Ask HN: Why is Lex Fridman so successful with his “tech” podcasts? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why is Lex Fridman so successful with his “tech” podcasts?

58 pointssimonebrunozzi114 comments

Here's the Youtube link [0].

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/c/lexfridman

IMO Lex’s podcast is successful because his only agenda is to explore the conversations with his guests. Lex knows how to dig deeper into a conversation and bring more substance out. Some of these interviews last five hours and they’re interesting the entire time. That takes a lot of concentration & skill to keep a conversation moving for such a period of time.

I don’t always agree with the viewpoints of the guests, but I do believe we hear more from the guests as theirselves, and they seem to provide less corporate speak than the typical interviews.

It’s become one of my favorite podcasts because there aren’t “sides” in the conversation. You might get a few perspectives but the main objective is to actually learn the guests perspective which is harder to find from interviews. I would assume guests would enjoy a interview format where they get to talk about their self and their activities for as long as they want with someone intelligent.

> Lex knows how to dig deeper into a conversation and bring more substance out.

I've seen the opposite - he seems to care a lot more about saying his own things instead of listening to the guests, and a lot of the time he just follows his list of questions instead of talking to them.

Lex has like 3 or 4 canned questions he asks his guests and reiterates the things he learned in his own words. This is on a show run by a single person driven by authentic curiosity for an average of 2.5 hours/episode like 3 times a week.

There is a lot of negative opinion expressed in the other answers, so thank you for actually answering the question. Lex does a great job and probing the interviewee on their perspective. He is constantly readjusting his perspective to ask questions as a student of his guest to give them an opportunity to express their views as comprehensively as possible. If there is inconsistency in the argument, it is made apparent to the listener/watcher based on the questions Lex asks. If, as a listener, someone is able to discern an inconsistency, that is usually because of the questions Lex asked.

My defense of Lex is incidental of trying to achieve my primary goal of highlighting how juvenile the negative comments are.

This isn't the first time this question has been asked, and it seems like the question was asked earnestly. However, it's clear there is a lot of jealousy at the root of the negative opinions. I'm guessing this is because Lex has access to so many interesting people for such long periods of time. People responding that he's a wet blanket or that they don't like him aren't even trying to answer the question. What kind of format are they expecting to hear when interviewing academics? Jimmy Fallon meets Bill O'Reilly interviewing a Democrat?

Ask HN: "Why is Lady Gaga successful?" Average response here: "Ugh, I can't stand her."

> What kind of format are they expecting to hear when interviewing academics? Jimmy Fallon meets Bill O'Reilly interviewing a Democrat?

This question suggests that you no longer have the intellectual curiosity to imagine an alternative to incredibly dull, surface-level questions even on subjects the interviewer claims to know about, except for... incredibly dull, surface-level questions.

And that's pretty depressing.

The thing that completely invalidates what you’re saying here is that very little of the actual talking is done by Lex. I’m not an unqualified fan but he does at least create the space for knowledgeable guests to talk at length about their subjects - or put another way he generally gets out of the way.

I listen to a lot of his interviews, actually. A lot more of the talking is done by him than you're implying, and the questions he asks occasionally derail really interesting tangents a guest is on in favor of really dull, extremely generic questions you could get from anywhere. The Lenat interview, for example, was full of him doing it.

We’ll have to disagree then. Not sure why you’re listening to so many of his interviews if you find the questions extremely dull and generic. Insomnia?

The questions are dull and generic, but the people come onto the show with an agenda. I like hearing about what they're wanting to talk about, between instances of boring questions.

I agree he interrupts his guests, and he admits as much on almost every podcast. I also agree that sometimes it detracts from the conversation and it is a net negative, but you must also recognize the times that his interruption fills in gaps, as well.

When does it fill gaps? The only way I could possibly see it filling gaps would be for completely non-technical people.

Correct, and is that unimportant? Or do you think your level of competency is the lowest that Lex should cater to?

Honestly? If a podcast sells itself as being an "AI" podcast, and the creator doesn't expect the audience to know what a computer is, I really do think that it is unimportant.

I think he pivoted from AI-specific content long ago. He may have started in that niche, but he’s expanded to include such a broad range of guests.

That said, this is a valid criticism, although a gross exaggeration of what the reality is. Sticking with the computer example, he digs in deeper on abstractions most people have zero knowledge about (RISC vs CISC, levels of caching in RAM, etc). He also talks about different kinds of computation.

You’re right to want him to do better, but I don’t think he will ever cater to you again. Even when he has people you might find interesting on his show (Jim Keller, Joscha Bach), he will still stick to a level that makes these geniuses works more accessible to the public. Broadening the appeal of complex topics isn’t a waste, although it may be for you. I ask that you reconsider your position and say that the show just isn’t for you and hope that you recognize the value he provides in introducing others to these fields. This is the pinnacle of podcasts, IMO

I’m curious, what shows do you like to listen to? I’d like to hear some examples of shows where there is a high expectation of the listener and people are discussing things so far over my head that it forces me to learn more.

I suspect there's a lot more preparaton behind the scenes to make it interesting and engaging. The guests are obvously highly intelligent, but they also are there to make a point. Not just a casual conversation. My only criticism is that they tend to go on too long. Who has the time to listen to a 2-3 hour podcast?

> Who has the time to listen to a 2-3 hour podcast?

You don't need to listen to them all at once. I'll usually listen over a couple of days. And I'm glad someone like Fridman doesn't feel bound to constrain the length of his podcasts to suite TikTok like attention spans.

I can't say that I particularly like him, so I guess I listen to him because there are no better alternatives I am aware of. If there are any that are better, I'd be happy to hear about them.

With that said, I almost can't understand the question. Basically it's a podcast that invites a lot of experts (some of them famous, some not so much) and has long discussions on "smart" topics. Lex is smart enough to at least seem to understand most of it, so the discussions are not as shallow as you might see them in other places.

I don't really like anything about him, but the things I don't like at least seem genuine.

I had never heard of this person until this post. Would you care to expand a bit on "I don't really like anything about him"?

I checked out his Wikipedia entry and I don't see anything obvious.

People find him boring.

His style turned me off in the beginning, but now it’s just kinda become his shtick.

My girlfriend makes fun of him cause she thinks he sounds like a robot trying to understand the human experience. He asks a lot of cheesy questions about love and our purpose in life. But in all honesty, it’s refreshing to see an interviewer ask the CEO of Pfizer what the meaning of life is.

> His style turned me off in the beginning, but now it’s just kinda become his shtick.

I started listening last year and I too was initially put off by his "broadcast" (sorry, ex-radio bod here) style, but I've come to appreciate it because there's no shouting and getting all excitable.

I believe that should have been phrased very differently, my mistake.

What I meant is that I can easily imagine a better interviewer. He is a bit dull and uses the word "love" too much for my taste, but that's about it, to be honest. Compared to many other podcasters/minor celebrities, this is really nothing serious, just personal preference. I believe he is a genuinely nice person who wants everyone to be happy to a fault.

Have you tried the Mindscape podcast with Sean Caroll? He has some really great episodes mixed with some less good ones. Definitely more of a science focus as opposed to technology, but there's a broad mix.

My strategy is to skim the descriptions and try the ones that sound interesting. I probably finish about 60% of the episodes I start.

He does BJJ and has comedian friends, so he went on the Joe Rogan Podcast and established a fanbase. In podcasting, the discovery system is quite low signal to noise; because there are so many podcasts and the content itself is hard to inspect (episodes are multiple hours long and it's expensive to do transcription over the millions of episodes posted every day). So because podcast organization is hard, the strongest signal for those looking for a new podcast is popularity. Joe Rogan has the most popular podcast in the world, so he has the capability of spawning popularity boosts to other podcasts. If that podcast is somewhat competent, then that popularity can be captured for the long term, which is what Lex did.

Also, Lex's podcast has great academic and computer science guests that you don't usually get to have long-form conversations with. It's a high quality podcast with great production value for such a small operation.

Lex gets guests that couldn't possibly appear in the sound-bite driven mainstream media. There's time and energy for the conversation to go in interesting directions without needing to hit some artificial targets like getting in sound bites, etc.

Sure, he's a bit soft on guests sometimes, but you'd do the same if that person came over for dinner. I think of the podcasting world as a rejuvenation of the salons of the past. The nice thing is that you don't have to put up with small talk from people only out for themselves, as an observer separated by spacetime, we're given the freedom to be critical in our listening (or watching) choices.

It's very relaxing to get away from the sound-bite, shouting over each other, narrative pushing mainstream.

Personally, I find the guests TOO persuasive for about a day, until I figure out what I disagree with them about, then feel much better about things.

Example: His interview Donald Hoffman had be buy the argument hook line and sinker that Consciousness could be the underlying basis of reality. I spun out along that axis for a while, considering the implications. The next day it dawned on me that he actually had 2 messages.

A) Spacetime is not the basis of reality, there is something further down

B) Consciousness is the actual basis of reality, and here's a framework that could become a theory of everything.

I find myself in agreement with A, and disagreement with B, though I still think it's an interesting analytical tool for other purposes.

I'm learning to take this type of non-bite sized media into proper context. It's not easy at first, the knee-jerk response to nit-pick that is engendered from watching too much gotcha journalism takes some time to get over.

Haven’t read Hoffman’s work, so I could be misinterpreting, but if you enjoy thinking about the self as ontological grounding I would recommend reading Kant. He pioneered a lot of the ideas mentioned in your post.

Branding.

Member of elite institution (MIT) - check. Expert in hot field (AI) - check. Famous guests - check.

Anyone who checks these boxes can attract a large following for a podcast, youtube, etc.

MIT is perhaps the magic ingredient with the most brand power, through which he was able to attract initial famous guests. From there, snowball.

This is not to say that Lex is not hardworking, intelligent, consistent, etc. But being a MIT AI researcher is a vastly leveraged starting point.

>This is not to say that Lex is not hardworking, intelligent, consistent, etc. But being a MIT AI researcher is a vastly leveraged starting point.

One might even conclude that "being an MIT AI researcher" is more-or-less equal to "hardworking, intelligent, consistent, etc"

I'm not really a fan of his work, but as with most other posts in this thread I think a lot of his success is driven by the guests.

I do think that many posts in this thread are overestimating how hard it can be to get guests on podcasts. Some connections may have helped during his early episodes, but many of the guests on his shows (just scrolling through the episode list) were probably quite easy to book given the audience that they would be speaking to. I see a lot of people who would be actively trying to talk about their subject. Groups like academics and tech researchers are heavily represented in early episodes. Then later you start getting people who might be a "challenge" to book, but only after there are years of a backlog of interviews.

He then also has several interviews with people with their own large podcast/youtube followings which are always a large boost. Just scrolling through his video history I see people like Joe Rogan, Dan Carlin, and Jocko Willink as an example.

His interviews also hit many different interests, not too narrow of a focus, which makes it easy to build an audience based on somebody looking for any number of topics for a podcast/youtube video. That certainly helps build listener numbers over the 4 years that the podcast has been ongoing.

My random two cents: - He was smart and exploited a resource: at first, it was MIT profs, etc., whom he would talk to. This happens to be an institution full of interesting people; he interviewed them, let them speak, and built an audience - Once he had an audience, he was able to connect to others beyond MIT. Which then grew the audience further. - And so on.

I sometimes get annoyed when he doesn't push back on things but I suspect the problem every podcaster has is this: if you push too hard, some people won't go on your show.

Overall, I think he does a pretty good job, and if you have long commutes or other long periods of time where you can listen to something, you could definitely do worse.

He was quite strategic about how he grew his audience. For the first ~120 episodes his podcast was called 'the AI podcast' or something similar. He started out interviewing mostly notable AI researchers (via his position as an AI research scientist at MIT), but also non-AI people with higher levels of fame (eg Guido van Rossum) and gradually switched to more tech, then just anything. My impression is that he made a lot of effort getting exposure (via high profile guests, teaching an MIT course, appearing on Joe Rogan's podcast, etc.), and it just worked. One example: he published a 'paper' titled "Tesla vehicle deliveries and autopilot mileage statistics" which I imagine helped him get Elon Musk as a guest.

To be fair, his interviews are also fairly technical and (arguably) well done, and you can't blame him for being strategic with growing his podcast. Still, there is no way he would have reached his level of popularity if he stuck to interviewing mostly academics. Anyway, now he has famous people on all the time with a sort of intellectual person flavor, so it's natural that he would be popular.

Fun fact: I used to co-run a small event at Stanford's AI Lab, called the AI Salon. We organized little discussion sessions around various topics, and usually had to email people to ask if they might be able/willing to do one of these (there were usually 2 invited people with some level of expertise on the topic). Lex was literally the only person who ever contacted us asking if we might want to have him as a guest. He also set up recording equipment for it (we never did this), though I don't think he ever released it.

It seems like he just has friends in high places. He was also on Joe Rogan’s podcast (several times I believe) which is basically a free ticket to then start your own successful podcast. I find Lex to be very boring, but more importantly extremely surface level and pop sci-y. His content is often cringe inducing to the point that I can’t continue listening.

Going on Rogan is clearly a big opportunity, but to reduce his YouTube/podcast success to simply going on Rogan and having "friends in high places" is nonsense. There are _plenty_ of people that Rogan has had on his show multiple times who have not been able to turn that into long-term success. If the content you put out doesn't stand on its own, no amount of going on Rogan is going to fix that. Go look at Lex's YouTube videos — you don't get a committed listener base and at least hundreds of thousands of views on every video again and again just because you've been on Rogan.

> His content is often cringe inducing to the point that I can’t continue listening.

I think you kind of revealed your hand here and made it clear why you (dishonestly IMO) tried to minimize Lex's accomplishments.

But that's how you be an internet celebrity these days. I see it all the time all over social media, I see fellow zoomers my age making generic dance video content, but then they get affiliated with a famous group, and now they gained 500k followers in less than a year making the same content.

Lex is very social media savvy, and he leveraged his network to build his own. When he was beginning (2018), he was on every joe rogan post in social media, he would crack jokes or post some relevant trivia and get upvoted to the top, most of the time at instagram. He further built his network and circulated his name further by injecting himself into conversations with JRE guests in social media. Usually after every JRE episode, Joe would make a few social media posts about it, and on one of these posts, Lex would tag the guest under the comments and ask them questions, with each twitter thread becoming popular on its own as the guest answers back. I'm not sure now, but back then it was innovative. He did all those and more til 2019, I'm not sure since then as I stopped using social media around mid-2019.

I'm not trying to minimize his accomplishments, lex produces good content, but plenty of other people produce good content as well but were never given the spotlight they need to blow up

I've been curious about this too, because he seems like a wet blanket of an interviewer to me.

Maybe his neutral, staid approach is non-threatening to famous people?

Maybe he pays? I don't know how standard it is to pay for guest appearances in Youtube podcasts, but maybe he pays well to get people through the door.

He has had some of the wealthiest folks in the world on his show, e.g. Musk, Zuckerberg. I doubt they came for the money.

It's unlikely. How much do you think Elon Musk, Jack Dorsey, Mark Zuckerberg, Ray Dalio or Eric Schmidt would charge? I don't think Lex would be able to afford it.

There is no alternative with anywhere close to the caliber of guests he gets.

Plus, like Trump is a poor person's ideal of a rich and successful person, Lex is a young impressionable person's idea of a smart person, this makes him relatable to his main audience.

Plus, Rogan moving full episodes to Spotify made the YT algorithm fill the vacuum with the next closest thing.

Oooh, please, do share with us who is the 'real' smart person (journalist)?

Trump was president of the USA, that's not exactly unsuccessful. But not oil dollars or Rothschilds rich I suppose.

You missed the point.

They said Trump was their "ideal" of a rich and successful person.

Not that he wasn't rich or successful.

Ok then, so who should the ideal be?

> YT algorithm fill the vacuum with the next closest thing.

good insight. I def think this is a huge factor.

Perhaps, for famous people, it checks the box of "being accessible to the people" but also doesn't risk being asked controversial/hard hitting questions.

His older interviews were good. He often had a firm grasp of the subject and was genuinely curious. It also helps that they're long form.

I really liked his conversations with George Hotz, founder of an aftermarket lane assist product [0]. I would say that was peak Fridman. It was a great conversation covering many topics like UFOs, physics, cryptocurrency and programming.

In his recent interviews he seems in over his head. He can't articulate an appropriate response and often falls back to asking people "can you steelman criticisms about your product or what you're doing". His conversations with the Pfizer CEO and Mark Zuckerberg are prime examples of this. It doesn't lead to very constructive conversation.

[0] https://lexfridman.com/george-hotz-2/

> I've been curious about this too, because he seems like a wet blanket of an interviewer to me.

I've tried listening to him so many times because of intersting guests. But his style is so boring and weird. I find it hard to focus more than 1/2 hr.

I like his style exactly because of that, he doesn't try to be entertaining for no reason. If I want entertainment I don't listen to a 3-hour conversation about AI.

I’m not sure about the broader success of the show or how he books guests, but if the question is what makes his show work, I have a few opinions as a listener.

First and foremost, he’s a good interviewer. He knows enough about the topics being discussed to ask good questions but also has enough discipline to give his guests time to work through a question and makes it about them.

Second, and this is related to #1, his guests clearly respect him/his audience enough to give reasonably in-depth answers. I mostly listen to the interviews with the deeply technical folks, and I’m impressed by their willingness to offer long technical explanations. I don’t understand it all, but I appreciate it and haven’t found another show that offers quite the same thing.

Finally, he does long episodes. This gives everything room to breathe. For me at least, my favorite interview podcasts are the ones where guests are hanging around for awhile. It gives interviewer and guest time to get acquainted and also let’s them cover a lot of ground. When I am deciding whether to listen to a Marc Maron episode, for instance, I’m definitely wary of anyone that goes to close to 60 minutes because it feels more likely it was just another interview for that person.

Joe Rogan etc connection almost certainly key in attracting an worthwhile audience size.

I suspect that for many guests it’s key that he seems to create a seemingly pleasant and relaxed environment for them to talk at length with someone fairly knowledgeable about things that interest them. Very different to most interviews.

For others (Zuckerberg for example) I can only think that it’s their perception that he has an audience that they want to reach.

Edit: Just to add - all credit to Lex for apparently encouraging Andrew Huberman to start a podcast - I find the latter genuinely hugely engaging and informative.

He is successful because he can attract guests worth listening to.

How he attracts those guests? He has a successful podcast with many listeners.

It’s a positive feedback loop.

I enjoy him but my wife finds him cringey. I think I like the podcast because he is somewhat “autistic” sounding but yet sensitive and emotionally thoughtful which seems like a foreign combination for me. Like he is an introvert and somewhat an extrovert in one person. My wife is not “autistic” or an introvert, but is already sensitive and emotionally thoughtful so it’s just cringe to her.

I don't understand how people have the patience to listen to a 4 hour podcast that only gets to the meat of the discussion after an hour.

It depends on the interview but most of his discussions are genuinely unique. Who else is doing relatively in-depth, multi-hour conversations with people at the top of their fields? Rogan is the only one that comes to mind, but he doesn’t have the depth of knowledge that Lex has.

Sometimes Lex infuriates me, but again, there is nobody else doing what he does and in general, he does a good job of asking interesting questions even when it’s far outside of his area of expertise.

There's something to be said for being specialized. Multi-hour discussions aren't my thing but, as you say, some number of people apparently really like a longer lightly-produced format so it's got a decent niche.

People with long commutes is my guess. I listened to lots of podcasts when it took me longer to get to work.

Now that my office is just a 15 minute bike ride away, I don't bother listening to podcasts any more.

Podcasts are definitely in the car things for me. If I'm doing something at home, I find them distracting and don't have any real interest in background talking. If I want some sound, I'll put on music.

If ever.

I think he is generally open to different ideas and plays the devil's advocate even when he agrees to have meaningful conversation. The podcast is also pleasantly unexciting (personal taste) and informative. He goes to the deep questions that interest him from a technical level as well as personal (what is the meaning of life etc.).

