State of the Podcasts 2019

This is the second year of my annual State of the Podcasts list, where I highlight my daily drivers of audio content. This time last year, I published State of the Podcasts 2018, and not too much has changed. Let’s see what has.

New and noteworthy

These are the podcasts I’ve started listening to in the past year.

Made by Ratik Sharma (who is my good friend, full disclosure), Unbox is the 🏆 Best New Podcast of 2019. Listen to it here. It takes you through the tough decisions you make growing up in modern India, with a focus on the state of education and talent. Especially for high-school students, this is my most-recommended podcast.

Instant Message showcases The Wall Street Journal’s perspective on technology trends, so it’s like listening to the news from the best journalists while taking a deep dive into the socioeconomic aspects of them all.

Everyone knows a16z as one of the most important VCs in the Valley, so it’s especially interesting to hear their conversations with founders about what to (and what not to) do.

Every episode of Heavyweight is an auditory adventure with Jonathan Goldstein. He goes through past experiences as a pseudo-therapist-investigator to heal old wounds. It’s hilarious, and also the closest that a podcast has ever come to dethroning Hello Internet as my all-time favorite podcast.

This is my go-to podcast when biking from home to university. Each episode is 30 minutes, which is 20 minutes at 1.5x, exactly the duration of my my bike ride every morning. It covers four tech news topics in each episode with various guests.

Heroku is my favorite PaaS company, and their recently-launched podcast covers web development and devops. It’s a great listen, albeit with plenty of Heroku promotion.

Just like Brady Haran’s other podcasts, Numberphile is definitely one of the best ones out there for mathematics enthusiasts. Each episode is a private conversation with a mathematician.

I started writing TypeScript in early 2019, and TalkScript is my favorite place to follow TypeScript updates, hear about new proposals, and learn new parts of the language.

I’ve been on 13 flights in the past year, and I’m certain that Travel Genius has the best tips on how to travel --- everything from small local tourism hacks to efficient luggage packing tips.

This is my podcast for staying up to date with everything Apple. I also used to listen to Material (for Google) from RelayFM, but I find the playfulness of Connected’s hosts addicting.

Bloomberg’s Works for Me, interviews people and comes up with just the most interesting tips and life hacks. It’s a relatively new addition to my list, but it works for me. :wink:

Gimlet founder and Planet Money creator Alex Blumberg doesn’t do podcasts lately, but when he does, they’re worth listening to. In this, he interviews successful CEOs on their biggest mistakes.

Twitter’s debut podcast, Character Count, is a great place to hear about marketing tips and optimizations, and how to optimize Twitter. Unfortunately, the SMO is limited to Twitter, but well worth it.

Google’s HTTP 203 is one of my favorite YouTube series on front-end web development, and its podcast form goes in-depth in new web standards and interesting ideas.

2018 and beyond

I’m still listening to these podcasts from State of the Podcasts 2018:

• Hello Internet (still my favorite)
• Cortex
• The Unmade Podcast
• How I Built This
• Embedded
• The freeCodeCamp Podcast

Player

I still use Pocket Casts as my primary podcast player. This is what my “Podcasts” screen looks like: