Three weeks after buying Windsurf, Cognition gives employees the exit door

Cognition, the AI coding startup that acquired rival firm Windsurf three weeks in the past, laid off 30 staff final week and is providing buyouts to the roughly 200 remaining staff on the crew, studies The Info.

That is the newest bout of whiplash that Windsurf staff have confronted after a tumultuous stretch for the corporate. The startup was initially virtually acquired by OpenAI, then misplaced its CEO, co-founder, and analysis results in Google in a $2.4 billion deal generally known as a reverse-acquihire (the place Google employed the important thing expertise reasonably than shopping for the corporate), earlier than in the end getting acquired by Cognition.  

On the time of the acquisition, Cognition acknowledged that 100% of Windsurf staff would obtain monetary compensation as a part of the deal and harassed that the corporate was excited to carry on Windsurf’s “world-class folks” to develop top-notch coding instruments. 

Now, it’s changing into clear that Windsurf’s mental property, not its expertise, was the true purchase.

In keeping with an e-mail The Info seen, staff got till August 10 to determine whether or not they need to take the buyout, which quantities to 9 months of wage. Those that select to remain are reportedly required to spend six days on the workplace and clock 80+ hour weeks – draconian circumstances which have change into desk stakes amongst staff at prime AI companies. 

“We don’t imagine in work-life stability—constructing the way forward for software program engineering is a mission all of us care so deeply about that we couldn’t presumably separate the 2,” wrote Cognition CEO Scott Wu within the e-mail.

TechCrunch has reached out to Cognition for extra particulars.