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.
Today, we’re diving head first into the AI art debate, which to be honest, is an absolute mess. If you’ve been on the internet this past week, you’ve seen the Studio Ghibli memes. These images are everywhere — and they’ve widened an already pretty stark rift between AI boosters and critics. Brian Merchant, author of the newsletter and book Blood in the Machine, wrote one of the best analyses of the Ghibli trend last week. So I invited him onto the show not only to discuss this particular situati...
Unity is one of those hidden in plain sight companies we love here on Decoder, and CEO Matt Bromberg is in many ways the perfect Decoder guest. He's been on the job less than a year and took over in a moment of crisis. He describes the company as being "at war with its customers" before he joined, and he's not wrong. The game industry right now is also contracting overall — studios are closing, and some big bets on things like the metaverse and live service games haven’t paid off. So we talked a...
Lauren Leffer discusses the complexities of the H5N1 bird flu outbreak, its spread among various animal populations, and the potential risks to humans. The conversation explores the failures and challenges of public health responses, the influence of political figures like RFK Jr., and the role of capitalism in addressing the crisis. Leffer offers practical advice for individuals to protect themselves and their pets, emphasizing the importance of monitoring data and avoiding raw animal products.
Today, I’m talking with Kakul Srivastava, CEO of music creation platform Splice, which is one of the biggest marketplaces around for loops and samples. You can just go sign up, pay the money, and download these loops to try to make pop hits all day long. Take, for instance, Sabrina Carpenter’s Espresso, which was composed almost entirely out of Splice loops. Now, if you’re a Decoder listener, you know that some of my favorite conversations are with people building technology products for creativ...
This episode of Decoder explores the Tesla Takedown protest movement and its potential impact on the company. Ed Niedermeyer joins Nilay Patel to discuss the disconnect between the myth and reality of Tesla, the vulnerabilities in its business model, and the reasons behind the protests. The conversation covers Tesla's leadership, product vision, and the challenges it faces in the evolving automotive landscape. Ultimately, the episode examines whether these protests can truly impact Tesla's stock and future.
Nilay Patel interviews Evan Smith, CEO of Altana, about the changing landscape of global trade and supply chains. They discuss the factors leading to the breakdown of globalization, the impact of tariffs, and the potential for decoupling from China. Smith explains how Altana's software helps companies navigate these changes and build more resilient supply chains. The conversation explores the role of industrial policy, the challenges of critical mineral dependency, and the future of manufacturing in North America.
Today, I’m talking to Verge policy editor Adi Robertson about a bill called the Take It Down Act, which is one in a long line of bills that would make it illegal to distribute non-consensual intimate imagery, or NCII. This is a real and devastating problem on the internet, and AI is just making it worse. But Adi just wrote a long piece arguing that giving the Trump administration new powers over speech in this way would be a mistake. So in this episode, Adi and I really get into the details of t...
Almar Latour is the publisher of the Wall Street Journal and also CEO of its parent company, Dow Jones — itself a part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Almar's been with the paper since the 90s, and now he's got insight into all the modern messes. He's made a big deal with OpenAI, while also suing Perplexity — all while building his own AI data products for Dow Jones customers. He's also a strong defender of press freedom who fought to have Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich released fr...
So today I’m talking to Andy Hawkins, The Verge’s transportation editor, about what’s going on in the skies. Andy just edited a big piece for us by writer Darryl Campbell that helps put a lot of what’s happening in air travel right now in perspective. It has some very reassuring data points, but it also raises important questions about what we need to do next to reinstill confidence in air travel. Andy and I talked about how safe it really is to fly right now — extremely safe, it turns out — and...
Nilay Patel interviews Amazon's Panos Panay about Alexa Plus, a new AI-powered version of Alexa. Panay discusses the cultural and structural changes he's implemented at Amazon to bring Alexa Plus to life, emphasizing a focus on service, cross-company collaboration, and leveraging AI for ambient experiences. They explore the complexities of orchestrating multiple AI models and APIs, the strategic pricing of Alexa Plus with Prime, and its potential to transform the smart home and human-computer interaction.
This is Alex Heath, deputy editor of The Verge. I’m guest hosting today’s episode while Nilay is still away for a much-needed vacation. He’ll be back next week. But today, we’re diving into the bromance between Elon Musk and Donald Trump, and more specifically, how it’s impacting the changing right-wing political movement here in the United States. There’s no better place to get that temperature check than CPAC. Musk showed up there this year for a wild interview — you may have seen clips of him...
Nilay Patel interviews Vimeo CEO Philip Moyer about the company's shift towards private video distribution, its focus on professional creators, and the impact of AI on the creator economy. Moyer discusses strategies for competing with YouTube, the importance of authenticity in AI-generated content, and the future of video creation and consumption.
David Pierce and Ash Parrish discuss the challenges facing Microsoft's Xbox division, exploring the company's strategies with Game Pass, cloud gaming, and multi-platform releases. They analyze why Xbox lags behind PlayStation and Nintendo, examining past missteps and future possibilities. The conversation delves into the evolving landscape of the gaming industry and the potential shift beyond traditional consoles.
The First Amendment, protecting free speech and free media, is a pillar of US law. It is, famously, the first one. We don’t usually tolerate government interference with speech. So it’s been disconcerting these first few weeks of the second Trump administration to realize suddenly, there’s a nonzero chance the government will punish our work. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr is absolutely determined to turn all that talk about the media being the enemy of the people into concrete legal action — incredi...
Today, I’m talking with Senator Ron Wyden, a democrat and the senior senator from Oregon. He’s been in the Senate for almost 30 years, which makes him one of longest serving members of the institution. We scheduled this interview with Senator Wyden a while ago — he’s got a new book out called “It Takes Chutzpah: How to Fight Fearlessly for Progressive Change.” But recent events made it vastly more important to talk about the state of our federal government – and specifically, what Elon Musk and ...
Today, we’re discussing a very big problem with extremely far-reaching consequences: Do we still have a functional federal government here in the United States? And how much of it has been handed entirely to Elon Musk? If you’ve been following the news, you know there’s a lot here that’s unfolding very fast, but I wanted to know how all these changes are affecting the people who’ve so far been the most newly supportive of Trump because they have the most to lose – the money, the billionaires. So...
Andy Hunter is the CEO of Bookshop.org, a website he launched in 2020 that lets local bookshops sell all over the country. He always meant it to compete directly with Amazon, and the timing of that launch right into the teeth of the pandemic meant it was able to start strong and grow quickly. Now Bookshop is selling ebooks, which is another market hugely dominated by Amazon. For Andy and Bookshop to get what they want, they’re probably going to have to gear up for a big fight. It’s kind of the a...
Today, we’re talking about DeepSeek, and how the open source AI model built by a Chinese startup has completely upended the conventional wisdom around chatbots, what they can do, and how much they should cost to develop. We’re also talking about Stargate, OpenAI’s new $500 billion data center venture that’s supposed to supercharge domestic AI infrastructure. Both stand in stark contrast with one another — and represent a new, escalating front in the US-China relationship and the geopolitics of A...
Today, I’m talking with Gary Smith, CEO of the networking company Ciena. You probably aren’t familiar with Ciena — the company isn’t really a household name. But every internet user has relied on the company’s products; Ciena makes the hardware and software that makes the fiber optic cables connecting the world light up with data. That’s everything from local fiber networks for broadband ISPs to the massive undersea cables that connect continents. There’s a high probability that this very podcas...
It’s been a messy couple of weeks for big tech companies as the second Trump administration kicks off an unprecedented era of how we think about who controls the internet. Right now, there's a major collision, or maybe merger, happening between billionaire power and state power, and everyone who uses tech to communicate — so, basically everyone — is stuck in the middle. I sat down with law professor and online speech expert Kate Klonick to break it all down. Links: Welcome to the era of gangster...
Today, I’m talking with Matt Garman, the CEO of Amazon Web Services. Matt took over as CEO last June — you might recall that we had his predecessor Adam Selipsky on the show just over a year ago. That makes this episode terrific Decoder bait, since I love hearing how new CEOs will decide what to change and what to keep going after they’ve settled into their role. Links: There’s no AI without the cloud, says AWS CEO Adam Selipsky | Decoder Amazon's AWS to invest $11 bln in Georgia to boost AI inf...
Hello, Nilay here. We’re still on winter break; we’ll be back with brand-new Decoder interviews next week, and with our Thursday shows later this month. I’m excited for what we’ve got in the pipeline. I think you’re going to love it. For today, though, we’re sharing an episode of Peter Kafka’s new show Channels – he’s talking to disinformation researcher Renee DiResta about what’s going on with speech online in an era where platforms seem less inclined to moderate than ever. Peter’s an old frien...
The Decoder team turns the tables on Nilay and makes him answer your burning listener questions in our end-of-year wrap up special. We also reflect on the year’s biggest Decoder themes, discuss some of the most popular feedback we’ve received, and tease what we have planned for next year. Links: Here we go: The Verge now has a subscription | The Verge How The Verge Works | The Vergecast Intuit asked us to delete part of this Decoder episode | Decoder What’s really behind Big Tech’s return-to-off...
Today we’re talking about antitrust policy and tech, which is at a particularly weird moment as we enter the second Trump administration. A lot of tech policy is at a weird moment, actually, but antitrust might be the weirdest of them all — the pendulum has swung back and forth on antitrust policy pretty wildly over the past few years, and it’s about to swing again under Trump. So I asked Leah Nylen, an antitrust reporter for Bloomberg News and a leading expert on this subject, to come on the sh...
Alex Heath, Deputy Editor at The Verge, guest hosts this episode of Decoder featuring a live interview with Arm CEO Rene Haas about the future of AI and the semiconductor industry. The two discuss his thoughts on the struggles of Intel, the rumors Arm is developing its own AI chips to rival Nvidia’s, and his thoughts on the incoming Trump administration. Links: What Arm’s CEO makes of the Intel debacle | Command Line How Arm conquered the chip market without making a single chip | Decoder Arm co...
We’ve been talking a lot this year about the changing internet, and what it’s doing to the media ecosystem — particularly journalism, which has taken a backseat to creators and influencers. But the tech platforms themselves have a lot of influence over what those creators and influencers make, too. If you’re a Decoder listener, you’ll recognize this as one of my common themes — the idea that the way we distribute media directly influences the media we make. To break this all down, I invited medi...
There’s something strange happening these days in the podcast world — in particular, the way companies that deal in money have been using podcasting as not just an entertainment medium, but a unique kind of hybrid of marketing, thought leadership, and networking. Guest host David Pierce and Vulture podcast critic Nick Quah break it all down. Links: How Venture Capitalists Use Podcasts to Lure in Founders | Vanity Fair Your Next Podcast Interview Might Be a Meeting In Disguise | Bloomberg Elliott...
Today, I’m talking with Mustafa Suleyman, the CEO of Microsoft AI. Mustafa is a fascinating character in the world of AI — he’s been in and out of some pivotal companies like DeepMind, which he cofounded, and Google. He landed at Microsoft through a unique not-quite-acquisition deal of his latest startup, Inflection AI. As CEO of Microsoft AI, Mustafa now oversees all of its consumer AI products, including the Copilot app, Bing, and even the Edge browser and MSN — two core components of the web ...
AI investment is massive, but AI profits are not — and yet investors seem confident massive AI fundraising will one day translate into sizable AI profits. To break it down, Verge Deputy Editor Alex Heath guest hosts this episode of Decoder featuring Menlo Ventures partner Tim Tully and AirStreet Capital founder Nathan Benaich. Links: 2024: The State of Generative AI in the Enterprise | Menlo Ventures State of AI Report | Nathan Benaich AI Index Report 2024 | Stanford HAL How companies are spendi...
Bluesky has really taken off since the election, and since the Decoder team took some time off for Thanksgiving break, we felt it was a great time to bring back the interview we did earlier this year with Jay Graber, the CEO of Bluesky, the upstart competitor to Meta’s Threads and the platform formerly known as Twitter. At the time, Bluesky was a pretty small platform. It had just reached 5 million users when Jay and I spoke. But since the election, Bluesky’s growth has absolutely skyrocketed to...
