Today we’re talking about Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and Tesla — and I have to say, it feels like the first of many episodes about these three characters that we’ll be doing over the course of the next four years. Because when Elon used his wealth and influence to help Trump get elected, he also bought himself a seat at the president-elect’s inner circle. But what does the world’s richest person really want in return?

And how is the CEO of an electric car company, an outspoken advocate for combating climate change, going to square his support for Trump and a Republican policy agenda centered on climate change denial? Verge transportation editor Andy Hawkins joins me this week to make sense of it all, and to figure out how Elon and Tesla may still benefit, even if Trump's climate policy reversals and tariffs lay waste to the auto industry.

Links: 

• What does Trump’s election mean for EVs, Tesla, and Elon Musk? | The Verge
• This election will decide what kind of car you’ll buy | The Verge
• Trump says Musk will lead ‘DOGE’ office to cut ‘wasteful’ government spending | The Verge
• Elon Musk attends Trump's first post-election meeting with House Republicans | CNBC
• At Mar-a-Lago, ‘Uncle’ Elon Musk puts his imprint on the Trump transition | NYT
• Musk believes in global warming. Trump does not. Will that change? | NYT
• Elon Musk helped elect Trump? What does he expect in return? | NYT
• With ready orders and an energy czar, Trump plots pivot to fossil fuels | NYT
• Tesla hits $1 trillion market value as Musk-backed Trump win fans optimism | Reuters
• Trump’s return dims outlook for Chinese EV makers amid tariff threats | SCMP

Credits: 

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

Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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

Harvey Mason, Jr is CEO of the Recording Academy, the nonprofit organization most famous for the Grammy Awards. We spoke right before this year's Grammy nominations came out, and you'll hear us talk a whole lot about the changes he's tried to make with how the awarding membership works.

I always say to watch what’s happening to the music industry because it’s a preview into what will happen to every other creative industry five years later. My chat with Harvey really drove the point home: AI, diversity, streaming distribution... it's all here, and all the tensions that come with.

Links: 

• 2025 Grammy nominations: The complete list | NPR
• The Grammys Move From CBS To Disney In Major 10-Year Deal | Deadline
• Recording Academy boots Grammy voters | Los Angeles Times
• Chappell Roan and the problem with fandom | Vox
• Grammys CEO: Music that contains AI-created elements is eligible | AP News
• Deborah Dugan Grammys Controversy: What to Know | Time
• For Taylor Swift, the Future of Music Is a Love Story | Wall Street Journal (2014)
• AI is on a collision course with music | Decoder
• Elvis Costello defends Olivia Rodrigo over ‘Brutal’ plagiarism claim | BBC
• Why Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen thinks AI is the future | Decoder

Transcript: 

Credits:

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

Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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

Today, we’re talking about work. Specifically, where we work, how our expectations of working remotely were radically changed by the pandemic, and how those expectations feel like they’re on the verge of changing yet again. For many people, the pendulum has swung wildly between working fully remote and now a push to return to the office from their bosses, and there are a lot of theories about what might really be motivating big companies to try and bring everyone back.

To explain it, I caught up with two experts on the subject: Stephan Meier, a professor of business strategy at Columbia Business School, and Jessica Kriegel, the chief strategy officer at workplace culture consultancy Culture Partners. We dive into what’s been happening to the nature of work today, and whether Amazon, which just announced a major return to the office five days a week, is part of a bigger trend. 

Links:

• Amazon is making its employees come back to the office five days a week | The Verge
• Amazon CEO denies 5-day office mandate is a ‘backdoor layoff’ | CNBC
• Bob Iger tells Disney employees they must return to the office four days a week | CNBC
• A quarter of bosses admit return-to-office mandates meant to make staff quit | Fortune
• More Americans now prefer hybrid over fully remote work, survey finds | Axios
• Google tells staff: stay productive and we’ll stay flexible | BI
• The list of major companies requiring employees to return to the office | BI
• Thinking Inside the Box: Why Virtual Meetings Generate Fewer Ideas | Columbia
• Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn wants you addicted to learning | Decoder
• Sundar Pichai on managing Google through the pandemic | Vergecast

Credits: 

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

Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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

Today, I’m talking with Baris Cetinok, who is in charge of all the software in the cars that GM makes, which is a lot of cars. And if you’ve been following any of the drama in the world of car software, you know it also means Baris is the guy who has to defend GM’s decision to drop Apple CarPlay and Android Auto from most of its cars, especially EVs. 

I’ve had versions of this conversation with the CEOs of car companies before, but Baris is in charge of actually building this stuff. So we really got into the weeds here on what this looks like, the major trade-offs, and why he thinks it’s ultimately the right path for GM. 

Links: 

• GM names new leaders of software organization | The Detroit News
• GM is cutting off access to Apple CarPlay & Android Auto for its future EVs | The Verge
• Will GM Regret Kicking Apple CarPlay off the Dashboard? | Bloomberg
• Rivian CEO: CarPlay isn’t going to happen | Decoder
• Volvo CEO thinks dropping CarPlay is a mistake | Decoder
• GM Ultifi software platform will roll out in 2023 | The Verge
• Android Auto vs. Android Automotive vs. Google Automotive Services | Android Police
• GM plans another big Super Cruise hands-free expansion | The Verge
• GM will start making money on EVs this year | The Verge
• How GM plans to beat Google, Apple at car software | Motor Trend

Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/24049622

Credits: 

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

Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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

Trump and a bunch of billionaires, like Elon Musk, are calling for the FCC to punish TV stations by revoking their licenses and using the spectrum for other stuff. In a normal world, this would be idle billionaire wishcasting. Punishing news organizations is one of those things we have a First Amendment to protect against. You know — the one that protects free speech by prohibiting the government from making speech regulations or punishing people for what they say?  

But, it turns out, there is a long and complex history of the government regulating speech on broadcast platforms like radio and television — and that history dovetails into many of the problems we have regulating tech companies and social platforms today. Verge senior tech and policy editor Adi Robertson joins me to dive in.

Links: 

• The Verge guide to the 2024 US presidential election | The Verge
• FCC chair rejects Trump’s call to revoke CBS license over Harris interview | The Verge
• Florida official who resigned after letter to TV stations blames DeSantis’ office | MSNBC
• “To keep it simple for the state of Florida: It’s the First Amendment, stupid” | The Verge
• How America turned against the First Amendment | The Verge
• Why Sen. Brian Schatz thinks child safety can trump the First Amendment | The Verge
• How the Kids Online Safety Act puts us all at risk | The Verge
• Here’s a bunch of bananas shit Trump said today about breaking up Google | The Verge
• Barack Obama on AI, free speech, and the future of the internet | The Verge
• Why you’re seeing those gross political ads during the World Series | The Verge

Credits:

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

Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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

Today, I’m talking with Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky, who is only the second person to be on Decoder three times — the other is Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Brian made a lot of waves earlier this year when he started talking about something called “founder mode,” or at least, when well-known investor Paul Graham wrote a blog post about Brian’s approach to running Airbnb that gave it that name.

Founder mode has since become a little bit of a meme, and I was excited to have Brian back on to talk about it, and what specifically he thinks it means. Talking to Brian is a ride, but I think I held my own, and I think you’ll really like this one.

Links:

• Founder Mode | Paul Graham
• Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky is taking it back to basics (2023) | Decoder
• Why the future of work is the future of travel, with Airbnb’s Brian Chesky (2021) | Decoder
• Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky: ‘I Never Called it Founder Mode’ | Skift
• Why Silicon Valley is abuzz over ‘Founder Mode’ | NYT
• After Apple, Jony Ive Is Building an Empire of His Own | NYT
• Airbnb can now help you find somebody to manage your listing | The Verge
• Airbnb creates new chief business officer role | Reuters
• Why Jeff Bezos Says Your Goal Is to Make 3 Good Decisions per Day | Inc
• Taking the Mystery out of Scaling a Company | Ben Horowtiz

Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/24043611

Credits: 

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

Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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

Today, we’re going to try and figure out "digital god." I figured we’ve been doing Decoder long enough, let’s just get after it. Can we build an artificial intelligence so powerful it changes the world and answers all our questions? The AI industry has decided the answer is yes. 

In September, OpenAI’s Sam Altman published a blog post claiming we’ll have superintelligent AI in “a few thousand days.” And earlier this month, Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic published a 14,000-word post laying out what he thinks such a system will be capable of when it does arrive, which he says could be as soon as 2026. Verge senior AI reporter Kylie Robison joins me on the show to break it all down. 

Links: 

• Machines of Loving Grace | Dario Amodei
• The Intelligence Age | Sam Altman
• Anthropic’s CEO thinks AI will lead to a utopia | The Verge
• AI manifestos flood the tech zone | Axios
• OpenAI just raised $6.6 billion to build ever-larger AI models | The Verge
• OpenAI was a research lab — now it’s just another tech company | The Verge
• California governor vetoes major AI safety bill | The Verge
• Inside the white-hot center of AI doomerism | NYT
• Microsoft and OpenAI’s close partnership shows signs of fraying | NYT
• The $14 Billion question dividing OpenAI and Microsoft | WSJ
• Anthropic has floated $40 Billion valuation in funding talks | The Information

Credits: 

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

Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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

Today’s episode, well — it’s a ride. I’m talking to Intuit CEO Sasan Goodarzi, who’s built Intuit into a juggernaut business software company in part through a series of major acquisitions: TurboTax, MailChimp, CreditKarma, and loads more. There’s a lot of good Decoder material there, and we get into it. 

But it’s TurboTax, and the company’s tax lobbying efforts to protect it, that really drives a major narrative about Intuit, for better and worse. So you can bet I asked Sasan about all this, and it got a bit contentious. In fact, the company's chief communications officer even demanded we delete a portion of this interview over an exchange with Sasan on TurboTax. Don’t worry — we don’t do that here at The Verge. So expect to hear that section right up top, with the rest of the interview following after.

Links:

• Inside TurboTax’s 20-year fight to stop Americans from filing taxes for free| ProPublica
• TurboTax deliberately hid free file page from Google Search | ProPublica
• TurboTax maker Intuit spent millions in record lobbying blitz | OpenSecrets
• FTC: Intuit’s “free” TurboTax ads misled consumers | The Verge
• TurboTax isn’t allowed to say it’s ‘free’ anymore | The Verge
• Intuit owes you money if it made you pay for TurboTax “free” | The Verge
• IRS extends its Free File tax program for five more years | The Verge
• IRS Direct File set to expand availability in a dozen new states | IRS
• Mint is shutting down, and it’s pushing users toward Credit Karma | The Verge
• Intuit Mailchimp CEO Rania Succar on Decoder | Decoder
• Ethics Statement | The Verge

Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/24037861

Credits: 

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

Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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

Today’s episode is a little different: Digitas CEO Amy Lanzi and I recorded this conversation live on stage during advertising week in New York City at an event graciously hosted by Adweek. 

I've actually been dying to talk to Amy. Digitas is one of the most important agencies in the entire advertising business with huge clients and massive influence over big platforms like Instagram and YouTube. After all, they're the ones buying the ads that keep all of those companies afloat. As you'd expect, she has a lot of thoughts about influencers, creators, AI, and everything that is going to change the advertising industry in the months and years to come.

Links: 

• Publicis Groupe acquires influencer-marketing giant Influential | Marketing Dive
• Epsilon has first Digital CDP to provide native omni-channel activation | Epsilon
• Stagwell is on the hunt for adtech as the ad company continues its acquisition spree | BI
• Emma Chamberlain Is the People’s Influencer | Allure
• Inside the World of Sephora Squad | Marketing Scoop
• Fanatics Launches Fanatics Live, a Next-Gen Live Commerce Platform | Fanatics
• There’s no AI without the cloud, says AWS CEO Adam Selipsky | The Verge
• A Google breakup is on the table, say DOJ lawyers | The Verge
• For Gen Z, TikTok Is the New Search Engine | The New York Times

Credits:

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

Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Xander Adams. Our supervising producer is Liam James.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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

Luis von Ahn is the co-founder and CEO of Duolingo. There are lots of opportunities to enhance a product like Duolingo with AI, and we talk about all that — but I also wanted to talk to Luis about learning, generally. Duolingo is a global product, and there are a lot of tech tensions there, dealing with different user needs worldwide. We talk about it all in a pretty direct way... including all those unhinged things the owl does on social media.

Links: 

• Duolingo Introduces AI-Powered Innovations at Duocon 2024 (Duolingo)
• Video Call with Lily (Duolingo / YouTube)
• AI Boosts Duolingo As Company Posts First Profit (Nasdaq)
• Foreign Language Training (US State Department)
• Exploring My Villain Origin Story (Duolingo / TikTok)
• Duolingo cuts workers as it relies more on AI (The Washington Post)
• Why Silicon Valley Is Talking About Founder Mode (The New York Times)
• Duolingo's Math and Music lessons finally hit Android a year after iOS (Android Police)
• Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky on taking it back to basics (Decoder / The Verge)
• How Duolingo is using its 'unhinged content' with Duo the Owl (Digiday)
• How we turned Duo's butt into a viral Super Bowl commercial (Duolingo)
• A Duolingo employee has apologised for joking about Amber Heard (The Tab) 

Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/24031882

Credits:

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

Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Xander Adams. Our supervising producer is Liam James.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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

I’m talking with my good friend David Pierce, Vergecast co-host and The Verge’s editor-at-large, about something he spends an ungodly amount of time thinking and writing about: software.

Scores of new workplace apps are cropping with clever metaphors to try to make us work differently. Sometimes that works… and sometimes it really, really doesn’t. And it feels like the addition of AI to the mix will accelerate the pace of experimentation here in pretty radical ways.

Links: 

• Why software is eating the world | Wall Street Journal (2011)
• Mailchimp CEO Rania Succar on why email makes sense for Intuit | The Verge
• Why would anyone make a website in 2023? | The Verge
• Wix CEO Avishai Abrahami isn’t worried AI will kill the web | The Verge
• Figma CEO Dylan Field is optimistic about AI | The Verge
• We don’t sell saddles here | Stewart Butterfield (2014)
• The CEO of Zoom wants AI clones in meetings | The Verge
• Dropbox CEO Drew Houston wants you to embrace AI | The Verge

Credits:

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

Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Xander Adams. Our supervising producer is Liam James.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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