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Comment by ausbah | Hacker News Reader

I personally liked the podcast before he rebranded it around himself. Lex is a good host who is smart enough to hold conversations with his guests, but the main appeal was always still the guests as it was the only podcast I was aware of that has only experts in CS and related fields to talk about AI and other topics

he still does this under the newer iteration of his podcast, but since shifting it to "the smart man's Joe Rogan" - I don't find myself listening as much personally

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I see it the other way around: I started to enjoy more the podcast after he rebranded it.

The man put it out there about him feeling constrained about pursuing different types of guests that he was genuinely curious about, but that felt out of space within the realm of the previous branding.

Better yet - he put a lot of these decisions up to vote to his community, that he clearly feels that he owes them everything. Basically the feedback of the community was positive towards this change - and he seems really happy about it!

So now he brings guests with different types of backgrounds, from AI to Quantum Physics, where he dares to ask question about what he thinks are more profound/out of the box questions.

He knew this shift wasn't going to appeal everyone, and that's fine. It's impossible to please everyone, and he saw this path a way for him to grow and explore even though he would lose some following (clearly a small portion).

I'm really happy for him, and it's a joy to see someone put themselves out there, to risk it, and grow!

And guess what, maybe he left a void to be filled - the same void he filled that allowed him to do his own thing.

Some others that you might enjoy:

Mindscape (deep dives on various topics, host is a theoretical physicist): https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/

Brain Inspired (AI & neuroscience interviews): https://braininspired.co/

Thesis Review (interviews with researchers about their PhD thesis): https://cs.nyu.edu/~welleck/podcast.html

Machine Learning Street Talk (discussions & interviews about ML): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMLtBahI5DMrt0NPvDSoIRQ

these are awesome, thanks!!

Pretty sure he did this because MIT was not officially affiliated with the podcast

I agree, I find many of his interviews to be boring these days.

Can you share what interviews you enjoy more?

ones where he has CS researchers / pioneers like Dennis Richie or Chris Latter, well known AI researchers like David Silver, or people from somewhat AI related fields like biology or neuroscience

other non-AI guests I'm sure are plenty interesting, that's just not what I'm looking for in a podcast

The Dan Carlin interview was a big disappointment and snoozefest for me. I LOVE Dan Carlin and would have liked to see him answer questions about current events and how he sees things playing out. Instead, the first question was about the "nature of evil".

I have to admit though, Dan Carlin on Joe Rogan isn't a good interview either. His podcasts are incredible, but maybe he just doesn't interview well.

I have only been listening to Lex's podcast for a few months, so I don't know a lot about its history. When did this rebranding take place?

Joe Rogan is “the smart man’s Joe Rogan”. Friedman’s podcast is completely different, main difference is that it is rarely about entertaining

that's kinda what I mean. they both invite guests on to learn about them, their work, and the unique perspective in stuff. Rogan doesn't seem to push back as much or ask as "stimulating" questions as Friedman, and is more apt to just let his guest talk

just different styles of podcasting, with their respective pros and cons

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