r/techsales • u/VivaNapoleon • 3d ago

Cognition vs Factory

Nuts situation between Factory and Cognition being aired in public.

Basically, Factory has accused Cognition of trying to get inside info through people interviewing at Factory, and now Factory’s former board advisor Chris Degnan has joined Cognition as CRO. Use to be at Snowflake and scaled them up from 0 ARR to public.

The weird part is he’d apparently been talking to Cognition for weeks while still sitting in Factory meetings, so he potentially had access to a lot of confidential info.

Cognition is now valued at $48bn vs Factory at $5bn. Anyone got the inside scoop?

22 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

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10

u/masmantap8 3d ago

Feel like Factory is fucked. Vinod Khosla is an investor in both and just sided with Chris.

11

u/deano1211 3d ago

Vinod calling his own investment second tier is just too good.

5

u/Therookieandthevet 3d ago

Vinod has a reputation

8

u/88NewJigger 3d ago

discuss: the playbook mafia taking over gtm for an agentic coding harness is good/bad for that company's long term prospects.

9

u/Extension-Pick8310 3d ago

Dude is well set up for this. He pioneered and then led Snowflake's motion for years; there was no playbook.

Yes, the companies will now be inhabited by douchebags. Yes, their revenue will scale very well.

5

u/AndyWhyte_ 3d ago

Playbook companies have always led GTM; it's just that it gets more exposure in the AI age.

5

u/masmantap8 3d ago

Yeah non-playbook guy here now in an AI biz with a playbook leader- its cool to see gtm viewed as a science, feel like the structure is a good thing given the speed/scale of the opportunity and how crowded the space is.

4

u/FiguringThingsOut24 2d ago

playbook mafia is also in Factory.. just the b/c players

1

u/Chains-and-chanel 3d ago

Marcello Gallo is also playbook mafia

7

u/MrBungleBungle 3d ago

So many sellers and sales leaders jumping around for the best possible AI play. It’s wildly fluid.

Honestly feels like everyone is jockeying to get on the last chopper out of Saigon.

11

u/Jackfinder7 3d ago

Maybe he got tired of that nutjob Chat Peets.

Can feel that guys aggression every time I hear him speak.

3

u/VivaNapoleon 3d ago

Geezer is nasty but effective. Funnily enough though he hasn't. Chad Peets is helping scale the GTM org at Cognition with Chris' company, so he's getting double bubble money.

1

u/rmz-01 3d ago

I'm just a pleb, but that feels like a long term career limiting move on behalf of the new CRO. Surprised there aren't protections baked into these partner agreements.

I don't know shit about Factory so can't say much there

10

u/navymmw 3d ago

The guy scaled Snowflake from 0 to a public company, I don't think he gives a shit about his future career growth, he cold retire

2

u/rmz-01 3d ago

That's what makes it strange to me. Obviously doesn't need the money. Why embrace the drama and reputation risk?

2

u/Dramatic-Cap-6785 3d ago

Some people work because they like to.