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Cursor Is the Best AI Agent Startup Outside Sequoia's Portfolio

Julien Bek · Inside Sequoia's Investment Committee | How the SpaceX & Citadel Deals Went Down | Julien Bek · Aug 24, 2026 · at 1:18:55

Julien Bek, partner at Sequoia Capital, names the leading AI agent company that Sequoia does not have in its portfolio.

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“It's probably cursor. One, they're in one of the most important markets. But second, where there was a lot of chatter around AI wrappers, they were the first company to really understand that you could post train models and actually be, go deeper into the stack.”

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