I used to like this podcast a lot more, but now dwarkesh suggests a lot of his own ideas and treats it more like a brainstorm session for himself. He’s nice and curious, but he’s also 26 and doesn’t know much about the subjects. This review would change if he goes to humbly interviewing his guests.

I am relatively new to this show. It’s one of those that I have meant to get round too but a combination of (1) there are others that I have saved and planned to listen to first and (2) this stuff is heavy going so let me put if off till I’m ready, that stopped me from buckling down. And then when I’m just about ready to listen to one of his episodes it turns out to be Terence Tao, the Richard Dawkins of pure mathematics. I could have said the Stephen Hawking of mathematics and it would have conveyed the same meaning. Someone who has made himself (or less likely been made) the “brand ambassador of math”. This is one of the scourges of modern media. Tao would have been remembered as a sort of latter day Ulam or Erdos of mathematics, but now the media has seized on him as the next Ramanujan. Even if that were true modern mathematics has no time for Ramanujans. It needs more elegant theorists.

Interesting guests and topics. Admire the hustle and sweat of Dwarkesh. Some good insights. But sometimes it’s tiring, pedantic and monotonous. And difficult to follow because of the minutia and cadence. But the biggest issue for me is D’s interview delivery. It’s so jumpy, fast and nervous it literally makes me jittery. It takes away from the content. Moderation is needed. I

Unfortunately you speak Californian, too fast, inflection at the end of the sentence. Go to broadcasting school, or hire a speech coach.

Normally the show is intellectually interesting even with disagreements but the entire 2 hrs is Huang calling every single thing out of Dwarkesh’s mouth stupid and illogical but then giving politician answers no real justifications. He sounds like a child and really takes away from any of his so called “expertise”.

Pure brain food for people seeking to understand the most impactful people, companies, and forces shaping the future of human science and technology (with an emphasis on AI). Dwarkesh interviews the “who’s who” of tech leaders, along with other noteworthy guests. He is very intelligent, well researched, and well prepared for these interviews, and the resulting podcast episodes are a great service to anyone who listens. Truly excellent. Thank you Dwarkesh. Keep up the good work!

Pay me and I’ll teach you how to think and to not be a corny bootlicker.

I can’t in good conscious support anyone who platforms Elon Musk or other horribly out of touch billionaires wreaking havoc on society and the planet.

More AI shilling, bubble inflating, and platforming of fraudsters. Honestly, feels like a nepo-baby was gifted a generous annuity and a podcast without working one iota for it.

I had a lot of respect for Dwarkesh and his willingness to engage in difficult conversations with his guests but he fell far short on the Elon interview. He let’s Elon go on and on about the importance of being “rigorously truth seeking” and instead of challenging Elon on a single instance of his long history of spreading misinformation, Dwarkesh only manages to muster a bro-y joke about how Elon must “know people” if he needs to get some regulations handled. I get that this isn’t a political podcast but given Elon’s well-documented history of putting his thumb on the scale of his AI/ML systems an ad hominem debate is not only appropriate, it’s necessary. If Dwarkesh is unwilling to challenge a guest’s obvious double-standard then he shouldn’t have that guest on the show to platform their skewed and unchecked “misrepresentations”.

That’s the only suggestion I have - you just talk at a speed that feels like 10x. Not sure if you are always in some sort of rush.

Maybe practice some discipline and stop cutting off the PHD HISTORIANS that are trying to explain things? Just a suggestion. It is straight up infuriating to try listening to an eloquent person like Paine or Kotkin get cut off by some vapid disagreement or statement.

But the interviewer should be a lot more skeptical of Elon Musk’s pie in the sky bs. Speeding up semiconductor manufacturing is just a little bit harder than making rockets and cars. As if he could engineer a faster EUV scanner lol. Also Ian M Banks would have hated Musk quoting his Culture.

As an EA I have to object to platforming that monster Elon who illegally destroyed USAID. Other than that, I’d give the podcast 5 stars! Very informative about AI developments.

Gwern Branwen turned me on to the Dwarkesh Podcast a little more than a year ago and I am still enjoying it. It’s been one of the podcasts where I just keep adding to the queue. It keeps me in the loop on AI and where it’s going. I’ve worked with machine learning in many forms over the years and AI/ML is growing so fast it’s hard to keep up with the details now. Plus a lot of the leading edge work is now proprietary, less GPT/Chinchilla scaling law papers out in the open, so the podcast makes up for that. But, I enjoy the field and love hearing about it from folks at the leading edge of it. And, this podcast keeps me interested in that regard. Plus I like historical content and the podcast features a lot of that as well, which makes me aware of other perspectives. It’s great to hear things that were not covered correctly or were absent from my formal schooling curriculum. Thumbs up to Dwarkish for providing a young fresh perspective on a range of interesting topics.

More Sarah Paine, please! Your other interviews are good, but not as good as Sarah Paine’s lectures

Dwarkesh always finds great guests and is fast with relevant questions. While I am grateful for podcasters, some sort of veer off subject. Not here!

For anyone serious about staying really up to date on AI this has to be towards the top of your list. Thanks to Dwarkesh for bringing us amazing conversations 🙏

Satya interview was peerless. Thanks!

Dwarkesh podcast is something you gotta pay attention to while listening. There is so much research, so much knowledge and so much thought goes behind every question. Sarah Paine episodes were stellar.

Feels like a lot of quality research goes into every episode. I see it as the gold standard for podcasts. Good stuff.

Well done

I give this 5 stars because I am really interested in futurism, technology, history and global politics. This is one of the few channels that does a pretty good job of bringing experts in from variety of fields. I wish more podcasts did this.

The most recent episode with Sarah Paine was excellent. I also felt that both Sarah and Dwarkesh hit their stride toward the end of the Q&A. The penny seemed to drop for Dwarfish in the comment about Argentina. Wait, institutions create the conditions to support a thriving economy? Who knew. But that came after Dwarkesh had pushed back and forced Sarah to clarify her argument.

Very insightful discussions on a wide range of topics. Dwarkesh does a great job researching these topics upfront and preparing thoughtful questions. He handles the interviews in a relaxed, conversational manner. There is just one thing - Dwarkesh speaks so fast that sometimes he is impossible to follow. Less of a problem when he asks questions, but it’s a real issue when he is presenting longer ideas - it’s literally painful. You can put the speed at 0.75x, but then it just sounds odd.

I love this podcast but am constantly distracted by the host and guests using the word “like” in every other sentence. Almost always this word could be deleted and the sentence would have the same meaning. Couldn’t you edit this in post production?

Sarah Paine fire guest. The anthropology professors are so interesting. George church?? Bro has been cooking - this is quickly becoming the premier pod for tech about non tech things that we care about (geopolitics, history, anthropology, war strategy, synthetic bio)

Really stimulating guests and intelligent conversations. But what does the presenter smoke/ingest before the interviews that makes him speak so fast? Slow down and take a breath every now and then, dude!

Very informative stuff. Not about outrage farming.

How does Claude 4 think rawked my worll

The most significant job of any email is to provide facts and provoke thinking for the audience. Hard Fork, which you have been on as a guest, does a fantastic job on this. Your presumptuous tone and choices of wording in this episode to question all aspects of the other government and leaders are so obvious. Instead of digging deep and clarifying, you kept inserting your negative opinions and statements into the questions over and over again. Though your guest kept disagreeing with the direction of your question, you continued it until the end. It looks bad on you as a media person.

Dwarkish asks many excellent questions that penetrate beyond the hum drum ‘I read your book’ softballs that litter podcasts. His thorough research is evident. Dwarkish, I recommend you hone your interview skills with the same systematic approach that you take to other topics. I believe there are other people like me who like a conversational style and some pushback, which sets you apart. Like other reviews, however, I think you are dominating too much. Over time that means listeners hear too much of the same (you are only one person after all) and disengage. It is also a good idea to track how your guests feel. Read the room, as they are one of your customers.

Great content but it is important to anunciate - very hard to understand what Dwarkesh is saying because he speaks at 1.5x playback speed and sounds manic.

I firmly agree with lots of other reviewers that the guests are amazing but the host really needs to work on interview skills. Podcast has a ton of potential that will hopefully be realized as everyone improves

The guests are great. But the host asks questions that are interesting to him rather than what is interesting for his audience. There is no narrative, he is so well versed in the subject that his questions jump into the middle of a subject and the audience is left trying to catch up…why is he asking this question, what is the background behind it? I listened to an episode on Napoleon thinking I would learn something and at the end, I couldn’t recall a single thing that I had learned. It wasn’t that I already knew so much about Napoleon, it was that they never gave any background or context to what they were discussing. Same with his interview with Sarah Paine…it opens with him peppering her with “what if” scenarios as if we’re gaming out a metaverse of scenarios. I. Oils tell that he’s been thinking of these thing but he doesn’t explain why, the context, buildup the scenario to educate the audience to the point where we understand why his question or his scenario is interesting or important. The host provides no narrative, no cohesive thread, and seems to just revel in his conversations for his own personal enjoyment. He gets something out of doing the podcast but unfortunately I got very little out of it other than recognizing that he’s an interesting person with an inquisitive mind who talks with great guests and records those conversations.

See title. Unfortunately, the host does not allow their guests to shine in the proper light. Read other critical reviews. If you can, listen to the guests and skip through the longer ramblings from the host as they provide nothing much of substance.

Mr Hemrich was an interesting guest. Interviewer hijacked the convo to AI. Pushing the Agenda ad nauseam Fast talking with a one track viewpoint. Not impressed.

Awesome you should get more Sarah Paine in there though she was great maybe she could talk about Stalin or Hitler that would be great maybe you could put me in touch with her

Dwarkesh Patel is one of the most thoroughly prepared and best informed interviewers in the field. Unlike Rogan, who just rambles and interjects his own nonsense, or Lex Friedman, who is horribly boring, Dwarkesh does the hard work of really understanding what his guests are talking about and bringing out the best in them. As a retired professor in the Ivy League and MIT used to the highest level of intellectual discussions, now working with AI, I look forward to listening to every one of his podcasts.

Dwarkesh is unprepared, tedious and simply not a good interviewer. I found this podcast because of Sarah Paine and her lecture portions were excellent, but Dwarkesh’s whole approach to the interview portions was garbage. He’s not ready for this.

You have guests who know their subject matter yet your oneupmanship and speed talking makes your podcast unlistenable. Thank you for having Sarah Paine on. The sections where you’re not talking are excellent and the only reason I gave any stars.

How is this popular?! Uptalk much? Non sequiturs? Who is this for?

Ok, I had to listen to Dwarkesh since folks seemed to rave about him. It’s only “amazing” if you factor in the fact that he is a relatively un knowledgeable about various topics. It’s like a college physics sophomore at a 2nd grade college interviewing and challenging, I don’t know, Richard Feynman 🤷🏽‍♂️ Annoying and not worth it

Dwarkesh has real conversations with guests instead of just nodding along. Esp love how he cooked Chollet 😅

Tried to listen to the recent semiconductors episode and it was like a competition to see like who could talk the fastest and drop like the most arcane terminology with these guys who like maybe just finished grad school or something and maybe they’re credible, maybe not, who knows but they talk a good game in a like performative way. Not sure who this is for but it’s not for me.

Well prepared host, mostly interesting guests, with exceptions, but if you have time to read 700-page books and do three-hour long interviews, maybe you can take a few minutes to properly introduce your guest and the topic. The total disregard for listener background knowledge is frankly a little arrogant.

This podcast is a hidden gem, but not for long.

The guests are top rate, the host is leaves something to be desired.

I just listened to your interview with Francois Chollet at Google and I can’t stop cringing. Don’t argue with your guests and don’t interrupt them. If you disagree, move on and don’t spend 30 minutes beating a dead horse.

It’s kind of, like, you know, kind of, like, you know. I don’t understand how anyone can listen to this.