Silicon Valley needs to stop with the ‘grindslop’
Have you ever heard of ‘grindslop’?
It’s the latest dig aimed at what some internet users see as tech’s performative, startup https://www.fastcompany.com/section/hustle-culture">hustle culture.
The unflattering term was https://x.com/WillManidis/article/2057094527236665598">coined by tech entrepreneur Will Manidis, who argued in a post on X that by glorifying work at all costs, Silicon Valley has turned overworking into a religion—and a product in and of itself: “No one asks what the company does,” he writes. “It doesn’t matter . . .
What matters is the suffering that preceded it.”
The term is now making the rounds on the internet, where the insult is usually aimed at tech workers, often young men, who wear extreme work as a badge of honor, by flaunting or bragging about it on social media.
It’s part of a broader backlash to tech’s hustle culture, which was demonstrated by the internet response to a https://x.com/handotdev/status/2077075378859020690">post on X last month from Han Wang, the co-founder of Mintlify.
“Remember not to smile,” Wang wrote, before referencing Uber founder Travis Kalanick’s recent podcast comments that compared working til 4:00 a.m. to a marathoner on mile 21. “Someone who signed up for the pain . . . will go harder and further because of it,” Wang wrote.
The post went viral—but many social media users disagreed with Wang, with one commenter writing, “what a trash way to live life.”
“Overall 2/10 linkedin grindslop,” wrote another commenter.
“In hindsight the backlash was deserved,” Wang told Fast Company, when reached for comment. “The post read as glorifying the grind for its own sake, which was never the point and isn’t how we operate at Mintlify.
The intensity I referenced in the article is a choice I make for myself as a founder.
It has never been an expectation for our team.”
https://x.com/WillManidis/article/2057094527236665598">In his own X post, Manidis roasted hardcore founders.
Without mentioning names, he appeared to reference Nico Laqua, the founder and CEO of https://www.fastcompany.com/section/artificial-intelligence" title="AI">AI insurance startup Corgi, who, according to a https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardnieva/2026/05/28/corgi-doubles-valuation/">Forbes profile, lives, sleeps, and eats in his office.
Meanwhile, the company encourages a seven-day workweek, “maybe even eight,” building a cafe inside the building so employees can work around the clock.
Fast Company has also reached out to Laqua for comment.
Manidis also mentions a company where workers “tattoo themselves with the logo of the company like cattle”—an apparent reference to https://www.fastcompany.com/91582571/y-combinator-startup-lemonlime-offers-job-interviews-for-getting-tattoos-jordan-zietz">Y-Combinator startup LemonLime‘s recent https://www.fastcompany.com/section/hiring" title="Hiring">hiring stunt, where the company said it would offer https://www.fastcompany.com/91582571/y-combinator-startup-lemonlime-offers-job-interviews-for-getting-tattoos-jordan-zietz">job interviews if prospective employees got a company tattoo, prompting accusations of exploitation.
Meanwhile, Andrew Mitchell, founder and CEO of global employee engagement platform Rewardia, tells Fast Company that to him, the term ‘grindslop’ can mean performative culture at its worst.
“If the person who stays awake until dawn and carries out a slew of tasks is the one who receives praise, then that will become the company’s culture,” Mitchell says. “The solution is to redesign the way recognition is given so that managers reward the employee who solved the problem in two hours . . . [not] a showy display over ten hours.”