R*tard-maxxing

1.Deliberately not thinking: acting on gut instinct at full conviction instead of analyzing, as a cure for analysis paralysis. Go to work, do the obvious thing, do not ruminate. The asterisk is this compendium's; the discourse does not use one.

He stopped writing design docs entirely. Full r*tard-maxxing. The scary part is the metrics are up.

01Origin

A portmanteau of a word widely considered a slur for intellectual disability and the "-maxxing" suffix (lineage at uggmaxxing). It circulated in wallstreetbets-adjacent "regard" culture from the late 2010s and rode the mainstreaming of -maxxing slang into tech X across 2025-2026: the philosophy that the overthinker loses, the doer wins, and the far ends of the midwit bell curve agree while the middle ruminates itself to death.

Marc Andreessen made it a discourse event in March 2026, posting "Current status: Retardmaxxing" (2.2 million views) and telling the a16z podcast about a YouTuber with a hundred videos on the subject: "He's like my new life coach. I haven't met him, but from a distance." This Week in Startups ran the ensuing "debate" about whether introspection is a competitive handicap; Forbes covered the philosophy as Silicon Valley's anxiety culture on trial.

The term's status is contested for the obvious reason: it is built on a slur, and the deliberate provocation is part of the branding. This compendium files the term because the discourse is real, and stars it out, a choice its practitioners would presumably diagnose as midwit. Kindred entries: locked in (the state it promises), grindslop (what it becomes when posted about).

02Notable sightings

a16z · @a16z · view on X
Marc Andreessen on introspection and the benefits of retardmaxxing: "There's this guy on YouTube who has basically a hundred videos on retardmaxxing." "He's like my new life coach. I haven't met him, but from a distance." "It's basically just—retardmaxx. Go to work, do a good job, come home, it's fine. Start a company, it succeeds, it fails, it's fine. Have too much to eat one night at dinner, it's fine. Go to the gym, don't count your reps, it's fine. Ask a girl if she wants to go out with you, if she says no, it's fine." "It's like 100 30-minute videos about retardmaxxing. And you would think that after the first two minutes, he kind of covered it. But no." "And by the way, they're all hysterical. They're all absolutely fantastic. It's literally him on his porch in the middle of nowhere with a cigar, and it's like a half hour." "It's just absolutely spectacular." @pmarca with @HarryStebbings

This Week in Startups · @twistartups · view on X
It’s time we talked about the “retard-maxxing debate”… Folks are arguing that being a deep thinker, being someone who takes their time making decision tend to ruminate more. The “don’t think, just do” mentality is appealing to many. Does introspection really come with dwelling on the past? Or do people simply have a tough time separating the two?

More sightings on X →

03Spread the ism

Every entry ships as a card. Download it, post it, cite your sources.

R*tard-maxxing

01Origin

02Notable sightings

03Spread the ism

04See also