[0:00] This is Doug DeMuro, and today I'm going
[0:03] to tell you the story of how I got
[0:05] started reviewing cars. I realized I
[0:08] haven't told this story in years on my
[0:10] YouTube channels, uh and the video it's
[0:13] in has long gone. So, I might as well
[0:16] explain how it all began.
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[0:59] Okay, so how I got started reviewing
[1:01] cars. One of the reasons I also want to
[1:03] tell this story is because every time I
[1:05] go on a podcast, someone else's podcast
[1:07] or videos, they always ask me, you know,
[1:09] how did it get started? And I I want to
[1:12] kind of be able to direct people when
[1:13] they ask me this to this video where I
[1:14] say, "Hey, here's what happened."
[1:15] However, I realized that I launched my
[1:18] More Doug DeMuro channel 8 years ago
[1:21] with this video.
[1:22] >> How did I get started reviewing cars,
[1:24] making YouTube videos, writing about
[1:25] cars, whatever? So, today I'm going to
[1:27] tell you.
[1:30] >> I haven't revisited this topic since
[1:32] then, and that channel is long gone. So,
[1:35] I feel like I should actually explain
[1:37] the story of how I got started reviewing
[1:40] cars at least one more time. So, here is
[1:43] the basic overview of how it all got
[1:46] started. Many years ago, when I was a
[1:48] small boy, actually that is kind of the
[1:50] start of the story. I remember when I
[1:52] was a kid, I would pour a little kid, I
[1:54] would pour over uh at the time it was
[1:57] Consumer Guide, not Consumer Reports,
[1:59] but it was this different thing called
[2:00] Consumer Guide that would give every
[2:02] car's trim levels and exactly what
[2:04] features were in each car and then the
[2:07] the power trains and I would go through
[2:10] all of it and try to figure out exactly
[2:11] which cars had the best value, like the
[2:13] most features, best I even had a
[2:15] formula. If it had like X number of
[2:18] features in each class divided by the
[2:20] power, like you
[2:22] that was that was the car. I remember I
[2:23] was so obsessive and I would make these
[2:26] these big long notebooks full of like
[2:28] exactly all the trim levels and
[2:30] everything and I would handwrite even
[2:32] though no one was reading it except for
[2:34] myself. And I was obsessed, absolutely
[2:36] obsessed. Uh and of course never really
[2:38] thought it would turn into a career, but
[2:40] as the years went on, I kind of never
[2:42] really lost my love of cars. I was into
[2:44] other things and I kind of considered
[2:45] working in other fields, but I never
[2:47] really did. I've always basically every
[2:50] job I've basically ever had has been in
[2:52] the car space. Um starting with you
[2:55] know, my first real summer job, the the
[2:57] first year I was in college, I was a
[2:58] driver for Enterprise Rent-A-Car. When
[3:01] like a car was at the airport, but
[3:02] someone had booked it at a different
[3:03] location, me and another driver go pick
[3:05] it up and drive it that location, then
[3:06] we get a call, now this car is at this
[3:08] one, you got to go to this one and that
[3:10] was my job. I worked as a as a lot
[3:12] porter at a Ferrari dealership, so I
[3:14] would clean the cars and move them
[3:16] around and get gas for the used cars and
[3:19] bring the cars to customers if they're
[3:20] requesting it. I mean
[3:22] I I have always always always spent my
[3:25] world in the car world. In fact, my
[3:27] senior year of college,
[3:29] um I took a job as a salesperson at a
[3:31] Saturn dealership and this would have
[3:33] been like late '08, early '09, right
[3:35] when the recession was taking hold,
[3:37] right when Saturn was being extinguished
[3:39] as a brand. That was an amazing learning
[3:40] experience. People could smell blood in
[3:42] the water, they'd come in asking for
[3:44] crazy deals. That was that was that. I
[3:46] worked for Porsche. Like I the car world
[3:49] was kind of in in blood. And a couple of
[3:52] weeks ago I did a video on this channel
[3:53] about what I did when I worked for
[3:55] Porsche and I kind of ended that video
[3:57] by saying that the pay was relatively
[3:59] low, the work was hard. I I just decided
[4:01] at 24 I didn't want to work in a cubicle
[4:03] anymore and that's how the next this
[4:05] version of my career got started. And so
[4:08] we can kind of pick it up there. I quit
[4:09] my job. I had I had all my life had
[4:12] worked up to
[4:14] you know if you if you go to a certain
[4:15] level of school you're you're in a
[4:17] competitive enough level of high school
[4:19] and college your whole world is like
[4:21] trying to get into the best college,
[4:22] trying to do as many activities as
[4:23] possible in high school so your resume
[4:25] looks the best. That was my whole world
[4:27] and then get into the best college, do
[4:29] the best you can in college so that you
[4:30] can get the best job. That was sort of
[4:32] like my entire world and my parents
[4:34] world and everything back then. And so I
[4:35] get this job, I get hired by Porsche.
[4:37] And all my other my colleagues, my my my
[4:40] fellow classmates when I was in college
[4:42] had done got a lot of them had gotten
[4:44] these really stupid jobs, you know,
[4:46] laughable kind of things that weren't
[4:48] you know, they were 21. I mean it was
[4:49] like you know, not anything real and I
[4:51] was I'd gotten hired full-time by
[4:53] Porsche and it was so cool. And then I
[4:55] quit. And that was a crazy decision. But
[4:57] I truly believed that I had within me
[5:00] the ability to create um
[5:04] to to to do to write about cars as a
[5:07] job. And at the time I didn't quit
[5:09] completely with nothing. At the time I
[5:11] was freelance writing about cars for
[5:13] autotrader.com. And I was actually doing
[5:15] that on the side of my working for
[5:17] Porsche which was definitely not allowed
[5:19] at Porsche. I had a I had another job.
[5:22] So I had my full-time job at Porsche and
[5:23] then at night I would go home. I would I
[5:25] would work from at Porsche from 8:00 to
[5:26] 5:00 every single day. I'd drive home
[5:28] and then I'd sit at my computer and bang
[5:30] out articles, content for autotrader.com
[5:32] like should you buy your lease at the
[5:34] end of the lease or you know, new versus
[5:36] used or or that kind of thing, compiling
[5:38] our long-term test notes for hours. I
[5:40] mean I I there would be days when I'd
[5:41] wake up at 8:00 a.m., work till 5:00,
[5:43] commute home, 6:00 sit down, work until
[5:46] midnight, go to sleep and do it all over
[5:47] again. That happened a lot. There were
[5:49] entire weekends where I would spend
[5:50] working writing. It was a grind, but
[5:52] like when I was when I quit Porsche, it
[5:54] meant that I had an income. I had the
[5:56] writing income was going on. And so I
[5:59] was like, you know what? If I'm doing
[6:00] this part-time already and I'm enjoying
[6:02] it and I'm making good money from it. I
[6:04] was actually making more doing freelance
[6:05] writing than I was working for Porsche.
[6:08] I was like, if I'm doing this enough
[6:09] already, maybe I can quit my day job at
[6:11] Porsche and become a writer about cars.
[6:13] And it was insane. I mean, it was a
[6:15] totally insane decision because I had
[6:16] worked so hard to get through college
[6:18] and get a job just like the one I was
[6:20] quitting. But I just decided, you know
[6:22] what? I'm writing, I'm making good
[6:23] money, I'm doing this, there is a career
[6:25] here. And one of the things I learned as
[6:27] a freelance writer early on when I was
[6:29] freelancing for Autotrader was that if
[6:31] you're a good freelance writer, you
[6:33] could actually be pretty successful in
[6:35] the car space and in a lot of spaces.
[6:36] Now, in the world of AI and in the world
[6:38] where a lot of writing has switched to
[6:40] video, I don't know that that's true
[6:41] anymore. But back in 2009, '10, '11,
[6:44] that was pretty true. It was very hard
[6:46] to find writers who would meet
[6:47] deadlines. It was hard to find writers
[6:48] who would output the level of content
[6:50] that I could. I could write five, six
[6:53] articles every single day, three, four,
[6:55] 500 words and have them be really
[6:57] high-quality content in addition to my
[7:00] day job. I was just a machine back then
[7:02] of of just effort, effort, effort,
[7:04] focused work.
[7:06] And so I quit my job and I started
[7:08] really looking for writing gigs. And it
[7:10] was pretty easy to find them back then.
[7:12] There were a lot of places that wanted
[7:13] writers. And not a lot of them paid all
[7:16] that well, but because I had Autotrader
[7:17] as like my big paying client, I was able
[7:20] to take some writing gigs for some
[7:21] companies, some blogs that had big
[7:24] reaches but didn't necessarily pay well.
[7:26] And so I started with this website
[7:27] called The Truth About Cars, which was a
[7:29] blog. I don't even know if it still
[7:31] exists, but back then it was like a sort
[7:32] of a secondary car blog. And they said,
[7:34] "Look, I sent them a couple samples and
[7:37] they said, 'Look, you're a funny writer,
[7:38] you're great. We can't pay you, but if
[7:39] you If you to write, we'll take your
[7:41] stuff.'" And so I would write two or
[7:42] three articles a week there, columns.
[7:44] And after a few months, I finally got up
[7:46] the nerve to send my stuff to Jalopnik.
[7:48] Now, Jalopnik was, at the time, no
[7:50] longer, but at the time it was the car
[7:52] blog. And regardless of what anybody
[7:55] said about the fact that it was a bunch
[7:57] of teenagers blogging about cars, there
[7:58] was no doubt that it was the number one
[8:01] most read, most respected car blog on
[8:04] the planet. So, I got up the courage to
[8:06] send my stuff to Matt Hardigree, who was
[8:08] the editor at the time of of Jalopnik.
[8:11] And he had already read a couple of my
[8:12] pieces from The Truth About Cars, and I
[8:14] sent him some stuff, and he said, "Hey,
[8:16] we'd love to publish your stuff." And at
[8:17] the time, Jalopnik and all of the Gawker
[8:20] Media properties had this cool thing
[8:21] where it was called Kinja, where you
[8:23] could write your own posts. And if they
[8:25] liked them enough, they would share your
[8:27] own Kinja posts live on the actual blog.
[8:30] It was a brilliant idea. It was a way to
[8:32] turn their audience, who often wanted to
[8:34] write their own posts, into writers, and
[8:36] to get some of that content themselves
[8:38] without paying for it.
[8:40] And so, they said, "All right,
[8:41] why don't you start doing this Kinja
[8:43] thing?" And so, I started, and they
[8:44] would share the the Kinja posts on the
[8:46] main page of Jalopnik, and they would
[8:47] blow up. And before too long, I had
[8:49] gotten a following. And I have to say,
[8:52] one of my earliest followers,
[8:54] and one of the biggest uh supporters
[8:55] early on, was Matt Farah of The Smoking
[8:57] Tire, who I remember, in my Truth About
[9:00] Cars days, commented on one of my Truth
[9:03] About Cars articles and wrote, "This is
[9:04] incredibly funny. This is awesome. You
[9:07] You know, I love this piece. It's great.
[9:08] It's well written."
[9:10] >> [sighs]
[9:10] >> And I remember, like,
[9:12] you know, when you're a little guy, and
[9:14] a big guy says something like that to
[9:16] you,
[9:17] and I should do this more. And now that
[9:19] I'm thinking about it, as a big guy now,
[9:21] that's like the coolest thing that you
[9:22] can possibly hear. Like, I was just
[9:25] like, "Oh my god. Like, Matt Farah says
[9:26] it's good enough." I would post my stuff
[9:28] on Jalopnik, and the audience is saying,
[9:30] "This is good stuff. More, more, more."
[9:32] And I would I had this kind of thing
[9:33] where I because Jalopnik wasn't paying
[9:34] me, I I doing like boring news articles
[9:36] for a day. I was doing all that for
[9:38] Autotrader. I was instead doing like
[9:40] these like long-form humor columns that
[9:42] actually I thought were pretty funny.
[9:43] And and the audience seemed to as well.
[9:45] In fact, I still think that I'm a better
[9:46] writer than I am a video person, but the
[9:49] world moved on to video. So, I had been
[9:50] writing for Jalopnik for uh probably 18
[9:53] months. At some point they finally hired
[9:55] me, but on a on a freelance basis. Like
[9:57] I was getting paid per article and not
[9:59] all that much. And after about a year
[10:01] and a half, um
[10:03] I got an email
[10:05] from a viewer. And the viewer said in
[10:08] his email, "Hey Doug, love your video.
[10:10] Love your articles on Jalopnik. Think
[10:12] you're funny. Have you ever thought
[10:14] about video?"
[10:16] And I hadn't.
[10:18] It's crazy to imagine now, but back then
[10:20] it was it was kind of 50/50 whether
[10:23] video was going to be the big medium or
[10:25] blogging was going to Blogging had
[10:27] already been a disruptive medium
[10:29] compared to print journalism at that
[10:31] time. And back then print journalism was
[10:33] still hanging on pretty well, and
[10:35] blogging was just starting to gain
[10:37] excitement and credibility. Blogging was
[10:39] the new space. And of course, now video
[10:41] has come and kind of disrupted blogging.
[10:43] And now short-form has come and
[10:44] disrupted video. But regardless,
[10:46] blogging, writing about cars, seemed
[10:49] like the thing to be doing. And and this
[10:50] guy suggested video. And honestly, I had
[10:53] not considered doing video until he made
[10:55] the suggestion. And so, I get this email
[10:57] and he makes the suggestion. I think to
[10:59] myself, "Huh, videos. I should try
[11:02] videos."
[11:05] And that was the summer of '13.
[11:07] Uh and I was 25 and
[11:11] I had nothing to do. I'm a 25-year-old.
[11:13] I just quit my job. I had ended my job
[11:15] in January of '13. So, I guess it had
[11:17] been like a year. Maybe it was like the
[11:19] end of '13. I had been employed with
[11:20] Jalopnik.
[11:22] And this guy suggests video, so I make a
[11:23] video. My very first video was my famous
[11:26] Cadillac CTS-V
[11:28] review. I didn't know what video could
[11:30] become.
[11:32] But what I did know is that I could put
[11:34] videos at the end of my articles. And
[11:37] so, people could read my articles and
[11:39] then there could be a video as like a
[11:41] companion piece that would go there. And
[11:43] credit to Jalopnik because they weren't
[11:45] really paying me all that well, they
[11:46] gave me a wide birth as to what I could
[11:49] do. There was never any dictation like,
[11:51] "You should do this. You should do this.
[11:53] You shouldn't write about this." It was
[11:55] like, "We're barely paying this guy.
[11:56] We're lucky he's contributing, so let
[11:58] him do whatever he wants." And I did.
[11:59] And boy did I. Um I did that Cadillac
[12:02] CTS-V video and then I just kind of went
[12:05] off to the races. And
[12:08] throughout all of I guess it was 2013 to
[12:11] 2014, I started making content with this
[12:14] Ferrari that I had bought. Um and that
[12:17] was really kind of an important moment
[12:19] buying the Ferrari. In early 2014, I
[12:22] debuted this Ferrari 360 that I had
[12:26] bought.
[12:27] And it was undoubtedly the scariest
[12:30] thing that I had ever done. I had quit
[12:32] my job to write about cars in this
[12:34] uncertain environment where I'm not
[12:36] getting paid all that well and I decided
[12:37] to go buy a Ferrari 360. And it was very
[12:41] difficult to do that. I couldn't find
[12:42] anybody to insure me.
[12:44] I didn't have enough money to buy the
[12:45] car outright. And so, what I had to do
[12:47] was I took out a loan and I begged my
[12:49] parents to co-sign on this loan, which
[12:51] they did. Now, I've mentioned this in
[12:53] other videos and people are like, "Oh,
[12:54] your rich parents helped you." My
[12:56] parents put up no money. A lot of people
[12:57] don't know what co-signing means. But
[12:59] basically what it meant was my parents
[13:01] would be on the hook for if I defaulted
[13:03] on the loan. But the reason my parents
[13:05] were But they didn't pay anything. I put
[13:07] the
[13:08] Literally all of my life savings went
[13:10] down on this loan as the down payment.
[13:12] It was an $80,000 car. I got a $40,000
[13:15] loan, a little less, and I put down 40
[13:17] grand, which was at the time all of the
[13:19] money that I had.
[13:21] Basically. And um bought this Ferrari
[13:24] and my parents co-signed. And I think
[13:25] the reason they're were to co-sign is
[13:26] because had such a down payment that it
[13:28] was hard to imagine that a default would
[13:31] end up in a situation where they would
[13:32] be on the hook for anything. My parents
[13:33] are very traditional.
[13:35] Um they did they would never have like
[13:36] really supported this career trajectory.
[13:39] I am shocked that they co-signed on that
[13:40] loan. They were always very skeptical of
[13:42] this career
[13:44] that I have. Um and but they did do it
[13:47] and it was it was a blessing um because
[13:49] I couldn't have take gotten a loan
[13:51] otherwise. Again, it was all my money
[13:53] but without someone's help who had a
[13:55] credit I had never financed anything
[13:56] before. I was 24, 25. I'd never bought
[13:59] anything with credit. Um and so I
[14:01] couldn't I couldn't get financed without
[14:03] them. And so that that happened and then
[14:05] after I bought the car I couldn't get it
[14:06] insured. Um and I I remember spending
[14:08] days on the phone in my apartment in
[14:10] Atlanta with insurance companies trying
[14:11] to find someone who would insure it and
[14:13] I finally found insurance through a
[14:14] company called American Motor.
[14:17] Um which I got so lucky with. But
[14:19] anyway,
[14:20] I had to register in Montana. Like I was
[14:22] grasping at the thinnest of straws. But
[14:24] the thing that that video that car did
[14:26] was it allowed me to create a YouTube
[14:28] series that people really wanted to
[14:30] watch. These days on YouTube everybody
[14:33] has Bugattis and Koenigseggs and it's
[14:34] not unusual to have YouTubers who have
[14:37] Pagani's and other crazy cars. But in
[14:38] 2014 there was no one on YouTube who had
[14:41] access to an exotic car like a Ferrari
[14:43] 360. YouTube was a medium for teenagers
[14:46] and nobody had a car like that. And so
[14:48] the fact that I was there, some regular
[14:50] guy was doing video series on his
[14:52] Ferrari 360 and the ownership costs and
[14:55] the maintenance experience and you know,
[14:57] potholes and living with it and parking
[14:59] and and how practical it was, that was a
[15:01] huge deal on YouTube back then. It is
[15:03] hard now to really explain to young
[15:06] people how just a Ferrari 360 could have
[15:09] been a huge deal. But on YouTube at that
[15:11] time, aside from Salomondrin who had a
[15:13] crazy car collection and was on YouTube,
[15:15] no one else on YouTube had cars like
[15:17] this. I was like the guy who was
[15:19] teaching like a young dad that yeah,
[15:21] maybe it was possible that you could buy
[15:23] a sports car, a Ferrari. I did those
[15:25] videos for a while, eventually sold the
[15:27] Ferrari and bought an R32 Nissan Skyline
[15:30] and a Hummer, and I had kind of the same
[15:31] sort of content play with those cars.
[15:34] And I still remember to this day, it was
[15:36] 2015, like mid-late 2015, and I remember
[15:39] I was obsessive about tracking the
[15:41] metrics for my articles because I
[15:43] thought that being a writer was in my
[15:44] future.
[15:46] And [snorts] then,
[15:47] one day,
[15:49] uh I got a plaque, a YouTube 100,000
[15:52] subscriber plaque in the mail. And I had
[15:55] paid almost no attention to what was
[15:57] happening for me on YouTube because I
[15:59] was so focused on writing. And then, the
[16:02] plaque came and I started making a
[16:04] little bit of money in '15 and in '16,
[16:06] and I it hit me at some point in
[16:09] mid-to-late '16, wait a minute, maybe
[16:12] the video thing might do better than the
[16:15] writing thing. The end of '16, I
[16:17] remember there was one month at the end
[16:19] of '16 where I made like 20 grand in a
[16:21] month. And it was December, which was
[16:24] always the biggest month. I didn't know
[16:25] that at the time. I didn't know about ad
[16:27] spends going up at the holidays and at
[16:29] the end of the quarter and all that
[16:30] stuff. I just happened to put up some
[16:32] popular content in December of '16 that
[16:34] blew up and I made like $20,000, and I
[16:37] was like, oh my god. Like, this could be
[16:40] something. And I also remember in
[16:42] January I put up also good content, and
[16:44] I only made like $6,000, and I remember
[16:46] thinking, okay, well, maybe it maybe
[16:47] it's not. And I I've since learned that
[16:50] January is the worst revenue month on
[16:52] YouTube, and I should have not put up
[16:53] good content then. But I didn't know any
[16:55] of that stuff. Throughout '17, then
[16:57] things kind of started to grow. And um
[17:00] uh I initially throughout '15 and '16 I
[17:03] was doing content on my own cars. In
[17:05] '15, again, it was that Hummer and the
[17:06] Nissan Skyline. In '16, it became an
[17:08] Aston Martin V8 Vantage. There was a
[17:10] Dodge Viper that was mixed in there,
[17:12] too. I did a lot of content on those
[17:13] cars, but at some point in '17, I
[17:15] started to realize that doing content on
[17:19] other cars actually was better because I
[17:22] didn't have to buy the car, I didn't
[17:24] have to maintain the car and take that
[17:26] big risk, and most importantly, uh I
[17:28] could do varied content. And so like I
[17:31] could do a Honda Civic Type R one week
[17:32] and a Land Rover Defender the next week
[17:34] and this and that. And it started to hit
[17:36] me in the middle of 17, early middle of
[17:38] 17, that it was better to do content on
[17:41] car review content on a different car
[17:43] each week. And by like mid-late 17,
[17:46] early to mid-18, I had pretty much
[17:48] stopped doing videos on my cars at all
[17:50] and had pivoted almost completely to the
[17:52] car reviews and specifically the quirks
[17:54] and features format, which kind of
[17:56] became what I was most known for. And
[17:58] then beyond that, when the rest of it is
[18:00] is sort of more modern history, but I I
[18:02] was never really satisfied with YouTube
[18:04] being my only means of income. Um it was
[18:06] never clear to me that that was a
[18:07] long-term strategy because I was always
[18:09] concerned that something bad was going
[18:11] to happen with YouTube that I would, you
[18:13] know, that they would change the
[18:14] algorithm or that they would send views
[18:16] to new creators and get rid of me and uh
[18:18] I was never really convinced that it was
[18:20] the right way to go. So even though with
[18:21] my 17, my 18, my 19 were massive years,
[18:24] was making a ton of money, I was always
[18:26] searching for like a better way to do
[18:28] this that wasn't so beholden on YouTube
[18:30] and eventually that's I launched Cars
[18:32] and Bids in the spring of 20
[18:34] um and now the rest is like really
[18:36] modern history. Obviously took a big
[18:37] investment in Cars and Bids in '22
[18:40] uh and and kind of I'm at this point
[18:42] now. But
[18:43] that's that's how it went down. Um I I
[18:46] still remember uh to this day
[18:49] uh
[18:50] it was December 8th, 2012, was the day
[18:53] that I decided to quit my my Porsche
[18:56] office job that I had worked so hard to
[18:58] get uh after like 3 years, I decided to
[19:00] quit and go and write about cars. And I
[19:03] remember it was one of the scariest days
[19:05] of my life, one of the scariest feelings
[19:07] of my life
[19:08] uh doing that. And also the biggest bet
[19:11] of my life, right? On myself and on the
[19:12] ability that I could go do this and and
[19:14] I did and it and it worked out. Um I
[19:16] don't necessarily suggest that everyone
[19:17] try it. It worked for me. I was young. I
[19:19] was 24. I had no mortgage. I had no
[19:21] kids. I had nothing to answer for. And
[19:23] it turned out I was sort of entering
[19:24] some burgeoning spaces. The the the
[19:26] blogging space, the video space,
[19:28] obviously the car the online car auction
[19:30] sales space. Those things were sort of
[19:32] growing up with me and I got lucky at
[19:34] that. Um but there were some tough days.
[19:37] I remember some, you know, there was
[19:39] crying. There was
[19:40] screaming. There was There was sadness.
[19:43] There was depression. There were There
[19:44] some of my early comments, um people
[19:46] stuff people would say to me almost made
[19:48] me stop.
[19:50] Um
[19:51] There were tough days.
[19:53] And it's amazing looking back on it now
[19:55] thinking about just how tenuous it was
[19:57] and just how that string of things like,
[20:00] you know, Autotrader to Truth About Cars
[20:02] to Jalopnik to, you know, making videos
[20:05] to
[20:06] my own cars to car reviews to Cars and
[20:08] Bids, like that string could have been
[20:11] broken or easily. If If one of those
[20:12] things hadn't worked, if one of those
[20:14] things the timing had been wrong,
[20:15] there's a lot of luck involved, if I'm
[20:17] honest. And it was a lot of effort.
[20:19] Um but it worked and I'm so happy now.
[20:21] And it and and it worked out great. And
[20:23] and um but that's how it started. Uh it
[20:25] it was a huge risk. It was crazy. The
[20:27] decisions that I made looking back on it
[20:29] 15 years ago were crazy. Leaving my
[20:31] cushy job at this company I worked so
[20:33] hard to get at, trying to trying to
[20:35] create a job that basically didn't
[20:36] exist, like humor writing about cars and
[20:39] and um and then just sort of lucking
[20:41] into video content. It was all hard. Um
[20:44] and but that it that's that's the origin
[20:47] story. That's really how it all started,
[20:49] how it all began, and how it got to
[20:51] where it is.
[20:52] Uh and if you've ever wondered, now you
[20:54] know.
[21:13] >> Mhm.