Decoder with Nilay Patel

Joanna Stern, former Wall Street Journal personal tech columnist and Verge co-founder, reflects on a year living with AI and launching New Things. She talks about using AI agents to run a media business, privacy tradeoffs of wearables and always-on recording, the data needs of robots, and the emotional risks of AI relationships.

Adam Dubé, a McGill learning sciences professor who studies AI and education, dives into the chaos of AI in schools. He explores why digital natives are a myth. Why chatbots can feel helpful while being wrong. How students actually use AI for brainstorming, editing, and summaries. And why school policies, grading, and cheating debates are all colliding.

Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber CEO and former Expedia chief, talks about turning Uber into an everything app for travel. He gets into hotel bookings, personal shopping, and why planning ahead matters. The conversation also covers AI agents, coding tools inside Uber, rising token costs, and the company’s sprawling robotaxi strategy.

A lively mailbag digs into backlash around tough CEO interviews, the line between intensity and anger, and why powerful executives should still face hard questions. It also gets into shaky consumer AI, rising enterprise demand, big claims that need proof, evasive interviews that fall apart, and dream future conversations.

Jennifer Scanlon, CEO of UL Solutions, leads the century-old safety certification company behind the familiar UL mark. She gets into exploding batteries, e-bike laws, and why standards still shape what reaches stores. The conversation also explores fake certifications, software and AI safety, data center risks, and whether trust can survive in a fast-moving tech market.

A sharp dive into “software brain” and why AI hype keeps crashing into public backlash. It explores how tech keeps turning life into databases, loops, and automation. There’s tension between code-like systems and messy human judgment, plus a look at why business workflows fit AI far better than real life.

Melanie Perkins, Canva co-founder and CEO, joins for a sharp look at Canva’s shift from design app to AI workplace platform. She talks concept editing, prompt-powered creation, layered outputs, enterprise pricing, and why Canva wants to be the visual hub for work. There’s also plenty on rivals like Adobe, Anthropic, and Meta, plus how her team is reorganizing around AI.

Ronan Farrow, investigative journalist and New Yorker writer behind major accountability reporting, digs into Sam Altman’s credibility and the culture around OpenAI. He talks about how his reporting came together. They explore founder mythology, AI safety politics, AGI hype, investor pressure, Silicon Valley silence, and why oversight keeps falling short.

Sarah Personette, CEO of Puck and former Facebook and Twitter executive, talks about building a media company around star journalists. The conversation digs into trust in news, creator-style incentives versus newsroom traditions, subscriber growth, the Airmail acquisition, equity and pay, platform dependence, and why AI, Washington coverage, events, and video are next.

Hayden Field, a senior AI reporter covering OpenAI and Anthropic, digs into AI’s scramble for real profits. She gets into IPO pressure, why OpenAI pulled back on Sora, Anthropic’s tighter Claude strategy, the shift toward enterprise coding, soaring compute costs, executive turmoil, and how public skepticism could shape what survives.