Speaker 1: Hi everyone, I'm Katie Couric and this is Next Question.
Speaker 1: Hi everybody, welcome. Once again, it's Katie plus one. As
Speaker 1: you guys know, just to switch things up, I'm inviting
Speaker 1: a friend to co host the podcast from time to time,
Speaker 1: and my date today is the one and only Kara Swisher. Now,
Speaker 1: Kara is the ultimate multi hyphenate, as they say these days, writer, podcaster, author,
Speaker 1: rock conteur, stripper. Oh sorry, you're not a stripper overall
Speaker 1: that ass So, Kara, thank you so much. We are
Speaker 1: both under the weather, so I think we need each
Speaker 1: other today. You've got a cold.
Speaker 2: You sound better than I sound terrible, and I had
Speaker 2: to do four podcasts today.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, how did you do it?
Speaker 2: I didn't know we were dating. This is so exciting
Speaker 2: for me as a lesbian that we're finally finally admitting
Speaker 2: our deepen abiding affection and really lust for each other.
Speaker 2: It's fantastic.
Speaker 1: Well, I am very happy to have you here because, seriously,
Speaker 1: not to gush, you're one of my favorite people. You're
Speaker 1: one of the smartest people I know, thinks, an incredible reporter.
Speaker 1: I think everyone in the business respects you so much. Kara,
Speaker 1: and you're really fearless, which is what I love about you.
Speaker 1: And you know, I thought you'd be the perfect person
Speaker 1: to write Shotgun with me, although I can't imagine you're
Speaker 1: willing to give up the driver's seat. But we're going
Speaker 1: to be chatting with Kevin Sistrom, who you know well.
Speaker 1: But before I just want to give our listeners a
Speaker 1: little bit about us, Kara. How did we meet? I
Speaker 1: was trying to remember when I first met you.
Speaker 2: When I broke the story about you going to Yahoo?
Speaker 1: I think, oh, is that when? Yes? But I was
Speaker 1: reading your stuff all the time.
Speaker 2: We sense because you were thinking about going to Yahoo,
Speaker 2: you had to, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: But so that was I guess in around twenty twelve.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess, yeah.
Speaker 1: And who were you writing for back then?
Speaker 2: My own thing, Recode? Oh, that's right, Recode. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And you were breaking stories right and left, including the
Speaker 1: one about me.
Speaker 2: I was and I thought it was intriguing. I thought
Speaker 2: it was super intriguing that someone like you, you'd been
Speaker 2: at all the broadcast networks. It was a big moment
Speaker 2: for people to make that crossover. You were one of
Speaker 2: the few and the early ones. Now it didn't work
Speaker 2: out quite the way you wanted to, but it still
Speaker 2: was pretty brave to do something like that and to
Speaker 2: try something out, and you know, you kind of got
Speaker 2: snowed by Merissa Mayer.
Speaker 1: I did. And I think in retrospect, not only was
Speaker 1: it a bad fit because I don't think her goals
Speaker 1: and my goals aligned right in terms of turning Yahoo
Speaker 1: into a really major digital news network, but you know,
Speaker 1: I also think I might have been a bit too early.
Speaker 2: Kara, Yeah, because you're not unlike what you're doing now
Speaker 2: with podcasting. You know, you were kind of doing That's
Speaker 2: what you were kind of doing, but you did it
Speaker 2: in more traditional sense, which was interviews and things like that.
Speaker 2: What was your title? It was so big? It was
Speaker 2: like global news anchor.
Speaker 1: Yes, my husband made fun of me and said, why
Speaker 1: don't they call you intergalactic news anchor? I know it
Speaker 1: was a blood news anchor. It was a little a
Speaker 1: little much.
Speaker 2: But it was early, and it was really important for
Speaker 2: people who who didn't understand what was happening in news
Speaker 2: on the internet to for have someone like you to
Speaker 2: go over and very few people did that. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm trying to think. I think it was you and
Speaker 2: nobody else. Yeah, there were a couple, you know, but
Speaker 2: mostly what happened is later people that were on networks
Speaker 2: did podcasts or they did you know, it's different things,
Speaker 2: but podcasts and newsletters, which was an impairy thing, or
Speaker 2: else ape here has an influencer on TikTok or Instagram
Speaker 2: and stuff like that, and so you were early to
Speaker 2: all those things. As I recall, you were very early
Speaker 2: to Instagram, you were on Twitter early. Yeah, you were
Speaker 2: very embracing of the digital part. You didn't make fun
Speaker 2: of it the way most media people did.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 1: I think I saw early on. Honestly, I think part
Speaker 1: from my own experience at CBS. You know, there was
Speaker 1: the decline of linear television. It was going steadily declining
Speaker 1: year over year, and I realized that, you know, in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight. It was two thousand and eight
Speaker 1: when the iPhone came out. I mean that totally changed
Speaker 1: the game. And care I remember being at CBS and
Speaker 1: having somebody say to me, I forget who he was.
Speaker 1: He goes, the future is mobile, But I remember thinking,
Speaker 1: what is he talking about? And he was so spot on,
Speaker 1: but whatever was going to happen, I knew something was changing.
Speaker 1: And meanwhile, you have been on the forefront of everything.
Speaker 2: Well mobile, you know Walt and I called Mobile Web
Speaker 2: two point zero. I think we were very when we
Speaker 2: saw the iPhone, and you know, Jobs had denied he
Speaker 2: was making it to us the year before he introduced it. No,
Speaker 2: I'm not working on a phone but an interview, but
Speaker 2: he was. The minute that happened, the iPhone changed everything,
Speaker 2: including you know, for Kevin System, you wouldn't have had Instagram,
Speaker 2: you wouldn't have had Uber, you wouldn't have had a
Speaker 2: lot of Airbnb. There's so much you wouldn't have without
Speaker 2: the apogonomy. And of course that's when companies likeness came
Speaker 2: into being, really because of the iPhone.
Speaker 1: It's amazing how much things have changed when you think
Speaker 1: about when we got into journalism and the things that
Speaker 1: have tanked as a result of the Internet and things
Speaker 1: that have exploded. Well, you've got a lot going on
Speaker 1: in your life. I'm excited to have you back on
Speaker 1: this podcast when your new book comes out in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four. It's called burn Book, Right, you'll like it.
Speaker 2: Kaaney, you're in it.
Speaker 1: Oh God, I hope you're nice to meet Kara.
Speaker 2: I am. It's a low bar though it's a low
Speaker 2: bar for people in the Internet.
Speaker 1: Well, I know you're not a fan of a lot
Speaker 1: of people in Silicon Valley, but you are a fan
Speaker 1: of our guest, Kevin Sistrom.
Speaker 2: I am very much.
Speaker 1: So well, let's let him in so you can talk
Speaker 1: about him and he can his ears can actually burn
Speaker 1: in person.
Speaker 3: Kevin, Hi, how are you guys? How are you wonderful?
Speaker 1: What a coincidence, Kevin? We were just talking about you,
Speaker 1: and I was saying to Kara there are a lot
Speaker 1: of people in Silicon Valley she's not crazy about, but
Speaker 1: one of the people she really really likes Kevin is you.
Speaker 1: You're in rare company. Now, what is it about Kevin,
Speaker 1: Kara that you like?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I really do admire you know, there's
Speaker 2: a lot of people I had a lot of wrangling with,
Speaker 2: like Steve Jobs, who I actually did like too. I
Speaker 2: like people who love products. I love people who have
Speaker 2: a design sense, have a real tear about products and
Speaker 2: designing them correctly. I like someone who's thoughtful and is
Speaker 2: willing to change their minds. You know, Kevin was always
Speaker 2: open to criticism in a way that didn't It wasn't
Speaker 2: hurt all the time.
Speaker 1: And Kevin I mean, it seems like you have a
Speaker 1: lot of humility, which is a quality that's probably hard
Speaker 1: to come by in Silicon Valley. How have you been
Speaker 1: able to maintain some openness, some humility as you've approached
Speaker 1: your work.
Speaker 3: I was having dinner with the Promise site and we
Speaker 3: were talking about Artifact and my current project and how
Speaker 3: it's going and the future of it, and I said,
Speaker 3: I think the difference between the people that succeed in
Speaker 3: the long run and the people that continue to fail
Speaker 3: are the people that do their best to recognize their
Speaker 3: blind spots and that everyone has them. And the problem is,
Speaker 3: at least in Silicon Valley, that these companies grow to
Speaker 3: be so large that if you stay in charge, you
Speaker 3: can ignore your blind spots because you've got your moat,
Speaker 3: you've got your defense, and you can ignore all of
Speaker 3: the things you don't know about yourself because you're successful,
Speaker 3: and you continue to be successful, and you have all
Speaker 3: this money. The problem is, let's imagine you sell your company.
Speaker 3: You're no longer in charge of your company, and you
Speaker 3: have to go face the real world. You have to
Speaker 3: get in touch with your failings and your weaknesses pretty quickly,
Speaker 3: otherwise you get chewed up and spit out the other side.
Speaker 3: That's what every entrepreneur has to do at some point
Speaker 3: in their life. The problem is that people that cares
Speaker 3: talking about, I believe, are the people who get to
Speaker 3: the point where they don't have to really think about
Speaker 3: those things because they're just riding the wave that they
Speaker 3: caused maybe ten or twenty years ago. Have that wave anymore?
Speaker 3: You have to create a new wave. And in order
Speaker 3: to create that wave, I think you need to understand
Speaker 3: where you're good, where you're not good, and sometimes that
Speaker 3: can be a painful process.
Speaker 2: Well you know, Kevin, it's also a question of maturity, right,
Speaker 2: I sort of link I split people between adults and toddlers. Really,
Speaker 2: I don't know what else to say, is adult toddlers
Speaker 2: who get enabled and coddled. And you know this from
Speaker 2: having money. You don't know who's your friend. You have
Speaker 2: people in violent agreement with you almost all the time,
Speaker 2: and the ability to take feedback is very hard when
Speaker 2: everybody is enabling you not to not to do so,
Speaker 2: and I think it makes you a lesser executive in
Speaker 2: my opinion. And you don't hear let me tell you
Speaker 2: who you don't hear from about that who doesn't complain
Speaker 2: when you have a good about their product is the
Speaker 2: people from Apple. You don't hear Tim Cook belly aching
Speaker 2: about anything because he's an adult, and so I think,
Speaker 2: and I don't think you have to be old to
Speaker 2: be an adult. I think you were an adult from
Speaker 2: very early on. I mean that was my feeling at
Speaker 2: the time.
Speaker 3: I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about early on, Kevin, because I know
Speaker 1: we have so much to cover, But I do want
Speaker 1: to start with Instagram, just because I'm addicted to it
Speaker 1: and I've been going down endless rabbit holes, much to
Speaker 1: my estegrint. I mean constantly. It's really hard. It is addictive.
Speaker 1: But where did the idea from Instagram come from?
Speaker 3: It came from We were working on a different app,
Speaker 3: not Instagram, called Bourbon, and it was spelled b u
Speaker 3: RBN and the name doesn't matter. It was funny, but
Speaker 3: it was a check in app. It led you share
Speaker 3: your location, so you could say I'm at a restaurant,
Speaker 3: I'm at a bar, and all your friends would see
Speaker 3: where you were. And it was kind of riding this
Speaker 3: wave of check an app.
Speaker 2: Poor Square was the popular yeah.
Speaker 3: Or Square Goala Hot Potato there were a bunch of them.
Speaker 2: Was looped in.
Speaker 3: There was looped yep, yep. Here's the thing people forget
Speaker 3: that maybe they don't forget, but it's easy to forget that.
Speaker 3: We see these waves of like everyone's doing generative AI
Speaker 3: all at once, everyone's doing Web three. My version of
Speaker 3: that when I started was check and apps. Everyone was
Speaker 3: doing check and apps. And we started this check and app.
Speaker 3: And the one feature that we had that no other
Speaker 3: check and app had was the ability to add photos.
Speaker 3: And you can attach a photo to your check in,
Speaker 3: so you could say, I'm at the beach, here's me
Speaker 3: at the beach. And no one really liked our check
Speaker 3: and app. No one really wanted to use it. I mean,
Speaker 3: we had a small group of people playing with it,
Speaker 3: and you know, we took a step back, Mike Kreeger
Speaker 3: and I and Mike cofounder, we took a step back
Speaker 3: and we said, why and what is it about the
Speaker 3: thing we've built that people do love? So we crossed
Speaker 3: everything out. We had a whiteboard and we wrote everything
Speaker 3: that people used on the app up on the whiteboard
Speaker 3: and crossed everything off, and we ended up basically with
Speaker 3: one thing circled, which was photos. We said, okay, what
Speaker 3: if we threw away literally everything about this app and
Speaker 3: repositioned it around photos. So we did that. But that's
Speaker 3: not the end of the story. A very quick addition
Speaker 3: to the story is we did that pivot. We built
Speaker 3: this app, we didn't call it Instagram yet, and I
Speaker 3: was I decided I needed a week off because I
Speaker 3: was exhausted. I was like, I don't think this pivot's
Speaker 3: going to work. So I'm going to go to Mexico
Speaker 3: for a week to a little little seaside town with
Speaker 3: who would become my wife, who was my girlfriend at
Speaker 3: the time, Nicole. And we we're walking along the beach
Speaker 3: and I said, do you think you'll use this new
Speaker 3: version of this app called Bourbon that's photos only? And
Speaker 3: she said, no, I don't think I will because I
Speaker 3: don't like sharing my photos. My photos aren't good enough.
Speaker 3: I said, why aren't your photos good enough? And she said, well,
Speaker 3: because all your friends take these amazing, beautiful filtered photos.
Speaker 3: And I was like, yeah, that's because they use filter apps.
Speaker 3: And she's like, well, you should probably add filters to
Speaker 3: the app. I said, that's a brilliant idea. So we
Speaker 3: finished that walk on the beach I went back to
Speaker 3: the little hotel room we were staying in and I
Speaker 3: researched how to make the first filter. And if you
Speaker 3: look way back on my profile, the first photo on
Speaker 3: my profile, the first photo ever on Instagram, is a
Speaker 3: square photo of a very small dog in Mexico when
Speaker 3: we went out to lunch after I built the first
Speaker 3: filter on Instagram because of that walk on the beach. Wow,
Speaker 3: I'm proud to say she is now my wife and
Speaker 3: I love her dearly.
Speaker 2: Well did you pay her? Did you pay her for it?
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, but I think I don't think
Speaker 1: she has a good prenup.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, I think we're both very, very happy with the situation.
Speaker 3: I'm very happy to be married to her, and we
Speaker 3: just we have this great life now. So it's awesome.
Speaker 3: But how do we knock down on that walk?
Speaker 1: I remember I was at Yahoo, you guys when when
Speaker 1: Instagram came out, and somebody on my team says, you
Speaker 1: need to be on Instagram. You know, it's this great
Speaker 1: new thing, and I was like what, But I was
Speaker 1: I kind of got into it pretty quickly, and it
Speaker 1: just grew so fast, Kevin, to the point you sold
Speaker 1: it to Mark Zuckerberg for one billion dollars, which is
Speaker 1: a nice chunk of change.
Speaker 2: Actually, Katie, it was cheap, you know, are really Oh yeah, really,
Speaker 2: Zuckerberg got the bargain of a century getting that fantastic.
Speaker 1: Oh, you're right, I've read that. How much do you
Speaker 1: think you could have sold it for in retrospect, Kevin?
Speaker 1: Or do you hate that question?
Speaker 3: I don't hate the question because I'm so used to
Speaker 3: getting it now. I think I hated it the first
Speaker 3: couple of times, but now now I feel like I've
Speaker 3: come to terms with my answer, which is, at the time,
Speaker 3: do you know how many people, Katie, we had at
Speaker 3: the company when we sold it for a billion dollars?
Speaker 2: Seven?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Seven? Maybe more?
Speaker 3: It was nine? I think maybe nine or ten. It's okay.
Speaker 3: You imagine you have a group of kids in a
Speaker 3: room working on a photo app and someone comes along
Speaker 3: and says, how about a billion? You know, I don't
Speaker 3: know many people that would turn that deal down?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you.
Speaker 3: Know, Listen could have should have would a had we
Speaker 3: stayed the course been independent. I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 3: how many examples of people, maybe I know more of
Speaker 3: them personally have turned down acquisition offers Facebook for one
Speaker 3: hundred billion dollars. Well, you know, Facebook's the easy one.
Speaker 3: That's the one we all talked about. Let's talk about
Speaker 3: the one is that didn't work out. Yeah, you're right,
Speaker 3: hundred that turned down one two hundred million dollar offers
Speaker 3: saying you know what, we're going to stick the course.
Speaker 3: Now you literally never heard of these companies.
Speaker 2: I think my point, Kevin, was that you were making
Speaker 2: something that was special and different. Having seen everything, I
Speaker 2: think while I think they did help you grow quickly,
Speaker 2: I suspect you could have done it by yourselves, because
Speaker 2: your product was quite magical in a way that not
Speaker 2: a lot of them are. How much do you imagine
Speaker 2: they helped you grow? I don't think I've ever asked
Speaker 2: you that. How much do you think they being within
Speaker 2: the juggernaut of Facebook, which was at that moment still
Speaker 2: is really did you think they really did help you?
Speaker 2: I assume you did.
Speaker 3: I think they helped us in a bunch of ways,
Speaker 3: and we helped them back in a bunch of ways.
Speaker 3: And there's a little bit of this dynamic of we
Speaker 3: and them, which I find so strange. By the way, Yeah,
Speaker 3: because you know, like sure, we had a little building
Speaker 3: on campus and had a little Instagram logo on the outside,
Speaker 3: but we were all part of the same company. And
Speaker 3: I'm bringing this up not to point out the way
Speaker 3: you're talking about us, but rather the way we talked
Speaker 3: about ourselves internally. When I was there, it was such
Speaker 3: an US versus then dynamic, and it was very strange
Speaker 3: in my head always because I was like, here, we
Speaker 3: are now producing billions of dollars, years in billions of dollars,
Speaker 3: but it's as if we're like two siblings fighting over
Speaker 3: who gets the remote and we're not.
Speaker 1: Well. It sounded like that to me, though, Kevin, because
Speaker 1: everything I read it sounds like, and correct me if
Speaker 1: I'm wrong that Mark Zuckerberg was kind of threatened by
Speaker 1: you and your success and the fact that a lot
Speaker 1: of resources were going to Instagram, and I don't know,
Speaker 1: it sounds like his ego got in the way. Is
Speaker 1: that accurate.
Speaker 3: I don't know that I can speak on his bath
Speaker 3: for that. You'd have to ask him directly.
Speaker 1: I mean, is that how you felt.
Speaker 3: The way that I felt was that nothing made sense
Speaker 3: logically about the way we were running the two companies. Logically.
Speaker 3: It was amazing that we had lightning in a bottle,
Speaker 3: and we were producing, you know, a product that was
Speaker 3: growing all over the world and you know, double digit
Speaker 3: growth rates per month and then on top of that,
Speaker 3: producing billions of dollars. Yet for summer reason, internally, the
Speaker 3: dynamic was that we were disappointed. Yeah, and that was
Speaker 3: very strange. And like, basically the reason I left, by
Speaker 3: the way, and I've said this to friends, and I'm
Speaker 3: not sure I've ever said it to anyone else, but
Speaker 3: like the reason I left is because the more I
Speaker 3: felt that I put in and the more that we won,
Speaker 3: the harder my job got. The more difficult the more
Speaker 3: and not that like not that jobs don't get harder
Speaker 3: as things go on, But it wasn't like that's that
Speaker 3: success was a good thing. It was almost as if
Speaker 3: that success was a bad thing because we had this product,
Speaker 3: Facebook Blue, which was going through some tough times. And
Speaker 3: I get that I probably, you know, could have been
Speaker 3: a better you know, I don't know, sibling or whatever
Speaker 3: in terms of understanding how challenging that must be for
Speaker 3: those people and for those teams and for the brand.
Speaker 3: And at the same time, I found it so strange
Speaker 3: that we didn't look at our situation as holy crap.
Speaker 3: We are the luckiest people on earth and maybe the
Speaker 3: luckiest company on Earth. That feels like a real tragedy
Speaker 3: in retrospect.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I read that you were on I Guess
Speaker 1: doing some interviews and Mark and Cheryl said basically you
Speaker 1: couldn't do interviews without getting permissioned from them. So it
Speaker 1: does sound like a bit of a power struggle. What's
Speaker 1: your take on that, Kiara.
Speaker 2: I think they were jealous of I know they were
Speaker 2: jealous of Kevin largely because of creativity. And the knock
Speaker 2: on them was that they stole ideas, that they were shoplifters,
Speaker 2: essentially of other people's theories and ideas. Now, as it
Speaker 2: turned out, Instagram became an enormous engine for Facebook. As
Speaker 2: Facebook started to wane in usage, in excitement in young people,
Speaker 2: being especially young people, it was critical. To me. There's
Speaker 2: certain purchases in technology that are critical that really changed them.
Speaker 2: I think Google buying you Tube was one of them.
Speaker 2: And I think there are certain purchases where it's a
Speaker 2: real turning point. I think it wasn't a critical critical thing,
Speaker 2: and it's sort of as rich and famous as you get,
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter if it wasn't you who did. And
Speaker 2: I think Bill Gates suffered from this, you know, probably
Speaker 2: more towards Steve Jobs. Is like Bill Gates before he
Speaker 2: did all the philanthropy when he if he had died
Speaker 2: then it would have been the world's richest man died today.
Speaker 2: And if Steve Jobs done, which he later did, the
Speaker 2: world's greatest tech visionary died today. And I think Kevin
Speaker 2: was more in the visionary part of that. And Mark,
Speaker 2: you know, he's like a Henry Ford character. And so
Speaker 2: that's what makes it hard. And again let me I'd
Speaker 2: love to ask you getting back to the product, and
Speaker 2: that's really what you have to get to is the
Speaker 2: product itself and the iterations you make around it, including
Speaker 2: as I've talked with Kevin about doing stories that was
Speaker 2: a snapchat thing that then Instagram did. Now Kevin's quite
Speaker 2: smartly and very cleverly. Is said to me, well, they
Speaker 2: made a radio in a car, and we just made
Speaker 2: a better radio in a car. And I kind of
Speaker 2: accept that now. I accept that now, Kevin.
Speaker 3: It's funny, by the way, Kara for a second that
Speaker 3: you know you'll say that Facebook or shoplifters, but like
Speaker 3: to be clear, story was a very direct. You know,
Speaker 3: it wasn't a replica because I think we added some
Speaker 3: really neat features to it.
Speaker 2: You did.
Speaker 3: But I do believe that, like you know, as much
Speaker 3: as Facebook might have invented the Facebook news feed. Yes,
Speaker 3: now you can't see a social product without a news feed,
Speaker 3: but that wasn't a given back then.
Speaker 2: That's true.
Speaker 3: So these things are not property the founder. Yeah, it's
Speaker 3: about who actecutes best on them. And now we're seeing
Speaker 3: that play out with the Twitter feed effectively across multiple products.
Speaker 2: Yeah, everyone's doing a version of Twitter, including you and
Speaker 2: your new you know, a version of But the idea
Speaker 2: of it is a feed, isn't It really is a
Speaker 2: feed when you think about it. But one of the
Speaker 2: things that I think is important to remember is that
Speaker 2: not just from a creative point of view, it gave
Speaker 2: Facebook and enormous amount of credibility to own a product
Speaker 2: like this, it also was financially enormous, like enormous, and
Speaker 2: a safer place than what was going on at Facebook.
Speaker 2: I think that was really important, a pleasant place. Facebook
Speaker 2: had started to get different right as they got criticized.
Speaker 2: But Instagram, even though there are lots of problems on
Speaker 2: Instagram around lots of problems. You know, it still was
Speaker 2: a place of product of enjoyment. I guess. I don't
Speaker 2: know else to put it, but a product of enjoyment
Speaker 2: more than anything else and delight. And I think that's
Speaker 2: hard to do and sustain. Twitter has never been enjoyable.
Speaker 2: It's been funny, it's been vexing, it's been addictive, But
Speaker 2: enjoying I don't think so. I don't, you know, I
Speaker 2: guess in a broader sense, and that's very hard to do.
Speaker 1: After this break, we dive into how tech companies can
Speaker 1: build products that select for something other than outrage. Kevin
Speaker 1: has some great ideas on how to do just that.
Speaker 1: I want to get smarter every morning with a breakdown
Speaker 1: of the news and fascinating takes on health and wellness
Speaker 1: and pop culture. Sign up for our daily newsletter, Wake
Speaker 1: Up Call by going to Katiecuric dot com. And we're
Speaker 1: back with our guest, Kevin Sistrom and my co pilot
Speaker 1: Kara Swisher. I wanted to ask you about the negative
Speaker 1: side of Instagram, Kevin. Obviously, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: negative impacts on girls, on mental health. On the comparison
Speaker 1: that it encourages, and is that just part of the deal.
Speaker 1: I mean, can anything be done about the psychosocial impact
Speaker 1: of some of these platforms, and specifically Instagram, and is
Speaker 1: as you saw it having this impact. I'm curious what
Speaker 1: went through your mind.
Speaker 3: I think it all comes down to leadership, the idea
Speaker 3: that you have a school and that tool take nuclear
Speaker 3: energy can be used for amazing things. It can produce clean,
Speaker 3: sustainable energy, but also, if used not in the right way,
Speaker 3: can create massive destruction. Tools themselves rarely have a very
Speaker 3: clear positive or negative effect. It's when you put that
Speaker 3: tool in someone's hand and that person decides to start
Speaker 3: making rules around it, in judgments about what's allowed what's
Speaker 3: not allowed, the way they decide to moderate things, their
Speaker 3: community guidelines, the tone they set as a leader with
Speaker 3: their own posts. If we're talking social media, and as
Speaker 3: a leader at Instagram, early on, I decided that we
Speaker 3: should focus on being the nicest place on the Internet.
Speaker 3: And nice is like a really lame word, but let's
Speaker 3: move past that to maybe dness. So, for instance, we
Speaker 3: were one of the first, if not the first, major
Speaker 3: social network to use machine learning to detect bullying and
Speaker 3: intervene in bullying situations. Most people were worried about spam
Speaker 3: at this point. So if you went to any other network,
Speaker 3: they'd had spam filters and spand detectors, and we were
Speaker 3: focused on interactions that didn't qualify as spam, but were
Speaker 3: human to human interactions that were negative, and we would
Speaker 3: intervene and try to stop those things. Those are the
Speaker 3: types of decisions that I think made Instagram such a
Speaker 3: great place early on, because we didn't We used to
Speaker 3: have caro. We used to have this phrase internally called
Speaker 3: prune the trolls. Yeah, and we used to just get
Speaker 3: rid of We used to block accounts of people who
Speaker 3: were causing issues very very early on, and that was
Speaker 3: getting rid of the negative. But then we would also
Speaker 3: host these community meetups called instamets, and we would bring
Speaker 3: together people on the platform in person, in a to
Speaker 3: meet each other, to put a face to a name,
Speaker 3: and those types of interactions very early on, I think
Speaker 3: set an amazing tone for the community that lasted well
Speaker 3: beyond my tenure. But as you get bigger and bigger
Speaker 3: and you get into the billions, the law of large
Speaker 3: numbers says that you get just about everyone on the platform,
Speaker 3: every type of person, so it becomes much harder to
Speaker 3: make these decisions. So maybe in one country something is
Speaker 3: well accepted, will in another country it's not accepted. You
Speaker 3: have to make these really hard choices about what's allowed
Speaker 3: and what's not allowed, and you start to make people
Speaker 3: angry with these choices. But it all comes down to leadership.
Speaker 3: It all comes down to those fundamental decisions you make
Speaker 3: as a human holding that tool in your hand, with
Speaker 3: the control which.
Speaker 2: I think is lost for a lot of people. A
Speaker 2: lot of tech people try to abrogate. I don't want
Speaker 2: to have anything to do even as they built it,
Speaker 2: like I didn't mean to build this city.
Speaker 1: Right, Well we're a platform, we're not a publisher, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they built it in the first place, and
Speaker 2: they think one of the things is important Keavn can
Speaker 2: talk to this about a new thing is you have
Speaker 2: to have a set of rules. And it's okay. You
Speaker 2: know this whole canard that it's a public square. It's
Speaker 2: not a public anything. It's a private money making company.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know, Kevin. I think that I
Speaker 2: think these are these are companies and you know company
Speaker 2: as it's rules and so should this.
Speaker 1: Are there any things that you see Kevin when you
Speaker 1: go on Instagram today that you wish wasn't happening, or
Speaker 1: changes you think, Oh, I'm so pissed there letting this happen,
Speaker 1: or if I were there, I would do X, Y
Speaker 1: or Z.
Speaker 3: At the end of the day, the question is how
Speaker 3: you incentivize people and who's in control? And I think
Speaker 3: what we've seen so you asked, you know, what do
Speaker 3: I wish was different? Yeah, I'm not sure it's an
Speaker 3: Instagram problem specifically, but you know, products like reels and
Speaker 3: product like like YouTube shorts or even TikTok, they're so
Speaker 3: optimized on engagement that they will show you things that
Speaker 3: you are not actually interested in, but they will make
Speaker 3: you stare at them forever, and then you wake up
Speaker 3: one day and you look around you go, god, I
Speaker 3: just spend an hour. Was that like a useful hour
Speaker 3: of my life?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: And part of why I started Artifact was the belief
Speaker 3: that you could use some of the same technology to personalize,
Speaker 3: but do it in a way that actually showed people
Speaker 3: things that made their life more informed, maybe a little
Speaker 3: bit better.
Speaker 2: Kevin's talking a little bit. If you want to make
Speaker 2: an analogy to sugar, right, isn't this doughnut delicious, what
Speaker 2: a delicious done? And you may even not want it.
Speaker 2: You may want something healthy, or you might want something different,
Speaker 2: but it's hard to resist.
Speaker 1: But it's sitting in front of you.
Speaker 2: Well, it's how you architect things. And Kevin's a designer.
Speaker 2: If you architect for virality and speed, you're going to
Speaker 2: get a different thing. And if you architect for context
Speaker 2: and content, like really good what you're looking for right, absolutely,
Speaker 2: And so it's a question of what architecture you put
Speaker 2: into place and so many of these things, or else
Speaker 2: you don't put anything into place. And people generally trend
Speaker 2: towards shitty stuff. Look at the shitty stuff, look at
Speaker 2: the accent. And that's what's going on on Twitter right now.
Speaker 2: He's just removed everything, and so people who are bad
Speaker 2: can come in and really attract you in a way
Speaker 2: that is just the human brain. It's it crawls down
Speaker 2: your cerebral cortex.
Speaker 3: Really, Kara, I have an example. Sure, I love coffee, okay,
Speaker 3: and I go to Starbucks and by the way, like
Speaker 3: you know people who I claim on a coffee er,
Speaker 3: and then I tell people I go to Starbucks and
Speaker 3: they're like wait what, But like I do.
Speaker 2: I'm surprised. I'm surprised you went to Starbucks. I'm surprised.
Speaker 3: Listen, I'm a busy guy with like two kids. Sometimes
Speaker 3: you need a great, great quick cos.
Speaker 2: He's kind of a coffee snob. You are a coffee
Speaker 2: you were.
Speaker 3: Here's the thing. I've been going to Starbucks for god
Speaker 3: knows how many years, and like, Starbucks is a milkshake company. Guys,
Speaker 3: it's a milkshake company. Go into any Starbucks and just
Speaker 3: sit there and watch people ordering. They're not ordering dripped coffees,
Speaker 3: maybe once in a while a latte. People walk out
Speaker 3: of there with huge milkshakes with whipped cream on top.
Speaker 3: And yes, there's caffeine inside, but think about what machine produced,
Speaker 3: what set of incentives produced that milkshake shop. It's like, well, okay,
Speaker 3: if people like our coffee, but like, how can we
Speaker 3: have them have coffee during the day, not the morning. Well,
Speaker 3: let's blend up some ice with it, Let's add some sugar.
Speaker 3: What do people like, Oh, okay, we'll do summer drinks.
Speaker 3: And before you know it, like one of the most
Speaker 3: original coffee companies in the world now like primarily sells milkshakes, right,
Speaker 3: And if you think about it in terms of social media,
Speaker 3: that's exactly what happens. You start off about being this
Speaker 3: time square and ideas and everything, and then you say, oh, well,
Speaker 3: actually what gets people to stay around and what you
Speaker 3: end up with is like fight videos and car crashes
Speaker 3: and silly animal dances like.
Speaker 2: And dunking and not new. But I would argue though,
Speaker 2: that news is important that people are still on Twitter
Speaker 2: because news is there. It's the best place to get
Speaker 2: the most up to minute news because the people on
Speaker 2: it so there are you can move people towards quality
Speaker 2: things very easily, even if you can sort of do
Speaker 2: this with the jazz hands with the milkshake.
Speaker 3: I think I just I want to be clear that
Speaker 3: like I still love Starbucks, I still go there. It's
Speaker 3: just you got to look at what incentives produce at
Speaker 3: the end of the day in your business, what do
Speaker 3: they produce, and if you chase profit, if you chase margin,
Speaker 3: if you chase expansion, you will get to a point
Speaker 3: where what you end up with are products that are
Speaker 3: purely engineered for that rather than maybe the original mission.
Speaker 2: But I think I'm curious Kevin with artifact explain what
Speaker 2: it is for people who do know. And also you're
Speaker 2: going in a much more vegetable direction. Really, you're going
Speaker 2: for full vegetable or full news junkie.
Speaker 3: Essentially, I'll challenge that we're going full vegetable, but I'll
Speaker 3: get there first by explaining what it is. Artifact is
Speaker 3: a fully machine learning driven personalized news reader. So the
Speaker 3: idea is that you show up and we're going to
Speaker 3: show you a bunch of things. Because you told us
Speaker 3: you're interested in technology in NFL and cars, we're you're
Speaker 3: interested in fashion, and you're from San Francisco, and we
Speaker 3: will crawl the Internet, not the entire Internet, but what
Speaker 3: we deem is the trustworthy Internet, and we'll bring all
Speaker 3: that content together and then we'll serve it to you
Speaker 3: in a feed, and depending on what you tap on
Speaker 3: and what you engage with, we'll try to learn what
Speaker 3: your actual interests are, and then we'll customize that feed
Speaker 3: over time. So what's happened for me personally is when
Speaker 3: it started, it was just a bunch of tech news,
Speaker 3: and now it's a mix of Japanese architecture and travel recommendations,
Speaker 3: parenting tips because I have two young kids, and local
Speaker 3: San Francisco politics, and that's great for me. It's a
Speaker 3: mix of wonderful publications that I never would have heard
Speaker 3: of otherwise and helped me discover local publications like the
Speaker 3: San Francisco Standard. Things like this bring content to you
Speaker 3: rather than having you get served content because someone decided
Speaker 3: to post about it.
Speaker 1: Or searching for it across a million different platforms. But
Speaker 1: Apple News does the same for me, Kevin, how's this different?
Speaker 3: I'm going to say this and it's going to sound
Speaker 3: like a non answer, but you have to see it
Speaker 3: to know the difference. Like my pitch would be that
Speaker 3: we focus on high quality, non trashy publications that aren't
Speaker 3: so intellectual that they feel out of touch, but that
Speaker 3: aren't like kind of one of the you know, content
Speaker 3: mills that just show you more celebrity photos and that
Speaker 3: it's like, thank you, someone finally built a news recommendation
Speaker 3: service that understands me as someone who is and when
Speaker 3: I say me, I mean someone who loves tech, who
Speaker 3: loves things that are on the bleeding edge, wants to
Speaker 3: learn about AI, maybe that have a budding interest in crypto,
Speaker 3: like those types of things. It's like we go beyond
Speaker 3: just the major publications too. We find interesting substacks we
Speaker 3: find interesting recipe authors. So you're not going to find
Speaker 3: that on a place like Apple News. You're not going
Speaker 3: to find that on Google News. And that's okay because
Speaker 3: they're focused on different things. But I think we go
Speaker 3: a little bit more intellectual, and we go a little
Speaker 3: deeper in terms of unique sources, and then on top
Speaker 3: of that the competitive angle. I do believe our machine
Speaker 3: learning is better than a bunch of these, so we
Speaker 3: will personalize better for you, or at least that's our goal.
Speaker 3: So that's how we're different.
Speaker 1: You name four areas you're interested in, you know, you
Speaker 1: said local San Francisco politics, parenting articles, Japanese architecture, and
Speaker 1: I forget the fourth one. What was the fourth one, Kevin? I?
Speaker 3: I remember, I don't either.
Speaker 1: But what about like someone like me and care I
Speaker 1: imagine you're like me. I'm interested in probably twenty five
Speaker 1: different things. You know, I'm interest I'm a generalist. I
Speaker 1: want to know what's happening from Megan and Harry to
Speaker 1: Tom Friedman's latest column about the Middle East to what
Speaker 1: Richard coss might have written in Foreign Affairs, to what
Speaker 1: the economist is saying about Israel, to everything to how
Speaker 1: it'll affect you. I mean, obviously I'm heavy on foreign
Speaker 1: policy right now, given everything that's going on in the world,
Speaker 1: But how can you serve me up over such a
Speaker 1: broad area of interest things that I want to see
Speaker 1: without completely overwhelming me.
Speaker 3: They're a couple of ways. The first thing that I
Speaker 3: think is really interesting to talk about here is you
Speaker 3: just discussed revealed versus stated preferences. And if we ask
Speaker 3: you to name all your preferences and we put a
Speaker 3: piece of paper in front of you, For most people,
Speaker 3: that's actually very, very difficult. It's very hard to say
Speaker 3: all the things that you love without seeing them. But
Speaker 3: if a system learned, and this is called exploration in
Speaker 3: the machine learning verbiage, if you can explore potential topics
Speaker 3: for someone and then just note Katie spend a bunch
Speaker 3: of time on foreign affairs. She loves Thomas Friedman. Whenever
Speaker 3: Thomas Freeman writes, she spends a bunch of time reading
Speaker 3: this article. But she also loves like the latest Harry
Speaker 3: and Meghan gossip. Those things are not mutually exclusive, but
Speaker 3: they are on major publications. When you open up a
Speaker 3: major publication, you have sections, you have the front page,
Speaker 3: Harry and Meghan are not on the front page of
Speaker 3: the New York Times or the Washington Post most of
Speaker 3: the time probably ever, but for you, maybe they should be.
Speaker 3: And that's really the dream here is that via exploration,
Speaker 3: we can make that front page sing for you, that
Speaker 3: it can feel like it was designed literally just for you.
Speaker 2: Which has been an old goal of everybody. Yahoo. You
Speaker 2: had personalization, Everyone's tried to sort of create this individualized
Speaker 2: news feed for everyone. That's sort of been a long
Speaker 2: time goal.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and maybe what I could do quickly is just
Speaker 3: talk about where we've expanded recently, because the scope of
Speaker 3: the company has changed pretty significantly. And that's some of
Speaker 3: what Karen was talking about when she said we're building
Speaker 3: our own little Twitter. We've always believed that we wanted
Speaker 3: to build this personalized homepage for you that other people
Speaker 3: have tried and not done it very well. One of
Speaker 3: the realizations through this, I believe is that it's not
Speaker 3: that it's necessarily hard to do. It's that I'm not
Speaker 3: sure people are that impressed, not necessarily with us, but
Speaker 3: just they need more. They need more than articles. They
Speaker 3: want spice, they want unique, interesting content, and where that
Speaker 3: typically comes from is user generated content when people actually
Speaker 3: post something that they're thinking that's unique that you can't
Speaker 3: find anywhere else. So we added this thing, this tab
Speaker 3: called links, which now will let you. It lets you
Speaker 3: post links to things that you find interesting and say
Speaker 3: something about them, which could be not from a major publication,
Speaker 3: it could be a random blog that you found or
Speaker 3: maybe your own blog. But it also lets you post
Speaker 3: just on your own so if you want to write
Speaker 3: four or five paragraphs about something, you can and post
Speaker 3: into it. And this feed has been really fun to
Speaker 3: watch take off in the last few weeks. It's really
Speaker 3: added a different life to Artifacts. Now you can get
Speaker 3: your news, which is fine, but you can get it
Speaker 3: to other places. But now you have these really unique
Speaker 3: posts and links that you can get basically only on
Speaker 3: Artifact on this other tab. But it's all part of
Speaker 3: discovering content using personalization. That's the dream here is that
Speaker 3: we can create this market where producers and consumers can
Speaker 3: get matched and their interests are matched.
Speaker 2: So interest matching. There used to be a company called
Speaker 2: six degrees. Do you remember them. Yeah, Amazon ended up
Speaker 2: buying them, and the idea of putting interests together has
Speaker 2: always been another dream. And what's happened is to generate
Speaker 2: it into chaos, which is whatever is whatever bubbles up
Speaker 2: in terms of enragement is what wins versus because it's
Speaker 2: like a car traffic accident versus your interest. One of
Speaker 2: the reasons TikTok is so successful. It does see your
Speaker 2: interests and it knows what you like and you know more.
Speaker 2: That's more media than social, right, And so the goal
Speaker 2: is to be more media than social because social has
Speaker 2: become so toxic in a lot of ways. And that's
Speaker 2: what's difficult about these businesses.
Speaker 1: When we come back, what in the world is coming
Speaker 1: next for news and media online? Kevin and Kara have
Speaker 1: some ideas and there's real reason to be optimistic. We're
Speaker 1: back with Kara Swisher and Kevin's sistrom. How is business, Kevin?
Speaker 1: I mean, are you doing well? How are you getting
Speaker 1: people to download yet another app and want to kind
Speaker 1: of change their habits.
Speaker 3: I think what we've done is create a beautiful product
Speaker 3: for some very passionate people, but nowhere near the amount
Speaker 3: of people that use Instagram right, And the question is
Speaker 3: how do you go from one to the other? Because
Speaker 3: Instagram started off very small at the beginning. I mean,
Speaker 3: everyone likes to think, oh, was this overnight success. And
Speaker 3: don't get me wrong, the first day of Instagram we
Speaker 3: had twenty five thousand people sign up and it was great,
Speaker 3: and it continued to grow over time and it retained people.
Speaker 3: The question is not can you get attention? The question
Speaker 3: is can you retain people with a product that they love?
Speaker 3: And we have a group of people that love this product,
Speaker 3: and our main challenge is can we be mainstream? And
Speaker 3: where's the white space? Where can people succeed? Because I mean, Carot,
Speaker 3: what's the last successful consumer startup you have seen? I'm
Speaker 3: curious here.
Speaker 2: It hasn't been in a long time, right, Oh, not
Speaker 2: by a big company. It's been a long time. Someone's
Speaker 2: broken through, Right, it's been a long time. I can't
Speaker 2: think of one. You're very good. And also it also
Speaker 2: has the law of big numbers. Is that you know
Speaker 2: this is something Ben Horowitz of all people said to me.
Speaker 2: He's like, no one's going to create a search engine.
Speaker 2: No one's going to create a consumer commerce company because
Speaker 2: of Amazon search engine, because of Google. No one's going
Speaker 2: to create all these various things because of the large players.
Speaker 2: And that's the real problem is how do you even
Speaker 2: break through. Now. The one example is I gotta say TikTok, right,
Speaker 2: came out of nowhere.
Speaker 3: I actually I'll challenge I'll change, which is I think
Speaker 3: it's very easy as someone who maybe I was twenty
Speaker 3: five at the time something like that Instagram started, it's
Speaker 3: very easy to be optimistic and green and just believe
Speaker 3: there's all this opportunity and I and then it's very easy.
Speaker 3: Now on the other side, I'm about to turn forty,
Speaker 3: I'm thirty nine right now to believe that there's no
Speaker 3: opportunity or believe that maybe some doors have closed along
Speaker 3: the way. But here's the wonderful thing about the Internet
Speaker 3: that it surprises everyone. I mean, when we found it Instagram,
Speaker 3: could you imagine that anyone would be able to have
Speaker 3: found an image sharing social network to compete with Instagram?
Speaker 3: And then snap came along, and then after stap do
Speaker 3: you believe could you believe anyone could compete with YouTube
Speaker 3: Instagram and snap in video and by the way, not
Speaker 3: even a US company like this is incredible, Like, of course,
Speaker 3: there are always opportunities. So would you have to do
Speaker 3: I think in these situations is fite the urge to
Speaker 3: believe that all the doors have closed and instead look
Speaker 3: out and say, what are the opportunities that have changed
Speaker 3: because of some fundamental technology change, like, for instance, generative AI.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's full of ideas because there's going to be
Speaker 2: general AI for insurance, for healthcare, all kinds of areas,
Speaker 2: so you can It reminds me a little bit of
Speaker 2: when the mobile phone came right that you couldn't have
Speaker 2: imagined Instagram before the mobile phone could do easily.
Speaker 3: Now most people when they see companies start thinking, oh,
Speaker 3: that idea is too small.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 3: And the question isn't is the idea too small at
Speaker 3: the beginning, it's what is the ambition of the person
Speaker 3: who's running it and what direction are they headed? Because
Speaker 3: if you can map out that mark is going to
Speaker 3: take it from Harvard to other Ivy League schools, to
Speaker 3: every school, to every other college, to high schools, et cetera,
Speaker 3: and then take over the world. Like then you say, okay,
Speaker 3: this is interesting.
Speaker 2: But I don't know.
Speaker 3: There are a lot of companies that get started and
Speaker 3: stay very happy with very small audiences. So it's not
Speaker 3: about the idea, it's about the direction.
Speaker 1: I want to just spend a couple of minutes talking
Speaker 1: about the media landscape and the state of news, which
Speaker 1: is what prompted you to create Artifact, Kevin in the
Speaker 1: first place. And I'd love to get your take on
Speaker 1: what is happening on Twitter now or X and what
Speaker 1: Elon Musk has done to turn it into such a cesspool. Obviously,
Speaker 1: people can buy blue checks, so nobody is really verified.
Speaker 1: The ad model has changed, there's ai I think that's
Speaker 1: creating a lot of dis and misinformation. But I'd love
Speaker 1: to ask you, Kara, what has X becommon Why?
Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting because it's still a little necessary because
Speaker 2: it's so everyone's there and it's frantic, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean. And so if they're like, if there's I
Speaker 2: still go on it?
Speaker 1: I do.
Speaker 2: Sure, it's useful. It's because everybody's there, everybody, But it's
Speaker 2: sort of like one of those clubs or a place
Speaker 2: a downtown that you know you still have to kind
Speaker 2: of go to. But it sucks now. It's like it's dirtier,
Speaker 2: there's really weird people hanging around.
Speaker 3: No one says that about San Francisco. I'm not sure
Speaker 3: what you're talking about.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, no. I love Sirence. Don't insult
Speaker 2: San Francisco to Karas for sure. So I find it
Speaker 2: really hard to use. I have to turn off comments
Speaker 2: now because of the really the flood of really crazy people.
Speaker 2: And I'm joking about Elon must but he also you know,
Speaker 2: it's really unpleasant, and so it's become an unpleasant experience.
Speaker 2: But you put up with it because of the benefits
Speaker 2: of getting instant, like there's no other place to go
Speaker 2: right now to watch the vote happening.
Speaker 1: And didn't he fire everybody who was kind of evaluating
Speaker 1: content and flagging content.
Speaker 2: A lot a lot, Well, they say, not everybody.
Speaker 1: And then I keep getting these ads what doctors don't
Speaker 1: want you to do to your coffee? Like why why
Speaker 1: do they keep why do they keep feeding me that ad?
Speaker 2: Because they're paying because the check is cashing. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think it's really I think it could go for
Speaker 2: a while. These things can go for a while. Kevin
Speaker 2: knows that these things can hold on for and he's
Speaker 2: the richest man in the world, so he can afford.
Speaker 2: It's like having a one of these Megga yachts that's
Speaker 2: seeping oil out of it. He can keep doing it
Speaker 2: and paying the fines for it. For a long time.
Speaker 1: What was frustrating to you, Kevin about the news environment
Speaker 1: and how did you say, Oh, I need to fix
Speaker 1: this or I need to fill a hole that's missing.
Speaker 3: I want to be clear that I think Artifact is
Speaker 3: much more than just news. Like, of course we're in
Speaker 3: the news category in the app store, and that's the
Speaker 3: easiest way to talk about what we are. But I
Speaker 3: think by frustration actually is that people only think about news.
Speaker 3: When you talk about news, they don't think about all
Speaker 3: the amazing content out there that has nothing to do
Speaker 3: with the day as headlines.
Speaker 1: We should probably call it a content app.
Speaker 3: Really, Yeah, that's right, And I think people are thirsty
Speaker 3: for that type of information because they don't want yet
Speaker 3: another if it bleeds, it leads story. What they want
Speaker 3: is some value in their life, a discovery. Like there's
Speaker 3: this guy who just documented his trip throughout Japan in
Speaker 3: a photo assay and I found it on Artifact and
Speaker 3: it was this moment where I've been to Japan only
Speaker 3: a few times. It's one of my favorite places on Earth.
Speaker 3: But I scrolled through and I was just like, Okay,
Speaker 3: I'm taken back and I'm not reading about some awful
Speaker 3: thing that happened in downtown San Francisco today because I
Speaker 3: can get that elsewhere. That's the opportunity is not necessarily
Speaker 3: the news industry, but rather what are people reading, what
Speaker 3: are people being served and why? And if you focus
Speaker 3: on these platforms that focus on the most insane stories
Speaker 3: being pushed to you, you're just going to get that
Speaker 3: type of content I said I wanted to avoid. So
Speaker 3: the real opportunity here is and you learn someone's interests
Speaker 3: and can you delight them with content that doesn't make
Speaker 3: them want to shut the app and anger every single day.
Speaker 2: I think the word delight you're using is absolutely the case.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's why I do have a good feeling
Speaker 2: about threads. I find it delightful sometimes. I was laughing
Speaker 2: at it the other day. They have some astronomy person
Speaker 2: right on there, and I'm not interested in astronomy, but
Speaker 2: I and I don't know why. Or they had a
Speaker 2: video that made me laugh, or cat videos or whatever.
Speaker 2: And on artifact just now stuff I wouldn't have found,
Speaker 2: Like there's a piece that someone else discovered that then
Speaker 2: showed me, which was when was the last time Mark
Speaker 2: injuries and talked to a poor person. It made me laugh.
Speaker 2: I was like, probably never, you know, since he was
Speaker 2: a kid, essentially when he was poor, and that's the
Speaker 2: kind of thing you need. I think there's a real
Speaker 2: if there's a trend, Kevin, maybe you could answers there's
Speaker 2: a trend toward getting sick of crap, like everyone is
Speaker 2: sick of crap. And I do think there is a
Speaker 2: trend towards And I think it's the same with voters.
Speaker 2: They don't want to hear anymore from screaming people, screaming
Speaker 2: angry people. They want to hear about things they like
Speaker 2: about their family. And I think that's kind of a secret,
Speaker 2: silent majority of people being delighted by things or discovering
Speaker 2: things that are of interest in them, even if they're
Speaker 2: hard stories or whatever.
Speaker 1: But do you think they want to hear things that
Speaker 1: are not so partisan too, I mean anything, You know,
Speaker 1: I'm desperate to actually have someone explained to me what
Speaker 1: is going on with this committee that's investigating Joe Biden
Speaker 1: and claiming that his family has made ten million dollars
Speaker 1: in you know, it's on some right wing news site
Speaker 1: that I actually get their newsletter because I want to
Speaker 1: hear what they're saying. But I sent it to a
Speaker 1: friend and I said, I'm so confused. Is any of
Speaker 1: this actually true? Right?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I think verifying information is really hard today. You never
Speaker 3: know who to trust, even with large publications. You don't
Speaker 3: know if there's some ulterior motive or partisan angle. And
Speaker 3: I think one of the reasons why I'm excited about
Speaker 3: artifacts and the algorithmic approach is there's all these new
Speaker 3: advancements in balancing perspectives. So there's this thing called bridging algorithms.
Speaker 3: The idea is like you can kind of lump people
Speaker 3: based on their history of reading into you know, right
Speaker 3: or left politically, and what you can do is look
Speaker 3: for articles that actually resonate with both rather than just
Speaker 3: deepen the divide. And this is well studied. It's actually
Speaker 3: used on Twitter today on acts ironically Kara for their
Speaker 3: community notes product. That's how they decide which community notes
Speaker 3: actually get shown, because otherwise you have people on the
Speaker 3: right doing community notes, correcting the lefties and the lefties
Speaker 3: correcting the righting right. So like, the way it can
Speaker 3: be applied in mass to news and information is by
Speaker 3: noticing that certain things have a bias not in terms
Speaker 3: of content, but who they resonate with yeah, and then
Speaker 3: finding content that brings people together. We're far too small
Speaker 3: and early right now for a lot of this to
Speaker 3: make sense.
Speaker 1: Is anybody doing that, Kevin, I haven't heard of anyone
Speaker 1: else even considering it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's hard.
Speaker 3: Well, what's funny, care is it's actually not hard, meaning
Speaker 3: technically it's not hard. What's hard is to make the
Speaker 3: choice to do it. Because you are seen as somehow
Speaker 3: trying to push liberal content to conservatives or conservative content liberals.
Speaker 3: You violate one of the groups. And I think that's
Speaker 3: very hard when you're very large and you know you're
Speaker 3: trying to balance whatever party is in power with legislation
Speaker 3: against your company and investigations and so it becomes a
Speaker 3: very difficult place to be as a large company, but
Speaker 3: not a difficult place if you're a smaller you're trying
Speaker 3: to grow.
Speaker 1: It's anesthetical though, to what Kara often calls engagement through enragement,
Speaker 1: you know, like, if you want people you want to
Speaker 1: feed the dogs the dog food and you want affirmation
Speaker 1: instead of information, challenging people's worldview to me would work
Speaker 1: against the whole visceral connection. You have to content that
Speaker 1: makes you stay on the platform, right.
Speaker 3: Well, in this case, I'm explaining something slightly different, which
Speaker 3: is you're looking for content that resonates with both sides,
Speaker 3: so it actually drives engagement on both sides because people
Speaker 3: see some common thread in it.
