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Decoder with Nilay Patel

Decoder with Nilay Patel

973 episodes — Page 17 of 20

Ep 172Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital

Spark Capital General Partner Megan Quinn talks with Recode's Kara Swisher and The Verge's Casey Newton about the evolving balance between venture capitalists and entrepreneurs. Quinn, an investor in the cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase, explains why she believes digital currencies like bitcoin are here to stay and what needs to happen before we start treating them like real money. She recounts how she got promoted to become Square's director of product two weeks after joining the company in a different role and how Kleiner Perkins investor Mary Meeker inspired her to become a venture capitalist. Plus: Why HR is "one of the most critical and difficult roles to hire at any company." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dec 20, 20171h 25m

Ep 171Recode Decode: Noam Cohen, author, 'The Know-It-Alls'

Author and former New York Times columnist Noam Cohen talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his new book, "The Know-It-Alls: The Rise of Silicon Valley as a Political Powerhouse and Social Wrecking Ball." In the book, Cohen argues that a libertarian philosophy that is hostile to outsiders and resistant to regulation is negatively affecting our society and communities. He diagnoses the problems with Google, Facebook and Twitter, noting that the latter has a business incentive to do nothing about hate speech and bots. However, Cohen says he's hopeful that Congress and regular people are "waking up" to the dangers of letting Silicon Valley run the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dec 18, 201749 min

Ep 170Recode Decode: Andrew Mason, CEO, Descript

Andrew Mason, the founder and former CEO of Groupon, talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher and The Verge’s Casey Newton about his latest startup, Descript. The company bills itself as a “word processor for audio,” making podcasts and other spoken word recordings easy to edit for non-technical content creators. Mason also talks about the “surreal” rise and fall of his career at Groupon, why he regrets publicly announcing that he was fired as CEO and why he once brought a horse to Groupon’s office as a gift for Michael Bloomberg. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dec 13, 20171h 5m

Ep 169Recode Decode: Kara Swisher visits Pod Save America (Live)

Recode's Kara Swisher talks with Crooked Media's Jon Lovett, Jon Favreau, Tommy Vietor and Dan Pfeiffer, appearing as a guest on a live taping of their podcast, Pod Save America, in Oakland, California. The group talks about the regulatory challenges facing tech companies today, the future of jobs and how Facebook has defended itself in the wake of mounting evidence that Russian agents used its platform to manipulate voters during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Plus: When are left-leaning techies going to get politically organized? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dec 11, 201719 min

Ep 168Recode Decode: Daniel Gross, partner, Y Combinator

Y Combinator Partner Daniel Gross talks with Recode's Kara Swisher and The Verge's Casey Newton about why he returned to the startup incubator that gave him his start in Silicon Valley. Gross co-founded the personal search engine Cue, which Apple bought in 2013 for a reported $35 million and integrated into iOS. Hailing from Jerusalem, Israel originally, he says YC is vitally important for bringing new outsider voices into the highly-networked tech industry and explains why it's important to remind those founders that success is a gradual, humbling process. Gross also talks about the promise of continued investment in artificial intelligence, why it's not a bad thing that "AI" has become a buzzword and what worries him about the algorithms on platforms like YouTube and Facebook. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dec 6, 20171h 7m

Ep 167Recode Decode: Leslie Berlin, historian, Stanford University

Leslie Berlin, the historian who oversees Stanford University's Silicon Valley Archives, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about her new book, "Troublemakers: How a Generation of Silicon Valley Upstarts Invented the Future." The book traces the rise of seven men and women who were pioneers of the tech industry in the 1970s and early 1980s, including ASK Group founder Sandy Kurtzig, Pong designer Al Alcorn and Apple's "adult supervision," Mike Markkula. Berlin says learning about their importance to the history of the tech industry is "like watching the Big Bang." She also talks about the challenges of preserving tech's history when some crucial documents may be stored in obsolete file formats; why the tech boom happened in Silicon Valley, and not some other part of the country; and why the risk of America's immigration laws becoming more restrictive is a great danger to the industry. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dec 4, 201759 min

Ep 166Recode Decode: Margrethe Vestager

Margrethe Vestager, Europe's commissioner for competition, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher in front of a live audience at Web Summit 2017 in Lisbon, Portugal. Vestager explains how the E.U. is trying to make tech companies more transparent and accountable for their dealings and why a "free" market needs government intervention to function. She says the algorithms that control what content gets surfaced on social media may "have to go to law school" before we can trust them again, and that Facebook or Snapchat's priorities cannot be allowed to supersede democracy's. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nov 29, 201718 min

Ep 165Recode Decode: How Reid Hoffman would fix social media (Live)

Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn and a general partner at Greylock Partners, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher in front of a live audience at the Anti-Defamation League conference "Never Is Now" in San Francisco. Hoffman says the people who work at social media giants like Facebook and Twitter want to do the right thing when it comes to abuse or political attacks on their platforms, but they often move too slowly. He proposes that these companies should regularly report how they're trying to encourage "compassion, interaction [and] mutual understanding." Plus: How Reddit CEO Steve Huffman convinced him anonymity could be good and why VR might help create empathy in a corporate context. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nov 27, 201742 min

Ep 164Recode Decode: Greta Van Susteren is not giving up on social media

Former cable news anchor Greta Van Susteren talks with Recode's Kara Swisher and SKDK's Hilary Rosen about her new book, "Everything You Need to Know about Social Media (Without Having to Call a Kid)." Van Susteren spent long stints hosting shows at CNN and Fox News and says she still doesn't know why her last TV employer, MSNBC, fired her after six months. In addition to the new book, she’s now an internet entrepreneur: Her first product is Sorry, an app for apologies. Van Susteren talks about all of that change, as well as what Silicon Valley companies should do about Russia's election meddling; why Donald Trump retweeted her recently and why that's not as big a deal as people think; and why, despite all the trolling and other nastiness, "social media is here to stay." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nov 22, 201759 min

Ep 163Recode Decode: magazine mogul Tina Brown

Tina Brown — the former editor of Vanity Fair, the New Yorker, the Daily Beast and more — talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about her new book, "The Vanity Fair Diaries: 1983 - 1992." In the book, she looks back on the tell-all diary she kept at the time, dishing on the 1980s New York social scene, managing a print magazine in the medium's heyday and dealing with media bigwigs like Conde Nast's S.I. Newhouse, Jr. Brown says she saw Vanity Fair as a big circus, while the New Yorker was a "sleeping beauty" that had to be awoken, although she may be proudest of her lesser-known (and short-lived) work on Talk magazine. She also talks about working with Talk's financier, Harvey Weinstein; how she founded the digital-first Daily Beast and why she left; and why Facebook and Google should fund the future of local journalism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nov 20, 20171h 13m

Ep 162Recode Decode: Stacey Abrams, candidate for governor, Georgia

Stacey Abrams, a candidate running for governor of Georgia and former minority leader of its general assembly, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher and SKDK's Hilary Rosen about the early stages of the campaign. Abrams explains why everyone needs to be talking a lot more about the automation of jobs, why she's wary of blank-check tax incentives written for tech companies and why Democrats learned the wrong lessons about the internet from Barack Obama's campaign in 2008. She also discusses how she is using technology and how she contends with some voters' reductive tendency to only think of her as "the black candidate." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nov 15, 20171h 4m

Ep 161Recode Decode: Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO, Anti-Defamation League

Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about how the century-old nonprofit is evolving to fight antisemitism and other forms of extremism in the digital age. Greenblatt explains how online platforms have helped white supremacists inject their beliefs into the mainstream conversation and why companies like Twitter, Facebook and Google have so far failed to stop them. He says the ADL is now working directly with engineers at those organizations to confront the problem, and praises the potential of emerging tech like artificial intelligence and virtual reality for making social media — and society — saner. Greenblatt also discusses the right way for journalists to report on extremists like Richard Spencer and how Silicon Valley could make a big difference by having a “bias for good.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nov 13, 20171h 3m

Ep 160Recode Decode: Katy Tur, author, ‘Unbelievable.’

MSNBC anchor Katy Tur talks with Recode's Kara Swisher and SKDK's Hilary Rosen about her new book, "Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History." While she was at NBC News, Tur was the first reporter assigned to cover the Trump campaign full-time, and one year since his unlikely electoral victory, she says many in the media who considered him a joke before haven't learned the right lessons from 2016. Tur explains how her parents' pioneering TV journalism gave her the resolve to weather threats during the campaign, and says journalists covering President Trump need to stop being indignant about little things, and focus instead on the big stories that matter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nov 8, 20171h 3m

Ep 159Recode Decode: Ray Dalio, author, 'Principles: Life and Work'

Ray Dalio, the founder of the world's largest hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his new book, "Principles: Life and Work." In it, he lays out how he makes smarter decisions based on clearly articulated criteria and how that process has worked on a massive scale at Bridgewater, which Dalio describes as an "idea meritocracy." At the controversial hedge fund, every conversation is recorded for anyone to consult, and every decision is compared against the employees' transparent histories of successes and defeats. Dalio also talks about why independent thinking is the most important principle, how tech companies can apply Bridgewater's formula and why the biggest issue facing America may be the fragmentation between the top 40 percent of the economy and bottom 60 percent: Perfect breeding grounds for a populist president like Donald Trump. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nov 6, 20171h 6m

Ep 158Recode Decode: Luther Lowe, Yelp; Beth Wilkinson, Wilkinson Walsh Eskovitz

Recode's Kara Swisher and SKDK's Hilary Rosen talk about tech, regulation and politics with two special guests: Luther Lowe, the vice president of public policy at Yelp, and Beth Wilkinson, the co-founder of trial law firm Wilkinson Walsh Eskovitz. The group explains how lawyers from Twitter, Facebook and Google found themselves testifying in front of Congress this week and why the politics of the hearings around the 2016 election are so messy and different from what has come before. Lowe and Wilkinson also talk about the other political issues facing Silicon Valley, including antitrust regulation, consumer data privacy and the future of jobs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nov 1, 20171h 9m

Ep 157Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs

1stdibs CEO David Rosenblatt explains how his company, a marketplace for rare luxury products, made the transition from an advertising to e-commerce. Unlike other executives in the commerce space, Rosenblatt isn't worried about Amazon competing with him directly because 1stdibs' sellers aren't comfortable selling their expensive goods alongside lower-priced brands. Rosenblatt also talks about the growing importance of VR and AR for his industry and how his former company — the online advertising pioneer DoubleClick — survived the dot-com crash and got acquired by Google. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Oct 30, 201755 min

Ep 156Recode Decode: Can Silicon Valley get its mojo back? (Live)

Kara Swisher joins venture capitalist Shervin Pishevar, theBoardlist founder Sukhinder Singh Cassidy and Uptake CEO Brad Keywell in this live discussion about tech culture from the 2017 Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit, moderated by Nick Bilton. The group has a popcorn-worthy debate over what can be done about management troubles, rampant sexism in Silicon Valley and the weaponization of social media. Singh Cassidy says investors have leverage that they're not using to make tech firms behave better, while Pishevar and Keywell talk about the significant change that can come from within companies and via professional mentors. Plus: Swisher explains why the future may hinge on the people in the middle of the economy who have neither won nor lost in the internet revolution. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Oct 25, 201738 min

Ep 155Recode Decode: Walter Isaacson, author, 'Leonardo da Vinci'

Author Walter Isaacson talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his new biography of Renaissance artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci, which he describes has a "culmination" of themes he explored in past books about Ada Lovelace, Ben Franklin and Steve Jobs. Isaacson explains how da Vinci's pursuit of the intersection of art and science made him who he was, and how his life's story can inform our thinking today about innovation and technology. He also dissects the biology of da Vinci's most famous work, the Mona Lisa, and explains why the portrait took 16 years to paint. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Oct 23, 20171h 11m

Ep 154Recode Decode: Tim O'Reilly, author, 'WTF?'

O’Reilly Media founder Tim O’Reilly talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about his new book, “WTF? What’s the Future and Why It’s Up to Us.” O'Reilly argues that society could be headed for either the good type of “WTF” — one of amazement — or the bad type, one of dismay. Avoiding the latter, O’Reilly says, will mean dramatically rethinking politics, finance and employment; today's prevailing philosophy of profit-above-all-else could be setting the world up for a period of “war and revolution and great instability.” He also talks about why, even though tech companies are easy to demonize in Washington, the bigger villain may be Wall Street. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Oct 18, 201748 min

Ep 153Recode Decode: Susan Wojcicki, CEO, YouTube

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about how YouTube has grown since she assumed that role in 2014, and how it's making original content differently than other video platforms like Netflix. Previously Google's advertising boss, she met Larry Page and Sergey Brin when the two founders rented her garage and turned it into office space. Plus, Wojcicki talks at length about the firing of James Damore, whose viral internal memo exposed a major rift in Silicon Valley over the perceptions of female engineers' capabilities — and an ongoing debate about free speech in the workplace. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Oct 16, 20171h 4m

Ep 152Recode Decode: Ilene Chaiken, showrunner, ‘Empire’

Ilene Chaiken, the creator of “The L Word” and showrunner for “Empire,” talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher at the 2017 edition of Werk It, WNYC’s women-in-podcasting festival. Chaiken explains how she got “The L Word” made at Showtime, even though the network initially laughed at the idea of a show about lesbians in Hollywood, and how became executive producer of the hit Hulu series “The Handmaid’s Tale,” which she had tried to adapt for years. Now in an exclusive deal at 20th Century Fox, Chaiken says the massive reach of broadcast TV is still an important cultural force, and predicts that the digital platforms like Amazon, Hulu, Netflix and Apple will take turns being big award winners. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Oct 11, 20171h 7m

Ep 151Recode Decode: Why Shonda Rhimes left ABC for Netflix (Live)

ShondaLand CEO Shonda Rhimes, the TV producer behind hits like "Grey's Anatomy," "Scandal" and "How to Get Away With Murder," talks with Recode's Kara Swisher at the 2017 Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit. Rhimes says she took a four-year exclusive deal with Netflix because it offers her more creative freedom and new challenges, although her six existing shows will continue at ABC. She also talks about how she chooses who she hires, her amazement at people in Hollywood who don't understand diversity and why she has backed off of social media. Plus: Why ShondaLand.com has started offering magazine-like articles, including interviews with people like Michelle Obama and Billie Jean King. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Oct 9, 201743 min

Ep 150Recode Decode: Jared Leto

"Blade Runner 2049" actor Jared Leto talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about portraying Niander Wallace, a trillionaire tech mogul. By the start of the new movie, Wallace has saved humanity from starvation and rebooted the development of humanlike robots, known as Replicants. Leto, who is also a musician and tech investor, says he chooses to be optimistic about the future in spite of the movie's dystopian tone and explains how he approached playing an antagonist to Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford. (Spoiler warning: This episode discusses the themes and story of "Blade Runner 2049," including the fate of some of the major characters.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Oct 7, 201731 min

Ep 149Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset”

Investor Ellen Pao talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about her new book, “Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change,” which chronicles Pao’s 2015 court battle against her former employer, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. She reflects on why the gender discrimination lawsuit ultimately failed, and why Pao believes it nevertheless laid the groundwork for future whistleblowers like ex-Uber employee Susan Fowler. She also talks about her ensuing work as interim CEO of Reddit, what she thinks of the controversial memo written by former Google engineer James Damore, and why we shouldn’t take tech companies’ proclamations of “free speech” idealism at face value. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Oct 2, 20171h 7m

Ep 148Recode Decode: Sally Quinn, author, "Finding Magic"

Sally Quinn, the author of "Finding Magic: A Spiritual Memoir," talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about her new book and her career in journalism. Quinn got her start covering the Washington, D.C., party circuit for the Washington Post under its then-Editor Ben Bradlee, whom she later married. Quinn became an atheist early in her chilhood, but her views of religion evolved over time, leading her to become the Post's religion columnist and one of its first bloggers. She says the inspiration for her book came from how — in Bradlee's final years, when he developed dementia — she realized that taking care of him gave her life meaning. Plus: The real story behind the now-infamous "hexes" Quinn used to cast on people and why Donald Trump's real religion is the "prosperity gospel." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sep 27, 20171h 5m

Ep 147Recode Decode: Maggie Haberman, New York Times, and David Fahrenthold, Washington Post

New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman and Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold talk with Recode's Kara Swisher at the 2017 Texas Tribune Festival in Austin. Both known for their coverage of Donald Trump's campaign and White House, they talk about how they accidentally became Trump reporters and what others in the media get wrong about the president. They also explain how they, as journalists, use Twitter — which Haberman calls "the anger video game" — and what they would be reporting on if they were not on the Trump beat. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sep 25, 20171h 7m

Ep 146Recode Decode: Maha Ibrahim, general partner, Canaan

Maha Ibrahim, a general partner at Canaan Partners, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about her more than 17 years in venture capital, joining Canaan right before the first dot-com bubble burst. Ibrahim says a lot of her fellow investors have only ever known tech as an "up and to the right" industry and she's concerned by the intense rate at which many companies are burning capital, even after they go public. She also talks about the recent backlash against men in tech who have sexually harassed women, calling Reid Hoffman's decency pledge "the lowest of low bars." The bigger challenge for women going forward, Ibrahim explains, will be helping other women succeed even though there is no obvious female equivalent in tech of Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sep 18, 20171h 3m

Ep 145Recode Decode: Scott Galloway, author, “The Four”

New York University professor Scott Galloway returns to the podcast to talk with Recode’s Kara Swisher about his first book, “The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google,” which comes out on Oct. 3. Galloway predicts that Amazon will launch a weekly auto-delivery service called Prime Squared to encourage its highest-value customers to buy more, and forecasts that the company’s next logical acquisition after Whole Foods would be the luxury department-store chain Nordstrom. He also talks about why companies want to be seen as politically progressive today, why Airbnb will be worth more than Uber and why, if you boil Apple’s brand down to one word, it's “sex.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sep 11, 20171h 9m

Ep 144Recode Decode: Chris Urmson, CEO, Aurora

Chris Urmson, the CEO of Aurora and former CTO of self-driving cars at Google, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about when autonomous vehicles will replace human-driven ones. Urmson, who started working on the technology at Carnegie Mellon University in the mid-2000s, predicts we'll see fleets of self-driving cars on some roads within five years, but that they won't completely take over for at least 30 years. He talks about the remaining challenges to making these vehicles completely safe — including the danger of their operators becoming complacent about the technology — and how their arrival will impact everything from government to public transportation to fast-food jobs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sep 4, 20171h 5m

Ep 143Recode Decode: Chamath Palihapitiya, CEO, Social Capital

Social Capital CEO Chamath Palihapitiya talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about the future of capitalism and investing, which he says will look less and less like traditional venture capital, as firms like his embed themselves at a deep operational level in their companies. Palihapitiya also discusses why investors delude themselves into believing their own bravado, what he thinks of James Damore's Google memo and why Silicon Valley needs to deal with more than just the "low-hanging fruit" of sexual harassment. He evaluates the biggest tech companies of today — including Twitter, Amazon and Facebook — and predicts that the new CEO of Uber will have one of the most important jobs in the country. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Aug 28, 20171h 16m

Ep 142Recode Decode: The future of tech jobs in coal country

Recode’s Kara Swisher heads to Louisville, Ky., to talk about the future of work with a panel of local-minded techies: Interapt CEO Ankur Gopal, Code Louisville founder Rider Rodriguez, TechHire Eastern Kentucky student Crystal Adkins and Tech Jobs Tour CEO Leanne Pittsford. They talk about what inspired them to become entrepreneurial, and why existing tech companies and investors should be looking to historically less-techie places like Kentucky for workers and founders. Gopal emphasizes that people in the area are not looking for a handout, just looking for work, and Adkins explains why hiring for a coding job shouldn’t require a bachelor’s degree. Later in the show, the panel discusses what needs to happen to help entrepreneurial people across the country find their next move. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Aug 21, 20171h 6m

Ep 141Recode Decode: Taggart Matthiesen, director of product, Lyft

Lyft Director of Product Taggart Matthiesen talks with Recode’s Johana Bhuiyan about the ride-hailing company’s push into self-driving cars. Matthiesen predicts that Lyft will slowly evolve into a hybrid transportation service, with users summoning rides as they do today and getting paired with either a human driver or an autonomous vehicle — whatever is faster. Lyft’s cars may never be 100 percent autonomous, he notes, and today’s drivers may become a sort of concierge, providing new experiences to riders while the car does the navigation. Matthiesen also talks about how the #DeleteUber campaign earlier this year helped Lyft and why the company can’t get complacent about its product. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Aug 14, 201759 min

Ep 140Recode Decode: Chris Kuenne and John Danner, authors, 'Built for Growth'

Chris Kuenne and John Danner talk with Recode's Kara Swisher about their new book, "Built for Growth: How Builder Personality Shapes Your Business, Your Team, and Your Ability to Win." Kuenne and Danner argue that, contrary to the conventional wisdom about business founders, winning entrepreneurs can come from many personality types, and those personalities shape the sort of company they build. They also talk about why Silicon Valley worships singular figures like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk above others and how to create more entrepreneurs among the "millions" of capable men and women across America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Aug 7, 201755 min

Ep 139Recode Decode: Erica Baker, director of engineering, Kickstarter; Sarah Kunst, CEO, ProDay

Diversity advocate and Kickstarter director Erica Baker and ProDay CEO Sarah Kunst talk with Recode's Kara Swisher about the conditions that led so many venture capitalists to abuse their power over female tech founders. Kunst, who was sexually harassed by 500 Startups founder Dave McClure, says the time has come to "turn the lights on full blast" and expose bad actors rather than tiptoeing around the problem. Baker, who gained a reputation as a "troublemaker" from her efforts to make Google salaries more transparent, theorizes that harassment and exclusion have run rampant because of the cult of specialness around coding ability, and calls out tech companies that are not holding themselves accountable. Kunst also explains what's wrong with Reid Hoffman's decency pledge and why former Uber engineer Susan Fowler was the "perfect victim." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jul 31, 20171h 15m

Ep 138Recode Decode: Frances Frei, SVP of leadership and strategy, Uber

Live onstage: Uber SVP Frances Frei talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about the future of the beleaguered ride-hailing company. Frei came to Uber from Harvard Business School, where she studied leadership and diversity, and says the company's problems are neither unusual nor unfixable. Uber's employees want to do the right thing, she explains, but have been historically let down by management and not given an outlet to call out bad behavior. Frei also talks about why she rejects Uber board member Arianna Huffington's concept of "zero tolerance," why ex-CEO Travis Kalanick can be redeemed and how to fix the broader epidemic of sexual harassment in Silicon Valley. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jul 26, 20171h 30m

Ep 137Recode Decode: Cory Booker, U.S. Senator

New Jersey Senator Cory Booker talks with Recode’s Tony Romm about the current state of politics under President Trump and how he thinks the U.S. government should respond to the tech sector. Booker says he’s eager to see Trump gone, but that Democrats can’t solely define themselves as the “resistance” and shouldn’t sink to his level of online vitriol. He argues that Congress should take a skeptical look at the consolidation of companies like Amazon and Whole Foods, and not accept at face value that tech’s role should be “to create a handful of billionaires”; instead, Booker says, protecting consumers and broadening America’s access to science and technology should be the top priorities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jul 24, 20171h 8m

Ep 136Recode Decode: Tolga Kurtoglu, CEO, PARC

PARC CEO Tolga Kurtoglu talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about leading the iconic Silicon Valley research and development firm, formerly known as Xerox PARC, which works with companies and government agencies to imagine the future of work. Kurtoglu says PARC is thinking a lot about how humans and artificial intelligence agents will work together and how to build a “trustable” AI that can explain how it reaches its conclusions. He also talks about why Silicon Valley has held on to its leadership in tech innovation and what responsibilities the tech sector has as its creations disrupt established industries and eliminate jobs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jul 17, 201749 min

Ep 135Recode Decode: Lisa Dickey, author, 'Bears in the Streets'

"Bears in the Streets" author Lisa Dickey talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about her new book, which chronicles three trips to Russia at three very different times in its history — 1995, 2005 and 2015. Dickey's first journey across the continent was a pioneering work of digital photography and early web publishing, while her later trips illuminated how tech, politics and everything else was changing. She says Americans get a lot wrong about the Russian people and Russians get a lot wrong about Americans, but the two countries have more in common than they realize. Dickey shares some of the strangest stories from her visits to the country, including an unexpectedly contentious trip to see the Matt Damon movie "The Martian" and arguments over whether 9/11 was an inside job. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jul 10, 201757 min

Ep 134Recode Decode: Reid Hoffman, partner, Greylock

LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, now a venture capitalist at Greylock Partners, talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about why Silicon Valley has remained the epicenter of tech for decades and what’s next for entrepreneurs, investors and consumers. Hoffman explains why LinkedIn sold itself to Microsoft, why Airbnb hasn’t gone public yet and why he believes everyone in politics and business should adopt the “Spider-Man” motto: “With great power comes great responsibility.” Later in the show, he discusses his increasing involvement in liberal politics and his enduring friendship with conservative Trump supporter Peter Thiel, whom Hoffman met as a college undergraduate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jul 3, 20171h 11m

Ep 133Recode Decode: Adam Lashinsky, author, 'Wild Ride'

Fortune Executive Editor Adam Lashinsky talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his new book "Wild Ride: Inside Uber's Quest for World Domination." In this live interview, recorded after Travis Kalanick had announced a leave of absence from Uber but before he resigned as CEO, Lashinsky talks about trying to find Kalanick's "Rosebud" and why he didn't discover the now-infamous dark side of Uber's culture that was exposed by Susan Fowler and other former employees. He says despite the brand being "severely tarnished," Uber can reshape its corporate culture and bounce back because "[not] every person is rotten." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jun 26, 20171h 13m

Ep 132Recode Decode: Cecile Richards, president, Planned Parenthood Federation of America (Code Conference 2017)

In this special bonus episode from the 2017 Code Conference, Planned Parenthood Federation of America President Cecile Richards talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about how the nonprofit has dealt with controversy and political opposition under President Trump. Republicans in Washington are attempting to limit the organization, which Richards says would undermine access to local health services and cause the rates of STIs and abortions to go up. Planned Parenthood will continue to exist even if the GOP's health care bill passes, she says, but it's still fighting to remain a public benefit, with funds for most of its services being reimbursed by the government. Richards also talks about how her team uses social media and texting and why she wants to use drones to air-drop birth control. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jun 25, 201733 min

Ep 131Recode Decode: Mark Hurd, co-CEO, Oracle

In this live interview, Oracle co-CEO Mark Hurd talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about how Oracle transitioned its business to the cloud, which is the fastest-growing segment of all enterprise spending. Hurd says a large, process-laden company like Oracle can't risk getting complacent and out-innovated by smaller startups, and had to weather some unhappy investors on Wall Street for many quarters because building out cloud services takes time and money. He also talks about immigration policy, job automation and why Steve Jobs once told him he would hate to have Hurd's job. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jun 19, 201757 min

Ep 130Recode Decode: Jill Soloway, creator, 'Transparent' (Code Conference 2017)

In this special bonus episode from the 2017 Code Conference, Jill Soloway, the creator of the Amazon TV series "Transparent," talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about their new show, "I Love Dick," which stars Kevin Bacon and Kathryn Hahn. They say Amazon is more hands-off than traditional TV networks and has helped diversify the female characters we see on TV. Soloway's company, Topple Productions, is aimed at disrupting the "white male gaze" and giving power to creators who otherwise might not have it, and they recall how, after losing twice at the Golden Globes, Jeff Bezos encouraged them to keep effecting social change through storytelling. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jun 17, 201731 min

Ep 129Recode Decode: Scott Galloway, founder, L2

L2 founder and New York University professor Scott Galloway talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about how the biggest companies in tech are disrupting retail, jobs, advertising and more. Galloway says the U.S. is incredibly "over-stored" and predicts that Amazon is well positioned to quadruple what its Prime customers spend. He also explains why most brands should worry about their future stability, and what a handful — including Apple and Disney — have done right to defend themselves. Later in the show, Galloway grades how Google, Facebook, Netflix and more are doing and makes the case for executive changes at Uber and Snapchat. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jun 12, 201758 min

