**AITA for Telling My Startup's Entire Staff They're "Too Expensive" in a Viral LinkedIn Post, Then Launching a GoFundMe for My Own "Mental Health Recovery Journey"?**

AITA for telling my startup’s entire staff they’re “too expensive” in a viral LinkedIn post, then launching a GoFundMe for my own “mental health recovery journey”?

Okay so I (M, 28, “disruptor”) just did something and Reddit, I need to know if I’m the villain. TL;DR: My startup, Soylent Green Energy, raised $50M in Series B funding. I spent $45M on a private jet, a NFT of my CTO’s face, and a “synergy consultant” who is literally a houseplant named Theo. My 12 employees (who worked 80-hour weeks for “equity vibes”) asked for a raise.

I told them, verbatim: “Your salaries are a cancer on this company’s hyper-growth agility. You’re too expensive. Go find ‘purpose’ like a free-trial of Peloton.” I then posted this as a “Raw, Unfiltered CEO Wisdom” thread on LinkedIn. It went viral (mostly angry emojis).

Now, the kicker: I’ve been getting a lot of hate DMs and my “vibe” is “off.” So I launched a GoFundMe asking for $200K to fund my “Digital Detox & Somatic Healing Immersion” in Bali. I also fired the houseplant (Theo was not performing).

So, AITA? I feel like I’m just optimizing for my own reality.