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Comment by jekude | Hacker News Reader

This feels far too short and rushed. Maybe with some longer form podcasts we have (fortunately) become used to full-length conversations. I would have loved 4 hours of this with more back and forth.

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Cowen’s interviews are always like this. Contrary to the name, he is not actually good at having conversations and seems to just have a list of specific questions he wants to ask. It comes off as very stilted and you can usually tell that the guests are little whiplashed.

Oh, that's what I like about that show the most. He gets the guests uncomfortably outside the zone of a normal interview, both with the specificity of the questions as well as the pacing. I'm sure it's at least partly on purpose. I agree that it feels a little like a thesis defense, but I like it when you can hear the guest (someone who is usually at the top of their field and used to answering softball questions) thinking "christ, what am I supposed to say to that?"

But you don’t get good responses. Instead it’s just, “I hadn’t thought of that” or “That’s a good question but I’d need to think about it awhile.”

The idea that an expert should be able to give a fully-formed answer to a novel question on the spot is not a good one. Thinking takes time, which Cowen doesn’t give his guests. Subsequently most of his interviews are notable for their anecdotes or trivia, not for insightful responses.

I disagree, when he is interviewing really intelligent people it often works out quite well.

Most of his guests are quite intelligent. His style generally works well with people who have expertise in something or are just generally deep thinkers. He also picks interesting guests that people are generally aware of (sometimes). The mainstream guests are the by far the worst interviews, the PG one being a great example.

TC’s questions are far from random, but designed to be just adjacent to things the guest has commented on previously, or which he suspects they have may have given thought. If a guest gives a long discursive answer, he lets them go on or asks follow ups. Otherwise, he keeps moving forward to the next question, like drilling for oil. PG is never discursive in his answers, so this results in a rapid fire question-answer that nonetheless I found interesting.

PG kept saying how hard the questions were, but I wish he’d instead been more willing to just concentrate and go with the flow as the results would have been even more interesting.

I guess that style appeals to some people, but I don’t think it’s conducive for good conversations. A better conversationalist knows how to pull out a thread and keep the conversation going without immediately jumping to an unrelated topic. A real-life conversation like this would be just as jarring.

As an economist Cowen knows that the more conversational market for podcasts is already saturated, and decides not to pursue it. I personally prefer that the questions Cowen makes show that he knows rather well who he is interviewing and why. Someone like Lex Fridman is in comparison less prepared. The downside with Lex's style is that some interviewees are so used to do a performance talk on their work that it's like listening to a broken record -- those who know nothing about the person get to hear a shallow introduction, whereas those who know the person learn nothing new compared to the papers, books, or other youtube videos.

Like, if you have been on a podcast yourself you might prefer Fridman kind of discussion in which you can quite freely lead hence get your agenda across. It is quite clear many visit Fridman because they know they will get to sell their ideas.

TC says he is well-prepared for interviews, that he has read this book and listened to that interview of the current guest, but then asks questions that are way out of the interviewee's circle of competence, interests, or knowledge.

"Do you prefer this conductor or this other one?". And the guest has never listened to either of them. Similar questions are asked at every interview, and sometimes several times during the same interviews. To me, it sounds more pretentious than prepared.

He has very specific questions and theses he wants to get through with each person. You’ll certainly love it or hate it.

I enjoy that he often ventures outside of the common questions you would expect. Usually if you’ve heard someone on one podcast, you’ve heard them on all of them

I don't mind the atypical questions, I just dislike that he jumps from one to the next without really digging into them. Maybe it's just a time limitation.

I’m not sure why that is. He has dig into some answers in the past but maybe he had pre-thought out responses or something

There was (there is, but now he is older and much less popular) a famous Italian TV host, Giovanni Minoli, who had the same style of interviewing (you can find some of his interviews from the 1980s and 1990s on youtube; they are in Italian, but you can use a youtube translation tool). He was quick to speak, did not let the interviewee finish, and used to jump from one topic to another suddenly and unexpectedly. The same style as TC's, but Minoli and his team were way more prepared.

As a non-native speaker, I don't understand the exact meaning of being whiplashed in this comment. Online translators only point to the direct translation of someone being hit with a whip.

In here, does whiplashed mean something like being utterly surprised?

Dictionary.com has:

2. an abrupt snapping motion or change of direction resembling the lash of a whip.

6. to affect adversely, as by a sudden change: new taxes whiplashing corporate earnings.

Which is pretty accurate. Have you ever been on a roller coaster or similar ride at a theme park and been suddenly jerked in the opposite direction? That's basically what whiplash is.

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/whiplash

Kind of: "move suddenly and forcefully, like a whip being cracked". So in this case is that the guests are taken aback, surprised, put off by the sudden changes in the conversation.

Also, obligatory clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEdRnBR_Y48

More likely should he do a podcast with Lex Fridman, no?

Tyler Cowen is a much better interviewer than Lex Fridman imo

Cowen is not very flexible and clearly just is running through a list of questions, but I would take that over Fridman’s relatively shallow and boring questions like “what is love” any day

I don't know if it's possible to build an audience as large as Fridman’s without superficial treatment of wide ranging topics.

(I appreciate his efforts but I don't consider him a geek of any discipline or field, limiting his depth overall.)

Isn’t he a MIT professor? That seems like an awfully high bar

He is not a professor, and you would be surprised how little being an MIT affiliate means

I'm probably in the minority here but I don't really care a lot for Fridman's podcasts unless maybe it's a guest I'm really really interested in hearing. For a 1:1 conversation/interview, I personally find 1 hr. is about the limit--and when I had a podcast, I usually kept it to more like 30 minutes.

Minority, but not alone.

What annoys me most about Fridman is that he manages to snag a number of truly excellent guests ... and then produces truly mediocre interviews of them.

That and ... a three-hour ramble is simply too long. Either edit it down or break it up, or both.

Lex is Rogans little brother who’s into Dostoyevsky and existentialism and computers instead of comedy, MMA and psychedelics

Also, teenager-level philosophy.

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