Tony Hawk: One of the most celebrated professional skateboarders of all time, who invented tricks like the 900 and popularized the sport through his Activision video game franchise. He has skated professionally for over 40 years and still skates daily at age 55.
What this episode covers
Andrew Huberman talks with skateboarding icon Tony Hawk about the drive, vision, and persistence behind a lifelong career in skateboarding. They trace Hawk's early years as a small, ridiculed 'circus act' skater into a pioneer who continually invented new tricks, and explore how love of the feeling rather than money or fame fueled his progression. A central thread is Hawk's recovery from a broken femur sustained doing a 540 in his 50s, including a non-union fracture, a second surgery, and his eventual return to the very trick that injured him. The conversation also covers his father Frank Hawk's involvement, smart financial decisions, the evolution of skateboarding into a healthier and more inclusive sport, the rise of female skaters, his video game origins, and his skatepark philanthropy.
The guest's own work
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater
Activision
“one of the things that I definitely want to talk about is the video game right because I think that the video game changed a lot of things”— Andrew Huberman
Also referenced (named, not recommended)
Apocalypse
Activision
“it was based on an engine of a game that was already released called apocalypse starring Bruce Willis so the first version of my game was Bruce Willis on a skateboard”— Tony Hawk
720
Atari
“the last thing that we had as skating was 720 in the arcade or a skate or die for home systems for Commodore 64.”— Tony Hawk
Skate or Die
Electronic Arts
“the last thing that we had as skating was 720 in the arcade or a skate or die for home systems for Commodore 64.”— Tony Hawk
Commodore Amiga
Commodore
“my first kind of big purchase in terms of electronics was uh Commodore Amiga which was considered one of the highest end uh home computers”— Tony Hawk
Commodore 64
Commodore
“getting the home systems in television Super NES Commodore 64. um Sega yeah”— Tony Hawk
Honda Civic CVCC
Honda
“I had a car that I bought with my earnings I had a Honda Civic 1977 cvcc and I would get pulled over”— Tony Hawk
Honda Express
Honda
“I had 600 in my bank account and I used that to buy a Honda Express uh moped for a year and a half”— Tony Hawk
The Fat of the Land
The Prodigy
“the song that I made it to was uh off of that Prodigy album fat of the Lamb uh and it's called clamatize it's instrumental”— Tony Hawk
Big reveals from this episode
- Huberman reveals that as a wayward 14-year-old he was taken into the Hawk family home by Tony's parents, sleeping in Tony's bed surrounded by trophies.
- Hawk admits he broke his femur attempting a 540 with no speed, 'thinking I could do it like I was still 20,' and had a long, complicated recovery.
- Reveals he re-injured the femur stepping off his board on a mini ramp and stayed in denial for months before learning his bone had never reconnected (non-union fracture).
- After a second surgery in November, he secretly prepped, changed his diet, and quit drinking just to attempt the 540 again, succeeding privately last week.
- His wife was his only spectator for the comeback 540; he had a heart-to-heart with her because she feared another traumatic injury.
- Activision offered Hawk a $500,000 buyout of future royalties on the first video game, which he turned down to keep royalties as it went on to spawn around 10 sequels.
- Discloses that autograph resellers now hack his airline accounts and buy TMZ flight info to ambush him at airports.
Worth remembering
- Hawk's father Frank ran many of the contests, which marked Tony as favored and made some peers resent his presence.
- Hawk was so small as a teen that at 16 he looked 13 and got pulled over by cops who doubted his age.
- As a skinny kid he wore elbow pads as knee pads, inspired by pro Steve Caballero who did the same.
- Hawk's trick-learning method is combining existing maneuvers he has already mastered, never throwing caution to the wind.
- His hardest current trick, a 360 shove-it 5-0 to fakie, he has landed only once and couldn't learn to repeat reliably.
- The 540 / 'mctwist' was created by Mike McGill in 1984; Hawk has been doing it for about 40 years.
- Hawk drank black coffee after dinner, a habit the young Huberman copied after seeing the family do it.
- At a 2009 Paris exhibition Hawk landed a 900 while Lindsey Adams became the first woman to land a 540 at the same event.
- His Skatepark Project has helped fund nearly a thousand skate parks, with 700-800 now open, in underserved areas.
- The Olympics requiring equal men's and women's divisions was the key shift that legitimized female skateboarding.