EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,001 words- 0:00 – 15:00
... we, uh, we…
- 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.
- 15:00 – 30:00
(laughs) …
- ACAdam Curry
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.
- 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.
- 30:00 – 45:00
Yeah. …
- ACAdam Curry
a podcast?" You know-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAdam Curry
... his Monday morning podcast, boom, subscribe, you know.
- JRJoe Rogan
Exactly.
- ACAdam Curry
Joey Diaz, not necessarily my kind of guy, but fuck it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAdam Curry
He, he's off the hook. His own-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAdam Curry
... podcast is kind of fun. So you are, in a way, kinda like a mothership.
- JRJoe Rogan
The rising tide lifts all boats. That's, that's how we think about it.
- ACAdam Curry
How, how capitalist of you.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAdam Curry
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
But it's not even that way. It's just like everybody gets to do well. It's not that, you know, we're, we're thinking of it in terms of, uh, an industry at all. It's really just fun.
- ACAdam Curry
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
It just happens to be profitable. But the way we started it out with no thought whatsoever of it ever being profitable-
- ACAdam Curry
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... that's why it became what it is. Because it was all, like, doing giant bong hits and, uh, uh, hitting all this vaporizer and literally not even knowing what you're talking about while you're talking half the time and having fun with a bunch of silly people.
- ACAdam Curry
It was part of the appeal because-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAdam Curry
... it's everybody wants to be at the party.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAdam Curry
That's, it, uh, uh, w- uh, even, that's why radio stations do remote broadcast, you know. That's why Top 40 stations go to Popeyes.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ACAdam Curry
And, "Hey, we're here this morning, everybody."
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- ACAdam Curry
Everyone wants to be part of it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- ACAdam Curry
Part of this.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Yeah.
- 45:00 – 1:00:00
You had a castle…
- ACAdam Curry
Belgium, and we had, had two horses there.
- JRJoe Rogan
You had a castle in Belgium?
- ACAdam Curry
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Damn.
- ACAdam Curry
I, I used to have money.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAdam Curry
(laughs) I spent it on, spent it on-
- JRJoe Rogan
Is this, is this MTV money?
- ACAdam Curry
No, no. Um, I took my company public in '96 called, uh, Think New Ideas. Uh, and it was, uh, one of the first internet marketing, uh, advertising companies. And it was big. We had 400 people. It was, it was a big company.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, wow.
- ACAdam Curry
Um, and, uh, yeah, my buddy and I, we just worked out and we took it public. And back then, it was like, this is before the w- the real dot-com craze, so we raised $20 million. Like, holy shit, we couldn't believe it, which is nothing these days. And after all the lawyers and everyone had taken their money, there was $15 million left, and so we started to build the business. Um, and, uh, uh, what were we talking about? Because-
- JRJoe Rogan
A castle, you have a castle in Belgium.
- ACAdam Curry
Oh, yeah. So there was that, and then I'd also, at the time, uh, someone had said, um... And I did pretty well on the, on the IPO, and not crazy, but, you know, okay. It was a, you know, I learned what, uh, dilution means. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ACAdam Curry
I learned that pretty quick. But I had invested $50,000 in some company, and then I'd mo- uh, in 2000, just before 2000, moved to Amsterd- moved back to, uh, the Netherlands. And, uh, the bank called me and said, "You sitting down?" I said, "Yeah. Uh, what's up?" Said, "You remember that company you invested in?" I said, "Yeah." Um, "Well, uh, it went public." Uh, it was Ask Jeeves.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, oh.
- ACAdam Curry
"And, uh, you now have $65 million." I'm like, "Oh, yeah, on paper. On paper, Joe." So lock up, you couldn't sell any of it-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, no?
- ACAdam Curry
... you know, all of this stuff. So I did get some out, but, you know, basically wrote it down the wallpaper. Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
How come you can't sell it? I never-
- ACAdam Curry
Well, if you're an insider-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- ACAdam Curry
... uh, you, you lock up your shares. It's a, it's an SEC regulation, so you-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- ACAdam Curry
... you can't sell for... Um, I think that it's negotiable, but it's, it's so the other investors who come in, um, won't be left holding the bag. So, you know-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- ACAdam Curry
... you do the IPO and then all the insiders sell their shares, and everyone who just bought at the IPO, then all their shit goes down in value and-
- JRJoe Rogan
Got it.
- ACAdam Curry
... they're screwed. So you have to... There's a lockup, typically six months or 12 months or 18 months. And through some back-ended way, I don't know what the hell was going on, how bankers do it with swap and stuff and promises and derivatives, they were able to get some money out for me that I spent on helicopters and-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- 1:00:00 – 1:06:40
How do you monetize…
- ACAdam Curry
To a degree, I'm bulletproof. You can cancel all you want. You're not taking away from me. No advertisers. I don't have 'em, you know? Only the people who listen can stop listening. That's the only thing that could happen.
- 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.
Episode duration: 3:02:08
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