- 影片來源：https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOylEw3tPQ8 - 免費訂閱 AI 科技最前沿的電子報：https://www.anduril.tw/ - 歡迎贊助本頻道選題與翻譯：https://buymeacoffee.com/foxh 對話的主角，是 AnySphere 的共同創辦人兼執行長 Michael Truell。他所打造的 AI 輔助程式開發平台 Cursor，正掀起一場寧靜卻深刻的革命。成立僅僅 20 個月，年度經常性收入（ARR）便衝破一億美元，公司估值飆升至 90 億美元。然而，在這場由 Garry Tan 主持的深度訪談中，Truell 揭示的並非僅是商業上的巨大成功，而是一個更為顛覆性的宏大願景：一個「後程式碼時代」的到來，一個程式開發的典範即將被徹底改寫的未來。 Truell 與他在麻省理工學院結識的夥伴們，正大膽地押注一個夢想——將軟體創造這門複雜的工藝，從逐行敲打程式碼的傳統模式，進化到更高維度的「意圖驅動」時代。開發者只需用自然語言描述想法，AI 便能將其轉化為具體的軟體功能。這不僅是效率的提升，更是對創造力的一次解放。 Truell 開宗明義指出，Cursor 的終極目標，是用一種更先進的方式取代傳統的程式開發。他與創辦團隊皆為資深工程師，深知將腦中一個簡單概念，轉化為螢幕上數百萬行深奧程式碼的過程，是多麼耗時費力。他們預見，未來五到十年，軟體開發將迎來根本性的變革，人類的角色將從繁瑣的執行者，轉變為高層次的指揮家。 然而，當前 AI 程式開發的現實與此宏大願景之間，仍有一段距離。許多人對 AI 的想像，停留在所謂的「氛圍開發」（Vibe-driven Development）——憑感覺對 AI 下達模糊指令，期待它能完美實現一切。Trull 坦言，這種做法在處理小型、拋棄式的新創專案時或許尚可一試，但對於動輒數百萬行程式碼、數百人協作數年的大型專業軟體而言，完全是天方夜譚。不理解程式碼的底層邏輯就任意修改，將引發災難性的連鎖反應。 目前，Cursor 的用戶數據顯示，AI 生成的程式碼大約佔整體開發工作的 40% 到 50%。這是一個驚人的比例，但它仍舊扮演「副駕駛」的角色。人類工程師必須像審閱初級工程師的程式碼一樣，仔細檢查 AI 的每一項產出。這意味著，我們正處於一個過渡階段：AI 是強大的輔助工具，而非能獨當一面的主角。 橫亙眼前的三道技術高牆 要從「輔助」邁向「主導」，AI 需要跨越幾道巨大的技術鴻溝。 首先是「上下文窗口」（Context Window）的限制。一個大型軟體的程式碼庫，可能包含數千萬行程式碼，換算成 AI 能理解的單位（Token），高達數億之譜。目前的 AI 模型，即便擁有百萬級別的上下文窗口，也如同管中窺豹，無法一次性掌握整個專案的全貌。這就像一位試圖修改一部鉅著的編輯，卻每次只能閱讀其中一頁。 其次是「持續學習」（Continual Learning）的挑戰。一個優秀的工程師，不僅理解程式碼，更理解背後的「人」。他知道團隊的技術偏好、過往的失敗嘗試、組織的文化脈絡。這些非結構化的隱性知識，是 AI 目前難以吸收的。 最後，AI 必須具備與真實世界互動的能力。軟體工程師不僅是寫程式，他會運行程式碼、查看監控系統的日誌、使用各種開發工具。AI 也必須學會操作這些工具，建立一個完整的「測試-驗證-修正」迴圈，才能真正成為一個可靠的開發夥伴。 未來開發者的終極價值：「品味」 當 AI 逐漸接管低階的編碼工作，未來軟體開發者的核心價值會是什麼？Trull 給出一個言簡意賅的答案：「品味」（Taste）。 這裡的「品味」，不僅指涉視覺設計或使用者介面的美感，更是一種對產品本質的洞察力與判斷力。它關乎「應該打造什麼樣的產品」，以及「軟體應該如何運作」。傳統程式開發的過程，很大一部分是人類在扮演「人肉編譯器」的角色，將高層次的想法，轉譯成電腦能理解的迴圈、變數與函式。 未來，這個轉譯過程將被 AI 自動化。人類開發者的價值，將體現在定義產品的靈魂、設計核心邏輯，以及對使用者需求的深刻理解。這種洞見與方向感，將是 AI 無法取代的。 一次關鍵轉向：從 CAD 到 Code 的創業原點 Cursor 的驚人成長並非一蹴可幾。其創業故事，歷經數年的摸索、挫敗與重寫，本身就是一個關於「品味」、熱情與關鍵轉向的絕佳案例。 Trull 與團隊的起點，並非今日我們所見的程式開發工具。他們最初的宏大夢想，是為機械工程師打造一款 AI 輔助的電腦輔助設計（CAD）工具，能像自動補全程式碼一樣，預測 3D 模型的下一步修改。在投入近一年時間，建立了龐大的運算叢集、訓練了數百億參數的模型後，他們毅然決然地放棄這個方向。 原因有二：首先，團隊成員皆為軟體工程師，對機械工程缺乏發自內心的熱情；其次，當時的 3D 模型數據量遠遠不足以訓練出真正實用的 AI，技術時機尚未成熟。這次關鍵的轉向，讓他們回歸自己最熟悉、也最熱愛的領域。他們意識到，創業之路艱辛，唯有對所做之事懷抱巨大熱情，才能支撐團隊走過必然的低谷。 打造護城河：精準延攬與大膽想像 正是這種「預見未來」的信念，促使 Cursor 做出一個當時看來極不尋常的決定：放棄開發主流的 VS Code 擴充套件，而是選擇直接打造一個完整的、深度整合 AI 的編輯器。這個看似繞遠路的策略，卻為他們後續的快速迭代與創新，奠定最堅實的基礎。 在團隊建立上，Truell 強調初期招募的極端重要性。他們極其審慎地延攬最初的 10 位核心成員，因為這批精英不僅定義公司的技術實力，更塑造未來的文化與標準。高品質的早期團隊，會像磁鐵一樣吸引更多頂尖人才，形成正向循環。 Truell 將當前的 AI 開發工具市場，比作 90 年代末的搜尋引擎大戰。這不是一個傳統的企業軟體市場，而是一個潛力無窮、贏家通吃的市場。誰能率先取得技術突破、誰能透過龐大的用戶數據建立起「數據飛輪」，誰就能定義下一個時代。
Michael Truell, co-founder and CEO of Anysphere, the company behind Cursor, joins Garry to talk about building one of the fastest-growing startups of all time—and why he's betting on a future beyond code. He walks through the early insights that led his team to leave a promising AI-powered CAD project and instead chase a bigger dream: reinventing how software is written. From years of false starts and rewrites to Cursor's breakthrough moment, Michael explains what it takes to build a tool that could eventually replace programming as we know it. He also reflects on their first 10 hires, why taste still matters and how the decade ahead will unlock a new kind of creativity for builders everywhere. Apply to Y Combinator: https://ycombinator.com/apply Work at a startup: https://workatastartup.com Chapters (Powered by https://ChapterMe.co): 00:00 - Intro 01:00 - A new way to build software 02:00 - Cursor’s mission 03:40 - The downside of vibe coding 04:50 - Two ways to view LLMs 05:50 - Bottlenecks to superhuman agents 08:30 - New approaches to coding UI 09:40 - Why taste still matters 12:15 - Niche software opportunities 13:30 - Cursor origin story 16:00 - The first problem they tried solving 17:20 - Why they abandoned the CAD idea 21:00 - Pivoting to Cursor 23:00 - Following the scaling laws 24:30 - Early product decisions 25:20 - The GitHub Copilot origin story 27:00 - Getting to PMF 30:00 - “Dogfooding” 31:00 - First 10 hires 32:50 - How to evaluate great engineers in age of AI 33:45 - Maintaining the hacker mindset as you grow 35:00 - What are the moats for AI coding tools? 37:00 - Looking ahead
For an audio-only podcast, transcripts, and custom Notion Cursor templates, please visit: https://ntn.so/rw4201 To learn more about how Notion is supporting startups, please visit: https://ntn.so/eewzsl Welcome to First Block, a Notion series where founders from the world’s leading companies tell us what it was like to navigate the many firsts of their startup journey — and what they learned from that experience. In this episode, we spoke with Michael Truell, Co-founder and CEO of Cursor, an AI code editor that has gone from side project to one of the fastest-growing AI tools in the developer world in under a year. Michael shares why they started with a solution in search of a problem, ignored conventional advice, and focused obsessively on product over everything else. From a 4-person founding team to hiring just one person every few months, their unorthodox path laid the foundation for breakout growth. Timestamps 00:00 Intro 02:18 The original spark and false start in mechanical engineering 05:53 The pivot moment to developer tools 06:45 The decision to fork VS Code 08:45 Building AI-native coding tools and the balance between speed and control 12:24 Cursor's explosive growth trajectory 13:41 Early mistakes and lessons learned 14:16 Hiring philosophy and building the first team 17:08 Internal tools and operational philosophy 19:01 Maintaining focus in a hyper-fast environment 20:53 Advice for founders building in the AI era
Michael Truell on June 17th, 2025 at AI Startup School in San Francisco. At 24, Michael Truell has already built Cursor into one of the fastest-growing companies in AI coding, hitting $100M ARR in just a year. In this fireside chat with YC General Partner Diana Hu, he shares the lessons that came from years of failed projects with his co-founders, why he believes programming is still essential even as AI changes how we code, and how Cursor is taking on GitHub Copilot with the conviction that all of software development will flow through models. Chapters: 00:38 – PG essays & first code 02:36 – Games, robots, and hacking ML as a teenager 06:54 – From Hemisphere to Cursor: first startup attempts 09:54 – Pivoting hard when nothing was working 12:04 – Taking on GitHub Copilot 13:10 – Shipping the first Cursor editor 15:24 – Early lessons: features, feedback, and VS Code shift 16:26 – Codex, custom models, and pragmatic bets 17:58 – Wandering in 2023 20:00 – Breakthrough: $1M → $100M in a year 22:46 – Word of mouth and wildfire growth 25:24 – The future of coding and advice for students
When four MIT grads decided to build a code editor while everyone else was building AI agents, they created one of the fastest-growing developer tools ever built. Cursor CEO, Michael Truell, joins a16z’s Martin Casado to discuss the deliberate constraints that led to breakthroughs: why they rejected the "democratization" narrative to focus on power users, how their 2-day work trials test for agency over credentials, and the strategic decision to own the editor when conventional wisdom said it was impossible. Timecodes: 00:00 - The "Cursor for X" Framework 03:17 - "The Blind Man and the Elephant Problem" 03:54 - Wishing We'd Been Interns Instead 04:15 - Focus vs Science Fiction 06:00 - PTSD from Modeling Work Led to Expediency 07:00 - Monthly Investor Updates as Commitment Device 07:18 - Two Weeks to Daily Driver 08:48 - "We Were Luddites Using Command Line Vim" 09:44 - iPad on the Window: "Cursor's Down" 11:58 - Four 20-Somethings as Double-Digit API Revenue 12:44 - Finding Inference Capacity at Scale 18:16 - Two-Day Work Trial at 200+ People 20:39 - "Here Are Inbound Leads, You Have a Quota" 22:11 - Flying Across the World After They Say No 24:46 - The Ouroboros Question 25:26 - "It's So Far Away from Being Automated" 26:04 - From iPod Moment to iPhone Moments Follow Michael on X: https://x.com/mntruell Stay Updated: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, and share with your friends! Find a16z on X: https://x.com/a16z Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z Listen to the a16z Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5bC65RDvs3oxnLyqqvkUYX Listen to the a16z Podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z-podcast/id842818711 Follow our host: https://x.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.
*Michael Truell* is the co-founder and CEO of Anysphere, the company behind Cursor—the fastest-growing AI code editor in the world, reaching $300 million in annual recurring revenue just two years after its launch. In this conversation, Michael shares his vision for the future, lessons learned, and advice for preparing for the fast-approaching AI future. *What you’ll learn:* 1. Cursor's early pivot from automating CAD to automating code 2. Michael’s vision for “what comes after code” and how programming will evolve 3. Why Cursor built their own custom AI models despite not starting there 4. Key lessons from Cursor’s rapid growth 5. Why “taste” and logic design will become more valuable engineering skills than technical coding ability 6. Why the market for AI coding tools is much larger than people realize—and why there will likely be one dominant winner 7. Michael’s advice for engineers and product teams preparing for the AI future *Transcript:* https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-rise-of-cursor-michael-truell *Brought to you by:* Eppo—Run reliable, impactful experiments: https://www.geteppo.com/ Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security: https://vanta.com/lenny OneSchema—Import CSV data 10x faster: https://oneschema.co/lenny *Where to find Michael Truell:* • X: https://x.com/mntruell • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-t-5b1bbb122/ • Website: https://mntruell.com/ *In this episode, we cover:* (00:00) Introduction to Michael Truell and Cursor (04:20) What comes after code (08:32) The importance of taste (12:39) Cursor’s origin story (18:31) Why they chose to build an IDE (22:39) Will everyone become engineering managers? (24:31) How they decided it was time to ship (26:45) Reflecting on Cursor's success (32:03) Counterintuitive lessons on building AI products (34:02) Inside Cursor's stack (38:42) Defensibility and market dynamics in AI (46:13) Tips for using Cursor (51:25) Hiring and building a strong team (59:10) Staying focused amid rapid AI advancements (01:02:31) Final thoughts and advice for aspiring AI innovators *Referenced:* • Cursor: https://www.cursor.com/ • Microsoft Copilot: https://copilot.microsoft.com/ • Scaling laws for neural language models: https://openai.com/index/scaling-laws-for-neural-language-models/ • MIT: https://www.mit.edu/ • Telegram: https://telegram.org/ • Signal: https://signal.org/ • WhatsApp: https://www.whatsapp.com/ • Devin: https://devin.ai/ • Visual Studio Code: https://code.visualstudio.com/ • Chromium: https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/base/ • Exploring ChatGPT (GPT) Wrappers—What They Are and How They Work: https://learnprompting.org/blog/gpt_wrappers • OpenAI’s CPO on how AI changes must-have skills, moats, coding, startup playbooks, more | Kevin Weil (CPO at OpenAI, ex-Instagram, Twitter): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/kevin-weil-open-ai • Behind the founder: Marc Benioff: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/behind-the-founder-marc-benioff • DALL-E 3: https://openai.com/index/dall-e-3/ • Stable Diffusion 3: https://stability.ai/news/stable-diffusion-3 _Production and marketing by https://penname.co/._ _For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com._ Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.
В 23 года Майкл Труэлл вместе с командой создал Cursor — редактор кода на базе ИИ, который сегодня используют сотни тысяч разработчиков и компании YC. В этом интервью он рассказывает: как пришёл к программированию, какие проекты провалил до Cursor, как вдохновился GitHub Copilot, и почему верит, что через 5 лет программирование изменится навсегда. 📌 Таймкоды 00:00 – Будущее программирования 00:36 – Начало пути 02:17 – Первые проекты 04:13 – Роботы и нейронные сети 06:09 – Основание Ennisphere 07:06 – Проект в машиностроении 08:56 – Проект с шифрованием 09:55 – Проблемы с предыдущими проектами 10:55 – Вдохновение от Copilot 11:52 – Переход к автоматизации программирования 12:48 – Создание первого продукта 14:39 – Тестирование и уроки 15:35 – Адаптация к рынку 17:24 – Развитие в 2023 году 18:12 – Особенности рынка 19:11 – Стратегии развития и рост компании 20:07 – Факторы роста 21:05 – Влияние на компании YC 21:58 – Продвижение в соцсетях 22:56 – Развитие команды 24:48 – Будущее программирования и ИИ #Cursor #MichaelTruell #GitHubCopilot #AI #ИИ #искусственныйинтеллект #программирование #будущеепрограммирования #стартап #YC #YCombinator #разработкаПО #код #машинноеобучение #ChatGPT #нейросети
AIコーディングツール「Cursor」のCEO Michael Truellが語る創業秘話と成長戦略。CADシステムでの失敗、VS Codeへの超集中戦略、スケーリング地獄の乗り越え方、そして今後のマルチプロダクト展開まで。史上最速で成長したAIプロダクトの裏側を徹底解説します。 00:00 - オープニングとCursor CEO紹介 01:39 - Copilot衝撃とCursor創業ストーリー 04:25 - CAD大失敗とファウンダーフィット 06:10 - プログラミング回帰と爆速リリース 07:53 - VSCode特化のAIコーディング戦略 15:35 - 爆発的成長とマルチクラウド戦略 25:50 - Cursorのマルチプロダクト構想 28:48 - ソフトウェア自動化とiPhoneモーメント 33:51 - 3つのポイントで振り返るまとめ 36:31 - エンディングとチャンネル案内 出典: https://youtu.be/deMrq2uzRKA iPhoneアプリでご視聴の方向けの有料メンバーシップ登録はこちら！ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXYstYfeIP6cApPZnMmw2jQ/join