Brian Redban — Comedian, longtime Joe Rogan Experience producer/sidekick, founder of Deathsquad, and co-creator and producer of the live comedy show Kill Tony. A self-described tech and gadget obsessive.
The gist
A loose, sprawling, tech-and-tangent-heavy hang between Joe Rogan and his old producer Brian Redban. They open on quantum computing and the multiverse, then ricochet through China's lead in phones and drones, surveillance and data as a commodity, and political and media distrust (the BBC's edited Trump clip, AZT and the AIDS crisis, COVID parallels). The back half drifts into supercars and the Nurburgring, the Las Vegas Sphere, AI image and video generation (live Conan/Frazetta art experiments), the explosion of OnlyFans, and how AI-driven porn and VR could reshape relationships. It closes on a soft, sincere note about aging dogs, love, and loss, plus Redban's AI music project Cat Bread.
Big reveals
- Rogan points to Siddharth Kara's cobalt book, noting the most advanced device we own is sourced via near-slave labor in the Congo.
- They play the BBC's edited January 6th Trump clip versus the actual speech, arguing the network spliced lines 54 minutes apart.
- A Perplexity search live on-air surfaces J.D. Vance's venture-capital ties to defense/drone firms (Anduril) right as the U.S. bans DJI.
- Rogan recounts getting violent pushback for hosting Peter Duesberg, who argued AIDS was tied to hardcore drug use, not just HIV.
- Rogan claims the villain of Dallas Buyers Club is essentially Anthony Fauci, drawing a direct AZT-to-COVID parallel.
- Rogan calls the thousand-horsepower Corvette ZR1 'by far the best car I've ever driven.'
- They react to OnlyFans revenue hitting roughly 7-8 billion dollars and a claimed ~190 million U.S. user accounts.
- The episode turns tender as Rogan and Redban discuss aging, blind/deaf dogs and the inseparability of love and loss.
Things worth remembering
- A new quantum computer reportedly solves in minutes an equation that would take all the world's supercomputers billions of years.
- Rogan argues every new house should be required to have solar to ease strain on a grid that 'can't sustain AI.'
- China's largest drone show used an estimated 10,000 synchronized drones forming dragons, the moon and kung-fu figures.
- Ukraine uses fiber-optic 'monofilament' tethered drones so they can't be jammed, enabling strikes deep inside Russia.
- SpaceX intentionally removes heat shields on test flights to find failure tolerances; one survived reentry with only a 30% predicted chance.
- Rogan quotes Sam Kinison's old AIDS bit and recounts the Spin magazine 'Sins of Omission' AZT exposé.
- The Wizard of Oz's original Tin Man, Buddy Ebsen, was hospitalized after pure-aluminum-dust makeup poisoned him.
- OnlyFans revenue jumped from ~238 million in 2019 to ~1.7 billion in 2020, reaching nearly 8 billion with ~377 million accounts.
- Redban uses Sora and Grok daily for AI video/images, calling Sora 'probably the best one right now.'
- Redban says the Apple Vision Pro is now his primary movie-watching device and 'the best way to see a movie.'