June 24, 2026
Ctrl+C, Ctrl-Chaos
Stealing Is a Skill
Founder says copying is a superpower, and the internet is absolutely not calm
TLDR: A founder argued that copying great work almost exactly is the fastest way to learn and build, saying his team remade another site and changed only a little. Commenters split hard: some called it normal creative borrowing, while others said it sounded disrespectful, legally risky, and way too proudly admitted.
A startup founder just tossed a match into the creativity debate by proudly declaring that “stealing is a skill” — and yes, he means literal copying. His big idea: rebuild something great almost exactly, learn every tiny choice behind it, then change just 3% to make it yours. In this case, he and a coworker rebuilt another company’s website “pixel by pixel,” then added a few personal twists. He says it helped them move fast, learn their own style, and launch a polished new site in under a month.
The community, however, came in with the digital popcorn. One camp basically said, sure, inspiration is normal — cue the classic “good artists copy, great artists steal” energy — but they also pointed out the obvious: it feels very different when you’re the one getting copied. Others went straight for the legal panic button, asking whether this crosses into plain old copyright trouble. Another commenter called the whole thing the Tim Ferriss school of thought, which was not meant as a compliment.
Still, not everyone was horrified. Some defended the broader idea of studying what already exists before making something new, comparing it to how inventors and designers learn by imitation. But the sharpest reaction was aimed at the bragging: people seemed less scandalized by borrowing ideas than by openly boasting about copying a rival site “pixel by pixel.” The vibe was half philosophy seminar, half roast session, with a side of “this could’ve stayed in the group chat.”
Key Points
- •The article argues that literally copying existing work can be an effective learning and execution method when used to study strong designs closely.
- •It frames this method through Virgil Abloh’s “3% approach,” described as changing only a small portion of an existing design after understanding all of it.
- •The author and a coworker, Justin, applied this approach at Kibu while rebuilding the company’s marketing site.
- •They selected Mintlify’s 2025 marketing site as a reference and rebuilt it pixel by pixel to understand its design choices and tradeoffs.
- •The project led to selective changes aligned with Kibu’s brand and resulted in a deployed site in Framer in less than a month of weekend work.