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Creator Generation brings you behind the scenes of the creator economy, featuring top YouTubers and experts who share the strategies, lessons, and stories behind building successful channels, growing incredible businesses, and driving the world’s biggest online video successes.
Hey. I'm Fred. And I'm Ant. And this is Creator Generation.
Ant:Creator Generation of hype.
Fred:Welcome back, everybody. Season four, Ant. How do you feel?
Ant:Pretty excited, Fred. The we've been teasing it for a long time. Creator Generation is back. It's back in your ear holes, and we're here for you, the creators.
Fred:That's right. We are here for you. And look, this season, we're gonna shift focus a little bit. We're mainly gonna be covering what it is to build a real business as a creator, not just the audience, not just chasing trends, actually building something sustainable with revenue, systems, and strategy behind it. Are you excited, Ant?
Fred:Are you excited for this next season?
Ant:Not at all.
Ant:But I am excited about how the Creator Economy has really finally caught up with what we've been banging on about for years that creators are generating epic value with their reach and influence. And now finally, creators are building businesses that that last and that transcends their moment of influence. So I'm bloody excited to dig into it this season. So let's go.
Fred:Let's get into it. Our next guest is a bit of a crowd favorite. Backed by popular demand, Mario Yos has spent the last few years working at the highest levels of the creator economy. He's been a strategist for MrBeast, and most recently, a business adviser of mega creators, the Stokes twins, have over a 140,000,000 subs. We asked them to come in and have a chat about how these large creators operate and what it takes to build that next generation of media company.
Fred:Mario, welcome.
Mario:Hello. Life viewers.
Fred:Alright. Cool. So, Mario, you've operated at the highest levels of the creator economy, working with some of the biggest creators in the world, not just as a content strategist, but as an adviser to their business. Obviously, you didn't start as an adviser to the business, but I'd love to know how did it go from sort of where you started to where you are right now?
Mario:I'm gonna keep this story relatively short because there's a lot of events that happened along the way, but I'm I'm gonna try to keep it to the highlight moments. So I'm going to start with just being a content strategist. When I entered this industry, I was fortunate enough to instantly work with a lot of big profiles. So I was a lot of exposed to their businesses. And I mean, even in my first year already, I started working for the MrBeast team, which at that point was already heading towards becoming the biggest team.
Mario:So getting exposed to all of that knowledge about how businesses operate, you know, gets you some insights in those things. And those insights are valuable to other people, You know? And a lot of those insights, by the way, are also just created because I became friends with the account and I became friends like, I became I I really love talking to people. Maybe a little too much sometimes. But it's it's really good to talk because you get to know things from people.
Mario:You get to know how things flow and stuff. So after I left the Beast team, I started consulting with a lot of creators. This was like in 2023, I stopped working and I, at some point, I was dealing with like 10 to 15 clients. I would come in. Initially they ask you for advice on how to grow their content because I'm a content strategist.
Mario:That's my expertise. But sometimes they run into a problem. So for example, they'll have a brand deal issue and then they'll be like, Hey, but you have experience or you know something about it. Can you give me some advice? And that can escalate.
Mario:And with one client, for example, these are the Stokes twins, it escalated so far that at some point they're like, Hey, we wanna get you more involved. So I was like, Okay, how about the CEO role? So we became the CEO at that point. And that really Now you don't just get exposed to knowledge. Now you really have to work on the knowledge and all kind of stuff.
Mario:And yeah, at this point I've transitioned away again because I was CEO from another company as well. It was too crazy. But now as well, a lot of creators, they come to me for advice and they come to me for content first. And then one month online, they're like, hey. He knows more.
Mario:Maybe I ask him more questions. So that's in a nutshell pretty much how we how we go on from content strategy to being exposed to now, you know, helping others a little bit more with that side of things.
Fred:Yeah. Look. And look. You mentioned starting with MrBeast. Obviously, you went from working in, I guess, gaming, you could say, going into content strategy and then working for Beast.
Fred:How did how did Beast find you? How did that happen? I mean, I'm sure it would be a dream for most people to work with him,
Mario:but Yeah.
Fred:How did it happen for you?
