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Don’t blame MKBHD for the fate of Humane AI and Fisker

Famed YouTuber Marques Brownlee makes a splash not for what he said about Humane's Ai Pin, but for how he said it.

And when it finally released its Ai Pin – which costs $699 plus a $24 monthly subscription – pretty much every tech reviewer came to the same disappointing realization: this much-hyped product, which promises to disrupt the smartphone’s dominance, is not very good. Sure, Brownlee is unusually influential with over 18 million YouTube subscribers, but his critiques are on par with other reviewers’ commentary: the pin has bad battery life; it is difficult to wear; it makes mistakes too often to be reliable; its laser projection screen is completely ineffective outdoors; and it’s simply not worth the same sticker price as an Android phone. “Call me cynical, but I’m wary of startups with huge war chests of capital but no commercialized product to speak of,” TechCrunch reporter Kyle Wiggers wrote after last year’s Series C raise.

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