Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher founded it in January 2014, after they left Dow Jones and the similar website they had previously co-founded, All Things Digital.

Its holding company, Revere Digital, received minority investments from NBCUniversal and Terry Semel's Windsor Media.

Mossberg and Swisher held the company's majority stake and noted its comfortable financial stance.

[4] Recode also provided breaking technology coverage for NBCUniversal, and received video resources and exposure in return via a formal partnership.

[4] The site developed a reputation for breaking tech industry news but ultimately did not reach the level of popularity it expected, with just 1.5 million regular monthly visitors.

Vox Media acquired the website in May 2015 in a move that The New York Times described as a reflection of tumult in online technology journalism.

The scopes of the two sites were not expected to overlap with Recode's emphasis on technology industry business and The Verge's on "being a new kind of culture publication".