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Ask HN: Which tech podcasts would you recommend to a friend?

by ekpyrotic on 3/19/23, 5:38 PM with 55 comments

There are a huge number of tech podcasts, but the quality is very hit & miss.

Which podcasts do you go out of your way to listen to? Which podcasts keep you up to date on the latest trends & subjects?

Which podcasts introduce you to new concepts & subjects in an engaging, informed, & intelligent way? Which tech podcasts do you trust?

  • by Strongbad536 on 3/19/23, 6:52 PM

    - Techmeme Ride Home (https://www.ridehome.info/show/techmeme-ride-home/)

    - Brad and Will Made a Tech Pod (https://techpod.content.town/)

    - Pivot (https://podcasts.voxmedia.com/show/pivot)

    - The Vergecast (https://podcasts.voxmedia.com/show/the-vergecast)

    - Decoder (https://podcasts.voxmedia.com/show/decoder-with-nilay-patel)

    - Daily Tech News Show (https://dailytechnewsshow.com/)

    - Hard Fork (Casey Newton of Platformer and Kevin Roose) (https://www.nytimes.com/column/hard-fork)

    Going more specifically into Software

    - Frontend Happy Hour (Ryan Burgess from Netflix and other smart SWEs/managers) (https://www.frontendhappyhour.com/)

    - Screaming in the Cloud (Corey Quinn) (https://www.lastweekinaws.com/podcast/screaming-in-the-cloud...)

    - Syntax FM (https://syntax.fm/)

  • by jacksgt on 3/19/23, 6:52 PM

    "CoRecursive: Coding Stories" (from Adam Gordon Bell) is one of the Podcasts I look forward to the most. Incredible high production value, yet very personal and down to earth.

    Probably one of the best episodes is the interview with Andreas Kling, the author of Serenity OS

    https://corecursive.com/serenity-os-with-andreas-kling/

  • by breatheoften on 3/19/23, 7:22 PM

    I really enjoy Software Unscripted by Richard Feldman.

    He interviews well-spoken programmers and skill leaders from a variety of language ecosystems -- and usually the guests share his appreciation for simple, strongly typed, functional and pure functional programming languages (like Elm).

    Currently Richard Feldman is building a new language and ecosystem inspired by Elm but for non-browser application domains -- and he often discusses concepts and engineering trade offs as related to the design and implementation choices that are being made while growing this (to me quite exciting) new language.

  • by almog on 3/19/23, 6:52 PM

      - Randomly Typed (haven't seen a new episode come out in a while but these two Canadian guys are great!)
  - Coding Blocks (I like their book club episodes a lot, specifically DDIA)
  - Talk Python To Me
  - Software Engineering Daily (most episodes that came out until 2020 or so are excellent and go to such depths that I haven't encountered from any other interviewer, quality of newer ones isn't consistent)
  - Jane Street's Signals and Threads
  - Techmeme Ride Home (tech news)
  - Data Skeptic (data science)

  • by andrefuchs on 3/19/23, 6:12 PM

    Darknet Diaries is my favorite podcast. (darknetdiaries.com)

  • by hawski on 3/19/23, 6:29 PM

    Maybe I'm strange, but if I would have a friend I would recommend him to either listen to some nice radio with music and news, just favorite kind of music or nothing. Lately I'm partial to the sounds of a pebble beach or strange Buddhist rhythms. Also Lo-Fi music compilations seem soothing, lately I've found Alien Cake Music with Lo-Fi Grunge. I think that this Lo-Fi trend lately and in general the thing some people say about analog audio, that it is softer is about how sound with some noise added is akin to a massage for the brain.

  • by koenw on 3/19/23, 6:54 PM

    I love Oxide and Friends (and previously On The Metal, of course)

    About systems programming and open source. The episodes go surprisingly deep and are still fast-paced and stream-of-consciousness with contributions from anybody who has something meaningful to say in their group call.

  • by jnsaff2 on 3/19/23, 6:30 PM

    My all time favorite is still Omega Tau [0]. They really go deep into detail on the topics. It's been getting less frequent lately but the back catalog is very impressive and most of the topics don't age.

    [0] - http://omegataupodcast.net/

  • by dileep31 on 3/20/23, 2:50 PM

    Here's my Data Engineering and Data Science list:

    Data Stack show (https://datastackshow.com/) Data Engineering podcast (https://www.dataengineeringpodcast.com/) Data Skeptic (https://dataskeptic.com/) The Data Scientist Show (https://www.youtube.com/c/thedatascientistshow/videos)

    I also like Business wars but that's not "tech" exactly.

  • by joblazny on 3/19/23, 6:16 PM

    Lex Fridman. He does long form interviews (~4 hours) on more than just tech, and all of the guests he interviews are fascinating. He simultaneously approaches his interviews from a scientific background (MIT AI lecturer) and a love for humanity. If you like tech, one episode I'd like to recommend is episode #309 with John Carmack.

    https://youtu.be/I845O57ZSy4

  • by zwayhowder on 3/19/23, 7:18 PM

    The Full Stack Journey by Scott Lowe. https://feeds.packetpushers.net/fullstackjourney

    Fascinating listening to how others learn and grow.

