The Verge
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Nilay Patel presses tech and media CEOs on how they actually run their companies.
Decoder with Nilay Patel is a measured interview show about power, money, and structure in tech and media. It favors sharp framing over hype, asking how companies actually make decisions when law, markets, infrastructure, and public trust collide.
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Decoder is primarily a one-on-one interview show anchored by Nilay Patel, editor-in-chief of The Verge, who questions chief executives and other decision-makers in technology and media about how their organizations actually operate. Recurring guest types include startup and legacy-company CEOs (Rivian's RJ Scaringe, Yahoo's Jim Lanzone, Zocdoc's Oliver Kras), media executives (Puck CEO Sarah Personette), and prominent tech and internet figures (Tim Berners-Lee, Hank Green). Episodes typically run 50 to 80 minutes and are built around a recurring set of 'Decoder questions' — structural prompts about how a guest's company is organized and how decisions get made, applied across nearly every interview. Recurring subject matter includes Apple's CarPlay strategy as a proxy for control over in-car computing, the economics of the creator economy and brand-deal dependency, AI's effect on search, journalism, and platform business models, and the electric vehicle industry's supply chains and competition. The show occasionally departs from the standard interview format: an end-of-year episode has Verge senior producers Kate Cox and Nick Statt questioning Nilay directly about audience feedback and editorial choices, and outside or guest hosts (such as the Wall Street Journal's Joanna Stern) have filled in to interview guests including car company executives. Sponsor reads for business software, compliance, and IT products run within episodes. The show is produced by The Verge and draws on Nilay's background covering technology and media business. Discussion centers on executive-level strategy and company structure rather than product reviews or general tech news. The tone is conversational but pointed, with Nilay pressing guests for specifics like production figures, revenue splits, and organizational choices rather than accepting talking points. It suits listeners more interested in how technology and media companies are run than in day-to-day product coverage.
Made for: Professionals and enthusiasts in tech, media, and business who want detailed discussion of how technology and media companies are structured and make strategic decisions.
What sets it apart: Unlike general tech news interview shows, Decoder applies a consistent, recurring 'Decoder questions' framework about organizational structure and decision-making to nearly every guest, rather than centering episodes on product launches or news events.
Decoder is a show from The Verge about big ideas — and other problems. Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel talks to a diverse cast of innovators and policymakers at the frontiers of business and technology to reveal how they’re navigating an ever-changing landscape, what keeps them up at night, and what it all means for our shared future.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Executive interviews become clear accounts of who controls technology products, which incentives shape them, and where corporate explanations start to strain.
Decoder with Nilay Patel turns executive interviews into close examinations of how technology companies make decisions. Conversations with leaders at Lyft, Yahoo, Ring, GM, and Square keep returning to organizational structure, competitive pressure, product control, and the…
The org chart enters the interview, and Nilay Patel makes you stay until it confesses.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A sharp, grounded look at why the Ticketmaster settlement left industry insiders wondering who it was for.
Decoder turns the Live Nation-Ticketmaster antitrust fight into a clear study of power, enforcement, and half-measures. The episode focuses on the Trump DOJ's decision to settle its part of the case while several states kept going, a move Verge senior policy reporter Lauren…
A sharp look at whether Paramount can buy Warner and still fail to become a daily habit.
Paramount's pursuit of Warner Bros. Discovery lands here as a technology story as much as a media deal: can buying more content turn Paramount Plus into something people open every day?
A sharp AI policy episode about surveillance law, Pentagon pressure, and why "lawful use" is not a simple promise.
Decoder uses Anthropic's fight with the Pentagon to get at a harder question: what happens when AI companies are asked to support government surveillance under legal authorities that may not mean what they appear to mean.
Decoder makes prediction markets feel less like clever forecasting tools than a messy new way to monetize insider knowledge and news attention.
Decoder frames prediction markets as a tech story with ugly civic consequences: platforms that want to be treated like news sources while rewarding people who know something before the public does.
A clear Xbox strategy checkup where Game Pass math, cloud gaming, and Apple's rules matter more than the org chart.
Decoder turns Xbox's executive shakeup into a business story about whether Microsoft's gaming plan can still scale. The episode frames Phil Spencer's resignation and Sarah Bond's rise against the pressures beneath Xbox: Game Pass needs steady, repeatable growth without eating…
A sharp Decoder episode that links AI hiring mania to mission talk, safety choices, and xAI's unclear product thesis.
Decoder treats the AI talent war as a story about money, mission talk, and the small circle of frontier labs trying to hire the same researchers.
A sharp Decoder conversation about Ring, lost pets, AI camera alerts, and how neighborhood help can edge toward surveillance.
Ring's Super Bowl pitch about finding lost pets turns into a useful Decoder conversation about cameras, neighbors, AI, and the surveillance state.
A clear, practical look at why labeling AI images gets harder once platforms control what users see.
Decoder frames the deepfake problem as a question of infrastructure: can photos and videos carry useful labels as they move through cameras, editing tools, phone makers, and social platforms?
Physician Shoshana Ungerleider pairs TED talks with interviews on aging, drug prices, and menopause.
Food52 hosts break down recipes and food-business origin stories, from sourdough to Salty Pimp cones.
Dan Pashman revisits food science with Kenji López-Alt and rotating live comedy guests.
Samin Nosrat and Hrishikesh Hirway answer listener voicemails about pandemic-era pantry cooking.
Decoder's senior producers Kate Cox and Nick Statt turn the tables on editor-in-chief Nilay Patel in an end-of-year Q&A, pressing him on audience feedback from 2025.
Distribution is the pressure point.
This episode discusses the AI industry's urgent race to generate profits amid massive capital investments and the risk of a bubble bursting, highlighting recent reactions from companies like Anthropic and OpenAI.
This episode of Decoder explores Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins' vision for deploying data centers in space, discussing the technological and business implications of this futuristic idea.
This episode discusses landmark social media addiction trials resulting in verdicts against Meta and Google, exploring their implications for platform design and free speech in America.
The company's org chart becomes the pressure test.
Ticketmaster is where this lands.
Grammarly's Expert Review used the host's name inside an AI expert feature.
David Ellison is acting like the deal is done.
Yahoo is still tricky to pin down.
Anthropic is fighting the Pentagon in court.
NFTs did not define Hasbro's next chapter.
Prediction markets want news authority.
Zillow is the front end.
Xbox is still chasing scale.
Complexly becomes the Decoder problem.
AI talent is the market now.
Ring is on the table.
AI is doing more than writing legal memos in this conversation.
Siemens is huge, powerful, and hard to see.
Reality gets a metadata stress test.
DocuSign looks simple from the outside.
Warner is the prize.
Experian is treated as a credit reporting company with a complicated tech engine behind it.
Grok is the problem.
Razer brings Project Ava to CES, and Nilay Patel does not let it sit there as stage weirdness.
Nilay Patel sets up this rewind interview with journalist and author Megan Greenwell by asking why private equity keeps turning up in healthcare, media, real estate, and ordinary life.
Dropout is still growing.
Warner is the prize.
Stack Overflow is under pressure.
Democracy is the frame.
Square started with that tiny magnetic iPhone reader.
Nilay Patel interviews Hayden Field about Anthropic's Societal Impacts team, a small group tasked with studying AI's potential harms like election interference and mental health effects.
Nilay Patel of The Verge interviews IBM CEO Arvind Krishna on Decoder, covering IBM's evolution from its consumer-facing past to its current role as a pure enterprise AI and infrastructure company, and Krishna's candid assessment that Watson was the right technology with the wrong go-to-market approach.
Data scientist Hannah Ritchie discusses how long-term data reveals significant progress on climate change, challenging doom-and-gloom narratives.
This episode explores the 'DoorDash problem,' where AI agents could disrupt service companies by acting as intermediaries, threatening customer relationships and revenue streams like ads.
Nilay Patel interviews Jamie Siminoff, founder and chief inventor of Ring, about his return to the company after leaving Amazon, his vision for using AI to drastically reduce crime, and the tensions between safety, privacy, and surveillance.
Nilay Patel interviews Verge senior reporter Liz Lopato about CoreWeave, a data center company at the center of the AI bubble.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and author of memoir "This Is For Everyone," discusses how the web has diverged from his original vision of democratized knowledge and creativity.
Education researcher Dr.
Lyft CEO David Risher discusses turning around the company by focusing on customer obsession, competing with Uber, and navigating the shift to autonomous vehicles.
The Verge features editor Sarah Jong interviews Cory Doctorow, author of Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It, on Decoder, examining how platform decay follows a predictable three-stage pattern: first platforms serve users to build lock-in, then degrade the user experience to serve business customers, then degrade business customers to serve shareholders, until the platform is a pile of waste but users are too locked in to leave.
Nilay Patel interviews LexisNexis CEO Sean Fitzpatrick about Protege, their AI legal research tool, and the growing problem of lawyers citing AI-generated court cases that do not exist.
Nilay Patel interviews GM CEO Mary Barra and Chief Product Officer Sterling Anderson about GM's strategic bets on EVs, AI, and autonomy amid market turmoil.
Oliver Kras, co-founder and CEO of ZocDoc, discusses how his healthcare booking platform navigates the shift from smartphone apps to AI agents.
This episode of Decoder discusses the expiration of the federal EV tax credit and its implications for the US auto industry.
This episode announces that paid subscribers to The Verge can now listen to Decoder, Version History, and The Verge Cast ad-free by opting in through their account settings.
Host Hayden Field interviews Kanjun Kew, CEO of InView, about major AI developments, including OpenAI's Dev Day announcements, the Sora video app, and AI in job screening.
Wall Street Journal columnist Joanna Stern guest-hosts Decoder and interviews Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe about the upcoming R2 SUV (starting at $45,000), Rivian's deliberate decision to exclude CarPlay in favor of a unified AI-integrated experience, and the company's competitive position against Chinese EV makers and the tariff environment.
Hayden Fields interviews Anthropic's David Hershey about the new Claude Sonnet 4.5 model, focusing on its breakthrough capabilities in autonomous AI agents for coding.
Joanna Stern guest-hosts Decoder, interviewing Ford CEO Jim Farley about the company's new universal EV platform, competition with Chinese automakers like BYD, and the impact of tariffs.
Host Hayden Field interviews Heidi Klaff, an AI safety expert, about how major AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic are shifting from ethical safety frameworks to lucrative military contracts.
Hank Green interviews Sam Reich, CEO of Dropout TV, about his unconventional journey acquiring the company for zero dollars, navigating layoffs and COVID, and building a successful subscription-based comedy platform.
Decoder guest host Hayden Field speaks with New York Times reporter Kashmir Hill about her year-long reporting on how AI chatbots, particularly ChatGPT, are contributing to mental health crises including delusional spirals and suicidal ideation in users.
Nilay Patel interviews leaders at the intersection of technology and business about their strategies and challenges.
Nilay Patel interviews leaders at the intersection of business and technology about navigating the changing landscape.
This episode features sponsor ads for Odoo and Thumbtack, suggesting the show is an interview-based tech podcast discussing industry trends.
A tech news podcast where the host interviews industry leaders about business strategy and technology trends.
Nilay Patel interviews leaders at the intersection of technology and business about navigating industry challenges and policy.
This episode of Decoder features an interview with Hinge CEO Justin McLeod discussing the implications of AI in dating apps and broader societal contexts.
This episode features a discussion with former FTC chair Lina Khan about monopoly power and antitrust regulation, originally from the podcast Stay Tuned with Preet.
This episode features an interview with Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi about Uber's new product updates, including shared ride options, and explores broader themes of AI and innovation.
Nilay Patel interviews innovators and policymakers about navigating the changing landscape of business and technology.
This episode features host Nilay Patel interviewing innovators and policymakers about navigating the ever-changing landscape of technology and business.
Nilay Patel interviews innovators and policymakers about navigating the changing landscape of business and technology.
Nilay Patel interviews leaders at the intersection of business and technology about navigating the changing landscape.
Nilay Patel interviews guests about the collision of AI and art, sparked by Studio Ghibli memes.
Nilay Patel interviews innovators and policymakers about navigating the changing landscape of business and technology.
This episode explores how humans shape AI, featuring SAS's 50-year work in responsible AI and a discussion on business tools with Hostinger.
This episode features sponsor ads for Grow Therapy, Thumbtack, and Odoo, indicating the show's format includes commercial breaks.
This episode features sponsor ads for Odoo and Thumbtack, but the show typically interviews tech leaders about industry challenges and trends.
Nilay Patel interviews innovators and policymakers at the frontiers of business and technology.
Nilay Patel interviews innovators and policymakers about navigating the changing tech landscape.
Nilay Patel interviews innovators and policymakers about navigating the business and technology landscape.
Nilay Patel discusses how recent plane crashes and FAA instability under Trump and Elon Musk are making air travel feel less safe.
This episode features sponsor ads for Grow Therapy, Thumbtack, and Odoo, indicating the show's format includes commercial breaks.
Guest host Alex Heath interviews innovators and policymakers about navigating the tech and business landscape.
Nilay Patel interviews leaders at the intersection of business and technology about navigating industry changes and their implications.
This episode explores why the gaming industry hasn't experienced a transformative 'Netflix moment' in streaming or business models.