The WAN Show: "My TV Demo Failed" – January 16, 2026

Podcast: The WAN Show (Linus Tech Tips)
Hosts: Linus Sebastian, Luke Lafreniere
Original Air Date: January 16, 2026
Theme: A tech demo misfire on late-night TV, behind-the-scenes insights, GPU supply drama, AI partnerships, and more.

Episode Overview

This episode revolves around Linus's highly anticipated appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, where a high-stakes live tech demo failed in front of a national audience. Linus and Luke dissect exactly what happened, take listeners backstage at a major TV production, and riff on everything from graphics card supply chaos to AI’s impact on the web and hardware. The pair also respond to community questions, discuss merch launches, and drop their signature blend of humor and authenticity throughout.

Table of Contents

1. Headline: The Tonight Show Demo Disaster
2. GPU Shortages and Nvidia Rumors
3. AI Partnerships, Wikipedia & Industry Fallout
4. Tech News Lightning Round
5. Community Mailbag & Merch
6. Notable Quotes
7. Timestamps for Key Segments

Headline: The Tonight Show Demo Disaster

What Happened (04:41 - 19:24)

• Linus’s Appearance: Linus recaps his second invitation to The Tonight Show, bringing along Luke, Yvonne, and Sammy as his entourage.
• Demo Device: He describes rehearsing with the Lenovo Legion Pro "rollable concept" laptop, a prototype with an expanding OLED screen.
• The Failure: During the live taping, the laptop failed to expand on cue—even after restarting and panicked troubleshooting.
  • "I was mortified. Like, it's an unscripted show...everyone’s working off the cuff...but obviously, when you’re doing a tech demo, you need to kind of practice..." (04:44)
• Backstage Scramble: Luke and crew watched helplessly, trying to figure out if Linus used the right keys or if there’d been a thermal shutdown.
  • “...as soon as it cooled down a little bit, it started working again.” (08:21)
• Root Cause: The team suspects a thermal fail-safe in the laptop’s prototype motors from running too hot in the backpack pre-show.
  • “I think that's what actually killed us…I feel bad for literally everyone involved.” (08:46)
• Aftermath: The segment was salvaged as Jimmy Fallon and Marcelo cracked jokes, but Linus confesses he nearly lost his composure:
  • “Honestly, I don’t know how I pulled it together for the Roborock segment.” (10:30)

Memorable Moment:

• Linus, in full panic, “just booked it” offstage after the segment, leading to a viral moment and laughs when the video was replayed later (11:01).

Behind the Scenes of The Tonight Show (12:57 - 19:22)

• Production Observations: The hosts marvel at the immense professionalism, speed, and flexibility of network TV crews:
  • “Literally just looking up at the cloud grid…very tightly nested lights and other various production equipment that completely covers the entire ceiling. Because they have to adapt to everything.” (13:01)
• Game Design Insight: Linus is impressed with the efficiency and thoughtfulness embedded in segments like the “shark game” with Jason Momoa—a TV format designed for tight timing and seamless resets (14:45).
• Broadcast Engine: Discussion covers how fast segments are edited and published across TV, YouTube, and social media.

Notable Quote:

• “Being there, seeing the way that they work...like, it's pretty cool to a boomer-ass millennial like me.” (12:47)

Reflections & Takeaways (22:47 - 25:09)

• Gratitude: Linus expresses deep appreciation to Lenovo, Roborock, and their teams for taking risks with fragile prototype tech on live TV.
• Tech Mishaps: Emphasizes the unpredictability of prototypes—sometimes even the best-prepared demo can implode under live conditions.
• Personal Impact: Linus shares candid self-doubt and imposter syndrome after the event:
  • “If they invite me back, I don’t know if I want to come.” (11:48)

GPU Shortages and Nvidia Rumors

Card Discontinuation Chaos (26:00 - 41:57)

• Nvidia on Shortages: Rumors swirl about discontinuation of RTX 5070 Ti and 5060 Ti 16GB, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s comments about possibly resurrecting previous-gen GPUs to navigate price shocks and shortages.
  • “Jensen says that Nvidia could potentially resurrect old GPUs to address shortages and high pricing…” (02:07)
• Industry Dynamics:
  • Discussion of VRAM constraints, board partner choices, and manufacturing challenges.
  • “...someone at ASUS, Real Talk, was like, 'Yeah, we’d rather make two GPUs, not one.' So deal with it.” (35:41)
• Correction: Hardware Unboxed (YouTube) later provides an official statement—contradicting rumors; ASUS is not discontinuing certain cards after all.
• Market Snapshots: Live tracking of 5070 Ti and B580 prices; lamentation over skyrocketing costs:
  • “The 5070 Ti apocalypse has officially already happened." (38:40)

Labs Pricing Tool Launch (41:09 - 44:06)

• Labs Pricing Integration: The LTT Labs site now surfaces live pricing and stock data for GPUs, with expansion planned.
  • “It’s a pretty quick way to price check.” (41:27)

AMD & DLSS Discussion (41:57 - 44:06)

• AMD GPU prices and value are contrasted with Nvidia’s offerings.
• Linus touts DLSS 4.5 as a “game changer” (42:49), but underscores that innovation can be polarizing.
  • “I took a ton of flack for saying that DLSS 4.5 is really good...some people just do not want to hear it.” (55:05)

AI Partnerships, Wikipedia & Industry Fallout

Wikipedia Trains AI (98:17 - 101:34)

• Paid AI Deals: Wikipedia has struck official content licensing partnerships with Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and others for AI training.
  • “...realistically they're all going to train off of it anyway, so they might as well be paid, and Wikipedia as an organization might as well be sustainable.” (98:54)
• Community Concerns: Some volunteer editors are uncomfortable with their work feeding commercial AI models.
• Quote from Jimmy Wales:
  • “I wouldn't really want to use an AI that's trained only on X...so if we have good data, let's help them use it.” (99:20)

AI Disruption in Coding & Communities (102:17 - 110:07)

• AI (like Copilot) causes a collapse in Stack Overflow and Tailwind web traffic as developers increasingly use generative tools rather than classical documentation forums.
  • “...Stack Overflow is showing that their traffic is just...plummeting.” (103:51)
• Philosophical discussion on AI replacing community knowledge with “endless glazed positivity,” and the struggle to maintain healthy human interactions in online help forums.

Miscellaneous AI News

• Apple Picks Google Gemini: For its next-gen Siri, Apple will use Google’s Gemini AI models, marking a significant shift from OpenAI (142:56 - 149:08).
• Bandcamp Bans AI Music: Moves to ensure its platform hosts only human-created content (156:06).
• Grok Image Scandal: Grok, X’s AI, is (allegedly) quickly patched after generating sexualized deepfakes—but journalists find the fix easily worked around (129:05 - 133:57).

Tech News Lightning Round

• Meta Layoffs: Meta axed over 1,000 employees from its Reality Labs VR division after $70B in losses; pivots efforts towards wearables (81:58 - 84:03).
• Dailymotion’s Real Agenda: Astonishment over revelations that the site operates mainly to influence French media, not turn a profit (46:12 - 47:21).
• Tesla Full Self-Driving: Transitioning from an $8,000 outright purchase to subscription-only, despite never fulfilling original promises (48:14 - 50:41).
• Amazon GPU Scams: 42 shoppers tricked by a fraudulent $999 RTX 5090 listing, receiving only fanny packs (90:59 - 92:25).
• US Relaxes Drone Imports: Partial reversal on Chinese drone bans—good news for commercial use (127:24).
• Chinese EVs in Canada: New low-tariff joint-venture quotas open the door for affordable electric vehicles (133:39 - 136:46).
• New York’s Futile 3D-Printed Gun Law: Local legislation attempts to control home-made gun parts, but lacks practical teeth (160:09 - 169:44).

Community Mailbag & Merch

• New Cat-Themed Merch: Linus Cat Tips desk pads, pins, and more launch (64:46 - 65:59).
• Fan Q&A: Includes advice for LAN party first-timers, gym motivation strategies, and rig-building tips.
  • “How do you get yourself to get back to something that you enjoy? ... For me, the answer is scheduling.” (183:04)
• Cable Talk: Deep-dive into what makes LTT’s soon-to-release cables resilient and reliable (77:08 - 81:39).

Notable Quotes

• “I was sitting there in full panic mode...the Tonight Show staff had showed me how to use it ahead of time...and then on stage, oh my God, it’s not working.” — Linus (06:19)
• “Never trust that prototype hardware will keep working—especially if you have to leave it running in a backpack for showbiz.” — Summary
• “When you throw money at your screen, you should get something in return. In our case, high quality merchandise.” — Linus (67:07)
• “If something is good, my job is to say it’s good. And also here are all the things that are...really destructive about the attitude of this company.” — Linus (53:04)
• “It’s hard to imagine a community that wouldn’t eventually turn kind of toxic.” — Linus (108:34)
• “Phones are a terrible mind-controlling pit of loss of attention span and endless amounts of distraction.” — Luke (191:16)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:36] – Show opens and Tonight Show hot topic preview
• [04:41] – Deep dive into the Tonight Show demo fail
• [13:01] – Marveling at TV show production
• [26:00] – GPU supply drama (Nvidia/AMD news, rumors, pricing)
• [41:09] – Labs website pricing tool demo
• [51:56] – Tesla Full Self-Driving subscription, Comma AI thoughts
• [64:46] – Linus Cat Tips merch launch
• [80:10] – LTT cables R&D story
• [98:17] – Wikipedia licensing AI training deals
• [102:17] – AI’s impact, Stack Overflow’s decline
• [133:39] – Chinese EVs in Canada
• [156:06] – Bandcamp bans AI music, police misuse of AI info
• [160:09] – 3D-printed gun law critique
• [183:04] – Making time for hobbies & sustainable habits

Closing

Despite hiccups and hardware fails, Linus and Luke deliver candid insights, sharp industry analyses, and relatable stories from the trenches of tech and the outskirts of showbiz. Even when the demo doesn't work, the WAN Show continues to fire on all cylinders.

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