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Good morning. I think it's Tuesday. So, last week you made a video with a very clickbaity title. Why I left Crash Course. Now, I understand that making YouTube videos these days is a delicate balance between wanting to make a good video and wanting to make a video that lots of people watch. But, buddy, your wings were made of wax and you flew a little too close to that hot clickbait sun and you made two critical errors. First, you did not leave Crash Course. I left Crash Course for reasons I'll get into in a moment, but you are still on the board of directors of Complexity, the organization that makes Crash Course, and you help out with Crash Course and related Complexity
projects all the time. But secondly, Hank, in the video, you said that we changed things such that Crash Course is no longer owned by Hank and John Green, which made people conclude quite justifiably, I think, that we sold to like a private equity firm or something. And people were not thrilled with the notion of their crash course coin money going to like rich uncle penny bags. So, okay, background. In 2011, Hank and I founded a company called Complexly that has made lots of educational content from Bizarre Beasts to the Art Assignment to Sihow to Crash Course. Now, since we have other jobs, Hank and I never took profit distributions from Complexely. Any money that Complexely made, and it never made much, was
reinvested into making more educational video. But as it started to grow into a bigish company, Hank, you and I both started to feel like this is a lot for two random guys to just own. And for me at least, the pressure of so many people's livelihoods depending on us running complexly well got to be a little overwhelming. So we started to think maybe we shouldn't own this thing. And so over the last 5 years, we did have many conversations with various companies about the future of Complexity and Crash Course because we wanted to make sure that we were finding the right future for it. And you could argue that the right future for Crash Course is to make it into a big thing that produces
all kinds of educational media and charges for some of it. That's what the companies we were talking to all wanted to do. They wanted to buy Crash Course from us and then keep the videos free, but then charge for content around the videos or else charge schools a licensing fee to use them. And when we like told folks that we end every video by promising to keep Crash Course free for everyone forever, they would always sort of make a weird face and then say something like, "Well, companies change priorities all the time." I think what those private equity people were really saying was pretty simple, which is that Crash Course doesn't make economic sense. Not because it doesn't get lots
of views, but because it's free and expensive to make. Being accurate and reliable and useful in a classroom involves a huge team of people from fact checkers to curriculum consultants. And the choice those private equity companies saw was either to make Crash Course cheaper, which is to say less good, or else make it not free. But Hank, you saw a different option. Now, it's important to note, Hank, that you and I are in an extremely unusual position, which is that we have more than enough money. And despite what billionaires believe, there's actually no difference between more than enough and much more than enough. So we felt like we needed to not own Complexly. But what you realized, Hank, is that didn't necessarily mean profiting from
Complexly. So one day, Hank, you were like, "Well, we could just give Complexity away and make it a nonprofit." And suddenly everything made sense. Becoming a nonprofit would allow us to keep Crash Course free for everyone forever. And becoming a nonprofit would mean that Hank and I never profit directly from Crash Course, which feels appropriate since so much of its growth was fueled by crowdfunding. And it would mean that people who got the Crash Course coin or donated in other ways would be donating to a nonprofit organization, which feels good and also has tax benefits. It just made sense for Complexity to become a charity. And so that's what we did. And now Crash Course and the rest of Complexity is owned by the public it
seeks to serve. And that Hank is what you should have said in the first 10 seconds of your video last week. Crash Course is a nonprofit organization that we no longer own, but that you continue to serve on the board of directors of in an unpaid capacity. But of course, if you'd said that, fewer people would have watched the video, fewer people would have bought a Crash Course Coin, etc. Which slightly off topic, maybe indicates a little problem with an algorithmically generated internet that only values capturing and holding attention, but that's another video. So Hank, I would argue that you failing to mention that we're a charity in your video about leaving Crash Course, which you didn't leave, was not
your finest moment. But I actually think that turning Crash Course into a nonprofit is one of your finest moments and one of the most interesting choices you've made in a long career of interesting choices. And I'm really proud of the impact that Crash Course and Complexity have, especially now that our only priority is serving the public well with reliable information. I shouldn't say our only priority because I don't work there anymore. So, as for why I did actually leave Crash Course and Complexity, now you'll still see me in Crash Course videos sometimes, and I will continue to contribute in any way that I can to Crash Courses and Complexity success, but I didn't join the board of directors for a few
reasons. First, as I mentioned earlier, I find like running such a big thing pretty stressful. Also, Complexity is in a really healthy place with an amazing team of people, and I just don't think they need me. So, I think it's okay for me to focus on other work projects, especially the writing that I find so fulfilling. And finally, Hank, to be honest, I'm not very good at the job. Like, I can't read a spreadsheet. I look at a spreadsheet, I don't know if it contains good news or bad news, only that it contains a lot of news. So, I think it makes sense for me to help out Crash Course in other ways, writing and
hosting when I can, rather than like helping run the thing. Still, I'm incredibly proud of what the folks at Complexly accomplished. Just last year, Crash Course got 154 million views. It's used in thousands of schools around the world, and it really is making educational opportunities more accessible to people. So, while I don't work at Complexly, I did get a crash course coin this year. And if you want to support Complexity's work, you can also get a Crash Course Coin only for the next few days at crashcoursecoin.com. And in doing so, I'll say what Hank didn't in his video. You are supporting a charity. Hank, I'll see you on
