Decoder with Nilay Patel

Latest Episodes:

How the head of Obsidian went from superfan to CEO Aug 18, 2025

Show notes

Obsidian is a note-taking and productivity app that occupies the same "second brain" space as competitors like Notion — but in a lot of ways, it's also startlingly different. Obsidian's files are Markdown-based, stored locally on your own devices, and completely free to use.

Steph Ango, the CEO, is also different in a lot of ways: He's not an Obsidian founder, but instead came to the role from being basically a member of the fan development community. His take on software, productivity, and business is refreshingly old-fashioned in a lot of good ways, while he's also leading a very 21st century startup.

Read the full transcript on The Verge.

Links:

I’m joining Obsidian as CEO | Obsidian Blog

About Obsidian (Manifesto) | Obsidian

Narvar acquires Lumi (2021) | Narvar

After 15 years whipping the llama’s ass, Winamp shuts down | TechCrunch

Notion’s Ivan Zhao wants you to demand better from your tools | Decoder

Book Review: “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running” | National Geographic

Credits:

Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt; our editor is Ursa Wright.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

ChatGPT chief Nick Turley doesn't want you too attached to AI Aug 14, 2025

Show notes

This is Alex Heath, your Thursday episode guest host and deputy editor at The Verge. Today, I’m talking to a very special guest: Nick Turley, OpenAI’s head of ChatGPT.

While Sam Altman is definitely the public face of OpenAI, Nick has been leading ChatGPT’s development since the very beginning, and it’s now the fastest-growing software product of all time with more than 700 million weekly users. So, Nick and I talk about the backlash against OpenAI’s removal of its GPT-4o model, the future of ChatGPT itself, solving hallucinations, and why he thinks it eventually won’t look like a chatbot at all.

Read the full transcript on The Verge.

Links:

ChatGPT won’t remove old models without warning after GPT-5 backlash | Verge
ChatGPT is bringing back 4o as an option because people missed it | Verge
GPT-5 is being released to all ChatGPT users | Verge
The 6 biggest changes coming to ChatGPT | Verge
ChatGPT has 20 million paying subscribers | Verge
Elon Musk says he’s suing Apple for rigging App Store rankings | Verge
OpenAI’s ChatGPT to hit 700 million weekly users | CNBC
Chatbots can go into a delusional spiral. Here’s how it happens | NYT
ChatGPT gave instructions for murder, self-mutilation, and devil worship | The Atlantic
‘I feel like I’m going crazy’: ChatGPT fuels delusional spirals | WSJ

Credits:

Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Xander Adams.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Notion's CEO wants you to demand better from your tools Aug 11, 2025

Show notes

This is Casey Newton, founder and editor of Platformer and cohost of the Hard Fork podcast. This is the second episode of my productivity-focused Decoder series I’m doing while Nilay is out on parental leave.

Today, I’m talking with Notion cofounder and CEO Ivan Zhao. I’ve followed Notion for quite some time now — I’m a big fan, and I use Notion as part of my workflow with Platformer. So I was very excited to get Ivan on the show to discuss his philosophy on productivity, how he’s grown his company over the last decade, and where he sees the space going in the future.

Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.

Links:

Introducing Notion AI for Work | Notion
Notion Mail is a minimalist but powerful take on email | Verge
Notion’s new Q&A feature lets you ask an AI about your notes | Verge
Notion takes on AI notetakers with its own transcription feature | TechCrunch
The impossible dream of good workplace software | Decoder
When AI has better taste than you | Julie Zhuo / The Looking Glass

Credits:

Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was editor by Xander Adams.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

GitHub's CEO says AI coding is ‘here to stay’ Aug 07, 2025

Show notes

This is Alex Heath, deputy editor at The Verge. My guest today is GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke. In many ways, GitHub Copilot set off the current AI coding boom. But since Thomas was on the show a year ago, the rise of vibe coding has shifted the buzz to newer platforms like Cursor and Windsurf. As you’ll hear in our conversation, Thomas is thinking a lot about the competition, and GitHub’s role in the future of software development.

Links:

Developers, Reinvented | Thomas Dohmke / GitHub
Developer Odyssey | Thomas Dohmke / GitHub
Why tech is racing to adopt AI coding, with Cursor’s Michael Truell | Decoder
GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke says AI needs competition to thrive | ⁠⁠Decoder⁠⁠
Up to 30 percent of some Microsoft code is now written by AI | Verge
GitHub launches its AI app-making tool in preview | Verge
Microsoft is getting ready for GPT-5 with a new Copilot smart mode | Verge
Zuckerberg: AI will write most Meta code within 18 months | Engadget

Credits:

Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Xander Adams.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Why tech is racing to adopt AI coding Aug 04, 2025

Show notes

This is Casey Newton, founder and editor of the Platformer newsletter and cohost of the Hard Fork podcast. I’ll be guest hosting the next few episodes of Decoder while Nilay is out on parental leave. For the next three weeks, I’ll be talking to leaders in the productivity space about what they’re building, and how they can help us get things done.

My guest today: Michael Truell, the CEO of Anysphere, the maker of automated programming platform Cursor AI. I sat down with Michael to talk about his product and how it works, why coding with AI has seen such incredible adoption, and what the future of automated programming really looks like.

Read the full transcript on The Verge.

Links:

Anysphere, hailed as fastest growing startup ever, raises $900 Million| Bloomberg
AI coding assistant Cursor draws a million users without even trying| Bloomberg
Anthropic rehires AI leaders from Anysphere | The Information
Cursor apologizes for unclear pricing changes that upset users | TechCrunch
OpenAI looked at buying Cursor creator before turning to rival Windsurf | CNBC
Interview with Anysphere CEO Michael Truell about coding with AI | Stratechery

Credits:

Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Why AI researchers are getting paid like NBA All-Stars Jul 31, 2025

Show notes

This is Alex Heath, your Thursday episode guest host and deputy editor at The Verge. Today I'm joined by Hayden Field, The Verge’s new senior AI reporter to talk about the AI talent wars and why some researchers are suddenly getting traded like their NBA superstars.

Both Hayden and I have been reporting on this for the past several weeks to get a sense of much these companies are paying for top talent, why Big Tech firms like Google are opting to hire instead of acquire, and what it means that some of the most sought-after AI experts in the world are no longer motivated by money alone.

Links:

OpenAI’s Windsurf deal is off — and Windsurf’s CEO is going to Google | Verge
Mark Zuckerberg promises you can trust him with superintelligent AI | Verge
Meta is trying to win the AI race with money — but not everyone can be bought | Verge
Meta says it’s winning the talent war with OpenAI | Command Line
Google gets its swag back | Command Line
The AI talent wars are just getting started | Command Line
Meta tried to buy Safe Superintelligence, hired its CEO instead | CNBC
Apple loses top AI models executive to Meta’s hiring spree | Bloomberg
Meta’s AI recruiting campaign finds a new target | Wired
Anthropic hires back two AI leaders from Anysphere | The Information

Credits:

Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Can we ever trust an AI lawyer? Jul 28, 2025

Show notes

This is CNBC journalist Jon Fortt. This is the last episode I’ll be guest-hosting for Nilay while he’s out on parental leave. My guest today is Richard Robinson, who is the cofounder and CEO of legal tech startup Robin AI.

Richard is a corporate lawyer-turned-startup founder working on AI tools for the legal profession. But law and AI have not mixed well. So I wanted to ask Richard about hallucinations, how lawyers can use AI today, and what it will really take to place our trust in an AI lawyer.

Read the full transcript on The Verge.

Links:

Legal tech startup Robin AI raises another $25 million | Fortune
Why do lawyers keep using ChatGPT? | Verge
Judge slams lawyers for ‘bogus AI-generated research’ | Verge
Lawyers using AI must heed ethics rules, ABA says in first formal guidance | Reuters
Lawyers fined for submitting bogus case law created by ChatGPT | AP
The ChatGPT lawyer explains himself | NYT

Credits:

Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We are not ready for better deepfakes Jul 24, 2025

Show notes

This is Alex Heath, your Thursday episode guest host. Today I'm talking with Gaurav Misra, the CEO of Captions. You may not have heard of Captions yet, but by now, you’ve probably seen a video that was generated using its AI models. The company’s Mirage Studio platform lets anyone generate AI versions of real people, and the results are alarmingly realistic.

Captions just put out a blog post titled, “We Build Synthetic Humans. Here’s What’s Keeping Us Up at Night.” It’s a good overview of the state of deepfakes and where they’re headed. So Gauraav and I sat down to discuss the trajectory of deepfake technology and what might be done to prevent it from being misused.

Links:

We build synthetic humans. Here’s what’s keeping us up at night | Captions
Google’s Veo 3 AI video generator is a slop monger’s dream | Verge
Gemini AI can now turn photos into videos | Verge
Trump just unveiled his plan to put AI in everything | Verge
Racist videos made with AI are going viral on TikTok | Verge
Microsoft wants Congress to outlaw AI-generated deepfake fraud | Verge
YouTube is supporting the ‘No Fakes Act’ targeting unauthorized AI replicas | Verge
This Tom Cruise impersonator is using deepfake tech to impressive ends | Verge

Credits:

Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Why tech billionaires want a ‘corporate dictatorship’ Jul 21, 2025

Show notes

This is Jon Fortt, CNBC journalist. I’m guest-hosting for a couple more episodes of Decoder this summer while Nilay is out on parental leave. Today, I’m talking with a very special guest: Gil Duran, an old friend, journalist, and author of The Nerd Reich, a newsletter and forthcoming book about the shifting politics of Silicon Valley and the rise of tech authoritarianism.

Links:

Is Peter Thiel the Antichrist? NYT didn’t think to ask | The Nerd Reich
How tech authoritarianism becomes reality | The Nerd Reich
Curtis Yarvin’s Plot Against America | The New Yorker
The rise of techno-authoritarianism | The Atlantic
JD Vance thinks monarchists have some good ideas | The Verge
Startups meeting with Trump officials to push for deregulated ‘Freedom Cities’ | Wired
Peter Thiel-linked startup wants to build the “next great city” in Greenland | Inside Hook
Bitcoin could replace dollar If US debt grows says Coinbase CEO | CryptoSlate

Credits:

Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Perplexity CEO on why the browser is AI's killer app Jul 17, 2025

Show notes

This is Alex Heath, deputy editor at The Verge. Nilay’s out on parental leave for the next few months, so I’ll be stepping in to host our Thursday episodes while he’s out. My guest today is Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas, who is betting that the browser is where more useful AI will get built.

Perplexity just released Comet, an AI web browser for the Mac and Windows that’s still in an invite-only beta. I’ve been using it, and it’s very interesting. In this conversation, Aravind and I also discussed the future of Perplexity, the AI talent wars, and why he thinks people will eventually pay thousands of dollars for a single AI prompt.

Read the full transcript here on The Verge.

Links: