Decoder with Nilay Patel

Latest Episodes:

How chatbots — and their makers — are enabling AI psychosis Sep 18, 2025

Show notes

Verge senior AI reporter Hayden Field and New York Times reporter Kashmir Hill discuss the significant mental health impact AI chatbots, such as ChatGPT, can have on users — both people in crisis, and also people who seemed stable.

This episode contains non-detailed discussions of suicide and mental illness. If you or someone you know is in crisis, considering self-harm, or needs to talk, please call the Lifeline at 988.

Links:

A teen was suicidal. ChatGPT was the friend he confided in. | New York Times
Sam Altman says ChatGPT will stop talking about suicide with teens | The Verge
Chatbots can go into a delusional spiral. Here’s how. | New York Times
Why is ChatGPT telling people to email me? | New York Times
They asked an AI chatbot questions. The answers sent them spiraling. | New York Times
She is in love with ChatGPT | The New York Times
‘I feel like I’m going crazy’: ChatGPT fuels delusional spirals | Wall Street Journal
Meta, OpenAI face FTC inquiry on chatbots’ impact on kids | Bloomberg

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

How brands and creators are fighting for your attention — and your money Sep 15, 2025

Show notes

This is Hank Green, the cofounder of Complexly. I’m back for my second guest hosting spot here on Decoder while Nilay is out on parental leave. Today, I’m talking with Digitas CEO Amy Lanzi, who runs a major marketing and ad agency. You might remember Amy; Nilay interviewed her for Decoder live at an event in New York City almost a year ago. But Nilay, who runs what might be the last website on Earth, has a very different perspective on the world of digital marketing than I do. So as a career YouTuber, I had a lot of questions for someone in a position like Amy’s.

Links:

Digitas unveils new generative AI platform, Digitas AI | Digitas
Amy Lanzi on steering Digitas through the demands of modern marketing | Sightly
Introducing Reddit Community Intelligence | Reddit
Digitas North America announces Amy Lanzi as CEO | Digitas

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

Sierra CEO Bret Taylor on why the AI bubble feels like the dotcom boom Sep 11, 2025

Show notes

This is Alex Heath. For my final episode as your Thursday episode guest host, I recently sat down with Bret Taylor, the CEO of AI startup Sierra and the chairman of OpenAI, for a live event in San Francisco hosted by Alix Partners.

Bret has worked at Google, Facebook, and Salesforce in high-level, executive roles, and he led Twitter’s board during Elon Musk’s takeover, so very few people have seen the tech industry up close like Bret has. Now, he’s all in on AI. We covered a lot of ground in this conversation, and I hope you find Bret’s perspective as fascinating as I did.

Links:

Ex-Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor’s Sierra is the latest $10 billion AI startup | CNBC
I talked to Sam Altman about the GPT-5 launch fiasco | Verge
Sam Altman says ‘yes,’ AI is in a bubble | Verge
MIT study on AI profits rattles tech investors | Axios
GPT-5 Pro can prove new, interesting mathematics | Sebastien Bubeck
AI chatbots are ready to talk to customers. Sort of. | WSJ
How is AI different than other technology waves? | Acquired Podcast

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

Sal Khan is hopeful that AI won't destroy education Sep 08, 2025

Show notes

This is Hank Green, cofounder of Complexly. You might remember last year when I turned the tables on Nilay and interviewed him on his own show. That was a ton of fun, and it was so much fun that they’ve brought me back again. This time, I’m stepping in for Nilay to host the next few Decoder episodes while he’s out on parental leave.

Today, I’m talking with a very special guest: Sal Khan, the founder and CEO of Khan Academy. Sal was actually Nilay’s second-ever guest on Decoder, back in 2020. And well, a whole lot has changed since then. So I wanted to have Sal back on to ask what it’s like running Khan Academy today, in the aftermath of the pandemic. But also how online learning is about to change, in really dramatic ways, due to artificial intelligence.

Links:

Sal Khan on A.I.'s promise and its risks | NBC News (YouTube)
The best-case scenario for AI in schools | BBC News
Meet Khanmigo: the student tutor AI being tested in schools | 60 Minutes| 60 Minutes
Remote learning is here to stay — can we make it better? | Decoder
Hank Green makes Nilay Patel explain why websites have a future | Decoder
In classrooms, teachers put AI tutoring bots to the test | NYT
Elite colleges have found a new virtue for applicants to fake | NYT
Everyone Is cheating their way through college | New York Magazine

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

The quest to keep OpenAI honest Sep 04, 2025

Show notes

Despite being one of the most valuable companies in the world, OpenAI is still technically a nonprofit. That’s what set the stage for the dramatic board coup in 2023 that briefly ousted Sam Altman as CEO. And now, OpenAI is trying to shake this nonprofit structure so it can raise even more money and, eventually, go public. There’s a lot at stake here, and not just for OpenAI.

Links:

OpenAI abandons plans to become a for-profit company | Verge
Why California’s AG must continue investigation into OpenAI | CalMatters
An open letter to OpenAI | EyesOnOpenAI
OpenAI eyes $50B valuation in potential employee share sale | Reuters
OpenAI thinks its critics are funded by billionaires | San Francisco Standard

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

Rewind: Bookshop CEO's crusade to save books from Amazon Aug 28, 2025

Show notes

Hello, and welcome to Decoder! This is Senior Producer Nick Statt. We’re on a small break for the end of summer, and, sadly, Nilay will still be out a little while longer when we come back. But we have an excellent slate of guest host episodes starting up next month, so stay tuned for those.

In the meantime, we wanted to bring back one of our favorite Decoder interviews from earlier this year. It’s with Bookshop CEO Andy Hunter, who back in January launched a pretty bold ebook initiative to take on Amazon and Kindle. It’s been about seven months, but Bookshop has seen big results, including more than $1 million in ebook sales. So we thought it was a good time to revisit our conversation with Andy.

Links:

Bookshop.org reports 65% growth, e-books add $1 Million in sales | Publishers Weekly
Bookshop CEO Andy Hunter’s crusade to save books from Amazon | Decoder
Bookshop.org is launching an ebook store to take on Amazon | 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

Is ChatGPT killing higher education? Aug 25, 2025

Show notes

Hello! Decoder senior producer Kate Cox here. I’m afraid I’m still not Nilay, but I hope you’ve been enjoying our series of guest hosts this summer while he’s out on parental leave. We have a few more really great guest episodes coming up, before Nilay returns to the host chair later this fall, so stay tuned.

The production team is taking our own break this week, so while we’re off we’re excited to share this episode of The Gray Area with you. Students all over the country — including my own kids, thank goodness — are back in school right around now, and so we thought it would be a perfect time to revisit host Sean Illing talking with journalist James Walsh about how AI tools like ChatGPT have kicked off a new cheating arms race that’s proving extremely disruptive to college education.

There are a lot of big Decoder ideas — and problems — wrapped up in all this. Okay, The Gray Area, with Sean Illing. Enjoy.

Links:

If AI can do your classwork, why go to college? | The Gray Area
Everyone Is cheating their way through college | New York Magazine
How to get students to stop using AI | Verge
I used the ‘cheat on everything’ AI tool and it didn’t help me cheat on anything | Verge
Inside the frat-bro startup that wants you to ‘cheat on everything' | SF Standard
A new headache for honest students: proving they didn’t use AI | 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

Amazon is betting on agents to win the AI race Aug 21, 2025

Show notes

This is Alex Heath, your Thursday episode guest host and deputy editor at The Verge. One of the biggest topics in AI these days is agents — the idea that AI is going to move from chatbots to reliably completing tasks for us in the real world. But the problem with agents is that they really aren’t all that reliable right now.

There’s a lot of work happening in the AI industry to try and fix that, and that brings me to my guest today: David Luan, the head of Amazon’s AGI research lab, a cofounder of Adept, and a former VP of engineering at OpenAI. David and I discussed the release of GPT-5, what Amazon wants with agents, and where he thinks the AI race is headed next.

Read the full transcript on The Verge.

Links:

The Platonic Representation Hypothesis | Phillip Isola
Amazon plays catch-up with new Nova models to generate voices, video | Verge
Amazon’s new AI agent is designed to do your shopping | Verge
Microsoft is racing to build an AI ‘agent factory’ | Verge
OpenAI’s new ChatGPT Agent can control an entire computer | Verge
24 hours with Alexa Plus: we cooked, we chatted, and it kinda lied to me | Verge
Why AI researchers are getting paid like NBA All-Stars | Decoder
OpenAI’s Windsurf deal is off — and Windsurf’s CEO is going to Google | Verge
This is Big Tech’s playbook for swallowing the AI industry | Command Line
Amazon hires founders away from AI startup Adept | TechCrunch

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

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