Inside the big business of the creator economy, with Ali Berman and Raina Penchansky

More from Decoder with Nilay Patel

1. 

   16 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 24 min

   Proton’s CTO: No company is going to jail for you

   We’ve got the first of a two-part series on the systems that run the world: I’m talking today with Bart Butler, the CTO of Proton, the company that makes private and secure productivity software. There’s a lot of big Decoder themes in this one. That includes how Proton has structured its ownership and architected its products to align its incentives with protecting users. At the same time, Proton faces new challenges and pressures, both at home in Switzerland and from the EU and US government that are putting its values to the test. Read the full interview transcript on The Verge. Links:…

2. 

   13 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 12 min

   Yes, even Nvidia's head of automotive is fighting for compute

   Nvidia is obviously in the news constantly because of the AI boom — but it's also a major supplier to the entire auto industry As head of Nvidia's automotive division, Xinzhou Wu has a front-row seat to all the challenges EVs and autonomous vehicles are facing, especially in the US. And of course, you can’t talk about electric cars or vehicle autonomy in the US without talking about Elon Musk and Tesla. So I asked Xinzhou pretty directly if Tesla full self driving can actually do what Elon claims it will be able to do without using LiDAR. You tell me if you think his answer holds up. Read…

3. 

   9 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 3 min

   Why did Comcast ever buy NBC?

   My guest today is Peter Kafka, chief correspondent at Business Insider and host of Channels, a podcast about the media industry. And it’s a big week for the media industry — Comcast just announced that it’s splitting itself up, into the Comcast broadband company and the NBCUniversal entertainment company. This dream, that you can combine distribution with big splashy entertainment properties, has failed time and again. But Comcast tried the content plus pipes strategy for longer than most. So Peter and I discussed what happened in the media and broadband industries over the last 15 years,…

4. 

   2 Jul 2026 · 56 min

   The CMO is a dying role, says Digitas' Amy Lanzi

   We’ve got a special Decoder today. I had the chance to talk with Amy Lanzi, the CEO of Digitas North America, in front of a live audience at the Uber villa at the Cannes Lions advertising festival in the south of France. There’s a lot in this one on AI, the creator economy, and the future of marketing – like I said, Amy is as sharp as they come, and I really enjoy talking to her about how the money really works. Read the full interview transcript on The Verge. Links: The Influencer Cliff | Carmen Vicente (TikTok) The Wrong Promises | Publicis Groupe (YouTube) You can just tell the Instagram…

5. 

   29 Jun 2026 · 1 hr 12 min

   He changed outdoor cooking forever — then took over Weber

   It’s time for our annual Fourth of July grill episode here at Decoder, which is when we invite the CEOs of outdoor cooking companies onto the show to explain just how their businesses kind of look like every other business. And this is a very special edition. Today we’re talking to Roger Dahle, the CEO of Weber Blackstone, a full circle moment for Decoder. Roger was our first-ever grill CEO on the show back when he was the CEO of just Blackstone. Five years later, Roger now runs one of his biggest competitors, after Blackstone announced a merger with Weber in 2024. So we talked about that…

6. 

   25 Jun 2026 · 1 hr 4 min

   Rewind: CEO Jim Farley on Ford's EV gamble

   Hey everyone, Nilay here. You might remember I took a break from Decoder last year — we had a baby, so I took some leave. In my place, we had an excellent slate of guest hosts, and we’ve been working hard to bring you those episodes in full video since we launched our official Decoder YouTube channel. So today, we’re featuring a really great interview conducted by my very good friend Joanna Stern, now the founder and CEO of New Things, and Ford CEO Jim Farley. Joanna pulled some exclusive news out of Jim at the time, including some telling quotes on Trump’s tariff policy, on Ford competing…

7. 

   27 Aug 2026 · 41 min

   OpenAI's executive exodus has one big winner

   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…

8. 

   24 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 18 min

   How GoFundMe became America's backup plan

   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…

9. 

   20 Aug 2026 · 41 min

   Welcome to the AI crisis in math

   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…

10. 

    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…

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