Kara Swisher — "I'd rather have Ted Cruz make decisions about AI"

21:10Kara Swisher:I said, what happens if Donald Trump loses? This is, I wrote in 2019, Donald Trump, go look at the text, it's crazy. I felt like Nostra fucking Domus, but I was like, what happens if Donald Trump loses the election? here's what he's going to do. He's going to go to his followers online that he's already ginned up in a state of rage, because enragement equals engagement. And he's going to tell them in the real world to do something about it and claim fraud, because he's already starting with the fraudulent stuff, right? You could see him start it. And he's going to do that. And then they're actually going to stop the election.

21:44Kara Swisher:They're going to try at least to stop the election, which is precisely what they do. When I wrote that piece, I got so many angry messages. I don't think Mark wrote me, but a lot of them did. How dare you think we would start it? And I used the word insurrection in the piece. And they were like, how dare you accuse us of being part of the thing? I was like, how dare I? I can see down the fucking road because I took history courses, which you didn't apparently take or anyway. And so that was pretty bad. But then with this AI stuff, again, watching them roll out these chatbots and kids get to use it.

22:20Kara Swisher:We stopped Joe Camel. I'm sorry. You just. So yeah. Yeah. I'm saying they keep doing it. Do you see value in language models? To me. Yes. Social media and language models. A problem right now is politicians are over extrapolating from the social media. Of course they are. To me I think language models. At least as they exist right now. And we could drift from that. But like today. They're trying to be truth based. Because they. That's how they reason. All they do is reflect. They bring us sort of closer to a shared reality. Do they? I think so. I don't know. Because right now it's. sort of a standard set of answers for different users.

22:53Obviously, you have memory. But if you want this general purpose model, then it needs to be able to generally reason.

23:00Kara Swisher:Look, you can use a knife as a weapon or a tool. You can cut cheese with it or kill someone. That's the way it goes. But when I saw these characters, the minute I saw a character AI and the rest of them, I'm like, oh, no, no, no, no. This isn't user-generated. And they try to claim it's user-generated content. It's not. It's doing something else. And then they unleash it on teens who are anyone who has children understands they shouldn't be using this product just the way they shouldn't be using cigarettes just the way we we age gate lots of things and they've made it so we have to now age gate it because they won't stop making shoddy shitty products that hurt people and then they're like it's not our fault but then when you read the transcripts it is their fault because they made a product that was shoddy and the thing i i don't know why other cor other corporations aren't pissed the fuck off they get all these passes they have no rules on them when when air when alaska air the door blew off you remember that what happened to alaska air suits everywhere lawsuits everywhere i mean these companies are getting sued now they are they're the richest company now they have so much advantage they got so much of a thing because congress and others refused to regulate including obama by the way i'm not like it's not just trump that's a coin-operated president.

24:14Kara Swisher:I don't think Obama was a coin-operated. He just didn't do it. But, you know, Alaska Airlines, they get sued. Investigations by states and federal people. Lawsuits. The CEO was fired over a door. All these things happened and no one pays, like the insurrection, I don't think it's Mark Zuckerberg's fault, but I don't think he helped and I think he's part of it. I just think language models, they're inventing a fundamentally new intelligence that's going to reframe the entire way. Except, Eric, they're giving, they're acting like lawyers. Sure. And I, that's absolutely true, but that's their little marketing ploy, which I agree.

24:52Kara Swisher:Marketing? It'll happen. You have sort of Demis Asabas working at Google. I feel like he is motivated by the deep. Okay, Demis is great. Right. But meanwhile, they're also doing other things. Sure. And so why aren't we, why isn't there an ability to, why are they able to put out these chatbots for kids? It's a very simple question. You want to age gate them? I don't know now. Because Taylor Lorenz, who I respect, is out making the smart point that age gating is going to kill anonymity on the internet. That's one of the arguments. Guess what? We should let all kids drink. We should let... We do it all the time.

25:26Kara Swisher:No, no, no. But the problem is if you have to identify people to age gate them, then it hits adults. It's very difficult. No question. But we're smart people. How can we figure out a way to do things? And I'm not talking about a nanny state, but we do it everywhere else. If I were other companies, they all have, look, Delhi on my fucking corner has more laws on it than the tech industry. I just think experiencing the Trump administration has made me personally less interested in regulation because we see an administration eager to weaponize every government tool they have. Absolutely. And I'm surprised that you're still on that.

25:58Kara Swisher:So what did the tech people come in and do? I think we could do, legislation can happen. Look, this is a moment in time and we'll see what happens because he's a coin operator. What did they figure out? if you were around by the presidency that's correct and it what happened was and if you were around when i started bill gates famously came to the washington post when i was there as a young reporter i invited him there to meet everybody he wasn't quite the world's richest man but he was close he came and he arrives in a cab the whole he did the whole like i'm a simple guy kind of thing which he was smart which no but he was he didn't arrive he was like that right he was unbathed at that time um and he didn't wash his hair um which was noted by people there and um And he started saying, I don't have lobbies.

26:39Kara Swisher:I don't care about Washington. I'm just going to make my stuff out in Redmond. And I said, I'll never forget, I said to him, I said, you know, this is a town of student body, ex-student body vice presidents who love with a subpoena. Like you've done things that are problematic and, or you will do things that are problematic. And they came after him. And then they all lobbied up and they girded up on that. And, but they still had this, even Google had this attitude. It's like, oh, we'll hire what? Susan Molinari. We'll hire blah, blah. But they didn't care about it. And then the penny clicked with people like Elon and David Sachs and others.

27:12Kara Swisher:Just a second. These people are cheap. Like we disdain them, but we now can buy them. And Trump is just happens to be the most easily transactional person. But isn't this a case against government? No, it is not. It's a case against Trump. It's a case. No, it is not. Our government, like sometimes when I listen to tech people, they're like, oh, we do more than the government. We deserve this. I was like, get off the fucking roads, the highways. You know, government did that. I don't know. I think World War II went pretty well for us. I think like the government has done all manner of amazing scientific research.

27:43Kara Swisher:And by the way, guess who invented the internet? The government. Like, so why not work hand in glove with the government instead of letting them decide everything? And I'm a big believer that government shouldn't do that because companies can move faster and innovate and they have the capitalist impetus to do so, which is great. But what happened to that public-private thing? I just think we're literally in a period where the Trump administration is buying stakes in companies, about to throw money around. That's right. They're communists. So I call them socialists. Right. So I don't know. I just think there's a dangerous argument to make at this moment.

28:16Why? At this moment? Because they're going to lean into it and they're going to get tons of money from the federal government. constitution.

28:21Kara Swisher:And it's the Trump administration. They're corrupt, coin-operated, a bunch of grifters. Absolutely. But it doesn't mean we abandon the American experiment because these bunch of grifters are in charge right now. Now we know, just like with Nixon. Things happened after Nixon. We cleaned it up. And we're going to clean it up again. That's what's going to happen. And you can see, listen, six months ago, I said on Pivot, Trump is over. You don't see. It's now. You can see it. You can see what's about to happen. Just this week, look at the, you have to pay attention to the signals you don't see. Every single person in the Maggie Haberman piece in the New York Times, which she did with John Swan, who are great reporters, they all of a sudden are running for the fucking exits.

29:05Kara Swisher:I didn't want it. It was farcical, said according to sources close to CIA head. Who do you think those sort of, come on, Stutlitz. Rubio didn't, was sort of quiet, And the person who really objected was J.D. Vance. Who do you think leaked that? Do you think it was J.D. Vance or his minions? Abso-fucking-lutely. They're all going like this. Yeah, but it's still dangerous. I mean, obviously, the Secretary of Defense is all in. He's going to be fired. It's a dangerous situation. You know why? Because I know Trump. I've paid attention to Trump and how he behaves. He's a mob boss. He's not going to be left holding the fucking bag.

29:41Kara Swisher:They're trying to give him the bag right now, the rest of them, because they're smarter. You know, Vito and Marco and Vito and the rest of them know what's about to happen. And the moron who is Pete Hegseth, who is not a true believer, but he's got obviously a drinking problem, etc. And he's not very smart, is going to be holding the bag. I want to talk about Sam Altman. He's a little Nicky or whatever. Watch a mob movie and you'll understand what's about to happen here. I want to talk about Sam Altman. I mean, obviously there was this great New Yorker profile on him. And he brought together a lot of stuff that a lot of other people.

30:14Yeah.

30:15Kara Swisher:You've done great reporting. Casey's done. A lot of people have done great reporting on the discomfort with Sam Altman. I still think it was a good piece. I loved it. Some of these beat reporters can be a little bit like, well, nothing's new. And I just think it's, I've gotten past that. No, no, Ronan is, he's a friend of mine, so I'll say that. He's exceptional at putting together and drawing the lines together. And I think he does that beautifully. And, you know, he obviously is one of the Pulitzer Prize for the Weinstein stuff. But he's really, he's a very big, he's so smart. And he really, he connects dots.

30:47Kara Swisher:And I think it's critically important to connect dots in these things. Because no one's following every up and down. So this is reductive. But is Sam a villain now in your mind after that piece? No. No. I thought, I think that's what's the takeaway. I don't. I think he's rubbed a lot of people. Although, you know, what am I, like compared to Marc Andreessen? No. No. I think Marc Andreessen's a bigger villain. If I had to, if you wanted me to stack rank them, Peter Thiel's at the top of the villain group. But he's always - Sometimes you're sympathetic to Thiel in the sense that he's been at it for the whole time.

31:17Kara Swisher:Here's what I value with him. He's always been conservative. He's not a Johnny come lately. He's always said, he and I did a, which is now lost to time, this amazing video where we argued about what the First Amendment meant. And she's smart. He's so smart in the 14th Amendment. One of the things I'd like to do is, even if I don't like someone, if they're really smart. I can't pretend like you're dumb. They're not, he's not dumb. He's quite an interesting thinker. And a lot of it is vile, but it's also, it's, remember when Ruth Ginsburg and Scalia used to argue with each other? I'm obviously on the Ginsburg side, but there's no questioning Scalia was brilliant.

31:53Kara Swisher:Amy Coney Barrett seems pretty fucking smart. I don't agree with her on a lot of things. You can see it when you read her writing, you're like, oh, okay, this is the smart law professor. Which is honestly part of what infuriates me about tech's current political attitudes. Because, you know, Twitter, if Twitter is a representation of what they want, it's, you know, cat turd and all these like idiotic accounts. And they act like they can't tell what's smart and what's dumb, who's thoughtful and who's not. They're just morons. Try to use the word moron more. And it really bothers people. I'm like, you're a moron.

32:24Kara Swisher:And they're like, oh, that's not an argument. I go, it's not. I just think you're a moron. And actually, but I will say Teal is smart and I've read all his books. You know, I understand where he's going. I just don't agree with him and that's different. And so the problem is they all figured out that trolling and being kind of ridiculous was the way to go rather than actually have a really good debate. And certain people you can have a big debate about. I had Tom Tillis on the other day on my podcast. Very smart dude. With Sam, I mean, part of what we're saying is Peter Thiel has like a point of view that's somewhat thoughtful.

32:54Sam, it does feel like ambition rules everything. He's a chameleon. Isn't that the most dangerous thing you could be where you're always just chasing power?

33:03Kara Swisher:Well, is that something fresh and new for you? Like ambitious young men who want things? I mean, I don't know. That's been my experience for everybody. I think what's the problem with Sam is a chameleon. And I met him when he was 19, I think. I mean, Sam, I mean, to put it more directly, he's sort of the, you know, were you too close? Or, you know, he's moderating you for the book tour. Like there is a certain, your relationship with him colors your point of view. You say that though. You're like, friend is like a word you just don't use for tech people. You're not my friend, but I mean, I like you.

33:37Kara Swisher:No, I mean, you know. Especially with this line of question. No, not at all. No, I get that. I'm too close to them. I was too close to them. I mean, I'm, but I'm, yeah, I'm close to them, but I'm not sort of like playing that it doesn't influence like who I spend time with or not. In the group of people that includes Mark Andreessen and Elon, Sam is better. Sorry. I'm sorry. Yeah, he lies to people. Big fucking news. Isn't that the thing as a reporter? As a reporter, that offends me the most. Really? The line, because it's just so hard as a reporter to navigate. We depend on people telling the truth.

34:09Kara Swisher:See, my line is anti-humanity. So everyone has their things. People lie to me? I don't know. What are you kidding? Newsflash 11. I've had so many people lie to me over the years. I mean, just like in four days, I would have people lie all the time. And Mark Andreessen, at one point, Mark, I was reporting that he was leaving AOL. And he says, absolutely not true. And I go, Mark, if you tell me this, like he was telling it to me directly and it's true, that'll make you a liar. And he goes, I'm absolutely not leaving. The next day, press release. Oh, my God. And all I wrote to him was pants on fucking fire.

34:44Kara Swisher:And it was like, I don't, if I got offended by everyone who lied to me, I would be offended all the time. And this is a wiser perspective than mine, certainly, that the effect on humanity matters more. I think he is. And if you look at open AI and what they're doing and compare it with Grok, obviously open AI is much more principled than Grok. I think he is nowhere near as dangerous as Marc Andreessen or Peter Thiel in terms of their impact, or even in Emile Michael right now because of the stuff he's doing to Dario. And I don't think anyone – see, the problem is everyone's become a hero or a villain, and it's much more complex.

35:18Kara Swisher:I'll tell you what I don't like about Sam is he's very clearly, he tells people what they want to hear, which is a pleaser. And at the same time, it seems that it's more manipulative than anything else. It's morphed into manipulation, right? But he's been a pleaser his whole life, I can tell you that. It's not a great strategy, honestly, at this point. And then his lack of interest in safety, I think, is a real thing. I think he wants to jam shit through, and he absolutely does. and he also wants to, I think he tells people different things, which is what a pleaser does. And I'm not letting him off the hook by that, but he's in charge of a very important company and therefore should have a little bit more fucking responsibility about what he's doing and maybe sack up and be a better man, that kind of thing.

36:04Kara Swisher:And a lot of people have, look, Mark Cuban was such a jerk when I met him. And I really enjoy, like he's evolved. Someone like Evan Spiegel is another person who was such a jerk. Being a little bit of a jerk never bothered me as much. They can have a little swagger. You know, I honestly don't care. Again, they're not my friends. And what I think it is, is that it's more, I have hopes for some of them. Like that they, because they have such responsibility, right? They have such enormous responsibility. But look at someone like Tim Cook, who I like quite a lot, right? Have had a relatively cordial relationship over the years.

36:37Kara Swisher:Think he's done amazing things from a shareholder's perspective. at the same time the minute he did the melania thing or the statues it's a part of me thinks he's taking it for the team like he's leaving so let him take all the fucking flack for that the same time he's absolutely tarnished his reputation i still like him i just but i just i'm disappointed in this question is going to be the most woe is me small potatoes thing but don't you think saying tech bros all the time just is so dismissive you know like there are lots of people in the industry, but many of them are building fairly like morally neutral.

37:12Kara Swisher:And I'm not referring to them. I'm not referring to them. But they feel sort of like. Oh, no, you're kidding. Wah, wah, wah. I mean, I guess I still do believe Silicon Valley is the place in the world and the United States that is most working to build. Let me throw something back at you. Why are they the fucking victims all the time? You know what? I know real victims. I know the kids who've killed themselves using products they use. I know kids that live in Sudan. Like, there's victims all over the world. They are not victims. And their feelings, I don't care. I don't care if they feel victimized.

37:47Kara Swisher:It isn't bad for our society. Like, we want to encourage people who are doing stuff, you know, that's productive that we want them to do to keep going at it. Yes, but why are they more productive than a teacher? Like, why? Because they're rich? Stop it. They're not. Trust me. They are not more productive. And this idolatry of innovators is ridiculous. But you like technology. I love technology, but I don't think, listen, I think a banker, a deli guy, a nurse, anybody is a hero to me. These fucking astronauts up there, they're so much higher on my stack than these people. And thank you for the mapping stuff, which, by the way, was created by the federal government that you just took and then sold it back to us.

38:29Kara Swisher:Those astronauts I have great respect for. And they're just as good and just as important as someone who makes a dating site. I'm sorry. I just, I'm not going to like, I think it's great the things they've done. And look, Henry Ford, astonishing industrialist, made the car, car was important. That fucking anti-Semite, like fuck him. Like you can have two feelings. Same thing with Edison, jerk, jerk, jerk. Thanks for the light bulb, but I don't have to constantly be thanking you for something. And that's my thing. And the reason we thank them is because they got money. They're so poor, all they have is money.

39:06Kara Swisher:And so I'm not going to give them any more than I would give a teacher as than I would give. There's always a purely pragmatic point of view. Isn't there an argument that like Biden not inviting Elon to that? Yes. Stupid thing. I called the Biden administration when that happened. Just doing sort of like I think, you know, people underestimate. I'm sympathetic to the argument. You get paid in money. That's what the money's for. The classic madman. That's what the fucking money's for. But the tech people don't feel that way. They don't. Like business executives. Guess what? They do it because they want to.

39:35We care about social standing more than we care about money in some ways.

39:39Kara Swisher:That's what the fucking money's for. And you have a lot of it, kids. And you know what? Take that money and buy yourself the finest dog in the land. I don't really care. I don't care if you feel good. I don't care. Get married. Have children. Find your hopes and dreams. When Elon didn't get invited, he called me a lot and was complaining about it. And I'm sure he called a lot of people. But I remember that because he was so mad about it, right, at the time we were speaking at the time. and that wasn't that long ago, right? So, and I called the people of the White House. They said, I cannot believe you didn't invite him to that.

40:10Kara Swisher:And I see why because they're like unions, blah, blah. And then they went overboard and was praising Mary Barra as, and there's no question Elon gets, by the way, Google people were there first, but he was the one that pushed the cars through, right? He really did. He was the one who really mushed them, get them into place and deserves all the credit for that. he deserves the credit, but not everything. And I'm so sorry he doesn't feel loved enough by the Biden administration. But again, sack up, sir. It's the way life works. But from a pragmatic perspective, it can be a little dangerous. What I said to the Biden people at the time was, you need to have a man and you need to pet him down.

40:52Kara Swisher:Like you need to stroke him. Like Daniel Lurie in San Francisco is doing such a great job of just saying nice things about them but otherwise running he's trying but trust me behind the scenes it's not something they love to do like it's just why are we doing this to a bunch of the richest people on the planet why do they get extra special cookies like here's a good example when i was a kid my mom worked it worked after my dad died and we would have to stay at this if she worked in a department store and we'd have to stay in this place called the bird cage and it was at like sax without bomb until I remember.

41:23Kara Swisher:And every, when we'd sit in there and have lunch and with me and my two brothers, and the waitress used to come and say, you know, dessert time. And they go, it's boys day. Boys get two desserts and girls get one. And I was like, all right, I'll buy it. And they got two desserts. I got one. It was always fucking boys day. And at one point, and this was me as a six-year-old, I said, why is it always Boys' Day? It's never Girls' Day. Oh, you just didn't come here on the right day. I'm like, no, no, it's never Girls' Day. So I just want you to answer. I said, I don't want another dessert, but I just want to know why it isn't.

42:01Kara Swisher:And to me, some of the whiny that they do, they're so whiny about being victims and they deserve it. I urge you to watch this AMC because Zach does a beautiful job at this. Why are we so coddling of the world's richest people? They can afford therapists. They can buy themselves a wife or a husband or whatever they want. They could buy a dog. They can buy an island. They can buy France as far as I don't really care. Jeff Bezos wants to rent Venice for his wedding. Seems a little much to me, but knock yourself out. We do not have to. We are constantly wondering how Elon feels when people across the world are dying due to his careless stupidity.

42:38Part of how America works is that thankfully we want power to be more diffuse. Not, to me, not totally aligned in like one president or one government. And like companies are a way that we sort of diffuse power. People can run different experiments. And so like they have worked hard to sort of build their little mini cults with their little mini visions of the world. And they want to be sort of a small participant in this like conversation. They don't want to be a small.

43:04Kara Swisher:They don't want to be a small participant. Are you watching what they're doing and the funding that they're doing? Their funding. He tried to change the – by the way, he's lost badly. Now it's five to two liberals in Wisconsin. Good job, Elon, on that one. To be clear, I would never defend Elon. No, but – I think there is definitely a project to sort of kill American democracy. I'm very worried about sort of the Trump channel. My problem is that by sort of hitting with such a large target, you're sort of – you're attacking anybody who could be your friend. I like all the people who – I don't want to be friends with them.

43:39Kara Swisher:Again, they're not my friends. Your ally, you're like trying to build a vision of the world that you want to see. I talk to lots of great technology people and they make beautiful things, but so do a lot of people. And our viewfinder is far too much with the wealthy. And listen, that happened back in the Gilded Age. It happened before that. It happened in ancient Rome. This is what always happens. But I don't think this small group of homogeneous people should have such power over communications, elections, politics, social, now media, because that's where they're headed, right? And healthcare, like, why do they get to run everything?

44:17Kara Swisher:And because they are homogeneous. They even if you think they aren't, they are. And some of them are a little more liberal than others. Some are more conservative than others. I just don't think one industry should be calling the shots on everything. And I can't believe I'm actually saying this, but I would rather have Ted Cruz make decisions about AI because he's elected. That's insane to me. Here's why. He's elected by the people and they spend, they regulate pharmacies, you know, drugs. They regulate cars. They regulate planes. They regulate oil and gas. What they don't regulate is tech. So why do they get off when they're able to do that?

44:54Kara Swisher:And this is the government we've chosen is a representative government of the people. I believe in the people a lot more than them. I just do. The people are the consumers who can choose one tech product or another they can spend their time on one thing or they can spend their time on something else it's a monopolistic system stop it it's not true i mean they can read my subject they can go on twitter like they choose how they spend their time right now facebook dominates so years ago i did it with ben horowitz and i was talking about investing the antitrust fight has largely been like a disaster because we haven't changed the antitrust laws in 100 years because everything is different.

45:29Kara Swisher:We've got to think about it. Listen, I'm not a big proponent of big regulation, but there's none, like zero regulation. So why can't we do the basic stuff? We haven't passed a privacy bill. Why does all my stuff get to be used and abused by them? Why do I have to trade away my privacy and not have control over stuff? Right. I mean, Ma 'am Donnie is doing, I think, literally this week, sort of like one-click unsubscribe. There are lots of things I'm sure we would agree on that we should do. Right. But why did – see, the thing is they get all the advance. They get all the advance. They are born on third base right now and they think they've hit a home run.

46:06Kara Swisher:And I have nothing but regard for all kinds of inventors. Back to Ben Franklin. I love a Ben Franklin. But nobody envisioned that they should decide on everything. And I don't – I can't stand Ted Cruz, but he's elected by the people of Texas. He's a representative. Now, he gets bought and paid for by them, of course. but why can't our representatives decide even if we move slower even if it's that is how democracy works they don't they hate democracy they you know peter talks about at least peter says it out loud right that's why i appreciate him okay now i see where you're coming from last last question tight by the way you're a lot nicer than i am you would say i'm nice to sam allman but man oh i i said i started with the board during the whole period while you were tweeting in his defense.

46:51So I was I did in that specific instance. I stuck my neck out pretty far. What did you say? I wrote that people should listen to the board and that there had been this incident with YC and Elon. They messaged it poorly. But yeah, I do think people didn't understand what the real reasons might have been at the time.

47:08Kara Swisher:In that case, I think that board got out of whack. They had two people, the conservative guy, Will from Texas. He stepped off. He stepped off and Reid stepped off. And then it became an uneven board because they were kind of in the metal kind of stuff. And therefore, the group that was very much safety oriented got too much. I thought it became a problem with the board. I think they clearly executed it poorly. But like Ilya, Mira had come with complaints, but then didn't have left the company. She has, but she's done her own thing. I don't know. I think in terms of what was the losing sort of popular position at the time, I held the one that was out like the public sentiment on Twitter was yours.

47:48Kara Swisher:Right. And mine was the minority position that I think is bearing out over time. Except is it? I mean, look, look, Ilya went off and took all that money. So like nobody's clean here. Nobody. Nobody is. And you know, Mira's taken like no accountability. Doesn't talk about it at all. I'm sorry. I just don't believe that there's... Same thing with... I'm just saying on that particular one, I'm not giving you the moral victory. It's not a moral victory. I just think it's... What I think it is, it's very complex. And I don't think those safety people were as clean, not clean. And that was my point that there's just more history to Sam.

48:17I mean, I think part of the problem with the board is there hadn't been sort of the predicate. They hadn't gotten pieces out about Sam that would explain to people why he was seen as a liar privately. And my piece was just saying, oh, there is a long history of people thinking he wasn't honest.

48:31Kara Swisher:To me, that was a board that got out of whack. And one group that was, one group took back power and they had a point of view that was quite inflexible, by the way. And the other side had a point of view that was quite inflexible. And that goes to board dynamics where you should have a board that is much more balanced so you can argue it out, right? That to me, it's like the same thing with the Supreme Court if it has too many concerns. But you've just given this whole spiel about how they shouldn't have so much power. Why is OpenAI Sam Altman? It shouldn't be. Right. Well, then what's it matter?

49:00Like if the board sort of thinks, oh, maybe let's try anybody else, like somebody else.

49:05Kara Swisher:Because I think they did it wrong. And then it doesn't matter how you do it. And the employees were behind him. And I tend to go - Because there was a huge amount of money. There was a tender offer that they wanted. So what? I mean, I agree that the board failed to execute on what they want. They didn't have the employees with them. But you've given this whole speech about how we shouldn't over-empower people, and then you're sort of very worried about one guy holding on to power. No, I'm not worried about him. If he doesn't do a good job, he should be fired. I don't want anybody to be able to have too much power.

49:32Kara Swisher:And in that situation, the board had too much power, and then he had too much power, and it creates an out-of-whack. I don't like any of these companies where Mark Zuckerberg can't be fired, for example. They're monarchies, as far as I'm concerned. And that's never healthy, especially when it's as serious. But isn't that, again, an argument for firing Timal? It's so hard for these boards ever to take action. If you could really get a majority of the board to say, ooh, we don't want this guy, that's a pretty big moment in this. Yes, but it was a majority of a side of a board. It was not an even-handed board.

50:01Kara Swisher:It was not. And by the way, Will Hurd, it's Will Hurd. I know, I saw him the other day. He had a very mixed feeling. And I like a person like that, so that you have someone. you know there was a group that was very much inflexible and by the way anti-innovation compared to the idea that they should be able to innovate right and i'm actually more on their side there's sort of two ea people but then there's ilia there's adam d 'angelo who is a tech person i know i mean you you know but there's also all these interpersonal i just think it's a lot more the thing that offended me in that thing was the the anti-gay stuff which i was getting in droves And that's what motivated me because I was like, you want to have a fair fucking fight?

50:41Kara Swisher:Keep the anti-gay stuff out. Like if you want to say he's this and that and here and there, that's one thing. The second thing is why do you need to employ that? And I do think Elon was around, you know, again, Elon putting himself out as the great releaser. Come on, stop it. It's all. And by the way, it's all about the money in the end for all of these people. It's, you know, that whole Sam, I don't get paid crap. Like he'll get paid. He gets paid plenty. That kind of stuff. And so I don't like, I would prefer it that there be a range of people, but tech is no different than the board of Procter & Gamble or things like where they stack the board, the CEO gets paid, he gives money to his best friends, and they do all manner of crap.

51:23Kara Swisher:So why is that different from anything else? Because it's tech and it's more dramatic and cartoonish. And I think we do cover, and I would say myself, when I was covering it, too much in a cartoon fashion. It's becoming even more cartoonized now when it's much more complex. Great. You have a hard stop. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. No problem. I like you're getting good at this. That was my conversation with Kara Swisher. Always fun to engage with Kara. She's spicy. She knows how to podcast better than me. So got to keep learning. Thanks. Thanks. Like, comment, subscribe, follow the channel.

52:01You can check us out at newcomer.co. You can go back and read my Ode to Code in the Newcomer sub stack if you want to get some of the history on me and Kara Swisher. And yeah, thanks for listening and see you next week or see you later this week. We've got a good one coming up.