Lee Graham: Inside the Epic Layoffs, the List That Helped 1,000 Devs, and Why He Called It a Blessing

He Got Cut From Epic. What He Built Next Changed Everything.Lee Graham ran the UEFN Accelerator at Epic Games for six and a half years, helping major brands and game IPs enter Fortnite Creative and build for the creator economy. On March 24th, his Slack went down mid-Zoom. Everyone on the call knew what it meant before a word was said. By that afternoon he had been laid off alongside roughly a thousand colleagues. By that evening, he had already built something to help them.This conversation covers what Lee learned at the intersection of brand strategy and UEFN, why he tells every studio entering this space to start small and build for real player feedback before spending serious money, and what Island Transactions mean for the economics of Fortnite Creative. Lee walks through the Awesome People List from the first Google Sheet to a full web app rebuilt in two days, the SVP of Talent at Rockstar who grabbed it the same afternoon to share with all her recruiters, and why Red Storm Entertainment picked up the same model after their own layoffs just days prior. People from the list are already in final rounds at top studios.Lee closes with the story he clearly most wanted to tell. His stepson Noah has spent years learning to draw characters, build in Blender, work in UEFN, and code in Verse alongside him. Together they are building 20 Aliens, a tower defense game. The layoff opened a door neither of them expected: Noah could not publish islands or participate in creator payouts while Lee was at Epic. That changed the afternoon of the layoff. Lee also shares what he would tell anyone navigating a hard career transition right now. It is honest and worth hearing no matter what industry you are in.Lee Graham LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/averageguylee/ Discord: averageguylee Awesome People List: https://awesomepeoplelist.replit.app/?tag=Unreal+Engine+Fortnite Noah's Studio: https://offthex.io/ | https://www.fortnite.com/@offthex UGC Playbook: https://www.ugcplaybook.io/Please leave a positive review 💚(Helps out a bunch)Watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/@ImmatureG/podcastsTwitter: https://www.x.com/immaturegamer