ZHC unveils his new murals for our YouTube offices
Feb 22, 2024 – minute read
YouTube’s San Bruno headquarters underwent an epic makeover thanks to uber-talented creator, Zach Hsieh or ZHC as he’s better known to his 26 million subscribers. ZHC has been creating content on YouTube for more than a decade so inviting the Bay Area native to paint six new murals in our YouTube offices felt like a natural fit.
But it wouldn’t be a ZHC takeover without some special guests and challenges. CEO Neal Mohan drew a squiggle that ZHC and team had to work into their artwork, and a small group of YouTube employees competed to win a gaming-related art challenge posed by ZHC.
In the midst of all this, ZHC took a break from his jam-packed schedule, which on an average day involves surprising celebs like Travis Barker and MrBeast, to chat about his path to over 26 million subscribers (and counting!).
What motivated you to get started on YouTube?
I had some fans from my Instagram account who saw my artwork and really liked it, and they wanted to start learning a little bit more about me. They wanted to know what I was like, too. So YouTube was a platform where I could not only showcase my work and what I'm doing, but also some of my personality to connect with the people looking at my work.
What was your inspiration for each of the six murals you did in our offices?
For this YouTube office specifically, each floor had a specific theme. After hearing the themes and getting a general idea of what YouTube wanted on the walls, I sat down and just started sketching things out to see what I think would look cool.
And then I have a team of artists as well. So after I come up with the initial concept, I pitch it to my team to see what they think, and once we're happy with the idea, we'll send it off to get approval so we can do the paintings.
You’ve had a lot of growth as a creator. How have your goals changed from the early days to now?
I think the main things in terms of goals that have changed is, I think earlier on it was just about growing the channel, and I was the only one working on my channel, so it was very easy for me to just focus on my own goals and my own agenda and stuff.
But I think now I have a much better work-life balance. I want to maintain a very steady workflow, and I also have a really big team around me. So I think a lot of my day-to-day goals is making sure my team's motivated, everyone's happy, we're working together as a team, versus back then when I was just working as a solo creator, it was just whatever I wanted to do.
For other creators, what is your best advice?
I'd say don't be afraid to experiment with things. I think YouTube is a lot of trial and error, and you just have to test things, see what works for you, what people enjoy, and just try out a lot of things because you never know what people want to see until you've tried it and tested it out.