The 12 Best Podcast Episodes I’ve Ever Heard

I love podcasts — not quite as much as books — but they accompany daily tasks from driving, to cooking, to working out in the most engaging, fruitful of ways.

As but one human, I’ve only listened to a tiny fraction of all the podcasts ever recorded. However, I’ve scoured the web for quality conversation for half a decade now, and for perspective alone, consider each episode below well worth the time investment.

I could write about how valuable podcasts are for expanding awareness, allowing one to choose their influences, and how this list is just as much as a study of my own choices, but these things are easily inferred.

Let’s dive right in.

The twelve best podcast episodes I’ve ever heard:

1. Werner Herzog on The Portal

If anyone today possesses what the ancient Greeks called “divine madness” it’s Werner Herzog. He’s obsessed, a verging upon crazy filmmaker, who pushes the limits of himself, his cast, and his art. For instance, read about the incredulous production of Fitzcarraldo, in which they re-enacted the story of pulling a ship over a mountain in the jungles of Peru to build an opera house under identical circumstances, with a ship that weighed ten times as much. His willingness to…