Episódios

  • "All chaos and panic": Nilay answers your burning Decoder questions

    "All chaos and panic": Nilay answers your burning Decoder questions
    Dec 18 2025
    Hey everyone! Decoder senior producers Kate Cox and Nick Statt here. We’ve had a big year, including nearly 100 episodes, a new YouTube channel, an ad-free podcast feed, and a slate of great guest hosts while Nilay was on parental leave. It’s been a lot! We’ve also had a lot of great questions and comments this year from you, our audience. So we pulled together all the feedback we’ve received on topics like CarPlay, Monday episode guest suggestions, and — of course — AI. And then we turned the tables on Nilay to ask him his thoughts on the past 12 months: What we liked, what we want to improve, and how he’s making decisions for Decoder in the new year. Links: Answering your biggest Decoder questions, 2024 edition | Decoder The DoorDash Problem | Decoder How decision making changes when AI answers are cheap and (too) easy | Decoder Why GM will give you Gemini — but not CarPlay | Decoder Rivian CEO: ‘We’re really convicted’ about skipping CarPlay | Decoder How SharkNinja took over the home, with CEO Mark Barrocas | Decoder Why Tubi CEO Anjali Sud thinks free TV can win again | Decoder Disney accuses Google of copyright infringement following OpenAI deal | 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
    Exibir mais Exibir menos
    57 minutos
  • Stack Overflow users don't trust AI. They're using it anyway

    Stack Overflow users don't trust AI. They're using it anyway
    Dec 15 2025
    Stack Overflow CEO Prashanth Chandrasekar was last on the show in 2022 — just one month before ChatGPT launched and upended literally everything for Stack Overflow in a deeply existential way. He called a company emergency, reallocated about 10 percent of the staff to figure out solutions to the ChatGPT problem, and made some pretty huge decisions about structure and organization to navigate that change — all of it pure Decoder bait. Links: 2025 Developer Survey | Stack Overflow The people who make your apps go to Stack Overflow for answers | Decoder OpenAI, Stack Overflow partner to bring technical knowledge to ChatGPT | The Verge Stack Overflow feeds programmers’ answers to AI whether they like it or not | The Verge Stack Overflow cuts 28 percent of its staff | TechCrunch AI-generated answers temporarily banned on Stack Overflow | The Verge Stack Overflow’s strike is over, but problems persist | Jon Ericson A new era of Stack Overflow | Stack Overflow 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
    Exibir mais Exibir menos
    1 hora e 5 minutos
  • Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment

    Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment
    Dec 11 2025
    Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey and I agree it seems like democracy is on the line right now, especially around the First Amendment and the increasing pressure the Trump administration — especially FCC chair Brendan Carr — is putting on free speech. I also had a lot of questions for Sen. Markey about the supposed TikTok ban, which no one seems to know anything about, and all the other problems we’re facing in 2025. Links: Even the lawmakers behind the TikTok ban have no idea what’s going on | The Verge Carr’s FCC is an anti-consumer, rights-trampling harassment machine | The Verge The FCC is a weapon in Trump’s war on free speech | Decoder Here’s the Trump EO that would ban state AI laws | The Verge Silicon Valley is rallying behind a guy who sucks | The Verge Silicon Valley’s man in the White House is benefiting himself and his friends | The 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
    Exibir mais Exibir menos
    58 minutos
  • Square's product chief on the death of the penny and the future of money

    Square's product chief on the death of the penny and the future of money
    Dec 8 2025
    Today, I’m talking with Willem Avé, who’s the head of product at Square. You know Square — it was started by billionaire Jack Dorsey of Twitter fame more than 15 years ago, and it got big on the back of that little magnetic reader that once plugged into the headphone jack of the iPhone and let small businesses accept credit cards. Nowadays, of course, Square is more than a credit card reader, and sadly, the headphone jack is ancient history. The company itself is now part of parent organization called Block, which is made up of a very interesting mix of financial services like Afterpay, Cash App, and, yes, the streaming music service Tidal. So Willem and I really got into where Square is headed next with AI and automation, why he’s excited about crypto and Bitcoin specifically, and even what it means that the US is discontinuing the penny. Links: Square’s public roadmap | Square Jack Dorsey is reorganizing the entirety of Block | Fortune How Block turned Square into a financial services giant | Fast Company Block to roll out bitcoin payments on Square | Square Square buys $170 million worth of bitcoin | CNBC Square, Jack Dorsey’s payments company, changes its name to Block | NYT The penny dies at 232 | NYT 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
    Exibir mais Exibir menos
    1 hora e 14 minutos
  • The tiny team trying to keep AI from destroying everything

    The tiny team trying to keep AI from destroying everything
    Dec 4 2025
    Today, I’m talking with Verge senior AI reporter Hayden Field about some of the people responsible for studying AI and deciding in what ways it might… well, ruin the world. Those folks work at Anthropic as part of a group called the societal impacts team, which Hayden just spent time with for a profile she published this week on The Verge. The team is just nine people out of more than 2,000 who work at Anthropic, and their only job, as the team members themselves say, is to investigate and publish quote "inconvenient truths” about AI. That of course brings up a whole host of problems, the most important of which is whether this team can remain independent, or even exist at all, as it publicizes findings about Anthropic's own products that might be unflattering or even politically fraught. Links: It’s their job to keep AI from destroying everything | The Verge Anthropic details how it measures Claude’s wokeness | The Verge White House orders tech companies to make AI bigoted again | The Verge Chaos and lies: Why Sam Altman was booted from OpenAI | The Verge How Elon Musk Is remaking Grok in his image | NYT Anthropic tries to defuse White House backlash | Axios New AI battle: White House vs. Anthropic | Axios Anthropic will pursue gulf state investments after all | Wired 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
    Exibir mais Exibir menos
    38 minutos
  • IBM CEO Arvind Krishna says there is no AI bubble after all

    IBM CEO Arvind Krishna says there is no AI bubble after all
    Dec 1 2025
    IBM was instrumental to the entire 20th century of computing — but it's a lot harder for most of us to see what it's been up to during this century. That's because it's fully an enterprise company, and CEO Arvind Krishna says that business is booming. But there’s a huge change coming to that business as well, as Watson-style deep learning has given way to LLMs and generative AI. Sure, Arvind says IBM got there a little too early. But he doesn’t seem concerned that IBM would be stuck on the sidelines. Read the full interview transcript on The Verge. Links: Computer wins on ‘Jeopardy!’: Trivial, it’s not | New York Times (2011) What Ever Happened to IBM’s Watson? | New York Times (2021) America Forgot About IBM Watson. Is ChatGPT Next? | The Atlantic IBM acquires Red Hat | The Verge IBM and Groq Partner to Accelerate Enterprise AI Deployment | IBM IBM’s Jerry Chow on the future of quantum computing | Decoder IBM: quantum computing partnership with AMD is bearing fruit | 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. Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is 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
    Exibir mais Exibir menos
    1 hora e 10 minutos
  • What the climate story gets wrong

    What the climate story gets wrong
    Nov 24 2025
    Hey everyone, it's Nilay. It’s been great being back in the Decoder chair this fall, and we’ve got a bunch of great episodes coming up to round out the year. But the production team is off this week for the holiday, so today, we’re going to share this episode of The Gray Area with you. This time, host Sean Illing is talking to data scientist Hannah Ritchie — about climate science and how although the crisis is definitely real, it’s not all bad news. There are actually a lot of great indicators out there in the data that show real progress in limiting emissions and boosting clean energy. It’s a nuanced, hopeful take at a time when, admittedly, it kind of feels like all the news about everything is pretty doom and gloom. Links: We can have growth while fighting climate change | Vox The Grey Area | Apple Podcasts Clearing the Air | Hannah Ritchie 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. Our editor is Ursa Wright. The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
    Exibir mais Exibir menos
    51 minutos
  • The DoorDash Problem: How AI browsers are a huge threat to Amazon

    The DoorDash Problem: How AI browsers are a huge threat to Amazon
    Nov 20 2025
    Okay, let’s talk about AI and what I’ve been calling the “DoorDash problem.” This is about to define the next battle in AI, and it might completely transform not only how you order a sandwich, but also how the entire internet economy works in general. If you’ve been listening to the show this past year, you’ve heard me bring up the Doordash problem nearly a dozen times. I’ve been asking CEOs and leaders in tech and AI about it any chance I can get. Now, a lawsuit between Amazon and Perplexity is bringing this exact issue to the forefront, kicking off a major AI browser fight that could define the future of agents and the web itself. Links: Amazon and Perplexity have kicked off the great AI web browser fight | The Verge Amazon sues to stop Perplexity from using AI tool to buy stuff | Bloomberg Amazon's Cease and Desist letter to Perplexity | Amazon Bullying Is not innovation | Perplexity Amazon gets hit by a Comet | Platformer Humans Only! Why Amazon doesn’t want AI shoppers | NY Mag Amazon vs Perplexity: the AI agent war has arrived | The Guardian Amazon ad revenue soars 24 percent to $17.7 billion | THR 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
    Exibir mais Exibir menos
    31 minutos