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Comment by kepler1 | Hacker News Reader

Are we listening to the same person?

I find Lex Fridman to be wooden, robotic, non-sequitur, not smooth or charismatic, and (I admit, shallowly) not a pleasing speaking voice to listen to, and not that articulate actually. The main reason he gets famous guests is that he has a reputation for getting famous guests. He's like a Kardashian.

I actively have to tune him out and suppress my wish that someone, anyone else were asking the questions.

But it is what it is. We don't have voting rights on who random walks their way to being famous in this world.

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There are plenty of more talented podcasters than him, but the appeal of his interviews is that he asks simple, non-leading questions, often stupid ones (e.g. “what is a compiler”), but encourages the guest to talk and give really full answers. And he catches details they say, and follows up with questions that go deeper into the specifics, rather than just returning to a script of pre-planned questions.

> follows up with questions that go deeper into the specifics, rather than just returning to a script of pre-planned questions.

Maybe I just saw the wrong interviews, but I got the exact opposite impression from those I've seen. He was literally reading off a script of questions and not following through on interesting things the interviewee says or asking them to develop ideas or explain themselves. Can you point to any particularly good episodes that I can use to give him another chance?

I liked his early programming-related ones the most: Chris Latner, Jeremy Howard, Bjarne Stroustrup, Jim Keller, Brian Kernighan. I actually haven’t listened the bulk of his interviews (nothing related to crypto, philosophy, history, physics). Maybe those are done better by other podcasts.

I liked the Lee Cronin episode. But part of that is Lee Cronin.

It sounds like you’re evaluating the tone and charisma while others are evaluating the content and dialog.

He is very wooden, but I agree with the others, his questions are incredible and cut straight to the point. For example while others (Tim Ferriss) might have asked Zuckerberg “How do you deal with negative sentiment around you and your work?” Lex asked something like “Many people believe that your products are destroying democracy, that social networks polarize us into bubbles, and you are one of the most hated men in America. How do you contend with that?” Wow and ouch! Amazing conversations

That's clearly a prepared question. He sucks at following up AKA actually interviewing.

I tried listening to his conversation with Brian Armstrong.

He insisted multiple times that being "canceled by the woke mob" is something that the government does to you because they are afraid of losing power to common people on the internet. That's not just kind of wrong, or kind of skewed, that's a complete inversion of reality.

You could replace him with a markov chain trained in the right wing conspiracy media bubble and get basically the same quality questions.

He = Armstrong or Fridman insisting on being canceled by the woke mob? Unclear if you're saying that was Fridman's view or Armstrong's view and Fridman didn't push back.

He = Fridman. Armstrong was much more clear and eloquent.

Fridman really seemed to be going for applause lines from a very specific crowd, not anything particularly coherent. I think he's realized that his growth as a podcaster comes from the demographic that frequents hosts like Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan, and Ben Shapiro, and the more he can get them engaged the higher his numbers will get. But the topics that demographic cares about aren't AI and ML.

Just as a point of pushback on the audience, I'm not a listener of any of the shows that you mentioned; my most listened to other podcasts include Tyler Cowen, Vergecast, Trade Talks, Vox, and the Charter Cities Podcast

I think he's pivoting pretty sharply. If you look at the first podcasts he has listed on IMDb: * Andrew Ng: Deep Learning, Education, and Real-World AI * Michael I. Jordan: Machine Learning, Recommender Systems, and the Future of AI * Marcus Hutter: Universal Artificial Intelligence, AIXI, and AGI * John Hopfield: Physics View of the Mind and Neurobiology * Alex Garland: Ex Machina, Devs, Annihilation, and the Poetry of Science * Ann Druyan: Cosmos, Carl Sagan, Voyager, and the Beauty of Science

Compare to his last few episodes: * Steve Keen: Marxism, Capitalism, and Economics * Richard Haier: IQ Tests, Human Intelligence, and Group Differences * Susan Cain: The Power of Introverts and Loneliness * Douglas Murray: Racism, Marxism, and the War on the West * Richard Wolff: Marxism and Communism

That's a pretty hard pivot in topics that he's covering. If discussion about whether BLM is Marxism intent on destroying the West isn't the content you're looking for, I don't think you're the audience he's targeting anymore.

The pivot happened ages ago, his podcast was originally called something like the Artificial Intelligence Podcast, and then changed to the Lex Fridmin podcast along with a change in more general guests. I do wish he focused more on computer related topics, but his guests still tend to be very interesting.

That's a good point, I do find myself just skipping over those episodes though rather than throwing out the podcast as a whole (I'm also trying to be better about that in general including with books which I would religiously read from beginning to end no matter the quality which is silly).

I know what you mean but he has improved over time. His main fault is talking too much sometimes, I'd rather hear the guest. While some of his questions are lame, he usually makes up for it with some well researched and interesting questions. Not every question can be a winner in a five hour interview.

Really? That's fascinating, if anything I usually think he's not rigid enough and too easily goes along with guest claims (the Oliver Stone episode stands out for not pushing back).

Do you have a favorite podcaster/interviewer?

Even though I didn't align or agree with Stone. It is refreshing not to hear the constant back and forth you see on TV's or just each network running their own agenda. Truth is a fine thing, nothing is black or white. I feel in these times it's more important that we stay open minded to ideas, speech and discussion.

The act of pushing back, retaliation, or suppressing information actually increases the desire for said info and notoriety/fanfare of many people and ideas. In the Oliver Stone interview, they do discuss the best way to interview someone is with a blank canvas, and that is honestly refreshing. Let viewers develop their own opinions. But, a little more pushback or rather counter-arguments might have been welcomed, but that might change the tone of the interview into a more adversarial one.

People need to get out of closed off echo chambers, be respectful of each other, and just agree to disagree, but still look at each other as a human being. The only way we progress through the 21st century.

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