Ali Abdaal

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I really do wonder what he needs that big of a team for. Twelve people and counting, isn’t that right? I feel like he dug his own grave by outsourcing to that many people when the improvement in quality or production isn’t showing. He used to have much better backgrounds, lighting, and even camera work. He had a video before where I commented that it was like he was manufacturing authenticity because of how wonky the camera work was; it was like he was trying to give a homey vibe or something.

But yeah, even Graham Stephan was confused over why Ali would need the staff he has and why he would need the apps and softwares he uses. Now, Graham isn’t really a good benchmark since that man is frugal to a fault, but it’s saying something since Graham has three channels and a podcast while only having two employees. He even used to struggle to keep the third employee busy.

Ali, I don’t know. He’s trying too hard to be a legit guru, I guess. He’s taking things too by the book with his very impersonal Twitter threads and all since he’s doing that very corporate thing of packaging his videos for other platforms like blogs and Twitter. That works for corpos, but it works less for YouTube personalities who people follow for—you guessed it—their personalities. And I’m hardly assuming any of these because these are from his own advices - like before, he mentioned that one viable job to put yourself out there is to offer services for writing where you’ll reach out to youtubers to turn their videos into blog posts or Twitter threads. It’s fairly logical then to conclude that that’s also what he’s doing and what he’s paying someone from his staff to do.

I guess he’s not putting all his eggs in the YouTube basket. He’s really trying to turn himself into an authority or an enterprise by touching base on different platforms, but he’s just going about it in a very bland and blatant way.

That said, I do enjoy some of Elizabeth’s content. She actually has insightful and thoughtful things to say.
 
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I really do wonder what he needs that big of a team for. Twelve people and counting, isn’t that right? I feel like he dug his own grave by outsourcing to that many people when the improvement in quality or production isn’t showing. He used to have much better backgrounds, lighting, and even camera work. He had a video before where I commented that it was like he was manufacturing authenticity because of how wonky the camera work was; it was like he was trying to give a homey vibe or something.

But yeah, even Graham Stephan was confused over why Ali would need the staff he has and why he would need the apps and softwares he uses. Now, Graham isn’t really a good benchmark since that man is frugal to a fault, but it’s saying something since Graham has three channels and a podcast while only having two employees. He even used to struggle to keep the third employee busy.

Ali, I don’t know. He’s trying too hard to be a legit guru, I guess. He’s taking things too by the book with his very impersonal Twitter threads and all since he’s doing that very corporate thing of packaging his videos for other platforms like blogs and Twitter. That works for corpos, but it works less for YouTube personalities who people follow for—you guessed it—their personalities. And I’m hardly assuming any of these because these are from his own advices - like before, he mentioned that one viable job to put yourself out there is to offer services for writing where you’ll reach out to youtubers to turn their videos into blog posts or Twitter threads. It’s fairly logical then to conclude that that’s also what he’s doing and what he’s paying someone from his staff to do.

I guess he’s not putting all his eggs in the YouTube basket. He’s really trying to turn himself into an authority or an enterprise by touching base on different platforms, but he’s just going about it in a very bland and blatant way.

That said, I do enjoy some of Elizabeth’s content. She actually has insightful and thoughtful things to say.
He is paying a bunch of trendy young people to hang out with him all day and pretend to be a CEO of a business.
 
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Sp he is going down Steve Bartlett route and interviewing founders for his podcast....mmmmmmm all he does is copy, there are loads of podcast like this, why start now?
 
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Sp he is going down Steve Bartlett route and interviewing founders for his podcast....mmmmmmm all he does is copy, there are loads of podcast like this, why start now?
Yes! This podcast is so unnecessary. There are so many with a similar premise out there.
 
I'm sure he believes he brings a lot to the table by replying with "oh", "nice" and... Ready for it?... "okay". I guess in that sense it is a unique podcast by having one of the blandest interviewers who has nothing interesting to say.
 
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Ali’s business approach:
1. ‘fake it till you make it’ Hence just go from 12 staff to 20 staff in 1 fell scoop just so you can say you have a big team, work in London and sit around in offices that look nice. Rent out another flat in central London just to be an office space. Also paying your staff (people paid to be friends with him) to go to Monaco all-expenses-paid just to do a podcast interview, and will hire a business coach for £3000 for 1 day to give his team a pep talk to work out their ethos.

2. ‘throw money at the problem’ His expenditure is very lavish, hence his team will be happy and aren’t going to complain. Most business people budget budget budget, think about profitability and the bottom line.

A business is more like a plant, it takes time to nurture and grow. Just putting in lots of staff in one go and spending lots of money isn’t going to necessitate growth.

Looking at his Deep Dive podcast, the last one is at about 2000 views in 2 days. Getting 0.1% of your 2mil main channel audience indicates not having a very strong fanbase, despite being able to quote numbers like 120,000 email newsletter subscribers.

It’s great that he has a YouTube fanbase and all of his offshoot businesses, but I don’t think he’s anywhere near where he thinks he is. His team aren't going to tell him this, as it's Ali's money that is being gambled. If he risks big and wins, the whole team wins. If he loses, it will be just him that has lost and the staff will easily move on to other jobs.

That said, I do enjoy some of Elizabeth’s content. She actually has insightful and thoughtful things to say.
I liked her stuff at the beginning, but now she seems like a clone of Ali in her style. People need to be confident to be their unique selves on YouTube which is more interesting to watch. These sort of 'how I remember everything I read' videos are so boring and unoriginal! I would say it's better to have less content which is high quality rather than churning out regurgitated ideas.
 
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I liked her stuff at the beginning, but now she seems like a clone of Ali in her style. People need to be confident to be their unique selves on YouTube which is more interesting to watch. These sort of 'how I remember everything I read' videos are so boring and unoriginal! I would say it's better to have less content which is high quality rather than churning out regurgitated ideas.
Maybe it's just me but I can't imagine dedicating time to listen to some 20 year old with very little life experience, especially not one that chose to dedicate her time to Ali Abdaal.
 
who is paying for this crap.PNG


Who on Earth is paying for this crap!

1500 for 24 hours hours worth of video that's $60 an hour! I guess some people have more money than sense.
 
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1500 for 24 hours hours worth of video that's $60 an hour! I guess some people have more money than sense.
If only that was the case. I genuinely believe from what I've seen of his "graduates" that these people actually believe this course is an investment in their future and it's gonna make a damn bit of difference. I don't know how many graduates with 200 subscribers it's gonna take to convince people that if you're not meant to make it on YouTube, you won't make it on YouTube.
 
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I watched his Monaco vlog and it consists of him travelling there, going to several Starbucks whilst "working" (what work?) filming a podcast and then "killing time" until it's time for the next meal.

What a sad life.
 
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Maybe it's just me but I can't imagine dedicating time to listen to some 20 year old with very little life experience, especially not one that chose to dedicate her time to Ali Abdaal.
I think Elizabeth could build a nice following/community of people of a similar age/life stage if she diverted from the Ali model and was her own person. But I don't think she will because her initial success has been while modelling herself and her content off him.
 
I think Elizabeth could build a nice following/community of people of a similar age/life stage if she diverted from the Ali model and was her own person. But I don't think she will because her initial success has been while modelling herself and her content off him.
Elizabeth would have 20 subscribers if she had actually started her channel on her own and hadn't been promoted up and down Ali's Instagram and videos. Just one of the thousands of med school vloggers out there making videos on the same tired topics.
 
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Elizabeth would have 20 subscribers if she had actually started her channel on her own and hadn't been promoted up and down Ali's Instagram and videos. Just one of the thousands of med school vloggers out there making videos on the same tired topics.
True! I guess I think she could do something more interesting now she has those follows thanks to him. Would be great to see her and his other acolytes move away from Ali's toxic productivity approach.

Almost like an MLM
Ali's comment! :LOL: "This is very cool."
He always comments so awkwardly.
 
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Almost like an MLM
Spending between $1.5k to $2.5k dollars to get 3.6k views on a video a just under 6k subscribers hahahahah and that's for someone who is "working" for Ali what a complete waste of money LOL

Honestly imagine getting getting into your dream university course at medical school but then you spend your time getting up at 2:30am to work for some guy who thinks his YouTube channel is a proper business. What a waste of intelligence and talent.

Kharma Medic is really the only one of these people I can stand because he is clearly in it for the medicne first rather than trying to become some weird social media celebrity.
 
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This proved to be an interesting watch. Few pointers:



1. The level of denial and defensiveness is off the scale here!

2. I couldn't quite believe the cynicism, conceitedness and the total lack of consistency:

- When talking to his more balanced, emotionally intelligent, YT-as-way-of-life-doubter colleagues (and Sheen can be a fabulous proxy for that: a normal, self-aware individual who's ambivalent about online content creation) , he very quickly dismisses his work in the productivity genre as "satire" and irony. This allows him space at their table and their time.

- He is then unable to square this off as his book (due in 2023!) centres around productivity and the only spiel he has managed to come up is "if you are enjoying it, it's not work". "If you are not enjoying what you are doing, you need to change your perspective". Thank you Ali! We wouldn't have figured that out!

Does he not see that when people are in dead-end, soul-crushing work or working in uncaring/ toxic environments for long times, changing perspective to themselves actually has the ability to further ruin mental health (it's so close to victim blaming, it's unreal!). He quotes his junior doctor experience of 2 years (I have gone through this myself) but the reference he makes is to a low-intensity 15 minute task of inserting a cannula for which changing perspective might do the trick. But working for hours and bearing the heat of hour upon hour, day upon day of insidiously toxic or unsupportive work environments can make mincemeat of your passion project and your productivity. Real action happens when you query not yourself but the workplace, the structure around you that needs changing and this takes balls, preparation, confidence to assert etc etc. and does not always yield the results you envisage and it comes with real-life stakes of unemployment, wages lost, whistleblowing, court cases: you name it!

But the context above is us working in teams in the REAL world where we don't get to choose everyone we work with or under. Not as a solitary online content creator who's hit bigtime and is assimilating a bunch of yes-men, yes-women, bookwriting and life coaches to big-up more clones of him online and dream up with another niche buzzword-riddled self-help book for privileged university students and early 20 year olds to commit to their assignments- I have a sneaky suspicion Jade's beaten him to it and he's now forced to move into the adult realm scrambling for ideas (and monetising on the way) with his pseudo-deep dives so he can filch, rebrand and sell.

As Sheen rightly said, he needs a break (like the rest of us) for perspective and life experience. A full calendar at his age with his emotional intelligence and self awareness (spot the sarcasm) is a recipe for a mid-life crisis or a mental illness. It will also take way his compulsion to pitch his privilege, his eccentricities and his niche position as something for other people to emulate: because it is so misguided, one-note and immature, it is tiresome.

As a suggestion, how about a day shadowing professionals from five different fields who have no relation to content creation online and seeing how real life plays out for them- the juggling of life spheres, the everyday regrets: why don't these coaches of his tell him to do such exercises, reflect more, develop empathy for people's struggles, recognise that pat-solutions seldom work and then go back to his little cubby flat to make his next video given he is so successful with more humility and doubt. Apparently he wants to help people!
 
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- When talking to his more balanced, emotionally intelligent, YT-as-way-of-life-doubter colleagues (and Sheen can be a fabulous proxy for that: a normal, self-aware individual who's ambivalent about online content creation) , he very quickly dismisses his work in the productivity genre as "satire" and irony. This allows him space at their table and their time.

- He is then unable to square this off as his book (due in 2023!) centres around productivity and the only spiel he has managed to come up is "if you are enjoying it, it's not work". "If you are not enjoying what you are doing, you need to change your perspective". Thank you Ali! We wouldn't have figured that out!

Does he not see that when people are in dead-end, soul-crushing work or working in uncaring/ toxic environments for long times, changing perspective to themselves actually has the ability to further ruin mental health (it's so close to victim blaming, it's unreal!). He quotes his junior doctor experience of 2 years (I have gone through this myself) but the reference he makes is to a low-intensity 15 minute task of inserting a cannula for which changing perspective might do the trick. But working for hours and bearing the heat of hour upon hour, day upon day of insidiously toxic or unsupportive work environments can make mincemeat of your passion project and your productivity. Real action happens when you query if it's not yourself but the workplace, the structure around you that needs changing and this takes balls, preparation, confidence to assert etc etc.

But the context above is us working in teams in the REAL world where we don't get to choose everyone we work with or under. Not as a solitary online content creator who's hit bigtime and is assimilating a bunch of yes-men, yes-women, bookwriting and life coaches to big-up more clones of him online and dream up with another niche buzzword-riddled self-help book for privileged university students and early 20 year olds to commit to their assignments- I have a sneaky suspicion Jade's beaten him to it and he's now forced to move into the adult realm scrambling for ideas (and monetising on the way) with his pseudo-deep dives so he can filch, rebrand and sell.

As Sheen rightly said, he needs a break (like the rest of us) for perspective and life experience. A full calendar at his age with his emotional intelligence and self awareness (spot the sarcasm) is a recipe for a mid-life crisis or a mental illness.
The whole premise of his book seems like something a person that's completely out of touch with the real world would come up with. His whole "journey" has been like playing a game on beginner mode. Had the luck to make money from YouTube by duping his audience of Indians into worshipping him as an idol and then monetizing his audience with silly courses and finally the pinnacle of uselessness—PTYA. Ah yes, what an enlightening journey it has been.

Meanwhile there are creators out there making incredibly interesting and thoughtful videos that have amassed only 1/4th of his subscriber base because they don't have a dedicated fanbase of hustle porn bros constantly watching and boosting their content.

I guess when you only watch rich vloggers making highlight reels of their rich lives, you tend to forget that most of the world—including a large part of your audience—lives in poverty and struggles to maintain a living standard. This whole "just enjoy the journey" bullshit is extremely out of place and shows a deep lack of awareness. Unfortunately productivity porn along with hustle porn is very catchy nowadays. However, no amount of enjoying the journey and timeblocking will help if you're stuck working for some head who rides your ass 8 hours a day every day and sometimes in the weekend. No amount of "just make videos" is gonna help if you're an uncharismatic 20 year old with nothing to say except review 4 Hour Workweek and the other memetastic "productivity" books that are popular with this crowd. No amount of books is gonna help you find a life partner if you're an awkward clueless nerd. No amount of business coaching is gonna make you a good leader if you're so unaware of something like how your own content comes across.

Also, for all the money he spends on personal trainers and supposedly "getting hench", his nipples seem to be awfully puffy in that Monaco vlog. Looks like gynecomastia is on the horizon. Must be all the Huel and vegan sausages.

Ali is an unaware sheltered clown and his content mirrors how out of touch he is. Fame and money truly ruins some people.
 
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