Nilay Patel

And being a company that's so reliant on big IP with big fandoms, well that puts Hasbro right at the center of a bunch of thorny cultural issues as well.

Because fans have really strong feelings about the stories they love and the creators they maybe don't love so much.

For example, Hasbro just signed a big deal to distribute Harry Potter merchandise for the next several years.

So Chris and I spent some time talking about whether the Harry Potter fandom is growing.

and whether it can grow as fast as he wants it to in the face of J.K.

Rowling's politics.

You can tell there's a lot going on in this one.

Toys are a complicated business.

I think you're really going to like it.

A quick reminder before we start, you can listen to this episode or any episode of Decoder completely ad-free by subscribing to The Verge.

Just go to theverge.com slash subscribe.

Okay, Chris Cox, CEO of Hasbro.

Here we go.

Chris Cox, you are the CEO of Hasbro.

Welcome back to Decoder.

I'm excited to talk to you.

It's been about three years since our last conversation.

I was looking at that episode.

Boy, we talked about NFTs a lot three years ago.

Well, yeah, it was interesting what you were worried about then.