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The Verge

Decoder is a show from The Verge about big ideas — and other problems. Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel talks to a diverse cast of innovators and policymakers at the frontiers of business and technology to reveal how they’re navigating an ever-changing landscape, what keeps them up at night, and what it all means for our shared future.

Decoder with Nilay Patel

Today, let’s talk about the big Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger. Right now, Paramount head David Ellison is very much acting like he’s over the finish line after outbidding Netflix, which walked away after what seemed like a done deal. 

Back in January, I asked Puck’s Julia Alexander to walk me through Netflix’s reasoning, and today I’m digging into Paramount’s with Rich Greenfield, a media and entertainment analyst and cofounder of research firm LightShed Partners. There’s a lot going on here, including the biggest question I’ve had throughout this entire saga: why would anyone want to buy Warner, which has basically killed every acquirer it’s had for the last quarter century?

Links: 

 David Ellison’s plan to compete with Netflix: Paramount+HBO | Rich Greenfield

 The worst acquisition in history, again | Prof G Media

 David Zaslav gets the last laugh | THR

 Warner Bros. Discovery agrees to Paramount merger | The Verge

 Tech, TV, Movies & News: Ellisons on brink of colossal empire | NYT

 Pete Hegseth says ‘the sooner David Ellison’ buys CNN, ‘the better’ | NYT

 Warner Bros CEO to pocket $887 million from Paramount deal | Reuters

Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!

Credits:

Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane. 

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Paramount's $110 billion Warner Bros. gamble

Jim Lanzone is the CEO of Yahoo. It's basically impossible to sum up Yahoo's story over the last 25 years, but the short version is that once upon a time, Yahoo paid Google to run the search box on its website, and everything immediately went sideways. Jim calls it Yahoo's original sin. 

But after a long series of mergers, spinouts, and a hot, weird minute as part of Verizon Yahoo is once again an independent, privately held company — and it's growing. But can Yahoo really take market share from Google? 

Links: 

 Yahoo sells Engadget to Static Media | The Verge

 Yahoo sells TechCrunch to Regent | The Verge

 Yahoo Finance launches crypto partnership with Coinbase | Yahoo

 Yahoo Scout looks like more web-friendly AI search | The Verge

 Yahoo Finance launches crypto deal with Polymarket | Yahoo Finance

 Yahoo resurrects Artifact inside AI-powered news app | The Verge

 Yahoo Mail adds more AI to simplify desktop email | The Verge

Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!

Credits:

Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane. 

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yahoo CEO Jim Lanzone on reviving the web's homepage

My guest today is Mike Masnick, the founder and CEO of Techdirt, the excellent and long-running tech policy blog. Mike has been writing about government overreach, privacy in the digital age, and other related topics for decades now, and he’s an expert on how the internet and the surveillance state have grown in interconnected ways over the past two decades.

I wanted to have Mike on the show to discuss the messy, fast-moving situation at Anthropic, the maker of Claude that now finds itself in a very ugly legal battle with the Pentagon. Instead of covering the daily drama, I wanted to dig in specifically on Anthropic's surveillance red line, and the important history and context around digital privacy in the U.S. that shapes how we should think about this going forward. 

Links: 

 AI bros wanted Trump — now they learn what happens when you tell him no | Techdirt

 OpenAI’s ‘red lines’ are written in the NSA’s dictionary | Techdirt

 Anthropic is suing the Department of Defense | The Verge

 Anthropic launches new think tank amid Pentagon fight | The Verge

 How OpenAI caved to the Pentagon on AI surveillance | The Verge

 Inside the backlash to the AI war machine | Platformer

 The Pentagon is violating Anthropic's First Amendment rights | FIRE

 Why the Pentagon wants to destroy Anthropic | Ezra Klein / NYT

Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!

Credits:

Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane. 

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Anthropic doesn't trust the Pentagon, and neither should you

Hasbro might be a toy company, but CEO Chris Cocks has spent the last several years pushing it more and more into the digital media, gaming, and collectibles space. That makes sense, since adults have money and kids don't. All those IP and licensing deals are working out for Hasbro so far. 

But Hasbro is also facing a lot of risk from instability: in trade and tariffs, in politics and culture, and in the video game market, which seems to be in a more or less permanent state of crisis. 

Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.

Links: 

 Chris Cocks on Decoder (2023) | The Verge

 Hasbro just made a massive ‘Harry Potter’ Announcement | Parade

 Businesses push for tariff refunds as Trump aides hint at fight | New York Times

 We’re finally seeing more of Hasbro’s forgotten space game | PC Gamer

 Xbox in is danger. Will Microsoft save it, or kill it? | Decoder

 OpenAI’s billion-dollar deal puts Mickey Mouse in Sora | The Verge

 A comprehensive timeline of JK Rowling’s descent into transphobia | Them

Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!

Credits:

Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane. 

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hasbro's CEO lets AI Peppa Pig help design toys

Today let’s talk about prediction markets, which continue to insert themselves into the news cycle and the news in increasingly weird, unsettling, and potentially illegal ways. 

My guest today is Liz Lopatto, a senior reporter at The Verge who owns what we cheerfully call the chaos beat. Liz has been writing a lot about prediction markets lately and especially why they all seem so intent on being perceived as sources of news — a position which directly incentivizes insider trading. That in turn creates a long list of very predictable problems.

Read the full interview transcript on The Verge. 

Links:

 Prediction markets want to eat the news | The Verge

 How anonymous bettors cashed In on the Iran strike | NYT

 With Iran, Kalshi & Polymarket Bet on the Depravity Economy | 404 Media

 Polymarket pulls bet on nuclear detonation in 2026 | 404 Media

 Polymarket defends betting on war as ‘invaluable’ | The Verge

 Someone made a ton of money betting on Maduro’s capture | The Verge

 Are prediction markets gambling? Robinhood CEO bets no | Decoder

 Prediction markets roll out war bets beyond Washington’s reach | Bloomberg

 Polymarket partners with Substack for some reason | The Verge

 It’s MAGA v Broligarch in the battle over prediction markets | The Verge

Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!

Credits:

Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane. 

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Prediction markets want to be the news

Today, I’m talking with Zillow CEO Jeremy Wacksman. Zillow is one of those apps that really exemplifies what you might call the smartphone era of software: the company built a great mobile app for looking at real estate listings, and it turned into not just entertainment for so many of us, but what has become a vertically-integrated platform for buying, selling, and renting real estate.

Jeremy’s argument is that the future of Zillow looks a lot like an end-to-end business platform for real estate agents, and we spent a lot of time talking about whether a business as local and as relationship driven as real estate can benefit from platform-level scale in the way he’s proposing.

Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.

Links: 

 Zillow’s new AI staging feature is impressively unimpressive | The Verge

 Zillow’s upgraded AI search will show you more homes you can’t afford | The Verge

 Zillow adds DMs so you can chat about homes you’ll never buy | The Verge

 FTC accuses Zillow of paying $100 million to ‘dismantle’ Redfin | The Verge

 Housing is frozen. Wacksman knows you’re still scrolling | NYT

 Wacksman on the US housing market | Bloomberg Talks

Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!

Credits:

Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This was edited by Xander Adams. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane. 

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Zillow's CEO on growth during a housing crisis

Today, we’re talking about the future of Xbox. Phil Spencer, a two-time Decoder guest who’s led Xbox for more than a decade, is stepping down. But in a shocking twist, his deputy long-assumed successor Sarah Bond is also out too, and the Xbox division is now in the hands of an Asha Sharma, one of Microsoft’s AI executives with no prior game industry experience.

There is no better person to talk to about all of this than Tom Warren, senior editor here at The Verge and author of the excellent Notepad newsletter. Tom is actually on parental leave right now, but Microsoft has a longstanding habit of disrupting his well-earned time off. So, Tom was gracious enough to come on the show after publishing a major scoop about what went down at Xbox this past week.

Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.

Links: 

 Inside Microsoft’s big Xbox leadership shake-up | The Verge

 Billions of dollars later and still nobody knows what an Xbox is | The Verge

 Xbox chief Phil Spencer is leaving Microsoft | The Verge

 Read Xbox chief Phil Spencer’s memo about leaving Microsoft | The Verge

 Here’s what Xbox is working on for 2026 | The Verge

 AMD hints Microsoft could launch its next-gen Xbox in 2027 | The Verge

 The next Xbox is going to be very different | The Verge

 Xbox co-founder believes it’s being ‘sunsetted’ in favor of AI | VGC

Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!

Credits:

Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane. 
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Inside Xbox's executive shakeup

Today, I’m talking with Hank Green, a longtime friend of Decoder and the co-founder and now former owner of Complexly, an online education company he started with his brother John in 2012. I say former owner because Hank and John have just converted Complexly into a nonprofit and given up their ownership of the company in the process.

That’s some of the purest Decoder bait that ever was, because it’s all about how you structure a company and how you make decisions about changing that structure. So of course I had to bring Hank back on to talk all about it.

Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.

Links: 

 Greens’ studio becomes nonprofit as they aim to make ‘trustworthy content’ | AP

 Hank Green makes Nilay Patel explain why websites have a future | Decoder (2024)

 Why Hank Green can’t quit YouTube for TikTok | Decoder (2022)

 Hank Green and Sam Reich on running content companies | Decoder

 Hank Green and Sal Khan on AI in educational video | Decoder

Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!

Credits:

Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane. 

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hank Green lets loose on YouTube, billionaires, and algorithms

Today we're talking about the war for AI talent. Right now, the hottest job market on the planet is for AI researchers. And the vast majority of these people are concentrated into a small number of hugely valuable, extremely fast-growing companies in the San Francisco Bay Area, most of which are now paying some of the highest salaries in the history of tech to poach from one another.

We’ve been dying to really dig in and try to unpack what's going on with all these talent moves in AI. So we brought on Verge senior AI reporter Hayden Field, who's been covering the revolving door of the AI industry really closely and also the broader culture that's motivating workers to jump ship. 

Links: 

 What’s behind the mass exodus at xAI? | The Verge

 OpenClaw founder Peter Steinberger is joining OpenAI | The Verge

 Two more xAI co-founders leave after the SpaceX merger | The Verge

 AI safety leader says 'world is in peril' and quits to study poetry | BBC

 OpenAI is making the mistakes Facebook made. I quit. | NYT

 Anthropic’s chief on AI: ‘We don’t know if the models are conscious’ | NYT

 Meet the one woman Anthropic trusts to teach AI morals | WSJ

 OpenAI plans fourth-quarter IPO in race to beat Anthropic to market | WSJ

Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!

Credits:

Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane. 

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Money no longer matters to AI's top talent

Today, we're talking about the camera company Ring, lost dogs, and the surveillance state. Since it aired for a massive audience at the Super Bowl, Ring’s Search Party commercial has become a lightning rod for controversy. It’s easy to see how the same technology that can find lost dogs can be used to find people, and then used to invade our privacy in all kinds of uncomfortable ways, by cops and regular people alike. 

Although Ring has since canceled its partnership with controversial surveillance company Flock, the company is now facing hard questions about its plans to use AI to promote safer neighborhoods, and how that intersects with its ongoing relationship with law enforcement. 

Links: 

 Ring cancels partnership with Flock after surveillance backlash | The Verge 

 Ring’s lost dog ad sparks backlash amid fears of surveillance | The Verge

 Ring says it’s not giving ICE access to its cameras | The Verge

 How police recovered Nancy Guthrie’s Nest Doorbell footage | The Verge

 Ring’s Jamie Siminoff thinks AI can reduce crime | Decoder

 Ring CEO says cameras can almost ‘zero out crime’ within 12 months | The Verge

 ICE taps into nationwide AI camera network, data shows | 404 Media

 ICE, Secret Service had access to Flock's camera network | 404 Media

Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!

Credits:

Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane. 

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Paramount's $110 billion Warner Bros. gamble

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