Decoder with Nilay Patel

Latest Episodes:

Recode Decode: 'Valley of Genius' author Adam Fisher Jul 23, 2018

Show notes

Writer Adam Fisher talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his new oral history, 'Valley of Genius: The Uncensored History of Silicon Valley.' Fisher interviewed some of tech's biggest names for the book, including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, but he discovered that "the most interesting, unfiltered, real stories" often came from people who were never in the spotlight.

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Recode Decode: Alibaba exec Joe Tsai (Live at Code 2018) Jul 21, 2018

Show notes

Joe Tsai, the executive vice chairman of Chinese commerce giant Alibaba, talks with Recode’s Jason Del Rey at the 2018 Code Conference. He says that Alibaba has not tried to do a big acquisition deal in the U.S., but is definitely looking to create strategic partnerships. Specifically, Tsai wants to encourage American companies to tap into the Chinese market, where there are hundreds of millions of internet consumers as potential customers. He also disputes some criticism lobbed by fellow Code Conference speaker Sen. Mark Warner, who had alleged that Chinese tech firms were too cozy with the country's communist government.

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Recode Decode: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Jul 18, 2018

Show notes

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about a litany of issues, including the Cambridge Analytica scandal and why Infowars and other conspiracy theorists, like Holocaust deniers, don't get kicked off Facebook. He says he believes over-regulating tech companies is dangerous because it could advantage Chinese firms that don’t share Americans’ commitment to freedom of expression. Zuckerberg also talks about how he thinks VR and AR will change the future of work, explains why his 2017 tour of the U.S. was not a political campaign and says that if anyone should be fired for Facebook's recent privacy stumbles, "It should be me." However, he declines to fire himself, instead committing to an audit of all the other companies like Cambridge Analytica that had access to the most user data.

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Recode Decode: How social media bots could tank your stock price Jul 16, 2018

Show notes

Zignal Labs CEO Josh Ginsberg talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about the “massive amounts of bot activity” that his media intelligence company has started detecting on social media. In everything from political elections to the debates over Roseanne Barr and Samantha Bee’s controversial statements, bots are insinuating themselves into the discourse, and provoking humans into being more outraged. Sometimes the goal is just to sow discord, Ginsberg says, but other times there are clear financial incentives to targeting certain companies. He talks about what businesses and regular people can do to better gird themselves against these bot attacks and predicts how a technology called “deepfakes” could make the problem worse.

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Recode Decode: Tinder parent company Match Group prepares for battle with Facebook Jul 14, 2018

Show notes

Mandy Ginsberg, the CEO of Match Group, talks with Recode's Kurt Wagner about how her company became dominant in online dating — it owns sites and apps like Match.com, Tinder and OKCupid — and how it's dealing with competitors like Bumble and Facebook. Ginsberg says she still admires and respects Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe, even as the two companies have traded lawsuits and barbed words in the press. And while she knows it would be foolish to write off Facebook as a competitor, she argues that younger consumers, at least, don't want Mark Zuckerberg & co. meddling in their dating lives. Ginsberg also addresses one of the most common questions she gets: Do dating app companies have an incentive to keep customers longer by keeping them single?

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Recode Decode: Why do some in the tech community support universal basic income? Jul 11, 2018

Show notes

Journalist Annie Lowrey talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about her new book, "Give People Money: How a Universal Basic Income Would End Poverty, Revolutionize Work, and Remake the World." Lowrey says there's ample evidence from countries like India, Brazil and Mexico that giving a small amount of cash directly to poor people can make their lives better without discouraging them from getting a job. She explains that some early experiments in the U.S., including one being run by startup incubator Y Combinator, are motivated by a fear that artificial intelligence and other new technologies will make the world better — at the expense of everyone's happiness and job stability. Lowrey explains why a national universal basic income is unlikely to happen anytime soon in America, and why rich people are usually wrong when they claim they get no assistance from the government.

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Recode Decode: Craigslist founder Craig Newmark Jul 09, 2018

Show notes

Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist and Craig Newmark Philanthropies, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his foundation's recent donation of $20 million to the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. Newmark says the school is advancing good journalism by providing opportunities to people who might not otherwise get them. He also talks about his other philanthropic work, helping veterans and women in tech as well as working with voting rights organizations, calling the 2018 midterms "critical for American democracy." Plus: Why Newmark is optimistic about the future of media in the age of Facebook and Twitter, how Craigslist evolved from an email list into the powerhouse it is today and why he's not interested in selling it or going public.

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Recode Decode: Box CEO Aaron Levie Jul 07, 2018

Show notes

Aaron Levie, the CEO of enterprise security and file-sharing service Box, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about how businesses are simultaneously turning to multiple vendors — including Box and its competitors — to solve workplace IT problems that used to all happen in-house. He also talks about shifting public attitudes toward the tech industry; why it's harder to regulate Silicon Valley than it might seem at first blush; and why the next big opportunities in tech won't look like Facebook or Uber, but rather will grow more slowly into fields like healthcare, education and manufacturing. Plus: What is the tech industry's responsibility to help the people whose jobs may be displaced by its inventions?

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Recode Decode: Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky (Live at Code 2018) Jul 04, 2018

Show notes

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher and Dan Frommer at the 2018 Code Conference. Chesky talks about Airbnb’s expansion into “the experience economy," encouraging local hosts to help visitors find fun activities in their area. He also discusses how the company thinks about expanding internationally and how it’s dealing with regulatory challenges in cities like San Francisco and New York. Plus: How much responsibility should Airbnb take for what its customers do in their properties?

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Recode Decode: Matt Cutts Jul 02, 2018

Show notes

Matt Cutts, the acting administrator of the U.S. Digital Service, talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about how his team is trying to modernize government agencies and make services like Medicare and veterans’ benefits more user-friendly. Cutts spent nearly 17 years working at Google before he joined the USDS under President Obama, but says that the organization’s mission has not changed under President Trump, and its work has remained nonpartisan. He explains how even simple technological tweaks — like a progress bar or web forms — can make a huge difference for the beneficiaries of the USDS’s work, and shares his pitch for an ambitious goal that would make everyone’s life easier: “Get rid of the paper.”

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