The tech giant has been in discussions with San Francisco startup Mechanize in recent weeks for a potential deal that would involve Google hiring some of Mechanize’s talent. The deal, which some of the people said is worth over $1.5 billion, is in progress, and details could change. Google is discussing a non-exclusive licensing agreement for Mechanize’s technology as part of the deal, one person familiar with the matter said. The talent Google could acquire from Mechanize would work on model evaluation and development.Last year, Google swept in to acquire Windsurf’s talent and licensed its tech after OpenAI tried to buy it. Windsurf’s CEO, Varun Mohan, now leads Google’s Antigravity, an agentic coding platform. In 2024, the search giant rehired Character AI cofounder Noam Shazeerand paid for non-exclusive rights to use the startup’s AI technology. Do you think that starup should be supported by governemnts not big technology companies to give room for fair competition ?
