It sucks that the Lex podcast has maybe the best guests of any podcast out there right now and he's such a terrible interviewer. Seriously, give me this guest list with Rogan on the other side any day of the week.
I hate to admit it, but I tend to agree. In my opinion, Lex has actually gotten worse as he has done more interviews. Now, he seems to feel comfortable taking up huge chunks of the conversation with incoherent non-sequiturs. He tends to do better when the topic is math/AI related (due to his knowledge) and does worse the farther the topic is from that narrow focus.
Rogan started off bad, but he became an excellent interviewer up until the last 2 years or so. I listened to a few podcasts of his from pre-2020 recently, and there's a clear difference in quality.
Rogan has annoying quirks, favorite anecdotes, and tangents, but as you said, his core interviewing skills are top-notch. Lex has always been robotic and socially awkward; forcing new questions or topic jumps just as the guest gets into an interesting flow.
Rogan practices his comedic speeches all the time before standup and works as a UFC commentator. You really can't beat him at that game, Lex it seems is not even trying to be good at it, it's too bad but I can't stand to listen to him.
I always have the sense that Lex thinks himself several tiers more intelligent than he actually is. So most of the interviews I have this cringe facepalm feeling which is distracting. Joe Rogan is super self deprecating which helps counter that feeling.
Thanks for pointing this out as I share the same opinion regarding Lex. For me personally it‘s that his behavior during his podcasts doesn’t match up to the intellectual shallowness of his questions and thinkings which drives me a bit crazy, e.g. a deep concerned look, a long pause and then.. an obvious statement or something along this line
Yes, I've been somewhat baffled by the suggestion that Lex is some kind of boy genius. I find many of his questions incredibly inane (asking "What is the most beautiful idea in mathematics?" over and over again). I keep watching because the guests are great, but I don't think much of Lex's ability to really engage with their ideas.
That’s a good description. I feel that I recognize all the times I’m supposed to be impressed by him, but it falls flat every time because he’s either stating the obvious or just wrong.
> I always have the sense that Lex thinks himself several tiers more intelligent than he actually is.
Another podcast talker with a bad case of unwarranted self-importance is Sam Harris, sometimes he takes his head out of his ass but only for short periods.
I used to get similarly frustrated at Lex’s interviewing style compared to say, Sean Carol’s (mindscape podcast). I realized that Lex isn’t really doing interviews; he’s having guests on to converse and shoot the shit with. He will regularly talk about his own ideas and bounce them off the guests, which is quite atypical.
However if you think of it as getting to listen to two friends just chatting or having a beer, it can make for interesting content. Shift your mindset and it might be more enjoyable.
But it would be a totally different conversation. Sean Carrol and Lex have both interviewed Wolfram, same discussion but done in a different way. I quite like that sometimes you get to hear Lex actually work through the implications or understanding of what the interviewee claims, rather than just being a listener.
But in that specific example (Wolfram on both podcasts), Carrol asked questions that clearly demonstrated a deep understanding of not only the subject matter (he is a theoretical physicist comfortable with advanced mathematics after all), but he also probed Wolfram on areas where his theory might be challenged. Lex did more of an 'everyman's' take on that conversation, which is fine, but certainly not at Carrol's level.
I did enjoy both, but mostly because Wolfram did most of the talking. Even with Lex's less-targeted/knowledgeable questions, Wolfram knew how to steer the answer to what he thought the actual question should have been.
I don't quite agree there. Carrol clearly has a deep understanding of physics while Lex doesn't and was able to probe in deeper ways on that front, but the opposite is true when it comes to an understanding of computation.
Lex was very interested in the universal substrate rewrite analogy to a turing machine and all of the implications of that, while Sean kind of glossed over that.
Carrol seems to be the overall more educated of the two, but at the same time has a more sophomoric understanding of the theory of computation.
Come to think of it, overall it seems to be a weak spot amongst well known physicists, Wolfram excepted.
Didn't listen to Lex Friedman's interview with Wolfram but I thought the Mindscape episode with Wolfram was excellent. Sean Carol is obviously deeply knowledgable about the subject at hand and managed to ask interesting, penetrating questions without being adversarial and making Wolfram defensive.
What? Lex is my -favorite- interviewer. People say he's robotic and whatnot, but if you watch his face, eyes, and gestures...you can tell he thinks deeply about every single thing he is about to say. He is, unlike Rogan, generally knowledgeable enough already to make comments or ask questions. And he doesn't try to 'gotcha'. To me it's just watching two incredibly bright people speak casually, which I guess isn't everyone's forte, but is very enjoyable.
Too high of a percentage of Lex’s podcasts are his feelings and when be starts to get ranty. I also hate when Joe does that but it’s WAY less often. Lex needs to learn the shut up and let his amazing guests direct the discussion.
If knowledge is a barrier, then give me Sean Carroll with this guest list.
you don't 'get a postdoc'. It's not a degree. It's a job you get that requires a PhD. It's a form a purgatory until you can get a real academic job.
The goal of a post doc is to continue to do research work where you're the first position on publications to pad your CV to the point where it looks impressive enough when you're out giving job talks for tenure track positions.
If you have a very strong PhD thesis, produced a lot of good work during your PhD and made enough connections, you can skip that step.
A postdoc is not a PhD but it can also be competitive in good places. Very hard to skip that step these days unless you're a superstar, even in CS. But it doesn't really matter. Are you trying to discredit him in some way? It's actually even more impressive he got to where he got without a degree from a top school. He needed to work harder than others.
Elon is richer and more educated than zucker and he still went on the Rogan show. It's the first time I'm hearing about zucker being on another tier of "sophistication" lol
He asks the same questions and gets the same answers for half of every interview. People are going to give you a variation of the same answer for 'what is the meaning of life,' and it gets old after a couple interviews. He's also fairly opinionated and repeats the same opinions over and over.
Yeah I used to listen to every episode but now I pretty much have stopped. Same with Rogan. I just keep getting dejavú. Didn’t I hear this exact line of conversation already 5 times? Camus is really cool and Twitter would be better with more love ..
And as others have said he has pet theories or opinions he always has to throw out there and almost never gets a response on. insert rant about aliens - yeah I guess that’s possible(?)
He talks too much about what he thinks about a topic. Listen to literally any episode of the podcast, happens all the time. Worst thing to do as an interviewer.
Meh. What's Joe Rogan gonna ask somebody like Jim Keller or Yann Lecun? Does he know enough about either of their respective fields to even frame an interesting question beyond "do you smoke weed?" or "Should people get the COVID vaccine?", "who will be the next UFC lightweight champion?", etc.
Don't get me wrong here: I am a huge Rogan fan. And some Fridman guests would, IMO, be great with Rogan as well (Zuck, for example). But a lot of Fridman's guests are into some pretty deep, esoteric, technical domains that I don't think would fit with Rogan, unless he has a lot of technical knowledge/background of which I am unaware.
Lex equally didn't have much to say to Jim Keller. There was a bit of back and forth but it just felt pointless (all programmers should know what a branch predictor is, especially ones about to interview Jim Keller!) Or a bit childish: at one I think Fridman asks him what his greatest achievement is in a slightly corny way, and Keller just remarks that he has children.
Give me Sean Carroll then. Lex spends too much of his interviews talking about himself or his feelings on some matter. Seriously, I couldn’t care less about Lex’s feelings on the subject - what makes Joe and Sean so good is the ability to ask questions, listen, empathize, and contextualize information from the guest. Joe’s worst episodes and the things people hate him for are when he strays from that formula and says something dumb, but he’s world class at interviewing otherwise.
Sean Carroll is my favorite interview podcaster. Maybe it's my physics bias but his guests are often from very different areas and he still finds good questions, keeps a humble attitude of wanting to understand, and doesn't take up too much room. The discussions stay on topic and often go pretty deep.
I enjoy Lex, but I doubt he's going to ask and stick to tough questions (I haven't watched this one yet). Rogan might not ask technical questions, but he's more skilled at probing the topics many have concerns about. Such as "fact checking" and censorship.
Rogan might not ask technical questions, but he's more skilled at probing the topics many have concerns about. Such as "fact checking" and censorship.
Sure, and that's why I said I think Zuck would be a good guest for Rogan. What I'm objecting to is the idea that the entirety of Fridman's guest list would be better interviewed by Rogan. Some, perhaps. All? I am very skeptical of that position. That's all I'm saying.
I listened to Lex and you're right, Zuck was a nice guest for him. He asked somewhat tricky questions and Zuck could give reasonable answers that maybe could have only happened with Lex.
Thats is a bit of a problem though. When Zuck was asked what should be done he easily threw it back at Lex to answer. Lex went onto a meandering non-committal path trying to work out how to not offend and sound smart. Lex is too easy to manipulate.
Lex's main weakness is that he wants Love and is unwilling to prioritize Truth. He is agreeable and young.
I am worried that he'll get his interview with Putin.
Rogan started off bad, but he became an excellent interviewer up until the last 2 years or so. I listened to a few podcasts of his from pre-2020 recently, and there's a clear difference in quality.
Rogan has annoying quirks, favorite anecdotes, and tangents, but as you said, his core interviewing skills are top-notch. Lex has always been robotic and socially awkward; forcing new questions or topic jumps just as the guest gets into an interesting flow.