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Hank Green

Hank Green Biography

Entrepreneur

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“But I think there's something inside of us, something that blooms in us in adolescence and never leaves...and it's just...*want*. [...] Some people work to minimize it with mindfulness and meditation; some people let it grow and run free and take over their lives. But some people, and I consider myself one of them, study their want, refine it, and build an engine that burns it. Even if their want pushes all in one direction, they can tack against it like a sailboat, getting somewhere better than where they *wanted* to be.”

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Book:A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor
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“[Creation is first about attention;] Making something that people are going to pay attention to, and that's going to affect someone; it's going to make them laugh or make them think; and that's all that matters. That's where almost every Tiktoker is right now. And then at some point it gets to be that your graphs change a little bit and being able to sustain this activity is more important: to find ways to make money off of it; to have it be your job. [And then you get to a stage when you have an audience for your creations, you make money from your creations and at some point] it's almost as if you have enough of this to realize 1.) You have enough and 2.) Having more isn't going to make you much happier. You have to have enough before you can realise that more isn't going to make you much happier. That happens with audience, and that happens with money, and eventually you get to a point (and not everyone gets here), where it's like: "what's FUN though? What do I LIKE doing? What is the weird thing I can do that's interesting?”

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“Imagine if you looked different to every person who saw you. Not, like, some people thought you were more or less attractive, but one person thinks you're a sixty-five-year-old cowboy from Wyoming complete with boots and hat and leathery skin, and the next person sees an eleven-year-old girl wearing a baseball uniform. You have no control over this, and what you look like has nothing to do with the life you have lived or even your genome. You have no idea what each person sees when they look at you. That's what fame is like. You think this sounds like beauty because we sometimes say that beauty is all in the eye of the one beholding the beauty. And, indeed, we don't get to decide if we are beautiful. Different people will have different opinions, and the only person who gets to decide if I'm attractive is the person looking at me. But then there is some consensus about what attractive is. Beauty is an attribute defined by human nature and culture. I can see my eyes and my lips and my boobs when I look in a mirror. I know what I look like. Fame is not this way. A person's fame is in everyone's head except their own. You could be checking into your flight at the airport and 999 people will see you as just another face in the crowd. The thousandth might think you're more famous than Jesus. As you can imagine, this makes fame pretty disorienting. You never know who knows what. You never know if someone is looking at you because you went to college with them or because they've been watching your videos or listening to your music or reading about you in magazines for years. You never know if they know you and love you. Worse, you never know if they know you and hate you.”

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Book:An Absolutely Remarkable Thing
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“This dumb little moment was the first time I heard a stranger hating me in public. I knew then, for real, that thousands of people were having the exact conversation all over the world every moment of every day. Those people were real and their thoughts were formed by overblown or just straight made up stories about me that I could never adequately defend myself against. People all over the world whom I had never met and would never meet hated me. HATED. And what they thought about me was completely out of my control.”

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Book:An Absolutely Remarkable Thing
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“Imagine if you looked different to every person who saw you. Not, like, some people thought you were more or less attractive, but one person thinks you're a sixty-five-year-old cowboy from Wyoming complete with boots and hat and leathery skin, and the next person sees an eleven-year-old girl wearing a baseball uniform. You have no control over this, and what you look like has nothing to do with the life you have lived or even your genome. You have no idea what each person sees when they look at you. That's what fame is like. You think this sounds like beauty because we sometimes that beauty is all in the eye of the one beholding the beauty. And, indeed, we don't get to decide if we are beautiful. Different people will have different opinions, and the only person who gets to decide if I'm attractive is the person looking at me. But then there is some consensus about what attractive is. Beauty is an attribute defined by human nature and culture. I can my eyes and my lips and my boobs when I look in a mirror. I know what I look like. Fame is not this way. A person's fame is in everyone's head except their own. You could be checking into your flight at the airport and 999 people will see you as just another face in the crowd. The thousandth might think you're more famous than Jesus. As you can imagine, this makes fame pretty disorienting. You never know who knows what. You never know if someone is looking at you because you went to college with them or because they've been watching your videos or listening to your music or reading about you in magazines for years. You never know if they know you and love you. Worse, you never know if they know you and hate you.”

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“I'm stuck on this planet with you. And honestly, I'm glad. I've been exposed to a lot of awful people in the last few months, but I've met so many more that are amazing, thoughtful, generous, and kind. I honestly believe that is the human condition. And if the Carls are testing us, this final test is the hardest to accomplish. If you pay attention, there is only one story that makes sense, and that is one in which humanity works together more and more since we took over this planet. Yeah, we fuck it up all the time, yeah, there have been some massive steps backward, but look at us! We are one species now more than we have ever been. People fight against that, and they probably always will, but could there be any time in history when what Carl is asking would be more possible?”

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“For me, it goes without saying that much of the dogma of many religions is harmful. Thinking other people will burn forever because they love the wrong person or worship the wrong god has done a whole lot of bad. What I wanted was the part where people were asked to get together once a week to talk about how to be a good person and, like, hang out with their neighbors. It's pretty amazing that apparently the only way to get people to do that is to invent an all-seeing, kindhearted sky dad who will be super disappointed/burn you for eternity if you don't show up.”

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Book:A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor
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“Andy Scamp's simple list of the ways people feel valuable. 1. Just believing it. Sometimes this is religious, sometimes it is not. God cares for everyone, but society is supposed to as well. We strive to live in a world that places tremendous even infinite value on a single human life. We do not live in that society, but I think part of the reason we strive for it is because we need to signal that our existence in intrinsically meaningful. This is the only source of meaning that does not rely on other people, it is also that hardest to hold onto. 2. Story We understand ourselves in complex ways, but often times that can be distilled down into some core identities and we imagine these identities as part of a story and that that story is some intrinsically positive thing. It might being part of a tradition or breaking free of one. It might be your race or height or hair color. Your status as a child or a parent. Being a job creator or a Star Wars fan or a snowboarder. We create positive narrative around these things and when we fit in them we feel like we matter. 3. Being appreciated It might be hearing someone laugh at your joke or being paid a living wage or getting likes on Instagram. It might be only external or come from within. Appreciation is almost synonymous with value and I think this is where most meaning comes from. 4. Helping People This might sound the same as appreciation, but it is not. Indeed I think your average waste water treatment engineer will tell you that you can help a lot of people and not get a ton of thanks for it, but we are empathy machines and one of the most lasting and true ways of finding meaning is to actually be of service. 5. Comparison You know, keeping up with the Jones. Also, every sport, but it is more than just comparing ourselves to other people. We also compare our current selves to our past selves which is why getting better at something makes us feel valuable. Even if we are the only ones who really understand how much we are improving. 6. Impacting the World This one is simple, but so dangerous. If the world is different because you were in it then you must matter. You must be important if things changed because you exist, but if that is what you believe then the bigger the impact the more you matter and that can lead to some bad places.”

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Book:A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor
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“Branding is something designers think about a lot. You take something like a perfume or car tire, or butt-flavored bubblegum, and you ask questions about it that you shouldn't be able to ask. What kind of tuxedo would this car tire wear to the prom? What is this perfume's favorite movie? You try to end up in a place where you understand a product as if it is a person. The reverse of this, where people become brands, should be easy right? They're already people... End at the beginning. Except that really what you're doing when you brand is a process of simplification. You come to understand the essence of that fucking tire. And so branding a person also benefits dramatically from simplicity. People are complicated, but brands are simple.”

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“I follow and cultivate my own curiosity. I think curiosity is one of the top two or three human characteristics. It's something that I really like about myself. [...] I want to understand stuff! I want to understand people! Following my curiosity so frequently leads me to better life decisions and better business decisions but also - just feeling better! You're never going to feel bad about your whole life if you loved people and you were curious. I mean, that's kind of all I want!”

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Author:Hank Green
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“You have to have enough before you can realise that more isn't going to make you much happier. That happens with audience, and that happens with money. And eventually you get to a point (and not everyone gets here), [where it's no longer about the audience or the money anymore and instead it turns to] "What's FUN though? What do I LIKE doing? What is the weird thing I can do that's interesting?”

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“I think that this is ultimately why we want money: It's to create a world that you prefer. To create an environment, to create an experience that you enjoy more. It might be shoes - it might be charity. By giving to charity, I'm just buying the world I would prefer. Because that world gives you more joy, more happiness. And it's a more stable world for the future and for my children.”

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“We all want to be in the room where it happens, we want to be part of the things that matter to us, but no two people have the exact same collection of things that matter. Nowadays, I don't so much want to be in the room where it happens, but I do really want to help other people choose the right rooms, and help them realize that they really are a part of things that matter. Because when we feel like none of the rooms we are in matter, that's when we're really lost.”

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Book:A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor
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“The video was called The Clear Path and it followed the course of a life 40 years ago and the course of a life today. In the path 40 years ago the path was clear and obvious. The illustrated protagonists of the video did not need to spend time thinking about his sexuality or his gender or his religion. That same protagonist living life today was given options. What is your sexuality? What is your gender? How do you want to find connection and community? The point the video was making now was that there is no longer a clear path and that was more work. And at that point it was kind of pissing me off. I felt like it was making it seem like allowing for different kinds of people was a burden, but then the video turned it around. Over illustrated images of happy families of all sorts the narrator said 'The reality is the benefits of this far out weigh the costs. If we do not let people know that it is possible to be different the ones who are different will live their entire lives in a kind of cultural prison. And there are so many ways to be different that almost everyone ends up feeling imprisoned by some aspect of a society that only allows for the default path. The problem is that as progressives we pretend that there are no costs and that no one is losing anything. The video continued, but of course some people do lose, especially those whos power was tied up not in their wealth, but in fitting comfortably into the clear path. Now these people have only lost what they should lose, but that is also true of other forms of concentrated power. We are in a system that tells, for example, the wealthy, that they deserve all of their wealth and it should be protected through force. So, naturally the newly alienated feel singled out and victimized. The solution isn't going back to the one clear path. The solution is everywhere and always the decentralization and redistribution of all forms of power.”

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