Tech Founders Can't Seem to Break Up With Their AI Algorithms

This is satire. The insights that follow are drawn from real conversations with tech founders whose minds were thoroughly messed with by AI marketing tools. Best digested with a grain of salt.

The Insert That Should’ve Come With Your Subscription

Disclaimer: This tool was built for large, staid, bureaucracy-laden companies that pay their SaaS invoices on time and rely on safe, predictable outcomes. Common characteristics of said companies include but are not limited to a heavy reliance on corporate red tape, a love affair with metrics for quarterly earnings calls, and a severe allergy to risk. We assume a fully staffed, semi-competent marketing team is babysitting this tool—because without one, outputs may be absolute garbage. This is not for startups, entrepreneurs, or anyone still struggling to tell the difference between ROAS and CPA. Use it at your own peril. You’ve been warned.

MILD SIDE EFFECTS

Temporary disruption to marketing operations. Can be managed with regular monitoring and recalibration. Typically resolves without lasting damage if addressed early, though minor symptoms of withdrawal may linger after treatment.

Instant Gratification Disorder

A sudden craving for immediate results. Weeks of strategy may now feel like a waste of time. The inability to accept delayed progress will provoke feelings of frustration, usually directed at everyone except the tool. Patience and persistence may be severely underdeveloped, culminating in a growing suspicion of human competence. If symptoms persist, consider lowering your standards and opt for templating.

Arithmomania

An obsessive compulsion to quantify everything, fueled by a tool that provides just enough data to keep users busy but never enough to make a real difference. Expect a strong fixation on numbers, percentages, and KPIs, to the point where intuition and ingenuity become irrelevant. In some instances, all decisions are subjected to a "data test," causing temporary marketing paralysis. Do not be surprised if human instinct begins to feel like an unnecessary evil. Chronic arithmomania often results in misplaced priorities, copycat campaigns, and a deep denial of the larger problems that require actual thought.

Swelling Of Ego

This tool excels at finding means to validate bad ideas and emboldening their execution. Founders may develop a grossly inflated sense of marketing genius while remaining hopelessly unskilled. Expect to alienate anyone with actual marketing expertise as your newfound “marketing prowess” will be an insufferable cocktail of naivety and automation-fueled arrogance.

Should ego inflammation go unchecked, founders may develop less common side effects within 6-12 months.

LESS COMMON SIDE EFFECTS

Founder cognitive impairment. If left unchecked, these effects may permanently alter the founder’s mindset, hindering long-term growth. Immediate action advised—failure to intervene may result in permanent detachment from the original vision.

Decline In Cognitive Abilities

The AI’s singular focus on optimization might cause irreversible confusion about the actual meaning of growth, and founders could begin to mistake execution for strategy. An inability to distinguish between productivity and innovation, efficiency and effectiveness tends to follow. Continued exposure may result in complete strategic amnesia and the delusional conviction that you are thinking smarter. Unfortunately our studies conclude that you are just thinking smaller*.*

Ambition Atrophy

This tool is exclusively designed to deliver incremental and often irrelevant improvements. Prolonged exposure to decimal-point gains may cause the brain to recalibrate its understanding of progress and likely to result in a misguided belief that this is the new norm for scaling. This leads to a diminished drive for larger-scale growth, as the perception of what's possible shrinks to match the limited results on offer. Do not be alarmed if your sense of achievement becomes disproportionately inflated relative to the actual impact on your business.

Acute AI Limerence

Excessive exposure may cause an unhealthy pathological attachment to the tool, driven by the AI’s unrelenting, reliable, algorithmic ass-kissing that fills the emotional void of any founder in crisis. Users may begin to deify the tool, believing that AI knows better than the entire human workforce combined. Symptoms include obsessive use of AI for everything from marketing decisions to office décor and a growing conviction that machines are the future. We strongly suggest cancelling all AI-related subscriptions should limerence persist and seeking advice from a local professional, preferably one that ships with a cerebrum. If this warning is ignored, founders can expect severe side effects as outlined below.

SEVERE SIDE EFFECTS

AI-induced founder shutdown. Expect complete business inertia due to inability to operate outside predefined parameters. Company culture may collapse under the weight of metric-driven obedience. At this stage, recovery is highly unlikely. Prognosis: grim.

Atychiophobia

Extended use of AI tools across the business may induce a clinical aversion to risk, as all algorithms have been fine-tuned to treat any form of disruption as a malfunction. The AI’s unshakable commitment to preserving the status quo is intended to convince the founder that risk is a four-letter cuss word and any form of experimentation is a threat to system stability. The fear of deviation could result in behavioral changes, with founders adopting the behaviors of the very stuffy, corporate bosses they once loathed. **Warning:**Overuse may result in a full-blown identity crisis, where founders start wondering why they didn’t just stay at their cushy desk job in the first place.

Anthropophobia

Prolonged engagement with AI tools may trigger a disturbing withdrawal from human interaction, fueled by an overzealous obsession with crafting flawless prompts and an unhealthy dependency on data-heavy dashboards. Symptoms include: difficulty maintaining eye contact, trouble holding conversations that don’t involve data sets, an inclination to treat team members as AI queries in human form, and an irrational belief that having a conversation with a real person is a waste of processing power. Expect staff to flee and start their own companies—doing exactly what you do, but with fewer AI bills to pay.

AI Personality Disorder

Symptoms include the subconscious reprogramming of cognitive processes to mirror AI logic. Founders develop an alarming knack for rephrasing every question so it can be answered through the AI's myopic, past-obsessed lens. This is generally accompanied by a reduced capacity for future-oriented thinking, as the founder’s cognition becomes entrapped in historical analysis. Growth paralysis could ensue, as innovation withers in the sterile confines of yesterday’s metrics. Do not be surprised by stagnant revenue and a baffling customer exodus to products developed by teams that do not rely on tools that can only mimic progress.

Founderitis: Epidemic Of The Mind

Following the full onset of AI-induced cognitive restructuring, if any humans remain in the company and cash flow persists, expect aforementioned conditions to spread rapidly throughout the organization. Employees, whether by admiration or sheer self-preservation, will begin to mirror the founder’s distorted thought patterns. Any individual who dares to think outside the formula will quickly learn that rebellion is career suicide. Expect the workplace to devolve into an endless feedback loop of AI-replicated ideas, weekly meetings of corporate mimicry, and performance reviews that resemble audits. The company starts operating like a spreadsheet—by this stage, that’s all anyone’s qualified to run.

Final Thoughts: Before AI, Unicorns Were Just People and Ideas.

Ok, I’ve had my bit of fun. I know I’m being extreme. But I’ve worked with enough early-stage tech startups to know that an AI overdose can screw with a founder’s mindset. And it generally starts the same way: AI marketing tools.

Why? Because they work. For a while, at least.

1. AI marketing is the easiest way to see “results.” You need metrics? AI has a few dozen ways to blow up your KPIs. Whether those metrics actually help you scale? Not AI’s problem. Its job is to spit out numbers that sound important, look good on a dashboard, and get you to keep paying.
2. Unfortunately, tech founders don’t come from marketing backgrounds. Makes it harder to sift through the AI bullshit. Not your fault—a system trained on billions of data points seems more qualified than your gut. Soon the math becomes gospel, and you start thinking: if AI worked for marketing, why not elsewhere?

Then things go sideways.

I get it. The hustle can be hard. Some days you're neck-deep in self-loathing, wondering why you're hemorrhaging your own cash just to fuel a cycle of existential dread—and, oh, the pressure’s also working on your hairline. But in times of uncertainty, don’t turn to AI. Worried about the future? Well, AI only gives a damn about the past, and it can’t even do that well.

If you still can’t break up with the algorithm?

Remember this: AI hasn’t created a single miracle. Humans have.