Cluely CEO Roy Lee fires back at TechCrunch over revenue lie admission with fiery, unapologetic rant

Roy Lee grabbed a mic, slipped on sunglasses, and unleashed a two-minute tirade that’s anything but sorry. He kicked off the video by calling out “TechCrunch foids and moids,” then reeled off his wins: two startups pulling in millions since he quit school, billions of views online, and being the top under-25 name in tech. He even claimed every YC startup copies his growth tips now.

In the video, he downplays the revenue slip-up as numbers that were just “fractionally wrong” right after launch. Lee says he shared real Stripe data himself to come clean with founders on X, calling it his one-off moment while hustling hard every day.

He even swears he’ll keep going till he drops, and tosses in a raw jab about haters and their “giant hate boner” that won’t slow him.

BREAKING:

Cluely CEO officially responds to TechCrunch pic.twitter.com/EtAurp5zgZ

— Roy (@im_roy_lee) March 9, 2026

This video comes as his official response to a TechCrunch story that went live on March 5. The report noted that Lee owned up to faking $7 million in annual recurring revenue last summer. Actual numbers showed about $5.2 million total, split between $2.7 million consumer and $2.5 million enterprise. He spun the original chat as a random call where he fed “some bs,” but TechCrunch showed emails from Cluely’s PR team setting it up, with reporter Marina Temkin reaching out as planned.

At 21, Lee started Cluely after Columbia suspended him for an AI cheating tool on job interviews. I covered that whole ordeal over on our sister site Tech Issues Today. Harvard pulled his spot too, but he turned it into buzz. With co-founder Neel Shanmugam, they grabbed $5.3 million in seed funding from Abstract Ventures and Susa Ventures in April 2025, pitching it as undetectable help for video calls. Andreessen Horowitz led a $15 million Series A in June, bumping the valuation to $120 million. It pivoted to an AI note-taker for meetings, and Lee says it’s profitable with steady growth.

Folks on X jumped in quick. Aakash Gupta gave props for flipping the mess into huge views, saying reputation’s old news in 2026. Lulu Cheng Meservey backed his grit, ripping his team for ditching when it got rough. 

Alex Cohen joked about handing company data to Cluely now. Peter Yang called the video a must-watch to the end.

Lee bets on wild stunts to grab eyes, like rage posts that spread fast. His video blew up with millions of views, topping the TechCrunch hit. Lee is eyeing a $10 trillion cap someday. And this whole free PR boost puts Cluely front and center, and maybe, just maybe, a tiny bit closer to that bonkers market cap expectation.

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