Its time for beat the clock. Are you tired you now have a chance to enter the jack not question. Doesnt even know what noninteractive television means . Are you tired of a sort of television that just happens at you . 50th Anniversary do you just sit in front of like a couch potato . Hello, whats this . Something wrong . Come on, interact with me this is hq baby, the Trivia Game Show on your phone where you answer questions to win cash so 11. 30. I was just excited to win. Youre our winner baby. Everything to play the game. We are talking about hq trivia joining us now cofounder. These guys are in charge of smart. We grew up watching jeopardy. Yeah baby both just a game and attempt to revolutionize television. Million plus of you, the most hq players ever in a single game. Viewers in more than 80 countries. Tech entrepreneurs are the new rock stars. We went from evaluation of nothing to 100 million in six months. We have super bowl commercials, billboards in times square. Ive never seen this level of abandon. It seems overwhelming. It is overwhelming. I dont know what happened with hq. It is a lot of mystery one big question mark. Your cofounders you do think you start these things with your friends but they didnt seem like friends. It wasnt a good relationship. It was 150 pure and utter business. And thats it. Colin, cuckoo at times. Egregious. You got a sense of game of thrones. Attacking in this industry will steam rolr funding. There is a lot of anxiety. You go to sales you might not have a job. You may lose your life in this. Some people come into our lives and leave too soon. In terms of approach, theyre ready, fire, aim. If there is a little collateral damage, so be it. We show difficulty in graphics, that is always a pun finance time. Oh glitch glitch glitch oh okay, lets see here, news as well as what we have coming up a little later on. App is making youtube feel so six seconds ago. Are you a viner . Im not a viner but i know all about it. That was a close one. Vine started in 2012. Instead of instagram a bead of still photos back in the day, vine was short videos. Vine was both interesting in fact of its limitations, you could only have a six second video and you only got one shot to record it. It had created this culturally phenomenon because the videos were so short. That let people make whole story boards in this short term time frame. That could be aclaiming of everything ending right at its own climax. It was so addictive. You could scroll for hours. People shared video memes, that others would show their video mixes on, creating this sheen of inside jokes. I even made a very few terrible vines myself. So what pioneered the concept that powers tiktok today. A video tease. I dont quite six seconds. It is an art form. To the founders of vine were colin crow and russ usepof. Colin crow was the big visioneer, this long term vision of how social media could change. A slew of open source technology. And russs Prop Designer and the manager. It was just writing a bit of a bio. Make it all happen get the pieces moving in the right direction and make sure the infrastructure was correct. Let me know that you guys are here. In may of 2012 we set out to make creating and sharing videos on mobile, very fun and very easy. At the time it was dreadful and we knew there was a better way. Twitter bought vine for a reported 30 million. Sold vine to twitter for 30 million. They actually sold vine before it even launched which was a very big surprise because most want to get big first and then get acquired. Video sharing app vine was launched just in january by twitter. Then russ sold vine to twitter. They went about popularizing these products. They helped going from zero to 60 million plus users. Mr. Crosby on vine. Perhaps when they were in the quiet before now being a part of twitter, who were these guys . They were accepting awards and they were like every industry event. Being celebrated as founders. You have ground so much and using in creative ways, where are you going . I dont think we had any idea when we started. We are just holding on. From nasa, the first vine video from earth orbit. Looks like youre well on your way now. But when had you acquired, you give up huge control. Happy birthday to you, happy birthday unfortunately, when vine wasnt quite growing fast enough and twitter, its Parent Company was in a cash crunch, it shut down vine. Twitter is shutting off the Video Vine Autopsy and Firing Hundreds of people. Hey bud heard about vine. Thank you guys for following me,. After twitter shut down vine, founder russ famously tweeted dont sell your company. I think russs tweet that it just showed you know, instant regret. Like, you know, what if . Like right, like if you hadnt sold the company what would happen to vine . Vine was tiktok before tiktok was tiktok. So you got to think that every sharehshareholder and manager at twitter has reconsidered the decision to shut that thing down. And even though they only sold it for 30 million, lets assume that the difference between 10 million and a billion is meaningful. I believe they felt they always had a chip on their shoulder of wanting to take another shot of wanting to build something truly big. I got a call from a friend of mine and he said hey marsh, im looking to get started on vine and they want to do this tribute show on the phone and looking for a host and i thought of you, do you want to come and audition for it . I never took anything, really, when it came for auditioning for things. Honestly, i put a decade into the comedy scene in new york grinding it out. Dont mind my laughing. I just wanted to join you. Subway for current video, that was like i had a little bit of recognition from that, but certainly didnt reach the point of getting offers from Comedy Central or network tv. I decided to give up on new york and move to l. A. , be discovered. What the Hell One Last audition. Whatever you want. Hello there, im your host life from new york city and we have a full house in the studio. I showed up looking pretty unkempt in my moth eaten sweater and in my glasses which i normally dont show up like that. No one knew what this was, come up with some jokes up top and then just read the questions. First question of the day, where was the viral video titled Double Rainbow filmed . I went into it with a confidence that only comes from not giving a bleep . See you there. Gum balls. Your team on the ground its really important. Joining us are two lawmakers, from different side of theels tt aisles. Thi fit as Isny What Climate E im dr. Sanjay gupta. The audi etron family. Progress that moves you. cecily i love puppies. seth well i love that i switched to verizon. My other network used to drive me crazy cecily yeah. And with welcome unlimited for just 25 dollars, i love that we both got an Awesome Network and saved money doing it. seth i love that its guaranteed for 3 years. cecily ok now what i love is that we got to keep our phones. More savings seth what i love. cecily hey were sittin on a sign here. vo switch and get welcome unlimited for 25 a line. Guaranteed for 3 years. The savings that last on the network you want. Verizon we got the house you did pods handles the driving. Pack at your pace. Store your things until youre ready. Then we deliver to your new home across town or across the country. Pods, your personal moving and storage team. bridget with Thyroid Eye Disease i hid from the camera. And i wanted to hide from the world. For years, i thought my t. E. D. Was beyond help. But then i asked my doctor about tepezza. vo tepezza is the only medicine that treats t. E. D. At the source not just the symptoms. 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Even though i work in the app world im not very in the know in what the cool apps are. I dont know if i would have everybody played hq if i didnt work there. I think what made russ and colin special were they were able to see the future before everybody else. My cofounder colin and i thought, hey lets combine the elements of live video, we loved watching gen jeopardy and wheelf fortune. Who doesnt want to be a contest ant on a game show . The making a huge early investment in snapshot was hq videos first investor. We saw it as the media really changing the gate. Went in on the first day to start generating graphics. What i really learned from russ was the art of minimalism. They handed me a sheet with about six colors. A circle, an x or a triangle and russ was basically like all right your job is to make this a whole universe. Because the idea is youre going to stair at this tiny screen for a whole long time. Its got to feel like its really big. Then kind of as a favor, because gus, you know one of my best friends out of all the people i auditioned, i took scotts vision to develop the prototype. First question, where was the viral Video Double Angle . Once the people in charge saw that they couldnt separate them. Yosemite National Park is the right answer. Its so beautiful. Congrats. I think i got an audition for hq in april and in may they said hey man like you got the job. I said great, okay, lets do this so i came into the office. And that firstti my impression of russ and colin was they were very much like the pet guy vibe. There was a vine pillow on the couch. I didnt use vine, i didnt have a vine account. Six second video, that to me spelled the death of show business. Ive always been an old soul. I have jokes about jack benny and george burns and the Marx Brothers in my life. I loved the old comedy. So yeah this new fangled new age Live Streaming on an app like, to me, my hopes were, okay, all right, i think were all locked in here. And the very first shows were just internal tests. First question of the day . The s in mass, just so you could have an answer and it would register. The answer is space. And the chat would work, lets see, there was go live. This is live. This isnt a recording. Im talking to you right now. The first big shows were catching on like the new york tech community. Thank you for signing up, tell your friends about this. When i first started hq hadnt yet launched, it was done data. Whats the catch right . There was no catch. You could actually win real money. Next question what is the most popular i was trying to make the questions funny. A heart emoji. He named the company againstr his penis, microsoft. From this very warm studio. How very excited to be there watching this thing go live like from a room, everybody wanted to just like i call wch the baby grow. And were back baby, hqcumbers, still working on that. This monday, russ and colin, cofounders and they were like coceos. Thanks for being here, Russ The Designer so hes supposed to be the more charismatic one, you know, hes got his tesla and had a vanity plate, viner, and just like, you know, talking about bitcoin. I talk about the entrepreneurs of the time. Im an elorn musk fan. Into the whole status of being in tech. What do you love about yourself . Everything. What is it full of . Russ was very handson, doing the pr, doing the design. He was doing the wardrobe. Scotts wardrobe. It was kind of comical, to find suits for scott, russ asked me to just take photos of every outfit. I had so many photos of him. Then russ was the one that ultimately like made the call to keep it or return it. Russ and colin did work almost polar opposites. I always got a sense Something Like on the first day that colin was a little socially awkward. Id been in tech so long that like most engineers are awkward. He was a genius at his craft but he didnt want to be seen. All he cared about was the product. Joining us now is the cofounder colin and russ. Colin did not enjoy being on camera. Where is the technology coming from . From us. What is your background . I was sweaty nervous. Colin didnt ever want to be on camera again. Russ was definitely more like he wanted the limelight. He wanted to be on camera. You dont need a team of a thousand sponsors and advertisers. We do have the flexibility to grow. So very early on some cracks started to form, you know, especially in the relationship between russ and myself. But for now, somebody comes home, the guy who owns this app thinks im dumb, the guy who hired me thinks im done. I didnt think i was becoming the face that he created, very early on we had awkward conversations that were slack over tech. This may be my last show because my boss thinks im dumb. Nice knowing you, good playing with you. But we started growing. Free free free two two two two one one one. Hq launched in august 2017 with a few hundred people. This is hq. Im scott your host. There is a big week coming up people and a lot of money on the table, 50 bucks. Definitely a snowball coming definitely a snowball coming down the mountain. Adulting sucks [background singers echo] adulting sucks you have to eat healthy. All the time . But fortunately. Your ketchup can be, no sugar added heinz. Youve worn many hats, from past jobs in fact. Now, you can trade in those hats to help earn your grad cap. Your past experience can help you earn your degree faster and for less. Im scott your host. We are live. Right now from Forest Hills Hospital in queens. I heard about it from one of my students and rather than try to fight for their attention i decided that it would maybe be funded. Lets play this, what its all about. Then we kind of all got looked. Apart from live sports or the oscarss or Something Like that. There are very few live events that People Commune around. If you answer this question correctly madam, youll earn 50. Originally Television Shows were broadcast life, is somebody going to answer the 64 question tonight. Washington . Yes, give that allocate she put everything she had on the horse. Lady godiva. And then we had the leap from radio to television where what used to be the 64 question goes on to tv as the 64,000 question. Yes, the 64,000 question. They were so popular to the point that almost one quarter of nbcs Broadcasting Slate were game shows. Can you win a new car. You are watching what is more or less a rags to riches story. There is that vicarious thrill that seems to come from watching someone else receive a life changing amount of money instantaneously. I think theres also a desire to become a player. Ready . One two three lets go. My name is eugene young and ive been a huge fan of hq for the last goodness, four or five years. Theres this shirt here originally offered on the hq store limited edition, there is this shirt here which i got for cohosting the show of hq, but theres also this option, this is the very outfit that i wore on who wants to be a millionaire Second Chance week where i won 20,000 and so i thought that might be a good option for today. Well, so i played about 2,000 games. After i played the first game i knew that every time hq had a game, i would do everything in my power to play that game. It is your first taste of the hq trivia pot pie. The things that really set hq tv apart from your traditional tv game show is the interactive nature of it. Constantly interacting with folks, there is that the host is aware you are there. Its friday night, the feeling is right, the party going down on the west side. Scott was incredibly charismatic. It was not that i was going to watch hq trivia, it was im going to watch scott. K k weve got a 43rd batch,. Ed fromy mercury is in retrograde. The fish, band fish, things i love, seinfeld baseball, i put out there. I improvised, when you are rolling, youre rolling. Im scott rodowski. The trap, aka Regis Philbin. Quiz daddy. Quiz daddy. 9 p. M, time to spend time with quid daddy. Sake em up, sake em up. It became obvious there was professional dynamic between russ and myself. I honestly think russ had some scars from the vine days. Allowing these viners to become megastars and russ was still fairly anonymous Behind The Scenes. Now another guy getting famous from one of his another of his products. In fact when this show gets bigger want to get a Celebrity Host like jim parsons,. And this is theyre going to replace you but i was having fun on the show. Pow pow pow pow, yahya yahya yah. You want to get down to the nittygritty and get the show on the road . Trivia game show you play on your phone where you answer questions to win cash. Im scott rodowsky. Act what you know. Its a tribe called quiz. May the best brain win. Jeopardy and he became a magnet for selfies. Whos your favorite host . Be cool, its 71 to watch. Millly rodowski, urban achievers. I am a god so i write about Tech In Culture and i write about the human side of tech, the hard core stories i guess you would say. I came about hq trivia. People were meeting at 3 00 all to play. The host, scott rodowsky, i noticed nobody had done a profile on him, thousands were tuning in every day and becoming this beloved cult figure online. Are you aware of a quarter hour of trivia mirth and mayhem . Gq wanted to do a magazine, a newspaper, and i had been dutifully folding all of these through russ and everything disappeared. I noticed we had mutual friends on facebook. There were a couple of friends saying, my Friend Taylor would like to interview me. I said you know what, screw it, im going to do this for a friend. Im not going to say it was a puff piece but it was a puff piece. I did try the find if there was any controversy around him, there was nothing. I thought nothing about it. Something about hi eye lashes, let me go to the computer, hold on. The next huge app star is a man with great eye lashes who lives with his parents. Meet scott the most beloved host of hq, the live trivia show that thousands of people tune in to every day. When he doesnt host hq trivia, people dyes for his return. If you dont like scott from hq we cant be friends, says another. I continued on. The nicest piece ive probably written about anyone. I filed my draft and 6 p. M. An email comes in from russ, hes like this is an unauthorized profile you cant write this story. And im like im a journalist and we dont need your approval the write stories. So sorry, just let me know if you want comments. And feel for your colleague. I get on the phone and russ starts yelling and hes pissed and im like, this is crazy, i also want to make sure i write down some comments, in my notes app it was so hostile. Yelling at me saying he was going to fire scott, if i write this profile. I was so taken aback and confused, this is bizarre, does he understand how positive this story is . And i essentially kind of read him quotes that scott gave me. Tai tara said i go to sweet cream. Scott says we dont have a sponsored relationship with sweet green. Russ, what are you talking about . And he was like basically, the call is done. So i rewrite the story around all this stuff that happened. That night i was having a panic attack. I could not sleep. I just remember feeling like oh my god, being a journalist is too stressful and i bleep ed this up. And then colin my editor was like we need to formally know, we are including all of this. I was like all right, lets get russ on the phone. So im preparing to do the 3 00, im in the studio, i just put my suit and tie on. Ten minutes before it is supposed to go live. Knock on the studio door, russ says, can you step out . We enter a small Conference Room. Russ has his phone on speaker. Ive got the daily beast on the line. Theyre telling me that i threatened to fire you. Why dont you tell them that thats not true. So taylor her editor, hey scott here, i dont know where youre getting that from, thats totally crazy, russ never threatened to fire me. Never heard that. I think that scott realized that russ was lying. And i look at russ, whos looking at me going, like not true. It was so clear that russ was lying. My heart just sunk in that moment. It was such a shock and, like, you really said this . You were like you were going to fire me like i was like listen man i got to host your show is so you deal with this. I left the Conference Room and went back and hosted h q. On se i hope your socks are securelyyw fastened because were about to knock them off. When the show was over, the story had been published andpodn bleep hit the fan. Pack at your pace. Store your things until youre ready. Then we deliver to your new home across town or across the country. Pods, your personal moving and storage team. New kombucha business. I thought there would be a lot more kombucha. And a lot less business. Inner voice Graphic Designer as a new Small Business owner. Ive learned that trying to be the cool boss. Is a lot harder when youre actually the stressed boss. Inner voice Furniture Maker i know everything about my new furniture business. Well, everything except. The whole business part. Not anymore. With quickbooks, you can confidently manage your business. New business . No problem. Yeah. Success starts with intuit quickbooks. We all have a purpose in life a why. maybe its perfecting that special place that you want to keep in the family. Or passing down the family business. Or giving back to the places that inspire you. No matter your purpose, at pnc private bank, we will work with you every step of the way to help you achieve it. So let us focus on the how. Just tell us whats your why . music up top by The Hogan Woah sfx car racing final Boarding Flight to wait. Is that a phone . Look at the performance the graphics. That things a gaming machine. A new challenger faker that mans a gaming legend. Everyone fasten your seatbelts. And here we goooo as a business owner, your bottom line is always top of mind. So start saving by switching to the mobile service designed for Small BusinessComcast Business mobile. Flexible data plans mean you can get unlimited data or pay by the gig. All on the most reliable 5g network. With no Line Activation Fees or term contracts. Saving you up to 60 a year. And its only available to comcast Business Internet customers. So boost your bottom line by switching today. Comcast business. Powering possibilities. [announcer] do you have an Invention Idea but dont know what to do next . Call invent help today. They can help you get started with your idea. Call now 8007100020. The headline that we ran with Something LikeHq Trivia Founder if you run this article ill fire the host. Which then wrote, genius headlines. I was at my desk on twitter, glued for like hours. Like, refreshing and other journalists were like, holy bleep this machine is a whole scandal of its own. Media coverage about how sensitive this founder was. , free scott was, that i couldnt eat at certain places without permission. They kind of went wild with it. This was russ was in the phone on the middle of the office, like pr crisis control situation. Russ called me that night. He said, this is what were going to do. After the story came out russ took scott on like a date to sweet green to like ease things over and then i see that russ has actually tweeted, Something Like, whos an out of touch startup founder, me, like basically sorry about all of that. And i think that was like masterful pr response. It deescalated tensions but it also made it like ten times more viral. I was on vacation. And i called scott up and i s said, did russ do this on purpose . Because i was thinking like, there is no such thing like bad press. This is going to be great for us. Thats when the hockey stick accelerated. Trivia was everywhere. It is that time once again. About quizzing hour is upon us. People played it on subway, at home, at work, in the bar, hq i remember going to an astros game, i was on my phone and starting playing,. Greeting you on this autumn day. It kept getting bigger and bigger. You could see how many people were on, as people the company grew we were excited about the viewership. We were doing talk shows, i was doing good morning america, the today show, colbert. I liken it to the Wright Brothers building the first airplane. What . Yeah laughing . And what is your attitude, kid, come clean . Are you one of the Extortion Mob . People became excited. Would you mind kissing one of these people . There was nothing like it, not the same thing as live sports, not the same thing as watching some kind of stunt performance. Its a unique kind of pleasure. Every week for an entire year the game shows that we remember are the ones that went for a long time. The host of jeopardy, alex trebek. Jeopardy, wheel of fortune, who wants to be a millionaire. There are plenty of other game shows that most people dont even remember. They seem to be chasing something that could become the next millionaire. Their looking to theyre looking to find the unique twists in that formula and capture peoples imagination and hq was able to scratch thattish in a unique way that hadnt happened before. Hq was just a game and also an attempt to revolutionize television. Im Drew Patterson and you i was an investor and advisory and consultant to hq trivia. Russ and colin had different and