The guest
Simone Giertz: Swedish inventor, designer, and roboticist known as the self-styled 'Queen of Shitty Robots,' a popular YouTube maker, and founder of the product design company yetch.
What this episode covers
Lex Fridman talks with Simone Giertz about how she went from building deliberately useless, comedic robots into a serious inventor and CEO. They cover her creative process, the philosophy of flawed and lovable machines, and her pivot from an influencer business to manufacturing real consumer products. Giertz opens up about being diagnosed with a brain tumor right after her TED Talk, the surgery and radiation that followed, and how the experience reshaped how she treats herself. The conversation ranges across imposter syndrome, being a woman in engineering, AI, weapons on robots, her years in China and Kenya, and her advice that enthusiasm beats duty.
The guest's own work
ProductBy the guest
Everyday Calendar
Simone Giertz / yetch
“I made uh this thing called the everyday calendar which has an entire year on it so it's 365 days and if you tap any of the days you light it up”— Simone Giertz
ProductBy the guest
The Incomplete Puzzle (499 of 500 pieces)
Simone Giertz / yetch
“I wanted to release the puzzle that has one piece missing so it's actually as far as I can tell it's the world's first officially incomplete puzzle”— Simone Giertz
ProductBy the guest
Screwdriver Ring and Screw Ring
Simone Giertz / yetch
“we have these rings I'm wearing them so there's a screwdriver ring which is a Phillips head screwdriver and then a screw ring that kind of has a recess like a Phillips head screw”— Simone Giertz
Also referenced (named, not recommended)
ProductReferenced
meArm
MeArm Ltd
“I built it off of um this robot arm called me arm so it's just this acrylic robot arm and um I think it has three Servo Motors”— Simone Giertz
ProductReferenced
Arduino
Arduino
“and it's all controlled by an Arduino all the electronics already pre-built there was a kit so I assembled it”— Simone Giertz
ProductReferenced
Replika
Luka, Inc.
“there's an app called replica where people have an intimate relationship with an AI chatbot and they hurt themselves”— Lex Fridman
ProductReferenced
Tesla Model 3
Tesla
“so you took a Tesla Tesla Model three model three um and you cut off a piece of it and you turn it into a pickup truck”— Lex Fridman
Big reveals from this episode
- Admits her self-deprecating 'idiot' persona was partly a defense mechanism and a survival tactic for being a woman in a male-dominated field online.
- Reveals she found out she had a brain tumor right after walking off the stage at her TED Talk.
- Learns from a nurse mid-MRI that they had found a brain tumor 'the size of a golf ball' likely growing for 10-15 years.
- Confesses that an Alzheimer's medication taken during radiation made her feel high for months, and people on Reddit were abusing it to get high.
- Admits she refused second opinions and was unwilling to question her doctors because uncertainty was too terrifying.
- Says her brain, against expectations, 'flopped back' to a nearly normal shape after the tumor was removed.
- Reveals she was kicked out of a UFC interview for asking Alexander Gustafsson about his violent-crime jail past.
- States flatly that she doesn't think life has any grand meaning, but that meaninglessness isn't the same as worthless.
Worth remembering
- Her very first hardware project was an iPhone case with retractable guitar strings using capacitive touch.
- The 'Queen of Shitty Robots' title came from Reddit's r/shittyrobots, not from her; she was voted top user in 2015.
- She vetted projects by whether they could be explained in a roughly seven-second silent looping GIF.
- The 'proud parent machine' that says 'proud of you, son' is her favorite of the shitty robots.
- She spent about a week studying which squishy material best pops bubble wrap for her bubble-wrap pan-flute music box.
- yetch sells an intentionally incomplete 500-piece puzzle (499 pieces); she keeps the missing piece in a box in her workshop.
- She cut up a Tesla Model 3 to build her own electric pickup truck, dubbed Truckla, over about a year.
- Before engineering, she worked as an MMA reporter in Sweden around 2010 and trained Muay Thai and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
- Her mother was once kicked out of a Mel Gibson interview at the same Stockholm hotel where Simone was later ejected.
- She moved to China alone at 16 as an exchange student and later lived in Nairobi, Kenya.
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