Podcasts have vast potential to distill incredible amounts of knowledge and information into rapid 30-60 minute snippets of information that can be consumed on the go, at the gym, or really anywhere. In today’s always “on” environment – living perpetually connected to worldly happenings, podcasts offer the closest experience to getting in on the action.
As a marketer, it’s important to understand marketing and the various levers you can pull to encourage growth, but it’s also essential to understand our world. To be an effective marketer, it’s important to understand what’s happening worldwide. It can be especially helpful to follow the tech industry and fast-growing startups. It doesn’t matter what industry or field you work in; a thorough grasp of news and events helps inform your decision-making.
Back in 2006, only 22 percent of the adult population in the United States was aware of podcasting. By 2020, this figure had risen to 75 percent. Podcasting is an increasingly popular pastime in the U.S., and there were an estimated 88 million podcast listeners in the country in 2019. Big tech has taken notice, and over the past few years, Spotify has made a strategic push into podcasting to be seen as the audio company instead of just the music streaming company.
So let’s dive into some of our favorite podcasts to keep up with technology, business, and marketing.
Best News Podcasts for Marketers
1 Big Thing
Start your morning with news that matters—from White House scoops to analysis of the economy and insights into the trends shaping the world. This podcast is hosted by Niala Boodhoo, the host and executive producer of The 21st, an award-winning news program, a Knight-Wallace fellow, and a board member for the AAJA.
Every week, Niala does a deep dive with industry leaders in business, politics, and culture, sharing one big event you need to know. Each episode is 20 minutes or less, providing you with the perfect bite of industry news and knowledge to round out your week.
Standout Episode:
Steve Young: What private equity could do for the NFL
Up First
Upfirst brings you the biggest stories and ideas—from politics to pop culture. Each episode is 10-15 minutes long and covers current events influencing business, tech, and the economy.
Pivot
Recode’s Tech Journalist Kara Swisher and NYU Marketing Professor Scott Galloway offer sharp, very unfiltered insights into the biggest stories in tech, business, and politics. They make bold predictions, pick winners and losers, and banter.
Pivot is a go-to source for industry news and insights so that you can stay in the loop. Tune in weekly with Kara and Scott for an episode ranging from 30 to 90 minutes.
Standout Episode
OpenAI’s New Model, Presidential Debates, and EV Tariffs
Best Technology Podcasts
Techmeme Ride Home
Techmeme brings you the day’s tech news every weekday at 5 PM, from Silicon Valley’s most-read news source. Just 15 minutes of your time on your evening commute and you’re up to date. Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, and some of Silicon Valley’s biggest tech CEOs are all confessed readers of the Techmeme, which is saying something given how packed their schedules are.
Standout Episode:
Best Podcasts for Business and Startups
Masters of Scale
Masters of Scale is an award-winning podcast hosted by Reid Hoffman, who made his name in the business world by co-founding LinkedIn.
The podcast offers its listeners in-depth insight, analysis, advice, and tested theories on how to operate, scale, and grow their businesses through interviews and discussions with legendary industry leaders.
Standout Episode
How I Built This with Guy Raz
A podcast about “innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the history behind the movements they built”. Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world’s best-known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs, and idealists—and the movements they built.
Standout Episode
Advice Line with Andrew Abraham of Orgain
Startup Therapy
The No BS version of startup life you’ve been looking for. Startup.com founders Wil Schroter & Elliot Schneier dive deep into the problems startup founders face daily to unpack what’s at stake and how to solve them.
Will Investors Bail Me Out? Brutal Truth About Startup Investments
Morning Brew Daily
Morning Brew’s Neal Freyman and Toby Howell sit down to discuss the latest news in business and the economy. Start your day with insights from some of the industry’s best in 30 minutes or less.
Standout Episodes
The Dow Hits 40k For First Time Ever & Walmart Is the King of Retail
Prof G Show with Scott Galloway
We live in a winner-take-all economy that bifurcates into those who are part of the innovation economy and those who aren’t. Every week, best-selling author, professor, and entrepreneur Scott Galloway answers questions from you (his listeners) on who’s winning and losing and how you can get ahead.
Professors, practitioners, and entrepreneurs join Scott to contribute ideas, alternate opinions, and insights to help you thrive at work. Tune in for a no-mercy, no-malice take on how you can level up your game in the world of business.
Standout Episodes
Venture Capital and Technology
The Twenty Minute VC
20VC aims to inspire and guide you, the listener, with the insight and advice garnered from successful VCs. They believe success can be part of every journey. The show’s first section surrounds success and inspirational people who have achieved unbelievable triumphs. 20VC is a great podcast for any entrepreneur, business owner, or aspiring VC.
Standout Episodes
Behind the Scenes at Y Combinator
Village Global Venture Stories
The Village Global podcast explores venture capital and technology, featuring insightful interviews with entrepreneurs, investors, and tech industry leaders. It is backed by tech tycoons like Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg.
Standout Episodes
How to Nail Product-Market Fit and Scale a B2B Company with Thejo Kote of Airbase
Acquired
Acquired started in 2015 as Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal’s passion project to explore what made great acquisitions successful. It has expanded to tell the stories behind great companies more broadly, diving deep into the events and strategies that brought them to where they are today. You’ll learn the playbooks behind the world’s greatest companies and how to apply them.
Standout Episode:
The Software Behind Silicon (with Synopsys Founder Aart de Geus and CEO Sassine Ghazi)
a16z [Andreessen Horowitz]
The a16z Podcast is the go-to place for discussions about technology, innovation, and change as they impact all our lives. It covers everything from tech trends and culture to company building for companies of all sizes. As technology changes everything—not just in Silicon Valley or traditional “tech” companies but across all industries—it’s also changing how we all work, live, eat, learn, and play.
This show aims to help make sense of it all: for builders, for the tech curious, and for anyone seeking to understand the future now, through carefully curated, in-depth yet accessible, nuanced conversations with top industry and academic experts from around the world, company leaders, builders, makers, book authors, and emerging voices.
Standout Episode:
A16Z PODCAST
Intelligence in the Age of AI with new CTO of the CIA
Equity
TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, unpacking the numbers behind the headlines. Equity is TechCrunch’s venture capital podcast. In each episode, you’ll hear the stories behind the money that runs Silicon Valley.
TechCrunch reporter Alex Wilhelm teams up with Mary Ann Azevedo, Theresa Loconsolo, and the industry’s most notable VCs to analyze who’s raising money, who’s selling out, and who’s going public.
Standout Episodes:
AI’s busy week, and why the heck are so many VCs leaving their firms?
Business Storytelling
Sometimes, you just need to plug into a story and listen without thinking. You could listen to a true-crime podcast or the story of the rise and fall of huge companies like WeWork or Theranos.
Land of the Giants
Land of the Giants explores Big Tech companies and how they change our world. Each season brings 4 episodes deep diving into one company and surveying its influence on politics and culture. The podcast is hosted by Vox Senior Correspondent Peter Kafka.
Foundering
Foundering is a new serialized podcast from the journalists at Bloomberg Technology. Each season, Foundering brings you inside a different high-stakes drama from Silicon Valley, where its companies are wielding unprecedented capital and power.
Standout Episode:
John McAfee’s Folly Was Founder Worship at Its Most Extreme
Some Bonus Mind-Opening Podcasts Picks
The best entrepreneurs and marketers are innately curious about the world beyond venture capital and technology. These are some of the most enlightening podcasts out there weaving storytelling with science, design, and psychology.
Radiolab
Radiolab is one of the most beloved podcasts and public radio programs in the world. The show is known for its deep-dive journalism and innovative sound design.
Created in 2002 by host Jad Abumrad, Radiolab began as an exploration of science, philosophy, and ethics using innovative composition and sound design. Radiolab has expanded and evolved to become a platform for long-form journalism and storytelling.
The show challenges its listeners’ preconceived notions about how the world works. Radiolab provokes, moves, and delights its audience and asks them to see the world around them anew.
Standout Episode:
99% Invisible
99% Invisible is an independently produced radio show created by Roman Mars about all the thought that goes into the things we don’t think about — the unnoticed architecture and design that shape our world.
Standout Episode
Hidden Brain
Using science and storytelling, Hidden Brain reveals the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, the biases that shape our choices, and the triggers that direct the course of our relationships.
Standout Episodes
Innovation 2.0: The Influence You Have
Final Remarks
In the past, you could only learn from CEOs and founders from a blog post or a book, but today, you’d be hard-pressed to find a Silicon Valley CEO who hasn’t been on at least a podcast or two.
Podcasts offer a truly unfiltered window into some of the greatest minds of our time. Learning from personal experimentation and failure is valuable but learning from people who have already been through the wringer is often more efficient. The internet has democratized information but podcasts have democratized direct access.
Podcasts are an incredible source of industry news, events, and ideas. We hope our list has given you a good idea of some of the best business and tech podcasts available today. These are just some of the many great podcasts. Podcasting has exploded in popularity, so new voices are always emerging in the space.
