Cognition

Just before Christmas in 2023, the small team at Cognition was struggling to set up a particularly complex data server for the San Francisco–based AI startup’s fledgling coding assistant, Devin. They’d spent hours poring over installation documents and trying different commands but just couldn’t get it to work. Tired and frustrated, they decided to see how Devin would handle it.

Cognition made headlines last year when it acquired the remaining assets of competitor Windsurf after Google DeepMind acqui-hired the startup’s CEO and top research in a $2.4 billion deal for talent and licensing rights.

Then, Carl Brown, a well-known independent developer from Austin, Texas, called shenanigans. In a video titled “Debunking Devin,” viewed more than 500,000 times, he accused Cognition of overselling its AI engineer. His review found that Devin took far longer than a human would to complete the job, and it introduced errors along the way.

Cognition launched Devin in March to a ton of buzz. In a demo video that has amassed 30 million views on X, the company claimed Devin had “successfully passed practical engineering interviews from leading AI companies” and completed messy coding tasks. Some engineers were blown away by Devin’s technical chops; others feared for their jobs. Shortly after launch, a video of Wu as a seventh grader dominating a math competition resurfaced, with online commentators joking, “He is not human he is an AI” and “Devin is just Scott answering your questions in a messaging app.”

Last month, Cognition was drawn into a public feud with rival Factory AI, which accused Cognition employees of posing as job applicants to seek product information and faulted a former Factory adviser for meeting with Cognition executives. Cognition and the former adviser denied that confidential information was sought or shared.

Tracking the back-and-forth, Cognition co-founder and CEO Scott Wu also weighed in on the controversy on X. He politely expressed respect for the smaller competitor while insisting that his company has “no interest in Factory’s info.” Wu also contends that Degnan resigned on Monday but didn’t refute that Degnan was in talks with Cognition before that happened.

At one recruiting event, Cognition CEO Scott Wu challenged job applicants to see if they could square numbers faster than his AI. “Come talk to the Cognition team about a job if you can score higher than Devin,” he said.