21 Podcasts to Make You Smarter

We know the feeling: you feel uninformed about a story in the news, or a pop culture phenomena, or just have questions about the world that have never been answered. Podcasts are here to the rescue. Podcasts are great because you can listen to them while you’re at the gym, driving, on the train, mowing the lawn, hand-washing your laundry, or any other task that can be enhanced with audio knowledge.

We put together a list of our favorite podcasts that have made us smarter, separated them out into groups based on content. We also put together a 2×2, mapping each podcast across two axes: lighthearted vs. serious and looking smarter in front of friends vs. being smarter in your personal life.