#208: Ezra Klein -- From College Blogger to Political Powerhouse

Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) is founder and editor-in-chief of Vox, an explanatory news organization that now reaches more than 100 million people each month through articles, videos, newsletters, and podcasts. Previously, he was a columnist and editor at The Washington Post, a policy analyst at MSNBC, and a contributor to Bloomberg. He was named one of the 50 most powerful people in Washington by GQ. He's written for The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books, and his primary podcast, The Ezra Klein Show, is a long-form interview show where he talks to the smartest people he can find, including past guests like Bill Gates, Rachel Maddow, Andrew Sullivan, Atul Gawande, Slack founder Stewart Butterfield, The Daily Show's Trevor Noah, and more. He also co-hosts The Weeds, a weekly policy podcast with his colleagues Matt Yglesias, and Sarah Kliff. In this episode, we discuss: Influencing the rules of the game by which this country is run (overall politics -- not partisan) How Ezra lost 60 pounds Ezra's ascension into the ranks of the most respected media companies in the world And much, much more Please enjoy my conversation with Ezra Klein! Show notes and links for this episode can be found at www.fourhourworkweek.com/podcast. This podcast is brought to you by FreshBooks. FreshBooks is the #1 cloud bookkeeping software, which is used by a ton of the start-ups I advise and many of the contractors I work with. It is the easiest way to send invoices, get paid, track your time, and track your clients. FreshBooks tells you when your clients have viewed your invoices, helps you customize your invoices, track your hours, automatically organize your receipts, have late payment reminders sent automatically and much more. Right now you can get a free month of complete and unrestricted use. You do not need a credit card for the trial. To claim your free month and see how the brand new Freshbooks can change your business, go to FreshBooks.com/Tim and enter "Tim" in the "how did you hear about us" section. This podcast is also brought to you by Four Sigmatic. I reached out to these Finnish entrepreneurs after a very talented acrobat introduced me to one of their products, which blew my mind (in the best way possible). It is mushroom coffee featuring chaga. It tastes like coffee, but there are only 40 milligrams of caffeine, so it has less than half of what you would find in a regular cup of coffee. I do not get any jitters, acid reflux, or any type of stomach burn. It put me on fire for an entire day, and I only had half of the packet. People are always asking me what I use for cognitive enhancement right now, this is the answer. You can try it right now by going to foursigmatic.com/tim and using the code Tim to get 20 percent off your first order. If you are in the experimental mindset, I do not think you'll be disappointed. *** If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. I also love reading the reviews! For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast. Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (“5-Bullet Friday”) at tim.blog/friday. For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts. Interested in sponsoring the podcast? Visit tim.blog/sponsor and fill out the form. Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books. Follow Tim: Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss  Instagram: instagram.com/timferriss Facebook: facebook.com/timferriss  YouTube: youtube.com/timferriss Past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, and many more. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.