2 min lesson
The values Cursor actually screens
Give a practical answer to this: "A founder sits in on the values round and asks how you handle disagreement with a senior technical leader. Which answer best fits what Cursor screens for in this TPM charter?"
Step 1 of 2
By the values round your cost model and your GPU-economics answers are mostly settled. What's open is temperament: would you walk into a room with the ML lead and the CFO, say the inference margin is worse than anyone's admitting and hold that line on the data even when a founder pushes back.
Cursor's TPM loop is flat and founder-engaged, so this round is often where a founder or a senior leader sits in. They are not checking whether you can run a standup. They are checking whether you'd be a trusted thought partner on one of the company's largest cost lines without a management layer to hide behind.
Interactive diagram. Tab through its regions; each focused region shows its detail in the panel below.
The five signals this round grades - heaviest weight at top.
Learn more
Full explanation
The values Cursor actually screens
There's a fifth signal that's easy to miss and central to this charter: operating at every altitude. You have to be equally credible in a board-ready COGS narrative and in a raw query against the usage table that produced it. A TPM who can only do the deck or only do the dashboard fails this round.