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jdpower.com/awards, only at a Sleep Number

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store or sleepnumber.com. Having

0:31

seen my name in a burn book as a

0:33

kid, I can tell you it's not a good

0:35

thing. Technically, it's a way of

0:37

naming and shaming people in your social circle. But

0:40

most people don't run in the same circles as

0:42

Kara Swisher. The former

0:44

tech reporter for The Wall Street Journal is on

0:47

a massive book tour. Her memoir

0:49

is titled Burn Book, a tech love

0:51

story. Her onstage moderators include

0:53

people she's covered as a journalist, Laureen

0:55

Powell Jobs, the widow of

0:57

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, Bob

0:59

Iger of Disney, Sam

1:02

Altman, the current CEO of

1:04

OpenAI. And

1:06

while those interviewers wanted to talk to her about

1:08

her broken relationship with Elon Musk

1:10

or her views on artificial general

1:12

intelligence, otherwise known as AGI, I

1:14

wanted to know

1:17

how she got to be her.

1:20

The definitive beat reporter of the consumer

1:23

internet age with a Google executive

1:25

for an ex-wife, a journalist

1:27

turned entrepreneur who co-launched major high

1:29

tech and media conferences, all things

1:32

D and code, a

1:34

podcast star with high wattage guests,

1:36

a punchy interviewer who never backs

1:39

down, and now an

1:41

important voice in the public debate

1:43

over whether and how to regulate

1:45

tech companies. I'm Adi

1:48

Kornish, and this is The Assignment.

1:56

Kara Swisher and I spoke before a live

1:58

audience of students and professionals. at

2:00

the Sine Institute of Policy and Politics

2:03

at American University. That's where Kara is also

2:05

a 2024 fellow. Hi,

2:07

everybody. How are you? Good morning. Good

2:10

morning. Come

2:13

on. You don't want to bring this energy to

2:15

Kara Swisher, okay, because that's not what you're going

2:17

to get back. Good

2:19

morning. Good morning. Nice. And

2:22

that's where we met for this conversation, which

2:24

I began with an admission. We're

2:27

friends. And I have to say, it

2:29

made me not want to do this interview with

2:31

you today. Okay. All right. Good. Because I feel

2:34

like I'm too close to you

2:36

to do the interview properly. Okay.

2:38

But I felt like you were then the

2:40

right person to talk to because your whole

2:43

career is talking to people that you might

2:45

be a little too close to. Some

2:47

of them. Some of them. Some of

2:50

them, yeah. Yes, that's a good point.

2:52

So let's go. The other thing

2:54

about Kara, which I've told her, is you

2:56

talk to men the way men

2:58

talk to women. Some

3:00

men. Some men. Some men.

3:03

Do any of you guys know what I'm talking about? When

3:05

I say that, does that mean something to you? She said

3:07

that. She was a

3:09

guest host on Pivot. We're like, that's

3:12

exactly what's happening here. And

3:14

as I thought about it, it was really interesting because

3:17

I was talking to my wife, Amanda, is

3:19

here also, and she was talking to a man. And

3:21

I said, this is how you do it. You compliment

3:23

him. Men aren't used to physical compliments.

3:25

And you say, that's a nice shirt. So

3:27

I do kind of do that a lot. But

3:30

then if I really want to really get

3:32

stuff out of them, I actually neg a lot

3:34

of these men I covered. And I'm

3:36

like, did you go this way? Because you were fat last

3:38

time I saw you. Stuff like that.

3:40

And I realized I was just in this.

3:43

I came in from San Francisco last night

3:45

where I did a series of sessions with

3:47

Reed Hoffman, Sam Altman, Gavin Newsom. And

3:49

I did it. I was negging them without even

3:51

trying. And it was really interesting. So

3:54

I'm fascinated by this. And I was

3:56

reading the book looking for your villain origin

3:58

story, like trying to figure out. out how

4:01

you got to be what, you

4:03

know, as a student, she identified,

4:05

yeah, strident, confident in the book.

4:07

Sometimes you use the word arrogant,

4:09

talking about yourself even as a young

4:12

person. And I think that there's something

4:14

to the fact you're running

4:16

against a lot of cultural

4:18

programming as kind of

4:20

a femme, you know, woman identifying person,

4:23

you're going to hear a lot about how

4:25

you should be. Yes. And you

4:27

aren't any of those things. No, I would say

4:29

I'm the exact opposite of Katie Britt as

4:32

her performance last night. Who

4:35

was the Senator from Alabama? Who

4:37

gave the free reunion response? I

4:39

was literally like, she, she to

4:41

me in that thing was chat

4:44

GPT, show me a separate

4:46

wife in a kitchen and didn't win the

4:48

lead role in our town in high school.

4:50

And so Does chat GPT, you do have

4:53

to be distinct with the

4:55

prompts. Yes, very distinct actually. So you

4:57

want to know how I got the

4:59

way I got? Well, yeah. Okay. The

5:01

word, what are your theories? I

5:03

think I was born this way. Because when I

5:05

was a kid, again, the names were put on

5:07

you as a as a girl, if you were

5:09

like this headstrong is the word they

5:11

might use. And then later when

5:13

I was in school, it was bossy or,

5:16

and it's almost always

5:18

from men, not always, but almost

5:20

always. But some an interviewer

5:22

who I competed with quite a bit back in

5:24

the day and used to be on a regular

5:26

basis, said I had uncommon

5:29

confidence, which I found incredibly

5:31

irritating. And I said to him at the right

5:33

when he did it, I was like uncommon

5:35

why? And he was like, well,

5:37

not everyone's confident. I'm like, why is that

5:39

unusual? What am I supposed to be, you

5:42

know, rich, I am retiring? Am I supposed

5:44

to be submissive? Like, what is what is

5:46

going on here? One, I was

5:48

like this to made

5:50

have been about being gay. I knew I was

5:52

gay at an early age. And so I didn't

5:55

feel like I needed to have the approval of

5:57

men. I think girls get into that

5:59

quite a bit. I like men, so I also

6:01

like men. And

6:04

so I got along with, I always got

6:06

along with men at every stage of my

6:08

career and teachers and everything else. And

6:11

then probably my dad dying, I think,

6:14

made me tougher because you sort of had to

6:16

be, my dad died when I was five. And

6:18

so if I think back on

6:21

it, really, I really did get steeled

6:23

during that period. My

6:25

mom married someone who wasn't very nice. I'm

6:27

not Cinderella here, but you know. No, you

6:29

do the same thing in the book though,

6:31

as you start to speed past that point of the story.

6:33

I do, I do. And I want to know,

6:35

I mean, you were only five. We both have

6:38

kids around that age now. And it

6:40

does bring you back to that

6:42

place. It does. I had,

6:44

and before that, I have older kids

6:46

too. And I remember when my, there's

6:48

two points in my life that were

6:50

really important. When I passed the age,

6:52

my dad died at. That

6:54

was interesting because I didn't think I'd live past that. So

6:56

I kind of lived my life in a rush because

6:59

I thought I would die at that age.

7:01

I think that's very common among people whose

7:03

parents die early. My brothers are the

7:05

same way. We're like in a rush. We

7:07

have no time for this. And then when

7:09

my son turned, my oldest son, he's 21

7:12

now, turned five, I realized the

7:14

devastation. I really did. I was like, God, he knows

7:16

me so well. And you know, you don't have memories.

7:18

I don't have a lot of memories in my dad.

7:20

I always thought I should get hypnotized or something, which

7:23

I haven't done. But I have little

7:25

pieces of memory. Yeah. But that's the

7:27

age where those are to be shaped. Right. How

7:29

well do you decide? Four year old, my

7:32

two year old, like would they remember me?

7:34

Maybe not. But we have clear relation

7:37

of every single day and they're deep.

7:40

And so the devastation was very clear

7:42

to me. And I remember being struck

7:44

when he turned the age I was because

7:47

it was clear that I was

7:49

much more hurt than I realized.

7:52

But you've covered up pretty quickly. A lot

7:54

of people whose parents died a young age,

7:57

become something that Irving Yalem called

7:59

highly fine. functional. He was a

8:01

psychiatrist. He wrote a really good

8:03

book called The Lost That Is Forever about people

8:05

whose parents died at a young age. And

8:08

I do remember being, that was

8:10

when I realized how good I was

8:12

at moving forward. Moving forward,

8:14

I don't think. Years ago,

8:16

my friend of mine was in one of those

8:18

therapies where you talk to someone every day. And we

8:21

were talking about it. And I was like, what in

8:23

the world do you find to talk about? Like, I don't

8:26

know, I'm not that interesting. Like, what parts of your life

8:28

could you find? And they turned to me

8:30

and said, they were going to become a therapist. I

8:32

said, that's why they do it. And I

8:35

said, I just don't have that much to talk about. I

8:37

just don't feel like I would have something to talk about

8:39

every day for hours about myself.

8:41

And they said, you're

8:44

blocking. And I said, it's working. I'm

8:48

pretty happy. I was like, where's the depth?

8:50

And my wife talks about it a lot.

8:52

And I said, when I met her, I

8:54

said, I wasn't neurotic.

8:58

I said, I don't have any neurosis. That's

9:00

not your vibe. No, it's not. But it

9:02

really isn't either. It's there. And I've hit

9:04

it so beautifully. Like I'm a mafia Don

9:06

and I, the cement is deep. Yeah,

9:08

the sunglasses help. And Jimmy Hopp, I'm

9:11

trying to avoid intimacy with you. I

9:13

actually, I forgot my other glasses. But

9:15

it does make me think about this

9:17

stepdad. Because you have this person who

9:19

comes into your life, but you describe

9:21

him in extremely specific ways in the

9:23

book. His phrase is like casually cruel,

9:25

manipulative. You don't describe him as abusive.

