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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

Hello, and welcome to Decoder! This is Senior Producer Nick Statt. We’re on a small break for the end of summer, and, sadly, Nilay will still be out a little while longer when we come back. But we have an excellent slate of guest host episodes starting up next month, so stay tuned for those. 

In the meantime, we wanted to bring back one of our favorite Decoder interviews from earlier this year. It’s with Bookshop CEO Andy Hunter, who back in January launched a pretty bold ebook initiative to take on Amazon and Kindle. It’s been about seven months, but Bookshop has seen big results, including more than $1 million in ebook sales. So we thought it was a good time to revisit our conversation with Andy. 

Links: 

 
Bookshop.org reports 65% growth, e-books add $1 Million in sales | Publishers Weekly

 
Bookshop CEO Andy Hunter’s crusade to save books from Amazon | Decoder

 
Bookshop.org is launching an ebook store to take on Amazon | Verge

Credits:

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

Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright. 

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

Rewind: Bookshop CEO's crusade to save books from Amazon

Hello! Decoder senior producer Kate Cox here. I’m afraid I’m still not Nilay, but I hope you’ve been enjoying our series of guest hosts this summer while he’s out on parental leave. We have a few more really great guest episodes coming up, before Nilay returns to the host chair later this fall, so stay tuned.

The production team is taking our own break this week, so while we’re off we’re excited to share this episode of The Gray Area with you. Students all over the country — including my own kids, thank goodness — are back in school right around now, and so we thought it would be a perfect time to revisit host Sean Illing talking with journalist James Walsh about how AI tools like ChatGPT have kicked off a new cheating arms race that’s proving extremely disruptive to college education. 

There are a lot of big Decoder ideas — and problems — wrapped up in all this. Okay, The Gray Area, with Sean Illing. Enjoy. 

Links: 

 If AI can do your classwork, why go to college? | The Gray Area

 Everyone Is cheating their way through college | New York Magazine

 How to get students to stop using AI | Verge

 I used the ‘cheat on everything’ AI tool and it didn’t help me cheat on anything | Verge

 Inside the frat-bro startup that wants you to ‘cheat on everything' | SF Standard

 A new headache for honest students: proving they didn’t use AI | NYT

Credits:

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

Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright. 

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

Is ChatGPT killing higher education?

This is Alex Heath, your Thursday episode guest host and deputy editor at The Verge. One of the biggest topics in AI these days is agents — the idea that AI is going to move from chatbots to reliably completing tasks for us in the real world. But the problem with agents is that they really aren’t all that reliable right now. 

There’s a lot of work happening in the AI industry to try and fix that, and that brings me to my guest today: David Luan, the head of Amazon’s AGI research lab, a cofounder of Adept, and a former VP of engineering at OpenAI. David and I discussed the release of GPT-5, what Amazon wants with agents, and where he thinks the AI race is headed next.

Read the full transcript on The Verge.

Links: 

 The Platonic Representation Hypothesis | Phillip Isola

 Amazon plays catch-up with new Nova models to generate voices, video | Verge

 Amazon’s new AI agent is designed to do your shopping | Verge

 Microsoft is racing to build an AI ‘agent factory’ | Verge

 OpenAI’s new ChatGPT Agent can control an entire computer | Verge 

 24 hours with Alexa Plus: we cooked, we chatted, and it kinda lied to me | Verge

 Why AI researchers are getting paid like NBA All-Stars | Decoder

 OpenAI’s Windsurf deal is off — and Windsurf’s CEO is going to Google | Verge

 This is Big Tech’s playbook for swallowing the AI industry | Command Line

 Amazon hires founders away from AI startup Adept | TechCrunch

Credits:

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

Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright. 

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

Amazon is betting on agents to win the AI race

Obsidian is a note-taking and productivity app that occupies the same "second brain" space as competitors like Notion — but in a lot of ways, it's also startlingly different. Obsidian's files are Markdown-based, stored locally on your own devices, and completely free to use. 

Steph Ango, the CEO, is also different in a lot of ways: He's not an Obsidian founder, but instead came to the role from being basically a member of the fan development community. His take on software, productivity, and business is refreshingly old-fashioned in a lot of good ways, while he's also leading a very 21st century startup. 

Read the full transcript on The Verge.

Links: 

 I’m joining Obsidian as CEO | Obsidian Blog

 About Obsidian (Manifesto) | Obsidian

 Narvar acquires Lumi (2021) | Narvar 

 After 15 years whipping the llama’s ass, Winamp shuts down | TechCrunch

 Notion’s Ivan Zhao wants you to demand better from your tools | Decoder

 Book Review: “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running” | National Geographic

Credits:

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

Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt; our editor is Ursa Wright. 

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

How the head of Obsidian went from superfan to CEO

This is Alex Heath, your Thursday episode guest host and deputy editor at The Verge. Today, I’m talking to a very special guest: Nick Turley, OpenAI’s head of ChatGPT. 

While Sam Altman is definitely the public face of OpenAI, Nick has been leading ChatGPT’s development since the very beginning, and it’s now the fastest-growing software product of all time with more than 700 million weekly users. So, Nick and I talk about the backlash against OpenAI’s removal of its GPT-4o model, the future of ChatGPT itself, solving hallucinations, and why he thinks it eventually won’t look like a chatbot at all. 

Read the full transcript on The Verge.

Links: 

 ChatGPT won’t remove old models without warning after GPT-5 backlash | Verge

 ChatGPT is bringing back 4o as an option because people missed it | Verge

 GPT-5 is being released to all ChatGPT users | Verge

 The 6 biggest changes coming to ChatGPT | Verge

 ChatGPT has 20 million paying subscribers | Verge

 Elon Musk says he’s suing Apple for rigging App Store rankings | Verge

 OpenAI’s ChatGPT to hit 700 million weekly users | CNBC

 Chatbots can go into a delusional spiral. Here’s how it happens | NYT

 ChatGPT gave instructions for murder, self-mutilation, and devil worship | The Atlantic

 ‘I feel like I’m going crazy’: ChatGPT fuels delusional spirals | WSJ

Credits:

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

Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Xander Adams.

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

ChatGPT chief Nick Turley doesn't want you too attached to AI

This is Casey Newton, founder and editor of Platformer and cohost of the Hard Fork podcast. This is the second episode of my productivity-focused Decoder series I’m doing while Nilay is out on parental leave. 

Today, I’m talking with Notion cofounder and CEO Ivan Zhao. I’ve followed Notion for quite some time now — I’m a big fan, and I use Notion as part of my workflow with Platformer. So I was very excited to get Ivan on the show to discuss his philosophy on productivity, how he’s grown his company over the last decade, and where he sees the space going in the future. 

Read the full interview transcript on The Verge. 

Links: 

 Introducing Notion AI for Work | Notion

 Notion Mail is a minimalist but powerful take on email | Verge

 Notion’s new Q&A feature lets you ask an AI about your notes | Verge

 Notion takes on AI notetakers with its own transcription feature | TechCrunch

 The impossible dream of good workplace software | Decoder

 When AI has better taste than you | Julie Zhuo / The Looking Glass

Credits:

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

Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was editor by Xander Adams. 

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

Notion's CEO wants you to demand better from your tools

This is Alex Heath, deputy editor at The Verge. My guest today is GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke. In many ways, GitHub Copilot set off the current AI coding boom. But since Thomas was on the show a year ago, the rise of vibe coding has shifted the buzz to newer platforms like Cursor and Windsurf. As you’ll hear in our conversation, Thomas is thinking a lot about the competition, and GitHub’s role in the future of software development. 

Links: 

 Developers, Reinvented | Thomas Dohmke / GitHub

 Developer Odyssey | Thomas Dohmke / GitHub

 Why tech is racing to adopt AI coding, with Cursor’s Michael Truell | Decoder

 GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke says AI needs competition to thrive | ⁠⁠Decoder⁠⁠

 Up to 30 percent of some Microsoft code is now written by AI | Verge

 GitHub launches its AI app-making tool in preview | Verge

 Microsoft is getting ready for GPT-5 with a new Copilot smart mode | Verge

 Zuckerberg: AI will write most Meta code within 18 months | Engadget

Credits:

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

Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Xander Adams. 

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

GitHub's CEO says AI coding is ‘here to stay’

This is Casey Newton, founder and editor of the Platformer newsletter and cohost of the Hard Fork podcast. I’ll be guest hosting the next few episodes of Decoder while Nilay is out on parental leave. For the next three weeks, I’ll be talking to leaders in the productivity space about what they’re building, and how they can help us get things done. 

My guest today: Michael Truell, the CEO of Anysphere, the maker of automated programming platform Cursor AI. I sat down with Michael to talk about his product and how it works, why coding with AI has seen such incredible adoption, and what the future of automated programming really looks like. 

Read the full transcript on The Verge.

Links: 

 Anysphere, hailed as fastest growing startup ever, raises $900 Million | Bloomberg

 AI coding assistant Cursor draws a million users without even trying | Bloomberg

 Anthropic rehires AI leaders from Anysphere | The Information

 Cursor apologizes for unclear pricing changes that upset users | TechCrunch

 OpenAI looked at buying Cursor creator before turning to rival Windsurf | CNBC

 Interview with Anysphere CEO Michael Truell about coding with AI | Stratechery

Credits:

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

Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright. 

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

Why tech is racing to adopt AI coding

This is Alex Heath, your Thursday episode guest host and deputy editor at The Verge. Today I'm joined by Hayden Field, The Verge’s new senior AI reporter to talk about the AI talent wars and why some researchers are suddenly getting traded like their NBA superstars.

Both Hayden and I have been reporting on this for the past several weeks to get a sense of much these companies are paying for top talent, why Big Tech firms like Google are opting to hire instead of acquire, and what it means that some of the most sought-after AI experts in the world are no longer motivated by money alone. 

Links: 

 OpenAI’s Windsurf deal is off — and Windsurf’s CEO is going to Google | Verge

 Mark Zuckerberg promises you can trust him with superintelligent AI | Verge

 Meta is trying to win the AI race with money — but not everyone can be bought | Verge

 Meta says it’s winning the talent war with OpenAI | Command Line

 Google gets its swag back | Command Line

 The AI talent wars are just getting started | Command Line

 Meta tried to buy Safe Superintelligence, hired its CEO instead | CNBC

 Apple loses top AI models executive to Meta’s hiring spree | Bloomberg

 Meta’s AI recruiting campaign finds a new target | Wired

 Anthropic hires back two AI leaders from Anysphere | The Information

Credits:

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

Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright. 

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

Why AI researchers are getting paid like NBA All-Stars

This is CNBC journalist Jon Fortt. This is the last episode I’ll be guest-hosting for Nilay while he’s out on parental leave. My guest today is Richard Robinson, who is the cofounder and CEO of legal tech startup Robin AI. 

Richard is a corporate lawyer-turned-startup founder working on AI tools for the legal profession. But law and AI have not mixed well. So I wanted to ask Richard about hallucinations, how lawyers can use AI today, and what it will really take to place our trust in an AI lawyer. 

Read the full transcript on The Verge. 

Links: 

 Legal tech startup Robin AI raises another $25 million | Fortune

 Why do lawyers keep using ChatGPT? | Verge

 Judge slams lawyers for ‘bogus AI-generated research’ | Verge

 Lawyers using AI must heed ethics rules, ABA says in first formal guidance | Reuters

 Lawyers fined for submitting bogus case law created by ChatGPT | AP

 The ChatGPT lawyer explains himself | NYT

Credits:

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

Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright. 

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

Can we ever trust an AI lawyer?

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

Recode Decode: Jennifer Hyman, CEO, Rent the Runway

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