You don't have to respond to every criticism — not feeding the trolls is a learned skill, and showing weakness publicly feeds the haters.
Amjad advises against the compulsion to defend every post, noting that the instinct to correct someone wrong on the internet is a trap. Only respond when there's genuine misunderstanding and business impact, and do so in a principled, non-defensive way. ✦ AI generated
Amjad Masad · a16z Podcast · 2026-07-17 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 13:14
“Now I have to think about the responses and I have to respond back and now I'm in sort of a conflict.”
You don't have to respond back at all. That's another thing you have to learn is to not feed the trolls. [...] it's very tempting, but actually it's the baller thing to do is like, 'Oh, yeah, yeah, the plebs can't fight in my comments.' [...] anytime publicly if you show weakness publicly, it actually feeds the trolls and feeds the haters because they feel like they can get to you.
verbatim transcript · starts at 13:14
13:20out. >> You You're describing that the mental game is to A lot of things we'll hear from CEOs is, "Oh, I don't want to have to tweet and then I'm in meetings. Now I have to think about the responses and I have to respond back and now I'm in sort of a conflict." >> respond back. That's the thing. >> Right. >> You don't have to respond back at all. I
13:34mean, that's that's another thing you have to learn is to is to like not feed the trolls. It's you know, that that that reply is like, "Oh, I got to get back." It's like what's that I think New Yorker comic? It was like, "Oh, babe, come to bed." He's like, "No, someone's wrong on the internet." Uh and it's like it's very tempting, but actually it's kind of the ball or thing
13:56to do is like, "Oh, yeah, yeah, the plebs can't fight in my comments." >> [laughter] >> I don't need to worry about it. So, uh so I think it's a trap to think that anything you put out you need to immediately defend. Obviously, if something is getting um a lot of airplay and people are misunderstanding you, I think you should you should correct it. Uh and again, you should do it in the
14:21principled way. You should do it because, "Hey, this is what I actually believe. Uh here's what you got wrong, but don't be overly defensive about it. Like don't appear that, "Oh, this is this is something that you're getting emotional about." Because again, anytime publicly if you anytime you show weakness publicly, it actually feeds the trolls and feeds the haters because they feel like they can get to you.
14:45>> Yeah. What what advice do you give for when companies are being dragged by by by someone on Twitter or or in the in the press or when to respond versus when when when not to engage? >> Yeah, yeah, I I think that's that's like a art thing and and I think I it comes down to um like business impact. Like will it actually have business on a
15:08impact on my business? Um you know, for example, like uh last year in July we had this story with um the you know, founder of SaaStr, Jason Lemkin where uh Jason had just vibe coding, had never vibe coded or coded anything before, and uh as he's working with Replit Agent, Replit Agent sort of misunderstood him or something like that, and then deleted the database. At the time we didn't have production