The Verge Interview
Evan Smith on The Verge's Decoder Podcast with Nilay Patel
Altana cofounder and CEO Evan Smith joined Nilay Patel on the Decoder podcast to talk about what the data actually shows: where tariffs moved production, where they didn't move jobs, and why border complexity is becoming a job for AI agents.
Evan and Nilay discussed trade and tariff policy, our acquisition of Cervo AI, agentic AI, Altana's growth, and how businesses, governments, and logistics providers are rearchitecting global trade.
The cost of a held shipment
When a shipment stops at the border, costs ripple across your business.
U.S. Customs processes more than 2 million packages a day and reviews each entry in a 24-hour window before goods arrive at port. When something doesn’t line up — a misclassified HS code, an unverified supplier, a forced-labor flag five tiers deep — the shipment stops. The fix isn’t faster paperwork. It’s proving your products are compliant before they ship.