‘Windsurf and others are bad examples of founders’: Indian-origin CEO slammed for quitting startup to join Google

Varun Mohan, the Indian-origin CEO of AI startup Windsurf, faced severe criticism after leaving the startup to join Google’s DeepMind.

His abrupt exit, along with co-founder Douglas Chen, meant the company missed an opportunity for a deal that could have sold the firm to OpenAI for $3 billion.

Windsurf managed to secure a last-minute acquisition by another AI firm, Cognition, after a weekend of hurried negotiations.

The company’s new CEO, Jeff Wang, said the rescue was “crazy”.

VC slams Windsurf CEO

Venture capitalist Vinod Khosla slammed Varun Mohan, stating he would not work with him again.

“Windsurf and others are really bad examples of founders leaving their teams behind and not even sharing the proceeds,” Khosla wrote on X.

Cognition CEO Scott Wu called Mohan’s move a breach of the founder’s “unspoken covenant” to stay with the company through difficult times.

So true. Windsurf and others are really bad examples of founders leaving their teams behind and not even sharing the proceeds with their team. I definitely would not work with their founders next time. https://t.co/SBjxB4Pqgs

— Vinod Khosla (@vkhosla) July 19, 2025

Netizens react

Some netizens labelled Mohan as a “generational villain”.

A user said, "Founders cashing out while the team’s left behind isn’t just bad form, it’s long term reputation damage."

Another user wrote on X, “Yes. It’s very disappointing to see this. They probably figured that’s the only way to have some meaningful exit and hoped that the rest of the company would benefit from the “investment”. Unfortunately, the folks who stay behind are often the ones left holding the bag… same with Scale AI, same with Windsurf.”

"Money and power always brings greed and selfishness," a third user commented on X.

Another individual remarked, “I agree. The founder lacked cojones. You're a top 5 company in a trillion dollar market. Go raise a big boy round and go to war. Instead you get intimidated and take a shitty deal to enrich yourself and screw over everyone else?”

"Varun Mohan is a generational villain at this point.. crazy saga. Also no word from him,” mentioned another user.

The California-based AI startup, Windsurf, was founded in 2021 to rewrite the future of software development.

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