The Algorithm Is Not a Podcast God

This solo episode of Your Mic is a friendly exorcism for every creator who’s turned “the algorithm” into a deity. Freddy breaks down what recommendation systems on platforms actually do—sort and surface content based on behavior—and how people still primarily find new podcasts through search, social, YouTube, and old-school word of mouth. Then he draws a hard line between building episodes for humans versus contorting your show to please a black box. In this episode: What algorithms really optimize for (and what they don’t). How over-optimizing for “the feed” kills the very weirdness and honesty that fuel word-of-mouth growth. A practical two-part approach: serve the person, then respect the machine. Subscribe to Your Mic on YouTube, Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Shoot Freddy an email: [e-mail].