Is this kind of "acquisition" directly downstream of anti-trust concerns or am I missing something?

Today we’re thrilled to announce that @windsurf_ai  and Google have entered into an agreement to kick start the next phase of the company.

As part of the agreement, Varun, Douglas, and some members of our research team will join Google to continue pushing the frontier of AI

Jeff Wang

Is this kind of "acquisition" directly downstream of anti-trust concerns or am I missing something?

https://x.com/jeffwsurf/status/1943788545447174585

"Anti-trust concerns" does not exist during this admin was my understanding. Seems like some people are theorizing Microsoft blocked this due to their OpenAI stake & Copilot.

Isn't Google's antitrust case still ongoing tho? Haven't heard about the Microsoft theory but could be true ig

https://www.theinformation.com/articles/openai-windsurf-break-acquisition-talks-microsoft-ip-concerns

had not seen this ty... that makes sense re the OpenAI + Windsurf acquisition. My OP was more about Google though, and "acquihiring" Windsurf vs outright acquiring them. I'd assume MS can't block that.

I hadn't considered your last point but yeah that could be true too... stinks for employees who believe their equity is worth something

Gotcha! Yeah kinda matches the Inflection AI acquisition by Microsoft is somewhat of a bad taste overall imo. Part of me agrees with you that maybe it is "anti-trust" another part of me is that these big corps just don't want to take the head count of startups anymore.

Original tweet by Windsurf team deleted btw. 🫢