Today’s episode, well — it’s a ride. I’m talking to Intuit CEO Sasan Goodarzi, who’s built Intuit into a juggernaut business software company in part through a series of major acquisitions: TurboTax, MailChimp, CreditKarma, and loads more. There’s a lot of good Decoder material there, and we get into it.

But it’s TurboTax, and the company’s tax lobbying efforts to protect it, that really drives a major narrative about Intuit, for better and worse. So you can bet I asked Sasan about all this, and it got a bit contentious. In fact, the company's chief communications officer even demanded we delete a portion of this interview over an exchange with Sasan on TurboTax. Don’t worry — we don’t do that here at The Verge. So expect to hear that section right up top, with the rest of the interview following after.

Links:

Inside TurboTax’s 20-year fight to stop Americans from filing taxes for free| ProPublica
TurboTax deliberately hid free file page from Google Search | ProPublica
TurboTax maker Intuit spent millions in record lobbying blitz | OpenSecrets
FTC: Intuit’s “free” TurboTax ads misled consumers | The Verge
TurboTax isn’t allowed to say it’s ‘free’ anymore | The Verge
Intuit owes you money if it made you pay for TurboTax “free” | The Verge
IRS extends its Free File tax program for five more years | The Verge
IRS Direct File set to expand availability in a dozen new states | IRS
Mint is shutting down, and it’s pushing users toward Credit Karma | The Verge
Intuit Mailchimp CEO Rania Succar on Decoder | Decoder
Ethics Statement | The Verge

Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/24037861

Credits:

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

Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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