Freakonomics Radio, one of the most popular podcasts in the world and a pioneer of the form, will celebrate its tenth birthday this spring with a slate of surprises to be revealed soon — including a new spinoff podcast and a guide to 2020 election issues.

Freakonomics Radio began ten years ago on a lark. Stephen J. Dubner, one of the writers behind the mega-selling Freakonomics book series, had gotten a bit restless. At the time, podcasting was not yet on the mainstream radar. But he thought it might be a new and fun way to extend the “Freakonomical” way of thinking. Freakonomics Radio would go on to become one of the most popular and influential podcasts in the world. Today, each new episode gets two million downloads and also plays across the country on hundreds of NPR stations. 

In its first ten years, Freakonomics Radio has looked at the "hidden side" of issues across the gamut, from serious economic topics like the gender pay gap and universal basic income to lighter – but just as revealing – topics. Where else could you learn:

• Why money doesn't buy elections anywhere near as much as we think it does
• Why Nigerian email scammers purposely make the scam so obvious 
• The lessons African hunting dogs offer on how to conduct a meeting
• Why open offices actually discourage collaboration and interaction - and why working from home increases your productivity by almost an extra day a week
• Why Van Halen demanding no brown M&M's isn't as crazy as it sounds
• How "the gambler's fallacy" impacts the effectiveness of everyone from baseball umpires to asylum judges
• Why American turkeys rarely have sex

Freakonomics Radio episodes have had some surprising and meaningful effects in the real world. A group of listeners formed a kidney donor network after the show's "Make Me a Match" episode, and listeners to the episode called “Is America Ready for a ‘No-Lose Lottery’?” successfully pushed for lottery-linked savings accounts in several state legislatures.

As it prepares for its tenth birthday in April, Freakonomics Radio has an exciting slate of new episodes coming up through March, in which the show digs deep into socialism, loneliness, cultural appropriation, the economics of disgust, and more. The show is also collecting new and old episodes that address election-year issues – from opioids to gun violence to whether the president is as powerful as we think — in a special Election 2020 guide. In addition, expect the launch of a spinoff podcast, hosted by Dubner and Angela Duckworth, the author of Grit, in May.