About
John Backus founded Cognito, which was acquired by Plaid in 2022, where he served as CTO.
John Backus @backus
Logging into Venmo in 2026 like ME: Hello I want to— VENMO: Open a debit card? Credit? Deposit into Kalshi? Buy Crypto? PayPal stablecoin? Please? Buy tickets with TicketMaster? Get an NYT subscription? ME: Pay my friend! VENMO: Ugh, fine. Good luck, we barely maintain that.
Jul 15, 2026 · ♥ 40
John Backus @backus
AI coding tools today remind me of Betty Crocker introducing a "just add water" cake mix in the 1940s which didn't sell well until they tweaked it to "just add an egg," making consumers feel like they're still baking. Still in egg phase now, but it sure feels like "just add https://t.co/bP0n6nOzVB
Mar 29, 2026 · ♥ 32 · ⇄ 2
John Backus @backus
Huh, so a bunch of random people repost my video with an inaccurate caption so I get a community note on my post basically reiterating what I said immediately below the post? Strange...
Mar 7, 2026 · ♥ 5
Founder/CTO at CognitoYC S14
Intro paths
John went through Y Combinator (Summer 2014) — any YC alum in your network can reach them through the YC community.
In turn, John can intro founders to Cognito's investors below.
Cognito's investors · 3
Co-founders at Cognito
