--- schema: 1 type: video title: How Cognition Built the World's First AI Coding Agent—Before Claude Code description: >- The future has a way of showing up early to some places. In software engineering, one of those places is Cognition—the startup that made headlines in early 2024 with Devin, the world’s first autonomous coding agent, and more recently with its acquisition of the AI code editor Windsurf. Scott Wu, Cognition’s cofounder and CEO, has a front-row seat to what comes next. In this episode of AI & I, we talk with Wu about why the fundamentals of computer science still matter in an AI-first world, the direction he sees for the short- and long-term future of programming, and why he believes we may already be living with AGI. Timestamps: 00:00:00 – Start 00:02:02 – Introduction 00:02:32 – Why Scott thinks AGI is here 00:09:27 – Scott’s personal journey as a founder 00:16:55 – Why the fundamentals of computer science still matter 00:22:30 – How the future of programming will evolve 00:26:50 – A new workflow for the AI-first software engineer 00:29:33 – How Devin stacks up against Claude Code 00:40:05 – Reinforcement learning to build better coding agents 00:50:05 – What excites Scott about AI beyond Cognition If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Scott Wu: Scott Wu (@ScottWu46) Learn more about Cognition: https://cognition.ai/ Try the world’s first autonomous coding agent: https://devin.ai/ canonical: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/ectyyex0IBo' markdown: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/ectyyex0IBo.md' llms: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/ectyyex0IBo/llms.txt' parent: 'https://liquidgold.cc/channel/everyinc.md' channel: everyinc updated: '2026-10-24T01:07:16.108Z' language: null children: [] videoId: ectyyex0IBo durationSeconds: 3202 publishedAt: '2025-09-24T16:50:14.000Z' searchChunks: - ordinal: 0 text: null startSeconds: 166 endSeconds: 253 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/ectyyex0IBo?t=166' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 1 text: null startSeconds: 253 endSeconds: 264 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/ectyyex0IBo?t=253' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 2 text: null startSeconds: 388 endSeconds: 477 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/ectyyex0IBo?t=388' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 3 text: null startSeconds: 388 endSeconds: 477 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/ectyyex0IBo?t=388' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 4 text: null startSeconds: 588 endSeconds: 677 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/ectyyex0IBo?t=588' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 5 text: null startSeconds: 677 endSeconds: 689 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/ectyyex0IBo?t=677' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 6 text: null startSeconds: 689 endSeconds: 799 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/ectyyex0IBo?t=689' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 7 text: null startSeconds: 911 endSeconds: 1015 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/ectyyex0IBo?t=911' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 8 text: null startSeconds: 1026 endSeconds: 1110 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/ectyyex0IBo?t=1026' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 9 text: null startSeconds: 1110 endSeconds: 1121 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/ectyyex0IBo?t=1110' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 10 text: null startSeconds: 1121 endSeconds: 1209 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/ectyyex0IBo?t=1121' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 11 text: null startSeconds: 1220 endSeconds: 1352 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/ectyyex0IBo?t=1220' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 12 text: null startSeconds: 1364 endSeconds: 1620 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/ectyyex0IBo?t=1364' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 13 text: null startSeconds: 1364 endSeconds: 1620 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/ectyyex0IBo?t=1364' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 14 text: null startSeconds: 1631 endSeconds: 1783 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/ectyyex0IBo?t=1631' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 15 text: null startSeconds: 1794 endSeconds: 1895 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/ectyyex0IBo?t=1794' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 16 text: null startSeconds: 1905 endSeconds: 1995 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/ectyyex0IBo?t=1905' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 17 text: null startSeconds: 2006 endSeconds: 2117 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/ectyyex0IBo?t=2006' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 18 text: null startSeconds: 2128 endSeconds: 2259 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/ectyyex0IBo?t=2128' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 19 text: null startSeconds: 2269 endSeconds: 2411 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/ectyyex0IBo?t=2269' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 20 text: null startSeconds: 2422 endSeconds: 2502 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/ectyyex0IBo?t=2422' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 21 text: null startSeconds: 2513 endSeconds: 2593 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/ectyyex0IBo?t=2513' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 22 text: null startSeconds: 2694 endSeconds: 2705 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/ectyyex0IBo?t=2694' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 23 text: null startSeconds: 2804 endSeconds: 2902 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/ectyyex0IBo?t=2804' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 24 text: null startSeconds: 2914 endSeconds: 3010 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/ectyyex0IBo?t=2914' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 25 text: null startSeconds: 3021 endSeconds: 3202 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/ectyyex0IBo?t=3021' heldReason: rights --- # How Cognition Built the World's First AI Coding Agent—Before Claude Code The future has a way of showing up early to some places. In software engineering, one of those places is Cognition—the startup that made headlines in early 2024 with Devin, the world’s first autonomous coding agent, and more recently with its acquisition of the AI code editor Windsurf. Scott Wu, Cognition’s cofounder and CEO, has a front-row seat to what comes next. In this episode of AI & I, we talk with Wu about why the fundamentals of computer science still matter in an AI-first world, the direction he sees for the short- and long-term future of programming, and why he believes we may already be living with AGI. Timestamps: 00:00:00 – Start 00:02:02 – Introduction 00:02:32 – Why Scott thinks AGI is here 00:09:27 – Scott’s personal journey as a founder 00:16:55 – Why the fundamentals of computer science still matter 00:22:30 – How the future of programming will evolve 00:26:50 – A new workflow for the AI-first software engineer 00:29:33 – How Devin stacks up against Claude Code 00:40:05 – Reinforcement learning to build better coding agents 00:50:05 – What excites Scott about AI beyond Cognition If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Scott Wu: Scott Wu (@ScottWu46) Learn more about Cognition: https://cognition.ai/ Try the world’s first autonomous coding agent: https://devin.ai/ Canonical: https://liquidgold.cc/watch/ectyyex0IBo · Channel: [Every](https://liquidgold.cc/channel/everyinc.md) > Search chunk text is held until public-source provenance is verified. ## Document chunks > Missing: no stored document chunks are available.