For 15 years, Hank and John Green owned one of the most successful education studios on YouTube.
Now, they don’t anymore.
Their company, Complexly — the studio behind Crash Course and SciShow — is now a nonprofit.
No sale. No private equity. No paywall pivot.
They donated their shares and handed the company over to the public.
Mission > Money
Complexly is massive:
- 1,000's of classrooms use it to teach
- $4.8M in philanthropic funding last year
They could have built a premium subscription platform or sold to ed-tech.
Instead, they chose to keep it free — for everyone, forever.
As Hank put it: “Over the years, a lot of people have knocked on our door asking if they could maybe buy Complexly, and their prices were compelling, but the ideas interest us, not the payoff.”
Our Take
Most creator studios follow a predictable arc:
Audience → revenue → scale → exit.
The Greens just rejected the final step.
They’re betting that the future of online education won’t be built on subscriptions or ad-sales, but on public trust — especially in an internet flooded with noise.
As Hank said, “It’s never been easier to find information, but it’s also never been harder to know what to trust.”