Kara Swisher, the “Internet age's cranky Cassandra,” on her memoir, Burn Book” A Tech Love Story

Kara Swisher, Official Next Question plus one and dogged chronicler of the good, bad, and the ugly of the tech world (and the “adult toddlers” that so often populate it), has really seen it all. She made tech her beat at the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal before most journalists took any notice of the fledgling “nerdy” industry. From there, Kara fearlessly reported on a new generation of tech entrepreneurs who would change the world as we know it. Her journalism breaks news and starts conversations, and her bubble-bursting, down-to-earth approach to those who often get handled with kid gloves is perhaps one of her most enduring traits.

 

Some call her approach “mean,” and the title of her much-anticipated memoir, Burn Book: A Tech Love Story, plays on this reputation as a reporter who minces no words and is not afraid to ask the hard questions. Kara chronicles the history of how tech came to dominate our lives, and with more potentially life changing tech on the horizon with things like AI, she certainly has some dire warnings. But Kara also has plenty of optimism to share, along with hot takes on everything from Gavin Newsom’s suits to where she derives her confidence (and the bone she has to pick with the question “How are you so confident?”). Nothing is off limits in this funny, insightful, profound conversation. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hi everyone, I'm Kitty Kuric and this is next question.
Fair warning everyone. I love Kara Swisher. I mean, how
can you not. She's been one of the hardest hitting
journalists covering the tech industry since the tech industry started.
Kara knew early on that the Internet was going to

(00:26):
irreversibly change the world. Now, that might sound like a
given now, but it wasn't at the beginning of Kara's
career three decades ago. And who can forget when I
asked Alison, what is internet? Yeah, let's try to forget that.
Kara's decision to make tech her beat and really stick
to that role as chief watchdog and rabble rouser in

(00:47):
an industry that often seemed to view its leaders as
God's has been a true public service. Kara has a
new memoir. It's called burn Book, a Tech Love Story,
and it's out today. And by the way, the blurbs
on the back of the book under praise for Kara Swisher,
well they are classic Kara Like quote not a single

(01:09):
more vitriolic voice in the tech ecosystem David sachs Loquacious
podcast guy, or Mark Andresen's quote she would sit on
instant messenger all day and harass the shit out of people.
Sally Quinn said, she has an incredible bullshit detector, which
is always helpful in Washington. You're an asshole. That was

(01:30):
Elon Musk quote, so you get the drift. Along with
being a fascinating look at how a great journalist gets made,
it's a history of how the tech industry burrowed itself
into every aspect of our lives. Kara uses history as
her guide. In fact, no surprise when you hear what
she studied in college to examine how new technologies like

(01:51):
AI could change our lives profoundly. Again, I'm really grateful
to have Kara's insight and her irrev doggie, keen and
incisive point of view to keep the tech industries feet
to the fire, and to have her as my guest today.
She's also a great person and a really good friend.

(02:12):
Here's my conversation with the one and only Kara Swisher.
First of all, Kara, are you sick of talking about
your book yet? Or you're nice?

Speaker 2 (02:24):
This is the first day? Well no, I did a
bunch last week, but yes, this is the first big day.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
Well, I'm very excited because everyone, I mean, I love Kara,
and she's got a new book out called burn Book,
a tech love story, and honestly, reading it, I felt
like I was just having a really long, fun, extended
dinner with you, caring about really tech for the last
thirty plus years, and you've had a front row seat.

(02:53):
I love the book. It's so fun and funny but
also incredibly substantive, just like you.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Thank you. Well, you know, thirty years, Katie. Don't try
to age me. I know you try to age me
all the time. Thirty exactly thirty years.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
And I found the book to be funny, smart, cheeky,
and insightful. So here's the quick question. Was it fun
writing this?

Speaker 2 (03:16):
Kara? Well, you know I'm two and a half years late, actually,
so no. I didn't really want to do that. And
one of the things that was hard is getting to
do it, as you know, from writing your memoir right,
getting yourself psyched. But you're like a harder worker than
I am, Like I was sort of hones not that is,
I'm hard on the things I like. How's that? And
I didn't want to write a book at all. You know,

(03:37):
I had avoided books for a long time. I had
been offered you know whenever there was a Twitter book
or what happened to Katie Kirk at Yahoo book.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
Well you did write ah, we'll discuss that later, but
you did write a book really early on in your
career about age by the way, I did.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Then it was too That was when I was in
you know, really young, and.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
I was and you needed to make some cabbage.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
Cabbage, and not just cabbage, but reputation, right, And I
really did think this internet thing was going to be
a big deal. And nobody at that time when that
book came out in nineteen ninety seven, very few people
were figuring this out. And so that was a different thing.
Is I was there in Washington sitting by myself and
going this is this is a big revolution and people
need to pay attention. So I had been the editor

(04:18):
on that was John carp who now runs Simon and Schuster.
He was a young guy too, We were both at
the beginning of our careers and he's the one that
got me to write it, which was interesting the first
book and I he said, this is these people are
going to change the world care you need to write
a book about them. And I was like, okay. And
then in that book, I have Yahoo people, Amazon people.
There's all jeff Is in that. And so he kept

(04:41):
bugging me over the years, like do you want to
do this? I was like, no, I don't want to
do with Google book or Twitter book or whatever. But
then he came to me and said, would you write
a fictional book? And I said, oh, what do you mean,
like make it up? And he goes, yeah, I'll get
you a fiction writer this and that, and I said, oh,
I could kill someone then, right, but you know, like
I could make it a murder mious and you know
that murderer doesn't get solved essentially. And then I was like,

(05:03):
I can't do that, It's not really me. And then
he Walt Mosburg was supposed to write a memoir of
his time in tech, and I wanted him to do that,
and he just decided not to abandon it for his
own reasons. And I said, someone's got to say what
happened here, right, someone who knew, who has notes, who
has pictures, who you know, and especially not just that.

(05:27):
It was more like we are at a cusp of
another huge change. And I thought a artificial general intelligence
AGI was a line another line and like just like
mobile was or the internet itself was, and I thought
I could end it there, like we're on the cusp.
Let me tell you what happened the first time, because
we're in for like a world of trouble if we don't,

(05:49):
And that's why I did it.

Speaker 1 (05:51):
I think one of the great things about the book
is how precient you were, Karen, how you read the
tea leaves, unlike really anyone else. That sounds like Jonathan
Carr did as well, by the way.

Speaker 2 (06:02):
But yeah he did.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
But before we talk about sort of the business writ large,
I want to talk a little bit about you personally,
because I found some of the stuff about your family
so moving. You lost your dad to a complications from
a brain aneurysm when you were just five years old,
remembering that morning, I think it was a sunny Saturday,
I think you described it that way, and your brother

(06:26):
knocking on his door and how traumatizing that was, and
also about your stepfather, and I'm curious in retrospect, and
you write a little bit about this in the book,
and I want people to buy the book, so we
don't want to tell everything that's in the book, But
how were you shaped by the father? You really didn't

(06:47):
know very well. I think you knew better posthumously.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
Yeah, because here's the deal. You know, I have a
lot of kids. You have a lot of kids. When
my son, who's twenty one now, turn five, I was
over five years old when my father got sick. When
it was a couple months older. My son knew me
so well. At five. My daughter who's four, and I
chitchat all the time, my two year old at I
chit chat. I realized the devastation then, like, oh my god,
I did know him really well, right, And so I

(07:13):
just don't remember it. That's very different than I didn't.
And so I had thought that because I was so
young and didn't remember, it didn't have an impact. But
the minute I had kids it was. And I actually
had a stroke very close to when my older kids
were that age, right, and.

Speaker 1 (07:26):
I thought so scary it was.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
But I think it really was a formative experience. And
think that was another thing I didn't want to write about.
I mean, you wrote your memoir it was a lot
about work and stuff like that, but I had a
very hard time. I don't in my case, I don't
think I was as interesting as the people I was
writing about, And so I was very reticent to write
about my personal life, very I never had done it,
and he for asked me to do that, to add

(07:49):
it in. And then I realized, you know, this is
a journey story. This is I'm Nick in the Great Gatsby.
That's who I am.

Speaker 1 (07:55):
And I love to use that quote too, by the
day at the beginning of the book.

Speaker 2 (07:59):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's a tell for me. But I'm
that character, and you need to know a little bit
about Nick and where he came from, so you understand
my journey essentially.

Speaker 1 (08:08):
Well, I also think your understanding of this brave new
world you have to understand sort of the person who's
telling the story, and obviously that's you. And your dad
sounded like such a gem of a person, a doctor, right, yes,
and just sounds like an incredible man. And then your
mom goes and marries a stepfather. And I think you

(08:31):
used alliteration casually cruel. Didn't you use a cascade of
casual cruelties?

Speaker 2 (08:37):
Like cascade of casual cruelties? Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
Yeah, Well, let me go back to my original question.
How did both men in retrospect shape you and the
person you became?

Speaker 2 (08:48):
Well, you know, my dad was. You know every look,
when people die, young people get to make them to heroes, right,
That's true. You know, no matter how you do, the
memories sort of get much more burnished. And you had
a tragic your husband died, but we know who they were.
But my dad, I have to say everyday. I wrote
a story about I moved his body from where it
was buried in New York a long time. I wrote

(09:09):
a story in The Washington Post about it to West
Virginia after my grandmother, who was devastated by his death,
asked me to. She was dying of leukemia, and she
asked me to move him, and I did this. I
wrote a story about it. And after we wrote it
when I was a young young I was in my
mid twenties, I guess when I wrote it, and I
got so many letters people who knew him, which was

(09:29):
really something like it was really something and including like
I got a young doctor who he had trained, he
tutored her. I didn't know this. I got an email
from a Jewish doctor. He said he's the only one
who was said cut the anti Semitic bullshit, which was
really I was sort of like, what good guy, this
guy's gay couple. He's the only people. He treated us

(09:52):
like we were a real couple. This was way back
in the you know, in the sixties, and I was
like and friends of his and ex girl front of his,
you know, all this stuff, and it was really fascinating
to learn about him.

Speaker 1 (10:04):
That's a wonderful gift for your kids, by the way,
it is.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
One hundred percent. And one of the things that it
did teach me is that you really don't you have
to understand impact of people on your life, even if
they're not The absence of my father was as important
as his presence, right, you know, in terms of losing him,
and then my mom didn't marry someone who was not nice,
and I was sort of It wasn't Cinderella. I'm not
in the you know, an episode, but it was to

(10:28):
think about losing someone so precious and then having to
deal with a very tough person afterwards. And your mom
is part of it, right, and so you know she
had a reasons, young woman with three kids, like, I
get it, I get it. But he was just I'll
tell you, he did teach me about strategy. He was
brilliant and.

Speaker 1 (10:46):
Sought again really good.

Speaker 2 (10:50):
I won't play it anymore because I get really mean
my plan it. It's really funny. I learned how to
be tough, you know, in that regard, and you had
to be when you're left with almost raising yourself in
a weird way in an expensive environment. It's not like
I was like I had a scrabble eat food. It
was a very I mean, I grew up in a
very lovely environment. But doesn't make it any less lonely

(11:12):
or sad.

Speaker 1 (11:13):
You know, it sounds like your dad gave you though,
maybe the ability or this instinct you have to stand
up for what's right from those letters you got.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
Yes, I think so absolutely. And so my grandmother played
My mom's mom played a big role in my life.
Was very supportive and loving, and I later got much
closer to my father's mom. All kinds of reasons. We
didn't spend as much time with him, but you know,
I had a lot of support from family. We have
a big Italian family. So there was that.

Speaker 1 (11:44):
You didn't talk about your mom that much in the book.

Speaker 2 (11:46):
I didn't. That's the next book, Katie. Why not.

Speaker 1 (11:51):
It's complicated, a tough relationship.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
It's complicated, you know, I think how funny you're pressing
exactly what you shouldn't. But that's okay, that's Katie Kurk.
I have a complex relationship with her, continue to this day,
and I think there's a lot of me that doesn't
forgive her for him. I guess, you know, I think
there's probably that element to it. She's you know, we've
had a very up and down relationship, including me being gay,

(12:15):
and she's come around well, but at the initially she
was terrible. And so that was another thing. I knew
I was gay at four or five years old, Like
I knew it?

Speaker 1 (12:23):
And how did you know it?

Speaker 2 (12:25):
Just did? I don't know what to tell you. I
just was like, ah huh, that's what I am. I
was kind of proud of it. It was weird except
for all the messages you were getting from media at
the time, which, as you know, you know, predatory lesbians
all drong, blah blah blah, that kind of stuff and
gay people bad. You know, that was during my era
pre aids.

Speaker 1 (12:46):
Right and mine too, mine too. And one of the
things I marvel at always is I think sometimes people
don't not that we don't have miles to go before
we sleep, but people don't recognize how different. It is
not perfect for gay people in this country. And you know,
I was thinking about, you know, you're a little younger

(13:06):
than I am, Kara, maybe a lot younger than I am.
And I was thinking about how you wanted to go
into the CIA, and back then the military would have
been the eighties, right when you graduated. Right that, you know,
people forget about don't ask, don't tell. They don't forget
about the fact that Obama actually initially didn't support gay marriage.

Speaker 2 (13:26):
They don't remember Clinton.

Speaker 1 (13:28):
Clinton's were exactly how no, no, no, I know, I
know for the military, but then Obama it's just sort
of shocking to see that he had to evolve, and
thank goodness he did during his presidency. But you couldn't
be in the CIA or the military, which is what
you wanted to do, Which would have you would have
been so great.

Speaker 2 (13:46):
I would have been a kick ass admirl you would
have you would I would have been tell me why
what stopped you? I didn't want to lie. I didn't
it was. And then before don As Hotel, which is
already offensive enough, right like, first of all, I ask
and I tell, like, so that's kind of hard, which
I can't even believe they passed that. I just when
you think about it today, you're like, are you kidding me?

Speaker 1 (14:08):
Talk about why that's so offensive for people who might
not remember.

Speaker 2 (14:11):
Well, because it's like they don't get to ask, and
you don't say, because if you say, you have to leave.
So you have to lie. Everybody's lying, and it's just
it creates talk. You want to create, you know, community
within the military. You want to create collegiality and the
kind of things you need to have a strong military.
And you're all lying to each other. It's like, I

(14:31):
might as well be with my family, right, you know,
the kind of thing and the furtiveness is what is
bad about it. And before don't ask, don't tell. I
think a lot of straight up people thought, well, we're
being nice. We're not going to ask now or hold
it against them. But asking you to lie is just like,
this is who I am, and I have to tell
you I'm not or pretend I'm not. It was just
so ridiculous, And they thought that was nice compared to

(14:55):
putting you in jail for it or throwing you out
of the military with a dishonorable discharge. What happened, and
so the whole but It wasn't just in the military,
was everywhere you had to be furtive. It was I
can't you know, today is a full on assault of
gay people, and that's where they're headed gay marriage. But
they're doing it in plain sight. Now they're saying they
don't like gay people, they don't like trans people, they

(15:16):
don't like algy they're not even hiding their their kind
of thing. Before it was it was very furtive the
way you were. You know, if you're gay, then you
know people knew to keep quiet or else kind of thing.
And I just I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it.
I just I'm not that person. So then I did
another job.

Speaker 1 (15:39):
After a quick break, Kara talks about her early career
and dishes out some excellent professional advice. If you want
to get smarter every morning with a breakdown of the
news and fascinating takes on health and wellness and pop culture,
sign up for our daily newsletter wake Up Call like

(16:00):
going to Katiecuric dot com. And we're back with Kara Swisher.
So you decided to go into journalism. You went to Georgetown,
you didn't love it. You wanted to go to Stanford,
where your brother went, but you did love your history courses,
you write. My focus was on propaganda and how groups

(16:22):
like the Nazis used media and communications tools to twist facts,
radicalize their populace, and demonize the targeted population. Obviously, Hitler
and his henchmen had conducted a masterclass an evil. But
what struck me was how easily people could be manipulated
by fear and rage, and how facts could be destroyed
without repercussions. Did you ever imagine your major would come

(16:44):
in so handy? I mean, that's so scary.

Speaker 2 (16:47):
You know, yes, Because when I saw the Internet for
the first time, I was like, that was one of
my first thoughts besides cool, right, whoa, this is really interesting,
especially the Worldwide Web, the hyperlinks. I was like, oh,
look at that was the ability to manipulate it. You know,
you saw it. It was right, You couldn't miss what
you could do with it from a negative point. I'm
one of those people, and I think that was one

(17:07):
of the things I write about in the book, which
is I anticipate consequences. I'm good at that, right, If
this then that and that was what I wanted to
do in the military. Intelligence is sort of be like
you know, Homeland, but you know, one hundred percent less
mentally challenge. But I like that, like, what's going to
happen here if I know this input? And you know
that in reporting you do that. You sit there and
you're like, when you're doing an interview, you're like, strategize

(17:30):
it right, right, if I say this, they might say this,
then I'll say this. You know, you do things like that,
and so I really liked that. I was really attracted
to that, and so I think reporting is like that,
very much like that, and so it was really easy
for me to move to understand what the Internet would
be when I saw it, because I was like, oh,

(17:50):
this is a really good propaganda tool.

Speaker 1 (17:53):
And that was when you were on a fellowship at
Duke and you have this aha moment. I think you
were in the library and this idea that you could
just digitize the world, right.

Speaker 2 (18:04):
You could, Yeah, a book. In this case, it was
a book, but it could have been anything. And I
think I did see that, and I had already been
attracted to like the mobile phone that they had at
the post.

Speaker 1 (18:14):
The big clunky one that was like the size of
a shoe box.

Speaker 2 (18:18):
Yeah, yeah, there was one in a suitcase, and then
there was a shoe box one, then there was the
Gordon Geecko one, and then it got small part. But
I was attracted to it. I was like mobile communications.
I like it, like you know what I mean, Like,
why wouldn't we have these? Everybody have them as a reporter.
Why be in the newsroom? And so I was super
attracted to that. I was always obsessed. I know it
sounds crazy with that teletype machine. Did you ever visit

(18:40):
the Post back in the day.

Speaker 1 (18:41):
You might have no, but I mean, honey, I had teleton.

Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:46):
Right. My job was changing the purple ribbon. And they
even have little white gloves so you wouldn't stain your fingers.
I mean, this is how old I am.

Speaker 2 (18:55):
Yes, me too. I delivered the page proofs down to
the printers at the Washington Post. I was a newsgg
and but that teletype machine. I hated it. I was like,
why is it here? Why it's going to be on
the intern the internet? But it can go on the computer.
I kept like. And even when I was at Columbia,
they were teaching us to type on a typewriter. I'm like,
why are we on a typewriter? There's a computer like,

(19:18):
there's no need to put anything on paper, And it
wasn't because I like trees so much, although that's a benefit,
added benefit, but it was so onerous, like and then
you use your red pen and I was like, you.

Speaker 1 (19:29):
Don't need to wipe out and the white out I
remember you could do a reverse thing. And the by
the way, a little known fact, Michael Nessmith, one of
the Monkeys, his inventor, invented white out. But then remember
you had a backspace thing that you could wipe it
out on years later.

Speaker 2 (19:46):
That was a big innovation. That was yeah, like we're
going down old Lady Highway.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
But you saw technology, the existing technology, and you always
thought there's got to be a better way. And then
the Internet comes up right and you're like, holy shit,
this is the better way.

Speaker 2 (20:01):
But but I did see the negatives. I was like, wow,
if Hitler had this, that would be pretty that would
be scary, right, and bad people. I always was thinking
what would bad people do to this?

Speaker 1 (20:11):
Well, I think that benefited from your major, from what
you studied in college, you know, I think you applied that.
I want to talk more about the Internet in a moment,
but I want to ask you about I had so
much fun reading about as you describe yourself as a nuisance.
I think probably people have other choice words, Karen to
describe you in your early early days and to now

(20:33):
and even now. But I loved how you worked your way.
You know, how you got a job at the Washington
Post by complaining about how an article was written. I
love the fact that when you told John McLaughlin, the
infamous Molton hard blowhard of the Magawklan group, that he
was going to lose power because he was getting old,

(20:54):
that you said in a much more eloquent, funny way.
The way you kind of interacted with Don Graham the
public sure, the pose.

Speaker 2 (21:00):
To lovely guy.

Speaker 1 (21:02):
Yeah, lovely, but almost unnecessarily humble, I think is sort
of the ways.

Speaker 2 (21:08):
You're unnecessarily humble speak a little more arrogant, Tom.

Speaker 1 (21:11):
But you know to suggesting to marketers of major newspapers
that the best way to get younger readers was to
quote tape a joint between every single page. And it
struck me how did you have such confidence at such
an early age. I mean, we talked about your dad
standing up for what it was right, but you were
such a baller even in your twenties, Kara, And I
mean you called out bullshit and it was risky.

Speaker 2 (21:33):
You know.

Speaker 1 (21:33):
I know that you thought John McLaughlan was going to
fire you when you gave him a piece of your mind, yeah,
which was so funny. Yeah, but he didn't. He laughed.
But where does that come from? Because honestly, I want
to slice of that part.

Speaker 2 (21:46):
Of me thinks it's lesbian. I think it's a lesbian thing.
I think you did. You're an honorary lesbian. Thank you,
as you know what I told you that, But you
have elements of it. And I'm not going to ask
any personal questions Katie. It's up to you what you
want to do. But I I just have a little
to do with it. Like I didn't have to seek
the approval of men. And there's an old joke like
I don't know why they think lesbian's hate men. They

(22:07):
don't have to sleep with them, right, you know, Like
why would I? And I had great brothers and I
had a lot of really good experiences with men, and
so I just think I was I was like that
from a young age. I was like, this is stupid.
You know, I don't understand it, and I would I
wouldn't be able to not say it. And I don't know.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
Maybe that's not no filter, I guess, right.

Speaker 2 (22:26):
I don't, Well, I have a filter I have, I don't.
I don't. I'm not unnecessarily cruel to I don't have
a filter of people above me. Like I find myself
constantly saying, what's everybody's thinking? Right, very quickly, and I think,
I don't know. And as I've gotten older, I'm like,
I sort of moved to a cranky old lady very
early in my life, right like what ha ha or

(22:48):
Larry David or that kind of thing. And I don't
know what why that was, but I was like that,
and especially when there was like it didn't make any
sense to me when they were like, and it's such
a thing, meant they're confidence because I've had a lot
of excerence. Why are you so confident? Why aren't other
people confident? Like it's never that question, it's that as
we have to all be not confident, especially women. I

(23:10):
did never understood that I was like I never said
I was great at things I wasn't great at. But
I also never said I wasn't great at things I
was great at, Right, Like I didn't like. I didn't go,
I'm so good at basketball, but if I was good
at writing, which I was, i'd say it. And a
lot of people, especially men, I'm sorry to say, this
is what happens, but women do it too. They were like, well,

(23:31):
you shouldn't be so confident. I'm like why what precisely?
Why not? Well, because people will think you're you're too confident.
I'm like, what is too? It's like saying people will
think you're too stunning, or people will think you're too smart,
Like why do that? And it was just irritating. I
found it irritating on every level, and I especially you don't.

(23:51):
I think women really get the brunt of that. And
I didn't care, like if they said I was bossy
because I wasn't gonna marry any of them, Like, okay,
well we're not getting married and five of those. That's
a great tool for a reporter. You know you're challenging people.
I know you don't like the term speaking truth to power,
and I think it's sort of overused because and it's

(24:12):
insinuating as you write that all power is bad and
it isn't necessarily but it comes in handy and I
think early on we were talking about your understanding of
the Internet. You saw very clearly the Washington Post was
in deep doo doo, as they say, because of the
classified ads, and not just that. I covered retail before

(24:32):
and garfing girls gar had lunch, probably had lunch, and
the rotunda.

Speaker 1 (24:40):
We were not the ladies who lunch crowd.

Speaker 2 (24:42):
You know.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
I had a very pretty pretty modest upbringing, but my
mom once in a while would go to Garfing Gels
and we would shop there. And I love that store.
And you write about it closing.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
Explain what it was. It was an elegance.

Speaker 1 (24:53):
Yeah, I think there were only two, weren't there Weren't
they just in DC? Because there was one downtown.

Speaker 2 (24:59):
It was a local tailor. Same thing with hex Hexcal.

Speaker 1 (25:03):
I bought my first broad hecks.

Speaker 2 (25:05):
Oh, how nice to know, Katie, So hex Garfinkel's. There's
giant food heckingers.

Speaker 1 (25:11):
Right.

Speaker 2 (25:11):
There was a bunch of local retailers, and I covered
the decline of all of them for the Post. That
was my beat because I covered the Half family, who
you also knew crowded track exactly, Bobby and Bobby Half
and so I really did cover that and I could
see and at the time, the culprit was Walmart. It
came in all the big box retailers, and Walmart was

(25:31):
the most prominent, and we're putting those companies out of business.
And they were highly technical by the way, Walmart was,
and I was paying a lot of attention to their
use of technology. But then I thought, well, if display
advertising goes and then I saw the classifieds, I was like, Oh,
that's Craigslist is going to put this out of business.
And then third, when the internet really started seeing news,

(25:53):
I was like, oh, news is free. A lot of
it is a lot of what's in the Washington Post
is free. I was like, that's every single economic underpinning
of this place. And therefore their costs are too high.
Immediately their revenue will drop out and then curtains.

Speaker 1 (26:08):
So why do you think so many people were in
You know, I had some foresight, not as much as
you did. I wish you'd telly you and I had
talked more about the business side of journalism. But why
do you think there were so many people in the
industry who didn't want to see the writing on the wall?
Is it because they wanted to protect their business model

(26:30):
at all costs? That they were older, they were just
trying to reach retirement. What was it? Because I remember
being at CBS Kara and saying to the digital people, Hey,
we really have to lean in Nsie Smith, Yeah, Quincy.
But also there was sort of a team at CBS
News like, we really have to lean into this. I
want to do online interviews. Let's stay covering the conventions

(26:52):
longer online and direct people to go online to watch
our conversations. And so I feel like I was a
bit ahead of the but people looked at me like
I had three heads.

Speaker 2 (27:02):
They did. They did because they couldn't understand. You know,
everything was sort of handed you. It wasn't just in media,
it was also record companies like here's an album. What
if you just want a song, you know, it's sort
of like coaxing. Sixty four ounce bottle is all you'll
be getting. And if you don't want that, you don't
have a glass or screwed. Essentially, we're not going to
sell it in cans. No other product was sold at

(27:25):
the convenience of the seller as much as media. Right,
whatever system they wanted, they would do.

Speaker 1 (27:32):
And they controlled it back then, right, that's right.

Speaker 2 (27:35):
Yeah, because they felt like it because they I used
to get arguments over the five o'clock deadline? Why is
it five? That's me being irritating care I was like,
why shouldn't it be seven, or why shouldn't it be
all the time, or why not when it just happens?
Why not just if it's a two, let's put it
up at two, right And they're like, we're not the
AP and I'm like no, but people are going to

(27:55):
get their news right then, and therefore you're going to
be late if you're not like the IP or why
don't you do more? There's all of these behind the
scenes things, and I just it seemed like an opportunity
to mean more than a negative, and they resisted. It
was such vehemence. That was something to say to watch the.

Speaker 1 (28:11):
Resistance and frustrating and hard to know. But I think
it's risky to jump to a different business model and
potentially cannibalize the product you're putting out, you know.

Speaker 2 (28:23):
So I think there were some well guess what happened.
They got pushed and they were too late to get technical,
to get cockecting os paches and guess who owns digital
advertising now, which is really the only advertising except for
some some display advertising, but for the most part, most
of the money has shifted. One of the things I
saw in Scott Gallier Mining is today. I remember when

(28:43):
a TV usage was seven percent of the attention and
thirty percent of the advertising, and Internet was thirty percent
of the usage and seven percent of the And I thought,
that doesn't make any sense. And of course it's gone
like this, right, Why should the thing people are on
not get the bulk of the advertising? Right? And I

(29:04):
think the I don't know what numbers they were looking at,
but anybody could have seen it coming. It's not like
that was some genius in any way.

Speaker 1 (29:12):
I remember Jeff Sucker used to talk about analog dollars
in digital dimes, and it just didn't seem like the
money would be there. But if you read the you know,
if you have any foresight, you know that it's going
to do. You think the big mistake was that people
media organizations gave their content away for free.

Speaker 2 (29:29):
Was that no, they they just had to. Their economics
were out of out of line with where the business
was going. Yes, they would be digital dimes, but someday
they would be a lot of digital dimes, right, But
until then, you had costs. You all made so much money,
like your contracts were crazy, and I think.

Speaker 1 (29:47):
You those days are over by the Those days.

Speaker 2 (29:49):
Are over by the way. You might have been valuable,
But were the other twelve people valuable? You know what
I mean? Like should they have gotten millions of dollars?
Probably not. Like one of the things I tried to
do early on because one I was irritating and two
I was irritated, and so I always matched myself with
my revenues. I was very aware of what my revenues
were and my profits, not just my revenues, my profits.

(30:11):
Because then if they're like, we want to we want
you to do this, I'm like, no, I'm making money
over here. Leave me alone. Like if I'm making money,
you cannot bother me, essentially, And so if you were
aware of your actual contribution, and I know a lot
of journalists are like, you shouldn't put a number on it,
Well guess what someone's putting a number on it somewhere,
so it might as well be you. Once I knew

(30:33):
what my value was, and I know I sound like
Mika Berzinski there, but you know, if you don't know
your value, you don't know what you can do or
what you can't do.

Speaker 1 (30:42):
That's good professional advice. I think for anyone to kind
of have a really keen understanding of not only what
they're making, but what they're making the other people as well.

Speaker 2 (30:51):
Right, regular people have to do it every day, hourly workers.
If they're not keeping up, they don't get the money.

Speaker 1 (30:57):
Like.

Speaker 2 (30:57):
That's the problem is that a lot of it was
supported by other things that no one ever saw or
thought of, and the minute digital, which it's hitting obviously
the blue collar workers. A lot of the manufacturing innovation
happened or farming it started to hit white collar workers.
That's now everybody's screaming like, oh, can you believe this?

(31:17):
I'm like, yeah, I can, because it makes sense for
it to move up the food chain in that regard.

Speaker 1 (31:23):
Let's talk about you going to San Francisco. One media
reporter who you refused to name in the book made
fun of you, mocked you said, what are you going
to be covering? Cbe radios? By the way, who is
that person cares?

Speaker 2 (31:34):
I'm telling you, come on, why not because it's not
someone well known. If it was someone well known, it
was Katie Crook, I would say, so, thank you he
works for an online everybody I know, I know, I know,
all right, Well it's not someone well known enough. But
if it was like Jeff Zucker, I'd say it was Jeffson.
I might have to get you drunk so you can
tell me. All right, I'm telling So you go to

(31:55):
San Francisco and the way was very typical. He was
very typical of the attitude at the time that tech
didn't deserve its own that wasn't a legitimate beat for
a journalists right right when you got to the West coast.
The way you described these startup, big tech companies. You
talk about being like kindergarteners and playgrounds and pre stuff

(32:16):
and ping pong tables, which made me laugh because that
was sort of when I went to Yahoo.

Speaker 1 (32:20):
I was like, this is such a weird vibe and
such a weird environment. Can you talk about that? The
vibe of these early.

Speaker 2 (32:28):
Starts, I'm curious, did they make you do fun things?
Force fun? Did they force fun upon you? Really? They
have that.

Speaker 1 (32:35):
They had the yodeling thing, which I just wouldn't do.
And as you said, that irritating exclamation.

Speaker 2 (32:41):
Point, what is with the X stop of it? Did
they make you yodel. They tried to get you to yodel.

Speaker 1 (32:46):
I didn't yodel. I just honestly coming there was just
such a culture shock for me, Caro. I just could
not really like, I didn't bleed purple as a lot
of folks that Yahoo did. And good good on them
if that's what they wanted. But why was it so juvenile?
And so many of these startups you talk about, Mark
intreeson and all these other places tell me about that.

Speaker 2 (33:06):
Well, it was interesting because I think one of them
started doing it, which was Google, was the one that
really pioneered, like the multi the primary colors. If you
notice it, it's very juvenile. A lot of their parties
had slipping slides and bouncy houses and things like that,
and I was like, and it's sort of I gave
the example on the book is when I went to Excite,
which is now gone, but it was one of the.

Speaker 1 (33:27):
Search when they had the red slide, the red slide.

Speaker 2 (33:30):
Did you go down the red slide?

Speaker 1 (33:31):
You might all, Hell, no, I didn't go down the
rest slide. I just remember it from the book.

Speaker 2 (33:35):
Yeah. Yeah, So there was a red slide and it
was between the second and first of all, they had
a fake garage door so they could performatively be a garage,
and I was like, this isn't this is an office.
Why are we having a garage because it shows us?
Or I'm like, but it's not the actual garage door, right,
Like that was me. I was like I don't, okay, sure.

(33:56):
And they had the slide that they wanted between the
floors and they're like, you know, everyone gets on the slide.
I'm like, I hated slides at five years old. I'm not.
I'm like by this time, I'm in my late thirties.
I was like, I'm not getting on your brig and slide,
like forget it. And they were It was you know,
it's kind of forced fun. There was forced fun, like
forced joviality.

Speaker 1 (34:16):
Why is that you think?

Speaker 2 (34:18):
I think a lot of them didn't have social lives.
I didn't have real social lives. A lot of them.
You know a lot of the nerds really were like
nerding it out during high school. And I was like,
that was fun in sixth grade.

Speaker 1 (34:29):
But I also think they were trying to show they
were so anti corporate or anti establishment, right, yes, yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:35):
That was part. It was the clothing, you know, the clothing,
the soft clothing, the soft everything soft. All the chairs
were soft.

Speaker 1 (34:42):
All the bad chairs. In fact, I laughed, and I
felt like you were channeling your own version of Jennifer
Melfie and the Sopranos. Do you write quote? Tech is
littered with men whose parents, typically fathers were either cruel
or absent. By the time they grew to be adults,
many were unhappy and often had some disc brontal tail
of being misunderstood before they were proved triumphantly right. Most

(35:04):
of all the damaged one shared one sat attribute. They
all seemed achingly lonely. More please, I agree.

Speaker 2 (35:12):
Yeah, well, I'll never forget. I was at two things.
When I was at one of those vanity fair oscar
parties here, and there was a year they let all
the techies in Marissa was there. Was there a whole
bunch of them, and I was there to see the celebrities,
like I got invited. I'm like, yay, get to look
at celebrities. Fantastic. I'm going over to look at Daniel
day Lewis. I'm headed over that way. And they were

(35:34):
all like, Kara, hey, come talk to us. I'm like, no,
get the fuck away from me. I'm like, I don't
want to talk to you. I know, you like, I'm
not going to the celebrity people. Oh look it's Robert
de Niro. I'm going over to Robert de Niro. And
was wearing a set of Google glass remember they had
the first.

Speaker 1 (35:49):
Oh yeah, brand who the founder of one.

Speaker 2 (35:52):
Of the founders, right, there's two co founders. Larry Page
is the other one. And he was wearing it at
the party. And he's like, no one's talking to me.
To me, and I go, well, take that off your face.
They don't like pictures that they don't know are being taken.
It's not cool here among these people. Like it's cool elsewhere,
but it's not cool here. And he's like, well should

(36:13):
I talk to him about And I said, tell them
you're a billionaire. They do like money, they do these
people seem to like and maybe you'll pay for a movie.
I don't know that'll work. I'm sure one of these
people will talk.

Speaker 1 (36:23):
To you for They're just very socially awkward.

Speaker 2 (36:25):
Right awkward, And so that was part of it. And
then there was always like it was they seemed, you know,
not all of them had bad parents, by the way,
not all of them. But it's interesting. Steve, you know,
Steve Jobs was adopted, I was fostered, and then his
parents went on to have another kid and didn't come
back and get him. Larry Ellison, same thing, you know,

(36:47):
Elon's obviously, that's the famous story of the bad Dad.
And you know, they all had kind of social awkward
issues kind of thing, and so you'd feel like they
didn't know quite how to talk to people, some of them,
and that was lots of reasons. Some of them are
on the spectrum. Obviously it's a famous thing in tech,
but they also seemed to I don't know, it just

(37:10):
felt like I felt like I was in a constant
janis Ian song, like they got picked lastic basketball or something,
you know, and it was it was interesting to watch, No,
not all of them. Some of them, you know, Brian
Chesky from there maybe is quite witty and funny.

Speaker 1 (37:24):
And I think had, I mean, from what I understand,
a wonderful upbringing, close to his family.

Speaker 2 (37:29):
Family and wonderful. Let me just say, best parents of
the Internet are Brian Chesky's parents. And one of the
things that they also had is if they had an
interest outside of tech. Some of them were just totally
tech focused, so say, see jobs, he loved design, he
loved fonts, he was very well read. He had cultural
references while others didn't, and so that was nice. But

(37:52):
then others didn't check. That's all they could talk about
twenty four to seven was tech right, and they didn't
have other interests or their interests were just awkward. I
don't you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (38:02):
I'm not going to make you tell the story of
the baby shower, but folks, the book is worth it
just to read about the baby shower and what the
host expected their guests to wear. And thankfully that was
almost the first chapter of the book.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
But I decided to go more serious.

Speaker 1 (38:18):
That was so funny that pint. It's such a picture
for me, and I love the fact that you and
Gavin Newsom refused to go along with the costume idea.

Speaker 2 (38:28):
But you get a nice suit on.

Speaker 1 (38:29):
Yeah, yeah, do you like?

Speaker 2 (38:31):
I do very much. So I think he's I thought
he was terrific this weekend on Meet the Press.

Speaker 1 (38:36):
Do you think he'd be a good president?

Speaker 2 (38:37):
I do. I do. I think he would. He's very
you know, he's a he's got a lot, you know,
like he's a man who's been through difficult times and
understands them. I think he's I think he suffers from
he's so handsome and smooth that people don't trust him.
I think that's I do. I think. Look, here's why
I like. The main reason like Gavin is among many
because he's really intelligent and smart and sharp, is because

(38:59):
when he passed the gay marriage thing when he was
in San Francisco. I have to tell you, he did
not have to do that right, and it really hurt.
He was on the way up on the political thing.
He was sort of riding high and he was laid
low by doing that. And I don't think there's been
another politician who took a risk like that on something

(39:20):
that wasn't and that I really appreciated that. I nearly
the name one of my kids Gavin, because I was like,
nobody did that, Like no stray guy who was on
his way to the top floor of the political spectrum
did that, and he suffered for many, many years for
doing so.

Speaker 1 (39:39):
We have to take a quick break. But after we do,
why so few tech moguls saw the harmful effects of
what they were creating. We're back with Kara Swisher. You know,

(40:01):
you'd write about a lot of these fascinating figures who
have become, in a way, the rock stars of modern
life in terms of the business world.

Speaker 2 (40:09):
Carpet rock stars.

Speaker 1 (40:10):
Yeah, and you knew early on the unintended consequences of
this huge transition into the digital age. But I'm curious,
do you think that some of these other folks, like
Mark Zuckerberg, they just didn't think about it. I mean,
I know that their motto has moved fast and break things,
or was and you write a lot about it that

(40:32):
was it arrogance or willful ignorance that they never contemplated that,
or was it just like we're just going to make
more and more and more money.

Speaker 2 (40:41):
Well, I think it was the reason the first line
of the book is it was capitalism after all, is
because that's the first line of the book. I want
to point out this was about nothing but money, Like,
let's be clear. And I think they would have liked
they had a very again performative nature of the many
performative nature things was we're in it for everybody, We're
here to save humanity. And initially it's very attractive and

(41:02):
then it's like, wait, that is so narcissistic. You know,
I think it sort of reached his height when I
was interviewing Elon Musk and he said, this was twenty
eighteen maybe, and I was at headquarters of Tesla, and
he had just gone through a very difficult period for Tesla.
It almost closed down, and he'd gotten a government loan
and they had pushed their way through, as many even
makers are doing. Now there's a valley of death there.

(41:24):
And he had, you know, he had at some emotional
times that There was a very famous interview he did
with the New York Times where he seemed like he
was crying. He denies he was crying, but seemed like
he was crying. I could see it. And he said
to me in this interviews something along the lines of
if Tesla. I thought, I said, why are you so
emotional about this? And indeed the whole I'm sleeping on
the factory floor, which is like such a drama queen, like,

(41:45):
come on, there's you can be in a bed. It
doesn't take that long to get to a bed like
he has to be. If he's not there, the entire
thing falls upod. Oh my god. And I remember thinking
that at the time, and I just let him talk
and he goes, if I thought, if Tesla didn't make it,
humanity was doomed. That's literally what he said, Like essentially,
I forget the cold quote, but it was like that,

(42:05):
and I was like, what they really I don't know.
Seems like if you go, it doesn't really matter, like
you're not the lynchman. And it wasn't until just recently
when I was interviewing Ben Mezrich, who did social network.
He just wrote a book about Twitter, where I kept thinking,
is he just a giant narcissist? And now I'm a
levolent narcissist? And Ben said he thinks everything is a

(42:27):
video game. And he has talked to me about simulation.
You know. Elon has this whole theory like a lot
of them, about we're in a simulation and none of
us is real, and he is the main player. He's
the it's called ready Player one or whatever. And I
don't play video games, but it makes perfect sense. Oh,
so the rest of us are fungible. That's why he

(42:48):
can say nasty things to everybody because he's the main player,
and so he can shoot anyone he wants. He can,
like his version of this rime. And I don't play them,
but I know enough about them, but that everybody is,
you know, when my kids, there was that one game
that was I can't remember one of them, one of
the shoot them up games. I wouldn't let my kids
call up duty or something. One of them. No, it

(43:10):
was the city one, the one in the city anyway,
I don't know, I don't play them. And there was
a point where they were shooting women. It was, you know,
they were shooting women or they could shoot women or
something like that, which I was like, I don't like
them shooting anybody, but I guess it's a shooting game.
And they were like, well, you know, mom, you can't
shoot people without guns, and I was like, but you
can shoot them. It was just like this ridiculous argument

(43:31):
about it, and what it created in a lot of
particularly men, was this idea that they're the hero of
the story, right, except the story is pretty ugly. Right.
What if you're not the hero, you're the villain of
the story.

Speaker 1 (43:43):
Is that why they cloaked everything in this notion that
they're saving humanity.

Speaker 2 (43:47):
Saving humanity? I was like, we don't need you to
save us, thank you like that. I don't know why
they needed to say that, you know instead of can
you imagine, like I don't know, Like you know, an
insurance company, you go to save humanity by giving you
a policy, like will they'd be laughed out of the room,
right or a Walstree person. I'm here to save you

(44:07):
humanity by giving you a checking account. And if you
don't get a checking account, all of commerce will stop.
Like that's kind of technically true. But like you're making
a car right right, You're making a dating service, you're
making a you know, You're just you're just making something
and for some reason they have to make it more
vaunted than that, and that has to do with their

(44:28):
own personal traumas. I think in a lot of ways.

Speaker 1 (44:31):
Who do you think is going to be upset with
this book? I mean, you write about Jeff Bezos, you
write about obviously Mark Zuckerberg. You say, from the moment
we met, Mark seemed to think of me and maybe
all the press as an adversary.

Speaker 2 (44:43):
He did.

Speaker 1 (44:44):
The first thing he said to you was I heard
you think I'm an asshole.

Speaker 2 (44:48):
He did say that to me. Yes, I mean he
was insecure, and yeah I could see it he was.
He had a kind of a jerky reputation. I happen
to like Mark in that compared to many of the
people I covered, he's actually try It's just that he
shouldn't have this much responsibility, and he's made a series
of mistakes that at some point he really needs to stop, right,
Like he's gotten so many at bats, and he keeps

(45:10):
what do you.

Speaker 1 (45:11):
Think it's the biggest mistake he's made.

Speaker 2 (45:13):
He doesn't have a sense that he perhaps has designed
it in a way that's damaging. Like, I get the
pluses of it. I get. I'm not averse to saying
a lot of it is really cool. What I am
averse to saying is, you know, there's been a rise
in the self esteem issues around teenage girls at the
same time as the rise of social media. Do you

(45:34):
think it's Oh, you can't prove it. I'm like, you
know what, everyone suddenly got fat after Twinkies. I can't
prove it, but I believe it's because of Twinkies, like
you know what I mean, or processed foods, or there's
been a sudden rising cancer here because and you're like,
I can make you can make some very what the
internet has done to us the way they've designed it

(45:55):
as a casino has made us addicted, and it's made
us made it necessary, so we can't live without it.
And the COVID pushed this through really quickly, like that
we needed it. So you can't live without it, because
you really can't because of work or whatever, communications everything else.
You also can't get it, can't stop looking at it.

(46:16):
It's really Andris Don Harris, who I think you've interviewed,
has done a lot of things on this. He was
a Google product manager.

Speaker 1 (46:24):
I know, Tristan, Yeah, yeah, he did.

Speaker 2 (46:26):
You know, he was a product manager. He knew what
he was making. He was making a casino. And yes,
push that button. Push you want to push that button?
And anyone with even five seconds on TikTok gets it.
You can't get out. It's really hard to look away.

Speaker 1 (46:43):
Not only addicted Cara, but also obviously more more and
more tribal and the country so polarized. And you know,
getting back to your original calling as a journalist, and
something that I've done for many years is it is
it is very diff difficult to convince people of the

(47:04):
facts or to even yeah, even have them open their
eyes to other issues.

Speaker 2 (47:12):
Well that's propaganda.

Speaker 1 (47:13):
Yeah, Well I did an interview with Mike McFall, you know,
the former ambassador to Rush, all about navalny and about
a to Ukraine. The comments were, so, you know, why
aren't you talking about the border? Why aren't you talking
about the border? And you know that that's what people
are reading about hearing on Fox News twenty four to seven.
I know your mom's a big if Fox News aficionado,

(47:35):
but this constant flow of information is basically altering their
brain chemistry, right.

Speaker 2 (47:43):
I would agree.

Speaker 1 (47:44):
And you call an engagement through enragement. I use that
all the time.

Speaker 2 (47:48):
Thank you good. It's a really good one. One of
the things that joins me crazy. I mean, I'll use
my mom as an example. I think I've told you
this is I did an interview with Hillary Clinton. I've
done several of them. You have done many. And my
mom called me the next day and she goes, oh,
now this was Fox News. Well she's not an online peruse.
It doesn't matter. It's the same. It's a repetitive nature
of addictive things media. And she said, oh, I can't

(48:11):
believe but Hillary said about people like me. And I
was like, what did she say?

Speaker 1 (48:15):
The deplorables thing? No?

Speaker 2 (48:16):
I thought it was something else. I had just done
an interview. It had dropped. I thought she had tweeted something.
I don't know. She sometimes she's very clever on the twitter,
and so I said, oh, what did she say? And
my mom started repeating it back to me, and I
was like, that sounds familiar, but not right. It's like
it's a twisted version of my interview. And I realized
they had taken my interview and restated it in an

(48:37):
inaccurate way, but they used pieces of it to create
a building that wasn't what I built, right, And I said, Mom,
that was my interview. She didn't say that. She goes, oh,
she did, and I was like, no, she didn't. I
did the interview. I'm your daughter, and I'm telling you
she didn't. And she's like, oh, you're wrong. She did.

(48:58):
And I'm like, all right, this is what we're gonna do.
You're gonna go listen to it and then you're gonna
call me back. And she went to listen to it.
She called me back. She goes, Okay, she didn't say it,
but you know her emails. And I literally was like,
oh right then, and you know, Jimmy Kimmel did it
the other day where they said something Trump said and

(49:20):
said it was Biden and then the people were like, yes, yes,
that is a terrible bleach. Are you kidding? What an idiot?
And then they goes, oh, I'm sorry that was Trump
said that, and they're like, well the man has the
point like second a second later, and he did this
with like ten different things, and You're sitting there like,
what's And I don't think these people had any They

(49:41):
weren't trying to be tricky. They just they their brain
chemistry was they couldn't do it. And you know, it
was really I just was. I'm always astonished by it
how well or something it works because it's an online medium,
is an addictive it's like, you know, Mark Benioff called
it cigarettes. I think when he did it at the time,
people were losing their minds when you told me that.
But I'm like, yeah, you're pretty pretty much right.

Speaker 1 (50:04):
So what so what? Yeah? What is the solution a
for polarization and media diets that really convince people of
things that aren't true or make them hold fast to
these certain positions like your mom did, And what do

(50:24):
we do about the future of media. Let's start with
the first question. I mean, what can be done. I
was on the Aspen Commission for Disinformation. We made all
these recommendations. We asked for more transparency, you know, for
Facebook and algorithm transparency. Yeah, exactly. Well actually, you know,
not even algorithm transparency, Kara, just like the inner working.

(50:45):
So researchers could really study the phenomenon that we're talking about,
or how these places work and how they distribute and
amplify certain information. But it seems like nothing has been done.

Speaker 2 (51:01):
Why should they why? Because are you know at this
point these companies are money making, shareholder focused companies. Let's
just be honest about it. That's what they're doing. And
they control everything. By the way, they're the richest they've
net looked in videos now at two trillion dollars a
mixed ships it's like two trillion dollars Apples trillions of dollars.
Microsoft they own AI because it's so expensive where we're

(51:22):
going next. So they have unlimited funds and no consequences
for anything they do, and we have we have left.
We have that that now to me, they're like, aren't
you mad at the tech companies? I'm like, you know
what they're doing? What they do? Like this is how
they they're sharks, Sharks are sharks, gonna make shark you
know kind of thing. At this point, we need to
do something about the sharks, or you put them in

(51:43):
a pen, or figure out a way to have shark
repellent or something. But it's up to our elected officials
now to do something when they happen. They just haven't,
will they ever?

Speaker 1 (51:53):
And if not? Why?

Speaker 2 (51:55):
Money? Money, the deleterious effects of money on politics. Who
has the most money? Tech companies? Right? That's one. Two
is the partisanship that was created by these these tech companies,
I think, in part not completely has now been so
they can't agree on anything. They Instead they want to
go dunk on Twitter. You think you're gonna get any
cooperation chat Marjorie Taylor Green, I'm sorry, good luck. Talk

(52:16):
about someone who's been totally addled by the internet and
the attention, you know, talk about I'm a malignant narcissist,
and who is who is hopped up on the social media?
There you go, there she is there, Welcome to our
next public official. Meanwhile, you have people like Mike Gallagher
who listen. I don't agree with Mike Galla on a
lot of stuff. I think it scant. His gay stuff
is really problematic and troubling. But at the same time,

(52:39):
what a smart legislator about all kinds of issues. He's leaving.

Speaker 1 (52:43):
I know he's terrific.

Speaker 2 (52:44):
I did a great interview with her. He's so smart.
I don't agree with him, but I can have a
good discussion with him about things to be on. He's
throwing his hands up, like not going to do this,
and he's an important figure. Ken Buck another person who's
push talk about conservative I gotta tell you fight in
the good fight, like this is a lie, This was
a lie. This is like he's he learned it. He

(53:04):
learned about the internet. With Dave Cicelini, you can put
together two more and you know, David this gay, blue
blue blue Democrat and Ken Buck this red red, red coloradens.
But they both cared about the truth. Right. Well, he's leaving,
David Cezelini left, you know, and so what we're left
with is a lot of people. You know, It's just

(53:27):
I often the Yates poem of slouching towards Bethlehem, waiting
to be born, that's what we have. I think the
moment in the book that I like the best is
when when Google tried to take over Yahoo Search. As
you recall, I was writing a lot of no and
during the during the Obama administration, which bear hugged these people.
By the way, I'm not this is not a Republican

(53:48):
Democrat thing. And they all bear hugged them, especially definitely
the Obama people, right, And they were trying to basically
control Yahoo. They couldn't buy it, but they could have
done the business. It was just ridiculous. They were gonna
have ninety nine point nine percent of the search market.
It was crazy. I've never agreed with Microsoft on anything,
and I was like, they are correct, sir, they cannot

(54:10):
have this much. At that time, it was the biggest
income generator of the Internet what they were doing in search.
And I wrote a piece and I used a Doctor
Seuss thing and I as a joke, and then I
said a line where I said, at least Microsoft knew
they were thugs. And this was referring to their previous
attempts to control the software platform through Windows, which I

(54:31):
had written about at the Washington Post. And one of
the founders called me up and I literally can't write.
Probably was Larry because he was the one who talked
the most about serious issues like this, and he said,
you know us, you know we're not bad people, right,
you know, we're not bad people. We would handle it well.
I'm like, you know what, here's the problem. Because you

(54:51):
didn't go to school enough, you didn't take history classes.
I'm not worried about you. I'm worried about the next person.
And I quoted Yates where I said some rough beast
is sloushing towards Bethlehem, whiting to be born. This is Bethlehem.
There's a beast coming, and that we'll be here. And
they were like, what are you talking about. I'm like, oh,

(55:12):
forget it, like, forget it. I'm always quoting like poetry terrible. Yeah, right,
And so I said this, and I said and they
had the don't be evil thing remember in there as
their motto. And when they went public and I said,
I don't think you're evil, but there is evil coming,
like and you know, welcome, welcome. Donald Trump, who used

(55:34):
this medium for his advantage. There was always it didn't
matter if it was Donald Trump, someone the Chinese, the Iranians,
white nationalists. They were coming for this because it was perfect.
It was a perfect way to finally crawl out from
under rocks and take over people's minds. Finally they had
a vehicle.

Speaker 1 (55:54):
It sounds like you think the genie is out of
the bottle and there's no no.

Speaker 2 (55:59):
Because look, look remember Standard Oil ran everything, corrupted, everything
decided everything from one person at and t Standard Oil,
the train monopoly. We've always been subject to power consolidating
and trying to manipulate everybody's lives. And there's huge damage
that was done by each of those monopolies, each of

(56:20):
them in their own way, whether they mutated cities or
people worked in terrible conditions. We don't have to put
up with this. We don't and we just need elected officials.

Speaker 1 (56:31):
So who's going to fix it if all these people
are leaving and other people are thriving as on the
way things are.

Speaker 2 (56:37):
Someone I don't know, that's the problem. Like they have
all these bills that they could pass. Look right now,
one of the biggest issues right now, a run free
speech is right in front of the Supreme Court today
on these laws that these ridiculous attorney generals from Florida
and Texas are trying. I can't believe I'm on the
tech people's side, but they want to control. They want
the government to control political speech. And you know, as

(56:59):
I read the First Amendment, Google can control political speech.
The State of Florida cannot even to tell them they can't.
And they throw around words like censorship, and they abuse
the First Amendment in ways that are Both sides do that,
by the way, But it seems to me that we
need to put in place a range of things. Privacy laws,

(57:19):
redo the antitrust bills, encourage government research in government investment
in all kinds of innovation, allow new companies to come.
That's our strength. Our strength isn't seven large companies that
are called the Magnificent Seven. Now, it's that's not our strength.
They're not our strength. Our strength a small little group

(57:40):
of people coming up with a great idea and a garage.
And I'm not romantic about this stuff, but it is.
That's what makes America different. That's why we led the
Internet age, not because we have the biggest national heroes.
You know. So I'm hoping at some point, you know,
I thought this this stuff around girls and kids and
pornography work. I thought the self esteem would work. I

(58:02):
thought Francis Hogan would work. At some point, regular people
are going to be. Isn't this is enough? We're all
hopped up on this crap and we and there's all
sorts of good things that could come of it, like
start to lean into cancer research and healthcare and climate
change tech and things like that. Why do we have
to why do we have to have all the bad

(58:23):
things that it brings.

Speaker 1 (58:25):
I was talking to my friend Kevin Goldman, who was
a media writer for The Wall Street Journal. I don't
know if you know Kevin, but he's like, ask Kara
about the future of newspapers. I was going to say,
I'm going to ask care about the future of media.
We see the fragmentation of the media landscape. We see,
you know, traditional journalism imploding. We see lots of actual

(58:46):
fake news, not just what Donald Trump calls it, crawling
all over the internet. When you look out on the horizon, Kara,
since you're so good at looking at the big picture
and identifying trends, what is the future of media in
your view?

Speaker 2 (59:00):
It's just gonna be different. I think it. You know,
I sound much tougher on media, but it's the news business.
It needs to be a business. You can't not be
a business. And so look what you've done. You've built
a little media company, haven't you. You're doing good. You're
pulling people, you're running influenced you. Your costs are in
line with your output, like your revenues and costs are

(59:20):
in line, or else you'd be out of business. Right,
You're not gonna No one's gonna like fund Katie Kuric
to negative numbers. It's not gonna happen for a while.
So they just have to be different the way they
did things before every business changes. There used to be
a very thriving stagecoach business. There used to be telegrams. Well,
guess what, they don't exist. I have a I don't

(59:41):
think I put this in the book, but my kids
we were walking on the street in a light, which
is unusual in and of itself, and there was a
payphone there. It was an old payphone and it was all,
you know, hanging, The thing was hanging down, didn't work.
And one of my kids, he was at the time,
he was six or seven, he's like, what's that? And
I said, oh, it's a pig. It's a payphone. And
I hadn't thought of it. I hadn't used one of
along time.

Speaker 1 (01:00:00):
I saw on a show recently and I was like, wow.

Speaker 2 (01:00:03):
Right right, And I said, well, he goes, what did
you do? And I said, well, you stood there and
you put money in our credit cards sometimes that was later,
and then you called people and that's where if you
were out, that's where you had to call people. But
otherwise people couldn't reach you if you were out of
your house. And he looked at me and he goes,
that's filthy, and I said yes, like that was his

(01:00:26):
first reaction, and I was like and then I started thinking,
and I was talking to them, I go what happened
to all the people that used to service these What
about the people that made these? What about? Like there
was a whole infrastructure and business. It's the same thing
with news. You're just going to have to change and
make products that where the costs are in line with
the revenues. Unfortunately, a lot of the big media companies

(01:00:48):
because Facebook and Google have eaten up all digital revenues
and you didn't get tech enough soon enough, fast enough.
You need to, I'm sorry. You have to change the
cost structure and or makes something that people will pay
for so you can have the cost structure you have.
That is really hard for reporters to do you have

(01:01:08):
to embrace some AI stuff that makes it more efficient.
You just do that. Some of it is going to
help make things more efficient. But I'm very heartened by
me people like me and like you, and like Platformer
with Casey Newton, all kinds of things. Casey has enormous influence.
He has two people and he's doing great. Right, Well,
that's small, but it's not nothing that's I see that,

(01:01:31):
or else you're gonna have a couple of big paces
like that'll consolidate, like the New York Times, you know,
which sort of has become its own news monopoly. At
the same time, it's not that big. It's not that big.
It's just a smaller business, Katie, That's all it is.

Speaker 1 (01:01:45):
I always think that, And this gets back to the
polarization issue, that mass media is an oxymoron, this notion
of monoculture, of a shared experience that actually contributes to polarization.
Though because everyone does creating their own media ecosystem.

Speaker 2 (01:02:03):
They are. But at the same time, let's just be honest.
Like you worked for the networks for years. You came
up networks I was arguing about that people were going
to make years ago I was saying, there's could be
all kinds of media from all kinds of people, because
everyone suddenly has tools and there's all this creativity out
there that you that has to go through your gateways.

Speaker 1 (01:02:19):
No, and I love that. That's a positive, definitely.

Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
And they're like, well, it's going to be very different
because the gatekeepers is I said, you know what, the
gatekeepers used to be twelve white men on the Upper
East Side of Manhattan. Do we really want to take
our cues from them. We don't. That's that wasn't the
right thing either. It just happened to work for the
time it was in.

Speaker 1 (01:02:37):
So No, I agree that people who were the gatekeepers
were not ideal, but I still believe in the need
for gatekeeping that is true, you know, for editing, for
ascertaining what's actually accurate and truthful. And I think, you know,
it's the wild wild West now anybody can say something,
and unfortunately too many people are willing to believe.

Speaker 2 (01:02:58):
It right, except that I think I am of the
opposite belief. I think especially young people and you have
you have young adults. You know, your children are young adults.
My older sons are young adults. I think they're very savvy.
I think they know a lot about stuff. I think
they do can't ascertain the differences. I don't think they're
tricked easily. And I have a lot of faith in

(01:03:19):
young people in that regard. And one of the things,
do you remember when we were growing up when they
said the TV was the boob tube? Oh yeah, of course, right,
your mind is going to turn to the mushube. You're
going to turn to mush Did you turn to mush Katie? No?
And also TV's pretty good now, right, Look at music.
Music was under siege by digital and they figured it out.

(01:03:40):
Now it's a pretty thriving industry. Well we'll figure it out.
That's what we're going to do. And to every reporter,
I say, I'm so sorry, but this is This happened
to the farming people. This happened in manufacturing people, and
it doesn't hurt any less.

Speaker 1 (01:03:55):
This happened to the people who operated and made the
teletype machines.

Speaker 2 (01:03:59):
That's right. So guess what it's time to change. And unfortunately,
because we live, you know, or we just have the
government pay for everything. That's the other way to go, right,
have the government pay for media. That's not happening in
this country anytime soon at a massive level because the
polarization and it just probably shouldn't right, So I don't know,
you just make a business and start to grow. It

(01:04:20):
is the is the only way to stay ahead. That
is the only way to do it and continue to
like I believe, and I think you do. I believe
in substantive media, and I think there's a market for it.
I really really do. And I'm not going to hit everybody,
but I'm going to make a business out of it,
and and and then you know, that's how business is,
That's how that's what's great about this country. It's about innovation.

(01:04:43):
There's no place on Earth like the United States around innovation.
There isn't. There just isn't. I've been all over the globe.
I've seen all the places, and there's there's an innovative
spirit in this country that exists. So let's find it
everywhere it is and encourage it so that we don't
have to have top down you know, our world is
in shape. By Mark Zuckerberg, I know he's look great,

(01:05:05):
really nice, but honestly, it shouldn't take him two years
to figure out anti Semitism is a problem. Unchecked right,
that's right. How long it took him? So let's get
lots of voices happening. Let's get a lot of people.
And I do think, I don't know. I have a
confidence that journalists will be just fine.

Speaker 1 (01:05:22):
I hope so, because they're so important. They are, and
your voice is so important too, Kara, to make sure
that people really know what's going on. The book is
called burn Book, a Tech Love Story. Kara, thank you.
This was so fun. I could talk to you for hours,
but well you might. Thanks for listening. Everyone. If you

(01:05:45):
have a question for me, a subject you want us
to cover, or you want to share your thoughts about
how you navigate this crazy world, reach out. You can
leave a short message at six oh nine five one
two five to five oh five, or you can send
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from you. Next Question is a production of iHeartMedia and

(01:06:07):
Katie Couric Media. The executive producers are Me, Katie Kuric,
and Courtney Ltz. Our supervising producer is Ryan Martz, and
our producers are Adriana Fazzio and Meredith Barnes. Julian Weller
composed our theme music. For more information about today's episode,
or to sign up for my newsletter wake Up Call,

(01:06:28):
go to the description in the podcast app, or visit
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