A perfect-scoring MIT academic overran an AI startup, and the shady deal behind Google's $2.4 billion acquisition was exposed, leaving hundreds of employees penniless.

Google suddenly snatched the opportunity from OpenAI, poaching the founder and core engineers of Windsurf. Even the early investors have reaped huge profits, leaving a group of "left - behind" employees to deal with the mess. The most tragic AI talent exodus scene in Silicon Valley is unfolding! This marks the first shot in the AI war under hyper - capitalism.

Just as OpenAI was on the verge of acquiring Windsurf, Google suddenly stepped in!

But this is not an acquisition; it's a move to undermine the foundation: Google directly lured away the entire Windsurf leadership team and the top 30 core AI engineers!

To poach these talents, Google splashed out $2.4 billion!

Investors, founders, and the selected group will all make a fortune after dividing up this astronomical sum.

However, the employees who stay are in a tough spot. They not only get nothing but also have to take over an emptied "shell company" forcefully.

According to a senior Windsurf employee, the current employees have received no compensation, and all the funds have gone into the pockets of the founders and preferred shareholders.

Seeing this, industry insiders have expressed their deep distress, saying that it's terrible for the entire U.S. technology industry.

Is the "Silicon Valley leather factory" here, and the "boss" has run away with the money?

Has the boss left, and the company become "their own"?

However, with the cash possibly already drained, this is not a so - called "split"; it's a blatant betrayal!

Ironically, Windsurf executives argued that employees who didn't go to Google "didn't lose out": the company still has revenue, and its financial situation is healthy.

But don't forget, in the field of code intelligent agents, the competition is extremely fierce.

The employees who stay not only have to face their "former bosses" and "old colleagues" who went to Google but also tech giants and up - and - comers like Cursor and Anthropic, all eyeing this lucrative market hungrily.

It's certain that Google has now obtained the core technology license, and it's only a matter of time before Windsurf's valuation drops to zero.

It's obvious that in AI startups, it's never the founders who truly bear the risks but the engineers who believe in them.

Initially, these companies attracted talents with the "equity" carrot, promising huge future returns.

Those engineers who believed in these promises were willing to accept lower salaries for their dreams and fully committed to the startups.

They staked their futures on the company, taking on the risk of failure. Once the company collapses, their dreams of getting rich will also shatter.

Now, the Windsurf founder jumped ship to Google for a sky - high offer, rendering all the equity worthless!

If this kind of "betrayal" becomes the norm, who would dare to join a startup? Working for a lower salary and always being ready to be abandoned?

As trust gradually collapses, the Silicon Valley dream is on the verge of shattering.

Recruitment for U.S. startups has already become increasingly difficult.

After the zero - interest - rate policy, the salary gap between U.S. startups and tech giants has indeed narrowed.

But if a startup has sufficient funds, employees may doubt the real value of the equity.

In reality, more and more early - stage employees are asking for less equity and more cash when negotiating salaries.

In the long run, equity will become meaningless, and the whole model will collapse.

This is not just a game of acquisition; it's a crisis of trust.

Google is not short of money. Why does it do this?

This is not Google's first such move. Similar role - replacement dramas have been staged frequently.

Google is not short of money; it lacks key brains. This is not the first time Google has done this.

The deal with Character AI is a case in point.

Actually, Google only "bought" Noam Shazeer at that time and let Character AI continue to be held by other employees.

In the Character AI app, users can create "virtual characters", carefully design their "personalities", and then publish them to the community for others to chat with.

Differently, at that time, Google didn't care about the AI companion track; it only cared about Noam and a few key people.

Before founding Character AI, Noam Shazeer worked at Google for more than a decade. After returning to Google, he serves as the vice - president of engineering at Google DeepMind and the co - leader of the Gemini project.

In handling the "aftermath" of Character AI, Noam Shazeer was very proper, honest, fair, and generous. Some employees even said that if given the chance to work with him again, they would still give him a full - score evaluation.

Of course, Google is not the only one doing this. Last year, Mustafa Suleyman and Karén Simonyan, the founders of Inflection, were also poached by Microsoft at a high price.

Maithra Raghu, a former research scientist at Google Brain, a Cornell machine - learning Ph.D., and an AI entrepreneur, pointed out sharply: "The fate of employees depends entirely on the attitude of executives." Character AI and Inflection handled the situation well.

However, the situation at Windsurf is much worse.

On X, there is a suspected response from Varun Mohan, the founder of Windsurf. This straight - A student from MIT thinks this deal is perfect, and those who cheered for Scale AI should also applaud them. 😅

Regarding this, Jordi Hays, a serial entrepreneur, investor, and content creator, made a speculation yesterday:

Under the pressure of various laboratories and competitors like Cursor, Windsurf executives desperately sought a way out and came up with this self - serving deal.

Why they think they can get away with it remains a mystery.

By now, I guess all relevant parties are in a panic, seeking remedies because if the situation is allowed to develop, it will become a major scandal in the entire industry.

John Coogan, a partner of Jordi Hays and from the tech news live - streaming platform TBPN, put forward some reasonable explanations:

Employees who have worked for less than a year and haven't received their first batch of vested options have less ground to claim that "they've worked hard for the company and deserve a cash - out return". Moreover, the outside world doesn't know the specific working years of all the employees who were left behind.

The real crux of this incident may be the anti - trust review by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The market competition is extremely fierce, yet Google still thinks it can't conduct a regular acquisition directly.

There may be new details emerging in the future.

He also invited the Windsurf CEO to their live - stream to publicly discuss and respond to this incident.

Today, the latest news is that this is almost entirely due to communication issues (Google made it difficult for the founder to communicate with the team), and the remaining team will eventually get a fair result.

Jordan Thibodeau, who worked in mergers and acquisitions at Google for nearly a decade, said that Google won't discriminate, and all employees with vested options will be compensated, just like in the Character deal.

Google won't ruin its reputation.

However, many netizens believe this is justice achieved through public pressure and condemnation.

Anyway, this AI talent war reveals a new trend in Silicon Valley startups.

Silicon Valley: In the AI talent war, money reigns supreme

John Lutting, a partner at the top Silicon Valley venture - capital firm Founders Fund, believes that the United States is in a crazy AI talent bubble.

The AI talent war will completely rewrite the rules of Silicon Valley.

This talent frenzy may cool down, but in the foreseeable future, it will become the new normal.

Since the top 1% of companies