Unlocking Your Power at Work: Kara Swisher on how to get what you want | from Fixable

0:00This message comes from Betterment. Dan Egan, VP of Behavioral Finance and Investing, explains how Betterment takes the time-consuming work out of smart investing. I grew up learning about finance and investing myself and realizing that I needed to reinvest dividends and rebalance my portfolio and if there was an opportunity to tax loss over time. And then I realized that I was doing all of these things that were pretty straightforward to implement. I just needed to spend my time doing them. Betterment automates the same good practices so that I know I'm doing portfolio management and goal-based planning in a way that makes sense and is responsible without me having to spend hours of my life doing it.

0:58This episode is sponsored by Perplexity AI. How much of your workday actually goes toward making decisions? Now, how much goes towards just finding the information you need to make them? If you run an e-commerce business, your mornings probably start by bouncing between platforms, digging for data, and trying to figure out how it all fits together. That's why I'm excited to tell you about Perplexity Computer. It connects you to the tools you already use, giving you a complete picture of your business. Before you even wake up, it can send your team daily performance reports, pulling revenue, ad spend, margin, inventory, and more.

1:44And it doesn't just tell you what's happening. It gets to work. Rebuilding your CRM, creating your next ad campaign, or drafting your creator outreach. Perplexity Computer runs all the leading AI models and chooses the right one for each step of the project. For a limited time only, our listeners can try Perplexity Computer for free. Head to pplx.ai.tedbiz. That's pplx.ai.tedbiz to try computer today. Most AI tools are still answering questions, while Perplexity Computer is completing full projects. This episode is brought to you by Founders Mentality, a podcast in partnership with Bain & Company.

2:35If you listen to Ted Business for conversations about leadership, navigating change, and unlocking innovation, I have another show for your rotation. It's called Founders Mentality, the CEO Sessions. It gets into the real decisions behind some of today's leading executives and companies. Not just what a CEO should do, but who a CEO has to become to do it. In their recent episode with Laura Burrow, Group CEO of The Economist Group, you hear how she walked into a divided organization and a transformation project that had already cost the company millions and made the call to scrap it. Instead, she pushed for a new approach, one that could fund itself and bring the business back together.

3:24She and host Jimmy Allen break down that choice, how customer data reshaped the company's priorities, and how The Economist is thinking about transformation now in the age of AI. Follow Founders Mentality, the CEO sessions from Bain & Company, wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, listeners. We're dropping another playlist this month, and this one is a new series from our friends over at Fixable. It's all about how to unlock your power at work. And if you're looking over your shoulder and thinking, power? Me? Well, then, yeah, this series is exactly for you. Anne, Frances, and their esteemed panel of guests talk through all the ways you might be underestimating underestimating your own power.

4:12And you may be surprised at what they have to say. This playlist is a primer on how to get what you want, how to feel financially empowered, and how to empower others. I'm excited for you to listen. Anne and Frances are going to take it from here.

4:33Kara Swisher: here's how i conduct my career i'm in a restaurant and they have chicken pork or steak and i want the duck and she's like well they don't have the duck on the menu and i said oh they have the fucking duck

4:53This is Fixable, a show where we take the problems at work that feel unfixable and prove to everyone and ourselves that they are not. I'm Anne Morris. And I'm Frances Fry. Today, we have something we're really excited to share with our listeners. We are launching a special series about finding your power at work. We hear from a lot of listeners who don't feel powerful in their jobs, but we also observe a lot of people who aren't using the full power they already have. You know, we also hear from people who are reacting to other people's power. So on the receiving end, reacting to the power dynamics in the office and often they're just unsure how to respond.

5:39Yes. Yeah. I mean, we think about this series as a way to discover and use your real power at work. We're going to dig into how you can identify it, build it, get nice and comfortable with it, and then use your power ultimately for good. You know, we talk a lot about having swagger on this show, which is one of my favorite words. And I think when someone really connects to their full power at work, you can just see it in the way that they carry themselves, how they relate to others. It's infectious. And honestly, it's difficult to look away. Totally. To kick us off, we have a guest who has a whole lot of swagger.

6:19She's built a life and an incredible career around holding the powerful accountable. And she's powerful in her own right. We're talking about the legendary Kara Swisher, one of the most influential voices in media today. And if you are looking for a role model, look no further. She has been reporting on tech since the early 90s. She's worked at the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post. Her memoir, Burn Book, A Tech Love Story, is a New York Times bestseller. She's the host of the podcast, on with Kara Swisher, and of course, the co-host of Pivot. But Frances, you know, Kara, from your Uber days for listeners who don't know, you took a sabbatical from Harvard back in 2017 to join Uber as their first senior vice president of leadership and strategy.

7:09Tell me about your first meeting with Kara. What was your impression? Hardcore definitely speaks truth to power. And she doesn't flinch for a moment in the pursuit of that truth. And all of that was learned over breakfast. In fact, I met her on the way in to my first day at Uber. So I met, they arranged the breakfast meeting with Kara on my way into the office. Just as part of the onboarding? What was the context? I was the I was a person that was coming in. It was in a very public crisis. And I was a person that was brought in to be helpful during the crisis. I you know, we had just finished our consulting with them.

7:57But this was my first day as a full time employee. And and so I met her on the way in and it, you know, game on. And there's no small talk, like no small talk. It was just sit down and here we go. Here we go. Well, I think this conversation is going to be really fun. So let's bring her in.

8:20Kara Swisher: Kara Swisher, welcome to Fixable. Thank you. I'm excited about the name of this thing. What are we fixing? We're fixing power dynamics. All right. OK. All right. This feels like the premise to a joke. Three lesbians walk into a podcast or a brain teaser. Two of them are married. How many lesbians does that leave? Are you a fixie person? Do you fix things? I'm a fixer. I am not a tool belt lesbian. OK. But we are optimists. Oh, all right. So you're talking about mental fixing. Oh, I don't do that. Yeah, I think you're handier. I am a handy. I'm a handy. I do. I love to fix things. So Kara, this conversation is part of a series we're doing on power and influence.

9:03All right. And we told our producers we wanted a sexy journalist to anchor the series. Who did you get? You were everyone's first choice. All right. You were everyone's first choice. All right, because I'm looking good.

9:12Kara Swisher: I just worked out. So I look fantastic right now. All right. So before we get into power, we'd love to spend a minute on your story. Okay. In your interview with Marc Maron at the Tribeca Film Festival. Which people can hear on your excellent interview podcast on with Kara Swisher. Mm-hmm. At what point you say, essentially, I don't feel anxiety. I don't. And never have. Yeah. So what are the primary emotions you experience? Well, let me be clear. If a dragon was after me, I would feel fear. Like, come on. Or if someone was chasing me with a knife. No one has yet, as yet. And so that's different.

9:52Kara Swisher: But in general, I mean, one of the things when I met my wife, I said, I'm not neurotic. I just am not. I just don't I don't have a lot of I don't I don't regret a lot of things. There's one or two small things I regret. Not having more kids was one of them. Not being pregnant again, because I really like being pregnant. I loved being pregnant. I love being pregnant. So that's a regret. But I mean, I'm fine with it also. But the but anxiety, I just don't have time for it. I just don't. I can't. What are you feeling over the course of a day? Good. I just good. I feel good. Mostly. I mean, some things, you know, I get upset about some small things.

10:27Kara Swisher: And, you know, when I talk, my kids are upset about anything. I feel for them and I try to help them mostly. But I'm usually a can-do lady. Like, I'm like, all right, how are we going to solve this? And I think in a lot of ways, I probably drive my wife crazy because she's, you know, she's a more processor person in general. And I'm like, yeah, okay, we got the problem. Let's go. Like, I always am like, what's the solution? Let's fix it. And so I have that attitude. And I was always like that. And I think it's probably largely born out of my dad dying, which I talk about a lot in this series. I do like I don't have time for like anxiety.

11:02Kara Swisher: And I respect people who have it. I have a lot of friends who have lots of anxiety or worry or neurosis. I just don't I have never I feel like I don't have time. And it sounds weird. And I've used this example before. But, you know, when your dad dies or your parent dies at a young age, you know what you know where it ends. Right. You have this idea. and the worst thing ever happens to you and then you keep going. And so, you know, when something happens, I just can't get upset by it. Like I can't go, oh, no, not that. Five. Yeah. Like it's hard to. Yeah, I was two. Well, same thing. So it's an expression.

11:37Kara Swisher: There's an expression called The Lost That Is Forever, which is a great book on this topic. But one of the things in this book is that people become highly functional. Like I'm highly, I'm highly functional. I don't know how else to say it. And I am. And so are my brothers, actually. We're very like, OK, next, now, fix. I get that as a functional response to the experience of growing up with that kind of life. My brother's an emergency room doctor. Like, I think we all channeled it to let's make some progress. Let's make some progress. Yeah. And I think it's just you have a sense of on a more deeper level, you have a sense of mortality from a very early age.

12:14Kara Swisher: And therefore, you have a sense of time. And I think time is something that people really don't understand. And I do in a way that's profound and helpful, actually, even though it was the worst way to find that out. Yeah. I would take it back in a second. Yeah. And be anxious. I'd rather have my dad and be anxious than this. Yeah, I'll take anxiety instead. So Kara, as you as you wrote about in Burn Book, you had a very intimate view of a number of entrepreneurs who went from being awkward young people to the most powerful humans on the planet. You also watch tech emerge as, you know, one of many important industries to the, you know, number one economic, cultural, social force of our time.

12:58What are the what are the lessons and power that you take from watching these transformations, both on the personal level and on a structural level? Well, you know, some people, you know, start off awful and remain awful.

13:12Kara Swisher: but yeah so i met a lot of them or someone like mark cuban who was somewhat of a jerk at the start and now is couldn't be more interesting and delightful yeah um and so people change but usually it's they're like what they were like like mark is very wealthy and he couldn't be mark cuban any lovelier yeah he couldn't be he's not he's polite to people he doesn't lord of people i i just you know a lot of people are like that satya nadella is another person He's the head of Microsoft. He's a very grounded person. Reed Hastings ran Netflix. You know, we didn't always agree, but he was a normal person.

13:49Kara Swisher: Ted Sarandos, who runs it. So when you look at this bunch, like the people who have handled power well, what do you think, like, what can we learn from that? We're so focused on, like, the motherfuckers. Yeah. But there is this and you point this out often, which I think is very productive. Like power isn't inherently a bad thing. No, it can be used for good. People are using it that way. Here's what I think is a bad thing is that if it coalesces in one place, then you inevitably end up with a mad king like you inevitably it just never I mean, you know, culture and history and fiction is full of this, right?

14:29Kara Swisher: is how people start off innocent, you know, and end up sort of in this twisted way, whether it's like a Howard Hughes who went mentally ill. That was a mental decline, obviously. Very interesting entrepreneur. Some people are the way they are. Like I said, they were like that, kind of a jerk and remain a jerk. They're just a jerk with a lot of money and people agreeing with them. So some people develop and then others can resist the deleterious impact of that much wealth. And what happens is all these people surround you. They're yesing you. You never know their agenda. And they, for some reason, think that those people are being truthful with them and they manage to isolate truthful people and eliminate them from their diet, essentially.

15:17Kara Swisher: What's your advice to future tech moguls? Well, it's interesting because my son is tech focused. He's a mechanical engineer. He's at the University of Michigan. And one of the things I thought was important with him is, and he has these interests, is have interests outside of tech because it's such a narrow range of things. I mean, he's obviously good at math and chemistry and physics and, you know, much better than I would ever be. And at the same time, we wanted to make sure he had an interest in history in, you know, he does glass design, like anything that's not, he does a lot of stuff with his hands because he's a mechanical engineer.

15:54Kara Swisher: But that was one important thing for us to push on him in like the idea of ethics and philosophy and stuff like that. And I wrote a column in the New York Times, right when I had that column there, I wanted to do that for the reason I wanted to get some of these ideas out, which is why aren't there ethics courses required in technology. I think it was 2018, maybe, close to 10 years ago. And I was questioning it. Why isn't there? Why isn't there a real ethics course to talk about it? Because people have enormous power and they should be trained about, again, history, philosophy, public policy, and things like that.

16:32Kara Swisher: I just interviewed Theo Baker, this kid who was at Stanford. It's about the factory of entrepreneurs. It is a great book. The factory of entrepreneurs there is these VCs rush in like you would college basketball players and grab them for their own uses and spit them out if it doesn't work as they do in sports sometimes and and don't care about anything but making the money or getting the idea and I think it it creates sort of half formed people and then pile money and idolatry on them and you get a really bad result yeah you found ways to build and use a tremendous amount of power yourself, we believe for good.

17:14When you look at your own story through the lens of power, what do you attribute your own path to power to?

17:23Kara Swisher: I would, I wouldn't say a power. I say things, right? A power of words and a power of opinion, essentially. And that's, I guess that's a power in itself. And it's not a power, I thought about this recently. I was like, everyone's like, oh, you don't care at all. You don't give a fuck. I said, actually, I give a big fuck. I said, there's there's a very big difference. Like I if you don't give a fuck, you have no values. Right. But I do. I think it could like one of the things someone's like you like someone said, well, it's good. You hate tech. I said, I love tech. I said, you don't understand.

17:52Kara Swisher: I love it. And what they're doing to it is the things tech could do for our society are vast and have been over history. Right. And so I feel like a responsibility for it to be deployed in a way that's fair and good for the vast majority of people and to warn of the negative effects and to try to mitigate those negative effects. And so I feel like it's my job to do that now at this point that there's and to point out all the good things that could happen if only it didn't coalesce around a small group of powerful people. I mean, I'm one of those people who reads history and understands when power coalesces around a small group of heterogeneous people, we're all fucked, essentially, because they're— The pattern is clear.

18:38Kara Swisher: Pattern is clear. Like, again, time and time again in history, that's where history falls apart, as it often does. And so I find, you know, so being well-read and well-versed in history, you can really understand what's happening here very clearly. Yeah.

18:59This is a paid partnership with Apple Card. The coolest flex at brunch these days is not the Bloody Mary with the bottomless gold flake caviar topping. It's not whipping out your wallet to pay. It's not having a wallet at all. Jack's been an Apple Card user since 2019. That's the same year he tossed his wallet in the trash. Because Apple Card holders earn 2 % daily cash back on purchases made using Apple Pay. It's the only credit card designed for the iPhone. I tap to pay with Apple Card at the grocery store, at the gas station, at restaurants. And yes, I use it at my second home, the farmer's market.

19:30Jack tapping to pay with his Apple Card with Apple Pay is his favorite thing to do. And the pleasant vibration and chime sound means I just got 2 % daily cash back on my latest purchase. Apply in the wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval, Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City Branch. Terms and more at AppleCard.com. Hey, Greg May here. As a pro quarterback, I know I can't do it alone. I have to trust my team, and that goes for my money too, which is why I use Betterment, the trusted investing and savings platform. Their automated investing tools always have my back, just like my O-line.

20:03Over a million people already trust Betterment to build their wealth, so I know I'm in good company. Start building yours at Betterment.com or download the app. Investing involves risk, performance not guaranteed, paid client ad, views may not be representative. See App Store and Google Play reviews. Learn more at Betterment.com slash ambassadors.

20:23we spend a lot of time inside organizations. We see a lot of people in the workplace who don't recognize or use the power they actually have.

20:32Kara Swisher: Yeah, I agree with you. That was never your problem. No. You took up space from a very young age. Very young. You famously talked your way into a job at the Post. I did. You called out John McLaughlin. Decades before Me Too was a thing. I don't feel you should grab women's boobs without their permission. I feel like that's just a reasonable... A reason I felt like. I don't think so. I don't think so. People were scared. Right. What I was always I'm I know it sounds dumb. I was not very good at math, but I'm very mathematical. And I'm like, OK, what's the actual cost when you say something? And a lot of people were trained to sort of behave, especially women, particularly like, oh, if I say something, I will pay this.

21:12Kara Swisher: And I'm like, that's like fiction. That's that's you don't actually you pay when you don't say something, actually. And so I was I was always very calculating of like, what's the actual cost of saying the right thing? And in that in those cases, I wanted a job. I didn't have one. I was was I like risking not having a job that I didn't have. So I was like, why not? Why not ask for what I want? But like you can say you can declare things, especially in this country where even though there's all manner of nonsense going on and there's a lot of people being quashed, we still have a place where you can make choices compared to like try being a lady in Syria.

21:50Kara Swisher: Try being, you know, a woman in any of these, you know, in these strict religious countries. Like try that and see there's real price to pay there. And I don't feel like I have that here. Did you learn how to do that? uh no because my mom's not like that she's like so i'm curious francis for you because i i think you're on this side you're in cara's side of this spectrum yeah i i i look back i've been saying it um i like i could just have the memories of saying the things from when i was able to walk i was the youngest of six kids and i would see you have to speak up yeah yeah i and i would To get fed, you would have to speak up.

22:33Yeah. But I did feel I think I learned, Karen, when you just said that you give a fuck and I wrote down you give a capital F fuck. It seemed to me to not give a small F fuck. Like you give a fuck on the big thing and then the little thing doesn't perturb you. So the fact that I would get screamed at or chased or I didn't care about that because I gave the capital F.

22:56Kara Swisher: Right. Exactly. Like I just I didn't I just didn't think there was a cost. I just was like being very clear. I'm very clear headed in that regard. I'm like, OK, what's going to happen if I do? Oh, nothing. Like nothing, actually. And, you know, you can watch especially men do it all the time. Like they never pay. I'm like, huh, that's it. What if I behave a little bit more like that? And it works. It actually does work because confidence breeds, you know, results. And, you know, in your case, I think you're a lot nicer. I remember the Uber stuff, but it was you were a lot like people are fixable.

23:31Kara Swisher: I'm like, yeah, they aren't like not that person. Right. And I appreciate that. And I do appreciate like I like the sentiment, but I pretty much I'm pretty good at clocking people pretty quickly, but I will allow them to change. I don't if they change. I'm very welcoming. Like, I think a lot of people, especially on the left, are very intolerant of people that change. Like, I start... Yeah, there's not enough room for evolution. Let me ask you both a very dikey question that I think is going to be interesting to three of our listeners. You're both out and proud lesbians. Mm-hmm. No one is wondering, is she or isn't she?

24:10No. But you both make choices that our society would prefer that men make in terms of taking up space without permission, having healthy egos. How do you think that part of your identity, this is for both of you, has impacted your experience of power? Like, is it helpful to be a lesbian with some swagger in a patriarchy? Why, yes, it is. Indeed. Why, yes. Go ahead. You go first. I will go first. You explain the situation. Yeah. Yeah. So I find that, yeah, the swagger, which I don't know that it would work in a performative way. No, it has to be real. But the being deeply comfortable in our own skin and it wouldn't occur.

24:57It wouldn't occur to me to be apologetic about my intellect. It wouldn't occur to me to be apologetic about my body. It just wouldn't occur to me to be apologetic. Yeah.

25:10Kara Swisher: And it's occurring to the rest of us all day, every day. It's interesting. I do get a lot of people coming up to me and saying, you give me courage to say things, right? Because because you say them, then I can say them, which I'm fine with. That's great. I think it's more out of I think I'm like this. It's my nature. You know, it's my it's not something that I have to think about. It's just a natural instinct. I really it sounds dumb like someone someone's like oh you really think a lot of yourself I said I do I'm fantastic like I don't know what to tell you like come on like look at the history here give me a break look at the track record look at the track record so and this person like well I think that's you know I think that's very boastful I go it's factual like I don't know what to tell you it's actually and so it's really it's funny that's a gender violation like I think that's makes people uncomfortable.

26:01Kara Swisher: Yeah, it does. I used to tell when I met my wife, my current wife, Amanda, she said something like that. She goes, you seem very confident as a person. And I said, well, I am beachfront property in Malibu, so I don't know what to tell you. And she looked at me like, you've got to be kidding. I go, that was a joke, but actually it's actually.

26:26This is a paid partnership with Apple Card. The coolest flex at brunch these days is not the Bloody Mary with the bottomless gold flake caviar topping. It's not whipping out your wallet to pay. It's not having a wallet at all. Jack's been an Apple Card user since 2019. That's the same year he tossed his wallet in the trash. Because Apple Card holders earn 2 % daily cash back on purchases made using Apple Pay. It's the only credit card designed for the iPhone. I tap to pay with Apple Card at the grocery store. At the gas station. At restaurants. And yes, I use it at my second home, the farmer's market.

26:56Jack tapping to pay with his Apple Card with Apple Pay is his favorite thing to do. And the pleasant vibration and chime sound means I just got 2 % daily cash back on my latest purchase. Apply in the wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City Branch. Terms and more at AppleCard.com. Hey, Greg May here. As a pro quarterback, I know I can't do it alone. I have to trust my team. And that goes for my money, too, which is why I use Betterment, the trusted investing and savings platform. Their automated investing tools always have my back, just like my O-line.

27:30Over a million people already trust Betterment to build their wealth, so I know I'm in good company. Start building yours at Betterment.com or download the app. Investing involves risk, performance not guaranteed, paid client ad, views may not be representative. See App Store and Google Play reviews. Learn more at Betterment.com slash ambassadors. Some ideas teach you something new. The best ones change how you see everything else. I'm Elise Hu, and on my podcast, TED Talks Daily, you can get your curiosity fix. One day it's psychology, the next it's physics, philosophy, or the future of work.

28:00Scientists, thinkers, and artists come to the TED stage to share ideas that could reshape how you understand yourself and the world. Find the one you'll keep thinking about long after the episode ends. Listen to TED Talks Daily wherever you get your podcasts.

28:21As a role model, you are giving women courage and you're allowing us to visualize what this looks like. Do you have any coaching for people listening on taking up more space?

28:32Kara Swisher: You have to think about where you are in your life and understand your leverage. And I think I say that to people all the time, like, what's your leverage? What's the worst case scenario? What if you do what you want to do? What do you have to pay for things? And I think we don't think about the payment of the actions we take. And so I'm always like, think really hard about if you want to pay that price. It's like buying a car. Do you want to pay that much for the car? Do you know what you'll have to give up if you don't otherwise? So I also try to get people to get a very good sense of what they actually, how they want to live, where they, is it money?

29:08Kara Swisher: Do you want money? Does it, do you want this? Do you want that? Like to understand what your goals are, right? And I think people don't have enough of their sense of their actual goals of what they want to accomplish. And then I like them to think about, again, what's the worst case scenario? And that is super hard for people to do. They, especially women, they never think about their options. And I think about options continually. Like, I mean, I know you guys coach, right? Frances, you coach people on it. One of the most interesting things, this is someone Frances knows, but I'm not going to say who it is, but it was a woman who was always number two in Silicon Valley.

29:45Kara Swisher: Always number two. There's always a lot of number two ladies in Silicon Valley. And they had, they were leaving their job and they, and I, and they said, can you come over? And I said, I'm not really a career counselor, but sure. Cause I know all the jobs and I know what's available. And they, it's a story I've told a lot of young women. And I said, she said, I, what do you want to do? She said, I want to be a CEO. I go, great. That's a really good goal. You know, clear. You want to be a CEO and, uh, and you know, your skills and everything else and your qualities. And I said, what do you want to do?

30:17Kara Swisher: Where do you want to practice this CEO ship? And she said, well, I've been offered this, this, this, and this, right? Like four or five options, which I was like, oh, great. What do you want to, what do you want to do? And she said, well, this is interesting. I said, I didn't ask you that. I didn't ask you what choices that you've been offered by people. Like, it's like a woman who got six, you know, no marriage offers that you're only judged by the offers that come in. I said, what do you want to do? And she's like, well, yeah, exactly. And she was like, well, this, and I was like, no, no, that was offered to you.

30:50Kara Swisher: That is a very different thing. You did not seek it out. If you had to seek it out, what would it be? And she goes, well, well, that hasn't been offered to me. And I was like, oh, really interesting. It hasn't been offered to you. So therefore there's not an option of it. And I said, here's how I conduct my career. I'm in a restaurant and they have chicken, pork or steak. And I want the duck. And she's like, well, they don't have the duck on the menu. And I said, oh, they have the fucking duck. The duck's in the back. And she goes, well, it's not on the menu. I said, oh, it's on the menu. Oh, it's on the menu.

31:27Kara Swisher: It's there. They have the fucking duck. You asked for the duck. And she goes, well, what if it's not there? I said, then go to another fucking restaurant. I don't know what to tell you. If you want duck, have duck. And she thought I was crazy. I was like, eat the duck. And I always send her every I know I was like, have the duck. And and so I always text her. She is the CEO now. I was like, did you eat the duck? Did you eat the duck? Did you eat the duck? And I was like that you have to like reformulate. And I think I do will say men do this well. Like, what do I want? Very well. They're very good at what they want.

31:58What they want. And I have three sons.

32:00Kara Swisher: I watch it all the time. Let me tell you. And especially in I didn't believe in gender dynamics until I had children, because even the four and a half year old, like he is intent and like very much even when they're wrong. I know. I think and I want to test this with you, Kara. If you could, I feel like you would do drive by interventions with people all day long. I do them. Yeah. I right now. There you go. Everyone involved with CBS has called me. And before it was the Washington Post, they're like, we need to talk. Like, I have so many people coming to me for career. I could have a when they were doing a profile in the New York Times, which was far too nice.

32:39Kara Swisher: They they said, we hear you have a side business as a career consultant that you're being paid for. I'm like paid for. If only if only this morning I had a coffee with someone who wanted advice. Like, again, it's like I. Yes, I do it all the time. And I feel very, especially when they're women, I feel the need to do it. And now with the media being in such crisis, they're like, who's the lady who did the media entrepreneurship? I need to talk to her. And I tend to try to take at least a minute after I drop my daughter off at school to give them a minute because I think it's fair. Because I had a lot of great mentors like Walt Mossberg and many others.

33:16Kara Swisher: But now it's getting a little much, I'll be honest with you. Karen, we have a lot of women listen to this show. So will you make some of your private advice public on building a terrific career in this climate? Well, I think one is the risk taking. I think being a risk taker is a really important thing and make calculated risks. But I think people are too safe. I think we're trained to be too safe. And so don't be safe. Don't there's no and there is no safety, by the way. Like I'm like, they'll come and get you if you don't have the other. And the other thing is under second thing is understanding the person you are and what you're if you're shy or I not shy.

33:53Kara Swisher: But if you are, you have to know what your attributes are and what you're what you are. And one of the things I recognize is I was a really as I joke about this, a bad employee. I wasn't good at being an employee. I wasn't I wouldn't get in line. I would just like I'm like, I can't I can't do it. I can't get in line. And and I and to put yourself in situations where you're not comfortable is a bad thing. So me working for people is not a good thing for me. And it's not good for them, by the way. I'm not I don't think that's a great thing to be as a bad employee. I also I think once you spend your time griping, I hate that.

34:26Kara Swisher: Like I hate when I start to be like, oh, I hate this place. The minute that happens, I stop and I leave. You have to understand who you are and what you want. And I don't I think a lot of people do not, as I said, with that duck story, they don't know what they want. They never ask that you go from job to job and you roll into one thing and you never think, why am I doing this? Do I like it? And the last thing I do, and I take this cue from Steve Jobs, that speech he gave at Stanford, which is my North Star of a speech, one of the finest speeches about career and life, I think, was amazing. And he was sort of between illnesses.

34:59Kara Swisher: And one of the things that I thought was so moving was that he really did articulate that he said death is the greatest invention of life because that was his motivation. And it was also has been mine. It doesn't have that doesn't have to be your motivation. But, you know, if I have too many days where I say no, where I wake up and I don't want to be there and I say no, I get out. Like that's like I thought that was so often. That's very clean. It is. And you're like and it's hard to do that when you're in a especially you're in a high level or what people consider a really good job. Like I was at the New York Times writing a column.

35:35Kara Swisher: I just didn't want to do it anymore. And one person was like, you don't leave New York Times. I go, yes, you do. Like, you know, and I like them. I think they were great. I had a great thing there, but then I was like, I dreaded doing it. And so I think that you have to. Dread is a very powerful indicator. You know, I was like, oh, I can't do this. I don't, I'd rather watch Law and Order. You know, that's always a sign. If I'd rather watch Law and Order, it's like, and if you have fewer choices, which I, like I was talking to some people that are at 60 Minutes and they can't leave. There's nowhere else to go.

36:05Kara Swisher: Right. Like, that's the issue. And I'm like, listen, sit, like, I could tell you just flounce out and quit, but it's, there's nowhere to go right now. So bide your time, tone your skills, and then figure out where you can go. Like, I don't advise because they're like, I want to be like you on a flounce. I'm like, don't flounce. I have flounce power. You do not have flounce power. I can flounce. I can do it. There's no price for me. And it's very minor. The price is minor here. For you, it's big and you'll be stuck. And so be very careful about how you exit somewhere and how you handle it, but understand your feeling of wanting to go.

36:41And I think that's I think just be very strategic about how you do that.

36:46Kara Swisher: And I think, you know, I think but you have to leave if you feel that way. That to me, we don't do leaving enough. I don't know how you feel. You know, one of the things we've noticed recently is that people who have decided to leave and then they have like a 30 or a 60 day window before they leave are an unfreaking believable version of themselves, an amazing version of themselves. So I remember Sheryl Sandberg when she said, don't leave before you leave. And so we've been joking, leave before you're going to leave. Like, act like you're leaving. Let's see that version of you. The version in that 60 days when you know you're leaving.

37:24Where was that? It is. It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable.

37:29Kara Swisher: Because you can make yourself, like, in a lot of ways, you can make yourself miserable, right? And on some level, I don't, like, someone's like, oh, you're so tough. I'm like, I'm the person that's the problem, not the boss. If it's not the job for you, like, don't blame the job. Like, this is a terrible place to work. I'm like, then leave. Like, what do you want? Like, oh, they're going to fix it. I'm like, they're not. This is how they like it. This is how they want this place to be. And if you don't like it, get the hell out. Like, I don't know what to tell you. You have no, except if you don't have choices.

37:57Kara Swisher: And in some cases, there's monetary issues. There's family issues. There's health care issues. I completely understand that. Two last questions. I know we're out of time. Yeah. What's one thing our listeners can do this week to become more powerful? Kara Swisher. Tell someone the truth and tell yourself the truth. That's the harder one. One of my greatest lessons of being a reporter over the many years, and I had lots of scoops and lots of like great stories I've written. The biggest lesson I learned was that I used to think, what are they lying to me about? And one of the things I learned, and I think it's really a profound difference in being the better reporter was what are they lying themselves about and oh yeah that's just that yields every single like what what do they need to say every day to get through the day that isn't true and often when someone says something to me i tend to try to get them to recognize that they say something to me and i go that's not true and they sort of look at me and i'm like it's just not true what you just said like and i don't mean some like something they say about their life i said We know that's not true.

39:04Kara Swisher: And if you say it in a nice way, you actually yield. You're peeling the onion. That's right. That is not what's happening here. What's happening here is this. And I often I accompany it with a lot of reporting. So I actually know. Right. And I don't want to have to pull that out. But I think if you can get people to the truth, I think that's a really powerful thing. But a lot of people don't like the truth. All right. Last question. You can't handle the truth. what are you fixated on currently outside of work huh what am i fixated on this is going to sound crazy but i want to do i want to i think the phone is so addictive and i love news but one thing i know you need a a escape valve and so we were in we just bought this apartment in brooklyn so we go up there quite a bit and so we were in one of these blicks blick art stores and stuff i i looked over and there was a paint by number set in this place.

39:59Kara Swisher: I know it's weird. And I hadn't seen one of those in years. Like we had them when we were kids. Frances, you remember, you don't remember. Totally. And I bought it and I'm painting by numbers. I was never an artist. I was never the greatest answer I've ever heard. This is the best answer anyone has ever given us. It was amazing. And I'm so happy. I sit there and I paint by the numbers by myself. I don't listen to music. I don't like try to occupy and, you know, debore myself and I just sit there. It's the happiest. It's really happy. It was such a memory. Beautiful. Best answer ever. Thank you.

40:33Kara Swisher, you're a rock star. Thank you for coming on the show.

40:39If you're enjoying this show, make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and tell a friend to check us out.

40:52Fixable is a podcast brought to you by Ted and Pushkin Industries. It's hosted by me, Anne Morris. And me, Frances Fry. This episode was produced by Trina Menino. Our team includes Constanza Gallardo, Banban Chang, Daniela Baloresso, and Roxanne Hilash. Our show is mixed by Louis at Story Yard.

41:27This is a paid partnership with Apple Card. The coolest flex at brunch these days is not the Bloody Mary with the bottomless gold flake caviar topping. It's not whipping out your wallet to pay. It's not having a wallet at all. Jack's been an Apple Card user since 2019. That's the same year he tossed his wallet in the trash. because Apple Card holders earn 2 % daily cash back on purchases made using Apple Pay. It's the only credit card designed for the iPhone. I tap to pay with Apple Card at the grocery store, at the gas station, at restaurants. And yes, I use it at my second home, the farmer's market.

41:57Jack tapping to pay with his Apple Card with Apple Pay is his favorite thing to do. And the pleasant vibration and chime sound means I just got 2 % daily cash back on my latest purchase. Apply in the wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval, Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch. Terms and more at AppleCard.com.

42:42with Betterment's tax-saving tech, like tax loss harvesting or a tax impact preview before you trade. Think you need three different platforms for your money? Audible. No one has time for all that. Betterment is one easy and simple app where you can see your total net worth, all your accounts, and your returns. Over a million people trust Betterment to help build their wealth with confidence. And if you're not one of them, it's time you call an Audible too. Get started at Betterment.com or download the app. Investing involves risk. Performance not guaranteed. Betterment does not provide tax advice.

43:08TLH may not be suitable for all investors. Learn more at Betterment.com slash TLH-terms. Paid client ad. Views may not be representative. See App Store and Google Play Reviews. Learn more at Betterment.com slash ambassadors. It's easy to know you want to make a change in your life, but it is hard to actually do it. How to Be a Better Human from TED is a podcast for when self-help feels too daunting or maybe even unrealistic or just not for you. I'm Chris Duffy, the host of How to Be a Better Human. And trust me, I do not have it all figured out. But join me as I talk to experts about actually attainable ways we can try to improve our lives, Whether it's facing fears, setting boundaries, cleaning your house without feeling like a failure, or all sorts of other topics.

43:45Find How to Be a Better Human wherever you get your podcasts.