Speaker 2: It's commonality.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2: Years ago a Well started. That's how it started. And
Speaker 2: the first thing I ever noticed it was when he
Speaker 2: had a group of quilters who had met on AOL
Speaker 2: and they had made a quilt of an AOL symbol
Speaker 2: and they finally met in person and met him, and
Speaker 2: they felt like they knew him. And it was so
Speaker 2: positive because these were people so different from each other
Speaker 2: that just liked to quilt and they managed to create
Speaker 2: it online. And I remember thinking this could be used
Speaker 2: for such good things, and it could be used for
Speaker 2: such bad things, like I could see the opposite people
Speaker 2: that like to make bombs and blow up people they.
Speaker 1: Don't like, or white supremacists.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yoh no it listen. AOL was good for white
Speaker 2: supremacists early on too, So connection is what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm excited to check out artifact and use it.
Speaker 2: It's great.
Speaker 1: I downloaded it. Appreciate that, Kevin, Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for doing this. It was really fun to talk to you.
Speaker 1: Good luck with your latest venture, Tevin.
Speaker 2: I'll call you. I'll be in San Francisco soon. We'll
Speaker 2: walk around the Hellsgate, which is not a hellscape.
Speaker 3: Okay, no, actually quite nice.
Speaker 1: I feel like you two speak a whole different language
Speaker 1: than me. But I think I was able to keep them.
Speaker 1: You kept too, You kept up. Yeah, he's a nice guy,
Speaker 1: isn't he? What do you think quality guy? Do you
Speaker 1: think artifact is going to be successful? Kiara?
Speaker 2: I think it's hard, Like it's just hard because people
Speaker 2: are attracted by terrible things, right, that's the problem. We've
Speaker 2: been trained in this. The internet went a certain way.
Speaker 2: It's not a good way. But I do believe when
Speaker 2: I use that or threads now, I'm very happy and
Speaker 2: I like it. And so maybe that maybe you can
Speaker 2: change your habits, your bad habits.
Speaker 1: I guess what do you think is going to happen
Speaker 1: to the news business. I don't want to start this
Speaker 1: whole conversation, but it is a long one. But but
Speaker 1: how do you think it's going to shake out? Carara?
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just in a really difficult state.
Speaker 2: I think it'll be just fine. You do, I think
Speaker 2: there are new economic models that everybody has to get
Speaker 2: adjusted to, whether especially in Hollywood for example, around streaming
Speaker 2: and cable news. But you know, I just did an
Speaker 2: interview with Perry Diller, and I think he's right. These
Speaker 2: are worldwide distribution networks of information. Still, you know, television
Speaker 2: is everywhere, and so the question is how do you
Speaker 2: get people to engage in the content itself? And maybe
Speaker 2: we have to stop thinking less about how than the
Speaker 2: content itself. And I'll give you one example, which I've
Speaker 2: told this story before, but I was just in a
Speaker 2: frontline documentary about Twitter, and I had participated in their
Speaker 2: previous one when I think they do great work. And
Speaker 2: so I was doing it and my phone rang and
Speaker 2: my son called and he said, what are you doing, mom?
Speaker 2: I said, I'm doing a frontline interview and he goes,
Speaker 2: I love Frontline and I said really, And then he
Speaker 2: started talking about all the frontlines he watches. I don't
Speaker 2: watch it as much as he does, and I put
Speaker 2: on the speaker because these people are like, look, it's
Speaker 2: a twenty one year old loves frontline. Look at this.
Speaker 2: And I said to him, I didn't know you watched PBS.
Speaker 2: And he said, I don't watch PBS. Why would I
Speaker 2: watch PBS. I see it on YouTube. Well that's a
Speaker 2: win as far as I'm concerned, if we become adaptable
Speaker 2: to where people are. People are giving up cable for
Speaker 2: YouTube TV, and so that's where I'm work like, people
Speaker 2: are not listening, they're not watching. It's just it's just changed.
Speaker 2: And then the economics have changed, and that's the problem.
Speaker 2: That's what's happened.
Speaker 1: And I think if you build quality, they will come,
Speaker 1: you know, I do think, yes, I do. I mean,
Speaker 1: and they might be in smaller numbers because I always
Speaker 1: say mass media is and oxymoron.
Speaker 2: Now I think we started with you going to Yahoo.
Speaker 2: You're a testimony to this, right, you have much more
Speaker 2: control over your content.
Speaker 1: Well, we have a whole different financial model where we
Speaker 1: work with companies and tell stories often in conjunction with them,
Speaker 1: because as trust in media and other institutions has declined,
Speaker 1: trusting companies has increased and employees are demanding it. So
Speaker 1: we actually our revenue model is to work with companies
Speaker 1: for you know, for year long or multiple year sponsorships
Speaker 1: and partnerships. Really in good storytelling.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I'm saying you're making as much money. It
Speaker 2: may not be the big organizations that are right. Maybe
Speaker 2: that's what it is. There'll be a whole bunch of
Speaker 2: media entrepreneurs like yourself, Like myself, I'm doing great. I
Speaker 2: just am not attached to a big, giant ocean liners all.
Speaker 2: I just have a little, speedy, little boat and it
Speaker 2: does really well.
Speaker 1: And you love that and you love not being beholden
Speaker 1: to these big corporations. Yeah, because nobody tells Kara Swish
Speaker 1: or what to do.
Speaker 2: Nobody tells Katie Kirk what to do.
Speaker 1: Is it very awesome though, Kia.
Speaker 2: Yes, we're always like this or not. This is the
Speaker 2: way we are, and I think it does appeal to
Speaker 2: our entrepreneurial natures. And I think any journalist is not entrepreneurial.
Speaker 2: It's going to have a harder time going forward. That's
Speaker 2: my definite feeling. You have to sort of start to
Speaker 2: think it's okay, like Kevin was talking about, if it's
Speaker 2: a small business, it doesn't have to be Instagram, right,
Speaker 2: It's okay. You can do very well with a very
Speaker 2: small business. You can do very well, and you get
Speaker 2: to do what you want.
Speaker 1: I get a smaller audience than I did when I
Speaker 1: was at the Today Show. But I also feel like
Speaker 1: I'm still serving a need. You know.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: The stuff that I'm doing is reaching people who want it,
Speaker 1: the people who find it useful. That's right, And that
Speaker 1: makes me feel like I have purpose.
Speaker 2: That's correct. That's correct. It's just different, that's all. I
Speaker 2: don't think it's I think people are still desperate for information,
Speaker 2: good information, and new good news, and not just good news,
Speaker 2: but news done well. And I think this recent situation
Speaker 2: Israel sort of underscores it. People are very confused by
Speaker 2: bad information and they need good information to make good
Speaker 2: decisions about what's happening and what to do about it.
Speaker 2: And that's critical. It remains critical, Kara.
Speaker 1: But I'll let you go because if you keep talking,
Speaker 1: you're never going to get your voice back.
Speaker 2: No, Katie, I never take a break. I never take
Speaker 2: a break like you. I let you know. You're my
Speaker 2: year o. Katie. You never take a break.
Speaker 1: Do you I like working?
Speaker 2: I know you do. You're good at it.
Speaker 1: Kara, thank you for being my plus one. This was
Speaker 1: so fun.
Speaker 2: No problem.
Speaker 1: Let's do it again anytime. Thanks for listening. Everyone. If
Speaker 1: you have a question for me, a subject you want
Speaker 1: us to cover, or you want to share your thoughts
Speaker 1: about how you navigate this crazy world reach out. You
Speaker 1: can leave a short message at six oh nine five
Speaker 1: point two five to five five, or you can send
Speaker 1: me a DM on Instagram. I would love to hear
Speaker 1: from you. Next Question is a production of iHeartMedia and
Speaker 1: Katie Kuric Media. The executive producers are Me, Katie Kuric,
Speaker 1: and Courtney Ltz. Our supervising producer is Ryan Martz, and
Speaker 1: our producers are Adriana Fazzio and Meredith Barnes. Julian Weller
Speaker 1: composed our theme music. For more information about today's episode,
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