Simone Giertz: EVs, Viral Robots, and Becoming a Product Designer
01:09:11 Share

Support for Waveform comes from AT&T. What's it like to get the new iPhone 16 Pro with AT&T NextUp anytime? It's like when you first light up the grill and think of all the mouth-watering possibilities. Learn how to get the new iPhone 16 Pro with Apple Intelligence on them and the latest iPhone every year with AT&T NextUp anytime. AT&T, connecting changes everything.

Apple Intelligence coming fall 2024 with Siri and device language set to US English. Some features and languages will be coming over the next year. Zero dollar offer may not be available on future iPhones. Next up, anytime features may be discontinued at any time. Subject to change, additional terms, fees, and restrictions apply. See att.com slash iPhone for details. Support for the show comes from Crucible Moments, a podcast from Sequoia Capital. We've all had turning points in our lives where the decisions we make end up having lasting consequences.

No one knows this better than the founders of some of today's most influential companies. And Crucible Moments lets listeners in on the make or break events that defined major companies like Dropbox, YouTube, Robinhood, and more, told by the founders themselves. Tune in to season two of Crucible Moments today. You can listen at cruciblemoments.com or wherever you listen to podcasts.

What is going on, people of the internet? Welcome back to another episode of the Waveform Podcast. We're your hosts. I'm Marques. I'm Andrew. And I'm David. And this week, we have a special guest. I'm going to be interviewing her. Her name is Simone Yetch, and she's a fellow YouTube creator that I've watched and admired for a long time. I don't know. Have you guys seen Simone's videos online? I feel like she's one of those...

people who has gone viral in several different like spheres of the internet at different times for different things. I don't know if you've you've watched them. Yeah, she's been prevalent on YouTube for a very long time. She's sort of one of those creators that like kind of disappears for a little bit, but it's because she's working on some insane project. And then like once a year, all of a sudden she goes super viral because she did something crazy.

crazy those are some of my favorites sometimes where you're like i wish they made another video but when that one hits you just drop everything which is like uh what's that robotics kid that made spot p and a cup um michael reeves i literally i literally brought that up they're super similar types of people yeah big project youtuber truckla you've probably seen uh robots yeah as you turn the model three into a pickup truck before the cyber truck even existed which looks amazing by the way it's really cool

Before the Cybertruck existed? Yeah, I talked to her about it. Well, yeah. You mean currently? Before it even got unveiled. Actually, that was the first time I met her was she brought it to the Cybertruck event. Oh, wow. Yeah. So this was, this is, she's ahead of her time, obviously. But we also talked about just like her foresight on building a business that is more sustainable outside of YouTube. Like,

This reminded me a lot of my conversation with Doug DeMuro, which is you don't want to hinge everything on the power of your creativity and just putting it on YouTube and hoping the platform takes it away. You can be a Mark Rober, but like you can also not be successful on YouTube. It's really easy. So she's built a really interesting business with products alongside the videos that she's making, which is really cool. We talked about that.

So there's a lot to this conversation and I think it's a really fun one. My turn? Yeah. Segway. Hey. So a lot of people hit me up on Twitter and in the YouTube comments and were like, Ellis...

I actually do really want to know that weird color thing you were talking about. And I'm here to tell you, I'm not going to do it. It's too boring. But if you do really want to learn about that stuff, there's another creator online. The channel is called Technology Connections. And he has a six-part series on television, three of which are about color technology. We'll put a link in the description, in the show notes, for those who want to check it out.

But yeah, without any further ado, let's get to the conversation with Simone and there is trivia. Trivia, dude. All right, Simone. Hi. Thanks for joining us. Welcome to the Waveform Podcast. Oh, thank you so much for having me. I've been watching your videos for a long time and so I have a lot of questions for you. I'm always fascinated by different types of creators and YouTube channels and you have one that I want to pick your brain about. Okay. Well, go ahead. So you have a very official laptop device.

Don't be intimidated by it. With a list of questions, and I think it said simonequestions.pdf. It's not too crazy, but I am fascinated by the big project creator, if that's a genre that I can sort of loop you into, like Mark Rober. What else did I write down? There's a bunch of YouTubers. Michael Reeves, another great channel. With your channel, there's such a variety of...

projects that you choose to do. And I'm always curious about your process for deciding to make a video. Is it, I'm going to do this table for jigsaw puzzles anyway, why don't I just film it? Or is it, I have an idea for a video,

this table I think would be really fun and people would resonate with it. Let's make it a project. Like how do you start with a project? - It's a little bit of both. I think it's like, for me, the video has kind of become the excuse to go down these build rabbit holes.

And it's so it's very much like I don't think I would have self-motivated to build a mechanical puzzle table. So it's a table where you can switch between two tabletops. So you can work on a jigsaw puzzle, but then you can switch the tabletops and you can use it as a dinner table. Yeah, I don't think I would be self-motivated enough to like go and do that because it's it.

It took so much work, but it's really like the video aspect of it is the excuse that I can use to be like, no, I can spend two months designing this table. It's like the ultimate Ikea project. Like I could never put that. Also, there's the amount of like engineering ingenuity you have to, you have to invent something basically like this table doesn't exist. So you need to

go through the process of thinking about how it needs to be made and then and building these things and trial and error that's like that's a fun video like all of that is is entertaining to go through with you as you go through it yeah it's like ikea off-road and you're like there's no manual for this yeah i think it's there's always like a so i'll have an idea of something i want to do and then i do like a cursory google search to be like has anybody done this before i

partly to see how other people might have done it, but also to like, if it has been done, then I'm not as interested in it. And there's always the part where you're like, has nobody done this before? Because there's a good reason. I'm like somehow magically the only person who's thought of this or because it's a really bad idea in a way that I haven't predicted. Right. And that's about a 50 50 split. Interesting. I have two questions. So one of them, have you ever scrapped videos in the middle? Like this is too much.

