joe hollier is the co-founder of the light phone, the intentionally simple phone built to do less on purpose: calls, texts, maps, music, and little else, with no social media, email, or browser to check or recheck. more than two years after his first read receipt conversation, he rejoins sean to trace what's happened since, from the light phone iii becoming the flagship to a just-announced flip phone shipping in 2027. he gets into the brutal supply-chain gauntlet of the last two years: 150% tariffs that halted production, then the ai-driven ramageddon memory shortage that pushed a sub-$40 component to over $450 and forced another pause. plus the new open-source developer program he's most excited about, why a younger crowd is opting out through movements like the summer of ludd, and how a $299 flip and a $25-a-month plan try to lower the barrier for first-time and kids' phones.
In this episode of Read Receipt, Sean reconnects with Joe Hollier, co-founder of The Light Phone, the intentionally simple phone built to do less on purpose. It handles calls, texts, maps, and music, with no social media, email, or browser to check or recheck.
More than two years after their first conversation, Joe catches Sean up on what has changed. The Light Phone III is now the flagship, and the company just announced a flip phone that ships in 2027.
Joe walks through the brutal supply-chain gauntlet of the last two years: 150 percent tariffs that forced a full production halt, then the AI-driven memory shortage he calls Ramageddon, which pushed a component that normally costs under $40 past $450 and forced another pause and a price increase.
He also gets into the new open-source developer program he is most excited about, why a younger crowd is opting out through movements like the Summer of Ludd, and how a $299 flip phone and a $25-a-month plan try to lower the barrier for first-time and kids' phones.
Joe: Kaiwei likes to say that it feels like we're entering that phase of, , the cigarette industry where it's, , fully being acknowledged, across all avenues that smoking is bad for you. Scrolling- Yeah ... ... is bad for you. we started the Light Phone in 2014 when I met Kaiwei, my, co-founder, inside of this experimental Google program where they were asking us to essentially design new types of smartphone apps. I'd much rather give that money each month to Light so that they can grow and stay here and my Light Phone continues to get better month over month as we roll out updates." this is Light Phone three, but same sort of concept of like what we call Light OS and this toolbox idea where you can add these, you know, sort of Swiss Army knife of a phone. Like it's got all these practical things you might want from alarm to your calendar, music player, directions, but without anything infinite. So there's no social media, email, internet, like internet browser. So it's just like nothing that you'd wanna check or recheck.
Sean: How long ago did we connect? I think it was like two years, maybe more than two years ago.
Joe: Yeah, that is what I'm less sure about in terms of like was Light Phone III announced probably, maybe not launched yet though, like,
Sean: actually shipping. I think it was shipping at the time that we connected. How many versions have you gone through at this point?
Joe: So, uh, we... Our, our latest model is the Light Phone III, and then just actually last week we announced our plans to roll out a flip phone. but that won't be shipping until April of '27. So we have three phones that we've shipped to date, and then this new flip phone, which is exciting- Crazy because I can finally talk about it.
Sean: yeah, I think the first version of the phone had been shipping for a good amount of time when we talked initially. Probably
Joe: so, yeah.
Sean: Yeah. And you had already built like the manufacturing and I know we talked about the whole manufacturing side of it being so challenging.
Joe: It has, remained challenging.
Sean: Yeah. Has it gotten more challenging?
Joe: It has definitely gotten more challenging. I'm not sure if the full force of the trade war was in effect when we spoke last. Probably not. So, you know, the United States government decided to impose all of these irrational and unpredictable tariffs, spontaneously, and I think their unpredictability really threw us a lot of challenges. Obviously, at one point when the tariffs reached 150%, we had to completely halt production because there was no way we could actually get those phones into the US like, with our margins, especially with pre-order discounts that we offered, like we'd be losing a lot of money per device. It just wasn't even feasible. And that process of stopping right as we had ramped up the mass production, the timing probably couldn't have been worse because, you know, it's a, a not just a on/off switch. You know, people need to be hired and placed on the job and then taken off and then brought back, and that's, you know, expensive and time-consuming process. So that really hurt. And then usually a company like us, we rely on, in-in-inventory financing. So, you know, pretty traditional loans, not quite the same kind of like investments we get to help with our R&D stuff, but just a loan so that we can get this batch of phones made. You know, some of the components you need to pre-order them six months ahead of time for the, the longer lead time components. Um, so we'd have to place orders for trying to make our demand. Uh, you know, that kind of inventory financing, it's pretty straightforward. We have a really great track record. But because of this unpredictable new factor of tariffs, that became way less of a resource. So then we had to go to resort to smaller batches, and this really threw off our timing. Put a lot of pressure on the whole team. Oh my God. So hard. And, you know, we lost a lot of orders. People canceled because they didn't wanna wait, rationally as that was. So yeah, that was really crazy. And then we actually sort of got through that last year. You know, we were able to fulfill at one point every outstanding pre-order. And then this year, AI data centers have been buying up all the memory. I'm not sure if you've heard of this, like-
Sean: Yeah, I have ...
Joe: Ramageddon crisis, and that is like hitting us really hard again, where this component that typically is under $40, you know, it's not insignificant in the cost of the phone, but it's like, you know, definitely not our most expensive component. And, it was going for, you know, 350 to $450 at different points and kind of fluctuating on a daily basis. you know, our manufacturer partner at one point said, "We can't tell you how much it's gonna be until the day that we pull the trigger and buy it." you know, these kinds of things. But, you know, at $450 for this one component, that lows our phone price that we're, again, losing money at our retail. So we had to pause production for a couple of months, and we just, you know, had to raise our price a little bit to s- to sort of eat some of that, which is just crazy. 'Cause we were hoping to lower our price, now that the trade war had kinda settled. That was, like our objective. so yeah, I would say, you know, global supply chains have not gotten any easier.
