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Decoder with Nilay Patel
The Verge · Tech
A business show about big ideas — and other problems.
More from this show
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The AI warnings are getting louder
Hey everybody, it’s Nilay. We’ve got a little bonus drop for you today — I was recently interviewed about AI safety by Shumita Basu for Apple News In Conversation, and I enjoyed the conversation so much I asked if we could share it with you all. We’ve actually got a few bonus drops coming up this month; we’ve been…
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How Utah locals fought Kevin O'Leary's AI data center
Today I’m talking with Josh Dzieza, a longtime features writer here at The Verge, about a massive data center in Utah that does not exist, might never exist, and yet has already completely reshaped the politics of the entire state. Josh just published a major feature this week on the struggling Stratos data center…
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The SaaSpocalypse that wasn't, with Atlassian's CEO
My guest today is Mike Cannon-Brookes, who is co-founder and CEO of Atlassian. Atlassian is one of those companies that every other company runs on — it makes important platform tools like Jira and Trello. This means Atlassian is also right in the middle of the way AI is changing how all these companies work. Or, if…
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Can Cloudflare save the web from AI?
Cloudflare discovered in June that bots already make up more than half of internet traffic — and CEO Matthew Prince says that bots could outnumber humans a thousand to one within five years. That's a huge change to the internet, and if the web is going to keep existing, it needs a huge change to its business model.…
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I have some questions for Mark Zuckerberg
It’s a big week for Meta. The company has its big Connect conference, and the new Muse AI agent appears to be an early hit. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been doing a lot of interviews about it all — so of course we asked for him to be on Decoder. Meta declined, for whatever reason. But luckily Mark just did a big interview…
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Can John Ternus find Apple's next big thing?
Today, I’m talking with Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who is the world’s best-sourced Apple reporter. Earlier this month, Apple hosted its annual iPhone hardware event, and this event was special, for a number of reasons. It was new Apple CEO John Ternus’ first major product launch. It was also the debut of the foldable…
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Does AI need an antitrust exemption so it doesn't kill everyone????
The biggest story in tech right now is the spiraling debate about AI safety and regulation. The CEOs of all these companies have issued various calls to slow down development and develop regulation, including asking for antitrust exemptions so they can all coordinate on safety issues. So to make sense of it all, I…
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Microsoft AI CEO says AI threats are real, and Anthropic is making it worse
Today, I’m talking with Mustafa Suleyman, the CEO of Microsoft AI. As you’re no doubt aware, the biggest story in tech right now is the spiraling debate about AI safety and regulation. So I really wanted to talk to Mustafa about what he thinks is real and not in AI safety, whether the concept of alignment itself is up…
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Adam Conover explains how YouTube ruined everything
Adam Conover is a familiar face to anyone who’s spent time on the internet. He got his start at CollegeHumor back in the day, before transitioning into cable TV with Adam Ruins Everything, then onto Netflix, and all the way back to YouTube again, where he posts videos and hosts a podcast. That is exactly the kind of…
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Why the current tech backlash feels different
We’re back with another Decoder mailbag special. This time, we focused on feedback to Nilay’s “software brain” video essay, our ongoing coverage of AI and Big Tech backlash, surveillance, interviewing politicians ahead of the midterms, and more. Remember: we really do read every email, so please keep sending us your…
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How Sonos rebooted itself
My guest today is Sonos CEO Tom Conrad. Tom was on the board at Sonos during the disastrous 2024 app redesign that threatened to crash the entire brand, and he took over as interim CEO to right the ship during that period. About a year ago, he took the permanent role. I have been dying to have Tom on the show to talk…
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New York Governor Kathy Hochul thinks AI should be ‘less evil’
It’s an election year, with a shocking amount of tech policy at stake, and Gov.Hochul has taken strong positions on almost every major tech issue there is. You'll hear us talk about the settlement Meta reached with dozens of states, including New York, and about widespread age verification. We also discussed 3D…
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OpenAI's executive exodus has one big winner
Today, I’m talking with Hayden Field, The Verge’s senior AI reporter, about some pure Decoder bait: the seemingly-endless org chart changes at OpenAI, and how all of them seem to consolidate power under cofounder Greg Brockman, the company’s president. While Sam Altman is the CEO and still OpenAI’s most public face…
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How GoFundMe became America's backup plan
Tim Cadogan is CEO of GoFundMe, the for-profit platform where you can donate to help people with everything from medical expenses to little league uniforms to starting a new business. Tim took over as CEO in March 2020 — a chaotic moment when GoFundMe became a load-bearing part of American culture. So you can imagine…
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Welcome to the AI crisis in math
My guest today is Robert Hart, The Verge’s London-based AI reporter. Robert recently wrote a fantastic story for us about the debate raging inside the world of mathematics — and the existential crisis over what it means that new frontier AI models have become very good at math in a shockingly short period of time. I…
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It's about ethics in journalism, with Ben Smith
Today I’m talking to Ben Smith, the editor-in-chief of Semafor. Ben ran BuzzFeed News at the height of the Facebook traffic boom, and even wrote a book about it, called Traffic, which he discussed with me on Decoder back in 2023. Semafor, which is only four years old, is now a fast-growing and profitable media…
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Does Google even want to win in AI?
My guest today is The Verge’s Hayden Field, and we’re discussing a question that’s been rocketing around the tech industry for the past week: Is Google losing the AI race? That's because last week, the company announced a bombshell reorganization of its AI division. You can read these moves, and Google’s reaction, in…
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Bose CEO Lila Snyder on the fight for high-quality audio
My guest today is Lila Snyder, the CEO of Bose. Lila was last on the show about four years ago, and since then she’s dramatically rearchitected the company — she sold off Bose Professional, acquired the high end audio brands McIntosh Labs and Sonus faber, and, perhaps most importantly, started licensing all that core…
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The left and right agree on one thing: no data centers
Our guest today is Gaby Del Valle, a policy reporter here at The Verge, and we’re discussing the growing backlash against AI data centers. Gaby recently reported a fantastic piece about Hernando County, Florida, where last month the county commission unanimously approved a year-long moratorium on data center…
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Bluesky’s new CEO wants a big tent, not a bubble
Today, I’m talking with Toni Schneider, the new head of social platform Bluesky who formally took over after a short stint as interim CEO. This is one of my favorite kinds of interviews, because a couple years ago we had Bluesky’s prior CEO, Jay Graber, on the show — she’s now the company’s chief innovation officer.…
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The end of the human internet
Hey everyone, this is Nick Statt, senior producer on Decoder. We’re taking a brief publishing break while Nilay is out on vacation. We’ll resume regular programming next week, and we’ve got some great episodes in the works. In the meantime, we wanted to share an episode from the excellent podcast The Gray Area, with…
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Tariffs didn’t bring manufacturing jobs back to the US
Evan Smith, cofounder and CEO of Altana, was last on the show in early 2025 to talk about how Trump’s first few waves of tariffs were starting to affect global trade. It was a very alarming and also very illuminating chat; Evan and I got into the existential weeds of international relations and economics almost…
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What Apple’s OpenAI lawsuit is really about
Today, I’m talking with Hayden Field, The Verge’s senior AI reporter, about the major trade secrets lawsuit between Apple and OpenAI, and what this tells us about OpenAI’s future. Hayden has been covering OpenAI for years now, and she also just talked to a bunch of lawyers who specialize in intellectual property and…
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Dr. Jill Lepore on why the AI backlash is vital for the future
Dr. Jill Lepore is one of the best writers there is at identifying institutional patterns in history, and Decoder is a show about systems and organization — so her new book, The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State, is a perfect fit for the show. You build systems by measuring things — gathering information…
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Proton’s CTO: No company is going to jail for you
We’ve got the first of a two-part series on the systems that run the world: I’m talking today with Bart Butler, the CTO of Proton, the company that makes private and secure productivity software. There’s a lot of big Decoder themes in this one. That includes how Proton has structured its ownership and architected its…
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Yes, even Nvidia's head of automotive is fighting for compute
Nvidia is obviously in the news constantly because of the AI boom — but it's also a major supplier to the entire auto industry As head of Nvidia's automotive division, Xinzhou Wu has a front-row seat to all the challenges EVs and autonomous vehicles are facing, especially in the US. And of course, you can’t talk about…
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Why did Comcast ever buy NBC?
My guest today is Peter Kafka, chief correspondent at Business Insider and host of Channels, a podcast about the media industry. And it’s a big week for the media industry — Comcast just announced that it’s splitting itself up, into the Comcast broadband company and the NBCUniversal entertainment company. This dream…
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Inside the big business of the creator economy, with Ali Berman and Raina Penchansky
Today I’m talking with Ali Berman and Raina Penchansky, who run the Creators Division at United Talent Agency. UTA is an enormous talent agency, and Ali and Raina's creators division represents some of the biggest creators and influencers in the world. So I really wanted to know how Raina and Ali identify…
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The CMO is a dying role, says Digitas' Amy Lanzi
We’ve got a special Decoder today. I had the chance to talk with Amy Lanzi, the CEO of Digitas North America, in front of a live audience at the Uber villa at the Cannes Lions advertising festival in the south of France. There’s a lot in this one on AI, the creator economy, and the future of marketing – like I said…
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He changed outdoor cooking forever — then took over Weber
It’s time for our annual Fourth of July grill episode here at Decoder, which is when we invite the CEOs of outdoor cooking companies onto the show to explain just how their businesses kind of look like every other business. And this is a very special edition. Today we’re talking to Roger Dahle, the CEO of Weber…
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