Personally, i like his dry style. I only watch the episodes with guests i am interested in. So far i found the conversations very interesting. Also he makes it easy to skip the ads at the beginning of the podcast which is nice.

I like that he frequently talks about love and its importance for humans. He is also helpful by often asking successful people for early career advice. His passion for AI is often at the forefront.

He could be a bit more critical in his interviews but then again that might get him fewer famous guests.

I prefer he not be more critical - especially if I dislike his guest - and he has spoken to this. Being more critical leads instantly to those who like to pick tribes framing it as attacking etc. He says he aims for understanding and letting his interviewees present their opinions/views/stories.

A much better way imo to interview than 'going for the win' or drama. There's more than enough of that out there already.

Lex is similar to Joe Rogan. If you don't like Joe, your probably don't like Lex. (Joe's obviously Lex's idol.)

Like Joe, Lex does some research before each podcast, but also like Joe, he can improvise discussions as needed on a variety of topics.

I think these, compared with some level of (Nerdy/Goofy) kind of charm and humor are his main advantages compared to most podcasters (and similarity with the successful ones.)

Now, here is how I think he differentiates himself from Joe:

Lex has a real academic background. He is able to follow must scientific topics at an intermediate level, and some at an advanced level. This can sometimes lead to interesting discussions on some relatively advanced topics.

In particular, it may be interesting for those who have general/broad interests in nerdy topics, without necessarily being an expart on the topic of the specific podcast.

Lex is even less confrontational than Joe. He provides a platform, and even if there is some pushback, it is not aggressive.

This is a draw for many academics (the dryer type) who would not fit Joe's podcast, as well as some nerdy business leaders who want to reach his audience (or perhaps, in some cases, just enjoy speaking with him).

He doesn't ask any critical questions that would make someone feel uncomfortable or challenged. He certainly is no Jeremy Paxman (for reference, see interview with Bill Gates - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baUmdtrZp90).

A lot like Joe Rogan, he doesn't pretend to know more than he does. That can be very refreshing, and makes guests feel comfortable and empowered. His podcast's success comes from the letters MIT on his resume and the high profiles of the guests he's had on.

Listen to his interview with Mark Zuckerberg. That interview demonstrates why he is really special and nobody else is doing interviews like him:

1. Who else is landing guests like Zuckerberg?

2. Of those people, who has the willingness to ask questions such as "why do you think you are one of the most unpopular CEOs on Earth?" (paraphrasing)

3. Of the interviews that fit (1) and (2), how many are holding conversations free of a personal agenda? Lex's interviews are generally judgement-free. He's more interested in exploring deep questions than presenting one single political view.

So, even though he can come off as boring or monotonic at times, he's rather unique as an interviewer. That is what makes him successful.

His podcast began as the “MIT Artificial Intelligence Podcast” — and attracted a following (and guests) on that basis (hot topic/keyword plus MIT imprimatur). Even then Lex was the weakest part.

Having grown quite a bit, it was retitled the “ARtificial Intelligence podcast with Lex Fridman”. hmmm…

Having grown further, it was retitled the Lex Fridman podcast, along with a precipitous rise in nonsense/cultural guests and regular indulgences into Lex’s ideas of romance.

Suffice it to say it was much better when it was a MIT-hosted forum for ideas and not a Joe Rogan show-wannabe. But hey, Joe Rogan (and now Lex) are popular. Go them. Our loss.

When he has people on who don't have media training / talking points (for example Brian Kernighan is a great guest) the podcast is fantastic. He asks good questions and lets the the guest talk. The conversation goes on for however long it should, often several hours.

I found his demeanour a bit strange when I first came across him, but warmed up to it over time. For many of his guests, they've never done a better long form interview/conversation than what they did on Lex's show.

He's a likeable human being, honest and operates in good faith.

Maybe that's hard to understand for some of the scum in this site.

His interview with Joscha Bach is amazing.

Seriously, this is someone who dedicates a large portion of his life to learning very complex things and working hard to learn in public and share his knowledge with other people. I'm hoping we're just seeing the loud minority otherwise we're at the top of the S-curve of progress and proliferation of complex ideas.

The only wet blanket is the baseless negative sentiment people express that puts out the fire of curiosity.

He always manages to ask the least interesting question at any given time. It's infuriating to watch.

I like Lex, he exudes this sense of genuine curiosity on the subject matter at hand, from tough issues as "what is consciousness" to different fighting styles. He allows the speaker to articulate their thoughts and expounds on keywords that may confuse the general audience.

I've wondered this as well - specifically regarding Fridman but also other people who have become popular through social media. (As to the latter, it never ceases to shock me how various YouTube channels can amass hundreds of thousands of subscribers.)

Anyway, as someone mentioned above, he was on Rogan's podcast and fits the Rogan mold of influencer: interested in AI and machine learning, politically neutral, trains in Brazilian jiu jitsu, etc. In fact, I'd describe his style as being a more intellectual Rogan, haha (which is not necessarily a compliment). His popularity has skyrocketed after being on Rogan. However, I'm not sure about his popularity prior to Rogan.

What alternatives do people see to this podcast? I don't listen to it, so I don't know. Maybe I just haven't heard so much interesting stuff in that particular industry.

One the most consistently good podcasts - or many podcasts actually - are those from the freakonomics "network", maybe especially People I (Mostly) Admire - for example interviewing Steven Pinker, Nathan Myhrvold, Susan Wojcicki, Daniel Kahneman etc etc

https://freakonomics.com/series-full/people-i-mostly-admire/

More specifically - what does he do to get the guests that he's had?

I'm not buying explanations like (1) people just like him, and (2) having been at MIT helps with connections - he's had way too many people at the top of various fields, and way too many billionaires and CEOs to be explained by either of these statements. You could argue that at some point you have a positive feedback loop where the calibre of past guests makes new guests more willing to be on the podcast, but I don't think this it either since he's had many high profile guests from the start.

He was on Joe Rogan's podcast way back when, talking about AI and the other things Rogan finds generally interesting. If you'll note the history of Rogan's rise in podcasting popularity, it is that he has on people he likes and finds interesting and they just shoot the breeze for three hours. So of course they talked about AI, his experience with communism, etc. Once you're on Rogan's show you've basically cemented your own following.

Yep, that's where the popularity comes from. The entire Joe Rogan/BJJ/UFC movement/lifestyle and the for-male type of content like with Jordan Peterson has really got a huge following among men at least. I haven't listened to Lex, but I do partake in the rest.

It’s kind of funny. Joe Rogan’s show launched a number of careers. Almost like the release of a new iPhone created a lot of ecosystem products.

Lex somehow made it onto the show with what was the Artificial Intelligence podcast back in the day where he was talking to professors at MIT among others. After going on JRE he was able to land higher profile guests, and from there things just snowball.

He seems like a nice guy. I’ve been more picky about podcasts I listen to on road trips or walks and I really like the guests he brings on, though I don’t think he is a world-class interviewer or anything. That’s ok with me. Not everyone/everything has to be the best ever to be enjoyed.

If Lex was reading this I’d offer some advice that, as he puts it, comes from a place of love. Monitor using the same strategies for your guests. “Can you steelman that” “just to play devil’s advocate” etc. and instead perhaps put forth the actual arguments and don’t be intimidated by your guests and their expertise. That’s one of the things that makes Rogan a great interviewer if you ask me.

Also I really, really wish a popular podcast personality like Lex, Joe, Tim Ferris, etc. would interview Chuck Marohn from Strong Towns. If you are reading this I promise that will be one of your best interviews ever, and it’ll do a lot of good raising awareness for a gigantic (perhaps the largest) problem we have in America.

I'm with you here. He genuinely seems like a nice guy. There's never a "gotcha" moment. He acts like he's interested in the topic and person above all else. I'm okay with the rambling tangents and never closing the loop on certain topics because in the end he gives the interviewee as much room as they need/want to finish that out themselves. Many do (the more articulate ones do) but some don't.

That's probably at least somewhat accurate. It's probably also the case that even if you or your podcast aren't exceptionally well known, you'd probably be surprised how open people are to giving an interview if you just ask them. For a lot of "Internet famous" people, a lot of their job is being a public face.

That said, I agree with you generally. I found a lot of the interviews sort of rambly and, while I can perhaps be persuaded that an hour isn't too long for an interview/discussion with someone interesting, anything longer is definitely too much. There's a reason why most professionally produced podcasts don't go longer than about an hour and are typically broken into segments--yes, that's partly about advertising these days but it's also the general format even absent advertising.

Hard disagree about the hour length. Sometimes the interviews drag on with nothing to show for, but other times I don’t want the interview to end. I think the unique success of his (and Rogan’s) podcast shows that there is an audience for this format.

>I think the unique success of his (and Rogan’s) podcast shows that there is an audience for this format.

Clearly there is. I just don't personally really have the patience for it--especially when it's hit or miss.

Yeah I get that, but I usually listen to his podcast when I'm working in the garage or something, so I don't mind periods of less-than-interesting conversation. Though at the end of the day, there are enough gems in his conversations that keep me listening.

A lot of that format is because _this is the way we've always done it_. Some of it is (as you say later in the thread chain) hit or miss, but to me there's enough gold in it to justify. It really depends on your required level of entertainment.

Being on Rogan probably helped him get more viewers but I don't think it has the same kind of effect on potential guests who are considering whether to come on Lex's podcast.

I'd bet it's a combination of these things. I know a few people with moderately successful podcasts, and the core thing is this: getting prominent people on your podcast is easier than most people on the outside expect, and harder than most people seeking guests expect.

Prominent people generally like getting their ideas out there, and having a 30-120 minute conversation is a relatively scalable way to do that. Sure, they get asked by a lot of people, but that's where the other points come in.

Let's take prominent guest X. They might get 100 podcast interview requests a month. They might do 1-2 podcast appearances per month (average, most guests cluster their appearances for PR purposes). From the very start, Lex, through his MIT stature, first and second second-degree connections, etc. would very likely be in the top 2% of the 100 people asking; most people asking are some combination of no audience, not targeted in their ask, abrasive, etc. If you're in the top 2% of 100 requests, and they fulfill 2 requests per month - you're looking pretty good. Throw in an element of "luck" in the first few guests if you'd like.

