Beyond the Farm: Creator Cole Lee isn’t afraid anymore

Cole Lee B.S. ‘24, M.S. ’25 spent most of her life building things for other people. She grinded interviews and nabbed tech internships. At Stanford, she made hackathon videos for student organizations. And then, about a year ago, a friend looked at her and said:

“Hey, you make all this stuff for other people. But if you make your own videos and put yourself out there, I think you can really make it as a creator.”

Lee took that advice to heart. She started posting one video per week on Instagram. Eventually, she began to go viral, garnering millions of views on her videos by her last quarter at Stanford. Barely a year later, she’s now a full-time creator in the AI and tech space, making short-form videos that blend stunning visual effects with genuine storytelling about technology. In the year since her graduation, Lee has worked with Google DeepMind, Anthropic, Adobe and more, building an audience that reaches out to her instead of the reverse.

The Daily sat down with Lee to talk about her path from a cautious CS student to an unafraid creator, and what advice she has for current students trying to find their way. 

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

The Stanford Daily (TSD): You’ve described art as an escape growing up. How did that eventually lead to video making?

Cole Lee (CL): I’ve been an artist my whole life. When I was a kid I was always drawing. Around 12 or 13, I was drawing these adoptables on trading sites, making animals in fun colors and selling them for a bit of money. It was a way of escape from a challenging middle school period. It grew into this lifelong passion.

At Stanford, I studied computer science because I thought combining the artistic and technical sides would let me build almost anything. I got involved in hackathons. That’s actually where I made my first proper video, for the Stanford XR Hackathon. I ended up making videos for a lot of other colleges’ hackathons too. I was doing all this work helping other people with their videos, and it was super, super fun. But my friend eventually told me, hey, you make all this stuff for other people, but I really think, if you make your own thing and put yourself out there, you can make it as a creator. That completely changed my life. I started posting videos about once a week, and then on the 10th video, it blew up, and the rest is history. 

TSD: Those hackathon videos are incredibly polished  — the cinematography, the storytelling, the visual effects. Did you have to learn everything from scratch when you made those?

CL: I had done some video stuff before. CS project classes always made you film a prototype demo, and I learned iMovie in high school. But for the Stanford XR video, I decided I was going to go all out. I was a bit exhausted from the technical coursework and I wanted to do something purely creative. I wanted to learn every skill needed for video editing, especially visual effects. I spent about 50 hours just learning VFX for that one video.

I think visual effects are such a powerful way to tell stories about technology. I thought, if I could get VFX right, I could tell any tech story I wanted. 

TSD: You use a lot of AI tools in your work, but you also talk about “slow creation” as an antidote to what you call AI slop. What does that mean to you?

CL: I spend 10 to 20 hours on each video for a minute and a half of footage. Even with all the AI tools, I spend that time thinking about the story, the execution, the effects and even how I’m using the AI itself. I think: how do I tell this in a way I couldn’t without it? AI should help you tell stories you can’t tell otherwise, not stories you already can.

There’s going to be a saturation of AI content. The creators who will stand out are the ones still telling slow, intentional stories. 

TSD: After internships at companies like Spotify and Windsurf, you chose full-time content creation over a standard industry role. How did you make that call?

CL: After I graduated, I started a full-time tech job and worked until late every night. I’d get off around 7 p.m. and make videos and build things until two or three in the morning. It was just so exhausting. I realized I had to focus my energy on one thing. And I couldn’t give up creating. So I quit my job basically a week after I started it. 

The other reason is, I genuinely think traditional career paths are slowly dying. The job that can’t be replaced is one that you craft and make uniquely your own, so that an AI can’t replace you in it. I think to do what you love is bulletproof, and I’m following that.

TSD: Similar to you from a year ago, a lot of Stanford students are anxious about AI replacing roles. You’ve tried virtually every AI tool out there, given your creative partnerships. What do you think are the most important skills to learn in today’s age?

CL: I’ve been thinking about this a lot. When I was graduating, I desperately applied to hundreds of jobs. So I know how bad the job market is.

I think the main problem is, a whole generation is studying for jobs that won’t exist, and the skill that saved me is agency. And when I say ‘agency,’ well, there’s two parts to it. One, curiosity about the world, and two, the drive to do something about it. The world is changing so fast that what it really requires is the ability to learn — constantly, and across disciplines. Vibe coding is now fully accessible to someone who has never written a line of code. For example, I know a creator friend, entirely non-technical background, who now builds an app that does millions per year. 

And it’s not just AI. This might sound like a crazy take but, in a couple of years, AR and VR will reshape everything again, and the people building for 2D screens will have to adapt to that. So as technology changes, jobs will quickly change. It’s all about following your curiosity and doing something to learn about it. 

TSD: That’s insane – you went from applying to hundreds of jobs a year ago to being inundated with partnerships with the biggest tech companies today, Google, Anthropic, Adobe and more. What changed?

CL: I think about it as echolocation. When you publish your projects, when you put your work out into the world, you’re sending out a signal, and the same kinds of voices echo back. The people who appreciate exactly that kind of work will find you.

Also, paradoxically, the less hireable you are, the more someone wants to hire you. So [if you] think about how you can build yourself into a person who is confident in their skills and interests, and can tell an employer what you want, the better position you will be in. This comes from building your skills and putting out projects that genuinely excite you. Especially if you’re a Stanford student — you don’t realize how good you are.

TSD: One piece of advice for students who want to follow a similar path?

CL: Pay attention to the things that give you the feeling of just wanting to keep doing them. Really pay attention, hone in and don’t let that feeling go. Because when you can really dial down on the thing you like and start creating around it, exploring that curiosity, putting it out into the world — that’s the biggest thing that has changed my life.

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