Decoder with Nilay Patel

A lot has changed on the internet, in the creator landscape, and at Patreon itself since CEO Jack Conte was last on the show in 2021. AI and platform shifts have stolen creator content and decimated artists' reach and revenue streams, and Patreon has made some pretty existential changes to the way it works in response. 

Links: 

My thoughts on AI | Patreon

I tried to prove I’m not AI | Howtown

Patreon: Apple’s 30% tax is the price of staying in the App Store | The Verge

Welcome to hell, Elon (2022) | The Verge

Reality is losing the deepfake war | Decoder

Elon Musk is steamrolling Wall Street to become a trillionaire | Decoder

Incorruptible | Simon & Schuster

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Credits:

Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Xander Adams. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane. 

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
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My guest today is Hayden Field, senior AI reporter for The Verge. Often when Hayden comes on the show, it’s because something has gone wrong in the world of AI. Last weekend, that something was a pretty intense mix of Anthropic, the Trump administration, and Anthropic’s new AI model, Fable 5. 

Hayden actually just published a fantastic play-by-play on The Verge about how the Fable ban went down, and the scramble through the weekend from both sides to figure out what exactly happened and how it might get resolved. So I wanted her to come on and just walk me through the timeline and what it all means.

Links: 

Inside the fight over Claude Mythos 5 | ⁠The Verge⁠

Anthropic cuts off Fable 5 and Mythos 5 access following government order | ⁠The Verge⁠

Anthropic got hit by export rules nobody understands | ⁠The Verge⁠

Anthropic’s safety superpower | ⁠Stratechery⁠

"They screwed us": Personality clashes sent Anthropic's models offline | ⁠Axios⁠

Anthropic’s call for AI nonproliferation | ⁠New York Times⁠

Trump signs exec order to review AI models before release | ⁠The Verge⁠

New Anthropic model finds security problems ‘in every major OS, browser’ | ⁠The Verge⁠

Subscribe to The Verge⁠ to access the ad-free version of Decoder!

Credits:

Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane. 

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today, I’m talking with Slydio CEO Adam Bry, who runs the leading US maker of autonomous drones. We covered a lot in this conversation, including Skydio’s police and government work at a time when military use of AI is more controversial than ever and competing with Chinese drones against the backdrop of the Trump’s administration’s DJI ban.

There’s a lot in this one – maybe more than anything, it was refreshing to hear Adam talk about using AI to bring even more people to work at Skydio as the company expands. I also got to fly a drone, which ruled.

Links: 

Flying a semi-autonomous industrial drone | Decoder

Sorry kid, drones are for war now | The Verge

The FCC’s foreign drone ban is here | The Verge

Skydio is pivoting to enterprise — its consumer drones are dead | The Verge

Skydio commits $3.5B to expand US manufacturing | Skydio

A US drone maker tries to take back the country’s skies | Bloomberg

DEA looks to add Skydio, Parrot drones to its arsenal | FedScoop

The future of border security isn’t at the border at all | The Verge

Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!

Credits:

Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane. 

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey! Nilay here. It’s conference season, so I’m traveling across the country and around the world a lot more than usual. Stay tuned for some very special Decoder episodes we have coming up soon, starting on Monday. 

In the meantime, I wanted to share a conversation between my friend Peter Kafka and Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch on the excellent Channels podcast. Lynch says he’s told his teams to assume that traffic will be zero from now on — that’s what I’ve been calling Google Zero. Roger also shares his thoughts on AI, the growing influence of the creator economy, and more.

Links: 

Channels with Peter Kafka | Apple Podcasts

Condé Nast CEO: Plan As If Search Traffic Will Be Zero | Search Engine Journal

Sundar Pichai on AI, the future of search, and what’s happening to the web | Decoder

Google Zero is here — now what? | Decoder

Google admits the open web is in ‘rapid decline’ | The Verge

Credits:

Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane. 

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today I’m talking with Mustafa Suleyman, the CEO of Microsoft AI. This is a real burner of an episode. We covered everything from his approach to training new models to his criticisms of Anthropic talking about Claude as though it is conscious. 

Of course, we also talked about Microsoft’s relationship with OpenAI, how Mustafa is thinking about all the negative polling and political pushback around AI right now, and whether any of the consumer products are good enough to overcome it. Like I said, it’s a burner.

Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.

Links: 

Microsoft and OpenAI broke up — now they’re ready to fight | The Verge

Microsoft Build 2026: The 7 biggest announcements | The Verge

Microsoft’s first advanced reasoning AI is here | The Verge

Microsoft’s new ‘superintelligence’ game plan is all about business | The Verge

Here’s how the new Microsoft and OpenAI deal breaks down | The Verge

Microsoft AI chief says 18 months until white-collar tasks automated by AI | FT

Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder!

Credits:

Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane. 

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices