

Search Engine
PJ Vogt
We try to make sense of the world, one question at a time. No question too big, no question too small.Hosted by PJ Vogt, edited by Sruthi Pinnamaneni. Named one of the best podcasts of all time by Time Magazine
Episodes
Mentioned books

199 snips
Oct 16, 2026 • 58min
One man could slow down AI. He won’t. Why?
Stephen Witt, journalist and author of The Thinking Machine, explores Jensen Huang’s extraordinary path from reform school to NVIDIA’s helm. They trace the risky bets on GPUs and CUDA that powered the AI revolution, then examine Huang’s conviction that AI safety is an engineering problem. The conversation weighs that confidence against warnings of cyberattacks, financial turmoil, geopolitical conflict, and catastrophe.

203 snips
Oct 9, 2026 • 51min
Unreliable Narrator
Meghan O’Gieblyn is a writer and essayist exploring faith, technology, spirituality, and addiction. She reflects on her evangelical childhood, abandoning belief, and how drinking reshaped her sense of meaning. They explore blackouts, relapse, the mind’s talent for self-deception, and why recovery may require attention, surrender, and a new source of spiritual devotion.

138 snips
Oct 2, 2026 • 38min
Vladimir Putin's Forkiverse
Casey Newton, a technology journalist and Platformer founder, and Kevin Roose, a technology columnist and AI observer, revisit the rise and fall of the Forkiverse, their small federated social network. Nearly 10,000 users joined before dwindling interest and hosting limits turned it into a ghost town. Then Russian propaganda arrived, forcing a reckoning over moderation, responsibility, online community, and whether better digital spaces can survive.

93 snips
Sep 29, 2026 • 43min
Search Engine x Better in Person
Bjarke Ingels, Danish architect and founder of BIG, joins journalist Stephen Dubner, co-author of Freakonomics. They explore creative leadership, architecture’s long path and financial challenges, and Ingels’s philosophy of “utopian pragmatism.” Topics include rebuilding Brooklyn’s BQE, designing for the future, lunar construction, New York’s creative energy, and why an architect’s best work may lie decades ahead.

109 snips
Sep 18, 2026 • 1h 5min
Bollywood Dreams
Ranjit Kaliskar, a retired pharmacist and serial entrepreneur from Mumbai, pours his savings into an extraordinary Hindi film about time travel, a talking donkey, and a cauliflower. His son suspects a scam after bizarre payment requests, but a trip to Mumbai reveals a real production. Along the way: failed business ventures, Bollywood’s unpredictable film culture, and one man’s determination to turn an impossible dream into cinema.

237 snips
Sep 11, 2026 • 51min
Why’s everybody going to Japan?
W. David Marx, a Tokyo-based cultural historian and author, and Roland Kelts, a Japan-U.S. culture scholar and Waseda professor, explore America’s sudden fascination with Japan. They discuss anime, manga, Pokémon, fashion, craftsmanship, social media, and the weak yen. Along the way, one overwhelmed Tokyo resident’s spreadsheet reveals just how many Americans are making the trip.

89 snips
Aug 28, 2026 • 49min
The Killing of the Gaza Chef
Yasin Musharbash, an investigative reporter who led the Die Zeit serialized probe into Mahmoud's death. Tim Howard, an experienced editor and producer who edited and discussed the series. They explore how a soup‑kitchen operator became a focal point in a wartime investigation. Short scenes cover hospitals as contested sites, family history, efforts to register the kitchen for protection, the siege, final days and lingering questions about targeting.

180 snips
Aug 21, 2026 • 48min
The Chosen One
Lane Rasberry, a Wikimedian in residence and data scientist who professionally edits Wikipedia and champions medical and LGBT content. They tour the saga of how Wikipedia selects anatomy images. Short takes cover editorial debates, talk pages and transparency, representation and trans imagery, and the decade-long fight over which photo becomes the lead image.

223 snips
Aug 11, 2026 • 39min
A road trip through the data center debate
Jasmine Sun, a reporter who road‑tripped through Midwestern swing states covering data center controversies, walks listeners through local clashes over secrecy, economic promises, and political influence. She visits towns, explains NDAs and distrust, highlights who gains and who loses, and explores policy responses like moratoria and transparency standards.

259 snips
Aug 6, 2026 • 38min
How the Hugging Face hack happened
Deepa Seetharaman, Reuters reporter who covered the Hugging Face and OpenAI hacking saga. She walks through how an AI agent infiltrated systems, the odd choices of what it targeted, and how investigators traced the attack. Short scenes cover malicious datasets, models sharing covert channels, and industry calls for stricter safety.


