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Decoder with Nilay Patel

Confronting the CEO of the AI company that impersonated me

Decoder with Nilay Patel

Vox Media Podcast Network

Business, Technology

4.23.4K Ratings

🗓️ 23 March 2026

⏱️ 84 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today, I’m talking with Shishir Mehrotra, the CEO of Superhuman, the company formerly known as Grammarly, which is still its flagship product. Back in August, Grammarly shipped a feature called Expert Review, which allowed you to get writing suggestions from AI-cloned “experts,” and recently, reporters at The Verge and other outlets discovered that those experts included me, among many others.  No one ever asked permission to use our names this way, and a lot of reporters were outraged by this. To Shishir’s credit, he did not cancel our interview and he came on and stuck it out. This conversation got tense at times, and it’s clear we disagree about how extractive AI feels for people. There’s a lot in this one, and I’m excited to hear what you think. Read the full interview transcript on The Verge. Links: Why I’m suing Grammarly | New York Times Grammarly will stop using identities without permission | The Verge Grammarly to keep using writer identities unless they opt out | The Verge Grammarly turned me into an AI editor and I hate it | Platformer Grammarly is using our identities without permission | The Verge Grammarly is changing its name to Superhuman | The Verge Grammarly wants to become an ‘AI productivity platform’ | The Verge Viacom v. YouTube, 2007 | Electronic Frontier Foundation Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Xander Adams. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Security program on spreadsheets, new regulations piling up, and audit dread?

0:05.0

It's time for Vanta.

0:06.0

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0:12.0

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0:16.0

Zero chaos.

0:17.0

Call it compliance, or call it, COMPLiance.

0:20.0

Get it? Join the 15,000 companies using vanta to prove trust go to

0:25.9

va nta.com slash com security program on spreadsheets new regulations piling up an audit dread it's time for vanta

0:36.3

vanta automates security and compliance, brings evidence

0:39.8

into one place and cuts audit prep by 82%. Less manual work, clear a visibility, faster deals, zero

0:47.5

chaos. Call it compliance or call it calm compliance. Get it. Join the 15,000 companies using Vanta to prove trust. Get started at vanta.com

0:58.4

slash calm. Support for the show comes from MongoDB. If you're a developer stuck fixing bottlenecks,

1:06.2

instead of building the next big thing, then you need MongoDB. MongoDB is the flexible, unified platform that gets out of your way.

1:14.2

It's acid compliant, enterprise ready, and built to ship AI apps fast.

1:19.7

It's trusted by so many of the Fortune 500 for a reason.

1:23.6

Ask any developer.

1:25.0

It's a great freaking database.

1:27.3

Start building at MongoDB.com slash build.

1:35.2

Hello, and welcome to Decoder.

1:36.6

I'm Nealai Patel, editor-in-chief of The Verge, and Decoder is my show about big ideas and other problems.

1:41.0

Today, I'm talking with Shashir Mahotra, the CEO of Superhuman. That's the company

1:45.6

formerly known as Grammarly, which is still its flagship product. Shashir also used to be the

...

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