Cody Ko On Building A YouTube Empire, Partying With Elon & Stand-Up Comedy

**Shaan Puri** (0:00)
What three creators do you see that you think could become billionaires? Is it MrBeast, Dude Perfect or something like that? And then he said to you, no way.
Algorithm has shined upon him. Cody is one of the biggest YouTubers on the platform. How did you get good at doing what you do?

**Cody Ko** (0:19)
If you go and listen to my first episode of my podcast, it was complete garbage. If I'm thinking about what makes a good podcast or what makes a good YouTube video or what makes a good song, the number one thing you can do is...

**Shaan Puri** (0:31)
How much are you thinking about the business side of what you do?

**Cody Ko** (0:34)
About being a billionaire?
When I was younger, it was literally just about the creative. But now that I'm getting older, it's like I want the business to succeed. And then he looks at his phone, he's like, Elon's been texting me. And then he showed us his phone. It was like Elon Musk, he was like, come over. He was like, should we go over to his house? Yeah, I mean, you can't really say no to that. And so he got in cars and drove to his house. We got to his house and him and Grimes are standing on the driveway.
By the way, I listen, this is like one of my favorite podcasts, so it's an honor to be on it.

**Shaan Puri** (1:17)
Right.

**Cody Ko** (1:17)
Because it's one of two that I listen to.

**Shaan Puri** (1:20)
That's not even a switch between you guys. That was amazing. Yeah.

**Cody Ko** (1:23)
No, I'm serious. So like when you hit me up, I was like, let's go.
I mean, it's all in.

**Shaan Puri** (1:26)
Yeah, obviously, but yeah, they're good, too. I like them, too.

**Cody Ko** (1:30)
Yeah. So you guys just switch between you guys and in how I built this and you.

**Shaan Puri** (1:35)
So you listen to the pod. So you kind of know the the vibe. And so I invited you to come on.
Did you think about like, what are we going to like? Because it's different than our normal episodes.

**Cody Ko** (1:45)
Yeah.

**Shaan Puri** (1:45)
Sam's not here. Second, you're like cool entertainment guy. And we're usually like nerdy tech guys.
What do you think was going to happen?

**Cody Ko** (1:55)
I don't know.

**Shaan Puri** (1:55)
I don't know.

**Cody Ko** (1:56)
But I like being the guest on a podcast is so much better than being the host of one.

**Shaan Puri** (2:00)
Right.

**Cody Ko** (2:00)
Because like, it's like, that's your.

**Shaan Puri** (2:02)
Right. I got to drive.

**Cody Ko** (2:03)
Yeah, the pressure is on you.
I can just sit here and answer questions. Yeah.

**Shaan Puri** (2:07)
Yeah, good. Okay. But actually, the interesting thing is you actually started as kind of nerdy tech guy too.

**Cody Ko** (2:12)
I did.

**Shaan Puri** (2:12)
You were, I think like an iOS dev. Yep.
And let's start there. So the origin story is you go to Duke and you make a viral app at one point. I don't know if we were at school or right after school.

**Cody Ko** (2:27)
It was during college.

**Shaan Puri** (2:28)
During college.

**Cody Ko** (2:29)
I was.

**Shaan Puri** (2:30)
What did it actually do? So I know it was called Cap That or I Cap That.

**Cody Ko** (2:33)
I'd Cap That.

**Shaan Puri** (2:34)
I'd Cap That.

**Cody Ko** (2:35)
Yeah.

**Shaan Puri** (2:35)
What was the app?

**Cody Ko** (2:36)
A very funny name, by the way.
So it was like, I was a senior in college and I was on the diving team all four years. So I like didn't have like in the summers and stuff, I was just training.
And so I never did an internship. I didn't have any resume by the time I was a senior. And all these all my peers were doing internships and they had jobs lined up for as soon as they graduated. I didn't. I had nothing. And that kind of scared me because I'm Canadian and I wanted to stay in the States. So I needed a visa, which means I needed a job and also just like needed money and stuff for when I graduated. I was like, what the fuck am I going to do?
So I was studying computer science at that time. And they didn't have an iOS class. But I was like, I was obsessed with my phone, obviously. And I was like, I really want to know how to make an app. So I just bought a book, taught myself. And then like, you know, the way you really teach yourself something is you sure you can like read and watch YouTube videos, but like it's by, you know, thinking of a project and then trying to make it come to life. So that was my project. There was one that did something similar, but it was a paid app. And I was like, oh, this is a perfect opportunity because it's not a hard idea.