Speaker 1: This is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholtz on Boomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: This week on the podcast, I have a special guest.
Speaker 1: Her name is Kara Swisher. And if you are remotely
Speaker 1: interested in anything related to technology, media, venture capital, CEO's privacy,
Speaker 1: the weaponization of social media, and just about anything else
Speaker 1: you might have seen about technology, well then you're in
Speaker 1: for quite the treat. We went for about eight hours.
Speaker 1: We took time out for sleeping and meals and basically
Speaker 1: covered everything, uh from the rise of technology, how people
Speaker 1: completely did not see this coming, what technology is going
Speaker 1: to do to us in the future, and who the
Speaker 1: hell is this Scott Galloway guy anyway, So I could
Speaker 1: tell you all about it, but rather than do that,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna shut up and say my conversation with
Speaker 1: Kara Swisher. This is Master's in Business with Barry Ridholts
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio. I'm Barry Ridholts. You're listening to Masters
Speaker 1: in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My extra special guests this
Speaker 1: week is Kara Swisher. She is the co founder of Recode,
Speaker 1: sold recently to Vox. Before that, she was the longstanding
Speaker 1: technology journalist along with Walt Mossburg over at the Wall
Speaker 1: Street Journal. She is the author of a number of books,
Speaker 1: including How Steve Case Beat Bill Gates and its sequel,
Speaker 1: There Must Be a Pony in Here Somewhere. She won
Speaker 1: the Gerald Loebe Award for Excellence in Business Journalism and
Speaker 1: is the co host of one of my favorite podcasts,
Speaker 1: Pivot with Scott Galloway. Kara Swisher. Welcome to Bloomberg. I'm
Speaker 1: very impressive with myself. Well, you have a nice list
Speaker 1: of accomplishments. I was discussed saying your work with somebody
Speaker 1: and they said, she's really a journalist, right, And I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: she's also an entrepreneur. She's been very forward in terms
Speaker 1: of the conference business, in terms of um, the media business,
Speaker 1: which she turned into a platform. I don't know if
Speaker 1: it was ever publicly released. Um what Recode was sold?
Speaker 1: Was that always private? Yeah? It was. It was a
Speaker 1: start up. Yeah, we sold ABO four or five years ago.
Speaker 1: It was we had been funded by NBC and Terry Samuel,
Speaker 1: who's taken ill now but he uh. We we got
Speaker 1: twelve million dollars from them, and at the time that
Speaker 1: was a lot, but pretty soon it was it wasn't
Speaker 1: a lot. A lot of content companies. It was sort
Speaker 1: of this big boom in investing in content, and many
Speaker 1: of my competitors got four or five times what I
Speaker 1: got six months later as a VC investment. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: didn't have a VC. It was NBC and Terry he's
Speaker 1: a media investor, you know. And so I looked around.
Speaker 1: I said this, I can't compete with this much money.
Speaker 1: It's it's a bubble. And so I sold Box. I looked,
Speaker 1: I talked to a number of companies. I sold really
Speaker 1: quickly after founding Well. No, I was at All Things
Speaker 1: D for a dozen or more years, which was within
Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal. UM, and I was at the
Speaker 1: in the journal for about a dozen more than a
Speaker 1: dozen years, and but we had a skunk works inside
Speaker 1: the journal, so it was owned by the journal, but
Speaker 1: we ran it without their input. Really yeah, it was great, yeah,
Speaker 1: and they were good and bad in different ways, but
Speaker 1: um and then we left because we had some problems
Speaker 1: with them, and then had it funded and we were
Speaker 1: going to do it independently, but then I was like,
Speaker 1: no way, this is gonna things. You have to be
Speaker 1: really dynamic when you're an entrepreneur and realize, you know,
Speaker 1: if someone if your competitors all have three times the
Speaker 1: amount of funding. You do. You have a problem. You
Speaker 1: can't be that good. And so especially in content because
Speaker 1: it's about hiring talent. And so we sold really quickly
Speaker 1: within a year to Vox Media. Like yeah, I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm I'm really good that way. I know
Speaker 1: when to move. So that wasn't hundreds of millions of
Speaker 1: dollars that It wasn't okay, and I just no, I
Speaker 1: haven't I'm not going to hear but I'm not going
Speaker 1: to going to it. But it's not. It doesn't worth anything.
Speaker 1: I own the stock and Box Media whatever Box Media cells.
Speaker 1: So it was so I won't harangue you about this,
Speaker 1: but was I'm assuming this was an all stock trans Yes,
Speaker 1: it was. We decided that O. Yeah, we could have
Speaker 1: gotten cash, but we I felt like why not, Like
Speaker 1: if I'm an entrepreneur, I should own the shop. And
Speaker 1: I so, I mean, I have quite a bit of
Speaker 1: stock in Box Media. We'll see what happens. I mean
Speaker 1: obviously now content, uh, content is now the blooms off
Speaker 1: the rose there and you know Box is quite healthy.
Speaker 1: But you know the others bezz feed and and Mike
Speaker 1: of course closed, some of these others closed and so
Speaker 1: and all of media is under stress and so, you know,
Speaker 1: especially we're going to a recession and stuff. So it's
Speaker 1: just whatever the stocks worth. We'll see, we'll see how
Speaker 1: it goes. Quite interesting. But I'm very well paid, Barry,
Speaker 1: don't worry about it. I do, okay, you do, okay.
Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit about the early parts
Speaker 1: of your career you come out of. Now, I know
Speaker 1: you have a mastress from Colombia. Was that the journalism
Speaker 1: school or journalism school? Yeah? I went to Georgetown School
Speaker 1: Foreign Service, which was in Washington, d C. It was
Speaker 1: actually my backup school. Now it's a very top ranking school.
Speaker 1: But at the time, and can I tell you you
Speaker 1: and I are not all that far apart in age
Speaker 1: the people who came into because of the demographics into
Speaker 1: college forty years ago, we're dealing with um relatively easy admissions.
Speaker 1: And then the boom followed. It was the echo boom
Speaker 1: made it much more challenging to get in. I didn't
Speaker 1: get in. Everybody didn't get at Stanford. I wanted to
Speaker 1: go to Stanford, but my brother went to Stanford. UM.
Speaker 1: But I I got into Georgetown, and it was in
Speaker 1: the school FORIGN service, and I wanted to be I've
Speaker 1: said this many times, a spy. I wanted to work
Speaker 1: for the CIA, and I want to do analysis, very
Speaker 1: similar what I do now, reporting an analysis, just with
Speaker 1: no one shooting it. Yes, exactly, Well, you never know,
Speaker 1: um and so and I it was very interested in
Speaker 1: the military too, in military intelligence. And I was gay
Speaker 1: at the time. That was impossible you could get into
Speaker 1: the military. You couldn't you had. It was don't ask,
Speaker 1: don't tell. Under the Clinton ministry and so I always tell.
Speaker 1: So it was really hard to do that. Um and
Speaker 1: then in the CIA, you haven't asked, ridiculous tell. It's
Speaker 1: such a insane thing. Can I tell you? It's so shocking.
Speaker 1: What right, It's so shocking to look back just twenty
Speaker 1: years and say, what the hell are we thinking? Don't ask?
Speaker 1: What are we still thinking? There's all these attacks on
Speaker 1: transgender people. Now, well we you know, we're in an
Speaker 1: alternative timeline. Now I'll discuss that later. We're not you think,
Speaker 1: so this is just what America is like. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: you know, put a mirror to our faces. There's a
Speaker 1: great there's a great series going on. It's the six
Speaker 1: nine series in the New York Times, and it's that.
Speaker 1: Let me just say, this is what we are, and
Speaker 1: if you it's part of us, it's not every part
Speaker 1: of us, but it's not this dream of being this
Speaker 1: incredibly meritocurtency with everybody getting a chance. It's just not. So.
Speaker 1: So let me fast forward to a question I'm gonna
Speaker 1: was planning on asking you later. How much of this
Speaker 1: that we're discussing here is a function that forty years ago,
Speaker 1: if you were a crazy um nazi, racist, homophobe, whatever
Speaker 1: it was, you would be the guy mumbling to yourself
Speaker 1: outside the library, but you didn't have the ability to
Speaker 1: coordinate nationally well that there were tons of them and people.
Speaker 1: The things people said to me thirty years ago about
Speaker 1: being gay was just astonishing. Like today would not be
Speaker 1: allowed obviously, or in some places it would, but it was.
Speaker 1: The change has been so drastic around gay people. But
Speaker 1: at the time, I couldn't be what I wanted. I
Speaker 1: wanted to be in the military, my dad was in
Speaker 1: the military, and I just couldn't. There was, you know,
Speaker 1: I really wanted to be like compared like you know,
Speaker 1: people always surprised I'm like, I'm really quite. I really
Speaker 1: think the military can be great in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: has a lot of problems like anything else. Um, but
Speaker 1: you know, yeah that Scott was talking about that the
Speaker 1: other day, and before the sort of the ability to
Speaker 1: unify and have have places to meet for people who
Speaker 1: have issues racists like white supremacists, the Internet has helped
Speaker 1: them drastically. And I talked about that in my first
Speaker 1: book in ninety seven. This was a place where you
Speaker 1: can either gather for good like quilters or people parents
Speaker 1: and you know, people who want to know, well, these
Speaker 1: communities about different. What happened is all these people were
Speaker 1: and wherever Idaho, wherever, they're everywhere, they just were wolves. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so now they can find places to gather. It's
Speaker 1: it's they create these gathering places which and with a
Speaker 1: lot of tools from video too, and so it's a
Speaker 1: really great place to radicalize people. You know, that's the
Speaker 1: problem with the Internet. This tool it can be you know,
Speaker 1: it's like a knife. It can be used in a
Speaker 1: lot of different ways, and so in a lot of
Speaker 1: ways it's used to kill people. So I've watched your
Speaker 1: thought evolve on whether or not this is in response
Speaker 1: to most recently to eight chan and read it basically
Speaker 1: saying we should not be a gathering place for white
Speaker 1: supremacists and others who are plotting to kill people. You've
Speaker 1: kind of moved a little bit about whether companies like
Speaker 1: registrars domain registrars or or I'm moved. I think they
Speaker 1: should take them off. I don't. I've never that's not
Speaker 1: an evolution. No, No, I'm actually were more of a
Speaker 1: First Amenda you misreading it because I think I find
Speaker 1: the intellectual capacity of most people still on Valley to
Speaker 1: be light, you know, in terms of ethics, in terms
Speaker 1: of historical knowledge and everything, and so they have this
Speaker 1: I call it libertarian light. You know, they're like, I'm
Speaker 1: a libertarian, I'm a first man. I'm like, explain it
Speaker 1: for me, and you know, I have studied this so
Speaker 1: I know what it is. And they're like, anybody can
Speaker 1: say anything. I'm like, no, that's not what the First
Speaker 1: Amendment says. It says Congress shall make no law. Just Congress,
Speaker 1: not Twitter, not Facebook. Not like they're just so like
Speaker 1: there's many people and they're highly educated in certain ways,
Speaker 1: but in general, it's libertarian light. You know what I mean,
Speaker 1: people should do what they want. That's like, that's what
Speaker 1: a twelve three year old says. I can do what
Speaker 1: I want, but you can't. And so I think legitimate
Speaker 1: companies like Facebook, like Twitter, like Google have responsibility. And
Speaker 1: I've always thought companies, whether they're chemical companies or Wall
Speaker 1: Street companies or Bloomberg or any or Vox, we have
Speaker 1: a responsibility to society. You know, legitimate companies the others
Speaker 1: can create these things. But it doesn't mean that this
Speaker 1: this this idea that you collect all the money and
Speaker 1: have none of the responsibilities, okay, because it's not okay.
Speaker 1: Now they can do it, but I can say this
Speaker 1: is not okay, quite quite interesting. You know, you can
Speaker 1: decide who you would do business with. I don't like,
Speaker 1: you know, I like you can decide who you do
Speaker 1: business with. And you know, cloud Flare is the company
Speaker 1: that I wrote about recently in the New York Times.
Speaker 1: I read a column their weekly. Um, you know, they
Speaker 1: this guy who I've interviewed several times, Matthew Prince. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, he he's been sort of he's changed my
Speaker 1: I've suddenly realized this is terrible, and I'm like, welcome
Speaker 1: to the world. Like, have you not been paying attention
Speaker 1: and they cut off a jan um. But you know,
Speaker 1: people can make their decisions. They just have to live
Speaker 1: with their decisions. If you want to facilitate white supremacy,
Speaker 1: own it, like own what you're doing, and that's what
Speaker 1: they'd like to do. They'd like to do it. And
Speaker 1: then say, why are you criticizing me? So they you know,
Speaker 1: expressing my first memory. I love the fact that the
Speaker 1: Internet identifies all these people who are participating in these
Speaker 1: white supremacy marches and basically calls out their bosses and
Speaker 1: gets them fired. Yeah, you want to march here, go ahead,
Speaker 1: just don't expect to serve star. It's just people. People
Speaker 1: can do whatever they want. It's just you know, the
Speaker 1: whole controversy on Alex Jones for example. You know, this vile,
Speaker 1: vile human being, just on every measure, he's a vile person.
Speaker 1: He can have a website anywhere on the Internet. No
Speaker 1: one's stopping him. People who make these tools can either
Speaker 1: decide to kick him off or not. That's that's the deal, right.
Speaker 1: So and their commercial businesses and if I people choose
Speaker 1: not to do business with them, they're not nothing wrong
Speaker 1: with companies like that. Advertisers pointing out to advertisers pointing
Speaker 1: out to whatever, it's not it's the way, you know,
Speaker 1: boycotts have gone on for century. It's not. This is
Speaker 1: not a new thing kind of thing. And I think
Speaker 1: it's just becomes so um amplified and weaponized in this
Speaker 1: time because it's so viral, it's so so the news
Speaker 1: we get is so twitchy and so quick that people
Speaker 1: get and and the emotions get so easily in a
Speaker 1: rage that people think it's different. Um. But what's interesting
Speaker 1: is that they um, you know, they they have their spaces.
Speaker 1: When when I was when the Alex Jones things was happening,
Speaker 1: I was talking to all the major platforms and they're like, well,
Speaker 1: everybody has a right, you know, to have a place.
Speaker 1: I'm like, but you're going to kick him off just
Speaker 1: so you know, because he's broken your rules. Like they
Speaker 1: made rules. What's the point of your stupid rules if
Speaker 1: you're not going to enforce them? Well, you know it's complicated.
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, you made rules, he broke on. Why
Speaker 1: isn't he off? Like you know, and they had all
Speaker 1: these weird rules, and it's like, if you're gonna make rules,
Speaker 1: keep to them. You have a responsibility to the society
Speaker 1: at large, and you know, in things that are pretty
Speaker 1: much you know, there's all kinds of edge cases, there's
Speaker 1: all kinds of like whatever they can be, but there's
Speaker 1: lots of places where people to go. You know, for example,
Speaker 1: like with with Twitter, there they've it's been so haphazard
Speaker 1: with them that you know that we've kicked off Melo whatever,
Speaker 1: you know, we kick him off, but not the sky.
Speaker 1: But we kicked this person, but not that guy. It's like,
Speaker 1: it just doesn't make any sense to people. And I
Speaker 1: think if everyone understood the rules and then when you
Speaker 1: break them, that's that what they've managed to do is
Speaker 1: make people think these things are public squares when they're
Speaker 1: private squares and they own everything and they get paid
Speaker 1: for everything, and they don't have any responsibility for monitoring them.
Speaker 1: So they've made these very filthy public private squares and
Speaker 1: it's the only place to gather. And then they say,
Speaker 1: we don't have any responsibility for cleaning. I just happened
Speaker 1: this morning to be scanning Twitter and I saw sleeping giants.
Speaker 1: Oh him, Yeah, he's great, right, just mentioned that last
Speaker 1: night on Tucker Calson show, Dell was advertising, and you know,
Speaker 1: you think that a big broad name like that would
Speaker 1: be a little savvy er. Oh you know what, they
Speaker 1: wait until the things blow over and then they go
Speaker 1: back that. You know, they just want to sell. But
Speaker 1: but here's the thing you're gonna get cold out for that.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right, this is the world. Guess what.
Speaker 1: And that's you know that happened before. Remember Anita Brian
Speaker 1: the orange juice thing with gay That's right, everyone was
Speaker 1: dumping orange juice? Was that unfair to Anita Brian? It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter she had her opinion. This is what it
Speaker 1: costs to have her opinion. And I think, um, you know,
Speaker 1: every everything costs, and people don't realize that like they
Speaker 1: We live in a world where everyone's I can say
Speaker 1: whatever I want, like you certainly can, but it certainly
Speaker 1: costs the same with me, same with everybody else. Be
Speaker 1: an adult about it. What you're doing. Let's talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about what you're doing, um with your career
Speaker 1: now and how you began. What was it like in
Speaker 1: the early nineties covering technology. I don't think people there's
Speaker 1: nobody covering that writes it was me and some other guy.
Speaker 1: I don't think people really understood how important technology was
Speaker 1: going to be to society, the economy. Everything it had
Speaker 1: been covered, you know, chips and Microsoft essentially in software,
Speaker 1: chips and software. We'd been either covered as a as
Speaker 1: a as a as a product issue like we made
Speaker 1: Windows ten. Here's the news story, which is not a
Speaker 1: news story when they at least something, but it used
Speaker 1: to be UM and so you know when the hoop
Speaker 1: la on that was insane. I was at that event, UM,
Speaker 1: So you know, I think what was interesting. What I
Speaker 1: thought about it is this was an entirely new industry
Speaker 1: being created, the Internet industry, and you had to treat
Speaker 1: it like the beginnings of electricity or the beginning of
Speaker 1: TV or the beginning of radio. And so that's how
Speaker 1: I looked at it. And so one of the things
Speaker 1: I told when I first started covering at the Washing
Speaker 1: Post and then later at the Wall Street Journal, what
Speaker 1: I told Manners is I'm not going to tell you
Speaker 1: how the watchworking. I'll tell you what time it is,
Speaker 1: and that's what the most important story, like who are
Speaker 1: these people? And I spent a lot of time understanding
Speaker 1: the culture that was growing because it was all new.
Speaker 1: Like the I was there, I wrote one of the
Speaker 1: first stories when the Internet was commercialized. When I was
Speaker 1: at the Washington Post. I think, I mean, nobody was
Speaker 1: paying attention to, you know, what al Gore was doing. Yes,
Speaker 1: I was covering it then, and so I really there
Speaker 1: was a moment where I was like, this is going
Speaker 1: to be the most important change in media and communications
Speaker 1: in history, like so far, and there's been a lot.
Speaker 1: I thought, catch on, Yeah I did. I kept saying,
Speaker 1: you know, two things I spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: doing is talking about um. I told I tell a
Speaker 1: story that absolutely was a moment where I downloaded a
Speaker 1: Calvin and Hobbs book onto a server and I messed
Speaker 1: up the server. It was so big, you know, and
Speaker 1: the pictures and the person who was running the technology
Speaker 1: was like what did you do? And I'm like, I
Speaker 1: downloaded a book, I put it in Like what you that?
Speaker 1: And then like he's like so what, I'm like, so
Speaker 1: what don't you get at you idiot? Like you know,
Speaker 1: this is gonna everything is going to be digitized. And
Speaker 1: I kept saying everything is going to be digitized everything,
Speaker 1: And I say this over and over again. Everything that
Speaker 1: can be digitized will be digitized. Jobs, everything, It eats everything,
Speaker 1: not just Mark andres and software is eating the world.
Speaker 1: Digital is eating the world. You know, you sound a
Speaker 1: bit like Andresen who describes software software, but he describes
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs that he knows he's onto something when they're trying
Speaker 1: to explain their business to a VC and they get
Speaker 1: frustrated and angry, like, how do you not see this?
Speaker 1: It's so obvious? You basically just said, well it was,
Speaker 1: and it was. I would run around saying this and
Speaker 1: everyone's like, what are you talking about. I'm like, there's
Speaker 1: not gonna be newspapers. There's not gonna be like I
Speaker 1: would do that like the newspaper people. And then the
Speaker 1: second part was mobile. And when I got to the journal,
Speaker 1: I would just wrote a columnist the other day and
Speaker 1: the Times about no one's going to own a car,
Speaker 1: which caused quite a lot of consternation because like people
Speaker 1: in the Midwestern or with pickup truck struck, I want
Speaker 1: my pickup trup. I said, have your pickup truck. But
Speaker 1: it's gonna be like only like you don't understand, like
Speaker 1: even you will not have a car like cities, absolutely
Speaker 1: not you. Very soon after it'll be all automated and
Speaker 1: everything else or they'll be floating or whatever and so um.
Speaker 1: So I wrote a piece when I write when I
Speaker 1: got to the journal in called cutting the Cord. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I had a picture of me with chords and
Speaker 1: I had a big you know places, and I said,
Speaker 1: you will not have a landline phone. You will carry
Speaker 1: around this device. It will get smaller. And because they
Speaker 1: were big at the time, you know you small and
Speaker 1: tomorrow there will be your entire computer. It will be
Speaker 1: on the go, be mobile. You will this will be
Speaker 1: the center of your news. And it was when I
Speaker 1: go back and read it, I'm like, wow, that was
Speaker 1: pretty smart. Good um. But I kept insisting it and
Speaker 1: it made so much sense, like it obviously like when
Speaker 1: I think about cars, or when I think about certain
Speaker 1: jobs being eliminated. Like I was trying to alert the
Speaker 1: other and I'm like, your job is going to go
Speaker 1: like it's so patterned match. AI will take over everything
Speaker 1: you do except for the creativity part. No, it's you know,
Speaker 1: I think I said, everything you do is digitized, anything
Speaker 1: that's by road, anything that's mechanical, not just mechanical, it
Speaker 1: is so much more that really you could apply AI
Speaker 1: principles to a robotic, any of the coming things, robotics, automation, uh,
Speaker 1: self driving, um AI. It's just anything that can apply
Speaker 1: to it does. So I think about though, what can change,
Speaker 1: what's not going to be here? Whenever I get pushed
Speaker 1: back when we discuss future technology, my favorite question to
Speaker 1: ask people is, well, do you think people will still
Speaker 1: be driving their own cars in a hundred years? No,
Speaker 1: of course not. Okay, so next year, yeah I'll still be.
Speaker 1: So really, the debate is weird. When does that transition
Speaker 1: take place? And people can picture, but they can picture
Speaker 1: twelve years from now. That's too difficult. Yeah, it's taking place.
Speaker 1: It's place, and you know, it's the business model to
Speaker 1: the business model of not owning a car and just
Speaker 1: using Uber or some other source. Have something come by.
Speaker 1: That's hard for a lot of people to conceptualize, even
Speaker 1: though it appears they're already doing it. It's they've already
Speaker 1: started to do. People do things without realizing. There's an
Speaker 1: I forget, which I think it's I can't remember the
Speaker 1: poet Past are made by walking. That's what's happening here.
Speaker 1: Past made by walking, and so I just like I'm
Speaker 1: going to write a recap of what's happened since I
Speaker 1: got rid of I saw in my car and I
Speaker 1: have no vehicle, Like I have no vehicle, and the
Speaker 1: other like I called someone, I'm like, oh, we have
Speaker 1: to go get this. I'm like, oh, I don't have
Speaker 1: a car. How am I going to do that? Like,
Speaker 1: you know, it doesn't mean you're not going to drive
Speaker 1: a car, it doesn't mean you're not going to rent
Speaker 1: a car. I've just rented a car up and I'm
Speaker 1: going to try to put put it in terms of money,
Speaker 1: what I what I spent for that, what I used
Speaker 1: to buy a car with. And when I called the
Speaker 1: insurance company, I've had a car, you know, an insurance
Speaker 1: policy for years forever. And uh, they're like, what's the
Speaker 1: car you're replacing with? I go, no car, and they're
Speaker 1: like what I said, I never am going to own
Speaker 1: a car. And it was the most fascinating discussion. I said,
Speaker 1: you better watch out for your business because I'm not
Speaker 1: going to insurance. But then I sat down to breakfast
Speaker 1: with someone who's a lawyer and said, you know, when
Speaker 1: you get on a scooter, if you don't have car insurance,
Speaker 1: who covers if you hit someone when you're on a
Speaker 1: scooter like tho. I was like, oh my god, I
Speaker 1: do need interest, so you need insurance something different? Well,
Speaker 1: but it gets taken away when you don't have a car.
Speaker 1: It was fascinating and I'm like, oh my god, a
Speaker 1: whole new business. Like but I was thinking, all car
Speaker 1: insurance will go away. What will happen to those people?
Speaker 1: But then there's the only business of people who are
Speaker 1: on the move. You have to be covered anyway. It
Speaker 1: was just interesting. Your amex probably covers you if you
Speaker 1: rent it, rent the scooter, don't know, but it's like,
Speaker 1: that's the whole thing. But there's whole new businesses to
Speaker 1: be creative that. Immediately I was like, wow, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: it be interesting to go into the insurance business without
Speaker 1: only a car, but having a mobile insurance, a moving insurance,
Speaker 1: like you physically moving through the world. However you decide
Speaker 1: to do it. If you get into a vertical lift
Speaker 1: and takeoff vehicles, you know there's are great, They're going
Speaker 1: to be cool. I was mentioning, I've been waiting for
Speaker 1: them for fIF They're coming. They'll be in San Francisco first,
Speaker 1: so you come and ride them and there are I've
Speaker 1: been tracking that There are a number of companies that
Speaker 1: are relatively close, including one that's an old battery electric version. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm going to stick with it. But we're still I'm
Speaker 1: waiting for my blade runner vehicle where the projection of
Speaker 1: the highway is just a three three dimensional hologram that
Speaker 1: you fly through. But hey, that was supposed to be.
Speaker 1: Here are Hollywood people telling you, all right, so when
Speaker 1: are we going to have When are we gonna have
Speaker 1: personalized VTOL cars and taxis? You will be dead, Berry,
Speaker 1: you will never experience. They may try one, but you're
Speaker 1: not going to be So we're see. I agree with you.
Speaker 1: I think it's less than a hundred years but more
Speaker 1: than a decade. And I think it will be a
Speaker 1: slow transition because people very local, lester. They'll be human,
Speaker 1: that's right, that's another thing life extension. But there'll be
Speaker 1: human and cars at the same time. Just like here
Speaker 1: in New York. You know, there used to be the
Speaker 1: elevated the trains, and when they first started, a lot
Speaker 1: of people got run over by them when they were
Speaker 1: down on the ground before they elevated where the high
Speaker 1: line was. That's why they built the high line because
Speaker 1: all these people are getting killed because they were like,
Speaker 1: what's this. We have horses, and so horses would bang
Speaker 1: into these electric vehicles all the time, and then there
Speaker 1: weren't horses, and so that's what you know. There will
Speaker 1: be human drivers, but then there won't be like that's
Speaker 1: what's going out. And so I think that's what you
Speaker 1: have to think about, is this transition period when and
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean people won't drive in certain places or
Speaker 1: it's not, it'll just be different. It'll be just a
Speaker 1: different experience. So you go from the Washington Post to
Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal, is that Mossberg got me there?
Speaker 1: My my most important mentor so now he was covering technology.
Speaker 1: He was the guy het a technology column, uh that
Speaker 1: he wrote for many years. He started it um. His
Speaker 1: first line of his first one was called personal Technology
Speaker 1: in the Wall Street Journal. And as he had covered
Speaker 1: the Defense Department, he had to the State Department. He was,
Speaker 1: you know, Washington reporter and he just was st geeky.
Speaker 1: And the first line of his column, which I think
Speaker 1: was still relevant today, was technology is too hard to
Speaker 1: use and it's not your fault, which I loved, which
Speaker 1: is like so smart because they were sort of testing you,
Speaker 1: you know, with the products that again. But okay, um,
Speaker 1: so he started that, and so he was there and
Speaker 1: I interviewed him for my book on I well, because
Speaker 1: he was the only person I perceived that understood the change.
Speaker 1: Like everybody else was like, Oh, it's just online services.
Speaker 1: We'll still have Time magazine. They're so important. I was like, no,
Speaker 1: my magazine is over, like you know, like you know,
Speaker 1: and he's the only one who got it. And he
Speaker 1: and I really clicked immediately, and uh started. He got
Speaker 1: me to come to the Journal to write about this
Speaker 1: because he thought the Journal was not writing about it properly.
Speaker 1: And I understood it, and I knew them all. I
Speaker 1: knew Jeff Bezos. I knew Jeff Bezos. Wasn't Jeff Bezos
Speaker 1: for a long time. Now he's Jeff Bezos Prime back
Speaker 1: right whatever. He was just a guy. He was just
Speaker 1: a startup guy that were really bad pants at a pants. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of plead becky pants. Um, you know, it's
Speaker 1: so funny. They were all like the Google guys were
Speaker 1: in a garage, the um, you know, just all of
Speaker 1: them were like Ellen I met when he did this
Speaker 1: thing called x dot com. He you know, he had
Speaker 1: a full head of hair and was kind of geeky,
Speaker 1: like what was what was elan? Originally? Was he part
Speaker 1: of the PayPal No, he had a company called x
Speaker 1: dot com and that was a payment company, and he
Speaker 1: and they fought a lot PayPal PayPal, there was that group,
Speaker 1: and then they they so he eventually they did march,
Speaker 1: but there were two separate companies and they were quite
Speaker 1: quite unpleasant rivals. And then they got together. So a
Speaker 1: lot of people told that their big genius wasn't selling
Speaker 1: it to eBay. Right. A lot of people came out
Speaker 1: of that PayPal group, Mosque and Peter Thiel and a
Speaker 1: whole run of folks in the tech world trace back
Speaker 1: to that. So so I remember Walt's early works specifically
Speaker 1: as a reviewer of services and computers and technology, but
Speaker 1: you really came in covering the Internet business, the of
Speaker 1: of the Internet, not so much as reviewer, but as
Speaker 1: a straight up economic journalist, financial journal I was a
Speaker 1: financial journalist. I think I had an interest in the products,
Speaker 1: and of course, you know, well it was great to
Speaker 1: have Walter's de partner eventually because it was he had
Speaker 1: that part of it covered. Um, he's a reporter to
Speaker 1: by the way, like he was. One of the great
Speaker 1: things about Walt Musburg as a reviewer was that he
Speaker 1: was a reporter first and foremost, and so he reported
Speaker 1: out these products. A lot of people who covered tech
Speaker 1: we're just fan boys and just you know, just ridiculous.
