Scott Wu
Scott Wu is an entrepreneur with a background in competitive programming and the co-founder and CEO of Cognition, the artificial intelligence software engineering company that developed the AI coding agent Devin.
Contents9 sections
Key facts
2012–2014Three Gold Medals at the International Olympiad in Informatics
Representing the United States at the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI), he won gold medals in 2012, 2013 and 2014, ranking 22nd, 5th and 1st respectively.[1]
May 2016Third Place at the ICPC World Finals with Harvard
In 2016, as a Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private research university in Massachusetts, established by the Massachusetts Bay Colony legislature in 1636 and named in 1639 for early benefactor John Harvard. Its principal campuses are in Cambridge and the Allston and Longwood neighborhoods of Boston. It includes Harvard College, graduate and professional schools, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Two governing boards share oversight. Alan M. Garber was president as of October 2026, and the endowment stood at $56.9 billion at the end of fiscal 2025.Open the full entry undergraduate in the class of 2019, he was a member of the Harvard team that placed third at the 40th ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) World Finals in Phuket, Thailand.[2]
March 12, 2024Announcing Devin
On March 12, 2024, he published a bylined post on Cognition’s official blog introducing Devin, the company’s autonomous AI software engineer; the post said Devin resolved 13.86% of issues end-to-end on the SWE-bench benchmark, compared with a previous best of 1.96%.[3]
Cognition’s website says its founding team holds 10 IOI gold medals and that the company is headquartered in San Francisco.[4]
December 2024Forbes Profile
A December 2024 ForbesForbesForbes is an American business media brand that began with Forbes magazine, founded by B.C. Forbes in 1917. It is known for rankings such as the Forbes 400, the World’s Billionaires list and 30 Under 30, and operates Forbes.com, ForbesLive events and licensed editions in 81 countries. Since 2014 a majority stake has been held by the Hong Kong investment group Integrated Whale Media; a 2021 plan to list on the New York Stock Exchange through a special purpose acquisition company was terminated in 2022. It is headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey.Open the full entry report described him as Cognition’s cofounder and CEO and said the company reached a $2 billion valuation about six months after its founding; it also noted his “legendary grandmaster” rating on Codeforces and that he had earlier been named to the magazine’s 30 Under 30 list for his previous company, Lunchclub, which uses AI to arrange networking meetings.[5]
July 14, 2025Announcing the Acquisition of Windsurf
On July 14, 2025, he announced in a bylined post that Cognition had signed a definitive agreement to acquire Windsurf, an agentic IDE, covering its IP, product, trademark and brand, and business; the post said all Windsurf employees would participate financially in the deal and receive fully accelerated vesting for their work to date.[6]
September 8, 2025Announcing a New Funding Round
On September 8, 2025, he announced in a bylined post that Cognition had raised over $400 million at a $10.2 billion post-money valuation, led by Founders FundFounders FundFounders Fund is a venture capital firm founded in San Francisco in 2005 by Peter Thiel and his former PayPal colleagues Ken Howery and Luke Nosek. Run by partners who were entrepreneurs themselves, it argues that founders should keep more control and is known for betting on difficult technology projects in areas such as space, defense, and artificial intelligence. It was Palantir’s first institutional investor, has invested in SpaceX many times since 2008, and its other notable investments include Facebook, Airbnb, Stripe, and Anduril; as of March 2026 it had raised nine early-stage funds and four growth funds.Open the full entry.[7]
September 2026Series E and $1 Billion in Annualized Revenue
On September 8, 2026, Cognition announced a Series E round of over $2 billion at a $48 billion valuation, led by Andreessen HorowitzAndreessen HorowitzAndreessen Horowitz (a16z) is a venture capital firm founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. It invests from the seed stage through the growth stage and provides operational support to its portfolio companies.Open the full entry and Accel; on September 25 of the same month, the company announced that its annualized revenue run rate had passed $1 billion.[8][9]
Related Organizations, Websites, and Public Accounts
Harvard University: Official website: https://www.harvard.edu/ (opens in a new window)[2]
Lunchclub: Official website: https://lunchclub.com/ (opens in a new window)[5]
Cognition: Official website: https://cognition.com/ (opens in a new window)[4]
Cognition: Official account: https://x.com/cognition (opens in a new window)[4]
Sources
- Scott Wu (opens in a new window)
- Students place third in international programming contest (opens in a new window)
- Introducing Devin, the first AI software engineer (opens in a new window)
- About (opens in a new window)
- Coders Worry The AI From This $2 Billion Startup Could Replace Their Jobs (opens in a new window)
- Cognition’s acquisition of Windsurf (opens in a new window)
- Funding, growth, and the next frontier of AI coding agents (opens in a new window)
- Cognition raises Series E (opens in a new window)
- Cognition Crosses $1B in Annualized Revenue Run Rate (opens in a new window)