Silicon Valley has a new insult for performative hustle posts: 'grindslop'

Posting about your long, long day at work? It might be "grindslop." Getty Images; Tyler Le/BI Techies coined a new term for performative posting about hard work on social media.

They call it "grindslop." Business Insider spoke with the grindslop accused — and accusers.

Who is it all for? Three founders said that grindslop posts were meant to impress venture capitalists .

Han Wang insists his intentions were pure.

The 25-year-old cofounder of Mintlify is a prolific X poster, sending off his snippets of management philosophy to the platform's techies.

One of his essays fanned the flames of Silicon Valley's hardcore workplace debate .

He called it: "Remember to not smile." Wang said that the essay's lesson was "challenging yourself and seeking discomfort." Commenters took it differently: they saw a piece of performative overwork, telling employees to labor until they're miserable.

Founders whom Wang looked up to criticized him; his friends publicly posted their reasons for disagreeing with him.

Critics of his post called it "grindslop." "It's this sentiment against saying these crazy work ethic buzzwords," Wang said.

"For those two weeks, I became the vessel for that disdain." The AI era has brought a relentless new standard of work: 996ing , Celsius-fueled all-nighters, and nonstop vibe coding .

Some call it committing to a once-in-a-generation opportunity; others call it unhealthy.

As tech workers chafe against an increasingly extreme work schedule — and the public posturing behind it all — "grindslop" has grown into a rallying cry.

What is grindslop? When Martin Tobias took my call, he had no idea what grindslop was.

The 62-year-old venture capitalist posted on X that, after taking on investments, founders can't use the excuse of being tired.