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

Cognition laid off 30 employees and offered buyouts to remaining Windsurf staff just three weeks after acquiring the AI coding startup. The buyout includes nine months of salary, while employees who stay must work 80+ hour weeks and six days in office. This follows a turbulent period for Windsurf, which nearly got acquired by OpenAI before losing key leadership to Google in a $2.4 billion reverse-acquihire deal. The situation suggests Cognition was primarily interested in Windsurf's intellectual property rather than its talent.