Paul Graham wrote that AI-written emails felt like he was "being lied to."
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Dear founders: your emails read different. Is it AI?Paul Graham is a titan of the startup space. He cofounded Y Combinator, Silicon Valley's hottest startup accelerator. He also coined "founder mode," the management philosophy that's swept tech in recent years.He's noticed a trend that worries him: people using AI to write their pitches."A lot of the emails I get from founders are now written in a hard-hitting journalistic style," Graham wrote on X. "I know they're written by AI, because no founder ever wrote this way before."Once he realizes the email is AI-generated, Graham wrote he gives up: "It feels like being lied to, and who would stand for that?"A lot of the emails I get from founders are now written in a hard-hitting journalistic style. I know they're written by AI, because no founder ever wrote this way before. And once you realize something is written by AI, it's hard not to ignore it.— Paul Graham (@paulg) May 25, 2026
Graham is not an AI pessimist. One commenter pulled a post from April in which he wrote that AI gave hardworking founders the "growth they deserve." The commenter called it "cognitive dissonance."Graham responded: "You're supposed to use it, but in the right way. Like any technology."
