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.
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 I had a lot of questions for Tim, how he thinks about all this, and how he makes some very tough decisions on what money to make and what money not to make.
Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.
Links:
The GoFundMe CEO wants you to ask: ‘How can I help?’ | New York TImes
GoFundMe CEO: We weren't meant to replace COVID relief | USA Today
GoFundMe Is a healthcare utility now | The Atlantic
As Gaza is bombarded, GoFundMe donations are stuck in limbo | The Verge
For the uninsured, crowdfunding provides little help in paying for healthcare | University of Washington
Oregon nonprofits claim GoFundMe impersonated them | Central Oregon Daily News
The causes and consequences of medical crowdfunding | ScienceDirect
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Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Decoder’s producers are Greg Ott, Kate Cox, and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Eileen Felix. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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 wanted to dive into all of this with Robert, who actually spoke to some of the most accomplished mathematicians working today to figure out what’s hype and what’s real — and to get a sense of just how exciting, and how scary, all of this is.
Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.
Links:
The AI takeover of mathematics has begun | The Verge
Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science | OpenAI
An unreleased Anthropic model made progress on the Riemann hypothesis| TechCrunch
OpenAI’s amazing — but vastly oversold — new model Astra | Gary Marcus
OpenAI’s math breakthrough played to AI’s strengths | Understanding AI
Why the legendary Erdős problems are falling to AI | Quanta
Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Ursa Wright. Our supervising producer is Greg Ott, and our editorial director is Kevin McShane.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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 company, which makes about half of its revenue from events. So I wanted to talk to Ben about how that all works, and what it feels like to navigate the ethical conflicts that seem to be everywhere in media right now.
Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.
Links:
Jonah Peretti explains why he sold BuzzFeed | Decoder
What’s after the social media era in news? | Decoder (2023)
Semafor raises $30 Million after first profitable year | The Wrap
Semafor’s new AI tool helped boil down its flagship conference | Nieman Lab
Semafor launches Silicon Valley & The World | Semafor
Semafor takes aim at Davos as events surpass half Its revenue | Adweek
Semafor Is Betting Big on 'Anti-Scale' Video | Adweek
Semafor wants to be ‘business outlet of record in the Gulf” | Press Gazette
Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Decoder’s producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Xander Adams. Our Supervising Producer is Greg Ott and our Editorial Director is Kevin McShane.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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 a lot of different ways. So I really wanted to sit down with Hayden to dig into some of the smartest analysis we’ve seen this past week, and what we think is really going on here.
Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.
Links:
The messy politics behind Google’s big AI shakeup | The Verge
Gemini is cooked but GCP is cooking | SemiAnalysis
Google announced a major shakeup of its top AI leadership | The Verge
AI lab musical chairs hits Google the hardest | Axios
Demis Hassabis said this might be the ‘foothills of the singularity.’ What? | The Verge
Google’s AI architect lived rent-free in Elon Musk’s head | The Verge
Sundar Pichai on AI, search, and the future of the web | The Verge
Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Ursa Wright. Our supervising producer is Greg Ott, and our editorial director is Kevin McShane.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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 Bose technology to other companies.
That big change in the business comes with a big change in structure. Becoming a software company in addition to a product company comes with a whole new set of challenges, and Lila and I got into how it’s all working.
Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.
Links:
How Bose competes with AirPods, with CEO Lila Snyder | Decoder (2022)
Bose thinks it can be a media company for some reason | The Verge
Bose acquires premium audio brand McIntosh | The Verge
Bose reinvented itself just in time. Now comes the tricky part | Wired
Bose sells off its premium division after 50 years | Bose
Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Kabir Chopra. Our supervising producer is Greg Ott, and our editorial director is Kevin McShane.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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 construction.
So I wanted Gaby to talk me through what these protests look like on the ground, from voters whose party affiliations have typically aligned them with big business.
Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.
Links:
Right-wingers protesting data centers have a lot in common with the left | The Verge
No data centers in my backyard | Jasmine Sun
Who’s afraid of the big, bad GPU? | The Verge
NY becomes the first state to enact a data center moratorium | The Verge
The fight against AI data centers is just beginning | The Verge
Florida gives millions in tax breaks to data centers under DeSantis-backed law | Tampa Bay Times
Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our supervising producer is Greg Ott, and our editorial director is Kevin McShane.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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. All of that kind of shuffle is pure Decoder bait: a new CEO often brings with them new priorities, which is perhaps the most Decoder subject of all.
Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.
Links:
Bluesky CEO Jay Graber | Decoder (2024)
Bluesky CEO Jay Graber steps down | TechCrunch
Staying in the game | Toni Schneider
The messy WordPress drama, explained | The Verge
Proton CTO Bart Butler | Decoder
Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Decoder’s producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Eileen Felix. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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 host Sean Illing. In this one, Sean sat down with The Atlantic journalist Charlie Warzel to talk specifically about the state of the internet in 2026 — and what it means that it feels increasingly overrun by non-human actors.
Links:
The Gray Area with Sean Illing | Apple Podcasts
Galaxy Brain | The Atlantic
The internet is all bots now | The Gray Area (YouTube)
The feeling of control slipping away | The Atlantic
How much of the internet is fake? Turns out, a lot of it, actually| New York Magazine
How bots took over our lives | The New Yorker
The ‘dead internet theory’ is real — and it’s killing the web | Fast Company
The fanfare around the band Geese actually was a psyop | Wired
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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 immediately.
A year and a half later, and everything is somehow even more chaotic than it was the last time Evan and I talked — and that’s true about both trade and also the world of running a software company. Agentic AI, whack-a-mole tariff policy, war in Iran — we jumped right back into weeds yet again.
Read the full interview transcript The Verge.
Links:
How Trump’s tariff chaos is already changing global trade | Decoder
Skydio CEO Adam Bry on not drawing red lines for drone use | Decoder
Trump imposes new global tariffs, drawing protests from trading partners | Reuters
Greer: USMCA Talks Could Stretch Into Next Year | Wall Street Journal
Trump hits Canada with new 50% tariffs | Associated Press
Iran weaponized the Strait of Hormuz. Now neighbors are going around it | CNN
The Iran war is testing Southeast Asia’s faith in the US | Politico
Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Decoder’s producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Kabir Chopra. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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 trade secret law to get a sense of how serious this case is. The answer is not entirely positive for OpenAI. This legal battle could also affect OpenAI’s hardware plans, its forthcoming IPO, and its already-damaged reputation.
Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.
Links:
Sam Altman didn’t need another lawsuit | The Verge
OpenAI’s first device will be moveable, screenless speaker | Bloomberg
Apple sues OpenAI for allegedly stealing hardware secrets | The Verge
The 6 wildest claims in Apple’s lawsuit against OpenAI | The Verge
OpenAI is buying Jony Ive’s AI hardware company | The Verge
Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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, quantifying it as data, and taking action on it. The book's big thesis is that this kind of systemic measurement is really a dehumanizing act, one that flattens humanity and human concerns into something, well, artificial.
These artificial structures touch everything — not just in the more obvious places like in apps or AI, but all the way up to politics, governance, and the very future of the nation-state itself.
Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.
Links:
The Artificial State | The New Yorker
‘Terminator’ to tech titans: Jill Lepore on the ‘artificial state’ | Yale Univ.
The failed ideas that drive Elon Musk | New York Times
Sam Altman | The Joe Rogan Experience
Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Decoder’s producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Xander Adams. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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 products to align its incentives with protecting users. At the same time, Proton faces new challenges and pressures, both at home in Switzerland and from the EU and US government that are putting its values to the test.
Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.
Links:
Proton now offers an entire bundle of office services | The Verge
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 electric cars or vehicle autonomy in the US without talking about Elon Musk and Tesla. So I asked Xinzhou pretty directly if Tesla full self driving can actually do what Elon claims it will be able to do without using LiDAR. You tell me if you think his answer holds up.
Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.
Links:
Nvidia’s head of autonomous driving opens up about his plans | The Verge
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, that you can combine distribution with big splashy entertainment properties, has failed time and again. But Comcast tried the content plus pipes strategy for longer than most. So Peter and I discussed what happened in the media and broadband industries over the last 15 years, and what might happen next.
Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.
Links:
Comcast is cutting NBCUniversal loose | Business Insider
Comcast’s split could make or break Peacock | The Verge
Comcast and NBCUniversal will go it alone. But for how long? | NYT
Comcast split shows bigger is no longer better | Deadline
A cable scion’s hardest deal yet: breaking up his family’s company | WSJ
Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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 up-and-coming talent, how they work with that talent to build durable businesses, and what the machinations of being a top creator actually look like in practice.
Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.
Links:
The power brokers behind the $250B influencer economy | Wall Street Journal
The Influencer Cliff | Carmen Vicente (TikTok)
UTA Unveils Upscale Office for Creators | The Hollywood Reporter
YouTube Stars Breach Hollywood’s Most Gilded Gate | New York Times
CAA, TPG form holding company to acquire creator-led businesses | Variety
How creator talent agencies are evolving into multi-platform operators | Digiday
Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt; this episode was edited by Xander Adams. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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, Amy is as sharp as they come, and I really enjoy talking to her about how the money really works.
Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.
Links:
The Influencer Cliff | Carmen Vicente (TikTok)
The Wrong Promises | Publicis Groupe (YouTube)
You can just tell the Instagram algorithm what you want now | The Verge
How brands and creators are fighting for your attention and money | Decoder (2025)
How influencers are changing advertising, with Digitas’ Amy Lanzi | Decoder (2024)
Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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 Blackstone, a full circle moment for Decoder. Roger was our first-ever grill CEO on the show back when he was the CEO of just Blackstone. Five years later, Roger now runs one of his biggest competitors, after Blackstone announced a merger with Weber in 2024. So we talked about that process, and how Roger is managing the integration of these two grilling giants.
Links:
Weber and Blackstone to combine | The Verge
How Blackstone became the darling of grill TikTok | Decoder (2021)
How arson led to a culture reboot at Traeger, with CEO Jeremy Andrus | Decoder (2022)
Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gertsacov on growing kamado cooking | Decoder (2024)
How SharkNinja took over the home | Decoder (2025)
Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Eileen Felix. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Hey everyone, Nilay here. You might remember I took a break from Decoder last year — we had a baby, so I took some leave. In my place, we had an excellent slate of guest hosts, and we’ve been working hard to bring you those episodes in full video since we launched our official Decoder YouTube channel.
So today, we’re featuring a really great interview conducted by my very good friend Joanna Stern, now the founder and CEO of New Things, and Ford CEO Jim Farley. Joanna pulled some exclusive news out of Jim at the time, including some telling quotes on Trump’s tariff policy, on Ford competing with Chinese EVs, and the company's stance on Apple CarPlay.
Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.
Links:
Ford CEO Jim Farley on China, tariffs, and the quest for a $30,000 EV | Decoder
Joanna Stern is not a robot, but she lived with them | Decoder
Ford's Jim Farley: 'I totally would’ve done it differently.’ | The Verge
Ford pulls the plug on the all-electric F-150 Lightning pickup truck | NPR
Inside the lab where Ford is trying to crack the code on cheap EVs | The Verge
Ford is fighting against physics to build affordable EVs | The Verge
Ford reveals breakthrough process for lower priced EVs | The Verge
Ford CEO Jim Farley on building the electric F-150 | Decoder (2021)
Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
The show is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. The video version of this episode was edited by Kabir Chopra. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
A lot has changed on the internet, in the creator landscape, and at Patreon itself since CEO Jack Conte was last on the show in 2021. AI and platform shifts have stolen creator content and decimated artists' reach and revenue streams, and Patreon has made some pretty existential changes to the way it works in response.
Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.
Links:
My thoughts on AI | Patreon
I tried to prove I’m not AI | Howtown
Patreon: Apple’s 30% tax is the price of staying in the App Store | The Verge
Welcome to hell, Elon (2022) | The Verge
Reality is losing the deepfake war | Decoder
Elon Musk is steamrolling Wall Street to become a trillionaire | Decoder
Incorruptible | Simon & Schuster
Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Xander Adams. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
My guest today is Hayden Field, senior AI reporter for The Verge. Often when Hayden comes on the show, it’s because something has gone wrong in the world of AI. Last weekend, that something was a pretty intense mix of Anthropic, the Trump administration, and Anthropic’s new AI model, Fable 5.
Hayden actually just published a fantastic play-by-play on The Verge about how the Fable ban went down, and the scramble through the weekend from both sides to figure out what exactly happened and how it might get resolved. So I wanted her to come on and just walk me through the timeline and what it all means.
Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.
Links:
Inside the fight over Claude Mythos 5 | The Verge
Anthropic cuts off Fable 5 and Mythos 5 access following government order | The Verge
Anthropic got hit by export rules nobody understands | The Verge
Today, I’m talking with Slydio CEO Adam Bry, who runs the leading US maker of autonomous drones. We covered a lot in this conversation, including Skydio’s police and government work at a time when military use of AI is more controversial than ever and competing with Chinese drones against the backdrop of the Trump’s administration’s DJI ban.
There’s a lot in this one – maybe more than anything, it was refreshing to hear Adam talk about using AI to bring even more people to work at Skydio as the company expands. I also got to fly a drone, which ruled.
Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.
Links:
Flying a semi-autonomous industrial drone | Decoder
Sorry kid, drones are for war now | The Verge
The FCC’s foreign drone ban is here | The Verge
Skydio is pivoting to enterprise — its consumer drones are dead | The Verge
Skydio commits $3.5B to expand US manufacturing | Skydio
A US drone maker tries to take back the country’s skies | Bloomberg
DEA looks to add Skydio, Parrot drones to its arsenal | FedScoop
The future of border security isn’t at the border at all | The Verge
Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Hey! Nilay here. It’s conference season, so I’m traveling across the country and around the world a lot more than usual. Stay tuned for some very special Decoder episodes we have coming up soon, starting on Monday.
In the meantime, I wanted to share a conversation between my friend Peter Kafka and Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch on the excellent Channels podcast. Lynch says he’s told his teams to assume that traffic will be zero from now on — that’s what I’ve been calling Google Zero. Roger also shares his thoughts on AI, the growing influence of the creator economy, and more.
Links:
Channels with Peter Kafka | Apple Podcasts
Condé Nast CEO: Plan As If Search Traffic Will Be Zero | Search Engine Journal
Sundar Pichai on AI, the future of search, and what’s happening to the web | Decoder
Google Zero is here — now what? | Decoder
Google admits the open web is in ‘rapid decline’ | The Verge
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Today I’m talking with Mustafa Suleyman, the CEO of Microsoft AI. This is a real burner of an episode. We covered everything from his approach to training new models to his criticisms of Anthropic talking about Claude as though it is conscious.
Of course, we also talked about Microsoft’s relationship with OpenAI, how Mustafa is thinking about all the negative polling and political pushback around AI right now, and whether any of the consumer products are good enough to overcome it. Like I said, it’s a burner.
Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.
Links:
Microsoft and OpenAI broke up — now they’re ready to fight | The Verge
Microsoft Build 2026: The 7 biggest announcements | The Verge
Microsoft’s first advanced reasoning AI is here | The Verge
Microsoft’s new ‘superintelligence’ game plan is all about business | The Verge
Here’s how the new Microsoft and OpenAI deal breaks down | The Verge
Microsoft AI chief says 18 months until white-collar tasks automated by AI | FT
Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
My guest today is Ryan Mac, a technology reporter at The New York Times and co-author of the excellent book Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter, which came out in 2024. I wanted to have Ryan on today because we’re on the cusp of the SpaceX IPO, which promises to be one of the most consequential public offerings in history for a variety of reasons.
Its biggest-ever size, of course, at nearly $2 trillion dollars. But also because all kinds of rules that keep our markets fair are being bent, if not outright broken, along the way. And, also because buried somewhere inside SpaceX is X, the social platform formerly known as Twitter, which Musk purchased in 2022.
Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.
Links:
Welcome to hell, Elon | The Verge
The SpaceX IPO is great for Elon Musk and terrible for you | The Verge
In SpaceX’s IPO, Elon Musk is the risk factor | The Verge
For Wall Street, the only thing worse than SpaceX flopping is missing out | NYT
How SpaceX Is structured to favor Elon Musk | NYT
As the SpaceX hype machine steamrolls ahead, Wall Street jumps aboard | NYT
The SpaceX IPO Reveals What Really Happened to Twitter | NY Mag
Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
I last talked to Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr in 2024 — when it was obvious that generative AI would upend the music industry, but not exactly clear how that would happen.
Now, Harvey says AI is “omnipresent” in music production. So what kinds of tools are musicians using, in what way, and what kind of music is it making for us? Is it any good? And how do we identify, and take care of, actual human musicians in this mess?
Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.
Links:
Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr | Decoder
Is ‘blue dot fever’ a real problem for the concert industry? | Los Angeles Times
USA v. LiveNation-Ticketmaster: All the news | The Verge
The future of country music is here, and it’s AI | The Verge
Poll: AI is transforming how we think about music | Hollywood Reporter
Inside the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ era of AI in music | Rolling Stone
Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Today, I’m talking with Wassym Bensaid, the chief software officer at Rivian, and the co-ceo of Rivian’s platform joint venture with Volkswagen. That joint venture, called RV Tech, is about a year and a half old, so I wanted to ask Wassym how it all works and Rivian’s ongoing relationship with Volkswagen.
Because it’s Rivian, I also had to ask Wassym about CarPlay. But the company also just launched an AI-powered voice assistant, which I got to try early. So I had a lot of fun digging into that with Wassym, too. This is a fun one – really in the weeds of a lot of my favorite things to talk about.
Links:
Rivian’s AI-powered voice assistant is ready to roll | The Verge
The R2 is nearly here — can Rivian stick the landing? | The Verge
Rivian’s AI pivot is about more than chasing Tesla | The Verge
Rivian / VW will start testing their first EVs next year | The Verge
Connecting with Google CEO Sundar Pichai at I/O every year is one of my favorite Decoder traditions. This was our fifth year doing it, and there’s always a whole slew of new things to talk about.
This year, in addition to the news, we talked about Google Zero; picking fights with YouTube creators and publishers; and what being at “the foothills of the singularity" even means.
Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.
Links:
If Google can’t make AI agents useful, maybe no one can | The Verge
The future of Google is a search box that does everything | The Verge
Large language mistake | The Verge
You can now remix other people’s YouTube Shorts with AI | The Verge
Condé Nast calls Google Zero | The Verge
Demis Hassabis said this may be the ‘foothills of the singularity’ | The Verge
Google I/O 2026: All the news and announcements | The Verge
Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Kabir Chopra. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Musk v Altman was nominally about OpenAI's conversion to a for-profit entity, and how it went about that change. But really, the suit seems mostly to have been about Elon Musk being mad at Sam Altman — or at OpenAI, for being successful without him — and wanting him punished in some way.
Verge reporter Liz Lopatto spent the last month covering the trial, in all its chaos, and joins Decoder to ask: In a courtroom full of untrustworthy, unreliable people all fighting with each other, did anyone even have a reputation left to lose?
Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.
Links:
Elon Musk loses his case against Sam Altman | The Verge
Musk v. Altman proved AI is led by the wrong people | The Verge
Musk v. Altman accomplished nothing but airing dirty laundry | The Verge
Elon Musk’s worst enemy in court is Elon Musk | The Verge
Behold, the Elon Musk jackass trophy | The Verge
Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Just days before we spoke, BuzzFeed co-founder and CEO Jonah Peretti agreed to sell the company, which was losing money and at risk of shutting down. Now there’s a new lease on life — and new leadership. Jonah is taking on a new role as president of BuzzFeed AI, and Byron Allen will become CEO of BuzzFeed.
That’s obviously a huge structural and organizational change, and a really big decision — prime Decoder bait if there ever was any. What are digital media companies doing to adapt and survive in an information landscape dominated by algorithmic social platforms?
Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.
Links:
Byron Allen is buying BuzzFeed and becoming CEO | Variety
Brendan Ballou is founder of the Public Integrity Project and author of the new book, When Companies Run the Courts, about the rise of forced arbitration.
Forced arbitration is similarly everywhere in modern life, and there have been some very high-profile cases these past few years highlighting how deeply unfair these clauses are to consumers. Brendan’s book delves into how and why we got here — spoiler: we can blame Antonin Scalia for some of it — but also, most importantly, how we may be able to fight back in the future.
Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.
Links:
When Companies Run the Courts | Hachette
Private equity bought out your doctor and bankrupted Toys ‘R Us | Decoder
Press freedom groups demand access to Paramount records | The Wrap
Disney gives up on trying to use Disney+ to settle wrongful death suit | The Verge
Samsung, corruption, and you (2017) | The Verge
The surprising case for AI judges | Decoder
Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decode
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
