Podcast: Rationalists in Tech
I’m interviewing founders, executives, CEOs, consultants, and other people in the tech sector, mostly software. Thanks to Laurent Bossavit, Daniel Reeves, and Alexei Andreev who agreed to be the guinea pigs for this experiment.
The audience:
Software engineers and other tech workers, at all levels of seniority.
The hypothesized need
Some of you are thinking: “I see that some smart and fun people hang out at LessWrong. It’s hard to find people like that to work with. I wonder if my next job/employee/cofounder could come from that community.”
What this podcast does for you
You will get insights into other LessWrongers as real people in the software profession. (OK, you knew that, but this helps.) You will hear the interviewees’ ideas on CfAR-style techniques as a productivity booster, on working with other aspiring rationalists, and on the interviewees’ own special areas of expertise. (At the same time, interviewees benefit from exposure that can get them business contacts, employees, or customers.) Software engineers from LW will reach out to interviewees and others in the tech sector, and soon, more hires and startups will emerge.
Please give your feedback on the first episodes of the podcast. Do you want to hear more? Should there be other topics? A different interview style? Better music?
This might be a good idea but I wouldn’t listen to it.
Might it be better to interview more impressive non-rationalists in tech, and to see whether/how rationality ideas interfaced with their activities? That’s something I might listen to.
OK, thanks for the feedback. My hypothesis is that people want to know about other LessWrongers in their profession, whether for immediate or longer-term networking. I am less sure now that there is a demand for that—perhaps existing online presence like personal websites or LinkedIn is enough to meet that demand.
Personally, I prefer more produced podcasts, in the style of Serial, Freakonomics, etc, because very few people are good interviewees. I would like to hear more if you could improve the microphone quality—I couldn’t distinguish some words, even upon relistening. I’m sure the person behind HPMOR Podcast would offer more tips if you contacted him.
Right, I’ll need to polish up the production values. But taking these three inital interviews as an example: What do you think of the content? Does it help you in some way?
I really liked the podcast that I listened to. However, I agree with Capla that I’d prefer for it to be indexed on the iTunes podcast list. Might not be worth the effort, though. https://www.apple.com/itunes/podcasts/specs.html
Thank you!
I’ll look into that.
I would like to listen to this podcast. It doesn’t come up when I search for it in overcast. Can this be corrected?
I’ll look into that.
You can subscribe to the RSS feed, or simply download the MP3s directly from inside the blog