EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,001 words- 0:00 – 1:47
Flip phone life: reducing tracking and reclaiming attention
- ACAdam Curry
... we, uh, we sparked one up on the New Year's Eve. We put, filled up that hole.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, the actual real-
- ACAdam Curry
Oh, the whole ... Oh, my God.
- JRJoe Rogan
... rolling paper that came with Big Bamboo?
- ACAdam Curry
That was the first time I really went out.
- JRJoe Rogan
We're, we're live right now, so we'll just let everybody know we're talking about Cheech & Chong's album, Big Bamboo-
- ACAdam Curry
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... that actually came with a real rolling paper.
- ACAdam Curry
Yeah, huge. Just across the, I think it was across the double, the, the double album.
- JRJoe Rogan
Dude, you have a flip phone. Respect.
- ACAdam Curry
I do. I do, I do, I do.
- JRJoe Rogan
Respect. You stepped out. (laughs)
- ACAdam Curry
OTG, brother. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. You figured it out. (laughs)
- ACAdam Curry
Create less data.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAdam Curry
That's, that's my motto.
- JRJoe Rogan
Is that what it is?
- ACAdam Curry
Yeah. Well, two things. One, uh, um, your phone is always fucking with you.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAdam Curry
It's, it's notifying and, you know-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAdam Curry
... and I just didn't want to be a part of that anymore. I wanted to, you know, be a little more connected to life outside.
- JRJoe Rogan
You can still call people.
- ACAdam Curry
C- well ...
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAdam Curry
This is, so this is actually a new flip phone from, um, T-Mobile, Alcatel, and it, it has KaiOS, which is, so it's not really a trackable OS. Uh, although Google put an investment into-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, you're serious about this?
- ACAdam Curry
Oh, I'm very serious about it. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay, okay.
- 1:47 – 3:04
Surveillance capitalism: smart devices and data as the real commodity
- ACAdam Curry
The pro- I mean, we have all this cool shit, all this great technology, but the business model fucked us all.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- ACAdam Curry
I mean, six years ago, I had the first Amazon Echo. I'm like, "This is groundbreaking." Uh, Dvorak, my, my co-host, he was laughing at me. He's like, "Why would you bring a spy device into your house?" Said, "Look, I'm just testing this out. If it had an Apple logo on it, everyone would be losing their shit right now, but it didn't." And I loved it. Hooked it up to the lights, had all that stuff going, and then, as I started to understand what it was really doing and what it's really communicating, all these things, right down to, like, your Roku remote, you pick that up, it's communicating with home base.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- ACAdam Curry
So all this stuff, so I got rid of all of it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well-
- ACAdam Curry
Just got rid of it.
- JRJoe Rogan
... um, uh, you know, I was listening to one of Sam Harris's podcast, and, uh, he was talking with someone that, that said, and they, they had a really good, great quote, that we didn't realize that our data was something valuable.
- ACAdam Curry
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
We did- we didn't realize it was a commodity, and it was being sold not just a, a, a commodity that's kind of valuable, but insanely valuable.
- ACAdam Curry
Extremely, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
What, that's what-
- ACAdam Curry
Extremely.
- JRJoe Rogan
... where Facebook makes all their money. It's where Google makes all their money.
- ACAdam Curry
Everybody.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAdam Curry
Everybody.
- JRJoe Rogan
They make it from your data, and you never really understood what you were doing when you signed off to give that data away.
- ACAdam Curry
Yep.
- JRJoe Rogan
When you sign the terms of agreements, and you're like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever," and nobody reads through that shit.
- 3:04 – 4:39
Financial-data pipelines: Plaid, bank logins, and behavioral profiling
- ACAdam Curry
You know what's even more egregious, is, um, there's a company called Plaid, P-L-A-I-D.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- ACAdam Curry
And it just sold to Visa for, I think, four or five billion dollars. And it's the, um, the financial backend, or kind of like a bridge between all these apps that can do stuff with your bank account and your bank account. So instead of, so if you have an app like, uh, Venmo or, ah, shit, uh, I, you know, name any payment-
- JRJoe Rogan
Cash App.
- ACAdam Curry
I didn't want to disparage anyone who might be advertising (laughs) on your show, but yeah-
- JRJoe Rogan
It doesn't matter. It's okay.
- ACAdam Curry
... Y- Ca- Cash App too.
- JRJoe Rogan
PayPal.
- ACAdam Curry
Uh, well ...
- JRJoe Rogan
Does PayPal do it?
- ACAdam Curry
Uh, PayPal has their own system, but what you do is you sign up and you literally give this app your username and login to your bank account. Instead of an API or some kind of programming interface just lets the app talk to your bank account and put money in, take it out, it can do anything. It, in fact, it is just like scream- screen scraping. It's going, it can go through anything that's connected to your bank account, it can look at, and they do. And, and Credit Karma, another great, a great, uh, example of it. And they are just sucking out all of your information. When you pay your bills, who you pay first, why, you know, if, if you have, you know, what your p- pattern is of, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- ACAdam Curry
... of credit card payment, moving stuff around. So you think you're just using it as a, as a utility, but they're tracking your fucking life.
- JRJoe Rogan
Dude, you're, you're really concerned about this. This is-
- ACAdam Curry
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
How much ...
- ACAdam Curry
Well, e- everybody'll get the world they deserve, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAdam Curry
So I'm trying to protect myself and people I love. Also, you know-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAdam Curry
... the drone can't target me that easily with this.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAdam Curry
You know, so protecting you, Joe.
- JRJoe Rogan
Thank you.
- 4:39 – 7:43
Apps that train you: insurance telematics, health incentives, and ‘enslavement’
- ACAdam Curry
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
It, it seems somewhat inevitable, right, that this connection that we have to technology gets deeper and deeper into our lives.
- ACAdam Curry
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
But, th- what, what disturbs me is that there're these giant corporations that are not just profiting off of our connection, but then they're using that money and that influence to affect a lot of things in our culture.
- ACAdam Curry
W- well, they're enslaving you.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAdam Curry
So Credit Karma is a great e- example, uh, which also just sold for seven billion dollars. It was literally, um, changing your behavior to get a higher credit score. And this credit score isn't really even an official credit score, it's the one that they kinda made up. So, they'll say, "Pay your utilities on time, then we'll raise your credit score. Your credit score is higher. Now we can lend you this money." You see? So they're training people to do certain things, like, um, the Progressive app for insurance. It's training you to drive in a, quote unquote, responsible manner, because you get discounts if you, you know, don't brake too hard, if you're not accelerating, if you're not breaking speed limits, et cetera.
- JRJoe Rogan
Is it hooked up to the GPS so it knows-
- ACAdam Curry
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... so it knows your speeds and everything-
- ACAdam Curry
Oh, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... it's monitoring?
- ACAdam Curry
Everything. Your, if your braking velocity, all of that shit.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, God.
- ACAdam Curry
Oh, yeah. Yeah. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
So, they take that into consideration every month when you-
- ACAdam Curry
That's the whole point. The point is to train the user to be a good, fiscally good person, whatever that means.
- JRJoe Rogan
And you'll do that just because you wanna save some money?
- ACAdam Curry
Well, of course everyone does that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- ACAdam Curry
And you're gonna be, you're gonna be forced into it. Like, I just got, um, health insurance, new health insurance, and they're, "Oh, download the app, and if you download the app, we'll give you a break." Why? Because they're going to tell me to do things. This app is saying, you know... Now, it's small things, but it'll start telling you, "Stand up," you know, "Move around."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAdam Curry
And if, and if you follow it, if you follow it, then you'll get a discount.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAdam Curry
So, we're really, really becoming enslaved that way.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's a, that is definitely a way to look at it.
- ACAdam Curry
It, there... I... That's the business model.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAdam Curry
And-
- JRJoe Rogan
And it gets more and more immersive.
- 7:43 – 10:36
Phone addiction in the real world: zombies, anxiety soothing, and car crashes
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. When I feel any sort of anxiety or boredom, I just grab the phone. It's just instantly my little-
- ACAdam Curry
Sure.
- JRJoe Rogan
... my little soothing-
- ACAdam Curry
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... blanket or my little teething thing.
- ACAdam Curry
Absolutely.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know? It's my little binky (laughs) .
- ACAdam Curry
And, and, and I play a game with myself. You know, I'll give myself points as I'm driving around. Like, person walking on the street holding the phone in their hand, one point. You don't need-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- ACAdam Curry
... to actually hold the phone in your hand. And women, holy crap, they got two phones sometimes with little, you know, little button plugs so it doesn't fall off. They got their bag. Maybe they got their kid or a stroller. And it's like, bam, bam, bam. They're doing all... And just, they're all over the place all the time. So, it's one point for just holding it. Two, if you're walking and doing something. I see a lot of that.
- JRJoe Rogan
How many points if you have a kid and you're walking and looking at your phone? That seems like that'd be a bonus point.
- ACAdam Curry
It's the, it's the be-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAdam Curry
If you're in the car, ten points.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAdam Curry
(laughs) It's... If you're walking-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- ACAdam Curry
... with your kid on the phone, it's five points.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- ACAdam Curry
And you can hit 100 within five minutes. It's, it's crazy. It's zombies-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAdam Curry
... when you start to really pay attention to it.
- JRJoe Rogan
When you're above people. I have a truck, and, uh, when I look down-
- ACAdam Curry
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... from my truck, you can see people texting. And it's-
- ACAdam Curry
Oh, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... stunning-
- ACAdam Curry
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... how many people are on the highway texting at the same time going-
- ACAdam Curry
I got rear-ended, um, uh, with my truck, say, maybe two months ago, uh, in Austin. You know, right after-
- 10:36 – 14:52
The ‘Podfather’ origin story: RSS enclosures and the birth of podcasting
- JRJoe Rogan
Before we go any further-
- ACAdam Curry
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... we should give you credit. You're the reason why all this started. You are the original podfather. The, the legitimate one. Like if w- there's a lot of people claiming that.
- ACAdam Curry
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
You're the guy who made the very first podcast. You even came up with the name of it, right?
- ACAdam Curry
No, I didn't come up with the name.
- JRJoe Rogan
Who came up... The, the... Who came up with the name of it?
- ACAdam Curry
Well, let me go back to, to the beginning, because... Actually, the technology of podcasting was invented in 2000, so before anyone was podcasting, before there was an iPod, interestingly.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- ACAdam Curry
Um, I was living in Amsterdam at the time, and, um, I was working with Dave Winer, who had, who really invented blogging, and he had created this RSS syndication format. And he had software where you could blog and then an aggregator kind of like, you know, Google Reader at the time, and you could, you know, read blogs. And it was kind of like a two-way communication thing. Well, it was interesting, and a lot of people were starting to use it. And in Amsterdam, they had cable modems rolled out everywhere. And cable modems was sold at the time as always on internet. It wasn't fast. It was just fucking on. You didn't have to dial in, which was, "Oh, my God, this is great." You know, th- this was a huge improvement.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- ACAdam Curry
Didn't have to kick someone off the phone line, all of that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. Yeah.
- ACAdam Curry
Um, so the, um... Sorry. The, um, the, the experience of multimedia was shit. Like, you wanted to hear a song or play a video, it was like click, wait, wait, wait, download, wait. You know, it would probably download and then open up a, some kind of player, and then... It was not an experience. There was nothing, nothing there that made sense. So... And I always wanted to broadcast on the internet. That's always been my thing from the moment I saw it.Um, so I came up with this concept of the last yard. So what if you had a little thing running on your computer in the background that would know if there's something you wanted, let's just forget the how it knows part. Um, it would download it and would tell you that there was something new when it already had it on its local hard drive. So you remove the whole wait experience, 'cause you don't know. You don't know that this computer's been downloading something you've wanted. It just tells you, "Oh, it's here." Which is, you know, it's not abnormal in media, you know, the 6:00 news, most of it's produced before the actual broadcast, so... Um, I took this idea to Dave, and I said, "We need to come up with something that can download a media file that I program somehow, like this is gonna show up, and then it downloads it and only tells me when it's there, and I can click on it and it plays immediately." And it, it took some convincing. He didn't e- exactly understand what I was saying. He probably thought, "Fucking MTV guy."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAdam Curry
"Get the fuck out of here." In fact, that's exactly-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAdam Curry
... what he thought. (laughs) And, uh, uh, and then I actually demonstrated to him what I wanted to do in his own software. And he said, "Okay, I'm gonna do this, but only on the condition you never, ever, ever fucking use my software again, because that was horrible what you just did." And so we created the enclosure element in RSS. And so for two years, we were doing back and forth, you know, like, movie files and stuff, and oh, click, and it would open up, and the experience was good. Until I saw my first iPod. Friend of mine said, "Oh, look at this." And I'm like, "Holy..." This is the, the, the white one with the big click, click, click, click, click-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm, I miss that one.
- ACAdam Curry
... the big wheel on it. It was a good one, right? That got hot, you know, after a while.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. (laughs)
- ACAdam Curry
Like, big hard drive.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAdam Curry
And I looked at it and went, (gasps) "This is not a, a w- a digital Walkman. This is a fucking radio receiver." 'Cause I had one. I had a Sony AM radio tran- re- receiver, which is, you know, little solid state thing. I'm like, "This is a radio. This, this can receive radio programming." And so I set about, again, with my fantastic programming s- skills, uh, to make a, uh, a little application. And you, the, the iPod at the time, you still had to sync it to iTunes. That's how you got music onto it back in the day. Um, and so you could put a, uh, an MP3 file into a blog post basically, but it was a special attachment really. And so this program would just be looking all the time, "Is there something new? Is there something new? Oh, there's something new." Download it. Then click, trip it so that it synchronized to the iPod. And it worked. Now, not being a programmer, um, actually Kevin Marks, the guy who was working at Apple, sent me a version of the script that actually worked. That was helpful. And I set about creating
- 14:52 – 16:43
Naming ‘podcast’ and early growth: Daily Source Code and developer culture
- ACAdam Curry
a radio show, which we didn't have the name podcast yet. Um, and I wanted to be able to talk to developers, software developers, who could create receivers. So, you know, we had, um, iPodder, iPodderX, uh, iPodder Lemon, all the, all these different applications which kinda did the same thing. And because I was talking to developers, I called it The Daily Source Code. So I did Everyday and Source Code is kind of what the developers work in. And I was really talking to them, like, "Okay, well, the guys over in New Zealand, they, you know, they've created this version of the app, and it's really working well." And we discovered all kinds of crazy shit, like you subscribe to a feed, um, uh, because no one had thought it through, it would try and download, you know, everything you had in that feed all at once. So it was trying to download 50 episodes, and we still had kind of always on internet, so (imitates static) everything would crunch and die. And this just kept building and building, and other people started doing these, and we called them soliloquies and little bundles of joy and all kinds of really dumb names.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAdam Curry
And the, uh, Danny Gregoire, a guy who was just listening, he said, "Oh, this, this, this is a podcast." And so the name stuck.
- JRJoe Rogan
Ah.
- ACAdam Curry
Now, Ben Hammersley from The Guardian years earlier had actually used the term podcast, um, somewhere in an article, which there was no podcasting at the time, but he envisioned that and n- and called it podcast, so-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, wow, so he's the guy. So he's, he's the guy who named it.
- ACAdam Curry
(sighs) He used the term, but I would say-
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- ACAdam Curry
... Danny Gregoire really named what we were doing-
- JRJoe Rogan
Interesting.
- ACAdam Curry
... at the time. So, so, and that's when... I didn't name myself the Podfather, but people started calling me that. Um, and it just grew from there, and that went really fast. Before I knew it, the BBC was calling and interviews here and there. I'm like, "Holy shit, something blowing up here."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- 16:43 – 21:44
Steve Jobs calls: podcasting lands in iTunes (and the clip he chose)
- ACAdam Curry
And it wasn't until, uh, the, the big moment was I got a call from Steve Jobs. And, uh, he says, uh, "Can ..." Well, actually, it was Eddy Cue, you know, who's this big man on campus there now. He says, uh, "Can you meet with Steve?" I'm like, "Uh, let me check my calendar."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAdam Curry
"Let me see. Fuck yeah." So it was in, uh, where's the D3 conference? Like, San Diego, I think. Um, went there, and I met with him for an hour, and it was-
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- ACAdam Curry
And, and I had... I, I've met a lot of interesting people.
- JRJoe Rogan
He's a busy dude.
- ACAdam Curry
My, my best meeting to date had been Quincy Jones, where I got drunk with him for an hour-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- ACAdam Curry
... on live radio show. Oh, yeah. That was fantastic.
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa.
- ACAdam Curry
Um, and so here's Steve Jobs in the flesh. Now, the first thing I notice is he's got a weird lisp that I'd not really heard before.
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- ACAdam Curry
Yeah, it's like, "Well, okay."
- JRJoe Rogan
So he hides it when he does those...
- ACAdam Curry
Maybe, maybe when he's projecting-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAdam Curry
... and just, but he was much more personable. And it's just the two of us. But first he's, he's mad, he's fucking pissed off, and he's yelling about, "They fucked up wifi." And, and I learned later (laughs) that his, uh, his plan always for the iPhone was to not be a cell phone, but to use wifi networks around the world. And-
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa.
- ACAdam Curry
Yeah. And because, you know, Cisco or whoever had changed the, the way wifi works and the way the authentication works, that it really wouldn't be that seamless. But that was his, his vision.And, you know, so I, uh, I actually, I l- I thought to myself, "Dude, you should probably calm down."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAdam Curry
"It's gonna make you sick." Um, and then he was talking about ... Oh, no. Eddy Cue says, uh, "Yeah, you know, the RAA called, and, uh, they got a problem with the, with how we're able to, um, you know, record sounds on the Mac, you know, breaking any kind of encryption." And I said, "Oh, yeah. That's actually kind of important." Because in order to record stuff, we're using, like, Audio Hijack Pro and all thes- all these different kinds of tools. And I said, "Muh, I hope, hope they don't do that because it's kind of important for production." And Steve went, "Fuck it. F- tell them to fuck themselves. This is tools our guys need." I'm like, "Oh, okay." (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAdam Curry
And then he said-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAdam Curry
... "Adam, uh, I'd like to put podcasting in iTunes. Are you okay with that?" (laughs) I'm like, "Are you kidding me? Yes. I'll give you my directory." I'd built a directory of podcasts. "I'll give you that to start it off, absolutely." And then, um, uh, it was kinda funny. So then maybe-
- JRJoe Rogan
Wait, what year was this?
- ACAdam Curry
2004? Something like that, I think. Yeah, 2004, 2005 timeframe. And then, uh, Jamie, maybe you can find it if you want. It's a pretty funny video. So he announces this on stage, playing my, my podcast, where I just rail on the Mac. It's, it's-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAdam Curry
... if you take a look at it, it's p- it's pretty funny. It's like, it's the one video that, that really legitimizes me, uh, in the world of podcasting. Thank you, Steve. I really appreciate it. Oh, yeah, you got, you gotta check this out. This is hilarious.
- NANarrator
Audio stuff for-
- 21:44 – 23:49
Open standards vs walled gardens: why podcasting stayed free (and Spotify’s play)
- ACAdam Curry
And because, uh, neither I or Dave Winer have ever patented any of this, it's completely free and open, so no one owns it. And that was, that was the mission. I'm very proud of that.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's beautiful.
