Recode Media With Peter Kafka

Matt Taibbi, a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, talks with BuzzFeed's Steven Perlberg about "The Fairway," a new book that he is publishing via a paid email newsletter. In this episode: (01:19) The endurance of newsletters and Taibbi's last book, "The Business Secrets of Drug Dealing"; (07:02) How cable news brought about President Trump; (11:42) The problem with the "Trump angle" mindset; (15:08) Alternative business models for journalism; (17:28) The legacy of the 2008 financial crisis; (22:06) The Exile and sexual harassment allegations; (25:47) The responsibility people have for misogynistic things they wrote in the past; (27:55) Becoming an accidental Russia expert and the Steele dossier; (32:29) What bothers Taibbi about "Russiagate" coverage; (36:26) The 2020 presidential campaign; (39:45) Did the media learn anything from 2016? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Former Ticketmaster CEO Nathan Hubbard talks with Recode's Peter Kafka about his new live events startup, Rival. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Radhika Jones, the editor of Vanity Fair, talks with HuffPost's Lydia Polgreen about the role of the magazine and its famous New Establishment list in the digital age. In this episode: (02:17) Graydon Carter and Tina Brown; (05:40) How Jones became editor in chief; (07:12) Her background and becoming a “magazine junkie”; (11:42) Mixing the highbrow and lowbrow; (15:52) Putting Lena Waithe on the cover; (20:16) The fragmentation of and opportunities for magazines online; (25:06) The business of making magazines; (30:46) What Jones has learned from shifting to an online paywall; (32:41) Vanity Fair’s place in the year of both #MeToo and Black Panther; (35:00) The 2018 New Establishment List Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jessica Powell, Google's former vice president of communications, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about her new novel, "The Big Disruption: A Totally Fictional but Essentially True Silicon Valley Story." In this episode: (02:05) Excerpt #1: Arsyen's introduction; (05:21) Powell's background; (08:17) The Google interview; (11:45) Google's early days in Europe; (13:51) Why she started writing the book; (19:54) Excerpt #2: The management meeting; (22:31) Taking over comms at Google; (27:33) The goal of writing "The Big Disruption"; (35:31) Excerpt #3: Fake news; (37:18) The power of tech companies; (39:12) Why publish the whole book on Medium?; (40:42) Disrupting the world without thinking about the consequences; (46:17) How will the tech community react?; (50:25) Is Silicon Valley a good place? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Investigative journalist Julia Angwin talks with Recode's Peter Kafka about the Markup, a new data-driven nonprofit media outlet that will investigate the "societal harms of emerging technologies." In this episode: (02:05) What is the Markup?; (03:29) “Data journalism” doesn’t mean what you think it means (05:42) Angwin’s "greatest hits” of investigating Facebook; (08:15) Her background and why she left ProPublica; (14:42) Why is The Markup a nonprofit startup?; (17:21) Asking people for donations and respecting readers’ privacy; (19:50) Craig Newmark and other patrons of journalism; (24:36) People leaving Facebook and the dearth of user data; (26:00) "What They Know," data collection and post-2016 politics; (31:04) Do consumers understand ad tech now? And how much should they care?; (33:10) Testing the Facebook microphone-wiretapping theory; (34:58) Building tools to collect data — for good; (37:15) Crawling Facebook vs. receiving data donations; (40:00) The challenges of reporting on the tech industry; (42

If you enjoy Recode Media, we think you'd also like Recode Decode. On a recent episode of the show, Recode's Kara Swisher spoke with Mark Leibovich, the chief national correspondent for The New York Times Magazine and author of "Big Game: The NFL in Dangerous Times." They discussed the fault lines emerging in America’s football addiction, the public debate over NFL players who kneel in protest during the National Anthem, and whether journalists should change the way they cover politics and sports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Imran Amed, the founder and editor in chief of the fashion publication Business of Fashion, talks with Recode's Peter Kafka. In this episode:02:30 - New York Fashion Week and the BoF 50006:39 - How Fashion Week is changing09:16 - How Amed built Business of Fashion into a subscription business13:47 - BoF's competitors16:37 - The "creation myth" of Imran Amed and the value of consultants20:19 - Why he resigned from consulting and started a blog24:49 - Writing critically about the fashion industry28:33 - Making a standalone business and raising money33:24 - Pricing a subscription media product38:35 - Media M&A40:18 - "There’s real reckoning going on" in the fashion industry Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Filmmaker Nicole Holofcener talks with Recode's Peter Kafka about her new film "The Land of Steady Habits," which stars Ben Mendelsohn and is Holofcener's first to be made for Netflix. In this episode:02:10 - Is this a "Netflix movie?"03:20 - What the movie is about05:27 - Audiences on Netflix vs. in theaters09:52 - The process of casting and making "The Land of Steady Habits"14:49 - Commercials and TV shows20:11 - Movies with complicated female leads21:59 - How Hollywood has changed post-Harvey Weinstein24:11 - How Holofcener's life would be different if she were starting now26:11 - What's next? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this special bonus episode of Recode Media, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey talks with NYU professor Jay Rosen about how Twitter is thinking about its responsibilities to society at large. In this episode:01:08 - Technological change02:42 - Dorsey’s outreach to conservatives09:43 - How Twitter employees think about news14:33 - Fluid conversations, threads and "edit” buttons18:56 - Why Twitter isn’t “neutral” and making conversations healthy28:03 - The world is round, but “there are other people who share different facts”32:28 - Would Twitter hire an ombudsman? 36:52 - Experimenting with “presence” on Twitter40:58 - "We’re never going to build a perfect antidote” to bad faith actors46:16 - Can global problems be fixed by private companies?49:27 - The top positive and negative impacts of Twitter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Roku CEO Anthony Wood talks with Recode's Peter Kafka about how the TV streaming company went public, embedded itself in a slew of TVs and shrugged off competition from some of the biggest tech firms in the world. In this episode:01:55 - Why Roku is not a “hardware company”02:50 - Roku’s history with Netflix06:42 - Putting the Roku platform on smart TVs11:27 - Working with obscure Chinese TV brands19:09 - Wood’s background with computers25:17 - Competing with Apple, Google and Amazon31:48 - Working with traditional TV distributors34:39 - The Roku Channel37:33 - Revenue sharing with Netflix et al38:50 - Advertising 42:57 - What has surprised Wood about being a public company CEO44:23 - How close did Roku get to selling itself?46:01 - Roku’s new speakers48:45 - Other peripherals Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Chris Best, the CEO and co-founder of Substack, talks with the Verge's Casey Newton about how and why writers are starting paid email newsletters. In this episode:01:40 - What is Substack?03:00 - Why email is better than social media06:55 - Readers are nicer on email09:09 - The pioneers of paid email newsletters12:05 - How email compares to podcasting13:54 - How much will people pay for an email?18:32 - What about free newsletters?20:33 - The challenges of running a newsletter22:56 - Curating the rest of the internet25:57 - How often do successful writers send out new newsletters?30:18 - Building a community34:31 - Should paid newsletters get bundled together?38:31 - “The paradox of email” for media companies42:17 - Where is Substack going next? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Judd Legum, the founder of the left-wing political blog ThinkProgress, talks with Recode's Peter Kafka about why he left that site to start a political newsletter, Popular Information. In this episode:02:27 - Legum’s background and early blogs05:09 - Starting ThinkProgress08:58 - Working on Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign12:59 - The Steele dossier and “who’s the messenger?”15:35 - Have we stopped holding candidates to a higher standard?22:02 - Getting internet-famous in the Trump era25:11 - Why he left ThinkProgress27:31 - Why Popular Information is an email newsletter31:41 - Newsletters vs. Twitter and Facebook 34:09 - Convincing readers to pay37:33 - Filter bubbles40:02 - Previewing the next round of Congressional tech hearings Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jason Hirschhorn, the CEO and chief curator of Redef, returns to the podcast to talk with Recode's Peter Kafka about media moguls, the virtues of taking time off and how Netflix outsmarted the TV guys. In this episode:02:50 - Viacom and YouTube09:51 - Big media on the internet vs. digital-first DNA11:51 - How Netflix outsmarted the TV guys, part one14:48 - The non-Netflixes and “traditional relationships”17:52 - Should tech companies buy movie/TV studios?23:38 - Sumner Redstone25:48 - The future of Redef28:48 - The Murdochs and Fox News36:35 - James Murdoch not going to Disney41:35 - Amazon and Apple45:42 - How Netflix outsmarted the TV guys, part two48:38 - Streaming music and musicians ditching labels54:51 - It’s okay to take time off58:17 - “When you’re CEO, no one gives a shit.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Brian Morrissey, the president and editor in chief of Digiday Media, talks with Recode's Peter Kafka about how the digital media and marketing business is pivoting toward live events and away from Facebook growth-hacking. Morrissey says he's happy to see the end of "flimsy, overly engineered media brands," many of which were overly dependent on outside platforms to make money. Those publishers were naïve if they didn’t think Facebook would eventually put its own interests above theirs, he says, and today it would be "crazy" to make a new business that's similarly reliant on the social giant's algorithm. Plus: Why more technologists need to invest in media subscription-tech. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Discord CEO Jason Citron talks with Recode's Kurt Wagner about how the chat app for PC gamers has grown to 150 million registered users, nearly 20 million of whom use the app every day. Citron says Discord has been "pre-revenue" for the past three years, but now it's starting to think about how it will make money; first up, a games store aimed at recommending new titles to users based on what their friends play, focusing on smaller "indie" titles rather than big games like Fortnite. Citron also talks about the broader state of the gaming industry today, including how gamers are stereotyped and why they don't trust Facebook. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ryan Hoover, the founder and CEO of Product Hunt, talks with Recode's Kurt Wagner about running a popular online community for startup founders and other tech enthusiasts. Hoover explains how Product Hunt, now owned by AngelList, is expanding beyond its social media roots into tech news curation and features to help entrepreneurs ship their products to the world. Plus: Why redesigning your app is probably a mistake and how computer-generated celebrities such as Lil Miquela are changing how we think about fame in the social media era. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Comedian Bo Burnham talks about his new movie "Eighth Grade" with Recode's Peter Kafka. Burnham says that although the movie's characters are depicted facing issues shared by real eighth graders, he wrote "Eighth Grade" to reflect how he feels now, as a 27-year-old in the public eye, and "how I handle anxiety" in the social media age. He also talks about how he accidentally became a teenage YouTube star and why he has veered away from stand-up conventions in his comedy specials "What" and "Make Happy." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Writer and filmmaker Brian Koppelman talks with Recode's Peter Kafka about co-creating the hit Showtime series "Billions." Koppelman has made a habit of engaging with the show's fans online, but says that when he's writing new episodes, he has to completely unplug from the rest of the world and not think about how Twitter will react to the latest twists and turns. He also talks about the show's intense commitment to detail, including its frequent visits to real-life New York restaurants, and whether he thinks the viewers of "Billions" are watching for the characters or for "wealth porn." Plus: How Koppelman accidentally became a Vine star and why Wall Street power players are similar to experienced poker players. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Stable Genius Productions co-founder Manoush Zomorodi talks with Recode's Peter Kafka about her decision to leave public radio juggernaut WNYC for a two-woman startup. Stable Genius is one of 20 companies in the journalism marketplace Civil, which is hoping to leverage the emerging technology blockchain to save media; later this summer, Civil plans to sell 100 million digital coins, which it hopes will appreciate in value the way bitcoin did — benefiting its partners, who also have coins. Zomorodi also talks about how the people who hold those coins will be able to influence the news available to readers and explains that, even though she doesn't know if the gambit will pay off, she's happy to be proactively trying to fix the media business rather than just talking about it. Plus: Why she was not impressed by her first in-person encounter with Mark Zuckerberg and why Stable Genius refused to take venture capital funding. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Eugene Wei, an early Amazon employee who went on to work at Hulu, Flipboard and Oculus, talks with Recode’s Peter Kafka about “Invisible asymptotes,”a post on his personal blog that went viral. In it, Wei wrote that all companies have a ceiling to their growth, but the ones that can figure out what that ceiling is can adapt and keep growing beyond it. For example, Wei’s old employer, Amazon, recognized that customers’ aversion to paying for shipping was its ceiling, and so developed Amazon Prime to keep them coming back. He explains how Twitter has historically failed to iterate similarly, why Snap’s attempt to redesign Snapchat for a broader audience backfired, and why Facebook, which is still growing internationally, is seeing its American users get less value out of the platform over time. Plus: Why Instagram is the least toxic social network, what’s holding VR back and why "Star Wars" is like a social network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices