a16z Podcast - Building Cluely: The Viral AI Startup that raised $15M in 10 Weeks

Episode Date: June 25, 2025

What if virality wasn’t a tactic — but the entire product?In this episode, a16z General Partners Erik Torenberg and Bryan Kim sit down with Roy Lee, cofounder and CEO of Cluely, one of the most talked-about consumer AI startups of 2025. Cluely didn’t raise a mega round or drop a feature suite to get traction - it broke through by turning distribution into design: launching viral short-form videos, pushing polarizing product drops, and building in public with speed and spectacle.We cover:– Why virality is Cluely’s moat– Building a brand-native AI interface– The Gen Z founder mindset– What most startups get wrong about attention– Why creators are the new product managers– Cluely’s long-term vision for ambient AICluely is a glimpse at the next generation of startups,  where the line between product and performance is disappearing. Timecodes: 00:00 Introduction 01:07 Early Success02:02 Roy's Journey: From College Kid to Tech Universe04:37 The Turning Point: Harvard and Beyond06:57 Building Cluey: The Early Days08:27 The Viral Strategy: Mastering Algorithms13:56 The 50 Interns Experiment15:30 The Investment Journey: Roy and Bryan's Partnership19:20 Momentum as a Moat: The Future of AI Companies20:32 The Evolution of Product Strategy in the AI Era21:19 The Importance of Speed and Adaptability22:48 The Role of Distribution in Modern Startups24:26 Roy's Journey and Product Development25:25 The Power of User Data and Feedback26:58 Innovative Marketing and Distribution Tactics28:25 The Future of AI Integration and Translucent Overlays32:15 Controversial Marketing and Authenticity34:01 The Impact of Radical Transparency36:42 The Changing Landscape of Professionalism38:26 Concluding Thoughts and Future VisionResources: Find Roy on X: https://x.com/im_roy_leeFind Bryan on X: https://x.com/kirbyman01Learn more about Cluely: http://cluely.com/ Stay Updated: Let us know what you think: https://ratethispodcast.com/a16zFind a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16zFind a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16zSubscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/Follow our host: https://x.com/eriktorenbergPlease note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

We wrote our first lines of code 10 weeks ago. We're like earlier than the latest YC batch of companies, yet we're like generating probably more revenue than every single one of them. It's been so hard to pierce through the noise of everything in the AI, especially for the consumer facing, pursuers facing. To do that consistently is actually way harder near impossible. I heard someone call it RIS marketing, which is a compliment. They're like, I hate this Riz marketing.

AI is so magical. We like built the digital god, locked it in a chat spot. Six months ago, some random college kid in a dorm and now I feel like I'm at the center of the tech universe. What happens when a founder treats virality not as a tactic but as the product?

Roy Lee, co-founder and CEO of Clulee is either a generational entrepreneur or a walking internet experiment, maybe both. In just a few months, he's built one of the most talked-about startups in tech, not with a massive fundraise or a polished product suite, but through relentless short-form content,

polarizing stunts, and a translucent AI overlay. that feels more like performance art than interface. Joining me today is Roy, along with Brian Kim, who led A16Z's investment in ClueLean. We talk about Roy's approach to building in public, what Gen Z understands about attention that tech still doesn't, and why momentum might be the new moat in consumer AI.

This is a conversation about distribution as design, founder market fit at internet speed, and what happens when you stop trying to be professional and start trying to win. Let's get into it. As a reminder, the content here is for informational purposes, only. Should not be taken as legal business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any

A16Z fund. Please note that A16Z and its affiliates may also maintain investments in the companies discussed in this podcast. For more details, including a link to our investments, please see a16Z.com forward slash disclosures. Roy, man, the myth, the legend. The man of the moment, clearly is the current thing. Yes. How does it feel? The announcement the other day, a lot of love, a little bit of hate. Yeah.

How do you react to this? I mean, it's pretty crazy. I think, like, literally six months ago, some random college kid in a dorm, and now I feel like I'm at the center of the tech universe. And the more astonishing thing is how correct my assumptions on virality have been. I think it's growing increasingly clear that people on X-Link are behind. And there's such a extremely small intersection of people who understand how developed the algorithm is on like Instagram, TikTok and people on tech like Twitter, LinkedIn, X LinkedIn.

And there's just such a small intersection that it's inevitable that my predictions will be right. And it's been crazy to see that play out in real time. Yeah. Elon's reaching out. Meta's offering a billion dollar acquisition offer. Brian, we said not to do it. Of course. Of course.

I'm to the moon. Brian, what is your reactions seeing this play out and having led the investment? Yeah. Well, first, he's a bro of the moment. I love the little snippets of, like, you calling Molly Bro, like, 20 different times. Amazing. Look, Roy, this is fantastic. It's so interesting.

I remember right before the announcement, you had already sent me the video 24 hours ago, like, bro, this is what we're going to show. Yeah. And I was like, okay, like, this is great. And I think it's going to do well. I didn't think it would do that well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I didn't think it would create that much controversy. But I also, I think under Estabst,

how positive people will view this. There's a lot of meta-analysis on you out there, which is like really, really cool. And there are people who are going like two to three layers deep. And I've actually read something that like linked a meta-analysis of A16Z with clearly and how there's like the sort of fungibility of thoughts and things like that. I have no idea what the fuck they're talking about. So it's just been incredible.

People doing literary criticism. No, I'm not kidding. There's literally a guy who wrote like fungibility of thoughts with A6 Zian Cluelly. Yeah, yeah. That's funny. People always overread into stuff. They're like, oh, just had this master plan. A6 and Z is trying to do this whole.

That's what I'm saying. Everyone's just... Don't tell on them, Eric. We are playing 40 chess here. That's like, it's fine. Ten threads analyzing the left hand handshake. It's like, guys, come on. Some of the haters I tweeted somebody I was talking to Brian, I tweeted, how you feel about

Clueley is how you feel about yourself. But I deleted it because I didn't want to trigger people on Twitter. I'll talk shit on a podcast. cast, maybe I'll get clipped to Twitter, but I don't want to inflame people, but it's fascinating to see. So I want to go back to the beginning, because this isn't a story that has been told a lot. You know, we were talking about the Amazon interview, but maybe let's go back even further. When we think through where you are now, talk about like the threads of the through lines from your childhood that can help make sense of who you are and kind of this moment.

I think from birth, the most character-defining feature of me has been like attention-grabbing and provocative. This played out elementary middle and high school. I was always like I had a camp of people that loved me and a camp of people that hated me. I was like always the boldest. Like I would say the craziest shit. Everything that was on my mind, just no filter I would say it. And this ended up with a lot of people liking me and a lot of people just really disliking me. And I think things culminated senior year of high school. I did well in school. I got accepted to Harvard early. And then later that year, I was just always doing crazy shit. And I snuck out of a school field trip. Past curfew, like the police had to come and escort me back because we were out at 2 a.m. We were all like 16. 17, 18. And then I got a suspension for that. And that was like when the camp of Roy haters took the storm and reported everything everywhere. And it ended up getting rescinded from Harvard. And then that kind of started my journey of, I think, like, entrepreneur wanting to actually swing big at building companies. And that point I felt like my life took such a crazy turn. For context, my parents literally run like a college admissions consulting company. So we literally teach kids how to get into Harvard. And the youngest son of the company like gets fucking rescind from

Harvard. It's like the worst thing ever. So we decided, let's keep this. quiet. You still have the same test scores and application, everything. Maybe next year you'll get into a different school. So I spent an entire year at home. And I underestimated how mentally tormenting that would be. Like, I'm probably the most extroverted person you might have ever met in your life. I cannot stay maybe like eight hours without talking to someone. And to spend a year alone, like it made me think, man, my life is so crazy. I might as well just couldn't topple down on every single crazy belief thought I have and just live the most interesting life ever. So that was like the moment where I decided like I'm all in on building companies. There's no way I can do

anything else. I was wondering if you were going to have a moment of like, oh, this has set me back in some ways. Maybe I should reform or tame it down. But you took the opposite of like, no, this is who I am and it's going to work. Yeah, you just sit in a room by yourself for 12 months and all of a sudden your craziest thoughts become logical. And there's no one else. Like the echo chamber is you in your brain. And it amplifies everything. And I think that's the reason why I am like the person that I am today and willing to make the best that I am today. Later, I go to community college in California at the behest of my parents. I think California, this is like a middle ground. California, I have the chance to build a company and community college, like I have the chance to get the

education that my Asian parents always dreamed of. So I do that. And then later, I get into Columbia and I have to go to Columbia for at least a semester to appease my parents. I go to Columbia. And the first thing I'm thinking is like, can I find a co-founder and a wife? Like, those are the only two things that I'm looking for in college and so looking for the wife. But on pretty much the first day, that's when I met Neil, my co-founder, sort of hacking on a bunch of things. And the one thing that worked was the earliest version of Cooley. Wow. And were your parents ever trying to reform you or mutter at you? Or were they kind of like, hey, Roy's going to be Roy?

Almost every single day of my life until I got into Harvard, then they calmed down and they're like, wow, this kid really made it. And then when I got kicked from Harvard, again, they were like on my ass a lot until I got into Columbia again. And they're like, wow. After all this, he gets back into the ivies. Like, I guess I really can't trust him. and his unorthodox swings will be home runs. And is that where they're at now? Yeah. That's actually what I'm going to ask.

You mentioned before that your parents, they will love you no matter what. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I am curious what they think now. Man, it's crazy how lax they've gotten since I got back into Columbia. Like now they're okay with anything when I told them, hey, mom, I'm dropping out to do this. Like, she's like, oh, like, okay, you know, like, I expected it. Why didn't you drop out sooner? Why did it take a semester and a half?

Because at this point, I was, like, convincing my co-founder to drop out with me. And she's like, man, like, took it long enough. So they're like totally on board with all the crazy shit that I do. Wow. One of the things we were talking about in the context of going viral, I heard you say, is that Twitter is two years behind Instagram or behind the other platforms. Talk a little bit about when your sort of provocativeness sort of translated over to Twitter or just like the digital mediums.

Like how do that strategy evolve and let's talk about the difference in the platforms? Yeah. This goes way back. But many years ago when YouTube first came out as a platform, this was like the turning point of everything. This democratized. essentially content. And now you weren't paying for commercials. And the visibility and publicity and content was not gated by amount of money you're willing to spend on ads or TV space. It's just gated by the quality of content. And five years ago, when TikTok came out and short form algorithms

really started taking over, that shifted the frame once again. So now it's not about how much good content you make. It's literally just about how much content can you make. There is simply not enough good content out there for the average person to consume, which is why you see the same brain rot reels over and over and over again, over and over again. You see the same Minecraft parkour video over and over just because there's literally not enough content for the average consumer to consume. And people have not caught on to a few things. First, you just need to make more content that a consumer will, like most people don't know how to make viral content, content that any person can watch consumed and is digestible. And everyone on X LinkedIn is trying to go be like the most

intellectual, like thoughtful person and they'll generate some slop that maybe like 200 people in the world can actually understand and make sense of. But of course, they want to seem like the most interesting, thoughtful, like intelligent person, but this just lacks viral sense. There's not enough viral content to go out. And the second thing is that the algorithms really promote the most controversial things. And people on X-Linkton, there's not enough controversial things to be rewarded for. So when I come out swinging out of the gate, I've been on Instagram, TikTok for the past 10 years of my life. And I understand what level of controversialness you need. I take the slightest foot into controversialness

and all of a sudden X LinkedIn explodes because the algorithm inherently highly highly rewards this stuff and as a result it's just getting shoved into everyone's feed

and they don't understand but I'm just like literally applying the same principles of controversialness from IG TikTok onto XLink and they're just so not ready for it that feels like the craziest thing ever and this is something that I said before

but I guarantee like my videos do not go as viral on Instagram Instagram TikTok and the sole reason is because on those platforms they are not controversial enough and on those platforms there are literally people

committing felonies in public, or at least insinuating like they're committing felonies. Even then it'll be like, oh, good try, bro. It's not interesting enough. And like X-Link, they just have not caught on. There's not enough creators out there who are willing to press the controversial button. Mark says this sometimes, right? Like supply chain of the meme. It's like the strangest concept, but the meme actually

travels from like Reddit and then it goes to X and then it goes to Instagram, then LinkedIn, then CNBC. And there's like a train that it goes that certain people are just early late. But when you actually flip it with virality, and controversiness, maybe that flips a little bit. Well, and sometimes it starts in like 4chan or something because I'm the most controversial. That's what I mean.

I didn't want to say it. It's 4chan, Reddit, then Twitter, then Instagram and LinkedIn, LinkedIn, LinkedIn, and LinkedIn. But for you, it's actually Instagram and Twitter comes before Twitter in terms of the raunchiness or craziness of it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I just feel like the average person who's in X comments hating about how controversial this is, they spend one hour looking through the timeline that is my Instagram feed, their brains would melt and explode. Like, they would not be able to comprehend how are people

like digesting this at scale. It's funny because ever since Elon took over X, some people start complaining of, oh, this stuff has gotten too controversial or too much dark stuff or too much negative content. And yeah, it turns out it's just the beginning. Yeah, yeah. I mean, literally, this is what the future of content is going to be. You're not going to get more millennial founders. You're only going to get more Gen Z founders. And I guarantee you their backgrounds and content are the exact same as mine. And they know exactly what I'm doing. I'm sort of like the canary that's leading the way for this, but I guarantee you there's more of this coming. And it's inevitable and you just embrace it.

When did you realize that this was the way you were going to build a company? How did you intuit, hey, distribution is a scarcity, distribution is what matters? Because there's a lot of creators out there, but they're not combining it with a tech company. Like, how and when did you put this together? I guess there was a certain point where I kept going viral that I sort of realized that I know something that X LinkedIn people don't know yet. And it is sort of like mastery of the algorithm. them. And I think everything started with the interview coder situation.

