A n00b’s guide to the Microsoft / Activision deal the FTC wants to stop
The FTC wants to (candy) crush Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Inc., the makers of games like Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and Candy Crush. Meanwhile, Microsoft, the maker of Xbox,...
13 Dec 202244min
Why the media landscape is “dire” with WSJ’s Jessica Toonkel
Layoffs, Disney CEO take-backsies, and the Netflix of it all — this week, Recode’s Peter Kafka catches up on the not-that-upbeat media industry with Jessica Toonkel, deputy media editor at The Wall St...
8 Dec 202229min
How Eventbrite survived the pandemic, and why it’s not fighting Ticketmaster
Selling tickets for live events can be… tricky, as Ticketmaster has proven yet again. But Eventbrite CEO Julia Hartz runs a much smaller ticketing business and says she’s learned valuable lessons afte...
1 Dec 202236min
It’s not TV it’s HBO — the book
HBO’s 50-year-old history tells you a lot about culture, business, and TV’s past and future. This perhaps explains why we’ve seen two HBO books in the last 12 months. Felix Gillette is the co-author o...
29 Nov 202252min
How to watch a complicated World Cup
Qatar is hosting the 2022 World Cup, casting a pall over one of the globe’s most-watched sporting events. Men With Blazers co-host Roger Bennett joins Recode’s Peter Kafka to talk through the geopolit...
21 Nov 202237min
Life, the internet, and everything with Garbage Day’s Ryan Broderick
Ryan Broderick is very online so you don’t have to be. His internet culture Substack ‘Garbage Day’ is a mix of thought-provoking analysis, trend reporting, and, when you read all the way to the end, d...
17 Nov 202249min
What Elon’s past tells us about his present
This is not an emergency podcast, but, you know, maybe it will be? As questions swirl around what exactly Elon Musk is doing at Twitter (and why) we wanted to take a look at Musk’s history and how it ...
15 Nov 202241min
Tech’s big bust, plus Marvel (and Wakanda) Forever?
Mass layoffs and cutbacks at companies like Meta and Twitter point to a slowdown (and chaos) in tech. Bloomberg tech reporter Sarah Frier helps us sort through the madness. Then, Disney has used Marve...
10 Nov 202233min
