Humane AI raised over $230 million before shipping any product. And when the company finally released Ai Pin (priced at $699 plus a $24 monthly subscription), nearly every tech critic came to the same disappointing realization. The much-hyped product that promised to break the dominance of smartphones isn't very good.
However, some onlookers are adamant that Marques Brownlee, the wildly popular YouTuber known as MKBHD, is solely responsible if the company ultimately fails. Shortly after Humane AI released its long-awaited product, the conversation turned away from the product itself and instead shifted to what Brownlee had to say about the product in his own review.
The title of Brownlee's video certainly clicks a bit. “Worst product I've ever reviewed…so far.” But when you watch the actual video, you'll see that the title delivers on its promise.
“It was really hard to come up with a title for this video,” Brownlee said in his review, which has now been viewed more than 5 million times. “But I will say that my working title at one point was, 'Either this product is the stupidest thing ever, or I'm an idiot.'”
Brownlee has over 18 million subscribers on YouTube and is extraordinarily influential, but his critiques are on par with those of other critics. This means that the Ping's battery life is short. It's difficult to wear. It has too many mistakes to be reliable. Laser projection screens are completely ineffective outdoors. And it's simply not worth the same list price as an Android smartphone.
Still, the review caused an uproar on social media.
“I find it offensive and almost unethical to say this when we have 18 million subscribers,” says Daniel Vassallo, a former AWS engineer. I have written At X on Sunday. “It's hard to explain why, but with great scope comes great responsibility. It's the smell of carelessness that can ruin someone else's early projects. First, do no harm.”
Alex Finn, another technology content creator, said: I wrote to X: “MKBHD bankrupted the company in 41 seconds,” he mentioned at the beginning of his video. Finn later added, “If this video hadn't come out, it would have sold a lot more.”
As the conversation heated up, MKBHD tweeted to Vassallo, “We disagree about what my job is.”
When asked for comment, Vassallo said: “Many people thought I was defending Humane or their products. That was not the case. My observation is the scale of MKBHD's influence and how that power has led to sensational headlines on YouTube.” It was about how it should be evaluated more rigorously than “The worst product I've ever reviewed.” The power to destroy companies should not be underestimated, and the headlines are what most people see. The actual review was fair and balanced. ”
Underdog worth $800 million
Critics of MKBHD's video treat Humane AI as if it were the underdog in the field. But this isn't an early-stage green startup working on building new hardware. Before consumers can get their products, the company has raised a Series C round of funding, led by Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and a variety of other top venture capital firms, including This is a company that has attracted investors.
“Call me cynical, but I'm wary of startups that have a huge war chest but don't have any commercialized products to talk about,” TechCrunch reporter Kyle Wiggers wrote last year. wrote after its Series C funding.
When asked for comment, MKBHD pointed TechCrunch to his new YouTube response to the situation.
“All an honest review actually does is accelerate what's already happening,” he says in the video.
Within a day of posting, the follow-up video had over 2 million views.
This is not an isolated incident for MKBHD. The YouTuber instigated EV startup Fisker's downfall last month after he negatively reviewed the Fisker Ocean vehicle in a similarly titled video titled “This is the worst car I've ever reviewed.” I was even suspected.
After Brownlee posted his review, Fisker laid off 15% of its staff and halted production. But before Mr. Brownlee told Fisker that his Ocean was the worst car he had ever reviewed, Fisker was already in freefall. In fact, at the time, it revealed in regulatory filings spied by TechCrunch that it had just $121 million left in the bank.
Additionally, in the month prior to the MKBHD review, federal safety regulators began investigating Fisker Ocean over complaints that the brakes were not working properly. TechCrunch has separately learned that Ocean drivers have complained to Fisker about poor brake performance, malfunctioning key fobs, and sudden loss of power. One customer wrote to Fisker saying he feared for his life when his car suddenly lost power while driving on Interstate 405 in Los Angeles.
So did Fisker fail because they put out a dangerously poor product, or because a very popular YouTuber said the car was bad?
Thankfully, Humane AI's substandard pins don't put anyone in mortal danger. But these parallel incidents demonstrate the same misplaced anger at Brownlee for his honest criticism of a problematic product.
Uncomfortable but friendly criticism
Some black engineers saw the criticism of MKBHD in a different light.
While the Humane AI pin was widely condemned across the technical review board, only MKBHD, a black man, received outsized and long-lasting criticism for his review.
There were also some familiar metaphors for how he was criticized. His continued condemnation of the way he published his reviews mimics tone policing, which is commonly used to dismiss speech, especially by black people, simply because you don't like the way that person said it. This is a method that .
“If Mr. Brownlee were not black, this would be an honest review that shines a light on the AI bubble,” one black founder told TechCrunch. “On the contrary, he is 'tough' and 'it is unfair to bankrupt such a well-funded company.' He should be more gracious in his criticism.” In a world full of quacks and fraud, Marquez is right. You need to do exactly what you think. And he did. ”
The tone of a review headline also depends on how you view it. MKBHD includes “for now” in the title, which raises the possibility that Humane AI will eventually improve what all reviewers currently agree is a flawed product. Because I acknowledge it.
It's also important to note that the tech community reserves special criticism for Black men who wield power through reviews, always share their voices, and other white men in tech podcasts, voices, and online where their voices and criticisms of products are celebrated. It is also noteworthy that he avoided criticizing the reviewers. . It felt like some people expected MKBHD to be held to a higher standard in ways that aren't usually spoken out against prominent white tech influencers.
“Technology has a problem with prejudice against black people, and technology has a problem with the media being critics rather than cheerleaders.Therefore, of course, technology has a problem with black technology, which criticizes obscene topics such as AI and IoT. There’s also a problem with how the media looks at it,” one black investor told TechCrunch. “That doesn't make his review any less valid or any less whining, but it does leave you wondering how you can watch this playout without noticing all the dog whistles.”
But the fact that YouTubers can have so much influence, both for Brownlee and the creator economy as a whole, is remarkable.
In an interview with Colin and Samir, Brownlee reflects on a bygone media era when the only voices people looked to for opinions on new technology were the technology critics at the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. . But now, anyone can have a say on the Internet, regardless of their institutional affiliation.
“Very often when my YouTube video is published about a product, hundreds of other videos are published about the same product at the same time,” he said. “Now there are even more voices.”