Tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee, also known as MKBHD, recently reviewed the newly launched Humane AI Pin, an overhyped wearable voice assistant with the ambitious goal to replace smartphones. Following his review, the massively popular YouTuber immediately became a target of online controversy.

This is because Brownlee’s review was titled “The Worst Product I’ve Ever Reviewed… For Now” due to the many problems Humane AI Pin has. This includes poor battery life, overheating issues, the laser projector being hardly useable outdoors, and the actual voice assistant being terribly slow. Needless to say, the review was quite fair and the same opinion was shared by almost every other tech reviewer online.

But some did not take MKBHD’s video so well.

Former AWS engineer Daniel Vassallo said that Brownlee has “potentially killed” Humane AI with his video title since the YouTuber has massive influence in the tech industry with 18 million followers on YouTube alone.

Vassallo wrote on X: “I find it distasteful, almost unethical, to say this when you have 18 million subscribers. Hard to explain why, but with great reach comes great responsibility. Potentially killing someone else’s nascent project reeks of carelessness. First, do no harm.”

Content creator Alex Finn shared the same opinion as Vassallo. He even went as far as saying that “MKBHD bankrupted a company in 41 seconds” while referring to the opening of the video.

However, as Brownlee said in his reponse video on YouTube, it’s not bad reviews that kill companies, but bad products. He says in the video: “All that any honest review actually does is just accelerate whatever was already going on.” Posted 3 days ago, his reponse video already has over 3 million views.

When reached for comment, Vassallo futher clarified his earlier comments on X. He said: “Many people thought I was defending Humane or its product. I wasn’t. My observation was about MKBHD’s scale of influence and how that power deserves more rigor than the sensational headline on YouTube: ‘The Worst Product I’ve Ever Reviewed.’ The power to crush a company shouldn’t be taken lightly, and that headline is what most people will see. The actual review was fair and balanced.”