Speaker 1: Welcome to Crash Course, a podcast about business, political, and
Speaker 1: social disruption and what we can learn from it. I'm
Speaker 1: Kim O'Brien. Today's Crash Course Elon and Zuck versus Grown
Speaker 1: up Management. Silicon Valley is many things. It's a hub
Speaker 1: of revolutionary technological innovation. It's home to novel creative approaches
Speaker 1: to managing businesses and production. It's a giant storehouse of
Speaker 1: wealth and startup britches, stretching along a slender strip of
Speaker 1: land winding south from San Francisco to San Jose. It's
Speaker 1: also the centerpiece of a very specific kind of bro culture,
Speaker 1: a culture that has had a certain winner take all
Speaker 1: mojo over the years, but which may be running its course.
Speaker 1: That's not to say that the bro's holds will loosen.
Speaker 1: It just may be that, as Silicon Valley matures, being
Speaker 1: a bro is in everything that it's cracked up to be,
Speaker 1: at least when it comes to managing a mature and
Speaker 1: complex enterprise, instead of say, launching a world beating company
Speaker 1: from scratch. To test this thesis, I present you with
Speaker 1: Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, founders of such landmark companies
Speaker 1: as Tesla, SpaceX and Meta aka Facebook. They are both innovators,
Speaker 1: admirable risk takers, and bazillionaires. They've also struggled to evolve
Speaker 1: to have early vaunted reputations as wise men correspond with
Speaker 1: equally wise management and wise decisions as the world around
Speaker 1: them changed, and they recently considered fighting one another in
Speaker 1: a cage match. Really they did. Joining me today to
Speaker 1: consider all of this is Kara Swisher. Kara has been
Speaker 1: watching Silicon Valley since well forever as a journalist, convener
Speaker 1: of Ideas, raconteur, and residence smarty. She is the host
Speaker 1: of the On with Kara Swisher and Pivot podcasts. That's
Speaker 1: a lot of podcasting, and she's an editor at large
Speaker 1: with New York Magazine. So howdy Cara, Hi, how you doing.
Speaker 1: I'm good, I'm good. Thanks for joining me today.
Speaker 2: No problem.
Speaker 1: So we may come out of this with different definitions,
Speaker 1: but can we develop a working definition together of Silicon Valley? Broness,
Speaker 1: how would you define that?
Speaker 2: Well, it's not meant to be nice, I think at
Speaker 2: this point there's all kinds of cliches about groups of
Speaker 2: people Hollywood types or producers or whatever, indie actors, and
Speaker 2: so it's just a type of person who populates Silicon
Speaker 2: Valley who they sort of take on the patterns of
Speaker 2: the others who came before them, and so they pass
Speaker 2: it down from person person I guess if you had
Speaker 2: to broadly put it, and I don't think everyone fits
Speaker 2: into this. It's you know, an arrogance youth, frequently wrong,
Speaker 2: but never in doubt. Use a word like pivot, and
Speaker 2: you know, failure is just an opportunity for growth, that
Speaker 2: kind of stuff, you know, just a sort of basically
Speaker 2: going through the world and breaking things and then thinking
Speaker 2: it's someone else's fault almost all the time.
Speaker 1: I mean, is it an unfair broad brush, well sort of.
Speaker 1: And Silicon Valley and one.
Speaker 2: People are always like, you know, lesbian's evning a sense
Speaker 2: of humor. I think I'm very funny, so, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't know, I just I guess it does tend
Speaker 2: to fit, though they do tend to dress alike. I
Speaker 2: think what happens is when you get in any culture,
Speaker 2: people tend to pattern match people, and so everyone suddenly
Speaker 2: was behaving like Mark Zuckerberg, right, But Mark Zuckerberg was
Speaker 2: behaving like people before him. So it's a little true.
Speaker 2: Like a lot of things it's got a lot of
Speaker 2: truth to it. And they often do tend to look
Speaker 2: alike and wear the same clothes and have the same attitudes,
Speaker 2: but they also contain multitudes. As Walt Whitman wrote.
Speaker 1: So have I picked well? Do you think that Elon
Speaker 1: Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are emblematic of the culture of
Speaker 1: Bronus Wow?
Speaker 2: In different ways? You know, both have changed rather significantly,
Speaker 2: although I would say, you know, on the surface, I
Speaker 2: guess Mark would be the tech bro, of the kind
Speaker 2: of bro you think about. Although personally he's quite nice.
Speaker 2: He's quite a nice guy from what I can understand.
Speaker 2: He's quite a good parent, and he's a good husband,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. Like, there's a lot more
Speaker 2: there than people would think about him. At the same time,
Speaker 2: he kind of has people following him or trying to
Speaker 2: be like him essentially, and that way, which is like
Speaker 2: push through I'm right, even though people said I was wrong,
Speaker 2: that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Right now, he's got a bit of an obsession with athleticism.
Speaker 2: I assume it's because he wasn't athletic when he was younger.
Speaker 2: It's quite aggressive. His athleticism is quite aggressive. Let me
Speaker 2: show you me doing all these hard athletic things or
Speaker 2: show off my body in some fashion, which I'm fine with. Fine, whatever,
Speaker 2: he wants to be healthy. So you know, you probably
Speaker 2: see a lot of people better match that. There's a
Speaker 2: lot of people they did the same thing when everybody
Speaker 2: was fasting or whatever, and so you know, he seems
Speaker 2: like it. Although I think people would be surprised to
Speaker 2: find him to be a relatively thoughtful and nice person.
Speaker 2: I know people get angry when I say that, because
Speaker 2: he's done a lot of damage. His company has done
Speaker 2: a lot of damage to society. I think so, and
Speaker 2: so it can be cross purposes with he. Well, you
Speaker 2: may like him, but he's done terrible things. Well, I'm
Speaker 2: just pointing out that he's not obnoxious. I've never found
Speaker 2: him to be particularly obnoxious.
Speaker 1: But the pro phenomenon is it's a relatively new thing,
Speaker 1: at least in the dimensions we're talking about it, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, Silicon Valley's always been a boys club, right,
Speaker 1: and still largely is. But there's a world of difference
Speaker 1: between the days of Bill Hewlett and David Packard and
Speaker 1: Elon and Zach Sure.
Speaker 2: They just wore ties. They were just as arrogant like,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry they were. If you go back and look
Speaker 2: at that, you know, Thomas Edison was kind of a jackass.
Speaker 2: So I feel like tech pros have always been somewhat
Speaker 2: of a jackass, you know, I don't know, there was definitely.
Speaker 2: I mean I wrote a piece when I came to
Speaker 2: the Wall Street Journal in the nineties because I started
Speaker 2: to notice they all had to wear a certain kind
Speaker 2: of vest. If you're a VCS, you had a different
Speaker 2: kind of vest, you know, a fleece fest essentially, Patagonia
Speaker 2: fleece Fest. One of the things I wrote is all
Speaker 2: the lies they tell themselves, which was one is that,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't like fancy things. They needed burrito
Speaker 2: places and meanwhile, jump on the private plane two years later, right,
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff. And so they sort of had
Speaker 2: to sort of cosplay being a simple guy just like
Speaker 2: everybody else, you know, that kind of thing. And I'm
Speaker 2: not dressing well. I may wander around in Adidas what
Speaker 2: are they called those things? He wears their flip pops. Essentially.
Speaker 2: My son will kill me for not knowing what to
Speaker 2: call this, but you know that kind of thing. I'm
Speaker 2: a simple guy. I don't need a lot and then
Speaker 2: of course they all live lives of ridiculous and egregious privilege.
Speaker 1: But there has been a cultural shift, right. I mean,
Speaker 1: I am amused, and I like the idea of thinking
Speaker 1: about Thomas Edison as a tech bro. He is, and
Speaker 1: maybe in his time he was a tech bro for
Speaker 1: you know the way he rolled then. But I think
Speaker 1: there's sort of a bravado to it now and a
Speaker 1: strutting to it now that seems different from Edison. It
Speaker 1: seems different from Hewlett and Packer.
Speaker 2: I think if you look back, do a lot of
Speaker 2: manipulation of the press, a lot of stuntishness, that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff. It's not unlike Elon Musk, honestly.
Speaker 1: But that's like a use of power, which I know
Speaker 1: has been eternal. But I'm sort of I just wonder
Speaker 1: if there's a cultural kind of a difference around the
Speaker 1: ma chismo of it and the kind of public strutting
Speaker 1: that it income.
Speaker 2: I think they just these are people who didn't get
Speaker 2: a lot of attention in their youth and now they
Speaker 2: do because of money and power, and so it's very classic.
Speaker 2: Feels like a Genesee in song, like they got pick
Speaker 2: lasts at basketball and they're taking it out on the
Speaker 2: rest of us for not picking them sooner. I don't
Speaker 2: I don't know, you know, you could boil it down
Speaker 2: to something like that, but a lot of them Tech
Speaker 2: has become cool and nerds has become cool. It's sort
Speaker 2: of the revenge of the Nerds kind of scenario that
Speaker 2: has happened. And what comes with it is an enormous
Speaker 2: amount of money. Like that's really what gives them power, right,
Speaker 2: the money they have, not necessarily it they invented something,
Speaker 2: although that's also important. But you know, when people become
Speaker 2: really rich, they become more and more certain they're correct,
Speaker 2: and very few people push back against that because it's
Speaker 2: all in their interests to get money from those people.
Speaker 2: You know, everyone's on their payroll, and so that tends
Speaker 2: to be like that. The way I sort of characterize
Speaker 2: it is sort of a juvenilization of people who are
Speaker 2: adults men, adult men, typically white adult men, and so
Speaker 2: they juvenilize them by constantly licking them up and down,
Speaker 2: telling them they're smart, saying oh right again, sir, that
Speaker 2: kind of thing. And I think one of the things
Speaker 2: that also at the same time that manifests is that
Speaker 2: they feel like they're victims. If they're criticized or given
Speaker 2: any feedback, they find that to be an attack. Like
Speaker 2: you're seeing that right now with Elon and ADL. It's
Speaker 2: their fault, you know. Naysayers. Well, in this case, he's
Speaker 2: pulling into tropes around Jews or to blame, which is
Speaker 2: very dangerous. And yeah, they're naysayers and they're Miami. He's
Speaker 2: got to always have an enemy, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: Because you couldn't possibly have made a mistake. You know,
Speaker 2: that's something that's very hard for them to accept.
Speaker 1: So is that mindset that you're right and everyone else
Speaker 1: is wrong and you're a strutting rooster. Are those things
Speaker 1: necessary to be successful in Silicon Valley?
Speaker 2: No, not at all. There's a lot of very nice people,
Speaker 2: not at all, not even slightly. I can think of
Speaker 2: a dozen different people who are just lovely, Brian Chesky
Speaker 2: being one of them from Airbnb. Most of the adults
Speaker 2: are fine.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Even Steve Jobs wasn't that much of an asshole, not
Speaker 2: compared to these guys, like you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: He could.
Speaker 1: Be eric and once he learned, he turned out to
Speaker 1: be a pretty good manager.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolutely. And most people stayed for twenty years, right,
Speaker 2: they didn't leave the people who work there. He could
Speaker 2: be very difficult, but you know, he also if you
Speaker 2: go back and listen interview, he's very thoughtful. He's very
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say he was humble, but that's okay, that's fine.
Speaker 2: He was a game changer, but he wasn't just petty
Speaker 2: and juvenile. He definitely wasn't juvenile.
Speaker 1: He also had to kind of go through trial by fire, right,
Speaker 1: he got kicked out of the company he built.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just feel like he was an adult and sort.
Speaker 1: Of learned from his lessons and then came back and acted.
Speaker 2: I used the term adult like he was an adult,
Speaker 2: Like there's a lot of adults. Tim Cook as an adult.
Speaker 2: Read Hastings as an adult, read Hoffman as an adult,
Speaker 2: you know, meaning that they just they don't get into
Speaker 2: peaks if you say, hey, I have a problem with this,
Speaker 2: Like when I was doing an interview with Elon and
Speaker 2: I was he was, you know, just forcing his employees
Speaker 2: back into the office, into the factory. Before anybody knew
Speaker 2: anything about COVID. You could have an argument about whether
Speaker 2: it or not, but nobody knew, and he had a
Speaker 2: certainty I think he said something like they'll be like
Speaker 2: zero COVID deaths or whatever or something. He didn't know.
Speaker 2: I've read all the studies.
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe it. Completely ignorant everything you said.
Speaker 2: Of course, but he read all the studies of deep ignorance.
Speaker 2: I was like, we don't know, we don't know. Let's
Speaker 2: assume lack of safety until we have better information, like
Speaker 2: why not? And you know, he threatened to walk off
Speaker 2: the show, like I'm going to leave. I'm like, fine,
Speaker 2: who does that? But like my two year old, My
Speaker 2: two year old doesn't even behave like that, right, It's like,
Speaker 2: who does that? That's an adult. I'm going to leave. Haha,
Speaker 2: you know whatever, it's childish and throw out of this ever. Right,
Speaker 2: It's just like, you know, we're someone who posts memes
Speaker 2: of boobs, like he always puts a boob thing up.
Speaker 2: I'm like, you're fifty two fucking years old, really, you know,
Speaker 2: and all the young men ooh.
Speaker 1: Cool enough with the boobs.
Speaker 2: Cool boobs, Like, oh, come on, really, you're fifty two.
Speaker 2: It moves in on pathetic.
Speaker 1: And poop emojis. Don't forget the poop emojis.
Speaker 2: Yeah, whatever, whatever, they're fifty two.
Speaker 1: It's an ecosystem too, right, isn't the venture capital community
Speaker 1: and the media part of the development of Bronus.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it depends. Like the venture capitalist I always thought
Speaker 2: them as enabling parents, like, oh, yes, you're a genius.
Speaker 2: Their interests for money, They wanted to make money. So
Speaker 2: anything they could say to get these guys to do
Speaker 2: what they wanted was what they would do. So more sugar,
Speaker 2: sure you won't get diabetes. Sure more I love you, You're
Speaker 2: the best. And of course they would turn on them
Speaker 2: in a second if they needed to. But yeah, I
Speaker 2: think the culture was very much we support our founders,
Speaker 2: and in fact it was just bad parenting this way
Speaker 2: I looked at it bad parenting.
Speaker 1: And on the note of bad parenting, I'm going to
Speaker 1: take a quick break to hear from a sponsor, Karen,
Speaker 1: and then we'll come right back. I'm talking with Silicon
Speaker 1: Valley whisperer Kara Swisher about tech Bros. And Elon Musk
Speaker 1: and Mark Zuckerberg. Carol, let's talk about each of these
Speaker 1: guys individually. Zuck found Facebook famously in his Harvard dorm
Speaker 1: room in two thousand and four. So if you look
Speaker 1: back on his path to an IPO and three billion
Speaker 1: users and becoming the most vibrant global social media platform,
Speaker 1: the apollo of the social media landscape. Is there anything
Speaker 1: different about the path that he took to those various
Speaker 1: landing pads as an entrepreneur and then a businessman, You know,
Speaker 1: he was more driven.
Speaker 2: He he reminded me of a great deal of Bill Gates,
Speaker 2: you know, very driven young man at all times and
Speaker 2: very serious at the time. If you may not recall,
Speaker 2: my Space was the cat's pajamas for everybody, right, everybody
Speaker 2: loved my sise. They were cool and handsome.
Speaker 1: Remember friends there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, although that was never cool with my Space
Speaker 2: and Chris, a guy who ran it, and Tom were cool.
Speaker 2: They were cool. They were handsome, cool men, and so
Speaker 2: that was where everybody was. And Mark was just plugging
Speaker 2: away out.
Speaker 1: And the Murdochs were smart for having remember bought into
Speaker 1: my Space.
Speaker 2: They did, but they think they lost money at it.
Speaker 2: I believe they did.
Speaker 1: They ultimately did. But remember at the.
Speaker 2: Time, Yeah, the thing that makes me think they're not smart,
Speaker 2: They think they were stupid. But Mark was plugging away
Speaker 2: with the utilitarian thing that I he kept calling it
Speaker 2: the utility to me and you can imagine as a reporter, Oh,
Speaker 2: a utility. How fascinating, you know, And so I thought
Speaker 2: that was really smart actually, because he is just sort
Speaker 2: of I'm useful, I'm useful, I'm useful, And I used
Speaker 2: to call him a young fogie, like he was sort
Speaker 2: of an old person in a young person's body. And
Speaker 2: so he was quite serious and very like intent and
Speaker 2: aggressive a lot like young Bill Gates, I think, in
Speaker 2: a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: And then he grows Facebook sort of in two ways,
Speaker 1: through this steamroller of an ad business, and then through
Speaker 1: acquisitions he buys Instagram, WhatsApp as time goes on, and
Speaker 1: then organic growth sort of stalls out on him and
Speaker 1: he has to actually try to do something with the
Speaker 1: company other than ride the wave, and the jury still
Speaker 1: out as to whether or not he's up to that, right.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, I mean that happens with a lot of
Speaker 2: people like Microsoft. You remember they went into media. They
Speaker 2: had AMAZN, they had cable, they had all kinds of
Speaker 2: little alley ways they went down, none of which worked
Speaker 2: out except he sold software.
Speaker 1: General electric in a completely different industry.
Speaker 2: Everybody does that, like, you know, even the Google guys,
Speaker 2: they don't like search business, even though it pays for everything, right,
Speaker 2: I think we'll do elevators up the streets of Sanford Cisco.
Speaker 2: What about a barge where we you know, we live
Speaker 2: or whatever. And now you know, these people making their
Speaker 2: town up in Solano County, you know, they get bored
Speaker 2: with what brought them there and they want to do
Speaker 2: something else. And I think all these things have a
Speaker 2: life cycle. Right, people will use Facebook until something else
Speaker 2: better comes alonger they don't like it anymore, they get
Speaker 2: bored with it. There's a limit to growth of it.
Speaker 2: And so you've got to be really prescient.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: The only company that really does this over and over
Speaker 2: again has been Apple. Right has continued to evolve relatively successfully,
Speaker 2: although they've had you know, if you don't remember paying
Speaker 2: I do. It was their social network. They tried a
Speaker 2: whole bunch of things that didn't.
Speaker 1: Work, and they're starting to hit some plateaus.
Speaker 2: Everyone says the proper Steve Jobs tied. It's over. It
Speaker 2: was not over forth ten times the amount when he
Speaker 2: was living.
Speaker 1: And they brought in a very competent, boring, skilled manager
Speaker 1: and Tim Cook, not a.
Speaker 2: Bro yeah, and grew it. Didn't just manage it, grew it.
Speaker 2: You know, the Internet's littered with companies that were popular
Speaker 2: and I've forgotten the names of a lot of them,
Speaker 2: right that were super popular and then weren't. And these
Speaker 2: are consumer products in many ways, and so that's normal
Speaker 2: and natural for people to move on from what they're doing.
