92 · Hit Record Anyway

The absence of documentation from past greats isn't evidence that documentation lacks value. It's evidence that they missed something you can exploit. YouTube launched in 2005. Instagram in 2010. TikTok in 2016. The reason no documentary exists of Airbnb's first year isn't that recording was useless — ubiquitous, high-quality, shareable video didn't exist yet. We live in a period where a 4K camera sits in your pocket, distribution is free, and archives are forever. Not using it is not humility. It's strategic negligence.

What actually happens when you don't document — you lose: proof you built before you had credentials; footage of the raw version of yourself (future you would pay everything to see this); content that compounds while you sleep; a moat latecomers cannot replicate, because they didn't live your specific timeline; leverage for fundraising, hiring, partnerships — people trust evidence more than claims. The people who say "don't document" fall into two camps: those who never built anything notable, and those who built something but fear the old footage would expose how messy the climb really was. Neither is a good advisor.

Record everything. Not for an audience today — for the archive. For the documentary that plays after you win. For the kid five years from now who needs to see that you started broke, confused, in a messy room, grinding problems that felt impossible. Footage of your broke days is not embarrassment; it's the first scene of the origin story. One day people will ask what it was like at the beginning. Show and tell. Hit record. That shitty dorm, that messy table, that exhausted face, that long day after work. Recording also makes the situation less about you — you zoom out of it, and it becomes less cumbersome to carry.

There are plenty of people who documented the entire journey — public about failures, losses, the lows. You can make shitty videos and post stupid things, and it is still so important to post and build the personal brand. Look at Iman's old videos: so shitty, so cute — and massive respect, for real.

Inevitably, putting yourself out there is going to matter. I can't ignore the value of a personal brand, so I do have a YouTube channel in mind somewhere along the line. For now I keep my work private — recording myself talking, making stupid accent mistakes — while the main focus stays on doing the volume that matters. But start the archive now.

Just like the observer effect — you operate differently when the camera is on. Film yourself study. It helps focus, and it becomes the archive of every daily grind. Start the day with a video about the work that must be done; end the day reviewing the performance. Between sessions, hit record. Record the gym sessions. That would be ten videos a day — over two thousand by the end of the year — and with AI agents the clipping and distribution scale on their own. The goal is volume of the real thing, not polish.