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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, I’m talking with Willem Avé, who’s the head of product at Square. You know Square — it was started by billionaire Jack Dorsey of Twitter fame more than 15 years ago, and it got big on the back of that little magnetic reader that once plugged into the headphone jack of the iPhone and let small businesses accept credit cards.

Nowadays, of course, Square is more than a credit card reader, and sadly, the headphone jack is ancient history. The company itself is now part of parent organization called Block, which is made up of a very interesting mix of financial services like Afterpay, Cash App, and, yes, the streaming music service Tidal. So Willem and I really got into where Square is headed next with AI and automation, why he’s excited about crypto and Bitcoin specifically, and even what it means that the US is discontinuing the penny. 

Links: 

 Square’s public roadmap | Square

 Jack Dorsey is reorganizing the entirety of Block | Fortune

 How Block turned Square into a financial services giant | Fast Company

 Block to roll out bitcoin payments on Square | Square

 Square buys $170 million worth of bitcoin | CNBC

 Square, Jack Dorsey’s payments company, changes its name to Block | NYT

 The penny dies at 232 | 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

Square's product chief on the death of the penny and the future of money

Today, I’m talking with Verge senior AI reporter Hayden Field about some of the people responsible for studying AI and deciding in what ways it might… well, ruin the world. Those folks work at Anthropic as part of a group called the societal impacts team, which Hayden just spent time with for a profile she published this week on The Verge. 

The team is just nine people out of more than 2,000 who work at Anthropic, and their only job, as the team members themselves say, is to investigate and publish quote "inconvenient truths” about AI. That of course brings up a whole host of problems, the most important of which is whether this team can remain independent, or even exist at all, as it publicizes findings about Anthropic's own products that might be unflattering or even politically fraught. 

Links: 

 It’s their job to keep AI from destroying everything | The Verge

 Anthropic details how it measures Claude’s wokeness | The Verge

 White House orders tech companies to make AI bigoted again | The Verge

 Chaos and lies: Why Sam Altman was booted from OpenAI | The Verge

 How Elon Musk Is remaking Grok in his image | NYT

 Anthropic tries to defuse White House backlash | Axios 

 New AI battle: White House vs. Anthropic | Axios

 Anthropic will pursue gulf state investments after all | Wired

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

The tiny team trying to keep AI from destroying everything

IBM was instrumental to the entire 20th century of computing — but it's a lot harder for most of us to see what it's been up to during this century. That's because it's fully an enterprise company, and CEO Arvind Krishna says that business is booming.

But there’s a huge change coming to that business as well, as Watson-style deep learning has given way to LLMs and generative AI. Sure, Arvind says IBM got there a little too early. But he doesn’t seem concerned that IBM would be stuck on the sidelines. 

Read the full interview transcript on The Verge. 

Links: 

 Computer wins on ‘Jeopardy!’: Trivial, it’s not | New York Times (2011)

 What Ever Happened to IBM’s Watson? | New York Times (2021)

 America Forgot About IBM Watson. Is ChatGPT Next? | The Atlantic

 IBM acquires Red Hat | The Verge

 IBM and Groq Partner to Accelerate Enterprise AI Deployment | IBM

 IBM’s Jerry Chow on the future of quantum computing | Decoder

 IBM: quantum computing partnership with AMD is bearing fruit | 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.

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

IBM CEO Arvind Krishna says there is no AI bubble after all

Hey everyone, it's Nilay. It’s been great being back in the Decoder chair this fall, and we’ve got a bunch of great episodes coming up to round out the year. But the production team is off this week for the holiday, so today, we’re going to share this episode of The Gray Area with you. 

This time, host Sean Illing is talking to data scientist Hannah Ritchie — about climate science and how although the crisis is definitely real, it’s not all bad news. There are actually a lot of great indicators out there in the data that show real progress in limiting emissions and boosting clean energy. It’s a nuanced, hopeful take at a time when, admittedly, it kind of feels like all the news about everything is pretty doom and gloom.

Links: 

 We can have growth while fighting climate change | Vox

 The Grey Area | Apple Podcasts

 Clearing the Air | Hannah Ritchie

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.

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

What the climate story gets wrong

Okay, let’s talk about AI and what I’ve been calling the “DoorDash problem.” This is about to define the next battle in AI, and it might completely transform not only how you order a sandwich, but also how the entire internet economy works in general.

If you’ve been listening to the show this past year, you’ve heard me bring up the Doordash problem nearly a dozen times. I’ve been asking CEOs and leaders in tech and AI about it any chance I can get. Now, a lawsuit between Amazon and Perplexity is bringing this exact issue to the forefront, kicking off a major AI browser fight that could define the future of agents and the web itself. 

Links: 

 Amazon and Perplexity have kicked off the great AI web browser fight | The Verge

 Amazon sues to stop Perplexity from using AI tool to buy stuff | Bloomberg

 Amazon's Cease and Desist letter to Perplexity | Amazon

 Bullying Is not innovation | Perplexity

 Amazon gets hit by a Comet | Platformer

 Humans Only! Why Amazon doesn’t want AI shoppers | NY Mag

 Amazon vs Perplexity: the AI agent war has arrived | The Guardian

 Amazon ad revenue soars 24 percent to $17.7 billion | THR

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

The DoorDash Problem: How AI browsers are a huge threat to Amazon

Jamie Simonoff, founder of Ring, won't let me call him the CEO. He says his title is and always has been 'chief inventor.' His mission with Ring is to make the world safer, and he has a pretty expansive view of what that means. He told The Verge last month he thought Ring could 'almost zero out crime' in some neighborhoods within a year or two.

That's a big promise — and also potentially a very troubling one, as we face the erosion of privacy and a surveillance panopticon that only ever seems to expand.

Read the full interview transcript on The Verge. 

Links: 

 Ring CEO: Cameras can almost ‘zero out crime’ within 12 months | The Verge

 Ring plans to scan everyone’s face at the door | The Washington Post

 Ring’s Search Party is on by default; should you opt out? | The Verge

 Ring now works with video surveillance company Flock | The Verge

 US spy agencies getting a one-stop shop to buy personal data | The Intercept

 Do Video Doorbells Really Prevent Crime? | Scientific American

 
Ding Dong: How Ring went from Shark Tank Reject to Everyone’s Front Door | Amazon

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.

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

Ring's Jamie Siminoff thinks AI can reduce crime

So a lot of people think AI is a bubble. So we sent Verge senior reporter Liz Lopatto out to report on the AI bubble — whether it's real, how it might pop, and what all of this means. She’s joining the show today to talk about a particular company that sits right in the middle of all of it. That company is called CoreWeave, and Liz has spent considerable time diving into its history, its financials, and the truly fascinating story that all of that tells us about the modern AI boom.

Links: 

 CoreWeave CEO plays down concerns about AI-spending bubble | WSJ

 Why debt funding is ratcheting up the risks of the AI boom | NYT

 Inside the data centers that train AI and drain the electrical grid | The New Yorker

 How a crypto miner transformed Into the multibillion-dollar backbone of AI | Wired

 CoreWeave signs $14 billion AI infrastructure deal with Meta | Reuters

 CoreWeave, Nvidia sign $6.3 billion cloud computing capacity order | Reuters

 Nvidia turned CoreWeave into major player in AI years before saving its IPO | CNBC

 CoreWeave inks $6.5 billion deal with OpenAI | CNBC

 ‘Project Osprey:’ How Nvidia seeded CoreWeave’s rise | The Information

 For this startup, Nvidia GPUs are currency | 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

The company at the heart of the AI bubble

Today, I’m talking with a very special guest: Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web. Tim is a legend in the history of the internet. He created HTML and HTTP. It doesn’t really get more foundational than that — Tim was there at the very very beginning of the modern internet.

He also has a new memoir out called This Is For Everyone: The Unfinished Story of the World Wide Web. So Tim joined the show to talk about the state of the web, as well as his current work at the decentralization startup Inrupt, and, of course, where AI fits into the conversation. 

Read the full interview on The Verge. 

Links: 

 This Is For Everyone | Macmillan

 The Semantic Web | W3C

 Tim Berners-Lee invented the web, now wants to save it | The New Yorker

 Why I gave the world wide web away for free | The Guardian

 Amazon, Perplexity kick off the great AI web browser fight | The Verge

 Web War III | The Verge

 Google admits the open web is in ‘rapid decline’ | The Verge

 Cloudflare will now block AI crawlers by default | 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

Sir Tim Berners-Lee doesn’t think AI will destroy the web

We keep hearing over and over that generative AI is causing massive problems in education, both in K-12 schools and at the college level. Lots of people are worried about students using ChatGPT to cheat on assignments, and that is a problem. But really, the issues go a lot deeper, to the very philosophy of education itself.

We sat down and talked to a lot of teachers — you’ll hear many of their voices throughout this episode — and we kept hearing one cri du coeur again and again: What are we even doing here? What’s the point?

Links: 

 Majority of high school students use gen AI for schoolwork | College Board

 Quarter of teens have used ChatGPT for schoolwork | Pew Research

 Your brain on ChatGPT | MIT Media Lab

 My students think it’s fine to cheat with AI. Maybe they’re on to something. | Vox

 How children understand & learn from conversational AI | McGill University

 ‘File not Found’ | 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.

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 AI is fueling an existential crisis in education

David Risher was on Lyft's board for years, but only stepped in as CEO in 2023, to help turn the company around. He's done pretty well so far, but there are still a lot of open questions for him to face. It's not just competition for riders and drivers Lyft has to deal with; it’s the future of transportation itself, and new AI tools that might take apps like Lyft out of the equation entirely.

Links: 

 Lyft’s first ‘robotaxis’ are live in Atlanta | The Verge

 Tensor robocar will be “Lyft ready” out of the factory | Engadget

 Congrats, Lyft | The Verge

 Lyft’s AI assistant offers drivers advice on how to make money | The Verge

 Lyft gets toehold in Europe with FreeNow acquisition | The Verge

 Lyft co-founders to step down as company struggles | New York Times

 How Silicon Valley enshittified the internet | 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.

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

Lyft CEO David Risher on paying drivers more and the shift to robotaxis

Pearson CEO John Fallon talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about why the company is pivoting from print to digital textbooks.
In this episode: 
Fallon’s background; the publishing industry’s slow-motion embrace of the internet; “the $300 textbook is dead”; how Pearson will make money from a cheaper digital textbook; competing with well-funded education startups; how Pearson’s Aida will grade calculus problems and, one day, essays; why teachers won’t be made obsolete; how the school of the future will be informed by the skills needed in the job market; why do students still need to physically go somewhere to learn?; how Pearson thinks about its competition; working with tech companies like Amazon and Microsoft; and the state of democracy in Boris Johnson's UK.
Follow us
Kara Swisher (@karaswisher), host
John Fallon (@johnfallon), guest
Erica Anderson (@EricaAmerica), executive producer
Eric Johnson (@HeyHeyESJ), producer
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Recode Decode: Pearson CEO John Fallon

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