Podcasts - 2024

In 2024, I tried in small ways to “quantify my life”. Logging activities with Strava, books using Goodreads, songs in Spotify, good articles read manually. Not fully successful. Hope to make an app for myself someday to make it easier and instant, along with some notes or learnings. One such was podcasts. After experimenting Google Podcasts and Spotify, I am using AntennaPod app since last couple of years since it had playing history and it has only podcasts with no other distraction. I have subscribed to a few, scan the new episodes once in a while, add some to the queue and listen to it during commute, daily walk or house chores. I listen at 1.5x speed which is now comfortable speed for all accents.

I recently discovered that Youtube videos can be converted to podcasts. NotebookLLM from Google seem to be exploding now that can convert anything (articles, research papers etc) to podcasts.

I lost some of my listening history in August when my phone crashed. Apart from that listened to 90 podcasts. Top one was Lenny’s Podcast which is all things Product development. Others were – The Seen and the Unseen (long conversations with interesting people in India, but it is getting longer and longer), Invest like the best (I don’t listen for investment related ones, but for some good conversations), The Tim Ferris Show (again some interesting interviews or conversations), Infinite Loops, How I write (writing advice, some interesting conversations with good authors), Dwarkesh podcast (with some AI founders, historians).

Few episodes that I liked, if someone wants starting points.

1. What differentiates the highest-performing product teams | John Cutler (Amplitude, The Beautiful Mess)

2. The essence of product management | Christian Idiodi (SVPG)

3. Build better products with continuous product discovery | Teresa Torres

4. The ultimate guide to OKRs | Christina Wodtke (Stanford)

5. Developer Experience is a Critical Issue for Organisations Today

6. Dare to Dissent (from NPR, good stories about dissent. When entire world is silent, how people find courage to speak up despite the risks)

7. Radical Candor: From theory to practice with author Kim Scott (for going from “being nice” to “being kind”)

8. Good Strategy, Bad Strategy | Richard Rumelt (author of one of the Strategy books. It is great to listen to the authors of the books we read.)

9. Freakonomics : The Curious Mr. Feynman (stories about the maverick scientist)

10. Radiolab - Stochasticity (Original GOAT for me – Radiolab in its early days was the one that introduced podcasts to me. This one about randomness.)

11. Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin - Robert Greene (again, listening to an author. Of “48 laws of power”)

12. Amor Towles: The Secret to Telling a Great Story (one more author, of one of the best novels I read in last few years, “A Gentleman in Moscow”)

13. Claire Hughes Johnson, Building Stripe from 160 to 6,000+ Employees — How to Take Radical Ownership of Your Life and Career (#724) (she wrote the book “Scaling People”)

14. Cyan Banister - Investing for a Higher Purpose (apart from investing side of it, some crazy stories from one’s life)

15. Sarah C. M. Paine - WW2, Taiwan, Ukraine, & Maritime vs Continental Powers (history and world today)

16. Product management theater | Marty Cagan (Silicon Valley Product Group)

17. Visakan Veerasamy — Expanding Our Possibility-Space (EP. 210)

18. Interview with Benjamin Labatut, Author of When We Cease to Understand the World (one more author, of “When we cease to understand the world”)

19. Opinion | How to Discover Your Own Taste - The New York Times (nytimes.com) (Taste is something I read quite a bit about in 2024, this was a good podcast on the subject)

20. The Agent Era - Colossus (on upcoming Agentic AI)

spiritual awakening, lost in translation

One day this past week, I listened to this podcast interview of Cyan Banister, in Invest like the Best. Due to some reason, I felt I couldn’t listen to anything else that day. I usually listen to politics or product management or economics, but that day anything else would have spoiled the mood I was in. It may be that some days are like that - when the mind is contemplative, no clutter or anxiety, less cynical, the body feels healthy and open to receive. Or it may truly be that there was something in what I had listened to. 

Cyan seems to be a successful investor in Uber, SpaceX among others. Of late, I feel all successful people think that they have wisdom to share and everyone is becoming gurus online. Other day I was reading such pearls of wisdom from someone who is good at product management and it was nothing about product management, but about how to live one’s life. It may be that to become truly good at something, one has to become a better person first and in that process arrive at the same universal truths irrespective of what path they are on. 

I was thinking she is like the “high priestess” of capitalism, who feels she is being entrusted with money to do good in the world. Her story seems incredible - from being homeless, being self taught, suffering a stroke at a young age to becoming wildly successful. She talked about being an atheist, but discovering spirituality a few years back, where she feels there is something that guides the decisions we make. 

“I actually had to figure out how to truly believe that the world is magical. And the moment that I truly believed that the world was magical, then the world became magical. It rocked the foundation of who I am. So I had a spiritual awakening, and that's the only way I can describe it. And I can tell you that each one of us is walking a very thin, razor's edge between sanity and insanity at all times.

 

Serotonin regulates a lot of how we perceive reality. I had a surge of serotonin in this lightning bolt like no other. It was basically in a surge of energy that went from the base of my spine at the top of my skull and suddenly, everything in the world looked different. Everything. I started viewing signs differently. I started viewing art differently, conversations I was having with people differently. And I realized everything around us is a projection of our perception and minds.

 

And once you learned how just to be, life gets a lot more simple. All of a sudden, everything you ever wished for in your life just starts coming true, it becomes effortless. It's really weird. It's really super weird. And the only thing that changed in my life was having faith in something higher than myself. That was it. This is why when you ask me what insight or brilliance or whatever led to whatever, it's too easy for our ego mind to take credit for everything.

 

Something gave me that feeling that said, you ought to go deeper into this, you ought to do this. You've got to take this risk, you've got to jump right now. I guarantee you, if you talk to a lot of different people, they'll say, "I don't know why I did this. I just had a feeling, and I now believe thoroughly in that feeling and I believe that, that feeling is the universe or God, whatever word you want to put into it, and it helps guide me." And now that I don't egotistically attach myself to it, I am just a much happier person and everything is just falling into place.”

I am sceptical when people talk about spiritual awakening, but am fascinated to read or listen to people who say they had such an epiphany. I had read a similar description in vivid terms in “Eat, Pray, Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert. I wonder if it really happens or is it a moment of madness? When films or stories talk about someone going through a life changing moment, realizing all of a sudden about the meaning of life or why they are on a wrong path and changing the course altogether, I wonder if it is an instrument or plot twist in story telling to take the story to a conclusion.  

She talked about monoculture - when everything in culture is becoming similar, with commercial interests making movies, books, songs and people similar, to be able to sell more of the same. She talked about Gen Alpha, the ones born in the twenty-first century, doubting why to learn anything in the world of AI. 

Another surprising one was her saying Bill Murray, the actor, is her spirit animal. 

“Bill Murray is my spirit animal. About 20 years ago, I saw a film called Lost in Translation. And I thought this is a person who feels so real. He's not acting. He is but he isn't. I looked at his eyes in that performance and I saw a man who is suffering, who was dealing with some real-life shit that was coming through the film. And not only that, but I felt my own suffering, and I felt a connection to that suffering. It's like when you look at a painting and you see yourself. I saw myself in Bill Murray.”

I had watched Lost in Translation years ago, but had completely forgotten it. Just like the saying that we should re-read some of our favourite books every few years or so, maybe we should re-watch the best movies - we might see something that we were not ready for earlier or was not in the frame of mind or maturity to understand earlier. Luckily the movie was available on one of the OTT platforms. I didn’t remember any of the story, except maybe the only thing that had stuck deeply in my mind was Japan, its buddhist temples and wanting to visit sometime. I could identify with the deep loneliness and weariness of Bill Murray’s character, especially how it crystallises while on travels. Maybe this is what “adulthood” imposes on us, to go through the long slog of life. The easy connection of both of the lead characters and opening up about some of the hard realities of life which is hard to talk about normally. The tenderness, care, trust that one would find a fulfilling path despite the current self doubt, not crossing the line and spoiling a deeper connection are what I could take away now. Maybe I should re-watch in another few years and will see something new. 

Podcasts, Feb 2024

Listened to 20 podcasts in Feb. This is one new year's resolution that is still going. I have started taking notes in a running list. I listen to podcasts during the morning walk/run, while doing some chores or during office commute. It is difficult to take notes while listening and I forget afterwards, so I started using speech to text. 

I had used an iPod, some other device in between, downloaded podcasts to my phone when mobile data was at premium, Spotify and Google Podcasts before. Now settled on the AntennaPod app on Android. It is mostly stable, has only podcasts, so no other distraction. I have subscribed to a few podcasts, check the episodes list a couple of times a week and add interesting looking ones to a queue. I pick only the ones that seem interesting and don’t worry about the huge number of unlistened ones in the feed. This keeps the queue ready to go before I step out of the house than trying to figure out what to listen, which kills off the routines otherwise. I had moved to AntennaPod only because it has a listening history and I can make lists like below without much effort, compared to Spotify or Google Podcasts. 

I am trying to learn more about Product Development, be in touch with Engineering and a bit of politics, history, psychology and personal development. Current favourites are Lenny’s Podcast (Product Management), Tim Ferris Show (personal development), Freakonomics Radio (Behavioral Economics), Seen and the Unseen (India, Politics, Behavioral Economics - too long though, beyond even my patience level), Radiolab (Science - All Time Favorite). I come back to KNowledge Project with Shane Parrish (older episodes were gems), Dwarkesh Podcast (newest rising star, just 23 years old), Invest Like the Best (not for investing, but to listen to some refreshing thoughts, good interviews), How I Write (writing tips), Design Matters with Debbie Millman (refreshing interviews with creators), Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History (whatever is available publicly, amazing stories about history) and Engineering Culture by InfoQ (Software Engineering).    

In Depth	The human side of world-class engineering leadership | Michael Lopp (Apple, Palantir, Slack)
Thoughtworks Technology Podcast	Beyond the DORA metrics: Measuring engineering excellence	Yet another framework for engineering measurements, not sure if that will help
Freakonomics Radio	The Curious Mr. Feynman	An insatiable genius, good to hear about his love story, his methods, going to first principles and building up all explanations from there, being curious, story telling
Radiolab	Stochasticity	I was smiling while listening to this. Old episode. Good stories.
Lenny's Podcast	Inside OpenAI | Logan Kilpatrick (head of developer relations)
Lenny's Podcast	Lessons from Atlassian: Launching new products, getting buy-in, and staying ahead of the competition | Megan Cook (head of product, Jira)
Freakonomics Radio	5 Psychology Terms You’re Probably Misusing
Knowledge Project	Dr. Julie Gurner (Part 2): Caring Deeply, Challenging Directly [The Knowledge Project Ep. #172]	I am trying to learn radical candor.
Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin	Robert Greene	Author of the evil book, but he is such a nice guy. Good listen.
Freakonomics Radio	The Brilliant Mr. Feynman	Continuing with Feynman, him going into rabbit holes, trying drugs, exploring boundary of everything including his mind
Freakonomics Radio	The Vanishing Mr. Feynman	Eccentricities. I was listening to a story of him spending most of the time thinking about a problem, then a solution and then coming up with a simple solution.
Tim Ferris Podcast	Master Negotiator William Ury — Proven Strategies and Amazing Stories from Warren Buffett, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong Un, Hugo Chávez, and More (#721)	This was a classic. Negotiators had fascinating stories to tell. One of Hugo Chavez in this. I took a lot of notes from this.
NPR Throughline	Love, Throughline	How the concept of Romantic Love changed over the years, about classic romanticism, what gets depicted in movies. Modern Love series must make sense.
Brandwidth with Manu Prasad	EP 01 | Brandwidth With Manu Prasad | Fractional CMO & Gurudev Prasad | Co-founder BusyBeeBrands
Lenny's Podcast	How to discover your superpowers, own your story, and unlock personal growth | Donna Lichaw (author of The Leader’s Journey)	Good listen
Design Matters with Debbie Millman	Best of Design Matters: Aminatou Sow	Good listen. What kind of complex lives and stories people have.
How I write	I Met 20 of The World's Greatest Writers. Here's What I Learned.	Good listen, took notes.
Lenny's Podcast	Making time for what matters | Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky (authors of Sprint and Make Time, co-founders of Character Capital)
Dwarkesh Podcast	Patrick Collison (Stripe CEO) - Craft, Beauty, & The Future of Payments	Interesting to see the kind of impact beyond Stripe that its founders are having - into Science Research, Book publishing.
How I write	Amor Towles: The Secret to Telling a Great Story	What a time to be alive when one can listen to the authors we love, on how they go about their craft.

