An Unfiltered Conversation with Ludwig Ahgren | Money, Addiction, and Quitting YouTube

there is a war brewing and it is the e- girls versus the twitch policy team yeah I don't know man I talk to a lot of streamers they're wildly successful they make a ton of money they have like everyone's dream job a lot of the times they're depressed I also see a lot of people who are really rich have a singular goal of get more rich and the question I always ask is why what I've realized I should choose my words carefully but all right thank you so much for coming back on the iced coffee Hour podcast one thing real quick every single time your height surprises me you're like taller than I think you are okay I want to know how first of all you do your hair and second of all do you include that in your height cuz you say you're six feet tall oh well no I don't say that I say I'm 6 fo three oh and I'd like for the record yeah while I have you two here yeah because you guys are serious you know men okay no what is this no just take a look at that for me no you did just take a look at that for me wow can you just tell the people at home what it says cuz I can't show my license yeah okay it says 6'3 yeah okay that's what it says yeah why are you saying it like that no I'm just saying that you asked what it says so I said that's what it says yeah say so that's what I am uh I do add the hair okay and that's about six inches of it and shoes uh another three okay yeah so that's how we get there you could theoretically get there if you want to do this hairstyle you'll be 6ot tomorrow that's what I thought I get you there I've noticed a lot of short people had that haircut not to call you short but like a lot of people do and it gets higher and higher it's like 4 in cell is a good example of that his hair Sol on that Crocs just added uh Croc boosts to their line and they're just like they're threein soles that's smart that's going to be a thing it is a thing that's what I'm saying they added it to the line it's it's a nice you use a blow dryer on that yeah you got a blow dry you need a little bit of product you just style it man you just put you know where's Jack going wrong he's not take a look take a look you can take a look at the hair the thing is like wow I'm not I'm getting maybe a half inch if I'm lucky look you just need to do something with it yeah you're just doing nothing right oh yeah yeah yeah yeah you you got beautiful hair H it it's just really tough I have very fine hair so it just kind of blows In The Wind that means you can style it better though is that it fight you less you do seem to have very thick hair I feel like I can see each individual strand yeah I have to fight it more you you can do more with it all right well thank you very much would you recommend one of them uh Patrick baitman all the way back I would love that haircut I love that haircut 100% that would look I'll do that you know I'll do that haircut in psyo Oran psyo L American Psycho cuz you know the stuff ultimately yeah he did some bad stuff you know say what you will about Patrick baitman not the best guy but a good hairstyle great fantastic I could see you pulling that off all right well I I'll give it a shot but we got we got a question for you okay how we doing how we feeling you got a question for me yeah we're and we're so happy to have you here we really are dude it's been so long year and a half time flies it really does if that feels to me like s months ago 6 months ago yeah me too well I'm I'm excited for your question Cool okay the question is you said on a podcast that you wanted to start focusing on optimizing for fulfillment and maybe being a good person and helping people around you so you said you created a podcast to make your friends Rich that was the reason to make the podcast the yard yeah yeah yeah it was the initial reason yeah just to make them rich I mean not like to make them rich but like sure but this so that they they would be able to like share in the success that was having cuz like I can't have them share into the lwig YouTube channel CU there's not so much work they don't edit whatever but if we made a podcast together then you know they would be providing equal work and then they would get equal pay for whatever success it it got and it got successful it's having a lot of success we saw patreon it's $240,000 a month yeah yeah yeah why do you make that number public uh why does it why would you not just because you know some people they prefer to keep their numbers private Cody CO's podcast is a good example I've heard he's got a lot of people subscribing to him not public about it at all you don't even see the number of people subbed you I think you see the number of people subed but not the amount oh okay so you could kind of do some backwards math as far as I've always thought like subscriber numbers or patreon numbers or members on YouTube now I've always thought it's just better to put it out there because it's like those are the people who are giving you the money I don't think it's weird for them to know how many people there are and how much you're making from it I don't feel like I want to hide that and be like I'm not I've never I would never want people to think I'm lying about how much I'm making to make it seem like I'm making less I'd rather they just know the number and not a flex way do you think people are less likely to follow or subscribe because they see oh he's making 240 Grand a month you know I don't need to give him my $5 yeah yeah 100% I think it's like uh with with twitch prime a lot I saw that happen it was like Hey I have this free $5 I can give someone I I shouldn't give it to the millionaire which makes sense and I think that's that's a very valid thought to have but I think for the most part it wouldn't deter someone if they just like it it's $5 they don't feel that bad in the same way that you wouldn't feel bad if you're like well I can't buy Netflix I don't want to give them another you know I think I think people are able to compartmentalize that and I think most people are subscribing to your patreon I could be wrong here because they like the benefits so it's in of itself like it's a product that you're providing and they like the product it's not necessarily because they feel like they should support you to keep it going yeah it's not like a like a hey I like these guys take my money I think they receive the value back and I think that's proven because it's been at a high number for a while and it's not like there's insane turnover if if they didn't get the value then you'd see a lot of people sub and then a lot of people fall off and that's been something I've been trying to do with YouTube members as well it's like like give the value to people who give you money which is something I feel like streamers uh Miss how are you optimizing for fulfillment it seems like that's a big shift over the last two years or so yeah I don't know man I talked to a lot of streamers and uh dude a lot of the times they're depressed they're wildly successful they make a [ __ ] ton of money they have the the dream job like everyone's dream job but maybe they have a dip in numbers one month maybe it lasts for several months maybe they're just tired of having to keep up the consistency of the schedule and all of their value is put into how well they are doing and you can't always do well you just won't right you will have a dip and eventually you're going to fall off altogether and so if all your value is in your success then you're not going to be happy long term and I realized that after the subathon because I was like super happy super Peak happiness I got the most Subs anyone's ever had ever I was like dope I cried from Joy and then I thought from then on I was going to be the biggest streamer in the world and I wasn't I fell off drastically I I had the biggest fall off anyone's everever had in fact on Twitch I went from 280 ,000 Subs to zero which which no one's ever done uh How does it go to zero though I went to YouTube okay they got rid of the sub button sure but I think after that I realized it is better if I place my self-worth and my value in different endeav than just something that I can't fully control which is my average viewership so did you think maybe you hit such a low that it forced you to see that way or did something happen beyond that that taught you to go in a different direction it was hitting the low yeah it was it was it was my expectations of where I thought I would be and then where I actually was and the reality is I had 25,000 people watching me and I was sad about that which is weird it's a weird thing to be sad about because that is top Point whatever whatever was very good it's better than I'm doing now in terms of viewership and I was sad about it and now I'm happy where I'm at yeah so when you talk to all these other very successful streamers and they seem to be very unhappy do you think that that's because they're attaching their value to their own certain success metrics and when they don't hit their standards that makes them sad or do you think that it's also just the lifestyle that they live because if you look at how they're spending their time it's like wake up go on the computer stay on the computer for the entire day you're going to get a lot of love you're going to get a lot of hate and then you go to bed and you wake up and do the exact same thing the next day it's like you're missing out on exercise you could be malnourished because a lot of them I mean let's be real here you don't see them eating like super healthy foods while they're streaming do you think it could be their actual lifestyle or this like attachment to certain metrics that they're not hitting I think it's it's more so the metrics pretty much every streamer who's gotten really big has followed a very similar path of stream at all costs leave Health aside maybe relationships aside become big and then when they are big they often times turn to health is what I notice and this happens with YouTubers as well either they get into boxing or just get a six-pack out of nowhere uh because they have the resources to do it yeah and uh and so I think that's not as big of a deal and I think most streamers also love what they do they genuinely enjoy streaming otherwise they wouldn't do it so much I'm sure it's draining but I think it's it's the value they put into how well they're doing when they don't you know necessarily control the variables it it still makes them depressed so how's the monetization structure around the podcast then is it like divided evenly across all hosts or is that it's split across the hosts and then we have a producer and editor who are also cut in to just like a REV share of the patreon now as far as fulfillment how do you define that for yourself uh man it's just different buckets right it's kind of how I see it you got you got your your relationship you got family you got work uh and then you got maybe like a broader one which is the value you're adding back to community or or you know people around you or the world as a whole if you want to be more grandiose about it uh and I think I think that's where I'm realizing I feel good about myself is those buckets how do people find the right balance of those buckets I mean I think it's enough to just not have one right I think that's a great start okay and I think a lot of people have one uh at least in the streaming World from my expertise of of what I've seen from my friends it's like they got one bucket and it's average viewership and that bucket is not in their control they don't hold that so they need more buckets and that's what I tell them every time it's like you know do do do something else like do what do what else you want to do and you have the resources you have the capital you have the time do it uh and so I think I think it's just getting more buckets so how are you finding fulfillment in other areas of your life then you said you said your girlfriend you said your job helping out other people let's get down to like some specifics of what you've seen make a measurable difference on your happiness but before we get into that AI actually might just be the most important new computer technology out there in fact we use it on every single episode of this podcast it's in throughout every industry and billions of dollars are being invested so you got to buckle up the problem however is that AI needs a lot of speed and processing power so how can you compete without cost spiraling out of control that's why it's time to upgrade to the next generation of the cloud oci or Oracle Cloud infrastructure oci is a single platform for your infrastructure database application development and AI needs oci has four to eight times the bandwidth of other clouds offers one consistent price instead of variable Regional pricing and of course nobody does data better than Oracle now you could train your AI models at twice the speed and at less than half the cost of other clouds so if you want to do more and spend less like uber 8 by8 and data bricks Mosaic take a free test drive of oci at oracle.com isted once again it's oracle.com slist it's completely free Trio oci oracle.com thank you so much Oracle for sponsoring this episode and back to the podcast uh measurable difference right now comes from from work and when I say work I don't mean making a YouTube video getting a lot of views or doing a live stream getting a lot of viewership but I mean the the company I run and it doing well and the people there liking what they make like just yesterday right before I came here my voice might sound like I ran uh a valerant tournament uh and that was it was two days long it was run by my production company offbrand and seeing everybody at the office gives me a lot of joy and making a cool show and then doing the picture at the end where we all group up you know that make that that's I think right now what makes me the happiest did you make money with chess boxing by the way no no I lost like 100k I think you did yeah it costs $1.5 million if you want to run a chess boxing event in Southern California for anyone watching and it makes about 1.4 but a second one would make a lot more how would it make a lot more well it's just how sales works if you do something for the first time it is a lot riskier for a company to bet on it if you do it and you then have a second one and you say yeah we're doing this look at this this is the thing we're doing then they'll be like oh yeah that did really well I'll pay for that great example Creator Clash has entered the chat on that one well okay I would argue their business model isn't isn't maybe the best and I think they've realized that I don't like personally the pay-per-view model it makes a ton of money I just don't like it actually from like a viewership standpoint I like having the biggest cultural impact anyone's able to watch it but I'll give you an example I did the valer tournament again we did one last year was called lwi ter Invitational it lost 100K we did one this year it made money I don't know the exact numbers yet because it happened yesterday but I think it's going to be somewhere five digits and that's you know year two yeah helps sure so what's the plan with that is it mostly just about building the brand or is it about putting on a really great experience that you and the people around you enjoy yeah I don't care about the brand man I'm gonna I'm gonna fall off Into Obscurity it's more about while I have some sort of value to offer to viewers making the largest cultural impact you know like make make something people care about and I just make stuff I like and at this point what I like also other people like but I think what happens you get older and then your tastes are a little out of style or out of date and then the things you like aren't necessarily what's also being Mass viewed but for this moment we're still there I really interesting you're not running it like an actual business like you're not doing it in order to seek profits it's more so just doing it catering to your own desires we want to be profitable all right that's my go ideally yeah ideally I don't care personally about getting more money or more Capital so it's not like my primary motivator my primary motivator is creating a company that will last 10 years after me 20 years after how do you put your ego aside what do you mean you were talking to Dr K about a year ago about putting your ego aside you look me up okay and being yourself not putting yourself on a pedestal and not letting yourself get in the way and thinking my thoughts are better because you know I'm blood wig and I had these views how how do you put that aside and focus on the fact that you know as you said one day no one's going to remember no one's going to care so you know it's not going to matter how do you how do you get to that point in life I think even though I know I will fall off and everyone will it doesn't mean it doesn't matter I think it does matter I think you know the time that that you you share even if it dies whatever that all matters yeah uh but as far as ego I think I have a big in ego and it's not something I'm proud of I don't like that aspect of me but it's also what drives I think a lot of confidence in maybe decision- making in believing that I'm making a right choice because I've always thought it's better to have a confident wrong choice than an insecure correct Choice uh but you said it yourself if I believe and I hope that you guys believe this too that fall off and everyone will fall off then why have ego in in viewership and why not just ride it out as best you can for however long the ride lasts do you think that or about it I think there's something elegant about taking control of your own demise if that makes sense like I've seen Tom Scott or uh you know Matt Pat and these people yeah that they choose to say I'm going to step back instead of writing it down which I think a lot of creators will see the views Decline and think okay that means I got maybe three years left on this let me just grind this away but I think there's something elegant of saying you know what I'm I'm going to take the high road put myself aside and stop when it's good I don't think it's a coincidence that we're seeing Matt Pat Tom Scott or all these other YouTubers quitting I think it's because they like me saw all these YouTubers Fade Into Obscurity get YouTube video essays about how they died and have zero viewers now and they said well I don't want to be that you know I did something cool yeah I want to end on a high note I had a great career I don't want to just be thought of as oh he's still here let me let me uh check him out oh wow he's still uploading that's you don't want to be that guy so it's cool to go out on your own note yeah in your own way and I really respect Matt and Tom for doing that what do you think about those videos of like the rise and Falls because it does seem like to a certain extent those types of videos are really glamorized there's something about it that people like to see arise and fall person I look I don't like talking I've said Sunny V2 is my least favorite YouTuber I understand why people watch the videos I think they're well-crafted videos I think they're interesting and they're they're they're an easy watch I think they only uh are bad because and it's changed a bit now but for a long time it just was hey let's look up a YouTuber who was big who is not as big and then pray on their downfall and and I thought that was just kind of like a thing to do it's a lot of negativity and it prays on negativity and uh and so I wasn't the biggest fan of that style of video but I get why people watch it I get okay I I want to return back to this but first I don't think that it's necessarily like like I could see why you would think it's admirable that somebody would I would say on their own valtion step down when things are like at their best but I think that to glamorize that is the same thing of like satisfying your own ego for other people's sake it's like other people they get to see you oh yeah he didn't go down because people like you know he faded into irrelevance it's like I I still think that if you enjoy making content and that's how you want to spend your time and maybe you go down a more Niche route and people stop watching it and yeah sure you know Sunny V2 makes a video on you and you Fade Into irrelevance at least you're still doing what you want to be doing on a daily basis rather than catering to other people's needs you know hoping that other people would be like yeah this guy's awesome because he stepped down when things were at their best well that's what Tom did right Tom specifically quit the thing that was working and he's still making stuff and he said in the video I think like hey some people might say you fell off after I do these new projects if they don't work but that's okay because they're the projects that I want to do so I guess it's not quitting everything all together so your legacy can be cemented it's quitting the thing which happens very often the niche that made you big that that you've done repeatedly for you know years and years which in the case of matat was Game Theory and in the case of Tom Scott was you know I agree I don't think that they necessarily did that for that reason right just Express on the topic of the drama YouTubers the praying on the downfall YouTubers I want to know how you can morally justify something like Mogul mail which I feel like kind of does a similar thing on occasion it's not necessarily promoting solely positive videos and obviously you have to be objective with however you're reporting on anything but occasionally you will have to make videos or you do make videos you don't have to about maybe somebody who's struggling or going through something or going through a controversy or something like that how how do you feel ethically about that dude it's a really [ __ ] good question and I felt like [ __ ] about it cuz Mogul M started blowing up in the videos were doing very well better than uh my main channel for for a period uh I was watching them like every single one every single like a daily thing for me of just oh you posted MoGo mail I'll download it and listen to it at the gym really consistently it's funny it also drew a very different audience than the main Channel I think it drew uh an older audience and then also like a more maybe analytical or or behind baseball whatever you want to say uh audience and so it was it was fun to make it for those reasons did well I like the crowd that watched it however you're right it was conflicting cuz I would just have to [ __ ] sit there on Twitter or Reddit and be like what [ __ ] happened today what drama's going on and I didn't like that I didn't like doing that because it also didn't even feel like genuine like why do I need to talk about eirl drama I don't why does anyone need to hear about it it really don't and so I started to upload loading less and less and less and you might have noticed in the end of 2023 you probably didn't watch Mogul mail because there weren't many uploads I uploaded maybe like a dozen times in the last few months because I wanted to make sure if I was talking about something it was because I had knowledge about it that I was providing that most people might not have so insights about streaming that was a lot of videos uh or something I was just personally passionate about I just care about the topic so I that's I dove into it um and that that's why I I kind of backpedal for those reasons but then now I'm at a point where it's like well [ __ ] now I'm not even using the channel right and it is my job to upload YouTube video and so I'm I'm still in the Dilemma but now I'm just trying to make sure when I talk about something it follows those two rules okay so other YouTubers that do similar things such as penguin z0 moist critical Charlie stop you call it penguin z z penguin you call call penguin zero me too I'm a penguin zero guy really Charlie's penguin zzo I think by the way or maybe he's penguin go zero penguin zero but he's wrong penguin Z he's wrong he's it's like the the GIF GIF guy I think it's penguin Z and you guys comment down below which whichever one you guys think it is I never heard it called anything other than penguin zero really really no there's a lot it's penguins penguin zero penguin Z zero I've heard penguin Oz oh I've heard penguin o I swear I swear have you guys seen that like old Reddit thread it's like am I gregnant and it's like all spellings cure or something right I look guys I've heard penguin Oz don't know who that person is I'm sorry for whoever they are but anyways what do you think about his content because here's the thing it's so digestible and so addicting and this has been a really strong like ethical conundrum that I've even been like trying to figure out in my head because he makes me feel so strongly and he can fill me with like honestly kind of like hatred and vitrio for these people I've never personally met and I think that's not a really good thing to put these people you've never personally met on pedestals or to hate them when you've never had a a firsthand experience these are all like stories that he's getting from someone else that's getting from someone else and then he made a video recently that kind of like sent me off where I kind of thought maybe I should stop watching him which was the one where uh it was a twitch streamer girl who brought on a a mod and she was very disrespectful to her mod did you see that Tu Caitlyn yeah so she was very disrespectful to her mod and no one should be treated the way that her mod was Dilly # free Dil but at the same point he's calling this woman like one of the most evil women on the planet I could never believe you you know like basically sending a hate mob of millions of people and I think that he needs to understand the power that he has when millions of people watch every single video that he has and he basically conducts an army of people well I think 99% of the audience just watches casually in the the background and forgets about it within an hour and then you have that 1% that hang on every that's a large 1% yes when he's getting millions of views after 1% of five million people who see that it's significant yeah I think what ends up happening and Charlie's not the only example it's a lot of drama YouTube channels and I've been a part of this with Mogul mail is someone [ __ ] up and it happens a lot it can be a bad apology it can be a streaming drama and they basically become like like a basketball net that's 5T tall that everyone just comes to dunk on and it's just a dunk sesh because they are in the wrong they did something wrong they [ __ ] up and it is very easy to instantly turn on the camera and be like here's what happened here's the context here's the wrong thing that we all know is wrong cuz we're all humans and this is this is the video goodbye and then then you [ __ ] cash in a sweet you know million plus video from that but but you're right it has a lot of dangerous side effects because it just sends a huge hate mob and I guess the question that should be asked when making these videos is is the thing wrong enough or maybe is this like under reported or there's a lot of variables uh is this person still doing the behavior right because I don't think you would feel this way about the Sniper Wolf doxing situation I did you hear about this one yeah I heard about the yeah with Jack's films you probably wouldn't be as maybe passionate or like think to yourself I should stop watching because what she did was so wrong and she's also in a much different position than sub Caitlin because she's huge ass YouTuber and the content she makes is very derivative exactly so I think I think it's a bit of punching up punching down um but but I think you are fine to feel that way and I think a lot of other people like you're saying the 99% are watching during a lunch break to pass 10 15 minutes and then they for about it and it doesn't really bother them because they're not you know part of the hate mob when I'm making a mogul mail I've been criticized a lot for being like fence sitting or two Centrist or middle of the road I like that about it though it's what I I like doing it because I like giving uh credit or points or trying to see the perspective of someone who did [ __ ] up and is in the wrong and you could easily dunk on but it's a little more interesting to me to be like okay well like what were they thinking and I did a video recently as an example uh about this streamer who pretended to be black for years to his friends and to viewers he just lied about it he had no face cam how do you oh he had no face how Li he had no face cam he had like a black Minecraft uh like character and then and he and he was just like yeah I'm black and Muslim and I celebrate Ramadan and it's been really hard as a black Creator up in coming and he did like a three-hour podcast about it it's all a [ __ ] lie and and so I made a video about this and I got a little Flack on my subreddit for for a negative comment I made and the comment was like something to the degree of you know uh Hey I've I've I made a joke I've never pretended to be black but you know that's because I'm a human and also I'm on face cam every day and they thought that was a little degrading because I was referring to this person as inhuman right they did something subhuman and and that's like feedback that may be a little nitpicky but I also try to take seriously cuz I don't want to like [ __ ] ruin this kid's life cuz he is a kid he was like 15 when he started the LI he's like 18 now I don't want to [ __ ] ruin the kid's life you know I try to be very clear hey let's we're not trying to [ __ ] dox the guy we're trying to say hey this is what he did and and I talked to like his best friend content creator and that's how I know this story and information and then and then move on from it and that's this is a crazy thing that happened um but it's it's about you know trying to see both perspectives and not be too negative along the way and get a 15-minute video that someone can watch during a lunch break that you know passes the time it's the adjectives and the ad hominy attacks that I mainly agree with if you're just saying hey look like this twitch jomer she brought a mod onto her um onto her stream and she started saying these things and you're playing the actual clip and he's like look I mean I got my opinions about it you guys decide yours you know I think it's disrespectful but when you say this is you know stuff like this is subhuman or this is just like evil in a nutshell it's like that's just really injecting extremely negative and I think somewhat dangerous thoughts into the viewers and millions of viewers I think you're getting older in a good way I think this is like a natural thing that happens is the older you get for some people the more empathetic you get uh I would say so I would agree with that when you're teen I don't think you have like as much empathy right I think or at least I didn't a great point and so I think like think of the audience that's watching these videos it's probably younger than you mhm right and and it's possible to also like be growing out of like Charlie's go-to which like you're saying is silly goofy analogy that that rips on someone and then and then you're like I don't [ __ ] with that anymore and I think it's fair to not [ __ ] with that and that might just be an age thing and that's also me personally I don't [ __ ] with doing it and it's because I'm getting older so I want to make sure I'm doing [ __ ] I [ __ ] with along the way as I change I would agree with that completely I've never put heard that put in perspective but I really try now to to try to understand the other person's perspective like the person lying about their race I would try to put myself in their shoes and think what's going on in my life that would prompt me to do that do I not feel accepted do I not feel like I'm a part of a group is this his way of feeling like he's a part of a community that he could feel like more what what is what are they going through and how many people if you put them in his shoes would do the exact same thing like imagine being 15 is yeah oh gosh When You're 15 I mean you're just going to make mistakes so I agree with that completely yeah and also I like I think about it in a way where when I was younger and a lot of guys specifically feel this way it's like between the ages of maybe 16 and 21 you think you are the smartest person in the entire world you think you know exactly who you are you think you're the the Arbiter of morality and what is right and what is wrong and then you just get slapped in the face by reality like years later and you just see it over and over and over again and people that you thought where like these perfect humans in your life slowly make bad decisions you're like well what do I really know and then you know when you see other people just criticizing and reaming into people I don't know but I appreciate I really appreciate the the candid conversation about this because I know I don't know it might be challenging having once made some of those videos yeah man look I'm not [ __ ] proud of everything I've made I've made close to like 2,000 videos at this point uh but it's also because I'm changing and I've been making it for six years so it' be weird weird if I liked now everything that I made six years ago because I was so much different what I watched was so much different what I consume was so much different so what I regurgitated was so much different and then now I like what I make because you have to there is more opportunity than ever to be making money in 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channel pops up for me every two months what we bet it all on a coin flip yeah I uh that was the big one was when I switched from twitch to YouTube I was getting an offer from both sites to be an exclusive streamer and I flipped a coin to decide that for me and that flipping of a coin landed me a better contract and what has shaped my life for the past two years that was a big thing to leave to chance but recently I've become more not risk averse but less chance oriented uh because now I'm very cognizant that it's not just me I have my company and it has you know 30 employees and I want to make sure the decisions I make are not coin flips and to go to them like I flipped a coin and that's what what's determining your you were fired you're fired you're fired you're safe yeah you're fired Tails it's built on Max information good information maybe changing perspectives and and that's you know more important than flip a coin dude we've done that we've flipped a coin on uh how much Jack makes remember this I've done this a few times yeah we did it on like my like what was it it was a split on the second Channel between like 18 and 20% of the channel Revenue right and that added up to a pretty significant yeah over the years did you win it yeah I won it yeah and the thing is uh if but it was fair it was chance oh you know what's funny it was like 4% of the channel Revenue uh in perpetuity and if I lost it so I stayed at 18% rather than 22 you were going to buy me Chipotle so there was you know some collateral there so you know obviously we're all we're each going to win in our own ways or maybe you were going to buy me Chipotle I oh yeah the loser of that got to receive Chipotle from the other person so it was a tin little spe against a right yeah I think you won that deal I I did win thatal I've done that quite a few times even with Alex we've just come you know if we have not a disagreement but if he's up here and I'm over here I say hey let's flip a coin on it I'm down for the flip I think the flip makes sense when both roads are viable doing something or not doing something YouTube or twitch because everything works there right it's not like hiring uh or firing someone where it should be based off info it's like hey we could go down either Road and make it successful and so you know let's [ __ ] flip it let's let's let Lady Luck decide where we go let's talk about business for a little bit you have a lot of businesses going on you got your YouTube channel you have Mogul mail you have the bday Beday Jack Beday it's Beday Jack he said it wrong like seven times in the car earlier today he kept saying bday and we're like bday and he'd start a new sentence and then he'd say bday right B he said I've never seen like this he like he's like this is genuinely making me very upset I was when it was seven times in a row I was like why do you say it all weird so I'll I'll openly say on the podcast right now the first three times where accident once you continued to correct me I'm like you know what I'm going to mess with this guy and I said bday and then I said it for the I guess the final straw and then you were like you're starting to really make me upset it's like 500 a.m. you guys are groggy as [ __ ] yeah so much it's like we just talked about this I didn't I thought it was just a no but anyways you have the bday company you said and you you also have the the other company where you're trying to build up certain creators right what's that called again offbrand offbrand yes correct you have any other businesses I have Mogul moves which is servicing all my YouTube channels and my merch and my Beday company and then I have offbrand which is servicing other creators and those are the main two how do you break down these businesses in simplest terms of like the structure do you have like know CEO of these businesses or something like that yeah so you have SE Suite yeah for each business so for Mogul which is again servicing me it is editors someone to manage merch uh it's it's a very small team and it's also getting smaller intentionally because it doesn't make sense to build a team that's supposed to service just my videos or my channel when that doesn't have the longest shelf life you don't want a team of 50 cuz then I have to keep doing it for a long long time and that's what I realized I got actually [ __ ] up because I only had Mogul at the start I built it up I was like yeah let's [ __ ] let's build a team let's let's start a business make an Empire whatever the [ __ ] and then I was like oh [ __ ] that means I have to keep working for a long time because I just signed up all these people for jobs and it's all based on me making YouTube videos and so then I was like oof I should make a new company and then that company should have more sustainability and how do you get that service more people because if it only Services me it'll only last as long as I'm relevant and that is a smaller amount of time then creators being relevant which right now is looking to last a pretty [ __ ] long time and so that's why I made offbrand and so a lot of people from Mogul actually moved over to offbrand to not just service me who's like a client of offbrand but creators so when you're saying you're servicing creators is that like providing them with editors thumbnail you use the word and I regret using it cuz it's sounds like a like a right we're servicing creators my bad we've been taking care of them helping out I supp refus situation okay so any need what exactly does this uh I'm not going to call it a product because that's also wrong but what what exactly does this system like sounds like a Ponzi scheme all right what does it provide what does offbrand do yeah it works with creators so it right now the main way you've seen it is maybe you've seen it is uh like white label Productions making shows for different creators so I guess like we did one with Doug Doug uh we did one with Sea Dog and then it also does events for me like just yesterday the valerant tournament that we also did with tck another Creator uh and then that by itself can make money right Productions um and then the idea is to expand it you know and and go into to other verticals some of which I can't leak I can tell you guys offline but you know also working with creators and the reason is so do you guys know the company Beyond The Summit no there's this company called Beyond The Summit when I was coming up in the streaming world made the coolest Esports events like the [ __ ] they made the dopest [ __ ] and I liked them a lot and I wanted to work with them and my best friend got a job there through luck in a crazy story and so after that I was I was like you know had an in so I I started doing stuff with them and originally it was working for them and then it was working with them like let's do something together and and I thought their stuff was so cool but once I got to really like know them I asked them one time they're running the smash event it's like four days long got like 30 40K viewers how much you guys make it on your sponsor they like a like a coin uh what coinbase sponsor I think I like how much are you guys making and they're like for the whole event like uh maybe 50k it was four days it was Aver averaging double my concurrent viewership and it had like 8 to 10 hours of live every day and I was like wait [ __ ] that's how much I make on one episode of Mogul money which is a show I was doing at the time which is a two-hour long live stream with like just as many concurrent viewers and it's you know it's like it's a one day I'm like this this is weird why is that the case and I what I realized is that Brands will pay a [ __ ] ton of money for a really dope event with a big face on it they won't pay as much for just a really dope event and they won't pay as much for just a face and so that's the idea of offbrand is it's this Core Company Beyond The Summit that's what is now offbrand Productions they make really cool [ __ ] let's marry that really cool [ __ ] to a really big face and then that will make a lot more money than either of them separate do Brands look at the long-term views of something that maybe you merge the two and that's going to have a lot more longevity it might be an evergreen video that people might watch a year from now does that matter to them is is that maybe why they'd pay more what I've realized I should choose my words carefully but companies are big and so when they throw out a check you would think they know their [ __ ] but they don't know their [ __ ] sometimes a lot of decisions by a company is like a guy in a boardroom with a lot of power being like who's a big streamer and you saw it after ninja had his incredible success and then he wasn't you know pulling as many views he was still getting the craziest deals and it's not a like a mistake even though like they were paying way more for a guy who's getting as many views as like you know Moon Moon who would probably give a similar return they knew the name and that and that's mostly why they did it so I think you really have to like show brands in as many ways as possible how it's a good idea and I you can't just have a cool event and and get numbers and get views you have to have like and this is the big creator that you guys want you like big creators right this is the big guy here's the big guy now give us money and then they're going to be much more receptive to that how many people work at offbrand it's it's like right under 30 I think right under 30 I believe yeah cuz we have also an office in Hungary oh wow what do they all do it's split across different groups to make a production come to life so if you're doing a live broadcast you need like technical directors you need producers you need like Engineers uh showrunners you need a graphics team that's the hungry Division and so that ends up being a lot of people right it's not an easy thing to just just put on a show like chess boxing or or whatever the hell right uh and so that's that's where you get that number from a year and a half ago you told us that there was a YouTuber who you were mentoring on the side to be able to prove that it wasn't just luck yeah how did that go it well well he's a full-time Creator now and he's actually making a video about it I never made a video about it and I never will and it's not because it didn't work out cuz it did but what I realized is it was a little [ __ ] up to say hey I mentored this guy I made him and I didn't want to do that but I also didn't want him to fail so I worked with him and I would hit him up and there was even a point where I was hitting him up more than he was hitting me up I think he was like a little shy or you know embarrassed thought I was busy whatever so I just hit him up I'd be like how's it going and it's gotten to the point now where you know I don't see him as my my pupil or I'm his mentor or whatever he's my equal we are both creators in the space and and it's come out soon cuz he came over to my studio and recorded this this video I think it'll be really sweet was that your first time meeting him in person no dude we I met him for the first time in person by accident at twitchcon it was the last day at twitchcon and uh disguise toast and and the rest of offline TV they had this uh this Afterparty like this Dolce gabana [ __ ] club lights everywhere and Bottles table service so I'm there I'm drunk as [ __ ] [ __ ] and uh it's like 2 a.m. and I run into them and then I we just get this huge [ __ ] bear hug we've been talking for like years at this point right never met in person and then he just dude he opens up to me and it's the first time he had like it's it's the first not the first time but it's the first time he expressed like appreciation but I was actually able to like feel it you know cuz you guys probably do this a lot but you know someone says like hey man appreciate that and you're like you just blow it off yeah thanks man whatever cool but it's the first time he like he like [ __ ] sat me down he's like dude what you did for me to make me a full-time creator has changed my life it's changed the life of my friends it's changed the life of my family I love you I appreciate you and then I was in the club crying for like [ __ ] 10 minutes straight with this guy how did you find this guy initially it was a video that he had made and I saw it and I was like this has legs it's not there but it has legs and it's clear that this guy wants to be a Creator and make [ __ ] and that's like probably the most important trait to have as opposed to what most people want to do which is just be a YouTuber but the reality is there's a difference between wanting to be a YouTuber and wanting to make videos and it's that's what you need to do make videos what characteristics did you see in that person because even for me sometimes you see people and you just internally know this guy has what it takes they have the Charisma the dedication the persistence because sometimes you see videos you know you could go either way on it there's usually something about the person yeah that you know maybe they're coachable so what is it from your perspective I'm not going to pretend to say that like I [ __ ] knew like I'm I'm not I I could have been wrong yeah this could have blown up my face but I just thought and partly it was the video that he had made that he cared about making videos to such a high degree that he wouldn't let himself fail is it Mr Beast yeah I coach Mr Beast that's where I'm at I'm sorry out now um but yeah let's talk about the Beday company the bday the bday company what does that look like how how are this how was the structure of that business I've talked about it before it's a part of the merch company which the merch I guess employees who are part of Mogul right the people who service me so there's there's two people who work uh for for that I guess technically three because we have a software developer who also develops the websites so there's about like three people who who kind of are involved with all merch drops which includes the Beday uh and I thought Beday are dope not a lot of people have bday specifically in America why are we so [ __ ] far behind let's get some [ __ ] clean I think that's why I have ask. cleaning the website to make sure that gets done and the process was pretty simple it was trying to find the best manufacturer of Beday and so I went through a couple companies and I'll say here I ended up going with brondell and you can even find the like base model which is like a little different of the unit I use it's actually more expensive from brondell than than how we sell it because I'm really not getting killer margins on the Beday but it's enough and I just want more Beday out there it's not like a money-making it's really not like where I'm getting my bread it's it's just CU I think Beday are cool how many have you sold so far it's north of like 10,000 Beday I don't know the exact number but our first run was like maybe 7500 units we sold that out in a couple months and then we just re-upped for another I think 7500 recently and we're also uh partnered with Linus Tech tips so we're on uh his his store his webfront how many people buy the more expensive versus the cheaper the cheaper one's way more popular cuz it's also way easier to install like the more expensive one is better because you get a heated seat you get a heated water but you also need like an outlet right next to your toilet which not everybody has and then you also need 500 [ __ ] dollars which not everybody has so it's much easier to just drop 50 which is very competitively priced with like I don't know like tushi which is another you know bedet you can get and and it's like a nice entry to the Beday world so you need your own Outlet then because I thought it could hook up to that little spout behind the toilet you turn off and on and you could just cheap right the cheaper one does that and the more expensive one does as well that's where that gets the water from but to heat the water you need electricity oh when's the last time you use the restroom without using a b day when I travel it sucks but that's about it I hold my shits you'll hold it forever day dude I'll hold my [ __ ] to go home for how long however long however long I can question is however long I can what if these for a week hold it for a week not holding [ __ ] for a week no that's when I'm just a sad man I'm a sad sad man when's the cut off like three days when it when it has to come out of my ass gram when you can't hold it out like God yeah you seem to have a very bearish mentality when it comes to your YouTube channel like you all the time say it's not going to last forever and I feel like every single time I listen to you even on this podcast alone you've probably mentioned it two times already that you think that you need to start proactively getting ready to be irrelevant M how do you how do you I don't understand how you can have that thought process with your with your like main source of income aren't wouldn't it like serve you more to be a little bit more bullish on it and to like continue to make big moves I feel like if you're you're thinking that it's going to fizzle out that's going to somehow like it's going to be a self-fulfilling prophecy and at the same point like like I don't necessarily think in of you as a like I'm not bearish on your YouTube channel in fact I'm bullish on it no yeah I think my YouTube channel is killing I'm doing cool [ __ ] but it's going to die it's not a prophecy that I'm like making happen or speaking it to the world it's just a fact it's like it if I were to say I'm GNA die would you be here like dude that's a self-fulfilling prophecy you shouldn't say that you'd be like yeah that's true and so maybe it's a little Grim it would be if you said I'm going to die young yes you know and so maybe that's what you're getting at but I think it's possible it's a little Grim to mention the the the reality which is the longevity of my YouTube Chan Channel but I think it's it's something that I have to tackle and I might as well be vocal about it because it's something that I think about and I'm sure everybody else who is a creator also thinks about it so why not just talk about what I think about how do you think twitch is doing you made some predictions last time you were on our show about a year and a half ago about where they would be in five years what' I say you said that they're going to be somewhat irrelevant 5 years from now I said that yeah they're going to fade away no you said they're going to do well for the next 5 years just because they they have so much market share but then slowly all of their offerings the way that they treat their creators the way that they're just trying to like make more and more and more money um is going to eventually fizzle out when you have YouTube that already has a way bigger market share once they start uh doing live streaming I think twitch has one thing going for them which is that YouTube doesn't care about live streaming they just don't give a [ __ ] and I and I and it's not everybody at YouTube right like I I work with people at YouTube who who care very much who work very hard on it and I don't want take away from them but they are very very focused on a different product which is shorts because I think YouTube sees Tik Tok as an existential threat to their existence thousand a th% I agree but no you know what YouTube's never said to themselves twitch might take us out so they don't need to really you know put the pedal to the metal for the live streaming end of things they can just kind of exist and they kind of just get lucky and that's a lot of where YouTube's growth is I haven't seen a major signing of from them in like a year right you know they they they were tackling it they're at going going going and then it's been kind of quiet I don't know if you guys feel the same and so it's very fortunate for twitch because then the only other competitor who's gunning for them is kick who has their own share of issues in terms of what creators are even willing to go there so it might have been the case my prediction could have been right if YouTube cared more about live streaming if they added a lot of features because I'll give you an example I ran an event talked about it a lot but day one was a 12 and a half hour day just how long it was it ran [ __ ] long the YouTube VOD is unwatchable past 12 hours which includes live streams so you can live stream for 12 and a half hours but you can never watch the VOD again it's inaccessible for any viewer including myself I can't even download it and so what I have to do is I have to end the live stream and then start a new live stream and then switch people over this is like should be a [ __ ] day one fix this is like huge oversight right it just ruins any sort of long live streaming which is a lot of live streams a lot of live streams are Marathon live streaming gdq you know that any charity event and so it's it's just a one example of many on how YouTube is foot's not on the gas and so twitch gets to thrive and while we're on the topic of creating content and making money one of the best ways you can actually make money is not by increasing your income but decreasing your expenses and if you want to start creating high quality content at a low cost our sponsor streamyard is here to help for those una aware streamyard is a live streaming software that allows you to create highquality content with just the click of a button all you need is a camera and an internet connection and from there you could stream directly from your browser one of my favorite features of streamyard is their multistream function where you're able to stream to multiple different platforms all at the same time including Facebook YouTube LinkedIn and more doing this has really allowed us to expand and cross promote in so many ways that I didn't even realize until we started doing it I also really like how streamyard has a whole bunch of different analytics tools so you could measure the success of every single one of your live streams and then pinpoint exactly where your audience is coming from to better optimize streamyard is the best way to start creating high quality content without having to spend any money in fact they even offer a free package with the link Down Below in the description