Decoder with Nilay Patel

Latest Episodes:

Chuck Todd on why Meet the Press can’t survive on just one platform Jul 27, 2021

Show notes

This week Nilay Patel talks to Chuck Todd, the political director at NBC News and moderator of Meet The Press, the longest running television show in the country. Seriously: Meet the Press started in 1946, and Chuck is only the 12th moderator the show’s ever had. As streaming upends television, he’s expanding Meet The Press from a single weekly show where Chuck interviews politicians to an entire roster of formats. There’s Meet the Press, Meet The Press Daily on MSNBC, Meet the Press Reports on the Peacock streaming service, and, of course, a Meet the Press podcast. They discussed how streaming and direct distribution has changed TV news, and what the purpose of a show like Meet the Press really is in an environment where politicians can reach audiences directly whenever they want.

Read the transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/22358331

Decoder is produced by Creighton DeSimone, Liam James, Alexander Charles Adams, and Andrew Marino, and is edited by Callie Wright.

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How Blackstone became the darling of grill TikTok with CEO Roger Dahle Jul 20, 2021

Show notes

Nilay Patel encountered the name Blackstone on TikTok last year, just as the pandemic lockdowns were starting. He saw people posting videos smashing burgers and making pancakes outside on a griddle frequently with the caption “I finally got a Blackstone.” 20 minutes ago he hadn’t even heard about this thing, and now he was late to a trend? So he bought one. And hasn’t used his regular grill in over a year.

Nilay sat down with the CEO of Blackstone products and inventor of the Blackstone griddle Roger Dahle. They talked about Blackstone’s ability to generate recurring revenue, and how the griddle itself is a platform for a variety of additional products and services, some of which might be made by competitors. And Blackstone has big competitors in Weber, and Cuisinart — so we talked about competition, and branding, and going up against the biggest players in a space, and the creator economy. You know: Decoder stuff.

Take a listen. And you can read the transcript here: https://www.theverge.com/e/22347828

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Can Polestar design a new kind of car company? Jul 13, 2021

Show notes

We are back after our week off, and we’ve got a good one today. On this episode I’m talking to Thomas Ingenlath, CEO of Polestar, a new car company with close family ties to Volvo.

We talked a lot about what kind of company Polestar is — it’s pretty small, and has the ability to rethink a lot of things about how a car company is organized, while having the ability to fall back on a larger company if needed. We also talked a lot about what makes a car company a car company, at a time when everything about cars seems up for grabs.

Transcript here

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Land of the Giants: Delivery Wars Jul 06, 2021

Show notes

While Decoder is on vacation this week, we're sharing an episode of Land of the Giants, a podcast from our friends at Recode and Eater.

Land of the Giants is a podcast that explores how the biggest tech companies rose to power, and what they're doing with that power. In this 4-part mini-season, they’re covering the world of restaurant delivery apps and exploring how big tech is transforming the business of food, and the true cost of our convenience.

You can listen to the full season of Land of Giants wherever you find your podcasts.

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Juul and the business of addiction, with Lauren Etter Jun 29, 2021

Show notes

Juul became a sensation — and a sensationally dramatic story.

Lauren Etter, author of The Devil's Playbook: Big Tobacco, JUUL, and the Addiction of a New Generation, joins us to explain how a tech startup founded in a Stanford design studio to disrupt the smoking industry upended years of tobacco regulation in the United States, got a new generation of teenagers addicted to nicotine after years of declining teen smoking rates, and eventually found itself valued at 38 billion.

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Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on the business of Windows Jun 25, 2021

Show notes

Nilay Patel talks with Satya Nadella, the CEO and chairman of Microsoft.

On Thursday, Microsoft announced Windows 11, which comes with an all-new design, a bunch of new features, and the ability to run Android apps.

Nilay asks Nadella about how he thinks about Windows as a platform, what Microsoft’s responsibilities are, and how he thinks the various antitrust bills in Congress will affect Microsoft’s plans for the future.

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Patreon CEO Jack Conte on why creators can’t depend on platforms Jun 22, 2021

Show notes

Nilay Patel talks with Jack Conte, co-founder and CEO of Patreon, the platform that allows people to pay their favorite creators directly with monthly subscriptions.

Nilay and Jack talk about how Patreon’s model as “membership” works, what Patreon’s relationship is to Apple and the app store, and where the overall creator economy is going on the internet.

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John Deere CTO Jahmy Hindman on farming, data, and fixing the tractors of the future Jun 15, 2021

Show notes

Nilay Patel talks with Jahmy Hindman, chief technology office at John Deere, the world’s biggest manufacturer of farming machinery.

Nilay and Jahmy discuss what it means for our farming equipment to be run by computers, and how to fix the problems that arise because of it — like accessing reliable broadband, how the equipment should be upgraded, and who gets to fix it when it breaks.

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The next generation of startups is remote, with Y Combinator's Michael Siebel Jun 08, 2021

Show notes

Nilay Patel talks with managing director of Y Combinator Michael Siebel. YC is one of the most well-known and successful startup incubators in Silicon Valley.

Michael is also a co-founder of Justin.tv, known now as Twitch, and he recently joined the board at Reddit after cofounder Alexis Ohanian stepped down and asked the company to replace him with someone who is Black. That means Michael is uniquely suited to talk about a lot of things that I’m really interested in exploring on Decoder: starting and growing tech businesses, finding opportunities for new ideas, the growing creator economy, and making sure the next generation of business leaders doesn’t look exactly the same as the last one.

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Why Spotify’s chief legal officer called Apple a “ruthless bully” Jun 01, 2021

Show notes

Nilay Patel talks with head of global affairs and chief legal officer of Spotify Horacio Gutierrez to help understand why Spotify and so many other app developers are so frustrated with Apple. Horacio recently testified in front of Congress about Apple’s business practices, and just wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal calling Apple a “ruthless bully.”

Horacio explains what he sees as the biggest problems with Apple’s behavior, what he would actually do to fix it, and how all of that connects to having more interesting, innovative, and better products in our lives.

Nilay also asks Horacio if he sees a connection between how he perceives Apple and how musicians perceive Spotify.

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