Decoding Tech

With the latest iPhone soon to be announced, we're sharingthis conversation from 2017 about how the first iPhone came to be. In this episode, John Markoff interviews original iPhone Engineers Nitin Ganatra, Scott Herz, and Hugo Fiennes. Part 2 of the conversation, featuring original iPhone Software Team Leader Scott Forstall will be released in 2 weeks. This conversation was recorded on June 2...

Long before online forums and communities like Reddit and Discord, and even before the World Wide Web, bulletin board systems (BBSs) reigned supreme. In the 1980s and '90s, millions of people participated in more than 100,000 BBSs. Kevin Driscoll, author of the award-winning book  The Modem World: A Prehistory of Social Media , and technology and society expert danah boyd joined CHM’s Marc Web...

With sales close to 17 million units, The Commodore 64 is the best-selling single personal computer model of all time. On December 7, 2007, John Markoff, tech reporter for The New York Times , moderated a panel at CHM to celebrate the Commodore's 25th anniversary. First, John chats with Jack Tramiel, founder of Commodore International, before being joined by former IBM exec William Lowe, Apple...

Recorded only a few months after Steve Jobs passed away, his award-winning biographer, Walter Isaacson, joined CHM's CEO at the time, John Hollar, to discuss one of the most celebrated figures in computer history. This conversation was recorded on December 13, 2011 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, as a part of the Revolutionaries series. To watch a video of this program...

On the 50th anniversary of the Alto, many of its creators and some of today’s leading inventors gathered at CHM to share the Alto’s legacy and discuss what we can expect for the future of computing research—centered today on artificial intelligence (AI). The program included two panels: In the first, CHM Trustee John Shoch, who worked at PARC as a graduate student, moderated a discussion with two...

Innovations in artificial intelligence are not only changing the present, they’re also revolutionizing the study of history. In this episode, an expert panel shares their groundbreaking work deciphering the Herculaneum scrolls, which were burned in the same volcanic eruption that destroyed nearby Pompeii and were thought to have been lost forever. The panel included: Nat Friedman, investor and ent...

Do you know who has your personal data? Experts featured in NOVA’s documentary,  Secrets In Your Data , explored this question and more on stage at CHM. The Panel included Eva Galperin from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Patrick Jackson of Disconnect, and Brewster Kahle from the Internet Archive Physician Alok Patel, who also hosted the NOVA episode, moderated. This conversation was recorded...

How can we ensure that every language—and the communities that speak them—can fully participate in the digital world? Hear from Unicode pioneers and language experts as they discuss the evolution of language support, the barriers to true linguistic inclusivity online, and why ensuring digital access is about more than just code—it’s about culture, identity, and the survival of languages. PANEL : R...

How can Chinese—a language with tens of thousands of characters and no alphabet—be input on a QWERTY keyboard with only a few dozen keys designed for English? Thomas Mullaney, professor of Chinese history at Stanford University, shares insights about this challenge from his book,  The Chinese Computer: a Global History of the Information Age in a conversation with Yangyang Chen, a research scholar...

From AI to data analysis and visualization, technology is reshaping the news. To discuss journalistic challenges presented by new technologies, CHM brought together Marian Chia-Ming Liu from the Washington Post, Jason Koebler from 404 Media, and Alex Reed from Mapping Black California. The conversation was moderated by David Yarnold, former executive editor of the San Jose Mercury News. This event...

Is AI a threat to humanity or a partner with the power to unlock our full potential? Reid Hoffman, cofounder of Inflection AI and former board member of OpenAI shared his insights and hopes for the future in a conversation with Anne Dwane of Village Global. This conversation was recorded on October 30, 2023, at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, as a part of the CHM Live ser...

Do Large Language Models like Chat GPT have the “sparks” of true intelligence, or are they merely “stochastic parrots,” lacking understanding and meaning. Hear a debate on this matter between University of Washington's computational linguist Emily Bender and OpenAI's Sébastien Bubeck. IEEE Spectrum Senior Editor Eliza Strickland moderates This program was a partnership with IEEE Spectrum a...

Khan Academy founder Sal Khan joined KQED’s Rachael Myrow on stage to share insights from his new book,  Brave New Words: How AI Will Revolutionize Education (and Why That's a Good Thing). This conversation was made possible by the generous support of the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, and was a partnership with Silicon Valley Reads. It was recorded on March 11, 2025, at the Computer History ...

Over the last fifteen years, India has evolved from a primarily cash-based society to the country with the highest volume of digital payments in the world. Hear how this was accomplished from one of the primary architects of India’s digital public infrastructure, Pramod Varma, in a discussion with M.R. Rangaswami, the founder of Indiaspora, CEF, and Sand Hill Group. This conversation was recorded...

Learn about the origin story of Bill Gates, one of the most influential and transformative business leaders and philanthropists of the modern age. In this episode Gates discusses his deeply personal new memoir, Source Code, in conversation with Patrick Collison, cofounder and CEO of Stripe. This conversation was recorded on February 11, 2025, at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Califo...

Thirty years ago, Blizzard Entertainment spawned  Warcraft , and then  World of Warcraft  a decade later, unleashing hordes of orcs and humans onto millions of fans' computer screens. Many of those fans were in attendance at CHM Live on December 10, 2024, to hear  New York Times  bestselling author and  Bloomberg News  reporter Jason Schreier discuss his new book,  Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, a...

In January 1984, Steve Jobs unveiled the Apple Macintosh, an "insanely great" computer "for the rest of us" that changed the world—and Apple itself. Moderated by tech journalist and author David Pogue, this anniversary event included three panels focused on the development, marketing and impact of the Mac. Panel 1 (3:59): Mac Development Team members Bill Atkinson, Steve Capps,...

AI expert and Stanford Professor Fei-Fei Li shares her experience and insights from more than two decades at the forefront of the field. Tech policy guru and current CEO of Renaissance Philanthropy Tom Kalil moderated the discussion, which was made possible by the generous support of the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation. This conversation was recorded on September 17, 2024 at the Computer History Mu...

Listen to excerpts from upcoming episodes of Decoding Tech. Coming soon from the Computer History Museum ! Episodes are recorded at the museum's CHM Live series of events.