How I Find Interesting RSS Feeds

I subscribe to a lot of RSS feeds (over 200 at this point). I’m always adding more. And, I wanted to share a tip that I’ve found very helpful for finding interesting content:

Whenever someone you follow mentions another person, look them up and subscribe to their blog, podcast, YouTube channel, or whatever.

Through this method, I’ve found so many interesting people to follow, especially in disciplines that I wouldn’t have otherwise known about.

Below I’ll explain a bit more and give some examples!

Interesting People Flock Together

Some people are just intellectually curious. They’re passionate about knowledge and deeply knowledgeable about their field. These people end up finding each other because they can share their knowledge and curiosity!

The best example of this is Hacker News, which is by far the best online community of curious people. Individual blogs often show up here and are usually an instant subscribe for me.

But there are some other communities with deep experience and a strong commitment to keeping the signal-to-noise ration high. Nebula & CuriosityStream are a good example. Another is niche subreddits like /r/CredibleDefense, which is an amazing source for discussing defense / international relations / geopolitics.

Some People are “Connectors”

After communities, the next best source I’ve found is Joe Rogan-style longform interview shows with experts. Some examples include:

• Rich Roll: focusing on fitness, health, wellness
• Lex Fridman: most tech and science, but a wide range of other topics too
• Dr. Peter Attia: diving deep on medicine, health, disease
• Eric Weinstein: diverse topics (though inactive for a while)

Some of these podcasts are more focused than others. But the common thread is that they tend to bring on someone with deep expertise in some field and ask them tons of questions.

These shows often have guests very far off of the typical coterie of academics, tech experts, scientists, and so on.

So, you occasionally get a crazy combo like Eric Weinstein (a fund manager and physicist) talking with Ashley Mathews (a porn actress) or Lex Fridman interviewing Robert Barron, who is a Roman Catholic Bishop.

The other aspect that is very useful here is the length. These shows are often multiple hours. This is key, because it gets people off of their normal scripts and into interesting deep discussion. And if the guest is not a seasoned media personality, it gives them time to get comfortable and open up.

Critically for my purpose though, the length gives tons of time to bring up less common references.

So the idea here is that these “intellectual” podcasts do a great job of finding lesser known experts and giving them the space to share their knowledge and most importantly, their network.

Look at the 2nd Hop

When you do find an interesting person to subscribe to, either through a post in a community like HN, on an in-depth interview, or a reference in one of your existing sources, look for other places that they’ve appeared as a guest.

Even if the person is less well known, it’s unlikely that they’ve only appeared on one other podcast, YouTube channel, and so on.

For example, say you see an interesting guest on Lex Fridman podcast. Check out their website, socials, or other resources. What other podcasts or YouTube channels have they been on? Have they been a guest writer on other blogs?

This network-hoping helps find more communities and hub-sources and thus, greatly expands types of sources you find.

Follow People Not Companies

If you’re trying to subscribe to a ton of things, it’s very important to keep the signal-to-noise ratio high.

One cheat I have for this is subscribing mainly to individuals’ writing, not companies. This helps a lot to keep most marketing and low-information-density articles away.

There are certainly great company blogs and podcasts out there! Oxide Computer’s On the Metal comes to mind.

But most corporate content is just too hit and miss to be able to subscribe to without some kind of filter to remove the marketing fluff and low-quality posts.

Similarly, the some kinds of individual to stay away from are “growth hackers” and people selling courses.

Share What You are Reading!

Finally, I have a call to action. Don’t just consume, recommend interesting people!

For a long time, I’ve published a list of some of the feeds I subscribe to here. And, I’ve found others that do the same.

When I discover a page like this on someone’s website, it feels like finding buried treasure! It’s a turbo charge of interesting websites to visit and people to subscribe to.

Conclusion

I love RSS feeds. I’m not on social media. And I don’t have cable. But this setup ensures I don’t miss out (at least as far as consumption goes; connecting with people is a whole different beast).

Podcasts and small blogs are also self-selecting for other people that also don’t fully buy into the corporate ecosystem. So, it aligns well for me.

And the diversity of topics has been amazing! I’ve started reading and listening way beyond what I’d naturally think to subscribe to. Things like logistics, civil engineering, defense, archaeology, history, and even celebrity gossip¹.

For these, I wouldn’t have even known where to start. But by listening for what interesting people recommend and reference, I’ve found them and that feedback cycle is in full force now.