I don't know Lex Fridman, but with all respect, I don't like him as an interviewer at all. He has zero interviewing experience, IMHO. It looks so amateur. Regardless, kudos to him for bringing in so many amazing people. His playlist is sick!
I actually disagree with you on interview style, I like his (it grows on you, or so I found); his playlist is indeed sick. And it keeps getting better, I suspect he'll eventually get 80% of the who's-who in AI or around it. Probably the most promising high-level podcast about it.
Other podcasts are more in the weeds, actual work on ML/DL etc, production cases and frameworks (see The Changelog's master feed for instance, "Practical AI" with actual SWE's). Lex's is interesting insofar as he's an AI researcher at MIT, the highest technical acumen you can reach in the field, so you can trust him to orient/frame the conversation (actually, learn from his follow-up questions and remarks). And it's sometimes funny (when you have some background too) to see/hear his responses to non-technical interviewees.
He's a great mind (and has a great heart), no question about it; thus whatever quirks you may find diverging from classic interview style are worth ignoring. Focus on the meat, when it gets good, it gets really good.
I didn't know that these interviews are podcast-first, which is probably why the interviewer is so laid back and slow talking, as pointed out by @unoti. I looked up Fridman's lectures, they are indeed a little bit more energetic, but he is generally a calm individual, so in combination with slow talking and monotone voice that he intentionally uses in podcasts, it makes his questions quite boring to listen, which is what was immediately reflected in my original comment.
> thus whatever quirks you may find diverging from classic interview style are worth ignoring. Focus on the meat, when it gets good, it gets really good.
Lex Fridman is smart. No doubt. If one listens carefully, he indeed asks good questions, which is something I originally missed. He interviews great people and the meat is obviously there. But I still strongly believe that there is a huge room for improvement for Lex as an interviewer and content creator. Has he interviewed unknown people, nobody would listen to him, IMHO.
However I think it's a tall order to ask people in general to excel in two entirely distinct domains, especially at such a 'young' age (MIT must've taken most of his time so far). So with domain-driven people who dabble in media, we get their strong vertical at the cost of more mediocre delivery — but to me that remains sweeter than a "professional" journalist who speaks second-hand about everything, at least for most technical or complex topics.
He's got time to get a lot better at interviewing, podcasting, if that's the goal. Eventually, he can be both a great AI researcher and a great podcaster. Meanwhile, I'll take it regardless because that's the best we've got now.
> Has he interviewed unknown people, nobody would listen to him, IMHO.
If the topic were totally irrelevant, maybe; but I have a fondness for scientists trying to speak to everyone, e.g. on YouTube / podcast / whatever, so I would still listen probably. Like that guy, Robert Miles from Cambridge who speaks of AI safety[1] — delivery wasn't great in the beginning, but damn were the topics incredible food for thought.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLB7AzTwc6VFZrBsO2ucBMg
But having said all that, one youtube commenter said of Lex's interview with Elon Musk that it was "two robots conversing without human supervision," which Lex brought up in a later interview with Elon and thought was pretty funny.
I had a similar impression months ago, and after listening to a few - I was so happy I gave it a fair chance.
Actually, this looks like 100% old-style quality interview.
People are not used to this style today, but it was the quintessential style before the 90s or so, and it's much deeper than the kind of shallow interviewing we see today from "pros" (including TV hacks like Charlie Rose).
I always thought of his podcast as conversations, not interviews. Maybe that’s why it always worked fine for me.