[laughter]
supposed to say studio tour. This is the
most expensive thing I've ever bought.
It's the most complex project I've ever
built. We did it. Studio's finished. It
was arduous. Every little touch means
something. We spent so long. Okay, where
do I start?
So, this is the first day in what will
become a modern wisdom studio. I'm
excited. I am excited. Slightly daunted.
We moved in. We found out that the
building had a ton of mold. So, we
needed to remediate all of that. But,
it's part of an HOA, which means that
you can't make changes without getting
their approval. And some of the mold was
inside and outside, which means you need
to reclad the outside differently.
Everything needs to be done sequentially
because you can't do the build until the
mold's done. And the mold can't be done
until the remediation's finished. And
then the particulate clean needs to come
after that. And the bathroom needs to be
done at this time.
>> This I feel like this is a real winning
in the weeds. Yeah. Of of what we're
trying to get into. And getting that
wrong is going to be like, "Oh, we
committed so much time." We're talking
about the specifics of the office and
the studio. Uh I keep changing my mind.
>> Any kind of pendant lighting that we
want, but if we don't want to go that
route, then yeah, it's amazing. I'm
pretty good at moving quickly, but uh I
can be quite undecisive. This is
essentially any build is just a [music]
huge list of decisions that need to be
made. It's not just what do I want it to
look like, it's can I make that happen
>> without any doubt. This is [music] the
most complex and elevated studio we've
put together for any of our clients,
even Rogan. It's just nothing was
skimped on in terms of, you know,
quality, budget, equipment,
constructions. It is so difficult to put
any kind of building project together on
a good timeline. But when you're also
trying to build a studio and there's
electronics and lighting setups [music]
and five different companies providing
your lenses and your cameras and the
storage that goes [music] online and
that needs to speak to the system that
actually records locally and that needs
to be uploaded to the cloud. It is just
an unrelenting stream of challenge after
challenge after challenge. And each time
that we think we've got to a stage where
we can begin to move on to the next
thing, there is a hold up. And this is,
I guess, the same whenever you're trying
to do any big project, especially
something that requires people with
hammers and nails and paint, and then
you add cameras and microphones in on
top, and it just gets exponentially more
difficult. I'm uh learning the art of
patience, one studio build day at a
time.
Isn't this good? I'm going to show you
studio tour. I bought this 10 months
ago. It's still not entirely finished.
It's nearly nearly nearly nearly done,
but you've been watching me record
episodes out of here for a long time.
So, now's the time for me to show you
around. [music]
Most impressive part. Most impressive
parts, the doormat. So, this is the
studio and the office. I bought this in
October and this was a marketing office.
None of these pillars existed. This
middle section didn't exist. Obviously,
no podcast studio. We made fake walls,
fake ceilings, painted everything. I
wanted to make a green room. Green room
adjacent. Sometimes guests bring family,
friends, managers, and [music] they can
come here and sit and watch this sexy
cool vestboard thing that we've got in
the office that everybody sees,
including the guests when they walk in.
VB+/modern wisdom. You can put whatever
you want on the board, apart from swear
words. What's been cool is I've been so
involved in everything. the art, the
soft furnishings like cozy earth. I
really love cozy earth So like we
got these I don't know, every time I sit
down it always feels really comfy. We
got this I think it's funny pencil
design head in the sand ostrich
wallpaper. I just think it's really cute
and kind of dumb and it's everyone's
like what the is that? Everybody's
got different offices. We've got a place
that people can work out here. We got a
cute kitchenette. We have a variety of
snacks. Hey CITE, sponsor me. Nuts.com
are awesome. Ciiete, I need you as well.
Custom neutronic fridge. We are fueled
by frosty beverages and have an equal
opportunity energy drink consumer.
Obviously, the lion share is neutonic.
[music]
Very important.
My office. I love the fact that it's
light and airy, which is a big deal.
This little mezzanine, being able to be
outside and, you know, take a call or
just get a little bit of fresh air is
pretty cool. This is a copy of Joe
Rogan's favorite book. So, it's
his birthday today.
>> We're up Christopher. Hi, good to see
you.
>> Thank you very much for the book. This
is very cool of you. It's inscripted or
there's inscription inside to Yoko Ono
who knows well what the jazz life
entails.
>> I've just exploded a can of mutonic all
over my crotch as well.
>> Look, I love being able to make a fool
of myself on Rogan. I love bringing you
great guests on the podcast and your
support and pressing subscribe helps me
to continue to do that. So if you
haven't hit subscribe or if you just go
and check down below whether or not
YouTube has unsubscribed you from the
channel. Tons of people who have pressed
the button apparently just get
unsubscribed which sucks and makes me
very sad indeed. So go there check one
please and I will continue to do my
[music] best to bring you great episodes
all the time on this table right here.
Thanks. This was a gift from Mark
Zuckerberg. That's the decal from his
ranch when I got to go and hang out with
him in Kawaii. This was a gift from Bill
Thompson. He put a custom Modern Wisdom
decal on the site. I'm aware that we're
kind of edging you toward the actual
thing that you care about, which is the
studio in there, but this is foreplay.
It's a little bit This is interior
design foreplay. I'm like a naked Marie
Condo. Marie Condo? Is that who did the
Who did the fun Whatever.
um the whole studio because I've kind of
got PTSD from uh VOCC's and mold and bad
paint building materials. We did micro
particulate clean before we came in.
Jasper air purifiers in every room. But
importantly, we wanted the furniture
that we used to all have no VOCC's, no
blowoff, just the highest quality that
we could. And this is all human scale.
So human scale make the best office
furniture on the planet. like it it it
absolutely rules. I've fallen in
love with vertical bookcases. Had one in
my first ever studio back in Newcastle.
Go back and watch the David Allen
episode. I remember seeing it and going,
"That looks so sick." So, I've I've had
one of these everywhere that I go. Uh
that's a gay bear. Very important.
Can we look? Can we zoom in? Thank you.
It's very important.
Bull pen. That's where the blood and the
feces and the titles and the thumbnails
are made. I did everything in my bedroom
on my own for basically forever. So to
have a place to go to work that isn't a
coffee shop is still kind of deranging.
I come in and there's people here and
they say, "Hey, this thing happened and
whatever." As opposed to it just being a
Facebook Messenger chat between me and
video guy Dean.
>> So um we get a lot of questions about
what the setup is for the podcast. It's
been the most basic setup in history,
which is this guy. When people ask,
"What's modern wisdom about?" Well, it's
interesting because there's porn stars,
but there's philosophers, there's
psychologists, and then sometimes
there's people that are trying to
maximize our ability to do space flight.
And then there's like this whole other
area of health and fitness, and then
I've got these two mates from the UK,
and we kind of talk about how to make
the best toasted sandwich. Uh so yeah,
kind of that
>> it has been kind of insane to go for as
long as I have and did just doing it out
of bedrooms and and spare rooms. This
really has been a very spit and sawest
operation for a long time. Every single
bedroom of every single house or Airbnb
that I've stayed in for more than a
couple of weeks has been turned into a
studio. My bedroom in the first house I
ever bought was the first 500 episodes
of the show before I flew out to
America, before I moved to America. I
think that grassroots spit and sawdust
just make it work with cellar tape and
cable ties thing maybe held me back for
a little while. I think I was like like
it, I can do it myself. I don't
need to have a big space. I can go and
have the most beautiful podcast in the
world and then record out of my spare
bedroom. And both of those things can
work at the same time. And that is true,
but it's not exactly conducive to being
a sane human because some days I don't
ever leave the house. I wouldn't ever
leave the house and [music] I wouldn't
speak to anyone except for the guest.
Wake up, go to the gym, listening,
prepping, thinking about stuff, come
back, still prepping in my dining room,
go upstairs, [music] record, finish up,
go back downstairs. It's 6 p.m. and I I
spoke to one other person and they were
on the other side of a laptop. So, it's
nice to have a place to come in to work.
This is the co-working space. It's
really great. I get to come in and I
can, you know, do my prep and sit down
and have meetings with people if I need
to or the guests get to come in. It's
mostly just all of this. All of this so
far is the spiral staircase going up to
the Bonnie blue bedroom. It's a little
bit of foreplay, catch up, have a bit of
a chat. Oh, do you want a new tonic?
Should you try trying this protein
shake? Whatever. And then
we get into the main event.
[music]
Here it is.
Let's go down. Go a little lower.
[music] This is 20.
Yeah, I think that's that's nice.
>> You still get that spill underneath the
light.
>> Yeah. And you're still catching a good
bit of it from here as well cuz this is
quite bright.
>> Yeah.
>> Nearly a year into buying the office and
we're still fixing things. Still still
making small artistic improvements. I
think the window fall off really helps
with the blowout from the back of this
person.
>> Yes.
>> So, that's the shot that we're trying to
fix. We spent so long, dude, putting
this together. me. Okay, where do I
start? This table's custom. This table's
entirely custom. And it's a trapezoid
shape. So, me and guest one are further
apart
than guest four and guest three. And
what that means is you [music] get a
four shot from the wide shot. So you can
see all four of us in here is a bunch of
stimulants and disguises. Why is the
make autism great again hat? Thank you.
Very important. Thank you.
[snorts]
I mean this is really me trying to bring
together everything from a color
perspective, from a history perspective.
Copper and teal is this kind of cheat.
It's a little bit of a cheap trick from
Hollywood. They're opposite ends of a
color wheel, but they just look so
beautiful and I kind of fell in love
with it a long time ago. So, we got this
custom tree made in Singapore. So, this
is completely custom made and shipped
from Singapore. I wanted something that
had really interesting shape that we
create all of these nice shadows. Uh,
but would also double up as a a shelf
shelving so we could put little
practicals and art elements and stuff
in. So, we've got statues, some books.
These I love these guys climbing up
cricket ball cuz I used to play cricket.
From a lighting perspective, I'm
fortunate that, you know, we've built
some of the most beautiful sets in the
world, I think, for podcasting in the
space of a day. The guys were able to
come in and dial and dial and dial and
refine and play [music] with until they
got everything exactly as they wanted.
So, as you can see, if you look up,
there's a lot of nan lights and some
Aperture stuff playing around here. We
got a great partnership with Nanlight.
Aperture also absolutely rule.
We worked so hard. I mean, even looking
at this soft box that we've covered with
our own musulin cloth because it changes
the way that there's a fall-off across
people's faces. You can see here as
well. So, this is just a little fill.
It's just a little bounce fill. But,
we've put tiny little bit of additional
cloth over the top of it, which just
creates a little bit more flattering
shape on the face. And then all of this
nanite tubes to create the colors to
create the fall-off. My big flex was I
wanted to have one set with multiple
looks without it feeling like it was too
chaotic and people didn't know what was
going on. So the solution that we came
up with was to create fake windows. So
shock horror this isn't a real window
behind here.
Pavo tubes nan lights and all of these
are controlled by the same system that
controls all the rest of the lighting.
This window will never be seen. You will
this is the only time you're ever going
to see this window cuz it's not in any
of the shots. It's behind me behind the
cameras. So, this was kind of the the
feature piece. And in this window,
we're bouncing tubes off of a white wall
through uh diffusion paper here and then
through hand cracked, hand painted,
handstained
glass panes that are individually
colored with different colored gels. And
then with you can't even see this, these
little tree branches which were again
custom made and we can change the color
of the tubes. So we can turn it
from daytime to nighttime to sunset to
spooky house. And all of the foreground
lighting changes to match the background
lighting so that it feels cohesive.
Because if you have a different color
background and people's skin looks the
same, it doesn't feel like the light is
falling out of the windows. And that to
me is just the coolest thing.
One set, multiple different looks. Kind
of insane to take a room, make it
completely brand new, plaster the whole
thing, and then go through even more
work to make it look derelict. All of
this this moss put on by hand, stuck on
by hand, all of the [music] cracks in
the walls also custom created. And we're
using it to hide cabling and perhaps the
centerpiece. I didn't order this or ask
for it. And I came in one day and it was
just up and the team had put it
together. [laughter]
>> And we had a bunch of other ones.
There's a topless version which I gifted
him on the pod. There's another version
I think where we're in swim shorts.
Let's present. You wear two versions
of a very famous photo that's going to
be behind you for most of the episodes.
>> A Rembrandt.
>> Yeah.
>> Uh an original.
>> Yeah, this is [laughter] an original.
I'm not sure if you've noticed. Um, I'd
like to thank my friends and family.
>> I look like some sort of freak child
with bicep veins.
>> I think it's like ancient Chip and
Dales.
>> Yes, it is. But for some reason, for
some reason, you're in Hawaiian shorts.
I didn't notice that. And then the one
behind it is the uh this is the original
>> class.
Um, one.
>> Wo.
>> If you go back and watch episode 17,
above my old couch in Newcastle has this
hand of item. I didn't even say to put
this up, but the guys saw that and then
recreated it. And then to have this fall
off with the light above and below. I
mean, I'm a You might be getting super
bored. [music] This might be too nerdy
for you, but I I think it's really cool.
And when I sit down, I'm reminded it's
just little doses of nostalgia and
trajectory for me. This thing that was
over the first ever episode that me and
Dean worked on together eight and a half
years ago has got a little nod here
underneath the TV in a new city in a new
country and a new business essentially.
[laughter]
So this is the party trick that you
might have seen a couple of times on the
show. As I said, all of the lighting in
here can change. What do you want to go
to? Do you want to show the sunset one?
The fire streets of LA.
Streets of LA. So, um, if you look up
here, all of this lighting. So, look,
this is changing. Now, we can have
pulsing and you'll notice that all of
the foreground lighting changes. All of
the colors change. So, all of this is
now different. We've got this sort of
streets of LA thing going on. Let's do
the daylight. So, let's just do the
normal one, standard. So, the standard
one is really good unless somebody's
very pale. So, again, now all of this is
brightened up. And this is good because
it's pretty neutral. Nice fall-off on
people's faces. It's quite bright.
There's not It's not as dramatic, but
there's still a good bit of drama going
on because we've got this negative fill.
Yeah. Let's do the spooky one. So, we we
put this one together for Peter Santelo.
Uh Peter goes into deep rural
Appalachian forgotten communities. And
um this one, that fill that was up there
has completely been killed. We've got a
little bit more green coming through
these lights. And what that results in
is this really aggressive shadow. So
this now remembering cameras are coming
in from this side. That's what creates
that sort of really interesting shot
when you've got the tights and then
we've got this sharp wide as well. I
really love this profile shot that we've
started using recently. We did it in the
Alan Deboton episode in the church in
London last year. My favorite shot of
all. That side on shot, especially when
stuff's this dark. Just looks so moody
and cool. Just so over the top. Like I'm
not Martin Scorsesei, right? But I think
all of this shit's fun and I like having
the conversations, but playing around
with this is I've got into it. I don't
know what I'm doing, but I know what I
like. All right, let's see.
yeah.
>> Is it fun? Damn. right. It's
fun.
>> Virtual set.
More human scale custom vines growing up
here to try and create a little bit of
texture. This is for virtual episodes.
Guests that can't come to see me. I
spent so long doing virtual episodes. I
think we were by far the biggest virtual
podcast on the planet. Not the biggest,
but the biggest virtual podcast on the
planet for a very, very long time. I'm
still very pro virtual episodes because
the content is what I care about the
most. I spent a long time building the
skill set to be able to do this virtual
thing well and I'm not prepared to let
that go. I would rather speak to a guest
virtually than not at all if I really
love them. And I'm also doing more solo
stuff. So [music] you will see you have
maybe already seen more down the pipe me
essay style reflections Q&As's lessons
episodes etc.
>> The significance of today is that it's
our first episode in the new studio.
It's like stepping into another world,
right? I think overall to be able to
have so much use case from the studio
like the the capability the studio has.
You know, a lot of people don't realize
like what goes into the back end [music]
of just like simple things like I want
to be able to capture my desktop. I want
to be able to do Zoom calls. [music] I
want to have nine freaking cameras in
one space all go to one place, you know,
like. So when you come in here, you
know, you kind of wowed by [music] just
the finishes, but when you're sitting
down, I think what people don't
appreciate is how low impact it is with
the amount of technology that's in
[music] this space. So you're sitting
down, you're in a comfortable place,
vulnerable to be able to have these
conversations, but everything's out of
sight. You know, the lights are all
mounted to the ceiling. [music] You
know, the system is its own thing.
Jared's running it, the producers there.
You can tell we put a lot of time and
and [music] thought into making sure
that you know you had a really cool spot
to have a 2 three-hour conversation.
[music] This is HQ. This is like home
base. This is where like everything is
going to be feeding into [music] and out
of. Whether that's the guests, whether
that's the content. Having this home
base in the literal central center of
[music] Austin, Texas, having the guests
come through, it's like a nice central
location [music] to where we'll just be
able to get a lot of stuff done.
Dude,
this is [clears throat]
>> Oh, man. Finally. Holy [music]
Today is studio launch day.
>> It's taken so long. It's taking so long.
>> Gentlemen, new studio. Uh, so this is
the first place that I've ever had,
which is mine. It's [music] the first
time that I've ever got to record in a
studio that isn't someone else's or a
bedroom. So, I've kind of moved from a
prostitute to a girlfriend. This feels
like a long-term commitment to me.
>> Cheers to the first gentleman.
>> Cheers to the first. There it is.
>> Honor of privilege. [laughter]
>> Wigman for life. I LOVE THIS GUY.
>> WOO. TO make that.
>> Help me. Help you. Help me help
[laughter] you.
You know, when I look back across the
trajectory of the show, it it is not one
of palatial luxury and fortune or
expenditure really. It's been very
shoestring budgety. [music] And then
when we started to make a little bit of
money, I just dumped all of it into
making beautiful episodes and prayed
that we could make it back and ran it
back again and ran it back again and ran
it back again. and slowly laded up and
then yeah, we started to do data
gogggins [music] on a sound stage in
Vegas with customuilt sets and my
assistant at the time with a piece of
cardboard [music]
wafting smoke through the room because
the fan to blow the fog machine around.
We didn't know what we were doing. There
is nothing that you could do to get me
to speedrun that journey. It was so
cool. I understand that on the way up
you have uncertainty about whether or
not you're going to make it and that
means your uncertainty doesn't make it
feel glorious in the moment. It [music]
makes it feel perilous. But in
retrospect, that is all of the coolest
Like this is also very cool,
right? I'm not gonna lie. It's
awesome. I get to come in here, Hunter
Biden, Joer Willink, Matt McCusker,
Duncan Trussell, having a laugh, puffing
[music] on a pipe, and wearing a
captain's hat. Like, it's sick. But
that's not what gets you here. What gets
you here is doing it in your bedroom.
Airbnbs and hotels.
I'm some bloke from the north of
the UK who started off with no money, no
nothing at all, no spare time, and
[music]
just really loved having these
conversations and didn't stop. And
because I didn't stop, I ended up here.
And you know, it's been enabled by every
single one of you guys by a device in
your pocket. Like, you literally changed
my life with this. Not going to say that
it's as much your studio as it is mine,
cuz it's definitely mine. But
he played a big part in it, too.
That's the tour. I'm done. Expect more
round table episodes over the next
couple of months. More lessons, more
masterclass stuff. We're going to start
to put together medley of my favorite
moments from different guests and
different episodes. Jordan Peterson on
resilience. Alex Horoszi on how to build
a business. I'm excited. I'm excited for
what the future's got in store. I don't
need to travel quite as much as I did. I
did over 100,000 miles every year for
the last 3 years.
I get to sit in that room. People can
travel to me. I appreciate you all. To
have this is not something that I take
lightly and it's awesome and I
appreciate you all. And I'll see you
next time.