again the link is down below in the description to start creating high quality content today and now with that said let's get back to the podcast the last time I heard about twitch was their nipple redaction have you seen this where people are allowed to stream with like PD on that was the last time he went on Twitch okay yeah that was the last time I was there the last time was on Twitch was when I was looking at a lot of yeah the the body paint Jack yeah this was it was a big meme because twitch announced that they were like allowing uh nude art yes and then that got got stretched to the maximum and then they retracted it right what do you think about twitch's new policies or the evolving policies of maybe people I don't want to say exploiting you know their fine print but but taking things like that and saying well technically I'm not breaking the rules and twitch is uh you not not you know promoting this but allowing it I think they're sick of the war they've been fighting because there is a war breu and it is it is the e girls versus the twitch policy team and and and they are [ __ ] innovative because twitch will make a rule and then they'll be like okay I came up with this new idea I have sensor bars and I'm completely nude and that's that's allowed in your rules right now and then they're like okay I guess we have to add a you can't have sensor bar rule which I didn't think we would have to do and they've been doing this for years man like literally years and you'll see like it'll be you know amaranth baned 48 hours because she went a little too far she's like now I know where the line is and and it's all maximizing the craziest thing you can do being a bit of a provocator getting a lot of viewers who are maybe you know cumers and then turning them from maybe a like technically not porn website to a porn site like an only fans and I don't know if you saw how much amarat is making from only fans yeah like 50 million something like that so the strategy is working but I don't think twitch wants to be in the game of like okay what is allowed what what the game of basically what can women wear is kind of what they're having to do that's not a good game to be in so I think they wanted out and I think that's why they had this policy which is like we don't give a [ __ ] just do do what you want to do please and and it didn't work because then people stretch it at nauseum and I think what they're now turning to to do is let's just let people not see this like let's have this dark Shady corner it's the closet don't go in that closet it's that's our porn closet and that's where they want to put them and so what they're making people do is categorize themselves correctly and they have this pools hot tubs in beaches category spoiler alert nobody's at the [ __ ] beach it's just women in their home looking like they are wearing a tire that could be at the beach perhaps maybe a French Beach and uh and then they're going to make sure that category doesn't get promoted M ban everybody who Mis categorizes thems to to let them know hey you can't [ __ ] do that and then uh have a toggle to just turn it off altoe and I think that's their game plan so they can get out of the seems like a nuclear option of just we're gonna we're going to get rid of all these people but what percentage of twitch audience do you think goes for that specifically versus gaming because I'd imagine like just anecdote it probably has to be like 20% that maybe goes for that it's region based yeah the Turkish viewers uh I think porn is banned in Turkey yeah and so twitch isn't that's where you go it's I had no idea yeah I didn't know either I learned from from the people at the Top Donut fascinating wow yeah unbelievable what do you think of gambling streams they're not so popular or common anymore on Twitch yeah K I guess kick now is where a lot of the people have gone yeah man I mean like I I mean I'll come clean I [ __ ] liked watching it yeah cuz you know you'd see the crazy it's fun to watch I have a little monkey brain and I and I like seeing the bonus hit and then going for a $5 Million jackpot uh and there's you know a warped part of my mind and many other people's mind because I have a [ __ ] gambling addiction where it's it's you know you're you're living vicariously through this person who's clicking a button and losing $1,000 every single click which is just it's a crazy thing thing um so I think there's certainly an audience for them where I think it gets weird is when they're sponsored by the the casino and whether it's them getting free play money or them just getting paid and then using that money to play it feels less genuine than someone just gambling with their own money because they're not risking in the same way a viewer would risk if they went to the casino and I think that's that's wrong and it should be like like [ __ ] fully disclosed to a higher extent than if you just did like a fortnite sponsor stream right like I think like I think you got to [ __ ] you got to be like hey yeah they're giving me this much this is why I'm gambling this much like you should be very forthright because it's it's this honest how much you're gambling when you're paid by The Gambler that's a great Point part of me worries because I see the entertainment value of doing something like that and I enjoy some of the streams I see the the highlight reels yeah of the gambling streams and they're really fun to watch and I think as an entertainment value as an adult I think there there's nothing wrong with it uh my concern is kids seeing it and maybe falling into gambling because they see it glamorized I think it's wrong I look the four the kids argument is value valid or or used I should say in [ __ ] every situation it's used in the conversation we just had about about the the the e girls and in the you know beaches category it's used in the gambling conversation I'm I'm not concerned as much about the kids as I am about the gambling addict watching who's like seeing it and maybe wants to play themselves because I used to do uh sponsored poker I stopped doing it this is maybe four five years ago now I did sponsored poker streams and then after the poker I would I would win I'd have money in this account and it was a pain in the ass to withdrawal so I would play blackjack with it and I would do this on stream and it wasn't sponsored Blackjack but it was more like hey I I won in the poker game I crushed let's let's go play Blackjack either spin it up or go home po so one of these times I'm doing it I lose like I don't know 4K or something I just lose everything I want in poker instantly uh and my roommate also gambling addict at the time slime and uh and he watches his stream and then after watching me lose all my money downloads the site puts in a couple racks loses it all and this isn't at a time where we have the podcast and I'm crushing it and we're doing very well this is at a time where the bank accounts mattered in in the sense that 2K was a big [ __ ] hit and I I remember being like kind of mad at him and then feeling guilty myself because I was like dude why the [ __ ] did you see me lose and then play he's like I don't know I thought I'd be different I thought I'd hit it and so I'm more concerned about those people than I am about a kid who can maybe get their parents' credit card and like maybe get a thousand on the site Maybe that seems much more niche of a situation how does it make you feel when you watch gambling streams I like the little monkey brand I like the the big numbers does it make you want to gamble no cuz I don't do the type of gambling that I'm watching like I'm not really a slot guy and I also have a no online gambling rule because I had it on this site and I would I started playing it offline so I I I cut I quit that cold turkey like four years ago uh I I have a basically only gamble inv V Rule now was it hard to conquer a gambling addiction it didn't spiral super out of control it's more like if I have a set amount of money let's say I bring 1K or or 10K or 100K I will spend it all it doesn't matter how much right like I will just [ __ ] drive it to zero uh trying to either win it all back or you know go for a crazy double so so the last time it was really bad is I brought 50k to Vegas and I've never really gambled with that much money before but I happened to have $50,000 in cash because I played in this crazy big poker game and they they paid me part of the winnings in cash so I brought it all to Vegas and instantly my mind was able to like adjust the value of dollars to what I had so before like $100 was like a big bet it would give me like a [ __ ] jel and now a th was giving me like the same jol it didn't elevate it wasn't like oh [ __ ] yeah this is a thousand now it was like oh no this this feels like same old and so the numbers just became a little fake in my brain but they're very real numbers that I was very really losing and so I just ended up burning through the entire stack in like three days of just non-stop like let me win it back let me win it back bigger hands but double it now and and didn't work out how did you feel afterwards like when it was all gone [ __ ] what goes through your mind horrible you go through despair you just like you're like just sad and that you just think about what you could have done in every moment you could have walked away and how you'd be so much happier if you weren't where you are right now I think I called my girlfriend at like 2 a.m. just sad I was just like just wanted to be sad on the phone with her it was it was de did she tell you to stop or when you're already done this is like I'm down 20K walk away I'd be like all right yeah I got $10 I'll walk away it didn't matter it was done did you purposely not reach out to her in the middle of it because you either thought you could make more or because she would tell you to stop dude what I'll do yeah is I'll sneak away because usually you go to Vegas in group so I'm in a group and like if I'm really trying to [ __ ] fiend and win it back I'll sneak away from the group to some quiet High Roller table to try to like spin it up if I'm down you know whatever amount and that's and that's when I'm demon mode and that's when I lose it all is is when I'm I go on my solo Adventure okay but it doesn't seem like you have the um the need to go and like take money out of an ATM like I've seen some people where if they lose money they they come in with two grand it's gone they'll have this urge to go to the ATM and somehow win it back versus you you say okay I'm going in with this amount and if it's gone I'm not going to go and try to make that back it seems like it's just you kind of accept that that is what it is I'd go to the ATM but I have a limit in the sense that I literally cannot withdraw more than $1,000 like that's my credit card limit and I don't have a debit card so I have to use my credit card I have to withdraw with it it has a$1 thousand limit that you can withdraw per day so I can't really gamble more than that unless I start asking people for money but I've never gotten there I think unless you have 50 credit cards yeah I need have a stack of cards when's the last time you gambled twitchcon September we were in Vegas but I could only get $1,000 before I got there and uh again I can only pull out a thousand a day so actually no I didn't even pull out any money I couldn't pull out that's what it was I couldn't pull out any money before twitchcon I used my credit card I had $1,000 do because that's the max I could get and then I never needed to withdraw again because I I got lucky oh you won oh yeah I won I I uh I gambled slow I was like I really want to Pace myself because this is the the last time I went to Vegas was the first time since I lost 50k and that felt really bad so I only had a th I slowly played with friends and I got to about like $33,000 I got pretty lucky and then right before I left the bug hit me and I was like what if I put this all in one hand you know it's $1,000 dollar if I gambled for as many hours as I did over the course of three days and I lost a thousand I wouldn't be too sad but if I want it that'd be pretty dope so it was me and and Ted another Creator I I I walked him to a high roller table I put all my chips down I said one hand sir and they delt me out and I hit [ __ ] blackjack no way oh my God and I walked out of there with 7500 just grinning ear to ear and that and that was the day I took back what was mine Las Vegas and that was good do you feel like though that you should quit or that it's a problem maybe you know indulging a little bit here and there that maybe that could lead to something bigger in the future no cuz I my rules only gamble in Vegas right and I'm not in Vegas a lot and I'm not going to Vegas ever to just gamble okay you know because the amount of time that would take and the amount of lost value of work would would stop me from doing that so I think it's fine because of those parameters the rules that I have to set up and that's like what I do for most things like for drinking I don't drink because my father was an alcoholic I'm not but I think it's genetic so I only drink if other people are drinking I make it a very social thing I've never drank alone ever I just I won't do it you know at the very least I have to be like on call with someone who's also drinking you know do you have a limit when you're drinking in terms of how many drinks you'll have no I'll go stupid less so now because I'll just feel really bad the next day I me too so that's maybe my preventative but I I mean I'll still drink as much last night so probably the first time I drank in like a month or something uh since like maybe Christmas and that and that yeah I drank a lot mine's always two two drinks more than two drinks I had three on New Year's Eve and the next day I was out I saw you that night three no that was Halloween no that was New Year's Eve well no that wasow was Halloween you're Hallen and I think for me that was a one to two drink night it definitely was not the