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Comment by hebrox | Hacker News Reader

I had the same feeling with a lot of interviews from the past, but somehow, about a year ago, something changed. Not sure if it was a conscious decision or just the result of so much practice, but for quite something I haven’t screamed at my screen when listening to Lex.

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I've noticed that as well. He frequently also gets distracted thinking about taking ideas to such an abstract level they don't really make sense any longer, he looks off at the ceiling somewhere, and then the guest continues off as if they didn't see that. It makes me crack up every time, hah.

This is in contrast to many other podcasters who stay engrossed in surface level details and never graduate to thinking about overarching concepts. Lex just zooms there too fast sometimes.

I think Lex is a very talented interviewer. His questions often seem low quality (to me), but he pushes the discussion in the correct direction. He seem to be e.g. build sentences where after the first part there is a moment for guest to throw in something or for Lex to judge guest reaction. Or maybe I'm reading too much into it, but regardless, he seem to be able to get something out of these guys which others interviews couldn't. Shining example is Stephen Wolfram who seem to be extremely hard to interview.

Agreed.

Lex's done some of my favorite geek interviews. Just from memory: Stephen Kotkin, Roger Penrose, Lisa Feldman Barrett, Everyday Astronaut, Jim Keller, his own father. Many more I'm sure, if I consulted Lex's archive.

I skip over the episodes with culture warriors. I've already had my fill, thank you very much.

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