Who Is Varun Mohan — The Windsurf CEO Recruited By Google To Build Up Its AI?
The tech giant has recruited several team members from the emerging AI infrastructure, Windsurf.
Google's new initiative to bolster its artificial intelligence code generation capabilities revolves around Varun Mohan, co-founder and chief executive officer at Windsurf.
The tech giant has recruited several team members from the emerging AI infrastructure, Windsurf. Mohan, along with co-founder Douglas Chen, is joining Google after a high-stakes corporate struggle that allegedly involved OpenAI in advanced discussions to acquire Windsurf just last month.
All You Need To Know About Varun Mohan
With Indian roots, Mohan was brought up by immigrant parents in Sunnyvale, California. His schooling took place at The Harker School in San Jose, after which he went on to graduate from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he obtained a Bachelor's degree and a Master of Engineering in Computer Science.
Windsurf, a startup popular for developing AI tools that streamline software development workflows, was founded by Mohan in 2021. The firm has reached new heights among AI infrastructures under Mohan.
Prior to founding Windsurf, he worked for more than three years at Nuro, a company focused on autonomous vehicles, starting 2018. Initially a software engineer, he quickly rose through the ranks to become the tech lead manager by 2020.
Some of the internships he has done include Silicon Valley's most recognised firms such as Databricks, where he focused on machine learning systems. Earlier that year, he worked at Cloudian Inc., where he assisted in developing S3 storage infrastructure. In 2016, he was a software engineering intern at Quora, contributing to its data infrastructure.
Mohan's Journey To Google
Google thwarted OpenAI's attempts of acquiring Windsurf after very strategically hiring the company's core team, including Mohan and Chen, before acquisition talks could close with OpenAI. Windsurf had come into OpenAI's radar and as of June 2025 it was reportedly in advanced discussions to acquire Windsurf.
As per news agency Reuters, Google is currently paying $2.4 billion in licensing fees for non-exclusive access to certain Windsurf technologies. Google will not take on any equity or controlling interest in the company. The former Windsurf team will now work with Google DeepMind, concentrating on agentic coding efforts, especially in the Gemini project.
