I thought maybe he was landing guests partly because of the novelty of being a 15-year-old with a solid following and an appearance on The Tonight Show, but the kid definitely knows what he’s doing. And I don’t think the “phenom” persona is an act per se, I just think he knows when to turn it up or down a notch when he needs to. Talking to him on the phone wasn’t a lot different than listening to him on his podcast, he was just more tempered on the phone than he is on his podcasts.

Interesting that the “phenom” persona is simply an act….

He’s just like a typical 15-year-old kid, except he’s more mature. He doesn’t have the same “phenom” persona off the air as he does on, but he’s professional as hell. He explained that our interview would be 5-7 minutes long and he went over the questions he’d ask, so I knew what to expect. Then he explained how the recording process worked, asked me if I understood, counted down from five to one, then went right into the interview. The kid knows what he’s doing.

I agree that he makes his interviews flow more like conversations and that’s tough to do. I remember when I interviewed Jim Bouton all I could think of was what I was going to ask next and it ended up being more of a “Q and A.” I could learn a thing or two from Alex.

Also, he’s a kick ass interviewer. I love how he, at such a young age, turns an interview into a discussion, and not “Q and A.”