Podcast
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Hosted by The Verge · EN
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.
160episodes
Episodes
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Rewind: CEO Jim Farley on Ford's EV gamble
2d ago01:03:48Summary readyHey 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. Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Kabir Chopra. The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Can Patreon fight fire with social media fire?
5d ago01:13:04Summary readyA 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
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Who decides when AI is too dangerous?
1w ago00:40:53Summary readyMy 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 Anthropic’s safety superpower | Stratechery "They screwed us": Personality clashes sent Anthropic's models offline | Axios Anthropic’s call for AI nonproliferation | New York Times Trump signs exec order to review AI models before release | The Verge New Anthropic model finds security problems ‘in every major OS, browser’ | 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
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Skydio CEO argues more drones will make us safer
2w ago01:13:17Summary readyToday, 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
SummaryCondé Nast CEO Roger Lynch on AI, the Met Gala & his secret succession plan
2w ago00:54:33Summary readyHey! 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
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Microsoft AI chief thinks superintelligence is near, but won't take your job
3w ago01:16:03Summary readyToday 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
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Elon Musk is steamrolling Wall Street to become a trillionaire
3w ago00:48:51Summary readyMy 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
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AI is blowing up music. How should the Grammys handle it?
4w ago01:05:53Summary readyI 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
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Rivian's software chief thinks you don't need CarPlay or buttons
May 2801:09:59Summary readyToday, 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
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How Sundar Pichai is rethinking Google for the AI era
May 2600:51:16Summary readyConnecting 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
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