About this episode
Jarvis Johnson was previously a software engineer at Patreon, Yelp, and Google. He’s now a YouTuber. You can find him on YouTube at Jarvis Johnson and on Twitter @jarvis . The YC podcast is hosted by Craig Cannon . Y Combinator invests a small amount of money ($150k) in a large number of startups (recently 200), twice a year. Learn more about YC and apply for funding here: https://www.ycombinator.com/apply/ *** Topics 00:00 - Intro 00:20 - Jarvis' intro 00:50 - Where his videos first got traction 1:30 - Being part of the software industry while critiquing it 4:05 - How he got into programming 6:30 - Moving to California 7:50 - Interning at Google then Yelp 9:20 - Interviewing multiple times at the same company 10:20 - Moving from Yelp to Patreon 14:30 - Switching from individual contributor to manager 18:35 - Learnings from managing that he applies to himself 21:45 - What made Jarvis want to do YouTube full time? 30:20 - Investing in yourself 31:25 - Making what you want vs talking to viewers 35:55 - When did things really start to click for his channel? 38:20 - Choosing to make multiple genres of video 44:00 - Nathan Allebach asks - Are content creators responsible in any capacity for their audiences? 51:05 - Taylor asks - In what ways do you think content creation can benefit one's career in the tech industry? 54:40 - Jarvis made a podcast when he was a teenager 56:30 - Octopus Blues asks - What lessons did improv teach you/who would you recommend it to, if anyone? 58:45 - Predictions for YouTubers and content creators