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/

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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