9:28

So I'm not I don't want to

9:30

give that you do feel that now.

9:32

I do. I do. I tried what it

9:34

was because you were so young. So by the

9:36

time you're 10, 11, what, what are what is

9:38

it? Physically abusive. It's you

9:40

know, everyone always, you know,

9:43

you tend not to minimize mental

9:45

abuse, right? That I vaguely

9:47

recall, but I remember this dog was a basset

9:50

hound, He

10:01

made up stories of what he did with it. He's like,

10:03

oh, I dropped it in the river and all this stuff.

10:06

It was so cruel. And are these happening when

10:08

the kid's with him? Is

10:11

mom around? Mom's around. And she let

10:13

it happen. Yes, she absolutely let it

10:15

happen. And to be kind to her

10:17

is she's this young person with three

10:19

kids and their husband died and she

10:21

got married pretty quickly. I get it.

10:23

I get that kind of thing. But

10:26

she let him do it. She let him do it. He

10:28

was very, you know, one thing is he

10:31

was a game player. He loved strategy games, whatever

10:33

it was. And so I got very good at

10:35

like backgammon. But I don't play it. I don't

10:37

like it. And I'm good at

10:39

it. It's really weird because it was so

10:42

aggressive. He taught me in such an

10:44

aggressive way. And I was also interestingly

10:46

really good at it. Like I actually did

10:48

have those qualities and sort of killer

10:50

like sense of game playing. By

10:52

the way, we just heard the word killer in the context

10:54

of backgammon. Yeah. I have an idea

10:56

of what these games are like. You can do it.

10:58

But it is. It is. I

11:01

must win and dominate. So he did teach me those. He

11:03

had those qualities, which is a good thing. He had a

11:05

very strategic mind. And I would say you can

11:07

learn good things in a bad way.

11:10

Right. And he would do all

11:12

kinds of things. He bugged our house. He was paranoid. And

11:15

it was kind of we used to find humor in

11:17

it because my brother and I would always make fake

11:19

drug deals over the phone. Like,

11:21

did you get the pound of hash? You know, because

11:24

you knew he could hear. Yes. In

11:27

that like 80s and 90s way of your parents

11:29

are listening on the other line or he had

11:31

bugged your home. He put bugs. Yeah. Like

11:34

Nixon. He's like Nixon. Yeah. Whoa.

11:38

So I'm not going to armchair my guy for this. But

11:40

it does to me uniquely prepare you

11:43

for Silicon Valley. It did. It

11:45

did. But I say I'm an optimistic pessimist.

11:47

I really do think the worst is going

11:49

to happen. And then when it doesn't, I'm

11:51

like, yay. It did. I

11:54

know. You know, you describe a

11:56

number. I want to talk about

11:58

some of the people you encountered in the early. part

12:00

of your career, you're a young person, you're

12:02

at school, you decide for a variety of

12:04

reasons as you are kind of cut off

12:06

from doing what you want to do, right,

12:09

joining the armed services specifically, the CIA. I

12:11

did. That was really a disappointment for me.

12:13

I wanted to be in the military very much. My

12:16

dad was in the military. He had just gotten out when he died. He was

12:18

in the Navy. I wanted to be in the Navy. I

12:21

have a lot of family members on his

12:23

side in the Navy, actually. And I really

12:25

wanted to. I have a great patriotic streak.

12:28

I have a real belief in America. But

12:30

you not doing it is somehow at odds

12:32

with how I think of you. Really? Like,

12:35

why didn't you just do it? Because I had to lie. This

12:37

is even before Don't Ask, Don't Tell. It

12:40

was you got kicked out and then dishonored

12:42

the discharge. And that old Don't

12:44

Ask, Don't Tell was another opportunity. And I

12:46

was like, I ask and

12:48

I tell. So that's a problem. I

12:51

thought you know you wouldn't be able to do it. It was

12:53

so offensive. Even more than just kicking people out.

12:55

That was Clinton. That was a Clinton era thing. That

12:58

was so offensive to me, Don't Ask, Don't Tell. So

13:01

I couldn't do that. And then years later when

13:03

they finally got rid of everything, I wanted to

13:05

join the reserves, but I was actually too old.

13:08

So I never got a chance to do it. I

13:11

thought about joining the CIA. I went to the

13:13

Foreign Service School with a feeder to the CIA

13:15

and the State Department. Both things. At

13:18

the time, there was this Clayton loan

13:20

tree scandal. You should look it up.

13:22

There was all this Russians manipulating

13:25

Americans that lived in Russia. I didn't even speak

13:27

Russian, so I don't know why they were so

13:29

concerned. But when I went for some of the interviews,

13:31

they were like, you could be

13:33

blackmailed. I'm like, I'm out. And

13:36

they were like, but you could be blackmailed. And I was

13:38

like, but I'm out. It was like these discussions. But

13:41

they were very obsessed with gay people

13:43

at that time. And finding

13:45

out. And I was like, there's nothing to find

13:47

out. At one point, they were like,

13:50

well, what if you went to Saudi Arabia? They

13:52

killed gay people here. And I'm like, I

13:54

don't speak Arabic. Why would you send me

13:56

there? How did they shape how you think about? Woods.

14:00

Discrimination. How you talking about

14:03

The reminds? Of thing serious because it was

14:05

also the era. Of the Aids

14:07

the Eight zero and it was during the

14:09

regular Mister Says in college and. And.

14:12

I was serious about how they treat people

14:14

with Aids and I think a lot of

14:16

people became activated. Then they are. People were

14:18

like. Also. When you face discrimination,

14:20

I don't know about you, but it makes

14:22

you feel that identity more acutely. Yes, even if

14:24

you were started around your life. Yeah, they're telling

14:27

you that was what. You're not out of

14:29

the spot. Right inning with differently going to

14:31

hide right with raids and edge and

14:33

jewish you don't you can't hide is

14:35

easily and sell the to problems and

14:37

I'm not going to stack rank anyone.

14:39

Discrimination that. One. Is you

14:41

can hide and but you have to be

14:43

furtive which really was terrible. I can't even

14:45

tell ya terrible that was. and I wasn't

14:48

good at foreigners and I was very outspoken.

14:50

And the other thing was your family

14:52

can dislike like your family this year

14:55

so it creates this weird thing in

14:57

your friends and you know a lot

14:59

It was such a different time it

15:01

really was I can eat. He is.

15:04

It was shot. It's shocking the changes. And

15:07

wanted have kids was not open

15:09

to you. That with us and

15:11

South Island Avenue at a good

15:13

thing I bought a baby and

15:15

one thing for my child. I

15:18

said I'm having a cat and a cabinet and he

15:20

was all the kids or. And. Them

15:22

you know which is is really hard to

15:24

be. Not who you are and I

15:26

really was who I was And I came out pretty

15:28

quickly and the Aids thing was it. I was like

15:30

that's. Enough. That's enough

15:32

with you people. People are dying.

15:35

Reagan administration was pretending people that

15:37

have a to Iraq had such

15:39

such nonsense. And. You

15:41

know when things like Angels in America came out

15:44

I was like exactly yeah a but I think

15:46

it's. Maybe hard for this generation

15:48

to understand because they've grown

15:50

up with activism. at their

15:52

fingertips yeah i like very

15:54

young people are running major

15:56

nonprofits yeah you know and

15:59

i was like coming up

16:01

that was its own set of challenges. But

16:04

for sure it was hard.

16:06

It was really hard and it was and

16:08

you didn't have the internet. Like my ex white

16:10

brand planted out which was one of the

16:12

first, AOL was one of the first gay communities.

16:15

Where people could talk to each other and

16:17

find each other. I remember Megan who

16:20

went on to join Google and then was the CTO

16:22

of America. She had

16:24

like seven members of Planet Out that

16:26

were from Vatican City which was really

16:28

interesting. But they were

16:30

everywhere. That was the thing. People were everywhere and

16:33

dying to meet each other. Which

16:36

is why the online space held such promise for

16:38

me. Especially around gay people. It was

16:40

people that couldn't meet. Everyone

16:42

from gay people to one of the first group

16:44

I encountered was a group of quilters at AOL.

16:47

Who had never met. They

16:49

were just like quilting and they were sort

16:51

of alone in their little communities. And then

16:53

they met online and they made a giant

16:56

AOL quilt with each other. And then Steve

16:58

Case brought them all in to meet each

17:00

other. They never met. And

17:02

I remember thinking this is a magical medium.

17:07

You're listening to Cara Swisher. I spoke

17:09

with her last week at American University. We'll

17:11

have more after the break. We

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details. Welcome back. I'm

18:32

speaking with Kara Swisher about her memoir Burn

18:35

Book, a tech love story. It's

18:37

about her career covering the rise

18:39

of Silicon Valley's biggest leaders from

18:41

Tesla founder Elon Musk, whom she

18:43

calls her biggest disappointment, to Salesforce

18:45

CEO Mark Benioff, whom she lists

18:48

in a chapter called The Menches.

18:50

Why do you think they liked

18:52

you? Did they see you as one of them?

18:55

No, and this was interesting. I don't think

18:57

that because I had been, you know, I was

18:59

at the Wall Street Journal or The Washington Post

19:01

first and they needed me. Right. I

19:04

was an entrepreneur until 10 years later. I didn't start.

19:06

I didn't leave the wall. The safety

19:08

of the big newspaper until 2002, which

19:11

was a long time. But the fact that you could call

19:13

up someone and say, this is what I think you should do.

19:15

This is what I think you should buy. This

19:18

is what I said. I'm going to write this. I

19:20

mean, I would tell them what I was going to

19:22

do. They never, they, they often didn't take my advice.

19:24

I was writing the story of how I thought Newville

19:26

was going to take over Yahoo. And I said

19:29

to Jerry, no, you're these guys are going

19:31

to eat you. And I said,

19:33

you should take them off. And I didn't think

19:35

he was going to do it. They never did. They never

19:37

did what I said. But I

19:40

think they appreciate it. Again, we talked about how

19:42

you talk to men. Was there something about the

19:44

way you had those conversations? Because

19:47

now I see an industry that's quite closed.

19:49

Yeah, very hard to talk to any of

19:51

them for any reason. And

19:53

I think that you, your stature and

19:55

you have the history. Yes. Now

19:58

we do it in public. Like I had a public argument.

20:00

with Mark Benioff, I was like,

20:02

Elon's doing this anti-Semitic, this

20:04

anti-gay, this anti-trans. These

20:07

are the values you said you held dear. And

20:09

he goes, well, he can land a rocket on

20:11

a surfboard. And I was like, I

20:14

don't understand. So he's racist, too,

20:16

Kanan. What a rocket on a surfboard. What

20:18

I was trying to get out there was like, you

20:20

should say something. And I sent it to him

20:22

publicly in front of a crowd of a thousand

20:25

people. I said, why aren't you saying something publicly?

20:27

I think you should. If you say you support

20:29

gay people, this guy just said Paul

20:31

Pelosi's in a gay love triangle. And

20:33

that's how he got beaten up. Why

20:35

won't you say anything? And his excuse

20:37

was, well, he's really innovative. Like

20:40

we must excuse his sins for that.

20:43

And so that's what it turned into. When I was at

20:45

the journal, I was a beat reporter, right?

20:47

You know, at some point, you have to say Google

20:49

bought this, this happened. And the reason

20:52

I left it was because I got so

20:54

frustrated at doing an

20:56

enormous amount of reporting. One particular time

20:58

was web ban. And I was

21:00

like, this ain't going to work. And I wanted

21:02

to say it in the Wall Street Journal. I wanted

21:05

to just let that be the way I communicated it.

21:07

And the editor said, get someone else to

21:09

say what you think. And I, you know

21:11

that, right? Very common, which is really common.

21:13

And then they always had a thing in

21:16

the journal, they use this term to be

21:18

sure some people say, you know, that kind

21:20

of thing, which I hate, which is, and

21:22

I was like, to be sure some people are

21:24

idiots. Not true. And so that's why I started

21:26

all things D because the minute we did all

21:29

things D, if you go back, we

21:31

were like, this is a

21:33

go rodeo. This is what here's the recording,

21:35

here's the scoop. And then let us tell

21:37

you why it's a go rodeo. Because we

21:39

did the reporting for you. What I

21:41

was more valuable is the memory uses

21:43

analogy of love, you know, and love

21:45

clouds your judgment. It

21:48

does. It can, it can, but I love

21:50

the tech, not the people. I love

21:52

the possibilities of technology.

21:55

I really did believe, and I

21:57

probably was from being gay now when I think about it. we

22:00

can come out and meet each other now. Were

22:02

there red flags that you missed industry-wise

22:04

in terms of how that culture was

22:06

changing? No, because I think we were on

22:09

that a lot earlier when Google, I wrote

22:11

a particular tough piece on Google about their

22:14

need to be the Borg and take over

22:16

everything. We wrote that in the antithesis of

22:18

Don't Be Evil. No, yes, right, exactly. So

22:20

we wrote a lot of those in 2001,

22:22

2002, saying

22:24

this company is starting to turn into Microsoft

22:26

and they got mad at me for doing

22:29

that. And we were saying, if they

22:31

do that, they will have unlimited power because

22:33

this is where advertising is going and everything

22:35

else. We were super

22:37

tough on Yahoo's mistakes, Twitter.

22:40

Uber, we got, I think

22:42

we helped get Travis Callan expired over that.

22:44

That was later. That was in the

22:47

studio. There's a way that given when you

22:49

started covering it and where you

22:51

are now, that your experience kind

22:53

of mirrors our own cultural experience

22:55

of the industry. Yes, which I was

22:57

trying to get at. Good, I did the homework. But

23:00

just the it goes from granules, utopia. I

23:02

was not a sand boy. I definitely was

23:04

not those people. But we all were, right?

23:06

Like we were, I do think

23:09

that we were sold, not a bill of

23:11

goods, but definitely there was a

23:13

reverence for young tech

23:15

leadership. They were bringing up something. We

23:18

were not talking about them like they

23:20

were robber barons or railroad guys.

23:22

So it was very different. Whereas

23:24

now, people do see

23:27

them as insular, reckless. That's

23:29

correct. Self aggrandizing billionaires.

23:31

Yes. And I do feel

23:33

like that is a shift. But I don't think

23:35

people heard it. We did an interview with Mark

23:38

Zuckerberg where we ran over him so much that

23:40

he sweat. He almost went to death, right? And

23:42

the swab sweat. Yeah, and the social network did

23:44

that. Yes, but we had been pressing him about

23:46

privacy and that Deacon, we were particularly tough about

23:48

Deacon. And we're like, what are you doing? This

23:50

is worse. Even Steve Case

23:52

at one point when he was collecting all

23:54

this information, we were talking about the hacking,

23:56

the possibilities of hacking it. And

23:59

he was at one. investor meeting and

24:01

he was bragging about how he made $63

24:03

each person, right? 63,

24:06

I mean that's what the data that they got that

24:08

they know that you caught is where the

24:11

product that's correct and I raised

24:13

my hand and I said where's my $30

24:16

like why are you taking my things and

24:18

I think one of the problems that it led

24:20

to is this sort of thing which Scott Galloway

24:22

calls the idolatry of innovators and I think that's

24:25

true. We're in this

24:27

strange moment now with generative artificial

24:30

intelligence AI and you were recently

24:32

talking to Sam Altman who you

24:34

know yesterday last night 12 hours

24:36

ago but you also said there

24:39

needs to be a certain kind of

24:41

personality in this next generation there does

24:44

there also needs to be an aggressive

24:46

person too like you said contemplative also

24:48

he is much more and this is

24:50

not to pick on him in particular but I feel

24:52

like AI is being greeted with far

24:54

more skepticism yeah in some

24:56

corners panic panic it's a very different science fiction

24:58

but go ahead yeah yeah sure but it's a

25:00

very different like this is gonna be so cool

25:03

we're gonna get to do but it's much more

25:05

like whoa yeah are the robots

25:07

gonna kill us all and what

25:10

are those lessons that you take from

25:12

the last couple years of reporting

25:15

into this next phase you know it's interesting because I'm

25:17

I'm in the middle I'm like dr. Fei-Fei Li I'm

25:19

in the middle I'm like and I'm people are surprised

25:21

or like don't you want to stop this I'm like

25:24

we could solve cancer no I

25:26

don't like again I don't think I'm too hopeful

25:28

because I'm very aware of the

25:31

dangers I think what's good about this

25:33

year is the actual makers of these

25:35

things are contemplating the dangers of them

25:37

and honestly the first person who talked about it with

25:39

me 10 15 years ago was

25:42

Elon Musk was very worried about

25:44

that he was sort of deep in the sci-fi

25:46

part of it and it shifted a little bit

25:48

over time you at first it was Terminator it

25:51

was the Terminator this is it and

25:53

then it became well treat

25:55

us like house cats and then it was

25:57

like oh it's really like you're

25:59

a villain and you

26:01

go over an anthill and to kill it, you

26:03

don't think about it. Like it became that, which

26:05

I think is probably more accurate. It'll

26:08

only do what we tell

26:10

it to do. Right. But how

26:12

should reporters approach this now based

26:15

on what you went through those early years? I

26:18

am making a heavy pressure

26:20

on regulators right now. I spent a lot

26:23

of time texting regulators saying, what

26:25

the are you doing? Do you think people

26:27

didn't do that enough in the past, not

26:29

you broader tech press? Yes, I think it

26:31

was we just let it is an astonishing thing

26:33

to think about the most powerful companies in the

26:35

world and the richest people in the

26:37

world in the history of the world. Not

26:40

having any regulation applied to them and the

26:42

regulation that applies them is advantageous, which is

26:44

Section 230. It's really unusual for

26:46

the richest people in the world not to be

26:48

able to be sued at all. Like really

26:51

pretty much not everybody. Yeah. But

26:53

again, we've talked about this in Congress.

26:55

It's not like banking regulations where there's

26:58

a constituency of lawmakers who want to

27:00

do more regulations and the banks push

27:02

back. But there's a push pull. But

27:05

there are regulations. With their heck, it's

27:07

often like we don't want to squash

27:09

innovation. Right. That's what they do. Silence.

27:12

Silence. Right. We won't squash innovation. And

27:14

so that's been their excuse is we

27:16

won't want to. And honestly, I think

27:18

with squash innovation is our reliance

27:21

on them to self-regulate and therefore disaster

27:23

after disaster. And so are we headed

27:25

in the same direction a couple of

27:27

years ago in the New York Times?

27:29

I compared Mark Zuckerberg is like, he's

27:31

got a butcher shop. And he's

27:33

like, some of the meat is probably going to

27:35

kill you. But I don't know what which one.

27:37

And but it's not my responsibility to worry about

27:40

the rancid meat. You're just going to have to.

27:42

Good luck. That kind of thing. And he got mad

27:44

at that. But I felt like that was

27:47

a good thing. Is that, but to me, ultimately now

27:49

this guy just wants to make money. And that's why the

27:51

first line of the book is so was capitalism after all.

27:54

And I think that our regulators are now on

27:56

the hook because these people are here for the

27:58

shareholders. But they look out. matched, frankly. There

28:00

are a lot of them. And I just

28:02

think, I don't know a

28:05

single lawmaker that is going to

28:07

get to toe to toe with this person, let's

28:09

be toe to toe with that. Well, that's the

28:11

thing. It's astonishing to think the federal government

28:13

does not have enough power, and they don't.

28:15

They really don't. I mean, these people have,

28:17

I jokingly said, it was around some

28:19

Facebook people. I was like, what are there? Like 80 PR

28:22

people just on me? And they're like, no,

28:25

40. And I was like, oh, yeah.

28:27

You know what I mean? But Joe Biden in a

28:29

state of the union, the president talked about trying

28:31

to do regulations, I think specifically

28:34

against voice imitation.

28:36

Yeah. Well, that's because

28:38

he got got he got got they did all these

28:40

things with him. But is that a moment for

28:43

someone to? They're all been

28:45

moments. You know, when there was a

28:47

moment, the insurrection, like, look, I, you

28:49

know, sorry, it was, it was

28:51

one of the best pieces I wrote is in 2019.

28:53

I wrote a column in the New York Times,

28:56

my first column in

28:58

the New York Times in 2017. I called

29:01

them digital arms dealers. That's why I did

29:03

that column. So I wanted to alert public

29:05

officials to what was happening. And so I said,

29:07

these people are really hurting us. I

29:09

wrote a column before COVID saying they're going to

29:11

have more power than ever after COVID, because we're

29:13

gonna have to rely on them so much. And

29:15

then there'll be richer and there'll be trillion dollar

29:17

companies and then we can't stop them. But

29:20

during 2019, I

29:22

had argued with Mark about Alex

29:24

Jones, he moved into Holocaust. Now, as I

29:27

was worried about anti-Semitism, that was a very

29:29

famous interview where he said Holocaust

29:31

deniers don't mean to lie and he wasn't going to

29:33

take them off the platform. And I said, you

29:36

are going to reap the rewards of what

29:38

you're doing here in a very bad way. But

29:40

the column I wrote was saying, when

29:43

he loses in 2020,

29:45

he's going to say it was stolen. And

29:47

then he's going to make sure he says

29:49

it over and over again, he's going to

29:51

radicalize his people, he's going to, it's going

29:54

to go up and down the right wing echo chamber. It's

29:56

all over the place, the right wing echo chamber. story

30:00

about people who rise

30:03

to power virtually unchecked. Yeah.

30:06

And once they get there, don't want any kind of accountability. They

30:08

don't. You and I have talked about how

30:10

hard it is for lawmakers to get it together. And

30:12

now we're staring down this dark tunnel of AI.

30:16

This is the most important computing change

30:18

in the generation. And you've

30:21

moved to Washington. Yes. To

30:23

talk more about regulation. Yeah. Are

30:26

there willing ears? There is.

30:28

Is there a constituency in all of us? Do

30:30

we care enough or is it more convenient for

30:32

us to order food and helicopters

30:34

or whatever in the absence to

30:36

actually deal with this? Because I

30:38

don't want to be in a love story with flames

30:41

on it 10 years from now. You know what I

30:43

mean? I would like to get this. Haven't

30:45

we all? I would like to get it right. Well,

30:48

here's the problem because it's already

30:50

inbuilt. The lobbying is

30:52

astonishing. There is a

30:54

feeling by, you know, you saw those

30:56

parents face Mark Zuckerberg the other day. Right.

30:59

They're like, what are you doing? But

31:01

even that wasn't enough. He didn't apologize. He

31:03

said, I'm sorry for what happened to you.

31:06

That is not an apology as far as

31:08

I can understand it. And I

31:10

saw his eyes and he was quite upset. You

31:12

know, he's a person. I know he doesn't

31:14

seem like one, but he is. And

31:16

I think one of the problems is it just it's

31:18

always pushback. And by the way, it's not just Republicans

31:21

who just spend their time just

31:23

cosplaying like TikTok. Let's

31:26

get them. Like, that's not our biggest problem. It is a problem.

31:28

We are exactly going through this fight on

31:30

Capitol Hill right now about TikTok. But guess

31:32

what? It is a problem. I wrote about

31:34

it five years ago. But

31:37

what we really need is basic things, artificial

31:39

general intelligence, safety regulation. A privacy

31:41

bill would be nice this 10,

31:44

20 years into it, a national

31:47

privacy bill, a data transparency bill,

31:49

an algorithmic transparency bill. Like

31:51

there's 10 of them. I wrote a story a long time ago

31:53

called the Internet Bill of Rights and named the 10. You

31:55

can say the EU, the European Union has acted,

31:58

started to act and made a difference. No,

32:00

they have actions. Why do you think they are able to

32:02

do it in a way that the US can't? Because

32:04

they don't get the benefits from these companies

32:06

that our country does, right? Meaning? The US

32:08

companies, the financial benefits, they are getting the

32:10

benefits, they're getting a lot of the negatives.

