--- title: Factory CEO just accused his VC board advisor of spying... description: Factory CEO Matan Grinberg publicly fired board advisor Chris Degnan, accusing him of leaking confidential information to Cognition, Factory's chief rival in... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/factory-ceo-just-accused-his-vc-board-advisor-of-spying-for-cognition-y4itoaxqy twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Factory CEO just accused his VC board advisor of spying for Cognition | daily.dev og:description: Factory CEO Matan Grinberg publicly fired board advisor Chris Degnan, accusing him of leaking confidential information to Cognition, Factory's chief rival in... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/factory-ceo-just-accused-his-vc-board-advisor-of-spying-for-cognition-y4itoaxqy og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/y4iTOAXQY.png og:image:alt: Factory CEO just accused his VC board advisor of spying for Cognition og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Factory CEO just accused his VC board advisor of spying for Cognition **[TechCrunch](https://daily.dev/sources/tc)** · 5 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Factory CEO Matan Grinberg publicly fired board advisor Chris Degnan, accusing him of leaking confidential information to Cognition, Factory's chief rival in agentic AI coding. Degnan disputes the account, saying he resigned rather than being fired and had not spoken to Cognition while attending Factory board meetings. He has now joined Cognition as chief revenue officer, and his VC firm RPT Partners' managing partner Chad Peets will also work with Cognition. Khosla Ventures partners Vinod Khosla and Keith Rabois publicly took opposing sides, with Khosla backing Cognition (in which his firm is also an investor, alongside Factory) and calling Factory a 'struggling second tier competitor,' while Rabois called Degnan's alleged conduct 'unethical per se.' The dispute highlights growing scrutiny of VC conflicts of interest, including a reported DOJ probe into Andreessen Horowitz over partners sitting on competing boards. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [AI coding startup Cognition reportedly already in talks to raise at $40B valuation](https://daily.dev/posts/ai-coding-startup-cognition-reportedly-already-in-talks-to-raise-at-40b-valuation-cxpouh2yw) · TechCrunch · 2 upvotes · 0 comments - [Cognition raises $1B at $26B valuation for AI coding agent](https://daily.dev/posts/cognition-raises-1b-at-26b-valuation-for-ai-coding-agent-sutswmzkz) · The Next Web · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [AI coding startup Cognition raises $1B at $25B pre-money valuation](https://daily.dev/posts/ai-coding-startup-cognition-raises-1b-at-25b-pre-money-valuation-fktfezgji) · TechCrunch · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#ai-agents](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-agents), [#venture-capital](https://daily.dev/tags/venture-capital) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/factory-ceo-just-accused-his-vc-board-advisor-of-spying-for-cognition-y4itoaxqy) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Factory CEO just accused his VC board advisor of spying for Cognition","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/factory-ceo-just-accused-his-vc-board-advisor-of-spying-for-cognition-y4itoaxqy","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/factory-ceo-just-accused-his-vc-board-advisor-of-spying-for-cognition-y4itoaxqy"},"datePublished":"2026-09-30T20:41:36.674Z","dateModified":"2026-10-01T18:31:58.601Z","description":"Factory CEO Matan Grinberg publicly fired board advisor Chris Degnan, accusing him of leaking confidential information to Cognition, Factory's chief rival in...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/c5611d645aab2e0e40256c7d99b4fa73?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/c5611d645aab2e0e40256c7d99b4fa73?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"TechCrunch","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"TechCrunch","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/tc","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/tc"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/factory-ceo-just-accused-his-vc-board-advisor-of-spying-for-cognition-y4itoaxqy","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"ai-agents,venture-capital","timeRequired":"PT5M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"TechCrunch","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/tc"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Factory CEO just accused his VC board advisor of spying for Cognition"}]} ```