NZXT PODCAST - #039 - Jerome

Episode Date: April 23, 2020

This week on the podcast, the crew are joined by NZXT’S Channel Marketing Manager: Jerome! Jerome and the crew discuss corporate espionage, deadlifts, and eating fermented duck eggs. Follow Jerome on Instagram: instagram.com/jersophresh Listen live to the NZXT 💜 CLUB CAST on our Discord server at discord.gg/nzxt every Thursday at 10AM PT! Thanks to kiosion#0001 for the artwork!

and welcome to episode 39 of the NZT Clubcast, the official podcast of the NZXT community. This podcast is recorded live every Thursday at 10 a.m. Pacific Standard Time of the official NXT Discord server, and it's available to stream wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. My name is Dennis, and with me as always is Ivan. Hello, hello. And Amanda.

Hi, I'm back. She's back. I miss you. Man is back. Yay. Caps and shams and shams. Clap on chat. Today's special guest, rocking his guns, smuggling them pythons, harboring cantalopes,

is N60's channel marketing manager Jerome. Hey guys. How's gone? Good. I think he didn't unmute himself. Jerome needs to unmute their microphone. Jerome is not unmuted. Imagine.

Imagine not unmuting your microphone live on a podcast. Oh, man. He's DMing us. I got, I got muted. We can fix that. There we go. My dude and Jerome. Imagine being seren muted.

Thanks, dude. What you do to get streaming? Jerome's muscles accidentally muted his mic. Can you guys hear me though? Yeah. Perfect. Yeah, yeah. Flexed way too hard.

Stop flexing Jerome. Yeah, dude. It's habit. It's habit. Yeah, good morning, Jerome. Thank you for joining us today. We're excited. You're here.

Yeah, thank you for having me. I hope you guys good night's sleep. You told us he did it. I sure do. What time did you go to bed? Like, I want to say 11. I was in bed by 9.30. Okay.

That's early. That's early for me. 2 a.m. is my bedtime. Oof. Why so late? Quarantine life, man. Okay, okay. I feel you.

So watching a lot of TV, playing a lot of video games, right? Playing a lot of video games trying to catch up on, you know, all the stuff, right. Okay, I feel you. I feel you. So Jerome, for those who don't know, what do you do at NCXT? So by title, it's channel marketing manager. And what I do currently is everything that you guys see on Amazon when you guys shop, all the sponsored products. So it's advertising on the Amazon platform.

and all the product pages that you guys see when shopping through Amazon. And I do that on a global scale. So I'll help out with Europe and the other regions. And then I also just started taking over our ncxu.com store. So we'll be doing some cool stuff there moving forward. But yeah, that's pretty much it, you know. Are you the one responsible for like those crazy Amazon listings where it's like a pair of

RGB fans for like $5,000. No, that is the third-party reseller. It's always funny when people messages on Twitter and they're like, yo, NZXT, WTF, why are these fans like $5,000? And I'm like, we'll look and it's like legit $5,000 for like a case fan.

So weird. Yeah. When you guys shop on Amazon, just make sure the seller, it'll say like fulfilled by Amazon sold by NZXT, that's when you know it'll be from us. If it doesn't say that, then you'll know it's from some third party.

Yeah, I just dropped the link in the podcast chat for our Amazon store that Jerome recently redesigned. It's looking pretty fresh. Oh, yeah, yeah, that too. Yeah. So that was a long time coming. We didn't have one when I first started. So I thought it was super, super important for us to kind of get a store out there and showcase all the cool stuff that we have. How are you going to make our Amazon store look better than our website, Jerome? That's not going to happen. Our website's going to kill it.

Our website is going to do so much better. How long it would it take you to kind of built out the whole storefront on Amazon from when you started? Foundation-wise, it only took me a couple weeks, maybe less, because I have, you know, I have experience doing it. I don't know if you guys are familiar, but I did work at another gaming company. where we kind of, I was part of the implementation for the rollout for the store and store pages. Okay. Transitioning that from where I used to work to where I work, I mean to NGXT, it was, it was pretty easy.

What was the hardest part about kind of building out the storefront? Sticking the brand. So making sure that, you know, everything that I wanted to do was in line with the brand. So the hardest part was kind of working with the creative team to get all the assets and to kind of, you know, share the vision with them. Okay, okay. That's pretty good. How long have you been at NZXT? See, it'll be, I think I'm at a year and four, five months now, during five months.

Oh, okay, so not too long before I started on. I started in December. Yeah, December, was it, 2019? And you were in the old office, right? How was that? Yeah. The old office, it was really cramped. I've never experienced anything so tight.

You know, everybody was like shoulder to shoulder. Well, that's only because you're so buffed, Jerome. Yeah. It was comfortable before you got there. And then you got in there and all of a sudden, like, no one fit in there anymore. He takes up all this face. There's a more reason why I had a cubicle. Would you call him Dennis a cannabis a cannadop smuggler?

Yeah, Doreen's trying to steal produce. Drones, biceps are bigger than my thighs. Just picture that for a second. Let's just take a minute and think about what that looks like. Picture a guy that's like 5354. And that's, I don't want to say I'm as white as a door, but. White as a door. Humble brag, you know.

Right? No, I'm just, I'm not that big. I'm really not that big. I mean, I think you might be the biggest guy in the office, no? I think so. I don't know if someone who's like, at least like muscle, muscle to like fat ratio. If you compare my height to, you know, if you do height to width, then yes. I would probably say I'm big in that aspect.

So ratio wise. Yeah. But if you're talking, oh, you know, height-wise, Jerome loses all the time. I love you. You refer yourself in the third person. Jerome loses every time. All right. Here's the big question.

What did you do before NZ-X-D? I worked at another gaming company, Razor. I'm sure you're familiar. Razor. R-A-Z-E. R, not OR, not scooters. And chat's going wild. And did you do the same thing at Razor as well?

I did, yeah. So my focus within Razor was strictly Amazon, and it was, you know, managing the product display pages, so PDP for short, and I'm just advertising in the U.S. It was a little, it was a lot bigger in terms of skis. you know, they had a lot more products, so that required my full attention. And that was kind of where I specialized in. Right. Okay.

So what is like your least favorite thing about doing channel marketing? When I first started, it was managing the promotions on the channel side, just working with the different teams and trying to figure out, you know, if we do these promotions, they have to fall in line across the board with everybody else. So that was a little bit of a challenge for me, was working with the different sales teams and making sure that we were all aligned on what promos we had to do for specific products. And I think the biggest struggle that I had was just aligning everybody.

Right. Yeah, because like, I think like half the time I'm not even. even sure that you're working on something and then you'll send me a DM, hey, how's this look? And I'm like, oh, here's like 50 pages of notes. And then you go back and then you work on those things. And then I never hear from you again. Because I assume, I assume, like, whatever feedback to like me or I've been gave you was like pretty much, you know, was pretty good. But yeah.

So what's like your favorite thing about doing channel marketing? Like what do you, what do you do it? What do you find to join it? Okay. What makes a take for you. What I really like is being able to have, you know, a conversation with someone and, you know, they'll go, hey, what do you do? And I don't really have to say much. And I go, look on Amazon, look at this, you know, company.

And that's what I do. You know, all the product pages that you see there, all the advertising that you see there. You know, and it's viewed by, you know, millions, maybe I'll say billions. of people. Right. And that's what kind of, you know, drives me to just keep doing it because it's, it's fun, being able to see the hard work and to be able to acknowledge that, hey, man, this looks good. And, you know, if I was kind of going through the shop, the customer journey, I'd be like,

I totally buy this because it has all the information that I'm looking for. And if there isn't information that you guys want, let me know. That way we can kind of make sure it's catered to our, you know, our, you know, our PC gamers. But that's kind of what gets me going, is having that to share with everybody else. Right, right. So do you just do the storefront or do you do like any back-end stuff with the Amazon page? I have someone on my team that helps with the back-end.

So he kind of manages, you know, when we upload new product listings, he'll go ahead and get those done. But for the most part, I'm kind of more of the visual visionary. Okay. Do you also work on eBay stuff? I did in the beginning. So everything that we do on Amazon from the product titles to bullets, we try to incorporate those same features titles into eBay. But it's not my area of focus right now.

But I'm sure I'll get to work on that. That's where I would focus right now because if you look up the NZTH1s going for like twice as much as what we're selling it for, it seems like it's a good business right now. That's other people though. That's a thing. It should be us, man. On our eBay third party, I can change, you know, I can manipulate the titles and all that, but everything outside of that. So, you know, random people are just selling cases that, you know, for $700, I don't really have any, I can't edit

those. So besides, so you just focus purely in Amazon, correct? And you don't touch any other storefronts? No, I think I have a hand in a lot of different, you know, markets. So the content that you see on Amazon, that's, you know, that's kind of where I, where I do all my work. But when you go into third-party sites like the New Wave, Best Buy MicroCenter, And you see the additional content outside of just an image and the titles, we manage those as well. And then the dot com store, of course, is something that I've recently taken on.

So I'll have a hand in that. All right. Reason why I ask is because Matt, Matt GCC in chat is saying that the correct job title for you should actually be information architect. It sounds like a very vague and broad thing. Like it could be anything. Yeah. But I don't know if you're aware of what that title is or if you've heard of it before. No, I have not, but I definitely look into it.

Yeah, it might be a race for you, dude. You're very welcome. Live on the podcast, you're about to get the homey paid. Let's go. He can afford more protein powder. That's right, dude. Luckily, luckily, there's no shortage on that. So here's a here's a little for you.

Why end ZXT? So you went from Razor, right? Racer is a pretty big company, and you can say that they have a lot of fans, right? I mean, they're no, you know, they're no like small, small group and they definitely have a pretty big following. Why NZXT? Great question. So when I had my interviews, you know, with leadership before I got the job at NZXT, my whole perspective is, you know, I'm already doing something great within Raser. and we have everything lined up.

We have where we need to be as far as, you know, the product pages and stuff. And I looked at NXT one day and I just kind of, you know, started listing off everything that I could be doing to kind of help make NXT better than what it already is. So that was kind of why, you know, like why, why am I going to stay at a company that's already doing. really well when I have the opportunity to help someone else, you know, get on that same level. So you're saying that we sucked and you wanted us to unsuck? Not necessarily suck. I think there was opportunities for improvement. I really wanted to capitalize on that because I had the knowledge for that. And, you know, my first two weeks in, I was already mapping, planning, and optimizing our Amazon pages.

but yeah that that was really yeah when you went into the interview how did you say that like just like oh yeah you know so you guys have some room for growth or was it like I can make this better like how did you position yourself to like to like get the job it was very I mean it was very humble

I'd never it wasn't never like hey guys do you guys suck here it was more you know I have these particular skill sets and I've managed to apply these skill sets into my current position, I've noticed that, you know, there are areas that you guys are lacking in. And it's, you know, that was a big thing for me is I want to help the company. Right. Because the company that I'm, I'm working with already, they're already successful in this

area. So I wanted to, for me, I wanted to make a difference. And that's, that's all it really came down to was making a difference, making sure that I was able to be a, you know, a crucial component within NZXT by providing my services. All right, all right. Who did you meet with when you were doing your interviews? I met with HR person that kind of started the conversation with me. His name was Taka. And then I interviewed with Jim, Johnny, Rob, and I, and I, I had a former co-worker that used to work with me at Razor. And he's kind of the one that helped set up the introductions and let, you know, Jim know, that I was kind of interested.

So, I mean, from there, it just kind of worked itself out. I mean, you pretty much met everybody then if that's the case, right? Johnny, Jim, Rob, but it's like the three bosses, right? Yeah, yeah. Was it scary to talk to Lim? Yes, a little bit, but I did enough research that I knew what the company was looking for. I understood their core values. And I made sure that, you know, if they had these core values, how do I, you know, was I in line with them?

Did I share these same core values? And I mean, obviously I did because, you know, I'm here now. Right. But just doing the research on the company and understanding where you could be most beneficial, I think it plays played in my favor right so like my my interview with ivan was like pretty interesting because we just mostly talked about like each other right um were there were there like any interesting or like fun or like kind of like off the wall questions that like johnny jim or rob uh asked you or was it mostly just about what you were there to do job wise it was mostly there for you know what i was

you know what what skill sets i had and it was very professional you know you know these these guys are you know, high level and, you know, their time is very limited. But when I had my interview with the HR rep, you know, and another person from sales, Abene, we, you know, we kind of, you know, dropped the professionalism a little bit. And we got into, you know, what games we were playing. And, you know, I was really big into wow. So, you know, a couple of these guys were playing. wow too and we kind of just had a back and forth about what characters we played and yeah yeah

overwatch too so i wasn't aware that abney was in any interviews did he did he ask if you owned the new supreme or if you like if you rock any easies i think i think the first thing he looked at was my shoes oh seriously probably i was i was in a suit so oh a whole suit huh yeah uh uh Actually, yeah, yeah, a full, full on suit, yeah. Yeah, so I had a suit with some Jordans. Right, some easies. And a piano necktie. Trying like as fresh as he possibly could.

I think was it, I'm sorry from skipping on the name. I'm really bad with names, but who's it that works with you? He's like a skinnier version of you. Kenny? Kenny, Kenny, yeah, Kenny. Was it Kenny who was it Kenny who was. into like the lobby of the old office when there was like nothing there and he was there for like an interview i forget that was him or not probably i wouldn't put it i wouldn't put it past them yeah because the member it was like two or three days before we were like basically stripping on the office there's like literally nothing in the lobby and like the nzxte signs like on the floor tilted like up against the wall and he has like he's like a suit jacket on and like slacks and he's like looking through the door and he's like hey I'm here for a job

and like oh it's like we're about to like close down or something like yeah dude come right in probably him yeah yeah I think I think it was Kenny okay

what is your favorite nz60 product my favorite nzxc product it's I'm probably going to say the H1 I don't have my hands on it yet

but it the form factor that it has and how much desk space I can save is, you know, it's something that I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on. Okay. Have you played with it at the office yet? No. Really? You have like three of them lying around or we had. I don't know what it looks like. I saw before we went out to production, yeah, I was able to kind of like get my hands on it and look at it and I was just kind of amazed

that we were able to put a full-on GPU inside that tiny thing. All right, all right. What is your least favorite NZC product? I don't have any. That's a lie. I don't have any because I'm not familiar with, you know, with everything that we have. If I can give you one, if I can give you one. The Razor H440? I had that one.

That one was actually a pretty good case. I liked it a lot. It went with my whole Razme team. Yeah, there's also an F340. Yeah, S340. Yeah, yeah. I had the 340 I never had a 340

I've only I went from H440 to my 510 elite so I waited a good number of years because that case is honestly pretty perfect There was like nothing wrong with it But which one is H340

The H440 I'm sorry S340 oh the 440 Yeah That was too big for me Too big for me The S340 was perfect Too big for you

Yeah Too big like just like weight Like you couldn't carry it too big for height height I mean you're not that short dude I'm sure you can carry

no problem Jerome couldn't reach the power button listen don't sell yourself short okay oh come on guys

okay if you could see NZXT make any non non I feel like always change this question every week

I'm like non PC product what would it be It's like not a case or something Or like yeah Or like not a motherboard or whatever Man

What work do you want to give shin Maybe a TV A TV A TV Yeah why not I'm thinking What would that look like Actually you know

That'd be cool to make Like a TV that's optimized for video games Because most TVs aren't Yeah a lot of TVs aren't Yeah So, yeah, probably a nice 85-inch and V-T curved Q-led TV. Whatever quantum quantum. Quantum technology they have right now.

I've been TV shopping, and it's so confusing, and I feel like they intentionally do that. Yeah, there was someone in our Facebook DMs who was asking about, like, they're going to buy a new computer and like, hey, I have this big TV, like, hey, I have this big TV, like, will it work? And I'm like, yeah, it's definitely going to work. And I was thinking the back of my head, don't, don't, don't do it. Don't do it on TV. I mean, it's going to work for the basic stuff, but for gaming, you're definitely not going to get the frames that you want because. Yeah, like, I don't even know, like, my TV has game mode. I don't even think it does anything.

It's supposed to turn off any post-processing that the TV does, like color correction or like smoothing and things like that. So it doesn't mess with the input delay. But that's pretty much all it does. But I don't, at least for me, maybe just the games I play, I don't notice any difference. I think, I notice a lot of lag when I play Monster Hunter on my 55-inch at home. You sure, it's not just you? It could be my laptop, too.

But there's too much delay. What games? Actually, I'm going to ask the next one after this one, can you give us a special shout-out to anybody in the office? Or anyone that you work with, who you think deserves some love and attention and maybe some kisses, some goodnight kisses. Honestly, everyone on the team, especially with the whole COVID-19 situation, you know, big shout out to everyone kind of just working their butts off and just going through the motions, man. Like you guys, everyone's doing a great job. You know, our BLD guys are killing it, making sure that, you know, you guys are getting all your PCs on time as quickly as possible. but just to the whole N60 family

like kudos to everybody yeah I live really close to the office so I drive by it like pretty often at least once a week when I go to the grocery store and right now we're working or the old guys are working like four different shifts and really crazy hours

there's like a shift that I think starts at or ends at three in the morning right now. They're working around the clock, basically. And the reason why that... For you guys, man, just for you guys. And the reason that the shifts are split up like that is to protect the employees. So like if one person from one team gets sick, then another team can step in and help out.

And the teams don't interact with each other. And there's like people in there cleaning like nonstop. So yeah, they definitely deserve a special shout out. They're working hard. Every time I drive by the office, like the parking. It's still packed and there's like still. Yeah, and there's still trailers there like loading and unloading. So yeah.

So I mean, dude, I haven't been to the office since this whole thing came about. So I don't even know what's going on. Yeah, it's been like six weeks since I've seven foot in the office. Yeah, for sure. Like the day we got the, no, that it's, I actually, yesterday I went back to look at the date of the email we all got when we were in the office. And it was six weeks ago. And I was just like, holy crap. Like, even just imagining like being back in the office to me is weird. Like being at my desk and everyone sitting around me and going out for lunch and stuff. It just feels almost surreal at this point. Like, it's hard to even imagine us. going completely back to normal after as well.

Like, I don't know. Maybe it's just me, but it just feels so weird to think about. It does feel weird because I go to the office like every couple of weeks to ship things out. And it's so eerie because like the inside of the office is empty, but the warehouse is full. But it's like, you know, it's just a ghost town in there. So it's going to be interesting when we go back. Yeah, for sure. I keep getting ping.

Oh, there's breakfast in the cafe. There's lunch in the cafe. They're waiting for us all to leave, dude. And it's like good stuff too. All right. So those are all the serious questions, Jerome. Are you ready for the fun stuff? Yeah, I thought that was a fun stuff.

Okay, there's more. Our guy, podcast over, that was all the fun stuff. Thanks for tuning in everybody. Really appreciate it. All right. Now it's time for the roast of Jerome. It's Poppy's turn. Let's go.

Let's go, Poppy. I really a roast, but, you know, just like some interesting questions that we've, we're curious about. So I guess the first thing we're curious about Jerome is, what actual department are you in? Because your job title says marketing, but I'm not even sure you're in the marketing department.

Are you? No, I'm not. No. When I first started, I was under product. It's so weird. So, I mean, now I believe I'm under sales because of, you know, the owning the dot com and, you know, being under Rob. I think I'm pretty sure I fall under sales at this point. Next question is, who is Kenny?

And what did he do exactly? Okay. So Kenny, he was actually an intern of mine, well, not of mine, intern at Razor. And I worked with him daily at Razor. And, you know, he was kind of doing the same things that he does now. But, you know, now obviously on a bigger scale. But he was my intern. And I told him in one of our meetings, hey, man, one day, it's, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to make it big. Or I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, going to change my role into a manager role. And if you keep working your butt off, you know, there's going to be a spot for you on my team. I had no idea. Kenny was your internet razor. Yeah.

Yeah. So he's been with me since day one. He was actually a sales intern, but, you know, there was a lot of free time in between. So I wanted, you know, to see you get him exposed to kind of the content and Amazon stuff. And, you know, he grew into it. He enjoyed it. So now he works under me. And, you know, he's kind of, he's killing it right now.

You know, he's managing all the content, you know, all the images that you guys see on Amazon. Technically, he works above you, Jerome. He's pretty tall. He is, he is tall. So that's why when we have meetings, he has to sit down and I'm standing. Did you have an intern at NZXT last summer? I did, I did. Her name was Akila. Do you miss her? I do. Yeah. What do you miss about her? Her corkiness. She was very into, you know, the latest social media hype. So, you know, whatever dabbing and all those weird movements that she did, I don't know, man.

Yeah, she was just sneezing all over the office. Yeah, yeah, she was a character. Out of all the interns, she's the one that she's probably the only one I felt bad for because she was always working on spreadsheets. Yes, yes. I would have my intern, I had two interns, and I would have them, like, you know, making memes and, like, posting dumb stuff on social media all day, like making dumb videos. And then I'd look over at your intern and she's, like, typing up spreadsheets.

And I'm like, man, I feel really bad for her. But I mean, that's part, I'm sure she lived a lot, you know, that's part of the gig. I mean, that was my goal for her is, hey, you're in, you know, this is an internship, you know, I want you to figure out if this is something you like, because who knows down the road, I might need to, you know, pick someone up and join my team. And if you can prove yourself here, then obviously I'm going to make sure I consider you, you know, down the road. So that was kind of it, you know, there's times for us to have,

fun and do all that. But, you know, with everything going on, especially when she joined or when I picked her up, we were kind of, you know, crunch time. We were trying to fill all the backlog stuff. Yeah. Yeah. She came in at a crazy time for sure. Yeah. Next question is, why are you never at the office? Well. What's so funny? I like to be at home. Part of my job when I started was, you know, it was going to be partially worked from home. And I wanted to, you know, be in the office at least two to three days because I live, you know, relatively far from the office, you know.

We're in the creative industry. I'm in Riverside. Oh. Yeah. Previous to that, I was actually, when I first started in my first three weeks, I was driving from San Diego. Oh, my God. city of industry. Holy crap.

That's like two hours, right? Like easy two hours. Yikes. Two and a half, three hours, yeah. Why? Is it Riverside like 60 miles from the office? It's about 40 from where I'm at. Yeah, that's far.

Okay, that makes sense then. You shouldn't drive to work. I honestly, I go there for the FaceTime, you know, because working at home, I don't really get to interact with, you amazing humans. So I do make it an effort to go to the office as frequently as possible and, you know, say hi to you guys physically. Yeah, I got lucky like our new office. I'm pretty sure I'm the one that lives closest to it. I'm like two streets away.

But if I had to drive 40 miles, I probably wouldn't go in either. He literally is two streets away. I followed him one day. Hey, can I just do a shout out real quick? So I think my mom is on the Discord channel right now. Hi, Mom. Yeah, I told my mom that I was going to do on the podcast, and surprisingly, she showed up. So, hi, Mom.

Hi, Mom. Hi, Mom. My mom's also on the server. That's why we don't allow cursing in here. All right, next question. The question that everyone is dying to know is, do you even lift bro I do

I've actually been lifting for about 11 years you know you know how to tell someone lifts weights don't worry they'll tell you that's right

so drum Adam so Jerome how many do you work out exactly so before this the quarantine I was working out about

maybe four to five days a week. And I would focus on individual muscle groups for, you know, maximum growth and, you know, just maximum rest time in between. But prior to that, I used to do six, seven days a week, and I just, that was my life. Yeah. Yeah, I remember when we first started Ricking Remote, like, after like the first week, I think you posted in Slack, you're all, I'm going crazy.

I can't go to the gym. like I think you ordered weights right? I did. Yeah. So what are you doing now? Like just lifting weights? Yeah. So, you know, I take my pre-workout maybe half an hour before my shift ends.

And then I go to the garage and play in my home gym. So I have a full rack. I have bumper plates. I just picked up some adjustable dumbbells. So those will be in like, I don't know, a few weeks. How much can you bench press? My last max was $2.95. Those are Ricky numbers.

Sorry, what? Those numbers up. Yeah. So 315 is the goal. But again, I mean, it's, for my stature, for my size, I think that's a lot. That is a lot. Why 315? Why 315?

Very specific. Like, oh, is it what it is? Show so much I know. That 295 is a lot, man. What is 295 in kilograms? Is anybody now? Someone's asking in chat. It's like 133.

Yeah. That's a lot in non-freedom units for those who. So, yeah. So, I mean, bench, squat and deadlift, I think those are like the top three. When people ask about your, you know, your weight, your strength in weightlifting, I guess. So my bench is $2.95.

My squat is $3.15. And my deadlift is at $450. Bro. Are you in, is that the 1,000 pound club? Yeah, that's that is, that's the 1,000 pound club. So if you add all those up and if it's over 1,000, then that's the 1,000 pound club. I used to be so jealous of those guys. when I was in high school.

They would rock around with these t-shirts that said, thousand pound club, and they're all football players. And I was on the baseball team. And I could barely lift the baseball bat. But I do like working out. My workout is literally just walking. But do you have any workout tips for people like me who are quarantined and don't have weights and want to get fit?

Yeah. You know, use what you have at home. You know, I have bags of rice, so I'll pick those up and I can squat them, put them over my shoulders. You know, those five gallon jugs of water with the handles, you can do shoulder shugs with them. Push-ups, you know, if you could do your push-ups, your planks, sit-ups. Actually, when we started the quarantine, I started doing like this push-up routine, and I ended up getting to 100 push-ups like a week ago. and I had to just quit doing push-ups because now my elbows are like super sore.

I feel like push-ups kind of, you know, they mess you up a little bit. I mean, they can, but it's also your positioning, too. So if your elbows are hurting, you might have your hands too far out when you're doing push-ups. You might want to consider kind of tucking them in a little bit more. Okay.

I'll do that with some bags of rice on my back. Yeah, or your daughter. Before we continue on, Ivan, we do have some questions from the community about working out, and I think since he seems to know a lot about it, let's try to get through those real quick. Go for it. First question is from Kanky Talks, who's actually one of our ambassadors. Have you been doing more functional strength workouts? I have, yeah.

Okay, what does that mean? Yes, please explain that to us, Normies. Basically working on his thumbs so can play video games. Let me just make sure I have the correct definition of a functional workout. Because for me, functional is, you know, things that I would kind of do day to day, either like the pushups. Correct me if I'm wrong here. But yeah, mostly like, I don't know, total body workouts kind of functional. Is that where you're getting at?

You said functional training is non-isolated workouts. I guess you mean that's like squats deadlifts Pinching you know compound lifts Which kiddlebells body weight all that stuff I have a pull-up bar That's the functional as I get I had a I had a put in one of those pull-bars

You install in your door Yeah that one I broke the door Don't jump see exactly you jumped You jumped to get on it That's why I broke Yeah as far as control goes My push-ups and, you know, pull-ups.

I mean, because I was able to get a home gym, I kind of focus on my strength and, you know, maximizing those gains, bro. Right. So. Next question. What do your diet look like? My diet is, so currently because of the quarantine,

I'm at a bulk because I'm just going to eat whatever. because I don't have all the equipment to kind of get me where I need to be. That's like my diet. I'm bulking right now. Yeah, since I'm getting, you know, since I'm at home, I have everything in my pantry. I just eat. I just eat and make sure I lift heavy so that way I can still maintain, you know, some abs. But with the bulk, abs aren't a focus.

It's, you know, quality foods, making sure you're getting your calories. calories in, getting your carbs, fat, and proteins in as well. Lots of pasta. Oh, God, lots of pasta. All the regi-tony you could ever want. My fiancé, um, tweak the Olive Garden Fetuccine Alfredo pasta recipe, and that has been gold. It's so good. Does she give you unlimited breadsticks?

I don't like breadsticks that much. He is the breadstick. I like my pasta. I like the pasta. Do you have any more workout questions, Dennis? Yeah, favorite muscle group to work out. Upper chest. Upper chest and back.

Yeah, we could tell. Yeah. I can look like upper chest. Like what the heck, how do you work for your upper chest? He works out so much that he has two chests, an upper and a lower chest. I like to work out my outer. I mean, you have three different, three sections to your chest. You have your upper, your mid, and your lower pecks.

So everyone can get their middle chest, you know, standing out. But for your upper chest, you know, to see the separation between the collarbone and your pictorals, not very many people can build that. And I like to, you know, I'd like to be able to balance a cup on my chest. Wait, what? Explain that again? Balance a cup on your chest? Yeah.

Balance a cup on my chest. Because my pecs are so big. It's the hashtag Jerome challenge. You haven't seen it on social? Are you talking like you're like standing straight up and the cup is on your manboob? Or are we talking about like you're laying down? Well, no, you can you can do it up, you know, standing up. If you need a photo.

Jerome is actually balancing his microphone on his chest right now. I literally can't picture this. My brain is just like, what? Yeah. I'm like, I got my coffee mug. and if I put it onto my chest, it would just fall off and break. So I don't know how you'd have so much that it's like horizontally inclined that it would be able to hold a cup. I'm going to need to see a video of that later. Okay.

What's your favorite workout? My favorite workout would probably be dead lifts. Okay. They lifts and inclined dumbbell presses. Do you think stamina and strength should be focused on? 50-50 or do you focus on one more than the other? Stamin and strength. For me at least, I think they're 50-50 because the way I work out, you know, I don't do as much

running as you know, your average person. I do all my cardio from my weightlifting. So that's, you know, the intensity of which I train. So if I want a little more cardio, I'll lift the weights faster or I'll have shorter rest periods in between. All right. Good to know. And I think that's it. Someone asking about how to get started, but I would say there's actually a lot of people talking about that now in chat.

So just check the chat out. And Reddit too. I'm more than happy to help out if anyone has any questions. I was actually a personal trainer at one point. Oh, okay. If we started a workout channel, would you be in it all the time? I can, yeah. I'm happy to help everybody out. I think the reason why I didn't become a personal trainer was because the monetary value was not something I cared about. It was more of, you know, making sure that the people that I work with or my clients were seeing results. It was never about the money for me. That's why I'd be the worst person.

trainer because I just give free work free training that'd be a great name be a great name for the channel upper chest and no one will understand what it is until they come in and see it right no question Jerome why did you decide to grow an afro that's just how my hair naturally grows why did you decide to have hair like that thanks mom It was funny. I don't know. Like Jerome, like I mentioned earlier, he hasn't come in the office that much. And then he had he didn't come in, I don't know, a couple weeks maybe. And then he started coming in, but he kept wearing a hat.

And then one day he just like, every day. Like, for all of a sudden he wasn't wearing a hat and he had this giant afro. And like I didn't say anything about the afro. But I just noticed he had an afro. But then the next time he came in, he shaved his head. and then I said, oh, you shaved the afro, huh? And he's like, oh, you notice? I'm like, yeah, I noticed the appro.

I'm like, yeah, I noticed an afro. And then I kept the hat on for four months after I shaved my head. Yeah. Yeah, I'm pretty sure everybody noticed. Like, I think I've heard, like, multiple people asking them because, like, they don't see them, and he always would always wear the hat. That's pretty good. What's your hair looked like right now, Jerome?

Since, you know, no haircut, it's just, it's just there. You know, it was a comb over, but now it's just all over the place. So I don't really comb it anymore. I just wear a hat to all my meetings. Are you jealous of Kenny's hair? Kenney's hair? No, no. Kenny's hair is really good.

You know, we kind of have the same similar haircut, but his is, it looks like it's a lot easier to manage. Do you were asking for tips on how to manage? hair? No, not Kenny. What does that mean? Well, I mean, Kenny's hair is just, it's, it's just there, you know, it's got its beautiful flow going, I mean, he, I'm sure it just comes natural to him. So it's like, hey, give me some tips. Oh, I just brush it, you know, like, just brush, bro for it. Yeah, that's it. Just brush it. Me, I, I got to take a blow dryer to it.

it. All right. Our next question here for you is, why does your kid have a better computer than most of our community? Because I really wanted to have, you know, because he's my kid. You know, because it was, it was, he was getting all my leftovers. So every time I upgraded, he got whatever, you know, if I upgraded from a 2070, to 2080, well, he gets to 2070 because he's my kid.

I'd rather not sell the things that I have. You know, I'd put him to use around the house. But he does have a pretty kick-and-kick butt PC. How many kids do you have? I have two. A boy and a girl? I have one boy. He's seven years old, and then my daughter is going to be won this tomorrow, actually.

Oh, yeah. Congrats. Thank you. Thank you. We play Roblox. Me and my son, we play a lot of Roblox together. My daughters, too, and I can't wait for her to start playing video games. I can't play with her. But one thing for me that I find challenging is, especially working from home,

is balancing the whole kid time, family time, wife time, work time. How do you balance kids, work, gym, and everything else you're into? So my Monday through Friday schedule, you know, I kind of, it's hard. I had to recently move my grandmother in with me because I needed help watching the kids. The first week of quarantine, it was really hard to get work done because I had both kids. You know, no daycare, no school. And just balancing that was, it didn't happen. So my time was committed to the kids.

Now that I have my grandmother here, you know, I have an office. I lock myself and I'll come out for, you know, breakfast, lunch. And then, you know, whenever my daughter cries, I'll come in and I'll see there. As far as balancing, there's not much balance Monday through Friday because I'm just working and then the kids are kind of in their own area. My grandmother is watching them. But my weekends are dedicated to my children. So the games and all that go out the door.

It's family time during the weekend. Do you still have time for photography? Because I know you're really into taking pictures. Not as much. Not as much. I wish I did. It's really good pictures at the pop-up last year. Thank you.

Thank you so much. I really enjoyed it. Hopefully, if you guys can have me, you know, if you guys want me to do more, I'm more than happy to join you guys on that. Can you take a selfie right now and just post it in the podcast chat? Yeah, let me fix my hair a little bit, and I will. You said if I ever wanted a picture to ask you, and I'm asking you, so do it. Which is.

Show everyone the Afro. we want to Afro Are you guys Are you guys So flex in the picture Please Dude you guys

Suck man The afro The upper chest There's no Afro right now It looks like If you've ever watched If you've ever watched

There's something about Mary You know that part where You know that one part of her hair Standing up That's me right now Let's see it Okay Hang on.

Let me see if I can balance something on my chest. I got to lean back a little bit. Hang on. I got to put a little lean on this thing. No, I'm trying to balance my oatmeal on my chest. Oh, my God, dude. But I will get it to you guys. Jerome's going to burst a blood vessel right now, live on the air.

You hear a bowl break in the distance. We never heard for him again. I think I'm just waiting for him to do it. Yeah, I had accidentally set a timer, so I had him just stand it for 10 seconds. Oh, my God. Flex pose? No, no flex pose. He is the flex pose.

No flex zone. Here, let me see if I could post it. Sorry, guys. He set the timer with his upper chest. Yeah. With the other upper chest. All right, guys. When you start working out, don't judge me.

And you reach a lift achievements, you unlock other chests you can use. Hey. There you go. There you go. You're welcome, chat. All right. Next question, Ivan. Are you a secret razor stand?

Do I have a what? Are you a secret razor stand? Am I a secret razor stand? Yeah. What does that mean? Are you just a secret razor fanboy? Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean...

Is it really a secret if everything you own is Razor? Like, you have like a razor shirt, razor backpack, razor hat. I think you even drive... Like a Hummer with a Razor Snake on it. Always drinking that. That's Jeff Royal. That's Jeff Royal with his Jeep.

Does you really have one like that? Yeah. I believe when he was working at Razor, he had it Matt Black, and then he threw a sticker on there. Wow. As a Motorola Razor. Yeah, I went to the Razor office's one time. And there was a couple cars in the parking lot like that. It looks pretty cool.

We should do that at MZT. Some purple cars. Yeah. I'll get a purple cyber truck. Let's get them wrapped. On a purple Cadillac. They're pretty nice. Camp Howard.

All right. The last question, the most important question of all, Jerome, from me to you, is have you ever eaten Balut? No, I'm terrified. Jesus. Really? Okay. Yeah.

So for those who don't know, can you please describe what Ballute is? Oh, God, please don't. Yes. So Ballute is a fertile duck egg, and it's gone through the process of actually creating a baby duck. So you have, you know, you have a skull, you have feathers, bone, and, you know, they stop its growth. So they'll put in the freezer or they'll put in the fridge. And then, you know, when you're ready to eat. it, you crack it open, you openly open the cop section.

A lot of my family members, they like to put salt on it for flavor, and then you shove the whole thing in their mouth, and then as they're chewing it, you'll see them slowly pick the bones out of their mouth. Oh, yeah, I... What's the other Filipino food with a bee? I think it's, is it bagu? Not baguong? Bagong?

I think so. It's like the pig blood thing. I think that's what it is. I've had that before. Via Maku, right? Bagong? That's the pig blood, pork blood? I think so.

I had that before. Actually, that was not that bad. I used to eat that, and then I figured out what was in it, and I was like, oh, this is like soup. You know, I used to spread it over my rice, and it was like black chocolate rice. Yeah. And then I'm just like, oh, it's, it's fried pork blood. No, thanks. But it was good.

Chicken adobe was my favorite. Do you think he could beat up Manny Peckyo? No. Absolutely not. Did you try? Yes, so I can say, hey, dude, I got knocked out by him. One morning I actually opened up my fridge to go get eggs to make breakfast. Oh, no.

And on the door was a bunch of eggs, and they were just chilling on their own. And I'm like, okay, I'm going to grab one of these eggs. Why are they so big, though? And I go to like reach her one and I just see like a big like red like sharpy written over it that just says a blue on it. And I just like I almost dropped it because I was like, ew. And then I just like put it back in the fridge. But they were just chilling in there for literally for months because my my girlfriend and her mom eat it. And I just am like, why?

Don't do that around me. It's nasty. So I've banned them from eating those in front of me. I don't like it. I think it's gross. But that's my story. So unaccepting of other people's. Hey, they can eat it anytime they want, just not in front of me.

I don't want to watch them pick little baby bird bones out of their mouth, okay? I love watching other people eat it. Oh, yeah? Why? It's so nasty. Because I make that, ew, gross face, and they're like, oh, this is delicious. Yeah, pretty nasty. So bad.

That's kind of weird. I don't like a lot. I think it's time to get into the community questions now, right, Dennis? It definitely is. So number one is from Pokey. Jerome, what did you think when you first saw Ivan and Dennis? When I first saw Ivan, because this was before, this was pre-Dennis, I was like, man, that guy's pretty cool. Oh, he does all the community stuff.

Oh, wow. He's pretty witty. Because I've checked the community channel and all that. And then I was also like, wow, just. one guy doing this? Pretty cool. Yeah, it was a lot of work back then. Still is.

And then my first impression of Dennis was he vapes, bro. I think we're going to be friends. I definitely do. What about me? Men, I said, you cut out. That's it.

At every second, he went silent. At first, I didn't know, you know, what your role was. So I wasn't sure if you were kind of like help. I didn't know who you were helping at the time. Ah. So I was like. So confusion. Yes.

And I was like, hey, this girl, I was like, this girl didn't say hi to me yet. Oh, let me go say hi. And then that was kind of it. We didn't really talk. We didn't really talk as much just because, you know, even though we sat back to back from each other, our job responsibilities didn't allow us to to have that kind of face time that, you know, I wish we had. Yeah, they didn't align at all.

Yeah, so, I mean, moving forward, I'll make sure to come by and just bug you. Better. Yeah. It's an expectation now, so. He said it live. We have proof. Yeah, recorded.

Oh, wait. The gentleman, you do is a quick favor. If you can leave the channel real quick and rejoin because you're going to cutting out right now. Sure, sure. We'll continue with the men. and the myth, the legend. Tell you,

Chaz keeps muting the mic, man. All right. How am I doing? Cool. Okay. Next question. This is from Sui. Who is your main in Valerite?

And why is Phoenix useless? So I've only played Valerant once. I played who's the, I think it was the chick with the red hair or the white hair and daggers. That was my first Valoran experience. Jet, yeah. Yes, Jet, yeah. I wish I could play more

But I have a dedicated You know set of friends that don't have that game So I kind of stick more to you know The Call of Duties or Monster Hunter They just they don't have beta so I just don't make time for for Valor Because my friends can't play it Makes sense makes sense

Also Suey Phoenix isn't useless you just don't know how to use them Okay next question Damn. Next question is, what weapon in Monster Hunter do you use? Why is the hunting horn? I've been a bowman since my first intro to Monster Hunter World. That was like my first exposure to Monster Hunter genre.

I like dash dancing. I like being able to eye-framed the monsters and all that. But I've recently picked up the Safi Lipo gun, and I like knocking monsters out. So cluster build. All right. Lay Pzig, people keep changing the names. How much does it usually cost to shit the rewards? This is for Ivan.

Well, it depends what part of the world people live in. The rewards ship all over the world, and it's definitely not cheap. So it just depends where you live. But we ship everything out of L.A. So if you live in close by or in Los Angeles, it's really too, or in the United States, it's really cheap. But if you live in India or Guam, we ship them everywhere. You know, I think the most we've paid is probably like $150 or something to get people like,

like a hoodie or something like that. But they earned it, so, you know, we don't mind doing it. Yep. money wants to know what sort of qualifications do you need for channel marketing or marketing in general this is definitely for jerome uh experience really and if you don't have the experience you know take initiative to learn the platform because there are a lot of websites a lot of youtube tutorials that show users how you know how the back end of amazon works and channel marketing as well. Like going into this, I didn't have, you know, a channel marketing background,

but I took initiative. I wanted to learn it. And, you know, hard work beats anything else. So hard work, dedication. And that's pretty much what got me through, you know, to where I'm at. Did you, did you start at Razor doing channel marketing or did you know, have experience and then you went to raise it. Really? No. So I actually started as a customer support specialist. Oh, interesting. Yeah. So, so, so I don't know if you guys want to hear my journey, but I can give you like a quick. I know that's a quickly on that. Yeah. Yeah. So, so I started as a customer support specialist answering, you know, order emails, you know, like, where's my package and whatnot? And then I moved into a marketing

assistant role. So that was kind of being the catch-all for the marketing team. So I got to, you know, manage inventory, work with partners, help with the retail space. I did a lot of events. That was kind of my primary focus at the time. And then, you know, there was an opportunity where, you know, my good friend, former boss, Ryan, he asked me if I wanted to kind of transition out of events and specialize. more into, you know, advertising.

So Amazon being that. And from there, you know, he would just kind of let me, let me kind of take over Amazon. And I'm where I'm at today because of, you know, the hard work perseverance and the opportunities that people give you. You know, when people say that, hey, you know, you got so lucky this, this, this, and that, it's not so much luck. It's a lot of, you know, the hard work and just being able to say yes to. every opportunity that gets thrown in your way.

So it's a mixture of luck and, you know, and hard work. But, yeah, it was definitely a, it was definitely a five-year plan to go from, you know, where I was to where I'm at. All right. Really cool, actually. Yeah, like, I didn't realize that you had no experience prior and then you just kind of just learned it and just went into it, huh? That's actually really cool. I feel like that's, that happens a lot. at NSXT as well, where someone who just didn't know something,

learned, they showed that they knew how to do it, they started doing it, and then that just became their job. Yeah, yeah. And I think being able to work in NST, and I mean, that's what I'm going through now and having the support of your upper management and the people that are already, you know, in that space, just getting their support and, you know, them having your back,

it makes learning my new role not as difficult and I'm not ashamed to fail. So thank you guys on my team for bearing with me. You're welcome. We'll spot you, Ramon, Ramon, Jerome. Ramon. Ramon. I stumbled that. I was going to say Jerome, it's a Ramon.

Ramon, you look more like a Ramon than a Ramon. I mean, I don't even look like a Jerome when I think about it. I don't even know what a Jerome would look like. I'm all thinking about. All right. What has been your best experience during your time working at NZXT from Benjamin? Being able to work with the CEO directly. Like, you know, when people see Johnny is a cool guy, Johnny is really a cool guy.

I've never had an experience where I was able to kind of just be able to openly talk to Johnny about anything. Jerome, hold on for a second. You're getting some distortion right now on both the recording end here. Could you try reconnecting? Don't close the Zencaster tab, but maybe unplug or re-plug in your mic, it might be an issue with your equipment. Sure. Give me one second. Yeah, who sounds like a robot.

Welcome to recording podcasts on the internet, people. Did any mic, Ramon? Did anything? Does the Razor Mike's in my right? That's why his name should be Ramon because of the wrestler Razor Ramon. He could be Razor Ramon. That's a real name. Oh, no.

I don't know about that. Yeah. Let's see, make sure he's good here. Yeah, it's really cool that he was able to kind of move up like that. Like, I had no idea that he started from customer service. it's like a lot of people start from customer service now like they just going to move in they they the first place to get work in it's the best way to learn about like like an industry I think because you're you have to know the product first of all and then you're also excuse me you're also dealing

with um a lot of complaints you know so you're learning like what people dislike about certain things so you're constantly dealing with feedback. And in a way, like social media is like that too, because you know, you have to learn a lot about the products. You have to know what you're talking about. And then you get a, not a lot of complaints. You get mostly like positive feedback, but, you know, you do see like negative feedback as well.

So you do learn a lot about the industry that way as well, just interacting with people. I think he's back. I can't tell. I don't know 1, 2, 3. Jerome. I think we lost him. Rip. He gets stuck in his biceps.

Too white for the door. I can't find the microphone. Wait, he's back. Hello? Jerome. Razor Ramon. Someone clip that, please. While he's working on his stuff,

uh, Mr. Pink says, I'm asking as a podcast listener. Whoever has the bad throat, Please drink some water. I think it's poppy. It's me and I do need water, but I'm not drinking water drain podcast anymore

because I have to go to the bathroom every five minutes. You can't always hold it. I can't. I'm too old. Unless. I need one of those pans under my desk. All right, Drew, howdy, sir? Hey, Razzie Ramon.

Welcome back. Let me make sure it's working on the other set of as well. Say something, Jerome? You cut off for a second there. I'm not sure if he's still talking. I think he died again. Should have picked himself up some MNXT error headsets in a mixer and a stand. Turn off Discord audio processing. Oh yeah, that's also a thing too. Make sure you turn that off. I don't know if he has it on by default, but we'll instruct him in a second.

You think he broke his microphone with the pure strength of his upper chest? that could be a possibility. Yeah, that could have definitely happened. I don't know if we're going to... Should we just go through some questions that maybe we can ask? Yeah, for sure. Yeah, well, he's coming in and now. Let's see here.

So that's a question for him. That's a question for him. That's a question for him. That's a question for him. A lot of people asking questions for him. That's actually not bad. Let's see. Okay, I like this one

What kinds of accomplishments T tend to be valued and rewarded? I'm assuming he's asking at NZXT What sort of Say it again? What sort of accomplishments tend to be acknowledged and rewarded? I would say just

Always trying your best And learning from mistakes Not necessarily always succeeding But you know Just always You know, picking yourself up and trying again over and over again. I think Jerome might be back.

Testing one, two, three. Test, test, test. I think he's gone for good. I can't tell. He's like meeting it and meeting himself. He flexed too hard. Ripped in peace, Joe, Jerome. I've been, can you respond to him in the chat we got with him?

I'll get on with some more questions. Is the air headset cohesibly designed to fit on, on perfectly on the NXT puck. That was very hard to read. It's not designed to fit on the puck, but it'll fit on the puck. It's just a little square. You put your headset on there and it fits. It's actually designed to fit on the stand.

Right, yeah. But the little divot on the top of the padding is designed to fit on the stand. And you don't even feel it like when it's on your head. So, like, it just feels like a regular band. would you concur Amanda we can he's on his phone now your phone buzzing yeah but no worries unfortunately we can't keep you on the podcast because we're not going to have a recording because we need you on Zencaster so not to worry about it man it's all good

let's just let's just say goodbye to Jerome because I don't think we're going to get this issue solved thanks Jerome for coming in and really appreciate it Jerome, maybe if you have time later, Jerome, maybe you can hop in the podcast channel. We can leave some questions pinned for you and you can just type them out, type out the answers if you want. Yeah. Cool. Yeah, thanks for joining us, Jerome. Hey.

And that's the answer. And that was the question that was actually, they actually got knocked off the podcast off. What was your best experience? Please tell you for Johnny, so they doesn't cancel this show. Thank you. All right. And with that, thanks, Jerome. Appreciate it, man.

Talk to you soon, bud. Bye, bye. All right, cool. All right. So, yeah, we're talking about the air headset. Yeah, the air headset. Yeah, so the little divot is not designed for the puck. I mean, it'll work on the puck regardless, but it's designed for the stand.

So when you put your headset on the N60 stand, it switches off of your headset audio and into your speaker audio, which is a pretty cool feature. Firecar, how do you feel about the recent CSGO and TFT2 source code leaks? I don't know anything about that. Amanda, I heard about that. I know a little bit about it. So, apparently some source code got leaked, and if you were playing TF2 or CSGO, like your account was vulnerable.

I guess that was a rumor, but I think CSGO tweeted that, there we go, someone posted the tweet. We reviewed the league code and believe it to be a reposting of a limited CSGO engine code depot released to partners in 2017. I'm pretty sure they failed. fixed it pretty quick, so I don't think it was that big of a deal. Yeah, apparently just a bunch of old code, right? So I mean, just plan official service, you'll be good.

Okay, another question. What are the specs of your working PC slash laptop, and what is the first thing you'd upgrade in the future? So I'll drop a screenshot of my specs right now into the chat. So my specs aren't even like that crazy, to be honest. You don't need a lot for work. TBH. Yeah.

But I have a I-5-4460, BTX-970, and H-97 motherboard, and that's literally more than enough to do what it is I got to do. So I don't really, and I do game on my computer, but I don't really play any high-demanding games. You can see the game I play there on my desktop, Super Mega Baseball, too. so yeah nothing crazy yeah um yeah um what would you upgrade first iven uh maybe if i had if i had to upgrade anything i guess a graphics card but like i said i don't i don't really play high-demanding games even like red dead redemption too which i play every so often works fine on my computer so i really

I'm not one of those gamers that always has to have the fastest or best hardware. I'd rather have my computer looking cool in the outside. That's why I put stickers all over it. Yeah, I think from my PC, the first thing that would probably upgrade just be like a new SSD. I've had this old 970 Evo or whatever

for the longest time, or Evo 480 for like years and years. And I'm pretty sure it's due for an upgrade. and it's probably the reason why some of my stuff runs a little slow. But not though. I mean, it's pretty good to go. Amanda? I don't have a fancy list of my specs, but... Well, you can with NCXT cam.

I have a 10... I don't have it running right now. I have a 1070. I have an I780700K. I've got 16 gigs of RAM. You know, and some other stuff. Nothing, nothing interesting. But you do have, Amanda.

It's like literally a basic computer. You have the cleanest looking setup I've ever seen in my life. Why, yes, I do, Ivan. It's a very, very nice setup, yeah, looks super good. Okay, Selby Cookie, who also wants to know, how does COVID-19 affect your work ability, for example, the tasks you normally do, working arrows, etc. I think we touched on this a few times in the past, right?

I said it again. How does the COVID-19 affect your workability? So basically how's like being on lockdown or being like quarantined at home? How does it affect our ability to do our jobs? Just a lot more meetings. Like be more, you have to communicate more with each other. You know, it's basically it. Yeah, I would say like for me it's really just separating, you know, work time

and play time, right? And stuff like that. But like, you know, I can have break it up with like taking breaks going outside. Like I've been going on a butt ton of walks lately. I think like till these two through walks a day just to get outside and get some air. Yeah, same year. To make it for the time. Yeah, just to make it for the time.

And I've actually been increasing the length and the speed of my walks. So you're starting to get a little spicy. It might be running a marathon seeing you never know. All right. Do you have a favorite game for the team right now? A favorite game for the team. I'm not quite sure what that means. Maybe asking what everybody's favorite game right now is.

Super mega baseball. Yeah. I've been playing a showdown again. Super fun. Big patch recently. Amanda? I've been playing Valerant. like a fiend every single day grinding it going crazy you win it actually yes actually i'm glad you

asked because you can be grinding and going crazy and i got uh 29 kills the other day almost 30 on the last round i tried to get the last kill but i died instantly uh and you know i'm just uh i was playing I was playing Rays and Sova, actually. And yeah, just having fun with it. I have surprisingly a lot of friends who got drops. So it's just like actually really easy to group up now versus when I first started playing it. So I almost always have a five stack. So yeah, Ballarat.

It's been really fun. All right. You only wants to know, what makes your job special at NST? Let's start with Amanda this time. What was that question? What makes your job special at NST? What makes my job special? Well, I think something that Ivan always sort of expresses about community is that we pull all the different initiatives in NST together.

and I also, I mean, just working with the community in itself is also just really special. We get to, you know, talk with you guys every single day, interact with you and, you know, understand your thoughts, feelings, and opinions on products and the things that we're doing currently. And, you know, that's definitely really special insight. other than that, just working on, like, you know, constant, different, like, types of content to bring you guys. I don't know. I think community is just, like, one of those roles that there's a lot of special aspects to it, I would say. I don't know if that really answered the question.

Go ahead, Dennis. What makes my job special in ZXT is that I have a lot of creative freedom that it would not have had at other companies. So when I'm posting stuff on the Instagram stories or Facebook or even Twitter, we don't do what other people do. So that's what kind of keeps it fun and interesting. But because we try to do something different and we try to do something interesting, it could be sometimes like creatively exhaustive because you're trying to think of like what's fun and what is going to get people engaged as opposed to like, does this sale tweet look really good? Yeah. It says that you're saving 30 bucks off of this or that thing. So when you actually have to think about what is something that people are going to want to engage you with,

as opposed to just using it as a platform to talk about boring stuff, but could be something that could take five minutes, could take like an hour. For example, like the thing we posted yesterday on Instagram stories took like five hours to go through as well of revisions. Yeah, yeah. You know, we care a lot. Yeah. And for me, that's the, for me, what makes it. special is not just that, you know, everyone cares, but primarily Johnny cares because, you know,

he hired me because I literally had a bad experience with NZXT. I complained about it and he listened to me and he's like, all right, it's so bad, then you come here and fix it. And he basically trusted me to like, you know, do my best for what I thought was the best thing I could do for NZXT. And I've been here a while now. So for me, it's like Johnny's. the he's the one that cares the most and I think because he cares so much it trickles down into

every department, every employee, not just, you know, the people that report directly him. Because, you know, it's not often that like a CEO will call the social media guy like at six in the morning to talk about a tweet or something like that, you know, and he'll do those things. And not just social media guy, but he'll even, you know, he'll call a builder. he'll chat with whoever because he cares about everything that we do here. That is definitely very true. So trying to look at what other questions we have that isn't for what's his face for for Jerome.

For design you've done. Okay, does the environment of the office you're working in affect your marketing techniques, i.e. more of a strict office culture lead to less fun slash inventive market landing page. That would say from for Jerome. Jerome, I'm asking these questions in the chat. So, will the current global situation with COVID affect the unit retail price? If so, how drastically?

That's like a question for someone in sales and product, I think, for sure. What was it? Say it again? Well, the current global situation with COVID affect the unit retail price. If so, how drastically? I don't even know what a unit retail price is. Actually, Google that one. This was discussed months ago, and I think there were several YouTube videos about it, because, like, COVID impacted China first, like, two months ago, three months ago, and a lot of factories had to shut down, and a lot of PC hardware is manufactured in China.

So for us, yeah, like, we had to shut down factories and things like that, but things are pretty much more or less back to normal now over there. I think like when we went on lockdown a month ago, our factories were at like 70% or some capacity or something like that. So I think if they would have been impacted, they probably would have been impacted by now. Let's see. All right. Do you feel like take? Go ahead. Look up for it.

No, I was going to ask if we did the core values question yet. I think that's somewhere up there or did I, did it pass it? let me see uh you want to read it out if you if you have it up there if you have pulled up i just just go ahead and read the question you're going to ask i just that's why i stopped talking we're now elastic because i'm scrolling oh my gosh speaking of the core values of nzxc how do you see those nowadays in comparison with your idea when you went for the job interview can you specify the most important ones even even can you repeat that a little slow please for my old years.

Speaking of the core values of NCXT, how do you see those nowadays in comparison with your idea when you went for the job interview? Can you specify the most important ones? So for me, when I first started working here, we didn't have our core values defined. And I was fortunate enough to be, you know, one of the people that helped define them. And the one that I care about the most is foster community. and as someone on the community team, to me, I find that very special and fulfilling. So for me, fostering community is not just about the Discord server or Twitter or whatever we're doing on the internet.

It's also within the company with other employees, whether they're on the community team or not. And that's the reason why we like having people on the podcast from every team, every department, no matter what their job title is. because I feel like we are all one community, and I think working remote in a way has also brought us closer in a way because now we are constantly, like, we're forced to basically ask each other a lot more questions now and have more meetings.

Although, you know, it is kind of annoying to have so many darn meetings all the time. But things like that, I think, you know, really do unite us And hopefully when all this is over, instead of having meetings, maybe we can just maybe all go out to lunch more often or play video games more frequently and things like that. Yeah, how do people keep up the same energy, you know,

when we're all done over with this? Amanda? I mean, I don't really, I guess like when I joined the company, I was in a different team, so under partnerships. And the way I viewed things then was definitely different now. But it's kind of like the same core value I was going to talk about, which is foster community. Like I didn't really know, I wasn't really involved with the whole extent of that

until I joined the community team. So that was like something that like, oh yeah, I'm joining as partnerships, foster our community. You know, we value our community, definitely. but if you're working with, you know, streamers and influencers all day, it's hard to really see how far and in-depth that really goes and how much do we really care, right? And then I come over to community, I'm like, wow, okay, we care a lot, and that's great. And that's something that I feel like I definitely had like a shield over myself on partnerships

because I just didn't deal with the community every day. And I wasn't in the Discord very often. and I had my own, like, you know, different things I was doing. But so that's like a core value I definitely view differently now. Like I feel like I truly understand the extent of that being on the community team. And, you know, like when I heard about the core values and I read them going into my interview, I'm like, okay, yeah, every company has core values, right? There's things that you want your staff to embody whether or not they actually do that on a day-to-day basis.

and I'd say NCXT is like the first company I've worked for where I feel like the staff really exhibit each of those and in many different ways. And that's not something that I was actually expecting when I got the job, I guess. You know, you just never really know if something is like, for real or not, I guess, or, you know, whether a company is putting that up there

because they want to look at her if they actually, you know, walk the walk and talk the talk. And I would say NCXT definitely does that. And I see people having courage every day and pursuing passion and fostering community. So, yeah, that's my take. Yeah, me too. Nice. I mean, he probably said it better than you're thinking of.

He probably said it better than I think I could have. All right. Here's a good one. Do you feel like techniques from working at previous companies acted as stepping stones to create the current strategies at NZT, or was NZXT an environment that needed a very unique approach where any you tried techniques slash strategies you might not have been able to previously?

And racking here with the banger questions. So yes and no. So the things that I did in the past at other companies help me build a foundation for what other companies do, but because NXC does things differently, And I think that Amanda and Ivan both can speak to this too, that we do things that we should do, right, that every company should do. But we think about how can we do it better or how can we do it while solving a problem, right? So in my case is, you know, every company has social media.

So we should do social media, right? But how do we do it better? What's the problem? The problem is 99% of y'all's accounts is boring and they're lame. So let's do not that and make them fun and interesting. and put things out that people want to actually, you know, comment on and like and retweet. Same with our community.

Throwing fat shit at everybody. Yeah. I actually, I think the way I view my experience before NST is more so like, here's a lot of things that I have experience with that I definitely don't want to carbon copy or try again at NCXT. instead I want to make these better. So I would say like, of course your previous experience and like your techniques are always going to help you

when you get into your next like opportunities and stuff. But I think a lot of my prior experience was more of like, okay, this is really what you don't want to do. These are the things that you probably shouldn't do. And then NZXC definitely provide an environment where we absolutely could take, you know, a unique approach on, on, you know, community and social and stuff like that, that I would say other companies definitely don't. And we definitely have the space, like, especially with Ivan, like, if we have an idea, the first words I know it's coming out of Ivan's mouth is, I'll try anything twice, you know? Like, there's always that, like, we can just, we can do the things.

things that we want to do as long as we make them make sense. And, you know, one failure on something doesn't mean we're killing that project. It just means what can we do better? How can we change this to work? And that's not something I really experienced prior to NZXT. It's, you know, this project failed the first time. So let's never do it again. Even if, you know, it's just minor things that weren't right with it. Let's just kill the whole project. Or, you know, oh, these companies are doing this type of strategy for community or partnerships, so we have to do it the exact same. We can't think outside the box. And that's definitely not an experience I get with NZXT.

Yeah. Ivan? I already forgot what the question was. But I guess, you guys said it best, though. Everything you said the same reasons I would have. That's why I've been here for so long. So you guys had it good

Uh-huh Without knowing what the question is Oh the question is like What's the experience like here compared to previous Previous jobs, right? Sort of Yeah Yeah

Yes Every job I had before NZXT It was basically my boss Was just tell me what to do And if I didn't do those things, then I would get in trouble. But if I did everything exactly how they wanted me to do, I would, you know, get a pat on the back or whatever. And at DXT, it's not really like that, you know, basically have the freedom to think and do and say whatever I want.

And for me, that's very important because, you know, it's not that like I think I'm. like super smart or anything or I don't need someone to tell me what to do but it's just you know that's how you that's how you grow as a person and that's how you become better at your job is by by having that power and not many companies would give a person that power in fact I think I probably would be fired from a lot of companies for doing the same things I've been in the next to be honest so yeah that's a big difference for me all right um I believe leave that is the end of the community questions because we do need to start moving on. Busy, busy day, busy week.

You guys know what time it is? Amanda, do you know what time it is? No, I don't actually. It's time for the Community Roundup with Mom. Oh my God. All right, Community Roundup. So what has been happening in the past week or two? First off, not sure if you guys have checked the announcements channel at all.

or Instagram, but we launched a new series called Gamers at Home, which takes place on Instagram and our stories. And essentially, we want to know what is your quarantine companion? And we're asking people to make videos, showing them off. So whether that's your pets, your computer, your coffee, your books, your whatever, whatever is helping you get through the current state of the world. Yeah, definitely show us, tag us, hashtag gamers at home. If you do a video, you will get cup coins, 300 cup coins.

So if you guys care it all about that, feel free. We're definitely seeing a lot of really awesome videos so far. Definitely take a look at the past ones for some inspiration. Notable mentions, Ivan having his daughter sing a song with him, you know? Go ahead, Ivan. I was going to say exactly what you just said to just check out the things for inspiration. Yep. Me and Dennis did one and we're waiting for Amanda to do hers.

She's in the community team. Got to do it. Got to do it. If I'm not comfortable, I'm not going to do something. So set up of the week, winner, prodigy, congratulations. We announced that yesterday. Wallpaper of the week, we're going to announce this early. Congratulations, Keough for winning, wallpaper of the week.

Yay. We also wanted to remind you guys that the design contest is going on right now. Make sure you submit your entries. Make sure you go ahead and vote for the entries that are already submitted that you like. Top five will get cup coins, and then the winner will also get cup coins. So even if you don't win, you can still secure a large amount of cup coins with your entry. Another thing I wanted to bring up is folding at home. Not sure if you guys saw the announcement on that, but we have our own folding at home team for NCXT.

Essentially, you can help fight against COVID-19 and a lot of other cancer and diseases by simply just downloading their software and running different work units for them. So your computer basically is tapped into to run specific calculations that they need for. research against these diseases. So every little bit helps. It takes some of your CPU power to do it. And you can do it when you're working. You can do when you're AFK. But yeah, it definitely helps for like a really great cause.

And we have a really awesome solid team that's, you know, constantly earning points and completing those work units. So yeah, if you're interested, definitely check the blog. Have a little read. it'll probably explain it better than I did, and then you can get started on it. The other thing I wanted to mention is we do have a new cam update, cam 4.6. So if you are interested in that, it does fix a bug that was on the, I don't know, Ivan, if you want to take this away, because you sent me like a wall of text about the patch, but I'm not going to read all that.

So if you have a Cliff Notes version, please feel free. I just have a link to the blog post, but the Cliff Notes version is that we updated the login flow. So now it's easier to log in. Also, we are hiring out the details for the upcoming beta program, but you can keep an eye out for the next update, which should have that information. And the other big thing is this is just a really, it's not a major release, but I just wanted to mention because this is probably the last. last, or I guess this is like a segue into a new, new better cam 4.6. So going from 4.5 to 4.6, things are going to get a lot more streamlined and the big thing is the beta program. I think that's going to help a lot. No, I mean, that's, I mean, that's, I mean, that's really

pretty much it. I think the beta program's going to be pretty important because, you know, sometimes we'll release an update, right? And there's issues with it. Like, I think last, last update there. We had to like give people the old version of cam like a older version so they could upgrade to the new version because there's an there's an issue with the with the upgrade. So I think this is a really good step in the right direction. A lot of companies do this. A lot of games do this where you can opt in to like beta test new builds. And it's really funny. People people are more than happy to do that for free to ensure that the software works better and that you know their feedback is heard. And And we definitely do listen to feedback.

We do try to prioritize what the community wants while still balancing what we need to have in there. So I think it's going to be pretty cool that we're going to be able to do this. Minnie Cuddle says, wasn't there a weird Vowardt bug with Cam? Yeah, pretty much. Was it patched? It should be if not just disabled cam before you start VALRent and your VoIPA work. But yeah, it's like things like that where like, you know, voice over IP. Yeah, so that's just kind of kind of goes a show.

show that sometimes there might be some things that we just aren't aware of. And it's just better to do it in like a beta test environment so that it can get reported quicker. And I believe that's it, right? Awesome. Thank you guys because I didn't really know very much about it. So thank you for that. And last but not least, if you guys want to head over to nzxte.com slash careers, we're hiring a lot right now, but specifically,

we want to mention that we are hiring builders. So if you live in LA and you are looking for an extra job, maybe you lost years recently due to everything that's going on, or you're looking for something on the side to make a little extra money, and you have building experience, or even if you don't have building experience, we do also train. But we do have open positions for builders. So definitely if you're interested, fill out an application,

just so you're aware we're taking all of the necessary precautions as well in the warehouse. But yeah, if you do have experience, if you're interested in working for NXT, definitely apply. We're needing more builders right now. So yeah, and that wraps up the community roundup. All right, cool. Any last words? Ivan, Amanda, be good to go. Are we Gucci?

I just wanted to tell everyone out there, thank you for listening and to stay safe. you know, maintain that social distance, wash your hands, and hopefully we can't hug each other, hug each other soon. Yeah, maybe. Hugs for everybody, yeah. Yeah, I think going forward, I'm not touching anybody ever again. Yeah, I think that's the, I think that's the call, you know, just six feet at all times. All right, so with that, thank you again for joining us Jerome out there in internet land. I thank you to everybody who tuned in. Remember to tune in next week at 10 a.m. Pacific at time in the official NZXT Discord server and follow at NZXT on all relevant social media. And don't forget to listen to previous episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and SoundCloud.

Also, if you would be so kind, please leave us a positive review. If you like what you're here, or even if you don't, it helps us. It helps you. It helps everybody. We can save the world one Google podcast review at a time. And with that, thank you guys. We'll talk you next time. Bye.