The voter id laws conversation is an excellent example of one where they seemed to be largely off the mark. Jason tried to bring up some of the concerns at first, was immediately shot down by the co-hosts, and they never revisted the legitimate debates against voter ID laws.

This perspective is coming from someone who largely agrees with their ultimate conclusion that we should have Voter ID laws, but there were legitimate counter-points that got missed which should be addressed before implementing voter-id laws.

In a recent episode they went off for quite a while about selling off UHF and VHF frequencies which was also a pretty clueless claim. Sacks thinks they should auction them more frequently and allow startups to buy them for new technologies. I sort of get what he is saying, but how does that change anything? You are just trading one problem for another. You have all the same ownership problems we currently have but you are using it for something with arguably less public good, which is used strictly for profit. How would selling off the frequencies to Microsoft, Apple, and Google (since let's be honest they would have the most money to buy into these experimental land grabs, not some small startup) be any different than ABC, NBC, and CBS owning the airwaves? Yet somehow the group just kind of followed along with this groupthink concept like tech bros.

I do think that they have a bit of a responsibility to fact check and do some due diligence on these types of topics, because as OP's article points out, there are a huge majority of their listeners who will blindly trust anything this panel says as gospel and truth. Many people idolize them since they have made a lot of money and are successful businessmen that they don't make mistakes. Granted that is a larger debate on how society is too trusting of their heroes or leaders, but it is still the current situation nonetheless.

I used to listen to the podcast diligently. I now listen to between 1/3 - 1/2 of the episodes. Basically if I have extra time or the topics are of particular interest to me. But I will no longer make time for the podcast like I used to, I only use it to fill time I might otherwise have if I am caught up on other podcasts.

IMO Chamath and Jason are probably the best of the group. With Chamath being the most informed. I have to give Jason credit because he seems to be the one most willing to bring up counter-arguments. Without Jason this podcast would just devolve into utter nonsense. Sacks' rants about conspiracy theories used to be entertaining, and I love to hear opposing opinions on things to better expand my awareness, but they are so constant and extreme now, that they are just annoying at this point. Friedberg is mostly a background character IMO which is a shame since he tends to be the most centralist and evidence-based of the group. But as is normal in this world, those level-headed opinions get drowned out by the loud people shouting conspiracies and anger fueled rants.

The group clearly has potential as we have seen them hitting the potential. But they are pretty confident with their position as the number one podcast in the world (no idea if that is true or not, but that's their claim) and they seem to be flying pretty close to the sun as a result. It might be going to their heads.

If they see this I would recommend they hire a research team to fact check them throughout the episode or to inject opposing opinions on things. They can afford it and if they are the top podcast in the world than one could argue that they have an ethical obligation to do so. Also limit Sacks' talking. Sometimes I feel like he talks for 1/2 the episode and that's usually when the podcast goes off the rails.

Best of luck to them either way. I don't really care. There is a lot of great content out there that I can listen to besides them (and I have already started shifting towards). But I enjoyed them enough at their peak that if they can bring it back I'd be happy too.