Decoder with Nilay Patel

Latest Episodes:

A jury says Meta and Google hurt a kid. What now? Apr 02, 2026

Show notes

Today, we’re talking about the landmark social media addiction trials that just resulted in two major verdicts against Big Tech — one in California against Meta and Google, and another in New Mexico against just Meta.

These are complicated cases with some huge repercussions for both how these platforms work and the very nature of speech in America. So we’ve brought on two heavy hitters: my friend Casey Newton, founder and editor of Platformer and co-host of Hard Fork, as well as Verge senior policy reporter Lauren Feiner, who’s been covering these trials since the beginning.

Links:

Meta & YouTube found negligent in social media addiction trial | The Verge
Meta misled users about its products’ safety, jury decides | The Verge
Meta’s legal defeat: a victory for kids, or a loss for everyone | The Verge
Can you have child safety and Section 230, too? | Platformer
The terrible cost of infinite scroll | The New York Times
I watched grieving parents stare down Zuckerberg in court | The Verge
Section 230 turns 30 as it faces its biggest tests yet | The Verge
Congress considers blowing up internet law | The Verge
Sen. Rob Wyden: “Why the internet still needs Section 230” | The Verge
How America turned against the First Amendment | 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

Okta's CEO is betting big on AI agent identity Mar 30, 2026

Show notes

My guest today is Okta CEO Todd McKinnon. Okta is a platform that big companies use to manage security and identity across all the many apps and platforms their employees use. Most of us run into it as login management at work.

SaaS companies like Okta are under a lot of pressure in the age of AI, which Todd even said on an earnings call he's "paranoid" about. But you'll also hear Todd say that for Okta specifically, there's also a world of opportunity as the very concept of a digital "identity" has to expand into things that aren't really people.

Links:

CEO ‘paranoid’ as vibe coders stir SaaSpocalypse fears | The Register
$300B evaporated. The SaaSpocalypse has begun | Forbes
How AI assistants are moving the security goalposts | Krebs on Security
What everyone’s missing about AI and development | CRN
Agents run amok: Identity lessons from Moltbook’s experiment | Okta
Breakup of IBM is Antitrust goal (1972) | New York Times

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

Everyone hates Ticketmaster. Why'd Trump go easy on them? Mar 26, 2026

Show notes

Today, we’re talking about the major antitrust lawsuit against Ticketmaster parent company Live Nation, and what it might mean for antitrust and competition law in general now that the Trump DOJ has decided to settle its part of the case — even as several states including California, New York, and Texas carry on.

To break it all down, I’m joined by Verge senior policy reporter Lauren Feiner. Lauren’s our resident court expert, and she’s been chronicling this trial from the beginning.

Links:

States’ anti-monopoly case against Live Nation continues | The Verge
The Live Nation trial restarts with a ‘velvet hammer’ | The Verge
Live Nation settles government antitrust suit | The Verge
The Live Nation settlement has industry insiders baffled | The Verge
Listen to Live Nation CEO’s alleged threats to a concert venue | The Verge
The threats and bare-knuckle tactics of MAGA’s top antitrust fixer | WSJ
The Trump admin just gave Live Nation the gift of a lifetime | NYT
How Live Nation allegedly terrorized the concert industry | The Verge
The US government is trying to break up Ticketmaster | The Verge (2024)
Taylor Swift vs. Ronald Reagan: the Ticketmaster story | Decoder (2023)

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

Confronting the CEO of the AI company that impersonated me Mar 23, 2026

Show notes

Today, I’m talking with Shishir Mehrotra, the CEO of Superhuman, the company formerly known as Grammarly, which is still its flagship product. Back in August, Grammarly shipped a feature called Expert Review, which allowed you to get writing suggestions from AI-cloned “experts,” and recently, reporters at The Verge and other outlets discovered that those experts included me, among many others.

No one ever asked permission to use our names this way, and a lot of reporters were outraged by this. To Shishir’s credit, he did not cancel our interview and he came on and stuck it out. This conversation got tense at times, and it’s clear we disagree about how extractive AI feels for people. There’s a lot in this one, and I’m excited to hear what you think.

Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.

Links:

Why I’m suing Grammarly | New York Times
Grammarly will stop using identities without permission | The Verge
Grammarly to keep using writer identities unless they opt out | The Verge
Grammarly turned me into an AI editor and I hate it | Platformer
Grammarly is using our identities without permission | The Verge
Grammarly is changing its name to Superhuman | The Verge
Grammarly wants to become an ‘AI productivity platform’ | The Verge
Viacom v. YouTube, 2007 | Electronic Frontier Foundation

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

Paramount's $110 billion Warner Bros. gamble Mar 19, 2026

Show notes

Today, let’s talk about the big Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger. Right now, Paramount head David Ellison is very much acting like he’s over the finish line after outbidding Netflix, which walked away after what seemed like a done deal.

Back in January, I asked Puck’s Julia Alexander to walk me through Netflix’s reasoning, and today I’m digging into Paramount’s with Rich Greenfield, a media and entertainment analyst and cofounder of research firm LightShed Partners. There’s a lot going on here, including the biggest question I’ve had throughout this entire saga: why would anyone want to buy Warner, which has basically killed every acquirer it’s had for the last quarter century?

Links:

David Ellison’s plan to compete with Netflix: Paramount+HBO | Rich Greenfield
The worst acquisition in history, again | Prof G Media
David Zaslav gets the last laugh | THR
Warner Bros. Discovery agrees to Paramount merger | The Verge
Tech, TV, Movies & News: Ellisons on brink of colossal empire | NYT
Pete Hegseth says ‘the sooner David Ellison’ buys CNN, ‘the better’ | NYT
Warner Bros CEO to pocket $887 million from Paramount deal | Reuters

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

Yahoo CEO Jim Lanzone on reviving the web's homepage Mar 16, 2026

Show notes

Jim Lanzone is the CEO of Yahoo. It's basically impossible to sum up Yahoo's story over the last 25 years, but the short version is that once upon a time, Yahoo paid Google to run the search box on its website, and everything immediately went sideways. Jim calls it Yahoo's original sin.

But after a long series of mergers, spinouts, and a hot, weird minute as part of Verizon Yahoo is once again an independent, privately held company — and it's growing. But can Yahoo really take market share from Google?

Links:

Yahoo sells Engadget to Static Media | The Verge
Yahoo sells TechCrunch to Regent | The Verge
Yahoo Finance launches crypto partnership with Coinbase | Yahoo
Yahoo Scout looks like more web-friendly AI search | The Verge
Yahoo Finance launches crypto deal with Polymarket | Yahoo Finance
Yahoo resurrects Artifact inside AI-powered news app | The Verge
Yahoo Mail adds more AI to simplify desktop email | 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

Anthropic doesn't trust the Pentagon, and neither should you Mar 12, 2026

Show notes

My guest today is Mike Masnick, the founder and CEO of Techdirt, the excellent and long-running tech policy blog. Mike has been writing about government overreach, privacy in the digital age, and other related topics for decades now, and he’s an expert on how the internet and the surveillance state have grown in interconnected ways over the past two decades.

I wanted to have Mike on the show to discuss the messy, fast-moving situation at Anthropic, the maker of Claude that now finds itself in a very ugly legal battle with the Pentagon. Instead of covering the daily drama, I wanted to dig in specifically on Anthropic's surveillance red line, and the important history and context around digital privacy in the U.S. that shapes how we should think about this going forward.

Links:

AI bros wanted Trump — now they learn what happens when you tell him no | Techdirt
OpenAI’s ‘red lines’ are written in the NSA’s dictionary | Techdirt
Anthropic is suing the Department of Defense | The Verge
Anthropic launches new think tank amid Pentagon fight | The Verge
How OpenAI caved to the Pentagon on AI surveillance | The Verge
Inside the backlash to the AI war machine | Platformer
The Pentagon is violating Anthropic's First Amendment rights | FIRE
Why the Pentagon wants to destroy Anthropic | Ezra Klein / NYT

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

Hasbro's CEO lets AI Peppa Pig help design toys Mar 09, 2026

Show notes

Hasbro might be a toy company, but CEO Chris Cocks has spent the last several years pushing it more and more into the digital media, gaming, and collectibles space. That makes sense, since adults have money and kids don't. All those IP and licensing deals are working out for Hasbro so far.

But Hasbro is also facing a lot of risk from instability: in trade and tariffs, in politics and culture, and in the video game market, which seems to be in a more or less permanent state of crisis.

Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.

Links:

Chris Cocks on Decoder (2023) | The Verge
Hasbro just made a massive ‘Harry Potter’ Announcement | Parade
Businesses push for tariff refunds as Trump aides hint at fight | New York Times
We’re finally seeing more of Hasbro’s forgotten space game | PC Gamer
Xbox in is danger. Will Microsoft save it, or kill it? | Decoder
OpenAI’s billion-dollar deal puts Mickey Mouse in Sora | The Verge
A comprehensive timeline of JK Rowling’s descent into transphobia | Them

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

Prediction markets want to be the news Mar 05, 2026

Show notes

Today let’s talk about prediction markets, which continue to insert themselves into the news cycle and the news in increasingly weird, unsettling, and potentially illegal ways.

My guest today is Liz Lopatto, a senior reporter at The Verge who owns what we cheerfully call the chaos beat. Liz has been writing a lot about prediction markets lately and especially why they all seem so intent on being perceived as sources of news — a position which directly incentivizes insider trading. That in turn creates a long list of very predictable problems.

Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.

Links:

Prediction markets want to eat the news | The Verge
How anonymous bettors cashed In on the Iran strike | NYT
With Iran, Kalshi & Polymarket Bet on the Depravity Economy | 404 Media
Polymarket pulls bet on nuclear detonation in 2026 | 404 Media
Polymarket defends betting on war as ‘invaluable’ | The Verge
Someone made a ton of money betting on Maduro’s capture | The Verge
Are prediction markets gambling? Robinhood CEO bets no | Decoder
Prediction markets roll out war bets beyond Washington’s reach | Bloomberg
Polymarket partners with Substack for some reason | The Verge
It’s MAGA v Broligarch in the battle over prediction markets | 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

Zillow's CEO on growth during a housing crisis Mar 02, 2026

Show notes

Today, I’m talking with Zillow CEO Jeremy Wacksman. Zillow is one of those apps that really exemplifies what you might call the smartphone era of software: the company built a great mobile app for looking at real estate listings, and it turned into not just entertainment for so many of us, but what has become a vertically-integrated platform for buying, selling, and renting real estate.

Jeremy’s argument is that the future of Zillow looks a lot like an end-to-end business platform for real estate agents, and we spent a lot of time talking about whether a business as local and as relationship driven as real estate can benefit from platform-level scale in the way he’s proposing.

Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.

Links:

Zillow’s new AI staging feature is impressively unimpressive | The Verge
Zillow’s upgraded AI search will show you more homes you can’t afford | The Verge
Zillow adds DMs so you can chat about homes you’ll never buy | The Verge
FTC accuses Zillow of paying $100 million to ‘dismantle’ Redfin | The Verge
Housing is frozen. Wacksman knows you’re still scrolling | NYT
Wacksman on the US housing market | Bloomberg Talks