The Untold Culture of Silicon Valley & Starting Patreon | Lessons from Sam Yam

This week, PATREON President & CTO Sam Yam shares his journey from early struggles and rejections to building a platform that now supports over 300,000 creators and sends $2B+ annually. We dive into lessons on resilience, innovation, and the future of creator communities.

Nuare was created to carry our creativity beyond video, giving people a tangible way to experience the same inspiration. Our first candle, Tangerine Vetiver, reflects that vision with a fresh and natural blend designed to bring calm and warmth into everyday life. Visit us at www.nuarehome.com to know more.

We are so excited to personally invite you to our Patreon where we are thrilled to open the doors of our business and invite you all behind the camera: https://www.patreon.com/EnesYilmazer

We are working on exciting projects and we can't wait to share them with all of you, click the link below to get notified first: https://www.enesplus.com/signup

For any business inquiries please contact us at: inquiries@enesplus.com

Podcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theenesyilmazerpodcast/
Main Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/enesyilmazer/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EnesYilmazerOfficial
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@enesyilmazerla

Make sure to follow me on my main channel where we tour the best homes around the world:
https://www.youtube.com/enesyilmazer

Bu ev turlarımı Türkçe seyretmek için Türkçe kanalıma gidebilirsiniz: https://www.youtube.com/EnesYilmazerTurkiye

Sam Yam
Instagram: @samyam
https://www.instagram.com/samyam

Nuare
Instagram: @nuarehome
https://www.instagram.com/nuarehome

Special thanks to Lazzoni for their high quality furniture:
Instagram: @lazzoni
https://www.instagram.com/lazzoni

A huge thank you to the PopFineArt team for providing us with this incredible George Condo piece. Pop Fine Art does an incredible job providing blue chip art for its clients. They help stage some of the best homes in the world, connect clients directly with the pieces they are interested in adding to their collection, and have so graciously agreed to help make our podcast studio that much better. For more information: https://www.popfineart.com/

About the Channel:
What began as a journey to explore the world’smost exquisite luxury assets has evolved into something far more personal. Over the last 5 years, my team and I have traveled across the globe, touring some of the most sophisticated and highly engineered creations. But along the way, it was the people, the visionaries, creators, and dreamers, we met that truly shaped our perspective.

This channel is now home to those meaningful connections. Through podcast episodes and behind-the-scenes conversations, we share the human stories that inspire the extraordinary. 

#samyap #sam #yap #patreon #tech #cto #founders #techleaders 

Time Codes:
0:00 Early struggles of Patreon
0:12 Sam Yam as President and CTO
2:08 Meeting Jack Conte at Stanford
3:01 Childhood and immigrant roots
5:28 Stanford years and Silicon Valley
9:03 Insights from Instagram and Pinterest founders
15:02 Birth of Patreon idea
17:15 Vision for artists and creators
19:08 Launch story and organic growth
23:12 Lessons from failures
25:20 Turning failures into progress
27:30 Staying graceful with challenges
33:00 Scaling Patreon and adaptability
35:17 Nuare
36:03 Challenges in Patreon's journey
40:26 Patreon today and $2B milestone
53:26 Future direction and human connection
55:00 Patreon fundraising journey
56:07 Lazzoni Furniture
1:01:00 Bootstrapping vs fundraising advice
01:03:43 Moving to LA
01:16:37 Pop Fine Art
01:12:37 Pacific Palisades Fire