2023 in Podcasts

Stats, favorite episodes, and more.

Stats:

• Hours: 1 Hour / Day!
• Speed: 1.7x
• Podcasting App: I still use PocketCast! It’s even better now that Automattic/Wordpress has acquired them.

Trends:

• I have tilted back to tech podcasts this year because of the rise of AI.
• Podcasts on economics have made a come back.

Favorite episodes of 2023:

1. #705: Dr. Willoughby Britton — The Hidden Risks of Meditation, Overlaps with Psychedelic Risks, Harm Reduction Strategies, How to Choose a Retreat, Near-Death Experiences, and More with Tim Ferriss
   I suspected my 10-day silent retreat had messed with my mind’s default settings in good and bad ways. I wasn’t able to find much about the negative changes until this podcast. And gosh, many of the struggles I have had related very well with what Dr. Britton has studied.
2. Ep. 246: Kids and Phones with Cal Newport
   Are phones bad for your kids? Cal Newport looked at all the existing studies and made a very coherent and convincing case why phones are mostly bad.
3. 110. Drawing from Life (and Death) with Artist Wendy MacNaughton and Steven Levitt
   What I loved about this episode was how MacNaughton challenged Levitt’s way of thinking and living. It was beautiful to witness mindset changes in action. The change was particularly powerful because it was on a topic that covered art, creativity, life and death, and equanimity- concepts that were so far from what this podcast typically talked about- economics.
4. Paul Salopek on Walking the World with Tyler Cowen
   Salopek’s journey was fascinating, but what’s most impressive, was how Cowen asked questions. It was a masterclass of genuine and curious interviewing.
5. Currents 092: Peter Wang on The Meaning Crisis and Consequentiality With Jim Rutt
   Peter explained why we are messed up in utmost reverence, urgency, and clarity.

Here are the podcasts in rotation in 2023:

• Decoder with Nilay Patel
• Vergecast
• Sinica Podcast
• Recode Media With Peter Kafka
• Against The Rules With Michael Lewis
• The Lead
• Techmeme Ride Home
• The Ezra Klein Show
• Fresh Air
• The Jim Rutt Show
• The Daily
• Conversations with Tyler
• The Tim Ferriss Show
• People I (Mostly) Admire” by Steven Levitt
• The ReWork Podcast
• Driving With Dunne
• On With Kara Swisher
• Econtalk
• Morning Wire
• The Greatest of All Talk
• The Rest Is Politics / The Rest Is Politics – Leading
• Not Investment Advice
• 習慣說
• Founders
• Stratechery
• Sharp Tech
• Sharp China