No. You've gone to the end of every project you started on camera. Honestly, the video I was working on last week is the first time where I've like genuinely thought about giving up. Yeah. I was making this robot arm out of stained glass. Like so like old timey stained glass window, but it's a mechanical robot arm. So using this like really old built technique to build this hyper modern object. And it just kept on breaking. And that was the first time where I like it broke. I yelled fuck.

really loudly and then I was like can I just give up is this this it I'm okay I'm done yeah bye and then five minutes later I come back and I'm like okay but what if I do it like this so I think I'm just too stubborn I don't know if there are a good amount of videos that I've seen that are actually that turn out really well even though the project did come to a halt where they like realized oh this isn't how it's gonna work out I think Mark Rober had a video like this similarly where they're like well let's pivot and make something different or let's like

change it up a little bit because this one won't work. I mean, a robot out of stained glass sounds impossible if you asked me, but I've never built a robot, so. Yeah, no, I, you know, you go through it and you're like, this was a really dumb idea from the start. Why did I do this? Like now I'm glad that I did and I have this object that I'm terrified of breaking. For sure. So then, so you come up with the ideas. How do you know if you're going to be able to do it at all? Like I think of Trukla.

as the ultimate no one's ever going to be able to do this project, just like on its face. Like I'm going to take a Tesla Model 3 and I'm going to cut the back off and turn it into a truck.

shouldn't work. Probably just shouldn't work. But if you put enough thought and effort and effort into all the things that you did, it will. But the thing is, it's like two points about that. One, I'm like, I should start tracking my mood throughout every build because I think I go through a lot of the same emotional swings through every build. Like every build has a part where I'm like, I'm not going to be able to pull this together. This is never going to work out. And it also has the parts of like, I'm nothing.

the queen of the world. But then the second part is one of the benefits of having a YouTube channel and that kind of shields me from failure is that every build has two outcomes or like two products that come out of it. One is the build itself and then it's the video. So with Truck Club, that is an incredibly risky project, but I could take it on because even if the build was a failure, I knew I would get a video out of it.

So I think it's, yeah, every project runs the risk of not working out, but at least I'll be able to salvage it into something. Interesting. And so you still drive...

every day that's your daily driver it was for like two three years but then now i've got an oval c40 oh i like that thing the recharge the electric one yeah i like that too i like it it was just like trickla is absolutely amazing but we were going to do more work on her so she was going to like go under car surgery for a while and also it's like i get doxxed

every time I drive it. You're the only one on the road. Yeah. What is that like driving it? Did you get pulled over? Are there people who are just like pointing? I imagine a lot of pointing and cameras and things like that. I mean, and that's...

fine. I think people following me was the stuff that was really scary. People taking photos outside of my house with it or like I remember somebody following me up a cul-de-sac when I was like going to visit a friend and you know and it's like two guys in a car and I was just like hey I understand you probably have really good intentions but this is really scary for me to like be followed by two people I don't know up a dead end street. So like

It...

I don't want to talk about my car right now. Yeah. And the thing is, most people don't give a fuck about who I am. Like, they're just interested in the car or think, like, it's a secret Tesla prototype that they just spotted. There is that whole culture, too, around Tesla where, like, there are whole, like, spy channels. Have you seen these? No. Okay, so Tesla's got this, like, Fremont test track and all these factories and stuff like that. People will literally go take a drone, take off from a nearby parking lot across the street, and go fly over Tesla's stuff and just, like,

fly the drone up to people and up to things and take videos of it and post that online. And people will find neat things in those. Oh, they're testing the Cybertruck over here today. And that's an article. And that's a whole thing. So if people see the new Tesla Model 3 Highland project driving around on the street, people will actually follow it around to get videos of it and put it on YouTube. So that also surrounded Trukla, I'm sure, with just like people not knowing what it is and wanting to be curious about it. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, that's wild.

But how do you like the Volvo? I feel like the XC40 was one of my favorite EVs when I first tested it. So I have a C40, which is, yeah, just slightly different. But I'm surprised by how much I love it. Like, I...

thought I wasn't going to be you know I because I was looking at buying another car and I wasn't excited about any of the EVs and I wanted another electric pickup truck but like the Ford F-150 and the Rivian are just giant like they're physically so big and they're also so expensive and I'm like I don't want to spend that amount of money unless it's something that I absolutely love so I was feeling really lukewarm about all the cars because also like

I realized that I like really obscure vehicles. Like the two cars I have are incredibly weird. Cause I also have like an obscure, like eighties commuter car. So it's like a yellow little triangle. Yeah. So I think like, I'm just like, this is how I express my personality. And then having just like an undercover car a little bit more. I don't know. It pained me to some extent, but I really love it. And I think it's also like,

Volvo is Swedish or now it's owned by a Chinese company, but it was founded in Sweden and I'm from Sweden and I'm having that like immigrant or like emigrant type of thing where I'm like suddenly just wanting to surround myself with Swedish things, which never happened when I lived there. But now when I've lived abroad for like 10 years, I'm like, oh yeah, maybe, maybe a Volvo. There's an Ikea like 10 minutes from here. Yeah. I just hear the theme music and the Swedish people. Yeah.

Um, yeah, no, there's that, that makes a lot of sense. I've, I started this car channel earlier in the year and I wouldn't have always considered myself a car person, but then with all these EVs coming out, I slowly became an interested in the tech and cars type of person. Um,

So I wonder to do the truckla project, you had to at least be interested a little bit in obscure cars and doing projects with cars. But yeah, that was a pretty next level. But I think it's also, I mean, with truckla, because we had a whole team come on, like it was definitely, I was not a lone actor in that. So I had a lot of backup and expertise and people who could help me with it. But yeah, I kind of,

Jumped into the deep end of like gear head stuff. Yeah. That was the deep end. Yeah. Because I like just got in my driver's license like a year earlier or something because, yeah. So I definitely didn't have like a strong car interest. And now I think they're amazing. Like I'm not. Yeah. But I've never had a gas vehicle and I don't think.

yeah there's still limited options yeah there will be there's a whole generation growing up that will never own a gas car which is pretty sick yeah put me in a gas station i'm like so it's funny in new jersey you specifically are not allowed to fill up your own gas

So there's this meme of like Jersey drivers going to other states and just like sitting in their car waiting for it to happen because what do you do? But that's EV drivers too. What do I do? I rented a gas car. What do I do? Granted, the charging stations are barely better. Yeah. They're all weird and they have like their apps and some never work. Yeah.

There's definitely, I mean, the Tesla supercharger network is unparalleled and from like a user perspective, but all the other ones, it's, yeah. Also, last time I talked to you about Trukla, you couldn't supercharge, right? I could. They never, yeah. Oh, they never took it away? No, they never took it away. Oh, that's amazing. Because Tesla would not, I'm sure if they...

found out too much. They would not like to have that supercharging. But the thing is, I think the project got protected by that it was a little bit too big for them to come after because they knew that I would have thrown a hissy fit online. And I think they just like kind of wanted to...

silence it as much as possible by like ignoring it. Interesting. Yeah. They sort of let it slide. Yeah. So I think they let it slide. But I do, I like scheduled a service appointment because I wasn't getting software updates or there were some like minor issue and they called me from the appointment center and they were like, we know who you are and we know what you've done to your car. And I got so spooked that I ended up just solving it myself. That's so cool. That's funny. All right. Do you ever miss a

Old YouTube? I'm doing air quotes. Old YouTube, old school YouTube? I don't know if I've been on the platform long enough to be able to say that. I mean, I started my channel 2015. So I think 2015 YouTube is very different from 2023 YouTube. Where, like, I'll give you a couple examples. One is, like, there is some level now of, like, algorithmic, like, I want to just optimize for the algorithm. You've seen these channels that just want to maximize views, and that's the whole point of the YouTube channel.

Um, where I would say I'd argue in 2015, especially our channel, it was like we had an idea for video, we'd make it. And then as it was being uploaded, we were like, all right, we need a title and thumbnail too. Right. Okay. Let's think of this at the last second for packaging and then just push it out. Uh,

Yeah, I feel like that was a different time on YouTube. And I wonder if you, especially when you were starting, you kind of had this interesting vibe where you were making these projects, but you also had such a gap between them that each drop was like a big deal. And especially with Reddit, like Reddit would love every new project. And then there would be this sort of community around that. And it was just a different vibe.

Time, you know? I think my relationship to thumbnails is inverted from yours because I used to care a lot more about it. And now I'm in my golden era on YouTube where I feel like I'm retired and I'm like, I'm just doing things for myself. So you don't have...

over obsession on thumbnails anymore? No. I mean, of course, I'll like change it out midway if it's performing 10 out of 10. So like YouTube gives you this metric. I'm not explaining this to you, but to the viewer. YouTube gives you this pretty useful metric where it ranks your video's performance compared to the latest 10 videos that you've had. And whenever it's ranking like 9 or 10 out of 10, then you're like, oh, damn it.

And then I might update the thumbnail. Yeah. Yeah. But I think I was definitely like clout chasing a lot more before and I was a lot better. So like my YouTube channel kind of started as an afterthought. Like I was mostly making gifts. Like that was the core of the project. And every project I did was kind of

built around being translated really effectively into a gif yeah so i was making all these like shitty robots um and it was all like okay how can this work in like a seven second loop max without audio and people still understanding what it is and then people started requesting like more

video around it so I was like okay I'll start making like a bigger video around it right because when you're wasn't your first one like a few seconds long it was basically just the gif yeah in the video form oh gif sorry really gif gif gif you're a gif I'm a gif am I the graphic gif yeah yeah yeah gif I'm

Okay. GIF. Really? I can't believe you said GIF, but you're not willing to die on the hill. Because I feel like the only people who say GIF are like ride or die GIF. Hardcore GIF people. Will tattoo it on their chest. There's the peanut butter, which is J-I-F, which is GIF, right? So I guess I have to...

All right. I argue against my own. All right. It's GIF. So, but your first video is like super short. It was just the project. And then people asked for more, like, how did you make it type things background? Then you sort of like built a video around it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And I think it's also, so like my content has changed because what I, um, used to do is I had the gift of a project and then I would make a video of when I was filming the gift and like playing with the machine. So I wouldn't document the build process at all.

because it was just, it's really intense from like a production standpoint. And I just wasn't ready to let people in on that clusterfuck of a process. And now when my videos or the projects that I do are less GIF friendly, like the build video has become a lot more important because there's no like, for example, with the puzzle table,

There's not going to be a 15-minute video of me just showing how it works. Yeah. So, like, I kind of need it to add the build element into it to make it a worthy piece of content. Yeah. That's interesting. I also think, like, building around one shareable, even though it might not be a gif, building a video around one shareable visual inside of the video has always been a great idea. Like, that's... I kind of try to do that to this day. We had this...

well, we bought an old original iPhone and sort of did an unboxing with it. And I knew the whole time, like every other video anyone's ever tried to do of this, the retention spikes at the moment that they break the seal. So how do we sort of build out from that? Like we know we're gonna have the moment of breaking the seal, but can we introduce tension and sort of a storyline and all that? I think it's smart to have a point in the video that you build up to as like the climax of the video visually,

And that helps, you know, create structure for the video. I think, yeah, I call the like social content like flagship videos because they're kind of like the ones that you send out. And what I've started doing now is instead of a GIF, it's like a little voiceover clip of me being like, hi, my name is Simone and I bought this chair because I have a needy dog that likes to sit next to me. And I, yeah, you know. Yeah. Yeah.

And that's been doing pretty well. Like it's not as efficient as a GIF because I would always like Reddit does really well. Like it's very reaction GIF memeable, shareable in that way. But it's also a compromise with like trying to fit in a content strategy that works with a type of builds that I want to make. On that note, we're going to take a quick break, but we'll be right back with Simone.

Support for this podcast comes from Anthropic. You already know that AI is transforming the world around us, but lost in all the enthusiasm and excitement is a really important question. How can AI actually work for you? And where should you even start? Claude from Anthropic may be the answer.

Claude is a next-generation AI assistant, built to help you work more efficiently without sacrificing safety or reliability. Anthropic's latest model, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, can help you organize thoughts, solve tricky problems, analyze data, and more, whether you're brainstorming alone or working on a team with thousands of people, all at a price that works for just about any use case.

Thank you.

The leadership team founded the company with a commitment to an ethical approach that puts humanity first. To learn more, visit anthropic.com slash Claude. That's anthropic.com slash Claude.

This episode is brought to you by Google Gemini. With the Gemini app, you can talk live and have a real-time conversation with an AI assistant. It's great for all kinds of things, like if you want to practice for an upcoming interview, ask for advice on things to do in a new city, or brainstorm creative ideas. And by the way, this script was actually read by Gemini. Download the Gemini app for iOS and Android today. Must be 18 plus to use Gemini Live. Is there a project you're working on now or like a super...

ambitious future project that you have like a like a Mount Everest of projects that one day you're going to be able to do because you mentioned you're feeling like almost like retired like you're in the golden years of YouTube happily there's no way someone who likes to build as much as you do doesn't have like a goal somewhere okay but the thing is so what I realized is

is that YouTube is not an end goal for me. Like it's not, my goal has never been to have the biggest possible YouTube channel or to try to have that career for the longest time. So what I started thinking about is like, okay, but if this is not the goal, then how can I use this as a tool to accomplish other things I want to do? And I still want to build things. But what I'm exploring now is building and developing products for a product business.

And like kind of leveraging my YouTube channel in a way to do that. So I kind of turned my YouTube channel into more of an R&D department where I have an excuse to constantly build things and turn out projects and try to solve problems. It also becomes early audience testing.

And if there's something that I build on my YouTube channel that I think might be interesting as a product, I can pass it over to the product team. And then when it's ready to be sold and marketed, I can pass it back over to my YouTube channel. So that's kind of been like the behemoth of the like long-term project that I've been working on and something that I've invested really heavily in time-wise and monetarily in the last year, which is like why my YouTube channel has gone down a lot is

And I'm also working on a TV show about everyday objects or I'm working on a pilot episode. I haven't sold it yet. But yeah, so it's more it's less been like, oh, I'm working on this big YouTube video, but more like I'm working on these more long term goals because I don't know if you've experienced this, but like our industry is so young.

that there's no roadmap for what to do for the next 30 years. This is my favorite topic. Yeah. Everything that we're doing is pioneering what some future generation of creators is going to follow. Fully agreed. But there's no blueprint on how to like... Yeah. You can't Google like, what do you do after you make a YouTube channel that does this? Yeah. And start a product company that does this. Like you...

It's just up to you. There's nothing, yeah. And it's a little bit, because I remember being like, yeah, I don't want to do this for the next 40 years. And then what do you do? And there's a lot of, I mean, there's a lot of examples of people quitting, most of them being just people like getting canceled or quitting because they're like, I can't take it anymore. But I feel like there hasn't been a very positive way of quitting YouTube, unless you can pull off like Eliza Koshy, which...

Yeah, a lot of people see this like so graduation from YouTube where like obviously you can create your own thing, make whatever you want and then use it to like vault. Yeah, Liza Koshy is a great example. Emma Chamberlain is a good example of people who have like graduated from YouTube.

But then you also see sort of the opposite graduation, weirdly. Like, there are mainstream celebrities who will, like, Will Smith their way into a YouTube channel and, like, start. So there's no blueprint. You kind of can just do what you think works with your creative vision. What do you think you'll do in 30 years?

30 years. That's a long time. If you asked me in three years, I'd still be wrong because I'm constantly wrong about what we're going to do next. I think I'm lucky enough that the focus of our stuff is products. And I have always been interested in the products, in the tech, in the products, in the cars, whatever they are.

And so I suspect that in 30 years I will still be interested in the products and will still be making this thing that's helpful to people who are interested in products. Whether it's a video or some other form of media, I don't know, but that's generally how I think about it. In five or six years I think we'll still be making videos because people are still going to want to buy products. Yeah. Generally. But...

I think it's interesting with your product design business, which is Yetch, just so we have the pronunciation. Yetch.store. Yetch.store. You have a big variety of different things. We have the calendar and then we have the screwdriver ring. How do you think about what sort of things you actually make for the store?

You know, so we launched the store a year ago. We just had our first birthday. Congrats. We celebrated by giving people 1% off. Nice. Yeah. That's a very, that's a dbrand thing to do. I love that. Yeah. I love that it actually drove a spike in sales and people were actually using the 1% off discount code, which is funny because you can just get 10% off by giving us your email. Yeah.

which also we have very good newsletters and we don't send them very often. So it's worth it. But yeah, I mean, we started, so we started a year ago and we started with a really small roster of products. I kind of the everyday calendar,

is I think the only one that I feel like really holds the ethos of what I want the brand to be. It's the only like real proper product and the other ones I'm kind of thinking more of as like really ambitious basket fillers. So there are things that you add on but you're not necessarily going to come there to the store for it. But I wanted to like not sit on the brand for too long because there's so many things I need to learn. A lot of it around marketing and just like what the work looks

requires and the team and like, yeah, just like recruiting what roles do we need to fill? So I kind of wanted to like, even though I felt like we're only we only launched it with like four or five products, like I still want to get it out there and just try it out.

But then we have some products coming out probably next year that I think are a lot more like under what I want the brand to be. So yeah, I mean, it's kind of been the initial product has just been like, what can we feasibly do with this small team that we have? I mean, we have two full-time employees.

on the product business. So it's like, okay, we can do this. We can do these rings. We have like a screwdriver ring and a screw ring. Unfortunate name. And like, yeah, just some like fun, weird, weird products. And then how can we use that to fund developing these other products that are a bit more ambitious and that I think actually

solve problems. So the calendar is like there is your sort of ethos product. Can you describe it? It's like it. I just got mine. So it's this. Yeah. Where is it? Where is it? It's not in here, but I want to find a place to hang it because it plugs into the wall too. And it lights up and it's this 365 button hexagon calendar. But what do you

How would you describe the calendar? This is the... I mean, we launched this product, I think, in 2018 on Kickstarter. And I still don't know how to explain it in audio only. Yeah, if you can help me brainstorm one. Yeah. But it's a calendar...

So like imagine that you want to start a habit and you make a grid in your notebook so you can check little boxes for the days that you do it. You're like, I want to start meditating every day. I want to keep myself accountable. I'm just going to cross these little boxes to be like, yeah, I did it. It's like a prettier version of that that you can hang on your wall. So it's an electronic calendar that has 365 days. If you tap a day, you light it up and you can use it. People use it to track.

their periods, they use it to track if they take medicine, how often they upload content. - Oh wow. - Yeah, I've seen some people, I have a friend who's in a long distance relationship and I'm like, they use it to count down the days until they get to see each other. I was just talking to one of your teammates, it was like, I'd wanna use it to stop, quit smoking.

But yeah, so people are kind of using it in every possible way. And it becomes this very visual thing. Yeah. So I've talked about this on the podcast before. I am the...

psycho that lives my life in a to-do list app and a calendar app and all these other planning things where i can habit track blah blah and i have like a drink water tracker and it's a check it's a check box on my phone and when i drink a water bottle i check the box and it doesn't go away until i've checked it three times during the day wow and i don't really get much of a visual like

reward for that other than just checking the box which I don't know I like checking boxes but it's not nearly as much as like lighting it up and then it's there like as a physical representation of what you did so I feel like that that elevator pitch I think the way you started it was perfect imagine you want to start a habit who doesn't want to start some habit like that's that's definitely the pitch for it and then you go into it no it's been interesting in like the marketing space

side of it just like because I'm good at making content. I'm very bad at making ads. I feel like and it's so much like you're selling the habit and the dream of what your life will look like when you have this habit. And then this product just happens to be the tool that can get you there. Yeah. And that's all like, yeah, it's just a different way of thinking. And it's very like if you look at our social media channels for the store,

We only really have an Instagram feed. It's like I think like we're really good at making content. We're making funny, weird content, not necessarily good at selling stuff. I think that still works, though, as like it serves the same purpose, you know, as like getting the eyeballs for people who'd be interested in something like that.

But how do you how do you build your team? Like you say, you have two people full time on the product business. And then you have, I imagine, some sort of help with making the videos. Maybe you don't. Sometimes I assume that people are doing it 100 percent themselves. How did you build that? So, you know, I I actually very deliberately have wanted to keep my team small because I want to.

You know, when you start your career on YouTube, like there are so many ways of defining success. And a lot of it is just like numbers and scale or how much your growth is. And I really early on told myself that like I don't want those things to matter as much. Like the two key metrics of success is how much autonomy do I have and how I spend my time.

Like that's something that's incredibly important to me. That's luxury to me is like being able to wake up in the morning and be like, I don't want to do work or like I want to go to New York for two weeks or I want to do this. And a part of that is.

not hiring a huge team that requires me to be there for them to have work to do so I've intentionally kept the team really small I actually just hired a shooter editor for the first time okay uh and and then he quit so now on the video side it's like my executive assistant who also does some stuff on the product business is like helping me film things she sometimes does like a rough cut

of it yeah or like she'll do like an assembly and like take out all the bad takes and then I'll do the editing which is not a good use of my time so if you're a shooter editor or just an editor in LA please send me an email at Simone no

Apply at SimoneYach.com spelled G-I-E-R-T-Z. That was my next question is how do you find these people? Yeah. Because I assume someone who's both an executive assistant and an editor and shooter is a very rare person. It's like how do you have a go-to? Every creator I've asked has a different answer. Do you have a go-to for finding somebody or does it just like...

I've tweeted a lot of job ads. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that I found her through tweeting and

Yeah, and then like people I've kind of worked on a project with and I pulled in one was a fan who like he's my engineer who lives in the UK and he was just like very active in the community and kind of just I don't know. I just started pulling him in on projects because he had a really good brain and then I was like, do you want a job? And he was like, yeah. Yeah.

So it's kind of all across the board, but I feel like especially with the product business, it's like I need to find a better way of recruiting and how to do it and not just Twitter. Yeah, same. Yeah. I don't have a good answer yet. That's why I ask everybody. And it's also I'm like I need to be better about like also proactively like I'm feeling a tremendous amount of responsibility and making sure that I have a diverse team. And that's like a whole other level of complication when you're running a small business and you're like I need to be better product.

In this, because you imagine, I don't know if you had this, but you kind of imagine, like, if I got to run a business or if I somehow got unimaginably rich, which I'm not, like, that I would do it more responsibly than other people that I see who are in those positions. And I'm like, I need to walk that talk and actually try to be as decent of a human as I can be. So, yeah. Yeah, 100%.

I feel like also building, like when you're building a YouTube channel, there's so many different...

Whether it's the channel or the business or whatever, there's so many parameters to optimize for. So it's interesting to have goals that are not specifically quantifiable, I guess. It would be harder to define success if you don't have some number that you can say, okay, it's over under this number. So now I have autonomy of my time or I don't. It's a little more squishy. Nebulous, yeah. Maybe it's a moving target too. Maybe you feel more satisfied or less depending on

how much of that time you get back in different times of the year, things like that. It's a little more nebulous. - What's your definition of success?

I've stuck it to I want to make things that I would want to watch. And that is not as quantifiable as some of the other goals that sort of surround that, which is like, oh, are we making a variety of things? Are we making enough things? I'm trying to make a channel that I would want to subscribe to by making videos that I would want to watch. So it kind of feeds into itself like that.

But even just doing that, like you make videos that you'd want to watch and then you notice, oh, now my audience is like 96% male or something just because like I make videos that I'd want to watch. Now, how do I like expand to more people and a more variety of like countries and things like that? I don't know if that's even a useful thing to do, but we try. They all kind of feed back to making something better.

quality that I'd want to watch. I think for me, yeah, it's like pride in the projects that I put out, like in the content I put out is really important. And like did the people who actually watched it, like ignoring thumbnails and what your click through rate is and everything, but did the people who watch it like it, I think is something I care a lot about as well. But I mean, my audience is 80% male and I don't know what to do about it. I feel like it's almost not really up to us, but

Also, it just depends on who watches YouTube and a lot of like project videos. Like it depends on the genre that you're in too. Like I'm making reviews of tech products and gadgets. Like I can't control who's into that, but I try to make it as accessible as possible and whoever watches, watches. I kind of, I was going to say you kind of remind me of Doug DeMuro in the Doug DeMuro. Who? You haven't seen Doug DeMuro? Who? Oh my God. Okay. Well, let me give the elevator pitch for Doug.

Doug is a car reviewer. And he started off just making simple car videos. He'd review a car, a Honda. He'd review a random car you might want to buy. And he'd use his phone and set it up on a tripod and do the whole thing himself and edit the video. And he started getting a lot more views. And so he got to do videos with more and more interesting cars until he was reviewing like

supercars in the same style. Like, he'd show up in a polo and a smartphone and a tripod to review a Bugatti. Like, that's what happened. And...

He has the same anchor point, which is we can't hinge this all on YouTube. It's just a platform that we all happen to be making videos on, but we want to turn it into hinging on into something that we kind of own more or get to do ourselves. And he started Cars and Bids, which is a car auction website. Oh, wow.

And it turned out to be super huge. His audience loved it. People use it. It's now competing among the best, biggest car auction websites. And like, that's the thing that he built. So you're telling me that when I sell Trukla, I should sell it on that one? If you do sell Trukla, carsandbids.com, I'm sure Doug would be the first one. And the thing is, he would review Trukla because he would have a hand in there, which would be amazing. I would watch that video. But having some sort of a...

a pivot from making just like their focus being videos and the content and the projects like that and like hinging it into something else. Yeah. Is the similarity that I see. Because it's also such a brittle business because it hinges completely on two factors. One is the platform you're on and the other one is your face.

So if something changes with the platform or with like regulatory things on how you're allowed to advertise or sponsorships or whatever, which you have no control over, like everything falls. Or if something happens to you, like if you're not well enough to be on a stage or in front of a camera, everything falls.

So for me, it's also like the product business is really important because I don't want it to all be on my face needing to be there. I want there to be work that can happen even if I'm not actively there and that other people can do and that's scalable in a different way. Because, I mean, I had a health scare and that was kind of the big thing.

like push that maybe like no okay I need to like diversify what my businesses are because also I can't have a team and like have to lay people off if I'm suddenly depressed you know yeah yeah there's definitely a pressure that comes from

trying to find the thing to hinge to if you don't have like an idea right off the bat like I we we're trying to do some products like I'm not as shoes yeah we got shoes now like I'm we're trying to figure out things that can live without me that's like the general theme um but

Is there a way to decide what those products are? There's no blueprint, like we've said. I find products that I'm interested in and genres that I'm into and try to build there. But, I mean, Doug was into cars, so that made perfect sense. And you're into these projects like the screwdriver ring. I've never seen anything like it, but it just looks cool and I just love it.

