India, July 21 -- Windsurf's Indian-origin CEO Varun Mohan is facing backlash for joining Google after a deal to sell the startup to OpenAI for $3 billion fell through. Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan and cofounder Douglas Chen were hired as part of the Google DeepMind team, leaving the rest of their company scrambling and facing an uncertain future.

In the wake of their departure, Windsurf's remaining leadership secured a last-minute deal with AI startup Cognition the following weekend - a move that new Windsurf CEO Jeff Wang called "crazy."

Varun Mohan has since come under intense criticism for 'abandoning' the startup. Venture capitalist Vinod Khosla emerged as one of his most prominent critics.

"Windsurf and others are really bad examples...