A guy I've known for years pulled me aside at a dinner last month and said, "You know you don't have to have an opinion on everything, right?"
I do, actually. I've tried not to. It doesn't work.
I'm starting a podcast. It's called Bad Reception. The name is a telecom joke — I run a telecom company, so I'm allowed — but it's also the point. Bad reception. A signal people don't want to pick up. Ideas that don't come through clearly because the infrastructure of public conversation has been broken for so long that nobody even remembers what a clear signal sounds like.
I'm not starting it because the world needs another podcast. The world doesn't need another podcast the way it doesn't need another coffee shop or another newsletter or another guy with a microphone and a take. But I'm doing it anyway — because the alternative is shutting up, and ask anyone who knows me. That's never been an option.
The Medium Nobody Takes Seriously.
Here's the thing about podcasts: everybody has one, and that's exactly why most people dismiss them. Your neighbor has one. Your cousin's boyfriend has one. The guy who cuts your hair started one about conspiracy theories and cryptocurrency and quit after six episodes. The word "podcast" has become shorthand for "vanity project with no audience," and honestly — fair. Most of them are.
But the medium itself? The medium is extraordinary. Long-form conversation with no character limit, no algorithm deciding what people see, no editor cutting your sentence in half to make it fit a headline. You talk. Someone listens. For forty minutes or an hour or however long it takes to actually say something. That doesn't exist anymore in most places. Twitter is a knife fight. Instagram is a billboard. TikTok is a talent show with a timer. The only place left where you can actually develop a thought from beginning to end is a podcast or a blog — and I already have a blog.
So now I have both.
Twitter is a knife fight. Instagram is a billboard. TikTok is a talent show with a timer.
Why "Bad Reception."
I spent fifteen years in telecom. I know what bad reception actually is — it's not the phone's fault, usually. It's the infrastructure. Weak towers. Overloaded networks. Dead zones where nobody invested in coverage because the return wasn't good enough. The signal's fine at the source. It just never gets where it needs to go.
That's exactly what's happening to ideas right now. Smart people with things worth saying are drowned out by the loudest voices, the most outrageous takes, the content machine that rewards engagement over substance. The signal exists. The reception is terrible.
I'm not naive enough to think one podcast fixes that. I'm not even sure this podcast will be good — I've never done this before, and there's a nonzero chance the first ten episodes are a mess. But I'd rather make a mess trying to say something real than sit quietly while the conversation gets worse.
The name also has a secondary meaning that I like: receiving things badly. Taking in information and rejecting the consensus. Hearing what everyone else hears and coming to a different conclusion. That's been my entire life.
meanings in the name. Bad signal strength — and receiving ideas differently than everyone else. Both are the point.
What It's Actually About.
Everything. That's the honest answer and I know it sounds like a cop-out, but here's the thing — I'm not a single-topic person. I never have been. I run a telecom company and have opinions about Kendrick Lamar and think about municipal policy and listen to 80s music and follow Supreme Court cases and care about the intersection of technology and everyday life. That's not a content strategy. That's just how my brain works.
Bad Reception is going to be politics, culture, music, tech, and life — whatever's on my mind that week, whatever conversation I had that stuck with me, whatever story I can't stop thinking about at 2 AM. Some episodes will have guests. Some will just be me, talking into a microphone in my office like a person who has clearly lost the ability to keep things to himself.
I'm not building a brand. I'm not "launching a media company." I'm a guy with opinions and a microphone and a domain name I registered at midnight. The rest will figure itself out or it won't.
The Part Everyone Warns You About.
Every person I've told about this has responded with some version of: "Just be careful what you say." Which I understand. I get it. We live in a moment where every public statement is a potential landmine, where people screenshot things and take them out of context and build entire narratives from a single sentence you didn't even finish.
I've thought about it. I've considered being strategic — curating the topics, polishing the delivery, keeping the controversial stuff behind the scenes. Being "smart" about it.
I decided against that in about four seconds.
The entire reason I'm doing this is because I'm tired of careful. I'm tired of watching people sand down their actual opinions until they're smooth enough to not offend anyone. I'm tired of "both sides" conversations where nobody says what they actually think because the social cost of honesty has gotten so high that silence is the default position for anyone with something to lose.
I have things to lose. I'm doing it anyway.
I'm tired of watching people sand down their actual opinions until they're smooth enough to not offend anyone.
I Know the Odds.
Most podcasts fail. Not fail in a dramatic, public way — they just quietly stop. Episode twelve never comes. The release schedule gets "flexible." The social media posts slow down. Eventually the hosting account expires and it's like it never existed.
I know this. I also know that I've started five businesses, hand-coded three websites, gone back to college in my forties, almost ran for Congress, and maintained a political blog that probably has six readers and I still haven't stopped writing on it.
I don't quit things. It's a character flaw disguised as a personality trait, but it's mine.
Bad Reception is coming. It'll be messy at first. The audio quality might be inconsistent. The first episode will probably run too long because I don't know when to stop talking — which, now that I think about it, is the whole reason this podcast exists.
If you want polished, there are ten thousand options. If you want real, give me a few episodes. The signal's strong. The reception just needs time.