Decoder with Nilay Patel

Today, we’re talking about the bidding war over Warner Bros. Discovery, which is the biggest story in the entertainment industry right now, and for good reason. It has pretty much everything you could want in a buzzy Hollywood saga — big names, big money, and big drama.

To help me make sense of it all, I wanted to talk with Julia Alexander, a Verge alum and now media correspondent at Puck News who’s one of the best in the business at analyzing corporate strategy, Hollywood, and what’s next in entertainment. Julia really helped me break down why Netflix is the clear front runner to acquire Warner Bros., why David Ellison of Paramount Skydance is so desperate to win, and, perhaps most importantly, how the tech industry fits into this puzzle.

Links: 

Netflix is buying Warner Bros. for $83 billion | The Verge

Paramount launches hostile $108 billion bid to snatch Warner | The Verge

Netflix revises Warner Bros. bid to an all-cash offer | The Verge

Why Netflix needs Warner Bros. | Puck News

The Warner Bros. bidding war Is over | Bloomberg

The Son King of Hollywood | Vulture

FCC Chair: ‘Legitimate competition concerns’ with Netflix’s Warner deal | Variety

Netflix's Ted Sarandos to testify at antitrust hearing over Warner deal | Variety

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

Experian is one of those giant multinationals convoluted enough to have multiple CEOs all over the world, so first I asked Alex Lintner, Experian's CEO of technology and software solutions, to dig into the classic Decoder questions and explain how all of that even works.

He oversees big operations like security and privacy, and now, of course, AI. If you want to participate in the modern economy — rent an apartment, buy a car, get a job, etc  — you’re part of Experian’s ecosystem, whether you like it or not. At its heart, Experian’s core service is data about people and the choices they make. And this extremely valuable data weirdly makes Experian a part of your life  — a life that becomes much smoother if the data the company collects about you tells a good story. 

Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.

Links: 

Roughly half of Americans are knowledgeable about personal finance | Pew Research

How Americans view data privacy | Pew Research

Consumer voices on credit reports and scores | CFPB

Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Källenius on Decoder | The Verge

The Palantir app ICE uses to find neighborhoods to raid | 404 Media

T-Mobile customers exposed in major Experian breach (2015) | The Verge

All the news about the Equifax breach | 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

Grok, the chatbot made by Elon Musk’s xAI, is able to make all manner of AI-generated images on demand, including non-consensual intimate images of women and minors. It's the kind of "controversy" that would have completely sunk a platform five or 10 years ago, but now it seems clear that Elon wants Grok to be able to do this.

A lot of people feel like someone should be able to do something about a one-click harassment machine like this. But who has that power, and what they can do with it, is a deeply complicated question,tied up in the thorny mess of history that is content moderation and the legal precedents that underpin it. So I invited Riana Pfefferkorn, from the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, to come talk me through it.

Links: 

Grok’s gross AI deepfakes problem | The Verge

Grok is undressing children — can the law stop it? | The Verge

Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai are cowards | The Verge

Senate passes a bill to let nonconsensual deepfake victims sue | The Verge

EU looks to ban nudification apps following Grok outrage | Politico

Grok flooded X with millions of sexualized images | The New York Times

The Supreme Court just upended internet law | The Verge

Mother of Elon Musk’s son sues xAI over sexual deepfake images | AP

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

We’re back to start the year with a very special live interview with Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan, which we taped in front of a terrific audience at Brooklyn Bowl in Las Vegas during CES. At this year’s show, Razer made headlines for something it calls Project Ava, an AI companion that has a physical presence in the real world, as an anime hologram that sits in a jar on your desk. It’s powered by, you guessed it, Elon Musk’s Grok. 

There are a whole lot of choices bundled up in all of that, as well as Razer’s decision to go all-in on AI at a moment when the gaming community is outright rejecting it. So Min and I really got into it. I think you’ll have a lot to think about with this one. 

Links: 

Razer is making an AI anime waifu hologram for your desk | The Verge

Razer thinks you’d rather have AI headphones instead of glasses | The Verge

Baldur’s Gate 3 studio says it won’t use AI for concept art or writing | The Verge

In 2025, AI became a lightning rod for gamers and devs | The Verge

Razer plans $600M push to capture 'untapped' AI gaming demand | Bloomberg

Replika CEO says it’s okay if we end up marrying AI chatbots | Decoder

Lawsuits blame ChatGPT for suicides and harmful delusions | NYT

Inside three longterm relationships with AI chatbots | NYT

Torment Nexus | Know Your Meme

The future of gaming is AI | Razer (Instagram)

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

Hey everyone, it’s Nilay. We’re settling back in here after the winter break and CES, and we’ll have new episodes for you starting next Monday. In the meantime, we wanted to highlight one of our favorites from last year: an interview with journalist and author Megan Greenwell about her book Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream.

My conversation with Megan last year was extremely illuminating as to why private equity does what it does to industries like healthcare, media and real estate — and just how deeply it's affecting the everyday lives of Americans everywhere. It's a really great conversation that feels just as timely today as it did last summer. Enjoy. 

Links: 

Bad Company | HarperCollins

How private equity kills companies and communities | Decoder

Private equity bought out your doctor and bankrupted Toys ‘R’ Us | Decoder

Private equity makes its first college sports play | Axios

Private equity Is gutting America — and getting away with it | NYT

I was fired from Deadspin for refusing to ‘stick to sports’ | NYT

Will private equity be the next ‘Big Short’? | Marketplace

The profit-obsessed monster destroying American ERs | Vox

Why your vet bill is so high | The Atlantic

The investment firms leave behind a barren wasteland’ | Politico

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