If you watch a lot of car YouTube, you may have noticed a series of “why did we leave” videos posted by people who work for some of the biggest car YouTube channels on the internet. Donuts. Hoonigan. CarThrottle. It seems like everyone is quitting, but it also feels different from the group of major YouTubers who have announced they are retiring or stepping back from their channels. So what is the problem here? These are the dream jobs that so many people would kill to have, and now they’re just walking away?
The answer comes from YouTuber AutoTea, who used to work for Donut Media. If you don’t recognize him, it’s probably because he mostly works behind the scenes. He worked on 136 videos between 2021 and 2024, so he probably has a pretty good idea of what’s going on at Donut and other similar media companies. According to him, it’s all about money, not the kind of money you’re thinking about.
It’s true that the auto industry doesn’t pay well. You get to do some really cool work, but your actual salary is often quite low. Like, “good luck having kids without a banker spouse” low. But while lack of earnings is certainly an issue, AutoTea claims the bigger problem is venture capital and private equity. The investors have acquired many of the biggest automotive YouTube channels, and after the takeover, their goal is to make as much money as possible in a business with persistently low profit margins.
They also add additional layers of management, and those hefty salaries have to be paid for somehow. The only option is to cut costs. So staff and budgets are cut, but the remaining staff are still expected to increase profits by doing more with less. New management also tends to distrust the people who originally built the channel into a reality, and often refuses to fund projects they deem too risky or expensive.
The new owners also believed that the brand was more important than the people who built it, treating everyone as if they were replaceable. So they weren’t rewarded for making videos that made the company more money, meaning all their hard work just went into the pockets of executives who didn’t even bother to understand the business in the first place. After years of being asked to do more with less just so they could make someone else richer, they finally gave up. What a shame.
