Dropout CEO Sam Reich on the business of subscription comedy

My guest today is Hayden Field, senior AI reporter for The Verge. Often when Hayden comes on the show, it’s because something has gone wrong in the world of AI. Last weekend, that something was a pretty intense mix of Anthropic, the Trump administration, and Anthropic’s new AI model, Fable 5.  Hayden actually just published a fantastic play-by-play on The Verge about how the Fable ban went down, and the scramble through the weekend from both sides to figure out what exactly happened and how it might get resolved. So I wanted her to come on and just walk me through the timeline and what it all means. Links:  Inside the fight over Claude Mythos 5 | The Verge Anthropic cuts off Fable 5 and Mythos 5 access following government order | The Verge Anthropic got hit by export rules nobody understands | The Verge Anthropic’s safety superpower | Stratechery "They screwed us": Personality clashes sent Anthropic's models offline | Axios Anthropic’s call for AI nonproliferation | New York Times Trump signs exec order to review AI models before release | The Verge New Anthropic model finds security problems ‘in every major OS, browser’ | The Verge Subscribe to The Verge⁠ to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today, I’m talking with Slydio CEO Adam Bry, who runs the leading US maker of autonomous drones. We covered a lot in this conversation, including Skydio’s police and government work at a time when military use of AI is more controversial than ever and competing with Chinese drones against the backdrop of the Trump’s administration’s DJI ban. There’s a lot in this one – maybe more than anything, it was refreshing to hear Adam talk about using AI to bring even more people to work at Skydio as the company expands. I also got to fly a drone, which ruled. Links:  Flying a semi-autonomous industrial drone | Decoder Sorry kid, drones are for war now | The Verge The FCC’s foreign drone ban is here | The Verge Skydio is pivoting to enterprise — its consumer drones are dead | The Verge Skydio commits $3.5B to expand US manufacturing | Skydio A US drone maker tries to take back the country’s skies | Bloomberg DEA looks to add Skydio, Parrot drones to its arsenal | FedScoop The future of border security isn’t at the border at all | The Verge Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey! Nilay here. It’s conference season, so I’m traveling across the country and around the world a lot more than usual. Stay tuned for some very special Decoder episodes we have coming up soon, starting on Monday.  In the meantime, I wanted to share a conversation between my friend Peter Kafka and Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch on the excellent Channels podcast. Lynch says he’s told his teams to assume that traffic will be zero from now on — that’s what I’ve been calling Google Zero. Roger also shares his thoughts on AI, the growing influence of the creator economy, and more. Links:  Channels with Peter Kafka | Apple Podcasts Condé Nast CEO: Plan As If Search Traffic Will Be Zero | Search Engine Journal Sundar Pichai on AI, the future of search, and what’s happening to the web | Decoder Google Zero is here — now what? | Decoder Google admits the open web is in ‘rapid decline’ | The Verge Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today I’m talking with Mustafa Suleyman, the CEO of Microsoft AI. This is a real burner of an episode. We covered everything from his approach to training new models to his criticisms of Anthropic talking about Claude as though it is conscious.  Of course, we also talked about Microsoft’s relationship with OpenAI, how Mustafa is thinking about all the negative polling and political pushback around AI right now, and whether any of the consumer products are good enough to overcome it. Like I said, it’s a burner. Read the full interview transcript on The Verge. Links:  Microsoft and OpenAI broke up — now they’re ready to fight | The Verge Microsoft Build 2026: The 7 biggest announcements | The Verge Microsoft’s first advanced reasoning AI is here | The Verge Microsoft’s new ‘superintelligence’ game plan is all about business | The Verge Here’s how the new Microsoft and OpenAI deal breaks down | The Verge Microsoft AI chief says 18 months until white-collar tasks automated by AI | FT Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

My guest today is Ryan Mac, a technology reporter at The New York Times and co-author of the excellent book Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter, which came out in 2024. I wanted to have Ryan on today because we’re on the cusp of the SpaceX IPO, which promises to be one of the most consequential public offerings in history for a variety of reasons.  Its biggest-ever size, of course, at nearly $2 trillion dollars. But also because all kinds of rules that keep our markets fair are being bent, if not outright broken, along the way. And, also because buried somewhere inside SpaceX is X, the social platform formerly known as Twitter, which Musk purchased in 2022. Read the full interview transcript on The Verge. Links:  Welcome to hell, Elon | The Verge The SpaceX IPO is great for Elon Musk and terrible for you | The Verge In SpaceX’s IPO, Elon Musk is the risk factor | The Verge For Wall Street, the only thing worse than SpaceX flopping is missing out | NYT How SpaceX Is structured to favor Elon Musk | NYT As the SpaceX hype machine steamrolls ahead, Wall Street jumps aboard | NYT The SpaceX IPO Reveals What Really Happened to Twitter | NY Mag Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices