There is this thing called the Humane Pin. Maybe you’ve heard of it?
Humane, Inc. (stylized as hu.ma.ne) is an American consumer electronics company founded in 2018 by Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno. The company designed and developed the Ai Pin, which started shipping in April 2024.
And by all accounts, if you haven’t heard of it, you aren’t missing much. It’s been panned widely in the press, and for a variety of reasons. In this case, in fact, don’t depend on me to provide a link. Just run a search for a review of the product, and click on pretty much any review that you like. Chances are that the review will say that it isn’t worth buying – for now, at any rate.
But one particular review, by MKBHD, has gone viral. We’ll get into the why of it, but for now, take a look at the review:
This review got the attention of lots of folks on Twitter, including this person:
I usually embed tweets, rather than post screenshots. So why a screenshot today? Because:
It is worth flagging that Vassallo sells a Gumroad course on Twitter growth, so there is a non-zero chance he crafted this post to get engagement whether or not he actually felt strongly about MKBHD’s review (and it worked).
(Note that I copied the screenshot from the same blog this quote is from).
Incentives matter, children. Not every take on Twitter is genuinely held. Some folks just crave the attention. That may or may not have been the case here, but ol’ Thomas really should be your friend here.
MKBHD responded with both a video and a tweet. Now this tweet I don’t mind embedding:
Marques is crystal clear about who he is optimizing for. He isn’t optimizing, he says, for pleasing product companies, or advertisers, or anybody else. He is optimizing for giving his viewers his honest recommendation and feelings about a product. The more he does this, and the better he gets at doing it, he is saying, the more he is likely to be rewarded for it.
And it’s not like I’m an expert at the YouTube game (and that’s an understatement, trust me) – but I would think 18 million subscribers means he’s doing kinda ok. Not bad.
TMKK?
No matter what you choose to do in life, ask yourself this one question ad infinitum:
What Are You Optimizing For?
The clearer you are about the answer to this question, the easier your job is. You don’t even have to trust me on this one – MKBHD says so!
There’s cool, and then there’s cool.
EconForEverybody 