Factory CEO Matan Grinberg alleges Cognition's new CRO Chris Degnan had been confiding with Cognition executives while advising Factory as a board observer (Rya Jetha/Business Insider)

Factory CEO Matan Grinberg has publicly accused Chris Degnan, the new Chief Revenue Officer of Cognition, of sharing confidential information with Cognition executives while serving as a board observer for Factory. According to Grinberg, this led to Degnan's dismissal from his role as a board advisor.

Degnan joined Cognition shortly after being let go from Factory, announcing his new position on social media. Prior to joining Cognition, Degnan had worked as a partner with RPT Partners, an investor in Factory, and had also served as a go-to-market advisor to startups for Iconiq.

Factory and Cognition are competitors in the AI coding startup space, with Factory recently raising $200 million at a $5 billion valuation and Cognition raising $2 billion at a $48 billion valuation. Factory's AI agents can carry out programming tasks largely on their own, and its customers include Nvidia, Blackstone, and Adobe.

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