Likely because Podcast presenters usually want to reach a wide audience, they typically facilitate conversations at a shallow level, relative to natural conversation between experts. That’s a shame: many intelligent outsiders to a field would enjoy deeper discussions. And the practice of constantly keeping the listener’s understanding in mind often makes the conversation feel performative.
Some good counter-examples: Peter Attia when discussing longevity with peers on “The Drive”; Eric Weinstein more recently (e.g. with Garrett Lisi) on “The Portal”; Tyler Cowen with fellow economists on “Conversations with Tyler.”
It seems that there’s a valuable opportunity to produce podcasts which represent authentic technical conversation between intelligent experts.
Conversation with Patrick Collison and Michael Nielsen, 2019-12-24