    Screaming in the Cloud by Corey Quinn. https://www.lastweekinaws.com/podcast/screaming-in-the-cloud...

    Similar episodes plus more snark than you can poke a stick at.

  • by paulcole on 3/19/23, 6:07 PM

    Accidental Tech Podcast is a good mix of informative and entertaining. Daring Fireball is also a regular listen for me for similar reasons.

    For both of these, I like that the hosts are clearly biased.

  • by d1str0 on 3/19/23, 6:51 PM

    Risky Business is my favorite for security news. Quick, succinct, charming hosts.

  • by rayrag on 3/19/23, 6:36 PM

    https://twit.tv/shows?shows_active=1 - more than dozen podcasts: tech news, apple, windows, google android and more.

    https://latenightlinux.com/about/ - linux

    https://changelog.com/podcasts - few podcasts about various tech subjects: tech/js/ai

    https://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/ - linux, self-hosting

    https://www.latent.space/podcast - new podcast about ai

    https://syntax.fm/ - mostly frontend webdev

    https://shoptalkshow.com/ - mostly frontend webdev

  • by omwegaer on 3/19/23, 7:00 PM

    Data Stack Show (https://datastackshow.com/)

  • by aranke on 3/19/23, 7:10 PM

  • by eimrine on 3/19/23, 6:46 PM

    I love Radio-T (the oldest russian-speaking podcast). I'm pretty sure my post will be read by authors because HN is a main source for them. They use to love Java, Apple, mechanical keyboards and correctly filled fields in MP3.

  • by guilhas on 3/19/23, 6:58 PM

  • by janalsncm on 3/19/23, 6:23 PM

    Not necessarily tech specifically but Radiolab is science focused and has had a few great episodes on tech subjects. “Post No Evil” is a few years old but I still recommend it.

  • by sreedhark on 3/19/23, 6:26 PM

  • by greenbeard on 3/19/23, 7:04 PM

  • by zargon on 3/19/23, 6:55 PM

    https://embedded.fm/ is the only one I really listen to.

  • by blakesterz on 3/19/23, 6:18 PM

    I don't know if this is exactly what you had in mind, but The Verge has a bunch of interesting podcasts that I go out of my way for and that are "tech" focused.

    https://www.theverge.com/podcasts

  • by blowski on 3/19/23, 7:15 PM

    Most of the tech podcasts I've listened to have had a very low information density because of:

    * over-use of sound effects

    * shouty people

    * unfunny jokes (might get a chuckle in the pub, but that's not why I'm listening)

    * saturated by advertising

    Darknet Diaries gets the balance right. I'd love to find more which provide that kind of value.

  • by thraizz on 3/19/23, 7:00 PM

    Changelog (primarily just the main show, sometimes Go Time/JS Party) and Syntax

  • by hashstring on 3/19/23, 6:25 PM

    @tpatcek, what happened to “Security, Cryptography, Whatever”? I’m missing it.

  • by xtracto on 3/19/23, 7:13 PM

    Related question: any of these podcasts that is available to download In mp3 format on a pc? I want a podcast I can copy to an mp3 player for swimming. But most platforms dont provide mp3 downloads

  • by ge96 on 3/19/23, 6:44 PM

    Tech meme is the one or "ride home podcast"

    Covers random stuff, if you wanted programming specific I could suggest some of those but many are already pointed out by others

  • by evntdrvn on 3/19/23, 6:28 PM

    - On The Metal - Corecursive - Soft Skills Engineering

  • by mashedpotatoo on 3/19/23, 6:27 PM

    TWIT's podcasts cover all the tech platforms and news in the tech world This Week in Tech is a must listen!

  • by wdroz on 3/19/23, 6:19 PM

    Darknet Diaries

    Test & Code

    Rustacean Station

    Talk Python to me

  • by racedude on 3/19/23, 6:33 PM

  • by n8henrie on 3/19/23, 6:26 PM

    2.5 admins

    Darknet Diaries

    Self hosted

    Linux after dark

    Linux unplugged

    Linux action news

  • by rlawson on 3/19/23, 7:15 PM

      Django Chat
  Talk Python To Me
  The Real Python Podcast

  • by dunno7456 on 3/19/23, 6:26 PM

    Ruby Rogues

  • by 0xCAP on 3/19/23, 9:39 PM

    Devtools.fm

  • by awesomegoat_com on 3/19/23, 6:37 PM

    - Remote Ruby

    - TLB Hit

  • by samstave on 3/19/23, 7:44 PM

    I'd like to hear this as well.

    I cast a wide net in my information gathering, but I tend to still skim a boatload of content...

    Because, I don't trust any of it. I take the skeptic (not cynical, there is a difference) on all content.

    Because given that I have been on the internet for decades, I've seen how the sausage is made through a number of company lenses and roles....

    However, as I age, one thing I have found out is that expertise atrophies at an incredible rate.

    I was one of Intels DRG managers testing all sorts of kit, from private dealings with the initial Unreal engine, gaming testing on plasma monitors for subjective visual glitching etc...

    But the space of tech is just so fn huge these days, and expertise (and relevancy) don't age well....

    So, I just dont know who to keep up with given the scale of tech info out there... as Tech has become the Mycelium to the Human Organism (the fruit of the Tech-celium) - We built the ornaism that controls us.