Mario:So there's a few factors. I don't know which one matters the most. But when I was a professional gamer, before all this, I was I was there you had these leaderboards, and I was number one in the entire world on on leaderboards. You had these regional leaderboards, and I was doing that. And because of that, I love aggressive networking.
Mario:I would go up to big content creators and just say, like, I'm number one. Let's play together. And people love playing with the number one. So it built me a small network of initial creators. Like even during my gaming days, I've played some tournaments with PewDiePie even, which is wild.
Mario:So these are things that people don't typically find out until, you know, very, very late. But then I told that creator what I was ambitious about. The first creator that I worked with, his name was Grubbocou. And I'm the type of person to say where he wants to be rather be like, oh, I'm gonna try to do my best. No.
Mario:No. I'm gonna be number one. I wanna be the best strategist in the entire world. You know? So that's what I said.
Mario:And I knew nothing about YouTube. So he then tells me, hey. I happened to like, he was actually he happened to be business partners with Jimmy. And he introduced me then to to a guy called Cielo. Cielo at that time would be considered the best strategist in the world.
Mario:So he was like, okay. You wanna be the best? You gotta learn from the best. So me and Cielo, by accident, I don't know, he has seen me play the game before. So he knew about like, he had some sense of who I was.
Mario:So we hit it off very well. And then he, you know, he warmed me up. He he mentored me a little bit and then Jimmy got ahold of it and Jimmy started learning about me and was like, hey, there's this Mario guy. And from one thing came the other. But if there's a lesson that I would say for people to take, because mine is like, there's these I'm not gonna tell you, you gotta first be a professional gamer.
Mario:No, it's the power of networking. If one person knows you and they really are passionate about you, many people aren't afraid to tell another person about you. I have this right now with a client. There's one client we started and not every client blows up fast, but this client did 1,000,000 views per video. Now they're at like five to 7,000,000 and that's in the span of two months.
Mario:Never had that growth that oh, actually, Stokes tons is that growth. But for the most part, I don't get growth that fast. So they're so ecstatic, and they know I'm not gonna not going to portray them or or go away from them. So they tell a lot of other people like them about me. And then bam, you get to work with them.
Mario:It's all a networking effect.
Fred:Interesting. So networking was your secret source that got to where you to get you in the door.
Mario:You wanna I'm gonna reveal a trick. Now I don't have to use the trick anymore because I've already used the trick, but this is a trick for a lot of people. On Twitter and on other social media, you have this as well. Twitter particularly as well. Somebody significant follows you, right, what you can do is if another person goes to your profile, it will say followed by and then this person's name.
Mario:So this is like the secret of networking. What I would do is I would figure out, okay, that person, who are their friends and who do they follow that are also significant? And then what I would do is I would follow them. Now because their friend follows them and they go to my profile and they see, ah, that person follows them. They are more likely to follow you.
Mario:And let's say out of like a 100 people that you follow, about 20 follow you back. Now you gotta think, now you have 21 significant people following you. Well, you know, you go now you have a whole range of people to follow. And then those people follow you. And eventually people don't even know why they follow you, but they follow you.
Mario:And that's how eventually you if if like let's say now you have like the the really the really, like, high end creators. They come to your profile, and then it says followed by a 100 people you follow. Why would they not follow you? It's like, okay. This person must be important.
Mario:So it's a it's such a stupid strategy, but it works so damn well.
Fred:That's good. I mean, everyone has a different approach and, you know, we've talked to many different creators, many different professionals, and they've all often said that they've had these interesting ways to get their foot in the door. So it makes sense.
Mario:Yeah. Yeah. And once you have the foot in the door, I mean, now as well, it's like, now I don't have to do a tactic anymore because you've built up your reputation. Now, obviously, all these people follow you, they don't know why they follow you. So then you have to deliver value to say like, hey.
Mario:Look. It made sense for you to follow. And then, you know, I start making posts on. Now now it just now I don't now it just it goes there, but the foot in the door is the hardest part. Yeah.
Mario:And sometimes you gotta do something like clever or something something that sounds so stupid on paper, but it it works. And I mean, yeah, I've I've seen them plenty of times. That's how people do that. So you
Fred:mentioned obviously working with big creators, 100,000,200 followers, not abnormal, obviously, which for you, which is which is interesting. When people see those numbers, they think that must be a truly brilliant next level creator. When you see those numbers, what do you immediately think?
Mario:Often creators come to me and they're at the I think the average creator who comes to me would be around the ten to twenty million range. Like in terms of subscribers, they have a significant following. They come to me. And here's the thing, people think they gotta figure it out. Everybody thinks like, oh, they know content strategy wise, they know everything about YouTube.
Mario:And then business wise, have everything figured out. Man, couldn't be less true. It's just what most of the time happens before people really become like a business, like a Beast business or something. It's a person who started content, they were passionate about it, they wanted to create something cool. They wanted to create something really, really good.
Mario:And they just happen to hit the mark right. That they know and they learn along the way how to make thumbnails and all kinds of stuff, they'll hire an editor and they'll build parts of their business. But the way that it's built is not with the intention to be that big. The way that it's built is like, oh, we have an issue, bandage fixed. I have another issue, bandage fixed.
Mario:So when a team like that of like, let's say 20,000,000 subscribers comes to you, not only strategy wise, they're completely lost on what to do next. They're like, okay, we're doing the same thing. Like, we're not really growing anymore. Sometimes we're declining. And my team is yeah, I got my producer.
Mario:I got we have a brand agency we work with. We have two editors. One is freelance and he goes to half of time and I got and I'm doing the camera work myself. I was like, okay. So that's a lot of times.
Mario:I would say 90% of times, that's what comes to me. So which is very typical. It's not it's not abnormal. And I think I think this is also what what actually maybe demotivates some of the smaller creators. For me, creators, anything up to 100,000 would be very, very small.
Mario:So again, this is all relative. But they often think like, oh my god, everybody's got it so figured out. No. You probably have it nearly as figured out as the big ones have. You just are doing some things wrong, and it's typically related to your content.
Mario:That's the only reason why you're not at this level yet. But in both scenarios, it is really good to have a systemized approach. So because what you're doing is when you're having this random approach to growth, you're leaving too much up to luck. And for all the people who made it to 20,000,000, there's probably like a 100,000 people who didn't make it to 20 So when you systemize at any level, what you're doing is you're just increasing the chances to get there. You're increasing the likelihood to get there.
Mario:You're also making your life easier. You don't have to deal with all of the headaches. I had a person the other day from a very big creator. So he is the right hand of big creator for the last ten years now. And he does five jobs at the same time.
Mario:And that was all because they never systemized. You know? So long story short, what I'm trying to say here is that early systemization is really, really good. Don't overdo it. But also don't expect that everybody's gotta figure it out.
Mario:Every organization in the world is wonky as hell. Everybody's trying to figure out. Everybody is scrappy. So just because you're scrappy, you shouldn't feel ashamed of them.
Fred:Interesting. So even the really big players still have a lot to do to make everything work around their creativity.
Mario:A 100%. Because most of the times a big creator is where they are, not because they perfectly systemized things from the get go. It's because they became very they were very scrappy at fixing all the problems, plugging in all the holes, and then eventually you have the ship that is doing really well, but it's still scrappy. So but at some point you have to take the decision, you know, I got my ship. I got all my holes plugged.
Mario:Maybe we cannot sail another few miles. Maybe it's time to buy a new ship or to fix the ship and get a whole new hoe, I think it's called.
Fred:Fair enough.
Mario:Fair
Fred:enough. Okay. So to that extent, what do you think that most outsiders get wrong when they see these businesses? What do you think that they when people are looking at them, they typically misunderstand about them?
Mario:From what perspective would you say?
Fred:So just suppose that you're a business owner and you look at a 200,000,000 subscriber channel and you know they're earning hundreds of thousand dollars a month. Like you said, most people think, oh, they're doing really well. Is there something that you find people often misunderstand about creators of that size?
Mario:Know, talking about money, example, I think the money, there's a lot of misunderstanding. I think a lot of people think just because you have a lot of followers, have a lot of views that you may that that you make insane amount of money, and that you have a massive staff around you. And sometimes that's true, but sometimes it's not true at all. I've I've had creator very big creators. Some of them are near broke, and some of them make a lot of money.
Mario:And that also depends, like, how is your business built? Is it built around AdSense alone, for example? Do you have other businesses? There's so much around it that I don't think a lot of people get. So a lot of people are focused on the wrong things there.
Mario:They're they're just focused on like, oh, you know, man. I I I you know, this this is the problem. There's such a wide range of things people misunderstand about creators. So I think maybe let's bring it back to the old part where it's like everything can look good on the outside, but most of the time there's so much bad on the inside. It's like when you meet a person.
Mario:Right? You you they smile. They're like, hey. This is me, and it looks all great. You don't know behind the scenes what's going on.
Mario:That's the same with
Fred:a creator. Yeah. Great analogy. There is a lot of noise at the moment in the creator economy, a lot of attention, especially with the success of, you know, creators making tremendous films that are being seen by millions of peoples. They're reinventing the model that Hollywood use.
Fred:Hundreds of millions of followers, billions of dollars are flooding into the space. Everyone kind of wants in, but who is actually making the money and who's building audiences? Is it is it a subgroup of creators who's doing really well, or is it like generally spread across the board? Where do you tend to see it?
Mario:You know, I think if we're talking so we can look from two perspectives. Look at the perspective from the platforms. Ultimately, they're the ones winning. Platforms like YouTube, I mean, you've got they take 45% of the AdSense. That's where you're winning.
Mario:So the more attention goes towards YouTube, they're winning. TikTok, same thing. All those commissions, all those fees and stuff, that's where the platforms are. Ultimately, they're the ones winning. That doesn't mean that the creator cannot win simultaneously, Right?
Mario:But a lot of you know, we we often see these massive, massive creators, and we think that those are the ones winning, like the MrBeast, the Stokes twins, the, you know, the the sideband, for example. Those are the ones that people think are the ones that are winning because they have the large followings, and we we see what they can afford with their wealth. But I think there's a forgotten group that is also winning. So there's these creators that have smaller audiences, but very highly targeted audiences. So for example, I have one creator and they do roofs, roof renovations.
Mario:And it's like, you know, that's a little different than, like, your your MrBeast content. But yeah. But here's the thing. Can MrBeast sell a roof that costs you $20,000? No.
Mario:He's not gonna do that. But can these guys sell a roof that costs you $20,000 and put for example, either this is called selling leads. Like somebody gets interested in a roof. Oh, I cannot do it because I'm making content, but I know a company. Bam, you sell that lead and you make $2,000.
Mario:If you get a 100,000 views let's make it very low here. Right? A 100,000 views in each video that you're renovating a roof. How many leads do you think you're gonna get from that? It's gonna be a bunch.
Mario:You make a lot of content. People are like, I gotta fix my roof. Ah, wait a minute. I remember there's these YouTubers. They probably know the like, they're either doing it or they know the right people.
Mario:So they start getting flood with that. Let's say you have 20 people coming in every single day after a while saying like, hey, we need a new roof. Let's say not all of them are very serious or they realize, holy crap, this is expensive. Let's say half of those leads. I mean, I'm just throwing random numbers.
Mario:10 people per day. I said 2,000 commission, 20,000 per day that you're making. Average per month, what is it, thirty days or something? So 600 per month that they're making. Just not from their content.
Mario:Because their content for that same amount, that 100 video, let's talk about a 10 RPM, probably made them $1,000. So they make 20 times the amount of money as an additive just because of the business. And those, I believe, are sometimes the real winners. A lot of times, they're actually the real winners.
Fred:I think a lot of people look past that maybe because it's not as sexy, it's not as interesting. But typically, what we see is sometimes the people running the best businesses making, a lot of money and doing very well are the ones that don't necessarily have hundreds of millions of followers. They just have a really solid business behind the channel.
Mario:And that business can be monetizing. It can be as simple as monetizing your premium content, right? Like behind the scenes footage, like your Patreons, your memberships, whichever model you wanna use. And sometimes it says something like this. Sometimes also it's building a product or building an app.
Mario:There's these fitness creators and they have these fitness apps and they give you advice on how to do fitness exercises. Even though there seems to be a free part to those, they always have paid elements to it as a solid revenue stream. Like the amount of types of businesses you can build around it. I believe even MrBeast at some point, he had finger on the app. He had like a game finger on app, you hold your finger.
Mario:That was silly, but imagine that that game turned into an actual proper mobile game, then even he could have done it. There's a lot here. Well, people have to realize like it's an attention scheme and YouTube is make the best content possible for your target audience and you will get their attention and you build their trust. And then you can think what do these people need beyond my content? And if you're able to deliver that or connect them to somebody that can deliver that, that's where a lot of opportunity is in this market.
Fred:Look, you've mentioned YouTube, you've mentioned the creators doing well across other platforms. Which do you think is is there a platform that is best for longevity? A platform that will generate the most viewership, the most fandom, and the most revenue?
Mario:I don't think platforms come even close to one platform. YouTube is front runner by a mile. Now one could say that, yeah, but Instagram has so much reach and yes, maybe for beauty and stuff and for certain areas, certain platforms may win. I believe TikTok shop is doing really well. On Instagram, have a lot of beauty does very well and aesthetically pleasing stuff does very well on Instagram.
Mario:But if you look at the overall market and especially when we talk about longevity, YouTube has always been the winner so far. How many TikTok creators have stayed relevant throughout their entire course versus YouTube long form creators? I'm not talking about shorts even. I'm talking about long form creators as well. Now that being said though, this is when we think about video content.
Mario:But I think people sometimes forget how important text content is. And even on YouTube right now, the community posts are starting to make them to the shorts feed. This recently started happening. So platforms like Twitter or X and LinkedIn even, those yes, we often see LinkedIn as just like, hey, got my new job. No, those are actual content platforms.
Mario:And specifically Twitter eggs for certain type of people and certain type of roles is extremely valuable from a content perspective.
Fred:Yeah. Okay. If YouTube is the best platform, and obviously we've seen lots of creators do tremendously well, and the platform has tremendous on platform revenue opportunities, plus there's the off platform as well. Is there a point at which a creator will become too dependent on a platform? And can a creator survive without the platform?
Mario:I think there's dependency. Now there's always been the discussion. I think I might offend some people with this one, but I'm tired of the whole yeah. But what if YouTube disappears tomorrow? That's a bullshit one.
Mario:I'm sorry for my language here, but it's like YouTube ain't going anywhere. They're gonna get policed on certain aspects. For example, you get the 16 social media bans that are going around. I think it's Australia first. Now it's UK.
Mario:Like, those kind of things will happen, and they will affect platforms, and they will affect your reach. So if you, for example, your target audience was like 12 year olds from The UK, well, you're pretty screwed right now because you get all the policies and regulations. Right? So then you can lose it all. So I think it's more what you have to think about if you have a channel is like, what's the likelihood that at some point you may become a vulnerable creator?
Mario:Meaning that they could take away your ability to reach your audience. And if you're making content for under 18, then you are fitting within that. So either one, you make a lot of money very quickly or you've built systems that allow you to monetize or grow from them, whether it's toys, whether it's apps or games or something that you can serve there so that you can have those feed into that one. On the other hand, I think there are the cases that also certain types of content. If you're making documentary content and it's not fully what YouTube considers authentic content, right?
Mario:Or you use a lot of AI, you're a very vulnerable group. Actually, fact, I mean, I've talked to you about this before, but I'm literally talking to a bunch of politicians and stuff to try to get policy in place to protect creativity, human creativity. So AI is AI in the way I love AI, by way, but it's being threatened. It should be regulated and it will be regulated, by the way. So obviously, if you're a creator using a lot of AI, you're vulnerable to demonetization and all those kind of things, because monetization is what incentivizes usage of certain things.
Mario:So in those cases, what I would say is that don't underestimate the power of a newsletter, for example. Newsletter, what you have is you have people's emails. And your email can be warmed up to their emails. This is something I've learned along business. People don't know that warming up emails is a thing.
Mario:But, yeah, if you're a trusted email sender without scams, you're more likely to reach people's inboxes. And that doesn't happen overnight. So building a newsletter, getting warmed up, actually reaching their inboxes, it's a whole process right there. And then if you get demonetized, you are able to monetize off platform. And it just gives you a little bit more control.
Mario:Same with phone numbers, same with emails, same with even in certain cases, addresses, for example. All that information, which is very sensitive information, can help you to maintain quote unquote ownership over that audience.
Fred:You're talking about audience ownership. It's one of the big things that we talk about and even teach in the programs that we run is that every creator, if they wanna get to the next level, has to have some level of audience ownership strategy, right? Something where they can communicate directly with the audience without the platform getting in the way. And we always say like, you know, YouTube and the other platforms don't allow you to communicate directly with the audience. And the reason for that is it would be massively abused.
Fred:Right? If they let everybody communicate individually with every one of the subscribers, you know, someone someone's gonna take advantage of that and it's gonna have that knock on effect. But it's not to say that you can't do it yourself. And they're not saying you don't do it yourself. You can very easily go away like you're saying, get a newsletter, you know, get a database of the community and connect with them directly.
Fred:And that's very important because you can leverage that audience into something else, whether it's products or courses or something that comes out of that.
Mario:I'm gonna take a different stance on it because for me, I'm not so much about like, oh, you cannot communicate through those platforms. I understand the framing, but I think the framing makes platforms seem like, oh, they're they're they're in control over your like, in in with a negative tone. So I'm gonna I'm gonna say it differently. I say I would say, like, algorithms have to optimize themselves for the audience's experience. And when you send out your message, whether that's a video message or a community post or anything, which is a valid way to reach your audience, the downside that you have, and this is the reason why you actually need a newsletter, is you're not guaranteed to reach all of your audience.
Mario:You're old because there's the algorithm that makes a prediction whether the audience is gonna enjoy this or not. So if you're like, hey, guys. I have this new online store that I just launched. Buy this merch. And then the algorithm is like, well, but this big creator just uploaded a video.
Mario:It's gonna be like, yeah. You know what? Hey. Screw your message. Screw your shop message right here.
Mario:And even though that audience would they would have actually loved to see that one, the algorithm was like, I don't think they're gonna interact as well with that as they are gonna interact with normal company piece. So you always never even saw that. So it it has a similar I think to what you're saying, it it comes it comes to the same conclusion. I just tried to look at it from this angle. Mhmm.
Mario:And I think that's the reason why that's a strong angle is because people need to understand the algorithm is trying to optimize for what's best for the platform. Not for what's best for you and not always for what's best for the audience or what you want from your audience. Because like, YouTube, for example, would see this like, you are giving to your audience, and we want you to keep on giving to the audience. And the moment that you're taking from your audience, some of your audience doesn't like that one, well, now the YouTube is like, oh, but you're not giving. Oh, we don't want you to not give.
Mario:We'll have other people that give to your audience. So now you lose that. Everything that you've built, that you've given, you can never reclaim any of that. Like, you can never take something in return. And I think that's you know I wanna I wanna I wanna frame it slightly more positive there, but it is it's a systematic error.
Fred:Look. And speaking of platform revenue specifically, do you know I mean, platforms are always coming up with new ways for creators to monetize, especially YouTube. They're probably the most advanced. They've got so many different ways in which you can monetize on the platform. Is there any on platform revenue opportunity that does move the needle significantly?
Fred:You know, you talked about ads before. People are obsessed with ads because usually that's the lowest hanging fruit because it, you know, it it's it's very sort of passive
Mario:Yeah. The But is there one
Fred:that you look at and go, wow. That on platform revenue source is actually really good and can really be optimized well?
Mario:Look. I've I've seen the oddball that does really well on memberships. There's a few channels. They do amazing on memberships. So typically, if you have a very if you have a much older community and you rely on stuff like Patreon memberships normally, you might as well use YouTube memberships and there's people willing to do that one.
Mario:If you have a very wholesome message, very giving type of content such as like you're fixing people's roofs or you're giving back to the community and people wanna support you and memberships do that. People wanna financially support it and memberships allowed to do that one. However, I haven't seen a lot come from it. I know that YouTube launches things such as brand connect and stuff, and people are supposed to get so many brand deals from that. To this day, you're I mean, yes, you should look at it for the odd time that there's something great, but typically building your own team around brand deals is still gonna outperform that one.
Mario:You have these bits type of functions where people can tip. In live streaming, it's great. You can get extra, people can donate your money and stuff. These are not new tools. These are just you're the best to do that to catch up with the market.
Mario:Now, again, TikTok has that as well. You get the roses and the galaxies and like all the things that people can donate and you should utilize that. But that's typically for that specific person, it's a monetization technique. If a person isn't doing that, you should explore those. But for the most part, there's no hidden techniques or hidden things or things that aren't obvious that they are telling you to monetize through.
Mario:And I also wouldn't vastly change my entire content strategy just to appeal to a monetization strategy for those platforms. A lot of times what those platforms are doing, that's the reason why you also see so many monetization things come into play, They're just experimenting. What's the best way that we can make money to not rely on advertisers? Because right now YouTube, I believe 90% of their revenue is from advertisers. They wanna step away from that because they're very vulnerable right now because of that.
Mario:So that's kinda the more technical way to look at it.
Fred:Fair enough. And look. You also mentioned before about audience ownership being very important and not being so platform dependent. But what happens if we've talked about, you know, smaller creators obviously wanting to do that, but what about the really big ones? What happens if, for example, Stokes twins?
Fred:If YouTube stopped working tomorrow, TikTok stopped working tomorrow, how exposed would they be? Would they still be able to go on and do things, or is it over for them?
Mario:There's a question that's like, okay. What what if tomorrow there's a meteor on your house? You know, would you still have a place to live? The answer is no. You don't have a place to live.
Mario:You know? And, yeah, some of them have cross platform relevance. I do believe that this is where it's like, hey. It's good to be on all platforms. That way you have cross platform relevance.
Mario:If one of your houses gets the meatier, you still have another house left to live in. Right? It won't be the same. You'll still be vulnerable. And that's the thing is like, if your revenue, which is what typically drives the business or Revenue is not just about getting rich.
Mario:Revenue is about making sure that you can keep doing the things you want to do for an infinite amount of time, which is typically your creative endeavors. So if all your eggs are in one basket, the YouTube thing, and something happens, let's say and this is where you I think this is where you have to judge how vulnerable is my channel. If you're a stoicist, you're not gonna get hit. You know, unless you are now suddenly starting to do very, very, very edgy content or you're breaking copyright law or any of those kind of things. But if you're, for example, an automation channel, you should be very worried because you could just be have it all taken away in a single day.
Mario:This happened recently. There was a massive wave of many people, all their life fluids gone just because YouTube was like, hey, you know what? We want more authenticness. And if you're doing a lot of AI, you're kind of getting hit by this. And yeah, there's the oddball.
Mario:Like sometimes you have a creator who is a good actor. They were in a similar field and they get struck by it and now they lose everything. They typically do get their channels back, but it might. The reason why they get their channel back is often because they have a following on something like Twitter and they can push, hey, YouTube team support, take a look at this case. And since they have a following, now YouTube feels more pressure to look into it.
Mario:But if you only have YouTube and have it taken away and you don't have a voice anywhere else, you don't have that leverage, that pressure to make things happen. So there's also those things to consider. So here's what I would say. If you are a safe channel, relatively safe channel, and you always stick to the rules and you stay up to date with policy, actually don't have to worry. You don't they want you.
Mario:TikTok wants you. You know? Instagram wants you. But if you're in any cases that is remotely, like, vulnerable now or in the future that you could already predict, you better both diversify and make sure that also your not just your region's diversified, but your income is diversified. So it's on on both layers here so that you always have that second house, even if it's a worth looking house, to go back to when the meteor strikes.
Fred:And, look, you mentioned AI and platform changes. Where do you think the platforms are gonna head to in the next, maybe, one or two years with the push for more and more AI content coming on the market that looks better and better and creators adapting it more. What do you think the platforms are gonna be doing?
Mario:The platforms, they're going to listen to policy. Right now there's the EU AI Act, which takes an effect or part like, the most significant parts they take in effect August 2026. That's when these come into effect, 08/02/2026. The EU EI Act is like, oh yeah, but it's Europe and Google is an American flag. No, they're going to listen because what's happened is that if you look at the, and I'm now recording, the exact number could be wrong.
Mario:But I believe that for certain type of violations, would be $15,000,000 or 6% of global turnover as a fine if you mess up. 6% of global turnover, that's 6% of your company like as a fine. What if you keep violating? You know? And if they know that you keep on doing it and these fines are enough, you watch them raise that fine.
Mario:That's not gonna stay 6%. That's gonna be 10%. So Europe has a very, very is a very strong powerhouse when it comes down to policy, and we can see platforms constantly changing because EU law changes. Right? So what's gonna happen is it all depends on where policy is heading.
Mario:Now because I'm very I'm sorry to get more and more involved into policy slowly because I really care about making sure that the genuine human creator who really cares about making good content, that they survive. And that's a choice that I'm making. I'm really aggressively pushing for policy to ensure that you cannot just, you know, let's say, actually, we, there is a creator called Doctor. Mike. Whether a person respects him or not, most people in the industry respect him as a credible source of medical information.
Mario:Now imagine somebody is just like, hey, you know what? I'm gonna take his likeness. I'm gonna re upload it. Or even be like, hey, based on Mike, I'm gonna copy paste their video, put a whole new face on it, change the background so it doesn't look like Mike. But it's the exact wording.
Mario:But that would change something because we don't like the message that Mike sent. We like this message and stuff. That's where it starts to get really into the very dangerous zones of of content. That's what people don't always think about. The deep fakes, the the the the copyright issues, and and people can get around it.
Mario:So aggressive measures are going to be taken simply to prevent those cases to go to happen. And the platforms, they would sometimes rather over police than under police and suffer these massive fines. So that's I mean, I'm talking very vague because policy is still in development and it's very tough subject because there's so much nuance to it. And here's what I've learned because I've been working on this for the last six months. There is no perfect solution to AI.
Mario:So any solution here is not made to solve the problem. Any solution is to do two things. Is to number one, deter 90% of people from actually engaging in these kind of things, with authentic content ban, right? With all these channels getting banned. That's also deterrent.
Mario:It's like, because you're not gonna catch all bad actors. It's a deterrent. So now it's like 90% of people don't even wanna try to build such a channel. So you've already solved 90% of the problem here. And then the 10% that do, right now YouTube doesn't punish further yet.
Mario:But let's say YouTube is like, hey, if we figure out that you have a workaround, we're gonna take you to court. Let's say they do that. They're not going to do that. But let's say, then now the bad actors get punished as well. So in a nutshell, much the direction of AI is it's a very sensitive one.
Mario:I always say, if you use AI to elevate your content and if you are using it to not infringe on other people's copyright or deep fake or be inauthentic or make something seem real that isn't real, deceive the audience, as long as you stay away from those kind of things, you're probably always gonna be safe.
Fred:Very good. Is there ever been a lesson you've you've received in this industry that sits above all else when it comes to to the business side of things that you've heard someone say, hey, if you've thought about something like this, then everything will change, and it's changed your perspective?
Mario:Here's the biggest lesson in my mind that has been taking on my mind for the past month. When I start understanding the difference between explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge. You know, I'm a very analytical guy. Explicit I'll explain the difference between the two. Explicit knowledge is the knowledge that is all documented.
Mario:It's the systems that we know. It's the things that are easily to measure and then capture, and that's the knowledge we have around that. Very, very tangible. Then we have the tacit knowledge, which is knowledge that comes from intuition, from lived experiences, that has not been undocumented or people have failed to document in a very meaningful way. Any success comes from the right combination between both knowledge.
Mario:So if you're only and I used to do this actually early on if you're mainly going to focus on making everything explicit knowledge and removing the judgment of a person, it's going to make things very robotic. And it's, yes, it's going to work, but it's not going to feel right. And then once you build that tacit knowledge or you're aiming to include some of that tacit knowledge, that intuition that a person may have, understanding and respecting the fact that that is not fake knowledge. It's just knowledge that the person wasn't able to document it. Sometimes when a person is like this joke is funny.
Mario:Even if all theory speaks against it, maybe you're missing something and you don't know that. And once you admit to that, and I'm an analyst, once you admit to that, once you submit to that, that's when you create a really great piece of content. So that's been on my mind, it's a deep knowledge piece, but it's been on my mind a lot.
Fred:Yeah. I love it. Great. That's a wrap for part one with Mario, and we're just getting started. In part two, we get into the specifics, what a real revenue mix looks like at the top, and what it's like to work inside some of the mega creative businesses.
Fred:That's our next episode. See you then.