The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - The Creator Economy — with Nuseir Yassin
Episode Date: December 16, 2021Nuseir Yassin, the host of the Nas Daily vlog and the CEO of Nas Academy, joins Scott to discuss the state of play in the creator economy. We hear about Nuseir’s path to building an online followin...g of more than 40 million people, his thoughts on the evolving social media ecosystem, and his philosophy on making the most of his time on earth. Follow Nuseir on Instagram @nasdaily Algebra of Happiness: Tip big Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Support for this show comes from Constant Contact.
If you struggle just to get your customers to notice you,
Constant Contact has what you need to grab their attention.
Constant Contact's award-winning marketing platform
offers all the automation, integration, and reporting tools
that get your marketing running seamlessly,
all backed by their expert live customer support.
It's time to get going and growing with Constant Contact today.
Ready, set, grow.
Go to ConstantContact.ca and start your free trial today.
Go to ConstantContact.ca for your free trial.
ConstantContact.ca
Support for PropG comes from NerdWallet. Starting your slash learn more to over 400 credit cards.
Head over to nerdwallet.com forward slash learn more to find smarter credit cards, savings accounts, mortgage rates, and more.
NerdWallet. Finance smarter.
NerdWallet Compare Incorporated.
NMLS 1617539. the holiday season is upon us yeah i fucking hate the holidays my dad used to swing by after my mom
and dad were divorced and like bring an escape board and my mom would like go to the other end
of the house because she didn't want to see him. Fa la la. Anyways, so that means we need to do things a little differently on the pod this week.
We typically start off with insights around a particular business trend or story.
But today we're busting right into our interview with Nosair Yassin,
the host of the NAS Daily vlog and the CEO of NAS Academy,
an edtech company for content creators.
We discussed with Nosair his path to building an online following of 40 million people,
the state of the social media ecosystem
and the future of the creator economy.
Wow, 40 million followers
and he has seven children and acts like an eight-year-old.
Oh no, that's Elon Musk.
Anyways, he's clearly an impressive young man
who to use his words is obsessed
with maximizing his human potential.
So with that, here's our conversation
with Nassir. Nassir, where does this podcast find you? This podcast finds me in Lisbon,
Portugal. I'm here for Web Summits. Let's bust right into it. For the listeners who aren't one
of your 40 million followers, give us an overview of who you are and what the Nass daily is.
So my name is Nassir. I was born
raised in Israel as a Palestinian. I do not recommend this background to anybody. I studied
in America at Harvard. I graduated. I worked at Venmo as a software engineer. Then I decided to
sort of create content because creator economy is the future. You don't need CNN. I know you
got a job at CNN, but honestly, man, you don't need CNN.
I don't need it.
To reach people.
Yeah, I'm going the other way.
I was a creator.
Now I'm going to the big network.
You just busted straight direct to consumer.
It's crazy.
It's crazy.
So, you know, I came to realize
that the institution is going to die.
Gatekeepers are like not necessary.
So I started making videos,
put them on the internet,
put them on Facebook.
And Nas Daily was one of the first creators on Facebook
and became one of the biggest as well.
Now I made a thousand videos in a thousand days
and that blew up.
And we're like humans of New York,
but video format.
Now I'm building a company called Nas Academy,
which is essentially identical to Section
4, your company. Well, that's good to know. With 40 million followers, it's nice to have competitors
that have a built-in audience. Let's go back to kind of the NAS daily. So there's a ton of people
out there that like to think of themselves as part of the creator economy and influencers.
What did you do right?
What was it? Talk a little bit about the platforms, the type of content. Is there an algorithm for
success? Because there are millions of people that look at what you've done and think, I want to do
that. Yeah, that's a great question. I think everybody wants to do it. I don't think many
people are willing to put the effort. The reason why Nas Daily succeeded is one, repetition like crazy.
1,000 videos in 1,000 days. You never miss a day, even if you're going to the hospital.
So the idea is when you make a mistake on day 55, you fix it on day 56. Two is the content
has to be universal. Nobody cares about your internal lingo. Nobody cares about your favorite beach in Senegal.
That's not interesting.
And so I think the simplicity of Nas Daily Videos,
the repetition of a thousand days,
and the shortness of it,
every video is one minute long.
