GrantSanderson

LubaGrant, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the show. I'm really excited to get started with something that happened this summer, which is us being at a wedding of a mutual friend, and you giving an insane speech at the wedding.Link

GrantSure.Link

LubaAnd actually, a lot of people, as I heard afterwards, have said that this was the best speech that they've ever heard at a wedding. And just to paint...Link

GrantI am writing that, actually.Link

LubaActually, Molly and I re-listened to this speech last night. Yeah, we did, we did. And just to paint a picture for the viewer, for anyone who's listening. So the speech weaved in nuclear fusion. It weaved in very detailed reflections and observations around both bride and groom, an observation of who they are over the course of the years. It had a lot of emotion, a lot of really great pauses when necessary in a speech, very proper and good hand gestures. And, you know, the speech tied all those pieces together in a very eloquent and very succinct, yet again vulnerable and emotional way. And I remember I myself was like, holy shit. You know, you had how many hours to prepare this?Link

GrantWell, he came to me the day before, literally the day before. And he was like... oh, he doesn't call me Grant, but the nickname. And he's like, it would be an honor if you could, like, give a toast tomorrow. And, like, you can't say no. I'm not going to be like, no, man.Link

LubaIt was like a day before.Link

GrantIt was a day before. And so then obviously, my mind between then and then, I'm like, okay, I mean, how should I run through it? Because with a wedding toast, you've got this spectrum between completely unprepared, and it's a little bit of a mess, right? And then you've got, like, kind of ad hoc, there's no notes, right? Which is probably the best zone to be in. And then you've got, like, actually writing it out on paper. And those can be good. But also, you know, every time someone goes up to give a toast and they, like, open up their iPhone notes app, or they have the paper, it's not that it's going to be bad, but you kind of, like, okay, it doesn't have the same, like, liveliness to it.Link

So I think with any kind of speech, you do want to make sure you're giving it without notes, if possible. Like, I gave a commencement address a year or two ago. And my big regret there, I absolutely could have had it memorized, but I just, I don't know, it felt more formal to, like, have it there in front of me. And it was okay, but I think it just would have been better if I didn't have the notes in front.Link

So I'm like, all right, however it's delivered, let's make sure that there's no notes. Partly because you can just lower people's expectations, right? Like, if you give the impression that you're just casually talking off the cuff, and you don't give the impression that you've made any plans for, like, how you want to tie it together at the end, then the standards are actually a lot lower for what feels good and feels like it lands. If you do tie it together, it's like, whoa, did he just come up with that? It's like, no, he planned it out. But if there's notes, I think people subconsciously have this sense that, like, oh, I expect you to have prepared this in a certain way. So if it's both prepared, but also looks like it's not prepared, that's actually the medium you want to find yourself in.Link

No, that was so wild, though. His reaction afterwards, because I was making fun of him for giving me such short notice, he was like, my lesson is that constraint breeds creativity. And, like, to be fair, I probably would have stressed out about it more if there was more notice ahead. Anyway, sorry, maybe you have a question there. Thanks for the kind words, but I'm sure you're not bringing this up because you just want to, like, shower praise on...Link

LubaI mean, it was a really impressive speech. So, you know, shower praise is definitely a part of it, because it's genuine. But then I was actually wondering what the process of writing that speech was. So you had 24 hours' notice.Link

GrantYeah. Okay. So let me try to think back to what the process was. Okay. So first I went to Claude. Now, LLMs are not good writers. So you don't say, like, write me a speech. If anything, if you say write me a speech, you just, like, don't do any of the things they said. But I don't know how much we want to... I won't talk about, like, the specifics of the wedding, necessarily. You want to make it personal.Link

We were in another country speaking another language. And so first I was thinking, how are we going to end this? Because anytime you're giving a talk, you should know exactly how you're going to start, and you should know exactly how you're going to end, right? And the ending is actually more important. Very often people kind of taper out at the end and they say, and, you know, thanks for coming. Like, they're not quite sure. And there's no strong note to end on, and people don't know when to clap.Link

So, how you want to end. So I'm like, I don't know. Are there any common sayings that are romantic, but maybe not too cliché, in the language of this country? And, like, I don't know it. So I asked the LLM, like, hey, can you give me some examples of sayings that would be suitable for, like, a wedding toast in this language? Turns out, I looked it up afterwards, it just totally hallucinated on me. It was not actually a saying, I think, but it was a really sweet sentiment. So I think what it was, it was pulling from these, like, memes that maybe float around Facebook or something, with these inspirational posters. And there's a really nice quote that captured the moment for, like, where we were. And it was sweet, but it wasn't, like, cloying. And so I was like, this is nice. And it also referenced stars in there in a certain way. I'm like, okay, so that's good.Link

These friends are also very scientific. And so I knew I could, like, try to weave in science in some way. I had been reading about fusion recently, and there was, like, a specific equation about fusion that I was like, I actually think there's a way that we can kind of, like, give a little bit of a sciency theme that I know the groom is going to like. I know I could land it on this quote, and it'll feel like tying things together, because, like, we have this sciency thing and then suddenly there's, like, a sweet sentiment. And then the middle stuff, you know, it's just classic wedding toast stuff. You want to have, like, specific anecdotes you want to tie in. Like, what makes the bride and groom so great, not just as individuals, but for each other. And, like, having those bookends... like, I know I want to start with, like, a joke about making this overly sciency and then, like, step back. I know I want to end it by, like, tying it in there. Then it was just a matter of, like, filling in based on what I know about them.Link

You referenced pauses. Also, this is an important feature of giving talks. So it's best if you can memorize it, right? But often you have to think about it. Like, unless you're a good actor, which I'm not, and you're like, really...Link

LubaNo, you seemed like a really good actor during that speech.Link

GrantWell, it just seems like it. When you don't know what to say, right, you actually have to think through in your mind, like, the notes and where you are. What people naturally do is they'll say, like, okay, so where were we, right? Like, they'll kind of, like, announce that they're thinking through their thoughts. Instead, you look meaningfully at one person in the audience as if it's a deliberate pause, right? And so you linger on that, and you're comfortable in the silence. But really, what's going on in your mind is you're like, crap, where am I? Like, what was the next thing, right? So you have this, like, stern look on, like deliberate pauses, as if you want whatever you just said to land. I don't know if it was deep or not, but you give the impression that it was. But really, what's turning in there is, okay, where was I? We were at this. Okay, this is the next step. You know what I mean? But you just don't want to show on your face that that's actually what's going on.Link

And this maybe comes from... I was very serious about the violin when I was growing up. And I had this, like, Hungarian violin teacher who was both very good on the technical side...Link

LubaWow, the Eastern European teachers there.Link

GrantSo good. Yeah. But also on, like, kind of the more performative emotional side. Like, anytime we would have some kind of performance, after nailing down the technical aspect, she'd say, like, what does this make you think about? Like, is there an emotional thing that it actually connects you with? Like, I want you to be thinking about that when you play.Link

And another thing she would say is, like, just don't show the audience that you made a mistake when you do. It's so natural as you're playing, like, you miss a note and you're like, oh, great, right? Because it's almost as if you want to tell the teacher, like, I know that I missed it. She's like, I know you missed it. You know you missed it. Don't let them know that you missed it. And so kind of getting in the habit... it's maybe "fake it till you make it" would be the cynical take on it. But basically being in the habit of having the confidence to be okay with mistakes and just not show it and proceed forward. Know that's not the crucial part of it. Have confidence that the crucial part of it is where you're going to land.Link

So in some ways, like, having that, I don't know, upbringing from the stern Hungarian violin teacher had these crossover effects on public speaking, when otherwise I'm kind of, like, a nervous person. I'm not, like, the kind of person who's going to be sitting at the dinner table holding court in conversation. Like, I'm definitely, like, the quieter, in-the-background type. So I don't think being up in any environment and, like, giving public talks is a natural thing for me. But it's just come up enough, just through, like, doing YouTube. Or I like teaching, and teaching is a form of that. Like, there's been room to think about principles on it over the years. And so that wedding was, you know, a fun excuse to exercise that in a more casual context.Link

But there's small little tips there. The takeaways for anyone, if they're giving one of these: don't have notes, it's going to be better if you don't. Just speak from the heart. Know how you're going to end it, and be comfortable with your pauses. Like, those three things alone are just going to make it a way better speech than, like, 90% of the ones that people end up hearing at these events.Link

LubaYeah. On pauses, this reminds me of a few things. So generally I am trying to deliberately work on my pauses when I speak, because I find that what you said, like, rambling that you're thinking, is almost the same as using filler words. It makes you sound less confident, and a good, stable and strong pause makes your speech only better.Link

And what you said about Hungarian violin and your teacher is reminding me of... I sing opera, and performing. And oftentimes, actually, I might be performing a song that I don't know super, super well. And it's exactly what you said, where, you know, I want to embody the character, like, embody the energy of the song. And then when I pause, my wheels might be turning, thinking about, oh shit, you know, what is the next line? And, like, what does the next line represent? And it's very similar to what you said about the toast, but actually embodying the energy that you want the entire thing to have is so key. And being like, I am the character, I am in the presence of this vibe. And then, you know, being very, very confident even when you're internally not actually that confident, if you forget something. So that's very, very true.Link

GrantWe actually bore witness to your operatic singing. Just to add mystique for the viewers about what the heck this particular wedding was, it also incorporated a little bit of Luba operatic singing. Yeah. And I thought you did a good job. There was a vibe that you clearly got into, this character as you were doing it. And now we were in a different mode. That was, like, a Luba I hadn't seen before.Link

LubaSo speaking of math and speaking of YouTube, since you brought it up, I am curious. So you've been running your channel now for almost ten years, or a little over ten years?Link

GrantTen.Link

LubaOver ten years? Yeah. Do you remember what was that moment, and what was going through your mind when you were like, hey, I'm going to take a bet on going on this full time? Because it was quite a contrarian thing to do at that time. Like, now there are a lot of people with the mindset of wanting to do YouTube full time even before they get started. But back in 2014, 15, 16, that was a very rare thing to do, especially for a Stanford student.Link

GrantWell, I didn't start it with the intent of saying, hey, I want to be a YouTuber. I didn't even really know that was a thing. I remember when I uploaded my first video, I got some email from YouTube saying, like, congratulations, you have 27 subscribers. And I thought, what the heck is a subscriber? Like, I didn't actually kind of know how YouTube worked. I followed certain channels, evidently not as a subscriber. I just used it the way everyone does, kind of scrolling through and searching.Link

And so I had a sense that there's room for really engaging educational material. I had concrete characters in that space who I looked up to. There was one in particular who had actually offered some mentorship, in a way that I now deeply appreciate, because I just know how many messages can come in once you have...Link

LubaWho were the characters at that time?Link

GrantSo Henry Reich, who runs MinutePhysics. I will do anything for him, because he was so helpful to me very early on, even before I really had any video. And I was just messing around with kind of creating my own custom math animation software. I kind of reached out, ostensibly saying, could this be helpful to your work? But also in some sense asking for a mentoring hand. And he was very kind, and I think he saw potential in the earliest thing that I made. And then as time went on, my day job was at Khan Academy. So I was making math videos, but of a different sort.Link

LubaAnd Khan Academy was already after you'd graduated?Link

GrantSo the way it happened, I made a video or two at the very end of my undergrad. I got in conversations with people at Khan Academy thanks to Henry, actually, is how I initially got the conversations. And then they were running this thing they called the Talent Search, which was kind of like an open application for video creators, mixed together with some notion of choosing ten as the winners that they would, like, fly out to visit Khan Academy.Link

LubaI'm pretty sure I listened to some of your calculus and linear algebra videos when you were at Khan.Link

GrantOkay, good. And so, yeah, long story short, I got along very well with the math team there. This turned into, like, a one-year fellowship doing things there. That turned into an opportunity for longer than the one year. But as it happened, while I was doing my channel in parallel on the side, it, for various reasons, made sense to potentially just put my full effort on that channel. Not in the sense of, hey, financially, this is, like, the smart move, let's go full time. There's a longer story I won't go into, but it sort of shook out that, like, there was a period where, hey, makes sense. Maybe. Let's give this a try.Link

It didn't pop off, as the kids say, in terms of, hey, I put out a video and it goes really viral. I remember for a long time there was the steady growth of maybe 10%.Link

LubaHow long was that time?Link

GrantLike, multiple years of, like, 10% per month of subscribers. So it was nothing that exploded. It was just this, like, steady... people who found one video tended to watch other ones. If I made more videos, that tended to bring in a couple more people.Link

LubaAnd just to make sure I understand, you were already, quote unquote, full time on the channel, or you were at Khan?Link

GrantYeah. So this is when I was at Khan Academy and doing the channel on the side. And so there was that bit of growth. And then I was going to kind of step back from Khan Academy. I did, like, 25% time there and was focusing more on the channel. And that kind of growth continued. There were a couple spikes in there. I remember once there was one morning when I had, like, 100,000 subscribers, and then the next morning it was like 130,000. I was like, what happened? Damn. Vsauce is what happened, where there's this very popular science channel who, like, kindly mentioned one of my videos in one of his.Link

LubaThat's amazing. 30,000 subscribers just from one mention. I feel like that doesn't really happen these days.Link

GrantNo, this partly speaks to the value of shout-outs then versus now.Link

LubaExactly. It's changed a lot, right?Link

GrantLike, I mean, the cliché thing everyone talks about: things are more algorithm-driven these days in terms of how people find content, as opposed to recommendations, word of mouth, or from other creators. So it was a little bit more in that era where, like, the word from another creator mattered. It's also that, like, Michael Stevens has a cult following, and people really did follow what he was saying, more so than the average person.Link

And so that gave me confidence that there is something here. But it was never, hey, this really blew up, let's go. It was also creatively fulfilling. I really loved it. I made a tool to animate the videos, and with each video I would improve the tool. It's very fun. You're an engineer. You know how fun it can be to code and to just make a thing that's your own from scratch. So that was creatively fulfilling, in addition to the product itself. Education feels very nice, right? It feels like a value-additive thing to contribute to all this internet consumption, as opposed to consumption for consumption's sake. So I just loved it, and I think I just wanted to do more of it. And it seemed as if there was a decent enough appetite from people.Link

And in some sense, I might have, like, jumped in earlier than was rational to. But again, there's a longer story here, but it kind of didn't necessarily make sense to do both Khan Academy and that at the same time. There's certain, like, conflicts of interest there. And so I, in hindsight, appreciated having an incentive to kind of, like, get kicked out of the nest earlier than I would have wanted to. But personality-type-wise, it's like, that's not the vision I originally had for the channel. I was thinking I would maybe become an academic mathematician who cares a lot about outreach, and maybe the channel is an aspect of a portfolio to kind of show the fact that I am interested in this aspect of outreach, as opposed to just interested in research math.Link

LubaYeah, I was actually very curious about the identity piece. So I know you wanted to potentially go into academia and become a researcher. What did letting go of that identity feel like when you decided to really focus on the channel? You loved it so much, and you were letting go of this idea that you were going to go into academia. Was there some sort of pull, or, like, you know, identity distortion field? What did that feel like?Link

GrantI think there was never a good reason to go into academia other than I loved math, and I wanted to engage with it more. And if I was to sit back and say, what do I really want to do with it? I love the teaching side. I love the outreach side. I love trying to take things, even if they're already proven, and in some sense I understood them at a research level, and trying to say, like, no, but really, why is it true? And I think there's this space for, like, unsolved expository problems, where, sure, we know that the thing is true, but, like, really, what's the right perspective that makes it feel obvious? That's the stuff I loved.Link

And I think the draw towards academia is just that, hey, that's kind of the only legitimized career path for, like, having a stable place where the thing that you do day in and day out is math. And it wasn't even a thing to say, like, how else would you do that? Like, what is the platform you would stand on to do outreach, if not authority lent from, like, what your actual day job is? And in some sense maybe I suffer from that still, where it's like, there are entities who maybe don't respect what I would have to say because I don't have a PhD, or things like that. And so there's some costs there.Link

But by and large, I think people mostly index off of the stuff that you have made before, and they can judge it on its own, just to say, hey, is this good? Does this capture something that otherwise wasn't being conveyed? Is it actually interesting, right? As opposed to just being a little bit boring. And if someone doubts the authority of where I'm coming from, the nice thing about math is you just, like, prove if it's true or not. Like, it's much more objective than a lot of other things.Link

And I think in other fields that are more subjective, people have to lean on experts more, or they want to lean on experts more, because it's hard to judge from the content in and of itself: is it true? But with math you can. You just look at the content in and of itself, and you can ask yourself, like, is this true or not? And that's one of the joys of math, is that it even lends itself to that. And you avoid some of the, like, flame wars that can emerge in more subjective fields. And in a perverse way, that also means that as a non-researcher who nevertheless is, like, really interested in understanding at a deep level why these things are true, if you just convey that, you don't necessarily, at least I believe, and maybe I'm wrong here, you don't necessarily have to have the credentials to stand on to put out meaningful ideas, because people can just judge the ideas in and of themselves.Link

LubaIn one of the conversations I was listening to with you, I think it was about five years ago or so, you mentioned that you're more of a type of person who likes examining things that already exist and explaining them to others in simple words. And I think the part of the conversation was about creating something new versus ruminating on the old. And given that that dialogue was about five years old, has that changed at all? Like, now that there are so many new things happening with AI, so many new exciting companies, and so many new potential breakthroughs that might happen, do you regret this, kind of long for being a part of moving the math, like the application of math, forward? Or are you still happy where...Link

GrantYou're pointing to AI in particular because it's such a living field? There's so much of the...Link

LubaThere is so much more besides that.Link

GrantIn general, I think there's a fog of war at the forefront of any kind of research pursuit, where it's unclear what are even the important ideas. And a lot of people thrive in that, right? They love the idea that, hey, it's not even clear which of these are worth thinking more about, but they choose one and they would be the very first. I don't really care about being the very first to understand something. I'm maybe more motivated once things have been out and it's clear that this is an idea that actually works and actually has significance, which sometimes takes, in the math world, like, decades, in the AI world, you know, months, or whatever the equivalent would be. I find it very motivating, if I know something is deep and useful, to then, like, spend my energy trying to understand, okay, why is it true?Link

And I think there's a lot of space for taking things that have been discovered... how do I want to phrase this? Like, the very first iteration of something is often not the clearest version of it, because, you know, it's not even clear what the right language to phrase it in is and everything. And then as it actually gets used, then you kind of see... again, you're an engineer. I think you know the feeling when you're coding something up. If it's from the ground up, you might make, like, a version one or version zero. And it's only by making it that you realize, oh, this is actually what I wanted it to be, or actually what it should look like. And you're tempted to kind of scrap it all and, like, make something again fresh.Link

I think the same happens with how you express ideas. And you see this in the history of math and computer science too, where certain ideas start to crop up in an awkward way that's, like, too tied to a specific use case. And, like, the motivation is a little bit meandering, because it just happened to be something. And the cleanest version of how to describe it has yet to be discovered, and that ends up getting filtered out through, well, a lot of things: through, like, how it was used, through when people tried to teach it in the lecture halls, what turns out to resonate or not.Link

And I feel like for the forefront discovery that's going to happen, there's a bunch of incentives for that to happen, because academia is a thing. People are very motivated by being the first to find something. On the side of, hey, really deeply understanding it, even if it's not, like, academically publishable, I don't know, there's not the same incentive there. And it feels like a space where maybe it's not going to happen in the same way, right?Link

And also in a sense of, hey, what's actually useful to people? This is a thing I've softened on over the years. When I was younger, I was very interested in: is the content of this video something, like, sufficiently novel? It's just not a thing that you're going to find anywhere. And I was really hung up on that. In some ways, over the years, what resonates the most with people is not so much, hey, this topic or this proof is, like, hey, we never would have seen it before. It's actually a lot of the more standard things, where people just want to know how it works. Like, one of the most successful videos is just, what is a neural network? Hey, there's a million other videos on neural networks, but maybe if I can do it well enough, or visualize it well enough, or motivate it well enough, that actually reaches people more significantly.Link

Now, I'll always have a special place in my heart for topics that make someone think, like, wow, that's so clever, and they never would have seen it before. But in some ways, the ones that mean the most to people are just clarifying how this thing works. Even if someone else is going to try to explain it, maybe I can visualize it better, I can motivate it better. I've got these, like, principles I've gained over the years. I have an audience size such that I'm more justified in maybe pursuing some of the topics which are common, whereas if you're a much smaller channel, you benefit from doing things that are extremely niche, because no one else is doing it. So over the years, I've maybe shifted, potentially, to be, like, less interesting in that sense, or, like, not being as hung up on making sure that this particular thing is novel.Link

LubaWhat has caused that shift? Was it gradual? Were you listening to feedback of people? Were you just kind of, you know, listening to yourself and what you're more drawn to, being, quote unquote, useful?Link

GrantWell, you see what resonates with people. I mean, I'll give an example. When I visit universities, very often students come up after a talk and they'll, like, express some form of gratitude. And often it's gratitude for this one series I made, like, nine years ago about linear algebra. Now, I didn't, like, have any novel insights about linear algebra in that series. I wasn't saying anything that any mathematician wouldn't know about linear algebra. But I was taking the style of aggressively visualizing things, letting movement speak for itself, making sure that formulas are motivated by the idea already being populated in someone's mind through those visuals. And that style really lent itself to scratching an itch for linear algebra, where I could communicate the same thing the textbooks were trying to, or the professors were trying to, that's just hard to come through in any other medium.Link

And so there's a topic, pretty standard, right? Like, all STEM majors are going to learn it. Pretty well covered. Like, there's lots of textbooks on it. There's lots of lectures on it. But simply because of the style, and simply because of the way I was doing it, there was a lot of value to be added by doing it in a particular way and maybe being more clear. So had I been hung up on, I'm not going to put anything out unless, like, no one would have seen this before, like, no one would have, you know, seen this perspective on, like, calculating determinants or something, it would have been a worse series. It would have been a worse bit of content, because it wouldn't address what people were actually searching for. They just wanted to understand. They didn't care about the novelty. And in fact, the lack of novelty corresponds to the fact that it's widespread and useful.Link

And so, again, there's always going to be a special place in my heart for... you want to make sure that there's content that is surprising and gives things that people otherwise wouldn't see anywhere. But what I've softened to is the idea that actually a lot of the value that can be delivered with the, like, medium that I'm using, this particular way of visualizing math... I would basically be overlooking a whole bunch of value that you can deliver to people trying to learn in the world by ignoring the, like, standard topics.Link

LubaYeah, I can very much resonate with that, because, as you know, I'm coming back to content, and outside of doing conversations with people, I'm also thinking through, oh, is there original content that I can be making? And there is this feeling of wanting to do something new, something different. But at the same time, it also feels like everything has been done. You know, all the deep or not-deep thoughts or lessons have been shared. And then the novelty maybe is coming from the delivery. Like, it's you and your own experiences that you are sharing with others. Or maybe it's the format, or maybe there is some other little sprinkle that, you know, you take the same product, but you tweak one thing, and then it becomes a novel product.Link

So basically, I was reading one of my friend's blog posts about writing and sharing your ideas, and something that really resonated with me is that the novelty doesn't really matter as much. What matters is that this person, at a given point of time in their career and life, has gotten a chance to learn this information, and it just happened to be from you. It might be the same information that they would have had access to through reading books, or through stumbling upon it in some other way. But it's the fact that you packaged it that's what matters, because ultimately you just made the information accessible.Link

GrantI will say, though, even if at the high level, what is the topic, it doesn't have to be a novelty, I do think at the more micro level, on, like, how exactly you are describing it, it is worth your time to think of, like, digesting it in a way that is going to be sufficiently different for the reader or for the viewer. Because you can kind of think, to what extent are you a source, and to what extent are you a relay, right?Link

And often the way the modern world works, it's like an author writes it in a book, right? And then, like, a YouTuber reads that book and conveys basically the same idea, right? Or there's just a lot of, like, content creation out there where it's really just people being relays. And I think listeners and viewers and readers kind of get a sense of that at some point. And maybe 1 or 2 articles they find interesting, but they're not going to be, like, loyal followers. The places where you get actual loyal followings, where someone wants to say, like, wow, what did Luba upload next? It's going to be if they have a sense that you're more of an origin, you're more of an actual source on that.Link

And so when I'm talking about novelty, like, at the high level, like, what is the topic covered, I think, hey, don't shy away from the ones that other people have covered. But it's still worth being a little bit ruthless as you're editing down the ways that you might describe it, and the ways that you might even present it in the first place, saying, like, that's pretty standard. Someone else would say that. And finding something that you can kind of hold as your own. Because people will pick up on this in a subconscious way, and they will know, like, wow, every time I watch one of Luba's things, like, actually, I really come out thinking about something differently. When you have that feeling, then you're going to get the loyal following who, independent of the topic, lands on your next thing.Link

Because I think there's a lot of creators, they have, like, 1 or 2 things that work really well, and then they keep trying to make a bunch of other stuff, and they're like, it's just not resonating with the audience as much. And it might be that those two things worked because of the topic, and, like, that topic people happened to be searching for, and it kind of didn't matter who made it. They just needed, like, someone to relay it to them. And if you're only being a relay, then you're just relying on luck that you can find the things that you're relaying and you happen to be, like, the most SEO-optimized relay for it. If it's something where you can consistently be a source for it, that's when someone might say, well, I never would have thought to watch a video about, like, X, but, hey, Luba made that video, so it must be worthwhile. So it is worth being a little bit ruthless at the micro level on, like, making sure that there's something distinct.Link

LubaYeah. That's very true. This makes me think about purity of art. How did you find the purity of your style? I'm actually curious what the process of making a video is like. But I would imagine that, let's say you take neural networks. There is so much written about them. There is so much information online. How do you make sure that the essence of your explanation is very much you, and it's not a derivative of something else that you read somewhere? How would you define even the style that you usually use, outside of the animation component?Link

GrantOkay, sure. Well, so on this front, sometimes I'll talk to other, like, creators, or maybe journalistic-type creators, and they'll talk about their process, where there's, like, the research phase and then, like, the writing phase and production. And when I look at my process, there is no research phase for a particular project in the same way. It's more like, I want to always be learning about stuff, and there's a long list of things that, like, maybe I would make a video on. There's some stuff I already feel like I know very well, and so the, like, potential energy is there to carry it out. There's stuff that I don't yet feel like I have grokked in my mind, but know would make a good video at some point. And so I just try to, like, ambient-learn about it.Link

And I think, I don't know, neural networks might be a good example, where, you know, I learned about this in college. So it was there in some way. There were requests, you know, to make a video about that. At that time I was doing a little bit more of, like, a computer science thing. I know people are curious about it. And so it had been in my mind since college, and I, like, revisited it. I read some things. But I think having a lot of time where that's not necessarily the project that's on the top of the queue in that moment, but on my horizon, I know I want to do neural networks at some point, so I'm, like, ambient-thinking about it, playing around with the code myself, trying to come up with... at what point does it feel like it clicks in my own mind? Not because, hey, I was reading something and someone said this thing, but I was just, like, holding it in my own mind and saying, you know, this actually feels like it motivates, like, why are there layers, or why do we have this, like, weights and bias structure? Or, as you get later on, like, what's the function of the attention mechanism, or all that?Link

This is a long-winded way of saying I do a lot of mulling. Just a lot of mulling before it actually gets to the point where, hey, this month, the project on the top of my queue, I feel confident that I can do the video about Transformers finally, or something. And so the research phase, it's not so much like, hey, now this is the project I'm going to spend two weeks researching.Link

And the thought there is that when you're consuming content, what's way more fun is to feel like you're watching a video from someone who actually really knows about it, right? And they just happen to be making a video, as opposed to watching a video from, like, a science journalist whose job is to, like, translate things for public consumption, and they spent two weeks trying to get up to speed on it and, like, do their best to translate what they spun up on in those two weeks. You can just kind of tell when it's someone who, like, doesn't actually know it deeply. And to know something deeply just takes a long time. And so in that way, I can't think of any process for me where that research phase for a particular video would be, like, concentrated into a short amount of time. Instead, it's just having a lot of things that I want to understand, and just trying to think about and learn about them. And then every now and then, it might bubble up to where I feel confident enough on it that it could be the next month's video. That's how it ends up working.Link

LubaThis makes me think of a relationship with audience and algorithm, because a lot of creators, YouTubers, TikTokers, anyone who creates something online, oftentimes fall prey to the algorithm or to the audience, and wanting to put themselves into boxes and systems, like, hey, I need to come up with a video every single week, or every two weeks is my cadence. And then as a result, you try to reverse-engineer your process. How come that hasn't happened to you?Link

GrantSo I've never thought about schedules in the sense of, like, hey, I've got to upload on, like, this cadence. Because when I consume content, I kind of, I don't care how often the person has uploaded. I just care, like, is the video good? There's very few things that I follow where I'm following it out of habit. It's like, oh, every week on this day, I know Luba's going to upload. That's just not how I consume. And so maybe I'm projecting onto the audience, but I think the audience doesn't care if you've uploaded things consistently for the last couple of weeks. It's just, a video might pop up to them, maybe through friend recommendation, maybe through algorithmic recommendation. They just care: is it going to be good? So I've always just focused on, hey, is it good?Link

I get antsy if I haven't published for a while, just because personally, I like to have stuff happening in my life, and seeing something go out the door is an emotionally satisfying thing. But it's not because I think, oh no, the audience is going to be lost if it's...Link

LubaVery impressive, after doing a channel for so long. Like, literally, you've never been trying to put yourself into a system.Link

GrantWell, and so it's very interesting. These days when I go to conferences and, like, chat with other creators, some of the other creators, they're just kind of, like, very unhappy people. And their top-of-mind thing, if they've been doing it for ten years, is how do I stop doing it, right? They just feel exhausted. They feel burnt out. They feel like they're on this treadmill. And I was trying to introspect on, like, why I don't feel that way. Like, I get exhausted in certain ways, right? But I feel very energized saying, like, wow, certainly in the next ten years, I absolutely want to keep doing the same thing. If anything, do it more. I'm like, why do I not feel the same exhaustion others do?Link

Part of it, I think, actually is not having a team, and therefore not having this sense of, like, wow, here's this engine that needs to run and mouths that need to be fed. And, like, if I'm not firing on all cylinders, if this video doesn't get such-and-such many views, then, like, the organization halts or something. Like, I think that can be an easy source of stress.Link

I think focusing on, like, lessons that are meant to be evergreen, as opposed to topical content that you're hoping hits a moment... I think if you're dependent on hitting a moment, then it can be very stressful, because a lot might be riding on hoping that you, like, actually hit a certain wave. And if you don't, it's like, wow, if it doesn't hit now, then it's not going to pick up later on. Whereas a lot of the successful content that I've made takes the form of, you know, maybe some people watch it now, but my goal is that it's got a high number of views, like, ten years from now. There's just, like, a stable set of people who kind of come to it. Like, that matters a lot more to me than, like, number of views in the first month and such. And so I think things like that can mean, when you're saying, hey, do I have a video out this week? Does it matter or not? It's like, I don't really care. Like, this week or not, what I care about is, is the thing that I made good enough that ten years from now there will be cause for people to be, like, coming back to it.Link

And, you know, like I said, there's a lot of privilege, actually, in that. It's not a given that you even can make stuff without a team. And there's, like, contractors that I'll use. Like, someone else writes the music, I'll collaborate with them. It's not, like, a fully solo endeavor. But, like, much more so than a lot of my colleagues, I kind of do it end to end, at least these days. And I think that lends a certain freedom, just because there's breathing room that maybe, I can understand, a lot of other creators just kind of can't afford. And so it's not like, oh, this is the right way to do things. There's a certain amount of privilege on, like, ah, to have that breathing room and to be able to, like, make the choice that it's okay not to publish something because it's not there yet. I'm rambling at this point, just because as I was talking, I became aware, I'm like, you know, a lot of things I'm saying, it's, like, a function of my own, like, privileged position. And so I don't want it to come across as...Link

LubaActually, you can say that it's a privileged position, but partially it's also just a very stoic and grounded and first-principled view on work and craft.Link

GrantOkay.Link

LubaBecause multiple times you've mentioned that the thing that you care about is, is this video good enough? Is it something that people will resonate with? Are you having a novel take on, let's say, an explanation of the same topic, or a different topic? And I think grounding yourself in that is a skill that one can develop somehow. So I'm curious how you have developed it. Because in the world of, you know, you're being fed metrics all the time. And you have creator friends that you said are quite unhappy, a lot of them, and just want to get off the train of being on the YouTube algorithm, at the mercy of the algorithm, or the mercy of whatever they feel like they're at the mercy of. Maybe it's their audience. So, yeah, what makes you so grounded in those first principles?Link

GrantMetrics are such an interesting case, right? Because, like, YouTube throws all the numbers at you. It's like, how many people watched, what was the watch time, how many likes, all of that.Link

LubaAnd most people I know too are obsessed over those numbers. It's way too easy.Link

GrantYou know what my, like, guilty pleasure is? Is to open up the real-time thing. I don't get any information from it, but just to see the real-time views happening, like, in the last 48 hours.Link

LubaYeah, yeah.Link

GrantThat's, like, my happy place. That's my, like, dopamine hit. Yeah. I'm like, that's so useless. Like, I learn nothing from that, right? Just seeing, like, how many people have watched in the last 48 hours, or, like, you know, is any video getting a weird upswing now that it usually doesn't?Link

LubaI also would strongly disagree with your perspective about privilege, because you literally, again, just said that a lot of your creator friends are at the mercy of the algorithm, and I'm sure a lot of them are also, quote unquote, privileged and have big audiences and big channels. So they really should not be feeling that way.Link

GrantWell, okay. So I really do think that, like, team versus not-team dynamic makes a difference here, where the process that I have... well, we can talk about this later. I actually think I should have a team, and that there is a way to do...Link

LubaYeah. Let's bookmark this.Link

GrantThat's a very interesting topic. But if I did this, right, if I had, like, things that were filmed, I would hire an editor yesterday, because, like, I don't want to do that. It takes a bunch of time. But editing for me is this very final part of the process, where I've got it all written out. The way I'm even thinking about what the content should be is by, like, looking at the animations in a timeline. Sometimes there's a script, sometimes there's not a script for that section. Instead, I just make the animation and I talk it through like a talk. And so the whole process is so intertwined, it's very non-trivial to even extract out, hey, how would I outsource this different part? I don't even know how I would outsource the editing. I can see outsourcing, like, animating or things. Again, we'll bookmark this and talk about, like, plans on that. But the way I currently create things, it's possible for me to make it all on my own.Link

I think for other kinds of content, it might just actually not be possible for, like, one person to make it on their own at a decent cadence. And so to even do the thing at all requires having a team. Then once you have a team, there's certain, like, minimum requirements on, like, revenue to even meet payroll. Almost all business models in YouTube are going to depend on the number of views in some way. And so that means those analytics that you're hitting are not just dopamine hits on, like, hey, big numbers are fun. It's like, no, actually, are we consistently meeting payroll? There's a lot of added stress there.Link

And so the privilege, I think, is just from the particular style that I have, or the particular, I don't know, skill sets around, like, the animating is my way of even writing the content, and that I love doing it, right? I'm not, like, burned out by animating. A lot of people, when they're, like, in After Effects, they hate it or something. But for me, I'm like, this is my happy place. Like, this is where I feel comparative advantage, and, like, I'm creating something novel for this explanation. It's, like, a style and an audience category and a bunch of things that have gone well, such that I can do it the way that I can do it, and, like, not experience the same burnout mechanisms that other creators do, where, even if they have the same audience size, it might be the case that in order to actually carry out their process, it's not even an option to, like, do it without a team. And that's kind of the privilege I'm pointing to. It's not so much, like, you know, a particular...Link

LubaYeah, yeah.Link

GrantYeah, exactly.Link

LubaOne of my hypotheses is maybe you feel so at peace with metrics and the algorithm, and why you're so focused on, is the work really good, is because you were so indexed on being in academia when you were younger. Because academia is quite focused on the process. You're researching, you're tinkering, you're trying to produce really good work, versus being very over-indexed on, you know, promotions and on the external world, so to say.Link

GrantI'd like to be able to say, oh, yeah, that's exactly right. No, but I definitely am a little bit, you know, addicted to the numbers, in the right way.Link

LubaOkay.Link

GrantThe specific example, I think, is focusing on the right metric rather than the wrong metric. So, for example, the wrong metric is number of views, right? A slightly better metric is watch time, right? I think even better than that, for the kind of thing I want to do, is, like, watch time, let's say, per month, five years from now or something, right? And so if you're going to index on one number associated with a particular video, I don't think it should be, like, the number of views that it has. I think it should be the number of people right now who are watching it. And they don't show you that number, but you can calculate that number very easily, because you take the watch time per month. And so you've got, like, you know, watch hours per month. But a month is a number of hours. So you've got watch time per time. You can cancel that out. But actually what that top part is, is, like, people-minutes, like people-hours.Link

LubaBut I think that's still very externally focused, because of the algorithm. They might or might not show your video.Link

GrantLet's talk about the algorithm. Because, like, creators love to talk about the algorithm.Link

LubaThey love to talk about it.Link

GrantLike it's this black-box sea monster with, like, this ephemeral taste one day that, like, turns into a different taste.Link

LubaI feel like I know exactly what you were going to say: that if your video is good and the watch time is good and the retention is good, then the algorithm, no matter how many times they change it, will be showing your video.Link

GrantYeah, I think broadly speaking, it's a mirror of people's interests. And it's not exact, right? The platforms are very incentivized to make it a better mirror of people's interests. And when people say, like, the algorithm wants blank, if you replace the words "the algorithm" with "the audience," it's almost always, like, the same. It's like, oh, the algorithm really wants good thumbnails or something. Like, no, people will only click on something if they have reason to click on it. It's not that the algorithm wants that. It's just that, like, this is how humans work. You need to, like, capture their attention in some way. Or, the algorithm wants longer watch time. It's like, oh, people got more out of it when they were doing it.Link

Now, there are concrete ways that matters. Like, maybe when the algorithm is being trained, what is it being trained against? Is it trained against, like, watch time? Is it trained against meaningful watch time? How do they measure meaningful? Like, there are tweaks to how the actual models are trained that maybe are significant. And you can say, where does it deviate from what we want it to be? Pretty clear examples of this would be: people probably don't want to spend all day on YouTube. YouTube wants them to spend all day on YouTube, and that's, like, a divergence of interest. So let's say there's a channel about running, and you, like, watch it. And it's got this really informative thing on, like, hey, here's a thing that you should try for your training regimen or your form. And you're like, that's really good. And then you close your laptop and you go out for a run. That's very good for your life experience, and, like, you got more value out of that. But then from YouTube's perspective, they're like, man, I showed this video and then they just stopped watching entirely. So there is a deviation there, right? And so I do want to acknowledge that.Link

But I think 90% of the commentary creators have about the algorithm could just as easily apply to talking about audience needs. And I also think, when a creator's video does very well, it's because of all of their hard work and their understanding of their audience. When their video doesn't do well, it's because the stupid algorithm, like, changed. You know what I mean? Like, they only focus on the algorithm when things don't go well, as opposed to trying to introspect and say, maybe it just wasn't a good video. Or, when things did go well, saying, like, thank God the algorithm exists, because how else would people have found that, right? Like, every one of us owes our careers to, like, the existence of recommendation algorithms. And yet it gets a lot of hate.Link

So my focus has always been... oh, this is so cliché, it's almost not worth saying. It's like, do people enjoy watching it? Like, will people get value out of it? And, like, the rest will take care of itself. And so things that people might think of as growth hacks, like, hey, make sure the first 30 seconds are really engaging, that's not because of the algorithm. That's just because that's how people work. Like, I think of my own habits when I view something. I need to be hooked. So if I'm not hooked, then, like, that's it. Make sure that the thumbnail is compelling. Yeah, obviously. Because, like, why else would someone click on it if they don't have cause to? If they don't think that they're going to have a good experience?Link

And the only things that they see to understand if they're going to have a good experience: there's the thumbnail, there's the title. There's also two other things. There's the channel name, and then there's, like, the runtime that they kind of see there. And so the channel name probably actually counts for most of it, in terms of, was the last thing they watched something they got a good experience from? So if someone is trying to say, wow, the click-through rate on this was, like, really good, why was that? It might actually have nothing to do with the thumbnail. It might have been because the last video they watched was really good, and they really wanted to click on what Luba's next thing was.Link

And so a lot of these things, I don't know, I just don't think that the metrics thrown at you, or the discussion around, like, what is the algorithm optimizing for, cause you to make decisions that are any better than if you just say, what do people want here? Or what would I want if I was a user? Then again, it's really nice to see high numbers in the app. And there's a certain monkey-brain part that just, like, you know, is triggered by that.Link

LubaWould you say you mostly see your channel as fun or as work?Link

GrantI mean, it is work, right? Like, it's not, like, a confetti-driven party all the time to, like, make stuff for it. I would say once I'm, like, 20% of the way into a project, up until, like, 90%, it's very fun. And it's just craft, and, like, I enjoy that. And I enjoy, like, thinking about how the audience is gonna like a thing. I don't know, like, I'm making a video about the hairy ball theorem right now, which is a silly name for a serious bit of math.Link

LubaAnd can you explain in a few words what the hairy ball is?Link

GrantYeah. Yeah, sure. The informal statement is, if you have a ball that's covered in hair, you can't comb down all of the hair to be flat. At some point you're going to get, like, a little cowlick, where it kind of has to stick up. There's no, like, elegant way to smooth it. Whereas, like, on a donut, you could smooth out all the hair really elegantly. On a four-dimensional ball, you can smooth it out just fine. On a circle, you can smooth it out just fine. You kind of go around. But a three-dimensional ball, you can't.Link

Now, that's a silly statement. You might even wonder why someone would care. So I want to motivate in the video, like, this kind of thing naturally emerges. This is, like, a metaphor for a natural kind of math that comes up. But also the explanation for why it is true... there's just a really beautiful proof. It's really fun to animate why this proof is true. There's other fun things to animate that are just, like, mind-opening as you go, just in, like, the land of pure math. And it's fun. And so I've just really been enjoying the craft of that. I don't know if this video will actually perform that well, but it's, like, a fun thing to make.Link

There are times when it feels like work, where, I don't know, if I'm strategizing, hey, what should the content be in the next year? You know, it's not so much me saying, let me have the most fun. It's like, why? What am I doing here, right? Like, what am I optimizing for? What should my principles be in choosing? It feels like the, like, BD strategic discussion on that. So it goes back and forth.Link

LubaBut, okay, so you do plan out the content for a few months or a year in advance? You just mentioned that.Link

GrantWell, I make the plans, but I don't follow the plans.Link

LubaSo how does that work?Link

GrantWell, the way that it works is, at the start of the year, I'm like, here are the things that feel important to cover. And then as the year proceeds, some of those projects blow up. Some of it, it's like, well, this turned into two videos, but I wanted to make a follow-up on this. Sometimes I got nerd-sniped by this one thing that goes in. So, like, half of those goals are actually met. I kind of want to be more principled about that. Things always take longer than I wish they did.Link

LubaWhat makes you want to be more principled about it?Link

GrantWell, I mentioned earlier, when I go to universities, there's this gratitude for, like, a series I made. I think a meaningful footprint that I could leave is to make series like that for a whole bunch of topics. I always sit at the start of a year and I plan to... like, that was called *Essence of Linear Algebra*. I made one afterwards that was called *Essence of Calculus*. I made a promise to make an *Essence of Probability*, and I've made, like, six unpublished videos for it over the years that just weren't good. And then I have, like, scattered probability material that, like, should be in a series, but it's just a mess. And it would be more meaningful to students if I got my act together and made a good version of that. Or the linear algebra series is very incomplete, and I think making a whole sequel series to it would actually help a lot of students.Link

So on the, like, curricular side, like lessons, longer-form series, there's a lot of value to be added that kind of doesn't get prioritized, because maybe it's a little bit more fun to make some of the other stuff. Maybe, you know, I am suffering from the short term versus long term. Like, I preach wanting to make something that will be watched a lot ten years from now. But then in practice, I feel a draw towards something that I know will reach more people sooner. All these little things stack up to where, for whatever reason, the, like, next *Essence of* blank just doesn't get prioritized. And then at the end of the year, I'm looking like, ah, man, I really meant to do that. And then I just didn't. Like, other things came up. And so, knowing that that's where there's a lot of value in the long run, I would benefit from putting in place the processes to ensure that that actually happens.Link

LubaYeah. I think the mental talk that you have with yourself when things like that happen is really, really important. And you strike me as someone who, as I mentioned before, is really grounded and is very focused on, am I doing good work? But now you're also saying that, oh, oftentimes when you don't follow your roadmap and principles, you are like, oh, I want to follow those principles again next year. What is the conversation that you have with yourself in those moments, and does it really put you down, or what is your mental hygiene?Link

GrantI think I want to have principles. And then there's multiple competing potential principles in there. For example, how should I value curricular stuff versus, like, general sciency-interest stuff? Do people land on it because there's a particular thing that they want to learn, and my job is to be as helpful for that particular thing? Or are they landing on it because they trust that I'm going to give them something interesting, and my job is to, like, inspire and show that, like, math can be beautiful? And the right answer, I think, ends up being both.Link

And so the, like, mental tug I'll have with myself, it might be, like, both sides of that brain, like, combating each other for the next particular project, to say what should be prioritized. I think what I want to do is just try to get to the capacity where I can do both, and it's not a trade-off to be had. And almost in the same way, like, a company has different departments. Have, like, the curricular department, where the mission is to create foundational material that's highly visualized lessons for the important topics in math, so that someone can come up to speed on it. I know that would be valuable, even if it takes a long time to make it and, like, short run, fewer people see it. On the other side, consistently having things that bring joy and show the beauty of it, where, like, I just feel passionate about it and I get to share that. Like, I don't want to not do that. And if anything, I think part of the reason that people come to the channel is because they can, like, hear in my voice if I'm actually interested in it or not. So I don't want to ignore that.Link

And so with these two competing principles, I think the right thing to do is to say, figure out how to do more, right? Figure out how to make it so that it's not a trade-off between doing the two of those. Even if, like, short term, that might require...Link

LubaLike, time sacrifice.Link

GrantYeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly, exactly.Link

LubaTime sacrifice and mental sacrifice. I want to bookmark the topic of what the channel could look like. But what I wanted to ask is, tell me more about the process of how you have that conversation with yourself. Are you journaling? Are you going on a walk? Is this something you're intuitively thinking about?Link

GrantI mean, yeah, so, right, you always think clearer if you write. So I have, yeah, sure, I have a mess in terms of, like, my internal documents and whatnot. But I have, like, a folder in my computer where I might just write, like, daily notes when I just need to externalize my thoughts. And there will be, like, a note whose title is the date. I never intend to go back to it. Like, I can search it if I want to. In practice, I kind of don't go back to it. Instead, the function of it is to be, you know... when you put your thoughts into words, either through speech or through...Link

LubaWriting, it becomes more clear.Link

GrantIt becomes more clear. And it's not that it becomes more clear. It's that, like, it goes from not actually existing to existing. Like, it wasn't actually a thought, or it wasn't really a coherent idea at all, until you were forced to put it into words. So I have this doc. It's all just, like, write, write, write, write, write.Link

LubaAnd you write it every single day?Link

GrantNo.Link

LubaIt's just whenever. Okay.Link

GrantOr if I feel like I've got something I need to chew through. It's like, oh, man, when I'm going to sleep, my mind is kind of buzzing around some sort of principle. Like, what should the business model of the channel be? Or, like, should I hire or should I not? Or, like, should I focus more on *Essence of*-type content, or should I focus on just isolated one-offs? You know, do I do more machine learning things, because there's a really big appetite for that? Or do I kind of stick to my guns and, like, hey, this is about pure math? And, like, all of these sorts of...Link

LubaRuminations.Link

GrantRuminations. So I write it down. I try to articulate some principles. There's a lot of redundancy. You know, there's things where I'm, like, writing principles that I had written down some time before. But, like, again, the whole point is just to make my current thinking actual thinking, as opposed to fake thinking. And that usually adds some clarity. And then I make concrete plans based on that. Sometimes, if it's a thought that I want to preserve... most of my life I just organize in, like, Apple Notes these days, where that'll range from, like, task lists to, like, certain things.Link

LubaYou haven't been Obsidian-sniped or Notion-sniped?Link

GrantNo. Well, I might be Notion-sniped. I think with an organization, Notion is clearly going to be better than my current life system, which is files of Apple Notes that link to each other. Obsidian is enticing, I mean, because I'm, like, already writing it in, like, MDX files anyway. But I just, I don't know. It's partly because some of the life things I want to, like, share with others in my life, and, like, not everyone uses Obsidian. And so I haven't been Obsidian-sniped, but I've been Obsidian-intrigued. I anticipate being...Link

LubaI've recently got Obsidian-sniped, but now I'm actually... I know exactly...Link

GrantWhy you have this. But, yeah.Link

LubaSo we've danced around the topic of channel organization and channel evolution a few times now. I think now is the time to actually dive into it. So tell me a bit more about the channel arc and the inflection point that you have right now.Link

GrantYeah. So, yeah, you're talking to me at an interesting time, because had you chatted with me, like, six months ago, this conversation would have been much the same, and that would be the end. I'm like, solo creation is the best, life is the best if you don't have a team. I mean, we haven't even talked about the fact I don't do sponsorships. And part of that, I think...Link

LubaYeah, you made a big manifesto about it.Link

GrantYeah, I wrote a manifesto, which, actually, I kind of am gonna walk back from to some extent, but I think I can do it tastefully. I think there's a lot of fraught aspects of that as a business model. I also think, for the longer-term focus that I wanted to have, a monetization structure that centers on views in the next three months does not set up the incentives that I want to have. And it was clear there was enough Patreon support of the channel. Like, I could support myself just fine. And if anything, maybe leaning into that more. It frees me up to not, like, negotiate with businesses or have an agency or something. I think it makes the content purer in a way that actually helps the channel. Like, the call to action at the end is, watch the next video. It's not, like, go buy this person's thing.Link

Anyway, we haven't even talked about all that. Where am I right now? Sitting back and saying, how do I want to spend my own time? What goals do I want to achieve? In one of these documents, right? In one of these, I sit down, I'm like...Link

LubaActually, taking a step back, what triggered this rethinking?Link

GrantJust one of these weekly documents, I think. I was sitting here, I'm like, how do I want to spend... Some of my friends have asked if the fact that I have a child now, who's, like, seven months old, has sharpened my thinking.Link

LubaYeah, that.Link

GrantThat was maybe subconsciously, like, the hours of the day aren't what they used to be. Like, really, it very much matters that in these eight hours I get done what I find valuable. I don't think I'm learning as much these days as I want to be. I talked about how the, like, research process should be a lot of ambient learning. It's easy for that to dry up and not happen. And then you don't feel the impacts on content for, like, multiple years, because I can just burn through the stuff that, like, I already know well. And then, like, three years from now, I'd be like, dang it, I don't know anything else. Not literally, but I feel that I'm not learning new things as much as I would like to be. I'd like to spend more of my days, like, reading and, like, writing notes and such, and I just don't. I also have, as I've mentioned, you know, this conflict between, do I make more *Essence of*-type things, or do I kind of stick with a decent cadence on just the one-offs?Link

And I think I've sort of had all these hesitations around team growth, not because I'm unaware of the benefits of specialization of labor, or the best things in life coming from collaboration. Like, I'm not an idiot. Like, I do know that these things are very strongly valuable, and there's a reason economies orient themselves that way. But I also know that it's very easy for people to create cages around themselves. Like, they found a thing, and then that thing becomes their cage, and they're sort of trapped by it. And it's very easy to go wrong. And I've, like, seen this in multiple friends.Link

So, long story short, I do think the right way to do this is find, like, a trusted lean team to help make it such that I can do the sort of things I want to, but just more efficiently, where I don't actually have to do all the animations. This animation software that I've created, it's open source. Actually, a lot of people know how to use it now, and I'm sure a lot of them would be thrilled to, like, collaborate and be a part of the team to make it happen. Such that maybe when I'm making a video, if I've got a vision for how I want to visualize something, I, like, start to describe that, or start to code it up, and then someone else can see what I'm getting at and run with it.Link

I think there's room to give more narrative to lessons with non-math visuals. You know, what goes on the screen? If I want to describe the history of a topic, I kind of don't describe the history of a topic now, to some extent, because the part of my brain that knows that I'm going to be editing and producing it later knows that I don't know what I'm going to put on the screen if I'm telling, like, the history of Gauss or something. And so finding, like, a good illustrator, I think, would be an unlock for that, and also for a lot of other just filler visuals through the normal kind of videos I would make. It's just something I can hand off there. I don't know the best way to use an editor, but I'm sure that there is one, and I'd like to make that more efficient.Link

And so I think if I get into a mode of life where my working days look like: there's a decent amount of learning, there's a decent amount of writing, and then there's a highly leveraged, like, directing of how things will go. I'll probably always want to animate to some extent, because, like I said, I love it. I feel like this is where I have a lot of comparative advantage. But I don't have to do literally every single one. I have a vision for how that can work well, and I don't think that it will compromise the, like, feeling of the channel being something where, hey, this is just the lessons I want to express.Link

LubaAnd it sounds like that would be mostly a function of how you think about the business model, because perhaps...Link

GrantThe...Link

LubaBusiness model.Link

GrantYeah. So then there's a side of... I've been quite happy to not do sponsorships, and, you know, Patreon works fine for, like, supporting me and, like, whatever contractor needs I have. But I would like to just make sure that there's enough freedom that all of that is, like, good and covered. And there's an idea I've been toying around with for a while that I hadn't, like, jumped in on, but I will now.Link

That's basically, rather than a traditional sponsorship saying, like, hey, this video is brought to you by so-and-so... the audience has a lot of very technically talented people. Like, really impressive people are in there. There's a lot of companies who really value hiring technical talent, a lot of whom I really love. Like, you know, a thing that doesn't come through on the channel, but, like, you know about me, I actually really like just sort of, like, companies and company culture, and thinking about what are the good ones and such. And, like, it's a whole part of my, like, intellectual life, and, like, how I engage with my friends, that just doesn't come through on the channel.Link

But having a space where, here's a set of partner companies, almost like a virtual career fair, that's just a place on my site. And the videos kind of promote it, saying, hey, if you're looking for a job, or you want to work with other teams who are interested in mathematical talent and technical talent, here's a set of partners I trust on that. This is the business model I'm going to, like, sort of try out. I think that aligns well with the channel. I think it overcomes some of the shortcomings I see in, like, traditional brand-integration-type stuff. And it should be enough to just, like, support a small team.Link

LubaThere's also a model of title sponsorships that I've been seeing on tech channels. By tech channels, I mean, like, very Silicon Valley-focused channels and podcasts specifically, where a podcast or video series gets a title sponsor. And the only thing that the title sponsor is requiring is that the logo of the sponsor is on the video, but the host of the channel doesn't actually talk about the sponsor at all.Link

GrantYeah. I mean, so I think it's very important for people to experiment in this space and not fall prey to ruts that exist for preexisting business models and how they do things. So I think finding what's the right model for a particular channel... You know, I think for certain podcasts, like, title sponsor, that's a great way to go. It's not interrupting, but it's, like, good co-branding.Link

I think one of my favorite business models for a YouTube channel is my friend Ben Eater, who shows, like, constructing computing concepts from the barest bones, like, on a breadboard, right? And then he, like, sells kits so that you can do it yourself. And so the thing that you're buying is, like, highly engaged with the content in and of itself. And it's like, that's just a super aligned model.Link

And so in my case, I don't know if a title sponsor, where, like, on the whole video you, like, see that... I don't think that would be as good a fit. But I think something where it feels very valuable, if I can say to the audience, hey, everyone here needs a job at some point in their life, most people do, and you probably want to work with math-interested people. There's a lot of teams out there who are interested in recruiting, like, the kind of top mathematical talent. Pairing those off, it feels like high value on both sides. I think it can be uninterrupting to the channel. And so, like, that side of it, the motivation for doing it, part of it, I do think it can add value to both sides there.Link

But then also, it gives some breathing room, such that I think there can be, like, a team. And I also think, done right, it shouldn't feel like I'm on that treadmill where, like, every single video has got to meet a certain mark in order to meet payroll. Because the whole structure of it would be, hey, five years from now, there's this body of videos, five years' worth of videos, that are all, like, pointing to this shared piece of real estate. And so it's more just, like, quarter by quarter, who wants to pay to be there? And it's not, hey, how dependent are our revenues on, like, the next video, right? And instead, having the videos that I know create, like, loyalty to what we're trying to do. You know, hey, if it just reaches a couple hundred thousand people, but they really love it, that might actually be great. Because what really matters is, is this a cultivated collection of math nerds? More than, like, hey, did I reach such-and-such millions of people? And, you know, you're just paying by the impression. So that's my plan. We can check in in a year to see.Link

LubaYeah, that's really awesome. I'm really excited for you. I'm sure it's going to free up some of the time to learn more and feel more...Link

GrantLong run, it will. Short run, you know, hiring and onboarding does not happen immediately, right? And so I have no illusions about, like, right off the bat my life will be better. I'm at a nice local maximum now. I'm very well aware that this involves going through a local minimum of, like, less time spent learning and less time spent creating. But I am optimistic that in not too much time, it can be a local peak that's even higher.Link

LubaAre you excited to be working with people? How has the loneliness of the journey been so far?Link

GrantOkay. Loneliness is interesting, because for me, once I'm in the craft, I don't actually like working with other people. Like, moment by moment, as I'm, like, making the thing. But collaboration is great, right? I mean, there's one person I'll hire next year who I've done, like, some collaborative things with in the past. He's a very interesting thinker. He's got a good complementary skill set. It's just been very vibrant, like, the forms of collaboration. And I love that. That should be much more fun. And I think on the side of scoping things out, or rubber-ducking ideas and things like that, I do this very informally now, just with, like, friends, right? And having, like, a more formal structure, where it's, like, people who are aligned and they're actually making the thing with you, that probably could be more fun. But as far as the actual, like, in-the-moment, day by day, I still kind of want to be able to wake up and have no meetings on my calendar and just kind of, like, do the thing that I want to do.Link

LubaYeah, I feel very similarly. I kind of like being on my own. Most of my life I've done kind of loner things. And even the premise with, like, working in the office or working out of the office... I think when I was younger and I was working at a startup or at companies, I was really excited to go to the office to interact with people. But that was because it was also a defining period of my life. It was kind of, like, post-college time, where you wanted to meet people, and everyone...Link

GrantEveryone should work remotely post-college?Link

LubaExactly, exactly.Link

GrantThat seems super unhealthy to me.Link

LubaSo, 100%. And then now I'm like, oh, actually, I prefer just being on my own at a computer, and I prefer doing my own thing without some external stuff that's pulling my energy and pulling me away from something that I want to be doing at a given time. But I think, obviously, collaboration is always really exciting. Which brings me to a question around friends and professional circles over the years. Have you been mostly spending time with other YouTubers, with academics, with tech people? Like, who do you like surrounding yourself with?Link

GrantYeah, those three. Like, it's actually... yeah, yeah. That's actually pretty apt. I mean, yeah, there's, like, YouTuber friends who I really deeply value the connection with. I try to make an active effort to stay in touch beyond just, like, running into each other at conferences.Link

LubaWhat conferences do you guys go to?Link

GrantOh, you know, there's a bunch of secret ones we can't talk about. No, no. I don't know. I think one of the nicest ones, there's one called Open Sauce that William Osman has, like, started. Like, VidCon still exists, but I think, like...Link

LubaVidCon has changed.Link

GrantIt's changed, right? Right.Link

LubaI'm surprised you even went to it.Link

GrantI went to it early on. It was great. The first year I went, I was like... I think the first time...Link

LubaIt was probably when the Green brothers were still running it, right?Link

GrantYeah, yeah. And, like, I love the Green brothers, right? And so my first time...Link

LubaThe vibe was very different. It's very... yeah, entertainment.Link

GrantI don't think I'd ever go again. But there are, like, things like that that have kind of emerged, much as the Green brothers started it because they had a community and they wanted to get other creators like that together. Like, I don't know, maybe one day I'll, like, run my own conference or something, just because, like, there's clearly value there. Yeah. I mean, you and I were in...Link

LubaI need to know these secret conferences.Link

GrantI'm curious what I would call it. It's fun, but, like, I could see something where I would like to bring together, like, the math academics who I try to stay in touch with, with, like, the creator community. I think having a shared space for them would be great. Because there's a lot of academics who will pitch me on, like, you should make a video about X. I'm like, you're not wrong. I'm not going to prioritize it, but that would be a great video, right? And, like, pairing that together with up-and-coming creators, that would be kind of fun.Link

LubaYeah. So on that point, how much has your ego been roped into your channel over the years? Because, again, it's been... yeah. So how do you select videos? Do you ever select videos because, you know, you're good at something? Do you ever shy away from videos because you don't think you'd be good enough? Or because, you know, your channel is so big and there is a certain level of expectation, you're like, I can only put out things of a certain bar, and as a result, that makes you shy away from different topics? And just generally, you know, the relationship with seeing yourself through a lens of professional success, and continuing to be working on the craft and having a beginner's mindset.Link

GrantI mean, I probably won't start to make a video unless I have a clear enough vision of how I would make it and that it would be good. I might start exploring a topic, like, having it on the list, like, hmm, it would be valuable to cover. Like, Transformers was something that, since, like, I don't know, 2020 or 2021, it was clear, like, this would be a really good thing to make a video on. But it didn't feel like I, I don't know, just, like, had a clear conception in my mind of, like, how I would do it or what it would be. I probably made it in, like, 2024 or something. It was, like, pretty long into, you know, after, like, GPT had existed. And, like I said, there was an incentive to spend more mulling time on that than other things. And eventually it bubbled up to say, okay, I'll do this.Link

So definitely there's a lot of things I don't cover because I simply don't have time, or I just don't have a vision of, like, what would I be making, where, at the granular level of, like, motivation by motivation, or idea by idea, like, what am I bringing to the table? Or even just, what is the core visual, right?Link

I think there are some topics where I want the audience to think, wow, that's so clever. Not motivating it because this is going to touch your life in the world. It's just really pretty. It's just really nice to, like, see why this thing is true. Like, a thing that I have a bunch of visuals for, because I was, like, giving a talk on it, and I'll, like, turn it into a video at some point, is... I don't know how I'll motivate this, right? This is maybe one of the impediments. But it's very pretty once you wrap your mind around it. There's a formula for the volume of higher-dimensional spheres, which, okay, so I need to work on the motivation for it, but it's really pretty. It's, like, the prettiest formula that...Link

LubaWow. Tell me more. What makes this formula pretty?Link

GrantOkay, so when you're in school, you learn, like, the area of a circle is pi times its radius squared. You might learn that the volume of a sphere is 4/3 pi times its radius cubed. And those are kind of the only two examples that you can see, because, like, two dimensions and three dimensions are the ones that we play with. You probably don't learn that the volume of a four-dimensional hypersphere is pi halves times its radius... sorry, pi squared halves times its radius to the fourth. So it's pi squared. Now, that's weird. Like, the first two, it just had a pi. This one had a pi squared. And these seem kind of unrelated. If you tried to guess, like, is there a unifying formula? They just look different. And, like, if there was, maybe it would be ugly.Link

There's just a single formula that describes the volumes of all these higher-dimensional spheres, which is very clean. It's very pretty. And it also causes you to ask questions about, what should the factorial of one half be? Like, what's one half factorial? And you find yourself in this narrative where, first of all, that seems like an incoherent question. And then you write what you want this formula to be, like, hmm, even though that seems like an incoherent question, I know exactly what I want it to be. And then, like, the math works out that when you extend the factorial, like, that is what it is. And, like, the universe is giving you this nice thing.Link

There's also a bunch of other nice things around it, where the formula ends up telling... I don't know how much of this you want, necessarily. But so if you just look at, like, the volume of a unit circle, so it's got a radius of one, its area is pi. The volume of a unit sphere is bigger. And that kind of feels right. Three dimensions is bigger. The volume of a unit hypersphere in four dimensions is bigger. The one in five dimensions is bigger. But then in six dimensions it's a little smaller. And then in seven it's smaller still. And then it, like, really rapidly decreases. And if you look at the volume of a 100-dimensional ball that's got a radius of one, it's, like, nothing. And you look at it like, that one feels a little bit weird. Maybe you'd think it would grow. But also, like, what does that even mean? Like, what are you supposed to make of the smallness of that number? And I feel like I have a really nice way to, like, communicate what that means.Link

LubaWhat does that mean?Link

GrantOh, no. This is the half hour...Link

LubaThis is... watch the video.Link

GrantI literally cannot explain this to you without visuals, and also without, like, ten minutes of background to build it up. But I think one can answer that question on, like, how should you think about the smallness of that number? So this is a topic. It'll be fun. I'll have fun with it. I don't know how to motivate it. It's not like you're clicking on this video because you've always wondered about the volumes of high-dimensional spheres. Some people will have, right? But, like, most people won't have. So I don't know what the right pitch on it is. So there's topics like that that are always, like, on the mind. It feels very pretty. I know that once someone is into the narrative...Link

LubaThey will get it.Link

GrantThey'll have a good time, I can promise. Like, once you're on the ride with me, I can give you a good time, even if I'm not sure how to bring you on that ride. So that one, I know what I would make. I've even made a lot of visuals. So, like, I will make it at some point, but it's just a question of hook.Link

There's other things where the hook is very obvious. Like reinforcement learning, the hook is pretty obvious. Not entirely sure what I would make that, like, feels compelling. But, like, it's worth that being in the mulling time. Like, it's worth me spending mulling time on saying, like, hey, is there something compelling that I could do to, like, visualize certain formulas around reinforcement learning? I don't know what the answer is, but, like, the hook is obvious. The follow-through is not. For those spheres, the follow-through is obvious. The hook is not.Link

LubaYeah. Have you always seen math as beautiful?Link

GrantOh yeah, probably. I mean, I've just loved it since I was very little. Yeah.Link

LubaHow would you define the beauty that you see in math? Like, what does that feel like? What does that mean?Link

GrantThere's a specific emotion I really like, and like to try to instill into the audience. When you have a thing that feels hard, you feel like you understand the question, but you're like, I have no idea what the answer is going to be. Maybe it feels like it's going to be a bunch of calculation, or maybe it feels like you don't even know what calculation you would do. In general, it just feels hard. But then the right way of seeing it, you, like, shift your perspective in some way, and, like, the puzzle pieces just fall together. That is a specific feeling.Link

It's in the same way that in music there's a specific feeling that comes from having dissonance followed by some kind of harmony. Like, you have a tritone followed by a fifth, and there's, like, a very specific emotion that, like, brings out of your heart. I think what that's doing, math does kind of at this logical level. And it's something kind of like that tension and release. The tension that's like a tritone is coming from it feeling like this is going to be hard to calculate. And then the release that's like a perfect fifth comes from, like, oh, actually, if you see it this way... I love that. And I think other people do. And I think you can do a good job, like, giving that.Link

There's also certain things where they're surprises, where there's a truth, and you're like, that can't be. That can't be. Like, how is that the case? And so a lot of content on the channel is centered around, like, pi showing up in unexpected places. And some of my favorite videos are around that. Because, I mean, I'll never make a video better than this one, where there's, like, two colliding blocks, and when you count the number of times they collide with each other, the, like, digits in that number end up looking like pi. But, like, pi seems to be coming from nowhere. And it's a very fun topic. The surprise is fun, but also the way to show why it's true is fun.Link

And in that one, the intrigue and the, like, beauty of it, it's not so much, like, oh, this was hard... well, there's a little bit, actually. It was hard, and I have a clean perspective. But the beauty comes from, like, why is pi here? It has no business being here. And the sense that, like, there is a cleanliness to the way that the universe has, like, organized mathematical truths. It's nice. There's a certain... I can't even put words to it, but there is a very specific aesthetic to this, in the same way that other art forms have certain specific aesthetics that, like, move people in a way.Link

LubaSo for videos where you don't right away see that beauty, or for topics where you don't right away catch the beauty, do you try to force it somehow? Or do you feel somewhat, like, creatively stunted until you get there? Or do you just let it go, release, and work on a video that immediately has that sense?Link

GrantWell, so for the ones that are meant to be, like, people are curious about it and they want to understand it, I try to make it as pretty as I can, but I'm not hung up on... like, if I did a video on reinforcement learning, I'm not going to make sure, like, hey, this is going to give you that...Link

LubaYou don't think that if you really, I don't know, meditate on the topic of reinforcement learning, you're going to find the beauty of it? It's, like, either it clicks or it doesn't?Link

GrantIt would be a pleasant surprise if that had the specific emotion I'm describing here. I don't think it will. Most reinforcement learning just doesn't. Like, it's interesting to learn about, and people like the videos, but that's not the function it's serving. It's just that they want to understand how this thing works. I can make it as beautiful as I can, in terms of, the beauty should come from the clarity. And, you know, sometimes the motivation for the idea can be pretty. But that's just a different category of video. The one where, you know, if it's volumes of higher-dimensional spheres or something, that's something where it's only worth making if I can anticipate what that click would be. And if it's not there, I don't know. There's just a million topics that, like, could be... I just don't make it.Link

LubaSo I fall into the group of people who have had to do a lot of math over the years, you know, in school, then in university. And I was always good at the formulas and numbers, but I've actually never reached a feeling of seeing, quote unquote, beauty in math. Or I was never as fascinated with it. So I'm curious, does that come through a great introduction to math, or is it something that you either have or you don't? Like, was that a function of the fact that I never had a teacher who was so obsessed with math and was able to give me that feeling? Or was it just that I don't have it?Link

GrantAlmost certainly the former, I think. Yeah. If you had the right teacher... because as kids, also, you index a lot off of what adults show to be interesting. And I think leaving room for math to be discovered within someone's head, rather than, like, poured into their head, that gives room for it to actually be your own. And when it's your own, it's easier to see the beauty in it.Link

So if I go and I try to say, like, Luba, when you add up the reciprocals of square numbers, it's pi squared over six. It's like, how surprising! And you're like, oh, why are you, like, throwing this at me? Whereas if you're, like, playing... I remember, actually, I was playing around on a calculator when I was, like, little, and I was, like, adding up the one-over-factorials. I'm like, one over one, plus one over two, plus one over six, plus one over 24. And it was approaching, like, 1.71828. I'm like, that's interesting. That's just one less than the number e. And then I was like, hmm, that's weird. But what if we tried to do zero factorial? Does that make any sense? And I, like, asked the calculator, and it's, like, one. I'm like, oh, that's so pretty. So then it would actually be e. And later I learned, like, oh, actually, that's almost the definition of e.Link

And I feel like, having had that experience of just playing around and seeing, like, for a brief moment, it felt like my own fact, and it felt prettier because of that. Like, that you add up the reciprocals of factorials and you get e. Whereas if it had just been, like, Calc 2, we're doing this lesson on Taylor series, we do the Taylor expansion of e to the x, and you plug in one, it might have been like, huh, all right. But it wouldn't have felt as, like, pretty. So I think having the teacher who, like, shows their own interest, but even more important than that would be giving you, as the up-and-coming student, the space to feel like it could grow inside your own head. That's probably where this emotion is actually going to come from.Link

LubaSo is it too late? Where do I start if I want to see if I can discover beauty in math?Link

GrantWell, you start with... you go to youtube.com/3blue1brown. You pause the videos when you feel like you see what the idea is going to be, and see if you can come up with it on your own. No, I don't know. I mean, yeah, if you want to find that beauty, honestly, just, like, play. I think if that's what you want, you can take a topic that you want to learn about, maybe with some evidence that other people have mentioned that it's beautiful. Linear algebra can be beautiful, right? And so you say, that's also useful, so let me try to learn that. However you like to learn things, watch videos, chat with an LLM, read lectures, have a tutor, like, whatever your method is, but just give yourself the space to say, my goal right now is not to learn this as quickly as I can.Link

If you're going at it for aesthetic reasons, then whenever there's a fact that gives you a little hint that, like, maybe there's something interesting there, pause. Don't let someone else spoil it for you. And just, like, scribble a bunch in your notebook to see if you can, like, get to terms with it in your own head. You're pretty likely to find some beauty there. And you might find beauty in facts that are kind of banal.Link

Like, I'll get people writing to me all the time where, you know, it's, like, a student: you should make a video about such-and-such, because, like, it's so pretty. And really it's that they had this experience of, like, rediscovering a little thing for themselves. I'm like, that's amazing. I'm not going to make a video on it. But, like, that's amazing that you had this experience. And you can see in the way that they're writing about it that, like, it was their own. And they could have read about it somewhere. They could have had, like, an LLM tell them about it. But the fact that they had, like, found it on their own is why they were so inspired to, like, dig up the contact information for me and, like, reach out and try to pitch it. And, like, you can give yourself that experience if you don't feel rushed.Link

LubaSo since you're bringing up LLMs, how do you think education will change? And how are you thinking about educating your own son, where, you know, an LLM can just feed you all the information?Link

GrantWell, the fundamental problem with education has never been one of the medium of explanation. So when the motion picture first came out, Thomas Edison has these quotes about, like, the textbook will be obsolete because we have motion pictures. When radio came out, there were these radio universities, which pitched that, like, universities are going to be dead, because what if you have the best lecture in the world reaching a million ears? Like, why would you ever go to a normal college? And you would, like, write in your homework by mail. It was very interesting. They had TV universities in the 50s. You had, like, all these dot-com education startups in the 90s. You had, like, the MOOCs in the 2010s.Link

I do think LLMs are different in that, like, they are better than those, right? But, like, I don't know, MOOCs were better than radio universities also. Like, they are better. But the fundamental issue comes down to, do kids want to learn? And so how will it make a difference? I think for those who want to learn, it's a huge unlock, right? I'm sure you use them all the time to, like, learn stuff, and you can, like, chat and all that. And so that's big. It's not, like, revolutionary in the sense that, like, now we've solved education, because it's just not the problem. Maybe there's creative ways to use it for motivation.Link

There's a... this is, like, half joke, but half conversation starter that I'll, like, tell if people want to chat about, like, solutions to education, where I actually know the solution to education, and it has nothing to do with, like...Link

LubaWhat's the solution to education?Link

GrantSo I'll start with the caveat, which is that it is neither scalable nor ethical.Link

LubaSo those are great, great startups.Link

GrantSo, aside from that, this is the solution. We're going to focus on high school for right now, just because this maybe gets weird if it's too young. But you hire actors, roughly the same number of actors as there are students, preferably attractive actors, to, like, be in the school, right? And each one of them has a mark. It's one of the actual students. So you've got your actors, and they've got their mark. And they basically take the topics that you want your mark to learn about. Like, maybe if they're struggling in English, then they go and they either befriend or they, like, flirt, depending on the, like, you know, sexual interests of everybody involved. But they charismatically engage at a social level with their mark. And then they just show an interest in the thing that you want the mark to learn about. If they're struggling in English, they just show that they're really passionate about, like, reading *Moby Dick* or something. And they try to, like, get their mark to read it with them, at the social level. If they're struggling with math, they come and they do the thing I'm doing now, that's like, no, it really can be beautiful if you, like, slow down, and, like, let me show you this thing, right? And they do that with their mark. Yeah, that's the way, if you want that batch of high school students to just, like, just do it.Link

LubaSo basically incentivize them by sexual attraction, and that attraction being interested in a specific subject?Link

GrantNo, it doesn't have to be sexual. That just makes the thought experiment more fun, to think of it as flirting. But the point of it is to think: the problem is not explanation, it's motivation. The most powerful form of motivation is social. And then the most powerful form of social motivation comes from your peers, not from others.Link

Like, if you start with all of that, on the one hand you could say, like, why are you jabbering about this? This is all just, like, a non sequitur when we want to talk about how to actually change education. But I do think, if in your mind the platonic version of perfect education, rather than thinking of, like, young Spock inside a little hemisphere that's, like, asking him questions about math that are, like, perfectly tailored to him, you know, the AI agent that's been, like, really perfectly tailored to that need... rather than thinking of that as being the platonic ideal of what solves it, if you think of air-dropping your actors in and each one having their mark, like, that's the platonic ideal, I think it shifts how you think about it.Link

For example, you realize the value of a teacher is not insofar as they are the explainer, or the best explainer. In fact, they should probably spend less of their time explaining and lean on, like, internet resources to do the explanation. The value of the teacher is...Link

LubaTo motivate.Link

GrantTo be a social part of the student's life that motivates them. There's so many mathematicians I've talked to who, I say, how did you get into math? And they say, well, there's this one teacher who, like, pulled me aside and said, you're really good at this. A small comment like that actually has a huge influence on the student.Link

Or if I'm a content creator, I'm like, what makes this more impactful to the student? On the one hand, okay, I'm making the content, so my job is to make the good explanation that other teachers can use, because, like, you need the explanations somewhere. So that's, like, maybe job number one. But on the other hand, the influence that's actually going to make a difference is if I can play some form of social role in their life. Now, I kind of can't do that through a screen from so far away. But I can maybe make an effort to try to be engaging, or show my own interest. Where the lasting impact is not going to come from, did I really clearly explain why the volume of a four-dimensional sphere is what it is? You don't even care. The real interest is going to come from, like, did I make you care about that, right? And okay, I'm not, you know, the peer who's got the greatest social connection to them. But if I think of that as being the goal, and saying, how can I approximate that, even though I'm so far away, I am not their peer, I'm not even there in their life, that's going to change the way that I explain it.Link

So when you say, how will LLMs change education? I mean, it gives a stronger crutch to stand on for the explanation side. It means that that's even more solved than it already was with textbooks and with good videos and with MOOCs. But, you know, just getting that from 90% to 99% isn't that significant in the grander scheme. So maybe it starts to reshape how teachers think about what their role should be. Maybe it starts to reframe, like, content creators thinking of what are the aspects of explanation that they're serving now, as opposed to LLMs. But it's not a trivial game changer. And if it is a game changer, it's going to be because of some very creative thing that someone does to solve the motivation problem.Link

LubaWould you say that interests are completely motivation-driven, or is there still some sort of natural inclination to certain subjects? The reason why I ask about that is because now there is a bunch of alternative schools, Alpha School being one of them, and there are a lot of derivatives that kind of follow the same principle. And it seems to me that pretty early on, they start having the kid focus on the subjects that they're specifically interested in. And I wonder if there is a certain age where, if it's too young, it could be too detrimental to have them focus on their natural inclination. And if there is, like, an optimal age until when you can try motivating them to be interested in subjects outside of their personal inclinations, and then you have them focus. Because I worry that maybe they're focusing kids too young, before they hit that optimal age.Link

GrantThat seems like a valid worry. It's very arbitrary what a kid likes early on. And so you definitely, at least my philosophy is, you're going to always want to have an influx of things that they're not yet interested in, but maybe you're just trying to get them exposed. Like, if they show a strong proficiency for math, great. Yeah, let them run with that. But also, like, hey, let's go read a novel together, right? Or let's go take a dance class. Certainly, the younger you are, you wouldn't want to pigeonhole too much there.Link

I think where you can maybe do it is... this depends on how personalized things can be. If you're doing, like, a one-on-one tutoring situation with someone, like, if I'm tutoring, like, a young six-year-old and I want them to love math, it's helpful if I know what they're already interested in and I can bring that in. Like, I have a six-year-old niece who really likes coloring. I want her to be in love with math. And so in the math lessons we'll do together, I use color, right? I make sure that, like, color plays a meaningful role in that. And so it's like you can leverage their interest to try to get there. But I think it would be wrong to pigeonhole and be like, you will be an artist, and, like, all of your time shall be spent on, like, honing that craft. It's just too early.Link

LubaYeah, that makes sense. I want to talk briefly about success. How do you see success right now? What's your definition of success?Link

GrantI don't know if I have one. I feel like I would be making up an answer while I'm, like...Link

LubaHave your parents not instilled some sort of vision of success?Link

GrantThey were pretty great about, like... yeah, they were great about not being like, hey, here's what success looks like, and we really hope you achieve it. I mean, there's the obvious stuff.Link

LubaThat's amazing. Yeah. What about, like, being in college and being around people who all have some sort of vision for what they should do?Link

GrantI mean, implicitly, there's definitely, at Stanford, a sense that, like, you want to leave a footprint on the world, right? And so maybe, for better or for worse, it would feel, I don't know... like, if people were saying, what are you doing after graduation? And your answer was, like, I'm going to go meditate forever or something, maybe they'd be like, oh, that's kind of interesting. But there's maybe kind of an implicit sense that, like, it really should, like, touch the world.Link

I don't know if it was as strongly hinged on... maybe everyone cares about financial success, whether they want to or not. I never really felt like, oh, it really matters a lot that, you know, my financial success is comparable to Stanford peers. I mean, that's one where I think, when you step back, there are some basic needs. You just want to make sure that, like, day by day, you're living happily, right? And so there's certain thresholds there. It's important to be healthy, right? I think whatever notion of success you have in life, it's going to be hard to be there if you're just not healthy. So in that sense, like, whatever's required there, physically, mentally, otherwise, that should be prioritized. There's a base level of financial success to, like, not be stressed about it. And above a certain threshold, I think it doesn't actually matter that much. But, like, it's very real: below a certain threshold, it's going to eat into your life in a certain way.Link

I mean, you referenced, like, the child. And I think success kind of centering on, does he... like, you start to think very generationally. Like, does he have a happy life 20 years from now? Step back. What's required for that to happen? That's maybe... yeah. Like I said, I would just be making up an answer. You're going to have, like, the classic stuff on, like, you know, just make sure the basic needs are met. Make sure what you're doing feels fulfilling, like improving people's lives in a positive way. There is not a number where, like, that number has to increase, and, like, we can measure it and talk about it and it gets over a bar.Link

Someone could probably analyze my life and maybe, like, backfill and be like, ah, you might not think that this was your metric of success, but actually you seem to really care about, like, watch time on YouTube or something like that. There's probably things that, like, I actually do care about, where my actions would speak to that, in a way that, like, while I'm being interviewed on a podcast, I'm not going to be like, oh, this is really what I, you know, care about.Link

LubaBut it's interesting, because your, quote unquote, definition, or lack thereof, of success is still grounded in first principles. Like, do I have enough money to not be stressed out? Am I being fulfilled? It kind of goes back to that groundedness. The other day with friends, we were talking about happiness versus meaning versus fulfillment. And you mentioned, oh, are you living a happy life? Do you think it's more about happiness, or is it about being fulfilled and finding meaning and purpose in your life and work?Link

GrantI think fulfillment matters more than happiness. I do think happiness is great. It's easier to achieve happiness. Like, I don't know, play music, exercise, have a child, and, like, great, you got your happiness. Like, simple. It's very simple. It's actually not, like... again, assuming all the needs are met, right? There's not stresses in life. It's like, you can generate happiness, maybe in the sense of, like, a dopamine boost, right?Link

Fulfillment, you know, that probably is the thing that, if you're going to sit back and strategize how you want to spend your time, because that one matters, but it's also harder, maybe that's what you should be thinking about. You can't just... actually, you know, the child is really great. You can just have a child. Just have a child, because if it goes well, then you'll also get the fulfillment. But it's easy for it to not go well. And so maybe you don't want to hinge on that. But, you know, there's certainly capacity for joy, easily, there.Link

Of those three, how do you think about it? When you think about the life that you want to lead, is there one that is more top of mind? Is there, like, a balance that you find? Is that even the right framework for how you think about things?Link

LubaIn terms of happiness, fulfillment, and what success means exactly? I'd say that for me, I've definitely had, over the years, ideas of what I wanted to do and who I want to be. And actually, speaking of... I think you were already there when we were talking about what has changed this year. And this year, I made a decision to step away from my startup and basically embark on a journey of uncertainty. And it was letting go of a lot of ideas of what success and what meaning and what work I wanted to do, given my younger version of self. So I would say that I kind of fell prey to the traditional ideas of success. Or, like, what is the vision that you have for yourself in five, ten, 15 years?Link

But what I'm finding is that the older I become, the more I realize that life changes, priorities change. And actually the most important thing is that groundedness that I've been describing in you yourself. It's important to feel that you're finding nourishment in the things that you do, that you are feeling content with the community that you built for yourself. For me personally, it's really important to feel that I'm growing, and growing into a version of myself that I think I could become. So if, you know, in the world you had all these different parallel versions of yourself, and there was one most optimal one that had all the traits that fulfilled your given potential... Or maybe you look up to a certain Rolodex of people that have certain traits, and you want to achieve that version of yourself. So, are you really on the path to get there or not? I'd say that's how I define meaning and fulfillment now. But again, if you were to ask my younger self, I would definitely give you, like, a list of ideas that define success.Link

GrantHow do you balance thinking about growth and, like, value to yourself, versus how much of fulfillment comes from what you're delivering to other people?Link

LubaYeah, that's a great question. I've always been of the thought that as long as you're focused on growth for yourself, the meaning to other people will naturally come. And it would be, like, a secondary derivative of the...Link

GrantI'm not sure that's true. Or at the very least... I'm curious if you disagree. I feel like a lot of young people, especially, like, in college or just graduating college, their whole life has been centered on growth, their own individual growth, right? And I think it's very easy for that to have an inertia, where the way that they choose what to work on is centered around their own growth. In a way that, on the one hand, like, you're right, you gain more expertise, and that expertise you can then use in the world. And maybe there's enough other forcing functions in the world, like financial ones and otherwise, that, like, they kind of don't grow in ways that don't also touch the world. But a place where I do think there's maybe a risk is, like, in academia. If someone is just focused on, like, hey, what's interesting to me? Do I feel like I'm learning? They might pursue things that seem hard but tractable to them, as opposed to pursuing things where their expertise actually unlocks things for, like, others in the world.Link

LubaBut I'm really curious if this is just the natural evolution that happens, where we start with the pursuit of our own interests, and then the feedback of the outside world shifts that pursuit towards wanting to help and be valuable to others. Because, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm kind of under the impression that you started making math videos because you thought they were really fun, and math was something that you were drawn to and found beauty in. So it was very self-driven in a lot of ways. And then at the beginning of the conversation, we talked about how, instead of focusing on, am I making a novel, you know, proof, or something novel in my videos or in the topics that I pick, now you're a lot more drawn to what is going to be valuable to your students and to your audience. So it has been kind of a natural arc and progression that happened to you.Link

And in my life, with people that I've surrounded myself with, or observed, I've seen a similar thing happen. Some people are a lot more deliberate in picking a thing that's valuable to society, because they're very over-indexed on impact. But a lot of people are just drawn to the things that they're good at, curious about, interested in, and then the world gives them feedback.Link

GrantThat might happen. And so maybe it's a non-issue, because there's enough incentives towards making people do things that will touch others...Link

LubaThat are valuable.Link

GrantYeah, that you don't need...Link

LubaBut you mentioned academia specifically, and I guess in academia you pick a thesis, your research, and you're kind of stuck working on it for years and years.Link

GrantYeah. I mean, you do have a kind of currency, which is citations. And so in some sense that is your connection to, does this matter to other people? Like, are they going to cite it? So it's not completely disconnected, right? How strong is that source of feedback for what the world wants, versus, like, economic-based ones that people face in, like, the for-profit world? It's probably weaker. My worry with that one is that it's indirect, because it's value delivered to other academics for their research. And so, following that chain down, at what point do you make sure that the intellectual brain cycles spent by this person really do end up, like, touching the world in a meaningful way? It's not that the incentives aren't there, because they are, through this currency of citation, and eventually that, like, chains down towards where is this research coming from, who's funding it, and all that.Link

I wonder whether people would more judiciously spend their youthful, energetic years if, rather than waiting for, like, their first decade after college to, like, slowly feel those incentives redirect their personal sense of fulfillment away from personal growth per se, or personal growth as an end in and of itself, and instead towards others... like, rather than relying on the winds of economic incentive, or the winds of, like, citation incentive, to push them that way, it's like, no, sit down, think about what you actually want to do here, and discover that earlier rather than later. Like, would I have started making more useful videos earlier? Probably. Like, I don't know if you would lead your life any differently if you could transport your current value system onto your post-college self. It's hard to imagine, though, that you wouldn't have more expeditiously gotten to the goals that you want to get to if you could have that value system.Link

So I think I have a worry about personal growth being a goal in and of itself, just because there's such strong inertia for that. I don't know. This was the topic of that commencement address I was referencing earlier, because I was thinking, like, back when I was a graduate, what advice would I have benefited from? And I think it's something of this form, where there really is this self-identity that we imbue into students, where success depends on how good they are in the, like, very individualistic sense, right? We try not to. We try to have collaborative projects, or, like, internships, or things like that. But it's really baked in that, like, it's dependent on individualistic success. And I just suspect that having a little bit of a harder hammer that, like, knocks you out of that value system and into a more others-focused one, earlier on rather than later, maybe that could redirect a lot of very talented brain cycles spent by, like, young 20-somethings deciding where they get their fulfillment from.Link

And it's going to involve personal growth, because whatever you want to do, you have to, like, learn in order to do that. But learning with an others-focused end in mind, as opposed to learning with... A good litmus test for this is, if you, like, find some smart person who's like, I've found a little bit of financial freedom, and you're like, what do you do with your free time? And if they're like, oh, I've, like, hired a physics tutor so that I can, like, understand physics better, like, I'm getting really good at chess... I think that is a sign of the kind of inertia that I'm talking about, that I'm afraid of. And I have a suspicion that this is, like, a real phenomenon.Link

LubaNo, I think it is actually a real concern, because your focus on yourself then impacts so many other things in your life, unless you've learned otherwise. Just how you treat people, how you protect your time, not to be even a social part of society if that's inconvenient to your day-to-day goals in life. And it isolates people. So I do think you have a valid point there. Maybe this sounds too arrogant, but I have a feeling I've, like, you know, got those more collectivist values instilled in my childhood. And I feel like I don't fall prey to what I just said because of that.Link

GrantI think you're a good example here.Link

LubaYeah, but I do think it's a real problem. And I do sometimes think about, you know, if I were to focus my personal goals on the impact more deliberately, what would that look like? Right this moment, I'm in this transition period where I'm kind of giving myself time to figure out what is it exactly that I am drawn to, and how I want to make that impact, if that was the goal. Because I just stepped away from the startup journey, where that was very much impact-focused. So it's almost like swinging the other way to find some sort of middle ground. But I'm not putting a lot of pressure on myself, being like, okay, I have to figure out how this is going to be, like, super, super useful to society immediately, because I am secretly hoping that it's going to be that secondary effect that I was talking about.Link

GrantThat's fair. Yeah. And also, you know, a cynic could be like, hang on, weren't you just talking half an hour ago about how you want to change things such that you spend more of your own time learning rather than, like, making things? So I definitely feel that.Link

LubaBut I'm curious, if you were to run this thought experiment on yourself, if you instilled the values that you have now into your younger self, what do you think the arc would have been like? Would a lot of things have changed? A part of me is thinking that, okay, you would have been making more, quote unquote, useful videos right off the get-go. But maybe a part of you needed to fulfill that desire to go off on your own and focus on novelty. So either way, you would, like, rebel and do that. So in the arc of things, the output would have been maybe similar. But that's just my...Link

GrantYeah. Counterfactuals are so hard, right? Because you change one thing, and it's hard to know what else doesn't change. It's also hard to know where a form of success came from. On the topic of YouTube channels, I feel like there are certainly channels where I watch them, I really like them, there's aspects of it that I don't like. And I'm like, I think the creator is doing that because they think that that's why their videos work. Actually, their videos work in spite of that annoying thing that they're doing, but they have no idea. Because this is like reinforcement learning. It's actually hard to pin down what the reason for, like, getting the good score was. All you know is, like, all the actions taken turned out well. And you'll see this, like, successful YouTube channel has some annoying thing about it, but, like, it works because of some other thing. But they, like, lean into that annoying part, because, well, something was working, and maybe they think that was it.Link

LubaI think actually creators are a really good example of that. Because ten years ago, or 15 years ago, let's say, when podcasts weren't as big as they are now, you could have argued that a lot of, you know, useful, quote unquote, units of society could have been going off doing something more valuable for society than starting a podcast. But now a lot of the ones who persevered and did a great job are huge, and actually are providing value to society by interviewing people with interesting perspectives, educating audiences, or even pushing certain subjects forward. And then now you're like, oh wow, you know, you're so good at this. Of course you're doing this. This is very valuable to everyone around you. But, like, ten years ago, you could have argued otherwise.Link

GrantYeah.Link

LubaAnd I think there's a lot of examples outside of creators, where someone's tinkering on something that they're so passionate about, and maybe it is very niche. And then in hindsight, like, ten years from that point, looking back, they're like, oh, of course. You know, now I've provided so much value to people around me because I decided to pursue that very niche thing that everyone else thought was useless.Link

GrantYeah, yeah. You're right that there's value there. Yeah, it's hard to think about, on that balance of, or would more useful hours be spent not consuming these products?Link

LubaHow are you thinking about it as a parent?Link

GrantI guess there's a couple different... in which specific respect?Link

LubaLike, in instilling the idea of picking something that's valuable, like being others-first versus self-first, in your child.Link

GrantNo, it's a good question, I think. I mean, it is very hard for kids in general to not be self-centered, and, like, think about themselves as the protagonist of their own story. It can take until... some people never get over that. But, like, for a lot of people, it's until their, like, teenage years.Link

LubaMaybe this is why a lot of people now don't get over that, because we've been so over-indexed on self.Link

GrantBut in the same way that I think there's lots of ways you can think about a curriculum for, like, learning how to read, or, like, learning math, or things like that, I suspect that you can do something similar in thinking about having empathy, or, like, being others-focused. Talk to me in five years. But I think it is very important to go through... so there's different phases. There's, like, as you're a very little one, right? Let's take, like, two through five, right? Like, literally being aware that, like, other people have stuff going on in their own heads, and, like, letting some of your brain cycles be spent, like, understanding what's going on in there. I think that is hard for that age. I think it's possible. And I think it's a fun thought experiment to think, how do you even get them to do that? And stories maybe seem like the best way. Just really embracing stories, maybe reflecting on what happens in a day, maybe in a moment, like, encouraging them, like, hey, what do you think she's thinking right now? Like, little things like that. I intend to spend as much time thinking about, like, making a child think about others as, like, teaching how to read or teaching math. That's right up there.Link

Then in the phase of, like, you know, five through ten, I think you have the capacity where it's not just knowing that someone else has their own personal experience that is as vivid to them as yours is to you. But also you could think, like, what can I do to make their life better, right? Like, being other-centered in that way, where you're recognizing it's not just that they are the protagonist, but you can play a role in their story and do something for them. Again, I'll have clearer thoughts later on as that comes. But that is the thing I intend to value.Link

I think it's not written about with the same sort of, like, academic focus. Often we think of, there's educational stuff, like capital-E Education. It's, like, your ABCs, one, two, three, and whatnot. And then there's things that are more like social norms that we don't think of in the same way. But I wonder if actually we should blend them a little bit more. And the way that you learn math and reading should be in this very, like, social-norm kind of way. And the way you learn social norms should be in this very, like, structured... no, let's actually think about what you need to know in order to get to this level and that level and such. Like, what does it look like to empathize at a five-year-old level? Or what does it look like to empathize at a ten-year-old level? And, like, what's the curriculum that gets there? Talk to me in five years. But that's a long-winded way of saying, like, I think it's important to think about, and I have every intention of doing that.Link

LubaI want to be mindful of our time, so I'm gonna wrap up.Link

GrantOkay.Link

LubaI'm just going to ask you a few questions for our lightning round.Link

GrantAll right. I'll keep them short.Link

LubaWhat do you hope the 80-year-old version of you will be proud of?Link

GrantI mean, since we're focused on the math and math channel stuff, I think having instilled a meaningful number of people with, like, genuine intuitions for just how math works, right? That's a very broad sentence, but something like that. Knowing that there are people who understand it better than they otherwise would have, and the depth with which they do is meaningful, and the number of people who have been touched that way is meaningful. Hopefully something like that. And the range is not just from the channel, but also, like, in personal life, right? Like, the people I tutor or something.Link

LubaOh, you still tutor people?Link

GrantThese days it's just my nieces.Link

LubaAnd that's people.Link

GrantIt is people. Yeah, it's a very different kind of tutoring. But I really hope to have an impact there. And I intend to do more teaching as I free up my own time. Yeah.Link

LubaYour life philosophy in one sentence.Link

GrantThis is not very lightning-ish. Life philosophy?Link

LubaIn one sentence.Link

GrantMy God. Lightning round questions. I know this is not the answer you want. I don't have one. It's okay not to have one.Link

LubaOkay.Link

GrantI think it's okay not to have... That's my life philosophy. It's okay not to have, like, a single guiding philosophy.Link

LubaWait. That's great, I love it.Link

GrantOkay, we'll run with it.Link

LubaThe best advice you've ever received.Link

GrantAction precedes motivation.Link

LubaOh, I actually love that. This is one of my lessons for 2026. Or rather, it's one of my lessons from 2025 and a guiding principle for 2026: that action precedes clarity. Because I spent a lot of time, especially post-startup, being like, okay, you know, let's overanalyze what I could be doing. And what I realized is that the most important thing is to always be in motion, in movement, and action will create clarity. And then ten years from now, I'll be like, well, of course, all these dots connect so perfectly. Hopefully.Link

What's a trait that you have that you're genuinely grateful for?Link

GrantI think calm. But I think, like, emotional regulation. It's easy to think that, like, oh, you have control over yourself. But I think over the years I've come to understand that actually there's just a lot of baked-in disposition. And it's not a given that, like, when things are stressful... oh, okay, I can't say I handle stress, like, gracefully in all circumstances. I maybe have a tendency to, like, fall under paralysis. But what I don't fall prey to is, like, getting heated. And I think that's just baked-in disposition.Link

LubaI think so. I'm very similar. I'm very emotionally steady, and more or less the same. I don't have a lot of, like, super, super high highs or super low lows. And actually, with stress, I have a very calm disposition. I don't really get heated, which I think is... we're really lucky to have that.Link

GrantYeah, yeah.Link

LubaAnd last but not least, what are you excited to learn or explore next?Link

GrantYeah. I think, well, I mean, just the team growth aspect. So, like, learning to run a small team effectively, to, like, carry out visions I have. I don't have any illusions about already being skilled at that. I'm well aware that that involves practice and learning. I have philosophies on how I think I can do it well. I'm excited to see how those will be corrected when faced against reality.Link

LubaAwesome. I'm excited for you. Grant, thank you so much for your time.Link

GrantThanks.Link