Andy Matuschak

Interviewing Joe Walker about his interview research learning process (Patreon)

Published:

2025-02-09 19:00:09

Imported:

2026-06

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Joe Walker has a wonderful podcast doing deeply-researched interviews, mostly with people who haven't done long-form interviews before. To prepare for one of these interviews, Joe will spend hundreds of hours reading, studying, and writing. Then, a few weeks later, he'll shift to a totally different domain. So along some strange axis, he's a sort of Olympic athlete of learning.

In this video, I interview him about his learning process. We look at some of his knowledge management systems. There's a lot of spaced repetition discussion. I hope this surfaces some useful tacit knowledge!

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Behind the Scenes of My Interview Research Process — Andy Matuschak Crashes My Crib!

This episode is a little different: I’m the one being interviewed—and my interlocutor is Andy Matuschak, an independent applied researcher focused on "tools for thought" (ways to augment human intelligence). Andy founded and led Khan Academy’s Research and Development Lab, and prior to that, he was a senior engineer at Apple where he helped build iOS. I first discovered Andy’s work in 2021, and it was a game changer for me and the podcast. We spoke on the show in 2022. In 2024, I recorded some podcast interviews in the US, and had the pleasure of hanging out with Andy while I was in San Francisco. In October, Andy dropped by my place in SF to go behind the scenes of my podcast research process and interview me while I prepared for a conversation with Larry Summers. This is an unvarnished, unfiltered look at my tech stack and how I prepare for my interviews. I'm grateful to Andy for suggesting the idea and coaxing my approach to podcast preparation out of me so thoughtfully. I support Andy's research. If you'd like to do so too, go here: https://www.patreon.com/quantumcountry *INTERVIEW RESEARCH NOTES* If you'd like to access my interview research notes for podcast interviews, you can support to access here: https://josephnoelwalker.com/episode-160-research/ *SPONSORS* This episode is sponsored by Math Academy, a fully-automated online learning math platform. For a limited time, new customers can get their first month free. Go to https://www.mathacademy.com/. Use the code "JOEWALKER". This episode is also sponsored by Vanta, which helps businesses automate security and compliance needs. For a limited time, get one thousand dollars off Vanta at https://www.vanta.com/lp/demo-1k?utm_campaign=1k_offer&utm_source=joe-walker-podcast&utm_medium=podcast. Use the discount code "JOE". *SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST* ► https://www.youtube.com/@josephnoelwalker *LISTEN ON:* SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1GG0KxcM4NN8ZPSCwQ6cFE?si=kFi7MuBJRNy2lX-2bQtASQ APPLE PODCASTS: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-jolly-swagman-podcast/id1236553683?i=1000685388107 *TRANSCRIPT:* WEBSITE: https://josephnoelwalker.com/behind-the-scenes-with-andy-matuschak/ *FOLLOW ME ON:* TWITTER: https://twitter.com/JosephNWalker *TIMESTAMPS* (00:00:00) - Introduction. (00:01:05) - Case Study: How I prepared to interview Nassim Taleb. (00:27:25) - How I read books. (00:46:21) - How I use memory prompts. (01:02:02) - How I draft interview questions. (01:10:21) - Using memory prompts to improve at the art of interviewing — and an impromptu prompt-writing session. (01:25:14) - Analog vs digital podcast preparation. (01:27:34) - Why do so much preparation for podcast interviews? What is the broader project of the podcast?