The Colin and Samir Show

This week we brought our team in to rank celebrity YouTube channels in a head to head bracket to figure out who's actually cracked the code. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on The Colin & Samir Show we sit down with Kate Tolo, the genius behind Bryan Johnson. Most people know Bryan from his quest to solve aging, but Kate is his co-founder, girlfriend, and the creative mind who took him from 2000 followers to over 10 million, a Netflix documentary, and a $60 million fundraising round. She walks us through her 11 rules for virality, backed up by the real emails,...

Let's talk about the recent YouTube updates Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on The Colin & Samir Show we sit down with Paddy Galloway, the YouTube strategist behind over 10 billion views for channels like Red Bull, Jesser and the Philadelphia Eagles. Paddy comes back every year with fresh data, and this time he brought graphs on what he calls the great device shift, the move of YouTube viewership from phones to TV screens. We get into how that shift is reshaping the...

In this episode of The Colin & Samir show we overanalyze one of MrBeast's highest viewed videos ever, a Russian dance TikTok that initially confused us. The video sparked a much larger discussion about views on the internet today and what creators should care about. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Four words got Hank Green accused of using AI, and the backlash hasn't stopped. We brought five voices into the room to argue about where the line actually is , thumbnails, outlines, dubbing, research, plus the generational divide nobody's naming, and three principles we landed on for creators using AI. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Companies are bought, not sold." That's the mindset John Coogan and Jordi Hays say got them a nine-figure acquisition from OpenAI, without ever trying to sell. Recorded live at Press Publish LA, this is our second sit-down with the TBPN guys, but the first since the deal went public. Two years ago they were building a daily live show from scratch. Now they've sold it to OpenAI for nine figures, a...

Creator ad spend is hitting thirty-nine billion dollars in 2026, and traditional video reads are no longer the standard. In this episode, we break down our new partnership with Lexus and we outline the four ways creators are making money with brands today: As distribution for brand reach. As talent for native likeness. As directors and creatives using platform expertise. As consultants bridging th...

Traditional networks are no longer just looking to creators for marketing—they want premium, long-term IP. Today we explore how independent comedy powerhouse YMH Studios scaled past traditional gatekeepers and why Fox Entertainment just signed a major multi-project slate with them. What you’ll get in this episode: The Deal Breakdown: Inside the co-ownership structure of the brand-new Fox and YMH s...

We are live from the LinkedIn Lounge for Day 3 of Cannes Lions. Today, we sit down with creative director Pablo Rochat, industry legend Sir John Hegarty, and e.l.f. Beauty President Kory Marchisotto to discuss the shifting dynamics of storytelling. Discover why the best brands act like entertainment studios, how to manage community feedback during high-risk campaigns, and the ultimate rule of effe...

Live from Cannes Lions, This is the Daily Brief from the LinkedIn Lounge. In this episode of The Daily Brief from the Linkedin Lounge, we dive into a massive piece of news that dropped yesterday: Instagram is launching a horizontal video hub on TVs. With YouTube already dominant in the living room, what does Meta’s latest move mean for creators, audiences, and ad dollars? We debate whether Instagr...

Live from the LinkedIn Lounge at Cannes Lions, we break down why traditional advertising is broken and what's actually working today. Spending millions on a single, polished TV commercial doesn't work anymore—it just gets lost in the noise. We sit down with creator Anthpo, Ramp’s Kendall Hope Tucker, and Adobe’s Lara Balazs to look at how real brands are catching people's attention by being entert...

Today on The Colin & Samir Show we sit down with Markiplier and YouTube's Tim Katz, live from the Fox Studios lot in front of 650 creators at Press Publish LA: The Hollywood Creator Summit. After more than 15 years building one of YouTube's most personal channels, Markiplier put Hollywood on notice with Iron Lung, the horror film he financed, wrote, directed, and starred in. The film pulled in clo...

This week, we break down three creator-made films that are reshaping the industry: Backrooms ($118M opening weekend on a $10M budget), Obsession ($148M box office on a sub-$1M budget), and Markiplier's Iron Lung ($52M independently). From a 16-year-old YouTuber landing an A24 deal to creators outperforming major studio releases, these stories reveal what happens when internet-native storytellers b...

Today on The Colin & Samir Show we sit down with the creator and host of SubwayTakes, Kareem Rahma. We dive into the origins and mechanics of what makes the show one of the most popular today on the internet. We also discuss the launch of his longform show Keep the Meter Running on YouTube. Kareem shares his pov on the future of attention and what it means to build a "show" in the modern media lan...

Our thoughts from Brandcast and Google I/O. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on The Colin and Samir Show we’re joined by Mark Rober, the former NASA engineer turned YouTube’s most prolific scientist, along with his Chief Content Officer, Scott Lewers. In this episode we explore why Mark is spending tens of millions to replace outdated classroom videos with free, high-production STEM content for teachers. We also dig into YouTube vs Netflix and the growing scale of th...

Most of the internet runs on negativity. But Yes Theory built a massive audience doing the opposite. They’re a group of filmmakers known for traveling the world, meeting strangers, and living by one idea: “seek discomfort” the belief that the best moments in life exist outside your comfort zone We’ve known Thomas Brag for years, watching his journey up close, and this is his third time on the show...

OpenAI just dropped $100M+ to buy a tech podcast that's only been around for 16 months. On the surface, it makes no sense. But when you look closer, this deal tells you everything about where media, marketing, and the creator economy are headed. We break down why Sam Altman called TPBN's founders "genius marketers," why storytelling is becoming the most valuable skill in tech, why live content is...

The first three months of 2026 revealed where the creator economy is actually headed. We broke down the three trends that defined the quarter: the livestreaming explosion and the clipping economy turning fame into an assembly line, AI video hitting mainstream audiences and getting banned at the same time, and the gamification of literally everything — from war to the Oscars. Plus, why the backlash...

Apply to Press Publish LA - ⁠presspublish.la For years, platforms have operated under one assumption: They aren’t responsible for what happens on their apps. This case challenges that. A jury found YouTube and Meta negligent not for the content on their platforms, but for how those platforms are designed. In this episode, we explore the case, the legal shift it represents, and why it may mark the...

This episode isn’t about AI tools. It’s about what happens when content makes itself. Adam (levy.eth) built a fully automated, AI-generated podcast about the Epstein Files. No hosts. No studio. No production team. It became the #1 podcast in the UK, beating ABC News, the BBC, and Audible — and he was doing about 5% of the work. In this episode, Samir sits down with Adam to break down exactly how h...

COME TO PRESS PUBLISH LA: http://presspublish.la/ The creator economy is projected to reach $43 billion in ad spend this year. But a recent survey found that nearly half of creators make less than $10,000 a year. So where is all the money actually going? In this episode, Colin and Samir break down the economics behind the creator economy — and why so much of the money is concentrating at the top....

Breaking down the success of Markiplier's indie-horror film "Iron Lung" and what it means for creators and Hollywood. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, we dive into the "Abundance Era," a major shift where the supply of content has far outpaced human demand. We explore the rise of "AI slop" flooding our feeds, from 2 billion-view monkey channels to unhinged AI VTubers making $400,000 a month. As AI becomes indistinguishable from human creators, we discuss the looming threat to authenticity and the individual creator. We break dow...