Hey, what’s going on? Welcome to “The Doug Show.” I’m Doug Cunnington, and this is part two of the interview with Paul Lipsky. Today, we’re gonna talk about AI specifically, although there’s a blend of YouTube and AI in both of the episodes. If you missed part one, it was just last week, so definitely wanna check that out.
We recorded this in one session, so I just divided the conversation based on topic as well as I could. Great conversation with Paul, really fun to talk to, and I’ll link up so you can check out his YouTube channel and see how he’s covering AI, which I get into some of the, you know, the details of. It’s kind of an issue with some other channels.
I don’t think Paul does this, but some other channels, like a new release, something new happens in the AI world, and it’s a this changes everything situation every single week, sometimes multiple times a week, which obviously cannot be true, because as we go through it, it didn’t change everything, and, uh, things are, you know, changing slowly.
Every now and then they get it right, but, uh, whatever, broken clock kinda situation. One interesting thing is I just did an interview with a friend of mine who has a podcast called “The FI Show,” Financial Independence Show, and I was on there six years ago talking about Amazon affiliates and, you know, what I was doing there.
I think I was probably promoting my course, um, in a general sense, although I didn’t sell directly. I just talked about the business model and encouraged people to follow along over on YouTube or the podcast or whatever.
We talked about a bunch of stuff yesterday in the interview, but one thing that, uh, my friend Cody pointed out was that I’ve had a couple anti-AI themed podcast episodes, and re-really it’s just a pushback and skepticism that I have personally. But I gave some really good examples, like through the conversation, m-maybe I had a lot of caffeine, I was a little riled up, but I gave some very specific examples of like how AI can mislead you when there’s not much information and l- you know, how that might happen.
So I, I don’t know. Like I’m skeptical. I, I use AI in certain ways, but I’ve found where it’s effective for me, where it doesn’t, make me lazy you know, there’s ways to use AI where you’re not– You’re letting your critical problem-solving skills atrophy, and I think that could be an issue, not directly on the stuff that you’re working on, but like in a greater sense if you’re just not as, uh, you know, men-mentally nimble, so to speak.
The specific example that I gave to, um… This is a weird intro for we’re about to talk about AI, but I just wanna give this example. So I just got a new, , vintage tube amp. It’s from the ’60s, and, uh, it’s a Gibson Discoverer Tremolo. Super cool. Sounds awesome. I’ll tell a future story About what happened, but I, I got it, uh, less than a week ago, and then, uh, I turned it up too loud for a little while, and I have to take it to a repair shop, basically
I was rocking way too hard So that’ll be a future story I’ll tell you about, uh, later. But anyway, there’s not that much information about this specific amp, and you may be surprised, but Gibson amps were not as popular as, like, Fender amps. And there’s a lot of information on Fender amps, and you can, like, look things up and see the circuits and, and the, uh, schematics and all that stuff very easily for a lot of stuff.
But in the ‘ 60s, I mean, it’s hard to have, like, the, the user manual from the 1960s to find a PDF on that. You might be able to find one. The other thing is, like, they didn’t keep great records, like, within the company back then. So I mean, they didn’t have computers, right? So it’s literally, like, on pieces of paper, filed.
Companies go out of business, divisions close, they stop making amps, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, so there’s not a ton of information out there, and one thing that can happen is the AI, uh, all the AI LLMs out there, right? They’re getting information from the internet, from books, from different sources. On YouTube, for example, because there’s transcripts, specifically Gemini be- because Google and YouTube are, you know, together, , same company.
And basically, if I were to publish, ’cause any old asshole could publish something on YouTube, right? And say basically whatever they want. There’s not much information on forums, uh, web pages, on Reddit, on this specific amp and probably, like, dozens and dozens of others. So there’s not much info. So I probably could create a handful of videos with essentially made-up information about this amp and put it on YouTube, and it would very quickly be indexed into, um, you know, Gemini, LLM, Google Search, and that would taint the results.
I mean, there’s not much info, so it’d be pretty simple to do. Additionally, if I went and, uh, maybe went to Reddit and put some information there, that’s another way. So all of a sudden, I’m in a situation where, like, the information that I’m finding about old amps is not accurate. The other thing I just ordered, um, I have a couple speakers coming in for this other amp You know, now I’m rambling on, but stick with me.
I’m almost done. Uh, I got some speakers. It’s a new speaker. It’s a new speaker that came out about a year ago, but there’s virtually no information. Even if you go to like, , big music retailers like sweetwater.com, there’s no reviews on there. It’s sort of a higher end set of speakers, and the information on them is lacking.
Even from the company, there’s only like a few sentences about the speaker, and it’s not very descriptive. So there’s only like one forum thread, and it’s a couple people like talking past each other. One person giving like first-hand information, and then other people that haven’t tried the speaker giving their opinions on what’s going on.
So very s- couple simple examples. One from, you know, yesteryear vintage amplifiers where there’s not much information, probably a little inaccurate. Can be, you know, the data can be poisoned super easily. And then there’s new information that’s lacking on a brand-new product that came out in 2025, and here even a year later it’s just kind of a rare product and people are not…
I- in fact, I’m like, “Uh, I should probably do a video. It would probably rank,” ’cause I searched for information. There’s very little information on this, , George Alessandro, , speaker out there. So anyway, very long intro. I had caffeine earlier as well. So anyway, here’s the rest of the interview with Paul.
Be sure to check out his channel. Thanks for listening to “The Rant”.
Doug: I guess it’s kind of a, a transition question, but w- one sort of still YouTube topic is, um, the AI area. So th- it’s a huge growth area. I, I actually, it s- I mean, I was interested in AI, so I created a couple videos. They actually did really well, but I kind of…
My interest wasn’t as high as yours, so I knew that I wouldn’t be able to do it, like- Mm … for the long haul. But one interesting thing is, like, you sort of pivoted in 2025, which in my opinion, everyone probably back then would say, like, “That market is saturated.” Like, um, a YouTuber talking about AI, there’s so many out there.
Um, do you have any observations on the saturation/any advice for people that are thinking, “I would do… Like, I’m passionate about AI. I would do videos on AI, but I feel like I’m late to the game”?
Algorithm Reality Check
Paul: Um, I would tell them that they are thinking about YouTube wrong. Um, YouTube these days is, is very interesting because you can have a brand new channel with no subscribers, and you can have…
You can make three videos. The first two bomb, the fourth one bombs, and the third one gets a quarter million views, and I see it happening all the time. There’s a lot of really good YouTubers I follow, and their videos will get 1,000 views, 1,000 views, 150,000 views, 2,000 views, quarter million views, three, 3,000 views.
Yeah. It’s very, very easy. And I, I wouldn’t say it’s easy. It’s very common now to have videos pop off even if you’re a small subscriber.
Doug: Yeah.
Paul: A s- small, uh, YouTuber.
Doug: Correct, yeah. And I’ve, I’ve seen the same thing where I’m just like, “Where did this channel come…” Yeah. And then I, you know, as we’re YouTubers, I look back at their channel and I’m like, “Oh, wow,” like, this one just, like, exploded way outside their audience and-
Paul: Mm-hmm
Doug: you know, they get new subscribers. But, like, their, the number of views for that top video is nowhere close to the number of subscribers they have. Yeah. It’s like, you know, tiny.
Paul: Yeah.
Doug: the other thing is, like, I have started to see, channels with like a million subscribers, and most of their views are in like the tens of thousands, and occasionally they’ll get a, you know, couple hundred thousand.
But it’s, it’s o- kind of odd ’cause back in the day, kind of the metric, The number of views, uh, should be similar to the number of subscribers that you have, but it’s completely off-kilter. The algorithm works differently.
Paul: Yeah, yeah. So. And, you know, like you said, the opposite can be true, so like I have, I have some videos that bomb. I posted one this earliest week, it totally bombed.
Yeah. And, you know, you can get in your head about that, and I do. But then you make another one and that does well, knock on wood. Yeah. So it happens.
Setting View Baselines
Doug: On a- on average, like what, what’s your sort of target where you’re like, “I’m not gonna feel bad if a video gets X number of views”? And then does it… Has it slowly crept up?
Like how, how do you have that baseline?
