Episode 8: Chase Jarvis, Master Photographer

You can check it out.

I've done a class there as well. You can watch for free.

It's high def.

They have many different cameras, dollies, et cetera. And then if you want access to the classes later, you have to pay. That's how it works. That's the business model. You could call it a freemium pricing model. And it's pretty rad. So check it out. The company has headquarters in Seattle and San Francisco. I've been on there. Like I mentioned, Pulitzer Prize winning photographers have been on there. Top entrepreneurs of all sorts, including people like Reed Hoffman from Greylock, who's considered the oracle of Silicon Valley. And that's it. About creative live. But the story of Chase, the story of the development of his art. And not only that, but bridging the gap, crossing the chasm from artist to entrepreneur to very fast scaling. Successful startup is a fascinating one, and I hope you enjoy it. Optimal, minimal.

At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.

Can I ask you a personal question.

Now where the student is?

I'm a cybernetic organism. Living tissue over metal endoskeleton. So, Mr. Jalvis. Yes, sir. Tables have been turned.

They have been. I'll cross my legs like you crossed. Yeah.

I'm not sure what to do. This is a new scenario for you people who can't actually see what we're doing. This is an experiment with the Tim Ferriss podcast, also brought to you in moving pictures. Yes.

Normally you don't videotape it, right?

I normally, meaning the first two episodes, did not videotape it. So I'm trying to sit somewhat like the host from masterpiece theater. I feel like that's appropriate given the professional setting. Why don't you tell us where we are?

We are in a studio called Creative Live, which is startup based here in San Francisco and in Seattle. I'm the co founder with my good friend Craig Swanson, who's not here. And it is an education platform that connects the world's top experts in creative fields with a global audience all over the world. That's what global means.

I was always wondering what that meant. So we first met, how I was trying to think of it today, and I couldn't piece it together.

I don't know.

Had to be a good number of years ago, several. But we've had a lot of adventures we have together.

Good adventures.

Spent a lot of time OTK, lots of travel. Always bumping to each other in airports around the world. But what I'd love you to perhaps do first is just give people the chase overview. Who is Chase Jarvis? Just a little bit of background because I can obviously pontificate, but I want to give people an intro.

I'll give you an opportunity to pontificate later. No, I was born and I'm just kidding. I have spent my whole life as an artist. The career as a photographer is really the only career I've ever had until co founding creative live with Craig about three years ago now. Three years and change in a little grimy warehouse in south Seattle. We launched, I think it was in April, actually, and to rapid growth and success. And then about a year later, we nailed some venture funding and we disclosed our series B. And now there's about 100 people that are employed here in creative live. And so there's this transition from myself as photographer, artist, traveling all over the world, shooting for the top brands. And there was sort of scratched my own itch, because when I bailed on medical school and dropped out of a PhD in philosophy to pursue my dream of becoming a photographer, and there was no where to get any damn good education. I didn't want to go back to school. School. And then it was a very closed world ten years ago. There's not a lot of access to information. And I said, man, if I'm ever in a position to change this, this sucks. I want to change it. And so by collaborating with my friend Craig some ten years later, we did exactly that. And so it's working.

Shazam.

Shazam.

So I'm glad you started with the artist bit because I want to delve into that. The first few guests we've had ranged from sort of investors to chess competitors.

Oh, wow. People are going to be so disappointed with.

So I was hoping we could really lower their expectations by having you on this time, good.

The homeless guy, he's not doing.

But the fact that you went from being an artist and getting to that point, I want to delve into a little bit, because obviously, getting to the point where you're doing shoots with huge brands and flying octacopters before that was a thing and so on and so forth, you don't just jump into that as your first gig. I have to, for sure. But moving from that to really ending up in more of a management position, I want to talk about kind of how that's felt.

Do you just call me a manager?

You're a middle manager. Really is. When it comes down to it. You've seen Dobert, right?

Perfect.

Yeah. Pointy haired bosses.

Yeah. That little part in office space, that was.

But given how professional. I want to keep this. I want you to start sort of gestating on a question which is related to a concept I'm going to borrow. It's from Aisha Tyler, and it's called self inflicted wounds. So at the end of our talk, I want you to think of some ridiculous story. Could be laughable, catastrophic. Oftentimes it could be involving alcohol, something where you've just made a complete ass yourself. And I know you have a pretty good. I've got a selection to go. I just went.

Memory bag full of that. My ram is full.

So, photography, how did you first get into photography, and how did you get to your first. What was your first paying gig?

My first paying gig was, well, let's backtrack.

Sure. Okay.

How to get into photography. I'm going to try and sort of relate the artist mentality to whatever audience is watching, because I feel like the artist mentality is actually, if we take one step back, it's a creative mentality. And I also believe that creativity is the new literacy. So that creativity, like a lot of the investments you do, highly creative, your approach to them, what the founders are making of those companies. So whether you're taking pictures, building a business, managing a hedge fund, there's a ton of creativity involved. Art is sort of, but a subset of creativity, and I think that's a theme that's going to continue. I'm forecasting the future of our conversation today. That's a theme that I'm going to.

Already time traveling.

Now. I'm going to continue to bring us back to that because I think that's a really important core. My personal experience growing up, I was a very creative kid, and yet being an artist as a kid was always like, oh, that kid's really creative.