Our Studio Pitches Cursed Tech Inventions!
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How's the low light performance on the camera? Because with 50 megapixels, the photo sites are going to be really small. I think it was 500 megapixels. 500 megapixel main sensor. It's bending down to 50. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No notes. No notes. Yeah. Okay. You know, Alex, um...

I love what you're putting down, but I think without a Philadelphia 76ers integration, I just don't think I could co-sign this. That's okay. I was really just here for it. The headline, Marques Brownlee single-handedly resurrects LG Mobile, that's going to hit, man. That's what I'm thinking. Yo, what is up, people of the internet? Welcome back to another episode of the Waveform Podcast. This is not your regularly scheduled programming. We'll be back to that on Friday. Today is...

Wednesday? Or Tuesday? Or Tuesday? Could be a couple things. Could be any day. Don't check or watch. It is a waveform podcast, though. And yeah, this is a bonus episode, so we're your hosts for this episode. I'm Marques. I'm Andrew. And I'm Ellis at the big table. Yeah. So... That's how you know this is going to be a good episode. Oh, yeah. No slight against David. I hope he doesn't take that as a slight. Okay. We're ready. So do you guys watch Shark Tank at all? I do watch Shark Tank. Okay. Ellis doesn't. Andrew does. I do. I do.

Are you familiar with the concept? Vaguely. It's Mark Cuban and the other guy and really passionate people come up and they say, I have this idea and I need your help. And then they scheme and they go, how much of that can be mine?

Yeah, yeah. It's almost like a symbolism for the American dream, but also fast forwarded and cut up. And it's an entrepreneur with a business or a product or some idea that they're pitching to this investor and how they can collaborate to make it happen. I believe one of my favorite products

was a Shark Tank product. Scrub Daddy. Scrub Daddy. Oh, that's one of your favorite products? Well, it was. Now Scrub Daddy has been ruined by Unilever. Oh. Yeah, now it's just the same as any other sponge. But back in the heyday of scrubbing. Yeah. King. No, that's perfect. That is a quintessential Shark Tank success story. It's something that got brought to the masses. It was shown on TV. It got the investment. It got the collaboration.

And the partnership was beautiful. Today on Waveform, we're going to be playing our own little version of Shark Tank. Now, we're not investing per se, so we're kind of doing a little twist on the formula if you want to explain it. But it is still kind of like Shark Tank for us. Yeah, so last summer, Eric came up with this idea called Studio Pitches. And they were going to have – it's four people that will be on today –

Four of them made up a, I believe, tech product. Hopefully tech, most likely tech product to then pitch to a panel that was going to be on the studio channel. And we had, at that time, David Federspiel, our intern, create some, I haven't seen them yet, but it sounds like some really, really good mock-ups. This is not just a like,

and they pitch it to us, there are visual representations of these ideas. And this was a year ago. The video never got made. And we were like, wow, he spent a lot of time on that. And they were really good. We should revive this. We needed a bonus episode for this month. So we are turning it into a podcast. So the rules of today are going to be

Each person is going to come in. They're going to pitch us their product. Us three are going to be the shark investors. But since we don't have money and we're just going to then after pitch to them why we would be the correct partner for them. Yeah. So we will have to think of ideas on maybe how to market it, maybe where it could prevail. Like,

We have to prove to them that we can make their item a success. Yeah. So it's like upside down shark tank. The investor or sorry, the entrepreneur, which is our guests, will come in with a product that they've made up. And then we have to figure out how to convince them that we're the right partner. Correct. Cool. Okay. I think I get it. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, I don't know a lot about investing, but if there's one thing I've learned from reading VC tweets on Twitter, it's that the key to being a good tech venture capitalist is feeling like you are the most important person in the world and what you do, investing, is the most Herculean and impossible task. Yeah.

I think we should all just self-aggrandize a little bit and get ready to change some lives. Ellis is literally eating birthday cake at 11 a.m. this morning, which feels like the most lord and peasant thing we could be doing. So he's in character. It's yellow cake.

I kind of want some. I'm going to have some later. It looks really good. Is it good? You know, it's been sitting on a counter for a full day, so. Oh, okay. I mean, that's not that bad. No. Not that bad. I mean, it's a birthday cake. All right. All right, so we have four contestants coming in? Yeah, let's jump right in. Let's do it. Dope. Are you hearing all the click?

Welcome to the lion's den, Eric. That's funny because Eric can't hear the shark tank, but you knew the lion's den? I was trying to make a joke. I was hoping someone would be like, no, it's not the lion's den. It's the shark tank. Oh. There's a Canadian version of shark tank called the lion's den. Oh.

Welcome to the eel pit, Eric. That's really good. Hello, gentlemen. How are we? Great. We're good. Are we feeling middle class today by any chance? Never. Eric? He's eating birthday cake. He's eating birthday cake. I'm drinking out of a cash app mug. If this isn't wealth, I don't know what is.

I do, Ellis. I do know what wealth is. You know what's cooler than one piece of birthday cake? Show me. A billion pieces of birthday cake. I'm listening. All right. Let's go. It's Tech Bro time. All right. So I'd like to give a little behind the scenes. I'm Eric. I'm the, you know, I'm the one of the producers on the studio channel. This was originally a concept for the studio channel that we were going to do this time last year. We were pre-pro-ing it. Got it. And so before we dig in, we need to all take ourselves back.

to a simpler time. 2024. - Just for our audio listeners, the first slide of your presentation says, "Eric saves Google." - The next slide says, "Welcome to 2024. I need to just set the stage. We're all just gonna remember what it was like

to be alive in 2024. Bratz was topping the charts. Brain X, our video on the Brain X, was universally loved with no critiques whatsoever. - No hate. - As was our coverage of the Tesla Cybertruck, Apple Vision Pro, Humane AI pin, and Rabbit R1. And cultural phenomenas like the film Challengers and the two guys doing the boom stuff, equally valuable.

They dominated culture. Okay. All thanks. The zeitgeist of the world is on this one slide. If you're an audio listener, you're not witnessing the beauty of the zeitgeist. There was something happening, though. While the rest of the world was in party mode, Google was in panic mode. Google's AI efforts were pretty bad last year. I think... Wasn't great. Last year's Google I.O. was like...

Boring. Yeah, it was really awkward. It was cringe. It was cringe. It was really cringe. It was cringe, gentlemen. It was pretty weird. And while all of this was happening, there was great progress happening. OpenAI and Apple announced a partnership to integrate ChatGPT into Apple experiences. That's coming in early 2025 because it's currently 2024. That's coming in early 2025. By January, Apple will clearly have an excellent AI suite. Yeah.

So, so there's this existential risk to Google because Google pays billions of dollars to Apple to make sure that they're the default search engine on Apple phones. If Siri's integrated with open AI and the future of search is going to look more and more like an LLM, that is an existential risk. How is Google going to access some of the most valuable consumers in the world?

Google needs this to work. They need AI, their efforts in AI to work because if they don't, there's potential existential risk here, billions of dollars. And if we lose Google, who's to say that we don't lose the White House next? It's a fair point. Oh my God. So we need to reach the wealthy. We need to reach rich people. And if there's one thing I know about rich people, it's that they love Google products and they love AI hardware. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Right. So gentlemen, I'd like to introduce you. Oh my God. What is this? To the Gemini home 3D. Oh no. I think the best place here right now is just for you guys to maybe describe this to our audio listeners. Yeah. So I'm seeing like an upside down jug.

And it has the two of the eye emojis and the lip emoji in between them all in one straight line. It's like the, do you know the fans you get that have LEDs on them so when they spin they can spell things out? There's a center column. I think that's actually what's powering the display. Am I correct? Yes. Yeah. What is this?

It's a volumetric display! It is in fact a volumetric... Jesus. So, what Google can do here is they can integrate Gemini into the Google Home experience, completely revamp it, but add something that's visual. Almost like taking elements of the Pixel tablet experience, but making it way less practical and not portable at all.

So the way that this tech works is you have a fan in the center with different LEDs in it, and because it's spinning so quickly, it can create the illusion of depth and actually create a 3D image. When you pair that with Google's excellent potential for AI video generation and image generation because they can train data off of videos like this without our consent, then you can actually have this really immersive, excellent experience that Google could uniquely compete on. So...

This strengthens the ecosystem for especially Americans who predominantly experience the AI hardware experience through the lens of Apple right now. It helps boost internal morale at Google because who wouldn't want to make something like this? Everyone would be like, we're so cool. This is probably the most important thing that Google's ever launched since Google Hangouts. And then it's just objectively...

Amazing. So, yeah, what are our questions on the future of AI hardware? This is good. This is really nice. I wonder, so it's going to run Gemini, I assume, and move on from Google Assistant? Yeah, I mean, until they name it something else. Well, yeah, you know, there's BARD somewhere in there. Are there any plans to recover?

cover some of the functions of Google Assistant and move them into this Gemini box? - There's definitely plans. - Okay, great. - I love hearing that. - Yeah, there's so many. There's plans everywhere. - What is the pixel density of the-- - The Pixel 9 Pro-- - I can't even call it a screen. - The Pixel 9 Pro integrates perfectly. You could use the entire Pixel suite.

Why would someone choose this box with eyes over a box without eyes? Why would someone choose this box with eyes over a box without eyes? That's correct. I think that's a great question. I think the key to understanding why people gravitate towards eyes is really to understand the humanity behind the technology. Which is?

I mean, look at the thing. All right, follow-up question. I see you have a distinct orange, two-tone orange and cream base with a sort of old-school style speaker grill that sort of implies a design partnership with Teenage Engineering. Is this the case? Yeah, we had an intern design this. He's fired.

David did not get fired. His internship ended. All right. I'm still not quite understanding the value proposition, Eric. I understand smart home, LLM integration, fine and dandy. Right.

But, you know, volumetric display, this thing's going to be expensive. I don't understand how you're an investor and I'm saying AI and you're not on board. I can't help but feel like these gentlemen right here would be excellent partners who really want to win this deal. And if you're skeptical, I completely understand. But maybe you should go chat with the folks at SoftBank or maybe Adam

Newman with WeWork. I heard Elizabeth Holmes is raising a new... We here at Spruce Capital, at B17Z, we only invest in the worst, most useless products, okay? And this seems like a perfect candidate. I just need you to explain to me a little further why this thing is so bad. Yeah, I think that makes perfect sense. It's not bad. This has potential to fundamentally change the way that humans interact with technology. I'm listening. Say more. That I see. More buzzwords?

yeah they're in because they're language models machine learning i think we what is yep do we have a size of this i need to be able to fit this into every single room inside of the average households yeah and are there other color options because yeah so absolutely very flexible in terms of the colorway and the the beauty of this is because it's a density of leds the

the vast majority of the visuals are essentially entirely modular, right? You can fundamentally change this, especially once you have generative AI, you can change this as much as you want. We can integrate cameras, scan your room, look at everything that's happening, and then perfectly make it blend almost like a chameleon in your home. So if you don't wanna see it, it spins around, it just looks like the wall, but then you know what? You wanna photo your family,

Boom. It's right there. It can tell that your in-laws are coming in and you don't like them. It can have a little emergency button. It says beep.

and you can run away. It can just see that. - So a big pitch of Google's 2024 AI initiative was AI, LLMs and AI can take care of the one like super annoying thing no one wants to do. - Taking care of your kids. - Raise your children. Exactly. You know, so LLMs can do their homework, teach them valuable life lessons. So as someone who has literally no interest in raising my children,

What, where does this thing step in? So children are inherently visual. There's actually a lot of studies that find that. There's a lot of studies that... Right, because previously, if I wanted it to do, help my children with their homework, it would generate a podcast. Right, it would talk to them. 30-year-olds like podcasts. Exactly. There are no children listening to this right now. Never once. Nope. I mean, maybe the child of a 30-year-old, but... In a car somewhere. In a car somewhere. Yeah. We're talking to you. Turn on Cocomelon.

Anyway, yeah, so visually, like this volumetric display will be able to come up with a sprite, perhaps? Yeah, so children before the age of four can't distinguish the difference between fiction and reality. So you could actually use this to fundamentally alter a child's perception of reality. I'm listening. All right, Eric. Can these be linked up to create stereo sound? Oh, that is a fantastic question. I'm going to say yes, despite never thinking about this.

It's, yeah, very Google answer there. No, I like that. I think I'd be the perfect partner for this. And I'll tell you why. I've been primed up to throw away all of my morals and partner with a tech company on something in a category I've already reviewed. So fresh off the heels of murdering other standalone AI devices...

It would be a great opportunity for me to totally flip everything and shock everyone and partner up here and bring this to the masses. I like the thing you said about morals. That was good. I like that. That's good. Gentlemen, what are your pitches? Do you have birds? I got birds.

I do like the idea that playing anything over a screen, this could be a house plant to blind in my TV console. Who wants to take care of a plant? Exactly. So it can fit in anything. The fact that Ella just thought of the teenage engineering...

Almost makes me think he might be the better partner because he's... Teenage engineering immediately lets you put a 45% margin on top of this thing. What game are you trying to play here? I don't know. You're trying to make me go with Alice, which makes me want you more. That's what I was going for. All right. I don't know if I'm the correct partner for this because...

I do plan on raising my children. And I think this could start. You know, I think it would be potentially harmful towards my other investments if I'm the kid who doesn't, if I'm the investor that doesn't care about their children. So for that, I'm out. He's out. Okay. Well, let me tell you why. I will be buying 10 of them. Let me tell you why I'm the perfect partner, Eric. Because I'm the only one that sees that the true value in this product is

is that it has literally no value whatsoever. And that's why we need to do the most tech VC input thing ever, which is we need to pivot. We need to pivot hard. We need to pivot fast. This thing is not a home assistant anymore. That jar, you put a drop of your blood in there and it'll tell you all the diseases you have. Healthcare, huge industry. We're going to run with that for like a year. Pivot again, digital currency. Jar coin. Jar with ice coin. So if you want to go on this wild ride...

All you gotta do is sign it. So you've got two offers. Right. We could stick with what we've got. Right? We'd make waves in the press. For sure. The tweets would be crazy. They'd do crazy numbers. Yes. Exactly. Picture the numbers. Yeah. Crazy numbers. I mean, because...

- All those numbers are only a one second view time on the video, but they are still numbers. - They are still numbers. If we just make the first frame a really good frame, it could be like-- - This thing's a content goldmine. Who knows more about content goldmines than me? - It's true! - I could turn this thing into an ad

Okay. It's true. He loves being in advertisements. As many households as possible. Boom, flip the switch. It sells ads. It's everywhere. Yes, exactly. This is a no-brainer. Okay, all right, Marquez. Prince money. I'm interested in going... It'd be really interesting if you did all of the ads. For sure. Like, if there's a little AI Marquez and you pop up in people's homes and you're like, maybe you should buy...

today. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would sell out. I would be the voice behind it. My voice and my eyes. All of America just has it.

Yeah, dude. Giant Marquez eyes in between Marquez lips. We're going to get this thing in front of millions of people. Yeah, this is pretty good. I don't know. I definitely like the idea of going after healthcare and then pivoting to just becoming a currency and then insolvency. The blood testing thing, it worked so well for Elizabeth Holmes. Not only did she never face any repercussions whatsoever, but she's doing it again. Yeah.

You know? Yeah, I think the question is, do I want to be a villain in America or do I want to be a villain and then flee America? You're not thinking big enough. Do you want to be a villain in America or do you want to be a villain in prison? All right. I think I'm going to be America's next big villain. Sharks. I'm going with Marquez. Pleasure doing business with you. Pleasure. I can't believe I missed this one. Pleasure.

Thank you very much. Oh wow. That's a really good render I hate to say I probably would actually buy this if this was just like a Google home that I could like have stuff on top of it. The left one I see like a rabbit Yeah on top of like a dock or something. It does look like a rabbit with a jug, but I'm sure it's bigger than the rabbit We have another genius innovative invent inventor coming soon. But first we need a quick word from our investors. Oh

a.k.a. the people who sponsor this podcast. So we'll be right back after this quick break.

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All right, welcome back. Up next, Vin and his pitch. Hello, Sharks. Hello, Vin. He's got something under a cloak here. Whoa, a physical problem. Or is it the cloak? Oh, I thought it was the... I think most people have a presentation, but I have for you today a physical problem.

Oh. Okay. Not just a prototype. It's final production. Oh. Final production. This is good. This is good. And it's gold. It's under a gold cloak, I would say, of sorts. Fabulous. Yes. Welcome. Welcome to the eel pit. Wait, I can't hear you yet. Oh. Welcome to the eel pit. My voice only goes in there. There you go. Welcome to the eel pit. Uh...

Take it away. Tell us about your product or your company. Well, you know, we all have something important going on in our lives. Andrew, you have a kid. I do. Marquez, you're an athlete. You play ultimate frisbee. This is a fact. Adam, you collect a lot of cool watches. He's not an investor. Forget about him. But I just wanted to include him. You got to be nice. Thank you. Ellis.

with the McVibes, with the weird camera brands. This is true. You're a weird camera brand guy. I'm a weird guy. And so I think we need to capture the moments around us. Sometimes people do it with photos. Well, how about video? Maybe you're shooting something crazy like weddings or F1 races.

Or even birds. So, Marques, I'm going to have you do the grand reveal. Oh, perfect. I will do that. I thought it was Astro Bot at first. It could be. It still could be. Introducing the Ned Nonstro 8K. Nice. Nice. I don't think you've seen that logo before. It's a new company. No, this is brand new. You guys have heard of Nikon? This is Nikon. Nikon, yeah. Australians like to say it that way.

This is Ned. It's a beautiful camera, I believe it is. This is a video camera, but the 8K is good enough that you can take stills from it. You mean Nate K. Yes, perfect. You want to be on the team? You trying to be an investor? I think I was made for this project, bro. I think I got one. Oh my God. Okay, so for audio listeners who can't see, we have a very carefully modified Red Monstro. No, no, no, no.

- Ned, excuse me. We have a totally stocked, straight from factory Ned nonstro, where you would normally find an R, it has been carefully replaced, excuse me, not replaced, created from scratch with an N in place. - Correct.

Is that white Sharpie? Is that crayon? Silver Sharpie. Silver Sharpie. It's a familiar body style, but I don't think anyone has made something quite like this yet. Clearly not. Yeah. Yeah.

No, I like this a lot. So I shoot a lot with, I forgot the name of this other camera that I use. Doesn't matter. Like blue or something? Yeah, some color or whatever. But I'm very familiar with this world. And so I see a lot of useful parallels here. What kind of mount is on this? It's actually a Z mount. It's based off of the research. It is the most used mount.

Lens mount that we have found I like research. It can come with a PL mount if you're an amateur Okay, right. Yeah. Yeah. No, I like that Material choices. I mean this thing is rock-solid. It looks like there's carbon fiber everywhere. They're fatal Carbon is my favorite. I think that's it. That's a really important distinction here Yeah, Oh media wise SSDs is that what's happening over here? Yeah, they use magazines magazine magazine magazines nice and

- Yeah, I'm liking what I'm seeing. - So right off the bat, I gotta ask, with traditional box style cameras like this, like birds out of the question, never gonna happen. As soon as a bird sees that camera, it's running for the hills. - No, it thinks it's a bird house. - It thinks it's a bird, yeah, exactly. - It's meant to blend in with the environment. - But I gotta ask, what's up with the autofocus on this bad boy? Because that is essential to shooting birds.

It has Z mount. The not-o-focus. Not-o-focus. Yeah. That's what it has. I think it has the not part pretty down, pretty good. Not-o-focus, yeah. I think that satisfies your question. I have a couple questions. In the competitor scene, a lot of things...

that plagues that scene are slow boot up times uh bad not faulty ports but poor working ports hdmi you know for external monitors not good the range of accessories are very expensive is this doing anything to solve those issues uh actually it's a feature um because you know if you pick up a camera and it doesn't work it's basically like an anti-theft system

Built into itself. It probably also could be an anti-theft system in the fact of it is the weapon to prevent the theft of itself. Yes. Easily convertible. You'll get some really good looks at TSA. So, pricing-wise, what are we looking at? How does it fit in with its competitors? You know, pricing...

It's based off of a subscription model, actually. Fascinating. So we went with the Adobe approach. Genius. This is going to be such a profitable product. Yeah. I really think you've set yourself up for success, Finn. There's branding everywhere. There really is branding everywhere. Every time I look at it, I find new branding opportunities, and I feel like they're fully capitalized on. You could check the bottom, too. Let's check the bottom.

yeah oh yes ned digital cinema correct so rings just rolls right off the tongue i like it

I'd like to step in as my first pitch for why I should be your partner for this. I think every, I mean, everything is covered here. This is a tried and true model. All we really, I mean, like the easiest way forward here, even though one of my partner, not partner, competitor investors is big in the YouTube scene and has made cameras like this popular. We don't need him anymore. It's very obvious to get to the influencer market. We just need some good strategy for that.

The way I think we could really make some money here is there's one thing that is not on brand, and that is the V-mount. We need to create N-mount. I think you're right. I think we create a proprietary N-mount battery with half the size, twice the price, and it's pretty hard to not.

shoot for the moon at that point yeah i like so that that is my pitch to you i think it is a great idea i maybe they'll have some good ideas and mount with like i think i might consider the millimeter flange distance that you can't use any lens even if with an adapter it's out of the question flange is a good word yes we like that so i meant for the battery not for the lens but we could also we could flange anything you want yeah the battery flange distance the

The cards have a flange distance. Picture that. An SD card, that's like 60 inches long. Yes. All right, but let me tell you why I'm the man for the job here, okay? When people think Ellis Roven, they think nonsense. I'm known for my nonsense, but I'm not known for my other amazing qualities like lollygagging.

faffing about tomfoolery. Those are big words. All of which I think are qualities in this camera. I think I embody everything this camera is about, which is being totally worthless and very silly. So it's a no brainer having me on this project because the innate qualities that make me me will be able to communicate to the consumer what this whole thing is about. In fact, I think...

I already am Nellis. I think I ceased being Ellis years ago. You're going to change your government name? I've been Nellis for quite some time. I would to take this on. See, that's where I stepped in. Because I think I would be the perfect partner here because the branding opportunity is so obvious. When you turn around this camera and you see N-E-D-E,

everyone is gonna remember that, especially the N. And I think I've been associated with an acronym for so long that it presents a beautiful rebranding opportunity

- Oh, you're Narquez. - And from that moment on, I will be intertwined, associated permanently with this brand and this camera. And I can push it to the masses, I promise you that. - It's true. And you haven't been permanently associated with a camera brand yet. Like this is the opportunity. I don't know if I can compete with that. - Yeah, Canon could never. - Yeah. - I don't think so. - Nanon doesn't roll off the tongue. - Doesn't work. Doesn't work. But this is the rebrand that it deserves. - Does it work in Final Cut?

proprietary software. Crashy, hopefully? Only on Wednesdays. Nice. Yeah, man. I mean, I'm used to that. That's perfect. It's a timed crash. It's a timed crash. Right. Taking care of the camera. Yeah, we all need rest.

Everyone has a sleep schedule, and I think cameras could also have a sleep schedule. - I'm really into that. People always say electric cars, they don't have enough range, but the human body can only go so far driving before it needs to pull over, and I think that's also true about editing. I should have a timed out crash every 12 to 45

And that's the type of thing that sort of eliminates fatigue, keeps you refreshed. You jump back in, final cut starts again. Good work-life balance right there. It's good. It's good. Repetition is the fastest way to expertise. And if you have to redo the last 10 cuts before auto-saved over and over and over again, you're going to be an expert in no time.

You've really like hit the nail on the head, Vin. Like there is this problem in the camera landscape. Bird cinematography specifically, I think. Well, I think there's just a problem with the camera landscape in general where they're all too good. And consumers are asking, they're like, I want a bad camera that doesn't work. We need to dumb things down. Where is that bad camera that doesn't work? And here you are about to bring it to market. No notes.

So you've got three offers on the table then. Which direction would you like to go? Can I phone in a friend? Why not? Adam, chat, what do we do? Can I take like a little bit of all three? Is that a legal move? That's happened on Shark Tank. We're all partnering together. You are allowed to pick more than one partner.

Yeah. Like some polygamous type. You can combine them all. If you think we'd work together well, that would be up to you. America the Beautiful. You know what? I'm taking all three. Perfect. Three offers accepted. Boom. And the first on Shark Tank. We all agree NED 2 is just a smaller box that uses AI to create all of the video. Yeah, absolutely. For sure. AI integration is a very good platform.

Think we're great good. Oh, yeah, we are we are positioned for the future gentlemen. It's been a pleasure. Thank you partner I'll see you know far away, but it doesn't deal doesn't count unless you shake hands. Oh, yeah You obviously haven't watched you have to yeah, this is a big part of securing securing the bag the anime sword sound right here and That makes it official three for three

Incredible. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. We will move on for our next contestant. Please never take that tape off. All right. Next up, Alex. Oh. This is intense music. I've never seen Shark Tank. So this is what I just, I like listen to a few seconds of the music. I'm just like, this is kind of it. It's not as intense. This feels more Dragon's Den-y, even though I've never seen Dragon's Den, but just calling Dragon's Den. For sure. Yeah.

Alex, welcome to the tank. The eel pit. We appreciate... It's electric in here. Hey! I'm in. I'm all in. 100% of the business, please. All right, walk us through it. What are you presenting to us today? All right, so let me pull up a little presentation here. Perfect. In a world...

Where companies keep trying to make our phones minimal. Are you saying this because I literally have the minimal phone? No, this has been in the works for well before you decide to make a video about it. The timing on this is hilarious. But we've seen the light phone. Light. Who wants that? The Boox Palma. Hey, that's goaded. You're going to hate this. Oh, no. I don't need your money, pal. The Palm phone. Less goaded. Right? Yeah.

And whatever that is, the punked. I've never even heard of that. I hadn't either. I had to find a fourth phone, though. Companies have been trying to make our lives more minimal. And that's when... Well, you know what? Let me show you guys a little something first. I think we need to go the other direction. We need to start maximizing our content consumption. And many places have tried and failed. We had the red hydrogen one.

Could have been the best consumption device ever. It had 3D or something. I have fond memories of that. Yeah, great, great device. We had the Surface Duo. Another classic. Two whole screens. Mm-hmm. But didn't quite nail it. Not quite. We've got the Huawei... What is this? The Mate XT? That is. The triple-fold. Triple-folding phone. We're getting closer. We're getting warmer. Uh-huh. Okay? But we're not quite there. I see a trend here. And then, of course...

Most beautiful baby. Oh, wow. The LG wing. Yeah. For maximizing consumption, but still not quite there. But that it is funny that I should bring that up because a long lost hero is ready to emerge from the depths from their premature death. And that is fire. There's a fire. We're back.

And better than ever. I am a top secret operative sent here by LG to pitch you on the latest in phone technology because LG is ready to make their return after far too long on the sidelines. Five years by my count. Oh, yeah. This is 2024 AI. This has been sitting around for a year. This is good. All right. So funny. So without further ado, I would like to introduce, after three years,

very long periods after the introducing the lg maximalist phone whoa it's time to it's time to stop minimizing and start maxing it has crazy it has a dynamic island on the back of the phone or it has cameras on the front of it yeah true it might have both let's wait and see

Ready? Let's talk about it. So tell me about this maximalist phone. So what are phones? Well, we got to get existential first. What are phones in 2025? An iPod, a phone, an internet communicator? No, they're not. Not anymore. Then what are they? Phones are literally everything. Oh, that's true. They're our way of communicating with the world. Yes. They're how we do our jobs. Often true. Yeah.

They're our camera to take and preserve beautiful memories. Factual. They're the place where we go to leave mean comments on YouTube videos, often while pooping. Several times today. They're our brains. They're our creativity. Oh my god. They're our best friends. This is a joke, but like, we get emails that are like, not that far off. Maybe it was for me. You don't know. I might be consulting.

They're also our lovers sometimes anyway, but as a society We're too far gone to remove ourselves from our phones without our phones. We would literally die So what we need to do is get more involved in our thoughts we don't need less and

We need the LG maximalist phone. So I'm going to tell you all about it. Yeah, please tell me what makes this so maximal. So we're building here at LG on a history of adequacy and engineering. I just want our audio listeners to know the pauses in this is because every piece of text blurs into the presentation. And Alex did this a year ago. Let me remind you of such great and adequate phones. It's the LG DoublePlay from 2011. That's real? Yeah.

That's a real phone. That's incredible. Wait, this is a phone with a split keyboard, a slide up and an extra app screen in the middle of the split keyboard before Android. I think that is Android. That one is Android. Yeah, it's like Android three or four.

But what about also the LG G8X ThinQ from 2019? What a beautiful feat of engineering that was. And then, of course, in Marques' hands right now, the LG Wing from 2020. We need to do a revisit LG video. Sorry. We did already do that. Check out the Studio Channel dead smartphone tier list video. Thank you.

All right, next. Oh, which is where MKBHD gave that phone a C tier big time for the aftermarket sales of LG Wings. So what is a maximalist phone? So it's everything you've ever dreamed of doing on your phone in one place. Gambling? Yes, of course.

It's the only device you'll ever need. It's your all-in-one entertainment solution. It is the most productive device ever, your all-knowing AI friend, and the Maximus Phone guarantees that you will never have more fun spending entire days glued to your phone screen, as we all should be. Thank you, production.

