Cursor rode its launch in 2022 to the fastest growth in developer tools history, hitting $100 million ARR in under two years with almost zero marketing spend. The trick wasn’t reinventing the wheel but cloning it. Cursor forked VS Code’s open-source editor, kept every user setting and extension intact, then swapped in an AI-first engine underneath. For developers, it felt like opening their usual IDE—same shortcuts, themes, history—except now it reads your entire codebase, executes multi-file changes, and runs autonomous coding agents. That instant familiarity turned VS Code’s “staying value” into Cursor’s acquisition engine. This “inherit rather than overcome” strategy works whenever you can surface your product inside an existing workflow. You tap into the user’s history of files, plugins and muscle memory—everything they’d otherwise lose by switching. Forkable codebases like VS Code, Chromium or Postgres make this approach legal and low-friction. If the core is closed source, you look for plugin hooks, APIs or embeddable layers to plug into the incumbent. Either way, you create zero switching cost on the surface and layer your real advantage one level deeper, where the original developer can’t easily follow. That’s how Cursor stole Microsoft’s plate—and why thinking in terms of “staying value” rather than “switching cost” points you straight at your next growth play.