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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

This is Alex Heath. For my final episode as your Thursday episode guest host, I recently sat down with Bret Taylor, the CEO of AI startup Sierra and the chairman of OpenAI, for a live event in San Francisco hosted by Alix Partners. 

Bret has worked at Google, Facebook, and Salesforce in high-level, executive roles, and he led Twitter’s board during Elon Musk’s takeover, so very few people have seen the tech industry up close like Bret has. Now, he’s all in on AI. We covered a lot of ground in this conversation, and I hope you find Bret’s perspective as fascinating as I did.

Links:

 Ex-Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor’s Sierra is the latest $10 billion AI startup | CNBC

 I talked to Sam Altman about the GPT-5 launch fiasco | Verge

 Sam Altman says ‘yes,’ AI is in a bubble | Verge

 MIT study on AI profits rattles tech investors | Axios

 GPT-5 Pro can prove new, interesting mathematics | Sebastien Bubeck

 AI chatbots are ready to talk to customers. Sort of. | WSJ

 How is AI different than other technology waves? | Acquired Podcast

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

Sierra CEO Bret Taylor on why the AI bubble feels like the dotcom boom

This is Hank Green, cofounder of Complexly. You might remember last year when I turned the tables on Nilay and interviewed him on his own show. That was a ton of fun, and it was so much fun that they’ve brought me back again. This time, I’m stepping in for Nilay to host the next few Decoder episodes while he’s out on parental leave. 

Today, I’m talking with a very special guest: Sal Khan, the founder and CEO of Khan Academy. Sal was actually Nilay’s second-ever guest on Decoder, back in 2020. And well, a whole lot has changed since then. So I wanted to have Sal back on to ask what it’s like running Khan Academy today, in the aftermath of the pandemic. But also how online learning is about to change, in really dramatic ways, due to artificial intelligence. 

Links: 

 Sal Khan on A.I.'s promise and its risks | NBC News (YouTube)

 The best-case scenario for AI in schools | BBC News

 Meet Khanmigo: the student tutor AI being tested in schools | 60 Minutes| 60 Minutes

 Remote learning is here to stay — can we make it better? | Decoder

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

 In classrooms, teachers put AI tutoring bots to the test | NYT

 Elite colleges have found a new virtue for applicants to fake | NYT

 Everyone Is cheating their way through college | New York Magazine

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

Sal Khan is hopeful that AI won't destroy education

Despite being one of the most valuable companies in the world, OpenAI is still technically a nonprofit. That’s what set the stage for the dramatic board coup in 2023 that briefly ousted Sam Altman as CEO. And now, OpenAI is trying to shake this nonprofit structure so it can raise even more money and, eventually, go public. There’s a lot at stake here, and not just for OpenAI.

Links: 

 OpenAI abandons plans to become a for-profit company | Verge

 Why California’s AG must continue investigation into OpenAI | CalMatters

 An open letter to OpenAI | EyesOnOpenAI

 OpenAI eyes $50B valuation in potential employee share sale | Reuters

 OpenAI thinks its critics are funded by billionaires | San Francisco Standard

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

The quest to keep OpenAI honest

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’

Patagonia CEO Rose Marcario talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about why her company is suing President Donald Trump, and why she is publicly insulting Silicon Valley executives, calling them “weenies” and “pathetic.” Marcario suggests that it’s unpatriotic for execs like Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to remain silent on Russian meddling on its platform for so long after the 2016 U.S. election. She also calls out Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey for inaction on bots, and Google co-founder Larry Page for not putting his immense wealth toward fixing the web. Later in the podcast, Marcario explains why capitalism “needs to change and evolve”: Companies that obsess over quarterly results for Wall Street will “destroy the planet.” Plus: Should women try to change tech firms from within, or start their own companies?
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Recode Decode: Patagonia CEO Rose Marcario

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