Here are my favorite 21 podcasts in 2021. Enjoy!
1. Masters of Scale - Make it epic, w/will.i.am
We are all taught to take advantage of opportunities as they present themselves, but will.i.am takes it to the next level. He parlayed a super-bowl performance to benefit 3 different businesses: Black Eyed Peas, Beats, and Salesforce.
2. Planet Money – Why Printers Are The Worst
Learn about the world's most expensive liquid and the razor blade business model – low upfront costs and attempts at keeping you coming back for more.
3. TED Radio Hour - The Gratitude Chain
This guy attempted to say thank you to everyone who helped make his cup of coffee (meaning the entire supply chain). Hint: It never ends.
4. Worklife - Dax Shepard Doesn't Believe in Regret
Work should be fun, embrace humor! "The Cardinal rule of humor at work is you're supposed to make fun of yourself, not other people."
5. Masters of Scale - Brian Chesky (Airbnb), WE DIED AND WERE REBORN
The Rapid Response series focused on capturing stories from leaders that had to overcome tremendous struggles navigating the pandemic's effects on their business. A key theme throughout these podcasts is the focus on empowering people/employees/associates/workers to lead through challenging times. The Airbnb story is one my favorites.
6. HBR IdeaCast - The Competitive Advantage of an Offboarding Program
This captures how you can apply the wealth of feedback from departing employees to your current employees and build a community of loyal alumni as folks to depart your company.
7. Thoughtworks Technology Podcast - Making developer effectiveness a reality
Challenges leaders to focus on providing an environment that allows engineers to be effective. Gives the leadership perspective of two different technologies challenges Spotify (distributed system) and Etsy (Monolith).
8. HBR IdeaCast - Why the Highest Paying Jobs So Rarely Go to Women
This podcast introduces the term "greedy work" and how to build inclusive work environments.
9. Leadership Next - Crafting a Return to Work That Really Works
Adobe's CEO Shantanu Narayen addresses how to hold on to the benefits of remote work while encouraging more in-person collaboration.
10. How I Built This - Expedia & Zillow: Rich Barton
This guy is a true tech entrepreneur created two huge market disrupting companies. This podcast tells Rich's story from the early days of Microsoft to founding Zillow.
11. Planet Money - Mobile Home Parked
Great story on huge investment firms buying up mobile home parks and making them less affordable for current residents.
12. Worklife - How to stop languishing and start finding flow
We talk about flow a lot in engineering. It's important we recognize when start to languish and use mastery, mindfulness, mattering (purpose) to achieve that ultimate flow state.
13. Stuff You Should Know - How MRI Works
This covers the intersection of devices and software with a healthy dose of science and math which all collide together for one awesome podcast relevant to a lot of my friends in Healthcare.
14. Thoughtworks Technology Podcast - Data meshes: a distributed domain-oriented data platform
This episode takes a look at the evolution of data architecture and the advancement from Data Lakes to data mesh.
15. Modern CTO - Controlling Who Has Access To Your Data & Keeping Bias Out of AI
Algorithmic bias is an important challenge to overcome as AI and Machine Learning are becoming standard capabilities for most businesses.
16. Masters of Scale - The elusive formula for great hiring, w/Workday's Aneel Bhusri
This is a great example of how you create and maintain an employee-first culture.
17. Planet Money - The New Shape Of Pasta
I would have never thought the economics of pasta would be so interesting. It requires lawyers and tons of money just to attempt to invent a new shape of a pasta noodle.
18. The Indicator from Planet Money - Technology brought to you by the s-curve
A humorous introduction to the technology adoption curve.
19. How I Built This - How I Built Resilience: Michael Horvath and Mark Gainey of Strava
This episode focuses on community engagement centered around fitness and building a people-centric company at scale.
20. HBR IdeaCast - Stop Networking, Start Connecting
"Gather, Ask, Do" --- Gather some information about the individual relationships you want to build, make a not-so-selfish ask, now meet, learn, and share.
21. Software Daily - Synthetic Data
Security and testability are huge challenges as engineers work on big data platforms, this podcast addresses some of those concerns and introduces a product called Tonic.
BONUS: The Fuzzy Mic - USMC Major General, John Admire
The best leadership strategies comes from those who served our country. This podcast highlights a few stories from Vietnam, it's just one of many journeys in John Admire's 43-year career. Believe it or not, his book "Darker Than Dark" includes stories about my own father (Kenneth Snider). Side note: The picture in this article is from the Fuzzy Mic studios, I helped build it this summer with my Brother-in-law Kevin Kline.
These podcasts shaped my thinking throughout 2021, covering everything from business strategy and technology to leadership and personal development. Each one offers unique insights that have influenced how I approach challenges in engineering leadership and beyond.
What podcasts influenced your thinking in 2021? I'd love to hear your recommendations for 2022!
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