Student techie builds AI tool to cheat six-figure-salary job interview, gets suspended but secures over $5 million in seed funding

In a digital age the place artificial intelligence is quickly rewriting the principles of productivity, one scholar has turned controversy into capital. Chungin “Roy” Lee, a 21-year-old former Columbia University scholar, has developed an AI-powered job hacking tool that not solely bought him suspended but additionally fetched his startup a jaw-dropping $5.3 million in seed funding.

Cluely, because the device is now recognized, started its journey underneath the identify Coder. It capabilities as an in-browser overlay that discreetly helps customers reply coding questions throughout technical job interviews—significantly these widespread on platforms like LeetCode. “I assumed, why are we losing time on these arbitrary puzzles?” Lee defined in an interview with TechCrunch, framing Cluely as a pure extension of tech aids like calculators and spell checkers as soon as deemed “dishonest.”

When Amazon Known as, Columbia Answered

Lee’s ambitions took a controversial flip when he posted a video utilizing the device to safe a job provide from Amazon. The video went viral—and never in the best way he’d hoped. Based on Lee, Amazon was “extraordinarily upset” and allegedly contacted Columbia College with an ultimatum: droop the scholar or threat being blacklisted from Amazon’s hiring pool.

What adopted was a disciplinary listening to and Lee’s suspension from Columbia. Talking to Dr. Phil, Lee expressed disbelief: “Clearly, I’m upset as a result of Columbia is meant to be coaching the long run technology of leaders… I assumed, as an Ivy League establishment, anybody who’s going to brazenly embrace their college students utilizing AI for varied functions that had nothing to do with the varsity, it’d be Columbia.”

The Morality of Automation

Regardless of the backlash, Cluely’s success is plain. The startup, co-founded with COO Neel Shanmugam, has already crossed a $3 million common annual return within the first half of 2025, based on TechCrunch. Its tagline, “Cheat on All the pieces,” has made it each infamous and interesting.

In a promo video bordering on parody, Lee demonstrates how Cluely might ultimately combine into AR glasses, serving to customers lie their manner by social conditions—like pretending to understand artwork on a primary date. Critics in contrast the clip to an episode of Black Mirror, whereas others noticed it as tongue-in-cheek genius. Both manner, it made headlines.

« Again to suggestion tales

Lee’s story throws open a thorny debate: in a world more and more dominated by algorithms, what does “dishonest” even imply anymore? Is Cluely a symptom of a damaged system that values puzzles over potential—or a tech-savvy shortcut that undermines meritocracy?