Cognition CEO Scott Wu sits down with BCV’s Aaref Hilaly to share the story behind Devin, the AI software engineer, and the team building it.

Scott traces his path from a Louisiana childhood and a competitive streak that started in second grade math contests, to Silicon Valley and the early lessons of his first startup. Going through that experience left him with a simple conviction: he would rather try and fail than wonder what might have been.

That mindset shaped how Cognition launched. The team put Devin out in March 2024 and drew reactions from both extremes, with some calling it a scam and others worried about engineering jobs. Scott explains why the team stayed focused on the work, and why he sees a middle ground where everyone gets to build more. Today, over 95 percent of the code in the Devin codebase is written by Devin itself.

The Cognition team was remarkable from the start. Early employees included 19 founders among its first 27 members, working side by side in a shared house in Atherton, where the wine cellar stored their first servers. As Scott describes it, “It’s fun being on the Avengers,” and this mindset shapes who they hire.

With the right team in place, Cognition is intent on delivering its mission to remove the barriers between an idea and the software that brings it to life, so more people can spend their time creating.