Podbit · The Tim Dillon Show
A Stanford electrical engineering grad who started at Fresno City College gives a commencement speech acknowledging that some in the crowd came from prison cells and are still running from past versions of themselves. Tim Dillon is shocked to find it more haunting than his own jokes.
Where this was said
At 47:20 · chapter starts 39:40
Tim introduces the Noah Baumbach segment after mentioning Elon Musk's trillion-dollar net worth, lamenting that Baumbach got a Vassar standing ovation while Tim can't even get a community college booking. The episode plays clips of the actual speech, in which Baumbach recounts receiving a stinging rejection letter for a college play he wrote at age 20, then re-reading it at age 45, still wounded. [1] — Tim Dillon "Noah Baumbach used his Vassar commencement speech to rehash a bad review he got for a college play 30 years ago — then revealed the reviewe…" 39:50 Tim is baffled by the crowd's rapturous reaction. The speech's most remarkable moment — Baumbach revealing he'd looked the critic up and discovered he'd died, 'putting to rest hopes of inviting him to the Oscars' — sends Tim into genuine disgust. [2] — Tim Dillon "How petulant, childish, and gross that you're using your commencement speech at Vassar to settle a score with a dead guy that didn't like a…" 44:25 Petulant, childish, and gross, he declares. He's careful to say Baumbach is genuinely talented, but he's furious that this is what passes for wisdom at elite institutions: a famous director settling a score with a corpse in front of a crowd of 22-year-olds. The commencement speech genre itself comes under fire — it's either masturbatory clichés like Baumbach's, Tim argues, or someone menacing you into AI adoption. He prefers the latter for its honesty.
Elon Musk has reportedly crossed the trillion-dollar net worth threshold, which Tim Dillon used as a comedic touchstone for his mock commencement speech about economic inequality.
Noah Baumbach used his Vassar commencement speech to rehash a bad review he got for a college play 30 years ago — then revealed the reviewer was dead and he'd hoped to invite him to the Oscars. Tim Dillon calls it petulant, childish, and gross.
Elon Musk has a trillion dollars. A billion isn't real money. A smoothie is $45 and an Uber to a suicide pod costs $89. Tim Dillon's mock graduation speech is darker and more honest than anything you'll hear at an Ivy League commencement.
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