We give you
your time back.
The world's best thinking happens on podcasts. But listening to all of it is a full-time job. PodDebrief exists to close that gap — for every listener, on every budget, starting now.
12,000+
Active Users
50,000+
Debriefs Sent
140+
Podcasts Covered
4.8★
Average Rating
The story
Built by listeners, for listeners
It started with a simple frustration. Our co-founder Lena followed 14 podcasts in 2024 — All-In, Lex Fridman, 20VC, Acquired, and more. She loved them. She also couldn't keep up. Episodes were getting longer. Her schedule wasn't.
The existing tools were disappointing. Summaries that missed the point. Transcripts that required as much effort to read as the podcast took to hear. AI-generated noise dressed up as signal.
What she wanted was a debrief — the kind a brilliant colleague gives you after a meeting you missed. The key decisions. The live debate. The one quote you'll repeat for months. The three things you should do because of it.
She called Tom. Tom called Rania. Six months later, PodDebrief was in private beta. Eight months after that, 12,000 people use it every week.
"A summary tells you what was said. A debrief tells you what it means. That difference is everything."
— Lena Verhoeven, CEO
Timeline
How we got here
The idea
Lena listened to the same All-In episode twice — once live, once to catch what she missed while multitasking. She opened a notes app and started typing: 'what if a machine did this for me?'
First prototype
Tom built a rough pipeline: RSS feed → Whisper transcription → GPT-4 summary. The results were mediocre. The idea was undeniable. They kept going.
Rania joins, model architecture changes
Rania refactored the AI stack around structured extraction rather than summarization. The 'debrief' concept crystallized. First internal users called it 'unsettlingly good.'
Private beta
500 beta users, 140 podcasts supported, Mollie integration shipped. NPS of 71. One user said it 'changed how I think about learning.' Enough signal to push forward.
Open beta launch
12,000+ users in six weeks. Pro plan launched. The EU AI regulation episode debrief went viral on LinkedIn — 40K impressions, 3,000 signups in 48 hours.
What we believe
Our principles
Time is irreplaceable
Every minute of listening time we save is a minute returned to your life. We take this responsibility seriously — every product decision runs through this filter.
Depth over breadth
A debrief is not a summary. We extract arguments, surface tensions, identify predictions. We are building a thinking tool, not a content skimmer.
European by design
We are built in Europe, for Europe. iDEAL payments, GDPR-first data practices, and servers that stay on this continent. Not an afterthought — our identity.
Actionable, always
Every debrief ends with clear action items. Knowledge without application is trivia. We close the loop between learning and doing.
Privacy as default
We don't sell your data, profile you for ads, or track you across the web. Your listening habits are yours. We make money through subscriptions — full stop.
Respect your intelligence
We write for smart, busy people — not the lowest common denominator. Our debriefs assume you can handle nuance, complexity, and conflicting perspectives.
The team
Who's behind PodDebrief
A small team with a sharp focus. We're spread across Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris, and Stockholm — and we believe in async, not offices.
We're hiring
Looking for engineers and designers who care deeply about knowledge and time. Remote-first, equity-heavy, zero-BS culture.
jobs@poddebrief.comProudly European
EU-first, always
We process payments via Mollie — the leading European PSP. iDEAL for the Netherlands, Bancontact for Belgium, SEPA for the continent. No Stripe, no US payment rails, no currency conversion surprises.
Our infrastructure runs on EU servers. Your data stays in Europe. We are GDPR-compliant by design, not by retrofit.
We believe the next generation of great software companies will be built here — and we intend to be one of them.
Ready to get started?
5 free debriefs every month. No credit card. No commitment. Just your podcasts, intelligently analyzed.