Science Corner Special: David Friedberg, Cleo Abram, Alex Filippenko, and Keller Rinaudo Cliffton
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Who is Cleo Abram and why is YouTube the best platform for creators?
Good morning. Where are my besties? They are not here. What does that mean? Science Corner I have a guest host because my besties abandoned me for science corner. Let's see who it is.
Leo, you're one of the fastest growing channels on YouTube right now. Former box journalist that left to go independent on YouTube. She went from zero to five million subscribers in just three years. I don't know many other YouTube creators who are gonna go to those legs.
There's a lot of very lucrative fear-mongering going on. That's why I want to bring a more optimistic point of view into the conversation, to help people imagine what could go right. That's why I went independent. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Cleo Abram.
Welcome. Thank you. Thanks for being here.
Thanks for having me.
Grab a seat. You were here all day yesterday?
Yeah.
How was it?
Having a great time. This is my first all in summit. I'm so excited to be here.
Welcome. So Cleo, you have six million subscribers on your YouTube channel. We have under a million. Thank you for having us on your show. Welcome. How did you do it? What happened? So you you were at Vox before?
I was,
yeah. And you were an independent director, I mean you were doing other projects. Tell us how you set up this channel on YouTube, why you did it, and how did it get so big so fast?
Yeah, Huge If True seems to me to be a bit of a microcosm of this big shift that we're in with media generally right now. I was at a media company um and making what we call explainer journalism. So taking complicated issues and making them understandable both to me and to millions of people. And I went independent to start this show because there was something that I felt like I was missing. When I looked out into my media diet, I really wanted to find a show that was optimistic, that helped me see where were the people that are working on hard problems, making them better every day, in a way that I could understand and I could participate in. So I left the media company where I was, started this show, and had the opportunity because of what YouTube offers to reach a global audience very quickly and find out, oh my God, I'm not alone.
Oh my God, there are millions of people that also want this kind of show. And YouTube made that bet that if you allow Anyone to create their best creative work, the most, the widest audience will watch. And so YouTube has become, in the last 18 months, I think, the most watched streaming platform on televisions. So we're in the middle of this big moment of change in media and how media gets made. And I I don't think most people know that it's really happening. They know that YouTube shows can get big, but they don't really understand the shift that we're in. And by the way, the shift is also very exciting for streamers because they're looking at this and they're saying, you know, uh a Netflix of the world, uh I used to make a Netflix show as well.
can look at this incredible new wealth of creativity and IP and say, oh my God, who do we want to work with to give, you know, upfront capital to make something that's even bigger. That's something you and I have talked about. Because Exactly.
if you're on Netflix today, and we're going to talk with Neil and Ari about this later today, you can you if you're an independent director, you go to Netflix, they're like, okay, we'll pay for your production cost plus 10%. And it's like quite different than what it used to be, like when you made friends, you could make the show, and then you could eventually make like a VC. Like you can make hundreds of millions of dollars if it worked out and it became a massive show, but you're basically capped. at Netflix, but YouTube's quite different. So there seems to be a financial or an economic incentive, both creative freedom, but also this economic incentive to go to YouTube. But then how does financing happen it?
Like where can creators drive the engine to fund and create new content?
Well, most YouTubers have ad-funded businesses. And so what that requires is you go out on your own, as we did with Huge If True, we went independent, we started this show, the show grows, and then you uh are able to get sponsors who uh in turn fund better and better work and it s continues to scale.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Who is Cleo Abram and why is YouTube the best platform for creators?
0:00–6:39
2
How does techno‑optimism shape the Huge If True show?
6:39–25:43
3
What are the most exciting discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope?
25:43–41:20
4
Why do scientists argue that pure research funding is still vital?
41:20–52:08
5
How is Zipline using autonomous drones to deliver medical supplies in Rwanda?
52:08–1:01:17
6
What challenges and competitive advantages does Zipline face in the drone‑delivery market?
1:01:17–1:05:41
7
How could instant drone delivery reshape everyday life for the ‘golden billion’ and beyond?
1:05:41–1:07:36
8
What key takeaways should listeners remember from this episode?
1:07:36–1:07:42
Speakers
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