My Fave Podcasts 2024 - The Big Reset

4.5 years after my initial podcast inventory, with COVID and a career change under my belt, with my OPML file growing from 566 rss feeds in 2022 to 771* in 2024 (with quite a few of my fave NPR podcasts dying), and my backlog mounting to 43GB (according to this script, my outstanding episodes: 11915 (played: 22451)), I am now needing to declare podcast bankruptcy.

After a year of languishing feature requests with Overcast, I'm now keen on moving to a new app, Snipd (thanks to Kevin Ben Smith for onboarding me), which at least has transcription even if I don't super value the snipping. I didn't move before because the porting process was not well worked out, but now that I have decided to declare podcast bankruptcy, it's a good time to switch, and take stock of what I need going forward.

*Note: its not literally 771 podcasts i susbscribe to, that number is every thing ive ever listened to even 1 episode of, over 6 years, including occasional oneoff youtube videos that i stripped for audio

What I want to listen to Going Forward

Basing off my 2020 categories, here is what i am keeping:

• AI: After the 2023 pivot, I actively maintain this list on ai-notes
• News
  • HN Recap pod
  • Mainstream: WSJ The Journal. (rss, url), NYT The Daily (rss, url), Economist The Intelligence (rss, url) and Editor’s Picks from The Economist (rss, url)
  • NEW: Sharp Tech (replaced Ben Thompson's old Exponent) and Dithering and Stratechery podcast
  • Techmeme Ride Home (rss, url)
  • Slate Money (rss, url) - I have loved Felix Salmon from his days at Reuters.
  • The Breakdown with NLW
• Tech/Founders
  • Kleiner Perkins' Grit podcast
  • Redpoint's Logan Bartlett podcast
  • Screaming in the Cloud (rss, url) - corey teaches me a ton about aws
  • The Changelog (rss, url)
  • Acquired (rss, url) - ALLTIME GREAT podcast
  • The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch (rss, url)
  • a16z Podcast (rss, url)
  • Y Combinator (rss, url)
  • Mixergy - Startup Stories with 1000+ entrepreneurs and businesses (rss, url)
  • devtools.fm
  • OSS Startups Pod
  • David Senra's Founders podcast
  • Software Defined Talk
  • Oxide and Friends
• Background Audio/Friends
  • This American Life (rss, url)
  • The Moth (rss, url)
  • Decoder - Nilay Patel
  • The Vergecast (rss, url) - I enjoy the “no bullshit” tech industry chats
  • Ben Orenstein's new pod with Adam Wathan - the successor to The Art of Product (rss, url)
  • Lex Fridman (rss, url)
  • CLUBLIFE (rss, url)
  • Eelke Kleijn | DAYS like NIGHTS Radio (rss, url)
  • Popcast (rss, url)
  • Switched on Pop (rss, url)
  • Cal Newport's Deep Questions
  • Ship30for30 podcast
  • Death sex & Money
  • Sex & Pyschology podcast
  • Body Tutor
  • A Whole New Level
  • LessWrong podcast

Other good overcast export scripts

• https://gist.github.com/Chealion/e39a59ae487a7ce752a63d505c7872be
• https://github.com/alexwlchan/overcast-downloader

Misc Overcast listening data

Overcast doesnt retain listen length, just completed/deleted podcasts - so this biases toward frequent/daily short podcasts.