Why I Called Hormozi’s Launch a “Con”

I have no recollection of signing up for Alex Hormozi’s emails … I’ve felt a certain way about his marketing practices for a long time, so it was a bit of an unwelcome surprise to receive email after email after email on Saturday. 

So, I did the quick scroll to the bottom of the email, tapped “Unsubscribe” and…

Was redirected to his live stream!

Yep - I didn’t realize that by trying to set clear boundaries with this person in my inbox I would be swindled into joining his live stream in an effort to get him closer to breaking a Guinness record (which he ultimately did). 

[insert video]

That was my first red flag (of so many) that led me to my viral post this week and this article. 

It’s important for me to state a few things before we dig into the laundry list of unethical and manipulative practices riddled throughout this campaign and launch:

This is not an article to diminish Hormozi’s success. He is a highly effective businessman, a skilled communicator, and a master at leveraging attention. But from the lens of marketing psychology, his most recent book launch is also a case study in how influence crosses into manipulation. And if we don’t name these practices clearly, entrepreneurs and consumers alike are left vulnerable.

I also want to point out that I did not stick around to watch any of the marathon live stream (more on that manipulative practice below), so I interviewed @ Sebastian Hidalgo who has followed Hormozi for many years and attended parts of the live stream. You’ll see his insights throughout this article. 

Okay … we’re ready: let’s dig in. 

The Psychology of Persuasion and Belonging

Humans are wired to connect. Psychologists Baumeister and Leary (1995) called belonging “a fundamental human motivation.” This truth shapes every brand interaction, every community, every marketing moment.

Hormozi understands this. He frames his launches as massive cultural events, where being “in the room” signals not only access to value but alignment with success itself. That’s identity-driven belonging.

But persuasion and manipulation diverge at one key point: respect for autonomy. 

Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011) reminds us that most decisions are made quickly, emotionally, and without full rational processing. Ethical persuasion acknowledges this and provides space for reflection. Manipulation exploits it.

Sebastian Hidalgo, hostage negotiator turned ethical sales strategist, observed that what Hormozi presents as community and belonging often functions more like (not so) subtle pressure to conform, with the framing designed to make people feel that opting out means missing success.

The FOMO Trap

Fear of missing out is a powerful motivator. Research from IBM (2025) found that 64% of companies invest in technologies prematurely because they fear being left behind. Hormozi taps into this same driver by insisting that his livestream was the “only place” to access certain offers.

Sebastian pointed out that the supposed “live-only” exclusivity of the offer was undermined by the same deal being available on LinkedIn, which shows how artificial scarcity can be engineered to push compliance rather than reflect reality.

When scarcity is manufactured rather than genuine, it ceases to be persuasion and becomes deception. 

Ethical marketing aligns urgency with true limits: a deadline, a cap, or an actual exclusive opportunity. Manipulation fabricates limits to drive compliance … and let’s not forget the countdown timing creating false urgency for a deal that’s already proven to not be exclusive. 

The Charity Frame vs. Commercial Reality

This one really gets me. 

Another tactic in this launch was framing the purchase of his book as a charitable contribution. 

Hormozi tapped into the higher values of the trapped audience, trying to make them like they were in a position to be generous, to contribute to the greater good.

But in practice, he was pulling out all the stops to 1) claim bloated book sale numbers and 2) educate the masses on ways to add a little fraud into their business. 

Nothing about his offer was done from a value-offer standpoint when we look through an ethical and value-seeking lens. He positioned everything to manipulate the emotions (and the bank accounts) of his buyers. 

Not to mention another problem: The full audiobook was and is already available for free on Spotify. 

The offer was not scarce, nor was the purchase structurally charitable. Instead, it was marketed as a “cause” when the mechanics mirrored a traditional sales funnel.

Trust matters more than ever. Edelman’s 2025 Trust Barometer found that brand trust now rivals price and quality as a driver of choice. If customers discover that their “donation” was simply a repackaged purchase, their trust erodes.

Sebastian shared that for many buyers, the offer was presented as though it was built with their best interests at heart—wrapped in language of generosity and contribution—but when you look at it through the lens of psychology, it becomes clear that the framing was manipulative at every angle, designed less to help and more to compel compliance.

Manipulation by Design: Unsubscribe as Resubscribe

The unsubscribe experience is another example. Instead of being honored, my request was rerouted into another sales mechanism. 

In psychology, this undermines psychological safety — the sense that one’s boundaries will be respected.

PwC’s 2024 consumer trust report highlights that respecting user choice is foundational to brand credibility. Kahneman, Sibony, and Sunstein’s Noise (2021) explains how judgment errors accumulate when signals are inconsistent. 

Sebastian highlighted that rerouting unsubscribe clicks into another funnel blurred the line between consent and coercion, since users weren’t being given a genuine choice to step away.

The Psychology of Duration and Cognitive Fatigue

Perhaps the most overlooked tactic was the sheer length of the livestream. Hours of continuous content, punctuated by urgency triggers, scarcity claims, and hype cycles.

Psychologists have long studied the effects of prolonged persuasion contexts. Baumeister’s research on ego depletion (1998) shows that decision-making power diminishes with repeated exposure to choices and stimuli. Vrij (2008) observed similar compliance outcomes in interrogation settings: over time, cognitive resistance erodes.

Kahneman (2011) explains that under cognitive overload, humans default to System 1 processing — fast, automatic, and compliance-oriented.

Sebastian noticed it too: “The longer it went on, the less it felt like choice. It was more like wearing people down.”

Framing a marathon sales event as an “immersive experience” sounds empowering, but functionally, it uses fatigue as a lever. 

Ethical marketers respect human limits. Manipulative marketers weaponize them.

The Illusion of Exclusivity and Manufactured Belonging

Belonging is powerful. Brands that create true belonging offer spaces where values align and people feel seen. But belonging can also be simulated.

Hormozi’s event promised community through exclusivity. The framing suggested that being present meant being part of a movement. But structurally, it was transactional: access in exchange for purchase.

And let’s talk about the “access” he offered. A $30 book + a $5,968.01 upsell to “donate” 199 additional books, get 12 playbooks (that will probably be available as lead magnets soon), get access to a mystery AI tool, and be a part of another mass video call that will undoubtedly use the same practices and (my hunch) offer an upsell.  

“While Hormozi frames his approach as empowering entrepreneurs, the reality is that many small business owners take on more risk than they can sustain, demonstrating how perceived opportunity can become systemic pressure,” Sebastian added.

The Claimed “World-Bettering” Value vs. The Real-World Impact

Here’s where I really spent a lot of time evaluating what he was claiming he was doing through his offer and what the reality of his offer looks like. 

When it comes to ethical practices in marketing and branding, the actual value and intent of the value weigh heavy.

Empower Entrepreneurs

What He Presents:
Hormozi claims to help business owners — often gyms, coaches, and small service providers — make more money by packaging and pricing their services more effectively. His books ($100M Offers, $100M Leads, $100M Sales, $100M Equity) are pitched as “the playbook” given away for free, removing barriers for anyone motivated to grow.

What Happens in Practice:
On the surface, this equips small businesses to earn more. In practice, many who adopt his methods chase unsustainable scaling, overpromise results, or take on financial risk they can’t sustain. Some succeed, but others burn out faster, widening inequality between those who can leverage the system and those who can’t.

Democratize Knowledge

What He Presents:
He shares content across YouTube, podcasts, and social platforms at massive scale. The pitch is that you don’t need a high-priced coach … you can learn for free if you take action.

What Happens in Practice:
Free content is generous, but it functions as a funnel magnet. The “free playbook” primes reciprocity and loyalty, making audiences more susceptible to upsells. Democratization looks less like accessibility and more like engineered mass attention.

Encourage Risk-Taking and Growth

What He Presents:
He frames entrepreneurship as the highest-leverage path for wealth creation. By teaching growth tactics, he argues he’s helping more people build wealth, employ others, and stimulate economic activity.

