TLDR;
This YouTube video features an interview with Roy Lee, the 21-year-old CEO of Cluely, an AI software company valued at $120 million. Roy discusses his controversial approach to building a company, his views on AI, marketing strategies, and personal philosophies. Key takeaways include:
- Cluely is designed to provide real-time assistance and information during meetings, interviews, and other interactions, essentially allowing users to "cheat" by having instant access to relevant knowledge.
- Roy believes that short-form content is the biggest opportunity of our lifetime.
- He emphasizes the importance of taking risks, working hard, and knowing exactly what you want to achieve success.
- Roy predicts that AI brain chips will be the final form factor of AI.
- He advocates for embracing controversy and using it as a marketing tool.
Intro [0:00]
The host introduces Roy Lee, a 21-year-old college dropout and CEO of Cluely, an AI software designed to help users "cheat" on various tasks. The intro highlights Roy's controversial approach to business and his ambition to change how companies are built. Roy expresses his excitement about the podcast and jokes about the absence of Korean girls he was promised.
Roy Talks About Building An AI That Lets You Cheat on Everything [1:15]
Roy discusses how the younger generation is AI-native and uses AI for various tasks, including schoolwork. He argues that since society views using AI as cheating, it's better to embrace it and use it for marketing. Roy explains that Cluely is an application that overlays on the computer screen, sees what the user is doing, hears conversations, and predicts what information the user needs in real-time.
How Cluely Can Literally Help You Automate Everything in a Business [5:30]
Roy describes various use cases for Cluely, such as providing background information on meeting participants, defining unfamiliar terms, and offering real-time assistance for consultants. He emphasizes that Cluely automates tasks in call centers by providing live information to customer service representatives. Roy also explains that Cluely can help sales representatives by providing them with technical information about the products they are selling.
Why Grok is The Best AI Tool in 2025 [7:25]
Roy states that Grok 4 is currently the best AI model. He explains that Cluely manipulates the input to optimize how the model understands the information, making it better than a user prompting the model directly. Roy details how Cluely processes images and converts them into text tokens for the AI to reason over more efficiently.
How Cluely Can Help You Make Dates Smoother [8:45]
Roy mentions that Cluely is developing glasses with a real-time head-up display to help users on dates. He believes the final state of AI will be a brain chip and that the best software distributors will be best positioned to distribute hardware. Roy also anticipates that embodied AI and fully autonomous robots will be developed in parallel with brain chips.
Roy Talks About Getting Kicked Out of Columbia For Using Cluely in a Job Interview [10:15]
Roy recounts his journey, starting from high school, getting accepted to Harvard early, and then getting kicked out for a suspension he didn't report. He then went to community college before getting into Columbia. Roy explains that he met his co-founder, Neil, at Columbia and they worked on several projects before creating Interview Coder, a tool that provides answers to coding interview questions. Roy recorded himself using Interview Coder to cheat on an Amazon interview, posted it online, and was subsequently kicked out of Columbia.
How Andrew Tate Inspired Cluely’s Marketing Strategy [15:50]
Roy admits that getting kicked out of Columbia was intentional after his first post gained traction. He drew inspiration from Andrew Tate's marketing strategy of doubling down on controversy. Roy clarifies that he doesn't think what he does is that controversial, as there are people doing crazy things on social media. He believes the strategy to build a huge company today is to find a product that's inherently controversial and viral, using it as a Trojan horse to raise money and build other mainstream products in the future.
Ad Break [19:22]
This section is an ad for Poppy AI, a tool that helps creators research and create content by processing various media formats into a chatbot.
How TikTok Broke the Mold For Businesses Making Content [20:30]
Roy believes the biggest societal shift was when TikTok overtook YouTube. He emphasizes that if you want to build an extraordinary company, you should find the one thing you are an outlier at and keep doubling down. Roy suggests thinking broadly about your superpower, even if it's something unconventional like making viral Reddit subway surfer videos. He also notes that to change the world, you need to start small and expand.
Why Roy Gives Free Premium Hinge Accounts to His Employees [23:40]
Roy explains that he gives free Hinge Premium accounts to his employees because everyone desires not to be lonely. He believes that if employees are stuck in the office for 12 hours a day, buying them Hinge Premium is the best thing for the company. Roy also expresses his desire to have kids and create a company environment where children are welcome and can learn from the employees.
How Roy Celebrated $120 Million Valuation With a Lap Dance [25:50]
Roy addresses the leaked behind-the-scenes footage of a commercial shoot with ladies, stating that it's not that crazy. He believes the tech world needs more spice and transparency. Roy shares that he is living the most interesting life ever, making millions of dollars and spearheading something that will change how companies are built.
Would You Sell Your Cluely to Mark Zuckerberg for a Billion Dollars? [27:55]
Roy states that he would not sell Cluely to Zuckerberg for a billion dollars if it were completely up to him. He enjoys being the leader and fighting against the established players. However, he would feel bad if his employees missed out on becoming millionaires. Roy mentions that the first half-dozen employees got single-digit percent equity, and the company has a 20% option pool. Founders still maintain majority ownership, having given up 30-40% to VCs.
Roy Talks About Throwing Million Dollar Parties [31:35]
Roy explains that companies are growing quickly, and it's essential to spend money to grow. He plans to spend all the money over the next six months on hiring engineers and marketing stunts. Roy is throwing a $2 million rave with crazy headliners to create a viral moment and give every software engineer in the Bay Area a night to remember. He is also planning to sponsor a full anime.
Why Are Asian Engineers Better? [32:35]
Roy explains that over half of his company is Asian because his friends from college and community college are Asian and better engineers than people in Columbia. He admits that if he had to pick someone to ace a programming assignment, he would choose an Asian person. Roy clarifies that they do not have a racial hiring preference. He also notes that the creators he works with are majority Asian.
Roy Talks About Running His Mom’s Business When He Was 15 Years Old [35:10]
Roy shares that in middle school and high school, he ran his mom's after-school tutoring academy for a year while she was sick. He role-played as his mom, took calls, and managed tutors, keeping the business running. Roy was 15 years old at the time. His older brother is taking the traditional Asian route in dental school, allowing Roy to do whatever he wants.
Why Colleges Will Become Obsolete in the Next Few Years [37:00]
Roy believes that the only reason to go to school is to find a co-founder and a wife, making the most of the social lubricant that school is. He thinks that in life, you can always get exactly what you want as long as you take big risks and work hard. Roy emphasizes the importance of having a guiding north star and knowing exactly what you are looking for.
Roy Hints to New Features Coming to Cluely AI Soon [38:50]
Roy shares that he is trying to work solely on the product right now. He explains that the models are not at a level of reasoning where they can know everything you've done on your computer for the last 10 years. Roy believes that the amount of world-changing technology that's going to be developed as a result of a 10% smarter model is unreal. He states that Cluely is at a point of infancy in AI, and they need to focus on the product because the models are not super duper smart yet.
How China Could Easily Take Over the AI Space [41:40]
Roy explains that the general consensus is that compute is holding back the models from taking in more inputs. He notes that Nvidia is the most valuable company because they provide the GPUs necessary to train these models. Roy says that China will likely have the data centers necessary to train models on data on every Chinese citizen in 5 years. He believes that concerns around data privacy have to go down unless you want China to take over everything.
Who is the Real Roy Lee Outside Social Media? [43:15]
Roy admits that he is pretty transparent on the internet but not fully open. He shares that there is a lot of thinking that goes behind the things that he does and says. Roy tries to be intentional with the content that they put out.
What’s Roy Lee’s Life Mission? [44:20]
Roy believes that we are living in some sort of computer simulation and that he is the main character. He wants to do the biggest possible thing at this point in human history, which is building the AI brain chip. Roy feels that everything is converging to the one super company that can build the brain chip that you plug in and lets you use AI to think.
Why an AI Brain Chip Will Be Inevitable [46:00]
Roy predicts that brain chips will be available in two to three decades. He wants to build a brain chip because companies are going to converge, and the big players will win. Roy thinks that one person is capable of more than ever before in human history, and Zuckerberg realizes this. He is trying to attract those types of people to his team. Roy is currently looking for the best people in the world but is also filtering for pretty specific skill sets.
Why Suffering is Important For Growth [50:30]
Roy believes that the only key to growth is something called winner's effect, which means when you win at one thing, it will make you win at other things. He emphasizes the importance of searching for that first winner's effect as soon as possible. Roy considers himself a big experimenter and is willing to do many things to try and get handsome that other people are not. He got a nose job because he thought it would make him look better.
Does Everyone Secretly Want to Cheat at Life? [53:45]
Roy thinks that the whole concept of cheating is something that people say when they see someone get something that they think they should not have gotten. He believes that you should be able to cheat on everything and that people do want to cheat on everything. The only reason not to is because you're stuck worrying about what society tells you, which he believes to be mostly wrong. Roy is very output-oriented and cares about the results more than the work itself.
How Can Someone With Zero Experience Get into AI? [58:30]
Roy believes the two biggest opportunities right now are AI and short-form content. He thinks that the opportunity of our lifetime is the ability to command attention very quickly. If you want to make a lot of money, your goal should be to try and get as much attention as possible and build an AI because it is so easy and nobody's doing it. Roy advises that if you are an influencer with no programming experience, you are more valued by engineers than you think.
Roy Shares Some of His Social Media Marketing Strategies [1:05:45]
Roy suggests that if you don't want to give equity, you can raise a round from some people and give less equity to a co-founder or founding engineer, or just pay someone to do it. He recommends learning how to build things without knowing how to program using tools like Lovable and Cursor. Roy shares ideas for AI apps, such as rating feet or predicting baldness, and suggests affiliating with relevant companies.
What’s the Biggest Lie Entrepreneurs Tell Themselves About AI? [1:09:55]
Roy believes the biggest lie founders believe when building AI startups is that the reason it's not working is because the tech is not there. He thinks that AI companies that are working are working because they're able to capture attention, not because the underlying technology is really good. Roy advises that if your thing is not working immediately, it probably will never work, and you should pivot to something that will work.
Why Building a Product is Key Before Marketing it [1:13:25]
Roy emphasizes that you need to build tech products and market them aggressively and all the time. He advises against looking for small optimizations and instead looking for the 10,000%. Roy believes that when something starts working, you will know immediately. He draws an analogy to content creation, where you find your first video that gets a million views and build on top of that.
How Humility Kills Most Companies [1:15:00]
Roy states that humility has killed 1,000 times more companies than ego. He believes that you can always get exactly the life that you want if you are willing to know that you want it, take risks, and work hard. Roy emphasizes that you have to be willing from day one to say you're going to build a hundred billion dollar company and drown out all the noise.
Why AI Will Make the World Better or Completely Destroy [1:19:20]
Roy is optimistic about artificial superintelligence coming quickly. He thinks that when that happens, the world will be very different but in a positive way. Roy believes that humans will default to doing things they love doing. The only thing that scares him is AI not getting there. The worst-case scenario is that the AI's objective is not maximally helping humans.
Why Status is Vital For Human Nature [1:22:40]
Roy states that status is the tricky one because he feels like it manifests in so many different ways. He thinks that humans are all very similar and can be traced back to a few core desires. Roy believes that the ideal human life would look like that of a hunter-gatherer, where you would go out and slay a big deer and be crowned the leader of the village. He thinks that is what he is chasing.
Why Your Head of Marketing Should Have 100K Followers [1:25:30]
Roy believes that the algorithm is not some sort of secret luck box and that a 100k followers is sort of the benchmark for you've seen what's out there and you know at least one thread or like one way to crack the algorithm. He thinks that if you are the head of marketing and if you believe that short forum is the single biggest opportunity to market in our lifetime, then of course, you will only trust people who have viral sense.
How Roy Lee Would Make the Jack Neel Podcast Explode [1:28:30]
Roy advises that quantity is king and that the host should start with clippers to remove any variance. He suggests that the host is capping it at a point because he is not running more experiments on it. Roy recommends a custom clip farm where the clippers are told to link straight to the episodes. He also suggests that the host needs to be in the tech world to get sponsors.
Roy Lee Shares His Most Controversial Takes [1:32:00]
Roy shares five hot takes: men shouldn't have close female friends, everyone is lazy, rich people are even lazier, lookism is a bigger thing in society than other forms of discrimination, and therapy is useless for men. He believes men need to be empowered and given a task that they are sufficiently capable of doing. Roy thinks actions lead to thoughts and that there is a losers effect.
Who’s the Most Impressive Person You’ve Ever Met? [1:36:50]
Roy states that the most impressive person he has ever met is his co-founder and CTO, Alex Chen, who is the hardest working person he has ever met. He values independent thought and hardworkingness. Roy despises when people try to put themselves on a moral high horse.
What’s Something That Happened To You That You Believe is Unfair? [1:40:10]
Roy believes it was unfair for him to have been raised in a country upper middle class with a high IQ. He thinks this combination of traits makes it inevitable to succeed in life. Roy feels he is a very lucky person.
What Pain Do You Enjoy? [1:41:55]
Roy enjoys having very little social anxiety and loves being in situations that other people would find socially overwhelming. He loves when he walks up to a pretty girl, asks for a number, and she rejects him.
Do You Think You’re a Good Person? [1:43:00]
Roy thinks most people are just so similar and that everyone is a very similar amount of evil. He believes that if people were one thing, they would be evil. Roy's moral framing sits under consequentialism more than utilitarianism. He wants to keep the species going and finds it exciting to build something cool and show it off to other people.
What’s the Scrappiest Thing You Did to Grow Your Company? [1:45:50]
Roy shares that the scrappiest thing he did to build his company was using Interview Coder to get himself blacklisted from big tech and kicked out of school. He gambled his career and education for the purpose of going viral. Roy also sent an apology letter to Columbia that said, "I'm CEO, bitch," referencing Zuckerberg.
What’s the Best Piece of Advice You’ve Ever Received? [1:48:05]
Roy shares that the best piece of advice he has ever received was from Sam Altman, who said that the way he got to his position was largely by not listening to anyone else around him. Roy believes that everyone else in this world is wrong except you and that you will find that you can get everything you want out of life by living life by what you believe to be true.
Roy Lee Showcases Cluely During a Zoom Date [1:49:20]
Roy is set up on a Zoom date with Courtney Ferris, who was top 10 on Beast Games. Roy asks Courtney if she is into Asian guys and learns about her personality traits and dealbreakers. He uses Cluely to get information about Courtney during the conversation. Roy asks Courtney out on a date, and she says she would go out with him if he paid for the dinner. Courtney is impressed that Roy used AI during the date.