Mastering the Art of the Interview | Polina Pompliano Returns!

This episode focuses on enhancing interview skills across various settings, not just in journalism but also in everyday life, such as job interviews or social interactions.

1. The essence of good interviewing transcends professional journalism; it's a crucial skill in personal and professional interactions.
2. Polina Pompliano shares valuable insights from her article on interview techniques, focusing on how to engage effectively with interviewees.
3. They discuss the role of thorough preparation and its impact on the dynamics of an interview.
4. The conversation highlights the importance of adaptability and empathy in drawing out genuine responses.
5. James and Polina emphasize the need for interviewers to be keen listeners to capture the true essence of the interviewee’s messages.

1: Introduction to Interview Techniques

This chapter sets the stage for the conversation, with James introducing the topic and emphasizing the universal applicability of interview skills. James Altucher: "Good interviewing skills are crucial, whether you're a journalist or not."

2: Polina Pompliano on Effective Interviewing

Polina discusses her recent article on interviewing, providing insights into what makes an interview both engaging and informative. Polina Pompliano: "It's about connecting on a human level and getting past the rehearsed responses."

3: Deep Dive into Specific Techniques

The episode delves into specific interviewing techniques, such as building intimacy quickly and using strategic interruptions to enhance dialogue flow. James Altucher: "How do you build intimacy quickly in an interview setting?"

4: Real-life Applications

James and Polina discuss how these techniques apply in various scenarios, illustrating with examples from their own experiences. Polina Pompliano: "Even in a job interview, these techniques can be incredibly effective."

5: Q&A with Listeners

The episode wraps up with a Q&A session, where listeners ask questions about improving their own interviewing skills. Listener Question: "What's one technique I can start using today to improve my interviews?"

• Practice active listening to truly understand and respond to interviewees.
• Prepare thoroughly, but be ready to adapt as the interview unfolds.
• Use open-ended questions to encourage detailed responses.
• Build rapport early in the interview to make the conversation flow more naturally.
• Reflect on each interview to identify what worked and what could be improved.

A Note from James:
Learning how to be a good interviewer is crucial in life, not just for reporters or podcasters, but because many life situations resemble interviews. Whether you're applying for a job, hiring someone, or meeting someone new at a party, it's beneficial to gather as much information about them as quickly as possible. Additionally, it's important to leave a good impression if that's your goal. Being a skilled interviewer is therefore essential. I'm grateful for my podcast, which has allowed me to study the techniques of some of the best interviewers.

Recently, one of the top interviewers, Polina Pompliano, who writes the newsletter "The Profile," shared her insights. She has profiled many remarkable people and I recommend googling her. Polina has also written a book, "Hidden Genius," and in a recent issue of her newsletter, she didn't profile someone but instead shared the top 10 techniques for becoming a great interviewer, drawing from the best in the field.

I found this immensely valuable, so I invited her to come on the podcast to discuss these techniques and share stories about what makes a good interviewer. Let me know if you find this helpful, but I'm confident it will be valuable. Here's Polina and our conversation on how to excel at interviewing.

Original Article: https://www.readtheprofile.com/p/the-profile-10-interview-techniques

Episode Description:

This episode of The James Altucher Show explores the intricate art of interviewing, broadening its significance from journalism to daily situations like job interviews and social exchanges. Today's interview features a deep dive into interviewing techniques shared by notable figures, including insights from Polina Pompliano's newsletter "The Profile," which covers a diverse spectrum of personalities from billionaires to artists. We explore critical aspects of successful interviews, such as understanding individuals, establishing rapport, the art of storytelling, and mastering public speaking. Ethical considerations in selecting interview subjects and deliberately omitting controversial figures are also discussed. Moreover, the episode examines the importance of connecting with audiences across different platforms, utilizing storytelling effectively, and finding a balance between personal interests and professional development. This in-depth discussion not only captures the essence of interviewing but also emphasizes its importance in improving both personal and professional communication skills.

People

James Altucher, Polina Pompliano

Books

"Hidden Genius" by Polina Pompliano

Guest Name(s):

Polina Pompliano

Content Warnings:

None

For a deeper dive into mastering the nuances of effective interviewing, tune in to this insightful episode of the James Altucher Show featuring Polina Pompliano. Whether you're aiming to enhance your professional skills or simply want to improve how you communicate in everyday situations, this episode offers valuable strategies that can be immediately applied.

James Altucher
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Not because you're a reporter, not because you're a podcaster, but so many situations in life are quasi interviews, like when you're applying for a job or when you are hiring somebody or when you meet a girl or a guy at a party. You want to find out as much about them as quickly as possible. And you also want to make sure they have a good opinion of you if that's your goal. So being a good interviewer and having those skills is critical. And I'm so grateful that I've had this podcast, and I've had to study the styles of some of the best interviewers out there.

But one of the best interviewers out there has recently written an article, how to be a great interviewer. And I'm talking about Polina Pompliano, who writes the newsletter, the profile. She does profiles of so many amazing people. I highly recommend Google Polina Pompliano. She's written a book, hidden genius, but subscribe to her newsletter, the profile.

And she just had an edition where she didn't profile someone, but she wrote about the ten best techniques for being a great interviewer. And she studies the greats, distills what their top ten techniques are. I really got a lot of value out of this. So asked her to come on the podcast, and we just shared stories about how to be a good interviewer. So let me know if this was valuable to you, but I'm sure it will be.

Here's Polina, and we talk about how to be a great interviewer.

This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is the James Altager show.

Your, you know, you've done so many interviews through your newsletter. The newsletter, is it actually called the profile? It is called the profile, yes. Okay. And I always forget the title, but it is the one newsletter, when I get it, that's like the first newsletter I open.

I just love your profiles. You're profiling everybody from billionaires to artists. And it's great because unlike a podcast, you don't feel obligated to bring the person in to your house and interview them. You just profile anybody you're interested in, and you do extra. It allows you to do extra research and so on.

Polina Pompliano
Exactly. Yeah. And a lot of times I back my way into interviewing them. So if I really want to interview someone, and I don't think I can yet, I put together, like, a deep dive on them, and then I send it to them or their people, and I'm like, hey, look, this is my style. This is what I do.

I'd love to interview you. And I've gotten a few interviews that way. Yeah. And you've now built up such a following that I imagine book publishers or movie studios should be pitching you. Hey, can you profile our author or actor or whatever?

Yeah, no, I get quite a few.

Only a few of them are actually really, really interesting. But I read every email. Believe me, we get hundred. I would say, realistically, we get about between ten and 20 a day. I believe it.

James Altucher
And sometimes I get angry, actually, not really, like, angry angry. But I want to write back and said, why do you think this person, you know, I would want to? Not, like, everybody is valuable and everybody has an interesting story, but, like, given, you know, for a podcast, you have a certain brand or you have a certain type of person, you could tell the person did no research. Like, why would I want to interview somebody who. I don't know.

I don't want to put anybody down. But. And it's. Again, it's not like I think I'm so elite, but, no, it's the point. Of view of the podcast.

Polina Pompliano
It's like they should know who they're pitching. I completely agree. But you do a lot of interviews, though, like, for your newsletter. And like me, you study the art of the interview, which is why I love that article you wrote where you took a break from profiling and you did ten interview techniques from the world's best interviewers. And it's really, like something that I am obsessed by.

James Altucher
Like, you, you've taken a slightly different angle in your research, and, you know, everybody has their own style. And, like, I've looked at everybody from, like, Larry King to Oprah to Howard Stern to Joe Rogan. Like, everybody's got their own style. And it's very interesting to study people's interviewing styles because an interviewer has to unwrap this gift, and there's a lot of wrapping around the gift, but if you get to the gift itself, you get a beautiful interview. It's so true.

Polina Pompliano
And the reason, I mean, I think all the. Everyone who interviews people for a living, as you do, I'm sure, has done this research for themselves, which is what I was doing. I was just compiling thoughts for myself to get better. And then I was like, maybe I should just publish this. Everybody's always trying to be a better conversationalist interviewer.

Even if you don't have a podcast or an interview show, you're probably interviewing candidates for a job at your business. So it's something everybody can benefit from. It's so true. I have found that getting good at interviewing, and I'm not saying I'm great, it's like a non stop. It's like a lifelong study.

James Altucher
You have to master it, like mastering a sport or mastering music. Interviewing is you're playing an instrument, which is the person you're interviewing. And that's a little, maybe not quite good, but you have to kind of. It's a path to mastery, and it's difficult, but it does improve other areas of my life. Like, it helps me relate to people in general and understand people and so on.

Like, when you're interviewing, what's your, what is your goal feeling that you want the interviewee, the person you're interviewing to have by the end of the interview? My goal going into any interview is to make them think I think so. Especially, you know, when you interview a lot of CEO's and founders and people like that, oftentimes they're very media trained, and it's really hard to break that veil or that, like, pierce that smokescreen. And my goal is, like, I want to have them pause after a question, be like, hold on. I've never actually thought of that or thought about it that way.

Polina Pompliano
And when you make them think, it's like, it humanizes them just a little bit. The problem is that it takes a while to get through that. And when I was writing this article about the interviewing techniques, I was like, how can you do that more quickly? Like, how can you build intimacy quicker so that you get there faster? Right.

James Altucher
Because let's say you only have a half hour to an hour to interview them, which really means you only have about five minutes, maybe even less, to make them feel comfortable with who you are as an interviewer. Cause a lot of people might be on guard. And like you said, a lot of people, particularly like CEO's or other high profile people, they have their media message that they like. One time, I'll just give you an example. One time I was interviewing Tony Robbins after one of his books came out, and he had such a message, and he's such a.

Like a big, monstrous, domineering. Yeah. And I say this in the best possible way, that he just gets on his spiel. And I had to practically yell at him to interrupt. And you discussed the art of interruption in your article.

We'll get to the specific techniques. And other times, people don't know that when they're saying something that might be interesting, they're just kind of listing some things that have happened in their life, and they're, you know, oh, I got over a cocaine addiction, and then I did that. Wait, wait, wait a second. How did you get, how did you get the addiction? You're never going to, and people are afraid to interrupt, but you're never going to get this chance again to talk to them 100%.

Polina Pompliano
And it's. Yeah, it's so good. Especially, like you said, Tony Robbins probably doing like 100 interviews for his book. He's on message. Even if you ask him a question, he'll probably just answer something kind of related but not really to get his message across.

And it's like the interviewers, you are definitely one of them who are actually listening. They are the ones who, like, rewind the tape. Like, wait, let's focus on that a little bit more. And I think for me to go back to, if you have 30 minutes, how do you get to that intimacy quicker? What I do is often if I'm asking them to share something a little more vulnerable, I'll start first.

Howard Stern does this a lot. It's like you share something about your own life or your own struggle or whatever, and that allows them to be like, oh, okay, okay. Like, let me tell you my experience. Little. Like, I'll give a little.

You give a little. And I think that helps. That is so interesting because that's where your interviews are different from a podcast, because I can't do that so much. You know, I've done 1500 episodes, and I can't do that so much in a podcast because my listeners, they know my story. It'd be very hard to reveal something new to my regular listeners.

James Altucher
So I see where you're saying with the vulnerability, and sometimes I try to do that because that's a really important thing to get out of them, but I have to kind of work around that a little bit sometimes. Maybe before the interview, or maybe what I have to do is really show them how much I appreciate what they've been through. Yes, exactly. In the pre interview, like, the time before the interview actually starts is also very important because, yeah, you can build that rapport before you even start. Yeah.

And so you want them to think, you know, it's interesting. I haven't thought of it that way. What I want them to say to me afterwards is, man, that felt like a therapy session. Yeah. And then what do you want your reader or listener to think after you've done an interview?

Polina Pompliano
I want them to. I want them to be like, wow, I actually really learned something from this person. Or there's one piece of practical something that I can take away and implement in my life. I always try to try to, like, extract something practical from the person, because ultimately, if you're a listener of a podcast, you probably want to get better. You probably want to grow.

So it's like, what is one technique that, like, maybe I haven't considered or maybe I haven't thought about in that way that I can implement in my day? And do you ever get nervous or intimidated before you interview someone? All the time. Every time. I still do.

Really? Yeah, after 1500, I mean, I'll tell you, I first professionally was interviewing people and my listeners know this story. But I worked for HBO in the nineties and I did this project where I was interviewing people at three in the morning in New York City. So prostitutes, pimps, drug dealers, other homeless, whatever, and I would just walk up to people at three in the morning. So you have to, as a degree of comfort, you have to make them feel very quickly and they might have weapons.

James Altucher
So I've done a lot of integration. I did thousands of those. And I still, and I was always nervous walking up to somebody, but I'm still, if someone's coming on, I'm like, almost always the 30 seconds before the interview starts, I hope they cancel. Like, that's feeling a lot, too. It's so interesting, right?

Polina Pompliano
Like, I don't. I mean, I think that being nervous is actually a good sign because you prepare the people who are like, ah, whatever, and they don't end up preparing and then it's not as good of an interview. I think, like, that nervousness is what. Keeps you really good, I think so. I think, do you ever do an interview, though, and you feel like, man, I could have done better at that?

Totally. That feels really bad. And then somehow that happened to me recently. I was like, oh, no, that fell short and then it ended up like, the listeners really liked it. It's just like, how does this happen?

You know, sometimes your bar of quality is different. That's true. But, like, okay, a couple years ago I interviewed before he was running for president, I interviewed RFK Junior. Okay. And I read his book.

James Altucher
I read other. But, you know, that was a mistake. Cause when you read his book, I mean, I'm glad I read his book and I did other research, but I didn't really. Of course, you only get his side of the story on that stuff. I should have.

I didn't really realize the depth to which, you know, drug problems and other factors were, you know, formed his, his, his view of life. And I feel like I should have asked more about that, but I just wasn't as aware as I should have been. It's hard. It's also hard one on one interviews I find really difficult because you don't have the benefit of, like, going. I mean, I guess you could do that, but it just takes a lot of work.

Polina Pompliano
You could go, for example, if you're writing a profile in a magazine, you would go interview his associates, people he's worked with, family members, friends, whatever. But like this, you truly are only getting this one person side of the story, you can't bring in different voices. Right. And you're. I don't like a podcaster is not a journalist.

James Altucher
I don't consider you a journalist. You're writing something. Not to say, oh, I got the dirt on this person, or I found out, you know, this thing they did. It's a story, but you're trying to help your readers and give, find lessons and benefits and, okay, journalism has its role, but I think for me, it's more interesting, like, your style of profile, than reading an I got you kind of story. So.

Because then you don't like, I find when everybody, you know, with a lot of journalism, the journalist has an agenda that might maybe is not a friendly agenda, and they're trying to get, you know, they're trying to get some achievement in their career which might go against the goals of their readers and the goal of the person they're interviewing. I really. I really, truly get upset when I see something like that. There is a place for hard hitting, you know, investigative journalism, and I will defend that to the death. What I don't like is somebody coming in, being like, oh, this is a cheap shot.

Polina Pompliano
I'm just gonna get my, you know, sound bite and move on. And in the. I mean, I don't want to, like, harp on it, but in the article that I wrote in parentheses, so it's not, like, that obvious, but I included a link to what happens when a reporter has an agenda. He's not well prepared, and he's trying to take somebody down. With Elon Musk, this reporter came in.

He was just like, well, what do you think about this? And he was like, well, he was talking about Twitter, and after Elon acquired it and all this stuff, and Elon was like, well, give me an example of what you're talking about. And he was like, uh, well, I don't really use Twitter. It's just like, oh, my gosh, it's so bad. But it just shows the lack of preparation, and then Elon's able to turn it around on him.

It's just super embarrassing. Yeah, I think that's, that's an interesting point, too, by the way, is that when you're being interviewed by someone who's doing that, I got you style, and they're never gonna really be fully prepared because they have an agenda. So you have to fit in their agenda. And there are a lot of great techniques for dealing with that also. And this works like, it just in general, in any kind of argument, you know, like, you know, often they slightly change the subject.

James Altucher
So instead of saying, like, hey, this is how you bought Twitter. They might make it kind of their own opinion about freedom of speech. And then, I don't know that particular interview you're referring to, but Elon Musk might. Might be able to say, hey, did you just change the subject? I'm happy to talk about that, but let me know.

Is that what we're talking about now, or are we still talking about Twitter? And so there's ways to kind of, like, you could label what they're doing, and then that sort of throws them off a little bit. Yes. Yeah. And it just.

Polina Pompliano
Yeah, I think that some people, um, get power drunk, and they don't think that the subject will push back, and when they do, they kind of lose their footing and just chaos ensues. Yeah. And. And look, the great thing about newsletters and podcasts is these are the sorts of things that did not exist 20 years ago. You know, the technology wasn't there, the audience wasn't there.

James Altucher
So you had to be chosen by, like, the New York Times or a powerful radio station or the Washington Post, and so you felt like you had status. So it was a different type of feeling that reporters and journalists had then, whereas we sort of have created our media, and it's like, you have your own magazine, I have my own radio show. But we chose ourselves to do that so we could. We don't have to do the I got you kind of journalism. We could share.

We could be the bridge between our audience and really intelligent, smart, inspirational people. And that's of value. And I just want to add a little nuance here. It's not that we're saying never challenge the person. That's not at all what this is.

Polina Pompliano
It's like, I got you versus challenging. I think, actually, you do this really well. And I remember when I came on your show for my book in the beginning, you said something like, okay, but hold on. I want to challenge this point of view that you had in the book, because I think it's contradictory to something else that you said that was so good, because it allowed me to explain it in more detail, and I knew that you don't just, like, take people's crap. Like, you're not like, um.

Well, you said it, so it must be fact. Like, no, let's explore that, and I'm gonna challenge you. But in challenging you, I'm actually giving you an opportunity to explain yourself better. Yeah, that's a good point, because I think. I think a.

James Altucher
There's a couple things there one is. It shows. And then I really do want to get to your techniques. Yeah, yeah. But when, when I do something like that, a, it's because I'm really curious why?

Or maybe there's something I didn't understand. Like I'm, I am trusting you. So I'm trying to figure out what didn't I understand. And then b, like you said, it allows to get more information out and to dig a little further. But also, see, there's a slight part where I'm showing you how deeply I read your book.

It's a way of showing respect to you. So then you become more comfortable in the interview or whoever I'm interviewing becomes more comfortable. So many interviewers don't read their latest books or the things they're trying to promote. So then what's the point? And I always want to make sure not only do I prepare questions, but I prepare how am I going to demonstrate that I have studied them more than anyone else?

Polina Pompliano
Exactly. Exactly. It's a little selfish and it reflects in your questions and it shows that you're genuinely curious, which is one of the things, a cornerstone of an interviewing technique.

James Altucher
Take a quick break. If you like this episode, I'd really, really appreciate it. It would mean so much to me. Please share it with your friends and subscribe to the podcast. Email me@altitudemail.com and tell me why you subscribed.

Thanks.

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Let's see your techniques. Because you've studied so many of these great interviewers. So the first thing you say is they know the first question. This is so important. A great interviewer knows the first question, sets the tone for the entire interview.

And you give an example, you give two examples with Zuckerberg, Tim Ferriss, who's a great podcaster. His first question was about fencing and Zuckerberg, who's constantly being challenged in the media. He just opened up and relaxed and like they're friends, which is what you want as an interviewer, you know, as a goal. Like become instant friends. Whereas somebody else interviewed Zuckerberg or Cara swisher and was like, tell me, you know, why are you anti privacy or whatever?

Polina Pompliano
She said, take off your hoodie. You're sweating through it. Like it's just a dressing down of literally and figuratively. So, like, I wonder if that was her goal, was just to kind of show her readers that she could be tough or, or if she really thought that would be a good interviewing technique to kind of throw him off real quickly. Well, I mean, that's kind of her thing.

But also I think it's two different contexts. Tim Ferriss was interviewing him on a podcast, so they had 2 hours. She was interviewing Zuckerberg on stage, and maybe they had like, I don't know, 30 minutes, 15 minutes. So they have to get there faster. She has to ask those questions faster.

The problem is that you risk burning the subject that you're trying to interview Mark zuckerberg, after that interview with Kara Swisher, did not do an interview with her for eight years. In that period of time, Facebook became Facebook. So I mean, you risk that, but also, you know, when, when you go straight into the meet, the person's on the defensive. Like they're on guard. They're, they're just, they're not going to be as open.

Whereas when Tim Ferriss starts like that with fencing, it opens up Zuckerberg. And naturally, as a human being, if he brings up, if Tim Ferriss brings up a difficult subject later in the interview, it's just you've built that rapport, so it's easier to ask and respond to the hard questions. Yeah, but I wonder, like, let's say you were kara swisher. In that case, what would you have? Let's say you only have 30 minutes.

James Altucher
I don't know how much time she had. Let's say you only had 30 minutes and you wanted to, but you, but you being Polina, you wanted to start with an interview that is more warm and friendly the way Tim Ferriss did. Like, what would you have done? I think just the first question wouldn't have been a direct, what are you doing about privacy? Maybe I would have started with an anecdote of someone using the platform and, you know, like something adjacent to the privacy question.

Polina Pompliano
And then I would have gotten there. It's just the first three questions of her and her colleagues when they were interviewing Zuckerberg were about privacy. Like, maybe let's just open it up with something that, like, is a little, sets the tone that this is what we're going to talk about. But it's softer. And then go into the more direct.

James Altucher
Yeah, I'm trying to think, like, I think what I would have done. Like you said, fencing might be too long of a subject. Yeah, yeah. But I might have said something like, you know, I just wanna mention in 2006, the first time I turned on Facebook. Exactly.

It was the most amazing experience. I could finally see what my friends from first grade are doing now. I would never call them, but I could see how their kids soccer game did last night. Like, here's how I would do it. Sorry, sorry, I didn't.

Polina Pompliano
I would. For example, I would say, you know, Mark, like, Facebook is amazing for somebody like me because I get to for the first time, you guys, you know, your company gave me the opportunity to connect with family in Bulgaria, where previously I had no contact with. Like, we couldn't share photos like this as easily. Whatever. And then I would say, by the way, I noticed that my grandmother in Bulgaria is posting links to things that's definitely misinformation and it's kind of propaganda.

How are you guys handling that with my grandmother in Bulgaria? Something like that, where it's not as abrasive. Right. Like, does. That's really good.

James Altucher
Cause then you could say, like, does she need to be worried because the government in Bulgaria. And then what about. And then you could always bring that. What about people here in the US? Is there this?

Is it different? Is it the same? Like, why are people worried about privacy here? Exactly. Yeah, that would have been good.

And, you know, all of this stuff is important, too, for a job. Like, let's say you're just going for a job at some random bank. So it's, like, sort of generic. It's very important to research and figure out how to connect. Like, why this bank?

Why this person? Why are you sitting there? Like, what's happening? That's beyond just money and doing work that connects you to this experience? I think it's important to always think of these interview questions exactly.

Polina Pompliano
When I was interviewing at Fortune, I go in to interview for a job, but if I hadn't researched the person who was interviewing me, I would have never known that she got her PhD at the same university where I graduated from. That's a huge connective thing that we could talk about. But if I hadn't done my research on her, I wouldn't have known that, and it would have just been like any generic interview she'd done that day. I'll tell you, that is incredibly valuable. That's the most valuable thing that's gonna come out of this particular podcast, because tell me just that type of thing.

James Altucher
When you research the people in advance that you're gonna talk to in a job situation or some professional business situation, of course, it's obvious that we do this in interviews, or we should, but not everybody does that for a job interview. Or the first time you meet somebody in a professional setting. Like, I've had companies actually acquired from me because I've done that level of research. Like, one time, I met the CFO of a company that was acquiring my company at the time, and I learned that he went to Grinnell College, and we were both. I had a finance company that I was selling, you know, Grinnell College, of course.

And I. Then there was the CFO and the CEO in the room. I explained to the CEO, you got to really know that Grinnell College is an important case study because they have the fastest growing endowment, because a young man by the name of Warren Buffett is sitting on their board of trustees. Wow. And so that ingratiated the CFO to me.

You know, the CEO learned something. I had. It was able to, like, you know, show everybody I knew what I was doing. So stuff like that is really valuable. It's small, but it's like, I mean, we're human beings.

