What a great chart. I have teenage kids who are growing up in this era of content creators / influencers etc. Occasionally, I hear a comment from them like "why does any of this school stuff matter anyway, I could just be a famous YouTuber" (in a half-joking but half-serious manner). They're bombarded with numbers from the revenue column - online folks always talking about how much money they make - but rarely do they see, nor think about, the costs and profit column.

Ali Abdaal (who I'd never heard of until reading your piece) is obviously no dummy - turning over $4.6M and managing costs of $2.5M requires some serious business acumen.

So that'll be my answer next time the kids use that throw-away line about school - if you want to make serious $$ as a YouTuber, you're going to need to know how to manage a P&L, understand ROI, manage cashflow, manage people, understand tax obligations, etc etc.

Anyway, a nice piece reminding folks that making money online isn't all rainbows and unicorns 😃