All About Change - Nas Daily and Bringing His Life From Good to Great

Episode Date: January 7, 2024

Nas Daily has been an internet sensation since its inception. But the man behind it all is a bit less well known. Nuseir Yassin left a well-paying job at Venmo to travel the world, and do 1,000 videos... in 1,000 days about the places and people he encountered. Since then, he’s built a company founded on community, positivity, and storytelling. Nuseir sat down with host Jay Ruderman to talk about growing up in Israel, how he keeps his company community-minded, and how he’s building a culture that lasts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 It was ever a point where you're like, oh my god, this is just too much. I can't do this anymore. This is too much work. Roughly 600 times. This is all wrong. I say put mental health first because if you don't... This generation of America has already had enough. I stand before you not as an expert, but as a concerned citizen.
Starting point is 00:00:30 Nusair Yassin, better known as Nas Daily, is famous for his highly produced one-minute videos. Nas produced an astounding 1,000 of these videos in 1,000 days. It was 1,000 days of torture, but it was the best 1,000 days of my life. Those videos were more than a chance for Nusair to practice his production skills and travel the globe. They were a chance for him to spread the word about all the good there is in the world.
Starting point is 00:00:55 No one is there that's ready to tell you what goes well in the world, what is happening that's inspiring, that's positive. I want to not state it to be that. It's almost like the antidote to what exists today. Nosair Yassin, thank you so much for being my guest on All About Change. I'm so excited to speak to you.
Starting point is 00:01:16 And thank you for joining us. Likewise. Thank you for having me. So I'd like to start off in the beginning. You did a TED Talk where you talked about growing up in northern Israel, in the Galil, in your village of Araba, and you said it was a good life. Can you talk a little bit about growing up in your family and what it was like? Yeah, I mean, I guess I was lucky because my parents were educated.
Starting point is 00:01:39 So we were not poor, we were not rich, we were middle class. I'm lucky in the sense that I got everything I needed. But even from an early age, you can still see that you're unlucky because you're born and raised in the Middle East in general. You're unlucky because you're in the Middle East, not in America. You're unlucky because you're not Jewish in Israel. You're unlucky because you're a middle child. There was some unluckiness happening, but overall doing better than 95% of the world. You spent a lot of time educating yourself, teaching yourself to speak English, teaching yourself the piano, really improving upon your skills. Tell us what led you to decide to apply to Harvard. You know, the issue is that I could see there's a ceiling back home in Israel.
Starting point is 00:02:27 There was a ceiling for me as an Arab-Israeli. And I wanted to be where the future was. And I wanted to be where there is theoretically no ceiling. And that was in America. And the reason I wanted to go to Harvard, honestly, is I had a Jewish American friend in Ohio and their brother went to Harvard and they suggested I apply there. I never thought I would ever get in. So really, I owe them a lot for putting that idea in my brain. But, you know, I applied to Harvard and for me, it was like a shot in the dark, really.
Starting point is 00:03:00 I didn't know there was anything special about my application. And luckily, Harvard saw something and they said yes. So that was really probably the best thing that happened to me. But the big idea here is that I think a lot of people want that mobility. I wanted to be surrounded by smart people. I wanted to be at a place where my nationality, my religion, my origin doesn't hurt me or doesn't affect my progress. And that I found at Harvard. And so Harvard was, I remember this clearly, this TED Talk where you talk about going from
Starting point is 00:03:32 good to better. And you're always trying to improve your life. Was it better for you at Harvard? Was it better at Harvard than at a 30,000 or 20,000 person village in Israel in the Middle East? A hundred percent. A 100% was better, you know, to be surrounded by the world's smartest people. I mean, now Harvard has a bad rep for anti-Semitism. But you know, at Harvard, I made my first ever Jewish friend. At Harvard, I made my first ever Israeli friend. Not in Israel. It was at Harvard. So Harvard really opened my eyes to what diversity
Starting point is 00:04:06 looks like, what different opinions look like. I think for the majority of us, we are lost in a way. We don't know what we want to do or where we want to go, especially as a college person. So for me, education wasn't what's important. It was the community. It's the community of people around you that was important. So I knew whatever I learned at Harvard, I was going to forget. What I really wanted to do, though, is build something of my own and create a company, create something out of nothing. And I think that desire has been with me since I was a Harvard student. And it's been like that for the last 13 years. So then what led you to take a job at a company? I mean, I understand you were working at Venmo. And first of all, why take that type of job?
Starting point is 00:04:50 And what led you to leave that job? So I took that job because, one, it was the only job that I could find. And two, it's the thing that will give you the visa, right? And also, I wasn't quite ready to go on my own. I felt I needed a little bit of a shelter, something to lean on. So that's why I took that job. But after a year and a half in corporate America, I realized this is not for me. It just didn't make sense to trade your time for money, especially when your life is so valuable,
Starting point is 00:05:19 your time is so valuable. It didn't make sense to trade it for money. And so I thought the world is much bigger than the office. And funny, I'm talking to you right now from the office, but the world is much bigger from the office. And I wanted really to see the world. And that's why I decided to start Nas Daily. Your decision was to make a thousand videos for a thousand days, one minute videos. How did you get to that decision? It's hard answering this question because there is no clear answer. A thousand is a number that made sense. But what I really wanted, I felt for the majority of my life, for the first 25 years of my life, I didn't really have a voice. And I didn't have a voice in Israel. I didn't have a voice at Harvard. I didn't have a voice at my job. And I
Starting point is 00:06:05 wanted a voice. I wanted an opinion to be heard. And I thought that video making, telling your opinion in video is the best way to be heard. So I thought I'll just make those videos. And I don't know how to make videos. So if I don't know how to make videos, I should practice every day. If I don't have a job, then I shouldn't be taking any time off, no weekends for me because I don't have a job. So it made sense to do it every day. And it made sense to make it as a video. And it made sense to go around the world and do it. Is this shit working? I don't know. I have no clue why I'm doing this, but I think it'll be fun. Here's the idea. Once a day, I'm going to make one video that's one minute long. That's it. In New York City, off to Egypt today. And that's how Nas Daily was born. So Nas Daily, I mean, I've watched many, many of your videos, but they're very positive.
Starting point is 00:06:51 Was that something that you were purposely trying to do to make positive videos? Yeah, I wanted Nas Daily to be the opposite of what I saw growing up. I think that's really important for me. So what I saw growing up is wars between Israel and Lebanon, between Israel and Hamas and Israel and Palestine. I saw people labeling themselves, I'm Jewish, I'm Muslim. No, this is it. I'm black, I'm white, I'm Bedouin, I'm a farmer. I saw a lot of casting. I saw a lot of turmoil and I saw a lot of negativity in the news every single day. And I just thought that it seems like if something bad happens in the world, there are at least 10,000 organizations
Starting point is 00:07:30 that are ready to talk about it. They are ready to make it bigger, a bigger deal. They're ready to publicize it, which is the news, the media. But no one is there that's ready to tell you what goes well in the world, what is happening that's inspiring, that's positive. And I wanted Nas Daily to be that. It's almost like the antidote to what exists today. And I think that's why there's a lot of interest in Nas Daily, because it's not just like kumbaya positivity, like let's all be friends. This is great. It's more like actionable, real, positive impact that's happening today and is amplified through Nas Daily that smart people
Starting point is 00:08:06 like you and kids that are 10 years old can enjoy watching. And that's what Nas Daily is. In South Korea, there is a pastor who built a box in a wall to save babies from death. from death. This is a condom. It's cheap, it's effective, it's nice, and it can save your life. Meet the Condom King. Hi, nice to meet you. This scientist can catch cancer just by smelling your breath. So the videos are fascinating and I did learn a lot, but let's talk about making the
Starting point is 00:08:46 videos because they're a minute long. And I guess that was the algorithm at the time in terms of getting views. But what went into making a one minute video? 15 hours of torture. That's what went into it. It's, you know, making a one minute video that's highly produced is five hours of thinking about the video idea, five hours shooting the video, five hours editing it, and one hour uploading it. There's a significant amount of time that goes into each video. And also, each video must have an idea that's new, that's unique, that excites you to make it.
