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Working at MIT and having a small history of good guests probably helps. The guests themselves make value judgments of whether this polite, motivated, knowledg
by PennRobotics 5y ago
Working at MIT and having a small history of good guests probably helps.
The guests themselves make value judgments of whether this polite, motivated, knowledgeable, reasonably boring guy with a sizeable audience and good credentials can help them to spread their own messages without much journalistic pushback.
His audio quality is also not bad.
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Personal opinion: The interviews are far too long. I'd like an informed opinion of the best (as opposed to most famous or controversial or odd) guests. If a biology expert told me Lex's interview with Eric Lander was a Must Listen, I'd value that more than, "oh! It's three hours of Elon Musk, but his personal values are well-known and haven't changed."
I would listen to a few very interesting conversations unedited OR a larger collection of reasonably interesting, short, heavily curated conversations. I enjoy hearing about subjects I normally don't encounter, and some of his guests bring this experience. Listening to months of audio to find these gems is not for me.
I prefer a small group of podcasts that have shorter episodes, entertaining/engaging hosts, interesting guests,
- ghaff 5y agoPersonally I find 20 to 30 minute interviews the sweet spot. Sometimes I’ll go a bit shorter and sometimes a bit longer but for 1:1 something like an hour feels too much most of the time.
- newsclues 5y agoI like the long conversations, because it’s easier to be a fake person for 30 minutes, but comparatively it’s hard to fake being a genuine person or expert on a topic for 2 or 3 hours.
- ghaff 5y agoI'm sure it's a fault of my attention span but I tend to be a fan of 30 minute conference presentations and otherwise distilling topics down to about that length. Otherwise, it often feels like you're dragging things out. I'm not having a date with the person. I want to discover for my audience what key insights they have. I do sometimes have longer podcast conversations with people I know well but 20-30 minutes feels like the natural sweet spot for my typical interview.
- newsclues 5y agoI want brisket that is delicious after you microwave it, but it tends to require a long time in the oven.
- devchix 5y agoBut I don't have 2 or 3 hours to listen in to conversations of strangers and then decide if they are worthwhile or not.