Keep pulling the thread on Michael Truell.
All of coding is expected to change in the next 5 years, with all software development eventually flowing through AI models.
GitHub Copilot was generating potentially more than $100 million in revenue in 2022.
Cursor switched from a custom-built editor to a fork of VS Code after realizing it was not feasible to replicate VS Code's 12 years of development in a few months.
When Cursor was founded, competing companies in the AI coding space were making incremental improvements rather than aiming for the complete automation of coding.
Cursor's first product idea was a copilot for mechanical engineers designed to predict actions in CAD systems like SolidWorks or Fusion 360.
The Cursor team's initial attempt at a mechanical engineering copilot failed because none of the founders were mechanical engineers and the AI science was not yet ready for that domain.
Messaging apps like Signal and WhatsApp encrypt the body of messages but do not hide metadata, such as who is communicating and when.
The first version of the Cursor editor was built from scratch and took approximately three months from the first line of code to its public general availability release.
The original Codex model behind the first version of GitHub Copilot cost approximately $100,000 to train.
Cursor uses product data from its users to improve its proprietary models.
Cursor resisted early user requests to focus on non-coders or specific technology stacks, opting to remain a horizontal tool.
In the AI developer tool market, product improvements directly and immediately result in user growth.