🔥 “LIVE with Kara Swisher from DC” — Silicon Valley is Kindergarten for Billionaires (Uncensored)

0:00Yeah, it is. Nick and Jack here coming at you from the T-Boy studio. We just landed back from Washington, D.C. Yesterday, you got to hear the three pop biz stories from our live show in Arlington, Virginia. And today, you get our interview with our guest, Kara Swisher. Now, before the interview, Jack and I just wanted to sprinkle on a little bit of context because this is not like our typical T-Boy interview. We want to sprinkle on a lot of context because she drops a bunch of politics and a bunch of curses, which is something we don't usually do on our show. It's something we don't do on our show, Jack.

0:29It's just not our style. We never curse on our show. But she does in this interview. So if you've got kids in the car right now, save this episode for after the school drop-off. But besties, the reason we invited Kara on the show is she is the ultimate tech journalist, whether you like her style or her politics or you don't. And man, she's outspoken, Jack. She says whatever she wants to say. She's at that point in her career. And she's interviewed every tech billionaire out there with insights on the media industry and stories about Silicon Valley that are wild. So our goal is to focus the interview on that.

0:58That's the stuff we're trying to find out. But Nick, this was a live interview. We did our thing. She did her thing. So besties, here is the uncensored, very uncensored interview with Karis Wisher from our live show. We're excited for you to hear this though. It's got a lot of insights, crazy stories, but thank you to the Yetis who came out to Arlington to see us live. This live audience was epic. The wildest audience we've ever had. They were so good. All right, let's get to the interview. Let's hit the interview segment. Let's hit the interview. Top hats, baseball hats, Von Dutch hats. We wear so many hats on this podcast.

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3:22Yetis, turn on your voice memo app because this interview, it's on the record. We're sitting down with the most powerful journalist since the invention of the pen. Jack, if there's a Mount Rushmore of media, then Kara Swisher's face is on it. And if it's not, it's because of that one tough question she asked Peter Thiel that one time. Her education, right here in D.C. This Georgetown Hoya spars with feces. Her first job, also D.C. The Washington Post, it's on her CV. But Kara, she doesn't just cover founders. She is one. In 2014, she launched Recode, which she sold to Vox Media a year later. Okay, Kara's entire columns that she writes, they make CEOs sweep.

4:05Kara's podcasts, they make founders confess. She hosts the podcast On with Kara Swisher and Pivot, which almost beat us for Best Business Podcast a couple years ago. Almost. Sam Altman sends her cookies and Zuck friend requested her. The first number saved on Steve Jobs' very first iPhone. Pretty sure it was Kara. Yep, yep, yep, yep. We have that from a good source, actually. Because before anything happens in tech, it is sitting in Kara's DMs. The only thing she hasn't done yet is run for office. Yet. Oh, and she even interviewed Reese Witherspoon on The Morning Show. That was fake news, though.

4:42Literally. Yeah, Cara, she's actually interviewed every big name in business except for one, Cara Swisher. So we threw a reverse Uno card at her to make this interview happen. Yetis, please welcome Cara Swisher, first of her name, protector of the fourth estate. The sultan of scoops, the pharaoh of good follow-up questions. Tonight, we are hanging out with Cara Swisher, the world's most famous tech journalist. And today's interview with Kay Swisher is the best one yet. objectively. Please welcome K-Swisher's self, Kara Swisher.

5:41Kara Swisher: You have a bell. That's cool. We do have a bell. You are welcome to ring the bell at the chosen time. Will you give me that coat? Oh, yeah. No, really. It's an eBay acquisition, actually. It is. It is. We do a lot of our shopping on eBay. And did you see this, Kara? Can I have that? Yes. It's yours. No, I mean it. Wait, is this a trade? No. Okay. Kara, you haven't looked at me since you saw his jacket. Sorry. It's vaguely Elvis. Well, I'm older than you all. It is giving Elvis. It's giving Elvis. It is giving Elvis. But you have to have the pants to go with it. And do, are we trading the pants?

6:17Kara Swisher: You're skinny, but not that skinny. Anyway, thank you for that lovely introduction. It was full of errors, but that's okay. Did we fact check with ChatGPT? I can't remember. No, no. I did it myself. There's where you started. I'm eager to learn about the, we'll talk afterwards. About reporting? I think it's a little late, but go ahead. But Kara, you did just do a live show in Minnesota. We did. And you're going to South by Southwest this weekend. I am. We're having big live shows there, too. Then you're doing a conference in Las Vegas, so we were curious. Yeah. Your question is, what rare gemstone airline status are you approaching?

6:48Very high. Very high.

6:50Kara Swisher: Yes. Global services and the rest of them, but, you know. Except when I'm on Air Scott, and I'm the top person. That's nice of him to fly. So we wanted to ask you about Georgetown, because you didn't just go to Georgetown. You went to the School of Foreign Service. I did. I wanted to ask you, how have you used what you learned at Foreign Service in journalism? Yeah, because the Foreign Service is sending people to the CIA across the world, to State Department. Right. I wanted to be in the military, actually. And I was gay. And at the time, kids, you couldn't be in the military if you were gay.

7:22Kara Swisher: And now, again, you can't be in the military if you're gay.

