# Behind the Bastards podcast

18 Hacker News commenters recommended Behind the Bastards podcast and 1 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 11 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Long-running history podcast whose episodes on niche figures, movements and events people recommend as well-researched and entertaining.

## Why people recommend it

- Well-researched deep dives on historical episodes (6 comments): "has a pretty good couple of episodes on this little corner of history" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46697805)) "does a pretty good job of covering the School of the Americas" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48485552)) "did a good two-parter on Thiel's lectures" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47363164))
- Episodes on Thiel, Maxwell and Zuckerberg (4 comments): "there's a great Behind the Bastards episode on Robert Maxwell" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47337627)) "Robert Evans recently did a decent summary of Thiel's project" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46051124)) "has a great episode on Zuck, worth a listen" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49347398))
- Covers rationalist community and Zizians (3 comments): "if you want to really be confronted by the personal histories of some people who went really far down the rationalist rabbit hole" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49748469)) "the series makes a decent argument that the Zizians were simply the result of taking the ideology to its rational conclusion" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48985896)) "Can also recommend the behind the bastards episodes about this, maybe not as accurate as Carlin but more humourous." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47181100))
- Entertaining and funny despite serious topics (3 comments): "Can also recommend the behind the bastards episodes about this, maybe not as accurate as Carlin but more humourous." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47181100)) "Sweet, I love Behind the Bastards, thanks for providing the entertainment for my next few walks" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49364555)) "they were quite entertaining" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47422505))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Dwarkesh Podcast](https://hackerapproved.com/p/dwarkesh-podcast.md): 29 recommend
- [Oxide and Friends](https://hackerapproved.com/p/oxide-and-friends-podcast.md): 26 recommend
- [Acquired podcast](https://hackerapproved.com/p/acquired-podcast.md): 25 recommend
- [Mindscape podcast by Sean Carroll](https://hackerapproved.com/p/mindscape-podcast.md): 18 recommend
- [Latent Space podcast](https://hackerapproved.com/p/latent-space-podcast.md): 15 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Behind the Bastards podcast", https://hackerapproved.com/p/behind-the-bastards-podcast/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).