I’m calling the top on startup slop.
Today, more young founders are chasing the founder lifestyle and “aura,” yet few are trying to build great businesses. The dominant narrative pushes founders toward performative entrepreneurship: TikTok accounts chronicling daily routines, LinkedIn posts about generic work experiences, and endless threads flexing monthly recurring revenue masquerading as insight. I call this “startup slop.”
Why does it bother me so much? A few weeks ago I was listening to the Dialectic episode with Nabeel Qureshi, who defined slop as “the absence of care.” I love this definition, and I’ve come to believe that the vacuum left by a lack of care is swiftly filled by ego. Slop is posting simply to make noise – stepping into the arena to be seen, with nothing meaningful to say.
I said this to a friend recently, and he argued that “meaningful” is subjective. I disagree. Meaningfulness is defined by intention: are you speaking so that people listen, or because what you say is genuinely valuable and useful to those around you? To say something meaningful, you have to listen. You have to care about those in front of you, physically or otherwise, and put them over your own ego. That is becoming more rare.
We’re entering an era of entrepreneurial abundance—company formation is easier than ever—and building a real business remains the most powerful way to change the world. Attention is finite, and slop clogs our feeds, diverting mind‑share to people and companies actively making the world worse.
To be direct: playbooks run by companies like Cluely are making the world worse. Build hype if you must, but remember that the more attention you demand, the more value you are responsible for delivering.
The antidote is simple but demanding: deeply intentional work, sincere relationship‑building, and the conviction that nothing about the future is inevitable. Attention is a tool, not the goal. Care is the prerequisite. Speak to rally like‑minded people and give them something solid to build on.
In Ego on the Internet, I wrote that “your work on the internet must embody a sense of intentionality rooted in introspection… developing and presenting your ‘vector’ requires continuous introspection and intentionality.”
If you call yourself a founder, earn the title: build things that matter, share ideas that help others build, and let your care—not your ego—speak the loudest. If you are unable to hold yourself accountable to that standard, stay quiet. Cultivate care and reflect on why you want to be present, or you’re at risk of leaving the world worse off than you found it.