NZXT PODCAST - #096 - Greg Salazar

Episode Date: July 10, 2021

This week on the podcast, the crew is joined by: Greg Salazar! Greg and the crew discuss cleaning PCs, tracing your lineage, and cars! Follow Greg on Twitter at: twitter.com/GregSalazarYT Listen live to the NZXT 💜 CLUB CAST on our Discord server at discord.gg/NZXT every Thursday at 10AM PT and submit your questions to [e-mail]!

Hello and welcome, everybody, to episode 96 of the NZC Clubcast, the official podcast of the NXC community. This podcast is recorded live every Thursday at 10 am, Pacific Center time of the official NZC Discord server is available to stream on demand on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and SoundCloud. My name is Dennis. With me as always is Iben. How do you do my fellow rapophile? I'm doing great, my other fellow rapophile. I'm just chilling out. here with my we shop metal mix. Joining us is our good friend, friend of the show, Andy. Andy, how are you?

I'm good. Just chilling, you know. Thursday, short week. Chilling like a villain. Yeah, having a good time. How's the mustache treating you? It's coming in real good, dude. I know.

I've been enjoying the mustache life. I can't imagine myself without it now. Have you purchased a mustache comb or brush yet? My little scissors came with a comb. Oh, look at that. And I think my mustache wax came with a comb. Andy's mustache is the reason why they invented face mask during the pandemic. Fun fact.

Just not subject people from it? Yeah, to it. So today on the show, we are joined by a special guest, TechTuber Sensation, certified PC cleaner, car driver, Uh, metal fan and, uh, communism overthore Greg Salazar. Oh, wow. Hey, can you do that for every one of my videos? Like, just the intro, I'm, I'm super down. If you want me to, I can definitely record something for you. No problem. It was beautiful. That was beautiful. Greg, hi, do today, man.

I'm doing all right. Thank you guys for, for having me. Um, I have no idea what we're going to talk about. I heard there'd be some conversations. Um, so I'm, I'm kind of nervous, but I'm excited, I think. There would definitely be conversations. There would be a lot of, lot of conversations happening. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Yeah. We're ready to go.

We're ready to go. First off is going to ask, how, how's, you know, how's everything doing? Like, how's, how's the channel, you know, how's life, you know? Who, okay. Actually, sorry. Hold up. Let's roll it back a quick. For those who don't know, even though I feel like people know, who the heck is Greg

Salads are. Why are you here today? You start with that, right? Who are you? Who are you? I work with. computers. It's just my thing mostly on the channel. Yeah. And I'm I'm a husband and a dad and those are my two favorite jobs. But I well, sometimes being a husband's really tough. But being a dad is awesome.

And it's also really tough sometimes. But they're very rewarding. And then the YouTube thing is kind of I don't know. It was my it was my first child, so to speak, out of college, I started it, and it grew pretty quickly. I didn't see myself doing this in five years at that point, but it kept growing. And I found ways to kind of sustain myself income-wise through it. And yeah, I'm still doing that. It's still one of my major sources of income at this point. When did you make that transition to doing like full, full-time YouTube?

you? It was, well, I was still in college when I made the decision outright to just keep doing YouTube. I'd gotten out of school, and the job outlook for the field that I was studying was a bit rocky. So I decided rather than, excuse me, rather than just like, you know, take my chances, throw out a bunch of resumes, show up some interviews and see what happens. I'd rather just keep doing what I was doing, kind of being my own boss, a decider of my own fate, more or less. I enjoy that. It's motivation for me. I think it, I think if I had to choose between this and a nine to five job that paid the same that I make now, I would choose this any day of the week. And actually, even if I was going to be paid a bit more to have a typical desk job, a nine to five job,

I would still probably take the pay cut to do what I'm doing now, just because I enjoy being in control more or less than kind of being able to, I don't know, yeah, just make decisions for myself. If I screw up, it's on me. If I do well, it's probably on me as well. But I like that. It's a thrill, for sure. That's awesome.

What's like, so I've, you know, I've, I've dabbled here and there and like doing YouTube, you know, just like, nothing like, you know, serious where I had like a plan going on and planning on content. But, you know, like, I remember, like, 2016, I just messed around and just wanted to see, like, what's it like to actually, like, record a video, edit it, right? Throw it up on YouTube. How much, how much of that is, like, just learning as you go? And, like, did you, like, read any books?

Did you, like, I don't know, like, talk to any people. It's going to help you kind of get going on, like, the whole YouTube thing. Or how did that, how do that kind of work out for you? For me, it was 100% learned as you go. I didn't start it in the beginning, like, expecting for it to be. become anything, you know, that would make me money. So when I, when I was a, I was a sophomore in college over the summer, I was really bored, had really nothing else to do. I was never the partying type. I didn't have many friends. That was, that was more or less my fault. I just didn't

like going out. I'm not the kind of guy that would just like walk up to a stranger. And be like, hi, my name's Greg. I just don't do that, that kind of thing. And so I made the conscious decision to just stay inside and try to learn how to video at it and learn how to, I don't know, make presentable videos. At the time, I was really big into like Vsauce and channels like that. And I really wanted to try something like that and just see, you know, just see if anything stuck. So that's why the channel was originally called Science Studio,

because it really had no emphasis on computers per se. Right. But my editing was all, I mean, it was all over the place. It was pure garbage. You can go look at some of our earliest videos and it's just trash. My camera gear, all of that was just super cheap. I was a broke college student. But, you know, over time, you just, you watch the tutorials on YouTube.

That's a big part of it. YouTube actually got me through calculus two. I almost, I was on the verge of failing that class out of like three or four weeks into it. I was legit thought I was going to fail. I never failed a class in my life. Never, I never made a C in my life. I was always a pretty good student in high school. But when you hit college, you get into something like an engineering program and it's just all math.

It's all like, you know, at that point, it's very, it's not tangible. You have to think of it a different way. YouTube saved me. And that was just even more motivation. Like, I want to be this person who can help other people get through things like this. Maybe not with college or, you know, college classes in particular. But if they have questions about things, I want to be one of the guys that they look up on YouTube and can refer to when they're doing things, when they're trying to build things. And then it turned into PCs when I built my first system.

to kind of enhance my editing workflow. The PC I had wasn't even a PC. It was like a piece of crap laptop for a couple hundred bucks. So I was like, you know what? I'll shell out $400 or $500. I'll build a Core I3 GTX 750TI, like entry level build at the time. And it was, I mean, miles leaps and bounds better than the laptop I was using, but it was still not ideal for editing.

Nonetheless, that was one of the big moments in the channel where I realized computer content is pretty hot and if I want to see if this can go somewhere I need to kind of focus and hone in on that so that's what I started doing I started just building more PCs selling those PCs maybe for small profits at times but at least to get my money back and then I could buy other parts right and start showing those on the channel because I had no you know I didn't have in ZXT or other companies sending me stuff I was I was a nobody I had 10 subs you know yeah that was how I moved through inventory and and yeah just kept going I almost scaled out of math one and then I did.

I got a one on the AP Cali, Sam. Wait, wait, on the AP Calc, the AB? Yeah, like I,

yeah, because there was AB and then BC, right? So like, BC was like the second, it was like Cal II. Yeah, I was in Calch 1 as a senior.

And I had a, I mean, I wasn't going to pass anyway, but during the test, I was sick and I had a stomach thing. So I had to excuse myself during the test and, you know,

go have fun. so to speak. And then during the like the written out portions, I just doodled. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I did that on my AP physics test. Yeah, I drew. I remember very specifically, I drew a ship and then like the crackin like coming out of the water, like tentacles wrapping around it.

I mean, look, if they were if they were giving me an AP score based on my art skills, it was a pretty damn good drawing. I was like a three or a four, you know, because like five is the highest, right? So I was expecting like a two or three on merit, but nope, ended up with a one on that one. So I wouldn't make chances for credit. I drew a wizard, a very poor wizard. It was like a kindergartener drew it. And then I wrote, give me a one or a five, or sorry, a three or a five. Did it work?

It didn't work. It didn't work. Dude, they are tough to convince, man. I'm telling you, that was AP graders. They're brilliant. Were you a science major, Greg? I was, yeah. So I have an engineering degree.

It's a petroleum engineering. So oil, and all that. It was very, it was, I would say 75% mechanical engineering. In hindsight, that's what I should have done.

I should have gotten a mechanical engineering degree. But at the time, the petroleum field was really hot. People were coming out of their four-year, you know, time in school with, with a hundred, anyway,

Anyway, with a hundred grand signing bonus, or not a hundred grand sign, but they come out with six figure salaries, you know, fresh out of college and $20,000 signing bonuses. And if I'm the kind of person where it's like, if I'm going to work for a living, I want to maximize profit so long as it's obviously legal, ethical. Like, and this was depending on who you ask, I thought it was perfectly fine and something that would interest me. But the problem was the oil and gas industry pretty much, I mean, it was once we became self-sustaining as a country, we weren't. really doing exploratory drilling as much anymore. The number of fully functional offshore rigs dropped significantly. So there wasn't really much hope for us upstream or downstream in the oil and gas industry. And so even though I think I graduated like in the teens in my class in college, it was like,

I was magna cum laude. So I was pretty good student, but I wasn't the best. And the only people I knew who were getting jobs were the best. And I didn't want to compete with any, you know, people that had connections, their parents were oil and gas, moguls, whatever. I just, I didn't have those connections. So that was another reason why I really didn't bother jumping into the field, because, I mean, the timing was just awful.

If I had jumped into it when I was a freshman, would have been great. I'd probably still be working in that field now. But when I graduated, it was terrible. So I was actually really fortunate to have YouTube performing as well as it was once I got out, because I'm not even sure if I would have been able to have gotten a job, just on merit alone. Is that the reason why you changed your name from science studios? Because you got out of science, I guess.

No, I changed it. Actually, so I kept the name for like two or three years. I'd have to go back and look. So I kept it and I changed it. Then I went back to it. And then I changed it again. I know. But I did have it originally for a good while.

And it was only because it was kind of like paying homage to the origins of the channel. Because at the very beginning, it was just science in general. It was topics that really did have anything to do with computers specifically. But once I noticed, like I said earlier, the interest in PC content was way higher than any of my other content that I published. I really started focusing on the computer stuff. Well, I kept the channel name for a good while, despite that, just because that was name recognition. By that point, I was building a brand, and I didn't want to change it in the growth phase. I think we got into 100,000 subs from 10,000 in less than a year.

It was pretty quick growth at that point. But I changed it because there were people, they'd make comments about like, why is this called Science Studio? It's about computers. And science covers a very wide range of topics. And I certainly felt like computers fell into that category. But it was, I mean, it was a very broad term to use. And in hindsight, if I had known that I would have ended up as a PC channel,

I wouldn't have called it Science Studio. So that was why I ended up changing. it. And this all happened, mind you, much, much later, much, much further along than when I gotten out of college. It's really interesting that you decided to swap over from like the science and like math stuff to, to computers because, I mean, there's like a ton of educational channels that do really, really well as well. So I'm curious as like, like, would you, would you ever like want to go back or maybe like make like a second channel that's like science focus or just, would you just stick to computers or hardware in general? I, I've thought, I mean, there have been times

I've tried to launch second channels that just never worked. I mean, you have to be, you have to, in all honesty, if you really want to have a successful second channel right out of the gate, you have to be, you have to be big, you have to have a huge presence. Linus can pull it off. He can literally start a channel and two days have 100,000 subs. And that's because he can recycle subscribers more than likely from his other channels. He can do that because he's already so big. So he can create a self-sustaining channel more or less, as long as the content's good. And I'm not taking away from the merit of that. but I don't have that kind of presence. So anything that I start after the fact is going to take a ton of effort and time, resources on my part.

And that, of course, would detract from my work on the main channel. And I've noticed that. And I'd much rather just keep what I've got going here going rather than risk that for the sake of another channel that I'm not even, you know, guaranteed success with. So, you know, I've, if I could have started both at the same time, maybe. Yeah. Maybe just like, you know, whatever I'd learn in class that day, if it was like a theorem, like some calculus equation, whatever, maybe I could have made a few videos on that.

Because let's be honest, math really isn't going to change. The way you solve equations might change. The methods to get to the end result might change, but in the end, math is math. So it's not like tech where every other week there's some new product out. So no, I've got to go and now create another video because this previous product, the video I made is obsolete. You know, it's not like that. So I would have done that more of like for the long-term investment, even though I got very small view counts in the beginning.

I'm sure that video would have been viewed multiple times way into the future. I think that's where the educational channels haven't made, those that teach things like even like history. History doesn't change. You know, our interpretations of it and the things we discover after the fact might change to an extent, but history is history. So those kinds of channels are really in it for the long game. Whereas with PC tech, I mean, how to build a PC, that's probably not going to change anytime soon.

But the reviews, like the product reviews, all kinds of things like that, those are all changing every month, if not every year. And it's more fast-paced in that respect. So I don't know. There's give and take, but I definitely wouldn't want to give this part of it up. If I could do both, sure, but it's tough. It's really tough. As a one-person show, it's near impossible. I would say.

You're in fair surprise because we're actually about to announce on this podcast for you. Math 2 coming out today. Let's go. Get those channels ready. Math 2.0. Let's do it. No, so you actually touch us on, you actually touch on something that I wanted to ask you is like how do you. So you, you're, you're mentioning like how just the hardware space is always evolving is always changing.

There's always something new coming out. Something new to like review and like test out. How do you keep up to date on like all the hardware. news just like yourself i honestly don't keep much up to date with it so like there's channels that that just push out content about you know maybe it speculates about what's coming up next what do we think zen 5 000's going to be like or zen 6 000 like whatever way into the future like channels do that and that's fine that's their that's their niche and a lot of them frankly do it pretty well um especially when they have like the the leakers and stuff they have their connections

that will kind of divulge information that that helps them sustain their channels i don't have anything like that. I also am not really interested in competing with channels like that. It's never been something that's like really interested me. I don't like being wrong. And because I don't like being wrong, I don't like making those kinds of educated guesses about what products will be like. So I just don't really, you know, if it's a new product launch, sure, like I might read an article about it or something. I actually don't watch a lot of tech YouTube. I'm not sure if this is the case for other tech YouTubers out there, but I just don't. I used to watch other channels, channels that I compete with in quotes, even though, you know, we all kind of work together. We are still sharing views.

And I used to watch a lot of other channels to kind of see where they were headed their direction. But now I don't really do that much anymore. And I find that that's really freed up my creative process. I don't feel pressured to create content because other channels did. In fact, I even kind of shot myself in the foot at times where I release a video and it's like a day before something else happens. and I look like an idiot, but, you know, it's just because I don't like, I don't know, I don't like kind of speculating and wondering what's going to come out next. It's inevitable.

Something's going to come out at some point soon and it's going to change everything. So I'd rather just wait until it happens and then kind of pounce on it. Right. I mean, no, that makes a lot of sense because I actually heard a similar thing from other creators, just in general saying that, like, they don't tend to watch a lot over the channels because they're so focused on what they're doing and like their content and like what their plan is that, you know, looking at other channels or looking at, you know, quote-unquote competitors, as you say, can potentially kind of like mess that up a little bit, right? Or maybe get like an idea in their head that they weren't thinking before, right? As opposed to being focused on like what they want their channel to be like.

So they're going to get you on with that. Obviously, I mean, you've been doing really, really well with the cleaning PC whole thing you're doing, right? And I have one specific question about this because as soon as I saw that, I had one thought. So correct me from wrong, but it kind of felt to me like this PC cleaning, deep cleaning series was almost like born out of necessity. Am I wrong on that? Or was that more like an idea you've had for a while? Because I know like during the pandemic, there was a little bit of like a drought and content, right?

Because there wasn't a lot coming out, right? It was hard to get stuff. People were complaining, you know, why are you showing us hardware that we can't buy, so and so forth? So when I saw that you were doing these videos, I'm like, this is freaking brilliant right like just really really isn't a whole lot going on people can go outside right and this guy is taking people's computers and he's cleaning them and it if it felt almost like perfect like pandemic style content am i wrong on that no i think i'm actually i never really thought of it like

that but i think that's very fair because um if i'm being perfectly honest with myself um i wasn't at all motivated to to continue on the track i was i was on because if i had i mean i'd be like let's be honest probably 90% of the tech channels out there that are making the same kinds of content and noticing that their viewership continues to drop. I didn't want that to be me. I'd been in that boat many, many times. And so, yeah, I mean, I think out of necessity, to a great extent, I was forced to think outside the box and come up with an idea that didn't rely on new tech that most viewers are just unenthusiastic about at this point. Particularly graphics scores, anything involving a graphics score right now, you're going to get flasker. for yeah um especially like new builds and things so i thought to myself well why why not just

create content around builds that already exist and first off that kind of circumvents the idea that like oh i'm getting stuff for free ha ha you guys can't buy graphics cards but i i'm getting them and and i can do stuff with them so look at all these little things you're not getting yeah like i didn't i didn't want to be i i i didn't want to hear that and and and and and And honestly, if we're being consistent here, I mean, that's, it's kind of a fair point. I mean, yeah, it's one graphics card, right? It's two graphics cards. It's just a drops of sand on the beach.

But at the end of the day, it doesn't look good. It really doesn't look good when channels are doing these kinds of things, making these kinds of videos in the presence of a sharp disparity in cards overall. Or at least the cards are way more expensive than they should be. So yeah, I think out of necessity, I was really trying to find something that would sustain the channel. And kind of a weird turn of events that actually propelled the channel. We've grown faster at this point in these last few months than I think the channel ever has, with the exception maybe of the first big growth spurt we had in the beginning to when we got to around 100,000 subs. That's awesome.

And yeah, it's it's that, I mean, that in and of itself. Trust me, like cleaning PCs. I mean, it's fun for the first few, and yeah, it's satisfying seeing the end result, but what I don't tell a lot of people is that it does suck at times in the middle of it. It's very frustrating when you've got just like tons of dirt clumped up. Maybe you've got these really big stains. I've seen nasty stains on PCBs and things. I'm like, how the heck does this crap get here?

And I just scrub for several, several minutes focusing on just one little part of a board, and it just drives me nuts that it won't come up easily. and those kinds of things I mean, if it wasn't for the viewership, I probably wouldn't do it. The fact that the playlist is doing as well as it is, that is all the motivation I need because people like seeing that stuff,

I mean, that's my fuel to kind of push me through those really nasty builds that I've had to clean so far and we'll probably clean the future. I have a million subscriber idea for you, Greg, for your second YouTube channel. channel. Here we go. You deep clean people's cars.

I have thought about it. So I know you're a car guy and I'm sure your car is as immaculate as your computers, right? I'm sure you clean it, right? Most of the time. I have a funny story. Not a funny story, but I guess the inspiration behind this idea. So yesterday, Andy and I had to come to the office because we had to, we had a clean the office. We had a deep clean our own

warehouse because we have like no more space and they're like you got to get all these things out of here. So Andy and I came to the office yesterday. It was the first time we seen each other in person and like over here. First time we've seen each other in a long time gave each other a hug and everything. I missed them. So we're cleaning the warehouse right and then

it's time to go to lunch and you know we have a tricky parking situation here at the office where we have to double park a lot. So I didn't want to move my car So Andy volunteered graciously. He's like, I'll drive you in my car. If you don't mind sitting in a dirty car.

And I was like, yeah, I don't mind. But when he said dirty, I was not expecting, I was not expecting to sit on a mountain of honey sticks. I love my face. You know, Andy, I'll be honest with you. I don't see you as like the dirty car type. You seem like the kind of guy that would be like, you know, put together. Then you don't know, Andy that. Living in a drive me out.

That's how I just present myself. It's a facade. We were like to. It's all a lie. It's all a lie. In any defense, you know, the car was primarily dirty because he helped his friend move. But anyway, I do think that would be an interesting channel or video idea, like cleaning people's cars. I think I would watch that because I've seen a lot of dirty cars out there.

Yeah. And I would do it for free too. I would follow the same model that I follow here where I can monitor. my content that I make, the content I create around these cleanings. So I don't need to charge the viewers, right? And I think that's what makes it the most exciting. I mean, yeah, seeing the transformation, sure, I mean, you could go to any channel and probably see a transformation, but nine times at a 10, maybe even 9.9 times at a 10,

that's a paid service. So the fact that we're able to do it for free on the viewer side, because we can monetize our content, we get AdSense revenue from it, we get external sponsors that have great supported us in those playlists so far to date. That's what puts food on my table. So I don't have to kind of roll over any expense to the viewer. And I think that that's also been one of the things that's kept viewers in the act of submitting their builds for cleanings in the area.

I never thought we'd have as many submissions as we've had in just the Orlando, Florida area. I didn't think there were that many dirty systems, to be frank, and viewers that watch my channel in this area. But it's been very humbling. I've been very appreciative of the fact that people are willing to give me their systems for, you know, days, sometimes even weeks, depending on how dirty the builds are. And let me clean them. I mean, that's putting a lot of faith in me. So at least I can do is not charge you for it, right?

Andy send Greg your Ferrari so you can clean it. One thing about that, though, like when, because since, you know, I don't drive to work, I have maybe drive once a week and I fill up gas like once every other month basically and my car just doesn't get moved and like my trunk has become a storage space essentially because like I need I need more space and it's like I just see your excuses right now I mean just like fair fair but when I was hoping my friend moved yeah yeah yeah yeah all right I want pictures after this Andy, I'm going to message you. I want you to send me some photos.

I need to see how bad this is. It's not as bad. It wasn't bad until I saw the honey sticks. When I saw the honey sticks, I was like, where is there a bunch of, like, empty honey sticks? Yeah, like, it's a bunch of random thing. It's so good. You go to the market, and you're just like,

very random seeing the honey sticks. So I have a question from our community regarding the deep clean stuff. So first question is. is, and if you don't want to divulge any information, perfectly cool, how does it deal with brands supplying parts for the deep clean work? Yeah, so what I've kind of molded it into is I've been selecting builds that are purposefully dusty, like really dusty, obviously, the dustier, the better, it's the point of the playlist. But then when we have like, yeah, but then when we have.

Right. Yeah. But then we have like a build that has like a really old case or something or a really old power supplier or what have you. Okay. We've partnered with brands and I've reached out to him and say, hey, look, if you're willing to send these products and kind of treat this as a promotional thing where we'll promote the new product that we're going to showcase in the build, talk about why this is a much better choice, why this is a really good upgrade over this old, you know, horrible airflow case that this build has currently. then let's work something out like that. So we've worked out with brands, and one of the big ones is actually a competitor of NZXT.

But they've been really cool, and so we've been able to work out and deal with them. So they've actually sponsored the remainder of the series for this season, I should say. And they're very cool. They tell me, look, anything you need, it could be a case, power supply, cooler. If we make it, we'll send it for whatever build.

And I've been kind of hesitant to take all of it at one time for one build, because the point is to see the transformation. You don't want to replace half the bill with new stuff. And then it's like, oh, it's clean. It's like, well, yeah. So I try to limit it to like maybe just the case or maybe the power supply and the cooler, depending on how you can tweak it up.

But I still try to clean it. Even though I'm not going to reuse the component, I still try to deep clean it just because it is a satisfying part of the playlist is seeing that transformation. So, yeah, that's, yep. Yeah. how far or how long until you get into like pimp my right status where it's like you know or heard you like video cards so i gave you 20 of them right have fun mining for bitcoin

yeah wouldn't that be that would be a major sign of the time is definitely different than what we're dealing with now yeah yeah um so another question from actually the same person maverick has anybody ever reacted negatively to any of the part changes in the deep clean series no and i so i purposefully i purposely bring this up whenever i meet them. So I try to meet them somewhere kind of halfway between where they live and where I live. I don't try to make them drive all the way here. But what I what I do when I first see their build, they take it, pull it out of the car, they put it in my trunk and then I I asked them, I say, is there anything in here that you're super sentimental about? Obviously aside from the storage

drives, which has done. I'm not going to change those unless you want me to. But other than that, is there anything you you really want to see stay in here and nine you know I haven't even run into there is one person I ran into who didn't want really much change at all he told me he's like I'm content with this comedy

he had like a 2,600 and like a GTX 1070 and a tower cooler and he's like I'm cool with just the way that this is and I think he had an S340 elite if I recall but it was you know he was he was he was content with what he had and I respected that I didn't change anything I might have changed his RAM

I'm not sure but I did ask him beforehand So I always check with the viewer, the owner of the build, and make sure they're okay with swaps. And they usually are because they're free upgrades for them. And, you know, I'm not going to downgrade them. And at the same time, they're going to get their system clean for free too. So it's not like they're really losing out on any side of that. They're just not going to have their build for a few days. So, yeah, no, I do ask to make sure.

What's up? And they get it on YouTube. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's true that they can show their friends, who this is my build. I don't really know what that's like. I've never been in their shoes. But I imagine that's got to have some kind of thrill factor. do it. So I try to, yeah, give it plenty of screen time for them too.

The only thing Dennis wouldn't want deleted from his machine is his anime folder. Pretty much. Not touch that. Don't look inside there either. So that's actually funny because I thought, I thought you're going to say my anime figure, which I actually don't. So I'm using an elite right now, so I don't have the like anime figure because there's no room in the case. But have you, have you ever received a computer that they had something like really weird in it? Is something like you wouldn't expect?

I mean, aside from like dead cockroaches and things, not really. How does that happen? Action figures and stuff. Like I haven't had a build that's had enough. I mean, usually they take that loose stuff out. Like if it's just something that just sits on the power supply basement or whatever, those things aren't in there. For some reason, everyone gives me their power cable, though.

Like, they assume I don't have power cable serious. Like I always get. And I never realize that they give it to me until it's too late. And I'm like, God, dang. So I just leave it in the trunk, you know, until I have to give it. And then I forget to even give it back to them. because it's just not something I ever usually think about because I have like a hundred of those cables. No, yeah.

We actually tell people when they return their PCs for RMA did not send us any cables. Like don't send us the cables. We have all that stuff. We have a ton of them. I think I'm going to have to start saying. And then I'll get like a DM on my Twitter. Yeah, so I send my computer in for RMA and I sent the cable and I don't have it anymore. I'm like, oh, yeah, because you're telling the email, please don't send the cable.

Yeah. Well, yeah, because you're not going to think about sending one back, right? Because that should be something that they keep. You don't need that. Yeah. Yeah, true. That's a good point. Try to be clear with the instructions.

Yeah. I need something like that. I'm going to make them read a little document before they meet me. Yeah. Last, I was surprised at the last question about this. What do you do with the old parts? Do you just give them back? Yeah, I've talked about this in one of my, one of the, a couple of videos.

I said at one point earlier on that I was going to keep them. And after they've been clean, I would recycle them into other builds that were also being cleaned. I have no use for them. I mean, I'm not, you know, it's not like I'm, if I'm being honest, struggling to get a hold of a CPU cooler. I can pretty much contact whoever and they'll probably send one. So it's not like they have any monetary value to me, but obviously they don't really have much value to the original owner either if they're getting a free upgrade. And the upgrades usually pretty substantial if they're with like the Intel stock cooler or even a rising stock cooler. But what I'll do is if they have like a really, a really

old Zalman cooler for instance and I upgrade them to an AIO or something. I'll keep that Zolman cooler, but this might be the case where like I never really have I don't know, I never really have a use case for it because it is so old to begin with. So I'll try to find like a really, really old school build that that can use it. And every now and then I do run into that situation. But most of the time with especially like the power supplies and things, It's tough. I don't want to have to give somebody another power supply from someone else when I don't really

know how long that power supply has been used, how well it's been kept up with. So I'm still sitting on a lot of those components, if I'm being honest, because I don't know enough about them to feel confident even if they're upgrades, more or less, I'm just not sure. So nine times at a 10, try to just upgrade them with new components that have warranties and things attached to them. Is there anything cool that you like That like shut up in a computer? I don't know

I'm I'm trying to think like what would be Cool but like I don't know Is someone never rolled up with like a computer that Like an AGP video card or something like that One time I found a honey stick inside of I don't know Or it's like something like old school that like they don't make anymore I don't like a firewire

PCI thing I don't know I'm sure I think it'll be cool I think um It's it's I mean I found a few of those Those Nvidia motherboard I forget what they're the the ones that have you know they're from like 2008 era you know they made motherboards they're well they're not like so they're invidia branded but

they have invidia chips on them for like integrated graphics or less like a phys X card right yeah it's it's really yeah let me I've I've run into a few with um really old school audio cards as well sound cards those are those are always fun to look at sound cards yeah I mean I I've cleaned I think two boards so far that that have had those NVIDIA chips on them. And those are pretty cool to clean. Because when you take off, they're all under heat sinks and things. So you know the board's got something beefy underneath when the heat sinks are enormous.

And you take those off to clean underneath. There's like, Nvidia chip, then another Vivida chip. And there's a physics chip. And it's like, you don't see things like that anymore. So it's kind of cool to kind of look back on older hardware like that and restore it. Bring it back to, you know, working presentable order so that they can get more life out of them. And that's another reason why. I think the playlist is doing so well is that people are more or less stuck with what they have.

They can upgrade graphics cards, which is usually that's one of the first things you address. And so this is a way for me to kind of extend the life of their current rig. So they don't need to spend hundreds of dollars more than they should on a newer graphics card, especially. I thought the rarest thing you ever seen inside of one of these computers was going to be a graphics card to be. Yeah. I don't know if I still have it. I might have, let me get it. It's right here.

Yeah, so just real quickly, for those in the chat who are asking, so yeah, back in the day, and I think this is like when Borderlands won like circa that year, I don't remember what year that was, but yeah, there was a time where Nvidia was making separate cards. They were just for physics processing to offload the, load on the GPU or CPU and then there was like no one's buying these we're just going to put it in the card now it's just like a normal part of like software I don't know if there are

actual chips anymore 64 expansion pack kind of like that yeah yeah and like the SFX chip or whatever it's called on the Super Nintendo with Star Fox are our cameras on is just like an audio thing I can share a screenshot of whatever you're going to show yeah so this one

it's one of our most recent cleanings. So this is a 9700 GT. It's still PCIE, so it's not like super super old. But you can see like I don't know if it's going to focus but like that's the back. It's still really gross. That's like corrosion.

Like it won't come out. I mean if I if I like really wanted to to buff it out I'm sure I could. It's just not worth it. The card's not worth. Call your local metallurgist. So yeah. That's um that's probably the oldest like graphic. I mean I thought I thought I thought it was really cool. to see a card that old

but it's not I mean you could probably play the Sims on it that's about it I miss when computer hardware looked like that though yeah I was gonna say yeah it's just art you know flames on the card

that's how you know it's good you imagine seeing one of these in like a vertical bracket in a build like it's just that'd be sick yeah and the pocket who's always had like a wizard on it or something like some like like hot lady or something I got to Google this now.

All the video card art. Yeah, I remember I had a card. It was a radion and it had like a sword and a shield or something on the front of it. But yeah, cards used to, I don't know what happened. I don't know when we decided to make this change, but I kind of wish it would go back. I would definitely pay for like a retroing of like a video card that just has like really wonky art like the front of the box. I bet it would sell pretty well too. I mean.

I think it would too. Yeah. it's just something different people would pay for i mean even they had you know what i'd be interested in is if they had cards like this one where it had like a flat shroud and and you could easily remove it and then just paint it or like do something you know do your own thing you could put stickers on because a lot of cards now have like so many like creases and crevices and curves to them like you can't really make it look good but if you have a flat card or a flat shroud then you can really trick it out that would be pretty dope yeah oh here go

He's the old Sapphire card. I actually had this card, by the way. This is 5770. This was the ish back in the day. If you had this card, he were balding. Who's that? Not even AMD, ATI. Yeah.

Who's that video card manufacturer who makes like the anime cards? I think it's colorful. Is it colorful? Or, yeah, I think so. They make like the wifu. Yeah, the wifu cards. Yeah. That's true.

All right, so at a another question here for you, Greg. So for us here at NXT, right, the pandemic has had a very unintended consequence of actually being really good for business, right? Because everyone's stuck at home, everyone's buying computers, right? You know, not downplaying the seriousness of it, right? But it was just really surprising to see just how many people were buying hardware. I mean, like, something that's been reported on all over the place. What was that kind of effect on you?

in your channel during like the early stages of the pandemic when people were just like i guess i'm stuck at home now for like however long yeah i mean i didn't really i didn't really see anything we hadn't started the pcdc series yet so the channel was pretty much just on the usual track that it that had been on for a good while i didn't see any spike as a result of that if anything i mean the the reason why i think so many people were spending money i mean first up yeah they were stuck indoors yeah um they had to work from home maybe uh or Or maybe they just wanted to try something different. They were getting bored.

