- Joined
- May 2026
- How they joined
- Directly
- Before Cognition
- KondoCofounder
- Status
- Current
- Joined Cognition to work on Devin; in his announcement he wrote verbatim: "I've joined Cognition to build Devin the AI software engineer." LinkedIn lists the role as Product, starting May 2026, with the line "I ask Devin to do things. Devin asks other Devins to do them."Jun 29, 2026I’ve joined Cognition to build Devin the AI software engineer. I first tried Devin early last year. We gave it some of our Linear tickets at Kondo to work on. Me and my cofounder Leo Li were unimpressed. It couldn’t really get anything except the most basic things right, without a bunch of help. But about 6 months ago, everything suddenly changed. Suddenly, AI got really good at building soft
- Represented Cognition in a Pylon x Devin live walkthrough and Q&A with Franz Heller of Pylon on 2026-10-27. Pylon CEO Marty Kausas thanked Cognition "especially Walden Yan and Mitchell Tan" for building their AI-coding integration with them.Oct 26, 2026
- Walden Yan wrote that "Mitchell Tan and Leo Li built something truly special with Kondo. I still meet Devin users who are impressed that we've managed to hire the Kondo team." That describes a team hire (Mitchell plus cofounder Leo Li). It was not an acquisition of Kondo, which stayed independent.Jun 30, 2026
- Explained the move verbatim: "a friend introduced us to Walden Yan and the opportunity came up to go build the thing that builds the things."Jun 29, 2026I’ve joined Cognition to build Devin the AI software engineer. I first tried Devin early last year. We gave it some of our Linear tickets at Kondo to work on. Me and my cofounder Leo Li were unimpressed. It couldn’t really get anything except the most basic things right, without a bunch of help. But about 6 months ago, everything suddenly changed. Suddenly, AI got really good at building soft
- On Cognition's culture, verbatim: "there's something special about working in a $26B company where the entire engineering team is still small enough to (barely) fit in one big meeting room for weekly stand ups."Jun 29, 2026I’ve joined Cognition to build Devin the AI software engineer. I first tried Devin early last year. We gave it some of our Linear tickets at Kondo to work on. Me and my cofounder Leo Li were unimpressed. It couldn’t really get anything except the most basic things right, without a bunch of help. But about 6 months ago, everything suddenly changed. Suddenly, AI got really good at building soft
- His current day-to-day is customer-facing Devin adoption, in his words: "now that I'm running around SF helping startup founders get set up with Devin at my new job, I'm bumping into Kondo users all the time".Jun 29, 2026I’ve joined Cognition to build Devin the AI software engineer. I first tried Devin early last year. We gave it some of our Linear tickets at Kondo to work on. Me and my cofounder Leo Li were unimpressed. It couldn’t really get anything except the most basic things right, without a bunch of help. But about 6 months ago, everything suddenly changed. Suddenly, AI got really good at building soft
- Stepped back from running Kondo day-to-day in May 2026. Cofounder Michael Touchton, "who I've worked on 3 companies with in the last 5 years", took over as CEO. Kondo had thousands of paying users and over $1M ARR with no VC funding.May 18, 2026After 2 exciting years building Kondo, I’m taking a step back from running the business day-to-day. The product will live on, and my cofounder Michael Touchton, who I’ve worked on 3 companies with in the last 5 years, will be taking over as CEO. Kondo has come a long way since it started as a side project. Since launching in September 2024, we’ve grown to thousands of paying users, crossed 1M
- Marty Kausas (Pylon) credited Mitchell Tan and Walden Yan by name for building Pylon's AI-coding launch with Cognition.Oct 2026
- Cofounder Leo Li (Kondo's technical cofounder) posted that he joined Cognition "with my cofounder Mitchell to build Devin". He said Kondo hit $1M ARR after 15 months of bootstrapping, and that Mitchell and Michael had pulled him away from the Hightouch acquisition of HeadsUp.Jun 30, 2026
- Before joining, Kondo had tested Devin and found it lacking. In his words: "We gave it some of our Linear tickets at Kondo to work on. Me and my cofounder Leo Li were unimpressed." About six months before mid-2026, AI coding let the 3-person team ship "10x faster" and clear its backlog. That before-and-after story is now his pitch for Devin.Jun 29, 2026I’ve joined Cognition to build Devin the AI software engineer. I first tried Devin early last year. We gave it some of our Linear tickets at Kondo to work on. Me and my cofounder Leo Li were unimpressed. It couldn’t really get anything except the most basic things right, without a bunch of help. But about 6 months ago, everything suddenly changed. Suddenly, AI got really good at building soft
- Kondo (trykondo.com) is a 'Superhuman for LinkedIn' DM inbox: folders, labels, keyboard shortcuts, reminders, and CRM sync. It later added an MCP server and WhatsApp/iMessage support. It launched in September 2024 and started as a side project during Beluga.May 18, 2026After 2 exciting years building Kondo, I’m taking a step back from running the business day-to-day. The product will live on, and my cofounder Michael Touchton, who I’ve worked on 3 companies with in the last 5 years, will be taking over as CEO. Kondo has come a long way since it started as a side project. Since launching in September 2024, we’ve grown to thousands of paying users, crossed 1M
- Cognition's main acquisition in this period was Windsurf, the agentic IDE (definitive agreement announced 2025-07-14). It included Windsurf's IP, product, trademark and brand, and its people, with $82M ARR and 350+ enterprise customers. Mitchell joined about a year later, in May 2026.Jul 14, 2025
I ask Devin to do things. Devin asks other Devins to do them. Some day a Devin will ask me why I'm needed at this company.
Built Superhuman for LinkedIn so your DM inbox sparks joy again. PS. have you seen Marie?
Helped small startups find top engineers…by sending lots of LI DMs. Had less trouble keeping track of them thanks to v0 of Kondo. The whale still swims on, just without me.
Sent a ton of LI DMs to prospects and had trouble keeping track of them. Maybe if I was more on top of stuff we would have made more money 🤔 HeadsUp helped product-led growth companies nurture and convert leads; raised $8.3M from 645 Ventures, Wing, Firstminute, Character, and execs at Miro, Drift, Algolia, etc. Was acquired by Hightouch.
Gave advice to bigggg cos on how to sell their stuff
read a lot of books and wrote a lot of words (some are linked below)
made a bunch of graphs
I’ve joined Cognition to build Devin the AI software engineer. I first tried Devin early last year. We gave it some of our Linear tickets at Kondo to work on. Me and my cofounder Leo Li were unimpressed. It couldn’t really get anything except the most basic things right, without a bunch of help. But about 6 months ago, everything suddenly changed. Suddenly, AI got really good at building soft
I’ll be outside YC all afternoon today and tomorrow with these guys. Drop by!
This is Michael, who is taking over Kondo as CEO. I’ve worked with Michael over the past 5 years in 3 companies. He’s done it all - led a 30 person team, worked as a pastor, started a bakery, built a seven figure recruiting business. With Michael, the sky is always the limit. When we went on a hike together in Joshua Tree, I wanted to just sit on a rock and chill out. Michael said I’m not he
After 2 exciting years building Kondo, I’m taking a step back from running the business day-to-day. The product will live on, and my cofounder Michael Touchton, who I’ve worked on 3 companies with in the last 5 years, will be taking over as CEO. Kondo has come a long way since it started as a side project. Since launching in September 2024, we’ve grown to thousands of paying users, crossed 1M
1 follower is your mom. 2 followers is your mom made a second account because she forgot her password. 3 followers is a guy named Bernard who has never once read a word you wrote but smashes Like within seconds. Bernard is a mystery. Bernard is eternal. 10 followers and you mention it at Thanksgiving. nobody looks up from their food. 100 followers and your LinkedIn photo is now a "candid" sho
In case you missed it, you can now plug your Claude into Kondo. (who knows, it might just change your life) trykondo.com/mcp What you can ask it to do - triage messages by adding labels - draft replies and follow ups - do research and leave notes for you in the side panel - archive or snooze stuff you're done with for now It won't automatically send messages for you, you'll still have to
Who’s next ☕️ trykondo.com
PSA: Claude can now do your DMs for you in Kondo Just send your Claude to this link to set it up for you trykondo.com/mcp Once connected, treat it like a new and very clueless personal assistant After you've given it some context on yourself and your business, ask it to: - sort messages into labels - set reminders or archive - filter invites and accept / reject - find existing connections you
A friend of mine spent $750 and an entire weekend setting up OpenClaw so he could finally go through his 4,000+ LinkedIn connection requests. After watching 5 hours of youtube tutorials and nearly pulling his hair out, by Sunday night he actually had it working. It went through all his connection requests and cleaned up the backlog. Honestly it was pretty impressive. The only thing going throug
Every other week a marketer tells my our website headline is terrible. What's majorly wrong about it? Most people don't know what on earth a Superhuman is I actually was really bothered by that at some point, so I changed it to something much more generally comprehensible and much more rage bait-y instead (IYKYK) But then I changed it back. What I like so much about my headline is that it cap
Recurring nightmare: Career day at my kid’s school. “Hi kids, I run a SaaS company.” “…what’s that?” “It helps people send LinkedIn messages.” “…to people you know?” “Sometimes.” “So…mostly strangers?” “…yeah.” “…and they don’t want them?” “Right.” “…and you help them anyway?” “Yes.” Kid in the back: “My mom calls that spam.” Silence. “I built the system.” Long pause. “I am the p
HOW EVERY SINGLE LINKEDIN INBOX LOOKS 🤖 100 templated sequencers bots telling me they have the PERFECT solution to all the problems with my business and life ☕ 75 overeager beavers asking to network and have a coffee chat 💰 50 automated messages FROM LINKEDIN asking me to upgrade to Premium so I can see the people who looked at my profile (YES! I appeared in 53 searches! Sick!) 📉 26 money “man
