Marques
Brownlee

When Brownlee moved his production from his apartment to a dedicated studio in Kearny, New Jersey in 2016, he was making a statement about trajectory. The apartment had worked. The studio said he wasn't done. That studio is where the team now operates - 18 people, multiple ongoing shows, a weekly podcast, and a social media presence that rivals legacy media outlets in consumer tech.

The Waveform podcast launched in August 2019, co-hosted with Andrew Manganelli and later David Imel. By late 2025, it had crossed 300 episodes - a milestone that reflects what it takes to build podcast authority. Waveform is not a pivot from YouTube; it is a parallel channel into the same audience, going deeper, going longer, and covering terrain that doesn't fit in a six-minute review format.

In February 2024, Brownlee joined Ridge - the everyday carry accessories company - as a board member and chief creative partner. This was not a standard paid ambassador deal. Board membership implies skin in the game, creative control, and a voice in product direction. It is the creator-to-executive pipeline made literal.

That same year, TIME named him to the TIME100 Most Influential People in AI list - a recognition that Brownlee's influence extends beyond consumer reviews into how mainstream audiences understand and relate to emerging technology. He delivered the commencement speech at his alma mater in May 2024 and received an honorary Doctorate of Business Administration - the academic acknowledgment of what he had already built.

Brownlee's secondary channels tell the story of a creator who refuses to let any interesting angle go uncaptured. The Studio documents behind-the-scenes production. Auto Focus covers electric vehicles and the automotive space. MKBHD Shorts and Waveform Clips extend reach across short-form formats. Collectively, these channels add millions of subscribers beyond the main 20.9 million.

In September 2024, he launched Panels - a wallpaper app for iOS and Android, built around hand-curated, high-quality wallpapers. The app faced criticism for its subscription pricing and inclusion of AI-generated artwork. Brownlee responded publicly, reduced pricing, and addressed the concerns. By December 2025, the app was shutting down. This was a rare stumble in a career built on quality, and Brownlee's response - transparent, accountable, undefensive - reflected the same consumer-first ethic that built the channel in the first place.

By 2026, Brownlee has formalized a quality control process for his long-form videos - auditing past content for factual accuracy and implementing pre-publication review steps. The commitment to accuracy, always present in spirit, became explicit in process.