0:00:06 Through his office window at Intel headquarters, Andy Grove could see the Ferris wheel of Great
0:00:11 America Amusement Park spinning in the distance. But the document in front of him offered no such
0:00:18 entertainment. Gordon Moore, yes, that Gordon Moore of Moore’s Law fame, drops into the visitor’s
0:00:24 chair, his face grim. The latest memory chip numbers are catastrophic. After quarters of
0:00:31 watching Japanese competitors demolish Intel’s market share from 83% to a mere 1.3%,
0:00:39 this situation had become existential. In a standard issue 8×9 cubicle, Grove insisted executives use the
0:00:44 same workspace as everyone else. He asked a question that would change history. If we got
0:00:50 kicked out and the board brought in a new CEO, what do you think he would do? Gordon answers without
0:00:57 hesitation. He’d get us out of memories. This reply hits Grove like a physical blow. After a moment of
0:01:02 stunned silence, he delivers the line that would save Intel. Why shouldn’t you and I walk out the door,
0:01:09 come back in, and do it ourselves? No dramatic music swells, no chest-bumping celebration, just the sound
0:01:15 of two men exhaling as they mentally prepare to abandon the very product that built their company.
0:01:23 Intel in 1985 was a memory company. The business generated over 90% of their revenue and it would
0:01:29 soon be gone. The pivot would cost thousands of jobs, millions in R&D, and require shuttering
0:01:34 eight manufacturing plants. But by detaching themselves emotionally and viewing the situation
0:01:40 from an outsider’s perspective, Grove and Moore had found clarity in crisis. Grove would later distill
0:01:47 this ruthless, clear-sightedness into a mantra for corporate survival. Only the paranoid survive.
0:01:53 This wasn’t just a catchy business slogan, it was survival wisdom earned through trauma. For Grove,
0:02:00 paranoia wasn’t pathological, it was practical. And its seeds were planted a continent away half a century
0:02:07 earlier when a hard-of-hearing Jewish boy named Andras Grof was learning to detect danger before it arrived
0:02:11 while hiding from Nazi death squads in wartime Budapest.
0:02:31 Welcome to The Knowledge Project. I’m your host, Shane Parrish. In a world where knowledge is power,
0:02:36 this podcast is your toolkit for mastering the best of what other people have already figured out.
0:02:44 The story of Andy Grove is about survival in its most elemental form. Imagine transforming yourself
0:02:49 from a child hiding from Nazi death squads in Budapest to becoming Time Magazine’s man of the year
0:02:56 and the CEO who saved Intel. That journey isn’t just remarkable, it’s almost incomprehensible. Yet,
0:03:00 Grove himself would scoff at any narrative involving destiny or divine intervention.
0:03:06 His philosophy, captured in the book title, Only the Paranoid Survive, offers a far more practical
0:03:13 explanation. Detect threats before they become fatal. Whether it’s the sound of jackboots on
0:03:18 cobblestone streets or Japanese competitors overtaking your memory chip business, survival demands the same
0:03:25 skills. Constant vigilance, brutal self-assessment, and the courage to abandon what wants to find you.
0:03:31 The same boy who learned to read danger in a stranger’s glance would later read impending doom
0:03:38 in market share statistics. Different contexts, identical skills. Today’s episode isn’t just about
0:03:44 technology or business strategy, it’s about developing a mindset that thrives in environments of
0:03:50 radical change. Something all of us face today, regardless of our field. What made Grove extraordinary
0:03:56 wasn’t technical genius, but his ability to see reality clearly when others couldn’t? While his
0:04:03 contemporaries remained emotionally attached to past decisions, Grove asked the questions no one dared to
0:04:10 ask. What if we’re wrong? What if everything we built needs to be abandoned? Grove’s lessons on
0:04:16 strategic inflection points offer something invaluable, a framework for detecting existential threats
0:04:21 before they destroy you. Drawing from his autobiography and Richard Tedlow’s definitive
0:04:26 biography, this episode reveals how Grove’s traumatic childhood shaped his leadership approach,
0:04:30 how he taught himself to become a world-class manager, and how he saved intel by walking away
0:04:36 from the very product that built it. Remember to stay until the end for lessons you can take away from
0:04:41 this episode. After all, inflection points don’t announce themselves with press releases. They whisper
0:04:47 first, then shout, then destroy. In Grove’s world, paranoia isn’t anxiety, it’s attention paid to
0:04:59 whispers others dismiss. It’s time to listen and learn. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only.
0:05:11 Let’s begin at the beginning. Andreas Estevan Grof was born in 1936 to a middle-class Jewish family in
0:05:16 Budapest, Hungary. His father co-owned a dairy business. His mother was, in Grove’s words,
0:05:22 cultured without being snobbish. They were thoroughly assimilated into Hungarian society. That is, until
0:05:29 everything changed. When Andreas was just five, his father was conscripted into a Jewish labor battalion,
0:05:35 essentially a death sentence of forced labor on the Eastern Front. Young Andreas noticed something that
0:05:40 day he’d never forget. His father was trying to smile, but there was something wrong with his smile.
0:05:45 In the spring of 1943, the family received notice that George Grof had disappeared.
0:05:51 Andreas, now six, was bewildered by this term while watching his mother retreat into smoking in solitary
0:05:58 grief. Amid this trauma, Andreas contracted scarlet fever, confining him for months and permanently
0:06:05 damaging his hearing. Yet years later, Grove reflected on how this seeming handicap became an unexpected
0:06:06 asset. He wrote,
0:06:12 I had to be quicker at processing nonverbal signs and more attentive to signals. And most important,
0:06:18 because I often understood only parts of sentences, I had to exercise my mind constantly.
0:06:24 What’s instructive here is Grove’s capacity to transform disadvantage into strength. The hearing
0:06:30 loss that isolated him socially became his edge in business. While others heard noise, Grove detected
0:06:35 patterns. While others waited for complete information, Grove decided with fragments.
0:06:40 The little limitation that made childhood harder became the foundation of his leadership genius.
0:06:45 Life rarely deals perfect hands. The winners aren’t those with the best cards, but those who play
0:06:52 difficult hands exceptionally well. The situation for Hungarian Jews deteriorated dramatically in March of
0:06:59 1944 when Nazi Germany directly occupied the country. The eight-year-old Andreas watched as German soldiers
0:07:05 marched into Budapest. There were no announcements and there was no fighting. They just came in. My mother
0:07:10 and I stood on the sidewalk of the ring road watching as the cars and troop carriers filled with soldiers
0:07:16 drove by. The German soldiers didn’t look anything like the soldiers who had guarded my father’s labor unit.
0:07:22 Those soldiers slouched a bit and their uniforms were wrinkled. The German soldiers were neat,
0:07:29 more shiny boots and had self-confident air about them. They reminded me of my toy soldiers. Within days,
0:07:35 Adolf Eichmann arrived with a small but efficient commando unit to eliminate Hungary’s Jewish population.
0:07:43 They moved with terrifying speed. By July of 1944, most Jews outside of Budapest had been deported to
0:07:50 Auschwitz and murdered. Young Andreas experienced the casual cruelty of anti-Semitism firsthand when a
0:07:55 playmate suddenly announced that Jesus Christ was killed by the Jews and because of that all the Jews
0:08:01 would be thrown into the Danube. Andreas ran to his mother in tears and never returned to that park again.
0:08:08 By late summer, Andy and his mother were forced into a designated star house and required to wear yellow
0:08:14 stars in public. People avoided looking at us. Even people we knew wouldn’t meet our eyes. It was as if
0:08:21 a barrier was growing between us and everyone else. In October 1944, as Hungary’s homegrown fascist
0:08:28 organization seized power, Andy’s mother made a fateful decision. Andreas, she said, “We have to get out of here.”
0:08:36 This paranoid vigilance would save their lives. Maria obtained false identity papers with a Slavic surname,
0:08:42 and they went into hiding, posing as non-Jewish refugees. The danger was constant. Being circumcised
0:08:48 would immediately identify Andreas as Jewish if he was discovered, so his mother warned him not to
0:08:53 urinate when others were present in their communal bathroom. When children were gathered to recite
0:08:59 Christian prayers, Andreas feigned illness and ran to his mother, who quickly created a distraction.
0:09:05 This ability to detect threats and take decisive action would later become the cornerstone of Grove’s
0:09:10 leadership philosophy decades later. As he would later write, the ability to recognize that the winds
0:09:16 have shifted and to take appropriate action before you wreck your boat is crucial to the future of an
0:09:23 enterprise. Grove learned early that survival depends not just on recognizing danger, but on acting before
0:09:32 it’s too late. A lesson that would later save Intel. By January of 1945, the Soviet Red Army reached Budapest,
0:09:37 transforming the city into a battleground. Sheltering in a cellar during the bombardment,
0:09:42 Andreas and his mother had a remarkable encounter with a Russian sergeant who spoke German. After
0:09:48 establishing communication, Maria made a bold request. She asked Andreas to recite a Hebrew prayer he had
0:09:54 learned at school. The boy was terrified. After months where revealing their Jewish identity meant
0:10:00 certain death, his mother was asking him to expose them, but she assured him it was safe. As he recited
0:10:06 the prayer, the Russian sergeant smiled with recognition. He too was Jewish. The Germans had killed his entire
0:10:13 family in Russia. Liberation brought relief, but also new horrors. Andreas witnessed his mother being sexually
0:10:19 assaulted by a Russian soldier. The next day when they reported the crime to military authorities,
0:10:26 Maria made the extraordinary decision not to identify her attacker. She had calculated that if she named him,
0:10:31 he would be executed immediately, but his comrades would likely return and murder everyone in their shelter
0:10:40 in retaliation. Even in this most personal violation, Maria demonstrated the cold strategic calculus that
0:10:46 her son would later apply to business decisions. Sometimes you must accept a terrible injustice
0:10:51 when the alternative is destruction. The profound impact of witnessing such moments where survival
0:10:58 required painful compromise rather than righteous action shaped Andreas’s world view forever. He was
0:11:05 not yet nine years old. In the aftermath of the war, something remarkable happened. Andy’s father,
0:11:10 George Grof returned home. He had indeed disappeared, but somehow survived the Eastern Front and made his
0:11:17 way back to Budapest. The family reunited, though forever changed by their experiences. Under Soviet occupation,
0:11:23 Hungary transformed into a communist state. The dairy business George had co-owned was nationalized.
0:11:29 Both parents found government work. Georgian retail management, Maria, at the now state-owned dairy.
0:11:35 Their apartment once again filled with visitors, creating a facade of normalcy that masked the trauma
0:11:40 that they had endured. Young Andreas threw himself into education, displaying the fierce intelligence
0:11:47 and disciplined work ethic that would later define his career. His insatiable curiosity and aptitude
0:11:52 for mathematics and science set him apart. At the prestigious Madrick gymnasium, his physics teacher
0:12:00 made a prediction that would later inspire the title of Grof’s memoir, “Life is a big lake. All the boys get
0:12:07 in the water at one end and start swimming. Not all of them will swim across, but one of them I’m sure will. That
0:12:15 one is Grof.” The teacher’s words resonated deeply. Decades later, Grof would title his autobiography “Swimming
0:12:21 across,” and conclude it with, “As my teacher Volensky predicted, I managed to swim across the lake, not
0:12:27 without effort, not without setbacks, and with a great deal of help and encouragement from others. I am
0:12:33 still swimming.” But before Andreas could fully test those waters, Hungary’s political situation would once
0:12:40 again upend his life. Most mornings I start my day with a smoothie. It’s a secret recipe the kids and
0:12:46 I call the Tom Brady. I actually shared the full recipe in episode 191 with Dr. Rhonda Patrick.
0:12:52 One thing that hasn’t changed since then, protein is a must. These days I build my foundation around
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0:13:46 Spring is here, and you can now get almost anything you need delivered with Uber Eats.
0:13:49 What do we mean by almost? You can’t get a well-groomed lawn delivered, but you can get
0:13:54 chicken parmesan delivered. Sunshine? No. Some wine? Yes. Get almost, almost anything delivered
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0:14:04 In 1956, when Andreas was 20 and a university student in Budapest, revolution erupted across
0:14:09 Hungary. What began as a student demonstration against Soviet control quickly escalated into
0:14:14 a nationwide uprising. For a brief exhilarating moment, it seemed the Hungarian people might
0:14:19 win their freedom. Andreas participated in early demonstrations, but he had learned from childhood
0:14:25 the fatal cost of misreading political winds. When Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest on November 4th
0:14:31 to crush the uprising, he recognized the patterns of oppression unfolding once again. He would later
0:14:36 write, “I was deathly afraid that the Soviets would seal the borders completely, and I knew once they
0:14:42 did that, anybody who had participated in any way in the uprising would have to pay the price. I had an
0:14:48 uneasy feeling that I would have a very bleak future in Hungary.” So on November 20th, Andreas slipped away
0:14:54 from his parents’ apartment, carrying only what fit in his pockets. He joined thousands of refugees
0:14:59 streaming towards the Austrian border. Guided by local farmers through secret roads, he waded through
0:15:05 icy marshes in darkness, evading Soviet patrols. This crossing wasn’t merely physically dangerous,
0:15:11 it represented a complete severance from the past. Andreas had no guarantee he would ever see his parents
0:15:16 again. He carried no photographs, no memories, just the clothes on his back and the determination to
0:15:22 start anew. When he reached Austria, America seemed the obvious destination. He had relatives in New York
0:15:26 whom he’d never met, but they were his only connection to what would become his new home,
0:15:32 and ultimately the launching pad for one of the most remarkable business careers of the 20th century.
0:15:38 Andreas Groff arrived in the United States in January of 1957, penniless, speaking broken English,
0:15:45 and knowing almost no one. His transformation into Andy Groff was about to begin. His first night in
0:15:51 America revealed both the promise and challenges ahead. At the Refugee Center Hotel, he encountered
0:15:57 a vending machine. He wrote, “It was a miracle. You put money in and food comes out. This would never
0:16:01 happen in Hungary. Either the machine would take your money and give you nothing, or more likely,
0:16:06 there would be no machines and no food.” Andy enrolled at the City College of New York,
0:16:11 supporting himself as a waiter while studying with relentless discipline. Despite the language
0:16:18 barriers and his hearing impairment, he graduated first in his chemical engineering class in 1960.
0:16:25 It was during this time that Andreas Groff became Andrew Grove, a change he made with characteristic
0:16:30 pragmatism. As he later explained, “I found myself spending too much time spelling my name out to people,
0:16:36 then repeating it, then having it come back mispronounced or misspelled. I translated the name
0:16:41 from Hungarian, where Groff means count in the aristocratic sense. Groff seemed close enough.”
0:16:48 This wasn’t merely a practical decision. It represented Groff’s methodical approach to success.
0:16:54 He didn’t just immigrate to America. He systematically transformed himself into an American.
0:17:01 At City College, Andy met Eva Kasten, a fellow refugee who had come from Austria by way of Bolivia.
0:17:06 They married in 1958 and would remain together for the rest of their life. After graduation,
0:17:12 Groff earned his PhD in chemical engineering from Berkeley in just three years. Though academically
0:17:17 brilliant, he was restless to apply his knowledge. “I want to do something useful,” he would say over and
0:17:24 over again. When a Berkeley professor suggested solid-state physics as an emerging field, Groff approached his
0:17:30 career hunt with characteristic thoroughness. He researched 22 different companies, dividing them
0:17:36 into two categories: jobs for which he was qualified but uninterested, and those that interested him but
0:17:43 where he might be underqualified. This methodical approach led him to Fairchild Semiconductor in 1963,
0:17:49 where he immediately connected with research director Gordon Moore, a relationship that would shape
0:17:55 technological history. What’s remarkable here is Groff’s systematic approach to opportunity. While most
0:18:00 immigrants struggled to find any job, Groff was strategically positioning himself at the intersection
0:18:06 of his skills and emerging industries. He didn’t just adapt to America, he methodically analyzed where he could
0:18:14 create maximal impact, a preview of the strategic thinking that would later save intel. Before diving deeper into
0:18:20 Groff’s career at Fairchild, we need a brief history of how the entire semiconductor industry began.
0:18:26 Silicon Valley’s origin traces back to December 26, 1947, when three scientists at Bell Laboratories
0:18:33 created the first working transistor. William Shockley, John Bardeen, and Walter Bratton had invented a device
0:18:40 that would replace bulky vacuum tubes in electronics, arguably one of the most important inventions in the history
0:18:45 of the world. In a typical East Coast corporate story, these men would have remained at Bell Labs,
0:18:51 collecting patents and promotions while safely ensconded in a major corporation. But Shockley had different
0:18:57 ideas. In 1955, he left Bell Labs to establish Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Mountain View,
0:19:03 California. He recruited brilliant young engineers, including Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce. However,
0:19:09 despite his scientific genius, Shockley proved to be a disastrous manager. He was controlling,
0:19:16 erratic, and paranoid. By 1957, eight of his top researchers, later dubbed the traitorous eight,
0:19:20 could no longer tolerate Shockley’s leadership. Moore and Noyce among them, they approached a young
0:19:26 investment banker named Arthur Rock, who helped them secure funding from Fairchild Camera. Fairchild
0:19:34 Semiconductor was born in October 1957. This moment established the pattern that would define
0:19:38 Silicon Valley. Talented people leaving established companies to form startups, backed by investors
0:19:44 willing to bet on unproven technologies, which is a radical departure from the East Coast business
0:19:49 culture at the time. The next few years at Fairchild produced extraordinary breakthroughs.
0:19:54 They developed the process for semiconductor manufacturing, and they developed the integrated
0:19:59 circuit, building on work done at Texas Instruments. When Fairchild Camera exercised its options to
0:20:06 buy out the founders in 1959, each received $250,000, which is over $2.5 million today, for their initial
0:20:14 $500 investment. Silicon Valley’s reputation for turning sand into gold was born. This transaction sparked a
0:20:20 financial ecosystem unlike anything before it. Success breeds success with wealthy engineers funding
0:20:26 new ventures. Dozens of semiconductor firms would eventually trace their lineage back to Shockley’s
0:20:32 laboratory. By the time Grove arrived at Fairchild in 1963, the company was the epicenter of technological
0:20:39 revolution. Moore and Noyce had already become legends. The culture valued technical brilliance, but as Grove would
0:20:45 soon discover, it lacked managerial discipline. For a recent immigrant with a strong accent and hearing problems,
0:20:52 Silicon Valley offered something traditional corporate America didn’t: a pure meritocracy, where problem-solving
0:20:58 ability trumped pedigree. It was the perfect environment for Grove’s combination of technical brilliance,
0:21:04 determination, and willingness to question orthodoxy. What’s significant here is that Grove joined a
0:21:10 culture that was simultaneously revolutionary and yet, at the same time, deeply flawed. Silicon Valley had
0:21:16 technical brilliance, but lacked organizational discipline. Precisely the gap that Grove, with his
0:21:22 Eastern European understanding that systems mattered as much as individual genius, was uniquely positioned
0:21:28 to fill. Now, let’s see what Grove encountered when he joined this revolutionary industry. Andy’s first week at
0:21:34 Fairchild established a pattern that would define his career. On Monday morning, a supervisor handed him a
0:21:39 Semiconductor physics problem requiring differential equations and data analysis. By Friday,
0:21:45 Andy had solved it using computer programming skills he had taught himself during his studies, a rare capability
0:21:52 in a commercial company in 1963. “How lucky can you get?” Andy later marveled. “You show up for work on Monday,
0:21:58 you’re assigned a problem that you’re uniquely qualified to solve, and you defies a non-obvious solution by Friday.” But
0:22:04 was it mere luck? Andy had methodically acquired skills beyond what was required, positioning himself in a
0:22:09 field where they might prove valuable. As Michael Dell would later observe, “He’s smart, he’s shrewd. There’s
0:22:15 no such thing as lucky a thousand times in a row.” Grove himself would later coin the phrase “earned luck” to
0:22:23 explain such success. During his five years at Fairchild, Andy displayed extraordinary work ethic. Beyond his day
0:22:29 job, he authored 30 scientific articles, filed two patents, and taught graduate-level semiconductor
0:22:34 physics at Berkeley. He challenged conventional wisdom about semiconductor surfaces with data that
0:22:40 contradicted accepted theory. “When presenting these findings in 1963, the semiconductor establishment
0:22:46 reacted harshly. I got nailed by all these experts,” Andy recalled, “who would sooner burn witches or equally
0:22:52 burn me at the stake for being a heretic.” But Andy trusted data over dogma, a trait that would serve
0:22:57 him throughout his career. Perhaps his most valuable contribution at Fairchild was what he called
0:23:02 “managing up,” particularly his ability to work with Gordon Moore, the brilliant but conflict-averse
0:23:07 head of R&D. The device development lab where Andy worked lacked clear expectations and internal
0:23:12 discipline, mirroring the broader company culture. Andy developed a technique for extracting Moore’s
0:23:17 insights during contentious meetings. “I would be running a meeting and people would be bashing each other’s
0:23:22 heads.” Andy explained, “I looked up at Gordon. Something is wrong.” So I’d yell,
0:23:27 “Stop! Gordon, what’s bothering you?” “Shut up! Gordon, tell us! Whatever you wanted to tell us!”
0:23:32 Somebody had to stop the traffic. This role of traffic cop for Moore’s insights proved
0:23:36 invaluable. Moore appreciated Andy’s ability to draw him out once telling him,
0:23:41 “You know me better than my wife, or at least as well.” Fairchild’s trajectory illustrates the volatile
0:23:47 nature of the early semiconductor industry. The company skyrocketed from founding to industry dominance,
0:23:53 then began unraveling due to management missteps. Its technical achievements were revolutionary,
0:23:59 but the business itself was poorly run. Two things stand out to me here. First, Andy’s willingness to
0:24:05 follow the data over dogma, even at personal risk. And second was his recognition that technical
0:24:10 brilliance alone doesn’t build lasting companies. While his peers focused exclusively on innovation,
0:24:15 Grove was already developing the organizational mindset that would later distinguish Intel.
0:24:22 By 1967, Andy Grove had reached a crossroads. Fairchild’s semiconductor, where he’d cut his
0:24:27 professional teeth was hemorrhaging talent. The exodus had begun with the Traitorous Eight,
0:24:33 engineers who had abandoned Shockley’s lab to form Fairchild. And now Fairchild itself was spawning
0:24:39 a second generation of Silicon Valley startups. The Valley wasn’t just growing, it was subdividing.
0:24:44 When Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce announced they were leaving Fairchild in 1968 to launch their own
0:24:50 semiconductor venture, Grove didn’t hesitate and didn’t wait for an invitation. The moment Moore mentioned
0:24:54 their plans, Grove immediately declared, “I’m going with you.” And just like that, he became employee
0:25:01 number three at Intel, short for Integrated Electronics. Intel’s founding trio constituted
0:25:07 semiconductor royalty. Gordon Moore was the visionary physicist who would soon formulate Moore’s law,
0:25:11 predicting the doubling of transistor density every two years, a prediction that would drive the
0:25:16 industry’s ambitions for decades. Robert Noyce, the co-inventor of the integrated circuit,
0:25:21 brought charismatic leadership and industry credibility that opened doors and investor
0:25:27 checkbooks. And then there was Andy Grove. What Grove brought to this threesome was something
0:25:32 altogether different but equally crucial, a ferocious commitment to operational excellence. As one
0:25:38 industry observer noted, in the semiconductor industry, management talent has been harder to find than
0:25:43 engineering talent. By becoming a brilliant manager, Grove differentiated himself and the company.
0:25:50 Here’s the irony. Until Intel’s founding, Grove had shown virtually no interest in business management.
0:25:55 His published papers all dealt with technical subjects. He was an engineer and by all accounts,
0:26:01 a brilliant one. But Silicon Valley in the late 1960s was already teeming with technical geniuses.
0:26:07 What it lacked were leaders who could transform those geniuses into cohesive, productive teams. Fairchild
0:26:12 was a great example of this, but far from the only one. What’s significant here is Grove’s intuitive
0:26:18 understanding of complementary skills. While others sought to duplicate their strengths in founding teams,
0:26:22 Grove recognized that Moore and Noyce needed someone fundamentally different from themselves.
0:26:28 They had vision. They had technical credibility. But what they lacked was operational discipline.
0:26:34 Grove didn’t need to be another visionary inventor. Instead, he took the role of execution specialist who
0:26:43 could transform brilliant ideas into reality. Why would Andy Grove, a PhD engineer with zero management
0:26:48 training, suddenly transform himself into a business leader? The answer comes from Gordon Moore himself.
0:26:53 When asked how they handled problems in Intel’s early days, Moore responded with characteristic
0:26:58 understatement. You look at the problems that are current at the time, and you try to come up with
0:27:04 some kind of creative solution for them. Or you turn them over to Andy, one or the other. Grove had
0:27:09 effectively become Intel’s default problem solver. Any challenge that Moore or Noyce couldn’t handle,
0:27:14 or perhaps didn’t want to handle, landed on Andy’s desk. Anyone who has worked in a startup’s early
0:27:19 days will recognize this pattern. The persistent problem nobody else wants to tackle eventually
0:27:24 find their permanent home with the person willing to solve them. Grove not only accepted this role,
0:27:29 but he excelled at it. Having witnessed brilliant ideas and talent wasted at Fairchild due to poor
0:27:34 execution, Grove was determined not to let that happen at Intel. So he did something remarkable. He
0:27:39 systematically taught himself management and leadership, applying the same analytical rigor
0:27:44 he used in chemical engineering and semiconductor physics. This self-transformation is a defining
0:27:50 characteristic of Grove’s career. He was a learning machine. He simply refused to be limited by his
0:27:56 formal training or pigeonholed into one specialty. In 1997, reflecting on his career, Andy observed,
0:28:01 I went from chemistry to chemical engineering, to applied physics, to solid state device physics,
0:28:08 to manufacturing, all in a 10 to 12 year period. His biographer notes that Grove could have continued.
0:28:13 After manufacturing, Grove migrated to management, to leadership of Intel, to spokesperson for the
0:28:18 technology industry, to expert on corporate governance, to arguably the most admired business
0:28:24 leader of his era. Grove’s personal notebooks from Intel’s early days reveal an engineer methodically
0:28:30 deconstructing the challenge of organizing people. Just two months after Intel’s founding,
0:28:36 he was analyzing not just what progress had been made, but how progress itself should be reported.
0:28:41 Three days later, he wrote something profound. The formal decision-making process is usually the
0:28:46 only protective covering for a much simpler informal process. This was Grove peeling back the organizational
0:28:52 onion, recognizing that beneath the surface of business decision lies a layer of unspoken
0:28:58 assumptions. He later explained people kind of knew the answer, and they manage the arrangement of facts so
0:29:05 that the formal process validates what they want to do anyway. By 1968, Grove was sketching structural
0:29:11 solutions to the semiconductor industry’s most vexing problem, the handoff from design to manufacturing.
0:29:17 In his notes, he outlined a quality control system with independent oversight, rapid feedback loops,
0:29:24 maps and clear accountability. In his notes, he writes, quality slash reliability. The best person to worry
0:29:29 about product quality first is the designer. As the product goes into manufacturing and the designer takes
0:29:35 on a new product design, he loses interest. A third independent body should take over the quality control
0:29:41 function from the engineers at that stage to ensure meaningful results and determinations and rapid feedback.
0:29:47 He should be closely related to both the design and processing groups. To ensure external auditing,
0:29:53 their books should be open to examination by general management. This approach was extraordinary. While
0:29:59 other executives might have copied existing management processes, Grove recognized Intel was breaking new
0:30:04 ground. He designed the organization from first principles, structuring it specifically to solve
0:30:09 technical problems. Intel desperately needed these solutions as it fought for survival. The startup
0:30:16 competed fiercely for its first contract is the seventh better on a project six established companies had already
0:30:21 pursued. Grove later recalled, we worked day and night to design the chip and in parallel develop the
0:30:29 manufacturing process. We worked as if our life depended on it, as in a way it did. What’s instructive here is
0:30:34 Grove’s methodical approach to mastering new demands. While most people define themselves by their formal
0:30:40 education or job title, Grove saw knowledge as something to be systematically acquired when needed. He was
0:30:46 always learning and evolving from chemistry to engineering to management. When faced with the
0:30:51 challenge outside of his expertise, he didn’t delegate it or avoid it. He simply dove in and taught himself
0:30:58 what he needed to know. This plasticity of identity explains how a Hungarian refugee with a PhD in chemical
0:31:04 engineering became one of history’s most influential business leaders. The real breakthrough for Intel
0:31:14 came in October 1970 with the 1103, a 1024 bit dynamic random access memory chip or DRAM. This wasn’t an
0:31:19 incremental improvement. It represented a quantum leap forward storing four times the data of Intel’s
0:31:26 previous chips. The 1103 acquired what Grove called “big technological gambles” and the challenges it
0:31:33 presented revealed just how difficult semiconductor manufacturing was. “We were a company composed of
0:31:38 a handful of people with a new design and a fragile technology housed in a little rented building,”
0:31:43 Grove recalled, “and we were trying to supply the seemingly insatiable appetite of large computer
0:31:49 companies for memory chips.” What made the 1103 revolutionary and so difficult to produce
0:31:55 was its fundamental design. Unlike previous static memory chips that use six transistors per bit of
0:32:02 memory, the 1103 used just three transistors in a new cell design. This remarkable efficiency allowed
0:32:07 more memory to fit on a single chip, but it came with a catch. The information had to be constantly
0:32:13 refreshed or it would fade away. The manufacturing challenges were enormous. The process began with silicone
0:32:19 wafers, thin mirror polished slices of pure silicone crystal about four inches in diameter.
0:32:24 In Intel’s first facility, these wafers traveled through a complex multi-step process where the
0:32:31 slightest contamination could ruin the entire batch. What’s notable here is the high stakes bet Intel was
0:32:36 making. Rather than playing it safe with incremental improvements, they bet the company on a fundamentally
0:32:41 new approach to memory design. This willingness to make bold technological leaps while simultaneously
0:32:46 building rigorous systems to manage the resulting complexity would become their defining competitive
0:32:52 advantage. Few companies can successfully balance revolutionary innovation with operational
0:32:58 discipline. Most excel at one or the other and Grove was creating an organization that could do both.
0:33:04 Grove became obsessive about quality control. Early semiconductor manufacturing suffered from poor
0:33:11 yields. Sometimes only 10 to 20 percent of chips on a wafer actually worked. Improving this percentage became his fixation.
0:33:17 Intel’s fabrication facility, Fab 1, represented cutting-edge manufacturing for its time. Workers wore bunny
0:33:23 suits, head-to-toe coveralls, not to protect themselves, but to protect the wafers from contamination.
0:33:29 The scale of precision required was staggering. While a human hair is approximately 100 microns thick,
0:33:35 circuit features on these early chips measured just a few microns. The 1103’s design made it
0:33:41 extraordinarily vulnerable. It stored memory as tiny electrical charges that would leak away unless
0:33:47 refreshed every few milliseconds, making the chip unusually sensitive to microscopic defects.
0:33:52 Each manufacturing step demanded perfect precision. The smallest deviation in temperature, exposure,
0:33:58 or time, or chemical concentration could ruin an entire batch. This stress was crushing. Grove recalled
0:34:03 having nightmares where vicious dogs were leaping out of the processing equipment attacking him.
0:34:09 The 1103 had to succeed or Intel might not survive. Ironically, despite Grove’s obsession with quality,
0:34:14 the 1103 still went to market with serious flaws. After thousands had shipped, it turned out that
0:34:20 in Grove’s candid words, under certain adverse conditions, the thing just couldn’t remember. Years
0:34:27 later, Grove joked that the “S” in “Andrew S. Grove” stood for “ship the unit.” Yet customers bought it anyway,
0:34:32 because even with the flaws, the 1103 offered advantages previous technologies couldn’t match.
0:34:37 More surprisingly, its difficulty actually helped its adoption. As Gordon Moore observed,
0:34:43 core memory engineers didn’t embrace the 1103 until they realized that it too was a difficult
0:34:49 technology and wouldn’t make their skills irrelevant. As production scaled, Grove instituted statistical
0:34:55 process control, systematically tracking every manufacturing variable to identify exactly what
0:35:00 affected yield. Every temperature, chemical bath, and timing sequence was measured and correlated with results.
0:35:06 His production meetings became legendary for their intensity. Grove demanded fact-based analysis and
0:35:12 rejected vague explanations for problems. This relentless focus gradually improved yields. When
0:35:20 Fab 2 opened in 1971, it incorporated all the lessons from Fab 1. And by the time Fab 3 opened in 1973,
0:35:28 Intel had largely mastered the once temperamental 1103. Grove didn’t just care about quality. He obsessed
0:35:34 over it scientifically when others saw manufacturing variability as an annoying fact of life. He approached
0:35:40 problems with cold, hard numbers, not gut feelings. And he built systems to measure what others were guessing or
0:35:46 complaining about. The human mind isn’t really equipped to intuitively grasp all the variables in a modern
0:35:53 manufacturing process. While obvious now, in the early 70s, this was revolutionary. Grove was inventing
0:35:59 manufacturing analytics decades before the term even existed. The lesson here, the most valuable
0:36:04 approaches often seem like common sense in retrospect, but require seeing what others don’t in the moment.
0:36:12 Looking back at the 1103 achievement, Grove wrote with uncharacteristic immodesty, making the 1103
0:36:17 concept work at the technology level, at the device level, and at the systems level, and successfully
0:36:23 introducing it into high volume manufacturing required, if I may flirt with immodesty for a moment of fair
0:36:29 measure of orchestrated brilliance. Everybody from technologists to designers to reliability experts had to
0:36:35 work to the same schedule toward a different aspect of the same goal interfacing simultaneously at all
0:36:42 levels. Four years earlier, in July 1969, Grove had cut out a description of a film director’s job from
0:36:52 Time Magazine. Above it, he wrote “my job description.” The clipping read, “vision to aspire. Any director must master
0:36:59 formidable complexity. He must be adept at sound and camera work, a soother of egos, a cajeweler of artistic
0:37:06 talent. A great director has something more, the vision and force to make all these elements fuse into an
0:37:12 aspired whole.” End quote. This is fascinating. So an engineer by training with zero formal business
0:37:18 education was modeling his role on a film director. Grove’s biographer notes that he doubts anyone else at
0:37:24 Intel or in the whole semiconductor industry cut out that clipping and inquired of themselves rhetorically
0:37:29 whether or not this was their job description. With the 1103, Grove had established the template for
0:37:35 how Intel would operate for decades, identifying bleeding edge technology that required manufacturing
0:37:41 breakthroughs, relentlessly tackling production challenges, and scaling rapidly while competitors
0:37:47 struggled to catch up. The complexity of manufacturing the 1103 made it nearly impossible for competitors to reverse
0:37:54 engineer, giving Intel a multi-year advantage in the market. In effect, complicated manufacturing
0:37:59 became their core skill. There’s a bit of irony to this today. The experience crystallized Grove’s
0:38:05 management philosophy. By 1971, he was coordinating dozens of specialists hired because of their expertise
0:38:12 in a sliver of technology, each contributing one crucial piece to the larger puzzle. As technical
0:38:17 teams developed in the next generation of products, Grove created systems to ensure seamless handoffs between
0:38:23 design and manufacturing, historically the most vulnerable point in semiconductor development.
0:38:28 Grove saw leadership like directing a film, not commanding an army. When he cut out that film
0:38:33 director’s job description in 1969 and wrote “my job description” above it, he revealed something
0:38:39 profound about his approach. While most technical leaders tried desperately to maintain expertise across
0:38:46 every domain, a losing battle as technology advances, Grove took a different approach. The magic was in how he
0:38:51 redefined the leader’s role, not the supreme technical expert, but as collecting talent and creating
0:38:56 harmony. Most leaders fail because they can’t let go of being the smartest person in the room.
0:39:02 And Grove succeeded by understanding a simple truth. As complexity increases, coordination becomes more
0:39:09 valuable than individual control. The best leaders don’t need to know everything. They do need to know who knows what
0:39:16 that and how to get them playing from the same sheet of music. While the 1103 DRAM established Intel as a
0:39:24 serious memory player, an even more revolutionary product appeared in 1971, the 4004, the world’s first
0:39:32 commercial microprocessor. Originally developed as a custom chip for Japanese calculator manufacturer, the 4004 was
0:39:38 essentially a computer on a chip containing 2300 transistors and performing functions that previously required
0:39:42 entire cabinets of electronics. The microprocessor’s importance
0:39:48 wasn’t immediately apparent, even to Intel’s leaders. The company initially viewed it as
0:39:54 merely a sideline to the core memory business. As one Intel engineer recalled, in the early days, the microprocessor was a
0:40:01 solution looking for a problem. Andy himself would later admit that Intel stumbled into the microprocessor business.
0:40:06 That statement is insane, given what we know today, but this is back in 1971.
0:40:17 Nevertheless, Intel followed the 4004 with the 8008 in 1972 and the 8080 in 1974, increasingly powerful processors
0:40:23 that found their way into a widening range of applications. The 8080 became particularly significant because it was selected
0:40:30 selected as the brain of the Altair 8800, which was the first commercially successful personal computer
0:40:38 released in 1975. What’s instructive here is how even brilliant leaders can miss the significance of their
0:40:44 own innovations. Intel’s core team, including Andy Grove, initially failed to recognize that they had created the
0:40:51 product that would eventually transform not just their company, but the entire world. This blind spot reveals an
0:40:58 important truth about innovation. Revolutionary products often emerge not from grand strategic visions,
0:41:04 but from solving specific customer problems. The microprocessor wasn’t born from a plan to change
0:41:09 computing or change the history of the world. It came from meeting the needs of a Japanese calculator company.
0:41:15 The greatest innovations frequently appear first as modest solutions to narrow challenges before their broader
0:41:18 potential becomes clear.
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0:42:40 Intel’s growth during the 1970s was remarkable. The company’s 1977 annual report described it as a
0:42:48 difficult year, yet sales and profits both increased by 25%. Employment had risen to 8,100 people and
0:42:53 the R&D investment was climbing steadily. A technological revolution was unfolding through
0:42:59 what the report called the continuous integration between circuit requirements, basic science and
0:43:05 process technology. The average number of transistors in the components Intel introduced in 1977 exceeded
0:43:12 the total number of vacuum tubes in INEC, the most complex electronic equipment built just 30 years
0:43:19 earlier. Yet, not all Intel ventures succeeded. In 1977, the company admitted defeat in one notable
0:43:25 experiment. We abandoned the digital watch and watch module business, including the closing of our Microma
0:43:31 subsidiary, the transfer of the most important people to other divisions of Intel and the disposal of Microma’s
0:43:39 assets. Intel tried to create the Apple Watch before 1980. That’s insane. Intel had entered the watch
0:43:45 business in 1972 convinced it had a unique combination of capabilities, the CMOS chip, the liquid crystal
0:43:51 display, and assembly facilities. But as Grove later explained, we got out when we found out it was a
0:43:56 consumer marketing game, something we knew nothing about. The cost of consumer advertising particularly
0:44:02 shocked Intel’s engineering-minded leadership. The company ran exactly one television commercial
0:44:10 for the Microma watches at a cost of $600,000. Just one ad, Grove lamented, and poof, it was gone. Moore
0:44:16 continued wearing his Microma watch for years, calling it his $15 million watch and joking, “If anyone
0:44:21 comes to me with an idea for a consumer product, all I have to do is look at my watch to get the answer.”
0:44:27 The Microma experience taught Intel two important lessons though. First, when closing the subsidiary,
0:44:32 Intel found positions elsewhere in the company for almost all Microma employees. This approach,
0:44:37 protecting the people even when ventures failed, created tremendous loyalty within the company.
0:44:43 A breed of employees who would bleed blue, Intel’s logo color was developing. Crucial for the upcoming
0:44:49 challenges of the 1980s. The second lesson, however, may have been learned a bit too well. Intel concluded
0:44:55 the consumer products simply weren’t in the company’s genetic code. As Grove reflected in 2005,
0:45:00 all of our subsequent consumer products efforts were half-hearted. Despite eventually becoming one of
0:45:06 the most recognized brands in the world, Intel never sold directly to consumers, perhaps leaving
0:45:13 significant value unrealized. Intel’s handling of the Microma failure reveals an elegant paradox of
0:45:18 corporate culture. They killed the watch business without hesitation, but protected nearly every employee
0:45:23 who worked on it. This wasn’t kindness, it was rational. When companies punish the people behind failed
0:45:28 ventures, they create risk aversion that slowly suffocates innovation. But there’s a fascinating
0:45:35 flip side to how we process failure. The $15 million watch disaster so traumatized Intel’s leadership that they
0:45:42 permanently tagged consumer products as “not in our DNA”. For decades afterwards, Intel reflexively
0:45:48 avoided direct consumer sales. This is kind of how experience works. We don’t just learn the lessons,
0:45:54 we sometimes overlearn them. The same painful memories that can make us smarter in one domain can blind us
0:46:00 in another. Smart companies know when to kill projects, wise ones know which lessons from those failures to
0:46:08 keep and which to forget. Beneath Intel’s impressive growth numbers of the late 1970s lay a company culture
0:46:14 in metamorphosis forged largely through Grove’s relentless, sometimes merciless, self-criticism. Reading
0:46:20 Grove’s internal notes from this period, one would never guess 1978 was a triumphant year for Intel.
0:46:25 Instead of celebration, we find Andy complaining to Gordon Moore that with our operating managers
0:46:30 being busy with operating, planning does not get sufficient emphasis. As Intel approached a half
0:46:36 billion dollars of revenue, Grove wrestled with a fundamental question: what was preventing Intel from
0:46:44 reaching a billion? His answer scribbled in July 1978 was a strikingly simple oomph and administration.
0:46:51 When Intel was small, he reflected an individual or small group could provide the oomph, the initiative
0:46:58 and the enthusiasm that the company needed to do its work. By 1978, however, the oomph had concentrated
0:47:04 in top managers who are now consumed by day-to-day responsibilities. What troubled Andy about Intel’s
0:47:08 middle management was their aversion to conflict was their aversion to conflict. The middle is populated
0:47:15 by passive introverts, he wrote, honest, competent, decent, well-meaning, work-oriented people who just
0:47:23 can’t tolerate controversy. The result in Andy’s characteristically blunt phrasing, “shit rises uphill.”
0:47:29 This frustrated Andy because, as he noted, it is impossible to change people’s personalities and very
0:47:36 difficult to modify behavior tied to fundamental personality traits. Intel somehow needed to upgrade
0:47:42 the oomph quotient of its middle managers. By August 1978, Andy’s frustration had reached
0:47:48 a boiling point. Manufacturing was undisciplined. Marketing was abominable. He told more, “I think
0:47:54 I was totally wrong a month ago in perceiving improvements in our great organized campaign. If
0:48:00 anything, things are getting worse. If I truly had the guts, I think what we should do is put on a total
0:48:08 hiring freeze until we get our nose above the shit level.” This is the Andy that Intel employees knew,
0:48:14 demanding, uncompromising, and brutally honest. His criticisms weren’t reserved for others. They extended
0:48:20 to himself and the entire organization. Yet, for all of his harshness, he understood the potential
0:48:26 downside of the critical culture he was creating. In an October 1978 memo to the top executives, he wrote,
0:48:32 “To a large extent, I think we owe our success not to luck, but to a culture of problem orientation,
0:48:38 of being critical of ourselves and thereby urging ourselves and our organizations to perform better
0:48:43 and better. This virtue, however, can be carried to such an extreme that it can bring about our own
0:48:49 paralysis through self-doubt.” Then, in what must have surprised anyone familiar with his typically
0:48:54 unsparing critiques, Andy added, “So let’s try to keep our perspective and permit ourselves to enjoy the
0:49:00 fact that we have never yet in our history had a problem we didn’t solve.” What’s remarkable here
0:49:05 is Groves’ understanding of the paradox of high-performance cultures. The very critical
0:49:11 orientation that drives excellence can eventually become toxic if not balanced with perspective and
0:49:17 celebration. Most leaders swing between extremes, either creating complacent cultures that celebrate
0:49:23 mediocrity or harsh environments that burn people out. Groves is attempting something far more difficult,
0:49:29 building a culture that could simultaneously maintain relentless standards while providing enough
0:49:35 psychological safety for people to take risks and speak truth. This balance, being brutally honest about
0:49:40 problems while remaining fundamentally optimistic about solving them, would become their defining
0:49:45 cultural characteristic. What we’re witnessing in these private notes is the birth of what would
0:49:51 later be recognized as the intel culture. Groves’ distinctive organizational ethers that would
0:49:56 eventually be studied at business schools around the world. This culture had several defining elements,
0:50:03 all bearing his unmistakable imprint. At its core was what became known as constructive confrontation.
0:50:08 As Groves recalled during intel’s early pressure cooker days, we often spent as much time bickering
0:50:14 with one another as working on the problems. We developed a style of ferociously arguing with one
0:50:20 another while remaining friends. We call this constructive confrontation. This direct problem-solving
0:50:26 confrontation approach was coupled with a relentless focus on data and facts rather than opinions or
0:50:32 emotions. Andy frequently complained about the tendency in management circles to substitute opinions for
0:50:39 facts and emotion for analysis, a trend that still continues to this day. Intel also developed a unique
0:50:45 approach to organizational management. In June 1978, Andy wrote, “The time has come for us to establish honest to
0:50:50 goodness corporate staff. This would be made up of our top flight operating executives who would serve for
0:50:55 a limited period prior to returning to line management. Their role would be to deal with
0:51:01 longer-term issues, especially for those that cross divisional boundaries.” This focus on organizational
0:51:07 effectiveness stemmed from Andy’s recognition that Intel’s rapid growth created increasingly complex
0:51:12 problems. He noticed that every attempted solution seemed to generate new challenges. Getting into new
0:51:19 businesses is a complicated phenomenon where directors can change fairly rapidly as one feels one way.
0:51:24 Realigning emphasis means shuffling people about and having people stagger under the same load that their
0:51:29 predecessor, who had done the job for years, would have been able to handle with ease. Culture wasn’t
0:51:35 something that just happened at Intel, at least not under Andy Grove. While many companies let culture evolve
0:51:42 organically, Grove engineered Intel’s with the same precision he brought to chip manufacturing. He wasn’t
0:51:48 designing pleasant office vibes. He was building a corporate immune system. The brilliance here is in how
0:51:55 he institutionalized seemingly contradictory forces, the brutal honesty alongside deep loyalty, rigid processes
0:52:02 alongside flexibility. Constructive confrontation sounds like an oxymoron until you see it solve problems that
0:52:09 politeness can’t touch. Grove treated culture as infrastructure, and to him it was just as critical as the factory
0:52:14 floor. Years later, when Intel faced its greatest crisis, this deliberately designed culture became the
0:52:20 company’s salvation. The greatest competitive advantage isn’t a product, but rather an organization that can
0:52:26 adapt faster than the world changes around it. These cultural elements were crystallizing into a coherent
0:52:34 whole, and the results were undeniable. By 1979, Intel sales and profits soared to 663 million and 77.8
0:52:43 million, representing growth of 65.8% in both categories. The workforce expanded by 40% to more than 14,000
0:52:53 employees. Intel had debuted on the Fortune 500 in 1978 at position 486, and by 1979 had climbed to 368.
0:53:00 Even more impressively, Intel’s market capitalization more than doubled from 638 million at the end of
0:53:07 1978 to 1.4 billion just a year later. In many ways, 1979 represented the validation of the culture
0:53:12 Andy had been painstakingly building. Prices for their products remained high throughout the year because
0:53:18 demand far outstripped forecasts. The semiconductor industry was constrained by supply shortages. As one
0:53:24 observer noted, “If you’re going to have a problem, that is one which many business people would select.”
0:53:30 But as the 1970s drew to a close, Andy’s greatest test as a leader still lay ahead. The extraordinary
0:53:36 success of 1979 masked underlying vulnerabilities. As Andy himself had written years earlier, “In the
0:53:40 meantime, while you’re fighting the forces of entropy in your company, the rest of the world is
0:53:46 hardly standing still.” He had identified the competitive threat in an annual report. This
0:53:51 year, or in some cases last year, competition arrived and very logically went after the most visible
0:53:57 segment. The large accounts who now have alternatives have started to move towards those alternatives with
0:54:03 a resulting loss of standing, if not business for us. In retrospect, that seems to have been unavoidable,
0:54:09 “but we were too skimpy, too busy, and too smug with our success to have anticipated
0:54:15 this trend.” The culture Andy had forged through his relentless self-criticism and exacting standards would
0:54:21 soon face its most severe challenge. The question wasn’t whether Intel’s culture could drive growth in good
0:54:26 times. It had proven that conclusively. The real question was whether the same culture could navigate
0:54:32 Intel through a genuine crisis when rigorous analysis and candid self-assessment would have
0:54:38 to transform into decisive action at a pivotal moment for the American semiconductor industry.
0:54:45 It’s worth pausing here for a second. Success often sears the seeds of its own destruction. Grove
0:54:50 understood something profound. The moment you feel safest is often when you’re most vulnerable. While
0:54:56 competitors celebrated victories, he was already hunting for threats lurking in Intel’s success.
0:55:01 For Grove, this wasn’t theoretical pessimism. It was personal trauma. Going back to his childhood,
0:55:07 as a Hungarian Jew who survived both Nazi occupation and communist rule before fleeing to America,
0:55:13 Grove had witnessed how quickly stability can disintegrate into chaos. The genius of his approach
0:55:20 was maintaining intense paranoia precisely when it seemed least necessary. Most companies grow complacent
0:55:26 with success. Their vigilance fades exactly when competitors are motivated to overtake them. While
0:55:31 Intel’s 1979 results had shareholders celebrating, Grove was already writing about fighting the forces
0:55:38 the forces of entropy. This wasn’t anxiety, it was clarity. And it’s something all the greats have,
0:55:44 even when they’re winning. This perpetual vigilance would prove crucial to Intel’s salvation when
0:55:51 Japanese manufacturers later attacked the company’s core business. By the mid-1980s, Intel faced an
0:55:55 existential threat and existential threat that would not just test the company’s business model, but the
0:56:01 very leadership philosophy Grove had been cultivating for nearly two decades. The semiconductor industry was
0:56:06 experiencing what he would later term a 10x force, a fundamental shift so powerful it could destroy
0:56:12 established companies that failed to adapt. In his influential book, Only the Paranoid Survive,
0:56:19 Andy explained that a crucial distinction between ordinary changes and 10x changes. Ordinary 1x changes were the
0:56:25 constant background noise of business, the incremental shifts in customer preferences, competitor tactics,
0:56:30 or technologies that companies routinely handle. These might alter your trajectory, but they don’t
0:56:37 fundamentally transform your industry. A 10x change, by contrast, was a force of an entirely different
0:56:42 magnitude. Andy described it as the difference between a light breeze and a full-blown typhoon,
0:56:48 or between waves and a tsunami. When a 10x force hits, the fundamentals of your business are altered
0:56:55 so dramatically that continuing with your existing strategy becomes impossible. For Intel in the late 1980s,
0:57:01 this 10x force came in the form of Japanese memory chip manufacturers. The quality level of the Japanese
0:57:07 memories, especially DRAMs, were becoming consistently and substantially better than Intel’s. This meant
0:57:11 not only were they selling merchandise cheaper than Intel could, but they were selling better
0:57:17 merchandise as well, a very threatening position for the company to be in. This was a fundamental shift
0:57:23 that rendered Intel’s position in the memory market untenable. Japanese firms had mastered a manufacturing
0:57:28 approach that Intel simply couldn’t match. Memory chips had become commodities, where competitive
0:57:36 advantages came from manufacturing scale and efficiency rather than design innovation. The area where Intel had
0:57:42 dominated through the 1970s. Most businesses are designed to weather ordinary changes. The 1x forces
0:57:47 that Grove described as the constant background noise. But strategic inflection points aren’t headwinds,
0:57:53 they’re tsunamis that destroy companies that mistake them for normal challenges. The true genius of
0:57:58 leadership lies in recognizing when incremental improvements become futile and when you must abandon the
0:58:04 very business that made you successful. The golden goose, if you will, even while it’s still generating enormous profits.
0:58:11 By 1985, Intel was wandering through what Andy described as a valley of death. The company was
0:58:18 posting significant losses, employee morale was plummeting, and the board grew restless. Cost-counting
0:58:23 measures, facility closures, and layoffs, the standard corporate responses to financial pressure failed to
0:58:30 address the fundamental market reality. Intel simply couldn’t compete in the memory business anymore. Andy
0:58:35 Grove possessed a rare ability to acknowledge the brutal truce before disaster became inevitable. He’d
0:58:40 been doing it his whole life. But even for him, the realization didn’t come easily because Intel’s
0:58:47 identity was inextricably tied to memory chips. The company had been founded on it. Gordon Moore and
0:58:52 Robert Noyce’s vision of semiconductor memory replacing magnetic core memory had sparked the whole industry in
0:58:58 a new direction. And Intel engineers took enormous pride in their memory innovations. As Andy would
0:59:03 later observe, people who have no emotional stake in a decision can see what needs to be done sooner.
0:59:09 Two deeply held beliefs within Intel complicated matters even further. First, many believed that
0:59:14 memories were the company’s technology drivers, the products on which new manufacturing processes were
0:59:20 perfected before being applied to microprocessors. Second, there was a widespread conviction that Intel
0:59:25 needed to offer customers a complete product line including both memories and processors. If they
0:59:31 offered only one, customers would supposedly leave them for someone who could offer both. The turning
0:59:36 point came during a conversation between Andy and Gordon Moore that has since become legendary in
0:59:42 business circles. It’s the one I mentioned in the introduction. Looking at the terrible memory chip numbers for the
0:59:48 latest quarter, Andy said to Moore, “If we got kicked out and the board brought in a new CEO, what do you
0:59:55 think he would do?” Moore answered without hesitation. He would get us out of memories. Andy then posed a pivotal
1:00:01 question. Why shouldn’t you and I just walk out the door, come back in, and do it ourselves? This mental
1:00:06 exercise of viewing the company as an outsider would become the cornerstone of what Andy would later term
1:00:11 a strategic inflection point, a moment when the fundamentals of the business are about to change.
1:00:15 You can tell you’re going through a strategic inflection point if the way you traditionally have
1:00:20 done business no longer delivers the kind of results that we used to get. Well, the new way of doing
1:00:25 business involves so much uncertainty that you can’t easily bring yourself to embrace it. What’s
1:00:32 interesting here is the technique Grove used to overcome organizational inertia by mentally stepping
1:00:37 outside, walking out the door. Grove and Moore could temporarily escape the emotional attachment to past
1:00:42 decisions and see the blind spot that was holding them where they were. They could see their situation
1:00:48 with new clarity. This ability to create psychological distance from your own commitments is extraordinarily
1:00:54 difficult but crucial during strategic inflection points. Most leaders remain imprisoned by their previous
1:01:00 decisions, unable to abandon what they built even as evidence mounts that it’s no longer viable. Grove had
1:01:06 developed a technique to break the psychological lock, a method for seeing his own creation with the
1:01:12 objectivity of an outsider. One of Andy’s most insightful observations involved the transformation of the
1:01:17 computer industry’s structure. He described how the industry had evolved from a vertically integrated
1:01:23 model to a horizontally segmented one in 1980s sparked by memory chips becoming commodities and the rise of the
1:01:30 microprocessor. In the mainframe era dominated by IBM, companies operated as fully integrated vertical stacks. IBM
1:01:35 designed everything from chips to hardware to the operating system to the applications. As Andy explained,
1:01:40 a company competing in this industry as one vertical proprietary block against all other computer
1:01:45 companies’ vertical proprietary blocks. The rise of the microprocessor, which Intel had pioneered,
1:01:51 fundamentally changed the structure. The industry fragmented into horizontal layers. Chip manufacturers like
1:01:57 Intel, computer assemblers like Dell and Compaq, operating system providers like Microsoft and application
1:02:02 developers. Andy wrote, “In this new model, no one company had its own stack. A consumer could pick
1:02:07 a chip from the horizontal chip bar, pick a computer manufacturer from the computer bar, choose an operating
1:02:14 system out of the operating system bar, grab one of several ready to use applications off the shelf at a retail
1:02:20 store or a computer superstar and take the collection of these things home.” This shift destroyed IBM’s dominance.
1:02:26 Despite its vast resources and market power, or possibly because of them, IBM couldn’t adapt to this
1:02:31 horizontal world. They remained wedded to the vertical integration model. Even as the economics of
1:02:37 specialized horizontal layers made that approach uncompetitive, what made this transition especially
1:02:42 treacherous was that it didn’t happen overnight. It evolved gradually with the vertical model continuing to work
1:02:48 reasonably well, even as the horizontal model gained momentum. By the time the inflection point was obvious to
1:02:54 everyone, IBM had already lost most of its market leadership position. Andy observed, “IBM was
1:02:59 composed of a group of people who had won time and time again, decade after decade, in the battle among
1:03:05 vertical computer players. The managers who ran IBM grew up in this world. Their long reign of success deeply
1:03:11 reinforced the thought processes and instincts that led to winning in the vertical industry. So when the industry
1:03:17 changed, they attempted to use the same type of thinking that had worked so well in the past. IBM,
1:03:22 as a vertical player, was trying to sell portions of its stack to direct competitors, an inherently
1:03:28 conflicted position. Grove had learned that Intel needed to focus on microprocessors and basically nothing
1:03:36 else. As he would write, “It’s harder to be the best of class in several fields than just one.” What’s interesting here is that
1:03:41 Grove didn’t just see competitors. He saw the competitive landscape transforming. While IBM’s
1:03:45 executives were still trying to outmaneuver other vertically integrated companies, Grove recognized
1:03:51 the industry was fundamentally restructuring into horizontal layers where specialists in each layer
1:03:56 would dominate. The greatest business failures often come from not playing the game poorly, but from
1:04:03 continuing to excel at games that no longer matter. One of Andy’s most penetrating insights concerned
1:04:07 the role of middle managers during strategic inflection points. He believed they often had
1:04:14 the clearest view of impending changes and called them Cassandras, after the Greek priestess who foretold
1:04:19 the fall of Troy. He wrote, “The Cassandras in your organization are a consistently helpful element in
1:04:25 recognizing strategic inflection points.” As you might remember, Cassandra was the priestess who foretold the fall
1:04:30 of Troy. Likewise, there are people who are quick to recognize impending change and cry out an early
1:04:34 warning. Although they can come from anywhere in the company, Cassandras are usually in the middle
1:04:40 management. Often they work in the sales organization. They usually know more about the upcoming change than
1:04:46 the senior management because they spend so much time outdoors where the winds of the real world blow in their
1:04:54 faces. In other words, their genes have not been selected to achieve perfection in an old way. Because they are on the
1:04:59 front lines of the company, Cassandras often feel more vulnerable to danger than do senior managers
1:05:04 in their more or less bolstered corporate headquarters. Bad news has much more of an immediate
1:05:09 impact on them personally. Lost sales affect a salesperson’s commission. Technology that never
1:05:15 makes it into the marketplace disrupts an engineer’s career. Therefore, they take the warning signs more
1:05:20 seriously. “If you’re a senior manager in a company,” Andy explained, “strategic inflection
1:05:25 points arrive in disguised form.” Top executives are often the last to recognize the fundamental
1:05:31 shifts because they’re insulated from market realities and emotionally invested in the status quo. Middle
1:05:37 managers, by contrast, operate at the intersection of the company and the outside world. They usually have a
1:05:44 better sense than the senior management of what’s happening with both sides. Andy noted, “their position gives them an
1:05:50 unfiltered view of the customer shifts, competitive threats, and technological changes.” Andy illustrated
1:05:56 this with a powerful analogy, comparing strategic inflection points to fire drills in a theater. When
1:05:59 the alarm sounds, audience members in the middle of the theater have the clearest picture of what’s
1:06:05 happening. They can see both the stage, where the fire may have started, and the exits. Audience members
1:06:10 in the very front like senior executives may be too close to the stage to see the big picture. While
1:06:16 those in the back, frontline employees may be too far from the action. At Intel, Grove created forms where
1:06:22 middle managers’ voices could be heard and respected regardless of hierarchy. Grove discovered something
1:06:28 counterintuitive about organizational awareness. Middle managers often see the existential threats before
1:06:34 their executives do. These Cassandras operate where strategy meets reality. They’re close enough to the
1:06:40 customers to feel market shifts, but connected enough to headquarters to understand the implications. By
1:06:45 deliberately elevating these voices rather than filtering them through the hierarchy, Grove built an early
1:06:52 warning system that detected industry shifts while competitors were still celebrating calm seas. The
1:06:58 decision to exit the memory business wasn’t implemented overnight. The transition took nearly three
1:07:02 years, and throughout this challenging period, Andy deployed the leadership style he had honed for
1:07:08 decades, demanding, data-driven, and brutally honest. First, he insisted on clarity about market realities. He
1:07:13 gathered comprehensive data on Japanese companies’ memory pricing, quality, and manufacturing
1:07:18 capabilities, forcing Intel’s management to confront an uncomfortable truth. The gap wasn’t closing,
1:07:23 it was widening. Second, he addressed emotional resistance head-on. In a pivotal meeting with
1:07:29 senior managers, Andy posed a provocative question. If memories are so strategic, why do we lose money on
1:07:35 every one we sell? This forced Intel’s leadership to separate old strategic methodology with new economic
1:07:42 reality. And third, he tackled practical transition challenges with meticulous attention to detail. What would
1:07:47 happen to Intel’s memory design teams? How would customers react? What would the microprocessor-focused
1:07:52 Intel look like? Andy demanded detailed planning for each dimension so employees could visualize the
1:07:57 new Intel. Thanks to the company’s history of protecting employees during previous shutdowns,
1:08:02 there was less fear of institutional change. When Intel finally announced to customers it would
1:08:08 no longer be manufacturing DRAMs, the response was largely a big yawn. Many had already anticipated
1:08:13 Intel’s retreat and secured alternative suppliers. Some even expressed relief saying it sure took you a long
1:08:20 time. Grove systematically dismantled both practical and psychological barriers to change. He recognized
1:08:25 that strategic pivots fail not just because of poor planning, but because of emotional attachments to
1:08:31 past decisions and fear of an uncertain future. By keeping the focus on market realities, strategic
1:08:36 contradictions, and implementation details simultaneously, Grove created a comprehensive
1:08:43 approach to organizational transformation that remains a template for executing painful but necessary pivots
1:08:49 today. By 1987, Intel had largely completed the transition away from memories. The company was
1:08:55 profitable again, but its 80386 microprocessor was gaining traction in the personal computer market.
1:09:00 But Andy, now Intel’s president, wasn’t content with mere survival. He sensed an opportunity to
1:09:06 fundamentally transform Intel’s position in the market. Rather than remaining an anonymous component supplier,
1:09:12 Intel could become a recognized brand that signified quality and innovation to end consumers and thereby
1:09:20 protect itself from future inflection points. In 1989, Intel began shifting its advertising aimed at consumers
1:09:26 instead of manufacturers. This approach culminated in the famous Intel Inside campaign,
1:09:33 fundamentally altering the power dynamics in the computer industry. PC manufacturers couldn’t easily
1:09:38 switch to a competing processor without risking consumer backlash. Consumers would be looking
1:09:46 specifically for an Intel-powered PC. This move was pure genius. What emerged from this crucible was not
1:09:51 just a safe company, but a coherent leadership philosophy that Andy would articulate. Business success contains
1:09:56 the seeds of its own destruction. The more successful you are, the more people want a chunk of your
1:10:00 business and then another chunk until there’s nothing left. I believe that the prime responsibility of
1:10:06 a manager is to guard constantly against other people’s attacks and to put this guardian attitude
1:10:12 in the people under his management. Grove’s paranoia wasn’t the anxious hand-wringing that paralyzes
1:10:19 action. It was strategic mindset that fueled adaptation. A corporation is a living organism. It has to
1:10:24 continue to shed its skin, he insisted, recognizing that yesterday’s winning formula becomes tomorrow’s
1:10:30 liability. His masterstroke, the final masterstroke, the Intel Inside campaign, reveals a deeper insight
1:10:36 about competitive advantage. By turning an invisible chip into a household brand, Grove didn’t just
1:10:43 differentiate Intel, he fundamentally changed who Intel’s customer was. Though PC manufacturers wrote the
1:10:49 checks, consumers now demanded Intel processors specifically, creating a protective moat around the
1:10:54 business that no competitor that no competitor could easily cross. This is the paradox at the heart of
1:11:01 lasting success. The more deliberately you prepare for your own obsolescence, the less likely you are to
1:11:13 become obsolete. All right, let’s get into a few afterthoughts and reflections and then talk about some lessons learned.
1:11:21 So one of the things that stood out to me here was just how profound his childhood was on his experiences and
1:11:27 how he learned that survival demands the same skills, constant vigilance, brutal self-assessment,
1:11:32 the courage to abandon what’s once defined you. I mean, he lived this stuff as a child. That is a terrible,
1:11:38 terrible childhood. Another thing that really stands out to me here is a bit of the red queen effect going on where,
1:11:44 you know, you have to run harder and harder to maintain your place in industries that are changing rapidly.
1:11:49 And I think, you know, the memory, you can use this as a great example, the memory chips, you know,
1:11:52 you have to get better and better every year. You can’t just rest. You can’t take a break. You have to sprint.
1:11:57 You’re constantly sprinting because your competitors are sprinting. And if you stand still, if you don’t get
1:12:02 better, you’re getting worse. And in highly, highly competitive industries, that’s what’s happening.
1:12:08 The decision to kill the golden goose, killing the memory chips and, and doing the strategic pivot that
1:12:14 I can’t understate how hard that is. There’s so much organizational inertia tied into that and making
1:12:21 that pivot. And, you know, it all worked out well for Intel, uh, at the time. And it’s so hard to make
1:12:28 those decisions. Um, there’s so many people giving you conflicting information. I like Andy talks a lot
1:12:32 about blind spots without using the term blind spots. He’s always trying to get information
1:12:38 either from people through analysis or through analytics or just seeing the world through their
1:12:42 eyes. I liked his idea of Cassandra’s being the middle managers. I think there’s a lot of truth
1:12:48 to that. Having worked in a large organization before people who touch the outside, they touch the territory.
1:12:53 And because they touch the territory, uh, they often have more accurate information about the
1:12:57 territory than management who relies on maps. It’s a bit of map territory.
1:13:03 I like his idea of thought experiments, you know, sort of stepping outside, firing yourself as CEO,
1:13:07 uh, and saying, what would we do different if the board fired us and then hired us again?
1:13:11 You know, these are the type of things I talk about in the great mental models, volume one,
1:13:16 it’s a great thought experiment for you. It’s also something that we can do. You are the CEO of you.
1:13:23 Uh, and you have thousands of employees at your disposal today in the form of GPUs and AI.
1:13:28 And I think the question is, you know, one question that I constantly ask myself is if I fired myself
1:13:34 today, uh, what would a new CEO or myself taking over stop doing? What am I doing today that I need
1:13:41 to stop and what could I start doing? And I think those questions are super important. As I was researching
1:13:48 the whole transition from memory to semiconductors with Intel, you know, the parallels between what Google’s
1:13:53 going through right now just stuck out so much. They have this golden goose in traditional search
1:14:00 that’s making a ton of money. And I wonder at what point you face a bit of innovators dilemma where
1:14:04 you’re not dealing with reality. The people who grew up in Google right now grew up in search. They grew
1:14:09 up in an era where they won over and over again. Sounds a lot like IBM in this story. They kept winning
1:14:15 over and over again and they’re dominant in their field until they’re not. And when you grow up in an
1:14:21 industry and you win over and over and over again in that industry, and then you have to change, you
1:14:27 reach one of those inflection points, those 10 X points that Grove talk about, uh, that becomes the
1:14:33 hardest point to change your mind about things. The very thing that success has driven for you. Now you have
1:14:38 to abandon and go all in, you have to burn the boats and, you know, close some doors, but you have to
1:14:44 close doors on the most profitable part of your business. And one final reflection is sort of, I
1:14:49 couldn’t fit this in the story, but I think it’s quite profound. Andy’s philosophy about how he connected
1:14:56 organizational adaptation to personal responsibility. He said, and I quote, “The sad news is nobody owes you
1:15:03 a career.” Your career is literally your business. You own it as a sole proprietor. You have one employee
1:15:09 yourself. You were in competition with millions of similar businesses, millions of other employees
1:15:14 all over the world. You need to accept ownership of your career, your skills, and the timing of your moves.
1:15:21 That is such a high agency way to think about things. And this is what I tell my kids, like you are running
1:15:26 a company. You, and I mentioned this a little bit earlier, you have a thousand GPUs. You have a thousand
1:15:31 employees at your disposal. And, you know, if you’re not telling them to do something or learning or getting
1:15:36 better, then they’re just sitting there waiting for you to tell them what to do. But you have one employee.
1:15:42 You are in competition with millions of other people, millions of people just like you, and nobody owes you
1:15:50 anything. And I think, you know, Andy’s childhood really informs that view. Okay. Let’s get to some of
1:15:58 our lessons here before we close this out. So lesson number one, bounce, but don’t break. Grove faced
1:16:03 devastating childhood circumstances. A father sent to labor camp, hiding his Jewish identity and
1:16:09 permanently losing his hearing from scarlet fever. Yet he transformed this difficulty into advantage,
1:16:14 developing extraordinary attention to subtle signals and the ability to make decisions with
1:16:20 incomplete information. When you can’t change your circumstances, you can change how you respond to
1:16:27 them. This is the lesson we also learned from Viktor Frankl. The last human freedom is the ability to
1:16:33 choose how you respond to a situation. Lesson number two, don’t care what they think. When
1:16:40 Grove’s semiconductor research contradicted established theory, experts wanted to burn him at the stake.
1:16:47 He built a culture where only data mattered, not opinions. Truth seeking requires the courage to
1:16:53 be disliked. So many people these days optimize their life around being liked. And that means that you
1:17:01 will never face the hard reality of inconvenient data. Three, face reality before it faces you.
1:17:08 Grove’s willingness to confront brutal facts became his defining leadership trait. When faced with Japanese
1:17:13 memory manufacturers overtaking Intel, he asked more of the pivotal question. If we got kicked out and the
1:17:18 board brought in new CEO, what would he do? This thought experiment created distance from his own
1:17:24 decisions and allowed him to abandon the very business that built Intel. He was effectively enabled to see
1:17:29 his blind spots. Emotional attachment to past decisions is such a silent killer.
1:17:36 Four, success sows the seeds of its own destruction. Even during Intel’s record profits of 1979,
1:17:42 Grove was hunting for the existential threats. Having survived Nazi occupation, he knew stability could
1:17:48 vanish overnight. Paranoia is the most valuable precisely when it seems least necessary. And there’s
1:17:53 a parallel here that just comes to mind as I’m reading this. But if you listen to interviews with Tom
1:17:58 Brady or Patrick Mahomes or Michael Jordan, there’s these key moments, there’s these games where they
1:18:05 win. I remember Brady won one game is like 24 to seven or something. And in the interview after he’s
1:18:09 like, we should have won that 45 to seven. He’s not celebrating the victories. Like, you know, we got
1:18:15 lucky. We, we, we should have been better. I should have been better. And I think that, you know, that is
1:18:22 something that people have, but you can also adapt. Five, Grove was a talent collector. He recognized
1:18:28 leadership as an orchestration rather than individual brilliance. As Intel grew, he focused on creating
1:18:34 systems where collective intelligence could flourish, particularly by amplifying middle managers’ voices.
1:18:40 He developed constructive confrontation where ideas could be ferociously debated. If you’re running an
1:18:44 organization or your senior level in an organization, your ceiling is determined by the
1:18:51 talent you attract, not the talent you possess. That is true of organizations. Six, he was a learning
1:18:58 machine. Grove transformed from a chemical engineer to semiconductor physicist to management guru in just
1:19:03 a decade. He approached each new domain with the same methodical rigor. In a changing world,
1:19:10 the ability to learn quickly compounds like interest. Seven, he had a taste for salt water.
1:19:16 While working as a waiter and learning English, Grove still graduated first in his class. Excellence
1:19:22 happens when nobody’s watching. The gap between good and great is filled with voluntary hardships that
1:19:28 others refuse to endure. Eight, it takes what it takes. Grove’s work ethic was relentless and
1:19:35 unconstrained by conventional boundaries. At Fairchild, he authored 30 scientific articles and filed patents
1:19:41 while simultaneously teaching at Berkeley. When manufacturing problems threatened Intel’s existence,
1:19:46 Grove created statistical systems tracking every production variable, well before these type of
1:19:53 analytics were normal or standard or even acceptable. Sometimes progress requires both working smarter
1:20:01 and harder. Nine, positioning is leverage. Grove never merely reacted to opportunities. He methodically
1:20:06 positioned himself at the intersection of his talents and emerging trends. Before joining Fairchild,
1:20:11 for example, he researched 22 different companies, dividing them into categories based on his interest
1:20:16 versus qualifications. When Moore and Noyce mentioned they were starting Intel, he immediately recognized the
1:20:23 opportunity as their operational compliment. He mastered his circumstances rather than being mastered by them.
1:20:29 Number 10, ride the wave. When Grove identified the semiconductor revolution, he committed fully
1:20:37 rather than hedging his bets. Even when Intel’s 1103 memory chip had serious flaws under certain adverse
1:20:42 conditions, the thing just couldn’t remember. He still persevered because he knew they were riding an
1:20:49 unstoppable technological wave. When you get the trend right, you can overcome countless tactical failures.
1:20:54 What a story with Andy Grove. There’s so many lessons that you can take away here. I’m going to listen
1:21:05 to this one over and over again. Thanks for listening and learning with us. And be sure to sign up for my
1:21:12 free weekly newsletter at fs.blog/newsletter. I hope you enjoyed my reflections at the end of this episode.
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1:21:24 The Farnam Street website is where you can get more info on our membership program, which includes access
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0:00:06 What’s up, y’all? It’s Kenny Beach, and we are currently watching the best playoff basketball since I can’t even remember when.
0:00:09 This is what we’ve been waiting for all season long.
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0:00:24 New episodes through the playoffs available on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.
0:00:27 Subscribe to Small Ball with Kenny Beach so you don’t miss a thing.
0:00:30 Support for the show comes from BetterHelp.
0:00:33 While mental health awareness is growing, there’s still a lot of progress to be made.
0:00:37 This Mental Health Awareness Month, you can take steps to take care of your own well-being and help break the stigma.
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0:00:57 That’s BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Prof G.
0:01:02 Welcome to Raging Moderates.
0:01:03 I’m Scott Galloway.
0:01:04 And I’m Jess Katarlov.
0:01:05 Jess, how are you?
0:01:05 I’m great.
0:01:06 Yeah?
0:01:08 I’m refreshed from my vacation.
0:01:09 Oh, how was that?
0:01:10 You were in Italy, right?
0:01:11 It was really good.
0:01:11 Well…
0:01:12 Spain.
0:01:14 Traveling with a three- and one-year-old is brutal.
0:01:15 Yeah.
0:01:22 And I have many thoughts on how much nicer it is in Europe vis-a-vis having little kids.
0:01:24 Like, they don’t make you feel terrible about it.
0:01:30 And at the airport, there’s a special line for families that are just, like, covered in strollers and diapers.
0:01:35 And you feel at one with those of you who’ve taken the little kid plunge.
0:01:37 But it was a great trip.
0:01:38 How was your week?
0:01:39 Really nice.
0:01:40 Back in London.
0:01:41 And it’s sunny here.
0:01:44 So London, when it’s sunny, is the nicest city in the world.
0:01:47 So for a good, like, 15, 18 days a year, it’s a fantastic city.
0:01:51 But what you said about family in Europe, it does really resonate.
0:02:01 The example I would use, it kind of typifies what I’ll call a more focused concentration or respect for families, is in Germany, there are these beer gardens everywhere.
0:02:05 But they also have trampolines and carousels.
0:02:06 So it’s like there’s something for everybody.
0:02:09 You go get a beer, and then your kids go crazy.
0:02:12 And maybe it’s because the cities I’ve lived in, it’s pretty segregated.
0:02:19 It’s like people who are cursed with families and paying that price, you need to go over here, and then adults only over here.
0:02:25 And it seems like Europe does a much better job of integrating or of a hybrid model, if you will.
0:02:25 Yeah.
0:02:29 You know, you bring your kid out to dinner no matter the time, and they fall asleep in the stroller.
0:02:30 Yeah, it’s fine.
0:02:33 There’s stroller parking, and no one’s giving you the side eye.
0:02:37 It’s the kind of stuff, I know, in life, everyone’s talking about these falling birth rates.
0:02:40 But I was like, do we want a third?
0:02:41 Like, am I ovulating?
0:02:42 We could do this.
0:02:44 And then, no dice.
0:02:45 There is no third baby.
0:02:46 Tables for five are much harder.
0:02:47 Four is much easier.
0:02:56 And by the way, just along those lines, I’m convinced that you’d get much more passive hostility if you bring your kid to a restaurant where I live in Soho than a dog.
0:02:58 Because dogs are cool, right?
0:03:01 It’s like, oh, we have water bowls, but no children allowed.
0:03:02 No children allowed.
0:03:03 I totally agree.
0:03:11 Anyways, today, we’re discussing Biden’s cancer diagnosis and a new book about his cover-up, The Future of the GOP’s Megabill.
0:03:12 And we have Preet Bharara.
0:03:15 Preet, my good, good friend, my one call.
0:03:17 Also, I got a story about Preet.
0:03:19 Do you know that scene from Tootsie?
0:03:21 You’re probably too young to have seen the movie Tootsie.
0:03:22 No, I love Tootsie.
0:03:32 And Bill Murray is like, just got such a great rap and all these people are surrounding him and raptured and rubbing his shoulders and all these women are just like looking fondly and adoringly at him.
0:03:35 Vox had this, or was it a code conference?
0:03:40 Something care pulled together where she got Tim Cook and Jeff Bezos and, I don’t know, everybody.
0:03:42 Just casually got Tim Cook and Jeff Bezos.
0:03:49 And there was a party afterwards, and I saw this semicircle of people enraptured by this guy.
0:03:55 And I walk over, and there was Preet in his suit and his dreamy blue eyes swirling around a glass of wine.
0:03:56 And I’m not exaggerating.
0:03:57 It was like that scene.
0:04:00 Everyone was just hanging on his every word.
0:04:01 I don’t know.
0:04:06 He’s like the sexiest man alive or the sexiest former Southern District, head of the Southern District.
0:04:06 Anyways.
0:04:08 Well, that’s a much more limited group.
0:04:10 I would give him even bigger than just S-D-N-Y.
0:04:11 Low bar.
0:04:17 But he is, for people who are attracted to intelligence, there’s like a lane.
0:04:18 What’s it called?
0:04:20 People attracted to smart men.
0:04:21 No, that’s like everybody.
0:04:24 But there’s like, oh, sapiosexual.
0:04:25 Sapiosexual.
0:04:26 Okay.
0:04:31 We could have spent two years with this uncomfortable pause, and I wouldn’t have gotten to sapiosexual.
0:04:32 So I’m fascinated by meaning.
0:04:33 Just a quick review.
0:04:39 The three things that women find most sexually attractive in a man are, one, his ability to signal future resources, not even just current resources.
0:04:40 You have to have a plan.
0:04:43 Two, intellect, to your point.
0:04:45 You know the fastest way to communicate intellect, Jess?
0:04:47 I don’t know.
0:04:48 Humor.
0:04:48 Oh.
0:04:50 Humor is the fastest way.
0:04:51 Is that why you’re so funny?
0:04:52 It’s the only way I had game.
0:04:57 If you can make a woman laugh, she will have coffee and go on a date with you.
0:04:58 And laugh in bed, too.
0:04:59 I get that.
0:05:06 When people are like, oh, it’s supposed to be so serious, I’m like, what is funnier than sex or, like, the weird stuff that goes on around it?
0:05:07 A hundred percent.
0:05:15 And then the third thing, because I’m trying to dig my way out of this hole, the third thing is kindness, which is the most underrated.
0:05:30 It’s the thing that men don’t realize is actually very attractive, is how you treat service people, your clear commitment to your parents, because women at some point know deep down that they might be vulnerable during gestation or raising kids and they want someone who’s kind.
0:05:34 Anyways, that’s nothing to do with anything we’re talking about today.
0:05:35 Well, kind of.
0:05:37 I mean, we’re talking about humanity and this is humanity.
0:05:37 There we go.
0:05:38 All right, let’s get into it.
0:05:40 It’s been another wild week in politics.
0:05:47 While Trump was overseas and getting the world treatment from the Saudis during his Middle East trip, his legislative parties were falling apart back home.
0:05:56 And Washington conservative hardliners in the House Budget Committee sank a key vote on Trump’s domestic bill, only to reverse course late Sunday after GOP leaders promised changes.
0:06:04 Those include stricter Medicaid work requirements, cutting Biden-era green energy tax credits and removing Medicaid access for undocumented immigrants.
0:06:08 But of course, Trump wasn’t about to let the chaos back home steal the spotlight.
0:06:14 During a business stop in the UAE, he pivoted back to one of his favorite topics, tariffs, and not just talk.
0:06:25 He announced his administration plans to skip negotiations entirely and slap new tariffs on dozens of countries, a move that could rattle global markets and strain relations with key U.S. allies in Europe and Asia.
0:06:34 And if that were enough political whiplash, on Sunday, it was announced that Joe Biden was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer.
0:06:47 The news comes just days before the release of a new book by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, which raises fresh questions about what the public didn’t know and what insiders did know about Biden’s physical condition during the 2024 campaign.
0:06:59 According to the reporting, Biden’s health was deteriorating so rapidly that aides feared he might need a wheelchair if he won re-election, but they kept it quiet, taking every possible step to keep him upright until he eventually dropped out.
0:07:03 Jess, let’s start with Biden’s tragic news for him and his family.
0:07:04 What do you make of it all?
0:07:09 Well, it’s incredibly sad to hear that he has cancer.
0:07:11 It’s something that touches all of our lives.
0:07:13 I lost my dad to cancer.
0:07:21 And reading that it’s a very aggressive form that’s already permeated the bones, that’s terrible news all around.
0:07:37 And I hope that he and his family are able to spend some time tuned out from what is to be a savage week in politics because of the release of this book and the Robert Hurr special counsel tapes that came out as well.
0:07:40 And a lot of people are jumping on that bad wagon.
0:07:44 So I hope that they can find some time for themselves, and I trust that they’re getting great medical care.
0:07:59 It also is opening up this Pandora’s box even further about cover-ups and how it’s possible that he has progressed so far without telling the public what’s been going on.
0:08:00 Was he sick while he was in office?
0:08:09 Dr. Zeke Emanuel, one of the Emanuel brothers, was on Morning Joe Monday morning and said his expectation would be that he would have had this for 10 years.
0:08:22 I didn’t know a lot about prostate cancer, and I’m not going to pretend that I’m any sort of expert, but I didn’t even know that you—it’s now advised that you not get checked your PSA levels after you turn 70.
0:08:25 He’s an 82-year-old man, so has he been not checking this?
0:08:27 He has a Gleason score of 9.
0:08:30 It goes from 2 to 10, which seems very advanced.
0:08:34 They found out that he was sick through a UTI.
0:08:37 Has he not had a UTI for the past several years?
0:08:49 There’s a lot of open-ended questions, and I mostly want him and his family to feel good and secure and get the care that they need, and also for this week to not be as ugly as I expect that it is going to be.
0:08:50 What about you?
0:08:57 Yeah, look, he’s a good man, and anytime you hear about someone who gets this kind of news, you have empathy for them and their family.
0:09:02 I go more to what it means for the nation and sort of what we can draw from it.
0:09:07 An 82-year-old diagnosed with prostate cancer is not an unusual diagnosis.
0:09:13 I mean, basically, what was strange here and is a bit of a wake-up call is that it had gotten so advanced.
0:09:19 You’d think the president would have, I just joined one of these high-end medical concierge clinics, and basically, they just scan you all the time.
0:09:30 And I’m just shocked that it would have gotten that far, that a Gleason of 9, if anyone should catch stuff early, I would have thought it was the president.
0:09:32 It’s a terrible diagnosis.
0:09:37 I’m not a doctor, but it just doesn’t, you know, this is very bad news for the Biden family.
0:09:41 I think on a larger level, I think we need age limits.
0:09:53 If he had been reelected, he will probably spend the next one, two, five years severely impaired, not only because he’s going to be 83, 84, 85, but he’s going to be fighting a devastating illness.
0:09:57 And let’s hope that he survives and maybe even beats it.
0:09:59 But what would that have meant if he was the president?
0:10:02 It would have meant that he couldn’t take foreign trips.
0:10:04 It would have meant that no one trusted him to make decisions.
0:10:07 It would have meant constant lying.
0:10:19 There would have been a full-time spin protection lying circle, an informal cabinet doing nothing but trying to protect him and continue to lie about his faculties and abilities.
0:10:22 Well, it would have been President Kamala Harris.
0:10:23 Would it have been?
0:10:25 Do you think, see, this is what I’m not sure of, Jess.
0:10:27 I think the guy is a good man.
0:10:32 I also think he’s a raging fucking narcissist, as is many of the people who get to D.C.
0:10:34 Do you think he would have handed over the mantle?
0:10:35 I’m not sure he would have.
0:10:41 I think he would be more likely to, having at least clocked that he won the second term and beaten Donald Trump again.
0:10:46 But people are doing a lot of reassessments of who they think Joe Biden is.
0:10:49 And yes, fundamentally, a good man.
0:11:06 But even the people who love him the most, like there was a very moving piece by Steve Shale, longtime Democratic consultant, Florida, worked for the Biden campaign 2020, saying like it’s a special kind of ego to run for president and to do it multiple times.
0:11:12 Right. And then to do it even in the face of the headwinds that we’re seeing when you are 78, 79, 80 years old.
0:11:21 The best thing that he can do is kind of recede from public life at this point, because every interview makes it worse for the rest of us.
0:11:33 Like the session on The View where Dr. Jill is still, you know, hopping in when necessary because he trails off or whatever is going on is really bleak.
0:11:49 But as someone caring for a dad who’s about to be 95 and has also had to had very uncomfortable conversations with CEOs who’ve done an amazing job for a company for 20 years and have to say to them, you’re too old.
0:11:51 We’re asking you to step down.
0:11:56 And they see it as, all right, you’re basically telling me to go home and die.
0:11:57 That’s how they see it.
0:12:03 You have to sort of almost shove all this goodwill and loyalty aside and do what’s best for the shareholders.
0:12:06 You know, these are really uncomfortable conversations.
0:12:13 Anyone who’s had an aging parent, they’re under the impression and they’re not bad people that, no, I can continue to live on my own.
0:12:17 And this is people much younger than President Biden.
0:12:23 And then when you have people around you enabling it, you can absolutely see how this happens.
0:12:33 And that it’s not, I don’t want to say it’s not their fault, but you can understand how an individual believes with the right people around me, I can continue to do the best job and I beat them once, I’ll beat them again.
0:12:37 And that’s why we need age limits on both sides.
0:12:48 There are 34-year-olds I know who are incredible, who would be, in my opinion, have the neurological, physical, emotional, and mental strength to be president.
0:12:51 And yet, they’re not eligible, though.
0:13:00 We’ve decided their body of experience, their brain development, their judgment and reasoning and their faculties are not up to the task of the highest office in the land.
0:13:05 But an 85-year-old at the end of his term is?
0:13:07 I don’t know anyone who’s beat biology.
0:13:10 Biology is undefeated.
0:13:17 And the notion that we’re just going to ignore it on the high end, we need age limits for the Supreme Court.
0:13:25 And we need, okay, if you cannot be an elected office beyond, I would pick 70, but okay, maybe 75.
0:13:28 And here’s the thing, it’s also the kindest thing to do.
0:13:38 Because what I’ve seen of corporations is when they have mandatory retirement and they have mandatory tenure limits on the directors, you want to talk about people who have fucking nothing going on.
0:13:43 But occasionally, they get to show up to a board meeting and have a free dinner and think big thoughts.
0:13:50 And you’ve got to tell these people whose companies kicked them out a long time ago, no, you can’t be on this board any longer.
0:13:54 That is such an uncomfortable conversation that nobody wants to have it.
0:13:58 So what’s great is you have boards that have tenure limits.
0:14:01 You can be on this board for no more than 8, 10, or 12 years.
0:14:06 Not only will it be best for the country, but I think the kindest thing to do is not make it a question or an issue.
0:14:14 Once you hit 70 or 75, you go home a hero, and you spend time with your grandkids, and we’re done.
0:14:19 And I think that’s the conversation we should be having instead of like, it was some sort of malicious cover-up.
0:14:21 No, we’re all covering for our old aging parents.
0:14:29 We’re all trying to pretend and talk ourselves into believing that they’re okay, that they’re better than they are, and you see them at their best moments.
0:14:38 So I hope this inspires a productive conversation where we say, okay, Britain has age limits on their Supreme Court justices here.
0:14:40 Most countries or a lot of countries have them.
0:14:49 Let’s have an age limit on the presidency, our senators, our Congress people, and our Supreme Court justices.
0:14:56 It puts the country at risk when you have people this old with literally their finger on the button.
0:14:57 Your thoughts?
0:14:59 Yeah, I agree with you.
0:15:05 And I’ve had multiple conversations around this issue, and people push about, oh, you’re being ageist, et cetera.
0:15:08 If we’re talking about 75, I don’t think that’s that ageist.
0:15:12 If I said something like, oh, you know, you can’t even be 60, that would be ludicrous.
0:15:28 But if you’re talking about people where there is biology very clear about how your brain changes, how your body shuts down, that this is what we can expect at that stage in your life, why would you want that person as the leader of the free world?
0:15:33 Or why would you want that person as one of the nine most important legal minds in the country?
0:15:38 I think that people will come around to those kinds of conversations.
0:15:42 The issue is, will the folks who are still filling those positions get out of the way?
0:15:49 Because there are all of these older Democrats that are retiring, like Dick Durbin, right, who’s, you know, passing the torch, Gene Shaheen, et cetera.
0:16:00 And then you have someone who has the stamina and energy of a 30-year-old like Bernie Sanders, but in his 80s, who’s not slowing down or stopping.
0:16:10 The inconsistency on this issue is what’s really difficult for me because there are people that you can point to, like a Joe Biden, who seem very fit, right?
0:16:12 He’s out riding a bike.
0:16:13 He goes for jogs, et cetera.
0:16:23 And then you read some of the coverage from Original Sin from Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s book, and you see moments of a completely different Biden.
0:16:32 And I’ve been struggling with this personally because I do feel guilty as someone with an important role in the media.
0:16:34 And I defended Joe Biden.
0:16:40 I certainly was honest about what I was seeing, you know, like if he was falling or going, you know, in a weird direction.
0:16:43 I never got into that’s a cheap fake or a deep fake, for instance.
0:16:56 But certainly once that State of the Union speech came around where he went for like an hour and a half and then he was doing the rope line and making fun of Marjorie Taylor Greene and owning the room, I was like, Biden is back.
0:16:59 And that’s when Ezra Klein changed how he felt, Matt Ecclesias, et cetera.
0:17:19 And perhaps I shouldn’t have thought that Dean Phillips was out of his mind or been part of a chorus, more like what you were talking about, where he said it’s OK for somebody who might have a serious chance at winning the nomination or at least inspiring the Democratic Party to open their eyes and do some real self-reflection to get in there.
0:17:23 Because Dean Phillips was clear that he didn’t think that he was supposed to be the guy.
0:17:34 He wanted Gretchen Whitmer, Gavin Newsom, Wes Moore, these people that we talk about for 2028 to get in there earlier, but no one was raising their hand.
0:17:47 And some of that was probably that Biden wasn’t bad all the time, that you could have a meeting with him and he would be the same that he was 2019, 2020 when he won the presidency decidedly.
0:17:56 But a lot of it seems to have been just abject terror about the wrath of the party and the establishment when it turns on you.
0:18:04 Yeah. So I’m the original ageist. Bill Maher called me an ageist. And I said, yeah. And you know who else is ageist? Biology.
0:18:12 I think my 14-year-old makes really bad decisions. And I think my dad, left to his own devices, would make even more bad decisions.
0:18:17 And at some point we had to tell him he could no longer drive because he was going to kill someone.
0:18:24 Do you realize that people, I think it’s people over the age of 75, are dramatically more dangerous behind the wheel than a brand new 16-year-old?
0:18:28 We always talk about how dangerous new kids are and they drink and…
0:18:31 Well, their reflexes, right, are just completely gone?
0:18:32 Yeah. They’re really fucking old.
0:18:33 Yeah.
0:18:39 My reflexes aren’t what they used to be. I’m like, I can’t get over the fact that how my reflexes are degrading.
0:18:48 Anyways, in addition, the other benefit of having age limits is that we need to clear out more room for younger voices.
0:18:52 I see this every day in higher education.
0:19:00 There are so many young, outstanding academics who can’t get traction in their career and oftentimes end up leaving the profession
0:19:09 because some 84-year-old who was the bomb in Gap 1 accounting in 1973 won’t get the fuck out of the way because of tenure and won’t go home.
0:19:12 And it creates more uncomfortable conversations.
0:19:15 I mean, Goldman Sachs and McKinsey are great at this.
0:19:21 And that is, once you literally hit 45, they start politely nudging you out of the firm.
0:19:29 A, the firms are incredibly profitable, but they start creating basically retirement funds and you can access them once you retire.
0:19:42 They want you out because the only way they can continue to attract the type of human capital that continues to make their organizations perform at the highest level is it creates room for young people.
0:19:48 And one of the nice things about D.C. is it does attract a ton of young, incredible talent at a staff level.
0:20:03 But there are too many great young people in the Senate and the House who are thinking about running who don’t run because some fucking 85-year-old won’t get out of the way, who just shouldn’t be there.
0:20:20 But because they’ve been taking money from special interest groups forever, because the party will always support the incumbent because the incumbent does have the biggest chance of winning, we end up with a cross between the walking dead and the golden girls deciding public policy.
0:20:28 So I hope this inspires a more serious conversation, not about, oh, the Biden family, they did something wrong.
0:20:29 No, they didn’t.
0:20:30 They do what every family does.
0:20:33 They were trying to protect their loved one and they saw the best side of him.
0:20:38 But we need to have an honest conversation around age limits, which won’t happen.
0:20:51 We also have to have a serious conversation around the political strategy for navigating the fallout from this book and the continued conversations around the Biden era because it is not going away.
0:20:52 Oh, you think it’s a big deal.
0:20:53 So I think it’ll come and go.
0:20:56 I work at Fox News.
0:20:57 This ain’t going anywhere.
0:21:05 It will lead every newscast until there’s some feedback that the viewers aren’t into it anymore.
0:21:17 And the viewers are not going to not be into stories about Joe Biden not knowing who George Clooney was, even if that’s disputed by some people or that they were going to use a wheelchair or whatever else is to come.
0:21:18 And I haven’t read the book.
0:21:19 I’ve only read excerpts of it.
0:21:28 If you have people like Van Jones saying this is a crime against the republic, like the shouts are coming from within the House or whatever the term is for it.
0:21:35 I firmly believe that this cannot be allowed to become the main narrative.
0:21:36 It just absolutely can’t.
0:21:45 Like we have a moment where Trump is tanking our economy, where they’re pushing through this bill that’s going to cut $880 billion to Medicaid.
0:21:47 Americans are pessimistic about the economy.
0:21:50 We do have an election coming up in 2026.
0:21:55 It feels like forever away, but no, it really does feel like forever away, but it is coming.
0:22:01 And Democrats and myself included are always up for self-flagellation.
0:22:04 Republicans do no inward thinking, right?
0:22:05 Oh, we lost.
0:22:06 Let’s move on.
0:22:08 Sometimes let’s just even continue doing the same exact thing.
0:22:09 We didn’t lose.
0:22:10 The election was rigged.
0:22:15 And we’ll sit there and browbeat ourselves into oblivion.
0:22:23 And that’s what fills me with fear at this moment that we’re going to, you know, not just take the book for what it is, you know, read it, consume it.
0:22:26 Maybe you go see Tapper Speak Live or whatever.
0:22:28 I think it’s going to be at the 92nd Street Y next month.
0:22:37 But that we allow this to become the narrative and don’t own our own election campaign because Republicans get to set our agenda.
0:22:38 That’s freaking me out.
0:22:40 Well, here’s the thing.
0:22:41 This is a pretty safe prediction.
0:22:43 Age and cognitive decline.
0:22:44 It’s not linear.
0:22:47 And Donald Trump presents as more robust.
0:22:51 The next three and a half years are not good years for people that age.
0:22:51 Yeah.
0:22:56 If you just look at actuarial tables and obese, what is he, 78 or 79?
0:22:59 There’s like a one in three chance he dies while in office.
0:23:07 So the same things they were trying to cover up, the Democratic machine and the Biden family, are likely going to show up in this White House.
0:23:09 Because guess what, folks?
0:23:11 Biology always wins.
0:23:14 Okay, let’s take a quick break.
0:23:14 Stay with us.
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0:25:45 Donald Trump’s been back in office long enough to shock or surprise just about anyone who voted for him at this point.
0:25:53 Be it the Signal scandal or the tariff turnarounds, the Janine Pirro of it all, the way he talks about Ozempic.
0:25:56 And he takes the fat, the fat shot drug.
0:25:57 So rude.
0:26:02 I’m in London, and I just paid for this damn fat drug I take.
0:26:03 I said, it’s not working.
0:26:10 On Today Explained, we’re asking if any of his voters are experiencing voters’ remorse.
0:26:15 Especially those ones who are newer to his winning coalition.
0:26:18 Younger voters, black voters, Latin voters.
0:26:23 We’re heading to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to ask them if regrets?
0:26:24 Do they have a few?
0:26:28 And just by way of spoiler, to get this out of the way, the answer is yes.
0:26:29 They do.
0:26:34 And he takes the fat, the fat shot drug.
0:26:38 Welcome back.
0:26:40 Let’s turn to Congress.
0:26:43 What do you think is the path forward for Trump’s mega bill, or is there a path forward?
0:26:50 There’s always a path forward in Donald Trump’s Republican Party because they only care about pleasing him.
0:26:53 So they have a very slim majority, five votes.
0:26:58 It was a big setback on Friday when the bill failed out of the Budget Committee.
0:27:02 Chip Roy and four other GOP hardliners voted for the Democrats against it.
0:27:05 But lo and behold, Sunday night, now they’re for it.
0:27:06 Or they voted present.
0:27:09 Chip Roy has his moments, and then he caves.
0:27:16 And that’s the story for basically everyone in the Republican Party, save for Thomas Massey, who usually means what he says.
0:27:18 They’re going to move forward with this.
0:27:21 They’re going to increase the deficit by $3 trillion if it gets passed.
0:27:23 The big cut to Medicaid I already mentioned.
0:27:30 Now that the CBO has actually had time with the bill, some of these stats that are coming out would send you reeling.
0:27:35 You actually can’t process how somebody could be for a bill like this.
0:27:41 Like, people making between $17,000 and $51,000 could lose an average of $700 in after-tax income.
0:27:46 Those making $4.3 million or more would gain an average of $389,000.
0:27:51 The bottom 60% of taxpayers would get an average tax cut of $700 under the plan.
0:27:54 But over $10 million would lose their health insurance.
0:27:58 And I’m pretty sure that your health insurance is worth more than $700 in your pocket.
0:28:07 And I guess in a bright spot, if you take them at your word, which is always difficult, this bill is dead on arrival in the Senate.
0:28:10 You know, Josh Hawley had a New York Times op-ed saying you can’t cut Medicaid.
0:28:13 Ron Johnson wants more cut.
0:28:13 That’s my favorite.
0:28:17 The people who are like, no, I can’t be for this because it doesn’t cut enough.
0:28:19 But, you know, I’ll take it.
0:28:23 Susan Collins, Jerry Moran, all the rural hospitals are going to be gone.
0:28:27 It’s going to wipe out rural medical care in this country.
0:28:31 And every once in a while, it’s a good time to be a Democrat.
0:28:39 And in this case, it is because you have all of these Republicans whose feet are going to be held to the fire because they represent rural states.
0:28:43 And they’ve got millions of constituents that are saying, I’m going to have nowhere to go.
0:28:45 A, won’t have health care in the first place.
0:28:49 But then if I do get sick, I can’t even get to a hospital to get the care that I need.
0:28:50 Yeah.
0:28:52 And I think that’s the correct framing.
0:28:59 What I have seen is that it’s a tax cut for the top 5 percent and it’s a tax hike for the lower 95.
0:29:06 And in addition, the thing that I harp on about is it’s going to add what I’ve seen, about $4.5 or $5 trillion to the deficit.
0:29:08 I’ve seen numbers that are much bigger.
0:29:09 I’m taking the more conservative one.
0:29:13 That’s about $30,000 per household.
0:29:25 And keep in mind, the deficits that we’re racking up are not being used to fund education or fund technical development or make investments in infrastructure that could ultimately pay off for future generations.
0:29:31 It’s essentially to extend corporate tax cuts and increase defense spending.
0:29:38 And they’re trying to minimize some of that deficit reduction by cutting social services or, you know, as you said, Medicaid.
0:29:49 I uploaded my W-2s from last year into three different LLMs and said, how is the proposed Trump tax bill going to affect me?
0:29:51 And they came back with things.
0:29:53 I’m going to get wealthier.
0:29:56 And one even started off with, good news.
0:30:08 So, essentially, this is young people get to borrow money, $4.5 trillion, because the thing is, our credit is fine for probably 10, 20, maybe 30 years.
0:30:11 People are crying that, oh, yeah, interest rates will go up.
0:30:12 They already are.
0:30:16 We just lost our AAA credit rating from, I think it was Moody’s.
0:30:17 Moody’s, yeah.
0:30:26 So, we saw the 10-year go up, which means student loans, mortgages, everything, companies’ ability to borrow money to pay for additional factories.
0:30:30 So, basically, everyone in America is going to pay slightly more money for everything.
0:30:36 That’s what an increased interest rates do, such that we can fund a tax cut for the top 5%.
0:30:40 And our credit will be fine for a while.
0:30:42 I don’t think that there’s going to be a failed Treasury auction for a while.
0:30:53 But, effectively, what this is is people under the age of, call it 40, have to borrow an additional $5 trillion to pay for tax cuts for the old and the wealthy.
0:30:58 And people say, to me, it was the time, Scott, it’s not young versus old, it’s poor versus rich.
0:30:59 They’re the same fucking thing.
0:31:04 Because if you look at the people who would benefit most from this tax cut, yeah, they’re the rich.
0:31:07 But they usually are people in their 60s and 70s.
0:31:22 I think the Democrats need to do a better job of, you realize, this is like a household that’s taking on, right now the household makes $50,000, spends $70,000, has $370,000 in debt, and is about to take on another $50,000 in debt.
0:31:29 And, by the way, when mom and dad die, they’ll have spent all that time going to Cabo and partying and buying, you know, a Lexus.
0:31:33 But that debt is going to be inherited by their children.
0:31:38 It just, it strikes me as just such a criminal act against the young.
0:31:41 And we don’t frame it that way.
0:31:43 We say, okay, we need to lower taxes.
0:31:52 And also, I think if you came to the table and said, there are really some hard decisions to be made around our biggest entitlement program, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid.
0:31:56 You know, we have to make really ugly, severe cuts.
0:32:10 And we’re going to match those cuts proportionate or two to one with tax increases on corporations who are paying the lowest taxes since 1929, or in the very wealthy who continue to see a regressive or enjoy a regressive tax rate.
0:32:16 I think you could make a moral and an economic argument for making those types of really deep, terrible cuts.
0:32:29 And then said, OK, because there’s some hard decisions to be made and we’re going to start a path towards fiscal responsibility, which will ultimately lower the interest costs on our debt, which will ultimately lower the costs for everybody.
0:32:36 But, folks, we can’t afford to keep spending the way we’re spending and we can’t afford to not bring in more revenues.
0:32:43 I think I could have gotten on board with that, but instead they’re like, no, let’s cut people’s health care so we can give the top five percent tax cut.
0:32:53 And the Republicans pushing back on this thing for their TikTok moment, they did talk about the deficit, but it was all through the lens of the cuts don’t go deep enough.
0:32:56 And I’m like, Jesus Christ.
0:32:57 Yeah.
0:32:59 You don’t think these cuts are going deep enough?
0:33:01 That’s where you’re going with this?
0:33:03 The cruelty is the point.
0:33:10 In every aspect of Republican policymaking, the cruelty is the point.
0:33:12 And you’re totally right.
0:33:22 Contextualizing the deficit in real terms would be an enormous public service that if any of these politicians would like to get on board with, I would certainly amplify it.
0:33:25 I want to know about what it means for my mortgage rate.
0:33:27 I want to know what it means for my grocery bill.
0:33:37 I want to know what it means for, you know, how fast my 529 for my kids so that they can go to college is going to grow or be slowed by the deficit, et cetera.
0:33:38 All of that stuff.
0:33:43 But I think that you really need to make it as simple as possible.
0:33:46 Like, if you do this, you lose this.
0:33:51 We can choose a tax cut for the wealthy or nutritional assistance.
0:33:56 We can choose a tax cut for the wealthy or your Medicaid coverage.
0:33:57 We can choose.
0:34:02 I mean, remember, I mean, we were sold so many lies during the confirmation hearings.
0:34:05 But all this talk about it, we’re going to actually do an audit of the Pentagon.
0:34:07 Now, Secretary Hicks has told us that.
0:34:11 And lo and behold, there are no cuts to the Pentagon.
0:34:12 They’re increasing the budgets.
0:34:15 Republicans are never going to cut defense spending.
0:34:20 That is a lie that they tell you every single time, along with we actually care about the debt and the deficit as well.
0:34:37 So I really want Democrats to get, like, super simple, like, pretend you’re telling my 3-year-old what’s actually in this bill and draw that straight line from the tax cuts to the loss of services that matter to the lives of the average American.
0:34:41 And that’s not to say that the Americans aren’t getting it.
0:34:43 Trump is underwater in terms of how he’s handling the economy.
0:34:45 This bill is hugely unpopular.
0:34:48 But they live only for the day, right?
0:34:49 They love the one you’re with.
0:34:53 They’re not thinking about what happens in 26 or in 28.
0:34:59 They’re just trying to cram as much junk down our throats as possible, as quickly as possible.
0:35:01 And then they’re going to worry about the repercussions later.
0:35:01 Yeah.
0:35:04 So just let me cement my reputation as an ageist.
0:35:07 It really is old people fucking this country.
0:35:15 I mean, first off, if passed, this tax bill would be the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in a single law in U.S. history.
0:35:17 And it’s much more fun to create a class war.
0:35:19 But who are the rich again?
0:35:24 There aren’t a lot of 26-year-olds thinking, wow, this tax cut’s going to be great for me.
0:35:30 If you look at who owns shares, who benefits from these tax cuts, it’s the old.
0:35:31 And here’s the problem.
0:35:34 The old continue to have figured out a way to vote themselves more money.
0:35:35 Oh, and guess what?
0:35:37 We’re talking about cutting Medicaid.
0:35:42 But we’re not talking about cutting Medicare or Social Security, right?
0:35:44 Because that’s old people.
0:35:45 And old rich people.
0:35:46 Old rich people.
0:35:48 Because old rich people still use their Medicare.
0:35:50 Well, yeah, they still love their Medicare.
0:35:52 It’s great health care at a low price.
0:35:54 They still want, you know, I paid into it.
0:36:00 By the way, the majority of people who, once they take out Social Security, take out more than they put in.
0:36:02 And it’s not called a Social Security pension fund.
0:36:07 It’s called a Social Security tax, meaning it may not benefit you directly.
0:36:10 And then people say, Scott, but it’s not a deficit issue.
0:36:11 Well, of course it’s similar.
0:36:13 It’s a tax on young people.
0:36:19 When Social Security was initially conceived, there were 12 young people supporting every retiree.
0:36:24 Now it’s three to one and people are working and living 20 or 30 years longer.
0:36:29 And Jessica Tarlov and Scott Galloway should not get Social Security.
0:36:32 And here’s the problem going back to we need age limits in Congress.
0:36:42 Say we’re able to continue to live irresponsibly and live beyond our means and continue to take advantage of the full faith and credit of the U.S. government,
0:36:51 which has been earned through hard work and fiscal responsibility over 225 years, in 30 years, 75 percent of Congress will be dead.
0:36:53 See, above, they’re too fucking old.
0:36:58 So they don’t have a vested interest in the future of America.
0:36:59 I’ll be dead by then.
0:37:01 I mean, I know this firsthand.
0:37:07 I believe where I live in Florida will probably be underwater at some point.
0:37:10 But it’s probably going to be 50 years and I’ve done the math.
0:37:12 I’m just not that damn worried about it.
0:37:15 Whereas a 25-year-old is more concerned with climate change.
0:37:16 I understand that.
0:37:23 And we need more 25-year-olds in Congress such that we can be a little bit more future forward,
0:37:33 such that we can be thinking about the requisite long-term investments to ensure our kids and grandkids have the same types of opportunities we do.
0:37:37 So what is the incentive for people in Congress who are really fucking old?
0:37:37 Well, whatever.
0:37:42 Future generations will deal with warming oceans and an unsustainable debt load.
0:37:52 As long as my credit card continues to be accepted and I can continue feeding at the trough until I’m dead, I’m down with these ridiculously short-term policies.
0:37:58 These tax cuts, which largely benefit the wealthy, Republicans aren’t cutting defense spending, Social Security or Medicare,
0:38:00 all which would be unpopular with the constituents.
0:38:07 Instead, they’re going after the health and nutrition programs for the poorest Americans, which again is Latin for the youngest Americans.
0:38:13 So I’ve, again, this is, the bill just, it goes from bad to worse here.
0:38:15 The bill proposes cutting SNAP spending by 30%.
0:38:20 I can’t imagine a better investment than SNAP.
0:38:30 Okay, stop a kid from being obese such that he doesn’t have to spend $1,000 a month for a Zympic, is not clinically depressed, is able to make more money.
0:38:32 People who are obese make less money.
0:38:40 They’re more likely to need knee and hip replacements and be on kidney dialysis when they get older, which is really, really expensive.
0:38:43 SNAP beneficiaries only receive about $2 per meal.
0:38:55 The federal government spent $113 billion on SNAP in fiscal year 2023, making the 27 increased AMT exemptions permanent will reduce revenues by $140 billion a year.
0:39:03 So you could, essentially, if you just made the AMT exemptions, if you said they’re not permanent, if you had an alternative minimum tax,
0:39:09 such that wealthy people had to pay at least a certain amount, by the way, that amount isn’t high, it would fund SNAP.
0:39:16 And the thing about it is, distinct of the moral argument, you know, distinct of the sob argument, which Democrats scream into TikTok about,
0:39:23 we’ll have more money, we won’t have to spend as much money if we have a semi-healthy populace.
0:39:26 I’m done with the morality argument, they’re just stupid.
0:39:30 We’ve literally decided, okay, guys, give us your credit card, we’re going to run up.
0:39:33 It’s like that film Leaving Las Vegas, where Nicolas Cage says,
0:39:40 I’m such a fucking raging alcoholic, I am so addicted to alcohol, that I’ve given up any hope of rehab.
0:39:49 I’m just going to cash my last check for my severance pay, and I’m going to hang out with a prostitute and party like there’s no, you know, like it’s 1999, because I’m going to be dead soon.
0:39:52 That is how we are approaching our government right now.
0:39:55 We are Nicolas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas.
0:39:59 Elizabeth Shue was my dad’s number one crush in the entire world.
0:40:01 Oh, I feel so old, me and your dad.
0:40:04 Well, Andy’s dead on top of that, right?
0:40:05 She made a comeback.
0:40:08 He was much older, not much older, he would have been 72.
0:40:09 That’s bringing the conversation down.
0:40:12 She just did make a comeback, though, in the Karate, what’s it called?
0:40:14 The Karate Kid 100.
0:40:19 I didn’t see it, but you’re totally right about the investment part of it.
0:40:20 Like, just make the economic argument.
0:40:23 And, you know, I love the cruelty is the point.
0:40:24 I go back to it all the time.
0:40:27 Like, when Republicans oppose school lunches.
0:40:34 And you think, like, how is that physically possible, that you could say it’s a bad idea for kids to have food in their bellies?
0:40:35 Just make the argument, then.
0:40:38 You’re so concerned about how well we perform.
0:40:41 Guess when you can’t do any learning and you can’t function?
0:40:42 When you’re hungry.
0:40:47 So just give them a sandwich and let them do better in school.
0:40:50 It’s always the easiest stuff.
0:40:51 Like, the simple things.
0:40:56 And because they’re morally bankrupt, they won’t go with it.
0:41:04 It’s a really boring detail, but I just wanted to note that in the Energy and Commerce Committee last week, they went 26 hours straight.
0:41:07 Like, overnight, and Democrats introduced 33 amendments.
0:41:11 And all of them failed, which they knew because we didn’t have the numbers.
0:41:21 But they brought in all of these people who are on Medicaid to tell their stories about what would happen to them or the people who are close to them if the programs got cut.
0:41:24 And watching—I didn’t stay up all night for it.
0:41:26 C-SPAN had great coverage of it.
0:41:39 But watching democracy actually happening live in front of us and people using the process, I thought, A, this is a way that Democrats are fighting back and at least getting these stories out there to amplify.
0:41:57 But B, if we have that kind of energy across all of these committees and in the press and all of the social media posts surrounding this reconciliation bill, maybe it gets through the House, but it will be impossible for it to get through the Senate, at least in its current form.
0:42:00 Our producer, David, gave us some great data here.
0:42:07 So, essentially, one study found that children with access to Medicaid grew up healthier and less dependent on government benefits.
0:42:11 Medicaid spending delivered a 2% to 7% annual return on investment.
0:42:14 The sphere of the children ended up receiving disability payments.
0:42:23 And studies also show an association between SNAP participation and a reduction in health care costs by as much as $5,000 per person per year.
0:42:26 So, in sum, these are great investments.
0:42:27 It’s good business.
0:42:39 And then on the other side, the other thing that really pisses me off and people just don’t grasp, the estate tax exemption is going to be increased from $15 million to $30 million for married couples next year.
0:42:45 What that means is if you’re wealthy, you put stuff in an estate and it transfers tax-free down to your heirs.
0:42:51 And one of the things that distinguishes America from Europe is that we’ve always been somewhat against dynastic wealth.
0:43:00 And we tax the states such that we can make forward-leaning investments that give a ton of young people incentive to work hard such that they can make it.
0:43:07 Because the government is able to make great investments in technology, whether it’s the Internet or GPS or education, they give them a shot at being rich.
0:43:11 And Europe’s always been about kind of inherited family wealth.
0:43:14 Europe is now less dynastic on many levels than we are.
0:43:29 And the thing that is so insane about this is that if you look at studies on the relationship between money and happiness, once you get above, call it $30 million in wealth, you have no incremental happiness.
0:43:34 And what people don’t understand about these trusts, they value it at $30 million based on the value when it goes into the trust.
0:43:40 If it grows to be worth $100 million over 20 or 30 years, which isn’t unlikely, it all transfers tax-free.
0:44:04 So as someone who’s worked really hard and has aggregated some economic security, one of the things I want as a reward for my good fortune and my hard work is I want to give my kids a better life than the average kid.
0:44:06 Let me just come out of the closet.
0:44:12 I want to give my kids enough money so they can have a house and know that they don’t have to worry about education costs.
0:44:13 All right?
0:44:15 You can easily do that.
0:44:19 Easily do that with $10 million.
0:44:20 You don’t need $30 million.
0:44:22 You don’t even need really $10 million.
0:44:29 To give your kid a head start because you think, I’ve worked so fucking hard, I want to give my kids advantage.
0:44:31 I think that is a natural instinct.
0:44:34 All my friends who talk a big game about, well, I’m going to pay through their college and then they’re on their own.
0:44:36 None of them do that.
0:44:37 Their kid is a good kid.
0:44:40 They can’t pursue their dreams without help from mom and dad.
0:44:42 Mom and dad want them to live near them.
0:44:45 Inflation, they end up giving their kids money.
0:44:45 Fine.
0:44:50 I think that’s one of the benefits in what we work so hard when we’re parents is such that we can help our kids out.
0:44:57 But anything above, call it $5 million or $10 million, not even that much, you think that gives your kid incremental happiness?
0:44:58 It doesn’t.
0:45:02 Well, a lot of people feel like it hurts them in the long term.
0:45:07 Like the Bill Gateses of the world, obviously we’re talking about billions of dollars now, but he’s not giving them anything, right?
0:45:10 Or they each get a million dollars or something like that?
0:45:10 Yeah.
0:45:12 I mean, there’s different ways to cut the cat there.
0:45:18 I mean, my guess is they’re getting indirectly a lot of Bill Gates’s kid gets a leg up on a lot of levels economically.
0:45:21 But anyways, my point is, let’s call it a million bucks.
0:45:23 You know, the kid’s not going to go hungry.
0:45:25 You know, the kid can afford education.
0:45:30 Probably that’s going to help in terms of a down payment towards the house, right?
0:45:33 Anything above that, you get no incremental happiness.
0:45:34 You get none.
0:45:44 So, and it goes back to the notion, I think there should be an AMT tax of 50 to 70% on anything above $10 million because it’s not going to get you an incremental happiness.
0:45:51 Whereas making forward-leaning investments with that capital to give younger people more of a shot, that gives a lot of people a lot of happiness.
0:45:58 But all of this shit is not only giveaways, but it doesn’t create any incremental value for anybody.
0:46:09 The difference between holding on to $11 million of your $15 million in earnings versus being able to hold on to $9 million of your $15 million in earnings, no incremental benefit to you or your family.
0:46:13 There’s nothing you’re going to be able to do that you weren’t able to do before.
0:46:15 It’s not going to increase your health, your well-being.
0:46:17 It’s not going to lessen any more of your anxiety.
0:46:18 You’re just going to be richer.
0:46:19 You’re just going to have a bigger number.
0:46:33 What I find so disappointing about this tax bill is, okay, I understand that the top 1% and in most instances the 0.1% want a bigger number, but you’re not going to increase the well-being of anybody.
0:46:35 You’re not going to increase the happiness.
0:47:01 All you’re going to do is create tremendous anxiety and despair among those people losing their Medicaid and create additional costs for everybody through higher interest rates because it’s irresponsible, racking up deficits, and increase taxation or reliance on government services and nonprofits when all of these people start getting their toes and their fingers cut off because of full-blown diabetes that wasn’t arrested earlier in their life or that they didn’t get treatment for.
0:47:06 So we make the moral argument all the time as Democrats.
0:47:11 I think we need to start making the economic argument that this is just going to cost us a lot more down the road.
0:47:24 All we’re doing is creating a fiscal disaster for the government and for the people who are still going to be around, i.e. 25% of Congress will still survive, still be around.
0:47:25 And we don’t do that.
0:47:29 We just scream and cry about the morality of it all.
0:47:31 We need to move to the economic side.
0:47:37 Yeah, and also emphasize that we’re talking about a difference in a tax rate from 37 to 39%, right?
0:47:42 This isn’t like we’re suddenly going to be raiding your coffers at a level that you can’t withstand.
0:47:52 And I wish that more rich people would talk about these issues the way that you are or, like, you know, Ro Khanna represents the most billionaires of any district in the country.
0:47:56 He says constantly, we need to tax the rich more, tax the rich more.
0:47:58 And they still send him back.
0:47:59 These are not people who are stupid.
0:48:01 These are not people who are economically illiterate.
0:48:05 They’re obviously seeing something more to the story.
0:48:16 And maybe we should get them on a roadshow to talk about why it’s important to support policies that are more evenly distributed across different social classes.
0:48:18 Okay, let’s take a quick break.
0:48:19 Stay with us.
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0:49:29 Welcome back.
0:49:34 Joining us today is a former federal prosecutor and host of the Stay Tuned with Preet podcast.
0:49:35 Welcome to the show.
0:49:36 A good friend.
0:49:40 And my one—this is true.
0:49:42 This is—here we go.
0:49:42 Look at Preet.
0:49:43 Okay.
0:49:44 My one phone call.
0:49:59 When shit gets real for the dog, which it will at some point, and I find myself in a very unfortunate situation, I have one call and I have told Preet that he is my one call and that if he ever sees my phone or my caller ID come up, he is to answer immediately.
0:50:00 Must take it.
0:50:07 He is both a sharp political or sharp legal mind, I should say, but also just very smart, very calm kind of guy you want in your corner.
0:50:08 Anyways, good to see you, Preet.
0:50:08 Good to see you.
0:50:15 I have to apologize, given that introduction, that I’m not in my usual barrister uniform.
0:50:16 I’m a little casual today.
0:50:17 Oh, that’s good.
0:50:18 Yeah.
0:50:22 If and when you should call upon me for my legal duties, I will have the proper attire.
0:50:24 I appreciate that.
0:50:25 What’s on your mind?
0:50:30 So the reason I reached out to you, well, we’re good, good friends.
0:50:35 And in addition, we’ve been talking a lot about how to more effectively push back.
0:50:40 I think like a lot of Democrats, we share a real frustration that there is a more robust pushback.
0:51:04 And one of the ideas, I won’t say we, that I’ve suggested is that if you are essentially shipping people to black sites or what, in my opinion, fits the definition of concentration camps outside, sending people outside of a, to a place where they’re no longer subject to the same rights they would have on their domestic territory or where they’re shipped off from, that you are subject to criminal prosecution.
0:51:13 And that people who engage in illegal incarceration or corruption or fraud are still subject to, at some point, prosecution.
0:51:17 And I have said this with absolutely no legal domain expertise.
0:51:19 Why should that stop you ever, Scott?
0:51:20 There you go.
0:51:20 There you go.
0:51:21 It’s perfect for 2025.
0:51:23 There you go.
0:51:25 So you are that domain expertise.
0:51:30 Is this a viable strategy or am I just barking at the moon here?
0:51:33 So a couple of, I’m a lawyer, so a couple of prefatory things.
0:51:35 It depends on what you’re talking about.
0:51:37 It depends on what the conduct is.
0:51:39 It depends on what an investigation reveals.
0:51:55 I was just thinking as you were speaking, literally about black sites, there was a lot of debate after the second Bush administration about whether or not people who were acting on orders, literally to take people to black sites, whether CIA officers should be subject to investigation and prosecution.
0:52:04 And Barack Obama, you know, Democrat, liberal, decided in consultation with his aides that that would not be an appropriate use of the Justice Department’s resources.
0:52:07 And people can debate that and go back and forth on that.
0:52:11 There’s not a profoundly deep history in recent times of doing that sort of thing.
0:52:19 The other thing I’d point out, it sounds like, from what you were postulating in your question, is something that’s going to take place in three and a half years.
0:52:30 Something that would take place in a future administration that doesn’t do a lot to solve the violations of not just norms and not just regulations, but statutes that may be going on.
0:52:40 The third thing I would say is, you know, to the extent people want accountability and fairness and the rule of law to be back in the seat, that’s all well and good.
0:52:50 I will say that to the extent people are thinking about that, as some people listening to this might be, as a political strategy, that has been not borne out, right?
0:52:54 Donald Trump was, in fact, subjected to multiple criminal investigations.
0:52:58 He was subjected to two impeachments, and it didn’t stop him politically.
0:53:06 So I guess it depends on what, you know, if we’re talking about proper rule of law accountability, that’s one thing, which would be not for a while.
0:53:08 And we can talk about the particulars of that.
0:53:18 But the idea that there are some parties now, given the Justice Department, that’s in the full control, more than it’s ever been, in the hands of a sitting president, those things are not viable for a while.
0:53:30 And as a political matter, they can backfire, as I think there’s a decent argument that they did with respect to the prosecutions of Donald Trump, even the one that was completed and successful by the Manhattan DA’s office.
0:53:33 So have I—is that enough cold water?
0:53:35 Let me just—
0:53:35 Scott’s depressed.
0:53:38 He’s going to start crying any moment now that you’ve—
0:53:39 Well, it is a weekday.
0:53:45 Let me just double-click on that or push—the only place I would offer pushback is that I think it’s a political strategy,
0:53:51 reminding people that many of the crimes that may or may not be committed right now, under the prosecution of the full letter of the law,
0:53:55 probably have a statute of limitations that is greater than three years and nine months.
0:53:55 Yeah.
0:54:01 And there’s a political consideration, and I’ve suggested that at some point, if we retake control of Congress,
0:54:06 that we draft legislation that probably won’t pass or be vetoed that says, you know, El Salvador,
0:54:13 keep in mind when the House slips back or when governments change, if we find that you, in fact,
0:54:17 were incarcerating U.S. citizens, regardless of whether you thought it was a good deal with the president,
0:54:20 that you’ll be subject to economic sanctions.
0:54:28 I would outline that right now, that I think a certain reminder that America’s memory is long and our reach is far
0:54:36 might actually temper some of what I believe is extraordinarily unethical at a minimum and likely illegal,
0:54:38 that it actually might be effective.
0:54:43 But what you’re pushing back on is, no, to date, it hasn’t been.
0:54:44 It’s been the opposite.
0:54:45 It’s been ineffective.
0:54:46 Is that accurate?
0:54:48 Yeah, but like, you know, hope springs eternal.
0:54:51 I will say also, just a couple more things.
0:54:57 One, people should stand up for the rule of law and call out potential violations and transgressions where they see them.
0:55:02 Point one is, these guys act like they’re always going to be in power.
0:55:07 They act like there’s never going to be a next administration, and it’s certainly not going to be a democratic administration.
0:55:10 And that is just not so.
0:55:12 We’ll see what happens in 2028.
0:55:18 But there is a, you know, mathematically speaking, a 50% chance that he succeeded by a democratic administration.
0:55:26 And all the precedents that he has set and his people have set for the threshold and the standard for not just prosecuting,
0:55:33 but opening up a difficult and aggressive investigation are fair game for the other side, right?
0:55:38 I’m not saying that there should be a tit for tat and that if there was over-aggressive weaponization of the Justice Department,
0:55:40 that the next folks should do the same thing.
0:55:45 But, you know, people are human beings, and people might want to do that, and that’s a distinct possibility.
0:55:54 If you look at the standard set by the Trump administration for when they see fit to send FBI agents or ICE agents or Secret Service agents to someone’s door
0:56:00 and look at someone, whether it’s Ed Martin, the departing U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia,
0:56:12 or a cabinet-level position like DNI Tulsi Gabbard, the way they’re talking about what prompts a criminal investigation and more than that,
0:56:18 what prompts a declaration that someone is guilty before being investigated, before being charged, and before being convicted is quite low.
0:56:26 I mean, just take a look at the example of, since we’re in the wake of the controversy over former FBI Director Jim Coen.
0:56:26 Seashell Gate?
0:56:27 Seashell Gate.
0:56:28 Yeah.
0:56:29 That’s a great name.
0:56:30 I hadn’t thought of that.
0:56:31 My gift to you.
0:56:32 Thank you.
0:56:34 Was it a dumb thing to do?
0:56:35 Should he have thought better of it?
0:56:39 Should he have been aware of the fact that some people would interpret 86 to mean something other than,
0:56:41 you know, get rid of somebody who’s in public office?
0:56:42 Sure.
0:56:49 But you had Tulsi Gabbard, who is a Senate-confirmed, considerably important, powerful person in the Trump administration,
0:56:55 who says outright, based on that ambiguous Instagram post,
0:57:02 that Jim Comey must not only be investigated, but has already declared and decided that he should be imprisoned and should go to jail,
0:57:04 you know, tells you what their standards are.
0:57:08 And if that’s the standard for investigation, there are a whole host of people already.
0:57:14 And I would be willing to bet a lot of money, if not all my money, that there will be further targets on the other side, on the Trump side,
0:57:18 who have said and done things that constitute less ambiguous threats.
0:57:21 Trump himself has used violent imagery, violent language.
0:57:27 Donald Trump’s son has used violent imagery and language with respect to, among other people, Nancy Pelosi’s husband,
0:57:29 who was brutally beaten within an inch of his life.
0:57:36 You have other supporters of Donald Trump who have themselves used the 86 term with respect to Joe Biden.
0:57:38 So what’s fair for one is fair for the other.
0:57:43 And so I don’t see a problem with people raising the specter of that,
0:57:48 given the low, low standard that’s being set for investigation and prosecution by the Trump folks.
0:57:54 I know Scott is very interested in kind of the personal revenge tour of this,
0:57:56 or what could be coming down the pipe.
0:57:58 I’m not advocating that.
0:58:00 That’s not how I would frame it, Jess, but go ahead.
0:58:03 No, like what could happen to these people?
0:58:06 Like we finally grow up here and start pushing back.
0:58:07 We start thinking like them.
0:58:07 That tour?
0:58:08 That tour.
0:58:13 And I’m buying a ticket for that tour, no matter how much it costs.
0:58:14 You’ve made me defensive, Jess.
0:58:14 Sorry.
0:58:15 I’m sorry.
0:58:15 Go ahead.
0:58:16 I apologize.
0:58:17 I feel like this is our first time.
0:58:18 I’m calling Freet.
0:58:19 I’m calling my one call.
0:58:22 But if you’re calling right now, I’m busy.
0:58:22 I’m already here.
0:58:24 Well, he’s already here.
0:58:24 There you go.
0:58:25 Take advantage.
0:58:30 A couple of things that I’m curious about, not so much on the individual front, but I
0:58:35 hear a lot of the courts are doing their job right now, at least when it comes to policy
0:58:40 issues, especially in the realm of immigration, where it feels like, you know, every level from
0:58:44 local judges up to the Supreme Court are saying, no, you can’t do this, right?
0:58:46 You can’t be using the Alien Enemies Act, et cetera.
0:58:53 How would you rate the level of pushback or effectiveness that we’re seeing from the courts
0:58:54 right now on the policy front?
0:58:59 I think pretty good, but it depends on how you’re grading them.
0:59:03 It’s like saying, you know, a math teacher is holding ground by telling a student that
0:59:05 2 plus 2 does not equal 5, right?
0:59:07 Yeah, we should applaud that.
0:59:12 In an Orwellian environment in which there are school teachers teaching and accepting an
0:59:17 answer of 5 being the sum of 2 plus 2, judges saying otherwise are doing a great job, and
0:59:17 it’s important.
0:59:22 But let’s not lose sight of the fact that we’re in a crazy time when people have to explain
0:59:22 that.
0:59:28 We’re at a crazy time when the Supreme Court that’s loaded with conservatives, three of
0:59:35 whom have been appointed by Trump himself, have decided, you know, literally, not so fast.
0:59:38 If you’re going to deport someone, you’ve got to look at what the law says.
0:59:42 And Supreme Court case after Supreme Court case has interpreted the Constitution to mean there’s
0:59:44 got to be some due process.
0:59:48 It doesn’t have to be a full-blown trial, like we’re being scared with, but some due process
0:59:51 is to make sure that you’ve got the right person, and the person is deportable, and is
0:59:54 deportable to the place where you’re saying, and it’s got to be more than 24 hours.
1:00:02 So, you know, that I think is a good sign, and I don’t mean to denigrate it or downplay
1:00:08 it at all, but it’s a little bit like 2 plus 2 equals 5, and it’s refreshing in a black-is-white,
1:00:15 fake-news, up-is-down universe for people to say, you know, you know what, math is math,
1:00:16 and the Constitution is the Constitution.
1:00:17 It’s good.
1:00:18 Good.
1:00:19 We have some good news.
1:00:20 I’m just curious.
1:00:25 I imagine you’re still close with it, certainly in touch with people still at SDNY or, you know,
1:00:27 from your former life.
1:00:27 Yeah.
1:00:32 How do people who are in the business of doing justice, which is what your book was called,
1:00:39 feeling right now about getting up and going to work and figuring all of this out in the
1:00:40 Trump era?
1:00:40 Yeah.
1:00:42 You know, there are two sides to the coin.
1:00:48 I still think it is the case that the massive work being done by federal prosecutors in the
1:00:53 country and Department of Justice lawyers, whether in Washington or in the various U.S.
1:00:59 attorneys’ offices, is apolitical, continues apace, whether it’s violent crime prosecutions
1:01:02 or fraud prosecutions and the like.
1:01:05 You know, there are different priorities and emphases that Pam Bondi has put forward in
1:01:07 various memos since she started.
1:01:10 But the bread and butter of the office is probably the same.
1:01:15 Now, with respect to certain fraught prosecutions and investigations that get a lot of outsized
1:01:21 attention, like of people who are or may be in the president’s ambit or who are elected
1:01:23 officials, you know, maybe it’s a little bit different.
1:01:30 And, you know, everyone can feel unhappy, even if it’s not one of their cases, if they think
1:01:35 there’s a thumb on the scale or they think that people are being, you know, unduly harassed.
1:01:40 I think there is a certain amount of trepidation on the part of a lot of people at the Department
1:01:40 of Justice.
1:01:45 But I still think that the majority of folks are just keeping their heads down and doing
1:01:48 their job, even if they’re not so thrilled at what’s going on at the top.
1:01:54 So I have a question that requires more political judgment and legal expertise, although it does
1:01:55 involve the law.
1:01:59 And you referenced earlier that I just called it seashell gate.
1:02:05 I love what Yuval Noah Harari said, that democracies thrive on trust while dictatorships are built
1:02:06 on fear.
1:02:12 My sense is this is a perfect example of that, that this will be swatted away under
1:02:16 any sort of responsible legal scrutiny, you know, free speech.
1:02:24 I just think this is a ridiculous attempt to intimidate and create an atmosphere of fear such
1:02:30 that people do not speak out and they silence any criticism of the president.
1:02:33 What are your thoughts around that notion, Preet?
1:02:35 I think that’s exactly correct.
1:02:41 I’ve been saying for some time that the only logic behind, or at least one of the principal
1:02:49 pieces of logic behind bringing completely ridiculous, stupid, unprecedented, unconstitutional,
1:02:55 two plus two equals five claims, which is what Trump has done under the Alien Enemies Act,
1:02:57 under these executive orders against law firms.
1:03:01 And there’s a whole bunch of other issues along these lines as well.
1:03:02 They’re doomed to failure.
1:03:08 Nobody on the right or the left or the middle who is schooled in the law or wears a robe,
1:03:11 really, with very, very, very small exceptions, think otherwise.
1:03:14 Birthright citizenship is another that I left off the list.
1:03:20 But the point is to have the fight, to have the political debate, and to chill the actions
1:03:21 of other people.
1:03:26 With the law firm executive orders, in which my firm was a subject, the point seems to be,
1:03:30 even though every court that’s addressed it has issued an immediate temporary restraining
1:03:34 order, one court has issued a permanent injunction, it’s not going to fly.
1:03:38 It violates the First Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, the Sixth Amendment, various provisions of some
1:03:39 of those amendments.
1:03:41 The point is to make people think twice.
1:03:50 Should I spend time and energy and represent a cause or a person who is adverse to the president
1:03:52 of the United States or the president’s party?
1:03:53 That’s just one example.
1:03:55 And it goes to exactly what you were saying.
1:04:01 If you can broadcast to the world that it may be the case that even if you’re born in this country,
1:04:05 you will not have the privileges and rights that the Constitution has said from the beginning
1:04:07 are due and owing to you.
1:04:08 Maybe you won’t come here.
1:04:12 So they’re fighting a political battle, a policy battle.
1:04:18 They’re trying to beat their chests and say, we don’t care what the courts say up to a point,
1:04:20 and we’ll see what happens when we get to that point.
1:04:21 We don’t care.
1:04:23 Our view is the right one.
1:04:24 We have the army.
1:04:25 The courts don’t.
1:04:30 And so that is going to have a chilling effect on reasonable people to do that,
1:04:32 which they have always understood was constitutional, lawful, and proper.
1:04:38 So in addition to being a federal prosecutor, you’ve worked with really prestigious law firms.
1:04:39 Yeah.
1:04:43 And something that was really chilling and disappointing, quite frankly,
1:04:47 and maybe it’s been misrepresented in the media, and I’m very open to learning here,
1:04:51 because I think you have more insight into actually what went down here.
1:04:54 So I’ve been really disappointed in what I’ll call this domino of cowardice,
1:05:00 and that is corporations have said, okay, it’s easier for, with respect to shareholder value,
1:05:04 to just give a million bucks the inauguration campaign and pay $40 million for some lame
1:05:08 documentary for the first lady and basically just kiss his ass to stay out of his way.
1:05:11 I can sort of empathize with that viewpoint.
1:05:17 What was even more disappointing, though, was certain really prestigious law firms doing what I
1:05:24 would loosely categorize as bending a knee and saying, all right, we’ll do pro bono work for the family,
1:05:26 or we won’t take on certain clients.
1:05:32 It just seems so, such an entire, like, puncturing or rupturing of the legal system
1:05:36 and what it’s supposed to stand for in terms of justice being blind.
1:05:39 Am I exaggerating what happened here?
1:05:44 Give us your thoughts on the context here and whether I’m being, as always, overly emotional here.
1:05:48 So I want to be careful because I am in the legal firmament.
1:05:54 I work for a firm that did not, it’s not just your phrase, it’s the phrase that Donald Trump uses,
1:06:00 which makes you more than wince if you’re a practicing lawyer or if you’re anyone who cares
1:06:00 about the rule of law.
1:06:05 We did not bend the knee, and I’m very proud of that fact, and I continue to work there as
1:06:08 a partner in part because of that fact.
1:06:15 I don’t want to be impolitic or impolite about saying anything disparaging about the firms that
1:06:18 did, in your phrase, not my phrase, in the president’s phrase, not my phrase, bend the knee.
1:06:22 You can imagine how I might think about that given my first statement.
1:06:24 These are tough decisions.
1:06:27 There’s a lot of force and power on the side of the government.
1:06:30 There’s a lot of force and power on the side of the president of the United States.
1:06:37 I think that what you have said is not outside of the mainstream of thought of people both in the
1:06:39 legal profession and outside the legal profession.
1:06:45 On its face, as has been evidenced by the court decisions that were rendered very quickly that I
1:06:51 mentioned a minute ago, the executive orders are unlawful, unconstitutional, and I always like
1:06:52 to add to that, un-American.
1:06:53 They will never pass muster.
1:06:56 They will never be a thing in the future.
1:07:01 It’s another example of, this is 2 plus 2 equals 96, and I think that the better and
1:07:06 more correct and more righteous course, not just the right course, but the more righteous
1:07:12 course, if we can use that word still, in 2025, was to fight because these executive orders
1:07:18 are, I don’t think it’s too strong a word to say, tyrannical and abusive and should not
1:07:19 be allowed to stand.
1:07:22 So I’m glad that my firm and some other firms are taking that approach.
1:07:28 And Preet is much more polite and gentlemanly than I am.
1:07:34 The Demand Justice site has this article called Standing Up to Big Law Cowards, and this is
1:07:38 law firms that have pledged almost a billion dollars in free work to Trump, and they include
1:07:45 A&O, Sherman, Cadwallader, I believe the name is, Kirkland, Latham and Watkins, Milbank,
1:07:51 Paul Weiss, Simpson, Thatcher, Skadden and Wilkie are all firms that have decided to do pro bono
1:07:55 work and legal work to appease Trump.
1:07:59 And I don’t know how much you can say about this from a personal perspective since you’re
1:08:08 working in this field actively, but how legitimate do you think individual lawyers or firms’ fears
1:08:13 about continuing on with the good work that they’re doing are warranted or justified in this
1:08:14 environment.
1:08:20 I have a very good friend who represents undocumented immigrants here, mostly Venezuelans, a lot of
1:08:27 Ukrainians, and she’s very scared to continue her work as they, you know, set about essentially
1:08:29 criminalizing practicing law.
1:08:32 Well, kudos to your friend.
1:08:33 I think that’s important work.
1:08:37 Look, I think we still live in America.
1:08:43 We said before that the judges are doing a good job of holding the fort all the way up to the
1:08:43 Supreme Court.
1:08:49 I think it does take a little bit more courage now and resolve to do that kind of work than
1:08:50 it may have taken before.
1:08:56 And I don’t think we’re at the point yet where individual actions will be taken or could be
1:08:59 taken, although, you know, check back with me in six months or 10 months.
1:09:01 That work can continue.
1:09:06 Certainly, it’s the case that certain kinds of representations are probably less likely
1:09:11 to be blessed and green-lighted at firms that have decided to settle with the president.
1:09:19 The fear will always exist that you don’t want to further upset the apple cart or upset the
1:09:21 person at the top of the government.
1:09:23 I mean, that’s what got you in the soup in the first place, right?
1:09:29 Like my firm, once upon a time we had as our partner, someone I greatly respect, Bob Mueller,
1:09:35 former FBI director and special counsel, and had the temerity to hire one of the great lawmen of the
1:09:37 past century in our office.
1:09:41 That’s the thing that put us on the wrong side of Donald Trump.
1:09:46 And so there’s a natural tendency for there to be a chilling effect if you’re going to do things
1:09:48 that are going to put you on the wrong side of Donald Trump.
1:09:53 So all I’m going to say is good luck to her and all the people who are doing that.
1:09:55 You can’t let up in the face of that kind of intimidation.
1:10:00 Well, she’s a huge fan and she’s definitely listening, so she’ll be excited to hear your
1:10:00 encouragement.
1:10:01 Good.
1:10:02 One last question.
1:10:03 We ask all our guests this.
1:10:03 Uh-oh.
1:10:07 What’s one issue that makes you rage and one thing that you think we should all chill out
1:10:08 about?
1:10:09 Oh, gosh.
1:10:13 I mean, obviously the rule of law stuff makes me rage.
1:10:19 Everything we’ve been talking about, I speak, I try to speak in conmeasured tones, but the
1:10:24 attacks on law firms enrage me because I’m a member of the profession and I’m an officer
1:10:29 of the court and it’s a manipulation of, you know, the psychology of people who are not
1:10:34 just lawyers and officers of the court, but also members of businesses, right?
1:10:35 These are not charities.
1:10:43 And I hate the fact that Trump and his people are deviously clever enough to put people on
1:10:44 the back foot.
1:10:50 And again, not speaking about any particular person or entity in particular, what causes
1:10:55 me rage is, you know, if this were a play or a novel, one of the lessons you would learn
1:11:04 from it, that if you have someone who is as devilish and unprincipled and amoral, not just
1:11:12 amoral, but amoral as Donald Trump come to town, the sad truth is that he often, and we’ve seen
1:11:16 this again and again and again, will often reveal the lack of courage, the lack of principle
1:11:19 and the lack of virtue in his rivals.
1:11:21 And that is, you know, a fact of life.
1:11:24 And if this were just a story or an allegory, that would be one thing.
1:11:26 But I think about that a lot.
1:11:34 His opponents are often shown to be maybe, if not as impure and unprincipled as him, but
1:11:36 wanting, wanting.
1:11:41 And that’s why people who fight back and have the courage and the tenacity to fight back in
1:11:45 this environment, like your friend and others, are to be valued and encouraged and supported
1:11:46 more than ever before.
1:11:49 Oh, and what do we, what should we chill out about?
1:11:52 Yeah, you know, a lot of the dumb stuff that Trump does.
1:11:58 In the first term, I tell the story about how I tweeted, after Donald Trump said that the
1:12:04 White House was a shithole, or some such derogatory term, lots of people took offense.
1:12:07 Lots of people who were quote-unquote members of the resistance said, that’s, you know, horrific.
1:12:09 He shouldn’t talk like that.
1:12:14 And I posted a tweet back when Twitter had some people on the other side of the fence on
1:12:19 it, that, you know, of the top 50 things we need to worry about from this president, his
1:12:21 insult to the White House is not one of them.
1:12:25 And in response after response after response, people said, that’s not true.
1:12:26 We can multitask.
1:12:27 It’s all important.
1:12:32 It’s not, proportionality is a word that I’ve been using more lately.
1:12:34 You know, attention is limited.
1:12:35 Resources are limited.
1:12:39 I hate the phrase, pick your battles, but, you know, order your priorities.
1:12:44 He’s going to say a lot of stupid shit that can occupy five minutes of airtime.
1:12:46 It’s not worth the five minutes of airtime.
1:12:49 Think about what the kinds of things that you folks are talking about, that Scott was talking
1:12:54 about earlier, the rendering of people over the objection of actual judges’ rulings, the
1:13:00 distortion and disrespect of the Constitution by the people who keep pointing to the Constitution
1:13:01 and say they revere the Constitution.
1:13:02 They don’t.
1:13:05 Those are the things that we need to focus on and keep our eyes on.
1:13:13 Preet Bharara is an American lawyer and former federal prosecutor who served as the United
1:13:17 States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 2009 to 2017.
1:13:22 As of 2025, he’s a partner at the Wilmer Hale Law Firm.
1:13:26 He’s also the host and founder of Stay Tuned with Preet Bharara.
1:13:29 Preet, I always love hearing from you.
1:13:34 And for those of you, it’s not easy to make a podcast about the legal profession interesting,
1:13:37 and I actually listen to your podcast.
1:13:38 Thank you, sir.
1:13:38 And you know what?
1:13:38 Guess what?
1:13:39 Can I plug something else?
1:13:40 Sure.
1:13:45 As of one week ago today, Stay Tuned with Preet is now on Substack, too, as I know lots of
1:13:46 people are.
1:13:46 Oh, amazing.
1:13:47 Check us out there.
1:13:48 Check us out everywhere.
1:13:49 Good.
1:13:51 Always appreciate your time, Preet.
1:13:51 Thanks, folks.
1:13:52 Thank you.
1:13:54 All right, Jess, that’s it.
1:13:55 That’s it for this episode.
1:13:57 Thank you for listening to Raging Moderates.
1:14:00 Our producers are David Toledo and Eric Jenakes.
1:14:02 I mangled that.
1:14:03 I’m sorry, Eric.
1:14:03 I’m old.
1:14:08 I shouldn’t be president, and I can’t pronounce the name of all these wonderful new employees
1:14:09 we have.
1:14:11 Our technical director is Drew Burroughs.
1:14:13 Only took me seven years to figure that one out.
1:14:14 You can now find Raging Moderates.
1:14:16 Put my finger on the button.
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1:14:27 That’s right, its own feed.
1:14:31 That means exclusive interviews with sharp political minds you won’t hear anywhere else.
1:14:34 This week, we’re talking with Larry Sabato about Trump’s threat to democracy.
1:14:36 Make sure to follow us wherever you get your podcasts.
1:14:37 You don’t miss an episode.
1:14:40 Just have a great rest of the week.
1:14:40 You too.

0:00:05 Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.
0:00:14 I’m Andrew Huberman, and I’m a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine.
0:00:20 My guest today is Tom Segura. Tom Segura is a renowned comedian, writer, and director.
0:00:27 During today’s episode, we explore the neuroscience and psychology behind comedy, and we explore the creative process more generally.
0:00:33 Tom shares his approach to capturing and developing ideas into narratives that are once funny and thought-provoking.
0:00:39 We discuss the interplay between daily life observations and larger cultural dynamics when developing comedy routines.
0:00:49 We spend a fair bit of time discussing the neurobiological basis of humor and what data and brain lesion patients have taught us about why we find certain ideas novel, funny, or exciting.
0:01:00 We also talk about how this relates to the activation reward circuits in the brain and the seemingly automatic way that things are either funny or not funny to people, suggesting that humor is like taste or smell.
0:01:03 You really can’t negotiate what works for you or what doesn’t.
0:01:14 We also discuss emotional contagion and how skilled performers like Tom become masters at reading, shifting, and dancing with the collective energy of crowds, whether in small comedy clubs or large arena shows.
0:01:25 So if you’re creative or you’re curious about human psychology, or if you simply love to laugh, you’ll come away from today’s episode having learned a ton of useful information about the creative process and human nature.
0:01:30 Before we begin, I’d like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford.
0:01:38 It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero-cost-to-consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public.
0:01:41 In keeping with that theme, this episode does include sponsors.
0:01:44 And now for my discussion with Tom Segura.
0:01:46 Tom Segura, welcome.
0:01:48 Thanks for having me, cuz.
0:01:51 We’ll let people know who don’t already know.
0:01:52 Yes, we are related.
0:01:53 Yes, we are related.
0:02:11 People have asked me so many times the details, and I, you know, I was trying to, like, cuz I learned about it, obviously, later, that it was, like, my mom’s great-grandmother and your father’s great-grandmother were first cousins.
0:02:14 They’re both Basque, so northern Spain cousins.
0:02:22 And then, you know, generations later, they moved to South America, yours to Argentina, mine to Peru, and that’s how we’re cousins.
0:02:24 Yeah, like his distant cousins.
0:02:26 And my dad was on the podcast a little while ago.
0:02:27 How did that go?
0:02:29 Because I remember we talked about him coming on.
0:02:30 It was great.
0:02:36 I mean, he’s a theoretical physicist by training, so we got to talk about physics, but we also got to talk about life, and I learned a lot from him.
0:02:37 Did you?
0:02:39 I learned a lot about him that I never know before.
0:02:39 In that podcast?
0:02:39 Yeah.
0:02:40 Really?
0:02:40 Yeah.
0:02:43 I’ll send it to you if you’re ever suffering from insomnia.
0:02:45 I would love to listen to it.
0:02:47 He’s a theoretical, I didn’t even know that.
0:02:48 Yeah, theorist, chaos theory.
0:02:50 And now he’s into quantum internet.
0:02:51 Yeah.
0:02:52 Jesus Christ.
0:02:53 Where does he reside now?
0:02:54 Northern California.
0:02:54 Still working.
0:02:56 Wow.
0:02:57 Yeah, 81, still working.
0:03:05 Look at our different sides of the, your dad is a theoretical physicist, and my mom plays bridge.
0:03:08 Yeah, but you, but you can, uh, make a half, half court shot.
0:03:11 I saw the, the clip of you in Lethal Shooter.
0:03:12 Yeah.
0:03:13 We’ll put, we’ll put a link to it.
0:03:13 Okay.
0:03:14 Yeah.
0:03:16 Um, I mean, you’re an excellent basketball player.
0:03:17 I’m not.
0:03:17 High level.
0:03:18 So.
0:03:18 Very high level.
0:03:19 You know.
0:03:21 Did you play ball growing up at all?
0:03:21 No.
0:03:22 Are you skateboarded?
0:03:23 Foot sports.
0:03:24 Soccer.
0:03:25 Skateboarding.
0:03:27 I’m pretty coordinated with my feet.
0:03:30 Well, the kid has been Argentine.
0:03:31 You got to give it a shot.
0:03:31 Yeah.
0:03:33 Every kid where I grew up played soccer.
0:03:33 Really?
0:03:34 Oh, yeah.
0:03:34 Oh, yeah.
0:03:35 Obsessed.
0:03:35 Were you good at soccer?
0:03:36 I was all right.
0:03:36 Yeah.
0:03:37 Played goalie.
0:03:38 I like playing goalie or fullback.
0:03:40 I like to wait back there and just, and just stick people.
0:03:40 Okay.
0:03:41 That was fun.
0:03:42 Maybe you should have gotten into lacrosse or something.
0:03:43 No, I like running.
0:03:45 I ran cross country my senior year.
0:03:46 You ran cross country.
0:03:47 I did.
0:03:47 Yeah.
0:03:49 I was a little lighter than I am now.
0:03:50 I’m like 210 now.
0:03:52 It’s probably 160, 170.
0:03:53 Okay.
0:03:53 Yeah.
0:03:56 Like two mile races were okay.
0:03:58 I just did a 5K.
0:03:58 Oh, yeah?
0:03:59 Two days ago.
0:03:59 Yeah.
0:04:00 How’d that go?
0:04:03 I hated that I knew I had to do it.
0:04:07 And so I just made myself, I was like, you know, you got to do it.
0:04:08 So it’s going to suck.
0:04:09 You trained for it.
0:04:14 Well, the training for me is like just get in a bunch of three mile runs.
0:04:14 Right?
0:04:19 So, I mean, I would do them purposely at like a slow pace.
0:04:25 Like try to stay as close to zone two cardio as possible just to get like used to the mileage.
0:04:28 And then we get there because it was our 5K.
0:04:32 Like it was, I put it on with Burt and Spartan Race and like it was a huge.
0:04:33 Burt did a 5K?
0:04:35 Shirt off, the whole thing?
0:04:36 Of course.
0:04:36 What are you, crazy?
0:04:37 Weight vest, weight belly.
0:04:39 I mean, sorry for her.
0:04:40 Dude, yeah.
0:04:41 He was a…
0:04:44 We give him a hard time because we’re still trying to get Burt to quit drinking or reduce his drinking.
0:04:45 I think he’s reduced his drinking a little bit.
0:04:46 Oh.
0:04:46 No?
0:04:47 Okay.
0:04:51 So, yeah, we did one last year in Pasadena.
0:04:51 We did the Rose Bowl.
0:04:53 And so this time we did Raymond James in Tampa.
0:04:55 And it was called, it’s the Two Bears 5K.
0:05:00 We had more than three times people sign up this year for Tampa.
0:05:02 So we had like close to 8,000 people there.
0:05:03 Wow.
0:05:13 And, you know, Jelly Roll came out, Jason Kelsey, Tristan Wirth, like a bunch of, you know, John Feliciano, like all these football players and…
0:05:13 Fun.
0:05:16 And it was a very fun day, a very fun event.
0:05:17 But here’s the thing.
0:05:25 Like at the Rose Bowl, the path was like basically through the parking lot and then on these side roads in Pasadena.
0:05:32 And, you know, they loop it out and then you cross back basically across this parking lot and you hit the 3.1.
0:05:35 At Raymond James, I didn’t know.
0:05:36 They were like, oh, there’s some inclines.
0:05:38 I’m like, yeah, all right.
0:05:39 Did we get there?
0:05:41 It’s all in the stadium.
0:05:48 And the only way you’re running 3.1 miles in a stadium is we’re running through the corridors and then up the ramp.
0:05:51 Well, the ramp is nine stories up.
0:05:53 I mean, you’re literally…
0:05:54 One long incline.
0:05:59 Bro, so like you’re doing like a quarter mile up and then it would flatten out.
0:06:00 Then you go down.
0:06:00 You’re like, oh, this is nice.
0:06:01 And then you go up again.
0:06:04 So, but I was just…
0:06:07 I think when you’re also running with people, you kind of get tunnel vision.
0:06:08 Yeah.
0:06:11 And it caught, you know, you see somebody, you’re like, that person’s ahead of me.
0:06:13 Like this pig is in front of me right now.
0:06:14 Are you competitive by nature?
0:06:15 Yeah, I think so.
0:06:19 And so like I would, you know, like I definitely was like, I have to beat Burt.
0:06:20 I have to beat…
0:06:21 Yeah, you have to beat Burt.
0:06:23 John, my friend, Feliciano.
0:06:24 I was like, I have to beat these guys.
0:06:27 They’re both like, you know, fucking 300 pounds.
0:06:28 I’m definitely beating them.
0:06:30 And so that was just like in my head.
0:06:35 Every time I would see, like think of them, I was like, you just have to keep going.
0:06:38 And then Burt got beat by a guy in a wheelchair.
0:06:41 So that was also kind of sweet because I beat both of them.
0:06:43 Jerry, what’s up?
0:06:44 Shout out to Jerry.
0:06:48 I think he had a little advantage because those wheels on the way down definitely pick up some speed.
0:06:52 But on the way up, it’s pretty badass, you know.
0:06:58 But yeah, so like getting in those miles, like was the, just like the training for it.
0:07:00 And it was a whole thing.
0:07:01 And I don’t like running.
0:07:05 Like it’s not, you know, there’s some things you like, if you were like, let’s go work out, let’s go live.
0:07:06 I’d be like, cool, I enjoy that.
0:07:09 I don’t enjoy running, but I guess that’s the best.
0:07:09 You like running?
0:07:11 I love working out with weights.
0:07:13 I’ve been doing that since I was 16, but I love running.
0:07:14 You love running?
0:07:17 Running three times a week, a long run, a medium run, and a short run.
0:07:18 What’s a long run?
0:07:19 An hour, hour and a half.
0:07:20 Long and slow.
0:07:21 Every Sunday.
0:07:24 And then in the middle of the week, a 30-minute run.
0:07:25 Faster.
0:07:29 And then one day a week, I do that kind of max heart rate VO2 thing.
0:07:34 Warm up, sprint, walk, sprint, walk, sprint, walk.
0:07:35 Sometimes on the airdyne bike, but usually running.
0:07:37 I love running.
0:07:41 In fact, I mostly lift so that my body doesn’t hurt when I run.
0:07:43 I like being strong in the gym.
0:07:44 Wait, have you always been into this?
0:07:47 Yeah, since I was about 16, I started running.
0:07:48 I had no idea.
0:07:49 I just found I could just go and go.
0:07:51 Probably have a lot of slow twitch muscle.
0:07:56 And I’m reasonably strong, but I mean, if I train just for endurance, like if I start doing
0:07:59 two long runs per week, I just feel like I can just go forever.
0:08:00 Really?
0:08:00 Yeah.
0:08:01 It’s probably just a genetic bias.
0:08:04 What do you cover in that 60 to 90-minute run?
0:08:06 Depends on how in condition I am.
0:08:08 But, you know, you were talking about hills.
0:08:12 When I lived in the Bay Area, I used to do this run behind the Berkeley campus, the Strawberry
0:08:13 Canyon Trail.
0:08:17 And that’s all incline, basically winding up, winding up until you take the long cruise
0:08:17 down.
0:08:18 I would do that with a weight vest.
0:08:23 If I go from there out to Austin and on a Sunday, and then I can cover a lot of distance
0:08:25 in a 60-minute run.
0:08:28 But if I just train on the flat, then you get kind of used to just kind of going long and
0:08:28 slow.
0:08:29 Yeah.
0:08:32 So I don’t know the exact distance, but it was not unusual when I was in graduate school
0:08:37 to head out on a Sunday morning, just hydrated caffeine and do 10, 12 miles.
0:08:38 Wow.
0:08:40 But now it’s probably more like 6, 8.
0:08:41 Okay.
0:08:42 6 to 8.
0:08:43 But also with a weighted vest?
0:08:47 Sometimes with a, I use a vest, they’re not a sponsor, which it’s fun to always mention
0:08:49 things that aren’t a sponsor too, because I love this weight vest.
0:08:50 It’s called an amorpho.
0:08:52 And it fits pretty snug.
0:08:56 It’s not like one of these ones that looks like you’re a suicide bomber or a cop or something.
0:08:56 Yeah.
0:08:59 It sits really close to the body.
0:09:02 It zips up and it’s got these like heavy ball bearings in it.
0:09:04 So it’s only about 10 to 12 pounds.
0:09:04 Yeah.
0:09:06 So it’s not like a super heavy weight vest.
0:09:06 Right.
0:09:10 But it’s enough that when you take that weight vest off on a separate run, you feel like a god.
0:09:17 I will say that like, as much as I say I hate running, the fact that I made myself keep doing,
0:09:22 I was doing like daily runs almost five days a week just of like getting used to the mileage.
0:09:25 You know, obviously it becomes easier.
0:09:28 And then you kind of go like, okay, I can do this.
0:09:34 But yeah, I think I get, I get a lot of like mental anxiety about the running.
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0:12:38 What about the running itself?
0:12:42 I was going to ask you whether or not it changes your mental frame so that you, I don’t know,
0:12:44 do you get ideas while you run?
0:12:48 Do you get ideas after you run more readily, or are you just cursing the thing the whole time?
0:12:50 I feel like it’s a goal to let my mind drift,
0:12:58 because sometimes the negative side of it is, like, you’re doing a run and your mind is, like, this sucks, right?
0:13:05 You’re thinking about how much time is left, and that doesn’t produce anything, and it’s not an enjoyable thing.
0:13:11 But, like, if the mind goes, if you can let your mind drift, it’s less about ideas.
0:13:18 I feel like in those moments you’re kind of just, you’re off thinking about more like life, not like creative thoughts,
0:13:23 more like, you know, people and relationships and different, and, like, that’s kind of a nice place to be,
0:13:27 because then all of a sudden you’re like, oh, you know, a couple miles just went by.
0:13:33 Yeah, there’s something to be said for these states of wordlessness, where you’re not constructing things in complete sentences.
0:13:40 There’s no sensory input, like, through a phone or through even – I do listen to podcasts or books when I run sometimes in the long run.
0:13:46 But there’s this idea that a lot of learning and creativity is about purging all the noise,
0:13:53 and I find that those long runs, they just kind of – I come out of them just feeling like a bunch of clutter just got cleared.
0:13:53 Yeah.
0:13:56 More than I had some, like, insight during the run itself.
0:13:56 Yeah.
0:14:04 Incidentally, 90% of the effect of exercise on improving brain function when it comes to long, slow distance work
0:14:09 is that it raises your level of alertness and arousal, so you can do really great work afterwards.
0:14:09 Yeah.
0:14:13 High-intensity stuff has a bunch of other effects, brain-derived nootrophic factor, et cetera.
0:14:18 But when you see, like, exercise improves brain function, exercise makes you smarter.
0:14:25 Most of that is by way of the way – how exercise increases your level of alertness and kind of puts you in that nice state,
0:14:26 like, oh, now I can sit down and focus.
0:14:30 My busiest days – like, sometimes I have, you know, a very busy day.
0:14:40 If I start that day with a hard workout, I end up having no problem tackling that day.
0:14:41 Isn’t that wild?
0:14:41 It is wild.
0:14:49 Because, like, sometimes, like, I’ll have a day where, you know, I have to arrive at my studio, let’s say, at 10 a.m. for something.
0:14:57 And so – and it’s just, like, it’s going to be recordings, meetings, pitch meeting, you know, and then leave here, go to this thing.
0:14:59 Like, it’s going to be the entire day.
0:15:10 And if I get myself to the gym and I get in, like, a good hour lift, I come in and, like, I’ll notice everyone’s, like, you look like you’re in a good mood.
0:15:11 And I’m, like, yeah, feel great.
0:15:13 And I’m ready – and then I’m ready for the day.
0:15:16 But if I don’t do that, it’s a different experience.
0:15:31 Yeah, this is one of the real hidden secrets of exercise that I’m trying to make less hidden and less of a secret that Jocko clearly understands with his 4.30 a.m. wake-ups and workouts that you’re describing now is that –
0:15:34 I won’t go into too much detail here because I want to ask you questions.
0:15:45 But there’s this phenomenon where when you move the large musculature of the body, so a resistance training workout, a run, probably any workout where you’re doing some big movements or you’re working hard in that workout.
0:15:52 It triggers the release of adrenaline at levels that wake up your body, make it more willing to move.
0:15:58 So people who don’t have energy to exercise, exercise gives your body energy by way of adrenaline.
0:16:05 And then that adrenaline acts on this nerve called the vagus nerve, which communicates to the areas of your brain that release dopamine and something called norepinephrine.
0:16:06 It basically wakes your brain up also.
0:16:15 So that morning workout that you’re describing wakes up your brain and body for something like six hours by changing the neurochemical state of your body and your brain.
0:16:20 And so it’s not a surprise that when you work out before a long day, that long day goes better.
0:16:29 Whereas if you hit the work of the day, you know, kind of fresh, you’re generating the adrenaline drink from all that stuff.
0:16:30 This is when people feel a bit more anxious.
0:16:31 They feel a bit more irritable.
0:16:32 They feel a bit more tired.
0:16:35 So this whole concept of exercise gives you energy.
0:16:36 That’s how it gives you energy.
0:16:38 It’s not caloric energy.
0:16:39 You still need to fuel, et cetera.
0:16:42 But you’re talking about neurochemical energy.
0:16:45 It fundamentally changes the way you show up to everything else.
0:16:52 The way that I always feel like is, you know, a lot of times when you wake up, you have what I would describe as like a fog.
0:16:53 Sometimes, you know, like.
0:16:53 Oh, good.
0:16:54 It’s not just me.
0:16:55 Oh, yeah.
0:17:03 So like that fog, sometimes, you know, you can you carry it like it’s just it’s in the day and you’re just kind of like, oh, there’s this.
0:17:10 But I always feel like that that exercise just completely wipes it out, you know, where you’re like, oh, like I’m actually alert now.
0:17:15 And I don’t feel that post wake up just fog that sits there.
0:17:17 That’s my favorite thing that to knock out.
0:17:18 I love that.
0:17:20 I I’ve got this crazy thing that I do now.
0:17:21 You can try this.
0:17:27 I bought a 70 pound kettlebell about a third of my body weight and I have it set in the hallway.
0:17:35 So when I get up because I wake up really groggy, really foggy, I grab that thing and I suitcase carry it to the end and back twice.
0:17:41 And then I switch hands and I suitcase carry it back to the end and back twice, just trying to, like, teach my body that it can do work right away.
0:17:41 Uh-huh.
0:17:43 And I’m careful how I do it.
0:17:49 But I find that now I wake up and I’ve got like I think my body is anticipating that carry.
0:17:51 And so I’m more alert from go.
0:17:55 And I was like, oh, this is there’s something because your nervous system learns to anticipate things, right?
0:17:56 Yeah, yeah.
0:17:59 Because that phenomenon is setting your alarm clock for 7 a.m.
0:18:00 You wake up at 6.59.
0:18:01 Yes.
0:18:01 What happened?
0:18:03 Like your brain is clocking things in your sleep.
0:18:09 You wake up at me so many times and I always feel like that’s such a bizarre – like, also for – like, I’m not a big napper.
0:18:11 Sometimes I’ll be like, I’m going to lay down.
0:18:16 Like, I have an hour window before I have to go do something in a hotel, like I’m on the road.
0:18:20 And I’ll be like, well, just in case I fall asleep, I’ll set the alarm.
0:18:25 And I’ll lay there, eyes closed, and I’ll look as it’s one minute before.
0:18:27 Your brain is clocking it.
0:18:32 It was a study a couple of years ago where when people are in rapid eye movement sleep, you’re basically paralyzed.
0:18:34 The brain is very, very active.
0:18:36 That’s the phenomenon of rapid eye movement sleep.
0:18:37 It’s a very bizarre brain state.
0:18:39 Brain is super active, body paralyzed.
0:18:44 But people can blink and they can show some little, like, facial responses.
0:18:51 If you ask them to do simple math problems during rapid eye movement sleep, you say, hey, what’s two plus two?
0:18:59 They’ll, you know, blink with your – wink with your right eye if it’s four, wink with your other eye if it’s five.
0:19:02 You know, this kind of – people can do math correctly in their sleep.
0:19:07 They can answer not sophisticated questions, but the brain is tracking what’s happening all around you.
0:19:11 This is why taking the phone and putting it outside the room while you sleep, people sleep better.
0:19:13 People say, oh, it’s because of the EMFs.
0:19:14 Nobody really knows for sure.
0:19:18 But it’s because your brain is anticipating picking up the phone even while you’re sleeping.
0:19:19 Wow.
0:19:32 So there’s – I’m hitting with a lot of data here, but it’s well known now that if you give students a test and their phone is in their bag in the room, they perform less well than if their phone is in their bag in another room.
0:19:33 This is true for adults too.
0:19:39 Your brain is tracking sort of potential movements, potential thoughts, potential actions.
0:19:43 Like the way brain circuits work is to create sort of dominoes of circuit sequences.
0:19:47 So when you’re – for instance, you’ve gone on stage so many times to do comedy.
0:19:52 As you walk out, your brain is queuing up a whole library of things related to that without you realizing it.
0:19:52 Yeah, yeah.
0:19:53 Right?
0:19:54 It’s all context-dependent behavior.
0:19:58 And when you get home, it’s a different set of context-dependent behavior.
0:20:01 So your brain is sort of like a magic library.
0:20:09 I always think of this like as you get to a particular idea or thought or emotional state, the books change right in front of you to kind of match the set of things that you expect.
0:20:14 So if your phone is in the room, your brain is operating that way even if you’re asleep.
0:20:16 That’s insane.
0:20:16 Yeah.
0:20:18 What’s your writing process?
0:20:18 Let’s talk about comedy.
0:20:21 That’s – I’ve been – I’ve got about a gazillion questions.
0:20:23 I’m going to try and make them really succinct.
0:20:29 What is your typical process of capturing – you call them bits, right?
0:20:29 Yeah.
0:20:31 For stand-up, it’s a bit, yeah.
0:20:34 What’s your typical process of capturing ideas?
0:20:36 Like do you voice memo into the phone?
0:20:37 Do you write things down?
0:20:40 I’ve done pretty much every version of it.
0:20:43 Voice notes while high.
0:20:45 Sometimes you can listen to them later and you’re like, holy shit.
0:20:46 Are you a cannabis user?
0:20:47 I mean, sometimes.
0:20:48 I’m not like a heavy user.
0:20:55 But a lot of times at night, if you take something and you go to sleep, you’re trying to go to sleep, your brain’s like, nah, I got ideas.
0:20:55 Is that right?
0:20:56 Oh, yeah.
0:20:58 I haven’t done cannabis since a long time ago.
0:20:59 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:21:04 And then sometimes you listen because you’re convinced you’re like, this is one of the most brilliant ideas.
0:21:06 Have you ever had great ideas that stick?
0:21:06 Yeah.
0:21:08 I’ve had good ones that stick.
0:21:10 Sometimes the wording’s a little off.
0:21:14 But yeah, I’ve had ones that I actually do enjoy afterwards.
0:21:17 And then sometimes you’re like, this is, you can hear yourself smiling.
0:21:21 Like, you know, because you can tell someone’s emotion by their voice.
0:21:23 So I can hear that I’m like, dude, then.
0:21:24 Oh, because you’re recording.
0:21:26 I’m recording in my phone.
0:21:27 So let me get the process.
0:21:30 So you’re heading up to sleep and you take like an edible.
0:21:31 Yeah.
0:21:32 This is comedy school 101.
0:21:33 No, I’m just kidding.
0:21:35 Hey, listen, you’re the pro.
0:21:37 And you go to voice memos.
0:21:40 You’re there, eyes closed, and you start riffing on something.
0:21:40 Yeah.
0:21:44 It’s like you’re, it feels like it’s separate from you, right?
0:21:51 Because like the, you know, the right kind of, I guess, dosage of THC, it does make your mind run.
0:21:56 And sometimes you have less self-awareness.
0:22:06 It’s just like, like the way I, the nice way to think about it is that your brain always puts things on a shelf for you to get through your day.
0:22:08 Like things that make you uncomfortable even, right?
0:22:11 Like there’s things that you go like, I don’t want to think about that.
0:22:16 And then THC, I think in the right doses just goes, here it is.
0:22:18 Like it puts it in front of you.
0:22:18 Sounds terrible.
0:22:19 It can be terrible.
0:22:20 Sounds awful.
0:22:26 That can be like often what like too much is where you can get into like paranoia.
0:22:34 But I think if you have a dosage that is not too strong, so it’s not like uncomfortable, it just lets the mind run.
0:22:36 It’s like stream of consciousness happens.
0:22:44 And so when that’s happening, I feel like you go, oh, this is a, this is a, like, it feels like a new thought, a new, or a new perspective on something.
0:22:47 And you go, this is, it makes you laugh.
0:22:49 You say, oh, this is an idea that I should take this on stage.
0:22:53 Because I think for me, a lot of the thing is, here’s the kernel of the idea.
0:22:58 And then it’s not so much I’m going to write out long form how to do it.
0:22:59 It’s like, that’s the idea.
0:23:00 Take it on stage.
0:23:02 So you don’t actually write things out full form?
0:23:04 No, don’t, I don’t write them out full form.
0:23:17 And then I just go on stage with the kernel of the idea that I kind of have a blueprint of like, well, here’s what I’m sort of going to try to attack and then see what happens as I speak it.
0:23:24 Because the other way that I, like my favorite way to write comedy for standup is through, is conversations.
0:23:31 In other words, we’re talking, and I say something, and I either go like, oh, I should say that on stage.
0:23:36 Or I just find that I am naturally riffing on it and like making you laugh.
0:23:39 And then I go, I should try that on stage.
0:23:43 Because everything is like, it’s either, it’s funny here, is it funny there?
0:23:45 That’s kind of like how your mind operates, right?
0:23:47 Like, this is funny in this context.
0:23:50 Is it funny in the performing context?
0:23:54 But when you’re trying new material, you’re not doing that for a Netflix special.
0:23:56 You’re doing that, and it’s the term working out.
0:24:03 Like you go to the comedy club on a Tuesday night, and you’re working out, you’re trying new material, seeing how it lands.
0:24:09 You’ve never, is what you’re saying, that you’ve never actually built out the bit?
0:24:10 You’re building it out in real time?
0:24:12 In real time, yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:24:14 Whoa, is that typical of?
0:24:18 I think there’s like, there’s different, you know, camps of it, right?
0:24:23 Like, also there’s different, so many different, stand-up is so popular that there’s all these different styles.
0:24:28 And like, you know, there’s like, set-up punch guys.
0:24:31 Like, what you would call almost like pure joke writers.
0:24:35 Sam Murill, Dave Attell, Mark Norman.
0:24:40 Those guys, I feel like, dude, they do a lot of like, here is a, it’s the economy of words.
0:24:43 It’s like, clear premise, set-up.
0:24:45 And then, boom, punchline.
0:24:48 So it would be like, oh, like, I’m thinking about Norman, right?
0:24:52 I won’t try and do one of his jokes, but I like, I like Norman’s comedy, skateboarder too.
0:24:55 Same non-biological first family.
0:25:01 So he, I’ve heard him do things like, so my wife and I were on vacation recently, this kind of thing.
0:25:03 Like, a set-up where it’s very clear.
0:25:05 I mean, he clearly knows where he’s going with this.
0:25:10 We’re on vacation and we’re picking out rooms and then, and then at some point there’s a, there’s a punchline pivot.
0:25:10 Right.
0:25:11 Okay.
0:25:19 So there’s like, some of those are, especially when you, when you feel like they’re quite short, if it’s like a, it’s like over quickly.
0:25:27 That’s going to, a lot of times be something that you knew, I’m going to say it exactly like this.
0:25:30 It’s like the most traditional form of a joke.
0:25:32 Here’s the setup, here’s the punchline.
0:25:40 And like, I’ve written jokes like that in, in standup, but I do a lot more, you know, long form, I think, like storytelling stuff.
0:25:52 And so, you know, to write that all out, I feel like you almost, you almost get in your own way because you’re just like, you, you, you, because then what happens is what you write and what you say that it’s never quite the same.
0:26:04 So you, you kind of go through what you think is funny about what happened and then you take that on stage and then you take that on stage and maybe in a room with like 80 or a hundred people.
0:26:10 And then, you know, that’s the nice thing about standup is you learn right away if that shit is funny or not.
0:26:17 Like people are laughing hard and you’re like, and that’s what’s such a rush because you go, this was an idea, this thing happened, you try it, it works.
0:26:19 It’s like, it’s a really euphoric feeling.
0:26:27 And then if it doesn’t, you know, that’s when like kind of the, I guess like the, the real work of it comes in.
0:26:33 Cause then you’re trying to figure out, you’re like, especially if you’re like married to the idea, if you’re like, this is funny, but it didn’t work.
0:26:38 So then you start thinking about, did I, is there not enough information for it to work?
0:26:39 Is that the problem?
0:26:40 Is there too much?
0:26:42 Cause we always say like, trim the fat.
0:26:49 Like if you, if you have too much stuff in there that is not getting laughs, it’s like maybe just omit some of this information.
0:26:50 Right.
0:26:52 So that becomes like, okay, I’ll go back.
0:26:57 And instead, instead of saying, this is like useless information, it’s not adding to what’s funny or whatever.
0:26:58 It’s not adding to the story I’m telling.
0:27:00 You start dropping that.
0:27:02 And so you, you start experimenting.
0:27:09 And then, and then sometimes you just get into like, okay, is the actual line that I’m saying the problem?
0:27:12 Is it, is it that that’s not a good enough joke line?
0:27:14 And then you start experimenting with that.
0:27:22 And then sometimes you figure it out, which is again, like such an amazing feeling where you go, this used to not work and now it works.
0:27:25 And then sometimes you just got to go, fuck man, this just doesn’t work.
0:27:27 I mean, no, you just have to abandon it.
0:27:28 Yeah.
0:27:33 If something works or you feel like it’s a beginning, it’s the start of a thread that could work.
0:27:35 Do you end up writing it down for later?
0:27:41 Like, like you’re queuing yourself, like, uh, you know, the, the walk with my son bit or something like that, or it’s just, or it’s all in your head.
0:27:44 Uh, well, you, you kind of have it all in your head.
0:27:51 And then, oh, they’re going to show you, like, I have this, that’s all, I’ll look at this, like, before I go on stage.
0:27:52 Right.
0:27:53 Which is like.
0:27:56 Tom’s showing, we can get a photo of this if he lets us.
0:27:58 It’s, it’s a bunch of Sharpie written single words.
0:27:58 Yeah.
0:28:02 Gitmo, jail, teacher, duck, Huberman.
0:28:02 Just kidding.
0:28:04 Augusta, kill my wife.
0:28:06 Um, yeah, it’s like, so those like.
0:28:11 Hitler, um, Tunisia, make shit.
0:28:12 This is amazing.
0:28:16 Yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s a, that’s a set list for the, for an hour.
0:28:20 If you think about the, the range of things in this relatively short list.
0:28:20 Yeah.
0:28:26 Um, as a partial representation of what goes on in Tom Segura’s brain, you get a little.
0:28:32 Well, what’s interesting is that I, with another way, like, I think comedians would look at it is you kind of start to go.
0:28:34 These are 15 minute chunks.
0:28:34 Mm-hmm.
0:28:39 Because when you do an hour, a lot of comics think of it as four 15 minute chunks.
0:28:40 Mm-hmm.
0:28:40 Right?
0:28:44 So you go like, okay, this is kind of like setting the table chunk.
0:28:44 Mm-hmm.
0:28:46 This is like a kid’s family chunk.
0:28:56 This is, you know, um, commentary on, uh, social issues or like things that I’m doing or, or consuming.
0:29:08 And then your last chunk is like, I always feel like you want to get into like your, some of your, uh, more, um, I don’t know, wilder takes.
0:29:08 Mm-hmm.
0:29:11 Like after the audience has gotten to know you.
0:29:11 Mm-hmm.
0:29:12 And like trust you.
0:29:16 They’re like, okay, is that way you can kind of like push it more the further into the set you are.
0:29:17 Yeah.
0:29:18 So you just kind of break it down.
0:29:19 Yeah.
0:29:19 Very different.
0:29:26 But, um, I’ve done some lives and I have a, you know, four things I’m going to cover and then, but I don’t know how I’m going to cover them.
0:29:29 Um, Jordan Peterson, when he goes out for his lives, I’ve been to them.
0:29:35 He literally explores a topic in real time, walking back and forth across the stage for the first time.
0:29:39 I know this because people verify that every night he does something different, even the same city.
0:29:39 Yeah.
0:29:41 He’s exploring it completely in real time.
0:29:45 And then other people’s lives that I’ve been to, it’s clear it’s pretty scripted.
0:29:48 They know exactly what they’re going to say and when they have a sequence, they have slides.
0:29:51 And so I think it can be done any different number of ways.
0:29:58 How long do you go during your waking hours without making or thinking of a joke?
0:30:00 You know, that’s a good question.
0:30:07 I’ve really feel like, um, when you asked me that question, do you know, the first person that I think of is actually Rick Rubin.
0:30:12 And this is why I was, I remember reading the, that book he put out creative act.
0:30:18 And he was like, there’s something about, I’m paraphrasing here, but about like having your antenna up.
0:30:28 Like, in other words, you still put out some part of you puts out the signal, so to speak,
0:30:34 that you’re not like going, I need to find something funny, but you’re, you’re putting your brain in the mode of that.
0:30:34 Right.
0:30:37 And you can also choose not to.
0:30:49 And I think there’s times where you go like, oh, I haven’t thought of any, like, I haven’t looked at anything with like a humorous perspective today or for whatever, how many hours.
0:30:57 And it’s almost like that can shift either by you consciously making an effort to do it or by the company you keep.
0:31:06 Cause like, obviously if you’re hanging out with comedians, people, it’s like, just by being around them, your brain just shifts to like joke mode.
0:31:06 You know what I mean?
0:31:20 Like you’re just, you’re thinking in, in turn, in those terms, or if you’re working on something like you’re right, like writing a script or something, your brain is like actively, even when you’re not trying to, it’s like thinking of that story and thinking of jokes for the story.
0:31:26 So the answer is like, you know, depending on the day, it can be like all day, you’re just like joking, joking, joking.
0:31:33 And like, you’re, you’re just, in my case, like, you know, saying mostly like awful things.
0:31:34 Cause that’s what makes me laugh.
0:31:35 I think, you know what I mean?
0:31:42 Like whether it’s with friends or family, um, just like trying to make yourself laugh really.
0:31:51 And then there’s days where it’s like, you know, you’re in like a completely serious mindset where you’re like, nothing humorous is occurring to me at all.
0:31:53 You happen to be married to a comedian.
0:31:54 Yeah.
0:32:00 Which probably helps your home life in the sense that, you know, has she ever been offended by one of your jokes?
0:32:14 You know, early on, I remember like we would have conversations where I was, I, I more, it was more like the fact that I would, I remember I’d pitch like a joke idea and she would be like, that’s fucking awful.
0:32:22 And, and then I would, I told her, I go, you know, whenever you think something is awful, I know it’s going to be good on stage.
0:32:25 Like, and she was like, she was like, that’s horrible to say.
0:32:26 I was like, no, it’s true.
0:32:31 Like if, if you have disdain for what I said, then I’m pretty confident that it’s going to work.
0:32:35 And it was kind of like that, but, um, no, for the most part, no.
0:32:45 And she says wildly inappropriate and crazy, funny things like often way over my line, you know what I mean?
0:32:48 Not where I’m offended, but I’m like, Jesus Christ.
0:32:51 Like, yeah, she says crazy shit, really crazy.
0:32:56 Has she ever offended you to the point where you’re like, you, you can’t tell that joke in public.
0:32:58 Um, our family will suffer.
0:33:01 No, I’ve never had, we’ve never had that conversation.
0:33:16 Sometimes we have what makes this joke, uh, digestible conversations where like, we talk about a bit and we’re like, and then this is the punchline is like in this world.
0:33:26 And it’s like, okay, you got to find a way to say that, that is going to be digestible to the, to like, so you actually look for like your own advantage.
0:33:34 What I mean is like, you know, as a woman, I go like, you can shit on women harder because you’re a woman.
0:33:40 So like, you should find your way into that bit from the perspective that like, you’re actually, you know what I mean?
0:33:41 Like you’re actually shit.
0:33:47 Like I was like, if you’re a woman, you can, it’s like a black comic can talk about black people, right?
0:33:49 Like that’s it’s, you’re talking about your own.
0:33:51 So like, we’ll talk about things like that.
0:33:58 Like you can, you can take this angle and then that, and then the joke becomes digestible.
0:34:01 So we’ll, we’ll talk about like reframing material.
0:34:04 And then to me, she’s like, yeah, you’re just a white guy.
0:34:06 You can, apparently you guys can say anything.
0:34:08 Oh yeah, really?
0:34:16 On the other hand, comedians and what’s allowed in comedy at a given time as a powerful influence on culture.
0:34:16 Yeah.
0:34:19 What you can say, what you can’t say.
0:34:23 Has any comedian ever been canceled for what they said as part of a bit?
0:34:32 I mean, we’ve got these examples of these, I consider them kind of sad instances where people kind of break down on stage, have an interaction with someone in the audience and it really hurts their career and it’s super offensive.
0:34:34 But that’s clearly not part of the bit.
0:34:35 Right.
0:34:41 Has a comedian ever been canceled for like, here was the bit and they’re done?
0:34:49 Uh, I don’t, I can’t tell you that it comes to like the top of my head thinking about that.
0:34:59 I know there’s been like, I remember there’s a Canadian comic that in Canada has some like bizarre, to my experience, free speech rules.
0:34:59 Oh, okay.
0:35:05 I was like, I always think of Canadians as so, um, you know, kind of kind and well-behaved.
0:35:07 And they have some amazing comedians.
0:35:10 They also have some crazy serial killer stories up there I discovered.
0:35:10 Really?
0:35:11 Yeah.
0:35:16 I mean, this idea that Canada is just all like nicer, nicer Americans is not true.
0:35:16 No, no.
0:35:17 They were wonderful Canadians.
0:35:18 Yeah.
0:35:19 But, but they’re not all nice.
0:35:21 No, for sure.
0:35:21 They’re not all nice.
0:35:23 No, there’s some real fucking pricks up there.
0:35:23 Yeah.
0:35:28 I’ve, I’ve met a few, um, but there’s all, there’s a amazing, I mean, you know, obviously
0:35:34 you think of like Norm MacDonald and Mike Myers, uh, Ian Bagg, like all these, there’s really,
0:35:37 really funny, um, Canadian comics.
0:35:41 Uh, but I remember that there was not too long ago, I’m sure we could find it.
0:35:49 There’s a Canadian comic that like, he, uh, he went after some woman in the crowd, like,
0:35:54 you know, shut her down, said something offensive, whatever.
0:35:57 And he got arrested, you know, had been like, yeah.
0:35:57 Arrested?
0:35:57 Yeah.
0:35:58 Yeah.
0:36:00 Arrested and had to pay like substantial fines.
0:36:01 This is like Lenny Bruce days.
0:36:01 Yeah.
0:36:02 It’s really crazy.
0:36:04 And this was not, I don’t mean like 25 years ago.
0:36:06 I mean like sometime in the last five years.
0:36:06 Whoa.
0:36:07 Yeah.
0:36:11 So that, I know there, there are rules on, so that’s like the first thing that I think
0:36:13 of when you, when you, when you say that.
0:36:22 I also just don’t feel like when people talk about, you know, like cancel culture with comedians
0:36:28 or like Elon’s stupid fucking make comedy legal again, goofy shit that he said, it’s like,
0:36:28 what are you talking about?
0:36:32 Like there is no, you can say whatever you want to say.
0:36:37 The thing you’re pointing, the thing you’re really trying to talk about is the fact that
0:36:40 like people react and you know about it, right?
0:36:49 Like 30 years ago, there were people that hated, I’m sure Robin Williams and, you know, Carlin,
0:36:50 like they hated them.
0:36:55 The difference is they would just tell their friend and if they really wanted to make a point,
0:36:59 they’d get a pen and a paper and buy a fucking stamp and mail them a letter.
0:37:07 Like now you have social media platforms and people can make videos and like go crazy and
0:37:11 you just hear the noise, but that’s not like humanity has changed.
0:37:16 You just hear people telling you that they don’t like what you did or that they don’t think you’re
0:37:17 funny or whatever.
0:37:20 It’s not like they didn’t, that didn’t exist before.
0:37:26 But that’s also because thanks in large part to Rogan, but to others as well, most comedians
0:37:31 seem to control the venues in which they release their information podcasts.
0:37:31 Yeah.
0:37:36 You know, I guess you could be thrown out of a club and not be able to present your material
0:37:40 there, but there’s probably another one that you could open up and that’s happened too.
0:37:40 Yeah.
0:37:46 But podcasts, um, people will now release, um, their own specials where, you know, it’s
0:37:47 paid a view.
0:37:51 Um, there’s Netflix, there’s, there are a bunch of different venues where it doesn’t seem like
0:37:55 comedy is, is as centralized anymore, controlled by the major media houses.
0:37:55 That is true.
0:37:59 It’s in complete control of the comedians themselves.
0:38:06 Like you are, you can put up clips of you doing standup, you can make skits, you can do short
0:38:09 films, you can do whatever, and you can release it and, and find an audience.
0:38:12 Like they say, you know, like make, have an audience come to you.
0:38:17 But I just don’t buy this whole thing that like, you know, you can’t, you can’t joke about
0:38:17 that.
0:38:20 You can joke about whatever you want, man, but not at work.
0:38:24 I mean, if you, if someone makes a joke or repeats a joke, um, let’s say an academic
0:38:27 setting for instance or the office place.
0:38:30 No, your guy’s world is the worst when it comes to that.
0:38:36 The academic world is actually, it’s interesting in the last five to eight years, the academic
0:38:42 world has actually from this around this topic has become safer because the rules are very
0:38:43 clear.
0:38:45 They’re what I call thick black lines, right?
0:38:48 It’s when things are murky that people got themselves in trouble.
0:38:48 Sure.
0:38:48 Right.
0:38:52 So if you look 10 years back, it was really complicated.
0:38:56 Um, now everyone kind of knows what the standard is.
0:38:56 Yeah.
0:38:59 Might be uncomfortable for some, not for others, but they know what the standard is.
0:39:01 It’s very easy to adhere to a standard.
0:39:02 If you know where the fences are.
0:39:02 Sure.
0:39:07 Um, where it seems to be still murky is in the workplace, like in the boardroom, you’ll
0:39:11 hear about, you know, like tech companies or in finance or startups, right?
0:39:14 Because startups, when they’re small, typically don’t have an HR department.
0:39:19 HR department is kind of the standards that you create, um, around the, you know, the office,
0:39:21 which could be a garage.
0:39:21 Right.
0:39:26 So that’s typically when, when things aren’t well defined is when there are problems.
0:39:32 So yes, it’s rigid in certain areas like academia, law offices, et cetera, but everyone knows what
0:39:33 the rules are.
0:39:33 Yeah.
0:39:34 I’m not saying it’s good or bad.
0:39:36 I’m just saying, you know what they are.
0:39:45 But I feel like we’re talking about in comedy as a profession, like, you know, you can joke
0:39:49 about whatever you want, dude, but you can’t dictate is how people will react to it.
0:39:53 And if you’re, if you’re trying to say like, cause some comedians do this where they go,
0:39:55 this was the joke.
0:40:00 And what I’m mad about and what I’m going to be vocal about and complain about is that
0:40:01 not everybody liked it.
0:40:04 You’re like, yeah, that’s not, I mean, that’s essentially what they’re doing.
0:40:04 Right.
0:40:09 They throw a tantrum over the fact that some people are upset at the joke.
0:40:10 You’re like, yeah, that’s how it goes.
0:40:14 Like either it goes really well or it doesn’t.
0:40:20 And if you can’t go, oh, see, I can’t joke about stuff because look how they reacted.
0:40:21 You’re like, that’s, that’s how this works.
0:40:26 Like what you can also do is completely ignore that.
0:40:31 And if you want double down on your joke, keep going, do it, even do a crazier version of
0:40:34 your joke, but just be prepared that not everyone’s going to go.
0:40:35 That was the greatest thing ever.
0:40:41 And that’s what some comics do is they go, I can’t believe not everybody is applauding
0:40:42 me on this thing.
0:40:46 It’s they’ll, they’ll liken it to cancel culture, which is insane.
0:40:46 Right.
0:40:47 Yeah.
0:40:49 You have to be a professional.
0:40:54 And part of being a professional is how it lands is as important as you just have no say
0:40:54 in that.
0:41:03 I’m always fascinated by comics who will smirk or laugh a little bit at their own joke.
0:41:10 Um, and assuming that certain jokes and bits work exceptionally well and you carry them
0:41:15 forward from, you know, trying it out to, you know, Netflix specials or big venues, huge
0:41:17 venues, you do huge venues, huge venues.
0:41:23 Do you ever get tired of the material and worry that your response is not going to, um, that
0:41:25 your amusement won’t be there and therefore they won’t respond to it?
0:41:27 This is two questions woven.
0:41:31 I’m realizing, do you think your own amusement with it, with a joke has an impact on how it
0:41:32 lands?
0:41:32 That’s question one.
0:41:37 And woven in with that is how do you then work with the idea that, uh, every time you
0:41:40 tell a joke, it might not, um, be as funny as the previous time.
0:41:43 No, those are, those are great questions.
0:41:50 Um, yeah, I, I feel like if I’m smirking or laughing at a joke of mine, it’s probably organic.
0:41:52 I don’t try to like manufacture one.
0:41:57 Um, you still want to enjoy the process of performing it.
0:42:09 And when you lose that enjoyment of performing it, I do think the audience knows on like an unspoken
0:42:12 level, there’s something about it that doesn’t come across the same way.
0:42:16 And yeah, you, you sense it.
0:42:21 And I think typically what happens, what’s happened to me over time is if you’re on tour and you’re
0:42:25 kind of like, your brain is like walking up to this bit, like, you, you know, it’s next
0:42:32 and you start to like internally go like this fucking bit, like what happens naturally is
0:42:36 you start to drop it and it’s, you’re, you’re essentially listening to yourself.
0:42:41 It’s one of those, it’s like the same way you go, I should, I don’t like this person.
0:42:41 Right.
0:42:43 You go like, I don’t think I want to be friends with this person.
0:42:48 And you, you kind of like don’t return a text or you go, I’m not going to hang out with you.
0:42:49 Slow exit.
0:42:50 It’s a slow exit.
0:42:51 And what happens is you drop it.
0:42:57 And the great thing about dropping it is your brain goes, hey, you have room for something now.
0:43:02 And that room for something also prompts your brain to start thinking of new things.
0:43:07 That’s how you kind of come up with new material is that you, but you have to, this is the danger,
0:43:09 by the way, of these comedians.
0:43:12 Sometimes there’s these comics who are like really funny, really talented people.
0:43:17 And they’ll do, they’ll have a 20 minute set, right?
0:43:22 You’ll be working in clubs and you see them do a 20 minute set and then they murder, right?
0:43:24 They fucking kill so hard.
0:43:29 And then like five years later, you see them and they’re doing that 20 minute set.
0:43:35 And what happens is it’s a, it’s like a very natural thing that you just have to deal with
0:43:39 is they have this great fear of not killing that hard anymore.
0:43:43 So they don’t stop doing that 20 minutes.
0:43:47 And by not stopping, they just stop evolving and they stop creating.
0:43:50 And they, they’re just like, they’re the, they’re the 20 minute set guy.
0:43:52 You go like, yeah, they have that great 20 minutes.
0:43:55 And then it starts to get dated and then it, you know what I mean?
0:43:56 Mbop.
0:44:00 It’s exactly, only a fraction of the audience will know what I’m talking about.
0:44:03 There was a song that was like the song for a summer.
0:44:06 You could replace Mbop with any, like a song for a summer way back when.
0:44:07 Yeah, it’s a summer hit.
0:44:07 It was everywhere.
0:44:12 And then the band just disappears because the one hit wonder phenomenon.
0:44:12 Yeah.
0:44:17 You have, you have to like, cause you’ll, you’ll see the bet, the very best comics will do this.
0:44:20 And like, it’s kind of something you have to wrap your head around.
0:44:23 But then you, once you do this long enough, you go like, oh shit.
0:44:30 The, the most elite comics are completely willing to bomb at these workout shows.
0:44:47 Not like at their hour huge show, but like at workout shows, super elite comics will go up there and be like, I’m just going to do, cause they know that you have to be willing to eat shit to come up with something really good.
0:44:52 And sometimes you’ll watch them like bomb and, and your own insecurities flare up.
0:44:57 You’re like, oh my God, this is like, I can’t believe like all these people are going to be like, you suck, you know?
0:44:59 And these guys don’t care.
0:44:59 They don’t care.
0:45:03 Cause they know that’s, they know you have to train to get stronger.
0:45:04 It’s so beautiful.
0:45:11 You know, when Josh Waitzkin was on this podcast and he, he also did a conversation with Rogan, which is different.
0:45:15 And if somebody is interested in this stuff, they should check out both because they’re complimentary conversations.
0:45:18 But Josh was this child prodigy chess champion.
0:45:22 And then went on to do a bunch of other things at extremely high level.
0:45:27 He talks about the need and his lack of fear, which is very admirable for cutting ties with your previous self.
0:45:31 Just being willing to say, you know what, like that was a NBA championship.
0:45:33 He works with the Boston Celtics.
0:45:34 So this is very relevant right now.
0:45:35 Or, but that was last year.
0:45:36 We’re a new team now.
0:45:38 We’re not the defending champions.
0:45:38 Yeah.
0:45:47 Or musician had a platinum album or, or this was a particularly successful podcast run and just cut ties with it and be willing to just go completely now and future.
0:45:59 You mentioned Rick, one of the things that I’ve benefited so much from being friends with Rick, in addition to the fact that I just adore the guy, is that he has so many stories about things from the past.
0:46:03 If you ask him, but he never brings that stuff up, you know, he’ll, he’ll indulge you.
0:46:09 If you say, I tell me a story about Joe Strummer or something, he’ll tell me, but he really lives now and forward.
0:46:09 Yeah.
0:46:13 And I think it’s the wait skin that says, you know, you want, you don’t want to be on the train of life.
0:46:20 You want to be at the strap to the front end, you know, experiencing space and time as it’s unfolding, which is a very philosophical way to put this.
0:46:28 But that challenge of cutting ties with your previous self to continue to evolve your craft is so hard, but it’s exactly what you’re describing.
0:46:38 I mean, like I had this rule, I had this rule early on that I think it was, I was just lucky that I told myself this, which is that I recorded an album, I think in 2010.
0:46:45 And, you know, I, you kind of want to get like a special and a deal, but I, I didn’t have one.
0:46:58 So I, I’ve recorded an album and I put out the album and at that time, you know, people are buying these comedy albums and you start starting to stream stuff.
0:47:01 And also physical copies are still a thing because this is like 2010.
0:47:05 And so this was my work.
0:47:11 Like I, from when I started standup to this album, this was like the best I could do.
0:47:11 Right.
0:47:17 This was all the, all my best standup and I put it out and like, yeah, I mean, I had some marginal success with it.
0:47:19 Like I was selling a lot of copies or whatever.
0:47:30 Well, I told myself that even though I was not a ticket selling comedian, that everybody who was at a show had heard that album, like that they all knew it, which was completely not true.
0:47:36 But by doing that to myself, it made me go, well, I need a new hour.
0:47:36 Right.
0:47:49 So that, I was lucky that I thought that way because I could have stayed doing a lot of that album because those were like really, like really worked out bits that would just crush.
0:47:56 But I was just like, I’ll, I knew that like, I wouldn’t move on and evolve if I just kept doing them.
0:47:59 And that was a thing that I, and then I, the next thing I did was another album.
0:48:00 And I did that again.
0:48:03 I was just like, I got to like drop this stuff and move on.
0:48:10 And that’s, I think what helped me and a bunch of other comics who like now we’re in the practice of like shooting specials.
0:48:13 And then you just drop all of it and you go back to square one.
0:48:18 But like that helps you to continue being creative in, in standup.
0:48:19 You have to just drop stuff.
0:48:20 I love it.
0:48:24 And I think this pertains to so many, basically all creative forms.
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0:51:34 I’m going to make this very brief.
0:51:43 When I was an undergraduate, I was interested in what makes something funny, the psychology and neuroscience of humor, and there wasn’t a whole lot of neuroscience on it at that time.
0:51:54 But the basic takeaway from the literature, as I recall, was that the listener thinks that a narrative is going one way, and then there’s this surprise element, something you didn’t anticipate coming.
0:51:57 I think that characterizes a lot of bits and a lot of jokes.
0:51:58 100%.
0:51:59 Whoa, it’s the pop.
0:52:09 However, I’ve also seen you do bits, and other people do bits, where you’re headed down a trail, and I’m thinking, oh, no, he’s not going there, is he?
0:52:13 And you go there, and that’s hysterical also.
0:52:13 Yeah.
0:52:15 So is there a name for this, or how does it work?
0:52:17 No, I think, I mean, you’re right.
0:52:28 The most basic necessity for, I think, comedy at a very baseline level to explain it or define it is the element of surprise, right?
0:52:33 The surprise is, like, so it’s that thing, if you go, I know where this is going, you’re not going to react the same way.
0:52:35 If it gets you, it’s, oh, my God.
0:52:48 But that second description of, like, is that person going somewhere, I think that satisfies something in human beings, which is somebody saying the thing that we all want to say.
0:52:51 And you can’t say it.
0:52:52 You can’t say it.
0:52:54 You can’t say it in polite society.
0:52:57 You can’t say it at a nice dinner function.
0:52:58 You can’t say it at work.
0:53:01 And you’re just like, God, this is what I think.
0:53:02 And you know other people think it.
0:53:06 And then the guy’s up there, and he’s going, like, hey, you want to hear some shit?
0:53:11 And, like, somebody says it, and everyone goes, this is, it becomes a release.
0:53:17 It’s a release of, like, oh, he’s saying the thing that we all wish we could say.
0:53:25 And you’re saying it, you know, it’s a very particular thing because it actually is, it works because you’re in that building, too.
0:53:31 It works because you’re, you all have the unspoken agreement that this is a place to do this in, right?
0:53:32 It’s still different.
0:53:37 Like, if I just walk up to you on the street and start saying that shit, you’re like, Jesus Christ, dude.
0:53:38 Like, you’re a psycho.
0:53:39 Lock him up.
0:53:39 Yeah.
0:53:41 It’s like, but, like, in this context.
0:53:47 So both things are, satisfy something, I think, in the humor realm, right?
0:53:49 The element of surprise will always be something, like the unexpected.
0:53:56 But there’s also this, like, condition I think we live with where we go, we all think this, but we can’t say it.
0:53:59 And that’s a very satisfying thing when somebody says it.
0:54:05 Well, I had the great benefit of getting a sneak peek at bad thoughts.
0:54:06 Oh, yeah.
0:54:06 Thanks.
0:54:07 And it’s amazing.
0:54:09 People should definitely check it out.
0:54:18 And I don’t want to give anything away, but the second one in the sequence that I watched, I thought, like, there’s no way he’s doing this.
0:54:19 And it just kept coming at me.
0:54:20 And I was like, there’s no way.
0:54:22 Went to sleep last night.
0:54:24 And this doesn’t happen to me in a long time.
0:54:26 I woke up laughing.
0:54:26 Oh, yeah.
0:54:28 Which is a wonderful experience.
0:54:28 Yeah, it is.
0:54:34 There are only a few states of mind and body that you wake up in and you’re like, well, that was amazing, you know.
0:54:34 Yeah.
0:54:36 And I woke up laughing.
0:54:37 So it’s seeded into my unconscious.
0:54:41 So now I’m worried I’m going to say some of the things that you said.
0:54:41 I hope you do.
0:54:50 But one thing that occurred to me in watching Bad Thoughts is that you’re not just a phenomenal comedian, but you’re also a really good actor.
0:54:51 Oh, thank you.
0:54:58 And a number of comedians seem able to act, which is surprising to me for reasons that don’t make any sense to me.
0:54:59 I know.
0:55:04 You know, if you look at athletes often are terrible actors.
0:55:04 Yes.
0:55:12 I mean, some of the best acting that athletes have done is when they’re playing kind of a buffoon or they’re supposed to not be able to act well.
0:55:14 I think of some of like the Naked Gun movies and things like that.
0:55:15 Shout out to OJ, right?
0:55:15 To OJ, right?
0:55:17 I mean, he’s not a good actor.
0:55:17 Yeah.
0:55:20 And it worked because he wasn’t a good actor.
0:55:20 Yeah.
0:55:21 But you’re a very good actor.
0:55:22 Thank you.
0:55:23 Like, did you train for it?
0:55:25 I loved making people laugh.
0:55:30 And the first thing I did like in performing was, you know, I did like a play as a kid.
0:55:35 I did an improv troupe at 14, which is pretty young to be in an improv troupe.
0:55:36 I did that for like a summer.
0:55:39 And my whole thing was I wanted to make movies.
0:55:43 Like, I had a plan when I was in college.
0:55:48 I had the communications track, so we would do TV radio production.
0:55:52 And when we had video projects, I would always do like comedy things.
0:55:53 And everybody would be like, what are you doing?
0:55:54 Why are you making this?
0:55:58 Like, you’re supposed to be making like a video about the soccer program, you know?
0:56:04 And I’m like, this is a capsule you put in your ass and it freezes your shit.
0:56:07 Like, I would make like diarrhea commercials and they were like, don’t do that.
0:56:10 But this is the stuff that would make, I was like making me laugh.
0:56:15 And I wanted to make movies and I just was like, you know, that was what I wanted to do.
0:56:22 And then I moved out here and I had learned, I knew that at the time some of these big comedy
0:56:31 movie people were a product of SNL and that those people were usually products of Second
0:56:33 City or the Groundlings.
0:56:39 And since I moved to L.A., the Groundlings were big in L.A., the, it’s the improv school
0:56:42 and a performance plug they put on shows.
0:56:44 I was like, that’s what I’ll do.
0:56:46 I’ll just go to the, to the Groundlings.
0:56:53 And I took some classes there and I, I got through a few levels, but I, I had, I got into
0:56:54 standup shortly thereafter that.
0:56:57 Some of my improv friends were like, you should try standup.
0:57:02 And I got so hooked by standup, but I, and I also saw a path because I was also like,
0:57:03 well, you have to make a living.
0:57:03 Right.
0:57:10 And the actor’s life to me is so unsettling with like, you’re on a show.
0:57:12 And then they’re like, I don’t have a gig anymore.
0:57:18 Like to me, the fact that standup, even though it’s very, very, very low pay, especially like
0:57:23 as you’re getting into it, the fact that you can just like keep doing it, like to me, like
0:57:25 made sense that like soothed me.
0:57:32 And I, I feel like, you know, I kind of stopped training as far as I did another acting class
0:57:37 in L.A. at that time, like early on, but I, um, I always just wanted to keep doing it, you
0:57:37 know?
0:57:42 And so every once in a while I would make like a short film, like I made a few short films
0:57:46 with friends or like, you know, comedy, comedy shorts.
0:57:51 Um, and I auditioned for some things, you know, I did small parts here and there, but
0:57:55 I never really got to do all the, the types of things I wanted to do.
0:58:00 So this show became like this incredible opportunity where I was like, where are we going to tell
0:58:01 this type of story, this type of story?
0:58:06 Like, cause it’s, it’s essentially a collection of short stories is what, what the show is.
0:58:06 Right.
0:58:09 And some of them are self-contained.
0:58:12 Some of them are two part, three part, but it allowed me as an actor.
0:58:15 To play all these different roles, which was like, so fun.
0:58:19 It felt like I was doing like 20, like the 20 years I didn’t really act that much.
0:58:23 I got to like throw in all these different characters in the show.
0:58:26 Well, you’re a very fine actor.
0:58:26 Thank you.
0:58:29 As they say, it was, I was like, oh, he’s acting.
0:58:31 He’s, this isn’t just, you know, standup.
0:58:31 Yeah.
0:58:33 You know, standup is its own thing.
0:58:39 Um, in previous Netflix specials, but I’ve also seen you do these in, uh, these bits in
0:58:41 smaller clubs, like at the belly up in Aspen.
0:58:42 That’s right.
0:58:42 Smaller place.
0:58:42 That’s right.
0:58:46 Where we just coincidentally wore the exact same clothing.
0:58:49 So we’re same flannel, same jeans, same Adidas.
0:58:50 That was really weird.
0:58:50 That’s DNA.
0:58:51 We did not coordinate.
0:58:51 That’s DNA.
0:58:52 That’s DNA.
0:58:52 That’s DNA.
0:58:56 And the, the, um, cosmic correspondence of the butterfly effect.
0:58:56 That’s, that’s, yes.
0:59:00 I was like, my dad was trying to explain to me at one point.
0:59:06 Um, you do voices very well, in particular, the voices of your kids.
0:59:11 And you’re able, I always think that, um, when somebody, uh, impersonate somebody else,
0:59:15 it’s about grabbing the key elements and like not the whole piece.
0:59:18 They don’t like turn around and like come back as you know, like, right.
0:59:21 Like some people can just grab a few key elements of somebody.
0:59:23 In this case, someone we’ve never met.
0:59:29 It was your sons and we feel like we know them and we’re getting the, like, what clearly
0:59:32 are key features of their personality coming through.
0:59:35 Do you practice those or you just observe and it just is kind of embedded in you?
0:59:36 I think it’s observed and embedded.
0:59:41 And I think in that case in particular, cause with your kids, there’s this thing that happens
0:59:44 where you talk about your kids a lot, not on stage.
0:59:49 In other words, you know, I’m talking to my sisters or I’m talking to a friend about the
0:59:49 kids.
0:59:56 So you’re, you’re kind of like, you get this extra practice about them because they
0:59:59 are so much something that people always are like, how are your kids?
0:59:59 Right.
1:00:01 And so you’re just like, Oh, I got home.
1:00:02 This little shit came in.
1:00:04 He was like, Hey, fucking pick me up.
1:00:07 You know, like, so you start like doing impressions.
1:00:07 Which one is that?
1:00:08 That’s the little guy.
1:00:08 Oh yeah.
1:00:10 He sounds like a piece of work.
1:00:12 He is a piece of work, dude.
1:00:14 He is something else.
1:00:16 He’s like, it’s so funny.
1:00:19 We call it, sometimes we call him little Joe Pesci cause he’s just like, what the fuck?
1:00:21 We’re like, yo man.
1:00:23 Like, I don’t say that in front of him.
1:00:24 He’s six.
1:00:24 Oh my goodness.
1:00:25 He’s six.
1:00:28 And he’s like, he’s fucking, fucking with me all day, dad.
1:00:30 Did he get that from you or from your wife?
1:00:31 I feel like it’s more her.
1:00:32 I feel like she’s got those.
1:00:33 I’ll have to ask her.
1:00:38 She’s got those Hungarian roots where they, like when I was a kid in our house, there
1:00:39 was not a lot of cursing, dude.
1:00:41 Oh no, I’d get whacked if I, oh yeah.
1:00:46 No, no, I hit, but you know, I think if I talk back, it only happened twice in my life.
1:00:46 Yeah.
1:00:47 I spoke back.
1:00:49 I won’t say to which parent and I got hit.
1:00:50 Okay.
1:00:52 Nowadays people are like, oh, he was beaten up.
1:00:52 I’m fine.
1:00:52 Yeah.
1:00:53 Okay.
1:00:55 I didn’t, I don’t swear at people.
1:00:55 Yeah.
1:00:56 Very often.
1:00:57 It’s an extreme circumstance.
1:00:58 Yeah.
1:00:58 So, okay.
1:01:00 So, but he swears all the time, apparently.
1:01:01 Dude.
1:01:03 I mean, to the point where we’re, I mean, like,
1:01:06 I know people, whenever you talk about this, people are like, you’re a bad dad.
1:01:08 I’m like, shut the fuck up.
1:01:10 Like, you’ve never been around.
1:01:13 Like, these boys are, I have two little wild dudes.
1:01:16 They’re, by the way, I always share stories of the, of like extremes.
1:01:21 Like, they’re sweet, adorable, loving, wonderful kids.
1:01:21 Right.
1:01:26 But they’re just two little dudes who like, I come home and they’re like, it’s torture time.
1:01:31 Like, they call it torture time where like, I lay down and then they just get to like, fuck me up.
1:01:34 And then they’ll think they’re stronger than me.
1:01:36 And I’m like, bro, like, let me, do you want to feel this?
1:01:42 And then I just put them in like some crazy, you know, wrap where they, they go, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.
1:01:43 I’m like, yeah.
1:01:44 How old’s the older one?
1:01:45 He’s nine.
1:01:45 He’s nine.
1:01:47 Dude, I get home every day.
1:01:48 He’s like, check this out.
1:01:51 He takes off his shirt and he’s like, he flexes.
1:01:52 Oh, yeah.
1:01:54 He’s like, I’m going to be so jacked by high school.
1:01:56 I’m like, yeah, yes, probably.
1:01:57 And he’s lean.
1:02:00 Like he’s got like, he’s got the, the body for it.
1:02:04 He’s going to like, we go to the park and he’s just sitting there doing pull-ups and he’ll bring weights.
1:02:06 He’ll bring weights to the park.
1:02:08 And you see like other kids.
1:02:09 Dude, that’s the age to start.
1:02:11 There’s an Instagram account of this guy.
1:02:13 I’ll dig it up for the, for the captions.
1:02:20 His daughter is probably 11 and she’s doing pull-ups with a 45 pound plate and ankle weights strapped to her waist.
1:02:21 Really?
1:02:23 And she’s doing pull-ups to the chest.
1:02:25 She’s not, you know, built yet.
1:02:31 She’s clearly before puberty and she’s just, but just, oh my goodness.
1:02:34 That you just imagine like the tendon strength, the joint strength.
1:02:36 Going to be, yeah, a little gymnast perhaps.
1:02:40 He’s so into it talking about six packs.
1:02:42 I feel like I could have a six pack soon.
1:02:42 I’m like, yeah, sure.
1:02:43 Keep going, man.
1:02:44 He goes, why don’t you have one?
1:02:47 I’m like, just fucking, he’s already busting your balls.
1:02:53 You told me a story once over dinner about your son learning piano.
1:02:54 I don’t know if you remember that.
1:02:55 I think it was the younger one.
1:02:58 And it was something like, you know, like how’s piano going?
1:03:01 And you’re like, and you’re saying, he goes, it fucking sucks.
1:03:04 You know, like that’s, it sounds like that’s his response.
1:03:06 He’s just, he’s ready to pop back all the time.
1:03:08 Always, no, he’s completely ready.
1:03:13 He, um, he, the funniest thing that he did recently was, um, we’ve, they both go to jujitsu.
1:03:14 Okay.
1:03:17 And, uh, the older one’s really thriving.
1:03:23 Like he’s, he has a skill for it, you know, he’s, and he’s doing it well, moving up.
1:03:27 And the younger guy, I mean, you know, he’s like a puppy, like just a little, it started
1:03:28 when he was five.
1:03:30 Like they’re just, it’s just different, right?
1:03:31 You’re pretty young.
1:03:36 And so we’re, we’re at class and he goes, I’m not doing this anymore.
1:03:37 I’m like, what do you mean?
1:03:39 He goes, I’m too busy, man.
1:03:40 And I go, what?
1:03:43 He goes, he goes, my schedule.
1:03:44 I go, your schedule.
1:03:47 I go, okay, tell, tell the instructor.
1:03:54 So that guy comes over, you know, and he goes, Hey, uh, how, you know, how, how’d you enjoy
1:03:56 class today, Julian?
1:03:58 And he was like, good, but I’m done.
1:03:59 And he goes, what do you mean you’re done?
1:04:01 And he goes, I’m too busy, man.
1:04:04 He’s like, what are you, what are you too busy with?
1:04:05 He goes, I have kindergarten.
1:04:06 I have Spanish.
1:04:06 I have drums.
1:04:07 I don’t have time for this.
1:04:11 And I go, I’m sitting there like, this is insane.
1:04:14 And that guy goes, but you know what?
1:04:16 You got to be strong in this world, don’t you?
1:04:16 And he goes, yeah.
1:04:19 He goes, yeah, there’s no option for being strong.
1:04:25 So because you can’t have the option to not be strong, right?
1:04:26 And then Julian’s like, that’s right.
1:04:27 He’s like, great.
1:04:28 So I’ll see you Thursday.
1:04:30 And he goes, I told you I’m way too busy.
1:04:33 And then he just was like, I’m not doing this anymore.
1:04:34 I’m like, okay, dude.
1:04:35 He’s done?
1:04:36 He’s done.
1:04:38 He can really advocate for himself.
1:04:40 He definitely advocates for himself.
1:04:46 I’ve never been the type where you have to do these.
1:04:53 I feel like the fun thing about a kid, boy or girl with sports, is expose them to a lot of sports.
1:04:58 And I don’t want to like, you know, go, you have to do these.
1:05:00 Like, whatever sport you like, you can do that one.
1:05:03 Clearly, like, this wasn’t the one that drew him in enough.
1:05:04 And I’m totally fine with it.
1:05:05 It’s like, cool.
1:05:06 You want to try tennis?
1:05:07 You want to try soccer?
1:05:09 You want to, like, I’ll let him try all the sports.
1:05:11 I want them to be in activities.
1:05:14 But I’m not going to be like, you have to do all these sports, you know?
1:05:18 Meanwhile, they’re becoming comics in their mind.
1:05:19 Oh, they’re, yeah.
1:05:20 Both parents are comics.
1:05:20 They’re funny dudes.
1:05:21 They are very funny.
1:05:22 Yeah.
1:05:24 And they love to laugh.
1:05:32 And it’s fun because you see kids, when a kid says something that’s genuinely funny and you start laughing, you see, like, that look in their eye.
1:05:33 They’re like, oh, that was, that’s cool.
1:05:35 Then you just try to, like, do it again.
1:05:37 And if they do it too much, you’re like, yeah, it’s not funny anymore.
1:05:38 You can’t do it that much.
1:05:39 Yeah.
1:05:48 That is a perfect cue for me to ask what I was going to ask earlier when we were talking about when you are amused by something, you really delight in telling this bit.
1:05:49 Yeah.
1:05:51 It impacts the audience and how it lands.
1:05:56 There’s a very famous patient in neuroscience, probably the most famous patient, his name is H.M.
1:05:58 It’s a, you know, we don’t know his real name.
1:06:03 He’s dead now, but he had a lesion to his hippocampus, this brain area involved in memory.
1:06:06 And he was studied extensively for decades.
1:06:09 And most of what we know about human memory is from this guy.
1:06:12 All the other stuff we know from mouse studies, a little bit from monkey studies.
1:06:12 Wow.
1:06:20 So there’s a very well-known study where you go in and he has no retrograde memory.
1:06:22 He can’t remember anything that you told him before.
1:06:24 Like within a matter of seconds, he forgets it completely.
1:06:26 And they’ve tested this every which way.
1:06:26 Okay.
1:06:27 Holy shit.
1:06:28 His brain is now in a jar.
1:06:29 It’s been scanned, et cetera.
1:06:32 But so the study goes something like this.
1:06:38 You go in and you tell H.M. a joke and he laughs and he thinks it’s very funny.
1:06:41 Then you leave, you come back, and he doesn’t remember who you are.
1:06:43 This has been tested again and again.
1:06:44 He’s not fibbing.
1:06:44 Okay.
1:06:49 And there are a number of ways that you can measure this, especially if you make it, sadly,
1:06:51 like some survival-based things.
1:06:55 Like you tell him the joke again and he laughs again, but a little less.
1:06:58 And the next time a little less and a little less.
1:07:01 And eventually he’s like, yeah, that’s not really funny.
1:07:01 Yeah.
1:07:07 Same joke, he does not remember the joke, but there seems to be some unconscious memory
1:07:09 of the joke, which I always found fascinating.
1:07:14 So it’s like, it’s almost like the narrative around something, we get saturated to it.
1:07:20 We’re all familiar with a friend at a dinner party that tells a joke and everybody laughs.
1:07:24 And then they make the cardinal mistake, which is to tell the joke again at the same dinner.
1:07:26 And it just burns it.
1:07:29 It burns it there and it burns it the previous time.
1:07:33 I mean, I’m not asking you to be a neurologist or a neuroscientist, but what do you think
1:07:34 is going on here?
1:07:38 Not necessarily in HM and the patient, but there’s something about telling that funny punchline
1:07:43 twice that you just, I feel like men, like guys seem to do this more.
1:07:44 It’s like, you got it.
1:07:45 You nailed it.
1:07:47 Do not tell the joke again.
1:07:52 Well, every guy thinks he can fight, fuck, is funny, and can drive.
1:07:55 Those are the four things that every guy thinks he’s awesome at.
1:07:57 And you’re lucky if you’re marginal at one.
1:07:59 Every guy thinks, you know what I mean?
1:08:01 Every dude is like, I can do it.
1:08:01 I can drive.
1:08:02 I’m hilarious.
1:08:03 I can fight chicks.
1:08:05 Like every guy has this thing.
1:08:08 And then the more self-aware ones go like, I’m not good at these.
1:08:09 I’m good at this one.
1:08:10 So I’ll train.
1:08:11 You know what I mean?
1:08:12 Like that’s-
1:08:12 Cross train.
1:08:13 Cross train, man.
1:08:14 You got to do them all.
1:08:17 But the funny thing is when you were talking about HM, what I thought you were going to,
1:08:25 the point you were making is that you go back in and it’s not HM that is not laughing anymore
1:08:26 at the funny thing.
1:08:29 It’s that the person telling is that you lose something.
1:08:32 Because there is this thing in stand-up that is like a phenomenon.
1:08:37 Like I don’t have the answer to, but any comedian you talk to will tell you that this is true.
1:08:40 Where you go and you say this thing, right?
1:08:47 It might be like your opening thing or it could be a couple minutes in and you say the joke.
1:08:49 You tell the thing and it kills.
1:08:52 And you’re like, fuck yeah, this is awesome.
1:08:54 You know, like your brain just goes like, lock it in.
1:09:02 And then the next night you go and you say it and it gets laughs, but it’s like, it’s a little less.
1:09:08 And then this progresses, like you keep doing shows and it’s like two months later and you’re
1:09:11 like, the thing’s like not, it doesn’t really work.
1:09:15 And you go listen to like, like, I think I’m saying it the same way.
1:09:20 It’s like, there’s this, like, sometimes there’s this thing where it’s like a, there’s like a magical
1:09:26 quality of like, if it just streamed out of you once in this setting, in this room, at this moment,
1:09:32 there’s something about the way that you said it and the timing with which you said it,
1:09:34 that it evoked all this laughter.
1:09:40 And that for some reason, this thing no longer connects and just, it doesn’t register.
1:09:46 And you, you try to do the analysis of why that is the case.
1:09:49 And you, you essentially just end up doing this.
1:09:53 You’re just like, I don’t know why, but it just stopped being funny to all new audiences.
1:09:54 It killed over here.
1:09:55 It doesn’t work here.
1:09:56 So interesting.
1:10:04 I’m obsessed with mainly two things, time perception and state changes in the human brain.
1:10:07 Like we know so much about REM sleep and slow wave sleep.
1:10:11 We know very little about waking states, like alert and focused, or like we have these terms,
1:10:13 but like, there’s so much more going on there.
1:10:19 And so the question is this, we’re at a club or a stadium and you’re going to go on, but I go on
1:10:22 first, which means my bit sucks.
1:10:23 It just sucks.
1:10:23 Cause I’m not a comedian.
1:10:29 Someone else goes on, let’s say, um, Brian Holtzman, I find very funny.
1:10:29 Yeah.
1:10:29 Yeah.
1:10:30 He’s good.
1:10:30 Right.
1:10:32 I mean, when he’s, when he’s on, he’s really on and very funny.
1:10:35 Um, Holtzman goes on and does really well.
1:10:36 Yeah.
1:10:37 Who do you want to follow?
1:10:38 Holtzman.
1:10:44 Because the crowd is, is in a state of being ready to, to receive the jokes.
1:10:44 Exactly.
1:10:45 Yeah.
1:10:45 Yeah.
1:10:53 I feel like when you’re, when you’re newer, the, probably the typical answer for most comedians
1:10:55 would be like, I want to follow the guy that didn’t do well.
1:10:56 Right.
1:11:01 Cause then like I can save the day, but the longer you do it, you realize that’s not actually
1:11:09 like you actually want the guy in front of you to do well, even really well, because it does
1:11:12 generate this thing of like, this is what this is.
1:11:14 We’re at a place of doing this.
1:11:15 It’s jokes.
1:11:16 It’s fun.
1:11:20 And you know, we kind of borrow the term, ride their wave.
1:11:21 Like that guy just created a wave.
1:11:25 And if you can jump on it, sometimes you have to reset, you have to like, you know,
1:11:30 you’re kind of letting the audience know this is a different thing, especially if they like
1:11:31 absolutely murder.
1:11:37 Like if they destroy, you’re like, whoa, like you just kind of go, yeah, I’m a, I’m a new
1:11:38 person.
1:11:41 And the thing is you don’t want to go like, I’m scared that that happened.
1:11:48 You just go, this is my thing now, you know, but, but you have them in the state of this
1:11:50 is we’re here to laugh.
1:11:56 Whereas the guy who just like ate shit, they are all like, what the fuck is this?
1:11:59 And then, you know, they basically dug a hole.
1:12:03 So then you go up there being, you’re, you’re now the person that has to like set the table
1:12:07 and be like, so I know that last thing felt like a fucking eulogy.
1:12:13 So now I will try to get you out of feeling the way you feel and make you understand that
1:12:14 it’s joke time.
1:12:19 You’ll, you’ll often start slower by following the person that did poorly, right?
1:12:21 You think it’s, oh, you’re funny.
1:12:22 It’s now going to go well.
1:12:24 You have to like cook it back up.
1:12:28 So following the, the good comic is always the better choice.
1:12:31 I’m thinking of, I’m giving toasts at weddings.
1:12:31 Yeah.
1:12:35 Like if somebody gives a really great toast, giving the next toast, you’re saying, oh,
1:12:36 that’s a hard act to follow.
1:12:40 No, actually it’s an easy act to follow because everyone’s just kind of basking in whatever
1:12:41 just sounds, sounds similar.
1:12:42 That’s right.
1:12:45 State changes, whether or not we’re talking about running or you’re talking about cannabis
1:12:49 or you’re talking about, um, whatever it is.
1:12:54 I mean, I, I find that so much of the creative process or the constructive process, science
1:12:57 or comedy or whatever is about accessing these states.
1:13:02 And we learn how to do it through what kind of becomes an unconscious process, but you know
1:13:04 how to get there again and again.
1:13:07 And so much of becoming a professional is about going through the peaks and valleys of,
1:13:09 you know, bombing and coming back.
1:13:10 Totally.
1:13:18 You know, so I’m curious before you go out on stage now, given the size of the crowds is
1:13:22 just the kind of memory of what’s about to happen sufficient to put you in state.
1:13:27 So the thing is the longer you do it and the more shows you do, you’ve kind of performed
1:13:28 in every state.
1:13:33 Sometimes you have to remind, I like to remind myself that I’m at my funniest and I’m, I’m
1:13:40 the best version of myself on stage when I have a silly mindset going, meaning like,
1:13:45 just, just like, like goofing off, like being, like being a kid almost.
1:13:52 So if I’m backstage and I have you in there and I’m just saying, you know, I’m like poking
1:13:55 you, not like roasting you, but like, you know, being silly.
1:13:56 I can tell you, we’re related.
1:13:56 I can tell you.
1:13:57 Yeah.
1:13:58 Just like being silly.
1:14:04 I feel like that mindset is like the best version of me to go on stage.
1:14:06 And you can forget it by, I forget it all the time.
1:14:14 Cause I’ve performed tired, upset, sad, anxious, like I’ve performed in every possible state,
1:14:18 but I do like to, to tell myself like, oh yeah, don’t forget.
1:14:21 Kind of like get yourself into this silly state.
1:14:24 I also like some, like I’m kind of an introvert, right?
1:14:29 Like there’s some, there’s some true extrovert comics, like Buddy Burt’s like a true extrovert
1:14:32 and like his green room before a show will have like 80 people in it.
1:14:37 And I’m like, what, like, I like my green room to have either just me or like two or
1:14:42 three people and like chill energy, but still like, it’s still loose, right?
1:14:45 It’s not like a serious thing, but like loose fun.
1:14:48 And that gets me into the mindset of like, this is going to be fun.
1:14:54 I look over my set list, you know, like I, I’ll check in on, you know, you listen to like
1:14:56 what the crowd’s like and you’re like, oh, they sound, they sound hot.
1:14:58 Like that kind of gets you excited.
1:15:03 But I just try to, I try to embrace that mindset of like, let’s have, like, let’s have fun.
1:15:04 Let’s have fun.
1:15:08 That, that puts me in a, in a good place as a performer on stage.
1:15:12 Do you watch a lot of comedy, like the greats, the, like, do you?
1:15:17 I don’t watch a lot of comedy anymore.
1:15:22 I would say like, I, as a kid, I mean, I think the reason you kind of follow this path is
1:15:24 because you’re, you’re just such a huge fan of it.
1:15:31 So like growing up, I watched a lot of the, you know, evening at the improv, Def Jam, specials,
1:15:35 like a lot of, you know, it was also like specials were truly special, right?
1:15:38 Cause there was like, there was like six specials, maybe a year.
1:15:38 Eddie Murphy.
1:15:39 Yeah.
1:15:44 Eddie and Chris Rock and Carlin and like all those guys would like put out a special.
1:15:47 I mean, once every few years.
1:15:51 And there was only a few places, you know, HBO was just like the place.
1:15:54 And then Comedy Central became the other place.
1:15:59 HBO was premium, like really elite, like huge, huge talent.
1:16:01 And then Comedy Central was kind of everybody else.
1:16:07 And then now the landscape’s changed where, you know, we get, I don’t know, man, I feel
1:16:09 like there’s 300 specials a year, right?
1:16:12 Like, cause you can release them on, they’re on Netflix, they’re on Max, they’re on Hulu,
1:16:14 they’re on Amazon, they’re on YouTube.
1:16:18 Like there’s just, you’re bombarded with, it’s great in one regard for standup because
1:16:22 it speaks to how popular standup is and it’s so accessible and it’s cool that so many people
1:16:24 can put out their stuff.
1:16:27 But it’s just like overwhelming.
1:16:33 So I’ll only check out like, I feel like in the last couple of years, I’ve maybe seen
1:16:38 like two specials, you know, a lot of times I’ll start a special, turn it off after like
1:16:40 10 minutes, kind of want to see like what someone’s doing.
1:16:46 But I find, I find it personally hard to finish a special, but I also find it hard to watch standup
1:16:48 in the room, like at a club or something.
1:16:54 Like I get, I leave, like, I don’t mean like I leave the venue, I just leave the room.
1:16:57 Like it’s just harder for me to, I feel anxious.
1:17:02 I think it’s really about me internalizing what I feel like the feeling is on stage.
1:17:09 Especially if it’s not, like if it’s really, really good standup, then I sit there and I
1:17:10 go like, oh my God.
1:17:11 And I enjoy it.
1:17:17 But if there’s like any bit of it that like feels like maybe that’s not working or that
1:17:23 guy’s anxious or whatever, it reminds me of my own feelings on stage that are like that.
1:17:24 And I don’t want to be in that space.
1:17:27 So I like, I get, I leave the room and I’ll just go sit somewhere else.
1:17:32 I mean, so much of what we’re talking about today, I just realized is emotional contagion.
1:17:34 It really introduces this question.
1:17:39 This is very reductionist thinking, but how much of the success of a bit or a joke is the
1:17:42 emotion that the person telling it is carrying?
1:17:45 And how much of it is the actual words and content?
1:17:47 It’s probably that plus the rhythm and the timing.
1:17:48 There’s a lot of things.
1:17:49 It’s a combination of those things.
1:17:51 But emotional contagion is real.
1:17:54 You’re talking about it as a comedian watching comedy.
1:17:56 It kind of permeates you.
1:17:57 Is that what it’s called?
1:17:57 Emotional contagion?
1:17:58 Yeah, emotional contagion.
1:17:58 Really?
1:18:02 Some people are more emotional, emotionally permeable than others.
1:18:02 Yeah.
1:18:05 You know, we could put this on a spectrum.
1:18:10 We could even put it on the, so what used to be called the autistic spectrum, like people
1:18:15 who really contained in their emotions, like things don’t get them, but people are at the
1:18:16 far end of that spectrum.
1:18:22 They have a sensory sensitivity, you know, kids that are really like, like severely autistic,
1:18:26 you know, the amount of noise in a typical room is overwhelming.
1:18:27 It’s overwhelming, right.
1:18:33 I actually have discovered that that’s actually outside the brain, that their sensory endings
1:18:35 are tuned differently to the world.
1:18:37 They’re experiencing the world very, very differently.
1:18:44 You have these certain people get scared when they watch a movie and they jump when the monster
1:18:45 jumps out.
1:18:47 Other people are like less of a startled response.
1:18:49 I get startled.
1:18:50 I get startled.
1:18:50 Yeah.
1:18:50 Yeah.
1:18:52 I think that it’s natural to get startled.
1:18:57 I think that some people just have very kind of flat affect and some people can kind of
1:18:58 rot.
1:18:59 It’s like a seesaw.
1:19:00 And for some people, the hinge is tight.
1:19:02 It doesn’t necessarily mean they’re calm.
1:19:04 Some people are just like pissed off all the time and the hinge is tight.
1:19:06 Some people, they’re happy all the time and the hinge is tight.
1:19:09 Most people, that hinge can move.
1:19:13 And so this thing of emotional contagion is largely, this is what’s so interesting.
1:19:18 It’s largely fed through the way things sound, somewhat through faces, but largely through
1:19:19 the way that things sound.
1:19:24 And then there seems to be, and not a lot’s known about this yet, kind of a sixth sense
1:19:30 where actually an energy in the room can start to literally cascade from one person to the
1:19:30 next.
1:19:33 And this has been studied in animals with the fear response.
1:19:38 You can literally take an animal, scare it, take it out of that tube, put another animal
1:19:42 in there and it will show a fear response based on something molecular in the air.
1:19:42 Really?
1:19:43 Absolutely.
1:19:48 And they’re, I mean, they’re, hormones work within us, pheromones between two members
1:19:48 of a species.
1:19:51 They’re clearly pheromone-like effects.
1:19:53 We haven’t identified what those pheromones are.
1:19:54 Same thing can happen in crowds.
1:19:56 You can get a kind of a hysteria.
1:20:03 We do feel like, you know, the best, the best kind of experience as a comedian performing
1:20:08 is where you feel like the audience is one, right?
1:20:09 Like they are one.
1:20:12 It’s not 10,000 separate people.
1:20:14 It’s like, this is all together.
1:20:21 And that’s kind of like, when that’s going as well as it can go, that is like an incredible
1:20:21 rush.
1:20:25 And the feeling is that like, they do kind of mold.
1:20:30 It’s like they started as 10,000 people and then they just kind of become this one thing
1:20:35 and you’re, you’re kind of rocking this one entity out there together.
1:20:40 Same way that like the opposite when it’s like really bad.
1:20:45 It doesn’t feel like, you know, you can feel like, oh, they’re, they’re together in, in not
1:20:45 liking this.
1:20:50 This is one crowd going like, no, you know what I mean?
1:20:56 Like that feeling is, is the opposite of like bombing beyond like emptiness that you feel,
1:20:59 but you feel it like they are together.
1:21:02 They’re unified in, in how they feel about this.
1:21:06 This is why some people, including me, fear going to theater.
1:21:07 My sister loves theater.
1:21:11 We go to New York in the, um, in the fall for our birthdays and cause she loves theater.
1:21:12 We go to theater.
1:21:15 And if theater is great, it’s like amazing.
1:21:20 If theater is bad, like it leaves me feeling bad for the people.
1:21:24 Like the, the tone in the room is like, Ooh, it’s heavy, heavy.
1:21:25 It’s not like just like turn off the special.
1:21:28 It’s like, it’s, it sucks.
1:21:29 It takes you to a lower place.
1:21:31 Well, live is always, it’s just such a different experience.
1:21:32 You know what I think about?
1:21:36 I don’t know if there’s any science to this, but I always sometimes think about the fact
1:21:47 that I feel like comedy specifically as an art form might be the most involuntarily subjective.
1:21:53 Meaning that like, you know, if you look at like a photo or a piece of art, you might go
1:21:54 like, I don’t like that.
1:21:59 And then I might educate you in some way about it.
1:22:02 And then you kind of look at it differently.
1:22:05 And then maybe over time you go, you know, I actually love this painting.
1:22:06 Right.
1:22:11 Or like music is definitely one where you have like kind of an involuntary response, but
1:22:17 I have not cared for music and then actually started to like it more.
1:22:24 But I feel like comedy, it’s like, it’s not, you’re not really thinking when you like, like
1:22:27 when you laugh hard at something, you’re not like, Oh, I thought about it for a while and
1:22:29 I’m going to start laughing now.
1:22:29 Right.
1:22:30 Like you just, you laugh.
1:22:34 And if you don’t laugh, you’re just like, yeah, I don’t find that funny.
1:22:38 You don’t usually come back and go, you know, now that you’ve talked to me about it, I’m
1:22:39 going to start laughing.
1:22:45 Like it really is this experience where you just, it, it happens without.
1:22:49 So your, your kind of brain is telling you, this is what’s funny.
1:22:49 Right.
1:22:53 Like it, it’s happening like separate from you and there’s no faking it.
1:22:55 Like you’re either laughing or you’re not.
1:22:59 You got, if you laugh really hard, it’s like this, it’s this great experience, but you
1:23:02 can’t convince someone to laugh that hard.
1:23:05 A very important point that never occurred to me.
1:23:09 I love art history in part because I like art.
1:23:10 I’ve always liked art.
1:23:10 Yeah.
1:23:16 But by taking an art history class, I like literally fallen in love with certain artists and their
1:23:16 paintings.
1:23:23 And I, I look at certain paintings completely differently now, as you point out on the basis
1:23:28 of what I know about what the art represents, uh, the history of the artist.
1:23:33 Like if a joke isn’t funny to me or a bit, isn’t funny, I don’t care what the process was
1:23:34 for that bit.
1:23:35 I’m like, it’s just not funny.
1:23:36 It’s just not.
1:23:36 Yeah.
1:23:43 It seems like it’s one of the purest kind of, um, uh, yum, yuck or meh kind of things, which
1:23:44 is another point of neuroscience.
1:23:48 The nervous system has degrees of this, but it basically bins things very quickly into like
1:23:51 yum, like this is awesome or hilarious or whatever.
1:23:53 Um, yuck, like, oh, no.
1:23:54 And kind of meh.
1:23:55 Yeah.
1:23:58 They, they, there, there’s not a lot of very within each one of those bins.
1:23:59 There’s a lot of variation.
1:24:00 Yeah.
1:24:01 Love, love, love, hate, hate, hate.
1:24:04 But then, you know, but your brain makes a decision really quickly.
1:24:05 Very quickly.
1:24:06 About yum, yuck, or meh.
1:24:06 Right.
1:24:07 Right.
1:24:10 And, and, and like, especially with, with different arts, right?
1:24:15 Like, I mean, literally you look at the photo and your brain kind of tells you,
1:24:15 right?
1:24:20 Like, I just don’t feel like most of the time you’re not going to go back to that and
1:24:22 have a much different response.
1:24:23 Right.
1:24:26 I mean, uh, with comedy, you’re, you’re not going to do a response with art.
1:24:32 Like I, I also did, I did Spanish art history when I, when I was, um, studying in Madrid and
1:24:39 they would take us to the Prado museum and give us like our lectures in front of the pieces
1:24:39 of art.
1:24:45 And you just, yeah, your brain starts to not just appreciate, you start to fall in
1:24:48 love with the paintings and you go like, oh, I view this differently.
1:24:53 That type of experience doesn’t really, can’t happen with comedy.
1:24:56 I’m not going to be like, start laughing, dude.
1:24:57 Listen to how this, you know what I mean?
1:24:59 Like, it’s just, it is what it is.
1:25:03 Your brain, it’s so quick whether or not it makes you laugh.
1:25:08 And if something’s not funny, if you tell me, um, he toiled on this for 40 years, I’d
1:25:10 be like, well, then it especially sucks.
1:25:11 It’s really shit.
1:25:13 Whereas if you show me a sculpture, I might not appreciate it.
1:25:15 You sort of explain what went into that.
1:25:15 Yeah.
1:25:17 You can develop at least an appreciation for you.
1:25:18 Well, that’s interesting.
1:25:22 You know, versions of this happen all the time, especially now because everything’s shareable
1:25:26 where like your friend goes, check this out and you watch the thing and you’re like,
1:25:27 okay.
1:25:29 And they’re like, isn’t that the funniest thing you’ve ever seen?
1:25:29 You’re like, no.
1:25:31 They’re like, you didn’t like that?
1:25:32 No.
1:25:33 And that’s kind of like how it ends.
1:25:38 They’re like, yeah, but you know, he’s saying like that he’s late because he, I’m like,
1:25:39 yeah, it’s not, I don’t, I’m not laughing, dude.
1:25:40 I don’t know what to tell you.
1:25:41 And then they go, okay.
1:25:47 But they had a different experience with it that you can’t, you can’t like articulate and
1:25:51 intellectualize the experience to someone where they go, oh yeah, now I think it’s funny.
1:25:57 Well, I think this gets back to HM and this idea that there’s a subconscious, um, you know,
1:26:01 just an unaware process that dictates whether or not something’s funny or not.
1:26:06 It tickles our brain below the level of, of like precise understanding.
1:26:11 And, uh, I’m so fascinated by this because as you point out, there just aren’t other
1:26:11 things like this.
1:26:14 You could say this about people like, oh, liked this person right away.
1:26:14 Didn’t like them.
1:26:15 Yes.
1:26:19 But in general, the more that we learn about people, this is why all the efforts to try and,
1:26:23 you know, erase racism, for instance, the more you learn about a culture, the more you tend
1:26:24 to like the people of that culture.
1:26:25 Yeah.
1:26:30 Even if you were arch enemies for, for, you know, decades or hundreds of years before,
1:26:31 there’s just the way the human brain works.
1:26:36 But with comedy, it’s like a, um, it’s chem, it’s feels like it’s like chemistry.
1:26:37 It does.
1:26:37 You know?
1:26:41 And, and of course you could say, well, you like, or don’t like the comic, but I have to
1:26:47 imagine that you, that you like it or not probably represent the, the like bad boyfriend or the
1:26:52 abusive dad to somebody or the, uh, or the friend that they loved in college.
1:26:53 Let’s make it positive too.
1:26:54 Or that the guy they like to be around.
1:26:57 I mean, you, you don’t know that people’s relationship to you.
1:26:58 You never know.
1:27:03 And so the humor may land or not land depending on like all sorts of unconscious stuff going
1:27:03 on.
1:27:04 So much.
1:27:10 And you realize too, that like you could have a joke about a teacher, you know what I mean?
1:27:11 Like, you’re just like, it’s part of your bit.
1:27:12 You’re not thinking of that.
1:27:21 And like you saying that has a ripple effect that you don’t realize to, to different people
1:27:24 in the audience for, for dozens of different reasons, you could have just said the word
1:27:27 teacher and the person’s like, you know, I am a teacher.
1:27:30 Uh, and then that, that that’s pleasing to them.
1:27:30 They feel seen.
1:27:32 The other person hated their teacher.
1:27:33 You know what I mean?
1:27:37 They start thinking about like all these little things where you go, like, I just said one
1:27:42 word about this and you don’t realize that it, it triggers other thoughts in people’s
1:27:42 minds, you know?
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1:29:33 Let’s talk about crowd work.
1:29:34 Yeah.
1:29:35 Fascinated by it.
1:29:36 Yeah.
1:29:39 Very, very distinct aspect of the comedy experience.
1:29:44 You know, I mean, at a big rock concert, I mean, the singer might like put out a fist to
1:29:48 someone in the audience or even let somebody sing for a moment, but maybe let someone up on
1:29:48 stage.
1:29:51 But crowd work is like, you’re really giving up a lot of control.
1:29:51 Yeah.
1:29:51 Right.
1:29:56 If you ask a question, I mean, you have to be able to work off whatever comes back.
1:29:58 Do you do crowd work?
1:30:06 I mean, I feel like crowd work is just part of the arsenal of skills you have over time
1:30:06 as a comedian.
1:30:08 You have to be able to improvise.
1:30:09 You have to be able to handle crowd work.
1:30:10 You have to be able to write material.
1:30:12 You have to be able to do all those things.
1:30:15 I don’t go up and do like crowd work shows.
1:30:18 Like some people, they’re like, this is a crowd work show.
1:30:22 But I’ve been doing stand up like, you know, 23 years.
1:30:29 And especially when you’re in the club system, when you’re an unknown and you’re just doing
1:30:37 weekends and people are drunk, like crowd work just becomes part of how you do it.
1:30:41 Like you don’t have an option to not, you could just not develop the skillset and then
1:30:42 just die up there.
1:30:42 But like, you know what I mean?
1:30:44 It’s like, it’s a necessity.
1:30:52 So at this point, like, I feel like I want to go on stage with like, I want to do X, Y,
1:30:52 Z.
1:30:53 I want to execute these things.
1:30:55 I want to get these jokes out.
1:30:56 I want to say these things.
1:31:02 But you’re never, ever to the point where you go, and therefore I am removed from having
1:31:03 to do any type of crowd work.
1:31:09 Because crowd work is usually, it’s a response to something happening.
1:31:09 You’re being heckled.
1:31:11 Somebody’s saying something.
1:31:17 You know, there’s this thing that like, if you’re in a huge venue, you don’t want to actually
1:31:18 go like, hey, what’s going on with you, buddy?
1:31:19 Right?
1:31:22 Because there’s somebody up in the 300 section who’s like, I don’t know what’s going on.
1:31:32 But the other side of it is you cannot ignore the obvious.
1:31:40 Meaning if a fight breaks out, if like somebody throws something, if somebody is like screaming
1:31:44 and you just go like, I’m just not going to, I’m going to act like that’s not happening.
1:31:47 I’m going to keep doing standup like what I wanted to do.
1:31:50 Then people go like, this is weird, right?
1:31:53 Because this person’s ignoring the obvious, right?
1:31:55 You’re no longer connected to them in the same way.
1:31:57 They know that like, there’s a disconnect now.
1:31:58 Like you’re ignoring that.
1:32:05 Like, so that’s how like you stay in kind of having, you have to maintain the skill set.
1:32:09 Some people make it more of an emphasis of their show.
1:32:12 And there’s like really, really good people at doing that.
1:32:17 I feel like it’s also like part, it’s more of like the DNA of New York comics too.
1:32:24 Like that you’ll see, I’ve always thought that like the level of proficiency there is really
1:32:25 high in that scene.
1:32:27 More of a back and forth, you know.
1:32:28 Because of small venues.
1:32:30 I go to the Comedy Cellar when I’m out there.
1:32:33 I don’t know if that’s, it’s still one of the main places.
1:32:33 Oh, absolutely.
1:32:35 If there’s a better one, let me know.
1:32:37 But my sister’s always like, are we going to go to the Cellar again?
1:32:38 Yeah, Cellar’s fantastic.
1:32:42 And we have our favorite nights there actually were nights where it was pretty bad and we
1:32:43 can laugh about that.
1:32:43 Yeah.
1:32:47 But there’ve been a few nights there where it just killed.
1:32:47 Yeah.
1:32:50 And actually there was one night, and that’s my sister, this happened.
1:32:55 Chappelle just like leaves Radio City Hall, shows up with his entourage and just like hops
1:32:56 up on stage.
1:32:56 Yeah.
1:32:58 And just, that only happens in New York City.
1:32:59 Yeah.
1:33:01 I don’t think that really happens in Los Angeles terribly often.
1:33:03 He’s done that quite a few times.
1:33:04 He just like rolls in.
1:33:06 Yeah, he’s done that in LA a number of times.
1:33:08 He’s done in San Francisco a bunch.
1:33:10 Like, I’m saying like, it’s pretty well known.
1:33:11 You know, he’ll come into the stores.
1:33:11 That’s his thing?
1:33:12 Yeah.
1:33:17 Like, he loves the stage, and sometimes he’ll be up there like legitimately like three or
1:33:18 four hours.
1:33:18 Yeah, he stayed.
1:33:23 We ended up going home because we eventually just called in a night and we were leaving
1:33:25 and his team was like, you’re really going to leave?
1:33:32 We had had enough, but it was just kind of unbelievable to me that this stage of his
1:33:34 career that he was just going to wander in and start doing comedy.
1:33:38 But it speaks, I think it speaks to the intimacy of those small clubs.
1:33:39 It does, yeah.
1:33:43 I mean, it’s still one of the few venues where like, you can see greats.
1:33:46 Like, I got to see you at the Belly Up in Aspen.
1:33:47 That’s a small-ish venue.
1:33:48 That was fun, yeah.
1:33:49 Or you can go to a stadium.
1:33:50 What’s the largest stadium crowd you’ve done?
1:33:52 It’s more than, you know.
1:33:58 The biggest crowd I did was like a little over 17,000 at a climate pledge arena in Seattle.
1:34:01 Yeah, so huge difference of scale there.
1:34:01 Yeah.
1:34:05 Not many public-facing things occupy those levels of scale.
1:34:08 I have a question about kind of cultural standards.
1:34:09 Yeah.
1:34:17 So if you look back to comedians where – at a time where like cursing on stage wasn’t
1:34:19 allowed, like kind of pre-Lenny Bruce.
1:34:20 Yeah.
1:34:20 Right?
1:34:23 Is any of that comedy funny?
1:34:29 Meaning, you know, now there’s been this kind of expansion of kind of what you can say,
1:34:35 even just cursing, and so like if we look at – earlier we were talking about working
1:34:40 out, you know, like bodies looked very – like muscular bodies looked very different in films
1:34:41 in the 40s.
1:34:43 Like you’d say, well, that guy – that person isn’t very big by today’s standard, but you’d
1:34:44 say they’re very fit, right?
1:34:45 Yeah.
1:34:51 Or she was very beautiful and very sexy in the 70s, but very different looked than like
1:34:52 90s and 2000s.
1:34:55 So standards change for what’s considered ideal.
1:34:56 Yes.
1:35:01 The male one, by the way, is hilarious for the leading man of like the 40s and 50s.
1:35:02 Oh, yeah.
1:35:03 They were very slender.
1:35:03 Now they’re like –
1:35:04 I mean like –
1:35:05 Not superheroes.
1:35:09 They’d be like – they’d be like slender and also like not even very well defined.
1:35:12 And they’d be like, this is the stud of the – you know what I mean?
1:35:16 Of the movie, like a guy who’s not wearing a shirt, and you’re like, this guy is not active.
1:35:17 Right.
1:35:20 And they’re like, no, this is like the stud of the movie.
1:35:20 Right.
1:35:22 That’s just a different time.
1:35:23 Just a different time, different standard.
1:35:27 And then, of course, you know, standards of women’s bodies have changed, sometimes more
1:35:30 voluptuous, sometimes like in the 90s it was the kind of wafy look.
1:35:34 And these things mirror what’s going on in society to some degree.
1:35:43 But if you listen to comedy pre-Lenny Bruce, pre-swearing, is any of it really funny to you?
1:36:03 Well, to me, I feel like I would probably listen to most of that with like that mind of – because what happens with comedy too is, to be fair to those people, is you end up hearing so many versions of what they did.
1:36:10 Things that are just derivative of other styles and types of jokes and types of performances.
1:36:26 That by the time – like if I heard this guy in 1945 doing these jokes and he’s killing in this room, you know, I would go – I’d probably hear the joke and be like, oh yeah, like I know this joke.
1:36:31 Like I know 10 versions of that joke because I’ve heard them.
1:36:34 So I – hearing it just doesn’t make me laugh.
1:36:35 Even though it’s the original?
1:36:37 Even though it’s the original, yeah.
1:36:43 Because I feel like – I feel like that even happens with like well-known comedians.
1:36:58 Like if – like I was born in 79 and so like my like exposure, like I missed – I wasn’t like really conscious and aware of like the prior era, right?
1:37:00 And like he’s like a god in stand-up.
1:37:05 He’s considered the best comedian ever by most, it seems.
1:37:06 By a lot of people, you know.
1:37:07 He’s on the Mount Rushmore of comedy.
1:37:09 He’s definitely on the Mount Rushmore.
1:37:25 But I felt like by the time that I heard prior, I had heard so many people that were influenced by prior that hearing the original version wasn’t like – it wasn’t like I’m doubled over laughing.
1:37:32 Like I’m hearing every other version – like they’re clearly inspired and, you know, taking from him.
1:37:37 But so now I hear the original and I go like, oh, I get that that’s the version of that.
1:37:38 It can happen with comedy films too.
1:37:40 It’s like you watch Animal House.
1:37:47 If you hadn’t seen it before and you see it now and you’ve watched a lot of comedies, you might just go like, oh, I get how this is the blueprint.
1:37:57 Because I’ve seen so many people take from this that now when you see the original, you’ll be like, oh, you’re like, yeah, but you don’t realize that’s the first time it was done.
1:37:59 Like these jokes were done here originally.
1:38:01 Everybody took from them, you know.
1:38:08 So I don’t think that I would probably end up laughing very hard at the pre-Lenny Bruce comic just for the reason I said, though.
1:38:10 Just because it’s been done.
1:38:12 I’ve heard so many versions of it.
1:38:18 So it seems with comedy, unlike with music or poetry or books, there isn’t that much carry forward.
1:38:29 So, for instance, I mean, I was very, very young and in some cases not born when the Rolling Stones were doing their great work or the Beatles or Elvis, right?
1:38:31 But that music is awesome.
1:38:32 Yeah, yeah.
1:38:32 That’s different.
1:38:41 The fact that many people have taken bits and pieces from those, like you can’t create an amazing Clash song the way the Clash did.
1:38:42 Like they did it best.
1:38:42 Right.
1:38:48 And it will always, like Death or Glory will be like, I don’t care how many songs were derivatives of that.
1:38:49 That song still kills.
1:38:49 That’s the song, yeah.
1:38:52 And so comedy seems different.
1:38:53 I think it’s different in that regard.
1:38:54 I definitely think it’s different.
1:39:00 I think that, you know, it’s one of those things where, like, it’s always shifting.
1:39:11 Also, like, what’s funny has, it really is directly related to what’s happening in the real time.
1:39:17 Like, in the time you’re living in, you can see, whether it’s from stand-up or movies, jokes.
1:39:27 That aren’t fun, that were, like, very funny in 1982, in 1995, in 2007, that you go, it just kind of shifted, right?
1:39:30 It’s like, it’s not, it’s not funny anymore.
1:39:33 Like, and I don’t just mean because it’s not, like, politically correct.
1:39:45 I just mean, like, there’s this unspoken thing that happens, right, where, like, you’re laughing at something, and then you kind of go, like, hey, we collectively are, don’t find this is just not funny anymore.
1:39:54 So, actually, a lot of those things might even strike you as not only, like, not great, you might just be like, that is, that’s not funny at all.
1:40:02 Yeah, I once went to this thing in San Francisco around New Year’s, and they literally wheeled out, is it, like, Henny Youngman or Benny Youngman or something?
1:40:06 He was doing these knock-knock jokes, and it was probably in his late 90s, he was forgetting the punchlines.
1:40:07 But occasionally, he’d nail one.
1:40:07 Yeah.
1:40:09 It was not funny.
1:40:09 Yeah.
1:40:17 It was almost embarrassing, you know, but, but you were like, wow, this guy’s still, like, thinks it’s funny, he’s still going, so there was some amusement, but you look at the older people in the crowd.
1:40:17 Yeah.
1:40:20 And they were like, oh, my God, it’s bringing me back.
1:40:21 Yeah, so some people have-
1:40:24 And you’re like, oh, my goodness, but, you know, no one else was laughing.
1:40:24 Right.
1:40:37 But as you’re describing, some people might look at some comedy, I’m not going to name names, because I’m not versed enough in comedy, but from the 70s or 80s, and be like, yeah, that’s just kind of, like, raw, but, like, it doesn’t really do anything for me anymore.
1:40:52 I’ll tell you, like, this is a very simple, like, example, but, like, I, I can recall that, like, 20 years ago, if a guy was in a club, and there was two guys sitting there in the front row together or whatever, a lot of times would be like, what are you guys, a couple?
1:40:56 And that, that would sometimes prompt laughs.
1:40:57 People would laugh.
1:40:59 They would be like, oh, they’re a couple.
1:41:02 And, like, today, if somebody was like, what are you guys, a couple?
1:41:03 They’d be like, yeah.
1:41:04 And everyone would be like, okay.
1:41:05 Right?
1:41:06 Like, it would be, like, it was-
1:41:11 Like, it was considered, like, oh, it’s funny you’re implying that they’re a romantic couple.
1:41:17 And, like, I feel like just the way society evolves, today, people would be like, and?
1:41:18 Oh, yeah.
1:41:20 I mean, growing up when you, I mean, I’m a little bit older than you are.
1:41:20 Yeah.
1:41:25 I remember, like, I remember, like, the first gay characters showing up in film and reality TV.
1:41:27 It was, like, a huge deal.
1:41:27 Yeah.
1:41:27 Right?
1:41:30 And then, so, things have really changed.
1:41:32 So, what is, yeah, things have really changed.
1:41:35 Like, no one’s ever been funnier than Eddie Murphy, ever.
1:41:41 I think he’s, like, him and his prime of being funny, like, there’s just nothing.
1:41:46 He’s a total prodigy, once-in-a-lifetime type of talent, right?
1:41:47 Like, so funny.
1:41:54 If you put, like, Delirious on for a 21-year-old today, they would be like, what the fuck is happening?
1:41:58 Like, it’s, there’s things in it that are just, they’re just too dated now.
1:41:58 You know what I mean?
1:42:05 Like, just concepts that are, he’s still funny as shit, but, like, those bits would not land like they would in 83.
1:42:06 They just wouldn’t.
1:42:11 Let’s talk about the darkness of comedy.
1:42:18 I once had the experience of going to the comedy cellar with some friends, and this guy got up there, I don’t remember his name, and it was super dark.
1:42:24 I mean, it was, like, clowns with vans doing terrible, I mean, it was just, like, so dark.
1:42:28 And the only thing that was hysterical about it was the fact that he seemed freaked out by it, too.
1:42:29 Uh-huh.
1:42:31 Like, what he was saying was, like, horrible.
1:42:33 He was saying horrible.
1:42:34 Horrible things.
1:42:34 Yeah.
1:42:36 That had gone through his mind.
1:42:36 Yeah.
1:42:40 But the fact that he thought it was horrible was what was funny.
1:42:40 Sure.
1:42:41 And we’re like, whoa.
1:42:46 Like, we walked out of there just from, like, we felt like we’d been transported someplace really unhealthy.
1:42:47 Yeah.
1:42:49 And I was like, man, I feel like I need a shower after that.
1:42:52 That was intense and scary and, like.
1:42:54 This is my favorite thing, by the way.
1:42:54 Whoa.
1:42:58 And then we had the experience of running into him and his girlfriend later that night.
1:42:59 Uh-huh.
1:43:01 And we were like, oh, my God.
1:43:03 And he just took off.
1:43:06 He just, like, could not handle the reflection about what had just happened in there.
1:43:07 Really?
1:43:10 Oh, yeah, no, he just, I’m sure he enjoyed the attention, right?
1:43:11 He’s a performer.
1:43:14 So, but two things occur to me around that example.
1:43:21 One is a guy who’s really dark on stage, seemed like a very loving guy, at least out in public with his girlfriend.
1:43:23 Almost always the case.
1:43:23 Yeah.
1:43:31 And the other one is that where he took us and where he went was so down in the dungeon.
1:43:32 Mm-hmm.
1:43:36 Like, I still kind of get a weird feeling in my body thinking about it.
1:43:36 Yeah.
1:43:43 But his shock at his own words was absolutely hysterical and brilliant.
1:43:47 And it was like, hey, let’s go down into the darkness of human nature.
1:43:47 Yeah.
1:43:51 I’m going to show you how dark it really is, and then I’m going to leave.
1:43:53 And you’re just, like, left spinning.
1:43:56 And it still sits in my body.
1:43:57 We’re talking about that visceral experience.
1:43:58 It still sits in my body.
1:44:00 I don’t know what to make of it.
1:44:03 It’s incredible, A, that, first of all, that he can access it is great.
1:44:18 It is, as, if you’re talking about just, like, as the art form, like, the best thing to do as an artist, any type of artist, is, I think, acknowledge and produce with the dark thoughts.
1:44:23 In other words, don’t act like they’re not there because they’re in everyone, and then put it into your art.
1:44:41 In other words, it’s, if you go, like, I want to fucking rob a bank, like, it’s better, if you’re an artist, to channel that into art, whether you write a story about it, you paint a painting, you write a song, you talk about, you know, as a comedian, you’re, like, your fantasy of doing it, than to actually do it.
1:44:44 So it’s actually, you’re channeling it in the healthier option.
1:45:01 And I also feel like, 20-some years of doing this, dude, the best people, as people that I’ve ever met, are the darkest comedians on stage, and the absolute most terrifying people are the super clean guys.
1:45:02 Like, really?
1:45:05 Yeah, dude, because they don’t acknowledge the darkness.
1:45:08 The darkness exists in all of us.
1:45:11 The Dalai Lama has dark thoughts.
1:45:12 Like, it’s just…
1:45:13 Jung said this.
1:45:15 I mean, it’s just the way it is.
1:45:15 It’s humans.
1:45:16 It’s human beings.
1:45:27 Like, we all, now, some of us have not as, you know, present and overwhelming dark sides and thoughts, but there is darkness in everybody.
1:45:39 The thing is, I feel like what some of the clean comics do is the lack of acknowledging it means that that darkness has to come out in some other way.
1:45:40 It just does.
1:45:41 So how does it come out?
1:45:44 Well, it might come out in their personal life.
1:45:44 I mean…
1:45:44 Not good.
1:45:45 Yeah.
1:45:50 I mean, there’s very famous cases of, don’t curse.
1:45:53 And then, you know, you’re doing some pretty dark things.
1:45:55 Like, that’s a real thing, man.
1:45:58 That, like, hey, I’m going to talk about cookies.
1:46:00 And where do you put your socks?
1:46:02 I can’t find my other sock.
1:46:03 Like, that’s your fucking bit?
1:46:04 Talking about socks?
1:46:04 Okay.
1:46:06 What are you actually really up to?
1:46:10 Because the thing is, those guys, some of those guys, look, I’m not saying they’re not funny.
1:46:12 There’s very, very funny clean comics.
1:46:20 Some of those guys are right on the line of, like, man, if you would just acknowledge some of this stuff, it would be even funnier.
1:46:21 Like, you’re just…
1:46:30 And then you don’t know how that darkness is going to show itself because it’s probably going to show itself in a way that’s not so pleasant.
1:46:33 Yeah, I completely agree with you.
1:46:36 I have a friend who’s a very, very well-known musician.
1:46:38 I won’t say what genre.
1:46:43 And what I love about his music is it encompasses every range of emotion.
1:46:43 Yeah.
1:46:44 Every range.
1:46:48 And I’ve seen him play to huge crowds and just get so pissed.
1:46:55 And I’ve seen him do love songs, hate songs, revenge songs, like, just everything.
1:46:55 Yeah.
1:47:00 But in person, he’s, like, the kindest dude ever.
1:47:01 I mean, that’s…
1:47:02 And it’s, he’s so grounded.
1:47:06 He and his partner are, like, the sweetest people.
1:47:08 And she’s got it, too.
1:47:10 She’s an artist, too.
1:47:13 And some of her art, you’re like, oh, my God.
1:47:17 And then you meet her and you’re like, so kind, so trustworthy.
1:47:18 Yeah.
1:47:19 So exactly what you’re describing.
1:47:20 They’re in touch with it.
1:47:21 They know how to channel it.
1:47:21 Yeah.
1:47:23 I think it’s about doing that.
1:47:35 And I think some people, look, I think it’s also a natural human instinct to not want to acknowledge or play with the dark thoughts that you have.
1:47:36 Right?
1:47:40 Like, it’s, you don’t want to sometimes because you go, that’s an ugly side.
1:47:45 And I don’t want to, I don’t want to use that for my art or even acknowledge that it’s there.
1:47:50 But I think it’s definitely the better way to go is to actually work with it.
1:47:55 A lot of comics die of drug overdoses.
1:47:57 It’s, like, not these days as much.
1:47:59 It seems like there’s now, like, the healthy comics.
1:48:00 Yeah.
1:48:06 And I don’t know what the numbers are compared to music, like rock musicians or something.
1:48:15 But if I compare to, like, science or I compare to, like, law, okay, one could say, you know, in law offices, there used to be a lot of drug use, especially in big cities and this kind of stimulants.
1:48:18 But let’s just focus on comedy for the moment.
1:48:31 Do you think that comedy pulls from a group that has a larger percentage of people that are just struggling with inner turmoil and they rely on substances to kind of manage?
1:48:36 Or are the substances part of the creative process for people?
1:48:36 Writers, too.
1:48:38 I mean, it used to be that many writers were drinkers.
1:48:42 If you ever want to, like, a voyage through alcoholism, read about the habits of writers.
1:48:43 Yeah.
1:48:45 Not all of them, but many of them drank a lot.
1:48:46 A lot.
1:48:46 A lot, a lot.
1:48:47 Yeah.
1:48:49 Metamine, sometimes, but it was, like, drinking.
1:48:52 It was, like, part and parcel with the writer’s life, sadly.
1:48:53 That’s not the case now.
1:48:59 But, yeah, what are your thoughts about substances in comedy and comics?
1:49:01 I think it’s a combination of things.
1:49:08 I feel like, you know, a lot of comedians, like, that world pulls from certainly people with traumatic backgrounds.
1:49:12 There’s a lot of mental health issues with comedians.
1:49:14 There’s a lot of clinically depressed comedians.
1:49:23 There’s comedians that come into it with, like, severe anxiety, for instance, severe depression, different mental health things.
1:49:35 So, usually, even outside of comedy, if you’re talking about people with this type of mindset, you know, these issues, you know, substances kind of come with that.
1:49:38 People trying to regulate and deal with those issues.
1:49:44 To also, you know, throw some more gas on that.
1:49:51 You’re talking about an environment that is a nightlife environment where these things are kind of readily available.
1:49:56 And it can, you know, it can be fun.
1:50:04 It can make you feel like you’re helping your art form by partaking in these things.
1:50:12 And then it’s really just, like, with most things, you just kind of, you see that some people go, oh, it’s getting, right now it’s getting in the way.
1:50:16 And they kind of acknowledge that, like, I’m better off without this.
1:50:18 And then some people are just too far gone in it, right?
1:50:20 Where they just, they’re addicts.
1:50:24 They become, we have a lot of addicts in comedy.
1:50:26 It’s just one of those factors.
1:50:27 Like, you just, you see it a lot.
1:50:31 People that are complete hardcore addicts.
1:50:39 So that coupled with mental health things and the fact that we’re up late and we’re with people that are also into nightlife.
1:50:42 I think all that together, you get a lot of substance abuse.
1:50:43 A lot.
1:50:46 Why is cynicism so unfunny?
1:50:47 Is it?
1:50:58 I mean, I feel like cynicism presented in the right way, like a cynical person can be funny.
1:51:10 I think what problem with cynicism is that it’s, um, it’s really not ultimately, there’s nothing hopeful in it.
1:51:14 Cynicism takes away any feeling that, like, things could get better.
1:51:17 Yeah, like in the world of improv, the yes and.
1:51:17 Yeah, yeah, that’s true.
1:51:19 I feel like cynicism, like, shuts it down.
1:51:20 Well, that’s true.
1:51:26 In the case of improv, I’m just saying, like, some people have this cynical kind of take on things that are still, like, funny people.
1:51:31 Yeah, if you negate a thought in improv, the whole thing is over.
1:51:32 It just dies.
1:51:33 You know, if you’re like, it’s hot.
1:51:34 And, like, I’m cold.
1:51:35 You’re like, okay.
1:51:37 Like, we’re not really going to do this then, huh?
1:51:39 Like, you kind of have to, like, add to it.
1:51:40 But that’s interesting.
1:51:48 Um, yeah, I mean, if you’re, if you’re a cynical, like, a truly a cynical person.
1:51:53 Because I guess the thing you find in comedy is there’s a lot of, like, faux emotion, right?
1:51:56 Like, the faux angry, you know what I mean?
1:51:59 Like, you put on this thing to sell your bit.
1:52:01 You sell an emotion with it, too.
1:52:06 So somebody can, like, manipulate that cynicism with humor.
1:52:14 But I think if you’re genuinely a cynical person, what you are really is usually someone that, like, actually people don’t want to be around.
1:52:15 Right?
1:52:21 Like, the very genuinely cynical person, another way to describe them is just negative.
1:52:22 And that’s a whole buzzkill.
1:52:22 Yeah.
1:52:26 So you just kind of go, like, I don’t want to be around that.
1:52:37 I think, ultimately, the best mode to be in for comedy is, like, you kind of actually want to be, like, inclusive.
1:52:38 You want, you know what I mean?
1:52:39 You’re kind of, like, right?
1:52:42 You’re saying things that people want to nod along with.
1:52:45 And if you’re just, like, shit’s not going to work out, it never does.
1:52:47 No one’s, like, this is fucking fun, man.
1:52:49 Like, this is really funny.
1:52:54 So that probably has some factor in it.
1:53:01 I mean, yeah, you learn early on, at least I felt like it, that there’s these really cynical comics.
1:53:05 But the thing is, I’m not talking about, like, the faux thing in a performance.
1:53:07 Like, they are just like that.
1:53:12 And you can feel the energy vortex that they are.
1:53:17 And you kind of go, like, I got to, like, not be around this guy.
1:53:23 Because early on, especially, you rely so much on hope.
1:53:27 The fact that you signed up to do this thing that, you know, on paper, it seems insane.
1:53:30 Like, were you going to tell jokes for a living?
1:53:31 Were you out of your mind?
1:53:32 I mean, that’s what people would say to me.
1:53:34 Like, they’re like, were you crazy?
1:53:35 I would say it worked out.
1:53:38 I mean, I got very lucky in that it worked out.
1:53:39 And you worked very hard.
1:53:40 You worked extremely hard.
1:53:42 I did work very hard at it.
1:53:50 But that is a thing where you go, like, oh, this is an insane path kind of to go down.
1:53:58 Like, I can’t have the guy who’s next to me, who’s also a comedian, being like, this shit, you know, they’re never going to pick us.
1:54:00 They’re never going to, this shit never works out.
1:54:04 You’re like, yeah, I can’t have that mantra in my head all the time.
1:54:06 And you have to, like, part ways with those people.
1:54:09 Because they are like a virus, you know.
1:54:10 They’re a virus.
1:54:13 Like, so, yeah, you’re right in observing.
1:54:14 Like, it’s not funny.
1:54:20 I think it’s more like that it’s just, it’s not productive to be around truly cynical people.
1:54:30 Along the lines of what we’re calling emotional contagion, I realized I’m not aware of any kind of, like, duet comics.
1:54:33 I know it sounds kind of silly, but in every other genre, like, with music, right?
1:54:37 Like, people play alone, they play with a band, they play, like, together, like, you offset voices.
1:54:48 I mean, but maybe in comedy, stage comedy, that is, the audience is the other member of the, I’m calling it a duet, which sounds so silly.
1:54:49 But you get the idea.
1:54:50 Yeah.
1:54:56 That they’re the one that you’re resonating with and that you’re playing off of and they’re riding with you.
1:55:00 Because I’ve had the experience of going to the comedy store.
1:55:01 I was there last year.
1:55:02 Tim Dillon did.
1:55:04 A bit.
1:55:06 Well, he went out for, like, 20, he came out for 20 minutes.
1:55:07 Yeah.
1:55:08 And just murdered.
1:55:08 Mm-hmm.
1:55:11 And some of that’s in his recent special.
1:55:12 Uh-huh.
1:55:12 Just murdered.
1:55:17 It was just, and he, like, crescendoed the whole crowd and then just, like, in typical Tim Dillon, I just, like, walked out.
1:55:18 Yeah.
1:55:19 You’re like, whoa.
1:55:21 And then you feel like you were part of something.
1:55:21 Yeah.
1:55:26 Even though you were a passive recipient of what was going on or participant.
1:55:28 So maybe that’s where it is.
1:55:30 Have there ever been two people that get up there and kind of, like, riff?
1:55:30 Together?
1:55:31 Yeah.
1:55:31 Oh, yeah.
1:55:32 And do it well?
1:55:32 Yeah.
1:55:34 There’s a couple twins that do that.
1:55:34 Okay.
1:55:35 Yeah.
1:55:42 That’s a good observation that it is, like, the audience is the other, you know, participant, right?
1:55:48 It’s you and the, but then, like, the Lucas brothers and the Sklar brothers are, they’re both, they’re twin brothers.
1:55:53 And they go up there and, because I’m, you’ve probably done something about the twin phenomena.
1:56:03 Like, how these guys operate, both of these sets of twins together, is, it is, like, an experience where you’re, like, whoa.
1:56:08 The way, they don’t go, like, always, like, set up, punch.
1:56:14 Like, the set up sentence can come half out of one brother and the other, and it’s seamless.
1:56:22 Like, it’s like, it’s like when you hang out with, you ever hang out with twins and they really answer in unison, even though they’re not looking at each other and they’re saying, like, the same thing.
1:56:25 Like, that’s how these guys work on stage.
1:56:29 And it is, you know, it gets you where you, like, you have questions afterwards.
1:56:31 You’re like, wait a minute, did you guys, like, how did you set that up?
1:56:37 Because it’s so seamless and they’re literally, like, going back, back, back, back, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
1:56:46 And it feels like you had to go, hey, when I say and, make sure you, but it’s another level beyond that.
1:56:52 Like, they really flow, even their talk over each other feels like it’s perfectly done.
1:56:59 Like, this, you’re hearing the end of this guy’s sentence, the next guy steps on top of it, but you hear him clearly and back and forth.
1:57:00 I have to check it out.
1:57:04 Those guys are like, it is like a phenomenon to watch them, to watch them work.
1:57:06 It’s, it actually is really, really cool.
1:57:19 I’m coming to the conclusion that by being a audience member in comedy, you, one is experiencing a kind of an empathy with what the comic is experiencing.
1:57:21 And that’s kind of where we’re getting here.
1:57:26 Like, I didn’t plan this out, but, you know, you have to feel it.
1:57:28 It’s got to be real for the comic.
1:57:30 The audience can sense that.
1:57:33 The delight, the silliness that you’re bringing to it.
1:57:38 Like, so much of that is in the audience’s nervous system as they’re getting it.
1:57:43 And it’s clear to me that, like, comedy is the one way.
1:57:49 I mean, you could say this is about music, but like you said, it’s so different because so much of it seems spontaneous.
1:57:50 It does.
1:57:55 And I also feel like, you know, my buddy Kirk Fox, he always, he’s a great comedian.
1:58:06 He always says this thing, like, when he’s on stage, he’s like, I plan on being open, inviting, you know, hoping to leave the stage a better, you know, leave the room a better place.
1:58:12 Like, but this thing about being open, inviting, vulnerable is like, it’s a very real thing.
1:58:14 Like, you, you learn it as you do it.
1:58:19 You start off pretty much operating in fear as a standup, right?
1:58:19 You’re terrified.
1:58:22 You’re terrified that it’s, you’re not going to do well.
1:58:25 The longer you do it, you get more comfortable being up there.
1:58:34 You realize that if you’re vulnerable, if you’re willing to be vulnerable, which takes, like, effort and some, you know, some, like, courage.
1:58:46 The audience senses this on an unspoken level and will go with you more places and will definitely laugh more and will be, like, basically be on your side, right?
1:58:50 If you don’t learn to do that, it’s a different type of performance.
1:58:56 You’re basically, like, going up there with, like, I’m the boss, you know?
1:59:02 Like, if you’re going up there, like, I’m telling you what’s up, they still might laugh at things, but they don’t leave going, like, I care for this guy, right?
1:59:03 I empathize with him.
1:59:11 And if you can learn to be vulnerable on stage, your performances will get exponentially better.
1:59:14 And honestly, you’ll get way crazier laughs.
1:59:16 So interesting.
1:59:20 The reason I love comedy so much is that, A, it lets me forget about the outside world.
1:59:21 Yeah.
1:59:23 While hearing about the outside world.
1:59:26 And I think stage comedy is especially powerful.
1:59:36 And before we sat down and had this conversation, we were talking about how, like, some people think, you know, they’re like, oh, my friend is super funny, way funnier than any of the comics.
1:59:42 But like a professional athlete or a non-professional athlete in this case, can they do it on stage?
1:59:44 Can they do the dance?
1:59:46 That’s the thing.
1:59:57 That is the main question is, because sometimes, like I told you, people will be like, you know, my friend, Greg, is hilarious.
2:00:00 He’s like one of the five, he’s funnier than any of those guys on stage.
2:00:02 And you’re like, I believe you.
2:00:05 And you might hang out with him and be like, this dude is hilarious.
2:00:07 Like, he’s really funny.
2:00:23 The difference is that, can he do, can he be that funny when it’s just him with a microphone in front of people and take who he is in real life and be that on stage?
2:00:25 That’s ultimately the goal for every comedian.
2:00:32 Like, they say that, like, the longer you do stand-up, your goal is to be who you are offstage, onstage, right?
2:00:35 Like, it’s because you, it’s impossible when you start.
2:00:37 When you start, you are funny with your friends.
2:00:43 And then you get on stage and, you know, you kind of freeze and you’re, you’re trying to, like, convey, this is who I am.
2:00:46 Because you’re, what you’re doing is you’re going, this is how I see things.
2:00:48 That’s what your, that’s what your performance is.
2:00:50 Like, this is funny to me.
2:00:51 I’m going to tell you how I see it.
2:00:52 And that’s why it’s funny.
2:01:03 Some guys that are, or women, I’m saying, like, just people that are very, very funny offstage, just, they can’t do that to an audience.
2:01:07 They’re just, they’re funny to be around in life, but they’re not performers.
2:01:14 I mean, there’s an element to it that is, like, can you get up in front of strangers and make them laugh?
2:01:15 They don’t know you.
2:01:20 You have to convey who you are in a moment and make them laugh.
2:01:21 That’s a different thing.
2:01:32 It’s, it’s not unlike a guy that kills it at the YMCA when you play ball and it’s like, okay, well, like, let’s put you in an NBA arena, right?
2:01:34 Like, can you actually play with these guys?
2:01:36 It’s a, it’s a totally different thing.
2:01:37 Look, some can’t.
2:01:43 Everybody who ends up being a good, a good standup was super funny to somebody offstage years ago, right?
2:01:46 They just worked at it and they were able to translate it.
2:01:48 Some people just can’t translate it.
2:01:50 Do you think it helps to really like people?
2:01:57 As a, as a general group, you know, like you’re trying to entertain people.
2:01:59 You’re trying to be entertained by your own entertainment.
2:02:02 Like, do you think you need to like humans?
2:02:04 That’s an interesting question.
2:02:05 I thought I could answer that quicker.
2:02:14 And I started to think about it because I started to think about the fact that like so many comedians I know, like so many go like, God, I hate people so much.
2:02:25 You know, I mean, to put, I’ll frame it a little differently than my theory as to one of the, one of the main reasons why Rogan is the top podcast in the world.
2:02:36 Um, there are several reasons, I believe his work ethic, et cetera, but is because he has lots of different kinds of friends and he can sit down with intellectuals.
2:02:37 He can sit down with comics.
2:02:38 He can sit down with criminals.
2:02:43 He likes the understanding and communication with different kinds of people.
2:02:49 And when you know a little bit about him, like his, his life is filled with these people outside of the studio.
2:02:51 So he’s very comfortable in the presence of like anyone.
2:02:59 You put anyone in front of him and he can be genuinely interested in learning from them and sharing with them in dialogue.
2:03:00 He’s genuinely a curious guy too.
2:03:01 You can’t, you can’t fabricate that.
2:03:02 You can’t manufacture that.
2:03:02 I agree.
2:03:07 Whereas some podcasters, um, they’re not that interested in what other people have to say.
2:03:11 So then they’re not the best interviewers unless it’s someone like directly within their genre of interest.
2:03:12 That’s a good observation.
2:03:17 So as a comic, I guess it depends on the range of topics that you explore in your comedy, perhaps.
2:03:18 Yeah.
2:03:22 I don’t think you can hate humanity and be a good comedian, right?
2:03:26 I think like for sure you have to genuinely love making people laugh.
2:03:33 Uh, if you’re going to be like successful at it, you have to have an obsession with doing that.
2:03:41 Like a literal obsession because you go through these periods on your journey of standup of being like, Hey, I, I don’t have rent money.
2:03:44 I can’t, you know, I can’t pay for anything.
2:03:45 And you have the option.
2:03:48 You want to go get a job and you’re like, no, I’m going to keep doing like you’re obsessed.
2:03:55 You’re obsessed with it so much that you’re giving up things that people would otherwise in your position be doing in life.
2:04:00 Because you just are so in love with writing and performing jokes.
2:04:02 Like, you know, you have an obsession.
2:04:09 I do think you have to, on some level though, like I’m thinking about it, love people.
2:04:18 Cause you’re, you, if you love making people laugh, you enjoy people, you know, you could still be, cause so many comics are so bothered by so many things that people do.
2:04:22 You know, that’s like a very normal, like I’m very much like, I fucking can’t stand these, but you know what I mean?
2:04:24 Like always just like, look at this dipshit.
2:04:26 He’s bringing fucking eggs on the plane.
2:04:28 Like, you know, like you’re just like.
2:04:28 Tuna.
2:04:29 Yeah.
2:04:30 He’s like, you asshole.
2:04:31 You’re like Tupperware on the plane.
2:04:32 Eat that shit at the gate.
2:04:34 So like, you know, we’re always like.
2:04:36 You know what I mean?
2:04:38 You’re always just like complaining.
2:04:40 Complaining is part of being a standup.
2:04:40 You’re funny.
2:04:44 If you, if you never complain about anything, you’re probably not funny.
2:04:45 You know what I mean?
2:04:46 It’s like humanity too much.
2:04:47 Yeah.
2:04:48 I feel like if, here’s the thing.
2:04:51 If you go, I’m good with whatever, you’re not a funny person.
2:04:53 You can, you’re funny.
2:04:59 If you have a, you either love or hate something that can be funny.
2:05:02 You can love this and it could be funny.
2:05:03 You can hate it.
2:05:04 And that’d be funny.
2:05:05 If you’re like, I mean, I’m fine.
2:05:06 That’s not funny.
2:05:07 The me response doesn’t do too much.
2:05:09 It doesn’t do anything in standup.
2:05:09 Yeah.
2:05:16 So, but like, I think somebody that complains about people can be very funny.
2:05:19 You just, you can’t be like all people everywhere.
2:05:20 I can’t stand.
2:05:22 Like that, that would be too extreme.
2:05:29 There are all sorts of theories about how people’s kind of childhood issues or just their
2:05:33 fundamental struggle like feeds their art in incredible ways.
2:05:35 I think I saw an interview with Jim Carrey.
2:05:38 Um, who admittedly, I don’t know much about his comedy.
2:05:42 I said, I was so busy in school when he was kind of through his reign of physical comedy
2:05:43 movies.
2:05:44 I’ve never seen Dumb and Dumber.
2:05:45 I’ve never seen the Matrix.
2:05:46 I’ve never seen Goonies.
2:05:48 Sorry.
2:05:49 I just haven’t.
2:05:50 I love Stand By Me.
2:05:52 I love other movies, but I need to see those movies.
2:05:53 I just, I just, I’m busy.
2:05:54 I’m trying.
2:05:55 I got a lot I want to do.
2:05:55 Last night at dinner.
2:05:59 I just admitted that I had never, I’ve never seen Braveheart and I’ve never seen Gladiator.
2:06:00 Oh, those are amazing.
2:06:00 Yeah.
2:06:01 And then guess what?
2:06:02 I’m not going to see them.
2:06:02 Really?
2:06:03 No.
2:06:03 All right.
2:06:06 I’m just not, I’m not going to see them.
2:06:10 Well, clearly, um, just knowing a little bit about your children and the fact that they’re
2:06:11 related to you.
2:06:14 Um, I’m not going to try and push you to do anything because clearly you guys are stubborn.
2:06:15 Yeah.
2:06:20 Um, so the question I have after seeing this Jim Carrey thing, he said, you know, his,
2:06:26 the reason he did comedy is he wanted, uh, to make people laugh, to forget about their,
2:06:27 their struggles.
2:06:31 He had a chronically ill mother and he used to like throw himself down the stairs as a kid.
2:06:33 Like, I believe him.
2:06:36 So physical comedy became his thing.
2:06:42 How much do you think that, uh, really successful comedians, uh, tap into sort of a fundamental,
2:06:45 um, quest to resolve something?
2:06:49 Um, you know, you’re trying to, whatever it is, fill in the blank.
2:06:50 I don’t want to fill in blanks for you.
2:06:50 Yeah.
2:06:50 Yeah.
2:06:54 No, I think it’s, I mean, I can speak for myself.
2:06:59 I think in my own, in my own case, I was the new kid a lot.
2:06:59 Right.
2:07:06 I was, I was the, I went to one school for first grade, one for second and third, a different
2:07:10 one for fourth, a different one for fifth and sixth, a different one for seventh and
2:07:12 eighth, a different one for ninth.
2:07:14 And I switched again in ninth grade.
2:07:15 So I was a new kid all those times.
2:07:22 And I felt like whenever I arrived and I, you kind of like over time go, like you start
2:07:26 to develop this muscle for like, how am I going to get someone to like me?
2:07:28 And it was like, try to make them laugh.
2:07:28 Right.
2:07:29 Like that became a thing.
2:07:30 It was trying to make them laugh.
2:07:36 I think for me personally, there was also this, just my own insecurities.
2:07:45 I think I felt like, uh, if I got enough people to laugh and if I became successful at making
2:07:50 people laugh and like people acknowledged it, that I would no longer feel these insecurities
2:07:54 and it doesn’t happen, they stick with you.
2:07:54 And thank goodness.
2:07:57 Cause it sounds like it’s the, it’s the fuel for your art.
2:07:59 I think it probably is.
2:08:05 I mean, I just remember thinking like, you know, if I were to be like, had a special and
2:08:10 I got paid well, then I wouldn’t have any self doubts anymore.
2:08:10 Or like, you know what I mean?
2:08:13 Like you think that like, then I’ll be, I’ll feel fulfilled.
2:08:18 And then you get the thing and you’re like, yeah, no, it’s, it’s the same.
2:08:19 It didn’t go.
2:08:21 I mean, you, you start to address it in other ways.
2:08:28 Cause you just realize that the accomplishment or whatever, isn’t the answer to that thing,
2:08:34 but it is a thing that makes you, you think that it will make you feel complete.
2:08:35 Right.
2:08:37 And, um, it’s not the case.
2:08:45 Um, and I think, I do think that like being a new kid a lot is something that I’ll probably
2:08:53 never shake that kind of memory of just it’s, you know, when you’re a kid, your social acceptance
2:08:54 is so dominating.
2:08:56 It’s different as you get older.
2:09:00 I think, you know, you’re not, you’re not like so concerned with like being socially accepted
2:09:04 everywhere and you have a family and you’re just like, this is my, my group.
2:09:11 But as a kid, it’s like, it’s kind of everything, you know, and being new every time, like every
2:09:14 new school year is like, that’s kind of, it’s kind of traumatizing.
2:09:17 So it’s the friction that creates the spark.
2:09:18 I think so.
2:09:21 And so you don’t want to do too much therapy and resolve it.
2:09:22 I mean, I’ve done.
2:09:23 Seriously speaking.
2:09:24 I mean, I’ve done so much.
2:09:24 Yeah.
2:09:25 Same.
2:09:26 It doesn’t ever go away.
2:09:26 I, yeah.
2:09:31 It helps, you know, it helps in that, like you have certain awareness of things now, certain
2:09:32 dots get connected.
2:09:35 I love, I think therapy is phenomenal.
2:09:38 I would not have traded any of the therapy that I had.
2:09:40 I’m a huge advocate for it and I think it’s great.
2:09:42 Yeah.
2:09:44 It doesn’t, you don’t go like same thing.
2:09:45 Like now I’m done.
2:09:46 Everything’s fine.
2:09:48 Like it doesn’t work like that.
2:09:50 But I’m taking Jordan’s competitive nature away.
2:09:51 You wouldn’t want that.
2:09:51 No.
2:09:57 That was the, that was the friction that created the, yeah, the phenomenon that is Jordan.
2:10:00 A lot of comedians, I’m speaking, I spoke of myself, but I think a lot of us fall under
2:10:05 the, like the banner of, to put it simply, please like me.
2:10:07 You know what I mean?
2:10:09 Like you just go, please, please like me.
2:10:10 I want you to like me.
2:10:14 Because that’s what you are when you’re a new kid and that’s what you are when you walk into
2:10:17 a room and, you know, you just go like, I just want people to like me.
2:10:22 And, and a lot of comics might not admit it like that, but it’s definitely the case.
2:10:24 You’re just, you want to be liked.
2:10:27 Sounds pathetic, I think, but it’s true.
2:10:29 No, I don’t think it sounds pathetic.
2:10:31 It sounds incredibly open and honest.
2:10:36 And I think it’s going to be very helpful for people who seek to be comedians and just for
2:10:42 people generally trying to think about how their, their challenge, that inner friction can, can
2:10:43 create amazing things.
2:10:44 Yeah.
2:10:46 And you’ve managed to do it over and over again.
2:10:49 So maybe, um, you almost got me to cry.
2:10:50 We talked about, you almost got me to cry.
2:10:51 I can keep going.
2:10:51 No, no, no.
2:10:52 Keep changing topic.
2:10:53 What’s happening now?
2:10:54 What’s next?
2:11:02 Well, uh, it really, like, I, I know people use this expression, but it really, truly was
2:11:07 a dream come true to make the series like a, a, a, for real.
2:11:14 Um, you know, I made no, uh, secret about it that like the reason I moved to LA was not
2:11:15 to be a standup comedian.
2:11:18 It was to like, it was to like make movies and stuff.
2:11:19 Like, that’s what I wanted to do.
2:11:28 So like getting the opportunity to make the show, it felt like I got paid to make like 15
2:11:29 mini movies for the series.
2:11:35 And I, I mean, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve never had a more fulfilling kind of creative experience,
2:11:40 like from writing to producing it to, you know, being in the edits and, and seeing this thing
2:11:41 come together.
2:11:46 So for me, it’s like, it’s such a thrill to have that experience and to be able to put
2:11:51 that out as like, um, something that I made with, with a bunch of great people.
2:11:56 The difference standup is like, you’re alone and like on a show or a movie you’re with
2:11:58 like a hundred other people.
2:12:02 And it was, it was an awesome experience and I get to do some more of it.
2:12:09 So I get to do like a movie this summer and another show I got, um, asked to, to develop.
2:12:13 So I’m, I mean, I’m like over the moon that I get to do these things.
2:12:17 It really, it’s like, I get to do them 20 years after I thought I would do them, but it’s,
2:12:19 I’m super grateful to have the experience.
2:12:24 So, yeah, I’m most excited that I get to keep pursuing that because I feel like it’s
2:12:26 been in my head this whole time.
2:12:28 And now I actually get to act on it.
2:12:31 Well, listen, I’m so grateful that you came here to share with us about your process.
2:12:34 I mean, we talked about the art and science of comedy and humor.
2:12:35 I hope it was good, man.
2:12:37 I loved it.
2:12:43 It was excellent because you share so openly and you, you know, pull, pull back the curtain
2:12:45 on your process and, and comedy in general.
2:12:50 And, uh, I love what a deep thinker you are and at the same time, how much you just pour
2:12:52 yourself into your craft and enjoy it.
2:12:52 Thanks.
2:12:56 And, um, your reflections are really appreciated and I’m a fan.
2:12:59 Um, I’m also proud to have you as a, a cousin.
2:13:07 I, um, uh, and look, I, I look to you as somebody who really understands how to also balance work
2:13:12 and family and merge the, the insanity of life into a craft.
2:13:17 And, and people really, I can just say, I speak for many, many people, um, very confidently
2:13:18 on this.
2:13:23 Uh, people can really feel your benevolence, even when you’re pointing out like, like the
2:13:28 darkness and the, and the ridiculousness of, of the, the human experience.
2:13:31 So, uh, you make our lives better and I’m so grateful you came out.
2:13:33 Well, that’s, that’s very kind of you.
2:13:36 I’m also, like, I should say, I’m, uh, you know, I’m, I don’t know if enough people tell
2:13:40 you, but I’m also very honestly proud of you for like what you’ve done.
2:13:45 And, and, you know, being, uh, uh, a teacher is one thing, but being able to teach so many
2:13:50 people and share, like, I always feel like the most generous person is the person who doesn’t
2:13:51 hoard information.
2:13:55 It’s a natural human instinct where people have information about something and they just go,
2:13:56 I’ll keep this to myself.
2:14:02 And so the fact that you share, you teach so much, you know, I pick up things for you, from
2:14:03 you all the time.
2:14:07 And I, and so many people do, and then it’s become this thing where, you know, now people
2:14:08 are like, what are you fucking listening to Huberman?
2:14:10 And you’re like, actually, yeah, I am.
2:14:13 Like my, my wife’s like, what did Huberman tell you to fucking take a shit right now?
2:14:14 I’m like, yes, no.
2:14:19 But I mean, it’s, it is great that you, you don’t, you don’t hoard information.
2:14:20 You, you, you share it.
2:14:21 And I think it helps a lot of people.
2:14:22 Thank you.
2:14:23 It’s a labor of love.
2:14:27 And for people that know me as you do, that’s the same on camera and off camera.
2:14:30 So, um, you’re a great role model to me.
2:14:32 I’d love to have you back to continue the conversation.
2:14:33 I would love to.
2:14:34 We’ll do a five hour one next time.
2:14:35 Yeah.
2:14:39 Like, uh, and I’m going to finish the rest of, uh, of bad thoughts.
2:14:39 Please do.
2:14:42 Um, it’s amazing.
2:14:42 Yep.
2:14:43 Thanks so much.
2:14:43 All right, Tom.
2:14:44 Thanks so much.
2:14:47 Thank you for joining me for today’s discussion with Tom Segura.
2:14:50 To find links to Tom’s work, please see the show note captions.
2:14:54 I should point out that bad thoughts is not suitable for children.
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