Speaker 1: And well, sometimes he loved stuff, sometimes he disliked it.
Speaker 1: So it was so fair, you know, in terms of
Speaker 1: how he did it. And I came in and covered
Speaker 1: the business of it and tried to understand the stock
Speaker 1: stuff and because there was a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: early froth around a lot of these companies and what
Speaker 1: was what was not true, what was true, what was
Speaker 1: a Ponzi scheme? What was not? And so I covered
Speaker 1: these early businesses, and I was quite bullish on the
Speaker 1: whole big air sector. A lot of reporters who covered
Speaker 1: the media at the time kept calling telling me I
Speaker 1: was covering CB radio or a fad, and I didn't
Speaker 1: think it was a bad I remember, those are One
Speaker 1: of the guys who called the CB rate to me
Speaker 1: is now working for a digital content company and he's
Speaker 1: like Mr Internet Now. It's always amazing how how people
Speaker 1: are still willing to believe whatever it is that keeps
Speaker 1: their paycheck flowing. Well, I was very worried. That's the
Speaker 1: reason I left the Washington Post because I was like,
Speaker 1: when I loved Don Graham, who's the owner of the
Speaker 1: Washington Post, but when I left, and he's such a
Speaker 1: like an incredibly cordial and just a fine person. And
Speaker 1: he said, you know, Carol, why are you leaving? And
Speaker 1: I said, the waters rising and you're on the lower floodplain.
Speaker 1: And what was their response to that? And he was
Speaker 1: like ha ha ha, And I'm like, no, really, you
Speaker 1: better because I had covered retail. I had covered retails,
Speaker 1: So I covered Walmart's entrance into the retail space, the
Speaker 1: death of wonderful retailers like Heckinger's and h. Woody's, Woodward
Speaker 1: Lowthrop and garf Ankles were the two like the death
Speaker 1: of depart You could see what was happening in the
Speaker 1: original problem was Walmart, you know, and the big box stores.
Speaker 1: But then it became Amazon and you could see glimmers
Speaker 1: of it with with Craigslist and hitting the classified business.
Speaker 1: Amazon still wasn't yet they but you could see it
Speaker 1: see where it was going. And so um, so I
Speaker 1: was like Wall Street Journal has a more defensible position
Speaker 1: in media right now. Um, and so I went there,
Speaker 1: I thought. But then the Washington Post, of course has
Speaker 1: revived itself with ownership by bring it full circle. He
Speaker 1: has done a wonderful job. I used to full disclosure,
Speaker 1: I used to contribute to the Washington Post up until Um.
Speaker 1: I think that the Washington Post has reasserted itself as
Speaker 1: one of the three major papers in New York, and
Speaker 1: you've written for all three figured of economics. They figured
Speaker 1: out it's not just that it's a rich guy owning,
Speaker 1: it's actually making money. They it's not none of these businesses,
Speaker 1: not Times. They're not like massive money making throwing off
Speaker 1: money business. Street Journal always had a million subscribers, which
Speaker 1: is online subscribers, which is a lot for probably The
Speaker 1: Times isn't the best in this area. Well, post Trump election,
Speaker 1: their subscription base has exploded. Also, they've done a good
Speaker 1: job with a product like you can't you can't separate
Speaker 1: the product from the text. Their product is really quite good.
Speaker 1: And so I think a lot of these people figured
Speaker 1: it out, and with the help of Bezos, who wasn't
Speaker 1: going to be a twitchy owner. Neither of the Grahams,
Speaker 1: whether they were wonderful owners. Um, I think that they
Speaker 1: sort of made it through the difficult period and it
Speaker 1: just rationalize what they were doing, and I could find
Speaker 1: I can tell you every time I get my update
Speaker 1: from Amazon that my bill for the Washington Post has
Speaker 1: been passing stuff like that. That's an enormous benefit for
Speaker 1: stuff like that like that, just great journalism, great product.
Speaker 1: I think of things always in terms of product. Is
Speaker 1: that a good product? Like when I make stuff, this
Speaker 1: is a good product. And if it's not a good product,
Speaker 1: I stopped making it. And then, unlike a lot of journalists,
Speaker 1: I'll stop doing something if I don't think it's a
Speaker 1: it's something that's worthwhile to the users, the readers, or
Speaker 1: whoever is doing it. What what products? What products do
Speaker 1: you think are really strong these days that recode box
Speaker 1: is doing? And what are you watching? Because hey, let's
Speaker 1: see how this developed? Is this too new? Is this
Speaker 1: too different? Um? I'm i gonna tell you a new
Speaker 1: idea I have that I love. We thought it the
Speaker 1: other night. I was standing there and like, oh, this,
Speaker 1: well if it's not out yet, but it's not. But
Speaker 1: I was thinking, this is what I'm gonna do next.
Speaker 1: I'm always making something else, like I'm always look when
Speaker 1: I started doing podcasting. For example, UM, when I started
Speaker 1: doing Recode, everyone was like, what are you doing. I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: We're gonna have a voicey news based journalistic base but voicy,
Speaker 1: funny site. Everyone's copied it since like what we did,
Speaker 1: So it was Walton, I really did pioneer. When you
Speaker 1: say voicey, what do you mean by that? Like Yahoo?
Speaker 1: When I was covering Yahoo, Yahoo sucks, here's why narky. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: we backed it with journalism, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Or blunt blunt like guess what the guy who's running
Speaker 1: Uber ain't going to be running Uber And here's why.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean, like saying things journalists say
Speaker 1: to each other, but backing it up. And one of
Speaker 1: the things that I had was it used to be
Speaker 1: at the journal it's the to be sure statement that's
Speaker 1: always in these stupid stories, to be sure. Like when
Speaker 1: I was covering this company within it was that's the
Speaker 1: way they yes, like this online grocery that what was it?
Speaker 1: That first there was one for it, a lot of
Speaker 1: money behind it. Listen, it's now figured out itself. At
Speaker 1: the time, it was an insane like you looked at
Speaker 1: the numbers, You're like are you kidding me? And Cosmo, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that one one of them. And in New York City
Speaker 1: like it was, it was you just sat there like
Speaker 1: you're losing so much money on every delivery. It doesn't
Speaker 1: mean it didn't work. Prime to work like you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, there's not there's ways to figure it out.
Speaker 1: The idea was a good one. I always try to
Speaker 1: separate the idea again because he he talks about Chewi
Speaker 1: being the modern dot com and now ju Wayne Wright,
Speaker 1: who was the entrepremour behind pet stot com, is now
Speaker 1: with the real real What an amazing business that is, right,
Speaker 1: So that's the whole point. And so so when I
Speaker 1: was writing about it, it was you. I was like,
Speaker 1: this is this is this is terrible business. They can
Speaker 1: scant go public. This is insane. And the editor at
Speaker 1: the journal was like, well you have to, like, you know,
Speaker 1: point out that this you could be wrong. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm not wrong, this is like and and they were
Speaker 1: like they're like, ha been And then you have to
Speaker 1: do this to be sure. Some people say that this
Speaker 1: business and I was like, to be sure some idiots
Speaker 1: say and it was like, let me tut these idiots.
Speaker 1: But but then I ran my own site, and then
Speaker 1: I could say that like I can say that because
Speaker 1: it's my site. And so we sort of pioneered that
Speaker 1: and then it changed like everyone copied it. That's what
Speaker 1: always happened. And then it wasn't the right like having
Speaker 1: analog websites that people go to, it's a losing game
Speaker 1: in in in the advertising business online. So then I
Speaker 1: was like sitting there and I saw what is an
Speaker 1: analog site? You mean like meat spaces or what. No. No, no,
Speaker 1: just like the way we were doing recode ten years ago,
Speaker 1: we changed it like it shouldn't look like a newspaper online.
Speaker 1: It should be something not just that. No, we we
Speaker 1: did something pioneering, but then it didn't work anymore, right,
Speaker 1: and we tried something else, like I think the ability
Speaker 1: to try something else, and so it just it's a
Speaker 1: long way of getting into the podcast. I was sitting there,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I like these these mobile devices are now great,
Speaker 1: these apps are now great. I'm gonna do this. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do interviews because because I had my code conference,
Speaker 1: the Code conference at Walt and I did and I
Speaker 1: was like, why not extend three sixty five days a year?
Speaker 1: Like I can only do seventeen interviews a CODE. It's
Speaker 1: always Elon Mosk or Mark zucker from but there's always
Speaker 1: fascinating people that one like you're doing here, And so
Speaker 1: I was like, there's so many cool people that I
Speaker 1: could do the same thing. People love the CODE conference.
Speaker 1: Why not bring it out and make it free and
Speaker 1: make it sense. So I started doing these interviews and
Speaker 1: I remember like I literally had an intern in me
Speaker 1: do it, and I'm running like I'm the head of
Speaker 1: the site and I'm like, I'm not doing that anymore.
Speaker 1: I'm doing this, And so we started doing it and
Speaker 1: a lot of people had opinions are like, you know,
Speaker 1: people aren't going to listen for an hour. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: they are, like you know they I was like I
Speaker 1: literally had that yes exactly people, And I'm like, you
Speaker 1: don't know, give me. People are in cars, people are
Speaker 1: on bikes, and people are in treadmills. Millennials like snack
Speaker 1: a Well, no they don't. They're smart. People are smart.
Speaker 1: So it was like, well, I don't want these people
Speaker 1: who like snack ables. They don't listen to me anyway.
Speaker 1: So it was like I literally spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time and I was like, I'm certain I'm right about this.
Speaker 1: But then when we did the Galloway thing, Scott came
Speaker 1: on the show because I had heard him at a
Speaker 1: at a conference. I thought it was brilliant. It's got Galloway,
Speaker 1: wo would you pivot with? And know I had interviewed
Speaker 1: Ellen Zuckerberg, like the head of Google everything, and the
Speaker 1: numbers for Scott when I saw them come in off
Speaker 1: the freaking chart. And also he predicted the Amazon whole
Speaker 1: food That thing happened the week that is such, predicted
Speaker 1: it a year in advance, goes on your show a
Speaker 1: week in advance and does it, and a week later, bang,
Speaker 1: and people lost minds. People like, oh, he works in branding.
Speaker 1: He must have known. He wrote about it literally twelve
Speaker 1: so anyway, so he so that show went off the
Speaker 1: charts before that happened too, and I was like, Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have one again and see what happens again
Speaker 1: because it was our rapport, our discussion. He was so
Speaker 1: insightful and smart, and so I was like, we're going
Speaker 1: to start another podcast and it's going to be only
Speaker 1: thirty minutes, maybe twenty minutes, and it's not gonna be long.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be quick, fast, topical in this and now
Speaker 1: something like it needs to be an hour. I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: it doesn't. It needs to be this link because this
Speaker 1: is what this is what it is, and it creates
Speaker 1: a little scarcity, keeps people coming exactly. We may do
Speaker 1: another one during the week. That's it. That's the talks.
Speaker 1: We've got a lot of advertising. A yeah, um, and
Speaker 1: so what what you know? You just have to be
Speaker 1: like you have to know what you are or know
Speaker 1: what you're It's like cooking, Like I'm making a cake now,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people want to say what you
Speaker 1: really should do is be boring you. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I'm making a cake and like, but be burging on.
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, go make your own. And so I
Speaker 1: think people who are good at product know what the
Speaker 1: product is and then are willing to make changes to
Speaker 1: it when it doesn't work. So our conference, for example,
Speaker 1: I'm still trying to figure out what we've had seventeen
Speaker 1: years making so much money at these conferences. By the way,
Speaker 1: podcasts make a fortune because I think of things and
Speaker 1: would hope businesses all the time. So anyway, so one
Speaker 1: of the things like I'm Robb rethinking, like what isn't conference?
Speaker 1: We have seventeen really successful years, but it's changed. So
Speaker 1: I'm like, I sit along, you know, and even to
Speaker 1: the point and we're not doing this, But should I
Speaker 1: keep doing it? Is it the right thing anymore? What
Speaker 1: is the next thing? And so I'm constantly thinking, and
Speaker 1: that's why I come up with this new thing that
Speaker 1: I think is going to make a lot of money.
Speaker 1: Also tell us what it is. I'm not gonna tell
Speaker 1: you what it is. It's not that product. Well, when
Speaker 1: it comes out, you'll have to exist. It exists in
Speaker 1: Carra Swisher's break. That's it. So you got to be
Speaker 1: careful crossing. The thing that I think about what Walton
Speaker 1: I did is like when I think about what I'm
Speaker 1: really proud of is we created a lot of jobs
Speaker 1: for people, Like families lived on one idea that Walton
Speaker 1: I had in nineteen. Whenever we did a two thousand
Speaker 1: and two, Walton I thought of something in two two
Speaker 1: and dozens of people have jobs. It's fascinating to me
Speaker 1: to think that way. Like, and that was the all
Speaker 1: Things Digital platform for conferences. Yeah, all Things Digital conferences,
Speaker 1: you know, came out of a single idea how many
Speaker 1: conferences are you guys do in a year? Now, well, see,
Speaker 1: what is a conference? Right? Look we did this live
Speaker 1: a bunch of people in a room. Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: don't I don't think that way. Like we have the
Speaker 1: main conference, we have Code Commerce that's coming up in September,
Speaker 1: We've got code Media. Um. But then Scott and I
Speaker 1: did a live pivot the other day that was huge.
Speaker 1: We sold out fourteen seconds we sold that. So now
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, live podcast things. You know, the pod
Speaker 1: saves America? I don't really for two years? Really well,
Speaker 1: but in a different like what should they be? Three
Speaker 1: d people? Should be five hundred people? Should you get sponsors?
Speaker 1: The sponsors were thrilled. Try y is is really been
Speaker 1: doing that for decades? Yes they have exactly, but but
Speaker 1: what about moving them around the country? Why not exactly?
Speaker 1: So I'm thinking about that. So is that a conference?
Speaker 1: It kind of is. What if you could add other
Speaker 1: things onto a live podcast? Put comics there, put like
Speaker 1: make it an event. What if you can add experiential
Speaker 1: pop ups to it. I'm like constantly thinking, like, what's
Speaker 1: the next version of analog gathering? That's smart? Smart is
Speaker 1: the one thing the brand is always The brands I'd
Speaker 1: like to make are always like what's smart? Like what
Speaker 1: do smart people want to listen to? What is additive
Speaker 1: to someone's life? Every time I get a tweet from
Speaker 1: someone around Pivot, I'm getting a lot of them around Pivot.
Speaker 1: I just really enjoy it and I always come up
Speaker 1: with an insight. I'm like, who can ask for more
Speaker 1: than that? What you're describing what you just did with
Speaker 1: Scott is quote an evening with I mean, that's how
Speaker 1: that's been, but it can be seen like and then
Speaker 1: then the other day I was like, we have to
Speaker 1: have swag. We can make a lot of money and swag,
Speaker 1: Like I'm always cut. That's what I want to think about.
Speaker 1: And one of the things I like to think about
Speaker 1: in products. Now we're gonna have swag. You can have.
Speaker 1: You'll give you one free, but only one. Uma. I
Speaker 1: never give away anything free. Um. The the things that
Speaker 1: I think about when they were thinking about products, is
Speaker 1: is it useful? Is it entertaining? Is it must have?
Speaker 1: If you have one of those things, you usually have
Speaker 1: a very successful projects. One. You don't need all three,
Speaker 1: but if you have all three, that's killer. It's a killer.
Speaker 1: You have two, but it has to be one of
Speaker 1: those three things, right, And you don't think like a journalist,
Speaker 1: you think like an entrepreneur, right exactly, And it's evident
Speaker 1: in your discussion. I am going to uh, I do
Speaker 1: journalism by the way you do journalism. I consume journalism.
Speaker 1: My extra special guest today is Kara Swisher. She is
Speaker 1: in desperate need of a real New York bagel and
Speaker 1: has been unable to find one. I'm to harsh your grin. Well,
Speaker 1: apparently that thing is a blasphemy over coming from Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: I never have lived. Well, there are no bagels in Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: I don't know what anybody could possibly fell in love
Speaker 1: with someone in Brooklyn. What can I say? Google best
Speaker 1: bagels in Brooklyn. You'll find a list anywhere along I
Speaker 1: know where they are there on Second Avenue in fifty
Speaker 1: I know where the bagels are so up here. So
Speaker 1: you mentioned you fell in love with someone in Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: and you mentioned I just mentioned Google. I gotta ask
Speaker 1: you a random question. Please your disclosures. You don't mince
Speaker 1: any words whatsoever. Fifteen years ago we did this. It's like, Hey,
Speaker 1: here's who my spouse is, Here's who she works. For
Speaker 1: here's this, I don't get paid. Her money is hers
Speaker 1: money is There's no conflict. That's like a really blunt,
Speaker 1: straightforward that was very innovative at the time. It was
Speaker 1: because we trusted readers and we wanted. You know, my
Speaker 1: ex was a very prominent executive at Google and then
Speaker 1: later became CTO of America. UM, I had to meaning
Speaker 1: she was working for the Obama White House as technology
Speaker 1: she's the chief Technology Officer in the United States. Um.
Speaker 1: But before that, she was a pretty prominent executive Megan
Speaker 1: Smith at Google. She she ran Google dot org. She
Speaker 1: was she bought things, she bought the Google Earth for them.
Speaker 1: I mean, she did a lot of stuff over there,
Speaker 1: and um, and so I wanted I actually urged her
Speaker 1: to go there when it was very small. Um, hey,
Speaker 1: these guys are onto something. Yes, I was like, these
Speaker 1: guys are special, Like you know, she was looking around
Speaker 1: she was running another company and good advice. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it was good advice. Thank You're welcome. Megan. She's a
Speaker 1: very lovely house in Washington, d C. Do to that,
Speaker 1: so she should have several wish I don't want to
Speaker 1: go into it. So anyway, she's doing just fine. Um.
Speaker 1: So so I wanted to disclose and you can't do
Speaker 1: that in a newspaper, and I thought, why not be
Speaker 1: cleared everybody? So we trust the reader too. We don't
Speaker 1: have to say. One of the things General's trying to
Speaker 1: do is like I'm completely even handed. It's like, no,
Speaker 1: you're not. You have things that you don't want people
Speaker 1: to grab onto them. I foresaw sort of this Twitter
Speaker 1: day where everybody could do gotcha to you, So before
Speaker 1: anybody could get you, just explain and then we trust
Speaker 1: the readers to be smart. And so that's Walton I did.
Speaker 1: We full disclosure on a lot of stuff right as
Speaker 1: much as we could, and there as much that was
Speaker 1: relevant I think was it was it and people love it.
Speaker 1: They just they like it. Again, it's a respect for
Speaker 1: readers that we think about that well, we don't think
Speaker 1: they're stupid. Well, that's important to actually let people think, um,
Speaker 1: you know what you're doing. You have nothing to hide,
Speaker 1: you know. It goes back to Hunter Thompson basically saying, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm not unbiased. If you are my biases, I'm Hunter S. Thompson.
Speaker 1: You'll figure it out. Let's let's talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about silicon Valley. You've lived in San Francisco for five years, right,
Speaker 1: we could talk about we can talk about this how
Speaker 1: much the city has changed. But let's let's go a
Speaker 1: little south down to the valley. Um, how has Silicon
Speaker 1: Valley changed over the past. It's just money, just massive
Speaker 1: amounts of massive amounts of capital and success has sort
Speaker 1: of and and and the influence and power. And I
Speaker 1: think one of the things that's interesting, sort of like
Speaker 1: I would be akin to watching Hollywood go from Orange
Speaker 1: Groves to the power Louis B. Mayer and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: And I think it was really you know, most of
Speaker 1: the people I had covered and now the captains of
Speaker 1: industry as the richest people in the world, by the way,
Speaker 1: on every list, the people they weren't that they were
Speaker 1: just startups. And so I think some of them have
Speaker 1: stayed true to the people they are. Others have been
Speaker 1: warped by money and not understanding their power and not
Speaker 1: understand the consequences of what they've built. Others have been,
Speaker 1: you know, plunged into these ridiculous wealth bubbles where they
Speaker 1: go from the airplane to the car to their home
Speaker 1: and they don't understand what they've done, Like they don't
Speaker 1: spend They surround themselves by people who's who's interest is
Speaker 1: in pleasing them. Um, it's often when then I run
Speaker 1: into him, like Mark Andrees and I have known each
Speaker 1: other since he was very young and I was very young,
Speaker 1: and you know, I think very few people he's like
Speaker 1: the genius, you know, Mark with his giant brain. But
Speaker 1: by the way, when I did my interview with him,
Speaker 1: I got all these emails complaining that they could not
Speaker 1: listen to it on two X because he speaks so quickly.
Speaker 1: But you know, he's like very few people will say something.
Speaker 1: I'm like, that's stupid, and he's like what, And I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. He's not used to hearing that, but he is.
Speaker 1: He's actually one of the people who will go back
Speaker 1: and forth. But you know, even like you know, just
Speaker 1: a lot of them, he's actually quite good. He he
Speaker 1: always thought a lot about himself, like and I don't
Speaker 1: mind that. Well, you have to in order to go out.
Speaker 1: And he was confident from the get go. Shouldn't have
Speaker 1: been um, well, he turned out tinsight bias he could
Speaker 1: should have. He's achieved a modicum of success, Like whatever,
Speaker 1: I don't care, right, exactly. But but but he wasn't
Speaker 1: what my pushback to you is, he wasn't an arrogant
Speaker 1: jerk about it and Silicon, well do tell but he was, Yes,
Speaker 1: he was just no, no, no, he's the same person.
Speaker 1: He's the same person, which I like. I appreciate someone
Speaker 1: like that. I appreciate like or Mark benny Off. I
Speaker 1: love talking to Mark ben right or um smart, insightful,
Speaker 1: insightful and he thinks of himself he does, but I
Speaker 1: enjoy talking to him. He's really like he is what
Speaker 1: he is like those people give us the list of
Speaker 1: arrogant jerks you enjoy speaking with. You know, very different
Speaker 1: people can be the different ways. You know, Larry Page,
Speaker 1: I don't know where he's gone to. He's hidden off,
Speaker 1: kind of disappeared, he has, but he's always was like that.
Speaker 1: He was always he was sort of a he can
Speaker 1: now afford to do that? Was it him or Surgery
Speaker 1: who was more of the serge was more of the
Speaker 1: quiet one. Larry is Larry, but Paige Rank was really his. Yes,
Speaker 1: Larry is really so brainy, so smart, so substantive, like
Speaker 1: really special mind. Um. But you know they're all different
Speaker 1: that there, they differ read but you know, and then
Speaker 1: you get all sort of the young startup people that
Speaker 1: are now older. You know, where do you put Peter
Speaker 1: Teal in this brilliant, brilliant guy appalling of points of view, many, many,
Speaker 1: many appalling points of view? Did you get around to
Speaker 1: reading conspiracy? I read his first of all, not his book,
Speaker 1: the book about the Gawker litigation, but you know that
Speaker 1: to me just sent me over the edge, like doing
Speaker 1: a secret lawsuit against someone if he really cared do
Speaker 1: it out in the public like that to me was
Speaker 1: the secret part to me was sneaky and awful. Ryan
Speaker 1: Holiday's book about that is so fascinating only because you learn,
Speaker 1: even with two people, it's impossible to keep a secret.
Speaker 1: It's it's astonishing. The Gawker litigation is just an excuse
Speaker 1: to describe the history of conspiracies. It's really anyway, it's interesting.
Speaker 1: You know, he's brilliant, but I don't agree with him
Speaker 1: almost everything. It's fun and funny, and you know I
Speaker 1: always I sort of poked at him quite a bit,
Speaker 1: and you know, he he's brilliant. He is brilliant, but really,
Speaker 1: some who else stands out to you in the valley
Speaker 1: visa The reason I think Peter Till's interesting is I'm
Speaker 1: always like hot, Like he wrote one book and I'm
Speaker 1: like it was very Yeah. I was like, oh, so
Speaker 1: many interesting things here, you know what I mean, I
Speaker 1: can't and then he he says a lot of things.
Speaker 1: I'm like, are you kidding me? You've got to be kidding.
Speaker 1: The relationship with Trump, Yeah, kind of surprising. That would
Speaker 1: you imagine from a guy who's railing about being oppressed
Speaker 1: as a gay man in Silicon Valley, he doesn't care
Speaker 1: talk about strange bedfellows. He doesn't care. It doesn't care.
Speaker 1: It doesn't care that those aren't his concerns, and I
Speaker 1: think they should be a concern. So that's kind of
Speaker 1: the old guard. What's who? Let's talk about the most
Speaker 1: recent round of companies. Really interesting entrepreneur. You've written about
Speaker 1: Travis Um. What are your thoughts about the whole frat
Speaker 1: scene at Uber. Well, I think he's a Dara is
Speaker 1: a very thoughtful and interesting person. I think he's got
Speaker 1: the person who took over Yeah, Dark Coast for sha.
Speaker 1: I think he's got a really tough economic question to
Speaker 1: solve there, because you don't think you could just do
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of rides at a loss, but make
Speaker 1: it up in volume. I know, I think they've got
Speaker 1: an economic problem and it's hard, and they've got competition.
Speaker 1: I believe in moats, you know, I think about moats.
Speaker 1: Amazon has built so many moats now they still have
Speaker 1: They're gonna have problems when when Amazon Web Services doesn't
Speaker 1: do as well. So they've got to really think about
Speaker 1: what their moats are. They've got a lot of them, um,
Speaker 1: and I think any business has to have a lot
Speaker 1: of moats, and I don't think there's as many moats
Speaker 1: around Ubers and the market saying that right now, right right,
Speaker 1: the market is si, well, they came out way too late,
Speaker 1: and they came out very pricey to begin with. The
Speaker 1: market is speaking if they would have, if they would
Speaker 1: have come out cheaper and come out earlier, maybe we
Speaker 1: be talking. I don't know. I think the economics are off.
Speaker 1: They just you're getting a ten, you're getting a fifteen.
Speaker 1: You're paying ten dollars for twenty dollar ride. That's what's happening,
Speaker 1: which is fantastic for consumers. The same thing with you know,
Speaker 1: I just wrote about we worked this week and your
Speaker 1: colleague calls it a PONZI. Yes I did. I wrote
Speaker 1: a long column about it and included Scott in that. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I think it just the economics don't make sense, Like, wait,
Speaker 1: you're telling me if I get a floor in a building,
Speaker 1: that floor shouldn't be worth more than the whole building itself. Well,
Speaker 1: they're trying to pass themselves off as a tech company,
Speaker 1: and I think that's what offense got nine that. Do
Speaker 1: you remember Regious thirty years ago reduced plus beer equals multiple. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it just seems sort of one of them has just
Speaker 1: gone up again. Redis R I C I or something
Speaker 1: like that. You've got competitors. They that business that that
Speaker 1: that I p O perspectives was like one of the
Speaker 1: analysts called a lesson in obfuscation. I read that. I
Speaker 1: can't recall the last time in S one maybe it
Speaker 1: was Facebook, the last time an S one came out
Speaker 1: and it was so completely and totally line by line
Speaker 1: taken apart, like we works were. Well, it deserved it.
Speaker 1: I deserved it that. You know, look, it could be
Speaker 1: a very it's a really interesting disruptive brand. There's some
Speaker 1: great ideas there, but not enough for what for billion?
Speaker 1: There's seven billion, great This all comes back to what
Speaker 1: you said earlier about way too much capital and silicon
Speaker 1: value chasing way too few deals. Has that completely skewed valuations, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, Andreeson says we don't pay attention to valuation.
Speaker 1: Well that's what he says. Yes, you know, I think
Speaker 1: it's you know, once again in the public markets. Yes,
Speaker 1: I think it matters. I think you're right. Who cares
Speaker 1: the vcs throw you know, I always say there's not
Speaker 1: enough money to shove, not up for ad holes to
Speaker 1: shove all the money down. And there's that much money.
Speaker 1: So yeah, there's that much money. And so you know,
Speaker 1: you've got SoftBank running around now. And look when Andreason
Speaker 1: came and everyone's like, what's he doing? Overpaying now? And
Speaker 1: Reason looks like parsimonious compared to SoftBank. That's a good word.
Speaker 1: So let me push back again on some of the
Speaker 1: new tech companies. So there's grub Street, which has been
Speaker 1: doing some really dishonest things. If we've just wrote about
Speaker 1: that about about the tipping, not just the tipping, but
Speaker 1: taking phone numbers for um and registering websites that look
Speaker 1: like the restaurants. If you think Craigslist hurt media companies.
Speaker 1: Grub Street is really damaging a lot. Actually, it's a
Speaker 1: it's a bigger question you're talking there's a bigger question
Speaker 1: you're talking about, which is the ethics behind some of
Speaker 1: this stuff. Like it goes to the bigger version of data.
Speaker 1: How your data is being used, how you're being manipulated online.
Speaker 1: Now you don't get if your data is being used
Speaker 1: and they're monetizing it, why don't you get a piece
Speaker 1: of it? How does that happen that your data which
Speaker 1: you own is being monetized by someone else, Like that's
Speaker 1: like you have to think about around face, But where's
Speaker 1: the benefit? Are they paying you for that? Are they
Speaker 1: disclosing enough? Are you allowed to opt out? And so
Speaker 1: those are those bigger questions of how all of us
Speaker 1: have become like you know, if you remember the soiling
Speaker 1: greens people like you know, that's data is people, and
Speaker 1: so the question is what do we do about that?
Speaker 1: And Congress in general, on the bigger question, has has
Speaker 1: done no regulation of the Internet ever, unlike Europe, which
Speaker 1: has been very forward on starting to they're a decade
Speaker 1: ahead of they are there, indeed, but it's still there.
Speaker 1: Haven't been really comprehensive regulation of the Internet the way
Speaker 1: there's comprehensive whether whilst she breaks it, there's comprehensive legislation,
Speaker 1: whether chemical companies violate things and break the lot. There
Speaker 1: are laws, whether they're you know, emission standards, which are
Speaker 1: now the Fifornian the drum mininistrator California looks like it's winning.
Speaker 1: Um oh god, they're there, Sam. You stop and think
Speaker 1: about this. The automobile industry has invested so much money
Speaker 1: in everything from hybrids to electric to Cleanerody's going back, right,
Speaker 1: It's like, wait, we've wasted billions of dollars if we
Speaker 1: get to play, not going back. They don't want to
Speaker 1: go back. I want to go back. And the future
Speaker 1: is these cars. They they have a marketing and branding
Speaker 1: issues they want to appeal to. Really, you're on the
Speaker 1: downside of history here like Stop like clean Cole Clean.
Speaker 1: So what's what's interesting is that like Tony. So the
Speaker 1: question is where are we gonna regulate like in California
Speaker 1: right now, there's a privacy bill coming online that's going
Speaker 1: to be the de facto for the country. It is,
Speaker 1: and there's twelve others across the country. So then tech
Speaker 1: companies are going to be like, which one do we like,
Speaker 1: They're gonna have to follow all of them. I think
Speaker 1: everybody like longs for an idea of a privacy bill
Speaker 1: that has some teeth that protects consumers, even these companies,
Speaker 1: because it's like they don't. I don't. I think confusion
Speaker 1: really creates problems in markets, right and therefore there should
Speaker 1: be a really strong national privacy bill that one would thing,
Speaker 1: but they can't agree on lunch in Congress right now.
Speaker 1: You'd imagine there should be something around anti discrimination there.
Speaker 1: You imagine there should be something around Um, there's all
Speaker 1: kinds of bills. I wrote about this Internet Bill of
Speaker 1: Rights that they're thinking about, and there's a ten or
Speaker 1: twelve things, and it's not one law. It's two dozens
Speaker 1: of laws around the Internet to regulate. And there's only
Speaker 1: one law right now, and it benefits innet, which is
Speaker 1: section thirty, which people are now revisiting. Oh, that was
Speaker 1: your column revisiting an obscure. It's not viscure. It's a
Speaker 1: critical bill well, but originally it was not well known publicly,
Speaker 1: and now it's coming. It's been used by it's as
Speaker 1: a shield. And so what's interesting I have I have
Speaker 1: a podcast coming out today. I had three people debate
Speaker 1: it today because I was like, let's talk about this
Speaker 1: and educate people about it. But you know, that's that
Speaker 1: bill is helpful to the internet industry and the digital industry.
Speaker 1: So the question is you can have that and we
Speaker 1: could you know, getting rid of it's a huge mistake,
Speaker 1: but figuring out where the responsibility is uh is important
Speaker 1: and I think so therefore put stuff around it and
Speaker 1: have some some Everyone is like regulation is terrible. I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: regulation is worse in many ways because people don't know
Speaker 1: the rules of the road. And you know, especially with
Speaker 1: these new technologies are coming cars, some of the healthcare stuff,
Speaker 1: the censor stuff, the AI stuff, we need good law
Speaker 1: to to really protect consumers. And many people think, you know,
Speaker 1: even just the ability to sue is a good thing.
Speaker 1: Like you know, there are certain laws in place around
Speaker 1: pornography and everything else, but there this is an industry
Speaker 1: that needs to be regulated just the way Wall Street
Speaker 1: is just the way, and regulated they'll be They'll be overreached.
Speaker 1: There'll be overreached, no question. But the question is if
Speaker 1: there's none, maybe we need a little Like so you're
Speaker 1: implying about the right to sue. You know, every all
Speaker 1: the boilerplate that you shrink, wrap agreements that you sign,
Speaker 1: have arbitration agreements. In the musicians decency second to thirty
Speaker 1: does take care of pretty much. They it's been shipped
Speaker 1: away around uh, sex trafficking in some other areas, but
Speaker 1: it's not really been shipped away very much at all.
Speaker 1: And then there's a question of you know, things like
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Warren was proposing, which is breaking up some of
Speaker 1: these companies, And that's Elizabeth Warren following again your partner
Speaker 1: who's been talking talked about that. So there's breakup, there's
Speaker 1: fees that there's there's fines, there's all kinds of different
Speaker 1: ways to figure out how to reign in the Internet industry.
Speaker 1: And it depends on their violations, it depends on their cooperation.
Speaker 1: Let's do a quick speed round about some of your
Speaker 1: favorite people, um and since I mentioned Blade Runner, tell
Speaker 1: me the first things that enter your minds when I
Speaker 1: mentioned these people's name. Elon musk Um, visionary, visionary, Um, unusual,
Speaker 1: the whole crazy Joe Rogan thing was blown a little
Speaker 1: out of No, he shouldn't have done that. He's a
Speaker 1: seat you have a public company. A little more circumspect
Speaker 1: would have been better, uh, Jack Dorsey, Oh, also thoughtful,
Speaker 1: but opaque and disengaged in a way I find troubling.
Speaker 1: Disengaged meaning not responsive to the current impact of his work.
Speaker 1: What he's doing, what what are is doing right now?
Speaker 1: To the national discourse is damaging and he has to
Speaker 1: think more. He talks about healthy conversations, and I really
Speaker 1: wish he would stop talking and do something. Okay, speaking
Speaker 1: of damaging the national discourse, Mark Zuckerbrook ernest really lovely,
Speaker 1: as you know, the least arrogant considering who he is,
Speaker 1: really quite thoughtful, thoughtful person, absolutely incapable of dealing with
Speaker 1: the task he has ahead of him, incapable that that's
Speaker 1: pretty pretty impressive. Um, what about to use a lot
Speaker 1: of help? What about the Google guys disengaged? Really disengaged?
Speaker 1: Is that a function of the just start not running
Speaker 1: the company? So who is all right? And and whoever
Speaker 1: is there? What about the entire split between Google and
Speaker 1: Alphabet or Google projects. It's still the same kind. It's
Speaker 1: search and everything else is an adult there jumble of blocks.
Speaker 1: That's what they've always been like Google years ago. There's
Speaker 1: a fortune magazine covered chaos at Google. It's the same thing.
Speaker 1: It's a chaotically organized company, and there's there's a lot
Speaker 1: of obviously practices. It's a big, giant company, makes a
Speaker 1: ton of money. It's very successful in the way it does.
Speaker 1: But so from you know, the DNA of any company
Speaker 1: is the DNA of its beginnings, and that doesn't change. Chaotic,
Speaker 1: but that's doesn't it's not a messory bad thing. Even
Speaker 1: at Microsoft, has that DNA changed. Yes, I have a
Speaker 1: huge respect for such an Adela amazing. I think he's
Speaker 1: a thoughtful uh measured you know, not as not as
Speaker 1: exciting screaming and stuff like that, but just a really
Speaker 1: he's done a great job in defining talk about defining
Speaker 1: your products. He knows who he is, he knows what
Speaker 1: Microsoft is interesting read Hastings. Lovely smart. Oh, I just
Speaker 1: enjoy talking to him. Really, just a great thinker. He's
Speaker 1: just we don't always agree on things, but boy, what
Speaker 1: a what a smart man. I like he pulled himself
Speaker 1: off the board of Facebook. That was interesting. Oh really,
Speaker 1: I think it was tired of arguing with him. I'm
Speaker 1: guessing right, And huh, Benny Off you mentioned Earl hysterical, fun,
Speaker 1: great guy for a drink. You want to go up
Speaker 1: for a drink with that guy? Always interesting conversation can
Speaker 1: be blowhardy, but I like it. I like the whole jam.
Speaker 1: I like it started act. I like his whole commitment
Speaker 1: to the city. I think it's genuine. I like he's
Speaker 1: that he's loud about it. Everyone's like, oh, he's just
Speaker 1: loud about I'm like, yeah, but he does things like
Speaker 1: I don't care, let him brag, let him. I like him.
Speaker 1: He's just a really fascinating character. I really enjoy talking it.
Speaker 1: I always I never not interested in talking to him.
Speaker 1: Andrewson painting really, but I'm surprised in a good way,
Speaker 1: in a bad way to some of his new tweets.
Speaker 1: He's tweeting some crazy definitely, but he took a long
Speaker 1: tweet vacation, a couple of whatever. He's like Mark whatever,
Speaker 1: he's I argue with him a lot, but I enjoy it.
Speaker 1: I hate don't know. I hope he's not listening. Oh
Speaker 1: he's listening. Okay, Well, what are the vcs are worth
Speaker 1: bringing up? John Door, Bill Gurley who John's a very
Speaker 1: thoughtful person. He's not put a book recently, he's put
Speaker 1: on a book, we did a podcast. He's always been
Speaker 1: I think, Um, he's John. You know, he's a seems ethical.
Speaker 1: What what other VCS did I not get to that?
Speaker 1: That tramp? Do not know him. He's great, He's just
Speaker 1: a character and sok on Valley. Um, you know, I
Speaker 1: think you know, there's lots of VCS you don't know about,
Speaker 1: like my Michael Deering. There's all sorts of interesting Aileene
Speaker 1: Mary Meeker, there's all sorts of really well you all
Speaker 1: know who Mary Meeker. Yeah, she's great, she's great. I
Speaker 1: met her when she was an analyst at Morgan Stan.
Speaker 1: I used to stay up nights talking about the Internet
Speaker 1: with her in like the nineties, early nine She got it.
Speaker 1: She got it in fact too enthusiastic, but she was
Speaker 1: right directionally she was correct. I've argued that the difference
Speaker 1: between her and people got into trouble. Like Henry Blodge
Speaker 1: is she was a true believer who and being wrong
Speaker 1: is not prosecutable. She was early, She was early, but
Speaker 1: she was right. She was right in the long term.
Speaker 1: She was probably wrong several times. The term evaluation his
Speaker 1: reel cynical. I like Henry, I think he got a
Speaker 1: He's also a beautiful writer. Um, Who have I missed
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs? Oh fascinating. I really enjoyed interviewing him. What
Speaker 1: an interesting and complex person, Um, I always say. And
Speaker 1: I've gotten to his wife quite a bit. His widow,
Speaker 1: Lauren Lorraine, who's really really interesting to talk to. She's
Speaker 1: very active in philanthropy, not just philanthropy, all kinds of
Speaker 1: all kinds of interesting and I find her to be
Speaker 1: very interesting in her investment stuff. She's very thoughtful. Another
Speaker 1: very thoughtful person. Um has a lot of points of
Speaker 1: view which I like. I like one of the point
Speaker 1: of you assume Job was you know he was just
Speaker 1: it would have complicated and interesting person. I know everyone
Speaker 1: sort of like tried to cartoonize people. He was mean
Speaker 1: to people. I'm like, yeah, but lots of people are me. No, No,
Speaker 1: I don't think he was. You know, I have his
Speaker 1: ratio of productivity was so high, and you know, all
Speaker 1: those speeches around death were so what an interesting person
Speaker 1: who challenged himself from a philosophical point of view, I
Speaker 1: don't think he had a lot of people always say
Speaker 1: he was heartless. This is what I say all the time.
Speaker 1: He had too much heart he had too much heart.
Speaker 1: It was too there were so many things going on
Speaker 1: with him. I always we did eight Walt and I
Speaker 1: did eight eight interviews or more with him. Very nobody
Speaker 1: had the body of interviews that we did with him,
Speaker 1: and that was every single one of them were fascinating conversations,
Speaker 1: and of course he's going to be seen as one
Speaker 1: of the most important. And we did one with Gates
Speaker 1: and Jobs together. I recall that that was really very interesting.
Speaker 1: That's going to go down in history that you know,
Speaker 1: I'll be forgotten, But not that interview. Larry Ellison hysterical, hysterical,
Speaker 1: really just I just loved talking to him. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, he's you know, you know, and he's sort
Speaker 1: of the old days of like vaguely sexist, sometimes very
Speaker 1: sexists all Coon Valley, like the old like sells Off
Speaker 1: where everybody like that kind of stuff. I gotta tell you,
Speaker 1: he's a really you know, he's raised two really interesting
Speaker 1: children too, Like what are the kids doing? The kids
Speaker 1: are moviemakers. They make Star Trek and his daughter makes
Speaker 1: some amazing movies. Is like a really interesting filmmaker. And
Speaker 1: his son makes more like Terminator and and Star Trek.
Speaker 1: The recent Star Treks, which are very good movies that
Speaker 1: star trek Ones particularly, And so I don't know. I
Speaker 1: just he's a he just he's one of the few
Speaker 1: titans left kind of thing. Uh. Scott McNeely was someone
Speaker 1: I haven't heard from. I just did a podcast with him.
Speaker 1: Not a podcast, I did a column in York Times
Speaker 1: went around privacy, privacy, get used to it, that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. Um, he's which is the inverse of what
Speaker 1: people used to say. No, he was the first one
Speaker 1: to really identity that you have no privacy, get used
Speaker 1: to it. Um. That was a really prescient thing he said.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I agree with him on a lot
Speaker 1: of political stuff. He's quite he has a he has
Speaker 1: a problem with Hillary Clinton, is he needs to let
Speaker 1: go of still even to this day he's talking to him.
Speaker 1: I'm like, you know, she's a private citizen, is never
Speaker 1: going to be president. You really can move along, Like
Speaker 1: I feel like you've handled Hillary Clinton, so like, let's
Speaker 1: some people who don't like or really can whatever. It's
Speaker 1: just funny. I was sort of like, can we stop
Speaker 1: talking about Hillary Clinton and start discussing the current state
Speaker 1: of affairs? What? What about CEOs? I haven't mentioned what
Speaker 1: company interesting ones like Brian Chowsky from Airbnb. I think
Speaker 1: he's very thoughtful and interesting. I'll be in such an
Speaker 1: interesting company when that goes public. I think he thinks
Speaker 1: very carefully about stuff, and he understands what I like
Speaker 1: about him as he understands the impact. He may not
Speaker 1: always do the right thing, and they've had a lot
Speaker 1: of mess ups and everything else. They had some early
Speaker 1: mess ups that I think taught them a lot. But
Speaker 1: I think he's extraordinarily thoughtful about his impact and you
Speaker 1: very and I don't think it's just yammering. I think
Speaker 1: he actually knows that his company has negative and positive impacts.
Speaker 1: So he's able to discuss the negative impacts without being defensive.
Speaker 1: And it's a pleasure to talk to him. Tim Cook,
Speaker 1: I love the talk. I didn't get to think Tim
Speaker 1: Cooks are really he's an adult. I've done some very
Speaker 1: good interviews with him. People assumed that when Jobs left
Speaker 1: that would be it for Apple, But here we are,
Speaker 1: what is it six years later? You know they've still
Speaker 1: got the issue. If they've got to have what's the
Speaker 1: next hit? They're like the Rolling Stones, like when's your
Speaker 1: next hit? Like there at some point they can't keep
Speaker 1: making Like it's just like they have such a record,
Speaker 1: you're almost like a good job, you know. I feel
Speaker 1: like that I'm kind of old, but I'm keep making hits,
Speaker 1: so and so they can keep making it. It's a
Speaker 1: really they've done so much amazing stuff that this year
Speaker 1: there's a lot of Yeah, there's stuff around that show
Speaker 1: looks pretty good. Um, we'll see the problem with that show.
Speaker 1: And you brought this up with competing with content between
Speaker 1: Netflix and Amazon and Hulu and everybody else. It's really
Speaker 1: hard to lu I thought they should have brought Netflix
Speaker 1: five years ago when I wrote that, and people gave
Speaker 1: me grief about it. I think it was fifty billion
Speaker 1: dollars and people give me grief. It was like two
Speaker 1: that was a missed opportunity. They could still do it
Speaker 1: so much. Well, it's a rounding era to them. But
Speaker 1: you know there, I liked him cook, I really enjoy
Speaker 1: I think he's been one of the adults in the
Speaker 1: room and has been very toughful. A lot of people
Speaker 1: think he's taking advantage of, like sort of being a
Speaker 1: school marm, but I don't care. I like it versus
Speaker 1: Facebook to some degree. You mean in terms of hey
Speaker 1: to say, you know, I asked him. I didn't think
Speaker 1: he was going to answer, but he did. I asked
Speaker 1: him in this interview I did in Chicago last year.
Speaker 1: Um it was a live interview to school, and I said,
Speaker 1: what would you do if you were Mark Zuckerberg? And
Speaker 1: he said, I wouldn't be in the situation. In the
Speaker 1: first I was like, that's a genus answer, right, that's
Speaker 1: he's not like, that's like he never does that. They
Speaker 1: have a bone to pick with Facebook, Well, yeah, they
Speaker 1: it's also calculated bone because their business is not is
Speaker 1: not advertising. It's an excellent business opportunity to smack them
Speaker 1: and and I think and they believe it. And by
Speaker 1: the way, Steve Jobs was talking about this with us
Speaker 1: ten years years about Facebook, about privacy about very strangely,
Speaker 1: and you can talk about that when it's not your business, right,
Speaker 1: So I guess you could go on about how porn
Speaker 1: talks like and it's it's insulting to women and that
Speaker 1: because it's not my business. So you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: actually good for me if they're competing with me. So
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people feel like Facebook and
Speaker 1: he's taking advantage of the situation. But I'm okay, So
Speaker 1: what meanwhile, did you happen to catch the sixty minutes
Speaker 1: about that Israeli company that basically has licensed the technology.
Speaker 1: I think it's called Pegasus that hack can hack any
Speaker 1: phone anywhere in the world. I assume that's happening already.
Speaker 1: But I mean there is literally an Israeli company who
Speaker 1: was given grief because they licensed it to Saudi Saudi
Speaker 1: Arabia and fearically they use this technology now. But that's
Speaker 1: going to catch up that this It's going to be
Speaker 1: a constant arms race for all this stuff. There's gonna
Speaker 1: be like, look, I assume everything is hacked. That's just
Speaker 1: not the study. And so so LA is right. There
Speaker 1: is no privacy. There is no there hasn't. But you
Speaker 1: can't control your privacy. That's different. You don't own you
Speaker 1: know it's out there, but you can there's ways to control.
Speaker 1: And they haven't done any job whatsoever and helping you do.
Speaker 1: So one thing you even talked about is Trump and
Speaker 1: is tweeting. All the tweeting like that's just such an
Speaker 1: important thing. It's governing by Twitter. So it's funny because
Speaker 1: every time a conversation comes up about g the president
Speaker 1: and and this is just the most recent one. The
Speaker 1: President is haranguing the Federal Reserve chair. Uh, that's never
Speaker 1: happened before. And what the answer to these tend to
Speaker 1: be is, well, it has happened before, just it's always
Speaker 1: been private. And to do it publicly, to do a
Speaker 1: vocation and weaponization that it is provided by these tools,
Speaker 1: these online tools, is really unprecedented. Everyone's like people have
Speaker 1: done from like no, not like this, and and you know,
Speaker 1: just the two examples. I wrote a calm about this
Speaker 1: the when they when they the census thing was happening, right,
Speaker 1: which we'vegotten about. Remember that, Well, it's the the outrages
Speaker 1: come so fast and furious, you can't keep up. So
Speaker 1: he by design they had made a decision to back
Speaker 1: away from adding that question, and suddenly he tweets that,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, we're putting an end. And then the lawyer
Speaker 1: for the Justice Department is like, I don't know what
Speaker 1: he meant in the tweet. We need to call him,
Speaker 1: like what like governing by tweet? And then he did
Speaker 1: it this week with Greenland. Well, wait before we go
Speaker 1: to Greenland, stay with the census question. Governing by twitter.
Speaker 1: Here's the fascinating thing. The last landed gentry in the
Speaker 1: United States are federal judges. What they say goes in
Speaker 1: their court, and you can be in jail as a
Speaker 1: lawyer who's been who's been fined for um, disrespecting the court,
Speaker 1: and eventually the appeal will go your way, and after
Speaker 1: six months of jail you come out. That judge said
Speaker 1: to that lawyer, your answer is this honest and if
Speaker 1: you don't get me the answer I want, there's going
Speaker 1: to be hell to pay. I think he threatened them
Speaker 1: with contempt of court and sending them to jail until
Speaker 1: it's resolved, and he held them accountable. It was fascinating.
Speaker 1: He's like, you're responsible for this, it's your client to
Speaker 1: the lawyers because literally they're saying there like it's Twitter.
Speaker 1: What But literally he's governing by Twitter, Like what do
Speaker 1: you do? Like I can see the person is sitting there,
Speaker 1: like what do we do? Now? Who do we call?
Speaker 1: He just tweeted it, like what does that mean that
Speaker 1: the interpreting it. You're an officer of the court and
Speaker 1: you have an obligation. But I'm talking about on a
Speaker 1: personal level. I mean, like just like Maddest when he
Speaker 1: was tweeting about that transgender So he just ignored him
Speaker 1: right and pulled someone into the office said no, not
Speaker 1: doing But by the way, he twitter resident and you're
Speaker 1: ignoring the residence of the whole thing is saying yes,
Speaker 1: but it's also in you can't do that like that.
Speaker 1: That's called we have a system. So it's really fascinating, Well,
Speaker 1: we have a system, and if you want me to
Speaker 1: do something, give me an official executive order, not a tweet.
Speaker 1: We don't want people anticipating with the president. Nobody's anticipated
Speaker 1: that you could do that, because he did it again
Speaker 1: with Greenland. I'm not going to Greenland. The ambassador to
Speaker 1: Greenland was like, welcome, Mr President, and then he tweets
Speaker 1: that like just at the same time, and then they're
Speaker 1: like they're all scrambling, like somebody had an interesting theory
Speaker 1: that pre scheduled at the end of the month. Is
Speaker 1: Obama going to Greenlands? And he didn't want to be
Speaker 1: compared with the adoring think you know, I think. But
Speaker 1: it's really interesting because it's a perfect medium for this guy.
Speaker 1: He's like the troll in chief. He's twitchy, he's raging,
Speaker 1: he's it's everything about the way Twitter is designed, and
Speaker 1: the way they've architect it is perfect for Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: and he's that's why he's so good on it. Now,
Speaker 1: then you see someone like AOC who's also good on it,
Speaker 1: but he's good in a different way. Future president, he's
Speaker 1: exactly he broadcast or possibly he broadcasts, and she speaks
Speaker 1: the language. So I find her fascinating in that way.
Speaker 1: And I don't know. I think Nancy Policy is right,
Speaker 1: you just gotta get the votes. I think she's got to.
Speaker 1: She's a natural. She's of that general minds. If she
Speaker 1: combines the ability to communicate beautifully on social media with
Speaker 1: an ability to get votes and really actually do the
Speaker 1: mechanations of democracy which you need the votes, like that's
Speaker 1: really it, that will be very powerful. I think Trump
Speaker 1: just he just creates havoc, and that's that's also a
Speaker 1: talent to create havoc. He uses, but it's he has unique.
Speaker 1: Just the way John F. Kennedy used the television, He's
Speaker 1: using Twitter and social media, no doubt about it. We
Speaker 1: have been speaking with Kara Swisher. She is the co
Speaker 1: founder of Recode and the author of numerous books on technology.
Speaker 1: If you enjoy this conversation, be sure and check out
Speaker 1: our podcast extras, where we keep the tape rolling and
Speaker 1: continue discussing all things tech related. You can find that
Speaker 1: at iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcast, Overcast, Stitcher, wherever your find
Speaker 1: our podcasts are sold. We love your comments, feedback and
Speaker 1: suggestions right to us at m IB podcast at Bloomberg
Speaker 1: dot net. Check out my weekly column at Bloomberg dot com.
Speaker 1: Follow me on Twitter at rid Holts. Sign up from
Speaker 1: my daily reads at rid Halts dot com. I'm Barry
Speaker 1: rid Halts. You're listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the podcast. By the way, Kara, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for doing this. You were tough to track down.
Speaker 1: I had to pull in some favors. Galloway who um
Speaker 1: has been on my podcast. I've done to fifty something now,
Speaker 1: more than any five years two really and that doesn't
Speaker 1: count Pivot. That's a lot, but minor roll three four hours,
Speaker 1: so it's a little so. By the way, just so
Speaker 1: you know, I've been a listener to Pivot from the beginning.
Speaker 1: When I'm I'm up early early East Coast time working
Speaker 1: on my my various and sundry things, my my frippery,
Speaker 1: UM and I like to have something playing in the
Speaker 1: background and you guys, you guys are well. We really
Speaker 1: didn't get into the podcast much, but I love the
Speaker 1: combination of you as who you are and Scott as
Speaker 1: an alpha male East Coast weirdest chemistry people. It's it's
Speaker 1: fantastic anywhere I go there, Like where Scott, I'm like, no, no,
Speaker 1: we're not married, Mary, we don't hang out, but we
Speaker 1: sound like a married couple. It's sort of like I
Speaker 1: was trying to think of, like is it Kathie Lee
Speaker 1: and Regis is remember moonlighting? You know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's that kind of thing that's going on there. It's
Speaker 1: a really interesting, um it's a really interesting chemistry we have.
Speaker 1: And I think it's because I'm like, like, he's being
Speaker 1: alpha male on purpose, right, he's allowing the testosterone poison,
Speaker 1: but he's also like sort of sort of like he's
Speaker 1: a woke alpha yeah exactly, kind of like, oh God,
Speaker 1: I said something stupid and I'm like, you're an idiot.
Speaker 1: Like he says stuff to you that I just like,
Speaker 1: crack up, and he's trying to provoke you. I was like,
Speaker 1: your one statement away from the end of your career.
Speaker 1: All the time, like I'm trying to protect and you
Speaker 1: can see me trying to protect. It's a really good
Speaker 1: it's a really interesting thing, and we're going to try
Speaker 1: to do more of them. And it's just you can't.
Speaker 1: You cannot capture that with just about anything. I had
Speaker 1: that report with Walt in a different way too, So
Speaker 1: it's really hard to do that. And I was I'm thrilled.
Speaker 1: I enjoy doing it, which I can tell you know
Speaker 1: it comes across he enjoyed. We enjoy it like it's fun.
Speaker 1: And I think that's what's most important, is to you know,
Speaker 1: love the life you live right kind of thing like
Speaker 1: we love it, And that's that's how you make great things,
Speaker 1: if you really enjoy yourself once an episode, I here
Speaker 1: hold me, Kara. You know it, you know it's coming.
Speaker 1: He has all kinds. I'm a gangster. Hestake me a texting.
Speaker 1: Barry's a gangster. I'm like, oh Jesus, can I tell you?
Speaker 1: Can I tell you the gangster? Can I tell you?
Speaker 1: The funniest thing he's ever said I ever heard him
Speaker 1: say so. He knows I'm a car guy. We were
Speaker 1: talking about cars and I misheard him. I thought he
Speaker 1: said g wagon. I didn't realize he had a g
Speaker 1: L wagon. That you wagon is I don't even know
Speaker 1: what you're talking, all right, So Mercedes start bring up football.
Speaker 1: I'm going to Mersey's makes this military vehicle that looks
Speaker 1: like a giant jeep on steroids. It's like a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty thou dollars. Why do you need this? Nobody
Speaker 1: needs it. It's the worst dumbest thing in the world.
Speaker 1: And when I heard him say g wagon g L,
Speaker 1: I thought he said g wagon, what would that be?
Speaker 1: So g L is like a normal STV g L
Speaker 1: wagon is this? Well, like that's what I thought. I go,
Speaker 1: I go, Scott, I don't know about you and this
Speaker 1: g wagon And his answer was no, no, g L,
Speaker 1: not g wagon. He goes, I'm insecure, not pathetic. I
Speaker 1: still get emails from people about that. Silly. It's funny
Speaker 1: he goes, and when he when we go places. And
Speaker 1: what's really striking about that podcast is I am stopped
Speaker 1: so much on the street, like tell Scott to screw it,
Speaker 1: like and really, yeah, I feel like we don't have
Speaker 1: a TV show because it's really funny. People like he
Speaker 1: was walking on the tarm and of course he's going
Speaker 1: to the Hampton's and a helicopter. I'm not doing that.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm in a car with my kids. And
Speaker 1: really he was shoppering and I'm literally driving a car
Speaker 1: card to Province down with my pregnant girl, right and
Speaker 1: my two teenage sons. And it's like and he and
Speaker 1: the guy who does the waves the helicopter down with
Speaker 1: the two batons. He has the earphones on and he
Speaker 1: sees Scott and he goes, where's Gara? Which was really funny.
