Google Buys AI Startup Windsurf for $2.4 Billion

Google has bought an AI startup called Windsurf for a huge amount of money: $2.4 billion (or 2 billion Euros). This deal helps Google stay ahead of its competition, especially OpenAI, which also wanted to buy Windsurf.

The news came out on Friday, July 13, 2025, according to the Wall Street Journal. Sources familiar with the matter say Google wants Windsurf's technology and, more importantly, its talented people.

Google's CEO, Sundar Pichai, understands that the most important thing in the AI race is having the best people. That's why Google is bringing several key Windsurf employees on board.

Varun Mohan, Windsurf's CEO, and Douglas Chen, one of the founders, will be joining Google's AI division, DeepMind. They, along with other developers from Windsurf, will work on a project called Gemini.

This kind of deal, where a company buys another mainly for its employees, is called an "acquihire." These deals are becoming common as big tech companies like Google, Meta (Facebook), Microsoft, and Amazon compete fiercely for AI experts. This intense competition has even caught the attention of government regulators.

The Fight for AI Talent

The battle for AI talent in Silicon Valley is getting tougher. Companies are offering huge salaries (over a million dollars a year!) and valuable stock options to attract the best people. They're also promising them the chance to work on exciting projects, like self-driving agents and new types of language models.

According to "The Information," a tech news service, experts who can train large language models are so in demand that recruiters sometimes spend months just trying to arrange a single interview.

Concerns About "Acquihires"

However, labor law experts and government agencies are becoming worried about the increasing number of "acquihire" deals. They suspect that some companies are buying startups not just for their technology, but also to eliminate competition.

This is especially true when the startups are working on similar research areas as big players like Google DeepMind or OpenAI. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which makes sure companies aren't unfairly limiting competition, has announced that it will be looking more closely at these types of acquisitions in the future.