What is a cold open?

A "cold open" in a podcast refers to a technique where a particularly interesting or funny one-liner from the middle of the episode is extracted and placed at the very beginning of the episode. This serves to immediately engage the listener by presenting a compelling snippet upfront, before transitioning into the regular introduction or theme music of the show. For instance, the All In podcast, hosted by Jason Calacanis, commonly utilizes this method 1 .