Inside PJ Vogt’s low budget, super successful podcast

Channels with Peter Kafka

Vox Media Podcast Network

Technology, Tv & Film, Business News, News

4.4 • 585 Ratings

🗓️ 19 March 2025

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Anyone who makes things thinks they could do it better if they had more. More money, time, headcount, infrastructure. Some of us find there can be upsides to doing it with less, too. That's not exactly PJ Vogt's story but I think it's directionally accurate: Vogt cohosted a huge hit podcast - Reply All - and when he decided to try again - with Search Engine - he had a lot less to work with. That shaped his thinking about the company he wanted to run and the product it puts out each week. It seems like it's working, and Vogt walks us through the details and his decisions. Also joining me: Zach Mack, who has helped other people (like me) make podcasts for years, made one that only he could make. Go listen to his "Alternate Realities" series on NPR's Embedded - but first listen to how he made it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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1:13.2	Peter Kafka, that's me.
1:14.8	I am also the chief correspondent at Business Insider.
1:18.1	It was really nice to see a bunch of you in Austin last week.
1:20.7	Thank you for saying hello.
1:22.6	Today we've got a fun episode.
1:24.3	It's a podcast about podcasts.
1:29.2	Don't worry, it's about more than that, really.
1:34.5	We're talking about how to make things in 2025 and how the resources you have and the restraints you have can shape the stuff you make. So to do that, I talk to PJ Vote. He is the host of
1:40.2	the great search engine podcast. PJ has kind of OG podcast royalty.
1:45.6	For a long time, he was the co-host of Reply All.
1:48.2	It's one of the most acclaimed shows of the initial podcast boom.
1:52.1	That one ran for about a decade, and we talk a bit about how it ended.
1:56.5	But more interesting to me is how PJ thought about the next thing he wanted to do,
2:00.6	and who would
	...

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