The listening list
28 podcasts worth an angel's time
There is an enormous amount of startup audio and a surprisingly small amount of it that makes you better at writing cheques. This is the shortlist, with what each show is genuinely good for, where to start, and an honest note about which ones are people talking their own book.
Pick a situation
Five listening orders
Following twenty podcasts produces a backlog and a vague sense of being behind. These are built for a moment instead — your first week, a live opportunity, a long drive.
Your first five episodes
If you have never invested in a startup and want to understand what you are getting into, listen to these five in this order.
5 shows, in order →Working listeningWhen you are doing diligence
The shows to reach for when you have a live opportunity and need to sound like someone who has assessed one before.
5 shows, in order →The mechanicsHow deals actually get done
Term sheets, negotiations, valuations and the awkward conversations — the shows that discuss the transaction rather than the company.
5 shows, in order →Deep listeningFor the long drive
Multi-hour company histories and biographies — the episodes worth saving for a journey rather than a commute.
5 shows, in order →The rest of the worldBeyond Silicon Valley
Europe, Latin America and Asia-Pacific covered by people who live there — because the American shows will not tell you how any of it works.
5 shows, in order →Watch one now
4 shows you can start watching here
Every embed on this site is checked twice: the show's own site must link to the YouTube channel, and YouTube's own oEmbed response must name that channel as the video's author. Several well-known candidates failed that check and are not here.
Rolex (Audio)
Watch on the show page →SPAC talk with Chamath Palihapitiya, David Friedberg, David Sacks & Jason Calacanis | from Episode 7
Watch on the show page →Aaron Levie and Steven Sinofsky on the AI-Worker Future
Watch on the show page →How to Apply And Succeed at Y Combinator | Startup School
Watch on the show page →17 shows
Global & US
The shows most angels start with — American in origin, global in audience, and the reference points everybody else is arguing with.
Acquired
Ben Gilbert & David Rosenthal
Multi-hour company histories, researched to a depth no other podcast attempts — how great businesses were actually built, and what the people involved were thinking at the time.
All-In
Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, David Sacks & David Friedberg
Four investors arguing about markets, technology and politics every week — the closest thing to overhearing how prominent capital allocators actually talk to each other.
Invest Like the Best
Patrick O'Shaughnessy
Long interviews with investors and operators about how they actually make decisions — less about specific companies than about the reasoning behind allocating capital.
The a16z Show
Andreessen Horowitz's own podcast network — conversations with the firm's partners, portfolio founders and outside experts about where technology is heading.
This Week in Startups
Jason Calacanis
One of the longest-running startup shows anywhere — news, founder interviews and a working angel investor talking through deals in something close to real time.
The Pitch
Josh & Lisa Muccio
Real founders pitching real investors for real money, recorded in the room — the single most useful show on this list for understanding what actually happens in a pitch meeting.
Y Combinator's channel & Startup School
The accelerator's own library of talks, founder interviews and startup teaching — the most concentrated free education in early-stage company building anywhere.
How I Built This
Guy Raz
Founders telling the story of how their company began, in a produced narrative format — the most accessible show on this list and a genuinely good one.
Masters of Scale
Reid Hoffman
A venture investor and LinkedIn co-founder testing a specific theory of company-building against the experience of people who have done it.
BG2
Bill Gurley & Brad Gerstner
Two experienced investors — one from venture, one from public markets — talking through technology, markets and capital cycles without much filter.
Founders
David Senra
One person reading a biography of an entrepreneur each week and telling you what is in it — an unusual format that has become one of the most admired shows in business podcasting.
Lenny's Podcast
Lenny Rachitsky
Product, growth and career interviews with operators — the most practical show on this list about how software companies actually get customers.
My First Million
Sam Parr & Shaan Puri
Two operators riffing on business ideas, small acquisitions and ways to make money — much less venture-shaped than the rest of this list, and useful for exactly that reason.
Equity
TechCrunch's venture and startup news show — a newsroom take on the week's funding, rather than an investor's.
The Knowledge Project
Shane Parrish
Interviews about decision-making, judgement and mental models — not a startup show at all, and one of the more useful things an angel can listen to.
Business Breakdowns
A single business dismantled per episode — how it makes money, what its economics look like, and what would have to change for that to stop.
SaaStr
Jason Lemkin
Everything about building and selling business software, from someone who has done it and now invests in it — the most specific operational content for B2B software on this list.
5 shows
Europe
London, the Nordics and the continent — where the schemes, the scale and the exit routes work differently enough to need their own reporting.
20VC
Harry Stebbings
Interviews with the partners of the best-known venture firms in the world, run out of London at a pace and volume nobody else matches.
Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast
John Thornhill & Freya Pratty
Sifted's own show on the European startup ecosystem — founders, investors and reporting on companies from a newsroom that covers the continent rather than a single city.
Riding Unicorns
James Pringle & Hector Mason
Two UK investors interviewing British and European founders and operators about how their companies were actually built.
In Good Company
Nicolai Tangen
The chief executive of Norway's sovereign wealth fund interviewing the leaders of the largest companies in the world — an unusual show made possible entirely by who is asking.
The Diary of a CEO
Steven Bartlett
Long, personal interviews with founders, executives and public figures — a mainstream British show that reaches an audience no venture podcast does.
2 shows
Latin America
A thinner field than the region deserves, and two shows that genuinely cover it rather than treating it as a sidebar.
Crossing Borders
Nathan Lustig
A venture investor based in the region interviewing Latin American founders and the investors backing them — the longest-running English-language show on LatAm startups.
Latitud Podcast
Brian Requarth
Latin America's better-known founders and investors interviewed by someone who built and sold a large company in the region himself.
4 shows
Asia-Pacific
Singapore, India and South-East Asia, covered by people who live there — the most under-listened category on this list.
BRAVE Southeast Asia Tech
Jeremy Au
Southeast Asian founders, investors and market debates from someone operating inside the region — the most consistent English-language coverage of a market most angels never hear about.
Analyse Asia
Bernard Leong
A long-running weekly show dissecting technology, business and media across Asia, with a technical depth that most regional podcasts do not attempt.
The Neon Show
Siddhartha Ahluwalia
Indian founders and investors interviewed by a founder-turned-investor — the most substantial English-language show on the Indian startup ecosystem.
Asia Tech Podcast
Graham D Brown
Singapore-based interviews with founders and investors across Asian technology, with a focus on the personal story behind the company.
How this list was put together
Every show here is one an angel could reasonably put in rotation, chosen for what it teaches rather than for how large its audience is. Where a show is made by investors with live positions — which is most of them — the write-up says so, because knowing whose book is being talked is part of listening well.
Regional coverage is genuinely uneven, and we have not padded it to look balanced. Latin America is served by fewer credible English-language shows than the size of its ecosystem warrants, and listing two good ones is more useful than listing six of which four are dormant.
We do not invent episode titles. Where a write-up suggests where to start, it describes the kind of episode worth beginning with rather than naming one we have not opened. The only specific episodes named on this site are the four videos embedded on show pages, each verified against YouTube's own oEmbed response.
Startup podcasts: common questions
What is the best podcast for a new angel investor?
Which podcast is best for understanding deal terms?
Are venture podcasts biased?
How many podcasts should I actually follow?
Then do the work
Listening is the easy part
None of these shows will tell you what a liquidation preference does to your proceeds, or how many cheques you need to write for the arithmetic to work.