¶ Setting The Stage
Ejaaz: So there's this company called windsurf which in Ejaaz: the last 24 hours got stolen from open ai Ejaaz: and sold not once but twice for Ejaaz: over 3 billion dollars and then Ejaaz: everyone lost their minds completely when they realized that Ejaaz: two of the co-founders were taking almost all of that money Ejaaz: for themselves and leaving the rest of the Ejaaz: company 250 employees in the Ejaaz: dust and as you can imagine josh this sparked a lot of outrage online but it
Ejaaz: did end up having a fairy tale ending when another company swooped in and bought Ejaaz: the rest of the company and the 250 employees got paid josh i'm exhausted can Ejaaz: you tell me what's happening well Josh: I'm actually not sure myself this feels like an episode out of like a sitcom Josh: or a silicon valley episode where there's so much drama so many twists and turns Josh: that seemingly don't make any sense i mean it was.
Ejaaz: Acquired i have a fun anecdote for you josh actually the office that the windsurf Ejaaz: company was set up in guess no Josh: Not silicon valley, Josh: oh man it's so real silicon valley was such a testament at the.
Ejaaz: Time so i swear they Josh: Were they were ahead of the curve but yeah i i'm actually i'm excited to record Josh: this episode because i need you to explain to me a lot of what's happening i Josh: don't know too much about the recent news i've been very much in in the grok Josh: rabbit hole i know a lot of the earlier topics maybe i could help set the stage before we get into it. Josh: So for people who aren't familiar, Windsurf was not always Windsurf.
Josh: It was a company that was founded in 2021 called Exifunction. Josh: And it was founded by two MIT graduates initially focused on GPU optimization. Josh: So they were a GPU optimizer company. Josh: They were doing absolutely nothing relative to what they're doing today. Josh: Three years later, they raised a series C round at $150 million, Josh: which valued them unicorn status, one and a quarter billion dollars.
Josh: And that was when they rebranded to Windsurf. And Windsurf was not a GPU optimization Josh: company. It was instead the company that we all know today, which is the AI Josh: coding companion, cursor competitor, vibe coding extraordinaire. Josh: Exactly. Yeah. So that's when they kind of came into their final form, Josh: which was only last year. Josh: So the first three years of operation, this like strange company trying to figure Josh: it out last year, it was huge.
Josh: And then we get into 2025 where their annual revenue went from not a lot to Josh: a hundred million plus. And I think this is where I'm going to hand it off to Josh: you because things got crazy. Josh: They turned into a really big company. They started collecting valuable data. Josh: Their revenue went through the roof into the nine figures. Josh: And that's where this drama begins. Ejaaz: So Josh, do you remember around that time, it became a kind of trending narrative that AI...
Ejaaz: Coding or coders was going to replace software engineers. So companies were Ejaaz: getting really nervous and software engineers were getting really nervous because Ejaaz: they were kind of like consistently held in as like the highest regard of employee, right? Ejaaz: You had like knowledge workers, product managers, and then you had like the Ejaaz: wizards at the top that could like create software with their fingers.
Ejaaz: And then you had AI come along and be like, well, actually, we might be able Ejaaz: to replace you in about six months. Ejaaz: So all of these companies' valuations skyrocketed, Winsurf being one of them, right? Ejaaz: Cursor was another popular one. And there was this massive frenzy for all the Ejaaz: model creator companies like OpenAI, Claude, Meta, to try and acquire one of Ejaaz: these companies so that they can have that feature set within their own product suite.
Ejaaz: And OpenAI kind of came in guns ablaze and said, Winsurf, we have tried to buy Cursor. Ejaaz: It's not working. We need you. And we are willing to pay big bucks. Ejaaz: So they offered basically $3 billion and it's written here in this Reuters article, Ejaaz: but that's basically the headline takeaway that they offered $3 billion to buy these guys out.
Ejaaz: And that was a huge price tag at the time, but it was what a lot of individuals Ejaaz: thought, a lot of people thought that Winsurf and AI vibe coding companies was worth at the time. Ejaaz: And the reason why it was worth this much was because it was like this magical
¶ How Does It Work?
Ejaaz: tool where you could type words and turn words into fully fledged apps, Ejaaz: games, tools, services, Ejaaz: Therapy apps, gym logs, whatever you might, whatever your mind could potentially think of.
Ejaaz: It's like turning chat gbt into like this like app Ejaaz: maker and that as you can imagine is a billion dollar multi-billion dollar industry Ejaaz: and you can kind of like see on my screen here like there's this like demo on Ejaaz: this website where you can effectively just type words in and say like hey i Ejaaz: want you to create like a folder or a website that like kind of displays my Ejaaz: profile picture and all these kinds of things and it just
Ejaaz: You can see it coding in real time on the left here, Josh. Josh: Yeah, and the interface is the thing that's different, right? Josh: Because when you're using ChatGPT, it can code very well, but you only have Josh: a text box and it kind of spits out code, but then you have to put it into your Josh: compiler and it creates this like very messy workflow. Josh: What Windsurf did is they kind of took that whole workflow and compressed it Josh: down into one really powerful tool.
Josh: And that's what we're seeing here, right? It's like, this is the developers Josh: come all in one, build your code, generate your code, debug your code all under one roof. Right. Ejaaz: So you can imagine that if you are a software engineer that learns how to use Ejaaz: this tool or gets access to a tool like this, you can suddenly work at 10x your Ejaaz: speed and output, right?
Ejaaz: So there's this term that's often used in tech, which is called like 100x engineer, Ejaaz: and they're usually super rare. Ejaaz: This tool turns everyone into 100x engineer. Ejaaz: And that means that you could hire probably fewer engineers to get your thing Ejaaz: done, or you could scale your company 100x from where it is right now, Ejaaz: just using existing employees and access to this tool, which is insane, right?
Ejaaz: So you can imagine something like this is worth a ton of money. Ejaaz: But if you remember on a previous episode, Josh, we actually mentioned that Ejaaz: OpenAI wasn't just, didn't just get to where they were on their own, right? Ejaaz: They had some pretty impressive backers behind them. And one of their backers Ejaaz: was this little known company called Microsoft. Josh: I remember that.
Ejaaz: You remember Microsoft? You know, they've been around a while, Ejaaz: right and some of the terms that microsoft struck with open air when they invested Ejaaz: i think something to the tune of 16 billion dollars josh or is it like 24 i Ejaaz: feel like i'm off by like 10 billion which is just like tens of billions tens Ejaaz: of billions okay let's just go with casual tens of billions Ejaaz: Part of the terms that they struck with OpenAI was that they get full access
Ejaaz: and IP control over OpenAI's models up until the year 2030. Ejaaz: And also they get a significant chunk of revenue that OpenAI generates. Ejaaz: And the final point, which is what is about to cause the rift that I'm about Ejaaz: to describe, was access to any and all IP that they may acquire as well, Josh. Ejaaz: So as you can imagine, OpenAI is buying this massively valuable company, Ejaaz: Windsurf, for $3 billion.
Ejaaz: And their plan presumably is to build an amazing product suite and earn tons of money from it. Ejaaz: But Microsoft would be eligible to owning the IP of Windsurf. Ejaaz: And Sam Altman, OpenAI didn't like this. Ejaaz: So the rumor behind the scene was that Sam Altman was negotiating with Microsoft, Ejaaz: basically trying to get them off the cap table with that respect and not give Ejaaz: them access to Windsurf.
Ejaaz: There was a lot of back and forth, a lot of insider knowledge, Ejaaz: basically saying that Satya wasn't happy and that they couldn't come to an agreement. Ejaaz: So the rumor was Satya walked away from the negotiating table. Ejaaz: Now, typically, when an offer is made as big as this, $3 billion, Ejaaz: It comes with some terms and conditions. Ejaaz: And usually it comes with an expiry date. Ejaaz: So if, God forbid, anything goes wrong, the deal suddenly becomes off the table.
Ejaaz: So, you know, typically anyone has kind of like an out.
Ejaaz: And what happened after Microsoft walked away from the negotiating table was Ejaaz: that this $3 billion dollar offer josh expired on july 11th so literally a few Ejaaz: days ago and that's when all the drama started Josh: Unwinding expiration that is like a tremendous amount of money just to let, Josh: expire right i feel like if i was i mean put yourself Josh: in the the shoes of a windsurf employee where you own Josh: equity you are worth on paper now a tremendous amount
Josh: of money and you're sitting there every day waking up looking at Josh: like the news like am i going to get this money or is this Josh: going to respond and then it expires it's like an option if you have a call Josh: option it just expired worthless you you're left with nothing so now the windsurf Josh: employee i guess i'll play that role because i'm pretty clueless in this whole Josh: thing i'm pretty sad but i know my company's still worth a lot so like what
Josh: happens next to me as the windsurf employee after okay a ideal falls through i.
¶ The $3 Billion Dollar Rug Pull
Ejaaz: Want you to to envision this josh okay so you're a windsurf employee and you've Ejaaz: kind of been told that OpenAI is going to buy you for $3 billion. Ejaaz: You go to bed one day, you wake up the next, and you realize that the deal has expired, right? Ejaaz: And then a couple of hours, yeah, it's expired, it's done. Ejaaz: And then a couple of hours later, you open up your laptop and you see this tweet. Ejaaz: Josh, tell me about your reaction.
Josh: Big welcome to Mohan Solo and others from the Windsurf team joining DeepMind. Josh: Now, if I remember correctly, the name of my CEO is the same handle that that was tagged in this post. Ejaaz: Exactly. Josh: Okay, you're good so far. I believe I've just learned that the CEO of my company, Josh: as well as other, I guess, higher executives. Ejaaz: You, the Windsurf team. Josh: Me. I'm joining Google. I'm going to Google today. You're joining Google.
Ejaaz: You're joining Google, Josh. You're joining Google. Congrats. Ejaaz: Are they paying me $3 billion? Ejaaz: Exactly. And now your question is, are you paying $3 billion? Ejaaz: Well, what if I told you this, Josh? They're not paying you $3 billion. Ejaaz: They're paying you a little less. They're paying you $2.4 billion. Ejaaz: Okay. How does that sound? So far, so good? Yeah. Josh: I mean, at least better than nothing. Ejaaz: You'll take that. You'll take it, right?
Josh: That'll make me multimillionaire for sure. That seems pretty chill. Ejaaz: Sounds good. Except that there's one clause, which is that $2.4 billion is actually Ejaaz: being used to buy your CEO that was just named in that tweet, Ejaaz: one of his other co-founders and about four researchers on the entire company team. Ejaaz: So this $2.4 Josh: Billion is really just an acqui-hire for the talent. Josh: A hundred percent. And they're still not buying my company.
Ejaaz: Yeah. So the long story short of this is Google announced that they struck a Ejaaz: deal with Winsurf, particularly the CEO, and agreed to pay $2.4 billion, Ejaaz: but primarily to hire Winsurf CEO and one other co-founder and a group of key researchers, Ejaaz: along with the non-exclusive rights, non-exclusive licensing rights to some Ejaaz: of Winsurf's technology.
Ejaaz: So this is, as you said, yeah, you just got zapped. They just paid a couple Josh: Hundred million dollars, took the talent out of my company, and now I'm just Josh: left with the shell, which is devastating, right? Josh: I work so hard on building this. I am the reason this value exists because I Josh: have been working hardcore engineering on this for years, And that seems really upsetting. Ejaaz: Think about it. You are a founding engineer of this company.
Ejaaz: You're a founding employee of this company. Ejaaz: Typically, you'd expect when you go from zero to $3 billion, Ejaaz: you're going to see at least some of that. Ejaaz: Surely, they're not going to concentrate over $1.25 billion for a single person. Ejaaz: Surely, that's ludicrous, right? But that's unfortunately exactly what happened. Ejaaz: So $2.4 billion for like five people and non-exclusive licensing rights for Ejaaz: like some of Windsurf's tech.
Ejaaz: But the majority of the 250 people, its core business, the IP, Ejaaz: the product, the brand, and the remaining team just kind of got left to the wayside. Ejaaz: This was a pure play acquire. Josh: Yikes. And I guess we could kind of speculate on what led to this. Josh: Like if you remember, we actually spoke about this briefly on the show when
¶ What Led To This
Josh: OpenAI made the offer to acquire Windsurf, immediately Anthropic and a few others Josh: started pulling out their contracts with Windsurf. Josh: So they were making the product less valuable because they didn't want to give Josh: their data over to OpenAI. Josh: As a result, it lowered the valuation of the company.
Josh: So when OpenAI then steps away and Winsurf still has to deal with the lost customers Josh: of Anthropic and whoever else stepped away, well, suddenly the company is worth a little bit less. Josh: And now Google steps in, they're like, okay, well, maybe we get a discount because Josh: now your average revenue or your recurring revenue is way lower than it was Josh: just a few months ago. So there's your 25% haircut.
Josh: And then they're like, well, we don't actually want the business because the Josh: business is kind of failing. There's a lot of drama. Josh: There's a lot of, a lot of your larger clients aren't interested because they're direct competitors. Josh: So let's just take the talent. And that is such a sad thing to watch your baby Josh: just get pummeled over and over again by these high executives. Josh: But it's on, it's on brand, right? Like we've seen this happen before.
Josh: Zuck is offering hundreds of millions to billions for employees. Josh: And now Google is doing the same exact thing. Ejaaz: I think you just highlighted a really important trend, which has just been confirmed. Ejaaz: By these events, Josh, which is the stars of the show for any AI company are Ejaaz: its researchers, are its model creators. Ejaaz: They're the ones that are selling for like multiples of a top NBA super sports star, right?
Ejaaz: Hundreds and hundreds of millions, potentially billions for a single person. Ejaaz: That is just an absurd amount of money and has probably never been seen the Ejaaz: like from any kind of industry before, right? Josh: They're like professional sports athletes. Ejaaz: Yeah. Yeah, they're not worth their weight in gold. They're worth a hundred Ejaaz: times their weight in gold, apparently, right?
Ejaaz: And then the second thing I think that's happening here, Josh, Ejaaz: is Google got a bit antsy when they saw that Zuck aggressively poached OpenAI's staff. Ejaaz: I think they hired like, what, 10 people? So that's probably somewhere around Ejaaz: $2.5 billion spent, if we want to believe the rumors of like hundreds of millions Ejaaz: being spent for certain researchers.
Ejaaz: So Google's probably watched this happen over the last two weeks, Ejaaz: which is an insane thing to say, by the way. Ejaaz: This has happened over the last two weeks and thought, oh shit, we're next in line. Ejaaz: We're the next best model provider for many a reason. Ejaaz: They have access to all our AI papers so they can see who the best researchers that we have are.
Ejaaz: And Zuck's probably reaching out to all of these. So they saw this opportunity Ejaaz: and jumped on it and decided to do the opposite and say, well, screw you, Zuck. Ejaaz: I know what you're coming for, but I'm going to jump ahead of the curve and Ejaaz: actually poach these guys before you do so that we keep bolstering confidence Ejaaz: in our team and our ability to build up the team? What do you think of that? Is that fair?
Josh: Yeah, well, one of the biggest things I've been wondering is like, Josh: how are they actually worth $100 million? How are they worth a billion dollars for a single person?
¶ Why Are They Worth SO MUCH?
Josh: And I posted this publicly and I like did some digging and the answer is really, Josh: it's still a fuzzy answer, but basically they're a series of difficult problems, Josh: most of which are unknown that are required to be solved in order to reach this goal. Josh: So in the case of training improvements, I mean, we spoke about Kimi K2 yesterday.
