Best Peter Kafka Podcasts (2025)

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Kevin Reilly got to the top of the TV heap. Now he's in AI. 40:10

Play Pause

5d ago40:10

40:10

If you watched something on TV that you liked in the past few decades, there’s a good chance Kevin Reilly was involved: at various times he’s held top jobs at FX, Fox, NBC, Turner and HBO Max. But that run ended in 2020, and now Reilly is running Kartel, an AI company that… well, I’m still not entirely sure what it does. (To be fair, as Reilly note…

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Sit Me Baby One More Time Ep 05 - Dawn and the Impossible Three (The Baby-Sitters Club #5) 54:11

2d ago54:11

54:11

Our newest BSC member, Dawn, has a lot to juggle in her debut as a series protagonist. Her mom is dating Mary-Anne's dad. She's low-key feuding with Kristy, the BSC President. And she's been hired by a mother of three who just does NOT have her life together. What a trial by fire! These episodes posted first for our Patreon supporters! If you want …

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Can the Supreme Court keep its secrets? With Jodi Kantor of the New York Times 39:38

3d ago39:38

39:38

New York Times investigative reporter Jodi Kantor joins Mixed Signals to explain how she’s revealed the secrets of internal deliberations behind the ceremony and black robes of the US Supreme Court. Max and Ben ask whether the court is actually leaking more, how newer justices are reshaping its public face, and what Kantor has learned about the cul…

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Reimagining Stream Processing with Matthias J. Sax | Ep. 9 36:42

6d ago36:42

36:42

Viktor Gamov talks to Matthias J. Sax (Confluent) about his career in stream processing and, specifically, Kafka Streams. Matthias’ first job: an electrician-in-training on BMW’s assembly lines. His challenge: building Kafka Streams at Confluent with a focus on API design, backward compatibility, and a library-first approach that also fits microser…

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Ep 729 - I Who Have Never Known Men, by Jacqueline Harpman 1:13:38

7d ago1:13:38

1:13:38

A story about a young woman trapped in an underground prison with 39 other women sounds like it could be a stone cold bummer, and it isn’t not that. But this translated French novel from 1995 also hits some affirming, human notes, and it’s those aspects of it that help explain why it’s found new life via word of mouth and BookTok. This episode is s…

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Episode #241 ... The Tragedy of Julius Caesar - William Shakespeare 31:13

7d ago31:13

31:13

Today we talk about the philosophical themes of The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare. We talk about the hypocrisy and false nostalgia of political violence. The ironies of living by a moral ideal like honor. Rhetoric as a site of where political power is won and lost in a republic. And Brutus as a unique kind of tragic hero somewhere…

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Derek Thompson on why everything is becoming television, and whether democracy can survive it 51:01

10d ago51:01

51:01

Is television the final form of all media? Derek Thompson, the co-author of Abundance, podcaster, and Atlantic writer joins Mixed Signals to explain what he sees as the forces behind what Ben and Max keep observing: The way in which podcasts and other forms of journalism appear to be getting their largest audience in an endless, passive feed of vid…

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What the Disney–YouTube Battle Tells Us About the End of Cable 52:39

12d ago52:39

52:39

It’s not unusual for a big TV network and a big TV distributor to fight about money. But the Disney-YouTube fight is unusual -- at the bare minimum, because it has stretched out for so long. CNBC’s Alex Sherman lives and breathes this stuff, so I asked him to walk me through it, and make some prognostications about when it might get settled (spoile…

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How Time Kills All Deals in Pre-Sales with Rachel Pedreschi | Ep. 8 27:40

14d ago27:40

27:40

Listen: https://confluent.buzzsprout.com | In this episode, Tim Berglund talks to his guest, Rachel Pedreschi (DeltaStream), about her career in pre-sales engineering. Her first job: rectory office assistant at her local parish. Her challenge/theme: working at early-stage startups to bridge sales, marketing, and engineering to reach product-market …

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Ep 728 - Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett 1:15:40

14d ago1:15:40

1:15:40

Perhaps befittingly, Anne Patchett's fourth novel changed the trajectory of her career. The award-winning Bel Canto centers on 58 people (a combination of hostages and militants sequestered in an unnamed country), many of whom spend the time cut off from the outside world meditating on the paths their lives did and didn't take. Many welcome the opp…

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Episode #240 ... Varieties of Religion Today (Charles Taylor) 30:55

15d ago30:55

30:55

Today we talk more about the work of Charles Taylor and his book The Varieties of Religion Today. We look at different answers to a classic question around religious belief. The sociological and structural role that religion plays at any given point in history. Paleo, Neo and Post Durkheim versions of religious society. What religion becomes in the…

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GQ Editor Will Welch on masculinity, celebrities, and staying cool as he ages 44:26

17d ago44:26

44:26

Will Welch is the global editorial director of GQ, and has been the editor-in-chief of its US operation since 2019. On this week’s Mixed Signals, Welch talks to Ben and Max about how the magazine plans to address men amid the prominence of the manosphere, the value in covering niche subcultures, and how the parties thrown by the magazine operate as…

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The Bulwark's Sarah Longwell on Why Republicans Won the Attention War 45:25

19d ago45:25

45:25

In some ways, the Bulwark feels like other small publishers in 2025: it’s found growth and profit by pushing itself out on any platform it can find. But that wasn’t the plan when the company started in 2018. Back then, it was a non-profit cofounded by Republicans who couldn’t stand their party’s embrace of Donald Trump, and wanted a place to organi…

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Scaling AI in Engineering with Peter Bell | Ep. 7 27:16

21d ago27:16

27:16

Listen: https://confluent.buzzsprout.com | Today, Adi Polak talks to her guest, Peter Bell (gather.dev), about his career in software engineering leadership, CTO community building, and AI-driven development. Peter’s first job: electronics lab technician at their school (alongside shifts at Tesco). His challenge/theme: working at scale with AI adop…

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Ep 727 - My Man Jeeves, by P.G. Wodehouse 1:02:57

21d ago1:02:57

1:02:57

Did you ever wonder why the name "Jeeves" has always been inseparable from the concept of "a very good butler"? It's because of these short stories (plus more short stories, plus several novels) by English novelist P.G. Wodehouse. Hapless gadfly Bertie Wooster relies on his man Jeeves for just about everything, from clothing advice to getting his v…

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Ken Burns on the future of PBS, the new age of media, and why documentaries will outlast TikTok 44:03

24d ago44:03

44:03

Ken Burns has been telling the story of America through his entire career with genre-defining documentaries on the Civil War, the Vietnam War, and now the American Revolution. This week, Ben and Max bring on the renowned documentarian to talk about his latest series, the parallels he sees between America’s founding moment and today’s media environm…

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The Man Who Fixed The New York Times Wants to Fix CNN 52:17

27d ago52:17

52:17

Would you pay $7 a month to stream CNN? Because CNN CEO Mark Thompson would like you to do that. I know, I know, I’m skeptical, too. But Thompson has been here before: At his last job, as CEO of the New York Times, he helped shepherd that company’s subscription business, which had a gazillion naysayers at the start. And now the Times’ business mode…

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How Kafka Expert Robin Moffat Tackles Open Source Problems | Ep. 6 24:50

28d ago24:50

24:50

Today, Viktor Gamov talks to his colleague Robin Moffat (Confluent) about his career in data engineering. His first job: paperboy. His challenge: working at a retailer with Oracle materialized views as well as teaching others how to productively approach Kafka’s internal systems. Blog posts mentioned in the podcast: ► Oracle Materialized Views trou…

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Ep 726 - I Know What You Did Last Summer, by Lois Duncan 1:18:47

28d ago1:18:47

1:18:47

Did you know that the classic 1997 slasher film I Know What You Did Last Summer was actually based on a propulsive young adult thriller from 1973? Lois Duncan's original novel isn't too interested in bloody kills, however. It's more focused on how young people build their identities: around their regrets, around their parents, and around tragedies.…

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Sit Me Baby One More Time Ep 04 - Mary Anne Saves the Day (The Baby-Sitters Club #4) 53:12

30d ago53:12

53:12

Fresh off their victory over the Baby-Sitters Agency, the girls of the BSC turn on each other in this month's entry. Quiet Mary Anne has to get the group back together, negotiate with her well-meaning but strict single father, make and repair a new friendship, and engineer an unlikely meet-cute. And, of course, she needs to tend to some babysitting…

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The inside story of Sydney Sweeney's 'Great Jeans' — and why American Eagle ignored crisis comms 42:26

1M ago42:26

42:26

American Eagle’s summer campaign with Sydney Sweeney blew up in ways no one could’ve imagined – but chief marketing officer, Craig Brommers, knew they were going to hit a cultural nerve. This week, Ben and Max bring on the AE CMO to give us an inside look into the “Great Jeans” campaign, what he made of the controversy that surrounded it, and how D…

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The End of Mass Media—and What Comes Next 56:54

1M ago56:54

56:54

We spend a lot of time on this show talking to people who run media companies. We also spend a lot of time talking to media reporters. So here’s our one-man Venn diagram: Brian Morrissey runs The Rebooting, where he podcasts, writes and hosts events, all geared at making people in the media business smarter about the media business. If you want to …

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Building Parquet into Apache Pinot ft. Neha Pawar | Ep. 5 26:07

1M ago26:07

26:07

Today, Tim Berglund talks to Neha Pawar (StarTree) about her career in real-time analytics and open source database engineering. Her first job: a year-long internship at NVIDIA. Her challenge: leading the technical effort to add native Parquet support into Apache Pinot. SEASON 2 Hosted by Tim Berglund, Adi Polak and Viktor Gamov Produced and Edited…

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Ep 725 - The Haunted Baby (Choose Your Own Nightmare #13), by Edward Packard 1:16:59

1M ago1:16:59

1:16:59

An official offshoot of the classic Choose Your Own Adventure series, the Choose Your Own Nightmare books cropped up for a couple of years in the mid-90s, an (alleged) response to the popularity of our old friend RL Stine’s Goosebumps series. Stine’s somewhat longer-lived Give Yourself Goosebumps sub-series would launch just months after the first …

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Episode #239 ... Authenticity and the history of the self. (Charles Taylor) 36:43

1M ago36:43

36:43

Today we talk about the work of the philosopher Charles Taylor. First, we trace the historical origins of how he views the modern self. From the Greeks to the Reformation. From Descartes to Rousseau. The modern self to him is something "irreconcilably multileveled". Then we talk about our modern focus on authenticity as a moral ideal and why Taylor…

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Governor JB Pritzker on Chicago, ICE, and the information war with Trump’s White House 49:03

1M ago49:03

49:03

Chicago is either a war zone quickly spiraling out of control, or a peaceful city under siege by an overreaching federal government. It all depends on who you ask — and which channel they watch. This week, Ben and Max bring on Illinois Governor JB Pritzker to talk about how he’s navigating a communications crisis and a messaging battle against the …

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The PR Guy Who Says the AI Boom Is a Bust 54:36

1M ago54:36

54:36

The AI story is changing fast. A few months ago, it was all promise and inevitability. Now even AI boosters are asking if the numbers make sense. Ed Zitron got there early. He runs a PR firm for a living, which means he’s supposed to help people sell their stories. But he’s become best known for tearing tech’s biggest stories apart. And he’s been p…

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The Fix That Secured 1000s of Credit Cards ft. Brian Sletten | Ep. 4 29:37

1M ago29:37

29:37

In this episode, Tim talks to Brian Sletten (Bosatsu Consulting) about his career in software development. His first job: working at a small communications company that built network matrix switch interfaces. His challenge/theme: overhauling credit card storage and security at a major hospitality company. SEASON 2 Hosted by Tim Berglund, Adi Polak …

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Ep 724 - Dark Carnival, by Ray Bradbury 1:30:45

1M ago1:30:45

1:30:45

Everybody loves our old friend Ray Bradbury! This time we’re taking a spin with his first short story collection Dark Carnival, a smattering of spooky tales that wound up scattered across a number of other collections throughout Bradbury’s career. Stories discussed in this episode include: The Small Assassin The Dead Man Skeleton The Scythe The Emi…