Decoder with Nilay Patel

I’ve always enjoyed talking to security expert Alex Stamos because he’s so direct — and he doesn't mince words about how the multibillion dollar cybersecurity industry as we’ve known it is all but doomed thanks to the unrelenting, AI-boosted waves of hacks, breaches, and attacks.

That much disruption means a lot of places where bad guys can get in while everyone else is left scrambling. Alex isn’t a doomer in the long run, but he does think we've got a dark age to get through before things get better.

Links:

Attack of the killer script kiddies | The Verge

Alex Stamos on AI's coming cybersecurity dark age | Ground Level AI

Palo Alto’s CEO Said ‘AI Must Fight AI’ | Palo Alto Networks

Cybersecurity vets protest ‘dangerous’ ban on Anthropic’s Mythos | TechCrunch

Binance: $6.3B heist used fake job interviews, internal AI tool | The Verge

A thousand fewer paths to root | OpenAI

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 Greg Ott, Kate Cox, and Nick Statt. Our editors are Xander Adams and 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

My guest today is Willy Shih, an economist, a professor of management practice at Harvard Business School, and the author of the upcoming book, Where Does My Stuff Come From? The Powerful Economics Behind Global Supply Chains.

Willy’s new book is all about the economics underlying global trade, which our politicians and regulators seem to insistently ignore. So we got into Trump’s tariffs, why the markets have reacted to supply chain disruptions the way they have, and why China remains a global manufacturing powerhouse even though every other country thinks that’s so risky.

Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.

Links:

Where Does My Stuff Come From? | Willy Shih

RAM price hikes: the latest on the global memory shortage | The Verge

Tariffs didn’t bring manufacturing jobs back to the US | Decoder

Trump tariffs mean chaos for consumers | Harvard Crimson

Why the global chip shortage is making it so hard to buy a PS5 | Decoder (2021)

Inside Foxconn’s empty buildings, empty factories, and empty promises | The Verge (2020)

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 Greg Ott, Kate Cox, and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Eileen Felix. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There’s been a whole lot of organizational and structural change at NBCUniversal since the last time Matt Strauss joined Decoder. First, Comcast spun most of the cable channels off into something called Versant, and Matt became the chairman of the entire NBCU Media Group. Next year, Comcast is splitting off NBCU into an entirely separate company.

That's a lot to have going on all at once — and Matt's the guy who has to make sure broadcast, Peacock, and every other platform keeps making you watch.

Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.

Links:

Comcast plans major layoffs as it preps for NBCU spinoff | Variety

YouTube Premium will include Peacock starting next year | The Verge

Pipes dream: Why Comcast gave up on NBCU | Decoder

Langley, Strauss unveil new executive structures at NBCU | Variety

NBCU’s streaming chief isn’t worried about you cancelling cable | Decoder

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 Greg Ott, Kate Cox, and Nick Statt. The show is editors by Ursa Wright and 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

Today, I’m joined by Joey Brookhart, an analyst at the chip and AI research firm SemiAnalysis, to help me dig into the story inside the massive Anthropic IPO filing.

This isn’t just about a single company’s financials, or its lofty ambitions or frankly ludicrous risk factors, which include maybe automating every job or, you know, killing everyone. It’s also the clearest look yet at how the business of frontier AI actually works and who’s really paying for it.

Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.

Links:

Anthropic files for its IPO | The Verge

Five weird details from Anthropic’s IPO filing | The Verge

Anthropic’s elaborate plan to keep Wall Street at bay | The Verge

Anthropic revenue jumps to $16.8B in quarter before IPO | Bloomberg

Anthropic raises concerns | Matt Levine

Anthropic reveals skyrocketing growth in IPO filing | NYT

The Anthropic IPO financials sneak peak | SemiAnalysis

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’s producers are Greg Ott, Kate Cox, and Nick Statt. This episode was 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

My guest today is Kevin Roose, a journalist and author of the new book The AGI Chronicles. Kevin was a longtime New York Times reporter and host of the popular podcast Hard Fork, but he and friend of the show Casey Newton just left The Times to start the all-new tech podcast Machine Gods, which launched last week.

Kevin and I talked about launching Machine Gods and what it’s like to go from mainstream media to being an independent creator. Of course, we also talked about his book, which is excellently reported dive into the companies racing to build machine intelligence.

Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.

Links:

The AGI Chronicles | Kevin Roose

Can AI replicate in your smart TV? | Machine Gods (YouTube)

Introducing Machine Gods | Platformer

Inside the biggest feud in artificial intelligence | The Atlantic

The essay that started the AI race | Kevin Roose

A conversation with Bing’s chatbot left me deeply unsettled | 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’s producers are Greg Ott, Kate Cox, and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Kabir Chopra. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices