Google Has Lost Its Mind, Says Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman

Google and Yelp were friends, for a while. Now Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman is on the warpath.

“Google has just completely lost its mind when it comes to focusing on the user,” Stoppelman said in an interview with Kara Swisher on the latest episode of “Re/code Decode.” “They’re doing whatever it takes to preserve that monopoly, and it’s sad.”

Stoppelman accused the search giant of “stealing” Yelp’s content, among other “consumer harms.” He also discussed the challenges Yelp faces as a 10-year-old public company when private startups can compete by raising truckloads of venture capital funding.

Vjeran Pavic for Re/code

“You are competing with unicorns and ever-rising valuations and no volatility,” he said. “Some companies were able to absorb capital and not be traded publicly, but now that period seems to be ending.”

Later in the show, on “Too Embarrassed to Ask,” The Verge’s Lauren Goode joined Kara Swisher to talk about virtual reality and whether it will spell the downfall of civilization as we know it. You can tweet your tech-related questions with the hashtag #TETA at @KaraSwisher, @LaurenGoode or @Recode.

“Re/code Decode” is now twice a week. Last Thursday, Re/code’s Senior Media Editor Peter Kafka spoke to Fox Sports host Katie Nolan, and this coming Thursday, he will be talking to Twitter co-founder and Medium CEO Ev Williams. Next Monday, Kara will be back in this space for an interview with Glu CEO Niccolo De Masi.

And if you like this show, you should also check out “Re/code Replay,” an archive of audio content from our events and interviews by Kara Swisher, Walt Mossberg, Peter Kafka, Ina Fried and more. To subscribe to that, click right here.

You can follow @Recode on Twitter for the latest on upcoming guests.

If you like what we’re doing, please write a review on iTunes — and if you don’t, just tweet-strafe Kara and Peter. You can also suggest guests for the show on Twitter and we’ll do our best to nab them for a Red Chair interview.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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