The Exchanges

Q Do you remember what, what you haven't had him say?

A Vividly, guy. Um, so Fred Hochberg, whose birthday it was, who was a prominent businessman, his mother is Lillian Vernon of the Lillian Vernon catalog, who was sort of the catalog queen of the sixties, seventies, and eighties. Um, so we made the president a t-shirt that said, Fred Hochberg turned 50, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt from Lillian Vernon. Um, which is funny, because she was a huge campaign contributor of his. And, uh, when he saw the t-shirt, the president just started laughing, and he did the joke just as we asked. He held up the t-shirt, and the entire room full of, uh, room full of people there to celebrate burst into laughter, and it was a big hit. And that was the first, that was the first real paid gig we ever had.

AI assessment note: “we made the president a t-shirt that said, Fred Hochberg turned 50”

Q If I came across you as a fifteen-year-old, right, and, and I was like, hey, Casey, like, let's talk. Like, I want to just find out what's going on with your life. Like, would you have been sort of sarcastic and, um, and jokey, or would you have been willing to kind of sit down and have an earnest conversation about what was going on in your life?

A You know, that's, that's tough. I don't know if anybody's ever asked me that before, Guy, but I think that, um, I, I, I know that the, I was, you know, I almost only spoke in the most sardonic of ways. I was always joking. I was never serious, but I think that that shell, that superficial shell, was very fragile, and I think it could have been broken very easily. Um, you know, I remember vividly, uh, Lou Gaborty, he was my 10th grade English teacher, I remember causing so much trouble in the class, and I mean, the whole class laughing, and all at his expense, he couldn't teach, and he pulled me out into the, ah, into the hallway. Instead of throwing me out of class, he pulled me into the hallway, and he just like, you know, he looked me dead in the eye, and he said, what's wrong? And I just like, I burst into tears, um, burst into tears, and had a very earnest conversation with him about my parents splitting up, and all this sort of tumult in my life. And, um, you know, he, he was able to, the reason maybe why I remember his name among all of my teachers is he was able to break through that shell very, very easily.

AI assessment note: “I almost only spoke in the most sardonic of ways... that superficial shell, was very fragile”

Q You were clashing with your, with your mom a lot? Fighting?

A Yeah, um, you know, I don't, I don't know if this is fair or not, but I think all four of us kids directed the blame at my mother, um, and I was always the most vocal about that, so throughout the divorce I really vilified her for, you know, for bringing us to that place. And then ultimately, you know, uh, I brought that frustration to school, and, um, ultimately I was, I was, I think, suspended from school for using my, my pager Um, in detention. I had a beeper back then. Nobody had cell phones, and my friend texted me, and I wanted to call him back, so I walked out of detention. It was a huge deal. And my mother that night, um, you know, she screamed at me, and she said, you know, give me that beeper. Get out of this house. And, and I didn't want to be seen weak in her eyes. I didn't want to back down or relent to that. So I left. I, I was 15 years old. It was a Tuesday night. And, um, a school night, and it was cold, and, ah, I left. I walked, I, I took a backpack, and I left my parents' house, and, and never went back.

AI assessment note: “throughout the divorce I really vilified her for, you know, for bringing us to that place.”

Q Was it, was it like one of those blue or purple ones?

A It was blue. It was blue. The first year was only blue. Purple was the next year. And, uh, that's what he was doing in New York, and I remember when he bought that computer, he called me to tell me about it, and that sounded like the coolest thing I'd ever heard. And that year, um, Owen was, wasn't quite two yet, but that year, we drove into the city, and we stayed in his apartment, his one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn, and while we were there, all we did was play with my brother's computer, um, because he had a computer, but he didn't have a video camera. And I had a video camera, but no computer, so we had all this footage of my son running around the Central Park Zoo, and he and I just tried to figure out how to edit it, and um, that moment, I mean, I can, I can tell you how the room smelled, I can tell you exactly the layout, I can tell you where his computer was in relationship to his bed, like that moment, which was almost exactly 20 years ago, was so Crystal for me, because it was such a big deal. I'd never sort of had my breath taken away so much. I'd never seen such a tool of empowerment, um, a way to express yourself. I, I imagine it was like when you put a pianist in front of a piano for the first time, or you hand a writer a pencil for the first time. I just remember having my breath taken away by this machine, and when we ran out of footage to edit, there was, it …

AI assessment note: “It was blue. It was blue. The first year was only blue.”

Q And I guess it was around that time where, I guess you and Robin decide to split, um, I'm assuming the relationship just wasn't working, and, and you decide it was time for a change?

A Yeah, I think that when she and I split, you know, it's pretty, I was upset about it, and, um, ultimately I, I just kind of made a rash decision because I was going into New York to visit my brother then with some degree of frequency, and he and I and his girlfriend kind of hatched this cockamamie plan to, like, start a movie production, a video production company, and I was like, great, great, um, I'll be the CEO, and they were like, of course, of course you'll be the CEO. And, um, the minute that happened, it was not, I'm gonna go stay in New York, it was, I am moving to New York City. And I remember during a smoke break in the back, like, having this conversation with the cooks at the restaurant in the weeks preceding my, my leaving, and I remember them saying to them, you know, like, the great thing about this restaurant is that if you ever want to come back, Casey, you can just come right back and pick up right where you left off. And I, like, looked him in the eye, and I was just like, I'm never coming back. I'm never coming back.

AI assessment note: “ultimately I, I just kind of made a rash decision because I was going into New York”

Q And, and what did you do for work?

A Um, so I did temp work at first, um, and, uh, ultimately I got a job as sort of an artist assistant, getting 10 dollars an hour. But it was exciting, so I got to be around an artist who was using his creativity to sort of make a living in a career, which was something that was fascinating to be close to. I'd never seen that before in my life. And there was consistency there, because he had a lot of work to be done, and as many hours as I could work, he would pay me for. And I needed it. I needed the job, because I was taking the train every four days back to Connecticut, um, where I was staying in my dad's, uh, building of, of his company. He had a, an attic that was unused. It was just used for storage. That's where I would stay with, with Owen, because I, to go a week without seeing him was, uh, just start to implode.

AI assessment note: “I did temp work at first, um, and, uh, ultimately I got a job”

Q Alright, so this gets traction, and, uh, what, what happens? Like, are you contacted by the media? Like, what, what kind of attention did you get for this?

A It was a kind of attention that I had never experienced before. It was, I remember the Washington Post wrote a huge article, and it was the first time I'd ever read the word viral video, but it was everywhere. It was viral in the, in the most literal sense of the word viral. Um, everywhere it went, it just sort of multiplied. Uh, I remember being back in Connecticut with little Owen, and we were walking around, and somebody came up to us, and he was like, hey, I, I work in energy, and I just got back from Saudi Arabia, and I saw your Uh, face in your video on the news there. You made something about Apple. And I was like, yeah, that's, that's me. So it was kind of a, it was something that I don't think we could have in our wildest dreams ever anticipated.

AI assessment note: “I remember the Washington Post wrote a huge article”

Q So, and I read that while you were on a fellowship at MIT, You came up with this idea for a new social media platform that you called Beam. What, what was it?

A Yeah, so, I mean, what it literally was at this point in time was this is when Google Glass, the eyewear that was a wearable computer, was at its peak, and, um, I got a pair, and I loved the fact that I could capture everything I was seeing in real time. So I wanted to create an app that effectively did that. It captured what people were seeing in tiny little nuggets, and then they could share it. This was at a time when Instagram filters were Exploding. And this idea of curating how you want the world to see you was very new, but felt very uncomfortable for me. So let me create an app that was in the other direction where it was purely about exactly what the reality of your, of your perspective is. And I sat down with my professor, um, a gentleman named Sepp Kamvar, who was a tenured professor at MIT, and I was so nervous pitching him the idea. And he looked at me and he goes, Casey, is this a, is this a project or is this a business? And I don't know why, but with absolute unwavering confidence, I said, this is a business. And he said, okay, great. So you're gonna need some investors. These are angel investors. You want to go to your friends and family, anybody you think will write you a check. And he's like, you want to raise a couple 100,000 dollars here, and this will let you get your company started. And I was like, okay, okay, okay. And I'm writing this down word for wor…

AI assessment note: “It captured what people were seeing in tiny little nuggets, and then they could share”

Q Were you a pretty well-behaved kid, or were you, I don't know, a troublemaker?

A No, I was awful. I was awful. Um, You know, I, looking back at it, and I do spend a lot of time reflecting on it, I think that I would describe my parents, you know, parenting style as one of, like, absence. Like, they were never around, and I always felt like we were on our own. It was a very Lord of the Flies mentality in, in our household. And because of that, you know, I remember, like, being really little, and my older brother and I accidentally burning down the tree for it. I remember, like, my parents, uh, Throwing the Christmas tree sort of over a cliff in the backyard, uh, after Christmas, because it was easier than trying to throw it away, and my, my big brother Van and I thought it'd be hysterical to set it up on the train track, so the train would have to crash into a vertical, perfectly mounted, six-foot-tall Christmas tree. Um, you know, I remember getting, it may have even been suspended, but I think it was detention in school because, uh, I was skateboarding in the hallways. Um, so it was that sort of thing, and I think that I was absolutely a problematic kid.

AI assessment note: “No, I was awful. I was awful.”

Q Where did you guys live in, in the first year and a half of his life?

A Um, I bought a trailer, um, like a mobile home, and we lived in a, uh, like a trailer park, which was amazing. I remember being so proud of that. That was such a defining moment in my life, because the trailer, I think, was 12,000 dollars, and I put, I think, eight or 900 dollars down, and then got a mortgage for the rest that my grandmother co-signed for, and then we had to rent a little piece of land that we parked it on, and we lived there, and to me, that was like an Unbelievable source of pride. I remember, like, getting in arguments with Owen's mother because I would have to have the carpet, um, vacuumed in a certain pattern, and if the pattern wasn't there, I'd be upset. So I was vacuuming, like, three times a day because I was so proud of this home that, um, that I had for my family.

AI assessment note: “I bought a trailer, um, like a mobile home, and we lived in a, uh, like a trailer park”

Q What were the videos? Like, to describe, I mean, because I'm thinking it's like Owen walking next to a duck pond, or Owen.

A Yeah, that's pretty close. I mean, there's literally a video of Owen next to a duck pond in Old Mystic Village, which was across the street from where we lived, there was a duck pond, and that's where I shot one video, but I remember like one of my first big movies, like the one that I was immensely proud of was, um, Owen's mom's birthday, and I like went and filmed the birthday and all this, and then like at the end of the video, I jumped off of like the garage into the swimming pool at her cousin's house, and like, that was like the grand finale, and I made every family member I had watch that stupid movie over and over and over. Um, but no, I never considered these to be home videos. I considered these to be, like, these were movies.

AI assessment note: “there's literally a video of Owen next to a duck pond in Old Mystic Village”

Q And with that support now, what kinds of, like, what were you able to do? Did you need money to travel? Did you need money to buy better cameras? Did you?

A We didn't spend, we didn't spend it on gear. I don't know that we would have known what to buy. We're still using iMovie, but basically it was like, What's an awesome video we want to make today? And, um, you know, like, I think a good example of that is I wanted to make a movie with Owen, like a, a real movie with Owen. I was like, Owen, let's make a movie together. And he's like, okay, great. And I was like, can you write it? And, you know, he's eight years old, nine years old at the time. He's like, yes, I can. Ok, so you wanna make a movie about a cruise ship, wherein a gigantic blue monster crushes the ship and kills all the people on board? That sounds totally awesome. And he wrote a movie called The Blue Monster, and I went to the beach, and I covered myself in blue paint and seaweed, and he had to battle that monster, and the movie was like a story of my kid and me wanting to make a movie. Who is going to come out of the water, and he is going to attack the ship. We are going to make the boat out of cord You know, I remember, Guy, one of the videos was my girlfriend at the time, who's now my wife, um, my girlfriend at the time were having just wild problems in our relationship, and I made a movie that took probably a month to make, and it was called Love Versus Ego, and it was my love for her versus, like, the ego that is the fighting that we're, the two of us were havi…

AI assessment note: “We didn't spend, we didn't spend it on gear.”

Q At this stage in your life, did you have any ambitions for what you thought you wanted to become, or was it, were you just kind of like putting one foot in front of the other?

A Um, I, I always had this, uh, vision of the future. Um, you know, like I always, I always used to say, even when I was very young to my sister, I was like, well, when I grow up, I'm gonna be rich. And I remember, um, you know, when Owen was born and I was working in a restaurant, I remember sort of hatching these plans and, you know, spending 40, 50 hours a week in the bottom of a, a chowder pot scrubbing it. You sort of spend a lot of time in your own head. And I remember then just like, Obsessively identifying the weaknesses and in the way that the restaurant, the business was run. I mean, like, ok, so I, when I start a restaurant, here's exactly how I'm gonna run it. Here's how it's gonna be profitable. Here's how it's gonna work. That's the plan.

AI assessment note: “I always had this, uh, vision of the future.”

Q At this point, by the way, what was your primary source of income? Like, were you, were you still working with, with that artist?

A I was still an assistant. Um, I was getting paid very well, though, you know, because I was running the entire shop. I was running the whole, kind of, career of this prolific artist, and I felt like, all of a sudden, I, I sort of was figuring it out in New York, and, um, after iPod's Dirty Secret exploded, so many people came to my brother Van and me saying, What else have you done? And we're like, are you kidding me? Here's a hundred other movies we've done. And that happens enough where people are like, okay, these, these guys have something. And the opportunities we got then started to be more and more interesting. And I remember one time getting an, um, an offer to direct a TV commercial. And that sounds glamorous, but what it literally was, was a candy bar company wanted to test, uh, their candy bar, uh, Marketing in a very tiny market, and they had 10,000 dollars as an all-in budget, and the minute they greenlit that, and we got the money, uh, I quit my job. We're like, okay, we're, we're professional filmmakers now, and what was left of the money we spent to get our first studio, and it was a tiny, four square foot studio in Chinatown, and I remember we had enough money for one month, and, um, At the end of that month, we wouldn't be able to pay anything unless we could figure out how to make money in the next 28 days.

AI assessment note: “I was still an assistant. Um, I was getting paid very well, though”

Q school and having a kid at 17 and, you know, washing dishes and struggling and, you know, in, in your twenties and then building this incredible career, having twelve million people follow you on, on YouTube and, and, you know, become financially successful, you know, as a filmmaker. I mean, how much of that do you attribute to How hard you worked, and how much just because you were lucky?

A It's 99% luck, and beyond just being wildly fortunate, I'm wildly privileged. I, I may not have done well in school, but I had, I was offered an education at a young age. My parents didn't have much, but I was never hungry, and it did not come from an abusive household. I, I'm a wildly privileged individual. I always say that, like, I want, I was born with a winning lotto ticket in my hand. All I had to do was cash it in. And that cashing it in is hard work. Like, that's what that meant. To cash it in was hard work. And I did my part. But I could have never done my part without first winning the lotto on life. And I'm not naive to any of that. I didn't ask to be born in the United States of America. I didn't ask to be as lucky as I am. But I'm, none of that is ever lost on me. Every day I remind myself of that, and I, I have a debt, and that debt can only be paid via hard work.

AI assessment note: “It's 99% luck, and beyond just being wildly fortunate, I'm wildly privileged.”

Q And you couldn't scale yourself, right? I mean, it's just you.

A No, it was, it was limiting, but it was also, God, I was making real money then. I mean, I was making, you know, I was making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. This was more money than I made even post HBO. It was, it was a legitimate business. I had employees, it was exciting, but it, it fizzled out for me very quickly because it was, I felt like a one trick pony. Right. And I was seeking what's next in life, and I got a, a random email to my website, and it was from the Sundance Institute, which is sort of the non-profit wing of the Sundance Film Festival, and they said we're doing a program with, ah, MIT Media Labs. Where we pick individuals and give them fellowships at MIT, and we think you'd be a prime candidate for this. And I've never jumped at something so much in my life, because I never finished high school, and while I think that I've done well enough in my career to, to excuse that, I've always been insecure of my lack of education, so I jumped at it, and I said, let's do it.

AI assessment note: “No, it was, it was limiting, but it was also, God, I was making real money”