iPhone
also referred to as: iphones
includes iPhone 4, iPhone 3G, iPhone 5, iPhone 5s, iPhone X, iPhone 6
15 statements across 13 episodes · 5 bullish · 1 bearish · 14 people on the record · first statement May 22, 2017 by Rod Canion · said 310 times in 126 episodes since 2016 · across every show →
Mentions by year, the whole family
brought up most by Guy Raz (146), Joel Simkhai (11), Michael Preysman (10), Jim McKelvey (9), Tristan Harris (4), Susan Tynan (4), Sam Yam (4), Len Testa (4)
tap a year for its mentions
2026 24 mentions in 7 episodes 3 per episode
- Square: Jim McKelvey. He Lost a $2,000 Sale, Then Built a $10 Billion Company
- Toast: Aman Narang. How a Long Wait for the Dinner Check Launched a $2 Billion Business.
- Advice Line with Kip Tindell of The Container Store
- Advice Line with Carlton Calvin of Razor
- Sweetwater: Chuck Surack. How a Customer Service Strategy Built a Billion Dollar Online Pro Audio and Music Company.
- Advice Line with Curt Richardson of OtterBox
- NVIDIA: Jensen Huang. From near collapse to becoming the world’s biggest company
- every mention in 2026, scene by scene →
2025 28 mentions in 13 episodes 2 per episode
- Snap: Evan Spiegel
- Gymshark: Ben Francis. From pizza delivery to billion-dollar fitness brand.
- Babylist: Natalie Gordon. How a new mom used nap time to build a $500M business.
- Advice Line with Luis von Ahn of Duolingo
- Advice Line with Scott Tannen of Boll & Branch and Jamie Siminoff of Ring
- Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft
- WHOOP: Will Ahmed
- Calm: Alex Tew and Michael Acton Smith
- 5 more episodes that year, every mention in 2025 →
2024 54 mentions in 19 episodes 3 per episode
- AI that can be your second brain with Bethany Bongiorno and Imran Chaudhri of Humane
- Poshmark: Manish Chandra
- Sonos: John MacFarlane
- “Beaming” people anywhere in the world with David Nussbaum of Proto
- The peril (and promise) of AI with Tristan Harris: Part 1
- Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen
- CrunchLabs: Mark Rober
- Insomnia Cookies: Seth Berkowitz
- 11 more episodes that year, every mention in 2024 →
2023 53 mentions in 14 episodes 4 per episode
- Grindr: Joel Simkhai
- Everlane: Michael Preysman
- Delivering the future in drones with Keller Rinaudo Cliffton of Zipline
- Full body preventive health care with Andrew Lacy of Prenuvo
- A biometric smart gun with Kai Kloepfer of Biofire
- Framing the future of eyecare with Neil Blumenthal and Dave Gilboa of Warby Parker
- When your headphones listen to you with Ramses Alcaide of Neurable
- HIBT Lab! Boom Supersonic: Blake Scholl
- 6 more episodes that year, every mention in 2023 →
2022 40 mentions in 15 episodes 3 per episode
2021 27 mentions in 17 episodes 2 per episode
- Boxed: Chieh Huang
- Patreon: Jack Conte and Sam Yam
- Planet: Will Marshall and Robbie Schingler
- Live From The HIBT Summit: Adam Grant
- Meet The HIBT Fellows: Pierre Paul & Toby Egbuna
- Coinbase: Brian Armstrong
- Back to the Roots: Nikhil Arora and Alejandro Velez
- Moderna and Flagship Pioneering: Noubar Afeyan
- 9 more episodes that year, every mention in 2021 →
2020 16 mentions in 11 episodes 1 per episode
- Dropbox: Drew Houston
- Riot Games: Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill
- How I Built Resilience (Special Edition): Guy Raz
- Video Artist: Casey Neistat
- How I Built Resilience: Aishetu Dozie of Bossy Cosmetics
- How I Built Resilience: Samantha Bee of Full Frontal with Samantha Bee
- Tatcha: Vicky Tsai
- Ring: Jamie Siminoff
- 3 more episodes that year, every mention in 2020 →
2019 34 mentions in 12 episodes 3 per episode
- Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson
- Dyson: James Dyson (2018)
- Yelp: Jeremy Stoppelman
- Framebridge: Susan Tynan (2017)
- Chicken Salad Chick: Stacy Brown (2018)
- Live From The HIBT Summit: Kevin Systrom & Mike Krieger Of Instagram
- Live Episode! Walker & Company: Tristan Walker
- Shopify: Tobias Lütke
- 4 more episodes that year, every mention in 2019 →
2018 17 mentions in 8 episodes 2 per episode
2017 14 mentions in 8 episodes 2 per episode
- Live Episode! BuzzFeed: Jonah Peretti
- Drybar: Alli Webb
- Framebridge: Susan Tynan
- Live Episode! Reddit: Alexis Ohanian & Steve Huffman
- Instagram: Kevin Systrom & Mike Krieger (2017)
- Radio One: Cathy Hughes (2017)
- TOMS: Blake Mycoskie
- Compaq Computers: Rod Canion
- every mention in 2017, scene by scene →
2016 3 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
Everything said about iPhone, oldest first
May 22, 2017 positive
Nov 26, 2018
May 6, 2019 neutral
May 6, 2019
Testa: In 1997 I predicted handheld GPS devices optimizing park routing
“The first paper I ever wrote was in 1997. This is 10 years before the iPhone. I said, you know, one day we're going to walk through a park and we're going to have these handheld devices. It's going to have GPS and something's going to be feeding it the wait ti…”
Dec 2, 2019 positive
Mar 9, 2020
Patrick Collison: Money cannot be mechanically turned into great software products
“And this is one of the great facts about our industry is that you cannot turn Money into great products as a kind of mechanical operation. If it were possible, there would be many more great iPhone competitors. Facebook would have been long since eclipsed by M…”
Aug 15, 2020 positive
Samantha Bee Proved Backyard iPhone Footage Was Broadcast-Quality to TBS
“We just started shooting stuff, and it really turned out to be a proof of concept to the network that we could shoot in our backyard, and that it would look good, and that it could be broadcast quality, even though it's shot on an iPhone.”
Nov 9, 2020
Cloud file sync only became a mainstream consumer need after the iPhone
“This only became a mainstream need after the iPhone because most people had one computer at home, but then suddenly with a smartphone, everybody's got two. And for the first time, you need to get stuff back and forth very easily, and the only way to do that is…”
Jul 17, 2023
Jul 17, 2023
Simkhai: Grindr's grid interface was inspired by the iPhone photo album
“And I remember, you know, one day looking at my photo album on my phone, And I said, hey, wouldn't it be great if these were the guys around me? And so that was really the inspiration for the user interface of Grindr, and it still remains today, is it's a grid…”
Mar 28, 2024 positive
Aug 26, 2024 positive
Nov 11, 2024 neutral
May 12, 2025
Feb 23, 2026 negative
Apple's strict dock connector rules nearly killed Square's early hardware ambitions
“And at the time, it was this big port at the bottom, and you had to pay Apple for access to that port. You had to pay Apple for a special chip that allowed you to build your hardware, and then you had to Convince them to let you do it, and at the time the iPho…”