ColdFusion - Who is ColdFusion? - My Story

Episode Date: July 5, 2026

A little bit about me. --- New Thinking Book written by Dagogo Altraide --- This book was rated the 9th best technology history book by book authority. In the book you’ll learn the stories of those who invented the things we use everyday and how it all fits together to form our modern world. Get the book on Amazon: http://bit.ly/NewThinkingbook Get the book on Google Play: http://bit.ly/NewThinkingGooglePlay https://newthinkingbook.squarespace.com/about/ --- ColdFusion Social Media --- » Twitter | @ColdFusion_TV » Instagram | coldfusiontv » Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/ColdFusionTV 2 hour mix of my music: https://youtu.be/uZ_fkDj-bqQ Illustrations by : https://www.instagram.com/luciana.v.i.e.i.r.a/ //Soundtrack// gin$eng - you're high Middle School - I Wish It Were (You) Pacific Coliseum - Ocean City. Childish Gambino - Summertime Magic (Zikomo Instrumental Remix) Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros - Life Is Hard (Teen Daze Remix) ØDYSSEE x Florent Garcia – Calm Yasper - Move Together Burn Water – Unreleased Burn Water – Call to Earth » Music I produce | http://burnwater.bandcamp.com or » http://www.soundcloud.com/burnwater » https://www.patreon.com/ColdFusion_TV » Collection of music used in videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOrJJKW31OA Producer: Dagogo Altraide Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One day, you're negotiating with suppliers. The next, you're installing a shelf in the back room. Running a business means moving in many directions all the time. TD's new small business banking accounts are built for how your business moves. It's how we're making banking more human. We had tons of inquiries on a weekly basis, kind of just asking, you know, who is the go-go, what's his background story, how did you get to where he is? This video is going to be an odd one for me, because in real life, I'm pretty quite

person. I don't really like talking about myself or drawing attention to myself. I don't even really like social media. So having this YouTube channel grow to the size that it is, is, well, ironic. It's led to some interesting outcomes. I've had the privilege of speaking at international events, giving TV and radio interviews, and all of that kind of stuff. But honestly, I just enjoy staying in the background. So the reason I'm doing this video is that a lot of people have been saying they want to know more about me. This video is for you guys. Most of you have no idea who I am, yet over 2.4 million of you have decided to subscribe to me anyway.

So what this really means is that the content is speaking for itself, which is pretty awesome. I appreciate all of you so much and thank you for sticking around. So, who am I? Well, my name is D-G-Go-Trade, and that's spelled D-A-G-O-G-O. And first, I think I should tell you a bit about my background, because many people find it confusing. Some people think I'm American, while others think I'm from Britain. But it's a bit more complicated than that. I was born in Mumbai, India in 1990, and lived in England, Scotland and other parts of Europe,

then finally moved to Perth, Australia, when I was still a child. So my accent is perceived differently depending on who you ask. And strangely enough, that's a bit of a central theme about me. People perceive me differently depending on the preconceived notions that they have. Both my parents are from Nigeria, so my ethnicity is. Nigerian, but my nationality is Australian. Growing up with such a unique background and being different from everyone else around me was hard, but it ended up being a gift. It meant that from a young age I was forced to think differently. I didn't have the luxury of being like

anyone else. There was no mode of group thinking that I could fall into. I always had to think for myself and that made me have a different perspective on most things. It's so funny because in today's hyper-political climate, a lot of people watch my content and get confused. In one video, they think that I'm a communist, and in the very next video, they think that I'm a staunch right winger. And that's kind of the point. If you look at me through a bipartisan lens, you'll often get me wrong. This Instagram comment sums it up perfectly. You're an enigma.

Some days, I think you lean left. Some days, I think you're quite libertarian slash US constitutional conservative. Frankly, I think that I'm blessed that I don't fall into these belief sets, and it's mostly to do with my unique upbringing. But I digress. So a bit about where I live. Perth is a unique city, and I do admit it's a beautiful place. Its industry is mainly driven by the resource sector, and it has a slower pace of life for a population of about 2 million.

Most shops close at 6pm, and restaurants at 10pm. It's a very insular city, and it's just about the most isolated city on the planet. The nearest other city is over 2,000 kilometres away, or 1,300 miles. The downside for me is that I'm far away from all of the tech action globally. But the plus side is, at least right now, we've been pretty insulated from COVID thus far. People in Perth tend to be pretty uniform in the life that they lead, so the Cold Fusion Channel coming out of Perth has been shocking to many Australians when they find out. If you're not Australian, let me know if you've heard of Perth City.

I don't know how famous it is on a global stage. Okay, so continuing on with my background. So growing up, my dad was a mechanical engineer who worked offshore for a major oil and gas company, and that's why I moved around so much. As for me, I was always curious and gravitated towards science and tech as far back as I can remember. I used to modify radios and build little electric cars just to see how things worked. Then, in 1999, there was a TV show that changed my life. It was Robot Wars, a program from the UK that was aired on Perth TV on Saturday mornings.

I would often get up to watch it and was just amazed at how robotics, however primitive, was being turned into a sport. I was inspired and decided to build my own at around the age of 10, and the name of this robot was Cold Fusion. I learned a great deal while building it, and if I had any questions, I would just ask my dad. I'd ask him about anything to do with science, and he would always be able to give the answers derived from first principles. So that was a cool thing to have before Google. My father was really good at explaining things, so much so that other students would line up to get tutoring while he was still a student himself. This tutoring wasn't official. People around the university had just heard of him. Back in the early 1980s, this university was the best in the country and was hard to gain entrance into.

There were lecturers from Scotland and Wales, yet students still came to my father to gain a clearer understanding. He cleaned up pretty much every engineering award and has a pile of them. Recently, one student that he'd helped even flew back to thank my dad on his way to Japan because he was now consulting on behalf of Nigeria for the Japanese government. He'd been looking for my dad since 1982. When my dad quit his engineering job, he went on to lecture thermodynamics and engineering statics dynamics at university in Australia. All of this is to say that asking questions at a young age and getting robust answers really

fed my curiosity. I ended up studying mechanical engineering at the University of Western Australia. It was at this time that I started my YouTube channel. It was really just for fun and I didn't think much of it. I really just created it to show some mods that I'd made for Android phones. Probably the first break I had was in 2012. It was an interesting time back then. I realised that phones were becoming increasingly powerful so I asked myself the question,

could you modify a Samsung phone so much that it could function like a PC? I made a video showing my findings, and most people had no idea that things like this were possible. But fast forward eight years, and Samsung has released a full system to turn your phone into a PC. During this time of the channel, I learned how to research, discern knowledge, and think critically within my engineering degree. So it wasn't hard to apply these principles to the YouTube channel. I could also see that the smartphone space on YouTube was going to get very crowded in the next couple of years, and I felt like it was time for something new. After finishing my engineering degree, I studied postgraduate business and marketing, and a scope of the videos widened.

The videos began to focus on how some of the biggest companies that were all familiar with started, a sort of perspective changer to uncover their vast size but humble beginnings. This became the How Big series in 2013. One of these early videos got featured on Time.com. The reason was, it turned out that I was doing something that hadn't really been done on YouTube back to seven years ago. It was an eye-opener for a lot of people. It's cool now to see that YouTube is full of this kind of content these days. I got a lot of encouraging comments at the time, which is one of the most important factors that kept me continuing. After finishing my postgraduate,

I worked in an oil and gas firm for about a year, but it wasn't for me. I decided to do YouTube full-time. I never learned how to do voiceovers, or edit, or mix audio or anything. I kind of just figured it out as I went along. And I think that's an important point. When figuring out how to get started on something, one of the best ways is to simply get out there and do it. Don't wait for anyone. Obviously, you're not going to be great when you begin, but there's so many resources out there to learn skills, so much more than I had when I was starting. As time passed, I thought I could do more with the videos that I was making. I'll widen the scope even further to eventually cover the latest research in different fields, the history of different products and seminal points

and technology, fascinating stories and scandals and business and economics, the rise and fall of companies, understanding of emerging technologies like blockchain, and so on. Really, at its core, it all comes down to my fascination with how things work and why they work all the way from my childhood, and I always try to learn as much as I can. For those of you who have read my book New Thinking, you've got a pretty good idea of how I think, and why I find the world so fascinating. I always have the big picture in the back of my head. A lot of people think that Cold Fusion videos are done by a team, but in reality until 2019, it was just me. I had to play the role of researcher, scriptwriter, editor and narrator. It was a lot of work and I would burn out every few months, though in the past

year I've been so grateful to have a researcher and scriptwriter and sequencing editor to help out with some of the videos so I can produce more without being burnt out. For some videos, I also consult with people working or studying in a particular field to make sure that the information is accurate. Still, I'm looking for ways to improve. So in that spirit, I've decided to work on building a community platform where like-minded people, whether professionals and industry, or just those interested in science and technology, can discuss ideas and research and post future video suggestions. It's still in the works, but I'm sure I'll have more to say on it soon. So why are the videos branded Cold Fusion TV with the TV part? This is a YouTube