Interview coder was the earliest prototype of Cluley and it was a tool to let you cheat on technical interviews. And I used it to cheat my way through an Amazon interview. I made it super public. I posted it everywhere and ended up getting me like blacklisted from big tech and kicked out of school. And that situation was inherently viral. Like when's the last time someone got kicked out of an Ivy League and raised $5 million? Like this has probably never happened in the history of humanity. So that situation was inherently viral. And at that time, I had no idea that this was like a repeatable thing that I could do. But then the launch video happened. And I had my intuitions about the virality of launch video.

And I just kept scrolling on Twitter and I was wondering, like, man, why is nobody doing what Avi Schiffman with friend.com showed the world you could do a year ago? Like, why has nobody done this yet? And it worked. And then I did the 50 interns thing and it worked. And like, I kept doing viral video after viral video. And at a certain point, it just realized like, holy shit, people on X LinkedIn, they have not caught on yet. And this is the massive alpha that I'm trying to capture here is that they have not caught on to what it means to master the short form algorithm or the algorithm that, you know, is one of short form. And as a result, I am able to dominate the timeline for not the past week,

but probably the past few months, just because people on X-Link have not caught on. And for some reason, they still refuse to catch on. And so just to put a point out, the 50 interns, maybe explain this idea of basically at your company, you either have engineers and you have creators. Yeah, there are only two roles. You are either a world-class engineer who is building the product or you are a world-class influencer. And for full-time, every single person has over 100,000 followers on some social media platform. It is the only way to prove that you actually have mastery over virality and you understand what it takes. And I think if any company in the world has a marketing team and the head of marketing does not have at least 100,000 followers, you need

to replace them. Like the game has changed. And so do you think this is a strategy that other companies should also be employing, whether it's intern base or just like having an army of creators and sort of deploying them towards their end? Yeah, I'll go a bit deeper in the interns. So cool, we made a pretty viral video announcing that we're hiring 50 interns and you'd be in here making content all day. And essentially, that's almost what we do. We have like over 60 contractors. These contractors get paid per video and they just are forced to sit in front of a camera and make TikTok and Instagram videos about Cluelly. And this is what marketing looked like this job does not exist five years ago. Like how do you explain the job of you sit in front of a camera and you make

five, 10 second videos that seemingly make no sense to anybody but just consistently generate millions views like that's not a job that makes sense to people. But that is our internship. That's what like a modern-day marketing internship looks like. And we pay very little money for the amount of views that we get. And different companies, they're paying literally millions of dollars for Super Bowl ads when you can get the same quality

and quantity of views, $20,000. And you see it converting? Yes, yes, of course. I mean, like, those are real escler or only converting videos is the ones that we have on IG TikTok. Yeah.

Brian, why don't you share your story of how you got excited about Cooley of how you and Roy met and build this relationship and how this partnership formed? I had a good contact in Neer who travels in the young, crack folks area,

and her name is Ali DeBoe. And one of the lists that she sent had Roy in it. And I, like, read what they're working on, and it sort of reminded me of, oh, like a scout thing or it's on the edge of reality. I'm like, oh, this is interesting. I want to talk to him. So I reached out, Roy, if you remember,

I just reached out, hey, heard your name, blah, blah, we should talk. And you're like, oh, bro, let's talk. And then a day later, you wrote back, and I'm like, actually, you're multi-stage. I don't want to talk to you. I don't want to talk to you. Go away. And then what do I do?

Like, I could have just stood down, but I said, okay, fine. I promise you will not talk about fundraising. Let's just talk. Like, I want to meet you. I want to talk to you. I want to build a relationship. Thankfully, you agreed. We got on a quick call.

We, like, chat a little bit where you, like, had your origin story. I'm like, oh, my God, it's amazing. It's so cool. Like, I'm glad he's doing this. Sadden is not accepting money, but that's okay. Yeah. And then I tracked you. I tracked your Twitter.

I tracked what you're doing, the 50 intern. You moved to San Francisco. And I had it in my mind, okay, next time, going to Opportunity Strikes, I'm just going to show up. So I think I somehow got your phone number or some such thing and texted you, yo, like, I'm at your office. Can I hang? So I come.

And you say, yeah, like, that's great. Come up. And what I actually think was really, really cool? There are a couple of steps. But step one was there was like an engineer who randomly found you on Twitter or Instagram and had just come up. Like, you did not know him. He did not know you.

He just came to your office, came in to say hi, wanted to say. hello and one of your friends, I think Nicholas, was just there hanging out. And the quality of the people, the fact that random engineers were knocking on the door to come talk to you randomly was just like, oh, there's something like really strange and special happening here. And all of your team members sitting on the thing and like doing things and creating content and you and Neil working on the product. It was like, oh, like there's something very special. And I sort of was thinking, oh, like, is this something that we should sort of back? And then I think one more video was made or something. And next time I visited, I think I came with some stuff or, you know, you're eating steak.

