231 Nick Quah - Servant of Pod: More Than the Sum of His Work

06:00 – Harry welcomes to the podcast, Nick Quah who speaks to his experience coming to the United States, his podcast newsletter, Hot Pod, the ongoing pandemic and the current climate of racial unrest

15:57 – Nick shares his thoughts on the need for open discussion on taboo topics such as anxiety and depression and expounds on his career trajectory

22:03 – The genesis and growth of the Hot Pod newsletter and Nick’s thoughts on paid newsletters and the current state of media

34:20 – Nick speaks to the inclusion of politics in his Hot Pod

36:30 – The inspiration to start the Servant of Pod podcast, Nick’s growth as a podcast host, and other podcasters Nick aspires to emulate

50:10 – What is something that Nick has changed his mind about recently and what is the most misunderstood thing about Nick

52:48 – Harry thanks Nick for joining the show, and let’s listeners know where they can follow him

TWEETABLES

“I’m really just holding onto the ethos of, ‘my life is more than the sum of my work’ which is really important to me.” (12:16)

“I’m very pro this push for people to take control of their publishing infrastructure. However, I’m very skeptical of this conversation about this being the ‘future of media drones’ and that this is the trend that everybody is going to be an independent, discreet writer.” (28:25)

“The price of independence is that everything hurts all the time and my head is spinning.” (31:35)

“The thing about Hot Pod is that I try to really focus it on the story of podcasting specifically, of business specifically. I think over the past five years it’s very clearly been the story about capitalism and there are different political ways that you can approach that.” (35:37)

“As a creator, getting to a point where you can make yourself create stuff that you yourself can be happy with as a consumer, that is, I think, an extremely hard thing.” (39:55)

“I’ve also just found conversational podcasts to be so much more interesting to me right now as opposed to interview podcasts.” (41:19)