Comedian Bo Burnham talks about his new movie "Eighth Grade" with Recode's Peter Kafka. Burnham says that although the movie's characters are depicted facing issues shared by real eighth graders, he wrote "Eighth Grade" to reflect how he feels now, as a 27-year-old in the public eye, and "how I handle anxiety" in the social media age. He also talks about how he accidentally became a teenage YouTube star and why he has veered away from stand-up conventions in his comedy specials "What" and "Make Happy."

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Writer and filmmaker Brian Koppelman talks with Recode's Peter Kafka about co-creating the hit Showtime series "Billions." Koppelman has made a habit of engaging with the show's fans online, but says that when he's writing new episodes, he has to completely unplug from the rest of the world and not think about how Twitter will react to the latest twists and turns. He also talks about the show's intense commitment to detail, including its frequent visits to real-life New York restaurants, and whether he thinks the viewers of "Billions" are watching for the characters or for "wealth porn." Plus: How Koppelman accidentally became a Vine star and why Wall Street power players are similar to experienced poker players.

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Stable Genius Productions co-founder Manoush Zomorodi talks with Recode's Peter Kafka about her decision to leave public radio juggernaut WNYC for a two-woman startup. Stable Genius is one of 20 companies in the journalism marketplace Civil, which is hoping to leverage the emerging technology blockchain to save media; later this summer, Civil plans to sell 100 million digital coins, which it hopes will appreciate in value the way bitcoin did — benefiting its partners, who also have coins. Zomorodi also talks about how the people who hold those coins will be able to influence the news available to readers and explains that, even though she doesn't know if the gambit will pay off, she's happy to be proactively trying to fix the media business rather than just talking about it. Plus: Why she was not impressed by her first in-person encounter with Mark Zuckerberg and why Stable Genius refused to take venture capital funding.

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Eugene Wei, an early Amazon employee who went on to work at Hulu, Flipboard and Oculus, talks with Recode’s Peter Kafka about “Invisible asymptotes,”a post on his personal blog that went viral. In it, Wei wrote that all companies have a ceiling to their growth, but the ones that can figure out what that ceiling is can adapt and keep growing beyond it. For example, Wei’s old employer, Amazon, recognized that customers’ aversion to paying for shipping was its ceiling, and so developed Amazon Prime to keep them coming back. He explains how Twitter has historically failed to iterate similarly, why Snap’s attempt to redesign Snapchat for a broader audience backfired, and why Facebook, which is still growing internationally, is seeing its American users get less value out of the platform over time. Plus: Why Instagram is the least toxic social network, what’s holding VR back and why "Star Wars" is like a social network.

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Wall Street Journal media reporter Keach Hagey talks with Recode’s Peter Kafka about her new book, “The King of Content: Sumner Redstone’s Battle for Viacom, CBS, and Everlasting Control of His Media Empire.” Hagey says that, like the Murdochs, Redstone’s family is embroiled in “soap opera drama” as they work out what happens to a company once dominated by a single patriarch-mogul. She talks about why the people closest to Sumner Redstone did not disclose his declining mental health to shareholders and what sets his daughter, Shari Redstone, who controls both CBS and Viacom, apart from others in that circle. Plus: Hagey discusses Disney’s aborted attempt to buy Vice and why she thinks 21st Century Fox would rather sell to Disney than to Comcast.

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Daniel Ek, the CEO of music-streaming company Spotify, talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher and Peter Kafka at the 2018 Code Conference. Ek explains why Spotify temporarily banned R. Kelly from its playlists and why it backed off of that ban. He also talks about the company’s recent public listing and how Spotify plans to grow while losing money every quarter based on normal accounting standards. Plus: Why video is becoming more important to Spotify as a platform and how the company is distinguishing its corporate culture from Silicon Valley norms.

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Former White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer, now the co-host of the popular liberal podcast Pod Save America, talks with Recode’s Peter Kafka about his new book, “Yes We (Still) Can: Politics in the Age of Obama, Twitter, and Trump.” Pfeiffer outlines the ways in which the political media landscape has been profoundly warped and upended since he went to work for Barack Obama in 2009, arguing that today “the press” is such a broad term that it has lost all meaning. He warns his fellow Democrats that the thing they should be most scared of is how successfully the Republicans have tapped into tools like Facebook and Twitter to develop a “media advantage” built on outrage. Pfeiffer also talks about why he decided to write a book after initially rejecting the idea, and why the White House press briefings delivered by Sarah Huckabee Sanders are “always pointless.”

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Alex Blumberg and Matt Lieber, the founders of podcasting network Gimlet, talk with Recode's Peter Kafka about trying to create the "HBO of audio." Gimlet's first show was StartUp, a podcast about the creation of Gimlet itself that exposed the "myth of being an entrepreneur" — although entrepreneurs might say things are always going great, the reality is that everything always feels like it's "about to break," Lieber says. The founders also talk about how Gimlet is expanding beyond its slate of original shows into TV, movies and special branded podcasts that are entirely underwritten by one advertiser. Through that process, they've learned the importance of educating those sponsor about the need for "emotional honesty" in podcasting and why Gimlet is especially well-positioned to pitch new shows in Hollywood.

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AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson talks with Recode’s Peter Kafka at the 2018 Code Conference. Stephenson discusses the company’s pending acquisition of Time Warner, which the U.S. Justice Department has attempted to block. Stephenson explains how — if the deal goes through and AT&T therefore owns content — he would deal with public controversies like the racist tweet that got Roseanne Barr fired. He also discusses AT&T’s decision to pay Donald Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen hundreds of thousands of dollars, calling it a “bad mistake.” Plus: The story behind his speech to employees about Black Lives Matter and discrimination, which went viral when someone posted it to YouTube. 

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David Chang, the chef and founder of culinary brand Momofuku, talks with Recode’s Peter Kafka and Eater’s Amanda Kludt at the 2018 Code Conference. Chang — who’s also the host of “Ugly Delicious” on Netflix — says “there was no strategy” for Momofuku’s first decade of growth, but now he’s thinking more strategically about scaling up. Food is now a blue-collar profession with “white-collar values,” Chang says; that means chefs and restaurateurs are afraid of losing “cool” status when they grapple with professional issues like HR, inclusion and payroll. He explains why those fears are misplaced. Plus: What does Chang think of food delivery startups, and how is the restaurant industry changing in the #MeToo era?

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