He insisted multiple times that being "canceled by the woke mob" is something that the government does to you because they are afraid of losing power to common people on the internet. That's not just kind of wrong, or kind of skewed, that's a complete inversion of reality.
You could replace him with a markov chain trained in the right wing conspiracy media bubble and get basically the same quality questions.
Fridman really seemed to be going for applause lines from a very specific crowd, not anything particularly coherent. I think he's realized that his growth as a podcaster comes from the demographic that frequents hosts like Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan, and Ben Shapiro, and the more he can get them engaged the higher his numbers will get. But the topics that demographic cares about aren't AI and ML.
Compare to his last few episodes: * Steve Keen: Marxism, Capitalism, and Economics * Richard Haier: IQ Tests, Human Intelligence, and Group Differences * Susan Cain: The Power of Introverts and Loneliness * Douglas Murray: Racism, Marxism, and the War on the West * Richard Wolff: Marxism and Communism
That's a pretty hard pivot in topics that he's covering. If discussion about whether BLM is Marxism intent on destroying the West isn't the content you're looking for, I don't think you're the audience he's targeting anymore.
He is very wooden, but I agree with the others, his questions are incredible and cut straight to the point. For example while others (Tim Ferriss) might have asked Zuckerberg “How do you deal with negative sentiment around you and your work?” Lex asked something like “Many people believe that your products are destroying democracy, that social networks polarize us into bubbles, and you are one of the most hated men in America. How do you contend with that?” Wow and ouch! Amazing conversations