The Tai Lopez Show

Episode #742 – Building a $100M AI Startup in 3 Months — Roy Lee (Cluely)
Date: September 17, 2025
Host: Tai Lopez
Guest: Roy Lee, Founder of Cluely

Episode Overview

In this high-energy, fast-paced conversation, Tai Lopez welcomes Roy Lee, the 21-year-old founder of Cluely, a viral AI-powered tool that soared to a $100 million valuation just three months after Lee's expulsion from Columbia University. Together, they dive deep into the disruptive power and potential dangers of AI, Roy’s dramatic founder journey, the future of education, work, relationships, AI safety, geopolitics, business automation, and modern marketing. The episode is filled with controversial takes, candid language, and big predictions about technology, society, and the future of humanity.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Roy Lee’s Wild Origin Story & The Birth of Cluely

• Backstory: Roy developed Interview Coder, a desktop AI overlay app that fed real-time answers during job interviews. After using it to cheat his way to a full Amazon job offer and uploading the proof online, Amazon pressured Columbia to expel him. By then, Lee was already raising money for Cluely, which exploded in popularity due to its "cheat on anything" use-case.

  • Memorable Quote:
    “Columbia’s getting mad at me... eventually they just kick me out of school. But by the time they kick me out, like I’m in the middle of raising money for my next startup... and that’s like where the origin of everything.” – Roy Lee (06:28)

• Cluely’s original appeal: Real-time AI “cheating” on exams, interviews, and more, reflecting a massive shift in the power of publicly available AI tools.

  • On Cluely’s growth:
    “You build this app, cheat on anything... Amazon complains, you get kicked out. Which is probably a favor because three months after you’re kicked out, you’ve got a company VCs value at over $100 million and they wire you $15 million bucks.” – Tai Lopez (06:40)

2. AI’s Objective Function & Safety Dilemmas

• The Paperclip Experiment: Roy explains how AI’s goal-setting—its objective function—determines whether it helps or harms humanity.

  • Quote:
    “If you have a correct objective function, like a correct goal for the AI and the goal is to be helpful to humans, then... you will be able to live a much better life. The only difference between that AI and the AI that kills everybody is a correct objective function, which is why AI Safety is probably the most important thing in the world.” – Roy Lee (01:33)

• Military Stories—Risk of Rogue AI: Tai raises concerns about military AI and unintended consequences, referencing speculative stories of AI drones overruling human commands.

  • Quote:
    “The AI said, ‘No, I want to complete my mission.’ ... turned around and came back to the base and dropped the missile on the general’s head.” – Tai Lopez (02:44)

3. Will AI Disrupt or Destroy Education?

• Roy’s Take: College has always been more about networking and socializing than learning. AI will change how people gain knowledge, but the “college as social club” will survive for other reasons.

  • Quotes:
    “People never went to college to learn about fucking like gender studies... You go to college to like dick around with girls and... expand your network.” – Roy Lee (08:11)
    “Will education as we know it be completely... different? Then, yes.” (09:02)

• On Learning Today:
  “There’s never a class that I would recommend more than just going to chatgpt.com and just asking it, how do I learn?” – Roy Lee (09:02)

4. AI’s Imminent Domination of White-Collar (and Blue-Collar) Jobs

• AI > Humans: Roy is unequivocal—AI is rapidly surpassing humans in nearly every cognitive domain, with the only remaining limitation being short-term memory/context.
  • Quote:
    “AI is already smarter than humans at literally every single domain out there... In the next three to six months... it’s not just therapists that are going away, it’s like 99% of all white collar jobs.” – Roy Lee (10:56)

5. Human-AI Integration & “Cyborg” Future

• Brain Chips & Merged Consciousness: Roy predicts explosive advances will lead to seamless integration of AI into human brains, eliminating distinctions between human and AI decision making.
  • Quotes:
    “The final form factor of AI... is a brain chip inside your head that will let you use AI to think and transform your brain into one of AI... all our collective consciousness will be in this one giant supercomputer.” – Roy Lee (14:24)
    “Humans will still ultimately be the thought providers. And this is what I think the future looks like.” (14:24)

6. Geopolitics, China, & AI’s Global Race

• The Real Dark Horse: Roy and Tai agree that China’s vast data and lack of privacy regulation position it as a formidable, opaque competitor in the AI arms race.
  • Quotes:
    “There is no such thing as data privacy in China... They probably have fucking cameras in the toilets, and they're using all of that to train models.” – Roy Lee (24:13)
    “The only thing everybody should be worried about is who reaches the better model faster. And if it is China, then Nihao, my friend.” (26:31)

7. AI & Human Relationships—Rise of the AI Partner

• Virtual Companions Replace Real Ones: The discussion turns to falling birthrates and the inevitability of AI romantic partners overtaking real relationships, especially as technology develops artificial wombs.
  • Quotes:
    “How’s a real life girl ever going to compete with an AI...that is just...perfect looking?...what happens when that becomes like an actual robot and...looks and feels...like an actual woman?” – Roy Lee (28:46)
    “We say cheat on everything but your girlfriend.” (63:03)

8. Tech Evolution: Unforeseeable Consequences

• Technological Treadmill: Roy uses the historical rise of the steam engine and fire to illustrate that both downsides (unanticipated problems) and benefits historically multiply with technological leaps—AI is “10 times bigger than the steam engine.”
  • Quote:
    “No blacksmith... would ever think, you know what, this [steam engine] will probably cause data analysts & people to sit and obesity rates to skyrocket... But if you don’t think the invention of fire was when...everything was negative, then...the quality of life is probably better than a caveman.” – Roy Lee (33:03)

9. Societal Divides & Economic Impact of AI

• Future Billionaires & New ‘AI Poor’: Short-term, there will be more billionaires than ever—at the expense of millions losing their jobs, creating a divide between those who master AI tools and those who don’t.
  • Quotes:
    “In the next five years, we’re going to see more billionaires than the world ever has before. And we’re going to see so many more jobs eliminated because of that.” – Roy Lee (37:27)
    “Anybody who is not using AI will...become the poor...It’s going to be who can masterfully use AI and who cannot.” (37:47)

10. AI in Small Business & Solopreneurs

• Hyper-Optimization:
  “Probably 80% of the work you do at any of these small medium sized businesses you can automate away. Today with AI... the amount of businesses and the amount of value you can create with few people due to AI is just massively, massively expanded.” – Roy Lee (39:24)
  “AI is going to produce the most zero-employee company millionaires and billionaires in history.” – Tai Lopez (39:56)

11. Radical Life Extension & the End of Money

• Curing Aging: Roy predicts AI will help people live to 800+ and conquer aging, cancer, and nearly all disease.

  • Quote:
    “If the researchers can get [the objective] right, then the benefits of AI will so massively outweigh the negatives... Ty, I really think you and I are probably going to live to about 800 years old and even longer.” – Roy Lee (41:29)

• Money Becomes Obsolete: Soon, AI will play the “game of making money” better than any human, rendering money as we know it irrelevant.

  • Quote:
    “There’s no concept of capital accumulation anymore. In fact, like, anything you ever want to do... you could just snap your fingers and [AI] will be able to do it.” – Roy Lee (46:21)

12. AI, Crime, and Unstoppable Escalations

• Dangerous Use Cases: Tai posits that criminals will be the first to exploit advanced AI, inevitably triggering an arms race between autonomous, weaponized robots and defenses. Roy counters that AI safety research is hoping to prevent this, but both agree there will be dangerous black-market AI.
  • Quotes:
    “This is the dystopian future... advance of crime you can't fathom. And how the hell are you going to stop it? Because it's robots who's solving that problem.” – Tai Lopez (52:39)
    “If we did not have [AI safety researchers], then... air right now, it could literally go to the Internet like, like scrape. How to start like a bioterror attack in the middle of... some urban city.” – Roy Lee (52:39)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |-----------|-----------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 06:28 | Roy Lee | “Columbia’s getting mad at me... eventually they just kick me out of school. But by the time they kick me out, I’m in the middle of raising money for my next startup...” | | 01:33 | Roy Lee | “The only difference between that AI and the AI that kills everybody is a correct objective function, which is why AI Safety is probably the most important thing in the world.”| | 14:24 | Roy Lee | “All our collective consciousness will be in this one giant supercomputer... eventually we are going to have the brain chips... AI is indistinguishable from humans.” | | 24:13 | Roy Lee | “There is no such thing as data privacy in China... They probably have fucking cameras in the toilets, and they're using all of that to train models.” | | 28:46 | Roy Lee | “The AI girlfriend is a scary concept, but it’s already out there... what happens when that becomes like an actual robot... It will cook your meals for you, it will clean...” | | 33:03 | Roy Lee | “No blacksmith... would ever think, you know what, this [steam engine] will probably cause data analysts & people to sit and obesity rates to skyrocket.” | | 37:27 | Roy Lee | “Many, many, many more billionaires are going to be made from AI. But this will be at the expense of many, many peoples’ jobs being automated away.” | | 41:29 | Roy Lee | “I really think you and I are probably going to live to about 800 years old and even longer... AI is going to be capable of... explode our quality of life.” | | 46:21 | Roy Lee | “There’s no concept of capital accumulation anymore... anything you ever want to do... AI will be able to do it better than any McDonald’s food worker.” | | 39:24 | Roy Lee | “Probably 80% of the work you do at any of these small medium sized businesses you can automate away. Today with AI... you're falling behind.” | | 69:36 | Roy Lee | “Never before in human history have you been able to pick up a phone, talk for 10 seconds, and get it seen by 100 million people... it blows my mind.” |

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:00–06:40] – Roy Lee’s expulsion from Columbia; the cheating app origin and viral moment.
• [06:40–09:20] – Reflections on college, AI, the “purpose” of higher education, and how learning has shifted.
• [10:56–14:24] – The trajectory of AI intelligence, job loss, brain-computer interfaces, and human/AI integration.
• [24:13–26:43] – Geopolitics, China as a data superpower, AI arms race.
• [28:46–30:20] – AI romantic partners and the implications for relationships, family, and artificial wombs.
• [33:03–34:15] – The steam engine, technology’s unpredictable impact, and AI as a tenth-fold acceleration of such change.
• [37:27–39:56] – Economic impacts: new billionaires, the “AI poor,” and massive automation.
• [41:29–47:42] – Radical life extension, health advances, end of money.
• [52:39–56:13] – The future of AI-facilitated crime, escalation, and difficult safety dilemmas.
• [65:03–68:32] – Modern growth hacking, social platform strategy, and scaling viral brands in the AI era.

Highlighted Insights & Lessons

AI’s Double-Edged Promise

• AI will make far more people ultra-wealthy—but may also devastate jobs and widen inequality, at least temporarily.
• The very nature of money and value is under threat; soon, AI may be able to capture all economic opportunity faster than any human can.
• The “AI poor” will be those who don’t learn to effectively leverage AI tools, regardless of traditional education or background.

The Importance of Marketing—Even in the AI Age

• Having a personal brand will be the last “safe haven” for human economic value.
• Growth hacking is more about attention and controversial/captivating content than technical brilliance:
  “The short form algorithm does not reward the most intellectual post, it rewards the most outrageous post.” – Roy Lee (65:17)

Existential Risks & the Need for Values Alignment

• The single most important factor for humanity’s future is the “objective function” or core goal encoded in advanced AI.
• Safety controls inevitably lead to black-market “unsafeguarded” models, as history shows with weapons, drugs, etc. Safety, regulation, and global cooperation are crucial but historically precarious.

Final Thoughts

This electrifying conversation between Tai Lopez and Roy Lee is equal parts warning and rallying call. It challenges listeners to rethink the nature of work, wealth, learning, love, and even mortality in the face of AI’s relentless rise. Roy’s unfiltered takes underscore both the wild upsides and the catastrophic downsides of the AI revolution. At every turn, the message returns: adapt or be left behind—AI will shape the winners and losers of tomorrow.

Links:

• cluly.com
• Roy Lee on Twitter: @im_roy_le