Decoder with Nilay Patel

In the aftermath of the pro-Trump attack on the Capitol, many online platforms, including both Twitter and Facebook, banned President Trump. In this week’s episode, Nilay Patel talks with regulation expert and law professor Daphne Keller, about a big problem: how to moderate what happens on the internet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today’s episode is with Beyond Meat founder and CEO Ethan Brown. Nilay and Ethan discuss how the company is doing since its IPO in 2019 and how they are fairing during the pandemic. The food supply chain has seen significant impact during COVID and there has been an increased demand for plant-based proteins during the pandemic, with meat shortages and more people cooking at home. They also talk ab...

Advertising is a huge part of the economy and something we all experience everyday through various mediums. In this episode, Nilay Patel talks with Cadillac CMO Melissa Grady about how advertising has been reinvented by technology — from data-driven insights to new social media platforms to the role of influencers in marketing. They also unpack how modern advertising works and where it's headed in...

Nilay Patel talks to Chris Best, cofounder and CEO of Substack, the subscription newsletter startup that’s taken the media industry by storm over the past few months. The conversation explores how Substack's business model could potentially impact the media industry, but also dives into the basic questions about running a media company -- how Substack makes money, how it’s going to scale while off...

On this episode of Decoder, Nilay talks with Shelli Taylor, the CEO of Alamo Drafthouse. Shelli stepped into her new role as CEO during the pandemic. In this conversation, Nilay and Shelli discuss the steps she had to take to get her company back on solid ground — including justifying high fixed costs of expensive lightbulbs — and how the government has failed to manage the pandemic effectively fo...

On this week’s episode of Decoder Nilay Patel talks to Phil Spencer, the guy in charge of Xbox at Microsoft. They discuss not only the next-generation Xbox and PS5 just arriving in stores now, but how gaming itself has become part of mainstream culture, a trend that has definitely accelerated during the pandemic. We’ve also reached an inflection point for game streaming: Google, Amazon, and Micros...

On this week’s episode of Decoder, Nilay Patel talks with Sal Khan, the co-founder and CEO of Khan Academy, a nonprofit online learning platform for students in kindergarten through high school. Khan Academy is an organization that exists because of technology. What started with Sal tutoring his niece in math over video using off the shelf cameras and software, has grown into an organization with...

On the first episode of Decoder, Nilay Patel interviews Mark Cuban. Mark is the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, he’s a tech investor, and is on the hit show, Shark Tank. The conversation, recorded as last week’s election results rolled in, covers how interwoven business, technology, and policy are, whether its 5G, or the NBA bubble, or AI, or his investments into healthcare -- if you want to unders...

It may seem like a strange time to launch a podcast about business when the pandemic has frozen so many things in place, but the future is still coming — people are building technology and making policy for it right now. And it’s important to talk to them. This is Decoder with Nilay Patel. New episodes coming November 10th. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After five years, Kara Swisher signs off as the host of Recode Decode. She and her producer Eric Johnson discuss five of the best moments in the show's 539-episode history; then, she talks with Vox Media CEO Jim Bankoff about the future of Vox as the COVID-19 crisis continues and the media grapples with what it can do to unwind systemic racism; and finally, she answers questions submitted by 10 of...

Former Google executive Sridhar Ramaswamy talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his new startup, Neeva, which promises to offer paying subscribers a search engine with no ads and without selling its users' data. Ramaswamy, who worked at Google from 2003 to 2018, talks about how it evolved into an advertising powerhouse, why people should care about the "incredibly personal" details revealed by th...

Former Patagonia CEO Rose Marcario talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about the company's history of activism, the Facebook ad boycott that Patagonia helped start, and what she hopes it will accomplish. Marcario explains how Patagonia chooses which battles to fight, what she thinks of other business leaders who take public stands — such as Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos — and why we need more "good actors" i...

Call Your Girlfriend co-host Aminatou Sow talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about upcoming book with Ann Friedman, Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close. Sow discusses "how [she] got bamboozled into getting business-married” to Friedman, why they went to therapy together, and why talking about your friendships with your friends is so important. She also talks about why she refuses to hang ou...

Harvard professor Samantha Power, the former US ambassador the United Nations, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about her 2019 memoir The Education of an Idealist, what idealism looks like now in America, and the Trump administration's deadly mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic — and what she would do differently were she in charge. Power also discusses how the Obama administration responded t...

The Hive authors Barry Lyga and Morgan Baden talk with Recode's Kara Swisher about how they came to write a young adult book about a social media dystopia, based on a cinematic idea from actor Jennifer Beals and producer Tom Jacobson. The 2019 book is set "five minutes in the future," where social media participation is mandated by the government for everyone over 13, which introduces some familia...

Symone Sanders, a senior advisor to Joe Biden and former national press secretary for Bernie Sanders, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about the 2020 campaign and her new memoir, No, You Shut Up: Speaking Truth to Power and Reclaiming America. Sanders reflects on her own political journey and explains why she's eager to support Biden this year — and why people who try to cast doubt on her career c...

Basecamp CEO Jason Fried talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about the company's new email product, Hey, which he describes as "the most ambitious and stupidest thing we’ve ever done." Fried also discusses how coronavirus proved that offices are not as important as other companies used to say, why Zoom calls "suck," and why Basecamp is charging $99/year for a personal Hey account, Plus: Why Uber is a...

Katie Couric, the former host of the Today Show and anchor of the CBS Evening News, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about why the current moment of political protest feels unlike anything that came before; the fine line between objectivity and advocacy in journalism; and her upcoming memoir, Unexpected. Couric also discusses the battle over Confederate history and art in the south, America's divi...

American historian and New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about her new podcast, The Last Archive, which investigates "who killed truth?" in the style of a true-crime show. Lepore discusses why the protests against systemic police violence represent America "at our very best," but explains why the two main competing theories of American history are both wrong — an...

Journalist and author Bart Gellman talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his newest book, Dark Mirror: Edward Snowden and the American Surveillance State. Gellman discusses how he got connected with Snowden ahead of his whistleblowing disclosures in 2013; how he reacted to the staggering size of the US government's digital surveillance apparatus; and the different waves of impact of the Snowden l...

Recode's Kara Swisher talks with three guests about how to take care of your mind, body, and spirit while in quarantine. Headspace co-founder Andy Puddicombe discusses the challenges of getting people to meditate, how to make your sleep more restful, and how to feel connected to loved ones you can't see right now; Peloton's head instructor Robin Arzon talks about the impact of COVID-19 on the comp...

Harvard Business School professor Frances Frei talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about the new book she wrote with her wife Anne Morriss, Unleashed: The Unapologetic Leader's Guide to Empowering Everyone Around You. Frei — who has previously worked with Uber, WeWork, and Riot Games to address culture crises — discusses what good leadership today looks like, the unfair treatment of women and people...

Lemonade CEO and co-founder Daniel Schreiber talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about what happens to an insurance in a crisis like COVID-19, how some of the money from Lemonade customers' premiums will be allocated to coronavirus relief, and whether the insurance industry can be fully automated. Schreiber also talks about Lemonade's decision to be a public benefit corporation, why that doesn't make...

New York Times Magazine writer-at-large Jon Mooallem talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his newest book, This Is Chance!: The Shaking of an All-American City, A Voice That Held It Together. It tells the story of a 9.2-magnitude earthquake that struck Anchorage, Alaska in 1964 and how a part-time radio reporter named Genie Chance held her community together. Mooallem recounts how he got his han...

Phil Howard, the Oxford Internet Institute director and author of Lie Machines, and Emily Bell, the director of Columbia University's Tow Center for Digital Journalism, talk with Recode's Kara Swisher about the state of disinformation and propaganda in the coronavirus pandemic and how what we're hearing this year compares to the state-organized propaganda that infected elections in 2016. They expl...