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Roy Lee

20 statements across 2 episodes · 8 bullish · 4 bearish · 2 people on the record · first statement Jun 20, 2025 by Roy Lee · said 29 times in 1 episodes since 2025 · across every show →

On the record as a speaker too: Roy Lee's record, appearances and statements → this page counts the times other people say the name.

Mentions by year

brought up most by Brian Kim (16), Molly O'Shea (13)

tap a year for its mentions
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2025 29 mentions in 1 episode

every mention, scene by scene, with the transcript →

Everything said about Roy Lee, oldest first

Jun 20, 2025
Insight
Authenticity is the most critical factor for a video to go viral
“I think the most important thing with a video going viral is like, do people think that it's real? And if there's even like a slight hesitation, like, oh, this might not be real, this feels AI, then There's formats that that kills.”
Roy Lee Jun 20, 2025 ▶ 46:03 Cluely Raises $15 Million From a16z | Roy Lee, Founder & CEO · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Jun 20, 2025
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Cluely spent the founders' $140,000 life savings on its launch video
“Cluley launch video was a 140,000. Yeah. It was before the raise, too, so at the time it was, like, our entire life savings.”
Roy Lee Jun 20, 2025 ▶ 43:59 Cluely Raises $15 Million From a16z | Roy Lee, Founder & CEO · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Jun 20, 2025
Disclosure
Cluely strictly hires world-class engineers or influencers with 100k+ followers
“We only hire one of two types of people. You're either an engineer or like a world-class engineer or you're an influencer and also like a world-class influencer with like high alcohol. There's nobody who's not a great engineer who has less than a 100,000 follo…”
Roy Lee Jun 20, 2025 ▶ 34:57 Cluely Raises $15 Million From a16z | Roy Lee, Founder & CEO · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Jun 20, 2025 neutral
Disclosure
Lee's provocative online persona is strictly optimized for attention on Cluely
“Who I am online is like the craziest person ever. I'm optimizing for one thing, and that's eyeballs on Cluey.”
Roy Lee Jun 20, 2025 ▶ 49:06 Cluely Raises $15 Million From a16z | Roy Lee, Founder & CEO · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Jun 20, 2025 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Cluely makes more revenue from enterprise customers than consumers
“Right now we make more money off enterprise than consumer, which is pretty crazy. But I think it's because we're still warming up the marketing for consumer and they're larger customers than consumers are. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like the contracts, like are l…”
Roy Lee Jun 20, 2025 ▶ 16:10 Cluely Raises $15 Million From a16z | Roy Lee, Founder & CEO · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Jun 20, 2025 negative
Opinion
35-year-old marketers lack the viral sense to create massive hooks
“You need to be tapped in with young culture to understand what's funny, and you can have like a thirty-five-year-old marketer who's like Scrolls as much as they want. For some reason, they just won't have the viral sense to come up with hooks that are capable …”
Roy Lee Jun 20, 2025 ▶ 33:17 Cluely Raises $15 Million From a16z | Roy Lee, Founder & CEO · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Jun 20, 2025 neutral
Insight
Tech Twitter posts with 40,000 impressions reach every tech decision-maker
“What I've learned is, if you have a post, you're, if you're in tech Twitter, and you have a post that does over, say, 40,000 impressions, you've hit pretty much every relevant decision maker in tech.”
Roy Lee Jun 20, 2025 ▶ 31:12 Cluely Raises $15 Million From a16z | Roy Lee, Founder & CEO · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Jun 20, 2025 bullish
Prediction Open · timeframe Dec 2030
The US unemployment rate will remain around 4% in 2030
“Probably like, fucking four percent. Like, things will revert back to the mean all. Like, humans will always find new jobs except for the four percent of people that just don't want to work.”
Roy Lee Jun 20, 2025 ▶ 52:29 Cluely Raises $15 Million From a16z | Roy Lee, Founder & CEO · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Jun 20, 2025 negative
Insight
Founders waste valuable time obsessing over burn rate and cost-cutting
“If you're a founder and you spend 10 hours thinking about burn and like cutting costs, that's 10 hours you didn't spend about making product and like making product decisions and making your product better and like growing your company.”
Roy Lee Jun 20, 2025 ▶ 18:37 Cluely Raises $15 Million From a16z | Roy Lee, Founder & CEO · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Jun 20, 2025 negative
Disclosure
Investors using assistants to schedule founder meetings will not get allocation
“Like, there's nothing that turns, like, I can, like, if you've done this, you're probably not getting any allocation, because you've, like, ticked me off, because you've just told me I do not find you important enough. I need my assistant from the fucking Phil…”
Roy Lee Jun 20, 2025 ▶ 4:13 Cluely Raises $15 Million From a16z | Roy Lee, Founder & CEO · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Jun 20, 2025 positive
Opinion
Cluely secured enterprise contracts entirely through Lee's Twitter presence
“The only reason I have the contracts that I do right now is cuz the decision makers at these enterprise companies have seen my Twitter and think I'm funny and are rooting for me.”
Roy Lee Jun 20, 2025 ▶ 30:08 Cluely Raises $15 Million From a16z | Roy Lee, Founder & CEO · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Jun 20, 2025 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Cluely is profitable despite aggressive marketing and operational spending
“Like we're literally profitable and we spent, like we spent as much money as we can. There's almost zero expense that goes unapproved by us.”
Roy Lee Jun 20, 2025 ▶ 29:21 Cluely Raises $15 Million From a16z | Roy Lee, Founder & CEO · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Jun 20, 2025
Insight
Founders should not start companies without aiming for $100M ARR year one
“If you don't believe that you yourself can get to a hundred mil ARR in the next year, then you should just don't fucking build a company cause you don't have the balls to do it.”
Roy Lee Jun 20, 2025 ▶ 3:28 Cluely Raises $15 Million From a16z | Roy Lee, Founder & CEO · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Jun 20, 2025 bullish
Opinion
Artificial superintelligence will cause almost no harm and self-restore
“I genuinely think super intelligence will do almost no harm. Whatever harm it will do, it will like self restore.”
Roy Lee Jun 20, 2025 ▶ 53:18 Cluely Raises $15 Million From a16z | Roy Lee, Founder & CEO · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Jun 20, 2025 positive
Opinion
Elon Musk is the role model for leveraging controversy for startup growth
“I think if there ever was a role model for my, sort of, controversial polarizingness hitting escape velocity and just being able to, like, go to the, I do whatever the fuck I want zone, it's Elon.”
Roy Lee Jun 20, 2025 ▶ 50:52 Cluely Raises $15 Million From a16z | Roy Lee, Founder & CEO · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Jun 20, 2025 negative
Insight
Serious founders should eliminate work-life balance and live at work
“You need to work where you live if you're serious about building the company. Like work-life balance should not be a thing that you think about. Your work should be your life and vice versa. And if that's the case, then the best way to realize this is by liter…”
Roy Lee Jun 20, 2025 ▶ 34:25 Cluely Raises $15 Million From a16z | Roy Lee, Founder & CEO · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Jun 20, 2025
Disclosure
Cluely's 50 interns are mostly user-generated content creators, not in-person staff
“50 interns never meant 50 interns. Well, not, not, not 50 actual in-person interns the same way that you think about them today, but it means, like, five interns and, like, say, 45 UGC creators.”
Roy Lee Jun 20, 2025 ▶ 40:13 Cluely Raises $15 Million From a16z | Roy Lee, Founder & CEO · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Jun 20, 2025
Assertion Partly supported
Lee was expelled from Columbia and blacklisted by Amazon over InterviewCoder
“And after a certain point, I mean, I built this cheating tool. I get kicked out of school. I get blacklists from Amazon.”
Roy Lee Jun 20, 2025 ▶ 6:20 Cluely Raises $15 Million From a16z | Roy Lee, Founder & CEO · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Jun 20, 2025 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
InterviewCoder hit $3M ARR before hiring any employees
“Like, InterviewCoder, before we hired anyone, hit, like, three mil ARR, and then and then we started hiring people.”
Roy Lee Jun 20, 2025 ▶ 18:12 Cluely Raises $15 Million From a16z | Roy Lee, Founder & CEO · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Jul 3, 2025 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kim: Cluely has good margins and founder claims profitability
“We know the product has good margin. He's said a couple of times he's profitable.”
Brian Kim Jul 3, 2025 ▶ 17:45 Why a16z Bet $15 Million on THIS Controversial Startup · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
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