Having listened to the Patreon bit, there's one thing that's clear.
Not everyone who WANTS to be a boss SHOULD be one. Because sometimes despite being a smart person, people can struggle with the mentality of actually being in that position.
In Joe's case, he clearly wants to have it both ways. He wants to be the boss by dictating everyone's role in respect to the podcast, but when it comes time to handle discussions about those roles, he wants people to give him benefits of being their friend.
For example, when he backhandedly talked about them not reading their contracts, the argument is likely that they didn't do so because they thought their friend wouldn't try to fukk them with the paperwork (which is dumb anyway. ALWAYS check the paperwork, even if it's your fukking mother).
The fukked up part is that this was all easily avoidable. Had he been everybody's friend and fully explained what it was up front, everybody would've been on the same page from jump. And going forward, he could keep them around with business standard golden handcuffs by paying them (within reason) to keep them around, not necessarily what they're worth.