In 2020, my information medium has shifted from reading to listening to podcasts. During covid, I spend a lot of time outdoor getting to nowhere (literally). I just stroll around for fresh air, go for a run, or simply people (or dog actually) watch. Podcast has been my knowledgeable company. I feel like there are a certain type of topic that does well in a vocal form, while with others might better stay verbal (or both, like a Youtube video). Here’s my list of favorite podcasts, covering several categories.
News, Economics and Finance
- WSJ Your Money Briefing: Insights on investing, markets, taxes and retirement planning
- WSJ The Journal: A podcast about money, business and power, hosted by Kate Linebaugh and Ryan Knutson. My favorite session recently: “Inside the Government’s largest hack in years”, covering the scandal of SolarWinds.
- CNN Daily News Briefing: Latest headlines in 3 minutes or less, 5 days a week.
- Economist Radio : Mostly for longer form of politics anlysis, social and civil issues
- The Daily by the New York Times: Hosted by journalist Michale Barbaro, The Daily covers anecdotes from breaking news every day for 20 minutes.
- Robinhood Snacks: Breakdown of top 3 business stories in 15 minutes
- Numbers by Barron’s: Break down the market’s stories into three essential numbers. The podcast session runs less than 3 minutes on average.
Tech
- a16z Podcast: I was expecting a Silicon Valley type of tech conversation, but ended up pleasantly surprised about the way the show decodes how innovation and technology change our day to day life in broader aspects. Favorite session: The PPP Omnibus, Eminent Domain, Fraud and Fintech
- a16z Sixteen Minutes news: Short news podcast covering top headlines of the week in tech and business, What sets the podcast apart is the host Sonal Chokshi who came from WIRED previously. She introduces nuances, and provokes lots of deep thoughts around the process behind an event or an observation. On her own website, Sonal describe her ethnographic approach “that often marries psychology, intellect and technology”. The format is: Why are the topics in the news, what’s hype and what’s real, what are the experts’ quick takes on these trends.
SaaS
- Nathan Latka : Learn how SaaS CEO and startup founders launch and grow their business. The show runs from 15-30mins everyday (kudos to Nathan’s consistency!). The guests on the show share granular numbers (churn rate, runway, quota for Sales Rep, CAC, LTV etc.). The types of companies range from bootstrapped to funded, MVP to 10,000 customers, pre-revenue to pre-IPO. If you’re into the numbers, listen in.
- SaaStr Podcast: Probably the most comprehensive podcast about SaaS, the show covers companies at all stages (early, exit, growth, scale) and different functions (Customer Success, Engineering, HR, Leadership, Marketing, Product, Sales). Their Youtube video also includes the Q&A session.
Venture capital
- The Twenty Minute VC: Hosted by Harry Stebbings, the show airs twice weekly, featuring Guy Kawasaki, Brad Feld, and Mike Seibel and so on. The show covers the career path of venture capitalists, their investment principles, and the way they assess startup teams. Each episode sheds some light on the VC’s most recent publicly announced investment.
Marketing operations
- Operations with Sean Lane by Drift: The unsexy truth behind Marketing and Sales Operations. The show is live every other Friday, live from Sean Lane, Director of Operations at Drift. Both the host and guests are people who are deep in the weeds, who can both discuss a Salesforce/Marketo hack, but also provide us with 360degree view around scaling an organization (from a database, sales planning, capacity planning viewpoint)
- Humans of Martech: Jon Taylor and Phil Gamache discuss lifecycle marketing, email marketing, Martech stack and other goodies for your Martech career (e.g how to work with engineers). Highly recommend for technical marketer.
Growth
- The Growth TL DR by Kieran Flanagan and Scott Tousley: Indepth marketing explanation of the fastest growing companies in the world.
Entrepreneurship
- Side Hustle School by Chris Guillebeau: More focused on solopreneur, creative entrepreneur or SMB type of business owner, people who wants to make some side income from their passion projects (most of the time unrelated to their day job). You can search for different categories (Service, Product, Affiliate, Manufacturing, Arts & Craft, etc.) and different level of business complexity. The show is about slow and steady grind, not the explosive scale Silicon Valley type.
Relationship
- Love Letters by The Boston Globe: Because the world needs more empathy, and I always love the eloquent command of words by Meredith Goldstein. What can I say? It’s a lovely podcast, which content digs deeper into human’s psychology, explores different types of relationships (not just romantic ones). The podcast also addresses lots of emotional growth and mental health topics, not to mention, the music part nothing short of cinematic.
That’s a wrap. What’s your favorite podcast in 2020?