Paul: It’s hard. It’s hard ’cause, ’cause every… You really do have to, just like with the algorithm in general, you really do have to think of every video individually because, uh, certain topics I know sh- usually do really well on my channel, and others do less well. So you have to think of it as like on a topic basis, um Like every week I have my AI news recap that usually gets 50,000 views, but then two weeks later or even a week later, it stops getting views ’cause it’s only timely for a week.
And I have other videos I posted and I was like, “Man, like I really thought that video would do well.” You know, right when you log into YouTube, it tells you the ranking of your video, as you know, that like is psychologically so damning ’cause you’re like, “Oh, that video’s 10 out of 10,” instead of being one out of 10 or in the middle.
But then over the next few weeks it just picks up and it, it does better and it’s, yeah. So, um, I don’t even remember what your question was, but
Doug: It’s… I don’t remember anything. Yeah. Okay.
Tracking News on X
Doug: So you mentioned earlier that you stay informed about, like news through Twitter, primarily X.
Paul: Yeah.
Doug: So any tips on that?
I mean, it seems like it’s a fairly, uh, straightforward thing to like automate, have alerts set up, that kind of thing. But like, uh, how do you do it, like, uh, just from a tutorial kind of approach, like step by step?
Paul: Yeah, pretty simple. So download the, the X app and find some accounts that, that, uh, that like if there’s a topic you wanna follow, so maybe it’s you want to get alerted every time Google releases an update to Gemini.
Follow, follow Gemini and turn on alerts and then you’ll get a notification on your phone. Um, if you’re like, “Okay, like this is not that exciting,” just dismiss it. If it’s exciting, I bookmark it and then I, I revisit my bookmarks later and just see like, “Oh yeah, this was a topic I wanted to make a video about, or I wanted to cover in my weekly news recap.”
So that’s, that’s, it’s as simple as that. And then again, I have my, my AI agent check Twitter once an hour to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Um, and I think I’m gonna turn… It’s gotten really good, so I think I’m gonna turn or delete the X app from my phone ’cause it’s one of those apps that like really sucks me in, and just trust the agent.
I think we’re, I’m almost there. I just gotta-
Doug: Yeah …
Paul: give it a little more guidance.
Doug: Gotcha.
Staying Excited and In Lane
Doug: How do you stay excited about- … all, all the news? ‘Cause like, you know, and we were talking and there’s new stuff kinda constantly. Mm-hmm. And it would be, uh, like an overload to the system if, if everything, uh, really got…
Yeah, yeah. You know what I’m asking.
Paul: Yeah. Maybe I am just overloaded. Maybe I, I, I- … I do feel like maybe my, uh, was it like cortisol or- … dopamine is s- something broke there recently. Um, but yeah, I just am excited by it. I, I don’t know if there’s a way for me to say how I get ex- Okay … stay excited about it.
It’s just like natural for me. I, I think because- I know the tools so well, or at least I think I do. And so, like, when there is a new update, I understand pretty quickly, like, what, whether it’s gonna be something really cool and, like, exciting and, and what is cool about it. So I think, like, that is what, uh, keeps me excited.
Like, the more y- more you understand about it, the more these new things, you’re like, “Oh, that’s, that solves that problem.” Like, “Oh, that’s so much better than the way it was before.”
Doug: Okay. And it, the perfect answer where, I mean, it’s like a pure, uh, like you’re actually interested. Mm-hmm. It’s not something you’re gonna burn out.
Um, you, you may look around here, you could see more guitars than there were before- Mm-hmm … and amps and stuff. Um, I am passionate about that, so I could, like, read and research, and I haven’t, uh, I’m not gonna do a guitar channel or anything like that. But g- uh, ’cause that would, like, feed the It would feed the beast even more.
But, um, it, it’s a pure interest, so you’re just like, “This is cool.” Like, I wanna test this-
Paul: Yeah …
Doug: uh, tool out or whatever. Now, for the, the tutorials and, um I guess actually using the tools, how do you go about learning how to do a task well enough to teach it, especially if it’s outside of your area? ‘Cause I, I assume, like, there’s some stuff that you want or need to cover that is not a problem that you need to solve in your business.
Mm-hmm. It’s not something that you need to do. So how do you go about, like, learning it in a, like, in a real way well enough to teach it?
