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Freakonomics’ Stephen Dubner on why long-form podcasting isn’t dead yet

Updated Jan 23, 2026, 11:25am EST
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The Scene

Listen to the latest episode of Mixed Signals here.

Stephen Dubner has spent 20 years proving that things aren’t what they seem—and now he’s not so sure that’s always true.

The co-creator of Freakonomics and host of one of podcasting’s most enduring shows joins Ben and Max to talk about why he never sold to Spotify, how The New York Times shifted from telling readers things to telling them what to think, and his new self-funded TV experiment that’s “like laundering podcast money.”

Along the way, Dubner explains how he accidentally got sucked into the Blake Lively-Justin Baldoni gossip vortex (Candace Owens was involved), makes the case for prediction markets over pundits, and reveals why he’s now considering buying a pizza place with a Michelin-starred chef who hated his soup. Plus: the real reason insider trading bans are absurd, and why Mario Cuomo was wrong about vowels.


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