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Some of you already know that Arnab and I have been working on a new podcast for a couple of months now. Others are probably wondering who's Arnab and why they’re reading this.

Let’s start with an intro, shall we?

Meet Arnab Deka, a bad ass software engineer and a master of puppets puns. He’s originally from Assam and is now based out of Vancouver, B.C. I have to mention “B.C.” because there’s also Vancouver, A.D. in the Washington state in the U.S.

And now that’s me — Ilya Bezdelev, originally from Siberia and now living in Miami metro area. I’m bad ass at being modest and being great at everything I do at the same time, which is a rare feat, totally unique. I like playing with the language, which is why I always appreciate Arnab’s company — he gets it like no one else.

Arnab and I have been into podcasts for a long time and we always share cool shows and episodes with each other (did I mention we used to be colleagues at Amazon?)

Eventually, we decided to go a little deeper into the podcasting stuff and thought it’d be cool to start a podcast where we can interview podcasters, producers, sound engineers, podcasting software company founders, microphone manufacturers, etc., in other words, anyone who’s helping create all those awesome podcasts that you’re listening to.

Enter Sandman “Metacast: podcast about podcasting.”

We’ve already recorded five episodes with six more in the pipeline that we will be releasing weekly on Wednesdays starting January 4th.

In every even (2nd, 4th, 6th, etc.) episode, we’ll have an interview with someone amazing. In our second episode, you’ll hear from Brian McCullough, the author of Internet History Podcast and Techmeme Ride Home, both of which are beloved by their audiences and are well into millions of downloads

Our goal is to tell stories of our guests or rather let them tell their stories. We’ll go into a lot of non-podcasting topics to show you what kind of people your favorite podcasters are and how they started on their journeys. Those stories are fascinating and will hopefully give inspiration to aspiring creators. Rest assured, we’ll also dig into the boring but useful stuff like the gear they use and tips & tricks for podcasters.

Every odd episode (3rd, 5th, etc.) we will have something odd — a “metasode” where Arnab and I will recap our experience recording the previous episode and discuss what went well and not so well. In the 5th episode, I’m giving my co-host some mean feedback about clicking fingers, message notifications, and his dog farting on the record. Don’t miss that one.

In metasodes, we’ll also ramble about various things semi-related to sound like loudness of mechanical keyboards or Metallica’s experience recording 20 takes of “room tone” for Sad But True. I think I mentioned Metallica in every single episode so far and will keep doing so because they’re awesome. Grip your pillow tight!

In both interviews and metasodes, we like talking about tools for podcasters. Descript is a hero of pretty much every episode though it doesn’t always come across as a superhero (wait for it in episode 4 with Jake & Jonathan). Another tool that we often mention is SquadCast and we’ll soon record an interview with its founders. It’ll probably be episode 8.

Both Arnab and I have background in software, so we may occasionally get pretty technical and geeky. However, as I pointed out in one of the episodes, a super power of both of us is the ability to explain complex things in simple layman terms yet without dumbing things down too much.

Being the nerds we are, every prime number episode (11th, 13th, 17th, etc.), we should probably do something even more odd, still deciding between Optimus and Amazon Prime. Arnab suggested rib-eye prime something but I have no idea what he’s talking about. I guess it’s a meaty topic and we’ll give you an answer to this very important question in episode 42. Enough priming.

Tune in. Plug your headphones and go do some dishes while listening to us talking.

P.S. Oh wait. We’ve not started publishing the podcast yet — subscribe to this substack and you’ll get a notification when our first episode comes out! In the first one, Arnab interviews me about my experience creating “IT Samurai,” an interview podcast about tech.

P.P.S. We’re not affiliated with Meta in any way. Your private information stays private.

P.P.P.S. Bye.