And then you flash some metric or something where I realize that you're converting this like awareness and eyeballs into money, dollars. You like drop some numbers. You're like, oh, yeah, we're doing this many revenue. And that's where we're going. And guess what? Like some enterprise customer wants to talk to us. I don't know why. Blah, blah, blah, blah. And that's when I sort of realize, oh, he is actually able to like convert this awareness and distribute. that you're getting into real dollars and I don't know many people

who know how to do that. And during that time, I was already writing this thing called momentum as a moat because it's been so hard to pierce through the noise of everything in the AI,

especially in the sort of consumer-facing, pursuers-facing, to do that consistently is actually way harder, near impossible. And so I had the theory that, oh,

like companies who know how to do that, companies don't know how to build at that speed, are going to be the winners, and I felt like I have found a person who was doing that. And so I think we moved very quickly. I told you, look, like, just hit download. Hit download on the Stripe data.

Hit download, send it to us. I won't ask any more questions. And then we'll have a chat. And that hopefully is what we delivered. We quickly scrambled to do a very fun small person chat with you and some of the partners, where you called some of them old, bald, and boring. And we were excited to do the deal. I think I was at an LP summit running around in Las Vegas,

trying to call you to get to a terms, et cetera. And that's how it all worked out. And after a while, I brought you five, six pounds of steak as an excitement and a deal. I want to double click on the momentum as a moat piece, because you have an interesting background and that you've been doing the tumor for a while. You worked at Snap beforehand,

among other places. And I remember Ben Thompson had this post about Snap where you said that Snap has a gingerbread strategy where basically, if they invent stuff, meta is going to copy it. So they just have to keep inventing stuff. I guess it's follow the breadcrumbs or something. And you also have backed a number of these.

You've had a front row view to, hey, these network effects aren't as necessarily defensible as they once were. And so companies need to keep innovating, keep pushing. And so share more about how this kind of momentum, especially as it moves to AI companies, this theory was born at what it really means for defensibility. Yeah, this might be somewhat interesting to you, Roy, and folks,

which is I did not have that view before. I did not think gingerbread strategy necessarily to work, nor momentum was a moat. I did not. I actually truly believed in these handcrafted artisan products that really get to the core of why people want to use it. I still somewhat believe core of it, but these artisan products where it just takes a while to build it

and it's like very, very nuanced. And I have believed that led to high retention. So the thing that I look at the most always was, is this product highly retained? Does it product have like network effect? on the traditional sort of theories of moat. And what I realized, and this was like true, to some extent, in the era of mobile. Mobile is like a two-decade-old platform.

So a lot of things have been tried, and a lot of people tried different things. And therefore, finding something of people came back again and again and again was the most important thing in my mind. And then AI hit. And I still had that framework where, oh, like, I'm going to look for things that are highly retentive and repeat it again and again. And guess what? Things change too fast.

Like the underlying model changes. every day or every week, if you, like, craft this thing and Open AI as someone, like, built their new model to include that part in their new product, you're done, you're gone. So then it couldn't become about, like, this highly thoughtful, slow build product. It needed to be something where founders knew how to move extremely quickly. And that included product, that included distribution. And because these fucking things are so magical, AI is so magical, we, like, built the digital God, locked it in a chatbot. Because it's so magical, right now, kind of anything goes.

Like, people will give it a chance. And therefore, what's really important is to try to build the plane as it's falling down the cliff. And people who enjoy the thrill of the plane going down and actually is excited about building as it goes down, I think those are the winners of the next day. And so when I think about folks like Roy, it's the type of founder archetype who gets value who's excited and leading the charge in terms of that speed, whether it's marketing, distribution, or product build, and usually all of that needs to come together to build an extremely durable long data product.

And that, to me, eventually we're turned into a product that need to be retained, that need to be used every day. But we're still in this early stage of AI where I think momentum is the most. Going back to Roy, I love to hear how you think about it because we talked about it a little bit over chat where you think, like, stage one, stage two, stage three of building Cluley and sort of the distribution advantage that you have.

And you keep talking about this, oh, maybe X and LinkedIn people don't get it right now. But that gap may narrow over time. So how do you think about the next stage and et cetera? But that's how it links to sort of my theory of momentum of the moment. I want to get to Roy's product strategy, but first I want to, I'll on some points, which is it was interesting. Paul Graham, when he started Y Combinator, identified that technical founders were undervalued, that they were being underappreciated and people thought, oh, you need to

have an MBA and you realize, hey, it's easier to teach technical founders business than it is to teach business people how to build great products or how to code. And then what happens over the next 15 years, it becomes way easier to build these things, you know, AWS, low code, AI, etc. And distribution becomes the scarcity in that there's so much software, it's such a flooded ecosystem as you quoted in your piece, Andrew Chen's piece about how all the marketing channels suck. They've all been sort of rang out dry. And so distribution is now the scarcity. And so in the same way, you know, the technical co-founder, now there's almost like an audience co-founder. How do you really break out? And we've seen creators start to build business, like Mr. Beast with his

feastables, right? You know, Kylie Jenner with her, was the clipcloth, yeah, commerce, but no one's really done it with software. No one has put the two and two to get, you know, Justin Bieber tried to do a social network called Shots, or John Jehidi, using Bieber, but no big creators really built, whether a consumer or enterprise, huge software company, they've built commerce or physical goods and I always thought hey why doesn't Mr. Beast launch like a square competitor like he's got all these eyeballs like I'm sure he's got to get better margins than feastables and he has games and he's a friend and a friend of the firm and he's done phenomenally well but what I like is that Roy is putting both of those together and so maybe you can

walk through a little bit you talk about your distribution strategy when you talk about how the product strategy has evolved from the beginning and then we get to the sequencing Yeah, I think something that a lot of people miss is that the first line of Cluley code was written like 10 weeks ago. So this is like really new. And this started with interview coder, which is just like a product that I coded up over a weekend in my dorm. And it was like a tool to let you cheat on interviews. And what we realized after we got about like 250 million impressions on the whole scenario is like, wow, we just got so many eyeballs on this thing. Maybe if we can do this again, but we have a more general use product with a similar U.S.

because we think we're really on to something with the UX here, then maybe we can make a lot more money. And that's what we did with Cluley, and we just launched it as like interview coder for everything, you know, cheat on everything. Let's just see what happens and the usage data will tell us what people are using it for. That's like exactly what's happening.

Now we have this general purpose cheating tool, which is in reality is just like an invisible AI overlay. And here's a new user experience for AI. Let's push it out to a bunch of people and see what happens. And as a result, like now we're past like a billion views overall on Cluley and we're probably like the most viral startup in the world. And we have all this usage data that literally tells us, hey, here's where this is most sticky and here's where the product direction needs to go.

I think that's like the core advantage of distribution is you do not have to worry about market fit or anything because your users will tell you where the direction of market fit is headed. And their usage data will literally give you the information that you need to know. And if you don't have usage data, then you're literally shooting blind. Like every person who has built a company before knows that you can't really know what direction you're going. You have to talk to your users. I feel like if your distribution is strong enough, you don't need to talk to your users. You just need to look at their data.

You just need to look at the aggregate number. When you're also redefining kind of what a minimum viable product is to some degree. Yeah. Other people, other companies will spend many months building this thing and then seeing how people use it. But for you, if you can sort of draft the right content, you can test out the idea in a much quicker way to see, hey, is this really resonating. Yeah, exactly. I mean, when we launched the video, like, we barely had a functioning product. Like the day before is when we finished our final test and we're like, okay, we think this works.

Now let's just launch the video as soon as possible. And we launched a video and like all of a sudden, tens of thousands. We just said, hey, let's just throw sales calls in the videos to see if people use it for sales calls. Because that seems like a pretty lucrative space. All of a sudden we have like over a million dollars of enterprise revenue coming in for people using it for sales calls. And it's just like you can shot in the dark distribution a lot quicker and a lot more accurately than you can shot in the dark product. And you don't need like a million product integrations. Like it's just so much quicker.

And what's even better about it is that the iteration loop is much faster too because the algorithm will literally tell you via a number, which is the number of views like shares, whatever, like how well your strategy is going to work. So it's much, much easier to test, is this viral? Does this have viral fit rather than does this have like, you know, market fit? Roy, does that mean you sort of let the audience guide where the product goes? Is that how you sort of think about it?

Yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah. Let's talk a little bit about the form factor because one of the things that internally we discussed is, look, Roy is probably top 1%. Now I revise at the top 0.001% in the world in terms of knowing how to distribute. The Venn diagram of that and people who know

and had the instinct to build a semi-translucent overlay, it sounds so simple. Yeah. The disappearing picture sounds so simple. It's easy. It's not technically hard.

Like half-translucent overlay, that sounds simple. It's not technically hard. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that overlap to me was what gave me so much excitement around what you're building. I actually have it right now on.

Eric, did you go to University of Michigan? yeah i did see i didn't know that i did not know that but i have clueled open i'm like you went to u of m got that oh you did philosophy policy and economics i think like great we can sort of bond over like this all of a sudden is an incredible tool that's amazing when you talk more about where you see the product going or particularly like how you think about it anyone who's building a i tool is like asking themselves a question of how is this defensible from one of the major players will open a i or etc just build this feature how do you think about making your product like truly especially from the people that have because of their reach their size open AI

has distribution too right so yeah how do you think about this yeah I mean I guess we're first to move in a pretty novel ux and I think we did get to translucent like I think everyone's going to inevitably get the translucent overlay this is how integrated AI should feel and Apple shows everyone that like liquid glass is the translucent overlay that will be the form factor of AI in the future right now I feel like it's just a land grab and if the question is about distribution then I think there's actually like a pretty strong case for us to make that we will actually end up distributing better than Open AI. And it's enough that you could probably bet on us at like a 30,000 X discount.

I'm actually not worried about distribution. And I think the quality of the product, I mean, it's quite simple. I really feel like this is just a land grab right now to see who can convince as many consumers and enterprise first that they're the guy who deserves to win the translucent overlay. And right now we're making so much noise. I mean, like with the translucent overlay, like why would it not be us? And when did you figure out the translucent overlay was it right? Yeah, I mean, I was just in my dorm with Neil, and we were just, like, we literally spent every day thinking about how can we make interview codeer more invisible to interviews. And we played around, and there's probably like 20 to 30 versions of interview coder in the past that just we thought didn't work.

But essentially, it feeds you a code answer, like an answer to a coding problem. And you need to overlay that on top of your code. And we're just like, man, I really need this integrated into my code. I need to see what I'm doing as well as see the answer that AI is giving me. And eventually we just landed on translucency. and this was like, wow, this is like a magical moment. This is what the product needed. And very soon we realize, like, why are we only thinking about coding interviews

and, like, software engineering coding interviews? This is such a small market. This is true for everything. AI should not feel like a separate window. Like, it should be integrated seamlessly and that looks like translucency. Brian, you said you were inspired by the Dragon Ball Z scouter as an example. I would love Roy to chat about the stage approach of how you're thinking about it, I think. Like right now, we're distribution first and then we'll sort of build the product out as you go, stage two.

Here's how we do it with a bunch of engineering prowess and product development, etc. We sort of chat a little bit about that on text. And to me, that was like, oh, okay, like you'll figure out product as you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd love to talk a little bit about that. I mean, right now, the internet is up in storm saying, hey, where's the product, where's the product? And the two things that, like, we are literally working day and night to build out the product that we have in our head, that the users are telling us that you want.

But also, every video I make that's not directly about the product, drums up so much more hype for the eventual product launch video. Like, I will guarantee that this will be viral. And I guarantee that it will be more viral than if we just launched, like, earlier. And I think there's truth in the statement of launch early, ship fast, launch before you're ready. But for some reason, when we're doing that at scale, like, it feels like everyone is, oh, no, you launch too early. Now it's the problem.

Like, what are you talking about? This is the playbook. Like, we wrote our first lines of code 10 weeks ago. We're, like, earlier than the latest YC batch of companies. Yet we're, like, generating probably more revenue than every single one of them. And, like, the product is literally two and a half. months since being built. In my perspective, we are pre-launch. And the huge benefit of being like massively distributing pre-launch is that you will know what product to build with as much

certainty as you could possibly get. And if you can distribute and hype it up to an audience of literally millions of people, like, hey, this product's coming out, this product's coming out, and we're screaming to the world, AI overlay, like AI that sees your screen, here's your audio. Like the second we make that, like, why would you pick anyone else's product to use? We've been screaming it from the top of our lungs since day one, like before day one even. And like right now, this the stage is distribution, get it into everyone's mind. What is Cooley? Cooley is the invisible AI that sees your screen and hears your audio.

Everyone knows this. And as soon as we launch it, like, who else will they download? Yeah. One thing I think that's fascinating about what you're doing, and I'll compare it to our friends at TBPN, who are kind of rebranding or reclaiming, they call themselves corporate-driven media. Because everyone was like, we're independent media. And they're like, no, no, we're corporate-backed. We're more honest that way. And they're just leaning into like all the bits about RAM.

and, you know, say 5%, and there's this kind of humor to it. And I think similarly, you're kind of leaning into the controversy or being controversial as a strategy where some people think, oh, that's fake or forced or whatever, but you're at the same time, you're super authentic in the way that you're doing it and people feel like they know you. And sometimes even if there's a character and exaggeration, that also feels authentic in some way. It's just kind of a unique style. Yeah, I mean, I think this like just reflects a growing shift in society. I mean, literally for the past few decades now, there's just been such this sharp drop-off in professionalism.

And I really think it's because, like, content creation has been democratized. Like, the first ever YouTube creators were just people making funny videos in their dorms. And this was the most authentic. Like, people crave this. Nobody wants to see another ad or another corporate newspaper, like bullshit like that. Like, they want to see some real person doing real things. And the democratization of content creation has allowed authentic people who make content to be seen by millions. And now authentic people who create content will be seen by millions.

and for some reason it's just like no company gets this that you'll have the 100 X followers and your post will be about introducing blah blah blah blah and it's like the most corporate bullshit ever you're not going to get any views and nobody wants to see this would you rather have a world where everyone was extremely transparent

and even the founders were honest and everything you see is just someone's authentic life would you rather see like a bunch of corporate bullshit everywhere like what we envision for the end state distribution of Cooley is that it does not feel like an ad at all this is just the story of someone's life that you want to see and it is like true and authentic and I try to be like

I'm probably more transparent about everything than I'd say probably 99% of companies in the valley are. What's funny, because what you're saying, some people get so mad at, I heard someone call it RIS marketing, which is a compliment, but they're like, I hate this Riz marketing.

