Greg Baroth
Ever dream of quitting your job and making your living as a famous YouTube or Instagram star?If so, meet Greg Baroth.
It's his full-time job to make people famous on social media.
He's the one you call if you think up an insane prank - say you want to swim with snakes in your Beverly Hills pool - and you need someone to find the snakes and bring them to your house.
Or maybe your stunt needs a drone, pronto. Or maybe you want to do your stunt with Denver Broncos football star Von Miller. Or with Vine/YouTube star Logan Paul. Or rap star Wiz Khalifa.
Baroth's your man.
It all started with a love of reptiles
Baroth grew up in Los Angeles, but as a kid he seemed about as far from the celeb set as possible. He loved snakes and turtles and spent his teens working at a reptile store dreaming of becoming a marine biologist. He was, in a word, a geek. "There was a reason why I was a virgin until college," he jokes today.
Greg Baroth
But while in college he took a fancy to marketing and opted to explore it by doing an internship at famous music talent agency Bill Silva Management, which led to a paid job for a social media startup backed by CAA, another big talent agency.That's where he met his first client Randy Jackson from American Idol. Jackson hired him for a moonlighting gig to do things like man Jackson's Twitter account (back before Twitter was a part of the show). Baroth helped Jackson get into live tweetstorms during the show with Ryan Seacrest.
Jackson introduced Baroth to other clients, like Carlos Santana's son Salvador Santana, and the comic Louie Anderson. Soon, he was making more money moonlighting than at his day job.
So Baroth quit his job, and dropped out of college, too, and started doing social media full-time. He was 21.
"My first year, I made $75,000. After that, it's always been six figures," he says, and a healthy enough six figures to let him to buy a house in L.A., where the median home price is over $700,000.
But his life really changed when a PR friend introduced him to womanizing party animal Dan Bilzerian, who was looking to hire a social media person. Baroth realized that this dude was "the guy's guy" and came up with ideas that got noticed by bro media sites like BroBible and turned Bilzerian into a bigger Instagram sensation. "He really does live that lifestyle," Baroth says of Bilzerian.
Baroth no longer works with Bilzerian (although he says they remain friendly). Today he's probably best known as the guy helping "Mini-Me" Verne Troyer's become a social media hit.
But with or without Bilzerian, Baroth's life is still certifiably insane. Take a look.