Best Dwarkesh Patel Podcasts (2025)

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#1019 - Finn Taylor & Horatio Gould - History is a Freakshow 1:32:43

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10m ago1:32:43

1:32:43

Fin Taylor is an English comedian, writer and podcaster. Horatio Gould is also an English comedian, writer, and podcaster. History is basically one long reminder that no matter how bad your day is, someone in the past was probably getting catapulted off a castle wall. Feel better? Good. Humanity may be a litany of disasters, but the past is packed …

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What is psychosomatic illness? (with Suzanne O'Sullivan) 1:48:43

5h ago1:48:43

1:48:43

Read the full transcript here. What changes when long COVID is split into medical damage, post-viral fatigue, misattribution, and psychosomatic mechanisms? When symptoms soar while tests stay normal, what should count as evidence? When do surveys without controls manufacture a syndrome we then chase? Does renaming “psychosomatic” to “functional” cl…

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Satya Nadella — How Microsoft is preparing for AGI 1:27:47

1h ago1:27:47

1:27:47

As part of this interview, Satya Nadella gave Dylan Patel (founder of SemiAnalysis) and me an exclusive first-look at their brand-new Fairwater 2 datacenter. Microsoft is building multiple Fairwaters, each of which has hundreds of thousands of GB200s & GB300s. Between all these interconnected buildings, they’ll have over 2 GW of total capacity. Jus…

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AI Business Models, Rare Earths, and China's Economic Challenges 54:49

2d ago54:49

54:49

In this episode of Econ 102, Noah Smith and Erik Torenberg explore AI's effects on productivity, how AI business models will shake out, the US and China's rare earth minerals industries, and China's economic challenges, including demographics, real estate, and involution. - Sponsors: Notion AI meeting notes lives right in Notion, everything you cap…

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Shampoo, Property Rights, and Civilization (with Anthony Gill) 1:08:19

2d ago1:08:19

1:08:19

Why is it okay to take the little shampoo bottles in hotels home with you but not the towels? And what stops people from taking the towels? Listen as political scientist Anthony Gill discusses the enforcement of property rights with EconTalk's Russ Roberts. Backing up their observations with insights from Adam Smith, Friedrich Hayek, and our everyd…

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#1018 - Peter Crouch - Behind The Bravado of Modern British Football 1:35:39

3d ago1:35:39

1:35:39

Peter Crouch is a former professional footballer, sports pundit, and podcaster. What was it like playing in the Premier League alongside some of football’s most intense personalities? In an era where a goal celebration, whether it was the robot or a knee slide, showed your confidence as much as your skill, what was life like for Peter Crouch back t…

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#1017 - Jonathan Anomaly - What Embryo Selection Means for Humanity 2:02:40

5d ago2:02:40

2:02:40

Dr Jonathan Anomaly is a philosopher, professor and an author. What if you could design your own “super baby”? Imagine erasing genetic diseases, removing inherited conditions, and even selecting traits for beauty or intelligence. How close are we to making this possible, and what unintended consequences could this unleash? Expect to learn why embry…

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We Met NEO, the Viral Humanoid Robot + HatGPT 1:08:04

5d ago1:08:04

1:08:04

This week, we’re joined by Bernt Bornich, chief executive of 1X. We talked with him about NEO, his company’s new humanoid robot, which has the internet buzzing. Then we meet NEO itself, and compare notes on the experience. Finally, we close the week with a roundup of tech news headlines: It’s time for some HatGPT. Guests: Bernt Bornich, chief execu…

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#1016 - Rob Henderson - Is Having a Boyfriend Cringe Now? 1:27:13

7d ago1:27:13

1:27:13

Rob Henderson holds a PhD in psychology from the University of Cambridge and is a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. When did having a boyfriend become cringe? For as long as men have been men and women have been women, finding a partner to share life with has been one of humanity’s oldest goals. So what changed? Why has wanting connection b…

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What causes mass shootings? (with Ragy Girgis) 1:20:31

7d ago1:20:31

1:20:31

Read the full transcript here. What do we miss when we treat public shootings as the whole story of mass murder? If public events are a small slice, how should prevention and attention shift? Does saturation coverage turn tragedy into aspiration for the fame-seeking few? Do school “active-shooter” drills protect kids—or seed fear and imitation? Sho…

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Primal Intelligence (with Angus Fletcher) 1:20:41

3d ago1:20:41

1:20:41

What do Shakespeare, Hollywood storytelling, and military special operations have in common? They all excel at inventing new plans, or improvising when we're facing radical uncertainty. Listen as professor of story science Angus Fletcher tells EconTalk's Russ Roberts how we've misdefined intelligence, equating it with data--driven reasoning in plac…

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#1015 - Alain de Botton - 16 Lessons from The School Of Life 1:29:31

10d ago1:29:31

1:29:31

Alain de Botton is a philosopher, author, and founder of The School of Life. How can we truly understand ourselves? Most of us either ignore our emotions or overthink them, turning simple feelings into complex puzzles. So how do we navigate the minefield of emotion to grow and become better? Sponsors: See discounts for all the products I use and re…

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#1014 - Dr Marc Brackett - The Life-Changing Skill of Emotional Regulation 1:30:40

12d ago1:30:40

1:30:40

Dr. Marc Brackett is a professor at Yale University, the founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, and author. Why is it so hard to actually feel our emotions? In a world that tells us to “be more vulnerable,” many of us don’t even know what that really means. Are we being unregulated when we express emotion, or are we finall…

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Sarah Paine – How Russia sabotaged China's rise 1:30:36

6d ago1:30:36

1:30:36

In this lecture, military historian Sarah Paine explains how Russia—and specifically Stalin—completely derailed China’s rise, slowing them down for over a century. This lecture was particularly interesting to me because, in my opinion, the Chinese Civil War is 1 of the top 3 most important events of the 20th century. And to understand why it transp…

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Character.AI’s Teen Chatbot Crackdown + Elon Musk Groks Wikipedia + 48 Hours Without A.I. 1:00:38

13d ago1:00:38

1:00:38

This week, Character.AI announced that it would soon be taking its A.I. companions away from teens. We explain why this is a major development in the world of chatbots and child safety and how we expect other companies to respond. Then, Elon Musk has built a Wikipedia clone called “Grokipedia.” We discuss what it means for the control of knowledge …

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#1013 - Scott Galloway - How to Fix a Culture of Emasculated Men 1:45:50

14d ago1:45:50

1:45:50

Scott Galloway is a professor of marketing at the New York University Stern School of Business, a public speaker, entrepreneur and an author. Why are so many young men struggling today? In a world that often focuses on the oppression of others, it’s easy to forget that men are part of that story too. What’s actually being done to address men’s chal…

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Contempt-free public discourse (with Robert Rosenkranz) 1:11:06

8d ago1:11:06

1:11:06

Read the full transcript here. What makes a forum truly open-minded rather than performative? When does listening change minds instead of just hardening identities? Are we teaching citizens to separate facts from frames? Do the best debates surface values as well as evidence? How can we reward calm argument over outrage economics? What reforms redu…

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A Mind-Blowing Way of Looking at Math (with David Bessis) 1:21:53

17d ago1:21:53

1:21:53

What if math isn't about grinding through equations, but about training your intuition and changing how your brain works? Mathematician and author David Bessis tells EconTalk's Russ Roberts that the secret of mathematics isn't logic--it's the way we learn to see. He explains why math books aren't meant to be read like novels, how great mathematicia…

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#1012 - Alex O’Connor & Joe Folley - Is Being Smart Worth the Depression? 1:58:56

17d ago1:58:56

1:58:56

Alex O’Connor is a YouTuber, writer and a podcaster. Joe Folley is a philosopher, writer, and host of the Unsolicited Advice YouTube channel. Philosophy has spent thousands of years trying to teach us how to live well. But the deeper you go, the darker it gets. So what’s the point? What can we take from all that heaviness, and how do we find beauty…

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#1011 - Eliezer Yudkowsky - Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All 1:37:08

19d ago1:37:08

1:37:08

Eliezer Yudkowsky is an AI researcher, decision theorist, and founder of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. Is AI our greatest hope or our final mistake? For all its promise to revolutionize human life, there’s a growing fear that artificial intelligence could end it altogether. How grounded are these fears, how close are we to losing con…

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Celebrities Fight Sora + Amazon’s Secret Automation Plans + ChatGPT Gets a Browser 1:07:57

20d ago1:07:57

1:07:57

Backlash to OpenAI’s video generation app Sora has reached a new tipping point. We discuss two big changes the company is making, after Bryan Cranston and the family of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. complained about deepfakes. Then, New York Times reporter Karen Weise joins us to discuss her scoop that Amazon plans to reduce its hiring needs …

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#1010 - Bernie Sanders - Who Actually Runs the US Government? 1:09:03

21d ago1:09:03

1:09:03

Bernie Sanders is a US Senator, former presidential candidate, political activist and an author. What happened to the Democratic Party? After a brutal defeat to Trump in 2024, the Left looks lost, divided, leaderless, and unsure of its future. Bernie Sanders breaks down what went wrong, how Democrats are trying to recover, and whether they’ve learn…

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Beyond the assumption that humans are rational (with Barry Schwartz) 1:21:44

15d ago1:21:44

1:21:44

Read the full transcript here. What does rationality mean when life won’t fit a spreadsheet? If models demand one common scale, what happens to values that can’t be compared? Are we optimizing choices, or narrowing them to what’s easy to count? When do toy problems stop teaching us about real ones? Can preferences be “mapped” if the act of asking r…

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Twenty Years of Freakonomics (with Stephen Dubner) 1:42:44

17d ago1:42:44

1:42:44

Quantitative, contrarian, and nuanced: these are the hallmarks of the Freakonomics approach. Hear journalist and podcaster Stephen Dubner speak with EconTalk's Russ Roberts about the 20th anniversary of the popular-economics book Dubner co-authored with Steven Levitt. They discuss how the book came to be, how the journey changed Dubner's life, and …

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#1009 - Bugzy Malone - Harsh Lessons in Unorthodox Strategy 2:31:35

24d ago2:31:35

2:31:35

Bugzy Malone is a British rapper, actor, and entrepreneur from Manchester, England. From gang life to greatness, Bugzy Malone’s rise is a story of struggle, survival, and self-belief. As one of the most defining voices in UK rap, his journey is equal parts pain and power. Expect to learn why being a role model takes it’s toll on some people, the li…

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#1008 - Angelo Somers - Why Life Feels So Pointless (and what to do) 2:13:25

26d ago2:13:25

2:13:25

Angelo Somers is a content creator, YouTuber, and author. Why does life sometimes feel like it’s lost its meaning? Everyone hits moments where optimism fades and the world starts to look a little darker. You’re not broken for feeling that way; it happens to the best of us. But why does this quiet pessimism seem to be growing, and how do we find our…

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Andrej Karpathy — AGI is still a decade away 2:25:19

20d ago2:25:19

2:25:19

The Andrej Karpathy episode. During this interview, Andrej explains why reinforcement learning is terrible (but everything else is much worse), why AGI will just blend into the previous ~2.5 centuries of 2% GDP growth, why self driving took so long to crack, and what he sees as the future of education. It was a pleasure chatting with him. Watch on …

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California Regulates A.I. Companions + OpenAI Investigates Its Critics + The Hard Fork Review of Slop 1:05:10

27d ago1:05:10

1:05:10

This week, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California signed a big package of A.I. and social media bills into law — including the first state law in the United States to regulate A.I. companions. We talk through what stood out to us in the package and whether these protections will work. Then, the subpoena that has the whole tech world talking. Nathan Calvin…

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#1007 - Dr K HealthyGamer - The Toxic Fuel That’s Destroying Your Motivation 2:53:41

28d ago2:53:41

2:53:41

Dr K is a psychiatrist, Harvard Medical School instructor, co-founder of Healthy GamerGG, Twitch streamer and a YouTuber. Why are we driven by what destroys us? Using anger or jealousy can spark our motivation, but when it goes too far, it consumes us. What are healthier ways to stay motivated, and how do we find peace instead of pressure Expect to…

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Will AI superintelligence kill us all? (with Nate Soares) 1:24:17

26d ago1:24:17

1:24:17

Read the full transcript here. Are the existential risks posed by superhuman AI fundamentally different from prior technological threats such as nuclear weapons or pandemics? How do the inherent “alien drives” that emerge from AI training processes complicate our ability to control or align these systems? Can we truly predict the behavior of entiti…

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The Magic of Tokyo (with Joe McReynolds) 1:09:23

24d ago1:09:23

1:09:23

What drives the seeming relentless dynamism of Tokyo? Is there something special about Japanese culture? Joe McReynolds, co-author of Emergent Tokyo, argues that the secret to Tokyo's energy and attractiveness as a place to live and visit comes from policies that allow Tokyo to emerge from the bottom up. Post-war black markets evolved into today's …

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#1006 - Chris Bumstead - Life After Olympia: Fatherhood, TRT & Finding Purpose 2:00:05

1M ago2:00:05

2:00:05

Chris Bumstead is a professional bodybuilder, 6x Mr. Olympia Classic Physique title holder, and a business owner. From 6× Mr. Olympia to full-time business owner and stay-at-home dad, it’s safe to say Chris Bumstead’s been enjoying retired life. So what’s he been up to this past year, what’s changed most for him, and what’s he looking forward to ne…

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#1005 - Warren Smith - J.K. Rowling & The Cost of Speaking Freely 1:15:28

1M ago1:15:28

1:15:28

Warren Smith is a filmmaker, educator, and host of the “Secret Scholar Society” YouTube channel. If freedom of speech can be shouted down, does it really exist? When every debate turns into partisan noise, what does honest discourse even look like? If we can’t talk about our problems without resorting to anger or violence, how can we ever solve the…

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Nick Lane – Life as we know it is chemically inevitable 1:20:08

27d ago1:20:08

1:20:08

Nick Lane has some pretty wild ideas about the evolution of life. He thinks early life was continuous with the spontaneous chemistry of undersea hydrothermal vents. Nick’s story may be wrong, but I find it remarkable that with just that starting point, you can explain so much about why life is the way that it is — the things you’re supposed to just…

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ChatGPT’s Platform Play + a Trillion-Dollar GPU Empire + the Queen of Slop 1:06:35

1M ago1:06:35

1:06:35

This week, we discuss the standout moments from our field trip to OpenAI’s third annual DevDay — including a bizarre chat between Jony Ive and Sam Altman, and the announcement that OpenAI is putting apps into ChatGPT. Then, we try to make sense of the massive computing deal between OpenAI and AMD, and how it could impact the larger economy. And fin…

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#1004 - Sam Corcos - Inside DOGE, The IRS & How to Scam the US Government 2:56:09

1M ago2:56:09

2:56:09

Sam Corcos is an entrepreneur, CEO of Levels, and a special advisor to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). What’s really happening inside the U.S. government? For the first time, a DOGE insider exposes the chaos, corruption, and dysfunction plaguing Washington. How did America’s most powerful system lose its way, and can we climb out of…

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Do facts have an expiration date? (with Samuel Arbesman) 1:15:37

1M ago1:15:37

1:15:37

Read the full transcript here. What does it mean to treat facts as drafts rather than monuments? If truth is something we approach, how do we act while it’s still provisional? When definitions shift, what really changes? How do better instruments quietly rewrite the world we think we know? Are we mostly refining truths or replacing them? When do sc…

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Manufacturing's Future, The Electric Tech Stack, and Automation 56:02

30d ago56:02

56:02

By Natalie Toren

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The Invisible Hierarchies that Rule Our World (with Toby Stuart) 1:13:15

1M ago1:13:15

1:13:15

Status isn't fixed; it's transferred and "bestowed," shaping who gets resources, attention, and opportunity. So argues author Toby Stuart of UC Berkeley in his book, Anointed. He and EconTalk's Russ Roberts explore why hierarchies persist--reducing conflict, allocating scarce resources, and curating our overwhelming choices--and how endorsements, b…

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#1003 - Konstantin Kisin - The Forces Behind Britain's Downfall 2:17:56

1M ago2:17:56

2:17:56

Konstantin Kisin is a podcaster, a speaker and an author. Is the UK facing its breaking point? Once the world’s greatest empire, the UK now finds itself engulfed in political chaos and cultural upheaval. From leadership crises to deep divisions, what’s really happening on the front lines, and can Britain be saved from itself? Expect to learn why th…

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Some thoughts on the Sutton interview 11:39

1M ago11:39

11:39

I have a much better understanding of Sutton’s perspective now. I wanted to reflect on it a bit. (00:00:00) - The steelman (00:02:42) - TLDR of my current thoughts (00:03:22) - Imitation learning is continuous with and complementary to RL (00:08:26) - Continual learning (00:10:31) - Concluding thoughts Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwa…

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#1002 - Andrew Doyle - Political Violence & The Lunatics of Your Own Side 2:33:01

1M ago2:33:01

2:33:01

Andrew Doyle is Titania McGrath, host of GB News, a comedian and a writer. The world has shifted dramatically over the past few years, and the pace of change has only accelerated in recent months. Ideas that once lived outside the mainstream have quickly entered the Overton Window, while others have been pushed out. So what does the future hold for…

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Sora and the Infinite Slop Feeds + ChatGPT Goes to Therapy + Hot Mess Express 1:05:54

1M ago1:05:54

1:05:54

This week, we’re talking about the new A.I.-generated video tools and social media feeds from Google, Meta and OpenAI. Is this how A.I. is going to cure cancer? Then, the psychotherapist Gary Greenberg stops by to discuss his recent New Yorker essay about treating ChatGPT as a patient, and why what he saw left him unsettled. And finally, all aboard…

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#1001 - Ryan Holiday - Stoicism’s Lessons on Becoming Wise 1:52:43

1M ago1:52:43

1:52:43

Ryan Holiday is a podcaster, marketer and an author.If intelligence were enough, the smartest among us would also be the wisest. Yet time and again, they stumble over life’s simplest lessons. Wisdom isn’t about knowing more; it’s about seeing deeper. So how do we shed the illusion of being ‘smart,’ and actually grow into wisdom?Expect to learn what…