Hank Green
On paper, I am a Tesla guy. I've got money, I'm a nerd, and for years I professionally ran a blog advocating for technology that helps decrease our impact on the environment. I love what Tesla does.Collection: Money
I still do believe in the power of the Internet for good. I believe it's a net positive. I believe that it does connect people. It does give people a chance to be more of themselves. It does allow for content to be created for audiences that were being completely ignored and neglected.Collection: Chance
When I'm in L.A., I see Teslas like they're Hondas.
In the Big City, different feels good, like blazing a trail. In a small town, though, different can feel like trying real hard to look special. Or even like rubbing your neighbor's nose in your success.
There have been, in my life, a number of times when I have intentionally made decisions that I knew would mean I would make less money or be less influential. I did this because, for whatever reason, it just wasn't worth it. It wasn't worth the stress, it felt icky, it relied on me exploiting relationships that I valued. Stuff like that.
You're going to make decisions that are not in your best financial interest because they make you happier or more fulfilled or because of your values. You're going to do that because you're a good, smart person.
I want paying taxes to feel like the accomplishment of a civic duty.
I want to feel good about paying taxes.
As the economy grows, as I employ more people, make more money... the income of my country should increase as well.
Creators of content on the Internet are very commonly creators of community. Often times, this community is the most interesting and the most valuable part of making stuff, and many creators require that relationship to inspire them to make stuff.
One of the wonderful things about the Internet is that it allows us to create lots of different kinds of content for lots of different kinds of people.
I love online video. I've been obsessed with it since day one.
I have always really enjoyed building great teams that execute a great vision.
We all know that abuse, harassment, and worse have long invaded the entertainment ecosystem. That story goes back to the beginning of Hollywood... probably farther.
I have gone long stretches of working 60 to 80 hours per week.
I've watched people quit YouTube to become doctors.
I was 27 when I uploaded my first YouTube video. I had a master's degree and was running a small business. I had had good jobs and bad jobs and was fairly secure in my identity and understood who I was. When my audience or the algorithm wanted me to be something, I knew with a fair amount of certainty whether I wanted to be that thing or not.
Conventions are expensive to run and attend.
Large podcasts have a successful and sustainable business model in live show touring.
Let's be honest with ourselves, YouTubers click on the trending tab for one single reason... to analyze what is on the trending tab and then complain that it isn't what we think it should be.
The complexity and nuance of YouTube's culture, creators, drama, genres, styles, and memes is what makes it wonderful for people on the inside, but it is also a wall that keeps people on the outside.
Hosting and surfacing legacy media content isn't all about YouTube trying to abandon its core, it's about inviting a broader variety of viewers to the platform.
I spent my youth reading books in which corporations became governments, it's an old idea in science fiction.
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and other economic and social platforms are not trying to build businesses, they are trying to build countries. Countries with laws, law enforcement, borders, and economic policy.
Hiring and retaining talent in the tech industry is expensive and vital. Those people have real power over their bosses, especially because it is often fairly easy for them to find work elsewhere, and employee walkouts are terrible PR for these leaders who are often obsessed with their public image.
Ultimately, our ideas about robots are not about robots. The robot is a canvas onto which we project our hopes and our dreams and our fears... they become embodiments of those hopes and dreams and fears.
I think trusting people is a problem for anyone with an existing audience who wants to do another thing.
I've always wanted to write a book. And it turned out that it was more about finding a story that I felt I was necessary for, that no-one else could write.
When I was watching 19 and 20-year-olds go through this, dropping out of college to become famous on the Internet, I saw that it can go well but it can also go poorly, and usually it'll be a mix of those two things.
If you're making something you're passionate about, it's not going to feel like work.
It's really interesting to bring an Internet community into the real world.
I think it's vital that we be critical of the things that we love.
I really strongly believe that we should be judged not by how we acted when we were ignorant, but how we responded when we were informed.
I am hopeful about the future of humanity.
I think that we rightly spend more time thinking about and criticising the stuff that is really successful, because we want to make sure that we understand all the ways that it is both a positive and negative influence. It isn't always a bad thing.
I started to have notoriety in my late 20s or early 30s - like the first time someone recognized me in public was probably when I was 29 years old.
I have not come to having a healthy ego through being complimented by Internet strangers, I was born that way.
You can be empathetic to a character in a book in a way that you can't with a real person, which is weird, because you know everything there is to know about them.
The process of seeking fame is a process of seeking dehumanization. You are looking for it. You want it. But you only want the good parts of it. You want the part where people see you as just a collection of positive things and nothing else.
There's nothing more dangerous than a powerful person who is imagining themselves as being powerless.
Ultimately, the Internet is made of people and we need to do a good job at being citizens of that space.
People are curious and want to know about stuff.
Robots have solved and will continue to solve so many human problems. Except for all the ones that they cause.
When money, rather than innovation or value, is your competitive advantage, that's when things get boring and stagnant, and monopolies take root.
Teaching is probably the most difficult of all current jobs for an AI to manage. If you don't believe that, then you have never truly taught.
I have made lots of mistakes. I have had many bad days. I have hurt people and myself.
Chemistry is not torture but instead the amazing and beautiful science of stuff, and if you give it a chance, it will not only blow your mind but also give you a deeper understanding of your world.
My grandfather was a very successful businessman. He started off as an engineer, but moved to sales to management to executive over a long career. For a while, before I was born, he was the CEO of an oil and gas exploration company.
The problem is, education in America is sub-optimal because it is an impossible thing to optimize. It necessarily has to be local because different schools face different problems. There are no one-size-fits-all solutions.
People sometimes think that a video pops out of my head with no more work than extracting a booger. Every video is a challenge (an exciting one, sure, but a challenge.) Every collaboration is complicated.