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Mailchimp CEO Rania Succar on culture, acquisitions, and how big 'small business' really is
1 april 2024 · 1 uur 6 min
Today, I’m talking to Intuit Mailchimp CEO Rania Succar, who took over as CEO in 2022 after a pretty rough patch in the company’s history. In 2021, Intuit acquired the company, and the very next year, co-founder Ben Chestnut stepped down after telling employees that he thought introducing themselves with pronouns in meetings did more harm than good. After that, Rania took over.
This is a pretty huge culture change, especially as Mailchimp became more integrated with Intuit. It was also a big challenge for a new leader who came in from the outside. You’ll hear us talk about that transition a lot. Rania and I also got into the weeds of making decisions, which is very Decoder. And, of course, we had to talk about generative AI, which is a big part of the Mailchimp road map. This was a really fun conversation with some honestly scary ideas in it — and it’s all about email. Lees meerLinks:
Mailchimp employees have complained about inequality for years — The Verge
Mailchimp Employees Are Fuming Over $12 Billion Deal — Business Insider
Did this email cost Mailchimp's billionaire CEO his job? — Platformer
Mailchimp is shutting down TinyLetter — The Verge
TinyLetter, in memoriam — The Verge
Did Mailchimp censor J.D. Vance? — Mother Jones
Hackers breached Mailchimp to phish cryptocurrency wallets — The Verge
Boring, mundane businesses have an exhilarating, viral life on TikTok — The Verge
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23879556
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Can you patent a pizza?
28 maart 2024 · 53 min
Hey everyone it’s Nilay – I’m on vacation this week, so the Decoder team is taking a short break. We’ll be back next week with both the interview and the new explainer episodes. To tide you over until Monday, we have a bonus episode from our friends at Vox Media and Eater’s Gastropod about an incredible patent battle in the world of pizza. Lees meer
I’m serious: One of the biggest fights in the pizza industry took place in US court in the ‘90s — an intellectual property dispute about stuffed crust pizza between Pizza Hut and patent holder Anthony “The Big Cheese” Mongiello.
So much of what we talk about on Decoder comes down to IP lawsuits like copyright or patent disputes, and how judges decide those cases and where the law ends up can steer the course of history. And that’s true whether we’re talking about a line of code, the distribution method of an MP3, or, yes, even stuffed crust pizza.
Links:Can You Patent a Pizza? — Gastropod
Ivana and Donald Trump Pizza Hut Commercial — YouTube
The Next Big Thing in Pizza? Try 'Stuffed Crust' — NYT
Who Created the Stuffed Crust Pizza? It's Complicated. — Eater
Method of making a pizza — Google Patents
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
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Federation is the future of social media, says Bluesky CEO Jay Graber
25 maart 2024 · 1 uur 11 min
Today, I’m talking to Jay Graber, the CEO of Bluesky Social, which is a decentralized competitor to Meta’s Threads, Mastodon, and X. Bluesky actually started inside of what was then known as Twitter — it was a project from then-CEO Jack Dorsey, who spent his days wandering the earth and saying things like Twitter should be a protocol and not a company. Bluesky was supposed to be that protocol, but Jack spun it out of Twitter in 2021, just before Elon Musk bought the company and renamed it X. Lees meer
Bluesky is now an independent company with a few dozen employees, and it finds itself in the middle of one of the most chaotic moments in the history of social media. There are a lot of companies and ideas competing for space on the post-Twitter internet, and Jay makes a convincing argument that decentralization — the idea that you should be able to take your username and following to different servers as you wish — is the future.
Links:
Twitter is funding research into a decentralized version of its platform — The Verge
Bluesky built a decentralized protocol for Twitter — and is working on an app that uses it — The Verge
The fediverse, explained — The Verge
Bluesky showed everyone’s ass — The Verge
Can ActivityPub save the internet? — The Verge
The ‘queer.af’ Mastodon instance disappeared because of the Taliban — The Verge
Usage Of Elon Musk’s X Dropped 30% In The Last Year, Study Suggests — Forbes
Bluesky snags former Twitter/X Trust & Safety exec cut by Musk — TechCrunch
Bluesky and Mastodon users are having a fight that could shape the next generation of social media — TechCrunch
Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech — Mike Masnick
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23872913
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cyl… -
How Europe’s Digital Markets Act is reshaping Big Tech
21 maart 2024 · 32 min
Both the EU and US have spent the past decade looking at Big Tech and saying, "someone should do something!" In the US, lawmakers are still basically shouting that. But in the EU, regulators did something. Lees meer
The Digital Markets Act was proposed in 2020, signed into law in 2022, and went into effect this month. It's already having an effect on some of the biggest companies in tech, including Apple, Google, and Microsoft. In theory it's a landmark law that will change the way these companies compete, and how their products operate, for years to come. How did we get here, what does the law actually say, and will it work half as well in practice as it does on paper? Verge reporter Jon Porter comes on Decoder to help me break it down.
Links:
The EU's new competition rules are going live — here's how tech giants are responding | The Verge
Apple hit with a nearly $2 billion fine following Spotify complaint | The Verge
Experts fear the Digital Markets Act won’t address tech monopolies | The Verge
Dirty tricks or small wins: developers are skeptical of Apple's App Store rules | The Verge
Google Search, WhatsApp, and TikTok on list of 22 services targeted by EU’s tough new DMA | The Verge
The EU’s Digital Services Act is now in effect: here’s what that means | The Verge
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Figma CEO Dylan Field is optimistic about the future and AI
18 maart 2024 · 54 min
We’ve got a fun one today — I talked to Figma CEO Dylan Field in front of a live audience at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. And we got into it – we talked about everything from design, to software distribution, to the future of the web, and, of course, AI.
Figma is an fascinating company – the Figma design tool is used by designers at basically every company you can think of. And importantly, it runs on the web. It became such a big deal that Adobe tried to buy it out in 2022 for $20 billion dollars, a deal that only just recently fell through because of regulatory concerns.
So Dylan and I talked a lot about where Figma is now as an independent company, how Figma is structured, where it’s going, and how Dylan’s decisionmaking has changed since the last time he was on the show in 2022. Lees meerLinks:
Why Figma is selling to Adobe for $20 billion, with CEO Dylan Field — Decoder
Adobe abandons $20 billion acquisition of Figma — The Verge
Adobe’s Dana Rao on AI, copyright, and the failed Figma deal — Decoder
Figma’s CEO on life after the company’s failed sale to Adobe — Command Line
Amazon restricts self-publishing due to AI concerns — The Guardian
Wix’s new AI chatbot builds websites in seconds based on prompts — The Verge
Apple is finally allowing full versions of Chrome and Firefox on the iPhone — The Verge
What Is Solarpunk? A Guide to the Environmental Art Movement. — Built In
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23866201
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Why Google Search feels like it’s gotten worse
14 maart 2024 · 40 min
If you’ve been listening to Decoder or the Vergecast for a while, you know that I am obsessed with Google Search, the web, and how both of those things might change in the age of AI. But to really understand how something might change, you have to step back and understand what it is right now. Lees meer
So today I’m talking with Verge platforms reporter Mia Sato about Google Search, the industries it’s created, and more importantly, how relentless search engine optimization, or SEO, has utterly changed the web in its image. Mia and I really dug into this to explain why search results are so terrible now, what Google is trying to do about it, and why this is such an important issue for the future of the internet.
Links:
How Google is killing independent sites like ours — HouseFresh
How Google perfected the web — The Verge
The people who ruined the internet — The Verge
A storefront for robots — The Verge
The end of the Googleverse — The Verge
The unsettling scourge of obituary spam — The Verge
What happens when Google Search doesn’t have the answers? — The Verge
The AI takeover of Google Search starts now — The Verge
AI is killing the old web, and the new web struggles to be born — The Verge
Google is starting to squash more spam and AI in search results — The Verge
Ethics Statement — The Verge
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
How to save culture from the algorithms, with Filterworld author Kyle Chayka
11 maart 2024 · 1 uur 8 min
Today, I’m talking to Kyle Chayka, a staff writer for The New Yorker, a regular contributor to The Verge, and author of the new book Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture. Kyle has been writing for years now about how the culture of big social media platforms bleeds into real life, first affecting how things look, and now shaping how and what culture is created and the mechanisms by which that culture spreads all around the world. Lees meer
If you’ve been listening to Decoder, this is all going to sound very familiar. The core thesis of Kyle’s book — that algorithmic recommendations make everything feel the same — hits at an idea that we’ve talked about countless times on the show: that how content is distributed shapes what content is made. So I was really excited to sit down with Kyle and dig into Filterworld and his thoughts on how this happened and what we might be able to do about it.
Links:
Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture — Kyle Chayka
Welcome to AirSpace — The Verge
The Stanley water bottle craze, explained — Vox
TikTok and the vibes revival — The New Yorker
Why the internet isn’t fun anymore — The New Yorker
The age of algorithmic anxiety — The New Yorker
Lo-fi beats to quarantine to are booming on YouTube — The Verge
Taylor Swift has encouraged her fans' numerology habit yet again — AV Club
How fandom built the internet as we know it, with Kaitlyn Tiffany — Decoder
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23858379
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Why people are falling in love with AI chatbots
7 maart 2024 · 40 min
Our Thursday episodes are all about big topics in the news, and this week we’re wrapping up our short series on one of the biggest topics of all: generative AI. In our last couple episodes, we talked a lot about some of the biggest, most complicated legal and policy questions surrounding the modern AI industry, including copyright lawsuits and deepfake legislation. But we wanted to end on a more personal note: How is this technology making people feel, and in particular how is it affecting how people communicate and connect?
Verge reporter Miya David has covered AI chatbots — specifically AI romance bots — quite a bit, so we invited her onto the show to talk about how generative AI is finding its way into dating. We not only discussed how this technology is affecting dating apps and human relationships, but also how the boom in AI chatbot sophistication is laying the groundwork for a generation of people who might form meaningful relationships with so-called AI companions. Lees meerLinks:
Speak, Memory — The Verge
A conversation with Bing’s chatbot left me deeply unsettled — NYT
Google suspends engineer who claims its AI is sentient — The Verge
The law of AI girlfriends — The Verge
Replika’s new AI therapy app tries to bring you to a zen island — The Verge
Replika’s new AI app is like Tinder but with sexy chatbots — Gizmodo
Don’t date robots; their privacy policies are terrible — The Verge
AI is shaking up online dating with chatbots that are ‘flirty but not too flirty’ — CNBC
Loneliness and suicide mitigation for students using GPT3-enabled chatbots — Nature
Virtual valentine: People are turning to AI in search of emotional connections — CBS
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23856679
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoi… -
Guest host Hank Green makes Nilay Patel explain why websites have a future
4 maart 2024 · 1 uur 3 min
On this special episode of Decoder, science educator and YouTuber Hank Green is guest hosting. And the guest? It’s Nilay Patel, who sat down with Hank to discuss building The Verge, the state of media, and the future of the web. Also: whether the fediverse is worth investing in, and how social platforms’ control of distribution has shaped the internet. Lees meer
In the words of Hank: “Nilay has got some weird ideas about the internet. For example, that he’s going to revolutionize the media through blog posts. He keeps saying it, but what the hell does he mean? While I was busy building my business on other people’s platforms, Nilay has built something very rare in the year 2024: a website that publishes content and isn’t behind a paywall yet still makes money. How does he do it? How does he make decisions? How is The Verge structured? The tables have turned.”
Links:
Why Hank Green can’t quit YouTube for TikTok — Decoder
Platformer’s Casey Newton on surviving the great media collapse and what comes next — Decoder
Just buy this Brother laser printer everyone has, it’s fine — The Verge
Sports Illustrated Published Articles by Fake, AI-Generated Writers — Futurism
The fediverse, explained — The Verge
Can ActivityPub save the internet? — The Verge
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23851875
The Vergecast and Decoder are live at SXSW this weekend, March 8th and 9th. SXSW attendees can see both shows live on the official Vox Media Podcast Stage at the JW Marriott, presented by Atlassian. Learn more at voxmedia.com/live.
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
AI deepfakes are cheap, easy, and coming for the 2024 election
29 februari 2024 · 41 min
Our new Thursday episodes of Decoder are all about deep dives into big topics in the news, and this week we’re continuing our mini-series on one of the biggest topics of all: generative AI. Last week, we took a look at the wave of copyright lawsuits that might eventually grind this whole industry to a halt. Those are basically a coin flip — and the outcomes are off in the distance, as those cases wind their way through the legal system. Lees meer
A bigger problem right now is that AI systems are really good at making just believable enough fake images and audio — and with tools like OpenAI’s new Sora, maybe video soon, too. And of course, it’s once again a presidential election year here in the US. So today, Verge policy editor Adi Robertson joins the show to discuss how AI might supercharge disinformation and lies in an election that’s already as contentious as any in our lifetimes — and what might be done about it.
Links:
How the Mueller report indicts social networks
Twitter permanently bans Trump
Meta allows Trump back on Facebook and Instagram
No Fakes Act wants to protect actors and singers from unauthorized AI replicas
White House calls for legislation to stop Taylor Swift AI fakes
Watermarks aren’t the silver bullet for AI misinformation
AI Drake just set an impossible legal trap for Google
Barack Obama on AI, free speech, and the future of the internet
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Crunchyroll President Rahul Purini on how anime took over the world
26 februari 2024 · 1 uur 10 min
Today, I’m talking with Rahul Purini, the president of Crunchyroll, a streaming service focused entirely on anime — and really, the biggest anime service still going. Rahul has a long history with anime: he spent more than seven years at Funimation, a company that started in the 90s to distribute Dragon Ball Z to US audiences, before getting the top job at Crunchyroll. Lees meer
Anime might seem like niche content, but it’s not nearly as niche as you might think – our colleagues over at Polygon just ran a huge survey of anime viewers and found that 42% of Gen Z and 25% of millennials watch anime regularly. And Crunchyroll is growing with that audience — like most entertainment providers, the service absolutely exploded during the pandemic, going from 5 million paying subscribers in 2021 to more than 13 million as of last month.
But interestingly Rahul says Crunchyroll’s growth isn’t being driven by more and more people watching anime, but more and more anime fans — especially those watching pirated content — choosing to pay for it.
Links:
Anime is huge, and we finally have numbers to prove it — Polygon
Funimation is shutting down — and taking your digital library with it — The Verge
Sony completes acquisition of Crunchyroll from AT&T — The Verge
Funimation’s anime library is moving over to Crunchyroll — The Verge
Crunchyroll now has more than 13 Million subscribers — Cord Cutters News
Crunchyroll's CEO Colin Decker leaves company; Rahul Purini becomes new president — Anime News Network
PlayStation keeps reminding us why digital ownership sucks — The Verge
Sony’s Crunchyroll launches free 24-hour streaming channel — Variety
Crunchyroll is adding mobile games to its subscription — The Verge
How Is Funimation producing so many simuldubs? — Anime News Network
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23845221
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited… -
Is the Apple Vision Pro All That?
22 februari 2024 · 1 uur 5 min
The Decoder team is off this week. We’ll be back next week with both the interview and the new explainer episodes; we’re really excited about what’s on the schedule here. Lees meer
In the meantime, I thought you all might enjoy a conversation I had with Kara Swisher, the Wall Street Journal’s Joanna Stern and Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman about the Apple Vision Pro. All of us have been covering Apple for a very long time, and we had a lot of fun swapping impressions, talking strategy, and sharing what we liked, and didn’t like, about Apple’s $3,500 headset.
Links:
Apple Vision Pro review: magic, until it’s not — The Verge
The shine comes off the Vision Pro — The Verge
Everything we know about Apple’s Vision Pro — The Verge
Why some of Apple’s biggest fans are returning their Vision Pros — Bloomberg
Apple’s Vision Pro Is an iPad killer, but not anytime soon — Bloomberg
I worked, cooked and even skied with the new Apple Vision Pro — WSJ
Vision Pro review: 24 hours in Apple’s mixed-reality headset — WSJ
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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How AI copyright lawsuits could make the whole industry go extinct
15 februari 2024 · 40 min
Our new Thursday episodes are all about deep dives into big topics in the news, and for the next few weeks we’re going to stay focused on one of the biggest topics of all: generative AI. There’s a lot going on in the world of generative AI, but maybe the biggest is the increasing number of copyright lawsuits being filed against AI companies like OpenAI and StabilityAI. Lees meer
So for this episode, we’re going to talk about those cases, and the main defense the AI companies are relying on: an idea called fair use. To help explain this mess, I talked with Sarah Jeong. Sarah is a former lawyer and a features editor here at The Verge, and she is also one of my very favorite people to talk to about copyright. I promise you we didn’t get totally off the rails nerding out about it, but we went a little off the rails. The first thing we had to figure out was: How big a deal are these AI copyright suits?
Links:
The New York Times sues OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement --- The Verge
The scary truth about AI copyright is nobody knows what will happen next — The Verge
How copyright lawsuits could kill OpenAI — Vox
How Adobe is managing the AI copyright dilemma, with general counsel Dana Rao --- The Verge
Generative AI Has a visual plagiarism problem - IEEE Spectrum
George Carlin estate sues creators of AI-generated comedy special — THR
AI-Generated Taylor Swift porn went viral on Twitter. Here's how it got there — 404 Media
AI copyright lawsuit hinges on the legal concept of ‘fair use’ — The Washington Post
Intellectual property experts discuss fair use in the age of AI — Harvard Law School
OpenAI says it’s “impossible” to create useful AI models without copyrighted material — Ars Technica
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastch… -
DOJ’s Jonathan Kanter says the antitrust fight against Big Tech is just beginning
12 februari 2024 · 34 min
Today, I’m talking with Jonathan Kanter, the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division at the Department of Justice. Alongside FTC chair Lina Khan, Jonathan is one of the most prominent figures in the big shift happening in competition and antitrust in the United States. This is a fun episode: we taped this conversation live on stage at the Digital Content Next conference in Charleston, South Carolina a few days ago, so you’ll hear the audience, which was a group of fancy media company executives.
You’ll also hear me joke about Google a few times; fancy media execs are very interested in the cases the DOJ has brought against Google for monopolizing search and advertising tech — and Jonathan was very good at not commenting about pending litigation. But he did have a lot to say about the state of tech regulation, he and Khan’s track record so far, and why he thinks the concepts they’re pushing forward are more accessible than they’ve ever been.
Links: Lees meerThe top Biden lawyer with his sights on Apple and Google — Politico
Judge blocks a merger of Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster — NYT
FTC’s Khan and DOJ’s Kanter beat back deals at fastest clip in decades — Bloomberg
Google will face another antitrust trial September 9th, this time over ad tech — The Verge
In the Google antitrust trial, defaults are everything and nobody likes Bing — The Verge
Google Search, Chrome, and Android are all changing thanks to EU antitrust law — The Verge
Aggregation Theory — Stratechery
Adobe explains why it abandoned the Figma deal — The Verge
How the EU’s DMA is changing Big Tech — The Verge
Epic Games CEO calls out Apple’s DMA rules as ‘malicious compliance’ — TechCrunch
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23831914
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more … -
Why EV adoption in the US has hit a roadblock
8 februari 2024 · 42 min
We’re very excited for today’s episode, because from now on we’ll be delivering you two Decoders every week. On Monday’s we’ll have our classic interviews with CEOs and other high-profile guests. But our new shorter Thursday episode – like today’s – will explain big topics in the news with Verge reporters, experts, and other friends of the show.
The big idea we’re going to jump into today does in fact have a lot of problems: electric vehicle adoption in the US. We invited Verge Transportation Editor Andy Hawkins, who’s been covering the EV transition for years, to walk us through what’s happening.
Late last year, Andy wrote a fantastic article called, “The EV Transition trips over its own cord.” It was all about the kind of paradox of the EV market right now: The momentum for electric cars in America feels like it’s started to hit serious snags, even though more people than ever before are going fully electric. The stakes are high, and there’s a lot going on. Let’s get into it. Lees meerLinks:
The EV transition trips over its own cord — The Verge
We’re down to just a handful of EVs that qualify for the full US tax credit — The Verge
Electric cars were having issues. Then things got political — WSJ
Tesla is becoming a partisan brand, says survey — Eletrek
16 Republican governors urge Biden EPA to roll back proposed electric vehicle standards — USA Today
Slow rollout of national charging system could hinder EV adoption — NYT
Want to stare into the Republican soul in 2023? — Slate
Biden vetoes Republican measure to block electric vehicle charging stations — NYT
The Biden administration is pumping more money into EV charging infrastructure — The Verge
GM should just bring back the Chevy Volt — The Verge
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit pod… -
Platformer’s Casey Newton on surviving the great media collapse and what comes next
5 februari 2024 · 1 uur 9 min
Today, I’m talking with Casey Newton, the founder and editor of the Platformer newsletter and co-host of the Hard Fork podcast. Casey is also a former editor here at The Verge and was my co-host at the Code Conference last year. Most importantly, Casey and I are also very close friends, so this episode is a little looser than usual.
I wanted to talk to Casey for a few reasons. One, the media industry overall is falling apart, with huge layoffs at almost every media organization you can think of happening weekly, but small newsletters seem to be a bright spot. So I wanted to talk about how Platformer started, how Casey got it to where it is, and how much farther he thinks it can go. And then, I wanted to talk about Substack. It’s the newsletter platform Paltformer used to call its home, but content moderation problems — including its decision to allow Nazis to monetize on the platform — have pushed away a number of its customers, including Platformer.
This episode goes deep, but it’s fun — Casey is just one of my favorite people, and he is not shy about saying what he thinks.
Links: Lees meerCan Substack CEO Chris Best build a new model for journalism? — The Verge
Substack launches its Twitter-like Notes — The Verge
Substack Has a Nazi Problem — The Atlantic
Substack says it will remove Nazi publications from the platform --- Platformer
Substack keeps the Nazis, loses Platformer — The Verge
Why Platformer is leaving Substack — Platformer
The Messenger to close after less than a year — The New York Times
Do countries with better-funded public media also have healthier democracies? — Nieman Lab
AI is killing the old web, and the new web struggles to be born — The Verge
The Biden deepfake robocall Is only the beginning — WIRED
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23823565
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music… -
Why Sen. Brian Schatz thinks child safety bills can trump the First Amendment
30 januari 2024 · 1 uur 10 min
Today, I’m talking with Senator Brian Schatz, of Hawaii. We joke that Decoder is ultimately a show about org charts, but there’s a lot of truth to it. We talked about the separate offices he has to balance against each other, and the concessions he has to make to work within the Senate structure.
We also talked a lot about two of the biggest issues in tech regulation today. One is Europe, which is doing a lot of regulation while the US does almost none. How does a senator think about the U.S. all but abdicating that space? The other is one of the few places the US is trying to take action right now: children’s online safety. Schatz is involved with two pieces of child safety legislation, the Kids Online Safety Act and the Protecting Kids on Social Media Act, that could fundamentally reshape online life for teens and children across the country. But the big stumbling block for passing any laws about content moderation is, of course, the First Amendment.
Links: Lees meerStrict Scrutiny — LII / Legal Information Institute
The Uniquely American Future of US Authoritarianism — WIRED
How the EU’s DMA is changing Big Tech: all of the news and updates — The Verge
AI Labeling Act of 2023 (S. 2691) — GovTrack.us
Mark Zuckerberg testimony: senators seem really confused about Facebook — Vox
Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis — Senate Judiciary Committee
AI tools will make it easy to create fake porn of just about anybody — The Verge
They thought loved ones were calling for help. It was an AI scam — The Washington Post.
Protecting Kids on Social Media Act (S, 1291) — GovTrack.us
Kids Online Safety Act (S. 1409) — GovTrack.us
Kids Online Safety Shouldn’t Require Massive Online Censorship and Surveillance — EFF
TikTok ban: all the news on attempts to ban the video platform — The Verge
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23818699
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Ka… -
Rep. Ro Khanna on what it will take for Congress to regulate AI, privacy, and social media
23 januari 2024 · 54 min
Today, I’m talking with Representative Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California. He’s been in Congress for eight years now, representing California’s 17th District, which is arguably the highest-tech district in the entire country. You’ll hear him say a couple of times that there’s $10 trillion of tech market value in his district, and that’s not an exaggeration: Apple, Intel, and Nvidia are all headquartered in his district, along with important new AI firms like Anthropic and OpenAI. Lees meer
I wanted to know how Khanna thinks about representing those companies but also the regular people in his district; the last time I spoke to him, in 2018, he reminded me that he’s got plenty of teachers and firefighters to represent as well. But the politics of tech have changed a lot in these past few years — and things are only going to get both more complicated and more tense as Trump and Biden head into what will obviously be a contentious and bitter presidential election.
Links:
Democrats must not repeat the mistakes of globalization
California bill to ban driverless autonomous trucks goes to Newsom's desk
In labor snub, California governor vetoes bill that would have limited self-driving trucks
A lawyer used ChatGPT and now has to answer for its ‘bogus’ citations
Barack Obama on AI, free speech, and the future of the internet
Music streaming platforms must pay artists more, says EU
Sideloading and other changes are coming to iOS in the EU soon
Clock running out on antitrust bill targeting big tech
Silicon Valley’s Rep. Ro Khanna talks Congress’ plans to regulate Big Tech
Trump pushing Microsoft to buy TikTok was ‘strangest thing I’ve ever worked on,’ says Satya Nadella
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23810838
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Executive Producer is El… -
How Adobe is managing the AI copyright dilemma, with general counsel Dana Rao
9 januari 2024 · 1 uur 26 min
Today, I'm talking to Dana Rao, who is General Counsel and Chief Trust Officer at Adobe. Now, if you're a longtime Decoder listener, you know that I have always been fascinated with Adobe, which I think the tech press largely undercovers. If you're interested in how creativity happens, you're kind of necessarily interested in what Adobe's up to. And it is fascinating to consider how Dana's job as Adobe's top lawyer is really at the center of the company's future.
The copyright issues with generative AI are so unknown and unfolding so fast that they will necessarily shape what kind of products Adobe can even make in the future, and what people can make with those products. The company also just tried and failed to buy the popular upstart design company Figma, a potentially $20 billion deal that was shut down over antitrust concerns in the European Union. So Dana and I had a lot to talk about. Lees meerLinks:
Adobe abandons $20 billion acquisition of Figma
Adobe explains why it abandoned the Figma deal
Why Figma is selling to Adobe for $20 billion, with CEO Dylan Field
Figma’s CEO laments demise of $20 billion deal with Adobe
Adobe proposes anti-impersonation law
Adobe’s Dana Rao doesn’t want you to get duped by A
The New York Times is suing OpenAI and Microsoft
Adobe’s Photoshop on the web launch includes its popular desktop AI tools
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23791239
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
How Donald Trump and Elon Musk killed Twitter, with Marty Baron and Zoe Schiffer
21 december 2023 · 40 min
2023 will go down as the year that Elon Musk killed Twitter. First he did it in a big way, by buying the company, firing most of the employees, and destabilizing the platform; then he did it in a small, but important, symbolic way, by renaming the company X and trying to make a full break with what came before. So now that the story of the company named Twitter is officially over, it felt important to stop and ask: What was Twitter, anyway, and why were so many powerful people obsessed with it for so long?
