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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

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

This is Sarah Jeong, features editor at The Verge. I’m standing in for Nilay for one final Thursday episode here as he settles back into full-time hosting duties. Today, we’ve got a fun one. I’m talking to Cory Doctorow, prolific author, internet activist, and arguably one of the fiercest tech critics writing today. 

He has a new book out called Enshittifcation: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It. So I sat down with Cory to discuss what enshittification is, why it’s happening, and how we might fight it. 

Links: 

 Enshittification | Macmillan

 Why every website you used to love is getting worse | Vox

 The age of Enshittification | The New Yorker

 Yes, everything online sucks now — but it doesn’t have to | Ars Technica

 The enshittification of garage-door openers reveals vast, deadly rot | Cory Doctorow

 Mark Zuckerberg emails outline plan to neutralize competitors | The Verge

 Google gets to keep Chrome, judge rules in antitrust case | The Verge

 How Amazon wins: by steamrolling rivals and partners | WSJ

 A new web DRM standard has security researchers worried | The Verge

 Netflix, Microsoft & Google just changed how the web works | The Outline

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 Silicon Valley enshittified the internet

LexisNexis is one of the most important companies in the entire legal system. For ages it's been where you went to look up case law and do legal research. There isn’t a lawyer today who hasn’t used it — it’s fundamental infrastructure for the legal profession, just like email or a word processor.

But in 2025, apparently nobody can resist the siren call of AI, and LexisNexis is no different. The first word Sean said to describe LexisNexis wasn’t “law” or “data,” it was “AI.” And I had questions, because so far AI has created just as much chaos and slop in the courts as anywhere else.

Read the full transcript on The Verge.

Links: 

 Errors found in judge’s withdrawn decision stink of AI | The Verge

 Why do lawyers keep using ChatGPT? | The Verge

 Conservative judge says AI could strengthen originalist movement | Reuters

 LexisNexis CEO says it’s ‘a matter of time’ before attorney loses a license | Fortune

 Two companies ruled legal tech for decades. AI is blowing that open | BI

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

LexisNexis CEO says the AI law era is already here

Today’s guests are General Motors CEO Mary Barra and new GM Chief Product Officer Sterling Anderson. There’s a lot of big news the company just announced, including a Google Gemini-powered AI assistant that's coming to new cars and an entirely new hardware and software platform coming to the Escalade IQ in 2028 alongside true Level 3 autonomous driving. 

So I asked Mary about all of that and how she's navigating the current moment, and her company's relationship with the Trump administration. I also got into the details on GM’s platform with Sterling, including its decision to ditch Apple CarPlay on its EVs and what all this looks like in the future as AI voice assistants and more capable autonomy come into the mix.

Read the full transcript on The Verge. 

Links: 

 GM says hands-free, eyes-off driving is coming to Escalade IQ | The Verge

 GM takes a $1.6 billion hit on EVs | ⁠The Verge

 GM software boss on ditching CarPlay | Decoder

 Ford CEO on China, tariffs, and the quest for a $30,000 EV | Decoder

 The EV tax credit is gone — now the hard part begins | Decoder

 GM blocks dealership from installing CarPlay retrofit kits in EVs | The Verge

 Everybody hates GM’s decision to kill Apple CarPlay | The Verge

 GM hires ex-Tesla, Aurora exec as chief product officer | CNBC

 Cruise’s robotaxi service will shut down as GM pulls its funding | The Verge

 Newsom names GM’s Mary Barra as villain in fight with feds | Streetlight CA

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

Why GM will give you Gemini — but not CarPlay

Juul became a sensation — and a sensationally dramatic story.
Lauren Etter, author of The Devil's Playbook: Big Tobacco, JUUL, and the Addiction of a New Generation, joins us to explain how a tech startup founded in a Stanford design studio to disrupt the smoking industry upended years of tobacco regulation in the United States, got a new generation of teenagers addicted to nicotine after years of declining teen smoking rates, and eventually found itself valued at 38 billion.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Juul and the business of addiction, with Lauren Etter

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