Fintech Influencers

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When people make fun of me for owning a Google Pixel instead of an iPhone, I refer them to a YouTube video made by Marques Brownlee. 

Brownlee is an Internet influencer with 20 million subscribers who has arguably become the most influential tech product reviewer writing today. He goes by the moniker MKBHD online. 

Each year, he does a blind test of cell phone cameras. In December, he announced the top three slots went to the Pixel 7a, Pixel 8 Pro and Pixel Fold. 

Brownlee is credible because of the lengths he goes to when evaluating products. In the phone test, he gathered 20 models and took the same three photos: one in daylight, one in low light and one in portrait mode. 

He then stripped the photos of identifying metadata and put them on a website for people to vote on millions of times. He used an ELO rating to compare them side-by-side and aggregated the winners. 

It’s the kind of effort and depth you might expect from a media brand like Wirecutter and Consumer Reports or perhaps a Wall Street investment bank. 

Brownlee is only 30 but he’s been a big deal for more than a decade. He started posting videos in 2009 while at Columbia High School in Maplewood, NJ. He then made viral videos from his dorm room at Stevens Institute of Technology. 

Last week, Brownlee stirred the financial pot when he published a review of electronic car maker Fisker’s new Ocean SUV. The video was called: “This is the Worst Car I’ve Ever Reviewed.” 

The YouTube video has gotten more than 4.3 million views in three weeks.

The kerfuffle was covered by Business Insider and Morning Brew, in part because of the story behind the story. Here’s how it went down: 

Fisker asked Brownlee to delay his review pending a software update. As reported by Insider, Brownlee said: “It’s not really in my policy to wait on promised future software updates.'” He added: “I’m going to review the car that’s out now, that real buyers are actually living with.”

Then someone claiming to be an engineer at Fisker reached out to the dealer who lent Brownlee the car to review, seemingly trying to pressure him. 

The dealer recorded the call and posted it on TikTok, a fresh example of the Streisand effect.  

There is so much to love and so many takeaways from this story, especially for people dismissive of celebrity and Hollywood influencers. 

Specifically, the Brownlee Fisker dustup suggests that we will see:

–More influencers who do serious research 

–Individual influencers fill a gap once occupied by the media

–More individuals replacing brands as trusted sources 

–The emergence of independent financial influencers 

As someone focused on fintech, I find the last point particularly interesting because it’s not something we really have today.  

In the 1990s, Wall Street pundits Barton Biggs, Byron Wein, Jim Grant and Jimmy Rogers moved markets. Later, Jim Cramer and Bill Ackman pushed around stocks. But all of those people were insiders. They were talking their book.

Brownlee does consumer products, not finance, but he represents something new: An individual doing the hard work and making independent calls. 

And there’s no reason to believe that won’t extend to markets and finance. 

BRIEF OBSERVATIONS

DUNE 2: Big fan of Dune actor Timothée Chalamet ever since I learned he grew up in Hell’s Kitchen and attended the same elementary school as my kids.

GENERATIVE AI: Yes, generative AI is amazing and will keep getting better. But you have to savor the current examples of where it fails the Turing test.

MORNING ROUTINE: This is what a friend in Mexico City’s morning routine looks like: a coffee with cream and three actual newspapers! It’s been a long time since I read the physical paper.

LANA DEL REY: Love this snippet from Wikipedia about Lana Del Rey who learned to play the guitar after high school while she was waitressing and realized that with six chords she could write a million songs. So much hope!

SURVIVOR: How great does a show have to be to have one episode stand out as “a snoozer” when it’s in its 46th season!