 it's never fun to be in a hole, but, you know, if you're in a hole with friends, it's not too good. It's better, yeah. That's better than being in a hole alone for sure, I agree. So I guess just to bring some context to all of this, I was recently laid off in a video creator type of role and then very shortly after you announced that you were laid off from a very similar type of developer education type of role. Tell me a little bit about what you were doing for PlanetScale, how long, like, what the arrangement looked like up to that point. First of all, thanks for having me. It's a real pity that I'm here because under the circumstances, but I'm glad to finally talk to you. So at least that, you know, at least that's some good that came out of it. So, yeah, I just got let go a week and a few days ago from PlanetScale. Based on their public blog posts, they let go of a lot of people in sales and marketing and you could scour, you could scour LinkedIn to find all of those people. Every single one of them is wonderful. So, yeah, I, you know, this is first layoff and up until that time, I had been basically video guy. I mean, the last three months I was on paternity, but before that, when I was still, you know, still working, I was video guy and what that kind of looks like for me was when I joined PlanetScale, I actually came into PlanetScale with the beginnings of a course on MySQL, which is, you know, of database flavor. I had been independently working on building up the content and this mailing list for a course and then I joined PlanetScale and kind of brought that in-house and that's what I spent the first many months that I was, you know, employed at PlanetScale working on was like this huge 64 video, eight hour, like pure education course on MySQL. Mega course. Mega course. Yeah. And it just like, it just smashed. It was the best thing, it was the best thing ever. And so from there, I kind of like, I was like, wait a second, I really love, you know, I really love the medium of teaching on video, but from there I was like, what if, you know, I took over the PlanetScale YouTube and so we, you know, we had a YouTube that had maybe a thousand subscribers and I took it over probably in June or so and grew it up to like 37,000 before I got, yeah. It was crazy. That's fast. That's amazing. It was so fast, yeah. So was doing all their video content, I ended up getting paired with an incredible editor, Steve the editor, who's much more than an editor but it's like funny to say Steve the editor. So me and Steve, me and Steve the editor kind of like tried to conquer the world and it was a lot of fun and, you know, I think objectively we did a pretty good job. So that's where I ended there. I was doing YouTube stuff. I had seen some of your work going into that. You'd been working on that MySQL course for a really long time. Like, were you planning on doing all of that independently anyway, like releasing that course on your own before the PlanetScale thing? Yeah, I was, yeah. The basic storyline is like, I'm a developer, I'm a primarily Laravel backend developer who happens to love databases. You know, my dad was a DBA, so it was like growing up. I was always like around databases, which is an insane thing to say. So like, I've always loved it and I did a few conference talks on databases primarily from like the developer's point of view, which I think is an interesting angle. And when it came time to like talk to PlanetScale about working there, I was like, hey y'all, I've got, you know, I've got this mailing list and I've got the beginnings of this course. Like here's all of my outline and all of the content for the course. I haven't recorded anything. Like I feel icky going to work as a database educator and then on the side selling database education. Like I don't feel icky about doing stuff on the side in general, but when it competes with my job, I'm like, why didn't I give all of my best content to my job? Like that feels weird to me. And so I, you know, on the way in, I made it, I made that clear and we figured out a deal that worked. Then it was way easier to do the course because it was like, that was my nine to five job. And so imagine like recording all of that nights and weekends and stuff, which was my plan. And then doing it nine to five with the support of a team and like doing the website and stuff like that. It just made it a lot easier. No, I know that that right there, that thing that you described is something that a lot of people struggle with. And it's something that was very kind of like intoxicating to me as well, stepping into like similar role. Now I wasn't bringing a fully planned out course into the mix, but there was something very intoxicating about this idea of like, oh, I could do this thing that I like on the side during work hours. And then I guess maybe have that time back for family or whatever. Totally. I could integrate those a little bit. I think that's kind of like the intoxicating piece of like the, I started calling it the corporate creator role. Yeah, I like that. Slightly derogatory, but accurate. Yeah, it's just right on the edge. It's perfect. What did you realize in that space kind of coming to it from that mindset, the mindset of like, oh, hey, this could be a perfect integration of everything that I like doing. What have you learned in that time since afterwards? I think there are different things I learned during and after. I think the easy thing we can start with is after, which is if a business makes a business decision, you could get cut immediately. Like that's just reality. And like, would I prefer to still have my job? Yes. Can I blame Planet Scale for that? No, not really. Like, you know, they decided based on their blog posts, they decided that they were eliminating the free tier. And a lot of the work that I was doing was top of funnel work, right? So it's like, let's get our name out there so that people know about us so that they sign up. Like, that's a very obvious playbook. Everybody knows that that's the playbook. And if the business changes their mind on what makes sense for the business, you can get let go. And like, I knew that going in. If someone doesn't know that going to a job, especially in America, that you could be let go for any reason or no reason at all. Like, you have to learn that eventually. On the flip side, this should also empower you to quit a job that you don't like. Because I remember when my wife and I first got married and she hated her job. And one of the things she kept saying was like, I'm just really gonna leave them in a lurch because they don't have anybody to do this stuff that I'm doing. And I'm like, her name's Jennifer. I said, Jennifer, if it made sense, they would fire you in a second. And like, unfortunately, that is what you owe to them. But because that is what they're giving to you. And like, I've known that for forever and it just so happens, it finally got me. And it's like, well, that's the game we're all playing and I've been playing it successfully, but now I got God and it's like, oh, it's too bad. I kind of got a little bit on this on Twitter the other day that there's a disingenuine attitude, I think, inside of corporations where there's so much talk about culture and like building a team and like there's all these visual metaphors that bring you into this like cognitive state of feeling like you owe these people something more than just the work that you're producing today. And it is a lie. A trap. A trap. It is a trap. It is planned. It is a trap, yes. Especially if the company, which PlanetSkill didn't, if the company goes as far as to say we're family, that is a trap. Like it is wonderful to work with people that you really know, care and respect at PlanetSkill. I was, and I'll say this freely, the dumbest person in the company. Like I worked with some people that like you would go check the MySQL bug reports from like the late 90s and their names are there. So I'm like in the bowels of researching for this course and I'm like, oh, I work with that guy. Like I'm on a page that no one has been on in 15 years that's like hosted on some archive and it's like, oh, slow me, I guess I could just DM him. Like it's wonderful to work with people who are conscientious and caring and trusting and like smart and good at what they do. And I had that at PlanetSkill, but fortunately PlanetSkill never claimed this. But if your company claims that you're a family, like that's a trap. Now I think the 3D chess move or like the mega brain move is you have to know that as an individual, you have to know that like, this is not my family. This is capitalism and I could get let go at any time for any reason. But if they wanna call me a family, that's fine. They'll call me a family. I'm gonna, I'm not gonna believe it, but like, am I gonna go to HR and be like, y'all have to stop using these terms? I'm here to do my job. I'm here to like be helpful and make you create value for the enterprise. But like, I'm not the kind of person that's gonna like rage against the machine. I'm gonna look at the machine and be like, nah, I don't really buy that, but I'm gonna do a good job. Like I'm gonna put in my good faith effort and try as hard as I can, but like, yeah, I'm not really your family. I have a family at home. You know what? I got one of those. I think I'm good on family right now. I got so many kids at home. I don't need an extra family here at work. So yeah, I've never been in one of those places that like tries to trick you into being family, but I see it a lot on Twitter. I will say I have been at one of those. A lesson that I learned from that time is that I was a little bit more prepared for it, but the havoc that it wreaked on my family was truly devastating and it really, that reinforced like what a toxic trap it is because it didn't just affect me, right? Like it wasn't just me, but also impacted my family who like made friends at that company and like my kids made friends at that company and it's like, and now I'm on the outside and it's like all like, who do they pick? That's rough. That is really rough. And one of them's paying you, right? So it's kind of makes the decision a lot easier. Yep. So that's my post learning is it could happen to you at any moment. You got to be prepared for that. Something you said like specifically in the U.S. Literally any moment, and I think that- For literally any or no reason at all. Yeah, the first time it happened I contracted a lawyer and I said, hey, is there any type of like wrongful termination thing here? And he's like, just take the severance and find someone who wants to work with you because that's especially in California there's like nothing we can do. I was like, that is truly wild, horrifying, and all right. There is such a thing as a protected class and those do exist, but it's employment at will. And that's it. That's how it goes. Well, let's get back into like what you learned in the middle of it. What I learned in the middle, yeah. One huge thing that I learned is people want to connect with people and not companies. And so a big part of why the story worked was because I was very forward. Like as an individual, I was very forward in the story of the videos and the course and everything like that. And a place that I see a lot of like primarily DevTools or B2B SaaS falling down is they are creating content but it's this cold behind the corporate veil kind of content. You can't go on YouTube and compete against Mr. Beast with a webinar. Like you just can't do it. And like the competition, the competition is not Vercel or Cloudflare or whoever else is a DevTool company that has a YouTube channel. The competition is Mr. Beast and videos that may or may not be true about dinosaurs and ancient lost history. And it's like, I kind of want to watch those. And so if you go on there and you're like, hey, here's a recording from our webinar that's 48 minutes. And it's like, I don't want to watch that. And that's what I see a lot of people doing. I think the other thing is you can succeed as a B2B content creator, SaaS YouTuber. Like you can absolutely, like I had a great job and I don't have it anymore. So you tell me, but I had a great job. And I think as long as you try really hard and like you're conscientious about the fact that you represent the brand, that was one thing that was always like on my mind was in some way, in some regard, I'm always representing the brand. And so like when I respond to YouTube comments or when I say something on Twitter, in the back of my mind, I'm always like, I need to be careful about what I say. And that didn't come from them. That came from me. Like I want to faithfully execute my duties. It just so happens that it's a lot easier for me because my personal brand is not like cynical shit poster. And like there are cynical shit posters. There are regular shit posters, but none of those are my brand. My brand is very like earnest and forthright and transparent. And so it makes it a lot easier to like not have to worry about representing a company poorly accidentally. There's not a huge conflict there. There's not a huge conflict. Like I'm not wishing that I could go on Twitter and flame a bunch of people and thinking, oh, I shouldn't because I have a job. But I do like when I respond to comments on YouTube and people are terribly mean, I want to be mean back, but I'm like, I'm just gonna let that go. The world is open for this kind of content and nobody's really doing it super well. It's just a matter of like finding the niche to get in there and create it. But I think a lot of companies are looking for it because they're seeing, man, video is the future and we suck at it. And I'm like, hey, I'll kind of do suck at it. Well, I'm curious if, and I'm gonna press into that a little bit. So on one side, going into it, we have these two separate facets of your life that are now have the possibility of being integrated. But now in the middle of it, you feel almost like a unique pressure of those things being integrated where it's like you are, as you said, always representing yourself and someone else. You come as a pair. Do you feel like the exchange was worth it? I can only speak to my experience and I feel like the exchange was totally worth it. Interesting. Yeah, I think I got a lot of ancillary benefits out of being the unofficial face of PlanetScale. People find my personal channel on YouTube and they're like, oh, you're the PlanetScale guy. And I'm like, yeah, I am. And you know like and trust me already. And I did that on someone else, like someone gave me a paycheck to create content with my face in it from nine to five. Really can't be overstated how nice that is. And in terms of like growing my personal platform, I did a lot of that on the back of PlanetScale content because like when I created a PlanetScale video, I want to tell people about it. And people find that on Twitter and they're like, oh, this guy creates good content. Let me follow him. And so yeah, I feel like the deal that I had with PlanetScale, like if the downside is like, ah, I should be kind of careful. Like I should not say necessarily everything I want. The upside is just so much higher. The fact that I got to spend a lot of time honing my craft and putting it out under someone else's name, but with my face on it, that was a good deal for me. Yeah, yeah. And they were very like PlanetScale was very good to me. It was a great job. So I think the trade off was worth it far beyond. Very interesting, yeah. I think it's helpful in that it is realistic, right? And so anyone who's kind of curious about this type of work, they can use that as a framework for determining what value they can get out of it, which is very important. Cause as we've already established, you can lose it for any reason. And so knowing what the end looks like kind of helps you decide what the start should look like as well. Something I'm curious about is you talked about the importance of really great content and how companies are looking to fill this role, but then really aren't very good at it yet. What does the role of this like corporate creator look like at its best? And more personally, do you think that's something that you will do again or will you choose a different tact? That's a good question. I think at its best, and this is coming from my own history and preferences and desires, I think at its best it looks like educational, entertaining-ish content. And the reason I say educational and entertaining-ish is because in my heart, what I want to do is teach people. Like, that's where I get excited. That's where I'm like, oh, this is really fun. Especially let me go learn something and then come back to you and teach it. I'm like, yeah, that seems awesome to me. And so the business case for that, and this is where I see a lot of companies go wrong, I think the business case for that is nobody is going to watch your videos on how to do X with Y if they don't know what X and Y are. How to integrate Next.js and Auth0 and you're like, eh, I mean, at this point everyone knows Auth0, but you're like, ah, I don't need to do that thing specifically right now or I have never heard of that. And so people are like, I'm not gonna watch that. That feels like one prong of a content strategy, which is like resources as search intent or tutorials for people who are asking for it, right? If the other prong, and that prong is fine, but if you're trying to use that type of content to get broad reach and distribution and appeal, I think you're missing it. And what we did at PlanetScale is very, very broad educational like MySQL content. It wasn't how to set up PlanetScale with Django because it's like, who's PlanetScale? Don't know, never heard of them. But if it's like how to make your database queries a hundred times faster, everyone is gonna at least think about it. And if they're like in a world where databases are important to them, they're gonna click on it. The other thing is you have to be entertaining-ish, right? Because again, you're competing with videos about dinosaurs or like tunnels underground, woodworking, is all the videos I watch. And you gotta deliver the value, but you have to do it in kind of like a fun way because otherwise people are gonna be like, oh, this is so boring. And so adapting the message for the media I think is really important. The course that I did is not on YouTube. And it's like, it's still me, it's still my personality, but I didn't think a lot about how do I make this entertaining? Because it's like, this is a different type of resource. And so at its best, I think it's entertaining, it's educational, and it's like, you learn about the product almost as an ancillary thing. Like I'm teaching you how to be better at myself. It would be great while you're here if you heard the name Planet Scale. That would be awesome. But if you don't, at least you walk away with a lot of value regardless. It's a very mature way of looking at content is that where you place things and how you package them up is very important. And being able to walk into conversations knowing where something's gonna go and what purpose it serves is really important. And I think probably one of the things that we spent the most time churning around at Chromatic was the idea of like, okay, where does this live? Who is it for? All that kind of stuff. We made a bunch of mistakes there, but that is the whole conversation. And the thing that you do is just kind of an artifact of like deciding, like making those decisions for the platforming and packaging of things. Yep, exactly. I think people take video and put it anywhere that supports video. And it's like, I think there's an angle. Like you have to have a different angle if you're gonna try specifically to do YouTube, is in my opinion, I think. Your second question was what, am I gonna do it again? Yeah, basically, yeah. Yeah. It's a good question, Cheyenne, it's a good question. I don't know, I don't know. And so this week I've talked to as many people as I can, which I think is the wise move. I feel a little bit torn about just going to do it all again. And so I don't