Recommended Podcasts

I'm an avid podcast listener. Over the years, I've filtered through hundreds of shows to find the ones that consistently deliver value. This is my curated list organized by theme.

Technology and Software Engineering

• The Changelog: The backbone of the open source podcast world. Excellent interviews with maintainers, creators, and the people shaping modern software infrastructure.
• Syntax: Wes Bos and Scott Tolinski break down web development topics in a fun, approachable way. Great for frontend and full-stack developers.
• Software Engineering Radio: One of the longest-running software engineering podcasts. Deep, technical conversations about architecture, patterns, and practices. Produced by IEEE.
• Software Engineering Daily: Daily episodes covering a broad range of software topics — from databases to distributed systems to developer tooling.
• Coding Blocks: Three developers discuss software design patterns, best practices, and computer science fundamentals in an accessible way.
• Hanselminutes: Scott Hanselman brings a uniquely human perspective to tech. Wide-ranging topics from accessibility to programming languages.
• CoRecursive: Deep-dive storytelling about software. Each episode uncovers the fascinating story behind a piece of technology.
• The Pragmatic Engineer Podcast: Gergely Orosz covers the realities of working in tech — engineering culture, career growth, and industry trends.
• Developer Voices: In-depth conversations with developers about the technologies and ideas shaping the industry.

AI and Machine Learning

• Latent Space: The essential podcast for AI engineers. Covers the rapidly evolving landscape of LLMs, AI tooling, and applied AI with deep technical insight.
• Practical AI: From the Changelog network, focused on making AI practical and accessible. Great for understanding how AI is applied in the real world.
• The TWIML AI Podcast: This Week in Machine Learning & AI. Long-running show with interviews of researchers and practitioners across the ML spectrum.
• Gradient Dissent: Weights & Biases' podcast featuring conversations with ML practitioners about their work, tools, and the state of the field.
• Hard Fork: Kevin Roose and Casey Newton discuss the tech and AI stories shaping our world, with a good balance of depth and accessibility.

Business and Entrepreneurship

• How I Built This: Guy Raz tells the stories behind some of the world's best-known companies. Each episode is a mini-biography of entrepreneurial grit.
• Masters of Scale: Reid Hoffman explores the strategies and philosophies that helped companies grow from zero to massive scale.
• Lenny's Podcast: Lenny Rachitsky interviews product leaders, growth experts, and operators. Essential listening for product managers and startup builders.
• Noah Kagan Presents: The AppSumo founder shares practical business and marketing tactics with a no-nonsense approach.
• My First Million: Sam Parr and Shaan Puri brainstorm business ideas and break down what's working in entrepreneurship. Entertaining and idea-rich.
• Invest Like the Best: Patrick O'Shaughnessy dives deep into investing, business strategy, and the minds of exceptional operators and allocators.

Engineering Culture and Leadership

• Engineering Culture by InfoQ: Insights into how top engineering organizations build culture, manage teams, and ship software.
• Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Daily short episodes with practical insights for Scrum Masters and agile practitioners.
• The Engineering Manager Podcast: Focused on the challenges of engineering management — from 1:1s to org design.
• Level Up Engineering: Conversations about engineering leadership, team building, and scaling engineering organizations.

Science, Technology, and Society

• Freakonomics Radio: Steven Dubner uncovers the hidden side of everything, using economics as a lens to understand human behavior.
• Hidden Brain: Shankar Vedantam explores the unconscious patterns that drive our decisions and shape our lives. Consistently excellent.
• Techmeme Ride Home: A daily 15-minute recap of the most important tech news. Perfect for staying current without being overwhelmed.
• The Exponential View: Azeem Azhar examines how technology is reshaping our economy, politics, and society at an exponential pace.
• Lex Fridman Podcast: Long-form conversations with scientists, engineers, philosophers, and public figures. Covers AI, physics, consciousness, and more.
• 80,000 Hours: In-depth interviews about the world's most pressing problems and how to solve them. Thoughtful and research-driven.

Personal Growth and Thinking

• The Knowledge Project: Shane Parrish hosts in-depth conversations about decision-making, mental models, and mastering the best of what others have figured out.
• The Tim Ferriss Show: Tim Ferriss deconstructs world-class performers to extract the tools, tactics, and routines you can use.
• On Purpose: Jay Shetty combines ancient wisdom with modern psychology in conversations about purpose, relationships, and well-being.
• Huberman Lab: Andrew Huberman, a Stanford neuroscientist, discusses science-based tools for everyday life — from sleep to focus to stress management.
• Deep Questions: Cal Newport answers questions about productivity, deep work, and building a meaningful life in a distracted world.
• The Diary of a CEO: Steven Bartlett interviews business leaders, scientists, and cultural figures with a raw and unfiltered style.
• Naval: Sporadic but every episode is a gem. Naval Ravikant distills deep philosophical and entrepreneurial wisdom into concise, timeless insights.
• Derek Sivers: Rare episodes, but each one is a concentrated dose of unconventional thinking about life, business, and creativity from the founder of CD Baby.

Technology and Conversations

• The Kevin Rose Show: Kevin Rose brings his curiosity across tech, health, and culture. Infrequent releases but consistently high-quality guests and conversations.
• Acquired: Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal tell the complete stories behind great technology companies. Episodes are deep, meticulously researched, and run for hours.
• The All-In Podcast: Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, David Sacks, and David Friedberg debate tech, economics, and politics with insider perspectives.
• Darknet Diaries: True stories from the dark side of the internet — hacking, cybersecurity, and digital crime. Brilliantly produced narrative storytelling.

Some podcasts from previous versions of this list — such as Akimbo, Command Line Heroes, IRL Podcast, Developer On Fire, Legacy Code Rocks, The Rabbit Hole, and After On — were excellent but are no longer producing new episodes. Their back catalogs remain worth exploring.