Do You Ever Feel Guilty About Bad Reviews?

28:14What would you do for a job? You know, it's funny initially. So my channel goes away, but the economy still exists. 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.

28:49I thought that would be me. Okay. And I think I still have that skill because i've seen it i think i i would probably do that so you would 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 the baseline of knowledge useful to to be valuable in that world still see that's funny so that's a smart answer i i wouldn't look at i 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 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 like i kind of don't have anything like that like it would be cool it would yeah full-time ultimate frisbee professional it sure would that wouldn't really work would it it's you see that's that's a shame because you know you're great at it yeah all right let's pivot we're going to talk about making things i love that yeah mark has the maker I am a co-founder of an accessory company called Clix Technology.

29:51It makes 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 the world's 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 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.

30:32Yeah. 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. Um, 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, I think there is a fair amount of like, uh, yeah. Understanding that side of it.

31:08Yeah. I don't think it makes it softer. I just I 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 criticize the selection of a component. And it's like, okay, like fair criticism. But it's so much better when you can say, like, I get why they had to, like, the yields weren't there. Yeah. They couldn't, you know, you can't buy, for example, I don't know what, silicon carbon. You can't buy it in these quantities yet. Yeah, exactly. That's a good example. I'll notice myself using phrases like, it seems like they.

31:38Yeah. 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's that needs a name yeah it does we gotta let's let's come up with something

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33:37What are you hoping for today in the founders? Scrappy, traction-oriented grinders and hustlers who will blow through every brick wall in this building to get to where they need to be. Welcome to The Pitch. Season 14, where startup founders raise millions and listeners can invest. On this season of the show, 10 VCs, seven startups, with one shot to build the company of their dreams. Oh my God, we built the entirely wrong product. Two shots to build the company of their dreams. With that intro, let's go. Season 14 is available now wherever you listen to podcasts. So subscribe to The Pitch so you don't miss it.

34:16This season is presented by Adobe. be do you remember when blackberry did the blackberry 10 launch and the chief creative officer or whatever was alicia keys yes yes in what ways are you not the alicia keys of ridge oh valid yeah right because i get asked this at clicks 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 so yeah okay so with all due respect to the goat alicia keys of course and sorry no disrespect I apologize. Big fan. Yeah. Appreciate you. For sure. But I have no idea what she knows about BlackBerrys or phones or any of that.

34:51Right. 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 doing watch bands and all that stuff. Exactly. Power banks, a little bit of technology stuff too. Yeah. and we're working on more stuff that I'll try not to accidentally say out loud. Yeah, yeah, no, no, go ahead, go ahead, feel free. But the idea 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?

35:30So 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. 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 gonna make you the thing and we're gonna hand it to you and you're gonna put your name on it and that's the end of the story. Right, yeah. So thankfully they're right in the middle and it's been really awesome so far.

36:03Do you get people on social like misperceiving or misunderstanding your role um you know 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 uh you know product like feedback support yeah how do you even handle that because i can't here's the thing if i ignore it you get some 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 sure in the office because i'm sitting there being like no i'm busy deciding whether a space bar should be a millimeter shorter 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 we sure are 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 reviewing 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 our segment i'm not gonna not gonna call it any names because 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 uh carrying their the phone that they're reviewing without their personal sim inside of it or without any sim 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 you review you've got your primary sim in in whatever you're reviewing yes and this is why i overreacted to e-sim the one plus so i'm an at &t person oh interesting and i did you try to put at &t on the one plus 15 i'm a t-mobile guy and i'm a verizon guy for review sim okay that makes perfect sense because I tried to put my AT &T SIM in the OnePlus 15 and it wasn't approved for the network yet.

39:01They have this whole long approval process. So I could have put my main SIM in it. So I'm talking to OnePlus about it. They shipped 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, not only live through its flaws, but then find potential workarounds for its 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 maining that phone, I find a flaw, I get around it, and I figure out that, okay, you can still use this phone despite this flaw.

39:37I 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 in 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.

40:11Like my screen on time is like an hour a 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 in my backpack as a B-roll camera. And 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.

40:43Okay. And then I also have a backpack full of crap, which is probably not healthy. The way it goes. No. Yeah. 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, you know, I think everyone knows what the backlash was, but it was like there was this criticism that you were perhaps being glib, flippant or not forgiving enough of these new companies. And, you know, one of them failed as a business.

41:23And then, you know, Fisker, 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 think it actually is in the scale of what we do a little bit more. 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. Miri, you would say something bad about a product.

42:08Didn't matter what we said. 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 X subscribers and startup. It felt like punching down. Felt like bullying. And they didn't like that as much. Right. My perspective didn't change. My methodology didn't change. I'm still reviewing it as like, should you buy this or not? Clearly, no, this is actually one of the worst things I've ever reviewed. But because it felt like punching down, there was a bit more of that like pushback and reaction, which is understandable.

42:41Yes. Now, do you think that I have a pet theory? I think that the recent change that is relevant here is that influencer coverage of products has multiplied like 11 million fold 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-focused 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.

43:27Interesting. Yeah. It's a theory. I have no data to back it up. I think – well, I'll give you one of my theories. Please. Well, it'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.

44:01and 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 apple's 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.

44:40Sure. 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's out there. Right. Especially 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.

45:13I got to say something different. Right. 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. 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. I also feel that way. Yeah. There is a famous quote. I'm trying to remember who said it, but I'm pretty sure it goes, I don't give a f*** about your stock price.

45:47Oh, yeah. Was it Walt Mossberg? It was Walt Mossberg. Was it Mossberg? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and 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.

46:19I 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. 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?

46:55It's so funny. I was like a midsize 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. it. I think I still came away with a 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 pile on. Exactly. Which is, you know, a very human thing, but it's unfortunate.

47:32Uh, 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 we'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 as we as a society and 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 put a 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 don't feel that differently about it now really i thought i because 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 you 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 that wouldn't fit on your main channel because 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 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.

49:15And I added sustainability, for example, to that list. And I realized 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. Right. 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.

49:45It's not newsworthy 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 of years ago that that was like kind of a kind of a greenwashing trend that would that would collapse. and I'm glad it really hasn't. So I'm glad people still care about it. Yeah, I mean, these are the biggest companies in the world shipping the most volume of the most stuff.

50:15So 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 showing a little bit of a light on that. Let's talk about it. That's fine, 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 have all of the accompanying negative attention that comes from taking a stand?

50:52I 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 yeah 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 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 right but it is still a tech story i don't 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 i can but i can't watch it without thinking about thinking why did you why did you ruin this and that's what i feel Like, I'm like, what?

52:27Look, I've got a 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 wars 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.

53:01You shouldn't feel like you should holster that. 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? If you really strongly believe in it, it's like, okay, that is probably not the worst thing to lose that part of the audience. Yeah. Self-selecting is good. Yeah.

53:50Or this tea time you. Or even this tea time you. So did you hear about Dave? Or even tea time, tea time, tea time you. So update on Dave. It's up to you. We'll take the laundry. Rinse. It's time to be great. At Sierra, discover joyous deals on great gifts for everyone on your list. Like cozy slippers, ski gear, fishing poles, bikes, large kayaks, even larger canoes. Which might lead to another discovery.

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55:02Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state. 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 exclusively. Oh, yeah. And I feel like it's not as big a conversation anymore.

55:35Like have audiences and creators reached this kind of broad understanding about paid versus non-paid? Or am I misreading that? Yeah, there's so many facets to that. I think the audience understanding part kind of comes in waves, if that makes sense. You find it's variable. Yeah, I guess like early days YouTube, 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 where it was like, congrats, bro, that you made it. Like, that's amazing. Like that was one wave. And then it became like a little bit too much.

56:17Like 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. 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.

56:47And 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 Oppo 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 Find X9 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?

57:20And these responses jumped right out to me. And they confused 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 like 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?

57:57Can I talk to you about why you're wrong? Can I explain this to you? I want to have those conversations. 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 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's that could be a whole separate thing.

58:31But I think that undermines my 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, that was a big help and things. You had suddenly people had to say they were they were paid. Yeah. But one thing 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'd bring that up.

59:03Firewall. 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 stuff. And it's 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 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 what money do you say yes to what do you say no to oh yeah how do you decide those boundaries yeah i mean 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 and 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 percent 90 percent of those 99 and a half percent yeah um 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 right 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 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.

1:01:09Yeah. But yeah, there is. Like, do you have category block offs? Because like, I don't take, I won't take money 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 still, I don't do it, but I'm like, I don't know. 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.

1:01:39It almost feels like a different company sometimes. Sure does. They barely talk to each other. Yeah, the pixel division is its own thing. Yeah. Sure. So like I will never do a sponsored content for a product that I would review. Yeah. um but there's also like there's even like people do like showcases which is one version of 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 will read reddit comments about how they're bought and be like, no, no, that's not how this works.

1:02:19But 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 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.

1:02:54AdSense is the best. You don't have to do anything. You don't touch it. It's just YouTube puts ads where it belongs. So among the like potential integrations in a video, for example. Yeah, or just, or 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 yeah 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 a notice even that is gray though what do you mean at least to me some companies ask oh and some some companies some just use it which is yeah which is crazy.

1:03:35I had my, my, a quote from God. Okay. This is insane that this even happened. Like I get quoted without my permission all the time. And I've, 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. Right. Whatever. But I had a quote appear. 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 like loved it and then there's 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 gif of an NBA player saying that quote.

1:04:36And they took that. It was Russell Westbrook 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 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 post the player with the gif that said the words about the product. Yeah. But that's not like in no court of law would that.

1:05:16Yeah, exactly. In no court of law. So the court of law could find a place for that line. But like where is the line? I have no idea. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, I think if you're going to use my name and logo and do the quote on a website and it's going to be against a phone, like trying to sell a phone, I'm like, no, come on, we have to have a deal for that. Typically good etiquette is if you're going to use the quote in paid marketing, then you're 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.

1:05:49And you have such a way with words that your quotes are beautiful for like onscreen 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. So I was like, if you guys want to use that quote out of content, please. I did say that. That's hilarious. Yeah. Okay. We happy on ethics? We feel like we've gotten to the bottom of that.

1:06:21Yeah, I think we nailed it all down. Good. I think 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? Yeah. What an oxymoron. My favorite failure in mobile tech is... It's one of two things. The Apple Vision Pro. 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. Yeah. I mean. It's your favorite failure. It's probably not my favorite failure, but that's really interesting. It is. Very high tech, very impressive piece of technology that clearly failed at meeting its goals.

1:07:02Yes. But it's still sick. It's wild. I don't know what to do with it as my problem. 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 movie on Apple TV +, 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.

1:07:33Just, just, okay. Good speakers. Well, you get one. You get the overdriven earpiece. Well, because everyone's obsessed with the bezels 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 a 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, oh, 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.

1:07:58Look, well, let's make that a number one request list for every phone going forward. What's your favorite thing you ever got right? Oh.

1:08:09Let 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 i'm gonna be right so i'm just gonna 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 robo taxi event yeah a couple not even that not even a year ago and uh i'm pretty sure elon got on stage and said that they were going to ship that robo taxi 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 dollars or less before the end of 2026 yeah instantly i was like well no you're not no 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 you're yeah i think your hair is gonna stay where it is yeah uh what's what's the biggest thing you ever got wrong biggest thing i ever got wrong yeah um there is a quote circulating on twitter this week where I forgot I did this.

1:09:13In a video, I bet a million dollars.

1:09:19So 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 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 him. I'll just give it to you. I was going to say, best interviewer you've had today probably deserves it.

1:09:53But yeah, no, I did. I must've been super confident in that. And like literally the next iPhone was like, yeah, we're getting rid of it right away. Right before the 15 then. Yeah. So that was wrong. And now as a bonus, we have it on OnePlus phones too. Yeah, they added the same exact button. They also, I guess the Oppo Find X9 and added camera control, which is insane. Oh, did it? I keep 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. Would you ever, I'm going to save that for last.

1:10:25Do you still do Easter eggs in any of your videos? All the time. Are they all secret? So some are 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 right 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 altogether cheerios i stopped doing but i have the box still uh 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 it feels like a 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 you know 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.

1:11:35I 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 Cheerios 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 like little shout outs to like like a special person in your life like i've 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 shout outs like in the middle of a video can you just like click a pen twice and we'll know what it means and uh i think i've done it once once or twice since college somebody asked in college to do it and i did it it's really hard though it's tough i can 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 uh two more what um would you ever actually try digital detox with uh with uh with a dumb phone a light phone or like not like long the apps yeah let's say long term a week okay not long term but or two weeks not with the timeout apps not with brick yeah with like a real dumb phone i'm not gonna 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 back on monday and i'm ready to get back to it but uh 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 but i very hard yeah i won't rule it out i think that's something i could do can i recommend it i had such i learned so much in my two weeks with the with the light phone it's you know you don't have to use the light phone but whatever that's 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 to stuff from that like lessons I learned this summer from it.

1:13:53Like, it's great. 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. Okay. 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?

1:14:16There's a couple, there's a couple of fun ones. people are generally very respectful and and very excited to talk tech which is super cool uh a recent one that comes to mind so uh we often use music in our videos yeah um oftentimes just like we'll license something or we'll use something from an artist and give him 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 wolfpack good to meet you no and walked away i was like and i like as he walked away i i was like oh my god his voice like of course and i like hey well i 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 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 and he rolls down when it was like hey hey oh my god what he's like youtube i love your stuff i'm like 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 at me he's like mister who's the boss

1:15:57i said yep you got it man have a good day

1:16:03that's incredible yeah wow yeah fun weird life we've got it is a small world he's not I'm not fully wrong. No. Look, it's fine. Mr. Yeah. Mr. Yeah. Mr. You got it. That's all you need. Yeah. That's amazing. Dude, thank you. This has been a blast. This was fun. I appreciate the time. We should do this again sometime. 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 going to say. Oh, God. That's how we book it. Sound effects. Perfect. Thanks, man. Hey, thanks for watching this bonus episode.

1:16:38If you enjoyed, get subscribed because we're back to your regularly scheduled programming on Friday. We're from was produced by Rufus, Adam, and Ellis this week. Our intro outro music is by Vain Sill, and we are a part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

1:16:57Yo, what is up, people of the internet? I am going to take that again because that's not what I say next.