Channels With Peter Kafka podcast

19:15

Can AI compress the years long research time of a PhD into seconds? Research scientist Max Jaderberg explores how “AI analogs” simulate real-world lab work with staggering speed and scale, unlocking new insights on protein folding and drug discovery. Drawing on his experience working on Isomorphic Labs' and Google DeepMind's AlphaFold 3 — an AI model for predicting the structure of molecules — Jaderberg explains how this new technology frees up researchers' time and resources to better understand the real, messy world and tackle the next frontiers of science, medicine and more. For a chance to give your own TED Talk, fill out the Idea Search Application: ted.com/ideasearch . Interested in learning more about upcoming TED events? Follow these links: TEDNext: ted.com/futureyou TEDAI Vienna: ted.com/ai-vienna TEDAI San Francisco: ted.com/ai-sf Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.…

Channels with Peter Kafka

maison des série•Feed

Media and tech aren’t just intersecting — they’re fully intertwined. And to understand how those worlds work, and what they mean for you, veteran journalist Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers - and gets them to spell it out in plain, BS-free English. Part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

538 episodes

Channels with Peter Kafka

992 subscribers

updated il y a environ 4 jours

maison des série•Feed

538 episodes

Tous les épisodes

Channels with Peter Kafka

1
What is TV’s endgame? 51:28

il y a environ 4 jours51:28

51:28

A decade ago, Disney CEO Bob Iger freaked out the media industry by acknowledging something many of us saw coming — his previously unassailable TV business was starting to erode. But even with a 10-year warning, today’s moguls seem unable to cope with 2025’s reality: The pay TV business is permanently eroding, and there’s nothing in its place that’s likely to generate the same kind of revenue and profit. But the people who run Big TV are trying to find answers, anyway. So I asked Lightshed analyst Rich Greenfield to talk through some of their moves. What will David and Larry Ellison do once they finally buy Paramount? What are the prospects for ESPN’s soon-to-launch streamer? What about Fox’s soon-to-launch streamer? Who’s going to buy all of these ailing cable TV networks that are coming on the market? And what kind of deals - if any - can get done in the Trump 2.0 era? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices…

Channels with Peter Kafka

1
Why Trump is defunding NPR and PBS - and suing Rupert Murdoch 39:59

il y a environ 11 jours39:59

39:59

Reporting on the place you work is not fun. But it is an occupational hazard for media reporters — particularly for NPR’s David Folkenflik. That’s because National Public Radio — along with Public Broadcasting Service, its TV counterpart — is quite frequently the target of attacks from critics on the right, who would like the federal government to stop funding it. Now it looks like they’ve gotten their way, and the two networks are going to lose a combined $500 million a year. So what happens now? And how did we get here? And should the federal government be funding media organizations at all? We discuss. And, since Folkenflik is also one of my go-to Rupert Murdoch experts, I asked him to stick around and opine about Donald Trump’s libel suit against Murdoch and his Wall Street Journal. Who has more to lose, and who is likely to blink first? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices…

Channels with Peter Kafka

1
Inside the Rise and Fall of Condé Nast with Michael Grynbaum 51:38

il y a environ 18 jours51:38

51:38

Here's one way New York Times reporter Michael Grynbaum described Condé Nast to me in this week’s chat: “A real exporter of American cultural influence in the late 20th century.” And here’s another one: "A kind of enchanted land” but also a “lost world." And here’s one way I’d describe it: it’s hard to imagine in 2025, but just a few decades ago, magazines were incredibly important — and Conde Nast was the most important, most glamorous magazine publisher in the world. We know why all of that has changed — in large part because of the technology that allows you to listen to this conversation. But Empire of the Elite, Grynbaum’s excellent new book, focuses mostly on how Conde reached its peak influence, and how it sustained it for years. Also discussed here: Money money money. Also: Why Jeff Bezos is very unlikely to buy Vogue in the near future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices…

Channels with Peter Kafka

1
Inside the NYT - and Everywhere Else - with Semafor's Max Tani 52:09

il y a environ 25 jours52:09

52:09

You’re probably a normal person, so you didn’t spend your holiday weekend talking to people at the New York Times about a local politics story that some people didn’t like. But that’s Max Tani’s job: He’s Semafor’s media reporter, which means he’s supposed to burrow into the paper of record — as well as other important media institutions — and tell you what’s going inside and why it actually matters. So we spent a bunch of time in this chat talking about Tani’s story about a controversial-at-least-online Times story . In part because I find the whole thing fascinating (I’m not normal). And in part because it gives you a pretty good idea of what being a media reporter entails in 2025. Also discussed here: When is something a tweet, and when is it a story? Why is this a “weird moment in media”? And why was 2024 the “fragmentation election?” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices…

Channels with Peter Kafka

1
Black Mirror's Charlie Brooker on the problem with tech - and people 45:47

il y a 5 weeks45:47

45:47

"Black Mirror" creator Charlie Brooker knows that everyone thinks his show is about tech-fueled dystopias. But he says it's really about humans, not their tools. I loved this chat back when we recorded it in 2023, when Brooker was promoting the sixth season of his Netflix show. Now there's a new season - and Brooker's vision of the world is as relevant as ever. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices…