In this special episode, I sat down with Marty Baron, former executive editor of The Washington Post, and Zoe Schiffer, managing editor of Platform and author of Extremely Hardcore: Inside Elon Musk’s Twitter. We discussed how two of Twitter’s most dedicated power users – Donald Trump and Elon Musk — were addicted to the platform, defined it, changed it, broke it, and then put it to rest. Lees meerLinks:
The year Twitter died: a special series from The Verge
Extremely softcore
Inside Elon Musk's “extremely hardcore” Twitter
How Twitter broke the news
Trump vs. Twitter: The president takes on social media moderation
Martin Baron recounts leading The Washington Post during the Trump eraCredits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt. It was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Why Flexport CEO Ryan Petersen took his company back
19 december 2023 · 1 uur 6 min
Ryan Petersen is the founder and CEO of Flexport, which makes software to optimize shipping everything from huge containers to ecommerce deliveries. It’s a fascinating company; we had Ryan on to explain it last year.
Right around the first time we spoke, Ryan handed off the CEO role to 20-year Amazon veteran Dave Clark. Then, barely a year later, Dave got fired, and Ryan returned after CEO. I always joke that Decoder is a show about org charts… so why did Ryan make and then unmake the biggest org chart decision there is? Lees meerLinks:
Can software simplify the supply chain? Ryan Petersen thinks so - The Verge
Amazon consumer chief Dave Clark to join Flexport as its new CEO
Flexport CEO Dave Clark resigns from logistics startup after one year in the role
Flexport founder publicly slams his handpicked successor for hiring spree, rescinds offers
Ousted Flexport CEO Dave Clark strikes back
The real story behind a tech founder's 'tweetstorm that saves Christmas'
Panama Canal has gotten so dry and backed up after brutal drought that shippers are paying up to $4m to jump the queue
When Shipping Containers Sink in the Drink | The New YorkerTranscript:
https://www.theverge.com/e/23770977Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
USDS head Mina Hsiang wants Big Tech’s best minds to help fix the government
12 december 2023 · 1 uur 5 min
The US Digital Service has a fascinating structure: it comprises nearly 250 people, all of whom serve two-year stints developing apps, improving websites, and streamlining government services. You could call USDS the product and design consultancy for the rest of the government. Lees meer
The Obama administration launched the USDS in 2014, after the disastrous rollout of healthcare.gov and the tech sprint that saved it. USDS administrator Mina Hsiang explains to Decoder how it all works, and what she hopes it can do next.
Links:
Here’s Why Healthcare.gov Broke Down (2013)
Obamacare's 'tech surge' adds manpower to an already-bloated project (2013)
Decoder: Barack Obama on AI, free speech, and the future of the internet
Jeff Bezos Confirmed the "Question Mark Method"
A comprehensive list of 2023 tech layoffs
Tech to Gov
U.S. Digital Corps
Presidential Innovation Fellows
AI.gov
United States Digital ServiceTranscript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23761681
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
IBM's Jerry Chow explains the next phase of quantum computing
5 december 2023 · 56 min
IBM made some announcements this week about its plans for the next ten years of quantum computing: there are new chips, new computers, and new APIs. Quantum computers could in theory entirely revolutionize the way we think of computers… if, that is, someone can build one that’s actually useful. Lees meer
Jerry Chow, director of quantum systems at IBM, explains to Decoder just how close the field is to actual utility.
Links:
What is a Qubit? | Microsoft Azure
IBM Quantum Summit 2023
The Wired Guide to Quantum Computing
IBM Makes Quantum Computing Available on IBM Cloud to Accelerate Innovation (2016)
Multiple Patterning - Semiconductor Engineering
IBM Quantum Roadmap (2023)
That viral LK-99 ‘superconductor’ isn’t a superconductor after all - The Verge
NIST to Standardize Encryption Algorithms That Can Resist Attack by Quantum ComputersTranscript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23752312
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Editorial Director is Brooke Minters and our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Wix CEO Avishai Abrahami isn’t worried AI will kill the web
28 november 2023 · 1 uur 12 min
Today I’m talking with Avishai Abrahami, the CEO of Wix. You might know Wix as a website builder. It’s a competitor to WordPress and Squarespace. Tons of sites across the web run on Wix. But the web is changing rapidly, and Wix’s business today is less about web publishing, and more about providing software to help business owners run their entire companies. It’s fascinating, and Avishai has built a fascinating structure inside of Wix to make all that happen.
Wix is also an Israeli company. Avishai joined from the company’s headquarters in Tel Aviv. And I’ll just tell you right up front that we talked about Israel’s war with Hamas and its impact on the company. And that this conversation was not always comfortable. But the main theme of our conversation was, of course, the future of the web, especially a web that seems destined to be overrun by cheap AI-generated SEO spam.
Links: Lees meerDoom runs on Excel
Wix will let you build an entire website using only AI prompts
Wix.com Launches Wix ADI and Delivers the Future of website creation
YouTube is going to start cracking down on AI clones of musicians
The people who ruined the internet
The restaurant nearest Google
OpenAI can’t tell if something was written by AI after all
AI is killing the old web, and the new web struggles to be born
Squarespace CEO Anthony Casalena on why anyone makes a website in 2023
What will changing Section 230 mean for the internet?
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23742026
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt. It was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Chaos at OpenAI: What happened to Sam Altman, and what's next
20 november 2023 · 1 uur 9 min
What actually happened at OpenAI in the last three days? Decoder host and Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel talks with Verge editors Alex Heath and David Pierce to break it down and try to work out what's next. Lees meer
Further reading:
Sam Altman fired as CEO of OpenAI
OpenAI’s new CEO is Twitch co-founder Emmett Shear
OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO
Emmett Shear named new CEO of OpenAI by board
Microsoft hires former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman
Hundreds of OpenAI employees threaten to resign and join Microsoft
Sam Altman is still trying to return as OpenAI CEO
We’re doing a survey on how people use The Verge (and what they’d want from a Verge subscription). If you’re interested in helping us out, you can fill out the survey right here: http://theverge.com/survey
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Liam James, Kate Cox, and Nick Statt. It was edited by Andru Marino.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Volvo CEO Jim Rowan thinks dropping CarPlay is a mistake
14 november 2023 · 1 uur 7 min
Today, I’m talking to Jim Rowan, the CEO of Volvo Cars. Now, Jim’s only been at Volvo for a short time. He took over in 2022 after a decades-long career in the consumer electronics industry. Before Volvo, his two longest stints were at BlackBerry, whose QNX software is used in tons of cars, and then at Dyson, which once tried and failed to make an electric car. Jim and I talked a lot about how that unique experience has influenced how he thinks about the transformational changes happening in the world of cars. Lees meer
For Volvo, the stakes are high. The company has pledged to be all-electric by the end of the decade, and Jim is also making some very different bets on software and revenue than the rest of the car industry. Jim’s view is that automakers are undergoing three major shifts all at once: electrification, autonomy, and direct-to-consumer sales. With Volvo, Jim is trying to steer the ship through these changes and come out an EV-only carmaker on the other end.
Links:
Volvo plans to sell only electric cars by 2030
Volvo’s EX90 is a powerful computer that also happens to be an impeccably designed EV
Can Polestar design a new kind of car company?
The EV transition trips over its own cord
Volvo’s upcoming EVs join the Tesla Supercharger bandwagon
Future Volvo cars to run on Volvo operating system
Audi and Volvo will use Android as the operating system in upcoming cars
Volvo’s first EV will run native Android
The rest of the auto industry still loves CarPlay and Android Auto
The future of cars is a subscription nightmare
Everybody hates GM’s decision to kill Apple CarPlay and Android Auto for its EVs
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23722862
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt. It was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit … -
Barack Obama on AI, free speech, and the future of the internet
7 november 2023 · 48 min
We’ve got a good one today. I’m talking to former President Barack Obama about AI, social networks, and how to think about democracy as both of those things collide. Lees meer
I sat down with Obama last week at his offices in Washington, DC, just hours after President Joe Biden signed a sweeping executive order about AI. You’ll hear Obama say he’s been talking to the Biden administration and leaders across the tech industry about AI and how best to regulate it. My idea here was to talk to Obama the constitutional law professor more than Obama the politician. So this one got wonky fast.
You’ll also hear him say that he joined our show because he wanted to reach you, the Decoder audience, and get you all thinking about these problems. One of Obama’s worries is that the government needs insight and expertise to properly regulate AI, and you’ll hear him make a pitch for why people with that expertise should take a tour of duty in the government to make sure we get these things right.
Links:
Biden releases AI executive order directing agencies to develop safety guidelines
Clarence Thomas really wants Congress to regulate Twitter moderation
Google CEO Sundar Pichai compares impact of AI to electricity and fire
Sam Altman sells superintelligent sunshine as protestors call for AGI pause
The Skokie case: How I came to represent the free speech rights of Nazis
Disinformation is a threat to our democracy
World leaders are gathering at the U.K.'s AI Summit. Doom is on the agenda.
George R.R. Martin and other authors sue OpenAI for copyright infringement
A conversation with Bing’s chatbot left me deeply unsettled
Introducing the AI Mirror Test, which very smart people keep failing
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23712912
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt. It was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Executive Producer… -
AI is on a collision course with the music industry. Reservoir's Golnar Khosrowshahi thinks there’s a way through it
31 oktober 2023 · 57 min
Today I'm talking with Golnar Khosrowshahi, the founder and CEO of Reservoir Media, a newer record label that I think looks a lot like the future of the music industry. As Golnar explains, Reservoir thinks of individual songs as assets, and after acquiring them, the company sets about monetizing those assets in various ways. This is a copyright-based business in an age where copyright is under a lot of pressure — from TikTok, generative AI, and all of the now-familiar threats to the music business. Lees meer
If you're a Decoder listener, you know that I love thinking about the music industry. Whatever technology does to music, it does to everything else five years later. So paying attention to music is the best way I know to get ahead of the curve. I also just love music. Golnar is herself a musician. She obviously cares about music a lot, and she's clearly given a lot of thought to what happens next. So this was a great conversation.
Links:
Drake’s AI clone is here — and Drake might not be able to stop him
Hipgnosis made mega deals for song catalogs. Its future Is unclear.
Reservoir acquires iconic Tommy Boy Music for $100 million
Ed Sheeran wins copyright case over Marvin Gaye’s ‘Let’s Get It On’
Spotify is reportedly making major changes to its royalty model
Hipgnosis shareholders vote against continuation of UK-listed music investment trust
AI can actually help protect creativity and copyrights
Google and YouTube are trying to have it both ways with AI and copyright
No Fakes Act wants to protect actors and singers from unauthorized AI replicas
‘Glocalisation’ of music streaming within and across Europe
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23702539
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt. It was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit … -
Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig on why AI and social media are causing a free speech crisis for the internet
24 oktober 2023 · 55 min
Today, I’m talking to internet policy legend Lawrence Lessig. He's been teaching law for more than 30 years, and is a defining expert on free speech and the internet — and something of a hero of mine, whose works I've been reading since college. Lees meer
You’ll hear us agree that the internet at this moment in time is absolutely flooded with disinformation, misinformation, and other really toxic stuff that’s harmful to us as individuals and, frankly, to our future as a functioning democracy. But you’ll also hear us disagree a fair amount about what to do about it. The First Amendment, AI, copyright law — there's a lot to unpack here.
Links:
https://asml.cyber.harvard.edu/
https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/10/17/1081194/how-to-fix-the-internet-online-discourse/
https://www.protocol.com/facebook-papers
https://www.tiktok.com/@aocinthehouse/video/7214318917135830318?lang=en
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/sensitive-claims-bias-facebook-relaxed-misinformation-rules-conservative-pages-n1236182
https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/repetition-lie-truth-propaganda/
https://www.theverge.com/23883027/alvarez-stolen-valor-first-amendment-kosseff-liar-crowded-theater
https://fortune.com/2023/05/30/sam-altman-ai-risk-of-extinction-pandemics-nuclear-warfare/
https://www.americanbar.org/groups/intellectual_property_law/publications/landslide/2019-20/september-october/into-fandomverse/Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23693274
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt. It was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Clearview AI and the end of privacy, with author Kashmir Hill
17 oktober 2023 · 1 uur 2 min
Today, I’m talking to Kashmir Hill, a New York Times reporter whose new book, Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup’s Quest to End Privacy as We Know It, chronicles the story of Clearview AI, a company that’s built some of the most sophisticated facial recognition and search technology that’s ever existed. As Kashmir reports, you simply plug a photo of someone into Clearview’s app, and it will find every photo of that person that’s ever been posted on the internet. It’s breathtaking and scary. Lees meer
Kashmir was the journalist who broke the first story about Clearview’s existence, starting with a bombshell investigation report that blew the doors open on the company’s clandestine operations. Over the past few years, she’s been relentlessly reporting on Clearview’s growth, the privacy implications of facial recognition technology, and all of the cautionary tales that inevitably popped up, from wrongful arrests to billionaires using the technology for personal vendettas. The book is fantastic. If you’re a Decoder listener, you’re going to love it, and I highly recommend it.
Links:
The secretive company that may end privacy as we know it
What we learned about Clearview AI and its secret ‘co-founder’
Clearview AI does well in another round of facial recognition accuracy tests
hiQ and LinkedIn reach proposed settlement in landmark scraping case
My chilling run-in with a secretive facial-recognition app
Clearview’s facial recognition app Is identifying child victims of abuse
‘Thousands of dollars for something I didn’t do’
How we store and search 30 billion faces
Clearview AI agrees to permanent ban on selling facial recognition to private companies
Clearview fined again in France for failing to comply with privacy orders
Privacy law prevents Illinoisans from using Google app’s selfie art feature
Madison Square Garden uses facial recognition to ban its owner’s enemies
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23683175
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The…
-
CEO David Baszucki's mission to make Roblox a billion-player platform
12 oktober 2023 · 32 min
Today we’re bringing you the last of our live-on-stage interviews from the 2023 Code Conference. Verge deputy editor Alex Heath sat down to chat with Roblox CEO David Baszucki. Lees meer
Roblox definitely started out as a kid thing, but the company has big plans to change all that, and Alex got to find out a bit about how that’s going. Roblox is determined to be a platform, even more than a product — something users can develop games and experiences on. And of course, David and Alex spoke about AI. David sees a lot of opportunity for generative AI to help content creators on the Roblox platform in the not-so-distant future.
Links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfYz8weQm4M
https://techcrunch.com/2023/09/21/roblox-cuts-30-on-talent-acquisition-team-as-hiring-slows/
https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/8/23864858/roblox-ceo-prediction-adults-dating-experiences-rdc-2023
https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/27/23889307/meta-ray-ban-smart-glasses-wearables-connect
https://www.theverge.com/23775268/roblox-ceo-david-baszucki-gaming-metaverse-robux-virtual-reality
https://mashable.com/article/karlie-kloss-roblox-klossette
https://www.theverge.com/23734209/parsons-roblox-design-class-metaverse-fashion
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23677085
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Amanda Rose Smith.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe on ramping up R1T production and competing with the Cybertruck
10 oktober 2023 · 40 min
We’ve got another interview from the Code Conference today. My friend and co-host, CNBC’s Julia Boorstin, and I had a chance to talk with Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe. Rivian is a newer company — RJ started it in 2009, and it took more than 10 years to start shipping cars to consumers. But its first vehicle, the R1T pickup, made a big splash when it arrived in 2021, and the company has more back orders for both the R1T and its second vehicle, the R1S SUV, than it can handle. For now. Lees meer
We asked RJ about that production ramp and whether Rivian can meet demand, and whether it’s just early adopters buying EVs or if they’ve finally gone mainstream. The conversation also touched on Rivian’s deal with Amazon and the auto industry’s push toward subscription features. And, of course, I had to ask Scaringe about the Cybertruck. How could I resist?!
Links:
BMW starts selling heated seat subscriptions for $18 a month
BMW drops plan to charge a monthly fee for heated seats
U.A.W. expands strikes at automakers: Here’s what to know.
Rivian boosts EV production target as supply problems ease
Ford F-150 Lightning gets $10K price cut as ramping supply meets demand
First look at Cybertruck’s comically large windshield wiper in action
Amazon says it has ‘over a thousand’ Rivian electric vans making deliveries in the US
Rivian to adopt Tesla's charging standard in EVs and chargers
Rivian electric pickup caught fire while charging at Electrify America station
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23672708
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Editorial Director is Brooke Minters and our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Getty Images CEO Craig Peters has a plan to defend photography from AI
5 oktober 2023 · 34 min
Last week, when I was co-hosting the Code Conference, I got to talk with Getty Images CEO Craig Peters. The generative AI boom is a direct threat to Getty in many ways. For example, the company is suing Stability AI for training the Stable Diffusion model on Getty content — sometimes clearly including AI-generated copies of the Getty watermark — without permission.
Getty's answer? Its own proprietary, in-house AI tool, trained — with permission — on its own content, using a model where the original creators can get paid. Getty's put some pretty strict guardrails around it for now, but, as even Craig told us, there's still a lot of work to do.
Links:
https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/21/23364696/getty-images-ai-ban-generated-artwork-illustration-copyright
https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/6/23587393/ai-art-copyright-lawsuit-getty-images-stable-diffusion
https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/25/23884679/getty-ai-generative-image-platform-launch
https://www.theverge.com/23900198/microsoft-kevin-scott-ai-art-bing-google-nvidia-decoder-interview
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/06/section-230-the-internet-law-politicians-love-to-hate-explained/
https://www.npr.org/2023/05/18/1176881182/supreme-court-sides-against-andy-warhol-foundation-in-copyright-infringement-cas
https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/26/23808184/big-ai-really-wants-to-convince-us-that-theyre-cautious
https://journal.everypixel.com/ai-image-statistics
https://www.npr.org/2023/05/22/1177590231/fake-viral-images-of-an-explosion-at-the-pentagon-were-probably-created-by-ai Lees meerTranscript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23667741
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Amanda Rose Smith.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Editorial Director is Brooke Minters and our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott on how AI and art will coexist in the future
3 oktober 2023 · 44 min
I co-hosted the Code Conference last week, and today’s episode is one of my favorite conversations from the show: Microsoft CTO and EVP of AI Kevin Scott. If you caught Kevin on Decoder a few months ago, you know that he and I love talking about technology together. I really appreciate that he thinks about the relationship between technology and culture as much as we do at The Verge, and it was great to add the energy from the live Code audience to that dynamic. Lees meer
Kevin and I talked about how things are going with Bing and Microsoft’s AI efforts, as well the company’s relationship with Nvidia and whether it's planning to develop its own AI chips. I also asked Kevin some pretty philosophical questions about AI: Why would you write a song or a book when AI is out there making custom content for other people? Well, it’s because Kevin thinks the AI is still “terrible” at it for now, as Kevin found out firsthand. But he also thinks that creating is just what people do, and AI will help more people become more creative.
Links:
Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott thinks Sydney might make a comeback
Hands-on with the new Bing: Microsoft’s step beyond ChatGPT
Microsoft Bing hits 100 million active users in bid to grab share from Google
How Microsoft is trying to lessen Its addiction to OpenAI as AI costs soar
AMD CEO Lisa Su on the AI revolution and competing with Nvidia
Microsoft's tiny Phi-1 language model shows how important data quality is for AI training
Microsoft says listing the Ottawa Food Bank as a tourist destination wasn’t the result of ‘unsupervised AI’
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23664239
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt. It was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Editorial Director is Brooke Minters and our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoi… -
'The Android of agriculture': Monarch Tractor CEO Praveen Penmetsa on the future of farming
30 september 2023 · 28 min
We spent a lot of time here on Decoder talking about electric vehicles and the future of cars and we’re usually talking about passenger vehicles or maybe cargo vans. But there’s another huge industry that can also reap the benefits of electrified transportation: agriculture.
I co-hosted the Code Conference this week where I had the opportunity to hangout onstage with Monarch Tractor CEO Praveen Penmetsa. Honestly, this was one of my favorite conversations of the entire event.
We are utterly reliant on farming as a species, and farming is utterly reliant on tractors. If we don’t have tractors, we don’t have food. But electrifying farms is hard, and Praveen explained how he and Monarch are trying to tackle that challenge. The ambition is to compete in an open way with closed platforms like John Deere, and Praveen said his goal for the Monarch platform is to be the Android of agriculture. Lees meerLinks:
Electric robot tractors powered by Nvidia AI chips are here
John Deere turned tractors into computers — what’s next?
John Deere commits to letting farmers repair their own tractors (kind of)
Monarch Tractors to be manufactured by Foxconn
Foxconn begins rolling first Monarch electric tractors off assembly lines in Lordstown
A sneak peek into Monarch Tractor's vision-based AI technology
CNH Industrial, Monarch Tractor agree electrification technologies deal
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23659941
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt. It was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Editorial Director is Brooke Minters and our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
AMD CEO Lisa Su on the AI revolution
29 september 2023 · 36 min
Today, we’re bringing you something a little different. The Code Conference was this week, and we had a great time talking live onstage with all of our guests. We’ll be sharing a lot of these conversations here in the coming days, and the first one we’re sharing is my chat with Dr. Lisa Su, the CEO of AMD. Lees meer
Lisa and I spoke for half an hour, and we covered an incredible number of topics, especially about AI and the chip supply chain. The balance of supply and demand is overall in a pretty good place right now, Lisa told us, with the notable exception of these high-end GPUs powering all of the large AI models that everyone’s running. The hottest GPU in the game is Nvidia’s H100 chip. But AMD is working to compete with a new chip Lisa told us about called the MI300 that should be as fast as the H100. You’ll also hear Lisa talk about what companies are doing to increase manufacturing capacity.
Finally, Lisa answered questions from the amazing Code audience and talked a lot about how much AMD is using AI inside the company right now. It’s more than you think, although Lisa did say AI is not going to be designing chips all by itself anytime soon.
Okay, Dr. Lisa Su, CEO of AMD. Here we go.
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23658688
Links:
AI startup Lamini bets future on AMD's Instinct GPUs
Biden signs $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act
Pat Gelsinger came back to turn Intel around — here’s how it’s going
Huawei’s chip breakthrough poses new threat to Apple in China — and questions for Washington
AMD expands AI product lineup with GPU-only Instinct MI300X
Microsoft is reportedly helping AMD expand into AI chips
US curbs AI chip exports from Nvidia and AMD to some Middle East countries
Apple on the iPhone 15 Pro: 'It's Going to be the Best Game Console'
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Br… -
X CEO Linda Yaccarino defends Elon Musk, and herself, at Code 2023
29 september 2023 · 42 min
Today, we have a special episode for you. The Code Conference wrapped up this week, and the finale included a rare interview from my Code co-host and CNBC correspondent Julia Boorstin with X CEO Linda Yaccarino. To say the sit-down with Elon Musk’s No. 2 was confrontational would be an understatement. Lees meer
Yaccarino appeared both unprepared to answer tough questions and very combative, especially when asked about comments from former trust and safety head Yoel Roth, who’s become an outspoken critic of the direction of the company since Elon took over. Roth spoke onstage at Code with Kara Swisher just an hour before, where he warned Yaccarino of the risks of the job and spoke about the extreme harassment he’s faced since leaving the company.
Yaccarino also gave us some updated stats on X user metrics and claimed the company would turn a profit in 2024. And of course, there were some very terse exchanges concerning whether Elon really plans to start charging a subscription fee to use the platform, if he seriously plans to sue the Anti-Defamation League, and the company’s recent cuts to its election integrity team. It’s a jaw-dropping interview, and you really have to listen to the whole thing.
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt. It was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Editorial Director is Brooke Minters and our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Mark Zuckerberg on Threads, the future of AI, and Quest 3
27 september 2023 · 1 uur 11 min
What motivates Mark Zuckerberg these days? It's a question Decoder guest host Alex Heath posed at the end of his interview last week, after he and Zuckerberg had spent an hour talking about Threads, Zuckerberg's vision for how generative AI will reshape Meta's apps, the Quest 3, and other news from the company's Connect conference, which kicked off today. Lees meer
After spending the past five years as a wartime CEO, Zuckerberg is getting back to basics, and he clearly feels good about it. "I think we've done a lot of good things," he said. "But for the next wave of my life and for the company — but also outside of the company with what I'm doing at CZI [Chan Zuckerberg Initiative] and some of my personal projects — I define my life at this point more in terms of getting to work on awesome things with great people who I like working with." For Zuckerberg, "awesome things" means figuring out how to combine his company's AR, VR, and AI ambitions into new products.
This rare interview with the Meta CEO also includes details on his ongoing feud with Elon Musk and the quest to beat X/Twitter using Threads, his perspective on open source, and his vision for decentralized social media. Okay, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Here we go.
Links:
Mark Zuckerberg is ready to fight Elon Musk in a cage match
The three reasons Twitter didn’t sell to Facebook
Threads app usage plummets despite initial promise as refuge from Twitter
Threads isn’t for news and politics, says Instagram’s boss
You can now verify your Threads profile on Mastodon
In show of force, Silicon Valley titans pledge ‘getting this right’ With AI
Meta is putting AI chatbots everywhere
A conversation with Bing’s chatbot left me deeply unsettled
Custom AI chatbots are quietly becoming the next big thing in fandom
Meta’s Smart Glasses can take calls, play music, and livestream from your face
Meta’s $499.99 Quest 3 headset is all about mixed reality and video games
The Meta Quest 3 is sharper, more powerful, and still…
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After 10 years covering startups, former TechCrunch EIC Matthew Panzarino tells us what's next
19 september 2023 · 52 min
TechCrunch is one of the most important trade publications in the world of tech and startups, and its annual Disrupt conference is where dozens of major companies have launched… and some have failed.
Matt has been the editor-in-chief of TechCrunch for essentially a decade now, and he and I have been both friends and competitors the entire time. We’ve competed for scoops, traded criticisms, and asked each other for advice in running our publications and managing our teams.
So when Matt announced last month that he’s stepping down from his role at TechCrunch it felt important to have him come on for what you might call an exit interview — a look back at the past decade running a media outlet at the center of the tech ecosystem, with all of the chaos that’s entailed. Lees meerLinks:
Why We Sold TechCrunch To AOL, And Where We Go From Here | TechCrunch (2010)
TechCrunch founder leaves AOL in a cloud of acrimony | CNN Money (2011)
SB Nation Sacks AOL in Raid of Former Engadget Team for Competing New Tech Site, As AOL Zeroes in on New EiC | All Things D (2011)
Why Every Company Needs A 'No Bozos' Policy | Forbes (2012)
Artificial Intelligence Nonprofit OpenAI Launches With Backing From Elon Musk And Sam Altman | TechCrunch
Just buy this Brother laser printer everyone has, it’s fine | The VergeCredits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Nick Statt and Kate Cox. It was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Editorial Director is Brooke Minters and our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
More than Sally Ride: Loren Grush explains how NASA’s first women astronauts changed space
12 september 2023 · 58 min
The Six: The Untold Story of America's First Women Astronauts, from longtime space reporter and Verge alum Loren Grush, is out today.
It’s been 40 years since Sally Ride became the first American woman in space — but she was far from the last. In the early 1980s six women — Sally Ride, Judy Resnick, Kathy Sullivan, Anna Fisher, Rhea Seddon, and Shannon Lucid — would get a chance to fly a mission on one of the space shuttles… including, unfortunately, the ill-fated 1986 Challenger launch.
The story of the six may be history, but it’s far from ancient, and there’s a lot going on here that ties directly to today. And of course, what’s an astronaut story without some high-flying hijinks in it? Listen to the end for Loren’s favorite. Lees meerLinks:
Nichelle Nichols - NASA Recruitment Film (1977)
Top Black Woman Is Ousted By NASA | The New York Times (1973)
The Space Truck | The Washington Post (1981)
NASA Artemis
Five former SpaceX employees speak out about harassment at the company | The Verge
Why did Blue Origin leave so many female space reporters out of its big reveal? | The Verge
‘We better watch out’: NASA boss sounds alarm on Chinese moon ambitions | Politico
Elon Musk’s Shadow Rule | The New Yorker
US Takes First Step Toward Regulating Commercial Human Spaceflight | Bloomberg
Apply to attend the Code ConferenceCredits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Editorial Director is Brooke Minters and our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Biometrics? Bring it on: Why Okta’s Jameeka Green Aaron wants passwords to go away
29 augustus 2023 · 1 uur 13 min
Okta is a big company, a Wall Street SaaS darling. For most of us, it's the thing we have to log into 50 times a week just to get any work done. But from Okta's point of view, Jameeka Green Aaron told us, it's an identity company. Lees meer
I spoke with Jameeka about what "identity" really means — in the digital space, in your real life, and at work — in 2023, and how an identity-based approach might be more or less secure than other approaches. I’m also gearing up to host Code in September (apply to attend here), and I’m thinking a lot about AI — very much a challenge for the future of security, even in a biometric-based era.
Links:
Apple IDs now support passkeys — if you’re on the iOS 17 or macOS Sonoma betas
How to use a passkey to sign in to your Google account
Windows 11 tests letting you sign in to websites with a fingerprint or face
Apple, Google, and Microsoft will soon implement passwordless sign-in on all major platforms
Microsoft called out for ‘blatantly negligent’ cybersecurity practices
Okta Faces Long Road Back
At Okta, CTO and CISO collaborate by design
Apply to attend the Code ConferenceCredits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Editorial Director is Brooke Minters and our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Fandom runs some of the biggest communities on the web. Can CEO Perkins Miller keep them happy?
22 augustus 2023 · 1 uur 10 min
Perkins Miller is the CEO of Fandom, which both hosts thousands of wikis for everything from Disney to Grand Theft Auto and also runs several publications. Millions of people contribute millions of pieces of content to the platform, and Fandom surrounds all that content with ads and uses all that data to generate insights about how fans think about their favorite games, TV shows, and movies. Lees meer
While you might enjoy the content, a lot of people have complaints — especially about the sheer number of ads. We talked about what it means to host user-generated content in 2023; content moderation; and the general state of media, especially games media, which is pretty rocky right now. I’m also gearing up to host the Code Conference in September (apply to attend here), and I’ve been thinking a lot about AI, search, and the web — all very much big challenges on the horizon for Fandom.
Links:
Layoffs Hit GameSpot, Giant Bomb Just Months After Fandom Buys Them - Kotaku
How Fandom's first-party data, FanDNA, is expanding to improve recommendations for advertisers and audiences - Digiday
The AI feedback loop: Researchers warn of 'model collapse' as AI trains on AI-generated content - VentureBeat
How Reddit crushed the biggest protest in its history - The Verge
‘Not for Machines to Harvest’: Data Revolts Break Out Against A.I. - The New York Times
Someone keeps accusing fanfiction authors of writing their fic with AI, and nobody knows why - The Verge
Massive Zelda Wiki Reclaims Independence Six Months Before Tears of the Kingdom - Kotaku
Official Minecraft wiki editors so furious at Fandom's 'degraded' functionality and popups they're overwhelmingly voting to leave the site - PC Gamer
Trials and Tribble-ations (episode) - Memory Alpha
Apply to attend the Code ConferenceTranscript:
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmast… -
Land of the Giants: Tesla vs. The Competition
15 augustus 2023 · 38 min
We have a little surprise in the feed today: An episode of "Land of the Giants," which is all about Tesla this season. Former Verge transportation reporter Tamara Warren and former Jalopnik EIC Patrick George, who are both deeply sourced in the world of cars, host, and every episode has reporting and insight about Tesla that really hasn’t been shared before. It was ahead of the EV competition in basically every way for a long time. But the question Tamara and Patrick want to answer is: Is Tesla still winning by default? And where is the competition pulling ahead now that every carmaker is doing EVs? I joined them in this episode to discuss how modern cars, especially EVs, are being totally rethought as rolling computers.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Lees meer -
There's no AI without the cloud, says AWS CEO Adam Selipsky
8 augustus 2023 · 1 uur 9 min
AWS is quite a story. It started as an experiment almost 20 years ago with Amazon trying to sell its excess server capacity. And people really doubted it. Why was the online bookstore trying to sell cloud services? But now, AWS is the largest cloud services provider in the world, and it’s the most profitable segment of Amazon, generating more than $22 billion in sales last quarter alone. By some estimates, AWS powers roughly one-third of the entire global internet. And on the rare occasion an AWS cluster goes down, an unfathomable number of platforms, websites, and services feel it, and so do hundreds of millions of users. Lees meer
Adam Selipsky was there almost from the start: he joined in 2005 and became CEO of AWS in 2019 when former AWS CEO Andy Jassy took over for Jeff Bezos as CEO of Amazon. Even with big competitors such as Microsoft and Google gaining ground, he estimates that only 10 percent of his potential customers overall have made the jump to the cloud.
That leaves lots of room to grow, and I wanted to know where he thinks that growth can come from — and importantly, what will keep AWS competitive as the word “cloud” starts to mean everything and nothing.
AWS is going big on AI, but it has some challenges. Adam and I got into all of it and into the weeds of what it means to be an AI provider at scale. It’s uncharted territory.
Links:
Big Three Dominate the Global Cloud Market
Amazon’s server outage broke fast food apps like McDonald’s and Taco Bell
Amazon names former exec Adam Selipsky as the new head of AWS
AWS is ready to power AI agents that can handle busywork instead of just chatting
Nvidia reveals H100 GPU for AI and teases ‘world’s fastest AI supercomputer’
Amazon plans to rework Alexa in the age of ChatGPT
Sarah Silverman is suing OpenAI and Meta for copyright infringementTranscript: https://www.theverge.com/23824200/ai-cloud-amazon-aws-adam-selipsky
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Rewind: Can Mastodon seize the moment from Twitter?
25 juli 2023 · 1 uur 21 min
ActivityPub is back in the news, thanks to Meta’s Threads launch and Elon’s continued immolation of Twitter — now X. That makes this the perfect time to dig into the Decoder archives to hear what Mastodon CEO Eugen Rochko thinks about the future of social media. Mastodon got a head start as the most well-known of the rising decentralized social networks, but that’s changing fast. Bluesky, on a competing protocol, is picking up steam and Threads promises to decentralize in the future, using the same ActivityPub protocol as Mastodon. That’s a big deal, with big potential. Lees meer
Verge Editor-at-Large David Pierce has been covering all this very closely. Before we jump into the interview with Rochko, I spoke with David to help update everyone on what ActivityPub even is, and what it could mean for the future of social media.
Links:
More than two million users have flocked to Mastodon since Elon Musk took over Twitter - The Verge
A beginner’s guide to Mastodon, the hot new open-source Twitter clone - The Verge
Elon Musk - The Verge
Benevolent dictator for life - Wikipedia
Mastodon Social
Eugen Rochko (@Gargron@mastodon.social)
Erase browser history: can AI reset the browser battle? - The Verge
Twitter alternatives for the Musk-averse - The Verge
We tried to run a social media site and it was awful | Financial Times
Denial-of-service attack - Wikipedia
Can ActivityPub save the internet? - The Verge
Five reasons Threads could still go the distance - The Verge
What's next for Threads - The VergeTranscript:
https://www.theverge.com/e/23422689Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
It was produced by Creighton DeSimone and Jackie McDermott and it was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Editorial Director is Brooke Minters and our Executive Director is Eleanor Donovan.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Why would anyone make a website in 2023? Squarespace CEO Anthony Casalena has some ideas
18 juli 2023 · 1 uur 4 min
Today I’m talking to Anthony Casalena, the founder and CEO of Squarespace, the ubiquitous web hosting and design company. If you’re a podcast listener, you’ve heard a Squarespace ad.
I was excited to talk to Anthony because it really feels like we’re going through a reset moment on the internet, and I wanted to hear how he’s thinking about the web and what websites are even for in 2023.
If you’re a Vergecast listener, you know I’ve been saying it feels a lot like 2011 out there. The big platforms like Facebook and TikTok are very focused on entertainment content. Twitter is going through… let’s call them changes. People are trying out new platforms like Instagram Threads and rethinking their relationships with old standbys like Reddit. And the introduction of AI means that search engines like Google, which was really the last great source of traffic for web pages, just doesn’t seem that reliable anymore as it begins to answer more questions directly. It’s uncertain, and exciting: a lot of things we took for granted just a couple years ago are up for grabs, and I think that might be a good thing.
I love talking to people who’ve been building on the web for this long, and Anthony was no exception – we had fun with this one. Also I think this is the most we have ever talked about pressure washers on Decoder. Lees meerLinks:
Google sunsets Domains business and shovels it off to Squarespace - The Verge
How Did Squarespace Know Podcasts Would Get This Big? - The New York Times
Watch Squarespace CEO on Leveraging AI Into Website Building - BloombergTranscript:
https://www.theverge.com/e/23559195Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Jackie McDermott and Raghu Manavalan, and it was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Editorial Director is Brooke Minters, and our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.c… -
Inside Google’s big AI shuffle — and how it plans to stay competitive, with Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis
10 juli 2023 · 1 uur 2 min
Today, I’m talking to Demis Hassabis, the CEO of Google DeepMind, the newly created division of Google responsible for AI efforts across the company. Google DeepMind is the result of an internal merger: Google acquired Demis’ DeepMind startup in 2014 and ran it as a separate company inside its parent company, Alphabet, while Google itself had an AI team called Google Brain. Lees meer
Google has been showing off AI demos for years now, but with the explosion of ChatGPT and a renewed threat from Microsoft in search, Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai made the decision to bring DeepMind into Google itself earlier this year to create… Google DeepMind.
What’s interesting is that Google Brain and DeepMind were not necessarily compatible or even focused on the same things: DeepMind was famous for applying AI to things like games and protein-folding simulations. The AI that beat world champions at Go, the ancient board game? That was DeepMind’s AlphaGo. Meanwhile, Google Brain was more focused on what’s come to be the familiar generative AI toolset: large language models for chatbots, and editing features in Google Photos. This was a culture clash and a big structure decision with the goal of being more competitive and faster to market with AI products.
And the competition isn’t just OpenAI and Microsoft — you might have seen a memo from a Google engineer floating around the web recently claiming that Google has no competitive moat in AI because open-source models running on commodity hardware are rapidly evolving and catching up to the tools run by the giants. Demis confirmed that the memo was real but said it was part of Google’s debate culture, and he disagreed with it because he has other ideas about where Google’s competitive edge might come into play.
We also talked about AI risk and artificial general intelligence. Demis is not shy that his goal is building an AGI, and we talked through what risks and regulations should be in place and on what timeline. Demis recently …
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Why CEO David Baszucki is ready for Roblox to grow up
27 juni 2023 · 54 min
Roblox has 66 million daily users, and people spent 14 billion collective hours on Roblox in just Q1 of 2023. But its CEO David Baszucki still wants to see the company grow.
One idea? Aging up the kinds of experiences that are allowed on its platform. Roblox recently introduced 17+ experiences. It wants to add new AI world-building capabilities. It’s even partnering with advertisers to roll out more immersive ad experiences.
It’s been years since the number of adults gaming outnumbered kids – it seems like that’s driving a lot of growth for everyone, including Roblox. But these virtual world games seem like they all want to expand to be much more than just for kids, and much more than just for games.
If you think about it, Roblox is already like a metaverse. Schools are using it for classes, companies are starting to advertise there, and people are just hanging out as avatars.
It’s already big, but the hope is to get much, much bigger.
Alex Heath, deputy editor at The Verge, got the chance to chat with David up at Roblox headquarters in San Mateo, California. Their conversation covered a lot: why now’s the time for Roblox to grow up, the classic Decoder questions about structure and decision-making, and sadly, why infinite Robux isn’t a thing. Apologies to all the eight year olds out there. Lees meerOkay, Roblox CEO David Baszucki. Here we go.
Links:
Roblox will allow exclusive experiences for people 17 and over
Roblox, explained - The Verge
Fortnite and Roblox are dueling for the future of user-built games - The VergeCredits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
It was produced by Raghu Manavalan and Jackie McDermott and it was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Editorial Director is Brooke Minters and our Executive Director is Eleanor Donovan.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Gary Vaynerchuk is ‘petrified’ of Slack
21 juni 2023 · 50 min
If you’ve spent more than two minutes somewhere on social media, you have probably come across Gary Vaynerchuk. For years I have wondered, is this just a character? Or is there a real Gary Vaynerchuk somewhere behind “GaryVee,” the social media entrepreneur and internet brand? Lees meer
Gary got his start working at his family’s liquor store, which he turned into an online wine shop. That’s where he started in social media, hosting a long-running YouTube show called “Wine Library TV.” He parlayed that into the gigantic GaryVee brand, which at its core, is about entrepreneurship. Gary co-founded the restaurant reservation platform Resy, which he sold to American Express in 2019, and Empathy Wines which he sold in 2020.
The Vaynerchuk empire remains vast, and it’s structured in complicated ways. There’s holding company VaynerX, which contains the ad agency VaynerMedia. There’s another company called Gallery Media which owns lifestyle websites. Gary even co-founded a sports agency – VaynerSports, with pro athletes like the NFL’s Kirk Cousins and Sauce Gardner on the roster, MLB shortstop Bo Bichette, and a variety of combat athletes.
On top of all that, there’s a serious upheaval going on in digital media. The era of the social web is coming to a major moment of change, with new platforms like TikTok in the mix and old standbys like Twitter and Reddit going through complicated and controversial resets. New platforms bring new personalities and influencers, who are native to those platforms and maybe better at capturing the audience there.
It’s one thing when you’re the first GaryVee. But staying GaryVee, in a time of change, and pitching brands and companies that his approach to social media will stay relevant, is an ongoing challenge.
We got to chat with Gary at his Hudson Yards office in Manhattan and I will tell you, he did not hold back with his answers.
Links:
A trip to the GaryVee convention, where everyone is part of crypto’s 1 percent - The Verge
How Gary Vaynerch… -
Private equity bought out your doctor and bankrupted Toys”R”Us. Here’s why that matters.
13 juni 2023 · 1 uur 1 min
The idea behind private equity or PE is simple: a private equity firm gathers up a bunch of cash, raises some investor cash and takes on a lot of debt to buy various companies, often taking them off the public stock market. Then, they usually install new management and embark on aggressive cost cutting and turnaround programs – mostly because they have to pay down all that debt pretty fast. Then, the company can be sold or taken public again for a hefty profit. But don’t worry—if it doesn’t work out, the PE firms are extracting fees at every step of the process so they get paid no matter what happens. Lees meer
In another world, these PE deals are just boring financing strategies or maybe the backbone of the occasional juicy corporate takeover story. In Decoder world, PE is everywhere. Since the modern PE industry kicked off in the 1980’s, it’s grown virtually unchecked, and as author Brendan Ballou explains, that’s had seriously negative consequences for all kinds of markets and consumers. Private equity affects everything from the modern nursing home industry, to the Solarwinds hack, one of the biggest hacks in U.S. history.
Brendan Ballou is the author of Plunder: Private Equity’s Plan to Pillage America. Brendan is also a federal prosecutor and he served as Special Counsel for Private Equity in the antitrust division at the Department of Justice, so he’s uniquely suited to writing a book like this. Although he will be the first to tell you, the book does not reflect the views of the DOJ.
This is a wonky episode, but it’s essential.
Links:
Plunder by Brendan Ballou
How Private Equity Buried Payless - The New York Times
Barnes & Noble is going back to its indie roots to compete with Amazon - Decoder, The Verge
How arson led to a culture reboot at Traeger, with CEO Jeremy Andrus - Decoder, The Verge
Opinion | Private Equity Is Gutting America — and Getting Away With It - The New York Times
Ticketmaster, Taylor Swift, and antitrust – explained - The Verge
What is chokepo…