Decoder with Nilay Patel

Journalist and author Nancy Jo Sales talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about her new HBO documentary, "Swiped: Hooking Up in the Digital Age." In this episode:03:41 - How Sales started writing about teenage culture08:20 - The psychological impact of the internet10:38 - "What's Tinder?"12:31 - Cheerleading tech and platforms' responsibility19:25 - Why Sales made "Swiped"25:07 - The gamification of dating29:13 - Harassment and sexual assault37:13 - Can dating apps offer more than casual sex?40:11 - Technology addiction and the paradigm of convenience45:54 - VR sex and sex robots52:26 - Is there a positive side? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kai-Fu Lee, the CEO of Sinovation Ventures and former president of Google China, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his new book, "AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order." In this episode:00:55 - Lee's background & Google China03:32 - Why he left Google05:41 - Why American companies struggled to compete in China09:46 - It's not all because of the government12:23 - Investing in artificial intelligence18:42 - What "AI Superpowers" means21:15 - Data and privacy in China vs. the West25:17 - Where AI is going next30:17 - How Lee thinks about American tech companies33:09 - The impact of AI on jobs40:10 - The political implications of those job changes43:30 - The responsibilities of tech creators and investors Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Former deputy CTO of the United States Nicole Wong talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about the future of tech policy and why content moderation is more complicated than many people think. In this episode:01:29 - How Wong became a First Amendment lawyer04:12 - Why she took a job at Google07:05 - "You can’t be the lawyer that says no all the time.”08:30 - Why she left Google09:34 - The White House phone call12:19 - Making the government more technologically literate14:42 - Post-government life17:48 - Congress, Sheryl Sandberg and Jack Dorsey21:26 - “You don’t create solutions in a hearing”26:33 - Is it time for a "slow food movement for the Internet?”31:01 - Algorithmic “bias” and the danger of blunt instruments34:46 - The social media “cleaners” in the Philippines41:22 - Techlash44:11 - China’s quicker road to tech dominance46:17- With no American CTO, who’s in charge?48:30 - Google and China 52:59 - Diversity in tech Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mark Leibovich, the chief national correspondent for The New York Times Magazine, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his new book, "Big Game: The NFL in Dangerous Times." In this episode:02:07 - Leibovich’s short stint as a tech reporter04:06 - “This Town” and burning bridges in Washington06:00 - How he got into writing about the NFL 07:58 - The goal of reporting and writing “Big Game”10:12 - The fault lines emerging in America’s football addiction11:58 - Football will survive in spite of the owners18:47 - Why these are “dangerous times” for the NFL19:52 - Donald Trump’s football dreams21:55 - “The kneeling thing”24:17 - The impact of Colin Kaepernick’s protests on the NFL27:22 - The other dangers to the league29:01 - Smarter helmets and cord-cutting37:18 - Robots playing football and other tech40:35 - Where does football go next?43:18 - Returning to politics and the “Trump swamp”45:51 - Working at the “failing New York Times” next to Maggie Haberman48:11 - Should we change the way we cover politics and sports?52:05 - Who does Leibovich love and hate in the NFL? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

April Underwood, the chief product officer at workplace collaboration platform Slack, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about her career, diversity in Silicon Valley and the future of work. In this episode:02:06 - How Underwood got from Texas to tech05:36 - Moving to Oregon to work for Intel, and back to Texas07:09 - What does a product manager actually do?09:32 - Organizing content at Google11:01 - Why she left Google for Twitter15:50 - Why Slack is better than email20:02 - AOL at Work and the danger of outages24:15 - Slack’s growing valuation and staying independent27:55 - How Slack works and how it integrates with other services32:34 - Security and innovation35:43 - The biggest obstacles Slack faces40:45 - The features users are asking for the most45:45 - #Angels and “the gap table"49:55 - How does Slack fare on diversity?51:22 - Is Silicon Valley getting better at diversity and inclusion?53:13 - “Where we are now is the dark timeline"56:52 - What would Underwood do if she were running Twitter?58:43 - The future of work Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Matt Rivitz, the formerly anonymous founder of the popular Twitter account Sleeping Giants, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about how he accidentally started an international campaign against advertising-supported bigotry online. In this episode:01:54 - “My white-hot hated for Steve Bannon”05:01 - The advertising angle and making @slpng_giants11:39 - Teaming up with Nandini Jammi14:58 - The "moment I think when we knew that we were on to something much bigger”18:43 - “It was never about politics”21:05 - Moving on to Bill O’Reilly and Fox24:52 - Why Sleeping Giants doesn’t boycott and doesn’t make demands27:49 - Laura Ingraham and Robert Mercer31:13 - Facebook, Google and the “free speech argument”39:47 - Where does Sleeping Giants go next?42:34 - "We’re all determined not to take any money for this.”45:47 - How Rivitz got unmasked49:50 - Going beyond Twitter and being the “conscience of social media" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Makan Delrahim, the United States Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about the government's attempt to stop the merger of AT&T and Time Warner and how he evaluates tech giants like Google and Facebook. In this episode:01:52 - Delrahim’s background in biotech and law06:28 - The importance of tech transfer09:17 - How he got into tech and antitrust law11:48 - The power of early tech titans14:35 - United States v. Microsoft Corp.19:08 - How Delrahim evaluates Silicon Valley’s power today23:43 - Robert Jackson and the history of antitrust25:57 - The AT&T-Time Warner case36:00 - What happens next with the government’s appeal37:39 - The optics of President Trump’s CNN hatred42:29 - Big telcos and net neutrality46:54 - Could Google have bought YouTube today?49:37 - Future tech M&A53:06 - International regulators and “antitrust laws as a weapon”57:30 - What could tech do that would get them in trouble? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Louis Hyman, an economic historian and professor at Cornell University, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher and Rani Molla about his new book, "Temp: How American Work, American Business, and the American Dream Became Temporary." In this episode:02:00 - Why Hyman wrote “Temp” and the history of work05:11 - The first temporary jobs07:44 - Silicon Valley has treated workers “miserably” for decades16:48 - What is the "gig economy” now?21:52 - Why Uber is both a “godsend" and a trickster26:47 - Job automation and human creativity31:20 - What are the jobs of the future?34:48 - Digital migrants37:07 - Robot caretakers39:05 - Universal Basic Income44:09 - How to make jobs of the future sustainable47:13 - How can tech help? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Two of the godfathers of the maker movement — Maker Faire founder Dale Dougherty and Make Magazine editor in chief Mike Senese — talk with Recode's Kara Swisher about how the movement has gone mainstream over the past decade. In this episode:01:39 - How the maker movement started11:06 - Why make things when you don’t have to?12:42 - Why Make Magazine is a magazine17:57 - What’s trending among makers20:17 - 3-D printers and digital fabrication23:09 - AI and education 28:35 - Drones, more 3-D printers and robotics35:10 - America, China and cultures of innovation40:58 - Resisting Amazon42:47 - The reality show “Making It” and celebrity makers47:06 - Diversity in the maker movement49:19 - Favorite projects of the year Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Haystack founder and Lightspeed Ventures venture partner Semil Shah talks with Recode's Teddy Schleifer about breaking into the VC world and how the industry is changing. In this episode:03:45 - How Shah got involved with tech07:57 - How hard should it be to get a VC job?16:10 - Misconceptions about venture capital21:33 - What exactly is a “venture partner?”26:08 - How important is luck to being a good VC?31:32 - Being a lone wolf and breaking in36:07 - Doing deals outside Silicon Valley46:31 - SoftBank49:41 - Venture capital in 2038 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ron Wyden, the senior U.S. Senator from Oregon, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about regulating the internet and protecting America's elections from both hackers and disinformation peddlers. In this episode:01:12 - The early days of the internet05:42 - Cambridge Analytica and election security10:34 - Social media during elections14:45 - Alex Jones and policing the internet19:34 - Regulating tech companies23:16 - Cybersecurity and tech leaders testifying27:50 - What happens if the Democrats win the House? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Startup advisor and Color Genomics co-founder Elad Gil talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his new book, "High Growth Handbook: Scaling Startups from 10 to 10,000 People." In this episode:00:03:30 - Why Gil stepped down as CEO of Color00:06:00 - Why he wrote "High Growth Handbook"00:09:52 - Is there too much reinvention in tech businesses?00:11:25 - Startup myths and Rachleff's Law00:17:20 - Contrarians are usually wrong!00:23:00 - How to build a board and evolve it as your company grows00:29:14 - The "old-timer" problem00:32:14 - The Sheryl Sandberg effect and when CEOs should step aside00:37:10 - Is innovation dying in Silicon Valley?00:41:05 - Are startups threatened more by the Big 5 or their own founders?00:43:59 - The dangers of Silicon Valley losing its optimism00:52:05 - San Francisco's bad governance Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Andrew Moore, the dean of the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about the future of tech education as fields like artificial intelligence and machine learning take center stage. Moore says he's "concerned" that anti-immigrant fervor will deter the next generation of great computer scientists from coming to America, although CMU has not yet seen an impact on its application numbers. He also talks about the often-forgotten importance of electrical and computer engineers, who will develop the sensors that make machine learning advance; how educational programs have been complicit in the lack of diversity in tech; and why he's personally pessimistic that self-driving cars, one of Carnegie Mellon's areas of expertise, will be ready by the early 2020s, as some have predicted. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Robert Hohman, the co-founder and CEO of company-reviewing site Glassdoor, talks about how the company has evolved since its early days, when Hohman wanted to merge employer transparency with the gaming sensibilities of World of Warcraft. He explains why letting employees and ex-employees rate a company's CEO was so successful, and why Glassdoor nixed a planned feature to let them rate their direct managers. Hohman also talks about the rules the company put in place to moderate publicly-shared reviews, including what happens when an employee alleges that a manager has sexually harassed them. Plus: Why there's a strong correlation between employees who have a bad work/life balance and CEOs with high approval ratings. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jen Gunter, an OB/GYN and pain medicine physician, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about how celebrity wellness brands have been overtaken by "medical conspiracy theories" and dangerous recommendations — for example, that bras cause breast cancer. After Gunter disputed that claim, made by a writer for Gwyneth Paltrow's company, Goop, it accused her of "being in the pocket of big lingerie." She also talks about the larger problems with finding reliable health information online and how regular people without medical degrees can be smarter skeptics of what their doctors say. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you enjoy Recode Decode, we think you'd also like the Eater Upsell. Here's a recent episode of the show: Jason Droege, the man in charge of Uber Eats, talks with Eater's Dan Geneen about how the service started, how it interfaces with restaurants, and what he sees as the future of the brand. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sidecar co-founder Sunil Paul talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his popular guest column for Recode, “The scooter wars will be a bloodbath, and Uber will win.” He elaborates on why that is and shares his thoughts about the broader transportation industry, including self-driving cars, bike-sharing and vertical lift and take-off vehicles like Larry Page’s Kitty Hawk “flying car.” Now primarily an investor, Paul also talks about why Sidecar couldn’t compete with Uber and Lyft — even though it created ride-hailing features that are now popular parts of their products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hooi Ling Tan, the co-founder of southeast Asian ride-hailing company Grab, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher at the 2018 Rise conference in Hong Kong. Tan says Grab is opening up a platform for more services beyond ride-hailing because it wants to address not just transportation needs, but every worry its customers may have, including groceries and payments. She also talks about how the company is working with 27 percent-shareholder Uber and its newest board member, Toyota, which in June invested $1 billion into Grab. Plus: Tan explains why the company doesn't have to worry about diversity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sarah Kerruish and Matt Maude talk with Recode's Kara Swisher about their new documentary, "General Magic," which tells the story of a pioneering tech startup that tried and failed to invent a smartphone in the 1990s. Swisher appears in the documentary, which posits that although few people know the name General Magic today, the company’s failure paved the way for the Silicon Valley we know today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Journalist James Crabtree talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his new book, "The Billionaire Raj: A Journey Through India's New Gilded Age." Crabtree says India's development of a super-rich billionaire class has heightened the country's already-intense problem with inequality. He also talks about why its "fantastic entrepreneurial culture" has not been able to foster a Silicon Valley-esque tech hub and how he weighs the positive impact of technologies like the mobile phone against negatives such as the recent spate of lynchings that some have linked to Facebook-owned messaging app WhatsApp. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Matt Mullenweg, the co-founder of WordPress, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about how the blogging platform has evolved in the 13 years since it launched, powering a huge number of websites that included AllThingsD and an earlier version of Recode.net. Mullenweg also talks about WordPress' recent acquisition of a mobile journalism startup, the Atavist; how he manages 750 employees without an official corporate office; and why "every tech company should have an editorial team." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Writer Adam Fisher talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his new oral history, 'Valley of Genius: The Uncensored History of Silicon Valley.' Fisher interviewed some of tech's biggest names for the book, including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, but he discovered that "the most interesting, unfiltered, real stories" often came from people who were never in the spotlight. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Joe Tsai, the executive vice chairman of Chinese commerce giant Alibaba, talks with Recode’s Jason Del Rey at the 2018 Code Conference. He says that Alibaba has not tried to do a big acquisition deal in the U.S., but is definitely looking to create strategic partnerships. Specifically, Tsai wants to encourage American companies to tap into the Chinese market, where there are hundreds of millions of internet consumers as potential customers. He also disputes some criticism lobbed by fellow Code Conference speaker Sen. Mark Warner, who had alleged that Chinese tech firms were too cozy with the country's communist government. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about a litany of issues, including the Cambridge Analytica scandal and why Infowars and other conspiracy theorists, like Holocaust deniers, don't get kicked off Facebook. He says he believes over-regulating tech companies is dangerous because it could advantage Chinese firms that don’t share Americans’ commitment to freedom of expression. Zuckerberg also talks about how he thinks VR and AR will change the future of work, explains why his 2017 tour of the U.S. was not a political campaign and says that if anyone should be fired for Facebook's recent privacy stumbles, "It should be me." However, he declines to fire himself, instead committing to an audit of all the other companies like Cambridge Analytica that had access to the most user data. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Zignal Labs CEO Josh Ginsberg talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about the “massive amounts of bot activity” that his media intelligence company has started detecting on social media. In everything from political elections to the debates over Roseanne Barr and Samantha Bee’s controversial statements, bots are insinuating themselves into the discourse, and provoking humans into being more outraged. Sometimes the goal is just to sow discord, Ginsberg says, but other times there are clear financial incentives to targeting certain companies. He talks about what businesses and regular people can do to better gird themselves against these bot attacks and predicts how a technology called “deepfakes” could make the problem worse. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mandy Ginsberg, the CEO of Match Group, talks with Recode's Kurt Wagner about how her company became dominant in online dating — it owns sites and apps like Match.com, Tinder and OKCupid — and how it's dealing with competitors like Bumble and Facebook. Ginsberg says she still admires and respects Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe, even as the two companies have traded lawsuits and barbed words in the press. And while she knows it would be foolish to write off Facebook as a competitor, she argues that younger consumers, at least, don't want Mark Zuckerberg & co. meddling in their dating lives. Ginsberg also addresses one of the most common questions she gets: Do dating app companies have an incentive to keep customers longer by keeping them single? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Journalist Annie Lowrey talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about her new book, "Give People Money: How a Universal Basic Income Would End Poverty, Revolutionize Work, and Remake the World." Lowrey says there's ample evidence from countries like India, Brazil and Mexico that giving a small amount of cash directly to poor people can make their lives better without discouraging them from getting a job. She explains that some early experiments in the U.S., including one being run by startup incubator Y Combinator, are motivated by a fear that artificial intelligence and other new technologies will make the world better — at the expense of everyone's happiness and job stability. Lowrey explains why a national universal basic income is unlikely to happen anytime soon in America, and why rich people are usually wrong when they claim they get no assistance from the government. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist and Craig Newmark Philanthropies, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his foundation's recent donation of $20 million to the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. Newmark says the school is advancing good journalism by providing opportunities to people who might not otherwise get them. He also talks about his other philanthropic work, helping veterans and women in tech as well as working with voting rights organizations, calling the 2018 midterms "critical for American democracy." Plus: Why Newmark is optimistic about the future of media in the age of Facebook and Twitter, how Craigslist evolved from an email list into the powerhouse it is today and why he's not interested in selling it or going public. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Aaron Levie, the CEO of enterprise security and file-sharing service Box, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about how businesses are simultaneously turning to multiple vendors — including Box and its competitors — to solve workplace IT problems that used to all happen in-house. He also talks about shifting public attitudes toward the tech industry; why it's harder to regulate Silicon Valley than it might seem at first blush; and why the next big opportunities in tech won't look like Facebook or Uber, but rather will grow more slowly into fields like healthcare, education and manufacturing. Plus: What is the tech industry's responsibility to help the people whose jobs may be displaced by its inventions? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher and Dan Frommer at the 2018 Code Conference. Chesky talks about Airbnb’s expansion into “the experience economy," encouraging local hosts to help visitors find fun activities in their area. He also discusses how the company thinks about expanding internationally and how it’s dealing with regulatory challenges in cities like San Francisco and New York. Plus: How much responsibility should Airbnb take for what its customers do in their properties? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Matt Cutts, the acting administrator of the U.S. Digital Service, talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about how his team is trying to modernize government agencies and make services like Medicare and veterans’ benefits more user-friendly. Cutts spent nearly 17 years working at Google before he joined the USDS under President Obama, but says that the organization’s mission has not changed under President Trump, and its work has remained nonpartisan. He explains how even simple technological tweaks — like a progress bar or web forms — can make a huge difference for the beneficiaries of the USDS’s work, and shares his pitch for an ambitious goal that would make everyone’s life easier: “Get rid of the paper.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Psychologist Adam Grant, the author of “Originals” and “Give and Take” and co-author with Sheryl Sandberg of “Option B,” talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about how to work smarter and more successfully with your colleagues. Grant says companies that think they have unique corporate cultures are generally wrong: Everyone wants safety, fairness, respect and control. He also explains how hiring for “culture fit” can hurt companies in the long run, why he hates the phrase “don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions” and why the best _and_ worst performers on a team are people he’d call “givers.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

National Geographic executives Courteney Monroe, Rachel Webber and Susan Goldberg talk with Recode's Kara Swisher about how the 130-year-old media company is staying relevant in the digital age. Monroe oversees its global network of TV channels, Webber leads the digital team and Goldberg edits the magazine, but they say all their teams work together on big stories from Day One, figuring out how to make them "work" across all different media. The most important digital channel for Nat Geo is Instagram, where its nearly 89 million followers make it the largest non-celebrity account; Webber talks about why it's been so successful there and how it's working to make sure that female photographers get represented more fairly in its posts. The trio also talk about the bigger challenges of media competition in 2018 and how unusual it is that eight of their company's top 11 executives are female. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Charlotte and Dave Willner, creators of the hugely successful Facebook fundraising campaign called “Reunite an immigrant parent with their child,” talk with Recode’s Kara Swisher about how they raised more than $20 million in one week for RAICES, a legal services nonprofit in Texas. Although the Willners originally set out to raise only $1,500, they say RAICES can and will use all the money it can get as it grapples with the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy that separated immigrant children from their parents. Later in the show, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky (who is Dave Willner’s boss) joins Swisher in studio to talk about the factors that tech executives must weigh if they want to be involved in political issues. Chesky first took a stand after the Muslim travel ban in early 2017, but speaking out about the immigration crisis was easier because, “I’m already on the wrong side of the White House.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Brad Smith, the president of Microsoft, talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher at the 2018 Code Conference. Smith reflects on what Microsoft learned from losing the U.S. Justice Department’s antitrust lawsuit in 2001, which broke the company up. He explains what tech companies that are in the crosshairs today should be thinking about their responsibility to the public. He also talks about how Microsoft has become politically active in the Trump era, particularly around immigration. He predicts a “tough summer” ahead if no compromise can be reached on the Obama-era immigration policy DACA. Plus: How Microsoft thinks about artificial intelligence, the Facebook hearings and diversity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Author and management expert Tom Peters talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about his new book, “The Excellence Dividend: Meeting the Tech Tide with Work That Wows and Jobs That Last.” Peters says artificial intelligence may have profound effects on the workforce, but workers who commit themselves to daily reeducation will “flourish” amid the turbulence. He also argues that Silicon Valley has become a “moral cesspool,” as leaders like Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg dodge tough questions and shirk responsibility when their platforms are misused. Plus: Why companies with mixed-gender boards “wildly outperform” their competitors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Michael Barbaro, who hosts the hit podcast The Daily for the New York Times, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher in front of a live audience at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. Barbaro