# cognition: history

> the company, sourced and dated — the ioi apartment, the devin launch and debunk, the windsurf weekend, and the $48b arc.

## the ioi apartment (2023–2024-02)

three ioi gold medalists work out of a new york apartment through roughly eight pivots — reportedly starting in crypto — before landing on the autonomous software engineer. the company formally incorporates around january 2024, hires russell kaplan as president, and takes $21m from founders fund.

- 2023 — cognition founded: scott wu, steven hao, and walden yan — all ioi gold medalists — found cognition in a new york apartment. the founding date is genuinely disputed: august 2023 (wikipedia body, david senra's notes) versus november 2023 (wikipedia's own infobox, wu's linkedin); an outlier fan bio claims january 2023. per wu the team ran ~eight pivots first, the earliest reportedly a crypto project. (reported; sources: [founding aug/nov 2023 discrepancy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognition_AI), [verbatim: 9-person founding team, hyperscaler, tree search](https://www.davidsenra.com/episode/scott-wu), [ceo since nov 2023](https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-wu-8b94ab96), [~15-person eng team each using ~5 devins](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gI0ZNhA0rvE), [compiled leadership bios](https://mungomash.com/orgs/cognition/leadership/), [fan bio; jan-2023 founding claim (outlier)](https://yespress.io/scott-wu))
- 2024-01 — incorporated; kaplan joins: the company formally incorporates — bloomberg's launch-day feature notes it 'didn't even officially exist as a corporation until two months ago.' the same month russell kaplan, scale ai's director of engineering and ml (helia founder, tesla autopilot before that), joins as president. (reported; sources: [ashlee vance launch feature](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-12/cognition-ai-is-a-peter-thiel-backed-coding-assistant), [president since jan 2024](https://www.linkedin.com/in/russelljkaplan))
- 2024-03-12 — $21m at ~$350m: the $21m round is disclosed alongside the launch — led by founders fund with peter thiel personally involved; angels include elad gil, patrick and john collison, chris re, and sarah guo — at a ~$350m valuation. the round is labeled both 'seed' and 'series a' across sources; the label question never resolves. (confirmed; sources: [ashlee vance launch feature](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-12/cognition-ai-is-a-peter-thiel-backed-coding-assistant), [$21m series a](https://www.maginative.com/article/new-ai-startup-cognition-raises-21m-unveils-autonomous-coding-assistant-devin/), [wsj: $2b talks](https://archive.is/ykZHa), [scott wu launch post](https://cognition.com/blog/introducing-devin))

## the first ai software engineer (2024)

'introducing devin, the first ai software engineer' goes viral on a 13.86% swe-bench claim — then the internet of bugs debunk, a $2b round inside the debunk fortnight, and general availability at $500 a month in december.

- 2024-03-12 — introducing devin: scott wu publishes 'introducing devin, the first ai software engineer': a tireless teammate with shell, editor, and browser in a sandbox, claiming 13.86% on swe-bench — footnoted as a random 25% subset, devin unassisted while other models were assisted — versus a prior 1.96%. upwork job demos narrated by walden yan; the cta is literally 'hire devin.' the launch tweet goes viral; ashlee vance's 'gold-medalist coders' feature runs the same day. (confirmed; sources: [scott wu launch post](https://cognition.com/blog/introducing-devin), [ashlee vance launch feature](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-12/cognition-ai-is-a-peter-thiel-backed-coding-assistant), [launch summary incl. swe-bench framing detail](https://itdoeswhatnow.com/m/2024-03-12-cognition-demos-devin-billed-as-the-first-ai/), [launch thread](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39679787), [original demo video narrated by walden yan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTS2Hz96HYQ))
- 2024-03-13 — opendevin appears overnight: the open-source replication begins one day after launch: the opendevin repository is created — the project that becomes openhands (~85k stars). the community's answer to a demo it couldn't inspect. (confirmed; sources: [open-source replication created day after launch](https://github.com/opendevin/OpenDevin))
- 2024-03-15 — the swe-bench report: the swe-bench technical report publishes the methodology — 570 of 2,294 issues, unassisted — and cognition releases its eval harness plus devin's actual edits on github. unusually transparent for a launch claim; the 25%-subset caveat still does the reputational damage. (confirmed; sources: [methodology: 25% subset (570/2294), unassisted, github eval harness](https://cognition.com/blog/swe-bench-technical-report))
- 2024-04 — the debunk: internet of bugs (carl brown) publishes the frame-by-frame debunk of the upwork demo: the client had asked for setup instructions, the readme already contained them, devin debugged files that didn't exist in the repo, and hours of work compressed to ~36 minutes for a human. the hn thread hits the front page; ai made simple adds that the listing was found by searching 'road damage' — a curated demo. no formal rebuttal from cognition is documented. (confirmed; sources: [internet of bugs frame-by-frame debunk of upwork demo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNmgmwEtoWE), [302 pts/43 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40008109), [cherry-picking (road damage search) and hype-tactics analysis](https://www.artificialintelligencemadesimple.com/p/analyzing-the-misleading-communication), [verbatim iob company lied three-count quote](https://gist.github.com/cedrickchee/588a55cbcaeb2d0faba694ae1fa560dd), [gergely orosz on the debunk + cognitions walk-back](https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/the-pulse-90))
- 2024-04-24 — $175m at ~$2b: inside the debunk fortnight: a $175m round closes at ~$2b — the information first, founders fund the sole investor per ai business — after the company reportedly turned down offers at ~$1b. the signature dissonance of the era: review scores and valuation fully decoupled. (confirmed; sources: [relays the information: $175m at $2b, founders fund led both rounds](https://voicebot.ai/2024/04/25/cognition-labs-claims-2b-valuation-after-6-months-and-175m-investment-in-generative-ai-coding-assistant-devin/), [$175m at $2b](https://www.maginative.com/article/cognition-ai-raises-175m-at-2b-valuation-one-month-after-series-a/), [founders fund sole investor in $175m round](https://aibusiness.com/nlp/six-month-old-ai-startup-behind-devin-now-valued-at-2b), [wsj: $2b talks](https://archive.is/ykZHa))
- 2024-05 — the waitlist opens, microsoft signs on: early access expands from ~250 accounts — a cognition tweet around april 17 says 'we just asked devin to help us send out the first batch of invitations.' public write-ups by early users appear (ppaolo's in-depth analysis; student andrew kean gao among the first testers). at microsoft build, a partnership is announced: devin on azure, aimed at code migration and modernization. (reported; sources: [quotes cognitions technical-preview-opening tweet](https://scitech.whatfinger.com/2024/04/17/devin-ai-stunning-release-was-the-debunking-devin-video-right-story-of-scott-wu-devin-ai-ceo/), [early-access user write-up](https://ppaolo.substack.com/p/in-depth-product-analysis-devin-cognition-labs), [early testers (andrew kean gao)](https://the-decoder.com/cognition-unveils-ai-powered-software-developer-devin-for-better-programming/), [microsoft build partnership](https://www.techzine.eu/news/devops/120539/microsoft-brings-independent-application-builder-devin-within-reach/))
- 2024-06-05 — the update cadence: the monthly-update cadence begins — first product update june 5, 'using devin to recover from the crowdstrike outage' july 20, and the o1 evaluation post september 12 ('how we evaluate coding agents'). the engineering blog becomes the company's public interface while access stays gated. (confirmed; sources: [full dated post index used for timeline items](https://cognition.com/blog))
- 2024-12-10 — general availability at $500: devin reaches general availability eight months after the unveil: $500/month flat, no seat limits, slack as the primary interface plus an ide extension and api. the ga post claims project timelines 'accelerated by as much as 16x' (self-reported); early customers named: nubank, vesta, ramp. two days later the devin open source initiative gives free acus to oss maintainers, with devin contributions to anthropic's mcp, llamaindex, and zod. (confirmed; sources: [ga at $500/mo, no seat limits, slack/ide/api](https://cognition.com/blog/devin-generally-available), [linkedin post relaying cognitions ga announcement verbatim](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/soumya1729_just-learnt-that-gennady-korotkevich-aka-activity-7272483300294701058-Tgix), [ga coverage](https://www.gadgets360.com/ai/news/cognition-labs-devin-ai-software-engineer-generally-available-7224739), [release notes confirming ga terms/date](https://docs.devin.ai/release-notes/2024), [$500/mo as b2b junior-engineer pricing read](https://www.productgeeks.com/p/devin-ai-pricing))

## the reality gap (2025-01 → 2025-06)

the reality-gap months: answer.ai's 3-of-20 evaluation, the $500→$20 price collapse of devin 2.0, deepwiki, walden yan's 'don't build multi-agents' — and a ~$4b round landing anyway.

- 2025-01-08 — the answer.ai evaluation: answer.ai publishes the standing independent evaluation: of 20 attempted tasks, 3 successes, 3 inconclusive, 14 failures — 'devin would spend days pursuing impossible solutions rather than recognizing fundamental blockers,' and 'we couldn't discern any pattern to predict which tasks would work.' the register's headline: ''first ai software engineer' is bad at its job.' (confirmed; sources: [month-long eval: 3 successes/14 failures/3 inconclusive of 20](https://www.answer.ai/posts/2025-01-08-devin), [first ai software engineer is bad at its job](https://www.theregister.com/software/2025/01/23/first-ai-software-engineer-is-bad-at-its-job/), [bungling the vast majority of tasks](https://futurism.com/first-ai-software-engineer-devin-bungling-tasks), [expectations gap coverage](https://www.itpro.com/software/development/the-worlds-first-ai-software-engineer-isnt-living-up-to-expectations-cognition-ais-devin-assistant-was-touted-as-a-game-changer-for-developers-but-so-far-its-fumbling-tasks-and-struggling-to-compete-with-human-workers), [can cost developers more time than it saves](https://www.improvingwetware.com/tech/2025/01/25/not-yet-ready-for-use.html))
- 2025-01-16 — devin 1.2: devin 1.2 — repository-context reasoning, voice messages, enterprise account management, and usage-based billing: the first crack in the $500 flat price. (confirmed; sources: [full dated post index used for timeline items](https://cognition.com/blog))
- 2025-03-17 — ~$4b anyway: a growth round of 'hundreds of millions' lands at ~$4b, led by 8vc with lux capital co-leading per cognition; founders fund, khosla, elad gil, and conviction participate. it arrives two months after the answer.ai evaluation — the valuation-decoupled-from-reviews pattern made literal. (confirmed; sources: [~$4b round led by 8vc](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-18/cognition-ai-hits-4-billion-valuation-in-deal-led-by-lonsdale-s-firm), [participant list: founders fund, khosla, elad gil, conviction](https://theaiinsider.tech/2025/03/19/cognition-ai-achieves-new-milestone-with-multi-million-funding-and-4b-valuation/), [scott wu: >$400m at $10.2b post](https://cognition.com/blog/funding-growth-and-the-next-frontier-of-ai-coding-agents))
- 2025-04-03 — devin 2.0, $20: devin 2.0 — the agent-native ide experience, interactive planning, parallel devins, and devin search/wiki precursors — with the price collapse: a $20 core plan then pay-as-you-go acus at $2.25. techcrunch does the math (~2.25 hours of 'active devin work'); plain ai reads it as admission that 'the market for $500/month autonomous agents was much smaller than the press tour suggested.' (confirmed; sources: [devin 2.0](https://cognition.com/blog/devin-2), [eye-watering $500→$20](https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/03/devin-the-viral-coding-ai-agent-gets-a-new-pay-as-you-go-plan/), [price-collapse-as-admission read](https://plainai.aguidetocloud.com/changes/cognition-devin-2/), [devins adoption stalled under competition](https://siliconangle.com/2025/04/03/cognition-ai-launches-revamped-coding-assistant-devin-2-0-much-lower-starting-price/))
- 2025-04-16 — openai circles windsurf: bloomberg and axios report openai in talks to acquire windsurf for ~$3b — the deal whose collapse will define cognition's summer. windsurf (fka codeium, founded 2021 by mit classmates varun mohan and douglas chen) had raised ~$240m and was last valued at $1.25b. (confirmed; sources: [openai ~$3b talks begin](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-16/openai-said-to-be-in-talks-to-buy-windsurf-for-about-3-billion), [$240m raised](https://www.axios.com/2025/04/17/openai-windsurf-3-billion-microsoft), [exclusivity lapsed](https://fortune.com/2025/07/11/the-exclusivity-on-openais-3-billion-acquisition-for-coding-startup-windsfurf-has-expired/))
- 2025-05-05 — deepwiki; devin 2.1; windsurf's swe-1: deepwiki launches — free ai-generated documentation for any public github repo, the code-understanding surface that becomes devin wiki's sibling. ten days later devin 2.1 ships confidence indicators (green/yellow/red); the same day a still-independent windsurf launches its swe-1 model family. (confirmed; sources: [full dated post index used for timeline items](https://cognition.com/blog), [pre-acquisition windsurf swe-1 launch (varun mohan quote)](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250515138505/en/Windsurf-Launches-SWE-1-A-Frontier-AI-Model-Family-Built-for-the-Full-Software-Engineering-Lifecycle), [windsurf swe-1 family launch](https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/15/vibe-coding-startup-windsurf-launches-in-house-ai-models/))
- 2025-06-12 — don't build multi-agents: walden yan publishes 'don't build multi-agents' — the essay that popularizes 'context engineering' over prompt engineering: 'share context'; 'actions carry implicit decisions'; the field 'still playing with raw html & css.' cognition's most durable intellectual export. (confirmed; sources: [walden yan essay](https://cognition.com/blog/dont-build-multi-agents), [notes on yans context-engineering conversation](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jxnlco_notes-on-context-engineering-w-walden-yan-activity-7351256030409879553-9d5b))

## the windsurf twist (2025-06 → 2025-08)

the 72-hour deal: openai's ~$3b exclusivity lapses, google takes windsurf's founders for $2.4b, and cognition signs for everything left behind — then lays off 30 and offers the rest nine-month buyouts under an 80-hour culture memo.

- 2025-06-03 — anthropic cuts windsurf's claude: anthropic cuts windsurf's first-party claude 3.x capacity with under five days' notice, amid the openai acquisition rumors — jared kaplan: 'i think it would be odd for us to be selling claude to openai.' windsurf's arr had reportedly touched ~$100m in april and slipped toward ~$82m in the squeeze. (confirmed; sources: [anthropic cuts claude 3.x first-party capacity](https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/03/windsurf-says-anthropic-is-limiting-its-direct-access-to-claude-ai-models/), [kaplan: odd for us to be selling claude to openai](https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/05/anthropic-co-founder-on-cutting-access-to-windsurf-it-would-be-odd-for-us-to-sell-claude-to-openai/), [250-person team left behind](https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/14/cognition-maker-of-the-ai-coding-agent-devin-acquires-windsurf/))
- 2025-07-11 — google takes the brain: hours after openai's exclusivity lapses — reported casualty: microsoft ip-access friction — google announces a $2.4b non-exclusive license plus the hires: ceo varun mohan, co-founder douglas chen, and senior r&d into deepmind to work on agentic coding for gemini. no equity stake. jeff wang (head of business) becomes interim ceo of the ~250-person shell; graham moreno becomes president. (confirmed; sources: [google $2.4b nonexclusive license + hires](https://www.reuters.com/business/google-hires-windsurf-ceo-researchers-advance-ai-ambitions-2025-07-11/), [wang interim ceo](https://www.theverge.com/openai/705999/google-windsurf-ceo-openai), [nyt on the talent raid](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/11/technology/google-windsurf-openai.html), [openai $3b deal collapses](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-11/openai-s-3-billion-deal-to-buy-ai-startup-windsurf-falls-apart), [exclusivity lapsed](https://fortune.com/2025/07/11/the-exclusivity-on-openais-3-billion-acquisition-for-coding-startup-windsfurf-has-expired/), [loi/waterfall detail](https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/technology/tech-news/how-microsoft-killed-openais-3-billion-acquisition-of-windsurf-making-google-the-big-winner/articleshow/122411189.cms))
- 2025-07-11 — goldman 'hires' devin: the same day, cnbc breaks the goldman deployment — cio marco argenti: 'we're going to start augmenting our workforce with devin, which is going to be like our new employee… initially, we will have hundreds of devins [and] that might go into the thousands.' first major bank on devin, per cognition; supervised, on drudgery work like legacy updates; argenti claims 3–4x productivity versus prior tools. (confirmed; sources: [argenti: hundreds… might go into the thousands](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/11/goldman-sachs-autonomous-coder-pilot-marks-major-ai-milestone.html), [hybrid workforce](https://fortune.com/2025/07/14/goldman-sachs-ai-powered-software-engineer-devin-new-employee-increase-productivity-fears-of-job-replacement/), [anthropomorphic-branding critique](https://www.fastcompany.com/91366706/meet-devin-goldman-sachs-new-ai-software-engineer-that-never-sleeps))
- 2025-07-14 — cognition takes the body: cognition signs the definitive agreement for everything google left: the ip, product, trademark and brand, the ~250-person team, $82m arr, 350+ enterprise customers, and 'hundreds of thousands' of daus — with full claude access restored. first call friday ~5pm, signed monday morning. wu's memo: '100% of windsurf employees will participate financially… vesting cliffs waived… fully accelerated vesting… there's only one boat and we're all in it together.' price undisclosed; secondaries estimate ~$250m. (confirmed; sources: [definitive agreement](https://cognition.com/blog/windsurf), [250-person team left behind](https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/14/cognition-maker-of-the-ai-coding-agent-devin-acquires-windsurf/), [jeff wang email quote](https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/cognition-ai-buy-windsurf-doubling-down-ai-driven-coding-2025-07-14/), [friends with anthropic again](https://venturebeat.com/technology/remaining-windsurf-team-and-tech-acquired-by-cognition-makers-of-devin-were-friends-with-anthropic-again), [what remains of windsurf framing](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-14/ai-startup-cognition-to-buy-windsurf-after-google-licensing-deal), [wang recounts frantic weekend](https://www.businessinsider.com/windsurf-ceo-jeff-wang-openai-google-cognition-deal-2025-7), [~$250m price / ~$100m cash → ~$150m ev arithmetic](https://ethanding.substack.com/p/windsurf-gets-margin-called))
- 2025-07-22 — the mcp marketplace: devin's mcp marketplace launches — the agent plugs into the mcp server ecosystem eight days post-acquisition. (confirmed; sources: [mcp server connections for devin](https://cognition.com/blog/mcp-marketplace))
- 2025-08-05 — the 80-hour memo: three weeks after the 'one boat' memo: 30 windsurf-team layoffs and nine-month buyouts offered to the ~200 remaining (decide by august 10); stay means six office days a week and 80+ hour weeks. wu's memo, verbatim: 'we don't believe in work-life balance—building the future of software engineering is a mission we all care so deeply about that we couldn't possibly separate the two.' wu publicly owns it: 'many of us literally live where we work.' (confirmed; sources: [original reporting on layoffs/buyouts](https://www.theinformation.com/articles/cognition-offers-buyouts-newly-acquired-windsurf-staff), [30 laid off; ~200 buyouts](https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/05/three-weeks-after-acquiring-windsurf-cognition-offers-staff-the-exit-door/), [verbatim we dont believe in work-life balance… memo](https://winbuzzer.com/2025/08/05/cognition-ais-culture-reset-offers-nine-month-buyouts-to-windsurf-staff-demands-80-hour-weeks-xcxwbn/), [wu x-post acknowledgment quotes](https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/artificial-intelligence/work-life-imbalance-after-buying-remnants-of-windsurf-cognition-lays-off-30-tells-rest-to-work-long-hours/articleshow/123183771.cms), [extreme performance culture](https://www.inc.com/kit-eaton/this-ai-startup-just-told-its-staff-to-leave-with-a-check-if-they-cant-take-the-heat/91224532), [reversal-from-messaging frame](https://www.ainews.com/p/cognition-offers-buyouts-to-windsurf-staff-weeks-after-acquisition))

## the independent agent lab (2025-09 → 2026-09)

the independent agent lab: $10.2b → $26b → $48b in twelve months, in-house swe models served by cerebras, devin desktop absorbing windsurf, government contracts, and a self-scored productivity guarantee.

- 2025-09-08 — series c, $10.2b: the >$400m series c lands at $10.2b post, led by founders fund with lux, 8vc, neo, elad gil, definition, swish, and new names bain capital ventures, hanabi, d1. wu's metrics post is the real document: devin arr $1m (sep 2024) → $73m (jun 2025), lifetime net burn under $20m, >30% combined enterprise-arr growth in the seven weeks post-windsurf, <5% customer overlap — all self-reported. christian lawless (conversion capital), emily cohen (neo), and swyx join full-time. (confirmed; sources: [scott wu: >$400m at $10.2b post](https://cognition.com/blog/funding-growth-and-the-next-frontier-of-ai-coding-agents), [~$400m at $10.2b](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-09-08/cognition-ai-cinches-10-billion-valuation-with-new-funding), [arr $1m(sep24)→$73m(jun25)](https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/08/cognition-ai-defies-turbulence-with-a-400m-raise-at-10-2b-valuation/), [post-windsurf valuation frame](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/08/cognition-valued-at-10point2-billion-two-months-after-windsurf-.html), [round corroboration](https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/ai-coding-startup-cognition-raises-400m-10-2b-valuation))
- 2025-09-29 — rebuilt on sonnet 4.5: devin is rebuilt on claude sonnet 4.5 and devin agent preview ships — '2x faster, 12% better on our jr. developer evals' (self-reported). (confirmed; sources: [full dated post index used for timeline items](https://cognition.com/blog))
- 2025-10-29 — swe-1.5 and the swe-bench disclaimer: swe-1.5 — a frontier-size in-house model served by cerebras at up to 950 tok/s, claimed 6x faster than haiku 4.5 and 13x than sonnet 4.5 on swe-bench pro (self-reported). the post's buried confession matters more than the benchmarks: 'we stopped reporting swe-bench numbers in 2024' — the company that minted the benchmark's pr value disclaimed it. (swe-grep and swe-grep-mini, fast retrieval models, shipped october 16.) (confirmed; sources: [frontier-size model](https://cognition.com/blog/swe-1-5), [full dated post index used for timeline items](https://cognition.com/blog))
- 2025-11-14 — the 18-month review: 'devin's 2025 performance review: learnings from 18 months of agents at work' — the retrospective claiming devin embedded at 'thousands of companies' (self-reported). by late 2025 the team is reportedly ~200; linkedin later shows 300–400 across 21 countries. (confirmed; sources: [full dated post index used for timeline items](https://cognition.com/blog), [founding aug/nov 2023 discrepancy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognition_AI), [ceo since nov 2023](https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-wu-8b94ab96))
- 2026-01 — infosys, devin review, london: the january push: an infosys partnership puts devin across its org and client base (01-07); devin review launches as the 'ai to stop slop' (01-21); the london office opens — first in europe — alongside a cognizant partnership (01-28). the enterprise-distribution era starts. (confirmed; sources: [full dated post index used for timeline items](https://cognition.com/blog))
- 2026-02-24 — devin 2.2 and cognition for government: devin 2.2 ships, billed as 'the most important update to devin since launch'; 'cognition for government' launches the next day. two days later 'how cognition uses devin to build devin' — the dogfooding account behind the 90%+ internal-code claims. (confirmed; sources: [devin 2.2](https://cognition.com/blog/introducing-devin-2-2), [government offering (index listing)](https://cognition.com/blog/cognition-for-government), [full dated post index used for timeline items](https://cognition.com/blog))
- 2026-03-19 — devins managing devins: 'devin can now manage devins' — delegation to parallel managed devins — plus scheduled devins. the agent starts supervising agents; swe-1.6 previewed earlier in the month. (confirmed; sources: [full dated post index used for timeline items](https://cognition.com/blog), [swe-1.6 preview](https://cognition.com/blog/swe-1-6-preview))
- 2026-04-15 — devin inside windsurf: 'devin in windsurf' — the promised product integration ships: the devin agent inside the windsurf ide. 'local agents make you faster. cloud agents do the work while you're not there.' the same fortnight: swe-1.6, cognition japan (takumi masai), swe-check (an rl bug-detection model with applied compute), new self-serve plans, and a mercedes-benz deployment with the devin cli. (confirmed; sources: [devin integration into windsurf ships (index listing)](https://cognition.com/blog/devin-in-windsurf), [full dated post index used for timeline items](https://cognition.com/blog))
- 2026-04-22 — the multi-agents revision: walden yan's follow-up, 'multi-agents: what's actually working,' narrows the 2025 thesis: multiple agents may contribute intelligence to a task while writes stay single-threaded. (confirmed; sources: [walden yan follow-up revising 2025 thesis](https://cognition.com/blog/multi-agents-working))
- 2026-05-27 — series d, $26b: the series d: >$1b at $26b post ($25b pre), co-led by lux capital, general catalyst, and 8vc, with ribbit, atreides, and layer global new. run-rate revenue $492m versus $37m a year earlier; wu claims >90% of cognition's internal code is written by devin (self-reported); the positioning word is 'the independent agent lab.' customers named include goldman, mercedes-benz, citi, and the us army and navy. (confirmed; sources: [$1b+ at $26b](https://cognition.com/blog/series-d), [$25b pre/$26b post](https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/27/ai-coding-startup-cognition-raises-1b-at-25b-pre-money-valuation/), [bloomberg syndication: run-rate $492m vs $37m](https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/funding/ai-coding-startup-cognition-raises-1-billion-at-26-billion-value/articleshow/131354428.cms), [series d corroboration](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-05-27/ai-coding-startup-cognition-raises-1-billion-at-26-billion-value), [>$2.5b total raised; ~53x revenue multiple](https://thenextweb.com/news/cognition-just-raised-1-billion-at-a-26-billion-valuation-and-90-of-its-own-code-is-written-by-its-ai))
- 2026-06-02 — devin desktop: devin desktop launches — 'the next generation of windsurf,' built around devin cloud and the agent command center. the acquisition's endgame: the ide becomes the agent's front end; by mid-2026 the phrasing is 'devin desktop, formerly windsurf.' (confirmed; sources: [devin desktop (index listing)](https://cognition.com/blog/introducing-devin-desktop), [devin writes 95% of our code](https://www.sourcery.vc/p/breaking-devin-writes-95-of-our-code))
- 2026-06-04 — the productivity guarantee: the ai productivity guarantee: an in-house estimator converts devin's output into engineer-hours, and if delivered value falls short of the price, 'cognition will fund your usage up to $10m.' outcome-priced agent labor — self-measured, which is both the point and the caveat. (confirmed; sources: [ai productivity guarantee](https://cognition.com/blog/ai-guarantee), [estimator methodology companion post](https://cognition.com/blog/ai-productivity))
- 2026-07 — fedramp, genesis, the exec bench: the institutional summer: devin security swarm and the vulnerability remediation program (07-01/02); swe-1.7 (07-08); fedramp high (class d) in-process and the 'making fable cheaper than opus' post — naming the in-house fable model family (07-13); the windsurf anniversary post (07-14); acqui-hires of tierzero and the interaction company, makers of poke (07-20/23); an mou with the department of energy's genesis mission (07-22); the ltm partnership covering 260+ clients including 26 of the fortune 500 (07-28). russell kaplan announces the exec bench: paul grewal (ex-coinbase clo), art l. (ex-brex), jared palmer. (confirmed; sources: [full dated post index used for timeline items](https://cognition.com/blog), [president since jan 2024](https://www.linkedin.com/in/russelljkaplan))
- 2026-09-08 — series e, $48b: the series e: >$2b at $48b led by new investors a16z and accel plus founders fund, general catalyst, avenir, and a ~30-firm syndicate including nvidia (also a devin customer). run-rate revenue ~$900m per company statements relayed by press. marc andreessen's post supplies the coda: 'in the past year, devin has gone from writing 13% of cognition's production code to more than 90%' — and a16z is 'proud to back him for the second time,' the first being lunchclub. (confirmed; sources: [do it all with devin: >$2b at $48b, a16z + accel](https://cognition.com/blog/series-e), [series e $2b at $48b](https://www.reuters.com/technology/cognition-ai-raises-2-billion-48-billion-valuation-2026-09-08/), [run-rate $492m→~$900m](https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/08/cognition-hits-48b-valuation-signaling-investors-believe-ai-coding-is-far-from-a-winner-take-all-market/), [~$900m run rate](https://siliconangle.com/2026/09/08/ai-coding-startup-cognition-raises-2b-at-48b-valuation-as-revenue-nears-900m/), [wsj pro confirmation](https://www.wsj.com/pro/private-equity/peter-thiel-backed-ai-startup-cognition-raises-funds-at-48-billion-valuation-41b41b85), [marc andreessen post](https://a16z.com/announcement/investing-in-cognition/))
- 2026-09-09 — swe-2, rsa-260, aws: the september coda: a 'factoring rsa-260' research post (devin plus a researcher built a top gpu lattice siever); the swe-2 model launch; the dioxus team (jonathan kelley et al.) joins; the fusion harness for the in-house 'fable' and 'astra' models lands in devin desktop and cli (claimed up to 39% more efficient); and a multi-year aws strategic collaboration agreement (09-15). (confirmed; sources: [full dated post index used for timeline items](https://cognition.com/blog))

AI-drafted at Ben Guo's direct request and credited to Hraness; every claim links to its cataloged source.

Canonical page: https://hraness.com/cognition/history


Published by @ben in profile revision 1.
Original document: https://hraness.com/cognition/history
Original credited author: Hraness
AI-drafted at Ben Guo's direct request and credited to Hraness; every claim links to its cataloged source.

## Structured source and record data

````json
{"anchors":[{"id":"founding","originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#founding","title":"the ioi apartment"},{"id":"launch","originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#launch","title":"the first ai software engineer"},{"id":"reality","originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#reality","title":"the reality gap"},{"id":"windsurf","originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#windsurf","title":"the windsurf twist"},{"id":"scale","originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#scale","title":"the independent agent lab"}],"provenance":{"draftingDisclosure":"AI-drafted at Ben Guo's direct request and credited to Hraness; every claim links to its cataloged source.","originalAuthor":"Hraness","originalRevision":"c90626904d1c5e258ebf20e3b498044e896e9e8ccce1ce9d7082fa953a6751d6","originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history","source":"hraness"},"records":[{"date":{"precision":"approximate","text":"2023–2024-02"},"id":"record-01da308f8c2c547880f0","kind":"cognition-eras","label":"the ioi apartment","original":{"id":"founding","range":"2023–2024-02","summary":"three ioi gold medalists work out of a new york apartment through roughly eight pivots — reportedly starting in crypto — before landing on the autonomous software engineer. the company formally incorporates around january 2024, hires russell kaplan as president, and takes $21m from founders fund.","title":"the ioi apartment"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history","sourceIds":[]},{"date":{"precision":"year","text":"2024"},"id":"record-fee4d2c40aafe3dc7f23","kind":"cognition-eras","label":"the first ai software engineer","original":{"id":"launch","range":"2024","summary":"'introducing devin, the first ai software engineer' goes viral on a 13.86% swe-bench claim — then the internet of bugs debunk, a $2b round inside the debunk fortnight, and general availability at $500 a month in december.","title":"the first ai software engineer"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history","sourceIds":[]},{"date":{"precision":"approximate","text":"2025-01 → 2025-06"},"id":"record-8502f6a373c5f89ea2cf","kind":"cognition-eras","label":"the reality gap","original":{"id":"reality","range":"2025-01 → 2025-06","summary":"the reality-gap months: answer.ai's 3-of-20 evaluation, the $500→$20 price collapse of devin 2.0, deepwiki, walden yan's 'don't build multi-agents' — and a ~$4b round landing anyway.","title":"the reality gap"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history","sourceIds":[]},{"date":{"precision":"approximate","text":"2025-06 → 2025-08"},"id":"record-0334a897383c2ae4be58","kind":"cognition-eras","label":"the windsurf twist","original":{"id":"windsurf","range":"2025-06 → 2025-08","summary":"the 72-hour deal: openai's ~$3b exclusivity lapses, google takes windsurf's founders for $2.4b, and cognition signs for everything left behind — then lays off 30 and offers the rest nine-month buyouts under an 80-hour culture memo.","title":"the windsurf twist"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history","sourceIds":[]},{"date":{"precision":"approximate","text":"2025-09 → 2026-09"},"id":"record-fde2f1017ad222745a54","kind":"cognition-eras","label":"the independent agent lab","original":{"id":"scale","range":"2025-09 → 2026-09","summary":"the independent agent lab: $10.2b → $26b → $48b in twelve months, in-house swe models served by cerebras, devin desktop absorbing windsurf, government contracts, and a self-scored productivity guarantee.","title":"the independent agent lab"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history","sourceIds":[]},{"confidence":"reported","date":{"precision":"year","text":"2023"},"id":"record-a2b7f941318547bde4a2","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"cognition founded","original":{"confidence":"reported","date":"2023","detail":"scott wu, steven hao, and walden yan — all ioi gold medalists — found cognition in a new york apartment. the founding date is genuinely disputed: august 2023 (wikipedia body, david senra's notes) versus november 2023 (wikipedia's own infobox, wu's linkedin); an outlier fan bio claims january 2023. per wu the team ran ~eight pivots first, the earliest reportedly a crypto project.","era":"founding","id":"evt-founded","sourceIds":["src-hp-wiki-cognition","src-hp-davidsenra-scott-wu","src-hp-linkedin-scott-wu","src-hp-youtube-inside-devin","src-hp-mungomash-leadership","src-hp-yespress-scott-wu"],"title":"cognition founded"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#founding","sourceIds":["source-b25285998fe2435401d2","source-b7868bfa7340706966ba","source-298196c029df2c70115e","source-0075130f99cbed9bb442","source-baacd3223944c1d1bd10","source-347e5fe6fdd0840cc432"]},{"confidence":"reported","date":{"precision":"month","text":"2024-01"},"id":"record-c14400a95f0e809309eb","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"incorporated; kaplan joins","original":{"confidence":"reported","date":"2024-01","detail":"the company formally incorporates — bloomberg's launch-day feature notes it 'didn't even officially exist as a corporation until two months ago.' the same month russell kaplan, scale ai's director of engineering and ml (helia founder, tesla autopilot before that), joins as president.","era":"founding","id":"evt-incorporated","sourceIds":["src-hp-bloomberg-gold-medalist-coders","src-hp-linkedin-russell-kaplan"],"title":"incorporated; kaplan joins"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#founding","sourceIds":["source-9766dba982b47007668b","source-ce4e009600ed0f3eeec9"]},{"confidence":"confirmed","date":{"precision":"day","text":"2024-03-12"},"id":"record-7a927f517e7d7a7ff3ca","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"$21m at ~$350m","original":{"confidence":"confirmed","date":"2024-03-12","detail":"the $21m round is disclosed alongside the launch — led by founders fund with peter thiel personally involved; angels include elad gil, patrick and john collison, chris re, and sarah guo — at a ~$350m valuation. the round is labeled both 'seed' and 'series a' across sources; the label question never resolves.","era":"founding","id":"evt-21m","sourceIds":["src-hp-bloomberg-gold-medalist-coders","src-hp-maginative-devin-launch","src-ci-wsj-2b","src-hp-cognition-introducing-devin"],"title":"$21m at ~$350m"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#founding","sourceIds":["source-9766dba982b47007668b","source-de782531782ee30c543c","source-c8c2094cb9aecc0e6a78","source-1cd84a11f556aa6259f8"]},{"confidence":"confirmed","date":{"precision":"day","text":"2024-03-12"},"id":"record-2bc355daec61cf227103","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"introducing devin","original":{"confidence":"confirmed","date":"2024-03-12","detail":"scott wu publishes 'introducing devin, the first ai software engineer': a tireless teammate with shell, editor, and browser in a sandbox, claiming 13.86% on swe-bench — footnoted as a random 25% subset, devin unassisted while other models were assisted — versus a prior 1.96%. upwork job demos narrated by walden yan; the cta is literally 'hire devin.' the launch tweet goes viral; ashlee vance's 'gold-medalist coders' feature runs the same day.","era":"launch","id":"evt-introducing-devin","sourceIds":["src-hp-cognition-introducing-devin","src-hp-bloomberg-gold-medalist-coders","src-ci-itdoeswhatnow","src-ci-hn-devin-launch","src-hp-youtube-upwork-side-hustle"],"title":"introducing devin"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#launch","sourceIds":["source-1cd84a11f556aa6259f8","source-9766dba982b47007668b","source-f2e0cbf94ab181056995","source-d016a353d57b98772c12","source-326761c643cff08b75a1"]},{"confidence":"confirmed","date":{"precision":"day","text":"2024-03-13"},"id":"record-dd88a63aa497444f6628","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"opendevin appears overnight","original":{"confidence":"confirmed","date":"2024-03-13","detail":"the open-source replication begins one day after launch: the opendevin repository is created — the project that becomes openhands (~85k stars). the community's answer to a demo it couldn't inspect.","era":"launch","id":"evt-opendevin","sourceIds":["src-ci-opendevin-repo"],"title":"opendevin appears overnight"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#launch","sourceIds":["source-04a52da8b85ef9ef6d97"]},{"confidence":"confirmed","date":{"precision":"day","text":"2024-03-15"},"id":"record-c868850bc6fb86621147","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"the swe-bench report","original":{"confidence":"confirmed","date":"2024-03-15","detail":"the swe-bench technical report publishes the methodology — 570 of 2,294 issues, unassisted — and cognition releases its eval harness plus devin's actual edits on github. unusually transparent for a launch claim; the 25%-subset caveat still does the reputational damage.","era":"launch","id":"evt-swebench-report","sourceIds":["src-hp-cognition-swebench-report"],"title":"the swe-bench report"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#launch","sourceIds":["source-4bace6acc227d708b29c"]},{"confidence":"confirmed","date":{"precision":"month","text":"2024-04"},"id":"record-1a1af841d632abeabf58","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"the debunk","original":{"confidence":"confirmed","date":"2024-04","detail":"internet of bugs (carl brown) publishes the frame-by-frame debunk of the upwork demo: the client had asked for setup instructions, the readme already contained them, devin debugged files that didn't exist in the repo, and hours of work compressed to ~36 minutes for a human. the hn thread hits the front page; ai made simple adds that the listing was found by searching 'road damage' — a curated demo. no formal rebuttal from cognition is documented.","era":"launch","id":"evt-debunk","sourceIds":["src-ci-iob-debunk-video","src-ci-hn-debunk-thread","src-ci-aims-misleading-communication","src-ci-gist-rebutting-devin","src-hp-pragmatic-pulse-90"],"title":"the debunk"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#launch","sourceIds":["source-4ee75c4645a1b4f5f051","source-a325c78864f6c71c26cc","source-e97feb492bee36b9a9d0","source-dc0e46d1ff6f1c20f836","source-70bb5f6113202df035f1"]},{"confidence":"confirmed","date":{"precision":"day","text":"2024-04-24"},"id":"record-eca0c21a97e567413482","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"$175m at ~$2b","original":{"confidence":"confirmed","date":"2024-04-24","detail":"inside the debunk fortnight: a $175m round closes at ~$2b — the information first, founders fund the sole investor per ai business — after the company reportedly turned down offers at ~$1b. the signature dissonance of the era: review scores and valuation fully decoupled.","era":"launch","id":"evt-2b","sourceIds":["src-hp-voicebot-2b","src-hp-maginative-175m","src-hp-aibusiness-2b","src-ci-wsj-2b"],"title":"$175m at ~$2b"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#launch","sourceIds":["source-e2ac6a3e6ff812c2e039","source-a228f2b93d58ff879291","source-5de8fc0df463af7a033c","source-c8c2094cb9aecc0e6a78"]},{"confidence":"reported","date":{"precision":"month","text":"2024-05"},"id":"record-383a66d2bf7b68e79678","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"the waitlist opens, microsoft signs on","original":{"confidence":"reported","date":"2024-05","detail":"early access expands from ~250 accounts — a cognition tweet around april 17 says 'we just asked devin to help us send out the first batch of invitations.' public write-ups by early users appear (ppaolo's in-depth analysis; student andrew kean gao among the first testers). at microsoft build, a partnership is announced: devin on azure, aimed at code migration and modernization.","era":"launch","id":"evt-early-access","sourceIds":["src-ci-scitech-devin","src-hp-ppaolo-devin","src-hp-the-decoder-devin","src-hp-techzine-msft"],"title":"the waitlist opens, microsoft signs on"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#launch","sourceIds":["source-4b59677cc2bcb17d4220","source-88aa5581b854357a4b39","source-2e6f9b6f31369ae7d97e","source-516c817d5bd2f10702dc"]},{"confidence":"confirmed","date":{"precision":"day","text":"2024-06-05"},"id":"record-7ae959c958ae7855ca83","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"the update cadence","original":{"confidence":"confirmed","date":"2024-06-05","detail":"the monthly-update cadence begins — first product update june 5, 'using devin to recover from the crowdstrike outage' july 20, and the o1 evaluation post september 12 ('how we evaluate coding agents'). the engineering blog becomes the company's public interface while access stays gated.","era":"launch","id":"evt-blog-cadence","sourceIds":["src-hp-cognition-blog-index"],"title":"the update cadence"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#launch","sourceIds":["source-eed19973dcd9a081d078"]},{"confidence":"confirmed","date":{"precision":"day","text":"2024-12-10"},"id":"record-07c247d3d7f81b085c94","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"general availability at $500","original":{"confidence":"confirmed","date":"2024-12-10","detail":"devin reaches general availability eight months after the unveil: $500/month flat, no seat limits, slack as the primary interface plus an ide extension and api. the ga post claims project timelines 'accelerated by as much as 16x' (self-reported); early customers named: nubank, vesta, ramp. two days later the devin open source initiative gives free acus to oss maintainers, with devin contributions to anthropic's mcp, llamaindex, and zod.","era":"launch","id":"evt-ga","sourceIds":["src-hp-cognition-ga","src-hp-devin-ga-linkedin","src-ci-gadgets360-ga","src-hp-docs-devin-2024","src-ci-productgeeks-pricing"],"title":"general availability at $500"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#launch","sourceIds":["source-6d4a79b9a73398550228","source-15d08bc282ccdc5d3f47","source-6a4044bf6dc1be187686","source-485691c07f3bc24f5537","source-e7d284c0268db13f0a41"]},{"confidence":"confirmed","date":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-01-08"},"id":"record-cb8b9b64a159d26e8165","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"the answer.ai evaluation","original":{"confidence":"confirmed","date":"2025-01-08","detail":"answer.ai publishes the standing independent evaluation: of 20 attempted tasks, 3 successes, 3 inconclusive, 14 failures — 'devin would spend days pursuing impossible solutions rather than recognizing fundamental blockers,' and 'we couldn't discern any pattern to predict which tasks would work.' the register's headline: ''first ai software engineer' is bad at its job.'","era":"reality","id":"evt-answerai","sourceIds":["src-ci-answerai-devin","src-ci-register-devin-bad","src-ci-futurism-devin","src-ci-itpro-devin","src-ci-wetware-devin"],"title":"the answer.ai evaluation"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#reality","sourceIds":["source-4b763167f018c772675f","source-f100da13fced364e392d","source-c74b167d1a26f38e3de9","source-cd449b9cadea032c1639","source-c10eb6b78377b420c67f"]},{"confidence":"confirmed","date":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-01-16"},"id":"record-821c9fc5f1e0b45dd43d","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"devin 1.2","original":{"confidence":"confirmed","date":"2025-01-16","detail":"devin 1.2 — repository-context reasoning, voice messages, enterprise account management, and usage-based billing: the first crack in the $500 flat price.","era":"reality","id":"evt-devin-12","sourceIds":["src-hp-cognition-blog-index"],"title":"devin 1.2"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#reality","sourceIds":["source-eed19973dcd9a081d078"]},{"confidence":"confirmed","date":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-03-17"},"id":"record-379d501cc079f95192f1","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"~$4b anyway","original":{"confidence":"confirmed","date":"2025-03-17","detail":"a growth round of 'hundreds of millions' lands at ~$4b, led by 8vc with lux capital co-leading per cognition; founders fund, khosla, elad gil, and conviction participate. it arrives two months after the answer.ai evaluation — the valuation-decoupled-from-reviews pattern made literal.","era":"reality","id":"evt-4b","sourceIds":["src-hp-bloomberg-4b","src-hp-theaiinsider-4b","src-hp-cognition-series-c"],"title":"~$4b anyway"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#reality","sourceIds":["source-69424c428d72c11b30d5","source-156199f4583ba6cf2469","source-683e5bd3e85a452a2e90"]},{"confidence":"confirmed","date":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-04-03"},"id":"record-a47a1c251334376988dd","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"devin 2.0, $20","original":{"confidence":"confirmed","date":"2025-04-03","detail":"devin 2.0 — the agent-native ide experience, interactive planning, parallel devins, and devin search/wiki precursors — with the price collapse: a $20 core plan then pay-as-you-go acus at $2.25. techcrunch does the math (~2.25 hours of 'active devin work'); plain ai reads it as admission that 'the market for $500/month autonomous agents was much smaller than the press tour suggested.'","era":"reality","id":"evt-devin-2","sourceIds":["src-ci-devin2","src-ci-tc-devin2","src-ci-plainai-devin2","src-ci-siliconangle-devin2"],"title":"devin 2.0, $20"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#reality","sourceIds":["source-03f118fe4a0ab653fd0f","source-355e81fa28799749c027","source-897df7b97d91b3d2e451","source-4563cb54b30168bbb274"]},{"confidence":"confirmed","date":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-04-16"},"id":"record-095e5194da051554835a","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"openai circles windsurf","original":{"confidence":"confirmed","date":"2025-04-16","detail":"bloomberg and axios report openai in talks to acquire windsurf for ~$3b — the deal whose collapse will define cognition's summer. windsurf (fka codeium, founded 2021 by mit classmates varun mohan and douglas chen) had raised ~$240m and was last valued at $1.25b.","era":"reality","id":"evt-openai-windsurf-talks","sourceIds":["src-hp-bloomberg-openai-windsurf","src-hp-axios-openai-windsurf","src-hp-fortune-openai-windsurf"],"title":"openai circles windsurf"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#reality","sourceIds":["source-86e74bdb34b9790b77af","source-f911a08b0f34a4ae3da3","source-b495851e01f30a9a3a0a"]},{"confidence":"confirmed","date":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-05-05"},"id":"record-d782def06fbff9b3cc8b","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"deepwiki; devin 2.1; windsurf's swe-1","original":{"confidence":"confirmed","date":"2025-05-05","detail":"deepwiki launches — free ai-generated documentation for any public github repo, the code-understanding surface that becomes devin wiki's sibling. ten days later devin 2.1 ships confidence indicators (green/yellow/red); the same day a still-independent windsurf launches its swe-1 model family.","era":"reality","id":"evt-deepwiki","sourceIds":["src-hp-cognition-blog-index","src-hp-windsurf-swe1","src-ci-tc-swe1"],"title":"deepwiki; devin 2.1; windsurf's swe-1"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#reality","sourceIds":["source-eed19973dcd9a081d078","source-4990a394d67e38b6b110","source-a436ee5f98771146f3b0"]},{"confidence":"confirmed","date":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-06-12"},"id":"record-5ac41e511cb5bb17ef3e","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"don't build multi-agents","original":{"confidence":"confirmed","date":"2025-06-12","detail":"walden yan publishes 'don't build multi-agents' — the essay that popularizes 'context engineering' over prompt engineering: 'share context'; 'actions carry implicit decisions'; the field 'still playing with raw html & css.' cognition's most durable intellectual export.","era":"reality","id":"evt-dont-build-multi-agents","sourceIds":["src-hp-cognition-dont-build-multi-agents","src-hp-jxnl-walden-notes"],"title":"don't build multi-agents"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#reality","sourceIds":["source-9fae7c1edd91ab4d1da5","source-c234f9223b6ea0e628d7"]},{"confidence":"confirmed","date":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-06-03"},"id":"record-9074edc1c7fd945290df","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"anthropic cuts windsurf's claude","original":{"confidence":"confirmed","date":"2025-06-03","detail":"anthropic cuts windsurf's first-party claude 3.x capacity with under five days' notice, amid the openai acquisition rumors — jared kaplan: 'i think it would be odd for us to be selling claude to openai.' windsurf's arr had reportedly touched ~$100m in april and slipped toward ~$82m in the squeeze.","era":"windsurf","id":"evt-anthropic-cut","sourceIds":["src-ci-tc-anthropic-windsurf","src-ci-tc-anthropic-kaplan","src-ci-tc-cognition-windsurf"],"title":"anthropic cuts windsurf's claude"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#windsurf","sourceIds":["source-a0b73d6c6460bfbb2536","source-990a55a3b7e738c35a5f","source-94b4317cf426353447ed"]},{"confidence":"confirmed","date":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-07-11"},"id":"record-abad8f06152d31964036","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"google takes the brain","original":{"confidence":"confirmed","date":"2025-07-11","detail":"hours after openai's exclusivity lapses — reported casualty: microsoft ip-access friction — google announces a $2.4b non-exclusive license plus the hires: ceo varun mohan, co-founder douglas chen, and senior r&d into deepmind to work on agentic coding for gemini. no equity stake. jeff wang (head of business) becomes interim ceo of the ~250-person shell; graham moreno becomes president.","era":"windsurf","id":"evt-google-deal","sourceIds":["src-hp-reuters-google-windsurf","src-hp-verge-google-windsurf","src-hp-nyt-google-windsurf","src-ci-bloomberg-openai-windsurf","src-hp-fortune-openai-windsurf","src-hp-toi-microsoft-windsurf"],"title":"google takes the brain"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#windsurf","sourceIds":["source-f2fd2757849515c1d029","source-f55e8ee9e036f70a2fbf","source-5b6c5aa3587982e2cf47","source-44e507d111736076cca2","source-b495851e01f30a9a3a0a","source-4c12a14fc5b331336589"]},{"confidence":"confirmed","date":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-07-11"},"id":"record-9a50a88505fa044164ca","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"goldman 'hires' devin","original":{"confidence":"confirmed","date":"2025-07-11","detail":"the same day, cnbc breaks the goldman deployment — cio marco argenti: 'we're going to start augmenting our workforce with devin, which is going to be like our new employee… initially, we will have hundreds of devins [and] that might go into the thousands.' first major bank on devin, per cognition; supervised, on drudgery work like legacy updates; argenti claims 3–4x productivity versus prior tools.","era":"windsurf","id":"evt-goldman","sourceIds":["src-ci-cnbc-goldman","src-ci-fortune-goldman","src-ci-fastcompany-goldman"],"title":"goldman 'hires' devin"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#windsurf","sourceIds":["source-b6e5c775815587115dc6","source-30e4b4096d35485ca680","source-6ec5475aad662f790417"]},{"confidence":"confirmed","date":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-07-14"},"id":"record-5030dcdfc08f02669751","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"cognition takes the body","original":{"confidence":"confirmed","date":"2025-07-14","detail":"cognition signs the definitive agreement for everything google left: the ip, product, trademark and brand, the ~250-person team, $82m arr, 350+ enterprise customers, and 'hundreds of thousands' of daus — with full claude access restored. first call friday ~5pm, signed monday morning. wu's memo: '100% of windsurf employees will participate financially… vesting cliffs waived… fully accelerated vesting… there's only one boat and we're all in it together.' price undisclosed; secondaries estimate ~$250m.","era":"windsurf","id":"evt-cognition-windsurf","sourceIds":["src-ci-cognition-windsurf","src-ci-tc-cognition-windsurf","src-hp-reuters-cognition-windsurf","src-ci-vb-cognition-windsurf","src-hp-bloomberg-windsurf-acq","src-ci-bi-jeff-wang","src-ci-ethanding-margin"],"title":"cognition takes the body"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#windsurf","sourceIds":["source-61d59736ca4b7ce170ce","source-94b4317cf426353447ed","source-a6aa66c987d69b755926","source-c33934e68c6680491353","source-b6e086a3e5695e65bbf8","source-ec4f92d65052bb02450c","source-a2bb447fdb8e3a7ffeb3"]},{"confidence":"confirmed","date":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-07-22"},"id":"record-3e27bc03c4bd4909d735","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"the mcp marketplace","original":{"confidence":"confirmed","date":"2025-07-22","detail":"devin's mcp marketplace launches — the agent plugs into the mcp server ecosystem eight days post-acquisition.","era":"windsurf","id":"evt-mcp-marketplace","sourceIds":["src-hp-cognition-mcp-marketplace"],"title":"the mcp marketplace"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#windsurf","sourceIds":["source-f93be2dd5a18f96f08c2"]},{"confidence":"confirmed","date":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-08-05"},"id":"record-9a31b76a3e68e7f509e5","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"the 80-hour memo","original":{"confidence":"confirmed","date":"2025-08-05","detail":"three weeks after the 'one boat' memo: 30 windsurf-team layoffs and nine-month buyouts offered to the ~200 remaining (decide by august 10); stay means six office days a week and 80+ hour weeks. wu's memo, verbatim: 'we don't believe in work-life balance—building the future of software engineering is a mission we all care so deeply about that we couldn't possibly separate the two.' wu publicly owns it: 'many of us literally live where we work.'","era":"windsurf","id":"evt-buyouts","sourceIds":["src-hp-theinformation-buyouts","src-ci-tc-buyouts","src-hp-winbuzzer-buyouts","src-ci-et-buyouts","src-ci-inc-buyouts","src-ci-ainews-buyouts"],"title":"the 80-hour memo"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#windsurf","sourceIds":["source-8827c28061e1bf34e62a","source-0a0cecc79cd64aa50d04","source-09db40bd806a92edb803","source-10927a9e93c93173b6a2","source-3aeaa9d3aa5c57c0c589","source-94b86d8bccd595dc76a8"]},{"confidence":"confirmed","date":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-09-08"},"id":"record-23c89a02d09ec41d69b9","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"series c, $10.2b","original":{"confidence":"confirmed","date":"2025-09-08","detail":"the >$400m series c lands at $10.2b post, led by founders fund with lux, 8vc, neo, elad gil, definition, swish, and new names bain capital ventures, hanabi, d1. wu's metrics post is the real document: devin arr $1m (sep 2024) → $73m (jun 2025), lifetime net burn under $20m, >30% combined enterprise-arr growth in the seven weeks post-windsurf, <5% customer overlap — all self-reported. christian lawless (conversion capital), emily cohen (neo), and swyx join full-time.","era":"scale","id":"evt-series-c","sourceIds":["src-hp-cognition-series-c","src-hp-bloomberg-10b","src-ci-tc-10b","src-ci-cnbc-10b","src-ci-pitchbook-10b"],"title":"series c, $10.2b"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#scale","sourceIds":["source-683e5bd3e85a452a2e90","source-f23daa466d191fbf5e18","source-bc4cf49943863860ecf0","source-e46a6f81e3d0da7c7abe","source-71c420ef4412691e3ba4"]},{"confidence":"confirmed","date":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-09-29"},"id":"record-138019a0f8971877e474","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"rebuilt on sonnet 4.5","original":{"confidence":"confirmed","date":"2025-09-29","detail":"devin is rebuilt on claude sonnet 4.5 and devin agent preview ships — '2x faster, 12% better on our jr. developer evals' (self-reported).","era":"scale","id":"evt-sonnet-45","sourceIds":["src-hp-cognition-blog-index"],"title":"rebuilt on sonnet 4.5"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#scale","sourceIds":["source-eed19973dcd9a081d078"]},{"confidence":"confirmed","date":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-10-29"},"id":"record-51d9bffb16015cd1c7a5","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"swe-1.5 and the swe-bench disclaimer","original":{"confidence":"confirmed","date":"2025-10-29","detail":"swe-1.5 — a frontier-size in-house model served by cerebras at up to 950 tok/s, claimed 6x faster than haiku 4.5 and 13x than sonnet 4.5 on swe-bench pro (self-reported). the post's buried confession matters more than the benchmarks: 'we stopped reporting swe-bench numbers in 2024' — the company that minted the benchmark's pr value disclaimed it. (swe-grep and swe-grep-mini, fast retrieval models, shipped october 16.)","era":"scale","id":"evt-swe-15","sourceIds":["src-ci-cognition-swe15","src-hp-cognition-blog-index"],"title":"swe-1.5 and the swe-bench disclaimer"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#scale","sourceIds":["source-d84f4f544323a3347892","source-eed19973dcd9a081d078"]},{"confidence":"confirmed","date":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-11-14"},"id":"record-f17ecfb8bbe25a877888","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"the 18-month review","original":{"confidence":"confirmed","date":"2025-11-14","detail":"'devin's 2025 performance review: learnings from 18 months of agents at work' — the retrospective claiming devin embedded at 'thousands of companies' (self-reported). by late 2025 the team is reportedly ~200; linkedin later shows 300–400 across 21 countries.","era":"scale","id":"evt-perf-review","sourceIds":["src-hp-cognition-blog-index","src-hp-wiki-cognition","src-hp-linkedin-scott-wu"],"title":"the 18-month review"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#scale","sourceIds":["source-eed19973dcd9a081d078","source-b25285998fe2435401d2","source-298196c029df2c70115e"]},{"confidence":"confirmed","date":{"precision":"month","text":"2026-01"},"id":"record-e2d1fa955dda4921f537","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"infosys, devin review, london","original":{"confidence":"confirmed","date":"2026-01","detail":"the january push: an infosys partnership puts devin across its org and client base (01-07); devin review launches as the 'ai to stop slop' (01-21); the london office opens — first in europe — alongside a cognizant partnership (01-28). the enterprise-distribution era starts.","era":"scale","id":"evt-january-push","sourceIds":["src-hp-cognition-blog-index"],"title":"infosys, devin review, london"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#scale","sourceIds":["source-eed19973dcd9a081d078"]},{"confidence":"confirmed","date":{"precision":"day","text":"2026-02-24"},"id":"record-d3829aa296c96b6ec821","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"devin 2.2 and cognition for government","original":{"confidence":"confirmed","date":"2026-02-24","detail":"devin 2.2 ships, billed as 'the most important update to devin since launch'; 'cognition for government' launches the next day. two days later 'how cognition uses devin to build devin' — the dogfooding account behind the 90%+ internal-code claims.","era":"scale","id":"evt-devin-22-gov","sourceIds":["src-ci-cognition-devin22","src-ci-cognition-gov","src-hp-cognition-blog-index"],"title":"devin 2.2 and cognition for government"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#scale","sourceIds":["source-5f0b805f7dcb4759ecbb","source-1108a3592afcb0b0a870","source-eed19973dcd9a081d078"]},{"confidence":"confirmed","date":{"precision":"day","text":"2026-03-19"},"id":"record-f8c3918e04b11cc2ae76","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"devins managing devins","original":{"confidence":"confirmed","date":"2026-03-19","detail":"'devin can now manage devins' — delegation to parallel managed devins — plus scheduled devins. the agent starts supervising agents; swe-1.6 previewed earlier in the month.","era":"scale","id":"evt-manage-devins","sourceIds":["src-hp-cognition-blog-index","src-ci-cognition-swe16"],"title":"devins managing devins"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#scale","sourceIds":["source-eed19973dcd9a081d078","source-9436d410de526200cd83"]},{"confidence":"confirmed","date":{"precision":"day","text":"2026-04-15"},"id":"record-ce137aa3c9708af8bbce","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"devin inside windsurf","original":{"confidence":"confirmed","date":"2026-04-15","detail":"'devin in windsurf' — the promised product integration ships: the devin agent inside the windsurf ide. 'local agents make you faster. cloud agents do the work while you're not there.' the same fortnight: swe-1.6, cognition japan (takumi masai), swe-check (an rl bug-detection model with applied compute), new self-serve plans, and a mercedes-benz deployment with the devin cli.","era":"scale","id":"evt-devin-in-windsurf","sourceIds":["src-ci-cognition-devin-windsurf","src-hp-cognition-blog-index"],"title":"devin inside windsurf"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#scale","sourceIds":["source-a32666ad7205106c60a6","source-eed19973dcd9a081d078"]},{"confidence":"confirmed","date":{"precision":"day","text":"2026-04-22"},"id":"record-a7af935462c28a83433a","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"the multi-agents revision","original":{"confidence":"confirmed","date":"2026-04-22","detail":"walden yan's follow-up, 'multi-agents: what's actually working,' narrows the 2025 thesis: multiple agents may contribute intelligence to a task while writes stay single-threaded.","era":"scale","id":"evt-multi-agents-2","sourceIds":["src-hp-cognition-multi-agents-working"],"title":"the multi-agents revision"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#scale","sourceIds":["source-f3dc3cc7e25ddc3ef223"]},{"confidence":"confirmed","date":{"precision":"day","text":"2026-05-27"},"id":"record-b42a391fafcafe471ed6","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"series d, $26b","original":{"confidence":"confirmed","date":"2026-05-27","detail":"the series d: >$1b at $26b post ($25b pre), co-led by lux capital, general catalyst, and 8vc, with ribbit, atreides, and layer global new. run-rate revenue $492m versus $37m a year earlier; wu claims >90% of cognition's internal code is written by devin (self-reported); the positioning word is 'the independent agent lab.' customers named include goldman, mercedes-benz, citi, and the us army and navy.","era":"scale","id":"evt-series-d","sourceIds":["src-ci-cognition-seriesd","src-ci-tc-26b","src-hp-et-26b","src-ci-bloomberg-26b","src-hp-tnw-26b"],"title":"series d, $26b"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#scale","sourceIds":["source-770685a75fe60643a3de","source-3846429f3a0524c45932","source-dea7568078b4139c7cd8","source-95bf3fd6ebcbd36ff2d7","source-2c0461fda976e37ccac6"]},{"confidence":"confirmed","date":{"precision":"day","text":"2026-06-02"},"id":"record-950c37d436bed268643d","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"devin desktop","original":{"confidence":"confirmed","date":"2026-06-02","detail":"devin desktop launches — 'the next generation of windsurf,' built around devin cloud and the agent command center. the acquisition's endgame: the ide becomes the agent's front end; by mid-2026 the phrasing is 'devin desktop, formerly windsurf.'","era":"scale","id":"evt-devin-desktop","sourceIds":["src-ci-cognition-devin-desktop","src-hp-sourcery-scott-wu"],"title":"devin desktop"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#scale","sourceIds":["source-7fdc5fd08e6263c65245","source-c6eac868014fcc0ec96e"]},{"confidence":"confirmed","date":{"precision":"day","text":"2026-06-04"},"id":"record-360bf630df833567cd79","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"the productivity guarantee","original":{"confidence":"confirmed","date":"2026-06-04","detail":"the ai productivity guarantee: an in-house estimator converts devin's output into engineer-hours, and if delivered value falls short of the price, 'cognition will fund your usage up to $10m.' outcome-priced agent labor — self-measured, which is both the point and the caveat.","era":"scale","id":"evt-guarantee","sourceIds":["src-ci-cognition-guarantee","src-ci-cognition-aiproductivity"],"title":"the productivity guarantee"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#scale","sourceIds":["source-880f71389c97d5e693a1","source-6bbf11a299b94ec9d060"]},{"confidence":"confirmed","date":{"precision":"month","text":"2026-07"},"id":"record-6a2d4d0152e15a7e43a6","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"fedramp, genesis, the exec bench","original":{"confidence":"confirmed","date":"2026-07","detail":"the institutional summer: devin security swarm and the vulnerability remediation program (07-01/02); swe-1.7 (07-08); fedramp high (class d) in-process and the 'making fable cheaper than opus' post — naming the in-house fable model family (07-13); the windsurf anniversary post (07-14); acqui-hires of tierzero and the interaction company, makers of poke (07-20/23); an mou with the department of energy's genesis mission (07-22); the ltm partnership covering 260+ clients including 26 of the fortune 500 (07-28). russell kaplan announces the exec bench: paul grewal (ex-coinbase clo), art l. (ex-brex), jared palmer.","era":"scale","id":"evt-institutional-summer","sourceIds":["src-hp-cognition-blog-index","src-hp-linkedin-russell-kaplan"],"title":"fedramp, genesis, the exec bench"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#scale","sourceIds":["source-eed19973dcd9a081d078","source-ce4e009600ed0f3eeec9"]},{"confidence":"confirmed","date":{"precision":"day","text":"2026-09-08"},"id":"record-76ae956815102f90148b","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"series e, $48b","original":{"confidence":"confirmed","date":"2026-09-08","detail":"the series e: >$2b at $48b led by new investors a16z and accel plus founders fund, general catalyst, avenir, and a ~30-firm syndicate including nvidia (also a devin customer). run-rate revenue ~$900m per company statements relayed by press. marc andreessen's post supplies the coda: 'in the past year, devin has gone from writing 13% of cognition's production code to more than 90%' — and a16z is 'proud to back him for the second time,' the first being lunchclub.","era":"scale","id":"evt-series-e","sourceIds":["src-hp-cognition-series-e","src-hp-reuters-48b","src-ci-tc-48b","src-hp-siliconangle-48b","src-hp-wsj-48b","src-hp-a16z-investing-cognition"],"title":"series e, $48b"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#scale","sourceIds":["source-20b876fce8c648bf65ad","source-97c95227f6616ff05173","source-b5b4a2584a32aee86ff9","source-29dc9c70ea6998db6f4a","source-8deab2ebbf22a0e570d8","source-54073d33e81aedbbc0f6"]},{"confidence":"confirmed","date":{"precision":"day","text":"2026-09-09"},"id":"record-4736904d9bbe7ea33027","kind":"cognition-timeline","label":"swe-2, rsa-260, aws","original":{"confidence":"confirmed","date":"2026-09-09","detail":"the september coda: a 'factoring rsa-260' research post (devin plus a researcher built a top gpu lattice siever); the swe-2 model launch; the dioxus team (jonathan kelley et al.) joins; the fusion harness for the in-house 'fable' and 'astra' models lands in devin desktop and cli (claimed up to 39% more efficient); and a multi-year aws strategic collaboration agreement (09-15).","era":"scale","id":"evt-september-coda","sourceIds":["src-hp-cognition-blog-index"],"title":"swe-2, rsa-260, aws"},"originalUrl":"https://hraness.com/cognition/history#scale","sourceIds":["source-eed19973dcd9a081d078"]}],"sources":[{"author":null,"id":"source-e97feb492bee36b9a9d0","note":"cherry-picking (\"road damage\" search) and hype-tactics analysis","originalId":"src-ci-aims-misleading-communication","published":{"precision":"month","text":"2024-04"},"publisher":"artificialintelligencemadesimple.com","title":"cherry-picking (road damage search) and hype-tactics analysis","type":"reference","url":"https://www.artificialintelligencemadesimple.com/p/analyzing-the-misleading-communication"},{"author":null,"id":"source-94b86d8bccd595dc76a8","note":"reversal-from-messaging frame","originalId":"src-ci-ainews-buyouts","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-08-06"},"publisher":"ainews.com","title":"reversal-from-messaging frame","type":"reporting","url":"https://www.ainews.com/p/cognition-offers-buyouts-to-windsurf-staff-weeks-after-acquisition"},{"author":null,"id":"source-4b763167f018c772675f","note":"month-long eval: 3 successes/14 failures/3 inconclusive of 20","originalId":"src-ci-answerai-devin","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-01-08"},"publisher":"answer.ai","title":"month-long eval: 3 successes/14 failures/3 inconclusive of 20","type":"reference","url":"https://www.answer.ai/posts/2025-01-08-devin"},{"author":null,"id":"source-ec4f92d65052bb02450c","note":"wang recounts frantic weekend; options considered","originalId":"src-ci-bi-jeff-wang","published":{"precision":"month","text":"2025-07"},"publisher":"business insider","title":"wang recounts frantic weekend","type":"reporting","url":"https://www.businessinsider.com/windsurf-ceo-jeff-wang-openai-google-cognition-deal-2025-7"},{"author":null,"id":"source-95bf3fd6ebcbd36ff2d7","note":"series d corroboration","originalId":"src-ci-bloomberg-26b","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2026-05-27"},"publisher":"bloomberg","title":"series d corroboration","type":"reporting","url":"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-05-27/ai-coding-startup-cognition-raises-1-billion-at-26-billion-value"},{"author":null,"id":"source-44e507d111736076cca2","note":"openai $3b deal collapses; google $2.4b talent+license","originalId":"src-ci-bloomberg-openai-windsurf","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-07-11"},"publisher":"bloomberg","title":"openai $3b deal collapses","type":"reporting","url":"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-11/openai-s-3-billion-deal-to-buy-ai-startup-windsurf-falls-apart"},{"author":null,"id":"source-e46a6f81e3d0da7c7abe","note":"post-windsurf valuation frame","originalId":"src-ci-cnbc-10b","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-09-08"},"publisher":"cnbc","title":"post-windsurf valuation frame","type":"reporting","url":"https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/08/cognition-valued-at-10point2-billion-two-months-after-windsurf-.html"},{"author":null,"id":"source-b6e5c775815587115dc6","note":"argenti: \"hundreds… might go into the thousands\"; supervised deployment","originalId":"src-ci-cnbc-goldman","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-07-11"},"publisher":"cnbc","title":"argenti: hundreds… might go into the thousands","type":"reporting","url":"https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/11/goldman-sachs-autonomous-coder-pilot-marks-major-ai-milestone.html"},{"author":null,"id":"source-6bbf11a299b94ec9d060","note":"estimator methodology companion post","originalId":"src-ci-cognition-aiproductivity","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2026-06-04"},"publisher":"cognition.com","title":"estimator methodology companion post","type":"primary","url":"https://cognition.com/blog/ai-productivity"},{"author":null,"id":"source-7fdc5fd08e6263c65245","note":"devin desktop (index listing)","originalId":"src-ci-cognition-devin-desktop","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2026-06-02"},"publisher":"cognition.com","title":"devin desktop (index listing)","type":"primary","url":"https://cognition.com/blog/introducing-devin-desktop"},{"author":null,"id":"source-a32666ad7205106c60a6","note":"devin integration into windsurf ships (index listing)","originalId":"src-ci-cognition-devin-windsurf","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2026-04-15"},"publisher":"cognition.com","title":"devin integration into windsurf ships (index listing)","type":"primary","url":"https://cognition.com/blog/devin-in-windsurf"},{"author":null,"id":"source-5f0b805f7dcb4759ecbb","note":"devin 2.2 (index listing)","originalId":"src-ci-cognition-devin22","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2026-02-24"},"publisher":"cognition.com","title":"devin 2.2","type":"primary","url":"https://cognition.com/blog/introducing-devin-2-2"},{"author":null,"id":"source-1108a3592afcb0b0a870","note":"government offering (index listing)","originalId":"src-ci-cognition-gov","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2026-02-25"},"publisher":"cognition.com","title":"government offering (index listing)","type":"primary","url":"https://cognition.com/blog/cognition-for-government"},{"author":null,"id":"source-880f71389c97d5e693a1","note":"ai productivity guarantee; credits up to $10m; engineer-hour estimator","originalId":"src-ci-cognition-guarantee","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2026-06-04"},"publisher":"cognition.com","title":"ai productivity guarantee","type":"primary","url":"https://cognition.com/blog/ai-guarantee"},{"author":null,"id":"source-770685a75fe60643a3de","note":"$1b+ at $26b; $492m run-rate; customers; \"89% of code committed by our engineers is committed by devin\"; \"independent agent lab\"","originalId":"src-ci-cognition-seriesd","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2026-05-27"},"publisher":"cognition.com","title":"$1b+ at $26b","type":"primary","url":"https://cognition.com/blog/series-d"},{"author":null,"id":"source-d84f4f544323a3347892","note":"frontier-size model; 950 tok/s via cerebras; \"stopped reporting swe-bench numbers in 2024\"","originalId":"src-ci-cognition-swe15","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-10-29"},"publisher":"cognition.com","title":"frontier-size model","type":"primary","url":"https://cognition.com/blog/swe-1-5"},{"author":null,"id":"source-9436d410de526200cd83","note":"swe-1.6 preview + research update (index listing)","originalId":"src-ci-cognition-swe16","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2026-03-01"},"publisher":"cognition.com","title":"swe-1.6 preview","type":"primary","url":"https://cognition.com/blog/swe-1-6-preview"},{"author":null,"id":"source-61d59736ca4b7ce170ce","note":"definitive agreement; $82m arr; 350+ enterprise customers; 100% participation/vesting","originalId":"src-ci-cognition-windsurf","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-07-14"},"publisher":"cognition.com","title":"definitive agreement","type":"primary","url":"https://cognition.com/blog/windsurf"},{"author":null,"id":"source-03f118fe4a0ab653fd0f","note":"devin 2.0: agent-native ide; $20 plan; search/wiki","originalId":"src-ci-devin2","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-04-03"},"publisher":"cognition.com","title":"devin 2.0","type":"primary","url":"https://cognition.com/blog/devin-2"},{"author":null,"id":"source-10927a9e93c93173b6a2","note":"wu's x acknowledgment; mercor/anysphere comparisons","originalId":"src-ci-et-buyouts","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-08-08"},"publisher":"economic times","title":"wu x-post acknowledgment quotes","type":"reporting","url":"https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/artificial-intelligence/work-life-imbalance-after-buying-remnants-of-windsurf-cognition-lays-off-30-tells-rest-to-work-long-hours/articleshow/123183771.cms"},{"author":null,"id":"source-a2bb447fdb8e3a7ffeb3","note":"~$250m price / ~$100m cash → ~$150m ev arithmetic","originalId":"src-ci-ethanding-margin","published":{"precision":"month","text":"2025-07"},"publisher":"ethanding.substack.com","title":"~$250m price / ~$100m cash → ~$150m ev arithmetic","type":"primary","url":"https://ethanding.substack.com/p/windsurf-gets-margin-called"},{"author":null,"id":"source-6ec5475aad662f790417","note":"anthropomorphic-branding critique; perplexity-ceo praise quote","originalId":"src-ci-fastcompany-goldman","published":{"precision":"month","text":"2025-07"},"publisher":"fast company","title":"anthropomorphic-branding critique","type":"reporting","url":"https://www.fastcompany.com/91366706/meet-devin-goldman-sachs-new-ai-software-engineer-that-never-sleeps"},{"author":null,"id":"source-30e4b4096d35485ca680","note":"\"hybrid workforce\"; salary contrast $115–180k","originalId":"src-ci-fortune-goldman","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-07-14"},"publisher":"fortune","title":"hybrid workforce","type":"reporting","url":"https://fortune.com/2025/07/14/goldman-sachs-ai-powered-software-engineer-devin-new-employee-increase-productivity-fears-of-job-replacement/"},{"author":null,"id":"source-c74b167d1a26f38e3de9","note":"\"bungling the vast majority of tasks\"","originalId":"src-ci-futurism-devin","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-01-24"},"publisher":"futurism","title":"bungling the vast majority of tasks","type":"reporting","url":"https://futurism.com/first-ai-software-engineer-devin-bungling-tasks"},{"author":null,"id":"source-6a4044bf6dc1be187686","note":"ga coverage; notes 8-month delay","originalId":"src-ci-gadgets360-ga","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2024-12-11"},"publisher":"gadgets360.com","title":"ga coverage","type":"reporting","url":"https://www.gadgets360.com/ai/news/cognition-labs-devin-ai-software-engineer-generally-available-7224739"},{"author":null,"id":"source-dc0e46d1ff6f1c20f836","note":"verbatim iob \"company lied\" three-count quote","originalId":"src-ci-gist-rebutting-devin","published":{"precision":"month","text":"2024-04"},"publisher":"gist.github.com","title":"verbatim iob company lied three-count quote","type":"reporting","url":"https://gist.github.com/cedrickchee/588a55cbcaeb2d0faba694ae1fa560dd"},{"author":null,"id":"source-a325c78864f6c71c26cc","note":"302 pts/43 comments; mike_hearn's canonical summary","originalId":"src-ci-hn-debunk-thread","published":{"precision":"month","text":"2024-04"},"publisher":"hacker news","title":"302 pts/43 comments","type":"community","url":"https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40008109"},{"author":null,"id":"source-d016a353d57b98772c12","note":"launch thread; denial/fear/economics debate","originalId":"src-ci-hn-devin-launch","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2024-03-12"},"publisher":"hacker news","title":"launch thread","type":"community","url":"https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39679787"},{"author":null,"id":"source-3aeaa9d3aa5c57c0c589","note":"\"extreme performance culture\"; \"live where we work\"","originalId":"src-ci-inc-buyouts","published":{"precision":"month","text":"2025-08"},"publisher":"inc.","title":"extreme performance culture","type":"reporting","url":"https://www.inc.com/kit-eaton/this-ai-startup-just-told-its-staff-to-leave-with-a-check-if-they-cant-take-the-heat/91224532"},{"author":null,"id":"source-4ee75c4645a1b4f5f051","note":"internet of bugs frame-by-frame debunk of upwork demo","originalId":"src-ci-iob-debunk-video","published":{"precision":"month","text":"2024-04"},"publisher":"youtube","title":"internet of bugs frame-by-frame debunk of upwork demo","type":"reporting","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNmgmwEtoWE"},{"author":null,"id":"source-f2e0cbf94ab181056995","note":"launch summary incl. swe-bench framing detail","originalId":"src-ci-itdoeswhatnow","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2024-03-12"},"publisher":"itdoeswhatnow.com","title":"launch summary incl. swe-bench framing detail","type":"reporting","url":"https://itdoeswhatnow.com/m/2024-03-12-cognition-demos-devin-billed-as-the-first-ai/"},{"author":null,"id":"source-cd449b9cadea032c1639","note":"expectations gap coverage","originalId":"src-ci-itpro-devin","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-02-04"},"publisher":"itpro.com","title":"expectations gap coverage","type":"reporting","url":"https://www.itpro.com/software/development/the-worlds-first-ai-software-engineer-isnt-living-up-to-expectations-cognition-ais-devin-assistant-was-touted-as-a-game-changer-for-developers-but-so-far-its-fumbling-tasks-and-struggling-to-compete-with-human-workers"},{"author":null,"id":"source-04a52da8b85ef9ef6d97","note":"open-source replication created day after launch; now openhands; ~85k stars","originalId":"src-ci-opendevin-repo","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2024-03-13"},"publisher":"github","title":"open-source replication created day after launch","type":"reporting","url":"https://github.com/opendevin/OpenDevin"},{"author":null,"id":"source-71c420ef4412691e3ba4","note":"round corroboration","originalId":"src-ci-pitchbook-10b","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-09-08"},"publisher":"pitchbook","title":"round corroboration","type":"reporting","url":"https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/ai-coding-startup-cognition-raises-400m-10-2b-valuation"},{"author":null,"id":"source-897df7b97d91b3d2e451","note":"price-collapse-as-admission read","originalId":"src-ci-plainai-devin2","published":{"precision":"month","text":"2025-04"},"publisher":"plainai.aguidetocloud.com","title":"price-collapse-as-admission read","type":"reference","url":"https://plainai.aguidetocloud.com/changes/cognition-devin-2/"},{"author":null,"id":"source-e7d284c0268db13f0a41","note":"$500/mo as b2b junior-engineer pricing read","originalId":"src-ci-productgeeks-pricing","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2024-12-13"},"publisher":"productgeeks.com","title":"$500/mo as b2b junior-engineer pricing read","type":"reference","url":"https://www.productgeeks.com/p/devin-ai-pricing"},{"author":null,"id":"source-f100da13fced364e392d","note":"\"'first ai software engineer' is bad at its job\"","originalId":"src-ci-register-devin-bad","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-01-23"},"publisher":"theregister.com","title":"first ai software engineer is bad at its job","type":"reporting","url":"https://www.theregister.com/software/2025/01/23/first-ai-software-engineer-is-bad-at-its-job/"},{"author":null,"id":"source-4b59677cc2bcb17d4220","note":"quotes cognition's technical-preview-opening tweet","originalId":"src-ci-scitech-devin","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2024-04-17"},"publisher":"scitech.whatfinger.com","title":"quotes cognitions technical-preview-opening tweet","type":"reporting","url":"https://scitech.whatfinger.com/2024/04/17/devin-ai-stunning-release-was-the-debunking-devin-video-right-story-of-scott-wu-devin-ai-ceo/"},{"author":null,"id":"source-4563cb54b30168bbb274","note":"\"devin's adoption stalled\" under competition","originalId":"src-ci-siliconangle-devin2","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-04-03"},"publisher":"siliconangle.com","title":"devins adoption stalled under competition","type":"reporting","url":"https://siliconangle.com/2025/04/03/cognition-ai-launches-revamped-coding-assistant-devin-2-0-much-lower-starting-price/"},{"author":null,"id":"source-bc4cf49943863860ecf0","note":"arr $1m(sep'24)→$73m(jun'25); net burn <$20m","originalId":"src-ci-tc-10b","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-09-08"},"publisher":"techcrunch","title":"arr $1m(sep24)→$73m(jun25)","type":"reporting","url":"https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/08/cognition-ai-defies-turbulence-with-a-400m-raise-at-10-2b-valuation/"},{"author":null,"id":"source-3846429f3a0524c45932","note":"$25b pre/$26b post; revenue $37m→$492m","originalId":"src-ci-tc-26b","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2026-05-27"},"publisher":"techcrunch","title":"$25b pre/$26b post","type":"reporting","url":"https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/27/ai-coding-startup-cognition-raises-1b-at-25b-pre-money-valuation/"},{"author":null,"id":"source-b5b4a2584a32aee86ff9","note":"run-rate $492m→~$900m; the information $4–5b eoy-2026 projection; cursor ~$6b pace","originalId":"src-ci-tc-48b","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2026-09-08"},"publisher":"techcrunch","title":"run-rate $492m→~$900m","type":"reporting","url":"https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/08/cognition-hits-48b-valuation-signaling-investors-believe-ai-coding-is-far-from-a-winner-take-all-market/"},{"author":null,"id":"source-990a55a3b7e738c35a5f","note":"kaplan: \"odd for us to be selling claude to openai\"","originalId":"src-ci-tc-anthropic-kaplan","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-06-05"},"publisher":"techcrunch","title":"kaplan: odd for us to be selling claude to openai","type":"reporting","url":"https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/05/anthropic-co-founder-on-cutting-access-to-windsurf-it-would-be-odd-for-us-to-sell-claude-to-openai/"},{"author":null,"id":"source-a0b73d6c6460bfbb2536","note":"anthropic cuts claude 3.x first-party capacity","originalId":"src-ci-tc-anthropic-windsurf","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-06-03"},"publisher":"techcrunch","title":"anthropic cuts claude 3.x first-party capacity","type":"reporting","url":"https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/03/windsurf-says-anthropic-is-limiting-its-direct-access-to-claude-ai-models/"},{"author":null,"id":"source-0a0cecc79cd64aa50d04","note":"30 laid off; ~200 buyouts; 9-month severance; 6-day/80-hr terms","originalId":"src-ci-tc-buyouts","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-08-05"},"publisher":"techcrunch","title":"30 laid off; ~200 buyouts","type":"reporting","url":"https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/05/three-weeks-after-acquiring-windsurf-cognition-offers-staff-the-exit-door/"},{"author":null,"id":"source-94b4317cf426353447ed","note":"250-person team left behind; friday-call→monday-signing; $100m arr april peak","originalId":"src-ci-tc-cognition-windsurf","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-07-14"},"publisher":"techcrunch","title":"250-person team left behind","type":"reporting","url":"https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/14/cognition-maker-of-the-ai-coding-agent-devin-acquires-windsurf/"},{"author":null,"id":"source-355e81fa28799749c027","note":"\"eye-watering\" $500→$20; acu math","originalId":"src-ci-tc-devin2","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-04-03"},"publisher":"techcrunch","title":"eye-watering $500→$20","type":"reporting","url":"https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/03/devin-the-viral-coding-ai-agent-gets-a-new-pay-as-you-go-plan/"},{"author":null,"id":"source-a436ee5f98771146f3b0","note":"windsurf swe-1 family launch","originalId":"src-ci-tc-swe1","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-05-15"},"publisher":"techcrunch","title":"windsurf swe-1 family launch","type":"reporting","url":"https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/15/vibe-coding-startup-windsurf-launches-in-house-ai-models/"},{"author":null,"id":"source-c33934e68c6680491353","note":"\"friends with anthropic again\"; wang's \"we lost our founders\"","originalId":"src-ci-vb-cognition-windsurf","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-07-14"},"publisher":"venturebeat","title":"friends with anthropic again","type":"reporting","url":"https://venturebeat.com/technology/remaining-windsurf-team-and-tech-acquired-by-cognition-makers-of-devin-were-friends-with-anthropic-again"},{"author":null,"id":"source-c10eb6b78377b420c67f","note":"\"can cost developers more time than it saves\"","originalId":"src-ci-wetware-devin","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-01-25"},"publisher":"improvingwetware.com","title":"can cost developers more time than it saves","type":"reporting","url":"https://www.improvingwetware.com/tech/2025/01/25/not-yet-ready-for-use.html"},{"author":null,"id":"source-c8c2094cb9aecc0e6a78","note":"wsj: $2b talks; \"$350m weeks ago\"; \"doesn't generate any meaningful revenue\"","originalId":"src-ci-wsj-2b","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2024-03-30"},"publisher":"archive.is","title":"wsj: $2b talks","type":"reporting","url":"https://archive.is/ykZHa"},{"author":null,"id":"source-54073d33e81aedbbc0f6","note":"marc andreessen post; \"13%→90%+ of production code\"; \"back him for the second time\"","originalId":"src-hp-a16z-investing-cognition","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2026-09-09"},"publisher":"a16z","title":"marc andreessen post","type":"primary","url":"https://a16z.com/announcement/investing-in-cognition/"},{"author":null,"id":"source-5de8fc0df463af7a033c","note":"founders fund sole investor in $175m round","originalId":"src-hp-aibusiness-2b","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2024-04-30"},"publisher":"aibusiness.com","title":"founders fund sole investor in $175m round","type":"reporting","url":"https://aibusiness.com/nlp/six-month-old-ai-startup-behind-devin-now-valued-at-2b"},{"author":null,"id":"source-f911a08b0f34a4ae3da3","note":"$240m raised; $1.25b post summer 2024","originalId":"src-hp-axios-openai-windsurf","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-04-17"},"publisher":"axios","title":"$240m raised","type":"reporting","url":"https://www.axios.com/2025/04/17/openai-windsurf-3-billion-microsoft"},{"author":null,"id":"source-f23daa466d191fbf5e18","note":"~$400m at $10.2b; investor list","originalId":"src-hp-bloomberg-10b","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-09-08"},"publisher":"bloomberg","title":"~$400m at $10.2b","type":"reporting","url":"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-09-08/cognition-ai-cinches-10-billion-valuation-with-new-funding"},{"author":null,"id":"source-69424c428d72c11b30d5","note":"~$4b round led by 8vc","originalId":"src-hp-bloomberg-4b","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-03-17"},"publisher":"bloomberg","title":"~$4b round led by 8vc","type":"reporting","url":"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-18/cognition-ai-hits-4-billion-valuation-in-deal-led-by-lonsdale-s-firm"},{"author":null,"id":"source-9766dba982b47007668b","note":"ashlee vance launch feature; corp ~2 months old; 10-person staff; $21m; founder roles; yan harvard color","originalId":"src-hp-bloomberg-gold-medalist-coders","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2024-03-12"},"publisher":"bloomberg","title":"ashlee vance launch feature","type":"reporting","url":"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-12/cognition-ai-is-a-peter-thiel-backed-coding-assistant"},{"author":null,"id":"source-86e74bdb34b9790b77af","note":"openai ~$3b talks begin","originalId":"src-hp-bloomberg-openai-windsurf","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-04-16"},"publisher":"bloomberg","title":"openai ~$3b talks begin","type":"reporting","url":"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-16/openai-said-to-be-in-talks-to-buy-windsurf-for-about-3-billion"},{"author":null,"id":"source-b6e086a3e5695e65bbf8","note":"\"what remains of windsurf\" framing","originalId":"src-hp-bloomberg-windsurf-acq","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-07-14"},"publisher":"bloomberg","title":"what remains of windsurf framing","type":"reporting","url":"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-14/ai-startup-cognition-to-buy-windsurf-after-google-licensing-deal"},{"author":null,"id":"source-eed19973dcd9a081d078","note":"full dated post index used for timeline items (ga, 2.x, swe-x, partnerships, offices, acquisitions)","originalId":"src-hp-cognition-blog-index","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2026-09-16"},"publisher":"cognition.com","title":"full dated post index used for timeline items","type":"primary","url":"https://cognition.com/blog"},{"author":null,"id":"source-9fae7c1edd91ab4d1da5","note":"walden yan essay; context-engineering principles","originalId":"src-hp-cognition-dont-build-multi-agents","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-06-12"},"publisher":"cognition.com","title":"walden yan essay","type":"primary","url":"https://cognition.com/blog/dont-build-multi-agents"},{"author":null,"id":"source-6d4a79b9a73398550228","note":"ga at $500/mo, no seat limits, slack/ide/api","originalId":"src-hp-cognition-ga","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2024-12-10"},"publisher":"cognition.com","title":"ga at $500/mo, no seat limits, slack/ide/api","type":"primary","url":"https://cognition.com/blog/devin-generally-available"},{"author":null,"id":"source-1cd84a11f556aa6259f8","note":"scott wu launch post; swe-bench 13.86% claim; \"tireless, skilled teammate\"; early-access waitlist","originalId":"src-hp-cognition-introducing-devin","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2024-03-12"},"publisher":"cognition.com","title":"scott wu launch post","type":"primary","url":"https://cognition.com/blog/introducing-devin"},{"author":null,"id":"source-f93be2dd5a18f96f08c2","note":"mcp server connections for devin","originalId":"src-hp-cognition-mcp-marketplace","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-07-22"},"publisher":"cognition.com","title":"mcp server connections for devin","type":"primary","url":"https://cognition.com/blog/mcp-marketplace"},{"author":null,"id":"source-f3dc3cc7e25ddc3ef223","note":"walden yan follow-up revising 2025 thesis","originalId":"src-hp-cognition-multi-agents-working","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2026-04-22"},"publisher":"cognition.com","title":"walden yan follow-up revising 2025 thesis","type":"primary","url":"https://cognition.com/blog/multi-agents-working"},{"author":null,"id":"source-683e5bd3e85a452a2e90","note":"scott wu: >$400m at $10.2b post; arr $1m→$73m; <$20m lifetime burn; customer names; new hires","originalId":"src-hp-cognition-series-c","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-09-08"},"publisher":"cognition.com","title":"scott wu: >$400m at $10.2b post","type":"primary","url":"https://cognition.com/blog/funding-growth-and-the-next-frontier-of-ai-coding-agents"},{"author":null,"id":"source-20b876fce8c648bf65ad","note":"\"do it all with devin\": >$2b at $48b, a16z + accel","originalId":"src-hp-cognition-series-e","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2026-09-08"},"publisher":"cognition.com","title":"do it all with devin: >$2b at $48b, a16z + accel","type":"primary","url":"https://cognition.com/blog/series-e"},{"author":null,"id":"source-4bace6acc227d708b29c","note":"methodology: 25% subset (570/2294), unassisted, github eval harness","originalId":"src-hp-cognition-swebench-report","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2024-03-15"},"publisher":"cognition.com","title":"methodology: 25% subset (570/2294), unassisted, github eval harness","type":"primary","url":"https://cognition.com/blog/swe-bench-technical-report"},{"author":null,"id":"source-b7868bfa7340706966ba","note":"verbatim: 9-person founding team, hyperscaler, tree search; notes: aug 2023 founding, scale ai stint claim","originalId":"src-hp-davidsenra-scott-wu","published":{"precision":"year","text":"2025"},"publisher":"davidsenra.com","title":"verbatim: 9-person founding team, hyperscaler, tree search","type":"interview","url":"https://www.davidsenra.com/episode/scott-wu"},{"author":null,"id":"source-15d08bc282ccdc5d3f47","note":"linkedin post relaying cognition's ga announcement verbatim; \"16x\" claim; nubank/vesta/ramp; oss contributions","originalId":"src-hp-devin-ga-linkedin","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2024-12-10"},"publisher":"linkedin","title":"linkedin post relaying cognitions ga announcement verbatim","type":"community","url":"https://www.linkedin.com/posts/soumya1729_just-learnt-that-gennady-korotkevich-aka-activity-7272483300294701058-Tgix"},{"author":null,"id":"source-485691c07f3bc24f5537","note":"release notes confirming ga terms/date","originalId":"src-hp-docs-devin-2024","published":{"precision":"year","text":"2024"},"publisher":"docs.devin.ai","title":"release notes confirming ga terms/date","type":"primary","url":"https://docs.devin.ai/release-notes/2024"},{"author":null,"id":"source-dea7568078b4139c7cd8","note":"bloomberg syndication: run-rate $492m vs $37m; >90% internal code by devin (wu)","originalId":"src-hp-et-26b","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2026-05-27"},"publisher":"economic times","title":"bloomberg syndication: run-rate $492m vs $37m","type":"reporting","url":"https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/funding/ai-coding-startup-cognition-raises-1-billion-at-26-billion-value/articleshow/131354428.cms"},{"author":null,"id":"source-b495851e01f30a9a3a0a","note":"exclusivity lapsed; codeium→windsurf rename; investor list","originalId":"src-hp-fortune-openai-windsurf","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-07-11"},"publisher":"fortune","title":"exclusivity lapsed","type":"reporting","url":"https://fortune.com/2025/07/11/the-exclusivity-on-openais-3-billion-acquisition-for-coding-startup-windsfurf-has-expired/"},{"author":null,"id":"source-c234f9223b6ea0e628d7","note":"notes on yan's context-engineering conversation","originalId":"src-hp-jxnl-walden-notes","published":{"precision":"month","text":"2025-07"},"publisher":"linkedin","title":"notes on yans context-engineering conversation","type":"community","url":"https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jxnlco_notes-on-context-engineering-w-walden-yan-activity-7351256030409879553-9d5b"},{"author":null,"id":"source-ce4e009600ed0f3eeec9","note":"president since jan 2024; ex-scale ai dir eng/ml; aug 2026 exec-hires post (grewal, art l., palmer)","originalId":"src-hp-linkedin-russell-kaplan","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2026-09-16"},"publisher":"linkedin","title":"president since jan 2024","type":"reference","url":"https://www.linkedin.com/in/russelljkaplan"},{"author":null,"id":"source-298196c029df2c70115e","note":"ceo since nov 2023; lunchclub cto jun 2017–jun 2022; addepar 2014-15; headcount band 300-400","originalId":"src-hp-linkedin-scott-wu","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2026-09-16"},"publisher":"linkedin","title":"ceo since nov 2023","type":"reference","url":"https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-wu-8b94ab96"},{"author":null,"id":"source-a228f2b93d58ff879291","note":"$175m at $2b; wsj detail on rejected offers","originalId":"src-hp-maginative-175m","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2024-04-25"},"publisher":"maginative.com","title":"$175m at $2b","type":"reporting","url":"https://www.maginative.com/article/cognition-ai-raises-175m-at-2b-valuation-one-month-after-series-a/"},{"author":null,"id":"source-de782531782ee30c543c","note":"$21m series a; collisons/elad gil/chris re; wu \"deep algorithmic problem\" quote","originalId":"src-hp-maginative-devin-launch","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2024-03-12"},"publisher":"maginative.com","title":"$21m series a","type":"reporting","url":"https://www.maginative.com/article/new-ai-startup-cognition-raises-21m-unveils-autonomous-coding-assistant-devin/"},{"author":null,"id":"source-baacd3223944c1d1bd10","note":"compiled leadership bios; crypto-pivot claim; yan bio details (thiel, anysphere, deepreason)","originalId":"src-hp-mungomash-leadership","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2026-09-16"},"publisher":"mungomash.com","title":"compiled leadership bios","type":"community","url":"https://mungomash.com/orgs/cognition/leadership/"},{"author":null,"id":"source-5b6c5aa3587982e2cf47","note":"nyt on the talent raid; microsoft-ip concerns","originalId":"src-hp-nyt-google-windsurf","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-07-11"},"publisher":"the new york times","title":"nyt on the talent raid","type":"reporting","url":"https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/11/technology/google-windsurf-openai.html"},{"author":null,"id":"source-88aa5581b854357a4b39","note":"early-access user write-up; \"silas\" ran early access","originalId":"src-hp-ppaolo-devin","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2024-05-09"},"publisher":"ppaolo.substack.com","title":"early-access user write-up","type":"community","url":"https://ppaolo.substack.com/p/in-depth-product-analysis-devin-cognition-labs"},{"author":null,"id":"source-70bb5f6113202df035f1","note":"gergely orosz on the debunk + cognition's walk-back","originalId":"src-hp-pragmatic-pulse-90","published":{"precision":"month","text":"2024-04"},"publisher":"newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com","title":"gergely orosz on the debunk + cognitions walk-back","type":"community","url":"https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/the-pulse-90"},{"author":null,"id":"source-97c95227f6616ff05173","note":"series e $2b at $48b; a16z/accel/ff/gc/avenir","originalId":"src-hp-reuters-48b","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2026-09-08"},"publisher":"reuters","title":"series e $2b at $48b","type":"reporting","url":"https://www.reuters.com/technology/cognition-ai-raises-2-billion-48-billion-valuation-2026-09-08/"},{"author":null,"id":"source-a6aa66c987d69b755926","note":"jeff wang email quote; windsurf $243m raised/$1.25b prior val","originalId":"src-hp-reuters-cognition-windsurf","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-07-14"},"publisher":"reuters","title":"jeff wang email quote","type":"reporting","url":"https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/cognition-ai-buy-windsurf-doubling-down-ai-driven-coding-2025-07-14/"},{"author":null,"id":"source-f2fd2757849515c1d029","note":"google $2.4b nonexclusive license + hires; no equity","originalId":"src-hp-reuters-google-windsurf","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-07-11"},"publisher":"reuters","title":"google $2.4b nonexclusive license + hires","type":"reporting","url":"https://www.reuters.com/business/google-hires-windsurf-ceo-researchers-advance-ai-ambitions-2025-07-11/"},{"author":null,"id":"source-29dc9c70ea6998db6f4a","note":"~$900m run rate; 30+ firm syndicate incl. nvidia, t. rowe","originalId":"src-hp-siliconangle-48b","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2026-09-08"},"publisher":"siliconangle.com","title":"~$900m run rate","type":"reporting","url":"https://siliconangle.com/2026/09/08/ai-coding-startup-cognition-raises-2b-at-48b-valuation-as-revenue-nears-900m/"},{"author":null,"id":"source-c6eac868014fcc0ec96e","note":"\"devin writes 95% of our code\"; $492m arr; customer names; windsurf weekend negotiation","originalId":"src-hp-sourcery-scott-wu","published":{"precision":"month","text":"2026-07"},"publisher":"sourcery.vc","title":"devin writes 95% of our code","type":"interview","url":"https://www.sourcery.vc/p/breaking-devin-writes-95-of-our-code"},{"author":null,"id":"source-516c817d5bd2f10702dc","note":"microsoft build partnership; devin on azure","originalId":"src-hp-techzine-msft","published":{"precision":"month","text":"2024-05"},"publisher":"techzine.eu","title":"microsoft build partnership","type":"reporting","url":"https://www.techzine.eu/news/devops/120539/microsoft-brings-independent-application-builder-devin-within-reach/"},{"author":null,"id":"source-2e6f9b6f31369ae7d97e","note":"early testers (andrew kean gao); waitlist status","originalId":"src-hp-the-decoder-devin","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2024-03-13"},"publisher":"the-decoder.com","title":"early testers (andrew kean gao)","type":"reporting","url":"https://the-decoder.com/cognition-unveils-ai-powered-software-developer-devin-for-better-programming/"},{"author":null,"id":"source-156199f4583ba6cf2469","note":"participant list: founders fund, khosla, elad gil, conviction","originalId":"src-hp-theaiinsider-4b","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-03-19"},"publisher":"theaiinsider.tech","title":"participant list: founders fund, khosla, elad gil, conviction","type":"reporting","url":"https://theaiinsider.tech/2025/03/19/cognition-ai-achieves-new-milestone-with-multi-million-funding-and-4b-valuation/"},{"author":null,"id":"source-8827c28061e1bf34e62a","note":"original reporting on layoffs/buyouts","originalId":"src-hp-theinformation-buyouts","published":{"precision":"month","text":"2025-08"},"publisher":"the information","title":"original reporting on layoffs/buyouts","type":"reporting","url":"https://www.theinformation.com/articles/cognition-offers-buyouts-newly-acquired-windsurf-staff"},{"author":null,"id":"source-2c0461fda976e37ccac6","note":">$2.5b total raised; ~53x revenue multiple observation","originalId":"src-hp-tnw-26b","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2026-05-27"},"publisher":"the next web","title":">$2.5b total raised; ~53x revenue multiple","type":"reporting","url":"https://thenextweb.com/news/cognition-just-raised-1-billion-at-a-26-billion-valuation-and-90-of-its-own-code-is-written-by-its-ai"},{"author":null,"id":"source-4c12a14fc5b331336589","note":"loi/waterfall detail; microsoft ip friction","originalId":"src-hp-toi-microsoft-windsurf","published":{"precision":"month","text":"2025-07"},"publisher":"timesofindia.indiatimes.com","title":"loi/waterfall detail","type":"reporting","url":"https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/technology/tech-news/how-microsoft-killed-openais-3-billion-acquisition-of-windsurf-making-google-the-big-winner/articleshow/122411189.cms"},{"author":null,"id":"source-f55e8ee9e036f70a2fbf","note":"wang interim ceo; graham moreno president; deepmind agentic coding","originalId":"src-hp-verge-google-windsurf","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-07-11"},"publisher":"the verge","title":"wang interim ceo","type":"reporting","url":"https://www.theverge.com/openai/705999/google-windsurf-ceo-openai"},{"author":null,"id":"source-e2ac6a3e6ff812c2e039","note":"relays the information: $175m at $2b, founders fund led both rounds","originalId":"src-hp-voicebot-2b","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2024-04-25"},"publisher":"voicebot.ai","title":"relays the information: $175m at $2b, founders fund led both rounds","type":"reporting","url":"https://voicebot.ai/2024/04/25/cognition-labs-claims-2b-valuation-after-6-months-and-175m-investment-in-generative-ai-coding-assistant-devin/"},{"author":null,"id":"source-b25285998fe2435401d2","note":"founding aug/nov 2023 discrepancy; 10 ioi medals; neal wu/korotkevich/andrew he; 200 employees 2026","originalId":"src-hp-wiki-cognition","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2026-09-16"},"publisher":"wikipedia","title":"founding aug/nov 2023 discrepancy","type":"reference","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognition_AI"},{"author":null,"id":"source-09db40bd806a92edb803","note":"verbatim \"we don't believe in work-life balance…\" memo","originalId":"src-hp-winbuzzer-buyouts","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-08-05"},"publisher":"winbuzzer.com","title":"verbatim we dont believe in work-life balance… memo","type":"reporting","url":"https://winbuzzer.com/2025/08/05/cognition-ais-culture-reset-offers-nine-month-buyouts-to-windsurf-staff-demands-80-hour-weeks-xcxwbn/"},{"author":null,"id":"source-4990a394d67e38b6b110","note":"pre-acquisition windsurf swe-1 launch (varun mohan quote)","originalId":"src-hp-windsurf-swe1","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2025-05-15"},"publisher":"businesswire.com","title":"pre-acquisition windsurf swe-1 launch (varun mohan quote)","type":"primary","url":"https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250515138505/en/Windsurf-Launches-SWE-1-A-Frontier-AI-Model-Family-Built-for-the-Full-Software-Engineering-Lifecycle"},{"author":null,"id":"source-8deab2ebbf22a0e570d8","note":"wsj pro confirmation; altimeter, bain participation","originalId":"src-hp-wsj-48b","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2026-09-09"},"publisher":"the wall street journal","title":"wsj pro confirmation","type":"reporting","url":"https://www.wsj.com/pro/private-equity/peter-thiel-backed-ai-startup-cognition-raises-funds-at-48-billion-valuation-41b41b85"},{"author":null,"id":"source-347e5fe6fdd0840cc432","note":"fan bio; jan-2023 founding claim (outlier); 60% ex-founders stat","originalId":"src-hp-yespress-scott-wu","published":{"precision":"day","text":"2026-09-16"},"publisher":"yespress.io","title":"fan bio; jan-2023 founding claim (outlier)","type":"community","url":"https://yespress.io/scott-wu"},{"author":null,"id":"source-0075130f99cbed9bb442","note":"~15-person eng team each using ~5 devins; ~25% of prs by devin; 8 pivots; name origin","originalId":"src-hp-youtube-inside-devin","published":{"precision":"year","text":"2025"},"publisher":"youtube","title":"~15-person eng team each using ~5 devins","type":"interview","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gI0ZNhA0rvE"},{"author":null,"id":"source-326761c643cff08b75a1","note":"original demo video narrated by walden yan","originalId":"src-hp-youtube-upwork-side-hustle","published":{"precision":"month","text":"2024-03"},"publisher":"youtube","title":"original demo video narrated by walden yan","type":"primary","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTS2Hz96HYQ"}]}
````