Hey there, it's Stephen Dubner. In our last episode, we gave you a special holiday treat,

an episode of Freakonomics MD, the newest podcast in our Growing Freakonomics Radio Network.

This week, another treat, an episode from one of the other podcasts in our network. It

is called People I Mostly Admire. You can get this show on any podcast app for free,

and if you don't already subscribe, I'd encourage you in the strongest way possible to do so.

People I mostly admire is near to my heart because it's hosted by this guy.

My name is Steve Levitt, and I am a professor of economics at the University of Chicago.

I am best known for co-authoring Freakonomics with Stephen Dubner.

So, Levitt, how do you think about the differences between people I mostly admire in Freakonomics

Radio? I think we have a very similar view of the world, in part because we've worked together

so much over the last 15 or 20 years. And I think of Freakonomics Radio as the journalistic

version of the way we think, and people I mostly admire is the non-journalistic version.

You know my personality, I don't put a big value on being unbiased, so I get a little leeway

to go out and be a crazy academic. Levitt, I have to say, I thought I knew you pretty well,

and yet I feel like every week on the show, I learn something about you, and I love it.

I really appreciate how much you're willing to open your mind and your heart and like the weirdest

parts of you. I think I don't have as much shame about the weird parts of me as most people do.

Also, it's a bit cathartic for me to podcast because for so long, I was single-mindedly devoted

to producing economic research, and that endeavor was so all-consuming that I put a lot of other

parts of me aside. So, it has been such a joy to step back from being a producer of knowledge

to just being able to do this podcast where my role isn't to have great ideas. My role is to try

to find people who have great ideas and bring those ideas to life. I think that's part of why

...