Recode Decode, Hosted By Kara Swisher

Decoder is off this week for a short end-of-summer break. We’ll be back with both our interview and explainer episodes after the Labor Day holiday. In the meantime we thought we’d re-share an explainer that’s taken on a whole new relevance in the last couple weeks, about deepfakes and misinformation. In February, I talked with Verge policy editor Adi Robertson how the generative AI boom might start fueling a wave of election-related misinformation, especially deepfakes and manipulated media. It’s not been quite an apocalyptic AI free-for-all out there. But the election itself took some really unexpected turns in these last couple of months. Now we’re heading into the big, noisy home stretch, and use of AI is starting to get really weird — and much more troublesome.  Links:  The AI-generated hell of the 2024 election | The Verge AI deepfakes are cheap, easy, and coming for the 2024 election | Decoder Elon Musk posts deepfake of Kamala Harris that violates X policy | The Verge Donald Trump posts a fake

Decoder is off this week for a short end-of-summer break. We’ll be back with both our interview and explainer episodes after the Labor Day holiday, and I’m very excited for what we have coming up on the schedule.  But while we’re out, we’d like to highlight a great episode from the Land of the Giants podcast, which is over at Vulture this season, for a deep dive into Disney. Can it be a tech company? It’s the question that defines the struggles of its streaming service Disney Plus — and it also tells us where it needs to go in the future to compete with Amazon, Apple, and Netflix.  Links:  Disney Is a Tech Company? | Vulture Why Disney plussed itself | Vulture Disney’s CEO drama explained, with Julia Alexander | Decoder The clock is ticking on Disney’s streaming strategy | Decoder The Disney Plus, Hulu, and Max streaming bundle is now available | The Verge Disney reportedly wants to bring always-on channels to Disney Plus | The Verge How baseball's tech team built the future of television | The

The Onion is a comedy institution — and like everything else in media, it went on a pure nightmare hell ride in the 2010s. We could do an entire episode on the G/O Media calamity, but the short version is: A bunch of friends just managed to buy The Onion, and they're busy relaunching the website, going back to print, and, clearly, having a blast doing it. CEO Ben Collins and chief product officer Danielle Strle joined me to explain how that even works in 2024. Links:  The Onion sold by G/O Media | The New York Times Sam Reich on revamping the game show - and Dropout’s success | NPR Platformer’s Casey Newton on surviving the great media collapse | Decoder Craig Silverman: Digital advertising’s structure has been weaponized | Digiday US Warns a Gaza Ceasefire Would Only Benefit Humanity | The Onion The Truth is Paywalled but the Lies are Free | Current Affairs A newsroom expands and The Onion is out again on paper | Washington Post Report: Nuclear War Sounds Fucking Amazing Right Now | The Onion

Today I’m talking with Thomas Dohmke, the CEO of GitHub. GitHub is the platform for managing code – but since 2018, it’s also been owned by Microsoft. We talk a lot about how independent GitHub really is inside of Microsoft — especially now that Microsoft is all-in on AI, and Gitbhub Copilot is one of the biggest AI product success stories that exists right now. But his perspective on AI is pretty refreshing: It’s clear there’s still a long way to go. Links:  Original GitHub landing page | Wayback Machine Introducing Entitlements | GitHub Blog ashtom (Thomas Dohmke) | GitHub The developers suing over GitHub Copilot got dealt a major blow in court | The Verge GitHub Copilot can now help start a project with AI | The Verge GitHub users can mess around with different AI models | The Verge GitHub’s AI-powered Copilot will help you write code for $10 a month | The Verge Google DeepMind co-founder joins Microsoft as CEO of its new AI division | The Verge Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/239

There’s a major internet speech regulation currently making its way through Congress, and it has a really good chance of becoming law. It’s called KOSPA: the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act, which passed in the Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support late last month. At a high level, KOSPA could radically change how tech platforms handle speech in an effort to try and make the internet safer for minors.  It’s a controversial bill, with a lot going on. To break it all down, I invited on Verge senior policy reporter Lauren Feiner, who’s been covering these bills for months now, to explain what’s happening, what these bills actually do, and what the path forward for this legislation looks like. Links:  Senate passes the Kids Online Safety Act | The Verge The teens lobbying against the Kids Online Safety Act | The Verge How the Kids Online Safety Act was dragged into a political war | NYT House Republicans won’t bring up KOSA in its current form | Punchbowl News Why a landmark kids online safety

Today, I’m talking with Replika founder and CEO Eugenia Kuyda, and I will just tell you right away, we get all the way to people marrying their AI companions, so get ready. It’s a ride. Replika’s basic pitch is pretty simple: what if you had an AI friend? The company offers avatars you can curate to your liking that pretend to be human, so they can be your friend, your therapist, or even your date. That’s a lot for a private company running an iPhone app, and Eugenia and I talked a lot about the consequences of this idea and what it means for the future of human relationships.  Links:  The AI boyfriend business is booming | Axios Speak, Memory | The Verge Your new AI Friend is almost ready to meet you | Verge What happens when sexting chatbots dump their human lovers | Bloomberg AI chatbot company Replika restores erotic roleplay for some users — Reuters Replika’s New AI App Is Like Tinder but With Sexy Chatbots — Gizmodo Replika’s new AI therapy app tries to bring you to a zen island — The Ver

Today, I’m talking to Jonathan Kanter, the assistant attorney general for antitrust at the United States Department of Justice. This is Jonathan’s second time on the show, and it’s a bit of an emergency podcast situation. On Monday, a federal court issued a monumental decision in the DOJ’s case against Google, holding that Google Search and the text ads in search are monopolies.  The court hasn’t decided on the penalties for all this yet — that process is scheduled to start next month. But it’s the biggest antitrust win against a tech company since the Microsoft case from two decades ago. I wanted to know what Jonathan thought of the ruling, what it means for the law, and most importantly, what remedies he’s going to seek to try and restore competition in search.  Links:  Judge rules that Google ‘is a monopolist’ in US antitrust case | The Verge All the spiciest parts of the Google antitrust ruling | The Verge Now that Google is a monopolist, what’s next? | The Verge DOJ’s Kanter says the antitrust f

Today, I’m talking with Glenn Fogel, the CEO of Booking Holdings, which owns a large portfolio of familiar travel brands: OpenTable, Kayak, and Priceline, as well as its largest subsidiary, Booking.com. This episode is pure Decoder bait all the way through — from Booking’s structure, to competition with hotels and airlines increasingly going direct to consumer, even to how European regulation affects competition with Google. Oh, and of course, how Booking is incorporating AI; Glenn has some fascinating thoughts there. Glenn really got into it with me — there’s a lot going on in this space, and it’s interesting because there are so many players and so much competition across so many of the layers, even among Booking’s own subsidiaries. I think we probably could have gone twice as long.  Links:  The oral history of travel’s greatest acquisition | Skift Long-term travel looks like a strong growth industry, says Booking’s Glenn Fogel | CNBC Ryanair wins screen-scraping case against Booking.com | Airways

Every time we talk about AI, we get one big piece of feedback that I really want to dive into: how the lightning-fast explosion of AI tools affects the climate. AI takes a lot of energy, and there’s a huge unanswered question as to whether using all that juice for AI is actually worth it, both practically and morally.  It’s messy and complicated and there are a bunch of apparent contradictions along the way — so it’s perfect for Decoder. Verge senior science reporter Justine Calma joins me to see if we can untangle this knot. Links:  This startup wants to capture carbon and help data centers cool down | The Verge Google’s carbon footprint balloons in its Gemini AI era | The Verge Taking a closer look at AI’s supposed energy apocalypse | Ars Technica AI is exhausting the power grid. Tech firms are seeking a miracle | WaPo AI Is already wreaking havoc on global power systems | Bloomberg What do Google’s AI answers cost the environment? | Scientific American AI is an energy hog | MIT Tech Review

Today, I’m talking with Hanneke Faber, the CEO of Logitech. Hanneke’s still pretty fresh to the role: She joined the company last October, after former CEO Bracken Darrell left following the pandemic boom and subsequent economic slowdown that halted Logitech’s growth. Hanneke, who comes from Unilever and Procter & Gamble, is new to the world of consumer electronics.  So we talked about the structural changes she’s already making at Logitech, and the changes she intends to make in the future. It sounds like some Logitech products, like its smart home doorbells and cameras, are not long for this world. You’ll also hear Hanneke talk about a concept called the “forever mouse” — a mouse you buy once and upgrade over time with new software features — features that of course might carry a subscription fee. Subscription mice! It’s a lot. Links:  How Logitech bet big on work from home | Decoder Logitech CEO Bracken Darrell is leaving for another job | The Verge Webcams have become impossible to find, and prices

The Supreme Court has just taken on the entire idea of the US administrative state — and the Court is winning. Earlier this month, a conservative majority overturned a longstanding legal principle called Chevron deference. The implications are enormous for every possible kind of regulation — and net neutrality looks poised to be the first victim. Verge editor Sarah Jeong joins me to explain why. Links:  Supreme Court overrules Chevron, kneecapping federal regulators | The Verge What SCOTUS just did to broadband, the right to repair, the environment, and more | The Verge FCC votes to restore net neutrality | The Verge Reinstatement of net neutrality rules temporarily halted by appeals court | The Verge Clarence Thomas' 38 Vacations: The Other Billionaires Who Have Treated the Supreme Court Justice to Luxury Travel | ProPublica The Supreme Court's coming war with Joe Biden | Vox Transcript:  Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Our producers are Kat

Today, I’m talking with Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe. RJ was on the show last September when we chatted at the Code Conference, but the past 10 months have seen a whirlwind of change throughout the car industry and at Rivian in particular. This year alone, the company unveiled five new models in its lineup and also just announced a $5 billion joint venture with Volkswagen. We got into all that and more.  If you’re a Decoder listener, you’ve heard me talk to a lot of car CEOs on the show, but it’s rare to talk to a car company founder, and RJ was game to talk about basically anything — even extremely minor feature requests I pulled from the forums. It’s a fun one. Links: Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe isn't scared of the Cybertruck | Decoder VW will invest up to $5 billion in Rivian as part of new EV joint venture | The Verge Rivian blazed a trail with its adventure EVs — can it stay on top? | The Verge Rivian R2 revealed: a $45,000 electric off-roader for the masses | The Verge Rivian surprises with

This week I’m talking to Matthew Ball, who was last on the show in 2022 to talk about his book “The Metaverse: How it Will Revolutionize Everything.” It’s 2024 and it’s safe to say that has not happened yet. But Matt’s still on the case — in fact he just released an almost complete update of the book, now with the much more sober title, “Building the Spatial Internet.” Matt and I talked a lot about where the previous metaverse hype cycle landed us, and what there is to learn from these boom and bust waves. We talked about the Apple Vision Pro quite a bit; if you read or watched my review when it came out, you’ll know I think the Vision Pro is almost an end point for one set of technologies. I wanted to know if Matt felt the same and what needs to happen to make all of this more mainstream and accessible. Links:  Fully revised and updated edition to the “The Metaverse” | W.W. Norton Apple Vision Pro review: magic, until it’s not | The Verge Apple’s Vision Pro: five months later | Vergecast Is the meta

Today, I’m talking with Arati Prabhakar, the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. That’s a cabinet-level position, where she works as the chief science and tech advisor to President Biden. Arati and her team of about 140 people at the OSTP are responsible for advising the president on not only big developments in science but also about major innovations in tech, much of which come from the private sector.  Her job involves guiding regulatory efforts, government investment, and setting priorities around big-picture projects like Biden’s cancer moonshot and combating climate change. More recently, Arati has been spending a lot of time talking about the future of AI and semiconductors, so I had the opportunity to dig into both of those topics with her as the generative AI boom continues and the results of the CHIPS Act become more visible.  One note before we start: I sat down with Arati last month, just a couple of days before the first presidential debate and its aftermath, wh

Today I’m talking to Nicholas Thompson, the CEO of The Atlantic. I was really excited to talk to Nick. Like so many media CEOs, including Vox Media’s, he just signed a deal allowing OpenAI to use The Atlantic’s vast archives as training data, but he also has a rich background in tech. Before he was the CEO of The Atlantic, Nick was the editor-in-chief of Wired, where he set his sights on AI reporting well before anyone else. I was also really interested in asking Nick about the general sense that the AI companies are getting vastly more than they’re giving with these sorts of deals — yes, they’re paying some money, but I’ve heard from so many of you that the money might now be the point — that there’s something else going on here – that maybe allowing creativity to get commodified this way will come with a price tag so big money can never pay it back. If there is anyone who could get into it with me on that question, it’s Nick. Links:  Vox Media and The Atlantic sign content deals with OpenAI | The Verge

Canva got its start more than a decade ago as a different form of disruptive tech for creatives. It’s a web-based platform that makes design tools cheaper and accessible for individuals, schools, and businesses from tiny to enterprise. Melanie has big goals to grow the company — and try to do good in the process. Links:  Canva tackled digital design — and now the office suite is next | The Verge Canva Inks Deals With Warner Music Group, Merlin | Variety Canva founders join Bill Gates’ Giving Pledge to give away most of their fortune | Sydney Morning Herald Canva partnership tackling extreme poverty in Malawi one year on | GiveDirectly Canva’s Two-Step Plan: Celebrating 10 years of impact | Canva Adobe’s new terms of service aren’t the problem — it’s the trust | The Verge ‘The general perception is: Adobe is an evil company that will do whatever it takes to F its users.’ | The Verge Why Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen thinks AI is the future | The Verge Canva corporate 'Hamilton' cringe rap presentation g

It’s almost the Fourth of July, and that means it’s time for our annual grilling episode. This year, I’m talking with Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gertsacov, who has big plans for using very modern fan-based marketing techniques to expand the market for the company’s old-fashioned, fire-burning, aspirational product.  Links:  Big Green Egg Appoints a New CEO | CookOut News Big Green Egg 50th Anniversary 1974-2024 | Big Green Egg Yep, Big Green Egg Just Made a Beer Keg | Gear Patrol AI could kill creative jobs that ‘shouldn’t have been there in the first place,’ OpenAI CTO says | Fortune Campfires, explained | Vox An ‘Epidemic’ of Loneliness Threatens Health of Americans | Scientific American  RIP: Here are 70 things millennials have killed | Mashable “Genius of the AND” | Jim Collins Keurig's attempt to 'DRM' its coffee cups totally backfired | The Verge A Look at the Danny Meyer Documentary The Restaurateur | Eater Transcript:  https://www.theverge.com/e/23952121 Credits: Decoder is a produc

Today, we’re talking about politics and lobbying in America. It’s hard to imagine a time when the influence of big corporations and billionaires didn’t touch every part of American politics, but the kind of lobbying we have now didn’t really exist before the 1970s. Now, our political debates about everything from energy, finance, and healthcare are deeply intertwined with corporations and their money — and new big players in tech now spend tons of political money of their own. To understand the structure of today’s political lobbying and how we go here, I brought Pulitzer Prize winner Brody Mullins on the show. Brody has a new book he co-wrote with his brother Luke Mullins called The Wolves of K Street: The Secret History of How Big Money Took Over Big Government, which came out last month. It’s a definitive history of modern lobbying in America, told through the lens of some of the industry’s most unsavory characters and the influence they’ve exerted on DC politics across decades.  Links: If Donald Trump

Today, I’m talking with Greg Peters, the co-CEO of Netflix. I caught up with Greg while he was at the Cannes Lions festival in France, which is basically the world’s biggest gathering of advertisers and marketers. It’s an increasingly important place for Greg to be, as Netflix’s new ad tier has nearly doubled in six months to more than 40 million subscribers and feels increasingly pivotal to the future of the company.  On top of that, Netflix is updating its famous culture memo, and I wanted to chat with Greg about the changes he’s making to that document, and how he’s thinking about maintaining that culture as Netflix grows into things like advertising and gaming. Links:  Netflix Culture Memo | Netflix Netflix Culture Memo (2009) | Netflix Streaming is cable now | The Verge Netflix’s ad tier hits 40 million users | The Verge Netflix is different now — and there’s no going back | The Verge  Netflix just fired the organizer of the trans employee walkout | The Verge Netflix doesn’t want to hear i

We’ve got a special episode of the show today – I was traveling last week, so Verge deputy editor Alex Heath and our new senior AI reporter Kylie Robison are filling in for me, with a very different kind of episode about AI. We talk a lot about AI in a broad sense on Decoder — it comes up in basically every single interview I do these days. But we don’t spend a ton of time on the day-to-day happenings of the AI industry itself. So we thought it would be a good idea to take a beat and have Alex and Kylie actually break down the modern AI boom as it exists today: The companies you need to know, the most important news of the last few months, and what it’s actually like to be fully immersed in this industry every single day. Links:  Google defends AI search results after they told us to put glue on pizza | The Verge Apple is putting ChatGPT in Siri for free later this year | The Verge AI will make money sooner than you’d think, says Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez | Decoder Humane is looking for a buyer after th