Thoughts on Joe Rogan's New Texas Studio | Lex Fridman

A couple of days ago, I got a chance to do the Joe Rogan experience for the fifth time, but first time in the new Texas studio. I also got a chance to interview him afterwards for the podcast that I host and ask him all the usual philosophical, over-romanticized Russian questions that I usually do on the podcast. A bunch of people messaged me asking, so how's the new studio? So instead of responding to everybody individually, I thought I'd make this video to give my thoughts on the new Joe Rogan Austin, Texas studio. There's a few quick points I want to make, but overall, TLDR is, I love it. So first let me say from the perspective of a guest and what the studio actually looks like in real life, I think it looks great in real life, and I believe it's an improvement over the previous studio in several ways. So one, the previous studio actually has a lot of extra space that feels useless, and there's something about removing that space that makes the studio feel more intimate. I definitely felt like I was pulled into the conversation more. Like if we take somebody like Larry King from CNN, check him out, look into it, is he has this like creepy closeness to the guests. I think this new studio actually strikes a really nice balance. To me, that's interesting as a podcaster, and that's something I talked to Joe with, is how do you create an atmosphere where you just forget that the rest of the world exists and you lose yourself in the conversation where you're really focused in on listening and thinking about what the other person is saying. Another small thing that I think is actually really cool from a guest perspective is there's only now one big TV versus two TVs. So when you're looking at something in the previous studio, one chimp was looking at one TV and the other chimp was looking at the other TV. And if you know anything about chimps or dogs or humans, there's a powerful signaling thing with our eyes when we're both looking at the same thing. There's like a more of a bond to it when we're looking at the same thing, same object, or like same image on the TV. So it's just a nicer experience to be able to look at the same thing together and then look back. And also from a camera perspective, you can see what everyone is looking at, whether it's two people or three people or four people. So I personally love it. Now, from the perspective of what the video actually looks like, that goes into lighting, camera positions, also the texture of the background. So when the camera is doing the autofocusing or adjusting of the lights, it does a good job, all of that. Now to comment on that part, I want to say how amazing Jamie is. For people who don't know, Jamie Varner is the, I guess, producer of the Joe Rogan Experience, but he also does a million other things. He's just the creative mind of his own, a photographer, just a creator of all kinds. Now me, again, as a podcaster, I do many of the things that Jamie does, but I do it much worse. So I get to really appreciate the quality of his work. So much of the setup, the wires, the configuration of the audio and the video and the management of that, the switching of the cameras, the ability to Google, all of that comes together as a vision and implementation by Jamie. And so this new studio, from a video and audio engineering perspective, is very much a creation of Jamie. And I'm telling you now, he's done a masterful job and is quickly improving. So just like he did with a previous studio to be constantly, quickly improving until it got to that level there everybody got used to, he's doing the same thing here. I guarantee you'll be at a stellar level very quickly. The previous times on the show, I knew how good he was, but this time I actually got a chance to chat with him offline about some of the details of all the stuff he's doing. And it just took my respect for him to another level. And hopefully I'll convince him, he kind of said yes, to come on the podcast so we can talk about some of the genius behind young Jamie. And also I want to say that to me as a podcaster and an aspiring young Jamie myself, it was really nice to see how humble and self-critical he is, given all the success of the show, given everything that's been done, given so few screw-ups, so few imperfections, given the level at which he's able to with one hand be a solo producer of an entire video podcast where he's switching the cameras and with another hand be able to Google at a moment's notice. Given all that, he's extremely self-critical, extremely humble. That's just inspiring to me because it echoes to the way I see the world as well. So it gives me hope that if I continue seeing the world that way, I'll be able to eventually figure out how to do this podcasting and engineering thing the right way. So for whatever it's worth, I love it. The video will keep improving. And I think just like the Cybertruck, which will likely be manufactured in the same city of Austin, Texas, I think people will eventually see it not as ugly as they did at first, but as badass. And also, as I mentioned to him on the show, if Spotify is better than YouTube in terms of music, I hope that next time I take a ride in that spaceship, I'd love to do a cover of Voodoo Child by Jimi Hendrix. All right, check out the conversation with Joe. Should come out next week. Hopefully I didn't say anything ridiculous, but I probably did. Love you all. I'll see you next time.