7:29Kara Swisher: Well, Pete Hegseth. Anyway, something just went through my brain. So I couldn't. And the CIA had the same thing. It was a lot of issues. And I was out, but when I went for different interviews, they're like, well, what if someone found out you were gay? And I said, well, everybody knows. And they go, but what if someone found out? And so I thought, this is not for me. So it was a strange thing. And so I went into journalism, which has very similar characteristics of finding. I was going to be an analyst, sort of like the Claire Danes character on Homeland, but 100 % less crazy. and so I was into scenario building and finding things out.

8:06Kara Swisher: It was very similar to reporting and so I got a job when I was at Georgetown at the Washington Post as a stringer. So it started there and then went pretty up from there. It went pretty far up and it was great. I mean, I really liked, I would have been quite good and I would have been an admiral about to be fired by President Trump right now. Everything happens for a reason. I would have been a badass admiral, I'll tell you that. So you moved on to eventually the Wall Street Journal and eventually the New York Times. Yeah, I was at the Washington Post for a long time. I started in the mailroom at the Washington Post here in town and then moved to the Wall Street Journal.

8:43Kara Swisher: And I'm not a staffer in the New York Times. I just wrote columns for them. But you left all three of those. And those are our three most esteemed journalistic institutions. Well, to you, yeah.

8:58so instead of working at those places yeah you eventually don lemon yeah casey newton and others yeah you created a one-person journalistic yeah i we were really the first with all things d it

9:09Kara Swisher: was a long time ago we did it within the journal as a skunk works and we wanted them to make investments in it and first it was owned by his family and then rupert bought it and we wanted them to make investments and we were making millions of dollars in profit for them and he wouldn't make a very small investment to blow it out. And then it occurred to us, because we were entrepreneurial, that why should he get all the juicy bits? When we made, it was our idea, we made this amazing conference with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. They were coming, and we started to do polling, and they were there for us, not for the Wall Street.

9:40Kara Swisher: You know, you could see the shift happening. It was based on personality. Yes, this was in the 2000s, in 2002, a long time ago. How old were you then? I was 14. We don't remember we were that young. Were you born? So we started doing that, and we left. We just raised some money. We reached about$12 million. You and your co-founder? Yeah, me and Walt, Walt Mossberg. And we left and started Recode and sold it pretty quickly for a lot of money and went over to Vox Media. And the minute I got there, I said, this was about 10 years ago at least, I said, you know what? I don't think digital media is going to do very well because advertising is going to fall off the cliff because of Google and Facebook.

10:22Kara Swisher: and I want to start podcasts. And Jeff Bankoff, who's a great CEO, was like, I have no idea what that is, but please do it. And we built the podcast business. We were the first one. You were also the first tech conference, right? You were just alluding to. Yes, we were the first, well, tech conference that wasn't hopelessly compromised. Often tech conferences, they had sponsors and they'd get on stage and the interviews would go something like this. Bill Gates, that's an enormous head you have. How are you so smart? You're so great. And we did not do those things. We did live, I called it live journalism on stage.

10:57Kara Swisher: And we broke news. We broke news all the time. And we were the first people to get Gates and Jobs together in an interview. Mark Zuckerberg sweating. Mark Zuckerberg saying something stupid pretty much every time. And we tried to really do live journalism, and we did. And then we then put it online as a podcast. And the idea actually came from Steve Jobs, who said, you know, iPod broadcasting. podcast. He really did give me the inspiration for that. And I thought once those iPhones got into people's hands, you could see that there's a real media business here. And so we were super early to the whole thing.

11:32And part of that is because you have a podcast and with these conferences, you can share opinion too, in a way that you couldn't with news.

11:38Kara Swisher: Well, I had moved away. I'd become a columnist. I was a reporter for a long time and I didn't do that. I was a very serious like beat reporter because I was the first reporter on the internet beat in 1994 four when I was a kid and they were like, give it to the kid. And it was AOL here in Washington, which is where it was founded. And so I met Jeff Bezos when he was looking for office space. He was poor. I met Elon Musk when he was at this sort of yellow pages online company.

12:08Kara, what do you think? He's changed. What do you think? What do you think of the...

12:12Kara Swisher: No, I met them all when they were small. And so I covered them and nobody, nobody wanted to cover them and when I was recruited into the Wall Street Journal because I was the only person who knew them like any of these people I mean Yahoo and all the others MySpace which they're some most of them are gone but what was interesting was that the media reporters at the time were focused on big corporate you know media companies that were sort of traditional broadcast or whatever and I thought they were finished you could see what the internet was going to do to them but they couldn't and even though it was down to the reporters and when I got there one of the media reporters who the big muckety-mucks at the Wall Street Journal were like, oh, you're here to cover CB radio.

12:51Kara Swisher: That's what they called the internet. Oh, my God. And I said, well, it's a CB radio. It's going to decimate the thing you cover. Like, you know, it was really interesting, the mentality of most reporters. What do you feel as someone who now gets to share her opinion so much with the big changes along the lines of, with Washington Post changing their policy toward op-ed and editorial? Well, Washington Post, that could be a whole show. Oddly enough, I was just with the editor. at a party just now, just before this, who's doing his best, I would say, with a very bad situation. It's not a... Well, I don't do opinion.

13:27Kara Swisher: I do reported analysis. I do reporting. When I say David Ellison is a Nepo baby, it's not my opinion. I base it on reporting. I just do it in a colorful way.

