On August 21, Freakonomics Radio Network launches People I (Mostly) Admire, the first podcast to be hosted by Steven Levitt, co-author of the best-selling Freakonomics books. New episodes will debut every other Friday.

In each episode, the iconoclastic University of Chicago economist tracks down other high achievers — from actresses to athletes, authors to inventors — and asks questions that only he would think to ask. Drawing from decades of experience as an academic “studying strange phenomena and human behavior in weird circumstances,” Levitt is turning his curiosity to some of the most interesting, unorthodox people around. Guests include all-time Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings; actor and neuroscientist Mayim Bialik; legendary golf champion Greg Norman; top literary agent Suzanne Gluck;Survivor winner and former Facebook Product Management Director Yul Kwon; meditation teacher Caverly Morgan; Yale School of Management dean Kerwin Charles; and, in the debut episode, Harvard psychologist and linguist Steven Pinker. The show’s pilot, featuring an interview with former presidential adviser and Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel, was launched in the Freakonomics Radio feed in late April and has been downloaded over 1.3 million times.

“The perfect guest for me is someone who's not only wildly intelligent, but also a little bit off the rails,” Levitt says. “Someone who thinks differently and who doesn't care at all how the world perceives him or her.”

Find People I (Mostly) Admire at https://freakonomics.com/pima/ and on all podcast platforms.

ABOUT FREAKONOMICS RADIO NETWORK

The Freakonomics Radio Network produces Freakonomics Radio, No Stupid Questions,People I (Mostly) Admire, and is developing other podcasts. Freakonomics Radio is one of the most enduring and popular podcasts in the world, with over 10 million listeners per month and an archive going back 10 years. No Stupid Questions launched in May of 2020 and has already had two million downloads. People I (Mostly) Admire launched in August of 2020.

ABOUT STEVEN LEVITT

Steven Levitt is co-author of the best-selling Freakonomics books and a frequent guest host on Freakonomics Radio. He is a professor of economics at the University of Chicago, where he has researched topics from terrorism to prostitution to global warming.