What Social Media Influence Really Gets You — With Nuseir Yassin

Nuseir Yassin is the force behind Nas Daily — and CEO of Nas Company — which more than 50 million people follow across six different social media platforms. He joins Big Technology Podcast to talk about what such a large social media audience makes possible. Our conversation dives into why "YouTuber" is such a desirable occupation for kids today, what his fame really costs, and what it takes to build an audience online. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Alex Kantrowitz?

  This episode is brought to you by Genesis. What does it actually take to put Agentic AI to work across an entire enterprise? I recently spoke with Genesis chairman and CEO Tony Bates about why orchestration is emerging as a competitive advantage in customer experience and what companies need to get right in the AI era. Then I sat down with Adam Mitchell, head of enterprise business solutions at Voya Financial, to go inside a large-scale Agentic CX transformation, including the business decisions, trade-offs, and lessons along the way. You can watch both conversations now on my YouTube channel today. It's never been more challenging to get frontier compute. How do you know where to look, who to trust, or how much to pay?

• 0:43Alex Kantrowitz?

  Akash is an open cloud that provides easy access, flexibility, and peace of mind. That's how companies like Razer were able to cut their inference cost by 15 times. Visit akash.network/alex for a free consultation. That's akash.network/alex for a free consultation.

• 1:03Speaker 01

  LinkedIn Presents.

• 1:14Alex Kantrowitz?

  Hello and welcome to the Big Technology Podcast, a show for cool-headed nuanced conversation of the tech world and beyond. Recently, we ran a series of conversations from Davos, and today we're going to bring you one more of them that I wanted to get across on the feed, and I think you're going to enjoy it a lot. It's with Nuseir Yassin, who is the founder and CEO of NAS Daily, the chief executive officer at NAS Academy. I find him one of the most interesting speakers about making content on social media and what the social web is doing to us right now. And I think you are going to enjoy this a lot. So with that, I want to welcome Nuseir.

• 1:53Speaker 02

  Alex, how are you?

• 1:54Alex Kantrowitz?

  I'm doing well. How are you, man?

• 1:55Speaker 02

  Thank you so much for having me. This is gonna be a great conversation.

• 1:57Alex Kantrowitz?

  I'm stoked, as it always is when we get a chance to talk.

• 2:00Speaker 02

  Let's get some energy.

• 2:01Alex Kantrowitz?

  I mean, you know how to bring it. Where does that come from?

• 2:05Speaker 02

  I would give you an answer, but this is recorded. It's a joke. It's a joke. But where is this coming from? The world is too exciting. Do not be excited about it.

• 2:13Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yep. But, okay. So I looked at your LinkedIn bio, and I think it's a good introduction to give to the audience. Let's see. Oh, yeah. My real name is Nasar, because I feel like everybody calls you Nas daily.

• 2:26Speaker 02

  Nas means people in Arabic.

• 2:28Alex Kantrowitz?

  You say, "I grew up a Palestinian Israeli, hated it. Went to Harvard." Okay, you didn't say that. Graduated. Got a job, hated it. Worked at Venmo, right? Started making videos, loved it.

• 2:41Speaker 02

  Loved it. And now I do a podcast with you, and I love it.

• 2:44Alex Kantrowitz?

  We love it too, for sure. And so you, just to talk about your journey, you started out, maybe what, seven years ago, making a video a day? And you're followed by tens of millions of people on multiple platforms. Can you just share, like, the stats and the audience?

• 3:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, look, you know, this has been the biggest surprise of my life. It's really the biggest surprise, is, you know, people that look like me are not supposed to have followers. People that scream are not supposed to have followers.

• 3:15Speaker 02

  But, you know, once I made a thousand videos in a thousand days, worked my ass off every single day, to my surprise, people paid attention to the videos and they started watching them. And now we have over 50 million followers in 13 different languages around the world, across, you know, six different social media platforms. You know, we've been very lucky and hardworking in trying to put up a positive message in the world at the expense and despite, despite all the negative messages that you see on the internet. And I'm so happy that it worked.

• 3:49Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, and I've been watching your videos from the very beginning. Because you were, I think Gavi will be okay with me saying this. You were in an accelerator with one of my friends, Gavi Wolf.

• 4:00Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 4:01Alex Kantrowitz?

  And he's like, you gotta watch Nuseir's videos. He makes one a day. And I started watching them and I liked them.

• 4:07Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 4:07Alex Kantrowitz?

  They came up in my newsfeed every day. And, you know, your, your audience was small at the time. And I just watched it grow and grow and I kept seeing the numbers. I was like, Oh, Nuseir did a million? Nuseir did three million views? And it is, it's crazy. And I think that what's nice about it is it is a message of inspiration and truth. Versus what usually moves on social media, which is outrage.

• 4:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, it's, You know how easy it is for me to make a million people hate you? It's so easy. So.

• 4:40Alex Kantrowitz?

  Hey, we might do it by the end of this.

• 4:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, this guy. He's Jewish.

• 4:47Speaker 02

  He's a big tech guy. It's so easy to make people hate you.

• 4:50Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 4:51Speaker 02

  Making people hate other people is, is, is, is, I think, we can do. But making people love you is much harder. And that's really what I want Nuseir to be about. How can I make people sympathize and human, humanize you? And care about you?

• 5:09Speaker 02

  And I think that's why it succeeded is because, you know, I think there's a cap. When you make people hate other people, you can, there's a cap. You cannot really grow much. Like, oh, you see all these anti-establishment, blah, blah, blah stuff. It, it, it caps out at 500,000 followers. At some point, people don't want that. You know, people want solutions. What is the solution to my problem? I don't want you to keep repeating the problem. Now, there's, you know, exceptions, like, you know, other big media organizations like Fox News or whatever. But, you know, I think if you really want to reach massive scale, you have to be solution oriented.

• 5:47Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 5:47Speaker 02

  You have to be, bring people together, not divide them.

• 5:50Alex Kantrowitz?

  And amazingly, there's market for it. Because you wouldn't know that based off of what you see often, especially in the discussions of social media.

• 5:58Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 5:58Alex Kantrowitz?

  There is a market for being positive.

• 6:00Speaker 02

  Huge market.

• 6:01Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yep.

• 6:01Speaker 02

  Huge.

• 6:02Alex Kantrowitz?

  So. You know, one of the reasons why I wanted to speak with you is because I've been always puzzled by the fact that the number one job that kids want to have is YouTuber.

• 6:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:13Alex Kantrowitz?

  It's, you know, I first thought it was absurd. Now I think it's kind of interesting. Obviously, I've made my career doing content creation journalism. But I wanted to hear from your perspective, what is that job actually like? Because I'm sure we have, you know, young people listening who want to want to have that job. I'm sure we have parents who have kids who want to be YouTubers.

• 6:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:34Alex Kantrowitz?

  So what's so appealing about it and is it all it's cracked up to be?

• 6:38Speaker 02

  So that's a great question. So a lot of people may give you the answer of money. I don't think it's money, right? You can make money in many different ways. The number one reason why people want to be YouTubers or Facebookers or Instagrammers is because everybody wants to be heard. That's it. You just want to be heard. We live in a world where nobody cares about your voice. Nobody cares about you as a kid. Nobody cares you as an adult. Nobody cares you as a brown man. Nobody cares about you as a Jewish man, whatever it is. And when you put your content on the internet and you get 50,000 views, that's 50,000 people hearing you. That is a human nature that we we all want. That's why being a content creator is the most universal job in the world.

• 7:24Speaker 02

  And that's why everybody wants to be it.

• 7:26Alex Kantrowitz?

  Does it? Does it feel good still when you get that those high numbers?

• 7:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, it feels good. It feels good to reach people with your message. Yes.

• 7:36Alex Kantrowitz?

  And so

• 7:41Alex Kantrowitz?

  I guess like I'm trying to, I'm trying to figure out.

• 7:46Alex Kantrowitz?

  So you can get famous, but you can't get unfamous. So how does that feel? Because, you know, I've I watched you walk around in Davos and saw that you could basically make it five feet before someone else says hi or wants to take a selfie.

• 8:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:00Alex Kantrowitz?

  And, you know, I think that like going into content creation, like that's, you know, kind of the dream. But there's sometimes you can't turn it off. I'm sure every country you go to, you see people who do the same. So

• 8:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:12Alex Kantrowitz?

  How does that feel?

• 8:13Speaker 02

  So unfortunately.

• 8:15Speaker 02

  Well, I I'm not gonna be complaining. I love it.

• 8:17Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 8:17Speaker 02

  Ah, everybody's positive. Everybody's so kind and I I I'm an extrovert, so I I I steal energy from people. This is why I have energy, cuz I'm stealing some from you now.

• 8:29Alex Kantrowitz?

  I'm taking from you.

• 8:29Speaker 02

  I stole some from the people on the street who just took a selfie. I steal their energy and then I give it back.

• 8:37Alex Kantrowitz?

  That's interesting. I've never heard extroversion described that way, but it's amazing.

• 8:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's what it is. I I think um, you you think that actually you cannot turn it off, but it's very, very easy to turn it off. I just disappear from the internet. If I don't show up on your newsfeed for six months, you will forget that I existed. So really, I can turn off fame. I can change my T-shirt. I can wear a hat. I can get glasses. And I'm anonymous.

• 9:03Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yep.

• 9:03Speaker 02

  I'm I can go to China where nobody knows me. I'm anonymous. So it is possible to turn it off. Um, I don't wanna turn it off just yet. It's getting a little bit difficult, but I don't wanna turn it off. I I want I want more people to listen to what we have to say.

• 9:17Alex Kantrowitz?

  What's getting difficult about it?

• 9:25Speaker 02

  You know,

• 9:30Speaker 02

  in life, right, there's different stages. One, the first stage is nobody cares about you. The second stage is everybody loves you because you're growing, right? Nobody cares about you cuz you're small. Everybody loves you because you're getting bigger. Everybody supports you because, actually, sorry, sorry. The four stages are the following. One is nobody knows about you, nobody cares about you because you're small. Then everybody supports you because you're tiny. And everybody wants to support you, the underdog. Then everybody loves you cuz you made it. And then everybody fears you cuz you're too big.

• 10:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  You think you're feared?

• 10:08Speaker 02

  Yes, by some people. I think by some people, Nastali is feared in the world. And I think we've gone through these four stages. I'm not feared in these circles here. I'm not feared in America, that's for damn sure. I'm not feared in Dubai. I'm not feared. Um, but we've gone through these four stages and I think when it comes to the Middle East, people are scared of us and they fucking should be.

• 10:29Alex Kantrowitz?

  Why?

• 10:31Speaker 02

  Because we are the anti-establishment.

• 10:35Speaker 02

  And, and you know, we, we do have a different view on how the world should run. And because of the internet, you can't silence us anymore, you know?

• 10:45Alex Kantrowitz?

  How are you the anti-establishment?

• 10:47Speaker 02

  So, I'm not the anti-establishment in Switzerland. I'm not the anti-establishment in India. I am the anti-establishment in the Middle East. Because I go and I say Jews are not bad. Just by saying Jews are good people. Israel is a country. Palestine is a country too. Just by saying that, you are the anti-establishment.

• 11:12Speaker 02

  Can you imagine that? That's how regressive the Middle East is.

• 11:17Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, you had to make a video because people, you, people were getting on you when you said the word Israel.

• 11:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:21Alex Kantrowitz?

  People were getting on you when you said the word Palestine.

• 11:24Speaker 02

  It's unbelievable.

• 11:24Alex Kantrowitz?

  Let's, let's talk about this.

• 11:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:26Alex Kantrowitz?

  What's so controversial about that?

• 11:30Speaker 02

  So, the Middle East, and it is a crash course in the Middle East. In the Middle East, right? There's a lot of populism and there's a lot of like fear mongering. That's why it's not a rich part of the world. That's why there's a lot of civil wars and killing people, right? Something is not working. And so, in that part of the world, the media has always been about, um, uh, um, uh, uh, you know, making the enemy of somebody. And if you go and say, well, actually, uh, maybe Jews are not the enemy.

• 12:02Speaker 02

  You know, what if, what if that's, what if, what if that's possible?

• 12:06Speaker 02

  You know, that's, has not been said before at a public setting. Because all the public settings were dominated by, you know, large news organizations like Al Jazeera or whatever. It's, it's, it's a refreshing point of view and, and it scares some people and I'm liking it.

• 12:22Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. Yeah, it is interesting because, I mean, social media does have its problems, but it also has the ability to spread this message outside of the official channels in those countries.

• 12:32Speaker 02

  Yep. Exactly.

• 12:34Alex Kantrowitz?

  Hmm. Okay. Getting back to the creator, it was a diversion.

• 12:37Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 12:38Alex Kantrowitz?

  But I'm glad we went that path. I'm getting back to like the creator lifestyle. Okay, so I want to know how how you were, I mean, you made of this video every day. I of course saw the the traffic take off.

• 12:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:49Alex Kantrowitz?

  What what caused it to grow? I mean, okay, you say positivity. But did you see any like, were there any inflection points? And what what kind of work goes into it? Because getting, you know, having to put out a video a day for a thousand straight days is intense.

• 13:07Speaker 02

  Do I not look intense?

• 13:10Speaker 02

  So so so actually, you know, when it comes to making content, you have to fail hundreds of times. And I failed hundreds of times. Specifically, I failed 270 times before video number 271 blew up. Right? It was a normal travel video in Thailand. And and and and then on day 650, uh, uh, the algorithms changed and we blew up even more. So there is some infliction points along the way. You just have to be at the right time, at the right place, with the right format, with the right energy. That's really all it was. And I was there. I was at the right time. So for anybody listening to this, I mean,

• 13:54Speaker 02

  you can start a company as a side hustle. You cannot build a channel as a side hustle.

• 13:59Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 13:59Speaker 02

  You cannot start a family as a side hustle. You know, you really need to go all in with these three things. And you have to be, you know, ready to do a lot of sacrifices. And, you know, I've I've done my fair amount of sacrifices, but I've also been rewarded pretty heavily.

• 14:15Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. I mean, you had you had a great job at Venmo.

• 14:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:18Alex Kantrowitz?

  And you left it to do this full time?

• 14:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, I did. I did. And and and, you know. As a small risk you take, I say that bigger sacrifices is that, you know, at some point, there's your priorities changed, right? What's the number one important thing in my life? Right for you, you may say your family. For you, you may say your girlfriend or your wife or your kid. But for me, it's none of that. Right? And that's, that's a controversial thing, but that's a truth. Uh, for me, the number one most important thing is this mission, the mission of, of Nas Daily, the mission of Nas, the company. Um, and everything else comes second. Including you.

• 14:55Alex Kantrowitz?

  Well, I mean, I wouldn't want you to prioritize me over Nas Daily.

• 14:59Speaker 02

  Including my family, including my girlfriend.

• 15:01Alex Kantrowitz?

  How do they feel when you say that?

• 15:03Speaker 02

  Look, I, I want everyone around me to be confident that everything I say, I mean. So at least I think they appreciate the honesty.

• 15:13Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 15:14Speaker 02

  Because honesty comes very in short supply in the world. It comes in a very short supply. I love you, mom. But then they disappear for years. I think that's lying, right? Of course, I love my mother, but, but I am prioritizing now the mission of Nas Daily because I believe the impact is far greater of reaching 500 million views every month. You can make the world far better than if you're just at a beach in Mexico with your family.

• 15:43Alex Kantrowitz?

  Do you think your relationship with your viewers is deeper than your relationship with your family?

• 15:48Speaker 02

  So I don't know if I prioritize depth.

• 15:51Alex Kantrowitz?

  Oh.

• 15:53Speaker 02

  Uh, I know this is a podcast and you're prioritizing depth.

• 15:55Alex Kantrowitz?

  No, this is good.

• 15:57Speaker 02

  I, you know, uh, if, if you want to go deep, go become a fucking post PhD student at Harvard University. Go be a postdoc student, go be a researcher, right? That's, that's going deep and there's nothing wrong with that. If you want to go deep, well, go have one best friend and just hang out with them and build a lifelong relationship. Go spend unlimited time with your family. There's nothing wrong with that. It's amazing way to live life, right? But we must recognize there are different ways to live life and it's no one's job to say what's wrong and what's not. My, ever since I was five years old, I never wanted to go deep. I never wanted to go to you. I never wanted to have two best friends. I never wanted to just be in one country.

• 16:41Speaker 02

  I never wanted to be a postdoc. I have always wanted breadth. I've wanted to reach as many people as possible in the world because I believe if you want to change the world, you just need a spark. You just need to give somebody a spark of opportunity. That's it. You know, I don't like, you know, if I want to help a kid in India, right? There's two things you could do. One is you could go and give them a hundred thousand dollars, a scholarship, to go to a university and go really deep with them. Or you can give them a spark that here's a piece of content that could spark the way you think. But my job is done. Now it's your turn to go and figure out how to actually succeed, right? So I want to give that spark to as many millions of people as possible. And that's my job.

• 17:26Alex Kantrowitz?

  Do you ever find it like the pressure to be crushing when you know that millions of people are going to watch your next video?

• 17:32Speaker 02

  What's crushing?

• 17:33Alex Kantrowitz?

  It has to be good.

• 17:34Speaker 02

  Oh, the pressure to be crushing, intense. Yes, the pressure is intense.

• 17:38Alex Kantrowitz?

  How do you handle that?

• 17:40Speaker 02

  Um. You know.

• 17:45Speaker 02

  The pressure, the pressure, the pressure. The most pressure in my life was making a thousand videos in a thousand days. So I don't think this pressure is that big.

• 17:54Alex Kantrowitz?

  Really? But when you know, the thing is, okay, of course, the pressure is to make those thousand videos in a thousand days. But when you know that so many people are going to see what you're putting out there.

• 18:05Alex Kantrowitz?

  I'll give you, I mean, I'll give an example. When I'm writing my newsletter and it's a much smaller audience. But I'm like, damn, people are going to read this thing.

• 18:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:12Alex Kantrowitz?

  And it's intense.

• 18:14Speaker 02

  I think instead of, I don't feel pressure, but I feel like I care. Like I really care about the final product. It has to be good. It has to be unifying. So uh, anyway, it's not pressure, but it's just a lot of work.

• 18:28Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 18:29Speaker 02

  A lot of work. This has to be perfect. Not because of pressure, but because I want it to be perfect. You know, I, you know, I, I used to say this, you know, this one minute video I'm making, this is the last time I'm making this video. I'm not repeating this video ever again. So when I'm ninety years old, I need to watch that video and it better be damn good. So I want no mistakes because any mistake in a video, I'm going to be stuck with it for twenty years, thirty years, fifty years.

• 18:55Alex Kantrowitz?

  I read online that you take six hours to shoot and three hours to edit the one minute video.

• 18:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, roughly ten to twelve hours total for.

• 19:01Alex Kantrowitz?

  It's amazing. Yeah. I don't think people appreciate sometimes the amount of work that goes into.

• 19:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, it's mostly the mental effort too.

• 19:08Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, yeah. So do you ever get burned out because a thousand, a thousand days, there gotta be days you wake up and you're like, F that.

• 19:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, now, now I don't make content.

• 19:16Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 19:16Speaker 02

  My life has changed.

• 19:17Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yes.

• 19:18Speaker 02

  Now I'm building a company.

• 19:20Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yes.

• 19:20Speaker 02

  Now we are venture backed, a hundred and fifty people building technology for the next creators. You know, this is a different challenge. This is what keeps me up at night.

• 19:30Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 19:30Speaker 02

  You know?

• 19:31Alex Kantrowitz?

  Did you do it because you got burned out making the content?

• 19:33Speaker 02

  No, no, I did it because it's the only realistic next step.

• 19:37Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay.

• 19:38Speaker 02

  To do.

• 19:38Alex Kantrowitz?

  I want, I want to talk about the business in the second half, but I'm going to keep pressing you on the burnout thing. Cause everybody, there, there, there must have been days where you would wake up and say, I'm not doing this. So how did you push through that?

• 19:49Speaker 02

  Six hundred out of the thousand days.

• 19:51Alex Kantrowitz?

  Really? So, so tell me more about that.

• 19:52Speaker 02

  It was like sixty percent of the time I was like, I hate this.

• 19:58Speaker 02

  Some people thrive off of stress and pressure and, and, and discomfort. Some people thrive off of comfort and ease of life, right? I just happen to be part of, part of the first group. So I do like it. I wanna quit. I hate making this. I hate this content. But as I say, I hate it, I get energy to keep doing it. It's a weird thing.

• 20:26Alex Kantrowitz?

  It is weird. I mean, I have it too. I actually still enjoy doing the podcast every, every time I sit down with someone.

• 20:32Speaker 02

  Do you hate it?

• 20:33Alex Kantrowitz?

  Not, not yet, not the podcast, but write, I hate to write. Um, yeah. Writing is tough because there is a degree of having to. I like the discovery process, which is what we do here in these shows. But the writing process is painful because you have to clarify your ideas, get them on paper. And if you are slightly off when you write, everyone thinks you're a dumbass.

• 20:56Speaker 02

  Everyone thinks you're a dumbass. But you know, when it comes to pain, and let's take it to the crazy next level, right? Some people really enjoy pain.

• 21:03Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 21:03Speaker 02

  Right? In a sexual setting.

• 21:06Speaker 02

  That's not me.

• 21:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay.

• 21:07Speaker 02

  In a religious setting, right? There are some sects in Iran, right? Who like hit themselves to feel pain because that feels good. Or because they want to say, you know, thank you to God or whatever.

• 21:17Alex Kantrowitz?

  What about fasting?

• 21:18Speaker 02

  It's it's some.

• 21:19Alex Kantrowitz?

  We were both brought up in religions with fasting.

• 21:21Speaker 02

  It's it's inflicting some discomfort on your body to do something and people love it. So, uh, pain is not always bad.

• 21:31Speaker 02

  That's it.

• 21:32Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay. Last thing I want to ask you about this is metrics.

• 21:35Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 21:36Alex Kantrowitz?

  When I publish, I'm kind of hooked to the metrics. I want to see, like, for a podcast, I want to see dump number of downloads. For a newsletter, I want to see open rate and views. And again, it's on a much smaller scale.

• 21:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:49Alex Kantrowitz?

  How do you deal with having to, how do you deal with the fact that basically,

• 21:57Alex Kantrowitz?

  whether people liked what you did or didn't, um, whether your message is resonating or it isn't, is just right there. And kind of calling to you at all times to check and sometimes even get your self-worth out of it.

• 22:10Speaker 02

  So, you know, for me, unfortunately, it translates to like three numbers, right? Number of likes, number of views, and, uh, actually just two numbers, likes to view ratio, right? So on average, if you get a million views, you should expect 50,000 likes, 5%. If the video is bad, then you get 3%, right? So 30,000 likes for a million views. That's not good. When I get that, I'm like, ah, people don't like this video. But if you get eighty thousand likes for a million views, you know it's a very well-liked video. So these are sort of my my metrics.

• 22:48Alex Kantrowitz?

  How do you keep yourself from, do you constantly check and assess your self-worth on it? I mean, it happens a lot.

• 22:55Speaker 02

  I was a data engineer before Nas Daily, so I, you know, I care a lot about numbers.

• 23:00Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 23:01Speaker 02

  But I'm not the most data-driven person, but but but.

• 23:05Alex Kantrowitz?

  There's something about this business that instills this unhealthy obsession with how those numbers look.

• 23:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, especially if you don't have that many followers, especially if you're around people with like five million followers and you have five thousand, it does make you feel inferior. It did make me feel inferior. So I am not denying it and I agree with it.

• 23:24Speaker 02

  You know, my recommendation is diversify your baskets in the sense that you shouldn't get all your money or all your views from one platform or one business, right? And you have two businesses, three businesses, three places in which you revenue streams, whatever. Diversify, diversify, diversify, so that you get self-worth from different things.

• 23:50Alex Kantrowitz?

  Nasir Yasin is with us. He is the CEO of Nas Daily and the CEO of Nas Academy, both of which we will talk about, especially looking at the business, right after the break. This episode is brought to you by AppPoint. Everyone's racing to roll out AI right now. Copilots, chatbots, agents doing real work. But here's the part nobody loves talking about. All that AI runs on your data, and most teams have no single way to see it, secure it, and prove it's under control. That's exactly what AppPoint does. For twenty five years, they've been the trusted layer beneath the world's most demanding data, now extended across your entire AI estate. Your data, your cloud, and the agents acting

• 24:35Alex Kantrowitz?

  on your behalf. It's how more than twenty eight thousand organizations deploy AI with confidence. So innovation scales without scaling risk. AppPoint, the unifying trust layer for AI. Head to apppoint.com to see how enterprises deploy AI with confidence. Learn more at avpt.co/bigtechnologypodcast. That's avpt.co/bigtechnologypodcast.

• 25:03Alex Kantrowitz?

  Violent threats against executives are growing at an alarming rate. When a company experiences backlash, executives are the first people blamed. When their address and other personal details are sitting online, this backlash can lead right to their front door. The team at Ironwell knows this better than anyone. They've protected some of the most targeted executives and individuals on the planet for almost two decades. As a wide-glove enterprise security service, they protect your people with continuous personal data removal, proactive prevention tools, and human-led emergency support. So when someone goes looking for your executives, Ironwell ensures they hit a dead end. So here's what to do. Go to ironwall.com/bigtechnology, fill in the quick form, and request your free risk assessment. Their team will show you just how exposed your executives are

• 25:48Alex Kantrowitz?

  and how to lock it down before a threat reaches their front door. That's ironwall.com/bigtechnology. Learn how to stop online threats before they become real-world attacks. The link's in the show notes.

• 26:09Alex Kantrowitz?

  And we're back here on Big Technology Podcast with Masari Yassin, CEO of NAS Daily and CEO of NAS Academy.

• 26:17Speaker 02

  NAS Company, just one thing.

• 26:18Alex Kantrowitz?

  NAS Company, let's call it NAS Company. That's what it's called?

• 26:21Speaker 02

  That's what, I've decided that last month.

• 26:22Alex Kantrowitz?

  NASCO.

• 26:23Speaker 02

  NASCO.

• 26:24Alex Kantrowitz?

  Like it.

• 26:24Speaker 02

  Let's go, baby!

• 26:25Alex Kantrowitz?

  NASCO. What are the odds of people making it and doing what you're doing? Because a lot of people want to be YouTubers, but you know, there's only, I tend to think that there's only a small fraction that are actually successful.

• 26:38Speaker 02

  What's the odds of people making it as entrepreneurs?

• 26:43Alex Kantrowitz?

  Depends how dogged they are.

• 26:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, I would say it's the same, right? A unicorn, there are 100 unicorns in India, I believe. No, 16? I actually don't know. Shit. Anyway, that's it. I think there's a thousand unicorns in America, okay? But there's also like a million companies in America or a million small businesses in America. So you're looking at, you know, one percent or zero point one percent as possibility of growth. So it's the same thing when it comes to content creation. To make it big like Nas Daily, maybe that's a unicorn status, right? Fifty million, maybe. But actually, you know, there's a million creators out there trying to do it. And and they've all made it in some way. Some go bankrupt and stop creating. But there's a lot of small businesses in America that generate a little bit of profit.

• 27:29Speaker 02

  Nice little mom and pop shop and it works. And you can have it for generations. Similarly, there's a lot of creators in the world who also made it. But they made it as a small business. They made it as a mom and pop shop. And that's great. We should not be in the business of just unicorns. We need a middle class of creators and a lower class of creators. And and I think we're getting there.

• 27:53Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 27:53Speaker 02

  You made it.

• 27:54Alex Kantrowitz?

  I think I'm in the middle class.

• 27:55Speaker 02

  You're in the middle class. You're a success.

• 27:58Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, I mean, it's it's interesting because, you know, for I worked in newsrooms for eight years and never really thought about the idea of starting my own media company. But jumping in, it's been sweet.

• 28:09Speaker 02

  It's been sweet.

• 28:10Alex Kantrowitz?

  It's nice.

• 28:11Speaker 02

  It's nice. Support him, guys. Click like.

• 28:16Alex Kantrowitz?

  So I also wanted to talk about how you've made money and how that's progressed over the years.

• 28:21Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 28:22Alex Kantrowitz?

  So let's talk when you first got a massive audience on YouTube. Was it advertising? Was it platforms paying you? How did or speaking?

• 28:31Speaker 02

  The first time I made money actually was from a video service. Somebody wanted drone shots in Kenya and I was like, here's my drone shots. Give me two hundred dollars.

• 28:41Alex Kantrowitz?

  Oh.

• 28:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's the first money I made and I was like, huh. It is possible to make money from content. Now, after that, the more I started to scream, the more people wanted to have me scream at their conference. So you're like, okay, give me a thousand bucks and I'll be at your conference. And and it worked. And then Facebook introduced advertising and every time you get a million views, you make a thousand bucks. Oh, it's amazing. And the more millions of views, the more thousands of bucks. So it's it's become, you know, it's because it's it's it's become, you know, growing steadily as a business. Um, but you know, our primary goal has never been to make money like. Do you think I started making videos to be a millionaire? You think that was fucking possible like, no, it's a nice side effect.

• 29:26Speaker 02

  My T shirt is ten bucks. This is the only jeans I have. And this I clean every day because I don't want to buy a new one. So. Money is an amazing side effect of content creation and we make probably. Seven to eight million a year now.

• 29:41Alex Kantrowitz?

  Wow.

• 29:41Speaker 02

  Um, from everything we do. But. Uh, you know, I just want more money to be able to hire more people.

• 29:48Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 29:48Speaker 02

  That's all I want.

• 29:49Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, that's the way I think about it too. Like for me. The money side of things are just so I can keep this going.

• 29:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:55Alex Kantrowitz?

  You get you become, you fall in love with the act of creating this stuff, even though it's painful.

• 30:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:00Alex Kantrowitz?

  And. The money is a way to just keep going.

• 30:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'll tell you this, I would have done all of this for free.

• 30:05Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 30:06Speaker 02

  Actually, I started Nas Daily and it was free. I didn't make money for the first two years.

• 30:09Alex Kantrowitz?

  Hmm.

• 30:09Speaker 02

  So, um, some things are better than money. And you can only say that once you have enough money.

• 30:15Alex Kantrowitz?

  Exactly.

• 30:16Speaker 02

  So my only recommendation is make enough money, then start talking about how much money doesn't matter.

• 30:21Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right, well, the the alternative is, um, you know, if you're like, you were software and software engineer. So the alternative would be going back to a a desk job coding, which is great. But if you have this creative fire and you.

• 30:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:32Alex Kantrowitz?

  Um, and you want to share this message with people, that would be pretty crushing.

• 30:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 30:37Alex Kantrowitz?

  Given where you're sitting.

• 30:38Speaker 02

  Sorry?

• 30:38Alex Kantrowitz?

  Given where you're sitting, I mean, it's not to say that software engineering or a desktop, which I had for a long time, is a bad thing. But if you have this fire burning in you and you start to to taste, you know, the ability to get the message across. Then you just become obsessed with.

• 30:52Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 30:52Alex Kantrowitz?

  Sustaining the method through which you're able to get the message across.

• 30:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, totally. And I think we should normalize obsession.

• 30:59Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 31:00Speaker 02

  We shouldn't call it crazy. We shouldn't call it, uh, you don't care about us. No, you're obsessed. Keep being obsessed. Support the crazy people.

• 31:08Alex Kantrowitz?

  The seven to eight million that you talked about, is that all advertising, licensing and speaking revenue, or is it coming from somewhere else?

• 31:15Speaker 02

  No, so we, we, so NAS Company is basically two, two things, right? One is, uh, we, we run educational communities, uh, that we, we, we, we, we create classes and educational content. Uh, and another is, is, is, is, is content on Facebook or YouTube or whatever about people. Uh, so, you know, both lines of business are about bringing people together, either to upskill them or to make them wanna travel or wanna, you know, humanize others. So we make money from things that make the world better. And I think that's really important distinction. We don't make money from selling T-shirts. We don't make money from selling plastic. We don't make money from selling you some god knows sugar drink. We don't do that.

• 31:56Speaker 02

  So it's been really fascinating to be able to make so much money while also making the world better. Uh, on the NAS Daily front, uh, you know, there is the production house as well. So we create content for, uh, for companies, for brands, for governments, for whatever that wanna use our service, our storytelling service to amplify their message. And we give them the videos and they don't go on NAS Daily. Uh, because NAS Daily, like, you know, we respect the viewer and I'm only making videos on NAS Daily that I would do for free.

• 32:25Alex Kantrowitz?

  Hmm.

• 32:25Speaker 02

  Um, and, and that's kind of has been like this for the last five years.

• 32:29Alex Kantrowitz?

  And what about platforms? Like, are you getting a, a new thing that's happening? Well, not new, but relatively new. Is that the platforms are paying?

• 32:37Speaker 02

  Like ad revenue.

• 32:38Alex Kantrowitz?

  Not only, not only ad revenue, but actual

• 32:41Speaker 02

  Creator fund.

• 32:41Alex Kantrowitz?

  Creator fund money that's coming from like places like TikTok and Facebook Reels.

• 32:45Speaker 02

  So right now that revenue is roughly 25%.

• 32:48Alex Kantrowitz?

  Oh, so it's meaningful.

• 32:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's meaningful. It's, uh, it's meaningful, yeah, yeah. So 25% of our revenue probably comes from the platforms and the 75% comes from everything else.

• 32:58Alex Kantrowitz?

  Hmm. Um, sorry, you, you travel all over the place. How do you keep like mentally and physically fit?

• 33:06Speaker 02

  So that's a, that's a, that's a good question. Uh, my, my recommendation, sorry, you can cut that out. My recommendation.

• 33:15Speaker 02

  So the first five years, I only cared about the videos. Now I have a little bit more time, so I spend exactly sixty minutes every day, exactly. No more, no less.

• 33:25Alex Kantrowitz?

  On making videos?

• 33:26Speaker 02

  No, on my health.

• 33:27Alex Kantrowitz?

  Oh, okay.

• 33:28Speaker 02

  So sixty minutes, six times a week. I spend six hours every week, twenty-four hours every month. So that's one full day, twenty-four hours, which is three percent of my life. So I spend three percent of my life on my health, and that's all it takes to be healthy. Right? So I, I, I, I don't eat meat. I don't eat some crazy stuff. I try to be very careful with food. And I, and I work out. So this way I keep myself health, healthy. When it comes to mentally, I am not mentally stable, if it wasn't very clear. And I'm not trying to be mentally stable. I think it's, it's, it's, you know, let the crazy be crazy.

• 34:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  Interesting. Do you find yourself happy? Are you happy?

• 34:11Speaker 02

  So if I slap you right now, right here, would you be happy?

• 34:16Alex Kantrowitz?

  I thought I would think it's funny. I don't think there's much you could do to me, honestly, to make me mad at you.

• 34:21Speaker 02

  Well, if somebody in the street comes and says, yeah, you'll be unhappy.

• 34:25Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 34:25Speaker 02

  You'll be unhappy for two days, and then after that you'll forget about it, and you'll be happy again. Because you'll go out and drink with your friends.

• 34:31Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 34:31Speaker 02

  Happiness is never constant. So when people say, are you happy? It's like me asking you.

• 34:38Alex Kantrowitz?

  Kind of a bullshit question.

• 34:38Speaker 02

  It's kind of a bullshit question, like. It, it always changes.

• 34:43Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 34:43Speaker 02

  It's like asking you, what's the value of your stock portfolio? Well, I don't know. Yesterday was different than tomorrow.

• 34:48Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 34:49Speaker 02

  I'm not happy on average.

• 34:53Speaker 02

  I'm, I'm not trying to be happy either. I'm just trying to do something that actually has value.

• 35:02Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yep.

• 35:02Speaker 02

  And in the process, I'm okay to have some pain.

• 35:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, I have a quick lightning round to add to this thing.

• 35:08Speaker 02

  Sorry, make it, make it lighter. This is, this is getting depressing.

• 35:11Alex Kantrowitz?

  No, I think this is great. Okay.

• 35:15Alex Kantrowitz?

  So keys to making a great video, if you can throw out some quick tips.

• 35:20Speaker 02

  Uh, uh, uh, uh, unlearn English. Speak simple, speak slow.

• 35:25Alex Kantrowitz?

  Uh huh. Okay. And I feel like, you know, Simon and I have been talking about this. You gotta catch people right at the beginning. How do you do that?

• 35:35Speaker 02

  Uh, what works for me is scream at them. Okay. That work, that works for me very, very, very well.

• 35:40Alex Kantrowitz?

  Just high energy right from the start.

• 35:41Speaker 02

  High energy from the start because people will suck that energy from you.

• 35:44Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. Okay, cool. Um, quick reactions to the state of some of the tech companies right now. What do you think about Facebook at the moment?

• 35:53Speaker 02

  Facebook changed my life. You know, whether you hate it or not, Facebook changed my life. Yeah. It enabled a random ass village kid to actually be heard.

• 36:03Speaker 02

  I will always support smart people who want to make the world better. In the process of getting there, we will make mistakes. You have made mistakes. The viewers have made mistakes. I have made mistakes. But it's, it's my job to support them, not to disincentivize them.

• 36:20Alex Kantrowitz?

  Mm hmm. Twitter?

• 36:23Speaker 02

  I have no thoughts. I don't know enough.

• 36:25Alex Kantrowitz?

  You don't use it?

• 36:26Speaker 02

  Um, a little bit. I, I don't, I don't have enough thoughts.

• 36:29Alex Kantrowitz?

  Tik Tok?

• 36:31Speaker 02

  Um, revolutionary. They are on the third stage.

• 36:38Alex Kantrowitz?

  Oh, you mean they're about to get to the point where people fear them?

• 36:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:42Alex Kantrowitz?

  Hmm.

• 36:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:44Alex Kantrowitz?

  LinkedIn?

• 36:45Speaker 02

  I love LinkedIn.

• 36:49Speaker 02

  I feel like LinkedIn is like the easiest social media to deal with, right? It's like, it's just everybody trying to get a job, you know, and just creating content about professional life. So, um, I actually think LinkedIn is, is, uh, really powerful. And I, I've been trying to make more and more videos about LinkedIn and on LinkedIn.

• 37:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, I've enjoyed those.

• 37:07Speaker 02

  Oh, really? Thank you. Thank you. That's how we connect.

• 37:10Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yes.

• 37:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:11Alex Kantrowitz?

  YouTube?

• 37:12Speaker 02

  I think YouTube is good. I think YouTube has gotten much better. I think YouTube has had its own fair share of going up and down, right? With the YouTuber culture, with the vlogging culture. But I think, again, similar to Facebook, the people at YouTube are freaking smart. And they really care. So, so I think that, that they're, they're gonna figure it out. And they're figuring it out. It's getting so much better.

• 37:35Alex Kantrowitz?

  If you were gonna start on one platform today, what would it be?

• 37:41Speaker 02

  Well, I would ask you, who do you want your viewer to be?

• 37:45Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, say more.

• 37:46Speaker 02

  Uh, if you want the world to watch you, go to Facebook. If you want the West to watch you, go to YouTube. The Western kids to watch you, go to kid, uh, uh, Facebook. If you want the kids of the world to watch you, go to TikTok. If you want to get a job or hire somebody to build a company, go to LinkedIn. And if you want to be a techie crypto guy, go to Twitter. Simple as, and if you want to be an art, actually, don't go to Instagram.

• 38:14Alex Kantrowitz?

  Why?

• 38:15Speaker 02

  Um, I think Instagram has a fundamental issue in which, uh, discoverability has been a problem for the last four years. Um, and it will not make you discoverable. If you are starting today, you are a nobody. Just like how I was starting when I was there six years ago, and I'm still a nobody. Uh, but if you're starting today, you're a nobody. Therefore, the only thing that matters is distribution. Where are you going to get the views? And Instagram right now, Instagram and Twitter are probably the worst at giving you discoverability.

• 38:48Alex Kantrowitz?

  Tell me about the one minute videos.

• 38:49Speaker 02

  What about them?

• 38:51Alex Kantrowitz?

  Well, before we started, you recommended making the one minute videos.

• 38:54Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 38:54Alex Kantrowitz?

  That's the way to reach people now.

• 38:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, twenty twenty-two is the year of the one minute videos.

• 38:59Alex Kantrowitz?

  Hmm. Finally, they caught up to your.

• 39:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:02Alex Kantrowitz?

  Style.

• 39:03Speaker 02

  I started in twenty sixteen, so I'm going to repeat that same thing. So everybody internalizes it. Twenty twenty-two is the year of the one minute videos. This is the year. And so if you make a one minute video right now, there are four places in which you can upload them. Instagram reels, Facebook reels, YouTube shorts, and TikTok. If you upload on all these three, you'll get massive distribution. Instagram and Facebook are still trying to figure it out, but you'll get massive distribution on YouTube and on TikTok. Do that.

• 39:35Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yep, um, if you're a, I think it's a great tip, we're gonna start doing it. Um, thank you for that. If you are a kid thinking about going and trying to become a professional content creator, do it.

• 39:51Speaker 02

  If you're a kid trying to become a professional content creator, make sure you're not homeless. Make enough money to be able to take this risk. Or get enough money somehow to take this risk. We are all highly privileged here, including you and me. But I only could start Nas Daily when I had enough savings for a year. To live for a year without a job. Get savings so that you can live nice without a job for one year. And just spend your savings for that one year. If it works, you're the next Nas Daily. If it doesn't, you'll go back to that job. But spend one year of your life, which is exactly 1.2% of your life, to take that risk and see what happens.

• 40:34Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, I was 10 years at a desk job before, going out on my own.

• 40:37Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 40:38Alex Kantrowitz?

  So.

• 40:38Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 40:39Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 40:39Speaker 02

  And how much savings did you have?

• 40:41Alex Kantrowitz?

  I had enough for a year.

• 40:43Speaker 02

  That's it? After working for 10 years? You're not good at saving money, my friend, or you're not paid enough.

• 40:47Alex Kantrowitz?

  Or you put enough, you put enough. Well, I think, let's go with the latter. But you put enough away that, that you, you, you know, you can't touch it because it's for retirement.

• 40:57Speaker 02

  Oh, wow. Okay, okay. Yeah, when I, when I was 24, I wasn't planning for retirement.

• 41:02Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 41:02Speaker 02

  So I, I think for me it was like, everything I made in a year and a half, I just started with.

• 41:07Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. Oh, where can people find your work and join the academy?

• 41:10Speaker 02

  If anybody is still listening to this, they probably know the work by now.

• 41:14Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right, right.

• 41:15Speaker 02

  Um, so it's just type Nas Daily on the internet and then, uh, it's all there.

• 41:22Alex Kantrowitz?

  Nuseir Yassin, thanks for joining.

• 41:24Speaker 02

  Alex, really, always a chat, always a pleasure chatting with you. And thank you so much for, uh, caring about the world in a, in a deep way. And, and, and for being a supporter of what we do.

• 41:34Alex Kantrowitz?

  Thank you so much. Yeah, always great to talk. Okay, well, that will do it for us here on the Big Technology Podcast this week.

• 41:41Speaker 02

  Sorry, you're still rolling.

• 41:42Alex Kantrowitz?

  Still rolling. Well, hey, it's good. We, we, we like an active outro. We like an, thanks again to Nuseir Yassin for being here with us. Thank you, Simon Hipkins from Key Pictures, I get that right? For doing the edit here, we appreciate you very much. Um, thank you to LinkedIn for being a partner on the podcast network. They are a partner. They are. Yeah, great partner. And thanks to all you listeners and viewers. We appreciate you being here. And we'll be back next week on the Big Technology Podcast with a new episode. Until then, take care.

• 42:17Speaker 03

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the HouseMajorityPac.com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 42:46Speaker 01

  In this life, you can't win.

• 42:48Speaker 04

  When the world gets you down.

• 42:49Speaker 01

  No!

• 42:50Speaker 04

  Escape to Pluto TV.

• 42:52Speaker 01

  This is objectively fantastic.

• 42:53Speaker 04

  Relax into the movies and shows you already know and love, all for free.

• 42:57Speaker 01

  Shwing!

• 42:58Speaker 04

  Even our news is uplifting.

• 42:59Alex Kantrowitz?

  You stay classy, San Diego.

• 43:01Speaker 04

  Watch School of Rock, Crazy Ex Girlfriend, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, The X-Files, Wayne's World, and so much more.

• 43:07Speaker 01

  We're not worthy!

• 43:09Speaker 04

  The best things on TV really are free.

• 43:11Speaker 01

  You just have to know where to look.

• 43:12Speaker 04

  Escape to Pluto TV. Dream now, pay never.