All language subtitles for Glitch. The Rise Fall Of HQ Trivia (Koroma, Salima 2023)_WEBRip.720p.x264.AAC_EN

It's time beat the clock.

Are you tired of linear,
non-interactive television?

As you've won this game,
you now have a chance

to answer the jackpot
question, Dave Hodgson.

Don't even know what linear,

non-interactive television means?

You're right for $32,000.

Are you tired of the sort of television

that just happens at you?

Well, let's see what you've won.

It's a honeymoon trip to Hawaii

on your 50th anniversary.

That you just sit in front
of like a couch potato?

Hello. What's 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.

Correct.
I was just excited to win.

To win.

You're our winners, baby!

So many people,

they're dropping everything
to play this game.

Oh, my God!

We are talking about...
both: HQ Trivia!

Joining us now are the co-founders,

Colin Kroll and Rus Yusupov.

These guys in charge are smart.

They've invented Vine,
they've invented HQ.

We grew up watching "Jeopardy"

and "Wheel of Fortune."

I mean, who doesn't want to
be a contestant on a game show?

Let's get this show on the road.

- Yeah, baby!
- Liftoff.

Houston, thrusters go.
You're looking good.

It was both just a game

and also an attempt
to revolutionize television.

- Yes!
- Yes!

- Yes!
- 2.3 million-plus of you.

The most HQ players ever
in a single game.

With viewers in more than 80 countries...

Tech entrepreneurs are
the new rock stars.

Can we give away $1 million one day?

I think so.

We went from a valuation of nothing

to $100 million in six months.

We had a Super Bowl commercial,

billboards in Times Square.

Couldn't walk down the street

without getting mobbed for selfies.

I have never seen this level of fandom.

It can be a little overwhelming.

It is overwhelming.

Now we're talking.

And ignition.

I don't know what happened with HQ.

It's a lot of mystery.
One big question mark.

Now it was a weird thing
'cause you're co-founders.

You'd think you do start these
things with your friends.

But...
they didn't seem like friends.

It wasn't a good relationship.

It was 150% pure and
utter business and that's it.

Colin Kroll's behavior was described

as "creepy" at times,
also "egregious."

Colin's speculating

that Rus is orchestrating
this whole thing.

You got a real sense

of "Game Of Thrones" with the infighting.

These men in the tech
industry will steamroll you.

If you show sign of weakness,

that will impact your fundraising.

What do you love about yourself?

Everything.

There was a lot of anxiety.

Is this going to exist?
Am I going to have job?

Someone lost their life
at the end of this.

Some people come into our
lives and leave too soon.

We may have an

instrumentation problem, flight.

Roger.

The way technology firms

approach their operations
is ready, fire, aim.

Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here.

And if there's
a little collateral damage,

you know, so be it.

Can we show the technical
difficulties graphic?

That's always a fun time, right?

Oh, wow, glitch, glitch, glitch!

Oh!

Okay!
Winston is here right now.

A bunch of tech news as well

as what we have coming up
a little later on.

Let's start, first of all,
talking about Vine.

Twitter's Vine app is making YouTube

feel so six seconds ago.

- Are you a Viner?
- Yes!

I'm not a Viner, but I know all about it.

That was a close one...

Vine started in 2012.

Instead of Instagram,

where it's like a feed of just
still photos back in the day...

- Yeah!
- Vine was short videos.

Who wants to get crazy for New Year's?

Yeah!

Vine was most interesting
in the fact of its limitations.

You could only have a six-second video

and you only get one shot to record it.

It had created this
cultural phenomenon where,

because the videos were so short,

that let people make whole storyboards

inside this tiny little time frame.

- Whoa! Oh!
- Y'all felt that turbulence?

- Yeah.
- Is everything all right?

Hey, I don't know.

Text me if you make it though.
Whoo-hoo!

It had that comedic timing

of everything ending right
at its own climax

that made it so addictive and
you'd just scroll for hours.

Stupid.

Officer, I got one question for you...

People shared video memes...

What are those?

That other people would share
their own remixes and spins on.

What are those?

They are my Crocs.

Creating this chain of inside jokes.

I've even made a few
very terrible Vines myself.

D-D-D-D-DJ Hand Dryer.

It's what pioneered the concept
that powers TikTok today.

To me, it's like a video tease.

I don't quite... I'll have to watch.

Six seconds.
It's an art form.

So the founders of Vine were
Colin Kroll and Rus Yusupov.

Colin Kroll, the engineer,
was the big visionary,

the one that saw
the opportunity for this app

and this long-term vision

for how social media could change...

We run in EC2.

We're written in Python

and we use a slew
of open source technology.

And Rus was product designer
and kinda the manager.

I was just, uh...
writing a bit of a bio.

He was the one who could
actually make it all happen,

get all the pieces moving
in the right direction

and make sure
the infrastructure was ready

so people could share their creativity.

If you see me now, tap on your screen.

Let me know that you guys are here.

Around May of 2012, we set out

to make creating and sharing
videos on mobile really fun

and really easy 'cause at the time,

it was dreadful and we knew
there was a better way.

Twitter bought Vine
for a reported $30 million.

Colin Kroll and Rus Yusupov...

Sold Vine to Twitter for 30 million.

And they actually sold Vine
before it even launched,

which was a very big surprise,

'cause most startups
want to get big first

and then get acquired.

The video sharing app, Vine,

was launched just in January by Twitter.

When Rus and Colin sold Vine to Twitter,

they went to work
for Twitter building out

and popularizing this product

and they helped it go from zero
to 60 million-plus users.

Girl, he's so Vine!
He's not yours, he's Vine!

You should follow me on Vine.

Perhaps when they were
in the quiet before,

now being a part of Twitter,
everyone was like,

"Well, who are these guys?"
You know?

And they were like, accepting awards

and they were at, like,
every industry event,

really being celebrated as founders.

I mean, you guys have grown so much

and so many people are
using it in creative ways.

Like, where do you see it going?

Oh, I think we had no idea
when we started

and we're just holding on.

NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman

sent the first Vine video from Earth orbit

out to his Twitter followers.

Roger, 11.

It certainly looks like
you're well on your way now.

But when you get acquired,
you give up control.

♪ Happy birthday to you ♪

♪ Happy birthday, dear... ♪

Unfortunately,

when Vine wasn't quite
growing fast enough

and Twitter, its parent company,

was in a cash crunch,
it shut down Vine...

Twitter is shutting down

the Vine video app
and laying off 350 people.

Which shocked the internet
and stranded tons of creators

who had built their livelihood
on the app.

Hey, bud.
Heard about Vine.

Vine's shutting down.

Thank you, guys, for following me

for the last few years.

After Twitter shut down Vine,

founder Rus Yusupov famously tweeted...

I think Rus' tweet, it just showed,

you know, instant regret.

Like, you know, what if?

Like... right?

Like, if he hadn't sold the company,

what would have happened to Vine?

Vine was TikTok before TikTok was TikTok.

So you gotta think that every
shareholder and manager

at Twitter has really reconsidered...

The decision to shut that thing down

and even though they
only sold it for $30 million,

let's assume that Rus
and Colin each got 10 million.

