Decoder with Nilay Patel

My guest today is Lila Snyder, the CEO of Bose. Lila was last on the show about four years ago, and since then she’s dramatically rearchitected the company — she sold off Bose Professional, acquired the high end audio brands McIntosh Labs and Sonus faber, and, perhaps most importantly, started licensing all that core Bose technology to other companies.

That big change in the business comes with a big change in structure. Becoming a software company in addition to a product company comes with a whole new set of challenges, and Lila and I got into how it’s all working.

Links:

How Bose competes with AirPods, with CEO Lila Snyder | Decoder (2022)

Bose thinks it can be a media company for some reason | The Verge

Bose acquires premium audio brand McIntosh | The Verge

Bose reinvented itself just in time. Now comes the tricky part | Wired

Bose sells off its premium division after 50 years | Bose

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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 Kabir Chopra. Our supervising producer is Greg Ott, and our editorial director is Kevin McShane.

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

Our guest today is Gaby Del Valle, a policy reporter here at The Verge, and we’re discussing the growing backlash against AI data centers. Gaby recently reported a fantastic piece about Hernando County, Florida, where last month the county commission unanimously approved a year-long moratorium on data center construction.

So I wanted Gaby to talk me through what these protests look like on the ground, from voters whose party affiliations have typically aligned them with big business.

Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.

Links:

Right-wingers protesting data centers have a lot in common with the left | The Verge

No data centers in my backyard | Jasmine Sun

Who’s afraid of the big, bad GPU? | The Verge

NY becomes the first state to enact a data center moratorium | The Verge

The fight against AI data centers is just beginning | The Verge

Florida gives millions in tax breaks to data centers under DeSantis-backed law | Tampa Bay Times

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 supervising producer is Greg Ott, and 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 Toni Schneider, the new head of social platform Bluesky who formally took over after a short stint as interim CEO. This is one of my favorite kinds of interviews, because a couple years ago we had Bluesky’s prior CEO, Jay Graber, on the show — she’s now the company’s chief innovation officer. All of that kind of shuffle is pure Decoder bait: a new CEO often brings with them new priorities, which is perhaps the most Decoder subject of all.

Read the ⁠full interview transcript on The Verge⁠.

Links:

Bluesky CEO Jay Graber | Decoder (2024)

Bluesky CEO Jay Graber steps down | TechCrunch

Staying in the game | Toni Schneider

The messy WordPress drama, explained | The Verge

Proton CTO Bart Butler | Decoder

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Credits:

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

Decoder’s producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Eileen Felix. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.

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

Hey everyone, this is Nick Statt, senior producer on Decoder. We’re taking a brief publishing break while Nilay is out on vacation. We’ll resume regular programming next week, and we’ve got some great episodes in the works.

In the meantime, we wanted to share an episode from the excellent podcast The Gray Area, with host Sean Illing. In this one, Sean sat down with The Atlantic journalist Charlie Warzel to talk specifically about the state of the internet in 2026 — and what it means that it feels increasingly overrun by non-human actors.

Links:

The Gray Area with Sean Illing | Apple Podcasts

Galaxy Brain | The Atlantic

The internet is all bots now | The Gray Area (YouTube)

The feeling of control slipping away | The Atlantic

How much of the internet is fake? Turns out, a lot of it, actually| New York Magazine

How bots took over our lives | The New Yorker

The ‘dead internet theory’ is real — and it’s killing the web | Fast Company

The fanfare around the band Geese actually was a psyop | Wired

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

Evan Smith, cofounder and CEO of Altana, was last on the show in early 2025 to talk about how Trump’s first few waves of tariffs were starting to affect global trade. It was a very alarming and also very illuminating chat; Evan and I got into the existential weeds of international relations and economics almost immediately.

A year and a half later, and everything is somehow even more chaotic than it was the last time Evan and I talked — and that’s true about both trade and also the world of running a software company. Agentic AI, whack-a-mole tariff policy, war in Iran — we jumped right back into weeds yet again.

Read the full interview transcript The Verge.

Links:

How Trump’s tariff chaos is already changing global trade | Decoder

Skydio CEO Adam Bry on not drawing red lines for drone use | Decoder

Trump imposes new global tariffs, drawing protests from trading partners | Reuters

Greer: USMCA Talks Could Stretch Into Next Year | Wall Street Journal

Trump hits Canada with new 50% tariffs | Associated Press

Iran weaponized the Strait of Hormuz. Now neighbors are going around it | CNN

The Iran war is testing Southeast Asia’s faith in the US | Politico

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’s producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Kabir Chopra. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.

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