Decoder with Nilay Patel

Comedian Sarah Cooper talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher and Chorus CEO Dick Costolo about why she left a career in the tech industry to become a stand-up comic. Cooper has made tech a central part of her comedy and has written a book based in part on her time at Yahoo and Google called “100 Tricks To Appear Smart in Meetings.” The group debates whether people who work in tech are funny (on purpose) and whether depictions of them in popular culture, on shows like HBO’s “Silicon Valley” or CBS’ “The Big Bang Theory,” are really hitting their mark. Plus: Cooper previews her next book, “How to Be Successful Without Hurting Men’s Feelings,” which will include tips such as “be authentic by hiding yourself."

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Patty McCord, the former chief talent officer at Netflix and author of that company's famous "culture deck," talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about her new book, "Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility." McCord recalls how CEO Reed Hastings convinced her to work at Netflix and how they developed the principles of the company's culture over many years — which Hastings unilaterally published online, generating millions of downloads. She also talks about the common mistakes companies make when hiring and firing, why coddling employees with Google-style perks is overrated and how businesses can make lasting change in the aftermath of the #MeToo movement.

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Chorus CEO Dick Costolo, the former CEO of Twitter, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about why he loves comedy and why his peers in the tech community are so infrequently "in on the joke." Before he was a tech entrepreneur, Costolo wanted to be a comedian, taking improv classes at Second City in Chicago in the hopes of one day making it to "Saturday Night Live." Today, he explains, more people than ever have the ability to succeed in comedy because they can make and distribute their comedy online, rather than needing to go to Second City or be a touring stand-up comic. Costolo also talks about what happened when he left Twitter and how he became an advisor to the writers of HBO's "Silicon Valley" during that show's third season.

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The host of the Longform Podcast, Evan Ratliff, interviews Recode’s Kara Swisher in front of a live audience in San Francisco about how she got started in journalism and how she does her job today. Downloading a book for the first time convinced Swisher of the power of the internet, which led her to cover AOL and countless other early digital pioneers. Plus: How she convinces sources to keep talking to her even after she has grilled them onstage at Code or written critically about them online.

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Recode's Kara Swisher and The Verge's Casey Newton talk with Zach Stafford and Trish Bendix, the editor in chief and managing editor of Into — a queer lifestyle magazine published by the dating app Grindr. They talk about why LGBT people have historically been early adopters of tech, why Grindr was more readily adopted by men than women and how the company is trying to change that as it branches out into media. Stafford says Into has been able to tap into Grindr's killer feature, knowing the location of its users, to push out regionally-specific stories to the people who will be most affected by them. Bendix, who recently joined Into after ten years at After Ellen, says she is working to make sure the magazine is more inclusive to women, nonbinary people and trans people; Into needs to reach them as well, she says, to tell stories about everything "through a queer lens."

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Recode's Kara Swisher talks with former attorney general Eric Holder, who led an investigation into Uber's management earlier this year, and the company's new Chief Legal Officer, Tony West. They discuss how Uber is evolving in the wake of the Holder Report and what it can do to empower lawyers, as well as employees and riders. Holder explains why non-disclosure agreements are common, arguing that there are broader cultural problems limiting women's ability to share stories of sexual assault. West also talks what happened when the company disclosed a major data breach on his first day on the job.

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Christine Brennan, the sports columnist for USA Today, talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about the February 2018 Winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang, South Korea, which will be Brenann’s 18th consecutive Olympics. She previews what events she's most interested in seeing — and what will be happening on the sidelines. She talks about the fallout from Russia's sophisticated doping system, why that's different from Americans like Lance Armstrong who have used performance-enhancing drugs and other scandals like the serial sexual abuses of U.S. gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar. Plus: How Brennan's father stoked her childhood love of sports and why Title IX is so important for young female athletes everywhere.

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Spark Capital General Partner Megan Quinn talks with Recode's Kara Swisher and The Verge's Casey Newton about the evolving balance between venture capitalists and entrepreneurs. Quinn, an investor in the cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase, explains why she believes digital currencies like bitcoin are here to stay and what needs to happen before we start treating them like real money. She recounts how she got promoted to become Square's director of product two weeks after joining the company in a different role and how Kleiner Perkins investor Mary Meeker inspired her to become a venture capitalist. Plus: Why HR is "one of the most critical and difficult roles to hire at any company."

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Author and former New York Times columnist Noam Cohen talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his new book, "The Know-It-Alls: The Rise of Silicon Valley as a Political Powerhouse and Social Wrecking Ball." In the book, Cohen argues that a libertarian philosophy that is hostile to outsiders and resistant to regulation is negatively affecting our society and communities. He diagnoses the problems with Google, Facebook and Twitter, noting that the latter has a business incentive to do nothing about hate speech and bots. However, Cohen says he's hopeful that Congress and regular people are "waking up" to the dangers of letting Silicon Valley run the world.

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Andrew Mason, the founder and former CEO of Groupon, talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher and The Verge’s Casey Newton about his latest startup, Descript. The company bills itself as a “word processor for audio,” making podcasts and other spoken word recordings easy to edit for non-technical content creators. Mason also talks about the “surreal” rise and fall of his career at Groupon, why he regrets publicly announcing that he was fired as CEO and why he once brought a horse to Groupon’s office as a gift for Michael Bloomberg.

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