Scott Wu

Scott Wu (born 1997) is an American entrepreneur who is co-founder of Cognition AI and Lunchclub. He is also a competitive programmer who won three gold medals (placing first in 2014) at the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) and came third place in the 2021 Google Code Jam.

Scott Wu
Born	1997 (age 27–28) Louisiana, United States
Other names	scott_wu
Education	Harvard University
Known for	Co-founding Cognition AI and Lunchclub Achievements in competitive programming
Awards	Codeforces peak rating: 3350

Background

Wu was born in 1997 in the state of Louisiana.^[1] He attended Baton Rouge Magnet High School.^[2]

Growing up Wu competed in competitions related to programming and mathematics. He won three gold medals (placing first in 2014) at IOI. He also competed in Mathcounts and became individual champion in 2011.^{[1][2][3][4][5]}

Wu attended Harvard University where he graduated in 2019 with an B.A. in Economics. While at Harvard, he was part of the team representing it in the 2016 International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) which won a gold medal and came third place overall.^[1][4][5][6]

Career

From to 2014 to 2015, Wu worked as software engineer at Addepar.^[1][5]

In 2017, Wu co-founded Lunchclub and was its CTO until 2022 when he left to pursue different interests.^[1][5][7] Wu was listed in 2020 edition of Forbes 30 Under 30 for co-founding Lunchclub.^[8]

In 2021, Wu came third place in the 2021 Google Code Jam.^[3]

In 2023, Wu co-founded Cognition AI which developed Devin AI. It raised $21 million in funding from Peter Thiel's Founders Fund.^[1][4][5]

Achievements

Competitive programming

A more comprehensive list of achievements can be found at the Competitive Programming Hall Of Fame website.^[3]

• International Olympiad in Informatics: 3 Gold (2012, 2013 and 2014) (First place overall in 2014)
• International Collegiate Programming Contest (Representing Harvard): 1 Gold (2016) (Third place overall)
• Google Code Jam: Third place (2021)
• Topcoder Open Algorithm: Third place (2017)
• Codeforces: Legendary Grandmaster (peak rating 3350)

Mathematics

• HMMT: Champion (2014)^[9]
• Mathcounts (Representing Louisiana): Individual champion (2011)^[2]

Family

Wu has an older brother named Neal. Similar to Wu, Neal also has a competitive programming background and attended Harvard University graduating in 2014. His competitive programming achievements include winning three gold medals at the IOI, winning a team silver medal at the ICPC and coming second place in the 2012 Google Code Jam. Neal previously worked at Facebook and Google. He currently works with Wu at Cognition AI.^{[1][4][10][11]}