We just do a quick sound. Check, Casey would you have for breakfast this morning,
honey? I'm serious.
Obviously, how do you serious Breakfast of Champions? All right. Barely one sentiment at this altitude. I
can run flat out for a half mile before
my hands start shaking and I don't know. It's a cybernetic organism living tissue over metal endoskeleton.
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Boys and girls. This is Tim Ferriss and welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferriss show where it is, my job to deconstruct, world-class performers, whether they are just prodigies hedge fund managers celebrities like the governator Arnold Schwarzenegger or say legendary music. Producers, like Rick Rubin, anyone in between military, artistic, you name it. There are patterns that you can tease out and it is my job to try to find the routines, the habits, the favorite books, the meals,
Timing everything that you can apply from their life to your own, to develop your own skills, to develop your own version of success, both in your personal, and professional lives. And this episode is no exception. I had the chance to chat with Casey neistat. We've been trying to get together for a very long time. Casey is a fascinating filmmaker, he would also call himself a YouTuber and if you look for his name on the interwebs, Casey neistat, any is
Sta T. He's also at Casey neistat on Twitter. You find headlines like the following from adweek. How filmmaker Casey neistat gets away with murder? That was the headline and talks about how he effectively took a budget. The Nike gave him and used it to travel around the world with his friend and then had Nike. Thank him for it another headline from Teen welfare, dad to YouTube, icon both accurate. Next headline Casey neistat can pretty much do anything that he wants as he see the pattern here.
And it's a very fascinating story because Casey has done the opposite of what a lot of people feel you should do. In other words, he was a very popular. Indie, director had won all sorts of awards at Sundance popular. On HBO has a wall full of awards and moved to self publishing on the internet instead. Right now, most people look at say going on YouTube, as a starting point to stair, step to more traditional media and distribution heated.
The opposite. He's a high school dropout, and we met through a very good friend of mine named sep at the MIT media lab, and we cover a lot. We cover his history, we cover overcoming adversity. We talked about his decision to Vlog that is put out one video per day, and how that decision made his popularity explode. He's a, he's a quirky guy. He's a, he's very well known for running. So we talked about the physical aspect of his life. He still makes a lot of Zone props and there are lots of questions.
And I wanted to ask for instance, you know, if you are able to charge five, six figures, maybe more for product placement. YouTube videos. Why on Earth would you start yet another company a startup Tech startup? It's a fascinating guy. I love his work and I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I enjoyed it. Say hello to Casey at Casey neistat Cas ey, any is t-80. And without further Ado, please enjoy my conversation with Casey neistat.
Casey, welcome to the show.
Great to be here.
I have had so many requests from my fans to connect with you, and of course, we have many mutual friends, Ryan holiday, sep cam VAR, very old buddy of mine among others, and I'm a fan of your work. So thanks for making the
time. Yeah, it's great to it's great to finally speak. I feel like you and I tried to actually connect physically on the phone. I think there was a text back and forth at one point in time. So it's nice to finally, as I said
I hear your
voice, I think it's fated to happen, you know, things connect when they're intended to connect on some level and that having been said you are in New York City and just had it would seem like the the entire Squad Squadron of police cars from NYPD pull up outside your house, isn't like the professional or anything. There any any any catastrophe pending outside of your out to no no
no and I warned you of that before we started recording.
Just to let you know that when you hear sirens in the background or whatever it might be not to be alarmed, but I think one of the, one of the biggest battles for me of being a filmmaker making movies in New York City for 15 years. Now, has been figuring out how to navigate the incessant noise pollution that is Downtown Manhattan and to paint a little picture for your audience. My, my office is on the second floor facing Broadway. So that means it's that the exact height of all the exhaust pipes that
Really loud buses that drive by and I have single-pane windows. So I will try my best, but if you if you hear what sounds like some sort of battle taking place in the background, know that everything's fine. That's just New York City.
I remember very distinctly. This one night when I was working on my TV show and we had to do voice overs, we had to do. Pick up lines and we were filming. I'm not going to name the hotel but at in a hotel room in New York City that was on the third or fourth floor.
A very busy intersection. And literally, every time I got three quarters of the way through any line. We tried this at two different times during the day, we had to start over and over and over. It was just the most maddening experience imaginable. But the, the how do you contend with that actually will start there? Because I remember this joke that someone told me about audio and they said, you know, why does thunder come after lightning it? Because even God has to wait for audio.
And is that a is that one of the biggest challenges of working in New York City? Are there other challenges that people might not be aware of?
I mean, that's probably the most like tactile. That's, that's probably easiest to point to. But I'd say like to digress here, it's more than just a battle that is recording. Audio for films that this is noise pollution in New York City, but my wife and I moved to,
To Tribeca. We actually live on Broadway in New York City and the the grumbling of a garbage truck or cement mixer, or a bus. I have become so sensitive to that. I freaked out when it goes by, my wife has to tell me to calm down and it's one of the biggest reasons why I want to leave the city now. After 15 years is it's just it's a noise that it's not just a noise like lightning or I mean like thunder or loud music. It's a noise that
Kills all other noises. So it's like this black cloud of sound that prevents any communication or conversation or human interaction. It just destroys everything and it wrecks, my world. And I take it. So personally,
and here's you've been in the city, then for 15 years, but you grew up in Connecticut. Is that right?
Yeah. So I lived in, I was born and raised in Southeastern Connecticut, and I always, I always sort of preface that by saying I'm
From the poor part of Connecticut. I'm from the shitty part of Connecticut. Not Connecticut, has always been people think Connecticut, they think Greenwich and the fancy parts and Connecticut has kind of another side to those tracks and that's where I'm from.
And is it true that you were on welfare at one point because I was I was going to bring that up later in the conversation but I've read that and this is that is that true? And you drew it. Ryan and I have talked about your background and how fascinating is, but he told me that
You had dropped out of high school and then I'd read that you were on welfare, but I was hoping you could provide some context around those kind of early years.
Yeah. You know, I kind of, you know, I had a, I had a Troublesome like, adolescents one of four kids and my parents got divorced when I was in, I think a freshman in high school and I think it's always a real challenge for for any family. But at that age, I think it's probably the most, you know, I have a grown son. Now who's a senior in high school and the freshman in high school at there.
Thirteen years old and such a vulnerable age for young people. And I didn't cope very well with the issues that were happening at home. And I ran away from home and moved in with this girl and got her pregnant because that's what teenagers do. And you know, I had a kid, my son was born two weeks after my 17th birthday. You know, I never I never went back home after running away from home at age 15. I never went to my parents for money. I just kind of when I say aye
I left home, I proper left home, and never went back. And yeah, when my kid was born, we were on welfare. We got free. Let me think. What was it? We get free milk. And then there was something else is like welfare. As you get this, it's, you get this credit card, they can spend money on anything, and then you get free milk and maybe free diapers. I don't remember how it work is long time ago, but certainly it was very helpful at that, time in my
life and the, how did
The bridge from that point to film come about because I'm and we'll talk about some of your specific work but how did that develop the sort of interest and foray into
filmmaking?
You know, I think that it's funny because it Tim that question itself is something I've only really been started to examine in the last couple years of my career, as people ask me, more and more and especially with the launch of my tech company, and looking back at it. I think it's a pretty specific thing which is that was one of four kids like the middle sort of Forgotten child. Not, the youngest, not the oldest not the girl but the other one that was me. So I always was sort of the loudest
The most attention because nobody paid attention to me. So, my psychiatrist says anyways, and and I think like, when my older brother van, who I credit with, getting me into filmmaking when he showed me in 2000 or 1999, the how the first iMac that big blue bubbly looking, I'm acting how you could edit video on that. I just saw something that that really captured my imagination and when he and I edited the very first thing ever edited, which is
Taking my at the time, baby sent to the zoo. All the sudden I saw this opportunity to take what was an idea or set of ideas that only existed in my head and turn it into something. Tangible, turn into something that I could then share with people and for someone who had spent my whole life, then I'll 18 years of it, 19 years of it feel like I never had a voice. All of a sudden via filmmaking I sort of felt like I had a voice at a
loudspeaker
That makes perfect sense. And from that from that feeling, let's Flash Forward for a second because I really want to introduce people to some of your work if they haven't seen it before. But could you talk about bike Lanes or make it count? Whichever came first?
Yeah, bike Lanes came first, but bike lanes are really good example of that bike Lanes was probably there's only been a, how do I preface this people ask like where do you come up with the ideas for your
Which
and I always say, like, whatever affects me whatever, impacts me, whatever. I care about is what I make a movie about and bike Lanes was a movie. I made in 2010, I think maybe it's 2011 wherein I was given a summons from a police officer for riding my bike outside of the bike Lanes, which for starters, it turns out is not an actual infraction but beyond that it really frustrated me because I wasn't breaking any laws and I thought that was doing something that was completely. Just I think what most people would have done.
One is maybe gone to court and fought the $50 summons and probably would have won and wasted a half of their day and the process, but I redirected my anger and I meet a movie that really express my frustration, but did it in a somewhat sardonic way and that movie, when tremendously viral online, it was seen like five million times and it's first day. And this is before I had an audience on YouTube and at one point in time, Mayor Bloomberg actually actually had to respond to a question about the video in a press conference.
So yeah. Is it a very that's a really literal example of, you know, me being a frustrated kid and wishing, I had a way for everyone to hear in a way to share my frustrations and that movie is very much. So compartmentalization at that exact emotion and then outcome
now in concrete terms, can you give people sort of a visual though for what you ended up doing in that film? Yeah, so it's very, very Buster Keaton and Away
the cop
Argument was predicated on this idea that the bike lanes were there to keep you safe. The bike lanes are for cyclists. I was riding outside of the bike Lanes. Therefore, I was unsafe and should be summoned, are given a summons. So I made a movie where it just sort of start to the beginning, where I say the cops and had to stay in the bike lane, no matter what, and no matter what is is underscored and I proceeded to ride my bike around. New York City crashing into everything that is in the bike Lanes. Preventing people from actually cycle.
And safely within the lanes themselves. And that sort of crescendos when I, when I crash into a police car that was parked in the middle of a bike
lane. So with something like that. Now, the bike Lanes, taking this frustration or dissatisfaction and scratching your own itch, which segues nicely into Tech, and we'll get to that. Also, I mean, almost all the best Founders. I know are scratching their own itch when they create a product or a service.
I mean, for instance, with the looking at that the iPod batteries and whatnot, have you ever have you had a case where you vented frustration in a public way that you regretted after the fact, or wish you'd handled
differently?
Regrets a strong word but one that I look back on and sort of shake my head was as very young. When was this? I'm trying to come up with a year for you to admit, I don't know, but it's probably 22 or something like that. And I was, it was a real. I was a nobody then. So nobody knew who I was. And I just made a movie with my brother about bicycle theft in New York City and they invited us on morning, local Morning, News to, to talk about bike theft and they wanted us to recreate a bike being stolen, and we showed
There. And this woman who was the host of the morning of the Morning. News was so rude to us, because we're just kids for two kids and show up early in the morning. She was so rude to us. And so mean to us. And then he swore at her intern in front of us, and we're just like, my God, this woman who does? She think she is. So we we kind of pranked her on air and my brother pretended to cut cut me when he was releasing the bike. And this was, I want to say like maybe
Maybe when YouTube had just come out, this is like other than 2005-2006. And that scene went crazy, crazy, crazy viral, and it's basically this woman talking to camera about what's taking place. And here, they are demonstrating a bike lock. And then all of a sudden, I start screaming and drop them around and squeeze Kevin. It's all over myself and at no point in time. Did anyone, especially though the woman think that it was real. I'm not a very good actor. I had ketchup packets, all
Me and my brother was like shaking his head, but her response is, what got people so excited, cause she freaked out, she very quickly, turned into that werewolf, that was wearing it in turns earlier in the day and in any event, it became this huge story. It was all over the New York Post, it was like, you know, they they vilified her and it was whatever it was what it was. But looking back at it, like I'm not a huge fan of pranks. I'm not a huge fan at a laughs, that's it.
Someone else's expense, and I think so much of the response to that was was out of context like the world didn't know that this, that we, that I was doing this because this one was mean to me the world just saw me being kind of like a prankster and that's an image that I don't like to project. So the facts that is Miss contextualized, I think is sort of a silly was a silly.
That was the the bike
Thief? Yeah. Not in that, the video itself. Chris this, this little prank that we pulled on air. I think that it was a sort of lack the
It lacked the societal or cultural relevance of maybe, some of my other yippee movies that definitely had a purpose. This is much more of just just being a jerk prankster kind of guy which is definitely not how I'd describe anything else I've ever done in the tenure of my career.
When when someone asks you, what do you do these days? How do you answer that? I'm sure it depends on the context but in general and how do you respond to that
question? I mean, YouTuber got it.
You know, used to say in my Twitter bio that Casey neistat crater the HBO series at one point in time. I said that it like award-winning filmmaker. I don't think I gave myself that title but other pert that's not an inaccurate title. And now when I just take a big step back and I say what and what, how do I want to be identified? I think being a YouTuber being sort of being like every other kid on YouTube is maybe the most flattering
Clattering context for me to live in. I like Tech entrepreneur, but it's just such a pretentious, kind of stupid title that there were there an easier way to say that. If there were less annoying way to say, Tech entrepreneur. I'd say that's, that's it because 90% of my time is my technology company. And 10% is creating YouTube videos, but 90% of my efforts in the tech company are internal facing and not external facing and 100% of what I do on YouTube.
You go straight out to the world. So for all those reasons, I identify most as a YouTuber
and let's, let's talk about one of your most. If not, the most, correct me if I'm wrong. Popular video on your YouTube channel, which is Make It Count. Is that still the most popular?
I think so. I don't know the one I released when I release 38 minutes ago, I hope gets more views than that but we'll see ya, Make It Count. He's a really
Is a really interesting case study 10 because that was such an inflection point in my career as a filmmaker, you know? So historically I had directed advertisements as a primary means of income which is a really convoluted unnecessarily complicated somewhat ridiculous process. We're just a tremendous amount of money is wasted now at the end of the day, you turn out something that is sort of creativity by committee, which is mushy invisible and just no one cares about. That's how I describe.
Of all advertising that's done. And after Mayfield showing us trying to figure out what to do with my career, I went to the production company that represented me the company that brought me my advertising gigs and I said, all I want to do is make awesome videos, put them on the Internet and then find companies that will give me money to make awesome videos like my other videos. But I'll do it for them. And my production company shook their head of me and they said, good luck. It will never work like that. So I immediately stopped working with them and I went on my own, I kind of went rogue and
And somewhere in there, Nike came to me and I did this tiny project with them which led to a larger project which is a 3 3 movie A3, Internet movie deal. And the first two movies were right down the line in which there were what you'd expect. I had big, big huge, you know, a hundred million dollar athletes in them. There were very well received, I loved making them, but when it came time to make the third movie, I was really burnt out from from the process and at the ninth hour, I
My editor up and I said, hey, let's not make this advertisement. Let's not make this movie and said, let's do something. I've always wanted to do, which is let's just take the entire production budget and travel, the world until we run out of money and will record that will make some sort of movie about that. And he said, you're crazy, but sure, it wasn't his ass, it was mine. And that's, that's exactly what we did. And make it count became this video about running around the world and sort of chasing after what matters to you.
And that was the point. That was the message of the campaign was to make it count, was to make every moment in life count. So there was something sort of poetic about the fact that by us going rogue and taking this budget and doing something weren't supposed to do, but that's something that narrative was so perfectly in line with their messaging. That in the end, we had something that they were tremendously excited about. And that was and I'm not sure anymore Tim because I haven't checked on YouTube, but that was
Keys. Most watched video on on the internet for a number of years and everyone is really excited about the way that it turned
out. What, what did the phrasing? What was your phrasing in the first phone call or email? When you gave Nike the heads-up on what you'd actually done?
Sure. So, a little context for your, for your listeners out there. The, the video literally opens with scrolling text that says Nike gave me a budget.
Budget to make them a commercial instead, I blew the budget traveling the world and that's literally what happened. So, so some details around that to color in what happened specifically was like, firstly, this was the smallest budget of all three budgets for all three videos. So, this is the kind of budget that I would say would be equivalent to what Nike typically spends on Craft Services. What they typically found on snacks for one of their huge music for one of their huge advertisement. So
Wasn't that much accountability on top of that, they knew me, they trusted me and they weren't working with me because they thought I could make them a perfect TV commercial. There were working with me because they wanted something different. So, I called them before, before I did this before, I took off, and I said, look, I'm not going to do the treatment treatments like a script, I'm not going to follow this trip, I'm gonna do something different and they said, okay, what are you going to do? I said, I don't know, but I'm going to travel and it's going to be great and they just said, like it was one Executive MBA,
Particularly I need to Alex Lopez. He's still at Nike and he's an incredible creative genius and he was like, Casey just don't screw me over here. That's like Alex, no promises. But we're gonna we're gonna go and then we were sort of like, radio blackout for the next for the next 10 days. You know, we how we did that movie and you know, we hit like whatever 15 countries in 9 days. But we had a girl here in New York City and she was working pretty much around the clock and begin.
Email from me, from whatever internet cafe. I was in saying we want to go here next and then to your figure out how to make it happen until all the money dried up.
And when you were doing that, I mean, you've done a fair amount of traveling. I mean, did you do you have any particular routines or tricks for maintaining sanity, or at least minimizing completely burning yourself out when following that type of
schedule?
Well, firstly, that type of schedule is a unique type of schedule. That is, that is like Defcon one total chaos schedule. That's completely unsustainable unrealistic and that I would advise no human being on Earth to ever attempt that and like to add one detail to that. I did with my best friend Max and we went it wasn't till our sixth night of travel that we slept horizontally and that's not like we were keeping track. So we were sleeping upright, coach seat,
Either on airplanes are on buses like going from from Zambia to to Kenya like we just we never ever laid down and I remember our our feet were so swelled, we're so swollen that we couldn't get them into our shoes. We just had these big fat swollen feet. So I recommend it for no one that said, I still travel quite a bit and I myself, like a real expert when it comes to traveling Tim, you're someone who has probably Define
and what it means to hack life better than anyone else when it comes to traveling though. I think that I've got a really good grip on where all the, loopholes and shortcuts are two really like, remove the hate that is commercial. Aviation,
could you give could you give people a taste?
For sure. And it's funny because you tweeted earlier
and I know you have a video. I saw I saw some fans link back to it so I'd love for you to give a little bit of color on that
you tweeted earlier today. What did I ask you?
In our interview today and somebody threw your back. Something negative about the movie I made about how to get free upgrades or do my investors get angry because I only fly first class in the truth is, if you fly enough, you can really really crack the whole system that is that is flying commercial that said, it's very important to say this loud and clear. If you don't fly a ton, if you don't, if you don't spend at least 200,000 miles in the air a year, which is
She's about six times around the earth. If you don't do that, none of these tricks work, these only work if you fly a lot. But if you fly a lot and you fly with one Airline and you really climbed the top of the Heap, which is Airline status, you build relationships. You can almost always ensure that you will get special treatment and after flying a lot of kind of makes sense. Like, if you have the airline, why should you cater to a mass audience? That just goes on kayak in search of the cheapest flights and then jumps on a plane. There's no loyalty.
See, there's nothing there. That incentivizes someone to fly with you but someone like me who spends ungodly amounts of money flying and traveling every year of Court. They of course they want of Court my influence and my loyalty and that courtship is something that you can exploit to your own benefit. And I guess that's how I describe what it means to hack. Hack commercial
fly. Do you if you're traveling and trying to travel light, but you're going to be recording video. What is your go to get what?
Is your go-to kit look like what type of gear?
Well, I always, I always travel light. It doesn't matter whether I'm going somewhere for overnight, you're going somewhere for a month and a half. I always have the same setup, which is one small as big as it can possibly be while still be a carry-on rolling suitcase. And then, my backpack and all my camera gear is in my backpack and my laptop, and all my everything else is in the rolling suitcase. But, literally, I can't fit a pair of socks into my backpack. So, I always have to have
The second tag with, with the miscellaneous as in clothing in it, but camera gear is pretty cut-and-dry. I always have a point and shoot and then I always have an SLR,
what type of point and shoot and SLR. Do you, do you currently
favor? Well, I, this is not by any means, an endorsement because I can talk at nauseam about why this Hardware is absolutely terrible and everything's wrong. Everything that's wrong with it. But it's my current
Favorite. So again, this is not an endorsement in any capacity but I currently use the Canon 70D as my main shooter, including all my Vlogs and I do that because it's the only one that has. It has the best auto focus technology of any SL are in the market. And when you're shooting with one hand you can't be pulling Focus so that's why I use that and then my my latest point and shoot is the Sony RX100 which has been great.
But there's some reliability issues there, which is exactly what I expect from. Sony is reliability issues. So, what is still far for affection?
What is your, what is your post-production look like? What are you using to? What are the tools that you use for editing and post?
So I just use Final Cut 10, which is really terrible software, it's just not great. It's their, very real reliability concerns around it in almost. Feels like it's been handicapped by Apple to.
To appeal, more to the, the consumer, and prosumer than the professional Market, which is antithetical to Final Cut 7 and every previous iteration, which is absolutely professional editing software. I think they make this for, for people that don't consider themselves produce a lot of options. So, there are some benefits to that and some distractions to that, and I feel like I'm sort of maxed out what the what the software is capable of. And now, I'm really starting to feel the fact that it's not, it's not
As capable as other professional grade editing
software is there is there any other software that you use? In addition to, in addition to
that? Not really, you know, I'm all about speed and efficiency, I upload every single day. So with that, you lack the opportunity to spend a tremendous amount of time color, grading, or bring into after effects to clean up or do the kinds of things that Technologies and software enable us to do.
I have much less of an appreciation for what technology can bring my work in much more of an appreciation for, for the craft of Storytelling and in communicating ideas, and sharing messages, which does not necessitate, you know, the kinds of things that technology enable you to do today.
So, looking at, say, other people taking a stab at YouTube, what are the biggest wastes of time? Generally speaking in your mind or how do novices,
Aced the most time whether it's in the filming stage or in post or
otherwise I mean, I think it's much it's less technical than anything else. I think that the the biggest waste of energy and resources on on YouTube as you see YouTube creators trying to copy and be exactly like someone else in the only thing that succeeds on YouTube are people that are thinking outside the box doing new things. And I can talk about that, you know, until
Until the cows come home because it's something I believe in so profoundly. But you know, YouTube is built on originality and built an unfounded genres and styles of content creation. You know, I think 2011 YouTube spent two hundred million dollars. Sorry for that keeping, that's a good evil be that they spent they spent two hundred million dollars on giving these huge budgets to known production.
Entities, that is like the MTV's of the world. And, like, LACMA, for example, in all these big entities, 200 million bucks late, start YouTube channels. So original high-quality content would be made just for YouTube and every one of them failed. And at the same time that they were failing in those two hundred million dollars were evaporating all of these individuals, all these young people creating content that fit and get no categories. Came up on YouTube in a huge way and now it's those creators, those original creators that are defining, what YouTube is,
Defining it in a way that does not exist inside any of the Norms of filmmaking. In fact, almost that exception, most of the successful content creators on YouTube, don't come from a filmmaking background, but instead they've sort of, they've, they've, like metastasized. What is a capability elsewhere like an understanding elsewhere, and they've turned that into success on YouTube. Tyler Oakley was big on Tumblr. He's a big bloggers and he turned that into being a vlogger and now, he has he's tremendously.
Ooh intial essentially talk show host, which is, which is what he does via YouTube, and
what that's all, I'll tell you how. I first came in contact with your work, which was, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine named Jason Harris, who works at a company called mechanism. They do a lot of work with YouTubers and he's a very, very smart guy. And I was lamenting the fact that I felt like the ship had sailed on YouTube for me,
It was it was not the best fit because I couldn't find. It was hard for me to find popular YouTubers who are not appealing primarily to say like the 12 to 15 year old demographic with like super fast cuts and with a very very particular style and I was pointed to your work because a number of folks including Jason said it was very smart and probably hit a similar demographic not so that I could copy it but so I could look at it as a potential role.
Model, so 444. Someone let's say in my shoes, where I'm comfortable with text. I'm comfortable with audio. Haven't done as much video, although, I've dabbled in television. I am fascinated by the Allure and promise and direct connection that YouTube offers. How would you suggest someone like me get started on YouTube? Would it be with a daily Vlog? Would it be with something else? How should I kind of get my feet wet and and start getting
Susie a stick about it,
you know, I often get asked about what is the best way to achieve success on YouTube. And the truth is, if there were anyone defined path if they're anything, that was sort of quantifiable or anything that could be written out, I think a lot of people would follow that. Trajectory, the reality is pretty far from that though, there are. I don't know what the exact number is. I think it's 1.1 billion different channels on YouTube and there are 400 hours of content uploaded, every minute of
every day to YouTube. So like the vastness the depth that is the ocean of YouTube is, is this huge Abyss? That's very hard to stand out in. The only thing that I can say, only advice I ever give is is don't think consideration will not yield success on YouTube. I think it's purely based around action. Some other things that I pushed for is like quantity matters, it's not just the quality of the work.
It's also the quantity of the work people look to YouTube, not to find great. Well, made films. They look there for relationships. I think that's why. Yeah, I think that's why. When you look at like, I don't know. Who can I pick on? Look at Vanity Fair then he fares turning out this, incredibly high production star-studded content, nobody's watching and nobody gives a shit. That's not why people watch YouTube, there's no relationship there. The reason why I'm psyched to be considered and identified as a YouTuber versus a
Akers is YouTube, unlike filmmaking is not a one-way street. It's this reciprocal symbiotic, relationship that your content has with with a very specific audience and then that that audience has with your content. So, to succeed within their is very challenging, and I think the only way to do it is to find your own path. The only way to find that path is to act is to start
going. And what what let me dig into that because I
This Thread and I'll just draw parallel and writing. So I remember at one point I was talking to PO Bronson a writer, I admire and I asked him what he does when he feels blocked and he said, write about what you're right about what angers you like write about what makes you upset and that those very interesting advice but that was a very proved to be very helpful and has been helpful for me when I feel like I'm having trouble getting started.
