Decoder with Nilay Patel

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about her new book, "Option B," which she wrote after the sudden death of her husband, entrepreneur Dave Goldberg. This latest book is more raw than her first, "Lean In," combining Sandberg's personal journal entries with research about all kinds of adversity, as explained by her co-author, psychologist Adam Grant. Sandberg explains what most people get wrong about grief and how to talk to those who are in mourning. She also calls for a reexamination of corporate and public policies around parental leave, health care and bereavement. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai talks with Recode's Tony Romm about his first three months on the job and what critics of his plan to roll back Obama-era net neutrality rules get wrong. Pai says the FCC should be an apolitical agency that focuses on how to create the most "digital opportunity" for everyone and that preemptively regulating how ISPs compete with one another isn't appropriate. He also discusses his relationships with both Congress and Donald Trump, who he says has not meddled at all in the agency's decisions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Stacey Mindich and Steven Levenson, the producer and book writer of "Dear Evan Hansen," talk with Recode's Kara Swisher about how the hit Broadway musical depicts the current state of social media and isolation. The show centers on a socially anxious teenager who tells a big lie about a dead classmate, and Levenson says it asks a question that's just as potent in the real world: Through the internet, can something fake turn into something real? Mindich talks about how the story of "Dear Evan Hansen" evolved to speak to multiple generations and how its creators have reached an ardent base of fans online, some of whose faces are now a literal part of the show. They also discuss the post-"Hamilton" era on Broadway, where technologically-minded events like "The Encounter" are rubbing shoulders with old-school live theater. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The creators and most of the cast of HBO's 'Silicon Valley' talk with Recode's Kara Swisher in this live interview, recorded in San Francisco after the premiere of the first two episodes of Season Four. Executive Producer Mike Judge talks about the challenge of staying relevant and topical when the show is written and filmed so far ahead of when it airs; star Thomas Middleditch, who plays Pied Piper founder Richard Hendricks, says the past year has made him apprehensive about privacy, data collection and social media algorithms; and costar Amanda Crew, who plays venture capitalist Monica Hall, talks about investing in real tech companies with female founders. Also: Kumail Nanjiani, who plays Dinesh Chugtai, begs for free Apple products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Actor Matt Ross talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about playing Hooli CEO Gavin Belson on HBO’s “Silicon Valley,” which just started its fourth season. Ross, who previously played Alby Grant on “Big Love,” says he tries to make the antagonists he plays sympathetic and sincere, even in a goofy comedy like “Silicon Valley.” He also talks about his first film, “Captain Fantastic,” which was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe, and the balance between tech companies and Hollywood, as Amazon and Netflix bid for top film and TV talent. That competition has been great for outsiders getting their stories told, but Ross wonders: What happens if the new money goes away? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Crowdpac CEO Steve Hilton talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about how his website is making it easier for anyone to explore running for office and to collect donations for political causes and campaigns. Hilton, a former advisor to British Prime Minister David Cameron, says the need to raise money “underpins a huge proportion of what’s wrong with politics,” and wants more diverse voices in the fray. A supporter of both Brexit and candidate Trump, he says the U.S. president needs to stop listening to Republicans in Congress and focus on “positive populism” — meaning solutions to the anxiety over jobs and the economic growth that helped Trump beat Hillary Clinton. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Congressman Ro Khanna talks with Recode's Kara Swisher and Tony Romm about why the people who have benefitted most from technology have a civic duty to give back to their country. Rep. Khanna's district, CA-17, covers several major Silicon Valley companies, including Apple, Intel, Yahoo and eBay, and he calls on the people creating "wealth and success" to help others succeed, including their own workers. Khanna argues that net neutrality is a major issue in need of more attention, and calls FCC chairman Ajit Pai "one of the worst picks possible in government" and a mouthpiece for the telecom industry. He also discusses immigration reform, the transition to "21st century jobs" and why President Trump's tweets are so effective. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Code2040 CEO and co-founder Laura Weidman Powers talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about the mistakes employees and managers make when they talk about diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Companies need to make fundamental changes to how they hire and operate to be welcoming destinations for underrepresented minorities, Weidman says. She discusses the inherent flaws in most "unconscious bias" training and what Code2040 has done differently when it partners with tech companies, finding jobs for hundreds of black and latino students over the past five years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Spark Capital General Partner Bijan Sabet talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about being a venture capitalist based on the East Coast, and how he became an early investor in companies like Twitter, Tumblr and Cruise. Sabet also discusses why he has become more politically vocal under President Trump, and urges tech CEOs to follow the lead of their employees in speaking out; the answer on all sides, he says, is to let more voices be heard. Sabet also talks about the failure of the personal-drone company he backed, Lily; and the blunt truth about venture capital — even good VCs are wrong most of the time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nextdoor CEO Nirav Tolia talks with Recode's Kurt Wagner about how he and his team built a social network for neighborhoods, with a focus on trust and privacy that forced the company to grow slower than most tech startups. Tolia was previously the CEO of Epinions, which after a merger became Shopping.com and sold to eBay. After a sports startup called Fanbase fizzled, Tolia was challenged by Benchmark's Bill Gurley to try again, and today Nextdoor is worth more than $1 billion. Having faced adversity and a public image problem of his own, he also shares some leadership advice for Uber CEO Travis Kalanick: Deal with your issues quickly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

"Radical Candor" author and CEO coach Kim Malone Scott talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about how to be a better manager and leader. Based on her personal experiences at Apple, Google and several tech startups, Scott argues that most management failings come from bosses who are too nice rather than too mean, especially when they're talking to someone who looks different than them. She also discusses the current management crisis at Uber, which she attributes to a culture of "unchecked unilateral authority" that would be more at home in a "baboon troupe or totalitarian regime." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tipping Point Community CEO Daniel Lurie talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his organization's efforts to fight homelessness in San Francisco. He says it's all too easy to "not see" the incredible poverty and inequality in the Bay Area if you commute into Silicon Valley every day, which means people in tech must be educated about the problem if they're going to be part of the solution. Lurie calls on techies of means, the beneficiaries of "this incredible moment in time," to get involved in philanthropy. He argues that civic involvement won't last if it's mandated from the outside, and that companies must see it as a cultural priority, with the energy to help coming from the top of the org chart. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

"Veep" actors Tim Simons and Matt Walsh and showrunner David Mandel talk with Recode's Kara Swisher about the upcoming sixth season of the HBO political satire. Speaking in front of a live audience at South by Southwest, they recount how they found out on set that Donald Trump had won the presidency, and why it's not their job to respond to the new administration directly. Instead, they say, "Veep" will continue mocking the hypocrisy at all levels of politics and on both sides of the aisle, showing what happens to Julia Louis-Dreyfus's character, Selina Meyer, after she loses the presidency and is a private citizen once again. The trio also talks about the addictiveness of Twitter, whether "Veep" would work in virtual reality, and why everyone in D.C. is oblivious when they get parodied. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Crooked Media Founders Jon Favreau, Tommy Vietor and Jon Lovett talk with Recode's Kara Swisher about their hit podcast, "Pod Save America," in a live interview at South by Southwest 2017. Having previously worked as speechwriters and spokespersons for the Obama administration, the trio discusses what Democrats missed during the 2016 election and how the new "opposition party" to Donald Trump can best focus its resistance. They explain how they run their "progressive media company," which cares more about impact than income, and why they're not excited by the prospect of a presidential run from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Code Advisors Partner Quincy Smith talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about the current state of mergers and acquisitions in tech and media. Smith, who previously worked at Netscape and CBS Interactive, says media companies consolidate in tough times, and a massive game of "sharks and minnows" has begun with AT&T's pending $85 billion deal to buy Time Warner. However, in a similar business climate, tech companies focus on their own products, and Smith argues that the rise of artificial intelligence is delaying or obviating the prospect of big new deals among internet and social media companies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Enjoy CEO Ron Johnson talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his long career in commerce, including 15 years at Target, and his 12 years at Apple, where he created the Apple Store. Johnson's current company Enjoy hand-delivers premium tech products and helps users with set-up to improve customer satisfaction. He argues that big retailers like Walmart need to innovate on the in-store experience and copy Amazon's approach to customer happiness and loyalty. Johnson also talks about working with longtime Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who initially hated the idea of the Genius Bar. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Entrepreneur and archivist Brewster Kahle talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about the 20th anniversary of the Internet Archive and why it's more important than ever to preserve our digital past. Kahle talks about the companies he founded and sold to AOL and Amazon — WAIS and Alexa, respectively — and how the nonprofit Archive has dealt with everything from copyright issues to social networking websites that are walling themselves off from the rest of the web. He also predicts where artificial intelligence goes from here, saying today's corporations and militaries are a sort of "proto-AI." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Former Yahoo president Sue Decker and investor Michael Dearing talk with Recode's Kara Swisher about Raftr, Decker's recently launched social platform for sane, civil discussions about topics ranging from sports to "Game of Thrones" to President Trump. Decker says the success of sites like Slack and Nextdoor has demonstrated that Facebook and Twitter are not the end-all be-all of social media and says Raftr will give people the opportunity to find new like-minded friends. Later in the show, the two talk about the journalistic responsibilities of tech companies in a world of "fake news." Dearing, the founder of venture capital firm Harrison Metal, says big platforms like Facebook can do the most good by shining a "flashlight" on hoaxers, rather than trying to write rules that disallow it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lightspeed Venture Partners' Jeremy Liew talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about being a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley at a time when the Valley no longer represents most tech consumers. Liew argues that startup founders are popping up all over because they're now making products for Middle America and the third world, not just Palo Alto and Brooklyn. He also discusses working at AOL after the notorious Time Warner merger, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel's crucial insights that enabled Snapchat's success, and why he's not too concerned about "four years of bad presidency." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bloomberg Tech journalist Brad Stone talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his latest book, "The Upstarts: How Uber, Airbnb, and the Killer Companies of the New Silicon Valley Are Changing the World." Stone argues that the stories of Uber and Airbnb are intertwined tales of competition, disruption and regulatory drama, and that both companies have driven CEOs who have found tremendous success despite several early missteps. Stone calls self-driving cars an "existential crisis" for Uber, and also talks about the future of Amazon, which he wrote about in his previous book, "The Everything Store." Stone says Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos might have a business problem under President Trump, as Bezos is also the owner of The Washington Post. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Trivago co-founder and Managing Director Rolf Schrömgens talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about starting a search engine for hotels and why he thinks much larger rivals like Google are at a disadvantage. Schrömgens says he expects the distinctions among hotels, Airbnb listings and other forms of temporary housing to collapse over time, and wants Trivago to be able to recommend the one ideal place for a user to stay, regardless of category. He also discusses why Germany has not developed a Silicon Valley-like tech scene and why anti-immigrant fervor in the U.S., U.K. and parts of Europe is only hurting those countries and leaving them open to startup-style disruption. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Flipboard CEO Mike McCue talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about the recent relaunch of his company's news app, which will mixes human curation with algorithms to serve up magazine-like collections of stories. McCue reflects on why one of his first employers, Netscape, failed to look past competition with Microsoft, and why he counsels startup CEOs to focus on more than just their "exit." He also makes the case for online news consumers to value human editors and real identities, as fake news and anonymous harassment have come to define Facebook and Twitter, respectively. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

"Fun Home" author and "Dykes to Watch Out For" creator Alison Bechdel talks with Recode's Kara Swisher in front of a live audience in San Francisco shortly after a performance of the Tony Award-winning musical based on "Fun Home." Bechdel says the rise of social media after her hit book led to widespread acclaim, but also overexposure. The namesake of the "Bechdel Test," which evaluates movies based on the number and interactions of their female characters, Bechdel explains how Donald Trump motivated her to resurrect "Dykes to Watch Out For" and why she was comforted by the Women's March on Washington. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Technology journalist and former New York Times reporter John Markoff talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his nearly three-decade long career covering tech for the Times before retiring at the end of 2016. He reflects on why Steve Jobs was both a great and terrible person to interview and how science fiction books such as "Neuromancer," "Snow Crash" and "True Names" gave him a leg up on other reporters. Markoff says the most important issues facing the tech world today include the dangers of anonymity online; how scientific advances will make it easy to edit genes; and why roboticists need to focus on creating elder care robots. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Time Well Spent founder Tristan Harris talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about the persuasive techniques and tricks used by companies like Twitter, Google and Facebook to make people engage with them every day. Harris's movement wants tech companies to think more often about the ethics of their design decisions, and to value their users' attention. These design choices, Harris says, are often driven by the fundamental "background problem" of advertising, and he makes the case for an "organic food movement" for tech, where users could pay to be manipulated less. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

"The 4-Hour Workweek" and "Tools of Titans" author Tim Ferriss talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his newest book, which compiles the life advice of the "titans" from tech, business and entertainment Ferriss has interviewed on his podcast, "The Tim Ferriss Show." He explains how forays into education, neuroscience, tech entrepreneurship and dietary supplements led him to become a self-help author, and what everyday people can learn from winners like investor Chris Sacca, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and actor BJ Novak. Ferriss also talks about why "voluntary suffering" is underrated and how ditching social media may make you happier. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

U.S. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx talks to Recode's Johana Bhuiyan about his last week in office and what he would do if given more time. In addition to self-driving car and drone regulations, Foxx said he would like to see more rail projects across the country, and discusses the feasibility of Elon Musk's Hyperloop concept, a privately funded high-speed rail alternative. Foxx also discusses President-elect Donald Trump's nominee to replace him, former Deputy Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao, and why Congress needs to look closely at Trump's $1 trillion infrastructure spending plan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rent the Runway CEO and co-founder Jennifer Hyman talks with Recode's Kara Swisher and Jason Del Rey about her 50-year vision for changing consumer fashion habits. Now more than seven years old, Rent the Runway has six million female customers who rent designer clothes a la carte or three at a time via a $139 monthly subscription. Hyman also discusses the challenges she has faced as a female tech CEO, the most formidable of which emerged while building the company's culture. She says men and women alike are not taught to think of women's voices as inspirational, which makes everything from funding to laying people off more difficult. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Color Genomics co-founder and CEO Othman Laraki talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about why we're on the verge of a healthcare revolution. Laraki, whose company tests buyers' genes for certain hereditary cancers, says the future of medicine will be defined by our ability to read data from our bodies. While most of that data used to be recorded on paper and stored at hospitals, now it's largely being generated and stored on our smartphones; he predicts that to achieve truly personalized medicine, we will need artificially intelligenct software that can comb this data, changing the role of doctors in the process. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Social networking pioneer Orkut Büyükkökten talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about the eponymous social site, Orkut, which he built inside Google, and his new company, Hello. Büyükkökten says current social networks don't make it easy to meet new friends, and believes that Hello will introduce like-minded people to each other while encouraging them to be friendly and authentic. He also discusses why Orkut (the website) failed to catch on in the U.S. and why Hello is focusing initially on international markets such as Brazil and India. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Pulitzer Prize-winning author and New York Times columnist Tom Friedman talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his new book, "Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations." As technology and globalization get ever faster, Friedman says, humans should double down on the values, skills and behaviors that computers can't perform. Reacting to the rise of president-elect Trump, Friedman says "we’ve gone too far" in shaping policies to benefit people who have made poor life decisions, and calls for everyone to become more entrepreneurial. Friedman also discusses why he doesn't use Facebook or Twitter, and why the reactions of companies like Google and Facebook to fake news are "bullshit." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Reddit CEO and co-founder Steve Huffman talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about why he covertly edited the posts of some Donald Trump supporters, and why he regrets it now. Huffman acknowledges his editing, which he conceived as a prank but many users saw as censorship, sowed distrust among the Reddit community that the company will have to win back. He also talks about the how Reddit is trying to combat harassment more generally, the role social media played in the election and why he believes Donald Trump would have still beaten Hillary Clinton without any "bigotry [or] nastiness." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

AliveCor CEO Vic Gundotra talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his long career in tech, including his start as a college dropout at Microsoft and his seven years leading Google's mobile and social efforts. His current company helps consumers monitor their heart health via a portable EKG device that talks to their smartphones, and Gundotra says the potential of wearables and deep learning for healthcare is just starting to be unlocked. However, he calls the collapse of Theranos "an unmitigated disaster" for health tech, as it affects the opinions of both investors and consumers. Gundotra also discusses the Silicon Valley bubble and why he believes techies need to extend an olive branch to President-elect Trump and his supporters. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Democratic political strategist Hilary Rosen and Republican corporate consultant Juleanna Glover talk with Recode's Kara Swisher about how Donald Trump's election to the presidency will affect the tech and media industries over the next four to eight years. They discuss which elements of the tech-forward Obama presidency are likely to be unwound and the role Democrats can play despite GOP control of all three branches of government. The trio also discusses emerging political issues like self-driving vehicles and encryption, and why, for Trump, the New York Times is still more important than Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Bold Italic CEO Sunil Rajaraman talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about "This Is Your Life in Silicon Valley," a series of satirical articles that went viral earlier this year. Rajaraman set out to shine a light on some harsh truths most techies won't discuss openly, and the surprise success of his pieces has him thinking about adapting them into a book. He also discusses starting and then being ousted as CEO of content marketing firm Scripted.com and how The Bold Italic is trying to preserve local journalism in San Francisco. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tracy Kidder and Paul English, the author and subject of "A Truck Full of Money: One Man's Quest to Recover From Great Success," talk with Recode's Kara Swisher about English's dual life as a tech entrepreneur and philanthropist. English co-founded Kayak and, after selling it to Priceline, started another travel company called Lola. For Kidder, "Truck" is a return to tech several decades after his seminal book "The Soul of a New Machine." They discuss the challenges faced by entrepreneurs, the future of technologies like artificial intelligence and whether some forms of mental illness can be good for a tech CEO. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

DJ Patil, America's first Chief Data Scientist, talks about his nearly two years in the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, working on initiatives around health care and policing. Patil grew up in Silicon Valley, and has worked at Skype, LinkedIn and eBay; he says that techies in the private sector should consider a "tour of duty" in the government to be one of their civic duties. He says opening up the vast amounts of data collected by government agencies can make everyone better-off — as long as personal data like health records can be properly secured. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this special bonus episode of Recode Decode, we look back at our past guests' most insightful comments about diversity in tech and media. Interviewees including Chamath Palihapitiya, Samantha Bee and Dick Costolo explain why discrimination based on sex, age and ethnicity are so common, and what might be done to fix the problem. You can find the full interviews excerpted in this show at Recode.net/Podcasts or in the podcast feeds for Recode Decode and Recode Media. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley and CEO Jeff Glueck talk with Recode's Kara Swisher about how the location intelligence company is generating sellable data for partners like Apple, Uber and Twitter based on its users' check-ins. Glueck, who took over as CEO for Crowley in January 2015, compares the company's new business model to "Robin Hood" because it simultaneously helps small businesses and charges the big ones. The two also discuss where they'd like to see location tech go, including the idea of a talking virtual assistant — similar to Scarlett Johansson's character Samantha from the movie "Her" — that speaks to you like a friend and recommends new places to go. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Revolution Growth founder and partner Ted Leonsis talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about being a longtime executive at AOL and how the company changed dramatically when it merged with Time Warner in 2000. Leonsis says AOL correctly anticipated the social nature of the internet, but left several windows open for Google to beat it at its own game. After the merger, it had to turn its energies toward defending Time Warner's legacy businesses and missed still more opportunities. He also discusses his majority ownership of several sports teams, including the NBA's Washington Wizards and the NHL's Washington Capitals, and why he thinks Vice's cable channel Viceland is "the biggest con ever." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

"Mr. Robot" creator Sam Esmail talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his hit TV show, whose star Rami Malek recently won an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a drama. Esmail says he grew up loving both movies and technology, and was disappointed by Hollywood's seeming inability to portray hackers in TV shows and movies authentically. The secret to the success of 'Mr. Robot,' he says, is that he's more interested in the complex humanity of both the characters and the people who make technology, rather than the tech itself. He also discusses how platforms like Netflix and Amazon have shaped his line of work and explains why he's interested in working in several mediums, such as video games and virtual reality, simultaneously. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about cooperation between government and the tech industry and the new challenges of the digital economy. Secretary Pritzker says artificial intelligence will upend many jobs, but the solution is to focus on retraining workers for new industries like cybersecurity, where American companies have hundreds of thousands of open positions. She also explains the recent battle over the Commerce Department's oversight of the internet and why handing over that oversight to the international nonprofit ICANN was the best way to protect the open web. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Actor, producer and investor Ashton Kutcher talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his life as both a TV star and a tech obsessive. Kutcher, who starred in shows like "Two and a Half Men" and "That '70s Show," has invested over the past five years in companies like Uber, Airbnb and Square. But he passed on Snapchat — twice — because he hated the app's design and feared what would happen when it got hacked. He's currently starring in the Netflix sitcom "The Ranch," and says denying the rise of digital media platforms in Hollywood is like denying climate change. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jon Favreau, the actor and director known for films such as "Swingers," "Iron Man" and "The Jungle Book," talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his new efforts in virtual reality, starting with the interactive short film "Gnomes & Goblins." Favreau says that VR is a powerful artists' tool, but advances in digital filmmaking won't replace actors, or the need for fundamental storytelling skills. He hopes to use virtual reality to create powerful connections between the viewer and virtual characters, and explains how other tech trends like Netflix have changed Hollywood forever. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

James Corden, host of "The Late Late Show" on CBS and viral video star, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about redesigning a talk show for the YouTube generation, built around segments like "Carpool Karaoke." Corden has a complicated relationship with technology, and worries that the internet's appearance of freedom of choice is making us all more narrow-minded. He also chats about encounters with drones and social media bullies and why he thinks the technology industry is misleading the public by using the term "the cloud." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Cowboy Ventures founder and managing partner Aileen Lee, previously a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about being one of the few female venture capitalists in Silicon Valley. After leaving Kleiner Perkins in 2012, Lee set out to amass data about the small percentage of startups that become breakout success stories, and she coined the term "unicorn" to describe the small fraction that would be valued at more than $1 billion. She says entrepreneurs today have to be tougher now that investors' fervor has cooled off, and says those investors will have to change, too, by becoming more diverse. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tusk Holdings CEO Bradley Tusk talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his unique political consulting firm Tusk Ventures, which trades equity in companies like Uber, FanDuel and DraftKings for regulatory guidance. Tusk previously worked for former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, and explains in detail how Uber undermined the city's current mayor, Bill de Blasio, with a series of blistering attacks last year. He also talks about the tech challenges facing America's next president, including autonomous driving, drone regulation and how sharing-economy workers are classified. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this special bonus episode, Margrethe Vestager, Europe's Commissioner for Competition, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about the high-profile cases she has brought against Apple and Google for alleged unfair tax breaks and antitrust violations, respectively. Vestager says "there is a limit to everything," including the assistance successful companies should get from the government, and their access to consumers' data. She rejects President Obama's past allegation of European regulators singling out American companies, and explains why Silicon Valley should be put under the microscope. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Niantic CEO John Hanke talks with Recode's Kara Swisher and Ina Fried about the company's hit mobile game Pokémon Go and what happens now that the initial hype around it has "stabilized." Future updates to the game will include new types of Pokémon, trading with other players and possibly battling with your friends. Hanke also reflects on his first company Keyhole, which was bought by Google and became Google Earth, and why augmented reality is a more important technology than virtual reality. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Benchmark general partner Bill Gurley talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about life as a venture capitalist and why he's still worried about a bubble, a topic he has written about extensively. Great entrepreneurs could raise money at any time, Gurley argues, but when funding is easy to come by, it invites in entitled and less talented startup founders, as well as unwanted government regulation. He also discusses sitting on the board of Uber, challenges faced by its CEO, Travis Kalanick, and why the ridesharing company is unlikely to go public "any time in the near future." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices