Neel & Roy: Cluely Co-Founders Crafting AI's Final Experience Layer
Episode description
Chungin "Roy" Lee and Neel Shanmugam are the founders behind Cluely AI, a startup that recently secured $5.3 million in seed funding to develop their "real-time coaching" technology that provides suggestions through a hidden overlay during professional interactions. Their project began at Columbia University where they created Interview Coder, which later evolved into Cluely—now generating over $3 million in annual recurring revenue. Roy and Neel describe their technology as the natural progression of productivity aids, drawing parallels to how calculators and spell-check were once considered disruptive but are now standard. Roy leads the company's business strategy and product vision, while Neel applies his technical expertise to develop the platform's algorithms and user interface, as they expand their AI assistant's capabilities from technical interviews to sales calls and everyday conversations.Topics:
- The Evolution of Professional Assistants
- Digital Natives Rebuilding Work Culture
- The Future of Human-AI Collaborative Interfaces