CEO responds to crisis with a joke, AI entrepreneurs secretly learn Crypto's marketing tactics

Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)

Author | Dingdang (@XiaMiPP)

In most startups, if someone exposes “inflated revenue,” they’ll probably face a PR crisis—issuing statements, explaining misunderstandings, adjusting data definitions, apologizing, and then steering the conversation back to product or business growth.

But Cluely’s CEO Roy Lee clearly isn’t planning to do that.

A company that started as a “cheating tool”

Cluely was founded in 2025, with its initial product developed by Roy Lee and his college roommate Neel. The project was called Interview Coder—a tool that uses AI to help users cheat during LeetCode interviews. Because of this project, both were eventually expelled from Columbia University.

If it were an ordinary person, being expelled from school would be a black mark to hide. But Roy Lee turned this into a marketing opportunity, even a “life turning point.”

Cluely’s original slogan was: “Cheat on Everything.” Until November 2025, Cluely gradually shifted its product narrative from “cheating tool” to AI note-taking assistant—such as automatically organizing meeting notes, improving collaboration efficiency, and even modifying participants’ expressions to mask distraction. But no matter how the product evolved, the company—or rather, its CEO—never shed a very obvious trait: it grew almost entirely through controversy.

And the recent scandal, to some extent, continues down this path.

An absurd performance triggered by “inflated revenue”

The incident started when someone uncovered a report published by TechCrunch in July 2025. The article mentioned that Cluely’s annual recurring revenue doubled within a week to $7 million. The figure was suspected of being fabricated.

In response to the suspicion, Roy Lee was surprisingly candid. He quickly posted a confession, saying he casually mentioned that number during a call with a reporter and didn’t expect it to be included in the official article. To prove it wasn’t an exaggeration, he also shared Cluely’s actual data from June 2025: consumer business annual revenue of $2.7 million, enterprise business annual revenue of $2.5 million, totaling $5.2 million.

There was nothing particularly sensational here, and the explanation seemed reasonable.

But on the same day, TechCrunch journalist Julie Bort refuted Roy’s statement. She said the interview was arranged proactively by Cluely’s PR team and was recorded, not a casual chat.

Roy Lee didn’t continue explaining in writing but chose a more theatrical response. He posted a video with a caption: Major news—Cluely CEO officially responds to TechCrunch.

In the video, he wears sunglasses and a suit, sitting in front of the camera with a microphone on the table, looking like he’s about to make a serious statement. But the environment isn’t an office; it looks more like a living room, with an old desktop computer beside him, screen playing Subway Surfers—a classic distraction game. His tone is far from formal, more like a self-deprecating performance, mixing sarcasm and bravado, like a rapper freestyling.

Even more absurd, at the end of the video, he stands up from behind the table—this serious-looking CEO, but not wearing pants…

Thus, a crisis originally about “inflated revenue” was turned into a self-mocking performance to attract views.

a16z bets on the attention economy

The capital market doesn’t seem to mind this kind of performative founder. In June 2025, Cluely announced a $15 million Series A funding round, with notable investors including Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). Partner Bryan Kim mentioned on a podcast that in the AI era, the traditional “craftsman product + slow growth” model is no longer enough; viral spread itself is part of the product.

He believes the “new AI startup template” is that, as model capabilities become commoditized, attention itself becomes a key resource. Whoever captures user attention first may establish a new moat.

From the “cheating controversy” of Interview Coder, to the expulsion story from Columbia, and now this absurd “response video,” Roy Lee’s personal brand has almost been built along this path: controversy itself is content. This also helps explain why a16z chose to invest in Cluely and Roy Lee.

When controversy becomes a growth strategy

In traditional startup narratives, growth usually comes from product capabilities, technological barriers, and business models. But in today’s internet environment, another resource is becoming increasingly important—attention.

This logic has already been validated in the crypto industry. Many crypto projects generate buzz, controversy, or even dramatic events to grab user attention, then convert that traffic into product growth or commercial value. Especially with the rise of memes, which rely purely on dissemination rather than traditional products.

To some extent, Roy Lee’s response video is a typical example of this logic: when negative news appears, instead of trying to suppress the controversy, it’s better to repackage it as content for dissemination.

In today’s internet environment, attention often outweighs the importance of explaining the truth.