* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMyvB2wAXYI
And A$AP Rocky
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8IYpVF_S5M
He also seems to be able to 'find' people just before they really make it big/mainstream, like Kendrick Lamer, Billie Eilish, and Tyler the Creator. I heard about them from Narduar before anywhere else.
At the very least in terms of doing proper research on a subject, I think there's no one better.
Peter Thiel on “The Straussian Moment” (Sept 2019)
His guests routinely compliment him on his prep and the questions he ask. The show would be just as good without the hot sauce gimmick.
The Hot Ones episodes I found the most entertaining were the ones where the guest was the dominant one, steering the conversation, and the questions were incidental / not necessary.
He honestly doesn't add that much by being in the room vs if someone else had the same questionnaire sheet. And in some ways his wooden demeanor can even be detracting instead of some of the best interviewers who can melt away and give the interviewee the space and direction to shine.
Joe does little research on most guests (mostly due to the sheer volume of guests I'm sure), which could be a more stylistic choice if he were a deft interviewer who could think on his feet and dig deep anyway, but he's not. He's an everyman and asks very surface-level questions. As you say guests are (usually) given wide latitude to own the mic, which works great when it's a guest with a compelling narrative. It works terribly when the guest is very ideological or has some sort of agenda they are adept at selling.
The times he does challenge a guest (sometimes way too aggressively as others in the thread have shown), oftentimes he has missed the point entirely, and the guest has to back up and try to patch the conversation. Once that happens a couple times the flow of the interview is really disturbed and it takes a long time to recover.
I like Joe as a person, and admire his discipline, but to call him a master interviewer would be as accurate as calling him a master comedian because he has been grinding so long.