Toto Wolff

speaker

484 appearances 3 recordings 2 series first heard Dec 2024 last heard 16 Jan

Toto Wolff’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Jan 2026 with 1.

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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard · Toto Wolff (team principal of Mercedes F1 team) · 4 Dec 2024 podcast

So we'll resume the story. You're 18. You go to this thing. But one second for the 11-year-old.

But you can at least relate. You go there, you got high hopes. This is going to be this wonderful thing we share. And they go, this isn't for me. This is your dream. And you go, okay. This is a fine thing.

She's doing musical theater. I would cry at either. When I watch her sing, I cry.

You just want them to love something. I want them to love something. I don't care what it is. Just love something and chase it. That's all I want for you. I want you to be on the chase.

I was more lost than you can imagine at your age. Relax, breathe. Well, then that's my next mystery. So you pivot again, you race for a while and you're good. You're not good enough to be an F1 and you're likely too big. As I tell everyone, the only reason I'm not racing for AMG is because I'm too tall. We would be the ones with the earrings and championships under our belts.

It's rare you hear a tall guy complain about being tall.

Poor us. We all try to be small. My shoulders are just too wide.

I'm so sorry. Also your biceps. You know the biceps would be a real problem. But you pivot and you get into business. And as I understand it, as the lore suggests, You start raising money for startups or tech, internet. That's kind of newish. There's a lot of opportunities. And what you start doing is going to companies and saying, I will help raise money for you, but I want some equity. Exactly.

Why the fuck did they trust you to do that? You didn't have any equity of your own to bring to the table, I can't imagine.

You're like an agent, kind of. If it works out, give me 10%.

Okay. Have you started to acknowledge the gift you and I were given? This has hit me over the last five years. As things have been explained to me and I've changed my opinions on things, I was brought home to a single white trailer. A ton of violent stepdads, addiction all through the family. It was a rough go. So when I heard white privilege, I was like, what privilege did I have?

Sure, some white kids have a lot of privilege, but I didn't have any. I was stuck on that. And then I had this moment of clarity where I was like, well, I was a fully... functioning addict for 10 years. I drove around the city all the time with Coke in my car. I was drunk half the time I interacted with police and I went, oh, that's the privilege.

If I were black, I would be in prison for the rest of my life. End of story. I would be shot. I didn't talk to police with the right amount of respect. You know, there's no way. And I was like, okay, yeah, I do have a ton of privilege. I've just now come to own the fact that being 6'2 is a lot of it. I've directed movies. I've gone into studios and said, give me $30 million. You can trust me.

I'll lead this group of 100 people into this end zone you believe I can do. And a lot of it is I'm just tall.

Yes. So first of all, now we know each other for 45 minutes.

Yeah, chicken or egg, I guess.

Have you had any pull towards it? What's your relationship with alcohol?

Oh, you know, another reason we might not be seeing eye to eye on the height thing is yours came really late, didn't it? Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a big distinction. I've been this size since I was 12. Okay.

No, I had a huge nose, a terrible haircut. I was so skinny and tall. It was rough. Same for me. So more humiliation. Do you identify with being handsome? Like when people tell you you're handsome, do you accept that that's reality? Or do you still think, nah, I think you're confused? I think you're confused. You too? Isn't that wild?

I'm like, no, no, I'm an ugly duckling from high school. No one liked me.

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