Recode Media with Peter Kafka
489 episodes - English - Latest episode: 4 months ago - ★★★★★ - 468 ratingsWhat 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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Episodes
That’s a wrap (for now)
December 07, 2023 05:00 - 38 minutesPeter Kafka, soon to be formerly of Vox, reviews the year in media with Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw. What did we learn from the strikes? Is the bundle back? Are movies back? What’s going on with whatever the NBA is doing right now? And what’s up with Bob Iger saying he didn’t say something he definitely said on live TV? This is the last episode of “Recode Media” in its current form, but stay subscribed to this feed! Peter and this show will be back with a new name and a new corporate daddy in 2024...
Sam Altman’s back at OpenAI. What’s next?
November 29, 2023 05:00 - 47 minutesAfter a wild series of events, Sam Altman is back as CEO of OpenAI… with more power than ever before. The Verge’s Alex Heath worked sleepless nights covering every twist and turn of this saga. He updates Vox’s Peter Kafka about where we are now, what all of this means moving forward, and how tech journalism can drive someone to mistake alcohol for water. Then, we continue with artificial intelligence talk as News/Media Alliance President and CEO Danielle Coffey pops in to discuss the journali...
What just happened to OpenAI?
November 20, 2023 21:50 - 29 minutesThe board of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, ousted CEO Sam Altman on Friday. Since then, the board has appointed not one, but two, interim CEOs. And Altman and his OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman got snatched up by Microsoft. The New York Times’ Kevin Roose (@kevinroose) joins Vox’s Peter Kafka to talk about what we know and what we don’t about this whole situation. Host: Peter Kafka (@pkafka), Senior Editor at Recode More to explore: Subscribe for free to Recode Media, Peter Kafka, one ...
Why so, Sirius?
November 16, 2023 05:00 - 34 minutesSiriusXM makes money by beaming music and talk radio - especially Howard Stern - to your car using satellites and selling monthly subscriptions. That turns out to be a surprisingly resilient business: The company has 34 million subscribers and $9 billion in annual revenue. But CEO Jennifer Witz knows she has to adapt to the streaming world, so she’s refreshing the company’s brand and app, with the hopes that you’ll keep listening when you’re not driving. Vox’s Peter Kafka talks to Witz about ...
No seriously. What’s the future of Disney? And why did Fox News fire Tucker Carlson?
November 09, 2023 05:00 - 51 minutesIt’s a double shot of media business takes, with conversations about the Walt Disney Corporation and Fox News, with references to “Succession” in both. First, CNBC’s Alex Sherman (@sherman4949) joins Vox’s Peter Kafka to talk about Disney’s strategy, or lack thereof. What does it want to do with ESPN? ABC? Marvel? Star Wars? And although it plans to buy the remaining third of Hulu… what the hell does it want to do with Hulu? Plus, he gives us some hot goss about the Bobs (Iger and Chapek), an...
Land of the Giants: What We All Got Wrong About Twitter
November 02, 2023 04:00 - 42 minutesThis week, an episode of the latest season of Land of the Giants: The Twitter Fantasy, hosted by our own Peter Kafka. If you like what you hear, be sure to subscribe! Twitter began life as an accident. In the beginning, even its founders weren’t sure what it was: the internet’s town square, a real-time information source, or the next Facebook, maybe? Twitter's power has always been misunderstood -- by its leaders, by its users, and lately, by the world's richest person. Host: Peter Kafka (@p...
How Dropout found success streaming comedy for $6 a month
October 26, 2023 04:00 - 32 minutesWhen Sam Reich bought CollegeHumor from Barry Diller’s IAC for pennies in January 2020, the comedy site was long past its heyday. A few months later, the pandemic hit. It wouldn’t have been a surprise if CollegeHumor had vanished entirely. Instead, Reich pushed the company to lean into Dropout, the subscription streaming part of the business, and create more improvised comedy content that lent itself well to viral clips on TikTok and YouTube. Today, Dropout has a dedicated fanbase of hundreds...
Inside the New York Times’ controversial Gaza headline
October 25, 2023 19:52 - 21 minutesThe New York Times issued a rare editors’ note Monday: a mea culpa for a headline repeating unverified claims from Hamas that a Gaza hospital explosion was caused by an Israeli airstrike. Vanity Fair media reporter Charlotte Klein (@charlottetklein) obtained internal Slack messages from the Times’ editors which reveal an internal debate about the framing of the original headline. Vox’s Peter Kafka talks to Klein about her scoop. Host: Peter Kafka (@pkafka), Senior Editor at Recode More to exp...
How the Washington Post is covering the Israel-Hamas War
October 18, 2023 20:10 - 20 minutesThe war in Israel and Gaza is hugely complicated - dangerous, horrifying, and moving fast. Which means it’s a huge job for those who have to cover it. The Washington Post’s international editor, Douglas Jehl (@jehld), joins Vox’s Peter Kafka to discuss how a major news operation covers the conflict between Israel and Hamas. How do you weigh the need to keep on top of the story with the need to fact-check everything in the fog of war? How do editors and reporters balance the risks of entering ...
The rise and (maybe) fall of Marvel
October 12, 2023 04:00 - 42 minutesThe Marvel Cinematic Universe is an interconnected series of movies and TV shows that produced four of the top-grossing movies of all time and changed the way Hollywood works. It also may have a hard time sustaining the cultural and business dominance it has enjoyed for the last decade-plus. Here to discuss the superhero’s journey is writer and podcaster Joanna Robinson (@jowrotethis), co-author of MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios. She gives Vox’s Peter Kafka the 101 on the history of Marvel ...
The internet, explained by Taylor Lorenz
October 05, 2023 04:00 - 35 minutesTaylor Lorenz (@TaylorLorenz) is the person who told you what “cheugy” means, what a “content house” is, and basically anything else you want to know about young people, the social media they use, and the people who make that media. Now the Washington Post journalist has a book out explaining all of this: “Extremely Online”, which is a history of social media told from the POV of the influencers/creators who made social media work. She talks to Vox’s Peter Kafka about the often contentious re...
Warner Music Group’s CEO says AI songs are coming whether you like it or not
October 02, 2023 04:00 - 31 minutesWhen Robert Kyncl (@rkyncl) worked at YouTube, he made deals with companies like Warner Music Group. Now, he’s the CEO of Warner Music Group. Vox’s Peter Kafka interviewed Kyncl live on stage at the Code conference. Kyncl explains how Warner Music Group approaches AI both as a tool and as an intellectual property concern, and why he wants Spotify to charge more. And even though the blockchain and NFT craze has passed — Kyncl is still optimistic about its business potential. Host: Peter Kafka...
HBO boss Casey Bloys on the strikes, the bundle and AI
September 28, 2023 04:00 - 29 minutesThe Hollywood writers’ strike is over and there’s hope the actors guild and studios will also settle their differences soon. So people like HBO and HBO Max Content boss Casey Bloys (@caseybloys) may be able to start making shows again shortly. But how will new deals affect what he makes… and what he doesn’t make? Bloys talks to Peter Kafka about that and much more: TV’s attempt to re-bundle the bundle, why “Max” makes sense as a brand (and as a container for HBO), why HBO shows on Netflix hel...
Why did it take 5 months to solve the Writers’ Strike?
September 25, 2023 23:51 - 22 minutesAfter a historic strike that went on for almost 150 days, the studios and the Writers Guild of America have a (tentative) deal. What’s in the deal, and why did it take almost half a year to get there? And what does this mean for the Screen Actors Guild strike, still in progress? And what happened to the AI issue we were told was existential? Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw (@Lucas_Shaw) joins Vox’s Peter Kafka to break down what we know so far. Host: Peter Kafka (@pkafka), Senior Editor at Recode Mor...
Why did Rupert Murdoch just leave his media empire?
September 21, 2023 20:51 - 18 minutesOne of the most powerful people of the 21st century says he’s retiring. Rupert Murdoch, 92, will hand over control of News Corp. and Fox Corp. to his son Lachlan, in November. What does that actually mean? And what happens next? Here to offer some very informed speculation is longtime Murdoch family watcher Brian Stelter, who wrote one book on Murdoch and Fox News and has another one on the way. Up for discussion with Vox’s Peter Kafka: How active has Rupert been at the top of his company? Wh...
How Matthew Berry made fake football his real job
September 21, 2023 04:00 - 39 minutesOnce the domain of the nerdiest of sports fans, these days fantasy football analysis is on primetime TV. Matthew Berry (@MatthewBerryTMR) comments on fantasy football for NBC Sports (and before that, ESPN) and founded the website fantasylife.com. It's the culmination of a career that, for many people, would have already been a fantasy: serving as George Carlin’s assistant and writing for Married with Children. Berry joins Vox’s Peter Kafka to talk about the business of fantasy sports and what...
Inside Sam Bankman-Fried's Rise and Fall
September 14, 2023 04:00 - 38 minutesWait a minute. For a couple of years there - 2020 through 2022 - everyone acted like bitcoin and even weirder crypto things were worth trillions of dollars. And cartoon apes were on Jimmy Fallon? And now none of us want to pretend that happened at all? Zeke Faux (@ZekeFaux) wants to talk about it with Vox’s Peter Kafka. Faux is an investigative reporter for Bloomberg, and his new book Number Go Up chronicles the crazy crypto bubble, and Faux’s worldwide hunt to uncover the truth behind one cr...
The Business of Taylor Swift
September 12, 2023 04:00 - 26 minutesTaylor Swift is on one of the most successful concert tours of all time, but what's her secret? Switched on Pop's Charlie Harding (@charlieharding) sits down with Peter to discuss the business of Taylor Swift. How her music, her fans, and her industry expertise catapulted her to being one of the most profitable singers of this generation. Host: Peter Kafka (@pkafka), Senior Editor at Recode More to explore: Subscribe for free to Recode Media, Peter Kafka, one of the media industry's most acc...
It’s the US vs China with tech in between
September 07, 2023 04:00 - 25 minutesThe US and China are in a sort of cold war, and the tech industry is caught in the middle. But it’s complicated: Ask TikTok, the Chinese-owned app that dominates entertainment in the US. Or Apple, which couldn’t exist without the Chinese supply chain that makes the iPhone. Here to explain the state of play to Vox’s Peter Kafka is The Information’s Jessica Lessin (@JessicaLessin) who just returned from a trip to Beijing and Shanghai with “tech’s favorite politician,” Commerce Secretary Gina Ra...
CNN is Mark Thompson’s problem now
August 31, 2023 04:00 - 26 minutesDavid Zaslav sent up the white smoke, marking the selection of a new CNN CEO. Mark Thompson comes from The New York Times and the BBC, and has his work cut out for him to dig CNN out of the hole dug by his predecessor - but really, the hole that every TV news operation is in. Puck’s Dylan Byers (@dylanbyers), who broke the news of Thompson’s hire, returns to tell Vox’s Peter Kafka all about Thompson and CNN’s second big streaming play after the quickly-abandoned CNN+. Host: Peter Kafka (@pka...
How The Try Guys survived going viral
August 24, 2023 04:00 - 33 minutesBorn at BuzzFeed in 2014, The Try Guys make online videos where they try all sorts of things: earwax extractions, baking pie without a recipe, getting kidnapped, the usual. Since then, they’ve become their own independent media company, wrote a bestselling book, hosted a Food Network show — and broke up with one of their founding members in a public cheating scandal that was even parodied on Saturday Night Live. Vox’s Peter Kafka talks to one of the titular guys, Zach Kornfeld (@korndiddy), a...
Today, Explained: Sound of Freedom is the surprise movie hit of the summer
August 17, 2023 04:00 - 30 minutesA movie made for peanuts and distributed by a studio far outside the Hollywood system has done better box office numbers than both the new Mission Impossible and Indiana Jones movies. Sound of Freedom is about a rogue federal agent who goes to Colombia to break up a child sex trafficking ring. The conservative media love it. Faith-based groups love it. QAnon loves it. But how did this movie get made? And is the guy the movie based on the hero the movie makes him out to be? Recode Media sister...
Land of the Giants: How Tesla became the Elon Musk Co.
August 10, 2023 04:00 - 38 minutesThis week, a quick update on Disney’s deal to get into sports betting. Then, we’re bringing you an episode of The Verge’s latest season of Land of the Giants, The Tesla Shock Wave. This episode tells the story of how Elon Musk joined the electric car company - and how he eventually led a coup against the original founders. Musk went on to make the car company’s brand synonymous with his own, which was great for Tesla… until it wasn’t. Hosted by Tamara Warren (@tamaratam) and Patrick George (...
Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker says tech isn’t our problem - it’s us
August 03, 2023 04:00 - 42 minutesBlack Mirror isn’t just a hit TV show: It’s a window into the not-too-distant future. Creator Charlie Brooker (@charltonbrooker) has an astonishing track record of consistently imagining what we’re just about to see - whether it’s Donald Trump, the downside of social media, or AI-generated TV shows. And he’s made something that’s pervaded pop culture - when someone says “That’s like a Black Mirror episode” we know exactly what they mean. Brooker tells Vox’s Peter Kafka that, despite what you ...
Why Lina Khan is fighting big tech - and losing
July 27, 2023 04:00 - 29 minutesJoe Biden wants to stop big companies - especially big tech companies - from buying or merging with other companies. FTC boss Lina Khan is supposed to be his enforcer, but… it’s not going well. In fact, it’s possible Khan’s struggles have made it easier for big companies to bulk up, or at least more likely to try. Vox’s Peter Kafka talks about all this with Cecilia Kang (@ceciliakang), who covers tech and regulation for The New York Times. Host: Peter Kafka (@pkafka), Senior Editor at Recode...
Strikes! AI! And a Steven Soderbergh show he’s selling himself.
July 20, 2023 04:00 - 56 minutesThis is a very good week to make a Recode Media episode: Hollywood is reeling from two different strikes. Disney CEO Bob Iger has hung a For Sale sign on parts of his company. And Steven Soderbergh just made a TV series and is selling it directly to consumers, like it’s 2012 or something. First up, Vox’s Peter Kafka runs all of his Hollywood strike theories past Matt Belloni (@MattBelloni), founding partner of Puck News. Is AI really that big of a hangup for writers and actors on the picket l...
Can Meta Make a Twitter Killer?
July 13, 2023 04:00 - 1 hourWe’re one week into the Threads era. How long is that going to last? What does it mean for Twitter, really? And what do Threads and continued chaos at Twitter say about the future of social media? That’s maybe a lot to talk tackle, but we’re going to do it anyway. NYT tech reporter Mike Isaac (@mikeisaac) joins Vox’s Peter Kafka to get us up to speed on Mark Zuckerberg’s effort to depants Elon Musk — it seems to be going pretty well, for the moment. And we’ll try to answer one big question: ...
Why ESPN’s old boss made movies you can’t see - yet
July 03, 2023 14:53 - 43 minutesFormer head of ESPN John Skipper has produced an ambitious new project. Now he has to figure out how to get it in front of you: Sports Explains the World is a series of films featuring well-known personalities (like Curt Schilling) and people you’ve never heard of (like a group of skater girls in Ethiopia). What it doesn’t have, yet, is a deal to get them on a TV screen near you — a condition that may or may not say a lot about the streaming industry in 2023. Skipper and executive producer Sm...
How to make laughs on TikTok and action on Netflix
June 29, 2023 04:00 - 58 minutesComedian Nimesh Patel was grinding it out in the stand-up mines for years with middling success. And then the stage changed. Patel tells us how TikTok changed everything and what it’s like to live at the whim of the algorithm. Then, host Peter Kafka catches up with former stunt coordinator and current filmmaker Sam Hargrave about the secret sauce of making action films for Netflix. It’s a lot of punching, a little Chris Hemsworth and a dash of stabbing the crap of people. His new movie, Extra...
Is Instagram the place to unbreak news?
June 22, 2023 04:00 - 54 minutesMosheh Oinounou worked his way up through the TV news ranks and ended up running CBS Evening News. Now he’s starting over - this time on Instagram - with Mo News, a platform he says is a more responsive way to deliver news to an engaged audience. Oinounou talks to Vox’s Peter Kafka about the maladies affecting conventional news, the challenge of bootstrapping a news outlet in 2023, and why CNN’s former boss Chris Licht may have gotten at least one thing right. Then, Peter talks to his friend ...
Meet the AI company that wants to remake Hollywood
June 15, 2023 04:00 - 42 minutesFor some people that’s a dystopian vision. But for Cristóbal Valenzuela, it’s a mission statement: Valenzuela is the co-founder and CEO of Runway, an AI startup that wants to radically change the way movies and TV are made. Right now the buzzy company - currently valued at $1.5 billion - helps TV shows like The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and movies like Everything Everywhere All at Once create special effects at a fraction of the traditional cost. But Valenzuela has much bigger ambitions ...
CNN’s CEO is out; Apple reveals its goggles
June 07, 2023 21:55 - 47 minutesAfter just over a year of questionable leadership and on the heels of an unflattering Atlantic profile, Chris Licht is out as the head of CNN. Vox’s Peter Kafka talks to Puck’s Dylan Byers, who not only covered Licht, but became part of the story. Then! Apple revealed its long-rumored mixed-reality headset this week. It’ll cost $3,500 when it goes on sale sometime next year, and will allow people who aren’t you to see your eyes while you use it. Wired’s Lauren Goode went face-on with the new ...
NYT rising star Astead Herndon on podcasts, power, and the 2024 race
June 01, 2023 04:00 - 50 minutesIt’s not just Ron DeSantis: All kinds of candidates are piling into the 2024 presidential race. New York Times national politics reporter Astead W. Herndon is covering the contest in audio form, via his show, “The Run-Up” — a weekly deep dive from the campaign trail. Herndon’s reporting is thoughtful and clear-eyed, and gives everyone he talks to — candidates, party leaders and, crucially, voters — the opportunity to really explain how the world looks from their perspective. Vox’s Peter Kafka...
Meet the media insider who makes Succession feel real
May 22, 2023 10:00 - 32 minutesSuccession — the HBO drama about a Murdoch-ish family of media moguls — feels authentic thanks, in part, to consultant Merissa Marr. Marr covered the Murdochs and other media titans for years at The Wall Street Journal, and she’s worked with the creative team behind Succession since the beginning. Vox’s Peter Kafka talks to Marr about Succession’s obsession with getting tiny details about Big Media just right; which non-Murdoch moguls influence the show’s depiction of the Roy clan; what happe...
It’s TV’s biggest week - and TV is on strike
May 15, 2023 23:00 - 44 minutesLive from New York, it’s Upfronts week, where TV networks sell billions of dollars of advertising with glitzy presentations. It’s also the third week of the writers’ strike, which means the people who make the shows that run in between ads are picketing those presentations. So it’s a good time to talk about the state of the post-streaming boom TV business. Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw drops by the studio to talk to Vox’s Peter Kafka about challenges facing the networks as they sell ads, and the wri...
Ken Jennings on the future of Jeopardy!
May 11, 2023 04:00 - 48 minutesKen Jennings won 74 straight episodes of Jeopardy back in 2004. Somehow he’s turned that winning streak into a career, and now co-hosts the surprisingly resilient game show. Peter Kafka talked to Jennings about his job and much more at the Crosscut Ideas Festival in Seattle. And while the sound quality isn’t pristine, the conversation covers a lot of ground. Jennings, for instance, talks about the tension between Jeopardy’s producers, who want to refresh the show in the hopes of bringing in n...
How worried—or excited—should we be about AI?
May 04, 2023 04:00 - 53 minutesAI is amazing… or terrifying, depending on who you ask. This is a technology that elicits strong, almost existential reactions. So in the final episode of our special series about AI, we dig into the giant ambitions and enormous concerns people have about the very same tech. Featuring: New York Times tech columnist Kevin Roose (@kevinroose), who tells me why his viral conversation with Bing’s AI chatbot changed the way he thought about the new tech. Then: Google has everything to lose here, s...
Jonah Peretti, Nick Denton and Ben Smith on digital news’ past and future
May 02, 2023 10:00 - 36 minutesIt’s our first four-way pod, featuring BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti, Gawker founder Nick Denton, and Semafor founder (and former editor-in-chief of the recently shuttered BuzzFeed News) Ben Smith, who wrote a book about them both. Peter Kafka talks to all of them in conjunction with Smith’s new book “Traffic: Genius, Rivalry, and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral.” What lessons did Smith learn from Peretti and Denton’s mistakes? If Disney offers to buy you out for hundreds of ...
Inside the AI Gold Rush
April 27, 2023 04:00 - 47 minutesSilicon Valley needs a new thing and AI is that new thing: investors are supposed to pour 43 billion dollars into AI this year. But will individual startups cash in on the boom, or will the real winners of AI be the same handful of big, established companies? Featuring: Renate Nyborg (@renate), a tech veteran who is launching an AI startup, and got a firsthand look at the AI funding frenzy. (00:00) Then: Dror Berman (@drorberman), a venture capitalist at Innovation Endeavors, which he co-foun...
AI is the future! AI is a fraud. Let's debate.
April 20, 2023 04:00 - 51 minutesAI has captured the imagination of Silicon Valley seemingly overnight. And in all this excitement, it's hard to tell what's really going on. What is this technology, how does Silicon Valley plan to change our world with it, and what exactly has a bunch of smart people very worried? I'm doing a special series to figure that all out. Over the next three weeks, I'll talk to true AI believers and its sharpest detractors to get the real story about where this technology stands, and what it might ...
Has Fox News learned a $787 million lesson?
April 19, 2023 21:30 - 30 minutesFox News, accused of repeatedly and knowingly spreading lies about Dominion Voting Systems, opted Tuesday to fork over $787 million rather than find out what its correspondents had to say under oath in a court of law. Vox’s Peter Kafka talks to NPR's David Folkenflik about what, if anything, this will change when it comes to Fox News and the wider media. Featuring: David Folkenflik (@davidfolkenflik), NPR Media Correspondent & Author Host: Peter Kafka (@pkafka), Senior Editor at Recode More ...
'Chef Reactions' blew up on TikTok. But will TikTok blow up?
April 13, 2023 04:00 - 50 minutesIt’s a TikTok double-header! Vox’s Peter Kafka talks to ‘Chef Reactions,’ the semi-anonymous TikTok star whose hilarious culinary critiques skyrocketed him to viral fame in less than a year. After that, The Washington Post’s Will Oremus catches us up on the controversy over TikTok - the debate over national security issues, and how likely it is the platform could actually get banned in the United States. Featuring: Chef Reactions (@chefreactions), Chef & Content Creator Will Oremus (@WillOre...
Why is a talent agency buying pro wrestling? Plus a green media startup
April 06, 2023 04:00 - 1 hourEndeavor started out as a traditional Hollywood talent agency - CEO Ari Emanuel, famously, was the model for Jeremy Piven’s character on “Entourage.” But suddenly, it’s become a giant media company focused on real and fake fighting, by merging its UFC business - featuring people who are really fighting each other - with the WWE - the one where the fights are scripted. Journalist Ariel Helwani, who knows both worlds very well, joins Vox’s Peter Kafka to explain the deal and what it means for t...
Is Apple sure about Apple’s new Goggles? Plus Roger Bennett, Media Mogul
March 30, 2023 04:00 - 40 minutesWe’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 employees have the same questions — which is very unusual for a Big Deal Apple Debut, to say the very least. The NYT’s Tripp Mickle joins Vox’s Peter Kafka to explain. Then Peter checks in with Men In Blazers co-founder Roger Bennett, who is finally ready to talk about the business o...
Podcast pioneer Jesse Thorn built his own business. Now his employees own it.
March 23, 2023 04:00 - 41 minutesJesse 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 Judge John Hodgman — and relied primarily on listener donations to fund it. But, as Thorn tells Vox’s Peter Kafka, running a business was running him down, and he didn’t want to sell the company to a Spotify or Sirius. So he found a unique solution: He turned Maximum Fun into a w...
An SVB (phew!) update + Benedict Evans on the future of (almost) everything
March 16, 2023 04:00 - 1 hourFirst: 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 / thinkfluencer Benedict Evans. They talk about artificial intelligence, Amazon’s ad business (or whatever we should call it), YouTube’s place in the streaming wars, and what the metaverse and jetpacks have in common. Plus, cow hooves! Featuring: Dan ...
Science fiction pioneer Neal Stephenson on the metaverse, the movies and why he still believes in blockchain
March 06, 2023 05:00 - 44 minutesMark 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 Earth, and, of course, imagined (and named) the dystopian metaverse that Silicon Valley is racing to make a reality. Stephenson has also tried his hand at actual science - helping Jeff Bezos build his private rocket ship business, and later working ...
Meet the woman who got De La Soul streaming
March 03, 2023 05:00 - 37 minutesDe 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 Peter Kafka - couldn’t find them on the likes of Spotify, and potential new fans would never hear them at all. Today that’s changed, thanks to Reservoir Media's CEO Golnar Khosrowshahi, who purchased the company that owned the trio’s music, and then...
Real-life “Succession”: Jim Stewart on Sumner Redstone’s sordid saga
February 23, 2023 05:00 - 37 minutesVeteran 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 Sumner Redstone, who at one point was one of the most powerful men in the industry, and whose decline fueled years of fighting between his family, his employees, and his mistresses. If you like tawdry tales of sex, avarice, and greed — or wanted to kno...
We quiz BuzzFeed’s CEO about AI
February 14, 2023 23:45 - 26 minutesIt 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 — to help craft the site’s famous quizzes. Investors love the idea. Not all of BuzzFeed's employees are quite sure about it, though. Recode’s Peter Kafka talks to BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti about the new technology, which one of this show’s producers used to go o...