Channels with Peter Kafka

1
How to become a Substack Star with Emily Sundberg 51:07

il y a 6 weeks51:07

51:07

What's the best way to describe what Emily Sundberg does? Substacker? Influencer? Journalist? Brand-builder? Let's go with "yes". And she does a much better job of describing herself in our conversation, where we talk about how she went from being a laid-off marketer at Meta to a one-woman business with a devoted following and a revenue line that’s up and to the right. A very quick primer for those of you haven't heard of Sundberg and her Feed Me newsletter - she’s building a very interesting publishing company that revolves around her reporting, insights and taste, aimed at people who make good money and spend some of it on very nice restaurants, shops and hotels in places like London, LA and New York. My assumption is that a slice of her audience doesn’t do any of that at all — but wants to read about people who do. In olden times, Sundberg might have a column in a glossy magazine - and in fact she spent some time working at places like New York magazine on her way up. Today what's left of the glossy magazine world would love to attach itself to her. It’s a very 2025 proposition. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices…

Channels with Peter Kafka

1
Why did Apple ice out the most famous Apple blogger? 1:08:48

il y a 7 weeks1:08:48

1:08:48

If you want smart, nuanced insight into Apple’s products and would-be products, you turn to John Gruber, who’s been blogging about this stuff for more than two decades at his Daring Fireball site. So in March, when Gruber announced that Something is Rotten in the State of Cupertino — focusing on Apple’s botched plans to imbue its ailing Siri service with state-of-the-art AI — lots of people paid attention. Including, apparently, folks at the very top of the Apple org chart. I talked to Gruber about the fallout from that post. Which is pretty interesting! But there’s a lot more going on in this conversation. It’s partly about the friction Apple has been generating lately — not just about its AI efforts, but the way it runs its App Store, and the way it interacts with developers — and why all of that does and doesn’t matter. And it’s also about the delightfully retro practice of running an ad-supported blog in 2025. That works very well for Gruber, but it seems like the new Grubers of the world are doing their work on YouTube or Substack. He’s got some thoughts about that, too. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices…

Channels with Peter Kafka

1
On the hunt for media optimism, with Semafor’s Ben Smith and The Rebooting’s Brian Morrissey 30:22

il y a 7 weeks30:22

30:22

Here’s one where we try to do two things at once: Have a convo about green shoots in media with two smart guys who know media really well — Semafor’s Ben Smith and The Rebooting’s Brian Morrissey. Try to find new audiences for our respective podcasts, by cutting up that conversation into 3 parts, and distributing those parts to our respective feeds. Which is to say: You can hear more of the this conversation by heading to Semafor’s Mixed Signals pod , and you can hear a different slice of the chat by heading to Brian’s Rebooting pod . It’s an experiment, based on the thesis that the people who listen to one of our shows would be very interested in listening to the other shows. Did we get it right? What can we do to make it better? Please let us know. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices…

Channels with Peter Kafka

1
Scott Frank on Netflix, the future of Hollywood, and Dept. Q 47:42

il y a 8 weeks47:42

47:42

Scott Frank used to write great movies, like “Out of Sight.” Now he’s a Netflix guy, and a super successful one: he made “Godless,” a horses-and-everything Western for the streamer, then had a pandemic-era phenomenon with “The Queen’s Gambit.” Now he’s back with “Dept. Q”, his take on the British mystery genre. You can find that one on Netflix’s top 10 lists in the U.S. and around the world. I like talking to Scott on this show — something we started doing way back in 2017 — because he’s happy to talk about the mechanics of his work, and the economics of Hollywood, and how they intersect. And that’s what we’re doing during this chat too. We discuss the backstory behind his newest show, his take on the history of the streaming bubble, why he’s pretty sanguine about AI in Hollywood but very nervous about its new tech overlords — and the industry he’d get into if he was starting his career in 2025. (Hint: it’s also something that gets consumed on screens.) Help us plan for the future of Channels by filling out a brief survey: ⁠⁠ voxmedia.com/survey ⁠⁠ . Thank you! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices…

Channels with Peter Kafka

1
Bluesky Wasn’t Supposed to be a Twitter Rival. Now It Is. 38:01

il y a 9 weeks38:01

38:01

I admit it: I most definitely rolled my eyes in 2019, when Twitter announced vague plans to build an " open and decentralized standard for social media ". At the time I didn't really understand what then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was trying to do — or why the head of a social media company with plenty of problems was messing around with plans to create more social media companies. I get it now: Bluesky was a science project that aimed to let people build their own social networks. And that's still what it is at its core, says Bluesky CEO Jay Graber. But in the meantime, Bluesky has also become an accidental Twitter rival, with some 36 million users. And most of them likely don't care about Bluesky's origins, or the fact that it's really supposed to be a technical framework for decentralized social media. Or what decentralized social media means, for that matter. All of which means that talking to Graber about Bluesky means you're doing two things at once: Asking about how Bluesky, the app, works — and what Bluesky, the idea is. Which is what we did when we talked at Web Summit Vancouver in May. Also discussed here: Why is Jack Dorsey mad about Bluesky? What’s up with ads and Bluesky? And who designs Jay Graber’s T-shirts? Help us plan for the future of Channels by filling out a brief survey: ⁠⁠ voxmedia.com/survey ⁠⁠ . Thank you! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices…

Channels with Peter Kafka

1
How to Reinvent a Magazine, with Wired’s Katie Drummond 51:58

il y a 10 weeks51:58

51:58

Today we’re talking about how you take a media property that’s been around for a long time, and find a way to bring in new eyeballs — and new revenue. That property is Wired — the place that told you about the internet before the internet even existed — and the person who’s reviving it is Katie Drummond, who has been running the property for a couple of years. As we discuss, Wired has always done interesting and important work — but when Katie got to it, she had a plan to inject it with new life. And it turns out that this plan had Wired perfectly situated to thrive during the Trump 2.0/Elon/Doge era. Also discussed here: Tech’s actual view of Trump; how Canadians actually view America; and how to give yourself a Condé Nast glow-up. Help us plan for the future of Channels by filling out a brief survey: ⁠ voxmedia.com/survey ⁠ . Thank you! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices…

Channels with Peter Kafka

1
Meta's Adam Mosseri explains how Instagram really works - and how he wants to build Threads 1:02:46

il y a 11 weeks1:02:46

1:02:46

Adam Mosseri's official title is head of Instagram, Meta's massive photo and video app. He also runs Threads, the Twitter clone the company launched two years ago. Unofficially, he's become one of Meta's chief explainers, frequently jumping on social media to defend and proselytize on behalf of his employer. So when I got a chance to interview Mosseri, I had a long list of questions about… lots of things: I wanted to know how Mosseri felt about the company's recent pivot to Trump-friendly policies, and how he looked at TikTok, for instance. And while it may not be the most important thing on Meta's roadmap, I was also really curious about a unique opportunity Mosseri created for himself: the chance to build a brand-new social network from the ground up. What did he want to accomplish with Threads, and what mistakes that earlier social networks made was he hoping to avoid? There's a bunch in here. Take a listen and let me know what you think. Help us plan for the future of Channels by filling out a brief survey: ⁠⁠ voxmedia.com/survey ⁠⁠ . Thank you! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices…

Channels with Peter Kafka

1
How Apple trapped itself in China 1:11:32

il y a 12 weeks1:11:32

1:11:32

The iPhone you’re reading this on was made in China. For a long time, that fact was a huge part of Apple’s success story: Working hand-in-hand, Apple and China built a sophisticated supply chain that let Apple manufacture very complicated technology at an enormous scale. Now that relationship seems like Apple’s achilles heel, says Patrick McGee. McGee covered Apple for the Financial Times for years. Now his new book “Apple in China” explains how Apple ventured into China, spent years and tens of billions of dollars investing in the country’s production infrastructure, and now seems trapped there — and in the middle of the U.S./China trade war. McGee’s book is in large part a history book, and one that I’d recommend to anyone who wants to understand Apple, and China. It’s also, obviously, a very timely one. So this interview is part “how did we get here” and also “what happens next”. (Spoiler: Moving Apple’s production to India and Vietnam — something you read about periodically — isn’t going to happen, if ever, for years.) Help us plan for the future of Channels by filling out a brief survey: ⁠⁠ voxmedia.com/survey ⁠⁠ . Thank you! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices…

Channels with Peter Kafka

1
Ian Rogers tells me I need a crypto wallet 1:08:41

il y a 13 weeks1:08:41

1:08:41

I wanted to talk to Ian Rogers about his fascinating career. He wanted to talk to me about Ledger, the crypto wallet company he’s working at now. So we did both things. Background: Rogers was an important figure in the digital music business, back when the music business was being fundamentally reshaped by digital. He helped the Beastie Boys get on the internet, long before every band did that. Then he helped bring digital music to millions of people in the MP3 era - first at AOL, then Yahoo — and then in the streaming era — first at Beats, and then Apple Music. Then he did digital stuff at LVMH, the luxury goods conglomerate. Now he’s chief experience officer at Ledger, a French company that has sold 7 million physical storage devices for crypto. I remain confused and skeptical about crypto, but I’m always open to hearing from folks who are passionate about it — to see if they can convince me that I’m missing something. And the most persuasive argument I hear is usually from folks like Rogers — people who were around when the internet was novel and exciting in the 90s, and think they’re seeing the same kind of tectonic shift this time around. It’s a pitch that’s part FOMO — you wouldn’t want to be one of the people who thought the internet was a fad in 1995, right? — and part blue-sky optimism: What if it was 1995 and you could get in on the ground floor of the internet? Take a listen and let me know what you think. Help us plan for the future of Channels by filling out a brief survey: ⁠⁠ voxmedia.com/survey ⁠⁠ . Thank you! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices…

Channels with Peter Kafka

1
How to fight Apple and (maybe) win, with Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney 37:43

il y a 13 weeks37:43