Starting point is 00:09:19 It wasn't an easy process. It was 1,000 days of torture, but it was the best 1,000 days of my life because it really took Nas Daily to the next level. And it allowed me to come here on your podcast. So I'm forever grateful for it. Was there ever a point where you're like, oh my God, this is just too much. I can't do this anymore. This is too much work. Roughly 600 times, maybe 500 times. Roughly half the time, I was thinking this is too much. I'm tired. But when you commit, you commit. I think that's really the thing that I have that I think many people may not have is discipline. When I commit to something, I never cheat. I'm incredibly disciplined. And I learned discipline from this 1000 experience. And now I'm trying to sort of be the same discipline with health, with relationships,
Starting point is 00:10:07 with work, with building a business. This discipline is key. When you started this challenge with the 1000 videos and Nas Daily, how did your family react? How did your friends react? I mean, you were giving up a good job. You were making, I think you said more money than your parents and your siblings were making. So how did they take this news? Well, look, when I called my parents and I said, I'm quitting my 120K a year job to go to Kenya, Africa to make one minute videos on Facebook that make no money, clearly that was not a good thing for them. I think I learned that parents want their kids to live the most risk-free life possible. Parents want to de-risk their children while children want to risk it. And so that's the primary difference between me and my parents is that
Starting point is 00:10:59 at age 24, I want to take risks for the next six years. For them, they don't want me to take risks until you have enough money in the bank. And that's why they were not happy. But again, this is why I'm so lucky because they were able to trust me with this. They said, just go for it. And the fact that they watched the videos, liked, commented, subscribed, and all that stuff
Starting point is 00:11:18 is all I needed. No, sir, every time I see you, you're wearing a black t-shirt that has life and a percentage of life that you believe that you have consumed. Can you explain that t-shirt? Yeah. So my t-shirt says 41% of life. So when I was 24, I asked myself, when am I going to die? It's a weird question. I know. It turns out there's two people in the world that know when you're going to die, God and Google. And you type on Google life expectancy and it says 76 years. And so 24 out of 76 was 32%. That's when I realized I was
Starting point is 00:11:52 32% done with life. And that was a big realization to be one third dead. And so I decided to just put that on my t-shirt and just only wear the same thing for the last six years. And every eight months I become 1% older. So now I am 41% done with life. And it's just like a nice way to track like how precious time is. And it's a reminder to do something important every single day. And it also makes my life much, much, much easier, you know, traveling wise and everything else. So that's what I wear. So it's not a way that a lot of people look at life because a lot of people say, oh, I have time.
Starting point is 00:12:33 I think it's a very unique way of looking at things. And obviously it keeps you motivated to live the best life possible. Are you suggesting that all of us sort of look at life that way? I mean, definitely. A hundred percent. Are you suggesting that all of us sort of look at life that way? I mean, definitely. I mean, 100%. It also, it just doesn't make sense where we say, you graduate at age 21, then you retire at age 65, and then you do what you want to do. It's like, wait, what?
Starting point is 00:12:57 So I just think when you think of time in terms of percentages, time becomes a lot more precious. And that's really what I want people to understand is we think of our money in terms of percentages, time becomes a lot more precious. And that's really what I want people to understand is we think of our money in terms of percentages, our salary or bonuses in terms of percentages. We think of inflation in terms of percentages. We think of discounts in terms of percentages, but we never think of life in terms of percentages. So would you give 10% of your life to a relationship that you do not like, to a wife or a husband that you do not love? That's the question. One thing that really surprised me about your work is that
Starting point is 00:13:30 a lot of people, when they find the success for them, they tend to hold on to that success and they don't want to tell anyone about it. But one thing that's very unique about you is that you want to tell people about how you've had success. You've had success making videos and influencing people, but you want to tell other people how to do that. That's a very unique quality. Can you talk a little bit about that and how you want to pass things on and you want to help others achieve what you've achieved? You know,
Starting point is 00:13:59 thank you. Thank you for noticing that. I think a lot of people don't notice that. And actually I don't talk about this a lot either. And I've been thinking about it for noticing that. I think a lot of people don't notice that. And actually, I don't talk about this a lot either. And I've been thinking about it for a while. Like, why do I care about telling you and making videos about how the success was created? This is the hardest video I will make
Starting point is 00:14:17 because I am publicly committing that I am going to get fit, finally. Even the fitness challenge, I'm like, oh my God, I figured out how to become fit and get a six pack. I'm going to tell the world about it. I figured out how to build a company. I'm going to tell the world about it. I figured out how to make a video. I'm going to tell the world about it.
Starting point is 00:14:39 And I think it's something inherent, which is, I think many people feel like the pie is fixed in size and we can all fight over who gets more pie. But in reality, the pie continues to grow all the time. And this is my belief. My belief is that the more you share about your success, the more success you will create in the world, the more success there is in the world, the more pie there is for everybody. That's how I think about it. And so I really don't like people who are very, very private, especially when they made it. I think it becomes a moral imperative, a moral responsibility to share how you did it because we want more Nasdaqis in the world, not less. The world does not need one Nasdaq. It needs a hundred. So I want to tell you, I remember seeing these videos
Starting point is 00:15:21 The world does not need one nasty. It needs a hundred. So I want to tell you, I remember seeing these videos where a guy will tell you, you know, I have the secret for success and I can help you achieve better health. And the video will go on and on for 10, 20 minutes. And then at the end, he's like, give me, you know, $20 a month and I'll tell you how to do it, which is a business. But, you know, you seem to be much more open to, listen, I've had success.
Starting point is 00:15:47 I'm going to tell you how to have success. And that is, I guess, your form of activism, your form of saying, I found some ways to have a better life. I, without charging you anything, I'm going to tell you how to have a better life. And that's very unique in this world. Nothing against people who want to build a business. And I'm also trying to build a business and I monetize some stuff as well.
Starting point is 00:16:12 And I need to find a way to make money too. Knowledge is the only thing that increases when you give it away. So information should be free. My time should not be free. So I'm happy to make this content and share with the world everything I learned. But if somebody wants a 30-minute chat with me, of course, I have to charge for that. So knowledge should be free. Time should not be free.
Starting point is 00:16:33 I think that's really the distinction between what I share for free and what I don't share for free. So let's talk a little bit about how you have monetized your success. you have monetized your success. And you've created NOS Academy, NOS Studios, NOS.io. Can you talk about your companies and how your companies operate? So once I finished the 1000 Day Challenge, I said to myself, if I die today, everything I build dies tomorrow. That's terrible. You want longevity. I'm very interested in longevity of impact. And I'm very interested in making what we've built into an institution as opposed to an
Starting point is 00:17:14 individual. And so I thought, what I decided to build is NAS Company, which is an ecosystem of businesses and products. Each of them have the same mission and the same goal, bring people together. That's it. My goal is to bring people together. NAS data's content brings people together. What else brings people together? Travel. So we're building NAS travels. Communities bring people together. So we're building the community infrastructure for NAS.io, which is basically a community management software.
Starting point is 00:17:45 Education brings people together. Summits bring people together. That's the mission statement. Now, how do you make money from bringing people together? Well, one is you build the platform. Two is you offer services that people want. And three is, look, we said, you've seen the NAS videos. If you're a company or a government or a big brand, do you want us to make videos for you on your channels? So we offer you our services, our storytelling services that we charge for. So now I think NASDAD company makes roughly 10 to $12 million a year.
Starting point is 00:18:20 So we've been able to build a pretty healthy business. Baruch Hashem, as they say, thank God. But the goal is to make this into much bigger. The goal is to 10X in the next 10 years. So really, I believe that the more money we make, the more we can hire. The more we can hire, the more we can create jobs. The more we can create jobs, the better the world is. So now I feel like my job was to make a video every single day. My next dream is to create a job every day. Can I create an open position every single day in my company and hire 365 people and hire a thousand people in a thousand days, right? That's kind of the next ambition.
Starting point is 00:18:58 So your companies are extremely diverse. Can you talk about why diversity in terms of the makeup of your companies is so important to you? That's a great question. I've seen far too many startups that are hot for five years and then they're not. I've seen far too many tourism entrepreneurship, I would call it, which is, oh, I'm interested in this subject for three, four years. I build a company, I sell it, and I move on to the next thing. My goal for NASS company is to be around for 50 years minimum. And if my goal is for this company to live longer than I live, I need to design it in a way that it withstands any shock to the system. So if Facebook, YouTube, Instagram disappear today,
Starting point is 00:19:41 we should still make money from NAS NASA Academy. If COVID comes today, we shut down one part of the business, but the online part of the business grows, NASA grows. So there should always be sort of diversified so that the company itself can continue to survive. I think that's really important to me. I don't know why that's important to me, but I feel like I have found my life's mission, which is to bring people together through content, entrepreneurship, and so on and so forth. And my only wish for people is to find their life mission as well. You've been able to infuse social responsibility and community building into your businesses, but yet you're not a non-profit.
Starting point is 00:20:25 Not a non-profit. You're a for-profit business. And I think that that's a formula that's not well understood by many businesses. How were you able to, from the start, to say, these values are so important, I'm going to make it part of a for-profit business. How does that happen? So, you know, my head of finance asked me last month, he was like, are we going to build a NAS nonprofit? Are we going to build a NAS charity? And I said, we will never build a charity. And everybody thought I was a bad guy. And I said, no, we will never build a charity because I deeply believe that a lot of the work that we do already helps a lot of people. The videos we make on that kid in Nairobi and give them 10 million views and exposure and make no money
Starting point is 00:21:11 from it, that is already a form of charity. It's just not in dollars. It's in exposure. So we already give and highlight and amplify so many voices around the world. We don't need to do charity. So if we were building a furniture business, I would totally make a charity division of it because selling furniture does not have that intrinsic sort of thing. What I wanted to do at the beginning is, because I quit my job at Venmo, I asked myself, the only thing I'm willing to do, the only thing that will make me spend time in the office from 9am to 9pm has to have meaning more than money. Because once you make your first million or 2 million or 3 million, really the marginal utility of an extra dollar is so low.
Starting point is 00:21:54 My life is the same when I had a million and when I had 10 million. So money should not be the reason we sit in the office. And I don't want my team as well to sit in the office for the salary. There has to be something more that makes all of us stay until 9 p.m. And that's why we wanted to build a business that makes us feel like there is a double bottom line, a do good and a do well. Otherwise, we would never build it because it's not worth our time. So in a way, we're privileged in the sense that we can think that and do that. Other businesses cannot afford that. They need to do boring stuff and that's fine too, but we're just in a lucky position, I would say. So when I watch your videos or I watch other people on social media and
Starting point is 00:22:36 they're successful, I see a lot of their personality. I see an outside personality. I see people who are very positive, people who are entertaining, people who make you want to watch their videos. How do you sell that to a company or to an individual who doesn't have the type of charisma that you have? And that is the billion dollar question. That is the billion dollar question. How can somebody who's an introvert, who doesn't have a lot of energy in front of the camera, how can they succeed on social media? And the harsh answer today is that they may not be able to, but I think that'll change in the future. In the next five years or 10 years, I think what
Starting point is 00:23:17 you will see is people creating a nice daily without their face. It would just be using AI, AI generated personalities, and they would just be the brains behind it. They would be the operators behind it. So it is exciting in the sense that in the future, we will move beyond things you were born with. So one of the things that I'm luckiest is I'm lucky to be born with healthy genetics and an insane level of energy to scream in front of the camera, but not everybody has that. So I think AI will come to help.
Starting point is 00:23:50 So it's just a matter of time. So Nosir, we're going through a very difficult time in the world, especially from the place that you're from, from Israel and Palestine. Talk about how you think that this region can move to coexistence. So another great question. I have very strong opinions on this. I believe that the region of
Starting point is 00:24:13 the Middle East is so infected with hate. It's so infected with racism. It's so infected with anger and pain and suffering that we will not get to a point where people vote for peace. We're never going to get to a point where people say willingly saying, oh, you know what? I'm done with hating. I'd like to go and start loving again. You'll never see that. You'll never see it from Egypt. You'll never see it from Palestine. You'll never see it from Jordan. And maybe you'll not see it from Israel either after what happened. So I believe that the solution has to be forced. It has to be forced top down. Unfortunately, it's not going to be bottoms up, unfortunately. I just know my people too well.
Starting point is 00:24:51 So top down means we got to work with autocratic leaders in the Middle East to enforce security and stability, even when the population disagrees with it. And this is not a popular answer that I'm giving, but it's the most realistic thing I can think about. So I really think we need, in Palestine, for example, we need a better dictator. We need to need a better leader who is a dictator. And this is uncomfortable for somebody in America to hear, but we tried democracy in Palestine. It did not work. We ended up with Hamas. We tried democracy in Palestine. It did not work. We ended up with Hamas. We tried democracy in Egypt. We ended up with the Muslim Brotherhood. And so if we want stability and zero deaths in wars, in regional wars, then we must limit
Starting point is 00:25:35 some freedoms. And I don't know if that's the answer you wanted, but that's the only solution I see for peace. No, I understand what you're saying. I mean, as someone who's lived in Israel and has an office and a home there, and I can be very critical of the Israeli-Jewish part of it, where for many, many years, the relationship between the Palestinians and Jewish Israelis had been put off, basically kicked the can down the road. And on hindsight, on the Palestinian side,
Starting point is 00:26:06 it may be saying, okay, there are terrorist elements within our society. We're not going to crack down on these elements. These elements are going to exist in our society. How do you get to the point where you have a leader on both sides that says, enough with this shit, enough with this fighting that's going on forever for generations. Let's move forward. Because I do think that a country of Palestine and a country of Israel living side by side can be successful, mutually connected to each other. But how do you get to that leader on both sides that says, listen, forget about this fighting. We have to find a way to live together. So I did some research. And when it comes to a leader saying, I want peace, that is the riskiest thing a leader can say in the Middle East. So in the last 70 years, there has been 11 assassinations of leaders in the Middle East.
Starting point is 00:27:02 Eight of them, 70% of them, were leaders that wanted to make peace, got assassinated. You are double as likely to die for wanting peace as a leader than for waging war as a leader. Think about that. That is statistically sad. So it actually requires an insane amount of courage for somebody, a Palestinian leader, to come and say, you know what? I'm going to give up on the historical image of Palestine that we have, and I'm going to settle for this land. He will be murdered the next day. And I think that's why this stuff doesn't happen. So for this, I think we definitely need the help of UAE and Saudi Arabia. I think UAE, Saudi Arabia, UN, and the US is the
Starting point is 00:27:45 only hope. And I think Saudi Arabia specifically is the number one country I can see that has the power to change course in the Middle East while maintaining stability for the leaders and for the population and for Israel. So I'm betting on Saudi and I would do whatever it takes to support Saudi in its endeavors, whatever it takes. You did a video on the conflict between Israel and Palestine. And at the end, when the video was over, you related a story about a boy who was influenced by your videos and how a year later his opinion had changed. Can you talk about that story? You know, I found a young boy who, you know, came to me and said, I like your videos because I
Starting point is 00:28:28 really want peace. And I thought that was great. And I thought it's nice to see a young generation wanting peace. Immediately on the call, his father stopped him and said, don't say that. Saying I want peace is a very dangerous thing, especially in Palestine. The correct thing to say is, in their opinion, I want justice and I want to defeat the enemy. And I thought that was incredibly sad because there is that, now we have another generation who is taught. We have another generation now who is taught
Starting point is 00:28:58 the same old concepts of the previous generation and the previous generation. And I just thought we lost another 20 years just from that interaction alone. So that made me especially sad. And I really think we need to start changing terminologies. Justice is too subjective. The idea of getting justice is just delusional. What we really want is forgiveness and peace, forced peace. That's the only way forward. October 7th, really, the events that unfolded before and after and during the last two months have really solidified my belief in a two-state solution, solidified my belief that Jews and Muslims need to learn how to live together inside Israel and around Israel, and solidified
Starting point is 00:29:44 my belief that at least my people, the Arab Israelis, the Palestinian Israelis, have one home. We have a shared home with the Jewish Israelis, and solidified my belief that in front of terror, there is no religion, there is no race. Everybody is equal in front of a terrorist. Nocir, after October 7th, you made some statements about how you identify, and now we're a couple months away from October 7th. Can you talk about how you see your identity as a Palestinian-Israeli and how you saw it on October 7th and how you may see it now? You know, at least for the two million Palestinians inside Israel, we don't have another home.
