What a 73x Year Actually Proves (and What It Doesn't)
Pick the number that makes you uncomfortable. Cognition’s Devin went from $1M in ARR in September 2024 to $73M by June 2025 — a 73x rise in nine months, the steepest revenue ramp documented in coding-agent history at that point (AgentMarketCap). That figure gets thrown around as proof that going “fully AI-native” is a license to print revenue. It isn’t, and treating it that way will get you the wrong lessons. But there’s a real signal buried in it, and it’s worth digging out carefully — because the parts that are true are more useful than the headline, and the parts that are oversold are where teams burn their first year.