Cascade

Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan describes how his company pivoted from GPU virtualization to AI coding, first launching Codeium and later building the Windsurf IDE around coding agents. He explains why startups need both optimism to attempt ambitious bets and realism to change direction when evidence shifts. The talk covers Windsurf’s approach to codebase context, evaluation, enterprise adoption, and agent workflows, as well as how AI may broaden software creation to non-developers. His advice to founders is to keep testing ideas and change their minds faster than feels reasonable.