Ep 115: Scott Wu, Devin, and a Trillion-Dollar Opportunity

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Jun 12, 2025

Scott Wu, the CEO and founder of Cognition AI, shares his groundbreaking journey with Devin, the world's first AI software engineer, which has revolutionized coding and boasts a valuation over $4 billion. He discusses the monumental economic potential of AI, possibly reaching trillions, and emphasizes the transformative collaboration between humans and AI in software engineering. Scott also reflects on his unconventional beginnings and the competitive programming culture that fuels innovation. He challenges listeners with a math puzzle and explores the future of creativity in tech.

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ANECDOTE

Early Math Competition Journey

Scott Wu began competing in math contests at the age of 7 or 8 and was initially disappointed when he didn’t win.
He trained hard and quickly advanced, winning competitions and starting programming contests by sixth grade.

INSIGHT

Math Minds Excel in AI

Top minds in math and programming dominate AI because AI problems are deeply technical and require algorithmic problem-solving skills.
AI progress depends on solving unique, complex problems by developing new algorithms from first principles.

INSIGHT

Two Waves of Generative AI

Generative AI has two waves: imitation learning and reinforcement learning (RL), with RL enabling AI to solve any benchmark.
Math and programming competitions serve as clean benchmarks to measure AI's reasoning and problem-solving capabilities.

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Scott Wu took the technology world by storm when he released a demo of Devin, the first AI software engineer. A year later, Devin has gone global, and his company — Cognition AI — is valued at over $4 billion. What are the next leaps for AI coding agents? Could the total economic impact be in the trillions of dollars? And is Scott worried that Devin may someday replace him?

Scott's journey to the epicenter of the AI race started in an unlikely place: growing up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the son of Chinese immigrants. At an early age, he excelled in math and was fast tracked into high school courses [not held back in the name of equity!], culminating in a national Mathcounts championship and three gold medals in competitive programming at the International Olympiad in Informatics. After highschool, he joined Addepar as a top young software engineer before attending Harvard.

Scott gathered his smartest friends and many other math, physics and programming champions under one roof to build Cognition, and when they're not architecting new AI breakthroughs, they're quizzing each other with math games. Learn why the top math minds are dominant in AI and what this tells us about the nature of AI progress and where we're headed next. Plus, the first person to solve one of Scott's tough math challenges in this episode gets free swag [leave your answer in the comments or email info@americanoptimist.com]. Finally, we discuss the future of software engineering and what AI coding agents mean for economic productivity as tasks that once took months to complete now take a weekend with Devin. Is it a trillion dollar opportunity?

It's inspiring to see the impact an optimistic, brilliant mind like Scott can have on the world — and he's still a few years shy of his 30th birthday.

0:00 Episode intro

1:38 Math prodigy to AI savant

9:43 Origins of Cognition and Devin

11:25 Why are top math minds dominant in AI?

14:40 The next wave of generative AI

18:45 Jagged intelligence & man-machine symbiosis

25:35 Solve Scott's math challenge

31:05 Scott's argument for AI optimism

35:10 Trillion-dollar opportunity?

39:10 The future of software engineering

42:10 Optimism for the future

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