I kind of, I feel like it's, yeah, I want, I kind of want one of those. It's like pretty sweet. So like, I need like a method of like deciding what sort of projects for a given creator would make the most sense to pivot to. Cause that doesn't really exist. It is. Yeah. It's, it's an interesting like business exercise of like, how do you diversify? How do you expand from this? And how do you like kind of build out your universe? Yeah. I could imagine. I mean,

I feel like product development is such a like you got to be all the way in to do it because it's painful. Yeah. Like there's nothing to do like half-assed. But also you're well set up enough where you could even if you're not like 100% in it and wanting to

pull all-nighters for it like you could still do it but it just takes it takes a while like with the shoes it took like it was a two-year process just for one pair of shoes and it was like a and many many design meetings yeah you're working with an existing shoe company that has the entire infrastructure for it yes yeah so even that is like kind of a head start yeah like trying to build something from scratch is uh is an undertaking for sure so maybe that's a maybe that's a

Maybe that's the whole business of like helping YouTubers find the thing that will help them graduate from YouTube. I mean, you have a seven, seven or a Titans fund as well, right? We do. So I feel like that is like, if you don't want to develop products yourself, you're

Then it's like helping other people vet and develop products. Yeah. But even that is kind of hinged on YouTube, which is like the value of that comes from me being able to connect my audience to a product for a company. Yeah. And have the eyeballs connected.

and like connect everything. - Yeah, but then it's like you're using your YouTube channel as a tool to do other things. Like the making of the video isn't the core of it. So it's like, how can you leverage that into something like something I'm thinking equivalent of like Marques Shark Tank or like does it have to be other people's product or like your own product?

Not necessarily. Yeah. It could be my own products. It could be. Yeah. I'm sure there's going to be some that go down the path of connecting with other companies and helping other products grow. And then they're going to be some that are like, here is this new thing that I made. Yeah. Which is like it requires a different type of brain and you can come up with new ideas and products, things like that. Yeah. I feel like some people like start schools as well, like teaching people doing what they do or like different programs and that. Yeah.

Yeah, it's a lot of different paths to go down. Got Zach JerryRigEverything. He has the Not A Wheelchair Project. Oh, right. So that's like a, again, it's very connected to him. It makes perfect sense. So like there's, I don't know, there's no way for me to go, oh, here's what would make sense for this creator. But every time I see one that makes sense, I'm like, yeah, that's good. Yeah. That's really good. Some people start events.

Yeah. And have like big events. I mean, like VidCon being one of them. We've seen VidCon. Yeah. We've seen Creator Clash. Oh, yeah. You're going to box anybody? No. No. That's probably something I'm not doing either. You could not pay me enough. Also, I'm not allowed to anymore because I've had brain surgery. That's fair. But I'm very happy to have that as an excuse because there was no way I do it anyway. Granted, I used to be so into martial arts. Like I'm I tie box for years. So you might have.

box somebody before I've boxed a lot yeah yeah no and I was an MMA reporter like I was what people know that I did not know this yeah I think it's on my Wikipedia page yeah no I was deep into like martial arts world so yeah just saying I'm not gonna do it but I can then brazenly say that I think I'd do

You could commentate for sure. I got to a yellow belt in Taekwondo. I was pretty bad at that. It's not very far. Taekwondo is not going to get you very far, though, against like a grappler. Given creator classes only stand up fighting. Yeah, that's fair. No, maybe I'd overcome with my reach or something. I don't know. It's not a whole lot I could do. You do have very long limbs. Yeah, I could use that for something. Something. All right, we're going to take one more quick break. And after that, we'll be back with more with Simone. Hey, Fidelity. What's it cost to invest with the Fidelity app?

Start with as little as $1 with no account fees or trade commissions on U.S. stocks and ETFs. Hmm, that's music to my ears. I can only talk. Investing involves risk, including risk of loss. Zero account fees apply to retail brokerage accounts only. Sell order assessment fee not included. A limited number of ETFs are subject to a transaction-based service fee of $100. See full list at fidelity.com slash commissions. Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC. Member NYSE SIPC.

Support for the show today comes from NetSuite. Anxious about where the economy is headed? You're not alone. If you ask nine experts, you're likely to get 10 different answers. So unless you're a fortune teller and it's perfectly okay that you're not, nobody can say for certain. So that makes it tricky to future-proof your business in times like these. That's why over 38,000 businesses are already setting their future plans with NetSuite by Oracle.

This top-rated cloud ERP brings accounting, financial management, inventory, HR, and more onto one unified platform, letting you streamline operations and cut down on costs. With NetSuite's real-time insights and forecasting tools, you're not just managing your business, you're anticipating its next move. You can close the books in days, not weeks, and keep your focus forward on what's coming next.

Plus, NetSuite has compiled insights about how AI and machine learning may affect your business and how to best seize this new opportunity. So you can download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning at netsuite.com slash waveform. The guide is free to you at netsuite.com slash waveform. netsuite.com slash waveform. I also have one more question for you. I don't know if you've seen the podcast. We ask everybody the same question. Yeah, go for it.

How fast can you type the alphabet? Well, let's find out. Yeah. Yeah, let's find out. We have a system. It's as competitive or non-competitive as you want it to be. But we have everybody type the alphabet A through Z. There may or may not be a scoreboard slash leaderboard. But I am super curious because people who spend a lot of time typing, writing, writing

generally do pretty well. I feel like you do pretty well. All that happens is as soon as you hit A, the timer starts, and as soon as you hit Z, the timer stops. So you don't even have to hit enter or anything like that. And you would give everybody three tries. Simone, we also have the beautiful Apple Magic Keyboard and a mechanical keyboard if you would prefer. Options. I'm happy with this. Let's go. Okay. Wait.

Oh. So if you mess up, it stays on that letter until you hit it. Yeah. No, I missed W. So it stopped at W. Yeah, it stopped at W. That's why everyone gets three tries. Yeah, everyone gets several tries just to make sure. Okay. Second try. X is Zeta. 8.42. No, 4.52. Pretty good. Okay, last one. 8.4 seconds. That feels like...

Yeah. 7.009. Seven seconds flat. Well done. Okay. Do you want to know where you stand on the leaderboard? Yeah. Up to you. Okay. So seven seconds flat puts you right in between Colin and Samir and Hank Green. Oh, wow. Good crowd. Those are some wholesome boys. Wait, who did she beat? Which one of them did she beat? You beat Hank Green. 7.2.

You beat Hasan Minhaj. You beat David Blaine. You're right behind Mark Rober and Austin Evans, who are in the sixes. Wow. Wow. Doesn't that feel like crazy fast to type the alphabet? Six seconds, A through Z? Yeah, because it felt long. Yeah, you're just sitting there typing, and then you go, oh, yeah, I typed the whole alphabet in six seconds. Yeah. I also forgot something I wanted to do, so I'm going to show this to you now. Oh!

I wanted to get you to give your first thoughts and impressions on a certain product. I know you don't do product reviews, but I was very curious to hear your thoughts on this. This is the Dyson Zone headphones, and this is the visor that comes with them, that goes over your mouth. You've seen the videos of this, right? Yeah. Okay. What did you think when you first saw them?

So I evaluated it as a potential sponsorship because they reached out to me and I maybe passed. I don't blame you. Yeah. I don't blame you. First impression.

