Waveform: The MKBHD Podcast - Do You Ever Feel Guilty About Bad Reviews?

Episode Date: November 25, 2025

Tech YouTuber Michael Fisher aka Mr. Mobile takes over Waveform to interview Marques about everything from whether AI creators will take their jobs to why Marques doesn't use foldable phones. Michael Fisher YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMrMobile Shop the merch: https://shop.mkbhd.com Music provided by Epidemic Sound Social: Waveform Threads: https://www.threads.net/@waveformpodcast Waveform Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/waveformpodcast/?hl=en Hosts: Marques: https://www.threads.net/@mkbhd Michael Fisher: https://www.threads.com/@captain2phones TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@waveformpodcast Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/mkbhd Music by 20syl: https://bit.ly/2S53xlC Waveform is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Terms and conditions apply. You've done kind of an extraordinary job of staying apolitical. Do you ever wish you could break out of that? Why do you hate fun? Do you think AI creators are a threat? Do you ever feel guilty knowing that a bad review might tank a company? Yo, what is up, people of the internet. And welcome back to a very special episode of the Waveform podcast.

I'm Michael. And I'm Marquez. And look at me. Look at me. Yeah. I'm the captain. Perfect. I apologize.

Perfect intro. I'm Michael Fisher. I'm a tech YouTuber, also known as Mr. Mobile. I'm a co-founder of Clix technology. And I'm a Waveform fan, by the way. I don't know if you knew that. Thank you. I'm an aggressive podcast listener.

Nice. For a long time, I was like, I have to get around to Marquez's podcast. And then I finally did. And I was like, hey, this is pretty good. What do you know? Nice. I am not Marquez, but I do get to steal his host chair for this episode. And I'm going to tell you what we're doing here.

I'm going to ask him a bunch of questions that I've been saving up since the last time I got to interview you, which was actually 12 years ago. I was going to say, it's been a minute. Yeah. Yeah, back at Pocket Now when I've, you were still in your bedroom, I believe. Yeah. You still had Honeynut Cheerios on the back. I sure did. Yeah.

I still have that box. Do you? That very box? Mm-hmm. I might ask you about that later, but I don't think you're ever going to tell. Have you ever, well, look, we'll figure it out. We'll get there. First, though, we're going to talk about the art of product reviews.

We're going to talk about the differences between a review and an ad. We're going to talk about the evolving role of YouTube in the tech world. And, of course, we've got to talk about the tech itself, right? Sure. Have you sound good? Have you forgiven me for the captain joke? No, this is great. I thought it was ideal.

Excellent. Well, I want to start light. I don't want to jump right into the heavy stuff. I want to start with some tech questions just to get us loose and happy here. I could not help but notice that you are not daily driving a foldable. Why do you hate fun? The folds, it's a really interesting question. I really like the folds, and every time I test one, I always think,

man it's finally it i'm finally going to be a fold person right and then i go back to because i review phones all the time i'll go back to testing a slab and then i just end up using the slab anyway like i don't like i don't use the openness enough i for me it's email occasional social media drafting right and like one or two other things you're talking about the big boy foldables you're yeah right and so you're not even considering the clamshell you're like no never keep that away from me. It's fine. Yeah. Huh. Interesting. So, yeah, I, I mostly, I'll have a foldable and I'll mostly use it closed. And the more I use it closed, the more I'm like, well, I should just be using a slab so I can have more battery and more screen. And you never miss that inside screen,

huh? Well, I do miss it once in a while, but not enough to fully switch back. Okay. You think it'll change when Apple does one next year? Um, I honestly don't think so for me personally. I still think I'm so, I have a tablet that I use for tablet things. Interesting. So for the, the stuff that I would open my phone for but not go all the way to the tablet, there's like a very small number of things for me personally. So I'm not dailying a foldable. Do you think that the category will continue to exist and flourish? It's not going to go the way of 3D phones then. No, I think it'll continue to exist. I think it's funny. Every time I see a foldable in the wild, I kind of think about like, what type of person is this? I was on a flight recently, and the lady

next to me had a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7. Best place for a foldable. She never once closed it. To open the whole time. Open the whole time. Heck yeah. Put it down next to her open, picked it up open, read emails open. Never once closed it. And I thought, that's a type. That's a type. Yes, it is.

Yeah. We're going to come back to that. I don't want to beat Foldable's death right up top. You're one of the few people I know who's as big a phone nerd as I am. If you could take, and I'm sorry that you didn't, listeners, viewers, where Marquez has not heard these questions, the vast majority of them. So I'm sorry you didn't get to prep for this one. Okay. If you could take any modern phone and the capabilities of any modern phone, stuff it into the casing of any old.

old phone who what what bizarre Frankenstein's monster would you create I can take only two phones or I can take a bunch of phones oh miss you can choose as many capabilities of modern phone as you want but you have to stuff it all into the same casing from the past sure okay now anytime anyone says old phone I always have to contextualize right I'm 31 an old phone to me is 10 years old So not a Galaxy S3. Like that's, you know, something much more fun. I was going almost that far back. Okay.

I was going HTC1. Oh, the M7, the aluminum block, the boom sound speakers. And back in the day they had a, yeah. Well, they had a Google Play edition of this phone back in the day, and I loved that. But I would take like a modern pixel, for example, but also give me a Snapchat and 8 Gen Elite or something like that. Good. And stuff it into that old.

aluminum wonder. I think that would be a sick phone. That would be a great phone. Would you keep beats by the way? Like would you retain the beats audio on the boom sound? Doesn't matter too much. I mean, it was kind of nice. I like the way they sounded and they were big front facing speakers and someone who watches videos on the phone. Awesome. But I think that was a single camera on the back. So I guess just gave me the primary, you know, pixel camera. Give me a nice black ammo lead. Give me like, yeah, give me all the, all the software. Okay. All right. Yeah. I didn't expect you to go that that recent because like I think old phones and I'm not 31 so yeah I think a lot of people when I say old phone go way further back than that yeah I'm like give me a flip phone with a hinge

that reverses the display and like put it down and like yeah give me a star tech exactly rainbow edition uh okay last last little warm up question what is your absolute favorite gadget right now so to clarify not a phone not a car not a laptop yeah certainly not a tablet sure uh Hasselblad X2D Mark 2. This is a camera. This is a camera. So unfortunately, it's a $7,000 medium format camera. Of course it is.

It's extremely unattainable and ridiculous. Right. It's almost absurd. Is that why it's your favorite? But it's the absurdity or because it does something amazing? A little bit of both. Like I had used and talked about Hasselblad cameras in the past being so slow and clunky and immobile that it like forces me to be more intentional with each photo.

And you can blast all the smartphone photos you want. you're sitting down and you're taking one photo, you take your time with it with a Hasselblad. And it's partially because it sucks at autofocus and like the whole thing is just slow to shoot with. You have to take your time with it because it's kind of bad. Right. But this new one is the 100 megapixel medium format formula,

but also with the speed of phase detect auto focus and continuous auto focus and built in HDR and just all these other things that make it like almost like daily driving a supercar. It's like this weird, crazy, fun thing. So it preserves the intentionality, but doesn't make it hurt as much when you're using it. Yes, yes. It preserves a lot of the intentionality, but, like, opens a couple more doors.

Got it. Yeah. I was using, I was out of upstate with my girlfriend this past weekend, and she was using Dispo. You ever used that on the other? The app. Oh, yeah. Was that David Dobrick's app or something? I believe so.

I don't know, but I know. It, like, a mimics. It mimics a disposable camera on your iPhone. And I actually liked that, not just for the style, but for what you. described just then of this like kind of you're going to take one shot you're going to set up you're going to do one and if it doesn't come out well sorry the moment's gone exactly right you missed it I love that that's good we might come back to that at the end about intentionality yeah let's talk let's get serious now yeah on the life and work of a YouTuber you live in it I know you've been

living it for 15 years I've been doing it for almost as long do you still feel like you're capable of speaking to the products you review in a way that's relevant to a modern audience or do you feel like pressure or concern that the audience is going to get younger and younger and you're going to have harder and harder time doing that oh interesting that's that where i thought you were going uh so yeah i do i do think i it's a skill that that you develop as you as you make pieces of content to share to the masses you have to understand those masses right and so yeah as i've made more videos i've gotten better at talking to the same masses but then the masses grow and include new groups of people that I have to also think about, younger

people, for example, or even in the specific case of reviewing tech products, the people that make the product. Like, there's a lot of consideration when it comes to, like, all the parts of the audience. But I think so. I think that's one of the skills I've developed, yeah. Do you think you'll be able to consistently hone that skill? Because, I mean, people, you know, the audience will continue being replenished at the low end To get really dark, it'll keep, you know, evaporating at the high end.

No, it's true, yeah. And I mean, at what point, because I'm putting myself into this question because I feel like I've already, I decided at some point that I was going to not focus on the youths. Yeah. And I think that's a trap that YouTubers can fall into is to, is to see the available, like the eyeballs of like the younger audience and to try to cater towards them. And when you are a young person, it makes sense. Like, when I started as a 14-year-old, I was making videos, believe it or not, for other 14-year-olds who were into tech. As a 31-year-old, it feels a little less natural to make videos for 14-year-olds, and it will continue to feel less and less natural. So I think the idea, basically, is to continue to talk to audiences that are similar to me in some way at the expense of maybe some of the youth eyeballs.

And I think that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. Cool. It also prevents you from falling into the trap of, like, patronizing or, you know, like, talking to that. do think that yeah it kind of feels yeah bad yeah let's talk about the stuff we're covering i mean since we last spoke the smartphone world has settled into this like really dull predictability in my opinion even the foldables even the exotic categories especially in the u.s yeah in china still doing really fun stuff but we can't get a lot of them here so have you found ways of keeping phones interesting to you or have you had to or have you not had to like i i've had to find new ways of

of keeping myself interested in the job totally i the the part that keeps it interesting to me is the stories the stories behind why certain things change the stories behind the releases or the hype or the failed features or whatever there's always a story behind it yes so even if like we're reviewing the one plus 15 this week which is another phone we are indeed right uh there are so many ways that this could be just a boring video of like yeah it's it's got the new chip and it's got the new ram and the new software and it's it's another slab paint job yeah but finding a theme or finding a reason why they did something that you didn't expect them to do or went backwards a little bit and trying to wrap that all into a video the storytelling part keeps it interesting to me

even if i'm not sitting there going wow what a phone it's the it's the behind the scenes of the production of telling that story. Yeah. That is the interesting part to me. Does that hold true for phones that you like, I mean, the one plus 15 maybe is an example of this. I know for me, I'm not going to name them, but I know for me every time a phone, a particular phone comes out every year, there are two or three where I'm like, I would not, given the choice, I would not cover this, but it's too newsworthy. I have to cover it. Yeah. What is the ratio of that to you? Like, if you had to mix them down, if you had to say like, all right, here's a video I really want to do about a product I'm really interested in versus here's the thing that I have to do because

Because if I don't, I can't support the channel. We have to make money. We have to stay relevant. That's a such a good question. I think it's almost 100% videos I want to make. No way. No way. Really?

And I'll tell you why. There are two or three or four that come to mind, or five, that are like content strategy decisions, like a new color way for a phone that already exists or an unboxing for a phone where we already know it comes in the box, right? but I am such a content strategy nerd that the fact that the tech is that interesting and outweighs what's in the content is interesting to me. It's this weird thing where like, yeah, 97% of the videos, I'm excited about it and I can't wait to make this video.

And then it's the new red iPhone color way, for example, right? Yeah. I know you didn't want to say a name of a phone, but that's one of them. Sure. Yeah, that's one of them. It's like, okay, that's a video where I ordinarily would not cover it. there's so many other examples of that, but I know that when this video publishes, it's going to get three and a half million views for some reason. Why? That's interesting

to me. Yeah. And so I'll make the video and I'll acknowledge it in the video. Like, you guys are already commenting that this is a useless video, but I just want you to keep scrolling down a little bit and you see the view count. That's why this video exists and it's supporting other videos on the channel and that's interesting to me. So there's a lot going on. Obviously, the new phone is not interesting but that is a broad use of the word interesting but yeah yeah yeah the content strategy and i i the tactic itself the strategy itself yes yeah yeah and i think and i've just i've told the octopus analogy a million times but i've distilled one of my functions in this studio environment as the content strategist so i i i pay a lot of attention to that is that an army you're ever going

to cut off that's one of the hearts i'm never cutting out okay yeah okay got it um one of the ways I've found of keeping things fresh, because it's funny, I don't have that same perspective, and I think it's a really useful one. I've had to change the videos themselves to keep myself interested, to oftentimes to the detriment of the videos. You remember when ASUS did that space edition laptop a couple years ago? It was like, it was like a NASA edition. They had an LED on the cover. It was all like gray. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, this is cool enough on its own, but I'm going to take it to Kennedy Space Center and review it there and watch a rocket launch, right? And I just crossed an ocean to break a record nobody knows about because I couldn't

bear to do another smart watch review the same way. But there's a sacrifice there because in that example, Oceanliner nerds are going to love half the video and they're not going to care about the watches and vice versa. The space one is just ridiculous. So you don't do a lot of those often, but you did one recently, the top five sports tech. That was, it was really fun and one of the most upvoted comments there was like, it's really fun to see Marquez, like, get excited about, not that you're, not that you're, not that you're, don't get excited about tech, but like you felt like you were showing us a part of yourself that we don't get to see very often. Sure.

But, you know, first of all, would you like to do more of those or can we expect you to do more of those or not? Was that just a, uh, definitely yes. Cool. It is exciting specifically because it is a challenge that I don't get a lot of reps at. I get a lot of reps at new smartphone is coming out. you have an audience interested in tech. How do you tell this tech story to this audience?

I do not have a lot of reps at new sports tech is available. That's specifically better for your recovery between workouts and a thing that you do on the side that nobody hears about very often. How do you tell that story or share that in a way that's interesting to these people? Yeah, absolutely. So it's just a different challenge. Right. For me, that keeps me energized in the process. But you had the same issue, I noticed.

Like, that video underperformed compared to your usual format, does that bother you at all? Or is it just an example of like, no, sometimes I've got to make a video for me. Yeah. No, it's, you've heard so many times the one for me, one for them type thing. Yeah. That was one for me. There was also a content strategy part of my brain that's looking at the area under the curve where, like, I know that people are not going to watch the iPhone 15 review two years later. like tech when it's timely has this really big spike at the beginning and then an incredibly short tail

falls right on you know about this like super short tail yeah but these more evergreen as we call them videos because they are not extremely timely and it's just a sports tech video super small initial curve but a way longer tail right in a way that the area under the curve in five years will probably be better than an old gadget review yeah so I don't mind it underperforming now makes sense and YouTube gives you that bone often on the analytics. It'll be like fewer people are choosing to watch this video, but they're watching for longer. Exactly. And that's a good indicator for when I check back in five years.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, good call. This is a weird question because it's one I've been thinking about for myself recently. Do you have a preference for how people watch your videos, by which I mean, like, if you can envision the ideal scenario for someone who is consuming an MKBHD video, like, is it someone on a tablet on a commute or on a couch on a big screen? TV or like on a phone in a toilet, like what? Where do you, where do you, where do you, where do you, where do you, where do you, where do you, where do you, what do you, I'm hoping phone on the toilet. No, I, I, 100%. I think, I've never been asked that before. And when you started

saying that, what I pictured was how often I watch videos, which is on a desktop in a browser, switching to 4K, full screening and kicking back a little bit. Okay. And like really watching the video. Yeah. And maybe that's how I watch it because I make videos. And so. That's just a unique behavior. But I do hope that there's some version of like appreciating the small details while they're, I hope they replay stuff once in a while just to catch something that they might have missed. Sure. But yeah, I mean, we upload these videos in 4K for a reason.

So hopefully a few people are watching in the highest resolution like I'm trying to. Yeah, of course. Yeah. For me, it's I like, I would like if people watched YouTube like I watch YouTube, which is on a big screen TV on my couch. You're one of the TV viewers. I'm one of the TV guys. I hear about these TV viewers, and I'm like... Dude, it's a lifestyle, man.

So you open the TV app and you scroll, are you home paging or just seeing what pops up? I am home paging, and my algorithm is really well-tuned now. I got a lot of Evan Fitzgerald content this year. It's got to be because if you're a subscription box is one place, but the home feed, the more you use it, the more it's tuned. Trouble with the subscription box on the TV is it shows you shorts, not trying to watch shorts on a TV. It does? And it plays them? Yeah, it's annoying.

Is it a carousel when you open a short? I don't know. I've never done it. Okay, good. Don't find out. I won't. I'm not giving it that signal that I approve. It's funny.

The videos, 15 years ago, a long tech video was seven minutes long. I know. Yeah. Now, a short tech video is seven minutes long. 100%. Yeah. And I think that's correlated pretty directly with a lot more TV viewers. And YouTube talks about this all the time.

And I've noticed it. And I'm happy that you're one of the TV viewers. That is really interesting. Me too. And thank you for. the thank you pandemic lockdown i think that's what did it sure yeah um we're we're talking about it already i just want to touch on it uh long form is obviously your bread and butter uh because i don't watch short form i don't know the answer to this question what about short firm like how how

important is it to your to your strategy um in and and and and more interesting to me is it something you do because you have to or is it exciting to you in any way it's changed so uh i love content strategy questions is right up my alley i've thought a lot about this yes long form is my bread and butter always has been probably always will be but you see the proliferation of shorts they're everywhere and they're exploding in popularity and you go to one of these youtube creator summits and all they're talking about is short form and it kind of feels like i have to be in short form so that was the beginning i made a short channel separately i was like my audience doesn't want this but let me see how it does eventually we find a way to like bring it to the main channel and like mix shorts in but as i'm making these shorts, I'm learning a lot about how to make shorts, how I think about what a short vertical video is, and maybe how it can drive viewership to the long videos as well. Right, yeah, yeah. And it slowly became more and more of, I want to be good at this and speak this language

and make it also my bread and butter. And my shorts went from every single one being 59 and a half seconds because I suck it compressing this stuff into shorts. Yeah, same right. Into like, wow, we just made one that was 25 seconds. and it was the best one that we've made. And it's become a very conscious part of the content strategy. It's the top of the funnel.

It'll just go out and take viewers in the funnel and people will find a long form. That's the right way to think about it. This is not a question. This is a compliment. Because it's the opposite of how I do it. In some ways, I'm an old man, right? Actually, in a lot of ways, I'm an old man. And I remember getting pushed real hard by an agent at one point who wanted to rep me, who was like, listen, you've got to be on TikTok.

And I said, I really don't want to be. And he's like, you got to skate to where, you got to go to where the people are. Like, I get that. Also, if I wanted to spend every day doing something I didn't want to do, I would just get a regular job. And that's been okay for me, but I think the move is instead to say, this is difficult, this is something I'm not used to. Let me do it. Let me get good at it. Now do you like doing it?

I like it, yeah. And I kind of view, I've changed, again, the lens through like, dang, we should do a short every single day. I've had to think about like, okay, what is a good short? How do I measure the success of a short? What do I think is a good idea versus a maybe okay idea for a short? And all these new different, interesting questions. So, yeah, now I enjoy making them. Because it's a series of new challenges that you can excel at.

Exactly. A new challenge of like, I think we just had this set we were talking about on Wave Forum that 700,000 watch hours of shorts in the past three months, which is like a crazy number. But the fact that those people just swiped and it was just served to them, that is some person that may find a channel that wouldn't have. It may. Do you find that that is the case? Because I think that's one of my things about short form that I don't like. It's like it's this fire hose. My friend David Cogan pointed this out to me. He's like, this isn't for, like, no one is noticing who's making the content. They're just watching it. If they like it, they're swiping onto the next one. You don't.

Yeah, very valid. Yeah, I think you have to do your shorts in a way that makes the character presenting. very quickly memorable. Like, if you're a Mr. Beast, you don't have to do that. Like, the second I see your face, they know you're Mr. Beast. Right. But if I'm scrolling shorts and I see, like, a person, like, handing, like, showing me a product. To me, that feels a little like an ad. Yes.

And I'm not thinking I want to watch that. Right. But if I get, like, a nice hook and then a person, maybe it's not an ad. Maybe now it's just a really interesting thing this person found. And that's a little more appealing. So, you know, there's no science to it yet. This is just, like, random things I'm, like, spewing out. trying and seeing what works yeah there are certain things that seem to work better as far as like getting your character to appear in shorts which helps people remember that they've seen the character before and maybe subscribe more quickly than if they hadn't remembered it got it yeah all right good i should be taking notes on this i'm going to listen to this episode later sure when i have to do shorts yeah do you think um i mean i feel like i i know the answer this question but do you feel like short form is a threat to long form or will it always be a compliment to it at first it was like is this taking

out of the pie right it's just a whole new pie which doesn't happen very often no true but like TikTok made a whole new pie and then YouTube came along added shorts and it's like long-form viewership is doing better than ever but clearly there's a whole new pie yeah yeah speaking of threats do you think AI creators are are a threat to to us like is it is a fake not necessarily a fake mark it's just like yeah a fake army of unreal people going to unseat us intrinsically no because i have this belief with no founding evidence that people want to watch people but there's evidence of successful AI creators there are and i i think i just believe that

they are successful because of the novelty of a successful AI creator yeah and i think if it's all lowest common denominator AI slop, then it's all bottom theater slop. And it's not like standing out. Right. And I think people still want to watch. And then people will be like, no, you know what? I'd rather have a real person. The person. Yeah. I still believe that to be true. Although I can't really prove it yet. And no, neither can I. And it's funny. If there were any wood in this room, I would knock on it. It's all fake wood and laminate and like mesh and metal. It's all very nice, though. I like it. I like it a lot. It's clean. One more on the creator economy, then I want to ask you another question. It's a fickle thing, the creator economy.

I mean, in our specific corner of it, we're almost entirely dependent on external factors. Companies have to release products that we can review. Sponsors have to continue finding our content worthwhile or worth paying for. Do you ever feel like, as I do every day, that it could collapse at any moment? Oh, wow. Like a bubble? Not like a bubble because there's actual value here. Yeah.

Yeah. We've moved on from AI. Yeah. Because I think when you say collapse, it almost implies like that it's being held up by something flimsy like it could collapse. Right. And I don't feel like that, but I feel like I've heard people speculate and I've heard people try to track, you know, the downward trend in sponsor spends. You know, obviously the creator space is getting more full with more creators every day. Influencers are, you know, it feels like there's a million introduced to the flow every minute.

It's getting diluted. Yeah. And maybe if it doesn't collapse overnight, maybe if it helps, don't visualize that. But do you feel like this could all go away with very short notice? So, like, for an individual channel, maybe yes. And I think that's just because there's more competition. There's more parity than ever before. So if this new device comes out and 60 videos come out about it, why watch mine?

Like that, to an extent, makes it feel like, I'm just one of the dots. you know yeah um but i think once you've built up which i think you have some sort of a base of people who are interested in what you have to say which and that comes with a lot of reps and a lot of proving yourself and being honest and trustworthy people care about what you have to say sure and i think that that is enough of like a nucleus to keep it alive um whether there's more or less around you yeah i've always said that if you have something when people come to as i'm sure they do to you hundreds by the day uh what what are what is your advice for an up and coming creator and I always say if you have something different to say or a different

way of saying it then it's worth doing sure right totally yeah um just for a fun thought experiment if it did if it did end tomorrow okay and uh if we assume for the purposes of this question that you've somehow managed to save zero dollars over the past 15 years what would you do for money what would you do for a job you know it's funny initially so my channel goes away but the economy still exist. Yeah. So initially, what's funny. Well, what I went to school for and what I went to college thinking that I was going to do was that I was going to work in marketing for a tech company that works with creators. I thought I would be on the other side of that email chain that I'm on now. Interesting. Okay. So in a world where insert tech company here needs a campaign

for a new product, they have a marketing manager that organizes it, you know, decides they want to work with creators does that whole thing. I thought that would be me. Okay. And I think I still have that skill because I've seen it. I think I would probably do that. So you wouldn't, it's just so interesting because you wouldn't leave the world like you would just be on the other side of it. Right. I have the baseline of knowledge useful to be valuable in that world still. See, that's funny. It's a smart answer. I wouldn't look at, you'd never find me with a camera in my hand again. I would be a tour bus driver at Kennedy Space Center. Oh, specifically. Yeah. That's, sick i mean i would love to have a much more interesting like a novel answer where i like i mean

obviously i play a sport that i really like but that's not really a full-time job right i kind of don't have anything like that like it would be cool it would yeah full-time ultimate first be professional if you sure would yeah that wouldn't really work would it's see that's that's shame because you know you're great at it yeah yeah all right let's pivot we're going to talk about making things i love that yeah marquise the maker um um I am a co-founder of an accessory company called clicks technology, physical keyboards for smartphones, and you are now the chief creative partner at Ridge. Yes. Neither of which was true when we last spoke.

So this is a fun new chapter for us both. I'm going to ask you what everyone now asks me. Okay. This is world's the most predictable question. How does being the builder of a product change the way you cover products? Oh, yeah. Do you have the urge that I had to suppress for a minute to use a softer touch because now you know how hard. it is to make something.

Right. Yeah, I think actually part of why I enjoy being on the maker's side more is I have so much more exposure to and more knowledge about, like, how hard it is and what types of challenges and decisions go into making things. Yeah. So I think you could argue that it has impacted my coverage just in that I consider more of these things. And sometimes it probably sounds like I'm defending some more things that seem uncomprehensible.

Yeah. on the surface. Right. But I think, yeah, like I said earlier, like, I know that the people who are about to buy the product are watching it. I also know that the people who just worked for years on making the product are also watching this. And so it would be naive to not include that perspective in my coverage.

So I think there is a fair amount of, like, yeah, understanding that side of it. Yeah. I don't think it makes it soft. I just think it's better to understand why decisions went into making the thing. Same. Yeah. I remember, like, I'll look at some of my old reviews and I'll, I'll, criticize the selection of a component and it's like fair criticism but it's it's so much better

when you can say like i get why they had to like the yields weren't there yeah couldn't you know you can't buy for example i don't know what silicon carbon you can't buy it in that in these in these exactly yeah exactly that's a good example there's all i'll notice myself using phrases like it seems like they yeah or you know what i think they were thinking like that sort of thing what maybe they were up against which again is good for storytelling like if i just go and think You know, I'm very black and white. Like this, good, this bad. Can't believe they did that.

That's a little boring. But I think if you go, like, tell the story of the person making the product in the product, that's way more interesting. What you're describing is almost the inverse of something that I've found, like, this law that I have yet to name. But it is my theory that on social media or Reddit, any response from somebody that starts with the phrase or a variation of the phrase, why didn't they just, doesn't have enough understanding of how things are made. Valid. Right? That needs a name. Yeah, it does.

We've got to, let's come up with something. Yeah. Support for this show comes from Odu. So, why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odu. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one fully integrated. platform that makes your work easier, CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more.

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We'd love to talk, business. Do you remember when BlackBerry did the BlackBerry 10 launch? Yes. And the chief creative officer or whatever was Alicia Keys. Yes. In what ways are you not the Alicia Keys of Ridge? Oh, valid. Because I get asked this at clicks.

Is like, are you just the hype man? I'm like, no, I'm just working the product. I do this other stuff. But like, yes, I'm the most visible face attached to it. Yeah. Okay. Okay, so with all due respect to the goat, Alicia Keys. Of course.

And sorry, no good respect. I apologize. Big fan. Yeah. Appreciate you. For sure. But I have no idea what she knows about Blackberries or phones or any of that. Right.

What I can say is that Ridge was like the perfect partner for me personally because I had so many ideas for products I wanted to work on and things that I wanted to change in the like everyday carry space, which is where they were primo like positioned. Like they did wallets already, but there's so much everyday carry stuff. Yeah. They're not there are watch bands and all that stuff. Exactly. power banks a little bit of technology stuff too and and we're working on more stuff that i'll try not to accidentally say out loud yeah yeah no go ahead go ahead feel free but the idea just us here is that like i they're a small enough company that i have some input in steering and

creating and innovating but they're a big enough company that they can actually do it right so like i could have worked with insert smaller company here who also has ambitions to making the cool thing and i suggest a power bank with magsafe and these cables and this material and they go great idea we can't get supply enough to make that maybe in five years we can do it right exactly yeah yeah and there's also a version of like Nike or something where I'm like I have all these ideas for product and they're like cool but we're Nike so we're going to make you the thing and we're going to hand it to you and you're going to put your name on it and that's the end of the story right yeah so thankfully they're

they're right in the middle and it's been really awesome so far do you get people on social like misperceiving or misunderstanding your role I'm heavy into product design, product championing, all that stuff. But people come to me on social media for like everything from shipping delays to, you know, product like feedback. Tech support? Yeah. How do you even handle that? Because I can't, here's the thing.

If I ignore it, you get a lot more inbound than I do. But if I ignore it, I feel like I'm ignoring a customer. That doesn't feel good. Like I have to hand off everybody to people who can actually do things in the office because I'm sitting there being like, no, I'm busy deciding whether a space bar should be a millimeter. sure yeah that's probably a valid way of handling it i mean i feel like i don't know if anyone thinks i'm running tech support at ridge but it's like if i was in your position obviously you make it very clear what you work on and the input that you have and like the decisions that you make that go into the final thing you can point at those things um but yeah it's like this is a

company with a lot of other people who work on a lot of other parts of this and someone is inevitably closer to that than i am so yeah take it away right i think that's probably the best way to handle it yeah yeah um can you uh can you see a world where you flip the script and go from full-time reviewer and part-time product maker to the exact opposite uh i enjoy making videos too much but actually now that i think about your phrasing yes i think like full-time maker part-time reviewer is probably more sustainable yeah like the treadmill isn't as fast there's not as much work. You get off the hamster wheel, which is nice. Yeah, we're on a hamster wheel. Whether we like it or not, like we stop driving this Uber, it stops making money, right? Exactly right. So I think,

yeah, the goal is to build something that can exist without your daily input. And then that allows you to take the foot off the gas for the thing that's like the passion project, which maybe you'd make a few less videos, but you'd still make videos. Right. I think I could see that. Yeah, I think that would be a cooler balance at some point. Yeah. Let's get back to review. You're happy with that? I love reviewing. It's good. It's my favorite thing.

Bouncing around here. I like it. I want to talk about a scourge that has visited our segment. I'm not going to call it any names. Some of them are my friends. But I've seen this thing happening. I wonder if you've seen it too. People who are doing phone reviews, carrying the phone that they're reviewing without their personal sim inside of it or without any Sam inside of it.

And while they have their main iPhone in the other pocket. I see this a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Do you swap into every phone your review? You've got your primary sim and whatever you're reviewing. Yes. And this is why I overreacted to e-sim.

So I'm an AT&T person. Oh, interesting. And did you try to put AT&T on their 1 plus 15? I'm a T-Mobile guy and I'm a Verizon guy for review since. Okay, that makes perfect sense because I tried to put my AT&T sim in the 1-plus 15 and it wasn't approved for the network yet. They have this whole long approval process. So I could have put my main sim in it. So I'm talking to 1-plus about it.

it, they ship me a T-Mobile sim, blah, blah, blah. It is annoying, but yes, I do main the device. Because you learn way more about it by maining it. Absolutely. You are forced to use it. Exactly. And to live through its, it's not only live through its flaws, but then find potential workarounds for it flaws.

Because if I... So that you can keep doing your thing. Exactly. If I run into a flaw, not maining it, I swap to the other phone and solve the problem. But if I'm maintaining that phone, I find a flaw, I get around it. And I figure out that, okay, you can still use a software. own despite this flaw. I learn way more that way. Yes. But it is so annoying sometimes. Absolutely. Yeah. Here's the thing. In the States, we have the blue bubble, green bubble thing. Does that introduce problems into

your personal life? Do you have to tell, like? So I, and I famously carry two phones. Same. Basically for this exact reason. It's not my username, but it's like, it's not just a Twitter handle. It's a lifestyle. It's a lifestyle. Exactly. So yes, there are notoriously things that I just do on the iPhone because they are better to do on the iPhone. Sure. When I main a phone, my iPhone use goes down a bit, like my screen on time is like an hour day or less or whatever. Yeah.

But yeah, when I'm testing iPhones, then my Android use goes down. But the iPhone's like twice a year or whatever, so it's not that hard. True. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, fair enough. Yeah. I don't know. And I've always got the iPhone of my backpack as a B-roll camera.

I'm sure that's probably the case for you too. I got two pockets. I got two pockets. Well, yeah. What, so you're just saying you're not a backpack, man? No, I have a backpack, but I got two sims. Oh, well, yeah. So I have my main sim in the Android phone.

I have my second sim in the iPhone. Okay. And then I also have a backpack full of the crap, which is probably not healthy. The way it goes, no. Yeah. Let's talk about reviews of non-phones for a second. You got famously some backlash on your reviews of the Rabbit R1 and Humane AI pen, which is confusing to me because they're both.

unquestionably great products. Yeah. That's what I was about to say. Do you think that people, I mean, you know, to, you know, I think everyone knows what the backlash was, but it was like there was this criticism that you were, you know, perhaps being glib, flippant, or not forgiving enough of these new companies and, you know, one of them failed as a business. And then, you know, Fisker, there's, we've had these, a lot of these examples.

Do you think people would have responded so negatively a decade ago, given the same products or has something changed about the way people view or understand reviews recently or semi recently i think that's a really good question i i think it actually is in the scale of what we do a little bit more um socially people love punching up and hate punching down and i think you know five 10 years ago when we had smaller channels and it was seemingly less impactful on the product to give it a negative

mirror you would say something bad about a product didn't matter it was what it was the company was going to do its thing it's punching up and I think people

for whatever reason saw the balance tipping and finally it was me with ex-subscribers and startup felt like punching down like bullying

and they didn't like that as much my perspective didn't change my methodology didn't change I'm still reviewing it as like should you buy this or not

clearly know this is actually one of the worst things i've ever reviewed yes but because it felt like punching down there was a bit more of that like pushback and reaction which is understandable yes now do you think i have i have a pet theory i think that there the recent change that is relevant here is that influencer um influencer coverage of products has multiplied like 11 million fold in the in the past decade and that is almost universally positive coverage it's not review content on the whole it's almost always like I'm here at this very exciting thing and look and now it's blue or whatever and I feel like that has changed the expectation broadly for like oh I'm watching product focus content it's probably going to be good and when it's negative

people maybe get bumped by that and it's like this guy sure doesn't know how to like a new thing interesting yeah it's a theory I don't I have no data to back it up I I I think, well, I'll give you one of my theories. Please. And, well, that's not a theory. I guess it's an observation, which is basically that when I started 15 years ago, in order to stand out in YouTube's landscape, being a tech channel is enough. I was like, oh, I make tech videos.

Oh, that's the kind of channel you are. Got it, got it. It's like a niche. Yeah. Yeah. And a few years later, it was like, oh, I make, okay, I make software tutorials, which is a part of tech, but, you know, you can make gadget videos or whatever. So that was a segment of it.

and then now you know go to fast forward to 2020 2025 there is the tech channel but there's also the unboxing channel there is the unboxing and destroy it channel there is the uh review channel there's the only reviews apple products channel there's the only positively reviews apple products channel there's the only negatively reviews apples competitors channel like there's everyone has a tiny slot that they live in to stand out and be a little bit different and i think you saw way more negative sentiment as a way of standing out. And so now there's way more videos of whatever comes out, I got something negative to say about it.

Sure. And that was kind of like a weird byproduct of like the niche being more saturated. Yeah. That's interesting. There is like a flip side to my example. Right. Yeah. Oh, God.

But then there's that that pressure exists to counter whatever is out there. Right. Especially with the with what people kind of talk about, which is like how early you are in the wave of like a product comes out and there's the initial wave. The cycle is like, okay, everyone who's on day one. And then if you're not on day one, you're late. So now how do you stand out from all the day one stuff people already watched? The truth about this product.

I got to say something different. I got to imply everyone on day one was wrong. Of course. And if it was a good product and everyone on day one said nice things, guess what I'm saying. Yeah. So that's not helpful. Sure. But it's out there. But it is out there.

Yeah. I do not like surfacing this question because I feel strongly about my own answer to it. but it's a good question, so I'll ask it. Sure. Do you ever feel guilty knowing that a bad review might tank a company? No. Yeah. That's, I also feel that way.

Yeah. There is a famous quote. I'm trying to remember who said it. Uh, but I'm pretty sure it goes, I don't give a fuck by your stock price. Oh, yeah. Was it Walt Mossberg? It was Walt Mossberg. Was it Mossberg?

Yeah. Yeah. And that, you know, he's writing for the journal or the times or whatever it is, and he's very impactful and he'll give a negative review. and he got asked about it. And I literally couldn't care less about the stock price of the company. And if it's a startup, it's less about the stock price and more about can they afford to make it to the next product or not. Sure.

And so, yeah, maybe you feel a little guilt in knowing that they won't make it to the next product. But I'm not accelerating that. I'm not causing your product to be bad. I think you said that in your do bad reviews kill companies video. You were like, no, bad products kill companies. If I can paraphrase your theme. And I think that's true. Whatever review you make is going to accelerate a trend that was already existing.

Exactly. Right. I am not causing the trend, but you could argue that I would accelerate it. Sure. But also think about this. A product is terrible. Everyone is saying it's terrible. Someone like big comes out and says it's great.

Does that help anything? Yeah. Or do more people buy it and find out it's terrible and then get even more negative feedback? It's so funny. I was like a mid-size pocket nowadays, like pretty small, and everyone else hated. You mentioned it before, the red hydrogen one. Oh, yeah. I remember that.

And I also thought it was a problem, but by the time I got around to it, I was like, you know, this isn't as bad as everybody's saying. And I did my review, which was much more moderate. I think I still came away with the don't buy, but I was like, yeah, but there's a lot to like here. And the comments just roasted me. How dare you give this any points at all? They wanted to see Pile On. Exactly.

That's crazy. Which is, you know, a very human thing. But it's unfortunate. It's speaking of unfortunate, if we can get deep for a second. When we started, I think it would be my argument that tech was a relatively frivolous thing. You know, you could tell people you made videos about technology and then you'd be like, oh, wow, fun. That's cool. Wow.

Now tech has become so intertwined with everything in the world that's like, you know, so much of the world is not. great. Do you ever feel disenchanted by it all? Like, I mean, as we as a society and as reviewers had it better back when everything was just kind of a fancy toy. That's interesting. Yeah, I mean, I think to an extent everything is tech has always been kind of true. Like there's, you know, whether it's high tech or super impactful. Like obviously there's very, very politically intertwined like technologies that people are talking a lot about now and you kind of feel like that is taking over tech and that's what people think of as tech yeah but everything has always been tech so i i i don't feel that differently about it now really i thought i because i i i do

cover some of this stuff yeah and i think what i'm still trying to answer is is this good should you use it should you buy it but i'm not and maybe this is bad maybe this is something i should adjust but i'm not really thinking as much about but what are the political ramifications of using a product made in this country or like the way it's made or how recyclable like all these other things that people are talking more about now yeah and it feels like almost like you that wouldn't fit on your main channel because your your mission there is unchanged like is this good or is this bad what's it like to use this but it's almost like a whole other channel could be spun up to to cover exactly oh totally and I actually have like a sort of a template like bullet point list of things

I want to make sure I talk about when I review certain products and I added sustainability for example, to that list. And I realize that I don't talk about it with every product, because it's not really a part of the story with every product. But for certain products, it is very much a part of the story. I just talked to Apple about the way they 3D print the titanium for the Apple Watches to have less leftover waste material. It's like, that's kind of sick.

I'd probably mention that. And then another phone comes out, and I don't talk about how they didn't put the charger in the box because none of them did, and it's not really interesting for the story. It's noteworthy anymore, right? Yeah. So I don't know. It's something I could do better is to try to, you know, weave that into the story in some way, if it makes sense. I think I could do it better. I think we all could. But what is nice is I think there's a lot of pressure to do that. There's increasing pressure to do that from certain corners of the audience. And I think I thought for a couple years ago that that was like kind of a greenwashing trend that would that would collapse. And I'm glad it really hasn't. So I'm glad people are still care about it. Yeah. I mean, these are the biggest companies in the world shipping the most volume of the most stuff. So if they can make little changes and then they make a big deal about it that seems like greenwashing, but you look behind the scenes at the numbers and it's like, well, it is helping.

Actually, look, in volume, yeah. I'm kind of not against shying a little bit of a light on that. Let's talk about it. Yeah. Related news, you've done kind of an extraordinary job of staying apolitical. Sure. Even as it seems everything has become political. Do you ever wish you could break out of that and address like a polarizing or a fraught topic or are you happy not to?

to have all of the accompanying negative attention that comes from taking a stand. I think products are one of those things where kind of everyone can agree if it's good or bad, no matter where you stand in this political spectrum. I do have a video I'm working on right now that kind of feels like it is maybe the most political. It's a video about the Xiaomi SU7.

Oh. And it's a Chinese electric car. It's a car, yes. Yeah. And, you know, we've reviewed Chinese smartphones forever, but you can't get these Chinese electric cars here in the U.S. And the question that I always see about this car is, if it was in the U.S., would it crush? And it's a question I want to answer so bad. Yeah. But the real answer is the only reason you can't get it here is politics.

Right. It's being actively prevented from coming here. Like, I can't answer this question, this really interesting tech story question without going politics, politics, politics, politics, geopolitics, politics. Yeah. So, yeah, I don't know. I still want to answer the question. I'm still working on, like, writing this video, and it is more of a challenge for that reason. But it is still a tech story. I don't feel guilty about, like, including politics if it's interesting.

Yeah. Well, good. No, and not, you know, I didn't mean to suggest that you should feel guilty about it, but I think there are times that I want to weigh in on something. And it don't because, look, because it annoys me as a consumer of, say, entertainment when an actor I otherwise enjoy decides. to be vocal about an opinion I don't agree with. And now I can't watch, you know, my 90s sitcom anymore.

Yeah. Or I can't, but I can't watch it without thinking of that. I'm like, why did you ruin this? And that's what I feel. Like, I'm like, look, I've got a little phone review channel here. Like, you come for my opinions on volume rockers. Yeah. That's fair.

I think, though, if you feel strongly enough about something that you should feel free to express it, and it's always, to me, going to be through the lens of tech, probably in some way. Like, I'm not out here talking about, like, whose war is to end. Like, it's basically I'm only talking about tech and my interests here. Right. And sometimes sports and sometimes other interests I have. But, like, if I have an interest, I would say if you have an interest that you feel really strongly about, you feel strongly about it for a reason, you shouldn't feel like you should holster that.

You should be muzzle yourself. And the other thing, and I see so many people like diving way into the politics, it's like if you have an audience member who would stop watching you, because of this thing that you feel really strongly about, do you really need to keep that audience member? Do you want that audience member to remain? Yeah. If you really strongly believe in, it's like, okay, that is probably not the worst thing

to lose that part of the audience. Yeah. Self-selecting is good. Yeah. When you're flying Emirates business class, dining on a world-class menu at 43. thousand feet. You'll see that your vacation isn't really over until your flight is over. Fly Emirates. Fly better. At Capital One, we're more than just a credit card company. We're

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to help build a future where no one's seeking help is left behind. Donate today at camh.ca.ca slash giving Tuesday. We have one more category. Okay. That's not true. We have two more, but one of them is very short. I want to talk about sponsored content. I want to talk about making money.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. How do you feel about the current moment regarding sponsored content and people's reaction to it? Because I feel like people are talking less about it than they did maybe, five years ago when we last talked about it last time i was on the show we talked about ethics like exclusively oh yeah and i feel like it's not as big a conversation anymore like have audiences and creators reach this kind of broad understanding about paid versus nonpaid or am i misreading that

yeah there's so many facets to that i think the audience understanding part kind of comes in waves oh if that makes sense you find it it's variable yeah I guess like early days YouTube like like super early days YouTube when there was no partner program and like smosh gets a Wendy's sponsorship or something I feel like those are the days or it was like congrats bro that right made it like that's amazing like that was one wave and then it became like a little bit too much like they'd like see that it worked and then they'd sponsor 10 of the biggest channels and then it would be like I didn't think you would take the Wendy's sponsor money.

Right. And so it goes down and then it comes back up and then everyone understands it and then it's back down. I think it depends on who you're watching on YouTube. I think there are a lot of channels that have endless sponsored content and it's fine. And I think there are a lot of channels that have almost no sponsored content. And the second they do one, it's like poison.

Right. They hate it. Right. You sold out. Yeah. I think the reaction kind of comes from your audience's expectation. And if you set an audience's expectation of I do tons of sponsored content, Then eventually, that's what they expect. That's right.

It's fine for them. I did some unintentional Reddit research on this. I was reading Reddit last night, and the R-slash-O-Po subreddit popped to the top of my feed for some reason, so I was reading it. And I think the thread was something like, why aren't people, why aren't reviewers as interested in whatever, the FindX9 pro or something? And I'm like, okay. And you were quoted specifically, or not quoted, but you were cited specifically. Why isn't Marquez looking at this phone?

And these responses jumped right out to me. And I, they, they confuse me. Yeah. Because the, this response, one of these, because the two reviewers you mentioned, you being one of them, aren't as impartial as they used to be, not saying I blame them as they get good money for it. And we'd all be the same. Yeah. I want to talk to these people sometimes. I do, I do too.

I ask them, because I read those comments, which are like so broadly asserting something that's clearly not true. I want to ask like, where did, because they got that from somewhere. somewhere like they they read something else or they just watch something and they go oh yeah these are all paid like what where did you get that from what do you can i can i talk to you about why you can i explain this to you i want to have those conversations like another one YouTubers are not really independent tech reviewers many are simply sponsored by big brands to the detriment of Chinese brands and I'm like okay we see sure sure there are sponsorships that exist yeah right but like but they're like painting this character that's like oh I'm the one that

takes money to say this about American brands and this about Chinese brands. Right. And it's like these background deals are happening where it's like, no. So I also, I feel like that can be a whole separate thing. But I think that undermines my thought that I had coming into this before I read that last night. It's like, haven't we all? I think everyone understands now, right? Like where's the difference?

Like the FTC, I got to say, when it was being very aggressive about mandating disclosures. Like that was a big help in things. And suddenly people had to say they were paid. Yeah. But one thing that that hasn't changed is that, and I think this is probably an impediment to understanding, is that the ethics of our world still exist in this big gray area. Yeah. Because it's not like a traditional journalism where I was hoping you bring that a firewall.

Yeah. Right? Like just famously, the verge is always out in front of this. It's like our ad people who make the money are completely separate from our editorial people. The editorial people don't read the ad spots and all this kind of says. But it's not like that in the creator world. Yeah. Everyone in the audience has to say, has to make their decisions based on individual creators policies. Yep. And that it's like, that is an opaque world. You have to do a lot of

work. It's weird. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, my ethics policy, I don't think I've changed the wording of since we talked five years ago. I should change it. I think there's like maybe one or two things that have, that have changed. But like, where do you draw your lines these days? What money do you say yes to? What do you say no to? Oh, yeah. How do you decide those boundaries? Yeah. I mean, And so at the end of the day, I still just want to keep the focus on making good videos. So I'm keeping the main thing, the main thing. So if there are sponsored opportunities that arise, the number one question I ask is, does this like work with what we're doing?

Does this supplement what we're doing? Or is this a distraction? Or is this like trying to shoehorn something in that doesn't work? Because as you can imagine, we get endless inquiries about things we could do or make. All the time. So. And you're saying no to like what, 80%? 90% of those in balance?

99 and a half percent of them. ever just want to put it out there and be like hey here's all the stuff we said no to today yeah which is why i did a video on saying yes to everything for a while which was not even sponsored stuff but it was just reviews but even that is like crazy yeah um yeah i think i i put in the slack the other day which is like i got a i got an email whose subject line was like can you i don't want to misquote it but i think it was like can you do a video about AI something in dubai something something it was like all the worst headline like email subject line words possible um either way no i i think the idea is if you feel something is a good fit and that your audience would enjoy it

and then you would like to cover it anyway then it's a good fit for for working with the company okay and then there are lots of things that are like on the gray area that you can decide to not do just to keep it clean basically yeah but yeah there is like do you do you have category block because, like, I don't take, I don't, I won't take money from a, from a smartphone manufacturer. Right. But I feel like that's a little too restrictive. Because what if I never cover a RealMe phone, for example, organically? Sure.

And RealMe wants to pay me to do it. Like, I don't do it, but I'm like, I don't know, sure. Yeah. And my firewall is even a different place. Like, I will do, like, Google makes smartphones. But sometimes Google is advertising an ad feature or a YouTube feature and I will work with them. Yeah, because that's a different part of Google. It almost feels like a different company sometimes.

Sure does. It barely talk to each other. Yeah, the pixel division. is its own thing yeah sure like I will never do a sponsored content for a product that I would review yeah but there's also like there's even like people do like showcases which is one version of a sponsored thing and then there are people who do sponsored reviews which is insane like a contradiction in terms it's weird that that exists and the fact that that exists ruins it for everyone else it does because then you make the trust in the whole review exactly everyone who's

making reviews who is honest about it and properly discloses every time. We'll read Reddit comments about how they're bought and be like, no, no, that's not how this works. But it kind of is how some people work, so it ruins it. Right. So yeah, I get it. It's frustrating. But all you can do is have a public policy like you do. Yeah. And ideally, if people call it in a question, then you can at least say something about it, point to that thing. Here it is. Yeah. It's the best we can do. Yeah. I could talk about that forever, but let me ask you, because I recently figured out what my favorite way to make money is. Okay. What's your favorite way to make money? Integration, like in terms of integration, full-length sponsor videos. My favorite way to make, well, I mean, AdSense is the best.

Edsense is the best. You don't have to do anything. You don't touch it. It just YouTube puts ads where it's so among the like potential integrations in a video, for example. Yeah, or just different formats. Because I'll tell you, mine. Okay. Licensing. Oh, well, easy. It's the best. I love licensing. So this is when you've already published your review and maybe there's a quote in there that Samsung, for example, wants to use in their marketing material. Yeah. They pay for that privilege. I don't know that a lot of people know that. I didn't know that before I got in these days. Have you noticed even that is gray though? What do you mean? At least to me, some companies ask. Oh, and some companies just do it.

Which is crazy. I had my, my quote from God, okay, this is insane. that this even happened. Like, I get quoted without my permission all the time. And I've accepted it because there are some versions of it where it's like, look, I said this publicly, it's out there, fine. Apple quoted me in a keynote. They didn't tell me about that. They didn't pay me.

They just did it. Whatever. But I had a quote up here. I was on a website that someone sent me for an AI, standalone AI product, already a red flag. Yeah. And I scroll down, and there's a couple quotes about people who loved it. And then there was one of a quote from me. And I had never reviewed this product or made a video about it.

And it said like, this is a very interesting something, something. I tweeted about this. Okay. And I was like, when did I say that? Did I say that? And I scrolled back. And what I found was me quote tweeting a product announcement tweet with a jiff of an NBA player saying that quote. And they took that.

It was Russell Restbrook going, that's interesting, sarcastically. Oh. And they took those words and put it next to my name as me saying that the product was interesting on their website next to other positive, like, quotes. There's like five layers of what to that. Like that is clearly over the line. Yeah. But the line is so gray. Like, where is the line?

Yeah. I did say the thing that Apple put in the keynote. That's publicly available. Right. I did technically host the player with the GIF that said the words about the product kind of, but that's...

In no court of law, would that... Yeah, exactly. In no court of law. So the court of law could find a place for that line, but like, where's the line? I have no idea. It's crazy. Yeah, I think if you're going to use my name and logo

and, like, do the quote on a website and it's like going to be against a phone, like trying to sell a phone, and I'm like, no, you just come on. We have to have a deal with that. Typically good etiquette is, If you're going to use the quote in paid marketing, then you are paying the creator who said the thing. And I like it.

It's my favorite thing because I already said the thing and I didn't do it to get that. Like licensing is such an occasional thing, at least for me, that it's nice when it comes in. And you have such a way with words that your quotes are beautiful for like on-screen quotes, you know. Thank you. The last time a quote of mine was used for marketing purposes, it was me making a joke about the product. What did I say? I was at a pickle festival. I was reviewing the Flip 7 at a regional pickle festival.

as one is and i said something like this is a really big deal or something and that's the quote they wanted to use that quote out of content please i did say that that's hilarious yeah okay are we happy on ethics we feel like we've gotten to the bottom of that yeah i think we nailed it all down good i think it's problem solved yeah lightning round then we're out of here okay okay what's your favorite failure in mobile tech mobile tech favorite failure what a See, moron. My favorite failure in mobile tech is the Applevision Pro. Just not that's not what I was expecting.

Oh, my God. I just said the first. I mean, there's so many failures that were interesting that I mean. Is your favorite failure? It's probably not my favorite failure, but that's a really interesting. It is. Very high tech, very impressive piece of technology that clearly failed at meeting its goals. Yes.

But it's still sick. It's wild. I don't know what to do with it as my... Same. It's gathering dust. Yeah. But like every six months when I do do the software update and I put it on my face and I go, damn. Yeah.

This is really good. They may have gotten me to put it on tonight. They have a new fighter jet like movie and Apple TV Plus, a documentary that I think you're supposed to watch. That's how they get you. The content drip. That's what I want. Yeah. Okay.

Top feature from an older phone that you want a modern manufacturer to bring back. Boom sound. Oh, come on. Just give me front-facing speakers at all. Just just, okay. Good speakers. You get the overdriven earpiece. Well, because everyone's obsessed with the bezzles now.

I know. And no one does the good front-facing speakers. I know. Yeah. I want good. Put the speakers back. Beefy, boom sound speakers. I thought you were going to say notification LED.

I'm a little disappointed. Oh, I'm changing my answer. Yeah? Notification LED. So I can flip my phone like this and go, ah, that's just Twitter. I won't check it. Right. Just the light blue.

Now I don't need that. Please. That's so easy, too. Yeah. Agreed. They could bring that back. Look. Well, let's let's make that number one request list for every phone going forward.

What's your favorite thing you ever got right? Oh. Let me think about this one. There's so many Told You So moments. Yeah. Okay. So there's one that's not quite over, but I'm going to be right. So I'm just going to say it.

We got a lot of confidence in the room right now. I like this. Okay. I said that, so I was at Tesla's Robotaxy event. Yeah. A couple, not even that, not even a year ago. And I'm pretty sure. Elon got on stage and said that they were going to ship the Robotaxi as it existed, no steering

wheel, no pedals, no nothing, they're going to ship it for, I want to get this right. I think $27,000 or less before the end of 2026. Instantly, I was like, well, no, you're not. And I said I would shave my head if it happened, so I'm that confident. Okay. So I got about 13 months left to be proven wrong, but I'm, that is going to be my favorite. I think that's going to be my favorite. I think your hair is going to stay where it is. Yeah. What's the biggest thing you ever got wrong?

Biggest thing I ever got wrong. Yeah. There is a quote circulating on Twitter this week where I forgot I did this. In a video, I bet a million dollars. So I clearly was confident. And it was from a year ago. I bet a million dollars that Apple would not get rid of the mute switch in any of the next five years of iPhones. It's too integral to the design of the iPhone.

And technically they did change it to a button. That does more than mute it. It's the action button, which could be a mute switch, but it's not really a mute switch anymore. And that I got a, I don't know who I give the million dollars to. I was going to say, who gets the million? Someone, I have to give it to me. I'll just give it to you. I was going to say, best interviewer you've had a day.

It probably deserves it, yeah. Yeah, but yeah, no, I did, I must have been super confident in that. And like, literally the next iPhone was like, yeah, we're getting rid of it right away. the 15 then yeah yeah so that was wrong and now as a bonus we have it on one plus phones too yeah they added the same exact button yeah they also i guess the opo find x9 added camera control which is insane did it i kept looking for it on this dude bar for bar like i accidentally swiped just like on the iPhone and accidentally zoomed in just like on the iPhone it was crazy excellent yeah um would you ever i'm gonna save that for last uh do you still do easter eggs in any of your

videos all the time are they all secret um so some are some are you more cryptic and some are more obvious. Like, I'll put an object behind me. That's pretty obvious. But some are more like one layer deep, which is very exciting because people find Easter eggs that are like four layers deep that I didn't plan, but I'll

accept the credit because they're so good. 100%. So, yes, the more Easter eggs you hide, the more they find. Do you still, have you stopped doing Cheerios all together? Chirios I stopped doing, but I have the box still I can tell you the origin story if you want. Have you heard the origin story?

No. Okay. I thought this was a secret. No, it feels like it should have been like some coded secret, but it was really simple. Okay. I was making videos in my college dorm for that one year where there was a microwave behind me. And the little LED on the microwave was like out of sync with the camera shutter. It was just strobing, super distracting.

Yeah. It looks weird on camera. It does. And for like weeks, that was the only thing anyone commented about. Dude, the microwave is driving me. I can't look away from that thing. I was like, it's my microwave. I can't move it.

So I just put like a Cheerios box in front of it just to stop people from commenting about it. To mask it. And obviously the first wave of people seeing the box in front of the microwave was like, I know what's behind that Cheerio box. But eventually it was just people talking about the Cheerios box. Of course. And I move on to my new spot and I keep the Cheerios box behind me. There's no microwave back there.

I just keep the Cheerios box around. So that was how that started happening. Do you ever do little shoutouts to like a special person in your life? Like I've been known to do a single frame heart somewhere in a heart emoji. That's a good idea. I've had teammates on Frisbee teams ask for shoutouts. Like in the middle of a video, can you just like click a pen twice and we'll know what it means? Do you ever do it?

I think I've done it once. Once or twice since college. somebody else in college to do it and I did it. It's really hard, though. It's tough to remember to do it and not make it distracting and not make it weird. Right, right. Yeah, that's fun. It's hard.

Yeah, oh my God, that's cool. Now I want to figure out what I need to ask you for. Two more. Would you ever actually try digital detox with a dumb phone, a light phone? Like not with the apps. Yeah, let's say long term a week, okay, not long term, or two weeks. not with the timeout apps not with brick yeah with like a real dumb phone i'm not going to rule that out um part of the ultimate frisbee experience for me is switching this part of my brain completely

off and flipping over to the competitive like totally different side of my brain yeah and i'm often offline for two straight days for a frisbee tournament really yeah oh that's amazing and it's two days and it's fine and I come back on Monday and I'm ready to get back to it. But these international tournaments are like a week and a week and a half long. And I think that is, you know, it would be hard to be offline. It is very hard. Yeah. I won't rule it out. I think that's something I can do. Can I recommend it? I had such, I learned so much in my two weeks with the, with the light phone. You know, you don't have to use the light phone, but whatever. That's what gave me the excuse to do it. Yeah. It's really fun, even when it's really frustrating. And I'm still, I'm holding on the stuff from that, like

lessons I learned this summer from it like it's great let's learn about yourself yes interesting and I've learned how to manage myself better I'm like I'm I'm I'm a better phone user now that is the best possible encouragement I could hear to try to do that try it try it just for the for the personal growth even if you don't do a video just try it okay yeah all right and finally what was your favorite instance of being recognized in public mm there's a couple there's a couple fun ones. People are generally very respectful and very excited to talk tech, which is super cool. A recent one that comes to mind. So we often use music in our videos. Oftentimes just like we'll license something or we'll use something from an artist and give them a shout out. Sure. And I was at

Newark Airport a couple months ago and I was like sitting, I think I was just like waiting for my bag or something and a gentleman came up to me and he said hey just want to say i love your videos appreciate what you do you've used some of our music in our videos uh i sing for a band called wolfpec good to meet you no and walked away i was like ah and i like as he walked away i was like oh my god his voice like of course and i like hey well i dude thank you so much for the music like i was super excited about that yeah but just the fact that like he's just like another guy in the airport just like Oh, yeah, that little connection. That was a fun one, I would say.

Yeah, that is, no, that's a fantastic one. Yeah. Do you want to know mine? Oh, yes, I do. Please. I was having a really bad end of the week, and I was really fried, and I was in Williamsburg, just kind of like absorbing the sun and trying to breathe and trying to let the week go. Photosynthesizing.

Exactly. Yeah. The guy drives by in a car that's got a real loud exhaust system, he rolls down when he was like, hey, hey, I'm like, oh, what? He's like, YouTube, I love your stuff. And it really, you know, it changed my whole day around. I was like, dude, thank you so much, man. I really appreciate it.

And he kind of keeps pointing on me. He's like, Mr. Who's the boss? I said, yep, you got it, man. Have a good day. That's me. That's incredible. Yeah. Wow.

Yeah. It's a small world. He's not fully wrong. No. He got half. Mr. Yeah. Mr.

You got it. That's all you know. yeah that's amazing dude thank you this has been a blast this was fun i appreciate the time we should do this again some time i would love that perfect if i start one of these you should come on and interview me it'll be fun deal my studio will be less fancy but you know we got sound effects i was gonna say that's how we book it perfect thanks man hey thanks for watching this bonus episode if you enjoyed get subscribed because we're back to your regularly scheduled programming on friday we're from us produced by

by Rufus, Adam, and Ellis this week. Our intro, outro music is by Vain Sill, and we are a part of the Box Media Podcast Network. Yo, what is up? People of the Internet. I am going to take that again, because that's not what I say next.