Decoder with Nilay Patel

John Doerr, the chairman of the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher and Teddy Schleifer about his new book, "Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs." Doerr credits two mentors, Andy Grove and Bill Campbell, with turning him on to that leadership strategy, which is short for Objectives and Key Results — or, in other words, communicating what you want to accomplish and how. Setting clear objectives and making them transparent to your entire company can help tech leaders succeed, but CEOs who don't commit or who build a cult of personality around themselves can put their businesses in jeopardy. Doerr also talks about the state of diversity in Silicon Valley, what he learned from the Ellen Pao trial and whether tech companies are taking privacy more seriously in the aftermath of the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

14 Touko 201859min

Former political strategist and pollster Mark Penn talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his new book, "Microtrends Squared: The New Small Forces Driving the Big Disruptions Today." He describes it as a less optimistic sequel to his 2007 book "Microtrends," but it extends the idea that small changes in politics and the economy are having huge ripple effects around the world. Penn also talks about his past work, advising Microsoft during its antitrust law case and Hillary Clinton during her 2008 presidential run. And he offers some predictions for the 2018 midterm elections, explaining what Democrats could do now in order to reclaim the White House in 2020. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

12 Touko 20181h 5min

Patagonia CEO Rose Marcario talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about why her company is suing President Donald Trump, and why she is publicly insulting Silicon Valley executives, calling them “weenies” and “pathetic.” Marcario suggests that it’s unpatriotic for execs like Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to remain silent on Russian meddling on its platform for so long after the 2016 U.S. election. She also calls out Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey for inaction on bots, and Google co-founder Larry Page for not putting his immense wealth toward fixing the web. Later in the podcast, Marcario explains why capitalism “needs to change and evolve”: Companies that obsess over quarterly results for Wall Street will “destroy the planet.” Plus: Should women try to change tech firms from within, or start their own companies? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

9 Touko 201848min

Writer and comedian Nell Scovell talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about her new book, "Just the Funny Parts," in front of a live audience in San Francisco. Scovell, who has written on TV shows like "The Simpsons," "Murphy Brown" and "Coach," also co-wrote the hit book "Lean In" with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and tried to adapt it into a movie. She says producers tried to rework the story to fit what they considered to be successful films about women, like "Pretty Woman" and "Bridesmaids." Scovell also offers her theory for why the MeToo movement arose when it did — after Donald Trump was elected president, women had nothing left to lose — and talks about the experience of writing jokes for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Mark Zuckerberg. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

7 Touko 20181h 7min

Celebrity chef José Andrés talks with Recode's Kara Swisher in front of a live audience at South By Southwest in Austin, Texas. Andrés explains how his food NGO, World Central Kitchen, deployed its chefs to disaster-struck areas like Houston and Puerto Rico after last year's hurricanes, opening dozens of kitchens and serving millions of meals. He criticizes President Trump and the members of Congress who neglected Puerto Rico, but praises one of World Central Kitchen's unlikely allies in distributing food after Hurricane Maria: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a.k.a. ICE. Andrés also talks about the failings of elected officials from both sides of the aisle to achieve immigration reform, the hypocrisy of people who believe food should only be "local and organic" and why he expects to one day be replaced by a robot chef. Plus: Why he loves artificial proteins like Impossible Foods' plant-based "beef" but hates the idea of "tofurky." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

5 Touko 20181h

Investigative journalist Ronan Farrow talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about his new book, “War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence.” The book explores how the Trump administration is “laying waste to the State Department,” but argues that it’s not the first administration to do so — cutting diplomats is politically safer than cutting military spending, and Trump is just doing it at an “unprecedented new extreme.” Farrow also talks about his reporting on Harvey Weinstein, and the culture of silence around powerful perpetrators of sexual abuse, for which he shared in a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. Intent on keeping the spotlight on survivors rather than predators, Farrow nevertheless hints that there is more to tell about why he published his stories at The New Yorker, rather than his former employer NBC, where he started the Weinstein reporting. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

2 Touko 20181h 13min

CNN political commentator Sally Kohn talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about her new book, "The Opposite of Hate: A Field Guide to Repairing Our Humanity." Kohn's publicity tour for the book has been tangled up in allegations that she misquoted and misrepresented two of her sources, Ijeoma Oluo and Aminatou Sow, and she discusses how she's working to make things right. She also talks about how she became a TV commentator, why she chooses to engage with Fox News hosts like Sean Hannity and how her past life working as a left-wing activist overlaps with changing minds on broadcast media. Plus: Why Kohn, a gay woman, supports MSNBC anchor Joy Reid, who has been accused of writing homophobic blog posts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

30 Huhti 20181h 19min

Farhad Manjoo, a technology columnist for the New York Times, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher in front of a live audience at the University of California, Berkeley's journalism school. Manjoo explains why he refers to five of the world's largest tech companies as the "Frightful Five": Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Alphabet (which owns Google and YouTube). He diagnoses long-running issues at several of those companies, but argues that solving the problems they've created or at least enabled would necessitate giving them even more power. Plus: Why Twitter's toxicity problem may be beyond saving. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

28 Huhti 20181h 6min