Ali Abdaal

[hollowcrown]

The whole "I donate money so save more lives than the doctors working" thing is really abhorrent. Only someone who has never had love for another person, whether family or friend, could reduce human life in such a way. I want to see him arriving in A&E needing emergency life surgery, and the surgeon to tell him that it will be more cost effective to instead spend that money saving poverty-stricken lives in Africa so he should not have the treatment

It also ignores the fact he's wasted thousands of pounds worth of funding and time invested in his training as a Doctor. Let alone the shortage of medics in the NHS. Of course someone else will probably pick up his spot, but he has taken up a spot at a medical school for 6 years that someone truly passionate for medicine could have taken up instead.

Overall it's just really a joke that what he thinks he does is "teaching". First he makes a mockery of medicine by telling everybody he is "saving lives" as a doctor whilst not even practising, now he's onto making a mockery of the teaching profession.

 

[hollowcrown]

I'd disagree with this, to expect 15/16 year olds to make big decisions about their future and then stick to that plan for life is unrealistic. Like I've said before this whole thing about medicine having to be a passion that you dedicate your life to is an unhealthy ideal that contributes to the high levels of doctors leaving the profession in the UK. The discussion around the importance of grades to making a good doctor is more something that should be blamed on medical schools admissions and the bma rather than individuals who complete training then realise the profession isn't for them.

I agree with you on it being a flaw of the UK education. Medicine education is fucked and the whole deciding what to do for the rest of your life when you are 16 is stupid. I would go back and do biochemistry instead of chemistry for instance.

I could probably go and study medicine now but it's years of extra study and I've already gone to uni and done a masters and worked for several years in my career now. The path is too long and to get into it at an early stage you have to have these weirdly high grades vs. what the content of the course actually is. I think there's a whole culture discussion to be had here too

I don't really blame Ali for deciding to take a different path from his 16 year old self, but I do kinda blame him for pursuing the career for so long, making bank off it, and then deciding to bail to make irrelevant click bait. I do feel like he'd have done better going off and becoming a data scientist like his brother did.

 

[alwayslurkin]

Oh he needs to bore off I can't believe people watch, and in some cases, idolise, this bullshit.

I am all about being productive but can't we enjoy hobbies simply as they are anymore? Can't I just read a book without it being something profound and life-changing? Sing for the sake of it making me feel good?

I feel like I'm going to go on a rant so I'll leave it there

 

[hollowcrown]

Says it all if after years of building his "second brain" on productivity apps like Notion and using his iPad for digital note taking he starts selling stationary merch. Queue a video about the latest book he's read on why taking notes on real stationary is better.

 

[alwayslurkin]

ladies and gentlemen, another productive day with me by ali abdaal himself
take a shot every time he calls himself a waste man and you'll be drunk in a minute

on a different note, i know he's being sarcastic, but i don't like how he calls himself "a failure in life" (at 3:45 on his last video), when he's a cambridge graduate, a doctor and very successful money-wise
tbh it makes me feel like sh*t

People usually use the failure at life thing to be relatable.

But he is in no way relatable.

 

[Wasp]

What a weird and sexist conversation

How they having this "conversation" about liberating women without even having a woman involved smh

The more you listen the worst it gets who even thinks of dating as a game and thinking of people as statistics it's so weird and digusting and gross! How sociopathic of him.

Whenever I listen to him talking about women, I cringe. He has no experience with women and barely has any emotional empathy to be able to understand a partner. I've also noticed that he has a bit of resentment against good-looking and hot women for ignoring geeky men like him and choosing to be with good-looking men instead. I understand his frustrations but it also shows how immature he is. I think his mindset is, I'm going to go for the best things in life. So I'm going to go for best-looking women.

I can't wait for him to be in a relationship and actually see how hard it is to build and manage a relationship. He didn't witness it in his home because he doesn't have a dad. I kinda feel sorry for him.

His latest podcast episode is quite something... Listen from 1:00:00 onwards, I think he's a redpiller

Which one?

 

[hollowcrown]

I think at this points Ali's videos must just be wannabe entrepreneurs and YouTubers. He's become an influencer in that space only and his content is geared towards that and it's only going to get that way further over time. Look at the comments nowadays and it's just other YouTubers circle jerking and trying to get noticed by him or people from countries like India and Pakistan who see him as very aspirational. The "normal" people who were commenting on his videos 18 months ago have all left, because guess what we don't want to build 9 income streams we've got jobs to work and degrees to study for.

Can't help but think he's just incredibly jealous of his brother and wants to go down that route.

When he had more study-related stuff, many could relate to it. Even I, after graduation related to it, because I was doing some additional education. I am 30 y.o. - I can't understand his content and the way it goes. He looks like a banana-guy from rich family, who doesn't know what to do in life and his biggest problem is that his M1 iMac has 7, instead of 8 GPU cores.

Tbh I hope people like KharmaMedic keep on the medical student train. I was interested to see Ali's journey from student to fully trained doctor so it's a shame that journey has now ended.

Man is having an identity crisis. He wants to be Matt Da'valla, his brother Taimur, MKBHD, Ed Sheeran and a productivity guru and entrepreneur all in one. His Instagram and Twitter feeds are ugly messes. He's changed what he wants to do with his life completely about 3 times in the past year. Sort it out mate.

Nah I've completely stopped watching him. Definitely poor engagement numbers.

I'm a few years older than him and just cannot fathom his approach to life. Not even to hate watch. I think those who still find Ali admirable may also be quite young and still undergrads? Just an impression I get.

I'm a couple of years older than him too and definitely far less well off (and less intelligent, but think I've got my head screwed on better...) but not jealous in the slightest (apart from the fact he's on the property ladder). His life seems boring and sad to me despite his calendar being full up.

You see people like him throughout school and uni but they seem to drop off as you enter working life, either they learn to cope or idk get deep in academia or something. I can see Ali being very aspirational to people across the world from a similar ethnic and religious background, and also to some students in the UK, but not anything like a majority of the UK student population. I suspect many of his viewers are now international in the USA and other parts of the world.

 

[hollowcrown]

Autism isn't something that's "used as an excuse". Having a condition where you can struggle with reading someone else's emotions is a legitimate reason for coming across as insensitive/rude and causes lots of hardship for those with autism.
I guess where you lie on the number of lives thing and whether he's a good/bad person all comes down to where you are on the consequentialism-deontology spectrum of morality. I'm utilitarian in my approach to things and quite interested in effective altruism so I'm more sympathetic to his point of view on the number of lives saved thing. The points I would disagree with him on that is that it's quite hard to quantify his 'life-saving' impact as a youtuber compared to being a doctor. I also don't think he'd make less money through working as a doctor+youtuber compared to just being a youtuber (his channel would probably do better and have more content as a doctor) so he could donate the same amount of money. Also the 8 lives thing is averaged over lots of different types of specialisms so working in emergency medicine the number would probably be higher. Obviously he isn't perfect and has stuff to work on but I do think he's a decent person whose actions generally have positive outcomes. His intentions may not be purely selfless but I think that's true of most people, including myself, and he's just more honest about it.

The 8 lives thing is weird because it's a very absolutist way of looking at the profession. Most nurses or doctors or radiologists or whatever that I know aren't just there to save a net amount of lives. They're there to improve the quality of life overall for their patients. There are so many different branches of medicine and medical fields which don't save lives but so improve peoples qualities of lives. If you're only seeing value in the number of lives you have saved, idk it is just a bit weird. In fact that way to thinking is why the NHS in the UK is so fucking backlogged right now because only life saving things are considered important.

At best it's a way for him to explain why he only wants to do medicine part time and at worst it's just low-key insulting millions of healthcare workers worldwide.

The whole 10% of time thing people get so annoyed over I don't really think is that bad? It obviously wouldn't work for you but different people want different things out of a relationship, and that's fine and normal. I suspect when he finds himself in a relationship he might find that he actually prefers spending more time with them than he anticipated, especially if they share interests like gaming, amine etc. Thinking about it I probably only spend 10-20% of my time with my girlfriend, although that'll change once we move in together. Sociopathic is a bit strong lmao and he's mildly self-obsessed but not full blown egotistic yet. I don't really think he'd leave someone for being smarter than him? He seems to push his friends to take on new opportunities etc and is good friends with Sheen, who I'd say is smarter than him academically and emotionally.

The 10% thing is weird not because of the actual time you spend with your partner, but the way he wears it like a badge of honour.

I personally think it is very important in your twenties to learn how to be happy spending time with yourself. When you're a teen in a relationship it can be possible to spend almost every waking hour together so people find it adjust to adult relationships when you have working, distance, other social engagements etc. taking up time. Only spending 10-20% of your time with your partner is a fairly realistic expectation. When you live together that time goes up of course but you're usually in fairly close proximity, doing different things like someone reading in the same room as someone else watching TV.

But like who the fuck advertises that you want to only spend 10% of your time with the person you love and consider an equal? It might be pragmatic or realistic but it is not IDEAL at all and I can't see very many people who want to have a loving relationship willingly sign up to that when that's the thing they proudly brag about.

Yes, date me, I only can give you 10% of my time a day.

Mmm yes very appealing.

 

[erk245]

no. i don't think it was anything of that sort. if they are in fact dating i don't get why and how accomplished women lull themselves into believing that they can 'change' grown men. this ain't no movie where the emotionless bad dude would transform into a romantic hero for you and only you! just run in the opposite direction, sis. why you setting yourself up like that? anyway, i'll be sad for Sheen if she starts dating him.

more so because men like Ali should invest in working on themselves first with professional help that is regular and real therapy and then think about dating. that would help vastly in comparison to seeking advice on podcasts from "dating gurus" or friend's who are good at "getting with women". there's your explicit air quote, bro.

 

[hollowcrown]

Tasteful/ethical sources of passive income would be sustainable stuff like:

- Online shop selling digital art, website designs, fonts etc.
- Selling courses like his UKCAT or Skillshare sources
- Selling a book, or music, or a game you've made.
- Money coming in from investments (NOT crypto)
- Money from Patreon / Twitch subscriptions

Ones I am eh about because you are potentially selling people stuff they don't need and it's wasteful but it depends what the product is.

- Sponsored sections on YouTube videos (eg. Skillshare/Brilliant/Manscaped/NordVPN depends what product it is but I am absolutely sick to death of all of these so just skip through the sponsored sections of everyone's videos now)
- Money from ads on YouTube
- Exploitative courses like the fiasco of raising the price of his YouTuber course at the last minute.

Unsustainable/unethical sources of passive income:

- Dropshopping (see Oliur who goes on about this constantly. It is rebranding low quality crap from China and selling it at a mark up. People who do this are literally killing the planet with the high carbon factories in Far East and shipping it over in huge containers on giant polluting boats). This extends to:
- "Merch". Decent quality merch is fine but crappy low quality YouTuber merch is just an extension
- Buy to let investments (buy your own house I have no problem with that and live in it, but there is a huge housing crisis going on in the UK now. Rich people buying up second or third properties, carving up the rooms to rent out for massive profits is the worst and anyone who does this cannot be forgiven. Biggest class issue in modern Britain right now so if you perpetuate that you can go to hell)
- Crypto/NFTs this one is obvious.

Ali has essentially gone off of his brand of being a studious and relatable, yet successful and intelligent doctor to just being another productive Youtuber worshipping at the altar of capitalism. Yes he probably is a Tory and may have been one for a while, but the manner in which he's flexing his income is incredibly distasteful, especially in the current climate of the UK. As mentioned earlier there is a housing crisis, people are still on furlough, and his colleagues in the NHS are being given pitiful pay rises after an unprecedented year in the pandemic. Can't imagine how furious I would be coming back from a 12 hour shift mid-COVID to see Ali flexing about his $28k of Apple products in the past year.

Makes it even sadder and funnier that he can't get a girlfriend with how much money he's earning though. Guess money really can't buy a good personality.

Honey, he is a bad person because he is so focused on the topic of money, he forgets that in real life, not everything is about the money, and his prescriptions for passive income are not ideal for all of the people. He is a bad person, because he is spining round, and round (like a record) with this kinds of topics.

You can make a clickbait content and have lots of views, but the content just can be tasteful. See @hollowcrown point

Good point also here. "Ideas for passive income" videos are usually just completely out of reach for most people or require significant time and effort to set up in the first place so are impossible or challenging for people working full time jobs or studying.

Then some of there verge on straight up patronising. Oh yes good idea I'll just invest in property that is easy hadn't thought of that one mate.

 

[hollowcrown]

I think his content has lost a lot of personality since he got a "Team" making it and focusing it around him.

Does it look better? Yeah probably. But we have people like Casey Neistat whose content is frankly far better and more creative in that sphere.

But it's extremely boring and curated and formulaic now. The whole appeal of Ali's channel was that he was a (fairly) normal bloke studying and practising medicine in Cambridge. His trips to London and Dubai giving talks around the world and running a "business" with the stock ukelele/calming music in the background is so boring.

 

[kaede]

Not everyone would find me attractive. I would not be every man's "cup of tea". It's okay to have preferences. Sheen was not Ali's type. The new girl is (she's too pretty for him actually). Ali is a "beta" male. He cannot handle Sheen.

Not only do you not have an understanding of how power dynamics work in relationships, but you are using a lot of incel-derived language and concepts. These are things that Ali (knowingly or not) peddles as well. Ali clearly has a void inside of him that he is trying to fill with productivity, awards, courses, whatever. It's not because he's a "beta male", it's because Sheen is a confident person and he is deeply insecure. She never seemed interested in him so I'm not sure why you even brought her up.

Also using her size as a thinly veiled insult is garbage. She looks great and I would take her over Ali any day in my lifetime.

 

[eurocoffee2000]

The dumbest thing about Ali selling a productivity book is that he’s not productive at all! He constantly talks about how he struggles to do things eg go to the gym, and his solution is always to pay someone to be his coach so he will do it. That’s not a solution possible for the vast majority of people - and tbh suggests he actually struggles with tasks that most people can motivate themselves to do.

His book has taken him years to write, and that’s despite him asking his readers explicitly what he should put in it repeatedly. Why would I want his productivity advice when he couldn’t even think it up himself?

Also as a side note - why has no one in his team told him to stop posting these terrible pouting pics of himself? He looks fine when he’s not posing like girls used to in the 2010s, but he pulls the same idiotic face in every pic

 

[Machtc99]

Re: discussion of emotional intelligence above. Didn't Ali say in a video a while back that when he was at school and told his headmaster that he wanted to apply to medicine, he was told he was 'too robotic / not warm enough' and wouldn't pass medicine interviews? I can't remember which video now but I found that interesting.

Apparently headmaster was right.

 

[herathebeaver]

that's why I said 'disposable income' and 'spare time'
but if you have enough time and money to browse on tattle life complaining about ali abdaal's lack of charitable giving, why aren't you spending this time/money giving to the poor or volunteering your time?
And how do you know ali abdaal doesn't donate any of his time and money to charity?
How much charitable donation is enough?
By this logic, you shouldn't stan other rich celebs like The Royals, Emma Watson, Jk Rowling, etc. who have much more money than ali and who own multiple mansions around the world

It actually boggles my mind that you think this comparison makes one iota of sense lmao, unless anyone else on this thread is a millionaire who doesn't work then you're not comparing like for like so what even is your point here? Personally I do pro bono work and have DDs set up to two charitable causes so ? Maybe people on this board are on lower incomes and don't have disposable income to donate or maybe they have families and don't have time to volunteer. Give your head a wobble.

What percentage of your income/wealth should you be spending on helping others?
For example Emma Watson is worth $80 million thanks to her Harry Potter payout but to my knowledge only donated £1 million to charity. Is that enough?

What's the chance that one of us is as or nearly as rich as him? He just uploaded a boastful video about his million pound apartament. Clearly he has money to waste on such a high rent. Nobody needs to live in super expensive places. He could be a very charitable person, clearly he has lots of disposable income. But he chose not to. We don't all have that option.

 

[hollowcrown]

Interesting post. I agree that his age and experience is really relevant. In early 20s, people are usually very driven and motivated, and as a student or single person living in a flat, you can compartmentalise your diary with all of these "hacks". Life and priorities change a lot once you have a family, kids etc. Once you've achieved a certain amount in your life, it is about enjoying it, not squeezing the last bit of productivity of every second. Productivity and mindfulness are like opposites. With mindfulness, you can just look at the clouds and enjoy the present moment without having a goal, just being happy to exist and not worrying about past/future. This can be beneficial for sleep, relaxation and avoiding mental breakdowns. Productivity, the obsession with achieving, isn't good for mental health. Again, I can understand young people driving hard for success (getting into Uni, graduating, finishing house doctor jobs etc). Usually getting towards 30, people are learning to wind down and enjoy a nicer pace of life. I don't think he really knows who his audience is. His age puts him at that transition stage of young adult towards stable adult life. Having too much confidence can be a downside as you won't question yourself and self-reflect as much. It's better to take things slow, observe a lot, and then act. I don't want to see him have a breakdown. I feel vicarious trauma seeing him set himself so high up. I too hope he has a break, enjoys his time and re-evaluates.

Ali wishes to teach everyone about how to be more productive, but what are the values underpinning this?

I think the YouTube productivity sector sky rocketed in popularity due to the pandemic. Stuck at home all day people wanted to feel like they were doing something useful with their life so really started taking notice of these productivity videos so they could eke out some kind of benefit to the lockdowns we went through. I am guilty of this. Being stuck at my desk all day working I would look up lots of desk setup and productivity videos to try and squeeze out every last efficiency I could, being without a social life or things to do.

Obviously now that has changed and in general I'm watching far less YouTube but also don't really care about how productive I'm being because I don't have a void in my life to fill - I'm back to having a social life basically.

Ali has got to be very careful into where he is going because he could ruin his finances if he takes his channel the wrong way. As a Med-tuber he was naturally funnelling people looking up his videos into his other business - the courses to help you pass UKCAT and stuff like that which was honestly a pretty great business model. The productivity angle naturally tied into this too and he had a pretty strong brand.

Now he is trying to be some kind of all around lifestyle guru and social media influencer but his content is frankly far too boring and he has little life experience. Only so many people will spend money on his PTYA and that will dry up eventually. He's not doing fun crossover content with other YouTubers, it's all boring 3 hour long podcasts or book reviews. His social media is not interesting, there is no personal touch to his Instagram or Twitter and all of his videos are exactly the same. He's actively distanced himself from medicine in order to become some kind of cool start up entrepeneur but given that he prides himself on only working 4 hours a day even that is not generating a lot of content because it's not even clear what he does. He's trying to sell this "Infinite Content Generator" to people but it is absolutely clear it's just a way of repackaging a single video idea in multiple different ways which is obvious if you look down his channel for a bit.

In a couple of years we will see some video of him wistfully and upbeat explaining how he tanked his business and lost $10m or something by hiring too many people for his "start up".

 

[JohnMasters]

Last thing the world needs is more Ali Abdaals. Holy shit, the thought scares me. He's already creating clones with his course anyway and the internet is being swarmed with channels from people that needed to be taught by Ali how to set up a YouTube account, after which they pop out another 4 hour workweek review or atomic habits life lessons, followed by twitter threads about how much they've "learned" from the course. That pyramid scheme money smells so delicious I bet.

 

[JohnMasters]

Ali: Elon's first tip is do not try to live life like Elon Musk

Ali: also continues to do 7 more life tips from Elon Musk

Honestly has this guy had a single original thought in his life? Every thing he talks about is a theory from a book of from a guru or businessperson. It's like he does not trust his own tips or intelligence and just needs to nick ideas from other people. Every thought has to be from someone "impressive" or be called a "technique" or something.

Anyway...another video where he says he does not have passion for medicine.



If he actually is passionate about being a teacher he would you know...do a teaching qualification or something or go back to university and study in teaching but it's just his next virtue signalling obsession now that's he's left medicine. He doesn't like teaching - he might like holding seminars for medical students etc. but if he truly was passionate about that he'd go practise at a teaching hospital or something and make the sacrifice of working on a ward 3 days a week so that he could spend 2 days a week teaching.

He likes selling overpriced courses to people, running a "business" and feeling like a boss, not teaching. However teaching to him sounds like a "calling", like it's something morally sound and an accepted profession so he can say that's his passion. He probably hasn't taught anyone face to face for like 2 or more years tho so it's all performative so he can feel like he's doing a traditional job.

The problem with that is he isnt a teacher and if he isnt happy with being a doctor, he'd never tolerate being a teacher on even less money. He says he wants to teach but I imagine he means lecture in a university. No university will hire him to teach medical students when a single google shows he has no interest in medicine. You also cant waltz in and be a lecturer without a PhD. In medical school, its people with science backgrounds and PhDs that do most of the teaching and the remainder are practicing doctors. I mean, what would he teach? He doesn't have the qualifications to teach anything. Highlighting quotes from some book as changing his life every 5 min doesn't really come across as a mature, independent thinker. Nor does his argument about lives saved. If he doesnt want to be a doctor - then fine. I have no issue with that. But deluding himself into thinking he is doing more good by not being a doctor when the hospitals are being overrun at the moment is ridiculous. He also seemed to be trying to push that view on his assistant as well - I seriously hope she makes up her own mind on whether to return to medical school or not.

You guys didn't get it, he likes teaching ON YOUTUBE. As in... He believes his videos are teaching people things and that's what he likes doing. Also he likes "teaching" YouTube to fans that paid $5k to hang out on Zoom with him. That's what he meant by teaching, not some university position lol. The guy honestly thinks his content is educational, that's why he keeps using this word.

 

[afterthestormagain]

I've never come across an influencer who openly talks about reading on tattle or even making a video out of it? Plus there's only a few pages of gossip on here so was it worth making a video out of it? It's so mild compared to other threads. (Guess it was worth it because he got his £££)

 

[costaeva]

I just wanted to say my two bits: that last convo with him and his brother did not seem very kind to me. Baiting for other people to confess to feelings they don't want to confess to (maybe not even to themselves), even correcting for all the exhibitionism that YT and vlogging or podcasting culture, is not kind when you are just going to brush it off.

Ali, from whatever little I got a whiff from the three months of subscribing and watching him (I don't anymore as his content-probably driven to a YT audience-became saturated with product placements and recycled soundbytes), struck me as someone very cagey and inarticulate with anything in the domain of emotions (not least that hover around failure, messiness of adult life and randomness of life in general), despite all his achievements. He has often prided himself as being a cool rationalist and the cold certainty of so much of his YT advice-and-soundbyte dishing persona- which I suspect is a fairly small part of his life- benefits to a huge amount from this.

Anyways, the kind of conversation the matey brothers seemed to be aiming for required a friendlier platform if Ali is really grappling with these issues. You need to be sitting opposite someone who has the vocabulary, the fluency and the objectivity to really explore the kind of things Ali was talking about in that on-video podcast.

This is what counsellors and psychotherapists (and GPs with an interest in mental health) do. With ease. Everyday. Ali's brother, with all due respect, isn't one (not unsurprisingly didn't have anything of note for Ali to take from it) and looking at Ali's all-too-visible discomfort and inarticulacy and all the issues around hitting a roadblock with his book project, the online trolls etc I feel he could benefit from just having regular sessions with a counsellor to process these.

Since I have been redirected to the forum because of the comments he's read, I hope he is not discouraged enough to never come back and hopes to read this.

He needs time away from the spiral of these untrained self-help gurus and find something customised to him and his unmet emotional and psychological needs. May I suggest a personal deep dive with a counselor that is not being posted on YT for money?

I really don't mean to troll, I just got worried for his mental health.