Recode Media

By Recode

What's Recode Media about?

What happens when media, entertainment, and technology collide? Peter Kafka, one of the media industry's most acclaimed reporters, talks to business titans, journalists, comedians and podcasters to get their take. Produced by Recode and the Vox Media Podcast Network.

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Is Apple sure about Apple’s...

03.30.2023

We’ve had questions about Apple’s new VR headset — supposedly set to debut in June — for some time. Starting with: Who’s going to pay $3,000 for these things, and what will they do with them? Turns out some Apple ...

Recode Media episodes:

03.30.2023 Is Apple sure about Apple’s new Goggles? Plus Roger Bennett, Media Mogul We’ve had questions about Apple’s new VR headset — supposedly set to debut in June — for some time. Starting with: Who’s going to pay $3,000 for these things, and what will they do with them? Turns out some Apple ...
03.23.2023 Podcast pioneer Jesse Thorn built his own business. Now his employees own it. Jesse Thorn has been podcasting for so long it was called radio. Over time he turned his career into a business - Maximum Fun, a network of eclectic pop culture shows like Bullseye; My Brother, My Brother and Me; and ...
03.16.2023 An SVB (phew!) update + Benedict Evans on the future of (almost) everything First: A Silicon Valley Bank check-in with Dan Primack of Axios. Why, exactly, did so many tech companies (and, um, media companies) bank with SVB, and what happens next? Then, Peter Kafka has a great, wide-ranging conversation with tech analyst ...
03.06.2023 Science fiction pioneer Neal Stephenson on the metaverse, the movies and why he still believes in blockchain Mark Zuckerberg wants to build the metaverse. Neal Stephenson created the meta verse three decades ago. The author’s 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash popularized the use of the term “avatar” in a digital context, inspired the makers of Google ...
03.03.2023 Meet the woman who got De La Soul streaming De La Soul was legendary for their trail-blazing approach to hip-hop. But in recent years the trio become notable for another reason: You couldn’t hear their music on any streaming platform. This means that generations of fans - including Recode’s ...
02.23.2023 Real-life “Succession”: Jim Stewart on Sumner Redstone’s sordid saga Veteran business journalist James B. Stewart specializes in getting behind the scenes to tell the stories of rich, powerful, and complicated subjects. He has a doozy with “Unscripted”, the new book he co-wrote about the last days of media mogul ...
02.14.2023 We quiz BuzzFeed’s CEO about AI It used to be that a human would have to write a BuzzFeed quiz about “Which Fictional Artificial Intelligence Are You?” But now, BuzzFeed writers are using real artificial intelligence tools — from Open AI, the company behind ChatGPT — ...
02.09.2023 Why is tech in trouble if the economy is ok? Tech and media companies (including the one that brings you this podcast) are laying off workers left and right. Meanwhile, the latest national jobs report is shockingly strong. So… why? Do the excuses make any sense? First, Recode’s Peter Kafka ...
02.02.2023 Land of the Giants: The Hidden Hand Behind Your Swipes This week, we bring you an episode of The Cut and The Verge’s latest season of Land of the Giants: Dating Games. This episode is all about Match Group, the company that went on an acquisition spree and now controls ...
01.26.2023 Don't tell investor Li Jin that Web3 is dead Investor Li Jin helped popularize the idea of the Creator Economy — the theory that many people who make stuff online could and should get paid for that work. Then she merged that pitch with an embrace of crypto/Web3 — ...
01.18.2023 How The Last of Us went from hit game to hit zombie tv The critically-lauded video game The Last of Us is now a critically-lauded HBO series. It's about a global pandemic that turns much of the world’s population into zombie-like monsters. Executive producer (and former roommate of Ted Cruz) Craig Mazin talks ...
01.16.2023 "Resist trying to make things better" - a conversation with internet security expert Alex Stamos A new study in the journal Nature Communications finds "no evidence of a meaningful relationship" between Russian disinformation and voting behavior in the 2016 election. If disinformation maybe isn’t as effective as we assumed, does that change social networks’ responsibility ...
01.12.2023 Was YouTube’s NFL deal a $2 billion mistake? For the first time in 3 decades, NFL’s Sunday Ticket - a subscription service that lets viewers watch many but not all of the NFL’s games each week - has a new home: YouTube TV. The deal will cost YouTube/Google/Alphabet ...
01.05.2023 Apple’s new goggles; Hollywood’s new streaming pitch. Before we face the reality of 2023, we discuss the state of virtual reality — specifically, the still-unannounced VR/AR headset Apple’s been developing for years. The Information’s Wayne Ma joins Recode’s Peter Kafka to share the details of his latest ...
12.29.2022 Reader Mail! Recode’s Peter Kafka answers listener questions about Twitter, niche content streaming, print media microtransactions, regional sports networks and more. Peter’s producers and son also make appearances in descending order according to age. Host: Peter Kafka (@pkafka), Senior Editor at Recode ...
12.20.2022 An Elon-free year in review The Earth has just about completed its latest orbit around the sun, which means it’s time to take a look at what was happening over the past 584 million miles. Joining Recode’s Peter Kafka is Bloomberg’s, Lucas Shaw. Together, they ...
12.13.2022 A n00b’s guide to the Microsoft / Activision deal the FTC wants to stop The FTC wants to (candy) crush Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Inc., the makers of games like Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and Candy Crush. Meanwhile, Microsoft, the maker of Xbox, assures Call of Duty players they’ll still be ...
12.08.2022 Why the media landscape is “dire” with WSJ’s Jessica Toonkel Layoffs, Disney CEO take-backsies, and the Netflix of it all — this week, Recode’s Peter Kafka catches up on the not-that-upbeat media industry with Jessica Toonkel, deputy media editor at The Wall Street Journal. They discuss why Big Media companies ...
12.01.2022 How Eventbrite survived the pandemic, and why it’s not fighting Ticketmaster Selling tickets for live events can be… tricky, as Ticketmaster has proven yet again. But Eventbrite CEO Julia Hartz runs a much smaller ticketing business and says she’s learned valuable lessons after the pandemic brought her revenue to zero. She ...
11.29.2022 It’s not TV it’s HBO — the book HBO’s 50-year-old history tells you a lot about culture, business, and TV’s past and future. This perhaps explains why we’ve seen two HBO books in the last 12 months. Felix Gillette is the co-author of the newest one: It’s Not ...
11.21.2022 How to watch a complicated World Cup Qatar is hosting the 2022 World Cup, casting a pall over one of the globe’s most-watched sporting events. Men With Blazers co-host Roger Bennett joins Recode’s Peter Kafka to talk through the geopolitical awareness and cognitive dissonance required to enjoy ...
11.17.2022 Life, the internet, and everything with Garbage Day’s Ryan Broderick Ryan Broderick is very online so you don’t have to be. His internet culture Substack ‘Garbage Day’ is a mix of thought-provoking analysis, trend reporting, and, when you read all the way to the end, dumb memes. In this wide-ranging ...
11.15.2022 What Elon’s past tells us about his present This is not an emergency podcast, but, you know, maybe it will be? As questions swirl around what exactly Elon Musk is doing at Twitter (and why) we wanted to take a look at Musk’s history and how it might ...
11.10.2022 Tech’s big bust, plus Marvel (and Wakanda) Forever? Mass layoffs and cutbacks at companies like Meta and Twitter point to a slowdown (and chaos) in tech. Bloomberg tech reporter Sarah Frier helps us sort through the madness. Then, Disney has used Marvel movies to basically print money over ...
11.03.2022 Election special with Punchbowl's Jake Sherman Punchbowl News co-founder Jake Sherman joins us from the U.S. Capitol building just in time for the 2022 midterm elections. Recode’s Peter Kafka hits him up for some election spoilers. Then he gets into the business of Punchbowl News: He ...
11.01.2022 Jason Gay isn’t making Elon Musk jokes We’re taking a short break from the Twitter shitshow to give you an interview with Jason Gay, sports and humor columnist at The Wall Street Journal. His new book is “I Wouldn’t Do That If I Were Me: Modern Blunders ...
10.27.2022 Bloomberg’s Matt Levine still loves crypto; Ankler’s Janice Min loves newsletters When Bloomberg’s Matt Levine sent an enticing email about “a big thing coming out about crypto in Businessweek,” Recode’s Peter Kafka couldn’t resist. Turns out, the “big thing” is a 40,000(!) word piece that took over the entire magazine, titled ...
10.24.2022 Ben Smith says Semafor will take 10 years to get right One week after the launch of Semafor, Recode’s Peter Kafka flags down the news startup’s co-founder Ben Smith. Who is Semafor for, really? How can a news startup based in NYC and Washington solve polarization? What, exactly, is a “Semaform” ...
10.20.2022 Netflix is back (?) + Julia Boorstin on women who lead Netflix added 2.4 million subscribers! Ads are coming! Wall Street’s excited again! But is Netflix back for real? Recode’s Peter Kafka talks to Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw to get a reality check on the streamer and the streaming business. And then, ...
10.13.2022 Inside the curious mind of XKCD cartoonist Randall Munroe Since 2005, Randall Munroe has used his webcomic XKCD to comment on the world around him and express his love for pop culture, math, and science. Now, with the release of his new book “What If 2?: More Serious Scientific ...
10.05.2022 Elon Musk is buying Twitter. Really. (Really?) He’s back! Elon Musk, who agreed to buy Twitter for $44 billion last spring and then tried to back out of the deal, says he wants to buy Twitter for $44 billion, after all. That doesn’t mean it will actually ...
09.29.2022 Interview with Interview with a Vampire’s Eric Bogosian Writer and actor Eric Bogosian (Talk Radio, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Succession) has been in the business for a while. Long enough, that he tells Recode’s Peter Kafka, he’s learned to let other people worry about the business stuff. ...
09.21.2022 YouTube fights TikTok with cash YouTube wants a piece of that sweet TikTok action, so it’s getting out the checkbook. The most popular creators on YouTube’s TikTok clone — that’s YouTube Shorts, officially — will get a cut that comes from a pool of all ...
