The Twenty Minute VC"Cursor is Dead" is Total BS: Here is Why | Miles Clements
At a glance
WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT
Miles Clements debunks “Cursor is dead” and reframes AI investing
- Miles Clements argues that in AI, the best way to assess companies is by combining “time to value” with “durability of value,” and he claims coding tools uniquely excel on both dimensions.
- He pushes back hard on the “Cursor is dead” narrative, saying the market is expanding fast, Cursor’s agent usage is surging, and competition like Claude Code is not necessarily zero-sum.
- Clements explains why Cursor being multi-model is a feature (developers switch models constantly), and defends Cursor building specialized coding models as a path to deeper enterprise differentiation.
- The conversation widens into how modern funds seek ownership, why some 2021-vintage companies may find LBO “homes,” why going public is less attractive below ~$5B, and what Accel learned from missing deals like Rippling and ServiceTitan.
IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING
5 ideasIn AI, assess “time to value” and “durability of value” together.
Clements argues some categories (legal/accounting) take longer to deploy but become deeply embedded once adopted, while “vibe coding” apps can deliver instant value but lack defensibility. Coding tools (Cursor/Claude Code) are compelling because users see immediate productivity gains and compounding team-level lock-in.
“Cursor is dead” is a narrative error driven by surface-level signals.
He says Claude Code’s momentum is real but largely tethered to model breakthroughs (e.g., Opus versions) and the overall market is so expansionary that one tool’s growth doesn’t automatically imply another’s decline—especially when consumption-based revenue is exploding across products.
Cursor is no longer just an IDE story; agents are the core usage vector.
Clements cites Cursor metrics: agent users outnumber tab-feature users 2:1; ~90% of users are daily active on the agent product; agent product grew ~15x; and cloud agents (new as of late Oct) drive ~35% of merged PRs. His point: the company is already executing the agent transition.
Multi-model support is a strategic moat because developers constantly switch models.
Accel’s in-progress survey suggests ~50% of developers switch model families daily and ~95% switch models daily. Cursor’s multi-model UX turns it into an “index of AI innovation,” where improvements in underlying models and in Cursor’s product compound together.
Building “own models” can be rational if the goal is specialized capability, not general AGI.
He frames Cursor’s modeling effort as specialized coding models for professional/enterprise needs rather than broad generalist models. Specialization can improve reliability, security, and workflow fit for real-world coding tasks where generalist breadth (poetry, recipes) is irrelevant.
WORDS WORTH SAVING
5 quotesThere’s a pretty useful framework…understand a company’s time to value and then the durability of that value.
— Miles Clements
The reason I think coding has become, like, the vertical in AI is because it shines on both dimensions.
— Miles Clements
With all due respect…you’re not looking at any real metrics. Like, who are these people to make these judgments?
— Miles Clements
Growth can obscure and blind you to a lot of underlying ills in the business.
— Miles Clements
Investing is an art and a science…the science is understanding how to properly value a company, and the art is understanding when to break the rules.
— Miles Clements
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