Podcasts I’m listening to, 2016 Edition
One year ago I posted a list of my favorite podcasts. Since then, podcasting has continued to grow like crazy — money flowing into podcast companies and new shows popping up every day from all sorts of unexpected new hosts.
A year later my general taste in podcasts has stayed the same but my list looks a little different. I’m still listening mainly to tech podcasts, and also a growing list podcasts from creators of all types. Many of the newer podcasts I’m listening to are not actually from professional podcasters, rather companies telling their own inside story to their most loyal fans. I’m hoping these stories of creation help inspire me to be more ambitious about my own projects, to take the initiative to do and create more.
With that, here’s my list:
- The Vergecast: An insightful roundtable analysis of the week’s tech news from the writers at The Verge, including guests from sister Vox publications like Racked.
- Ctrl+Walt+Delete: Weekly discussion, usually on one topic, between The Verge Editor-in-Chief Nilay Patel and legendary tech reviewer Walt Mossberg. Nicely incorporates insights from Walt’s historical archives, as well.
- StartUp Podcast: Each season follows the origin story of a new startup. There is also intermediary look at Gimlet Media, the podcast startup that started the StartUp Podcast.
- The Intern: A new podcast launched by the Betaworks Creative Director and hosted by a brand new intern at Betaworks, a startup accelerator in New York City. Hopefully it will give unprecedented insight into the inner-workings of Betaworks and its startups.
- Thoroughly Considered: A new podcast launched by the founders of Studio Neat, an indie product design company known for its successful Kickstarter projects like the Glif and Cosmonaut. The founders speak about their creation process.
- CreativeMornings Podcast: A series that repackages some of the best CreativeMornings speaker talks in podcast form. CreativeMornings are usually excellent, so a great way to experience ones you can’t get to.
- Exponent: Weekly tech analysis from Ben Thompson, who is one of the most insightful tech analysts blogging right now. The podcast serves as a companion piece to his Stratechery blog and newsletter. Since I also read Stratechery I listen when I want to double up on topic analysis.
- a16z: Discussion from different venture capitalists and analysts at the wildly successful Andreessen Horowitz VC firm. I mainly listen to interviews with the widely respected mobile analyst Benedict Evans.
- Reply All: A show that investigates unusual facets of the internet & internet culture, such as how the Internet is impacting Hasidic Jewish culture. I pick and choose when to listen based on the weekly topic.
- Tomorrow with Joshua Topolsky: Former founder of The Verge Josh Topolsky is now on his own and recording interviews here. I’m mainly listening to find out what he’s thinking about doing next.
- Accidental Tech Podcast: A very verbose podcast about technology from a group including famous developer Marco Arment of Tumblr, Instapaper, and Overcast fame. Because each week is so long I only listen when it’s a topic I care a lot for.
- Product Hunt Radio: A weekly interview series with product founders. In truth I rarely listen to this anymore since it changed to be an interview series, but I subscribe in case there’s a really interesting guest.
In the future I’m hoping to round out this tech-centric list with a podcast or two that focuses on baseball & basketball, and comic film & TV culture. So far, though, I haven’t found one that managed to stay within my knowledge base in each category.
Also, I’m still using Overcast from Marco Arment as my podcasting app. It has a great user friendly design, handles background sync perfectly, and has power features like speed control and gap removal. I’m a paid supporter, which I think is important to promote independent development.
That’s it. What am I missing? What should I listen to?
