What podcasts are you listening to?

I listen to a lot of podcast episodes (over 5,000 in the past 5 years [1]), but I don’t subscribe to podcasts.

The way I listen to podcasts is similar to how I consume web contents:

Search by topics/people, and Find podcast episodes to listen, then move on, not subscribing to podcasts. Search by topics/people, and Find web pages to read, then move on, not bookmarking websites.

For podcast recommendations, I’d suggest focusing on topics/people that you’d like to learn more. You can search and find individual episodes [2]. At this moment, there are at least 140,000,000 podcast episodes [3] - vs there were 25,000,000 web pages indexed by google in 1998 [4]

[1] https://www.listennotes.com/playlists/wenbin-fangs-podcast-p...

[2] https://www.listennotes.com/

[3] https://www.listennotes.com/podcast-stats/

[4] https://www.thinglink.com/scene/452856351543001090

BBC In Our Time -- such a broad range of topics, highly recommend for a browse. ~45 minutes, usually a conversation with three or so experts in a given field, hard to get depth but excellent surveys of topics that you might not have encountered.

Fall of Civilizations -- 2-4 hour histories of various societies.

History of Napoleon -- I like to have a long-form on the go, this is my current one. Adds a lot of context to modern Europe. Previously History of Rome.

Advanced Financial Investing:

1) Rational Reminder (Ben Felix & Cameron Passmore) : This is hands down the best in equity investing (start with Nobel Prize winner Eugene Fama in Episode 200)

2) Flirting With Models (Corey Hoffstein) : Deep dives with guests on Factor investing and quantitative finance in general

3) Bogleheads on Investing (Rick Ferri) : Discussion on advanced investing topics from a individual investor perspective (also covers financial planning topics)

The Tim Ferriss podcast. He interviews top performers in basically any field, in a conversational style.

Not everyone likes Tim. He's kind of seen as a self help guy.

But that isn't important, because the show is not about Tim. The conversation is often streered towards his interests, but you may share those.

I think Ferriss is widely curious about the world and a good interviewer, so the show has great variety.

Just cherry pick guests you want to hear, and I also recommend trying some you're not sure about. The couple episodes I liked best were completely unknown names to me.

2.5 Admins - with Jim Salter from Ars. It’s a great sys admin podcast

BSD Now - everything *BSD. Quality has declined quite a bit since Benedict joined, though.

Corecursive - some really great stories on software development. The recent one on debugging LISP in deep space is great.

Changelog - Sometimes decent interviews with founders and in-depth tech interview. Avoid JS Party though, it’s really daunting.

Cyber - stories on hacking and cyber security from Vice / Motherboard.

2600: Off the hook - legendary.

Straight out of my Podcast Republic app subscriptions: 99% invisible, ACM bytecast, Against the rules, Analysis (BBC), Boris (BBC), Cautionary Tales, Conversations with Tyler, CoRecursive, Feakonomics Radio, Functional Geekery, In or time (BBC), Myths and Legends (bed-time listening only!), Planet Money, Revisionist History, Guardian Science Weekly, Seriously (BBC), Sideways, Software Engineering Radio, Anthropocene Reviewed (no new episodes, but had a good run), The infinite monkey cage, The inquiry (BBC), The joy of why, The numberphile podcast, This is Love, Trillions (Bloomberg), Twenty Thousand Hertz.

The Array Cast - an array programming podcast (sometimes featuring core people involved in the languages): <https://www.arraycast.com/episodes>

Oxide and Friends - stories from low-level programming world (firmware, operating systems, etc.): <https://toppodcast.com/podcast_feeds/oxide-and-friends/>

On The Metal (discontinued) - same as above, from the same people: <https://oxide.computer/podcasts>

(edited: I thought Oxide and Friends was discontinued, but I was wrong. Removed the misinformation.)

How I Built This - founder stories

Risky Business - news from the cybers

Darknet Diaries - tales from the dark side of the internet (for h4x0rs)

If you like Star Trek and dumb jokes, I enjoy:

The Greatest Generation

https://maximumfun.org/podcasts/greatest-generation/

The Greatest Discovery

https://maximumfun.org/podcasts/the-greatest-discovery/

Other good ones that are more serious:

Triple Click

The Ezra Klein Show

Ear Hustle

BBC In Our Time

BBC 50 Things That Made The Modern Economy

The Amp Hour

PCB Chat

On Track PCB Design Podcast

Internet History Podcast

Smartless

The Well

Song Exploder

[1] Rustacean Station - https://rustacean-station.org/

[2] Changelog - https://changelog.com/podcast

[3] Darknet Diaries - https://darknetdiaries.com/

[4] Philophize This! - https://www.philosophizethis.org/

[5] On The Metal - It's no longer active, but prev episodes/guests are amazing - https://oxide.computer/podcasts

I gave up listening to podcasts for education. I found after a certain point - it gave little reward. There’s only so many topics you can know about that people want to discuss.

For now - I listen to podcasts that are more humorous than anything because I feel like I always need to keep my edge with humor and I like funny stuff. So I am a premium member of TMG Studios. I also listen to Forehead Fables and their new dungeons and dragons podcast (die of laughter).

I’m kinda done with the whole “I must always be learning every waking moment” thing. Sometimes being in a better mood from laughing is far more productive than any bullshit you’ll pick up from a podcast.

Econtalk has exposed me to the most interesting people and ideas.

A suggestion I would have is treat the podcast a library to choose from and not a subscription.

For example:

* maybe you don’t love Marc Maron but you LOVE David Sedaris. Just listen to that interview.

* maybe you hate news but you’re curious about a specific current event. See if “The Daily” has an episode on that.

I’d recommend finding high quality podcasts and looking through their archive. There is no better podcast than hearing a high quality operation like “This American Life” tell a story all about one of your interests.

In that vein, I keep an eye on:

The daily

This American life

Today explained

Planet money

Marc Maron (he really pulls a lot out of people)

Those are super mainstream, but they’re popular for a reason.

No Agenda Show https://www.noagendashow.net

ITM!

Welcome to the home of The No Agenda Show, an award-winning podcast where Adam Curry and John C. Dvorak, two experts from the media industry, discuss news & politics. Twice a week they deconstruct the news cycle and give insights into the narrative of the mainstream media, governments and political campaigns. For more information, please read our mission statement.

Linus tech tips. Even if just for the entertainment. Probably not the answer you expected. I listen to it because its totally apolitical without a hint either way of the political spectrum, focuses on tech alone, and is fun listening to. Thats how tech pod/youtube casting should be. Oh and any podcast carmack is speaking on. That guy’s even more spot on how tech talks should be. No selling, no politics, just pure awesomeness.

If you haven’t listened to Acquired, I highly recommend checking it out. Really great startup history podcast.

The Knowledge Project

All In

Conversations with Tyler

Lex Friedman

Tim Ferris Show

Bankless

Hardcore History

I find that with most podcasts you have good and bad episodes. Also even really medicore podcasts often have 1 or 2 really good episodes.

My top ones would be:

  Tech:
  - Kubernetes Podcast from Google
  - O11ycast
  - The Kubelist podcast

  Non Tech:
  - Exploring the Lord of the Rings - Tolkien with lots of Dad Jokes
  - The Prancing Pony Podcast - Tolkien line by line
  - The Song of Urania - History of Astronomy

Ones and Tooze - shortish weekly podcast about world events and economics, with Adam Tooze

The Inquiry, The Briefing Room, and Analysis - BBC podcasts about current events

Revolutions - great series which has had its final ever episode, but as a history podcast it’s not going to become out of date.

These are the ones I regularly listen to:

Arms Control Wonk - nuclear non-proliferation with Jeffrey Lewis

Press the Buton - nuclear non-proliferation without Jeffrey Lewis

Serious Trouble - The sooting voice of Ken White lawyersplaining recent news items

Very Serious - Josh Barro interviewing experts about news items

Musicalsplaining - a show about musicals

Angry Planet - interviews with experts about armed conflict

War Studies - Kings College London presenting studies on armed conflict

These are good ones I have listened to in the past but they are “finished” and there won’t be more episodes, but they are “evergreen”:

Rules as written - they basically read out the 5th edition dungeons and dragons rules.

The deal - spiling all the tea on the iran nuclear deal. If you don’t yet have strong opinions about the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action this podcast will change that.

For politics:

Three Whiskey Happy Hour => https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/08/podcast-the-3...

American Mind => https://americanmind.org/audio/special-edition-dr-john-marin...

Mostly to knock me out in the wee hours:

Scott Adams => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4xwRI3atLY

Recently got into The Adam Friedland Show, an excellent center-left podcast with commentary on current events, history, media, and art.

LEX FRIDMAN - Lex interviews many guests about a particular topic/interest in a row and then releases several episodes on the matter, e.g, artificial intelligence, bitcoin, war, love, etc.

