Mathematics is a challenging language that only a few have truly deciphered, and mathematical problems have become far more complex than in years past. The difficulty has heightened as the new wave of AI sweeps over the nation. Now, a new piece has been added to the complex puzzle of mathematical computing, and at its precipice stands Scott Wu.  

Born in 1996, Wu always had a knack for high-level mathematics, influenced by his high-achieving parents with successful careers in Baton Rouge. He was in a gifted program at Buchanan Elementary School, adjacent to McKinley Middle and High School. In third grade, Wu had already mastered all the mathematical principles taught in lower elementary, and administrators thought it best to allow Wu to attend higher-level math classes at the neighboring schools. Instead of playing sports or games during recess, Wu loved challenging mathematical equations and testing his competitive side. But what really kickstarted his career was Wu’s introduction to mathematical competitions in first grade through his older brother Neal, tagging along to every one of his competitions.    

Wu is extremely competitive. He joined the Math Circle Junior program at Louisiana State University as a second grader, competing against middle schoolers in arduous mathematical competitions. He attended his first competition at Southern University in Baton Rouge, and although he didn’t win, he distinctly remembers the bitter feelings he had when he didn’t hear his name among those awarded. This experience lit a fire in him that catapulted his career to where it is now. Wu continued to compete, claiming perfect scores and first-place medals. He took first place at MathCounts, the premier national middle-school competition, and became known as the greatest American gold-medalist of all time at the International Olympiad in Informatics alongside teammates Alexander Wang, Johnny Ho, and Jesse Zhang (who grew up to be the founders of Scale AI, Perplexity, and Decagon, respectively). 

Now, where does AI fit into all of this? Well, in fourth grade, Neal taught Wu the beginning principles of programming through a Pokémon emulator. Guided by his success in mathematics, Wu relocated to California after graduating high school his junior year. Opting out of the traditional college path, he was hired by Addepar as a software engineer, working to improve optimization and performance. Not long after, Wu left the company, moved to San Francisco, and created LunchClub with Vlad Novskovski, the prior VP of Addepar. Although it was successful, Wu left the company in June 2022 to be with his mother, who had fallen ill. During this time, COVID ravaged the nation, but Wu spent his days bonding with his mother in Louisiana and writing up the blueprints to his next big project, generative AI. 

Now Wu is known as the founder and CEO of Cognition, an AI coding agent lab. His team has worked tirelessly to create their flagship product, Devin, an autonomous AI software engineer that runs its own machine, takes coding tasks, works through existing codebases, tests and debugs its own work, and produces pull requests for human review. Cognition is now known as the fastest growing company of any kind in history. Usage of Devin is doubling every eight weeks and hit $445 million in revenue in its first 18 months of service. Wu believes in “making it easy for everyone to build really good software”. He hopes to make DMV, IRS, hospitals, airlines, and other online platforms work as smoothly and intuitively as possible, helping to eliminate the infuriating bits of modern technology. And to think, all of this was inspired by the simple beauty of math and the determination to win all the math competitions he could.

Credit: Jeremy Stern, https://colossus.com/article/scott-wu-tapes-cognition/