OpenAI for $3 billion fell through. Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan and cofounder Douglas Chen were hired as part of the Google DeepMind team, leaving the rest of their company scrambling and facing an uncertain future.
In the wake of their departure, Windsurf’s remaining leadership secured a last-minute deal with AI startup Cognition the following weekend — a move that new Windsurf CEO Jeff Wang called “crazy.”
Varun Mohan under fire
Varun Mohan has since come under intense criticism for ‘abandoning’ the startup. Venture capitalist Vinod Khosla emerged as one of his most prominent critics.
"Windsurf and others are really bad examples of founders leaving their teams behind and not even sharing the proceeds with their team," Khosla said in an X post. "I definitely would not work with their founders next time."
Khosla was responding to a post featuring critical comments from Scott Wu, the CEO of Cognition. “There's an unspoken covenant that as a founder, you go down with the ship. For better or worse, it's changed a bit over the last year and I think it's disappointing, to be honest,” Wu said.
Varun Mohan: A villain?
Vinod Khosla was not alone in slamming Varun Mohan for joining Google. On social media, many called him out for breaking an unspoken rule.
“Varun Mohan is a generational villain at this point.. crazy saga. Also no word from him,” wrote one X user.
“Varun Mohan saw those 0’s $ said ‘F*** them employees’,” another person wrote.
“It's really wildly bad behavior. One of my biggest motivations to get to the finish line this year was making sure everyone on my team had a comfortable landing - particularly our iOS engineer who was about to have a child,” said Alex Kehr, CEO of Superlocal which was recently acquired by Foursquare.
“Founders cashing out while the team’s left behind isn’t just bad form, it’s long term reputation damage,” another person said.
