Speaker
Monica Padman
Appearances over time
4 episodes
Episodes
4
Podcasts
Quotes & moments
Robert Downey Jr.'s reported total MCU salary ranges from $386 to $421 million, according to Comic Book Resources, not including cameo appearances.
Rocky Aoki's 1979 offshore powerboat crash near the Golden Gate Bridge left him with multiple life-threatening injuries and only a 10% chance of survival.
Robert Downey Jr. reportedly earned $75 million for both Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame individually.
Rocky Aoki was part of the 4-man crew that completed the first Trans-Pacific balloon flight in 1981, covering 5,208 miles and setting a 34-year record.
Benihana went public in 1983, after Rocky Aoki spent the 1970s privately scaling the chain before eventually becoming an employee of the company.
From 2026, the minimum weight limit for an F1 car plus driver combination (excluding fuel) is 768 kilograms — down 32 kg from the 800 kg minimum in 2025.
Formula 1 cars carry a maximum of 110 kilograms of fuel per race, sufficient to cover approximately 300 kilometres without mid-race refuelling.
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
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Connections
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