[Emutopia]

Is it just me, or is Lex Friendman not particularly sharp?

His questions are not insightful and often guests are visibly frustrated with his ability to follow the conversation.

He has great guests but is too annoying for me to watch.

[ryandvm]

No, it's not just you. I want to enjoy his podcast because he has such great guests, but generally his questions stink and he has the natural charisma of a Ben Stein character in a John Hughes movie.

[zikzak]

I really was trying to give him a pass until one day he told a guest he was tripping on mushrooms and was not joking.

Now, I've done my share of drugs but this just seemed very disrespectful and his guest clearly was not impressed with his stoner bro questions.

[distracted_boy]

Which episode was this?

[distracted_boy]

This is the first time I hear this perspective, I believe the opposite, I think he's a very smart person. If you remember one of the episodes with Stephen Wolfram, Lex was able to keep up with his theories and showed some intuition as well, which even impressed Wolfram.

But more importantly, why do you feel the need to put someone down like this? Do you regularly talk about people in this way? Do people talk about you in this way? Just curious.

[Emutopia]

I watched the entire Stephen Wolfram episode and that's the problem.

In several verifiable ways Stephen Wolfram is a genius that has produced great work. (Wolfram Alpha + cellular atomota).

However his communication style in his book 'A New Science' and the Lex Friedman podcast make it clear he optimises for a wow response from his audience more than concise and conclusive communication. For example his notion of 'computational irreducibility' is equivalent with the word 'reality' but sounds a lot fancier and revelatory without adding substance.

When people claim to be authorities they must be held to an extremely high standard. Stephen Wolfram talks at length, but also has substantial accomplishment behind him. Lex Friedman wants to be an authority but fails to demonstrate critical thinking, In previous episodes iv seen him consider how a new perspective was consistent with flat-earth beliefs.

TL:DR; Lex demonsttates little evidence of critical/scientific reasoning, but seems to believe lots of pseudo-scientific nonsense.

I wanted to hear more perspectives on this, and it seems like many people agree

[hackeraccount]

I listen to Fridman interviews but I wouldn't say he's amazing or anything. Fine is about how I'd describe him.

That said my view is that interviewers should be like music or lighting in a movie. It's critical but if you ever find yourself really noticing it then something's gone wrong.

[credit_guy]

It's not just you. I can't stand to watch him.

I find Tyler Cowen great, and maybe he spoiled me.

[LargeTomato]

Anecdotally, this is a very common opinion from most people I meet who know of Lex.