Speaker
Dax Shepard
Appearances over time
13 episodes
Episodes
13
Alan Ritchson
Geena Davis
Armchair Anonymous: Stalking III
Grant Achatz (award-winning chef)
Jackie Tohn Returns
Armchair Anonymous: Animal Attack III
Lukas Gage
Armchair Anonymous: Family Secret
Edward Norton Returns Again
Olivia Wilde
Armchair Anonymous: Foreign Object in Butt III
Susie Wolff (Managing Director of F1 Academy)
Steve Aoki
Podcasts
Quotes & moments
Susie Wolff is one of the only — possibly the only — women ever to drive an F1 car on track during a race weekend, doing so as a development driver for Williams.
Norton's port-emissions barge company, operational since 2023, captured pollution equivalent to 65 million cars operating for an entire year — in just one year of deployment.
Toto Wolff reportedly cannot beat Susie on a racetrack no matter what he does — including cheating with different tyres and ballast in her car.
Dax noted that moose can reach 1,800 pounds, making a charging moose an existential threat to anyone in its path.
Booksmart was made for $6 million, grossed $25 million at the box office, and earned over 90% on Rotten Tomatoes — a remarkable debut for Olivia Wilde as a feature director.
Dax Shepard noted that Edward Norton declined The Avengers franchise, waving goodbye to what Dax estimated at $40 million or more — potentially hundreds of millions across sequels.
When Susie Wolff drove in FP1 at Silverstone for Williams, it had been 22 years since any female driver had been on track in a Formula 1 car during a race weekend.
In her second FP1 appearance at Hockenheim, Susie finished the session within 2 tenths of a second of her Williams team-mate Felipe Massa.
Alinea held three Michelin stars from 2011 to 2024, demonstrating extraordinary longevity in the highest tier of fine dining.
Reacher Season 2 attracted 56 million global viewers in a single week, making it one of the most-watched streaming shows in Amazon Prime Video history.
A current Formula 1 car generates approximately 2,000 kilograms of downforce, meaning at sufficient speed it could theoretically drive upside down.
A League of Their Own opened number one and became the 10th biggest movie of 1992, a commercial triumph that surprised even Geena Davis.
Dax notes that like most abuse and murder, stalking is generally committed by someone the victim already knows.
Cutthroat Island held the Guinness World Record as the biggest financial disaster in cinema history, with a budget of approximately $110 million — a number that looks modest by today's standards.
Drivers experience up to 4.5 G of braking force in an F1 car, creating enormous strain primarily on the neck muscles.
Steve Aoki launched Dim Mak Records with zero capital out of his tiny Isla Vista apartment, hosting 400 bands before getting evicted. He named it after Bruce Lee's mythical 'death touch.' The label's first breakthrough came when Allison of The Kills asked him to release their EP — and his decision to take that over a PhD program set the course for everything.
In 2007, Steve Aoki was offered a role in Tropic Thunder — playing a slave DJ for Tom Cruise's iconic dance scene. He turned it down for a $5,000 gig in the Philippines because he needed the money. Tom Cruise ended up just using an iPod. To this day, Aoki calls it one of his biggest 'I wish' moments.
Rocky Aoki wasn't a man of emotional declarations. He never said 'I love you' much, and Steve spent decades competing for his approval. Before Rocky died in 2008, he told Steve: 'I don't have to worry about you anymore.' That was it. To Steve, it was everything — an indirect, roundabout, but unmistakable declaration of pride.
Steve Aoki's son, born in July, is named Rocky — after his late father. The man who inspired Steve's ambition, who never gave easy praise, who raced boats and flew balloons and built Benihana, now lives on in a 9-month-old. Steve says fatherhood, brain health, and longevity are now what matter most to him.
When Rocky Aoki opened Benihana on 56th Street in the 1960s, he was selling Japanese food to a white American audience that had never seen anything like it. Business was so slow the venture nearly collapsed — until a single New York Times review turned everything around. One critic, one article, one chance: that's how Benihana survived.
Steve Aoki's Las Vegas residency isn't just income — it's research. With 50 shows a year in Vegas, he uses the crowd as a real-time feedback mechanism for new music. The pressure to bring fresh material to each festival set forces him to keep creating. He says that schedule — and that challenge — is what keeps him from burning out.
Rocky Aoki arrived in New York in 1961 with no English and a dream. After an ice cream truck failed in Harlem, he invented a concept that didn't exist in Japan — cooking in front of diners — and nearly went bust until a single New York Times review turned everything around. He went public in 1983, then spent the profits racing offshore boats, starting a porn magazine, and flying a hot air balloon across the Pacific.
Steve Aoki was accepted to two graduate and PhD programs with a sociology and women's studies degree from UCSB. He chose music instead when Allison from The Kills sent him a demo that blew him away. The decision came down to one question: was this small indie label enough of a proof of concept? The answer was yes.
James Murphy's 'Losing My Edge' — 118 BPM, a looping bass line, and Murphy talking over the beat — was the record that converted Steve Aoki from punk to electronic. He heard it and thought: I could make this. It was DIY enough to feel possible, hypnotic enough to be powerful. He went straight to Craigslist to hire a Pro Tools teacher.
The EDM world runs on MDMA. Steve Aoki ran on nothing. His straight-edge roots meant he never touched cocaine, meth, heroin, or MDMA — even while performing for hundreds of thousands of people on drugs. The only substance he ever tried was acid at age 13, alone, which terrified him so badly he never touched anything again.
At 13, Steve Aoki found his tribe in the straight-edge hardcore punk scene. The appeal was radical accessibility — you didn't have to be good, you just had to show up. Playing in garages after school, making zines at Kinko's, and silk-screening T-shirts taught him that any creative endeavor was achievable. That ethos became the backbone of Dim Mak Records.
Steve Aoki became the most traveled musician in a calendar year on the planet. The training ground was punk: by age 21 he'd toured the US 14 times, always sleeping in vans or on floors, never in hotels. When DJing eventually came with hotels and car pickups, it felt like luxury. That willingness to endure anything made him unstoppable.
Steve Aoki's very first remix — of Bloc Party's 'Helicopter' — was pressed on a 12-inch with no digital distribution. The other side? Diplo's first remix. Neither man knew the other would become a global superstar. Around the world, small underground hipster party scenes in LA, Philadelphia, London, and Japan were quietly building the infrastructure for the EDM explosion.
After retiring from driving in 2015, Susie became team principal and then CEO of the Venturi Formula E team, helping it nearly win the world championship. When her business partner sold the team to build an electric Mars rover, she was about to join that project — until Stefano Domenicali called about F1 Academy. She had to exit the space venture to take it, letting Gildo de Pastor down in the process.
Steve Aoki's Japanese-immigrant mother inexplicably moved to the whitest neighborhood in Orange County — Newport Beach — when she could have lived in a Japanese community 10 minutes away. The result: Steve got bullied, paddled by Catholic school teachers, and bounced between schools unable to make friends. He's now grateful for it, because feeling like an outsider fueled everything that came after.
Analysis
What they talk about
- Society & Culture 60%
- Arts 15%
- Health & Fitness 15%
- Music 5%
- True Crime 5%
Connections
Shows they appear on and people they share episodes with. Drag to explore.