What Happens in Practice:
For some, this message is motivating. For others, it fuels hustle culture, burnout, and shame cycles, especially if results don’t match the promise. The broader impact is less about sustainable entrepreneurship and more about reinforcing a culture of overwork and risk without adequate safety nets.

Philanthropy as Branding

What He Presents:
Recent launches have been framed as charitable or donation-driven. The message: “I make money to give it away,” signaling that his personal gains translate into collective good.

What Happens in Practice:

Framing purchases as donations muddies the truth of where money goes and who benefits. If the mechanics don’t match the prosocial framing, philanthropy becomes marketing theater. The intended world-bettering image collapses into performative branding.

Why It Works (and Why It’s Dangerous)

Zaltman (2003) found that 95% of consumer decisions are subconscious. Hormozi leverages subconscious triggers — urgency, belonging, exclusivity — with precision. That’s why his tactics generate massive sales.

But McKinsey’s 2025 research shows that for repeat business, values alignment and trust now outrank price. Short-term wins built on manipulation compromise long-term equity.

Sebastian captured the paradox: “It’s not that his tactics don’t work—it’s that they work at the cost of trust.”

Toward Ethical Influence: What We Can Learn

This isn’t about tearing down Hormozi. It’s about clarity, education and teaching others how to look through the lens of ethical branding and non-manipulative marketing. 

Influence is powerful, and with power comes responsibility.

My mission is to recenter business around humanity, and this use case,does the opposite. It centers around one man (who oddly enough poses with photos of his book like it’s a precious child). His sole goal when looking at the positioning and messaging throughout the campaign and launch was to make money. 

Sebastian did acknowledge that he was tossing in little sidenotes about not using his tools to manipulate and to be ethical in its use, but then immediately stepped right back into the next manipulative trick to keep the buyers going. His claims here are just another way of building pseudo-trust. 

Cialdini (2001) teaches that persuasion works best when it resonates with a person’s self-image. That principle doesn’t require manipulation. It requires alignment.

But here’s the thing that keeps me a little stuck: If Hormozi’s buyers truly only want to make money at all costs, maybe he is in alignment with them…

What I do know is that ethical influence means:

• Transparency: offers that are what they say they are.

• Consent: unsubscribe means unsubscribe.

• Boundaries: respecting cognitive limits.

• Belonging: communities that transcend transactions.
  
  

Sebastian’s final words stay with me: “If we call manipulation value, we redefine marketing as extraction. But if we call belonging value, we redefine marketing as transformation.”

Conclusion: From Manipulation to Meaning

Hormozi’s book launch is a case study in both the power and peril of psychological influence. He is undeniably successful. But his tactics illustrate the thin line between persuasion and manipulation.

For conscious founders and entrepreneurs, the lesson is not to avoid influence. It’s to use it responsibly. Marketing can either wear people down or lift them up. It can either fabricate scarcity or foster belonging.

The future belongs to those who choose meaning over manipulation.

References

Baumeister, R. F., Bratslavsky, E., Muraven, M., & Tice, D. M. (1998). Ego depletion: Is the active self a limited resource? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(5), 1252–1265. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.74.5.1252

Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1995). The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 117(3), 497–529. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.117.3.497

Cialdini, R. B. (2001). Influence: The psychology of persuasion. Harper Business.

Edelman Trust Barometer. (2025). 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer: Brand trust, from we to me. Edelman. https://www.edelman.com/trust

IBM Institute for Business Value. (2025). The decision dilemma: Decision making in the age of AI. IBM. https://www.ibm.com/thought-leadership/institute-business-value/report/decision-dilemma

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Kahneman, D., Sibony, O., & Sunstein, C. R. (2021). Noise: A flaw in human judgment. Little, Brown Spark.

McKinsey & Company. (2025). The state of customer care: Future-proofing for value and growth. McKinsey & Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/the-state-of-customer-care

Vrij, A. (2008). Detecting lies and deceit: Pitfalls and opportunities (2nd ed.). John Wiley & Sons.

Zaltman, G. (2003). How customers think: Essential insights into the mind of the market. Harvard Business School Press.