The difference between 10 million

and a billion is meaningful.

And I think that meant

that they always had a bit
of a chip on their shoulder

of wanting to take another shot

at building something truly big.

I got a call from a friend
of mine and said,

"Hey, man, I'm working
these guys who started Vine

"and they want to do this
trivia show on the phone

"and we're looking for a host

"and, you know, I thought of you.

Do you want to come in
and audition for it?"

Please give it up or Scott Rogowsky!

I never booked anything
in New York, really,

you know, when it came
to auditioning for things.

This is very exciting.
This is my club debut.

Maybe you saw the full page ad
my mother took out

in the "Westchester Jewish Chronicle"?

Honestly, I put a decade
into the comedy scene

in New York, grinding it out.

Do you mind my laughing at you?

I don't mind at all!

I wish the audience
would join you, though.

I had the subway book cover video.

So that was, like,

I had a little bit
of recognition from that,

but I had certainly not reached the point

of getting offers from Comedy Central

or network TV or...

So I had decided to give up
on New York and move to LA.

"Maybe I'll be discovered."
That was my romantic ideal.

Gave up my apartment

But what the hell?
One last audition.

Take one. Marker.

Scott, whenever you're ready, man.

Just roll. Have fun.
- All right.

Do whatever you want.

Hello, there!
I'm your host, Scott Rogowsky.

We're live from New York City,

and we have a full house here
in the studio...

I showed up looking pretty unkempt

in this moth-eaten sweater
with my glasses,

which I don't normally wear
when I do those things.

The first round of Hype Q starts

in just a couple of minutes.

No one really knew what this was.

"Come up with a little intro
for yourself."

Where am I?
What is this place?

"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 just went in...

I went into it with a confidence

that only comes from not giving a shit.

More cards, more cash tomorrow.
See ya there!

Nicky Balls!

Yo! Cut! This is good.
Thank you. Great.

Well, good morning to you on this Friday.

Have you ever heard of this?
It's called fidget spinners.

The hottest new toy.

The toy is banned
by some schools in Minnesota

and Massachusetts.

Even though I work in the app world,

I'm not very in-the-know
on what all the cool apps are.

I don't even know

if I would have ever played HQ
if I didn't work there.

I think what made Rus and Colin special

is that they were able to see the future

before everyone else could see it.

My co-founder, Colin and I,
we thought, "Hey,

let's combine some
of our favorite elements

of mobile gaming,
live video and TV production,

mash 'em together.

We grew up watching "Jeopardy"

and "Wheel of Fortune."

We thought, "Hey, if we build a game show

"that we would actually play ourselves,

that it just might work."

I mean, who doesn't want

to be a contestant on a game show?

The entire job of both a startup founder

and an investor is
to predict the future...

More and more of the video viewing

that has historically happened on TV

is happening through other channels now.

And Jeremy Liew,

famous for making a huge
early investment in Snapchat,

was HQ Trivia's first big investor.

Because he saw it, really,
as this new form of media

really changing the game.

Went in on the first day
to start generating graphics.

What I really learned from Rus was...

the art of minimalism.

They handed me a sheet
with about six colors,

a circle, an X, or the triangle

and Rus was basically, like,
"All right, now,

your job is to make this
a whole universe."

You know, 'cause the idea
is you're gonna stare

at this tiny screen for a long time.

It's gotta feel like it's really big.

Then, kind of as a favor,

because Scott's, you know,
one of my best friends,

out of all the people that auditioned,

I took Scott's footage and used
it to develop the prototype.

All right!
First question.

Once the people in charge saw that,

they couldn't separate him from the app.

Yosemite National Park,
the correct answer.

It's so beautiful!

Congrats to those of you
who made it to the next round...

I think I auditioned for HQ
in April and in May,

they said, "Hey, man, like,
you got the job."

I said, "Great, okay.
Let's do this."

So, I came into the office.

In that first meeting, my
impressions of Rus and Colin

were they had very much
of that tech guy vibe.

There was a Vine pillow.

I remember they put
the Vine pillow on the couch.

I didn't use Vine.
I didn't have a Vine account.

Six-second video!

That, to me, spelled the death
of show business.

I've always been an old soul.

I have books about
Jack Benny and George Burns

and the Marx Brothers in my libraries.

Welcome, welcome
to "You Bet Your Wife..."

eh, "Bet Your Life."

I loved the old comedy and...
so, yeah,

this new-fangled, new age
live-streaming on an app,

like, to me, I didn't
have high hopes for it.

Okay. All right. I think
we're all locked in here.

And the very first shows were just,

you know, internal tests...

First question of the day.

Just to make sure that you could,

you know, tap an answer
and it would register...

The answer is space.

And the chat would work...

Let's see.

And then it was time to go live.

This is live!
This is not recorded.

I'm talking to you right now!

The first beta shows were catching on

among, like, the New York tech community.

Thank you, again, for signing up.

Tell your friends about this.

When I started, HQ hadn't yet launched.

It was still in beta.

My husband signed up,
we played every night.

I'm gonna ask you questions,

you're gonna answer the questions.

If you get them right, you win 50 bucks.

Like, what's the catch, right?

But there was no catch.

You could actually win real money.

Next question.

What is the most popular emoji
used in France?

I mean, you know, I was trying

to make the questions funny and...

The heart emoji!

...a little risqué.

You know, it's funny,

Bill Gates named his company
after his penis.

Microsoft.

We were shooting out this,
like, makeshift closet.

It's a trivia game, live,
from this very warm studio.

I was really excited to be there,

just watching this thing
go live, like, from a room.

Everybody wanted to just, like...

I call it, like,
"Watch the baby grow."

And we're back, baby!
HQ-cumbers.

Still working on that.

It's Scott, coming at you live
on this Monday.

Rus and Colin, from what I understand,

they were co-founders
and they were, like, co-CEOs.

Rus Yusupov, co-founder of HQ,

thanks for being here.

Rus is the designer and so,

he's supposed to be
the more charismatic one

and, you know, he's got his Tesla

and, you know, had a vanity plate,

"VINER" and just, like,

you know, talking about Bitcoin.

I look up to the great
entrepreneurs of our time.

This is a controversial response,

but I think Mark Zuckerberg
has done an incredible job.

I am an Elon Musk fanboy.

You know, like, just one
of these guys who's just,

like, so into the whole status
of being in tech.

What do you love about yourself?

Everything.

Of course. "Ring around the
rosie, pocket full of..."

I mean...
- Pocketful of what?

- Diapers. No.
- Diapers!

Rus, he was very hands-on.

He was doing the PR, doing the design...

Fact checked, verified.

He was doing the wardrobe.

Scott's wardrobe.

It was kinda comical.

I was sent to go find suits for Scott

and Rus asked me to just like,
take photos of every outfit.

I have so many photos of him!

And then, Rus was the one
that ultimately, like,

made the call to keep it or return it.

Rus and Colin, they were
almost polar opposites.

I always got a sense
from my very first day

that Colin was a little socially awkward.

I've been in tech so long that, like,

Most engineers are awkward.

He was a genius at his craft,
but he didn't want to be seen.

All he cared about was the product.

Joining us now are the co-founders,

Colin Kroll and Rus Yusupov.

Colin did not enjoy being on camera.

Where's the prize money coming from now?

- From us, for now.
- And investors?

Very nervous.

And what's your background?

Well, I've been doing comedy...

Like, you know, palms sweaty nervous.

I auditioned for this.
You know, I go on...

Colin was so uncomfortable.

He never wanted to be on camera again.

And we realized that we've created

a new category here...

Rus was definitely more like, you know,

he wanted the limelight,
he wanted to be on camera.

You don't need a team
of a thousand people.

You know, sponsors and
advertisers are reaching out...

We do have the flexibility to grow.

So fairly early on,

some cracks started to form, you know,

especially in the relationship
between Rus and myself.

But for now, someone thinks I'm dumb.

The guy who owns this app
thinks I'm dumb.

Great. The guy who hired me
thinks I'm dumb.

I don't think Rus loved the fact

that I was becoming the face
of the product he created.

You know, very early on,

we had some awkward
interactions over Slack,

in person, over text.

This might be my last show

because my boss thinks I'm dumb, so.

It was nice knowing you,
good playing with you.

But we started growing.

Three, two, one!

HQ launched in August 2017

with a few hundred people
in the first game.

We made it! This is HQ.
I'm Scott, the host.

This is a live trivia game
that you play from your phone.

Every show had more viewers
than the previous show.

We got a long weekend coming up, people,

and there's big money on the table today.

50 bucks!

It was definitely a snowball
coming down the mountain.

I'm Scott, your host.
We are live.

Looks like we have some people
playing right now

from Forest Hills High School in Queens.

I had heard about it
from some of my students

and rather than try
to fight for their attention,

I decided that it would be,
maybe, be fun to,

"Well, okay, let's play this.

Let's see what
this is all about."

And then we all kinda got hooked on it.

What school are you representing?

Let me know in the chat there.

Apart from live sports

or the Oscars or something like that,

there are very few live events
that people commune around.

Now, if you answer this
question correctly, madam,

you'll win $50.

Originally, game shows
on radio and television

were broadcasted live...

Who was the father of our country?

These were live events.

Is someone gonna answer
the $64 question tonight?

- W-Washington?
- Right!

Give that lady those
50 crisp dollar bills.

And those were immensely popular.

She put everything she had on a horse.

Lady Godiva.

Lady Godiva is correct

and you get $64 and congratulations!

And then we had that 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."

And they were so popular to the point

that almost one quarter of NBC's

broadcasting slate were game shows.

- Look what you can win now!
- A new car!

You're watching what is

more or less a rags-to-riches story.

There's that vicarious thrill
that seems to come

from watching someone else

receive a life-changing amount
of money instantaneously.

He just won $1 million!

I think there's also a desire
to become a player.

Ready, Eugene?
One, two, three!

Let's...

My name is Eugene Byon
and I've been a huge fan of HQ

for the last, goodness, four, five years.

There's this shirt here,

originally offered on
the HQ store, limited edition.

There's this shirt here,

which I got for winning
the co-hosting contest

and co-hosting a game of HQ.

Q-umero numero uno!

But there's also...

Oh, yes, 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 maybe that might be
a good option for today.

Oh.

So I've played about 2,000 games.

♪ Three, two, one! ♪

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.

Is this your first taste
of the HQ Trivia pot pie?

Let me nutshell the rules.

One of the things that really

set HQ Trivia apart from your
traditional TV game show

is the interactive nature of it.

Did y'all have a nice Thanksgiving?

Scott Rogowsky is constantly
interacting with folks.

There is that sense the host
is aware that you're there.

It's Friday night, the feeling is right.

There's a party going down
on the West Side.

And Scott Rogowsky was
incredibly charismatic.

It wasn't, like, "Oh,
I'm gonna go play HQ Trivia."

It was also like,
"Oh, I gotta watch Scott."

We've gathered up a bunch
of leftover questions,

threw 'em together
in the microwave for ya.

JK! We got a fresh batch!
Piping hot! Ready to serve.

Every weird synapse in my
brain that would fire off...

Freddie Mercury is in retrograde.

Whether it was a "Simpsons" reference

or a Phish lyric... the band, Phish.

You know, things that I loved.

"Seinfeld," baseball, all these things,

I just kinda, like, put out there.

Say "What up," give me some emojis...

A lot of it was just improvised

and when you're rolling, you're rolling.

I'm your host with the
crab toast, Scott Rogowsky,

AKA "The Woke Woolery."

"Walt Quizney."

"The Semitic Sajak."

"The Quizard of Oz."

"The Great
and Powerful Schnoz."

AKA, "The Trap Trebek,"
AKA, "Regis Trilbin,"

"Quiz Markie."
"Rupert Pupkin."

- "Edward Quizzerhands."
- "The Quiz Daddy."

"Quiz Daddy."

- "Quiz Daddy."
- "Quiz Daddy."

That's what you thought of, right?

You know, you're like,

"Oh, 9:00 p.m., time to spend
time with 'Quiz Daddy.'"

Shake 'em up, shake 'em up,
shake 'em up, shake 'em!

It became pretty obvious
to me fairly quickly,

that there was some professional jealousy

seeping into this dynamic
between Rus and myself.

I honestly think Rus had
some scars from the Vine days

and I mean, he created a platform

that allowed all these Viners
to become megastars...

And Rus was still fairly
anonymous behind the scenes

and here he was,
seeing another guy get famous

off another one of his products

and it wasn't sitting too well with him.

I remember him very clearly telling me,

"This is not 'The Scott Rogowsky Show, '

you're just a host.

In fact, when this show gets bigger,

I want to get a celebrity host,
like Jim Parsons,

you know, maybe Jamie Foxx and
this was Rus telling me, like,

"Yeah, you're replaceable.
We're gonna replace you."

But I was having fun with the show.

Bah! Pow-pow-pow,
pow-pow-pow-pow-pow!

Ya, ya, ya, ya, ya!

You want to get down to the nitty-gritty

and get this show on the road?

It's a live trivia game
that happens twice a day.

The trivia game show
you play on your phone

where you answer questions to win cash.

It's hosted by the very
charming Scott Rogowsky.

Sit back, relax and let yourself go.

Don't sweat what you heard,
act like you know.

It's a tribe called Quiz.
May the best brain win!

Scott is the icon of HQ.

Yeah, baby!

Let's go!

And he's become a magnet for selfies.

There you go.

- Who's your favorite host?
- Scott, definitely.

He's cool, he's cool.
It's fun to watch.

All my little Rogowsky urban achievers.

Scott! Scott!

Oh, my God!

- I'm gonna take a selfie.
- I am a god!

So I write about tech in culture

and I write a lot about kind of
the human side of technology

or these kind of culture stories

that are adjacent to
the more hard tech stories,

I guess you could say.

The trivia game show
you play on your phone.

I came across HQ Trivia

kind of like everyone else
on the internet.

- You won!
- You won!

People in the newsroom were, like,

meeting at 3:00 to all play.

Shabbat Shalom, HQ-ties!

I'm your hoost with the moost,
Scoot Rogoose.

The host, Scott Rogowsky,

I had noticed that nobody
had done a profile of him,

about this person that, you know,

thousands of people were
tuning into every day

and was becoming this beloved
cult figure online.

Warning.
Tonight's quiz has two horns.

Are you ready for a quarter
of an hour of mirth,

trivia and mayhem?

This was mid-November 2017.

"GQ" wanted to do a shoot,

"Interview" magazine, newspapers and I...

had been dutifully forwarding
all these requests to Rus

and everything disappeared.

I started hitting up Scott
on social media.

I noticed that we had some
mutual friends on Facebook.

It was a couple of friends saying,

"Hey, my friend, Taylor,
writes for the 'Daily Beast, '

would like to interview you."

I said, "You know what?
Screw it.

I'm going to do this
for a friend."

I'm not gonna say it was a puff piece,

but it was a puff piece.

I did, you know, try and see

if there was any kind
of controversy around him.

There was nothing.

I did the interview with Taylor.

Ten minutes on the phone,
thought nothing of it.

The original headline said
something about his eyelashes.

Let me go grab the computer.
Hold on. It's just right here.

"The next huge app star
is a man with great eyelashes

"who lives with his parents.

"Meet Scott, the most beloved host of HQ,

"the live trivia show

"that hundreds of thousands
of people tune into every day.

"Fans call him 'Quiz Daddy'
and on the few days

"when he doesn't host HQ Trivia,

"people beg for his return.

"'Everyone needs 15 minutes
of Scott in their lives, '

"said one fan, recently.

"'If you don't live Scott
from HQ, we can't be friends, '

said another."

And then, I continued on in, like,

the nicest piece I've probably
ever written about anyone.

I filed my draft
and at 6:00 p.m.,

an email comes in from Rus.

He's like, "This is unauthorized profile.

You can't write this story."

And I'm like, "I'm a journalist

"and we don't need your
approval to write stories,

"so, sorry, just let me know
if you want to comment.

And feel free to call me."

I get on the phone and Rus starts yelling

and he's pissed and I immediately start

transcribing everything because I'm like,

"This is crazy."

And I also want to make sure
that I write down any quotes,

so I'm in my notes app.

It is so hostile.

I mean, yelling at me and
saying he was gonna fire Scott

if I ran this profile and I was
so taken aback and confused.

Like, this is bizarre.

Like, does he understand
how positive this story is?

And I, essentially,

start to read him, kind of,
quotes that Scott gave me.

Taylor had asked me what I
eat for lunch before the shows.

I said I like to go to Sweetgreen.

This was the particular part
of the interview

that Rus really took exception to.

Rus is like,
"He cannot mention Sweetgreen!

We don't have a sponsored
relationship with Sweetgreen!"

I'm like, "Well, dude,
what are you talking about?"

and he's like... basically,
the call is done.

So I rewrite the story

around all of this stuff that happened.

That night, I was having a panic attack.

I could not sleep.

I really just remember
feeling like, "Oh, my God.

"Being a journalist is too stressful

and I fucked this up,"
and the next morning,

I get into work
and Ben Collins, my editor,

is like, "We need to formally
let the company know

"that we are including all of this.

All right, let's go,
let's get Rus on the phone."

So, I'm preparing
to do the 3:00.

I'm in the studio.
I just put my suit and tie on.

Ten minutes before
I'm supposed to go live...

- Rus gets Scott.
- Knock on the studio door.

Rus says,
"Can you... can you step out?"

We enter a small conference room.

Rus has his phone on speaker.

"I've got the 'Daily Beast' on the line.

"They are telling me
that I threatened to fire you.

Why don't you tell 'em
that that's not true?"

There was Taylor and her editor.

"Hi, Scott, here.

"Yeah, I don't know where
you're getting that from,

"that's totally crazy.

"Rus never threatened to fire me.

Never heard that."

I think that Scott realized
that Rus was lying.

And I look at Rus...

who's looking at me going...

like, "Not true."

It was so clear that Rus was lying.

My heart just sunk in that moment.

It was such a shock and, like...

you... you really said this?

You were like, you were gonna fire me?

Like... I looked at Rus, I was like,

"Listen, man.
I gotta host your show, so...

you know, you deal with this"

and I left the conference room

and went back and hosted HQ.

♪ Three, two, one! ♪

I hope your socks are securely fastened,

because we're about to knock 'em off

in another game of HQ...

20 minutes later when the show ended,

I step outside,
the story had been published.

- It blew up.
- And shit hit the fan.

The headline that we ran
was something like,

"HQ Trivia Founder:

If You Run This Article,
I'll Fire The Host."

Which Ben wrote.
Genius headline.

I was at my desk...

On Twitter, glued for, like,
hours, like, refreshing,

and other journalists
were like, "Holy shit."

This became a whole scandal of its own.

All this media coverage,

laughing about
how sensitive this founder was.

Hashtag "Free Scott" was trending.

I mean, people thought that
I was being held captive,

that I couldn't eat at certain
places without permission.

It kind of... you know,
the internet went wild with it.

When the Sweetgreen article dropped,

Rus was on the phone, like,
in the middle of the office.

Kind of like a PR, like,
crisis control situation.

Rus called me that night and he said,

"This is what we're gonna do."

After the story came out, Rus took Scott

on, like, a date to Sweetgreen,
to, like, ease things over.

And then, I see that
Rus has actually tweeted

something like, "Who's an out
of touch startup founder? Me."

Like, basically,
"Sorry about all that."

And I did 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 said,
"Did Rus do this on purpose?"

'Cause I was thinking, you know,

there's no such thing as bad press.

This is gonna be great for us.

That's when the hockey stick accelerated.

HQ Trivia was everywhere.

It is that time once again.
The quizzing hour is upon us.

People played it on the subway...

Oh, HQ-nicorn!

At home, at work.

- No!
- In the bar.

- Three winners, baby!
- HQ winners!

I remember going to an Astros game.

I whipped out my phone
and started playing.

Greeting you on this late autumn day.

It just kept getting bigger
and bigger and bigger.

You could see how many people
were watching,

which made it cool, too,
because as the company grew...

We would get more excited
about the viewership.

The media requests started coming in.

And it's the FOMO element,
the fear of missing out,

that's so prevalent in society now.

We were doing talk shows.

I was doing "Good Morning America,"

"The Today, Show," Colbert.

Are we in the Matrix right now?

All of this is science fic...
No, but I liken it

to the Wright Brothers
building the first airplane.

I mean, they...
- What?

Yeah!

Thank you.

What's your racket, kids?
Now, come clean now.

Are you one of the extortion mob?

It's exciting when people
are excited about game shows.

Do you mind kissing any of these people?

Oh, I wouldn't mind, for a change.

There's nothing else like it.

Now, do you wish to select a category?

It's not the same thing as live sports.

It's not the same thing

as watching some kind
of stunt performance.

It's a unique kind of pleasure.

With $100 a week, every week
for the entire year!

The game shows that we remember

are the ones that run for a long time.

The host of "Jeopardy," Alex Trebek!

"Jeopardy," "Wheel of Fortune,"

"Who Wants To Be
A Millionaire."

He's won $1 million!

There are plenty of other game shows...

Hello, and welcome to "Star Face"!

That most people barely remember.

I'm putting $5,000
of my money on the line.

They seem to be chasing something

that could become the next
"Millionaire."

- Final answer?
- Yes.

They're looking to find
their unique twists

in that formula and capture
people's imagination...

- Shaggy and Scooby Doo.
- Whoa!

And HQ was able to scratch that itch...

You won, Nan!

In a unique way that
it hadn't happened before.

You won!
Well done!

HQ was both just a game
and also an attempt to,

you know, revolutionize television.

Do I have anything in my teeth?

I'm Drew Patterson and I was an investor

and advisor and consultant to HQ Trivia.

Colin and Rus had different
and complementary

kinds of skill sets.

They met at Jetsetter.

My next guest, Drew Patterson...

I was the founder and the CEO

and we had a great time together.

Lots of late nights.
Beers afterwards.

Those kinds of experiences
created lots of camaraderie

and deep relationships and friendships.

Colin's an introvert.

You know, I suppose, maybe I am, as well,

and so we connected around that.

Rus, you know,

I had a professional relationship with,

but we weren't friends

in the way that Colin and I are friends.

Colin was a world-class engineer.

You're looking at what
HQ had to accomplish,

Colin was one of the few people

in the world able to do that.

Yeah, we'd definitely like
to connect you closer

with the people
that you know in the game.

And then, I mean, Rus was an
incredibly talented designer.

With HQ Trivia,

both Colin and Rus
started as just co-founders.

Eventually, Colin fell into the role

of the Chief Technology Officer

and, effectively,
Rus started to be the COO,

the Chief Operating Officer.

But the problem was that they were both

kind of competing to be the CEO,

the face of the company,

the one who controlled the money.

Colin had very clear ideas

about what he wanted
to create in the world

and his ambition was to reshape culture.

Right?

Like, to build the next version
of television.

That's a gargantuan undertaking.

And 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 didn't suffer fools.

Uh... uh...

He's a total pain in the ass.

Yeah.

Why don't we... why don't we grab lunch

and we can do this after lunch?

Perfect.
Okay, let's cut.

Prince Harry officially engaged

to American actress, Meghan Markle.

We now know, though,

they actually got engaged
earlier this month.

The Queen's delighted,

Prince Charles is delighted,

Prince William's very excited...

HQ Trivia, you know,

had gotten all this, like,
positive attention, right?

But it was clear that
if they wanted to build

and realize their dream,
they needed more money.

- Looking to raise more money?
- If it's right, sure.

As a startup, you need
capital to grow the company.

You need engineers.

In the case of HQ, you need prize money.

Today's jackpot: $1,000.

$5,000.

50,000!

$100,000!

You can actually buy love

and happiness with that kinda dough.

So, clearly, they were fund-raising...

but it was clear that, like,
something was stalling that

and this report comes out...

which answered the question of, like,

"Why haven't they raised
more money yet?"

What I wanted to do was break news about

who was investing in this
really buzzy startup

called HQ Trivia,

and 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.

And what Kurt wrote is that
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, right?

And it was easy to read
the story in a certain way.

You know, it was the height of MeToo.

The MeToo 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.

Suddenly, there was a
reckoning around bad behavior

by men, sexual politics
in the workplace that,

you know, really had not
been reckoned with and it...

Like, long overdue reckoning.

Unfortunately, I think Colin
got caught up in that.

Colin Kroll,

whose behavior was described
as "creepy at times",

also, "egregious."

According to Rico, though,

it doesn't appear formal complaints

were actually filed against him.

That, as far as I know,
was not why he was fired.

He was fired because
he wasn't doing a good job

managing the staff,

but Colin's 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 a...

"unprofessional relationship
with somebody,

"and I wanted to share
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.

There's a lot of ego,

you have "Move fast
and break things" mentality.

You work long hours, you code,
you don't take off.

You can't 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, you're gonna hurt some feelings.

Your underlings are gonna fear you,

but that's good, that's what it takes

and as we know now,
that's not what it takes.

In fact, it actually
usually hinders innovation

because people don't feel comfortable,

you lose talent, and you end up

building a very non-inclusive workspace.

When I got there, like,

it was definitely 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 I'm cleaning this up".

Or, like, "Rachel, like,
we need more coffee!

Like, can you make some?"
You know?

I'm like, "Can't you?"

I never really spoke up.

Probably because I felt insecure.

Um... I was young, you know?

I was very young and...
and...

I think, inherently, like, 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 instance they were to be
talking about were years prior,

when he was at Twitter.

Why is this coming out now,

right when the fund-raise
is happening, right when...

they're figuring out
who's gonna run the company?

As co-founders, 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,

it's 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.

When you have a lack of trust

between the two people
running the company,

it leads to chaos,

especially if you're
raising money at the time.

A lot of folks are irrational,
there's a lot ego,

there are all of these moves,
the power moves,

there's a lot of money changing hands.

So I think you probably
had a lot of dynamics

happening at the time that were, I think,

probably really toxic.

I knew from, like, my second day,

that Colin and Rus didn't see eye to eye.

That was forementioned 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.

You know, it was a weird thing

'cause you're co-founders,
you'd think you do start

these things with your friends...

but they didn't seem like friends.

They had been collaborators for so long,

I think they both knew

that they were better
together than apart.

But maybe it wasn't
a perfect relationship.

There was a public reaction
to the article.

It certainly caught some attention,

at least in the tech world.

When you're a company
and you're growing really fast

and things on the outside
seem like they're going great,

it's really hard to take
that step back and say, like,

"We've got to work
on our relationship."

Rus, as far as I know,
felt sort of betrayed.

Like, "Hey, you're putting
our company in a tough spot

from your past behavior,
and I wasn't aware of that."

At least, that was the idea
that was kind of portrayed.

After that story came out,

I asked the question
of "Who's gonna invest in HQ?"

The answer ended up
being the Founders Fund.

They invested $15 million
at a $100 million valuation,

thinking that this company

is gonna make at least $100 million

when it sells or IPOs one day.

- Good evening!
- Founders Fund...

I'm Peter Thiel.

Was Peter Thiel's 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 presidential election.

Peter Thiel kind of
put a stake in the ground

in the tech world as saying,

I'm not gonna shy away from something

that I think is good business

because it might have a checkered past...

and so, Cyan Banister,
one of the partners,

was going to join the board.

I've invested in companies in my career

such as Uber, SpaceX, Postmates...

And she was known for being

an incredible friend to founders

and actually working
with them in the trenches.

And Founders Fund's whole...
managing principle is that

"We don't get in
the way of founders."

Rus knows he's gonna have free rein

with Founders Fund's money...

and "Colin, you just go back

"and you keep coding and engineering

"and keep this game up and running...

and Rus will be the CEO
and take all the glory."

That's the way I read it.

You can go back to every article,

every interview with Rus.
"What's the future of HQ?"

Rus' whole thing was, "I wanna
give away a million dollars."

Well, we'd love to
give away a million dollars.

We'd 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 word,

a showman.

I'm Rus Yusupov,

the CEO and co-founder of HQ Trivia.

Interested in creating spectacle.

With viewers in more than 80 countries.

The bigger the spectacle, the better.

Well, I'm back here at the NFL Tailgate,

joined by the man at the center
of the craziest obsession

sweeping our nation right now.

We had a Super Bowl commercial.

People dressed as me for Halloween.

We're making things extra
awesome tonight on HQ...

We were nominated for an Emmy award.

3,000 high schoolers

screaming for me.

It's been soaring in popularity.

Sometimes more than a million people

play it at the same time.

With all one million plus of you...

♪ Four-four, three,
two, one... ♪

Jimmy Kimmel, in fact...

- Wow, we got two!
- We got two right!

Loved it so much,

he finagled his way into guest hosting.

I'm here because Scott
doesn't love you anymore

and, to be honest,

I don't know that he ever really did,

so let's try to forget
about him right now.

I think the celebrities, for me...

- Awkwafina!
- Oh, yeah, hi.

Made me think,
"Wow, this is big."

"These expensive, these is red bottoms,

these is bloody shoes!"

Success begets success.

- I don't want to do math!
- 100 thou...

As the size of the audience grows...

Hug me. Oh! There he is!

What's up?
AKA, your boy, Ice Cube.

You know, that makes it easier

to bring in higher profile celebrities.

- HQ is live.
- HQ is always live.

I remember when The Rock was on there.

The Rock hosting.

Maybe I can give you

some pointers? How 'bout that?
- Yeah, okay.

I would love some pointers.

Russ knows how to

craft a narrative
that breaks through the media,

that gets people excited,

that gives them something to talk about.

The Rock tweeted
you should catch him on HQ.

Cheers to HQ Trivia.
We're gonna have a blast

tomorrow... $300,000.

That ended up being...

two million people plus.

The morale in the office
was really, really high.

Can we get some mustard for Danny DeVito

for cryin' out loud?

Danny DeVito, he 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.

That's a wrap, Scott.
This is live, Scott.

Go with it.

Russ was building international markets,

launching a German HQ.

- An Australia HQ.
- So just think of me

as your little Australian Dumbledore.

- A UK HQ...
- I'm Shazza Carpenter,

your quality quizzer,
and this is HQ Trivia.

Russ came to me, he said,

"Sharon I see you in 'Cosmopolitan, '

I see you on the cover of this
magazine, this newspaper,"

and I'm thinking okay, Russ,

like calm down
a little bit, I don't know,

is it really gonna be like that?

But you know what?

He was absolutely right.

I've been involved with
a lot of different shows,

big networks, but I had never
seen this level of fandom.

Damn, H-cuties!

We're 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 mind-blowing.

We started with
2.3 million... a record.

And we're gonna come back

and try to do it again tomorrow.

Yeah, that's right.
Tomorrow.

The turnout was like too good for us

because 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 a sense of like

we're not going in the right direction.

This party isn't gonna end well.

It can't just be more bigger prizes

and a bigger and bigger spectacle.

The company needs to be more
than just those things,

and I think he's frustrated
that, you know,

Russ wasn't, um...
attuned to that.

We are back live.
We are in Times Square.

Midnight is almost here.

Okay, listen, I love games

and there's this live model trivia game

that has taken American by storm.

Hi Scott.
- Hi Jenny.

HQ Trivia is the only live game
show you play on your phone.

Oh my God, I wanna play.

Okay, who has never hosted
"New Year's Rockin' Eve"...

Jimmy Kimmel, Regis Philbin,
or George Carlin?

The plan was we go live at midnight,

this will be our big New Year's Eve show.

- I know this one.
- It was the most money

we'd ever given out.
Ry, what's your answer?

I would say Kimmel.

I was up in Times Square...
Ryan is our big winner!

Had to do the promo...
- Thank you so much.

Thank you, happy New Year, in the car,

down to the studio in Soho,
rush and get in there you know,

five minutes to midnight, we're ready.

And we go live.

Can you believe this year's over already?

I feel like it's only been
365 days and 26...

And it crashes.

I don't know, I think
they might have expected

maybe 500,000, and a million showed up

and the whole thing just, you know...

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?

- Right, well...
- It's frustrating, Rus,

the glitches.

Glitches in HQ appeared
in many different forms.

The freezing, sudden
disconnection from the game.

What is the prime...

An error message that would
appear on the screen.

People would always like
meme Scott Rogowsky's face

all like muddled up.

It just got so popular

and that might be a part of the reason

why the game was always crashing.

Would you believe it?

Once it got popular, it seemed like

we weren't 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
didn't 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

they're working on
making the servers better

and more reliable,
and the focus really is

on delivering the best
possible experience.

Aah!

Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!

Oh, my God!

I won $11.30.

I won $11!

I don't 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 can't even remember.

Oh my God.

Roxy Music.

Which is what I guessed.

And you got some winners, baby, yeah!

177 of ya.

I just really couldn't believe it.

I was in shock.

And my friends Tweeted the clip

@ScottRogowsky.

And I basically, like, was the internet.

This woman's response to an $11 win

has gone viral.

Joy there from Lauren May.
Worth every action.

People I hadn't talked to
since elementary school,

reaching out to say like hi.

So many people are jealous.

They'd love to be that excited
about anything in their life.

I wasn't 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 comment...

I try not to read the comments

'cause, you know, people
tell you not to do that,

but a lot of the comments
were saying girl

you don't even know
you can't get that money.

People were saying this poor girl

doesn't even know
she's not gonna get $11.

Like after all's said and done,
she actually gets nothing.

You actually can't cash out of HQ

until you have $20, which I don't have.

I am currently sitting on
a whopping nothing.

Oh no.

You can't cash out

till you win $20
and then you only have 90 days.

Why... why that complexity?

People are winning.

It is it is an attainable prize.

Lauren May in that reaction
video, she was ecstatic

and it goes to show

that this is really not
so much about the money,

it's about the thirst
for knowledge and...

Rus made some comment about,

"And people like Lauren,
they're so excited

it's not even about the money."

Which is true, but I also
got to go on "Ellen."

Most people who weren't able to cash out

didn't 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 there's a little
collateral damage,

you know, so be it.

If you in fact can communicate or cement

the perception that you're growing faster

than anyone in your category,
you attract more capital,

financial and human capital,
which creates more growth

which creates more capital, more value,

and you start that upward spiral.

Do it one more time, do it one more time.

Million of you live in the game.

We had a milestone of getting
a million players in the game

and then we had a milestone

of getting two million players
in the game.

Two million plus of you.

So to get to three million
was the next milestone.

Rus bought a giant champagne bottle.

It was probably like at least
half my body length.

And he had a sign that said you know,

break in case of three million.

And we just expect that
we get there the next week.

I mean, this is this is the hubris,

this is the...

this is the great symbol
of the Greek tragedy

that is HQ is this, you know,
magnum bottle of champagne.

We have over 1.5 million
of you now, live.

1.9 million players
still watching.

2.3 million... a record!

We know that you can have
too much of a good thing.

- HQ Trivia.
- HQ Trivia.

Do you think you're going

to put Jeopardy!
Out of business?

And tonight, a trivia sensation, HQ...

I mean if you went to
a Michelin star restaurant

every night, had a five-course meal

by the best chef in the world...

It's Monday night!
It is Tuesday.

It is Wednesday.
Thanksgiving is Thursday.

Friday night... Saturday.
Happy Sunday.

Eventually you'd get sick of it.

What day is it?

Monday.
It's 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 they're getting bored of the game.

There was a few other apps
that had very similar premise.

The Q prides itself on its
ability to go live anywhere.

And we would watch and be like this

is not as good as HQ, you know.

Question number one:

You had HQ imitators coming
out of India and Thailand.

The question on everyone's mind

was when will Facebook
copy this and they did.

Welcome to "Confetti."

I'm gonna ask you 13 questions.

They get harder as we go.

Let's 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.

That's the challenge
that every company faces

from a consumer who
constantly asks one question,

that is what have you done for me lately?

Say cheese!

Hello, H-cuties!
Happy Monday.

HQ is, you know, really hitting the peak,

that's when the numbers started declining

and that's when
the cracks started showing.

April, you know, it started to go down.

May, really started to go down.

The penultimate question, Elmo...

Know what that means?
- No.

July to August, seeing us
start to drop below a million.

I dunno! We did lose
about half of you there.

Yeah, looking at the top
right and seeing 999.

I'm 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 we're proud of is that

we're able to maintain
this core community

and core player base

that engages by the hundreds
of thousands every day.

A million people is a sexy number.

That's what enabled HQ to get
those $15 million

in brand deals and ads sold.

You don't get those deals
if numbers are going down.

Yeah, I know, everyone's
kinda on vacation.

You're here, you're doing it.

We're doin' it.
We're doin' it up.

We're doin' it up right!

Ughh... it was frustrating
and-and also like

just basically like trying
to figure out what...

Where is it going wrong?

This is really not what
I was not expecting.

Yeah, I mean so I think the obvious thing

that Rus could've tried...

Things that would've nice
if it had come our earlier.

What if they did, I don't
know, just pop culture trivia?

- New game play elements.
- Geography.

Points that roll over that
accumulate on a leader board

or a profile.
- Make it so you can still

answer questions
after you got outta the game.

There's no shortage of ideas,

there were brilliant people working at HQ

but they couldn't get their work done.

They could not execute because
Rus wasn't allowing them to.

You know, every time someone had an idea

or a thing let's try this, no.

Rus was afraid of tampering
with the formula.

You all know, of course, The Dab,

the dance move featuring a raised arm.

Rappers, football players,
even Hillary Clinton Dab.

Now we're talkin'.

Things were really breaking
down behind the scenes

and a lot of it stemmed from this divide

between Rus and Colin into 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 massive thing, right,
like let's get bigger prizes,

let's get bigger celebrities to host

and that's the future of HQ,

we're gonna build this
into a massive show.

If we can get millions of people

to engage for 15 minutes, 7 days a week,

that that's-hat's incredibly powerful.

And my understanding from Colin was

we need to build a platform

with a number
of different game shows going.

We're not gonna put all
of our eggs in 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 chose to try
and build new games,

but you can't really do both.

Nothing was getting done.
I mean, HQ was this patient

on the operating table bleeding out

and there's two doctors
standing over the body

arguing with each other,
and the patient's dying.

We were in a total stasis

and at the same time
hemorrhaging followers.

It's a small office so people
are talking to each other.

They're worried, right,
like is this going to exist,

am I going to have a job?

I was living, breathing, and sleeping HQ

literally to the point

where I was not sleeping because of HQ.

I mean someone had to, you
know, raise the alarm here.

And that ended up being me.

That's when I called the board members

and the main investors.

The board, which is small,
there's only four people

including both co-founders,
starts talking,

hey should Colin
be the CEO instead of Rus?

Colin as CEO,

and for us 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 don't believe it was sexual in nature,

it was 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 kinda used that against Colin

as ammo to kinda push away
the whole Colin as CEO notion.

I had seen messages
between him and a friend

saying I don't trust Rus anymore,

I feel like Rus is the one

who's orchestrating this whole thing.

The board investigated

and they didn't find anything
egregious about what he did.

The president took time
today to meet with

the rap star and front man Kanye West,

it was a rather bizarre scene.

I couldn't even watch it.
I had to turn

the television off.

Around that time into the summer

Rus calls me into 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

'cause he just there's
there's he's so slippery.

I mean it was like the most
out of left field thing

I'd ever heard.

His big pitch was no, no
this is gonna be great

'cause you're the host and the CEO

and we can hire a camera crew
to follow you around,

make it a reality show.

You know talking to the audience

and saying like what tie should I wear

to the investor meeting today,

should it be the blue one
or the black one

and be like you can get
interactive feedback.

You know, I'm just like this is...

It just seemed comical.

But he was just desperate
to figure something out.

To get someone else in there
other than Colin.

And I left there thinking
okay like we're in trouble.

Yeah, and 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 some business school
classes at-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,

say guys let's save this thing,
let's turn this around.

Initially it seems crazy.

You're not really thinking
about the host being the CEO.

So I wrapped my head around
and 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 Power-point put together,
met with the investors.

And I said here's my pitch.

You know, here's why Rus needs to go.

Here's why I don't 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 here,

thank you for meeting me,
and-and Rus wanted me in.

I kinda left thinking okay
this might happen,

this might happen.

And then about a week later
when they had the vote,

and, uh, they named Colin CEO

and to me, it was like well,
you know, again I tried.

You know, Colin, we'll see
what he can do.

Look, I mean, he's a co-founder,

let's-let's anything's
better than Rus, right?

Colin now in his capacity
as CEO had the ability

to excommunicate Rus.

If I became CEO, that would be
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, that's not what
Colin did when he became CEO

and it caused all sorts
of other problems.

We've had a hardware restart.

May have had an instrumentation problem.

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.

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.

Let's dive right in
and meet today's bachelor.

There was an idea for there
to be a dating show,

a comedy show...

Record high pollen count.

Who the fuck counts pollen?

Where you could boo someone
that's 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...

It's 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.

He was working day and night,

really grueling hours,

partly driven by a creative desire

to accomplish something, but, you know,

it was all weighing on him.

Let's now talk "Fortnite," shall we?

This is one of those viral games

that is 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 décor for the makeshift phone booth.

I was kinda, 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.

It's probably hard to watch

all your co-workers get obliterated.

Kinda was in a bit of a rush
to get outta there.

You know, he didn't wanna be tempted.

Colin comes up to me and he says, "Hey V,

"I didn't wanna leave without
telling without thanking you.

"It seems like everyone's
having a good time.

And I just didn't wanna leave
without saying goodbye."

Good morning.
Periods of rain today.

Low clouds, 39,

with northeast winds of 15.
Feels more like...

The weekend after that party,

I got a text with an article
that had the headline

that said that the co-founder
of HQ had passed away.

The co-founder of one of the world's

most popular trivia games has died.

An official tells CNN
that HQ Trivia CEO Colin Kroll

was found dead this morning in New York.

Colin Kroll, CEO of HQ, dead at 34.

It's like, what?
Like, is this... is this a joke?

You might not know his name,

but you probably know his work.

He co-founded the viral game HQ Trivia

and the video app Vine.

Officers went
into Colin Kroll's apartment

early Sunday after his girlfriend

requested a wellness check.

Police say Kroll was found unconscious

and unresponsive in his bedroom.

Then, like, other, you know, texts

just started flooding in.

I was like, "Oh, my God."

I mean, it was... that was just like...

It was totally surreal.

It was totally, totally surreal.

I found out
about Colin's death on Twitter

and just being.
You know. dumbfounded.

I remember kinda reaching out
to other colleagues and friends

and... 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.

And that was, like, the point
when I even learned

that he was doing heroin.

Some people wanted to just...
"Let's cancel the show.

We're not doing a show
tonight."

We were debating, like, you know,

"What... what... what do we do here,

and how do we approach this?"
and I was like, "Guys,

"like, you have to... we have
to acknowledge this.

I mean, it'd 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 this idea to say,
like, "Let's 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 wondered, like,

what was he gonna make next?

Thank you, CK.

Good night, everybody.

We have no idea how mobile
and media might've changed

if he'd 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... and I lost a partner.

Obviously Colin struggled
with his issues, as we all do.

Maybe for Colin,
it was too much, too soon.

I can't say we always agreed

or that we were always happy
with each other,

but it was during these challenging times

that Colin's 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.

After Colin died, we had to figure out

what we're gonna do with this company

that was now without its CEO,

without its co-founder,
completely rudderless.

Cyan had basically recused
herself from the board,

so, like, now the board
is just Jeremy and Rus,

and we need a CEO.

Jeremy reinstated Rus
as CEO, interim CEO.

But that meant
that HQ Trivia was going back

to a lot of its problems.

They still needed to experiment,

and that was not Rus's strong suit.

Words was supposed to come out the day

that Colin died.
That got delayed.

And then, by the time HQ Words comes out,

the excitement's gone,
the passion's gone.

Welcome to HQ Words!

The app's already on the way out.

It's getting old.

If they had launched it

at the peak of HQ Trivia's popularity,

it could've been equally massive,

but it was a little bit
too little, too late.

It was an icy reception.

No-one at HQ wanted
to let Colin down posthumously

'cause he had put
all of his blood, sweat,

and tears into this thing,

but with Rus at the helm again,

there was really never

a light at the end of the tunnel.

In many ways, Colin was the product.

He had the idea
and the know-how to do it.

Without him in our back pocket,

it was kinda just a bunch of people

thinking, "Well
what would he have done?"

Morale was now at an all-time low,

and dominoes were falling,
people were leaving.

I mean, they laid off
a few of us at once,

and they were very solemn,
and they were just like

"Hey, just wanna let you know
today's your last day at HQ,"

and they gave me a tote bag
to put my stuff in

with the HQ logo on it,
which I thought was funny.

I mean, definitely a final
little piece on top of it.

It really, you know... this was it.

The ship was truly sinking here.

That's why, when I had an opportunity

to go elsewhere, I took it.

Dan Plesac.
This is actually Dan's jacket.

It was like a streaming
sports app produced by MOB,

and I'm a huge baseball fan.

♪ Meet the Mets,
meet the Mets ♪

I'm thinking I can still do
the Sunday night at HQ

and do change up Monday through Friday.

Rus did not wanna do that,

and they did not wanna do
a farewell, and so okay.

I guess that I'm no longer
gonna be hosting at HQ,

and, uh... that was that.

When I, you know,
finally announced on Twitter,

like formally said, you know,

"I'm no longer at HQ,

and I've got this new show.
I'm really excited about it,"

and all the tributes starting coming in

and the Rock tweeted at me,

and, you know, that was trending

on Twitter for a weekend,
the fact that I left HQ

and people were upset
that... like, you know,

"Where's the farewell show?"
You know.

It would've been nice to do for the fans.

It's like, how do you not see
how bad this looks?

So if Scott leaves in April 2019,

Valentine's Day of 2020

is where they officially
pulled the plug on HQ.

It is Friday, February 14th.

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone.

Happy Valentine's Day.

We heard that HQ was being canceled,

that that was it, that HQ was no more.

So it was kind of a sad moment.
Like, this is it.

Publicly, the ending was really abrupt.

For a lot of people,
it was just a notification

sent to their phone.

"We're done.
See you later.

Thanks for the good times."

Hey!

But...

There's still plans to produce
this last show the next day.

So what did the hosts do?
They got drunk.

This is the last game ever,

and this $5 prize is coming
out of my own pocket.

We ran out of money.

We just kept giving it away.

- $6 million in prizes.
- That's insane.

It was a beautiful
final train wreck to witness.

We got this in case we hit
3 million players.

Should we open it?

Everyone was basically
commiserating together

on the air.

Whoa!
Oh, my God!

Matt!
Agh.

A bunch of champagne fell on my crotch.

Feels like I peed my pants.

Let me see.
Does it...

Ooh, wow, it does.

Final question...
- Q12.

Final question ever.

And then the tweet went out,
you know, HQ is shutting down,

ran out of money.

HQ shut down for what we
thought was gonna be for good.

Whoo!
We were gone for a while.

HQ ended up coming back.
And Rus did it.

We've all been hard at work,
building a brand-new,

just-for-you HQ, chapter two!

Rus managed to find investors

that believed that HQ still
had something special,

even if it was never gonna have
2.3 million players again.

♪ Seventh question ♪

We gonna make a TikTok.

I... I...

Who got it?
Who got it?

It folded in in February of 2020

and was mysteriously
resurrected six weeks later

as a shell of its former self.

I'm so excited!
HQ Trivia is back, y'all.

Yeah!

I'm technically inventor.

I'm on the design patent for
this app that I helped build.

I watched it rise to being
the most popular thing

in pop culture in one moment in time.

I remember seeing Joe Biden,
before he was president,

tell Scott Rogowsky that Scott
was more popular than him.

And then I watched it all slowly go away.

That isn't a new story.
That's an important story.

The hype and the excitement

of founders becoming rock stars

and then failure,

like big failure, quick failure.

I don't think a lot of us

will know this pressure, right,

when they put millions
of dollars into you.

You gotta manage to live up
to that insane valuation

that everyone believed you had.

Not to take it far... this is a quiz app...

But I think HQ's just like a microcosm

for a much larger landscape of start-ups

and what happened over the last decade.

I've been spending a lot
of time in my office here

in my store, Quiz Daddy's Closet,

my vintage clothing shop.

I'm hosting a podcast.

I'm hosting livestreams
of the show I created

called Wild Cards.

Tutu and I are gonna open that box,

finding his rookie card in here.

And I have guests join me,

athletes and...

So let's go here, Tutu.

This is going out to, uh, Christian.

Fresh from the pack to Tutu's hands.

How cool is that?

Yeah, I get people coming in here,

"Oh, my gosh, it's the HQ guy."

And I say, "Yeah that's me.

It'd better be me.
I'm wearing his underwear."

Classic line.
The late great Alex Trebek

had his estate sale last week.
I went.

The whole situation
is is somewhat absurd.

You know, you're doing this thing,

it becomes super popular,

you're recognized everywhere,

you're winning awards,

you're in magazines,

and all that, and then

it doesn't last forever,

and now you look back on it.

Oh, that... that actually...
That all actually happened.