So this is the LG Maximalist phone. Ooh, rounded corners. It's got a 6.9-inch display. Very nice. Nice. It's got the Snapdragon 10 Elite. We jumped two whole dragons for this phone just for you guys. Two terabytes of RAM.

10 terabytes of onboard storage, a 500 megapixel main cam, 40 megapixel telephoto, 100 megapixel periscope telephoto. Take that, Samsung. And a 25 megapixel selfie cam, all powered by a 3,250 milliamp hour, enormous battery. But that's just a rectangle. It's just a rectangular phone for those listening, not watching. Just looks like a phone. It's pretty boring. There's got to be more to this, right?

That's where you fold this baby out. And in partnership with TikTok, you can now have TikTok running on your left-hand screen and keep being productive on your right-hand screen. Because if you've ever worried that you can't content max while you're oversharing your entire life to your 347 TikTok followers, you don't have to worry about that anymore. You can live stream.

- Okay, I have a quick question. - Yes. - Assuming I literally could not care about being productive whatsoever. - Sure. - Could I just have two TikTok separate feeds on each screen and like sort of scroll them separately with my two thumbs? - You could have two TikToks. I'm not legally allowed to say this thanks to our contract, but you could even have YouTube shorts on one and TikTok on the other. - Right. - Or perhaps Instagram, but maybe we'll get to that in a little bit. - Interesting, interesting, interesting.

But what about your many successful businesses? If you do want to be productive, there needs to be more room for productivity because you might want to... I was going to say, you're stopping at two screens? Yeah. You have no faith in this presentation right now. You don't. Because that's where our next feature comes in. In partnership with Microsoft 365, we've added our third screen, which...

Gives you everything you need. Word processing, calendars, emails, presentation software. You can have a very mid-adequate version of all of them in one with the Microsoft 365 Suite, our exclusive partner for productivity on the LG Max Most phone. So you can be TikToking, you can be texting, and you can be emailing. You can be teamsing. You can be... Let me tell you. We're excited to announce, Ellis. Oh, no. That...

these transitions. Microsoft Teams is the official messaging partner of the LG Maximalist phone. You're really pushing the adequateness of this phone. This is going to be the most adequate giant phone you've ever had in your life. Yeah. Let me tell you. So Microsoft Teams, we want you to be part of our team. And that's why we've made Teams the official messaging partner of the LG Maximalist phone. But

It's not quite enough yet. Because we have an homage to our sweet baby, the LG Wing. You fold out that fourth screen on the bottom. For those of you listening and not watching, we now have three screens. One, two, three. With a fourth one that folds out from the bottom in the center. Does it fall out or swing out? Something like that. We're figuring it out. That's a great question. I'm glad you asked it. Anyway, so...

You fold out the fourth screen and suddenly you're in LG wing mode. If you just like you've ever looked at your phone and you're like, man, I wish I could be watching a full screen video up top here while I'm texting and being productive on the bottom. Well, here you go. You don't have to worry about that anymore with LG wing mode on the LG maximalist phone. But

Typing on a screen. It's very passe. It's very 2010s of us to be typing on a screen. So that's why we have a best-in-class exclusive collaboration with BlackBerry with a nice little slide-out keyboard from that bottom screen. Now you can tap out messages to your heart's content on those sweet little chiclets.

Get all those emails, important texts, everything out. Me and YouTube comments. The center of gravity on this thing is wild by the time you're here. It's amazing. For the audio listeners, just to keep you up to date, we have a row of three screens on top and then one center screen on a bottom row that sort of forms a Thor's hammer type shape.

And then below that bottom screen is a BlackBerry style keyboard. Exactly. So if at that point you're typing on the BlackBerry keyboard, you have two thumbs and all of your weight on the bottom, maybe 5% of this phone. Does it come with like a neck strap that you can like attach to like the top? Have faith. It's actually weighted quite well once you see what else we have in store here. It's remarkably balanced. Let's move on because you're still not maximizing your consumption just yet. And that is where...

- Our collaboration with Instagram comes in. Two more foldable screens on the bottom, giving you a whopping six total screens of Real Estate so that you can view Instagram the way that it's meant to be viewed in Instagram mode. It's the latest and greatest way to rot your brain with endless hours of doom scrolling. You get it just the way Zuck intended, nice square form factor,

minimal oversight, maximum ability to get yourself addicted to and or buy things. And it's on the biggest screen you possibly can for Instagram right now. Sounds like a moneymaker. It is. Absolutely. That's very important. Very important. This is Shark Tank after or the eel farm or whatever. Just go with that. All right. But that's still not all because what about more important things like gaming and movies? Well,

Well, the LG Maximus phone has everything you could ever want in a phone. That's right. We've got... We're at 10 screens now? We have 10 full-bath screens. Is that a Bitcoin ticker on the top of it? That is the official Crypto.com stonk tracker up top. So whenever you're doing anything, you can always know that you can check your stonks. Is that a Stadia controller? Sure.

Hold on just a moment. I did forget to put a piece of text on the side here and the producer forgot to bring in my updated presentation that I sent him. But this totals out to now a 20 inch screen to watch critically acclaimed movies like The Wild Robot. Great for all audiences. Anyone who says otherwise.

You deserve to get hated on the internet. Next. He's not even here to defend himself. The Fujifilm X100LIV pop-up selfie camera.

I don't know what those letters mean. They didn't tell me what number that is, so we're just going to call it the LIV. Actually, no, they're going to randomly change how this is read now. It's now the X100 Live pop-up selfie camera. We made this specially with them to make sure that you have the best pop-up selfie camera, just in case the stock 25 megapixel sensor is not quite enough. And then, of course, if you want a content max, you need...

Brain audio ear murdering surround sound which pops out from four parts of the screen on both sides. Ear murdering surround sound to take care of all you there. Then we got the Stadia controller redesigned. The last one is a little too modern looking. We've used the Xbox, the Duke controller as our inspiration for this. Perhaps the most. That looks like the Discord logo in 3D.

It kind of does. Maybe it's a Discord controller. I think that's just the Discord logo if they made it into an actual controller. Sure, call it that. Actually, we're selling the rights to Discord as we speak. Thank you for bringing that up. Stadia, you're gone. Discord, you're in. And finally, you might be wondering what those things are at the bottom. Any guesses?

Any guesses? One looks like an Opal webcam. Kind of looks like that scent box that we had here. Ellis, you're thinking correctly because this comes with 4DX immersive viewing built into your phone. You never thought you'd be able to smell the wild robot, but that oil smell is going to be coming right in your nose as you're watching. It's going to feel great. So this is it. We're good. And the best part is it's infinitely pocketable.

Weighing in at just four inches thick. Four inches? This phone. Like a block of chips. This phone is the most pocketable phone you could ever hope to experience in your entire life. Without further ado, this is the LG Maximalist phone.

This is incredible. I just want to make sure you partnered with Brain, Fujifilm, Crypto.com, Google Stadia. Maybe Discord. We haven't decided yet. Maybe Discord. Maybe both. Teams, Instagram, TikTok. What was the camera one? Fujifilm. I think that was it. But we have set eight...

brand partnerships going on. - Yeah. - Is there even room for us at this point? - Yeah. - Yeah. - So this was my concern actually. I was hoping I would get a camera partnership and a speaker partnership and we did get that, but each one of those deals actually takes a little bit off of your bottom line. So I'm curious how your margins are gonna work out giving a few percent to each of these partners. - Whoops. - That's a great question and I'm glad you asked it. - Yeah, incredible, moving on. - All right, so does anyone else have any questions?

Does it have NFC? Yes, of course. Of course. All right. Well, look, see, I feel like I'm an interesting candidate because as some people might know, I'm sort of a minimalist phone guy. In fact, again, once again, I literally... I have heard this, yeah. I'm literally being tortured by the minimal phone right now as we speak. So as someone who is afraid of brain rot and maybe needs a little bit of convincing that I should be rotting my brain more, what would you say to a consumer like that? How would you convince them to...

To melt their brain with Zuck's poison. Think about all the happiest moments in your life. They're all probably on Instagram, obviously. Right. Fair. Good point.

Yeah. I don't think I've ever been happy when not on Instagram. I mean, when are you happy when you're not consuming content? It's true. It's so true. Why would you go hike in the woods when you could see it in brilliant HDR right in front of you? You know, it's funny when I'm at the movie theater, sometimes I watch the whole movie through my phone's camera just so I can put it in a vertical aspect ratio. And then you can like pause it at various times, get a minute and a half consumable bits of the movie. I think that's really the better way

Well, look, I'm a huge fan of LG. I use an LG TV at home that I love. I use a lot of LG products. And so this just feels like the next big thing. So I'm in. I don't know if I have much to offer as a venture capitalist. I mean, it seems like, frankly, the biggest tech companies in the world are already funding this project. But if you want a goober like me on board, I'm right here. Look, really, we just love money.

That's fair. I love that. So more of it is better. Yeah. Of course. Here's why you should choose me. Okay. To my left, we have someone who notably has not been the nicest to folding phones in the past. You know, some say the Surface Duo. Some people on Reddit might say the Surface Duo is dead because of this man to my left. Wow. And we can't take that risk. He doesn't want to mess up his good name. Okay.

There's lots of other reviewers out there who will be out to get us because this is LG, a brand that I love. But I know all of the tech reviewers, except for one or two, are out to get LG because they have a personal vendetta against them. No other reason why they could have failed. And they failed because of those reviewers with a vendetta. We often say that in the office. I'm glad that you brought it up. We talk about it often.

Yeah, it's a known fact. I like that we're bringing it back. I have a content strategy for how we bring it to these reviewers. Okay. 37 embargoes. Okay. Each one of these screens needs their own embargo. Oh, that's good. Because we need to produce the... We need to show the incredible form factor before we show that there could be a couple...

We'll call them hiccups in the software process of this. Lots of different, you know, we've got a lot of integrations here. Those don't always mesh right away. And we probably won't solve those till about four or five software updates after consumers already have this in their hand, but they don't need to know that. And the reviewers don't need to know that. But we can promise them that we will. Exactly. So we need embargo one is pre-order day. Okay. Straight off the bat.

No screens turned on. One screen unfolding. External shots only. Perfect. And then we'll slowly unfold each screen one by one through the embargoes. It'll probably be seven to eight months worth of embargoes before they can do their full review well after the 30-day refund policy. This guy's good. Good, good. This guy's good. And that's how we sell this bad boy. And we bring back LG with a vengeance because...

It is a vengeance to all the tech reviewers out there who killed them in the first place. I agree. This whole thing is about revenge. And I'm glad you saw that and recognized it. Andrew, would you be willing to go in with me on that deal? I think it would be a good comeback story of Marquez being on LG's good side. Yeah, exactly. That's what I'm thinking. I'm thinking the big headline is that

I've changed my tune. And I am a big LG fan. Now, question. Would you be open to signing a deal where that's put in writing and we can sue you for many millions of dollars if you don't say that? And we don't disclose that to the public. And we don't disclose that to anybody. Nobody. I would say...

Yes, if I also get to add partners as well. Okay. Yeah, add as many as you want. We love partnerships. Yeah, I like that. Give me a pitch right now. Who do you know? You got all the connections. I was thinking you could have an AI partner. Oh, absolutely. I was thinking you could have a couple other partners in the software department, obviously the cameras. You can almost stack

partnerships, maybe one partnership for the ultra wide camera, one partnership for the telephoto camera, we had a 3200 million dollar battery in there, I think you can get two or three partnerships on the battery, like fast charging by oppo. I think there's a lot of room there. So I'm liking this. I like where you're thinking. I did have one partnership. So I noticed that the official crypto broker of this phone is crypto.com, who also happens to be the jersey sponsor of the best basketball team in the Mid-Atlanta Conference.

That's a terrible question. I'm sorry you asked it. So when are we getting the official Joel Embiid Philadelphia 76ers collab partnership? Unfortunately, that's the B-tier crypto.com partnership. And the A-tier one is the crypto.com arena in Los Angeles. We will actually be wrapping the entire crypto.com arena in LG Maxima's phones, though, as a promotion. I do.

I do have one other idea for, you know, further along in this partnership between us, maybe Marques. We need to look at the budget market. And I think there's opportunity for the LG Maximalist A. Okay. Sure.

further down the line maybe five screens plastic everything will take away wireless charging i actually didn't see like a 47 megapixel camera you know i think there's the opportunity the number one rule of the lg maximalist phone is if you if you are wondering if it has the feature it does does it have a deck

Yeah. Headphone jack. Sure. Stereo speakers. Absolutely. Well, you saw. I mean, yeah. It is stereo speakers. How's the low light performance on the camera? Because with 50 megapixels, the photo sites are going to be really small. I think it was 500 megapixels. 500 megapixel main sensor. It's binning down to 50. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No notes. No notes. Yeah. Okay. You know, Alex, I'm...

Love what you're putting down, but I think without a Philadelphia 76ers integration. I just don't think I could co-sign this. Yeah, that's okay I was really just here for him. That's yeah Headline to the headline mark has Brownlee single-handedly resurrects LG mobile is that's gonna hit man. I'm thinking yeah. Yeah, it's like it's like I

Yeah, you know what? Never mind. I was trying to think of a movie where someone kills someone and then brings them back to life, but I couldn't. That's a book. Yeah, I love that book. Yeah. I'm reading it on my minimal phone. Nice.

Yeah. No, I'm thinking we can collab on this. I bring the partnerships and the headlines. You're the media. And the media aspect. I can get this in front of reviewers. I can hear the strategy coming from all angles on this phone. I think we can hit every single feature in every single market. We have a timeline. We can get an A-series version out. I think the three of us are going to make something pretty magical here. Hey, Ellis here. In the future, in the future.

Sorry for the interruption, but all of my co-hosts decided to use this time to talk smack about the Philadelphia 76ers, which I just can't let happen. I'm mixing this episode. I get to decide what makes it in. And so, yeah. Anyway, back to the show. Thank you. Thank you. I'm slowly realizing that, you know,

This is an idea that kind of got thrown together for the podcast. The thing that's the hardest is they're all tech products and everyone wants Marques to be their partner for the tech product. All right, we've got another set of partnerships in the works. That was really fun. We're going to take a quick break and come back with one more from Adam.

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All right, welcome back. Last but not least, we have a presentation, a product from Adam. Stone-faced. Oh, now I hear the music. Okay. It is weird walking over here to silence. Not hearing music. Yeah, I'm not hearing anything. Adam, welcome to the eel pit. I'm ready. We are all ready for your presentation as well. Yeah, this has been a long time coming.

- Buttons are back, baby. That's what it's called. - I'm interested. - I knew you would be, but all right, hear me out. The problem with today's tech, it's too abstract. Everything is hidden behind screens, taps, tones, you know, like there's no oomph anymore. I don't feel anything when I'm using these phones. Pro phones are all the same color. App UIs look all the same. We're not using all of our senses with modern technology. You know, we're only using a few of them, like sight and sound.

When you tap your screen, it just vibrates to simulate the motion. We play music out of crappy tiny speakers and think that's okay on subways. But what about all of our other senses? There's so many other senses. I'm just a little confused because you mentioned sight, sound, and touch. So the other sentences are taste and smell? And the sixth sense. No, yeah, just taste and smell. It's actually just that movie. The solution... Wait.

Bubbles! Whoa. What? I have bubble wrap for you guys. Oh wait, no, not bubbles. Never mind. Buttons. We want buttons. And switches. And knobs. And so I present to you the iTab. Can you explain what you are looking at right now?

I see you cannot. If a normal smartphone is a slab with a glass screen and two or three buttons on the sides, this is a screen surrounded by many buttons, knobs, and switches and other things. A kickstand, a thermometer, a knob, an antenna, and it's looking pretty maximal, I might say. Yeah, wait. It's sort of like picture...

Kind of looks like an old school radio, like an old school portable radio. But there's an EVF on top. What's that with that? There's a compass in the top right. Correct. Then there's like the dial pad from like a kitchen landline phone. There's a tape transport at the bottom. Mm-hmm.

Is that a physical eject button next to the transport tower? We're going to get there because I want to know what you're ejecting. On the right, there is a full mercury thermometer. A kickstand. And then an antenna sticking out of the top. What if I told you this was just a case? That screen in the middle is an iPad. It's that big? Or iPad mini. I think the best... Does this not look like it would be...

If you were playing a video game like Firewatch or something and you had the central menu screen, they wanted to make it more immersive. So he held this device up every time he needed to get... This is what it would look like. Yeah, that is how I would describe it. Or something... Have you ever played the game Astroneer? No. All right, great. Cool. Good story, guys.

No, I can already agree with you. Oh, look who knows how to use the sound buttons. Alex is on the sound button. Okay, so this is a case for an iPad. You put the iPad in. That is the screen right there as Marques plays with the bubble wrap. All right. And it gives your iPad all of this extra functionality with buttons and everything. Cool. Uh-huh.

It also lets you touch, taste, and smell your tech. You see that little grip on the side? Yeah. That's not just a grip. It's also the smell-o-vision. It's like one-time use because you have to refill it after every time you use it. But it can do it. Okay.

The iPad case. Hardware apps include compass, radio, screen recording, calculator, temperature, walkie-talkie, camera, AI assistant. Naturally. The specs, telephoto lens, physical viewfinder, 48 megapixel main sensor. The exposure control are all controlled by knobs. Love that. Built-in kickstand and an insane battery capacitive. This is a collab from Teenage Engineering and Mischief.

I noticed there's some asterisks. Yeah, it was my follow-up question. There are some asterisks, yes. Okay.

Okay, so so I see the the the asterisk after AI assistant correct and insane battery capacity What what do those asterisks mean Adam? I'm so glad you asked my cuz so the AI assistant asterisk refers to the fact that you need to Dial into an FM radio station in order to use this AI assistant. It's a one-way technology and

The AI will just constantly be spouting advice over broadcast. Oh, so you can't query it. You cannot query it. It just gives you what it thinks you should do. Okay. And then so the asterisk asks after insane battery capacity? Because yes. I love the idea for the FM radio AI assistant because if you were not spending tokens, is that what you use in AI? We're not, you know, we're not destroying the world through too much over... It's in the bubble route.

We're not destroying the world with the overuse of AI and servers and graphics cards. We just kind of have one that's going on. It's the most environmentally friendly AI. It is the one AI for all of humanity. Yeah. It will just be broadcasting facts. Kind of like Overlord vibes. I kind of like it. Kind of. Adam, I'm sorry. I really don't want to just tear this thing apart, but we got to dive in. By all means. First of all, this dial pad, right? Yes. There's two zeros on it. There are.

What feature does this unlock for the user? When you press the second zero, it's just the number 10.

- What happens when you press the X? - When you press the X, that's a custom function. It does all the numbers, zero through 10. - All right, interesting. In between the compass and the side dial pad, there appears to be what is either an incandescent light or a second but smooth dial pad. - It is a smooth dial pad. - It's a smooth dial pad. - That's how you change functions on the iPad itself.

Okay. Yeah. All right. All right. Okay. I think I'm starting to understand. Is there an FM radio? There is an FM radio. That's how you tune in to the AI. Right, right, right, right. And that's what the antenna is for. All right. This is starting to make sense. So it is just a case. It's a case. There is a power button on it. There is a power button. So does that...

The power for the case. Because iPads don't, like, you can't just, like, run all the battery. It would just drain it. So it needs its own power source. So this is totally up my alley. I love these sort of expanded use products like this. But I will say, my favorite thing where I think you've really outdone yourself...

Is that chrome kickstand? Yeah, buddy. Man, does that look sweet. And it folds all the way back. On this thing. A la Microsoft Surface. Like it just goes. Switch. Yeah, exactly. And switch. I like it. I like it. Marques, you don't look impressed. My favorite part is the mercury thermometer with no readouts on the side to tell what temperature it is. It's real mercury too. Awesome.

Just in case you're wondering. He's real. Is that a mercury? Now I feel like I gotta look back. I thought the, I said mercury thermometer and then I was like, I thought that was the one with the marbles. No, that's mercury. I'm pretty sure that's the mercury one. The glass ones with the liquid inside. Oh yeah, yeah, it's the mercury thermometer. Yum. So Adam, Adam, Adam, Adam, Adam.

We're trying to put this on shelves, right? This is a consumer product that has Teen Engineering and Mischief, two of the hottest design firms around right now. What is your pitch to the consumer? Hype, baby. Hype? You could be the person walking around holding this. Oh, that's what you think? This is not an at-home product. No, no, no. This is a big red boot kind of product. I think whoever gave Marquez bubble wrap was a terrible idea.

I think the reason you shouldn't partner with Ellis is because he's asking questions like how do we market this? It's with teenage engineering and mischief. Marketing is done. Built in, baby. The marketing is done already. There's almost no point in doing this. In fact, the only way to sell this

is through a lottery system on a temporary website that self-destructs in less than 24 hours. And through that website, you actually just get mailed a physical raffle ticket. And if you are one of the numbers on that raffle ticket, then you are able to buy a box of Boy Scout tickets

Girl Scout cookies that includes the actual device side of it. Not Girl Scout cookies. Boy Scout brand Girl Scout cookies. Correct. It's like a Jozo's sort of situation. Got it. Okay. Yeah, I like that. That's interesting. I could see that. I think that's how we sell it. And then...

It's done. That's all we need. Yeah. No, this is a fully formed product. There's only 50 of them. Yeah, naturally. Profit margins are 10 to 16. Is there only a telephoto lens? There's only a telephoto lens. But there is a viewfinder, so you can see it. So it's for bird photography. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anything close enough to it will be paying too much attention to how awesome the case is. Why would you want to take a picture?

What is wrong with our coworkers that 50% of the products brought in were designed by Teenage Engineering and 50% of the products brought in were specifically for bird photography?

Nothing says hype like bird photography. It's true. And orange. And orange. I have a couple questions. Okay. So obviously there's a lot of physical controls and things going on here. Do you have a price that you're aiming to hit when this ships? No, no. It's raffle only. So there's no revenue. No. The revenue is all of the millions of people that will be buying a raffle ticket. Oh, so how much does a raffle ticket cost? How much does a raffle ticket cost?

However much you want. You tell me, investors, how much is a raffle ticket? Interesting. I think we let them name their own price. With a minimum, of course. Minimum $2. At least, yeah. Okay, that's one question. The other question was going to be, you have all these things attached to it, but I'm trying to see if there's anything patentable, protectable here that couldn't be copied by our competitors because I could see an LG...

or OtterBox coming out with something in this same category. And I'm curious if you could defend this. - No one's patenting that number pad because it's inherently wrong. - You probably should patent it just to make sure they don't copy it, but I'm curious who that is. - We have spent the last several months buying up all of the Mercury that is commercially available. So no one else can get Mercury. - Big monopoly energy, okay, I like that. - How much does it weigh?

It weighs roughly three pounds. Okay. Yeah. So it is carryable. Depending on the size, because you can put an iPad in it, iPad Pro, iPad Pro 13-inch, iPad Mini, depends on which one you want. It's universal. Yeah. I thought about it. For all of it. There you go. I do love that kickstand.

I don't know why. The kickstand is sick and it folds all the way up and you can wear it like a clutch. That kickstand is actually very similar to the kickstand on your OnePlus Keychron keyboard. It is. Yeah, it's like almost exactly the same. All right, Adam, hear me out. I'm on board. And if you go with me, here's how we're going to do this. We're going to do the raffle idea. I think that's a really excellent way to distribute the product. Thank you. I brought that up. The problem with people paying for raffle tickets is that if they don't win...

they effectively get nothing. I never said they'd get nothing, they'd get a sticker. Aiden, let me finish. Okay. Which is why I think the purchase of a raffle ticket should be through a crypto coin, a meme coin, because that way we are still able to deliver consumers absolutely nothing, but they'll at least think they have something. What do I get out of it?

- Can I pull something at the end of this? - A rug pull? - So I can get... - Well, that's the beauty of this whole thing is you won't even need to do a rug pull because you're already providing nothing whatsoever.

People driving are just like flinching every time. Sorry, I should not have given Marques Belbarrette. That's my bad. But yeah, no, I'm in. I would like to be your investor. I think as someone who works in audio, I'd be great at communicating Teenage Engineering products. As someone who likes bad stuff, I'd be really excellent at communicating this. That's true. I'm literally using a phone with as many buttons on it right now.

Loving every second of it. And loving every second of it. And yeah, I just think I would be the perfect person to guide you towards capturing all of the market share for a camping case, I think is what this sort of is. A hype camping case. The hypest. The hype-iest. Are there any plans for supporting Android tablets? Somewhere down the line. Oh. Yeah. For that, I'm out.

I'm thinking I like this. There's a couple things that I really like that I think I could bring value to. One is I think I could sell a ton of raffle tickets for you. And I think you can get this in front of a lot of eyeballs. Two, I just like the aesthetic of the product, the presentation, the dynamic island in the middle. Everything is just working for me.

I meant the dynamic island in the presentation, not in the product. Oh, yeah. I just think that's great. On the screen. And then I think, yeah, there's a little bit of room for extra little design touches. And I think I was actually picturing a hype video that I would be able to make for you that's just ASMR. It's just sounds. It's me pressing the buttons with a microphone super up close in 8K and just hearing the way every button and everything sounds when you use it. And I think that would be incredible.

So I think I can do that for you and we'd be able to blow this thing up. So where's where's taste come in? What am I what am I tasting as part of this whatever you want mercury right there on the side of Mercury, you know? Yeah Sorry, I forgot to tell you if you want a screen record - there's a big orange button. You just press that and it starts screen recording What's the object button is because this is also a CD player where? on the side

On what size? There's no... It's somewhere in here. That's the ashtray. Does it come with an ashtray? How does it charge? USB-A or USB-C? Micro-USB. Micro-B. Micro-B, yeah. Micro-B! I got... I mean, Adam, it's the kind of thing where it's like I have infinite notes and at the same time I have no notes and I just really hope, you know, we've produced this podcast together for many years now.

And I hope that you can parlay that trust into letting me guide this product to success, even though I don't see the tape player and I don't really want to lick it. I still think that'll change.

I could fit that in an ASMR video. So you've got two offers on the table. Andrew is out for the lack of Android support out of the gate, but you have an offer from Ellis and an offer from myself. No, no, no. Andrew is out because of the Android support. I see, I see. Because if something is compatible with Android, it is inherently not hype. It's one of those things where you have such a good product and the minute you try and expand into all those things, it's just going to be a money pit and we're going to go out of business. And...

I don't want to watch my money go down the drain like that. Pop incoming. Bingo! Oh, my God. Sorry, Ellis, who has to edit this later. I'm just going to replace every single bubble wrap pop with the sound of a cat meow. Meow, meow. I just like that you gave me bubble wrap and I want to work with you more. All right. You know, you guys have made this decision quite tough. Yeah. But I think I have to...

To go with Ellis. Wow. Ellis, you know, I made this intentionally with the buttons and knobs with you in mind. And I know that we can take this to the next level. I think you and I can take anything to the next level, Adam. But this. Except this episode. If I see an ASMR video on this.

I'll be sending a fake copyright strike, you know. Unfortunately, I also have all of these scores in front of me. So Ellis, now that you have two votes for you, Andrew also has two votes. It would appear that the shark who got the most people to partner with them is Marquez with three partnerships. Nice. It's almost like it's his show or something. I could have had it all. I offered to lick the mercury. It didn't even work, but I would have gotten something there. Amazing. Wow. That's...

That was fun. I'm glad we did that. I think there is a world where this concept gets expanded in a future bonus episode. I don't exactly know what that looks like. I could see this as a like maybe Ted this. Okay, so none of us on the show knew any of these things. Yeah, it obviously was very meme focused, which I think we had a really fun time doing. I could see a version of this show where like

do people think of? Real things. We always hear, like, wouldn't that be so cool if this had that? And maybe there is a version of this where we, like, pitch it a little more seriously. You should look at our emails. It's literally, like, we get this in email form. That would be a banger episode of just taking some of the worst emails, don't name anyone, and, like, going through some of them. I got an email...

Don't name it. I'm not going to name it. But if it feels too specific, you know, maybe cut this. I got an email for a power outlet that has a credit card swiper in it so that if you're like at a coffee shop, you can like charge people to charge their laptop or whatever. Oh, wait, that's a good idea. No, it's not a good idea. That's a stupid idea. If I own a coffee shop, that's what I'm doing. Yeah.

yeah this is why it's commercial when you hand the bartender your phone can you charge this and be like hand me your credit card and we'll make this happen and you make so much extra revenue exactly do it you'd make some external you make some revenue on top people would 100% do that yeah that's a good idea I'm gonna email them and that is that that is not a good idea that is not a good idea is why I said yes to everything for a month for that video I think we should probably have to do that again sometime yeah

Anyway. Well, if you listen to the end of this episode, send Marques an email soon because he'll be saying yes, apparently. But if you also made it this far, thank you. That was purely experimental and super fun. I don't know how much fun it was to listen to, but... Let us know which product you liked the best. Please. And huge shout out to David Federspiel. Again, he made all these concepts a long time ago, but I'm glad we finally got them out into the real world.

And we'll be back with a normal episode where I'm not at this table on Friday. We'll miss you. Thanks for watching. See you guys later. Peace. Peace. WaveFirm is produced by Adam Malina and Ellis Irvin. We're partnered with Vox Media Podcast Network and our intro outro music is Vainsell. Bingo!