#256
Aug 8, 2018 · 47 min
DW
BusinessTechnology
Decoder with Nilay Patel
The Verge
#18 in Business this weekDecoder 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.
- 978 episodes
- a few times a week
- Avg 56 min
- English
Counted on this page — what you have heard stays on this device, so it is not something the list can be paged by.
- DW
#256Aug 6, 2018 · 57 minRecode Decode: Sidecar co-founder Sunil Paul
Sidecar co-founder Sunil Paul talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his popular guest column for Recode, “The scooter wars will be a bloodbath, and Uber will win.” He elaborates on why that is and shares his thoughts about the broader transportation industry, including self-driving cars, bike-sharing and vertical lift and take-off vehicles like Larry Page’s Kitty Hawk “flying car.” Now primarily an investor, Paul also talks about why Sidecar couldn’t compete with Uber and Lyft — even though it created ride-hailing features that are now popular parts of their products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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#255Aug 1, 2018 · 28 minRecode Decode: Grab co-founder Hooi Ling Tan
Hooi Ling Tan, the co-founder of southeast Asian ride-hailing company Grab, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher at the 2018 Rise conference in Hong Kong. Tan says Grab is opening up a platform for more services beyond ride-hailing because it wants to address not just transportation needs, but every worry its customers may have, including groceries and payments. She also talks about how the company is working with 27 percent-shareholder Uber and its newest board member, Toyota, which in June invested $1 billion into Grab. Plus: Tan explains why the company doesn't have to worry about diversity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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#254Jul 30, 2018 · 47 minRecode Decode: 'General Magic' directors Sarah Kerruish and Matt Maude
Sarah Kerruish and Matt Maude talk with Recode's Kara Swisher about their new documentary, "General Magic," which tells the story of a pioneering tech startup that tried and failed to invent a smartphone in the 1990s. Swisher appears in the documentary, which posits that although few people know the name General Magic today, the company’s failure paved the way for the Silicon Valley we know today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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#253Jul 28, 2018 · 46 minRecode Decode: 'The Billionaire Raj' author James Crabtree
Journalist James Crabtree talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his new book, "The Billionaire Raj: A Journey Through India's New Gilded Age." Crabtree says India's development of a super-rich billionaire class has heightened the country's already-intense problem with inequality. He also talks about why its "fantastic entrepreneurial culture" has not been able to foster a Silicon Valley-esque tech hub and how he weighs the positive impact of technologies like the mobile phone against negatives such as the recent spate of lynchings that some have linked to Facebook-owned messaging app WhatsApp. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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#252Jul 25, 2018 · 57 minRecode Decode: WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg
Matt Mullenweg, the co-founder of WordPress, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about how the blogging platform has evolved in the 13 years since it launched, powering a huge number of websites that included AllThingsD and an earlier version of Recode.net. Mullenweg also talks about WordPress' recent acquisition of a mobile journalism startup, the Atavist; how he manages 750 employees without an official corporate office; and why "every tech company should have an editorial team." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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#251Jul 23, 2018 · 59 minRecode Decode: 'Valley of Genius' author Adam Fisher
Writer Adam Fisher talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his new oral history, 'Valley of Genius: The Uncensored History of Silicon Valley.' Fisher interviewed some of tech's biggest names for the book, including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, but he discovered that "the most interesting, unfiltered, real stories" often came from people who were never in the spotlight. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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#250Jul 21, 2018 · 31 minRecode Decode: Alibaba exec Joe Tsai (Live at Code 2018)
Joe Tsai, the executive vice chairman of Chinese commerce giant Alibaba, talks with Recode’s Jason Del Rey at the 2018 Code Conference. He says that Alibaba has not tried to do a big acquisition deal in the U.S., but is definitely looking to create strategic partnerships. Specifically, Tsai wants to encourage American companies to tap into the Chinese market, where there are hundreds of millions of internet consumers as potential customers. He also disputes some criticism lobbed by fellow Code Conference speaker Sen. Mark Warner, who had alleged that Chinese tech firms were too cozy with the country's communist government. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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#249Jul 18, 2018 · 1 hr 22 minRecode Decode: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about a litany of issues, including the Cambridge Analytica scandal and why Infowars and other conspiracy theorists, like Holocaust deniers, don't get kicked off Facebook. He says he believes over-regulating tech companies is dangerous because it could advantage Chinese firms that don’t share Americans’ commitment to freedom of expression. Zuckerberg also talks about how he thinks VR and AR will change the future of work, explains why his 2017 tour of the U.S. was not a political campaign and says that if anyone should be fired for Facebook's recent privacy stumbles, "It should be me." However, he declines to fire himself, instead committing to an audit of all the other companies like Cambridge Analytica that had access to the most user data. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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#248Jul 16, 2018 · 48 minRecode Decode: How social media bots could tank your stock price
Zignal Labs CEO Josh Ginsberg talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about the “massive amounts of bot activity” that his media intelligence company has started detecting on social media. In everything from political elections to the debates over Roseanne Barr and Samantha Bee’s controversial statements, bots are insinuating themselves into the discourse, and provoking humans into being more outraged. Sometimes the goal is just to sow discord, Ginsberg says, but other times there are clear financial incentives to targeting certain companies. He talks about what businesses and regular people can do to better gird themselves against these bot attacks and predicts how a technology called “deepfakes” could make the problem worse. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
- DW
#247Jul 14, 2018 · 54 minRecode Decode: Tinder parent company Match Group prepares for battle with Facebook
Mandy Ginsberg, the CEO of Match Group, talks with Recode's Kurt Wagner about how her company became dominant in online dating — it owns sites and apps like Match.com, Tinder and OKCupid — and how it's dealing with competitors like Bumble and Facebook. Ginsberg says she still admires and respects Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe, even as the two companies have traded lawsuits and barbed words in the press. And while she knows it would be foolish to write off Facebook as a competitor, she argues that younger consumers, at least, don't want Mark Zuckerberg & co. meddling in their dating lives. Ginsberg also addresses one of the most common questions she gets: Do dating app companies have an incentive to keep customers longer by keeping them single? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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#246Jul 11, 2018 · 51 minRecode Decode: Why do some in the tech community support universal basic income?
Journalist Annie Lowrey talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about her new book, "Give People Money: How a Universal Basic Income Would End Poverty, Revolutionize Work, and Remake the World." Lowrey says there's ample evidence from countries like India, Brazil and Mexico that giving a small amount of cash directly to poor people can make their lives better without discouraging them from getting a job. She explains that some early experiments in the U.S., including one being run by startup incubator Y Combinator, are motivated by a fear that artificial intelligence and other new technologies will make the world better — at the expense of everyone's happiness and job stability. Lowrey explains why a national universal basic income is unlikely to happen anytime soon in America, and why rich people are usually wrong when they claim they get no assistance from the government. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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#245Jul 9, 2018 · 51 minRecode Decode: Craigslist founder Craig Newmark
Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist and Craig Newmark Philanthropies, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his foundation's recent donation of $20 million to the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. Newmark says the school is advancing good journalism by providing opportunities to people who might not otherwise get them. He also talks about his other philanthropic work, helping veterans and women in tech as well as working with voting rights organizations, calling the 2018 midterms "critical for American democracy." Plus: Why Newmark is optimistic about the future of media in the age of Facebook and Twitter, how Craigslist evolved from an email list into the powerhouse it is today and why he's not interested in selling it or going public. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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#244Jul 7, 2018 · 1 hr 4 minRecode Decode: Box CEO Aaron Levie
Aaron Levie, the CEO of enterprise security and file-sharing service Box, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about how businesses are simultaneously turning to multiple vendors — including Box and its competitors — to solve workplace IT problems that used to all happen in-house. He also talks about shifting public attitudes toward the tech industry; why it's harder to regulate Silicon Valley than it might seem at first blush; and why the next big opportunities in tech won't look like Facebook or Uber, but rather will grow more slowly into fields like healthcare, education and manufacturing. Plus: What is the tech industry's responsibility to help the people whose jobs may be displaced by its inventions? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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#243Jul 4, 2018 · 40 minRecode Decode: Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky (Live at Code 2018)
Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher and Dan Frommer at the 2018 Code Conference. Chesky talks about Airbnb’s expansion into “the experience economy," encouraging local hosts to help visitors find fun activities in their area. He also discusses how the company thinks about expanding internationally and how it’s dealing with regulatory challenges in cities like San Francisco and New York. Plus: How much responsibility should Airbnb take for what its customers do in their properties? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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#242Jul 2, 2018 · 48 minRecode Decode: Matt Cutts
Matt Cutts, the acting administrator of the U.S. Digital Service, talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about how his team is trying to modernize government agencies and make services like Medicare and veterans’ benefits more user-friendly. Cutts spent nearly 17 years working at Google before he joined the USDS under President Obama, but says that the organization’s mission has not changed under President Trump, and its work has remained nonpartisan. He explains how even simple technological tweaks — like a progress bar or web forms — can make a huge difference for the beneficiaries of the USDS’s work, and shares his pitch for an ambitious goal that would make everyone’s life easier: “Get rid of the paper.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
- DW
#241Jun 30, 2018 · 49 minRecode Decode: Psychologist Adam Grant
Psychologist Adam Grant, the author of “Originals” and “Give and Take” and co-author with Sheryl Sandberg of “Option B,” talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about how to work smarter and more successfully with your colleagues. Grant says companies that think they have unique corporate cultures are generally wrong: Everyone wants safety, fairness, respect and control. He also explains how hiring for “culture fit” can hurt companies in the long run, why he hates the phrase “don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions” and why the best _and_ worst performers on a team are people he’d call “givers.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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#240Jun 27, 2018 · 55 minRecode Decode: How Nat Geo uses Instagram to stay relevant
National Geographic executives Courteney Monroe, Rachel Webber and Susan Goldberg talk with Recode's Kara Swisher about how the 130-year-old media company is staying relevant in the digital age. Monroe oversees its global network of TV channels, Webber leads the digital team and Goldberg edits the magazine, but they say all their teams work together on big stories from Day One, figuring out how to make them "work" across all different media. The most important digital channel for Nat Geo is Instagram, where its nearly 89 million followers make it the largest non-celebrity account; Webber talks about why it's been so successful there and how it's working to make sure that female photographers get represented more fairly in its posts. The trio also talk about the bigger challenges of media competition in 2018 and how unusual it is that eight of their company's top 11 executives are female. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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#239Jun 25, 2018 · 56 minRecode Decode: How Silicon Valley is responding to the immigration crisis
Charlotte and Dave Willner, creators of the hugely successful Facebook fundraising campaign called “Reunite an immigrant parent with their child,” talk with Recode’s Kara Swisher about how they raised more than $20 million in one week for RAICES, a legal services nonprofit in Texas. Although the Willners originally set out to raise only $1,500, they say RAICES can and will use all the money it can get as it grapples with the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy that separated immigrant children from their parents. Later in the show, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky (who is Dave Willner’s boss) joins Swisher in studio to talk about the factors that tech executives must weigh if they want to be involved in political issues. Chesky first took a stand after the Muslim travel ban in early 2017, but speaking out about the immigration crisis was easier because, “I’m already on the wrong side of the White House.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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#238Jun 23, 2018 · 38 minRecode Decode: Microsoft President Brad Smith (Live at Code 2018)
Brad Smith, the president of Microsoft, talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher at the 2018 Code Conference. Smith reflects on what Microsoft learned from losing the U.S. Justice Department’s antitrust lawsuit in 2001, which broke the company up. He explains what tech companies that are in the crosshairs today should be thinking about their responsibility to the public. He also talks about how Microsoft has become politically active in the Trump era, particularly around immigration. He predicts a “tough summer” ahead if no compromise can be reached on the Obama-era immigration policy DACA. Plus: How Microsoft thinks about artificial intelligence, the Facebook hearings and diversity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices