The Big Flop - Google Glass Half Empty with Leah Rudick and Rod Thill | 18

Episode Date: January 22, 2024

Back in 2013, Google’s top secret lab, Google X attempted to change the world with a computer you could wear on your face. The strange looking spectacles, Google Glass, promised a seamless way to experience the real and digital world in harmony. The product generated substantial buzz and adorned the famous faces of Oprah and King Charles, but safety and privacy concerns hounded the specs as they quickly became a symbol of Silicon Valley elitism - and gifting us with the iconic term “Glass holes”. Suffice it to say, not everyone viewed “Glass” as rose-colored, and it nearly tanked a division of Google.Comedian Leah Rudick (Spiraling, High Maintenance) and TikTok star Rod Thill join Misha to ask who's the real Glasshole in this story?Follow The Big Flop on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Big Flop early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to The Big Flop early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. On a mild Saturday at a lively bar in San Francisco, a woman walks in, hoping to get noticed for what she's wearing. Now, that's not unusual for a young person on a weekend in a bustling city. What's unusual is that she's wearing what appears to be a spy camera on her face. The mood shifts. The vibe dims. All eyes are on Sarah Slocum, age 34, a Google Glass Explorer. She's one of a handful of folks who've earned the privilege of paying

more than a thousand dollars to beta test the controversial spectacles slash wearable computers. the controversial spectacles slash wearable computers. But this is a bar, not a tech demo. And the locals aren't just rowdy. They now feel violated. They feel their privacy is being infringed. Patrons begin yelling at her. Sarah stands her ground and starts recording.

She captures a first-person perspective of her flipping people off. A man tries to grab her Google Glass off of her face. Profanities fly around like bullets in an old-timey saloon. The media can't get enough of this futuristic bar fight. Sarah becomes the emblematic glasshole, the rabid tech enthusiast pushing progress on a society unprepared. Because while Google Glass had once been a symbol of a glittery tech utopia, its future was in fact a glitchy pile of electronic scrap. Google coming out with a new type of glasses.

They will be streaming live information in front of your eyeballs. So now while you're driving, you can be checking your Twitter feed. I mean, as if Americans need another reason to be distracted. The person thought to be the first driver to get a ticket for wearing Google Glass has pleaded not guilty. Her defense? There is nothing illegal about simply wearing Google Glass while it is not turned down. Some are wondering if what happened to Sarah is part of an anti-tech backlash in San Francisco against giant tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Apple.

From Wondery and At Will Media, this is The Big Flop, where we chronicle the greatest flubs, fails, and blunders of all time. I'm your host, Misha Brown, social media superstar and the biggest glasshole on the internet at Don't Cross a Gay Man. And today, we're talking about a spectacle failure, Google Glass. Hello, I'm Emily and I'm one of the hosts of Terribly Famous, the show that takes you inside the lives of our biggest celebrities. And they don't get much bigger than the man who made badminton sexy. OK, maybe that's a stretch, but if I say pop star and shuttlecocks, you know who I'm talking about.

No? Short shorts? Free cocktails? Careless whispers? OK, last one. It's not Andrew Ridgely. Yep, that's right. It's Stone Cold icon George Michael.

From teen pop sensation to one of the biggest solo artists on the planet, join us for our new series, George Michael's Fight for Freedom. From the outside, it looks like he has it all. But behind the trademark dark sunglasses is a man in turmoil. George is trapped in a lie of his own making

with a secret he feels would ruin him if the truth ever came out. Follow Terribly Famous wherever you listen to your podcasts or listen early and ad-free on Wanderie Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. On our show today, we have Leah Rudick, comedian and star of her own comedy special called comedian and star of her own comedy special called Spiraling. And we have Rod Phil, comedian and creator of the Work Days newsletter. Welcome to the show. Thanks for having us.

Thank you. This is so great. I'm so excited to have both of you. You know, I get a lot of really great guests on, but I have followed both of you for a long time on social media. I love your version of workplace comedy, and I think you're both hysterical. So I am fangirling over here. Wow. Before we got on, I was just saying I'm fangirling. Leah's on the call.

Yeah. I know. I was also fangirling right back. This is like a great circle jerk. Yeah, exactly. So I guess before we start, I just want to gauge where we're at. What is your take on wearable tech? I mean, is it lame, harmful, the next step in human evolution?

What are we thinking? Listen, I lose a $7 pair of sunglasses that I bought from the gas station. So the fact that someone wants me to buy a pair of Ray-Bans that I can scroll my Facebook on is just hilarious to me. I'm terrified of it. It feels inevitable. I spend all day on my phone, and I understand why it would be useful to maybe take it out of my hand and just put it into my eyes.

But I don't want that. We all have an online presence, and I have all of my notifications turned off. Same. Besides email. Even my email. That. Besides like email. Even my email. Yeah.

That's just not great. I'm getting a Slack message. It's like, hey, we sent that four days ago. I'm like, oh, slipped through my fingers somehow. Oops. All right. We've all heard of Google. And if you haven't, you can always, you know. Google.

It all goes back to the early 90s when Larry Page and Sergey Brin to Stanford University students who loved internet data met up and realized they should start a billion-dollar company. You know, normal college student stuff. And these guys went on to develop their famous search engine, which led to ubiquitous apps like Gmail, Google Maps, and Chrome, to name just the ones you probably used this morning. By 2000, Google became the number one search engine in the world. And with 70% of global search requests, it still holds that title. Sorry, Bing. search requests, it still holds that title. Sorry, Bing. So here we are in 2010, and Google's founders, Larry and the hero of our story, Sergey, create Google X. Google X is a secret lab secluded

from the rest of the company. Engineers there work on many weird experimental technologies like driverless cars, AI, and other impossible-seeming things. And to find out what other strange concepts Google X has tried to develop, let's play a game. So here are the rules of this game. These days, it seems like everyone and their grandma has an innovation lab. So I'm going to read you the name of a concept and you guess if it's a Google X project or somebody else's moonshot. The first one, a personal jetpack. Google X or someone else? Someone else. I was going to say someone else. I just wanted you to say it first. I love that.

No, that one was actually Google. Really? It was Google, but this is not your seven-year-old imagination jetpack. Google wanted to build a personal jetpack, but it was too loud

and fuel inefficient, so they dropped it. Here's the next one. An elevator that would reach all the way to space. I'm gonna say Google. I'm gonna double down, someone else. Oh, well, Rod got this one. It was Google.

Wow. Yes, the internet search company took a good hard look at building an elevator to space, but ultimately decided they didn't have a strong enough material to build the tether out of. I feel like this is a red flag. Like if you were on a first date and someone was like, what are you working on building an elevator to space?

Like it's not even the fact that first of all, you're delusional, but second of all, the confidence is very much. Yeah. You're like, I need to use the bathroom and then you leave through the back door. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. All right.

Third one one a robot butler i'm gonna say someone else i'm gonna go for google google x i'm going to ask jeeves ask jeeves x that one was not google so a robot butler named astro was created by the Google X equivalent at Amazon, a place called Lab 126. Astro is an adorable robot butler that follows you around your apartment, but you can only purchase one by invitation. Oh. Yeah. I did get that invitation. I did not buy it, though.

Did you really? Yeah, I did get the invitation. It was like $1,000, I think. And it's a cute little robot, but my house has too many multi-levels that I thought it would be a waste. Why do I have FOMO? Like, why am I upset? I'm like, I'm really happy for you. All right. Last one. Teleportation. I could use that. Yeah. I just said this last night. Yeah. Google. This was Google. Believe it or not, they actually looked into whether they could make some Star Trek-style teleporters. The reason they stopped?

Apparently it broke several laws of physics, those pesky things. Yes. So, making the internet searchable was a good first step. Now, Sergey felt it was time to make the internet easier to integrate into our daily lives. And to his credit, Sergey speaks to something that a lot of people notice as smartphones become a larger part of our lives. speaks to something that a lot of people notice as smartphones become a larger part of our lives. We're all spending too much time fiddling with our portable computers and not enough time living life. So he draws up something close to the version of Glass that most people are familiar with. Very slim plastic, a metal frame camera, and a little scope. And here they are. It looks pretty advanced for 2012. Yeah. Well, for the user, images pop up just above the line of sight,

freeing the eyes, improving posture compared to using a phone, some might say. The sound is conducted through the bones in the skull, no need for headphones. And if you want to hear better, you just plug your ears. headphones. And if you want to hear better, you just plug your ears. So here's a clip of a TED talk where Sergei explains the rationale behind Google Glass. I mean, the cell phone is you have to look down on it and all that. But it's also kind of a nervous habit. You know, I whip this out and I, you know, sit there and look as if I have something very important to do or to attend to. There's nothing really that important or that pressing. And with this, I know I will get certain messages if I really need them, but I don't have to be checking them all the time. It's just horrific. He fully expects to pull wearing those.

