Meredith Whittaker is the president of Signal, the popular messaging app that offers encrypted communication. You might recognize Meredith’s name from 2018 when she was an AI researcher at Google and one of the organizers of the Google walkout. Now she’s at Signal, which is a little different than the usual tech company: it’s operated by a nonprofit foundation and prides itself on collecting as little data as possible.But messaging apps are a complicated business. Governments around the world really dislike encrypted messaging and often push companies to put in backdoors for surveillance and law enforcement because criminals use encrypted messaging for all sorts of deeply evil things. But there’s no half step to breaking encryption, so companies like Signal often find themselves in the difficult position of refusing to help governments. You might recall that Apple has often refused to help the government break into iPhones, for example. I wanted to know how that tradeoff plays out at Signal’s much smaller and more idealistic scale.This is a good one, with lots of Decoder themes in the mix. We have to start doing checklists or something. Okay, Meredith Whittaker, president of Signal. Here we go.Links:The battle inside SignalYes, even Signal is doing stories nowHere’s why Apple’s new child safety features are so controversialSignal is ‘starting to phase out SMS support’ from its Android appA very brief history of every Google messaging appRCS: What it is and why you might want itLet’s chat about RCSWhatsApp is now entirely end-to-end encryptedMoxie Marlinspike has stepped down as CEO of SignalMeredith Whittaker TweetTranscript:https://www.theverge.com/e/23173757Credits:Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.Today’s episode was produced by Creighton DeSimone and Jackie McDermott and it was edited by Jackson Bierfeldt.The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Sr Audio Director is Andrew Marino and our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg discusses the $1,499 Quest Pro, building the metaverse, future of social media, and concerns about TikTok's Chinese ownership with The Verge's deputy editor. They also touch on Apple's mixed reality headset, Xbox Cloud Gaming, and Elon Musk possibly buying Twitter.

Today I'm talking to Pat Gelsinger, the CEO of Intel. I’ve been excited to have this conversation for a very long time – ever since Pat took over as CEO a little over a year and a half ago. After all. Intel is a very important company with a huge series of challenges in front of it. It’s still the largest chip manufacturer by revenue, and makes more chips than any other company in the United States. In fact there are basically only three major chip manufacturers: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or TSMC, which is in Taiwan, Samsung, based in South Korea. And Intel, here in the United States.The Intel Pat took over was struggling, and was losing ground to in a variety of markets. But in the past year and a half, Pat’s restructured the company, turned over almost all of its leadership positions, opened a new line of business that would compete with TSMC and make chips for other companies including Intel’s competitors, and generally tried to reset Intel’s famous engineering culture around engineering.Glossary:IFS - Intel Foundry Service.Raptor Lake - codename for intel's Gen 13 processors that were just the day before we had our conversation.Sapphire Rapids - the codename for Intel's 4th generation Xeon server processors.20A and 18A - 20A is a rebranding of what was intel's 5nm process scheduled to debut in 2024 and 18A is a rebranding of Intels 5nm+ node due out in 2025.Packaging - integrated circuit packaging is the last step of semiconductor fabrication. It's where a block of semiconductor material is put into a case. The case, is known as a "package" and that is what allows you put a circuit on a board.Wafers - When a processor is made they make processors you make hundreds of them at once on a giant wafer. EUV - is Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography. It's the most advanced way to make chips. ASML - Is the company that makes the machines that lets you make chips. They are the only company that makes EUV machines.RibbonFET - A new transistor technology that Intel developed.ISV - Independent Software Vendors.PDK - Process Design Kit is a set of files that have data and algorithms that explain the manufacturing parameters for a given silicon process.EDA tools - stands for Electronic Design Automation tools. Basically software tools that are used to design and validate the semiconductor manufacturing process.Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore - the founders of Intel.Andy Grove - employee #3 who went on to become one of their most successful CEOs.Links:Moore's LawIntel is replacing its CEO in FebruaryIntel has to be better than ‘lifestyle company’ Apple at making CPUs, says new CEOApple is switching Macs to its own processors starting later this yearApple MacBook Air with M1 review: new chip, no problem What we know about Intel’s $20 billion bet on OhioIntel is building a new €17 billion semiconductor manufacturing hub in GermanyIntel delays ceremony for Ohio factory over lack of government fundingIntel needs 7,000 workers to build its $20 billion chip plant in OhioBiden signs $280 billion CHIPS and Science ActPresident Joe Biden speaks after groundbreaking for Intel’s $20 billion semiconductor plantIntel’s top Arc A770 GPU is priced at $329, available October 12thIntel’s 13th Gen processors arrive October 20th with $589 flagship Core i9-13900KTranscript:https://www.theverge.com/e/23149693Credits:Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.Today’s episode was produced by Creighton DeSimone and Jackie McDermott and it was edited by Callie Wright.The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Sr Audio Director is Andrew Marino and our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One of the more interesting quirks of the modern tech world is that there’s a really important company at the center of it all that doesn’t make anything. But its work is in your phone, in your TV, your car and maybe even your laptop. I’m talking about ARM, a chip design company that’s been through quite a lot these past few years, and I'm talking to Arm CEO Rene Haas.Arm designs the instruction sets for modern chips: Qualcomm’s chips are Arm chips. Apple’s chips are Arm chips. Samsung’s chips are Arm chips. It’s the heart of modern computing. Arm licenses the instruction set to those companies, who then go off and actually make chips with all sorts of customizations. Basically every smartphone runs an Arm processor, Apple’s Macs now run arm processors, and everything from cars to coffee machines are showing up with more and more arm processors in them.We want to know what you think about Decoder. Take our listener survey!Transcript:https://www.theverge.com/e/23137412Links:The Vergecast: The HDMI Holiday Spec-tacular on Apple Podcasts Biden signs $280 billion CHIPS and Science ActIntel needs 7,000 workers to build its $20 billion chip plant in Ohio - The VergeWhat comes after the smartphone, with Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon - The VergeWhy the global chip shortage is making it so hard to buy a PS5Nvidia’s huge Arm deal has just been scrappedWhat is a SoC?What is an ECU?Credits:Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.Today’s episode was produced by Creighton DeSimone and Jackie McDermott and it was edited by Callie Wright.The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Sr Audio Director is Andrew Marino. Our Editorial Director is Brooke Minters. And our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ryan Petersen, is the CEO of Flexport, ac ompany that builds software that integrates all the different shipping vendor systems you might run into as you try to get a product from a factory in China to a consumer in Idaho: rail, sea, truck. We’ve talked about the supply chain and inventory management on Decoder with a lot of our guests — the chip shortage seems to affect every company, and sorting out how to get products made and delivered on time is a pretty universal problem. But we haven’t really talked about how products get from one place to another around the world. So I wanted to talk to Ryan, figure out what Flexport’s role in all this is, what his bigger supply chain solutions would be, and why he’s leaving his job as CEO to be executive chairman and handing the reins to Dave Clark, who used to work at Amazon.Links:Dave Clark to Join Flexport As Our New CEOFlexport Wants to Be Uber of the OceansAt Google, Eric Schmidt Wrote the Book on Adult SupervisionThe real story behind a tech founder’s ‘tweetstorm that saves Christmas’Ryan's twitter threadTranscript:https://www.theverge.com/e/23126062Credits:Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.Today’s episode was produced by Creighton DeSimone and Jackie McDermott and it was edited by Callie Wright.The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Sr Audio Director is Andrew Marino. Our Editorial Director is Brooke Minters. And our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today, I’m talking to Mark Bergen, a reporter at Bloomberg and the author of a new book about YouTube called. Like, Comment, Subscribe: Inside YouTube’s Chaotic Rise to World Domination.YouTube has always been fascinating to me because it’s such a black box: everyone feels like they know how the platform works, but very few people have a real understanding of the internal politics and tradeoffs that actually drive YouTube’s decision. Mark’s book is one of the best of its kind I’ve read: not only does he take you inside the company, but he connects the decisions made inside YouTube to the creators who use the platform and the effects it has on them.This was a fun one – keep in mind that for as little as we might know about YouTube, we might know even less about TikTok, which is driving all sorts of platforms, even YouTube, into competing with it.Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23113078 Links:YouTube Partner ProgramHank Green on DecoderiJustineCredits:Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.Today’s episode was produced by Creighton DeSimone and Jackie McDermott and it was edited by Callie Wright.The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Sr Audio Director is Andrew Marino. Our Editorial Director is Brooke Minters. And our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode was originally published on May 3rd, 2022. Tony Fadell was instrumental in the development of the iPod and iPhone at Apple and then co-founded Nest Labs, which kicked off the consumer smart home market with its smart thermostat in 2011. Tony sold Nest to Google for $3.2 billion in 2014 and eventually left Google. He now runs an investment company called Future Shape. Links:Inside the Nest: iPod creator Tony Fadell wants to reinvent the thermostatGeneral Magic - TrailerInside Facebook’s metaverse for workSilicon GraphicsGoogle is reorganizing and Sundar Pichai will become new CEOFire drill: can Tony Fadell and Nest build a better smoke detector?Google purchases Nest for $3.2 billionTwitter accepts buyout, giving Elon Musk total control of the companyNest is rejoining Google to better compete with Amazon and AppleApple Music Event 2005 - Motorola Rokr E1 / iTunes PhoneActivision Blizzard hit with another sexual harassment lawsuitNest buying video-monitoring startup Dropcam for $555 millionWhat matters about Matter, the new smart home standardZIGBEE ON MARS!Directory:Steve Jobs, CEO of AppleAndy Grove, former CEO of IntelPat Gelsinger, current CEO of IntelSundar Pichai, current CEO of AlphabetElon Musk, CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and The Boring CompanyJeff Williams, COO of AppleMatt Rogers, Nest co-founderJeff Robbin, VP of consumer applications at AppleSteve Hoteling, former CEO gesture recognition company Finger WorksJon Rubinstein, senior VP of the iPod division at AppleSteve Sakomen, hardware engineer and executive at Apple Avie Tavanian, chief software technology officer at AppleScott Forstall, senior VP of iOS software, AppleJony Ive, chief design officer, AppleTranscript:https://www.theverge.com/e/22817673Credits:Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.Today’s episode was produced by Creighton DeSimone and Jackie McDermott and it was edited by Callie Wright.The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Sr Audio Director is Andrew Marino and our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We’ve got a special episode of Decoder today – an interview between Verge deputy editor Alex Heath and Meta’s Tom Alison, the head of Facebook. Alex is the co-host of the newest season of Vox Media’s podcast Land of the Giants. This season is about Facebook and Meta. The season finale comes out tomorrow.Alex has been reporting for Land of the Giants for many months, and along the way he interviewed Tom. Facebook has a lot of challenges, but it seems like the biggest problem is TikTok: Facebook's problem is that it spent years – you spent years – building out a social graph that, it turns out, is less interesting than just being shown content that the company thinks you might like. Alison has been at Facebook for more than a decade and previously ran engineering for the News Feed, so he knows more than almost anyone about the history of feeds and where they are going.Links:Land of the GiantsFacebook is changing its algorithm to take on TikTok, leaked memo revealsFacebook is revamping its home feed to feel more like TikTokTranscript:https://www.theverge.com/e/23092319Credits:Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.Today’s episode was produced by Creighton DeSimone and Jackie McDermott and it was edited by Callie Wright.The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Sr Audio Director is Andrew Marino. Our Editorial Director is Brooke Minters. And our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One thing that strikes me, in all these episodes of Decoder, is how little any of us really pay attention to the advertising industry, and how deeply connected it is to almost other every modern business. After all you can start a company and invent a great product, but you still need to market it: you need to tell people about it, and eventually convince them to buy it. And so you take out an add on a platform and, well, the platform companies we all depend on mostly run on ads. Google’s entire consumer business is ads. Meta’s entire business is ads. And when we talk to creators, they’re even more tied to ads: their distribution platforms like TikTok and YouTube are all ad-supported, and a huge portion of their revenue is ads. This week I’m talking to Neal Arthur, the CEO of Weiden and Kennedy, one of the few independent major ad agencies in the world, and maybe the coolest one? It’s got a rep. Weiden is the agency that came up with Just Do It for Nike and Bud Light Legends for Bud Light. They’ve done campaigns for Coke, Miller, Microsoft, ESPN – you name it. Coming off our conversation last week with Katie Welch about building a brand from the ground up using influencer marketing and potentially never hiring an ad agency, I wanted to get a view from the other side: how does a big ad agency work? Where does their money come from? So many of the big agencies are merging into what are called holding companies – why is Wieden still independent?Links:Bud Light puts creative account up for review after years with Wieden+KennedyMover Over Millennials -- Here Comes Gen ZHow Selena Gomez's Rare Beauty Goes Viral, With CMO Katie WelchMad Men (TV Series 2007-2015)Transcript:https://www.theverge.com/e/23081723Credits:Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.Today’s episode was produced by Creighton DeSimone and Jackie McDermott. It was edited by Callie Wright. And researched by Liz Lian.The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Sr Audio Director is Andrew Marino. Our Editorial Director is Brooke Minters. And our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Katie Welch is the Chief Marketing Officer of Rare Beauty — the beauty products company founded by superstar musician and actress Selena Gomez. Rare Beauty sells its products online and in Sephora retail stores, and importantly, Katie does almost no traditional marketing: Rare Beauty is a true internet brand, that depends on social media strategy, influencer marketing, and community to drive sales. Specifically, the enormous community around Selena Gomez, who, again, is an international superstar with a fandom of her own.This kind of marketing is essentially new. Famous people making their own products and companies and using their online reach to launch and grow those businesses is a combination of art and commerce that is 10 – 15 years old at most, Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty is only five years old, but it’s redefined the industry and helped make her a billionaire. Some of the first big successes came from the Kardashian-Jenners including Kylie Cosmetics, founded in 2015, as well as Kim Kardashian’s Skims, founded in 2019.I’ve been really curious about how these businesses work, how they reach their audiences and customers, how CMOs like Katie measure success, whether being the marketing executive for an super online celebrity-driven business feels different than being a traditional marketing person, and whether the ever-present risk of weird things happening online make her plan differently.Transcript:https://www.theverge.com/e/23071490Links:Why BeReal is breaking outWhy Hank Green can’t quit YouTube for TikTokApple’s app tracking transparency feature isn’t an instant privacy buttonApple’s app tracking policy reportedly cost social media platforms nearly $10 billionUpdating The Verge’s background policyMarketing FunnelsKatie's TikTokInstagram walks back TikTok-style changes — Adam Mosseri explains whyMakeup company Glossier to sell its products at Sephora as new CEO pushes to expand reachCredits:Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.Today’s episode was produced by Creighton DeSimone and Jackie McDermott and it was edited by Callie Wright.The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Sr Audio Director is Andrew Marino. Our Editorial Director is Brooke Minters. And our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices