Name: #282 - Lex Fridman | The Tim Dillon Show
Uploaded: 2022-01-04T02:00:11.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video '#282 - Lex Fridman | The Tim Dillon Show' from The Tim Dillon Show on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-01-04. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video '#282 - Lex Fridman | The Tim Dillon Show' from The Tim Dillon Show on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-01-04. Transcript available.

#282 - Lex Fridman | The Tim Dillon Show

ladies and gentlemen welcome to the tim dylan show my voice is uh slightly uh
uh it's suffering
right now um we are here with lex friedman who is an incredibly intelligent podcaster
researcher
he has a podcast that has probably right now there's i don't know that you can
find a podcast
with better guests than yours if you look at your ability to get top tier
people in every field
predominantly the things you're interested in robotics technology science
physics but you get
everybody i mean you've had richard dawkins you just had elon musk how do you
get the top people
in those fields and they love coming on and talking to you yeah it's an
interesting question
i think if there's one universal thing that i've noticed is um somebody close
to those folks
is just a fan of the podcast so it's like this momentum that keeps going and uh
oftentimes it's
family members where they say you know dad or mom or whatever this guy's yeah
uh this guy's uh all
about love and it's kind of an idiot and it's fun to talk to so and then it
just kind of builds like
that with elon i a few folks were fans of the lectures i was giving at mit and
so it's like
somebody always recommends it to them right and then some of it is also just
networking like um i just
know a lot of people in the tech space and but usually it's it's funny for some
of these busy
folks it's like somebody close to them somebody they trust somebody they like
will say hey you
should do this kind of podcast and that because you you find a lot of really
busy people don't
they're very uh they don't know anything about podcasts yeah and they're wary
of it right they're
wary of sitting down with somebody they may not know and where that'll go and
what they'll end up
saying especially a lot of people that are in positions of power usually they're
you know i
spent time with the ceo of nbc once for a day um they were doing a sketch an
internal sketch to be
played at their board meeting and they hired me as a comedic actor to play a
cab driver uh in the
sketch yeah and the whole sketch was going to be the ceo of nbc universal he
was no longer the ceo but he
was steve something or other he was going to roast the uh board the people you
know his people he was
going to roast them in a playful fun way and i was going to be the cab driver
and they spent tens of
thousands of dollars maybe more um that you know the cab was on a dolly it was
being carted around new
york now what amazed me about spending like a few hours with him was how
tightly structured his entire
life is yeah how many he had a lawyer with him at all times he had a personal
assistant with him at
all times nbc universal had an attorney there the script which was such a
simple script had gone through
10 or 15 rewrites and redrafts um and he was a very intelligent guy and his
time had such a premium
it had such value that to say to anybody in that space come and spend two hours
with me and just
let it fly like i remember the first thing i saw when i uh the first thing i
said when i saw him
he walked out and he goes you're the cab driver and i said yep last white cab
driver in new york
and he went whoa whoa that's not in the script right i said no no no no he goes
okay that's and
he's looking at like his lawyers and his people he's like wait a minute we're
not going to say that
right so it's very interesting that you you you have these people that come on
and and they they
feel comfortable enough with you to just and speak everything you described
with the situation you
were in to me is toxic for a great conversation so 100 i'm becoming and so one
of the the deeper
question here is is how do you talk to these people for two three four hours
and how do you make sure
that nobody else is allowed in the room like i have to vet anyone who's allowed
so no marketing people
no people that have a notebook and they're taking notes right about the things
you're not supposed to
say where they look over is that appropriate none of those people sometimes it's
cool to have
uh just friends who just make so you can look over them and laugh like ben's
here you can look over
and laugh that's great but i you may be in the first like a few dozen
conversations i was okay with
like people being present but now i'm like hardcore uh you started three hours
it has to be three hours
yes it's a joe rogan inspired that you could do long-form conversations and
then say like it's polite of
course and respectful but saying i have different ways of saying it but like i
feel most comfortable
creatively right with just us two and absolutely and and uh okay well yeah
there's and then there's
the uncomfortable like pressure of saying like i know what the hell i'm doing
and that those that exact
conversation has come up which is ultimately you have to trust me that i know
what the hell i'm doing and then i
i would bring out the best in this person what's interesting about you we
talked about a little
bit before uh we started is that you you don't own real estate you don't own a
property you rent you
like the freedom of that yes and by the way to sorry to interrupt your
conversation with joe about
digital real estate yeah quite epic i think i think it was interesting yeah and
i think a lot of people
responded to it yeah you right now real life and people tell me all the time
they go are you kidding
or are you serious and i go real life right now is living on that line yeah the
things that are real
sound like comedy yeah so i'm talking to joe and i'm being funny because that's
what i try to do but i'm also
bringing up real actual trends that are happening and people i think are so you
know removed from that
world that it all sounds like comedy and a lot of it is very funny but it's
actually a real
thing that is happening but you what's interesting about you is the concept of
ownership in the real
world you view as kind of a lack of freedom you were saying yeah i i think i
value freedom
to make big leaps into the unknown as is exceptionally important so i also
value love and monogamy and
relationships all those kinds of things right those put a limit on for a lot of
people those put a limit
on freedom right i don't see it that way so like i think people use that as an
excuse in the same way
house ownership people often use as an excuse to get complacent to to to limit
themselves so i i don't
think a how i don't think ownership in itself is a limit on your freedom but
people get comfortable
they get soft it becomes a limitation because i want to be able to tomorrow say
you know i'm going
to start a company and i'm not going to do it in austin i'm going to do it in kansas
city i'm going to do
it in san francisco and move just uh walk away yeah cool guys don't look back
at explosions just walk
away just walk away and that that something about me i mean i don't want to
generalize but for me
i probably won't do that but the freedom to do that allows you to think big to
to uh take leaps
into uh the unknown in a way that materializes like the best version of
yourself i i mean i i fully
agree with as a person who bought a house well i i did i did buy a house in
austin i think that
part of what i like is problems yes problems are essential for my business um
what's your business
exactly uh uh it's a great question um i think it it's um you know in in his
very simplest form it's um
making people happy right that's like the simplest way to say it and if there
are no problems there's
never going to be a reason to make anyone happy that's why utopians hate comedy
because they think
you can create a world in which there will be no pain so if there is no pain
there's no reason to
alleviate that pain through comedy but i'm someone who realizes that no matter
how great you make the
world you're gonna have pain you're gonna have problems so one of the reasons
that i kind of
like entanglements problems things like that is because i see a lot of
opportunities in them to
um you know release that valve of pressure comedically so you lean into the
chaos because from the chaos
comes a lot of problems and then you can i just understand the human condition
by analyzing i think that's
part of it i also think i i have to do things to know what they are and part of
my job is to hopefully
make those things funny so by by owning a house i've i've owned houses that i've
i mean i own one
house that i lost i'm very open about that during the mortgage crisis right so
i went through that
and now i bought a house very responsibly but when you buy a house very responsibly
it's still
very much you know a um weight it's a weight on you you feel that weight you
know and but there's value
i think to weighing yourself down sometimes yes because then you understand
what other people are
going through when i'm in a comedy club or a theater i'm looking out in the
audience and i'm going all of
these people have that weight they have more than that they have kids they have
you know jobs they
have uh family members they support they have a lot lots of weight so to
understand that and to relate
to that for me i think there's a value to it but i also agree with you and
completely understand that
it slows you down houses are they slow you down families even though they're
amazing and valuable
can have that effect as well and it's well worth it to be slowed certain times
slowing down i think
is worth it but you also have to be honest with yourself that the slowing down
is often artificial
like it's in your mind not to be stoic for for a second but yeah like there's
no reason you can't
sell the house well absolutely some of it is you want to make sure you get a
house you can actually
afford yes all those kinds of things but and but even still people talk about
like fu money and they
they use the lack of money or insufficient amount of money as an excuse to stay
in the job they don't like
stay in the life they don't like stay in the marriage they don't like stay in a
house they don't like
when in reality you could i think it's an excuse like most people can take the
bold action it's a
huge risk but take a leap into the unknown get rid of the house and go pursue a
job that you actually
love and then everything else yeah we'll just uh everything do you think
everybody loves something
yeah this is see this is a fundamental disagreement that we have they have the
capacity to discover
something they love yes so that's a different thing but so if you think that
there's nothing in this
world you love outside of chemical depression so if you if you if there's just
a chemistry that makes
you incapable of seeing some aspect of beauty in the world i think everybody
could discover it and
it's a little flame that's in everybody that you just uh haven't you ever met
stupid people
i think part of when i speak to you i speak to a guy who's because he's very
smart has had the privilege
of speaking to some very very intelligent people but have you ever spoken to
someone who was not that
smart and i don't mean a bad person i don't mean a malevolent human being in
any way i mean someone
who's not complex they're a simple yeah person i love so let me just make clear
that i don't like
the quote-unquote intelligent people or the elite people or the rich people i
like simple people
simple simple people i that's my i see myself as a you say i'm yeah but you're
not but this is when
this is what i'm gonna this is the you've got a robot on your floor you
interviewed the richest man
in the world yesterday and this is when we have to stop you're wearing a suit
it's it's it's 12.
i mean rogan thinks he's a simple man too he owns the colorado river can we
stop this is when as a
comedian i have to point out how insane this sounds to everyone you're a
brilliant guy you give lectures
at mit you're just not a simple person i was in bucky's yesterday you know what
bucky's is it's a
walmart competitor and and bucky is a beaver and and and it's a big walmart and
people go into it and
they buy everything they need 