Tony Hinchcliffe: All-In x Kill Tony: A Hilarious Holiday Special

The recording opens with a teaser from later in the night, in which the party is called "the most fun Christmas party we've had" and the credit goes to the comedian on stage. Someone then asks whether the room could "play Kill Tony tonight," which sets up the evening's final segment.

The formal program is introduced as the "second annual" event. The hosts announce that Chamath could not attend and promise a replacement. The usual sponsor read is played as a joke, with thanks to Google Cloud, Circle, OKX and others. The night's lineup is listed as the Bestie Awards, a roast and a round of Kill Tony.

The replacement is presented as Chamath's "permanent replacement on the program," whom "the three of us voted" in, and Tony Hinchcliff is brought on stage.

The roast starts with the host city. San Francisco is mocked as worse than a "shithole," set against a nostalgic memory of the city in the Full House opening. Lines about California's homeless population lead into a jab at the audience for paying "500 bucks to watch billionaires talk to each other." Audience members are also told to put their phones away.

The comedian says he "had to research these guys" and calls the research exhausting. He then lists his supposed study material: Mountainhead, Big Bang Theory, Succession and Brokeback Mountain. Next comes the show's origin story. All-In began early in the COVID pandemic and grew quickly because isolated people wanted relatable content, and the punchline asks "what's more relatable than four venture capitalists playing high-stakes poker."

Wealth is a running theme. The roast puts the four hosts' combined net worth at "over $3 billion" and asks why people that rich would sit through weekly Zoom-style recordings. It also compares the two podcasts. One is described as "four experts educated on economics and technology." The other is the comedian's own show, where, by his description, an Elon Musk impersonator roasts an aspiring comedian with cerebral palsy.

Political material comes next. One bit is about Elon Musk's "Roman salute" defense against accusations of a Nazi salute. Another is an extended immigration joke about using SpaceX rockets for deportations and bringing back tariff-free avocados. A third answers critics who call the show a conservative "echo chamber" with a crude joke about Marjorie Taylor Greene. Someone remarks that "We may have to edit that one out," and the comedian pushes back on which jokes are considered acceptable.

Jason Calacanis ("J-Cal") is roasted as the relatively "broke" member, with a stated net worth of $60 million. The jokes target his early Uber investment, his self-description as "the greatest podcast moderator in the world" and his AngelList investing. An angel-investor joke falls flat, and the comedian points out to the room that the line "lost" with the crowd. The section closes with a political contrast: the comedian calls himself "a centrist, slightly right-leaning person" and J-Cal "a full-on liberal." He says the only thing they share is that "liberals don't like us."

Even though Chamath is absent, the comedian goes ahead with the Chamath jokes and says he may add ones he had thought "were too mean." They play on Chamath's stated $1.5 billion, his Golden State Warriors stake, Indian food puns, his poker skill and his wife. One career joke lists Facebook projects he reportedly led, "Facebook phone Facebook home and Facebook beacon," which the roast says were all scrapped. The comedian notices that the crowd likes sports jokes more than investor jokes.

David Sacks gets an intentionally sincere tribute for leaving business "to be a patriot." The comedian then explains that the bit was the joke: being nice to Sacks and moving on. A follow-up line passes along a hello from Michael Saylor and a request to "the Crypto-Zar."

David Friedberg's "Science Corner" segment is mocked as the moment others treat as "time to go," along with a line about being "the third wheel on a podcast with four guys." A shared set of race jokes targets both Davids as South African-born billionaires.

The set ends sincerely, then undercuts it. The comedian thanks the hosts for promoting "healthy discourse" across "culture, tech, and politics" and says what they built "transcends partisanship." The last line is "Also, can I borrow some money?"

In the conversation after the roast, the show is introduced with the line "just unbelievable 12-year overnight success." The reply begins plainly:

I just built the show that I wanted to do.

The origin story starts with hosting open mics at the Comedy Store. Those nights ran 40 comedians in a row doing three-minute sets on Sundays and Mondays. After each set, the host would get up and make fun of the comic, and sometimes he gave private advice later about breathing, pauses, pacing or mic placement. He and his friends often ended up as the only people laughing at the back of the room because of what they whispered to each other. The idea was to share that commentary with an audience.

The account says people kept pushing him to start a podcast. It also says even the co-host at the time, Red Band, doubted the idea: "wait, who the fuck is going to want to watch an open mic?"

Evidence of the show's popularity comes from Austin. One participant moved there two years earlier and says the first thing people ask on arrival is whether they have been to Kill Tony. He also describes seeing "two, three hundred people lined up on the street" near Dirty Sixth Street outside Joe Rogan's Mothership. A short exchange about a phone number that was "ghosted" turns out to be a joke.