Joe Rogan

Joe Rogan is the male Oprah for product adoption

Shaan argues that when Joe Rogan vouches for something like TRT, it follows a predictable adoption curve: diehards first, then curious onlookers, then the mainstream. He compares Rogan's influence over businesses to Oprah's.

“Especially because Joe Rogan, AKA the male Oprah, does it and vouches for it. I think that goes a big way. Like that guy has like a pretty massive mainstream following. And, uh, when he normalizes something, uh, it's just a matter of time. You know, first his diehards will go do it, and then the other people get curious and start to check it out.”

Calacanis: non-accredited investors in private markets is the next decade's revolution

Calacanis says he's short crypto and long startups, and most of all long non-accredited investors entering private markets. He predicts a sophistication test (20-40 questions) will replace pure wealth-based accreditation, unlocking the 96% of Americans currently shut out.

“I'm really long non-accredited investors participating in private markets. I think that's going to be the big revolution of the next decade.”

Personal Media Companies will swarm traditional media

Shaan relays Balaji's PMC concept: Joe Rogan, Tim Ferriss, and MrBeast are personal media companies that generate viral content, build a loyal audience, then layer on partnerships, businesses, and investment access that traditional media and outsiders can't reach.

“Balaji, he has this phrase that he calls his personal media companies, PMCs. PMCs. And he's like, PMCs are gonna replace, or, you know, just sort of swarm traditional media companies. Because you can have the Joe Rogans and you can have the Tim Ferriss's and you can have the MrBeasts and you can have all these different people just be personal media companies where they generate content, content, uh, goes viral, gets them audience, audience, you know, becomes loyal.”

Watch elections (and everything) with your favorite small influencers

Shaan argues the future of consuming live events is doing it alongside niche influencers you care about, citing the All In podcast's election coverage and Joe Rogan's 500K concurrent livestream viewers. He frames 'co-watching with your tribe' as a rising business opportunity.

“Joe Rogan had half a million concurrent viewers on his livestream for the election, where he was just shooting the shit with his friends, talking about it. The UFC, often when there's a UFC fight, there's also the Fight Companion, which is always big, and it's just Joe Rogan and his friends getting drunk, eating cheese, and watching the fights together. It's way more fun than the official broadcast. And so I just think this is an interesting trend in a business, in a business opportunity that will continue to rise over time, which is like consuming stuff with the kind of little influencers that you care about.”

Steal thisBuild a product around co-watching live events with niche creators instead of official broadcasts.

A startup raised $8M copying the org-chart idea from the show

After Shaan and guest Daniel Gross brainstormed a public, crowdsourced org-chart tool on the pod, a stealth startup called The Org launched doing exactly that and raised $8M from Sequoia and Founders Fund.

“There's actually a startup that came out of Stealth that is doing this after we talked about it. Clearly stole our idea. It's called The Org. They raised $8 million from Sequoia and Founders Fund, and it looks like they're doing exactly this.”

Subscription podcasting will explode once big personalities catch on

Wilkinson predicts personality-driven podcasters (Howard Stern, Rogan, Maron) will leave platforms like Sirius to run their own subscription feeds charging ~$10/month, with insane margins. His company Supercast builds private premium feeds, and he says creators are building SaaS-like businesses with no employees.

“And I started going like, well, what would stop Howard Stern from leaving Sirius and just starting his own subscription podcast and charging $10 a month? And you start thinking about the scale of something like that where you get Marc Maron or Terry Gross or, you know, Howard Stern or Rogan or whoever. And you just start doing that where they do one extra episode a month or they cut their podcast off after 30 minutes, or whatever it is. I think the numbers are insane on that, and I think that's where it's gonna go once a few people catch on.”

Onnit (AlphaBrain) sold for $350M; Joe Rogan owned ~20%

Discussing how creators should own their own supplement brands instead of taking sponsorship money, Sam notes Joe Rogan's supplement company (Onnit / AlphaBrain) was just acquired for $350 million, with Rogan owning roughly 20%.

“it just was acquired the other day. And friends who know the company told me it sold for $350 million and that Joe owned like 20% of it.”