The Big Flop - HQ Trivia: Gone in a Glitch with Karen Chee & Alice Wetterlund | 11

Episode Date: November 6, 2023

HQ Trivia was the revolutionary gameshow app that briefly took over the world. Millions of people across the globe tuned in for the chance win money from host and resident "Quiz Daddy", Scott Rogowsky. However, not even celebrity guests like Dwayne Johnson could save HQ from its ultimate demise: a secretly twisted workplace environment full of lies, drugs, harassment and…salad controversies?! Comedians Alice Wetterlund (Silicon Valley, Resident Alien) and Karen Chee (Late Night with Seth Meyers) join Misha to chronicle the stunning, quizzical crash of HQ Trivia.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. Ever thought your boss might be a sociopath? Have you ever wished you could say it to his face? How about to the entire world? Well, in 2020, that's exactly what comedian Scott Rogowski does on Twitter. He tells the world that his former boss, Russ Yusupov, is a clinical sociopath. Rogowski spent years working as the host for Yusupov's viral trivia app, HQ. He built a cult following, but he wasn't able to save HQ. And for Rogowski, HQ's last chapter was his last straw. In the tweet, he says the app was poisoned by a lethal cocktail of incompetence, arrogance, short-sightedness, and sociopathic delusion.

It's an epic call-out. And as the world watches, jamming fistfuls of popcorn into their mouths, Yusupov responds to Rogowski with one single petty word. Hugs. How did they get here? To this virtual showdown over the virtual ashes of a once-viral trivia app? It's the final chapter in a saga that started as literal fun and games and ends in one big public flop and a very sloppy, floppy final show. Very sloppy, floppy final show. First of all, it's just the allure of trivia,

which has been around since the early radio days, and the allure of winning money. It's always popular. You know, you're doing this thing, it becomes super popular, you're recognized everywhere and all that, and then it doesn't last forever. Not gonna lie, this fucking sucks.

This is the last HQ ever. We are on a sinking ship. 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 quiz daddy for the day at Don't Cross a Gay Man. And today we're talking about the implosion of the trivia app HQ. 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. Here to help me tell the tale of HQ's demise is comedian and writer Karen Chee. Hello! And comedian and actress Alice Wetterlund, host of the podcast Mostly Fans, who played Carla Walton on the sitcom Silicon Valley, and who you can see on SyFy's Resident Alien. Hey, guys. I'm so excited to have you both here. Welcome to you. Well, thank you very much.

Welcome to you. Well, thank you very much. So Alice, how do you feel about trivia? I have no real attachment to trivia, but if trivia is presented to me, it is yet another arena in which I can be competitive. I love that. I can relate to that. I do like a trivia night. I think that's very fun. So Karen, do you remember HQ Trivia? Yes. So when I got the email about this podcast, I was like, that's so weird. I don't know why this sounds familiar to me.

And I searched it in my inbox. And I had an email saying if I wanted to send in an audition tape to be one of the hosts for HQ Trivia. And I saw my old email replying like, thank you so much. I'm not interested. And I don't know why I wasn't because I was just like, this looks like a sweet gig. Like, I don't know why I said no, but it was dated like April, 2019. Okay. I don't know anything about it. I actually, it's not familiar to me. So you can be as illustrative in your explanation of what it is. Well, just like any good juicy tech flop,

this story begins with its founders. So Russ Yusupov and Colin Kroll are tech bros and business partners. But that's basically where the similarities end. Love the pronunciation. Funk, y'all. So it's this classic like opposites attract situation. Kroll is an engineer, the pragmatic one, a shy guy. Like think Michael Cera would play him in

a movie, you know? And Yusupov is flashy. He's creative, maybe a little untethered. Like in an interview with Adweek, he says he loves, quote, everything about himself and describes himself as an Elon Musk fanboy. So if that gives you a sense of Yusupov. Double red flag. It's a red flag factory. So if I think Michael Cera would play Kroll, who do we think would play Yusupov based on that description? Like Elon Musk. Exactly, Karen.

Acting debut. Yeah, I can't imagine anyone being that annoying. As different as these two gentlemen were, they somehow make it work. And in 2012, they create an app called Vine and sell it to Twitter for $30 million. Oh my gosh. Wow. So anyone at home listening that doesn't remember or didn't know Vine, it was an app where creators made these short looping videos.

And they sold it before that app even launched. So now Yusupov and Kroll are hot shots in the tech world. But uh-oh, Twitter shuts down Vine completely. And Yusupov posts this pouty tweet that says, quote, don't sell your company. But don't despair for our Musk-loving hero, because Vine still earns Yusupov and Kroll some serious cred. And in 2016, they get millions of dollars in venture capital money to make something new. And the first project they make is an app called Hype. Hype was a platform with tools to help creators put on live shows, which at the time was actually a super new idea. So then they have this epiphany. And why be the stage when you could be the show, an interactive show? So they first call it Hype Quiz, but they shorten that to HQ.

Get it? H for hype, Q for quiz. And it's a game show for your phone. I still think there's a problem with the name. Like, would you have guessed that HQ stood for Hype Quiz? Because I'm thinking headquarters. No, not at all. Headquarters. It already stands for something. You can't just be like, BS, you know, Ben Schwartz. It's not what BS stands for.

That's kind of good, and I think he should run with that. Yeah. So they want this show to be just as good as game shows on TV, but for your phone. But everyone knows that a game show is only as good as its host. So now they have to find their Alex Trebek. Now, if this were a movie, we would cut interior, a hideous New York apartment. We'd see close-ups of a weary man with packing tape, sealing up moving boxes. On the table, we'd see a one-way plane ticket to LA.

Next to the plane ticket, we'd see a phone light up on the table. And we'd pull back to see none other than Scott Rogowski looking at that text. It's from his friend, asking if he'd like to audition for some new game show app. Karen, was that your experience? Were you just like in this desolate apartment, ready to move on, quit the biz altogether? No, Karen was like in Palm Springs living it up. She was like, I don't need this shit. Just cashing checks.

Yeah, I was in the middle of a pool, floating in money. Yeah. So Scott's an actor. He's in his early 30s. He's got eyelashes so thick you could clean a car with them. Eyes so bright and blue you could use them for headlights. He sounds like a car. The Hyundai Rogowski. Well, Hyundai was literally about to move from New York to LA. Like, he's given up his apartment and everything, but he figures, what the hell? What's one last audition?

So he throws on a ratty sweatshirt and rolls into the HQ studio, and he just knocks it right out of the park. Within a month, they're like, you got the job. Now, right from the get-go, Scott notices some things feel off. Kroll and Yusupov don't seem to like each other. There's also the question of the business plan. I mean, it's normal for a new app to lose money at the start,

but by definition, a game show means giving away money too. And yes, HQ plans to give actual money away. Amazing. Right. Do you think this is like normal things to spot working in a new company? I mean, in tech, it's huge sums of money. And a lot of the like so-called geniuses, air quotes are literally like populating the screen right now, if you're listening at home, air quotes-called geniuses, air quotes are literally populating the screen right now

if you're listening at home. Air quotes everywhere, geniuses, are like children and they throw tantrums and it's part of their allure is that they have these weird personalities. So I guess you encounter people who've had success before and they're really volatile in person and you're like, I guess that's part of it.

Maybe that's a good thing. Yeah. Alice, I know what you mean because I have no idea how a tech company is supposed to work, so I could see anything happening that's toxic and be like, that seems like tech. Right, exactly. And I wouldn't think that that was wrong. I feel unsafe. Here's my money. Nobody's showered in days and people are overworked. I'd be like, sounds like a normal tech job. Nobody's showered in days and people are overworked.

I'd be like, sounds like a normal tech job. Well, Scott agrees with both of you because he's just like, okay, let's just roll with it. And he stays. So in August of 2017, they launch. And here's how the game works. They broadcast live from New York every day, 9 p.m. every night and an extra game at 3 p.m. on weekdays. Oh my god. And players are notified when they're about to go live with a push notification. So there are 12 multiple choice questions. You have 10 seconds to answer. If you get just one

question wrong, you're out. If you answer all 12 questions correctly, you could win some actual money. All of the winners split the prize pool, which totals a few thousand dollars. Okay. Wow. I already feel like I'm competing. I'm like, okay, let's do this. Well, then here's a little quiz for you. When HQ launches, do you think people, A, hate it, B, like it, or C, love it? Love it? I'm going to go with you, Karen. We it, or C. Love it? Love it? I'm going to go with you, Karen. We're going to go with love it.

Yes, people love it. Yes. So for the 15 minutes the show is on, it takes over people's lives. I mean, they're pulling out their phones at restaurants. People stop working. Businesses are grinding to a halt. It is 15 minutes where everyone's staring at their phones. Wow. a halt. It is 15 minutes where everyone's staring at their phones. And by November,

HQ is on Time's list of the top 10 apps for 2017. Wow. Interesting. It was literally number one. It even beat out Google Maps. I can't believe we don't remember this app better. Where was I? I know exactly where I was. What was I doing in 2017 and not getting free money? I don't know. Were you on Google Maps trying to find your way to where everybody else was? That's what I did. I spent all of that year on Google Maps. Oh, it's fingers are twitching as the countdown begins.

Yeah. And who's there to greet them at the end of every countdown? Scott Rogowski. And people loved him. They call him Quiz Daddy. And he calls them HQTs. Cute. Parasocial perfection. I die. That's so cute. Questions also started relatively easy, like what does a panda eat? Skittles, bamboo, or corn? Skittles. When given the choice. But they do get harder and harder. And now we're going to play the game.

I'm going to ask you some questions, and these are real questions from the app, and we're rounded up by Refinery29. Okay. And we're rounded up by Refinery29. Okay. First question. Which of these Robin Williams movies is based on a novel? A. Mrs. Doubtfire. B. Dead Poets Society. Or C. Good Morning Vietnam.

Karen, do you want to work together again? Yeah. Alice, I think it's Good Morning Vietnam, right? Yeah, yeah. Okay, C. No! Immediately eliminated. No monies. The answer is actually Mrs. Doubtfire. What? That's a good question. That's a great question. Next question. Which of these cities has the biggest bike share program? Is it A, Paris, B, Amsterdam, or C, New York?

You think it's Amsterdam? You think it's Amsterdam? I think it's Amsterdam. But what if it's a trick question? Because we think Amsterdam, everybody's on a bike, but they have their own bikes. Maybe. Okay, that's a great point. Also, Alice, I was totally wrong on the last question. Go with your gut.

I'll go with you. I was going to say Paris. Okay, let's do that. Sweet, thank God. Yay! It was Paris. And for that one, most people did pick Amsterdam. Bravo, thank God. It was Paris. And for that one, most people did pick Amsterdam. Bravo, bravo.

All right, third one. This Asian delicacy known as bird's nest soup is made primarily from what? A, bird's nests, B, fried noodles, or C, shredded cabbage. I just feel like shredded cabbage would look like a bird's nest, and that seems like why they would call it that. But I think it's fried noodles because it makes it crispy, you know what I mean? Like a branch. It looks like twigs. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it's harder to do that with cabbage is my guess. Oh my gosh. I don't know. My instincts keep being wrong. My instinct was shredded cabbage. We should alternate instincts. Okay, Misha being wrong. My instinct was shredded cabbage. We should alternate instincts. Okay, Misha, we're going to do shredded cabbage. Damn it, no.

Actual answer is actual bird's nests. Oh, wow. None of us are right. So we were both wrong. Just both wrong. You know what? It seems like we didn't know about HQ trivia in 2017 because we just kept getting everything wrong and then erased it from our memory. Yeah. The app's getting so big that Yusupov and Kroll start hiring more people,

and HQ balloons from 10 people to almost 50. Wow. Rogowski starts getting swarmed in public. I mean, almost 50. Rogowski starts getting swarmed in public. I mean, everyone wants a piece of Quiz Daddy. And he starts getting tons of interview and photo shoot requests. And he forwards them along to Yusupov to coordinate. But weirdly enough, those interviews never materialize. Yusupov just sits on them. Because he's an Elon fan, which means that he wants to be the center of attention, not Quiz Daddy. Well, remember we did say that Yusupov is a showy guy and Rogowski has this sense that he's jealous of all of the attention that he's getting. So a friend of a friend reaches out directly to Rogowski about doing an interview for the Daily Beast. And he's like, you know what? What's the harm? So he goes ahead and he has an interview with the journalist Taylor Lorenz. And even Lorenz

describes this as a puff piece. She says it might be one of the nicer profiles she's ever written, which like that's a gift. That's nice. Yeah. So they talk about his career. They talk about his love of sweet green salads. Easy breezy. Amazing. And she plans to run the piece with the title, The Next Huge App Star is a Man with Great Eyelashes Who Lives with His Parents. So we're back to the eyelashes. Yeah.

But before she publishes the story, Lorenz sends an email to Yusupov for due diligence in case he has anything to add. An ad he does. Oh no. So something very, very weird happens. She gets an email back from Yusupov saying they're not making Scott available to discuss his involvement with HQ with the media slash press. Oh my gosh. So Lorenz writes back to say that the interview's already been done, and then she gets a call from Yusupov. So The Ringer did a series on HQ, and I want you to hear Taylor tell the story herself. Have a listen.

As soon as I'm like, hi, I'm Taylor Lorenz, he's like, you are absolutely not authorized to speak to Scott. What the hell do you think you're doing? And he starts screaming at me, like screaming at me, like ranting and going crazy, like right off the bat, like expletive, expletive, expletive. What? Oh my God.

Wait, I don't understand why this is so awful for him though. Not only that, Yusupov tells Taylor they will fire Scott if she runs the article. Isn't that really strange? Like, we won't come after you, we'll go after Scott? Yes. It's almost like they were looking for a reason to fire him. Yes. Well, guess what? They run the interview anyway, and they give it a new juicy title. Yes. CEO of HQ, the hottest app going, quote, if you run this profile, we'll fire our host, end quote. Fantastic. That's a far cry from the nice little eyelash headline.

But also, how disappointed are you going to be if you see that headline and then the only thing you read about that guy is that he loves sweet cream? Well, they run everything that Yusupov said to Lorenz, including the threat to fire Rogowski. Wow. And his little army of HQDs is horrified, And people start posting messages of solidarity like, free Scott. Wow. So Yusupov tries to do damage control. And he tweets this weird-ass apology to Scott and Taylor showing him with Scott while he eats a salad. We have a photo of that tweet to show you. Oh, wow.

Oh, no. For everyone at home, could you describe the picture? So Russ has placed him, it's like a selfie, right? So he's using his hand to take a selfie and poor Scott Rogowski has a piece of lettuce hanging out of his mouth. Then we've got Russ in the front who's taking the picture. and poor Scott Rogowski has a piece of lettuce hanging out of his mouth. Then we've got Russ in the front who's taking the picture.

So he's in front and he's making this sort of sheepish face like, my bad. Yeah, that's it. There's people in the background, but you know, I'm obsessed with this now. So let me read the caption of this tweet. Quote, who's a cliche? Stressed out startup founder? Answer, me, at Scott Rogowski and at Taylor Lorenz. Sorry for being a jerk. Lunch sometime at Sweetgreen is great. Wow. They're just sitting there with like half a piece of lettuce hanging out of his mouth. This tweet has a strange amount of likes where it says 707, which is like, I imagine it would either have 11 or like 5,000.

Do you know what I mean? That's true. Like who actually cared about this? Not that many people. Well, Scott is caught off guard and his trust in Yusupov is further shaken, but there is one benefit to this whole mess, and that is publicity. Oh. So more and more people start tuning into HQ. I mean, people flood the app, which was already glitchy. Oh. And the glitches get much, much worse.

Of course they do. I mean, the screen is freezing. People are getting eliminated by accident. Oh, no. Oh, wow. So not the screen is freezing. People are getting eliminated by accident. Oh, no. Oh, wow. So not the best user experience. But as the engineer, Kroll is the one on damage control when the servers crash. So he wants to slow things down, fix them, build new features and new games with a solid foundation. Yes.

But Yusupov is just trying to make the game bigger and bigger. He talks about wanting to give away million-dollar prizes. Wow. So a little poll before we continue. Are we Team Yusupov or Team Krull in this situation? I think I'm Team Scott. Is that allowed? Team Scott. Yeah, situation? I think I'm Team Scott. Is that allowed? Team Scott.

Yeah, right. Alice and I are Team Scott. What if I was like Team Russ all the way, baby? Move fast, break things. We're like wearing a shirt. Just Russ's face like, yeah. Yeah. We're like, whoa, Alice.

Well, things start to get a little weird here. So even though HQ is adored, their fundraising attempts are falling super flat. Now you're probably like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. If HQ is the number one app, why are they having so much trouble raising money? And it turns out because of a little secret that they have. Oh, no. Oh, no. So their time at Twitter has come back to haunt them. Yusupov may have been let go in a traditional layoff, but apparently Kroll was fired because he made his female colleagues uncomfortable. No. According to an article on Fox.com.

Oh, my gosh. You tried to entrap us into a Kroll versus Russ. And I see you, and we chose Scott. And you sure did. So for context, right, this is all happening in 2017, right in the thick of hashtag Me Too and the Harvey Weinstein debacle. Right. What if I was like, I haven't heard of that.

Yeah, I'm like, what's, sorry. I'm so sorry. Could you elaborate? So like this coming out at this time is like not great for the company. I mean, I guess the most shocking thing is that the Elon Musk-esque guy hasn't also made female employees uncomfortable.

Jury's out, babes. Yeah. Or he just worked with only men at Twitter. Yeah. Well, apparently Yusupov is furious about Kroll's baggage. And because of the bad press, the board agrees that Yusupov should step up. Wow. And Kroll should retreat from the spotlight. Wow. And Kroll should retreat from the spotlight. So it's a little convenient for Yusupov,

and Kroll texts his friends that he thinks that Yusupov might have leaked the tip himself. Oh, my God. Back to scandal. That's quite an allegation. This is nothing new to me. I mean, having been on Silicon Valley and exposed to that world, like, you know in Silicon Valley the character I played is based on a real person. Oh, really?

I met her. Oh. And we became friends. So I have an in to the world of actual tech entrepreneurship. And there's a lot of children. There's a lot of very, very emotionally and mentally immature people. So that's, I think think what's going on yeah there's no real incentive for anybody in tech to act morally i think too and i wonder if that's a problem is like people who are drawn to that aren't people who are

questioning like am i doing the right thing like is this good for people yeah so those are those two but thankfully for like the quiz daddy fans everywhere, they were able to raise $15 million from Founders Fund. Oh my gosh. Wow. For a $100 million valuation. Okay. Even with all of this in the background. Wow. At this point, the number of HQDs is continuing to grow, and the games are getting more attention,

like an extra flashy New Year's show with even more prize money, which still crashes, by the way. But there's another problem. Copycats start to pop up. That's right. So if you're a newly minted CEO Yusupov, what would you do in response? Hmm. I guess sue them? The copycats? Yeah, right? Yeah. I mean, I might just like focus on like making mine user-friendly and not crash.

Misha, you're responsible and kind. That's what I would do. Yeah. Yusupov just keeps pouring money down the same glitchy hole, spending money on celebrity guests and production value. He even starts doubling prize money. They go from $2,500 in daily prize money to $5,000 a game. Sunday games are a whopping $25,000. So their business model is to give away money and have no ads,

which is not a great business plan. So they start making money the only way they can, with sponsorship deals and celebrity guest hosts like this one. Have a listen. Here we go. The trailblazing, eyebrow-raising, jabroni-beating, pie-eating, people's champion, Dwayne The Rock Johnson. How was that? I think I just wet myself. That was amazing. No. The Rock, he has such a big career. No.

Why is he doing this? He wasn't the only one. They had other notable people like Robert De Niro, Danny DeVito. What? Yeah. Mark Cuban. They even got Elmo. Do you know what's in Elmo's rider? Come on.

Okay. Wow. Good Elmo joke. So these sponsored games, they seem like they should be a win-win for HQ. So when The Rock hosts, over 2 million people tune in, and the winners get almost $4,000 each instead of just splitting the usual pool. And Yusupov is probably like, all right, we're doing it. Oh, no. But in May of 2018, the number of HQDs starts to dip. And yes, the glitches are a problem.

But even more importantly, it's been the same old HQ for almost a year at this point. Right. Eventually, people start to get bored. So Yusupov adds features like the ability to buy more lives and stay in the game for longer. But there isn't like a vision behind it, so it doesn't seem to do much. So let's put ourselves into the shoes of an HQ investor. How are you feeling at this point? Are we going to continue to pump money into this or no? Absolutely not. No. Me and Alice are withdrawing our funds. Well, in August of 2018, they sunset the 3 p.m. game. Oh, no. And they

had also briefly started international games in the UK, Germany, Australia, most of which they also sunset. Now, no one is more worried about HQ than Rogowski. I mean, he is the quiz daddy. And daddy does not love his dwindling HQD numbers. So quiz daddy reached out to the other board members and tattles on boss daddies. Right. Everything he's observed. So in the summer of 2018, the board is like, Yusupov, what the heck are you even doing? Stop chucking cash out the window. And by the end of that meeting, it was settled. Yusupov is out and Kroll is the new CEO.

So Yusupov hates this. And he even tried to get Scott to jump in as CEO instead. Whoa! But the board's like, no, we'll go with the guy who made women feel uncomfortable, thanks. Yeah, cool, cool, cool, classic tech move. Yeah. So they agreed to make it sound like a mutual decision. And they even have Kroll talk to a reporter about how great they're doing. Like, check out our $10 million of revenue thanks to HQ Trivia's sponsored games.

Look at how much less glitchy we are. We're launching some new spinoff games. Shut up, don't ask questions about power struggles here. At the very least, they could now focus on the priorities for the company, which finally included making brand new games. And the first one up is HQ Words, which was kind of like Wheel of Fortune. So it seems like they're starting to get a chance to start over. But of course, trouble is on the horizon. So another Vox article comes out spilling a Buckingham Palace's worth of tea, not only does it report that Yusupov is basically ousted, it also shared that there is a brand new HR complaint against Kroll.

No. Yes. You could knock me over with a feather. I'm so shocked. Yeah. I know. What? If you get zero to no consequences the first time, it's almost as if you'll do the same thing again.

I gotta make some phone calls. Hold on, Alice is exploding. There was an investigation which ultimately cleared Kroll, but it's just more chaos for the HQ employees. And once again, there was speculation that Yusupov was somehow behind that report. Oh, wow. I mean, what do we imagine it was like to even work there at this point?

I like to not imagine. Yeah, I would like to not. Thank you. I'd like to keep my sanity. Yeah. Everyone at HQ, they tried to put their best foot forward and build out this new project called HQ Words. And then tragedy strikes. Mid-December, just days after the company holiday party, Colin Kroll dies of a drug overdose.

What? The holiday party. Oh, wow. Lord. And most people in the company had no idea that he even struggled with substances at all. Oh my gosh. But everyone at the company is devastated. And instead of a game that night,

Rogowski eulogizes Kroll on the app and they donate the prize money to the Humane Society. That's really nice. Yeah, that's nice. Yeah. So Yusupov becomes interim CEO. But Scott Rogowski is like, not over my beautiful shampooed eyelashes.

So he starts leading this small rebellion amongst employees, even gets a bunch of them to sign a letter that they want to present to the board. But before anything gets too crazy, the board announces that they've decided to finally look for a new CEO. And in the meantime, HQ will be run by a three-part executive team, including Yusupov and two colleagues, basically turning HQ into a college group project. It's struggling. We got to kill it. It's really gross at this point. It does feel like every single person they turn to for help is also bad at their job or bad to other employees. Yeah, because Karen, if you were at this company and

either of us would have been like, if we were offered a gig within this company, we'd have been like, no, I'm an adult. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyone surrounding this world is also sus because why would you involve yourself? Yes, 100%. Well, Rogowski agrees with you and he felt like HQ is on borrowed time. I mean, they're down millions of HQDs to about 300,000 of them. Oh, wow. And then in March of 2019, he gets a new job

interview as a host for a sports streaming service. Now, Scott's had to miss HQ shows before, and other hosts have stepped in to cover him when he was gone. But he is still the original Quiz Daddy. So instead of just wanting to leave completely, he asks if he can just host the big Sunday show. But Yusupov says no. He doesn't even let Rogowski have a goodbye show.

He's basically just out. Whoa. And that's when Karen got her audition. And that's when I took HQ and drove it into the ground. Yeah. Thought twist. So to be clear, the new host, Matt Richards, is also popular. He used to fill in for Rogowski. Okay. Then they make some updated features in the game. And they do launch a new show called HQ After Dark, co-hosted by Anna Roisman and Matt Richards, and launch a bunch more HQ games, including HQ Tunes, HQ Sports, and HQ Jokes.

Oof. What do you think HQ Jokes was? Is it like somebody with a setup and then you have to write in the punchline? Oh, that'd be kind of cool. Oh, that one's kind of fun. I should start an app. You should be a tech CEO. Yeah.

Turns out it was a live comedy show where players can rate comedians' jokes in real time, and the best rated comedian wins. Wow. A horrible idea. Karen, would you have accepted that offer to have been one of the comedians? No, that sounds so scary and sad. That's a nightmare. Yeah. That sounds so scary and sad.

That's a nightmare. So then Yusupov calls everyone into an emergency all-hands meeting, and he tells them that a potential sale of the company fell through. The investment money has dried up, and HQ is over. Nice. I'm, like, relieved. Just a few hours later, all HQdies receive a push notification. No. That reads, HQ is live. Just kidding. We're off air indefinitely.

HQdies, it's been a blast. Thanks for playing. Oh, wow. Thankfully, they do rally and put together one last game of HQ after dark. It was a drunken, delightful send-off where Anna Roisman and Matt Richards slur their way through questions and try to guess as to whether there's any actual prize money to be had.

Richard says he's going to pay winners $5 from his own pocket. That's very sweet. They even pop open a bottle of champagne that Yusupov had bought for a special occasion. Take a listen to Matt and Anna. We got this in case we hit three million players. Should we open it?

It's already shaken up. I got it off the shelf and the entire bottle fell on my head. Listen, I, what? Oh, so it's going to get all over me? I found out today. Where were you when you found out? I was sitting on my couch, actually, and I received a text from Rob. Found out from Rob and then CNN. That sounds amazing. Rogowski fires off a savage tweet accusing Yusupov on sociopathic delusion and incompetence,

to which Yusupov just responds, hugs. Oh, no. Petty as hell, but not nearly as petty as Rogowski's reply back, which was, Russ, you are a clinical sociopath. As much as the HQ employees didn't care for your leadership, which twice drove the company into the ground, we care about you as a fellow human. Please seek treatment from a mental health professional and get the help you need. Hugs indeed. Hugs indeed is an amazing bumper sticker. For a friend in need, hugs indeed.

Another business idea for Karen. Yeah, I'm getting a lot of money off of this podcast. Thank you so much. And with that drunken live stream and that petty tweet, the HQ era had officially come to a close. Since November of 2022, the only trace of HQ is in the angry tweets from people asking about where their prize money is. Oh no.

And if there are any more games planned. And so let's do a little where are they now. Yusupov doesn't seem to be doing anything new as of yet. But in 2022, his boy Elon Musk took a poll as to whether or not Vine should come back. So who knows? Maybe a new collab? Rogowski has a vintage clothing store called Quiz Daddy's Closet in LA. No way. What kind of vintage clothing?

Like from his own closet? I'm going today. I'm going today. So also here at The Big Flop, we love to end on silver linings, right? So the silver linings that we thought of was like, a lot of people had fun on the game when it wasn't glitching. The interactive graphic stuff was pretty cool. Kind of a predecessor to TikTok stories and other types of things. Do you have any silver linings that you could think of?

I was just thinking about what a innovation it is to have something that is live, but is also like a semi-scripted format that is something that people tune into without a streaming platform. It's just its own thing and people pay attention to it. And it has that water cooler vibe where people talk about it. It's in the zeitgeist, but it's not attached to studios. It's a completely independent apparatus. And to me, that's an important innovation. I love that.

I would say a giant silver lining is that we were finally able to get Dwayne The Rock Johnson another gig. I know. It has been so rough for him. Yeah. the Rock Johnson another gig. I know. It has been so rough for him. Yeah. So now that you both know the full tale of HQ's demise, would you consider this like a little

tiny baby flop, a big flop, or a mega flop? I'm going to say it's a big flop and not a mega flop because it sounds like nobody was... Oh, wait. You know what? He did die of an overdose. I was about to say nobody was physically harmed. Oh, and we don't know what he did to the employees. Oh, that's true to the employees.

Yeah, I guess it is a big flop for sure. Big flop. Yeah, and it's also really embarrassing how many times they messed it up. That's true. Yes. Well, thank you so much to our lovely guests, Alice Wetterlund and Karen Chee, for joining us here on The Big Flop. And thanks to you, our lovely audience, for listening. Next week, you may want to preemptively lower the volume because I'll be tackling the 2004 presidential candidate Howard Dean's infamous Dean Scream with comedian Gareth Reynolds. You've been warned.

It should not disqualify you for being president, but it's also just not how screams work. 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. at wondery.com slash survey. The Big Flop is a production of Wondery and Atwill Media, hosted by me, Misha Brown,

produced and edited by Levi Sharp, written by Marina Templesman, engineered by Zach Rapone. Our executive producers are Rosie Guerin, Will Malnati, and Samantha Story for At Will Media, developed by Christina Friel. Legal support provided by Carolyn Levin of Miller, Korzenik, Summers, Raymond. Producers for Wondery are Matt Beagle and Grant Rutter.

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