An Interview with Joe Hollier: Co-Founder, The Light Phone

Cabin Fever

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An Interview with Joe Hollier: Co-Founder, The Light Phone

A refreshing DIY approach to building a lasting brand and product in one of the most challenging verticals.

Offsite Camp

Mar 17, 2025

Transcript

I first met Joe c. 2016 - right before the official launch of the original Light Phone. I’d seen a prototype that Brian Kelley had (interview #2) and my mind was blown. The original was about the size of a credit card and literally fit in your wallet. It had no screen, just a LCD display and a keypad. You could make calls and it held 9 numbers on speed dial. This was the year the iPhone 7 came out, the first model with a dual camera. It was a time where instagram - the social media of choice for my generation - was arguably at its cultural peak, before TikTok figured out an even more effective model for retaining eyeballs. We hadn’t seriously begun discussing the problematic effects that having a screen in our pocket at all times may cause for happiness, and our kids hadn’t been on social media long enough for the data to hint at the potential damage it may have on their development.

At a time when consumers were still screaming “more! more! more!” this was a company taking a beat, and proposing a different path.

It’s hard to understate how difficult it is to build a hardware company - let alone one that promises to do less than everyone else, on purpose. For this I’ve always had an immense amount of respect and admiration for Joe, his co-founder Kai, and everyone behind the Light Phone. They’ve stuck to their guns, and while the Light Phone III that was just released has significantly more features than the original to reduce friction in daily life, it’s still designed to be used as little as possible.

I hope you’ll enjoy my conversation with Joe. It’s very rare to find a tech company who’s values and business model you can feel good about supporting, and I think we all have a lot to learn from the Light Phone team about business and life.

-B