Decoder with Nilay Patel

Linda McMahon, the former pro wrestling executive who now leads the Trump administration’s Small Business Administration, talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher at the 2018 Code Conference. McMahon explains how the nonpartisan SBA is reckoning with today’s charged and divisive politics, arguing that policy successes will heal those wounds. She also talks about how her administration is working to help small businesses thrive in an era of tech disruption and what responsibility the tech companies have to invest around the country. Plus: What the largely liberal Silicon Valley doesn’t understand about President Trump. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mark Warner, the senior United States Senator from Virginia, talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher and Peter Kafka at the 2018 Code Conference. Warner talks about the competing Senate and House reports on Russia’s use of tech platforms to meddle in the 2016 U.S. election. He also talks about the broader challenge of cybersecurity for policymakers, what has to be done to secure the 2018 midterms and what would prompt his fellow Democrats in Congress to impeach President Trump. Plus: Does cybersecurity need to be publicly funded like the military? And should American tech companies be regulated more? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Recode’s Kara Swisher talks with three tech leaders about actual solutions for advancing diversity in the industry. Cowboy Ventures partner Aileen Lee, theBoardlist founder Sukhinder Singh Cassidy and former U.S. Chief Technology Officer Megan Smith talk about the factors that have historically held back women, people of color and other under-represented groups in tech, and what comes next after the reckoning of the #MeToo movement. The group debates how men can best help their female peers succeed and how companies can avoid falling into the trap of thinking that the solution is just to keep men and women apart. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Writer and audio producer Jessica Weisberg talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about her new book, “Asking for a Friend: Three Centuries of Advice on Life, Love, Money, and Other Burning Questions from a Nation Obsessed.” Starting in 1690s London, Weisberg examines how advice became a cultural force in America, and how professional advice-givers presaged the internet by creating the first platform for people to ask difficult questions anonymously. She discusses Ben Franklin’s “Poor Richard’s Almanack,” which made earnest advice more palatable through comedy; the bitter rivalry between twin sisters who both became advice columnists, using the pen names “Ann Landers” and “Dear Abby”; and how the once-strict views of parenting guru Benjamin Spock and other columnists mellowed over their long careers. Weisberg says Google and other internet forums are the new advice-givers for millions of people, and questions whether any one writer today could be as widely read and trusted as these predecessors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dara Khosrowshahi, the CEO of ride-hailing company Uber, talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher at the 2018 Code Conference. Khosrowshahi says he didn’t expect to be offered the CEO job and turned it down, but is happy he accepted it in the end. He explains how he’s trying to rethink what Uber should be and how he works with founder and ex-CEO Travis Kalanick, who is still on the board of directors. Khosrowshahi also unpacks Uber’s plan to be the “Amazon of transportation” and what it’s doing with its self-driving car initiative in the aftermath of a fatal accident in Arizona. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Evan Spiegel, the co-founder and CEO of Snapchat maker Snap, talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher at the 2018 Code Conference. Spiegel talks about why Snapchat underwent a controversial redesign, why it partially reversed that decision and what he learned from the backlash. He also discusses how he’s evolving as a CEO since Snap’s IPO in 2017, having learned that leading a public company “requires a bit more grit.” He also addresses the departure of a female engineer who accused the company of having a toxic male-driven culture, calling her objections a “wake-up call.” Plus: How Spiegel thinks about “traditional social media,” i.e. Facebook, lifting features from the Snapchat app, and why it will be “harder” to copy those features in the future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Former U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about "The Work Ahead," a new report, sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, on the 21st century American workforce. Pritzker co-chaired the committee that developed the report along with fellow business leader John Engler. "The Work Ahead" recommends a nationwide re-evaluation of education, training and how to think about working alongside machines. Pritzker also talks about why President Trump can't run the country like a business and why her hometown of Chicago should be the site of Amazon's second headquarters. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Retired U.S. Air Force General Michael Hayden talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about his new book, “The Assault on Intelligence: American National Security in the Age of Lies.” Hayden, who directed the NSA under President Clinton and the CIA under President George W. Bush, says the “golden age of electronic surveillance” is ending, as both regular Americans and foreign enemies are getting smarter about digital encryption. But as the intelligence community changes its tactics, the Trump administration has embraced the “post-truth” societal trend that is emerging around the world. Hayden explains how he would attempt to give Trump the best advice, what he would recommend for America’s still-active spies, and why the president’s behavior is so befuddling. Plus: How to prevent leaks, and what Facebook can do to be part of the solution. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

U.S. Representative Ro Khanna, D-Calif., talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his proposal for an "internet bill of rights" to protect consumers' privacy, security and ability to move or delete their data. Khanna represents California's 17th district, which includes the headquarters of tech giants Apple and Google, and he says he's lobbying leaders like Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai to publicly endorse these new regulations. He argues that Silicon Valley needs to get out in front of privacy and related issues while it still has high approval ratings, embracing changes that won’t cost it much or threaten its businesses, rather than waiting for the tide of popular opinion to turn. Khanna also talks about Congress' failure to ask the right questions of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg when he testified about the Cambridge Analytica scandal and why the E.U.'s new tech regulation GDPR is overkill and shouldn't be replicated in the U.S. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Author Corey Pein talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about his new book, “Live Work Work Work Die: A Journey Into the Savage Heart of Silicon Valley.” Pein moved to San Francisco to report the book, assuming the role of an entrepreneur looking to get rich quick; he learned the hard way that success doesn’t come easy, even for white men with Ivy League degrees. He criticizes the way consumers have become unpaid workers for the big tech platforms and explains why the government needs to step in and limit companies that have become more powerful than many countries. Pein also talks about highly-paid engineers in San Francisco who are deeply unhappy, and why U.S. lawmakers are only now starting to look at Silicon Valley through a critical lens. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices