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Why I Made Crash Course a Non-Profit

2026-05-22 · letter vlog · Hank · 6:36 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Projects (also: Internet & YouTube) · mode: Personal essay · tags: self promotion, fundraising ask, timely hook

Hank tells John he was long jealous of investment-backed digital media, but they built Complexly slowly, declined buyers and never took its profit because it felt like Nerdfighteria's project; since the end of 2025 he no longer owns Crash Course, and he asks viewers to consider a Crash Course coin.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Credit to John for the first Crash Course episodes; still being thanked for Crash Course

  • ★★ Hank credits John with the first Crash Course episodes, which took the tropes of online video, added to them, focused them on a goal and intentionally overexposed them. — 00:00:00 · John Green, Crash Course

00:00:29 — Hank's jealousy of BuzzFeed, Vice and Mashable; investment stories got attention; staying in Montana and building slowly

  • ★ Hank says he is still often thanked for Crash Course; today Kendall and Miranda stopped him in Missoula to say thank you. — 00:00:29 · Missoula, Montana, Crash Course
  • ★★★ Hank confesses that as Crash Course and SciShow grew into Complexly he was hungry with jealousy of BuzzFeed, Vice and Mashable. — 00:00:39 · Crash Course, SciShow, Complexly
  • ★★ Hank says this was not new: as a blogger he was jealous of Gizmodo, TreeHugger, TechCrunch and another site. — 00:00:50
  • ★★ Hank says that, as many YouTubers want the entertainment industry's respect, he always wished the digital content industry took his work more seriously. — 00:01:05
  • ★★★ Hank says the reason no one paid attention to the brothers' work had basically nothing to do with its impact: those companies took investment, and they and their investors told stories of the future backed by big dollar figures, which helps people writing stories they want clicked. — 00:01:27
  • ★★ Hank says that had he lived in LA, San Francisco or New York he would have gone down that rabbit hole; he still feels these feelings more intensely there. (hedged) — 00:01:50 · Los Angeles
  • ★★★ Hank says that for many reasons he never wanted to leave Montana, so he and John built a company brick by brick, nice and slow. — 00:02:10 · Montana, John Green
  • ★★★ Hank says that at the beginning of this year (2026) he left Crash Course, in a pretty weird way. — 00:02:18 · Crash Course

00:02:26 — Declined buyers, money's pressure on mission, never taking Complexly's profit, Complexly as Nerdfighteria's project; no longer owning Crash Course

  • ★★ Hank says that until then the brothers owned Crash Course through Complexly, and people had wanted to buy the company with plans to grow what they were doing. — 00:02:26 · Crash Course, Complexly
  • ★★★ Hank says he has seen many such sales go wrong and knows how money's pressures pull content and products until a business serves itself more than its mission. — 00:02:38
  • ★★★ Hank says neither he nor John ever felt okay taking money from Complexly; once its profit looked like real money, they felt they could not take any. — 00:02:55 · John Green, Complexly
  • ★★ Hank contrasts this with money from his books and from running VidCon, which felt normal and right because he was working hard to run a business. — 00:03:00 · VidCon
  • ★★★ Hank thinks the difference is that the community, not he and John, created Complexly: it could not have succeeded without the community's fuel, and it felt like a project of Nerdfighteria. — 00:03:30 · Complexly, John Green, Nerdfighteria
  • ★★ Hank says this unarticulated feeling shaped every decision, and acting on it made the company stronger while strengthening the sense that it wasn't really theirs. — 00:03:53
  • ★★★ Hank says that until the end of 2025 he owned Crash Course and now he does not; his strongest legal relationship to the brand is gone. — 00:04:12 · Crash Course

00:04:22 — Still working for Crash Course; glad they went slow and said no to getting wealthy

  • ★★ Hank will keep working for Crash Course: he just finished hosting a course on scientific thinking and is working on another he will host next year (2027). — 00:04:24 · Crash Course
  • ★ Hank admits that calling this leaving Crash Course stretches the meaning, but he doesn't feel bad about it. (playful) — 00:04:33 · Crash Course
  • ★★ Hank recalls an email from someone he respects a lot explaining how to become very wealthy; he said no and is really glad he did. — 00:04:50
  • ★★★ Hank is glad they went slow, did not grow beyond their means and did not let the ever-present gravity of dollars pull them toward a different future. — 00:04:55
  • ★★ Hank says he left Crash Course by giving it away, yet now feels more connected to it than ever. — 00:05:12 · Crash Course

00:05:17 — Crash Course coin ask, Patreon, development team email; thanks to John and sign-off

  • ★★★ Hank asks viewers to ask themselves whether they can afford a Crash Course coin, by far Crash Course's most important source of funding. — 00:05:22 · Crash Course coin, Crash Course
  • ★★★ Hank says that in its sixth year the coin can be part of a tax-deductible donation with no sales tax; the campaign is in its fifth day with about a week left. — 00:05:30 · Crash Course coin
  • ★★ Hank says the coin campaign is a blip but the whole reason Crash Course and Complexly can exist; just thinking about it is all he asks. — 00:05:46 · Crash Course, Complexly
  • ★★ Hank says most of the $1,000 coins have sold out and fewer than 20 of the $5,000 coins are left. — 00:05:58 · Crash Course coin
  • ★★ Hank says viewers who prefer monthly giving can use the always-open Patreon, long a huge part of how Crash Course is supported. — 00:06:04 · Crash Course
  • ★★ Hank invites viewers who could give more than a coin to reach the development team through the email in the description. — 00:06:15 · Crash Course
  • ★★ Hank thanks John for keeping him on the rails, for doing all this weird stuff with him and for having the best idea they have ever had. — 00:06:24 · John Green

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description says watching BuzzFeed and Vox be sold this week (week of 18 May 2026) was wild for Hank; he doesn't think the sales are bad but is glad they took a different way to focus on different things. — video description
  • ★★★ In a channel comment Hank says he forgot to say that he is no longer an owner because Complexly was converted into a non-profit, which is why coins are now tax deductible. — creator comment · Complexly, Crash Course coin

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Complexly · Crash Course · Crash Course coin

Also: Projects: SciShow · VidCon

Works: Crash Course Scientific Thinking

Organizations: BuzzFeed · Gizmodo · Mashable · Patreon · TechCrunch · TreeHugger · Vice Media

Concepts: online video · tax deduction · venture capital

Places: Los Angeles · Missoula, Montana · Montana · San Francisco

Only in the description or credits: Nonprofit organization · Vox

Later videos replying to this one

  • 2026-05-26 · Hank Green Is a Fool (John) — corrects — “So last week you made a video with a very clickbaity title, Why I Left Crash Course.” (00:00:00)