Today, I’m talking with Hayden Field, The Verge’s senior AI reporter, about some pure Decoder bait: the seemingly-endless org chart changes at OpenAI, and how all of them seem to consolidate power under cofounder Greg Brockman, the company’s president.

While Sam Altman is the CEO and still OpenAI’s most public face, Brockman has amassed enormous power and influence within the top ranks of the company as other senior leaders have left in rapid succession. So I wanted Hayden to break down for me what’s going on at OpenAI, and the increasingly important role Greg Brockman will play in its future.

Links: 

• It’s Greg Brockman’s OpenAI now | The Verge
• OpenAI’s Brockman brushes off concerns about leadership changes | CNBC
• Sam Altman on building OpenAI & betting on the impossible | David Senra
• OpenAI’s Q2 sales show tepid growth compared to Anthropic | WSJ
• Anthropic's revenue run rate reportedly surpasses $65 billion pre-IPO | Axios
• OpenAI President On Reinventing Computers | Johanna Stern / YouTube
• Greg Brockman takes control of OpenAI’s products in latest shake-up | Wired
• OpenAI’s president is a Trump mega-donor | The Verge

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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 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

Tim Cadogan is CEO of GoFundMe, the for-profit platform where you can donate to help people with everything from medical expenses to little league uniforms to starting a new business.

Tim took over as CEO in March 2020 — a chaotic moment when GoFundMe became a load-bearing part of American culture. So you can imagine I had a lot of questions for Tim, how he thinks about all this, and how he makes some very tough decisions on what money to make and what money not to make. 

Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.

Links: 

• The GoFundMe CEO wants you to ask: ‘How can I help?’ | New York TImes
• GoFundMe CEO: We weren't meant to replace COVID relief | USA Today
• GoFundMe Is a healthcare utility now | The Atlantic
• As Gaza is bombarded, GoFundMe donations are stuck in limbo | The Verge
• For the uninsured, crowdfunding provides little help in paying for healthcare | University of Washington
• Oregon nonprofits claim GoFundMe impersonated them | Central Oregon Daily News
• The causes and consequences of medical crowdfunding | ScienceDirect

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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 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

My guest today is Robert Hart, The Verge’s London-based AI reporter. Robert recently wrote a fantastic story for us about the debate raging inside the world of mathematics — and the existential crisis over what it means that new frontier AI models have become very good at math in a shockingly short period of time. 

I wanted to dive into all of this with Robert, who actually spoke to some of the most accomplished mathematicians working today to figure out what’s hype and what’s real — and to get a sense of just how exciting, and how scary, all of this is. 

Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.

Links: 

• The AI takeover of mathematics has begun | The Verge
• Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science | OpenAI
• An unreleased Anthropic model made progress on the Riemann hypothesis| TechCrunch
• OpenAI’s amazing — but vastly oversold — new model Astra | Gary Marcus
• OpenAI’s math breakthrough played to AI’s strengths | Understanding AI
• Why the legendary Erdős problems are falling to AI | Quanta

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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 Ursa Wright. Our supervising producer is Greg Ott, and 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 to Ben Smith, the editor-in-chief of Semafor. Ben ran BuzzFeed News at the height of the Facebook traffic boom, and even wrote a book about it, called Traffic, which he discussed with me on Decoder back in 2023. 

Semafor, which is only four years old, is now a fast-growing and profitable media company, which makes about half of its revenue from events. So I wanted to talk to Ben about how that all works, and what it feels like to navigate the ethical conflicts that seem to be everywhere in media right now. 

Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.

Links: 

• Jonah Peretti explains why he sold BuzzFeed | Decoder
• What’s after the social media era in news? | Decoder (2023)
• Semafor raises $30 Million after first profitable year | The Wrap
• Semafor’s new AI tool helped boil down its flagship conference | Nieman Lab
• Semafor launches Silicon Valley & The World | Semafor
• Semafor takes aim at Davos as events surpass half Its revenue | Adweek
• Semafor Is Betting Big on 'Anti-Scale' Video | Adweek
• Semafor wants to be ‘business outlet of record in the Gulf” | Press Gazette

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Credits:

Decoder is a production of The Verge and is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Decoder’s producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Xander Adams. Our Supervising Producer is Greg Ott and 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 The Verge’s Hayden Field, and we’re discussing a question that’s been rocketing around the tech industry for the past week: Is Google losing the AI race?

That's because last week, the company announced a bombshell reorganization of its AI division. You can read these moves, and Google’s reaction, in a lot of different ways. So I really wanted to sit down with Hayden to dig into some of the smartest analysis we’ve seen this past week, and what we think is really going on here.

Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.

Links: 

• The messy politics behind Google’s big AI shakeup | The Verge
• Gemini is cooked but GCP is cooking | SemiAnalysis
• Google announced a major shakeup of its top AI leadership | The Verge
• AI lab musical chairs hits Google the hardest | Axios
• Demis Hassabis said this might be the ‘foothills of the singularity.’ What? | The Verge
• Google’s AI architect lived rent-free in Elon Musk’s head | The Verge
• Sundar Pichai on AI, search, and the future of the web | 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. This episode was edited by Ursa Wright. Our supervising producer is Greg Ott, and 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 Lila Snyder, the CEO of Bose. Lila was last on the show about four years ago, and since then she’s dramatically rearchitected the company — she sold off Bose Professional, acquired the high end audio brands McIntosh Labs and Sonus faber, and, perhaps most importantly, started licensing all that core Bose technology to other companies.

That big change in the business comes with a big change in structure. Becoming a software company in addition to a product company comes with a whole new set of challenges, and Lila and I got into how it’s all working. 

Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.

Links:

• How Bose competes with AirPods, with CEO Lila Snyder | Decoder (2022)
• Bose thinks it can be a media company for some reason | The Verge
• Bose acquires premium audio brand McIntosh | The Verge
• Bose reinvented itself just in time. Now comes the tricky part | Wired
• Bose sells off its premium division after 50 years | Bose

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 Kabir Chopra. Our supervising producer is Greg Ott, and our editorial director is Kevin McShane. 

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Our guest today is Gaby Del Valle, a policy reporter here at The Verge, and we’re discussing the growing backlash against AI data centers. Gaby recently reported a fantastic piece about Hernando County, Florida, where last month the county commission unanimously approved a year-long moratorium on data center construction.

So I wanted Gaby to talk me through what these protests look like on the ground, from voters whose party affiliations have typically aligned them with big business.

Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.

Links: 

• Right-wingers protesting data centers have a lot in common with the left | The Verge
• No data centers in my backyard | Jasmine Sun
• Who’s afraid of the big, bad GPU? | The Verge 
• NY becomes the first state to enact a data center moratorium | The Verge
• The fight against AI data centers is just beginning | The Verge
• Florida gives millions in tax breaks to data centers under DeSantis-backed law | Tampa Bay 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 supervising producer is Greg Ott, and 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 Toni Schneider, the new head of social platform Bluesky who formally took over after a short stint as interim CEO. This is one of my favorite kinds of interviews, because a couple years ago we had Bluesky’s prior CEO, Jay Graber, on the show — she’s now the company’s chief innovation officer. All of that kind of shuffle is pure Decoder bait: a new CEO often brings with them new priorities, which is perhaps the most Decoder subject of all.

Read the ⁠full interview transcript on The Verge⁠.

Links: 

• Bluesky CEO Jay Graber | Decoder (2024)
• Bluesky CEO Jay Graber steps down | TechCrunch
• Staying in the game | Toni Schneider
• The messy WordPress drama, explained | The Verge
• Proton CTO Bart Butler | 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’s producers are 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

Hey everyone, this is Nick Statt, senior producer on Decoder. We’re taking a brief publishing break while Nilay is out on vacation. We’ll resume regular programming next week, and we’ve got some great episodes in the works. 

In the meantime, we wanted to share an episode from the excellent podcast The Gray Area, with host Sean Illing. In this one, Sean sat down with The Atlantic journalist Charlie Warzel to talk specifically about the state of the internet in 2026 — and what it means that it feels increasingly overrun by non-human actors. 

Links: 

• The Gray Area with Sean Illing | Apple Podcasts
• Galaxy Brain | The Atlantic
• The internet is all bots now | The Gray Area (YouTube)
• The feeling of control slipping away | The Atlantic
  
• How much of the internet is fake? Turns out, a lot of it, actually| New York Magazine
• How bots took over our lives | The New Yorker
• The ‘dead internet theory’ is real — and it’s killing the web | Fast Company
• The fanfare around the band Geese actually was a psyop | Wired

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

Evan Smith, cofounder and CEO of Altana, was last on the show in early 2025 to talk about how Trump’s first few waves of tariffs were starting to affect global trade. It was a very alarming and also very illuminating chat; Evan and I got into the existential weeds of international relations and economics almost immediately.

A year and a half later, and everything is somehow even more chaotic than it was the last time Evan and I talked — and that’s true about both trade and also the world of running a software company. Agentic AI, whack-a-mole tariff policy, war in Iran — we jumped right back into weeds yet again.

Read the full interview transcript The Verge.

Links: 

• How Trump’s tariff chaos is already changing global trade | Decoder
• Skydio CEO Adam Bry on not drawing red lines for drone use | Decoder
• Trump imposes new global tariffs, drawing protests from trading partners | Reuters
• Greer: USMCA Talks Could Stretch Into Next Year | Wall Street Journal
• Trump hits Canada with new 50% tariffs | Associated Press
• Iran weaponized the Strait of Hormuz. Now neighbors are going around it | CNN
• The Iran war is testing Southeast Asia’s faith in the US | 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’s producers are 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

Today, I’m talking with Hayden Field, The Verge’s senior AI reporter, about the major trade secrets lawsuit between Apple and OpenAI, and what this tells us about OpenAI’s future. 

Hayden has been covering OpenAI for years now, and she also just talked to a bunch of lawyers who specialize in intellectual property and trade secret law to get a sense of how serious this case is. The answer is not entirely positive for OpenAI. This legal battle could also affect OpenAI’s hardware plans, its forthcoming IPO, and its already-damaged reputation. 

Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.

Links: 

• Sam Altman didn’t need another lawsuit | The Verge
• OpenAI’s first device will be moveable, screenless speaker | Bloomberg
• Apple sues OpenAI for allegedly stealing hardware secrets | The Verge
• The 6 wildest claims in Apple’s lawsuit against OpenAI | The Verge
• OpenAI is buying Jony Ive’s AI hardware company | 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