Overview

• Bhavye Khetan created a fictional founder persona leveraging Stanford and Palantir credentials and the term AI in cold emails to venture capitalists.
• He emailed 34 VCs and secured responses from 27, with four investors requesting calls despite no pitch deck, product, or business plan.
• His June 2 post on X has drawn over 1.2 million views and fueled widespread online discussion of startup funding practices.
• Critics say genuine prestige justifies investor interest and that a reply does not guarantee long-term engagement.
• Advocates argue the experiment highlights the need for investors to focus on substantive innovation rather than superficial markers.