This is a different format than my usual podcast. It's a brief, 28-minute chat with poker savant Max Silver on two topics: 1) Nutrition/fitness (Max lost 55 pounds last year and is currently training for a prop bet where he needs to do 20 pull-ups), 2) The likely state of the poker world five years from now (this part of the conversation starts at 14'10").

I loved this interview with a star of the financial twitter universe, Barton Wang. He posts very frequently on Twitter under the handle @barton_options. I never thought I would praise someone who attempts short-term predictions about stock market prices, but Barton has been remarkably prescient over a long sample. Listen to this podcast for hints to his approach (which focuses on short-term changes in overall liquidity conditions, combined with analysis of changes in open interest in the option markets), and for his overall thoughts about the current market environment (teaser: he thinks it's a very strange market indeed). Prepare to be wowed by his intelligence.

Episode seven features an interview with renowned and sometimes controversial sociologist and writer Charles Murray. Charles is a fellow at AEI and the author of The Bell Curve, Losing Ground, Coming Apart, and Human Accomplishment. We cover his current project --- a book on poker!

Podcast six is a ninety minute interview with documentary filmmaking legend Billy Corben. We take a deep dive into his filmmaking career, covering Cocaine Cowboys (three films), The U, Broke, Dawg Fight, Magic City Hustle, Screwball, and Limelight.

Episode five features Gregory Zuckerman, author of The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution. This book is one of my favorite pieces of financial journalism from the last decade. Gregory tells the story of Renaissance Technologies, the most successful hedge fund of the last twenty years. In an industry of smart and quirky people, Renaissance seemed to have the smartest and quirkiest, and very little was known about the fund before this book.

This interview also features an exploration into Gregory's impressive work routines. I was curious how he managed a three part career of award-winning Wall Street Journal reporter, best-selling financial journalist (three bestsellers in the past decade), and sports journalist (two books co-authored with his sons).

Podcast Four was recorded on November 6, 2018. Ben Hunt's sparkling intellect is on near weekly display on his blog posts at www.epsilontheory.com. His long blog posts there, covering the intersection of politics, economics, and financial markets, have developed an extremely devoted audience. He can be found on Twitter at @EpsilonTheory

Nate Silver (@natesilver538) is widely considered the world's top political forecaster. We chat about 2020 presidential election odds for more than forty-five minutes, covering Trump odds of every stripe (impeachment, ratification of impeachment, term completion, re-election), and we consider the election probabilities of the leading Democratic candidates. In the last half of the interview, we cover the new 538 NBA projection model (RAPTOR) and we chat about Nate's renewed interest in poker analytics.

Jason Strasser (@strassa2) was a legend in the golden era of online poker (2004-2006). He made a conscious decision to leave the game completely at a time when he was widely considered one of the world's top poker players. Spoiler: it was a good decision. Listen to this episode for the full story.

Episode 1: James Blake.

Really, really enjoyed this convo. We get deep into some tennis (covering his rapid ascension into the top 5, his recovery from a broken neck, and his battles with Agassi/Fed/Nadal. His discussion of police violence in the last five minutes is as nuanced and intelligent of a view as you will ever hear on the subject.