Marques Brownlee


Marques Keith Brownlee, also known professionally as MKBHD, is an American YouTuber and professional ultimate frisbee player, best known for his technology-focused videos and podcast. The channel, whose name is a concatenation of MKB and HD, has over 11 million subscribers and over 1.7 billion total video views. In August 2013, Vic Gundotra, former Senior Vice President, Social for Google, called Brownlee "the best technology reviewer on the planet right now".

Career

Brownlee joined YouTube on March 21, 2008. He first started uploading technology videos in January 2009, while still in high school, about new products or reviews of products he already owned. He produced his first videos through screencasting. His first several hundred videos were primarily hardware tutorials and freeware.As of December 2019, his channel has gained over 10 million subscribers, making MKBHD one of the most subscribed-to technology-focused YouTube channels, according to Social Blade. Brownlee uploaded his 1000th video on March 29, 2018.
Brownlee's reviews have been promoted by other review sites as well. Engadget promoted the site in January 2012 when they featured his tour of the then-new cloud storage service called Insync. In November 2013, one of Brownlee's most viral videos was posted based on the LG G Flex, where he performed various scratch tests to portray the self-healing ability of the device. The video reached one million views on the first day., the video has almost 8 million views. In December 2013, Brownlee did an interview with Motorola CEO Dennis Woodside. In May 2014, Brownlee did the first over-the-air interview with Evan Blass.
Brownlee's video review and scratch test of a rumored 4.7 inch micromax 7 front glass component, uploaded July 7, 2014, gained immediate popularity, being featured on sites such as The Verge, Forbes, HuffPost, CNET, and Time Magazine. The video appeared on NBC News, and in newspapers across the world., the video has gained over 9.1 million views on YouTube and has had over 60,000 ratings. Brownlee also has a similar video regarding a dummy model of the iPhone 6, uploaded a couple of months earlier, which has since gained over 6.58 million views on YouTube.
In December 2015, Brownlee interviewed professional NBA basketball player Kobe Bryant, titled Talking Tech with Kobe Bryant!, in which he talks about Tech interests of Kobe and the most recent Kobe designed Nike shoes, the Kobe 11.
During one of the 2016 Democratic presidential primary debates that was cosponsored by YouTube, Brownlee asked the candidates, by video, whether tech companies and the government can find a middle ground over encryption while considering rights to privacy and national security.
In October 2016, he interviewed Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering Craig Federighi during the release of their latest MacBook Pro 2016. The latter was, again, invited to Marques’ channel after WWDC 2020 in June.
In March 2018, he interviewed Neil deGrasse Tyson. In April 2018, Brownlee won Shorty Awards Creator of the Decade. In June 2018, Brownlee was a guest on Hot Ones. In August 2018, he interviewed Tesla CEO Elon Musk and with assistance of TLD filmed Tesla Factory Tour with Elon Musk! In December 2018, Brownlee was featured in YouTube Rewind, later releasing a video on his complaints about the series.
In February 2019, he interviewed Bill Gates. In October 2019, he interviewed Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella before Microsoft's Surface announcement, in addition to actor Will Smith.
Brownlee reached 10 million subscribers on December 18, 2019.

Waveform Podcast

Marques Brownlee is the host of a Tech Podcast with co-host Andrew Manganelli who is a producer for the MKBHD youtube channel. The podcast is called the Waveform: The MKBHD Podcast and is sometimes referred to as "Waveform" and "WVFRM". In the prodcast they discuss producing videos for the youtube channel as well as easter eggs within their videos along with many other topics surrounding tech and consumer electronics. The first episode was aired on Apple podcasts and Spotify on. Brownlee announced the podcasts on his youtube channel on in. As of 30 episodes have been released and notable guests have included: iJustine, Craig Federighi as well as other content creators.

Smartphone Awards

In December 2014, Brownlee started his Smartphone Awards series, where he picks the best phones in certain categories from the past year. In 2017, Brownlee started to create physical awards that were featured in the video, most of which were requested and sent to the companies whose phones won them. The Smartphone Awards are usually posted towards the middle of December, after all of the phones of the year have been released and tested.
YearBest Big SmartphoneBest Compact SmartphoneBest CameraBest Budget SmartphoneBest Battery LifeBest DesignMost ImprovedBust of the YearMVP Reference to Original Video
2014Samsung Galaxy Note 4Sony Xperia Z3 CompactSamsung Galaxy Note 4 & Apple iPhone 6 PlusOnePlus OneN/ASharp Aquos Crystal †BlackBerry PassportAmazon Fire PhoneHTC One M8
2015Samsung Galaxy Note 5Apple iPhone 6sSamsung Galaxy Note 5OnePlus XMotorola Droid Maxx 2Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+BlackBerry PrivHTC One A9Nexus 6P
2016Samsung Galaxy S7 EdgeApple iPhone 7Google Pixel & Pixel XLOnePlus 3TMotorola Moto Z PlaySamsung Galaxy S7 EdgeHTC 10Samsung Galaxy Note 7 & Google Project AraGoogle Pixel XL
2017Samsung Galaxy Note 8Apple iPhone 8Google Pixel 2 & Pixel 2 XLOnePlus 5TRazer PhoneEssential PhoneHTC U11HTC U UltraSamsung Galaxy Note 8
2018Samsung Galaxy Note 9Apple iPhone XSGoogle Pixel 3 & Pixel 3 XLXiaomi Pocophone F1Huawei Mate 20 ProOppo Find XRazer Phone 2Red Hydrogen OneOnePlus 6T
2019Asus ROG Phone IISamsung Galaxy S10eApple iPhone 11 Pro & iPhone 11 Pro MaxRedmi K20 ProAsus ROG Phone IISamsung Galaxy FoldAsus ROG Phone IIGoogle Pixel 4OnePlus 7 Pro

† This category was called "Craziest Design" in 2014

Personal life

Brownlee grew up in Maplewood, New Jersey. He attended Columbia High School and studied at the Howe School at Stevens Institute of Technology, where he majored in business and information technology. Brownlee graduated from college in May 2015 and became a full-time YouTuber. His videos were produced at his apartment until he moved out in 2016, and he now works out of a studio in Kearny, New Jersey, using RED video equipment. He owned a Tesla Model S P100D, which he occasionally featured in his channel until he recently replaced it in 2020, with the Performance version of the same vehicle. Other than producing content, he plays golf and was a professional ultimate frisbee player for the Philadelphia Phoenix and Garden State Ultimate. Brownlee previously played for the now-defunct New Jersey Hammerheads, a team belonging to the American Ultimate Disc League, and the New York Rumble, which was in the now-defunct league Major League Ultimate.