Since I’ve decided to quit my job and freelance, I’ve become a founders stories junkie. When I work I often listen to podcast interviews instead of music. I can see my design and code on the screen. While listening to a podcast one can also hear a story and the pixels coming together, adding another dimension to working. If I’m coding, I tend to listen to favorite episodes I’ve already heard, so it requires less concentration but is still stimulating. Here are some of my favorite sources and stories:

Foundation.kr

Kevin Rose interviews various tech entrepreneuers including Tim Feriss, Ryan Carson, Dennis Crowley and Brian Wong. Kevin does a great job of having a laidback discussion with these entrepreneurs not just picking their minds but also encouraging them to tell stories of their often humble and fumbling beginnings.

Founderstalk

An hour long podcast and part of the 5by5 tech podcast network. Host Adam Stacoviak is also really great at talking to entrepreneuers and getting them to tell stories and expand on interesting points, the exact ones that I was wondering and would have asked myself. Favorite episodes are with Andrew Wilkinson, Drew Wilson part I and II and the story of Dribbble with Dan Cedarholm and Rich Thornett. Adam is great at asking intelligent questions about strategy and decisions, why a founder did something one way and how they would do it differently, etc.

Dormroomtycoon

These podcasts are much shorter, about 30 min. But on the whole the moderator just doesn’t compare to the other two in terms of quality. The questions are more generic and the guests often interrupted. Nevertheless there’s some really good advice here, from folks like Tim Van Damme, David Heinemeier Hannson and Seth Godin.