They're heavy and big as hell. They're gigantic. Yeah. Yep. I don't like the mismatched metal because the face part is like some kind of copper gold thing and the headphone have a silver. Yeah. I'm going to try them on. Please do. Okay. So the M50s that you just had on are 280 grams in weight. Okay. The super big heavy AirPods Max is 380 grams. The headphones you're wearing now

580 grams Wow and they look every bit of those 580 grams of heavy headphones it almost feels like I would have to walk in sideways through doors because I'd like yeah they're they're quite a lot so the goal is the the the filter oh yeah are you is there noise cancellation on I don't know probably not let's see the fact that I can't tell if it's noise cancellation or not is probably off yeah

Yeah, because it doesn't have like the... Yeah, exactly. So they... Oh, they're dead, actually. Oh, really? So yeah, they're not on. But what would happen if they were alive is you'd put the visor on, flip it upside down. Yeah. And it would spin up the fans in the ear cups and...

filter the air through and pass this like stream of air over your mouth and it would be like this fresh air experience of purified air all the time so first notice I think I have a my nose is too big for it you can expand it but still now it's like really far away from my mouth um it's a look

It's definitely a look. Yeah. Is it giving? It's giving Tron? I don't know. It's giving something. It's something. You know, it's a combination of a product. I wish it was on.

That doesn't really solve a problem and also looks absolutely ridiculous. Fair. Yeah. Very well said. And I just cannot imagine who's going to wear this or want this for a thousand dollars. It has about as much draw as a Twitter blue subscription. Yeah.

I would argue less. I would argue less. At least Twitter Blue would give you like an edit button. Exactly. Yeah. I don't I don't I don't get it. I really don't get it. Yeah. But the thing about Dyson, this is the video we're working on right now is like Dyson has this weird history of turning of random assortment seemingly of products into like

premium like world class gold star things so they made a stick vacuum which everyone loves like you can get a stick vacuum for 150 bucks but then Dyson made one and their motors and filtration are so good and it's so great and it's like $800 yeah I love my Dyson vacuum

I'll just say I don't love my sick back. No, no sponsor needed. I'll just say I love the Dyson vacuum. Maybe I should buy a Dyson vacuum. It's really good. Yeah. I've used Dyson's. They have a air purifier fan and they have a hair dryer that people love. They have all these things. All awesome. Yeah. And they're all based on their amazing motor and filtration technology.

So this is technically also motor and filtration. Motor being in here. Filter being this literal air filter. And it just sucks air in through there and blows it through that. And that was their idea of what to do with this technology. You know, I feel like they just like the way that this product came about was them being like, we have this filtration technology. What else can we use them for? And somebody was like,

the filters out farts. And they're like, no, Kyle, that's ridiculous. What else can we do? And like headphones. And they were just trying to figure out how to diversify the use case of it. Yeah, I don't get it. I think the only way I could imagine Gen Z wearing it

As if you could hook it up to your vape and just have it blow vape smoke directly in your face. That might actually be a thing that they would sell more of. Yeah. Hilarious.

Yeah, no, it exists out in the world. Maybe by the time this is up, the video's up, but I'm glad you got to try them because this... Me too. What a weird product. It feels like a future contender for the failed museum next to the Juzero. Oh, there's so many things I could put in that museum. Yeah. I've reviewed a lot of bad things in my day. Yeah. This is right on top of the list so far anyway. Although it's weird. This...

Joystick. What? Super useful. What does it do? So you know how headphones usually have like either like a stem or like a touch surface and you can like fast forward and stuff and they're like not that great. This one, volume up and down on a joystick, forward and back tracks, play pause, and then hold it to scrub down.

through a song. Oh, so if you're listening to podcasts, you can listen to the middle of the podcast by fast forwarding to the middle. You can go through the ad spots. Yeah. And you can go back to Simone after the break and just fast forward and then she's back. So if you're listening to this podcast wearing a Dyson headphone

- And only these. - Filter thing, yeah. - These and like one other pair of headphones. So it's got that going for it. - I feel obligated to say this is not sponsored. - This is the opposite of sponsored. - Oh, I was thinking of, that could be another career path. Instead of an influencer, you're a dissuader. And people pay you to use competitors' products in terrible ways.

Oh, interesting. So instead of use our product and talk about it, please use this competitor's product and say all these bad things about it. So Pepsi's like, we're going to pay you to do something terrible with Coca-Cola. Dissuaders. Yeah. Dissuader economy. I don't know. Dissuader economy. I kind of like it. Yeah. That's a new thing.

I'm writing that down. I'm writing that down. Can we bring in the calendar? Can I watch you unbox it? Granted, that's fucking terrifying. But I do want to turn it on for the first time because I haven't done that yet. Yeah. Do I need anything like an app? No, no, no. It's 100%... I'm going to have... Zero percent internet connected. Adam's going to grab it and we'll plug it in right here. Uh-huh. And I'm going to turn it on. No Bluetooth. No any... Oh, this is terrifying. I immediately read asking this. So...

When I put out the shoes, I had to go through the process of not being able to know what anyone was going to say about the thing. And then I just had to see what they said. Yeah. Have you ever seen people review your products? I've seen...

that there are videos of people reviewing products, but I've never dared to watch them. I think you should. Because this is like a healthy amount of... Assuming the review comes from a good place, there comes an amount of feedback that you probably couldn't get from your own team. But the thing is, yeah, I'll ask other people to watch it. I just won't watch it myself because it gives me too much anxiety. It's a little bit... It's like walking into a room and people are talking about you.

Well, you don't have to be in the room. Unless I literally unbox it right now in front of you. Then it's like being in a room. But yes, watching the videos is definitely an experience, I will say. So I took the plastic off and these are the buttons. And it comes with this nice poster. Oh, this is the new one. Yeah. Try to get the glare off. So that's the poster. I'm holding this and it's got a nice weight to it.

So I would have to really trust the wall I'm hanging it on. Yeah, drywall anchors is a good call. Definitely. Oh, you got the new braided cord too. This is the latest batch. See, all these little details. I didn't know about the old one that didn't have the braided cable. But I'm going to plug it in on the back here. Does it make any sounds? I'm about to find out. Oh, that was a nice animation. That's it. And now it seems like it's on. So January 1st, lit.

Now, if I skip days, it will skip them. Okay. So if we're in May 5th, like today, all I would do is go find May the 5th and light it up. And that's the first day I interviewed Simone. And I hopefully will do this again tomorrow and I'd light it up. Oh, it lets me go into the future. Interesting. Product suggestion. Yeah. Don't let me go into the future. I need to earn that button press. It doesn't even unlock till tomorrow at midnight.

The thing is, we really decided to have it 0% internet connected. It's dumb. It doesn't know anything. Okay. It doesn't know today's date. It doesn't know the time. It's not selling microphone and data to niche.store? Nothing, which is funny because it's like a part of it is like, okay, that's the product we can pull off. But it kind of became a selling point as well because it's really novel with everything that has like an accompanying app. Yeah. And I'm like, no, no way.

So there's a computer in the back here somewhere, and it's just let me know when the lights are on, and that's it. Yeah, it runs on an Atmega328P that you can reprogram. People have made animations and everything and different, yeah. Different brightness toggles? Mm-hmm. I like this. I like this. There is an element of...

When I check the to-do list thing in my app, the satisfying part of that is the little animation that plays, which is just like, phew, you did it. You drank water. This has a nice glow that appears. And I wonder if you went crazy for some next level version where, like see that mechanical keyboard right there? Where it has a click, like a nice clicking sound.

set actuation so when i check my habit i mean the visual part is the best part but the the day when i hit that thing at the end of the day that that's also really satisfying i think so hit the last day oh that's so when you do a full month that's the only one all right that we have simone pointed out i'm gonna do this on video 30 out of 31 days there you go 31

blinks the whole month. Nice little reward. Okay, I like that. I appreciate that a lot. But it is, we've run into, so we've had some technical limitations where all the LEDs need to be at the same brightness because I wanted it to do kind of like a ripple pond effect, like a drop in a pond where you hit a day and it kind of like

dims up the other day other days around it but we can't do that because they all have to be on the same brightness but we are working on a new version where we might have brightness and also rgb so you could have it for like long press it turns into another um color so if i drank three times as much water that day i would long press it yeah and you get it to be i would do that extra super super tap i would love that yeah that's fire

All right. Simone's going to join us for some trivia. We have some trivia. Ellis and Adam have prepared trivia for this episode? Oh, yeah. Question mark? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. All right. Oh, yeah. Trivia time. Oh, wow. Oh, wow.

There's lights and everything. Yep. So, Simone, earlier you mentioned you are the owner of a Volvo. In 1993, another Swedish car company, Saab, we all know and love, as part of the European Prometheus project, released a prototype of their classic model 9000. This car was noteworthy because it lacked a steering wheel.

What? What? In 1993, no steering wheel. What method was used to control this car? All right. So we have the time to write down on our whiteboards. Can I ask you to say that again? Or like the part about... Here's the important bits. Yes. In 1993, Saab released a prototype car, no steering wheel. Yeah. How did you steer it? All right. I've written my answer. Yeah. You've got your answer. Yeah.

Flip them around and read. I said by looking at the place you want to go. That is a great answer, though. Darn. What did you write? I said joystick. I also would have accepted yoke. I could not find a definitive source online for the difference between a joystick and a yoke. Great. I'm glad that you didn't. I feel like a yoke is like a...

Yeah, I can't explain it. But the yoke of an airplane is also one-handable. Well, no, I guess it's not because the yoke on an airplane has a steering wheel built in. Right, it's like half a wheel. Yeah, so I guess joystick is the only answer to this question. This is a straight-up joystick with a little...

See, but it has a rotator knob on top. Oh my God. That sounds terrible to drive. That does sound terrible, actually. Also, one more fun fact. After you guys were having... I've never seen Marquez ever admit that GIF is pronounced GIF. I've ever. I die hard GIF. But in researching it, we did find that in the original documentation of...

like the GIF paper, the GIF paper, they mentioned specifically the peanut butter company. Which is J-I-F. Which is GIF. And they said it's pronounced like the peanut butter. And we found there was a marketing campaign when they first put out this format based on this classic peanut butter ad. GIF peanuts are ground even finer to get out all the flavorful goodness. It's now yours. So, now GIF smells more like fresh peanuts. Tastes GIF.

It tastes better, really better. Choosy mothers choose new GIFs. And so their marketing campaign was choosy developers choose GIFs. It just seems like a weird creative decision by the creator of GIFs. You know, like I said, I'm always and forever GIF. Sounds like it's up to the creator. I mean, if you made the format, you get to name it.

I mean, granted, my ancestors decided that my last name spelled G-I-E-R-T-Z was going to be pronounced Yatch. Yeah. So I guess I'm kind of in that same boat. I had to Google that so many times. It was one of the tougher. I'm trying to like phonetically place G-I-E-R-T-Z into Yatch in my head. It doesn't make sense. And it's a stretch. Yeah. It's tough.

Simone, thank you for sending this our way. I love it. I appreciate it. And thanks for being on Waveform. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. That was oddly terrifying. Yeah. The calendar review, not the rest of the podcast. It was the best part. I'm going to keep doing this over and over again. 31. Yes.

So that's been it. Thank you again to Simone for jumping in to the podcast studio and it was a fun conversation. I think that was, there's a lot of interesting points in there and obviously talking about YouTube. You guys should go watch her videos if you haven't already seen them. If you got through this whole thing and haven't watched any of Simone's videos, go watch them. How dare you. We'll link them below as well. Also, you guys just got to watch the trivia, but now that Andrew and David are back, I think we should have them attempt the same trivia question. So let's do that. I'm riding high after last week.

I don't remember. Those new colors. Oh, yeah, you did well last week. I did.

Yeah. They are new colors. They are new colors. Thank you for noticing. I know that component and composite are different things, and I understand how they work, unlike everybody else, because I actually heard the long version of the explanation. Well, I got the question more right, so... Yeah, but who's really winning here? Information or trivia points? Okay. I'm losing in both of those overall. Simone mentioned being a Swedish car owner. Okay.

Specifically a Volvo owner. Wait, like a... Oh, okay, okay. Yeah. In 1993, another Swedish car company, Saab, released a version of their classic model 9000. Saab? Saab. This version of the 9000 was noteworthy because it lacked a steering wheel. Wow. What was used to control the car instead? Holy moly.

I was feeling so confident. I felt like I was like, I know Volvo's Swedish. I know Saab is Swedish. We're going somewhere. Quickly. We lost. Quickly. Now you're exactly where I was.

I'm gonna probably answer exactly the same as Marques answered and get it wrong. If I remember correctly, because this is a few days later, Marques had a really silly answer to this question. Well, anything but a steering wheel is fairly silly, so... That's a great point. Ready? What you got?

Two correct answers! Read it boys! If you go back to the camera, I race at the end of the thing and like scribbled it in. I wrote handles first. Handles? Yeah. I'm thinking of my zero turn. Oh wow. Zero turn. What did you say Marques?

Doesn't matter. You say yolk. Doesn't matter. This went off the rails so fast. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. Thanks for subscribing. Thanks for hanging out with us on the Waveform podcast this week. We'll catch you very soon in the next one. Waveform was produced by Adam Molina and Ellis Roven. We're partnered with Vox Media Podcast Network and our intro after music was created by Vane Sill. Peace.