How should founders interpret and respond to negative narratives about their company on social media?

Ryan Petersen · Nov 13, 2023

Media coverage of Flexport has been sensationalized and misleading, because demand for scandal and drama far exceeds the actual supply

A story built its first four paragraphs around one lost package out of 33 million delivered, and omitted an on-the-record customer statement that contradicted its 'unhappy customer' narrative

Scope: about recent coverage following the CEO transition

32:05 20VC: Flexport's Ryan Petersen: Reflections on Leadership from 13 Years Leading Flexport, Why Velocity not Speed is Most Important in Company Building, How Money Creates Inefficiencies in Scaling, The Future of Trade with China & Why Remote Work is so Cha

Bastian Lehmann · Apr 8, 2024

Outlets like CNBC and Bloomberg said nothing nice about Dara Khosrowshahi for years, harping on Uber trading below its IPO price, and now call him one of the best CEOs while he simply kept executing

CNBC and Bloomberg used every chance to note Uber trading below its IPO price, then reversed entirely once the stock worked, while Silicon Valley preferred the story of Travis returning

20:18 20VC: Postmates Founder Basti Lehmann on How the Uber Deal Went Down and How a $2.65BN Deal Turned into $5BN, Why Great VCs Add No Value and VC Value Add is BS Marketing & Why The Biggest Companies in History Will be Born Today and Replace Incumbents

Pat Grady · Jul 8, 2024

Media coverage leaves no middle ground — you are either the hero or the villain — because interesting stories must be counternarrative, counterintuitive, or hyperbolic

A story saying someone is 'pretty good, some pros, some cons' isn't interesting; the hyperbole requirement forces coverage to extremes and produces media cycles

Scope: the three-point framework was given to him by someone else

10:04 20VC: The Sequoia Investment Process | Investing Lessons from Doug Leone, Roelof Botha & Alfred Lin | Sequoia's Framework for Analysing Founders | The True Benefit of Having Sequoia on a Cap Table & Sequoia's Biggest Threat with Pat Grady

Winston Weinberg · Jan 19, 2026

Publicly accusing the market leader of copying you is a deliberate attention strategy used by the number two player

Attaching yourself to number one gets free press and lets you jump onto the leader's distribution

30:07 20VC: How Model Performance is Plateauing | Two Key Rules for Effective Deal-Making | Company Building Lessons from Keith Rabois, Brian Halligan and Pat Grady | Why Enterprise AI Adoption is Years Off with Harvey CEO Winston Weinberg

Harry Stebbings · Jun 1, 2026

Much of the harshest online criticism of a startup comes from people with hidden economic incentives aligned to competitors

He has seen it with a YC company recently — the competitor has many aligned voices whose alignment isn't obvious but who amplify negativity on Twitter

8:07 20VC: Mercor CEO on Why Application Layer Companies Have No Defensibility, The Model is the Product | Token Spend Will Exceed Headcount Spend in 5 Years | The True Cost of Hiring AI Researchers in the Valley Today with Brendan Foody

Brendan Foody · Jun 1, 2026

The negative narrative about Mercor's incident was driven by conflicted parties — including a prominent person invested in multiple competitors who falsely tweeted that Mercor's data was accessed by China

Harry's point about competitor-aligned incentives is exactly what happened to Mercor

8:30 20VC: Mercor CEO on Why Application Layer Companies Have No Defensibility, The Model is the Product | Token Spend Will Exceed Headcount Spend in 5 Years | The True Cost of Hiring AI Researchers in the Valley Today with Brendan Foody

Jason Wilk · Apr 21, 2025

A public company CEO should not name shorts or give short sellers ammunition

He dislikes short sellers and doesn't want to hand them material

Scope: stated as his own posture as a public company CEO

52:43 20VC: Do Rich Founders Make Better Founders | The Best Performing Fund Would Only Back YC Founders on Their Second Time | Why SPACs Will Come Back | Why Short Sellers Should Be Banned | Is Trump Better for Business than Biden with Jason Wilk @ Dave

Harry Stebbings · Oct 22, 2025

In today's fast news cycle the best way to get past a negative story is to say nothing; responding is what turns it into a story

News cycles move so fast that even huge news is interesting for thirty minutes, so a response is what gives a story legs

13:34 20VC: Deel CEO Alex Bouaziz on Raising $300M+ at a $17BN Valuation | Deel vs Rippling: WTF is Going On | Management Lessons from Ben Horowitz and Nik Storonsky | Deel's M&A Playbook: Lessons from 13 Acquisitions: What Works & What Doesn't

Alex Bouaziz · Oct 22, 2025

The right playbook in a public dispute is to pick your fields — focus on what you do best and tell your truth only in the venues that matter to you — rather than fighting everywhere

You need to understand where you're strong and where you're not, and when to play your hand; this approach worked for Deel

11:04 Pick your battles focus on strengths not fighting everywhere

Alex Bouaziz · Oct 22, 2025

Ignoring public attacks and focusing on customers has proven the right way to handle the litigation and negative press

The facts make the false claims easy to explain, and the business has kept growing over the last two quarters, which shows resilience

12:48 Ignore public attacks and focus on customers and growth

Alex Bouaziz · Oct 22, 2025

When you know you are in the right, there is no point fighting public battles — win in the court of law and put it behind you

A previous similar lawsuit in January was put to bed, which was the best demonstration that the company knows what it's doing

14:03 Win in court not in public when you know youre right

Ryan Petersen · Nov 13, 2023

The media has been net good to Flexport over the years and part of its success; the current sensationalism is a passing moment driven by clicks

Press coverage helped get the story out and attract customers and talent; today's incentives reward sensational narratives

33:41 Media was net positive over time current sensationalism is a passing clicks driven moment

Pat Grady · Jul 8, 2024

What is painful is not people talking about Sequoia's mistakes but making the mistakes themselves, especially avoidable self-inflicted ones

If a brand hit is fair, the hit itself doesn't hurt — the screw-up that earned it does; if it's unfair, it can be ignored because it isn't reality

9:22 Fair criticism reflects real mistakes so only the mistake hurts not the criticism itself

Parker Conrad · Oct 3, 2022

A founder being publicly vilified should be told that the situation will pass and people will move on, and simply keep putting one foot in front of the other

When things went south for him, long emails from people saying 'this too shall pass' meant a great deal even when he was too depressed to reply for years

39:39 Reassurance that it will pass and perseverance is the right response

Brendan Foody · Jun 1, 2026

Founders do need to pay attention to what is said about them on X, while hedging against the fact that it is an exaggerating echo chamber

The Twitter narrative about Mercor's security incident was far more exaggerated than what actually happened, but internal clarity and customer relationships let the company ride it out; an all-hands laying out the real trajectory helped the team

6:37 Monitor but discount the exaggerating echo chamber

Marc Andreessen · Mar 30, 2026

'Don't read the comments' is a good general life guideline, though nearly impossible to follow

It's very hard for abuse and horrible things said about you not to stick, and everybody is human

19:03 Do not read the comments at all