2019 list - read, watch, listen, learn more

New year resolution to read, listen, learn more. Keeping record of it, as a way to keeping a commitment. Hope to keep this updated.

Books read

1. Milkman – Anna Burns. 3 / 5
2. All the Bright Places – Jennifer Niven. 3.5 / 5
3. Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson. 4 / 5 
4. A Contract with God - Will Isner. 3.5 / 5
5. Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood - Marjane Satrapi - 4 / 5
6. Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return - Marjane Satrapi - 3.5 / 5
7. The Best We Could Do - Thi Bui - 4 / 5 
8. A Man of the People - Chinua Achebe - 3 / 5
9. Sabrina - Nick Drnaso - 3.5 / 5
10. Little Prince - Antoine de Saint Exupéry - 4 / 5
11. Normal People - Sally Rooney - 4 / 5
12. The Vegetarian - Han Kong - 3.5 / 5
13. Jazz - Tony Morrison - 3.5 / 5
14. Sula - Tony Morrison - 3.5 / 5 
15. Maus - Art Spiegelman - 4/ 5 
16. Khasakkinte Itihasam - O. V. Vijayan (Malayalam) - 4 / 5
17. Black Leopard, Red Wolf - Marlon James - 3 / 5
18. Looking for Alaska - John Green - 4 / 5
19. The Women's Courtyard - Khadija Mastoor - 4 / 5
20.  Aarachar - K.R. Meera (Malayalam) - 4 / 5
21. The Namesake - Jhumpa Lahiri - 4.5 / 5 
22. Conversations with Friends - Sally Rooney - 4 / 5
23. A gentleman in Moscow - Amor Towles - 4.5 / 5
24. Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine - Gail Honeyman - 4 / 5
25. Influence: the psychology of persuasion – Robert Cialdini - 4 / 5

Podcasts, Listened

1. Winning at the Great Game: My Interview with Adam Robinson (Part 2) [The Knowledge Project Ep. #48]
2. Winning at the Great Game: My Interview with Adam Robinson (Part 1) [The Knowledge Project Ep. #47]
3. James Clear on Rich Roll Podcast - Why habits are the compound interest of self improvement
4. The Dying Art of Conversation: My Interview with Author and Speaker Celeste Headlee
5. This is Water - David Foster Wallace
6. Inventing the Future: My Interview With Lux Capital’s Josh Wolfe 
7. The Evolutionary Angel, Naval Ravikant - Tim Ferris Show
8. The Moth Radio Hour: Occasional Magic
9. Thich Nhat Hanh, Cheri Maples, and Larry Ward — Being Peace in a World of Trauma
10. #353: Patrick Collison — CEO of Stripe - Tim Ferris Show
11. #1309 - Naval Ravikant - The Joe Rogan Experience
12. The Moth Radio Hour: A Flight Attendant, A Refugee, and A Preacher
13. The Moth Radio Hour: Brains, Beauty, and Brawn: Stories of Girlhood
14. Tales from the Emerald Isle: Michael Devlin, Claire Nevin & Paul Doran
15. John O'Donohue — The Inner Landscape of Beauty
16. Joe Rogan Experience – John Carmack
17. The Knowledge Project with Share Parrish - Leading Above the Line with Jim Dethmer
18. On Being with Krista Tippett - Jericho Brown — Small Truths and Other Surprises
19. On Being with Krista Tippett - Mary Oliver — Listening to the World
20. On Being with Krista Tippett - Seth Godin — Life, the Internet, and Everything
21. On Being with Krista Tippett - Mahzarin Banaji — The Mind Is a Difference-Seeking Machine
22. Software Engineering Daily - Facebook Engineering Process with Kent Beck
23. Shonda Rhimes on How to Create Stories (and Products) People Want
24. The Knowledge Project with Share Parrish - #69 Stephen Schwarzman: What It Takes
25. The Knowledge Project with Share Parrish - #68 Daniel Kahneman: Putting Your Intuition on Ice
26. Invest like the best - Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger – How to Build a Great Product
27. The Knowledge Project with Share Parrish - #70 Scott Adams: Avoiding Loserthink

Movies 
1. Andhadhun - Hindi - 7 / 10
2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - 8/10
3. Roma - 8/10
4. Vijay Superum Pournamiyum - 5 / 10 
5. Bohemian Rhapsody - 7.5 / 10
6. 20th Century Women - 7 / 10
7. Kumbalangi Nights - 7.5 / 10 
8. Free Solo (documentary) - 8 / 10
9. Lady Bird - 6.5 / 10 
10. If Beale street could talk - 6.5 / 10
11. Manmarziaan - 6.5 / 10
12. Coração de Cowboy - 6 / 10
13. The Lincoln Lawyer - 6 / 10
14. Blackklansman - 6.5 / 10
15. The Green Book - 7 / 10
16. The shoplifters - 6.5 / 10
17. The way we were - 6.5 /10 
18. June (Malayalam) - 6 / 10
19. Gone Girl - 6 / 10
20. Secret in their eyes - 5 / 10
21. Annie Hall - 7 / 10
22. The English Patient - 7.5 / 10
23. Molly's Game - 5 / 10
24. God's Own Country - 6 / 10
25. The Descendants - 7 / 10
26. Uyare - 7 / 10
27. The last king of Scotland - 7 / 10
28. Varathan - 7 / 10
29. Iyyobinte Pusthakam - 7 / 10 
30. Carol - 7 / 10
31. Brooklyn - 6.5 / 10
32. One Day - 6.5 / 10
33. God's Own Country - 6 / 10 
34. Never Let Me Go - 7.5 / 10
35. The Spectacular Now - 7 / 10
36. The Light between Oceans - 6.5 / 10
37. Argentina Fans Kattoorkadavu - 6 / 10
38. Athiran - 6 / 10
39. Uyare - 7.5 / 10
40. And the Oscar goes to.. - 5.5 / 10
41. Assassination of Jesse James by coward Robert Ford - 7  10
42. American Women - 6 / 10
43. Tamasha - 6.5 / 10
44. Once upon a time in Hollywood - 7 / 10
45. Chekka chivantha vaanam - 6 / 10
46. Yesterday - 7.5 / 10
47. Sicario - 6.5 / 10
48. John Wick 1, 2, 3 - 6.5 /10
51. Marriage Story - 8 / 10
52. The Deer Hunter - 7.5 / 10
53. Ishq - 6 / 10
54. The irishman - 8 / 10

New Music discoveries 
1. Prateek Kuhad - Cold/Mess
2. Phum Viphurit - Paper Throne
3. Tonina Saputo - Historia du an Amor
4. LP - Lost on you
5. LP - Muddy Waters
6. Kumbalangi Nights - Uyiril Thodum 
7. Tonina Saputo - Quizas, Quizas, Quizas

Poems
1. Today , Wild Geese, Journey, The Summer Day, This talking about Love, The fourth sign of zodiac, For Example, Softest of mornings, Black oaks, The poet dreams of the mountain, The Fire, When I am among the trees - Mary Oliver 
2. Don't go far off, Sweetness, Always, I Like for You to be Still - Pablo Neruda
3. A red, red rose - Robert Burns
4. Yesterday, Black Cherries - W. S. Merwin
5. The colonel - Carolyn Forche
6. Melancholy - Ruben Dario
7. How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43) - Elizabeth Barrett Browning
8. Give All to Love - Ralph Waldo Emerson
9. Kindness - Naomi Shihab Nye
10. The More Loving One - W. H. Auden
11. At The Last Watch - Rabindranath Tagore
12. At a Window - Carl Sandburg
13. A Prayer, Dark days, Desiderata - words for life  - Max Ehrmann
14. somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond - E. E. Cummings
15. Loneliness - Katherine Mansfield
16. For The Sake Of Strangers - Dorianne Laux
17. Today - Thomas Carlyle
18. The Rebel (Bidrohi) - Kazi Nazrul Islam
19. Offering and Rebuff - Carl Sandburg 
20. Poem for everyone - John Wood 
21. Buoyancy, Poems of Passion - Rumi
22. After a while - Veronica Shoftshall
23. Blessing the boats - Lucille Clifton
24. Alone - Georges Rodenbach
25. Moonlight Sleeps Within Your Heart - Jean Lahor
26. The Coming of Light - Mark Strand
27. I Feel Sorry For the Stars - Fernando Pessoa
28. Digging - Seamus Heaney
29. To my beloved: With my soul in my lips - Medardo Ángel Silva
30. A Decade - Amy Lowell
31. Wisdom , I am not Yours - Sara Teasdale 
32. Her Beauty - Max Plowman
33. The Oblation - Algernon Charles Swinburne
34. In an Artist's Studio - Christina Rossetti35. Democracy - Langston Hughes
36. Possibilities, The onion - Wislawa Szymborska
37. Slow Dance - David L. Weatherford
38. Moment, Aspiration - Mario de Andrade
39. The Voice - Shel Silverstein 
40. They sit together on the porch - Wendell Berry
41. Gulmohar - jndmello 
42. Before Quiet - Hazel Hall
43. Mad girl's love song - Sylvia Plath
44. Mimesis - Fady Joudah 

45. These poems - June Jordan
46. I have no power - Nizar Qabbani
47. Spring in Nairobi - Ngwatilo Mawiyoo
48. The Dove - Leonard Cohen
49. The peace of wild things - Wendell Berry
50. Jerusalem - Naomi Shihab Nye
51. A morning offering - John O'Donohue
52. Eating the bones - Ellen Bass
53. Faint music - Robert Hass 
54. Everything is going to be alright - Derek Mahon
55. Happiness - Jane Kenyon
56. The Rainy Day - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Others, watched and liked 
1. Inventing on principle - Bret Victor
2. Dreaming Murakami 
3. Systems Thinking
4. My year reading a book from every country in the world
5. Stop Drawing Dead Fish - Bret Victor 
6. How to start a startup
7. Greatness - David Marquet
8. Emergence and Complexity
9. Chaos and Reductionism
10. Introduction to Human Behavioral Biology
11. Russell Ackoff - From Mechanistic to Systemic Thinking
12. Systems Thinking Speech by Russell Ackoff
13. Robert C Martin - The Land that Scrum Forgot
14. Scott Hanselman - "it's not what you read, it's what you ignore"
15. Scott Hanselman - Scaling Yourself 
16. Spotify Engineering Culture

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