Martti Malmi is one of the first people ever to mine Bitcoin. What’s mining Bitcoin? You run calculations on your PC to secure digital transactions, and as a reward, you earn some digital cash.

When Bitcoin first started, these rewards were generous — you’d get 50 crypto-coins for each problem you solve. Malmi solved tons.

Between 2009 and 2010, the 20-year-old dug up more than 55,000 Bitcoins with ease. Too bad he didn’t know his digital minerals would later become more valuable than gold.

As I’m writing these words, Bitcoin’s value just hit $40,000 per coin.

Back in 2009, however, bitcoin was almost free, and that’s when Malmi sold 5,050 bitcoins for $5. Let me repeat that with today’s numbers: Malmi traded $200 million for a coffee at Starbucks. Unfortunately, that was only a tiny part of what he missed. …

If you ask brands: “Who do you hate the most in the French YouTube?” They’ll probably answer: “Oh, that’d be Romain! The Belgian guy who has like 339k subs.”

Romain runs a YouTube channel named Un Créatif — Creative Guy, where he exposes marketing abuse. Using everything from research, expert judgment, testimonies, and parodies, Creative Guy strives to inform his audience.

In doing so, Romain often jokes about companies and their leaders being evil characters, and that’s probably why brands are reluctant about sponsoring him — except for two.

One of them is Rhinoshield. They approached Creative Guy with a weird proposition: “Hey Romain, we’ll pay for a video. What? No, we never give guidelines; just do your thing. …

When the time came to meet my girlfriend’s family, I knew two things. First, if they discovered I made jokes and not bombs, they’d reconsider their opposition to my existence. Second, I had zero chance with the grandma.

Louise and I met in college. She heard my earthquake-triggering laughter in a hall and liked it. I knew one of her friends.

One thing leading to another, we found ourselves chatting next to an auditorium. We didn’t notice the sun setting, let alone the night veil settle in. I walked her home, and the following evening, we had our first date.

The immigrant Arab guy with a dark beard and the pure French brunette ordered burritos. …

Since he was six, Joe had never felt more alive than when swinging a racket. That’s why he’d think of tennis whenever he found himself spending the night at a bomb shelter. When the attacks would stop, Joe would go back to bed looking forward to his next match. Three months later, the war stopped allowing the eleven-year-old Joe to reunite with his passion.

From there, his journey to world-class begun.

By the age of seventeen, Joe was winning 49% of all tennis points he played and rose to rank 680 worldwide. But that wasn’t enough for him. He wanted the summit but knew he could only climb one step at a time. That’s why Joe forgot about his goal. Instead, he decided to focus only on the next moment, the next swing. …

CG doesn’t only tell you about marketing abuse. He also shows you how it’s done.

CG stands for Creative Guy — Un Créatif in French. From his flat in Belgium, CG has been blessing YouTube with content many marketers hate.

In his videos, CG reveals the secrets brands use to manipulate their customers. You could say he’s fighting to spread awareness using two weapons: detailed breakdowns and fun parodies.

The catch? When you attack brands, you shrink your sponsorship possibilities. CG isn’t a subscriber-millionaire neither. Hence the “Broke” in the title. …

When John Pemberton locked himself in a lab trying to find a substitute for his morphine addiction, he had no idea he was creating an American symbol. It was a symbol that would shake the nation 120 years later.

Pemberton spent two decades crafting a decent replacement for morphine. In 1885, French Wine Coca was born — yes, a mix between cocaine and alcohol. Then, a few months and social stigmas later, the alcohol-free version emerged: Coca-Cola.

The human brain is a sneaky bastard. First, it pranked us into thinking love comes from the heart. We kept blaming the latter for our irrationality until, one day, scientists drew the curtains.

Not only does your brain operate your emotions, but it also hijacks them. How? By jumping to inaccurate conclusions —all the freaking time. Here, let me prove it to you in 30 seconds.

Say your niece's birthday is next week. Suppose she loves baseball. Inspired, you decide to buy her a baseball bat and a ball — good quality stuff. You step into my shop and notice my bald head flickering under a lightbulb. “How much for these?” …