Do you have any suggestions? I'm happy to act and I think a lot of people listening would be as well. But how do they
What might be some angles or questions or ways they can get started? Forget about success just to start getting content out
there.
Sure, well I think that what YouTube uniquely possesses and its audience over any other, any other distribution Outlet is that the audience is so fine, tuned to bullshit there. Bullshit detectors are so highly refined that even the slightest amount of bullshit will set off their alarm and then you'll be rejected. The audience, the community will reject you immediately. So great place to start is one of honesty, one of frankness and that sounds
Hyperbolic or wishy-washy but the truth is being yourself on cameras and Incredibly difficult thing to do. It's why the David Letterman's and the Jimmy Fallon's of the world are so brilliant is because when you're watching Jimmy Kimmel on TV, you really believe that that's who this guy is. And when you see someone who's uncomfortable in front of the camera, which is the vast majority of us, it reeks of something else, which maybe it's something that's contrived or something, that's for something that's staked. So I always say start from a place of
Honesty. And that's where the quantity comes into play. Is because the more you're doing something, the more comfortable you become with it. So I think the combination of those two and if you throw in a little bit of passion, what truly motivates you, what do you truly interested in? I think you can find a really an actionable recipe for, for starting your building a foundation on YouTube.
So it's, it seems like and correct me if I'm wrong but that you
Not one video per day. That decision is made your popularity, really explode. So, I'd be curious to know why you think that is worked or why that has happened. And then a question from a fan that came up was you said no to vlogging before because you felt like it could make things feel contrived. How do you feel about this now?
Well, those are those are two questions so let me. Yeah, tackle tackle the first one, which is about popularity and YouTube in the reason why I started daily vlogging was because I have to unpack this a little bit, but when I started my technology company which is a social product which is it's a social network. I always knew that I would need to lean on my own social reach to my own influence to build a core use of core base of users for my product. And then, as I began, and as my tech company in
The construction of it really began by social reach started to atrophy because I wasn't creating content because I had run a company. Someone really trying to examine. How can I address both of these issues which is promote my own social influence, so it will help my company. I just made a decision, I'm on my birthday this year. My 34th birthday that I'm going to start daily vlogging and coincidentally I was like on this beautiful, lovely trip with my family and
I'm location and the Caribbean. And, and I had a lot of material those first four days and a lot of beautiful material to show off and that's what I did. And when I got home, the fourth lot of the fifth floor ever made is like me returning to work. And I say into the camera, like I don't know how sustainable this is, because I live a fairly ordinary life where I show up at work at 8:00 or 9:00 in the morning. I leave work at 7:00 at night. I go home to my family and I go to bed. There's not much in there that
Parents vlogging every single day. And the reason why I bring that specific up Tim is because that dovetails with your next question, which is I used to reject vlogging because it was a little bit of, is the dog wagging the tail, or is the tail wagging? The dog in that? I don't want to be living my life so it's interesting for my Vlog, right? And the reason why those two points dovetail so nicely is, because when I said that on the Vlog when I said, I don't know how to make this interesting now that I'm back.
My daily life, I understood vlogging as a visual public, Diary of one's life, and I think that's where I was wrong. And what this thing that I call a vlog, and I embrace that title that it's a Blog. What it's become is instead of a Daily Show for me and that show sometimes, like, like the Vlog I posted yesterday, for example is very much so a diary
Is my wife and I and my daughter going on this crazy trip, out to Queens. To try to buy some funny clothes for a wedding that we're going to, in a few months. It was very much, so a diary, but then you look at some of my other Vlogs which was just me sitting in front of a camera talking to talking, to my audience about why I'm so passionate about filmmaking or something much more personal and it feels instead of a vlog it feels much more like a confessional and some of my Vlogs are examining. Technical things like my, my electric skateboard, I've got
Entire Vlogs, dedicated to how this thing works. And some of them were building things and some of them are about how I structure my daily life. So really, I just post every 24 hours and I call it a vlog because that's the easiest thing for me to call it that the people understand. But the truth is it's not a diary of my life instead. It's this it's this outlet for whatever it is that interests me. So I hope that answers the question from the fan it's that. I understood what I said that comment about vlogging, I
Stood blogging to be one thing and then in practice and this is where this is this. Really reinforces that idea that I said about action is so important in practice. It really manifested at something wildly different from what I originally understood it to be
and in your in your daily practice your daily routine. I've read in that you might take say up to eight hours to edit one of your videos. I don't know if that's true. We can get a comment on that. But how much time do you spend interacting?
It with fans or viewers on YouTube, Twitter, all these different social platforms on a on an average daily basis. What would you say?
I mean, in aggregate, I would say it's less than less than an hour. I try my best but it's very hard. Usually, I check into my daily upload about an hour after it's been posted, I see who's commenting and what they're saying and I jump in and try to reply to as many as I possibly can on Twitter, you know?
You're pretty great on Twitter Tim. I've been following you forever but you know you respond when you can, you have got a minute of downtime, no one's looking. You're sitting in a car, you're waiting for something. You just jump on Twitter and you reply to a few tweets. But I would say there's nothing more defined than that for me and I'd love to change that. I love to figure out a way to have it. Be much more inclusive of my audience but regrettably time is fungible and to dedicate more time than I do.
Currently to my audience would need to take it away from somewhere else. I'm just not in a position to do that.
What? And I do the same thing, by the way. I mean, when I post a blog post, typically, I'll post at night so I can catch any errors that fans will point out immediately. So I'll try to hit say the UK or New Zealand, and then answer questions the following morning or along those lines, and it's something that you just have to batch. But what was your first paid?
Gig related to film. Or when did you realize that you could actually give this a gun as a
profession? Awesome question. The first paid gig I ever had was to make a happy birthday video for this guy named. Tom Toms husband was getting was, he's turning 50 years old and Tom contacted my brother and I and he said, hey I've seen some of your little art movies.
In the art world floating around the art world. This is like 2001-2002 rather. And he's like, I'd love to hire you to make a movie for my husband, and for my husband's birthday and we're like, okay, great news. Like just let me know what it costs. And all I knew at the time was that he was like a rich guy. So, like we debated for days, what do we charge? This guy and we came back with what we saw was the most
Like ambitious number, we could possibly go to him with which is like we asked for $5,000 and the truth is we were willing and ready to do it for
$100. We knew
he was a rich guy and we knew that he liked us and we knew that he'd bought really fancy art. So maybe just maybe we get away with it. He didn't bat an eye at eggs and no problem and then he said, here are a list of people I'd love for you to interview.
About my husband and it was like President Clinton wowed, like Senator Hillary, like all the members of their cabinet. Like all of these Triple A Rockstar politicians and we were just like holy smokes. Who is this guy? It was, it was Fred hochberg, who is currently the chairman of the import-export bank and his Husband is a guy named Tom Healy and Tom is currently the chairman of the Fulbright commission. So there are two probably, the biggest power couple
And one of the biggest power couples out there, and there are two lovely guys. Who to this day, I'm very, very close friends with and we got our 5,000 bucks for that gig. And it was, it was a huge
deal. That's amazing. Did they just email you through the contact email and your website or how did that connection happen?
Well, there's no website back then, back then back then I was working for ten dollars an hour as like an artist's assistant. And in the interim, I was making my brother of and I were making these little movies.
My apartment that we would post on literally like apple, I disc and we email around the link so people could download the dot MOV files and watch them in somehow. One of the artists, we knew or something like that was like I gotta check out these two young Maniacs, that I've met, who make these crazy little videos and he saw it and was like I don't want a boring video for Freddy's birthday, I want something that like it's going to keep people laughing and he gave us this crazy. This he gave us this assignment. We came back with something absolutely crazy.
That involved like that involved. You know, when we met with Hillary or sorry when we met Bill Clinton had a prepared statement on his teleprompter. And when the Secret Service left, the room to go get the president, I deleted all the information off the teleprompter. And then, while the president is sitting there in his seat, waiting for the teleprompter, I just remember him being like Nancy. What's going on here? I rushed over to him with my hands down, so I didn't get tackled by security.
Excellent, mr. President, my name is Casey. I'm here to do this interview for you, for Fred hochberg. Here's an idea. I had and he started laughing. He was like, boys, I love it. And we hit record, and we had the Nugget recorded before they got the teleprompter out of the room. And when he said the joke that we had him, say in front of the 500, people at Le Cirque, where we showed the movie for Fred's, birthday, brought down the
house. That that's a ballsy move, but I mean, I shouldn't be surprised. You're pretty ballsy bald guy to start
with. I mean back then. It was like,
Definitely a nothing to lose kind of situation. Right was we were absolutely. Nobody was getting paid ten dollars an hour for. I couldn't afford food back then if not that's not that's not hyperbole, that is fact now what
when you well let me take a step back wait when you think of the word successful, who is the first person who comes to mind and
why?