Josh: The reason that model performed so well is was because a novel breakthrough Josh: that a researcher discovered and then deployed into the code base. Josh: And now they have a model that competes with Claude, but it's open source and free to use. Josh: So that's a huge advantage. And that is a multi-billion dollar advantage at scale.
Josh: So if you can pay one researcher to come up with a novel breakthrough like this Josh: and then deploy it to your code base, then suddenly you have gained billions Josh: of dollars of market cap. and it compounds because the scale is so large. Josh: And this exists all the way down the stack because when you're doing a training Josh: run, I mean, a lot of these companies have 100,000, 200,000 GPUs that are all Josh: focused on one single training run.
Josh: And that means they can't be serving customers. They can't be serving queries Josh: to make the company money. Josh: It is a net spend that they're incurring to train this model. Josh: And in the case that an engineer didn't make the right decision or went down Josh: the wrong decision tree, that could cost them many, many billions of dollars, Josh: days, weeks of time. and in this world, those weeks cost a lot of money.
Josh: So basically what I realized, what I came to consensus on is they're just giving Josh: themselves the best probability by having the most intelligent people on the Josh: specific topic of making the correct decision trees required to get to where they want to go.
Josh: And that is why the stakes are so high. And that's why they're being paid billions Josh: of dollars because someone like Ilya, who has been around for a decade plus, Josh: is probably most likely to make the right decisions, even though it's no guarantee.
Ejaaz: What you've just described is the wild west and Ejaaz: i love how you described it as kind of like an ai model Ejaaz: josh you were like it's probabilistic we don't Ejaaz: really know which path it's going to take but they're running it through this Ejaaz: model and they're estimating that the output would be like this so they're spending Ejaaz: hundreds of millions of dollars i thought it was beautifully done but josh if
Ejaaz: you remember at the start of this episode i said that it ended like a fairy Ejaaz: tale So right now, we're at devastation point, right? Josh: I'm deep in my nightmare right now. I'm living it. I've just seen my entire Josh: C-suite get poached for two and a half billion dollars. I got nothing. Ejaaz: You just hustled for five to 10 years and you have nothing to show for it.
Ejaaz: You have a family of kids to feed and you promised them you're going to get Ejaaz: them millions and nothing's happened, right? Ejaaz: So here's what happens next. Do you remember way back when, and I think this Ejaaz: is like a year ago, when the first AI engineer agent was released. Ejaaz: It was this thing called Devin, D-E-V-I-N. Do you remember that? Josh: I do, yeah. Yeah. Ejaaz: Yeah. Do you remember the hype that was caused because of it?
Ejaaz: I think they released like this 30 second demo of this really slick AI agent. Ejaaz: It's kind of like ChatGPT, but it was just doing all the coding and engineers Ejaaz: lost their mind. They were like, oh my God, I would. There were two camps. Ejaaz: One, I would love using a tool like this and it'll enhance me 10x or whatever. Ejaaz: And then a vast swathe of people online that hated it and said, Ejaaz: there's no way it's as good as it is. and then, you know, A16Z jumped in.
Ejaaz: I think they threw them like a $200 million check, classic A16Z. Ejaaz: And there was a lot of hype around this. That was like one of the clearest signals Ejaaz: early on that Vibe coding was going to become a thing. Do you remember that? Ejaaz: I do. So this company that created Devin is called Cognition. Ejaaz: And we saw this post come up literally the day after Google's acquisition. Ejaaz: So imagine you wake up one day, you realize you've lost the OpenAI deal. You're like, damn.
Ejaaz: And then a few hours later, So you see the tweet from Logan Kilpatrick from Ejaaz: Google saying, hey, we bought you for $2.4 billion. Ejaaz: You're elated until you realize that you're not getting paid any of that stuff. Ejaaz: So you go into like peak depression. Ejaaz: And then the next day, you see an announcement from Cognition. Ejaaz: And this is the official announcement on Cognition's website. Ejaaz: Cognition acquires Winsurf.
Ejaaz: And it's this joint announcement from the CEO of Cognition, which is Scott Wu.
¶ New Acquisition!
Ejaaz: And one of the co-founders and by the way this is the co-founder that didn't Ejaaz: get included in the $2.4 billion win self deal Man, that's got to sting Yeah, Ejaaz: yeah, yeah Well, calling him a co-founder is kind of like a bit of a Ejaaz: kind of like graceful title to give him. But his name is Jeff Wang. Ejaaz: And he was the recently appointed CEO after the two co-founders just ditched him, basically.
Ejaaz: And they were like, okay, Jeff, you're head of BD, but we need you to step up Ejaaz: as CEO because we're going to bounce and take this billion dollar check. Ejaaz: But you're the new CEO. So this guy, Jeff Wang, and this CEO, Scott Wu of Cognition, Ejaaz: struck a deal to basically take over the remaining IP, product, Ejaaz: brand, And remaining team, most importantly, 250 individuals all have families, Ejaaz: mouths to feed, whatever lives to live and include them in this package deal.
Ejaaz: So this was the major announcement that like kind of like swept the social media Ejaaz: realms and made everyone super happy and elated by this and, Ejaaz: you know, gave them their happy ending. Josh: What was the total cost that they paid? Did they announce that? Ejaaz: That's a great question. Let me pull up this tweet of this guy called Harry. Ejaaz: Oh, here we are. His title is Harry Digresses.
Ejaaz: It wasn't official how much they got paid for, but there were some really amazing Ejaaz: deal terms in this, Josh. Ejaaz: So I'll highlight a few things here. The first one is this. Ejaaz: So not only were all 250 employees that were left behind going to get paid, Ejaaz: but they were going to have all their cliffs removed and have accelerated vesting on all their equity. Josh: Amazing. Okay. So they're making things right, or at least as best they can.
Josh: It's not the $3 billion dollar offer initially but like they're doing the best Josh: they can and i mean as an employee of windsurf that feels really good feels. Ejaaz: Really good but then you're you're wondering you're wondering well how much Ejaaz: am i am i getting paid like like how much are we getting acquired Josh: For yeah let's say i had one percent i mean that's 30 million dollars i was Josh: about to bag and now so where are we at now it.
Ejaaz: Might be it might be a little less but he basically does this Ejaaz: rundown and estimates it to be around 300 to 400 million dollars which is a Ejaaz: significant drop from what you are going to get paid but it's also not nothing Ejaaz: the other way i was thinking about it is it's probably all in cognition stock Ejaaz: josh there's no way they had that much Josh: Cash yeah just cash sitting on hand okay so my my 30 million dollars is now
Josh: three million dollars in stock for cognition which is a private company not Josh: even liquid oh yeah lots of tax implications, Josh: okay so i mean at least i have a job i guess is where i'll end up on this is like cool. Ejaaz: I mean, now that I recounted to you, Josh, you're still screwed. Josh: You're still screwed, dude. At this point, I'm just happy to be employed. Josh: I'm just glad that I still have some sort of a job. I'm hopefully collecting some sort of paycheck.
Josh: One day, it is hopeful that the stock will be worth money, and then I'll be
¶ Who Really Wins Here?
Josh: able to sell it and cash out. But man, yeah, what a roller coaster. Josh: And it kind of sets this new paradigm, right? Where you can cut, Josh: you could kind of rip the value out of a company and then just kind of throw the rest to the side. Josh: But it's this really interesting ideological debate you could have as a founder Josh: of a company whose fiduciary duty is to serve right by the shareholders.
Josh: And in this case, your shareholders are the employees that you've given stock options to. Josh: And in the case that they're just going away and they've destroyed the value Josh: of the company, they've extracted the value of the acquisition.
Josh: They have kind of just left the shell of a company and left the people who are Josh: responsible for putting them in that place on the side of the road and like Josh: that doesn't feel very good but there's really nothing legally preventing them Josh: from stopping that it's really just an ideological, Josh: debate in this case it doesn't i mean i'd be pretty i'd be pretty upset sure Josh: if i'm one of the founders i just made a billion i'm now a billionaire like
Josh: that's cool but for everyone else. It kind of leaves a bed for the. Ejaaz: Majority of people. Yeah, you're screwed. I don't know whether it's because Ejaaz: of all the time I've spent in web three, Josh, but I've kind of grown numb to Ejaaz: all this like terrible, appalling behavior, unequitable behavior. Ejaaz: And so I kind of look at a story like this and I'm like, oh yeah, Ejaaz: he got paid billions and left the entire company and team to dry.
Ejaaz: Yeah. Happens all the time, I guess. But like, I'm just, I'm noticing this trend, Ejaaz: particularly within AI that there's this more wild Ejaaz: west kind of degenerate behavior when it comes to acquisitions like people are Ejaaz: ruthless and i don't know whether this is maybe it's my naivety when it comes Ejaaz: to like vc deals and acquisitions and mergers maybe i just i just don't know
Ejaaz: maybe this happens all the time but this seems like the most extremely skewed version of this and Josh: We often refer to it on the show as like the game of thrones and Josh: i don't think there's a much better description than that where it really is Josh: cutthroat and this happens a lot in traditional venture and acquisitions but Josh: this scale i think has never been greater and that's probably what stands out
Josh: among all of these headlines is just how much money is being made lost and thrown Josh: around to position yourself better to get to this point of agi but you have Josh: a tweet you had a post here it looks. Ejaaz: Funny just to round us out josh just to like put a bit of cherry on this cake Ejaaz: well the tldr is like everyone hates varoon mohan the former ceo who took the Ejaaz: 1.5 billion dollar check or however much it was.
Ejaaz: And everyone loves Scott Wu, the CEO of Cognition Lambs, who stepped up, Ejaaz: gave the 250 employees a salary and a lifeline and accelerated vesting. Ejaaz: So no matter the size of the money, shout out to Scott Wu. He didn't need to do that. Ejaaz: And then, you know, Varun, I wonder, you know, whether his reputation survives this.
Ejaaz: I can see the reasoning why you would take the big check, but also like leaving Ejaaz: all your employees out like that to drive without even giving them, Ejaaz: I don't know, a couple mil is kind of insane. But here we are. Ejaaz: So what's the price on your reputation? Josh: Like, would you take a couple billion dollars to just go work on AGI and let the. Ejaaz: Media do a thing for a couple of weeks? I know a lot of people that would do
Ejaaz: it. I know a lot of people. I mean, I'm one of them. Josh: I'd probably do that, right? Like, a couple billion dollars? I don't know. Josh: But also, yeah, it's tough. Well, it's funny because at this graphic, Josh: it's a win-win for both of them. Josh: Like, Varun is, or I'm not sure how you pronounce his name, but he's hated. Josh: The CEO of Winsurf is not liked, but he's rich. and Scott Wu is loved.
Josh: And now he has a bunch of employees that really want to work hard to make this Josh: work for him and really want to add value to his company and can go to sleep Josh: with a good conscience knowing he's done well and he's done right by these people. Josh: Whereas our windsurf buddy cannot do that. So maybe he will just be, Josh: one of them will be crying in their $100 million mansion while the other will Josh: be surrounded by people who love him dearly.
Ejaaz: Yeah, I think that's pretty much it. An absolutely outrageous, Ejaaz: but weirdly normal day in the world of AI, Josh. Ejaaz: We thank you guys for listening. We are trying out this new format. Ejaaz: We've said this before, where we kind of talk about trending topics and be or Ejaaz: try and be the first guys to talk about it and put it in front of your feeds. Ejaaz: We are welcoming any and all feedback. So, you know, any kind of comments or Ejaaz: DMs, it's all open, go for it.
Ejaaz: And if you could like, subscribe and share it with all your friends or anyone Ejaaz: who you think would be interested in this kind of thing, we would be eternally Ejaaz: grateful and we'll see you on the next episode see you Josh: On the next one peace guys. Music: Music