Factory CEO just accused his VC board advisor of spying for Cognition
Factory CEO just accused his VC board advisor of spying for Cognition
Factory 首席执行官指控其风投董事会顾问为 Cognition 从事间谍活动
Matan Grinberg, co-founder and CEO of the AI coding startup Factory, said in a post on X on Wednesday that he fired VC Chris Degnan from his role as a board adviser. Grinberg alleges that Degnan shared confidential information with Factory’s biggest competitor, Cognition. 人工智能编程初创公司 Factory 的联合创始人兼首席执行官 Matan Grinberg 周三在 X 上发文称，他已解雇了担任董事会顾问的风投人士 Chris Degnan。Grinberg 指控 Degnan 向 Factory 的最大竞争对手 Cognition 泄露了机密信息。
Two hours after Grinberg’s post, Degnan announced on both X and LinkedIn that he had joined Cognition as its chief revenue officer. He also subsequently refuted Grinberg’s allegations, saying in a separate X post that he wasn’t fired but resigned when he told Grinberg he was taking the job. 在 Grinberg 发文两小时后，Degnan 在 X 和 LinkedIn 上宣布，他已加入 Cognition 并担任首席营收官。随后，他反驳了 Grinberg 的指控，并在另一篇 X 帖子中表示，他并非被解雇，而是在告知 Grinberg 自己将入职 Cognition 时主动辞职的。
Degnan was Snowflake’s first sales hire and later spent 11 years as the data company’s chief revenue officer. For the past five months, he has been a partner with RPT Partners, a Newport Beach, California, investor in Factory. Degnan is also a go-to-market adviser to startups at the much bigger venture firm Iconiq, a role that dates back to October of last year. Degnan 是 Snowflake 的首位销售员工，后来在这家数据公司担任了 11 年的首席营收官。过去五个月里，他一直担任 RPT Partners 的合伙人，该公司位于加州纽波特比奇，是 Factory 的投资者之一。Degnan 同时还是大型风投公司 Iconiq 的初创企业市场推广顾问，该职位始于去年 10 月。
Three-year-old, San Francisco-based Factory is an agentic coding startup whose AI agents can carry out programming tasks largely on their own. The company raised $200 million at a $5 billion valuation this month from Khosla Ventures, Blackstone, Sequoia Capital, Insight Partners, and others. Its customers include Nvidia, Blackstone, Royal Bank of Canada, Palo Alto Networks, Adobe, and T-Mobile. 总部位于旧金山的 Factory 成立已有三年，是一家代理式编程初创公司，其 AI 代理能够基本独立完成编程任务。本月，该公司从 Khosla Ventures、黑石集团 (Blackstone)、红杉资本 (Sequoia Capital)、Insight Partners 等机构筹集了 2 亿美元，估值达到 50 亿美元。其客户包括英伟达、黑石、加拿大皇家银行、Palo Alto Networks、Adobe 和 T-Mobile。
Grinberg said he sees Cognition, the maker of the Devin coding agent, as his biggest competitor. Cognition raised another $2 billion at a $48 billion valuation earlier this month, and counts Mercedes-Benz, NASA, Goldman Sachs, and Citi as customers. Grinberg 表示，他将 Devin 编程代理的制造商 Cognition 视为其最大的竞争对手。Cognition 本月早些时候又筹集了 20 亿美元，估值达到 480 亿美元，其客户包括梅赛德斯-奔驰、美国国家航空航天局 (NASA)、高盛和花旗银行。
Grinberg said on X that Degnan had earlier acknowledged having a “casual” conversation with a Cognition executive but had assured Grinberg that he had no interest in working for the competitor. According to Grinberg, Degnan said he had “made too much money” and was “too lazy to go work for Cognition,” which Grinberg said he “trusted and believed.” Grinberg 在 X 上表示，Degnan 此前曾承认与 Cognition 的一位高管进行过“随意的”交谈，但向 Grinberg 保证他对为竞争对手工作没有兴趣。据 Grinberg 称，Degnan 当时说他已经“赚了太多钱”，并且“懒得去 Cognition 工作”，Grinberg 表示他当时“信任并相信了”这些话。
On Monday, however, Degnan apparently disclosed that he had actually been in ongoing talks with Cognition. This caused Grinberg to grow concerned about how much confidential information Degnan had about Factory, and how much he had shared and might share in the future with his new employer. He says he fired Degnan as a board adviser on Tuesday, writing: 然而，Degnan 在周一透露，他实际上一直在与 Cognition 进行谈判。这引起了 Grinberg 的担忧，他开始担心 Degnan 掌握了多少关于 Factory 的机密信息，以及他已经向新雇主泄露了多少信息，未来又可能泄露多少。他表示已于周二解雇了担任董事会顾问的 Degnan，并写道：
“For weeks, while he sat in our board meetings and advised our leadership team, he was also confiding with executives of our largest competitor. Chris was subject to confidentiality obligations in connection with his work with Factory. We do not know the extent of the information he shared, but it puts his timely questions about our product roadmap and what the parity gap involves into a new light.” “在过去几周里，当他坐在我们的董事会会议上并为我们的领导团队提供建议时，他同时也在与我们最大竞争对手的高管进行密谈。Chris 在与 Factory 的合作中负有保密义务。我们不知道他泄露信息的程度，但这让我们对他之前关于我们产品路线图以及产品差距的及时提问有了新的看法。”
But Degnan disputes that account as well. He says the last Factory board meeting he attended was weeks before he had “ever spoken” to Cognition and that he hasn’t shared confidential information. Degnan also says that when he told Grinberg that he was resigning to take the role at Cognition, Grinberg offered him a full-time job at Factory, which he declined. 但 Degnan 也反驳了这一说法。他表示，他参加的最后一次 Factory 董事会会议是在他“与 Cognition 交谈”之前的几周，并且他没有泄露任何机密信息。Degnan 还表示，当他告诉 Grinberg 自己将辞职去 Cognition 任职时，Grinberg 曾向他提供了一份 Factory 的全职工作，但他拒绝了。
Degnan’s post announcing his new job at Cognition doesn’t mention Factory. Very notably, it does say that RPT Partners and the firm’s managing partner, Chad Peets, will now be working with Cognition. “I am thrilled that Chad and the RPT team will be working closely with me in our pursuit of building a generational company,” Degnan wrote. Degnan 宣布入职 Cognition 的帖子中并未提及 Factory。值得注意的是，他确实提到 RPT Partners 及其管理合伙人 Chad Peets 现在将与 Cognition 合作。“我很高兴 Chad 和 RPT 团队将与我密切合作，共同追求打造一家跨时代的公司，”Degnan 写道。
In the old, pre-AI world, a VC firm was especially cautious not to engage in conflict-of-interest business. In today’s world, many a VC has invested in direct AI competitors, such OpenAI and Anthropic. In fact, Khosla Ventures is an investor in both Cognition (since at least early 2025) and Factory. 在 AI 时代之前的旧世界里，风投公司在处理利益冲突业务时会格外谨慎。而在当今世界，许多风投公司都投资了直接竞争的 AI 企业，例如 OpenAI 和 Anthropic。事实上，Khosla Ventures 同时投资了 Cognition（至少从 2025 年初开始）和 Factory。
That didn’t stop the venture firm’s founder, Vinod Khosla, from jumping into the drama, seemingly in defense of his bigger portfolio company Cognition. Nor did it stop Khosla Ventures partner Keith Rabois from weighing in as well — in defense of Factory. 这并没有阻止该风投公司的创始人 Vinod Khosla 卷入这场风波，他似乎是在为自己投资组合中规模更大的 Cognition 进行辩护。这也没有阻止 Khosla Ventures 的合伙人 Keith Rabois 发表意见——他则是站在了 Factory 一边。
In a post on X, Khosla accused Grinberg of lying about firing Degnan. He called Factory a “struggling second tier competitor” and said Grinberg showed “no decency or sense of proper behavior,” which “shows your desperation.” Grinberg replied that he has email receipts to verify his version of events but did not share them. Khosla 在 X 上发文指责 Grinberg 在解雇 Degnan 一事上撒谎。他称 Factory 是“一家挣扎中的二流竞争对手”，并表示 Grinberg “毫无体面或行为准则”，这“显示了你的绝望”。Grinberg 回应称他有电子邮件记录可以证实自己的说法，但并未公开这些邮件。
Meanwhile, Rabois opined on X, “It is unethical per se to even interview at a competitor while attending Board meetings and Board dinners.” He added that “to even sit for an interview while having access to board level information and without resigning is absolutely insane.” 与此同时，Rabois 在 X 上评论道：“在参加董事会会议和晚宴的同时去竞争对手那里参加面试，这本身就是不道德的。”他补充说，“在能够接触到董事会级别信息的情况下，不辞职就去参加面试，这简直是疯了。”
Tracking the back-and-forth, Cognition co-founder and CEO Scott Wu also weighed in on the controversy on X. He politely expressed respect for the smaller competitor while insisting that his company has “no interest in Factory’s info.” Wu also contends that Degnan resigned on Monday but didn’t refute that Degnan was in talks with Cognition before that happened. 在关注了双方的争论后，Cognition 的联合创始人兼首席执行官 Scott Wu 也在 X 上对这场争议发表了看法。他礼貌地表达了对这家规模较小竞争对手的尊重，同时坚称他的公司“对 Factory 的信息没有兴趣”。Wu 还主张 Degnan 是在周一辞职的，但并未否认 Degnan 在此之前就已经与 Cognition 进行了接触。
Either way, there could be consequences for perceived board-level conflicts of interest. VC giant Andreessen Horowitz is reportedly the subject of a Justice Department probe into its partners serving on competitors’ boards. Grinberg argued that startup founders must be able to rely on their board members. “Chris’s conduct is unacceptable to me. Trust in Board Membership is one of the sacred bonds in the Silicon Valley, one that helps the startup ecosystem.” 无论如何，董事会层面的利益冲突可能会带来严重后果。据报道，风投巨头 Andreessen Horowitz 正受到美国司法部的调查，原因涉及其合伙人在竞争对手的董事会任职。Grinberg 认为，初创公司创始人必须能够信任他们的董事会成员。“Chris 的行为让我无法接受。对董事会成员的信任是硅谷神圣的纽带之一，也是支撑初创生态系统的基石。”