173. Steve Levitt Says Goodbye to People I (Mostly) Admire

People I (Mostly) Admire

Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher

Society & Culture

4.6 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 20 December 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the last episode of the podcast, Stephen Dubner turns the microphone on Steve Levitt. They talk about Levitt’s favorite — and least favorite — moments from the show’s five-year run, his quest to reform education, and his next podcasting gig.

Transcript

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0:00.0	After more than five years making this podcast, here we are, the final episode.
0:09.5	As a way of saying goodbye, we're flipping the script today.
0:13.2	My friend and Freakinaw's co-author, Stephen Dubner, will be the interviewer, and I get to be the interviewee.
0:19.9	You, having done people I mostly admire for the last five years, it feels like it changed
0:24.3	you fundamentally.
0:25.9	It is true that being an interviewer was roughly the last thing that I ever should have done.
0:42.8	Welcome to people I mostly admire with Steve Levitt.
0:54.1	Even after five years of doing this show, I'm still 100 times more comfortable being interviewed than doing interviews.
0:56.8	I wonder, as you listen to this episode,
0:59.5	whether you'll be able to hear that in my voice.
1:10.4	Hey, Leavitt.
1:11.7	Hey, Dubner.
1:12.3	How are you doing?
1:12.8	I'm good.
1:13.8	How are you doing?
1:14.5	I'm good.
1:20.8	So this is the final new episode of people I mostly admire, at least for now.
1:24.1	Does that mean you've run out of people you admire?
1:26.9	No, there are endless people I admire.
1:29.0	I always thought it would get easier and easier to get people to come on the podcast because my own rule, when I'm asked to come on a podcast
1:34.0	is I look at who's been on it before and if they're way more interesting and important than I am,
1:39.5	then I'm going, I better do it because those people know better than me. I believe in markets.
	...

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