Polina Pompliano
It makes you more likable to me, you know? Yeah. And again, like, no matter what an interview, the interviewee is nervous also. They want to be at ease. You only have an hour together.

James Altucher
You want them. You want to be able to maybe interview them later. Like you said, mark zuckerberg didn't go back to kara swisher for eight years. I'm surprised he went back at all. But I guess that's his job, too, to be the face of his company.

But it's important. So, okay, you got to set the tone. Number two, by the way, you start mentioning Larry King. Yes. And Larry King is an excellent person to study because he specifically, and you mentioned he's conducted 60,000 interviews.

Polina Pompliano
That's crazy. Yeah. And he did not research on purpose the people he would interview, because he wanted it to be fresh. Like, the listener might not know who. But he really listened while the interview was going on.

James Altucher
Yes, yes. But what do you think of that approach of not doing any research at all? I think it works for some people. It would not work for me. I think I would be too nervous that I didn't touch on something that I should have touched on.

Polina Pompliano
And also I would be nervous that I'm just asking the same questions they've already been asked 10 billion times. But like, the experts, the masters of their craft, you know, they know what they're doing. And it just, it works for some people, but you just gotta know. Yeah, I, I don't know. I don't think it would work for me either.

James Altucher
But sometimes when you do too much research, I have to make sure the listener knows what I'm talking about, the context. Yeah. So sometimes it's a fine line to navigate, but I agree. I have to do the research. I'm impressed with Larry King, but there's some, there are some funny stories because Larry King does it this way.

Like he famously asked Jerry Seinfeld in an interview, how did you feel when your show was canceled and Jerry Seinfeld was like, larry, do you know who I am? Yeah, exactly. But like, that makes for a great, great television. Yeah, it's true. Your second one's really interesting.

Your second point is a good interviewer explores the gap between expectation and reality. So, like, give me an example. Yeah, so, okay. I learned this from Brandon Santon, who's the photographer behind humans of New York. He interviews regular people on a daily basis, and he often has, like, ten or 15 minutes with them.

Polina Pompliano
It's not, you know, 2 hours. So he's like, how do you build intimacy quickly? One of the questions that he asks is, how has your life turned out differently than you expected it to? And the reason that's such a powerful question is because it introduces conflict, like internal turmoil in the subject. They're like, oh, man.

Like, I really thought my life would be this way, but then I got this drug addiction, and now it's this way. And you see how, like, it's almost like the. The life unlived all the different possibilities of the way your life could have turned out and the way it actually did. So it forces the subject to kind of consider two realities and build a connection between them and be like, this is the reason why my life did not turn out this way. Yeah, that is really good.

James Altucher
You know, I've never tried that question. I should. That's a really good way to get fast intimacy. And you mentioned Ira Glass also in that he does. Yeah, he does the same thing.

Polina Pompliano
He says, how did you think the situation was going to work out before it happened? And then how did it really work out? It's something in my book. I talk about Aaron Sorkin, who wrote the social network and a bunch of other films. But he talks about a good story has to have conflict and intent.

And this is what this question has. It has conflict and has intent. What did you want to happen versus what actually happened because of all these challenges that stood in the way. And, you know, I wonder, like, so Ira glass version of this, as you just said, how did you think the situation was going to work out before it happened, and then how did it really work out? That's kind of a broader.

James Altucher
Yeah, so Brandon Stanton's, how does your life turned out differently than you expected it to? The situation there is your life, but hourglass broadens it out. It could be any situation, not just your life. What's another? Is there any other kind of way to bring up that kind of conflict real quickly like that?

Polina Pompliano
Well, I was gonna say that so that I call that a gap question. Like, how did this work out and how did you think it would work out and how did it actually work out? You could also get a lot out of the person and their decision making. If you dig a little deeper and be like, well, how, like, were you worried? What were you doing in that gap?

Like, were you worrying about how it was going to turn out? Were you? You know, you were just like, eh, whatever. Like, who cares? Like, it tells you a lot about the person's mentality and how they look at problems and how they solve problems.

But I think another. To answer your question, another way to ask that could be like, because we're assuming that a person had a vision of something amazing that would have happened and it actually did not work out. But if you were to ask me that question, I would have said, I actually thought my life would be way worse than it turned out. You know what I mean? Yeah.

James Altucher
I was wondering that when you were saying this, because a lot of this, it's almost like when Brandon stands in interviewing people, everybody's mildly depressed that things didn't work out the way they thought. But what you just said about, okay, so there's this gap, but then the follow up question is, how do they deal with that gap? That's where the meat is. So it's like you open the gap and then that's where you're kind of, you know, getting. Getting the seeds and getting the real meat of the.

Of the fruit there. In the article, I say exploring the gap can give you a window into how the subject feels about their life. Like, do they have regrets about the past or are they grateful for. For their present? Are they proud of the choices they made, or do they wish they could have a do over?

Polina Pompliano
So it's like, it's introducing regret. Another good question is, like, what is something in your life that you regret happened or that you regret a decision that you made? Something like that. So let me ask you about that, because a lot of people say it's almost like a cliche for people to answer that. Oh, I have no regrets because I.

Know it pushes it, otherwise I wouldn't. Yeah. And, like, people do really have regrets. Of course they do. Okay.

James Altucher
Yes. If you did this differently in 2012, maybe your babies would be different since then. So I get that, like, in a science fiction sense, you have no regrets, but really, like, so how do you dig deeper for that? How do you dig deeper for their actual regrets? I think you set the stage of assuming you would still end up in the same place.

Polina Pompliano
Do you have something that you regret that you wish you could do over? Yeah, that's a good way to do it. So you get rid of their objection. Yes, because the one objection is that I don't really want anything right now to change, but, you know, so. Okay, so number three, and this is a good one because I always am trying to figure out Joe Rogan, who obviously has the most popular podcast on the planet.

James Altucher
And I really enjoy the way he has conversations. And they are interviews, but they don't seem like it. So number three is a great interviewer. Mirrors to gather more intel. So maybe describe what that is.

Polina Pompliano
Yeah, I actually think you did it earlier, so we'll have to listen back. But basically what Joe Rogan and a lot of really, really amazing interviewers do is a technique called mirroring, which is I'll say something and I'll stop, and then the interviewer will take the last phrase of my last sentence and turn it into a question. So the example I gave is somebody went on Joe Rogan's podcast and she said a statistic, 42% of the rising generation have had a mental health diagnosis. And then he said, 42% of kids have a mental health diagnosis. So he's just repeating back her statement as a question, expecting her to elaborate more.

James Altucher
Yeah. And I think, I think that is really valuable because a, it shows that, you know, that's valuable. A couple different layers. One is, as you point out, that forces them to go beyond the statistic and add more context and information and so on and maybe tell a story. But it also makes Joe Rogan, in that specific case, the voice of the 10 million listeners, or 50.

However, you know, the millions of listeners. Cause we're all skeptical of it, too. Or we don't. We don't really. It's mind boggling.

Or how do we understand, make sense of that statistic? And so he becomes the voice of all of his readers, as opposed to being Joe Rogan interviewing somebody. Yeah. And it, like, you're right, it asks a question out of genuine curiosity, but it also introduces skepticism. Is that true?

Polina Pompliano
And they end up looking it up on the show to see if it was true. How does he, like, a lot of times he just gets into these just conversations with people, though. Like, he'll have, he'll have, like, I saw one recently, like Louis CK was on his show and they were just talking about the benefits of cold showers, you know, the Wim Hof cold shower, cold plunges method. And Joe Rogan was saying it was good. And Louis CK is like, I don't really care.

James Altucher
And I guess he sort of trusted Louis CK as an interesting enough guest that they could talk about anything and it'll be interesting content, which is hard to do really, for many podcasts and interviews, like, you can't just let the, you just can't let the topics be about anything. But Joe Rogan does it really well. Yes. And, but, but also, like, right now, the way we're talking, this is how we would be talking, even if this wasn't being recorded. But it's also because this is my, I think, third time on your show, so I feel very comfortable with you.

Polina Pompliano
If it was my first time, I would be like, um, well, number three says that they explore the gap, you know? Right. So it's like, it's like he's already. Louis CK is his friend, so it's almost as if we are listening to a conversation between friends. And that's the magic of it, I think.

