One blog post I shared a lot last year was my list of favorite podcasts of 2019, people were always askign me for recommendations. So in that spirit I thought I’d update the list for 2020.

Many is the evening lockdown hour I spent pacing on my terrace listening to podcasts and staring out at the city. Some old favorites stayed, some fell away, and some new favorites emerged.

Just like last year I’ve broken them out by category

My podcasts!

  • The Geomob podcast - One highlight of 2020 and the year of the lockdown was getting the Geomob podcast going, together with my friend Steven Feldman. Subscribe immediately! We managed more than 50 episodes and the listenership is slowly but steadily growing. Many thanks to all the guests and listeners, I am learning a lot.

  • Bootstrapped.fm - well, not really my podcast, but (and confusingly) I am often the guest co-host on my other friend Steve McLeod’s podcast. We chat about what’s going on in our businesses.

How To

  • Audience podcast - credit where credit is due, to launch and grow the Geomob podcast all I did was follow the recipe the team at Castos lays out in the Audience podcast. No need to get particularly creative, just do what they say to do.

History

  • Old Front Line - an absolute delight during lockdown. A portal to another time and place. The next best thing to long country walks.

  • History of English podcast - phenomenal deep dive on the English language and history in general. Many hours of great content. Would love to find something similar for German.

  • Neil Oliver’s Love Letter to the British Isles - another lockdown favorite. Pure escapism.

  • Hardcore History - enjoyed 2020’s Pacific War series.

  • Geschichten aus der Geschichte - good format, where the co-hosts alternate on presenting strange stories from history, but with the other co-host not knowing what the topic will be. Manchmal sind die Themen ein bissl zu alpenfokusiert, aber ansonsten immer hörenswert.

SaaS / Bootstrapping podcasts

in this category there has been an explosion of new shows, but my listening habits haven’t really changed. I guess because the main reason to listen isn’t as much the topics as it is just following the story of the founders and their businesses.

  • Rogue Startups - Dave and Craig get the balance between story about their own businesses and general advice exactly right.

  • Release Notes - the easy listening of SaaS podcasts

  • Above Board - a new one from the guy’s behind Fathom Analytics, which I’ve been using since before it was cool.

  • The Art of Product - Not sure what the secret ingredient is, but very easy to listen to.

  • Out of Beta - enjoy listening in to the ups and downs of Peter and Matt’s startups. So much so that I invested in Summit and Branch.

  • The TMBA - less software and SaaS focused. Fun hosts.

  • Indie Hackers - an interview show. Some are excellent, others I skip.

  • Startups for the rest of us - from the guys behind MicroConf. The original SaaS podcasters, and still great.

Geo

  • Extremities - fantastic deep look at life in really remote places. Unfortunately very long time since the most recent series. Hopefully more are on the way, though I can guess that lockdown and travel restrictions make it difficult to create new episodes.

  • MapScaping - great interviews with people doing all sorts of interesting stuff around geo tech.

  • Cageyjames & GeoBabbler - episodes are infrequent and rambling, and yet somehow still very soothing.

General Tech

  • Exponent - basically the Stratechery podcast, though a good part of the pleasure of listening is the interplay between the hosts.

Finance / Business

  • Der Finanzwesir rockt - leider hören Albert und Daniel jetzt auf.

  • Invest Like the Best - great interviews, often though provoking

  • The Business of Family - interesting look behind the curtain at long-standing family businesses. A good change of perspective for someone in the day to day slog of starting and running a business.

“Other”

  • Hacks on Tap - my sole source of US political news.

  • The Rewatchables - I skip a lot of episodes, but this year they did Bueller’s Day off and Caddyshack, what more can you ask for?

  • Micromobility - great interviews about a whole new category experiencing explosive growth.

  • Sicherheitshalber - fun conversations though they often leave me depressed at the state of the world.

  • Conversations with Bill Krystol - I saw him speak at the Harvard Kennedy School after the 2004 election, learned a lot and was entertained. The podcast is equally good. The last bit of attention I pay to US politics.

  • Bauhaus.Podcast - an easy way to reminisce about my time in Weimar. Leider gibts nicht oft neue Folgen.

  • Duke Basketball Report - Go to hell, Carolina, go to hell.

What should I add in 2021? All suggestions welcome