That's just getting started. Once the flywheel starts, it's easy.

Also, targeting prominent people no one has heard of is a good strategy, everyone knows elon musk, jeff bezos etc... but what about that prominent AI researcher that no one has heard of? I'm sure they aren't getting too many interview requests, so its a great way to get those kinds of peoples ideas heard and you get the have a prominent guest even if the guest isn't well known in mainstream culture.

I mean i think he used his MIT connections sure but Lex strikes me as the kind of guy that isn't afraid to email some high profile guy asking what he wants, and his personality is so "positive vibes", "earth, humanity, learning", that guests aren't scared off that they are going to be put under the gun.

If you look at his videos sorted by oldest first, it starts off as a gradually growing page about AI research.

As more and more quality interviews are hosted with non-household names, his podcast starts getting viewership, and that allowed him to get bigger names on, which then allowed him to get even bigger names on, and so on.

https://www.youtube.com/c/lexfridman/videos?view=0&sort=da&f...

Probably an unpopular opinion here, but I don't like his podcasts. It's not his guests or questions - its the way he talks. He talks too slow and it sounds like his mouth is full of cotton. This may be a shallow assessment, but this is podcast, how you talk and sound is important. Even when he has a guest on that I'm interested in hearing from I end up not being able to because his slow muffled speaking stresses me out.

because he manages to get cool guests and the guests like interacting with him. I personally find his style to be "shallow", and stopped watching.

I think his break came in when he interviewed Elon Musk. I believe years ago there was a shared AI related project between his team at MIT and Tesla. He would tweet about his work and Elon would reply often. This got him on the radar. His Twitter followers exploded. Once he interviewed Elon his YT channel exploded too and everyone else wanted to be interviewed by him.

Lex seems to me the new Charlie Rose. Like Rose, he seems to interject his own beliefs (tip: count the number of times the interviewer uses the word "I"), but does let the interviewee speak. I never particularly liked this interview style, but when you can get notable guests, does it really matter?

I find his smart but not stuck up approach very enjoyable. He is clearly intelligent but you also get glimpses of "fun Lex" in between his slow, thoughtful questions and thoughts. He elicits responses from guests by being quiet and contemplative. It keeps the exchange focused and calm.

I'm not sure why it's so hard for some people to understand. He has great guests and asks really interesting questions for the most part.

Sure, he can get a bit philosophical, but to be honest the podcast wouldn't have grown to where it is now just on the guests alone.

sycophantic delivery and the way he dresses to affect an air of authority perhaps?

I had the exact same thought after listening to a recent podcast. He's not insightful, his questions are uninteresting, and his conclusions are banal. He seems like a slightly smarter, but less charismatic version of Joe Rogan. As others have said, I guess it's just the guest list. Unlike say, Sam Harris, I'm sure as hell not listening to hear Lex's perspective.

He asks smart questions and is fair. Watch his interview with Zuck.

Why on earth full of shit shows and shallow marketing driven media can a man genuinely doing something meaningful not be successful?

- He comes off as genuine because his personality and delivery is not typical in the entertainment business.

- His conversations go on for as long as they need to, which many people prefer to shows with clear time constraints.

- Big name guests

- Many people are interested in artificial intelligence, Bitcoin, aliens, robotics, hacking, and tech in general.

- Some of his guests/topics veer away from the norm, which adds variety. My favorite is when he interviewed a cybercriminal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cC1LFC0KFSw

- He is able to make his guests do most of the talking and isn't overly dominant in any conversation.

- There's absolutely no razzle dazzle to his show, which many people prefer and is something loathe about the rest of modern entertainment.

All that said, I believe YouTube also heavily pushes Lex's podcast. I used to watch every single episode of his show, but now I can't stand it because YouTube's suggestion algorithm got into a cycle where it relentlessly pushed his content in front of me. As I've mentioned before on HN, I could guarantee you that if I put on something totally unrelated like Spongebob Squarepants clips and fell asleep, in the morning I would wake up to Lex Fridman's droning monotone voice. Even after I unsubscribed to his channel recently, it took several days for the algorithm to catch on. Now it's back to pushing old JRE episodes in front of me, but at least that's something different for a change.

I can't imagine I'm the only one that experiences this. Maybe not with Lex Fridman, but perhaps something else. It's not even like I watch tech content on YouTube. Whether this is an error of the algorithm or the result of Lex paying off YouTube, I have no idea.

So I might as well inject my opinion here. I started to dislike Lex's show anyway, despite YouTube playing it like a broken record, because I realized that Lex is kind of a fake smart guy. I'll give him credit for creating a successful and often interesting show, and I'm sure he's by no means dumb, but if you pay close attention, many of the questions he asks his guests are totally inane and even ruin the current conversation. I think this is because Lex really has very poor conversational skills, which is also why he relies heavily on his canned questions he wrote down. He also used to, and still kind of does, play up his affiliation with MIT. Thing is, though he may have spoken there in some capacity, he's not a professor, and it's really not clear at all whether he's some kind of genius in the field. If he's at all competent in the field then where does he get all this time to podcast. I normally wouldn't have a problem with this at all and wouldn't care, but he really straddles the edge of being a fake guru.

One of the most obvious and perhaps notorious examples is his appreciation of Python. I remember him bringing it up frequently, sometimes inappropriately, yet he actually had little if anything nuanced to say about it. My impression is that he learned it because that's what's taught for use in data science and AI. That's all fine and good on its own, but who hasn't met that guy who learned just a single programming language and started acting like it's the one language to rule them all? Not only have many of us met that guy, but some of us have been that guy. I was that guy early in my career when I learned Ruby. That sort of fixation, I believe, suggests surface-level knowledge and a lack of real world experience.

But because of his monotone, sometimes mumbling delivery, I think people don't realize that most of what he says really isn't all that intelligent or nuanced. His style I think short circuits the brain in its passive listening state and people aren't truly comprehending what he's saying. He can seem profound because of his persona and his occasional weird romanticizing of otherwise unromantic ideas, but when you pay close attention you might agree that he's sounds like a poser.

I could be completely off base, though. Maybe it's just me who feels this way. I mention it because I do think his ability to play up his persona is a part of his success, but one might not want to closely examine it because they may find it to actually be very hollow.

To his credit, maybe that's why podcasting really seems to be his true calling. I think he wouldn't have time for it if research was actually his passion. His prosaic questions and responses may appeal better to those who sit outside the tech scene but are still interested in his content. I've met more than one "normie" who I discovered was listening to Lex's show, which initially surprised me. For that crowd, I think Lex allows them to feel smart while not overwhelming them with subject matter and discussion that's out of their league.

It's hard to put a finger on why I have a hard time liking Lex but this comment does a pretty good job of elucidating my thoughts. He gets guests I like and topics I enjoy but I can't watch very much before I get frustrated at some of the inane or childish questions he asks.

You hit the nail on the head with, "straddles the edge of being a fake guru" and I'm honestly surprised at how many people here find him genuine and authentic. I really want to like the guy but I just get a slimy vibe from him, like he thinks too highly of himself or something...

Your complaints about the YT algorithm is part of why I [almost] exclusively listen to podcasts via a podcast player on my phone

99.9% of the time, I don't need (or want) to see facial expressions/mannerisms ...especially when I've got the speed bumped to 1.5x or 2x :)

He talks to interesting people and has interesting conversations. That's my definition of a good podcast.

How does he even get his guests? it seems like some strange mistake... some kind of nominative determinism?

> nominative determinism

You opened my eyes.

Lex doesn't seem to show a bias most of the time.

He asks open-ended questions with deep understanding

Edit: Not answer but another question :) He is going to host John Carmack any time now. Is there a place where he polls questions to ask guests? I hope he asks him how he got started with AI

He’s active on his subreddit, that would probably be your best bet.

Again?

You could try his Patreon.

I'll try to balance out the negative comments here.

The reason I keep coming back to Lex is that his podcast is doing something no other does, which is just having a good faith conversation with interesting and highly intelligent people. No grift. No narrative. No ulterior motive (as far as i can tell?). Hell he doesnt even have ads in his videos. I cannot stress what a turnoff it is when an podcast pauses for 5 minutes to tell me about "athletic greens". Its not too bro-y (joe rogan) its not too edgy and psuedo intellectual (sam harris). It's just pure interesting conversation for 3 hours.

As an interviewer he's good at 2 things. One is getting at the "essence" of what makes his guests interesting, what is the beauty in their work. He does his research and he asks good questions. He also doesnt monologue too much, which is rare among podcasters. Second is that he draws out the human element of his guests. As a host he is humble and curious. He asks about love and death, suffering, and the meaning of life. No other podcast I know does that.

I think his shtick of a "robot looking for meaning and love" is novel and amusing. Especially given there's so much fear and dystopic thinking over the future of technology, I think it's the right way to think about AI. I'm sure a lot of what we see on screen is performative, and he's much more "flesh and blood" off camera, but that doesn't take away from the quality of the interviews.

Lastly, I'm a mere programmer. I'm not a scientist or in machine learning, which I think is where most of his critics come from. I've seen similar threads on reddit /r/MachineLearning that outright denigrate lex as "not a true scientist, didn't really go to MIT, blah blah". It just comes across as jealousy. But then I guess if you're already a science genius, you're not going to get much out of his podcast.

I think lex worked hard and deserves his success. He used his brand to build a platform, get high profile guests, improve his brand further, and so on. The conversations and guests are always interesting and unique, so overall his project is a net positive for me.

Because he is Joe Rogan's protegee.

The same reason there's always been for most of the dreck in pop entertainment. Most people have poor taste and don't want to think.

He reminds me of Charlie Rose.

Nice try Lex

Let's see if he manages to get Putin on the show, he was very excited about that prospect...

He taps into the same psuedo intellectual space as Rogan.

He's also a Putin simp which is a huge negative

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