From interning at five tech firms during college to building a billion-dollar AI startup, 28-year-old Varun Mohan’s journey triggered a ₹20,400 crore deal with Google after he rejected OpenAI’s ₹25,500 crore offer.

OpenAI’s $3B bid to acquire Windsurf collapsed after talks stalled, clearing the path for Google to license its AI coding tools and hire key team members.

The move is the culmination of a turbulent period for Windsurf, and indicates that agentic IDEs have become a new battleground.

Cognition is acquiring Windsurf days after Google DeepMind hired its CEO and research leaders, and months after OpenAI offered to buy it.

In a surprising move, Cognition– the makers of autonomous coding tool Devin— acquired what was left of its rival Windsurf after the company’s cofounders Varun Mohan and Douglas Chen and other staff members were poached by Google DeepMind for $2.

Questions swirled about Windsurf's future after Google's surprise deal. Now, Windsurf will have a new owner.

Varun Mohan is of Indian descent, having been born and raised in Sunnyvale, California, by children of Indian immigrants. He went to The Harker School in San Jose, and then to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he earned a Bachelor's and Master of Engineering in Computer Science.

OpenAI faces an existential crisis as strategic blunders, a talent exodus to rivals like Meta, and the collapsed $3B Windsurf deal reveal deep internal turmoil.