Pavel Tritchkov: Research at Cognition

Details

LocationSan Francisco, California, United States

Company sitecognition.ai

LanguagesBulgarian, English, German, Spanish

UniversityNova School of Business and Economics, University of California, Berkeley, Technische Universität Dresden

NetworkingPresentation SkillsEnglishMicrosoft PowerPointMicrosoft ExcelGermanBulgarianWorking AbroadAirtable

Notes

Cognition announced it was acquiring The Interaction Company of California, the makers of Poke, on 2026-07-23: 'Cognition is acquiring @Interaction, the makers of Poke. If you've ever used Poke, you know why we're so excited.' His Cognition start (Aug 2026) follows the deal by days.Jul 23, 2026
Was Head of GTM & Ops at The Interaction Company of California (makers of Poke) from Feb 2026 to Aug 2026 in Palo Alto; his LinkedIn describes the role as 'sixth hire (acq)'.Feb 2026
Joined Cognition in August 2026 with title 'r&d' (San Francisco); public headline simply reads 'at Cognition'.Aug 2026
Poke was co-founded by Marvin von Hagen and Felix Schlegel; General Catalyst announced its seed investment in The Interaction Company of California on 2025-09-08.Sep 8, 2025
Since joining Cognition he has reposted launches including SWE-2 (2026-09-10), Devin Voice (2026-09-11), the refreshed Devin Desktop app (2026-10-23) and FrontierCode 2.0 (2026-10-27).Oct 27, 2026
TechCrunch (2026-07-24) framed the deal as Cognition buying Poke's conversational style and interaction model for its coding agent Devin: 'AI personality is becoming a competitive advantage'.Jul 24, 2026
During his time at Interaction he reposted the Poke launches: the new Poke approved on Apple Messages (2026-06-04), Poke handles (2026-06-08), Poke Ultra (2026-06-18), Poke Human with Mercor and Whop (2026-06-25) and stock trading in Poke (2026-07-20).Jun 4, 2026
Public headline says "at Cognition".
Coverage of the deal reports nothing immediately changes for Poke through the end of 2026, with Poke turning to Cognition's SWE-1.7 model for some tasks and the teams experimenting with how Poke and Devin can improve.Oct 3, 2026
Shreya Shekhar thanked him for helping organize a Systems Reading Group event (Sept 2026): 'special thanks to @paveltritchkov for the help organizing!'Sep 28, 2026
Original X post on Poke (2026-03-19): 'Poke knows me better than I know myself🌴'.Mar 19, 2026Poke knows me better than I know myself🌴
Took part in the Swiss AI Hackathon (ETH Entrepreneur Club, Zurich, Nov 2025) with Cemre Samur, Oscar Sodian and Ben Klomp; the team built Lepton, an AI-powered construction planning platform, in 24 hours with Lovable.Nov 13, 2025

Previous roleThe Interaction Company of California (Poke)

Experience

r&d at Cognition

Aug 2026 - Present

San Francisco, California, United States

Head of GTM & Ops at The Interaction Company of California

Feb 2026 - Aug 2026

Palo Alto, California, United States

sixth hire (acq)

Investment Team at redalpine

Jun 2025 - Nov 2025

Various Roles at Various Companies

Oct 2021 - Sep 2023

Education

Nova School of Business and Economics

Master of Science - MS, Economics

Thesis: Distributional Effects of Monetary Policy in the Euro Area: Evidence from the Consumer Expectations Survey

University of California, Berkeley

Visiting Graduate Student, Mathematics and Economics

Technische Universität Dresden

Bachelor of Science - BS, Economics and Business

Thesis: What are the Main Causes of Banking Crises, and Can They be Identified and Mitigated Before They Occur?

Autumn profile

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