know if I'm gonna go do it all again, frankly. I kind of feel like, man, I did the thing. Like I did the thing I set out to do and I freaking crushed it and like, what's next? The counter argument to that is I have four children who are under three years old and a wife that works harder than I do, but she doesn't get paid for it. She's a stay-at-home mom and somebody's gotta make the money, right? So I think the open question is like, can I find somewhere or something that like aligns with what I want to do with my life and can I go there and do it all again and have a lot of fun doing it? Or do I need to find a new challenge which could be doing some sort of like my own thing out there? So that's the open question. I don't know, I tried to shy away from like stage of life but it's like such an important piece of this puzzle is that these decisions become so much harder the more life is kind of like stacked on you or the more like decisions that you've made that now have long-term consequences, if you will, right? You know how five people who are depending on you to make a decision that supports the whole thing that you've made, you've opted into, you've made that decision, right? It really does make this type of decision harder because I think if you were just making decisions for you, given the audience that you've built and the support that you've seen over the last couple of weeks, it may be a lot easier to say like, oh yeah, I got everything that I need to do my own thing and that may be true to an extent, but like how much? Like are you able to do it enough to fulfill the responsibilities that you've already chosen and have to enjoy fulfilling as a parent, husband? How does that weighing on you in this exact moment where you see something that you could reasonably do but don't know if you could do it to the extent that you would need to? Yeah, it weighs on me like a ton of bricks or like a very heavy dinosaur. I mean, it's hard, right? Like not only are they like, not only are they like, my family relies on me, of course, but like my wife has put her trust in me. And like, that's pretty heavy, you know? That's pretty hard to like be flippant about to be like, all right, the kids don't know what's going on. They're two and a half and four months old. They have no idea what's going on. I still feel the weight of like being their father, but to like almost an even more real extent, my wife knows what's going on. She's not two years old, right? She knows what's going on. And the way that she's like, the way that she's like, I trust you to make the right decision. It's like, oh, like how lucky am I, like how lucky am I to have a spouse that's so supportive and what like a, like what a weight on my shoulders to bear and that's my responsibility. And that's like, I will bear up under it, but like these things don't come easy, you know? Like I've known meager times. I've been in college before. I've shared a house with eight other dudes. I can do meager times. That's fine. This is not what the rest of the family signed up for, right? We can't go into a hacker house or like go crash on somebody's couch. Like kids need shoes, you know, kids gotta eat. We have to have health insurance for goodness sake. So yes, it's a lot. It's a whole and like I've got type one diabetes. Like we're not cheap. We're not a cheap family. So there's a lot that goes into it. And so like just, you know, just go out there and pursue your dreams. It's like, yeah, I agree. Cosine, but like, it gets harder. Like life stage is super important. It gets so much harder and it's a hardness that I am happy to experience because of the joy of being a husband and a father, but that doesn't take away the hardness of making the right decision, you know? Yes, yes. That is, I just want to honor your honesty with some honesty, cause I think that one of the hardest things for us is my daughter, she's 10 now, was born with two genetic illnesses spontaneously occurring, but you know, we spent the first five years of her life like living in a hospital, you know, and like getting cancer care and like all that. And these things, I think these are the things that are so hard to, so hard to communicate in like what it means to like put your trust in a company, I guess, right? Because I think that, you know, a lot of us get angry when these things happen. And I think a lot of times we're not sure why. And we're like, hey, these are people, like they've dedicated their life to, you know, this thing and you know, whatever. At the same time, like we're adults and we understand that like a thing has to make money. Like this is about business, right? And business is getting money. And if it doesn't make sense, it doesn't make sense. And we understand that as hardworking adults, but then on the other side of it, there is this very real thing where everyone is piecing together a very difficult puzzle. And so many times it goes like invisible because we're trying to show up and do the best work that we can in the way that we've promised to. But like these things are on our mind all the time. Like, you know, how do I take care of my daughter? Like if I only have a week left of like insurance and then it's up to me to find $4,000 a month just for that before I can even think about paying rent. Like, the fuck, that's a big problem, right? It's, yeah, it's a disaster and it's unbelievably, it's an unbelievably heavy weight to bear. Yeah, it's brutal. Yeah. I honestly don't even know. Like, I feel like maybe wrapping it up at this point would even, you know, be a disservice to the things that we've like talked about. But let's leave on a high note. Will you hit me with something else? Give me another one. We're gonna have to go pretty far from this topic to hit high note, but. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we gotta climb out of the crevasse. So just give me something. Something that I really enjoy about you and your personality and the hopefulness that you bring to the internet by being a sincere person is, I think it's easy to look at you and see that you believe in yourself and you believe in others. And I'm very curious, like through this experience and having the opportunity to see people be excited about you and where you're going next, what has that taught you about who you are as a person in a good way? It's been a little bit eye-opening, I'll be honest. I've never been laid off, never publicly hunted for a job. I've never super come out and been like, hey y'all, I need some help. And I've done that in various small ways with new video or new course or whatever. And people have been like, hey, that's awesome way to go. This is a much different and bigger and more real way of like, y'all, I need some help. I don't think my mental model of how I'm perceived, had adjusted in maybe the past year, year and a half. Because I'm in it day to day, right? I am me all the time. I am working, I've got two newborns, I've got two toddlers. I don't really spend a lot of time thinking about what other people think about me, which is a good thing and something I've actually had to practice. Do your thing, it doesn't matter. And so this inciting incident now of me like losing my job, which just comes at the end of a storyline that people have been following where it's like, he has twins, he's got another set of twins, he's got rheumatoid arthritis now just as a treat, like he's on paternity leave and then he gets laid off and it's like, I've been transparent all along and open all along. And I think what I have learned about myself is, I think I learned that a lot of people really want me to succeed. I knew that I had friends online, like I knew that and I've enjoyed that thoroughly. I don't think I knew that there were so many people that were like, I got your back. Yeah. And that to me just is like, whoa. Like it's just totally, like it's a step change function difference of like what I thought about myself as like a personality on the internet. I was like, I think people like me because I'm positive and encouraging and I'm kind of funny sometimes. And that's like great, but then seeing all of the support publicly and privately and it's just like, oh, I think people like actually are on my team and that feels really, really encouraging. Oh man. I love that so much. It's, and there's nothing good about the circumstances, but I'm grateful that you have had an opportunity to see how much you mean to people as a person and how much they're excited for you. Like that's a just truly beautiful human thing and I'm really grateful for that. Yeah, you and me both. Yeah, it's one of the many surprises of being laid off is like, I feel pretty good. Like I feel pretty good. Would love a little bit more money, but I feel pretty good, you know? Yes, well, speaking of that, I know that you have a course out that people can purchase. I do, yeah. Tell us a bit, tell us about that. How can people kind of contribute to this adventure for you? How can you fund the healthcare? Yeah, so I have a course out at screencasting.com where I teach people how to create high quality, beautiful screen casts in a very efficient way because that was one of the things that I think I realized during my time at PlanetSkill was like, hey, I'm pretty good at this. Like this is kind of like the behind the scenes, how do you make the video? Like you have to bring your own knowledge of what you want to teach. But like if you have that knowledge, I can teach you how to make really good videos. So you can find that at screencasting.com. It is of course a video course. So you'll watch me teach you how to do all of that. And if you want to otherwise follow me, Twitter is where I hang out all the time, especially now in my handle over there is Aaron D. Francis. You can find me there. So yeah, I think that's it. I love it. Well, Aaron, thank you so much for having this conversation with me. It has been an honor to get to know you a little bit better. And I am rooting for you and wishing you the best. Yeah, thanks for rooting for you too. Thanks for having me. Thanks.