But it's a tough question. My grandmother, my grandmother is probably the most successful. She passed away two or three years, four years, they've got it stopped keeping track, she passed away at age 92 and she is like, she's my hero, she's my muse, she's my everything. And the reason why is she started tap dancing? When she was six years old, she's a little fat girl and her parents made her do something to lose lose the weight. So she started tap dancing and she loved it. And she fell
Up with something at age six and she didn't stop tap dancing until the day. Before she died at age 92, she died on a Monday morning at age 92. And the first thing we had to do after she died was call her 100 students to say. She wasn't going to make class that day. Wow. And for me, it's just like, she's never Rich. She actually never had a whole lot of money. She's a tap dance instructor, but she dedicated all the proceeds from her tap recitals to the American Cancer Society to raise money.
Any to beat cancer because cancer took her father. So she's a total hero and a philanthropist, despite not having the means. And then, on top of that, it's just like, what, what is the ultimate quantification of success? For me, it's not how much time you spend doing what you love. It's how much time you spend or how little time you spend doing what you hate. And this woman spent all day every day doing what she loved all there. She spent almost no time doing the things she didn't want.
Do she just did what she loved the most in life, which is dancing and she did that was dancing with her life. He'd wake up in the morning she was dancing. Go to bed at night, she's watching Fred Astaire on TV and that was her. You know, that was 86 years of her 92 years of existence. She spent doing nothing but exactly what she loved and I just can't think of a higher Benchmark of success than that.
How is that impacted you on a
Daily basis. And I'll just, I'll rephrase that when you wake up in the morning and you don't feel like putting out the video, right? Do you have those days? And if so, what do you do in those circumstances? What do you say to yourself?
Well, I always want to put out the video. I don't always want to make the video. So just like to give a little structure to that my day looks like, is I wake up at 4:00
Thirty in the morning is when my alarm goes off, this is seven days a week and I edit I finish my edit from the night before the edit gets done and usually between 6:30 and 7:00 from 7 to 7 45 its processing uploading designing and color correcting, everything. The thumbnail that goes on YouTube preparing the post. So it's up, it's live. It's rendered. It's fully processed and it goes live at exactly 8:00 a.m. that's seven days a week immediately after it. Am I work out which usually involves running
You know, whatever I run eight to twelve miles or going to the gym and then I'm in my office like 9:30 ish I live across the street from my from my office so it's a pretty narrow commute and then I work in my office all day long. I usually try to get out of here by 6:30 race home. Give the baby a bath and then hang out in their wife for an hour and a half. She goes to bed at like 9:00 and then I sit down, I edit until I pass out of my computer to 1:00 in the morning. I sleep usually on the couch until 4:30 which is like
You know, three four hours later I wake up and I start over and that is seven days a week. For me. Sometimes on the weekend, I spent less time in the office, but that's every day that's brutal. It's tough. So, have you always needed very little sleep. Yeah, I've always, I've never ever been a fan of sleep. I hate sleep, sleeping eating or like my two least favorite things to do and I'm frustrated every day, when I get tired, and I'm frustrated, when I get
hungry, I can help you with the lat.
Odder, maybe not the tired but the I've been doing all sorts of fasting experiments. What time do you eat? Breakfast? And what do you eat for breakfast?
I mean, I usually don't I only like I said, Honey Nut Cheerios when you asked me earlier during our audio
during the sound check,
right? Because whichever I have no idea who but some one of our team members have high tech companies, a big fan of them. There's always Honey Nut Cheerios and milk in my in my office. So when I hear somebody else spoon, clanking, the porcelain on the who Cheerios and I get up.
But just because that's sugar and that's delicious. But no I don't I don't know that I am a big breakfast eater. I usually just wait till I get really hungry and then I eat until the hunger stops. And and then I repeat, that
seems like the most natural way to go about it as opposed to eating at the by the clock. I you know I just have to mention Honey Nut Cheerios. I had breakfast with Larry King for the first time. Not long ago and we met at a sort of a Jewish bagel.
Shop and he goes there every morning and then he eats Honey Nut Cheerios so they have to keep it stocked at this place for him. I just thought that was one of the most unusual things I've ever seen. But seems like a number of top performers eat Honey Nut Cheerios for breakfast. So maybe there's something there. When that speaking of Larry King, I've always kind of idolized him for his ability to get people to open up. Do you have, you've met so many people, so many successful people over the years.
Is in different professions. Who has made you feel Starstruck and why?
Who has made me feel Starstruck God. That is a tricky one. It's funny because you know I'd go to like a lot of big celebrity events and it never really hits me with the kinds of people that you would think that it would hit me with. I'm trying to think like I met Jack Welch once in the street, right? And for whatever reason I was Starstruck by him, so excited to meet him.
But honestly, I don't know. I really just Starstruck is something that that's an experience. I don't know super well. And I guess the reason why it's just like I have about as much appreciation, understanding of that, as I do, when people get excited to meet me. And I say that right now, looking out the, I have a monitor my office at camera films just outside the sidewalk and I can count. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, kids,
Standing outside of my office right now. Reading waiting to see me. Wow, that's every day. It's never stops. And I have about as much understanding or ability to understand and empathize with those kids outside my office is I do get the idea of getting Starstruck. So
why Japanese? Why Jack Welch? I have
no idea. And this is that just finish one of his books. But I had all these ideas in my head that he had planted there, and that's something flattering. But no, I
II. Don't I definitely see people as people at face value and I think that, you know what you contribute and what you do is incredibly meaningful and important, but at the end of the day, we are all people. And I think that it's tough for me to try to elevate someone else and in the same regard, when I see videos that autoplay on Facebook of Syrian refugees getting beaten on, the Macedonian border by officers with clubs
I would say that I have what whatever, whatever that feeling of empathy would be for a movie star. I share that with them. When I look at these people, I'm like, you know, I see Kanye West and I'm like, okay he's a person just like me and I see someone holding a baby getting beaten with a club while it's pouring rain out. I say that person's just like me and it's very hard for me to think of a human being as some someone other than than an
equal. Right. And I realized I kind of walked over my
My own question or probably walked over your answer to the when you feel demotivated or that you don't want to make a video. What do you do it? Is it that the is it that your regimented? Seven-day-a-week schedule? Just doesn't allow the space for that self-doubt or
oh, no. You know, I didn't answer the question either. I digress and something but uh, no. So it's very real and waking up to edit. I never want to do it. And like yesterday I just said it was Sunday morning, that's why I'm not going to do it. And I didn't, I didn't get my post up until 1:00 in the afternoon. There's a total music
Neon on Twitter by my viewers but I don't want to do it but the truth is like I can only equate it to climbing a mountain. I've climbed some really big mountains before and when you're the closest to the peak is, when you want to give up the most, but the return that is standing at the Summit is such a victory that the minute you're up there. You just want to do it again and you forgotten about the pain. So the hate that is
Is the Battle of the edit and the upload and the bullshit, and the getting it done. And the technical problems that are outside of your control and the camera not recording audio and like every other hurdle that rock, that it comes between you and uploading. All of that is absolved, all that is erase the moment, you click upload and it's replaced with this like sensation of adrenaline and wonderment and achievement and accomplishment. That is having made something that I now get to share and that was true when I was making
Your birthday video that a couple hundred people in a room. Got to see that was true and I was making videos of my son when he was a baby and I'll share them with my family and that's certainly true of my daily uploads on YouTube, that go out to a million people a day
and
you seem to be very contrary. I don't know if you've always been that way but you're also very well-spoken. So you dropped out of high school, how do you explain that? How did you sort of develop that ability?
and it's not to say that someone who drops out of high school can't be well-spoken, but it's it's it's
I'm very impressed with how well spoken you are. So I'd just be curious to know why you think, or how you develop that? Yeah, I don't
know. I may be reading a lot. Her eyes try to surround myself with people that are smarter than I am. I mean, I can remember when I when I got my first real job, when my at the time girlfriend is pregnant with my first kid and I was 16 years old and I was in the back of a kitten and everybody just sort of thought that I was an idiot. Probably because of my aides in the fact that I was kind of a dope and probably
Like an idiot. Then as a 10th grade high school, dropout, whose only previous work experience to selling dime bags in the parking lot of high school, the lack of respect and what that felt like. And then I really remember, you know, again, 16 years old, in the kitchen of a really dumpy seafood. Restaurant getting paid $8 an hour. I really remember what would happen when I acted differently around these. These guys, that I work in the kitchen with how they would treat me differently, and every day, became the sort of social study for me this social experiment.
