This is David Pierce, editor-at-large at The Verge. Nilay is off this week for a much-deserved break. So I’m filling in for him, and the Decoder team thought this would be a good opportunity to switch gears a little bit from the political apocalypse beat and talk about something completely different. So today we’re diving into the video game industry and discussing a particular set of very thorny problems facing Microsoft and its Xbox division.

I invited Ash Parrish, The Verge’s video game reporter, to discuss the issues facing Xbox, Microsoft’s big ambitions with its Game Pass subscription service, and why the game industry hasn’t had its Netflix or Spotify moment yet.

Links: 

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. 

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The First Amendment, protecting free speech and free media, is a pillar of US law. It is, famously, the first one. We don’t usually tolerate government interference with speech.

So it’s been disconcerting these first few weeks of the second Trump administration to realize suddenly, there’s a nonzero chance the government will punish our work. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr is absolutely determined to turn all that talk about the media being the enemy of the people into concrete legal action — incredibly serious, unprecedented attacks on free speech.

Links: 

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

Today, I’m talking with Senator Ron Wyden, a democrat and the senior senator from Oregon. He’s been in the Senate for almost 30 years, which makes him one of longest serving members of the institution. We scheduled this interview with Senator Wyden a while ago — he’s got a new book out called “It Takes Chutzpah: How to Fight Fearlessly for Progressive Change.” 

But recent events made it vastly more important to talk about the state of our federal government – and specifically, what Elon Musk and DOGE are doing as they seize power in various federal agencies. So right up front and very bluntly, I wanted to ask Wyden: What is even going on? And can even he and his fellow senators keep up with it?

Links: 

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

Today, we’re discussing a very big problem with extremely far-reaching consequences: Do we still have a functional federal government here in the United States? And how much of it has been handed entirely to Elon Musk? 

If you’ve been following the news, you know there’s a lot here that’s unfolding very fast, but I wanted to know how all these changes are affecting the people who’ve so far been the most newly supportive of Trump because they have the most to lose – the money, the billionaires. So I invited New York Times reporter Teddy Schleiffer, who’s been covering this closely every day since the inauguration, on the show to help break it down.

Links: 

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

Andy Hunter is the CEO of Bookshop.org, a website he launched in 2020 that lets local bookshops sell all over the country. He always meant it to compete directly with Amazon, and the timing of that launch right into the teeth of the pandemic meant it was able to start strong and grow quickly.

Now Bookshop is selling ebooks, which is another market hugely dominated by Amazon. For Andy and Bookshop to get what they want, they’re probably going to have to gear up for a big fight. It’s kind of the app store question all over again, just like the big cases Epic had against Apple and Google, and it's all prime Decoder territory.

Links: 

Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/604809

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

Today, we’re talking about DeepSeek, and how the open source AI model built by a Chinese startup has completely upended the conventional wisdom around chatbots, what they can do, and how much they should cost to develop. 

We’re also talking about Stargate, OpenAI’s new $500 billion data center venture that’s supposed to supercharge domestic AI infrastructure. Both stand in stark contrast with one another — and represent a new, escalating front in the US-China relationship and the geopolitics of AI. Verge senior AI reporter Kylie Robison joins me to break it all down.  

Links: 

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

Today, I’m talking with Gary Smith, CEO of the networking company Ciena. You probably aren’t familiar with Ciena — the company isn’t really a household name. But every internet user has relied on the company’s products; Ciena makes the hardware and software that makes the fiber optic cables connecting the world light up with data. 

That’s everything from local fiber networks for broadband ISPs to the massive undersea cables that connect continents. There’s a high probability that this very podcast came to you over a Ciena network, in fact — the company is everywhere. That means almost every single Decoder idea is right here, sitting on the backbone of the internet.

Links: 

Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/24115288

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 Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It’s been a messy couple of weeks for big tech companies as the second Trump administration kicks off an unprecedented era of how we think about who controls the internet. Right now, there's a major collision, or maybe merger, happening between billionaire power and state power, and everyone who uses tech to communicate — so, basically everyone — is stuck in the middle. I sat down with law professor and online speech expert Kate Klonick to break it all down. 

Links: 

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 Callie Wright. 

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today, I’m talking with Matt Garman, the CEO of Amazon Web Services. Matt took over as CEO last June — you might recall that we had his predecessor Adam Selipsky on the show just over a year ago. That makes this episode terrific Decoder bait, since I love hearing how new CEOs will decide what to change and what to keep going after they’ve settled into their role.

Links: 

Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/24102212

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 Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, Nilay here. We’re still on winter break; we’ll be back with brand-new Decoder interviews next week, and with our Thursday shows later this month. I’m excited for what we’ve got in the pipeline. I think you’re going to love it.

For today, though, we’re sharing an episode of Peter Kafka’s new show Channels – he’s talking to disinformation researcher Renee DiResta about what’s going on with speech online in an era where platforms seem less inclined to moderate than ever. Peter’s an old friend and Renee is an expert on all this — there’s a lot of core Decoder themes in this one. Enjoy, and we’ll be back in a bit.

Links: 

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 Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices