Comment by NitpickLawyer
16 hours ago
Huh, I'm the exact opposite. With the exception of Hannah Fry's work at deepmind (where she acts as a charismatic proxy for the more nerdy guests), he is by far the best interviewer on technical stuff (AI stuff mostly, but some early robotics stuff as well). He knows the field, he asks pertinent questions and more importantly he knows when to just let the speaker speak.
Compared to someone like Dwarkesh, it's night and day. There's a fine line between pushing the guest and just interrupting them every 2nd thought to inject your own "takes".
> he knows when to just let the speaker speak
I think similar to Joe Rogan that's the main value he provides to listeners. He identifies guests that have some veil of intellectualism and provides them with a platform to speak.
However I don't think that makes for an interesting interviewer. There are no challenging questions, only ones he knows will fit into the narrative of what the guest wants to say. I might as well read a 2-3 hour PR piece issued by the guests.
What you call "platforming" I often call "listening to what someone says/thinks". Not every interview needs challenging questions, or to be a battle/debate, and sometimes it's not appropriate (above George Hotz being an example, difference in qualifications being another). But, I enjoy trying to understand someone, quirks and all, especially the human aspect, flaws and all. It's interesting seeing the differences in people.
From what I've seen, people that crave "challenging questions" usually most enjoy activist interviewers that are very strongly aligned with their own (usually political) worldview. I don't think that describes Lex Fridman, or me as a listener, at all, and that's fine.
> Not every interview
No, not every interview. But if an interviewee presents fiction/hatred as fact the interviewer should have the ability to call that out or at least caution the reader with a "I don't know about that".
A specific example that comes to mind is Eric Weinstein's appearance on the podcast and letting him talk about his "long mouse telomere experiment flaws" without questions which at that point had been thoroughly debunked.
I find little interesting "human aspect" to be found therein, as it usually boils down to "you are lying (to us/yourself) for your own gain", which isn't novel.
There are podcasts that do a similar long form format well. A great example is the German format "Alles gesagt?" (~="Nothing left unsaid?"), where interesting personalities can talk for however long hey want, but the interviewers ask interesting/dynamic follow up questions, and also have the journalistic acumen/integrity to push back on certain topics (without souring the mood).
Saying he "knows the field" is kind of pushing it. He's good at conversations and that's about it, his actual merits are questionable at best.
Best interviewer is Primagen, a senior engineer with balanced takes that has seen both extremes of life.
Primagen is awesome. Smart, experienced, and opinionated (with reasonable opinions).