The best startup podcasts are Built This Week, Acquired, My First Million, Lenny's Podcast, No Priors, Training Data, All-In and Indie Hackers. Between them they cover finding an idea, bootstrapping, product and growth, raising and investing, AI startups and the long history of companies that made it.
Built This Week is our show, so we put it first; here's how we picked the rest.
Built This Week is hosted by Jordan Metzner and Sam Nadler, co-founders of Ryz Labs, weekly since June 2025, with 53 episodes so far. Each episode we interview a founder or operator, build something with AI on air, test new AI tools and cover the AI news, in about 21-28 minutes. It is for startup people who want to hear from founders and see what a few hours of AI-assisted building can produce.
Founders on the show include Sohrab Haghighat of Hestus, which autocompletes the next design step in CAD, and Hooman Radfar of Collective. We also launched our own AI interview platform, NTRVSTA, on the show.
Start with: Episode 51: It Ships While You Sleep (September 2026), where David Petrou talks about leaving Google after almost 18 years and building Wheelie at Continua. See all episodes.
Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal tell the history and strategy of single companies, such as NVIDIA, Google and Microsoft, in long narrative deep dives, plus occasional interviews. Recently it has released about one episode a month, typically 169-256 minutes. For founders, it is a way to study how lasting companies were built, decision by decision; it is rated 4.7 out of 5 from 5.4K ratings on Apple Podcasts, as of October 2026.
Start with: NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang (October 2023). Read our full profile of Acquired.
Sam Parr and Shaan Puri brainstorm business ideas based on market trends and opportunities, sometimes with guests, two to three times a week. AI tools and AI businesses come up often. It is produced by HubSpot Media, episodes typically run 51-69 minutes, and it suits entrepreneurs and side-project builders looking for an idea; it is rated 4.7 out of 5 from 2.6K ratings on Apple Podcasts, as of October 2026.
Start with: The Crazy Story of Google’s 7 Angel Investors (January 2025). Read our full profile of My First Million.
Lenny Rachitsky's weekly long-form interviews with product, growth and AI leaders aim at concrete, tactical advice for building, launching and growing products. Recent guests come heavily from AI labs and AI-native companies, and episodes typically run 80-97 minutes. It is especially useful for founders and early product hires; it is rated 4.9 out of 5 from 1.4K ratings on Apple Podcasts, as of October 2026.
Start with: How Anthropic’s product team moves faster than anyone else | Cat Wu (Head of Product, Claude Code) (April 2026). Read our full profile of Lenny's Podcast.
Investors Sarah Guo and Elad Gil, from Conviction, interview leading AI engineers, researchers and founders every week about AGI timelines, market disruption and state-of-the-art research. Episodes run about 36-45 minutes. It is a good fit for founders and investors who track AI startups and research.
Start with: Teaching AI to Understand the Physical World, with Dr. Fei-Fei Li of World Labs (June 2025). Read our full profile of No Priors.
Sequoia Capital partners, including Sonya Huang and Pat Grady, host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers about how AI technology is evolving and what it means for business and society. The show started in 2024, publishes roughly weekly and runs about 35-52 minutes. It suits founders who want to hear how top AI companies are being built.
Start with: Andrej Karpathy: From Vibe Coding to Agentic Engineering (April 2026). Read our full profile of Training Data.
Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, David Sacks and David Friedberg discuss current events, markets, technology including AI, and policy in a weekly main episode. Frequent bonus episodes bring interviews from the All-In Summit and other events, and episodes typically run 37-90 minutes. It is for founders and investors who want a weekly VC-panel roundup; it is rated 4.0 out of 5 from 10.4K ratings on Apple Podcasts, as of October 2026.
Start with: Elon Musk & Gwynne Shotwell on AI Risks and Peer Review, Starship, Terafab, SpaceX/Tesla Merger (September 2026). Read our full profile of All-In.
Courtland Allen and Channing Allen interview founders who turned ideas and side projects into profitable online businesses, covering strategies and tools for bootstrapped companies. Episodes typically run 50-61 minutes. The most recent episode in the public feed is from June 2023, so treat it as a back catalog; for bootstrapped and solo founders it is still worth digging through, and it is rated 4.9 out of 5 from 493 ratings on Apple Podcasts, as of October 2026.
Start with: #218 – Making Money and Being Happy with Sam Parr and Shaan Puri of My First Million (July 2021). Read our full profile of Indie Hackers.
Building specifically with AI? See the best AI podcasts for founders, or the broader best tech podcasts.
It depends on your stage. My First Million is good for finding ideas, Indie Hackers for bootstrapping, Lenny's Podcast for product and growth, No Priors and Training Data for AI startups, and Acquired for learning from the history of great companies.
No Priors (Sarah Guo and Elad Gil) and Training Data (Sequoia Capital) interview leading AI founders and researchers. On Built This Week, Jordan Metzner and Sam Nadler interview a founder each week and build something with AI on air.
The most recent episode in the Indie Hackers public feed is dated June 15, 2023, so we treat it as an archive of founder interviews rather than a current show.