TIM FERRISS - Long-time fan, and I believe this was one of the shows that encouraged me to start my own podcast. He's interested in learning methods from top-performers and dissect them in the show so you can get actionable advice.

CAL NEWPORT's Deep Questions - He's been answering guest calls and always adds a more conceptual block to develop some ideas from his own writing, mainly about personal productivity, deep work, career advice, and digital minimalism.

Sean Carroll’s Mindscape.

Lots of other great podcasts have already been mentioned, such as BBC In Our Time, Darknet Diaries and On the Metal.

- Rich Roll - The Drive with Peter Attia - Legacy of Speed with Malcolm Gladwell - Huberman Lab - FoundmyFitness - Modern Homesteading Podcast - The Permaculture Podcast - Redemption Permaculture Podcast

For tech things, I like Joe Ressington's podcasts[1] (e.g. Late Night Linux, 2.5 Admins) and Saron Yitbarek's[2] (e.g. Command_Line Heroes, Code Newbie).

And on the darker side of tech, the podcast Tech Won't Save Us[3] is really excellent (and prolific).

[1]: https://joeress.com/

[2]: https://saron.io/

[3]: https://techwontsave.us/

I have not seen it listed, but I am very much enjoying the Manifold podcast. Hsu is competent, not afraid to speak his mind, and invites on talented scientists, academics, and bureaucrats.

I don't agree with him all the time, and I find his views on China way too cynical. For instance, I found the episode with the Singaporean diplomat quite troubling, but it was nonetheless interesting to listen to how these diplomats talk. But he has access to high-level "state people" and it is fascinating to and a bit depressing to realize how little the common folks, of which I am part, count.

The podcast was discontinued for about a year after Hsu was removed from his administrative position at Michigan State following a witch hunt of sorts for his views on IQ. I think he kept his faculty position as a physicist anyway (holding for dear life on that tenure) and he started recently a couple of start ups, one that deals with embryo genotyping and one with the resolution of cold cases using genetic material.

The Open Source Startup Podcast

https://oss-startup-podcast.launchnotes.io/

I'm CEO of an open source startup in the Kubernetes space (https://robusta.dev) and it's been an incredibly useful source of information.

[0] The Jordan Harbinger Show - Jordan has some amazing guests, is charismatic, and a pleasure to listen to (twice a week)

[1] No Such Thing as a Fish - Dan, James, Andrew and #GetAnnaOnTwitter deliver interesting facts with great humour (weekly)

[2] Techmeme Ride Home - Brian gives a great brief breakdown of tech news (daily)

[3] Software Engineering Daily - Mostly interesting deep dives, when it's not a promotional piece by a company. Better when Jeff hosts (insanely: daily)

[0]: https://www.jordanharbinger.com/ [1]: https://www.nosuchthingasafish.com/ [2]: https://news.techmeme.com/180306/podcast [3]: https://softwareengineeringdaily.com

2021-12-27 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29703564 best episode

2021-12-24 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29674609 best podcast

The Search Space (Logic Programming and related themes.) https://thesearch.space/

Advent of Computing (The history of computing.)

Very Bad Wizards https://www.verybadwizards.com/

Notion Tools & Craft

Software Engineering Daily

The Array Cast

The REPL

The Idea Store

My First Million

The review below is pretty accurate. It ruined all other business/startup podcasts

https://twitter.com/ishverduzco/status/1557794282009817088?s...

I really like Jimmy Akin for his podcast, "Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World". It covers various mysteries topics, from the cause of inflation to remote viewing and parapsychology. Jimmy does all of this in a non sensationalist way while retaining an interesting story-like format. He comes to topics from both the perspective of the Catholic faith and applying a reasoned approach.

Podcast: https://sqpn.com/podcasts/jimmy-akins-mysterious-world/

Video Version: https://youtube.com/user/JimmyAkin

Why are you trying to build a habit of consuming media? Some people just don't care for them.

That said, I listen to ATP, Comedy Bang Bang, and Roderick in the Line regularly. Much less than when I used to drive a car. It's entertainment, nothing more.

- Coding Blocks is probably the podcast that was most influential in my career https://www.codingblocks.net/

- Coder radio for fun and rants https://coder.show/

- Grumpy old geeks for fun and more rants https://www.gog.show/

- The Program was launched here on HN and it's some of the best sci-fi you can listen to https://programaudioseries.com/

Huberman Lab - Science, Education, and Health & Fitness.

Some comment called it "the manual to life" which is a pretty good summary imo.

https://hubermanlab.com

This Week in Linux and Destination Linux, both by the TuxDigital network.

For software design, I highly recommend the Metamuse podcast.

It's by the team behind the Muse 2.0 app [0], but the podcast is about building software in general. There are episodes about native Mac development, visual programming tools, design choices in games etc.

As someone who's more of a data guy than a software person, I always feel like I learn something new listening to these discussions.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31494498

I'm excitedly waiting for S3 of the Blowback podcast [0]. The first 2 were incredibly good.

[0] https://blowback.show/

Many great suggestions in this thread. I would add the following, omitting those that are already mentioned:

Intelligence Squared Podcast

  - Great debate-style episodes on amazing topics (such as "Should the west engage with Russia," or "Should the west engage with Saudis") mixed with interviews of book authors. Must listen!

Making Sense Podcast

  - Very deep interviews on topics with crystalized rationality. Another must listen!

No Stupid Questions

Rework

HBR IdeaCast

Stay Tuned with Preet

If you’re interested in software design please give us a listen!

https://changelog.com/podcasts

The Great Simplification, Lex Fridman, The Business of Machining, Dan Carlin's Hardcore History, Hello Internet (Currently on HIatus)

Mostly, though 500+ youtube channels.

Esther Perel’s own and ones having her as a guest

You are wrong about

Framelab

Apart from these I’m likely to seek out people I’m interested in as guests rather than subscribe to a podcast.

Like Gabor Mate on Tim Feriss

Stuff You Should Know is my favorite. I don’t think I’ve seen it mentioned here yet: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-stuff-you-should-know-269...

Their cousin Stuff They Don’t Want You To Know is also entertaining.

There’s a chance podcasts aren’t for you. After listening to a couple briefly, I found I’m not interested in them. Subjecting myself to an oration from a single point of view, without comments feels like brainwashing to me, or at least very one dimensional. I’d rather spend that time in silence with my own thoughts.

I scan Apple Podcasts Best History Episodes once a week (other topics are available) https://chartable.com/charts/itunes/us-history-episodes-e459...

These are the ones I listen to regularly.

Uhh yeah dude - I can't explain it. Here is a clip. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usvMJbxo6t8

The Flop House - My favorite bad movie podcast.

Hello From the Magic Tavern - Comedy/Fantasy improv with great production and guests.

Does anyone know a good podcast about climate change, renewables, new technologies that are being tested etc.?

Something without all this technobabble about making "green" solutions that act mainly as solutions to get VCs money. I would like something honest, preferably from people who really care and know what they are talking about.

Acquired - Ben Gilbert & David Rosenthal

Speak The Truth, to get proper, verified updates and assessments about the war in Ukraine by a former US army sniper.

I like the following, in no particular order:

- Hardcore History (Dan Carlin, one of my few drop everything listens generally)

- Behind the Tech (tech history interviews from Microsoft VP)

- Security Now

- The Secure Developer

- Darknet Diaries

- Intelligence Squared (oxford-style debate show)

- Indie Hackers (bootstrapping business)

- SyntaxFM (web dev, front end focused)

- BaseCS (not sure if it's still going, but good evergreen content)

How did this get made, cracks me up and so funny. They dive into movies and it is hilarious :)

https://www.earwolf.com/show/how-did-this-get-made/

no sleep podcast the lucky die dark dice gray rooms stuff you should know white vault this week in tech

All in Podcast has really grown on me.

BBC More or Less Behind the Stats. Making sense of the numbers that surround us.

BBC The Life Scientific - talks with leading scientists about their life and work.

BBC In Our Time - the ideas, people, and events that have shaped our world.

The History of English.

The History of England.

… and an embarrassingly high number of True Crime podcasts.

I'm interviewing YC founders and discovering how they did their 0 to 1: Founders and Builders https://www.aakash.io/founders-and-builders

I find podcasts a terrible format for anything technical, where I want to be able to read tangential material as necessary.

But I’ve had a few long drives recently and have been the sort of pop-infotainment genre. 99% invisible and various podcasts highlighted on there

Season 5 of command line heroes has a few bios of people nobody knows: https://www.redhat.com/en/command-line-heroes

For investing, "Wealthion" is a good one.

"Advanced Financial investing" would be a challenge in podcast form. You need charts and formulas. Software is hard also - you need code.

"Patented. History of Inventions" is interesting.

