7 ms·

It sucks that the Lex podcast has maybe the best guests of any podcast out there right now and he's such a terrible interviewer. Seriously, give me this guest l

It sucks that the Lex podcast has maybe the best guests of any podcast out there right now and he's such a terrible interviewer. Seriously, give me this guest list with Rogan on the other side any day of the week.

optimalsolver 5y ago
I'm also curious how Lex managed the get the calibre of guests he did right off the bat. I understand he was some kind of MIT whizkid, but I don't know much about him beyond that.
- hollerith 5y ago
  "Right off the bat"? He started uploading interviews to Youtube 7 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/c/lexfridman/videos?view=0&sort=da&flow=grid https://www.youtube.com/c/lexfridman/videos?view=0&sort=da&f...
- ok123456 5y ago
  All his degrees are from Drexel University. He goes to lengths to hide, or at least obfuscate, that fact. Source: went to school with him.
  - hollerith 5y ago
    Then he got a postdoc at MIT.
    - ok123456 5y ago
      you don't 'get a postdoc'. It's not a degree. It's a job you get that requires a PhD. It's a form a purgatory until you can get a real academic job. The goal of a post doc is to continue to do research work where you're the first position on publications to pad your CV to the point where it looks impressive enough when you're out giving job talks for tenure track positions. If you have a very strong PhD thesis, produced a lot of good work during your PhD and made enough connections, you can skip that step.
      - ausbah 5y ago
        and that discredits him somehow?
        ok123456 5y ago
        Well he did stop doing anything that you could classify as research, and decided to become a youtube talk-show host instead. It's almost as if he was there just long enough to associate his name with the school as an ends to impress dumb people.
        ausbah 5y ago
        https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=wZH_N7cAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=wZH_N7cAAAAJ... he's had his name on publications over the past few years while still doing the podcast
        ok123456 5y ago
        last position and chi pablum
      - tinyhouse 5y ago
        A postdoc is not a PhD but it can also be competitive in good places. Very hard to skip that step these days unless you're a superstar, even in CS. But it doesn't really matter. Are you trying to discredit him in some way? It's actually even more impressive he got to where he got without a degree from a top school. He needed to work harder than others.
        ok123456 5y ago
        His connections (his dad is a distinguished professor of mechanical engineering) had more to do with that than hard work. Getting out of purgatory was also competitive.
- tinyhouse 5y ago
  I guess people like listening to him. Who cares where he went to school.
- lrhegeba 5y ago
  His father is a first-class scientist with lots of connections, that certainly helped with access (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=3rHlt_wAAAAJ&hl=en https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=3rHlt_wAAAAJ&hl=en)
paulpauper 5y ago
that's why he gets the best guests. He doesn't make it about him. It's like "here, I'm giving you a platform and I will interject only occasionally. "
- redmen 5y ago
  That's a part of his facade. He is good at listening, which he has picked up from Rogan
  - type0 5y ago
    > He is good at listening, which he has picked up from Rogan How so? I stopped listening to his podcasts because he often does not listen very closely and completely misjudges what a guest says.
mindcrime 5y ago
Meh. What's Joe Rogan gonna ask somebody like Jim Keller or Yann Lecun? Does he know enough about either of their respective fields to even frame an interesting question beyond "do you smoke weed?" or "Should people get the COVID vaccine?", "who will be the next UFC lightweight champion?", etc. Don't get me wrong here: I am a huge Rogan fan. And some Fridman guests would, IMO, be great with Rogan as well (Zuck, for example). But a lot of Fridman's guests are into some pretty deep, esoteric, technical domains that I don't think would fit with Rogan, unless he has a lot of technical knowledge/background of which I am unaware.
- mhh__ 5y ago
  Lex equally didn't have much to say to Jim Keller. There was a bit of back and forth but it just felt pointless (all programmers should know what a branch predictor is, especially ones about to interview Jim Keller!) Or a bit childish: at one I think Fridman asks him what his greatest achievement is in a slightly corny way, and Keller just remarks that he has children.
- kaesar14 5y ago
  Give me Sean Carroll then. Lex spends too much of his interviews talking about himself or his feelings on some matter. Seriously, I couldn’t care less about Lex’s feelings on the subject - what makes Joe and Sean so good is the ability to ask questions, listen, empathize, and contextualize information from the guest. Joe’s worst episodes and the things people hate him for are when he strays from that formula and says something dumb, but he’s world class at interviewing otherwise.
  - nurbl 5y ago
    Sean Carroll is my favorite interview podcaster. Maybe it's my physics bias but his guests are often from very different areas and he still finds good questions, keeps a humble attitude of wanting to understand, and doesn't take up too much room. The discussions stay on topic and often go pretty deep.
- janto 5y ago
  I enjoy Lex, but I doubt he's going to ask and stick to tough questions (I haven't watched this one yet). Rogan might not ask technical questions, but he's more skilled at probing the topics many have concerns about. Such as "fact checking" and censorship.
hatware 5y ago
Apples and oranges. I think Lex is a fine interviewer considering his background, and short time podcasting. Can you provide examples of him being a terrible interviewer?
- redmen 5y ago
  https://youtu.be/lOz3wDhGA3Y https://youtu.be/lOz3wDhGA3Y
  - hatware 5y ago
    https://www.reddit.com/r/britishcolumbia/comments/sz8acp/t5008_questionare_the_highlighted_numbers_my/ https://www.reddit.com/r/britishcolumbia/comments/sz8acp/t50...
- kaesar14 5y ago
  He talks too much about what he thinks about a topic. Listen to literally any episode of the podcast, happens all the time. Worst thing to do as an interviewer.
- joenathanone 5y ago
  > Can you provide examples of him being a terrible interviewer? https://www.youtube.com/c/lexfridman https://www.youtube.com/c/lexfridman
- Mountain_Skies 5y ago
  "What is love?"
- purple_ferret 5y ago
  He asks the same questions and gets the same answers for half of every interview. People are going to give you a variation of the same answer for 'what is the meaning of life,' and it gets old after a couple interviews. He's also fairly opinionated and repeats the same opinions over and over.
  - redisman 5y ago
ushakov 5y ago
why would anybody like Zuckerberg want to interview with Rogan? Lex is highly educated, well-spoken and knows about interview topics in depth
- mardifoufs 5y ago
  Elon is richer and more educated than zucker and he still went on the Rogan show. It's the first time I'm hearing about zucker being on another tier of "sophistication" lol
VirusNewbie 5y ago
I used to get similarly frustrated at Lex’s interviewing style compared to say, Sean Carol’s (mindscape podcast). I realized that Lex isn’t really doing interviews; he’s having guests on to converse and shoot the shit with. He will regularly talk about his own ideas and bounce them off the guests, which is quite atypical. However if you think of it as getting to listen to two friends just chatting or having a beer, it can make for interesting content. Shift your mindset and it might be more enjoyable.
- kaesar14 5y ago
  Then I’m still frustrated that better interviewers don’t get to talk to these people.
  - VirusNewbie 5y ago
    But it would be a totally different conversation. Sean Carrol and Lex have both interviewed Wolfram, same discussion but done in a different way. I quite like that sometimes you get to hear Lex actually work through the implications or understanding of what the interviewee claims, rather than just being a listener.
    - optimalsolver 5y ago
      Sean isn't just a listener. He'll directly challenge his guest (politely of course) on flaws in their arguments.
    - briHass 5y ago
      But in that specific example (Wolfram on both podcasts), Carrol asked questions that clearly demonstrated a deep understanding of not only the subject matter (he is a theoretical physicist comfortable with advanced mathematics after all), but he also probed Wolfram on areas where his theory might be challenged. Lex did more of an 'everyman's' take on that conversation, which is fine, but certainly not at Carrol's level. I did enjoy both, but mostly because Wolfram did most of the talking. Even with Lex's less-targeted/knowledgeable questions, Wolfram knew how to steer the answer to what he thought the actual question should have been.
silisili 5y ago
What? Lex is my -favorite- interviewer. People say he's robotic and whatnot, but if you watch his face, eyes, and gestures...you can tell he thinks deeply about every single thing he is about to say. He is, unlike Rogan, generally knowledgeable enough already to make comments or ask questions. And he doesn't try to 'gotcha'. To me it's just watching two incredibly bright people speak casually, which I guess isn't everyone's forte, but is very enjoyable.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- kaesar14 5y ago
  Too high of a percentage of Lex’s podcasts are his feelings and when be starts to get ranty. I also hate when Joe does that but it’s WAY less often. Lex needs to learn the shut up and let his amazing guests direct the discussion. If knowledge is a barrier, then give me Sean Carroll with this guest list.
  - 1123581321 5y ago
    Just skip forward when he does that. It's so easy to cut down these 2-3 hour podcasts into smaller episodes that fit your interests.
  - hatware 5y ago
    You might just be watching a little too much Lex... I'd get burnt out on just about anything if I watch enough of it.
emerged 5y ago
I always have the sense that Lex thinks himself several tiers more intelligent than he actually is. So most of the interviews I have this cringe facepalm feeling which is distracting. Joe Rogan is super self deprecating which helps counter that feeling.
- W0lf 5y ago
  Thanks for pointing this out as I share the same opinion regarding Lex. For me personally it‘s that his behavior during his podcasts doesn’t match up to the intellectual shallowness of his questions and thinkings which drives me a bit crazy, e.g. a deep concerned look, a long pause and then.. an obvious statement or something along this line
  - emerged 5y ago
    That’s a good description. I feel that I recognize all the times I’m supposed to be impressed by him, but it falls flat every time because he’s either stating the obvious or just wrong.
  - Buldak 5y ago
    Yes, I've been somewhat baffled by the suggestion that Lex is some kind of boy genius. I find many of his questions incredibly inane (asking "What is the most beautiful idea in mathematics?" over and over again). I keep watching because the guests are great, but I don't think much of Lex's ability to really engage with their ideas.
    - kaesar14 5y ago
      Ah I totally agre. “what is love?” “how does math express love?”, “how do we get AI to understand love?”. It’s fucking annoying.
- type0 5y ago
  > I always have the sense that Lex thinks himself several tiers more intelligent than he actually is. Another podcast talker with a bad case of unwarranted self-importance is Sam Harris, sometimes he takes his head out of his ass but only for short periods.
briHass 5y ago
I hate to admit it, but I tend to agree. In my opinion, Lex has actually gotten worse as he has done more interviews. Now, he seems to feel comfortable taking up huge chunks of the conversation with incoherent non-sequiturs. He tends to do better when the topic is math/AI related (due to his knowledge) and does worse the farther the topic is from that narrow focus. Rogan started off bad, but he became an excellent interviewer up until the last 2 years or so. I listened to a few podcasts of his from pre-2020 recently, and there's a clear difference in quality. Rogan has annoying quirks, favorite anecdotes, and tangents, but as you said, his core interviewing skills are top-notch. Lex has always been robotic and socially awkward; forcing new questions or topic jumps just as the guest gets into an interesting flow.
- type0 5y ago
  Rogan practices his comedic speeches all the time before standup and works as a UFC commentator. You really can't beat him at that game, Lex it seems is not even trying to be good at it, it's too bad but I can't stand to listen to him.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
thinkharderdev 5y ago
Funny, I think the same of Rogan. Give both their guest lists to Tyler Cowen.

optimalsolver 5y ago

I'm also curious how Lex managed the get the calibre of guests he did right off the bat. I understand he was some kind of MIT whizkid, but I don't know much about him beyond that.

hollerith 5y ago
"Right off the bat"? He started uploading interviews to Youtube 7 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/c/lexfridman/videos?view=0&sort=da&flow=grid https://www.youtube.com/c/lexfridman/videos?view=0&sort=da&f...
ok123456 5y ago
All his degrees are from Drexel University. He goes to lengths to hide, or at least obfuscate, that fact. Source: went to school with him.
- hollerith 5y ago
  Then he got a postdoc at MIT.
  - ok123456 5y ago
    you don't 'get a postdoc'. It's not a degree. It's a job you get that requires a PhD. It's a form a purgatory until you can get a real academic job. The goal of a post doc is to continue to do research work where you're the first position on publications to pad your CV to the point where it looks impressive enough when you're out giving job talks for tenure track positions. If you have a very strong PhD thesis, produced a lot of good work during your PhD and made enough connections, you can skip that step.
    - ausbah 5y ago
      and that discredits him somehow?
      - ok123456 5y ago
        Well he did stop doing anything that you could classify as research, and decided to become a youtube talk-show host instead. It's almost as if he was there just long enough to associate his name with the school as an ends to impress dumb people.
        ausbah 5y ago
        https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=wZH_N7cAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=wZH_N7cAAAAJ... he's had his name on publications over the past few years while still doing the podcast
        ok123456 5y ago
        last position and chi pablum
    - tinyhouse 5y ago
      A postdoc is not a PhD but it can also be competitive in good places. Very hard to skip that step these days unless you're a superstar, even in CS. But it doesn't really matter. Are you trying to discredit him in some way? It's actually even more impressive he got to where he got without a degree from a top school. He needed to work harder than others.
      - ok123456 5y ago
        His connections (his dad is a distinguished professor of mechanical engineering) had more to do with that than hard work. Getting out of purgatory was also competitive.
tinyhouse 5y ago
I guess people like listening to him. Who cares where he went to school.
lrhegeba 5y ago
His father is a first-class scientist with lots of connections, that certainly helped with access (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=3rHlt_wAAAAJ&hl=en https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=3rHlt_wAAAAJ&hl=en)

paulpauper 5y ago

that's why he gets the best guests. He doesn't make it about him. It's like "here, I'm giving you a platform and I will interject only occasionally. "

redmen 5y ago
That's a part of his facade. He is good at listening, which he has picked up from Rogan
- type0 5y ago
  > He is good at listening, which he has picked up from Rogan How so? I stopped listening to his podcasts because he often does not listen very closely and completely misjudges what a guest says.

mindcrime 5y ago

Meh. What's Joe Rogan gonna ask somebody like Jim Keller or Yann Lecun? Does he know enough about either of their respective fields to even frame an interesting question beyond "do you smoke weed?" or "Should people get the COVID vaccine?", "who will be the next UFC lightweight champion?", etc. Don't get me wrong here: I am a huge Rogan fan. And some Fridman guests would, IMO, be great with Rogan as well (Zuck, for example). But a lot of Fridman's guests are into some pretty deep, esoteric, technical domains that I don't think would fit with Rogan, unless he has a lot of technical knowledge/background of which I am unaware.

mhh__ 5y ago
Lex equally didn't have much to say to Jim Keller. There was a bit of back and forth but it just felt pointless (all programmers should know what a branch predictor is, especially ones about to interview Jim Keller!) Or a bit childish: at one I think Fridman asks him what his greatest achievement is in a slightly corny way, and Keller just remarks that he has children.
kaesar14 5y ago
Give me Sean Carroll then. Lex spends too much of his interviews talking about himself or his feelings on some matter. Seriously, I couldn’t care less about Lex’s feelings on the subject - what makes Joe and Sean so good is the ability to ask questions, listen, empathize, and contextualize information from the guest. Joe’s worst episodes and the things people hate him for are when he strays from that formula and says something dumb, but he’s world class at interviewing otherwise.
- nurbl 5y ago
  Sean Carroll is my favorite interview podcaster. Maybe it's my physics bias but his guests are often from very different areas and he still finds good questions, keeps a humble attitude of wanting to understand, and doesn't take up too much room. The discussions stay on topic and often go pretty deep.
janto 5y ago
I enjoy Lex, but I doubt he's going to ask and stick to tough questions (I haven't watched this one yet). Rogan might not ask technical questions, but he's more skilled at probing the topics many have concerns about. Such as "fact checking" and censorship.

hatware 5y ago

Apples and oranges. I think Lex is a fine interviewer considering his background, and short time podcasting. Can you provide examples of him being a terrible interviewer?

redmen 5y ago
https://youtu.be/lOz3wDhGA3Y https://youtu.be/lOz3wDhGA3Y
- hatware 5y ago
  https://www.reddit.com/r/britishcolumbia/comments/sz8acp/t5008_questionare_the_highlighted_numbers_my/ https://www.reddit.com/r/britishcolumbia/comments/sz8acp/t50...
kaesar14 5y ago
He talks too much about what he thinks about a topic. Listen to literally any episode of the podcast, happens all the time. Worst thing to do as an interviewer.
joenathanone 5y ago
> Can you provide examples of him being a terrible interviewer? https://www.youtube.com/c/lexfridman https://www.youtube.com/c/lexfridman
Mountain_Skies 5y ago
"What is love?"
purple_ferret 5y ago
He asks the same questions and gets the same answers for half of every interview. People are going to give you a variation of the same answer for 'what is the meaning of life,' and it gets old after a couple interviews. He's also fairly opinionated and repeats the same opinions over and over.
- redisman 5y ago

ushakov 5y ago

why would anybody like Zuckerberg want to interview with Rogan? Lex is highly educated, well-spoken and knows about interview topics in depth

mardifoufs 5y ago
Elon is richer and more educated than zucker and he still went on the Rogan show. It's the first time I'm hearing about zucker being on another tier of "sophistication" lol

VirusNewbie 5y ago

I used to get similarly frustrated at Lex’s interviewing style compared to say, Sean Carol’s (mindscape podcast). I realized that Lex isn’t really doing interviews; he’s having guests on to converse and shoot the shit with. He will regularly talk about his own ideas and bounce them off the guests, which is quite atypical. However if you think of it as getting to listen to two friends just chatting or having a beer, it can make for interesting content. Shift your mindset and it might be more enjoyable.

kaesar14 5y ago
Then I’m still frustrated that better interviewers don’t get to talk to these people.
- VirusNewbie 5y ago
  But it would be a totally different conversation. Sean Carrol and Lex have both interviewed Wolfram, same discussion but done in a different way. I quite like that sometimes you get to hear Lex actually work through the implications or understanding of what the interviewee claims, rather than just being a listener.
  - optimalsolver 5y ago
    Sean isn't just a listener. He'll directly challenge his guest (politely of course) on flaws in their arguments.
  - briHass 5y ago
    But in that specific example (Wolfram on both podcasts), Carrol asked questions that clearly demonstrated a deep understanding of not only the subject matter (he is a theoretical physicist comfortable with advanced mathematics after all), but he also probed Wolfram on areas where his theory might be challenged. Lex did more of an 'everyman's' take on that conversation, which is fine, but certainly not at Carrol's level. I did enjoy both, but mostly because Wolfram did most of the talking. Even with Lex's less-targeted/knowledgeable questions, Wolfram knew how to steer the answer to what he thought the actual question should have been.

silisili 5y ago

What? Lex is my -favorite- interviewer. People say he's robotic and whatnot, but if you watch his face, eyes, and gestures...you can tell he thinks deeply about every single thing he is about to say. He is, unlike Rogan, generally knowledgeable enough already to make comments or ask questions. And he doesn't try to 'gotcha'. To me it's just watching two incredibly bright people speak casually, which I guess isn't everyone's forte, but is very enjoyable.

deleted 5y ago
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kaesar14 5y ago
Too high of a percentage of Lex’s podcasts are his feelings and when be starts to get ranty. I also hate when Joe does that but it’s WAY less often. Lex needs to learn the shut up and let his amazing guests direct the discussion. If knowledge is a barrier, then give me Sean Carroll with this guest list.
- 1123581321 5y ago
  Just skip forward when he does that. It's so easy to cut down these 2-3 hour podcasts into smaller episodes that fit your interests.
- hatware 5y ago
  You might just be watching a little too much Lex... I'd get burnt out on just about anything if I watch enough of it.

emerged 5y ago

I always have the sense that Lex thinks himself several tiers more intelligent than he actually is. So most of the interviews I have this cringe facepalm feeling which is distracting. Joe Rogan is super self deprecating which helps counter that feeling.

W0lf 5y ago
Thanks for pointing this out as I share the same opinion regarding Lex. For me personally it‘s that his behavior during his podcasts doesn’t match up to the intellectual shallowness of his questions and thinkings which drives me a bit crazy, e.g. a deep concerned look, a long pause and then.. an obvious statement or something along this line
- emerged 5y ago
  That’s a good description. I feel that I recognize all the times I’m supposed to be impressed by him, but it falls flat every time because he’s either stating the obvious or just wrong.
- Buldak 5y ago
  Yes, I've been somewhat baffled by the suggestion that Lex is some kind of boy genius. I find many of his questions incredibly inane (asking "What is the most beautiful idea in mathematics?" over and over again). I keep watching because the guests are great, but I don't think much of Lex's ability to really engage with their ideas.
  - kaesar14 5y ago
    Ah I totally agre. “what is love?” “how does math express love?”, “how do we get AI to understand love?”. It’s fucking annoying.
type0 5y ago
> I always have the sense that Lex thinks himself several tiers more intelligent than he actually is. Another podcast talker with a bad case of unwarranted self-importance is Sam Harris, sometimes he takes his head out of his ass but only for short periods.

briHass 5y ago

I hate to admit it, but I tend to agree. In my opinion, Lex has actually gotten worse as he has done more interviews. Now, he seems to feel comfortable taking up huge chunks of the conversation with incoherent non-sequiturs. He tends to do better when the topic is math/AI related (due to his knowledge) and does worse the farther the topic is from that narrow focus. Rogan started off bad, but he became an excellent interviewer up until the last 2 years or so. I listened to a few podcasts of his from pre-2020 recently, and there's a clear difference in quality. Rogan has annoying quirks, favorite anecdotes, and tangents, but as you said, his core interviewing skills are top-notch. Lex has always been robotic and socially awkward; forcing new questions or topic jumps just as the guest gets into an interesting flow.

type0 5y ago
Rogan practices his comedic speeches all the time before standup and works as a UFC commentator. You really can't beat him at that game, Lex it seems is not even trying to be good at it, it's too bad but I can't stand to listen to him.
deleted 5y ago
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thinkharderdev 5y ago

Funny, I think the same of Rogan. Give both their guest lists to Tyler Cowen.