Decoder with Nilay Patel

The Verge

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.

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975 episodes
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Avg 56 min
English

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#75
Sep 19, 2016 · 55 min
Recode Decode: John Hanke, CEO, Niantic
Niantic CEO John Hanke talks with Recode's Kara Swisher and Ina Fried about the company's hit mobile game Pokémon Go and what happens now that the initial hype around it has "stabilized." Future updates to the game will include new types of Pokémon, trading with other players and possibly battling with your friends. Hanke also reflects on his first company Keyhole, which was bought by Google and became Google Earth, and why augmented reality is a more important technology than virtual reality. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
#74
Sep 12, 2016 · 58 min
Recode Decode: Benchmark partner Bill Gurley
Benchmark general partner Bill Gurley talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about life as a venture capitalist and why he's still worried about a bubble, a topic he has written about extensively. Great entrepreneurs could raise money at any time, Gurley argues, but when funding is easy to come by, it invites in entitled and less talented startup founders, as well as unwanted government regulation. He also discusses sitting on the board of Uber, challenges faced by its CEO, Travis Kalanick, and why the ridesharing company is unlikely to go public "any time in the near future." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
#73
Sep 6, 2016 · 56 min
Recode Decode: Stacy Brown-Philpot, CEO, TaskRabbit
TaskRabbit CEO Stacy Brown-Philpot chats with Recode's Kara Swisher about how her company and others are changing the definition of work. During her previous stint as TaskRabbit's COO, Brown-Philpot oversaw a major shift in how the company defines itself and made its service far more reliable, at the cost of a yearlong restructuring and employee layoffs. She discusses what's next for the sharing economy and why consolidation may be ahead. Brown-Philpot also talks about being one of the few black female CEOs in tech, and what can be done at all levels of a company to improve the diversity conversation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
#72
Aug 29, 2016 · 56 min
Recode Decode: Quip CEO Bret Taylor
Quip CEO and Twitter board member Bret Taylor talks with Recode's Kara Swisher and Kurt Wagner about the reality of trying and sometimes failing as an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. A former Facebook CTO, he reflects on how Mark Zuckerberg's company culture balanced good execution with a willingness to fail. Taylor also discusses Quip's $750 million acquisition by Salesforce, how Twitter is responding to abuse and why so many Silicon Valley companies have trouble with diversity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
#71
Aug 22, 2016 · 52 min
Recode Decode: Tristan Walker, CEO, Walker & Company
Walker & Company Brands founder and CEO Tristan Walker talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about how technology can disrupt the health and beauty industry. Walker & Company's shaving brand, Bevel, is aimed at people of color who are underserved by the big cosmetics companies, and Walker says he plans to focus even more on personalized products those competitors can't deliver. An alumnus of Twitter, Foursquare and Andreessen Horowitz, he also discusses his problems with tech companies' "culture fit," and why those who say they can't find talented black and Latino tech workers are spouting "complete bullshit." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
#70
Aug 15, 2016 · 38 min
Recode Decode: Mike Cannon-Brookes, co-CEO, Atlassian
Atlassian co-CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about co-founding an enterprise software company in Sydney, Australia, in 2002. Cannon-Brookes reflects on Atlassian's successful American IPO and the differences between his team and tech companies that start in other parts of the world. Rather than trying to beat Silicon Valley at its own game, he says, the right approach for Australia is to nurture its own tech talent while building bridges across the ocean. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
#69
Aug 8, 2016 · 41 min
Recode Decode: Sallie Krawcheck, CEO, Ellevest
Sallie Krawcheck, formerly the CFO of Citi Group and the CEO of Merrill Lynch, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about launching Ellevest, a new online investment platform for women. Krawcheck says the male-dominated world of finance overlooks the needs of female customers, and that women invest differently. She also discusses the 20-20 hindsight of the 2008 financial crisis, the danger of another downturn and why being an entrepreneur is "harder than running Merrill Lynch." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
#68
Aug 1, 2016 · 38 min
Recode Decode: Eric Jackson, activist investor, Yahoo
Eric Jackson, a longtime activist investor in Yahoo and the managing director of SpringOwl Asset Management, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about the momentous deal that will sell Yahoo's core business to Verizon for nearly $5 billion. Jackson reflects on how he came to be a champion, and then a critic, of Yahoo's final CEO, Marissa Mayer, and whether saving the pioneering internet company was doomed from the start. He also suggests that the end of an independent Yahoo carries some lessons for other tech companies moving forward. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
#67
Jul 25, 2016 · 41 min
Recode Decode: "Chaos Monkeys" author Antonio García-Martinez
Antonio García-Martinez, author of the new tell-all book, "Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley," talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about starting a company, getting acquired by Twitter, and defecting to Facebook one year before its IPO. García-Martinez knew from the start that he wanted to write a book, and the end result doesn't mince words with its subjects. He says one of the big takeaways from "Chaos Monkeys" is that Silicon Valley constantly lies to itself, and that that mass delusion has helped it succeed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
#66
Jul 18, 2016 · 34 min
Recode Decode: Peloton CTO Yony Feng
Peloton CTO Yony Feng talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about how the indoor cycling company is trying to shake up in-home exercise programs with its custom fitness bike, which sells for $2,000. Peloton broadcasts 12 live spinning classes to those bikes every day and challenges its bike owners to compete for a spot on its global leaderboards. Feng discusses how the bike compares to other techie fitness gear and why Peloton may be interested in virtual reality — just not right now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
#65
Jul 11, 2016 · 50 min
Recode Decode: "Hamilton" producer Jeffrey Seller
"Hamilton" lead producer Jeffrey Seller talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about how the hit Broadway musical goes forward now that three of its stars — Lin-Manuel Miranda, Leslie Odom Jr. and Phillipa Soo — have taken their final bows. Seller says he avoids or doesn't understand much of Silicon Valley's tech obsessions, and praises the power of live theater as an antidote to gadget addiction. He explains how "Hamilton" and Ticketmaster have tried to thwart ticket-buying bots behind the scenes, and reflects on some of his other Broadway productions, including "Rent" and "In the Heights." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
#64
Jul 4, 2016 · 46 min
Recode Decode: Gary Zenkel, President, NBC Olympics
NBC Olympics President Gary Zenkel talks with Recode's Ina Fried about how the network is building on the digital reach of the Summer Games via livestreaming, virtual reality, Snapchat and more. Zenkel says NBC and Samsung expect to produce two to three hours of virtual reality content per day throughout the Games. He also addresses concerns about the Zika virus and politics in Rio de Janeiro, but says he's not worried about their effect on the Olympics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
#63
Jun 27, 2016 · 43 min
Recode Decode: Donna Dubinsky and Jeff Hawkins, co-founders, Numenta
Donna Dubinsky and Jeff Hawkins — the co-founders of Palm, Handspring and Numenta — talk with Recode's Kara Swisher about their efforts to decode the human brain. They say everything that makes us human, from language to art to engineering, derives from the same learning algorithm, and Numenta hopes to ultimately teach that algorithm to a machine. Dubinsky and Hawkins explain why we shouldn't be afraid that machines will take over the world and why they believe artificial intelligence will drive advancements in technology for the rest of the century. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
#62
Jun 20, 2016 · 39 min
Recode Decode: Daphne Koller, president, Coursera
Coursera president and co-founder Daphne Koller talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about how she helped build the popular online learning platform after a successful early experiment at Stanford University. Koller says the future of higher education is a mixture of online and offline learning, with people continually going back to school in some form throughout their lives, rather than stopping in their 20s. She discusses whether universities themselves are at risk of going extinct and whether technologies like artificial intelligence and virtual reality could replace a college professor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
#61
Jun 13, 2016 · 42 min
Recode Decode: Chelsea Handler
Chelsea Handler, the host of Netflix's new talk show "Chelsea," chats with Recode's Kara Swisher about going digital after seven years on the cable channel E! She runs "Chelsea" like a normal TV show, just not a late-night one, because her viewers might watch at any time, in any order. Handler says re-entering the public eye meant adjusting to changes in social media (hello, Snapchat!) and discusses what she thinks of transgender bathroom rights, Donald Trump and Tesla's Elon Musk. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
#60
Jun 6, 2016 · 33 min
Recode Decode: Kim Kardashian
Reality TV star and entrepreneur Kim Kardashian talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about why she doesn't use Facebook, but loves Snapchat. Kardashian credits her family's career success to social media and has successfully tapped digital partners at Whalerock to develop a paid-subscription app and the emoji app Kimojis, which has rocketed to the top of the charts on both iPhone and Android. Coming soon: Kimojis merch. She also chats about her penchant for naked selfies, being a parent and her husband Kanye West's yearning for a self-driving car. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
#59
May 30, 2016 · 41 min
Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter
Maverick Carter, the business manager for basketball superstar LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers, talks to Recode's Kurt Wagner about how the internet has radically changed athletes' place in the media world. Athletes are no longer reliant on newspapers and TV networks to tell their stories, which means that they -- and the people they trust -- can hone and craft the narrative more than ever before. Carter also talks about what he learned working at Nike, the controversial live TV special "The Decision" and James's acting roles in "Trainwreck" and, maybe, "Space Jam 2." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
#58
May 23, 2016 · 40 min
Recode Decode: JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon
JPMorgan Chase president, chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about how big banks are both competing against and collaborating with Silicon Valley. He explains why tech company IPOs have sharply declined in 2016 but says he's certain they will return. Dimon also reflects on the anger directed at banks throughout the 2016 election and what the next president needs to do to make things right. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
#57
May 16, 2016 · 47 min
Recode Decode: Rep. Nancy Pelosi
U.S. Rep. and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi sits down with Recode's Kara Swisher to talk about the 2016 election, immigration reform and how Congress is trying to work with and learn from the tech industry. Pelosi says she's certain that Hillary Clinton will defeat Donald Trump in the presidential race and explains why she sides with Apple in its ongoing encryption battle against the FBI. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
#56
May 9, 2016 · 48 min
Recode Decode: Walt Mossberg
On this special episode of "Recode Decode," we celebrate the relaunch of Recode.net with an extended interview between Recode co-founders Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg. In 1991, Mossberg was laughed out of the Secretary of State's office for announcing that he would start writing about technology. Three media companies and 25 years later, he reflects on the changing landscape of tech journalism. Plus: Kara and Walt preview the upcoming Code Conference and look back on a decade of conference highlights and lowlights. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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