OG YouTube Comedy Brand Smosh Hires First Outside CEO

Nineteen-year-old digital comedy brand Smosh, co-founded by YouTube OGs Ian Hecox and Anthony Padilla (who left the company in 2017), has hired its first chief executive.

In a bid to grow its reach into traditional media, Smosh has tapped Daniel Tibbets, who most recently served as GM of the famed director Robert Rodriguez’s El Rey streaming platform, Deadline reports. Under Tibbets’ tutelage, Smosh will explore TV, live events, audio, publishing, and physical and digital games. Smosh is also moving into a new production studio space in Burbank in coming weeks.

Tibbets will report directly to Mythical co-founders Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal, per Deadline. Mythical, the parent company of the hit YouTube series Good Mythical Morning, acquired Smosh in Feb. 2019 for a reported $10 million. Prior to that, Smosh had been in something of a state of limbo, following the abrupt — and scandal-ridden

— shutdown of parent company Defy Media in November 2018.

“Sixteen years of work in internet content, leading Smosh through so many changes in the digital business, has taught me a lot about what it takes to be a lasting brand on the internet,” Hecox said in a statement. “Daniel is just the person we need to take us into the future, and I can’t wait to see what we can do together, in digital and beyond.”

Prior to El Rey, Tibbets served as chief content officer for (now-defunct) gaming network Machinima, SVP of digital media for Bunim-Murray, and VP of production at 20th Television.