The 12 Cybersecurity and B2B SaaS Podcasts I Listen to Weekly (and the 6 I Quit)
Most “best tech podcasts” lists are SEO-driven and stale. I keep my podcast subscriptions ruthlessly curated. Here are the 12 cybersecurity and B2B SaaS podcasts I listen to weekly, plus the 6 I unsubscribed from this year and the reason for each.
I listen at 1.6x with a 30-second skip mapped to my AirPods stem. That averages out to roughly 8 hours a week of podcast time. At that volume, every show on the subscription list has to earn its slot. Below is what is on the list now, what got cut, and how I find new shows since the Apple and Spotify discovery algorithms stopped being useful.
The 12 keepers
1. Lenny’s Podcast (Lenny Rachitsky)
Why it is on the list: the most consistently high-signal product and growth interviews on the internet. Lenny prepares hard, asks specific questions, and edits aggressively. There are no fluff episodes.
Recommended first episode: any of the Brian Chesky episodes. They teach more about product judgement than most MBA programs.
Portal page: Lenny’s Podcast.
2. Acquired (Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal)
Why it is on the list: the deepest company history podcast that exists. Three to five hours per episode, fully researched, with the strategic frames named explicitly. Listen at 1x. The pace is the point.
Recommended first episode: TSMC. The single best podcast episode I have ever heard on the semiconductor industry.
Portal page: Acquired.
3. Risky Business (Patrick Gray)
Why it is on the list: the only cybersecurity news podcast that does not read like a vendor newsletter. Patrick Gray is opinionated, has been doing this for a decade plus, and treats his audience as adults.
Recommended first episode: any recent weekly news roundup. The format is what hooks you.
Portal page: Risky Business.
4. Darknet Diaries (Jack Rhysider)
Why it is on the list: the best cybersecurity storytelling on any platform. Each episode is a single incident or operator, told as a long-form narrative. It is what True Crime would be if True Crime had standards.
Recommended first episode: episode 100 (Jeremy from Marketing) or the Mafiaboy episode.
Portal page: Darknet Diaries.
5. Identity at the Center (Jeff Steadman and Jim McDonald)
Why it is on the list: the only identity-specific podcast worth listening to. The hosts know the category, the guests are actual practitioners, and the technical discussions are honest. I refer founders here when they need to understand the CIAM landscape.
Recommended first episode: any episode covering passwordless rollouts or the identity governance category.
Portal page: Identity at the Center.
6. Latent Space (Swyx and Alessio)
Why it is on the list: the most technically grounded AI podcast that still talks to people building production systems. Swyx asks engineering questions, not VC questions. The infrastructure depth is what keeps it on the list.
Recommended first episode: any episode with a model lab researcher (Anthropic, OpenAI, DeepMind).
Portal page: Latent Space.
7. No Priors (Sarah Guo and Elad Gil)
Why it is on the list: the best AI investor interviews. Sarah and Elad have both written the playbook for AI investing and they get founders to say things they would not say to a journalist. Different in tone from Latent Space, complementary in coverage.
Recommended first episode: any of the Anthropic, OpenAI, or applied AI founder interviews.
Portal page: No Priors.
8. The Pragmatic Engineer (Gergely Orosz)
Why it is on the list: the only engineering management podcast where the host actually understands engineering culture at scale. Gergely’s interviews with senior engineers and engineering leaders are the closest thing to mentorship by audio.
Recommended first episode: any of the staff engineer career growth episodes.
Portal page: The Pragmatic Engineer.
9. The Twenty Minute VC (Harry Stebbings)
Why it is on the list: highest-velocity venture content. Harry runs the most prepared founder interviews in the category. Not all episodes are worth your time, but the hit rate is high enough that scanning the feed weekly pays off.
Recommended first episode: pick a founder interview in your category, not a VC interview. The VC interviews are less consistent.
Portal page: The Twenty Minute VC.
10. SaaStr (Jason Lemkin)
Why it is on the list: tactical B2B SaaS operating content delivered with the irritating opinionation of someone who has actually run B2B SaaS at scale. The annoyance is the feature, not the bug.
Recommended first episode: any of the deep-dive interviews with sales leaders.
Portal page: SaaStr.
11. The Knowledge Project (Shane Parrish)
Why it is on the list: the antidote to the rest of the list. Shane interviews thinkers outside the immediate tech bubble (decision-making, philosophy, biography). Useful as the long-term thinking corrective to the daily news churn.
Recommended first episode: any of the Daniel Kahneman, Charlie Munger, or Adam Grant episodes.
Portal page: The Knowledge Project.
12. Default Alive
Why it is on the list: bootstrapped and capital-efficient founder interviews. The counter-narrative to the venture-funded podcast network. Worth listening to when you start to feel like every interview sounds like a Sequoia pitch deck.
Recommended first episode: any founder interview at $5M to $20M ARR.
Portal page: Default Alive.
The 6 I quit (and why)
The editorial reasons. Not personal. Several of these are still great shows for other listeners.
1. The Lex Fridman Podcast
Why I quit: three-hour episodes with no edit and host questions that drift toward platitude. The signal-per-minute is too low at the volume I listen at. Useful for very specific guests.
2. The TWIML AI Podcast
Why I quit: the show is still solid technically. Latent Space covers the same territory with sharper questions and tighter editing. Two AI podcasts in this niche is one too many on my feed.
3. CyberWire Daily
Why I quit: daily news roundup format does not match my consumption pattern. I read cybersecurity news in text form. The audio version was duplicative.
4. Smashing Security
Why I quit: the format leans entertainment over analysis. When I want analysis I go to Risky Business. When I want entertainment I go to Darknet Diaries. Smashing Security sat in between.
5. Indie Hackers
Why I quit: the show changed scope when Stripe acquired Indie Hackers. The current iteration is fine, but the original founder-to-founder operator interviews were tighter. Default Alive fills the same slot now.
6. MLOps Coffee Sessions
Why I quit: the production stack discussions are too specific to be useful to me as a generalist listener. If I were running an ML platform team, this would still be on the list.
The discovery problem
Apple and Spotify recommendation algorithms have collapsed into commercial recommendation engines. They surface what they are paid to surface, not what is good. I have three replacement discovery sources:
Reading lists from operators I trust. When a respected practitioner names a podcast in a blog post or Substack, I add it. The signal is much higher than algorithmic recommendation. The same logic applies to building a curated blog reading list.
Cross-recommendation between hosts. When Lenny mentions a podcast he listens to, I check it out. When the Acquired hosts cite a show, same.
Guest paths. When the same guest shows up on three podcasts I respect, the third podcast goes on the trial list.
The signal-noise framework
For every podcast on the keep list, three criteria are met:
- Host preparation. Can the host go deep on the guest’s actual work, or are they reading the bio? The depth shows in the first ten minutes.
- Editorial discipline. Are episodes cut tight, or do they ramble for an extra hour? An untimed podcast tells you the host does not respect your time.
- Honest opinions. Does the host actually argue with the guest when warranted, or is every episode a comfortable hug? The argumentative podcasts age better.
Apply this to your own list. You will probably cut three or four shows.
The meta-point
The default media diet is a managed feed designed to maximise time spent, not information per minute. The curated alternative is more work and pays off in proportion to how much you actually need to keep up with your field. For B2B founders and operators, the eight hours a week of podcast time can be the most leveraged input on your calendar, or the least leveraged, depending on the feed.
The full portal index lives at guptadeepak.com/podcasts, and the reading paths section sequences the shows by listener intent (founder, marketer, identity practitioner, AI builder). Use it as a starting filter and build your own keep list from there.
The post The 12 Cybersecurity and B2B SaaS Podcasts I Listen to Weekly (and the 6 I Quit) appeared first on Deepak Gupta's notebook.
*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from Deepak Gupta's notebook authored by Deepak Gupta. Read the original post at: https://guptadeepak.com/12-cybersecurity-b2b-saas-podcasts-i-listen-to-weekly-and-6-i-quit/
