I Saw Your HN Comment

Cold outreach emails that impersonate genuine inquiry to sell you something now require you to spend more time vetting them.

Josh Strange, an engineering manager and founder, has observed a significant increase in unsolicited cold emails that leverage AI to personalize pitches based on his online comments, particularly on Hacker News. Previously, such emails led to valuable connections, hires, and learning opportunities. However, over the last two years, the author finds that most emails are now disingenuous sales pitches disguised as genuine inquiries. These AI-generated messages often start with a compliment and an open-ended question related to a specific comment, prompting a detailed response from the recipient. Only after significant engagement do they reveal their sales intent, leading to frustration and a feeling of wasted time. Strange has begun a new policy of sending short replies and only engaging further if no pitch follows, but dislikes the inherent distrust this requires.

The proliferation of LLMs has democratized the ability to craft highly personalized and convincing cold outreach, blurring the lines between genuine interest and sales pitches. This trend shifts the burden onto the recipient to discern authentic communication from marketing tactics, potentially leading to missed opportunities or increased communication friction.

This evolution in cold emailing tactics signifies a more sophisticated approach to lead generation, where AI tools are used to exploit conversational norms. For individuals who engage in public forums like Hacker News, this means a valuable channel for connection is increasingly being degraded into a noise-filled sales funnel, necessitating a re-evaluation of how they engage with unsolicited messages.