The best podcasts of 2026, ranked by what made our newsletters.
We read every episode of the shows we cover and pass the best ideas on each Sunday. These are the 15 shows whose episodes made those newsletters most often in the 12 weeks to Oct 4.
Lists by topic
The top 15 overall
- 1
No Priors
Hosted by Sarah Guo and Elad Gil
10 of 10 episodes made our newsletters in the 12 weeks to Oct 4 · 5.0 write-ups per episode
Recent takeaway: Hyperscaler ASICs like Google TPU, Meta MTIA, Microsoft Maia, and OpenAI Jalapeno rarely offer differentiated computational performance over Nvidia or AMD. Read the write-up
- 2
How I Invest
Hosted by David Weisburd
20 of 22 episodes made our newsletters in the 12 weeks to Oct 4 · 4.6 write-ups per episode
Recent takeaway: Traditional GP staking firms target blue-chip, middle-market asset managers with established fee streams, ignoring early-stage funds. Read the write-up
- 3
Dwarkesh Podcast
Hosted by Dwarkesh Patel
6 of 6 episodes made our newsletters in the 12 weeks to Oct 4 · 4.5 write-ups per episode
Recent takeaway: Small Spanish forces collapsed massive Aztec and Inca empires within a few years by capturing their supreme leaders, instantly paralyzing their central command chains. Read the write-up
- 4
M&A Science
Hosted by Kison Patel
9 of 10 episodes made our newsletters in the 12 weeks to Oct 4 · 4.6 write-ups per episode
Recent takeaway: Jerry Cedicci treats initial bank loan rejections as free underwriting audits rather than deal-killing dead ends. Read the write-up
- 5
20VC with Harry Stebbings
Hosted by Harry Stebbings
16 of 21 episodes made our newsletters in the 12 weeks to Oct 4 · 4.8 write-ups per episode
Recent takeaway: Crusoe CEO Chase Lochmiller disputes the popular claim that modern AI data centers drain local reservoirs, pointing to closed-loop liquid cooling designs. Read the write-up
- 6
My First Million
Hosted by Sam Parr and Shaan Puri
13 of 17 episodes made our newsletters in the 12 weeks to Oct 4 · 3.9 write-ups per episode
Recent takeaway: Ancient eastern philosophies described simulation theory thousands of years before computers existed, using the technological metaphors available in their eras. Read the write-up
- 7
How I AI
Hosted by Claire Vo
11 of 14 episodes made our newsletters in the 12 weeks to Oct 4 · 4.9 write-ups per episode
Recent takeaway: OpenAI introduced ChatGPT Spaces at DevDay 2026 as a shared environment for documents, slides, and HTML artifacts where humans and software agents work together. Read the write-up
- 8
Private Equity Funcast
Hosted by Jim Milbery and Devin Mathews
9 of 11 episodes made our newsletters in the 12 weeks to Oct 4 · 4.0 write-ups per episode
Recent takeaway: Junior private equity associates and VPs routinely burn two to three hours every Monday manually logging meetings, notes, and pipeline updates into legacy systems. Read the write-up
- 9
The Tim Ferriss Show
Hosted by Tim Ferriss
4 of 4 episodes made our newsletters in the 12 weeks to Oct 4 · 4.5 write-ups per episode
Recent takeaway: Kevin Ryan filters startup concepts through a strict two-week mental incubation window before spending capital. Read the write-up
- 10
Dry Powder
Hosted by Hugh MacArthur
3 of 3 episodes made our newsletters in the 12 weeks to Oct 4 · 5.7 write-ups per episode
Recent takeaway: Ares built a dedicated 150-person private wealth sales team that matches the headcount of its 150-person institutional sales force across the US, Europe, and APAC. Read the write-up
- 11
Lex Fridman Podcast
Hosted by Lex Fridman
3 of 3 episodes made our newsletters in the 12 weeks to Oct 4 · 5.0 write-ups per episode
Recent takeaway: David Heinemeier Hansson benchmarked frontier models on rewriting a Python animation library into Rust; the autonomous run took under 45 minutes, cut startup time from 86 milliseconds to 2 milliseconds, and sped up execution by 9.6 times. Read the write-up
- 12
Practical AI
Hosted by Daniel Whitenack and Chris Benson
3 of 3 episodes made our newsletters in the 12 weeks to Oct 4 · 4.7 write-ups per episode
Recent takeaway: Physical AI refers strictly to models deployed on physical devices that perturb the physical state of the environment to produce tangible, material results. Read the write-up
- 13
Fund Shack
Hosted by Ross Butler
3 of 3 episodes made our newsletters in the 12 weeks to Oct 4 · 4.3 write-ups per episode
Recent takeaway: Former APG private equity head John Renkema argues continuation vehicles create severe governance conflicts that general partners fail to manage properly. Read the write-up
- 14
Huberman Lab
Hosted by Andrew Huberman
13 of 20 episodes made our newsletters in the 12 weeks to Oct 4 · 4.5 write-ups per episode
Recent takeaway: Former Texas Governor Rick Perry and conservative veteran groups now lead advocacy for ibogaine and MDMA to treat combat trauma and addiction. Read the write-up
- 15
Latent Space
Hosted by swyx and Alessio Fanelli
14 of 22 episodes made our newsletters in the 12 weeks to Oct 4 · 4.6 write-ups per episode
Recent takeaway: Google possesses massive TPU capacity, yet internal teams like DeepMind have less dedicated R&D compute than OpenAI and Anthropic. Read the write-up
How we rank
We write up every episode of the shows we cover. Over the 12 weeks to Oct 4, that came to 298 episodes from 30 shows, and we published 24 newsletters (The Throughline and The Carry). A show ranks higher when more of its episodes had ideas that made one of those newsletters.
The score is the share of a show's episodes that made a newsletter, adjusted so a show with only a few episodes needs a higher share to rank high (3 of 3 counts for less than 10 of 10). A show needs at least two episodes in the window to be ranked. The order updates every time the site rebuilds, and the window moves forward each Sunday. Nobody pays to be on this list, and it only includes shows we cover.
Questions
What are the best podcasts of 2026?
By our data, the top five are No Priors, How I Invest, Dwarkesh Podcast, M&A Science and 20VC with Harry Stebbings. The ranking counts how often each show's episodes made our newsletters in the 12 weeks to Oct 4.
How is this list ranked?
By the share of each show's episodes whose ideas made The Throughline or The Carry, adjusted so a show with only a few episodes needs a higher share to rank high.
How often does the list change?
The order updates every time the site rebuilds, and the 12 week window moves forward each Sunday.