channel after all. Well from the beginning I've branded these videos as Coldfusion TV because the content is set up like a traditional TV channel. I cover an unusually wide range of topics. That is, the videos will always be made with my particular type of style, but they're on completely different things only bounded by four pillars, science, technology, business and history. I think usually most YouTube channels would stick to just one of those. It's been both a blessing in a curse because I know I have different groups of people subscribe for different things, so it makes it hard view count wise, and it's like having four channels at once. But it's one of those things that makes the channel unique and absolutely rewarding

for those who watch all of the different kinds of videos I have to offer. For the future, I hope to keep making good content and I strive to get better as I go. Eventually, I do want to turn this into something much bigger, but that's for the future. A YouTube influence for me was V-source. The way Michael Stevens made knowledge fun and entertaining was second to none. As for my inspiration in the style of making these videos, most of my inspiration comes from the past. The educational programming of the late 80s, 90s and early 2000s, a less in-your-face approach, clear and concise, and seemingly more sincerity.

All the way back in 2013 when I started branching out, I saw that there was a space for this on YouTube that wasn't being filled. So that's about it, but one thing I would like to mention is that I also composed and produced music. My first and only break was back in 2012 when I got featured on the YouTube channel, Majestic Casual. That was really cool for me. Music is my other passion. In fact, I did start another channel before Cold Fusion, and this was a music channel where I played music and reviewed guitars. And I'm not going to say the name of that channel because it's too embarrassing. Though if you do want to hear the music I produce, I recently made a two-hour mix of my commentary.

positions, people say that they can hear my personality in the music, which is impressive for never meeting me, because it's kind of true. Oh, and the podcast. So many people have been asking me what happened to that, and it's a story for another video. It's a messy situation, but the bottom line is, I hope to get it up and running again soon in a different form. Anyway, that's about it. I hope you learnt something about the channel, or at least feel like you got to know me a bit better now. I just want to say another huge thank you to all of you again from my earliest subscribers to those who just subscribed. None of this would be possible without all of you. I'll leave you with some snippets of a podcast I did in New York in October last year.

I've released parts of it on my Instagram, but you'll get to see more here. All right, thanks for watching, and I'll see you again soon for the next video. Cheers, guys. Have a good one. You know, who is to go-go? What's his background story? How did you get to where he is? I thought this would be a good opportunity for him and I to kind of have a discussion and give you guys that background behind him.

How do you feel about that to go go? Sounds great. Let's do it. So the first video I made was probably like a review of a bass guitar, I think. I think that was the first one. And was just like YouTube just came out. Yeah, this was like 2006, 2000, yeah, something like that. Okay. Yeah.

And what made you want to post it onto YouTube? Because I fell in love with YouTube from the moment. And so, okay, I was so fascinated with YouTube that, you know, there's, like, the Zoon and, like, creative MP3 players that could play video back in the day? Yes. So I would, each day, I would download a whole bunch of YouTube videos, convert it and put it on that, so I could watch after school. Really?

Back then, data was, like, $1,000 per gig. Yeah, there's no way, yeah, streaming a music video on a YouTube, I mean, on a smartphone was just, there was no smartphone. On a phone was hard. So, yeah, like, back in the day, I got into that, I was just observing the community. like hey look I you know I could do this like no one could watch the video it doesn't really matter I just kind of want to do it so yeah that's important I feel like that's how a lot of things start right like you don't necessarily think oh this is going to be a million

dollar idea someday or one day I'm going to get to two million subscribers or anything like that like a lot of people even when you look at the Silicon Valley startups and everything like that they kind of just started because they wanted to and whether people were going to watch or buy or use it or whatever the cases kind of didn't matter Yeah. Was that something, like, does that run along the lines of what you're talking about? Oh, for sure. Did you think when you started, like...

Well, so the same is true for Cold Fusion. Like, I enjoy the content that I do make, and, like, I wouldn't really rather be doing anything else. Because, you know, I think we're in a very interesting time right now in terms of what's happening with it, science and technology, and we're at a complete, what would you say, hockey stick moment in terms of all this, all these, all these, crazy ideas that are starting to become realized and we're like once in a lifetime opportunity we are the humans here at this turning point which no one else has the opportunity to to be at absolutely throughout whole of history no one's had this kind of motion so I'm here at this point trying to document it and research it investigate be at the cutting edge and see what's going on and it's just fascinating so how can you not enjoy that you know could not agree more it is