Simone Giertz

A lot of my self-worth is based on what I do. And if you take that away I just mope.

I wanted to automate any part of my life that I could. And the over-the-top solutions are more fun than the useful ones.

I really wish this wasn't a thing. But this tumor is a thing. Even though it's not what I would have chosen for myself, that doesn't necessarily mean it has to be all bad. What I keep trying to remind myself is this is one of those things that looks like a really bad thing on the outside but I know too little about life to be sure.

I've, in so many ways, done way more than I ever expected out of life.

Having the brain tumor, coming out of surgery and going through all of that, you're like, I am never going to feel the same and I have this new perspective on life. So much gratitude, life just feels like this enormous treasure. Then that kind of just falls away and you're back being grumpy about having an early morning meeting.

I wanted to see if I could make a living off of having fun.

In some ways, it's good for company culture to build things that are intended to fail because it creates an environment where it's OK to fail. A lot of people are very scared of that, especially in the workplace.

I'm not very into politics but I love watching shows like 'Last Week Tonight' - people come for the comedy and they stay for the interesting questions.

Adding comedy into what I do is just my natural approach. It's how I approach anything that I find tricky or daunting, because it's like putting syrup in your medicine, and it just makes it easier to go down.

I use humor as a way to digest anything.

I think I've kind of carved out a sweet spot for myself by combining science and comedy.

As for making video comedy, pretty much anyone can do it. When I got started, I just filmed it with my webcam and used iMovie to edit the video, which I still use.