But then also, like specifically in the States with how much money was being given out, the stimulus checks and things. I mean, that's a lot of that money went into those kinds of products. So it's another reason why I think demand was especially high. But then, you know, these people get these things. And then the graphics card market just goes to crap kind of at the same time. They're getting into this and they realize that cards are really expensive. Well, it wasn't always like that.

you know, you just got into it. So you probably, you see this and you think it's normal, but it's really not. So it just kind of compounded things. I never really saw on my side like a change in, I don't know. I think the people who are watching me had always kind of been into it. Maybe they had just built their first week finally, but I didn't see anything that indicated that tons of more people, which we know it was happening. I mean, just the search inquiries alone for PC gaming went way up in early. 2020 but yeah i i'm kind of surprised in hindsight that it wasn't as big of a shift as as it was

because of how many just the sheer number of people that were getting into it for whatever reason just to build or maybe they're buying pre-builts for work or maybe they're trying to game with them too you know you never know so speaking of building gregg uh andy mentioned to me and he couldn't elaborate i asked him like did he really build this with his hands but he said you recently built a house. Is that true? Wait, what? Did you recently build a house? Well, I had a, well, I didn't

say he built it. With his two hands. That's what I asked you. He did a barn raising. He had a plot of land, then designed a house and had, I assume, right? Yeah, well, yeah, so this one, I mean, this is kind of like a you could call it a starter house. It's a fairly, it's a fairly decent. I mean, it's like 3,000 square fee. I needed

this space because I work out of two of these rooms. So I needed a bit more space than I probably otherwise would have for a family of three or four. But we just built it kind of in a cookie cutter type of way. So they have like pre-built designs. And you kind of choose the different like flooring, different cabinets, countertops, things like that. But the overall layout of the house, the shell of the house is predetermined. And you just choose between a different, you know, any number of different house styles that they that they offer. So like some of them are like one story, three bedroom homes. Some of them are two story.

Like this one's a two story four or five bedroom homes. So we went with the option to close in the fifth bedroom. It converted into an actual bedroom instead of just an office slash fourier. And, um, and so those like those are the kinds of things you can choose when you build those kinds of houses. Now the next kind of house if we ever in this freaking house market, who knows, but if the housing buy a house. especially in California.

Oh, yeah. I would love to live somewhere in California weather. It's beautiful. I mean, there's a reason why people move there. I mean, it's a beautiful place to live. I have tons of family that still live there. My dad grew up in L.A. But I cannot imagine paying $2 million for a 2,000 square foot house.

I just can't, I can't fathom it. It just doesn't make any sense to me. And unless you have a job that pays well enough to justify moving there, I just, it's not something I would do it with my own free will because I can work from anywhere. And that's kind of one of the, one of the joys of doing tech YouTube work is I can, I can do it remotely and wherever I want. As long as I have internet access, I'm good to go, you know. Just need a set in a camera. Yep.

I should buy a lot of land, Andy, in Florida instead of a house in California. That's true. But I didn't want to see you, though. You've seen me on Zoom. I mean, yeah. You've seen it right now. We can't go to, what was hot wings, hot chicks? I went to this place called Hot Chicks.

Another funny story yesterday. So yesterday when we go to lunch, right, we went to our favorite restaurant here at NVXT. It's called Domestic. I love it. Shout out to domestic, but they were closed for Fourth of July holiday. So I told Andy like, hey, you know what? There's a new restaurant on the same street. It's called Hot Chicks.

and they make fried chicken and pizza. Do you want to check it out? And he goes, oh, yeah, that's for sure. Let's go. So we get there and I order first, you know, I order my chicken sandwich and French fries. And then Andy's looking at the menu and he's like, I can't order anything from here.

He's like, and I go, what do you mean? He's like, yeah, I don't eat fried food or dairy. I'm looking, why the heck did you say you wanted to come here? I thought they would have a real chicken sandwich. I told you. It's like a fried chicken and pizza place. He said chicken. Okay, okay.

But to be fair, right? If someone says, let's go to a chicken spot. When are they ever talking about grilled chicken? Nobody purposefully owns... Nobody purposefully orders grilled chicken. You order grilled chicken out of necessity. Unless it sounds like a sandwich or something. Yeah.

I'm not the funniest part of the story. The funniest part of the story is... So I ordered my chicken sandwich. My fried chicken sandwich is French fries. And Andy ordered a cheeseless pizza, right? Dude, you would be the kind of guy to order something. something like that. What the crap?

How do you even, like, how do you even keep a straight face ordering that kind of food? Like, it's... I get so many looks and plus, also, I'm the guy who drinks a,

just a crap ton of water. That's true. So waiters also love me as well because it's like, they just keep on filling up my cup. And then I'm like, can you give me a fried chicken pizza without the fried chicken,

grilled chicken, and add vegetables instead of french fries? I've actually never seen you, drink water, Andy. Every time we're on a call, I always see you drink Boba. He'll drink a cup of water like in half a second. Jeez. Anyway, my sandwich gets it before his pizza, right? And I tell him, Andy, is it cool if I ate my food before you? He's like, oh, yeah, I guarantee you I'm going to eat my pizza before you finish that sandwich. And I was like, there's no way this guy's got into an entire pizza before I finished my sandwich. So I ate half my sandwich. Sure enough, his

cheeseless pizza rise there. It's a pretty large pizza. It's like a 13 inches. A 13-inch pizza. It's not a small pizza. It's just bread and sauce, right? Pretty much. What even is that? Well, like, also they had- It's called pure Hartburn. He had, like, no ingredients.

He finished his pizza before I finished my chicken sandwich, an entire 13-inch pizza. And yeah, I was impressed, Andy. I didn't think you were going to do it, but you did it, man. 13 is huge, right? Because, like, what's the size of, like, a personal pizza, like, at, like, uh. biology or

yeah whatever it was like eight inches right it was slightly bigger than that it's like eight inches right I'm looking at personal no I think they're around the same size pizza hut

oh that's different is it different I don't think it's different um it is I think it is because the 10 inch one

was super small I just try to order breadsticks in the future and it's basically the same thing you're right sorry i just can't get over that my wife would literally she would crucify me if i said i want to just just sauce on my pizza i don't i don't think that's even a pizza i mean why i mean if you have dietary restrictions you gotta you gotta have some joy in life i mean but if i had those kinds of dieterish i would just like accept the fact that

i could never enjoy proper pizza i just wouldn't even order it like you're you're only getting i hadn't had the you but like for the longest time i hadn't had pizza in like five years and And then, like, my family just, because we got a barbecue thing, pizza, stone. And they just kept on making pizzas. Oh, dude, that's, that is cold. And then, like, vegan cheese, and vegan cheese is not good. So is it, like, dairy, or is you just, you're just a vegan? You just don't want to eat anything.

No, I'll eat meat. I just don't, I have just strange dietary restrictions because I can't eat, like, fried food, greasy food. I can't drink alcohol. I haven't had alcohol in, like, six years for the mob heart. the bubble guts, right? Huh? You get the bubble guts, right? Well, it's, it's, yeah.

I won't go into my personal medical history for the audience. He gets gassy, okay? He just gets gassy, real gasy. That's why I have the gas X. Okay, so, so I have confirmed personal pan pizzas, or personal pizzas are between six to eight inches, any eight to 13 inch pizza. So that's almost double.

we feel good about this. Double. But without cheese. Yeah, yeah, exactly. There's no cheese. So it's a little bit better for you, right? Well, they also, I wanted, like, I wanted, like, to put a bunch of veggies on it, but they're just like,

we only have ham and pineapple. I'm like, all right. We're doing this. So, so, wait, do you have, do you, you, you don't put Parmesan cheese on just, like, a cheeseless pizza, right? Like, that defeats the purpose. No, he does. What about red, what about red pepper?

Like, do you put anything on a sauce pizza? You put red pepper? Or I put like saracha He orders saracha You put saracha on a sauce pizza Double sauce baby I can get behind that I'm a big saracha guy

That part I stand Well the one thing I do actually like It's like a barbecue chicken pizza I mean like I've heard of like ranch on pizza I don't know for some reason It's like a thing people do But a syracia I think I'd prefer the ranch In all honesty like I don't

I like spicy I mean yeah but scourcha spicy I mean that's like that belongs on totally different dishes, you know what I mean? I mean, it just, it just happens to be it. If you read the serracha label, it says it goes well on pizza. It says it calls out pizza, hot dogs, and hamburgers. Dude, that is.

I've had saracha hot dogs. That's weird. Yeah, and that's weird. Good. When I went to Dodger Stadium, they had a Picante dog. And I don't know. It was like inside the case. Dennis, can you clip that audio, please?

Picante dog. Picante dog. they had new veggie dogs at Dodger Stadium too and they tried those and they're okay boy for a veggie dog they're cut all right Greg random question nothing to do with hardware or anything we're just talking about but anybody ever told you that you have the name

of like a kingpin bad guy in like a 80s movie set in Miami Greg Salazar wait even the first name the whole name Greg Salazar or just the last name in the 80s? Yeah, because like,

really? I'm imagining in my brain, and this is like how I make really odd random connections. Like, I'm thinking of like a Miami Vice, you know, and you got the two cops, and they're like, you know,

we gotta get Salazar, you know, he's doing too much. He's going crazy, he's running over the city. You're going to get Salazar. He's going to do many PCs. He's cleaning too many computers. I have heard the,

I've heard of, I think his name was Franco Salazar or something, like a Portuguese, dictator who was a pretty pretty rough dude um i've heard of oh there was another salazar some Francisco salazar or something um but i have not heard that i mean i always get the salazar slithering thing from harry potter like that people always connect those to for some reason but um i don't i don't know i know that's just reaching i think i mean i like my last i mean the like salazar sounds cool, but, but, like,

Greg is just like, that's like being called Tim. Like, nobody's intimidated by Tim, you know? So, like, they, they see my first name. They're like, all right, this dude's like a doughboy. And then, like, they read Salazar. I'm like, I'm not sure what to think now, you know. That's why you go with the full name Gregory Salazar, right? And then it sounds a little bit more scary, right?

Gregory has more weight to it. Yeah, like, like, Hope Gregory. Yeah, who goes by, who goes by the full name Gregory, right? Like there's a certain level of confidence and almost like scariness if you go by the full the full name, right? It's like Mike, no. Yeah, I'm going to make you say all of it, not just part of it. Yeah. Do you have any like random family like people that famous in the past that you're related to?

There's actually a dictator. Yeah. That's why it came over. Yeah. That's the one I always hear though. That's the one I always hear is like the Portuguese dictator. But I do I so I open up Ancestry.com

I go a while back I traced my dad's side of the family back to it's weird We know that they came from Spain But we don't know when like It had to have been pre-1700s Because I went back as far as

Pre-Revolutionary War And could not find any instance Of a family member Crossing the Atlantic Atlantic. I did start to see a lot of Ponce de Leon names show up like in the six, like in the, it was like early 1700s, late 1600s, but I don't think there's any like real connection there. Like he, it would be like Amelia de Pontellion, you know, so like of the family, but not like a direct descendant. I didn't see anything like that. So yeah, I think that's probably the biggest

stretch I can make at all of being related to anyone famous. Imagine if you took a DNA test and it showed you that your great grandpa was the first human to ever clean a computer. They have like his whole like service history. Yeah, that would be amazing. I would love to do like, I mean, on the subject of cars, like when you were talking about having like a car cleaning channel, I would love to like specialize maybe in like engine base or something that's not you know because a lot of the car detailing channels will do like the

interiors will do the exterior the bodywork and things they'll they'll polish and and all of that but like there's already a lot of channels that do that and i don't really want to just like piggyback off of what they already do i i would prefer to have like a niche where like it's something some part of a car that's always neglected like maybe um i got it tires i'm ready you clean the car of people who have toddlers. Because my car, I bought a new car right before the pandemic when my daughter, I think she was just a little over 18 months because we ran out of space in her old car. And since then, you know, my car is basically like just covered in milk stains. Yeah. There's like, I have like, there's bits of broccoli that are stuck like inside of a speaker that I can't get out.

So what colors your interior? Because that's, that's the first. It's like a beige. Yeah, well, that's the problem. I mean, you got a white,

light interior color car. Yeah, that's, my wife wouldn't let me do it. Like, I wanted to get, like, her car is white,

but it has a black interior. And I think that white with a tan interior looks really good. So I, I really push to get like a tan interior, like leather or whatever. And she, she would not let me do it. In hindsight,

I think she was more or less right. Um, the kinds of things are, our taller is done. I cannot imagine how much worse. things would look if i had a bright interior oh my gosh yeah yeah i think uh i think cleaning interiors would be a cool niche i think yeah well a lot of the card detailers do that though i mean they already they have the vacuums and they do like the the soap and the they run over

the carpets like a hundred times and make them look like i mean i i would do that i would have the little brushes right the little detailing brushes yeah they get the little brushes and they go in the cup holders and things. Like, it looks satisfying. I'm sure I would enjoy doing it. I've enjoyed doing it in my own cars, but I don't, I don't know. I just, I don't like following a trend. I like, I like starting something kind of new and in a way with the PCC series

where it was like, okay, people have cleaned computers in the past, obviously. But the idea of like being able to do it for free and do it for local viewers, like actual viewer systems. Like that was the cool twist that I wanted to take in that playlist. But with like cars, I mean, yeah, I could do the same kind of service where it's like a free thing and I just monetize the videos. But I, that's why I was thinking maybe like the engine basers because like engines are always nasty. You know, like no one, no one ever opens those up and cleans them unless they take good care of their cars. And to be fair, it's one of those things that's like you don't see it.

So just it's like the back of a motherboard tray. If the right side panel looks like crap, who cares if you got the panel there. So no one's going to look in there. But I feel like that. that would be cool. Like to, you know, de-grease, get all the oil off, you know, clean the engine, the engine cover and things. I feel like that would be something different. Just splash with water and de-reaser and then let it go? Or like, is there like any scary parts? Oh, there's like a complex. I mean, there's quite a bit. So like you have to be

careful with the electrical stuff obviously. I mean, the battery and things. I would probably try to remove the battery if it was in the engine bay. But then a lot of things, like, you know, you can get them wet. You just don't want to leave. them soaked for a very long amount of time. That's when you start getting a little bits of corrosion built up and stuff. I think I got another idea for you, Greg. Uh-oh. All right.

As a petroleum engineer, imagine you make a channel where you convert people's electric cars into gas power to cars. Literally the opposite. Did I would get reverse E long? Reverse E long. Yeah. The whole thing is like you just try to get like the worst gas mileage possible. Oh, yeah.

Put like a 420. like a big block, a Chevy big block and like a Model 3. Like look, sorry, dude, there's no room in your trunk or your hood. So we're going to have to put this in your back seats. We're just going to put like a little cardboard wall up between your front seats and the back seats. That way you don't breathe in nauseous gases. Just trust me, bro. Actually, that's actually an interesting thing as like as a car guy, like, are you planning on getting an electric car soon?

I've thought about it. It's really difficult for me to get over the fact that I can't. can't hear the car apart from the weird kind of whistling sound you get from from don't they make fake noises to like and that's arguably worse i'd rather hear nothing than fake noise um so if i did it would be like the white car like i've considered a tycon or something but she doesn't like how how little space there is in the in the frunk in the even the trunk i think they're decent space there but it's just not it's not feasible for the kinds of things she wants to use her car for so that that's why we have a crossover kind of SUV but um like with my cars I can't I couldn't imagine one of them being

completely silent like I love hearing the engine I love hearing the exhaust note and I I just it's one of those things I can't give up I don't think I could anytime if I if I did buy one like for me it would have to be like my third car or something like an extra car I just had if I was just rolling in cash I just buy another one for the heck of it and just have it to choose from but I couldn't replace one of mine now with with an electric car with it would be too big a sacrifice in my book I know I know from like the auto manufacturers they're like going in hard at least like Detroit yeah is yeah I know how he's going like full electric and and and or Volkswagen I mean

Chevroway and I think that 2026 2028 a lot of them are wanting to be like almost fully like electric vehicle manufacturers which will be I mean I think it's inevitable that's that's the trend that's how things are going to turn out but I think I think really all that's going to do in the end is just hike up the sale prices of rare and exotic petrol engine yeah so it's more of like an like because I know everything's changing now like most you know gasoline engines are going to be extinct more or less in 10 years it just makes me want to hold on a money even more because they'll be that much rare gems in the future you know when when you can't just go out and buy a new one you have to buy a used one so used car prices are going to you know shoot up as a result and this is for few cars obviously not like a toyota corolla it's probably not going to go up in value if you can buy a brand new you know electric Toyota corolla for the same price but but sports cars i think that's where it's really that's where you're really going to see value start to

shift within the decade i would say do you think cars with a bunch of the honey stick containers are going to go up in value? Andy, you should hit up a few. Like, I would just bring your car to a dealership and just get like a fair, like just get an estimate, you know,

because it's, it's tough to find those in cars. I've never really heard of that before. So I think they're pretty rare. It's tough to fight honey sticks in general. The only place I've ever seen honey sticks for sale, like I'm not even, he's got to nowhere to shop.

It's the swap meat. Like, I've only seen them for slot at the swap meat. I've never seen them in any store. I've never seen them like, don't know where to shop. Yep. You got to go to

sprouts. That's where they have them in Mother's Market, the pretentious hippie markets. Is it basically like Swatty? I'll go to North Gate, bro. I'm going to North Gate. I'm buying my beans and my

and my hamlettersia's there. I'm not buying honey sticks. Well, the ones at the Swat or like the Farmers Markets, they have flavored ones. So they will have like watermelon, which is like mango. then it's some honey. flavored honey?

You mean flavored honey? What the heck, dude? Like, what is it so delicious? At what point does it just stop being a honey stick? It's just like a flavored stick of like water. Yeah, they're just using the honey for the consistency for the viscosity. And then they're just adding their own flavor. Like, what is that?

It's like, it's good. That's what it is. Do you get any taste of the honey in there or is it just like exclusively watermelon or whatever flavor it is? I haven't had one in a long time. So I couldn't tell you. Or the flavored ones. Like, because the ones in the market.

are just like, well, the ones at mothers, they have like mint, which is gross. I love mint, but it just, it just doesn't go well with honey. And they have like a cinnamon one and a lime one. It's really the weirdest flavors they could pick. You do get the honey, but then it's like, oh, there's lime. Oh, there's mint. Wait until you find out there's dairy in there, Andy. My life is a lie.

So Greg, uh, What's the plan for the for the one million threshold on YouTube? Oh, I don't know. I mean, if I kept this like if I kept this growth rate up, I'll get there in about a year. Maybe a little under that just depends. Sometimes it's better.

Sometimes it's worse. But like we've been gaining about ever since specifically the PCDCC series. We've been gaining about a thousand subs a day, maybe a little more than that, which again, I haven't really experienced in a good while. And a lot of the bigger channels, that's like normal for them. But for a channel in like the half a million range, it's tough to get that kind of momentum started. So now that I've got it going, I mean, it's now it's just I want to keep it. I don't want to lose it.

So kind of keeping up the content that obviously does well, the cleaning series, the fixer flop series, that that's actually doing about as well, if not better than the PCVC series. I like the idea of that too. Yeah, and it's the same idea. like it's the same you know prescivus like having having like or the not precipice the same premise the same core of it like where i'm just new using viewer builds um so that there's there's some kind of like personal factor there but um same idea i mean i don't you know i don't know what's wrong with the build so i try to fix them when people tend to like those kind of like treasure trunt or treasure hunting type videos but uh that's that's my goal is to keep that going

you hit a million subs, hopefully, at some point. And maybe we'll, I don't know, honestly, if I know my, if I'm being honest with myself, I'll probably just continue doing the same thing. I won't even address. I mean, a million, like a sub count is just not really what it used to be. It'll be cool to get the plaque, but that's, I mean, that's really about it. It has no real milestone value anymore because subcounts really told me that. You could have a million subs and get a thousand views of video.

making any money, right? So it's not really sustaining. So I care more about viewer turnout in the long run. And as long as I can keep my viewership, at least what it's at, even if we hit a million subs, I mean, that's fine with me. But if I can grow it even more, then that that's, that's obviously that that's the big win. But it's very tough to do that, especially in this climate with how it's just so competitive now. I mean, not necessarily between like, you know, channel to channel, but there's just so many channels trying to do the same things right now. So, being able to stand out is it's a form of art and it's it's difficult to keep up yeah to be frank it's like followers on twitch right like you can have a million followers but if no one's

watching when you're live then it doesn't really matter how many follows you have right yeah exactly it's just a number and and honestly if we're if we're if we're being honest here like anyone can pump sub counts or their Twitter follower or Twitch follower accounts like you could you can bought those if you wanted you know it's not going to change anything about how much money you make because at the end of the day half of those bots if you have a half million subs and you bought half of them. Yeah. Or you bought half a million subs to get there.

Your viewership's going to be the same. You know, Boston will make you any money. So I don't know. Or they didn't giveaways or something, right? Yeah, like knowing that it all can be manipulated is just, I think that's another reason why it just detracts from the, the excitement of hitting that kind of milestone. Yeah. And then I know a lot of the YouTubers that go, like only 5% of you are subscribers.

Like, yeah, that's true too. So my turnouts actually, it's pretty, so recently it's been about 2575. It's about 25% of my viewers are subscribers and about 75% aren't, which is interesting. For me, it's always been about half. It's always been about 50-50. But now with these two playlists coming out, we're reaching a wider viewer base, I've noticed that that ratio is just completely lopsided. So now it's most of our viewers aren't subscribers, which I would prefer, actually.

I mean, you can always kind of, you know, you can sustain yourself with the same kinds of viewers over and over, but the idea is to grow, to expand, to bring in new people, new potential long-term, quote-unquote investors, people who will devote time to watch your videos and comment and engage. So I prefer it this way. It's actually something I embrace because it means that I'm reaching people who I haven't already reached. And that's a good thing in this industry. And it's just you on the channel, right? Like, there's, there's, is there, is there anyone else who helps you with anything? Like, even like editing, thumbnails, nothing like that? No, there were intermittent times when I had, you know, I had people doing the edits and stuff,

sometimes holding the camera, but 99% of the time, it's just me doing everything. And, and I like that. It's, it sucks because sometimes you have long nights, but, uh, I like being in, in control. I mean, that sounds super controlling, but that's just how I like it, because I know that the end of the day, if I fail, there's no one else to blame but me. So I... Plus, the more selfish thing is you only have to pay yourself. And like with an LNG who has like 50 employees, you have to...

And that's Linus's place. See, like his approach to it, I mean, it makes sense. Like his approach is scale in a much greater sense than mine. So if you think of it, we're kind of doing the same things, whereas like, he's interested in bringing a lot more people on board because he knows. knows that the more people he has, the faster he can scale it. So he's turning it into a multi, multi-million dollar business. Whereas for me, I mean, I'm not even close to making a million dollars a year.

So the scale is a lot smaller, but I'm only paying one person. Right. So we're achieving the same, yeah, we're achieving the same kind of end goal. But at the same time, I'm not as concerned about about that kind of like corporate growth. Because I feel like I lose a bit of control in the direction of the content, direction of the company, you have to delegate at that point. You know, one person cannot sustain those many, that many channels and, and, you know, handle all the admin, all the accounting, all that crap.

I mean, I can't imagine doing taxes for 10 different companies, you know, it's just got to be freaking insane. Well, that's so you pay someone to do it, right? Yeah, exactly. You have to, you have to delegate. And I see, I like being able to do all. I do my own taxes. I like learning those things as I go.

There have been times that I've made mistakes on my, on my tax returns. and I've had to go and mail in freaking amended tax returns and crap. It's just part of the process. I'd much rather do that myself and not pay anybody and kind of learn from those mistakes than pay somebody, pay an accountant over $1,000 to file my corporate taxes for me or my personal taxes for me and learn nothing from it. So I look at it more like a learning experience. There's still a whole lot I don't know about management and finance, but I learn more every day.

and that's something I take pride in because it's very easy to just go out and delegate, you know, buy a service from somebody. And it's good to support a lot of the smaller companies especially. But I've never been the kind of person to do that. I'd rather make the mistakes myself. At what point do you think you'll have to make a decision when you'll have to like kind of bring people on or just stay kind of where you're at? Because it's just like not sustainable for you to like continue putting out like a ridiculous amount of content. So I have a way I've actually countered that. So I have run into that before.

And a way that I have avoided the necessity of bringing on someone else full time or even part time for that matter is I have scaled back the number of videos I produce, which obviously has its downsides. I mean, your revenue, all things equal will drop, assuming you're, you know, you're making the same amount of money per video. The number of ad slots where you can run. like an NCXT pre-roll for something like I don't have as many videos to place those kinds of ads in so that revenue drops so all of that across the board is reduced but at the same time I'm saving money by not hiring somebody so there's the balance there and that's how I rationalize it and at the same time I get to keep that control so that's how I've that's how I've avoided that I mean I'm at the point now we're hiring somebody would definitely be advantageous in a number of ways yeah but I I also find every day

new ways to do things faster. I become a lot more efficient. And I find that the time it takes to train somebody to do the things that I do every day, it's not worth my time, to be frank. I'd rather just continue creating content, cleaning systems, fixing systems, the kinds of things that people like seeing.

I'm already, I would say, pretty good at doing those things. And I don't really see a need to change anytime soon. And when I get to a million subs, if that ever happens, maybe we can have this conversation again. yeah I mean and it's also like you know it was kind of a loaded question because like you don't necessarily need to bring someone on right like if you're consistently coming up with like really interesting content like like the deep cleaning stuff right you'll you'll still continue to see that growth right it's just like

it's just like a do you focus on like the amount of content that you're putting out versus super high quality every now in the content right like there's there's certain creators who I know they don't upload often but as soon as they put out something I'm like right there because I want to see the next thing they have coming out because the quality is so high. Yeah, there's thems. There's like, this is one guy really like, I don't think I've seen him upload him like a year,

maybe two years, Captain Christian. He did his really, really amazing, super well-edited video essays. Yeah, the last video he uploaded was a year ago. He's got only 30 videos, 538,000 subscribers, right? Yeah, so he's pulling in like per video a ton of people. Yeah, like 400,000 views per video around there, 1.6 million, but he hasn't uploaded in forever, right? So, you know, and then there's, I'm trying to think people who actually do upload,

but don't upload very often. I don't know. Like, I know one of them comes off top of my head is Jake Rover. Like, he's really good at those kind of like, you know, the science-y, like science-to-mic type videos. What's up? Mark Roberber? Mark Rover.

Sorry, what am I thinking? Yeah, Mark Roberber. Sorry. I love Mark Roberver. Yeah, his videos are freaking awesome. But the guy uploads maybe once a month, if that, you know? And it's one of those things where he's able to spend a lot more of his creative and productive time into one video. Whereas like channels like ourselves where it's maybe a one man, two man show.

And we feel the need to produce more content because that ultimately drives revenue. We don't get to spend that much time on video production. So you have two different ways to approach it where it's like, honestly, comes down to quality versus quantity. I mean, it's kind of like a balance there. You could pump out a video every day as a one man show, but half of them probably won't be all that quality in the sense of like production value doesn't feel that great.

I'm sure it's been done, but it's very difficult to do. And then you could also take the approach where you do one video a month. And if you're pulling as many views as Mark Robber's pulling, then you do. It makes sense. You can sustain that. The problem is if I did that, you know, in my video got 100,000 views, I didn't want a month.

Like, that's not, you know, that's not going to cut it. So it's risky to venture to that point where you can space out your videos that much. The people that can do it, honestly, are the ones that have full-time jobs already and don't really have much to lose by taking that chance because they already have steady income. Or they're channels that have started with quantity first and have slowly spread out their content to where now it's becoming more of a quality thing and they're less worried about getting videos out every day, assuming there again a one or two-man show. Now, if you're Linus and you can hire

50 people and they can all kind of handle their own things, you can still keep production quality up and publish a video a day. It's possible. But then you've got the sheer scale of employee wages. You've got all the different, you know, insurances associated with that, taxes. Facilities. You know, it's just, it just becomes a lot. And that's something that I've frankly just not wanted to take on. I don't, I don't want to deal with the logistics. the paperwork behind hiring a full-time employee. It's got to take a special person to, like, manage that number of, like, people and things going on.

Yeah, you have to hire somebody to manage the people who are being hired. Like, it's a job for everything, you know. Yeah. You're going to hire an Andy to do your PR. Yeah, I guess. But what kind of YouTube content beyond car, or tech YouTube do you, like, gravitate towards? Actually, quite a bit of, like, Minecraft. content. I know that sounds like a troll,

but honestly, I just like watching Minecraft YouTubers. I don't know why. It's just enjoyable. I feel like it's a relaxing game. There's freedom to do whatever you want. There's also, I mean, obviously like the car channels. I like watching a lot of the big car channels out there. Tavares, we've actually collaborated with a few

times. Hoovie's Garage. Not so much like the car racing channels. I do like watching Car Wow for their drag races and things. But that's pretty It's a very like, you know, there might be a random, just spontaneous video every now and that has nothing to do with what I previously watched. I'm really big into Formula One, so I watch a lot of like Formula One recaps.

I've watched a lot of like historical Formula One reviews of like entire seasons, things like that. But I've never, I've never really like, I don't know. I've never really had like tons of time spent on just consuming YouTube content. Usually it's, if I'm being honest, usually if I have downtime, it's like I'll pull up TikTok and just scroll through a bunch of different little clips or I'll be on Twitter just scrolling through tweets or making, you know, working. If I'm not doing anything else, I'm probably just editing videos because that takes up a majority of my day to be honest. Yeah, for me it's a lot of video essays. I watch a lot of video essays on whatever topics. This is one channel, yeah, it's one channel called Ahoi, who's also really, really well edited. And again, similar stuff, right?

They don't put out a whole lot of content, but it's like they'll talk about, like, a lot of his videos center around like weapons and guns and like a little bit on like the history of the weapon where it shows up in games. Ahoa, yeah. I'll link it in the chat here.

And also for the Discord peeps. Oh yeah, 1.6 million? Yeah, and like he has videos on like explosive barrels in video games. And he goes on like the first, you know, instance of where like an explosive barrel came in, like what the role in, like gaming that that, you know, particular, like, element of a game has or, like, you know,

like, I don't know, P90s, rocket launchers. I mean, just scroll through his channel. He does a really good video, like the year video games died, a retrospective on, like, Doom, and, like, the history of Doom and, like, things that inspired it. So it's a really good channel. It's, it's, like, it's, like, educational, really entertaining. The editing is just, like, top-notch. It's super well stylized.

This guy is a really, really good job. I like his thumbnail. They're very simplistic, and that's actually really attractive. Super clean, yeah. This is really good stuff. But, I mean, he puts videos out. The last video he put out was two months ago. And before that was nine months ago.

So, you know, it's obviously like, you know, and like that nine-month video, five hundred thousand views is about video game box art back in the day. It's like really big, chunky PC, you know, when you can still buy a PC game in the store, those big boxes that they came in for whatever reason, right? You have, like, just the jewel case that's like this big. And then the actual box is like five times is huge, you know? Yep. He uploads every like six months it looks like

Some like that yeah Yeah but yeah but again right It's like you know you're you're hitting Two million people with one video right And they're like an hour long and you know I can assume the people who watch this kind of content Are probably have like really high view retention rates right Where they're watching the entire video theory right

Like I'm not gonna halfway watch the first video game video And then you say okay I'm done with this right You're gonna watch the whole thing right It's like watching a movie pretty much Wow, this is, yeah, that's really cool. Now, like seven, eight years ago, he's got like content every other week. Exactly, yeah. And then you see the transition.

Yeah, exactly. See, he spreads it out. And that's a thing. Like, I feel like most channels, there's another channel like watching Engineering Explain. And he started, I think he just made the announcement recently where he's actually going to, like, scale back his, the amount of content that he uploads. And I think that's just a natural progression. I mean, once you are able to pull more views per video, you could do one of two things.

You could either continue on your path where you're making more money because you're increasing viewership and you've got the same number of videos or you kind of scale back the number of videos and you can still maintain the same amount of income that you've had before. And if anything, you can still grow that viewership

on those videos that take longer to produce. You can spend more time in them increase production value and grow that way too. And honestly, if I could have it that way, I would totally do like one or two videos a month. I mean, that would be awesome. Like, I'd have so much time to just, like, you know, spend building the video, turning it into more of like a documentary type thing. I would love to have the ability to do that. I just, I just know my current, in the current state on this channel,

it's just not possible, at least not as it's, you know, one of the major sources of income. Yeah, there's one channel I saw, and I can't remember the name of it, but they, they would do look at pretty weekly, byweekly, like, really schedule. But then on the background, they'd be working on, like, a much bigger, more ambitious video, but that would take, like, five, six months to put out. But when that video comes out, that thing's sitting Reddit, it's sitting Twitter, people are talking about it. I can't remember top of my head of what it's called. But, yeah, there's also, you know, yeah, it's a, it's, it's, it's, it's the content game, right? There's, there's whole, so many things that go into it that, you know, that can make it easy,

horror that you know hope with those views all kinds of crazy stuff so yeah there's this youtube that I like it's a baseball YouTuber it always has to come to baseball with me but um I think I've shown it to Ivan his name's foolish baseball and he was talking about on his second channel that how like a video he how he envisions like a video like there's like your writer dies then like the next people are like casual baseball fans and the next ring is like casual sports fans and it like as you get out bigger like then the mainstream people kind of go in and then when he says like when he makes a video he always tries to like get out towards the upper echelons of that ring so he can start growing his channel because people like me who

donate to him on patreon you know like i'll watch its videos constantly yeah you're you're devout yeah because you could you invest i mean you're actually like monetarily investing into the into the content yeah my name's in a video too I know I'm so special. Does that work? I mean, like, I've never, like, when I used to have a Patreon, I really didn't do anything with it. I mean, like, I felt really guilty because, like, I never really had a purpose behind it. It was just like, hey, give me money.

But, like, I don't, I just don't, I never really felt like just being able to put someone's name at the credits part of the video, like, justified a $5 a month donation, you know, I don't know. He does monthly Q&As that every, like once a month. with so with his benefits with the patreon it's just five dollars you the first month you donate you get your name in a video a non-sponsored video because he is very like clear about that then you get to listen to his monthly Q&As and I like him well enough to listen to his thoughts on baseball and ask him a question you know yeah so I mean in your eyes it's it's worth five bucks because you're getting like five on one time with them basically And basically, I want him to grow, too. Like, he's my favorite YouTuber. Like, you know. Yeah. So, like, money helps.

I mean, if we're being honest, having money helps you grow. If it's used in the right way, it definitely does. So, yeah. All right. Well, I don't want to keep you for too long, Greg, because no, you got a very busy day ahead of you, cleaning computers and cleaning engines. and days and stuff like that.

I got to pick up one soon, actually. Yeah, but before we call it, do you have any questions for me, Ivan, and Andy? I think when it bugs us up. Okay, all right, all right. I want you all to be candid with me. This is the NST Discord server. So I wasn't planning on asking this question, but you've given me the platform. So here we go.

Oh, no. To each of you, what is the best thing about working for NST and the worst thing about working with NXT? I want candid answers here, okay? Who wants to go first? The best thing is Dennis and the worst thing is Andy. The best thing for me is people, to be honest. Like everyone, like, I know I make fun of Andy a lot,

but it's literally only because I love Andy. Like, Andy, Andy's, like, my, like, favorite person at NZXT because you just crack me all day long. I can just, like, stare at him and, like, have a fun time. and H50 with Dennis too, but everyone at NZT is like super fun to work with. That's cool. My least favorite thing about working at NZXT is probably honest. This is going to sound really dumb, but working remotely.

Like I just, I'm actually in the office now, but this last year and a half, man, it was, I didn't like it all. I didn't like working remote. Is it the kind of company where you could like easily transition between the two or I mean It depends on your job you know like for like our jobs yes like you know it's we just like you know instead of sitting in the office together we're like we're just gonna be on zoom all day but you know like I didn't like that at all like I just stay in the office but The hardest thing for me like kind of working remotely shipping things so like if I have a product that we're launching like doing it remotely because like the warehouse is such a like mess so to speak because you know we're constantly growing and getting more inventory and they're like we need to move your stuff and they're like we don't know where these z590 motherboards are and then i'm like well i don't know where they

are because i'm not here so yeah so it's just something that was easy for me i just go here ship this here's the ship bit number, do that. Now it's just, like, it's something that it could take two hours, like takes days. Wow. And it's super frustrating. Sorry,

the dogs chewing on the freaking toy. I, I like being in PR because it's fun because I get to talk to cool people like brag. And I think this kind of goes into that I like traveling because I've, to have the ability to travel.

Yeah. Yeah, you're always at the shows, right? You were at CompuTex. I don't think I've met you in America, to be honest. I don't actually think so. Because I met you in Asia and then in Canada. Yeah, true. Yeah, you were there twice and you went both times.

Was it maybe all three times? I don't remember. Have you gone every year to CompuTech? Only one. Only one? Okay, I was trying to remember. I know I saw you once, but I could have swore I saw you a second time there. I don't remember.

So, yeah, okay. So that was when you guys had all the new, like, the H-700 I and the H- the 10 refresh. The H-10. Yeah, that's right. That was when the elite was announced. That's right. A guy with honey on his mustache. Well, I didn't eat during that week because I was locked up in the

Hyatt in Taipei. Do you not like Asian food? No, I was working too much that. Oh, gosh. You know what you got to do, man? Hit up that sushi express. Just pull off a few sushi plates from the conveyor. from the conveyor belt and then you be on your way, man.

That's how you do it over there. I said at copy text, he survived on eating candy. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Sauce only candy. Back on that. The travel is awesome because I like with,

you know, I mean, it's a lot of work. Doing a convention is a lot of work. And like I kind of low-key was burnt out on them, but now I miss them because there's something about like the grind. I miss. And then, like, seeing a bunch, it's like, you're in a bubble.

You're, like, divorced from reality. You know, all the world's problems are, you know, there. But we're just talking about games or hardware. And then I get, and getting FaceTime with the people I interact with is just so helpful to me. And I feel I get better at my job because people hopefully think I'm not a slime bag. Or just, I'm not a name in an email anymore. You know who Andy is now. That's always kind of fear, right?

yeah yeah but I guess then it goes to the least favorite part I I ever said shipping but I mean that's a good one like yeah I can understand how frustrating that could be if you if you're used to it being very efficient and swift and quick and then like now you've got to follow up just slack like eight people I'm like all right I got like to my boss do you approve of this like all right accounting do you approve of this all right shipping people then they're like oh I'm not here it's to the night shift and And they're like, okay. Then like, here's the shipment number.

Just like, uh, then, yeah. It's an automate all. I mean, I'm surprised you guys don't have like an automated process for that where it's like you just put something in a queue and then like it's already kind of like pass through. All they got to do is just like click a button like approved. And then it moves automatically to the next, you know, department. And then it circles back to you finally.

You get the approval and then you can, you know, ship it out. Hopefully that's down the line. Yeah. But yeah. And then also like shipping builds because the build team is so busy. So I'm like, hey, I need you to ship 15 builds. That was something I wanted to ask you was how you guys are faring with like the graphics card market the way that it is. I mean, like, is it, are you not feeling the effects of it too or like your prices are kind of having to reflect the scarcity of cards and just how expensive things are across the board?

I get, yes. That's a great PR answer, Andy. No, no, because there's like, as you, everyone knows, there's so many factors because there's the shortage, demands through the roof. Tariffs. And I think people don't understand because like when Nvidia says this card is worth like a 3070 is like 500 MSRP, allegedly. But, you know, the added board partners. Yeah, on the planet, right? Yeah.

And we've always been transparent with our pricing. Like, when you order a computer. Yeah. Yeah, you see the breakdown, yeah, which is good. So you know, yeah, you can kind of see if you know the market well, you can see kind of where your margins are. And they're not, they're obviously not large, which is why I've always been a fan of BLD. It's why we did those videos for you guys. But at the same time, I mean, when you're facing the same kinds of things that consumers are facing,

just on a much larger scale as essentially a distributor, I mean, I can't imagine just that. It affects, yeah, it affects us on the supply side. And it makes, I mean, not that, it makes us look like the bad guy because, you know, we're raising. prices too. Right. And it's not, it's not because we want to. Yeah.

It just, we have to make money too. And it's, it, it's just, that's how the numbers end up. Someone has to pay

for Andy's honey sticks. Am I right? I mean? Exactly. I don't even think we'd have things like that here before. I've never even heard of honey sticks.

Neither right. I had to ask today. I'd ask today what that was. I'll ship them to you. What's your favorite? What's your favorite? Favorite and least favorite thing about NZT? So I would say NZT as a company, the worst part is the growth.

The best part is the growth because there's so much happening right now, right? We're growing at a really huge rate. And it's kind of scary to see where everything's going to end up. A lot of people are asking a lot of things of us. I mean, I mean, I haven't had this conversation every other day in like our one-on-ones that like there's so much happening and so many people are asking things of like me and Ivan in particular. You know, like we want to tweet this. We want to shout out this.

you know, Seagate, WD Black, whoever else, you know, we're partnering with them, so we need to tweet this or that. And it's like, okay, he's going to throw it into the queue wherever I can. And this is, you know, like a very good corporate answer. Like, yeah. I hate the growth. Like, that's like saying like, like, that's like saying like, well, my, my, my, my, my, my biggest negative is that I work too hard, you know? I'm too proficient. So, okay. So this is actually coming from like a very almost like lazy standpoint. We're like, I, I have work jobs. I, like, where, like, I have worked jobs. we're like I'm doing contract work right like I before this and well before this in my last job I was doing

freelance e-sports production right so we literally like get gigs to go work an event for three days for like 20 hour days or something and I was like staring at counterstrike players or something and I was like hitting buttons and like moving stuff around right and that's that's fun in its own way but it's also very stressful and like it just it's kind of kills you because like it's it's a lot of work all at once and then you're doing nothing possibly for a week two weeks right so I value the stability of having like yeah yeah yeah yeah like even like when because I kind of took charge for LTX, like that was a relatively small event.

And still, that was just like talking to the distributor, like, oh, you need carpet. I'm like, oh, let's get a purple carpet. Oh, but we don't have it. I could tell, if I'm being honest, Andy, I could tell it at LTX, like, you were, like, you, I don't want to say stress, but you look pretty exhausted.

I mean, by the end of it, like you were, and I just had come back from a vacation, too. That's a big train. I was in Hawaii like in Hawaii like literally as we were leaving I was calling our creative director and it was like hey I need these mouse pads damn it now to be fair I mean in your defense like the ntxte booth at LTX was freaking popping like you guys had so many people around that booth the entire time so I mean I it looked like it paid off I mean you seemed exhausted but at the end of the day I mean I think it was justified just and you know the kind of turnout your booth had

it's just i you know i've never had to be on that side of it where i've like had to set up a booth and demonstrations and all that craziness like i just get to show up and film it you know so i can match 2019 i guess like since that's a more public not in oh e3 is not industry anymore or e3 doesn't exist anymore but when it did in his last years i was like we had like a booth on the floor and i was just standing there for like 12 hours essentially and it was like the only one and people would come up to me and I would give the, you know, like, oh, what is this? I'm like, oh, we're at Thty. And then people are like, oh, do you do sponsorships?

I'm really blowing up on mixer, you know? I'm getting like 500 concurrence, you know, got a great community. I'm like, yeah, it's cool and all, but I'm sorry. I don't really deal with that. Like, if you're like email this email, if, you know, talk about sponsorship inquiries, but like, I'm sorry. Yeah. And if you're in, you probably have to repeat yourself a lot at those conventions, too. on like a script.

And I had so much bang energy because their booth was right next to us. Oh my God. I literally took like 50 cans. You know, like, I remember that. I didn't drink them all. I, I yelled at Andy. I was like, Andy, why are you going to grab another freaking can to this stupid bang stuff? And he's like, I just like collecting it for what?

For what? And then like he, he. It's the kleptomania in me. Like, I don't know. And then he rose up to the office with a giant bag of bang. Hey, guys, I got a giant bag of bang in, in the marketing room for somebody. wants to grab and I'm like,

I'm not gonna grab like five day old bang that's been sitting in your car, like who knows been happening in that car? It's marinated with honey.

Oh my God. But that's the Robin Hood in me. Like, if there's something free, I'll take as much and give him to all my friends. Yeah. So my,

my non-NZXT answer, right, of like not wanting to work as hard because people keep bugging me for stuff. Who wants to work harder? Right, exactly, right? That's real.

I did the job for, for comfort, not for work, is honestly see the social media thing. You see the best and the worst of people on social, right? You see like the nicest individuals who are being super sweet and like, you know, shutting out your customer service team because, you know, someone did something nice or, you know, they're just really helpful. And then you get the really, really shitty. Yeah, the really shitty people. And like,

we saw a lot of that during, during our pride celebration, just like, you know, a few days ago where like, you know, we lost like, you know, a ridiculous amount of followers on like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter because people were just unhappy. Could you change your profile picture? Because we change a profile picture, because we were just supporting people in general and saying, hey, people should have rights and they should be able to live happy, fulfilling lives. And they're like, forget that shit. I'm going to unfollow. I'm like, okay, then do it. Yeah, I know.

So like, if you see any snarky comments in response to those people, that was literally all me. I don't even listen. If someone acts dumb, I'm going to be right dumb. I'm going to go right back and be dumb back to them and tell them they're being stupid. And if you want to follow, have fun. we don't care about you. You're not the people that we need. Yeah, that's one of those things. It's really like, I mean, I have purposefully avoided those kinds of things, like anything, anything that can be twisted into some political

crap. I just, I've tried to avoid because I know there's people like that on both sides. You're never going to be able to please that everybody. And so I've taken a very agnostic approach to my social media content, mostly. I mean, I'm sure somebody can dig up something and figure out my beliefs. But I mean, that's, I'm never going to try to, I don't know. You just, you can't win, you know, no matter what you do. I mean, I, I, I appreciate the stance. I think it's very noble that you guys do those kinds of things and make those kinds of statements.

I just, I know what happens, you know. Yeah, yeah. That's the, that's the kind of payment that you have to pay. And it's unfortunate that that's the case because it shouldn't, in my, in my view, be something that warrants that kind of reaction. That's just, that's just, that's just. Yeah. And like, you, you touch with something really, really, really interesting.

that actually me and Ivan and like the rest of us on the team, we have had conversations over that like, for us, it's not really a political thing, right? It's just social and support of humanity in general, right? But people will turn it into a political thing. And, you know, as well as a lot of things, we used to take a much, or not a much more, like a very exact sense. Yeah.

Like when our company was much smaller, like both in terms of like employees and our community, you know, like when it was basically just me, like on the social team, and like we had 100,000 followers and like 20 employees or something like that, you know, and like I didn't know we had people in the LGBTQA community. But now, you know, we have staff members who are part of this community. We have community members who are part of this community. We have customers who are part of this community. We're talking creators, right? A handful of them, but a lot of them. And for us to just like ignore.

them is kind of you know i you know we just feel like someone's got to support them so it is sad to see people kind of unfollow and get mad at us and things like that but the same time it's a blessing in the stance i'd rather not have people like that follow me yeah exactly that's how they feel then yeah yeah and also like yeah and also like when you have a big of a platform as we do right even being a company right if you don't say anything people would decide what you stand for right and that's kind of the sucky part right you you really can't be quiet um a lot of the times because if not, the people just assume one way or another that you believe this or that depending on just things that you've said or done. There aren't even related. So, you know,

that's true. Yeah. And I never under that too. Yeah. And as a company, I mean, you guys are representing, right, a very noteworthy company, very public company and a piece of the industry. So it's, I mean, you're, you're under scrutiny no matter what anyway. So, you know, if you have to pick aside more or less. It's not like you can, you can kind of force yourself to stay out of those issues. When like you say, you have employees who who identify as those and you know it could be important yeah yeah yeah at the end of the day you're not you're not hiring them because of that you're not hiring them you're not not hiring them because of it either they're just they're people like everyone else they're people

and um it it just sucks that it that it comes to that it comes to that it comes to that yeah and me and you know and and and just like going into stuff that is that isn't even even as serious or like are like as impactful right it's like you know during the during the early days of the pandemic you know we were struggling just like everyone else right because we were we had to adjust to a whole new way of working and you know supply issues and just all kinds of stuff that just nope that like nobody could ever predict right and just the you know you you you appreciate the people who give you grace and they like understand that you know that you're all people and you're working and you're trying to figure this thing out and you the things just interject the things that the

people say to customer service agents are just like you wouldn't say that to a normal human because there's it like you wouldn't say that to someone's face unless you're yeah exactly yeah they're just they're cowards they hide behind screens and they think that because they they're not face to face they can say whatever they want without repercussion and what's sad is a lot of time they're on a repercussions for them and that's why

they know they can get away with it and and you know it's even even on my side I mean I don't know what it's like specifically on the customer service side but I can just tell you in the YouTube comment section they get pretty pretty brutal and it's why like I still every now and then I'll read something

And I'm like, in hindsight, I'm like, why the hell am I even bothering reading this crap? Like, especially for videos that have been out for like a year or two, like one of the top comments of every one of those videos would be something negative. Like, it's just how YouTube works. I don't know how those like, those like single negative comments work their way up the chain. But it's one of the first comments I'll see. And like, it's just, I can't help myself. I have to say something. You know, like I got to, I got to respond.

I'm not the kind of guy that just keeps his mouth shut a lot of the time. I wish that wasn't the case. Get it, Greg. But I can't do it. Let it out. Oh, no, I do. Now, what I do, though, and I'm sure these people who have said these things have realized it, I'll get a comment where it's just like completely off and left field,

just some, it could be derogatory, it could be just like some insinuation that I'm stupid because I said something that actually is true, but they don't know that it's true because that's how the internet works. So to them, it's not real. And I will literally light them up in that, in a, in a reply. And then what I'll do is I'll click on the little triple dot thing and I'll click hide user from a channel.

So they get to read my comment and then they're like ghost muted for the rest of the channel's life, which is it's a lovely way I think to respond. Because then it's just me and you. It's not a public thing. If you want to complain about me, then I'll respond to you, but that's it.

You know, I'm not going to like, you know, publicize any of it because at first off, a kind of comment like that I don't think should be on the channel to begin with. It's different when you're critiquing, when you're criticizing the, you know, misuse of something. If I've done something wrong, that's, that's totally different. But when it's just like hate, just for hate, because the internet's full of that, you guys know, it's just, you know,

sometimes I just want to give these people the middle finger and, like, to their face. I totally would do that. And then mute them, and then block them, then delete them, you know. Yeah, what's interesting too is, you know, like, as someone who has to work in social media, like, I never really thought about, like, the impact it has on me or people, you know, until recently when I had a kid and I started, like, researching how social media works and why people become addicted to it and why people go, some people kill themselves over comments, you know? Yeah, yeah.

And what I discovered is these. social media platforms a lot of them I don't you know I don't know of all of them but you know the big players like Facebook etc they purposely show you negative content or content that they know that you're opposed to that you're going to react to that you're going to engage with pretty much it's all about yeah it's all about keeping you on that platform as long as possible and if you see so if all you do is you just see stuff that you like and agree with all the time you're not going to they're not going to elicit a response from you so it's like You're going to show you the opposing viewpoint.

They're going to show you the things you don't want to see. I would not be surprised. I mean, if that was a real thing, it very well might be. I would not be surprised. There is a reason that's years of evolution of social media platforms, right? Trying to figure out how to keep you on their platform for you the longer. Even the way that you refresh by swiping down, the reason it's like that is because it mimics slot machine. I'm not in making that up.

Oh my gosh. There is a reason why on TikTok. Twitter has a nice to have something pop, and then you see a bunch of, like, new tweets. You're like, oh, okay. Wow. See, I love that kind of stuff. I mean, like, I think that's kind of dirty. No, it is.

It's super dirty. It's interesting, right? But still, but, like, you're, you know, those kinds of, like, subliminal, like, mind tricks that these companies pull me. It's just kind of fascinating. That's where they draw their inspirations, like, from real game. Like, they know how addicting gambling is to so many people. So, you know what? We're going to twist that around and we're going to use it to our.

our advantage in a much much more quote unquote innocent way you know where it's like you're just you're just refreshing your feed but it's still oh so satisfying keeps you keeps you on you want to continue refreshing your view you're not gambling but um you know you get that you get that feeling more or less that is crazy even like when i was in one of my marketing classes back in the day they like how even target is designed like it's very methodical like that because we had a representative from the company talked to her class. And she was saying like 99% of targets, the reason why, like, the first thing you see is women's clothing

because they determined like that, like their target shoppers, women. So they want to front load that. And then also it's to the left because women have like a predisposition to like lean to the left or something. And that's what she told us. There's all kinds of weird consumer psychology that like that almost sounds like mumbo-jumbo and like, it sounds like astrology or like crystals, right?

The crystals told me. But like if you think about it, like, like the five, ten targets that I've been to, like 99% of them have women's clothes to the left. Where do they keep the honey sticks? In the very back, they make you walk

through the whole store like from the... Next to the amoeboes and all the Nintendo crap. Oh my God, that's so good. Bye-bye. All right. Well, Greg, thank you for joining us, man. I really appreciate you hopping on and just chilling with us today. Yeah, no, it was great.

I love these kinds of conversations versus laid back, and we just kind of talk about whatever. Those are always really fun. Never know what you expect. And it's been very organic. You guys are really cool. And I appreciate the questions from the chat and the questions you guys have brought up.

Always fun talking about this kind of stuff. That's how we do it, folks. So we do it. Any last words, any parting comments for the community, for us, for anyone? Um, um, I don't, um, I don't know. Um, maybe, maybe subscribe. So yeah. Like, subscribe. You can do that. That's cool. Smack that bell, boy. Check me on YouTube. You don't know who I am. Hi, my name's Greg. And I, I do PC stuff. And, uh, yeah, we can, we can go from there.

But, uh, thank you all for, for listening this far into the podcast. If you're still listening, I appreciate that. I'm sure in Zixie does as well. And thank you guys for, for having me on. Um, it's, It's been a real, real fun time, real honor to be on here with you guys. Yeah, thanks for being on. Really appreciate it. It's super, super fun. All right, folks. And with that, thank you again for joining us, Greg.

And thank you to everybody who tuned in. Remember to tune in next week at 108M Pacific Standard Time of the official NZC Discord server and follow at N60 on all relevant or relevant social media. Don't forget to listen to previous episodes on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Spotify, and SoundCloud. And if you would be so kind, leave us a positive review on the platform of a choice. if it allows for that and share your show share the show with a friend a mom a dad maybe something you don't like share it with a gregg if you have a gregg in your life you know you should have a gregg in our lives and with that guys thank very much and we'll see you next time bye