One of the reasons Mixergy took off is the Hacker News community helped me.
I used to call up people who complained about my work on HN. I wasn't mad at them. I really wanted to get feedback, and I knew there were smart people on this site.
I got my guests from here too. Somewhere in the comment archive, you'll see Derek Sivers agreeing to do an interview because I responded to his HN comment about offering to help people in this community.
When I moved to Argentina and didn't know anyone, I organized a Hacker News meetup. I made more than startup/work friends. I met people like Chad DePue, whose family became close with me and my wife.
I know we talk about improving the comments on HN, and I'm always for improvement, but there's a huge amount of value here right now. And there has been for years.
I know this could sound sappy, but thank you Hacker News.
Andrew, I just want to say that I was a hater. You reached out and got feedback from me. It didn't change my opinion a lot, but I appreciated the effort.
That was years ago, now everything has changed. I am a huge fan and continue to follow your new interviews. I've reached out to you with questions and you respond quickly. I think what you're doing is great.
I'll echo this sentiment. I do not know where I'd be today without HN. I think the reason we are so passionate about improving HN is because we do see so much value in it and don't want that to evaporate.
Andrew - I listen to all your shows. I'm a big fan and love your work. It's also amazing how many interview you do.
Some comments - I don't think you aim high enough with your guests - you are THE leading tech interviewer. Most of your guests are good but you are entitled to be interviewing the biggest names in the industry - you have the reputation to get their attention - why don't you?
Sorry but I'm not a fan of Mixergy's advertising style. Advertisements on radio or T.V on many other programs come across as arms-length promotional messages. Mixergy appears to be a tout for Walker Corporate Law and goes too far in constant personal recommendation, it comes across as fawning and as touting. Also it's tiresome to listen to the same old sponsorship every show. Sorry but that's the way it feels to me. Also Mixergy's commitment to Walker Corporate Law makes me feel like you are an employee of a law firm which kind of cheapens the Mixergy image - isn't Mixergy bigger than being the marketing arm of a local law firm?
Regarding your questions to interviewees. You do a great job, but I would really like to hear every guest asked specific details about exactly HOW their company came to be sold. Where did the buyer come from? What was the process? How long did it take?
In many ways that HN meetup in Buenos Aires changed my life (and others that I ended up hiring and working with - Brian Armstrong was there, too :)
When I saw you hit 1000 interviews I also thought back about when we met and I also thought about how hard you work every day. Thanks for the friendship and the inspiration to put 100% of your passion into your work every day...
Thanks for for doing what you do Andrew, and congrats on the 1000th video.
When I was still early in my career and living back in the midwest, I still remember binge watching Mixergy like it was a Netflix original. It was insanely valuable.
Nice man! long time fan - you've stuck around where lots of people just faded away... keep up the great work! Next time you're in SD hit me up :) - sean vosler
Congratulations to Andrew for all your wonderful interviews since 2008! Glad to be a part of the celebration. I meant to ask you during my interview: what have you found is a secret to getting people to open up and share their most interesting stories/insights?
Thanks Jessica! Founders at Work helped inspire Mixergy, so your comment means more to me than you can imagine.
My best question is, "for example?" That helps guests move away from generalities and they start telling a specific story.
The other thing that helps is being open about my own insecurities and failures. It took me a long time to get comfortable telling anyone about them, but whether I do it in an interview or a private conversation, it helps the person I'm talking with get open.
Andrew's interviews are awesome and he's a super nice guy to boot, always willing to help founders out where he can. I remember listening to them on my commute to work with my cofounder years ago. Those hours in the car were a major source of early startup lessons. Mixergy is one of the best startup resources out there in my opinion and is worth checking out if you haven't yet.
I've learned a lot from watching Mixergy, but more importantly from doing a little role-reversal and interviewing Andrew myself. I took a 'Principles of Interviewing' course in college and one of our assignments was to record three interviews with people in the industry I wanted to get into. Being interested in tech/entrepreneurship, Andrew was my top interview candidate.
The plan was to interview him first and get feedback because learning from someone who does interviews for a living would prepare me for the other two interviews. He was gracious enough to agree, and we recorded before one of his regularly scheduled interviews. I was nervous as hell! I mean, you never really see an interviewer being interviewed themselves. What questions do you ask?
I asked a lot of basic questions (history, inspiration, setbacks, etc.) and a few that made Andrew sit back and go, "hmmm, that's a good question..." but the real knowledge I gained came with Andrew's feedback immediately after. The magnitude of which has slowly been realized since: feeling uncomfortable is good.
Doing something new almost always feels uncomfortable to some degree... and an entrepreneur is almost always doing something new. Rather than try to mitigate that uneasy feeling, you can take it and embrace it. That dissonance between your gut and your brain is the origin of curiosity; where knowledge is needed to fill the holes. If something feels uncomfortable, it's because you haven't done it enough. You don't fully understand it. While it helps to have a mentor who can say whether an uneasy feeling is normal and how to get over it, the important thing is to just get your hands dirty. Just do that new task, or ask that difficult question.
It's been rewarding to watch Mixergy develop over the years—to see Andrew dirty his hands and dive into that space which makes every interviewee feel uncomfortable and vulnerable (as well as himself).
Andrew's one of the most accessible, down-to-earth chaps in the tech worlds; an empathetic, thoughtful, engaging and energetic collection of decency! I'm an old friend from another place, so I'm biased, but if you get the chance go and hear him speak, and even more so listen to those around him: because Andrew's great skill is to gather creative, intelligent and constructive creatures, and encourage them to be even better.
Epic props to Andrew. Growing up in Missouri I didn't have access to a lot of tech startup expertise. Andrew's interviews were one of the best ways I learned the basics of building a tech business.
As a young kid, Founders at Work was a great source of inspiration. After reading it, the dream of doing a startup was born.
When I actually started doing it – in Brazil, a place with not many startup role models – Mixergy became a guide on actual tactics to use. I would listen when commuting to/from work and this made the goal much more actionable. Hearing about other founder's stories – and, thanks to AndrewWarner's squeezing, every single detail of their stories – pushed me to go much much farther than I would've been able to go otherwise.
I used to listen to his interviews a year or two ago, during my commute. He is a fantastic interviewer, really digs and asks specifics of how an entrepreneur decided something. Congrats to him!
Congrats! I only discovered Mixergy after hearing Andrew moderate a discussion panel. His interviews are only a piece of the value he provides to the community. His signature is empowering the interviewee to be most impactful by his understanding of what the audience wants to hear about. He really gets to the heart of the issue and lets the interviewee surface what actually matters. Thanks, Andrew!
Andrew congrats and thanks so much for making so many awesome interviews available for free. You are in a way responsible for my own evolution into startupland. I watched Dane Maxwell's two interviews on your site (among many others), which lead me to taking his awesome entrepreneurship course, which lead me to starting my own startup, and here I'm on the verge of going full-time with it. Will be relying on your interviews to continue to build & grow my startup and hopefully be interviewed by you some day :)
It's really hard to quantify how valuable Andrew and his interviews have been to me on a personal, professional and spiritual level. Congrats Andrew, you've earned this in spades.
Andrew, I've told you this a lot already but it's worth adding my voice publicly: the work you've done on mixergy saved my life. Thanks doesn't even come close.
I've been listening for years and I can say you have some really great interviews. What I really like is how actionable some of your interviews are. That to me is the biggest differentiator for your interviews.
You might be surprised to hear this but I've used some of your interviews as training material for people working for me in the past.
I tried listening to his podcast a few times. Way too much arrogance all around, and the constant use of marketing and weasel words during the interviews made my blood pressure go up. It's a common personality type in SV/SF tech area that I really don't like, which is why I live and work outside of it.
I consider it a personal fault of mine that I have a low pretentiousness tolerance, because in between all the pretentiousness and clumsy embedded commercials (free version only?) there really is some great business knowledge in these interviews.
I could have said something similar of Russ Roberts' Econ Talk a few years ago. He started off as a faulty interviewer; constantly interrupting his guests to get his own very important opinion in. But, he has improved dramatically since then. I can remember one particular interview he had with Bill Black, where he just wouldn't shut up and let Bill finish his statements, and ultimately half the episode was just a jumble of incoherent back-and-forth over minutia.
I'll download a few recent episodes and give them a try to see if things have changed in the last few years.
One example: the Rand Fishkin interview. Definitely not accusing Rand of weaseling, but that moment where Andrew asks "What are you feeling right now?" cut through to the honesty of running a business. And huge kudos to Rand for being so honest about burnout on camera.
Another example might be where Steve Blank called out Andrew during the interview, and they kept that in the podcast. There's something really honest & genuine about leaving that moment in.
Mixergy has improved so much over the years. Really shows the value of practice & persistence. Congratulations on the 1000, Andrew.
I've seen zero pretentiousness from Andrew in all the years he's been doing interviews. If I had to rate hime on a pretentiousness scale, I might even have to give him a negative rating. Humble-bragging about your low-pretentiousness-tolerance being a "personal fault" is laughable.
I used to call up people who complained about my work on HN. I wasn't mad at them. I really wanted to get feedback, and I knew there were smart people on this site.
I got my guests from here too. Somewhere in the comment archive, you'll see Derek Sivers agreeing to do an interview because I responded to his HN comment about offering to help people in this community.
When I moved to Argentina and didn't know anyone, I organized a Hacker News meetup. I made more than startup/work friends. I met people like Chad DePue, whose family became close with me and my wife.
I know we talk about improving the comments on HN, and I'm always for improvement, but there's a huge amount of value here right now. And there has been for years.
I know this could sound sappy, but thank you Hacker News.