- ACAdam Curry
Because, you know, otherwise, if some- you know, like, you know, Spotify is now trying to buy podcasting, uh, by buying up all these networks, and they'll make it exclusive. And g-granted, they're trying to switch from a music company to an audio company. But ultimately, look at all the applications that are out there that are really good. People love 'em. You know, the Apple, uh, Podcasts app. Oh, I use Overcast. I like that a lot. There's, you know, tons of different ones. And it's all because there's an open standard that no one can control. And Silicon Valley loves controlling shit. In fact, Apple loves controlling shit. This is one of the few things Apple has done that isn't a, a walled garden locked into Apple store.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's interesting 'cause they're not even monetizing it.
- ACAdam Curry
No. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Yeah.
- ACAdam Curry
Um, and, you know, they, they, they have many different ways they could do stuff or they could help, but, um, I don't know why. I, I don't know why they're not. Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
I think it's an oversight. I think they thought for the longest time that it was just this thing that people did that was no big deal.
- ACAdam Curry
Mm-f-
- JRJoe Rogan
And then it's become so enormous, but they still have this mou- this model that they're operating under, that it's just, they're just aggregating.
- ACAdam Curry
Could be. I mean, and what was interesting is when they started off, they immediately started to highlight, uh, NPR programming, which I, I'm not ... I'm, I'm, I'm grateful for. Um, uh, WGBH in Boston, uh, did a lot with, uh, putting their first programs, uh, making those available as podcasts. Uh, but kind of the, mm, the beauty of the, the amateurism of podcasting got pushed down a little bit.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- ACAdam Curry
And it was all BBC, NPR-
- JRJoe Rogan
Radiolab.
- ACAdam Curry
... PBS.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAdam Curry
Radiolab. "How you doing?"
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAdam Curry
It's a little too much for me, the Radiolab.
- JRJoe Rogan
I love Radiolab, but I, I know what you're saying. It's very produced. It's very ... Like, people answer questions for the guest instead. Like, they'll cut in. "So what he said was this." And you're like, "Why don't you just let him say it?"
- ACAdam Curry
Right. Well, so-
- JRJoe Rogan
Like-
- ACAdam Curry
... this is why-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- 23:49 – 31:19
Joe Rogan as the new ‘Tonight Show’: unedited conversation vs legacy media
- ACAdam Curry
... you are the Tonight Show of our era. You have ... And that ... By the way, I feel like I'm playing the Super Bowl here. I mean, if you see my, my DMs and my text messages, people are like, "Holy (imitates explosion) Roganfu- ... This is legendary. Ahh." They're going nuts.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's hilarious.
- ACAdam Curry
And I'm, "Oh, shit." You know, like, "I'm, I'm gonna prep for the Super Bowl, you know. I've gotta get ready to slam this." Um, uh, but you have ...... taken what, you've really done the opposite. You've zigged to everyone's zag, and you just have a conversation unedited. You're, uh, completely open type of personality, so instead of trying to rush in and get the information... An example, I, um, I like, uh, Iliza Shlesinger and I wa- and she was gonna be on Kimmel. I'm like, "Oh, I'll, I'll stay up and watch, um, watch that." She was second guest, which kinda sucks, 'cause you get first guest, you know, and then a bit and all that. And there was literally, before she came on, it was six minutes of ads, then a native ad in the studio for Deez Nuts, then another five minutes of a... It was 12 minutes of commercials and Schlesinger was on for five minutes. You know, ba- ba- ba- ba- bah, not even a clip.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yep.
- ACAdam Curry
So people are sick and tired of it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAdam Curry
I mean, uh, the existing media because of, uh, just the, uh, the structure that's in place, the, the ratings game that, you know, isn't really, probably isn't really reality, but, you know, it's, it's an approved methodology. People believe in those numbers. Um, that's still there, but, um, there's a reason why you get, uh, Tulsi Gabbard and Bernie Sanders and people wanna come on your show, because you speak to an entire generation. My daughter is like, "Holy shit. My friends are all telling me that you're gonna be on Rogan." (laughs) She never, never talks to me about any of that stuff. She's like, "But you're on Rogan? Oh, okay." This is a little different.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's hilarious.
- ACAdam Curry
So you, well, it's not like you don't know it. I mean, this-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's weird.
- ACAdam Curry
... it's, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
I do know, but it's weird.
- ACAdam Curry
Why do you think, why do you say it's weird?
- JRJoe Rogan
'Cause it's just weird. It's, it's weird.
- ACAdam Curry
Well-
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, m- it was never inten- it, there was no intention. Like, starting it from the beginning was just fun. And then I, "Well, this is cool." And then once it got, like, a certain amount of people, there was, uh, a point in time where I started getting guests. So I was like, "Do you wanna do my podcast?" And, you know-
- ACAdam Curry
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... some cool people, like Anthony Bourdain was one of the first ones.
- ACAdam Curry
Well, I remember in the beginning, and I've always wanted to be on your show. I think we've tweeted, you know, maybe seven years ago or something. You were in Austin. Um, but I always felt like, "Dude's doing some kind of pirate radio out there."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAdam Curry
You know, it's like, "What is this shi- this," you know, there's something cool going on there, you know. You got all these people around you and, uh, and the comedi- comics or comedians? Which do you prefer?
- JRJoe Rogan
Either one's fine. I don't think it matters.
- ACAdam Curry
Okay. Uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
Some people are sticklers for it and I always find them to be annoying.
- ACAdam Curry
So what I liked so much is that comedians gravitated toward it and said, "Okay. W- we can be funny and we can do stuff that isn't necessarily our jokes that are gonna get ripped off." 'Cause that, for the, I think for the longest time, comedians would be like, "I don't wanna be on the internet. I'm not putting my shit out there because people will steal my jokes-"
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAdam Curry
"... and they'll steal my whole, whole routine." And if anything, you and comedians started to really blanket the landscape and show, you know, what could be done with this. And the fact that everyone could just kind of, you know, receive it on their, on their phone was fantastic.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. We kinda created an- an- a real organic network. That's one of the things that we, we all kinda talk about it, that networks, if you think of a network like NBC or whatever, you, you think of it's a, it's a controlled network with executives and shareholders-
- ACAdam Curry
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and then there's commercials.
- 31:19 – 34:08
Ballroom dancing, learning hard things, and unusual hobbies (ham radio, flying)
- ACAdam Curry
Shout out- shout out to Ryan, my dance instructor, who's a huge fan. You-
- JRJoe Rogan
You're a dancer?
- ACAdam Curry
Well, no.
- JRJoe Rogan
What kind of dance are you doing?
- ACAdam Curry
Uh, my wife and I, we, uh, we're- we're, we're dancing.
- JRJoe Rogan
What are you doing?
- ACAdam Curry
Yeah, yeah. Of course, yeah. It's part of my workout, uh, regimen.
- JRJoe Rogan
It is a workout, man.
- ACAdam Curry
Huge workout.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's a real workout.
- ACAdam Curry
Oh yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's, uh, it's a-
- ACAdam Curry
Oh yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... a lesson in, uh, body coordination and awareness.
- ACAdam Curry
I mean, we do, we'll do a double lesson.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- ACAdam Curry
And then, (laughs) this has always been my dream.... uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAdam Curry
And you know, so finally, I found a woman who, uh, this, it's really ... Do you dance at all? Have you ever danced a ballroom dance?
- JRJoe Rogan
No, but I did have to take dance lessons for this movie, Zookeeper, that I did a few years back.
- ACAdam Curry
Oh, it was with, uh, Kevin, Kevin James?
- JRJoe Rogan
Kevin James.
- ACAdam Curry
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. They had a whole dance scene where those- it was, it was like, weeks and weeks-
- ACAdam Curry
I like that movie.
- JRJoe Rogan
Me and Leslie Bibb-
- ACAdam Curry
That was a funny movie. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... had this thing on the floor.
- ACAdam Curry
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
It was fun.
- 34:08 – 47:24
Hunting, meat ethics, and the Santa/reindeer psychedelic mushroom theory
- JRJoe Rogan
In Texas, you could shoot pigs out of them.
- ACAdam Curry
Yes, but that, this-
- JRJoe Rogan
You ever seen those?
- ACAdam Curry
This was in the, in the, in the Netherlands.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAdam Curry
Yeah. No, believe me, I've been invited.
- JRJoe Rogan
I'm sure. Yeah.
- ACAdam Curry
I've been invited. I don't like, uh, I don't like that, uh, idea. It seems-
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, it's a very-
- ACAdam Curry
... kind of, unfair.
- JRJoe Rogan
... unfair idea.
- ACAdam Curry
Yeah. It's not-
- JRJoe Rogan
But also, they have to do something. Like, there is millions-
- ACAdam Curry
Well, the pigs are a problem.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and millions of wild pigs.
- ACAdam Curry
The pigs, the pigs are a problem.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAdam Curry
But it's just like, to me, it's like, "Ha ha." Boom, bro-
- JRJoe Rogan
Exactly.
- ACAdam Curry
No, I'm not into that.
- JRJoe Rogan
The problem is, that's the problem, right?
- ACAdam Curry
I don't like that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Is, the problem is the joking around about it while, while death is happening.
- ACAdam Curry
Yeah. I-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's a disturbing and very unwinnable situation, because the feral hog problem is so big-
- ACAdam Curry
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... particularly in Texas-
- ACAdam Curry
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... that, you know, they, they lose millions of dollars in crops every year.
- ACAdam Curry
Yeah.
- 47:24 – 1:00:09
Austin’s transformation: scooters, Silicon Valley influx, and homelessness policy
- JRJoe Rogan
How'd you get back to Austin?
- ACAdam Curry
Uh, well, I, uh, so I had the company in San Francisco. This was a different company, the podcast company. And I was going, I was living in London at the time, so I lived there for five years.
- JRJoe Rogan
Damn, you're an international traveler.
- ACAdam Curry
Oh, yeah, I've lived in a couple places. Um, and was going back and forth, uh, San Francisco, London. And, uh, uh, there was a breakup between me and my wife, and we got divorced. Uh, and so I stayed in San Francisco, and then moved, uh, um, to California to, uh, to, uh, Los Angeles for, uh, it was about a year. I, I always wanted to live in LA, lived in the hills over by Highland. Uh, and it just didn't work for me, you know? Uh, j- I was doing basically the podcast, uh, that, so it's, you know, like, 12, 13 years ago. Um, and I, I don't know, it just, it was, maybe it was that area, but I really had nowhere else to go, and if I wanted to go somewhere I'm just sitting in traffic all day. It's like if I wanted to go to the beach, no. Uh, I was with, uh, a, a woman at the time who was an actress. (sighs) N-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAdam Curry
Never, never marry an actress, man. It's a bad i- I was warned. Uh, so she wanted to be in that general area, so it just wasn't working for me. And then I did a tour, um, from Virginia down to Florida, the Gulf Coast, uh, for the show with an RV, doing the show from the RV, meeting people, doing meetups. Um, and it was, it was just around the time when the, you had the, the BP s- oil spill in, uh, in the Gulf.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- ACAdam Curry
And so people were really depressed and it was all messy and just not, it was not a good vibe. And I was gonna go straight up to Chicago. And a buddy of mine, Greg Lawley, who was one of the true last independent record promoters who I'd known from San Francisco and he, I knew him from Chicago back from the radio days. And he said, "Oh, Adam, come to Austin. You, you'll love it. Come s- come to Aust- you stay at my place, come to Austin." Like, "No, man, I'd, I'd never really been to Texas, you know?" He's like, "It doesn't really interest me, I'm just gonna go up to Chicago." And he just kept pushing and pushing as I'm driving up and then he says, or I thought to myself, "Greg is flamboyantly gay, single dad, adopted a kid from, uh, Ukraine, and if he's in Texas and he's still alive, it can't be that bad."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAdam Curry
So something (laughs) ... Maybe it's just Austin, I don't know. So I visit him and we did a meetup. And this is in the summer, so it was about 112 degrees. But, you know, that Austin heat is not too humid, it's, it's doable. And there were 30, 33 people at the meetup, and they were all happy and proud of their city and proud of their state and they loved what w- just it was so much good energy, particularly after I just came from the Gulf. And one young woman, her purse fell on the ground and out rolled a, a, a fresh pair of underpants and a, and a handgun. I'm like-... Texas.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- ACAdam Curry
This is where I- I moved there three months later.
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- ACAdam Curry
I've been there 10 years now. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- ACAdam Curry
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
D- it has grown, though.
- ACAdam Curry
Oh, my God. It's- it's-
- JRJoe Rogan
Crazy, right?
- ACAdam Curry
... changing. You know, this is-
- JRJoe Rogan
People talk about it too much.
- ACAdam Curry
(sighs) I mean, I've lived in, uh, th- uh, uh, my- my wife Tina and I, so we got married in, uh, in May, and we bought a house together, uh, th- uh, southeast Austin. But we were livin' downtown, uh, right downtown. I had a place there, and then we moved into an apartment together, and we just saw it happening. It really started with the- with the scooters. That's really what started to mess up Austin. Um, you know, 'cause they just, overnight, it was like, "What the fuck is this?" And just-
- JRJoe Rogan
They're everywhere.
- ACAdam Curry
And you- I mean, Austin'd already been trying to create a bike vibe with the bike paths and, you know, just all the stuff, which is ludicrous. I mean, I- I grew up, uh, riding bicycles, and, uh, it takes m- maybe 50 years before everyone is accustomed to bicycle traffic. You know, it's not just something that's built in. I- I turn right around the corner, I still look. I look in my right mirror, I look there so th- make sure there's not a bike next to me.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- ACAdam Curry
It's just built in. But people don't do that, so people are always gettin' hit. And then these scooters pop up, and it's just mayhem. You know, they're on the- they're everywhere. They're on the sidewalks, they're mowin' people down, people are, you know-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAdam Curry
... just, it's nuts.
- JRJoe Rogan
They go fast, too. You should see this motherfucker.
- 1:00:09 – 1:10:43
No Agenda’s ‘value-for-value’ model, producer community, and cancel-culture insulation
- JRJoe Rogan
How do you monetize your podcast if you don't have advertisers?
- ACAdam Curry
Uh, well, we call it the value-for-value system. When, when Dvorak and I started the show 13 years ago, it was just him and I just, you know, talking on Skype. I was in London. He was in San Francisco, and (coughs) we noticed that... Because I like to read, uh, legislation. I'll read bills. I'll read... I was reading the Lisbon Treaty, which was kind of the European... Uh, it was supposed to be the European Constitution, which, uh, was voted down by France, the Netherlands, and Ireland. And then the European Union went, "No, no, no. Let's vote again. You did it wrong." (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- ACAdam Curry
Literally, like, "Revote." "So, okay, I guess we'll vote this way now." As... And then I, I was reading it like, this is, this is not the way it's being portrayed on television. Like, oh, we'll have... It won't need a passport to go to other countries. We'll have the same money. And I was seeing shit in there that was way different about you can incarcerate people. You can... Uh, deadly force by the cops would be legalized. None of this is really what's, what's happening over here. At the same time, I read a book called... I'm just going to give you the background to get into the money part. Um, called Legacy of Ashes, uh, by New York Times writer, uh, David Wiener, I think. And, uh, it was about the CIA, and my uncle appears in this book multiple times. My uncle, Don Gregg, who was big, big guy in the CIA for a long time. And, and I called him up and said, "Hey, Don, have you read this?" He said, "Yeah." I said, "Is it true?" He said, "Yeah, it's pretty much how I remember it." I'm like, "Okay." So whatever is on television and radio is not at all really what's going on or what has happened. And so they'll... It started to become a lot of work. We're doing work and then we said, "Well, uh, we'll never get advertise..." You know, Dvorak's a radio guy. He's a media guy. So we understand, understand it all. Um, we'll never get advertisers. That'll never work. So we'll just have to ask people to send us money.
- JRJoe Rogan
But why'd you say you would never get advertisers?
- ACAdam Curry
Because it's too controversial. Advert- advert- I mean, yeah, we can get some advertisers, but not the real advertisers. Remember what we talked about earlier.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- ACAdam Curry
No advertiser's really gonna be interested. And also-How do you, you know, what are your, what are your ratings? What are your metrics? What are your numbers? You know, the- certainly then the questions, "Well, how do you know if someone listened if it's just a download?" I mean, I can ... I'm sure you've gone through all of this. Also, we didn't wanna have a fucking meeting.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAdam Curry
I don't wanna have a meeting with advertisers. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAdam Curry
I don't want, I don't wanna meet anymore.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- ACAdam Curry
No more meetings. So we, but we did something different. We said, instead of saying, "S- send us five bucks," or, "I don't work for tips." You don't work for tips.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- ACAdam Curry
In- instead of that, um, "What is this show worth to you? So you just listened to us for a couple hours. You could have gone to the movies, you know, if you took a date, had some, you had a Coke and popcorn, 50 bucks. Was this worth 50 bucks? Up to you." And what we discovered is that value is very different. Some people say, "That's ... Here's $5. I love the show." Someone else says, "Here's $500. That's how much I value the show." Someone else says, "Fuck, I'm gonna give you $1,000. That's how much I value the show." And we built this model where we literally just say, "What value does the show bring to you?" And we thank people with the amounts that they gave. We're completely transparent. You can just sit there and, and see what people are giving us. Um, and it just became this whole interactive feature where, uh, well, we put levels in, so if you, if you donate $200, you're an associate executive producer, just like Hollywood. Who the fuck says it's a real-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAdam Curry
$300, you're an executive producer. And we do a little mention in a different part of the show for the executive producers. And, you know, they can read a note, and oftentimes it's, uh, well, it's usually something about the show, so they're kind- they're brought into the conversation specifically. So it's not just a donation segment, it's content.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- ACAdam Curry
And we have, like you have, um, uh, lawyers, doctors, nurses, teachers, college professors, uh, tons of military, um, lots of spooks and three letter ag- you know, CDC also is kind of a spook agency, is all kinds of crazy, uh, people who really, I think, enjoy when we talk about what they're doing.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- ACAdam Curry
And so they love to let you know, and then maybe anonymous, you know, like, "Hey, man, don't mention my name," but, you know, here's ... And that just grew, and, um, uh, you know, now 13 years later, we've, we're, we're, we're feeding two families, and we're very, very happy. And, uh, that's all I do is, you know, twice a week, Sundays, Thursdays, um, we have a, we do, we do record it live. You know, we don't do any, uh, post-editing or anything. It's, it's in and out, just done.
- JRJoe Rogan
And do you like the fact that you just d- don't have any connection to anyone other than your fans? Is that very satisfying?
- ACAdam Curry
Extremely satisfying.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- ACAdam Curry
It's, it's not just fans. We call them pr- we don't call them listeners, fans. They're producers. Every-
- JRJoe Rogan
That's a great way to put it.
- ACAdam Curry
But everybody is a producer.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- ACAdam Curry
If you see the amount of stuff that I get in, you know, so take coronavirus, you know, we've got a lot of people who are very specified, uh, not just in epidemiology, but in finance, uh, who can, you know, give us all these different insights, and you put it all together. I'm really a professional information manager, and I built a whole bunch of systems specifically for that. I just get stuff coming in, coming in, and we like to deconstruct the media. So we'll play anywhere from 30 to 50 little news clips in a three-hour show, and then just deconstruct it. You know, why is this being said? What is, what is, what is really behind this? Is it true? And, you know, then I spend a lot of time researching. That's really what I do. I just research and look at stuff and bang it around, look at this- if I can, from all angles as much as possible, and then present it. And it's often surprisingly accurate.
Episode duration: 3:02:08
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Transcript of episode NaPKrZTUoUs
