Roy Lee from Cluely has a message for startup founders. He believes they should be thinking harder about how to go viral. He told the audience at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 that if a company is not in deep tech, it needs to quietly but deeply focus on distribution.
He also stated that not everyone is suited for viral marketing. He suggested that people who are good at engineering are likely not funny and probably will not become content creators because they do not have it in their nature. He realistically assessed that most of these individuals have no chance of going viral.
Cluely’s AI assistant became famous this past April due to a viral claim that its undetectable windows could help you cheat on anything. This claim was quickly disproven when several proctoring services demonstrated they could detect the use of the AI assistant. However, within a few months, the company raised 15 million dollars from Andreessen Horowitz. This funding round made it one of the most visible products in the crowded AI assistant market.
Lee frames this success as part of his talent for going viral, which often involves making many people very angry at him. He said he is particularly good at framing himself in a controversial way. He does many things that are different, and he frames everything through the filter of his own voice. He admits his voice is naturally very enraging to a lot of people.
For Lee, this is part of a broader theory of social media where attention is the only currency. He believes reputation is a thing of the past. You can try to guard an ironclad reputation like the New York Times, but realistically you see figures like Sam Altman and Elon Musk behaving very personally on their timelines. He continued by saying you have to realize the world is trending to a different place, where you must be extreme, authentic, and personal.
It is difficult to say how well this strategy is working. When asked for Cluely’s revenue or user numbers, Lee declined to share them. He explained that you should never share revenue numbers because if you are doing well, no one will talk about it, and if you are doing poorly, people will only discuss your failures. He did say the company is doing better than he expected, but he clarified it is not the fastest growing company of all time.