The Rest is Politics, Leading, Philosophize This and Stratechery (paid) are the podcasts that stood out the most in 2025. Curious what other HNers listen to.
The Rest is History is good, depending on the topic. Both guests have a bit of bias which you have to sort of take into account, not that different from The Rest is Politics.
Mishal Husain has a new podcast on Bloomberg TV which so far was excellent.
Also from Bloomberg TV, Big Take is often interesting.
I still enjoy Lex Fridman, again depending on the guest. Dwarkesh Patel same shit as Lex, but he pretends he knows something about AI.
Call me simple or provincial, but I really enjoyed "Good Hang" from Amy Poehler. It's a breezy interview with interesting people (doesn't hurt that I'm a long-time SNL fan).
Acquired (Long episodes about companies, recents include:
coca-cola, trader joe's & alphabet)
Dwarkesh Podcast (Inquisitive curious host, mostly "AGI"
related)
Conversations with Tyler (Wide ranging, polymath host,
distinctive, hard to describe style)
The Marginal Revolution Podcast (Tyler cowen & Alex Tabbarok
discussing economics)
Sharp Tech with Ben Thompson (you sort of mentioned)
The Morning Meeting (US Politics mostly. Neutral tone,
informative, forward looking i.e. what will happen next not
who is bad etc)
I’ve been a fan of The Ezra Klein Show for years - whatever your thoughts of his personal politics, he’s a fantastic interviewer, and I think he does a great job at both helping define and then interrogating the strongest construction of his guest’s beliefs. He’s not a soft interviewer, but he’s genuinely trying to understand his guest, and I’ve learned a ton about how people who I disagree with view the world.
I really enjoyed the "Michael Hobbes Podcast Universe" this year. He's a reporter who is now making entertaining podcasts debunking claims in the media/zeitgeist. I appreciate that he takes a pragmatic approach -- to paraphrase something he said: "There's probably an impact on kids having so much screen time, but this data you're citing doesn't show what you're claiming."
I learn a lot listening to the Money Stuff podcast.¹ The newsletter² is also great but I don’t always have time to read every one. I also really enjoy Why Is This Happening.³ Chris Hayes really shines as an interviewer and policy wonk when he’s not in the cable news format. While Ezra Klein seems to be leaning into Democratic Party whisperer, Hayes is leaning into policy nerdity that I miss from Vox-era Klein.
I've really been enjoying Complex Systems with Patrick McKenzie (patio11) of HN fame. Additionally: Odd Lots, Money Stuff, Chat with Traders (hit or miss, some guests are not great).
I would have put Coder Radio on this list but ever since Mike took over without Chris the show has lost its appeal for me.
And sadly, there are no more Jupiter Broadcasting shows left without crypto or mostly inside baseball.
Anyone know of shows in the category of two or three lads discussing computing, coding, devops, but in the style of two older guys crumudging that everything used to be better in the old days?
I enjoyed Shell Game, which explores using voice agents in ever more personal situations.
The specifics of the journey are going to date quickly given the speed of AI development. But the shape of the journey and the dilemmas posed are going to be relevant for a lot longer.
My favourite podcast right now is Let's Learn Everything, three science geeks taking turns to explain things to each other. In a standard episode, there's a deep dive into a science topic, followed by a lighter miscellaneous segment. Special episodes, such as the yearly HaLearnDays or the occasional guest episode, take a different format.
The three all have science degrees, and do proper research for their deep dives. This is a podcast which comes with supporting citations.
Startups For The Rest Of Us is a great for bootstrappers or other non-VC-backed founders. I find that even episodes that are not specifically relevant to the work I'm doing are good to listen to because they may bring ideas to the surface in helpful ways.
- "Complex Systems with Patrick McKenzie (patio11)"
- My First Million (www.mfmpod.com). I just don't know why, but for some reason I stopped listening to them in the past 2 months, but rest of the year I was really enjoying their content. Even older ones.
- Pivot and Prof G, mostly because of Scott Galloway. I really like him.
- Under The Influence with Terry O'Reilly. Amazingly good. Very fun to listen to and almost always brings joy and help me learn something new.
- All In, can't say I'm still enjoying this. It's way too political these days. But it's still something I listen to occasionally. When I listen I usually end up skipping half of the content to find something I like.
41 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 52.3 ms ] threadThe information density and clarity are outstanding.
0: https://www.betteroffline.com/
1: https://www.wheresyoured.at/
Fall of Civilizations 20 - Persia - An Empire in Ashes [2]
[1] https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-73-mania-...
[2] https://fallofcivilizationspodcast.com/
Blank Check The Flophouse 99% Invisible Cautionary Tales The Rewatchables
I maintain The Flophouse is the funniest podcast around.
Some other episodes I've bookmarked are in this feed: https://feeds.listennotes.com/listen/rahim-nathwanis-listen-...
Felipe, the founder of Quest Learning (joinquest.com) started a podcast series about the future of learning. I was his first guest:
https://youtu.be/t_Y6wtdcnpc
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2CjsPEKYwx8eirYlBYjxwp
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-future-of-learning...
Lex = AI + some history
Dishcast - politics + books
Sam Harris - everything
All In - tech news
Tyler Cowen - random good shows
Pirate Wires - news (coming back I heard)
Joe Rogan - famous interesting guests at least once a month
Ben Shapiro - if you want to hear the opposite of what you're reading in the NYT (Surgey Brin approved)
If Books Could Kill: https://www.ifbookspod.com
Maintenance Phase: https://www.maintenancephase.com
You're Wrong About: https://yourewrongabout.com (Hobbes retired from this one around Oct 2021)
There's a similar podcast where he's also made an appearance:
In Bed With The Right: https://open.spotify.com/show/7JirL3UVKjyy5MTy8PouHh
The David Frum Show - https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/the-david-frum-show/ Overthink - https://overthinkpodcast.com/ Singletrack - https://www.youtube.com/c/SingletrackPodcast The Glenn Show - https://glennloury.substack.com/podcast
¹ https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1308-money-stuff-the-podcast-...
² https://www.bloomberg.com/account/newsletters/money-stuff
³ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/why-is-this-happening-...
Each episode is of exceptional quality and retells history in an engaging manor. Since it's history, the entire backlog is still relevant.
And sadly, there are no more Jupiter Broadcasting shows left without crypto or mostly inside baseball.
Anyone know of shows in the category of two or three lads discussing computing, coding, devops, but in the style of two older guys crumudging that everything used to be better in the old days?
The specifics of the journey are going to date quickly given the speed of AI development. But the shape of the journey and the dilemmas posed are going to be relevant for a lot longer.
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/shell-game/id175311776...
The three all have science degrees, and do proper research for their deep dives. This is a podcast which comes with supporting citations.
https://letslearneverything.com
- My First Million (www.mfmpod.com). I just don't know why, but for some reason I stopped listening to them in the past 2 months, but rest of the year I was really enjoying their content. Even older ones.
- Pivot and Prof G, mostly because of Scott Galloway. I really like him.
- Under The Influence with Terry O'Reilly. Amazingly good. Very fun to listen to and almost always brings joy and help me learn something new.
- All In, can't say I'm still enjoying this. It's way too political these days. But it's still something I listen to occasionally. When I listen I usually end up skipping half of the content to find something I like.
• The Rest is History
• Pivot (Kara Swisher, techlash)
• Marketplace (stock market, with surprising bumper music)
• Inside Europe (Deutsche Welle English-language news)
A new one I started listening to is fun so far...
• Business History (more lighthearted than it sounds)