13:41He's a Nepo mogul. No, 100%.

13:44Kara Swisher: Like, you know, he's one of these people that was born on third base and thinks they've hit a whole mark. His dad bought him a$100 billion media company. Yeah, I could do successful if my dad gave me a billion and a half dollars when I was 21. I mean, it's a nice birthday gift. Yeah, it is. Yeah. So, no, it's actually, I think it's really interesting what you're saying about, like, that's not opinion, that's a fact. Well, no, I report. I report, and then I come to a conclusion. And one of the things we did, and very early in the blog, essentially, that we had at All Things D, I got tired of, there was a point, and I write about this in my book, where I was writing a story about Webvan, which was precursor to a lot of these grocery delivery services.

14:19Kara Swisher: And I looked at the numbers and I did a ton of reporting. And I was like, this is a bullshit. Like math doesn't math here. This is going to go out of business. They can't make the money at this point in time. I believed in the directionality of it as a business, but I was like, this doesn't work. And I wrote this in the journal for one of those front page stories. And I said, you know, this is math ain't math in here. This is going to go out of business. and I didn't need someone to say that but the editor came back and said can you get someone to say what you're saying and I said it's ridiculous and they also wanted a thing they do in journalism which is to be sure that's an expected to be sure some people say and I was like nobody smart says it all the idiots say it so I thought I was going to do a site where we said okay Comcast is doing this let us explain to you why because we've done the reporting.

15:13Kara Swisher: We're going to go out on a limb. And everyone's like, how did you guess that on Pivot? We're like, we didn't guess it. We have years of experience, and we know the people involved, so we know exactly how it's going to go. What do you think about the really carefully written headlines that you'll see on, like, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal? Well, I don't think people read headlines anymore. I don't think it matters. I think one of the things is we're so fixated on old media, and it's, you know, I hate to even use the term old media. I don't think it matters. I think, again, the story matters and it depends on how you're going about it.

15:48Kara Swisher: And today, because news moves so fast, like there's no such thing. I used to scoop people all the time and that had value, but now it doesn't because it just goes. Stories go like whoosh, whoosh behind you. And so what I spend a lot of time on is what's the value add? Like, what do you guys add that they like better than that? Why are they listening to you, right? nice call to Jim Cramer who's often wrong. Frequently wrong. I always say I like him. He's a nice guy. He's a nice guy but he's frequently wrong but never in doubt. We know what you mean because it's like breaking news is a commodity now.

16:22You can get that anywhere. The question is where in the value chain do you fall? And for Jack and I we found it. We call it Pop Biz. This pop culture versus business. How can we put this pop cultural spin on it? I enjoyed your

16:31Kara Swisher: pitch deck here. Do you have investors in the audience? I was like I was like, what are they doing? We have a preferred shareholder anonymously. Yeah, I was like, what are they, like, looking for money or something? You got to do the quarterly earnings game. Let us tell you, how much money do you make? A good amount of money. How much? A good amount of money. What is a good amount of money? I was waiting until she turned the tables on this interview. It just happened. No, seriously, how much do you make? The business does very well. But I don't, that's not an answer. I tell my manager, Mike, we're in investment mode this year.

17:04You saw our YouTube slice is not big enough. Let me answer, please. No, I'd really like to know how much you made. I know you want a quick answer from me.

17:12Kara Swisher: Pivot cleared$14 million last year. So what did you do? So last year, well, we have an MG deal. Yeah, you did. Yeah, I did. Nick, we're on pace for a few million dollars in business this year. Thank you. Good. What is your... Nice. See, this is the thing. Why are we so secretive? It doesn't matter. What's the difference? To put in pivot terms, we're catching up to pivot. What? We're excited to catch up to pivot. Good luck. This used to be an aluminum bell. Yeah. But it's a better material. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, Kara, how did you get the gusto? Gusto. Yeah. That's an interesting word. To, you know, to break the rules at the Wall Street Journal and in every other job you've had since.

17:57I have.

17:57Kara Swisher: I'm really such a pain in the ass. you know I really one of the things people do when they're in jobs they gripe a lot like oh the boss oh the this and I was like I'm a bad employee I say this a lot I'm a bad employee I don't want to listen to you and I like I think I got infected a little bit with Silicon Valley you know when I was there but it was before that it was I walked out of kindergarten because I had learned it already so which was a problem for them but it was it was sort of like I was like I could do it better and most people sit around and say I could do it better than they don't and I got tired of that I was like I could do it better by the way I can make more money right and when I I could make more money and when I was at a lot of these traditional media everyone's like oh you're at the New York Times you're at the Washington Post when I was leaving one of them I said you know I can make 10 times more money doing it on my own and they went but the the name of the publication and I said, 10 times, 10 times.

18:54Kara Swisher: And they're like, but the publication. I go, I could buy the publication. You just get tired of being gripey. And if you can, I think about every day, what can I make today? I think you probably think of that. What can I make? And then I get to decide what to do. And that's a really powerful thing, but you have to believe in yourself and you have to take a risk that it'll fail. It's funny you say that because actually the title has two questions together. Jack and I are, we have built out a team so that we don't have to think about the numbers. So I actually don't know the exact number we brought last year.

19:21You need to know the numbers, sir. No, we know the range. But I couldn't give you the penny. And the reason why is we are just really focused on the content every day, knowing that the numbers follow. Can I give you a piece of advice?

19:31Kara Swisher: Be interested in the business. Oh, no. Oh, we are phenomenally interested in it. That's what's been so fun for us has been getting to do both, be the entrepreneur and the content creator. And the thing is you create the value, right? Yeah. Like, you know, one of the things that drives me crazy is I did all these amazing interviews when we worked for the Wall Street Journal. and Rupert fucking Murdoch owns some of my greatest interviews. Like, what does that asshole get to own my stuff? Now, he is an asshole. And he just turned 95. Congratulations, Rupert. But I felt like I made it. Why does he get the value of it?

20:05Kara Swisher: And so I think a lot of creators, and not just creators that do, you know, news creators, like Casey lived in my cottage in the back of my house in San Francisco. When he quit his job, right? When he quit his job. I made him. I stopped doing rent for him. I'm like, just do it. Stop fucking. He'd come over to my kitchen and gripe about work. And I'm like, I'm so sick of hearing you. Can you just leave your job? Like you're really becoming a whiner. I don't, you know, would you like cheese with that kind of whine? But he really did. And he did it because he had the capacity to do it. And now he's so much happier.

20:36Kara Swisher: He's in charge of his own destiny. There's so much excitement going on in entrepreneurial media. Everyone's sort of doom scrolling. I try to call attention to what's working. There's all this stuff working and it's getting better and better and these other big organizations are losing audience and they should because they suck, right? But the thing is if you provide a really good product to people and make it in a way that's appealing and substantive, we believe in the substance. I just did a two hour long interview with Senator Warner about Iran. I think I'll do a million views of it. It's but like if you do that There's open for that there's open for funny.

21:14Kara Swisher: There's open for all kinds of things What role do you think those three institutions used to work out? What role do they play? You said they suck. They don't suck. They don't suck. They don't suck. Actually, you know that I was telling Matt today They had a great story that they What they suck is is not the New York Times. Their business is okay because they managed to do Wordle Yeah, and a bunch of other things. It's a gaming business with a side hustle of cooking and then a side hustle of news. Right, but it's not a side hustle. It's great. The CEO is a friend of mine, and she's amazing. Because it's more than that.

21:43Kara Swisher: They're doing a daily use. She was smart. Daily use. What do you need the New York Times for? But they also do the great journalism. The Washington Post, they're under a lot of economic stress. And so is the Wall Street Journal in a lot of ways. But it does better. It's higher up the food chain. But all these things, the costs are not in line with the business. And they're doing a lot of cutting. like they just cut at the Washington Post, but you can't cut your way to growth. What are you going to make that is something that's appealing? Or if not, just die. Just die and then the next thing happens.

22:14Kara Swisher: And that's okay. That's no problem. I really like the reporters of the Washington Post are astonishing. I have nothing but regard for them. In that vein, you're seeing this emergence of a lot of tech entrepreneurs going into places where they're going to be super friendly. Like the emergence of what aren't exactly news outlets, but they have to control the narrative. Yeah, like acquired or, you know. So how do you get to, how as a journalist do you think about holding those types of people in power accountable if they're going to go and control the narrative on their own Instagram page or go to a source that isn't really a newsroom?

22:48Kara Swisher: It's a big issue. When I had my conference, everyone had to be there, and therefore they got grilled by us. They have their own thing right now. I don't think it works. I think ultimately someone, you know, licking you up and down all day doesn't really improve your narrative. if it just is the people licking you up and down all day, right? And so, you know, ultimately, everyone's like, no one's going to talk to you again. I was like, but they do. They do because really, I've always said this over and over again, smart people like smart questions. Steve Jobs did interviews with us. We were very hard on him because he's a smart guy.

23:19Kara Swisher: He's bored with acolytes. He's bored with enablers. Some people aren't. You know, one time I had an issue with Zuckerberg. I was at his, at Facebook at the time. And he had taken, this was an amazing moment. He took a picture, he had taken a picture in Tiananmen Square. And he was jogging. And he had a photographer follow him everywhere, which should tell you a lot. I was like, why do you have a photographer? Well, to chronicle. I go, what? You? Like, okay, whatever. And he did this. And I said, that picture was really bad. And he goes, what are you talking about? And I said Tiananmen Square Chinaman Square And he goes and you were jogging I said first of all the Chinese you just were used by the if you knew anything about the Chinese government They use everything for propaganda for themselves.

24:09Kara Swisher: You were jogging There's a huge pollution problem and killing people in China You just made it look like it was a healthy place to jog It is not a healthy place because there's enormous pollution because there's no it's not here because people don't get to make choices It says, that's one, two, Tiananmen Square. Like, it's very symbolic. And he goes, what's wrong with jogging there? And I went, there was a tank and a guy with a briefcase. And I know you're too young, but you can look it up. This was a big problem. You look it up here in the U.S. You can't look it up there. Yeah, you actually couldn't look it up there.

24:39Kara Swisher: Yeah, and he said, he goes, well, no one else in my team thinks it's a problem. I go, every fucking person on your team is paid by you. And they agree with you violently. And I was like, you need to, some people don't mind that enablement. Let's go back to kindergarten. What are some examples of the kindergartners misbehaving? And, you know, not just back then, but today as well. And just to put a pin on this, Kara has described Silicon Valley as billionaire kindergartners, right? Yes, toddlers. Toddlers. You know, I just can't help myself. I did an interview with Matt Bellany, who's a terrific reporter for Puck, who covers Hollywood.

25:16Kara Swisher: And he wants me to come to the Oscars. And I'm like, I like soft pants. I can't go. I can't do it. I can't do it. All right, I'll give you the jacket now. All right, okay. And I was like, ugh, I've been to the Vanity Fair Oscar party. Scott's going. I'm not going because I've been there many times. And there's only so many celebrities you could look at. And so he goes, you have to come with me. And he knows I love Top Gun. I love, even, even. Did you hear our F-35 story? Yes, I did. Great. I love Top Gun. I love Mission Impossible. I love every movie Tom Cruise has made. I just think he's fantastic.

25:49Kara Swisher: except the Scientology which is quite problematic and so he goes will you come if I introduce you to Tom Cruise and I was like oh god I kind of want to meet him I love Tom Cruise but I hate Tom Cruise and so I go oh I know what I'll do I'll get in there and I'll go I love all your movies Scientology I can't help myself so I do stuff I can't help myself I cannot. I have a problem. And this is why you published Burn Book two years ago. That's right. Almost exactly two years ago. People thought that was too hard on them. As it turns out, I was too soft on them. I said they were a bunch of sociopaths, with capitalist sociopaths, and everyone was like, that's really mean, Kara.

26:32Kara Swisher: And I was like, welcome to Elon Musk and Doge, or what Altman is doing right now. Well, Kara, on the note, your other favorite movies are Marvel movies. Some of them. Yeah, you enjoy some of the superhero movies. Yeah, Marvel's hit or miss. There are about 400 of them now. So at this point, it can't get them all right. But so do you see Texios in a Marvel context? Are they superheroes? No. Are they villains? Or is it not that black and white? No. I mean, it's complex. It depends on the person, right? Everybody's got problems. But I think at this point, Elon is vying. He was trying to be Iron Man, but he's turned into something else, some sort of mutated version of something else.

27:08Kara Swisher: No, I think villains. I think they're clearly in the villain category or else the people that are willing to compromise. I just don't know. if I had a trillion dollars, I'd be sucking up to Trump. Like, why? Why? Like, the whole point of fuck you money is to say fuck you, right?

27:28Kara Swisher: But they don't. And they were, when they were standing there, my book opens up of them going to Trump Tower and Trump won. And I called them, I did a story saying, I called them sheeple, like sheep people. And they went up there and I found out I broke that story. And in fact, I talked to Elon. He was going and he goes, Kara, I can change his mind. I'm like, okay, Jesus, go for it. Like, you can't. He's a racist. He's going to ban Muslims. He said so. And they're like, yeah, but he doesn't mean it. I go, he means it. He's a long time dyed-in-the-wool racist. So he's going to do it. Like he said it 57 times on the campaign trail.

28:02Kara Swisher: He's going to do it. And they have such godlike tendencies. So they all went and they're like, oh, we'll talk to him off the record about immigration. I said, why don't you talk to him on the record about immigration? and so they didn't um because they wanted the money they wanted their money repatriated they wanted the things and so when I and I called them sheeple they got all mad at me and I was like well you're sheeple I don't know what to tell you I don't know you know I you've totally compromised yourself so you can get a tax break and I I said to one of them you're so poor all you have is money and so one of the things that they did with the with the inaugural that was a visual that I think will go down in history of all of them you know the magnificent seven sitting there in the front row in front of his collection of billionaires elected officials in front of the cabinet in front of everyone who actually should count in a government they're sitting there like like i know it was like and i i texted one of them who was not in the front row uh who was in the crowd and i and he he was hiding behind this lady with big hair which of which there are many in the mar-a-lago universe.

29:09Kara Swisher: And I said, how did you not get, because this was a well-known person, and I said, how did you not get in the front row? And he said, it was the greatest engineering job in history. He hid. He was doing it. But they were all there and have compromised. Those dinners they do, it's a protest. Carrie, you talked about the people around them who've compromised. Maybe they're the villains. Perhaps you're talking about the lack of legislation around tech. Yes, I am. So there's been, you've said it's the only industry well, maybe not the only, but they've never been regulated. It's the only industry.

29:43Kara Swisher: This place has more regulations on it than Google. I believe you. No, it's true. I know. You told us what you would do, like, essentially, if you had a trillion dollars, but what if, on the opposite end, you were the one controlling the strings? You were the one controlling laws, policy. Are there no-brainer policy implementations to regulate tech, and what are they? Well, you know, something I've been, for years, I've been going on about the danger of chatbots and the lack of safeguards and talking about, I've been entering every single parent whose kid dies and I've showed all the logs and everything else.

30:14Kara Swisher: I have four kids. And it's not just kids, it's adults that are now getting badly affected by these things and there's no safeguards on them. And they're trying to pretend it's user-generated content, but it's not. If you put a cigarette out like this, you'd be in jail. If you were a therapist and you said these things to people, you'd be in jail. If you were a lawyer and gave this advice, a doctor gave this advice, And they're allowed to do this without the strictures that everybody else lives under. And so I've been, I mean, I first posted on social media and I wrote a column in 2019 essentially predicting the insurrection.

30:46Kara Swisher: I said, what if Donald Trump tells a lie and says the election is, he loses, the election's stolen. He tells online media, he gins up everybody's anger and they attack the real process. And I wrote that and I said, these social media companies are weaponized. they have weaponized and they're just they've weaponized everything and I got calls from every state, how dare you say such a thing, how dare you, remember on Saturday Night Live last week that was funny but it was like, how dare you sir say that we could cause insurrection, I said you're going to cause fucking insurrection, because you could see it jump from online who was telling you this?

31:25Kara Swisher: several of them, they were like how dare you accuse us of helping foment insurrection, it's a serious thing. I said, I think you're traitors is what you are. And I think it's good. And you can see Donald I don't even blame Trump because he is what he is. I mean, I do blame Trump. What about on the Gilded Age side? Because, you know, to sprinkle on some historical context, as we like to do, you know, you've talked about this being like the railroad robber baron era. But there was actually some policy and regulation around it. Later. Took a while. So is there anything we can learn looking back 100 years from that that would apply to today?

31:57Kara Swisher: Yeah, it takes 25 years. And we're about that time right now. It takes about 25 years where people are fed up and to the reason i focused on chatbots and kids because everyone agree yeah the kids we're not for suicide of young people we're not for lack of self-esteem we're not for isolation of so and recently with grok porno child pornography they were doing they were creating a tool so you could create child pornography i believe we've all agreed that child pornography is wrong but not at grok they don't they don't like and so i'm trying to cause focus on that. And with the AI bots, I mean, I just finished, it's about to drop tomorrow, but I did a series on longevity for CNN.

32:35Kara Swisher: It's called Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever. But I went and, because I was so, I don't, all these longevity gurus online, they're so full of shit. They're such charlatans. And I had to listen to all the tech bros talk about how they were going to live for, or a version of that going to live forever. And I was so tired of them. I went out and did the reporting. There's amazing science going on that is going to give us longevity at the same time, most of the crap online is crap. Yeah. Botox is a lot easier. Right. Well, whatever. I actually, they try to give me Botox and I go never happening.

33:06Kara Swisher: And although I could probably use it here, but, um, but they, you know, one of the things is I tend to focus on NetSuite by Oracle. Yetis on our show, you know, we love to sprinkle on some context because news doesn't mean anything if you don't have a sense of history, the competitive situation, et cetera. Yada, yada, yada. Well, it's the same with AI. If your AI tool doesn't know anything about your biz, then it's not going to be the best one yet. That's why we're pumped to promote NetSuite by Oracle. It's helping over 43 ,000 businesses figure out how AI can work for them. NetSuite is actually the number one cloud ERP connected to your entire enterprise.

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35:21Kara Swisher: One of the things to be a great reporter is you got to look at something and say, that's just crap, and then say it, and then find out why it is. And so one of the things I'm doing with AI bots, because by the way, one of the things that's come through in this reporting is that online relationships are killing, are going to kill us. The most, would you guess was the number one thing besides the science around cancer research, CRISPR, and other things, amazing stuff happening. mRNA vaccines. Do not believe anything that piece of shit RFK says. I'm sorry. I mean, he's right. He's right about processed foods.

35:58Kara Swisher: He's right about... They could have a cancer vaccine. Can you imagine not having to suffer cancer or whatever? So one of the things that came through, and someone's like, what are the keys to longevity? And I said, you know, sleep and diet and exercise are important, but it doesn't really lengthen your life. It just makes you healthier. The two things that lengthen your life at the end of this year of reporting, one is don't be poor. It's a joke, but it's true. What we do to poor people in this country is a crime, what we do to people in terms of education, food, everything else. Don't be poor.

36:32Kara Swisher: Okay? That's number one. The actual number one thing for most people is friends and family and doing things that are challenging and community. It is scientific. Like the scientific links are very clear about doing things with friends and family. When you develop online relationships with these bots, don't call them bots. That's an adorable word for a synthetic thing. Like it doesn't, it's not there. And so the way you live longer is you develop ties of friends and family. And COVID did a number on all of us. Well, actually this is related, Kara, to our third story after where we interview you, which we're excited to share about malls.

37:08Kara Swisher: Malls. Malls, they're back. Shopping malls, they're back. The youngs love the malls. They love the malls. I love the mall. I loved the mall when I was young, too. It was cool. I grew up in New York City, so I didn't get that experience. No, the Quaker Bridge Mall was mine. Kira, I wanted to ask you, you said you think we're at the 25-year mark where things might finally happen. Yeah. And it could start with action to protect kids. Yes, yes, it is. Do you have hope in this? You have a situation where Marsha Blackburn agrees with AOC. Like, that's an unusual situation, you know? or Marjorie Taylor Greene, who's that plot twist wasn't in my book.

37:41Kara Swisher: She still is awful on about 43. Just ask her about trans people, and then you're like, oh, I realize why I didn't like you. But, you know, yes, if our politicians have enough guts that the money is so massive. Amy Klobuchar from Minneapolis had this amazing legislation around antitrust, around privacy. The tech companies are so wealthy right now they have lobbyists on everything and they're trying right now to shut down like 10 or 12 different things. And the only way to solve this is through lawsuits and that they don't get protected by Section 230. A lot of this stuff is not protected. There's a lawsuit in California right now of social media and this one woman is alleging, there's many behind her, by the way.

38:27Kara Swisher: And so let's see if we can sue the bastards. That's my feeling. To kind of carry that forward in terms of what you see brighter, this is an incredible audience of yetis and besties out there behind the scenes we call this ambitious zillennials people who are excited to learn more zillennials? yeah, Gen Z and millennial combo it's what makes us feel younger we haven't copyrighted it yet but the key is they want to be the most interesting person in the room but there is stress maxing right now related to AI if you were, knowing everything you know now if you were 26, 30 years old what would you be saying to this audience career wise?

39:03Kara Swisher: I would say, you know, there is some worry about AI. Let's not pretend what's happening here. But a lot of the jobs that are being replaced, it's sort of like when we went from manufacturing. You know, we used to have 90 % farmers in this country who are entrepreneurs, by the way, if you think about it. And then we have like two, right? It's like two or even less. And one of the things you have to keep in mind, we've been through these shifts before with manufacturing, with farming, you know, people moving to the city. This has happened in this country, but it's always happened over a long period of time.

39:34Kara Swisher: The problem here is it's happening over a much shorter and quicker period of time, and it will eliminate jobs. Dario at Anthropic just put out a chart. It's pretty devastating. Yeah, we saw that chart. Yeah. I think if you work at a computer, you're going to do things that people probably shouldn't do, and the computers, anything, you have to look and see what they're doing that would replace accountants, lawyers, a lot of lawyers. It doesn't mean they're not going to need lawyers to be creative. They're going to need a lot less lawyers, right? A lot less. And I urge you all to start using AI and figure out what the best use case for you all is, right?

40:12Kara Swisher: It's free now. These stupid tech companies are spending like drunk sailors on this whole thing. They're going to take down the market, by the way, because of the way they're doing it, just like the last Internet one. But learn it and figure out how it applies to you, whether in insurance or law or whatever you happen to be in. But do understand, one of the things I put in my book at the very beginning was everything that can be digitized will be digitized. Everything. Hollywood. I keep warning Hollywood for years about what was going on. And AI will replace like a small thing. Costumes. They do these very expensive costume fittings.

40:49Kara Swisher: Say Scarlett Johansson has a role. They do 10, 20. It costs a lot of money. Now they just do it with AI and they just put it on a picture of her. and they save enormous money. They save storyboarding. Every industry will have that happen. Like what can be digitized and what could be AI'd. And whatever you're in, you know, nursing will be good because we need nurses hands-on. Stuff like that. Plumbers will probably be helped by AI because you have information at your fingertips. It's some of the physical stuff, but it's also relationship-based. Jack and I talk about the idea of wanting to be a mermaid.

41:24Yeah, because there's AI in the word mermaid. But you want to be half human, half AI. Or use it as a tool.

41:31Kara Swisher: If you can figure out how to use it as a tool and to help you do your work faster, that's great. If you don't, it's okay if you can't figure it out. But you have to understand it will. Like a good example is in insurance. If 10 insurance adjusters seeing a case, they each come to a different conclusion. I don't know if you know that. by, and then the AI comes to its own conclusion that's usually more accurate, right? So that saves the insurance company money if they don't have 10 different like decisions and stuff like that. And so that's how you, or medicine, like at some point AI will be able, because people can't do that, to detect the cancer cell when it starts.

42:11Kara Swisher: Can you imagine? But it can aid the doctor then. Yes, but fewer doctors. You don't need as many doctors. Like when I was on the set of the CNN thing, I kept looking, I always look, I'm interested in my business. So I'm always like, what do you do? I'm teasing you. I shouldn't, I shouldn't, it's so easy to neg young men. But I have three, I have three sons. I'm real good at it. We can handle, we can handle. I know you can. I can see that. It seems like your mother's hugged you enough. So, but you know, you could see like all kinds of really fascinating things but like my brother's an anesthesiologist and there's three he used to consult three doctors on a case now he goes to ai and consults and two of them would be wrong and one of them gave him a good idea well ai gives him 26 good ideas it doesn't mean they're always right and then it takes him to apply that knowledge and so that's how i do it but there's definitely going to be devastating employment issues and the ensuing social tumult that'll come speaking of mothers jack and i do love our mothers do you call your mother after the show if you haven't yet.

43:16Yes.

43:16Kara Swisher: Mothers are the best thing ever. My mom actually has this quote Jack and I talk about a lot because she's a literary agent and she says, the best fiction should sound like nonfiction and the best nonfiction should read like fiction. That's how you know you're reading a good book or watching a good movie. Smart mom. We know you're big fans of Succession. You had a podcast all about it. I did. I did that for HBO. And we were wondering if you could EP your own show, movie, or write your own fictional book. How odd do you say that? If you could be the executive producer of some new show or movie on streaming?

43:44Kara Swisher: I will be. They sold my book for Hollywood. We have to find a believable lesbian to play me. A 30-year-old believable lesbian. Can you tell us how much it was for? I think I got like, I don't know,$75 ,000 for the price. Isn't this a burn book? Yeah, and then when they make it, I'll make a ton of money if they make it. Congratulations. But we also sold another one. Brad Stone and I sold another one called Titans. That's about, we wrote it a couple of years ago, sort of predicting the crack up of Elon Musk. and Jeff Bezos. And someone bought it because they're like, how did you know? We're like, ketamine and steroids have an effect on people.

44:22Kara Swisher: If Ryan Gosling has a scheduling conflict and can't make it. Oh, that movie's supposed to be great. Jack's often told he looks like a young Gosling. Only Nick's told me that.

44:33Kara Swisher: Sure. No. Let me tell you, that's a good example of a great thing. Not Ryan Gosling, but the two big movies for the Oscars the three big movies this year are all creatively done by humans not by not sequels which would be sinners weapons and one battle after another they're about the creativeness of those particular directors and so that's what i say to holly be creative figure out and the three things i always say to people everything i make is three things i have three rules that's it i should write one of these help help books let them um is whatever she has an out let me which is like well if let them you don't really let them let me is what i do she has a total trick there that you she doesn't let them um but i like her but she doesn't let them um one of the three things one it's for media modern media today is one be um be helpful to people helpful insightful give them something they need for their daily, whatever it is, be helpful, insightful, give them a piece of information they need that will help their lives, make them feel better, make them laugh, whatever.

45:43Kara Swisher: The second thing is be entertaining slash interesting. Don't be fucking boring. You know what I'm talking about, right? Don't be boring. Just do it in an interesting way. Scott and I do that beautifully, I think, and you guys do too. And the third thing is nobody else can replicate what you're doing, right? That's the thing. Do you have a chemistry and a thing that other, find the lane that is not taken. And so I, we always do that. No one can replicate Scott and I. They just can't. They can't do it. It comes down to chemistry. Jack and I says, we were, we were freshman year roommates and then started a side hustle.

46:16Where did you go to school? Middlebury College.

46:18Kara Swisher: Middlebury, interesting. And then we, after, you know, we've grown this company from side hustle. Kara, do you have Vermont connections? Yes, my wife is in the back, my lovely wife, Amanda. And she has a... Her family has had a house, not far, not far, in Harvey Lake or something like that. It's nice. Well, it seems like an early takeaway here is that Marvel got snubbed at this year's Oscars. Yes. But also, Karen, we do know you... But you know who's going to win? K-pop fucking Demon Hunter. Entertaining and insightful. Anyone with a young child knows about the situation around K-pop Demon Hunter.

46:55They need more toys.

46:56Kara Swisher: Netflix just sent me a box of stuff for my kids, and I'm the best parent ever. They're like, I love you so much, Mom. Kara, we know you have like three more interviews before you fly to South by Southwest. No, we're going to do it. So can we take it home with some rapid-fire questions? Sure, go ahead. Go for it. What is the best business book you've ever had? Oh, Not Barbarians at the Gate. Connie Brooke wrote a book called The Predator's Ball about Michael Milken. I thought it was incredible. Go back and read it. What a book. She was a terrific financial reporter. Best brand in tech right now.

47:28Kara Swisher: Best brand in tech. Netflix. No, actually, I'm sorry, Anthropic probably. Right now, until he apologizes again for saying dictator. I wrote him. I was like, you had the right word to start with. Dictator works. It's factually correct. The best leader in business right now. Oh, there's a couple. You know, I'm not going to do any of the IAC. Those companies don't make any money, so I'm not going to reward them for spending. It's easy to spend a lot of money. Probably, I would say right now, Ted Sarandos in Netflix is doing really well. I think there's a couple, but no one in media right now, I would say.

48:07Kara Swisher: Absolutely zero people. I'm trying to look around. Probably Sachin Adela at Microsoft has really revived that company. He's a lovely guy too, by the way. Best coffee order? Best coffee order. Oh, I don't know. I'm starting to do cortadas. I change them around. I change them around. That's fair. And the best restaurant in D.C.? In D.C.? Oh, that's hard. Okay. Amanda, help me here. What is it? You can phone a friend. We should point out. I don't... D.C.'s fine with restaurants. Oh, yeah, oh, yeah. Best... But I am from San Francisco. Yeah, I was going to say, fluent from San Francisco. What about SF?

48:45Kara Swisher: SF, Anchor Bar. There's so many. There's 400. The Skate Wing. Have we been there? Anchor Oyster. I have like an oyster restaurant, but there's like 400. Like the taco place near my house is the best restaurant. It's like the food in San Francisco is so good. Every time I go there, I'm like, oh, thank God. And here actually at the Eden Center, the Vietnamese mall here. Nice. Amazing. All right. Amazing. You may have to move the after party. Vietnamese food here is top level. And, you know, we always like to ask our guests if they were a publicly traded company for when your business goes public, what would be your stock ticker symbol three or four left?

49:21Kara Swisher: Oh. That's a good one. K-A-R-A. No. We could do, but that's too easy. How about Zuck? Mess with him. No, WTF. Kara, we're huge fans of yours. Thank you. We've watched a million of your shows. Kara. Thank you. Thank you. That was awesome. We would love, in exchange for this jacket, if Kara would ring our bell. No, you can keep your jacket, young man. No, no, no. No. But we would like you to ring the bell. No, I'm not taking your jacket. and I make a lot more money than you. And by the way, I hope they beat me. They're not going to, but I hope they beat me. They're just not. It's time to ring the bell, Karen.

50:03Kara Swisher: All right, okay, all right, okay. All right, thank you. All right, all right. Give it up for Karen Swisher. WTF is now trading.

50:20Thank you.

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