Meet 34-YO TikToker & Financial Influencer Humphrey Yang Who Gen Z 'Trusts More' Than Warren Buffett

With nearly 800,000 Youtube subscribers, over 3 million fans on Tiktok and nearly 10,000 followers on Twitter, 34-year-old Humphrey Yang is quite a popular financial influencer on social media. His simple analogy approach to financial education seems to resonate with his followers, mostly the gen Z aged in or below the 30s.

Nearly half of TikTok¡¯s users are younger than 30. And a screenshot of YouTube analytics Yang provided to American multinational business magazine and portal Fortune shows that over 75% of viewers of Yang¡¯s short-form YouTube videos are younger than 34.

His social media popularity partly explains why he¡¯s the most trusted source of financial advice among Gen Z, as a recent Consumer Affairs survey found. Boomers and Gen X, by a wide margin, trust Warren Buffett the most. But the Berkshire Hathaway CEO fell to fourth place for Gen Z.

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Considering Gen Z¡¯s affinity for TikTok, the finding makes sense but is still a little surprising. 91-year-old Buffet is undoubtedly one of the world¡¯s most seasoned investors, known for his frugal ways and $103 billion net worth. 34-year-old Yang, on the other hand, has a finance degree and spent a year as a financial advisor at Merrill Lynch, and did five months of interning at a Palo Alto investment bank. Then he pivoted to running operations for a mobile app and co-founded a custom art company before finally landing on YouTube in 2019, the Fortune report mentioned.

While 91-year-old Buffett trades in keynotes, Yang trades in skits filmed and edited in his Bay Area apartment. Yang reportedly attributes his ability to break down and demystify dense financial topics as the reason behind grabbing gen Z¡¯s attention.

How He Became A Financial Influencer

Yang first began posting videos on YouTube after realizing he¡¯d become his friends¡¯ go-to guy for financial advice.

He soon downloaded the up-and-coming TikTok, searched the personal finance hashtags, and found almost no videos. ¡°I took that as a sign,¡± he recalls. ¡°I thought, ¡®maybe I can be the first person to do this.¡¯¡±

Between September 2019 and September 2020, Yang made a video every single day. While he maintains a presence on YouTube and Instagram, his TikTok account has had his full-time attention for nearly two years.

He simplifies complex financial topics without an iota of superiority in quick, simple videos.

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He says he tries not to waste the viewer¡¯s time since attention spans are so short, adding that he wants everyone to be able to understand the often befuddling basics of finance and economics.

He understands people¡¯s hesitation toward investing; Yang himself didn¡¯t make his first investment until he was 25.

¡°I was scared!¡± he recalls, as per a Fortune report. ¡°I didn¡¯t even trust myself yet. I have very smart friends in their 30s, working in tech, and even they¡¯re hesitant to invest because they worry they don¡¯t know enough. That¡¯s a knowledge gap that needs to be bridged.¡±

He recalls a time he was having lunch at a restaurant when two 20-somethings approached him and told him his videos had encouraged them to start contributing to a Roth IRA and make investments.

¡°The fact that they watched something of mine, then were inspired to do something for themselves¡ªthat¡¯s the ultimate goal,¡± he says. ¡°I¡¯m a millennial; I never had access to this kind of thing. I didn¡¯t know what a mortgage was until I was 23. But Gen Z has all of this.¡±

Example Of Simplifying Complex Topics

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The report mentioned that in a TikTok video with 14.5 million views, Humphrey Yang depicts a father giving a son an iPhone 13 under the condition that it¡¯s returned in one year.

The son (also played by Yang in the skit) reasons he could sell the phone for $1,000 and wait for Apple to release a new model within the year, which would likely knock the iPhone 13¡¯s price down to $600. Buying it back then would reap him a $400 profit. A year passes, and the father asks for the phone back. The son returns it, and admits to his plan.

¡°So you made a profit on me!¡± the father responds. ¡°I just showed you what shorting a stock is. You borrow a share of a stock, and when it comes to returning it, if you can buy it back for less, you make a profit. If not, you¡¯ll take a loss.¡±

Yang knows shorting a stock can be a hard concept to grasp, he tells Fortune in an interview. ¡°So I used a simple analogy most people can relate to.¡±

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