09.15.2022 José Andrés has a full plate, but he's adding more Chef José Andrés may very well be The Best Person. His nonprofit, World Central Kitchen, activates local restaurants to provide meals to people in crisis areas. He’s the man behind acclaimed restaurants like Jaleo and minibar. And, he’s a pure ...
09.08.2022 The inside story of YouTube Despite YouTube’s massive influence, it's been chronically underreported on. But finally, Bloomberg’s Mark Bergen wrote the comprehensive, soup-to-nuts history of the site. His new book is called "Like, Comment, Subscribe: Inside YouTube’s Chaotic Rise to World Domination." Recode’s Peter Kafka ...
09.01.2022 Why the Good Fight creators are glad they moved from CBS to streaming Like other big deal TV creators, Robert and Michelle King are thriving in the streaming era. The duo behind the long-running CBS show The Good Wife is making two shows for Paramount+, with more on the way. As The Good ...
08.25.2022 Algorithms that give you anxiety and a Web3 project that doesn't suck. Kyle Chayka writes about tech and internet culture for the New Yorker; he’s also the co-founder of Dirt, a newsletter — powered in part by crypto — about… tech and internet culture. He talks to Recode’s Peter Kafka about both ...
08.18.2022 Home Box Office of the Dragon In 2011, HBO changed the prestige television landscape with its expensive, ultra-violent, sex-filled fantasy epic Game of Thrones. Three years after that show’s divisive ending, HBO's hoping the world is ready to go back to Westeros with its GoT prequel, ...
08.11.2022 Why the Democrats finally got on TikTok Democrats have a complicated relationship with social media - sometimes they think it’s a huge help; other times, not so much. Which is why it’s interesting to hear from Nell Thomas, the chief technology officer for the Democratic National Committee, ...
08.04.2022 Land of the Giants: Why Instagram Broke Its Square This week, we bring you an episode of Recode and The Verge’s latest season of Land of the Giants: The Facebook / Meta Disruption. To check out the first two episodes, subscribe wherever you subscribe to podcasts! This episode explores ...
07.28.2022 B.J. Novak on “Vengeance”, podcasts and the downside of the streaming boom B.J. Novak has starred on TV, written a best-selling kids’ book, and tried his hand at app-making. Now he’s written, directed, and starred in his own movie: Vengeance, about a self-obsessed podcaster, red/blue state divides, and much more. He talks ...
07.19.2022 What is the metaverse, when is it going to show up and who’s going to run it? People have been talking about the metaverse for years. But they’re talking about it much more these days, spurred by Mark Zuckerberg’s full-fledged embrace of the… actually, what exactly is the metaverse again, anyways? Investor, analyst and metaverse explainer Matthew ...
07.11.2022 Ken Auletta on the Harvey Weinstein story he wrote, the story he couldn’t write, and the one he’s publishing now. 20 years ago the New Yorker’s Ken Auletta wrote a seminal profile of famed and feared producer Harvey Weinstein - with one glaring omission. Now Auletta has written a book about Weinstein — Hollywood Ending — and this time he’s ...
07.07.2022 Netflix has a huge hit with Peaky Blinders — and Caryn Mandabach owns it. Caryn Mandabach produced some of the biggest hits in TV history — like The Cosby Show, Roseanne, 3rd Rock from the Sun, and That ’70s Show. Now she’s thriving in the Netflix era, with Peaky Blinders — a historical crime ...
06.30.2022 The future of: Crypto criticism; Substack and ABC News Three interviews! One pod: First entrepreneur and investor Zach Weinberg tells Recode’s Peter Kafka why he’s accidentally become Twitter Famous as a crypto skeptic — and explains how you can do it, too. Then two talks from the recent Collision ...
06.23.2022 Is this a Netflix problem or a streaming problem? Today, CNBC’s Alex Sherman joins Recode’s Peter Kafka to ponder several media mysteries: Why did Netflix lose 2 million subscribers? Why was Disney executive Peter Rice unexpectedly fired? What’s going on at Warner Bros. Discovery? Is someone gonna buy VICE? ...
06.15.2022 Bill Simmons on podcasts, celebrity interviews and life at Spotify The Bill Simmons Podcast is, by its own description, "the most downloaded sports podcast of all time." This week, it hits its 1,000th episode. Bill Simmons began his career as a Boston sportswriter and went on to found ESPN's sports ...
06.09.2022 Why is this VC on your TikTok? TikTok isn’t just funny dances and glow-ups anymore… it’s also for venture capital!!! Logan Bartlett, managing director at the VC firm Redpoint, reaches out to startups via the socials. He also hosts a podcast called Cartoon Avatars. Bartlett talks to ...
06.02.2022 Engineer Molly White explains why Web3 isn’t going great Software engineer Molly White has emerged as one of Web3’s most high-profile skeptics. Her website “Web3 is going just great” chronicles scams, bugs, “rug pulls” and thefts plaguing the world of NFTs (non-fungible tokens) DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations), and other ...
05.26.2022 Is Big Tech getting better about misinformation? Lots of people will tell you that misinformation is a big problem online. But exactly what the problem is, and what tech companies can and should do about it, is up for debate. It’s also what Bloomberg reporter Davey Alba ...

Older episodes

Recode Media

What's Recode Media about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Recode Media episodes:

Is Apple sure about Apple’s new Goggles? Plus Roger Bennett, Media Mogul

Podcast pioneer Jesse Thorn built his own business. Now his employees own it.

An SVB (phew!) update + Benedict Evans on the future of (almost) everything

Science fiction pioneer Neal Stephenson on the metaverse, the movies and why he still believes in blockchain

Meet the woman who got De La Soul streaming

Real-life “Succession”: Jim Stewart on Sumner Redstone’s sordid saga

We quiz BuzzFeed’s CEO about AI

Why is tech in trouble if the economy is ok?

Land of the Giants: The Hidden Hand Behind Your Swipes

Don't tell investor Li Jin that Web3 is dead

How The Last of Us went from hit game to hit zombie tv

"Resist trying to make things better" - a conversation with internet security expert Alex Stamos

Was YouTube’s NFL deal a $2 billion mistake?

Apple’s new goggles; Hollywood’s new streaming pitch.

Reader Mail!

An Elon-free year in review

A n00b’s guide to the Microsoft / Activision deal the FTC wants to stop

Why the media landscape is “dire” with WSJ’s Jessica Toonkel

How Eventbrite survived the pandemic, and why it’s not fighting Ticketmaster

It’s not TV it’s HBO — the book

How to watch a complicated World Cup

Life, the internet, and everything with Garbage Day’s Ryan Broderick

What Elon’s past tells us about his present

Tech’s big bust, plus Marvel (and Wakanda) Forever?

Election special with Punchbowl's Jake Sherman

Jason Gay isn’t making Elon Musk jokes

Bloomberg’s Matt Levine still loves crypto; Ankler’s Janice Min loves newsletters

Ben Smith says Semafor will take 10 years to get right

Netflix is back (?) + Julia Boorstin on women who lead

Inside the curious mind of XKCD cartoonist Randall Munroe

Elon Musk is buying Twitter. Really. (Really?)

Interview with Interview with a Vampire’s Eric Bogosian

YouTube fights TikTok with cash

José Andrés has a full plate, but he's adding more

The inside story of YouTube

Why the Good Fight creators are glad they moved from CBS to streaming

Algorithms that give you anxiety and a Web3 project that doesn't suck.

Home Box Office of the Dragon

Why the Democrats finally got on TikTok

Land of the Giants: Why Instagram Broke Its Square

B.J. Novak on “Vengeance”, podcasts and the downside of the streaming boom

What is the metaverse, when is it going to show up and who’s going to run it?

Ken Auletta on the Harvey Weinstein story he wrote, the story he couldn’t write, and the one he’s publishing now.

Netflix has a huge hit with Peaky Blinders — and Caryn Mandabach owns it.

The future of: Crypto criticism; Substack and ABC News

Is this a Netflix problem or a streaming problem?

Bill Simmons on podcasts, celebrity interviews and life at Spotify

Why is this VC on your TikTok?

Engineer Molly White explains why Web3 isn’t going great

Is Big Tech getting better about misinformation?