Decoder with Nilay Patel

Latest Episodes:

Erase browser history: can AI reset the browser battle? Feb 14, 2023

Show notes

Hello and welcome to Decoder. I’m Nilay Patel, editor in chief of The Verge, and Decoder is my show about big ideas, and other problems.

Today, I'm talking to Mitchell Baker, the chairwoman and CEO of Mozilla, the organization behind the Firefox browser, the Thunderbird email client, the Pocket newsreader, and a bunch of other interesting internet tools.

Now as you all know, Decoder is secretly a podcast about org charts – maybe not so secretly, and Mozilla’s structure is really interesting. Mozilla itself is a nonprofit foundation, but it contains within it something called the Mozilla Corporation, which actually makes Firefox and the rest. Mitchell is the chairwoman of the foundation, and the CEO of the corporation. And the Mozilla Corporation, which they charmingly call MoCo, can make a profit - or it can least be taxed, which is an important distinction you’ll hear Mitchell talk about.

I bring this up because Mozilla has been around since 1994 in a variety of structures and business models – it started as a company called Netscape, and Mitchell was one of the first employees in the legal department. Netscape’s product was Netscape Navigator, the first commercial web browser, which of course changed the consumer internet and scared Microsoft so much it did a bunch of anticompetitive things that led to the famous antitrust case. In the meantime, Netscape got sold to AOL, and along the way Mitchell led the somewhat renegade Mozilla Project inside the company which eventually lead to Mozilla the non-profit foundation that eventually launched Firefox. It’s a lot!

But now Mitchell is trying to live up to Mozilla’s nonprofit ideals of protecting the open internet while still trying to compete and cooperate with tech giants like Apple and Google. And these are complicated relationships: Google still accounts for a huge percentage of Mozilla’s revenue – it pays hundreds of millions of dollars to be the default search engine in Firefox. And Apple restricts what browser engines can run on the iPhone – Firefox Focus on the iPhone is still running Apple’s webkit engine, something that regulators, particularly in Europe want to change.

On top of all that, some big foundational pieces of the web are changing: Microsoft is aggressively rolling out its chatGPT-powered Bing search engine in an effort to displace Google and get people to switch to the Edge browser, and Twitter’s implosion means that Mitchell sees Mastodon as one of Mozilla’s next big opportunities.

So how does Mozilla get through this period of change while staying true to itself? And will anyone actually switch browsers again? Turns out – it might be easier to get people to switch on phones, than on desktops. That’s Mozilla’s belief, anyway.

Links:

Netscape - Wikipedia

The State of Mozilla: 2021 — 2022 Annual Report

The future of computers is only $4 away, with Raspberry Pi CEO Eben Upton

Firefox drops Google as default search engine, signs five-year deal with Yahoo

Microsoft thinks AI can beat Google at search — CEO Satya Nadella explains why

Microsoft announces new Bing and Edge browser powered by upgraded ChatGPT AI

A beginner’s guide to Mastodon, the hot new open-source Twitter clone

Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23362385

Credits:

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

Microsoft thinks AI can beat Google at search — CEO Satya Nadella explains why Feb 08, 2023

Show notes

I’m coming to you from Microsoft’s campus in Redmond, where just a few hours ago, Microsoft announced that the next version of the Bing search engine would be powered by OpenAI, the company that makes ChatGPT. There’s also a new version of the Edge web browser with OpenAI chat tech in a window that can help you browse and understand web pages.

The in-depth presentation showed how OpenAI running in Bing and Edge could radically increase your productivity. They demo’d it making a travel itinerary, posting to LinkedIn, and rewriting code to work in a different programming language.

After the presentation, I was able to get some time with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Nadella has been very bullish on AI. He’s previously talked about AI as the next major computing platform. I wanted to talk about this next step in AI, the partnership with OpenAI, and why he thought now was the best time to go after Google search.

This is a short interview, but it’s a good one. Okay, Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft. Here we go.

Watch this interview as a video

Microsoft announces new Bing and Edge browser powered by upgraded ChatGPT AI

All the news from Microsoft’s February AI event

Transcript:

https://www.theverge.com/e/23354035

Credits:

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

Today's episode was produced by Creighton DeSimone, Jackie McDermott, Vjeran Pavic and Becca Farsace 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

How HBO’s creatives survived corporate chaos Feb 07, 2023

Show notes

HBO started as an experiment. It was a way to get people to switch from getting TV over broadcast antennas to cable by offering events you’d otherwise need tickets to see: boxing, plays, movies. That’s where the name Home Box Office comes from.

But it grew from there in surprising ways: HBO was a major innovator in satellite distribution, in working with cable operators around the country, and of course in programming. The company’s taste and style has influenced and shaped culture for a generation now. And importantly, HBO did it without any real data: the cable companies owned all the subscribers, so HBO made decisions through instinct and experience.

The amazing thing about HBO is that it has stayed true to itself through an absolutely tumultuous set of ownership changes and strategy shifts. If you’re a Decoder listener you know about the chaos of AT&T and HBO Max and the sale to Discovery to create Warner Brothers Discovery, but it’s so much twistier than that.

I talked through all of those twists with Felix Gillette and John Koblin, authors of the terrific book It’s Not TV: The Spectacular Rise, Revolution, and Future of HBO. Felix and John also peeled back the curtain on your favorite HBO shows from Sex and the City to Game of Thrones.

Before we get into the episode, I have to do our usual set of disclosures: I’m a Netflix executive producer. We made a Netflix show called The Future Of. You should watch it. I’m hopelessly biased in favor of the show we made. Also, Vox Media has a minority investment from Comcast. They don’t like me very much. And I worked at AOL Time Warner. I quit to start The Verge.

Ok that’s that. Let’s get into the interview—it’s a good one.

Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23352141

Credits:

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

Inside the global battle over chip manufacturing Jan 31, 2023

Show notes

A few weeks ago, President Biden was in the Netherlands, where he asked the Dutch government to restrict export from a company called ASML to China. ASML is the only company in the world that makes a specific machine needed to make the most advanced chips. Apple couldn’t make iPhone chips without this one machine from the Netherlands’ biggest company. ASML doesn’t just shape the Dutch economy—it shapes the entire world economy. How did that happen?

Chris Miller, Tufts professor and author of Chip War: The Fight For The World’s Most Critical Technology walked me through a lot of this, along with some deep dives into geopolitics and the absolutely fascinating chip manufacturing process. This one has everything: foreign policy, high powered lasers, hotshot executives, monopolies, the fundamental limits of physics, and, of course, Texas. Here we go.

Links:

US issues sweeping restrictions on chip sales to China

Japan and the Netherlands join US with tough chip controls on China

Pat Gelsinger came back to turn Intel around — here’s how it’s going

Transcript:

https://www.theverge.com/e/23342471

Credits:

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

Taylor Swift and the music industry's next $20 Jan 17, 2023

Show notes

I have this theory that music is usually about five years ahead of the rest of media in terms of its relationship to tech—whether that’s new formats based on new tech, like vinyl to CDs; new business models like streaming; or simply being disrupted by new kinds of artists who use new forms of promotion like TikTok in unexpected ways. I’ve always thought that if you can wrap your head around what’s happening to the music industry, you can pretty much see the future of TV or movies or the news or whatever it is, because the music industry just moves that fast.

I was talking about this with my friend Charlie Harding, the co-host of Switched on Pop, and he said that he thinks the upcoming Taylor Swift Eras Tour is itself the end of an era in music — that the age of cheap streaming services is coming to an inevitable conclusion, and that something has to change in order for industry to sustain itself in the future.

So, in this episode, Charlie and I walk through a brief history of the music business—which, despite its ever-changing business models, is permanently trying to find something to sell you for $20 whether that’s the music itself, all-access streaming, merch, and even NFTs—using Taylor Swift as a case study. We map her big moves against the business of music over time to try to see if this really is the end of an era. And maybe more importantly, to try and figure out if the music industry can sustain and support artists who are not Taylor Swift, because streaming, all by itself, definitely cannot.

Links:

Switched on Pop

Charlie’s first appearance on Decoder: Good 4 who? How music copyright has gone too far - The Verge

Why Amazon VP Steve Boom just made the entire music catalog free with Prime - The Verge

Spotify launching in the US at 8AM tomorrow, open to all pre-registered users - The Verge

Metallica sued Napster 15 years ago today - The Verge

Taylor Swift calls Apple Music free trial 'shocking, disappointing' in open letter - The Verge

Taylor Swift versus Ticketmaster: the latest on the tour that may break up a giant - The Verge

The DOJ has reportedly opened an antitrust investigation into Ticketmaster's owner

How fandom built the internet as we know it, with Kaitlyn Tiffany - The Verge

Steve Aoki on the blockchain, the metaverse, and the business of music - The Verge

Transcript:

https://www.theverge.com/e/23322720

Credits:

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

Today’s episode was produced by Hadley Robinson, 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. Our Sr. Audio Director is Andrew Marino and our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan.

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

Breaking free from big tech and big content with authors Cory Doctorow and Rebecca Giblin Jan 10, 2023

Show notes

Last year I spoke with Cory Doctorow and Rebecca Giblin about their new book, Chokepoint Capitalism. It’s a book about artists and technology and platforms, and how different kinds of distribution and creations tools create chokepoints for different companies to capture value that might otherwise go to artists and creators.. In other words, it’s a lot of Decoder stuff.

As we were prepping this episode, the Decoder team realized it previews a lot of things we’re going to talk about in 2023: antitrust law. Ticketmaster. Spotify and the future of the music industry. Amazon and the book industry. And, of course, being a creator trying to make a living on all these platforms.

This episode is longer than normal, but it was a really great conversation and I'm glad we are sharing it with you.

Links:

What is Mixer, Ninja’s new exclusive streaming home?

Ninja returns to Twitch

This was Sony Music's contract with Spotify

Transcript:

https://www.theverge.com/e/23311918

Credits:

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

‘We might be wrong, but we’re not confused’: how Tomer Cohen, chief product officer at LinkedIn, figures out what works best Dec 20, 2022

Show notes

Tomer Cohen is the chief product officer at LinkedIn, and actually, I talked to Tomer twice. Here’s a little secret about Decoder: we do the interviews, and then often, the guest and I just keep chatting for a while. So after my first interview with Tomer, we were hanging out, talking about the perpetual battles between engineers, product managers, and designers. And he said something that completely jumped out at me:

“We might be wrong, but we’re not fucking confused.”

This isn’t a totally new line — it’s been floating around for a while, you can Google it — but you know I love an f-bomb, and honestly, it’s one of the most simple and clarifying things a manager can say, especially when managing across large teams. So I asked Tomer to come back and really dig in on that idea.

On top of that, we’ve been talking a lot about running social networks lately, and LinkedIn is a fascinating social network because it doesn’t have the same engagement-based success metrics as other social platforms like Twitter and Instagram. Tomer doesn’t care about time spent on LinkedIn; the platform is designed to be successful when people get new jobs. That means his ideas for features and user experiences are just really different.

Links:

Employment Situation Summary (Jobs Report)

December Workforce Report 2022 (LinkedIn)

Vision to values flowchart

ChatGPT proves AI is finally mainstream — and things are only going to get weirder

LinkedIn buys California-based SaaS learning platform

How big companies kill ideas — and how to fight back, with Tony Fadell

RAPID decision making

Transcript:

https://www.theverge.com/e/23281360

Credits:

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

How to buy a social network, with Tumblr CEO Matt Mullenweg Dec 13, 2022

Show notes

We have to talk about Twitter, right? Elon Musk bought it. He’s making all these changes, and he’s realizing that content moderation decisions are quite complicated, especially when the stakes are high.

But talking about Twitter in a vacuum seems wrong. There are lots of other social networks and community-based products, and they all have basically the same problems: some technical (you have to run the service), some political (you have to comply with various laws and platform regulations around the world), and some social (you have to get millions of users to post for free while making sure what they post is good stuff and not bad stuff).

So, we’re doing something a little different this week. First, I’m talking to Matt Mullenweg, who is the CEO of Automattic, which owns WordPress, the blog hosting platform, and Tumblr, the social network, which he purchased from Verizon in 2019. Then, Verge deputy editor Alex Heath and I are going to break down a bunch of what Matt told me and apply it to Twitter to see what we can learn.

Okay, Matt Mullenweg, CEO of Tumblr, followed by Alex Heath. Here we go.

Links:

How WordPress and Tumblr are keeping the internet weird

GPL - General Public License

Verizon is selling Tumblr to WordPress’ owner

Kanye West suspended from Twitter after posting a swastika

‘Martin Scorsese’s lost film’ Goncharov (1973), explained

Yahoo acquires Tumblr in $1.1 billion cash deal, promises 'not to screw it up'

Verizon is selling Tumblr to WordPress’ owner

Turnaround Definition

Welcome to Tumblr. Now Go Away.

Work With Us / Twitter – Automattic

Tumblr will sell you two useless blue check marks for $8

Elon Musk is laying off even more Twitter workers

Welcome to hell, Elon

Why “Go Nuts, Show Nuts” Doesn't Work in 2022

How America turned against the First Amendment

About – SHOSHANA ZUBOFF

A Framework for Moderation

First Amendment - Freedom of Religion, Speech, Press, Assembly, and Petition | Constitution Center

America’s Favorite Flimsy Pretext for Limiting Free Speech

Brandenburg v. Ohio

Elon Musk says Tim Cook told him Apple ‘never considered’ removing Twitter - The Verge

The Twitter Files - Matt Taibbi

Elon Musk’s promised Twitter exposé on the Hunter Biden story is a flop that doxxed multiple people

Twitter Blue is back, letting you buy a blue checkmark again

Transcript:

https://www.theverge.com/e/23270126

Credits:

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

Disney’s CEO drama explained, with Julia Alexander Dec 06, 2022

Show notes

Today, we need to talk about Bob. Two Bobs, actually: Bob Iger, the former and now current CEO of Disney, and Bob Chapek, the man Iger handpicked as his replacement, who flamed out and was fired by the board, and then, on November 20th, was replaced by Bob Iger. Bobs, man.

The heart of this whole thing is total Decoder bait. It’s a story about how to structure a company like Disney. Then you add in the complexity of the shift to streaming, the future of TV and movies generally, and the gigantic reputation of a character like Bob Iger, who many people think could plausibly run for president. There’s just a lot going on here.

Whenever I need to talk Disney, media, and Bobs, I call one person: Julia Alexander, director of strategy at Parrot Analytics and a former reporter at The Verge. Julia pays a lot of attention to the streaming giants, she’s sourced inside all the companies battling for our attention, and she has a lot to say about the Bobs.

Links:

Bob Iger steps back in as Disney CEO, replacing Bob Chapek

Reed Hastings on Twitter

Disney+ launch lineup: Every movie and TV show available to stream on day one - The Verge

Bob Iger steps down as Disney CEO, replaced by Bob Chapek - The Verge

Disney streaming chief Kevin Mayer resigns to become TikTok CEO - The Verge

Disney Plus surpasses 100 million subscribers - The Verge

Meta announces huge job cuts affecting 11,000 employees - The Verge

Netflix's $6.99 per month ad tier is now live

Stranger Things - The Verge

Disney’s major reorganization is good news for anyone who loves Disney Plus - The Verge

Functional Structure: Advantages and Disadvantages | Indeed.com

Pros and Cons of Implementing a Divisional Structure | Indeed.com

Disney Proposal to Restructure, on McKinsey’s Advice, Triggered Uproar From Creative Executives - WSJ

Disney Shows the Limits of Streaming - WSJ

Disney Erases Almost All Its Pandemic Gains After Earnings Miss

‘Strange World’: Beautiful to look at, but not much below the surface - The Washington Post

Watch The Future Of | Netflix Official Site

Kevin Mayer quits as TikTok CEO due to ongoing political turmoil - The Verge

Kevin Mayer Says His Firm Is In Deal Mode After Buying Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine

WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar announces exit as Discovery deal nears close - The Verge

Transcript:

https://www.theverge.com/e/23259187

Credits:

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

How Bose compete with AirPods — and why it’s in more cars than ever, with CEO Lila Snyder Nov 29, 2022

Show notes

Bose is one of the most recognizable audio brands in the world: it was famous for the Wave radio in the 80s, it invented noise cancellation, you can see its logo on NFL sidelines every Sunday, and of course there are the popular consumer products like the QuietComfort headphones that reviewers like Chris Welch here at The Verge rate as some of the best in the game. Bose is in tons of cars as well: audio systems in GM, Honda, Hyundai, Porsche, and more are developed and tuned by Bose.

Bose was founded in 1964 by Dr. Amar Bose, who donated a majority of the shares of the company to MIT, where he was a professor. That means to this day, Bose is a private company with no pressure to go public. However, Bose still has to compete against big tech in talent, products, and compatibility.

So today I’m talking to Bose CEO Lila Snyder about Bose’s dependence on platform vendors like Apple and Google, how she thinks about standards like Bluetooth, and where she thinks she can compete and win against AirPods and other products that get preferential treatment on phones.

Links:

Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II review: noise cancellation domination

How Amar Bose used research to build better speakers

List of Bose shelf stereos

Hearing Aids | FDA

Digital signal processor

Functional organization

Bose names its first female CEO as wait continues for new products

Amar Bose ’51 makes stock donation to MIT

Meta announces huge job cuts affecting 11,000 employees

Amazon mass layoffs will reportedly ax 10,000 people this week

Elon Musk demands Twitter employees commit to ‘extremely hardcore’ culture or leave