How a16z produces their podcast

I'm a big fan of a16z's podcast. They inspire a lot of what I do with IH. Some of my notes from this episode that might be useful for other podcasters:

• Five levers of quality audio: content quality, energy, charisma, chemistry, and the arc of narrative flow.
• They edit heavily to make the above levers better. For example, poor flow but great content? Rearrange the convo to make it flow better. Great chemistry but little substance? Shorten it. Etc.
• They noticed their growth chart started curving upwards significantly when they began editing.
• Some shows (e.g. Joe Rogan, Tim Ferriss, Sam Harris) are cult of personality. People just love the host. If you don't have a cult of personality show, you have to make sure it's resourceful. That means maximizing insights per minute.
• If you want expertise, bring on experts. You're not going to get good stuff out of non experts.
• Most people drop off in the first 3-5 minutes of a podcast. That's the most important point to make your episodes great.
• When people don't know the guest, they'll find the guest's personal story boring. Save that for the middle or end of the episode. Put interesting stuff in the beginning.
• The best stuff is the somewhat unfiltered stuff, so start recording before the guest comes on and don't stop until after they leave.
• To develop your own signature style, describe yourself in two words. a16z is "innovation brand." Wired was "informed optimism." Xerox PARC was "entrepreneurial scientists." Your guest selection, convo topics, questions, editing, etc. should all flow from this.

I think a lot of what a16z does is only possible because of their heavy editing, which isn't necessarily the best use of time for a small-time or hobbyist podcaster. But the principles are smart to learn from.

This was a great listen and definitely has great tips for Podcaster, however, as a business that provides podcast editing to Podcasters all over, we do think there's a lot that can be improved in terms of how the (a16z) podcast itself sounds.

In its early days, I loved a16z podcasts, especially the ones with @pmarca. In the past few years though, it's felt like a mostly soulless mass-produced McPodcast.

Honestly, I get more out of a typical Conversation with Tyler, Lex Fridman or London Reel than I do out of 5-10 a16z podcasts. All of them are live, too!