James Altucher
That's right. And I think my favorite podcast, I don't know. And I would probably have to say my best podcasts have been where it's a repeat guest. Yes. And so pretty early on, I learned the value of having repeat guests, like, just continuing the conversation we've always been having.

And that is a great technique, and that's what Joe Rogan does. He basically just has his friends on and they just have a fun time multiple times. Yeah. I mean, he's the king of repeat guests. And I guess that's true for Howard Stern as well, because people are listening for them.

You turn into Joe Rogan, maybe in part for the guest, but also largely because, you know, his listeners love him. Howard Stern's listeners love him. Oprah's listeners love her. Almost doesn't matter who they're interviewing. Yeah.

Polina Pompliano
And it's also, there's something about the interviewing your friend thing where if you have some sort of relationship or connection or friendship before the interview, the interviewer, it's not as abrasive for them to ask a hard question, you know, like, if somebody says something and they're my friend, I'd be like, come on, you know, that's complete b's. Can you tell the actual story? You know, like, that's not as versus if I didn't know them. And I said that. Yeah.

James Altucher
And I think the goal in an interview, let's say it's a first time guest, my goal always is to try to get to that point as quickly as possible in the interview. And sometimes it's not easy. Like, it's really hard to kind of get that level of intimacy in a first interview, but I try to get that, but it's difficult. Yeah, definitely.

Polina Pompliano
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James Altucher
Now, number four, here is, and this is one that is a critical one because I used to be accused of doing this when I first started my podcast, people would say to me, let your subject talk. And so number four you have is a great interviewer masters the art of interruption. The best interviewers know when to interject. And you have a great example. Can you talk about your example?

Polina Pompliano
Yes. So, yeah, you have to interject. Otherwise, I personally really hate it when somebody goes on and on and on, and then they make so many points in that really long monologue, but the host hasn't stopped them to explore it, so they just go unexamined. A really good example is Oprah with her Prince Harry and Meghan Markle bombshell interview that everybody tuned in to watch. So Oprah going into this, knows that this is going to be watched by millions of people.

She's well aware of the pressure. She knows that she can't just let Meghan and Harry talk and say whatever they want. She has to interrupt him and examine every single thing that they say. So at one point, Meghan Markle says something like, well, the palace was really concerned with what color skin my baby would have before he was born. And Oprah just, I don't think Megan meant, I think it just kind of came out.

I don't think she planned to say this. You see her, like, starting to, like, fidget in her seat. She gets super uncomfortable. Oprah goes, hold. She, like, throws her hands up in there, says, hold on, hold on.

I have to. She says, hold up. Stop right now. And she goes, there was a conversation with you about how dark your baby is going to be. So she again mirrors, says exactly what Meghan Markle said in her last communication, but she does it in this, like, big showy manner.

Now the spotlight is back on Meghan and Megan's like, oh, actually, actually, no, it wasn't a conversation with me. It was with Harry. I wasn't there. Also, she says she didn't hear it directly from the source, and she declines to reveal who said it because it may be too damaging. If Oprah hadn't stopped her, people would assume that somebody told Megan to her face, what color skin will your be like?

It's crazy. So it's in that way, as an interviewer, you're almost like a, you're fact checking on the fly. And that's what Oprah did here. It was really, really well done. And also, I guess, Megan, if Oprah hadn't done that, maybe Megan would have been obsessing in her mind for the rest of the interview.

James Altucher
Like, oh, my gosh. Yeah. What did I say? Do I have to clarify this? So Oprah gives her a chance to kind of, like, soften it.

Yeah, definitely. And that builds a rapport and a relationship. And you would give another example with Letterman and Kim Kardashian about her political views. So good. Yeah.

Like, you know, that's a bigger example. But, and you mentioned, though, that Letterman, Letterman is an interesting interviewer because he's so quirky. I'm not even quite sure that he is, you know, if it's a style you want to aspire to, because his interviews are very quick, and a lot of it is surfaced even in the, not so much in his Netflix show, but his older Netflix show, but in his main late night show that he did for so many years. You know, he's really just trying to get laughs from the audience and maybe a tiny sparkle in the interviewer, in the interview. So it's not, it's not that intense, but he does, he does, I would say, more than interruption.

He does, like, what I would call, like, a pattern disrupt. It's like he'll do something weird. Yes, yes. And David Letterman for me, is one of the weirdest. Like, I have a really hard time watching his interviews because I'm like, he interrupts, I think, too much, but it's part of his thing.

Polina Pompliano
And then he'll say something about himself. And I'm like, David, I don't want to know this about you. I want to hear about Kim Kardashian. But, like, that's part of his style. And again, it's very hard to imitate because it's him.

It's very much him. And in this example, for the people listening who haven't read the article, he basically sits down with Kim Kardashian. He said he wants to ask her about her political loyalties because she's previously endorsed Hillary Clinton, but then she worked with Donald Trump to get this woman out of prison. So Letterman goes, do you feel like what's being done on behalf of sentencing reform now via this current administration in any way allows the balance of democracy back in a corridor of viability? And Kim Kardashian is like, I have no idea what you just said.

He goes, I'll try again. I'm grateful for what you're doing, but it doesn't make me feel better about the current administration. And she starts answering. I understand. And he interrupts her very abruptly and goes, let me ask you, who are you voting for?

And so I think part of his technique, and I don't even know if he does this consciously, he starts out in this very, like, confusing place. He confuses his interviewee. By the time they figure out what's going on, he just interrupts with a very direct question. And in this way, as the interviewee, you want to answer because you now understand the question. You know, and I wonder, I don't know if he does that consciously because I think he's a very, like, smart, intellectual guy.

James Altucher
So he might have been wondering the corridors of democracy. Right? Like, he might be thinking like, oh, since she, like Hillary Clinton, what is she doing with Trump? So he's thinking of it in this very nuanced political way. Maybe he realizes in the interview that he really just wants to know who she's voting for.

Polina Pompliano
Yes. That could very much be it. And also, he realizes he's, I don't want to say he's speaking above her head. I'm sure she's very intelligent also. But maybe he realized he wasn't being so clear and so then he's smart enough to get as direct as possible.

Yes, exactly. By the way, why can't she just because she likes one candidate. I know. Why can't she do something effective for somebody who's president of the United States, regardless of who they are? That's how polarized we've become.

We cannot have this dichotomy of Kim Kardashian, James. Right. Like, people on both sides, people are willing to break the law to get their candidate in, and it's just like, just ridiculous how polarizing people have been as opposed to wanting to just be, just do good in society. Exactly. I agree.

James Altucher
Let's see, number five, they make assumptions on purpose. And I think that's a little bit of the gotcha thing as well. But you use the Oprah example again. Yeah. And it doesn't have to be done in a gotcha way.

Polina Pompliano
It could be like, here's how I understand it. And then you let the person agree or disagree with you. I think in this one, I wanted to talk about how the interviewer is a representative of their reader or listener or whatever. So Oprah knew that, and she kind of addressed the elephant in the room, which was, she knew that the person watching at home is watching this, and Harry is kind of painting himself as the victim of the system. And she's like, oh, man.

Oh, man. I know what people are thinking. I have to ask it. And so she says, and it's not done in a very confrontational way, just kind of like. Like, in a funny way, she says, please explain how you, Prince Harry, raised in a palace in a life of privilege, literally a prince, how you were trapped.

And so it's like she makes it, you know, she addresses that, and then he. Yeah. And then he responds with, oh, well, it's a system of wealth and all this stuff that you're trapped in. But she doesn't buy his response. So then she makes the assumption.

She says, so the impression of the world, maybe it's a false impression, is that all these years before Meghan, you were living your life as a royal Prince Harry, the beloved Prince Harry, and that you were enjoying that life. We didn't get the impression that you were feeling trapped in that life. So she says, like, here's what we assumed. Is that true or not? And it forces him to take a stance.

James Altucher
Yeah. And it's interesting, too, because as opposed to the Joe Rogan example, where he, he really becomes the voice of the listener. Like, oh, we're, all of us, 10 million people are skeptical, or we want to know more about this thing. She's almost like a translator. Like, it's as if there's a gap between what her.

She understands. There's a gap between what her audience thinks and what harry is saying. And she's trying to bridge that gap as opposed to. As opposed to just being the voice of the listener. She's trying to translate exactly what the listener might be thinking and what harry might be thinking.

So there's an intersection. Yeah. She keeps giving them the opportunity to explain themselves. And then I watched an interview with her about her interview, and she said, that's all I was trying to do. I was just trying to let them explain their decision.

Polina Pompliano
And, you know, I think she did a great job. Yeah. And so Howard Stern, how does he. You mentioned Howard Stern too. I have my own thoughts on his style.

James Altucher
But can you talk about the example you give for Howard Stern? Yeah. So I will admit I was not a big Howard Stern listener until I wrote this. And then a bunch of people told me to go watch and listen to his interviews. And when I noticed this, that he.

Polina Pompliano
I don't know if he thinks that he knows these people or he just, like, makes assumptions and lets. Lets them elaborate. But, for example, with Lindsay Lohan, he said a bunch of stuff where he assumed things about how she thinks. And he says, you know, when you see, like, an Emma stone or Jessica Chastain, they got a similar look to you. I can tell you thought about this.

When you see some of those movies, don't you sit there and go, oh, I can effing do those movies. It's gotta be driving you nuts. So he claims that he knows how Lindsay Lohan feels, and she's like, yeah, that is exactly what I think. You know, that's interesting. Like, kind of putting yourself on the side of the interviewee, like, the person you're interviewing.

James Altucher
And he does that very good. And they go along with it because, look, he's a very powerful guy, so. Yeah, and he's kind of taking their side. So I think with him, he's very interesting because I think he tries to get dirt about everybody during the interview. And they all.

At first, I noticed in a lot of interviews, people say, no, no, I don't want to talk about that. But then by doing this technique, he kind of gets in their head enough and he's on their side, and he's not the listener's voice, he's their voice. Finally, they're like, oh, I'm talking to myself. So finally they are able to, like, I saw him interview Jonah Hill once, and he was like, so when you had that, your first role, did you start, like, having sex with a lot of girls? Like, even though you're kind of fat?

Like, he's just very direct and he's like. And Joanne Hill's really uncomfortable. Like, Howard, I don't want to, you know, I don't want to talk about that. Can we just talk about the movie? And.

But he, like. So they talk about the way. And then he's doing this where he's, like, on their side, but he keeps. Every now and then he'll ask, like, the real harsh question, and Jonah Hill be like, ah, I don't want to. But by the end, Jonah Hill's, like, listing all the girls he had sex with.

Polina Pompliano
No way. Yeah. Like, he, he just works his way in and he just keeps poking, but then he'll get back to like, oh, man, I'm on your side. I'm like, you know, yeah, you know, and I think it's. He combines, he uses this technique that you're talking about to sort of get inside and the person's head, and then finally they're super comfortable.

James Altucher
So they say they forget they're on the radio and they're. Yeah, I watched, I forget which celebrity it was, but they were explaining the experience of why they shared so much on the show. And they were like, it almost feels like you enter this, like, different thing and there's no cameras, there's nothing. You forget that all this stuff is around you and you're just having a conversation, and then it ends and you're like, what did I just say? You know, it's like that feeling of what just happened.

Polina Pompliano
And that's the best. Interviewers make it seem like time just flies by and you don't even know what's going on. Yeah, I've heard that, too, from people who have been on stern show that at first they tell themselves in advance, I am not going to talk about x, y, and z. And by the end, they can't figure out how it happened, but they talked about all those things they didn't want to talk about. Crazy.

James Altucher
So number six here is the great interviewers remove barriers to enhance intimacy. And I love this example of Sean Evans. Sean Evans? Yeah. So usually the obvious example is you remove chairs and you remove tables and things like that in between the interviewer and interviewee to build intimacy quickly.

Polina Pompliano
So Oprah will sit on the same couch, like, things like that. But it's not just physical objects that you can remove to build intimacy. It's sometimes like, like Sean Evans with the hot ones where they eat progressively hotter chicken wings throughout the interview. It's you're removing, like, the barrier of, like, you're breaking down the guest composure because everybody comes in like, super glam ready to do this interview. And then by the end, when they're eating a really spicy chicken wing, like, they're crying, their nose is running, their throat is burning, you know, a lot of them just can't handle it.

And you see, like, Tyra Banks had a ridiculous reaction on the show. You see their true, true colors. So, you know, I included this clip of Sidney Sweeney, but she's really trying so hard to hold on to her composure. And she's like, please. Like, her voice is shaking.

It's super high pitched. It's fascinating to watch. So what do you do? Like, I used to do podcasts in person before COVID but since COVID very rare that I do a podcast in person. And you probably interview on the phone or Zoom or whatever.

James Altucher
Like, how do you do this technique if there's a lot of, like, built in barriers? Yeah, I mean, it's super hard to do because normally the best interviews, especially the ones like magazine profiles, for example, you're doing. You're often doing an activity with the person. So you, you know, whether you're at a restaurant having dinner, you see how they move through the world, how they treat the waiter, how they, you know, all this stuff. Context clues that they can't just tell you I'm a generous person.

Polina Pompliano
Well, you didn't even leave a tip, you know, like that kind of thing. But, like, this is hard because I can tell you how great I am, but unless you see me in my natural habitat, it's hard. I don't know. I don't know. What do you think?

James Altucher
It's. I think it's the repeat guest thing is one way. So you're going to have a hard time that first time, but then it gets easier. I think the pre interview, like, you know, you're on for a little bit and you're just chatting and. But I think.

I think it's really hard. Or sometimes I'll try to do an activity and then a week later do an interview, but that's rare, so it's hard to do that. And also, one interesting thing, it could be that you found out a really interesting piece of information about the person and you bring it up, like, in the middle of the interview. It's kind of like a small bomb that goes off where it's like, oh, wow, how did you know this? And that breaks down the little, like.

The facade a little bit that I try to do. So I try to find, like, odd things in their background that I could bring up and then connect with things they might be saying. Now, I don't really have a good example, but like you mentioned before, how you read or you knew someone did their PhD at your university. Exactly. So I might go as far as to read the PhD, the thesis they wrote, and try to find some connection between that thesis and what's going on in their lives right now or related to something they're doing now in a way that they might not even have thought of.

And so I'll try to kind of like, you know, confuse them with over researching. Exactly. Exactly. Just like something that's unconventional. They're not expecting.

Yeah. Now, this is a really important one. And number seven here is a great interviewer, strives to capture the juice of the story. And you have Barbara Walters interviewing Monica Lewinsky. And there's a lot of different angles.

It's like a, you know, it's a president of the United States. It's this sexual thing. So everybody wants to hear, like, the sexiest details, as sordid as it might be. But with this example you give about Monica Lewinsky and Barbara Walters, it really is the juice of the story. Like how she was worried about what her mother would think, and we can all relate to that, doing something that's going to be public and like, oh, what are people gonna think if they find this out?

And that's that, you know, Barbara Walters is really good at that. Yes. And it's like, it's such a good interview for so many reasons, but it's mainly because Barbara Walters knows that she doesn't go. I mean, she asks all the direct, newsworthy questions, but what she does is, like, she gets into Monica's head, and by the end, you're like, I get it. I get why she's in love with Bill Clinton.

Polina Pompliano
But also, at the same time, you're like, I cannot believe this happened. It's fascinating. It's like a masterclass in interviewing. And she humanizes Monica to the point where you're like, wow, young girl, bad decision making, all this stuff. Irresponsible president.

But it's like she refers to the juice is the details of the story that humanize the person that you're interviewing. And Barbara says, don't be so intent on getting just the facts that you take out all the juice. Yeah. And it's interesting because she kind of layers into this. So, like, you know, like Lewinsky says, I felt very responsible.

James Altucher
And Barbara Walter says, responsible for what, exactly? And by the way, that was, there's a nuance there because she didn't say, why do you feel responsible? That would have taken it in a completely different direction. Lewinsky say, well, I agreed to go into his office, blah, blah, blah. Instead, she says, responsible for what?

And that led to the discussion of her mother. But then that allows her to get enough intimacy with Monica that she says, monica, are you still in love with Bill Clinton? Right? Like, and she uses Monica's name. She says, monica.

She doesn't say, are you still in love with Bill Clinton? So it's more personal when she uses the name. And if she had started off with, are you still in love with Bill Clinton? I think that would have been a different answer. A different interview then.

Polina Pompliano
Yeah, the whole interview, like, builds on itself. It's fascinating to watch. I think that's really hard. I think. And as you mentioned later, the only way to get that skill is doing lots of interviews.

Yeah, it's true. And it's like you notice so many things as you're watching it. Like, at one point, Monica Lewinsky, I didn't include this, but in the interview, she says, at one point, my mom, I couldn't shower alone. My mom would sit in the bathroom with me while I showered because they were all afraid that I might do something. She's obviously talking about, like, you know, might take her own life.

But Barbara Walters is very skilled at, like, knowing when to dig deeper and knowing when to kind of back off. And she says this in another interview, Barbara Walters says that she's like, you know, for the really, really painful stuff. I'm not going to keep digging until I break you. Basically, I'm going to, like, get there and then back off. And that's a skill.

And that's like a, you know, social awareness skill that not everybody has. And also knowing that she could go back to it later, like, she's patient. Barbara Walters. And again, she's almost become a cliche interviewer. I mean, not her, but, like, just the way people think about her.

James Altucher
But I think people underestimate her full, her full power as an interviewer. Barbara Walters totally. I mean. Cause then later on, she's doing stuff like the view and all that. But you give an example in the next thing, challenging a subject's perspective with genuine curiosity.

She interviewed the Shah of Iran right before he's getting overthrown. Like, she was like the biggest interviewer on the planet at that point. I know, I know. And it's interesting, a lot of times she became friends. I think that was kind of like, wait a second.

Polina Pompliano
She became friends with the people that she interviewed. She became friends with Monica Lewinsky, and I believe the Shah ran. But it's interesting because I do think a really in depth human interview has no choice but to leave the people like, oh, we know each other on a different level. Yeah, I think when you really are able to go a couple layers deep. And then she was trying to ask him and talk to him about his views on women and, you know, coming from a muslim country and so on in 1977.

James Altucher
Yeah, yeah. Which was, you know, on the one hand, I don't know how completely we treat women differently now, but at least at that point in the seventies was the height of the, you know, Gloria Steinem's tradition, original feminism movement, and things like the Equal Rights Amendment were being discussed. And. And so it was a different conversation, but it was still very. A big conversation in America, maybe for the first time.

And I don't know, it might have actually been then a year later, he's overthrown, and the US really didn't help him. And we got left with what we have now, this kind of religious, super religious government in Iran that most of the people don't like. Most of the people wanted the Shah of Iran in Iran. And now most, you know, 80 million people in Iran are secular and they're ruled by this super religious establishment. I do not know any of this.

Polina Pompliano
Okay. Oh, yeah. Like, Iran does not like their government, like the people there. And that's why they literally beg the outside world to understand this. Cause they don't want to get bombed if their government does something.

James Altucher
Like, they prefer not to be. They were a completely western country under the Shah. Almost. Not completely, but almost. And now they're not.

But they don't want. They want people to know that so that they don't get blamed if, like, Iran bombs Israel. They don't want to get bombed back because they're not like their government. I'm going to. I'm going to do some research after this.

Yeah. And I think that was a mistake for, for Jimmy Carter at the time to not help the shah a little more because we. Yeah, we didn't like some of the things he did. But that's like every country in the world. We don't like most of the things the French do either, but we're still their ally.

Polina Pompliano
Oh, that's fascinating. There's so many layers here. Yeah. And Barbara Walters is, you know, I think she understood that, like, he's a dictator, but he was still kind of our friend. And then we.

James Altucher
You don't condone everything your friends do, obviously, and particularly at that geopolitical level. But he was certainly much better than what happened. Yeah. You know, number nine is they know all humans seek genuine validation. And this is really important, too.

Polina Pompliano
Yeah. This I found fascinating because Oprah talks about how pretty much every person that she's interviewed, including George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Beyonce, anybody, she's interviewed, after the interview ends, they always ask her, I bet you you get this question, too. They're like, ooh, was that good? Was that okay?

And it's like. And she's like, what do you mean? You're a Beyonce. Of course it was okay. But, like, everybody has that small piece of them that's like, did you like what I said?

And do you think this will resonate with people? And I think a great interviewer's job is to make the person feel validated and, like. And, like actually listened to during the interview. Yeah. And I think this happens at every level.

James Altucher
Like. So for many years I did stand up comedy and then I owned part of a stand up comedy club. So I would see all these great comedians perform on stage. You know, they'd be trying out material for their special or whatever. And no matter how famous the comedian was, like, they always asked that too.

Like, was that okay? Was that good? Do you think the audience liked me? And people are. People are human.

They want to know. They want to be liked. Exactly. It's. I thought that was really like.

Polina Pompliano
I was like, I would have never thought. But yeah, I do it too. It's crazy. Have you interviewed any, like, hardcore criminals? Oh, my God, no, I don't think so.

James Altucher
Like, like anybody who's gone to jail. Yes, I interviewed. Oh, my gosh, the guy who Leonardo DiCaprio played in catch me if you can. Oh, yeah. Frank McNally, Frank Abagnale.

I interviewed him as well. Yeah, exactly. So fascinating. He was a big criminal, but then he worked for the FBI, so I don't know if that counts. Yeah, no, and a lot of times I interviewed someone recently who committed a fairly big fraud, like $400 million Ponzi scheme and he went to jail for nine years.

And I think it was very important for me interviewing him that I didn't treat him like someone who did something really bad. But I still wanted to make sure my listeners knew that it was clear this person did something bad and I was against it. So it sometimes is a tricky thing. Yeah, yeah. Cause you're trying to be empathetic, but there has to be a clear line of like, you know, this is.

Polina Pompliano
I mean, we can all agree that what you did was not right. You know, it was tricky, too. Like, I interviewed Andrew Tate and, you know. And Andrew Tate. Oh, man.

James Altucher
Obviously that's a whole mess. If you're trying. If you're trying to be liked by everybody, don't interview Andrew Tate because nobody will. Everybody's gonna make a judgment. Oh, you must agree with everything he says or you must like him or he used you or whatever.

So you. It. Sometimes the interviewer has to balance all of these things, too. Yeah, it's. It's so hard.

Polina Pompliano
It's like, you know, these people's views would never go challenged if I didn't interview them. You know what I mean? Like, for anybody interviewing a dictator, are you just, quote unquote, giving them a platform, or are you interviewing them and challenging what they think so that more people can, like, hear that it's b's. I don't know. It's really difficult.

James Altucher
Like, let's say you had to interview Putin. Okay, so now, okay, so there's so many layers in which you can. I'm from Bulgaria. He's from Russia. This will be a tough one, James.

Right. Like, so your family, they might say, don't talk to him, or. And then people might think you're. We'll make a judgment about whether you're a Democrat or a Republican. Right.

Oh, you know, only republicans would talk to Putin, but obviously, he would be a fascinating person to interview. I mean, he's on. You know, he's a leader of Russia. He's conducting a war, whether you agree with that war or not. It's.

I would. No matter what he did, I would interview him. Yeah. Well, here's. It's so tricky.

Polina Pompliano
It's like the whole point of journalism in general is to interview people who are doing things that are newsworthy, that are affecting the world. All this stuff by ignoring someone doesn't make them go away. In fact, it actually fuels them more. I don't know. There's a whole philosophical discussion on this.

James Altucher
Yeah. It gets back to the thing of, you have to join a team and then only talk to the people that that team approves. Exactly. And it's like, I'm on nobody's team. I just want to hear the information and then challenge that information.

Yeah. Like, I. I was once on the podcast talking to Mehdi Hasan, who had this show on MSNBC. Yes. There's a profile on him right now.

Oh, yeah, I have seen that. And I told him I'm neutral. I really tried very hard to be neutral so I could talk to everybody and not feel biased. And he said, there's no way to be neutral. And he challenged me on that, and we were gonna follow up at some point, and he was gonna prove to me that I wasn't neutral.

And maybe I'm not. I don't know. But that's the thing. I mean, I guess nobody's truly neutral. But I also completely reject the idea that you're either a Republican or a liberal.

Polina Pompliano
Like, I don't fall into any category. It's really hard. Maybe you're not neutral. You're just not part of any one group. Yeah.

James Altucher
Where you have to, like, do everything that group says. Yeah, exactly. But then I wonder, look, the podcasts that are the most popular take a stance and are really biased. That's true. I'm just not like that.

Polina Pompliano
Yeah, it's. That's not your style. And the good thing with what you do is that you could profile anybody, so you're trying to take lessons from them, and so you could choose. They don't. They don't.

James Altucher
You know, you seldom will profile like a political person. That's the thing. Like, I truly believe that you can learn from awful people about what not to do. You know, like, there's lessons in everybody. It's not just, like, the good, moral whatever people that we put on these, like, pedestals.

Polina Pompliano
It's also the people like, oh, my God, look at how their life turned out. I don't want that at all. Yeah. Like, who's. Who would you say is, like, the worst person in the world right now?

James Altucher
Would you. Would you interview that person? Oh, my God. I don't even know. It's also, like, you know, nobody is, like, only evil or only good.

Polina Pompliano
But there are some pretty bizarre. Yeah, some people are insane, so they are mentally ill and bad. Okay, here's an example. So right now I'm working on an article that's similar to this interview and techniques, but it's on public speaking. And, you know, on Twitter, I asked who is the greatest public speaker of all time?

And of course, people came up with Hitler, Mussolini, a bunch of cult leaders, a bunch of other dictators. And I'm like, I get it. But in my article right now, I'm saying, like, I understand that these people are probably amazing public speakers. I'm not going to include them just because I do not want to, like, feature their stories. But the world's greatest speakers all use similar techniques.

That's not to say they did or did not use this. It's just I'm choosing. My editorial style is choosing not to include dictators and cult leaders in this article. But it's really interesting because, like, you know, you're right. They all use similar techniques.

James Altucher
And that. That's gonna be a fascinating article when you write it. And I've written a lot about public speaking as well, because it is another thing like interviewing, where you're trying to win over, just like in an interview, you're trying to win over an audience. And. And there's.

There are specific techniques to do it, and you have to be as genuine and sincere as possible, as well, but like a dictator will, you know, for instance, a dictator uses Robert Cialdini's consistency technique. Yeah. Like they'll use all his techniques. Like, you know, someone like Hitler might say something like, you know, wasn't your life awful before when bread was like a gazillion marks and people would say, yes. And then when I became leader, wasn't your life better?

And then it's a bigger. So it's like that consistency, like getting them to say a small yes to get them to a bigger yes. He was very effective at doing things like that. And cult leaders are like that as well. Exactly.

Polina Pompliano
And it's just like up to the person, like, maybe you really don't like me. I am not entitled to be on your show. You know what I mean? Like, it's just, I think that there, everybody, every person has like a freedom to have whoever they want on their platform. And if they want to interview Putin and ask them, ask him questions, it's their right.

Like, I have. You will not catch me not defending free speech. Yeah, good, good thing. And look, let's see. And you say here the only way to become a masterful interviewer is to interview.

James Altucher
Larry King conducted more than 60,000 interviews in his career. Oprah has done more than 37,000. Joe Rogan has hosted more than 21 guests on his podcast. It's really true. You've got to do things.

Polina Pompliano
Yeah. And it's like once you think about 60,000 interviews, that is so many. Or 20 or 37,000. And then people think about Joe Rogan, you know, oh, he has the biggest show, biggest podcast, but he's only done 2100 recorded interviews on his show. So it's like, and you've done 1500.

So it's like, those are big numbers. But 60,000 is like a different universe. Yeah. And, you know, and again, like, he does like Larry King, those specifically are interviews. And Joe Rogan, it still feels so much like conversations.

James Altucher
And I really almost aspire to that. But you have to use interview techniques. These are all really important techniques. But one thing I'm gonna try at one point is just give everybody, like, go on Twitter, give everybody the Zoom link and interview whoever just comes on. Oh, that's cool.

Yeah, just, just to show that everybody's got a story. And like, of course, Brandon Stanton and humans of New York does that really well. But, yeah, that's the thing. Sorry, what I say is like, you don't have to have a podcast to do an interview or have a conversation. It's just like, with any stranger, you can practice these skills and just become a better conversationalist.

Yeah. And, like, what do you. What do you think, though? On TikTok or Instagram, I see all these guys who go up to people and say, hey, how much rent do you pay? And they say, oh, 15,000 a month in New York City.

Can I get a tour of your apartment? And they give the tour. So what do you think of that style where it's like, there's one question and then they ask everybody, and then the interview is around that. I kind of like that because it has an angle, so, you know, it's kind of like hot ones. The angle is, I'm going to ask you these random questions while you.

Polina Pompliano
Spicy food. It's the same. It's like it has a slight point of view, so you know exactly what you're getting, but then it can go anywhere. Yeah. And there's this voyeurism aspect.

Yeah. So it's like, can you show me? And it's the intimacy. It's like the most intimate thing you can show somebody is your home. Right.

James Altucher
And the guy, the main guy I'm thinking of, who does this? I mean, maybe there's more than one, but the main guy, I'm thinking, who I always see who does this, he always says, can I sit in your bed? Oh, my God. I have not seen that. Yeah.

And it's usually, like, some really beautiful woman who he goes up to and says, hey, how much do you like? It usually starts there. So he's getting every voyeuristic aspect, and you kind of are left wondering, like, is he gonna have sex with this girl? Like, oh, my God. The kind of interview sort of is in that direction, but I kind of like the.

Or what? Or there's the what do you do for a living guy. Like, I like that guy, too. Yeah, yeah. No, that's what they're trying to do.

Polina Pompliano
They're trying to just, like, quickly build intimacy with someone in a way that's like, can I see your house? How much money do you make? What do you do for a living? Like, all the things that people think make them who they are. And I guess it is also the consistency thing.

James Altucher
Like, if you answer, like, obviously we don't see all the rejections these people do. They only show us the Instagram reels of. Of the people who answer. But if. So if you're already answering, what do you do for a living?

Or how much money do you make? Or. Or what's your rent? You've already said something so personal that now it's. It's wide open to.

For the guy to ask anything. Yeah, but I also think those people probably have pre interviewed these people to get there. I don't think anybody's like, oh, well, we happen to be on the block where my apartment is. Let's go check it out. I wonder.

Or if we just happen. Or if, like, nine times out of ten, he gets nothing, and then maybe one time out of 100, maybe he gets lucky and the person pays 200,000 a month in rent and we can see their apartment. You should have him on. Yeah, that would be a good idea. Jay.

Who's listening to this? Let's get that guy on. I want to figure out. Cause that's a little bit like what I used to do at this 03:00 a.m. Idea I used to do for HBO in the nineties, which is, you know, why are you out at three in the morning?

It was that kind of concept. And I always think I did the first podcast because I would put it on the Internet, these interviews that I. That's crazy. Was given permission to do. So that's cool.

But Polina Pompliano. Thank you, James. Such a great newsletter of the profile. I love all of your newsletter. Every episode, edition that comes out, I'm always a reader.

You know, you always have at least one reader, which is me, as soon. As you send it out. And you also wrote the book hidden genius about some of your more interesting profiles. And always great to have you on the podcast. Thank you.

Thank you so much. And congratulations. I don't know if you're. If you said, congratulations on second, baby. Thank you so much.

Polina Pompliano
A lot going on these days. Yeah. Like how many. How many editions do you put out a week? One every Sunday, and then sometimes one every Wednesday.

James Altucher
Okay. Yeah, I know. I've seen more than one a week from you. And are you gonna keep, like, this? Is this it now for life?

Like, you're gonna just do this newsletter for life? You're making money, and it's all good? Well, I just. I really love the newsletter. I have no reason to not do it, but I really enjoy it.

Polina Pompliano
I've done it for the last seven years every single week. But now my goal is to do more interviews. So if anybody listening needs, you know, moderating help or is hosting something where they need an interviewer, let me know. Very good call to action there. Thank you.

James Altucher
And thanks so much, Polina, again, thank you. Awesome. Thank you so much.

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