Cognition Offers Buyouts to Newly Acquired Windsurf Staff

Cognition, a two-year-old artificial intelligence coding startup last valued at $4 billion, has offered buyouts to the roughly 200 employees it acquired in a takeover of rival Windsurf three weeks ago, saying they will receive nine months of salary in return, according to an e-mail seen by The Information.

The development comes after Cognition—maker of coding assistant Devin—cut 30 staffers from the Windsurf team on Friday and shows how employees at AI startups can face wildly different outcomes as deep-pocketed tech companies strike acquisitions or takeover-like deals to hire the startups’ AI researchers.