explains why he fell in love with newspapers at a young age, how he got into journalism and how he transitioned from being a political reporter to a self-described audio "geek." He discusses what happens behind the scenes every day at the show and why, in the edited interviews, he sometimes can be heard taking long ... pauses. Plus: How The Daily staff decides what goes on the air, why Barbaro doesn't read the ads on his show and why he's not interested in talking about Donald Trump's tweets on the podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Katrina Lake, the CEO of apparel delivery company Stitch Fix, talks with Recode’s Jason Del Rey at the 2018 Code Conference. Lake explains why Stitch Fix went public in 2017 even though it was healthy and profitable and what she has learned from the experience, as well as how much the company differentiates itself from commerce behemoth Amazon. Plus: Why Stitch Fix is introducing an annual “styling pass” rather than charging a $20 fee with every box of clothes it sends to its customers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Linda McMahon, the former pro wrestling executive who now leads the Trump administration’s Small Business Administration, talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher at the 2018 Code Conference. McMahon explains how the nonpartisan SBA is reckoning with today’s charged and divisive politics, arguing that policy successes will heal those wounds. She also talks about how her administration is working to help small businesses thrive in an era of tech disruption and what responsibility the tech companies have to invest around the country. Plus: What the largely liberal Silicon Valley doesn’t understand about President Trump. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mark Warner, the senior United States Senator from Virginia, talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher and Peter Kafka at the 2018 Code Conference. Warner talks about the competing Senate and House reports on Russia’s use of tech platforms to meddle in the 2016 U.S. election. He also talks about the broader challenge of cybersecurity for policymakers, what has to be done to secure the 2018 midterms and what would prompt his fellow Democrats in Congress to impeach President Trump. Plus: Does cybersecurity need to be publicly funded like the military? And should American tech companies be regulated more? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Recode’s Kara Swisher talks with three tech leaders about actual solutions for advancing diversity in the industry. Cowboy Ventures partner Aileen Lee, theBoardlist founder Sukhinder Singh Cassidy and former U.S. Chief Technology Officer Megan Smith talk about the factors that have historically held back women, people of color and other under-represented groups in tech, and what comes next after the reckoning of the #MeToo movement. The group debates how men can best help their female peers succeed and how companies can avoid falling into the trap of thinking that the solution is just to keep men and women apart. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Writer and audio producer Jessica Weisberg talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about her new book, “Asking for a Friend: Three Centuries of Advice on Life, Love, Money, and Other Burning Questions from a Nation Obsessed.” Starting in 1690s London, Weisberg examines how advice became a cultural force in America, and how professional advice-givers presaged the internet by creating the first platform for people to ask difficult questions anonymously. She discusses Ben Franklin’s “Poor Richard’s Almanack,” which made earnest advice more palatable through comedy; the bitter rivalry between twin sisters who both became advice columnists, using the pen names “Ann Landers” and “Dear Abby”; and how the once-strict views of parenting guru Benjamin Spock and other columnists mellowed over their long careers. Weisberg says Google and other internet forums are the new advice-givers for millions of people, and questions whether any one writer today could be as widely read and trusted as these predecessors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dara Khosrowshahi, the CEO of ride-hailing company Uber, talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher at the 2018 Code Conference. Khosrowshahi says he didn’t expect to be offered the CEO job and turned it down, but is happy he accepted it in the end. He explains how he’s trying to rethink what Uber should be and how he works with founder and ex-CEO Travis Kalanick, who is still on the board of directors. Khosrowshahi also unpacks Uber’s plan to be the “Amazon of transportation” and what it’s doing with its self-driving car initiative in the aftermath of a fatal accident in Arizona. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Evan Spiegel, the co-founder and CEO of Snapchat maker Snap, talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher at the 2018 Code Conference. Spiegel talks about why Snapchat underwent a controversial redesign, why it partially reversed that decision and what he learned from the backlash. He also discusses how he’s evolving as a CEO since Snap’s IPO in 2017, having learned that leading a public company “requires a bit more grit.” He also addresses the departure of a female engineer who accused the company of having a toxic male-driven culture, calling her objections a “wake-up call.” Plus: How Spiegel thinks about “traditional social media,” i.e. Facebook, lifting features from the Snapchat app, and why it will be “harder” to copy those features in the future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Former U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about "The Work Ahead," a new report, sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, on the 21st century American workforce. Pritzker co-chaired the committee that developed the report along with fellow business leader John Engler. "The Work Ahead" recommends a nationwide re-evaluation of education, training and how to think about working alongside machines. Pritzker also talks about why President Trump can't run the country like a business and why her hometown of Chicago should be the site of Amazon's second headquarters. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Retired U.S. Air Force General Michael Hayden talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about his new book, “The Assault on Intelligence: American National Security in the Age of Lies.” Hayden, who directed the NSA under President Clinton and the CIA under President George W. Bush, says the “golden age of electronic surveillance” is ending, as both regular Americans and foreign enemies are getting smarter about digital encryption. But as the intelligence community changes its tactics, the Trump administration has embraced the “post-truth” societal trend that is emerging around the world. Hayden explains how he would attempt to give Trump the best advice, what he would recommend for America’s still-active spies, and why the president’s behavior is so befuddling. Plus: How to prevent leaks, and what Facebook can do to be part of the solution. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

U.S. Representative Ro Khanna, D-Calif., talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his proposal for an "internet bill of rights" to protect consumers' privacy, security and ability to move or delete their data. Khanna represents California's 17th district, which includes the headquarters of tech giants Apple and Google, and he says he's lobbying leaders like Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai to publicly endorse these new regulations. He argues that Silicon Valley needs to get out in front of privacy and related issues while it still has high approval ratings, embracing changes that won’t cost it much or threaten its businesses, rather than waiting for the tide of popular opinion to turn. Khanna also talks about Congress' failure to ask the right questions of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg when he testified about the Cambridge Analytica scandal and why the E.U.'s new tech regulation GDPR is overkill and shouldn't be replicated in the U.S. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Author Corey Pein talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about his new book, “Live Work Work Work Die: A Journey Into the Savage Heart of Silicon Valley.” Pein moved to San Francisco to report the book, assuming the role of an entrepreneur looking to get rich quick; he learned the hard way that success doesn’t come easy, even for white men with Ivy League degrees. He criticizes the way consumers have become unpaid workers for the big tech platforms and explains why the government needs to step in and limit companies that have become more powerful than many countries. Pein also talks about highly-paid engineers in San Francisco who are deeply unhappy, and why U.S. lawmakers are only now starting to look at Silicon Valley through a critical lens. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Wall Street Journal investigative reporter John Carreyrou talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his new book, "Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup." Carreyrou explains how Stanford dropout Elizabeth Holmes' company raised nearly $1 billion for blood-testing products that sounded too good to be true — and they were. Holmes idolized former Apple CEO Steve Jobs and sought to make Theranos out to be the next great Silicon Valley success story, but most of her larger investors were not experienced in either technology or medicine, and people who did raise red flags were pushed aside. Carreyrou says "Bad Blood," which will be adapted into a movie starring Jennifer Lawrence as Holmes, is a "cautionary tale" about entrepreneurship, ambition and hubris, and predicts that the company's top executives will be indicted for the cover-up. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you like Recode Decode, we think you'd also like Recode Media with Peter Kafka. Here's the latest episode of the show: New York Times reporter Dave Itzkoff talks with Recode's Peter Kafka about his new book, "Robin: The Definitive Biography of Robin Williams." Itzkoff traces the history of the manic comedian and actor, whose stardom spanned more than four decades in roles in TV shows, such as "Mork and Mindy," and movies, like "Good Will Hunting." After Williams' death by suicide in 2014, Itzkoff says fans and the media were led astray by incorrect or incomplete explanations for what happened, and that Williams' reasons for taking his own life were more complicated than many assumed. Itzkoff also talks about whether another movie star like Williams could emerge in today's Hollywood, his interactions with the comedian as a journalist and how much time he spends crafting jokes for his popular Twitter account @ditzkoff. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices