Exclusive: 20 years in, this OG YouTube channel is opening a new studio to support its growth
Twenty years ago, not too long after Youtube itself launched, Ian Hecox and Anthony Padilla started uploading videos to the platform. What started as two teenagers trying to make each other laugh turned into the biggest channel on YouTube. It was the first ever to reach 10 million subscribers. Eventually Smosh was acquired by a company called Defy Media. The company would expand rapidly–more videos, more cast members, even a movie–but then came turmoil and uncertainty for Smosh.
Padilla left the company in 2017, largely due to creative differences with Smosh’s parent company. He returned to the business in 2023, when he and Hecox purchased Smosh from YouTuber-led media company Mythical (which acquired the brand in 2019 following Defy Media’s abrupt collapse).
Alongside the purchase, Hecox and Padilla hired Alessandra Catanese—an executive with over a decade’s experience in digital media—as CEO. In the ensuing two years, the company has steadily expanded its content offering while picking up new subscribers across five YouTube channels. With more content in development than ever, and more than twice as many employees as it had in 2023, Smosh is moving into a 32,000-sq.-ft. Los Angeles studio that’s roughly twice the size of its current headquarters.
Hecox, Padilla and Catanese joined me on the Most Innovative Companies podcast to talk about the company’s growth, its new space, and how they approached designing a space for the next generation of the company.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Smosh is making a big move in 2026. Can you tell me why now is the right time to expand?
Alessandra Catanese: We physically just could not launch another show or take on a new project, no matter how much we loved it. So in this new building, it’s both going to allow us to expand what we’re doing, and more appropriately house the employees that we have and create a little bit more of a structured environment.
It’s really important to us to balance the structure with the startup vibe that we still feel we have today. We don’t feel this need to elevate ourselves to this corporate structure where there’s a lot more red tape and there’s a lot more rules. We do have a lot of guidelines, but we love that a lot of the things we have and processes we have in place here are very fluid. They have a sandbox in which they play in.
And on the business side, I stay out of the creative decisions they do know to bring me things. So yeah, so we want to honor that. And then this building allows us to create more space and communal areas where we can celebrate what we do, but also be professional and feel a little bit more polished.
What will the new space help achieve for Smosh?
Ian Hecox: I think one of the major focuses for this is just working out a better flow for production and talent, getting talent to the stages, production knowing exactly where the talent is.
I mean, we love our cast, but sometimes it is herding cats. Creating a space for them to feel comfortable in and to congregate in I think was really important. And then we have, we’ll have a private room. If there’s maybe a celebrity coming in that wants a little more privacy, we can have a room specifically for–
AC: A proper green room with a closing door.
Anthony Padilla: Not a weird little makeshift curtain.
We wanted to level up the space and bring a level of professionality, but also we want it to feel fun and embody that element of creativity and working together as a team. Right now, a lot of our lights are big, fluorescent overhead lights and we wanted a lot more soft lighting and stuff that feels more comfortable. You’re hanging out with your friends, not at someone’s house, but you’re hanging out with your friends in a professional environment.
Since the pandemic,office design has been moving towards a more living room, or lounge, feel. It sounds like you are embracing that as well.
IH: I think we want it to be somewhere comfortable, but I also don’t want people falling asleep because I’ve seen some of these production companies and everything looks very calm. So I think it was striking a balance between comfortable, but also you’re going to stay awake, but also not hitting people with Nickelodeon greens.
AC: We want it to feel grown up and mature, but in a way that still honors the comedy, the internet of it all. So I think we brought color in very intentionally. And Studio Keya obviously did an excellent job.
It’s amazing to be able to intentionally design a space for where you are now. It’s been two and a half years since buying back Smosh, does this move feel like a completion of that transition or like you are officially making a home in the newest iteration of the company?
IH: I don’t think we would’ve expected to be here this quickly. I think this was more of a five-year plan or a 10-year plan. We feel very grateful. We’re still doing this within our scope. We don’t have a giant backer. We’re trying to do everything in a sustainable way.
AP: I think it’s really about continuing to hone in on what we do best. The “comedy rooted in friendship” element. You’ll probably start to see more faces on camera. There’ll be more people working behind the scenes. Really, we want to create an environment where people either in front of camera or behind camera get to live out some of those dreams that Ian and I got to experience in the early days.
