Decoder with Nilay Patel

2020 presidential candidate Tom Steyer talks with Recode's Teddy Schleiefer about income inequality and the need for a wealth tax in America, what separates him from fellow ultra-wealthy candidate Michael Bloomberg, and why we should expect the government to solve problems — not plutocrats who have pledged to give their money away. Steyer also discusses the importance of grassroots organizing on t...

Writer Ben Mezrich talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about his latest book Bitcoin Billionaires and his previous books, including The Accidental Billionaires, which was adapted into the movie The Social Network. Mezrich, who specializes in "true stories about young people doing crazy things," discusses the controversies around how he depicted Mark Zuckerberg in The Accidental Billionaires, how Zuck...

Historian Margaret O'Mara talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about her latest book, The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America. She explains how the government catalyzed the digital revolution starting in the 1960s, the reasons tech power coalesced in suburban California, and why tech history must be considered a part of political history — even though the industry has tried in recent deca...

Neal Katyal, a partner at the law firm Hogan Lovells, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his new book Impeach: The Case against Donald Trump. Katyal explains why he believes the “evidence will be too strong” against President Trump, ending his first term prematurely, and argues that if he were Trump's lawyer his advice would be to resign. He also talks about the inability of the DC establishme...

MakerBot CEO Nadav Goshen talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about the company's Method X industrial printer, which Goshen says will foster innovation by making it easier to manufacture real products. He also talks about the setbacks to the initial hype that 3-D printers would be as accessible and commonplace as toothbrushes; how teachers use MakerBot's smaller 3-D printer Replicator in the classroo...

Andrea Matwyshyn, the associate dean of innovation at Penn State Law, talks with Kara Swisher's executive producer, Erica Anderson, about the integration of technology with biology, a trend Matwyshyn terms the "internet of bodies." She explains what that means in real world terms, why someone might want to implant a computer chip in their bodies, and the potential risks and security concerns, incl...

Deborah Rutter, the president of Washington, DC's John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about the Center's new free immersive learning spaces, REACH, which offer visitors the chance to participate in and look behind the scenes of many kinds of performances. Rutter also discusses how technology has impacted the public's relationship with art and education,...

Axon CEO Rick Smith talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his company's best known product (the Taser), how it's thinking about the ethical implications of new products aimed at police, and the controversies around facial recognition in body cameras. Plus: Is the weapon of the future a pistol that doesn't kill you? Featuring: Rick Smith (@AxonRick), CEO of Axon (@Axon_us) and author of The End of...

Barry Friedman, the director of The Policing Project at New York University's School of Law, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about making police more accountable, the ethics of emerging technologies like AI and facial recognition, and the missing regulations that affect local communities in the US. Friedman also talks about his work with the company that created the Taser, Axon International — wh...

Recode's Kara Swisher and her executive producer Erica Anderson talk with a panel of entrepreneurs in Valparaiso, Indiana: Sarah Hallberg, the Medical Director of Virta Health; Eric Christopher, the co-founder and CEO of Zylo; and Robin Fleming, the CEO of Anvl. They discuss the positives and negatives of being tech entrepreneurs in an area not typically associated with the digital revolution, inc...

Venture capitalist Jana Messerschmidt, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about how she became a partner at Lightspeed and the co-founder of an all-female group of angel investors called #ANGELS. Messerschmidt previously worked at DivX, Netflix, and Twitter, and also discusses the early days of video streaming online and how Netflix timed the market perfectly. Plus: Why #ANGELS doesn't invest only i...

Susan Rice, the former US ambassador to the United Nations and National Security Advisor under President Obama, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about the "ass backwards" way President Trump has approached foreign policy and her new book, Tough Love: My Story of the Things Worth Fighting For. Rice explains the problem with isolationism and selfishness as policies, and says the current administrati...

Robert Jackson, one of the five commissioners on the Securities and Exchange Commission, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about how the SEC works and the problem with perpetual dual-class stock at companies like WeWork, Facebook, and Google. Jackson also explains why he opposes two proposed rule changes that would make it harder for activists to challenge a CEO's power, why the NYSE and Nasdaq are...

Reddit co-founder and Initialized Capital managing partner Alexis Ohanian talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about how he became a "dadvocate" for paid paternity leave. Ohanian explains how the medical complications faced by his wife, tennis star Serena Williams, woke him up to the problem, and how time off for fathers can help mothers, as well as female coworkers. He also discusses the problem with...

Writer and health advocate Ted Baxter talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his book, Relentless: How a Massive Stroke Changed My Life for the Better. Baxter, a former managing director at the hedge fund Citadel, had the stroke when he was only 41, and recounts how doctors initially misdiagnosed his symptoms; he also discusses the recovery process, which accelerated after he accepted that he coul...

Airbnb CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about the recent mass shooting at an Airbnb in Orinda, Calif., how the company is changing its policies to keep guests safer, and what Chesky wishes he had done differently when Airbnb was smaller. They also discuss Airbnb's first brush with notoriety in 2011 and how Chesky "bungled" his response at the time, the importance of...

MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about her new podcast Modern Ruhles, the Trump voters who get overlooked by the media, and why Wall Streeters afraid of Elizabeth Warren should "look in the goddamn mirror." Ruhle also discusses her unusual path to working in the media, by way of Credit Suisse; the importance of the question "Are you better off in 2020 than you were in...

In this special episode of Recode Decode, Kara Swisher checks in with some of the organizers of the Google walkout, who came on her show in November 2018 after leading a 20,000-worker protest. Later in the show, Kara's executive producer Erica Anderson (herself one of the organizers who has since left Google) talks with some of the people who were inspired by the 2018 walkouts to continue fighting...

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about why he leaked highly classified information in 2013, why that doesn't make him a "traitor," and his new book, Permanent Record. Snowden also talks about how his youthful love of the US government and the early internet turned into skepticism; how his life has changed since going to Moscow; and why he believes Facebook is as un...

Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Ben Horowitz talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about the state of venture capital, diversity in tech, and his new book, What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture. Horowitz also discusses the impact of SoftBank's $100 billion Vision Fund on Silicon Valley, why he wouldn't invest in a social or mobile startup today, and what former CEO Travis Kalan...

Conservative analyst Bill Kristol talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about the impeachment effort against President Trump, how politics has entered a "crisis of truth" in the era of Fox News and social media, and the steps that should be taken pre-emptively to ensure that the 2020 elections are free and fair. Kristol also predicts that Trump could be "impeached by Thanksgiving," and explains why he...

Gary Cohn, the former Director of the National Economic Council and former chief economic adviser to President Trump, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about what he's done since leaving the Trump administration, including a "significant" investment and advisory position he's taken up in a mobile security company called Hoyos Integrity. Cohn explains how Hoyos is developing a more secure phone for...

Recode's Kara Swisher talks to the creators of two new plays that intersect with tech issues: Heidi Schreck, the former star and playwright of What the Constitution Means to Me, and the writer and director of Right to Be Forgotten — Sharyn Rothstein and Seema Sueko. Schreck took the name of her play from a series of debate competitions she competed in as a teenager, but has developed a more compli...

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ronan Farrow talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about his new book, Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators, which details the extreme lengths men like Harvey Weinstein have gone to escape accountability for sexual abuse. He discusses why other journalists before him couldn’t nail the Weinstein story, and how the powerful Hollywood produce...

Filmmaker Ken Burns talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his latest documentary series "Country Music," in which he explores the history of the genre, its place in the larger American musical landscape, and the powerful universality of "three chords and the truth." Burns says that unlike rock and jazz, country music is largely a story about powerful women, and also unpacks the ways in which it r...