Starting point is 00:30:22 It's Israel or bust for us. And so for that reason, you know, we need to learn, I need to learn how to actively work to make a better Israel. And I think Israel needs a lot of improvement. But my number one goal now is how can I improve Israel? Because if you improve Israel, you can also improve Palestine. You can also improve Egypt. You can improve the entire Middle East. so that a stronger Israel, a safer Israel, a more prosperous Israel also leads to a more prosperous region. Everything is interconnected and same applies to Palestine. So at least for me, given my role and where I live, that's my goal. And I think that became very clear after the October 7th events. And I think a lot of people feel the same way too. A lot of the Palestinians inside Israel feel like we don't want Israel to disappear.
Starting point is 00:31:09 We really don't. You know, we're lucky to have a great passport. We're lucky to live in a democracy. We're lucky to have some sort of like economic opportunities, not as good as the Jewish ones, unfortunately, and we got to work on that. But we're luckier than average. And I just think we want to continue that. We want to build on top of that. We don't want to start from scratch. And I think that's why I made that statement. Do you see for yourself any
Starting point is 00:31:32 leadership role going forward after this conflict ends? For myself? Yes. That's a question for you. Do you see it for me? And what would that role be? Because I don't know. Well, I would like to see someone like yourself with a platform who can speak to the Israeli people, who can speak to the people in the Palestinian territories and project a message of positivity and a positive way to go forward rather than we need to destroy each other. So for me, yes, I'd like to see your message reverberate. Thank you for that. I appreciate the trust. I think personally, I find myself attracted to hard things
Starting point is 00:32:14 like a thousand videos in a thousand days, a thousand person company. If I achieve my goal of building a thousand person company, then I feel like my next goal would be something with government. Because I do feel like there's a lot of hard things in governments. And that's why with Nas Daily now, we work a lot with governments. We work roughly with five governments around Asia. And it's a lot of fun. So it's not something I would say I'm not interested in. I'm definitely interested in it, but depending on the context, depending on the time and everything,
Starting point is 00:32:45 but I have a lot to prove still to the world that I, and to myself, that I can build a business. And after that chapter is done in my life in the next 10 years, this is going to be the next challenge. And how is your family? My family is great.
Starting point is 00:32:58 My family is great. They're safe. We're in the middle of Israel. So far from the South, far from the North. So overall, I think they're getting accustomed to that new normal. They don't like, of course, my statements. They don't, I mean, they're scared for me, but I understand.
Starting point is 00:33:12 Again, they want to de-risk their son's life and their son wants to risk it all. Right. Well, I wish you to go from strength to strength. And Yasser, it's been a pleasure to speak to you. Thank you so much for all that you've contributed to our world. And I know you'll contribute much more, but it was a pleasure meeting you. Likewise. Thank you for having me and thank everybody for listening. Thank you. Nusair sits at the intersection of so many worlds, and I'm endlessly impressed with his ability to thoughtfully engage with them all.
Starting point is 00:33:49 I'll definitely keep an eye on him, and I look forward to seeing what he gets up to in the future. That's it for today's episode. Join us two weeks from today for another deep dive into the life of an activist. Today's episode was produced by Rebecca Chasson, with story editing by Yochai Meital and Mijon Zulu. To check out more episodes or to learn more about the show, you can visit our website allaboutchangepodcast.com. If you like our show, spread the word, tell a friend or family member,
Starting point is 00:34:19 or leave us a review on your favorite podcasting app. We'd really appreciate it. All About Change is produced by the Ruderman Family Foundation in partnership with Pod People. That's all for now. I'm Jay Ruderman, and we'll see you next time on All About Change. All about change. But not goodbye

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