Recode Decode, Hosted By Kara Swisher

Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn and a general partner at Greylock Partners, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher in front of a live audience at the Anti-Defamation League conference "Never Is Now" in San Francisco. Hoffman says the people who work at social media giants like Facebook and Twitter want to do the right thing when it comes to abuse or political attacks on their platforms, but they often move too slowly. He proposes that these companies should regularly report how they're trying to encourage "compassion, interaction [and] mutual understanding." Plus: How Reddit CEO Steve Huffman convinced him anonymity could be good and why VR might help create empathy in a corporate context. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Former cable news anchor Greta Van Susteren talks with Recode's Kara Swisher and SKDK's Hilary Rosen about her new book, "Everything You Need to Know about Social Media (Without Having to Call a Kid)." Van Susteren spent long stints hosting shows at CNN and Fox News and says she still doesn't know why her last TV employer, MSNBC, fired her after six months. In addition to the new book, she’s now an internet entrepreneur: Her first product is Sorry, an app for apologies. Van Susteren talks about all of that change, as well as what Silicon Valley companies should do about Russia's election meddling; why Donald Trump retweeted her recently and why that's not as big a deal as people think; and why, despite all the trolling and other nastiness, "social media is here to stay." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tina Brown — the former editor of Vanity Fair, the New Yorker, the Daily Beast and more — talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about her new book, "The Vanity Fair Diaries: 1983 - 1992." In the book, she looks back on the tell-all diary she kept at the time, dishing on the 1980s New York social scene, managing a print magazine in the medium's heyday and dealing with media bigwigs like Conde Nast's S.I. Newhouse, Jr. Brown says she saw Vanity Fair as a big circus, while the New Yorker was a "sleeping beauty" that had to be awoken, although she may be proudest of her lesser-known (and short-lived) work on Talk magazine. She also talks about working with Talk's financier, Harvey Weinstein; how she founded the digital-first Daily Beast and why she left; and why Facebook and Google should fund the future of local journalism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Stacey Abrams, a candidate running for governor of Georgia and former minority leader of its general assembly, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher and SKDK's Hilary Rosen about the early stages of the campaign. Abrams explains why everyone needs to be talking a lot more about the automation of jobs, why she's wary of blank-check tax incentives written for tech companies and why Democrats learned the wrong lessons about the internet from Barack Obama's campaign in 2008. She also discusses how she is using technology and how she contends with some voters' reductive tendency to only think of her as "the black candidate." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about how the century-old nonprofit is evolving to fight antisemitism and other forms of extremism in the digital age. Greenblatt explains how online platforms have helped white supremacists inject their beliefs into the mainstream conversation and why companies like Twitter, Facebook and Google have so far failed to stop them. He says the ADL is now working directly with engineers at those organizations to confront the problem, and praises the potential of emerging tech like artificial intelligence and virtual reality for making social media — and society — saner. Greenblatt also discusses the right way for journalists to report on extremists like Richard Spencer and how Silicon Valley could make a big difference by having a “bias for good.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

MSNBC anchor Katy Tur talks with Recode's Kara Swisher and SKDK's Hilary Rosen about her new book, "Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History." While she was at NBC News, Tur was the first reporter assigned to cover the Trump campaign full-time, and one year since his unlikely electoral victory, she says many in the media who considered him a joke before haven't learned the right lessons from 2016. Tur explains how her parents' pioneering TV journalism gave her the resolve to weather threats during the campaign, and says journalists covering President Trump need to stop being indignant about little things, and focus instead on the big stories that matter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ray Dalio, the founder of the world's largest hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his new book, "Principles: Life and Work." In it, he lays out how he makes smarter decisions based on clearly articulated criteria and how that process has worked on a massive scale at Bridgewater, which Dalio describes as an "idea meritocracy." At the controversial hedge fund, every conversation is recorded for anyone to consult, and every decision is compared against the employees' transparent histories of successes and defeats. Dalio also talks about why independent thinking is the most important principle, how tech companies can apply Bridgewater's formula and why the biggest issue facing America may be the fragmentation between the top 40 percent of the economy and bottom 60 percent: Perfect breeding grounds for a populist president like Donald Trump. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Recode's Kara Swisher and SKDK's Hilary Rosen talk about tech, regulation and politics with two special guests: Luther Lowe, the vice president of public policy at Yelp, and Beth Wilkinson, the co-founder of trial law firm Wilkinson Walsh Eskovitz. The group explains how lawyers from Twitter, Facebook and Google found themselves testifying in front of Congress this week and why the politics of the hearings around the 2016 election are so messy and different from what has come before. Lowe and Wilkinson also talk about the other political issues facing Silicon Valley, including antitrust regulation, consumer data privacy and the future of jobs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

1stdibs CEO David Rosenblatt explains how his company, a marketplace for rare luxury products, made the transition from an advertising to e-commerce. Unlike other executives in the commerce space, Rosenblatt isn't worried about Amazon competing with him directly because 1stdibs' sellers aren't comfortable selling their expensive goods alongside lower-priced brands. Rosenblatt also talks about the growing importance of VR and AR for his industry and how his former company — the online advertising pioneer DoubleClick — survived the dot-com crash and got acquired by Google. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kara Swisher joins venture capitalist Shervin Pishevar, theBoardlist founder Sukhinder Singh Cassidy and Uptake CEO Brad Keywell in this live discussion about tech culture from the 2017 Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit, moderated by Nick Bilton. The group has a popcorn-worthy debate over what can be done about management troubles, rampant sexism in Silicon Valley and the weaponization of social media. Singh Cassidy says investors have leverage that they're not using to make tech firms behave better, while Pishevar and Keywell talk about the significant change that can come from within companies and via professional mentors. Plus: Swisher explains why the future may hinge on the people in the middle of the economy who have neither won nor lost in the internet revolution. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Author Walter Isaacson talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his new biography of Renaissance artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci, which he describes has a "culmination" of themes he explored in past books about Ada Lovelace, Ben Franklin and Steve Jobs. Isaacson explains how da Vinci's pursuit of the intersection of art and science made him who he was, and how his life's story can inform our thinking today about innovation and technology. He also dissects the biology of da Vinci's most famous work, the Mona Lisa, and explains why the portrait took 16 years to paint. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

O’Reilly Media founder Tim O’Reilly talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about his new book, “WTF? What’s the Future and Why It’s Up to Us.” O'Reilly argues that society could be headed for either the good type of “WTF” — one of amazement — or the bad type, one of dismay. Avoiding the latter, O’Reilly says, will mean dramatically rethinking politics, finance and employment; today's prevailing philosophy of profit-above-all-else could be setting the world up for a period of “war and revolution and great instability.” He also talks about why, even though tech companies are easy to demonize in Washington, the bigger villain may be Wall Street. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about how YouTube has grown since she assumed that role in 2014, and how it's making original content differently than other video platforms like Netflix. Previously Google's advertising boss, she met Larry Page and Sergey Brin when the two founders rented her garage and turned it into office space. Plus, Wojcicki talks at length about the firing of James Damore, whose viral internal memo exposed a major rift in Silicon Valley over the perceptions of female engineers' capabilities — and an ongoing debate about free speech in the workplace. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ilene Chaiken, the creator of “The L Word” and showrunner for “Empire,” talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher at the 2017 edition of Werk It, WNYC’s women-in-podcasting festival. Chaiken explains how she got “The L Word” made at Showtime, even though the network initially laughed at the idea of a show about lesbians in Hollywood, and how became executive producer of the hit Hulu series “The Handmaid’s Tale,” which she had tried to adapt for years. Now in an exclusive deal at 20th Century Fox, Chaiken says the massive reach of broadcast TV is still an important cultural force, and predicts that the digital platforms like Amazon, Hulu, Netflix and Apple will take turns being big award winners. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

ShondaLand CEO Shonda Rhimes, the TV producer behind hits like "Grey's Anatomy," "Scandal" and "How to Get Away With Murder," talks with Recode's Kara Swisher at the 2017 Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit. Rhimes says she took a four-year exclusive deal with Netflix because it offers her more creative freedom and new challenges, although her six existing shows will continue at ABC. She also talks about how she chooses who she hires, her amazement at people in Hollywood who don't understand diversity and why she has backed off of social media. Plus: Why ShondaLand.com has started offering magazine-like articles, including interviews with people like Michelle Obama and Billie Jean King. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

"Blade Runner 2049" actor Jared Leto talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about portraying Niander Wallace, a trillionaire tech mogul. By the start of the new movie, Wallace has saved humanity from starvation and rebooted the development of humanlike robots, known as Replicants. Leto, who is also a musician and tech investor, says he chooses to be optimistic about the future in spite of the movie's dystopian tone and explains how he approached playing an antagonist to Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford. (Spoiler warning: This episode discusses the themes and story of "Blade Runner 2049," including the fate of some of the major characters.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Investor Ellen Pao talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about her new book, “Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change,” which chronicles Pao’s 2015 court battle against her former employer, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. She reflects on why the gender discrimination lawsuit ultimately failed, and why Pao believes it nevertheless laid the groundwork for future whistleblowers like ex-Uber employee Susan Fowler. She also talks about her ensuing work as interim CEO of Reddit, what she thinks of the controversial memo written by former Google engineer James Damore, and why we shouldn’t take tech companies’ proclamations of “free speech” idealism at face value. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sally Quinn, the author of "Finding Magic: A Spiritual Memoir," talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about her new book and her career in journalism. Quinn got her start covering the Washington, D.C., party circuit for the Washington Post under its then-Editor Ben Bradlee, whom she later married. Quinn became an atheist early in her chilhood, but her views of religion evolved over time, leading her to become the Post's religion columnist and one of its first bloggers. She says the inspiration for her book came from how — in Bradlee's final years, when he developed dementia — she realized that taking care of him gave her life meaning. Plus: The real story behind the now-infamous "hexes" Quinn used to cast on people and why Donald Trump's real religion is the "prosperity gospel." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman and Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold talk with Recode's Kara Swisher at the 2017 Texas Tribune Festival in Austin. Both known for their coverage of Donald Trump's campaign and White House, they talk about how they accidentally became Trump reporters and what others in the media get wrong about the president. They also explain how they, as journalists, use Twitter — which Haberman calls "the anger video game" — and what they would be reporting on if they were not on the Trump beat. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Maha Ibrahim, a general partner at Canaan Partners, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about her more than 17 years in venture capital, joining Canaan right before the first dot-com bubble burst. Ibrahim says a lot of her fellow investors have only ever known tech as an "up and to the right" industry and she's concerned by the intense rate at which many companies are burning capital, even after they go public. She also talks about the recent backlash against men in tech who have sexually harassed women, calling Reid Hoffman's decency pledge "the lowest of low bars." The bigger challenge for women going forward, Ibrahim explains, will be helping other women succeed even though there is no obvious female equivalent in tech of Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices