What Now? with Trevor Noah
Is Marques Brownlee the Most Powerful Man in Tech? [VIDEO]
Thu, 09 Jan 2025
Trevor and Christiana chat with YouTuber Marques Brownlee, professionally known as MKBHD and famous for his incredibly popular videos reviewing technology devices. The trio discusses how to survive and thrive in this era of nichification, fake outrage on the internet and its impact on creators, and whether AI is experiencing a PR nightmare or if in fact it will actually be able to kill us in our sleep. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What are the implications of the TikTok ban?
So I'll tell you one of the funniest stories actually that I've heard from the halls of Congress. You know, in and around the TikTok ban, all these Congress people, the senators and, you know, they're like, we're going to ban TikTok, we're going to ban TikTok. And they have this huge meeting about TikTok, right? Apparently what happens is,
One of the sentences goes to like one of the people at TikTok and is like, this app is disgusting. It's making people hate other people and it's anti-American and it's all of this. And then he goes, and look at this. Look at the salacious content that it's showing people. And he pulls up his For You page, right? And he goes, look at the things that it shows you. Children are seeing these images.
And then the person from TikTok very kindly had to say, No, I'm sorry, sir. That algorithm is based on what you like looking at. And so all of these titties that you're seeing are an indication of like how you live. This is What Now? with Trevor Noah.
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Apple Card and Savings by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch. Member FDIC. Terms and more at applecard.com. Marques, welcome to the podcast, man.
Thanks for having me.
I'll admit, I've been a fan of yours for a very long time. So this is a selfish podcast. This almost has nothing to do with anything except for my love of tech and my love of what you do. If I think about what this conversation would have been, let's say, I don't know, 10 years ago, it would have just been about gadgets. I'd be like, hey Marques, what do you think of the Galaxy?
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Chapter 2: How has technology evolved in public discourse?
And that's an interesting dystopian future, but that's a whole nother thing. But the other thing you said is that politics and sports bring people together. I feel like I would expand that to just current events, like things that actually happen in real life. So yes, there is fiction and you might watch that series. You might watch that Netflix thing.
You might, you know, invest in a storyline here or there. But in the real world, things are actually happening. And so that is the thing that sort of brings together humans. That's the defining human experience. The current events of what's actually happening. It's sports. Sometimes it's news. Sometimes it's a tech event and everybody wants to know about the thing that just got unveiled.
Lucky for me, I'm one of the people who is involved with showing you what just happened. So I happen to be one of those faces that a lot of people see instead of just one.
Do you think that's part of the reason that you haven't had to resort to crazier and crazier methods of getting views? Because this is something that I've noticed, not just for big YouTubers, but I've also noticed for, let's say, kids jumping on YouTube now. We've noticed a shift from... passively consuming to joining in and creating. So not trying to outdo people.
So now it's like, it's not enough that you threw a pie at your dad by mistake. Now your whole life has to be like pies everywhere in the house. And now we're the pie family. And do you know what I mean? And then it culminates, you know, I remember when I was on the Daily Show, I spoke to, I always forget which brother, Paul, Jacob,
I always forget who's Logan or Jake. One of them, what? It's the one that punches and the one that doesn't.
They both punch. Do they both punch? That's why it got confusing for me. All right. But anyway, he was talking about the video and he was really, I loved how he broke it down, but he was saying like, this thing became a monster that was pushing me and I couldn't stop it. And he said, I had to do a crazier and crazier and crazier thing. Until I was, I even didn't realize why I was doing it.
But it's all about the views. Do you think you've been immunized from that? Like, why haven't you had more fireworks in your videos? Why aren't you like driving tanks over phones? Is that because you don't have to or is it because you don't want to?
No, I have an exact answer for that. The star of my videos is not me. The star of my videos is the tech. I'm pointing the camera at the tech, at the gadgets, at the thing that just came out, at the Sora announcement, whatever it is. And I'm a face that happens to walk you through it and guide you through it.
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Chapter 3: What challenges do content creators face today?
as in like mainstream, you know, like let's say CBS and NBC and CNN, they would report on it and they would say, you know, this person taking flack from social media. And then they'd start posting the things up. Many people commenting on how they're putting people in danger.
And they put those things up and then they start putting up the post and they're putting up the post and then they talk about it. like it is news. But I'm like, no, no, you're also making news. It's a very sinister thing that you're doing. And then the thing gets bigger online.
And so the news reports- Kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Yeah, and then there's a part of me that goes, and please don't get me wrong. I'm not like bandwagoning. I'm not even like trying to gas you up. I go like, yeah, okay, you screwed up. But I just feel like there's like a level of outrage that's not real.
That's like disproportionate to what actually happens.
Yeah, like people made it seem like you drove through a playground is the way I'm saying it. and people made it seem like you raided their bank accounts and hacked them to steal money for a wallpapers app and while I get criticism Criticism, I think, is very different to outrage. Someone can say, hey, I didn't think you did that the right way.
Outrage is when someone goes, this hurt me deeply, Marquez. This wallpapers app has... And I'm just like, yo, man, is this a real thing? And even in my own life, I've tried my best to be cognizant of those moments where I'm participating in it.
But then also like as a person putting stuff out, I think it's part of the reason people feel like there's like shackles that they need to break in society now where they're like... What? No, actually, that person didn't mean that. Marques wasn't trying to kill anyone. Trevor wasn't trying to, like, you know, incite violence. Cristiano wasn't trying to... That's why I wanted to ask him.
Do you know what I mean?
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Chapter 4: Is AI experiencing a PR nightmare?
I know that you have to get your share price up and whatever. You have to appease. I don't think they're trying to scam us, to be honest.
And I love engineers, right? I've spent like, what, seven, eight years working with engineers at Microsoft. This is like what I do as one of my favorite passions, right? But... I think it's not that they're trying to scam us. I think that's that they're trying to scam Wall Street. It's like they're trying to scam analysts.
Like they're trying to scam, like Apple, I think one of the things that's always made them so good is the fact that they've tried to make the thing right, not first. And that's served them well.
And I feel like- I mean, they don't invent things. That's never been their job. The phone already existed and they made the best version of a phone. You know, a watch existed. They made a best version of a digital watch.
Like the Apple Vision Pro. This was the first time it felt like they were chasing because they didn't want the negative side of not being seen to chase. And they did a thing that wasn't ready. But I was like, oh man, you too? It's like, you know, I feel like if the shitification catches Apple, we're all in trouble in every other field.
You know what I mean? If they're the company that is the iPhone company, y'all are the ones in 2007 that reinvented the phone that everyone carries now. I think when they looked around in 2007, there were phones, but I don't think they looked around and thought, wow, there's a lot of people working on this really, really amazing capacitive touchscreen multi-touch media player.
This was a genuinely new series of things to combine to make the iPhone what it was, which is why it hit so hard. I think this moment was different, which is there is an immense pressure. If you are a tech company... I better see some AI in your products or I don't think you're leading at all. And I think they looked around and they saw everyone else. They saw Google. They saw Meta.
They saw everyone making AI stuff. They saw startups making AI stuff. And they felt like if they don't do anything AI, even if you're like a year behind or two years behind, you're going to look behind. And that's a reputation thing. It's a pride thing. It's a shareholder thing. And they felt pressured to do something now. So they did.
They announced that they'd make Apple Intelligence and that it would show up soon in software updates. And yeah, it slowly started to trickle out. But that did feel like it was very differently inspired than some of their original successes. They were very much pressured.
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