The left and right agree on one thing: no data centers

More from Decoder with Nilay Patel

1. 

   17 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 11 min

   It's about ethics in journalism, with Ben Smith

   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…

2. 

   13 Aug 2026 · 39 min

   Does Google even want to win in AI?

   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…

3. 

   10 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 7 min

   Bose CEO Lila Snyder on the fight for high-quality audio

   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…

4. 

   3 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 15 min

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

   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…

5. 

   30 Jul 2026 · 43 min

   The end of the human internet

   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…

6. 

   27 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 12 min

   Tariffs didn’t bring manufacturing jobs back to the US

   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…

7. 

   10 Oct 2026 · 46 minNew

   Another billionaire thinks he can fix Warner Bros.

   Acquiring Warner Bros. never goes well for anyone. AOL failed, AT&T failed, and Discovery failed — although it did succeed in flipping the assets to David Ellison’s Skydance. So I’m talking to Peter Kafka, Business Insider chief correspondent and host of Channels, to see if Skydance has a chance at succeeding where nobody else has yet. Spoiler alert: Peter doesn’t think Skydance has a clear business plan, either. But he’s got some really good guesses about what might come next. Read the full interview transcript on The Verge. Links: CNN boss remains as Paramount, WBD merge into Skydance |…

8. 

   8 Oct 2026 · 45 minNew

   OpenAI has a Muse problem

   My guest today is Hayden Field, The Verge’s senior AI reporter, and we're discussing the new wave of consumer friendly AI agents. AI enthusiasts have been using agents for a minute now, but the launch of Meta’s Muse, OpenAI’s Dots, and XAI’s Grok Bot has brought easy to use agents to millions. Muse, notably, is free, while Dots is not, and you’ll hear Hayden and me get into why Meta, which still doesn't have a frontier model of its own, might have a meaningful edge here because it's much better at making and distributing consumer products. And wrapped up in this heated agent race are a lot…

9. 

   5 Oct 2026 · 58 min

   Adam Schiff on AI regulation, free speech, and impeaching Trump one more time

   California Sen. Adam Schiff sits on a bunch of the committees that do tech and AI oversight, so I really wanted to ask him about how we might regulate anything related to the tech industry at this moment in time. He started our conversation by talking about the self-dealing and corruption present all through our politics now — right against the backdrop of President Trump gathering AI CEOs to the White House to pinky-swear they'll try to keep AI safe. Read the ⁠full interview transcript on The Verge.⁠ Links: How tech will self-police AI safety under Trump deal | The Verge Supreme Court…

10. 

    3 Oct 2026 · 36 min

    The AI warnings are getting louder

    Hey everybody, it’s Nilay. We’ve got a little bonus drop for you today — I was recently interviewed about AI safety by Shumita Basu for Apple News In Conversation, and I enjoyed the conversation so much I asked if we could share it with you all. We’ve actually got a few bonus drops coming up this month; we’ve been having a lot of great conversations lately, and we want to get them out to you on the news cycle. And of course, nothing is moving as fast as the AI safety news cycle. So enjoy this one, and we’ll see you next time. Links: Apple News In Conversation | Apple Podcasts Inside the…

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