Best Policy Politics Tech Culture And More Podcasts (2024)

1
Rabbit CEO Jesse Lyu isn't thinking too far ahead 1:22:55

5h ago1:22:55

1:22:55

Rabbit’s adorable R1 gadget launched with a lot of hype, but early reviews of the device were universally bad. Now, a core feature, its long-promised LAM Playground has arrived. I had a lot of big questions for CEO Jesse Lyu about how it all works — not just technologically, but if his plans are sustainable from a business and legal perspective. Li…

1
James Carville on Ramping Up the Harris Ground Game and Defeating Trump 35:37

2d ago35:37

35:37

James Carville is not known for mincing words. Back in 2021, the legendary Democratic strategist ruffled quite a few feathers when he blamed “wokeness” for the party’s electoral defeats. He still hasn’t backed down from that belief—but he’s also willing to accept that Kamala Harris has a lot more to worry about than safe spaces and language policin…

1
The toxic transformation of Warcraft maker Blizzard 53:36

2d ago53:36

53:36

Today, I’m talking to Jason Schreier, a Bloomberg journalist and author of the new book Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard Entertainment. If you don’t know Blizzard, you do know its games — the studio behind Warcraft, Diablo, and Overwatch has achieved legendary status over three decades. At the same time, the company has become embl…

1
Hurricane Helene's reach shows why no place is immune from impacts of climate change 6:16

2d ago6:16

6:16

Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida but towns hundreds of miles from the coast have seen some of the worst destruction. Communities once considered 'climate havens' are facing a harsh reality, there may be no such thing. William Brangham discussed the impacts of a warming world and what individuals and communities can do with Alex Steffen, wr…

1
NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable 1:15:34

5d ago1:15:34

1:15:34

Matt Strauss is the Chairman of Direct-to-Consumer at NBC Universal. That’s a big fancy title that means he’s not only in charge of Peacock but also every other streaming video offering the company has worldwide. So you can bet Matt and I got into what that structure even looks like, and how it all operates under the overall ownership of Comcast, w…

1
How Does China Folk House Bridge Rural Communities? 17:09

8d ago17:09

17:09

What is a traditional Chinese farmhouse doing in West Virginia? Rather than allow the historic home to be demolished, Dr. John flower and a team of Chinese and U.S. volunteers moved the house over eight thousand miles from China to the United States. China Folk House rebuilt the traditional Yunnan-style home in West Virginia with over 22 thousand h…

1
Nate Silver on Harris-Trump Odds, 538’s “Broken” Model, and Why He Doesn’t Like Politics 33:43

9d ago33:43

33:43

With less than six weeks until Election Day, host Brian Stelter discusses the historically close race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump with Nate Silver, the renowned polling expert, statistician, and author of the “Silver Bulletin” Substack newsletter. Silver breaks down the latest numbers in swing states, warns against rapidly shifting media…

1
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era 1:10:55

10d ago1:10:55

1:10:55

We have a very special episode of Decoder today. It’s become a tradition every fall to have Verge deputy editor Alex Heath interview Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the show at Meta Connect. This year, before his interview with Mark, Alex got to try a new pair of experimental AR glasses the company is calling Orion. Alex talked to Mark about a whole lo…

1
Arc creator Josh Miller on why you need a better browser than Chrome 1:12:20

12d ago1:12:20

1:12:20

Today, I’m talking with Josh Miller, co-founder and CEO of The Browser Company, a relatively new software maker that develops the Arc browser. The company also has a mobile app called Arc Search that does AI summaries of webpages, which puts it right in the middle of a contentious debate in the tech industry around paying web creators for their wor…

1
David Zweig on The War for Chinese Talent in America 35:01

15d ago35:01

35:01

To overcome “brain drain,” some countries encourage their overseas nationals to use the knowledge they gained abroad to help their motherlands. Since the mid-1990s, China’s party-state efforts include a wide array of programs and incentives to encourage overseas talent to transfer their knowledge back home. Many Chinese working abroad participate, …

1
Papua New Guinea leaders struggle to monitor deep-sea mining activities off its coast 11:24

16d ago11:24

11:24

The kind of deep-sea mining that we've examined this week is only legally permitted inside a country's territorial waters. The only country on earth to allow it so far is Papua New Guinea. Videographer Edward Kiernan and special correspondent Willem Marx report on how difficult it is for the impoverished Pacific nation to monitor deep-sea mining ac…

1
America Has a Problem With Political Violence—And It's a Growing One 30:14

16d ago30:14

30:14

Host Brian Stelter is joined by Barbara F. Walter, an expert on violent extremism and domestic terror, to examine what exactly political violence is and why it’s becoming more common, including factors that may have been at play in the two recent assassination attempts. Walter, a professor at the University of California, San Diego and the author o…

1
Why Google is back in court for another monopoly showdown 35:28

16d ago35:28

35:28

Google’s in the middle of its antitrust case in just as many months, after it lost a landmark trial in August over anticompetitive search practices. This time around, the DOJ is claiming Google has another illegal monopoly in the online advertising market. Verge senior policy reporter Lauren Feiner has been on the ground at the courthouse to hear t…

1
Papua New Guinea locals concerned over deep-sea mining's impact on culture and environment 10:28

19d ago10:28

10:28

The companies that create technology used on a daily basis often run into traditional cultures and the environment that sustains them. In a previous report, videographer Edward Kiernan and special correspondent Willem Marx introduced us to the new and potentially lucrative industry of deep-sea mining. They return to Papua New Guinea and report on l…

1
How Chinese Immigration Shaped Canada & the U.S. 23:27

20d ago23:27

23:27

In both the United States and Canada, geopolitical tensions with China have given rise to domestic suspicions and even legal restrictions on Chinese communities. Both nations have a history of discriminatory laws and policies that excluded Chinese communities, leaving a legacy of anti-Asian sentiment that persists today. Recent events, including th…

1
Companies dig the deepest depths to mine valuable metals from the ocean floor 9:26

20d ago9:26

9:26

Mankind has mined the earth's surface for thousands of years. Now there's a furious race to find even more metal that will enable the world's energy transition away from fossil fuels. In Papua New Guinea, one company is digging what may become the world's first operational deep-sea mining site. Videographer Edward Kiernan and special correspondent …

1
“Made in China” Goes Abroad: U.S.-China-Mexico Trade & EV Market Insights 30:58

19d ago30:58

30:58

The 2020 United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) established barrier-free trade among the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Several Chinese private-sector companies have set up manufacturing companies in Mexico that sell to the United States, thereby hoping to work around U.S. tariffs on Chinese-made products. As Chinese companies move produ…

1
How Philips CEO Roy Jakobs is turning the company around after major recall 1:11:12

19d ago1:11:12

1:11:12

Today, I’m talking with Roy Jakobs. He’s the CEO of Royal Philips, which makes medical devices ranging from MRI machines to ventilators. Philips has a long history —- the company began in the late 19th century as a lightbulb manufacturer, and over the past century it’s grown and shrunk in various ways. Basically, while every other company has been …

1
What's Behind Donald Trump's Right-Wing Bro Podcast Binge 28:35

26d ago28:35

28:35

Podcasts are hardly a new medium in American politics. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t disrupting the dynamics of the 2024 presidential race. Consider hotshot hosts like Theo Von, Ezra Klein, and Adin Ross; all of them have been able to give listeners an intimate glimpse at politicians from Donald Trump to Tim Walz, says Atlantic staff writer Hel…

1
Why AI image editing isn’t “just like Photoshop” 45:50

23d ago45:50

45:50

We’ve been covering the rise of AI image editing very closely here on Decoder and at The Verge for several years now — the ability to create photorealistic images with nothing more than a chatbot prompt could completely reset our cultural relationship to photography. But one argument keeps cropping up in response. You’ve heard it a million times, a…

1
Critical report warns NASA is underfunded and its future is at risk 4:44

26d ago4:44

4:44

A four-person crew of civilians launched Tuesday morning on a private Space-X rocket for a five-day mission to include the first commercial spacewalk in history. NASA has big plans to send people to the Moon and Mars, but a sweeping new report from the National Academies of Sciences raises questions about the agency. Science Correspondent Miles O'B…

1
What's the Future of the BRI? 17:30

29d ago17:30

17:30

75% of China's over $1.1 trillion loans to low- and middle-income countries will have entered their repayment period by 2030. How will this debt be dealt with? The goals of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) have evolved since its inception in 2013 and so have environmental protection standards and public opinion relating to BRI projects. How has t…

1
Anthropic’s Mike Krieger wants to build AI products that are worth the hype 1:23:19

26d ago1:23:19

1:23:19

Today, I’m talking with Mike Krieger, the new chief product officer at Anthropic, one of the hottest AI companies in the industry. Anthropic’s main product right now is Claude, the name of both its industry-leading AI model and a chatbot that competes with ChatGPT. Mike has a fascinating resume: he was the cofounder of Instagram, and then started A…

1
How Wisconsin is trying to save its freshwater mussels from drought and rising heat 4:38

1M ago4:38

4:38

Wisconsin is coming back from its worst drought in decades. Along with unusually high temperatures, it's affected wildlife in and around the state's rivers. While spring rains ended the drought, recovery in some places has been slow. PBS Wisconsin's Nathan Denzin reports on one species that's been hit particularly hard. PBS News is supported by - h…

1
The Future of the U.S.-China Science and Technology Agreement 29:05

1M ago29:05

29:05

The U.S.-China Science and Technology Cooperation Agreement (STA), signed in 1979, was the first major bilateral agreement between the United States and China. Since then, it has been renewed multiple times and has facilitated China’s integration into the global economy. However, experts agree that the agreement no longer reflects China’s expanded …

1
The GOP's "Extreme Policies" on Abortion and IVF Have Not Changed 35:35

1M ago35:35

35:35

Host Brian Stelter is joined by Amanda Becker, Washington correspondent for The 19th, to examine the battle over abortion rights in America, including the Florida ballot measure, former President Trump’s all-over-the-place messaging, and the Republican Party’s conflicting views about in vitro fertilization and fetal personhood. The two also discuss…

1
How the Wayback Machine is fighting linkrot 44:01

1M ago44:01

44:01

The web has a problem: huge chunks of it keep going offline. The web isn’t static, parts of it sometimes just… vanish. But it’s not all grim. The Internet Archive has a massive mission to identify and back up our online world into a vast digital library. In 2001, it launched the Wayback Machine, an interface that lets anyone call up snapshots of si…

1
After losing his sight, this scientist created a unique nature walk for the other senses 3:46

1M ago3:46

3:46

In Southern California's Tijuana River Estuary, a blind scientist is leading a tour that encourages visitors to experience nature a little differently. He introduces visitors to the native plants with an emphasis on the other four senses besides sight. This story was produced by Kori Suzuki and Carolyn Cor-Ellis of KPBS. PBS News is supported by - …

1
How U.S. and Chinese Courts Will Shape the AI Revolution 13:16

1M ago13:16

13:16

The United States and China are racing towards AI dominance. Many people don't know that artists and writers are at the forefront of shaping the legal future of AI. As both U.S. and Chinese AI tools grow ever-more sophisticated, courtrooms in both countries are left to decide legal boundaries on intellectual property issues. However, with AI's rapi…

1
The Recent Influx of Chinese Migrants across the U.S.-Mexico Border 30:24

1M ago30:24

30:24

In 2023, U.S. border officials arrested over 37,000 Chinese nationals at the southern border, ten times as many as the previous year. The trend is so pronounced that “walking the line” (走线), as the journey from Central/South America to the U.S. southern border is known on Chinese social media, has become a buzzword in Chinese society. The resulting…

1
The AI election deepfakes have arrived 45:06

1M ago45:06

45:06

Decoder is off this week for a short end-of-summer break. We’ll be back with both our interview and explainer episodes after the Labor Day holiday. In the meantime we thought we’d re-share an explainer that’s taken on a whole new relevance in the last couple weeks, about deepfakes and misinformation. In February, I talked with Verge policy editor A…

1
Peter Hessler on China’s Evolving Education System 31:42

1M ago31:42

31:42

In 1996, when Peter Hessler first went to China to teach, almost all of his students were first-generation college students. Most came from large rural families, and their parents, subsistence farmers, could offer little guidance as their children entered a new world. By 2019, when Mr. Hessler arrived at Sichuan University, he found a very differen…

1
Why NASA is turning to SpaceX to bring Boeing Starliner astronauts home 6:36

1M ago6:36

6:36

NASA's initial launch with the Boeing Starliner capsule has not worked out well. The space agency announced this weekend it has finally decided the two astronauts stuck at the International Space Station will come back on a SpaceX Dragon capsule next year. The pair were initially sent on an eight-day mission in early June. Amna Nawaz discussed the …

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