--- title: Worst Advice Ever | daily.dev description: A tech content creator reacts to a viral post by a startup CEO whose entire company presentation consisted of four words: 'Remember to not smile.' The creator... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/worst-advice-ever-v7lwotnya twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Worst Advice Ever | daily.dev og:description: A tech content creator reacts to a viral post by a startup CEO whose entire company presentation consisted of four words: 'Remember to not smile.' The creator... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/worst-advice-ever-v7lwotnya og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/V7LWoTNYa.png og:image:alt: Worst Advice Ever og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Worst Advice Ever **[ThePrimeTime](https://daily.dev/sources/primeagen)** · 9 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A tech content creator reacts to a viral post by a startup CEO whose entire company presentation consisted of four words: 'Remember to not smile.' The creator critiques this as counterproductive leadership advice, arguing that joy, camaraderie, and smiling through hard work are actually what sustain long-term effort and performance. Drawing on personal experience streaming at 5am while working full-time at Netflix for years, and citing research on marathon runners who smile to push harder, the creator makes the case that playing to win requires positivity — not grimness. The post being promoted by the CEO turns out to be a documentation tool startup, which adds to the absurdity of the war-like rhetoric. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Never Enough](https://daily.dev/posts/never-enough-caehjh2lo) · Hacker News · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Bill Gurley says that right now, the worst thing you can do for your career is play it safe](https://daily.dev/posts/bill-gurley-says-that-right-now-the-worst-thing-you-can-do-for-your-career-is-play-it-safe-au5ftpuoa) · TechCrunch · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#startup](https://daily.dev/tags/startup), [#career](https://daily.dev/tags/career), [#leadership](https://daily.dev/tags/leadership), [#company-culture](https://daily.dev/tags/company-culture) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/worst-advice-ever-v7lwotnya) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Worst Advice Ever","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/worst-advice-ever-v7lwotnya","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/worst-advice-ever-v7lwotnya"},"datePublished":"2026-07-23T14:50:34.474Z","dateModified":"2026-09-14T08:03:37.826Z","description":"A tech content creator reacts to a viral post by a startup CEO whose entire company presentation consisted of four words: 'Remember to not smile.' 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