Are you interested in biographies of... anyone? Personally, I like to hear stories behind people interviewed which I listen to.

Somewhat related to your interests could be Planet Money, Freakonomics, Robot Brains, Business Wars

No Such Thing As A Bad Movie, where they discuss a movie for about an hour, many of them bad, and often find good things to say. Some of my favorites they've discussed:

Ryan's Babe

Simon Conjurer

The Match-Stick Flame

I didn't see The Privacy, Security, & OSINT Show by Michale Bazell. Any opinions on it? The Drive - Peter Attia. Happy Path Programming - Bruce Eckel

The Dirt - https://thedirtpod.com/ - subject is Archaeology and Anthrology

Patrick Boyle on Finance

Lex Fridman

Fall of Civilizations

Hardcore History

None, except that one I record. I honestly think podcast are bad way how to consume informations. Text if much more efficient.

Lex Fridman

https://signalsandthreads.com/ by jane street

Prefer real academics to the intellectual dark web.

Hardcore History, The Rest Is History, Our Fake History, Very Bad Wizards, Your Undivided Attention, Mission to Zyxx, The Adventure Zone

The "being an engineer" podcast is great, I also like all songs considered by NPR, invisibelia, pop culture happy hour.

- ADSP

- Embedded.fm

- CPPCast before they called it quits

- Unnamed Reverse Engineering podcast

- Darknet diaries

- Open source security podcast

And for those who understand any Nordic language, I can't recommend P3 Dystopia enough.

Not a podcast but I'm listening to Dragonlance audiobooks. It's warm to go back to my late teenage.

I'm currently doing an 18 hour drive and binging the Acquired podcast. Their analysis is excellent.

If you're interested in AI, there's one podcast you need to listen to. The host's delivery is a little bit robotic, but the guests include some of the best AI minds in the world, as well as celebrities like Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, and the co-founder of Facebook.

It's called Lexman's Artificial Intelligence Podcast. The best thing is, there's a new episode every two hours, because the host doesn't need to sleep.

[1] https://lexman.rocks

Lapham’s Quarterly: A World in Time excellent history books podcast

Martyr Made, History on Fire, Jocko Podcast, and Hardcore History

I hear History of Rome and Revolutions are good.

The Infinite Monkey Cage - Science with comedy. I’m sure a lot of people here would enjoy it.

Sean Carroll’s Mindscape The Michael Shermer Show Wisdom from the Top with Guy Raz

I find Security Now to be oddly soothing and informative.

Under the influence, which is the best one on marketing:

For casual listening, I really like Connected, and Cortex, from Relay FM—the former being an Apple-centric podcast, the latter being anything productivity-adjacent, and co-hosted by CGP Grey.

For more niche, ‘serious’ interests, Peter Attia’s podcast, The Drive, and it’s short-form counterpart, The Qualies, are fantastic. Truly world-class conversations. Another in the same league is Sam Harris’ podcast, Making Sense.

Finally, for sheer entertainment value that intersects the world of technology, Darknet Diaries has been a favourite for years.

Beneath the Surface by Stripe Press

Pivot - the combo of Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway really works

Marketplace - public radio daily about the economy that’s a great education on the economy and everything really

Making Sense with Sam Harris - Sam is a powerful thinker and he has a wide range of topics and amazing guests

Corecursive - every episode is a story about a piece of software: excellent

Hardcore History, of course

The Joy of Why - different science topic each episode and goes pretty deep

Hardcore history for the win.

The Adam Friedland Show

Joe Rogan Experience

Macrovoices

The market huddle

Execs

Lex fridman

All in

Knowledge project

The quest

Making sense

Starting greatness

The deep end

Superinvestors

Top traders unplugged

Sorry these aren't in any order!

Side hustle nation

Nomad Capitalist

Behind the Bastards

Citations Needed (I highly recommend this one)

Love Fruit - the fruit fest podcast

My no code story

News:

NPR News Now

POLITICO Playbook Daily Briefing

POLITICO EU Confidential

World Socialist Web Site Daily Podcast

SANS Internet Stormcast

Misc:

Grant's Current Yield

Intercepted

War on the Rocks

Tech:

The Array Cast

Digital Forensic Survival Podcast

Computer Architecture Podcast

ACM ByteCast

BSD Now

Hackaday Podcast

Making Sense, by Sam Harris

I listen to my own incredible podcast, Council Of The Wise Developers:

https://rss.com/podcasts/councilofthewisedevelopers/

I'm a genius, and the rest of you are idiots.