third takes you out 100% two gets me there right uh in terms of taking me out the next day three is like that's the nail in the coffin that is I will be incapacitated the next day for whatever reason terrible sleep I feel bad I feel sad I'm not productive at all the whole day is a waste and so I I calculate is that third drink worth wasting the next day okay some days I could like New Year's Day not doing anything New Year's Day so I could justify it right uh but yeah day after Halloween I got to be productive so two is the max always it's a good rule yeah do you want to give us an update on your port folio of how you're investing sure I have a Robin Hood account still yeah yeah we went through that the last time and I noticed some of the stocks were down quite a bit but that was like yeah it's not been the greatest 18 months if I'm coming clean to you I have made a return uh o lifetime of 3.21% and that is over the course of September 2019 four years four four and a half years maybe four four years and change so it's not bad you know there was a recession man yeah here it is a lot of money wow that is a rebound we came back my go we're so back you can if you want wow I wonder like what what did this look like down here oh it was bad you're down 50 I was down yeah I think 50k at worst dude to be up on something like that that's you held I you held through it wow 200 shares of Apple mhm that's good you got a lot of I have a lot of Blue Chip companies that I like and I think are good I I got into a Reddit phase yeah which was really bad and so I started buying literally whatever I would see on Reddit which ended up being paler and uh rocket mortgage yep and uh coinbase and they were all [ __ ] horrible coinbase did really well this year though so that's probably the reason why you're up this year is I think in the last year is probably coinbase no I have like almost I I bought like a very small amount of it okay yeah most of it is in like Microsoft Apple cocacola yeah boring stuff where else besides this do you invest I have like a retirement account okay and I have a financial adviser who has he's like a friend of mine um and yeah there's just a bunch of money in there if if I retire It Go I get it and that's like I don't know less than a million it's a million combined with that account in the retirement account okay like as far as investing would you ever want to be a landlord no like on property why cuz uh why I I don't know I don't I don't like the idea I don't want to do the work okay I like what I do I make enough money and I've never thought man I should make more money like you have a lot of money you're rich you're Rich As [ __ ] we can say this confidently okay I've seen you show your YouTube stuff before it's Doom good and you're in the [ __ ] business sector or whatever ad rev's juicy but what's the goal with the money and I've always thought of life to be like a two-phase thing and a lot of people get get stuck and die in Phase One and phase one is is getting money and the reason you get it initially is to survive to to get a house to fulfill goals you had and then phase two is what fulfills you like what now that you've you know achieved uh safety security whatever what do you want to do with your life and I see a lot of people get stuck in Phase One and oftentimes it's just because of circumstances they are fighting their whole life to make enough money to pay out debts or whatever and I get that but I also see a lot of people who are really rich have a singular goal of get more rich and the question I always ask is why because I can get more rich but I've hit a point of Rich to me which is enough and it's a different line for everybody there's not a right answer here can be you know some would argue mine's too high too low whatever but I think it's much better in my eyes to move phase two as quickly as you can and just start doing [ __ ] with the capital or the money that makes you happy instead of just acre more of it because you don't keep it when you die so what are we really getting at so that's that's my question to you my response is that you would have to make more than 3% because you're losing a lot of money to inflation on that but what is phase two cuz like yeah I am losing it but ultimately that amount of money is fine like that's a [ __ ] good amount of money to have that's enough if if if most people in the world had the amount of money I have and they never earned a dollar again they'd be they'd be they'd be chilling they'd be happy so what what is your phase two I'm still figuring that out I don't know okay um I have been getting really into art lately so I've been doing some art uh playing the drums a lot I think when you mentioned Health earlier in the podcast and people to show up with a six-pack like I want to be that guy who kind of not disappears for a little bit but just all of a sudden just ripped like that has been a dream of mine uh and then spending a lot of time on the podcast like we've been traveling a significant amount to get out really good episodes and we've been doing that so I want to continue that so for me but for me it's a bit of the it's the Love of the Game it's the art of doing business and making money and investing it and getting a return like for me that's fun and that fulfills you yes it does I will say for Graham recently actually this has been my one of my biggest criticisms for Graham throughout our entire relationship nearly five years of it is that he was so money focused it's like okay where can we go to make the most amount of money what can we do on the podcast to make most amount of money post more for my main Channel I want to post more make a bunch of money and recently he actually has been spending time on things that don't make money which has been a pattern for him for the entire time I've known him is like he wants to spend his time on things that make money and if he's spending his time on something else he's calculating the cost opportunity cost opportunity cost of going for a walk or of taking a phone call that he doesn't necessarily want to take or doing something like that or going to a party because it's going to cost him this much if his hourly rate is this much but recently he actually been doing a very good job and I'm very proud of you gr very proud of this guy because he's painting he's becoming an artist I'll show I'll show you some my art actually very good what's that where where did that shift come from I think what hit me for six years I was posting three videos a week on my main Channel and it was grueling and at the end of every year I would tell myself I'm gonna go down to one video a week two videos a week but every year I would think let me just continue it to April which is when my birthday is so I could just make a birthday sort of thing and then in April I would say well let me just get to the end of the year since I may as well just do that and then call it an even you know seven years or six years on YouTube because it started in December of 2016 so for me it was just like let's just get to that year and say I made it the year uh but it got to a point where honestly the whole Finance space was really slowing down a lot like there wasn't that much for me to talk about and I found myself just making these videos just for the sake of making a video and I just I didn't want to lose that like three video week streak that I kept up for six years straight and there was just I think like one week where there wasn't much for me to talk about so I just skipped it and then I thought well my videos are actually doing better the fact that I'm posting less so it's actually working in my favor so let's go to one video a week and I started doing that and those videos ended up doing better so I'm like oh wow I'm just going to stick with this but I had some free time so so I thought what am I going to do in the free time so I started doing art um and it started because I saw my garage I love doing home projects that I could do myself and I just get obsessed with them and I saw my garage and I thought oh this would be cool if I painted my garage black and I thought you know how much is this going to cost and so you know Gavin helped and got some supplies and I got like five gallons of black paint and I painted the garage for three days I loved it it was so much fun of just sitting there i' listen to podcast the entire time painting the garage I thought it was great and I got a lot of satisfaction doing that and uh when I was on Lily pichu's podcast she had me do like one of those little art painting I think you did one too yeah so I did something and Macy said that's actually really good maybe you should do art and I was like no I'm not going to do art that's that's silly I'm not going to do that and I painted the garage and she said again I think you should do some art so I said okay so my idea initially was in the black garage I wanted to get some artwork to hang behind the Cars cuz I thought that would look cool so I started looking up how much cool artwork was and I saw the price and I'm like there's no way I'm going to spend like 30 grand to get the type of artwork that I want to put at the back of the garage so I said I'm just going to make it myself it can't be that hard and so I spent like I spent a week painting myself and then it ended up being too nice to put in the garage so I thought I'm going to put it up in the house so here's so this is down one of the hallways all right have the people at home seen this uh no no no one's seen it you're the first to see it oh my gosh so this is the first one so this is down a long three piece it's a three piece so this was inspired by Damen Hurst Who does these artwork with like you know circles then this was just a cool little design of just red paint with a person cut out uh paint dripping and then that's a a light bulb then I got into just painting these little wait what the [ __ ] yeah you're painting that yeah dude they're good yeah I had no idea yeah thank you wait they're really good they're really good I I had no idea that I had a talent for this are you just like is it like a time like how are they good I have no idea so I'm watching videos on YouTube about how to paint with acrylic paints and so I'm watching these videos and are teaching you how to do it not like you know how to paint like this specifically but they say like oh if you want to blend you use this brush or if you want to uh you know make it a little B more uh malleable mix it with some water or mix these paints together to do shadowing yeah so I'm like learning these things and then just applying it check out that detail dude someone is that really good someone who's and I mean no offense here someone who's looking up how to paint with acrylic paint shouldn't be able to paint this 100% this 100% this is like the person who you look up right this is like I'm honored man thank you that's crazy it looks great man thank you that's cute that this is the hallway so you could kind of see like the depth and how big these things are yeah they're huge so for the thing that he drew on liily pachu like I I was like dang like he drew that in that amount of time I it's just I guess a natural skill then again your your dad's an illustrator right he's an animator right animator so maybe it runs in the blood did you doodle a lot as a kid never what like every now and then if you're bored but like that was never anything serious it was never anything good that's fun yeah that's crazy but it's incredible I get in a Zone and there's something about it just do you ever think like he said earlier about the cost per hour while you're painting no because I think I could sell it I I I told Jack okay we're back we're back yeah we're back he's changed a little bit not that much right right he's still himself but for real I'm telling Jack it's like what would someone pay for those three pieces and I had a buddy offered 12,000 for three and he was serious about it and I said no I wouldn't do it but I said 25,000 you pay me 25 Grand you take them off the wall right now and he said no but there's got to be a price like someone would pay so I'm kind of thinking in that perspective like anything I'm doing I could theoretically sell it which I think is good I think it's good if your hobbies occasionally make a little bit of money not doing them for the money just because you have a passion for the thing I don't look I don't think there's anything like inherently wrong you need money in this world you do it's how it operates so there's nothing wrong with wanting money and wanting it to be secure and wanting to invest for a future that that sets you up to do all the things you want to do I think it only becomes a problem if that's if that's it it's just the constant acral of money as opposed to the purpose of what is the money doing and that's why Money Matters it's what it what it can do for you not just sitting on it like like a dragon like like smog you know yeah so we'll see I'm G to keep painting and um keep doing it yeah that's sick I do want to know more about your optimizing for fulfillment that's one of the most fascinating things at least in this stage of my life what I love talking about to people uh at what point did you feel rich what time did you enter phase two I don't want to pretend I have it all figured out here right I think it's a work in progress but I think it was sometime after the subathon it's after hitting the very high high and then realizing in the same way that if all you ever care about is recuring money if all you ever care about is uring viewers which in a roundabout way is uring money then this is like a like a bit of an endless Pursuit uh and and so I didn't want to do that like my goal was not Mr Beast my goal was make stuff I like and be happy and add back to people around me in the world uh and so that's I think around the time is there a dollar amount that you correlated to that or was it just the timing of you coming off a subathon and thinking I don't think it's a dollar amount I don't think people hit a dollar amount and then cuz the old cliche is you hit the dollar amount and then you set a new goal and I think it's a change in the actual mentality it's changes perspective I think I have enough money I think with a million dollars I have enough money and I know like a million dollars can't last me the next whatever 50 years of my life however long I live but I also think it's enough and I could do whatever else I want like think everything I'm doing right now in terms of work is making as much as I can making as much cool [ __ ] as I can to make offbrand profitable and work and successful uh and so that is really what drives me is like 30 mes to feed and making sure we don't go bankrupt more than I I want more money but after that's done dude what I really been thinking about doing is open up a bakery and baking bread and I think that would be really dope and I'd love cuz I don't think Bread's very good even in La it's not very good you know and then you know I I go to France about every year to visit family it's my favorite food it's just [ __ ] really good ass bread do you like it with like olive oil or vinegar or something like that yeah I like it every way you can Chef it up straight up just bread and butter have you tried herob bread so unbelievably delicious this is so they sponsored a few of our past podcast oh my God they're not paying us okay they're not paying us to say they're not us but honestly it's insanely good the reason I asked is because it's like really it's high protein bread it's really high it's healthy bread it's something low calorie high protein is go to a pitch I've been eating this every morning which is true it sounds good i' I've heard of high protein bread but I just like yummy bread like really [ __ ] I'm just curious what makes bread good in your opinion good crust yeah you like the crust don't you and the holes inside of it too yeah light and fluffy for me that's like white bread uh like I don't mind like um yeah like milk bread I think is what they call it sure like those are good potato Bread's also fire but no I like a [ __ ] nice ass baguette okay that's my [ __ ] and they don't have that here you can't really there's a few places but it's kind of hard to find you make bread not yet no I got to make bre you you just like consuming it yeah I'm just a big Eater of bread why don't you do a bread stream I think I will I think I'll I'll probably like dabble into it a bit but like this is a this is what I want to do when I grow up and right now I have to uh make off- brand profitable so I don't want to like I want to do that first it would be a great date night bread night oh yeah well the thing is my girlfriend can only she she's I told her about this dream of mine and she was a little mad and I was like why why and it's because she's like the best baker in the world I know and she's like that's my dream but she like she can make any dessert you could imagine she can make bread she can make anything she can just do it all why doesn't she turn that dream into a reality why doesn't she open up a bakery I think she will at some point but you guys be competing bakeries yeah or together or together F I'll be I'll make the bread she makes the the the sugary Goods uh I I think her reason is because her her job her other job which she also likes which is streaming and you know the big thing she does the streamer Awards which she puts on every year that is hard to do and then if also had a bakery to run she would have to quit this basically and that's a big leap it's a big change and I don't know if she wants to make it yet in the same way I I don't want to or I can't now why do a bakery versus do it for fun I will just make bread for yourself because you enjoy it cuz I want to make bread so that wherever I live you know who I think is really cool are Barbers like Barbers are a really integral piece of a community right and and if you go to do you have a regular Barber you go to either of you I have a guy I usually try to go to and you build a bond with that person and there there are huge part in in the same way like a librarian would be or or maybe a school teacher a huge part of the local community and that's like what to me makes the [ __ ] world turn is like those those people and those roles and it exists in France like a like a baker like a b laundry like a place you go you get your bread it's the dude who makes the bread and he's making it for the local community and he's making money but he's also making good [ __ ] bread that that he or she's proud of whatever and so that's what I want to do I don't just want to make bread because I can eat it at my home I'd want to make it for whatever wherever I live whatever local community I'm at would you stay in California for that or do you think you'd move somewhere else I don't think so I don't think I don't think because this is like at this point raising a family having kids and I don't think I would do that in La okay why wouldn't you do in LA I grew up in New Hampshire and you know there's 8,000 people in our town uh and I just think that's like it just felt healthier feels more down to earth as opposed to being in like la which is like a [ __ ] huge ass City like I I don't know I just feel like if you grew up where'd you grow up Ventura if you do you know where that is yeah yeah it's like an hour north yeah ventur is but that's like it's just people would say sometimes it's a suburb of the greater La yes and I would argue that's a little different than like I guess what I'm thinking of what I'm saying I wouldn't want to raise a kid in La I'm thinking like oh ventur is incredible I love to grow up there perfect where'd you grow up la la yeah do you like it I do where where did you was it like Santa Monica oh [ __ ] you grew up there grew up there you grew up in the [ __ ] like like it wasn't always like Santa Monica was like the cheap part of La when I grew up there all the houses were two to 300 Grand Max which I know you know in the '90s compared to the rest of the country but it was never the Santa Monica it is now like Santa Monica uh changed a lot when Google moved in I think it was like 2007 or eight yeah know they Snapchat there too before then I'd go to the prominade and it would be like kind of a a sketchy place to hang out like there would be homeless people there drug addict prostitute like it wasn't a safe place to be after the sun went down so this doesn't sound like a great place to raise a kid I wouldn't want based on what you're describing I mean it's different now I mean here it's all I know but also I I liked it I thought it was a great place I don't know about today I wouldn't want to raise a kid in La especially Santa Monica when I was living with you in the guest house I thought it was so sketchy I mean even just walking down to the beach it's like oh at night it's different during the day it's fine at night the issue is that sometimes you get mentally ill people who can be unpredictable um and usually you just kind of walk past but I've seen sometimes where they're like you know they get right in your face and you just don't know if you know they'll hurt you I guess is is the best way to they're unpredictable unct I mean I only lived in La for about a year and during that year I probably saw three like myself saw firsthand experience homeless people or mentally ill and whatever people like going and doing something that is very dangerous and sketchy I don't know if it's oldfashioned but I like the idea of raising a kid in an area that's walkable in a community that you know the [ __ ] librar and the principal you know small enough for that and then to me when that kid grows up 18 19 20 they can you know go to college in a bigger city and then that's when they experience that as opposed to starting out in a big city like I think there's some value to that sort of local life and that's why I don't think I'd raise a kid in La that's fair when when do you want kids not yet but is there an age that you have in mind no I think it's a problem and a trend across most people who are like around my age is that there's been a shift both medically how late you can have a kid and then also how far people want to progress their career before having a kid and it's being stretched like people want to go further and and it's on both sides like women also want to go further they like I don't want to have to pick between Career kid which was the choice for a long time which is leading to a lot of the times waiting past when you can't have a kid or just not having a kid at all um but I think people are having kids later and later right it feels like I'm sure if you looked at the data the the trend is it used to be you know something early 20s mid 20s late 20s and now it's like oh early 30s mid-30s some people are just having surrogates with frozen eggs late 30s so I think I'm part of this trend I'm not an exclusion to it yeah my parents had me when they were 38 and 36 so to me that kind of seems like the normal like I can't imagine having a child now right so to me it seems normal like oh yeah 38 it seems like a good age where you kind of get out what you want you you're not going to put your dreams aside necessarily you could focus on yourself and then at that point you could maybe shift right your allocation there yeah I mean I like I would be fine with it if I had a kid like if a kid spawned tomorrow that'd be chill but I'd rather put all my effort into work at least for the next couple years yeah what are your goals for this year I know you said 50,000 YouTube members yeah yeah I think I'll crush it I think we're at like 30 you'll get there 7K right now pretty inexpensive I saw in your how much was like 9 you put it like the cheapest yeah you put it like the cheapest year yeah I've had perspective shift I think maybe because of the yard and the patreon and the podcast on what a member is and for those who don't know a member on YouTube I guess we're on YouTube so it's fine but it's like it's what a sub is on Twitch someone who pays to watch you and on Twitch you just kind of do it if you like the person and they have emotes and there's some streamers who really lean into that and they have good emotes or whatever but for the most part it is I just watch this guy it's free I don't mind giving him $5 a month or I have a twitch Prime I don't mind giving him that because I get a free voucher for a $5 sub I'll do it uh but I've shifted now to I really like returning value and I never really did when I was a twitch streamer and I had like 30,000 Subs on on Twitch um like that's what about my average was but I didn't really do [ __ ] you know I just I just streamed uh and now I want to make sure like I do a lot of member only streams where I just like I wouldn't normally be streaming this that's kind of my rule but I will stream it for the people who are paying a dollar and a dollar is like a relatively low lift you know it does still price some people out of doing it but I want to make sure that if you pay a dollar you felt [ __ ] good about giving the dollar which means I have to do you know work give some [ __ ] for that yeah that makes sense so the 50,000 is not for money yeah and YouTube I think takes what 40% of that yeah 30 yeah so you know 50,000 members YouTube taking 30% of it it's a nice chunk of change but it is not like nearly enough to fund any of my companies uh and and all the salaries it is more so it just feels good to have people give me their dollar as like a vote of confidence and then me give enough value back that they're happy with having done that yeah how much are you spending do you think month to month between like the YouTube channel all the businesses Etc I don't know a lot do you not pay too much attention to that like you have your managers on that I had like a phase where I was really into it I was really into the [ __ ] business side of it and I was in every business meeting and I was in all the numbers and [ __ ] but it made me a worst a worst Creator cuz one the time but then two it's like you kind of get like really [ __ ] sweaty and serious and start thinking about the math of it all As opposed to before I did any of that which is like hey I'm going to give you guys my credit card for an hour and you guys might spend 15K but that's okay because I think it's cool and and be funny and and then it was I was thinking more like well what's the return on it like are we going to make it back like what are we looking at and I don't want to I don't want to be that and I was becoming that so I kind of took a step back and you know for offbrand which is the larger company I'm not the CEO I'm not the COO I'm not even a c title my title is lwig that's what they put it as so I just you know because that's what I that's what I have to be I have to be lwig which means I have to do events I have to come up with ideas I have to execute them and I have to if one of my friends who's a Creator wants to do something introduce them to people who will get it done but I I'm not crunching the numbers that's not me do you think that because you're focused Less on that that you're earning less or would you say you're earning more than you were in the past me as a person am I earning less um probably but I don't I don't know I like I honestly don't know how much I'm earning because it goes to the business and then I draw a salary from it so I don't like pull out any extra unless like some [ __ ] comes up but that doesn't really happen so yeah what do you think of xqc's hundred million kick deal I don't think it's 100 Mil yeah I think there's some I don't know what it is like I actually I haven't talked to X about it but maybe like percentage ownership I think it's equity and cash yeah I think that's what most people have come to the conclusion about um but are you asking like does it make sense or if you have any thoughts of such a large onp paper deal it's a big number yeah okay do you think it makes sense for kick for both I think it makes sense for X I get it you know he was the biggest streamer in the world for so many years like three years or something four years just like most hours watched and like really devoted to streaming like if you look at the amount of hours he streamed there were multiple years where he averaged over 10 hours a day for the whole year backtack years that's crazy that's so much energy and so I get wanting to cash out on that and it it it makes sense like like you you did the the the work get your payday uh and then for kick I don't know if it makes that much sense if a lot of its Equity it might make more it seems it depends on the deal it seems like they advertised that hundred million offer and they promoted the [ __ ] out of it so that that way they could get a lot of other people interested first of all everyone was curious about it everyone talked about it then all the other creators are like wait a second Kick's paying that much yeah yeah let me go to kick too I think it backfired cuz kick does this huge hund million deal and this was leaked by the way I think by like xqc's agent not kick yeah so it's a $100 million deal everyone hears about it oh [ __ ] Kick's paying that much yeah so then when they enter negotiations with kick they're starting there at these big ass numbers and Kick's like bro you don't even know what the [ __ ] deal is you're coming at us and I know this cuz I did this cuz I had my two year uh with YouTube wrap up and I resigned with YouTube but in the process I talked to everyone you know I talked to [ __ ] Facebook just to see what deal there was and if you could maybe leverage it or maybe just to find out the number which sometimes I selfishly do and so I was like let's find out what Ki would give and I don't think I I was ever seriously contemplating going to kick but it was a fun exercise to find out what it would be was it competitive with YouTube dude kick offered me nothing they they had like a like a big uh conversation we were like talking about these [ __ ] huge eight fig numbers and they came back they're like like maybe we can give you like this hourly deal per hour stream like 1,500 but it was like it was a very it was like a very barebones deal they did not want me why different audience do you think I don't know why but I also think I think it's just who the probably the creators they're trying to Target I don't think I'm one of them I think Amar sign something with them shortly afterwards I think ammo has Nick MKS has X has sapnap so they're they're trying to expand a bit but I don't think they've done a major signing recently was your YouTube deal this time similar structure to the last one you had no way different way different so now I can stream on Twitch oh I can stream events specifically on Twitch and YouTube because I told YouTube the most important thing to me is getting the most amount of eyeballs on something I do because I want whatever I make to have the biggest cultural impact so if I do a chess boxing again I want it to be streamed on Twitch and YouTube because there's a lot of people who just won't go over to YouTube to watch live streams so I'm just missing out on them and with this new deal for events exclusively I can do it on both how do you think YouTube could be improved I've get them the list they know there's a lot I think it starts with caring about the space more I mean honestly I think it's like mostly Tools in infrastructure like dude the 12-h hour thing that's weird uh it's really even just hard to find like like numbers like like statistics like the amount of stats that in in analysis that you get for a VOD they don't have the same thing for a live stream for example like even finding out your members like you have to wait a day for it to update like you do for Revenue like for for how much a video has made from ads that's that's weird right like you should instantly know how many members you got and on Twitch you like you can break it down you have this many people who are paying this many gifted yada y y and on YouTube it's like way harder to parse that information so their stats are super far behind there's there's a list and I know they're working through it they actually do it it's just they don't do it on a very expedited Pace yeah I think uh now that they're doing thumbnail AB testing is fantastic uh but I also really wanted to see title AP testing where you could come up with three titles or three variations of something and then show it and see what gets the highest click through yeah or if you could do that with notifications like just say I want a third of my notifications getting sent out with this this and this and tell me within 20 minutes which title gets the most clicks yeah Wonder watch time they're probably just really testing how the thumbnail IB testing will go like is it working is our tool good too right because that's before we have all the options we have to understand that is it right is it making the right call so I think they need to prove that but they might get there yeah what do you think about them getting rid of ad blockers I mean they always do that right isn't it's like a constant fight no to like no recently it seems like they've they've cracked down have they yeah in the past you could have an ad block or watch a YouTube video and they haven't done anything about it but now what they've started doing is slowing down the video or making it load a little bit longer and for some people disabling the video Al together if you have ad blocker turned off really yeah I think I remember that uh I mean I guess it makes sense like that's how they get their bread yeah I think there's always going to be a workaround I mean maybe this is foolish of me but I feel like at least growing up anytime there was some sort of [ __ ] pirating scamming scheming you could do it would get stopped and then a workaround would always come up and I don't think it'll be different this time like I don't I don't think they've truly vanquished it it's usually just creating so many barriers of entry for the average person that people are less likely to do it um but but yeah that's if if the people really want to find a work around they will yeah uh last thing I think we should talk about you said you're G to be traveling with Michael Reeves yeah yeah when is that going to happen we want to do a motorcycle trip it's going to be across Japan that's the goal uh and it's kind of like y McGregor the actor he had this series with his buddy where he would uh drive a motorcycle he did it from like like the UK around Europe around Russia took a ferry across to Alaska across the US and uh and I remember watching I was younger it was super uh like in pacf fall uh and I thought it was super cool so this is my baby version of that uh with Michael it's going across Japan and we're hoping to do it yeah sometime Mar trable wow good luck on that yeah should be dope is there anything else you want to talk about any questions anything you want to mention I have okay I have something spice for you guys yeah cool so a big focus of mine you asked me about my goals is 50,000 members running a marathon and also making off brand profitable but one thing I'm also doing which you might find this controversial is I'm making offbrand a workers Co-op and I'm making every employee own some of it and then also blocking any VCS from being able to own it or have any voting shares in it and the big shift for anyone who doesn't know is rather than like a board or like you know just uh straight up owner it is every person who works there getting a vote uh for like major decisions right like maybe what we uh make a production of or you know if we hire someone or whatever it is uh and so that's the big shift I'm making in hopes of having offbrand not just be like a company that makes me a [ __ ] huge check but it's something that lasts and [ __ ] improves the lives of everyone in it for 10 20 30 years does each vote count equally like does the intern have a same vote or the person who's been there for a month have the same voting weight as someone who's been there for two years there's an onboarding process so it's not like you sneak in and you get a vote in the first week or something usually you have to have some sort of six month whatever before you have a vote that is equal to everybody else's but yeah it's one worker one vote I think it's high risk High reward I personally wouldn't do that but then again I I believe there are I figured you wouldn't to me it seems like there are too many cooks in the kitchen the way it works right now there's still a board of directors who are doing the main day-to-day operations because you don't want to do a [ __ ] vote for every minute decision but everyone gets to vote on what is representing that board who's on that board right and then you know that board might turn over if they're making bad decisions it'll be turned over by the employees not by some VC who's pushing them out because they're not making the right decisions or just someone who has more power or ownership or whatever I wouldn't do it but then again I tend to believe that it's best to have one decision maker and who that person could hear out all the perspectives but they have a vision for it and they know where they're going and I think in doing so they're going to lead the team in the right direction I think that's still my job yeah I think that's still what I have to do okay it's it's my vision it's my ideas that is pushing a lot of it forward but it's also possible that that one person starts sucking MH and it's oftentimes really hard in a traditional company if that person owns most of it to get them out yes but I also think it's important for that one person to be open to criticism and that's something that you know I'd say me and Jack have a good one where if I'm going down a certain direction Jack has no problem telling me hey I don't I don't like this direction or I think if you go this way we're going to come up with a wall two years from now and you're going to be at that point so let's go around it here I think if you're open to those sort of suggestions I think that could kind of overcome someone like uh you know CEO sucking I think that's still the case right that doesn't change in a worker's Co-op you still have people who are giving advice people who say hey maybe that's not the right idea I think the difference is it has in my mind a higher chance of surviving longterm and also being a better like company to work for for everyone who who's making the [ __ ] thing turn so what happens if people leave what happens to their Equity they sell back at what price at a price that who assigns the price the the value of the company at the time or whatever it decides that though the value of the company yeah it could be an arbitrary number I mean you don't you don't make it up you get it appraised like you would any other company right it sounds like a hassle every time an employee leaves that they get it appraised what if they disagree with the appraiser I think there's minor problems that people like to poke holes in for a worker's Co-op but most of them are pretty tried and true and it's not like it's a new thing right there are [ __ ] 3,000 employed companies that are workers co-ops that have solved it so it's not but for a smaller company let's say Joe leaves and Joe says my portion is valued at $200,000 let's just say and the company is valued at that but giving that person $200,000 would take money out of the company and hurt the company by this person leaving and you having to pay them out because that's money now coming out of the business sure so I see that as a as a slight issue like a lot of these companies are completely liquid like smaller companies they don't have the liquidity it's it's you lock in and that valuation is there until you go public and then there's a cash out I'm not so fearful of the ghost arguments that don't exist you know like I think that will Ex I mean the chance of all the employees staying with you the entire time there's going to be turnover it's not about the employees staying with me the entire time you're just talking about a very real thing that comes up and it's not a problem it's just something that happens right so it's like do you know the company mandre gon no it's a Spanish company and they do [ __ ] everything they do like uh uh like produce they do like business they do they're in a lot of sectors this company has 1,500 20000 employees they're a workers Co-op they've solved it so it's not like you know they had this problem where they had a bunch of Joe's and then they went bankrupt because they couldn't pay out the Joe's there's just systems put in place to take care of Joe and take similar to to certain real estate syndications where you pay into it and if you want to cash out and you're in it with like even a hundred other people they say no you can't cash out if we come up with the resources and we buy you out or you find a replacement you can but you're locked in until we sell it and so I see something very similar to that sort of circumstance with you I think it's different if you're a big established company with consistent profits and you know if one person comes in and out you have the liquidity and the Arsenal to you know inject them with money find a replacement but I think on a smaller scale when you're growing it becomes difficult if if you have any sort of turnover it's money coming out of the business that becomes difficult to replace you know especially if you're not in a position where you could pay them out sure operating it hasn't been an issue okay in in any I believe operations I think people will be motivated but I think I think the logistics yeah in the past year this hasn't been an issue okay but if it comes up I'll come calling okay let's report back five years from now tell me how it how it's going yeah I'd love for it to work uh yeah I think it will thanks so much for coming on lwig it's always a pleasure to see you man will be in the description 18 months re sounds good to me man appreciate you guys thanks man