Sean: That is insane. I feel like you might have one of the most challenging business spaces of all time to start and scale a company.
Joe: It's, you know, definitely, a lot of the odds against us. You know, VCs, larger investors have never been interested and are, like more honest, less infinitely scalable business models. the lack of AI, you know, as, as this crazy buzzword that has taken over the tech world makes it hard for newer investors this year. So yeah, we've always been going against the grain, which naturally has challenges. but I also think that's where the real opportunity lies as well.
Sean: Yeah.
Joe: but one that I'm like, you know, also more optimistic than ever, I think year over year. On the other side, we're seeing more customers coming that have been on the fence for a while, and they're just kind of reaching a breaking point and, and ready for some, some change and, trying to jump on board. And it's a shame that we don't have phones available today for them. But, Pretty ho-hopeful we'll get through this production woes. We'll get this new flip phone, which also is, you know, helping us diversify some of that. It's not using the exact same chips and stuff, so that hopefully, God forbid, this crisis continues or gets worse or some other thing, we have another vehicle for continuing to make light phones. I'm feeling actually quite optimistic. just been a lot of other software side things that have happened, community, the movement. So yeah, I'm happy to dive into all of it.
Sean: Yeah. I was gonna ask you, I'm c- I'm curious, like what's your take on the space now since we talked? you could maybe like reintroduce the concept, like how you came up with the idea originally. But I'm curious your take on the space now, like with all the AI advancements. Do you feel like the idea of the light phone is like more potent now than previously? Like, what are you seeing?
Joe: Yeah, I'd say basically since we started the Light Phone in 2014 when I met Kaiwei, my, co-founder, inside of this experimental Google program where they were asking us to essentially design new types of smartphone apps. You know, seeing designers as this way to kind of wrap this business model, this attention economy up in a way that feels empathetic, emphasis on the feels part, you know? Uh, and from that, you know, Kaiwei realized that the business model behind every smartphone app was getting us to spend as much time on their platform, and that was antithetical to our own quality of life, we felt. So our initial hypothesis was that people would enjoy either compartmentalizing the internet and all of these things that bring a lot of wonderful advancements and all these awesome things, but also a lot of vulnerabilities, stress, anxiety, and it's taking a toll on our attention span and our quality of life, so trying to help people take ownership of that. So our first phone only did phone calls and was kind of like, an away message for your smartphone. You'd go light for the evening or maybe for a weekend or if you're lucky, a whole week. and you could, you know, people could call you and you get the phone calls, but everything, text messages and otherwise would be waiting for you when you came back to your phone. that went so well that people were like, "Hey, you know, if only I had an alarm clock or a full contact book and some text messaging, like maybe I don't need a smartphone. Maybe my laptop and a Light Phone with a few more utilities could get me there." Like it's got all these practical things you might want from alarm to your calendar, music player, directions, but without anything infinite. So there's no social media, email, internet, like internet browser. So it's just like nothing that you'd wanna check or recheck. Everything on there has a clear intentional purpose and like start and end point. and so We've been making light phones since 2014, and I'd say like year over year, we've seen the conversation change. And the last two years, I'd say, have been no different in that sort of potency of the message really resonating with people for a variety of reasons always. you know, I think when I first launched it, I heard people say like, "Why? Like, why would I want a phone that does less on purpose?" There, there was still some uncertainty as to like even what we were proposing. and now basically no one questions it. They kind of say, "Oh my God, I wish I could, but..." So there still always is hang-ups for people jumping on board and making this kind of switch. But I think everyone 10 years later has come to realize that our relationships are less than healthy with these things, pretty much across the board, whether that's, you know, a high school student feeling the pressures of social media, a dad wasting hours checking random facts and stats and news. It's kind of crossed all things. but what's been really exciting most recently is that we're seeing our audience, skew younger and younger. and- Perfect ... in New York City in particular, there's a lot of these movements of like, what they'll call it themselves, attention activists, and they take a lot of different little subgroup forms, but like one really beautiful, example of them coming together was they did a festival called The Summer of Ludd. And it was like hundreds of different events throughout the city, all in person, all promoted through flyers and stuff, and all really encouraging and talking about and exploring ways we can live without such a big tech presence. And some of it's, you know, protesting things, some is like having dance parties where everyone puts their phone in a locker. So like, if you're curious, come to our event. You can keep your smartphone just for a few hours. We'll show you what it's like. You can talk to a million other people that use flip phones, light phones and otherwise. And so we're seeing like a, a really big pushback and I think, you know, as much as everyone's aware of the problems with big tech, I feel like the younger generation seem to be really acting on that. and that was a huge inspiration for our new light phone, the flip phone, was that these kids really loved the symbolism of a flip phone in relation to a smartphone. Like this flip phone is so obviously not a smartphone.
Sean: Yeah.
Joe: Still touch screen, you close it and it's completely screen-free when it's closed.
Sean: That one's sick. Compared to the Light Phone 3 is cool. Like the design language and everything is awesome.
Joe: This notification light matches the notification that you would see when you open the lock screen if you had a notification. and it's really gonna share all the same user experience here, the difference being that it's 100% tactile. So this isn't even a touch screen up here. Use this sort of D-pad and different function keys. And, we've simplified some of the tools a little bit, like the UX of them to, to match this, but it, it's really just two different ways to get that going light experience, whether you want the bigger flagship touch screen metal or, you know, a sort of different kind of tactile and going full circle how the original light phone only made phone calls. I think this form factor really prioritizes phone calls. You know, this is like- Yeah. ... an iPhone is the shape it is because it's good for watching videos. It's 16.9 and large for holding like this. This is really good for taking phone calls, and I think that feels just all kind of aligned, So yeah, it's-- I-- it's all to the almost long-winded way of saying, "Yeah, it's really amazing to see," and it feels like we're in a, an incredibly unique moment, in that, you know, tech has always been moving in this one direction, but s- I feel like there's just such a disconnect from where tech is headed right now when you go to these conferences or events and it's just AI, AI, AI, AI. When you go to a concert or a bar or a restaurant and you hear other people talking, like people are fed up with it. It just is so excessive, this AI in every single aspect of our life just sort of forcefully shoved in everyone, and people are seeing all the side effects from the environmental impact, the IP kind of copyright disrespect that's going on, the privacy and surveillance concerns. and you know, we all sort of have seen the story play out with social media where, you know, these tools get really, really good, these platforms, and then they become advertising vehicles, and they have their own motives and, you know, it's-- can feel really scary and daunting, but I think the backlash is real. And so we're here to offer an alternative, at least in the form of a phone, you know, a, a, an ecosystem- Yeah ... that doesn't rely on AI, in supporting all of these platforms that, you know, people are so critical of.
Sean: Yeah, it does feel like the AI stuff has accelerated Like the mania of everything. And like, it's like before with work is one thing to feel like you couldn't disconnect if you didn't have a light phone, and like you're always getting pinged on your phone. But now it's like the rate of the pings could be like 100 times more than what you dealt with even back then. And like, yeah, I think like the sentiment thing of people not being down for it is definitely big. It's so weird though, because it's like you can't really fight against it. But then again, I mean, you could if you use a light phone, like in the sense that you just like opt out of using it when you're not working or online or whatever. But then it feels like in the general sense of the world, you like can't opt out of the zeitgeist that's moving in a direction that a lot of people are just like not-- don't really wanna fuck with at all.
Joe: Yeah. I mean, the light phone is definitely creating your own alternative path as an individual. But yeah, as you say, like the tech train is still moving and it feels impossible to stop to some degrees at this point. But I guess what else can we do but at least like save ourself- Yeah ... and our own sanity, and hopefully if that resonates and reaches enough people, there may actually be some more significant changes that- Yeah ... snowball from that.
Sean: I feel like using a light phone though, like, Is a pretty big change. Like, if you could figure out ways to like balance your mental state, it's like not as big of a-- an issue if you use tools that help you while you're locked in.
Joe: at
Sean: the other
Joe: And yeah, you break some of the crutch of it, 'cause like, yeah, I see people just needing to check and know information so immediately because it's available and possible with these GPTs in ways that, you know, weren't previously. But, what do we lose in terms of wonder and curiosity if we're just like so constantly looking everything up and even just presence, you know?
Sean: How, h-how has like the company changed in terms of like, do you guys use AI for, for shit? greatest question.
Joe: I have yet to really dabble with AI in any way. just have personally never found myself so curious. I know that like, we've digested large amounts of information through large language models before of like when we do a survey and like looking for certain trends in like people's ideation and stuff, but it's not actually helping us with the work. It was just Kyle was like, "I wonder," and he d- he did do some tests of like is... You know, to make sure like we're not just completely missing a utility that it could give the light phone. and this was like maybe two or three years ago, but, in trying to think of what I could use a GPT for while using a light phone inspired us to make a directory tool because you're like, oh, it is maybe handy to look up or ask the phone number of a place which wasn't previously possible, like the hours or a phone number. and then we're like, well, if that's the use case, let's make a tool that does that really well, has a directions button and a phone call button right at the bottom, you see the hours. And so it actually did it better than like if you had to conversationally ask it. but it did like inspire our directory tool, which doesn't use AI at all. It's just a more straightforward directory. but we were like, that is a utility that we were lacking. so I think, you know, we try not to just be like so dismissive that we don't understand what it's doing. But I think what the reason there's such a disconnect is like, it's not obvious how it can help people in a lot of the ways that it's being injected yet.
Sean: Yeah ...
Joe: feels just such a buzzword.
Sean: Yeah. I mean, it's definitely creates like way more noise and shit to deal with or like sift through, and confusion aspects I feel like are- Yeah ... a lot higher.
Joe: There's, arguably like accuracy issues with it too. Not that accuracy was not an issue in any, you know- Yeah knowledge sharing instance. Yeah. But, you know, I think it feels so good in times that people trust it in a different, deeper way than if you just read something on some guy's blog. You're like, "Sounds right, but it's just this guy." But when it comes through the AI pipeline, you're like, "Oh, this must be the right answer," which isn't necessarily always the case.
Sean: Yeah. Totally. How-- Are you guys still like solely sold online? Do you, It feels like because of the production stuff, it's almost like a bespoke-
Joe: Yeah, I mean, it hasn't been our intentions to stay in this kind of direct to consumer from our website. but that has been our reality mostly because we haven't had phones. we're finally seeing an, an interest from some of the bigger carrier players, and that's exciting, but we just haven't really had enough inventory to even consider some of those. And I've always been excited at like more lifestyle-aligned retail potential. Like if there are bookstore, camping store, a skate shop where the Light Phone is sold and no other phones get sold, places like that where it actually rep- like speaks to what you will do with the Light Phone. Like if you wanna take your reading, skating, outdoorness, whatever it is more seriously, Light Phone might be a tool to help you get there. so I always thought that was like a really cool potential way to start to grow. But yeah, for now, we've just been focusing on the other bottlenecks before that.
Sean: have you guys been growing year over year? Like how has it been running the business during all of the like, I
Joe: mean- ...
Sean: moments of-
Joe: We're definitely--
Sean: roadblocks. Yeah.
Joe: I'd say we're growing year over year, but it does feel like, and I think part of my angst, angst around it is that we're not meeting the demand that's actually there.
Sean: Yeah ...
Joe: the demand is higher and people are like, "If only it was in stock, I'd pre-order it." You know, a lot of people don't like the pre-order model, and so yeah, it's like I feel like w- there's a lot of missed opportunity happening. but even with that, you know, we're selling more phones year over year ever ha- since like 2019 when we launched Light Phone II, even through the pandemic when, you know, there were a slew of other g- global issues. I think the fact that everyone was so screen timed out during those times, people were starting to be like, "Well, actually now that I can go back in the world a little bit, I don't wanna bring a screen with me." Been staring at screens and talking to my phone-- friends through screens for so many years.
Sean: Did you guys ever partner, like, with a, a manufacturer or factory or something that got involved in the business or no?
Joe: one of our we've worked with, Foxconn, one of the biggest manufacturers in the world, they did invest in us, really early on through, an in-kind investment, with the NRE cost, like the research cost. and that's who's producing the Light Phone 3.
Sean: Okay. And even still, like with a connection like that, the, the
Joe: Yeah, I mean, this is a pretty unprecedented thing. Like, Apple just went and raised all of their prices across the board, I heard pretty drastically. and you know, even they're struggling to get the chips. and so yeah, even with Foxconn's help, you know, the, the, the executives there are like, "This is-- We, we've never seen this before. This is kind of insane." And so there's, you know... The reality is I do think we'll get past it. There's such a demand for these chips that, you know, more factories- That would be good I think, you know, there's some bottlenecks that aren't terribly obvious. Like, the reason we need the chips from these few factories is because those are the ones that are certified by Qualcomm, which is the Qualcomm chip used in our phone and many, many other phones. and so Qualcomm's now starting to look at other chip manufacturers, particularly Chinese RAM chip manufacturers, and see if maybe they can open up more avenues that way as well. So hopefully there's a change. But you know, the chip makers, they're like seeing record, record profits, so they're not terribly- Yeah ... incentivized to do too much about this other than get ahead of the competition from doing it, I guess. Um-
Sean: Yeah. Yeah. But- Crazy How, what's it, what's it been like for you, like continuing to develop new products, new phones while, while trying to crack the... Is, is the manufacturing thing just kind of like it is-- I mean, obviously you're trying to solve for it, but it's like it is what it is. It's gonna be a challenge until they figure this shit out. So we just have to like, keep moving ahead in spite of it anyways.
Joe: Yeah. I mean, there's definitely some attitude of that. I think we are definitely not like trying to grow in this time. We're being pretty conservative as, you know, we're clearly not bringing in as much revenue when we don't have phones in stock, for some period of time. so a mix of those, I think launching the flip phone to diversify also is another just chance at that. And we have also been, working a lot on our carrier side. So in addition to selling hardware, we also offer an optional SIM card. and the reason why the carrier program is so interesting to us, and that's, uh, one of the things this year we did on it is we offered a contract offering so that you could actually get the cost of the phone and the, and the service bundled into one thing, much more similar to how people probably are doing already with their smartphone contracts. I think especially given that we had to raise the price of the Light Phone 3, this hopefully helps lower the barrier to entry, for that. And I think a lot of our users that use our service plan even before the contract offering, use it be-- well, not only because it's paired perfectly with the Light Phone in terms of it doesn't need that much data, it starts at 25 bucks a month, so it's, you know, a lot cheaper than most phone plans. but I think they wanna support us, and so we actually do make some profit off that, and that's money that we can then invest into software and things. And so trying to help make it a more sustainable business. But we'll always offer the phone, unlocked so that you can use it on whatever carrier you like. But I think more and more people are like, "Well, I have no loyalty to this giant conglomerate. I'd much rather give that money each month to Light so that they can grow and stay here and my Light Phone continues to get better month over month as we roll out updates." Yeah. So that's one other thing that we've been, le- leaning more into recently is like by offering the contract where hopefully that more people do convert to our plan and then we're able to space out the payments of their phone. Um, you know, you could do the math, it's basically breaks even kind of thing.
Sean: Yeah. How, um, how does it work like with a- phone number that you have on an existing plan, can you guys port it over? Do you just have to get- We
Joe: can totally port it over or we can give you a new number. So I'd say, like, users have different preferences. Um, most users probably port their number and keep the Light Phone as their primary device. But I've met a lot of people the last year, users, and you know, we're always doing user research to see how people are using the phone and how we can either learn from that or, make it a better experience overall. And people were doing two phone numbers, especially some, like freelancers. So like this one lady, she did hair for a living and, you know, she was a freelancer, so she had a bag with all of her tools. And in that she kept her smartphone with its own phone number, and that was the number that is on her website and that you'd call. And when you're doing all of your booking, that's her work phone. And when she's working and has work hours, whether it's on her computer or actually out and about at a salon or with clients, she has her phone out. She can do the Zelle and the Square and the whatever, you know, payment, all the things that she might need on the smartphone, social media included. And then she has her Light Phone so that her friends and family can reach her, and clients aren't just, like, texting her at Saturday at midnight asking to change their appointment next Wednesday So they really love that separation of work phone and home phone. And so someone like that might get the Light Phone with a whole new number and kind of point only their closest friends and family that way, which is also an interesting way. And I think generally the Light Phone, we've always seen it as a, like, it's-- there's not a one-size-fits-all solution. Like, some people keep their old iPhone in their car and use that just on, like, hotspot or, like, they have music or maps, like, pre-downloaded and they just use it like an iPod or like a iPad basically. Yeah. So, you know, people, like, fit in different ways. and I think that's really been cool to learn and see from.
Sean: Yeah. I, I actually have a Light Phone III, and when I got the phone though, I need to... I'm asking out of selfish reason- ... because I realized that my iPhone had no SIM card. I thought it had a SIM card, so I was like, "Oh, I'll get the Light Phone and then I'll just switch the SIM card into the Light Phone." But then I guess my model of iPhone is the only one that doesn't have a physical SIM card in it.
Joe: Yeah. The Light Phone does have eSIM now, but unfortunately it does seem like on the carrier side, I don't know which carrier you're using,
Sean: it's- Like some places won't do it or something.
Joe: They won't... Like, it's like going between the two is,
Sean: Is
Joe: difficult
Sean: Yeah. Maybe I'm wrong. When I checked last, like maybe a month ago, they wouldn't-- It seemed hard to do or they wouldn't let me do it. I mean, honestly though, I do want to just like switch fully over, and I noticed you guys have the carrier service and the only... I was like, "Ah, I just wanna like switch my whole number."
Joe: Well, you could keep your existing carrier. Every carrier should be able to give you a physical SIM-
Sean: Yeah ...
Joe: for your phone number. depending which carrier, sometimes you might, if they don't recognize the Light Phone, tell them it's for a different device. But once the SIM is active, it works in the Light Phone. but if you wanted to try our service, we could definitely help port your phone number over as well.
Sean: Well, I didn't even think about-
Joe: sometimes I think- ...
Sean: like the cost of it. Like, you were talking about that, The cost of my iPhone monthly for service is way more. And like if I don't give a fuck about it and I just wanna use the basic stuff, it is kinda dumb if I use the SIM card
Joe: I mean, the only thing that would really require a lot of data from the Light Phone is if you're heavily hotspotting to other devices, which is a unique, like cool, nifty feature that comes in handy for Light Phone users all the time. Yeah. I personally don't find myself using it much outside of like maybe an airport here and there. If I'm like killing time, like I can actually do some emails right now or something on my laptop. Yeah But some people I know rely on that pretty heavily with like a tablet, and that's kind of like the tablet's in their bag, and so they're not pulling it out, but they might be working on it, still doing, you know, messaging or other apps that the Light Phone doesn't have, interchangeably. But-- And for whatever it's worth, like our plan starts at 25 bucks a month. I know there's definitely even cheaper plans out there, like especially like sign up for this new thing and $10 a month here- Yeah ... or like Mint Mobile's one I hear about. Yeah. And so some people are like, "Whoa, it's crazy. I'm saving like 70 bucks a month switching to a Light Phone."
Sean: That is crazy.
Joe: even though the phones have, you know, price has been a pain point that people have criticized us for ev- forever, but I'm like between the amount of time that you save, which is this sort of priceless entity that we all have, and the straight up potentially like dollars you can save each month, I'm like, it actually can pay for itself pretty quickly if you start to think in those terms.
Sean: Yeah. I mean, honestly, like I was shocked also by the build quality. Yeah, like the build quality, the camera quality. I don't know, like, it's kinda like the vibe of the camera. I just felt like, wow, this is like a piece of art almost, and the vibe of the photos makes it, like, more nostalgic to take photos on... 'Cause I don't really take that many photos. I mean, I take photos on my phone, but I don't take them for, like, the same purpose of taking a picture.
Joe: Yeah. I mean, that's actually how I end up using my light phone camera, as like scanner document thing.
Sean: Yeah.
Joe: I still bring my film cameras everywhere for, like, what I consider my art photos, you know? but it's really been awesome to, like, have it as a random like, oh, cat's looking cute right here. Where like I- Yeah ... wouldn't necessarily take my film camera out and I have, like, all these awesome cat photos- Yeah.
Sean: Well, I have
Joe: Not that I needed more of those. I've taken four katrillion photos- Yeah ... of this cat just in the last 10 years. But, like, it's really cool to have, like, also just to be able to see photos. Like, I think, you know, Kaiwei and I can be like, "How's this look? Is the size wrong?" You know? Like, there's a actual, like, practical thing about having a camera. I skateboard, so I'm always taking, like, photos of skate spots. Yeah. And instead of just, like, writing down the address and then trying to find it on Google Earth or, like, describing it to my friend, I can be like, "You think you can do this?"
Sean: Yeah.
Joe: So.
Sean: What, what's that sticker you have on the back of your, light phone?
Joe: I just ended up putting a sticker on my phone. It's my friend's magazine.
Sean: Cool ...
Joe: But there's so many phones coming in and out of my life b-between being at the office with all of us having light phones, that I just put a sticker on mine 'cause I was tired of flipping over each phone and trying to find mine if I put it in a pile.
Sean: do you run a case on yours or no?
Joe: I don't run a case and I've pretty severely dropped mine, so it's pretty banged up.
Sean: Yeah, it's kinda
Joe: cool ... I also love that it, like, take-- I mean, you know, my cameras are also pretty banged up looking. Yeah. so yeah, I m-i, I mean, a few of the drops I was honestly p-surprised the screen didn't break. they, they warranted a cracking, so we're still kicking.
Sean: you have, do you have the screen protector on yours or no?
Joe: I don't,
Sean: I mean, you don't really have high, high, incentive to have a case or a screen protector considering your job.
Joe: Yeah. No, that's true. But we have been so tight on inventory that I'm even like, "I'm not just gonna take a new phone 'cause I screwed up." You know? Yeah, yeah. I'll dealor fix my own screen if I feel like I have to. But, I'd say, like, the screen protector for me, like, my biggest concern is not scratching the phone if you have it with keys or any other, like, objects in a bag or something, this can get pretty scratched up. All screens would, but the matte makes it maybe a little bit more obvious than a glossy screen. So I'm pretty diligent about, like, always keeping it in a pocket on its own or in a bag if it's inside a bag. like this one user makes these really cool leather sleeves for it. So, like, most of the time it's there, it's like when I'm texting someone and I drop it, like that's when- Yeah ... I should probably have a screen protector.
Sean: Yeah.
Joe: iPhone. that's the idea, yeah. Yeah. And I mean, sometimes when I've dropped it, it's like I'm in this very unique position of constantly, like, filming myself using the phone. Yeah. And so you're like, your bearings are off a little bit 'cause you're trying to make sure you're still in focus, and so then you, you drop the phone. Like, that's always a funny one.
Sean: Are you filming yourself using the phone for like software
Joe: And sometimes, I mean, it's less precious about focus, but sometimes, yeah, like when we were developing the directions tool, I'd walk around with a camera filming the exact phone so that if there was a bug or something weird that happened, I didn't have to just describe it. I could just show the developer exactly what happened, and we could go for the logs, look at the timestamp exactly, and see what went wrong. so it does help speed up some of those things. But a lot of times, like if you go to the website and you look and you see my dumb hand holding the phone a bunch of times, like that, more, more that, uh,
Sean: What-
Joe: But it's like-
Sean: like the, what's the shape of the team like today? Like, how big of a team do you guys have? Are they internal, external?
Joe: We're
Sean: about
Joe: 12 people, team. Yeah, and there's a few external people that help outside of that. But, that is between everything, you know, like Kaiwei and I sort of wear a bunch of hats, and then operations, support team, there's a few developers, and then we have, you know, industrial designer, and then we have someone on the ground full-time in China and Taiwan for us as well.
Sean: What do you spend most of your time on now?
Joe: I'd say it probably depends on what the milestone we're trending for, but it's usually a mix of customer support, team support, like, you know, community, whatever you wanna call it. sometimes newsletters and things like that, updates for them. The software team, both making sure bugs make their way from that team to the software team probably, but also planning next features and priorities. 'Cause, you know, we might have like five features we're really excited about, but our team, we can only really work on two at a time or something. So which two are gonna be the most effective? And then kind of tying that to like marketing, I guess, for lack of a better term. We don't really do like paid advertising, but how will that line up in a way that can be exciting and how can we, you know, brag about these things we've done, and let people know that, hey, that one thing that you were waiting for, I would use Light Phone if only... So like how do I try to get that message out? and then all those tasks are pretty related. You know, like listening to the community and the support team, I'm learning where the friction is. Like, ah, people wish we had spell check, you know? And then I'm like, okay, talking to the software team, how do we get spell check? Okay, it's about that long, and then we could prioritize it accordingly and, you know, some-- So that sort of thing. talk a little bit more tangentially, like, the three things that were pretty exciting this year was that we launched that contract offering, so a lot of bureaucratic things that had to happen, legal and otherwise, to like actually check credit and do that kind of thing. we launched a developer program. I think that's probably the thing I'm most excited about, which is basically, us beginning to open source parts of the Light Phone so that users can use this SDK, software developer kit, to build tools that will work seamlessly with the Light Phone within the Light OS. That's cool. And it's really cool because we've- I
Sean: didn't know about that. So you can build- Yeah ... your own shit that you could have on your Light Phone or anyone could?
Joe: We've made this kit so that, like, it performs super well with all of the buttons and behaves exactly like all of the other tools on the Light Phone and can live within your existing toolbox. and you can upload and create your own tool for yourself, whatever you want. but, we also have resources there so that, like, it can fit our design guidelines and sort of other things. But if you like that tool, we're gonna-- we're in the process of building out the submissions right now. People are gonna be able to submit their tools to what we're calling the tool library. So it's gonna be a collection of user-created, all open source, and all free tools. And, you know, things I've seen people make are, like, different music players, like one that's like Plex, which is, like, if you have your record library, you can stream to it to, like, someone made a Spotify player, someone made a Tidal player. I think someone was doing internet radio that I saw. There's things like guitar tuners, new kinds of notes tools with, like, more fidelity, trails, like trail map kind of tools. Like, so there's a lot of different tools. People even made, like, their own camera, I think. I've been seeing some really cool things start to happen. people have made, like, a signal tool. our bottleneck on hardware is really hard to manage, but we've had a similar bottleneck on software. by opening this up and investing the time to build the SDK, which also we can use for our own internal development, we're now seeing, like, exponential progress on the developer side, and it feels really good-spirited. I think looks like people are having fun, they're collaborating, and it just kind of beckons me back to, like, an earlier internet when it was a little bit more knowledge-sharing for the love of it. Like, thinking about in high school when I'd go on forums and read all these long answers about camera questions that some guy took the time to sit there and answer for someone. Yeah. And, you know, I'm like, "Oh, that's why the ring works like that," or, "That's why this feature... That's how this menu..." Things that, like, I just... You know, it was like a knowledge-sharing vessel. And, now it's, like, just ads everywhere and platforms and AI slop, and I'm just kinda like, "Where'd the internet go that I liked?" Yeah. so it's really fun to see some of that same kind of spirit. you know, I wanna build, like, a, a tipping mechanism, but I'd like that it's not incentivizing you to be like, "Get rich, build an app," to you know, and this could become- Yeah ... your life. It's really much more of a hobbyist kind of attitude. and then a lot of people are building things for the first time. We're trying to make it so it's not- rocket science, you know, like as almost straightforward as you can. So maybe you get your kid a light phone as their first phone and they learn how to build their own tool and they uncover some new passion or new potential hobby or skill that maybe blossoms into more things. You know, that's one potential way this could pan out, um.
Sean: Yeah, that's cool. the getting your kids a light phone for the first phone thing is, is awesome too, 'cause it's like-
Joe: Yeah ...
Sean: you have to get your kid in
Joe: some way. I know the price has been a hurdle at different points, and that's why we really did try to offer this flip for $299 despite all of the memory jumps and everything, 'cause we really want to have s- like a kind of entry phone, that capacity, that parents would feel comfortable giving to their kid. But I definitely don't envy that decision on when and what phone to get Yeah. It's been really interesting to, like, meet so many parents over the years in these parental groups like MAMA here in New York or Wait Until 8th, and I've seen Jonathan Haidt talk a few times, and he had this book that was really incremental to some of the school bans we're hearing about. But yeah, it's really... If, Kaiwei likes to say that it feels like we're entering that phase of, , the cigarette industry where it's, , fully being acknowledged, across all avenues that smoking is bad for you. Scrolling- ... is bad for you.
Sean: Yeah. our son, he's six. have you ever heard of, a tin can phone?
Joe: For sure. It's like a landline, modern, kinda cool- Yeah, yeah ... colorful landline phone.
Sean: So he has one of those, and he calls, like, his grandma on it. He loves it, and, obviously it's, like, just plugged in in our house. His cousin has one, so they can call each other. They can only, like, call a set number of people though.
Joe: yeah.
Sean: Or get calls from them, so it's kinda like a locked, like- He can't just
Joe: start prank phone calling,
Sean: getting- Yeah ... himself
Joe: in trouble or something
Sean: but, like, it was cool 'cause there's no... Like, in order for him to call anyone, you can't, like, save anyone's number. So then for him, he, like, starts memorizing people's phone numbers, and it happens so quickly because, like, you want to talk. You wanna be able to call, like, your grandma or somebody that you know, your cousin. Yeah, and
Joe: I guess if your brain isn't, like, being so hyper-distracted all the time, we did remember a lot of numbers,
Sean: Dude, he remembers all... Like, he knows my number by heart, my wife's, my mom's, her mom's, and it was like, he's six years old. He did it so fast. That's
Joe: amazing. So fast.
Sean: And then my wife was like, "Dude, it's so awesome, like, to see him, like, learning so rapidly." Like, you would never be able to teach him,
Joe: like- If you, like, memorize these numbers with no, like in an abstraction-
Sean: No
Joe: need.
Sean: Yeah.
Joe: But he wants it, and therefore it's like ...
Sean: Yeah, and then he's, like, learning how to write their names because he needs to, like, write down the numbers somewhere for, like, to help him memorize it. I just thought that was cool. I think, like, if you had to pick when to get a kid a phone, if it's a light phone, it doesn't really matter as much 'cause it's almost more like that. Outside of the texting, I think maybe, and the fact that they, like, have it with them. But the whole, like, smartphone thing for a kid is so crazy. Like of how young kids get them-
Joe: Totally ... and why. And I, you know, and obviously there's probably way more potential harms and fears that come to mind, but like I also hear from parents where there's this social stigma element that you're battling on the other side of like, well, if every other kid has this app that they're all talking on and my kid is left out, then it adds this whole other pressure that's not even about you and your kid. So like- Yeah. I mean- So like- ... in most parents, obviously the ones that are giving their kids life phones are like, "Well, screw it." Yeah. Your parent, your friends will call you and stuff, and tend to agree, but yeah, I just, the pressure is, are, feel real.
Sean: I think that's also kind of good, like to be outside of the norm. our son also, he does jujitsu now, and he just got obsessed with the idea of getting a mouth guard. And it's like probably smart to wear a mouth guard doing jujitsu. But I was like, "Dude, no one wears-- No six-year-old in the class wears a mouth guard. Like, you're gonna get made fun of." And he's so into it though. He's like, "Dad, I need a mouth guard for this. Like, it would be so cool if I had a mouth guard." And I just told him like, "I'm down for you to wear a mouth guard. I don't care." Just
Joe: gave him the fair warning.
Sean: I'm just telling you, like when you go, you're gonna get made fun of. Y- you should like it enough that you don't care what anyone says, and just like be into the thing that you're into, and who cares?
Joe: idea, you know?
Sean: Yeah. And then after the class, he's like, "Dad, no one made fun of me. This thing's sick."
Joe: Next week, there's three mouth guards and then seven mouth
Sean: guards.
Joe: Yeah.
Sean: Yeah. I don't know. He can't even breathe when it's in his mouth, so I'm like, "This is so against, like, it's not helping you in any way, but whatever, you're into it." I think that's cool though, like to be like-- I feel like younger kids though now with all the tech enablement stuff like will be more like what you're saying with young kids in New York, like where it's like, "I don't really care about being connected to everyone." Also like when you're young, it's so awesome that no one can get ahold of you.
Joe: Yeah. I mean, you don't even realize how awesome it is.
Sean: So awesome.
Joe: but I do remember like when like kids started getting cell phones towards like the end of my high school, I mean, my parents weren't really set on giving me one, but I didn't want one 'cause I didn't want my parents to be able to call me and ask where I was.
Sean: Yeah.
Joe: But then I think my desire to talk to girls like started to outweigh that concern, so eventually I succumbed and got my own.
Sean: yeah, it's cool what you're building. It sounds hard as hell. sounds interesting. But most
Joe: things worth doing probably aren't easy, you know?
Sean: Yeah, I agree. It sounds super interesting, and I feel like the scarcity, not that it's intentional, but it also probably helps you in some ways, like in marketing, because it feels like a bespoke- Yeah,
Joe: I think the hard thing is that like someone gets really motivated maybe by our messaging and our story and the idea that we're posing, and then I think they wanna pull the trigger like, it's like if you have a problem with an addiction, you don't wanna just like- Sit on it then start tackling it. Like once you have that aha moment, you feel like... And like I'm grateful that we're able to help people get to that aha moment, but then it sucks to not have the solution right there. Like, you're not just like, "I wanna go on a diet in six months." You're like, "No, I'm ready to start tomorrow." Or like sobriety is maybe a better analogy with like the kind of addiction where people are like, you know, "I wanna make a lifestyle change. I wanna stop drinking," or whatever. Stop anything that they're doing. It's like they're ready to do it then. And so scarcity probably hurts us overall, but the reality is that there's been a lot of phones made, and the people that are using them are living their best life that they can, and they're taking full responsibility for it. And granted, they did all of those changes. The Light Phone doesn't magically, you know, change your life, but it might give you the space and take away all of the excuses that you had before for not doing it, so that then you can start. And it's a beautiful thing 'cause it snowballs, you know. Like you start spending those four hours that you were giving to your smartphone on that hobby that you always wanted to do, or those books that you've been meaning to read, or even just more quality time with your family. And then you stop actually missing the thing that you were getting away from and trying to break away from. I think that's when the magic really happens is when you're just like, "Actually, I don't want that stuff. I'm not like resisting this urge to check something. I'm just so beyond it," you know?
Sean: Yeah. Wow. Sounds
Joe: And that's not to say that like you reach a point where you're not vulnerable anymore. Like I go on my computer and I could fall into a news cycle hole or some other shopping hole or otherwise just as much as I always could, but like it's so good that like I- that's isolated to like me time at my house where like sometimes it's fun to-
Sean: Yeah ...
Joe: I can't bring that to the toilet. I'm not bringing that to my bedroom. I'm not bringing that to hang out with my friends or to the park or all of these other times.
Sean: Yeah. All right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna figure out the service shit and, and activate
Joe: No, I mean, I w- I, I'm ready for it. One other piece of advice we like to give people going into the light phone journey is to, like, sort of think of your own bucket list of things you'd like to be doing. I sort of mentioned that, you know, the smartphone, when you put it away and out of your life, you are then confronted with, like, a blank piece of paper, which is a few hours, probably more a day. and that can be kind of intimidating. And the smartphone's, you know, such a nervous habit, that we've come to just, you know, use and react to. So I always tell people, like, think of the things that you wanna do more of so that when you do actually make the switch and you're there and you're like, "Okay, I love being light. Now what?"
Sean: Yeah. I mean, honestly, I really don't like my phone. I'll go, like, days or more without it if I can. That's
Joe: awesome.
Sean: And I do it pretty often.
Joe: transition might be less severe for you.
Sean: It's more like if I have something there- We've had a lot of users
Joe: come from flip phones.
Sean: Yeah. Like if- Yeah ... I have something there I could get fucked with, and then I, I fall into work stuff or whatever. But if it's not around me, I don't... I never, like, I, I- Think for it ... really don't tend to miss it or look for it or whatever. So, like, it's more like the utility, like you're saying about, like... W- I d- I do agree with you that you have, like, inflection points or shit that happens where you're like, "Man," like, "I gotta... I, I wanna do this now." And then there are some, like, the... It's not even like it's hard, but just, like, the changing of the number or the SIM card or whatever seems like a little bit of friction where it's like, "Ah, fuck," like, "I gotta do this thing to just, like-"
Joe: Yeah
Sean: break it."
Joe: It is unfortunate that sometimes people have to call their carrier to get a light phone- Yeah ... to work. For sure. 'Cause I, I just know that's the last thing anyone in the world wants to do. And I can say with confidence that the quality varies drastically on a agent-to-agent basis with all of these carriers. So yeah, maybe you'll get the sweetest lady at Verizon that can do all the things you ask painlessly, and then you'll might get someone that just says, "Yeah, no, we can't do that." Yeah. And it's like, have 12,000 users on Verizon that have done this. I promise you it was j- you know, and it becomes a he said, she said sometimes because we're not just Verizon. I can't just make the switch. I'm like... But we do-- We have learned now we're like, you need to ask for tier two and this for this issue, and have them do that on your account or stuff like that. Yeah. But there's no, like, handbook for it. It's not obvious, all of these things. So, It's tricky, but hopefully incredibly worth it.
Sean: Well, congrats on the flip phone and-
Joe: Thank you ...
Sean: respect for the, the challenge of building in this space.
Joe: I think we're gonna do good this year. I'm feeling pretty optimistic that between the developer program and this new model, I'm, I'm pretty excited. and I think developer program, we're only just seeing the surface of what will be possible with it.
Sean: Yeah ...
Joe: so really excited.
Sean: I'm excited for you. I think the Light Phone III is awesome too.
Joe: I mean, the Flip is the funnest, cool new side project, but like, yeah, this is our flagship baby and this is what we're invested in. And we haven't even scratched the surface of what's capable of this device. we really tried to future-proof it, so hoping that whenever you get the SIM card in, it will be even better than it was today and it will only get better going forward.
Sean: I'll hit you up and let you know when I do.
Joe: Please do.
Sean: All right. thanks for hanging out.
Joe: My pleasure.
Sean: I hope it's enjoyable for you too.