Visionaries: Gaming, Media and the Internet Explained

Jacob "Alpharad" Rabon IV is a YouTuber, a musician known professionally as Ace of Hearts and an event organizer. Over the past seven years, he's become the most relevant content creator in the Super Smash Bros. community—but as he explains to Jacob, that's not enough. The 27-year-old creator is constantly looking to reinvent himself, push new boundaries with his content and remain steadfast in ex...

In 2019, veteran esports journalist Richard Lewis lost his closest friend and roommate, Remilia, the first ever female professional League of Legends player. In part two of this interview, he discusses how he's gone on a journey over the past three years, fighting with depression and looking for motivation to continue on in his career. "I'm in the process of getting past the depression and self-lo...

Richard Lewis is a veteran esports journalist, the former host of ELEAGUE and the editor-at-large at Dexerto. "I don't need the spotlight, I don't need the attention. My ego comes from the work I do. Like by the time it goes out, I am proud of it. If somebody says he's lied or that's not true or you've put misinformation in it, nah, I'm not gonna tolerate it cause I know I wouldn't do those things...

Lester Chen is the former global head of gaming creators at YouTube and a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, one of Silicon Valley's most wealthy investment firms. This week, YouTube's fifth-most subscribed creator MrBeast announced he is raising $150 million on a $1.5 billion valuation, a massive amount of capital for an Internet creator. Lester joins the show to discuss the shift happening in the c...

This week, we're changing things up. Overcome's Prem Thottumkara joins Jacob at the top of the show to discuss the recent closure of gaming network G4, as well as the recent accusations levied by Twitch's most watched female streamer Amouranth against her husband of emotional abuse. Then, Jacob's joined by ConnorEatsPants, the successful variety YouTube and Twitch creator. The two discuss recent c...

Twitch hosted its first TwitchCon in America in three years last weekend. The results? A streamer breaking her back, mobs flooding some of the biggest creators and an unruly experience for streamers, security and administrators alike. Washington Post reporter Nathan Grayson, who covers livestreaming and the creator economy, joins the podcast to discuss what went wrong at the event and how it's cha...

Joe Marsh is the CEO of T1 Entertainment and Sports, the group behind South Korea's most successful esports team. Prior to running T1, Joe worked at Comcast Spectacor, the owners of the Philadelphia Flyers, and became a part of its initial esports group, who now own the Overwatch League's Philadelphia Fusion, have relaunched gaming TV network G4 and are co-owners of T1, alongside South Korea's SK...

Brandon "Seagull" Larned is a former Overwatch professional player and a content creator on YouTube. This week, Blizzard released Overwatch 2, the sequel to one of 2016's Games of the Year. But so far, the reception's been mixed—with many, including Seagull, saying the sequel isn't actually a sequel at all. From minor iterations on gameplay to just three new characters, one new game mode, and a fe...

Nathan Stanz is a livestreamer on Twitch and the co-founder of Offbrand, a new creative agency he started with creators Ludwig Ahgren and Atrioc and long-time gaming executive Nick Allen. The company's first show is "Juiced", a game show hosted by xQc, the most watched individual streamer on Twitch. "It is easy for us and we also bear the burden of the cost. We believe in our ability to go out the...

Cecilia D'Anastasio is a reporter covering video games at Bloomberg and Zachary Diaz is the former director of emerging content at Twitch. Over the past 10 days, Twitch has been under fire. The Amazon-owned livestreaming platform banned unregulated gambling content, but then said it will reduce creator pay. It is reportedly struggling to curb child predation. "It's absolutely true that the investm...

Ronnie "Ronnie2K" Singh is the digital marketing director and face of the NBA 2K franchise. Over the past decade, he's become the scapegoat for some of the most high-profile NBA players—the likes of Kevin Durant, Karl-Anthony Towns and others—frustrated with their in-game ranking not matching their self-assessed, real-life skill. But he's also seen something more deep in the culture, as a new gene...

Brandon Freytag is the co-founder of and chief of creator monetization at Loaded, a management agency that represents high-profile content creators such as DrLupo, Shroud, CouRage, QTCinderella, Doublelift, and more. He previously represented Ninja. As companies like Microsoft's now-defunct livestreaming platform Mixer, YouTube and Facebook have vied to take market share from Twitch, Loaded's been...

In May, Forbes named Team Liquid the third most valuable organization in all of esports at a whopping $440 million valuation. With new investment, its co-CEO Steve "Liquid112" Arhancet built the most expensive roster in Western "League of Legends" history. But it didn't work out—and now the team is figuring out what's next. "It’s human nature to crumble. It’s okay. It didn’t work out. I put that t...

Adam Boyes is the co-CEO of Iron Galaxy Studios and a former PlayStation executive. In August, his studio launched 'Rumbleverse', a professional wrestling-inspired battle royale game published by 'Fortnite' creator Epic Games. So far, it's seen millions of engagements and is inspiring a new level of creativity in the crowded video game genre. "Chelsea, my co-CEO, said, 'we should do wrasslin.' And...

Dominique 'SonicFox' McLean is a multi-time Evolution Championship Series winner, a content creator, and the best fighting game player in the world. Over the past decade, they've won dozens of titles in games like Mortal Kombat, Skullgirls, Dragon Ball FighterZ, and Injustice. Now, they're using their success to be a role model for other queer and Black influencers everywhere. "The way I try to pr...

Since Labor Day occurred Monday, our usual recording day, we're highlighting a previous episode, our interview with Brandon 'Atrioc' Ewing, that's relevant to our recent discussion with Ludwig Ahgren. We'll be back with new episodes starting Thursday, September 8. "In this world, especially in the past few years, loneliness is at an all-time high. I think of Twitch as the hamburger of human connec...

Ludwig Ahgren is a content creator, the founder and CEO of Mogul Moves and the host of "The Yard". "I know I'm going to fall off. Every m'fer on the website is going to fall off at some point. I'm ready for that. If you're not thinking about how this could be the last day that you will have the followers and viewers you have, you're too cocky. You're too comfortable in your own britches." You can...

Jason Schreier is a reporter covering video games at Bloomberg, host of the Triple Click Podcast, and the author of New York Times Best Seller "Press Reset: Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game Industry" and "Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made." Jason's work spans labor issues in the video game industry to mergers and acquisitions among the b...

Sean "Hutch" Hutchinson once held the title as the most popular gamer on all of YouTube. A Call of Duty commentator, Machinima recruited him to co-host skit shows with Scott 'Mr Sark' Matthew Robison and Adam 'SeaNanners' Montoya for their channel in early 2009 and it wasn't long before millions of people viewed his work in any given month. Then, in April 2012, he walked away, leaving behind the f...

Max 'Maximum' Smith is a co-owner of Team Liquid and the guild master of Liquid Guild. Twice a year, he and others organize the Race to World First, a World of Warcraft esports event that garners millions of viewers on Twitch. "I don't think Blizzard has the best track record of esports in general. If Blizzard is going to come in, put their own rules to it and try to maneuver around how it works,...

Former Counter Logic Gaming CEO Devin Nash and ESG Law partner Harris Peskin continue their conversation with Jacob to discuss how esports teams sell on shaky viewership data to advertisers and the lack of accountability around measuring those viewers on Twitch. "If we don't know what a real viewer is, we can't price it. CPM is basically cost per 1000 viewers. If it turns out 500 of those impressi...

Harris Peskin, partner at Esports Law Group and Devin Nash, founding partner of Novo and former CEO of Counter Logic Gaming, talk about the economics and longevity of esports and why we might be at the start of a period of stagnation as an industry. "You need those people to be engaged in video games in a competitive sense and it's just not there right now. It might be, it could be in the future a...

Mike Darlington co-founded Monstercat during his time in college. A few years later, the record label held a spot as one of the most popular music channels on all of YouTube. It quickly became a staple of gaming culture, being used in videos across all of content, on Twitch and YouTube, at esports tournaments, and more. Mike joins Jacob to talk about the label's growth and its connection to the ga...

The co-founders of Pipeline, David "StoneMountain64" Steinberg and Stephen "Snoopeh" Ellis, join Jacob to discuss about how to build a successful career in content creation. The three discuss finding an audience on platforms other than Twitch, like Facebook, where Stone's found much of his success over the past few years. They also discuss entrepreneurship and the difficulty of the current economy...

Few people have been in esports since close to the beginning. James Bardolph, a professional 'Counter-Strike: Global Offensive' and 'Apex Legends' commentator, is one of them. He joins Visionaries to discuss the financial woes of the competitive game industry and not when, but if, it will recover in a post-COVID world. "We're in a transitional period, that much is clear. We still have serious prob...