The most successful EA podcast of all time: Sam Harris and Will MacAskill (2020)

This is also reflected very clearly in EA Survey data. 

Here's the breakdown of which specific podcasts people cited in EAS 2020, for where they first heard about EA.

You can also get a sense of the magnitude of Sam Harris' podcast compared to other things like Doing Good Better from looking at the total number of mentions across response categories. (Respondents were asked to first indicate where they first heard about EA from a list of broad categories like 'Book', 'Podcast', and then asked to provide further details (e.g. what book or podcast) in an open comment. Only 60% of respondents to the first question gave further details so the numbers are commensurately lower.)

Taking these numbers at face value, Sam Harris seems to represent more than twice the recruitment effect of Doing Good Better, and slightly higher than half as much as Peter Singer.

One good reason  not to take these numbers at face value is that they will be influenced by how recently these factors were recruiting people. We see consistent signs of attrition across cohorts, so a factor which recruits people in 2020 will have a lot more of those people left in the sample than a factor which recruited a lot of people in 2015 (of whom probably >60% have dropped out by 2020).

Thanks for the write up!

I'd also mention 'fit with audience' as an even bigger factor.

Sam's audience are people who are into big technical intellectual topics like philosophy, physics, consciousness; and also their impact on society. They're also up for considering weird or unpopular ideas. And the demographics also seem pretty similar to EA. So it's hard to imagine a following with a better potential fit.

Nice post. I would also add that Sam's podcast with Toby Ord discussed many EA-related concepts including the GWWC pledge. I signed up directly as a result of that podcast and I would expect that there may have been a similar spike as seen after the Will MacAskill episodes. 

I felt that I absorbed something helpful from this conversation that I hope will make me better at introducing EA ideas. Is there a list of other examples of especially effective EA communication that would-be evangelists could learn from? I'm especially interested in conversations in which someone experienced with EA ideas discusses them with someone newer, as I feel that this stage can be especially tricky and important. 

For example, here are two other conversations that come to mind that I felt I absorbed something helpful from with respect to introducing EA ideas: 

• The recent 80k interview with Bob Wright, in particular from 2:47-12:52. Specifically, I was impressed with how Rob managed to give a fairly broad and well-balanced sketch of EA without getting sidetracked by Wright's somewhat off-center questions. Overall this was one of my less favorite 80k episodes, but I think these 10 minutes are worth listening to for those interested in communicating about EA. 
• Ben Todd and Arden Koehler discussing the core idea of EA. A little more meta in the sense that Ben and Arden are both experienced with EA, but many parts of this still seem relevant in this regard. 

If a list like this doesn't exist, I want to make it exist - open to suggestions on the best way to do that. (E.g. should I post this as a question or top-level post?)

"My understanding (though I could be wrong) is that this discussion was set up to be broken into a series of mini-lessons for users of the Waking Up app." <- I can confirm this is correct.

The first episode came out August 2016. This is highly speculative, but could the Trump 2016 successful campaign have played a role in the impact of this episode? 

I wouldn't suggest this, however this first episode influenced me heavily with donations and enthusiasm for EA. I had decided prior to listening, I ought to donate more of my wealth to charity and was pretty firm on the idea. This was likely due to a couple of reasons, but Trump's popularity was definitely one of them. The strong nationalism and disregard for decency (in my opinion) conflicted with my moral views. Maybe I wasn't that unique and a lot of people with similar globalised moral inclinations were "triggered" or encouraged by this environment to reflect more on their beliefs.

I found the episode via googling something along the lines of "effective charities" (November/December, 2016), and it would have been one of the top links (on first few pages). I'm not sure if I had ever listened to a Sam Harris podcast before, but would have recognised the name as someone I respected from my early adult "anti-religion" phase.

Sorry if that is self-indulgent over sharing, but it might just be relevant that the first episode came out at a fairly convenient time? 

I do think that the possible factors in the article, as well as "fit with audience" mentioned by Ben Todd and others are stronger factors.

That fits with what we're seeing at Effective Altruism New Zealand. The Sam Harris/Will MacAskill podcast is still a common referral source for new donors, and for people requesting copies of Doing Good Better via our book giveaway. So +1 piece of supporting anecdata

Yep, in my new EA Fellowship group, one participant also mentioned that podcast as basic inspiration to join EA. Proof by anecdote.

Thanks for this recommendation! It caused me to listen to this episode, which I otherwise probably wouldn't have done. 

I agree with Ben that the outsize impact of this episode may largely be due to the amenability of Sam's audience to EA ideas, but I also thought this was a fantastic conversation which does a great job introducing EA in a positive, balanced, and accurate way.  I do feel I absorbed something from listening to Will here that will hopefully make me better at introducing EA ideas. I may also start recommending this episode as an introduction to EA for some people, though I don't think it will be my main go-to for most people.

I'm also glad to have listened to this conversation merely out of appreciation for its role in bringing so many people to the movement. :)

Hi Aaron,

Sorry about being nit-picky. I had to read the following statement 4-5 times, until I realized that there is a "pause" before the word "drive", and then I understood what you were saying. Maybe you can add a "comma" for other readers like me. Feel free to ignore.

"I'm not sure I've ever seen any piece of content not named "Doing Good Better" drive as much positive engagement as Sam Harris's two podcast episodes with Will MacAskill — especially the second one."

Awesome episode! I really enjoyed listening to it when it came out and was excited for Sam's large audiences across Waking Up and Making Sense to learn about EA in this way.