Decoder with Nilay Patel

Hey everybody, it’s Nilay. We’ve got a little bonus drop for you today — I was recently interviewed about AI safety by Shumita Basu for Apple News In Conversation, and I enjoyed the conversation so much I asked if we could share it with you all.

We’ve actually got a few bonus drops coming up this month; we’ve been having a lot of great conversations lately, and we want to get them out to you on the news cycle. And of course, nothing is moving as fast as the AI safety news cycle. So enjoy this one, and we’ll see you next time.

Links:

Apple News In Conversation | Apple Podcasts

Inside the suddenly explosive world of AI safety | The Verge

Here’s what AI leaders are saying about Trump’s new safety plan | The Verge

One company is at the center of a wave of rogue AI attacks | The Verge

Microsoft AI CEO says AI threats are real, and Anthropic is making it worse | Decoder

Does AI need an antitrust exemption so it doesn’t kill everyone? | Decoder

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 Greg Ott, Kate Cox, and Nick Statt. The show is 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 Josh Dzieza, a longtime features writer here at The Verge, about a massive data center in Utah that does not exist, might never exist, and yet has already completely reshaped the politics of the entire state.

Josh just published a major feature this week on the struggling Stratos data center project in Utah backed by Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary. So I invited Josh on the show to discuss what’s happening inside the AI industry’s infrastructure boom, inside the bipartisan backlash to data centers, and how the tech industry is running into the one obstacle it can’t seem to spend its way out of: local democracy.

Read the ⁠full interview transcript on The Verge⁠.

Links:

The People of Utah vs. Kevin O'Leary | The Verge

Adams — burdened by data center fallout — ousted by voters | Salt Lake Tribune

‘Shark Tank’ star sued by opponents he claimed were foreign agents| NYT

Fox News apologizes for airing O’Leary claims about data centers | The Hill

Kevin O’Leary agrees to downsize massive Utah data center | The Verge

The biggest data center ever is becoming a huge problem in Utah | The Verge

America's data center future is Loudoun County's past | The Verge

The left and right agree on one thing: no data centers | Decoder

Decoder is a Signal Awards finalist in the Business category! You can vote to help us win ⁠here⁠.

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 Greg Ott, Kate Cox, and Nick Statt. This episode was 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

My guest today is Mike Cannon-Brookes, who is co-founder and CEO of Atlassian. Atlassian is one of those companies that every other company runs on — it makes important platform tools like Jira and Trello. This means Atlassian is also right in the middle of the way AI is changing how all these companies work.

Or, if you buy the idea of the so-called SaaSpocalypse, AI might just build all of these tools for you, destroying this entire category of businesses. Obviously, Mike had a lot of thoughts pushing back on this narrative, so we spent time really digging in and talking through what AI is doing to enterprise software.

Links:

How Australia became the test bed for tech regulation | Decoder (2021)

Building a $45B company far from Silicon Valley’s ‘froth and bubbles’ | Semafor

Atlassian CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes on Atlassian and AI | Stratechery

How Atlassian shook off the 'SaaSpocalypse' for a big rally | IBD

Atlassian acquires The Browser Company, maker of the Arc browser | The Verge

Atlassian Co-CEO resigns, leaving Cannon-Brookes as sole chief | Bloomberg

Atlassian cuts 1,600 jobs amid AI push | Forbes

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 Greg Ott, Kate Cox, and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.

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

Cloudflare discovered in June that bots already make up more than half of internet traffic — and CEO Matthew Prince says that bots could outnumber humans a thousand to one within five years.

That's a huge change to the internet, and if the web is going to keep existing, it needs a huge change to its business model. Can Cloudflare use its place in the ecosystem to direct the money back to the people who make content?

Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.

Links:

How I choose which Cloudflare employees to replace with AI | Wall Street Journal

Why Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince is the internet’s unlikely defender | Decoder (2024)

Cloudflare will now block AI crawlers by default | The Verge

Patreon partners with Cloudflare to block AI crawlers | 404 Media

Sony and Warner sue Anthropic in latest AI music lawsuit | Billboard

Trump administration supports OpenAI in NYT copyright lawsuit | The Verge

Google Zero is here — now what? | The Verge (2024)

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 Greg Ott, 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

It’s a big week for Meta. The company has its big Connect conference, and the new Muse AI agent appears to be an early hit. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been doing a lot of interviews about it all — so of course we asked for him to be on Decoder. Meta declined, for whatever reason.

But luckily Mark just did a big interview with our friend and former colleague Alex Heath on the Sources podcast. So I figured we could highlight some moments from that conversation to point out some obvious gaps in what Mark is saying about Meta and hopefully inspire the next set of people who talk to him with some follow-up questions.

Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.

Links:

Mark Zuckerberg interview | Sources Podcast

How Meta got everything it wanted in secret data center deal | New York Times

Can you forget how you feel about Meta? | The Verge

Zuck doesn’t want to press pause on AI | The Verge

Meta glasses are a workplace menace | The Verge

Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t understand how to live | The Verge

Four takeaways from Mark Zuckerberg’s massive AI manifesto | The Verge

Meta says US states are seeking $1.4 trillion in penalties | Reuters

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 Greg Ott, Kate Cox, and Nick Statt. This episode was 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