Intuit asked us to delete part of this Decoder episode

Today, I’m talking with Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky, who is only the second person to be on Decoder three times — the other is Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Brian made a lot of waves earlier this year when he started talking about something called “founder mode,” or at least, when well-known investor Paul Graham wrote a blog post about Brian’s approach to running Airbnb that gave it that name. Founder mode has since become a little bit of a meme, and I was excited to have Brian back on to talk about it, and what specifically he thinks it means. Talking to Brian is a ride, but I think I held my own, and I think you’ll really like this one. Links: Founder Mode | Paul Graham Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky is taking it back to basics (2023) | Decoder Why the future of work is the future of travel, with Airbnb’s Brian Chesky (2021) | Decoder Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky: ‘I Never Called it Founder Mode’ | Skift Why Silicon Valley is abuzz over ‘Founder Mode’ | NYT After Apple, Jony Ive Is Building an Empire of His Own | NYT Airbnb can now help you find somebody to manage your listing | The Verge Airbnb creates new chief business officer role | Reuters Why Jeff Bezos Says Your Goal Is to Make 3 Good Decisions per Day | Inc Taking the Mystery out of Scaling a Company | Ben Horowtiz Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/24043611 Credits:  Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James. The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today, we’re going to try and figure out "digital god." I figured we’ve been doing Decoder long enough, let’s just get after it. Can we build an artificial intelligence so powerful it changes the world and answers all our questions? The AI industry has decided the answer is yes.  In September, OpenAI’s Sam Altman published a blog post claiming we’ll have superintelligent AI in “a few thousand days.” And earlier this month, Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic published a 14,000-word post laying out what he thinks such a system will be capable of when it does arrive, which he says could be as soon as 2026. Verge senior AI reporter Kylie Robison joins me on the show to break it all down.  Links:  Machines of Loving Grace | Dario Amodei The Intelligence Age | Sam Altman Anthropic’s CEO thinks AI will lead to a utopia | The Verge AI manifestos flood the tech zone | Axios OpenAI just raised $6.6 billion to build ever-larger AI models | The Verge OpenAI was a research lab — now it’s just another tech company | The Verge California governor vetoes major AI safety bill | The Verge Inside the white-hot center of AI doomerism | NYT Microsoft and OpenAI’s close partnership shows signs of fraying | NYT The $14 Billion question dividing OpenAI and Microsoft | WSJ Anthropic has floated $40 Billion valuation in funding talks | The Information Credits:  Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James. The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today’s episode is a little different: Digitas CEO Amy Lanzi and I recorded this conversation live on stage during advertising week in New York City at an event graciously hosted by Adweek.  I've actually been dying to talk to Amy. Digitas is one of the most important agencies in the entire advertising business with huge clients and massive influence over big platforms like Instagram and YouTube. After all, they're the ones buying the ads that keep all of those companies afloat. As you'd expect, she has a lot of thoughts about influencers, creators, AI, and everything that is going to change the advertising industry in the months and years to come. Links:  Publicis Groupe acquires influencer-marketing giant Influential | Marketing Dive Epsilon has first Digital CDP to provide native omni-channel activation | Epsilon Stagwell is on the hunt for adtech as the ad company continues its acquisition spree | BI Emma Chamberlain Is the People’s Influencer | Allure Inside the World of Sephora Squad | Marketing Scoop Fanatics Launches Fanatics Live, a Next-Gen Live Commerce Platform | Fanatics There’s no AI without the cloud, says AWS CEO Adam Selipsky | The Verge A Google breakup is on the table, say DOJ lawyers | The Verge For Gen Z, TikTok Is the New Search Engine | The New York Times Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Xander Adams. Our supervising producer is Liam James. The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Luis von Ahn is the co-founder and CEO of Duolingo. There are lots of opportunities to enhance a product like Duolingo with AI, and we talk about all that — but I also wanted to talk to Luis about learning, generally. Duolingo is a global product, and there are a lot of tech tensions there, dealing with different user needs worldwide. We talk about it all in a pretty direct way... including all those unhinged things the owl does on social media. Links:  Duolingo Introduces AI-Powered Innovations at Duocon 2024 (Duolingo) Video Call with Lily (Duolingo / YouTube) AI Boosts Duolingo As Company Posts First Profit (Nasdaq) Foreign Language Training (US State Department) Exploring My Villain Origin Story (Duolingo / TikTok) Duolingo cuts workers as it relies more on AI (The Washington Post) Why Silicon Valley Is Talking About Founder Mode (The New York Times) Duolingo's Math and Music lessons finally hit Android a year after iOS (Android Police) Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky on taking it back to basics (Decoder / The Verge) How Duolingo is using its 'unhinged content' with Duo the Owl (Digiday) How we turned Duo's butt into a viral Super Bowl commercial (Duolingo) A Duolingo employee has apologised for joking about Amber Heard (The Tab)  Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/24031882 Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Xander Adams. Our supervising producer is Liam James. The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I’m talking with my good friend David Pierce, Vergecast co-host and The Verge’s editor-at-large, about something he spends an ungodly amount of time thinking and writing about: software. Scores of new workplace apps are cropping with clever metaphors to try to make us work differently. Sometimes that works… and sometimes it really, really doesn’t. And it feels like the addition of AI to the mix will accelerate the pace of experimentation here in pretty radical ways. Links:  Why software is eating the world | Wall Street Journal (2011) Mailchimp CEO Rania Succar on why email makes sense for Intuit | The Verge Why would anyone make a website in 2023? | The Verge Wix CEO Avishai Abrahami isn’t worried AI will kill the web | The Verge Figma CEO Dylan Field is optimistic about AI | The Verge We don’t sell saddles here | Stewart Butterfield (2014) The CEO of Zoom wants AI clones in meetings | The Verge Dropbox CEO Drew Houston wants you to embrace AI | The Verge Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Xander Adams. Our supervising producer is Liam James. The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices