Three weeks after acquiring Windsurf, Cognition offers staff the exit door | Hacker News Reader

Three weeks after acquiring Windsurf, Cognition offers staff the exit door

techcrunch.com

30 pointsdkroy8 comments

>employees were given until August 10 to decide whether they want to take the buyout, which amounts to nine months of salary

This isn't a "buyout" and it certainly isn't "making them whole" which is what they said they'd do a couple of weeks ago. This is just a layoff with a severance payment.

As I said when the initial story broke, this is setting a terrible precedent for the startup world. Why on earth would anyone join a startup and accept low cash comp in exchange for equity if the default terminal event will be an acqui-hire of the founders with all other employees being shown the door rather than an IPO or acquisition?

> We don’t believe in work-life balance—building the future of software engineering is a mission we all care so deeply about that we couldn’t possibly separate the two

What did I just read? How can you think/say/write that in a public email?

I worked with a guy once whose previous employer, a startup, had been bought by a large well-known entertainment company (famous for running an amusement park or two in Southern California). He told me that when they had the company party, the three founders all got up on stage to thank the employees for their hard work, sacrifice, etc. The first two founders were humble, gracious, struck the right note.

However, alcohol was flowing and when the third founder took the mic he started with: "I just wanna thank everyone here...for making me FUCKIN' RIIIIICH." Didn't raise the mood exactly.

That was Silicon Valley then and it's Silicon Valley today. Folks are just saying the quiet parts louder and louder now.

"He got his bag."

A thinly disguised cult manifesto.

“Those who choose to stay are reportedly required to spend six days at the office and clock 80+ hour weeks”

Is that normal for any of those on here working for an AI company?

I canceled my Windsurf subscription. I had/have no interested in supporting Cognition/Devin; the recent comments by Scott Wu to the Windsurf team was the motivation I needed to move to zed/claude code.

If you're a current Windsurf customer, I hope you consider an alternative product and migrate quickly.

Ditto. I've spent a few hours with Kilo Code over last few days. It seems to have something solid to work with. Zed feels really nice, but I haven't quite found the entry angle for working with my stuff just yet.

Ouch. Relative to myself and all those I'm in IRL contact with, I expect all 230 of them are extremely well compensated, so no tears, but also: that sucks, and those 'leaders' are assholes. No decency or professionalism at all.

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