I am not a Podcasts person. Most episodes are too long, there is a lot of nonsense talk with inside jokes, and I usually find information quicker when googling on my own. As the past months have been quite busy, however, I was looking to fill the time where I couldn’t read or do other things like when walking to the train station, driving the car, etc. Somehow I came back to my old Overcast account with a lot of unplayed episodes. After going through my subscriptions and some lists, I created my own short list of podcasts that I actually listen to. Episodes are reasonably long, there is little chit-chat, and some thought-provoking content. In this post, I share six of those podcasts with you.

Data Science-focused Podcasts

• Data Skeptic – A blog and a podcast discussing different data science and machine learning techniques. In contrast to many other podcasts on data science, Data Skeptic usually has a guest introducing and explaining stuff. So, instead of chit-chatting why BERT is cool, you actually hear researchers and applied data scientists talking about topics they have been working on. This makes the 20 minute episodes really worth it.
• DataFramed – The podcast by DataCamp. Currently (October 2019) on hiatus, but I hope it comes back soon. Like Data Skeptic, there are mostly guests who talk about things. In contrast to Data Skeptic, DataFramed is also a lot about actually working or researching in the data science industry.
• Not So Standard Deviations – I guess, this might be one of the most well-known podcasts in data science. Mostly Hillary Parker and Roger Peng talking. They often share what they are working on and how they work. Found this interesting in many episodes, but the episodes are often quite long so I find myself often not listening to the whole episodes.
• Linear Digressions – Ben Jaffe and Katie Malone (who I didn’t know before) talk about data science topics. The episodes are between 15 and 20 minutes and mostly cover just a single topic. Besides talking about cats and dogs, it has some very interesting episodes that go beyond the statistical parts of data science.

Business-focused Podcasts

This list is a bit shorter, because I found most start-up- or business-focused podcasts to be very shallow and with little valuable insights. So, currently, I only have two podcasts where I feel that the majority of episodes are valuable:

• Rework – Named after the book by Jason Fried and David Hanemeier-Hansson, this podcast by Basecamp (formerly known as 37signals), this podcast is about a wide range of business issues. I really like the book, but haven’t been following the podcast for so long, so not yet sure how good it really is. The episodes I listened to so far were interesting. Usually episodes are about 30 minutes in length.
• digital kompakt (German) – The only German podcast I listen to is a mixed bag. Some episodes make me cringe because it stirs up hype topics like agile work, artificial intelligence and change management. Many of the interviews are still very interesting, though. In contrast to many American podcasts for start-ups, I can relate more to the market conditions in Germany.

Do you have more recommendations for podcasts on data science in research and industry or on business issues? Feel free to share your favourite podcasts down below in the comments!