The Devin name/branding is so toxic that nobody will try their current product offerings, so the hollowed out shell of a respected company is actually fine for their needs.
The company was intact after key employees moved to Alphabet, and importantly there was a service contract to use Windsurf, so apparently Google will be paying Cognition, ultimately, now.
I'm just speculating but you'd get to use the IP without needing to negotiate overmuch about it, if they're using GCP or can be retrofitted to then you could set prices at a discount but claim a market rate when discussing growth of usage, which is great at quarterly earnings report time.. or even just as an ease-of-transition to expand into Windsurf's existing user base? There are plenty of reasons, including negotiation leverage, optics, or even just appeasment to the founders or board that the original project doesn't get immediately destroyed.
Why? Why presume that? These employees got screwed. They were left with a shell of a company that got bought for pennies on the dollar while their executives and executive pets all got massive payouts moving to Google. It was a total dick move and the result will be a flight from startups because who wants to bust their asses for an executive team that will leave them behind when the payout arrives.
The Devin name/branding is so toxic that nobody will try their current product offerings, so the hollowed out shell of a respected company is actually fine for their needs.
The company was intact after key employees moved to Alphabet, and importantly there was a service contract to use Windsurf, so apparently Google will be paying Cognition, ultimately, now.
> there was a service contract to use Windsurf
I wonder what the terms were there. Hard for me to imagine why Google would've included that in the deal.
I'm just speculating but you'd get to use the IP without needing to negotiate overmuch about it, if they're using GCP or can be retrofitted to then you could set prices at a discount but claim a market rate when discussing growth of usage, which is great at quarterly earnings report time.. or even just as an ease-of-transition to expand into Windsurf's existing user base? There are plenty of reasons, including negotiation leverage, optics, or even just appeasment to the founders or board that the original project doesn't get immediately destroyed.
the hosed employees that actually built a great product while their leadership sings "go on take the money and run" on their mega yacht.
Presumably the employees were compensated fairly for their work while they worked there?
Why? Why presume that? These employees got screwed. They were left with a shell of a company that got bought for pennies on the dollar while their executives and executive pets all got massive payouts moving to Google. It was a total dick move and the result will be a flight from startups because who wants to bust their asses for an executive team that will leave them behind when the payout arrives.
And they're also now compensated by the purchase by Cognition as post says
Users and enterprise contracts?