it s s time to beat the cloc. are you tired of linenear, are you tired of linear, non-interactive television? you ve won this game. you now have a chance to answer the jackpot question, dave hartley. 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. we are talking about hq trivia. joining us now are the co-founders, colin kroll and rus yusupov. these guys in charge are smart. they ve invented vi
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, saying he was going to 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 ate 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, 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 just remember feeling like, oh, my god, being a journalist is too stressful, and i [ bleep ] 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 o clock. i m in the studio. i just put my suit and tie on. ten minutes before it starts to go live. rus gets scott. knock on the studio door. rus says, 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 re telling me that i threatened to fire you. why don t you tell them that that s not true? it was taylor and her editor.
hq is always live. i remember when the rock was on there. the rock hosting. maybe i can give you some pointers. how about that? yeah. okay, i would love some pointers. yeah. rus 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 here s to hq trivia. we re going to have a blast tomorrow. $300,000. that ended up being 2 million people plus. the morale in the office was really, really high. can we get some mustard for danny devito, for crying 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. rus was building international markets, launching a german hq. [ speaking in foreign language ]
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 re going to fire me? i looked at rus. i was like, look, man, i got to host your show. so, you know, you deal with this. and i left the conference room and went back and hosted hq. i hope your socks are securely fastened because we re about to knock him off another game of hq. 20 minutes later, when the