Decoder with Nilay Patel

Will the world end before I can retire?

18 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Hey everyone, it’s Nilay — Decoder is on a short break this week. We’ll be back with a special live interview episode on Monday of next week, an...

How Trump’s second term could be bad for EVs, but great for Tesla

14 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today we’re talking about Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and Tesla — and I have to say, it feels like the first of many episodes about these three chara...

Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr.

11 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Harvey Mason, Jr is CEO of the Recording Academy, the nonprofit organization most famous for the Grammy Awards. We spoke right before this year's Gram...

Return-to-office mandates are more than "backdoor layoffs"

07 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, we’re talking about work. Specifically, where we work, how our expectations of working remotely were radically changed by the pandemic, and h...

Why GM ditched CarPlay, with software boss Baris Cetinok

04 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, I’m talking with Baris Cetinok, who is in charge of all the software in the cars that GM makes, which is a lot of cars. And if you’ve been ...

“It’s the First Amendment, stupid”

31 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Trump and a bunch of billionaires, like Elon Musk, are calling for the FCC to punish TV stations by revoking their licenses and using the spectrum for...

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky on what founder mode really means

28 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, I’m talking with Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky, who is only the second person to be on Decoder three times — the other is Meta CEO Mark Zuckerber...

The AI arms race to build digital god

24 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, we’re going to try and figure out "digital god." I figured we’ve been doing Decoder long enough, let’s just get after it. Can we build an...

Intuit asked us to delete part of this Decoder episode

21 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s episode, well — it’s a ride. I’m talking to Intuit CEO Sasan Goodarzi, who’s built Intuit into a juggernaut business software compan...

How influencers are changing advertising with Digitas CEO Amy Lanzi

17 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s episode is a little different: Digitas CEO Amy Lanzi and I recorded this conversation live on stage during advertising week in New York City...

Duolingo CEO Luis Von Ahn wants you addicted to learning

14 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Luis von Ahn is the co-founder and CEO of Duolingo. There are lots of opportunities to enhance a product like Duolingo with AI, and we talk about all ...

The impossible dream of good workplace software

10 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

I’m talking with my good friend David Pierce, Vergecast co-host and The Verge’s editor-at-large, about something he spends an ungodly amount of ti...

Rabbit CEO Jesse Lyu isn't thinking too far ahead

07 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Rabbit’s adorable R1 gadget launched with a lot of hype, but early reviews of the device were universally bad. Now, a core feature, its long-promise...

The toxic transformation of Warcraft maker Blizzard

03 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, I’m talking to Jason Schreier, a Bloomberg journalist and author of the new book Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard Entertainm...

NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable

30 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Matt Strauss is the Chairman of Direct-to-Consumer at NBC Universal. That’s a big fancy title that means he’s not only in charge of Peacock but al...

Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era

25 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We have a very special episode of Decoder today. It’s become a tradition every fall to have Verge deputy editor Alex Heath interview Meta CEO Mark Z...

Arc creator Josh Miller on why you need a better browser than Chrome

23 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, I’m talking with Josh Miller, co-founder and CEO of The Browser Company, a relatively new software maker that develops the Arc browser. The c...

Why Google is back in court for another monopoly showdown

19 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Google’s in the middle of its antitrust case in just as many months, after it lost a landmark trial in August over anticompetitive search practices....

How Philips CEO Roy Jakobs is turning the company around after major recall

16 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, I’m talking with Roy Jakobs. He’s the CEO of Royal Philips, which makes medical devices ranging from MRI machines to ventilators. Philips h...

Why AI image editing isn’t “just like Photoshop”

12 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We’ve been covering the rise of AI image editing very closely here on Decoder and at The Verge for several years now — the ability to create photo...

Anthropic’s Mike Krieger wants to build AI products that are worth the hype

09 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, I’m talking with Mike Krieger, the new chief product officer at Anthropic, one of the hottest AI companies in the industry. Anthropic’s mai...

How the Wayback Machine is fighting linkrot

05 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The web has a problem: huge chunks of it keep going offline. The web isn’t static, parts of it sometimes just… vanish. But it’s not all grim. T...

The AI election deepfakes have arrived

29 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Decoder is off this week for a short end-of-summer break. We’ll be back with both our interview and explainer episodes after the Labor Day holiday. ...

Disney Is a Tech Company?

26 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Decoder is off this week for a short end-of-summer break. We’ll be back with both our interview and explainer episodes after the Labor Day holiday, ...

How The Onion is saving itself from the digital media death spiral

22 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Onion is a comedy institution — and like everything else in media, it went on a pure nightmare hell ride in the 2010s. We could do an entire epi...

GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke says the AI industry needs competition to thrive

19 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today I’m talking with Thomas Dohmke, the CEO of GitHub. GitHub is the platform for managing code – but since 2018, it’s also been owned by Micr...

What's next for the controversial 'child safety' internet bill

15 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

There’s a major internet speech regulation currently making its way through Congress, and it has a really good chance of becoming law. It’s called...

Replika CEO Eugenia Kuyda says it’s okay if we end up marrying AI chatbots

12 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, I’m talking with Replika founder and CEO Eugenia Kuyda, and I will just tell you right away, we get all the way to people marrying their AI c...

DOJ antitrust chief is ‘overjoyed’ after Google monopoly verdict

08 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, I’m talking to Jonathan Kanter, the assistant attorney general for antitrust at the United States Department of Justice. This is Jonathan’s...

Booking CEO Glenn Fogel wants you to take out your travel frustrations on AI chatbots

05 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, I’m talking with Glenn Fogel, the CEO of Booking Holdings, which owns a large portfolio of familiar travel brands: OpenTable, Kayak, and Pric...

AI has a climate problem — but so does all of tech

01 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Every time we talk about AI, we get one big piece of feedback that I really want to dive into: how the lightning-fast explosion of AI tools affects th...

Logitech CEO Hanneke Faber wants your next mouse to last forever

29 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, I’m talking with Hanneke Faber, the CEO of Logitech. Hanneke’s still pretty fresh to the role: She joined the company last October, after f...

The Supreme Court ruling that could kill net neutrality

25 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Supreme Court has just taken on the entire idea of the US administrative state — and the Court is winning. Earlier this month, a conservative ma...

Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe says too many carmakers are copying Tesla

22 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, I’m talking with Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe. RJ was on the show last September when we chatted at the Code Conference, but the past 1...

What happened to the metaverse?

18 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This week I’m talking to Matthew Ball, who was last on the show in 2022 to talk about his book “The Metaverse: How it Will Revolutionize Everythi...

Biden’s top tech advisor on why AI safety is a “today problem”

15 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, I’m talking with Arati Prabhakar, the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. That’s a cabinet-level position,...

Why The Atlantic signed a deal with OpenAI

11 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today I’m talking to Nicholas Thompson, the CEO of The Atlantic. I was really excited to talk to Nick. Like so many media CEOs, including Vox Media’...

Canva CEO Melanie Perkins is happy to provide designers alternatives to Adobe

08 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Canva got its start more than a decade ago as a different form of disruptive tech for creatives. It’s a web-based platform that makes design tools c...

How Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gertsacov is getting zoomers into the cult of kamado cooking

01 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It’s almost the Fourth of July, and that means it’s time for our annual grilling episode. This year, I’m talking with Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gert...

The rise of shadow lobbying and its influence on decades of US policy

27 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, we’re talking about politics and lobbying in America. It’s hard to imagine a time when the influence of big corporations and billionaires d...

Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters on the streamer's shifting culture and where ads, AI, and games fit in

24 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, I’m talking with Greg Peters, the co-CEO of Netflix. I caught up with Greg while he was at the Cannes Lions festival in France, which is basi...

Inside the players and politics of the AI industry

20 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We’ve got a special episode of the show today – I was traveling last week, so Verge deputy editor Alex Heath and our new senior AI reporter Kylie ...

Why Tubi CEO Anjali Sud thinks free TV can win again

17 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Tubi is a free and very rapidly growing streaming TV platform — according to Nielsen, it had an average of a million viewers watching every minute i...

Remix: How private equity took over everything

13 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Private equity is a simple concept — a PE firm uses some combination of money and debt to buy a company, then makes a profit — but the reality of ...

AI will make money sooner than you think, says Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez

10 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Cohere is one of the buzziest AI startups around right now. It's not making consumer products; it's focused on the enterprise market and making AI pro...

Why the video game industry is such a mess

06 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The art of video game design is flourishing, but it feels like a really grim time to be in the business of making and distributing games. Huge global ...

Zoom CEO Eric Yuan wants AI clones in meetings

03 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, I’m talking with Zoom CEO Eric Yuan — and let me tell you, this conversation is nothing like what I expected. It turns out Eric wants Zoom ...

Google Zero is here. Now what?

30 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

For nearly 20 years now, the web has been Google’s platform; we’ve all just lived on it. I think of Decoder as a show for people trying to build t...

How the FBI built its own smartphone company to hack the criminal underworld

23 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, I’m talking with Joseph Cox, one of the best cybersecurity reporters around and a co-founder of the new media site 404 Media. Joseph has a ne...

Google's Sundar Pichai on AI-powered search and the future of the web

20 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, I’m talking to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who joined the show the day after the big Google I/O developer conference. Google’s focus during t...

TikTok's big bet to fight the ban bill

16 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Last week, TikTok filed a lawsuit against the US government claiming the divest-or-ban law is unconstitutional — a case it needs to win in order to ...

Why Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen is confident we'll all adapt to AI

13 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen has been at the top of my list of people I’ve wanted to talk to for the show since we first launched — he’s led Adobe...

Why the tech industry can’t crack the smart home

09 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, we’re going to talk about the smart home — one of the oldest, most important, and most challenging dreams in the history of the tech indust...

Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath on life after Volvo and weathering the EV slowdown

06 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, I’m talking with Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath, whom I first interviewed on the show back in 2021. Those were heady days — especially for u...

Understanding the chaos at Tesla

02 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, Verge transportation editor Andy Hawkins and I are going to try and figure out Tesla. I said try — I did not say succeed. But we’re going t...

Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Källenius explains why EVs are still the future — but Apple's next-gen CarPlay isn't

29 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A lot has changed since the last time Ola was on Decoder. Back then, he said Mercedes would have an all-EV lineup by 2030 — a promise a whole lot of...

Why the TikTok ban won't solve the US's online privacy problems

25 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, we’re talking about the brand-new TikTok ban — and how years of Congressional inaction on a federal privacy law helped lead us to this mome...

Discord CEO Jason Citron makes the case for a smaller, more private internet

22 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, I’m talking to Jason Citron, the co-founder and CEO of Discord, the gaming-focused voice and chat app. You might think Discord is just someth...

Disney just fought off a shareholder revolt — but the clock’s still ticking

18 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, we're talking about Disney, the massive activist investor revolt it just fought off, and what happens next in the world of streaming. Because w...

Dropbox CEO Drew Houston wants you to embrace AI and remote work

15 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

At the absolute most basic, Dropbox is cloud storage for your stuff — but that puts it at the nexus of a huge number of today’s biggest challenges...

The rise and fall of Vice Media

11 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today we’re talking about Vice, the media company: Where it came from, what it did, and, ultimately, why it collapsed into a much smaller, sadder ve...

Why Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince is the internet’s unlikely defender

08 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Cloudflare is an infrastructure provider basically protecting more than 20% of the entire web from bad actors. When everything is going well, you don'...

Why Nintendo sued a Switch emulator out of existence

04 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Hello, and welcome to Decoder. This is David Pierce, editor-at-large at The Verge and co-host of The Vergecast, subbing in for Nilay, who’s out on v...

Mailchimp CEO Rania Succar on culture, acquisitions, and how big 'small business' really is

01 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, I’m talking to Intuit Mailchimp CEO Rania Succar, who took over as CEO in 2022 after a pretty rough patch in the company’s history. In 2021...

Can you patent a pizza?

28 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Hey everyone it’s Nilay – I’m on vacation this week, so the Decoder team is taking a short break. We’ll be back next week with both the interv...

Federation is the future of social media, says Bluesky CEO Jay Graber

25 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, I’m talking to Jay Graber, the CEO of Bluesky Social, which is a decentralized competitor to Meta’s Threads, Mastodon, and X. Bluesky actua...

How Europe’s Digital Markets Act is reshaping Big Tech

21 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Both the EU and US have spent the past decade looking at Big Tech and saying, "someone should do something!" In the US, lawmakers are still basically ...

Figma CEO Dylan Field is optimistic about the future and AI

18 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We’ve got a fun one today — I talked to Figma CEO Dylan Field in front of a live audience at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. And we got into ...

Why Google Search feels like it’s gotten worse

14 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

If you’ve been listening to Decoder or the Vergecast for a while, you know that I am obsessed with Google Search, the web, and how both of those thi...

How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka

11 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, I’m talking to Kyle Chayka, a staff writer for The New Yorker, a regular contributor to The Verge, and author of the new book Filterworld: Ho...

Why people are falling in love with AI chatbots

07 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Our Thursday episodes are all about big topics in the news, and this week we’re wrapping up our short series on one of the biggest topics of all: ge...

Guest host Hank Green makes Nilay Patel explain why websites have a future

04 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

On this special episode of Decoder, science educator and YouTuber Hank Green is guest hosting. And the guest? It’s Nilay Patel, who sat down with Ha...

AI deepfakes are cheap, easy, and coming for the 2024 election

29 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Our new Thursday episodes of Decoder are all about deep dives into big topics in the news, and this week we’re continuing our mini-series on one of ...

Crunchyroll President Rahul Purini on how anime took over the world

26 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, I’m talking with Rahul Purini, the president of Crunchyroll, a streaming service focused entirely on anime — and really, the biggest anime ...

Is the Apple Vision Pro All That?

22 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Decoder team is off this week. We’ll be back next week with both the interview and the new explainer episodes; we’re really excited about what...

How AI copyright lawsuits could make the whole industry go extinct

15 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Our new Thursday episodes are all about deep dives into big topics in the news, and for the next few weeks we’re going to stay focused on one of the...

DOJ’s Jonathan Kanter says the antitrust fight against Big Tech is just beginning

12 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, I’m talking with Jonathan Kanter, the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division at the Department of Justice. Alongside ...

Why EV adoption in the US has hit a roadblock

08 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We’re very excited for today’s episode, because from now on we’ll be delivering you two Decoders every week. On Monday’s we’ll have our clas...

Platformer’s Casey Newton on surviving the great media collapse and what comes next

05 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, I’m talking with Casey Newton, the founder and editor of the Platformer newsletter and co-host of the Hard Fork podcast. Casey is also a form...

Why Sen. Brian Schatz thinks child safety bills can trump the First Amendment

30 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, I’m talking with Senator Brian Schatz, of Hawaii. We joke that Decoder is ultimately a show about org charts, but there’s a lot of truth to...

Rep. Ro Khanna on what it will take for Congress to regulate AI, privacy, and social media

23 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, I’m talking with Representative Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California. He’s been in Congress for eight years now, representing California’...

How Adobe is managing the AI copyright dilemma, with general counsel Dana Rao

09 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, I'm talking to Dana Rao, who is General Counsel and Chief Trust Officer at Adobe. Now, if you're a longtime Decoder listener, you know that I h...

How Donald Trump and Elon Musk killed Twitter, with Marty Baron and Zoe Schiffer

21 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

2023 will go down as the year that Elon Musk killed Twitter. First he did it in a big way, by buying the company, firing most of the employees, and de...

Why Flexport CEO Ryan Petersen took his company back

19 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Ryan Petersen is the founder and CEO of Flexport, which makes software to optimize shipping everything from huge containers to ecommerce deliveries. I...

USDS head Mina Hsiang wants Big Tech’s best minds to help fix the government

12 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The US Digital Service has a fascinating structure: it comprises nearly 250 people, all of whom serve two-year stints developing apps, improving websi...

IBM's Jerry Chow explains the next phase of quantum computing

05 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

IBM made some announcements this week about its plans for the next ten years of quantum computing: there are new chips, new computers, and new APIs. Q...

Wix CEO Avishai Abrahami isn’t worried AI will kill the web

28 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today I’m talking with Avishai Abrahami, the CEO of Wix. You might know Wix as a website builder. It’s a competitor to WordPress and Squarespace. ...

Chaos at OpenAI: What happened to Sam Altman, and what's next

20 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What actually happened at OpenAI in the last three days? Decoder host and Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel talks with Verge editors Alex Heath and Da...

Volvo CEO Jim Rowan thinks dropping CarPlay is a mistake

14 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today, I’m talking to Jim Rowan, the CEO of Volvo Cars. Now, Jim’s only been at Volvo for a short time. He took over in 2022 after a decades-long ...

Barack Obama on AI, free speech, and the future of the internet

07 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

We’ve got a good one today. I’m talking to former President Barack Obama about AI, social networks, and how to think about democracy as both of th...

AI is on a collision course with the music industry. Reservoir's Golnar Khosrowshahi thinks there’s a way through it

31 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today I'm talking with Golnar Khosrowshahi, the founder and CEO of Reservoir Media, a newer record label that I think looks a lot like the future of t...

Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig on why AI and social media are causing a free speech crisis for the internet

24 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today, I’m talking to internet policy legend Lawrence Lessig. He's been teaching law for more than 30 years, and is a defining expert on free speech...

Clearview AI and the end of privacy, with author Kashmir Hill

17 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today, I’m talking to Kashmir Hill, a New York Times reporter whose new book, Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup’s Quest to End Privacy ...

CEO David Baszucki's mission to make Roblox a billion-player platform

12 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today we’re bringing you the last of our live-on-stage interviews from the 2023 Code Conference. Verge deputy editor Alex Heath sat down to chat wit...

Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe on ramping up R1T production and competing with the Cybertruck

10 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

We’ve got another interview from the Code Conference today. My friend and co-host, CNBC’s Julia Boorstin, and I had a chance to talk with Rivian ...

Getty Images CEO Craig Peters has a plan to defend photography from AI

05 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Last week, when I was co-hosting the Code Conference, I got to talk with Getty Images CEO Craig Peters. The generative AI boom is a direct threat to G...

Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott on how AI and art will coexist in the future

03 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

I co-hosted the Code Conference last week, and today’s episode is one of my favorite conversations from the show: Microsoft CTO and EVP of AI Kevin ...

'The Android of agriculture': Monarch Tractor CEO Praveen Penmetsa on the future of farming

30 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

We spent a lot of time here on Decoder talking about electric vehicles and the future of cars and we’re usually talking about passenger vehicles or ...

AMD CEO Lisa Su on the AI revolution

29 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today, we’re bringing you something a little different. The Code Conference was this week, and we had a great time talking live onstage with all of ...

X CEO Linda Yaccarino defends Elon Musk, and herself, at Code 2023

29 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today, we have a special episode for you. The Code Conference wrapped up this week, and the finale included a rare interview from my Code co-host and ...