Went where in, how would they respond to me acting a certain way? And I remember like, when they would pick on me, instead of me trying to come up with quippy, come back to them. I would just look them in the eye and not say anything and then the picking on me stopped immediately. And I guess like that little experiment right there, was something that had a huge impact on me because you know, the more considered I am when I say things more, I think before I speak and things like that. I think the
The more people respond in the way that I would hope people respond and the more, I feel like I'm doing a good job of communicating, whatever it is that I'm trying to say whatever information that is in, trying to disseminate the more satisfying it is for me, it feels great to be understood. So I just, I do whatever I can that best services that as far as the educational part or being out of an autodidact at the big fan of reading, I'm a big fan of World War Two. Anyways,
Like I got all my business, my understanding of business and how business and life works from studying the second world war,
any particular books or documentaries or resources on World War II? That you're that? You're a big fan
of? Oh yeah, my probably my favorite or least my second favorite book in the world. It's a textbook. And it's called the second world war by John Keegan and it's literally just like 1,200 pages. That size 6 font about the second world war and I remember like getting in trouble
We have to work tired because I would be up all night long reading, this text book about World War Two. So riveting to me. I read it cover to cover. Probably three times Daisy. I remember reading the New York Times that John Keegan passed away, he just, you know, late 2000, maybe 2008-2009, time ago and being deeply, sad that this military lecturer. This professor from England had died because I felt so close to him because I read this book. There was nothing more than academics.
On the second world war was not a first-hand experience. There's no emotion in this book. It's pure military strategy and I remember deeply being emotionally affected by the fact that this guy had died, but that's one book in particular that really affected me.
How were you introduced to that book?
Or how did you find
it? I have no idea. I mean, I can tell you actually, I was at a dinner party with a girl. I had a crush on whose mother was a columnist in the New York Times. And they were talking about World War two, and one of them said, what year did, World War Two, starter something like that? And I remember thinking in my head what year did World War to start and I literally couldn't tell you forget about the decade. I couldn't tell you what part of the century.
Took place it, and I remember in that moment feeling like an idiot, the same way, I felt like an idiot in the kitchen when I got picked on. And the next day, I just went to Barnes & Noble books. There's no Amazon then and like found, whatever. Look like the most down the line, like straightforward book on the second world war, so, I could make sure that the next time I was in a conversation when World War II came out, I would be much more versed in it.
Amazing. And you said, second favorite book, what is, what is the other book that was in your
mind?
The autobiography of Malcolm X. I have read that book more times than I can count. I cried at the end of that book. I don't know why I guess, I was surprised that Malcolm X was killed even though he'd been dead for 40 years and I knew that he had been shot that book. Resonates me in such a way, you know. He just like he was a bad kid. He's a troublemaker, he's arrested. He's thrown in jail as a Dropout and a thug. And I say this, like with some hesitation
Because that means an absolute hero who really changed the world for for the better and for so many people. So I don't compare myself to him in any capacity but certainly, when I read that book for the first time I saw so many parallels between his struggles again, in a universal way in the struggles that I had and he don't, he was a troublemaker. He wasn't selling dime bags. He was doing real crime with guns and robbing people and he went to jail and, you know, he taught himself educated himself.
I'll imprison to the degree. They developed an astigmatism in his eye from Reading. Wow. In like the super dim prison light and he went into prison, the, you know, the degenerate Thug that he was and he came out of prison, I think one of the greatest communicators of the 20th century in someone who's whose ideas and the profundity behind the way he was able to share those ideas affected the world and in effect of the civil rights movement in such a way that we still feel the impact of it today.
He's just such a hero and that book is written. So in such a brilliant way that's so relatable. Even today that I can't think of another piece of writing that's impacted me. The way that movie that book has one was he sucked not
the time, not the movie, The Book? What what book have you gifted? Most other people? Is it one of these two or
know the book that gives you the most people, there's a real trouble with gifting books which is that if your gift
Ting. Someone a book. It means you think that they're going to actually read it and I would say more often than not most books that are gifted same or are more gesture by the person who gifted them to you then they are you receiving them. Like most people who gift the kind of books that I received they just want to feel special and be able to say I gave you that book. That's a little cynicism for you. But no the book I've give to the most as a book called It's not how good you are. It's how good you want to be. I think that's
Look like I'm gonna look it up right now but what it is, it's written by an adman and it's about sort of the art of advertising
great title. I mean, even if it's not the right title, I like the sound of
it. The reason why I get that book is because you can read it in like 40 minutes, right? Each page is like 20 words on it and each one of them captures like these really big lofty ideas. Here it is. It's not how good. It's how good you want to be by Paul Arden. And each book has like huge hundred fifty font
That's where it says, one sentence, but each one like really punches you in the stomach in a really big way. And I think it is, this book has the ability and it was written by an admin, but I think it's really, it's just about creativity in general. I had a breakthrough in a way that really affects you, okay? I think that there's a passage in there where you talks about how when hiring and when being, when hiring always see someone who's been fired or who has quit their previous job as a virtue.
And like, it's a bunch of little items like that. And I don't know. I just need significant book that you can sit down, and we'll shake anybody up who reads it,
I'll check it out. I'm in the shake-up phase at the moment, he can ask it just a couple of rapid-fire questions. They don't need to be rapid-fire answers, but I'll throw just a bunch of questions that you what $100 or less purchase has most positively impacted your life in the last six to 12 months or whatever comes to
mind.
$100 or less purchase. That's a really, really challenging answer. A question to answer.
Horse. I'm not extremely
expensive. No, I understand. Yeah.
So, it's not that recent but it is something that I say to young people want to get into filmmaking, but the movie that I shot. The the camera that I shot the bike Lanes movie on cost $150 and you started this interview out by by asking about that movie and I think that speaks to just how impactful that movie was in that movie was shot in $150 camera from Walmart and that movie was edited in iMovie which is free software. So I think that when I look back at like where it's really big impact
Then when it comes to making a little investment that that movie and that, that hundred fifty dollar investment, the impact it had on my life and my career is something that I often point to, as like don't blame it on the gear, don't blame it on a lack of resources because it's never the resources that determine your success. It's how you use what you have
and is there any entry level camera that you might suggest to people? Now who are looking for an equivalent and just getting started? Or is the phone good enough?
I mean, I think the phones now are great. They're way better than good enough but if you look at a lot of the big vloggers like vlogging was was a was invented by people just using the web cams on their computers. So I really just don't think the quality matters. I think cell phones. Now are incredible. If you want to get something bigger than that, you go to the store and you buy whatever the whatever the cheapest Canon point-and-shoot cameras at all as a high def video record button, they get stereo sound. They've got Zoom, it's more than what you need to tell a great story.
It's never the Hardware's only how you use
it. And speaking of loggers, so I'm not familiar with the world of loggers outside of your own who are a few vloggers. Maybe they have different styles that people could check out just to get a feel for how people are going about doing this
sure. So there's one guy. Who's a good friend of mine? His name is Ben Brown spelt. As you'd imagine in been is Ben's a guy who he's a really honest, Frank guy. And I think what
When does and vlogging, he's a daily vlogger. That's so his Vlogs are very much so by definition just a diary of his life but I think what Ben does better than anyone is he really is himself on camera. So what you're seeing on camera is who he is in real life and what the impact of that is in aggregate, is that after you spend day in and day out watching his 10-minute blogs? If your day is he becomes a friend, he becomes a friend by proxy and he lives a somewhat adventurous life. He's got a beautiful girlfriend in Cape Town, South
Africa, where he spends the majority of his time even though he's from England and he travels a lot for work, his work is logging. So you sort of you span this guy's life along with him and Thea that you, you you feel like you become friends with him. So I think he really captures. What is the Romanticism behind vlogging behind sharing your life in a daily capacity via video?
Got it, any anyone else? Come to mind? Just so people can look at a few different options.
Sure. There's a guy named,
Fun for Louis fun. If you nfor fun for L OU is Louis Louis is very similar to been Louis is like a Godfather of vlogging from doing it for like four years. He's someone who is like six foot forward long dreadlocks and just rejected the grind. And he wanted to live a life of adventure and he literally is traveling 365 days a year and he bankrolls it all by sharing those experiences that he he does via his camera and be a YouTube.
Doesn't drink, he doesn't do drugs, he doesn't have a girlfriend. He's just an honest guy on sort of a journey to Define himself and I find his Vlogs to be very humble and honest. And they capture who he is and he shares that in a way that I think is extremely relatable.
What what are the most common misconceptions about you or your work? Would you say?
God that stuff and it's tough. Only because I pay such little attention to the two negative people and the people that are are wasting their time. Criticizing, what would they call that about? Steve Jobs is like,
reality
Distortion field. So what the biggest misconceptions, you know, people think I'm really rich and I think that's a kind of a frustrating misconception. And the reason why it's frustrating
Isn't because I don't have a wonderful absolutely privileged life, which I do. It's frustrating because of how many times in life. I've said no to huge paychecks because they didn't align with who I am as a person. You know, I said no to a hundred thousand dollar job today on YouTube because of what they wanted me to do and what they wanted me to say just passed on it. And that's been the case from when I was really, really broke. If it wasn't something that I thought I could get behind that I believed in.
I just said, no, and I think that if, if money were my focus, I would have found a home in advertising done very well there and never looked back. But instead of always stayed, true to what really matters to me, this sharing ideas and sharing perspectives, and I've done that with tremendous Financial Risk, that that has cost me probably prevented me from being this rich guy. That, that people think that I am.
How how do you decide what to say? No to. So for instance, if you're comfortable talking about it and I
Because I'm constantly trying to get better at saying, no, and you mentioned Steve Jobs and he was famously quoted for a lot of things, but one of them was Innovation is saying no to a thousand things or being successful saying no to a thousand things and sort of always striving for that Simplicity, what did the company? What made you uncomfortable that led to the know? Or you could speak more generally if you want to but I'm trying to get better at this myself and I'm always looking for playbooks or rules that other people use.
Use
your, I was terrified. Absolutely terrified to say no for so long and it's because it was such a novel idea. This, this idea that someone was willing to pay me to pick up a camera. Something that I had not just done for free. But something that I had like spent every every last cent of my life to be able to do and now people are willing to pay me and then willing to pay me a shitload of money and then I had to say no, so something that was really scary for me to do.
But I would say that transition happened a couple of years ago, and the more I said, no, the more it made me feel better and I don't know what the signs to it is, but I can tell you that when I launched not I launched, but when I get the first little bit of financing for my technology company, it went from being an idea, to something more tangible. I just immediately said no to everything. And that's pretty much where I lie right now, is everything is given one filter, and that one filter is
Is this good for me? And my tech company? And if the answer is no, it's a, it's a pass it at the answer is a. Yes, it R gets an examination
and and I definitely want to talk about being for people who also want to develop this ability to say no there's a commencement speech by Neil Gaiman called make good art, which I just find fantastic but he has some really good metaphors for this as well and I'm going to come back to beam in just a second but what what do you believe?
If that other people think is insane.
What is a belief that you have that other people think many people think is crazy.
It's funny cuz to the listeners out there, I'm talking to you right now. Not Tim, but Tim sent me all these questions saying if you want to rehearse for this, so you have answers and I came back with an emphatic. I don't like to know the questions ahead of time, because then there were Hearst. And now I'm finding myself with these really challenging, I'm grasping to come up with an answer. That's true. Okay. What do I believe? That? That's crazy
more than other people think is crazy but you might not and this is it this is a
Common interview question. And this is a paraphrase that Peter teal co-founder or former CEO of PayPal and first money into Facebook, that he uses a lot. So this is something you believe that's controversial or that other people think is
nuts? Yeah, I think I think they talked about this in the first chapter of 0, to 1. Yeah, I'm sure it comes up. I'm sure comes up. I, you know, I believe in the religion of work and working hard and I think
That I think that that's something that people resist when people resist the notion of in the more, I find myself sort of preaching the values and the virtues of that the more resistant people are but I just believe that anything can be achieved through hard work and it's hard. It's hard to say. As I'm hearing myself say, that sounds like something that, you know, some, some dipshit guy was found successful say, but I really like the truth is the harder I work.
Is the harder I work. The more successful. I am. And moreover, you realize that like, you will never you'll never be the best looking person in the room. You'll never be the smartest person in the room. You'll never be the most educated the best. Well, verse you'll never be, you can never compete on those levels. You'll never be the most educated. You'll never be able to compete on those levels, but you can always compete on the true like egalitarian aspect to success is hard work. You can always
Work harder than the next guy. And if you're willing to work harder than the next guy, you will succeed. Because most people like I always say when when someone's like yeah but I'm not going to dedicate. I'm not going to commit to working like I'm not waking up. I'm not. How did you sleep a couple? I'm not gonna do, I'm not the second. I hear someone say that. I think to myself great. That is one less person I have to climb over on my way to the top because I know what hard work can yield and I know just how just how meaningful hard.
Working day.
Mmm, there's one of my it's, I think I don't know why I'm so embarrassed to admit this, but one of my favorite semi sort of documentary, but it's more of a historical reenactment film that I've seen is called miracle and it's a Disney movie with Kurt Russell about this. Just incredible story of the u.s. hockey team in the Olympics at Lake Placid going against the the Soviets were considered unbeatable. But in one of the training
And he says you know they're just bickering amongst themselves and and and looking at hot chicks in the stands instead of taking the game, seriously, and he's like, oh well, I know you guys think you have a lot of talent but Talent you don't have enough talent to make it in this particular game. But I can promise you that will outwork every other team that that's going to play us in the Olympics. So yeah, I do think there's a lot a lot to pull from that. The tech company. So tell me a little tell me and the
The listeners about beam but related to that, I mean you have a, you have an amazing life, you've created an amazing life for yourself through, experimentation and hard work, have been a popular director. You have Sundance HBO etcetera, you can make a lot of money. Some YouTubers, I'm not going to say you, but YouTubers can make five six figures for product placement on YouTube. So why on Earth start a tech company and and and what it? What is the tech company?
You know, it's it was at the height. It was at the peak of my career that I actually pivoted to starting this tech company and the peak of that career is one of doing branded content deals on my YouTube channel. And yeah, those deals were six figures and in seven-figure deals have a huge, huge, huge deals. And in starting my company, my technology, I'm actually shut down my production company that was doing those tremendous deal. So, part of that, rejection around
Me being rich is because of that is because I shut down. I killed the, I killed the Golden Goose. Yeah, I killed. I killed the cow that would. There have been Milking for years to do this because that's how much I believe in this. But what started the tech company was this I was I was doing advertising work for YouTube for my YouTube channel and it was fantastically successful as a tremendously proud of it. All of that, but I really felt like I'd exhausted it. I'd reached a plateau.
Go where people I was doing similar work and even though it's good and people loved, I didn't feel like he was moving me forward in any way. And it was around that time that I was invited to to MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology. And I was invited there via the Sundance Institute in a grant from the Rockefeller foundation. And they invited me to live on campus and work out of the media lab for six months. And I remember thinking about that my initial gut response was like
Leave my company for six months. How much is that going to possibly cost me? I can't afford to do that. Crazy say no to all this money. I've never said no to anything in my life and the more I thought about it, the more I was like, you know what, I can probably afford to do this. I can probably afford to live off my savings for 6 months. I'll be dead broke at the end of it, but this is an opportunity, unlike anything else and I just in the end said, fuck it and I went for it and I lived on campus and I never went to college. Never went to high school, never went to college.
Judge and I just went there with a wide open mind, I had wanted to end. And that agenda was, when I leave here, I want to make sure I have an understanding. I'm doing something that I've I've never done before. I'm doing something that is not currently on the books, because I don't get it. And while, and at MIT, I learned one thing, when very meaningful, one very powerful thing. And that one thing was that with technology almost anything is achievable
And therefore, I took that understanding when I came back to New York, after my tenure, there was over for my semester, there was over my fellowship was complete. I came back to New York and I came back to New York and I wanted to solve a problem. I want to solve a problem that I identified years ago, but I didn't think was solvable and I wanted to take this new understanding that I could solve big problems with technology and I wanted to realize that and that was the Prelude to me, starting technology company.
And can you explain the
Premise of beam tell people where they can check it out. But also, the how it works. I mean, the basic, the basic can see, find
it. Yeah, sure. So that problem, that problem, that I really wanted to solve was one that my life has been so impacted in such a meaningful Way by my ability to share my ideas in my perspective. But I have a unique unfair competitive Advantage when it comes to sharing ideas and perspectives, which is that I know how to make
Movies. I have this creative expression so I can share my perspective because of that Larry King. I had a CNN talk show, he shares perspective because of that and is there a way to with technology make it. So you can actually share perspectives and share ideas without having to create something? Can you bifurcate this idea of creation from this idea of sharing? And that was the problem that I wanted to solve and to unpack that a little bit, even something like a YouTube.
YouTube. It first requires you to make a video and then you have to upload a video. There's an Act of Creation in there when you think of something like Instagram, like Twitter, you have to come up with that clever tweet Snapchat, you have to shoot something, you review it, you edit it. You see what it looks like. You had some filters to it, you draw on the screen and then you get to share. What would it look like if you remove the entire process, all the mechanics of creation, and that's what beam is, that's how Beam work. So literally, how beam works and it's bem e-beam, how it works is
You cover the proximity sensor on your on your cell phone. And the proximity sensor is this tiny black dot, that's right above the speaker hole at the top of your phone and when you cover that sensor, automatically starts recording a video clip. And the minute that clip is done, which is 4 seconds later, it's immediately posted to your feet. So what that looks like in practice is when you see something of interest, when there's something you want to share an idea perspective, I don't know some cute puppy, anything you want to share, you? Just hold your phone to your chest, or you put
Thumb over the proximity sensor, the screen goes black, it captures it, vibrates when it's done and then you put the phone back in your pocket, you just shared something, using the most media, Rich content that's ever existed, which is in, which is video with sound and you've done it without ever having to create that ever having to confront that burden. That is a creative expression.
Very cool guy. But I've been watching it with with great interest and that playing around with it. So I encourage people to check it out. I know we are coming up on time for both of us. So I want to just ask
A couple more questions and then absolutely going to ask you to share where people can can check out a number of things related to your work. What are some, underrated the most underrated documentaries or movies in your mind, just a few. They could just be a few films that people might check out that perhaps, they haven't come across because they haven't been fully
appreciated.
Okay, so my favorite movie is probably the life and death of Colonel blimp, which is a movie. It's a British movie that was made. That was made during World War II. And it's my favorite movie period. It's a movie that Wes Anderson really studied and you can see a lot of his style. In that movie, for example, like the opening title sequence, all of the credits are embroidered into, a gigantic blanket, and the shots are just of that blank, and it's a movie that was made in the 1940s. I think 1941.
And that movie to me is like, that's my favorite movie, captures everything. I love about filmmaking, but it also had to be made at a time when like, the country is priority, was saving themselves from destruction and death. And instead, you know, like that's the priority and instead like at that same time, they decided to make a movie. And like, that is such a novel, such a wild idea.
And they had no resources when they needed big wide establishing shots. I just filmed a painting because they couldn't fly a balloon or an airplane to take the shot because it was, it was during the war. So that's my favorite movie. Other movies. Like, my favorite Doc is probably, if they were documentary is probably little detour needs to fly, which is a movie from from Werner, Herzog from 1997.
How do you spell Deidre? Dia EDR, I
guess diit o ER and little little detour needs to fly is
It's about a Vietnam, a u.s. Vietnam, fighter pilot gets shot down his very first mission and he's trapped as a PO W for a number of years, in the movies actually made as a fictional narrative or non fictional narrative called rescued on. With Christian Bale a couple of years ago. But skip the Christian Bill and just watch the documentary, that movie will bring you to your knees and it shows you like that's one of those movies that any time you're having a bad day or you think you've got it hard, you watch that movie.
You understand what it means to like to survive, you know, it's a story of a guy who ate eight maggots for four years and finally, escaped and best friend killed, and you know, much of the interviews that were done with him when he was living at the in Portland, Oregon, or something like that. And he detour takes you into his basement and underground. He has like hundreds of pounds of sugar and flour and oats in the u.s. in the 90s because he's so scared of being hungry again that he wanted to make sure no matter what he'll never.
Be hungry again, for the rest of his life. It's just like it captured Humanity in such a visceral, such a real way, and it's a work of nonfiction. So it's really that's a movie that, that that's, that's, that's moved, me
sounds like a great perspective. Adjuster if you could have one billboard anywhere, what would you put on it? And where would you put it?
I don't know. I mean, it probably
I'd want it. I'd love to have a billboard, some of that just reminds people to be nice where I put it is wherever the most people would possibly see it. But I think that we in, I don't know that communication actually. Do I think the communication social networks, the internet has made this better. It's going in the right direction. I think people are so quick to be judgmental and be negative. And the truth is like, if you give other people the benefit of the doubt and you you have a positive
Coach to everything in life that you end up being happier and it's better for them. It's like that that absolutely quantifiable mathematical equation which is that if what's best for you and me is better for me than just what's better for me. Does that make sense? I'll say it again. I'm sorry that benefits. Tim in case he is better than for Casey than just something that benefits Casey and I think positivity and being nice is a big part of that and it's something that's often
overlooked.
Agreed. What, what advice would you give your 20 year? Old self?
Twenty-year-old.
Yeah. Or or 25? Whichever you
I mean I would say by 15 year olds down south but
yeah you can answer that one,
it would be the don't listen to anyone. Don't listen to anyone. I have a rule, which is always listened to everyone and then reject everything you don't like. But the truth is like, so many people love Shilling knowledge and it has such an impact on people and it affects them in such a way.
And the truth is no one knows anything and life is this malleable mushy piece of clay that's only up to you to shape and we look too much to other people to help you shape that piece of clay. That is your life. You end up with a compromise livestock's, it's something that's not your own.
How do you end up feeling overwhelmed by the Paradox of choice in a situation like that. If you adopt that philosophy and I'm not, I mean, I tend to agree a lot of the
They also at points feel like I have too much optionality and it makes it very difficult to navigate and there's a lot of self-doubt, maybe that's just my own neuroses, is that need addressing? But how do you how do you find direction in all of those options and all that freedom?
You know? I, that's a really that's a, that's a billion-dollar question and I think if you could answer that, I don't have an answer for that. I can tell you that I
Tell you that. My wife is someone who actually would agree with me if heard me say this, but she's just someone who's crippled by indecision, she's so many toys to the front of her and her lack of ability just to 0 and 1. It's it affects her in a tremendously negative way and I tend to be very George Bush. The second George Bush about this. I'm not a tremendous fan of George Bush at all, but that man made mostly bad decisions but he made decisions and I really believe
To come up with a better person when I but I really believe like you make a decision and you move on that decision and it's better to later in life, figure out, that that was the wrong decision than it is to sit around and have never had made a decision in the first place. And that's a really scary thing to do. But the truth is like, I'm only 35 years old, but I'm also 35 years old and I had whatever it is 20 years in as an adult. Now, which is just about enough time to look back and start to examine examine things. And I think
That having always opted to trust my instinct because my instincts are there to keep me alive to trust my instincts. And to move on them has only benefited me despite Myriad failures along the
way. Yeah, I can see how the World War II reading probably. Is, if influence still without what I agree with is the ability to make decisions with incomplete information.
Very good. Very good advice. Last question before we wrap up. Do you have any ask or request for my audience? Anything that you would ask them to do or suggest that they do
know? I mean, it's wonderful having audience to speak to and something I always try to tell anyone that will listen. Even though I just contradicted Myself by saying, never listen to anyone, but it's just that idea of being nice when you share positivity out there that he comes back in such a big way.
And that's such a lame like TV evangelist thing to say, but the truth is like, that is so meaningful. It is so cheap. It is so inexpensive. It is so easy to be cynical to be negative. To be someone who brings other people down and bring yourself down, is really easy to do being nice. Being positive is really hard work, but you feel so much better at the end of the day. It's just like exercise. You don't want to get out there and do your run. You don't want to go to the gym, but when you do it you feel so much better. So much. Glad you're so much better.
ER off that you did it. And at the end of the day at the end of life, at the end of the year, the aggregate of having done that, having put in the work to be a more positive person that's really tremendous, and I, you know, your two kids now. So I say all this in their shadows and the older, I get the more I really believe in that. And I work hard to achieve that every minute of every day,
What do you people have asked me this. So I'm going to ask you what, what do you what have you been listening to most when you run recently?
The problem with me is I'm not much for the music. I'm not much of a loyalist and it comes to use it because I hate the answer. I love everything but I love everything. An old friend of mine. His name is Johnny Johnny famous is his name on on Spotify and that's no age Jo. Nny famous Johnny famous I just listened to his playlist. He's like this. Incredible DJ was djed parties with me, all kinds of fun stuff but I just go to him and only Johnny
Are you listening to and Spotify enables that and I just listened to his playlist. So that's not a super sexy answer, but it's the truth.
No, it's specific. It's perfect. Alright, I this has been so much fun. I know we've tried to connect over the past weeks and months and it's finally here in front of us. Where can people find you on the internet? Where can they check out you and your work? And maybe maybe give them a video or two to start with.
Also
Yeah, I mean, everything I've ever done is on YouTube, you just type my name into Google, you'll find it. If I have to say start somewhere, watch that movie, Make It Count. So we have to spend so much time talking about it. And then another movie that I like to point to is a movie, I work really hard on that is kind of under under watched on YouTube, but it's called Draw My Life. And basically it's it is like my autobiography that I made via little drawings that friend of mine did and it's something I work.
Super hard on, it's like a 12-minute summation of everything I've done from birth until 8:30 or so and something I'm really, really proud of that little movie. And then your audience, it download beam. Be a me, it's on the App Store. Now, we'll have it on Android, probably in November or working with the hard to get it there. But beam is a really, really exciting, really? It's a burgeoning community. That's growing every day and I don't know, it's the more people that are part of being more exciting if
Become so
awesome. Well Casey, thank you so much for taking the time and everybody listening for show notes links to everything that we mentioned in this conversation, you can just go to four hour work, week.com all spelled out and click on podcast that also has all past episodes. And Casey, this is great. Hopefully, we can hang out when we're in the same city and best of luck with everything. Thanks for taking the
time, of course, this is in fantastic. Take care of time.
