A Shock on the Doorstep of One Million Subscribers
Something unprecedented happened at "ChungTV," the YouTube channel run by the city of Chungju. Just as it was about to become the first local-government channel in Korea to reach one million subscribers, Kim Seon-tae — the public official who had become the face of the channel — handed in his resignation. The public reaction was cold. Within three days of the news breaking, subscribers began to leave, and the channel faced the biggest crisis it had seen since launch.
But at that make-or-break moment, a remarkable turnaround occurred. His successor, an official named Ji-hyo, hastily shot a "boiled egg" mukbang (eating-show) video over the Lunar New Year holiday — and it stopped the 200,000 subscribers who were heading for the door in their tracks, even pulling in 4,000 new fans. As he forced down dry, crumbly boiled eggs with no water in sight, his struggle laid bare the daunting reality of having to fill the shoes of a star predecessor who had walked out without warning.
The Show Must Go On, Even After Your Best Player Leaves
This isn't a problem unique to YouTube channels. What would you do if the top salesperson at your company — the one responsible for half your revenue — quit tomorrow? The biggest issue is that asking them to leave behind their secret formula won't get you anywhere.
The expertise of true masters lives in instincts and habits absorbed deep into the body. They themselves will only say, "I just go with my gut" — and that makes it extremely hard to turn into a manual that anyone can follow. In the end, you're left with no choice but to pay a premium to poach someone from outside, or to start from scratch and train a new hire from the ground up.
What Really Turned the Crisis Into an Opportunity
Of course, Ji-hyo almost certainly didn't analyze his predecessor's style with machine-like precision. What carried the day was his sheer drive — coming in on a holiday to brainstorm and shoot, despite being a civil servant — combined with the feel he had naturally absorbed over a long stretch of working side by side with Kim Seon-tae. That was enough to win back subscribers who were ready to leave and flip the mood entirely.
How long that effect will last, however, remains to be seen. More importantly, the reality is that not every organization can count on having a successor this well prepared.
How Organizations Survive in the Age of AI
That's why we have to start thinking about how technology can help. The idea is to use AI to observe and record — as data — your top salesperson's behavioral patterns, the way they talk to customers, and the common threads running through their successful deals. It means using technology to capture that instinct, the kind that can only be earned through years of experience, and turning it into a system.
An organization that relies on the genius of a single person wobbles the moment that person leaves. But an organization that preserves that know-how as a system is resilient in a crisis. Watching how ChungTV navigates its recovery, it's worth asking ourselves: how well is our own organization preparing for the same thing?
Ultimately, an organization's sustainability depends not on individual talent but on the capabilities built into its system — because even when the star player leaves, the game has to go on.