Ep 128Recode Decode: Hillary Clinton, former U.S. Secretary of State (Code Conference 2017)

In this special bonus episode from the 2017 Code Conference, former U.S. Secretary of State and 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton talks with Recode's Kara Swisher and The Verge's Walt Mossberg about the mistakes she made during the campaign and what she thinks in hindsight about criticism of her private email server and paid speeches to Goldman Sachs. Clinton says "anti-American forces" are continually trying to undermine America's security and unity and that she believes saboteurs from Russia were directly aided by Americans, likely including Donald Trump. She criticizes Facebook's spreading of "fake news" and the eagerness of the media to amplify Trump's message, but also the failures of the Democratic National Committee's "poor" data campaign in 2016 as contributing factors to her defeat. Looking forward, Clinton says she's "hopeful" that Democrats will regain control of the House of Representatives in 2018 and "hold [our] own" in the Senate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jun 10, 20171h 17m

Ep 127Recode Decode: Kevin Systrom, CEO, Instagram

Instagram CEO and co-founder Kevin Systrom talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about why he's still working at Facebook five years after it bought his company for $1 billion. Systrom shares what he has learned from the executives there and why he insisted from day one that his new colleagues not call Instagram a "photo-sharing app" — which surprised Mark Zuckerberg. He also addresses allegations that Instagram has "copied" features from Snapchat, saying no tech product is completely original and that it's better for consumers if companies in the same space are constantly trying to one-up each other. Later in the show, Systrom explains why he feels personally responsible to make the internet a safer place, and what he's doing toward that goal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jun 5, 20171h 9m

Ep 126Recode Decode: Boris Sofman, CEO, Anki

Anki CEO Boris Sofman talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about the future of robotics and why his company is starting with robots that entertain people: The artificially intelligent toy cars Anki Drive, released in 2013, and the emotive pet-like Cozmo, which came out in 2016. Sofman says designing for cuteness makes it easier for humans to accept when the robot makes an error, and is a low-risk way to make all robots better at skills like computer vision. He also talks about the current state of self-driving cars and why the biggest danger robots currently pose to humanity is being misused by human operators. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

May 29, 201759 min

Ep 125Recode Decode: David Marcus, VP of Messaging, Facebook

Facebook's messaging products boss, David Marcus, talks with Recode's Kurt Wagner about how the company is trying turn its Messenger app into a hub for interactions between companies and consumers. Marcus explains what Facebook learned from last year's rollout of "bots" on the platform and why the latest tools are poised to be more useful. He also explains why Facebook is not planning to take a cut of purchases made within Messenger and how it's balancing plans to inject ads into the app with users' privacy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

May 22, 201755 min

Ep 124Recode Decode: Patrick Collison, CEO, Stripe

Stripe CEO Patrick Collison talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about how the company he and his brother started in 2010 evolved from a service for other small startups into a global payments platform for companies of all sizes. He discusses why Stripe recently hired a new security head, DARPA alum Peiter Zatko, and why our data is safer in the hands of companies like Google and Facebook than it is with hospitals or telecom giants. Collison also argues that U.S. immigration policy, and restrictive housing policies in the San Francisco Bay Area, are imperiling Silicon Valley's ability to continually innovate in the future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

May 15, 20171h 6m

Ep 123Recode Decode: Behind the scenes of 'The Handmaid's Tale'

"The Handmaid's Tale" creator and showrunner Bruce Miller talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his new adaptation of the dystopian Margaret Atwood novel, which recently debuted on Hulu. Miller discusses the aptness of the show's political themes, and why he's excited to tell stories beyond the ones explicitly laid out in Atwood's text. He also chats about the impact that tech companies like Netflix, Amazon and Hulu have had on Hollywood, and weighs the benefits of TV's golden age against the risk that viewers might start to get impatient as they binge through high-quality content faster than it can be made. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

May 10, 201759 min