Weeks after the revelation that Google has paid $ 2.4 billion for its technology license, while hiring CEO and Top Talent, the consequences of the agreement are still being Hold some founders and boot employees Throughout the Silicon Valley.
Google’s payment at boot was effectively divided into two equal parts, according to two people familiar with the deal. The investor section was $ 1.2 billion.
The other half was in the form of compensation packages for about 40 Windsurf employees hired by the technological giant with a significant part of the $ 1.2 billion going to co -founders, Varun Mohan and Douglas Chen, the sources say.
The transaction was a good result for the VCs, which included Greenoaks, Kleiner Perkins and General Catalyst. Windsurf increased a total of about $ 243 million since its latest increase in 2024, which sailed the company to $ 1.25 billion, which means that the total return on investors was about 4 times their initial funding.
Greenoaks, which led to Windsurf’s seed and series funding, returned to 20% of the company, returned about $ 500 million to invest $ 65 million to startup, according to a person familiar with the issue. Kleiner Perkins, who led Windsurf series, returned about 3 times its investing capital, according to another person familiar with the deal.
Google, Kleiner Perkins and Greenoaks refused to comment. General Catalyst, Varun Mohan and Douglas Chen did not respond to a request for comments.
However, most investors are aiming for a more important victory than the company.
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In February, TechCrunch reported that Kleiner Perkins was in talks to lead a new round of funding, estimating the start, which was then known as Codeium, at $ 2.85 billion. This agreement did not happen, according to a person familiar with the issue, because Windsurf agreed to buy from Openai for $ 3 billion.
As we all know now, Openai’s acquisition has unfolded and Google fell with its structure to offer investor returns and get talents and IPs without earning stocks.
But what is shaking the valley is this: While Google’s deal was good for co -founders and VCs, it does not benefit a large part of about 250 Windsurf employees, especially after waiting for a payment from selling to Openai.
In a formal acquisition, employees will take money for the shares they belong to and often had Their schedule of registration accelerated. However, Windsurf employees hired in the last year did not receive a payment from the deal, these people said.
The Google deal was particularly alarming for about 200 Windsurf employees who were not hired by the search giant.
Instead of sifting every penny on Google’s payment in their pockets, investors chose to leave the company with funds over $ 100 million.
One source says this was funded entirely by VCS, which means that their total payment was about $ 1.1 billion. However, another person said that the founders were equally entered to leave the company with nest egg from the Google payment.
Many people have said that the money left for the company would be sufficient to pay all the revenue from the remaining employees in assessing the Google Per-Share deal, no matter how long it was with the company. However, to do this immediately it would be problematic, leaving the company with less cash to operate and – with the founders and basic people leaving – without investors ready to fund a new increase. The rest of the leadership would probably have to close after making such cash distributions, one of the people said. In the meantime, another person claimed that the company had enough capital to pay the employees and continue to operate.
This difference of opinion is only part of the reason why the agreement became so controversial.
In addition, at least some of the employees that Google hired, despite attractive pay and benefits, saw their stock grants be revoked and their timetables to be restored. This meant that they should have been waiting for an additional four years for their total payment in Google stock, according to people who are familiar with the deal.
Some top VCs have condemned the co -founders of the 3 -year -old start so as not to share their unexpected with all the people who helped build the company.
“Windsurf and others are real bad examples of founders who leave their teams behind and not even share revenue with their team,” he wrote Vinod khosla to x. “I will definitely not work with their founders next time.”
After several days Limbo following the announcement of the Google Agreement, the rest of Windsurf’s entity, led by provisional CEO Jeff Wang, managed to sell himself to knowledge.
Cognition has acquired the IP and Windsurf product and brought all the staff hired by Google.
While the exact terms of agreement of this sale were not disclosed, the acquisition allowed each employee to earn financially from the sale, according to one blog published by knowledge.
Two other sources estimated at TechCrunch that knowledge paid $ 250 million to obtain Windsurf’s remaining entity.
Knowledge did not respond to a request for comments.
