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Has Startup Cluely Found a New Way to Attract Talent and Keep Culture as They Grow Past 100 Employees?
I DEEP DIVE INSIDER PROFILES
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Our conversations with Cluely’s leadership team surfaced a philosophy that challenges HR convention: they believe traditional work boundaries no longer apply. Instead of focusing on work-life balance as they grow, Cluely is intentionally designing a culture around the idea that work should be your life.
This stance leads to bold questions they are actively testing. Can culture remain sustainable when it rejects conventional wisdom? What happens when the company’s core product philosophy that AI should help humans “cheat on everything” becomes the foundation for how the business itself operates? And as they scale toward 200 employees, how can such radical positions be maintained without exhausting the team?
These questions guide CEO Chungin “Roy” Lee and his team as they shape hiring, build decision-making frameworks, and refine practices with a single aim: to prove that unconventional approaches can be a source of competitive advantage rather than cultural risk. For Lee, the idea of work-life balance has never aligned with startup reality. “The work-life balance is a myth,” he explains. “When you’re building something revolutionary, work becomes your life because you’re passionate about the mission. The goal isn’t to separate work from life, it’s to make work so engaging that the distinction becomes irrelevant.”
That philosophy runs through every aspect of Cluely’s culture. Traditional benefits built around time away take a back seat to creating an environment where people want to spend their time. The office is positioned as a hub for the most stimulating conversations, the hardest challenges, and the steepest learning curves. “We’re not trying to compete with companies that offer more vacation days,” says Neel Shanmugam, Cluely’s COO. “We’re competing on intellectual excitement, rapid skill development, and the chance to work on problems that most people think are impossible to solve.”
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Perhaps Cluely's most unconventional cultural decision involves their hiring strategy. The company employs only engineers and influencers – no traditional business roles, no middle management, no conventional support functions. "We realized that in our business, you either build the product or you tell the world about it," explains Lee. "Everything else is overhead that slows down decision-making and dilutes culture. When you only hire people who directly contribute to core value creation, you maintain focus and avoid bureaucracy."
This approach requires each person to develop broader capabilities. Engineers need to understand market dynamics and user behavior. Influencers need to understand technical capabilities and product limitations. The result is a team where everyone has context for company decisions rather than operating in functional silos. "Our engineers participate in marketing strategy because they understand what's technically possible," shares Sarah Kim, one of their early engineering hires. "Our content creators understand our technical roadmap because they need to explain capabilities accurately. It creates much better collaboration than traditional role separation."
As Cluely grows, they face unique challenges around maintaining their provocative market position. Their core product helps people use AI assistance for interviews, exams, and professional interactions – a stance that generates both passionate advocates and strong opposition. "Scaling distinctive culture is different from scaling normal culture," observes Lee. "You can't hire people who are 'culture-adjacent' – they either fully embrace the mission or they undermine it. There's no middle ground when your core thesis challenges conventional thinking." This reality shapes their hiring approach. Rather than evaluating candidates based on skills and cultural fit, they focus on philosophical alignment and adaptability. Can this person defend their product to critics? Do they genuinely believe AI should augment human capabilities everywhere possible?
"We ask candidates how they'd explain our product to their parents," notes Shanmugam. "If they can't articulate why AI assistance is human progress rather than limitation, they won't succeed here regardless of their technical skills."
Cluely's approach to talent acquisition reflects their broader cultural philosophy. They're offering the "highest-paying engineering internship in the world" at $200/hour, explicitly targeting "the seven best programmers in the world" to build their desktop copilot technology. "Traditional companies compete on career progression and job security," explains Lee. "We compete on intellectual challenge and immediate impact. When you're working on problems that don't exist anywhere else, compensation becomes a signal of how seriously we take the work."
This strategy serves multiple cultural purposes. High compensation attracts people who could work anywhere, ensuring they're choosing Cluely for mission alignment rather than necessity. The small cohort size maintains culture density as they grow. The global search process reinforces their belief that conventional hiring practices miss exceptional talent. "The $200/hour rate isn't about the money, it's about attracting people who think differently about what's possible," notes Kim. "When you're building AI that can see and hear everything happening on someone's computer, you need engineers who get excited about complex challenges rather than worrying about implementation concerns."
Cluely's core philosophy "everywhere AI can be used, it should be used" – extends beyond their product into their internal operations. They're building culture where AI assistance isn't just accepted but expected. "AI maximalism changes how we think about human capability," explains Lee. "Instead of asking what people can do alone, we ask what they can accomplish with AI assistance. That mindset shift affects everything from goal-setting to performance evaluation."
This approach influences their management philosophy. Rather than traditional oversight, they're developing systems where AI helps identify when people need support, tracks project progress automatically, and surfaces insights about team dynamics without requiring manual reporting. "We're building a culture where AI helps us understand ourselves better," notes Shanmugam. "When your AI assistant can analyze communication patterns and suggest when someone might need help, management becomes more supportive and less intrusive."
As Cluely approaches larger team sizes, they're actively designing systems that preserve their unconventional approach. Rather than adopting traditional HR practices, they're creating new frameworks that support their philosophy. "Most companies compromise their culture during scaling because they adopt conventional practices," observes Lee. "We're proving that you can maintain radical positions by building systems that support them rather than undermining them."
Their approach includes "Philosophy Reinforcement" sessions where team members regularly discuss how their core beliefs apply to new challenges. "Cultural Coherence" measurements track whether different parts of the organization maintain alignment as they specialize. They're also developing "Intellectual Honesty" protocols for handling the criticism that comes with bold positions. Rather than avoiding difficult conversations, they're training everyone to engage thoughtfully with opposing viewpoints. "Scaling distinctive culture requires everyone to become capable advocates," explains Shanmugam. "You can't have team members who can't defend the mission when challenged."
"When people are learning constantly, solving interesting problems, and seeing rapid impact, high intensity becomes sustainable," explains Kim. "The burnout comes from meaningless work, not challenging work."
Cluely's approach offers insights for any company building distinctive culture during growth. Consider whether your hiring strategy actually supports your cultural goals, or whether you're defaulting to conventional roles that might dilute your mission.
Evaluate whether your compensation strategy attracts people who align with your values, or whether you're competing on generic benefits that any company can offer.
Develop explicit systems for maintaining cultural coherence as you grow, rather than hoping culture will naturally preserve itself through informal mechanisms. "Most companies treat culture as something that happens to them rather than something they can intentionally design," explains Lee. "We're proving that unconventional approaches can create sustainable competitive advantages when you build systems that support them."
For companies watching Cluely's experiment, their model raises fundamental questions about whether traditional workplace wisdom applies to every type of business. As they scale toward 200 employees while maintaining radical cultural positions, they're testing whether distinctive missions can create sustainable growth or whether conventional practices exist for good reasons.
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