Cursor Growth Playbook
The AI-first code editor.
Adoption
Rapid
Strategy
Fork VS Code
The Spark
Coding with AI in a separate chat window was inefficient. The AI needed to see the whole codebase.
The Growth Engine
Familiarity + Superpowers: By forking VS Code, Cursor removed the biggest barrier to switching: muscle memory. Developers could keep their same extensions and themes while gaining 'superpowers' like codebase-wide indexing and Command+K edits. This tactical decision to prioritize developer experience over a proprietary UI allowed them to win the 'AI Editor' wars by providing immediate, friction-free value to professional engineers.