Category: Miniseries

One of Google’s long points of pride was its open, collaborative, and transparent company culture. But many Googlers feel like that's slipping away. Over our next two episodes, we’ll tell the story of a breakdown of trust inside Google — between management and employees. Starting with a covert contract Google made with the Department of Defense.

• Hosts: Shirin Ghaffary (@shiringhaffary) and Alex Kantrowitz (@kantrowitz)
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• Want to get in touch? Tweet @recode.
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In 1988, a high school football team in Odessa, Texas, was so good that it became the inspiration for a book, movie and, eventually, the television series “Friday Night Lights.” And in the decades since, as West Texas has weathered the unsettling undulations of the oil industry, football has remained steady. 

So after the pandemic hit, the town did what it could to make sure the season wasn’t disrupted. And at Odessa High School, where the football team struggles to compete against local rivals, the members of their award winning marching band were relieved they could keep playing. 

In Part 2 of Odessa, we follow what happened when the season opened — and how the school weighed the decision to start against the possible risks to students’ physical and mental health.

Since they were Stanford grad students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin have had big ideas for technologies that could change the world. Only now, they have Google's nearly limitless resources to turn those ideas into reality. Some of Google's projects seem like a vision from the future. Others have crashed and burned. This is the story of two moonshots, and the world we might live in someday.

• Hosts: Shirin Ghaffary (@shiringhaffary) and Alex Kantrowitz (@kantrowitz)
• Enjoyed this episode? Rate us ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐and leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
• Want to get in touch? Tweet @recode.
• Subscribe for free. Be the first to hear next week's episode by subscribing in your favorite podcast app.
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When Google bought YouTube, it went from being a company that helps users search the Internet, to a company that shapes the Internet itself. With 2 billion users, YouTube generates its own gravitational pull on society and culture worldwide. And as an open platform that allows anyone to upload videos, it's a force that even Google can't quite control.

• Hosts: Shirin Ghaffary (@shiringhaffary) and Alex Kantrowitz (@kantrowitz)
• Guest co-host: Peter Kafka (@peterkafka)
• Enjoyed this episode? Rate us ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐and leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
• Want to get in touch? Tweet @recode.
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Odessa is a four-part audio documentary series about one West Texas high school reopening during the pandemic — and the teachers, students and nurses affected in the process.

For the past six months, The New York Times has documented students’ return to class at Odessa High School from afar through Google hangouts, audio diaries, phone calls and FaceTime tours. And as the country continues to debate how best to reopen schools, Odessa is the story of what happened in a school district that was among those that went first.

Today, nearly all of the world's smartphones are powered by Android. Which means Google is the gatekeeper to the Internet for billions of people. The story of Android is the story of how Google became so big. And it started with an existential threat. With Google in survivalist mode.

• Hosts: Shirin Ghaffary (@shiringhaffary) and Alex Kantrowitz (@kantrowitz)
• Enjoyed this episode? Rate us ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐and leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
• Want to get in touch? Tweet @recode.
• Subscribe for free. Be the first to hear next week's episode by subscribing in your favorite podcast app.
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Some of the core values that built Google's runaway success — innovative technology to the max, an intellectually playful and open culture, and a corporate aspiration to do good ("Don’t be evil") — set it up for the existential questions it faces today. We examine how two grad students with a plan to search the Internet launched a company that would eventually become the gateway for the Internet for the entire world.

• Hosts: Shirin Ghaffary (@shiringhaffary) and Alex Kantrowitz (@kantrowitz)
• Enjoyed this episode? Rate us ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐and leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
• Want to get in touch? Tweet @recode.
• Subscribe for free. Be the first to hear next week's episode by subscribing in your favorite podcast app.
• Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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In Land of the Giants: The Google Empire, Recode’s Shirin Ghaffary and Big Technology's Alex Kantrowitz explore how a company that began with idealistic goals of creative experimentation and making useful products has turned into a worldwide power with enormous impact on the way we live. New episodes begin Tuesday, February 16th.

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