And also the format and the platform you choose.
I chose Facebook because I believed
that it's going to become a video platform five years ago.
And we were right.
I didn't choose YouTube because the discoverability in YouTube wasn't very good.
So that's kind of, so format, location, length, repetition, and passion.
And your primary point of distribution, you've kind of gone all in on Facebook.
Have you gone to Instagram stories?
Have you embraced TikTok, LinkedIn? Yeah. So, so 80% of our followers now on Facebook and 20%
are on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, but we also, we localize. So, you know, funny thing, Scott,
this podcast is in English. So only 20% of the world can understand us. The 80% of the world
does not give a crap about our conversation. And so now we've built technology
to localize our content to 13 different languages. And we have 13 different pages,
Nasdaq in Hebrew, Nasdaq in Arabic, Nasdaq in Vietnamese. And that's how you can get massive
growth around the world because there's a scarcity of content. So you're at sort of the helm of the
bobsled. You see what platforms are increasing and waning in influence and power.
How has the ecosystem changed?
Who's gone up?
Who's gone down in the years that you've been putting out content?
You know, I like to think that the tide rises for all boats.
Actually, I'd like to get your opinion on this one.
But I believe that if you compare us five years ago, every single platform is doing better than before, from YouTube to Facebook.
I don't see any platform that will have a decrease in content consumption, at least in the next three years. Because even if Facebook dies in America, it's the internet in Egypt. It's thriving in
Egypt. YouTube is thriving, TikTok is thriving. So I do see, though, that there's a shift to shorter one minute content.
And that's what we specialize in. And I do see that eventually in the long run,
all platforms will become a commodity. YouTube shorts is identical to TikTok. It's identical
to Instagram Reels. So you make the same content and it goes to all four distribution platforms.
It doesn't matter what platform
you're on anymore, as long as you get distribution. And how do you, what's the business model? How do
you monetize this content? You know, from the thousand videos that you're going to, you're
going to find this funny. I made a thousand one minute videos on Facebook and I made $0
from ad revenue because you cannot monetize a three minute long, a one minute long videos and not on TikTok, not on Instagram. I mean, dude,
the creator economy is the future, but right now everybody's shitting on it.
Right?
Like there's no respect to the value that creators are giving to the
platforms. And it's, it's,
that's when I realized I cannot build a business on top of an algorithm and an ad
revenue. I need to diversify. So speaking engagements, production studio, I built a
production studio as well as a, uh, building, uh, making, uh, you know, branded content for,
uh, uh, governments, tourism boards, and, and, and, and, and corporates. So that's, um, you know,
every creator needs to become a business. You need to get a sales,
managers,
editors.
So we built that
over the last five years.
So you're using
your videos,
if you will,
it's almost like marketing
and then you monetize it
with speaking
or kind of custom publishing.
Yeah, understood.
And do you see
an opportunity
to go to maybe a Substack
or Patreon
where they've kind of
flipped the model? I've always said that Facebook and YouTube give less than 1% or 2% of their revenue to creators. And then there's some people have popped up and said, we'll'm going to monetize my consumers, my customers, my audience, I want to get actually, I don't want to get $5
from you. I actually, I want to own the platform. So that's why we, you know, we raise venture
capital and we're building NASA Academy. I think with Patreon, I think it's a good idea.
I am a bit worried of platforms that don't give you distribution. I'm very worried about that
because in the long, long run, technology will become a commodity and therefore all prices will
go down to zero. Do you think, I've always thought the creator economy, I love the idea of it. I love
the egalitarian nature of it. I love the fact that great content can break through and you can bypass
the gatekeepers of YouTube or Comcast or CNBC, whatever it might be. But it does feel like the genie coefficient inequality
is really striking in that if you look at Substack, I think the top 10 content areas or the
top 10 Substackers are 50, 60% of the content. Do you think that's just a natural function of
the best just warrants more?
When everyone has access to everything, everyone wants the best.
Are you finding the same thing?
How do you get rid of that kind of creator inequality, if you will?
Or can you?
Actually, I was thinking about that yesterday.
I think you can get rid of that by tweaking the algorithms.
I think actually the algorithm is designed to create a genie coefficient that is so high.
It's designed so that it chooses its top tier and it just powers all the attention to them
as opposed to building a middle class.
So the simplest solution to building a creative middle class is literally tweak YouTube, Facebook,
TikTok algorithms, and all of a sudden you have a middle class.
Then the second is education. Once you educate people on like, if you get the knowledge from
the top and distribute it to the bottom through this education, NASA Academy or whatever,
Skillshare or whatever, then you can get another creator middle class. Because the reason why
people don't know how to create is not because they're not talented, it's because they don't
have the social circle or the community because creating is still a very lonely job.
So to use an old world analogy, there was the cable provider and then there was the content
creators, the ESPNs of the world. And there's always a tension between who has power. There's
the retailer and the manufacturer's brand. Your view is that the content, there's going to be a huge power shift
back to from the gatekeepers or the points of distribution to the content creators.
And why do you think that is? It still feels as if with Apple charging a 30% toll and everybody
still pitching Netflix executives, what dynamics do you think are going to lead to this switch in power?
So here is what I think is happening,
and I'd love to get your opinion on this.
When we first started with social media,
everybody loved my friend's post.
Oh, my friend's dog, amazing, like.
My grandma's dog, amazing, like.
So social media platforms had a lot of supply of content and a lot of demand for
content. But when stories started to become a thing, 24-hour stories started to become a thing,
and we started to realize that most of the content disappeared. There's no more supply
of good content for these social media platforms. And the content that existed is just articles and my grandma's birthday wishes.
That's not engaging enough for a platform to survive. So they're noticing that they have a
lot of demand for content, not enough supply of it. Supply is king because demand is there already.
So that's why creators are the suppliers of content. That's why I think platforms will need them.
And now there's a competition for this supply.
TikTok is stealing all the supply.
Now Facebook has to put a billion dollars to get that supply back.
I am the supply, and I'm very excited to see social media platforms fight over my content.
So you're saying now that because, because there's more competition,
there's more points of distribution,
that the content is becoming
the kind of the more rare commodity.
And you're seeing different platforms come to you
and offer you more, if you will, for your content.
Do you get offered, say, a big contract
for exclusive distribution on certain types of content?
Yeah.
I think every creator gets that if they reach success.
From Spotify podcast originals to Facebook originals to Snapchat shows to now we just started a LinkedIn show because I do believe LinkedIn is going to be the next video creator platform that's a hidden beast that is just waiting to erupt.
And you see it in the $100 million of creator funds and $250 million creator funds, $1 billion
creator funds. We also give minimum revenue guarantees to our creators to come to our
platform. I think the power is shifting towards the creator, and that's a good thing.
So I love LinkedIn. What is it about LinkedIn that you think is the sleeping giant about to be stirred? What I think about LinkedIn is that
everybody, same thing, incredible demand for the newsfeed of LinkedIn, incredibly bad supply
of content. It's a missed equilibrium. And that there's no, that network has not reached equilibrium when it comes to content demand and
supply. And so they also realized that the competition is now video. It's a video-first
world, yet all the content on LinkedIn is text and images and articles. Not good enough.
Not monetizable enough. So that's why, first of all, LinkedIn, I suspect, is going to become 60%
video, I suspect, 60% video, and a LinkedIn profile is going to change. I mean, Scott,
I don't care about where you went to school 30 years ago. I care about your latest post when I
go to your LinkedIn profile. I need to see it. That's why it's exciting.
And are you trying, have you thought about
product placement or other ways to monetize that content? Yeah. The biggest product is my company.
So you're, you see this as kind of the front end for NAS Academy, if you will.
For investors and recruiting. Yes. So my, the benefit I get from LinkedIn distribution is that
every follower on LinkedIn, every viewer in LinkedIn is worth 100 viewers on Snapchat and TikTok.
At some point in a creator's life, you don't just want more and more kids to watch your content.
You want investors and potential candidates to watch it.
And that's why a LinkedIn viewer is 100 times more valuable than an Instagram
viewer. Coming up after the break, I spent my formative years in one of the worst never-ending
conflicts of history. Not history, but in the modern times, Israel, Palestine, Jews versus Arabs. And being a Palestinian living in Israel really is an exercise in empathy.
Stay with us.
Hey, it's Scott Galloway.
And on our podcast, Pivot, we are bringing you a special series about the basics of artificial intelligence.
We're answering all your questions.
What should you use it for?
What tools are right for you?
And what privacy issues should you ultimately watch out for?
And to help us out, we are joined by Kylie Robeson, the senior AI reporter for The Verge, to give you a primer on how to integrate AI into your life.
So, tune into AI Basics, How and When to Use AI, a special series from Pivot
sponsored by AWS, wherever you get your podcasts. Think about those businesses that grew their sales
beyond their forecasts. Companies like Momofuku or Feastables by Mr. Beast, or even a legacy
business like Mattel. When you think about them, sure, you think about a product with demand,
a focused brand, and influence-driven marketing.
But part of their secret is actually the business behind the scenes.
As in the business that makes selling and buying simple.
And for millions of companies, that business is Shopify.
Nobody does selling better than Shopify,
home of the number one checkout on the planet.
With their
shop pay feature, they can boost conversions up to 50%, meaning way less carts going abandoned
and way more sales going. So if you're into growing your business, you want a commerce
platform that's ready to sell wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling, whether
that's on the web, in your store, and everywhere in between.
Because businesses that sell more sell on Shopify.
Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash voxbusiness, all lowercase.
Go to shopify.com slash voxbusiness to upgrade your selling today.
shopify.com slash VoxBusiness. What do you think when you look at geography,
if you could double down or increase your following in any, if you wanted a bigger
presence by geography, what would, what nation or geography would you want to overinvest in right
now? Oh, that's a good question. You know, Scott, this is what I don't like about the creator economy is because humans are not equal. Viewers are not equal in this world. One view in America
gives you 10X more ad revenue than one view in India. If you follow the money, every creator
is just going to highlight American stories and American culture. but the Indian culture or the Sri Lankan culture has no
content created about it because there's no ad revenue. So we have a lot, we have 2% of Vietnam
follows Nas Daily, like the country, because we have Nas Daily Vietnamese. 1% of the Arab world
follows Nas Daily. 1% of the United States follows Nas Daily. So we have have like between one to 4% of countries. I would probably want to
index on where the CPM is high, unfortunately, because it's a business these days. So it has to
be America or Sweden or Denmark or Scotland. Unfortunately, I cannot believe I gave you this
answer, but that's where the world is. Yeah, that's the cruel truth of capitalism, right?
One thing we found interesting about you
is that you wear the same t-shirt every day.
And that t-shirt reflects the percentage of your life
that is likely already over
as a reminder that life is finite
and we should use time wisely.
This really resonated with me.
I'm an atheist and find it motivating to know
that this will all come to an end at some point.
And that's motivating for me. But you're still a really young man.
What brought you to that gestalt where you would wear a shirt every day showing how much time you
have left? You know, when I was a software engineer at Venmo, you know, I realized that I was 24 and
I'm supposed to die at 76, according to Google, average male life expectancy.
24 out of 76 is 32%. I was 32% dead. I was one third done with my fucking life and I've done nothing yet. I just graduated college. And that made me realize that society expects you to spend
one third of your life just to be ready to be independent. And that's a crazy concept. And then to retire, you will be 85% done with life.
When you think in time, in terms of percentages, time becomes a lot more precious.
So the reason I follow, I wear the same t-shirt for the last five years. I have nothing else in my life. One, it simplifies my
wardrobe and my travels. But two, it reminds me that every day you can create something, a video,
a hire, a company. And I'm obsessed with maximizing my human potential.
How do you, but let's stop there. So let's press pause there. Maximizing,
obsessed with maximizing your human potential. So we have a bit of a looking glass into how
you're trying to do that professionally. How do you try and do that personally? What is the code
you live by? What are the daily practices for maximizing your life personally? So I'm from
Israel and Palestine. So Scott, of course, I believe in
extreme thought, you know, because the Middle East is an extreme place. So, I believe that you should
leave planet Earth better than you found it. Therefore, hanging out at a beach in Mexico with friends is useless. Therefore, a life of toil and hard work is the most meaningful life one could live. So that's where I get my satisfaction because I don't index for happiness. Happiness is actually a very temporary thing. I index for value creation. How much value can you create? So watching a Netflix movie
does not create value in the world. It consumes value. So that's how I live my life. So I really,
I don't have many friends. I have a lot of connections. I only work. I don't have a
wardrobe. I have the same t-shirt. I have a girlfriend, thank God. Thank God, or else I'd just be like a lonely prick.
But my life is very simple.
I just work.
And you don't find that occasional weekend on the beach
or hanging out with friends and drinking or just,
I've always thought that wasting time is fine
as long as it's planned.
You don't find you need that to make the time
that you do work more productive.
When I sit at home at night and hang out with my dogs and drink and watch Succession or
Ted Lasso, I'd like to think that that makes me a more productive person when I'm working.
You don't find that.
I do that only if there is a direct correlation to my business.
So if I watch something on TV, it has to be a documentary
related to my life now. It cannot be science fiction. If I hang out with friends, they have
to be people I can learn something from, like founders or investors or CEOs. If I hang out
with people, they could be my team, build a team bond. So there should be no opportunity to do something that has no utility
from it. I'm a utilitarian at heart. Yeah. I think people are going to recoil when they hear this,
but I've found that if you want to be successful, the prescription you're sort of outlining is kind
of a, we don't like to admit this, but it's somewhat a prerequisite if you want to be
very successful. I mean, I would just describe what you're describing as real focus. You're
trying to cover more ground in a shorter amount of time than most people your age, which requires
a tremendous amount of sacrifice and perspective. What about kids? Do you want to have a family? You know, we love creator economy. So the way I think about this is humans love to create.
Humans love to create movies, music, interactions, and babies. Eventually, you know, I love to create
a company. I love to create a video. I think eventually I would love to create a human.
And I think the chance of creating a human from scratch is incredibly exciting.
So even the idea of a baby is like, is it possible to engineer?
I know it's a very like, you know, I guess I'm being very like controversial right now
in my statements.
I'm sorry.
But can you create a human that stands for great ideals?
So that's a question I would like to answer.
So yeah.
By the way, do you feel like sometimes
your upbringing shapes the rest of your life
without realizing it?
I think you start to acknowledge that as you get older.
You start to realize that, you know,
your parents' divorce
or your mom's irrational passion for
your wellbeing or the culture you've referenced that you grew up in really molds the clay.
And you can shape it a little bit or manicure it around the edges. But if you want to believe in
kind of nature versus nurture or how important those formative years are in your DNA, just have two kids because they're
just totally, you know, totally different. So I buy that you kind of, by the time you're 21 or 25,
you're a little bit cooked, so to speak. It's sort of the basics are there. So I do believe that.
Anyways, what are your thoughts on this? So my thoughts on this is I spent my formative years in one of the worst
never-ending conflicts of history. Not history, but in the modern times. Israel, Palestine,
Jews versus Arabs. And being a Palestinian living in Israel really is an exercise in empathy,
exercise in what it's like to be Israeli Jewish and what it's like to be Muslim Palestinian and seeing that both are right in a sense. But when you see the senseless conflict,
you kind of make it your life mission to work towards a world where there is no such conflict
or where there is no such irrationality or wasted human capital. And so everything we do is about empowering the individual in the hopes
that the individual that we empower can go and make the world better. Because we don't want
another Israel-Palestine no matter what, you know? So I think that is probably the one defining
thing in my life that I'll, that I'll spend the rest of
my life thinking about. And where do you live? I live where the future is going. The future is
migrating east, slowly, but surely. So I have an office in Singapore, and an office in Dubai,
and an office in Los Angeles. So we're between those three cities and countries around
the world. But I think slowly, Dubai and Singapore have a lot more human talent in the future and
volume and just potential for growth. That's why we got to establish ourselves there today.
So, and I recognize you spend most of your time
working, but try and break down, compare and contrast. Those are three really interesting
places, Los Angeles, Dubai, and Singapore. If you can compare and contrast those three cities from a
viewpoint of a young man, an entrepreneur, and somebody who, you know, wants just quality of
life. How would you compare and contrast those three cities? So, you know, I'd say Los Angeles, America in general has terrible infrastructure,
but has incredible human capital. That is the number one thing I'm jealous of.
LA is the worst place to live, but it's the best place to befriend.
Dubai has incredibly business friendly resources. It's 0% taxation.
It's unlimited visas.
And it's incredible quality of life.
But they're still struggling on the human capital front.
They need more Scott Galloways.
Singapore is essentially, you know, it's the best place to live in in Asia.
The most secure, the most safe.
I think Singapore had a struggle over the last two years with COVID, but I think they'll bounce back.
Never underestimate a small island state that for them it's a life and death situation.
I've come to realize that life is better under small governments.
I think governments work really well
at small scale. They start to mess up when they go big scale. So Singapore government, fast,
efficient. Dubai, fast, efficient. And what it's interesting, because most people
with your background, they immediately go to kind of New York or San Francisco and a distant third
of sort of London. And those aren't on your list.
You know, when I started making my videos, I left New York, I left my H-1B and I took a one-way flight to Kenya, Nairobi. That's where Nas Daily started. If you believe humans are equal,
then you got to be everywhere where humans are. And I just feel like, I mean, I don't want to
turn this about like West versus East, but it is.
I think the West is incredibly talented, but I just feel like we're focusing too, we were too self-centered in San Francisco's problems, in London's problems, while the world is much bigger.
So I fear that living in SF will make you less of a globalist.
And that's the great irony of life,
is that the biggest technology companies in the world
are based in the place
that's probably not very sufficiently globalized.
Well, that's a big criticism,
is that the most powerful people in the world
are incredibly insular
and don't really have a feel for the world.
What was it like? You said you moved to
Kenya. What was that like, starting a company in Kenya? No, well, I started the NAS Daily
channel in Kenya. So I was there to purely to make content because there's a lot of stories
in Kenya that have never been told before. then Ethiopia, then Sri Lanka, then India. You know, actually, my last advice to creators is this. You cannot be a discoverer anymore
of physical land, but you can be a discoverer of stories around the world only if you take
a flight out. So if you go to Papua New Guinea, if you make a video in Papua New Guinea about a
person, you will be the first person in the world to create this piece of content in the history of humanity.
Right?
A story of a Papua New Guinean business, for example.
People are tired of hearing about the Eiffel Tower for the 50th time.
We know it.
We get it.
What else is there?
Yeah, yeah.
And you mentioned, so we've got LA, Singapore, and Dubai.
What would be number four for you?
If you were going to move to another city, what would it be?
Israel.
Israel, Tel Aviv.
Yeah, never underestimate countries that have life and death situations.
Singapore and Israel. Nasir Yassin is the host of the Nas Daily, a vlog which has grown to more than 40 million
followers across Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.
He's also the CEO of Nas Academy, an ed tech company for creators.
He joins us from somewhere in between Dubai, Singapore, and Los Angeles.
Nas, stay safe.
Scott, thank you so much for having me, man.
I really appreciate you giving me the microphone. We'll be right back.
Support for the show comes from Alex Partners. In business, disruption brings not only challenges,
but opportunities. As artificial intelligence powers pivotal moments of change,
Alex Partners is the consulting firm chief executives can rely on. Alex Partners is dedicated to making sure your company knows what really matters when it comes to AI. Thanks for having me. these changing headwinds. And in their 2024 Digital Disruption Report, Alex Partners found
that 88% of executives report seeing potential for growth from digital disruption, with 37%
seeing significant or even extremely high positive impact on revenue growth. You can read both
reports and learn how to convert digital disruption into revenue growth at www.alexpartners.com slash box.
That's www.alexpartners.com slash V-O-X.
In the face of disruption,
businesses trust Alex Partners to get straight to the point
and deliver results when it really matters.
Support for this show comes from Indeed.
If you need to hire, you may need Indeed.
Indeed is a matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors, according to Indeed data,
and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast.
Listeners of this show can get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com slash podcast.
Just go to indeed.com slash podcast right now and say you heard about Indeed on this podcast.
Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Algebra of happiness.
I went to the melting pot last night, which is a place where they heat up pots full of cheese and chocolate and you dip different things in them.
And your kids absolutely love it.
And the adults basically order cocktails to get through this evening of
melted cheese and weirdness. It's like kind of like Benihana. That's sort of an updated version
of it. But we go to the melting pot a lot and my boys just absolutely love it. And one of the
things I do is I tip a lot, or I shouldn't say I tip a lot, I tip big. And it's not because I'm a generous
person. I'd like to think I'm a generous person, but one, I empathize with these folks. I think
everyone, I'm going to try and get my kid who's 14 a job at Publix or CVS, and I want them in a
consumer-facing position. But I spent the majority of my college years and even high school years
in consumer-facing positions, whether it was a box boy, a barback, then a bartender, then a waiter,
then I was a pool boy. And the thing that just literally would change my life
was the random kindness and generosity of strangers. I remember the woman from Bewitched,
the woman who played the mother,
used to come to the Mondrian Hotel
with her friends for brunch.
And every time she saw me
after having a couple glasses of wine,
she'd stick 10 bucks in my shorts pocket.
And when you're a 19-year-old at UCLA
and you're eating Top Ramen and bananas, I literally one summer lived off Top Ramen and bananas.
My crew coach told me I needed to gain weight.
I had no money.
Top Ramen and bananas, I read somewhere.
Anyways, a lot of that.
$10, $20, $50 makes a big difference in people's lives.
And it just feels great to do this, especially when you recognize the kind of impact,
the easy impact.
So many of us want to help other people.
So many of us want to do nice things for other people,
and I think it's just an easier way
or a pretty low-calorie burn way to help people out,
and it makes me feel important.
It makes me feel masculine.
It makes me feel successful, It makes me feel masculine. It makes me feel successful.
And my advice is the following,
is that if you are one of the people,
and there's a lot of us,
who have not only endured this pandemic,
but have actually thrived financially,
that the universe is asking something of you,
and that is to be ridiculously generous with strangers,
ridiculously generous with your employees. If you're in a position to be ridiculously generous with strangers, ridiculously generous with your
employees. If you're in a position to decide people's compensation and your company's doing
well, or you're an entrepreneur and you've done well, don't digress to the capitalist bullshit
argument of labor, supply, and demand, and think of it as a game as I did as a younger man. Look,
I want to pay them just enough so they're happy, so they don't leave, so I can,
and my firm can be more profitable or I can make more money. I'm just embarrassed by the way I behaved as a younger manager. I wasn't not generous, but if you're in a position of financial
strength these holidays, for God's sakes, be a baller. Be a fucking baller, make people's days, tell your employees that you're committed
to their financial success, not with words, but with Benjamins. When the FedEx guy or the single
mom bringing you your pot of cheese that's going to melt, be a baller boss, be a baller, look at
your life, look at your life. Are you in a position to change people's lives that day?
It is so rewarding.
It's never been more important.
So many people are struggling.
Just a little bit of extra cabbage
can make such a difference in people's lives.
And it feels just fucking wonderful.
Our producers are Caroline Chagrin and Drew Burrows.
Claire Miller is our assistant producer.
If you like what you heard,
please follow, download, and subscribe. Thank you for listening to the Prop G Pod from the
Vox Media Podcast Network. We will catch you next week on Monday and Thursday.
Support for the show comes from Alex Partners. Did you know that almost 90% of executives see
potential for growth from digital disruption, with 37% seeing significant or extremely high
positive impact on revenue growth.
In Alex Partners' 2024 Digital Disruption Report, you can learn the best path to turning that
disruption into growth for your business. With a focus on clarity, direction, and effective
implementation, Alex Partners provides essential support when decisive leadership is crucial.
You can discover insights like these by reading Alex Partners' latest technology industry insights,
available at www.alexpartners.com.
That's www.alexpartners.com.
In the face of disruption,
businesses trust Alex Partners
to get straight to the point and deliver results when it really matters.
Support for this podcast comes from Klaviyo.
You know that feeling when your favorite brand really gets you?
Deliver that feeling to your customers every time.
Klaviyo turns your customer data into real-time connections across AI-powered email, SMS, and more, making every
moment count. Over 100,000 brands trust Klaviyo's unified data and marketing platform to build
smarter digital relationships with their customers during Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and beyond.
Make every moment count with Klaviyo. Learn more at klaviyo.com slash BFCM.