The writer is the former assistant attorney-general for antitrust at the US Department of Justice
When Google agreed a $2.4bn deal for AI programming tool start-up Windsurf last month, the fine print may have slipped past many observers: Google wasn’t paying for the company — it was hiring its leaders.
This sort of transaction is known as a “reverse acqui-hire” (often shortened to acqui-hire). Distinct from a traditional acquisition, they occur when larger companies pay for a smaller company’s talent — leaving behind its product, customers, and corporate shell. In this case Windsurf’s chief executive, Varun Mohan and co-founder Douglas Chen, along with several R&D employees, were hired to join Google’s AI division. Google also paid to license Windsurf technology.