Speaker 2: And so Facebook certainly has had the longest run of
Speaker 2: successful utility for people who use it, and smartly bought Instagram,
Speaker 2: which still remains really interesting. I think what's hard is,
Speaker 2: just like with Google, is everything else pales in comparison
Speaker 2: to their original product, and very few companies can change
Speaker 2: course in that regard.
Speaker 1: So how do you see Mark Zuckerberg's management evolving over
Speaker 1: that time, from those heady days when Facebook was just
Speaker 1: a self generating piggybank to now when he's trying to
Speaker 1: find new businesses. He turns through Cheryl Sandberg after a period.
Speaker 2: It was a long time. I know he was ten
Speaker 2: fifteen years. That wasn't a short period. I think Mark
Speaker 2: has an admirable consistency of the managers there. They were
Speaker 2: there ten twelve years, which I think was unusual to stay.
Speaker 1: I think the shift from Cheryl Sandberg to Nick Clegg
Speaker 1: is meaningful in terms of.
Speaker 2: Well that's just it's a late stage company, right, late
Speaker 2: stage company for internet companies which have a very short,
Speaker 2: much shorter life cycle. You know, Cheryl was critically important.
Speaker 2: Mark had a chaotic management style for a long time
Speaker 2: because he was young and never he's actually quite good
Speaker 2: as a manager.
Speaker 1: And she was the adult in the room.
Speaker 2: Well I hate the expression, but yeah, sure, I think
Speaker 2: you know, she just knew how to run a business
Speaker 2: right with stuff he wasn't interested in. He was interested
Speaker 2: in the products. She was interested in business. And she
Speaker 2: had come from Google where she ran the most boring
Speaker 2: part of Google that did really well, which is this
Speaker 2: ad serving business. And she really should get a lot
Speaker 2: of credit for, you know, jacking the ad business as
Speaker 2: high as they did, and they had a great partnership
Speaker 2: for a very long time. And I just think it
Speaker 2: evolves over time and again as these people get rich,
Speaker 2: as they get wealthier, they get bored with what brong them.
Speaker 2: They don't like oh, or in the wire hanger business,
Speaker 2: I'd rather own a sports team, right, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean? Like nobody wants to be what they were,
Speaker 2: And so I think he evolved, and then of course
Speaker 2: he got hit with all the accusations around misinformation and
Speaker 2: Russian involvement and meddlesomeness and.
Speaker 1: For division and hate.
Speaker 2: And so what does he do. He renames the company
Speaker 2: going down another alley, which is the metaverse, which I
Speaker 2: think has proved rather expensive and quite premature.
Speaker 1: Well, and also sort of imposed that on an entire
Speaker 1: company because it was his idea and he thought it
Speaker 1: was the way to get ys.
Speaker 2: Well, because he controls the company, he can't be fired.
Speaker 1: Right, But this is also to me another sort of
Speaker 1: signal moment and whether or not young Mark can evolve
Speaker 1: into a good manager, like the embrace of meta as
Speaker 1: both an idea and a name and a direction for
Speaker 1: the company. Yeah, that he sort of jams down.
Speaker 2: He was trying to pretend he wasn't you know, No, No,
Speaker 2: I'm not Genghis Khan. I'm really Phil Jackson. I don't
Speaker 2: know whatever. He just wanted to change his name. He
Speaker 2: didn't want to be one thing, you know, ignore that
Speaker 2: over there. I'm over here doing this fabulous future stuff.
Speaker 2: He should have said AI really is what he should
Speaker 2: have said, but he said metaverse instead. And you know,
Speaker 2: with the time, we were like, no, this is so early,
Speaker 2: this is so wrong. But it's his party's he controls
Speaker 2: the company. So that's the way it is.
Speaker 1: So let's focus on Elon for a second. He launches
Speaker 1: PayPal famously with people.
Speaker 2: He did not launch PayPal. No, that's not true.
Speaker 1: Well, it was through a merger with X dot com.
Speaker 2: And they were they were competitors. PayPal existed, they were rivals.
Speaker 2: They didn't like each other. That gang Elon's gang and
Speaker 2: the other gang.
Speaker 1: Well he had X and the other I can't remember
Speaker 1: the other companies that merged form PayPal doesn't. We're probably
Speaker 1: bore people all they In.
Speaker 2: Any case, they merged them because they were competitors. They
Speaker 2: didn't want to compete. That really was what they were
Speaker 2: doing this.
Speaker 1: So so PayPal comes in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they all got together and they had a
Speaker 2: lot of problems with each other, and Elon got you know,
Speaker 2: jammed out of PayPal in a lot of ways. And
Speaker 2: they all made money.
Speaker 1: But he gets some of the spoils though when they
Speaker 1: sell it to eBay, right.
Speaker 2: I mean, that was a very lucky thing for all
Speaker 2: of them.
Speaker 1: Especially for Elon, and that it gave him a lot
Speaker 1: of cash that he uses to seed space x and
Speaker 1: to take a steak in Tesla all around the same period.
Speaker 2: It was unusual because all of them went often did
Speaker 2: stupid things. And Elon he really attracted my notice because
Speaker 2: he wasn't doing dumb things. I was like, huh, you
Speaker 2: know rockets, cars, Oh cool, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: It was very ambitious and really interesting and AI. He
Speaker 2: was very early. He's one of the first people who
Speaker 2: ever talked about AI with me was Elon Musk, especially
Speaker 2: the dangers of AI, and so yeah, he was very serious,
Speaker 2: like another serious minded person who was doing substantive things
Speaker 2: rather than oh, I think I'll become a VC and
Speaker 2: funded dating service and you know whatever. They were all
Speaker 2: so stupid, you were like, oh, I can't talk to you.
Speaker 2: But Elon was always interesting well, and you know.
Speaker 1: He single handedly gets the US with the government's help,
Speaker 1: notably with massive government subsidies both at SpaceX and Tesla.
Speaker 1: In different got alone.
Speaker 2: It would have gone out of business without government help.
Speaker 1: And he got government contracts from NASA at SpaceX.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he has them. He continues to he has.
Speaker 1: Them, and it was sort of the foundation of his
Speaker 1: viability was getting those one one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: He's the biggest government handout person I know then a
Speaker 2: good success.
Speaker 1: Yay.
Speaker 2: He literally is the ad for why government's good.
Speaker 1: It's corporate welfare. But it's good corporate welfare. You know.
Speaker 1: It created a world beating commercial space center, missile enterprise,
Speaker 1: and rocket enterprise, and a transformative EV company, So kudos
Speaker 1: to him. Those aren't small things, oh they're not. Makes
Speaker 1: him the world's wealthiest man. And then he decides, as
Speaker 1: I think he becomes increasingly erratic, he decides to buy
Speaker 1: Twitter for forty four billion dollars. Right, he did, and
Speaker 1: that's hardly the sign of someone who is a shrewd
Speaker 1: invest way.
Speaker 2: Well we'll see, won't we Maybe he'll turn it around.
Speaker 2: It was never a very good business, like let's start with.
Speaker 2: It was a terrible business all of its life since
Speaker 2: it was founded, and it was badly managed, except for
Speaker 2: maybe Dick Costlow had a bit of a bright spot,
Speaker 2: but it never reached the potential. Everybody thought it was you,
Speaker 2: everyone thought it was Facebook.
Speaker 1: It was never a Facebook in any scope.
Speaker 2: Never made money for the users, never moved off of
Speaker 2: nineteen dots, was always at nineteen dollars, I recall. But
Speaker 2: it was badly managed.
Speaker 1: So it wasn't necessarily a company he'd pay forty four
Speaker 1: billion dollars.
Speaker 2: No, I think it was. You know, it had a
Speaker 2: high there during the pandemic. I think you know, who
Speaker 2: knows why stock goes up or down, but you know
Speaker 2: it definitely if you zeroed it out over the history
Speaker 2: of it, you wouldn't have paid that. No, you wouldn't
Speaker 2: have paid for that. But I thought he would do
Speaker 2: a good job. I needed someone like him to come
Speaker 2: in and be king of the place, rather than do you.
Speaker 1: Really think he'd do a good job when he first
Speaker 1: took it.
Speaker 2: I did because it was a goat rodeo over there,
Speaker 2: and it was all these CEOs that came in and
Speaker 2: out and all these feelings. It was the most emotional
Speaker 2: company you've ever deal with. You're sort of like, are
Speaker 2: you kidding me? With all your various and sundry dramas
Speaker 2: between each other, you know, all the founders and like
Speaker 2: this founder, you know, it was really exhausting to cover them.
Speaker 2: And again, it never met its potential of its influence.
Speaker 2: It had a lot of influence, but not a lot
Speaker 2: of business and very difficult issues around same thing polarization.
Speaker 2: They just didn't have the resources that Facebook did, and
Speaker 2: so you know, anyone could come in and do something.
Speaker 1: With it if they were the right person, right, and.
Speaker 2: He certainly had the means and the motivation. He loved
Speaker 2: the product. It obviously spoke to him in some deep
Speaker 2: way personally and emotionally, and so I thought.
Speaker 1: I had no experience, and I do think managing a
Speaker 1: media company requires a certain comp.
Speaker 2: Well, they try to pretend. I know, of course it is,
Speaker 2: but they pretend it is it's a communications company. I
Speaker 2: always thought it was a media company and thought that
Speaker 2: was the direction it should go in. And I was
Speaker 2: working with Twitter to actually monetize spaces and all this stuff.
Speaker 2: And then he comes in and I thought, okay, all right.
Speaker 2: We exchanged a bunch of emails about it. I was like,
Speaker 2: all right, you've got the money, you got the attention,
Speaker 2: you could bring in a smart media executive and really
Speaker 2: do something. Finally, like one person making a decision, because again,
Speaker 2: you know, I used to jokingly because I'm a lesbian,
Speaker 2: I can say that it was like a lesbian collective,
Speaker 2: Like no decisions were made ever, like everyone with feelings
Speaker 2: were hurt all the time. That's a cliche, Lesbian's not true,
Speaker 2: but it was really. There was a small handful of
Speaker 2: people who could have brought order to the place. Instead,
Speaker 2: it's his personality disorders writ large unfortunately.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean I think maybe we part ways on
Speaker 1: that one because I thought in the very beginning he
Speaker 1: was the worst sort of person to take Twitter over
Speaker 1: because he lack the experiencing insight for that particular company.
Speaker 1: I hid.
Speaker 2: I thought, yes, the COVID stuff was strange.
Speaker 1: The COVID denier. You know, I'm a free speech absolutist,
Speaker 1: but meanwhile he's crushing free speech within his own company,
Speaker 1: and he's going after people who criticize him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's critical textures. Well, when has that ever happened?
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it doesn't suggest you're the best guy to
Speaker 1: run a media company.
Speaker 2: All I was saying is one person making the decisions.
Speaker 2: I thought he would hire a very smart meet executive
Speaker 2: and get out of the way. But he didn't, because
Speaker 2: this is about him and his personality, right, his larger
Speaker 2: you know, emotional well being so to speak.
Speaker 1: Did all of that sort of erratic behavior with him,
Speaker 1: And you know, as he see investigates him for securities
Speaker 1: broad for saying the saud He's going to help him
Speaker 1: take Tesla private. That seems to have definitely all been
Speaker 1: built on smoke. Did any of that surprise you over
Speaker 1: the arc of time from when you first met him
Speaker 1: to who.
Speaker 2: He is now, Yes and no, like you saw it there.
Speaker 2: You know, he had a juvenile interest in memes and
Speaker 2: especially move memes, and I had teenage boys at the time.
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, look it's another one, you know, so
Speaker 2: I had recognized the pattern. You know, he had a
Speaker 2: lot of juvenilia, like very much sort of like stupid jokes.
Speaker 2: You know. The COVID thing was the first time I
Speaker 2: was like, huh, that's weird. You know, that's weird. And
Speaker 2: then those stuff at the factories around racism and stuff
Speaker 2: like that started to pop up. You know, he wasn't
Speaker 2: that different from other ones. And actually he was somewhat
Speaker 2: I would say, delightful to talk to because he was
Speaker 2: very odd and interesting and he had you know, again,
Speaker 2: he was the first person who talked about the dangers
Speaker 2: of AI. This was a decade and a half ago, right,
Speaker 2: a long time ago, and nobody was talking about that.
Speaker 2: They were all talking about whatever the latest stupid trend
Speaker 2: was for the day, and he wasn't. He was very
Speaker 2: prescient about a lot of stuff, including cars, and space
Speaker 2: and everything else, and so you'd see flashes of it.
Speaker 2: I always say, like about ten percent of his personality
Speaker 2: was really distasteful, I guess, and the rest was really interesting.
Speaker 2: And with all the caveats you have about these egomaniacal, arrogant,
Speaker 2: narcissistic founders. And then something happened, something turned. It's like
Speaker 2: milk spoiled. Everything became about victimization. He felt under siege.
Speaker 2: I know it sounds dumb.
Speaker 1: Do you think that's a different turn than the turn
Speaker 1: Zuckerberg took.
Speaker 2: I don't think Juckberg's changed personally, No, I don't. I
Speaker 2: think he's matured and he's developed as a man, I think.
Speaker 2: And in terms of elon he went backwards. He's like
Speaker 2: Benjamin Button, you know, except the jerk, the jerkish Benjamin Button.
Speaker 2: And so those parts of his personality as he got
Speaker 2: to be the richest man in the world, and especially
Speaker 2: with enablers or the wrong people around him, started to
Speaker 2: get really ugly. Just these people, all of whom are
Speaker 2: paid by him. And you know, this idea of all
Speaker 2: these fans like licking him up and down. It's affected
Speaker 2: his personality, you know, and including his family relationships with
Speaker 2: his now daughter. You know, if you talk to people
Speaker 2: around him, and they'll only talk off the record because
Speaker 2: they're terrified of getting off the gravy train. They are worried.
Speaker 2: They are worried about that. But you know, they all
Speaker 2: allow it to happen because he's the center. He's the
Speaker 2: son of a particular universe and very powerful. It's so classic,
Speaker 2: you know, it's classic with royalty. It's you know, this
Speaker 2: is not a news story.
Speaker 1: It's how power functions.
Speaker 2: Well some power, but like kings, they get a little nutty,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, Like it just happens when
Speaker 2: nobody says, hey, just a second, and anyone who said hey,
Speaker 2: just a second, he's thrown out of the kingdom, myself included.
Speaker 2: You know whatever, I don't care. I have plenty of friends.
Speaker 1: I'm going to take another break care and then we'll
Speaker 1: come right back. I'm back with Kars Swisher. We're talking
Speaker 1: about tech bros and tech brodom. I asked you this earlier,
Speaker 1: and I want to come back to the degree to
Speaker 1: which Zuckerberg and Musque aren't that much different from their
Speaker 1: compatriots in Silicon Valley. I think of Jack Dorsey as
Speaker 1: sort of a junior mint version of this. You know,
Speaker 1: somehow they let him be the CEO of two companies simultaneously.
Speaker 2: They did.
Speaker 1: It wasn't really good at being the CEO of one company,
Speaker 1: much less too, but he got away with it. You
Speaker 1: don't see many women or executives of color anywhere in
Speaker 1: the US being granted those sorts of opportunities and second chances.
Speaker 1: And then, you know, I do think of Tim Cook
Speaker 1: as a sort of the polar opposite of both of
Speaker 1: these guys. And I think there's a lesson in that
Speaker 1: about how you manage the trajectory of successful companies. That
Speaker 1: maybe you need these crazy geniuses who are completely self
Speaker 1: assured for a certain part of the company's trajectory, but
Speaker 1: then the grown ups have to come in and put
Speaker 1: their hands on the steering wheel and move it along.
Speaker 1: Do you agree with that or do you think that's
Speaker 1: too simple?
Speaker 2: As I do think it's too similar, because I think
Speaker 2: Tim was there from the beginning of the recovery of Apple, right,
Speaker 2: So it wasn't like he just was brought in to
Speaker 2: deal with difficult Steve just Sue Jobs was a great manager, right,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean? Like, and so was Jeff Bezos,
Speaker 2: lots of mistakes made by both of them, and.
Speaker 1: In fact, Steve jobs knew Tim Cook was somebody he
Speaker 1: needed to have there must.
Speaker 2: So yeah, there were a lot of choices at that company,
Speaker 2: but he picked the one who I think, you know, typically,
Speaker 2: I remember when he died, everyone was like, oh, not
Speaker 2: this guy, this boring guy, this guy, this guy, And
Speaker 2: I was like, I don't know, I feel like he's
Speaker 2: been running what's been important to that company, creativity. There's
Speaker 2: a lot of creative people there. So this myth of
Speaker 2: the one god who can solve everything, I think is
Speaker 2: not a new and front. You remember Leiahkca only he
Speaker 2: could do it. It's sort of part of the corporate
Speaker 2: mental well again, but in that case, yes, right until
Speaker 2: no speaking to someone who had really distasteful opinions about
Speaker 2: Jewish people, et cetera. Think about that today. I just
Speaker 2: think Twitter was around for a lot of these people. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there would have been reputations in flames much earlier.
Speaker 2: Yeah maybe, but now it doesn't matter. You can be shameless,
Speaker 2: you know, and I think Donald Trump introduced that you
Speaker 2: can be shameless and you actually do better.
Speaker 1: And it's celebrated. In fact, in certain cases.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's cool. I always love when they all
Speaker 2: do this fight the man. I'm like, you are the
Speaker 2: fucking man, Like you know what i mean, Like, that's
Speaker 2: my favorite. I'm like, I'm sorry, but you know, revolutions
Speaker 2: in Rome, the people who helped overthrow the Republic were
Speaker 2: some of its nobles, right, the Cracktree brothers. I think
Speaker 2: that's their names.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: That often happens, you know, or Donald Trump. I'm with you,
Speaker 2: people of Goal Mining Country. I'm like, are you kidding me?
Speaker 2: You live in a golden palace in New York City
Speaker 2: and Manhattan. But that's okay. It works for people, right,
Speaker 2: I'm your friend. And so you have to create this
Speaker 2: very pet Barnum like structure around you where you have
Speaker 2: to overstate you're already myriad of accomplishments in order to
Speaker 2: engender more love and more attention and everything else. And
Speaker 2: one of the things I like about Mark is I
Speaker 2: don't think, except for his kickboxing, which is fine, you know,
Speaker 2: he doesn't really seek attention. I think he's kind of
Speaker 2: proud of it. I guess I don't feel irritated by that,
Speaker 2: And I'm not particularly irritated by Jeff Bezos putting up
Speaker 2: chest shots of himself. You look good, Jeff, Okay, you
Speaker 2: should be happy with just that you look good, But
Speaker 2: I'm okay. I'm like, okay, he's proud of his nice
Speaker 2: physique now because he used to be kind of wimpy looking,
Speaker 2: and those are fine. But Elon needs attention every day,
Speaker 2: so I has to do you know, another stunt that's
Speaker 2: even crazier. You feel like you're in the middle of network,
Speaker 2: the movie network. Right, What am I going to do today? Oh,
Speaker 2: let's attack the Jews. Oh today, trans people. Let's not
Speaker 2: forget I have a trans child, and so it's even
Speaker 2: more heinous to do that. Today, Let's attack you know,
Speaker 2: Paul Pelosi saying he's part of a gay love triangle
Speaker 2: with no proof whatsoever, and too bad if people get hurt.
Speaker 2: Or today it's you know, Biden's fault. Today it's reporter's fault.
Speaker 2: Like whoever like or say something crazy and everybody pays
Speaker 2: attention to you. It's really sad when you think about it,
Speaker 2: because there are accomplishments here, real accomplishments.
Speaker 1: World changing accomplishments are both of their sides, but.
Speaker 2: They're not as big as they think they are, but
Speaker 2: they're big. Like they're big, but they're not that big.
Speaker 1: Elon is thirteen years older than Zuckerberg, yet he's far
Speaker 1: more of a juvenile delinquent in my humble estimation, and
Speaker 1: it sort of surprised me when Zuckerberg took the bait recently.
Speaker 1: I did too.
Speaker 2: I did too.
Speaker 1: I'll go, I'll do a case match with you. We
Speaker 1: can fight one another.
Speaker 2: I think he's really enthusiastic about it. I do think
Speaker 2: he really loves it. It's given him, you know, just.
Speaker 1: Like the pickleball.
Speaker 2: It's like pickleball. I have friends who've now become really
Speaker 2: pickleball fanatics, and you're like, calm the fuck down. It's
Speaker 2: just a game. But they love it. It changed their lives,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, But there's a little difference again, Let's go
Speaker 1: play pickleball on Friday night as to let's beat the
Speaker 1: hell out of each other in a cage. I think
Speaker 1: there's sort of a qualitative.
Speaker 2: It's something look he feels, but I don't look at
Speaker 2: you know what.
Speaker 1: It is not as sport. I think the difference between
Speaker 1: not as sports.
Speaker 2: I'd say the difference between them is parenting. I know,
Speaker 2: I know, I've come back to it. But his parents
Speaker 2: are very nice. I would not say that of Elon's parents.
Speaker 2: I think he had a very troubled childhood. I think
Speaker 2: a lot of that's going to come out in this
Speaker 2: book by Walter Isaacson that said, not everyone who has
Speaker 2: troubled childhoods turns out to be such an asshole. Right,
Speaker 2: You don't have to become an asshole if you have
Speaker 2: a troubled childhood. But I do think there is a
Speaker 2: difference in upbringing with those two in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: But I do want to come act for one last
Speaker 1: second on the cage match because it's stupid. It to
Speaker 1: me is it's stupid, but it's also emblematic. It is
Speaker 1: emblematic of the sort of excess and mitchismo and juvenile
Speaker 1: delinquency that pervades Silicon Valley despite its successes. In rich
Speaker 1: it was so ridiculous, etc.
Speaker 2: I actually wrote Mark, I said, please, look, I know
Speaker 2: you think we haven't gotten along for a long time
Speaker 2: before because he thinks I'm too critical of the company,
Speaker 2: which okay, whatever, And we had that disastrous interview where
Speaker 2: he's sweat and stuff. So I can see why he
Speaker 2: avoids me, but don't do this. You have daughters, you
Speaker 2: seem to be a pretty decent parent and a very
Speaker 2: decent husband. What are you doing? Like, I'm glad you
Speaker 2: like your sport, but this is ridiculous, fucking spectacle. And
Speaker 2: if you want to raise money, just give part of
Speaker 2: your giant, ridiculous, obscene fortune to someone like you. Don't
Speaker 2: need to do this.
Speaker 1: And so you know, so did he send you a
Speaker 1: selfie of his bicyc No, he didn't any response, He
Speaker 1: didn't respond.
Speaker 2: But can you imagine Gates and Jobs fighting. Let's have
Speaker 2: a fight, Like No, they just what they did as
Speaker 2: they did an interview with me and Walt Moosburg. That
Speaker 2: was great, that was amazing. That was adult, right, you know.
Speaker 1: They had their problem because it was coming together.
Speaker 2: That's right. It was epic. They put aside their differences
Speaker 2: and realized they realized they were together as icons of
Speaker 2: the modern computer age. Together, they really were the two
Speaker 2: just like John Adams and Tupman's Jefferson.
Speaker 1: They belonged to I call that interview. Jobs pointed out
Speaker 1: that Microsoft gave one hundred million dollars to Apple when
Speaker 1: it was flailing, and he posticates.
Speaker 2: A bit too, But it was fine. It was fine,
Speaker 2: but at the end it was he understood because he's
Speaker 2: an adult, and so is Bill Gates, you know, and
Speaker 2: could just imagine them fighting.
Speaker 1: Oh, come back. I can't imagine Zuckerberg and Musco on
Speaker 1: a stage together. And this gets back to my early point.
Speaker 1: I can see Hewlett and Packard on a stage together.
Speaker 1: I could see Harvey Firestone and Thomas Edison on a
Speaker 1: stage together. Are I can't imagine Zuckerberg and Musco on
Speaker 1: a stage together. And in fact, all I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: is that they're jumping around on pogo sticks, challenging each
Speaker 1: other to a cage.
Speaker 2: Matt Well, it was really Musk that was doing it right,
Speaker 2: you know. And then he continued it with his weird
Speaker 2: I'll show up at your house, which is creepy, just
Speaker 2: fucking creepy. But it was all just look at me,
Speaker 2: look at me, someone, please, for the love of God,
Speaker 2: look at me, because I still don't have enough attence.
Speaker 1: You know. And of course it happened after Zuckerberg launched Threads,
Speaker 1: which was a challenge to Twitter, which is now called x. Yeah.
Speaker 2: In the case of Zuckerberg, I don't think he has
Speaker 2: a bottomless well of need. The way musk does. I
Speaker 2: do think he has a satisfying personal life. So I
Speaker 2: just was surprised he was dragged into it. And I
Speaker 2: don't know why he was. I guess he's so proud
Speaker 2: of what he's done with himself that he's doing it.
Speaker 2: But you know, I think suddenly the penny dropped. Oh wait,
Speaker 2: maybe this guy isn't serious, right, Maybe he's making fun
Speaker 2: of a sport I like, or you don't call his
Speaker 2: sport whatever and endeavor I like. And so I just
Speaker 2: was surprised. I'm so glad he's not doing it. And
Speaker 2: of course then he was welcome to the lying world
Speaker 2: of Elon. I've got Rome on the line. The coliseum
Speaker 2: is open, like what like he just says shit and
Speaker 2: then everyone's like, yeah, like, give me a break. There's
Speaker 2: a famous expression from Hollywood. Hello he lied. So I
Speaker 2: just feel like, maybe if he's telling you is maybe
Speaker 2: he's not. I just wouldn't believe anything. And I think
Speaker 2: Mark was taken in in that regard.
Speaker 1: Linda oapst that to her, it's a great line. So
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley is still very male and it's very white.
Speaker 1: Are tech bros? And is that status quo a forever phenomena.
Speaker 2: Yes, sorry, what's going to change what's changed in our society?
Speaker 1: Well, that's when I'm asking you, like, what would change that?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I think our overall society is like that.
Speaker 2: Look at most of the attacks when women are led
Speaker 2: by men right now, like about abortion rights and everything else.
Speaker 2: I just you know, as long as there's not equal
Speaker 2: numbers of women in power, and not every woman has
Speaker 2: to agree. There's a lot of anti abortion activists or
Speaker 2: women some of the more powerful ones too. But you know,
Speaker 2: it's just wherever you go, there you are. If you
Speaker 2: have one point of view and you're homogenious about it,
Speaker 2: you're going to have one point of view. You're not
Speaker 2: going to reflect other people, and then you become less
Speaker 2: and less sympathetic and you think your viewpoint is the
Speaker 2: only viewpoint. Now we're all guilty of that, right, everyone
Speaker 2: of us is skuilty of that, and we have to
Speaker 2: try really hard to get out of these silos that
Speaker 2: we have, and we don't because we're very comfortable in them.
Speaker 2: But when you have that much power and you do it,
Speaker 2: I think it's incumbent on you to reach across lines
Speaker 2: and not demonize people. And you know, with all the
Speaker 2: power and influence and money muscast, all he does is
Speaker 2: pick fucking fights all day, and all I can think
Speaker 2: of is, what the hell is wrong with you? Like,
Speaker 2: how did you get this way? It's disappointing because of
Speaker 2: the good he could do. He obviously has skills, but
Speaker 2: instead he's decided that his lesser nature is the one
Speaker 2: he's going to feed.
Speaker 1: Caer I always like to ask guests what they've learned
Speaker 1: from an event. If you think about watching the arc
Speaker 1: of Elon and Zuck's journeys, what have you learned? What
Speaker 1: have those things taught you?
Speaker 2: That power corrupts? It just does. It's such a cliche.
Speaker 2: It just does. Money and power corrupt and you have
Speaker 2: to be a very strong personality to resist it. And
Speaker 2: there's so many great hopes of what tech could do,
Speaker 2: and instead of doing that, spending your time doing this
Speaker 2: seems sad. It really does. It seems sad to me.
Speaker 2: And there's so much potential to help people. There's so
Speaker 2: much potential to be kind, and unfortunately where we've gotten
Speaker 2: is these people, not all of them, I don't want
Speaker 2: to paint a broad brush, but a lot of them
Speaker 2: forgot why they came in the first place, which was
Speaker 2: a great love of tech like I have, and others
Speaker 2: having a great love of the possibilities. And my book's
Speaker 2: coming out in March, and at the beginning of it,
Speaker 2: I talk about a quote from Steve Jobs. I had
Speaker 2: this idea that you are either a Star Trek or
Speaker 2: a Star Wars person, because you know, tech people love
Speaker 2: sci fi and you know Star Wars is a very
Speaker 2: dark view of the universe where they evil often and
Speaker 2: regularly triumphs. Right that everything's quite a dark vision what
Speaker 2: Star Wars is. It's not a hopeful vision in any
Speaker 2: way if you really take it apart, and Star Trek
Speaker 2: is it's like a Benetton ad. We are going to
Speaker 2: get along, We're going to beat villains, and villains are
Speaker 2: going to come on our side in fact, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean. And it's a sort of a hopeful
Speaker 2: humanity gets better and better and better, and we improve ourselves.
Speaker 2: And it's a Wars you never know the next episode
Speaker 2: might be the last. And so there was an interview
Speaker 2: I did with Steve Jobs where he said, I want
Speaker 2: Star Trek. I wish we could get Star Trek, and
Speaker 2: I feel the same way. And we live in Star Wars.
Speaker 2: That's where we live now, and we've got Darth Vaders everywhere,
Speaker 2: and not redeemable Darth Vaders, just Darth Vaders that stay
Speaker 2: that way. And so that's how I think about it.
Speaker 2: I just am really, I'm sorry. I want Star Trek too,
Speaker 2: you know, as Steve said.
Speaker 1: I want Star Trek too. We're out of time. Kara,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Tam for a thoughtful conversation. I
Speaker 2: appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Kara Swisher is the host of The On with Kara
Speaker 1: Swisher and Pivot podcasts, and she's an editor at large
Speaker 1: at New York Magazine. Next spring, she has a new
Speaker 1: book coming out, burn Book, a Tech Love Story. You
Speaker 1: can find her on Twitter at Kara Swisher Here at
Speaker 1: crash Course, we believe the collisions can be messy, impressive, challenging, surprising,
Speaker 1: always instructive. In today's Crash Course, I learned that Silicon
Speaker 1: Valley's tech bros. May have a hammer lock on Silicon
Speaker 1: Valley's riches and its businesses longer than I expected. What
Speaker 1: did you learn? We'd love to hear from you. You
Speaker 1: can tweet at the Bloomberg Opinion handle at opinion or
Speaker 1: me at Tim O'Brien using the hashtag Bloomberg Crash Course.
Speaker 1: You can also subscribe to our show wherever you're listening
Speaker 1: right now, and please leave us a review. It helps
Speaker 1: more people find the show. This episode was produced by
Speaker 1: the indispensable Anna Maserakas, Moses On Dam and Me. Our
Speaker 1: supervising producer is Magnus Hendrickson, and we had editing help
Speaker 1: from Sage Bauman, Katie Boyce, Jeff Grocott, Mike Nizza, and
Speaker 1: Christine Vanden Bilart. Blake Maples says, our sound engineering and
Speaker 1: our original theme song was composed by Luis Gara. I'm
Speaker 1: Tim O'Brien. We'll be back next week with another Crash
Speaker 1: Course