The Impact of Parasocial Relationships on Startup Founders

The intimacy generated by social media belies reality. The connections we forge with celebrities influence our beliefs and how we see the world. Parasocial relationships, while often harmless, require further examination when anyone with power seeks to emulate icons wholesale.

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Unchecked devotion to a celebrity halts our critical thinking and empathy skills.

Let’s start light. I’m an early Swiftie, so I consumed the burgeoning obsession from 2006 to today. Once a defender, I came down to Earth on the concourse of NRG Stadium en route to my Eras Tour seats. A fellow Swiftie ravenously elbowed her way through a stalled crowd. She picked us off one by one until she reached our blockade, a young girl in a wheelchair. Not to be deterred she caterwauled until the horde gave way to her. What justified her tantrum? In her words, the steadfast belief she was Swift’s number one fan, as if Swift herself rubber stamped her behavior.

We’re a society that holds a high bar for fandoms. To be a Swiftie, you must know everything about her. You could liken it to men who fall into sports fandoms or feel attached to Tarantino films. I wouldn’t dare say I liked Kill Bill in the vicinity of a Tarantino buff, because the next line will surely be the spiritual equivalent of “prove it.” You aren’t allowed to like someone or something without being an expert in it. There’s no space for contradiction giving way to this unchecked devotion to a chosen role model.

The need to be all in on someone, fosters parasocial relationships. In these one-sided interactions, the public figure is unaware of the other person’s connection. Celebrity fandoms serve a role in human socialization; they shortcut the process of finding our people through identifiers like Swiftie. Celebrities may even play into the illusion by sharing snippets of their lives to crumble the walls between them and us.

Taken too far, parasocial relationships elicit negative self-comparisons, unhealthy attachment to a celebrity’s point of view, and feeling a right to that celebrity. The perceived intimacy masks critical thinking and empathy.

Critical thinking takes a backseat when defending someone we love.

This is the society we’ve set. We idolize celebrities and pledge to a cult of personality. Social media only hastens our resolve to catalogue their every move and thought. Swift alone drove nearly 400,000 people to a voter registration website.

But, what happens when the celebrity is an enigmatic influencer, like Elon Musk, and the idolizer is a founder, CEO, leader? As a denizen of startups, I posit that the parasocial relationships between founders and Musk pose harmful outcomes to them, their companies, and their employees.

Subjectively, I baffle at why others revere Musk. His grueling work environments exploit people and mother nature. He wields his money and access to do things like privatize resources and further wealth inequity. His views represent the darkest corners of capitalism.

But, I’m not the target audience for Musk. Anecdotally, I have yet to meet a founder not bewitched by Musk. They devour biographies, podcasts, or his self-propped up social posts. Exposure elevates him (and others) to myth status; he is a symbol of successful entrepreneurship, a living legend. This fuels the parasocial dynamic. Musk is no longer a flawed human worthy of examination, he’s an archetype. Archetype and myth dehumanize these cult-like figures, so we’re no longer questioning them, their means, or their methods. Instead, a founder may glom on to Musk, an emblem of success.

Founders may also latch on to or identify with the archetypes perpetuated by someone like Musk.

Many who idolize Musk wish they had his perceived freedom, wealth, or ability to “break the rules” and still succeed. Founders may crave significance or yearn to feel extraordinary. To do so, they may believe they need to don one of the following archetypes.

• The Lone Genius: When we mythologize a person like say Steve Jobs it spurns the belief that innovation and progress hinge on exceptional individuals rather than the collective. One person’s brilliance and grit can change the world.
• The Rugged Individual: Akin to the lone genius is the hyper-individualistic ethos touted by Musk. It aligns with cultural narratives, especially in capitalist societies, that valorize rugged individualism and downplay team efforts.
• The Self-Made Man: Alongside ruggedness is the all-American dream that anyone can pull themselves up by the bootstraps to achieve something world-changing. By promoting humble beginnings, Musk shrouds his privilege, resources, and systemic advantages,
• The Free Thinker: Lastly, Musk is offbeat and unfiltered. He’s a disruptor willing to bypass bureaucracy or cut people/projects that stand in his way. He defies the staunch leader of the past, representing something new, which smacks of innovation to the founder community.

These archetypes may be inspirational, but they come at a cost.

Lone or Individual, genius or rugged, both of these tropes ignore utilitarianism, diminish holistic efforts, and attract those who are okay with marginalizing others. Mark Zuckerberg is a notable example of someone who did not build his fortune alone, but rather used legal maneuvers and narrative control to pay off and silence his collaborators. He did his best to rewrite his founding story as a lone genius.

Many founders want to buy into the lore because Zuckerberg has influence and wealth creation, which serves as the ultimate proxy for worthiness, especially under capitalism. Yet, most will never experience that kind of power, and most will not receive substantial help from their families like Musk, Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos. So when we buy into the myth, it cultivates unhealthy comparison.

These archetypes retell reality, and rob the work environment, especially the free thinker. Musk takes pains to exaggerate his legend as free thinking, yet it feels like an excuse to bypass law or decorum. Musk’s companies have faced allegations of unsafe working conditions, anti-union practices, and discrimination. Given the intense environments at Tesla and X, his estranged daughter alleging narcissism (5), and his controversial X-communication like “take the red pill” (6), he comes across as dominant and inflexible, an alpha.

His rhetoric not only shapes his workplaces, but also the workplaces of all the founders emulating his viewpoints. It’s not just founders, Musk has a chokehold on men who just connect to the alpha-male persona. That’s a lot of elite perspectives influencing the collective workplace. Not to mention all the access to people, places, processes that I can’t even fathom because those doors are closed to me. So, I have to be dubious of people like Musk.

But when I share my doubts about Musk, his idolaters tell me I don’t get him.

It’s not so different from the Swifties who rally in solidarity of her whenever there’s a perceived slight. Loyalty to a celebrity etches into one’s identity leading to hero worship or echo chambers like political affiliation and religion can. We’ve lost sight of the dichotomy of human nature; no one is wholly good or bad. Idolizing any one person without willingness to critique or critically consider their actions is dangerous. As someone who’s made a career in supporting founders, it’s shockingly ubiquitous how many seek to replicate Musk, his workplace culture, his ethos, and his success.

The American tradition of tying one’s value to individual success coaxes founders to imitate the “greats” like Musk. An article in Forbes discusses the psychological price of entrepreneurship, noting that many founders work excessively long hours and face significant stress, partly due to the idolization of relentless work ethics modeled by prominent tech figures (2). Musk dedicates 80–100 hours a week to work expecting the same from his employees regardless of sustainability.

People are willing to overlook ethical compromises if the outcomes (e.g., innovation, growth) seem impressive or beneficial. By overemphasizing outcomes and believing the archetypes, founders and entrepreneurs create unsustainable conditions for themselves and others.

This unrelenting approach married with the high-performance cultures touted by Musk, Zuckerberg, Jobs, and more leads to fear. Employees work longer, compete with each other, and lose sight of the fact that their rewards pale in comparison to what these billionaires make off their labor. Earlier this year, Zuckerberg labeled a batch of laid off employees as the lowest performers, thereby thanking them for their service with a scarlet letter. Musk carries a reputation for swiftly firing employees or teams that fail to meet his standards, contributing to a culture of fear and instability.

These dehumanizing environments lend themselves to high turnover, burnout, and poor reputation. Most companies cannot sustain these unsafe practices or environments because they aren’t meant for high performance but rather high pain tolerance. Why would anyone want that legacy?

The idolization of these men points to a societal hunger for visionary leaders in a time when trust in traditional institutions is low.

We are always part of the broader cultural environment. The paradigm shift of revering authorities to revering visionaries reflects the stories we’ve been fed. Ronald Reagan, a former actor, laid out the path for today’s political “icons” by delegitimizing the role of government in solving public problems and propping up rugged individualism (sound familiar?). He steered a turn away from New Deal-style public programs and collective solutions toward individualism, deregulation, and market worship.

Musk and others are just today’s incarnation of a movement that began before their heyday or even birth. The 1980s gave rise to the notion that only an outsider could save the everyday American. An outsider is mythic in their own way — a relatable, charming, truth-teller. Reagan’s rhetoric opened the door for outsiders, mavericks, and of course, visionaries to wield wide-sweeping control and influence.

Today’s founders, entrepreneurs, and leaders may chase this kind of status via proximity to icons like Musk. Proximity may just mean replicating their belief systems, which is dangerous when those belief systems include broader capitalist trends of prioritizing profits over worker well-being.

What should one do if they’re in a workplace owned by or influenced by someone like Musk?

Parasocial relationships hinder critical thinking. The celebrity wants you to see them a certain way, so you do. It would be easy for me to chalk this up to ignorance of naivety, but that’s not the sinister root here. They want you to feel this way about them. Musk and his contemporaries use emotion over evidence, spectacle over substance, and identity over introspection. Identity can be as mundane as driving a Tesla or going to the Eras tour.

Musk and Swift create the illusion of access via social media. Musk has his late-night rants; they feel causal and unfiltered. Once again, he is a free-thinker archetype. Just look to the comments to find his fandom silencing or dismissing contrary perspectives. Similarly, Swift has a loyalty armor; any critiques of her will be met with an onslaught of hate from her fans. It’s not a beef many would want to join.

Part of not being sucked into this unchecked loyalty is to understand the inherent beauty. It’s lovely that folks feel seen and included via social media, but connections require critical thinking. It’s important to recognize the role you play to Musk — not as an equal, not as a collaborator, but as a tool. Musk exploits social media to further a narrative: that he’s wildly successful, and that anything in his way — like regulation — should be torn down. He’s preying on and counting on his followers to perpetuate his beliefs, so he can change the way the world works for his benefit.

Unions are an excellent example of something that has become villainized when it was always meant to care for the average worker. Anti-union propaganda didn’t start with Musk; he’s just the latest purveyor of it. Society finds itself arguing against its self-interest because the voices we’re admiring and defending aren’t in our self-interest.

The more folks critically examine the gimmick of these archetypes like the lone genius, rugged individual, self-made man, and free thinker, the more disillusionment we’ll foster. While becoming disenchanted may not seem like a good thing, it can be. Workers, especially in tech, have the power to ask and advocate for better work environments or speak with their feet. And founders have the power to drive positive societal impact or mission-driven entrepreneurship.

The idolization of tech entrepreneurs like Musk won’t be looked kindly on by history, but it’s okay if you’ve admired his narrative of success or simply exalted his wealth. You can always choose to let those admirations go.

Research

1. Pickup, O. Will. Will 2023 be the year we stop idolizing tech entrepreneurs?. Worklife. January 9, 2023.
2. Arora, K. The Psychological Price Of Entrepreneurship. Forbes. May 2, 2019
3. Epstein, G. Why a Technocracy Fails Young People | TIME. Time. November 14, 2024.
4. Jennings, R. The cultural power of the anti-woke tech bro. Vox. September 26, 2024.
5. Ingram, D. Elon Musk’s transgender daughter, in first interview, says he berated her for being queer as a child. NBC News. July 25, 2024.
6. Swearingen, J. Elon Musk Tweets ‘Take the Red Pill’: What It Means — Business Insider. Business Insider. May 17, 2020.
7. Musk, J. “I Was a Starter Wife”: Inside America’s Messiest Divorce. Marie Claire. September 10, 2010.

Hi, I’m Courtney. I’ve spent over a decade as a startup fixer working with founders to go from high pain tolerance to high performance cultures. My founders have been featured in Fast Company, Fortune, Inc. People, and more.