Paul: Yeah, I think there’s a, there’s a few layers to that. So first, um, I try not to go out of my lane too much.
Doug: Okay.
Paul: So if you look on YouTube and start searching for AI, I still think the majority of the videos you’re gonna find are from coders and developers, or videos for coders and developers.
That’s not my background. I don’t talk about that. I don’t, I don’t speak the same language that those YouTubers speak. I watch some of their videos, and I don’t understand what they’re saying, to be honest, and I think that’s okay. And, and I’ve considered learning, and I decided I don’t want to, because I want to be able to always be able to communicate in a way that my audience understands.
And my audience aren’t developers, they’re regular people who just wanna learn how to use AI for productivity or to build a business or to help their business, things like that. So I think sort of staying in my lane helps a lot. And then, uh, again, because I use these tools every day and have done, already done so many tutorials on them, it’s pretty easy for me to pick up what’s new and to, to quickly understand it and to be able to articulate that for a video.
And there are enough possible use cases for these new tools that I d- mm, don’t really ever have a problem coming up with ideas for how to use them, um, for myself. I am … One thing I’ve struggled with on YouTube is pretty much every video I make, I, I show how to use a tool and I talk about use cases, and then I always receive a comment from someone saying, “Oh, those are the dumbest use cases.”
Like, that’s … Like, “I’m not a YouTuber. That’s not going to help me,” like learning how to, like, script a video using AI. And so then I’ll make one that helps teachers, and then people are like, “That’s the dumbest use case.” “I’m not a teacher.” I’m like, “Well, okay.” “I just learned something. I can’t satisfy everyone.”
Doug: Yeah, yeah. Well, and it, it’s perfect. Uh, it’s like the audience identifies itself. Yeah. You
Paul: know? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Titles Formats and Inspiration
Doug: Um, which, uh, actually that leads me to something, like, in the back of my head, um, perfect example. I used to do a lot of, like, keyword research and stuff, and I know you did back in the day for, for, you know, various things that we’ve worked on.
Paul: Mm-hmm.
Doug: And one of the, the best sort of keyword areas was, like, um- X, like how to do X for Y, where Y is a specific kind of person, a profession or whatever. So it’s like best productivity tools for teachers, lawyers. Like, like you could fill, I mean, just fill in a list of occupations, right? Endless videos, very niched down, and, you know, back in the day from an SEO standpoint, it like helped you develop like expertise in that how-to area because you, you served all these different use cases.
Is that an approach that you take or is it one that’s useful, um, from like a video creation standpoint?
Paul: Sort of. So I don’t use any like tools for that, but I just I like to look, when it comes to building out titles, for instance, for videos, at what videos of mine have done well in the past with a high click-through rate, and looking at the structure of the title and seeing can I use that same structure for my next video?
Uh, or looking at competitors whose videos have done well. Um, a lot of YouTubers will, uh, copy a lot what a successful video is. They’ll, like, basically make the same title, same thumbnail, and same topic. And I’ve certainly done that in the past, I think especially when I was starting- trying to ramp things up.
But, uh, I don’t do that anymore. I really just try to… Uh, I think maybe it’s c- just with experience, like I, I’m better now at knowing what videos are gonna do well, like being the person people copy, I hope. Right. Um, but there’s always an element of, okay, what titles have done well, and, like, can I, like… Okay, I, I know I made a video c- once called How to Master Google Gemini.
It did really well. I’m gonna make a video called How to Master Claude, and then a video How to Master ChatGPT. I’m gonna keep doing that until it stops working, so.
Doug: I heard there’s a new tool called Bait.
Paul: Bait?
Doug: Yeah. And then fill in the- Oh. It’s
a good one. That’s, that’s really good. Uh, all right. So f- f- kind of funny thing, um, and this is a great way to get, like, titles. It’s hard to pivot from that, but everybody get your mind out of the gutters. The, um, I’m actually doing a video collab with a YouTube guitarist, and I interviewed him a couple weeks ago, and he was telling me about a video that he basically got the, the title, , from a completely different, , genre.
Mm-hmm. So it’s like, I, I can’t even remember. It was something of a channel that his kids watch, and it’s like the guitar pedals I wish I had when I was a kid- Mm-hmm … or, like, my dream pedal, s- something like that. So he just got the title, and then it kinda creates the form. I mean, he’s a YouTuber, so he knows what to do.
Paul: Yeah.
Doug: Um, and I think that’s a great area where it’s not, like, you know, ripping off the idea from the same industry. It’s just like this idea works here, and we can make the analogous video here, which I… There’s no real question, but I’m like, I’m curious if you’ve done that where you’re like w- um, you see a great video format in a different, uh, topic area, and you’re like, “Oh, this actually would work well for AI.”
Paul: Oh, yeah.
Doug: Definitely. Or
Paul: anything like that. Definitely, definitely.
Doug: Yeah. Do you have
Paul: an example? Yeah. Um, oh, gosh. There was this great video I just saw. It’s, I saw the title. I was like, “Wow, that is a good title.” I’m trying to remember what it was. It was like, it was a video about how to sleep better, and so I think the video title was something like This is going to suck for two weeks and, but it’s gonna fix your sleep.
And I was like, “Oh, I wanna know what that is.”
Doug: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Paul: You know? So I clicked on the video and I took a screenshot of him. Like, I, I don’t know how, but I would love to make a title like this. ‘Cause like this is gonna suck for two weeks, but it’ll fix your AI setup or something like that. ‘Cause like the amount of curiosity that drives was like, when I saw it I was like, “Wow, that’s a good title.”
Doug: Yeah. And, uh, side tangent and then we’ll get into some of the, the grander AI topics from a, like a cultural, cultural level. Um, what kind of YouTube do you watch? Are you a v- a viewer? Like what, what are you into? Just even r- random stuff.
Paul: Yeah, a lot. It’s probably my number one entertainment source, like yours.
So I do watch a lot of AI, um, YouTube to see what other people are doing. Um, and I do get some ideas from that. It, it helps to see like what has like lasting power. Um, so a lot of AI, um, and productivity. And then from like the more fun side, there are a few vloggers I follow or I don’t even like… I feel like the funny part is I don’t even like know some of their names.
I just-
Doug: Yeah …
Paul: watch their videos. This guy who makes videos about his plants, and I don’t like plants. I don’t, I kill plants, and yet his videos are so calming to watch. I, I just love- Yeah … love watching them. So.
Doug: That’s cool.
Paul: Yeah.
Doug: Same kind of guilty pleasure for me. I, I watch, um- Like van life or like other nomadic traveler types.
Paul: Mm-hmm.
Doug: And we were just talking before, um, like I rented a camper van recently, and you have, um, a truck camper. Truck camper,
Paul: yeah.
Doug: And you had a camper van, uh- Yep … back in the day. Um, and I, I love watching it. I could never do it long-term. Mm-hmm. I think it could be like short little things, and maybe I would develop a, you know, a appreciation for like longer term.
But, um, yeah, I love watching, and a good storyteller is a good storyteller, you know? Yeah. Like, it doesn’t matter the, the format or if they’re talking about plants and… Yeah, it’s just kinda interesting, and, uh, you know, there’s some that I’ve watched for, you know, years and years. Mm-hmm. So it’s kinda crazy.
Like
Paul: you know them. Yeah.
Doug: Yeah. Yeah.
Paul: Another thing I like watching are tech reviews. I love like unboxing videos and-
Doug: Okay … ‘
Paul: cause I try not to buy too much stuff, but it’s, it’s fun to like live vicariously and like see what people- Yeah … are buying and, and yeah, so there’s some… I enjoy that as well.
Doug: Yeah.
YouTube’s great. Yeah. I, I do like it. Okay.
Bubbles Vibe Coding and Wrap
Doug: Do you think AI is a bubble?
Paul: I think there’s a bubble aspect to it. Um, if you look at all the tools out there, I think it’s pretty clear which ones are going to win, and it’s the, it’s no surprise. It’s like the major ones you would think of, Google, Anthropic, OpenAI, a few other ones.
But I think so much money is pouring into these smaller companies and, and when I see how much they raise sometimes, I’m really surprised. I’m not sure who’s giving them money. Um, and it’s not that they’re bad, it’s just how do you compete when you, what you’ve just built can just be replaced in a m- in a month by these big companies?
And they have so much money behind them, um, and so much staying power. So I think there, there is a, there is a bubble there. I don’t think it’s as big as some of the doom- doomers say it is, though.
Doug: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it’s funny, I ended up, like I mentioned, on these sort of anti-AI- Mm-hmm … algorithmic topics, and it’s, uh, yeah, I mean, some people are like r- they’re like, “This is gonna be, like, one of the worst bubbles ever.”
Then it’s interesting ’cause it, the truth is al- it’s never, like, exactly what they’re, they’re saying. It’s always somewhere in the middle of a couple of extremes. So-
Paul: Yeah …
Doug: um, but yeah, the, the valuations have definitely been interesting. And to your point, you know, from a smaller tool standpoint, yeah, it’s just…
It d- like you said, companies get, um, acquired or whatever, and it’s like, oh yeah, like OpenAI just added that f- f- th- functionality or whatever.
Paul: Yeah.
Doug: Yeah. Goes away. All right. What about, um, any… Uh, do you cover anything a- around, like, the economics of AI, data centers, any of the externalities? Or you just stick to the tools and, uh, the happy side?
Paul: I stick to the positive side mostly. Um, I don’t spend a lot of time even researching that stuff. Um, someone in the audience is gonna be mad at me for that, but, but it’s understandable. Uh, but y- you know, I only have so much bandwidth, first of all. Um, and I understand the concerns, but, you know, it’s such a…
I feel like there’s such, like, a veil around it. And I think like a lot of people, I don’t know what to believe. I, I hear both sides talking about data centers use a lot of water, and other people saying that’s actually not true. And I don’t… How am I sup- Like, I don’t know. I don’t know what to believe.
Doug: So- I saw some p- Oh, go on.
Paul: No, that was it. That was it.
Doug: Yeah, I saw some post and it was like, “Golf courses use a lot of water, too.” And I’m like, “Oh, yeah, golf course- Yeah … in the desert uses a lot of water,” you know? Um, but I have seen some of the… Again, you don’t know what to believe, but, like, they’re like a video where they’ve set up, uh, whatever, generators at the data center, and it’s just, like, a constant hum.
It’s a loud… It, and that seems-
Paul: Right …
Doug: horrible. I, like, I don’t know how they’re gonna legislate that or deal with the classha- class action lawsuits and just be like, “Oh, we’re just gonna give everybody, like, a couple hundred thousand dollars- Yeah … and, uh, just don’t worry about it anymore.”
Paul: Yeah. I don’t know.
And I, I think, and I’ve seen stuff like that, too, and, and I think that’s… I mean, that seems common sense to me. Like, when people… I think there were some reports of people near data centers who don’t have water anymore, and like, obviously, that needs to be fixed, and, like, that’s wrong. Like, no, no question about it.
And things like the loud noises, that’s wrong. And, and selling the data center land when it was supposed to be used for a museum or whatever. There was a news story about that. Um- Oh, yeah … I forget what it was. I don’t think it was a museum. A park maybe. Like, that was, that was wrong. Yeah. And I think we all should be against stuff like that.
Doug: I kind of skipped around a little bit, but I’m curious about your thoughts on vibe coding. It sounds like you don’t, you don’t dabble in those dark arts. But, um, I have… I- and the re- where I’m coming from, I used to code. I have a computer engineering degree, so I have some light, I have some experience, but it’s been many, , years.
, And when people were vibe coding, I was like, “Eh.” Like, some of it seems, like, kind of okay, but, like, what I started to see was, like, people that didn’t know what they were doing immediately trying to sell software that kind of didn’t work. Mm-hmm. And I was like, “You guys are idiots.” Like, “What are you even doing?”
And then they would try to get a few users, and then, like, sell it, and then leave all the… They would sell lifetime license or whatever. Those were quite popular. So anyway, do you have any thoughts, um, maybe as an observer of other people vibe coding?
Paul: Yeah, no, and I have vibe coded. Um, I’ve vibe coded a few apps for myself or simple computer programs, and so I have some thoughts on it.
Yeah. I think that vibe coding, and I’ve made some videos about that, I think it’s great For individuals who want to create personalized apps. And I see that being used a lot more in the future, very near future. So like we were talking about before, trying to– Where last year I was trying to, uh, cut back on expenses for my business, and so if I had the same tools I have now, some of the software I’d canceled, I could just vibe code an app for myself that could replace a paid subscription.
Or if there’s a sub- there’s a software that– There’s no software that’s perfect for what I need, I can make what’s perfect for me. And so I think for a use case for personalized software, I, I think it’s a, an fantastic tool. I think it’s really cool. I’ve built some things for myself with it that are pretty neat, but I w- I haven’t shared some of them because they’re not for everyone.
But I think if, when you get into the territory of selling, that’s when you have to know a little bit more about what’s being built and how it works, ’cause there’s complexities to it, and I’ve run a software company sort of in the past, and it was really hard and annoying. Just like all the customer service, all the bugs and fixes and improvements.
It’s not, it’s not easy. So, uh, yeah, I’m all for it for personal software.
Doug: Makes perfect sense. And I think in some ways the people that were in the make money online area-
Paul: Mm-hmm …
Doug: have moved to AI ’cause it’s like the new exciting thing. There’s growth opportunities. They were trying to make money, right?
There’s money to be made, and you can teach other people how to make money. Do you kind of view it as the same sort of, uh, make money online, it’s just like the new frontier? And then if so, how do you stay on the, you know, the positive side of this?
Paul: Oh, I see what you’re saying. Yeah. So I think that, yeah, there’s been a big pivot I see, and I think people are still in that make money online, but they’re like, “Well, you can make money online with AI,” and, you know, “Here’s how you can do it.”
Um, is, is that what you mean? Is that-
Doug: Yeah, basically.
Paul: Yeah, yeah. Definitely a lot of that. Or people selling software that they just vibe coded. Right. And for me, I, I guess I’m fortunate that, like, I don’t need to make … I don’t need to focus on trying to maximize the profit. I’m … I make a good amount what I do, uh, making YouTube videos, and I’m happy with that.
I love doing it. And so, um, I just … Yeah, I think I’m just trying to be content with that, so.
Doug: Right. And it’s less str- I mean, I have to imagine it’s less stressful if you’re like, uh, like before. You mentioned you’re focusing on doing good videos that you’re- Mm-hmm … interested in. You’re staying in your lane.
Paul: Yeah.
Doug: Um, and you’re avoiding, uh, c- courses, uh, communities, like a- any of the other stuff that you could add to, like, maximize revenue- Yeah … kind of thing.
Paul: Yeah. And I can do fun stuff. Like I, I VibeCoded a Chrome extension and I released it for free, and I think it has like 20,000 users of it. So- Oh,
Doug: wow … yeah.
Paul: What’s
Doug: it, what’s it do?
Paul: Um, so Google Gemini, it used to not have folders, and so I VibeCoded an app that gave it folders as a Chrome extension. Now they have folders, so I haven’t been keeping up with it, but, you know, it certainly helped that I made a video about it on my YouTube channel. Like that’s, that’s
I’m not blind to that. Like that’s very obviously why it did so well. Um, but it’s free anyway, so, like- Yeah … it was just a fun project learning how to VibeCode- That’s cool … and throw something on the Google Store.
Doug: What, uh, what’s coming up for you in the next six months, year?
Paul: Some more YouTube videos. Just, just YouTube.
Um, and it’s not up to me. It’s whatever they release. So yeah, I mean, I, I don’t know. I think every day I sort of ask myself like, “Is this gonna last?” I don’t know. Um, I’ve done a lot of businesses in the past, and all of them have failed at some point for one reason or another. May- us- maybe me, ’cause I’m the bottleneck-
or tired, tired out from it. So yeah, I, I kind of have to be, like y- you were talking about before, I kind of have to be zen about it and okay with it going away at some point. But while it’s here, I wanna take advantage of it and, and make as many videos that do well, ’cause I really like that and I really love doing that.
So yeah.
Doug: Where can people find you?
Paul: You can, uh, find me on YouTube, Paul J Lipsky, or you can go to my website, which I VibeCoded. It’s pauljlipsky.com. Um, but just go to YouTube.
Doug: Yeah. Cool. I’ll link up to that, and thanks a lot. Fun conversation.
Paul: Yeah. Thanks for having me.