#2542 - Steve Hilton

**Joe Rogan** (0:00)
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**Steve Hilton** (2:02)
The Joe Rogan Experience.

**SPEAKER_3** (2:04)
Trained by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day.

**Steve Hilton** (2:12)
Come on, man. What's going on?

**Joe Rogan** (2:15)
For people who don't know, you and I have been friends for, God, more than 10 years.

**Steve Hilton** (2:20)
Yeah.

**Steve Hilton** (2:20)
How many years has it been?

**Steve Hilton** (2:22)
I think it's 14 I think it's the year we got here, which is 14, 2012 Yeah. When we moved from England.

**Joe Rogan** (2:27)
We met in Hawaii on the beach with our kids.

**Steve Hilton** (2:29)
Okay. So what's your memory? I was just thinking about that because I have a very particular memory of that.

**Joe Rogan** (2:34)
My memory was that my children and your children were playing on the beach. Exactly. That's how we met.
It was just they were like digging in sand. They were real little. They were the same age. And then we just said hi.

**Steve Hilton** (2:49)
Yeah. But I remember that, okay, I have a slightly different memory. Okay.

**Joe Rogan** (2:52)
What's your...

**Steve Hilton** (2:53)
Which is like, that's exactly right about the kids.

**Joe Rogan** (2:55)
Yeah.

**Steve Hilton** (2:56)
Two girls for you, two boys for me. And your wife was there first before...

**Joe Rogan** (3:01)
Yes. I think I was in the gym. And then I came out of the gym.

**Steve Hilton** (3:04)
And I just remember, just like, remember I've just moved from England, and it's a whole different world and a different culture.
And I just remember you walking down the beach. I remember I've never seen anyone like this before. Just like, it was just an amazing cultural moment. And then...

**Steve Hilton** (3:24)
You'd never seen anyone walk on the beach?

**Steve Hilton** (3:26)
No, just the way you were, you know, just the way, I remember thinking, who's this guy? I remember I'd never heard of you. And then I was explaining to people I'd met, oh, Joe Rogan, you met Joe Rogan. It was just an amazing thing.
And then, the other thing that makes me laugh doing this is that we then did the podcast.

**Joe Rogan** (3:51)
Yes.

**Steve Hilton** (3:52)
At some point around then.

**Joe Rogan** (3:53)
This is before you had any aspirations of running for governor or anything like that.

**Steve Hilton** (3:57)
Exactly. It was a long time ago. I just moved, I was teaching at Stanford, just having a very normal kind of low-key life. And I really remember doing the podcast not knowing what a podcast was. I literally didn't know. So we came in, and again, my experience was I'd been in England.
I'd worked in business, run a restaurant or two, that kind of thing. But most recently, I'd been in politics and government. And so I did the media. I was aware of all of that. And so it wasn't like I was completely naive, but I didn't know what a podcast was. And I literally thought it was like a radio show or something. I remember coming in, this is back in LA, and we sat down and we were chatting for a few minutes. And I literally was thinking, when's the next guest coming?