Decoder Host Nilay Patel on Winning and Losing in Tech Interviews: A Mailbag Deep Dive

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Welcome to Decoder, Nilay Patel’s show about big ideas and other problems. I’m Nick Statt, senior producer, and I’m joined by host and very occasional guest, Nilay Patel.

Nilay Patel: Hello. I hate being the guest.

Nick Statt: Now, you’ve said that in the past, but there’s also a version of you that says that is the ideal version of this show—where you just show up and talk about stuff. So I feel like you’re of two minds about what the ideal version of Decoder is. Being a permanent guest is a level of success that’s hard to attain, where other people just want you to show up because they think you’ll be interesting. I’d love to attain that level of success. At the same time, being the guest means you also have to be interesting all the time. As the host, you’re in control. You’re basically saying, ‘Can you be interesting over and over again for an hour?’ And then you see what happens. That’s my job today.

A few months ago, we did another mailbag episode, which we initially thought of as an annual holiday tradition. We respond to listener questions, feedback, criticism, and suggestions. But recently, we decided to do this more often because we receive a ton of great feedback—and we do read every email. So we’re back again. Nilay, are you ready?

Nilay Patel: Yeah, let’s do it.

Listener Feedback and the Superhuman Interview

By far, our most popular—and contentious—episode of the year was Nilay’s interview with Superhuman CEO Shishir Mehrotra, which centered on the Grammarly expert review controversy. The episode generated an overwhelming response from listeners, with feedback ranging from praise to discomfort.

Here are some highlights from the reactions:

• “Damn, Nilay’s questions are making me nervous.” — Top listener comment
• “We need to make tech CEOs this uncomfortable more often.”
• A Verge subscriber wrote: “This episode was extremely uncomfortable to listen to—and absolutely the reason I became a subscriber less than a week ago.”

Nick Statt: Nilay, my first question for you is: How did you feel about the reception to the Superhuman episode? Were you surprised by any of the reactions?

Nilay Patel: I was a little surprised by some of the reactions. As I mentioned, Shishir was booked to come on the show well before any of the controversy, and I was really excited to talk to him. He’s had an impressive career—serving as chief product officer and chief technology officer at YouTube and currently sits on the board at Spotify.