提摩西·高文是我最喜欢的访谈者。他的访谈风格让我难以接受其他人。他创造了思想的盛宴。首先，他找到他想学习的大成就者——那些不太出名的人，他们的回答不会太圆滑。然后，他在每次访谈前做大量的研究，阅读他们的所有书籍和之前的访谈，寻找有趣的话题。所以他知道，当他问葡萄牙经济学家关于吉布提的食物，或者问小说家关于法国和俄罗斯芭蕾舞时，他们会有有趣的看法。他问问题是为自己，而不是我们。因为他不迎合观众，我们就能提升自己。他会直接问苏里南的萨兰卡南语，或者每个耶罗尼穆斯·博斯画作的位置，而不会停下来解释。如果你对问题和答案感兴趣，你可以后来了解那是什么。他鼓励嘉宾简洁回答，以便有时间涵盖许多主题。所以它永远不会是一整场关于爱尔兰历史或斯宾诺莎和苏菲主义的综合，或任何单一主题的对话。他会直接跳到下一个令人惊讶的具体问题，始终保持活力，跳过闲聊。

💡 提摩西·高文以其独特的访谈风格而闻名，他专注于与有才华但不太出名的受访者进行深入对话，从而获得更真实、更深入的见解。

📚 他会进行大量研究，阅读受访者的所有书籍和之前的访谈，寻找有趣且未被充分探讨的话题，确保问题具有深度和独特性。

🤔 他的问题通常非常具体，例如询问苏里南的萨兰卡南语或每个耶罗尼穆斯·博斯画作的位置，这鼓励听众进一步探索和学习。

⏱️ 他鼓励受访者简洁回答，以便在有限的时间内涵盖多个主题，避免长时间的闲聊，保持访谈的活力和效率。

🌍 他的访谈涵盖了各种令人惊讶的主题，从爱尔兰历史到斯宾诺莎和苏菲主义的综合，从苏里南的食物到莎士比亚的翻译，极大地拓宽了听众的知识面。

Tyler Cowen is my favorite interviewer of all-time.His interviewing style has spoiled me for all others.He creates a tasting feast for the mind.

First he finds brilliant accomplished people that he wants to learn from — people that are not too famous so they are not too polished in their answers.

Then he does a ton of research in advance of each interview, reading all of their books and all of their previous interviews, searching for interesting topics that haven’t been explored enough.So he knows that when he asks the Portuguese economist about the food in Djibouti, or the novelist about French versus Russian ballet, that they'll have an interesting opinion.

He’s asking questions for himself, not us.Because he doesn’t pander down to the audience, we get to rise up.He’ll dive straight into a question about the Saramaccan language of Suriname, or the location of every Hieronymus Bosch painting, without stopping to explain.If the question and answer interests you, you can find out later what that was about.

He encourages his guests to answer succinctly so they can have time to cover many subjects.So it's never a whole conversation about Irish history or the synthesis of Spinoza and Sufism or any one topic.He jumps right into the next surprisingly specific question, always keeps it moving, and skips the conversational fluff.

As an example, here are a few of my favorite conversations, and just a few of the topics they cover.

Dana Gioia

the best art museum you’ve never heard ofthe optimism of the Beach Boysthe Jungianism of Star Trekwhy narrative is necessary for coping with life’s hardshipswhy we stopped building cathedrals

Katherine Rundell

the thrills and dangers of rooftop walkingwhy children should be more mischievouswhat it’s like to eat tarantulathe power of memorizing poetrythe Kafka book she gives to toddlers

John McWhorter

Indonesian should be the world’s universal languagewhy Mandarin won’t overtake English as the lingua francacircumstances that create Creole languagesthe decline of American regional accentswhy Shakespeare needs an English translation

These conversations inspired me to read The Odyssey, the Bible, a great comic book about immigration, and many other books on my reading queue now.

These conversations made me want to learn Swahili and Indonesian, try the vegetables in Chennai, and probably twenty other actions I’ve taken from their various topics.

If you like to broaden your horizons, you’re going to love this.

Go to ConversationsWithTyler.com and subscribe to the podcast.Or click “all episodes” at the top of the page to browse the archive.

I also like his blog, “Marginal Revolution”, and his books, “Stubborn Attachments”, and “Discover Your Inner Economist”.