Episodes
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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 characters that we’ll be doing over the course of the next four years. Because when Elon used his wealth and influence to help Trump get elected, he also bought himself a seat at the president-elect’s inner circle. But what does the world’s richest person really want in return?
And how is the CEO of an electric car company, an outspoken advocate for combating climate change, going to square his support for Trump and a Republican policy agenda centered on climate change denial? Verge transportation editor Andy Hawkins joins me this week to make sense of it all, and to figure out how Elon and Tesla may still benefit, even if Trump's climate policy reversals and tariffs lay waste to the auto industry.
Links:
What does Trump’s election mean for EVs, Tesla, and Elon Musk? | The Verge
This election will decide what kind of car you’ll buy | The Verge
Trump says Musk will lead ‘DOGE’ office to cut ‘wasteful’ government spending | The Verge
Elon Musk attends Trump's first post-election meeting with House Republicans | CNBC
At Mar-a-Lago, ‘Uncle’ Elon Musk puts his imprint on the Trump transition | NYT
Musk believes in global warming. Trump does not. Will that change? | NYT
Elon Musk helped elect Trump? What does he expect in return? | NYT
With ready orders and an energy czar, Trump plots pivot to fossil fuels | NYT
Tesla hits $1 trillion market value as Musk-backed Trump win fans optimism | Reuters
Trump’s return dims outlook for Chinese EV makers amid tariff threats | SCMP
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
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 Grammy nominations came out, and you'll hear us talk a whole lot about the changes he's tried to make with how the awarding membership works.
I always say to watch what’s happening to the music industry because it’s a preview into what will happen to every other creative industry five years later. My chat with Harvey really drove the point home: AI, diversity, streaming distribution... it's all here, and all the tensions that come with.
Links:
2025 Grammy nominations: The complete list | NPR
The Grammys Move From CBS To Disney In Major 10-Year Deal | Deadline
Recording Academy boots Grammy voters | Los Angeles Times
Chappell Roan and the problem with fandom | Vox
Grammys CEO: Music that contains AI-created elements is eligible | AP News
Deborah Dugan Grammys Controversy: What to Know | Time
For Taylor Swift, the Future of Music Is a Love Story | Wall Street Journal (2014)
AI is on a collision course with music | Decoder
Elvis Costello defends Olivia Rodrigo over ‘Brutal’ plagiarism claim | BBC
Why Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen thinks AI is the future | Decoder
Transcript:
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Missing episodes?
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Today, we’re talking about work. Specifically, where we work, how our expectations of working remotely were radically changed by the pandemic, and how those expectations feel like they’re on the verge of changing yet again. For many people, the pendulum has swung wildly between working fully remote and now a push to return to the office from their bosses, and there are a lot of theories about what might really be motivating big companies to try and bring everyone back.
To explain it, I caught up with two experts on the subject: Stephan Meier, a professor of business strategy at Columbia Business School, and Jessica Kriegel, the chief strategy officer at workplace culture consultancy Culture Partners. We dive into what’s been happening to the nature of work today, and whether Amazon, which just announced a major return to the office five days a week, is part of a bigger trend.
Links:
Amazon is making its employees come back to the office five days a week | The Verge
Amazon CEO denies 5-day office mandate is a ‘backdoor layoff’ | CNBC
Bob Iger tells Disney employees they must return to the office four days a week | CNBC
A quarter of bosses admit return-to-office mandates meant to make staff quit | Fortune
More Americans now prefer hybrid over fully remote work, survey finds | Axios
Google tells staff: stay productive and we’ll stay flexible | BI
The list of major companies requiring employees to return to the office | BI
Thinking Inside the Box: Why Virtual Meetings Generate Fewer Ideas | Columbia
Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn wants you addicted to learning | Decoder
Sundar Pichai on managing Google through the pandemic | Vergecast
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
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 following any of the drama in the world of car software, you know it also means Baris is the guy who has to defend GM’s decision to drop Apple CarPlay and Android Auto from most of its cars, especially EVs.
I’ve had versions of this conversation with the CEOs of car companies before, but Baris is in charge of actually building this stuff. So we really got into the weeds here on what this looks like, the major trade-offs, and why he thinks it’s ultimately the right path for GM.
Links:
GM names new leaders of software organization | The Detroit News
GM is cutting off access to Apple CarPlay & Android Auto for its future EVs | The Verge
Will GM Regret Kicking Apple CarPlay off the Dashboard? | Bloomberg
Rivian CEO: CarPlay isn’t going to happen | Decoder
Volvo CEO thinks dropping CarPlay is a mistake | Decoder
GM Ultifi software platform will roll out in 2023 | The Verge
Android Auto vs. Android Automotive vs. Google Automotive Services | Android Police
GM plans another big Super Cruise hands-free expansion | The Verge
GM will start making money on EVs this year | The Verge
How GM plans to beat Google, Apple at car software | Motor Trend
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/24049622
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
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 other stuff. In a normal world, this would be idle billionaire wishcasting. Punishing news organizations is one of those things we have a First Amendment to protect against. You know — the one that protects free speech by prohibiting the government from making speech regulations or punishing people for what they say?
But, it turns out, there is a long and complex history of the government regulating speech on broadcast platforms like radio and television — and that history dovetails into many of the problems we have regulating tech companies and social platforms today. Verge senior tech and policy editor Adi Robertson joins me to dive in.
Links:
The Verge guide to the 2024 US presidential election | The Verge
FCC chair rejects Trump’s call to revoke CBS license over Harris interview | The Verge
Florida official who resigned after letter to TV stations blames DeSantis’ office | MSNBC
“To keep it simple for the state of Florida: It’s the First Amendment, stupid” | The Verge
How America turned against the First Amendment | The Verge
Why Sen. Brian Schatz thinks child safety can trump the First Amendment | The Verge
How the Kids Online Safety Act puts us all at risk | The Verge
Here’s a bunch of bananas shit Trump said today about breaking up Google | The Verge
Barack Obama on AI, free speech, and the future of the internet | The Verge
Why you’re seeing those gross political ads during the World Series | The Verge
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
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 Zuckerberg. Brian made a lot of waves earlier this year when he started talking about something called “founder mode,” or at least, when well-known investor Paul Graham wrote a blog post about Brian’s approach to running Airbnb that gave it that name.
Founder mode has since become a little bit of a meme, and I was excited to have Brian back on to talk about it, and what specifically he thinks it means. Talking to Brian is a ride, but I think I held my own, and I think you’ll really like this one.
Links:
Founder Mode | Paul Graham
Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky is taking it back to basics (2023) | Decoder
Why the future of work is the future of travel, with Airbnb’s Brian Chesky (2021) | Decoder
Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky: ‘I Never Called it Founder Mode’ | Skift
Why Silicon Valley is abuzz over ‘Founder Mode’ | NYT
After Apple, Jony Ive Is Building an Empire of His Own | NYT
Airbnb can now help you find somebody to manage your listing | The Verge
Airbnb creates new chief business officer role | Reuters
Why Jeff Bezos Says Your Goal Is to Make 3 Good Decisions per Day | Inc
Taking the Mystery out of Scaling a Company | Ben Horowtiz
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/24043611
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
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 artificial intelligence so powerful it changes the world and answers all our questions? The AI industry has decided the answer is yes.
In September, OpenAI’s Sam Altman published a blog post claiming we’ll have superintelligent AI in “a few thousand days.” And earlier this month, Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic published a 14,000-word post laying out what he thinks such a system will be capable of when it does arrive, which he says could be as soon as 2026. Verge senior AI reporter Kylie Robison joins me on the show to break it all down.
Links:
Machines of Loving Grace | Dario Amodei
The Intelligence Age | Sam Altman
Anthropic’s CEO thinks AI will lead to a utopia | The Verge
AI manifestos flood the tech zone | Axios
OpenAI just raised $6.6 billion to build ever-larger AI models | The Verge
OpenAI was a research lab — now it’s just another tech company | The Verge
California governor vetoes major AI safety bill | The Verge
Inside the white-hot center of AI doomerism | NYT
Microsoft and OpenAI’s close partnership shows signs of fraying | NYT
The $14 Billion question dividing OpenAI and Microsoft | WSJ
Anthropic has floated $40 Billion valuation in funding talks | The Information
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
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 company in part through a series of major acquisitions: TurboTax, MailChimp, CreditKarma, and loads more. There’s a lot of good Decoder material there, and we get into it.
But it’s TurboTax, and the company’s tax lobbying efforts to protect it, that really drives a major narrative about Intuit, for better and worse. So you can bet I asked Sasan about all this, and it got a bit contentious. In fact, the company's chief communications officer even demanded we delete a portion of this interview over an exchange with Sasan on TurboTax. Don’t worry — we don’t do that here at The Verge. So expect to hear that section right up top, with the rest of the interview following after.
Links:
Inside TurboTax’s 20-year fight to stop Americans from filing taxes for free| ProPublica
TurboTax deliberately hid free file page from Google Search | ProPublica
TurboTax maker Intuit spent millions in record lobbying blitz | OpenSecrets
FTC: Intuit’s “free” TurboTax ads misled consumers | The Verge
TurboTax isn’t allowed to say it’s ‘free’ anymore | The Verge
Intuit owes you money if it made you pay for TurboTax “free” | The Verge
IRS extends its Free File tax program for five more years | The Verge
IRS Direct File set to expand availability in a dozen new states | IRS
Mint is shutting down, and it’s pushing users toward Credit Karma | The Verge
Intuit Mailchimp CEO Rania Succar on Decoder | Decoder
Ethics Statement | The Verge
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/24037861
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
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 at an event graciously hosted by Adweek.
I've actually been dying to talk to Amy. Digitas is one of the most important agencies in the entire advertising business with huge clients and massive influence over big platforms like Instagram and YouTube. After all, they're the ones buying the ads that keep all of those companies afloat. As you'd expect, she has a lot of thoughts about influencers, creators, AI, and everything that is going to change the advertising industry in the months and years to come.
Links:
Publicis Groupe acquires influencer-marketing giant Influential | Marketing Dive
Epsilon has first Digital CDP to provide native omni-channel activation | Epsilon
Stagwell is on the hunt for adtech as the ad company continues its acquisition spree | BI
Emma Chamberlain Is the People’s Influencer | Allure
Inside the World of Sephora Squad | Marketing Scoop
Fanatics Launches Fanatics Live, a Next-Gen Live Commerce Platform | Fanatics
There’s no AI without the cloud, says AWS CEO Adam Selipsky | The Verge
A Google breakup is on the table, say DOJ lawyers | The Verge
For Gen Z, TikTok Is the New Search Engine | The New York Times
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Xander Adams. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
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 that — but I also wanted to talk to Luis about learning, generally. Duolingo is a global product, and there are a lot of tech tensions there, dealing with different user needs worldwide. We talk about it all in a pretty direct way... including all those unhinged things the owl does on social media.
Links:
Duolingo Introduces AI-Powered Innovations at Duocon 2024 (Duolingo)
Video Call with Lily (Duolingo / YouTube)
AI Boosts Duolingo As Company Posts First Profit (Nasdaq)
Foreign Language Training (US State Department)
Exploring My Villain Origin Story (Duolingo / TikTok)
Duolingo cuts workers as it relies more on AI (The Washington Post)
Why Silicon Valley Is Talking About Founder Mode (The New York Times)
Duolingo's Math and Music lessons finally hit Android a year after iOS (Android Police)
Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky on taking it back to basics (Decoder / The Verge)
How Duolingo is using its 'unhinged content' with Duo the Owl (Digiday)
How we turned Duo's butt into a viral Super Bowl commercial (Duolingo)
A Duolingo employee has apologised for joking about Amber Heard (The Tab)
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/24031882
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Xander Adams. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
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 time thinking and writing about: software.
Scores of new workplace apps are cropping with clever metaphors to try to make us work differently. Sometimes that works… and sometimes it really, really doesn’t. And it feels like the addition of AI to the mix will accelerate the pace of experimentation here in pretty radical ways.
Links:
Why software is eating the world | Wall Street Journal (2011)
Mailchimp CEO Rania Succar on why email makes sense for Intuit | The Verge
Why would anyone make a website in 2023? | The Verge
Wix CEO Avishai Abrahami isn’t worried AI will kill the web | The Verge
Figma CEO Dylan Field is optimistic about AI | The Verge
We don’t sell saddles here | Stewart Butterfield (2014)
The CEO of Zoom wants AI clones in meetings | The Verge
Dropbox CEO Drew Houston wants you to embrace AI | The Verge
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Xander Adams. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
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-promised LAM Playground has arrived. I had a lot of big questions for CEO Jesse Lyu about how it all works — not just technologically, but if his plans are sustainable from a business and legal perspective.
Links:
Rabbit R1 review: an unfinished, unhelpful AI gadget | The Verge
Loopholes aren’t a technology | Buzzfeed News (2012)
I tested Rabbit R1's next generation LAM — and it tried to gaslight me | Tom’s Hardware
I tried Rabbit's LAM Playground, and I'm still disappointed | Android Authority
Rabbit's AI bot will try to help you do anything (keyword is 'try') | Fast Company
Rabbit’s web-based ‘large action model’ agent arrives on R1 October 1 | TechCrunch
Rabbit R1 founder defends “unfinished” AI gadget | City AM
AI hardware is in its flip-phone phase | Fast Company
The iPhone 16 will ship as a work in progress | The Verge
Humane AI Pin review: Not even close | The Verge
Marques Brownlee says ‘I hear you’ after fans criticize his new wallpaper app | The Verge
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/24024222
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
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 Entertainment. If you don’t know Blizzard, you do know its games — the studio behind Warcraft, Diablo, and Overwatch has achieved legendary status over three decades. At the same time, the company has become emblematic of many of gaming’s biggest failings.
Jason’s book is out on October 8th, and it’s an incredible, detailed accounting of how Blizzard started, grew into a hitmaker and, eventually, became a victim of its own mismanagement. Oh, and there are a series of chaotic acquisitions along the way, culminating in Microsoft’s purchase of Activision Blizzard last year. In this episode, Jason and I get into all of this and more.
Links:
Play Nice: The Rise, Fall and Future of Blizzard Entertainment | Hachette
How Blizzard’s canceled MMO Titan fell apart | Polygon
Blizzard was built on crunch, co-founder says, but it’s ‘not sustainable’ | Polygon
Inside Activision and Blizzard’s corporate warcraft | Bloomberg
Blizzard cofounder’s new company Dreamhaven aims to recreate old magic | Bloomberg
Activision Blizzard’s rot goes all the way to the CEO, alleges report | The Verge
Activision Blizzard’s workplace problems spurred $75 billion microsoft Deal | WSJ
California settles Activision Blizzard gender discrimination lawsuit | The Verge
Microsoft completes Activision Blizzard acquisition | The Verge
Microsoft lays off 1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox employees | The Verge
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
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 also every other streaming video offering the company has worldwide. So you can bet Matt and I got into what that structure even looks like, and how it all operates under the overall ownership of Comcast, which is in the middle of its own massive transition as its traditional cable TV business continues to fade. There’s a lot in this one – tech, media, sports, and culture, all at once. It’s quite a ride.
Links:
Comcast's new DVR ditches the hard drive, stores your recordings in the cloud (The Verge, 2013)
Comcast and Charter Lost Another 269,000 Broadband Customers Last Quarter (The Motley Fool)
It's official, people aren't watching TV as much as they used to (The Verge)
The future of TV is up in the air (The Verge)
Peacock Quarterly Loss Narrows to $348M as Subscribers Drop to 33M (THR)
OTA and free online video drives higher US TV-video viewing hours (S&P Global)
Streaming was part of the future — now it’s the only future (The Verge)
US pay-TV losses reach a nadir (Light Reading)
The 2024 Olympics were a big win for TV of all kinds (The Verge)
Court blocks Disney-Fox-WBD sports streaming bundle (The Verge)
An AI version of Al Michaels will deliver Olympic recaps on Peacock (The Verge)
Transcript:
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
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 Zuckerberg on the show at Meta Connect. This year, before his interview with Mark, Alex got to try a new pair of experimental AR glasses the company is calling Orion.
Alex talked to Mark about a whole lot more, including why the company is investing so heavily in AR, why he's shifted away from politics, Mark's thoughts on the link between teen mental health and social media, and why the Meta chief executive is done apologizing for corporate scandals like Cambridge Analytica that he feels were overblown and misrepresented.
Links:
Hands-on with Orion, Meta’s first pair of AR glasses | The Verge
The biggest news from Meta Connect 2024 | The Verge
Mark Zuckerberg: publishers ‘overestimate the value’ of their work for training AI | The Verge
Meta extends its Ray-Ban smart glasses deal beyond 2030 | The Verge
The Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses actually make the future look cool | The Verge
Meta has a major opportunity to win the AI hardware race | The Verge
Instagram is putting every teen into more private and restrictive new account | The Verge
Threads isn’t for news and politics, says Instagram’s boss | The Verge
Facebook puts news on the back burner | The Verge
Meta is losing a billion dollars on VR and AR every single month | The Verge
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/24017522
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt; our editor is Callie Wright. This episode was additionally produced by Brett Putman and Vjeran Pavic. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
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 company also has a mobile app called Arc Search that does AI summaries of webpages, which puts it right in the middle of a contentious debate in the tech industry around paying web creators for their work.
We’ve been talking about these topics pretty much nonstop for last year here on Decoder. So I was really excited to have Josh on the show to explore why he built Arc, what he hopes it will accomplish, and what might happen to browsers, search engines, and the web itself as these trends evolve.
Links:
Researcher reveals ‘catastrophic’ security flaw in the Arc browser | The Verge
The Arc browser is the Chrome replacement I’ve been waiting for | The Verge
Arc’s mobile browser is here — and it’s not really a web browser at all | The Verge
Arc is getting better bookmarks and search results, all thanks to AI | The Verge
Arc Search combines browser, search engine, and AI into something new | The Verge
Judge rules that Google ‘is a monopolist’ in US antitrust case | The Verge
Google paid Apple $20 billion in 2022 to be Safari’s default search engine | The Verge
One startup's quest to take on Chrome and reinvent the web browser | Protocol
Scenes from a dying web | Platformer
Perplexity’s grand theft AI | The Verge
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/24011410
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
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. This time around, the DOJ is claiming Google has another illegal monopoly in the online advertising market.
Verge senior policy reporter Lauren Feiner has been on the ground at the courthouse to hear testimony from news publishers, advertising experts, and Google executives to make sense of it — and, ultimately, to see whether a federal judge hands the company another antitrust defeat.
Links:
Google and DOJ return for round two of their antitrust fight | The Verge
Judge rules that Google ‘is a monopolist’ in US antitrust case | The Verge
In US v. Google, YouTube’s CEO defends the Google way The Verge
Google and the DOJ’s ad tech fight is all about control | The Verge
How Google altered a deal with publishers who couldn’t say no | The Verge
Google dominates online ads, says antitrust trial witness, but publishers are feeling ‘stuck’ | The Verge
US considers a rare antitrust move: breaking up Google | Bloomberg
This deal helped turn Google into an ad powerhouse. Is that a problem? | NYT
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
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 has a long history —- the company began in the late 19th century as a lightbulb manufacturer, and over the past century it’s grown and shrunk in various ways. Basically, while every other company has been trying to get bigger, Philips has been paring itself down to a tight focus on healthcare, and Roy and I talked about why that market is worth the focus.
Roy and I also talked about an ongoing controversy at Philips that he had a part in: In 2021, after years of consumer complaints, Philips was made to recall millions of its breathing machines. Those devices were eventually tied to more than 500 deaths. That’s a pretty big decision, with massive life-or-death consequences, and you’ll hear us talk about it in detail.
Links:
Problems reported with recalled Philips ventilators, BiPAP & CPAP machines | FDA
FDA says 561 deaths tied to recalled Philips sleep apnea machines | CBS News
Philips kept complaints about dangerous breathing machines secret | ProPublica
Top Philips executive approved sale of defective breathing machines | ProPublica
Philips reaches final pact with DOJ, FDA on ventilator recall | WSJ
Philips suspends U.S. sales of breathing machines after recall | NYT
CPAP maker reaches $479 million settlement on breathing device defects | NYT
Philips exits shrinking home entertainment business | Reuters
Original TSMC investor Philips sells off final shares | PC World
Philips unveils new AI-powered cardiovascular ultrasound | Mass Device
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/24006874
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
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 photorealistic images with nothing more than a chatbot prompt could completely reset our cultural relationship to photography. But one argument keeps cropping up in response. You’ve heard it a million times, and it’s when people say “it’s just like Photoshop,” with “Photoshop” standing in for the concept of image editing generally.
So today, we’re trying to understand exactly what it means, and why our new world of AI image tools is different — and yes, in some cases the same. Verge reporter Jess Weatherbed recently dove into this for us, and I asked her to join me in going through the debate and the arguments one by one to help figure it out.
Links:
You’re here because you said AI image editing was just like Photoshop | The Verge
No one’s ready for this | The Verge
The AI photo editing era is here, and it’s every person for themselves | The Verge
Google’s AI ‘Reimagine’ tool helped us add disasters and corpses to photos | The Verge
X’s new AI image generator will make Taylor Swift in lingerie and Kamala Harris with a gun | The Verge
Grok will make gory images — just tell it you're a cop. | The Verge
Leica launches first camera with Content Credentials | Content Authenticity Initiative
You can use AI to get rid of Samsung’s AI watermark | The Verge
Spurred by teen girls, states move to nan deepfake nudes | NYT
Florida teens arrested for creating ‘deepfake’ AI nude images of classmates | The Verge
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
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 main product right now is Claude, the name of both its industry-leading AI model and a chatbot that competes with ChatGPT.
Mike has a fascinating resume: he was the cofounder of Instagram, and then started AI-powered newsreader Artifact. I was a fan of Artifact, so I wanted to know more about the decision to shut it down as well as the decision to sell it to Yahoo. And then I wanted to know why Mike decided to join Anthropic and work in AI — an industry with a lot of investment, but very few consumer products to justify it. What’s this all for?
Links:
Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger is Anthropic’s new chief product officer | The Verge
Instagram’s co-founders are shutting down their Artifact news app | The Verge
Yahoo resurrects Artifact inside a new AI-powered News app | The Verge
Authors sue Anthropic for training AI using pirated books | The Verge
The text file that runs the internet | The Verge
Anthropic’s crawler is ignoring websites’ anti-AI scraping policies | The Verge
Golden Gate Claude | Anthropic
Inside the white-hot center of AI doomerism | New York Times
Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, on the paradoxes of AI safety | Hard Fork
No one’s ready for this | The Verge
OpenAI announces SearchGPT, its AI-powered search engine | The Verge
Amazon-backed Anthropic rolls out Claude AI for big business | CNBC
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/24001603
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices - Show more
