The Key CEO Traits Investors Are Missing | Kara Swisher

22:18Kara Swisher:impact of seven people who are the wealthiest people. You know, Elon Musk is extra government. He's above government. Like, I'd be worried about that too. And Mitt Romney is clocking it absolutely right is that there's a small group of people that have unlimited power and no accountability. Bring it back to the impact on the underlying business, the share price. Are there any traits over the decades that you've seen that CEOs often have or sometimes have that leads to value destruction? Oh, yeah. I mean, getting, again, if you see them talking too much, like, it's like, my grandfather ran a bunch of coal company and a bunch of stuff.

22:57Kara Swisher:And they had a cable company, and their offices always looked like crap, like always, they look like the floors run even, old dirty carpet, all this stuff. And I was always, you know, like, hey, grandpa, this place looks like shit and he's like yeah the money that we don't need to put money there and to me like the sort of i use that only because it was really smart it's like he was making money and operationally and doing really well but the performative if i see too much performativeness i it's a clocker for me i'm like oh a new a big new headquarters a lot of interviews a glow up a personal glow up you know a showing off that is one thing i always am like interesting um a massive change in personality or like a lot of these guys went from right to left.

23:44Kara Swisher:No, they weren't really left. They were never left. They sort of just embraced the right wing, hard right wing quite a bit. That was a shift. And so I pay attention to that. It doesn't always affect the businesses, but that's something. Or they're talking about a lot of stuff they don't know about is another thing. You know, at some point people lose their mojo, right? Lots of people do, or they run out of ideas. As I said, they get bored with the business that brought them there. And very few people trying to think. Warren Buffett stuck to his knitting, right, and did rather well doing that. They don't want to sit and perfect the thing they've done because it's not as exciting to be head of Facebook as it is to be head of an AI company, I guess.

24:27You know what's funny with you saying that? It's not in the tech space, but next week on the Master Investor Podcast, I've got Jamie Dimon joining us.

24:35Kara Swisher:Oh, he's a legend. He's excellent. I would have to say. Oh, good. I was going to say he does talk about a lot of things outside his lane. But honestly, I look forward to hearing what he's got to say. I think he's an expert. Right. Actually, it's not much. It's usually related to banking. It is. You know, he doesn't he talks about when he talks about politics, he talks about how it impacts his business. And that's I don't ever see him. I think he talks about his business. If you listen carefully, he's not going on and on about, you know, like Bill Ackman going on about DEI or whatever. going i literally was like i'm going to do a 10-part series on hedge fund investing because i know exactly nothing like you know one of these long twitter diatribes it's just i just i it just their their eyes off the ball and you can feel it like either you know that happens also with hollywood people with singer like you're like are you making albums or are you because that's really what you're here for yeah um or are you doing something else and so that i do pay attention it to their personal lives too i watch that very carefully and you see drastic changes you pay attention to it yeah the thing you said that made me think of jamie was just because when you said the big shiny new building which is where we'll be recording next week oh well he gets to have it that's new york i don't mind those i don't mind because they got clients right so that that actually is worthwhile in that regard um i suspect it it has a lot more roi for that bank to do it One person I think about, another thing, is how accessible they are.

26:04Kara Swisher:Initially, a lot of these people were very accessible, and then they become more and more separate from regular people. And they're sort of isolated in their car, their fancy cars and their planes. When they get a chief of staff, I'm always worried. Someone who's not like that is Mark Cuban, very accessible. You can reach him, you know, unbelievably wealthy, but he's doing all sorts of interesting things that I look for. Like, who's doing something super interesting and meaningful? And the thing around his drug price efforts is really interesting. And it's not sort of in his lane, but he learned himself up.

26:43Kara Swisher:And, you know, he's applying a lot of his other skills to that. I was hearing you and Scott on Pivot talking about him and wanting him to run for president, I think, in an episode or two. I know he's not, but the desire for him to. Well, I think it's just wish. He probably would be disastrous. But, you know, I don't know. It just is that he's the kind of person who could bring. I think what the U.S. is longing for is to bring people together, even as these tech businesses tear us apart. I think that's what it is, really. Either way, make sure people should subscribe to Pivot and on Cara's solo podcast if they haven't already.

27:42And firstly, like looking backwards a little bit on social media, I mean, do you think that the ship has sailed? There might have been a window, you know, I was there covering it a lot in 2016, 17, 18, where there was bipartisan support for some form of regulation. I mean, will that moment ever come back or is that ship sailed?

28:03Kara Swisher:It may come back with AI. You see, it's not coming back from our public officials. Our government is so broken in the United States, it has to get back to Trump is really messed. Well, everybody has like Trump mostly, but they can't pass. They can't agree on lunch anymore, right? That kind of stuff. And these are child safety or things like that should be something everyone should agree on. They can't even pass. There's a bill right now that's just sitting there in the House because Mike Johnson is incompetent essentially at wrangling anything but his mouth. another person who says things and doesn't know about frequently and constantly.

28:39Kara Swisher:You know, you sort of long for the days of Tip O 'Neill or Nancy Pelosi, you know, who got shit done, or, you know, there's several Republicans who also did well in that job. But I'm getting off course. I think what's happening now is you're seeing it on the ground, whether you're seeing like right now in Virginia, a data center was just killed by a bunch of small, a small group of people. Same thing happening in Utah. Same thing. These data center things to me is a real primary indication that people have fucking had it, like with this nonsense and energy prices. Now some data center that Met is involved with seems to have dirtied up the water, right?

29:17Kara Swisher:That kind of stuff. And so you're seeing a lot on the ground activism that is working on a local political level, which is great. The second thing you're seeing are these lawsuits, and they are Not a small thing. I think they're one of these quiet killers for these companies that they're going to have to start paying. And they're sort of being very innovative in how they're dealing with it with product liability lawsuits. It's not they can't get them because of Section 230 about platforming and they use their free speech arguments all the time. But product liability or copyright infringement is a great way to go after these companies.

29:51Kara Swisher:And, you know, the woman who had that baby with Elon Musk when she was doing, you know, the Grok was doing deep fake pornography with her face, allowing it to happen. She's suing under product liability laws. So that's interesting. Like to me, so some of these cases could be really devastating, very much like the cigarette companies for these companies. And how has it gone down over there? You know, Australia obviously banned social media for under-16s. We're seven months after that. The UK is just, I mean, sort of a legacy thing for Starmer to announce just before he leaves. We'll see if it is actually followed through on or not.

30:30But, you know, it looks like we're heading that way. How has that gone down in the U.S., particularly amongst the Silicon Valley community that's being banned? You know, they're trying.

30:36Kara Swisher:It's someone like Marsha Blackburn, oddly enough, was at the forefront of that. Now she wants to be governor of her state. And she's a very strange character. But she, you know, she's she wants the Trump support. So she's pulling back from it. I think it has to be about child safety is something that should be easy to do. It should be safety for all of us, really. It's just easier. It's an easier sell if it's kids. I know there's all the complaints about whether the Australian law works. Right. And they did a test and showed that a lot of these companies aren't doing what they are supposed to do under the law, largely because the fines are minor for them.

31:13Kara Swisher:And so is it not strong enough? I am of the feeling that if a society and a government says, we don't like this, we are against it, how it works is not as important as the statement. Stop making our children crazy. Stop making products that are addictive and dangerous for kids. stop making products that are dangerous for us. I think like you could say like, look, cigarette laws in our country with the warnings and this and that, everyone's like, everyone's still going to smoke, but they're not smoking anymore, right? It starts to create a feeling of these products could be dangerous. Be careful, tread carefully.

31:52Kara Swisher:And I think it says something when we say we're going to just protect our children, they're going to get access to social media. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't have drinking laws. We shouldn't have cigarette laws driving. We shouldn't let a 12-year-old drive a car, right? It doesn't work. A 12-year-old can get in a car. I'm like, yeah, but we say they shouldn't. And so to me, it's a very strong statement of a society when we say, you know what? We're sick of you making products we don't understand that are addicting our children and making them feel bad. And while you're not fully to blame for the problem, certainly you're a part of it.

32:26And we're going to ratchet you back a

32:29Kara Swisher:little bit and make you have some responsibility for your platforms. And that to me seems completely fine. And, you know, I think we spent a lot of time saying it won't work when in fact, what we should be saying is it's a statement of our society that we do not want tech companies to build addictive products that hurt our children. It's like, it seems like a, you know, a no brainer to me. Let's talk about media. We're not going to have one in this country, though because we're just whatever we're just not today but it will come yeah it'd be interesting though if these bands here force changes in the apps everything all these things when cigarettes are introduced takes 25 years before like unsafe at any speed within within six months they passed all these seatbelt laws it started off with a book and then it went somewhere i think probably Jonathan Haid had had a big impact in that regard.

33:23Kara Swisher:I think it should be broader. It shouldn't just be child safety. It's everybody's safety. It's product liability and copyright infringement when it comes to AI.

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34:20Learn more at ibkr.com forward slash master investor.

34:31Let's talk about media and podcasting. And I and my producer, Katie, who's on this, are going to take notes to your answer on this one because you're the expert. but you know you've you've created many successful podcasts I mentioned a couple of them and and you you know just sold your podcasting business to great success I did not I did not the company sorry the company that makes the podcast that you have a piece of has been sold yes but it wouldn't have been sold if not for the success of your podcast let me put it that way probably not probably not what what was the core reason for the success of those successful podcasts you've felt, do you think?

35:10Kara Swisher:You know, it's interesting. I was just talking to a bunch of people who are starting one and I was thinking about it because I have abandoned, I had a bunch of them and I keep building them up again. Right. And I'm like, what's the core thing that I keep making successful podcasts? Why is that? And I was talking to somebody who's just starting it. And I thought to myself, like, you have to be genuine, right? People want two things. Look, I made a bet. I remember when some, a lot of people were doing these sort of fast TikToks or fast, silly men talking podcasts, you know, which are fine. They're perfectly fine.

35:40Kara Swisher:And I made a bet that people really cared about substance. And that's why I did longer interviews, right? There's 60 minute interviews. And I said, and everyone's like, oh, they should be 15. I'm like, yeah, no, they're going to be, I feel like you can't have a good conversation of under a half an hour. You really can't. And people are willing to listen if it's interesting. And so one of the bets I made was that one, you had to give them substantive, great information and not, it doesn't have to be easy to eat. It doesn't. It doesn't also have to be hard to eat. I mean, obviously. But a couple of things, being genuine to yourself and who you are, because it's a very parasocial relationship you have with your listeners.

36:17Kara Swisher:And they trust you in a way. Speaking of trusted people, people love podcasters. They don't like journalists, but they love podcasts. Let me tell you, on the street, I get zero fuck you, Karas. I get plenty of thank you so much, which is really interesting. So that's one is you create an environment where people trust you by giving them great information and being right a lot of the time and caring to get it right, like that kind of thing. Two, be yourself, like who you are. I think people know a lot about my personal life. And I put a lot of myself into it because again, it's a parasocial relationship.

36:49Kara Swisher:I had one fan come up to me and say, I'm your, it's an older lady. She kind of crutched up to me and she's like, you're my friend, but I'm not yours. And I, that could have been creepy, but it wasn't. I got it. That, I was like, exactly. I'm your friend, even though I don't know you. Right. That was one thing. The other is admitting when you make mistakes. I think we do that a lot on our, on Pivot, for example. The, another thing is, I don't know, something you can't buy. It's sort of chemistry. Like Scott and I have chemistry, right? And often the people I interview, I have chemistry with. And so I try really hard to think about having a real conversation when we're talking.

