Decoder is a show from The Verge about big ideas — and other problems. Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel talks to a diverse cast of innovators and policymakers at the frontiers of business and technology to reveal how they’re navigating an ever-changing landscape, what keeps them up at night, and what it all means for our shared future.
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Hasbro might be a toy company, but CEO Chris Cocks has spent the last several years pushing it more and more into the digital media, gaming, and collectibles space. That makes sense, since adults have money and kids don't. All those IP and licensing deals are working out for Hasbro so far. But Hasbro is also facing a lot of risk from instability: in trade and tariffs, in politics and culture, and in the video game market, which seems to be in a more or less permanent state of crisis. Read the fu...
Today let’s talk about prediction markets, which continue to insert themselves into the news cycle and the news in increasingly weird, unsettling, and potentially illegal ways. My guest today is Liz Lopatto, a senior reporter at The Verge who owns what we cheerfully call the chaos beat. Liz has been writing a lot about prediction markets lately and especially why they all seem so intent on being perceived as sources of news — a position which directly incentivizes insider trading. That in turn c...
Today, I’m talking with Zillow CEO Jeremy Wacksman. Zillow is one of those apps that really exemplifies what you might call the smartphone era of software: the company built a great mobile app for looking at real estate listings, and it turned into not just entertainment for so many of us, but what has become a vertically-integrated platform for buying, selling, and renting real estate. Jeremy’s argument is that the future of Zillow looks a lot like an end-to-end business platform for real estat...
Today, we’re talking about the future of Xbox. Phil Spencer, a two-time Decoder guest who’s led Xbox for more than a decade, is stepping down. But in a shocking twist, his deputy long-assumed successor Sarah Bond is also out too, and the Xbox division is now in the hands of an Asha Sharma, one of Microsoft’s AI executives with no prior game industry experience. There is no better person to talk to about all of this than Tom Warren, senior editor here at The Verge and author of the excellent Note...
Today, I’m talking with Hank Green, a longtime friend of Decoder and the co-founder and now former owner of Complexly, an online education company he started with his brother John in 2012. I say former owner because Hank and John have just converted Complexly into a nonprofit and given up their ownership of the company in the process. That’s some of the purest Decoder bait that ever was, because it’s all about how you structure a company and how you make decisions about changing that structure. ...
Today we're talking about the war for AI talent. Right now, the hottest job market on the planet is for AI researchers. And the vast majority of these people are concentrated into a small number of hugely valuable, extremely fast-growing companies in the San Francisco Bay Area, most of which are now paying some of the highest salaries in the history of tech to poach from one another. We’ve been dying to really dig in and try to unpack what's going on with all these talent moves in AI. So we brou...
Today, we're talking about the camera company Ring, lost dogs, and the surveillance state. Since it aired for a massive audience at the Super Bowl, Ring’s Search Party commercial has become a lightning rod for controversy. It’s easy to see how the same technology that can find lost dogs can be used to find people, and then used to invade our privacy in all kinds of uncomfortable ways, by cops and regular people alike. Although Ring has since canceled its partnership with controversial surveillan...
My guest today is Bridget McCormack, former chief justice for the Michigan Supreme Court and now president and CEO of the American Arbitration Association. For the past several years, Bridget and her team have been developing an AI-assisted arbitration platform called the AI Arbitrator. So I sat down with her to talk about how the tool works, the pros and cons of automating parts of the arbitration process, and the bigger picture questions around institutional trust, justice, and the future of l...
Siemens is one of those absolutely giant, extremely important, fairly opaque companies we love to dig into on Decoder. At a very basic, reductive level, Siemens makes the hardware and software that let other companies run and automate their stuff. We spent a lot of time talking about what happens to jobs when Siemens automates everything — and what happens to a company like Siemens when the free trade era we’re used to gets turned on its head. Read the full interview transcript on The Verge . Li...
Today, we’re going to talk about reality, and whether we can label photos and videos to protect our shared understanding of the world around us. To do this, I sat down with Verge reporter Jess Weatherbed, who covers creative tools for us — a space that’s been totally upended by generative AI. We’ve been talking about how the photos and videos taken by our phones are getting more and more processed for years on The Verge . Here in 2026, we’re in the middle of a full-on reality crisis, as fake and...
Today, I’m talking with Allan Thygesen, who is the CEO of Docusign. You know Docusign, it’s the platform that lets you sign stuff online. It turns out 7,000 people work there, which is one of those facts floating around that’s always felt like perfect Decoder bait. What are all those people doing? And what kind of product roadmap does a company like Docusign even need? Alan has only been CEO of Docusign for three years, so he has some interesting perspective on where the company was, the changes...
Today, we’re talking about the bidding war over Warner Bros. Discovery, which is the biggest story in the entertainment industry right now, and for good reason. It has pretty much everything you could want in a buzzy Hollywood saga — big names, big money, and big drama. To help me make sense of it all, I wanted to talk with Julia Alexander, a Verge alum and now media correspondent at Puck News who’s one of the best in the business at analyzing corporate strategy, Hollywood, and what’s next in en...
Experian is one of those giant multinationals convoluted enough to have multiple CEOs all over the world, so first I asked Alex Lintner, Experian's CEO of technology and software solutions, to dig into the classic Decoder questions and explain how all of that even works. He oversees big operations like security and privacy, and now, of course, AI. If you want to participate in the modern economy — rent an apartment, buy a car, get a job, etc — you’re part of Experian’s ecosystem, whether you lik...
Nilay Patel and Riana Pfefferkorn dissect the ongoing controversy surrounding Grok's ability to generate non-consensual intimate deepfakes, highlighting Elon Musk's apparent unwillingness to enforce safeguards. They delve into the thorny history of content moderation, examining why US laws and powerful gatekeepers like app stores have failed to act, contrasting this with international responses. The discussion explores the limitations of current legal frameworks like Section 230 and the Paxton case, exposing a paradox in how society addresses online harms, and contemplates the future of platform accountability in a post-good-faith era.
We’re back to start the year with a very special live interview with Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan, which we taped in front of a terrific audience at Brooklyn Bowl in Las Vegas during CES. At this year’s show, Razer made headlines for something it calls Project Ava, an AI companion that has a physical presence in the real world, as an anime hologram that sits in a jar on your desk. It’s powered by, you guessed it, Elon Musk’s Grok. There are a whole lot of choices bundled up in all of that, as well as...
Hey everyone, it’s Nilay. We’re settling back in here after the winter break and CES, and we’ll have new episodes for you starting next Monday. In the meantime, we wanted to highlight one of our favorites from last year: an interview with journalist and author Megan Greenwell about her book Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream . My conversation with Megan last year was extremely illuminating as to why private equity does what it does to industries like healthcare, medi...
We’ve got something special for you today. It’s my friend Hank Green, longtime YouTuber, science educator, and viral TikTok star, interviewing Dropout CEO Sam Reich. Hank did this episode as a guest host over the summer, and it’s a fan favorite, bringing together two internet personalities that’ve known each other for a very long time and who have a lot of inside knowledge about how the internet, Hollywood, and entertainment all intertwine. Links: Dropout’s Sam Reich on business, comedy, and kee...
Hey everyone, it’s Nilay. Decoder is on our holiday break. We’ve got a lot of fun stuff coming up in the New Year, though, including a special Decoder Live at CES. Stay tuned for more details, including how to RSVP for free tickets. In the meantime, we’ve got a great episode of the podcast Channels , featuring two of the best media reporters in the business. Host Peter Kafka sat down with Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw to talk about the bidding war between Paramount SkyDance and Netflix over Warner Bros...
Nilay Patel answers burning audience questions in this special episode, discussing his personal decision-making framework and the team's approach to the popular "Decoder questions." He delves into the recurring CarPlay debate, explaining its symbolic importance in the tech world. The conversation also extensively covers the impact of AI, from navigating industry hype and critical coverage to its disruptive effects on the creator economy and the "DoorDash problem," concluding with reflections on the future of tech journalism and the show's mission.
Prashanth Chandrasekar, CEO of Stack Overflow, details the company's "code red" response to ChatGPT's launch, which drastically changed its business model. He explains the shift to enterprise SaaS and data licensing, the banning of AI-generated answers, and new features like AI Assist designed to balance community trust with AI integration. The discussion also explores the paradox of developers using AI despite low trust and Stack Overflow's strategy to remain a vital, trusted knowledge source in an evolving tech landscape.
Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey and I agree it seems like democracy is on the line right now, especially around the First Amendment and the increasing pressure the Trump administration — especially FCC chair Brendan Carr — is putting on free speech. I also had a lot of questions for Sen. Markey about the supposed TikTok ban, which no one seems to know anything about, and all the other problems we’re facing in 2025. Links: Even the lawmakers behind the TikTok ban have no idea what’s going on | The V...
Willem Avé, Square's product chief, delves into Square's journey, from its origins as a simple credit card reader to its current role as a comprehensive commerce platform within Block's functional structure. He highlights the company's strategic push into AI for small businesses, explaining how natural language interfaces and deterministic systems will empower merchants. The conversation also explores Square's position on cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and the practical implications of macro-financial changes like the US penny's discontinuation, emphasizing the company's commitment to providing choice and democratizing technology for all sellers.
This episode features Verge Senior AI Reporter Hayden Field discussing Anthropic's Societal Impacts Team, a small but critical group within the company tasked with researching and publishing "inconvenient truths" about AI's potential negative effects on society, including mental health, elections, and the economy. The conversation explores how Anthropic leverages its "safety-first" reputation as a business advantage, the internal tensions regarding the team's ability to influence product development, and the political challenges posed by the "woke AI" narrative from the Trump administration. Ultimately, it raises questions about the long-term viability of such independent safety teams within rapidly evolving AI companies.
IBM CEO Arvind Krishna outlines the company's evolution into an enterprise-focused AI leader with WatsonX, contrasting its modular approach with earlier "monolithic" Watson endeavors. He dismisses the idea of an AI bubble, predicting massive cost reductions in AI hardware and software over five years, and draws parallels to past tech booms. Krishna also delves into IBM's significant, long-term investment in quantum computing, seeing it as an "additive" technology rather than a displacement, and discusses AI's role in boosting enterprise productivity and shaping future job markets.
This episode features data scientist Hannah Ritchie, who offers an optimistic, data-backed view of the climate crisis. She argues that despite common pessimistic narratives, significant progress is being made in decarbonization and clean energy adoption, often faster than perceived. Ritchie delves into why media often focuses on extremes, the underestimated public support for climate action, and the economic advantages now making clean energy the cheapest option. She also addresses the roles of individual and systemic change, misunderstood technologies like nuclear, agriculture's impact, and the need for positive narratives to inspire future climate solutions.
Nilay Patel delves into the "DoorDash problem," examining how AI agents threaten established online services by bypassing ads, loyalty programs, and direct customer relationships, potentially commoditizing platforms like Uber and Amazon. The podcast details Amazon's lawsuit against Perplexity, which used an AI browser for shopping, and contrasts it with the varied responses from other tech CEOs who believe in brand loyalty or unique inventory as defenses. The discussion also covers Perplexity's controversial "software is labor" argument, highlighting the urgent need to define the economics of the agentic web.
Ring founder Jamie Siminoff returns as Chief Inventor, sharing insights from his new book and discussing his renewed mission to dramatically reduce crime using AI-powered cameras. He delves into Ring's integration within Amazon's evolving ecosystem, the challenges of differing tech protocols, and his approach to privacy and police partnerships amidst the rise of deepfakes. Siminoff outlines a future where AI acts as a 'co-pilot' for neighborhood safety, while also addressing concerns about a potentially dystopian level of pervasive surveillance.
Verge senior reporter Liz Lopato investigates CoreWeave, a pivotal company in the AI infrastructure landscape. Originally a crypto miner, CoreWeave leverages creative financing and a unique relationship with NVIDIA to build and lease GPU-filled data centers to major AI players. The discussion explores the risks associated with this debt-fueled growth, the reliance on chip longevity, and the broader implications of circular financing and special purpose vehicles, questioning the sustainability of the current AI boom and its parallels to past financial bubbles like Enron.
Nilay Patel interviews Sir Tim Berners-Lee about the evolving web, from its foundational principles to current challenges like platform monopolies and the shift towards closed ecosystems. They explore how generative AI impacts web monetization, privacy, and user control, and Tim shares his vision for a decentralized web powered by personal data wallets through his Inrupt and Solid projects, aiming to restore digital sovereignty.
This episode delves into the profound impact of generative AI on education, revealing that while cheating is a concern, the deeper issue lies in the very purpose of learning. It discusses the "digital native" myth, how AI can impede skill development and critical thinking (the "calculator effect"), and the challenge of fractured school policies. Teachers express both hope for AI as a workflow tool and frustration with its ethical implications and demotivating top-down mandates, highlighting the crucial need to prioritize the learning process over just the final product.