complementary type of skill sets. I was the founder and the ceo and we had a great time together. Lots of late nights. Years afterwards. Those kind of experiences created camaraderie and deep relationships and friendships. Colin was, i believe i am too so we cant get around that. Russ had a professional relationship with, we werent friends in the way colin and i were friends. Colin was a World Class Engineer and you look at the way hq had accomplish and colin was one of the people in the world to do that. Russ is an incredibly talented designer. With hq trivia colin and russ started as cofounders, eventually colin turned into the role of chief Technology Officer and russ became the coo, chief operating officer. But the problem was they were both competing to be the ceo, the one in control of the. Colin had very clear ideas about what he wanted to create in the world. And his ambition was to appreciate culture, right . To build the next version of television. Thats a gargantuan undertaking. So i think he felt the pressure to try to live up to that. He was an awesome collaborator. He was also really challenging. I mean, it was not a picnic to work with colin. He had strong ideas. He was not shy about sharing his ideas. He drove the people who worked for him incredibly hard, and you know, he didnt suffer fools. He was a total pain in the ass. Are you ready . Yep. Wherever you left off and feel comfortable talking. Why dont we grab lunch and we can do this after lunch . Perfect. Lets cut. Prince harry officially engaged to American Actress meghan markle. We now know they actually got engaged earlier this month. The queens delighted. Prince charles delighted. Hq trivia had gotten all this positive attention, right . But it was clear if they wanted to build and realize their dream, they needed more money. Can you raise more money . If its right, sure. As a startup, you need capital to grow the company. You need engineers. In the case of hq, you need prize money. Todays jackpot, 1,000. 18,000. 50,000. 100,000. You can actually buy love and happiness for that kind of dough. So clearly they were fundraising, but it was clear something was stalling that. This report comes out which answers the question, why havent they raised more money yet . What i wanted to do break news a news. I kept getting a version of the same answer back, which was super interested, but we have our reservations. And what i learned was that rus and colin had a reputation from their time at vine and twitter that was catching up to them. There were rumors of Bad Management by colin at twitter, but nobody was really sure if it had strayed into something more serious until this article came out. I spoke to over a dozen former colleagues and employees, and the experiences they had were not positive. Colin would show up late to work, hungover, disheveled. He was kind of verbally aggressive towards people. What kurt wrote is he was fired for being a bad manager. But in addition to that, there were female employees at twitter that spoke out that colin made them uncomfortable. Kurt describes creepy behavior towards women. He would maybe make a joke, or he would talk about something that happened over the weekend in a way that, especially to his female colleagues, it made them feel weird. I thought the recode article, it played into a cultural moment, and it was easy to read the story in a certain way. It was the height of me too. The me too movement growing this morning. Millions of women sharing their own stories online. All these bad things were happening in tech. There was sexism. There was not a meritocracy like they promised. There were new types of harassment. There was a moment where it was just like article upon article upon article. Sudden will there was a reckoning around bad behavior by men, a long overdue reckoning. Unffl, i think colin got caught up in that. Colin kroll, his behavior was described as creepy as this time. According to rico, it doesnt appear formal complaints were filed against him. That, as far as i know, was not why he was fired. He was fired because he wasnt doing a good job managing the staff. But colins behavior and his history mattered because it was now directly impacting his current business. Colin pulled me into the phone room and asked if he could chat with me. And he said, this article talks about me having an unprofessional relationship with somebody, and i wanted to share my saud my side of the story with you. And i want you to feel comfortable here. In Silicon Valley, you have a lot of young people, young white men managing big teams that are growing really quickly. Theres a lot of ego. You have move fast and break things mentality. You work long hours. You code. You dont take off. You cant show any sign of weakness. It all goes into this myth of the Silicon Valley founder, right . Think of the steve jobs model. You know, to be a true creative genius, yeah, youre going to hurt some feelings. Your underlings are going to fear you, but thats good. Thats what it takes. As we know now, thats not what it takes. It hinders innovation. You lose talent, and you end up building a very noninclusive workspace. When i got there, like it was definitely a kind of a boys club. I would come in, in the morning and there might be, like, you know, beer cans that they had left behind from the night before that i was like, i guess im cleaning this up, or, rachel, we need more coffee. Like can you make some . Im like, cant you . I never really spoke up, probably because i felt insecure. I was young, you know. I was very young, and and i think inherently as women, we are afraid to speak up, especially young women. Rus and colin had built a hit, and this report comes out. It just was like, oh, gosh, is this it . You know, like is this who wants to invest in the company now . There was a lot of speculation around why this article came out. When it did, the incidents they were talking about were years prior when he was at twitter. Why is this coming out now, right when the fundraising is happening, right when theyre figuring out whos going to run the company . As cofounders, you can run things pretty loosely in the beginning, but once other investors start coming on board, you have to sort of formalize things. And, well, if there are allegations of creepy behavior on one of these guys, its probably best if the other founder leads the company now. And colin believed that, you know, rus was involved in this story getting out there. The audi etron family. Progress that moves you. vo if youve had Thyroid Eye Disease for years and your bloodshot eyes have you seeing red, its not too late for another treatment option. To learn more visit treatted. Com thats treatted. Com. This is frank. He runs a sustainable camping supply business. Hes smiling because fedex is growing its fleet of electric vehicles. And these, are the camper scouts. Earning their eco badge. Theyre sharing this news to their global scout community. Which, unexpectedly, has made frank quite popular. So its a good thing frank uses fedex to help him expand his reach and make earth a priority. Fedex. Where now meets next. We got the house you did pods handles the driving. Pack at your pace. Store your things until youre ready. Then we deliver to your new home across town or across the country. Pods, your personal moving and storage team. When you have a lack of trust between the two people running the company, it leads to chaos, especially if youre raising money at the time. A lot of folks are irrational. Theres a lot of ego. There are all these moves, power moves. Theres a lot of money changing hands. So i think you probably had a lot of dynamics that were happening at the time that i think were probably toxic. I knew from like my second day that colin and rus didnt see eye to eye. That was aforementioned to my start so that i could be well acclimated in the role. They needed a third party to sit in with them when they had meetings to delegate a conversation between the two of them. Unfortunately it was a weird thing because youre cofounders. You think you do start these things with your friends, but they didnt seem like friends. Theyd been collaborators for so long, i think they both knew that they were Better Together than apart, but maybe it wasnt a perfect relationship. There was a public reaction to the article. It certainly caught some attention, at least in the tech world. When youre a company and youre growing really past and things on the outside seem like theyre going great, its really hard to take that step back and say, like, weve got to work on our relationship. Rus, as far as i know, felt sort of betrayed, like hey, youre putting our company in a tough spot from your past behavior, and i wasnt aware of that. That was the idea that was kind of portrayed. After that story came out, i asked the question of whos going to invest in hq. The answer ended up being the Founders Fund. They invested 15 million in a 100 million valuation, thinking this company is going to make at least 100 million when it sells or ipos one day. Good evening. Im peter thiel. It was peter thiels fund, early backer of facebook. I build companies and i support people who are building new things from Social Networks to rocket ships. He had also just been the only major Tech Investor to back donald trump in the 2016 president ial election. Peter thiel kind of put a stake in the ground in the tech world as saying, im not going to shy away from something that i think is Good Business because i might have a checkered past. And so zion banister, was going to join the board. Ive invested in companies in my career such as uber, spacex, post mates. She was known for being an incredible friend to founders and actually working with them in the trenches. And Founders Fund whole managing principle is we dont get in the way of founders. Rus knows hes going to have free rein with Founders Funds money. Colin, you just go back and keep coding and engineering and keep this game up and running. And rus will be the ceo and take all the glory. Thats the way i read it. You can go back to every article, every interview of rus. Whats the future of hq . Rus whole thing is im going to give away a Million Dollars. Wed love to give away a Million Dollars. Can we give away a Million Dollars one day . I think so. I think rus is, in the best sense of the world, a showman. Im rus yusupov, the ceo and cofounder of hq trivia. Interested in creating a spectacle. With viewers in more than 80 countries. The bigger the spectacle, the better. Im joined by the man at the craziest obsession sweeping our nation right now. We had a super bowl commercial. People dressed as me for halloween. Were making things extra awesome tonight on hq trivia. We were nominated for an emmy award. 3,000 High Schoolers screaming for me. Its been soaring in popularity. Sometimes more than a Million People play it at the same time. With all 1 million plus of you. Five, four, three, two, one. Jimmy kimmel, in fact, loved it so much, he finagled his way into guest hosting. Im here because scott doesnt love you anymore. To be honest, i dont know that he ever really did. So lets try to forget about him right now. I think the celebrities for me made me think, wow, this is big. Success begets success. As the size of the Audience Grows hug me. There he is. That makes it easier to bring in higherprofile celebrities. Hq is live. I remember when the rock was on there. The rock hosting. Maybe i could give you some pointers. How about that . I would love some pointers. Rus knows how to craft a narrative that breaks through the media, that gets people excited, gives them something to talk about. The rock tweeted you should catch him on hq. Were going to have a blast tomorrow, 300,000. That ended up being 2 Million Peopleplus. The morale in the office was really, really high. Danny devito was asking the engineers all these questions about how hq worked. We were hiring engineers, writers, and they had moved into a new office. It just felt like we were rapidly expanding. Thats a wrap, scott. This is live, scott. Go with it. Rus was Building International markets, launching a german hq. An australia hq. Just think of me as your little australian dumbledore. A uk hq. This is hq trivia. Rus came to me and said, sharon, i see you in cosmopolitan. I see you on the cover of this magazine, this newspaper. Im thinking, okay, rus. Calm down a little bit. I dont know. Is it really going to be like that . But you know what . He was absolutely right. Ive been involved with a lot of different shows, big networks, but i have never seen this level of fandom. Were back at it again. In my wildest dreams, i never thought for a second hq would become this huge. To see the game grow in a matter of months to 2. 3 million live players what a crazy game, guys. Was just mindblowing. We started with 2. 3 million, a record, and were going to come back and try to do it again tomorrow. Yeah, thats right. Tomorrow. What colin had explained as, you know, the Engineering Mind behind the whole process is you want it to slowly build because the app is not ready to work with too many people on it. Colin had an offensive were not going in the right direction. It cant be more prizes and a bigger and bigger spectacle. The Company Needs to be more than just those things, and i think he was frustrated that, you know, rus wasnt attuned to that. A feeling this dynamic is invite only. Fortunately, youre invited. Experience the exhilaration of the Performance Line at the invitation to lexus sales event. At morgan stanley, we see the world with the wonder of new eyes, helping you discover untapped possibilities and relentlessly working with you to make them real. Because grit and vision working in lockstep puts you on the path to your full potential. We got the house you did pods handles the driving. Pack at your pace. Store your things until youre ready. Then we deliver to your new home across town or across the country. Pods, your personal moving and storage team. I was always the competitive one in our family. til my sister signed up for United HealthcareMedicare Advantage. Wow, uhhuh now shes got a whole team to help her get the most out of her plan. Wow, uhhuh with coverage thats better than ever for dental. Vision. Prescription drugs and more. Advantage me cant wait til i turn 65 aarp Medicare Advantage plans, only from unitedhealthcare. Take advantage now at uhc. Com medicare The School Play was really coming together. Until. Disaster struck. Luckily, Replacement Costumes were shipped with fedex. Which means mr. Harvey. Could picture the perfect night. Fedex can help you be ready for whats next. cecily i love puppies. seth well i love that i switched to verizon. My other network used to drive me crazy cecily yeah. And with welcome unlimited for just 25 dollars, i love that we both got an Awesome Network and saved money doing it. seth i love that its guaranteed for 3 years. cecily ok now what i love is that we got to keep our phones. More savings seth what i love. cecily hey were sittin on a sign here. vo switch and get welcome unlimited for 25 a line. Guaranteed for 3 years. The savings that last on the network you want. Verizon we are back live. We are in times square. Theres this live mobile trivia game that has taken america by storm. Hq trivia is the only live game show you play on your phone. Oh, my god. I want to play. Who has never hosted new years rockin eve, jimmy kimmel, Regis Philbin the plan is we go live at midnight. This is our big new years eve show. It was the most money wed ever given out. Was your answer . I would say kimmel. Ryan is our big winner. In the car, down to the studio in soho, rush in, get in there, five minutes to midnight. Were ready. And we go live. Can you believe this year is over already . I feel like its only been 365 days since and it crashes. I dont know. I think they might have expected maybe 500,000 and a million showed up, and the whole thing just you have had some glitches. Some users have complained about that. We are going through some growing pains. What are we doing about the glitches . Its frustrating, rus, the glitches. Glitches in hq appeared in many different forms. The freezing. Sudden disconnection from the game. What is the prime source of jewish an Error Message that would appear on the screen. People would always like meme scotts face all muddled up. It just got so popular, and that might be part of the reason why the game was always crashing. Once it got popular, it seemed like we werent able to add any new features. All the engineers had to immediately switch over to fixing all the problems rather than figuring out how to put new features into the game. Colin was just focusing on making sure the servers didnt break down, like making sure the technical side of the app worked. And so Everything Else was really on rus. Our engineering team, every day theyre working on making the Service Better and more reliable, and the focus really is on delivering the best possible experience. [ screaming ] oh, my god oh, my god i won 11. 30. I dont remember the questions except for the last one. The final question of the day who composed the startup music for windows 95. The answer was wait. Now i cant even remember. Oh, my god. Roxy music, which is what i guessed. And you got to win, baby, yeah. 177 of you. I just really couldnt believe it. I was in shock. And my friends tweeted the clip at scott rigowski, and i basically like was the innocent. This womans response to an 11 win has gone viral. Joy there from lauren. Love that reaction. People i hadnt talked to since Elementary School reaching out to say, like, hi. So many people are jealous. Theyd like to be that excited about anything in their life. It wasnt this version of myself that i was super proud of. But then from san francisco, california, please welcome lauren may. I was like, okay, well, if i can get to the ellen show after all this, it will have been worth it. Okay. So 11. 30. Correct. Did you spend the money yet . Well, so i learned after i became viral, the most common i tried not to read the comments because people tell you not to do that. Dont do that. But a lot of the comments were saying, girl, you dont even know. You cant get that money. People were saying this poor girl doesnt know shes not going to get 11. After all is said and done, she actually gets nothing. You actually cant catch out of hq until you have 20, which i dont have. Im currently sitting on a whopping nothing. Oh, no you cant cash out until you win 20, and then you only have 90 days. Why that complexity . People are winning. It is an attainable prize. Lauren may in that reaction video, she was ecstatic. It goes to show this is really not so much about the money. Its about the thirst for knowledge. Rus made some comment about, and people like lauren, theyre so excited, its not even about the money, which its true. But i also got to go on ellen. Most people who werent able to cash out didnt also get this incredible thing that happened to them. And i could see how they would like their 11. 30. The Way Technology firms approach their operations is ready, fire, aim. And if theres a little collateral damage, you know, so be it. If you, in fact, can communicate or cement the perception that youre growing faster than anyone in your category, attract more capital, financial and human capital, which creates more growth, which creates more capital and more value, and you start that upward spiral. 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We know we can have too much of a good thing. Hq trivia. You think youre going to put jeopardy Out Of Business . A trivia sensation. I mean if you went to a michelin star restaurant every night, had a fivecourse meal by the best chef in the world its monday night. It is tuesday. It is wednesday. Thanksgiving is thursday. Friday night. Saturday. Happy sunday. Eventually youd get sick of it. What day is it . Monday. Its monday. I would not say that a majority of hq players are game show fans. So because of that, boredom can quickly set in. I started seeing those signs myself from interacting with other hq users on social media. People starting to express that theyre getting board of the game. There was a few other apps that had a very similar premise. The q prides itself on its ability to go live anywhere. We would watch and go, this is not as good as hq. Question number one you had hq imitators Coming Out Of India and thailand. The question on everyones mind was when will facebook copy this . And they did. Im going to ask you 13 questions that get harder as we go. Lets get ready to confetti. I mean every company and every ceo faces the same thing. Like the hardest thing is coming up with a good idea. The next hardest thing is protecting it. A lot of companies continually innovate, right . The next iphone will be better than this one. Thats the challenge that every Company Faces from a consumer who constantly asks one question, and that is, what have you done for me lately . Say cheese. Hello, h cuties. Hq was hitting the peak. Thats when the numbers started declining. Thats when the cracks started showing. April, you know, it started to go down. May, really started to go down. The penultimate question, elmo. You know what that means . No. July to august, seeing us start to drop below a million. I dont know. We did lose about half of you there. Looking at the top right and seeing 999 and like, hmm, okay. 600,000. 400,000. 300,000. How do you regain that peak moment, and do you need to regain that moment . What were proud of is that were able to maintain that Core Community and core player base that engages by the hundreds of thousands every day. A Million People is a sexy number. Thats what enabled hq to get those 15 million in brand deals and ads sold. You dont get those deals if numbers are going down. Yeah, i know. Everyones kind of like on vacation. Youre here. Youre doing it. Were doing it. Were doing it up. Were doing it up right. It was it wa basically like trying to figure out what wherwrong . This is really not what i was expecting. Yeah, i mean so i think the obvious thing that rus could have tried what if they did just Pop Culture Trivia . Points that roll over, that accumulate on a leaderboard or profile. Make it so you could still answer questions after you got out of the game. There was no shortage of ideas. There were brilliant people working at hq, but they could not get their work done. They could not execute because rus was not allowing them to. Every time someone had an idea, no. Rus was afraid of tampering with the formula. You know the dab, the dance move featuring a raised arm, rappers, football players, even Hillary Clinton dabbed. Things were really breaking down Behind The Scenes and a lot of it stemmed from this divide between rus and colin in terms of what kind of company this was. Rus and colin did have different visions for the company. Rus was all about blowing up hq trivia into this massive thing, right . Like lets get bigger prizes. Lets get bigger celebrities to host, and thats the future of hq. Were going to build this into a massive show. If we could get millions of people to engage for 15 minutes, 7 days a week, that thats thats incredibly powerful. My understanding from colin was we need to build a platform with a number of different game shows going. Were not going to put all of our eggs in one basket. And that was a pretty dramatic difference of opinion at that stage of the company because you only have so much money. You can choose to try and support the main game, or you can choose to try and build new games, but you cant really do both. Nothing was getting done. I mean hq was this patient on the operating table bleeding out, and theres two doctors standing over the body, arguing with each other, and the patients dying. We were in stasis and at the same time hemorrhaging followers. Its a small office, so people are talking to each other. Theyre worried. Like is this going to exist . Am i going to have a job . I was living, breathing, and sleeping hq, literally to the point i was not sleeping because of hq. I mean someone had to raise the alarm here, and that ended up being me. Thats when i called Board Members and the main investors. The board, which is small theres only four people including both cofounders starts talking. Hey, should colin be the ceo instead of rus . Colin as ceo. And for rus, it was anyone but colin. Shortly, if not immediately after the conversation, i got a tip that there had been a formal complaint filed by an hq employee. This woman had a complaint against colin. I dont believe it was sexual in nature. It was more just like a sort of like the way she was being treated. And she brought that up to rus, and from what i understand, the general sentiment is that rus kind of used that against colin as ammo to kind of push away the whole colin as ceo notion. I had seen messages between him and a friend saying, i dont trust rus anymore. I feel that rus is the one whos orchestrating this whole thing. I dont want to belittle the complaint, but i also feel like there might have been a bit the timing was curious, and i dont feel like its reflective of whats happening at hq trivia at all. Youre not the first person whos mentioned the timing. The board investigated, and they didnt find anything egregious about what he did. The president took time today to meet with the Rap Star And Trump Fan kanye west. It was a rather bizarre scene. I couldnt even watch it. I had to turn the television off. Around that time, the end of the summer, rus calls me in to the boardroom one day and tells me he has a big idea. And at this point i was like, i need to Start Recording this guy so i can, like, pin him on what he says because he just theres hes so slippery. The Company Needs a hail mary. Mmhmm. Something that would make Everybody Tune back in to see what were doing. Mmhmm. And, you know, if im not the best ceo and colins not the best ceo, who would that be . So my idea was bringing someone externally or scott rogowsky. I mean it was the most out of left field thing id ever heard. His big pitch was, no, no, this is going to be great because youre the host and the ceo, and we can hire a camera crew to follow you around, make it a reality show. We could have camera crews here, right . You getting dressed in the morning. You know, talking to the audience and saying, what tie should i wear to the Investor Meeting today . Should it be the blue one or the black one . You can get interactive feedback . Its like a comedian turned into a we can make it huge, make it really big and the company would be on the world stage. Im just like this is its a kooky idea. I think its exactly what the Company Needs at this time. It just seems comical, but he was just desperate to figure something out to get someone else in there other than colin. I dont think colin would be the best ceo for the company. Hes gonna hes gonna tank hq trivia. And i left there thinking, okay, like, were in trouble. Yeah. But then, you know, i took that week to really think about the ceo thing. I bought a book, ceo for dummies kind of thing. I did take Business School classes at hopkins. I said, i think people in the office would respect me and would you know, they already did. So i would rally everybody together. Guys, lets save this and turn this around. Initially, it seems crazy. Youre not really thinking about the host being the ceo. So i wrapped my head around it. I said, okay, you know what . Shoot, like, you know, if not me, who . If not now, when . I booked a flight to san francisco, had a powerpoint put together, met with the investors, and i said, heres my pitch. You know, heres why rus needs to go. Heres why i dont think colin is the right fit as well. Rus came to me with this idea. I thought it was crazy at first. But now it might just be our last hope here. Jeremy thoughtfully considered it, and he he said, thank you for coming out here. Thank you for meeting with me. Rus wanted me in. I kind of left thinking, okay, this might happen. This might happen. And then about a week later, they had the vote, and and they named colin ceo. And to me t was like, well, you know, again, i tried. You know, colin, well see what he can do. Look, hes a cofounder. Lets lets anythings better than rus, right . The audi etron family. Progress that moves you. vo if youve had Thyroid Eye Disease for years and the pain in the back of your eye is forcing bad words from your mouth, its not too late for another treatment option. To learn more visit treatted. Com. Thats treatted. Com. New kombucha business. I thought there would be a lot more kombucha. And a lot less business. Inner voice Graphic Designer as a new Small Business owner. Ive learned that trying to be the cool boss. Is a lot harder when youre actually the stressed boss. Inner voice Furniture Maker i know everything about my new furniture business. Well, everything except. The whole business part. Not anymore. With quickbooks, you can confidently manage your business. New business . No problem. Yeah. Success starts with intuit quickbooks. We all have a purpose in life a why. maybe its perfecting that special place that you want to keep in the family. Or passing down the family business. Or giving back to the places that inspire you. No matter your purpose, at pnc private bank, we will work with you every step of the way to help you achieve it. So let us focus on the how. Just tell us whats your why . One. Back. One. The school play was really coming together. Until. Disaster struck. Tensions. Were high. Luckily, Replacement Costumes were shipped with fedex. Which means mr. Harvey. Could picture the perfect night. Fedex can help you be ready for whats next. Colin now in his capacity as ceo had the ability to excommunicate rus. If i became ceo, that would have been my first order of business. Give rus that bottle of champagne and say, here you go, man. Now please see yourself out and never come back. Unfortunately thats not what colin did when he became ceo, and that caused all sorts of other problems. Weve had a hardware restart. Colin had a lot of responsibilities on his plate. This company had really started to stagnate. Now it was really transitioning into the second act. He needed to come up with what was hq trivia going to be next, not just what it already was. Were on our game. Were creating the future. Colin opened it up to every single employee to come up with, like, what they thought would be an exciting new show, and we literally pitched it to them. Lets dive right in and meet todays bachelor. There was an idea for there to be a dating show, a comedy show. Recordhigh pollen count. Who the [ bleep ] counts pollen . Where you can boo someone thats not doing a good job. Things started to turn around when colin became ceo. He basically gave everybody their autonomy, let them design and build. His platform was like listen to people here and like take feedback and Work Together to make something happen. Colin had put so much time and effort into creating hq words. Its time for hq words. The next game that was going to be launched soon. We had balloons in the office, hq words ready to go with our new show. You could tell that colin was under a lot of stress. He felt the responsibility of keeping everyone employed and making the investors happy at the same time. We sort of set ourselves up now to launch show after show, and thats thats really my whole strategy. He was working day and night, really grueling hours, partly driven by the creative desire to accomplish something. But, you know, it was all weighing on him. Lets now talk fortnight, shall we . This is one of those viral games that literally sucking productivity out of schools, out of workplaces. You can forget trying to have a conversation at home. Right before christmas 2018, hq had their holiday party. I was hosting it. I went and got little lights on the table, the decor for the makeshift phone booth. I was kind of like mingling with everyone, just making my rounds the whole night, making sure that everyone was having a good time. I am frosty the host man bringing you dough, man. The elf of wealth. It was a really, really, really nice party. At the christmas party, colin was looking worn out. He was, you know, taking a break from drinking. He felt he was drinking too much. Its probably hard to watch all your coworkers get obliterated. He kind of was in a bit of rush to get out of there. You know, he didnt want to be tempted. Colin comes up to me, and he says, hey, v, i didnt want to leave without thanking you. It seems like everyones having a good time, and i just didnt want to leave without saying goodbye. Good morning. Periods of rain today. Low clouds. 39 with northeast winds at 15. The weekend after the party, i got a text with an article that had the headline that said that the cofounder of hq had passed away. The cofounder of one of the world es most Popular Video games has died. The founder of Hq Trivia Founder colin kroll was found dead in new york. Colin kroll, cofounder of hq. Is this a joke . You might not know his name, but you probably know his work. He cofounded the viral Game Hq Trivia and the video app vine. Officers went to colin krolls apartment early sunday after his girlfriend requested a wellness check. Police say kroll was found unresponsive in his bedroom. Other texts started flooding in. I was like, oh, my god. It was totally surreal. It was totally, totally surreal. I found out about colins death on twitter, just being dumbfounded. I remember kind of reaching out to other colleagues and friends and trying to learn what had happened. I always thought of him as a surprisingly approachable, normal person. Just a single guy in new york, looking to hang out with friends, who happens to be responsible for this company and just, you know, it makes me realize he was carrying a huge secret around in plain sight. New york police found him unconscious in his bed, and they suspect a Drug Overdose as the cause of death. I never in my wildest imagination could have ever guessed that colin was doing heroin. Colin died of a Heroin Overdose because there was fentanyl in it. That was like the point when i even learned that he was doing heroin. Some people wanted to cancel the show. Were not doing a show tonight. We were debating, like, you know, what what do we do here, and how do we approach this . And i was like, guys, like we have to acknowledge this. It would be crazy not to say something. It is with a heavy heart that i must share some tragic news that has befallen the hq family. So i had the idea to say, like, lets go live at 9 00, and i will just, you know, eulogize colin. Colin, or ck as we called him, was a true visionary, who changed the game twice, first with vine and then with this very app. You always wonder, like, what was he going to make next . Thank you, ck. Good night, everybody. We have no idea how mobile and media might have changed if hed still been around another decade or two. Some people come into our lives and leave too soon, leaving behind an afterimage, a fading memory. Colin is not one of those people. We were married in many ways, and i lost a i lost a partner. Obviously colin struggled with his issues as we all do. Maybe for colin, it was too much, too soon. I cant say we always agreed or that we were always happy with each other, but it was during these challenging times that colins kind soul and big heart would truly shine. I hope he left each and every one of you with that sense of feeling special as he did with me. Thank you. A feeling this powerful is invite only. Fortunately, youre invited. Experience the capability of the complete line of suvs at the invitation to lexus sales event. cecily i love puppies. seth well i love that i switched to verizon. My other network used to drive me crazy cecily yeah. And with welcome unlimited for just 25 dollars, i love that we both got an Awesome Network and saved money doing it. seth i love that its guaranteed for 3 years. cecily ok now what i love is that we got to keep our phones. More savings seth what i love. cecily hey were sittin on a sign here. vo switch and get welcome unlimited for 25 a line. Guaranteed for 3 years. The savings that last on the network you want. Verizon The School Play was really coming together. Until. Disaster struck. Luckily, Replacement Costumes were shipped with fedex. Testing. Testing. Proudly help veterans. After he died we had to figure out what to do with the Company Without a ceo and co founder. Basically had recused herself from the board, now the board is just jeremy and russ. And when he was ceo, jeremy was reinstated russ as interim ceo. They still needed to experiment and that was not the strong suit. It was the first come out calling guys, got delayed and by the time he comes out. The excitement was gone, passion was gone. Welcome to hx its getting old . Launched it at the pandemic. He could have been equally massive but it was a little bit to you little too late. It was an icy risk factor. A lot of hq wanted to let collin down, because he put all his blood, sweat and tears into this thing. But with russ at the helm again, there was no light at the end of the tunnel. In many ways, he was the product, he had the idea and the know, how to do it. Without him in our back pocket, kind of just a bunch of people thinking what would he have done . Moral was at an alltime low, dominos were falling, people were leaving. May not a few of us at once, and just like, hey, want to let you know today is your last day at hq, and they didnt gave me a tote bag to put my stuff in with an h q logo i thought was funny. Find a piece on top of the. It was the ship was truly sinking here, thats why when i had an opportunity to go elsewhere i took it. This is ashley dan jacket. At least i am a human baseball fan. Meet the mets. Meet the mets. Im thinking i guess someone on h q can do monday through friday, russ did not want to do that on your a farewell, so, ok, i guess i no longer going to be hosting at hq, and that was that . When i finally announced on twitter i said im no longer at hq and i got this new show im excited about it. And i was the tribute started coming in. And that was trending on twitter for a week the fact that i left hq and people were where is the farewell show, you know, like, had he not seen how bad this looks . So scott leaves in april, 2019, valentines day of 2020, when they officially pulled the plug on h q friday, february 14th, happy valentines day, everyone. Happy valentines day we heard that hq was being cancelled. So hq was no more, and kind of sad moment, like this is it. Publically the ending was really abrupt for a lot of people, it was just a notification sent to their phones, were done, see you later, thanks for the good time. Hey, still claim to produce this show the next day. So what did host do . They got drunk. This is the last game ever. And its 5 prize coming out of my own pocket. We ran out of money. Kept giving it away. 6 Million Dollars in prizes thats insane. It was a beautiful final train wreck to witness. We got this in case we hit 3 Million Player everybody is commiserating together on the air. Matt. Champagne fell on my crotch felt like i peed my pants. Final question. Final question ever. And then the tweet went out hq was shutting down, ran out of money. Hq shut down for what we thought was going to be for good. Go. Hq ended upcoming back. And russ did it. Hard at work. Building the brand new just for you hq chapter 2 russ managed to find investors that believed that hq still had Something Special even if it was mover going to have people and 3 Million Players again. Tiktok. I got it. Folded in February Of 2020 and mysteriously resurrected six weeks later. As a show. Im so excited. Thank you. Y yes. Im technically an inventor on the design pat at the present time for this ap, rushed it rise to being most popular thing in pop culture at one moment in time. I just remember seeing joe biden before he was president tell us that scott was more popular than him. And i watched it all explode and go away. That isnt a new story, thats an important story. The height and the excitement of founders becoming rock stars, a big failure, quick failure. I dont think a lot of us will know the pressure when they put millions of dollars into you got to manage to live up to that insane valuation that everyone believes you have. Not to take it far this is a quiz ap, but i think hq was like a microcosm, a much larger, and what happened the last decade. Spending a lot of time in my office in my store. My Vintage Clothing Shop and hosting a podcast, im hosting live stream for the show i created called wild cards. Open up Box Rookie Card in here. I have guests join me, athletes. Lets go here. This going out to christian. Fresh from the pack how cool is that i get people coming in here my gosh. The hq guy. I was like, yeah, thats me. Better me be im wearing his underwear. Alex trebek had an estate sale i went. The whole situation is somewhat absurd, you know, youre doing this thing, it becomes super popular. You recognize everywhere, youre win awards, your magazines, and all of that. Then it doesnt last forever. And now you look back on it that actually, that all actually happened. Good morning, breaking news, i want to give you a sense what it looks like. Turning to two lawmakers from different sides of the aisle. Live in ukraine this theyve been warning us we couldnt have just got it home