Bluesky’s new CEO wants a big tent, not a bubble
Bluesky’s new CEO wants a big tent, not a bubble

Today, I’m talking with Toni Schneider, who is the brand new CEO of the social platform Bluesky — he formally took over after a short stint as interim CEO. This is one of my favorite kinds of interviews to do on Decoder, because a couple years ago, we had Bluesky’s prior CEO, Jay Graber, on […]

It’s time to panic about AI safety
It’s time to panic about AI safety

When the phrase “OpenAI hacked Hugging Face” has more or less entered mainstream culture, you know we have an AI problem. This week, we learned more about exactly how OpenAI’s agent broke out of a sandbox and autonomously traversed the web, including a bunch of other supposedly secure web services, all in the name of […]

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

Today, I’m talking with Evan Smith, who is cofounder and CEO of Altana, a company that develops software tools to manage big, messy supply chain networks around the world. We last had Evan on in early 2025 to talk about how Trump’s first few waves of tariffs were starting to affect global trade and what […]

You can’t ignore Google Zero anymore
You can’t ignore Google Zero anymore

The web and Google once had a deal: Google collects data and indexes webpages and in exchange sends oceans of traffic to websites. The deal wasn’t perfect and certainly made Google more money than it made the websites, but it worked for a long time. Now, however, the deal seems to be dead. And the […]

Apple’s OpenAI lawsuit is about who gets to define the post-smartphone era
Apple’s OpenAI lawsuit is about who gets to define the post-smartphone era

Today on Decoder, 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. By now I’m sure most Decoder listeners are familiar with Apple’s allegations in this case. The company says a number of ex-Apple employees at […]

Dr. Jill Lepore on why AI backlash is vital for the future
Dr. Jill Lepore on why AI backlash is vital for the future

Today, I’m talking with Harvard professor and New Yorker staff writer Dr. Jill Lepore about her new book, The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State, which comes out on August 25. Jill is one of the best writers there is at identifying institutional patterns in history, and Decoder is a show about systems, so […]

The Clapper was a bad smart home gadget — and a viral sensation
The Clapper was a bad smart home gadget — and a viral sensation

Clap on. Clap off. Well, more like, Clap, pause for half a beat but no longer because otherwise it’ll stop hearing you, clap again because you waited too long, clap louder and faster, that didn’t work, clap two more times, and suddenly: on. The Clapper didn’t always work – and even when it did, it […]

Apple’s plot to crush OpenAI
Apple’s plot to crush OpenAI

Apple is suing OpenAI. The complaint is readable and intense, as these things often are, though many experts seem to think many of the allegations are just the ways things are done. So what does Apple really want here, and why is it picking such a public fight with OpenAI? On this episode of The […]

‘No company is going to go to jail for you’: Proton’s CTO on balancing privacy, policy, and trust
‘No company is going to go to jail for you’: Proton’s CTO on balancing privacy, policy, and trust

Today on Decoder, we’ve got the first of a two-part series on the systems that run the world: I’m talking with Bart Butler, the CTO of Proton, the company that makes private and secure productivity software. You probably know it best for Proton Mail, which is encrypted by default, but the company also has docs, […]

Even Nvidia’s head of automotive fights with Nvidia for compute
Even Nvidia’s head of automotive fights with Nvidia for compute

Today, I’m talking with Xinzhou Wu, who is the head of automotive at Nvidia.  Nvidia is obviously in the news constantly because of the AI boom — it’s one of the most valuable companies in the world, because the AI industry can’t get enough of the company’s GPUs. But Nvidia is also a key supplier […]