I find an early morning walk is a great way to consume podcasts on a regular basis.
Below are my favourites so far this year, with a little comment under each from me.
I’ll update this list as I come across more great episodes. A bit of a skew to motor racing and marketing, however, the crossover with business strategy and the power of communication in leadership, is strong and engaging throughout.
a16z Podcast: What Time Is It? From Technical to Product to Sales CEO
A great podcast with unprecedented access to some of the best minds in tech and business. This episode explores in detail the concept of the Technical CEO, the Sales CEO, the Product CEO and so on - all the things that a startup CEO is faced with in the early days of building a business. Some real gems here for sales and relationship focussed businesses — advertising agencies in particular.
In The Pink by Natalie Pinkham: Eddie Jordan (Season 1 / Episode 13)
One of Formula One’s true characters, Eddie talks passionately about his early days building a Formula 1 team with very little of anything— giving Michael Schumacher his debut in 1991 — as well as the importance of family, and how to get a deal done the “Irish way”.
Recode Decode with Kara Swisher: Four magic words for entrepreneurs: ‘Do your fucking job’ (Episode 313)
A great chat with Scott Belsky who founded Behance with his very useful notepads. Any entrepreneur will enjoy Scott’s perspective on building businesses and building teams to run them.
Sweathead with Mark Pollard: Marketers Fight For Ideas — Fernando Machado, Global CMO Burger King
A former colleague of mine at DDB Sydney, Mark’s chat with Fernando is a thoroughly refreshing look at marketing at scale in the modern era. He talks openly about how Burger King works with ad agencies, and how they get the best bang for their marketing buck. To get a sense of how Fernando’s mind works, check out his engagement with YouTuber Casey Neistat here and here.
F1: Beyond The Grid: Rob Smedley — “I cried for about an hour after Massa lost the 2008 title — it was so intense…” (Episode 23)
Another motorsport podcast, although this was not the theme I took away. Rob has worked with some of the modern eras most ruthless and tenacious racers and through it all has amassed wisdom beyond his years. I look forward to seeing where he goes next. A guy you’d love to have a couple of beers with at the pub.
Game Changers Radio: Kyle Sandilands (Episode 45)
Game Changers is one of my favourite podcasts because people in radio are such good story-tellers. What I really liked about Craig’s chat with Kyle was how structured and strategic Kyle has been to get where he is today. One gem from this episode is Kyle’s barb to (podcast host) Craig, who was Program Director at Sydney’s 2DayFM at the time, “…I don’t give a f**k what time the news happens mate, I’m not going to sacrifice a talk-break for the news. So you can f**k off!”
Masters of Scale: Dropbox founder Drew Houston
Masters of Scale must be the most over-produced podcast in history. The bespoke sound effects and production values are off-the-scale. This episode with Dropbox founder Drew Houston is great. Host Reid Hoffman is a very good story-teller and in every episode he always unearths some brilliant insights. In this episode for example, they dissect middle-management and the negative impact it can (and usually does) have on businesses trying to scale. There’s a great Steve Jobs story in there too.
16 Minutes News on Tech: Apple Camera, Services; Wearables — Where are We (Episode 8)
I tweeted about this new podcast from Andreessen Horowitz and was very honoured to be retweeted to their follower base of over 345,000 people! The most recent episode featured an obligatory review of the new iPhone cameras, the associated services and the state of the wearables category. If you want a great 16 minute dive on what’s topical in tech this week — make sure you subscribe to 16 Minutes. Other episodes have covered real-time payments, opioids, and mobile malware.
Let me know if you have any great podcast recommendations. Shoot me an email — mike@mikeboyd.co or message me on Twitter — https://twitter.com/mike_boyd
