Channels with Peter Kafka

It 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 on a virtual Valentine’s Day date with Henry Cavill where they attended “a secret rave at his dad’s law firm.”Featuring: Jonah Peretti (@peretti), CEO of BuzzFeedHost: Peter Kafka (@pkafka), Senior Editor at RecodeMore to explore: Subscribe for free to Recode Media, Peter Kafka, one of the media industry's most acclaimed reporters, talks to business titans, journalists, comedians, and more to get their take on today's media landscape.About Recode by Vox: Recode by Vox helps you understand how tech is changing the world — and changing us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tech and media companies (including the one that brings you this podcast) are laying off workers left and right. Meanwhile, the latest national jobs report is shockingly strong. So… why? Do the excuses make any sense?First, Recode’s Peter Kafka talks to Vox’s Emily Stewart about the overall economy, the likelihood of a recession, and when we’d actually know if one is happening. Then, New York Times correspondent Mike Isaac is back to dive into the specifics of the tech sector.Featuring: Emily Stewart (@EmilyStewartM), Business reporter for Vox.comMike Isaac (@mikeisaac), New York Times tech reporterHost: Peter Kafka (@pkafka), Senior Editor at RecodeMore to explore: Subscribe for free to Recode Media, Peter Kafka, one of the media industry's most acclaimed reporters, talks to business titans, journalists, comedians, and more to get their take on today's media landscape.About Recode by Vox: Recode by Vox helps you understand how tech is changing the world — and changing us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, we bring you an episode of The Cut and The Verge’s latest season of Land of the Giants: Dating Games.This episode is all about Match Group, the company that went on an acquisition spree and now controls two-thirds of the dating apps market. To hear more stories about how dating apps became a billion-dollar industry and the algorithms that control your love life, subscribe to Land of the Giants wherever you subscribe to podcasts.Hosted by Sangeeta Singh Kurtz (@sangeetaskurtz) and Lakshmi Rengarajan (@Shmi_So_Far)Host: Peter Kafka (@pkafka), Senior Editor at RecodeMore to explore: Subscribe for free to Recode Media, Peter Kafka, one of the media industry's most acclaimed reporters, talks to business titans, journalists, comedians, and more to get their take on today's media landscape.About Recode by Vox: Recode by Vox helps you understand how tech is changing the world — and changing us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Investor Li Jin helped popularize the idea of the Creator Economy — the theory that many people who make stuff online could and should get paid for that work. Then she merged that pitch with an embrace of crypto/Web3 — and by 2021 the New York Times was calling her the “It Girl in venture capital.” Now many of the people who embraced both creator economy investments and crypto want nothing to do with that. But not Jin, who says she’s still all in. She talks to Recode’s Peter Kafka about launching a fund in a pandemic, riding out a down cycle, and what it’s like to be the face of thesis.Featuring: Li Jin (@ljin18), Co-Founder & General Partner at Variant FundHost: Peter Kafka (@pkafka), Senior Editor at RecodeMore to explore: Subscribe for free to Recode Media, Peter Kafka, one of the media industry's most acclaimed reporters, talks to business titans, journalists, comedians, and more to get their take on today's media landscape.About Recode by Vox: Recode by Vox helps you understand how tech is changing the world — and changing us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The critically-lauded video game The Last of Us is now a critically-lauded HBO series. It's about a global pandemic that turns much of the world’s population into zombie-like monsters. Executive producer (and former roommate of Ted Cruz) Craig Mazin talks to Recode’s Peter Kafka about what makes the game special — and adaptable into prestige television. Mazin dives into how he went from writing The Hangover sequels to making Chernobyl, and the science and emotional math of storytelling.Featuring: Craig Mazin (@clmazin), showrunner for The Last of UsHost: Peter Kafka (@pkafka), Senior Editor at RecodeMore to explore: Subscribe for free to Recode Media, Peter Kafka, one of the media industry's most acclaimed reporters, talks to business titans, journalists, comedians, and more to get their take on today's media landscape.About Recode by Vox: Recode by Vox helps you understand how tech is changing the world — and changing us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A new study in the journal Nature Communications finds "no evidence of a meaningful relationship" between Russian disinformation and voting behavior in the 2016 election. If disinformation maybe isn’t as effective as we assumed, does that change social networks’ responsibility to control it? Recode’s Peter Kafka discusses it with Alex Stamos, former chief security officer at Facebook and director of the Stanford Internet Observatory. They touch on the insurrection in Brazil, and Hunter Biden’s laptop.Featuring: Alex Stamos (@alexstamos), Director of the Stanford Internet ObservatoryHost: Peter Kafka (@pkafka), Senior Editor at RecodeMore to explore: Subscribe for free to Recode Media, Peter Kafka, one of the media industry's most acclaimed reporters, talks to business titans, journalists, comedians, and more to get their take on today's media landscape.About Recode by Vox: Recode by Vox helps you understand how tech is changing the world — and changing us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For the first time in 3 decades, NFL’s Sunday Ticket - a subscription service that lets viewers watch many but not all of the NFL’s games each week - has a new home: YouTube TV. The deal will cost YouTube/Google/Alphabet $2 billion a year. Was it it worth it?There’s no one better to answer that question than Sports Business Journal’s John Ourand. He joins Recode’s Peter Kafka to talk about the deal — and what it tells us about other moves by tech giants to get into big-time sports.Featuring: John Ourand (@Ourand_SBJ), Media Reporter for Sports Business Journal and Co-host of the Marchand & Ourand PodcastHost: Peter Kafka (@pkafka), Senior Editor at RecodeMore to explore: Subscribe for free to Recode Media, Peter Kafka, one of the media industry's most acclaimed reporters, talks to business titans, journalists, comedians, and more to get their take on today's media landscape.About Recode by Vox: Recode by Vox helps you understand how tech is changing the world — and changing us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Before we face the reality of 2023, we discuss the state of virtual reality — specifically, the still-unannounced VR/AR headset Apple’s been developing for years. The Information’s Wayne Ma joins Recode’s Peter Kafka to share the details of his latest report on the device, which he predicts will cost $3,000 and debut this year.Then, Jeremy Zimmer, the CEO of United Talent Agency, talks to Peter about Hollywood’s economics and the way he’d like them to change, particularly as streamers like Netflix start selling ads.Featuring: Wayne Wa (@waynema), Tech Reporter for The InformationJeremy Zimmer, CEO of United Talent AgencyHost: Peter Kafka (@pkafka), Senior Editor at RecodeMore to explore: Subscribe for free to Recode Media, Peter Kafka, one of the media industry's most acclaimed reporters, talks to business titans, journalists, comedians, and more to get their take on today's media landscape.About Recode by Vox: Recode by Vox helps you understand how tech is changing the world — and changing us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Recode’s Peter Kafka answers listener questions about Twitter, niche content streaming, print media microtransactions, regional sports networks and more. Peter’s producers and son also make appearances in descending order according to age.Host: Peter Kafka (@pkafka), Senior Editor at RecodeMore to explore: Subscribe for free to Recode Media, Peter Kafka, one of the media industry's most acclaimed reporters, talks to business titans, journalists, comedians, and more to get their take on today's media landscape.About Recode by Vox: Recode by Vox helps you understand how tech is changing the world — and changing us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Earth has just about completed its latest orbit around the sun, which means it’s time to take a look at what was happening over the past 584 million miles. Joining Recode’s Peter Kafka is Bloomberg’s, Lucas Shaw. Together, they tackle what Avatar: The Way of Water means for Disney, why concerts are doing well and in-person movies are doing meh, and HBO Max and Netflix’s pivot to gaming. Plus, they have a Tik Tok-length discussion about Tik Tok.Featuring: Lucas Shaw (@Lucas_Shaw), Reporter for BloombergHost: Peter Kafka (@pkafka), Senior Editor at RecodeMore to explore: Subscribe for free to Recode Media, Peter Kafka, one of the media industry's most acclaimed reporters, talks to business titans, journalists, comedians, and more to get their take on today's media landscape.About Recode by Vox: Recode by Vox helps you understand how tech is changing the world — and changing us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices