I think it’s a negotiation tactic. He said as much when they were celebrating the Spotify deal
He wants a company to pay him to pod like Spotify but he believes the ads hurt him
For a guy that sees himself as an intellectual, Joe does a terrible job of communicating and separating two different thoughts. Sounds like he was still trying to imply that ad partners get control over the content of the show. And, for the overwhelming majority of ad partnerships, other than them giving you ad read scripts, and preferring that you not shyt on the product in or around the read, they mostly don't care. The only way I can imagine he came to that conclusion is by thinking of when he blew the previous sponsorship deals, and assuming that applies to all deals. Nevermind that he blew their first ad rotation because he refused to just do the fukking read and not make fun of the product on the show, and blew the second by being creepy enough to have one of his former employees accuse him of some shyt.
And then the "what does your show look like", I'm guessing is based off of having to negotiate a deal after fukking a previous one up, and getting clowned by people like us. And I guess he doesn't want anyone to give him partnership money without asking to see some metrics. The irony.
Regardless, those points don't make much sense, and completely overlook the simple fact that doing good business buys you more opportunities to do business.