Decoder with Nilay Patel

Hey everyone! Decoder senior producers Kate Cox and Nick Statt here. We’ve had a big year, including nearly 100 episodes, a new YouTube channel, an ad-free podcast feed, and a slate of great guest hosts while Nilay was on parental leave. It’s been a lot! We’ve also had a lot of great questions and comments this year from you, our audience. So we pulled together all the feedback we’ve received on topics like CarPlay, Monday episode guest suggestions, and — of course — AI. And then we turned the tables on Nilay to ask him his thoughts on the past 12 months: What we liked, what we want to improve, and how he’s making decisions for Decoder in the new year.  Links:  Answering your biggest Decoder questions, 2024 edition | Decoder The DoorDash Problem | Decoder How decision making changes when AI answers are cheap and (too) easy | Decoder Why GM will give you Gemini — but not CarPlay | Decoder Rivian CEO: ‘We’re really convicted’ about skipping CarPlay | Decoder How SharkNinja took over the home, with CEO Mark Barrocas | Decoder Why Tubi CEO Anjali Sud thinks free TV can win again | Decoder Disney accuses Google of copyright infringement following OpenAI deal | 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

Stack Overflow CEO Prashanth Chandrasekar was last on the show in 2022 — just one month before ChatGPT launched and upended literally everything for Stack Overflow in a deeply existential way.  He called a company emergency, reallocated about 10 percent of the staff to figure out solutions to the ChatGPT problem, and made some pretty huge decisions about structure and organization to navigate that change — all of it pure Decoder bait. Links:  2025 Developer Survey | Stack Overflow The people who make your apps go to Stack Overflow for answers | Decoder OpenAI, Stack Overflow partner to bring technical knowledge to ChatGPT | The Verge Stack Overflow feeds programmers’ answers to AI whether they like it or not | The Verge Stack Overflow cuts 28 percent of its staff | TechCrunch AI-generated answers temporarily banned on Stack Overflow | The Verge Stack Overflow’s strike is over, but problems persist | Jon Ericson A new era of Stack Overflow | Stack Overflow 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

Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey and I agree it seems like democracy is on the line right now, especially around the First Amendment and the increasing pressure the Trump administration — especially FCC chair Brendan Carr — is putting on free speech. I also had a lot of questions for Sen. Markey about the supposed TikTok ban, which no one seems to know anything about, and all the other problems we’re facing in 2025. Links:  Even the lawmakers behind the TikTok ban have no idea what’s going on | The Verge Carr’s FCC is an anti-consumer, rights-trampling harassment machine | The Verge The FCC is a weapon in Trump’s war on free speech | Decoder Here’s the Trump EO that would ban state AI laws | The Verge Silicon Valley is rallying behind a guy who sucks | The Verge Silicon Valley’s man in the White House is benefiting himself and his friends | The 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

Today, I’m talking with Willem Avé, who’s the head of product at Square. You know Square — it was started by billionaire Jack Dorsey of Twitter fame more than 15 years ago, and it got big on the back of that little magnetic reader that once plugged into the headphone jack of the iPhone and let small businesses accept credit cards. Nowadays, of course, Square is more than a credit card reader, and sadly, the headphone jack is ancient history. The company itself is now part of parent organization called Block, which is made up of a very interesting mix of financial services like Afterpay, Cash App, and, yes, the streaming music service Tidal. So Willem and I really got into where Square is headed next with AI and automation, why he’s excited about crypto and Bitcoin specifically, and even what it means that the US is discontinuing the penny.  Links:  Square’s public roadmap | Square Jack Dorsey is reorganizing the entirety of Block | Fortune How Block turned Square into a financial services giant | Fast Company Block to roll out bitcoin payments on Square | Square Square buys $170 million worth of bitcoin | CNBC Square, Jack Dorsey’s payments company, changes its name to Block | NYT The penny dies at 232 | 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

Today, I’m talking with Verge senior AI reporter Hayden Field about some of the people responsible for studying AI and deciding in what ways it might… well, ruin the world. Those folks work at Anthropic as part of a group called the societal impacts team, which Hayden just spent time with for a profile she published this week on The Verge.  The team is just nine people out of more than 2,000 who work at Anthropic, and their only job, as the team members themselves say, is to investigate and publish quote "inconvenient truths” about AI. That of course brings up a whole host of problems, the most important of which is whether this team can remain independent, or even exist at all, as it publicizes findings about Anthropic's own products that might be unflattering or even politically fraught.  Links:  It’s their job to keep AI from destroying everything | The Verge Anthropic details how it measures Claude’s wokeness | The Verge White House orders tech companies to make AI bigoted again | The Verge Chaos and lies: Why Sam Altman was booted from OpenAI | The Verge How Elon Musk Is remaking Grok in his image | NYT Anthropic tries to defuse White House backlash | Axios  New AI battle: White House vs. Anthropic | Axios Anthropic will pursue gulf state investments after all | Wired 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