Why I’m Staying at Cognition: The 6-Day Work Week Won’t Scare Me Away

My new CEO Scott Wu's message was blunt: “We don't believe in work-life balance - building the future of software engineering is a mission we all care so deeply about that we couldn't possibly separate the two.” After Cognition acquired Windsurf in July 2025, employees were given the opportunity to opt in to the culture or walk away with generous severance packages (see Scott’s Tweet). 

From the outside, I received may “WTF!?” texts.  Inside the company, I wasn’t particularly surprised.  The reality is, despite the hockeystick ARR growth, from a GTM standpoint, we were back to operating like an early stage start-up.  We had a new product to sell and had to rebuild the playbook / sales process to include Devin, which is a much more complex sale than Windsurf.  We’re figuring it out as we go and that ambiguity terrifies most people.  Those that didn’t want to lean in are no longer here.

But for those of us who thrive in ambiguity, we see a massive opportunity.  While friends, customers, and prospects focus on the click-bait headlines (I get it…they’re fun to talk about), only the highly perceptive few focus on a key detail: while AI coding competitors hemorrhage cash and chase unsustainable growth, Cognition just raised $400M at a $10.2B valuation with net burn under $20M since founding. That's not just impressive - it’s unheard of in AI.

I'm staying, and here's why this decision aligns with my original Windsurf framework and Chris’ framework for picking the right GTM opportunity.

Product-Market Fit

The number one trait to look for in a GTM opportunity is PMF.  It doesn’t matter how much you like the team or how good you are at sales, if the product doesn’t resonate with customers, the role will be brutal.  At the new Cognition, we have two products in our arsenal - Windsurf, which clearly already had product market fit, and Devin, which grew from $1M to $73M in ARR in < 12 months.  

Now that I’m in active deal cycles, I see that Devin is truly differentiated from existing solutions on the market and we have the power of distribution from our Windsurf footprint.

GTM Talent Density & Enterprise Focus

One of the primary reasons I joined Windsurf is that I believed I would be joining the #1 GTM team in the industry.  I made the right bet and have upleveled my sales acumen 10x since joining.  First, the team instills discipline and operational rigor such as ownership of pipeline and focus on deal control. Second, while I enjoyed the enterprise focus of Windsurf, I’m seeing that the deal sizes are significantly larger for Devin, which means that these projects are continuing to be focal points of strategic C-suite business transformations.

It should come as no surprise that post acquisition, our top performers all chose to stay. 

This industry is very small and I want to surround myself with the top GTM operators, both to learn from now and to land great opportunities alongside in the future (see Chris’ post on GTM Mafias).

Cracked Engineering Team

People like to focus on the fact that the Cognition founding engineering team has many IOI gold medals for competitive programming.  I’m much more pragmatic - what are the outcomes of these gold medals today?  For me, I saw that the acquisition happened and we didn’t skip a beat.  The same week of the acquisition, we shipped Wave 11 and a few weeks later shipped Wave 12, starting to integrate our first Devin features into Windsurf. This gave me confidence that ship velocity would continue at lightening pace.

Viral Marketing DNA

Ironically, Harry Stebbings points out that prior to the Windsurf acquisition, Cognition kept a very low profile.  In fact, just a few weeks before the acquisition, a prospect asked me about Cognition’s product Devin and I said I had not heard much about them since their viral video in early 2024 that led to engineering influencers like Riley Brown raving about the future of AI + coding.  However, since the acquisition, I’ve seen Scott lean into virality on X and make appearances in forums like Stripe’s A Cheeky Pint, which target the developer community.  

Game Changing Technology

Reflecting on past jobs, yes I’ve played roles as an early operator in mulitple companies, but I have not been part of building something that fundamentally changes how an entire industry or economy works. The headlines around Windsurf and Cognition aren't just startup noise - they're covering technology that’s fundamentally reshaping the world.

Conclusion

I’m not going to write this post and pretend like everything is on easy mode now.  We are all grinding.  The job is hard.  I’m exhausted. My GTMBA cadence has fallen off a bit in the past few weeks as a result.  But I believe that the right inputs combined with the traits above will generate an outsized outcome for us all - for customers looking to transform their companies through cutting edge technology and employees who will uplevel professionally and financially.  

Note: Opinions and commentary in this article are solely mine and do not represent the views of Windsurf or Cognition in any way.