37:33Kara Swisher:And then a couple more things are pretty basic. One is be useful to people, be really useful. Is this useful to someone to hear this? Two, be entertaining slash interesting slash funny slash not boring, which is really important. Some people are really boring. And then lastly, you can't get it anywhere else. There can be an interview, like your dad, look at your dad. He was a special interviewer, right? Now I'm going to go watch everything he's done. So I always watch old interviews to understand how they did what they did. But it doesn't work. Someone can interview Dario Amodi and I can mine has to be mine that people like and that's I think a lot of times people do these sort of dull interviews asking the same questions and so if you you can't get Scott and Kara anywhere else except you can't replicate it and in a world where it's so easy to replicate things if you do something original and you bring your original self I think audience response that's well i will send you a link to the also keep costs low keep costs low i agree with that as well stupid but like i go to things and i'm in my house right now i built a little studio cost me 25 000 and it's like how do you make so much money i said my studio cost me 25 000 that's why and it looks great i think it makes a mess right now but um but you know that kind of i pay attention to costs i pay attention to moving to keeping a small smart staff and i move people in and out when it doesn't work and so i have a lot of involvement in the business i i was gonna say i can i'll send you a link to the the series i produced on dad so great i'm excited i love it i was just finishing up tom do you know tom snyder he was another great interview yeah i did and i've studied a lot of those old guys i would agree they're fantastic yeah then no but the thing i was going to say oddly like all of those things you listed that have fed into your great success on podcasting.

39:31Oddly, I would say all applied to broadcasting initially. And it's just that, you know, obviously I have a day job and a broadcaster that I love as well, but it's just that has become a bit formulaic and a bit bureaucratic. And it stops all of those things you've said from coming to the fore.

39:49Kara Swisher:I agree, airless is the word I use. Whenever I'm in one of these cables, I said it to the CNN people. I'm like, all your studios are airless. There's no people here. There's nothing happening. And I think people are sick of it. It's like, that's boring. And then you see all this exciting media stuff happening all over the internet. I'm not a doomer about the media. There's so many interesting experiments here in the United States that every one of them I love. Even people I don't like, like Megyn Kelly, interesting, really awful, but interesting. Like, you know, you sort of watch it develop. And I even take, I watch a lot of people, even people I don't like.

40:26Kara Swisher:And I see what they're doing and what works and what doesn't work and why. You're building almost a fan base. And that's really hard to do. And one of the other things is, speaking of the deal with James, who I like very much, is I'm not good at selling advertising. I don't want to manage my staff and therefore that's what Vox does. And that's a great deal for me. And so I pay them essentially and they sell the, you know, it's a really keep your interests aligned with whoever you're with. Often when you were working for a broadcast network, you're just an overpaid salary person, right? Ultimately.

41:01Kara Swisher:So you don't have a stake in it. And I think everyone should own their own content. If you have a stake in it, if it's yours, you do a better job. You just do because then all your interests are aligned. And that to me is critically important yeah well interestingly again not that we planned it this with the og at that was was dad back well i can't wait to watch his stuff yeah the the i'm i'm in the moment straddling two very different versions rather than balancing that you know the salary job plus the the the podcast that i own but it's uh it's interesting well one of the things probably your dad did well he let himself be seen people saw him right and they either liked what they saw or they didn't but he got seen.

41:41Kara Swisher:Audiences really want desperately to hear from people they trust. They really do. And the other thing is be fucking accurate. That really sucks most of all is how careless people are about accuracy. And I think it matters. I think it absolutely matters. And I do think more people, even though there's been a prevalence of conspiracy theories and the rest, I don't think people like that. I don't think they do. I think they love it when they finally get good information for themselves and their families. I know we're really tight on time. So just two more final questions to bring it back to investing.

42:21How active are you? Are you active in short-term stock picking or are you passive and long-term with your portfolio?

42:27Kara Swisher:I wish I cared more about money because I would be a lot richer. Like I was offered every job at every internet company. I was like, yeah, no. And I knew it, I knew it. I don't care about money enough. I just, I hate to say it. It's sort of like, whenever I start thinking about investing, I care about the money. And then I'm like, I make enough money. So I'm one of these people that is very satisfied with the money I make. And most people, seeing all these wealthy people unhappy, and they're the richest people in the world, so many of them are unhappy. It's a real object lesson for me. And so no, I don't.

42:59Kara Swisher:And I think I probably would be pretty good at it. It just would, it would tap into a part of my soul I don't want to tap into. is and scott does it and he wins and loses and it's a game for him uh but i'm not i'm not i'm not interested enough in money or the game to do it that much so i just put my money in every now and then i'll buy something like of course even when i buy something that ends up going up like there's a famous story i i bought 10 bitcoin for 50 each at the beginning of it when i was writing a story and i put it on a thumb drive which is where you put it back then and i lost it like i lost the thumb drive so i like understood that it was going to go up like and i was correct and then i forgot see that's how much i care about money that's you know i'm an idiot i'm sure your kids search the house to see if they can find that thumb drive they should yeah i also also spend a lot of time reading people i think are smart about investing and every now and then i make i just don't i just don't have i have four kids i don't have time to like sit around and pour the stock table.

44:02Kara Swisher:I just, and I have no interest. So our final question for you, Carrie, you know, often we ask for investment advice, which I won't follow that up with, but, but what's your overriding piece of career advice then for our listeners? I think it's really important to, you know, I said this thing to New York Magazine was it's really good to step out of line. Like a lot, a lot of people are in line all the time. Like you wait and wait and in your personal life, everything else. And I'm like, if you don't like what you're doing, and this is from Steve Jobs, leave it. If you have the ability, many people across the world do not have the ability.

44:37Kara Swisher:Like, if you're a single mom here in the United States, you got to stay at that stupid, shitty job, you know, at Chick-fil-A, you stay there, right? That's a very different choice than I have. So if you have choices, and many, many people do, they tend to stay in jobs they hate and then just gripe about them. And so whenever I find myself griping, I leave. Like, it's like, it's my fault. It's not their job. It's not, you know, whatever, some cable kind of like, I'm going, I don't like it here. I'm going kind of thing. And so I think people should step out of line. Now, the only problem with that is if you actually don't have talent, you shouldn't step out of line.

45:12Kara Swisher:So you should know your talents. You should understand your skills. And then I think leaving is a really good quality, like understanding when you're not growing and moving along and not being mad about it, just doing a lot of bygones with people. Like, bygones, we're going to move on. And so I think I do that more, and that's why I'm more successful, because I'm always like, today's the day. And that is from Steve Jobs in a speech I recommend, if you want to think about your career, that he gave in front of Stanford, which is a famous speech. It's mostly about him dying, but it's also about living.

45:46So that's what I would say. I have actually watched that, but I'm going to re-watch it. Re-watch it.

45:52Kara Swisher:Read it. Read it. And the other thing is, this is what I say to everyone, you're going to be dead in 100 years. So put that into your mathematical calculations because it doesn't matter. So there you have it. Cara, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Master Investor Podcast. I'm so glad I saw it ran into you in London too. That was great. Well, please come back on the morning show on Sky. I shall. Spinning out, we didn't get a chance to talk about Comcast and those things. But next time, Cara Swisher, a pleasure to have you here on the Master Investor Podcast. Thanks so much.

46:23Next week on the Master Investor Podcast, we're on the road in New York, sitting down with the JP Morgan chairman and CEO, Jamie Dimon. Very much looking forward to that episode. So please do hit follow or subscribe on your podcast app if you have not done so. Already, we'll see you next week from New York. Until then, thanks for listening.

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