Search Engine
We try to make sense of the world, one question at a time. No question too big, no question too small. Hosted by PJ Vogt, edited by Sruthi Pinnamaneni. ***Named one of the best podcasts by Vulture, Time, The Economist, & Vogue. (OK, in 2023, but still...)***
Episodes
November 27, 2025 • 38 mins
This week, in honor of the holiday season — can you, should you change your family’s politics through holiday conversation. If so, how? A conversation with Ezra Klein.
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November 21, 2025 • 46 mins
In part two of our story about Elon Musk’s growing data center empire, we visit the battle between people in Memphis and xAI. And we try to understand a strange, untested assumption at the heart of the AI financing boom.
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November 21, 2025 • 45 mins
Tech billionaires have made an enormous bet on AI, the biggest bet that tech has made on anything in a very long time. Reporter Sruthi Pinnamaneni goes on a journey – from Data Center Alley to the shadow of Colossus – to see what the money’s being spent on, and to learn what happens if things go wrong.
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November 12, 2025 • 47 mins
A reporter spends a year diving into a subculture of young men online who unite around their extreme commitment to constant, unadulterated porn consumption. Why are they doing this, what is it doing to them, and what does their existence tell us about the internet we’re all stuck on?
The Goon Squad by Daniel Kolitz for Harper’s Magazine
Daniel’s Twitter
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October 31, 2025 • 60 mins
People review everything, but they almost never review what it’s like to live in another country. Until now.
We interview a writer who’s lived in China, covered China, and has had to choose between life here and there. What are the big misconceptions Americans have about China? How could America learn to build trains and bridges as fast as China does? And how should the two countries actually be copying each other?
Breakneck: C...
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October 17, 2025 • 55 mins
Can you tickle your way to victory in an MMA fight? An investigation into a sports scandal with journalist Pablo Torre.
See videos mentioned in this episode.
Check out Pablo Torre Finds Out on Youtube or Spotify.
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October 10, 2025 • 50 mins
Last week, OpenAI released an app that quickly shot to the #1 spot in Apple's App Store. Sora is like TikTok, except all the videos are AI generated. Is this ... what we're doing now? What's the business case for a fake AI video platform?
Check out Casey Newton's newsletter (Platformer) and podcast (Hard Fork)
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October 3, 2025 • 101 mins
This week, we’re sharing something we loved. An interview with Fresh Air’s Terry Gross about a life made out of conversation.
Check out Talk Easy
Check out Fresh Air
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September 26, 2025 • 50 mins
The makers of the medical drama The Pitt have been sued. The allegation: that the show is an unauthorized copy of ER.
This week, investigative reporter Nicholas Kulish walks us through the ensuing drama, reads us the possibly damning private emails, and finally helps us decide where inspiration ends and theft begins.
Is ‘The Pitt’ Really an ‘ER’ Spinoff? - Nicholas Kulish
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September 19, 2025 • 56 mins
Not long after Alex’s wife Whitney dies, he looks at her obituary and discovers something strange. A sect of people online has hijacked her story and turned it into a disturbing conspiracy theory.
Check out the place Whitney worked, Project: Onward, a non-profit studio for artists with disabilities. (They have very cool & reasonably priced art for sale).
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September 5, 2025 • 50 mins
A member of an unusual Bay Area community decides to try to have a baby in an unusual way – by putting out a very large prize for anyone who can help her find a mate. How the internet shaped one person’s decision-thinking.
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August 22, 2025 • 42 mins
Garbage Day's Ryan Broderick traces the rise of this goopy green chocolate, and explains how Chinese social media is beginning to tug on US culture in unexpected ways.
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August 15, 2025 • 49 mins
Our listener Louisa is very annoyed by her sister’s preoccupation with keeping her children away from microplastics. Louisa wonders: are people with microplastics anxiety kind of overdoing it?
Search Engine investigates.
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July 25, 2025 • 67 mins
This week, we try to understand an experience that 74% of Americans routinely report having. The first of many conversations (perhaps?). This one, an interview with Zvika Krieger.
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July 18, 2025 • 54 mins
A question that has launched a battle between bird-loving ecologists and ardent, cat-defending activists. What should we do about an invasive species beloved by many Americans -- cats? We hear from people on both sides of the war, and from one person who sits exactly in the middle.
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July 11, 2025 • 48 mins
In part two of our story about ADHD medications, we approach the question from a different angle.
We meet a doctor who spent two decades convinced that her brain does not work correctly, and who struggled to find someone who believed her.
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July 4, 2025 • 58 mins
One of the millions of millennials given prescription stimulants to treat ADHD decides to quit. And afterwards wonders -- how did these drugs becomes so popular, so fast? This week, the story of amphetamine's birth, life, death, and rebirth in America. (Methylphenidates, too.)
Have We Been Thinking About A.D.H.D. All Wrong? by Paul Tough
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June 30, 2025 • 53 mins
A journalist finds out that many of his vaunted mentors are seeing a psychic. The same psychic. He decides to pay her a visit.
Check out the 10% Happier podcast
See more of Dan's work at DanHarris.com
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June 20, 2025 • 52 mins
Queer Eye’s Antoni Porowski has heard a disgusting rumor — that the coffee on airplanes is unsafe to drink because the onboard water tanks are only cleaned once a year. We investigate and learn some disgusting lessons along the way. Go to our newsletter to comment on the episode and to see the images referenced in the story.
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June 13, 2025 • 47 mins
A woman gets a disquieting piece of information about her pregnancy, and turns to technology to try to control her future.
Second Life - Amanda Hess ( Bookshop )
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A playlist of Recommended Search Engine episodes
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