He's like leveling up. Yeah. There's some deep insecurity that it's like, no. I mean, it just looks so silly. Yeah. I remember seeing Google Glass. I was working as a waitress in New York and this guy came in and he sat at the bar and he was so like confident and cocky and he looked so fucking dumb. And it was like, is this the future? I was so afraid that it would stick. And I was going to have to wear that. And I was going to have to date people who wore that. I was going to say date. Like, not even wear it. I have to date people.

You're sitting at dinner. It's like, hold on. Yeah. And it's just like, can you please not look at your Google Glasses during dinner? Yeah. I mean, speaking of dating, what do we think about the argument of Glass as the antidote to that, like, maybe nervous habits of checking your phone for unimportant messages. Is there an argument here that he's bringing up? But the problem is it feels even more out of your control now, right? Where it's just

like coming at you, at least with your phone. I mean, we all have the tick of just picking it up, but like we can at least turn it on airplane mode and put it in a different room. With this, it's just constant notifications and just like in your eyesight, it feels absolutely terrifying. Well, Google thinks the idea is intriguing and so they begin developing it. They even make a concept video about what life could be like for the average Google Glass user, showing them getting walking directions in New York City, picking a book out from The Strand, and setting a reminder to buy tickets for a band. Like, this is what life could be like for the average Google Glass user. So let's take a look.

It's giving a hug of games already. I remember seeing this. Hey there, guy. Hey there, little guy. Sweet. Remind me to buy tickets for Monsieur Gano tonight. Where's the music section? Oh, yes.

This is it. All right. So seeing that clip, I mean, does this seem particularly useful to you? I think if it was gifted to me, I would 100% be using this. Yeah. If it was in my hands, I would find it useful, to answer your question. As far as the directions go, it's a lot better than looking at my phone. And I think it is different than wearing a VR headset because you're fully immersed in it. You're still in the real world.

And I think they touched on that by him petting the dog and looking around, but it's like, oh, your train's delayed. You might want to walk. I think that's really helpful. But would that actually happen? You know, it's like, cause even sometimes Google maps is like your train's pulling up and then I'm sitting there for 15 minutes, you know? Yeah. My first thought watching it was like, oh my God, you're going to get hit by a car. But then it's like, actually it's probably easier to get hit by a car with your phone in your hand. Yeah, totally. So maybe Google Glass could have saved us all.

Could have. So we're for it, though. The Google Glass team squabbles over the prototype's features. The developers need more time to get it ready, and they urge Sergey that the product is still highly experimental. But Sergey and his marketing team decide, screw it, it's time to unveil our big secret and tell everybody what they've been working on. Seems rushed.

Seems dangerous. It's giving corporate America. It's like, no, I'm the CEO. I make the decisions. You know, it's like, we're not ready. It's giving hubris. It's giving hubris. It's giving Roman Empire. Seems like he's on the path for destruction.

Yes. Well, Sergei's confidence in unveiling glass before his engineers wanted to was in part due to his secret weapon, Amanda Rosenberg. 13 years younger than Sergei, Amanda grew up in the UK and went to the same school as Kate Middleton. She quickly rose through the ranks of Google to become the marketing manager for Google Glass and would become the friendly face of the technology. And she met with Sergey Brin's wife and mother of his kids to talk about how Glass could be useful to moms. She came up with the phrase, okay, Glass, which is the prompt you use to activate Glass's voice commands. So you would say something like, okay, Glass, take a

picture. I am leaned in. Yeah. I love her. I'm obsessed with her. She manipulated men. Yeah. Okay, Glass. I think this could be a character for you, Leah. I'm taking notes. Does this turn into a homewrecker story? It seems like this could get scandalous.

Well, we shall see. So in June of 2012, Google Glass is demoed in the most obnoxious or coolest way possible, depending on who you ask. At the Google I.O. conference, an annual meetup for fancy tech developers, skydivers wearing Google Glass call Sergey for a meeting. He tells them he needs his Google Glass back to show off to the audience. While streaming video from their Google Glasses, the guys parachute onto the roof of the venue. Then they deliver a package to stunt bikers who pass it off to climbers who then pass it off to more bikers. You know what? Let's watch a clip of the stunts finale as the bikers ride into the event hall where Sergey has been presenting the whole time.

Oh, my God. Don't run anybody over. It's already giving parkour. Yes. All right. The guy almost got nailed. Please stay in your seats, folks. Don't get into the aisles.

Please keep the aisles clear. Here they come up. Oh. Yeah. Woo. Look at that jump. Impressive. It would have been a lot cooler if it was Tony Hawk on a skateboard.

Yeah. I would have suddenly had respect for Google Glass. I would have been like, where can I get mine? Yeah. How was that cool? That was just like- It wasn't. Someone on a bike.

Nearly killing people. But I mean, I loved the woo. Faintly. Three people that were told you better cheer. They had like a warmup comic. Just be like, no, when the bikes go through, everyone has to go crazy. Warmup comic. Just be like, no, when the bikes go through, everyone has to go crazy. Warm-up comic. Woo!

Well, after this promo for Sergey, everything is going according to plan. People were calling him a real-life Tony Stark. Glass is a must-have gadget. All the coolest and smartest people in the world are wanting to try it. The New York Times calls Google Glass the next iPhone. Time Magazine calls Google Glass a best invention of the year. A savvy marketing manager like Amanda Rosenberg would clock the potential for it to be seen as a nerdy device and would know that perception could be the death of Google Glass. It's got to be cool.

How would you convince people that Glass isn't nerdy? That is the question of the year. I think I know too much about PR now. The first thing that I thought too is like, Gigi Hadid's wearing one. Harry Styles just like bops out in one appearance with them, takes a picture. Zendaya. Yeah. Put one on Margot Robbie. Oh, yeah. This Barbie wears a Google Glass. Like, yeah.

Yeah. Well, Amanda's answer to that question was, make it fashion. Right. So Rosenberg reaches out to people in high fashion to bridge the gap between tech-obsessed geeks, segue-riding millionaires, and cool fashionistas. Vogue gives Google Glass a 12-page spread. Amanda and Sergey team up with chic designer Diane von Furstenberg for her Spring 2013 show. That's an interesting pairing. Yeah. So Sergey loves the attention that Amanda has drummed up and even appears on the runway to take a bow himself.

Once the hype reaches critical mass in early 2013, the Explorer program is launched. This is the beta testing program nerds have been eagerly awaiting so they can try out Google Glass for themselves. Overall, 8,000 people are chosen to test Glass, but at their own expense. Members of the Explorer program have to shell out $1,500 for the prototype and also cover trips to a

training event at Google offices in New York, San Francisco, or Los Angeles. This just turned into a cult, and I'm even fully more bought in. Now we're in cult territory. I'm in. I'm in now. Even while Sergey Brin is telling everyone that Glass is hot, the people are beginning to doubt that it lives up to the hype. Everyday folks realize Google Glass is full of empty promises, and worse, is a social nuisance, and public opinion begins to shift, and we enter the era of the glasshole. We are the future. We are the future. Webster's, I mean, Wiktionary, defines the term glasshole as a person who wears spectacle frames equipped with PDAs, especially with cameras,

that display into the user's eyes and who acts like a jerk or films inappropriately. It is a blend of glasses, or specs, and asshole. I don't know if you guys have the Citizen app. Yeah. It shows you a crime or something that's happening around you. And it'll be like, be the first on the scene to like, your community needs you. I'm like, they're talking about a serious crime happening and they want just regular citizens to go and film it. That's what I'm imagining, is these people wearing these glasses and just be like, I'm going to be now like

the first reporter on the scene. And they're not even fully like in reality because they're wearing these glasses. It's very concerning that that's what could be happening. Yeah. I wonder if it had anything to do with who was chosen. Yeah. Because it feels like it was probably a lot of like tech bros. I feel like there was probably a lot of that. But following the launch of the Explorers program and high profile fashion collabs, you know, the write-ups focused on Google Glass and they begin taking on a mocking tone.

With its high price tag, exclusive vibes, people start to ignore Google Glass's potential and begin associating it with privilege. The white men wearing Google Glass Tumblr channels some of this sentiment. Is it like a thirst Tumblr account? Because that would be really funny. It's like people thirsting over pictures of One Direction members and then it's just men wearing Google Glass. Prince Charles, now king, is one of the white men featured on this blog. Of course he is. Yeah.

He loved it. Most news around Google Glass is which famous people are wearing them. Desmond Tutu, Wolfgang Puck, Oprah. Oprah got in there. Oprah, well, Oprah, you know, and it's like, we can't get mad at her. Sure, yeah. You know? Would you have any assumptions of a person if you saw them wearing those glasses in public?

Yeah. I wouldn't even see it as a class thing. I would just be like, they take themselves so seriously. Personally, we are just on such different wavelengths. I would not be able to hold a conversation with you. Yeah. This is a person who does not share my sense of humor. My sense of humor.

They think that we should all work on weekends. LinkedIn entrepreneur is what it's giving. Yeah. They take a lot of protein powder. Right to the noggin, not even mixing with water, just with their own spit. Yeah. Throwing it right down their gullet. Yeah, they snort protein powder.

Well, there was one woman, Sarah Slocum, who became famous for wearing Google Glass and getting into a bar fight. Here's a little news footage about the incident at Molotov's bar in San Francisco. Headlines call San Francisco Resentment City and say a widening income gap in Silicon Valley sparks anger and protests. Sarah Slocum may have encountered that resentment when she walked into the bar at 1.30 in the morning. Sarah got so upset at the reaction to her Google Glasses, she cursed and flipped off the bar patrons. Why didn't you just take the glasses off and say, no problem?

I was upset, and I wanted to get them on video. There's your answer. I would see her at the bar and be like, I don't want to talk to you. And then this would happen and be like, we're best friends now. I love her. Like people were making fun of you. And she's like, I got this. She is the one Google Glassware who just earned my respect. Yeah, same. Also a bar with that name. It's designed for fights. That's the first thing I saw. It was Molotovs. Yeah. Well, Slocum's confrontation still happens under the Explorers program.

In May of 2014, Google Glass enters a more open beta phase and goes on sale to the public, still for the incredibly steep price of $1,500 a pair. Oh boy. Now that you can buy Glass directly, it becomes clear that the fantasy of this futuristic technology and the reality aren't lining up. From this point on, it's pretty much all downhill for Google. Every day, a new concern pops up.

What about copyright infringement, like at a concert or a film? Well, Google Glass is banned from movie theaters in the UK for that exact reason. What about public safety? Will people's attention be too fractured to perform everyday tasks? Multiple legislators begin prohibiting drivers from using Google Glass. I mean, imagine the dual traffic nightmare of a driver and a Tesla who's also wearing Glass. Yeah. I think even like if we're looking at social media now, I'm sure we both, all three of us experience

this like parasocial situation, you know, that's going on with like people feeling like your life is theirs. I feel like that would even further that mentality because you're fully immersed in someone else's experience and what they're seeing, not what they're posting, not what they're deciding to post real time, what they're actually seeing if they decided to post a video. Yeah, it's really troubling. We just got real serious. Literally, like a couple weeks ago, one of my followers saw me walking my dogs and followed me to my house and knocked on my front door. No, no, no, no. Are you serious?

And then was very upset with me when I asked her to leave. Oh my God. That's so terrifying. Yeah. So I mean, like you can definitely understand like privacy and safety concerns, but those privacy and safety concerns aside, the product, it's now in the spotlight. And how is it received? Well, let's listen to one reviewer. We'd rather spend time recommending good stuff than tell you what not to buy. But I'm going to make an exception for Google Glass because I honestly believe it is the single worst product I've ever experienced. And I'm pretty sure it'd be a terrible mistake for the

vast majority of you to buy one. So I'm going to start telling you why. That reviewer goes on to say, quote, you can go to Walmart and spend $99 on a cheap Android tablet and it will literally do everything better than your $2,000 Google Glasses. What a takedown. He also looks like exactly like the person who would wear Google Glass. So users claim the battery life is too short. Glass can't record video for very long. It's even said that Google Glass heats up or slips off.

Oh, boy. So, ouch. Sergey's probably not feeling great with these reviews coming in. If you were Sergey Brin, what would you do at this point to save Glass? What he's giving me is Elon Musk a little bit, where he was probably like, you know what? It's for the people that want it. You know, it's like for a specific kind of person. Like he's very unapologetic.

He's doubling down. He's raising the price. He's like tripling the price. Yeah. He's making people come to more training sessions. He's getting more bicyclists. He's making people come to more training sessions. He's getting more bicyclists.

Now, Leah, I've been anxiously awaiting this moment in the story. This next part's specifically for you. In August of 2013, things aren't going great for Sergei anymore. I mean, he's still a billionaire, but it becomes public knowledge that he and his wife have split up. Remember Amanda Rosenberg, the marketing whiz behind Google Glass's hype, former classmate of Kate Middleton, Sergei's secret weapon? Well, there's something I have to tell you. Turns out Sergei's relationship with her isn't confined to the boardroom. It's revealed that Sergei's split is related to an affair he's having with Amanda. Oh my God, I called it.

I can always sniff out a homewrecker story. I think, does Amanda Rosenberg secretly work for Bing? She's like the PR, she's like, we're going to get this good PR. It flops. She's like, Anne, I'm going to ruin your life, Sergey. And it's around this time Google Glass shuts down its website and announces the Glass prototype will no longer be available or supported. Google is cagey about the financials of Google Glass, but estimates show that the secret moonshot division of the company Google X loses over $900 million in 2015

alone. Wow. But it's Google, so they're not ready to throw in the towel yet. They figure maybe they can make it work. So how long would you guess they kept working on Google Glass? This was in 2015. I would say 2018. They may still be working on it. Close. They were working on it up until 2023. A new pair of developers take charge of the product, a jewelry designer, and the creator of Google Nest. They promise no more splashy PR until the new product is actually finished. And they relaunch in 2017 with an enterprise version marketed towards businesses. It worked for a while, especially for sectors that benefit from hands-free tech, such as healthcare and manufacturing. But in March of 2023, the Glass Enterprise Edition is also discontinued.

Google's misadventure in wearable face computers is officially over. Wow. On the Big Flop, we do like to, you know, be positive. So are there any like silver linings that you could think of? I think it's just like, I've worked for a bunch of startups and you don't know unless you try. And they really did try. Google's also not a startup.

And I'm a little shocked that they launched it before being fully ready with how big of a company they were and how successful of a company they are. It's just interesting to watch them very publicly flop after having a 12-page spread in Vogue. And they know now to really flesh things out and maybe not hire stunt bike riders for their next company retreat.

I think the silver lining is that hopefully it staved off us having to wear something like that for a little while longer. Also, a woman manipulated a billionaire, I think is the real silver lining. That is the real silver lining. Amanda is the hero of the story. So let's do a little Where Are They Now. Sergey retired from Google in 2019, but Plot Twist is back in the saddle to work on AI as of 2023. He would be.

Oh, boy. Amanda and Sergey, they split up. Oh. Yeah, funnily enough, Amanda is currently a comedy writer, and she writes about her struggle with mental illness, her time at Google, and being a mom. Wow. I'm trying to find the pipeline.

I gotta get that. Yeah, Leah, maybe you should do a reverse. Maybe I'm gonna run into Sergey at a holiday party. I'm imagining you wearing like a black bob wig, you know, like a slime. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Tech on your face, that's not dead yet. In 2023, Apple announced their Apple Vision Pro

headset with a price tag of $3,500. And where are they now? Not sure if you noticed, but Google hasn't gone anywhere. They sure have not. They sure haven't. Ask Cheese, on the other hand. So now that you both know about Google Glass, would you consider this a baby flop, a big flop, or a mega flop? I think a big flop for me. Yeah. I think a mega flop would have been if Google went under.

I think it's somewhere in between a big and a mega. I mean, Google didn't go down, so in that way it can't be a full mega flop. But it feels like there was such a crazy hype up in the media, like getting all of that crazy press. What a beautiful downfall from there. Yeah. Well, thank you so much to my two guests, Rod Phil and Leah Rudick for joining us here on The Big Flop. And thanks to all of you for listening. We'll be back next week with one of the most prolific floppers of all time. Brother. That's right. I'm talking about Hulk Hogan and his many business misadventures.

Bye. Bye. Bye. If you like The Big Flop, you can listen early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. from Tina Turner. Written by Anna Rubinova. Engineered by Andrew Holtzberger. Our managing producer is Molly Getman.

Our executive producers are Kate Walsh and Will Malnati for At Will Media. Legal support by Carolyn Levin of Miller, Korzenik, Summers, and Raymond. Producers for Wondery are Matt Beagle and Grant Rudder. Senior story editor is Phyllis Fletcher. Managing producer is Joe Florentino. Music Supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Frizzin' Sink. Our theme song is Sinking Ship by Cake.

And Executive Producers are Lizzie Bassett, Morgan Jones, and Marshall Louis for Wondery. We are on a sinking ship. We are on a sinking ship.