[04:23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoyE0eQZYh0&t=263s) 为什么非要成立一家公司（以及那个关于 Meta 的段子）
当被问及何时决定正式成立公司并将喜剧作为长期事业时，主创们开起了标志性的硅谷玩笑。他们调侃称，自己以前都在 Meta 担任高管，发现 Meta 内部有个部门本质上完全是在做“科技吐槽（Tech Roast）”，于是他们干脆把这个部门“剥离”出来，直接做成了自己的赚钱机器。 Jesse 甚至搞笑地比喻道：“我一手拉着 Austin，一手拉着 Nikita，抬脚就跑出了 Meta 大门，等我们清醒过来时，就已经变成了一家全新的公司。”
[0:00] a proud seven-figure business
[0:00] 七个人，七位数，一人一位
[0:00] 主创团队: 等我们达到八位数营收时，就会再招第 8 个人
[4:23] Jesse: 我一手拉着 Austin，一手拉着 Nikita，抬脚就跑出了 Meta 大门，等我们清醒过来时，就已经变成了一家全新的公司
[7:37] 你怎么敢辞掉高薪工作
[8:34] Austin: 照这样过下去
Original transcript
[0:00] Our industry is obsessed with chasing unicorns and getting high compositions. But how did three tech veterans defy this trend and successfully built a seven-figure business based entirely by burning this culture down? What's up guys, I'm YZ. Today, I'm with Austin, Jesse, and Nikita. The three founders of the most satirical show in Silicon Valley. This is good technology. The Tech Roast Show. We are here to discuss not only their success and journey, but the absurdity they find in today's tech environment. How they blend their passion for comedy with calling out that absurdity. There was a department in Meta that was essentially entirely tech roast. They had a whole tech roast division. So we just took that, carved it out, and turned it to our own. And turning it into a money-making machine. We also have a deeper conversation about the safety net that allowed them to start their own thing and chase their dream. I was supported by my parents and my family for the first like four years of doing stand-up. And they allowed me to mostly financially depend on them. I was making a tiny bit of money, but I was not making a living. And without that, I would not have been able to practice comedy the way I did. Here is the food conversation. Thank you. So I want to ask you the question you posted just a story. Ironically, software is now more unstable than a comedian. Ironically, the software job market is less stable than comedy? Yes, yes, yes. I think I thought of that. I see. I think there was a point when it certainly felt that way. I don't know if it was factually true. My guess is when one of the big waves of layoffs was happening, you made the joke that comedy is more stable. Yeah, but I think the other piece is, You must have grown your business so well that this feels like a legit business and feels stable. And I don't think many people have that perspective. It does not feel like a legit business. It is a legit business, but it rarely feels that way. I think... Because what we do is so fundamentally absurd. We are trying to build a company that has employees and real responsibility in the world. So as of right now, we have three full-time employees. Brendan does production and a lot of the logistics and He is sort of building out our long-form content branch of the company. And to clarify, that's three full-time employees that are not part of the four... equal owners of the company. So there's seven in total. There's another producer who's a part of the company who's not here right now who is uh... he's an equal partner of them three and he's my most direct boss because he's the other producer. They're the talent, the pretty faces of the company. The structure of the company is sort of a board of four co-owners, directors, and we started the company together. And we've been doing, I mean, I joined a year into the company's existence. They started it together. We did the show for a few years, and finally, I think, One year ago or so, we were finally in a position to hire some people full-time to scale the show up and to make more content and to just streamline what we're doing. Brendan is... the first person we hired who is currently with the company, and since then we hired two more people. So it's a total of seven people working in the company full time. a various chain of vendors and people we work with in part-time capacity. - Oh yeah, how much is that? - Oh, there's probably like-- - How much expense is going to the vendors? - I don't know how much expense is, but we probably have like 10, to 20 people we work with. There's videographers, photographers, there's ushers in different cities, there's people who help us with logistics. It's a lot of people, depending on the needs, a friend of ours is helping with the India tour to navigate the whole thing. There's a lot of people we regularly work with. All I can say is we are a proud seven-figure business. It's a seven-figure business with seven people on the permanent. So once we get to eight figures, we're going to hire one more person. Nice. Canadians can be a real career. That was new to me. Was that a passion or you want to pursue the career? And when did you realize, okay, we need to start a company and to do this more regularly? So we were all pretty high up at Meta. And what we found was that the tools that we're using internally at Meta are going to sell for a pretty penny on the open market. There was a department in Meta that was essentially entirely tech roast. They had a whole tech roast division. So we just took that, carved it out, and turned it to our own. And then we very quickly start and scale a company, just selling them to whoever wants to buy them.
[5:00] I took Austin under this arm, Nikita under this arm, and I went like this. And I ran out the door. Well, you know what was happening. But then when we came to, we were a completely different company. I mean, we had a different name, same product, different name though. Many people do not like their job, but they're afraid to take a leap. When you start a company, you must have taken a leap of faith. Yeah. So in terms of like leaving a big tech job and making a jump like that, I think at the time of TechRoad Show starting, well, none of us actually did it then. But I think my experience is pretty close to that because I was working at Microsoft. I left a We were doing it for-- - At least three years. - Three years. - Actually three years. - Before a killer. - We really weren't making much money. But I started building up like side income streams to like cushion my fall from grace when I leave. Like what? Real estate, Airbnb and rental property. Had some income offsetting my expenses and then – It was actually a really interesting time for Tech Row Show because it was a year after COVID when this happened. and we weren't able to do any shows. But there was a... Silver lining. in that the government was offering grants to entertainment companies that couldn't operate during COVID. And we got about $40,000 from the federal government that we did not have to pay back So that... in addition to some of, like, making some money on TikTok and then offsetting my my expenses with rental income, I was like, oh, this is the best time ever to... to do this because we actually had a good amount of money to invest in rents for shows. I wasn't as diligent with my savings. Back then, I just quit my job, made no money, lived with my parents for seven years, didn't spend any money. And I just waited for this to work. You know, my story is I don't pretend to have gone through some unusual amount of struggle. But as an immigrant and non-native speaker of English, it wasn't easy to like get into comedy and to like even consider the possibility of going on stage and performing in a language that's not my own. So I think that I hope that to the immigrants in our audience, at least that's something. - I like talking Chinese, I'm much more fluent, but when in English I feel... - I feel so mean now. - What the hell? I was in an extremely privileged position of having gone to a US college, and I got to learn the language that way. That helped a huge amount. My wife just pushed me to do comedy for months and months, because we grew up in Russia where there was no stand-up. Stand-up did not exist, didn't make... $400,000 for GameStop. - Wow. - And that paid for the portion of the apartment that I own. and I don't own the full thing, so yeah. Answering that question without acknowledging the privilege that allows that is bad, but I think it's a relevant part of how we were able to- Sure, I was just answering the question for me. Same, all I'm saying is I lived with my parents for seven years, and if- - Totally get that that's a luxury, not everybody can live with their parents for seven years. - Not everyone can have an Airbnb. - Right, my parents had an extra room. - I was supported by my parents and my family. - Yeah, I don't know how we thought. - For the first like four years of doing stand-up, I lived in Seattle and they allowed me to mostly financially depend on them. I was making a tiny bit of money, but I was not making a living. And without that, I would not have been able to Practice comedy the way I did. I think the privilege is important because your audience, especially, especially those people who get to work in tech, we all have privilege. We all have a high paying job. Still, like, ask the question of why. Like what made your passion into action? Like insecurity and fear of the life that I would have if I just did. When I joined Microsoft, I had this fear in my head because I didn't want to go to Seattle. I thought it was really depressing. And when I got this job at Microsoft, I had this fear of, looking at the middle managers who would just come to work every day in Sammamish, and just be super excited about feature flags and stuff. Pick up their son or daughter at swim practice every day and just like... Their whole life was Microsoft. and I thought it would be the saddest thing if I stayed in Seattle. I could definitely imagine more pain than a high-paying job at Microsoft in Seattle. I don't think I was avoiding something. My background is different. Austin and Jesse both worked actual corporate positions at tech companies. My background in tech was spending two years working on a solo game development project. Except I wasn't trying to rely on natural language prompting, because AI didn't exist back then. So I was doing it by teaching myself to code, working on this VR game project, It was a very lonely process, and while it was creatively fulfilling to some degree, it was something that I didn't know how to share with people. And then when my wife pushed me to start doing standup, the pull of that was just so much stronger because there is a community in comedy, and there is an immediate feedback loop. Comedy gave me something that just old names
[10:00] much more than what I was doing in tech. And also, the parts that I was excited about in game development, are actually still things that I get to do for TechRail's show, because we develop custom software for our show, and some of it involves includes interactive games and yeah. And that wraps our conversation. Don't forget to subscribe to this channel for more videos like this. And let me know in the comments who should I interview next. See you next time.
