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Ask HN: Which tech podcasts would you recommend to a friend?

43 points by ekpyrotic ↗ HN
There are a huge number of tech podcasts, but the quality is very hit & miss.

Which podcasts do you go out of your way to listen to? Which podcasts keep you up to date on the latest trends & subjects?

Which podcasts introduce you to new concepts & subjects in an engaging, informed, & intelligent way? Which tech podcasts do you trust?

58 comments

[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 29.3 ms ] thread
paulcole
Accidental Tech Podcast is a good mix of informative and entertaining. Daring Fireball is also a regular listen for me for similar reasons.

For both of these, I like that the hosts are clearly biased.

andrefuchs
Darknet Diaries is my favorite podcast. (darknetdiaries.com)
joblazny
Lex Fridman. He does long form interviews (~4 hours) on more than just tech, and all of the guests he interviews are fascinating. He simultaneously approaches his interviews from a scientific background (MIT AI lecturer) and a love for humanity. If you like tech, one episode I'd like to recommend is episode #309 with John Carmack.

https://youtu.be/I845O57ZSy4

janalsncm
People love to bash Lex but he really is great. He consistently gets interesting guests and often understands something about the subject which is more than can be said for some other long-form podcasters. And I can tell he is improving as well.
dolebirchwood
> improving

Over the last 2 years, he's been bringing on fewer and fewer tech-related guests while injecting more and more of his own (often political) commentary into the podcasts rather than simply asking good questions. The podcast has gotten worse, not better (at least from the perspective of someone who just wants to hear insights from proven tech leaders).

fortuna86
I only know him from clips, when he brought someone on that explained why January 6 was a crime, Lex immediately slumped back in his chair and pushed back with a non sequitur "the media has lied before".

Disappointing that the one guy everyone holds up as neutral, curious party is just another partisan.

lamename
I mostly agree. I started listening from the beginning and loved the deep leanring/CS/physicist/neuroscientist/philosopher guests.

I think he began running out of those people or just wanted to expand. Some of the new format guests are great, but I skip many episodes now, whereas before I enjoyed 99% of them.

Still, at its best it remains one of the most informative and insightful podcasts I know of, largely due to the guest expertise.

jnsaff2
I tried his podcast and some episodes were alright. But in the end I unsubscribed as he got controversial people on and never challenged them on anything, just a nod-fest.
dan_lannan
Lex is great. Some of my favorite episodes of him are with some really cool software engineers.

-- Chris Lattner -> Wrote the LLVM Compiler and lead/(leads?) development of the Swift programming language. Done a bunch of other cool things with RISC-V development too -- https://open.spotify.com/episode/5fpAb2OpRL3Uy8ZTq94vD8?si=b...

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3fzFCgBznLjKvG2tJFLk3I?si=f...

-- Bjarne Stroustrup -> Creator of C++ programming language -- https://open.spotify.com/episode/2nfoXUYySjgyCtJVglb5LV?si=4...

-- David Patterson -> Turing Award Winner (Don't remember exactly what this guy did but the podcast was 4.5 hours and I listened to the whole thing so it must have been good) -- https://open.spotify.com/episode/5GgaJfeIZWLbofcapDbo18?si=8...

-- Brendan Eich -> Creator of JavaScript -- https://open.spotify.com/episode/5vLJaVnHrT6uWrgZdRaAkO?si=4...

-- He's had on Elon a few times too. -- https://open.spotify.com/episode/1E3ESPFzTHiAxJVXQPiRGd?si=f... He also had a bunch of really good physics and math guys on like Grant Sanderson (3 Blue 1 Brown guy) and Frank Wilcek (Nobel Prize Winner in physics, wrote "A Beautiful Question")

I'd also counter one of the previous comments and say that I think he challenges the controversial people he has on significantly more than almost anyone else doing podcasts right now. That's specifically one of the reasons I like him.

Some other good podcasts though: PodRocket -> Really good stuff on Web Development and general web technology

Command Line Heros -> Some really good episodes on the history of software. If you're young like I am this podcast gives you a really good rundown as to why things in software are the way they are and how it evolved.

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg-> Great podcast for learning about how the tech ecosystem operates on a large scale. It's 4 guys who have been extremely successful in the tech/VC world and they breakdown current events in tech. I feel like it provides really good insight into where the tech world is/is going and also if you're interested in starting a company it helps wrap your head around the terminology that comes along with raising money and working in that world.

shinjitsu
Command line heroes was amazing, I was bummed they ended - but I guess they did cover a lot. (https://www.redhat.com/en/command-line-heroes)

I'm also a big fan of Coder Radio (https://coder.show/) Tagline: "taking a pragmatic look at the art and business of Software Development" They called the layoffs and salary adjustments happening now back in April 2021

If you want to look at software from a non-coastal US perspective (and don't mind occasional [or in early episodes not-so-occsional] profanity) I like Friday afternoon deploy (https://friday.hirelofty.com/)

I also was to second the Go Time recommendation from another post (https://changelog.com/gotime) - while it is Go focused more often than not, in recent months they've done show on intellectual property, tech horror stories and code maintenance

kumarm
Lex was great until he realized, controversy makes more $$ than education. Very unfortunate.
blakesterz
I don't know if this is exactly what you had in mind, but The Verge has a bunch of interesting podcasts that I go out of my way for and that are "tech" focused.

https://www.theverge.com/podcasts

pxoe
ups for vergecast, it's like an overview of what's going on in tech, it's current, insightful, but also fun and humorous.
wdroz
Darknet Diaries

Test & Code

Rustacean Station

Talk Python to me

janalsncm
Not necessarily tech specifically but Radiolab is science focused and has had a few great episodes on tech subjects. “Post No Evil” is a few years old but I still recommend it.
hashstring
@tpatcek, what happened to “Security, Cryptography, Whatever”? I’m missing it.
n8henrie
2.5 admins

Darknet Diaries

Self hosted

Linux after dark

Linux unplugged

Linux action news

mashedpotatoo
TWIT's podcasts cover all the tech platforms and news in the tech world This Week in Tech is a must listen!
evntdrvn
- On The Metal - Corecursive - Soft Skills Engineering
hawski
Maybe I'm strange, but if I would have a friend I would recommend him to either listen to some nice radio with music and news, just favorite kind of music or nothing. Lately I'm partial to the sounds of a pebble beach or strange Buddhist rhythms. Also Lo-Fi music compilations seem soothing, lately I've found Alien Cake Music with Lo-Fi Grunge. I think that this Lo-Fi trend lately and in general the thing some people say about analog audio, that it is softer is about how sound with some noise added is akin to a massage for the brain.
rileyphone
Would recommend https://mynoise.net/noiseMachines.php specifically, they have a bunch of great sounds.
samstave
_""I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH HOW AWESOME THIS SITE IS""_

=

Mynoise (ive posted about it here in the past) is amazing.

If you have ADHD Insomnia (no drugs, just biology) and ASMR 'needs' -- Do church bells with thunder and the 1942 bomber static radio channel... EQ the bells up.

I had it saved years ago, but that mix will give you a lot to play with and be happy with.

bavila
How exactly does Lo-Fi music "introduce you to new concepts & subjects in an engaging, informed, & intelligent way"?
hawski
My point is to relax instead. So a contrarian answer to the title question (ignoring the broader question): "none".

Though often my mind does not stop and does the work on its own or I'm more relaxed and later on can focus better.

jnsaff2
My all time favorite is still Omega Tau [0]. They really go deep into detail on the topics. It's been getting less frequent lately but the back catalog is very impressive and most of the topics don't age.

[0] - http://omegataupodcast.net/

ge96
Tech meme is the one or "ride home podcast"

Covers random stuff, if you wanted programming specific I could suggest some of those but many are already pointed out by others

eimrine
I love Radio-T (the oldest russian-speaking podcast). I'm pretty sure my post will be read by authors because HN is a main source for them. They use to love Java, Apple, mechanical keyboards and correctly filled fields in MP3.
d1str0
Risky Business is my favorite for security news. Quick, succinct, charming hosts.
Strongbad536
- Techmeme Ride Home (https://www.ridehome.info/show/techmeme-ride-home/)

- Brad and Will Made a Tech Pod (https://techpod.content.town/)

- Pivot (https://podcasts.voxmedia.com/show/pivot)

- The Vergecast (https://podcasts.voxmedia.com/show/the-vergecast)

- Decoder (https://podcasts.voxmedia.com/show/decoder-with-nilay-patel)

- Daily Tech News Show (https://dailytechnewsshow.com/)

- Hard Fork (Casey Newton of Platformer and Kevin Roose) (https://www.nytimes.com/column/hard-fork)

Going more specifically into Software

- Frontend Happy Hour (Ryan Burgess from Netflix and other smart SWEs/managers) (https://www.frontendhappyhour.com/)

- Screaming in the Cloud (Corey Quinn) (https://www.lastweekinaws.com/podcast/screaming-in-the-cloud...)

- Syntax FM (https://syntax.fm/)

almog 

  - Randomly Typed (haven't seen a new episode come out in a while but these two Canadian guys are great!)
  - Coding Blocks (I like their book club episodes a lot, specifically DDIA)
  - Talk Python To Me
  - Software Engineering Daily (most episodes that came out until 2020 or so are excellent and go to such depths that I haven't encountered from any other interviewer, quality of newer ones isn't consistent)
  - Jane Street's Signals and Threads
  - Techmeme Ride Home (tech news)
  - Data Skeptic (data science)
jacksgt
"CoRecursive: Coding Stories" (from Adam Gordon Bell) is one of the Podcasts I look forward to the most. Incredible high production value, yet very personal and down to earth.

Probably one of the best episodes is the interview with Andreas Kling, the author of Serenity OS

https://corecursive.com/serenity-os-with-andreas-kling/

amerine
Came to suggest the same! Was nice to be able to upvote another users suggestion instead!
koenw
I love Oxide and Friends (and previously On The Metal, of course)

About systems programming and open source. The episodes go surprisingly deep and are still fast-paced and stream-of-consciousness with contributions from anybody who has something meaningful to say in their group call.