# Podcasts are a way to build trust at scale Podcasts are a more effective way of building trust at scale (at least with some people) than an equivalent amount of writing. Both media expose ideas publicly. However, podcasts have several of features that might make them particularly trust inducing. First, just hearing someone’s voice makes you subconsciously feel like you know them better, as opposed to much more sterile words on a page. The intimacy of closeness vs. written word may vary wildly across people - it’s worth investigating. However, you can inject strictly more emotion into the same set of spoken words. Second, many podcasts have flaws or glimmers of humanity that feel relatable. Instead of being pure vehicles of information or literary delight, on podcasts people make mistakes, have awkward pauses, sometimes you hear something in the background, go on tangents, laugh etc. While a very few authors can capture some of this, usually analogous imperfections in written words don’t feel intimate, they just feel sloppy. Heavily produced podcasts lose out on this advantage. Third, there’s something about voice that makes “I don’t know” or works in progress less jarring. So you can really walk people through your thinking in a way that you can’t in writing. The catch is that the trust that podcasts create it one way. It still holds that [[Trust is hard to scale]] - by creating a podcast you can become one of the limited number of trust connections for many people but you yourself don’t build trust in those people. ### Related * [[Parasocial]] * [[How do you operationalize trust?]] * [[Trust takes time]] [Web URL for this note](http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/Podcasts+are+a+way+to+build+trust+at+scale) [Comment on this note](http://via.hypothes.is/http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/Podcasts+are+a+way+to+build+trust+at+scale)