Like, it's got to be product first, get back to fundamentals. But first, this is its fundamentals too of how the world works today. Yeah. But too, of course, they can't destroy you. But even the people who want to destroy you, the joke in my head is they could try to kill you,

but they can't kill the idea. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, the way that you're building companies, like there's something about it that is going to have an impact on the next generation. and you're just starting the company journey. What I would say, the viral marketing, when you say viral marketing is interesting, right?

Like one leads to another. I actually think what you're doing is like anti-fragile marketing. Yeah. Like you're so controversial, I'm going to cut off your head. And three sprung up because one is mad at you. One is really happy about you. One is neutral. Like you get all these, like every time someone comes at you

and comes at the idea of clearly, the more aura points it gets. Like aura farming. Any lessons from the most controversial stuff that you've done? Oh, is it always triple down? How do you think about, is there a line where to cross it? I think the few lessons have been never punched down, like never, ever even remotely close to punch down.

And I think people reward, and the algorithm does reward authenticity more than anything. Like, it rewards many things, but one of the things that it rewards most is, like, authenticity. And I think you'll see me in Twitter like every once in a while. I'll make like a genuine comment. Like, hey, thank you. Like, I really respect you or something. I think, like, people love to see that. I thought your response to Gary Tan.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I mean, it's true. Yeah, like I respect that guy. And I hope that one day when the company gets to where I imagine it will be, then he will come turn around. And I don't think the lesson is to triple down on everything. But I think the lesson is to, if you're honest, then the algorithm will reward you because there's literally zero other company out there

that is being fully honest about everything. And there's zero founder out there that behaves authentically. The only other person I might think is like Elon Musk. And I think that's a really good role model to have in business making. Yeah. as you build clearly into the first destination for consumers and enterprise alike, how does like the type of stunts, if you will, and skits actually fit into the type of customer that you want to serve? I think we're headed towards a future where this is the new normal. I mean, 40 years ago, we were way more professional than we are now.

If you are even an engineer, you come into work, you come in with a suit and tie. If you don't, it's distasteful, it's disgusting. I cannot believe it. Like, you should never, ever show up in a hoodie and sweatpants. Now you're weird if you come up with a suit and you're not in a hoodie in sweatpants. Everyone wants more authentic things. Right now, for some reason in society, we're still lingering on to this image that companies need to be like brand friendly and boring and never say anything controversial or whatever. Like, I don't understand how this became the societal norm. But in reality, people want to see interesting things. I mean, like, that's the point of life.

You see interesting things. There's just this lack of professionalism. And again, with the distribution of short-form content, like everyone sees the craziest things. and you just get desensitized these things, and that's why sports like sperm racing were able to be so hyperviral. Nobody would have aired this on CNN 10 years ago, but you don't need CNN anymore.

You have Instagram TikTok, and Instagram TikTok. They love sperm racing. As a result, they're able to raise at a fucking mass evaluation, like genuinely have a shot at being like the next legit sport. And it's not just sperm racing. I mean, it's every company in the world. There's Sam Altman talking about how hot the guys are

that GPT generates in the timeline. There's Elon Musk doing ravings about his political takes. Like, every company is getting more and more controversial, less professional. This trend is not dying anytime. soon. I'm just the person that is pushing the envelope perhaps a little further than the world is ready for at the moment. But I think the question that everyone should linger on a little bit is can you imagine a world where we do win? Can you imagine the world? What will the state of the world

look like if Cooley does win? And we prove to everyone like the bar for professionalism is here where we've determined it. The corporate culture of America as a whole is going to shift in perhaps the entire world. Everyone will realize, oh, we've had our like panties up in a bunch worrying about brand image and professionalism when in reality the world, create something different. And I have very strong conviction that I'm right in this because I was right about X. And I did not understand for life for me why nobody is producing the viral videos that were so obviously designed to go viral for the algorithm. It's just because nobody has caught on and nobody's willing to like press that button. Now that I've pressed the button once,

just imagine what the world looks like if Cooley makes it. You probably are more interested in that. That would be a much more interesting world if every company was being 100% radically transparent and doing exactly what the most interesting thing was. As Elon says, the most entertaining outcome is the most likely. It's true. On that note, this has been a fantastic episode with Roy Bryan. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for listening to the A16Z podcast. If you enjoyed the episode, let us know by leaving a review at rate thispodcast.com slash A16Z. We've got more great conversations coming your way. See you next time.