# Sam Denby

Samuel Robert Denby (born March 17, 1998) is an American YouTuber who created the edutainment YouTube channels Wendover Productions and Half as Interesting, and the travel competition show Jet Lag: The Game, alongside other projects. Across all of Denby's channels, he has accumulated more than 1 billion views and more than 7.8 million subscribers. He is the chief content officer of streaming service Nebula.

## Career
### Wendover Productions

Created in 2010, Denby's primary channel is Wendover Productions. As of February 7, 2025, that channel has over 4.73 million subscribers, 244 published videos, and more than 731 million total video views. His videos most commonly feature the topics of logistics, most notably those of aviation, as well as geography, economics, and the military. The Wendover Productions video about tourism in Iceland received significant attention from Iceland's national newspapers. Wendover Productions is based in Aspen, Colorado.

### Half as Interesting

Launched on August 26, 2017, Denby's second YouTube channel, Half as Interesting, publishes weekly releases on an unrestricted range of curious topics delivered in a witty style. The videos are often in the 5-10 minute range, and are dedicated to a single little-known fact each. According to the launch announcement, the channel continues the well-liked coverage of topics from the Wikipedia:Unusual articles list, referred to as "That Wikipedia List" or TWL, which was previously published on the Wendover Productions channel, but doesn't restrict its scope to it. As of January 2, 2025, the channel has over 2.77 million subscribers, 493 published videos and more than 700 million views.

### Extremities

In June 2019, Denby created a scripted podcast called Extremities about the logistics of living in the world's most isolated and populated locations. The show's format has since been modified into short documentaries exclusive to the streaming service Nebula with the same concept.

### Jet Lag: The Game

   "It is a brutally exhausting show to film. Imagine a bad travel day where you end up waiting between flights on connections and going in and out of airports all day."
Denby's YouTube channel Jet Lag: The Game hosts a travel competition show created by Denby and Half as Interesting's writers, Ben Doyle (the son of writer Larry Doyle) and Adam Chase. Inspired by The Amazing Race, the season usually consists of three or four players (with the fourth player being another YouTuber). The show was nominated for Best Editing at the 13th Streamy Awards.
All air travel on the show is carbon-offset by a multiple of 10 via Gold Standard carbon credits. As of January 2, 2025, the channel has over 775 thousand subscribers, 73 videos, and more than 79 million total video views. The episodes were released on Nebula one week earlier than YouTube, causing large spikes to Nebula's usage traffic.

### Nebula

On August 25, 2023, Nebula announced that they had appointed Denby as their chief content officer. Nebula CEO Dave Wiskus stated, "the process for developing Nebula Originals should be creator-led, so we turned to a creator with a solid track record for format development across production styles and genres to lead the charge on content as we continue to expand our Originals slate for Nebula." Denby also holds a minority stake in the content distribution platform.

### The Getaway

On April 8, 2024, Denby's production company, Wendover Productions, announced production on The Getaway, a reality game show which premiered exclusively on Nebula on July 10, 2024. The game involves six content creators competing on a road trip through the American West. The contestants are led to believe that there is one secret saboteur among them (much like The Mole or The Traitors), with the rest of them working collaboratively in challenges they are tasked to complete during their trip. In actuality, all six contestants are told that they are the saboteur. Denby, Wiskus, and Trenton Waterson executive produced the project. Denby also directed, with Doyle and Chase involved in production.

## Personal life

Denby was born and raised in Washington, D.C. In 2018, Denby stated he had been living in Edinburgh, Scotland, for the past two years for university.$^{:1:32}$ As of April 2018, he was studying international business. He has said that he has also lived in Rennes, France and Sydney, Australia. As of 2020, Denby stated he has lived in Colorado, somewhere around Aspen. Through Standard, he became a minority owner in the streaming service Nebula in 2020.
On January 2, 2025, LegalEagle announced that he and Denby have filed a class action lawsuit against PayPal Honey for poaching creator commissions.

## Awards and nominations

| Year | Award | Category | Work(s) | Result | Ref. |
| 2023 | 13th Streamy Awards | Editing | Jet Lag: The Game | Nominated | |