Factory CEO fires board advisor after alleged leak to rival Cognition

Matan Grinberg, co-founder and CEO of the AI coding firm Factory, said he removed Chris Degnan from the company’s board after learning that Degnan had been confiding with executives of Cognition, Factory’s chief rival. Degnan, who previously led sales at Snowflake and spent five months as a partner at RPT Partners, announced on X and LinkedIn that he was joining Cognition as chief revenue officer, omitting any reference to his former advisory role.

Factory, based in San Francisco, recently closed a $200 million financing round that valued it at $5 billion, counting customers such as Nvidia and Adobe. Cognition, maker of the Devin coding agent, raised $2 billion this month, with clients including Mercedes-Benz and NASA. Grinberg warned that Degnan’s alleged sharing of confidential roadmap information could damage Factory’s competitive edge and stressed that board trust is a “sacred bond” in the startup ecosystem. Neither Degnan, Chad Peets of RPT Partners, nor Factory provided further comment.