Cortex

00:00:00 ◼   ► Welcome to State of the Workflow.

00:00:01 ◼   ► In this special series, we're going to take a look at the apps and the devices that a variety of creative professionals use to get their work done, to manage their lives, and develop their creativity.

00:00:11 ◼   ► I've always been fascinated in hearing how creative people get their work done and how they think about it.

00:00:17 ◼   ► I find listening to somebody's method to be both equally interesting and inspiring.

00:00:21 ◼   ► In general, I find that creative people can be humble.

00:00:25 ◼   ► They think that what they're doing isn't unique, but when you get them to open up about how they think about their work and what they do,

00:00:31 ◼   ► you hear little insights and rules that they make for themselves that make them excel and stand out,

00:00:36 ◼   ► and there are sometimes things that you can pick and add to your own work or to your own interests.

00:00:40 ◼   ► For our first episode in this series, I invited Austin Evans to the show.

00:00:45 ◼   ► Austin has been making tech-focused YouTube videos for over 15 years and has amassed over 1.5 billion views.

00:00:54 ◼   ► Over the last five years, I've been lucky enough to spend a bit of time with Austin at his studio space in LA.

00:01:00 ◼   ► One of the things I find so fascinating about watching him create is I've never seen someone who can so easily switch on and off.

00:01:07 ◼   ► He goes from chit-chatting to me and drinking a coffee to present indirectly right into the camera in just a split second.

00:01:14 ◼   ► Also over this time, I've been fascinated to see him grow his team and hear him talk to me about the way in which they all work together,

00:01:21 ◼   ► and I've actually seen some of it too, to produce fun and engaging content that pleases both them as creative people,

00:01:27 ◼   ► but also the algorithm.

00:01:29 ◼   ► Whenever I visit Austin, I leave feeling invigorated about my own creative work.

00:01:34 ◼   ► He has a fascinating mind for creating engaging content,

00:01:38 ◼   ► and he approaches everything with professionalism and authenticity.

00:01:41 ◼   ► So I thought he would be the perfect person to kick off State of the Workflow.

00:01:46 ◼   ► Austin, I want to get started by asking, what device is most important to you?

00:01:52 ◼   ► Like a single device in my entire life?

00:01:54 ◼   ► Yep.

00:01:57 ◼   ► It's got to be phone, right?

00:01:58 ◼   ► I mean, I think it's got to be phone for everybody.

00:02:00 ◼   ► I could name a bunch of devices that I need and rely on every day,

00:02:05 ◼   ► but if I had to pick a single one, it's got to be phone.

00:02:07 ◼   ► Okay, and which?

00:02:08 ◼   ► I'm a dual phone boy, so I do my best to split up pretty evenly,

00:02:14 ◼   ► or at least as evenly as I can, between iOS and Android.

00:02:17 ◼   ► I think that there are pros and cons to both.

00:02:19 ◼   ► If I had to go to one, I mean, I guess I would probably grab the iPhone,

00:02:22 ◼   ► just because it's the iMessage, it's the way I talk to family and friends,

00:02:27 ◼   ► and the camera, especially the video, for what I do is super important,

00:02:30 ◼   ► but it's the safe, boring thing.

00:02:32 ◼   ► It's not the thing that gets me excited.

00:02:33 ◼   ► It's not the thing that gets me passionate about using devices.

00:02:36 ◼   ► It's just like the most generic town 5000 thing that I have.

00:02:40 ◼   ► But yeah, I guess if I had to, if you pin me down

00:02:41 ◼   ► and live with one device in my life, I guess it would be an iPhone.

00:02:44 ◼   ► I chose this question specifically, assuming that everybody says phone.

00:02:48 ◼   ► Part of the reason that I will be asking it to everyone

00:02:51 ◼   ► is in case somebody doesn't say phone.

00:02:53 ◼   ► It's like my typewriter.

00:02:55 ◼   ► You never know.

00:02:56 ◼   ► Like I could imagine for some people that they would go to their PC.

00:03:00 ◼   ► It just depends on the person.

00:03:03 ◼   ► But which phone is that?

00:03:06 ◼   ► Like what is the actual iPhone we're talking about?

00:03:07 ◼   ► What do you use?

00:03:08 ◼   ► Oh, the regular 16 Pro.

00:03:10 ◼   ► Okay.

00:03:10 ◼   ► So I was on the iPhone mini gang for a couple of glorious years.

00:03:14 ◼   ► To me, if I could go back to a mini, I would.

00:03:17 ◼   ► In fact, I actually went back to a mini for a little while.

00:03:18 ◼   ► Like when the 14 Pro came out, I actually went back to a 13 mini

00:03:21 ◼   ► because I just missed that form factor so much.

00:03:23 ◼   ► But yeah, I use the 16 Pro standard smallest variant I possibly could.

00:03:27 ◼   ► I'll keep squishing it down and hopefully it'll get a little smaller one day.

00:03:31 ◼   ► So for the mini, you like the smaller size, like that form factor is what's interesting to you, right?

00:03:35 ◼   ► As opposed to the bigger phones.

00:03:37 ◼   ► This upcoming idea of thinner phones, does that intrigue you at all?

00:03:41 ◼   ► Well, it does because I've got an S25 Edge in the other pocket.

00:03:46 ◼   ► So yes, it's funny.

00:03:47 ◼   ► This thin phone and the small phone feel like they're just two sides of the same coin to me

00:03:53 ◼   ► because I always liked the mini because the mini delivered such a tiny device,

00:03:58 ◼   ► super easy to use with one hand.

00:04:00 ◼   ► It's one of those things where to me, I didn't have to really think about it too much,

00:04:04 ◼   ► especially because I actually usually put it on my phones in my back pocket.

00:04:06 ◼   ► So I'm sitting on it all day and it's smaller and it's easier.

00:04:08 ◼   ► Your back pocket?

00:04:09 ◼   ► Back pocket.

00:04:09 ◼   ► Almost all of my jeans have like holes in the back pocket from where my phone has like

00:04:13 ◼   ► worked through the pocket.

00:04:15 ◼   ► Don't you sit on your phone?

00:04:16 ◼   ► I sit on my phone all the time, all day long.

00:04:19 ◼   ► That's wild to me.

00:04:21 ◼   ► I mean, to be fair, I will take my phone out of my pocket when I sit down sometimes.

00:04:24 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:04:25 ◼   ► So my EDC, if you will, is Android phone goes in the front pocket

00:04:29 ◼   ► because that's the phone that I try to use most.

00:04:31 ◼   ► So in this case, it's the S25 Edge.

00:04:33 ◼   ► Also, it's just a bigger physical phone.

00:04:34 ◼   ► It's like 6.7 inches or whatever.

00:04:36 ◼   ► And then iPhone lives in back pocket.

00:04:38 ◼   ► So that's the way.

00:04:39 ◼   ► And then while it's in my front left pocket.

00:04:41 ◼   ► So yeah, I'm always sitting on the phone.

00:04:43 ◼   ► I've never bent one, but that's the way that I sort of split things up.

00:04:46 ◼   ► But it to me feels like the thin phone and the mini phone are so similar

00:04:51 ◼   ► because when I use the iPhone 12 mini and the 13 mini, I felt so happy with that hardware.

00:04:57 ◼   ► Even though, especially with the 12, like battery wasn't that great.

00:04:59 ◼   ► And, you know, cameras were decent.

00:05:01 ◼   ► But that size was so absolutely just, just, I just made me happy.

00:05:06 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:05:06 ◼   ► And it's funny with the S25 Edge, it is a worse phone in almost every single way.

00:05:11 ◼   ► Than what?

00:05:12 ◼   ► Than the regular S25 line, right?

00:05:14 ◼   ► I mean, because you can go to ultra or even if you do the S25 Plus, it's the exact same screen.

00:05:18 ◼   ► So it's like the same sort of dimensions, except that this is like two millimeters thinner or whatever.

00:05:22 ◼   ► But that two millimeters makes such a difference in the way it feels in the hand.

00:05:25 ◼   ► Yes.

00:05:26 ◼   ► And it feels like to me, and I know I'm definitely an outlier here.

00:05:29 ◼   ► I like weird.

00:05:30 ◼   ► I like unique.

00:05:31 ◼   ► I like stuff that makes me feel something.

00:05:33 ◼   ► It's why we were both on the Z Flip gang for a long time.

00:05:36 ◼   ► It's just, to me, I want the devices I use, this is going to sound so stupid, to like spark creativity.

00:05:43 ◼   ► I want something that's different.

00:05:45 ◼   ► And that's part of the reason why, even though the iPhone is unbelievably good at almost everything,

00:05:49 ◼   ► it's boring.

00:05:51 ◼   ► It doesn't inspire me.

00:05:53 ◼   ► It's just a tool.

00:05:54 ◼   ► Whereas when I use some weird tablet or phone or whatever, that sparks something in me to

00:06:00 ◼   ► kind of, to be creative, to try to think outside the box, to try to use different apps, to just

00:06:04 ◼   ► try to do different things.

00:06:06 ◼   ► Because I don't know, just, it's important to me to have something weird and different and

00:06:09 ◼   ► unique.

00:06:10 ◼   ► And even if it's worse, if it's different, that's like a big selling point for me.

00:06:14 ◼   ► So you're saying about sparking creativity, fascinating.

00:06:17 ◼   ► You're doing it already.

00:06:18 ◼   ► This is why I want to have these conversations with people.

00:06:21 ◼   ► Obviously, for you, having creativity sparked is good for your business, right?

00:06:27 ◼   ► Because if a device can make you feel something, it's good.

00:06:33 ◼   ► But was this something that you felt before you were a content creator?

00:06:38 ◼   ► Dude, I was a child before I was a content creator.

00:06:40 ◼   ► I don't remember.

00:06:42 ◼   ► I understand what you're saying.

00:06:43 ◼   ► You know, I am older than you, but I feel the same.

00:06:46 ◼   ► Like when I had the desire to create content, I was in my early 20s.

00:06:51 ◼   ► So still to me now, when I look back on that part of my life, I feel like I was a child.

00:06:55 ◼   ► But I look at that kind of idea from myself and know that I always cared about technology

00:07:03 ◼   ► for a specific reason.

00:07:04 ◼   ► that made me want to share my love with other people for it.

00:07:09 ◼   ► So I assume that there is something in that for you too, because why else would you have

00:07:13 ◼   ► ever started making YouTube videos?

00:07:16 ◼   ► Okay, okay.

00:07:17 ◼   ► Now that you say it like that, you are right.

00:07:18 ◼   ► To me, creativity has always been important.

00:07:20 ◼   ► But before I made content, I was much more on the writing side of things.

00:07:24 ◼   ► Since literally I was like 10 years old, my friend and I always were writing.

00:07:28 ◼   ► Like at recess, I was always, you know, sitting on journals.

00:07:30 ◼   ► As soon as I got my first computer at the house, you know, I was opening like WordPad

00:07:34 ◼   ► and sort of like typing and whatnot.

00:07:35 ◼   ► So to me, that was my creative output for a very long time until I was like 16, 17, when

00:07:39 ◼   ► I actually started the channel.

00:07:40 ◼   ► And then that sort of like a light switch flipped over to tech.

00:07:43 ◼   ► But I think the idea of needing to spark the creativity, it's a little bit more of a recent

00:07:50 ◼   ► phenomenon.

00:07:50 ◼   ► I'd say like last like five to seven years.

00:07:53 ◼   ► I think in part, it's easy to get burned out, especially when you're looking at the same

00:07:57 ◼   ► thing.

00:07:58 ◼   ► Like I remember the day, I'm sure you do too, when, you know, a new iPhone would come

00:08:02 ◼   ► out, like an iPhone six, everyone lost their minds.

00:08:04 ◼   ► It was crazy.

00:08:05 ◼   ► And now I sometimes struggle to remember iPhone 15, 16, 17, which one are we on?

00:08:09 ◼   ► It's just, it doesn't feel good to say that out loud, but it's like, you've gone through

00:08:13 ◼   ► the same cycle so many times.

00:08:15 ◼   ► It's not as special.

00:08:16 ◼   ► You know, it's like when you'll go to like a tech event or something, right?

00:08:18 ◼   ► Like, you know, my first ever CES blew my mind.

00:08:21 ◼   ► It was unbelievable to see that amount of tech in one spot.

00:08:25 ◼   ► When you go to 10, 11, 12, it's doesn't have that same sort of joy.

00:08:29 ◼   ► And so one of the things I try to actively do is to force myself outside the comfort zone,

00:08:33 ◼   ► try weird new things, pick up the phone, the thing that you pick up a hundred times a day

00:08:37 ◼   ► and make that a device that is not just a utility, but actually something that makes me go, Ooh,

00:08:43 ◼   ► I literally just something as dumb as I picked up the phone and it's a little thinner in my

00:08:47 ◼   ► hand.

00:08:47 ◼   ► I'm like, Hmm, that just does something for me.

00:08:49 ◼   ► And it starts getting the juices flowing, even though it's not like, Oh, I'm going to make

00:08:51 ◼   ► another phone video, but just to me, that's been a really important part of the creative

00:08:55 ◼   ► process the last few years is really just making sure that I'm never too comfortable with any

00:08:59 ◼   ► of the gear I'm using.

00:09:00 ◼   ► Well, I think this comes from smartphones being a mature product now that there isn't a lot

00:09:08 ◼   ► that can be done.

00:09:10 ◼   ► And, and there has been a push towards foldable phones and you mentioned the Z flip, you have

00:09:15 ◼   ► been a big fan of the Z flip in the past.

00:09:16 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:09:17 ◼   ► I think that was an attempt and still is an attempt to try and make smartphones interesting

00:09:23 ◼   ► to people all over again.

00:09:25 ◼   ► But realistically what it's saying, and you're, we're seeing it from companies up and down now

00:09:32 ◼   ► is that they're looking for something else.

00:09:34 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:09:34 ◼   ► I mean, it feels a little bold to say that the smartphone has been perfected, but I mean, it

00:09:39 ◼   ► kind of has, Oh, it has at this point.

00:09:41 ◼   ► Right.

00:09:42 ◼   ► I mean, battery, I remember when like people would be excited about like an all day battery.

00:09:46 ◼   ► If a phone doesn't have an all day battery, I mean, we go back to the mini, the biggest

00:09:50 ◼   ► problem was the mini barely had an all day battery.

00:09:51 ◼   ► Like, okay, cool.

00:09:52 ◼   ► Like it's just so many of the problems we used to have have just been solved back in the day.

00:09:57 ◼   ► It was such a huge thing.

00:09:59 ◼   ► Every time there's this huge technical leap every year, every two years, every three years,

00:10:03 ◼   ► we don't see that in normal sort of slab phones.

00:10:05 ◼   ► So while I will not sit here and tell you that Mike, you should go buy a galaxy has 25 edge.

00:10:10 ◼   ► It's more expensive and a little bit thinner and worse than every other way.

00:10:12 ◼   ► It's like, well, that's a terrible sort of sales pitch.

00:10:14 ◼   ► But you know, when you use something like a Z flip, which I mean, you know, we've talked

00:10:18 ◼   ► about in the past, the Z flip is, it's a weird little phone and that it is worse in most

00:10:23 ◼   ► ways.

00:10:23 ◼   ► And there is extra utility with the outside display, especially when it comes to like

00:10:27 ◼   ► for content creation, just taking selfies or whatever with the better outside screen, the

00:10:30 ◼   ► ability for you to actually interact with your phone in a more limited capacity, you know,

00:10:35 ◼   ► as opposed to getting something like a light phone or one of these more specialty, super

00:10:38 ◼   ► restricted kind of things.

00:10:39 ◼   ► To me, I do find some value and just, Hey, I've got a little three inch screen on the outside

00:10:43 ◼   ► of my phone.

00:10:43 ◼   ► I'm just going to like open up, you know, threads for five seconds and then immediately realize

00:10:48 ◼   ► this is a bad experience and sort of bail.

00:10:49 ◼   ► I'm not making it easy or even just the act of unfolding the phone.

00:10:53 ◼   ► Even though that takes, you know, a second and two hands to do, it's just a little bit

00:10:57 ◼   ► of one of those things like, Hey, you know what?

00:10:58 ◼   ► Do I actually need to be checking my phone right now?

00:11:00 ◼   ► Maybe I should be more present and engaged in the moment, but you don't get those experiences.

00:11:03 ◼   ► You don't get that context, at least for me, if I'm not actively sort of pushing myself

00:11:07 ◼   ► to try all these different things.

00:11:09 ◼   ► And obviously I ended up gravitating towards certain things.

00:11:11 ◼   ► Like I haven't used a Z flip in like seven or eight months.

00:11:13 ◼   ► And that's the longest I've not used a Z flip since like 2020.

00:11:16 ◼   ► Like that was my main phone for literally four or five years straight.

00:11:19 ◼   ► But I think it's important to just kind of force yourself out of your comfort zone.

00:11:23 ◼   ► Cause otherwise you're just going to be doing the same thing as everyone else.

00:11:26 ◼   ► You're going to be thinking the same way.

00:11:27 ◼   ► You're going to be using the same thing.

00:11:28 ◼   ► You've got to like get outside that bubble or you're just, you're going to bore yourself.

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00:13:31 ◼   ► I want to talk about the other devices that are in your working life.

00:13:35 ◼   ► What are the other computers that you use to get things done?

00:13:39 ◼   ► So there are three computers that live in my life.

00:13:45 ◼   ► The most boring one is actually the one I'm using to talk to you right now on, which is an

00:13:48 ◼   ► iMac M3.

00:13:49 ◼   ► So this is just the desktop computer.

00:13:51 ◼   ► I got it because it looked cool.

00:13:52 ◼   ► I've always wanted one of these iMacs ever since they redesigned them for the M1 because

00:13:55 ◼   ► I just, I love the hardware.

00:13:57 ◼   ► It's so beautiful.

00:13:58 ◼   ► It looks so cool.

00:13:59 ◼   ► I got the yellow one.

00:13:59 ◼   ► I got the weird like vase amount on the back, which was more expensive and dumb in every

00:14:03 ◼   ► possible way.

00:14:04 ◼   ► I want it to be a little higher and I hated the little like dinky stand that the iMac

00:14:07 ◼   ► came on.

00:14:08 ◼   ► So I've got the stupid custom order iMac, but that's the, like the sort of the desktop

00:14:12 ◼   ► PC.

00:14:12 ◼   ► It lives in my office all the time.

00:14:13 ◼   ► It's connected to an OWC Thunderbolt dock with 10 gig ethernet.

00:14:16 ◼   ► So we have our whole server set up here at the office.

00:14:19 ◼   ► So that's the thing that I use to do light editing.

00:14:21 ◼   ► Not as much as I used to, but mostly, you know, just sitting, doing recordings, using it

00:14:26 ◼   ► to record audio for shorts, doing email, just sort of the normal kind of stuff.

00:14:29 ◼   ► It's like your office and kind of light production, like solo production, right?

00:14:33 ◼   ► Exactly right.

00:14:34 ◼   ► Like for example, a couple of weeks ago when the Switch 2 came out, Ken and I were here

00:14:38 ◼   ► at the office.

00:14:39 ◼   ► We were pulling an all-nighter to do it and I just edited on the iMac because I mean, it

00:14:43 ◼   ► was directly attached to the server.

00:14:44 ◼   ► I could pull all the B-roll from like previous like switches and all this kind of stuff.

00:14:47 ◼   ► So it's one of those things where I like having that system.

00:14:50 ◼   ► I, for a long time, was a single MacBook boy.

00:14:53 ◼   ► I was rolling the 14-inch MacBook Pro M1 Max, but that was a docked setup.

00:14:59 ◼   ► And I was a docked MacBook guy for a long time, like ever since the 15-inch MacBook Pro, like

00:15:04 ◼   ► the touch bar.

00:15:05 ◼   ► And that was good for a while because it's nice to have one computer for everything.

00:15:09 ◼   ► But, you know, it was just like I was having to constantly plug and unplug it from the dock

00:15:12 ◼   ► and sometimes the ethernet wouldn't work.

00:15:14 ◼   ► And then sometimes I was realizing like, oh, I got to pull out my keyboard and yada, yada,

00:15:17 ◼   ► yada.

00:15:17 ◼   ► So to me, I actually really like having that sort of dedicated system.

00:15:20 ◼   ► This iMac lives here all the time.

00:15:22 ◼   ► It's never being pulled to go do a benchmark over there.

00:15:24 ◼   ► It's never something I take home and I forget to bring back, whatever the case is.

00:15:27 ◼   ► So that's just kind of like the sort of stationary setup just always lives in my office.

00:15:32 ◼   ► I do still use that M1 Max 14-inch MacBook, but I use it a lot less these days.

00:15:38 ◼   ► It really is my editing machine.

00:15:40 ◼   ► So if I'm traveling and I need to be editing on the go, that's what I take with me.

00:15:46 ◼   ► But other than that, it's actually like semi-retired.

00:15:49 ◼   ► I'll probably end up upgrading to a new MacBook at some point, but like it absolutely does everything

00:15:54 ◼   ► I need.

00:15:55 ◼   ► It's a great, terrific, amazing device, but it falls in the exact same category as the

00:16:00 ◼   ► iPhone.

00:16:00 ◼   ► It's so good.

00:16:01 ◼   ► It's boring.

00:16:02 ◼   ► It doesn't spark anything.

00:16:03 ◼   ► It's just a phenomenally excellent laptop in every way, but I want to use something weird

00:16:08 ◼   ► and unique.

00:16:09 ◼   ► And it just, it doesn't, it just, it lives here.

00:16:11 ◼   ► Probably the more interesting device is the daily laptop carry, which is right now, it's

00:16:17 ◼   ► actually not even a laptop.

00:16:17 ◼   ► I'm actually using a Surface Pro 12-inch, which is not to be confused with the Surface Pro.

00:16:26 ◼   ► It's the little Surface that came out a couple of months ago.

00:16:28 ◼   ► It's a little purple guy.

00:16:29 ◼   ► Okay.

00:16:29 ◼   ► But it's not one of the laptops.

00:16:31 ◼   ► It's actually like the tablet.

00:16:32 ◼   ► It is the smallest Surface tablet that they make.

00:16:35 ◼   ► It does have a full-size keyboard and trackpad, and it has a little like pen that attaches

00:16:40 ◼   ► to the back, which I don't use that often.

00:16:41 ◼   ► But yes, it is the tablet, which is, I'm not sure how long I'm going to stick with it.

00:16:45 ◼   ► It's been a couple months.

00:16:46 ◼   ► I've actually been enjoying it.

00:16:47 ◼   ► I like it.

00:16:48 ◼   ► It's fanless.

00:16:48 ◼   ► It's powered by Snapdragon.

00:16:50 ◼   ► So it actually has good battery life, unlike a lot of other sort of devices.

00:16:54 ◼   ► There's some downsides to it because it's got the kickstand, which is nice, but it's

00:16:58 ◼   ► terrible on a lap.

00:16:59 ◼   ► And I work around it to a degree.

00:17:01 ◼   ► I like the portabelle.

00:17:02 ◼   ► It just lives in my bag.

00:17:03 ◼   ► I don't have to think about it.

00:17:04 ◼   ► But it's definitely like when you're using the keyboard, which to be fair, this one's

00:17:08 ◼   ► a little bit better because the older ones had like a super floppy keyboard, which I

00:17:11 ◼   ► just couldn't stand.

00:17:12 ◼   ► This one has like, it's almost on like a little like, I don't know how to describe it, like

00:17:15 ◼   ► the hinge almost like sort of like pulls the keyboard in.

00:17:18 ◼   ► So it has a little extra sort of like fabric bit on the very bottom of the keyboard.

00:17:21 ◼   ► So when you like flip it closed or flip it around to the back, you have that extra

00:17:24 ◼   ► capability, but it's a little bit more rigid.

00:17:26 ◼   ► So you can use it on a lap.

00:17:27 ◼   ► It's not as good as something like an iPad, for example, which actually has, you know,

00:17:31 ◼   ► like the weighted base and that whole thing.

00:17:32 ◼   ► Like that feels like it's designed for a lap.

00:17:34 ◼   ► It needs the kickstand to stand up, right?

00:17:37 ◼   ► It needs the kickstand to stand up.

00:17:38 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:17:38 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:17:38 ◼   ► So you pop the kickstand out.

00:17:39 ◼   ► The keyboard always lives on it.

00:17:41 ◼   ► So I just, you know, flip it and pull it around.

00:17:42 ◼   ► I like the Surface though.

00:17:44 ◼   ► And I do like using Windows, even though I find that Windows is annoying in many ways.

00:17:49 ◼   ► I like the difference.

00:17:50 ◼   ► I like being able to try all like the co-pilot stuff.

00:17:52 ◼   ► And I actually use like Recall and some of these features on an actual like regular basis

00:17:55 ◼   ► for things.

00:17:56 ◼   ► So those are kind of like the three setups.

00:17:58 ◼   ► So it's iMac, lives in the desktop.

00:17:59 ◼   ► It's always here on my desk.

00:18:02 ◼   ► I've got the MacBook, which is really just an editing machine at this point when I'm traveling.

00:18:06 ◼   ► And then the Surface, which is the current sort of daily carry for the device that I actually

00:18:11 ◼   ► do, I would say 90% of my computing on.

00:18:13 ◼   ► So you use Recall.

00:18:15 ◼   ► This is the feature in Windows where it's like taking screenshots of your device and you can

00:18:20 ◼   ► ask it questions.

00:18:20 ◼   ► What do you like about this feature?

00:18:23 ◼   ► Because this was quite a controversial feature, right?

00:18:25 ◼   ► Because there was the original version of it just wasn't very secure, which is a wild

00:18:30 ◼   ► thing that Microsoft did.

00:18:31 ◼   ► And then they kind of have spent a lot of time and effort and resource, I think, re-architecting

00:18:37 ◼   ► it and trying to convince everyone that it's safe now.

00:18:39 ◼   ► But you use it.

00:18:41 ◼   ► What do you like about it?

00:18:42 ◼   ► Why do you use it?

00:18:43 ◼   ► So a few reasons.

00:18:45 ◼   ► Some of it's practical.

00:18:46 ◼   ► So a lot of the videos we do involve buying products and ordering stuff.

00:18:51 ◼   ► And while I'm typically screen recording for the videos, it is so nice to have Recall.

00:18:55 ◼   ► Like I could just look up the name of whatever the thing is and it would just immediately pull

00:18:58 ◼   ► it up.

00:18:58 ◼   ► So there's actually a lot of benefit of me.

00:18:59 ◼   ► Like, oh, I bought this thing from eBay last week.

00:19:02 ◼   ► What was it?

00:19:02 ◼   ► Or like what color did I get or whatever?

00:19:03 ◼   ► I can immediately pull it up and have to look through like a browser history or anything

00:19:06 ◼   ► like that.

00:19:07 ◼   ► I also do kind of like it to find, I don't lean on it for a lot, but there's definitely points

00:19:14 ◼   ► in which I will be like looking for an email and I will be searching through my inbox

00:19:17 ◼   ► like, oh, of course.

00:19:18 ◼   ► And I will find the text of whatever I said, like, oh, blank person name, this product,

00:19:22 ◼   ► whatever.

00:19:23 ◼   ► And it'll immediately pull it up.

00:19:24 ◼   ► And for the most part, you can actually just inside Recall, click the button and it will

00:19:28 ◼   ► bring you to that page.

00:19:29 ◼   ► Like, for example, in Gmail, a lot of times it will actually bring me to that email if I

00:19:32 ◼   ► click on the button inside Recall because it keeps track of the metadata of whatever sort

00:19:36 ◼   ► of page you're on.

00:19:37 ◼   ► There are definitely points in which I don't like the fact that it's taking screenshots all

00:19:41 ◼   ► the time.

00:19:41 ◼   ► It's supposed to have some filters to like keep like banking information, some stuff.

00:19:46 ◼   ► I don't find they work that well.

00:19:47 ◼   ► Like I've definitely like opened up and accidentally seen like a bank screenshot.

00:19:50 ◼   ► I'm like, I don't let people borrow that laptop for anything.

00:19:52 ◼   ► I'm like, no, no, you cannot touch that.

00:19:55 ◼   ► Thanks.

00:19:55 ◼   ► Is it recording everything, like all apps or do you restrict it?

00:19:59 ◼   ► Okay.

00:19:59 ◼   ► So like you've got like a messaging app open.

00:20:01 ◼   ► It could read all of that and would.

00:20:04 ◼   ► Yes.

00:20:04 ◼   ► You can blacklist it if you want.

00:20:06 ◼   ► I don't do that.

00:20:06 ◼   ► It does do facial recognition to open Recall.

00:20:09 ◼   ► So even if like someone had your laptop, they couldn't open Recall without your pen or whatever

00:20:13 ◼   ► the case is.

00:20:14 ◼   ► I trust it because the devices in my life, I just trust, which is maybe not a great idea.

00:20:19 ◼   ► But yeah, I do find that there's some practical value to it.

00:20:22 ◼   ► I totally understand people who want to turn it off or limit it.

00:20:25 ◼   ► And that's fine.

00:20:25 ◼   ► But I found enough use and I do trust that it's, I mean, it's all being processed on

00:20:29 ◼   ► device.

00:20:29 ◼   ► It's moderately secure.

00:20:32 ◼   ► So it's worth the trade off for me.

00:20:33 ◼   ► But it is one of those things that if I'm using a Windows device, I try to maximize the

00:20:39 ◼   ► usefulness of Windows because I don't know what sort of your everyday workflow is, but 90%

00:20:44 ◼   ► of what I do can be done in a browser.

00:20:46 ◼   ► Well, I'm sure we'll probably talk about some of the apps in a minute, but like the vast majority

00:20:50 ◼   ► of what I need to do can be done in a browser.

00:20:51 ◼   ► I can do most of my workflow on a Chromebook if I wanted to.

00:20:55 ◼   ► So it's like if I'm using a different device, I want to make sure that I'm utilizing the

00:20:59 ◼   ► features of that.

00:21:00 ◼   ► Like, for example, with the Surface, a lot of times I'm like, I'm using it to like scan

00:21:02 ◼   ► documents or whatever.

00:21:03 ◼   ► So I'll like, I'll take a photo with the back camera.

00:21:05 ◼   ► I'll use the pen to do it.

00:21:06 ◼   ► I could do that on an iPad, which I have done in the past.

00:21:08 ◼   ► But I just, I try to make sure that there's a reason for me to have the weirdo devices that

00:21:12 ◼   ► live in my life.

00:21:14 ◼   ► Let's talk about some apps.

00:21:15 ◼   ► So having done this show for as long as I've been doing it, I've come to the assessment

00:21:20 ◼   ► about people is that you can tell a lot about how somebody works, thinks, and what they prioritize

00:21:26 ◼   ► by taking a look at their home screen.

00:21:28 ◼   ► Oh no, are we doing a home screen thing?

00:21:30 ◼   ► Oh no.

00:21:31 ◼   ► I asked you to send me your home screen.

00:21:32 ◼   ► You sent me your home screen of what would be your iPhone and your Samsung phone.

00:21:38 ◼   ► I want to start by looking at the iPhone because as you said, it is, it seems to be your primary

00:21:44 ◼   ► or most important device.

00:21:45 ◼   ► And there are obviously some duplicates between the apps themselves.

00:21:50 ◼   ► So I'm going to dissect this.

00:21:52 ◼   ► We're going to talk about what you've got going on here.

00:21:54 ◼   ► And I would like you to answer for yourself a little bit.

00:21:57 ◼   ► Threads in the dock.

00:21:58 ◼   ► Threads in the dock.

00:21:59 ◼   ► Your dock is Safari, Threads, Mail, and Camera.

00:22:04 ◼   ► I think nobody would argue with Safari, Gmail, I should say, and the camera app in the dock.

00:22:09 ◼   ► Threads feels bold.

00:22:11 ◼   ► Oh, you know what?

00:22:14 ◼   ► I feel like I've listened to 10 years of Cortex and I was not ready for this.

00:22:18 ◼   ► Yes.

00:22:18 ◼   ► Yes.

00:22:18 ◼   ► Okay.

00:22:18 ◼   ► Nobody's ready.

00:22:19 ◼   ► Let me defend myself for like three seconds.

00:22:22 ◼   ► I, as well as I'm sure many, many people were big fans of Twitter.

00:22:26 ◼   ► And for me, Twitter for 15 years or whatever, was always in the second slot in my dock.

00:22:32 ◼   ► It was the first thing, which was not a good idea.

00:22:35 ◼   ► It was the first thing I checked every morning.

00:22:36 ◼   ► That was the way I would check to see what was going on with my friends.

00:22:39 ◼   ► I would see, you know, whatever major news.

00:22:41 ◼   ► Like that was always the very first thing I would open.

00:22:42 ◼   ► And so when that particular platform had some changes in the not too distant past,

00:22:48 ◼   ► I spent a bit of time in the wilderness, tried to spend some time with like RSS,

00:22:53 ◼   ► tried to, you know, actually go make a list of things.

00:22:55 ◼   ► It didn't work for me.

00:22:57 ◼   ► Threads, which is just straight up, just Twitter for me at this point is what I check

00:23:02 ◼   ► probably 20 times a day.

00:23:03 ◼   ► If I am taking 30 seconds of nonsense time, I'm opening threads and I'm scrolling and I'm

00:23:09 ◼   ► realizing that I regret my decision and I close it, but it's for a little bit, it felt like

00:23:14 ◼   ► it was like a healthier alternative.

00:23:15 ◼   ► I don't think it is anymore, but I don't, there's not a better alternative because like

00:23:19 ◼   ► so much of what I find of news, like two or three times a week, I will open threads,

00:23:25 ◼   ► see some crazy news and like, Oh, I gotta go make, make a video on that or whatever.

00:23:28 ◼   ► Or I find something interesting.

00:23:30 ◼   ► It's not as good as it should be.

00:23:32 ◼   ► And I'm not proud to tell you that threads is the thing that I still open up every single

00:23:36 ◼   ► morning as soon as I open my eyes, but it lives on the docket.

00:23:40 ◼   ► It is what it is.

00:23:41 ◼   ► It's just interesting to me that threads is this for you because it feels like the general

00:23:47 ◼   ► sentiment around threads is that it isn't this for most people.

00:23:52 ◼   ► The people wanted it to be the Twitter replacement, but it kind of hasn't gone that way.

00:23:58 ◼   ► I'm hearing more and more people now look to like services like blue sky as the replacement,

00:24:03 ◼   ► but you obviously find utility for your work in checking threads.

00:24:08 ◼   ► So what you're looking for, is it there?

00:24:10 ◼   ► It seems.

00:24:11 ◼   ► It is.

00:24:12 ◼   ► It is.

00:24:12 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:24:12 ◼   ► I mean, it doesn't give me a warm fuzzy to open up Mark Zuckerberg's favorite or third

00:24:17 ◼   ► favorite or seventh favorite app.

00:24:19 ◼   ► There's no warm fuzzy from social networks.

00:24:22 ◼   ► Look, when the Twitter exodus began and I actually stuck around on Twitter for a little bit longer.

00:24:28 ◼   ► It was maybe like around for like three or four months after you dipped and a bunch of

00:24:31 ◼   ► other people were leaving.

00:24:32 ◼   ► But the network effect on Twitter was so strong.

00:24:34 ◼   ► So many people I met and interacted with and DMs and all these kind of things like that was

00:24:40 ◼   ► such a huge part of not only my personal, but really my professional life.

00:24:43 ◼   ► And when that started to sort of crumble and for me, it just Twitter made me feel sad to

00:24:48 ◼   ► be on.

00:24:49 ◼   ► I knew I had to leave, but I knew that I needed something to replace that.

00:24:52 ◼   ► And as soon as threads popped up, that was kind of like the moment I'm like, okay, cool.

00:24:56 ◼   ► Great.

00:24:56 ◼   ► I'm ready to go like day one.

00:24:58 ◼   ► This is fun.

00:24:58 ◼   ► This is cool.

00:24:59 ◼   ► It's no perfect replacement and there's still a lot of nonsense on it.

00:25:03 ◼   ► But to me, between Mastodon, between Blue Sky, there are all these other alternatives and

00:25:09 ◼   ► none of them felt like they hit critical mass to the point where if I was going to put my

00:25:13 ◼   ► money down, if I was going to make a bet on one of these platforms to replace what Twitter

00:25:16 ◼   ► was threads felt like that obvious choice.

00:25:18 ◼   ► It still feels like the choice for me, even though it has so many problems and it's so

00:25:22 ◼   ► full of just slop and just nonsense and the algorithm just wildly swings between like really

00:25:28 ◼   ► interesting content and like celebrity news or just nonsense you would see on Facebook

00:25:31 ◼   ► and I don't like that.

00:25:32 ◼   ► But I get too much value out of it and there's just no replacement for that like one tap nonsense

00:25:38 ◼   ► dopamine hit that I'm just, I can't get away from.

00:25:40 ◼   ► I mean, that's our phones in general.

00:25:42 ◼   ► You make a lot of phone calls?

00:25:43 ◼   ► Yeah, I do.

00:25:44 ◼   ► It's rare to see the phone app on somebody's phone home screen.

00:25:48 ◼   ► Is it really?

00:25:48 ◼   ► I think.

00:25:49 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:25:49 ◼   ► Okay.

00:25:50 ◼   ► So look, I mean, you also have New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg.

00:25:56 ◼   ► That was actually the biggest surprise to me was like, I feel like I don't see a lot of

00:26:03 ◼   ► people with traditional news apps on their phone.

00:26:07 ◼   ► And you have three of them on your home screen.

00:26:09 ◼   ► I do.

00:26:10 ◼   ► I do.

00:26:10 ◼   ► Okay.

00:26:11 ◼   ► Well, so I made this decision almost 10 years ago.

00:26:14 ◼   ► I think we've all probably had moments like this where you realize that you live in your

00:26:18 ◼   ► algorithmic bubble and you don't understand what's going on in the real world.

00:26:21 ◼   ► And so, you know, nine, 10 years ago, I had one of those moments.

00:26:24 ◼   ► And so I made a real concerted effort to outside of the stuff that I randomly come across on like

00:26:29 ◼   ► Twitter or threads or whatever to get my news from actual real news sources and not just

00:26:34 ◼   ► random nonsense.

00:26:35 ◼   ► So for the most part, I have pulled algorithms out of my news consumption.

00:26:40 ◼   ► Those three apps right now, yes, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, those have

00:26:44 ◼   ► kind of cycled in and out.

00:26:46 ◼   ► Usually I've got two or three subscriptions going at any time, but I like to get news from

00:26:51 ◼   ► actual real publications and, you know, newspaper style things.

00:26:57 ◼   ► And I find a lot of value with that.

00:26:58 ◼   ► I mean, I think Bloomberg, it's mostly for German, if I'm honest with you.

00:27:01 ◼   ► My Bloomberg subscription is pretty much solely to read Montgomery's articles.

00:27:05 ◼   ► I mean, it's worth it, right?

00:27:06 ◼   ► And I mean, New York Times is just the sort of general thing.

00:27:08 ◼   ► Wall Street Journal is a little bit more for like, you know, financial stuff, which I find

00:27:11 ◼   ► to be, you know, important in the lives we lead these days.

00:27:14 ◼   ► But yeah, I feel good about those.

00:27:16 ◼   ► If I'm getting like a little nervous defending my threads, I'm like, I can point to something

00:27:19 ◼   ► that's good on my home screen, Mike.

00:27:21 ◼   ► This is a good thing.

00:27:21 ◼   ► I feel like I also have real news, not just this nonsense news that exists in the doc.

00:27:26 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:27:28 ◼   ► Some of this is probably real, right?

00:27:29 ◼   ► YouTube Studio on your home screen.

00:27:32 ◼   ► Obviously, I understand as a YouTuber.

00:27:35 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:27:36 ◼   ► I imagine that is quite addicting in not a good way.

00:27:39 ◼   ► No, it's not.

00:27:42 ◼   ► I don't think it is.

00:27:43 ◼   ► So what is your relationship to YouTube analytics then?

00:27:46 ◼   ► So important because it's something that I check on a regular basis, but it's different.

00:27:50 ◼   ► Like I can freely admit to you that when I open threads, I don't have a warm fuzzy for

00:27:55 ◼   ► it.

00:27:55 ◼   ► I feel very little when it comes to Studio.

00:27:58 ◼   ► I'm getting the information that I have to know.

00:28:00 ◼   ► That's the way I think.

00:28:00 ◼   ► Okay.

00:28:01 ◼   ► So like, for example, like an hour or two before we started recording this, I posted a video

00:28:05 ◼   ► and every time a new video goes live, I'm in the analytics.

00:28:08 ◼   ► I'm seeing like, hey, do I need to make some title changes?

00:28:10 ◼   ► Is this video launching well?

00:28:11 ◼   ► Is it not?

00:28:12 ◼   ► As soon as I have a good handle for where that is, I just push out of my mind.

00:28:16 ◼   ► I was not like this for a long time.

00:28:18 ◼   ► I mean, I distinctly remember, this is like 2014.

00:28:21 ◼   ► I had gone to GDC in San Francisco.

00:28:25 ◼   ► This was back when VR was like really kind of bubbling up.

00:28:27 ◼   ► I remember I did a video looking at, I think it was PlayStation Morpheus, whatever the first

00:28:30 ◼   ► prototype for PlayStation VR was and like Vive and Oculus.

00:28:33 ◼   ► I remember I was so stoked.

00:28:35 ◼   ► I made this video.

00:28:35 ◼   ► I posted it and it was literally, I was going to the airport.

00:28:39 ◼   ► I posted it, walked through security, came out the other end, picked up my phone,

00:28:42 ◼   ► saw it was like bombing and I like literally sat down and I was just sad and I couldn't

00:28:47 ◼   ► describe how like sad that made me.

00:28:50 ◼   ► And that was a really key moment in like my life to realize that I had to separate the success

00:28:57 ◼   ► and failure of videos from my personal happiness.

00:29:01 ◼   ► And I think that I have spent time since then to really firewall that off.

00:29:04 ◼   ► It's like I dive into studio.

00:29:06 ◼   ► I learn important things.

00:29:08 ◼   ► I handle fires that need to be put out.

00:29:09 ◼   ► I keep track of all the channels and all the data and all the yada yada yada.

00:29:13 ◼   ► But I'm in and out of studio pretty fast.

00:29:15 ◼   ► And when I'm in there and if I see something needs to be fixed, I'll spend three minutes.

00:29:18 ◼   ► I'll make a new title.

00:29:19 ◼   ► I'll bounce out and I'll check again in 15 minutes or whatever.

00:29:21 ◼   ► So I actually feel like I have a pretty healthy relationship with the studio app.

00:29:25 ◼   ► It is interesting to me that you say that because I think a lot of content creators go through

00:29:30 ◼   ► any kind of analytics platform.

00:29:31 ◼   ► They will eventually have a kind of moment like the one that you have described where

00:29:35 ◼   ► you start to realize that you're judging your personal happiness based on numbers.

00:29:42 ◼   ► What usually happens there, though, is that people decide to check the numbers less.

00:29:48 ◼   ► I don't think people tend to, in that scenario, continue checking the numbers but force themselves

00:29:55 ◼   ► to have a different relationship to it.

00:29:56 ◼   ► I think that is quite a unique perspective and a hard thing to do because you've gone from

00:30:03 ◼   ► something really emotionally affecting you to making a choice that it won't.

00:30:07 ◼   ► That doesn't seem like an easy thing to do.

00:30:09 ◼   ► You can't just turn off your emotions.

00:30:11 ◼   ► That's super useful.

00:30:12 ◼   ► No, it's like, to me, I think everyone has their own relationship to this.

00:30:17 ◼   ► I am not doing my job if I am not looking at what's going on and making action based on

00:30:23 ◼   ► that, right?

00:30:24 ◼   ► I mean, again, the video that went live this morning, the title and the thumbnail changes

00:30:28 ◼   ► I made in the first hour literally doubled the views.

00:30:30 ◼   ► Like, that's not just some arbitrary thing to make me feel better.

00:30:33 ◼   ► Like, that is an actual material thing that matters to my business.

00:30:37 ◼   ► I mean, I don't know how you feel about this if you're, you know, how often you check

00:30:41 ◼   ► the Cortex brand sales or whatever.

00:30:42 ◼   ► Multiple times a day, usually.

00:30:44 ◼   ► And if you maybe open it up one day and you saw zero sales, you might realize that that's

00:30:48 ◼   ► not something that you should just, oh, I don't know, feel bad about.

00:30:50 ◼   ► Like, oh, maybe I should make sure that the thing is still working, right?

00:30:54 ◼   ► That's the same way I feel about it.

00:30:55 ◼   ► It's like, yes, 10 of 10 suck.

00:30:57 ◼   ► Yes, when videos bomb, it hurts.

00:30:59 ◼   ► But I just think, for me, I've done it enough times that, yes, I will be in a bad mood for

00:31:04 ◼   ► an hour or two, but I will do my best to not think about it.

00:31:07 ◼   ► I will make whatever action I can to sort of put it back on the right path.

00:31:10 ◼   ► And then it just is what it is.

00:31:12 ◼   ► And either I was able to fix it or I wasn't.

00:31:13 ◼   ► And it will affect me, but it will affect me a whole lot less than it used to.

00:31:18 ◼   ► How often do you open a YouTube studio on a daily basis, do you think?

00:31:21 ◼   ► I would say probably two or three times.

00:31:23 ◼   ► Usually I'll check in the morning just to see, you know, if a random short is popping off

00:31:27 ◼   ► or whatever the case is.

00:31:28 ◼   ► Across the company, we have essentially one to two pieces of content going live like every

00:31:33 ◼   ► day.

00:31:33 ◼   ► So I try to at least check in to see like, oh, how's the new this is video launching or whatever

00:31:38 ◼   ► the case is.

00:31:39 ◼   ► The main thing, though, and the only channel that I actively like man the launches and run

00:31:43 ◼   ► the swaps and everything like that is for the Austin's main channel.

00:31:45 ◼   ► So that's the one that I'm like, you know, this morning, I'd probably check the app 15

00:31:49 ◼   ► times in the span of an hour, constantly changing, checking, going back, going back and forth.

00:31:53 ◼   ► But like now it's settled.

00:31:54 ◼   ► It's good.

00:31:55 ◼   ► I'll check in a couple hours and I won't really worry about it too much after that.

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00:33:51 ◼   ► Well, thanks to FitBod for their support of this show and Relay.

00:33:55 ◼   ► On your second screen, you have Clawed, Gemini and ChetGPT.

00:33:59 ◼   ► So three AI apps.

00:34:01 ◼   ► Yep.

00:34:02 ◼   ► How are you using AI in your work and how does it make you feel?

00:34:06 ◼   ► Damn, you get me with the big questions here.

00:34:09 ◼   ► It makes me feel great.

00:34:10 ◼   ► I love AI and it's perfect in every possible way.

00:34:12 ◼   ► And I'm sure the AI transcriptions are going to remember that for later.

00:34:15 ◼   ► Okay, so that's a big question.

00:34:17 ◼   ► I know.

00:34:18 ◼   ► Let me break it down.

00:34:18 ◼   ► So Clawed is the number one AI tool that I use on a regular basis.

00:34:23 ◼   ► But I treat each one of the three differently for different tasks.

00:34:29 ◼   ► Clawed is really useful in a professional context.

00:34:32 ◼   ► So I will, for example, every video, I have the transcripts once I've got them all done

00:34:37 ◼   ► and QC and whatnot.

00:34:38 ◼   ► Once I put them on the video, I run them through Clawed.

00:34:40 ◼   ► I have a custom project and I have that analyze the transcript.

00:34:44 ◼   ► I have a bunch of data that I've already given it when it comes to previous videos performance.

00:34:48 ◼   ► And sort of various metrics around that.

00:34:50 ◼   ► And then it automatically runs a project to give me title concepts, help me write a description,

00:34:56 ◼   ► copy, SEO, just the launch sort of checklist for me is at least started with Clawed.

00:35:03 ◼   ► It's not like I use a Clawed title for every video, but I will tell you that there's definitely

00:35:06 ◼   ► been times in which Clawed has suggested a title and either I will run with it or most often

00:35:10 ◼   ► it will give me an idea.

00:35:11 ◼   ► I'm like, oh, snap, that's a good idea.

00:35:12 ◼   ► And because it has all my previous data, at least the last several years of data, it actually

00:35:15 ◼   ► has given me correlations like, hey, 75% of your videos with blank and the title or whatever

00:35:20 ◼   ► tend to perform better when you have these kind of concepts in the video.

00:35:23 ◼   ► Like it actually has like a pretty decent understanding of that.

00:35:26 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:35:26 ◼   ► So you told me you were using Clawed for picking titles and it's something that I started doing.

00:35:31 ◼   ► So like regular episodes of Cortex, we use a quote from the episode, like some kind of quote

00:35:36 ◼   ► for the title.

00:35:37 ◼   ► And it's hard to pick good ones.

00:35:40 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:35:41 ◼   ► With most of the shows that I do, we record them live and in our members discord, people

00:35:48 ◼   ► are listening live and they suggest titles as we go.

00:35:50 ◼   ► Oh, nice.

00:35:51 ◼   ► And then at the end of the episode, we have a list.

00:35:53 ◼   ► There's like a bot that we have, puts it on a website and we can all see them when we vote

00:35:56 ◼   ► on them as a community.

00:35:58 ◼   ► And then we see what gets to the top.

00:35:59 ◼   ► And then us as the podcast hosts, we'll choose the ones that we like.

00:36:02 ◼   ► Don't do that with Cortex.

00:36:04 ◼   ► So it can be sometimes difficult, even when I'm listening back, I don't necessarily pick

00:36:07 ◼   ► the funniest things or like I may be listening back to my final listen of the show while I'm

00:36:13 ◼   ► commuting and I can't write it down.

00:36:14 ◼   ► So I would transcribe it.

00:36:16 ◼   ► I use Descript for transcriptions of the show because Descript has voice recognition.

00:36:22 ◼   ► So I know who said what, but then I will upload that to Clawed.

00:36:26 ◼   ► You know, again, like I've given it a bunch of prompts in the past and say like, help me

00:36:29 ◼   ► pick some engaging titles.

00:36:31 ◼   ► And it makes a bunch of great selections and more often than not, I'm able to pick

00:36:35 ◼   ► like a funny, interesting quote from what Clawed has given me for the episode title.

00:36:39 ◼   ► So it is good at that because Clawed is very good at analyzing lots of text, I think.

00:36:43 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:36:44 ◼   ► And I think Clawed remains to be the most creative AI tool, in my opinion.

00:36:50 ◼   ► There are pros and cons to each of them.

00:36:51 ◼   ► I think for me, I trust Clawed for that.

00:36:53 ◼   ► I also trust Clawed when it comes to reviewing scripts and outlines of things.

00:36:57 ◼   ► I will like give it like an outline of something and like, hey, can you suggest like, does this

00:37:01 ◼   ► feel like it's a good idea?

00:37:02 ◼   ► You know, like be critical, like help me out.

00:37:04 ◼   ► I have, again, it has a huge backlog of my previous videos, information.

00:37:09 ◼   ► I have a bunch of different projects for different sort of purposes.

00:37:11 ◼   ► If I am working through something, oftentimes I'll be feeling pretty good about like a sort

00:37:16 ◼   ► of video concept.

00:37:17 ◼   ► But Clawed will help me realize, oh, you know what, actually this act feels a little

00:37:21 ◼   ► bit long or whatever the case is.

00:37:22 ◼   ► It's not for every video, but certainly for what these sort of more like script heavy or

00:37:26 ◼   ► very information dense kind of things.

00:37:29 ◼   ► It sees past my blind spots of like, oh, I think this is really interesting.

00:37:32 ◼   ► And Clawed goes, you know what, this is three extra paragraphs on something you could probably

00:37:36 ◼   ► say in one sentence.

00:37:36 ◼   ► Like, you know what, you're right.

00:37:37 ◼   ► No one really cares about the backstory of the Nintendo DS when it comes to the development.

00:37:41 ◼   ► But I think it's cool, but like, it's helpful to have as an assistant, not as something that

00:37:46 ◼   ► just does the script for me, even though we've tried it and it does write really good scripts.

00:37:51 ◼   ► Not something that I would want to run with, but it's definitely one of those things where

00:37:54 ◼   ► it's super helpful to have that sort of second quick look.

00:37:58 ◼   ► I don't have to go like, you know, be doing it midnight, whatever the case is, I can just

00:38:01 ◼   ► run it through and Clawed will give me the responses really quickly.

00:38:03 ◼   ► Yeah, because you actually, I mean, we're going to talk about this later on, but you have

00:38:06 ◼   ► producers, like you hire human beings, not just robots.

00:38:09 ◼   ► Yes.

00:38:10 ◼   ► And like, so you will have actual people that you do this stuff with, but I guess you

00:38:14 ◼   ► use this in addition to.

00:38:15 ◼   ► In addition, exactly right.

00:38:17 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

00:38:17 ◼   ► So there's different ways we do things.

00:38:19 ◼   ► So sometimes producers will give me either outlines or scripts or vice versa, just like some sort

00:38:24 ◼   ► of variant of that.

00:38:25 ◼   ► I will write them.

00:38:26 ◼   ► Typically, almost everything will run through Clawed at some point, whether it is in the

00:38:32 ◼   ► ideation phase, whether it is in the bullet pointing phase, whether it is in just, hey,

00:38:35 ◼   ► help me refine the wording of this.

00:38:37 ◼   ► It really sort of depends on the project.

00:38:38 ◼   ► So it typically is one of those things where at least it is one of the members in the chain

00:38:43 ◼   ► to kind of take a look at something before we actually go to make it.

00:38:46 ◼   ► I would say not all the time, but the majority of the time when we're doing something scripted

00:38:49 ◼   ► or doing something that's very informationally dense, Clawed will at least kind of have some

00:38:53 ◼   ► kind of say in it.

00:38:54 ◼   ► I trust Clawed for brainstorming.

00:38:56 ◼   ► I trust Clawed to give me good creative feedback on things in a way that I don't trust to the same degree

00:39:03 ◼   ► in other sort of AI chatbots.

00:39:05 ◼   ► I have other uses for those, but Clawed's really sort of like my creativity sort of partner in a lot of ways.

00:39:10 ◼   ► How conflicted are your feelings about these tools?

00:39:13 ◼   ► Because I use them and I also feel bad about it.

00:39:17 ◼   ► I have a just general philosophy in life that if the tide is going in a direction, you can't change it.

00:39:26 ◼   ► Like if I decide to use an AI tool or not, that tool is still going to exist.

00:39:31 ◼   ► It is still going to be just as popular, just as successful with or without me.

00:39:35 ◼   ► So I think it's easy to feel conflicted.

00:39:37 ◼   ► And I agree with you that that is a very valid way to feel about things.

00:39:41 ◼   ► I will be lying if I say that I'm not concerned, but all that being said, to me, it feels like

00:39:48 ◼   ► personally, I would be just putting myself at a disadvantage by not taking advantage of these

00:39:53 ◼   ► tools.

00:39:54 ◼   ► And also, yes, you can say that there's some moral ambiguity there and I agree, but like

00:39:58 ◼   ► ultimately nothing I do or say is going to make a difference.

00:40:01 ◼   ► So either I can use a tool that makes my work go badder and faster, or I can just not and

00:40:07 ◼   ► be left behind and I don't want to be left behind.

00:40:09 ◼   ► I wouldn't say you couldn't make a difference, but how big is that difference?

00:40:14 ◼   ► That's the problem.

00:40:14 ◼   ► Sure.

00:40:15 ◼   ► Especially anybody with an audience has the opportunity to make a difference, but the difference

00:40:20 ◼   ► that you're talking about and the difference that I think a lot of people think when they

00:40:23 ◼   ► say that is like you could actually fundamentally change it, which you can't.

00:40:28 ◼   ► You're a very successful YouTuber.

00:40:30 ◼   ► You cannot get open AI to just stop.

00:40:33 ◼   ► Oh, Austin said no?

00:40:35 ◼   ► I guess we'll give that one up then, shall we?

00:40:37 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:40:37 ◼   ► Like, hey, y'all, have you considered maybe just turn this thing off real quick?

00:40:40 ◼   ► But like, I think the thing that I feel most conflicted about isn't so much the idea of

00:40:44 ◼   ► using AI tools as much as it is something that I know is maybe not great in some ways, but

00:40:51 ◼   ► also I'm still a tech enthusiast.

00:40:52 ◼   ► There are moments regularly, I would say still on a weekly basis where I will get something

00:40:56 ◼   ► out of an AI tool and I'm like, hot bam, that is cool.

00:41:00 ◼   ► It is crazy I just did that.

00:41:02 ◼   ► Wow.

00:41:03 ◼   ► It comes back to the whole like smartphone idea and the idea that so much of tech is, it's

00:41:07 ◼   ► good enough in so many ways and such iterative changes.

00:41:11 ◼   ► AI is obliterating all of that boredom of this is the same, this is the same.

00:41:17 ◼   ► Like it is, it's just, it is a nonstop wonder factory.

00:41:19 ◼   ► And is there something nefarious going on on the inside?

00:41:22 ◼   ► Are we going to regret this decision in five to 10 years?

00:41:25 ◼   ► Probably.

00:41:26 ◼   ► But to me, it's the way things are going and it has made a material difference to me, not

00:41:32 ◼   ► only in my life of just finding information faster and learning more and using things like

00:41:37 ◼   ► deep research, which is one of the, my favorite AI tools period.

00:41:40 ◼   ► But it feels like if you want to have a moral stand, you absolutely can and you probably should.

00:41:45 ◼   ► But there are a lot of things that I probably should take a moral stand on, like not eating

00:41:51 ◼   ► meat or not driving a gas car.

00:41:53 ◼   ► There's a lot of things I probably should do, but I don't.

00:41:57 ◼   ► I'm going to free you.

00:42:00 ◼   ► We're going to move on.

00:42:01 ◼   ► But I will ask you what you use Gemini and ChatGPT for though.

00:42:04 ◼   ► Gemini is an extension of Google.

00:42:05 ◼   ► So I would say probably half of my searching is actually done through Gemini these days.

00:42:11 ◼   ► Okay.

00:42:11 ◼   ► So I use all of the different modes.

00:42:14 ◼   ► I'll use voice sometimes.

00:42:15 ◼   ► I will use deep research quite a lot for a little while.

00:42:18 ◼   ► I was actually trying to do like a deep research thing like a day.

00:42:21 ◼   ► It's a little hard to do because there's not that many interesting things.

00:42:23 ◼   ► But I find that it's very useful in getting information in a really sort of meaningful

00:42:28 ◼   ► way.

00:42:29 ◼   ► I appreciate that.

00:42:30 ◼   ► But I typically would say I will use it for researching on like, you know, work stuff.

00:42:35 ◼   ► But Gemini is almost a little bit more personal for me of just like, hey, I'm looking for this

00:42:39 ◼   ► thing or help me suggest this restaurant or whatever.

00:42:41 ◼   ► You're using Gemini as Google.

00:42:42 ◼   ► I pretty much am.

00:42:43 ◼   ► That's pretty much the way I would do things.

00:42:44 ◼   ► ChatGPT is actually the tool I use by far the least.

00:42:48 ◼   ► You know, it's crazy.

00:42:49 ◼   ► I will play with it from time to time because I mean, it's the most popular, right?

00:42:52 ◼   ► Like I know everyone uses ChatGPT.

00:42:54 ◼   ► I dive in there just because I'm like, I'm curious.

00:42:56 ◼   ► And like the deep research is pretty decent and it's fine.

00:42:58 ◼   ► But every once in a while we'll find something that like blows my mind.

00:43:01 ◼   ► I used it to make a thumbnail the other day.

00:43:04 ◼   ► Now that doesn't sound crazy.

00:43:06 ◼   ► And it's not because, you know, their image generation is incredibly good.

00:43:09 ◼   ► But what blew my mind and continues to blow my mind, you can just type into ChatGPT, make

00:43:14 ◼   ► an Austin Evans thumbnail with whatever.

00:43:16 ◼   ► And that's my face that shows up and it generates it.

00:43:19 ◼   ► It's not a generic.

00:43:20 ◼   ► Like if you do this in Gemini or like a bunch of other tools, it would just be like a generic

00:43:24 ◼   ► like white dude or something.

00:43:25 ◼   ► ChatGPT makes my face doing whatever you want in any kind of ridiculous YouTube thumbnail.

00:43:31 ◼   ► It is so obviously understands that context and understands what like an Austin Evans thumbnail

00:43:36 ◼   ► is it is one of those moments where I'm like, OK, and I will tell you, it will make thumbnails

00:43:44 ◼   ► that I could probably ship.

00:43:47 ◼   ► I have never done that and I probably wouldn't because it's not quite right.

00:43:49 ◼   ► Like the face is like sometimes looks like it's more of like a doppelganger.

00:43:53 ◼   ► But there have definitely been periods of time where like, oh, if I just photoshopped a slightly

00:43:57 ◼   ► different face on this or I just ran with it, no one would notice.

00:43:59 ◼   ► It is wild.

00:44:00 ◼   ► That is one of those, oh, we might be cooked kind of moments with AI.

00:44:04 ◼   ► It was when I discovered that it just makes thumbnails and I just say, hey, I want an Austin

00:44:07 ◼   ► thumbnail holding a switch in a box.

00:44:08 ◼   ► It goes, boom, done.

00:44:08 ◼   ► How does that make you feel?

00:44:10 ◼   ► That's not good.

00:44:11 ◼   ► Not good.

00:44:12 ◼   ► Very bad would be the way I would describe.

00:44:15 ◼   ► I mean, it's cool from a technical standpoint.

00:44:17 ◼   ► It's one of those like it kind of hits home moments where, you know, it's one thing to say,

00:44:21 ◼   ► oh, look, all these chatbots are trained on your Veda dot, dot, dot, dot, dot.

00:44:26 ◼   ► But it's a little different when I can make a photo of me doing anything that I want.

00:44:32 ◼   ► I mean, I will say I'm not mad about it.

00:44:34 ◼   ► It's fine.

00:44:35 ◼   ► It is what it is.

00:44:36 ◼   ► Whatever.

00:44:36 ◼   ► People could Photoshop something.

00:44:37 ◼   ► But it's crazy that that is a thing that just exists.

00:44:41 ◼   ► And it's not like, oh, I had to go into chat GPT and give it all these images and train and

00:44:46 ◼   ► blah, blah, blah.

00:44:47 ◼   ► No, I can type one sentence into chat GPT and get a photo of myself holding a box of Nintendo

00:44:52 ◼   ► switches in front of a GameStop.

00:44:53 ◼   ► And it's just done.

00:44:54 ◼   ► That's crazy.

00:44:55 ◼   ► Oh, dude, this is scary.

00:44:57 ◼   ► I'm generating one right now and I'm watching your face.

00:45:01 ◼   ► Just like, here's what I'll say.

00:45:03 ◼   ► It's not you, but it is you.

00:45:06 ◼   ► Dude, that is horrifying.

00:45:08 ◼   ► You can just do that.

00:45:10 ◼   ► I will put in the show notes what this made.

00:45:14 ◼   ► I'll show it to you now.

00:45:15 ◼   ► Like, I will put this in the show notes so people can see it.

00:45:18 ◼   ► Like, oh, my God.

00:45:19 ◼   ► It's you, man.

00:45:20 ◼   ► I asked Megan Austin Evans some there with two phone home screens.

00:45:23 ◼   ► And it's like, it's a guy that looks kind of like you.

00:45:27 ◼   ► If I saw this on YouTube, I'd be like, oh, this guy's trying to be Austin.

00:45:30 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:45:30 ◼   ► Because he looks a little bit like him.

00:45:32 ◼   ► How weird.

00:45:33 ◼   ► It's crazy that that's just a public thing.

00:45:35 ◼   ► Especially because if you sit there and iterate on it, and believe me, I've spent hours staring

00:45:39 ◼   ► at my laptop screen and making these thumbnails.

00:45:41 ◼   ► You can definitely tweak it.

00:45:43 ◼   ► So like when it looks a little uncanny, you can say, oh, make the hair a little bit longer

00:45:46 ◼   ► or whatever the case is.

00:45:47 ◼   ► It will get it really close.

00:45:48 ◼   ► Again, this is not a crazy thing if you think about like, oh, if you have an AI and you

00:45:52 ◼   ► give it a bunch of photos and it'll work.

00:45:54 ◼   ► I mean, there's lots of tools that will do that.

00:45:55 ◼   ► That's not that crazy.

00:45:56 ◼   ► It's just the fact that you could just say one sentence and boom, it like happens.

00:45:59 ◼   ► So that's one of those things that I keep ChatGPT around for.

00:46:03 ◼   ► And I keep my little subscription going because it's nice to know that that exists.

00:46:06 ◼   ► Because I feel like that's probably important information to know.

00:46:09 ◼   ► It's like, hey, look, if you're going to train on me, I'm going to get something out

00:46:13 ◼   ► of it, damn it.

00:46:14 ◼   ► Exactly, exactly.

00:46:15 ◼   ► And it's mostly a feeling of existential dread and not anything practical, but it definitely

00:46:20 ◼   ► is one of those things where I'm a big proponent of you might be the world's biggest AI hater.

00:46:24 ◼   ► If you're not using some of these tools just purely to understand how they work and what

00:46:29 ◼   ► the capabilities are, I feel like you're doing yourself a disservice just to understand the

00:46:32 ◼   ► world we live in.

00:46:33 ◼   ► I mean, I don't know.

00:46:33 ◼   ► My Instagram these days is 80% reels that are fully AI generated.

00:46:37 ◼   ► And they're like vines.

00:46:38 ◼   ► They're hilarious little like jokes.

00:46:39 ◼   ► But it's like, if you don't understand how good AI has gotten, I feel like you're just

00:46:45 ◼   ► doing yourself a disservice to be on the internet.

00:46:46 ◼   ► I feel like it's required reading.

00:46:48 ◼   ► I have a series of questions for you for typical tasks.

00:46:52 ◼   ► So I want to hear about the apps or services you use for each of these.

00:46:55 ◼   ► Okay.

00:46:55 ◼   ► Where do you go when you add a task?

00:46:58 ◼   ► You have a task that you want to save to do later.

00:47:00 ◼   ► Where does it go?

00:47:01 ◼   ► Todoist.

00:47:02 ◼   ► And that is entirely thanks to you.

00:47:03 ◼   ► We've talked about this like years ago.

00:47:05 ◼   ► I still have my life on a Google Doc.

00:47:07 ◼   ► Like I literally had a Google Doc and I would put like some random bullets and nonsense

00:47:12 ◼   ► I needed to do.

00:47:13 ◼   ► And then I would just check that doc every day or two.

00:47:15 ◼   ► Like it was terrible.

00:47:17 ◼   ► The fact that I like was a functioning human for a number of years before Todoist is a miracle

00:47:22 ◼   ► to me.

00:47:23 ◼   ► But now I've seen the light.

00:47:25 ◼   ► Mike has shown me the way.

00:47:27 ◼   ► I got myself some Todoist.

00:47:28 ◼   ► I live in Todoist.

00:47:29 ◼   ► I live in Todoist.

00:47:30 ◼   ► I felt like I had to, for the sake of your employees, get you to stop doing that.

00:47:34 ◼   ► You are responsible for too many people's livelihood to just keep your tasks in a Google

00:47:40 ◼   ► Doc.

00:47:40 ◼   ► This is like an unacceptable way to live.

00:47:42 ◼   ► This is so bad.

00:47:43 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:47:43 ◼   ► I wouldn't say I'm like a super power user of Todoist.

00:47:46 ◼   ► Honestly, I could probably use another app if I wanted to.

00:47:48 ◼   ► But I like the fact that Todoist, I'm a big fan of apps that work everywhere.

00:47:51 ◼   ► And Todoist works great on Windows and Android and iOS and everything like that.

00:47:55 ◼   ► To me, if there's an app that only works on a single platform, that's almost always a

00:48:00 ◼   ► non-starter unless it's something like iMessage or whatever, which is, you know, it's been

00:48:03 ◼   ► rough for so long.

00:48:04 ◼   ► It's kind of okay.

00:48:04 ◼   ► But yeah, I appreciate the fact that Todoist works well everywhere.

00:48:07 ◼   ► I really like the natural language.

00:48:08 ◼   ► If I'm putting a task in, which I would probably do 30 or 40 times a day, on the iPhone, the

00:48:13 ◼   ► action button just opens Todoist for me because that's how often I pop it open.

00:48:16 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:48:17 ◼   ► I just love the fact that I'm like, oh, don't forget to bring your microphone to record

00:48:20 ◼   ► with your buddy Mike and then just hit A to A and boom, it'll automatically pop up for

00:48:24 ◼   ► 8 a.m.

00:48:25 ◼   ► And then I don't have to worry about it.

00:48:26 ◼   ► So if I lost Todoist, things would rapidly spiral out of control very quickly.

00:48:32 ◼   ► What about when you add a calendar event?

00:48:34 ◼   ► I just use Google Calendar.

00:48:36 ◼   ► Google Calendar.

00:48:37 ◼   ► Why Google Calendar?

00:48:38 ◼   ► Because it's the default and I'm boring and I'm not a real Cortexan the way that I wish

00:48:43 ◼   ► I could.

00:48:43 ◼   ► At least you use a calendar.

00:48:44 ◼   ► I hate Google Calendar.

00:48:45 ◼   ► I don't like the way it looks.

00:48:47 ◼   ► Their way of showing events drives me mad.

00:48:50 ◼   ► Like in the main view, they give me simultaneously too much and not enough information depending

00:48:56 ◼   ► on what the thing is that I'm looking for.

00:48:57 ◼   ► Like I don't really like the view options that Google Calendar provides, but I understand why

00:49:02 ◼   ► people use it.

00:49:02 ◼   ► Like it's available and it's like essentially free.

00:49:05 ◼   ► I use a lot of Google apps.

00:49:07 ◼   ► So it's like something like Gmail or whatever, but like I like Google Calendar, even though

00:49:11 ◼   ► it is definitely not an amazing app because it's the same everywhere.

00:49:15 ◼   ► So like Google Calendar, I actually typically on like a computer, whether it be Windows or

00:49:19 ◼   ► Mac, it lives in the browser.

00:49:21 ◼   ► It's a pen tab.

00:49:21 ◼   ► I would use a dedicated calendar app on Windows or Mac.

00:49:24 ◼   ► So for me, I like that consistency.

00:49:26 ◼   ► It's also, I've used it for long enough that I don't often think about, should I be using

00:49:31 ◼   ► a different calendar app?

00:49:31 ◼   ► It's just the calendar app.

00:49:33 ◼   ► I don't even like really process the idea that I could be using other things and I probably

00:49:37 ◼   ► should, but it's fine enough.

00:49:39 ◼   ► And I know how to work around this limitations to the point where it's just part of the furniture

00:49:42 ◼   ► at this point.

00:49:42 ◼   ► Where do you go when you write down an idea?

00:49:45 ◼   ► Like you have an idea for a video.

00:49:46 ◼   ► Where does it go?

00:49:47 ◼   ► Todoist.

00:49:48 ◼   ► Todoist is where all random ideas go.

00:49:50 ◼   ► So what I will do is if I have an idea for a video, usually late at night or getting out of

00:49:55 ◼   ► the shower, whatever the case is, I will set it in Todoist.

00:49:57 ◼   ► Sometimes I will actually use a voice assistant, like something like Siri.

00:50:01 ◼   ► I'll say, hey, go try to buy this thing on eBay or whatever.

00:50:06 ◼   ► But what I'll do is I will treat Todoist as like the earliest phase.

00:50:09 ◼   ► So like half the ideas I put into Todoist, I will snooze it a couple of times.

00:50:13 ◼   ► And if I haven't really like grabbed onto that idea after a couple of snoozes, I'll just mark

00:50:18 ◼   ► it as complete and get it out of there.

00:50:19 ◼   ► However, if it's a decent idea, I will upgrade it into Notion and it will actually get its

00:50:24 ◼   ► own card.

00:50:25 ◼   ► And there's a whole like brainstorming tab there and everything like that.

00:50:27 ◼   ► But basically Todoist is where like, it's like inbox zero for all sort of ideas, big

00:50:32 ◼   ► or small.

00:50:32 ◼   ► And then, yeah, it kind of lives in there for either an hour or two if I really want to jump

00:50:36 ◼   ► on it or a few days or a couple of weeks or whatever the case is.

00:50:39 ◼   ► But eventually it will either be knocked out or it will actually be upgraded into like a

00:50:43 ◼   ► real thing.

00:50:43 ◼   ► And when you put your earbuds in, what is the app that you tend to open first?

00:50:49 ◼   ► Spotify.

00:50:50 ◼   ► Okay.

00:50:50 ◼   ► So you tend to be music, right?

00:50:53 ◼   ► Over podcasts.

00:50:54 ◼   ► And your chosen service is Spotify.

00:50:56 ◼   ► Yes.

00:50:57 ◼   ► I mean, I will do podcasts.

00:50:58 ◼   ► To me, podcasts are more of a car thing.

00:51:00 ◼   ► Okay.

00:51:01 ◼   ► That makes sense.

00:51:02 ◼   ► Yep.

00:51:02 ◼   ► Like, I mean, I will listen to podcasts if I'm like, you know, doing some yard work or

00:51:05 ◼   ► some like kind of task that I know that I'm going to be doing for a longer period of time.

00:51:09 ◼   ► But I don't normally like to listen to a podcast unless I have at least 20 minutes of square

00:51:14 ◼   ► like proper time.

00:51:15 ◼   ► I can listen to music for three minutes or five minutes or 10 minutes or whatever.

00:51:18 ◼   ► And I find that podcasts really work well for me when I am doing sort of, you know, more

00:51:24 ◼   ► mundane tasks where I don't have to pay an enormous amount of attention to whatever I'm doing.

00:51:27 ◼   ► Music, I could be doing almost anything.

00:51:30 ◼   ► I mean, I have edited videos while having like a little bit of Spotify writing in the background.

00:51:33 ◼   ► Like I can listen to music doing anything.

00:51:34 ◼   ► So it's like much more of a, like, I just want that energy.

00:51:37 ◼   ► Like, you know, last night before I was prepping for the show, I was thinking about what I was

00:51:40 ◼   ► talking about.

00:51:40 ◼   ► You know, I turn on some Metallica and I'm like ready to go.

00:51:43 ◼   ► And I really want to kind of like pump up.

00:51:44 ◼   ► But I kind of use Spotify music to get me in the zone or help me focus wherever the case

00:51:48 ◼   ► is.

00:51:49 ◼   ► And podcasts are much more of a, like, I'm either getting ready for the day.

00:51:54 ◼   ► I'm winding down.

00:51:55 ◼   ► I'm doing something that's a little bit more low key.

00:51:57 ◼   ► They have like a different, almost like emotional quality for me on kind of like what I want

00:52:00 ◼   ► to do when.

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00:53:45 ◼   ► So, obviously, you make YouTube videos.

00:53:46 ◼   ► That is your bread and butter, right?

00:53:48 ◼   ► Like, that's what you're doing the vast majority of the time that you're creative.

00:53:51 ◼   ► I would like to understand the apps that make up that workflow.

00:53:55 ◼   ► So, you've mentioned scripts a bunch of times.

00:53:58 ◼   ► Where is script writing happening?

00:54:00 ◼   ► Google Docs.

00:54:01 ◼   ► Okay.

00:54:02 ◼   ► We use Notion, and I know that Notion is probably the place that would make the most sense for

00:54:07 ◼   ► everything to live, but I'm too used to Google Docs.

00:54:11 ◼   ► It's too easy to share.

00:54:13 ◼   ► It just works so well.

00:54:14 ◼   ► Everything lives in Google Docs.

00:54:16 ◼   ► Google Docs is infinitely easier to share with someone than a Notion.

00:54:19 ◼   ► Like, you can.

00:54:21 ◼   ► Exactly right.

00:54:22 ◼   ► But it's not easy to do.

00:54:23 ◼   ► Like, if you want to share Notion, really, the best thing to do is to share the entire

00:54:27 ◼   ► database with someone.

00:54:28 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:54:29 ◼   ► And that's just not practical a lot of the time.

00:54:30 ◼   ► Which isn't what you want to do all the time.

00:54:32 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:54:32 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:54:33 ◼   ► So, that's what we do.

00:54:34 ◼   ► We basically have those Google Docs links in the Notion.

00:54:37 ◼   ► Everyone in the company has access to the Notion.

00:54:39 ◼   ► They can hop in and out.

00:54:40 ◼   ► Well, if we're doing an ad spot or whatever, someone can jump in.

00:54:42 ◼   ► Maybe one out of five videos will have a scripted section.

00:54:45 ◼   ► So, like, we don't do an enormous amount of scripted content outside of ad spots.

00:54:49 ◼   ► Or specifically, like, we'll do, like, a pickup.

00:54:51 ◼   ► So, like, for example, you know, there's a video I did, like, last year.

00:54:54 ◼   ► We did a video on DealDash, which is this wild site that was, you know, it was all about

00:54:58 ◼   ► penny bids and they run all these daytime TV ads.

00:55:01 ◼   ► It was a crazy, crazy thing.

00:55:02 ◼   ► And so, that was one of those rare occasions where the first, like, 80% of the video was

00:55:06 ◼   ► unscripted.

00:55:07 ◼   ► But there was so much information.

00:55:09 ◼   ► There's so much just me trying to wrap my head around this ridiculous, stupid thing that

00:55:13 ◼   ► I actually really had to write a script at the end to make sure that I could sum up the

00:55:18 ◼   ► points.

00:55:18 ◼   ► And so, we'll do that from time to time.

00:55:19 ◼   ► But I would say that the scripts aren't huge.

00:55:22 ◼   ► I would say I'd probably spend more time in bullet points and notes.

00:55:25 ◼   ► Pretty much every video will have a Google Doc where, as I'm testing a product out, I'll

00:55:28 ◼   ► have a list of bullet points.

00:55:29 ◼   ► I'm like, oh, the keyboard feels really good.

00:55:31 ◼   ► Or, oh my gosh, this fan's so loud.

00:55:32 ◼   ► Or things to talk about.

00:55:33 ◼   ► But for actually, like, proper scripts, it's not super common.

00:55:37 ◼   ► But even for content that is unscripted, which is the vast majority of the content that you

00:55:42 ◼   ► produce, there is at least, tends to be a document that has some kind of outline that

00:55:47 ◼   ► somebody's keeping, I'm assuming.

00:55:49 ◼   ► Yeah, for most things.

00:55:50 ◼   ► The videos that don't need that are the kind of, like, the haul videos.

00:55:53 ◼   ► So, if we're doing, you know, buying something from Timu or buying something from a refurb

00:55:58 ◼   ► store or whatever, we actually use a Google Sheet instead.

00:56:00 ◼   ► We have a tracking template.

00:56:01 ◼   ► There's an enormous amount of products that are constantly cycling.

00:56:03 ◼   ► It's really hard to keep track of everything.

00:56:05 ◼   ► So, basically, all those Sheet links live inside their Notion cards.

00:56:08 ◼   ► And when you open up those Sheet links, what you'll see is basically a full list of every

00:56:12 ◼   ► product that we've ordered.

00:56:13 ◼   ► Any kind of interesting thoughts about, like, something we should check out, mention, talk

00:56:16 ◼   ► about prices.

00:56:17 ◼   ► And then there's a little toggle of, is this ordered?

00:56:20 ◼   ► Is this ready to shoot?

00:56:21 ◼   ► Is there a problem?

00:56:22 ◼   ► Do we need to follow up on it?

00:56:23 ◼   ► Like, that's sort of where that lives.

00:56:24 ◼   ► So, basically, when we're doing a Timu video or whatever, it might take three or four weeks

00:56:28 ◼   ► for 20 items to sprinkle in.

00:56:31 ◼   ► So, it's, like, really important for us to do that.

00:56:32 ◼   ► And then we have, like, the toggle.

00:56:33 ◼   ► Oh, this is here.

00:56:34 ◼   ► It's up on the shelf upstairs.

00:56:35 ◼   ► We know where it's at.

00:56:36 ◼   ► And we're ready to go.

00:56:36 ◼   ► So, that's, like, the way we keep those videos.

00:56:38 ◼   ► But it depends on the kind of project.

00:56:40 ◼   ► Some things are very simple.

00:56:40 ◼   ► If it's an easy video, it might just be a handful of notes.

00:56:43 ◼   ► And that's the only thing that exists.

00:56:44 ◼   ► Or it could be a whole tracking doc.

00:56:45 ◼   ► Or it could be a script.

00:56:46 ◼   ► It really just depends on what the video really needs.

00:56:49 ◼   ► But there's always a Notion card and something in that Notion card to determine what we're doing

00:56:54 ◼   ► with it.

00:56:54 ◼   ► And when the videos are being edited, what apps are being used for that?

00:56:59 ◼   ► Final Cut.

00:57:00 ◼   ► So, Final Cut has been the editing app of choice for me since, like, probably, like,

00:57:06 ◼   ► 2014, 2015, something like that.

00:57:08 ◼   ► And then, yeah, everyone here at the office uses Final Cut.

00:57:10 ◼   ► So, that is, I would say, the vast majority of what we do.

00:57:14 ◼   ► We've spent some time with CapCut.

00:57:15 ◼   ► I don't use it anymore.

00:57:16 ◼   ► We were using it for some effects.

00:57:18 ◼   ► For a brief time, we were doing, like, captions on, like, shorts and that kind of stuff.

00:57:22 ◼   ► But CapCut has its own series of issues, in my opinion, right now.

00:57:25 ◼   ► So, yeah, Final Cut is the main app that we use.

00:57:29 ◼   ► I mean, there's a number of plugins, but we don't really use a lot of other additional

00:57:33 ◼   ► apps like, you know, Resolve for color management or anything like that.

00:57:36 ◼   ► I mean, it's pretty straightforward.

00:57:38 ◼   ► So, the whole office, all of our sort of production infrastructure is all on Mac.

00:57:41 ◼   ► So, we have mostly Mac minis almost everywhere.

00:57:43 ◼   ► We have Mac minis with 10 gig Ethernet as our dumping station, as sort of our consoles.

00:57:47 ◼   ► All the editors have M4 Pro, Mac minis.

00:57:50 ◼   ► And it works pretty well for us.

00:57:52 ◼   ► So, you're on Mac because Final Cut, right?

00:57:55 ◼   ► Correct.

00:57:56 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:57:56 ◼   ► Everyone will be on the Mac because Final Cut.

00:57:59 ◼   ► It's the only place you can use it.

00:58:00 ◼   ► For an editor joining Overclock Media, which is the name of your business, is Final Cut a,

00:58:05 ◼   ► like, requirement?

00:58:06 ◼   ► Yes.

00:58:07 ◼   ► Because you wouldn't be able to be involved all in the editing process otherwise.

00:58:10 ◼   ► Correct.

00:58:11 ◼   ► We've had plenty of people who were not familiar with Final Cut, but you need to learn Final Cut

00:58:16 ◼   ► because that is the only tool that we're going to use to edit.

00:58:18 ◼   ► That's part of the training process.

00:58:19 ◼   ► We typically look for people who have some level of Final Cut experience.

00:58:22 ◼   ► But the thing is, if you know how to edit...

00:58:24 ◼   ► You can move.

00:58:24 ◼   ► You just go along where the buttons are, right?

00:58:27 ◼   ► Exactly right.

00:58:27 ◼   ► The skill is actually in being able to understand how to edit a video.

00:58:31 ◼   ► The app does not give you that skill.

00:58:33 ◼   ► It just gives you the tools to execute your skill.

00:58:35 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:58:36 ◼   ► We've never had someone take more than a week or two to be pretty much up to speed.

00:58:40 ◼   ► And that usually is...

00:58:41 ◼   ► It takes longer than that just to, like, learn the style guide.

00:58:43 ◼   ► Do you have any app-based workflows that you know are not ideal for yourself or for your

00:58:51 ◼   ► team, but you still use them anyway?

00:58:52 ◼   ► I mean, we use Slack, which is a lovely, wonderful app that is great all the time.

00:58:58 ◼   ► That's an interesting one.

00:58:59 ◼   ► No, I'm being sarcastic.

00:59:00 ◼   ► I mean, to say Slack is like, this is the thing that we do, but we know is not ideal.

00:59:05 ◼   ► I think most organizations have some kind of feeling towards that.

00:59:08 ◼   ► I know I feel that, like, you know, we choose to use Slack at Relay, and I find it to be

00:59:13 ◼   ► a very frustrating app, but also, what else am I going to do?

00:59:16 ◼   ► It does exactly.

00:59:17 ◼   ► Like, it is fine.

00:59:18 ◼   ► It does what it needs to do.

00:59:19 ◼   ► It does feel like I'm paying more for it every time I turn around, and suddenly there's another

00:59:24 ◼   ► bill.

00:59:24 ◼   ► Like, everyone has to have a number of subscriptions.

00:59:26 ◼   ► Like, that's just the way you're going to run your business.

00:59:27 ◼   ► You're going to have five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten tools you're going to be paying

00:59:31 ◼   ► monthly for, and it just is what it is.

00:59:33 ◼   ► Adobe.

00:59:34 ◼   ► I'm going to get in trouble for this.

00:59:34 ◼   ► We have some Adobe subscriptions.

00:59:36 ◼   ► I try to stay away from as many of them as I can, because every time I have to pay another

00:59:41 ◼   ► $60 or $70 a month for another seat on another license, it just drives me crazy.

00:59:45 ◼   ► So, I have Photoshop, whatever the photography plan that I've had forever, and the, you know,

00:59:50 ◼   ► rare opportunities I have to, like, make thumbnails or whatever.

00:59:52 ◼   ► But, like, I personally don't use any Adobe product at all on a regular basis, unless

00:59:57 ◼   ► it's, like, there's some emergence, I need to make a thumbnail really quickly.

01:00:00 ◼   ► Other than that, I don't use it.

01:00:01 ◼   ► The rest of the team does.

01:00:02 ◼   ► I mean, some stuff like After Effects is pretty important.

01:00:04 ◼   ► You know, we'll use stuff like Audition from time to time.

01:00:07 ◼   ► But, for the most part, it's just Photoshop, really.

01:00:09 ◼   ► That's, like, the main tool that I would say, like, half the office has to use on a regular

01:00:12 ◼   ► basis.

01:00:12 ◼   ► All right.

01:00:13 ◼   ► So, we've spoken about the team a little bit.

01:00:15 ◼   ► Let's get some details on that.

01:00:16 ◼   ► So, I have had the opportunity to visit your office a bunch of times and have seen the

01:00:22 ◼   ► team grow.

01:00:22 ◼   ► How many people work for OverClock?

01:00:25 ◼   ► Twelve at the moment.

01:00:27 ◼   ► Is that including you?

01:00:28 ◼   ► That is including me, yes.

01:00:29 ◼   ► Okay.

01:00:29 ◼   ► What's the breakdown there?

01:00:31 ◼   ► Okay.

01:00:32 ◼   ► So, on the main channel team is myself.

01:00:34 ◼   ► We have two editors, a producer and a shooter.

01:00:37 ◼   ► So, the main channel team is sort of the largest team.

01:00:40 ◼   ► The This Is team is myself, my co-host, Matt, as well as we have one producer and one editor.

01:00:44 ◼   ► And then we have the Denki channel, which is Ken.

01:00:47 ◼   ► And then he has one editor.

01:00:48 ◼   ► And then we have my wife, who does admin and whatnot.

01:00:50 ◼   ► Oh, and we also have a shorts person as well.

01:00:52 ◼   ► So, I think that is everybody.

01:00:54 ◼   ► So, it's a little bit of a mix breakdown.

01:00:56 ◼   ► So, you have someone now who kind of is, like, the full production house for shorts?

01:01:00 ◼   ► Correct.

01:01:00 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

01:01:01 ◼   ► So, his job is to ideate, shoot, and edit shorts for myself and for the This Is channel.

01:01:07 ◼   ► So, this is a new role that only started this year.

01:01:09 ◼   ► So, we're still kind of landing things.

01:01:11 ◼   ► But, I mean, we basically do a short five days a week on the main channel.

01:01:16 ◼   ► And then usually another two or three on This Is.

01:01:18 ◼   ► So, we crank them out.

01:01:20 ◼   ► But those are posting everywhere, right?

01:01:21 ◼   ► Because I feel like I see a lot on Instagram.

01:01:23 ◼   ► And I think their content is very good.

01:01:25 ◼   ► Oh, thank you.

01:01:25 ◼   ► Like, I enjoy that content quite a lot.

01:01:27 ◼   ► The shorts content.

01:01:28 ◼   ► It's funny.

01:01:29 ◼   ► Shorts have been one of those things that has been on the radar for the last few years.

01:01:32 ◼   ► And when I say shorts, I mean reels, TikTok.

01:01:33 ◼   ► It's all cross-post.

01:01:34 ◼   ► I call it shorts because that's the...

01:01:35 ◼   ► I'm a YouTuber.

01:01:36 ◼   ► I think shorts is the best term.

01:01:38 ◼   ► It is better.

01:01:39 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:01:39 ◼   ► Reels sounds dumb.

01:01:40 ◼   ► TikTok, I mean, is just a name of the platform.

01:01:41 ◼   ► Well, because even though YouTube call theirs shorts, it's the less branded sounding of all

01:01:47 ◼   ► of them and is the most indicative of what the content is.

01:01:50 ◼   ► Yep.

01:01:51 ◼   ► Could not agree more.

01:01:52 ◼   ► It is an important part of our business.

01:01:53 ◼   ► It's a part of our business that is growing more and more important all the time.

01:01:57 ◼   ► It's not one of those things that, like, there was a point that maybe, like, three years

01:02:00 ◼   ► ago where I'm like, oh, this is becoming a thing I should maybe be concerned about.

01:02:03 ◼   ► Because at that point, I was just, like, shorts are dumb.

01:02:06 ◼   ► But then I started hanging out with some of the short-form creators and seeing them not

01:02:10 ◼   ► only blow up, building their communities.

01:02:11 ◼   ► And I was like, oh, wait a minute.

01:02:12 ◼   ► I'm the old man at the newspaper saying this whole internet thing's never going to take off.

01:02:17 ◼   ► I got to, like, change my tune.

01:02:19 ◼   ► So my lead editor on the main channel actually started out as our shorts editor.

01:02:22 ◼   ► And she was running a secret channel that I never told anyone about.

01:02:25 ◼   ► It was basically a clips channel that was not branded as me whatsoever.

01:02:29 ◼   ► And it was purely dedicated to learn.

01:02:31 ◼   ► Because one of the things I was really worried about was, so a substantial portion of the

01:02:37 ◼   ► revenue from the company is based on the branded stuff that we work on with, whether it be integrations

01:02:41 ◼   ► or dedicated videos, but the work we do directly with companies.

01:02:43 ◼   ► And I was terrified of putting up shorts on the main channel that would be right in line

01:02:47 ◼   ► with the feed.

01:02:48 ◼   ► This was before YouTube had split out shorts versus regular concerts.

01:02:50 ◼   ► So it all looked the same.

01:02:51 ◼   ► I'm like, I do not want to have conversations with brands.

01:02:53 ◼   ► And I have to explain to them why this video has 300,000 views and this short has 7,000

01:02:58 ◼   ► views.

01:02:59 ◼   ► And like, that was a conversation I was just terrified of.

01:03:01 ◼   ► Like, this is going to do so much damage to things if I have to constantly have this and

01:03:04 ◼   ► people are going to start lowering the rates and all this kind of stuff.

01:03:06 ◼   ► So we ran a channel for like six months that was purely dedicated to just experimenting.

01:03:11 ◼   ► So we would do different short form.

01:03:13 ◼   ► We would do all this kind of cuts.

01:03:14 ◼   ► Mostly was me, but I think most people thought it was a fan account and I was very happy with

01:03:18 ◼   ► that.

01:03:18 ◼   ► But we learned a lot from that.

01:03:20 ◼   ► So people thought that it was like someone's cutting up Austin videos.

01:03:23 ◼   ► 100%.

01:03:23 ◼   ► 1000%.

01:03:24 ◼   ► And I was so okay with that because I did not want people to know because I just wanted to

01:03:28 ◼   ► learn because I feel like the only way I ever learn is through iteration and through evolution

01:03:33 ◼   ► and just tweaking and tuning and twying and tweaking and tuning.

01:03:36 ◼   ► Like that's all I ever really want to do.

01:03:38 ◼   ► So for me to go live with stuff on the main channel was a very terrifying prospect.

01:03:42 ◼   ► But now over time, we graduated to actually posting stuff on the actual channel.

01:03:47 ◼   ► And I actually was the only person doing all the shorts for like a year and a half, two

01:03:51 ◼   ► years before we finally actually hired someone because I wanted to make sure that I had a really

01:03:55 ◼   ► good handle on how to do things so I could help someone take over that sort of vision.

01:04:00 ◼   ► I didn't want just to like, hey, let's just make random BTS content.

01:04:03 ◼   ► I wanted to make sure that I understood as best I could what makes a short work and what

01:04:07 ◼   ► doesn't.

01:04:08 ◼   ► And it took me a long time to really wrap my head around that because it's just a different

01:04:11 ◼   ► world compared to everything we've done in the past.

01:04:13 ◼   ► It feels like the content is quite different.

01:04:15 ◼   ► I feel like a lot of the shorts that I see from you are actually like nuts and bolts tech

01:04:21 ◼   ► content.

01:04:22 ◼   ► Yep.

01:04:23 ◼   ► where your main channel videos are more entertainment.

01:04:27 ◼   ► Yes.

01:04:28 ◼   ► Why is that?

01:04:30 ◼   ► If I had free reign and the magic YouTube view fairy would just bless all my content equally,

01:04:37 ◼   ► I would do reviews like I used to.

01:04:39 ◼   ► They do not get views.

01:04:41 ◼   ► They are not sustainable.

01:04:42 ◼   ► They do not work.

01:04:43 ◼   ► When I do my yearly Z Flip video, I know I am doing that for me and the Z Flip gang out

01:04:50 ◼   ► there and no one else.

01:04:51 ◼   ► Literally dozens of us.

01:04:52 ◼   ► I know that's it.

01:04:53 ◼   ► That's exactly it.

01:04:54 ◼   ► And like, look, from a business perspective, every review I have made in the last five years

01:05:00 ◼   ► has been an absolute failure.

01:05:03 ◼   ► But I also believe pretty strongly that you got to make stuff for yourself sometimes.

01:05:07 ◼   ► And even if it doesn't make sense on your spreadsheet and any of the numbers, there will be times in

01:05:13 ◼   ► which people will watch those videos and enjoy them.

01:05:16 ◼   ► Like, I feel like we make, I don't know, like five or six videos for ourselves every year.

01:05:20 ◼   ► And most of the time they're quite unsuccessful.

01:05:24 ◼   ► And hopefully at least they're somewhat well received if they don't get the views.

01:05:29 ◼   ► The watch time might be good on them or something, even if the view number is like that.

01:05:32 ◼   ► Exactly, yes.

01:05:32 ◼   ► People will just like, the comments would be really good.

01:05:34 ◼   ► Like, I know that people say, don't listen to the comments.

01:05:35 ◼   ► I read comments.

01:05:36 ◼   ► And if everyone says my video is great, I'm in a great mood.

01:05:38 ◼   ► I'm like, heck yeah, everyone likes my videos.

01:05:40 ◼   ► Let's go.

01:05:41 ◼   ► But no, it's like, there's a freedom in shorts.

01:05:44 ◼   ► Because the thing that I really kind of wrap my head around is that you can post a short

01:05:48 ◼   ► that gets no views and no one cares and it's fine.

01:05:51 ◼   ► There's a level of randomness to the algo anyway.

01:05:53 ◼   ► I've had shorts that do no views on YouTube, no views on TikTok, and do hundreds of thousands

01:05:59 ◼   ► on Instagram or whatever.

01:06:01 ◼   ► It's like, there's definitely a random element of what picks up on what platform.

01:06:04 ◼   ► And so letting go a little bit, being much more experimental with like, you know what?

01:06:10 ◼   ► Does anyone care about this thing?

01:06:11 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:06:11 ◼   ► I think it's kind of cool.

01:06:12 ◼   ► Let's make a short on it.

01:06:13 ◼   ► We're making a bunch of these things anyway.

01:06:14 ◼   ► And so I will do a lot more kind of like review kind of content.

01:06:17 ◼   ► There's a lot of devices that I could not support a whole video on.

01:06:20 ◼   ► And the way we used to do that was we would just take like a, you know, say there's a new

01:06:23 ◼   ► nothing phone.

01:06:23 ◼   ► We would wedge it in like mystery tech, but that felt weird.

01:06:25 ◼   ► It was never like, you know, it sort of broke the flow of things.

01:06:28 ◼   ► But now shorts are the perfect place.

01:06:29 ◼   ► I'll do an unboxing.

01:06:30 ◼   ► I'll do a, oh, I've been using this thing for two weeks.

01:06:32 ◼   ► I'll find a cool feature.

01:06:33 ◼   ► Like it's just, there's sort of a lot more built-in content with that.

01:06:35 ◼   ► So that's kind of the way that I think about shorts versus longs these days.

01:06:39 ◼   ► Longs.

01:06:39 ◼   ► Oh God.

01:06:40 ◼   ► That's, that hurts my heart.

01:06:41 ◼   ► You know, this reminds me of like in gaming, people who like VR call regular games, flat

01:06:48 ◼   ► games, I think is what they call them.

01:06:50 ◼   ► Oh my God.

01:06:50 ◼   ► We're not doing that.

01:06:51 ◼   ► That's not okay.

01:06:52 ◼   ► We can't normalize this.

01:06:53 ◼   ► Well, you call videos longs.

01:06:54 ◼   ► The kids are long.

01:06:55 ◼   ► So you're part of the problem, but it's just a different, it's just a different thing.

01:06:59 ◼   ► Oh my God.

01:07:00 ◼   ► Do you find the view numbers for the kind of review-y tech shorts, you're happy with that

01:07:07 ◼   ► in a way that you feel you would not get those kinds of numbers if you did longs about them?

01:07:12 ◼   ► Yes.

01:07:12 ◼   ► I feel pretty confident that if I do a short, it is going to outperform across the three platforms

01:07:20 ◼   ► I post, right?

01:07:21 ◼   ► It might not necessarily do more views.

01:07:22 ◼   ► Which is also helpful, right?

01:07:24 ◼   ► That you're not posting the longs on the Instagram, for example.

01:07:26 ◼   ► Exactly right.

01:07:27 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:07:27 ◼   ► Like the short form has like two sort of things.

01:07:29 ◼   ► So yes, it, I think generally would do more views.

01:07:32 ◼   ► Also, I mean, views are not views, you know, a view that's 20 seconds versus a view that's

01:07:39 ◼   ► 13 minutes is a very different kind of thing.

01:07:40 ◼   ► So watch time definitely plays a role.

01:07:42 ◼   ► I would take one long form view over 10 short form views anytime, right?

01:07:46 ◼   ► Sure.

01:07:46 ◼   ► But that being said, those short form views still do have value.

01:07:48 ◼   ► It helps to build up other platforms.

01:07:50 ◼   ► Like for example, like Instagram, who knows the TikTok, they turn that off one day or

01:07:54 ◼   ► whatever.

01:07:54 ◼   ► It's fine.

01:07:54 ◼   ► Cause I have other platforms.

01:07:55 ◼   ► Like I've sort of built up that variety of platforms.

01:07:58 ◼   ► So it's like, to me, I find it really useful in a way that it's a good creative outlet.

01:08:03 ◼   ► I get to make a lot of shorts that I couldn't normally justify.

01:08:07 ◼   ► I find that it's fun content and sometimes they pop off, right?

01:08:11 ◼   ► I mean, like you don't make a lot of money from a short.

01:08:13 ◼   ► Like again, if you're looking at the ROI calculator on the spreadsheet, every hour I spend on shorts, not a really well used hour, but there are still advantages.

01:08:22 ◼   ► There are still some branded content that we do on shorts, which is meaningful, small, but meaningful.

01:08:26 ◼   ► There is content that we do that drives actual subscribers that I can see in the analytics.

01:08:31 ◼   ► People come to an awesome video for the very first time in a short and they become a subscriber and they watch longs, right?

01:08:37 ◼   ► Like it's not a huge proportion, but that is a number of people who would never have normally sort of interacted with the content.

01:08:42 ◼   ► I've been stopped by a like, I don't know, 12, 13 year old kid and look, oh, I love you on TikTok.

01:08:48 ◼   ► I was like, that is the first time it's ever happened.

01:08:50 ◼   ► And it's, it's happened a couple of times now.

01:08:51 ◼   ► I was like, that person would have never seen my face and known what I'm all about unless they randomly started watching me on TikTok or something.

01:08:58 ◼   ► So there's value there.

01:08:59 ◼   ► It's a fun, it's part of the funnel.

01:09:00 ◼   ► It's bringing people in.

01:09:01 ◼   ► Exactly.

01:09:01 ◼   ► It's part of the funnel.

01:09:02 ◼   ► Yes.

01:09:02 ◼   ► Yes.

01:09:02 ◼   ► I assume when you started making less tech review videos that there is a world in which you may have been sent less hardware.

01:09:14 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:09:16 ◼   ► The brands.

01:09:17 ◼   ► Are they more inclined to send you this hardware if you're doing shorts than if you weren't doing anything at all?

01:09:24 ◼   ► Yes.

01:09:24 ◼   ► Yeah, for sure.

01:09:25 ◼   ► For sure.

01:09:26 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:09:26 ◼   ► I mean, there are definitely relationships that I sort of lost because I just stopped doing graphics card reviews,

01:09:32 ◼   ► which I never really did, but I mean, I really stopped.

01:09:34 ◼   ► There's definitely an element though.

01:09:36 ◼   ► We buy a lot of the stuff that we cover.

01:09:39 ◼   ► Well, because even if you get sent a review in it, sometimes you have to send it back.

01:09:42 ◼   ► Oh, of course.

01:09:42 ◼   ► Absolutely.

01:09:43 ◼   ► And sometimes you need to have 16 versions of the PlayStation as you do.

01:09:46 ◼   ► On a regular basis.

01:09:47 ◼   ► I need every revision of the PS1 of all time, or I need three PS5s in various states of disassembly.

01:09:53 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:09:54 ◼   ► It's helpful.

01:09:54 ◼   ► You're right.

01:09:55 ◼   ► There is definitely a benefit of just relationship building with brands and sort of, you know, like, I want to make sure that I get invited to this thing or I'm on the list to get the review or whatever the case is.

01:10:05 ◼   ► Or they don't forget that I exist.

01:10:06 ◼   ► And at least I'm making some kind of content.

01:10:08 ◼   ► That's like an added benefit.

01:10:09 ◼   ► It's not like the reason.

01:10:11 ◼   ► Like, I would never make it short on something because the company sent it to me just because I want to have a relationship with them.

01:10:16 ◼   ► But if I'm thinking about, like, oh, is this worth doing?

01:10:18 ◼   ► I'm like, oh, well, that's a good idea.

01:10:19 ◼   ► And this is good.

01:10:20 ◼   ► And it might make it sort of easier to get an invite to the next event or whatever.

01:10:23 ◼   ► It's all kind of like part of their calculus.

01:10:24 ◼   ► So, yeah, I know that there's ways to look at it.

01:10:27 ◼   ► But to me, I treat shorts almost the same way as I treat AI in that it's just one of those things where it is content that I'm not always super proud of.

01:10:36 ◼   ► Not just from like, oh, I don't like my shorts.

01:10:38 ◼   ► It's just I find that that endless scroll isn't healthy for your brain.

01:10:44 ◼   ► And I don't get a warm fuzzy when I think about being part of that just dopamine hit, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe.

01:10:51 ◼   ► And I think it's probably just my bias talking.

01:10:54 ◼   ► I think that there's more value in a 20-minute YouTube video than a 30-second short just from a you're going to learn something and not just endlessly scroll and do that to your brain.

01:11:03 ◼   ► But that being said, if I want to continue to do my profession in the capacity that I do it in, I don't have a choice.

01:11:11 ◼   ► I need to be making shorts.

01:11:12 ◼   ► And I just look at the upsides of like, oh, look at all this cool content I get to make.

01:11:15 ◼   ► And it actually is somewhat beneficial.

01:11:17 ◼   ► And, you know, it's what you got to do.

01:11:19 ◼   ► I mean, everyone's doing it.

01:11:20 ◼   ► You got to be one of the cool kids, right?

01:11:21 ◼   ► When you say stuff like that, do you feel like old man YouTube?

01:11:24 ◼   ► Dude, nothing makes me feel older than hanging out with the short form guys.

01:11:27 ◼   ► I'll tell you.

01:11:28 ◼   ► So, CES like two years ago or something.

01:11:30 ◼   ► I'm there with iJustine and there were a number of short form creators there.

01:11:34 ◼   ► They were super stoked to come over and talk.

01:11:37 ◼   ► And, you know, inevitably they would talk about how they started watching me when they were like a child, like literally nine years old or whatever the case is.

01:11:44 ◼   ► And I was there with a rep from a company and she jokingly said, oh, I'm like the dad of YouTube.

01:11:50 ◼   ► And then Justine was like, actually, you know what?

01:11:52 ◼   ► I probably shouldn't tell this story.

01:11:53 ◼   ► I'll tell it anyway.

01:11:53 ◼   ► And Justine's like, oh, I'm the dad.

01:11:55 ◼   ► Then she's the grandma of YouTube.

01:11:56 ◼   ► And I was like, this is the worst timeline ever.

01:11:58 ◼   ► Or why is this a thing that's happened?

01:12:00 ◼   ► I've had like times where like, you know, like there's this one guy who came up and wanted to take a photo.

01:12:05 ◼   ► I was on a micro center like a year ago.

01:12:06 ◼   ► And his mom was there and she was really excited to tell me about how he had just passed his driving test.

01:12:11 ◼   ► And it was his birthday yesterday.

01:12:13 ◼   ► And I like had this moment.

01:12:14 ◼   ► I stopped and go, wait, how old are you?

01:12:16 ◼   ► He goes, oh, I just turned 15.

01:12:17 ◼   ► I'm like, you're a foot taller than me and you are a human being that didn't exist until a year into me making YouTube videos.

01:12:23 ◼   ► What?

01:12:25 ◼   ► Like there's moments where I have that.

01:12:27 ◼   ► I'm just like, good Lord.

01:12:28 ◼   ► But then also it's cool because I used to be that kid.

01:12:30 ◼   ► I remember going up and waiting in line to go like take a photo with John Rettinger, like my first CES in 2010 or whatever.

01:12:35 ◼   ► But it's like, it's just one of those things where it's good to be around for long enough to have that.

01:12:41 ◼   ► But also it feels really weird.

01:12:43 ◼   ► So weird.

01:12:45 ◼   ► I'm going to balance out your story to make everybody feel better because it happens to all of us.

01:12:50 ◼   ► A couple of years ago, we were at WWDC and there was a bunch of us, the Relay folk, we were having dinner and a listener came up.

01:12:57 ◼   ► It's like, you know, just wanted to say hi.

01:12:58 ◼   ► Like Ava said it to me or to somebody else said like, oh, I've been listening to you since I was in college.

01:13:05 ◼   ► Like, you know, I love the stuff.

01:13:06 ◼   ► And then they saw my colleague Jason.

01:13:08 ◼   ► I was like, oh, Jason, I've been reading your work since I was in high school.

01:13:12 ◼   ► And Jason just put his hoodie up and pulled the drawstring.

01:13:15 ◼   ► Because I'm like, you know, like I have been doing this for long enough now that I am getting to the point where I'm having those moments of like, I have been listening to you since I was in school and now I do X.

01:13:27 ◼   ► And it was very funny to me that this has happened, but it was for Jason because Jason has been in this industry for so much longer that, you know,

01:13:35 ◼   ► There are people now that were like very young when he started out, like at Macworld and stuff like that.

01:13:41 ◼   ► So there is that funny lineage as time goes on.

01:13:44 ◼   ► You're saying about it's funny for you to hang out with short form creators and see how they work.

01:13:48 ◼   ► As time has gone on, you know, I've been covering Apple for long enough that like when I started going to WWDC and stuff, there were no YouTubers.

01:13:58 ◼   ► And over time, I've seen that change.

01:14:00 ◼   ► And something that I find so honestly exhausting is seeing how video creators work, that you are constantly working.

01:14:11 ◼   ► So like if I go to an event, I will watch the thing, I will think about it, and then later on, I will go and produce like a piece of content, like a podcast about it most likely.

01:14:22 ◼   ► But what I see with YouTubers is it is like a constant content creation mode.

01:14:28 ◼   ► Yep.

01:14:29 ◼   ► And I have been with you in these scenarios.

01:14:31 ◼   ► Like we've done things together.

01:14:32 ◼   ► We've like, we went to Red Bull Racing together.

01:14:35 ◼   ► And it's just like any moment you may start recording a video, like any moment it can start happening.

01:14:41 ◼   ► And I just find that so fascinating.

01:14:42 ◼   ► But what I have noticed is that the short form creators are even more intense than the YouTube, we'll call them the long form YouTube creators.

01:14:51 ◼   ► And it's just interesting to see how I already thought that it was like, wow, that seems like a lot of work that you're constantly creating.

01:14:59 ◼   ► But now there is like a whole other form where it's like these people are constantly creating and then immediately posting.

01:15:05 ◼   ► Yes, you could not be more accurate.

01:15:07 ◼   ► I have been to events where I'm going to make a short on something like it's a new Microsoft announcement or whatever.

01:15:12 ◼   ► I'll be in my seat and I'll have shot a couple of quick clips of B-roll.

01:15:16 ◼   ► I'm starting to think about it.

01:15:17 ◼   ► And I'll be sitting next to one of the short form guys and he's already live.

01:15:20 ◼   ► I'm like, what?

01:15:21 ◼   ► He's like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, on CapCut.

01:15:24 ◼   ► I'm like, I have gotten three clips of B-roll and I have like the vaguest sense for what I'm going to do.

01:15:29 ◼   ► You're already live?

01:15:30 ◼   ► Or like, yeah, that's like my third thing of the day.

01:15:32 ◼   ► I'm like, I understand that short forms obviously are easier to make than a long form video.

01:15:37 ◼   ► I mean, of course.

01:15:38 ◼   ► But even when I'm trying to make a short form video, I'm doing the exact same thing.

01:15:41 ◼   ► I'm like, all right, cool.

01:15:42 ◼   ► I'm going to do, I'm going to sit through and think my process through.

01:15:46 ◼   ► I'm going to shoot my bit here, there, and then I'm going to like edit.

01:15:48 ◼   ► Maybe I'll be done by the time I get to the airport.

01:15:50 ◼   ► And these guys have done like seven things already.

01:15:52 ◼   ► I'm like, man, I just.

01:15:53 ◼   ► It's because you can't break your way of working.

01:15:55 ◼   ► Yes, exactly right.

01:15:56 ◼   ► I don't make a short where I just hit the record button and then, you know, do two cuts and do it.

01:16:00 ◼   ► Like, I'm like, I'm thinking about my B-roll.

01:16:02 ◼   ► I'm going to do seven takes of this.

01:16:03 ◼   ► And that's just the way I work.

01:16:05 ◼   ► I mean, it's fine.

01:16:06 ◼   ► But then again, I mean, I think people probably said the same thing when, you know, you started

01:16:10 ◼   ► doing podcasts, people go, well, I'm going to file my story on the wire tomorrow.

01:16:14 ◼   ► You know, it's just like, it's always someone was doing something before.

01:16:18 ◼   ► Give me a break.

01:16:19 ◼   ► No, that's not reasonable.

01:16:22 ◼   ► You remember those days when you'd be there with the actual like news paper reporters and

01:16:27 ◼   ► stuff, and they had to file their story at the end of the day or whatever.

01:16:29 ◼   ► Like, I remember going to those early CESs and being a YouTuber was like, literally, they

01:16:33 ◼   ► wouldn't accept YouTube as a form of credential.

01:16:35 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:16:35 ◼   ► It's literally nothing but like newspaper and TV and all these kind of things.

01:16:40 ◼   ► And then, you know, you're there as like a YouTuber and they're like, YouTube.

01:16:44 ◼   ► Ha, ha, ha.

01:16:45 ◼   ► And now we're those people going, short farm.

01:16:48 ◼   ► Ha, ha, ha.

01:16:48 ◼   ► And then, I don't know, the AI creators will show up next time and we'll all be cooked.

01:16:52 ◼   ► This episode of Cortex is brought to you by Sentry.

01:16:56 ◼   ► Founders, it's time to be honest.

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01:17:43 ◼   ► And that is so important.

01:17:44 ◼   ► I have so many friends who are developers, and I know that what they want to do is build new features.

01:17:50 ◼   ► That's what they care about.

01:17:51 ◼   ► They want to go out there and make creative, amazing things for their users to use.

01:17:55 ◼   ► What they don't want to do is ship a new update to the app and then spend six weeks trying to dig through all the bug reports.

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01:18:25 ◼   ► Click the link in the show notes, or go to Sentry.io and use the code Cortex.

01:18:29 ◼   ► That is S-E-N-T-R-Y.io and use the code Cortex, or just click the link in the show notes.

01:18:36 ◼   ► Our thanks to Sentry for their support of this show and Relay.

01:18:39 ◼   ► Going back to team stuff, how do you review content as a team?

01:18:44 ◼   ► Like, what is that process like?

01:18:45 ◼   ► How does it happen?

01:18:46 ◼   ► Are there apps involved?

01:18:48 ◼   ► Like, what is going on with the reviewing of content?

01:18:51 ◼   ► So we use Frame.io for the most part.

01:18:54 ◼   ► Some of our teams are different.

01:18:55 ◼   ► So our This Is team doesn't actually use it.

01:18:57 ◼   ► This Is team is one of the only ones that actually gets the whole team together and just watches the video in a room, old school.

01:19:02 ◼   ► For the other channels, we don't do that as a whole company that often.

01:19:05 ◼   ► Like, if it's a big, complicated video, we'll usually do a screening, pull production, and, you know, everyone will kind of sit down.

01:19:10 ◼   ► Especially if it's a video that's complicated and, like, it's not moving smoothly through edit and we need to, like, you know, do some pickups or we need to, like, tweak it or we just need to, like, punch it up or whatever.

01:19:19 ◼   ► But traditionally, edit team just give me dailies via Frame.

01:19:24 ◼   ► Or maybe not always dailies, sometimes just, like, you know, V1s, V2s and whatnot.

01:19:27 ◼   ► What is Frame?

01:19:27 ◼   ► Frame.io.

01:19:28 ◼   ► It's actually owned by Adobe, even though it's its own thing.

01:19:30 ◼   ► It is just a video sharing platform.

01:19:33 ◼   ► So, it's designed specifically for ad agencies and this kind of thing.

01:19:36 ◼   ► So, you can have multiple users.

01:19:39 ◼   ► They can all upload.

01:19:40 ◼   ► It's kind of like a Google Drive or a Dropbox kind of thing.

01:19:43 ◼   ► But it has, like, an inline where you can, like, leave notes of specific time codes.

01:19:46 ◼   ► The newer tools allow you to, like, circle a thing.

01:19:48 ◼   ► Go, oh, hey, we should blur this or whatever the case is.

01:19:50 ◼   ► It's good, I would say.

01:19:52 ◼   ► It's very expensive, especially when you load a lot of people on seats.

01:19:54 ◼   ► And it's so silly for that.

01:19:56 ◼   ► But that's the main thing.

01:19:57 ◼   ► So, almost every night when I go home and the kids are to bed and everything's kind of winding down, I'm almost always reviewing cuts and, you know, leaving notes and whatnot.

01:20:06 ◼   ► And then, usually, once the notes are all addressed, then the next day, you know, once the edit teams work through it, then I'll actually, you know, load it up on the channel or whatever.

01:20:14 ◼   ► So, it's, like, essentially, like, an asynchronous reviewing tool for video.

01:20:18 ◼   ► Exactly, yeah, yeah.

01:20:18 ◼   ► And we can use that same tool to send it to a brand, right?

01:20:21 ◼   ► So, say, if we're working on a piece of sponsored content and we need to make sure that we've got our talking points right, we didn't mess up our URL or whatever, we can send those same links.

01:20:28 ◼   ► We can turn on and off comments.

01:20:29 ◼   ► So, we could theoretically have a brand with that exact same link, you know, go in and go, oh, actually, can you change this logo?

01:20:35 ◼   ► We don't want it to have a drop shadow or whatever, like, thoughts that they have.

01:20:37 ◼   ► And then, we will immediately be able to see that.

01:20:39 ◼   ► I'll see it.

01:20:39 ◼   ► Edit team will see it.

01:20:40 ◼   ► We'll make sure that everything is being addressed.

01:20:41 ◼   ► So, yeah, we typically don't upload anything to YouTube until it is the final, final version of the video.

01:20:47 ◼   ► So, Frame is where all of those, like, half-finished projects live.

01:20:50 ◼   ► How do you stay inspired?

01:20:52 ◼   ► Oh, man.

01:20:54 ◼   ► This is a terrible answer.

01:20:55 ◼   ► It comes naturally.

01:20:57 ◼   ► That sounds so bad to say.

01:20:58 ◼   ► No, no, no.

01:21:00 ◼   ► Because, I mean, you've been very successful for a long period of time.

01:21:05 ◼   ► Your ability to be able to come up with ideas for content should be somewhat ingrained in you now.

01:21:10 ◼   ► Yes, it is.

01:21:11 ◼   ► It doesn't stop.

01:21:12 ◼   ► I've done this for literally half of my life.

01:21:15 ◼   ► But I am always just, like, looking for new things to do.

01:21:20 ◼   ► So, it actually comes back a little bit to why I like to cycle devices.

01:21:23 ◼   ► But it's bigger than that.

01:21:24 ◼   ► I like to be in different locations.

01:21:27 ◼   ► I think that the environment that you're in is so important.

01:21:31 ◼   ► So many ideas come from just doing something that's not the normal, everyday routine.

01:21:36 ◼   ► Or doing that routine in a different kind of way.

01:21:38 ◼   ► Do you think of titles and thumbnails as a creative process?

01:21:42 ◼   ► Oh, yeah.

01:21:43 ◼   ► Okay.

01:21:44 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:21:44 ◼   ► I mean, the best practice is always to never shoot a frame of video until you have your title and thumbnail ready.

01:21:49 ◼   ► Now, that hasn't always been it, though, right?

01:21:51 ◼   ► It's still not that now.

01:21:52 ◼   ► So much of the content we make, we start without knowing where it ends, right?

01:21:56 ◼   ► Like, if I'm going to do a video on DK Oldies, you know, are they going to send me a box full of cockroaches or a beautiful PlayStation 5?

01:22:03 ◼   ► I have no idea, right?

01:22:04 ◼   ► It's more so about coming up with the question rather than the answer when you go into these things.

01:22:09 ◼   ► That's the way I try to think about it.

01:22:11 ◼   ► And if we were more disciplined, we would always have that ready.

01:22:14 ◼   ► And I'm not going to be panicked cycling title ideas I come up with on the fly 10 minutes after an upload when it fails.

01:22:21 ◼   ► And I still do that all the time.

01:22:22 ◼   ► There's always improvement here.

01:22:23 ◼   ► But it's easy to walk the walk.

01:22:25 ◼   ► It's tough to talk the talk.

01:22:27 ◼   ► And typically these days, I will have a concept of my marketing.

01:22:31 ◼   ► Sometimes it's pretty firm.

01:22:33 ◼   ► Sometimes it's a little bit more nebulous.

01:22:34 ◼   ► And then as the video comes together, and especially usually the night before, that's when I get serious.

01:22:39 ◼   ► I'm like, okay, well, I think I was going to call it something along this line.

01:22:41 ◼   ► Then I'll actually sit down.

01:22:42 ◼   ► Sometimes I'll work with Claude to, you know, pull some of the back data to kind of see, like, sort of what title formats have sort of worked well.

01:22:48 ◼   ► Let's kind of start working with our thumbnail guy to start putting that together.

01:22:51 ◼   ► And then we'll eventually sort of put everything together in a way that will at least be set up for success, even if it's a failure.

01:22:57 ◼   ► At least we will have it ready.

01:22:58 ◼   ► But it's tough.

01:22:59 ◼   ► It's definitely an area that deserves more attention.

01:23:03 ◼   ► Yeah, you think of it as marketing.

01:23:04 ◼   ► You said it's marketing, like title and thumbnail is how you consider it for the video.

01:23:07 ◼   ► Absolutely.

01:23:08 ◼   ► Yeah, and in fact, some of our better, more successful cases of just making videos that are successful typically come from that tight synergy between the marketing and the actual creative, treating them as the same process.

01:23:22 ◼   ► Because, you know, the best version of a video is great idea for a title, cool, intriguing thumbnail, very first frame of the video, the very first 10 seconds directly ties to that in the most, you know, like, oh, I asked the question and then boom, I've answered it to you in the first five seconds.

01:23:37 ◼   ► But then I've discovered that there's a second sort of deeper phase of this, whatever the case is.

01:23:41 ◼   ► This is the Mr. Beast model, right?

01:23:42 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly.

01:23:43 ◼   ► There's, I mean, a lot that Jimmy does right.

01:23:45 ◼   ► I mean, I think he is on such a different level in so many ways, but there's also a lot that I think that anyone can learn.

01:23:51 ◼   ► And it's not a surprise to say, oh, you should learn from the most successful person who's ever done the thing in your field.

01:23:56 ◼   ► But, like, of course there is, right?

01:23:57 ◼   ► Like, he does these things for a reason.

01:23:59 ◼   ► So I think that there's always a risk of just being too beastified on things.

01:24:05 ◼   ► And there have been times where I'm, like, I'm making a whole video.

01:24:07 ◼   ► I think it's going to be great.

01:24:08 ◼   ► And then, like, it's basically done, like, oh, I just made a really bad knockoff Mr. Beast video.

01:24:12 ◼   ► I didn't, I just sleptwalked my way through it.

01:24:14 ◼   ► So it's like, you've got to be careful.

01:24:15 ◼   ► But they're just generally good things that you couldn't do in life.

01:24:18 ◼   ► And I think that's one of them, just like, hey, think about your hook.

01:24:20 ◼   ► Think about your title.

01:24:22 ◼   ► Think about your thumbnail.

01:24:22 ◼   ► I will say the short form guys think about this all the time.

01:24:25 ◼   ► They live and die on that hook, on that sort of approach to how they're going to bring people in.

01:24:31 ◼   ► The thumbnail and the title might not be quite as important.

01:24:34 ◼   ► It's still important.

01:24:34 ◼   ► But it's more so just, like, how do I condense all the information that gets you to stop swiping in the first two seconds and let's go.

01:24:41 ◼   ► How do we build that rapport with the audience so they see my face and they immediately know they're going to stop that swipe because they want to continue to see whatever nonsense we're going to be talking about.

01:24:48 ◼   ► about this time.

01:24:48 ◼   ► So it's super important.

01:24:50 ◼   ► Like, it doesn't exist one without the other.

01:24:52 ◼   ► Can we talk about the boxes?

01:24:53 ◼   ► Oh, no, Mike.

01:24:55 ◼   ► Oh, no.

01:24:55 ◼   ► This is a proprietary trade secret.

01:24:57 ◼   ► So you came to London a while ago and we were having dinner and we were talking about thumbnails.

01:25:02 ◼   ► And you referenced to me, like, have you noticed the boxes?

01:25:06 ◼   ► What's going on with the boxes?

01:25:08 ◼   ► Okay.

01:25:09 ◼   ► So YouTube, for the last maybe two years or something, has had an A-B testing tool, something that I've been asking them to do for so, so long.

01:25:16 ◼   ► Because before, you put up a thumbnail, you'd post a video, you're watching the real time, and then you change the thumbnail.

01:25:23 ◼   ► And does it go up or down?

01:25:24 ◼   ► And you're just sort of...

01:25:25 ◼   ► Everybody was manually A-B testing, which is...

01:25:27 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, exactly.

01:25:28 ◼   ► And you had to do it.

01:25:29 ◼   ► Like, a title and a thumbnail, a slight tweak can double your views.

01:25:33 ◼   ► Like, literally just double your views minute over minute.

01:25:36 ◼   ► The A-B testing tool makes this much easier because you can load three thumbnails.

01:25:39 ◼   ► So every video we ever post always has three thumbnails.

01:25:42 ◼   ► Bare minimum, we usually have, based on which of those three thumbnails works or doesn't work, then we'll either start revising.

01:25:47 ◼   ► So maybe we'll try a different color background, whatever the case is.

01:25:50 ◼   ► It's crazy how these little subtle differences that feel like they're absolutely meaningless make huge differences.

01:25:56 ◼   ► So one of the things with this A-B testing tool that we learned very quickly, box thumbnails win most of the time.

01:26:04 ◼   ► It's not for every type of video, right?

01:26:05 ◼   ► So we will almost always have a box and a thumbnail.

01:26:08 ◼   ► So this is like the thumbnails of your videos, there is some form of a cardboard box in the thumbnail.

01:26:14 ◼   ► That's what a box thumbnail is.

01:26:16 ◼   ► Correct, yes, yes.

01:26:17 ◼   ► Almost always we will try at least one of the options like that.

01:26:19 ◼   ► For certain videos, I can tell you with 100% certainty that we are only going to run boxes because that works.

01:26:24 ◼   ► The thing is the box is a simple idea, but it carries a lot of visual weight.

01:26:30 ◼   ► So the thing to think about when it comes to marketing and with thumbnails, people look at a YouTube thumbnail for a third of a second maybe.

01:26:38 ◼   ► So in that third of a second, they are going to subconsciously process whatever that is.

01:26:43 ◼   ► They're going to skim through the gist of the title.

01:26:45 ◼   ► They're going to see the visual of the thumbnail and they're going to decide.

01:26:47 ◼   ► Are they going to stop or they're going to keep swiping and scrolling or whatever the case is.

01:26:50 ◼   ► So if you see a box and you see a guy and you pause for a split second to look at it more and you see there's a couple of PlayStations on a box and there's a flaming GameStop in the background, you can instantly make the decision.

01:27:01 ◼   ► If I know what this video is, is that something I'm interested in or not?

01:27:04 ◼   ► And also, I mean, it does work for your content though, right?

01:27:06 ◼   ► Because if we started putting boxes on the thumbnails for the YouTube videos of Cortex, it's just not going to make any sense to people click.

01:27:13 ◼   ► Correct.

01:27:14 ◼   ► But by and large, you are doing haul type videos.

01:27:16 ◼   ► It is thematic.

01:27:18 ◼   ► Boxes are not a trick for everyone, but they do tend to work well with the content that you create.

01:27:23 ◼   ► It is emblematic of the content that you're going to see.

01:27:26 ◼   ► But you told me you basically ended up in a scenario where it was just all boxes all the time.

01:27:31 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

01:27:32 ◼   ► And it's, I mean, these things can go in cycles.

01:27:34 ◼   ► So the boxes no longer dominate everything.

01:27:36 ◼   ► But that being said, there, again, there are videos I know, like if it is an unboxing style, if I'm going to start the video with an unboxing, that just visually tells such a story to the audience that if the alternative is either I'm holding a series of boxes or I'm sitting beside the product or holding the product, almost always the action of me in the thumbnail holding a box will perform better.

01:27:57 ◼   ► But you're right, it is very much dependent on the channel.

01:27:59 ◼   ► That's not the case for some of our other channels here at Overclock or for, I'd say, most other YouTubers.

01:28:04 ◼   ► So, you know, you just kind of have to understand what works and what doesn't.

01:28:07 ◼   ► But the A-B tool makes a big difference because you can test this.

01:28:10 ◼   ► I could do one box and two non-boxes and I see that the box dominates the other two.

01:28:14 ◼   ► I know that that was the right call.

01:28:15 ◼   ► It's not like you're just guessing the way that you used to.

01:28:17 ◼   ► But there is something in there which I think is a good sign about this system because I think a lot of people, like a lot of the audience, have quite a negative view of a title and thumbnail because they call it clickbait.

01:28:29 ◼   ► But what we're seeing here with your box scenario is that it is indicative of what the video is going to be.

01:28:37 ◼   ► And so people click the boxes and are like, great, there are lots of boxes in this video.

01:28:41 ◼   ► And it's showing that it is meeting the viewer in the right spot from when they've seen the marketing for the video.

01:28:49 ◼   ► And so, like, that is showing that there is benefit to changing this stuff out, finding what's right and it matching.

01:28:57 ◼   ► Clickbait, essentially, like, what actually is clickbait, which is this is not emblematic of what the video is, that does not perform in the long term, right?

01:29:06 ◼   ► If you keep faking things, you're not going to end up in a spot which is good for you.

01:29:11 ◼   ► I mean, everyone gets one clickbait, I'm retiring video.

01:29:14 ◼   ► And then you do it and it goes, haha, that was funny.

01:29:16 ◼   ► And then that's it.

01:29:16 ◼   ► You don't get to do it again.

01:29:17 ◼   ► You know, the box thing is so potent because it gets the idea across that I'm going to be evaluating something.

01:29:24 ◼   ► I'm probably not going to be sure exactly what it is.

01:29:26 ◼   ► Obviously, the face and whatever's in the background will kind of give you an idea of like, oh, I'm really happy.

01:29:30 ◼   ► Oh, my God, I'm so disappointed with it.

01:29:31 ◼   ► But it just is one of those rare visual cues that you see it and you absolutely understand what it is.

01:29:36 ◼   ► I think some of the gold standard for YouTube thumbnails are like first class flight reviews.

01:29:41 ◼   ► You know, it's like, oh, I'm posing in the middle of this giant suite like Casey Neistat or whatever.

01:29:45 ◼   ► Like, I think that those are some of the best thumbnails because it literally could be a still from the video and you see exactly what it is.

01:29:53 ◼   ► And you get the exact idea that, oh, this is going to be expensive and grand.

01:29:56 ◼   ► It's something I'm never going to be able to physically do, but it's something that I get to live vicariously and understand that, oh, my God, you can have a bed in an airplane.

01:30:02 ◼   ► That's crazy.

01:30:03 ◼   ► Like, I think that is just one of those ways that you're right.

01:30:06 ◼   ► It's not clickbait.

01:30:07 ◼   ► It's just good marketing.

01:30:08 ◼   ► If it works well and it ties to the video, you know what you're clicking on and you're happy and you're going to continue to watch more of those videos.

01:30:14 ◼   ► And you're going to continue to sort of build rapport with that creator if you're just crying wolf all the time that, you know, this or that or whatever the case is.

01:30:20 ◼   ► And look, I'm not going to lie.

01:30:21 ◼   ► I mean, we push the envelope sometimes like, oh, man, this video is not performing well.

01:30:24 ◼   ► I got to come up with something and maybe it wasn't a good idea.

01:30:26 ◼   ► But like that's all part of the process.

01:30:28 ◼   ► And I think as you learn, you kind of go, oh, you know what?

01:30:30 ◼   ► Maybe we don't need to juice that that hard because maybe that was going to push the envelope a little bit.

01:30:34 ◼   ► Or sometimes the meta has evolved and everyone on YouTube is doing this sort of title and thumbnail style thing.

01:30:39 ◼   ► And it works and the audience doesn't care.

01:30:42 ◼   ► Like I know that some things that we run today, people would have absolutely been mad about five years ago.

01:30:46 ◼   ► But it's just what everyone does now.

01:30:47 ◼   ► No one even thinks about it.

01:30:48 ◼   ► So it's like you just have to be aware that it's a constantly shifting kind of thing.

01:30:51 ◼   ► But I think the vast majority of successful creators at this point are really deep in the marketing.

01:30:59 ◼   ► I just think that that is an integral part of being remotely successful at this point.

01:31:04 ◼   ► And it's not just a title and thumbnail.

01:31:06 ◼   ► It's the hook.

01:31:07 ◼   ► It's the sort of structure.

01:31:08 ◼   ► It really is hard to separate marketing and sort of being creative and putting all this stuff together.

01:31:14 ◼   ► It's what makes things work.

01:31:16 ◼   ► Nothing ticks without it.

01:31:17 ◼   ► It's time for the lightning round.

01:31:19 ◼   ► Lightning round.

01:31:20 ◼   ► So I'm going to give you a product category.

01:31:22 ◼   ► You're going to tell me what you use.

01:31:24 ◼   ► It's up to you if you want to tell me more or not.

01:31:26 ◼   ► Okay.

01:31:27 ◼   ► Tablets.

01:31:28 ◼   ► iPad mini 6th gen.

01:31:30 ◼   ► And if you count it the surface, I treat that as a laptop.

01:31:33 ◼   ► But iPad mini, I'm a mini boy.

01:31:35 ◼   ► Why the mini?

01:31:36 ◼   ► I like the mini because it's tiny.

01:31:38 ◼   ► So I've gone on trips where like I have just taken the iPad mini and I've tried to like edit on it and stuff.

01:31:42 ◼   ► And it's obviously a little too much.

01:31:43 ◼   ► But I like it because it's small.

01:31:45 ◼   ► It is really one of those devices where I could leave it in my backpack and forget that it's there.

01:31:49 ◼   ► And it'll be dead after a day.

01:31:50 ◼   ► But it's one of those things I could just carry on with me everywhere.

01:31:52 ◼   ► It's a bigger screen to watch like on like flights and whatnot.

01:31:55 ◼   ► The main area where an iPad lives in my life with this mini is when I want to do light work.

01:32:01 ◼   ► So if I'm going to be sitting in bed and I know that I need to review and edit and do 20 minutes of email, I can do that on the iPad no problem.

01:32:09 ◼   ► I can just sit there with my Apple Pencil and go bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, super simple, super lightweight.

01:32:13 ◼   ► If it's more than that, I'm pulling out a laptop.

01:32:16 ◼   ► I'm going to go do something else.

01:32:18 ◼   ► But like I like having a very like lightweight device in my life that can just live anywhere and I can just hop in and just do something quick.

01:32:25 ◼   ► But it's like it's just annoying enough to the point where I don't have a keyboard or whatever the case is.

01:32:29 ◼   ► I'm only going to want to type so many emails.

01:32:32 ◼   ► I'm only going to do so many things.

01:32:32 ◼   ► But I'm like, you know what?

01:32:33 ◼   ► This is just not worth it.

01:32:34 ◼   ► It's time to go sleep.

01:32:34 ◼   ► Do you use an e-reader?

01:32:36 ◼   ► I do have the Kindle, the Paperwhite, the one that they brought out last year.

01:32:41 ◼   ► I don't read that much, if I'm honest.

01:32:43 ◼   ► I should read more.

01:32:44 ◼   ► I used to read all the time.

01:32:45 ◼   ► I used to write all the time.

01:32:46 ◼   ► I almost entirely take that time that I would to relax and chill and I'm watching YouTube and I'm listening to podcasts.

01:32:56 ◼   ► But mostly YouTube and rarely, you know, some Apple TV show or Netflix show or whatever.

01:33:00 ◼   ► But yeah, I don't read as much as I should.

01:33:02 ◼   ► What games consoles are you playing with right now?

01:33:05 ◼   ► Steam Deck OLED was a little bit of Switch 2.

01:33:08 ◼   ► But honestly, as soon as I was done with the review, I haven't gone back.

01:33:11 ◼   ► The games are coming.

01:33:12 ◼   ► The games are coming exactly right.

01:33:14 ◼   ► Gotta wait for the games.

01:33:15 ◼   ► They have one game right now.

01:33:16 ◼   ► You gotta wait for the games.

01:33:17 ◼   ► I like playing Mario Kart for 15 minutes a time.

01:33:19 ◼   ► And then I'm like, okay, cool.

01:33:20 ◼   ► That was Mario Kart.

01:33:21 ◼   ► Steam Deck is my favorite device I've used in quite a while.

01:33:24 ◼   ► In fact, I did not like the Steam Deck when it first came out.

01:33:27 ◼   ► I thought it was too big.

01:33:28 ◼   ► It was too bulky.

01:33:28 ◼   ► But over time, especially with the OLED, the screen is so nice.

01:33:32 ◼   ► SteamOS has gotten so much better.

01:33:33 ◼   ► I mean, I've been playing Baldur's Gate for two and a half years.

01:33:36 ◼   ► I've still never finished the game.

01:33:38 ◼   ► I keep making new.

01:33:39 ◼   ► I'm like, oh, I'll get to Actory.

01:33:40 ◼   ► I'm like, you know what?

01:33:40 ◼   ► I want to go.

01:33:42 ◼   ► I'm going to make a Paladin.

01:33:43 ◼   ► And I'll just like play through it again.

01:33:44 ◼   ► Or the other day I was playing Army Men RTS, which is an obscure 2002 GameCube game that I found on Steam that works.

01:33:50 ◼   ► It is never designed for controller, but it works with the touchpads.

01:33:53 ◼   ► So it's literally like an RTS, like StarCraft or something.

01:33:55 ◼   ► But it works flawlessly.