CEOs Respond to Crises with Memes, AI Entrepreneurs Borrow Crypto Marketing Tactics
- Core Viewpoint: Using the AI startup Cluely and the controversial actions of its CEO Roy Lee as examples, the article explores a new business model emerging in the AI era: seizing user attention by creating buzz and controversy, and leveraging it as a core growth strategy.
- Key Elements:
- Cluely originated from an AI tool that helped users cheat in coding interviews. Its CEO, Roy Lee, turned the story of being expelled from university for this into a personal marketing narrative, establishing the company's controversial foundation.
- Faced with media质疑质疑 questioning its reported $7 million annual revenue, Roy Lee did not resort to traditional crisis PR. Instead, he released an absurd, self-deprecating video response featuring a "no pants" gimmick, transforming the negative event into a traffic-generating spectacle.
- Prominent venture capital firm a16z participated in Cluely's Series A funding. Its partners believe that in an era of commoditized AI capabilities, viral marketing and capturing user attention have themselves become crucial parts of building a moat.
- The article points out that this logic of using controversy and attention as a growth strategy has been validated in the crypto industry (e.g., Meme coins). The Cluely case demonstrates that this strategy is now expanding into the broader tech startup landscape.
Original | Odaily (@OdailyChina)
Author | DingDang (@XiaMiPP)
In most startups, if exposed for "inflating revenue figures," one would likely face a PR crisis—issuing statements, explaining misunderstandings, correcting data metrics, apologizing, and then steering the conversation back to focusing on product or business growth.
But Cluely's CEO, Roy Lee, clearly had no intention of doing that.
A Company Born from a "Cheating Tool"
Cluely was founded in 2025, and its initial product stemmed from a project called Interview Coder, co-developed by Roy Lee and his college roommate Neel. This was a tool that used AI to help users cheat in LeetCode interviews. Because of this project, both were eventually expelled from Columbia University.
For most people, being expelled from school would be a black mark to be covered up. But Roy Lee turned this incident into a marketing opportunity, even a "turning point in life."
Cluely's initial product slogan was: "Cheat on Everything." It wasn't until November 2025 that Cluely began gradually shifting its product narrative from a "cheating tool" to an AI note-taking assistant, such as using AI to automatically organize meeting content, optimize collaboration efficiency, and even modify participants' facial expressions to mask distraction. However, no matter how the product evolved, this company, or rather, its CEO, never shed a very distinct aura: it grew almost entirely on controversy.
And the ensuing controversy, in a way, continued down this path.
A Farce Sparked by "Inflated Revenue"
The incident began when someone unearthed a TechCrunch article from July 2025. The article mentioned that Cluely's Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) had doubled within a week, reaching $7 million. This data was questioned as being fabricated.
Facing the质疑, Cluely CEO Roy Lee was surprisingly candid. He quickly posted an admission, stating that he had casually mentioned that number when a reporter called him and hadn't expected it to be included in a formal report. Seemingly to prove it wasn't a deliberate exaggeration, he also posted Cluely's actual data from June 2025: consumer business annual revenue of $2.7 million and enterprise business annual revenue of $2.5 million, totaling $5.2 million.
Up to this point, there wasn't much sensationalism; the explanation seemed plausible.
But on the same day, TechCrunch reporter Julie Bort published a rebuttal to Roy's account. She stated that the interview was proactively arranged by Cluely's PR team, was on the record, and was not a casual chat.
Roy Lee didn't continue explaining in text but chose a more dramatic way to respond. He released a video with the caption, Big News: Cluely CEO Officially Responds to TechCrunch.
In the video, he sat in front of the camera wearing sunglasses and a suit, with a microphone on the desk, looking as if he were about to deliver a serious statement. However, the setting wasn't an office; it looked more like a living room, with an old desktop computer next to him, its screen playing Subway Surfers—a classic time-wasting game. Roy's response was also completely informal, more like a self-deprecating performance, mixing self-mockery and bragging, with a tone reminiscent of a rapper freestyling.
Even more absurdly, towards the end of the video, he stood up from behind the desk. This CEO, who was all business from the waist up, wasn't wearing pants...
Thus, what was originally a crisis PR situation about "inflated revenue" was transformed into a self-deprecating performance designed to attract attention.
What a16z is Betting on is Actually the Attention Economy
The capital market doesn't seem to mind this kind of performative founder either. In June 2025, Cluely announced the completion of a $15 million Series A funding round, with participation from prominent venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). Its partner, Bryan Kim, once mentioned on a podcast: In the AI era, the traditional "craftsman product + slow growth" model is no longer sufficient; virality itself is part of the product.
His view of the "new AI startup template" is that in an era where model capabilities are gradually becoming commoditized, attention itself is becoming a critical resource. Whoever can capture user attention first may build a new moat.
From the "cheating controversy" of Interview Coder, to the entrepreneurial story of being expelled from Columbia, to this absurd "response video," Roy Lee's entire personal brand has been built almost entirely along this path: controversy itself is the content for dissemination. This might explain why a16z chose to invest in Cluely, in Roy Lee.
When Controversy Becomes a Growth Strategy
In traditional entrepreneurial narratives, growth typically came from product capabilities, technological barriers, and business models. But in today's internet environment, another resource is becoming increasingly important—attention.
This logic has actually long been validated in the crypto industry. Many crypto projects have captured user attention by creating topics, controversies, or even dramatic events, then converting that traffic into product growth or commercial value. This is especially true with the rise of Memes, which are purely about dissemination and lack (traditional) products.
To some extent, Roy Lee's response video is a classic case of this logic: when negative news emerges, instead of trying to suppress the controversy, repackage the controversy itself into content for dissemination.
It's clear that in the current internet environment, attention is often more valuable than explaining the truth.
