Episodes
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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
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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.
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Episodes manquant?
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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
Rivian CEO: ‘We’re really convicted’ about skipping CarPlay | Decoder (2025)
Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe says too many carmakers are copying Tesla | Decoder (2024)
Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe isn't scared of the Cybertruck | Decoder (2023)
Rivian’s chief software officer says in-car buttons are ‘an anomaly’ | TechCrunch
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 -
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.
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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
BuzzFeed issues going concern warning, lacks liquidity | Wall Street Journal
BuzzFeed News is shutting down | The Verge
BuzzFeed sells Hot Ones studio in $82.5M deal | NBC News
The unbearable lightness of BuzzFeed | The Verge
I hate myself because I don’t work for BuzzFeed (2015) | The Awl
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.
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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 -
My guest today is longtime friend of the show Joanna Stern. You all know Joanna: she is the former senior personal technology columnist for The Wall Street Journal, a former Decoder guest host, one of my co-founders at The Verge, and also just one of my very closest friends.
Joanna just left that lofty perch at the Journal to start her own media company called New Things, and she’s starting with her new book about AI called I Am Not a Robot, which is out this week on May 12th. So we had Joanna on to talk about all of that, especially what she learned going all in on automation.
Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.
Links:
I Am Not a Robot | Harper Collins
It’s time. Meet my New Thing | Joanna Stern
Why I left My prestigious job to make YouTube videos | Joanna Stern / YouTube
Signing off from this column after 12 years. Here’s what’s changed in tech | WSJ
I tried the robot that’s coming to live with you. It’s still par human | WSJ
The people do not yearn for automation | 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 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, everyone, Nilay here. We’re off today, while the team and I are cooking on a lot of really great stuff in the coming weeks. We’ll be back with an all-new interview on Monday.
In the meantime, we really wanted to highlight this episode we first aired in the fall, because it’s about a huge subject: AI in schools. The school year is starting to wrap up now around the country, and we’re no closer to figuring out how to thread the needle about generative AI in education than we were in September.
Links:
A majority of high school students use gen AI for schoolwork | College Board
About a quarter of teens have used ChatGPT for schoolwork | Pew Research
Your brain on ChatGPT | MIT Media Lab
My students think it’s fine to cheat with AI. Maybe they’re on to something. | Vox
How children understand and learn from conversational AI | McGill University
‘File not Found’ | The Verge
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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 Ursa Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
It’s become an annual tradition to have Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi join us in the studio when he comes to New York for Uber’s big Go-Get event every year. This year, the big news was that Uber's expanding into a much larger platform for travel, starting with hotel booking and services like personal shopping.
Uber is going so far as to call this an everything app, so I wanted to see how far Dara thinks everything actually goes — and whether he’s feeling pressure to own more of the user experience in a world where AI companies keep promising that their chatbots will book all the cars for you.
Links:
Uber adds hotels to its app in big travel swing | The Verge
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi is okay with reinventing the bus | Decoder
I have to be honest, AI will replace jobs at Uber | Diary of a CEO
The DoorDash problem | Decoder
Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky wants to build the everything app | Decoder
Booking and Priceline chief wants you to yell at bots, not humans | 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 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.
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This is Nick Statt, senior producer on Decoder. We last ran a mailbag episode during the holidays, and we decided it was a good idea to do that kind of thing more often. So we’re back with Nilay as the guest, answering questions and responding to feedback, criticism, and suggestions.
We talk through some recent controversial episodes like our interviews with the CEOs of Superhuman and Puck, and we also discuss how we’re covering AI, thinking about the future of the show, and what it takes to win (and lose) Decoder.
Links:
Nilay answers your burning Decoder questions | Decoder Mailbag (2025)
Answering your biggest Decoder questions | Decoder Mailbag (2024)
Confronting the CEO of the AI company that impersonated me | Decoder
Can Puck reinvent the news business for the influencer age? | Decoder
The people do not yearn for automation | 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 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 -
Jennifer Scanlon is CEO of UL Solutions, one of those hidden-in-plain-sight companies we like to poke at here on Decoder. UL's been around for more than 100 years; it started as a way for insurance companies to standardize fire and safety testing as electricity was the new technology spreading into homes.
But now it's everywhere, and "safety" in tech doesn't just mean the hardware. UL is adapting quickly to the connected, AI-powered era... but do the companies making and distributing tech even care about standards anymore?
Links:
How fake UL certifications led to Chinese ebike suit | Electrek
FCC IoT program loses UL after China probe | Cybersecurity Dive
FCC’s Carr probes IoT program lab over “ties to China” | PC Mag
The US router ban, explained | The Verge
More than 500,000 hoverboards recalled (2016) | The Verge
Brendan Carr is a dummy | The Vergecast
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 -
Today on Decoder, I want to lay out an idea that's been banging around my head for weeks now as we've been reporting on AI and having conversations here on this show. I've been calling it software brain, and it's a particular way of seeing the world that fits everything into algorithms, databases and loops.
Software brain is powerful stuff. It's a way of thinking that basically created our modern world. But software thinking has also been turbocharged by AI in a way that I think helps explain the enormous gap between how excited the tech industry is about the technology and how regular people are growing to dislike it more and more over time.
Links:
Why software Is eating the world | Marc Andreessen
Gen Z’s love-hate relationship with AI | The Verge
The attacks on Sam Altman are a warning for the AI world | The Verge
Silicon Valley has forgotten what normal people want | The Verge
I saw something new in San Francisco | The New York Times
Anthropic CEO issues dire warning about white-collar work | The Street
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 -
The last time Canva CEO Melanie Perkins was on Decoder, the company was starting a big push into enterprise. Now, she's leading it through a total reinvention, going, in Canva's words, "from a design platform with AI tools to an AI platform with design tools."
But there's a lot of competition in that AI enterprise space. Not only is Canva competing with design software like the Adobe Creative Suite, but also it's competing with AI companies, like Anthropic and Meta, that are launching their own AI design platforms. So we talked a lot about whether Canva really is the right platform to bring the whole workspace together.
Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.
Links:
Canva AI 2.0 goes all in on prompt-powered design tools | The Verge
The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe | The Verge
Anthropic launches Claude Design | TechCrunch
Canva is now in the coding and spreadsheet business | The Verge
Melanie Perkins thinks the world needs more alternatives to Adobe | 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.
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Today I’m talking with Ronan Farrow, one of the biggest stars of investigative reporting working today. He broke the Harvey Weinstein story, among many, many others.
Just last week, he and co-author Andrew Marantz published an incredible deep-dive feature in The New Yorker about OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, his trustworthiness, and the rise of OpenAI itself. So Ronan came on the show to discuss the piece, his reporting process, and why he thinks this story and the revelations it contains really matter.
Read the full interview transcript here on The Verge.
Links:
Sam Altman may control our future — can he be trusted? | The New Yorker
Hey ChatGPT, which one of these is the real Sam Altman? | New York Times
Suspect throws molotov cocktail at Sam Altman’s home | Wired
The attacks on Sam Altman are a warning for the AI world | The Verge
The vibes are off at OpenAI | The Verge
Why Sam Altman was booted from OpenAI | The Verge
Sam Altman, unconstrained by the truth | Gary Marcus
A brief history of Sam Altman's hype | MIT Tech Review
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 -
Sarah Personette is the CEO of Puck, a media company that's been around for about five years. Puck hires big star reporters who write newsletters as part of a subscription bundle. Those newsletters are often must-reads in their industries, and those reporters get equity in Puck and a share of the company's revenue.
It's a place where the financial incentives of the influencer economy crash right into the rigors of traditional journalism — and as regular Decoder listeners know, I have a lot of questions about how those two things work (or don't) in the modern media landscape.
Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.
Links:
Puck buys Air Mail in deal valued at $16M | The Wrap
The man yelling ‘iceberg’ on the Hollywood Titanic | New York Times
Sarah Personette joins news startup Puck as CEO | Variety
Are we past peak newsletter? | New York Times
Two new newsletters bet they’ve got Hollywood covered | LA 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 editorial director is Kevin McShane.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Today, let’s talk about the looming AI monetization cliff, and whether some of the biggest companies in space can become real, profitable businesses before they careen right off it.
My guest today is Hayden Field, who’s our senior AI reporter here at The Verge. She’s been keeping close tabs on both Anthropic and OpenAI, and how these two companies, both slate to go public this year, tell us a whole lot about the AI industry in 2026.
Links:
The vibes are off at OpenAI | The Verge
Anthropic essentially bans OpenClaw from Claude | The Verge
Why OpenAI killed Sora | The Verge
OpenAI just bought TBPN | The Verge
National poll shows voters like AI less than ICE | The Verge
The spiraling cost of making AI | WSJ
OpenAI’s Fidji Simo taking leave amid exec shake-up | Wired
OpenAI raises another $122B at $850B valuation | 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 -
My guest today is Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins. Cisco is one of those big companies that everyone has heard of but most of us don’t have to interact with very much; they’re not really a consumer brand. But without Cisco's actual routers and switches and silicon — and the software to make those things work — there’s no internet, no cloud, and no AI.
But a data center is a really unpleasant neighbor to have, and there’s robust opposition to new data center builds all over the country. So I had to start by asking what feels, strangely, like one of the most urgent questions of the moment: Should we build data centers in space?
Links:
Nvidia launches space computing, rocketing AI Into orbit | Nvidia
Nvidia’s AI dominance expands to networking | CRN
Amid rising pushback, 2025 data center cancellations surge | Heatmap
Billionaires want data centers everywhere, including space | The Verge
How Ciena keeps the internet online | Decoder
Okta’s CEO is betting big on agent identity | 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 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, we’re talking about the landmark social media addiction trials that just resulted in two major verdicts against Big Tech — one in California against Meta and Google, and another in New Mexico against just Meta.
These are complicated cases with some huge repercussions for both how these platforms work and the very nature of speech in America. So we’ve brought on two heavy hitters: my friend Casey Newton, founder and editor of Platformer and co-host of Hard Fork, as well as Verge senior policy reporter Lauren Feiner, who’s been covering these trials since the beginning.
Links:
Meta & YouTube found negligent in social media addiction trial | The Verge
Meta misled users about its products’ safety, jury decides | The Verge
Meta’s legal defeat: a victory for kids, or a loss for everyone | The Verge
Can you have child safety and Section 230, too? | Platformer
The terrible cost of infinite scroll | The New York Times
I watched grieving parents stare down Zuckerberg in court | The Verge
Section 230 turns 30 as it faces its biggest tests yet | The Verge
Congress considers blowing up internet law | The Verge
Sen. Rob Wyden: “Why the internet still needs Section 230” | The Verge
How America turned against the First Amendment | 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 -
My guest today is Okta CEO Todd McKinnon. Okta is a platform that big companies use to manage security and identity across all the many apps and platforms their employees use. Most of us run into it as login management at work.
SaaS companies like Okta are under a lot of pressure in the age of AI, which Todd even said on an earnings call he's "paranoid" about. But you'll also hear Todd say that for Okta specifically, there's also a world of opportunity as the very concept of a digital "identity" has to expand into things that aren't really people.
Links:
CEO ‘paranoid’ as vibe coders stir SaaSpocalypse fears | The Register
$300B evaporated. The SaaSpocalypse has begun | Forbes
How AI assistants are moving the security goalposts | Krebs on Security
What everyone’s missing about AI and development | CRN
Agents run amok: Identity lessons from Moltbook’s experiment | Okta
Breakup of IBM is Antitrust goal (1972) | New York 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 editorial director is Kevin McShane.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices - Montre plus
