Podcasts have been my home for the last decade, first as a listener, then as a producer and in the last year: as a host. I launched Smart Girl Dumb Questions in 2025. Ten years before that, I was a documentary filmmaker who fan-girled over shows like More Perfect and was addicted to voices like Ira Glass and Teri Gross. By 2020, pods became my work. I learned on the job, helping launch and then running The New York Times podcast Sway before I became the On-Air Executive Producer of Vox’s On with Kara Swisher and the co-host of Semafor’s Mixed Signals and — in 2025 — started an independent podcast.

The idea was clear: simple questions, big ideas. The name was a gift from a dear friend, comedy writer Teresa Hsiao. The essence, however, was from my late father. He’d raised me to be comfortable asking the “dumb” question. It was a lucky side effect of his job in international development, which meant that I grew up in countries I wasn’t from, like Indonesia and Sudan, and later sought to live in places I wasn’t from, like Vietnam or Libya. In foreign terrains, asking was necessary. It was generally received as a sign of interest and humility. And it was always an opportunity to connect.

But these days, it’s easier to ask our “dumb” questions to our phone while voicing our (sometimes actually dumb) certainties out loud. Questions can feel increasingly performative, leading with hunches or serving as gateways into the asker’s own hot take. Learning feels hard. Understanding is even more elusive. Smart Girl Dumb Questions a space where we’re all confident enough to be curious, where no-one is a know-it-all and where we laugh while learning, or learn while laughing.

You can find me on LinkedIn and Instagram or check out the show on YouTube, Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts.