Technology / People
Michael Truell is the CEO and co-founder of Anysphere, the company behind Cursor, the AI-powered code editor that has fundamentally changed how software is built. At 25 years old, he leads one of the fastest-growing AI companies in history.
Truell studied computer science, mathematics, and AI at MIT, where he met his three co-founders: Aman Sanger (COO), Sualeh Asif (CPO), and Arvid Lunnemark (former CTO). Before Anysphere, he interned at Octant (drug discovery) and Google, where he trained recommendation models.
He was part of the Neo program, a selective startup incubator that supports exceptional technical talent. The four MIT classmates founded Anysphere in 2022 while still students.
Cursor launched in 2023 as an AI-native code editor built on VS Code. What makes it different is the deep integration of AI into every aspect of the coding workflow, from autocomplete to multi-file edits to autonomous agents.
By 2025, Cursor was being used by over half of the Fortune 500 companies. The product's success came from obsessive focus on developer experience and shipping fast iterations.
| Round | Amount | Valuation | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seed | $8M | - | Oct 2023 |
| Series A | $60M | $400M | Aug 2024 |
| Series B | $105M | $2.5B | Jan 2025 |
| Series C | $900M | $9.9B | Jun 2025 |
| Series D | $2.3B | $29.3B | Nov 2025 |
Notable investors include the OpenAI Startup Fund, Nat Friedman (former GitHub CEO), Arash Ferdowsi (Dropbox co-founder), Thrive Capital, and Coatue Management.
On product over hype:
Truell emphasizes product excellence over marketing. The team's "monk mode" approach let growth happen organically through developer adoption and word of mouth.
On hiring:
Early on, Cursor was too selective, prioritizing candidates from elite institutions. Truell later recognized that diverse, nontraditional talent often contributed more meaningfully to the company.
On "vibe coding":
Truell coined the term "vibe coding" to describe using AI to write code with minimal oversight. While it can accelerate prototyping, he warns it can lead to codebases with weak foundations. The key is knowing when to trust the AI and when to dig deeper.
Anysphere is developing its own large language models to reduce dependence on providers like OpenAI and Anthropic. Truell claims their in-house models now generate more code than most other LLMs.
He sees Cursor not just as an editor but as an end-to-end coding tool with deep AI integration. The future involves combining multiple LLMs, including proprietary ones, to deliver a seamless developer experience.
Michael Truell and the Cursor team are fundamentally reshaping how software is created. In just three years, they went from MIT students to leading a $29 billion company. Cursor has become the primary development tool for hundreds of thousands of developers, including this entire website.
The speed of iteration, the obsessive focus on developer experience, and the willingness to build proprietary technology rather than just wrapping existing APIs, these are the traits that separate Cursor from the crowd.
At 25, Truell is one of the youngest billionaire tech founders, and Cursor represents a new era of software development where AI is not just an assistant but a true collaborator.