My guest today is longtime friend of the show Joanna Stern. You all know Joanna: she is the former senior personal technology columnist for The Wall Street Journal , a former Decoder guest host, one of my cofounders here at The Verge , and also just one of my very closest friends.

I mention that because Joanna just left that lofty perch at The Journal to start her own media company called New Things . She’s starting with her new book about AI, called I Am Not a Robot , which is out this week on May 12th .

You’ll hear us reference the fact that she and I have been talking about her big move to go independent for ages now — it’s something she’s wanted to do and wrestled with for years, and she has a long list of interesting reasons about why now is the time. She’s also structured her new venture in partnership with NBC to keep her in front of a big mainstream audience.

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