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Comment by jarlab | Hacker News Reader

How does he even get all these people to come on his podcast?

Low risk (due to him not challenging people in ways that could expose them), and high impact, I'd say.

He is essentially a highbrow fluffer. The weakest kind of "intellectual" interviewer imaginable.

Sometimes it works well (e.g. the Jim Keller eps), often not. I have a feeling this will be one of those times where it doesn't work.

I think it's because he's genuinely interested in what they have to say, and busy people like Zuckerberg / Musk actually have 2-3 hours of content/ideas they want to get out to the world. They could go on a crappy cable news show for 5 minutes, but they'd rather talk about it for 3 hours in depth.

BTW I believe Joe Rogan popularized this format (with some influence from Howard Stern and others, yes Howard Stern changed). For example, Rogan's interview with Snowden is quite good. He just lets him talk for 3 hours. Where else is Snowden going to get that? (in addition to the big audience, the format is a draw)

(Joe Rogan has been controversial recently, but consider the asymmetry of him considering a subject publicly for 3 hours, while his attackers are posting 30 second clips on Twitter. Not saying he's right or wrong about anything, just that there's a huge asymmetry, and that people who are genuine and have decent attention spans should notice.)

There are of course the more basic reasons like having a book to promote, and the fact that Lex tends not challenge them on controversial issues.

Also, many of the guests have watched 3 hour interviews by others, and probably learned something, and want to do the same. There's definitely a viral / network effect to booking guests.

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I really liked this interview by a farmer, chef, and CEO of meat raised holistically:

Anya Fernald: Regenerative Farming and the Art of Cooking Meat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ew8U43IXTfk

It's very technical and practical. And I think it shows he is spreading interesting ideas independent of whether the person is well known. So the well known people who have ideas are attracted to that.

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Actually this reminds me that I remember there was a good podcast by a guy in Silicon Valley who was just getting started, and had a pretty strong Indian accent? Nevertheless he was genuine and James Gosling and several other well known folks went on. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? It was probably 2-3 years ago. I'd like to find that podcast again. As far as I remember it was mostly on a website.

Ah found it, shame it's not active: https://mappingthejourney.com/

Lex is a good interviewer. I started watching his MIT AI class videos years ago. He had a good skill of inviting interesting people to the classes. He also seems very media savvy. I often don’t have time for complete interviews so I sometimes look out for his shorter clips on YouTube.

He is also one of the most boring interviewers on youtubes, he's great to listen if you have insomnia and want to fall asleep. To be fair Lex deserves some lenience because English isn't his native language, but I'm still surprised that his podcast got so popular that it has.

To me, he does a great job of letting the ideas of the guest be the main focus.

I don't want to hear him tell jokes or try to be a comedian.

He agrees with whatever the guest says, no matter how stupid whatever the guest said is. This makes the interviews unbearably boring to me. The interviewer should challenge the guest, so we can learn something from the interview.

Replying to my own comment:

I just listened to the Zuckerberg interview. It got so much better in the last third when both of them seemed more relaxed. Too bad they didn’t break through to something more like friendship earlier. I have never seen Zuckerberg look so relaxed as in the last 20 minutes.

Joe Rogan's fame. And Eric Weinstein before Eric went crazy

If you think Eric went crazy, he went crazy a long time before you heard of him. He's been pretty consistent.

This is interesting. There was a time when I became aware of Eric Weinstein via Joe Rogan and Eric seemed to be pointing to things I'd recognized and couldn't name, and other things I hadn't recognized but could see when he pointed them out to me.

It felt enlightening: here's a concealed underlying pattern that I have now unconcealed for you.

Then after that, and after starting his own podcast, and after coming out with his own Theory of Everything ("Geometric Unity"), things shifted: Eric refused to publish a paper or proofs that could be scrutinized, what he did publish was labeled by professionals as "not even wrong" (i.e. not cogent enough to dispute), he insisted he taught himself guitar during lockdown (when he had been playing for years before), etc.

It felt like two different versions of someone: one you could trust was forthright (whether right or wrong about something), and another who would say things he knows aren't true out of ego/vanity or... out of something? But something to benefit Eric, not something to benefit the audience.

This felt like a shift to me.

Thanks for putting it so well. There are certainly some concepts that haven't been talked about in the public discourse and are true, the most important probably being the Russel-conjugation. And he's always been a bit whacky, but that was his thing, that we should be more tolerant towards whacky people and I still think this is true. But at some point Eric went from whacky to crazy and it kind of breaks my heart.

> What is Russell Conjugation?

https://tomdehnel.com/what-is-russell-conjugation/

> Russel used the following examples to describe the phenomenon:

> • I am firm, you are obstinate, he is a pig-headed fool.

> • I am righteously indignant, you are annoyed, he is making a fuss over nothing.

> • I have reconsidered the matter, you have changed your mind, he has gone back on his word.

> Russell Conjugations don’t always have to follow the “I, you, they” formula either. In fact, you’re more likely to encounter them in more subtle ways:

> • A politician you support reconsidered the matter in light of new evidence, but the politician you don’t support flip-flopped.

> • You negotiated boldly, but your coworker wasn’t being a team player.

> • Your own child is self-assured, but the neighbor’s son is a brat.

I always wonder if the Weinstein brothers can even be in the same room. Seems their egos may be too big to be together in an enclosed space.

They did a podcast episode together, which Eric ended up prefacing with context for the audience, since he realized he did a lot of interrupting and, arguably, semi-bullying during the conversation.

But then again they are brothers, and Eric was/is angry about the way he perceives Bret to have been mistreated by Academia. During the episode he encourages Bret to be as outwardly angry and to agree with Eric's conclusions about these systems of control that mistreated Bret.

Eric Weinstein has been crazy since day 0. He was better at hiding it years ago (when he started The Portal)

I think he has a very desirable core demographic of young technologists

Mix that with him being popular, well connected, and generally well respected, I can see why big names in tech would be eager to go on his podcast

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