Decoder with Nilay Patel

Latest Episodes:

Who decides when AI is too dangerous? Jun 18, 2026

Show notes

My guest today is Hayden Field, senior AI reporter for The Verge. Often when Hayden comes on the show, it’s because something has gone wrong in the world of AI. Last weekend, that something was a pretty intense mix of Anthropic, the Trump administration, and Anthropic’s new AI model, Fable 5.

Hayden actually just published a fantastic play-by-play on The Verge about how the Fable ban went down, and the scramble through the weekend from both sides to figure out what exactly happened and how it might get resolved. So I wanted her to come on and just walk me through the timeline and what it all means.

Read the ⁠full interview transcript on The Verge⁠.

Links:

Inside the fight over Claude Mythos 5 | ⁠The Verge⁠
Anthropic cuts off Fable 5 and Mythos 5 access following government order | ⁠The Verge⁠
Anthropic got hit by export rules nobody understands | ⁠The Verge⁠
Anthropic’s safety superpower | ⁠Stratechery⁠
"They screwed us": Personality clashes sent Anthropic's models offline | ⁠Axios⁠
Anthropic’s call for AI nonproliferation | ⁠New York Times⁠
Trump signs exec order to review AI models before release | ⁠The Verge⁠
New Anthropic model finds security problems ‘in every major OS, browser’ | ⁠The Verge⁠

Subscribe to The Verge⁠ to access the ad-free version of Decoder!

Credits:

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

Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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

Skydio CEO argues more drones will make us safer Jun 15, 2026

Show notes

Today, I’m talking with Slydio CEO Adam Bry, who runs the leading US maker of autonomous drones. We covered a lot in this conversation, including Skydio’s police and government work at a time when military use of AI is more controversial than ever and competing with Chinese drones against the backdrop of the Trump’s administration’s DJI ban.

There’s a lot in this one – maybe more than anything, it was refreshing to hear Adam talk about using AI to bring even more people to work at Skydio as the company expands. I also got to fly a drone, which ruled.

Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.

Links:

Flying a semi-autonomous industrial drone | Decoder
Sorry kid, drones are for war now | The Verge
The FCC’s foreign drone ban is here | The Verge
Skydio is pivoting to enterprise — its consumer drones are dead | The Verge
Skydio commits $3.5B to expand US manufacturing | Skydio
A US drone maker tries to take back the country’s skies | Bloomberg
DEA looks to add Skydio, Parrot drones to its arsenal | FedScoop
The future of border security isn’t at the border at all | The Verge

Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!

Credits:

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

Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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

Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch on AI, the Met Gala & his secret succession plan Jun 11, 2026

Show notes

Hey! Nilay here. It’s conference season, so I’m traveling across the country and around the world a lot more than usual. Stay tuned for some very special Decoder episodes we have coming up soon, starting on Monday.

In the meantime, I wanted to share a conversation between my friend Peter Kafka and Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch on the excellent Channels podcast. Lynch says he’s told his teams to assume that traffic will be zero from now on — that’s what I’ve been calling Google Zero. Roger also shares his thoughts on AI, the growing influence of the creator economy, and more.

Links:

Channels with Peter Kafka | Apple Podcasts
Condé Nast CEO: Plan As If Search Traffic Will Be Zero | Search Engine Journal
Sundar Pichai on AI, the future of search, and what’s happening to the web | Decoder
Google Zero is here — now what? | Decoder
Google admits the open web is in ‘rapid decline’ | The Verge

Credits:

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

Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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

Microsoft AI chief thinks superintelligence is near, but won't take your job Jun 08, 2026

Show notes

Today I’m talking with Mustafa Suleyman, the CEO of Microsoft AI. This is a real burner of an episode. We covered everything from his approach to training new models to his criticisms of Anthropic talking about Claude as though it is conscious.

Of course, we also talked about Microsoft’s relationship with OpenAI, how Mustafa is thinking about all the negative polling and political pushback around AI right now, and whether any of the consumer products are good enough to overcome it. Like I said, it’s a burner.

Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.

Links:

Microsoft and OpenAI broke up — now they’re ready to fight | The Verge
Microsoft Build 2026: The 7 biggest announcements | The Verge
Microsoft’s first advanced reasoning AI is here | The Verge
Microsoft’s new ‘superintelligence’ game plan is all about business | The Verge
Here’s how the new Microsoft and OpenAI deal breaks down | The Verge
Microsoft AI chief says 18 months until white-collar tasks automated by AI | FT

Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!

Credits:

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

Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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

Elon Musk is steamrolling Wall Street to become a trillionaire Jun 04, 2026

Show notes

My guest today is Ryan Mac, a technology reporter at The New York Times and co-author of the excellent book Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter, which came out in 2024. I wanted to have Ryan on today because we’re on the cusp of the SpaceX IPO, which promises to be one of the most consequential public offerings in history for a variety of reasons.

Its biggest-ever size, of course, at nearly $2 trillion dollars. But also because all kinds of rules that keep our markets fair are being bent, if not outright broken, along the way. And, also because buried somewhere inside SpaceX is X, the social platform formerly known as Twitter, which Musk purchased in 2022.

Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.

Links:

Welcome to hell, Elon | The Verge
The SpaceX IPO is great for Elon Musk and terrible for you | The Verge
In SpaceX’s IPO, Elon Musk is the risk factor | The Verge
For Wall Street, the only thing worse than SpaceX flopping is missing out | NYT
How SpaceX Is structured to favor Elon Musk | NYT
As the SpaceX hype machine steamrolls ahead, Wall Street jumps aboard | NYT
The SpaceX IPO Reveals What Really Happened to Twitter | NY Mag

Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!

Credits:

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

Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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

AI is blowing up music. How should the Grammys handle it? Jun 01, 2026

Show notes

I last talked to Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr in 2024 — when it was obvious that generative AI would upend the music industry, but not exactly clear how that would happen.

Now, Harvey says AI is “omnipresent” in music production. So what kinds of tools are musicians using, in what way, and what kind of music is it making for us? Is it any good? And how do we identify, and take care of, actual human musicians in this mess?

Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.

Links:

Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr | Decoder
Is ‘blue dot fever’ a real problem for the concert industry? | Los Angeles Times
USA v. LiveNation-Ticketmaster: All the news | The Verge
The future of country music is here, and it’s AI | The Verge
Poll: AI is transforming how we think about music | Hollywood Reporter
Inside the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ era of AI in music | Rolling Stone

Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!

Credits:

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

Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.

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

Rivian's software chief thinks you don't need CarPlay or buttons May 28, 2026

Show notes

Today, I’m talking with Wassym Bensaid, the chief software officer at Rivian, and the co-ceo of Rivian’s platform joint venture with Volkswagen. That joint venture, called RV Tech, is about a year and a half old, so I wanted to ask Wassym how it all works and Rivian’s ongoing relationship with Volkswagen.

Because it’s Rivian, I also had to ask Wassym about CarPlay. But the company also just launched an AI-powered voice assistant, which I got to try early. So I had a lot of fun digging into that with Wassym, too. This is a fun one – really in the weeds of a lot of my favorite things to talk about.

Links:

Rivian’s AI-powered voice assistant is ready to roll | The Verge
The R2 is nearly here — can Rivian stick the landing? | The Verge
Rivian’s AI pivot is about more than chasing Tesla | The Verge
Rivian / VW will start testing their first EVs next year | The Verge
Rivian CEO: ‘We’re really convicted’ about skipping CarPlay | Decoder (2025)
Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe says too many carmakers are copying Tesla | Decoder (2024)
Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe isn't scared of the Cybertruck | Decoder (2023)
Rivian’s chief software officer says in-car buttons are ‘an anomaly’ | TechCrunch

Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!

Credits:

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

Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt,. This episode was edited by Xander Adams. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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

How Sundar Pichai is rethinking Google for the AI era May 26, 2026

Show notes

Connecting with Google CEO Sundar Pichai at I/O every year is one of my favorite Decoder traditions. This was our fifth year doing it, and there’s always a whole slew of new things to talk about.

This year, in addition to the news, we talked about Google Zero; picking fights with YouTube creators and publishers; and what being at “the foothills of the singularity" even means.

Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.

Links:

If Google can’t make AI agents useful, maybe no one can | The Verge
The future of Google is a search box that does everything | The Verge
Large language mistake | The Verge
You can now remix other people’s YouTube Shorts with AI | The Verge
Condé Nast calls Google Zero | The Verge
Demis Hassabis said this may be the ‘foothills of the singularity’ | The Verge
Google I/O 2026: All the news and announcements | The Verge

Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!

Credits:

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

Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Kabir Chopra. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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

Musk v Altman: Much ado about nothing May 21, 2026

Show notes

Musk v Altman was nominally about OpenAI's conversion to a for-profit entity, and how it went about that change. But really, the suit seems mostly to have been about Elon Musk being mad at Sam Altman — or at OpenAI, for being successful without him — and wanting him punished in some way.

Verge reporter Liz Lopatto spent the last month covering the trial, in all its chaos, and joins Decoder to ask: In a courtroom full of untrustworthy, unreliable people all fighting with each other, did anyone even have a reputation left to lose?

Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.

Links:

Elon Musk loses his case against Sam Altman | The Verge
Musk v. Altman proved AI is led by the wrong people | The Verge
Musk v. Altman accomplished nothing but airing dirty laundry | The Verge
Elon Musk’s worst enemy in court is Elon Musk | The Verge
Behold, the Elon Musk jackass trophy | The Verge

Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!

Credits:

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

Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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

Exclusive: Jonah Peretti explains why he sold BuzzFeed May 18, 2026

Show notes

Just days before we spoke, BuzzFeed co-founder and CEO Jonah Peretti agreed to sell the company, which was losing money and at risk of shutting down. Now there’s a new lease on life — and new leadership. Jonah is taking on a new role as president of BuzzFeed AI, and Byron Allen will become CEO of BuzzFeed.

That’s obviously a huge structural and organizational change, and a really big decision — prime Decoder bait if there ever was any. What are digital media companies doing to adapt and survive in an information landscape dominated by algorithmic social platforms?

Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.

Links: