Cluely’s Roy Lee has a message for startup founders: you ought to be considering more durable about how one can go viral.

“Usually, when you’re not in deep tech, then you could low-key deep deal with distribution,” Lee informed the group at Disrupt 2025.

However he additionally made it clear that not everybody was lower out for this sort of viral advertising.

“If you happen to’re any good at engineering, you’re most likely not humorous and also you’re most likely not going to be a content material creator since you don’t have it in your blood. Realistically, most of those folks haven’t any likelihood of going viral.”

Cluely’s AI assistant grew well-known this April with a viral declare that its undetectable home windows might “make it easier to cheat on something” — a declare that was rapidly disproven when a string of proctoring providers confirmed they may, in reality, detect use of the AI assistant. However in a matter of months, the corporate had raised $15 million from Andressen Horowitz, changing into one of the vital seen merchandise within the crowded AI assistant house.

As Lee frames it, it’s a part of his expertise for going viral, which regularly means making a number of folks very offended at him. “I believe I’m notably good at framing myself in a means that’s controversial,” he mentioned onstage. “I do loads of issues which can be totally different. And every part I do this’s totally different, I body it by means of the filter of my voice. And my voice is of course simply very enraging to lots of people.”

For Lee, it’s a part of a broader idea of social media, through which consideration is the one forex.

“Repute is kind of a factor of the previous,” Lee mentioned. “You may attempt to be the New York Occasions and guard your ironclad fame, however realistically you’ve bought Sam Altman on the timeline speaking about scorching guys and also you’ve bought Elon Musk going batshit loopy.”

“You simply have to comprehend that the world is trending to a unique place,” he continued, “the place you must be excessive, you must be genuine and you must be private.”

It’s exhausting to say how properly that technique is working, although. When requested for Cluely’s income numbers or consumer numbers, nevertheless, Lee demurred.

“What I’ve discovered is that you must by no means share income numbers as a result of when you’re doing properly, no person will speak about how properly you’re doing. And when you’re doing poorly, folks will solely speak about how poorly you’re doing,” Lee mentioned.“I’ll say we’re doing higher than I anticipated, but it surely’s not the quickest rising firm of all time.”