Speaker 1: Kara is driving like a car up to the cape,
Speaker 1: is what Kara is doing? Anyway. That's that's very He's
Speaker 1: in Nantucket, of course, because he's the elite. Is Nantucket
Speaker 1: considered the Oh my god, been there? That I'm not.
Speaker 1: I'm in the top ten percent. I'm not in the top.
Speaker 1: One color in your house is everything has to look
Speaker 1: the same, the wooden shingles, and you need to not
Speaker 1: go to Nantucket in a province town, you gotta pick.
Speaker 1: I'm a Fire Island guy. I'm very Fire Island faddle
Speaker 1: classic out there exactly all right, So I have to
Speaker 1: let you go eventually. So let me jump to my
Speaker 1: favorite questions that I asked all of my guests. I
Speaker 1: know you don't own a car now, but what was
Speaker 1: the first car you ever owned? Hot a Civic, good, good,
Speaker 1: reliable car. Shift. I have a ship. I always have
Speaker 1: shift car, me too, cars, my jeep. Everything is a
Speaker 1: stick shift. And my wife is now a better driver
Speaker 1: with a stick than I am. It's really uh swagon
Speaker 1: for years, which one bug or something? Later and then
Speaker 1: I had a rabbit. When it was a rabbit, it's
Speaker 1: called something, it's called and then and then I had
Speaker 1: a minivan. I had a hont Of minivan when I
Speaker 1: but not before I had kids. I had a Honey Minivan.
Speaker 1: Then I had a less Bru of course a super
Speaker 1: You saw there was a big article not too long
Speaker 1: ago about how Subru became the car of choice of lesbians,
Speaker 1: and I think it was vany fair. It's a very
Speaker 1: interesting less Brue. I had a less Brut and then
Speaker 1: I never heard of call. I had a jeep for
Speaker 1: New York Manager. They're the worst, terrible, although to be fair,
Speaker 1: they're unstoppable in the snow. I had I had one
Speaker 1: with the with the with the like a real jeep.
Speaker 1: And I had one that was had a hard top,
Speaker 1: and I hated both of them, and then I had
Speaker 1: an Then I started getting into masses. I love masses
Speaker 1: and I love the Mazda. I wanted a Masta too,
Speaker 1: but mosta three, and the three is a happy car.
Speaker 1: It's a good car. It's had a great happy fix.
Speaker 1: That was a great car. And then I just recently
Speaker 1: had a Ford Fiesta Turbo. That's why I'm so sorry
Speaker 1: there was no I'm telling you that's a great years ago.
Speaker 1: I hated, no the Turbo. It really is a good car.
Speaker 1: Don't insult the Ford Fiesta. I will tell you. I
Speaker 1: rented a Ford Edge the other day and I was
Speaker 1: surprised at how good car. Herbo was a different car.
Speaker 1: Everyone made fun of me, and then they got in
Speaker 1: it with its stick shift and we're like, oh, I see, Oh,
Speaker 1: this is wonderful little car. It was a great little car.
Speaker 1: But I do not have any cars. I had a
Speaker 1: Vespa for many years, but I never wrote it. I
Speaker 1: had what do you mean you never drove it? I
Speaker 1: just in Sanrancis was too cold. I had it in
Speaker 1: San Francisco. My my ex gave it to me as
Speaker 1: a Valentine's present. But I love scooters. I write scooters
Speaker 1: all the time, and I love I love scooters. What's
Speaker 1: the most important thing people don't know about? Kara Swish
Speaker 1: and I love scooters. No, people know that, No, that
Speaker 1: I love. I love action films with really bad action
Speaker 1: films like I just I just love those I love.
Speaker 1: I go to all of them and I go by myself.
Speaker 1: I don't want to like, how are you with people
Speaker 1: about how they are? Really? I just go I love them,
Speaker 1: I love them, I love them, I love I love
Speaker 1: Mission Possible. I love Bond. I'm so excited the new
Speaker 1: Bond film is coming out and Drew Elba going to
Speaker 1: be No, no no, it's gonna be Daniel Craig again. Well
Speaker 1: that's this one. I've seen every Bond movie ten times,
Speaker 1: even the bad ones, and uh, I love all those movies.
Speaker 1: I like. I'm excited for Kristen Stewart and Underwater. I
Speaker 1: like anything action and I also love Fast and Furious franchise.
Speaker 1: I love and I love the rock Jack Reacher. Have
Speaker 1: you seen the joke? Yes, so I'm not going to
Speaker 1: name something. How about Night and Day? Yes, of course,
Speaker 1: with me without me, I love it. Let's talk about mentors.
Speaker 1: Tell us about your mentor that's it. One name. Bang.
Speaker 1: He recruited you to the journal. How did he affect
Speaker 1: how you developed as a journalist. He was so generous
Speaker 1: with his power. He had so much power and was
Speaker 1: so generous and and and really it's such a good
Speaker 1: mentor to women in the in the way never air
Speaker 1: to mentor a woman, never early he has. There's a
Speaker 1: group of women he's mentored in a way that has
Speaker 1: been and specifically made sure he did that because he
Speaker 1: understood they were they there were there were issues. Always
Speaker 1: had my back. Um just and I can I can
Speaker 1: be uh difficult, not difficult? No, no no difficult. That's what
Speaker 1: Scott told me. He said, you were difficult. No, I'm
Speaker 1: not difficult. I'm not difficult. I think. I know what
Speaker 1: I want and I can say it very loudly and
Speaker 1: I don't you know, I think and I do it
Speaker 1: around powerful people like Rupert. Mark said time to me,
Speaker 1: I was like no, and everyone was like WHOA, what
Speaker 1: do you do? At one point it was let me
Speaker 1: tell you this very very so we would meet with him.
Speaker 1: Mark loved Walt Moss Burt love, He loved reading him.
Speaker 1: He was thrilled when he bought the journal. Always had
Speaker 1: Walt to lunch and everything, and I was always with him,
Speaker 1: right like I was there. I'm certain Rupermar didn't know
Speaker 1: my name. He thought you were hit Walt's assistant. He knew,
Speaker 1: he was aware that I was his partner, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, But he didn't know. I was like
Speaker 1: he didn't and so he never he'd be like wall, Wall, Wall,
Speaker 1: how are you? How are you're doing? You know? Mumbles?
Speaker 1: And I was always with him, and so he later
Speaker 1: knows who I am. And he used to call me
Speaker 1: a lot during the Internet thing like what do you
Speaker 1: think of this company? What do you think that? Which
Speaker 1: was interesting. I'd get a call like four in the
Speaker 1: morning for moving Rupert's call on the phone and I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, sure or whatever. But um, but he we
Speaker 1: were in the office one day and he's like wha
Speaker 1: and he goes, well hello, and I go listen. I
Speaker 1: don't think you know my name, but it's Kara Swisher.
Speaker 1: Next time I come, I'd like you to say hi, Kara,
Speaker 1: because I want you to remember my name if you
Speaker 1: don't mind. But I don't think you know my name
Speaker 1: right now. And I'm sorry to be rude, but I'm
Speaker 1: just wanting like why pretend? What was the reaction He's like,
Speaker 1: I know your name. I'm like, well, I said, all right,
Speaker 1: if you know what you do, but I don't think
Speaker 1: you do. I know it, and I go, all right,
Speaker 1: I don't think you do. And I was like, what
Speaker 1: was like? Stop at Carol and the next time you
Speaker 1: showed up, he said, you always knew my name after
Speaker 1: That's very, very funny. Let's talk about books. We've touched
Speaker 1: on a few books and will include your books. What
Speaker 1: are some of your favorite books, tech non tech? What
Speaker 1: do you like? I'm reading I've been reading ron Cherno
Speaker 1: Hamilton's book for six years now, can't finish. He ends badly,
Speaker 1: um no no, and I'm gonna play on Broadway. It
Speaker 1: worked out well so early. But I think the book
Speaker 1: is great, and I'm really I love historical books. I'm
Speaker 1: right now reading um List. I just finished I'll Be
Speaker 1: Gone in the Dark. Michelle McNamara's book about the Golden
Speaker 1: State Killer. Just a really interest. I love dogged people,
Speaker 1: and she was how that eventually got solved. But yeah,
Speaker 1: well DNA That's why I was interested. And I'm sort
Speaker 1: of super interested in DNA right now. So I just
Speaker 1: read that book, but it turned out to be a
Speaker 1: fascinating book. Um. I am reading uh, Taffy Acnear's Fleishman's
Speaker 1: in Trouble. I had her on the podcast and I
Speaker 1: didn't fan me great novel. She's a great feature writer
Speaker 1: and she's trying her hand at novels. Um. I read
Speaker 1: a lot of the books I have to do podcasts on.
Speaker 1: I'm reading Andrew Marin's's book about Disinformation because he's going
Speaker 1: to be on the podcast my Isaac's book. I'm giving
Speaker 1: him his book party for the Uber book. Although I
Speaker 1: don't want to know more about Uber, I know a
Speaker 1: lot about it. You know how that ends. But it's
Speaker 1: a good book. It's a good book. Um. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: so that's interesting. I read a lot of nonfiction more
Speaker 1: than fiction I wish I read. I'm reading this book
Speaker 1: that's amazing and I'm going to blank on her name. Julia,
Speaker 1: Julia Gabby Rivera's new book. It's I can't remember the
Speaker 1: name of it anyway, you hear, very new book and
Speaker 1: it's amazing. It's really wonderful. Juliana takes on something or
Speaker 1: that she's she's really great. She's a beautiful writer. And
Speaker 1: I'm trying to read more fiction because I think everybody
Speaker 1: wants to read more fiction. It's very stupid fiction. I
Speaker 1: just really, you know, really, I like fiction. I mean
Speaker 1: for work, don't you have to do a ton? I
Speaker 1: do a ton of reading. I read the Internet all
Speaker 1: day long, and I read a lot of stories. Um,
Speaker 1: but I tend to I like I like feature writers.
Speaker 1: Some of my favorite feature writers Jessica Pressler, Olivia Nuzzy.
Speaker 1: They're all women. It's interesting, Taffy Acner, Um. I like
Speaker 1: them all. I find them really wonderful. I love their writing.
Speaker 1: I think they're great. Tell Us about a time you've
Speaker 1: failed and what you learned from the experience failed nobody
Speaker 1: bats at thousand. I don't look at it as failure.
Speaker 1: I hate to sound like a Silicon Valley person, but
Speaker 1: it sound like Ray Dally keep going. I don't look
Speaker 1: at them as failures. I don't think I'm trying to, well,
Speaker 1: what did you learn from the experience of something that
Speaker 1: we can just do something else. I have a very
Speaker 1: good ability just to like okay, next, next, like thank
Speaker 1: you next, um uh, it's it's I just don't think
Speaker 1: of it that way. I don't think. I don't think
Speaker 1: I The only failures I can think of is with
Speaker 1: my children, like I should have given also right, I
Speaker 1: should have done more of this sometimes like I should
Speaker 1: have made decisions faster. It's all related to my children. Um.
Speaker 1: And even then, I think I'm a very good parent.
Speaker 1: I think I'm a really good parent. So no failures ever,
Speaker 1: I know that's not but I don't like, Well, my
Speaker 1: dad died when I was five. That's not a failure,
Speaker 1: but it's certainly it for me. And I think I'm
Speaker 1: very resilient because of it, even though I would rather
Speaker 1: be less resilient in him alive. So you know, sometimes
Speaker 1: I lose my temper with my mom and I wish
Speaker 1: I had and it's a lot of that kind of stuff. Um.
Speaker 1: But big career failer is, you know, I think I'm
Speaker 1: really good at career. I'd have to say I've timed
Speaker 1: it well. I think I think I've done a good
Speaker 1: job on my career for sure. And that's in a
Speaker 1: very And also, you know, when I had a stroke,
Speaker 1: I thought, wait, what I had a stroke with five
Speaker 1: six years ago? Hold on a sex. So the answer
Speaker 1: to the question, what's the most important thing we don't
Speaker 1: know about you? Oh, the stroke. People do know about it.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I didn't listen. I do a
Speaker 1: ton of research into every guest. I didn'tng on my
Speaker 1: way to do a make money for Rupert Murdoch. I
Speaker 1: did an All Things Digital D China and Asia D
Speaker 1: so from the flight on the flight. Yeah, and it
Speaker 1: turned out I had a hole in my heart, which
Speaker 1: many people have dated me have said, no, I'm kidding,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty good. That is a mark. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: to hold my heart. It's called the PFO. And I
Speaker 1: had sticky blood, as I found out through twenty three
Speaker 1: and me and I was Mediterranean, but it's a kind
Speaker 1: of it's a condition for the But so, so, what
Speaker 1: were the what was the impact of the stroke? It
Speaker 1: reinforced my feeling that life is short and you better
Speaker 1: get going. True, But what was the biological What were
Speaker 1: the medical sets? I like the philosophical Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm with Steve jobs on that I had a hole
Speaker 1: in my heart and there's nothing I can do about
Speaker 1: it's much So wait, your stroke was cerebral stroke or
Speaker 1: cardiac cardiac I probably be dead. So so you have
Speaker 1: a stroke with no limitations and no, it just was
Speaker 1: amazing no cognitive function, physical very short amount of time
Speaker 1: that day, and then it was done. I was like
Speaker 1: talking like this, and was the hole in your heart
Speaker 1: discovered post stroke investigation. So you got a little lucky
Speaker 1: with a minor stroke that discovered this leakage in one
Speaker 1: of your valves or what was it was? It's a
Speaker 1: hole in your heart's got a PFO. And when you're born,
Speaker 1: there's a flap where the emotic fluid goes back and
Speaker 1: forth and supposed to close, it closes up. It flaps
Speaker 1: over and then seals. And people doesn't seal. Human doesn't leak.
Speaker 1: It just is there, just a lap. It's flaps and
Speaker 1: doesn't on a clock got through. If there's no clock
Speaker 1: getting through, it doesn't matter. So I'm not a doctor,
Speaker 1: but I wrote a big column on that actually in
Speaker 1: the Times Perry died. Oh yes, I wrote saying I
Speaker 1: had a stroke and my brothers saved my life. My
Speaker 1: brother is a doctor. And when I was in Hong
Speaker 1: Kong and I was well, I was, I was there
Speaker 1: and I suddenly couldn't talk. I had a dysphasia. And
Speaker 1: I was like and I was in a hotel room
Speaker 1: and I was like, well, I can't call anybody. And
Speaker 1: I felt, okay, a little headache, could you. I had
Speaker 1: a little bit of tingle in my hand, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I was writing a story about Yahoo, and I was like,
Speaker 1: you know these idiots that, yeah, who once again are
Speaker 1: screwing up or something, And it was my finger tingled.
Speaker 1: I tried to eat something. It fell out of my
Speaker 1: mouth and then I was like wow. And I was like, huh.
Speaker 1: And I thought I had a migraine side migraines for years,
Speaker 1: which is a sign of a stroke among women. Realized
Speaker 1: that not everybody was migraines gets a stroke, but it's
Speaker 1: one of the signals. And and I've been traveling and
Speaker 1: I thought a lot and I was like, oh, I
Speaker 1: just I'm just so tired, that's what it is. And
Speaker 1: so I wrote my brother. I texted him and it
Speaker 1: was a different time, and I think it was in
Speaker 1: the middle the night in San Francisco and he's an
Speaker 1: anesthesiologist and he said, um, like my father was an anesthesiologist,
Speaker 1: and he he texted me. I went up to breakfast
Speaker 1: and by the time I got to breakfast, you know,
Speaker 1: I'd woken up at four in the morning, Hong Kong time,
Speaker 1: and then I went up or whatever, and then went
Speaker 1: up to breakfast. By the time it was gone, it
Speaker 1: was sort of talking like this, like I had like
Speaker 1: teeth surgery and I and I got up to the
Speaker 1: thing and and my brother called. He says, get yourself
Speaker 1: to a hospital right now. You're having a stroke. And
Speaker 1: I said, are you crazy, Like you're such a bad doctor,
Speaker 1: how ridiculous that I'm you know, whatever, years old. I
Speaker 1: was not old. And so I think my late parties
Speaker 1: and or maybe fifty in and it was for late parties.
Speaker 1: And so he said, you were having a stroke. Get
Speaker 1: get to a hospital now now. And I was like okay,
Speaker 1: And so I did, and he was right, and I
Speaker 1: was having a stroke. And it wasn't a minor stroke.
Speaker 1: It was a stroke. And so you know all strokes,
Speaker 1: I mean there's things and t M I whatever they're called,
Speaker 1: um and uh. And they medicated me immediately and I
Speaker 1: didn't have any repercussions. He flew to Hong Kong immediately.
Speaker 1: But he saved my life. He did. That's amazing, you know.
Speaker 1: Now he's never let me live it in to day.
Speaker 1: I don't that's the trade off for saving your life.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna hold this over you for a great doctor. Um,
Speaker 1: tell us what you do for fun? Oh, I don't
Speaker 1: have fun? What's that? No? I I have a lot
Speaker 1: of friends. I have a ton of friends. Um. I
Speaker 1: love spending time with my kids. My kids are amazing.
Speaker 1: My two sons are astonishing. And I'm about to have
Speaker 1: a baby with my girlfriend who is having a little girl. Uh.
Speaker 1: So I was family. I spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: with family. I think that's fun for me doing family stuff. Um.
Speaker 1: I don't have a lot of weird hobbies. I used
Speaker 1: to roller blade. I don't do that anymore. Um. You
Speaker 1: know I did sell cycle that I'm not gonna do.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try it something else. You're out pound coast
Speaker 1: of it. I was gonna say, Peloton is really the
Speaker 1: best need my thousands of dollars. It's it's not a
Speaker 1: little money. It's not like I get a one Starbucks
Speaker 1: a week gets a lot of money their thirty dollars session.
Speaker 1: I don't have to give them the money, you know whatever.
Speaker 1: People can make their own decisions. I don't care. I
Speaker 1: don't have to. But they can also leave me the
Speaker 1: hell on if I want to do something else. So um,
Speaker 1: so I know it's virtue signing. I don't care. I
Speaker 1: don't want to spend the money there. I hate the
Speaker 1: phrase virtue signaling. Christ really I can add hominum attack.
Speaker 1: It's not about the argument who I am. And people
Speaker 1: have pushed back about that, and you go back to
Speaker 1: the person who created the phrase and he describes it
Speaker 1: as a personal attack against people whose ideas when I
Speaker 1: just I just want to do it, like leave me,
Speaker 1: but you know, mind your own business and I won't
Speaker 1: be money who I spend my money, my money. I work.
Speaker 1: I work so hard and I could okay, no, I
Speaker 1: mean or people who are politically I just want to
Speaker 1: spend the money. When I spend my most things you
Speaker 1: can't figure ever, And then they're like, well this is
Speaker 1: this and like you can't figure everything, but that's a
Speaker 1: clear one. That's a clear one, Like I get that
Speaker 1: has signaled. You know, if I eat like a Hersheibar
Speaker 1: this money, I can't figure all that, of course, but
Speaker 1: in this case, this guy made a prominent gesture, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to make a prominent gesture back. So that's
Speaker 1: you know, and that's why there's no lot of logic
Speaker 1: to it's care Swisher logic. And by the way, carrocial
Speaker 1: logic applies to cars. Can I tell you there is
Speaker 1: logic to it when someone is going to be a
Speaker 1: very visible patron of someone whose beliefs not just disagree
Speaker 1: with yours, but are actively oppressing your UM identification care.
Speaker 1: I just don't like it. I don't like I don't
Speaker 1: want to give money. That's all. That's it's It's not
Speaker 1: even that complicated. By the way, I feel terrible for
Speaker 1: mentally well, and it's Soul Cycle. I'd love to have
Speaker 1: on the podcast to talk about it. I think, I
Speaker 1: think the people of Soul Cycle, I'm so sorry that
Speaker 1: they have to go through this. But you know what,
Speaker 1: I'll spinning out to a separate entity. I was like,
Speaker 1: I want to call the rain Jobs and say, Lorraine,
Speaker 1: who does love Soul Cycle? But then you're behavi ares.
Speaker 1: I can do something about it, you know, but then
Speaker 1: you reward. You're going to reward for fun. I hang
Speaker 1: out with friends. That's it. UM tell us what you're
Speaker 1: most optimistic and pessimistic about your chosen field of technology
Speaker 1: and journalism. I am optimistic because there's so much exciting
Speaker 1: stuff going on and so much innovation happening in journalism.
Speaker 1: And I think that even though people sort of declared
Speaker 1: the end, when people were declaring the end of the
Speaker 1: world and stuff, I remember Barry deal or saying, you know,
Speaker 1: it's just it's never that, it's never. You can't whine
Speaker 1: and give up on things like it's been a losing
Speaker 1: bed for five yeah, you know. And journalists tend to
Speaker 1: like not check like sometimes, like I was talking to someone,
Speaker 1: They're like, Oh, this is what's happening, and this is
Speaker 1: what's happening. I'm like, did you check if this is
Speaker 1: what's happening? Because you're just making that up. And so
Speaker 1: I think you have to really feel, you know, anyone
Speaker 1: who has children has to believe in the future, anyone,
Speaker 1: you know. And I have a lot of children, so
Speaker 1: I believe in the future. I don't want to have
Speaker 1: children if I didn't. So what are you pessimistic about? Um?
Speaker 1: The autocracy? On one hand, I feel like autocrats always
Speaker 1: end up dead in the dantage drainage ditch. I studied
Speaker 1: the Holocaust quite heavily and propaganda and stuff in the Haga,
Speaker 1: so it can get really bad. And when's the point
Speaker 1: where it stays bad and it hasn't so far in
Speaker 1: our history. There's always someone who looks at Joe slamcars
Speaker 1: dand says, have you no shame? And it ends like
Speaker 1: it doesn't end totally, but it stops. The fever stops.
Speaker 1: You have someone at the Salem which right, the Salem
Speaker 1: witch trials, they were terrible. They ended the You know
Speaker 1: that I was around when I was a formative years,
Speaker 1: AIDS was terrible. During the Reagan administration. The stuff the
Speaker 1: Reagan administration was doing was appalling. James Watt said trees
Speaker 1: caused cancer. What everybody's seeing trees caused pollution? Remember him
Speaker 1: carbon die right? Whatever? James Watt where. I'm sure he's
Speaker 1: not living anymore, but he It was just there's there's
Speaker 1: there's always these people that are retrogade, and I use
Speaker 1: I'll end on this one of my favorite. Um, I
Speaker 1: see the thing. You know what I do for fun?
Speaker 1: I go to the theater. I love I'm seeing Mulan
Speaker 1: Roustena and stuff like that. Have I gotta say, have
Speaker 1: you seen to Of course I did. I've seen every
Speaker 1: one of them. Talk about powerful. I love theater. Make
Speaker 1: It's transformative for me as a person. I've always since
Speaker 1: I was a kid. My mom brought us. It's a
Speaker 1: real gift. My mom gave us to love of theater.
Speaker 1: And so I was Angels in America is one of
Speaker 1: my favorite ones, and I've seen it at least a
Speaker 1: dozen times. Tony Kushner's two parts and the end of
Speaker 1: the play, Um, it's a wonderful play. It's such a
Speaker 1: beautifully written play in such a time. It's harder than
Speaker 1: this time to remember for it. But it was terrible
Speaker 1: during the AIDS. Christ is terrible, terrible, terrible people dying,
Speaker 1: these wonderful people dying like way before their time. And um,
Speaker 1: and the last line of the of the thing, they're
Speaker 1: standing at the fountain in Central Park, the Bethesda Fountain,
Speaker 1: and uh, she said, he's the line he gives is
Speaker 1: the world always spins forward, and this is our time.
Speaker 1: We will not be silent anymore. And I remember being
Speaker 1: a gay person then just coming out, and you people
Speaker 1: don't remember when it was hard to be gay, and
Speaker 1: it still is in many parts of the world, but
Speaker 1: it's easy. I have kids better in the United States,
Speaker 1: so it's like you can't believe it, you can't believe it.
Speaker 1: And so I remember that really impacting me. The world
Speaker 1: always spins forward. And that's why I thinking everyone's like
Speaker 1: Trump's gonna reverything. I'm like, is he he can't, Well,
Speaker 1: he'll do damage for four years and hopefully then he can't,
Speaker 1: and like, and we'll fix it. We can fix it
Speaker 1: and we can pick it up. And I think that's
Speaker 1: where I get up. The same thing with journalism, the
Speaker 1: same thing with anything, is that people they always end up.
Speaker 1: These people that want to push us back to old times,
Speaker 1: which brings people down. There are people that stand up
Speaker 1: and say enough is enough, no more. When is that
Speaker 1: going to happen? It will all right. I hope you're right.
Speaker 1: Last two questions and a millennial or college grad comes
Speaker 1: to you and says, I'm interested in the career in journalism.
Speaker 1: What sort of advice would you give us? Start writing?
Speaker 1: Just start looking around and start writing, start reporting, Start writing.
Speaker 1: So much amazing journalist is being done right now and
Speaker 1: again because these times are harder, same thing happened during
Speaker 1: the last time we had something like this. So just
Speaker 1: get out your pen, whatever, whatever, get out whatever you
Speaker 1: can and start telling stories. And I think telling stories
Speaker 1: is the greatest talent that humans have, is to tell stories.
Speaker 1: Quite interesting. And our final questions, what do you questions, Barry,
Speaker 1: I come prepared. What what do you know about the
Speaker 1: world anymore special about That's true. That's a fair po
Speaker 1: serial killer, right, you know, that's what I used to
Speaker 1: do before with this. My son's name is Louie. There's
Speaker 1: nobody named old Jewish Louis. Yeah, well, okay, there you go.
Speaker 1: So you named your kid after Louis's name, that is
Speaker 1: a digression. I did not. His name is Lewis. I
Speaker 1: did not name it after one of my favorite seafood
Speaker 1: places is Louise in Port Washington. I grew up in
Speaker 1: um Oh, so I'm in Locust Valley and I went
Speaker 1: to Portlage. Oh. Portlage is literally vilege thirty seconds from
Speaker 1: my I live in and can I tell you when
Speaker 1: whenever people visit me, they're like, I didn't know Long
Speaker 1: Island was like this. I'm like, well, you made a
Speaker 1: you made a left and you went to Connecticut. This
Speaker 1: is this is the US. So my sister's kids want
Speaker 1: to say that I don't know. You grew up in
Speaker 1: very interesting. What was I saying? Our final question, what
Speaker 1: do you know about the world of technology today that
Speaker 1: you wish you knew. However, many years, thirty years ago,
Speaker 1: when you first started, I know about it today. I
Speaker 1: wish I knew. Gosh, I forget more about technology than
Speaker 1: most people know. So um in an hour. Mm hmmm,
Speaker 1: I don't. I think I didn't quite on the damage.
Speaker 1: I think I wish I had understood the damage earlier
Speaker 1: so I could start writing about it and stopping it. Privacy,
Speaker 1: social networks, damage, all of it, the idea that these
Speaker 1: the impact on humanity, and how you know. I studied
Speaker 1: propaganda at Georgetown. That was my area of expertise in
Speaker 1: the Foreign service schools the US. As a propaganda I
Speaker 1: should have understood having studied the Nazis, and especially the Nazis,
Speaker 1: how they used propaganda to um to to to in
Speaker 1: the roll up to killing so many people. The way
Speaker 1: they used it, it was not a one day thing.
Speaker 1: You can't just sloater millions. You gotta prep you gotta
Speaker 1: prep it, and you gotta get the population. Comparing it
Speaker 1: to the Holocaust, but there's damage being done that is
Speaker 1: very It's a similar thing is how we make people
Speaker 1: the other and I think the internet, and I think
Speaker 1: the Internet is very effective at thought. It is and
Speaker 1: I thought it was gonna be Star Trek. I thought
Speaker 1: it was gonna be We're all gonna have communicators and
Speaker 1: love each other, and we're all going to be on
Speaker 1: a ship. But it's both. You have the good and
Speaker 1: the bad. That that's right. So the question is are
Speaker 1: you a Star Trek person or a Star Wars person?
Speaker 1: Star Wars it's very dark. It's dark, and Star Trek
Speaker 1: is very hopeful. I was a Star Trek person far
Speaker 1: far too long. That's very interesting, fascinating stuff. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much with your time. We have been speaking with
Speaker 1: Kara Swisher. She is the founder of Recode. I mentioned
Speaker 1: you want a Lobe award right, and she writes a
Speaker 1: weekly opinion column now for the New York Times. If
Speaker 1: you enjoy this conversation, well look up an Inch, Down
Speaker 1: an Inch on all of our previous two and fifty
Speaker 1: plus conversations and I'm sure you'll find something that you'll enjoy. Uh.
Speaker 1: We love your comments, feedback and suggestions right to us
Speaker 1: at m IB podcast at Bloomberg dot net, Go to
Speaker 1: Apple iTunes and give us a lovely review. Be sure
Speaker 1: to check out my weekly column. You could see that
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot com. I would be remiss if I
Speaker 1: did not thank the crack staff that helps us put
Speaker 1: together the easiest podcast to record UH in podcast Land.
Speaker 1: Charlie Volmer is my audio engineer this week. Attica val
Speaker 1: Bron is our project manager. Michael Boyle is my producer.
Speaker 1: Michael bat Nick is my head of research. I'm Barry Retults.
Speaker 1: You've been listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio