Skip to Main Content

How to Be a Podcast God, With Leo Laporte 


This week on The Upgrade we talk with Leo Laporte: author, entrepreneur, speaker, and yes—tech podcast god.

Leo hosts The Tech Guy Show, a national radio technology talk show that airs on over 200 stations. In addition, his TWiT Netcast Network produces some of the most popular podcasts in the world, including shows like this WEEK in TECH, Security Now!, The New Screen Savers and the 2017 Webby Award-winning show Triangulation.

Listen to The Upgrade above or find us in all the usual places where podcasts are served, including Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Stitcher, and NPR One. Please subscribe, rate, and review!

This Week’s Discussion

We covered a lot of territory in this episode, including but not limited to:

  • How Leo Laporte became “The Tech Guy”

  • The mainstreaming of geek culture, and how it was still strange to be a geek when TechTV was founded

  • Why podcasts should be called “netcasts,” but it probably won’t happen

  • The importance of the Electronic Frontier Foundation

  • Leo’s conversation with Ben Wizner, Edward Snowden’s lawyer and Director of the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project

  • Why we should all be on Chromebooks — and cultivate “deep cynicism and suspicion”

  • How we can all start podcasting (but probably not for money).

  • The consequences of growing up in a world where reality is fractured

  • The importance of disconnecting to reconnect

And so much more. It’s quite an episode.

Our Upgrades of the Week

Every week we like to let you in on the upgrades we’ve made in our own lives. This week we’re talking about new beginnings, the joys to be found in both high-tech and low-tech devices, and the end (of eating). For all the details, have a listen.

We Take to the Streets

We thought we’d get outside and ask people for their favorite tech hacks, so we headed out to Union Square (here in NYC). We got some great tips, so be sure to listen all the way to the end.

How Do I Submit a Question? 

There are two ways to send in your question:

  • Call (347) 687-8109 and record a question. Calls are awesome! We might just play yours on the show! 

  • Email your question to [email protected].

Please keep your questions as brief as possible. This means about 3-5 sentences for emails and 30-60 seconds for calls and videos. Your questions can be specific, but broader questions are generally better because they’ll apply to more people. Either way, we look forward to hearing from you.