Windsurf Blood-red acquisition: 200 employees forced to sign an 80-hour "corporate slave contract" a week, otherwise get lost, Cognition CEO: does not believe in Work-Life Balance

An in-depth analysis of the cultural cleansing incident following Cognition's acquisition of Windsurf, revealing the gradually evolving extreme work culture, talent wars, and the brutal reality behind corporate mergers in the AI industry. (Background: OpenAI reportedly spent $3 billion to acquire the "automated programming tool Windsurf," seizing the big business opportunity of Vibe Coding.) (Supplementary background: AI programming Cursor founder: In the post-programming era, what is valuable is "taste.") Less than a month after Windsurf was acquired by Cognition, an internal memo revealed this week by Theinformation struck like lightning, tearing apart the last shred of hope the original Windsurf team had for the future. Cognition's CEO Scott Wu's memo was not a welcome message but a cold ultimatum. Scott, with a brutally frank approach, presented two options to the employees who had just experienced a "hollowing out" acquisition: either sign a "loyalty oath" committing to work six days a week and invest 80 hours in an "extreme performance culture" (averaging about 13 hours a day, even more grueling than China's 996) or take a severance package equivalent to nine months' salary and voluntarily disappear from the table named the future. The entire incident is like a prism, reflecting the fragility of human nature, the ruthlessness of capital, and the bloody costs behind the so-called "innovation" in this epic arms race in artificial intelligence. Ultimatum: A selection named "loyalty" The time was early August 2025, just as Windsurf's employees were still unclear about the new company's organizational structure when they received this letter that would determine their career paths. The choice before them was one with no gray areas. Choosing to stay meant fully committing to Scott Wu's so-called "building the future of software engineering," which required employees to completely devote their personal lives to the company. Choosing to leave meant admitting they could not or did not want to keep up with this rapidly spinning war machine. Consider the emotions of Windsurf's employees over these past few months; it has truly been a roller coaster. Once a rising star with over $80 million in annual revenue and clients worldwide, they first experienced the shock of their founder and core team being acquired by Google for a staggering $2.4 billion. Now they are being told that everything they had built in the past, including a relatively balanced and innovation-encouraging work culture, would be completely eradicated, and the remaining 200-plus people would have to undergo a thorough ideological transformation and loyalty screening (30 people were already laid off last week). The Cognition doctrine that does not believe in work-life balance This radical cultural reshaping was personally decreed by Cognition's CEO Scott Wu, who openly articulated his core philosophy: We do not believe in work-life balance; building the future of software engineering is a mission that concerns all of us, and we cannot separate the two. He claimed that creating the future is a passion that requires full commitment and cannot be realized within a 9-to-5 framework. This statement resonated with Elon Musk's hardline ultimatum issued after taking over Twitter and immediately sparked public debate in Silicon Valley's tech circle. Scott believed that instead of allowing cultural conflicts to gradually ferment and cause more damage after the merger, it was better to draw the line from the beginning. He admitted that Cognition's culture is oriented toward "extreme performance," and this generous buyout option is intended to provide a respectful and fair exit route (nine months of severance pay) for those Windsurf employees who did not sign up to accept such high-intensity commitments. Cognition CEO – Scott Wu A disguised layoff under the guise of cultural transformation? However, the true motives behind Scott Wu's high-profile declarations have also raised skepticism within the community. This ultimatum under the banner of "cultural reset"—is it really to select like-minded comrades, or is it a meticulously calculated move to purge dissenters and consolidate power at minimal cost? One theory suggests that this is a clever financial maneuver. Cognition acquired Windsurf's assets at a discounted price but may have been unwilling or unable to take on its full workforce. By offering a seemingly generous but time-sensitive buyout option, they can effectively "encourage" the majority of employees to leave, retaining only the most core or obedient individuals, while shaping an elite image of "we only want the best and most committed people." Alternatively, Scott may genuinely believe in his "hardcore" work philosophy: that in the fierce race to achieve Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), all sacrifices—including humanity, ethics, and culture—are acceptable for the ultimate victory. This is something we currently cannot know; we can only wait for time to verify... (Does anyone know Cognition employees? Working 80 hours a week according to American standards, isn't that a rebellion?) Ripple effect: Who bears the cost of AI's convenience? On the other hand, Cognition's cultural integration following this "talent acquisition" also provides an extreme and controversial model for the Silicon Valley circle: the value of the company equity you hold may no longer be linked to the overall success of the company but depends on whether you are seen as one of the few elites worth retaining in the next talent raid. This turmoil has also sparked strong backlash in developer communities like Reddit and Hacker News, with many condemning the culture's indifference to employee well-being, and even some customers expressing protest by canceling their Windsurf subscriptions. However, after the anger and criticism, a sharper question emerges: if Cognition ultimately succeeds in creating groundbreaking products and achieving market dominance with this high-pressure, high-intensity culture, what will that mean? It may inspire more startups to emulate this "wartime" posture, viewing extreme work culture as a necessary condition for success. To be honest, I am not opposed to this model; I even believe that the current rapid changes in AI make it impossible to act based on past experiences. Windsurf's story does not provide us with answers, but it is worth everyone reflecting on... The cause and effect: a tragedy from prey to sacrifice Perhaps some readers have already forgotten the cause and effect of Windsurf's acquisition, so here’s a quick explanation. Windsurf was originally a rising star in the AI coding field, with its "agent-based IDE" platform achieving significant commercial success, attracting the attention of OpenAI, and a $3 billion all-stock acquisition deal was already on the table earlier this year. However, this deal ultimately fell through due to interference from OpenAI's main financier and partner: Microsoft. Windsurf's leadership was unwilling to let its proprietary technology be accessed by Microsoft under the extensive partnership agreement with OpenAI. OpenAI attempted to negotiate an exception for Windsurf's intellectual property, but failed to obtain Microsoft's consent before the exclusivity period expired, causing the acquisition to collapse. OpenAI's...