Decoder with Nilay Patel

Diversity advocate and Kickstarter director Erica Baker and ProDay CEO Sarah Kunst talk with Recode's Kara Swisher about the conditions that led so many venture capitalists to abuse their power over female tech founders. Kunst, who was sexually harassed by 500 Startups founder Dave McClure, says the time has come to "turn the lights on full blast" and expose bad actors rather than tiptoeing around the problem. Baker, who gained a reputation as a "troublemaker" from her efforts to make Google salaries more transparent, theorizes that harassment and exclusion have run rampant because of the cult of specialness around coding ability, and calls out tech companies that are not holding themselves accountable. Kunst also explains what's wrong with Reid Hoffman's decency pledge and why former Uber engineer Susan Fowler was the "perfect victim."

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Live onstage: Uber SVP Frances Frei talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about the future of the beleaguered ride-hailing company. Frei came to Uber from Harvard Business School, where she studied leadership and diversity, and says the company's problems are neither unusual nor unfixable. Uber's employees want to do the right thing, she explains, but have been historically let down by management and not given an outlet to call out bad behavior. Frei also talks about why she rejects Uber board member Arianna Huffington's concept of "zero tolerance," why ex-CEO Travis Kalanick can be redeemed and how to fix the broader epidemic of sexual harassment in Silicon Valley.

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New Jersey Senator Cory Booker talks with Recode’s Tony Romm about the current state of politics under President Trump and how he thinks the U.S. government should respond to the tech sector. Booker says he’s eager to see Trump gone, but that Democrats can’t solely define themselves as the “resistance” and shouldn’t sink to his level of online vitriol. He argues that Congress should take a skeptical look at the consolidation of companies like Amazon and Whole Foods, and not accept at face value that tech’s role should be “to create a handful of billionaires”; instead, Booker says, protecting consumers and broadening America’s access to science and technology should be the top priorities.

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PARC CEO Tolga Kurtoglu talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about leading the iconic Silicon Valley research and development firm, formerly known as Xerox PARC, which works with companies and government agencies to imagine the future of work. Kurtoglu says PARC is thinking a lot about how humans and artificial intelligence agents will work together and how to build a “trustable” AI that can explain how it reaches its conclusions. He also talks about why Silicon Valley has held on to its leadership in tech innovation and what responsibilities the tech sector has as its creations disrupt established industries and eliminate jobs.

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"Bears in the Streets" author Lisa Dickey talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about her new book, which chronicles three trips to Russia at three very different times in its history — 1995, 2005 and 2015. Dickey's first journey across the continent was a pioneering work of digital photography and early web publishing, while her later trips illuminated how tech, politics and everything else was changing. She says Americans get a lot wrong about the Russian people and Russians get a lot wrong about Americans, but the two countries have more in common than they realize. Dickey shares some of the strangest stories from her visits to the country, including an unexpectedly contentious trip to see the Matt Damon movie "The Martian" and arguments over whether 9/11 was an inside job.

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LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, now a venture capitalist at Greylock Partners, talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about why Silicon Valley has remained the epicenter of tech for decades and what’s next for entrepreneurs, investors and consumers. Hoffman explains why LinkedIn sold itself to Microsoft, why Airbnb hasn’t gone public yet and why he believes everyone in politics and business should adopt the “Spider-Man” motto: “With great power comes great responsibility.” Later in the show, he discusses his increasing involvement in liberal politics and his enduring friendship with conservative Trump supporter Peter Thiel, whom Hoffman met as a college undergraduate.

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Fortune Executive Editor Adam Lashinsky talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his new book "Wild Ride: Inside Uber's Quest for World Domination." In this live interview, recorded after Travis Kalanick had announced a leave of absence from Uber but before he resigned as CEO, Lashinsky talks about trying to find Kalanick's "Rosebud" and why he didn't discover the now-infamous dark side of Uber's culture that was exposed by Susan Fowler and other former employees. He says despite the brand being "severely tarnished," Uber can reshape its corporate culture and bounce back because "[not] every person is rotten."

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In this special bonus episode from the 2017 Code Conference, Planned Parenthood Federation of America President Cecile Richards talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about how the nonprofit has dealt with controversy and political opposition under President Trump. Republicans in Washington are attempting to limit the organization, which Richards says would undermine access to local health services and cause the rates of STIs and abortions to go up. Planned Parenthood will continue to exist even if the GOP's health care bill passes, she says, but it's still fighting to remain a public benefit, with funds for most of its services being reimbursed by the government. Richards also talks about how her team uses social media and texting and why she wants to use drones to air-drop birth control.

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In this live interview, Oracle co-CEO Mark Hurd talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about how Oracle transitioned its business to the cloud, which is the fastest-growing segment of all enterprise spending. Hurd says a large, process-laden company like Oracle can't risk getting complacent and out-innovated by smaller startups, and had to weather some unhappy investors on Wall Street for many quarters because building out cloud services takes time and money. He also talks about immigration policy, job automation and why Steve Jobs once told him he would hate to have Hurd's job.

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In this special bonus episode from the 2017 Code Conference, Jill Soloway, the creator of the Amazon TV series "Transparent," talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about their new show, "I Love Dick," which stars Kevin Bacon and Kathryn Hahn. They say Amazon is more hands-off than traditional TV networks and has helped diversify the female characters we see on TV. Soloway's company, Topple Productions, is aimed at disrupting the "white male gaze" and giving power to creators who otherwise might not have it, and they recall how, after losing twice at the Golden Globes, Jeff Bezos encouraged them to keep effecting social change through storytelling.

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