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Inside Devin: The world’s first autonomous AI engineer that's set to write 50% of its company’s code by end of year | Scott Wu (CEO and co-founder of Cognition)

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May 4, 2025

Guest

Scott Wu

Scott Wu, co-founder and CEO of Cognition, discusses Devin, the world’s first autonomous AI engineer with the ability to write significant portions of code. He reveals how a team of Devins is already responsible for 25% of pull requests, poised to hit 50% soon. The conversation delves into the transformation of engineering roles from 'bricklayers' to 'architects' and how Devin has evolved dramatically over the past year. Scott also highlights the cultural shifts needed to integrate AI engineers effectively into teams.

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Episode notes

Jevons Paradox in Software

Easier programming increases overall software creation due to Jevons Paradox.
Software demand grows faster than productivity gains from AI automation.

Five Devins per Engineer Model

Most engineers at Cognition work with about five Devins asynchronously.
Multiple Devins handle parallel tasks, freeing humans for critical expertise and task scoping.

Teaching Devin Real-World Engineering

No single AI model leap enabled Devin; steady improvements and real world engineering teaching helped most.
Teaching idiosyncrasies of real-world engineering outweigh increasing base model IQ.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Revolutionizing Software Engineering with Autonomous AI

04:57 • 2min

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Journey of Devin: The Autonomous AI Engineer

06:39 • 19min

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Navigating the Future of Software Engineering

25:18 • 16min

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Exploring the Integration and Scalability of Autonomous AI Code Engineers

41:26 • 2min

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Revolutionizing Onboarding with AI

43:39 • 21min

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Harnessing AI in Engineering

01:04:16 • 20min

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Favorite Books and Must-Have Products

01:24:01 • 2min

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Navigating Emotions and Success in Startup Life

01:26:21 • 3min

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The Story Behind Devin: Naming and Branding an AI Engineer

01:29:20 • 3min

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#68

• Mentioned in 226 episodes

The great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Published in 1925, 'The Great Gatsby' is a tragic love story, a mystery, and a social commentary on American life during the Jazz Age. The novel is narrated by Nick Carraway, who moves to Long Island and becomes entangled in the lives of his wealthy and mysterious neighbor, Jay Gatsby, and Gatsby's obsession to win back his first love, Daisy Buchanan. The story delves into themes of honesty, the temptations of wealth, and the struggle to escape the past, ultimately reflecting on the disintegration of the American Dream.

#1018

• Mentioned in 37 episodes

The Power Law

Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future

Sebastian Mallaby

In 'The Power Law', Sebastian Mallaby provides a riveting and meticulously researched account of the venture capital industry. The book delves into the history of tech incubation in Silicon Valley and worldwide, featuring key figures from firms like Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins, Accel, Benchmark, and Andreessen Horowitz. It covers iconic successes and failures, such as the birth of Apple and the rise and fall of WeWork and Uber. Mallaby also examines the 'power law' that drives the VC business, where a few massive successes compensate for numerous failures. The book highlights the industry's influence on innovation, its biases, and the rising competition from China's venture capital sector.

Scott Wu is the co-founder and CEO of Cognition, the company behind Devin—the world’s first autonomous AI software engineer. Unlike other AI coding tools, Devin works like an autonomous engineer that you can interact with through Slack, Linear, and GitHub, just like with a remote engineer. With Scott’s background in competitive programming and a previous AI-powered startup, Lunchclub, teaching AI to code has become his ultimate passion.What you’ll learn:

1. How a team of “Devins” are already producing 25% of Cognition’s pull requests, and they are on track to hit 50% by year’s end

2. How each engineer on Cognition’s 15-person engineering team works with about five Devins each

3. How Devin has evolved from a “high school CS student” to a “junior engineer” over the past year

4. Why engineering will shift from “bricklayers” to “architects”

5. Why AI tools will lead to more engineering jobs rather than fewer

6. How Devin creates its own wiki to understand and document complex codebases

7. The eight pivots Cognition went through before landing on their current approach

8. The cultural shifts required to successfully adopt AI engineers

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Where to find Scott Wu:

• X: https://x.com/scottwu46

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-wu-8b94ab96/

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

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In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Introduction to Scott Wu and Devin

(09:13) Scaling and future prospects

(10:23) Devin's origin story

(17:26) The idea of Devin as a person

(22:19) How a team of “Devins” are already producing 25% of Cognition’s pull requests

(25:17) Important skills in the AI era

(30:21) How Cognition’s engineering team works with Devin's

(34:37) Live demo

(42:20) Devin’s codebase integration

(44:50) Automation with Linear

(46:53) What Devin does best

(52:56) The future of AI in software engineering

(57:13) Moats and stickiness in AI

(01:01:57) The tech that enables Devin

(01:04:14) AI will be the biggest technology shift of our lives

(01:07:25) Adopting Devin in your company

(01:15:13) Startup wisdom and hiring practices

(01:22:32) Lightning round and final thoughts

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Referenced:

• Devin: https://devin.ai/

• GitHub: https://github.com/

• Linear: https://linear.app/

• Waymo: https://waymo.com/

• GitHub Copilot: https://github.com/features/copilot

• Cursor: https://www.cursor.com/

• Anysphere: https://anysphere.inc/

• Bolt: https://bolt.new/

• StackBlitz: https://stackblitz.com/

• Cognition: https://cognition.ai/

• v0: https://v0.dev/

• Vercel: https://vercel.com/

• Everyone’s an engineer now: Inside v0’s mission to create a hundred million builders | Guillermo Rauch (founder and CEO of Vercel, creators of v0 and Next.js): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/everyones-an-engineer-now-guillermo-rauch

• Inside Bolt: From near-death to ~$40m ARR in 5 months—one of the fastest-growing products in history | Eric Simons (founder and CEO of StackBlitz): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-bolt-eric-simons

• Assembly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_language

• Pascal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal_(programming_language)

• Python: https://www.python.org/

• Jevons paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

• Datadog: https://www.datadoghq.com/

• Bending the universe in your favor | Claire Vo (LaunchDarkly, Color, Optimizely, ChatPRD): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/bending-the-universe-in-your-favor

• OpenAI’s CPO on how AI changes must-have skills, moats, coding, startup playbooks, more | Kevin Weil (CPO at OpenAI, ex-Instagram, Twitter): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/kevin-weil-open-ai

• Behind the product: Replit | Amjad Masad (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/behind-the-product-replit-amjad-masad

• Windsurf: https://windsurf.com/

• COBOL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COBOL

• Fortran: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortran

• Magic the Gathering: https://magic.wizards.com/en

• Aura frames: https://auraframes.com/

• AirPods: https://www.apple.com/airpods/

• Steven Hao on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steven-hao-160b9638/

• Walden Yan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/waldenyan/

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Recommended books:

• How to Win Friends & Influence People: https://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0671027034

• The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future: https://www.amazon.com/Power-Law-Venture-Capital-Making/dp/052555999X

• The Great Gatsby: https://www.amazon.com/Great-Gatsby-F-Scott-Fitzgerald/dp/0743273567

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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.

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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

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