32:12

Their governments aren't bought and paid for by

32:14

these tech companies. And so

32:16

they are not under as much pressure. So Marguerite

32:18

Vestager, I'm actually talking to her next week, is

32:21

able to put these fines on, and

32:23

she's not getting pushback. It's a much

32:25

more privacy-oriented world over there in Europe,

32:27

it just is. Are you

32:29

in your activist era? No.

32:33

You know, I think I have been, if

32:35

you go back, I was, I think if

32:37

you... But this is different. Moving to Washington,

32:39

you're burning the relationships. Yeah. Not

32:41

that hard, because they're like all on the

32:43

book tour, but you're speaking more publicly, and

32:46

you're speaking more publicly. No, only the people

32:48

I like are on the book tour. Elon and

32:50

I are not going to be doing appearance together.

32:52

That's fair, but you trust all of them more than I

32:54

do right now, let's say that way. Well, it's a

32:56

low bar. It's a low bar. If

32:59

I can impact him, sure, I

33:01

want to impact him. I did say to him last

33:03

night. That's why I'm asking, do you see

33:05

that also now as part of your work?

33:08

Yes. I said to him, I

33:10

said, I have great hopes that you'll try to at least

33:12

do... I know it's a big money-making thing for all of

33:14

you, and you're already a billionaire, so

33:16

I suppose you have enough money. I

33:19

said, if you start down the ugly road of Elon

33:21

Musk, I am going to turf you. I think I

33:23

said that to him, I'm going to turf you. I'm

33:26

going to try to turf you, at least, kind of

33:28

thing. So yeah, I think I can have this turf

33:30

you make. But put you down. Put you down. Like,

33:33

don't get up. Don't get up,

33:35

that kind of thing. But my idea is

33:37

I'm watching you, and I'm hoping for the

33:39

best from these people. And look, there's a

33:41

lot of entrepreneurs that are doing climate change.

33:43

You're hoping for the best, but you're ready to take

33:45

them down for the worst. Yes, and I think

33:48

by nature, because the money involved is

33:50

so big, it's so massive, they're going

33:53

to want to advantage shareholders. That's

33:55

what they do. That's what they do.

33:58

But in doing this, I'm hoping for the best. that

34:00

some of them and I would say you

34:03

can find people who do

34:05

understand the gravity of the situation like

34:07

a Sachin Adela at Microsoft. It's

34:10

not activist. It's more, you know, speaking

34:13

of CNN, I think Christiane Amanpour,

34:15

I really like that saying, truthful,

34:17

not neutral. I'm not neutral about

34:19

this. And I think this new

34:21

era of Trump wins, he

34:23

understands the uses of online

34:26

to manipulate and

34:28

quash people. And

34:31

so I see like this could go real

34:33

bad, real fast. And that's the whole point

34:35

is that I'm trying to make, which

34:38

I did, I think with the Star Trek Star Wars

34:40

metaphor, which is we could go Star Trek,

34:42

which is good, or we could go

34:44

Star Wars, which is bad. But it's

34:47

not the tech that's the problem. It's the

34:49

people manipulating the tech. So I guess

34:51

you could say I'm an activist. I'm

34:53

an activist for unaccountable

34:55

power, not being unaccountable,

34:58

and that we should not

35:01

have private companies running space. Government

35:03

people should be involved in social citizens.

35:05

We should not have giant companies

35:07

control AGI. And that's what

35:09

they're doing right now. So if I keep saying, hey,

35:12

big companies are controlling AGI

35:14

government, what are you going to do

35:17

about it enough times that someone will listen

35:19

and they will also listen because they think

35:21

the people that can do something about it

35:23

are listening to me, which is often the

35:25

case, right? That happens a lot. See

35:29

Kara Swisher. Thank you so much. Amazing.

35:32

Wonderful. Kara Swisher

35:34

is the host of the podcast

35:36

On with Kara Swisher and Pivot

35:38

with her co-host Scott Galloway. Her

35:41

new memoir is called Burn Books, a tech

35:43

love story. We spoke at

35:45

American University in Washington, D.C. Still

35:49

thanks to director Amy Dacey and

35:51

everyone at the Sine Institute who made

35:54

us feel so welcome. That's

35:56

all for today. We'll be back with a

35:58

new Politics episode on Monday. The

36:02

assignment is a production of CNN

36:04

Audio. This episode was produced

36:06

by Dan Bloom. Our senior

36:08

producer is Matt Martinez. Our

36:10

engineer is Michael Hammond. Dan

36:13

Dzula is our technical director. And Steve

36:15

Lichtai is the executive producer

36:17

of CNN Audio. We got

36:20

support from Haley Thomas, Alex

36:22

Manissary, Robert Mathers, John Deonora,

36:24

Lenny Steinhardt, James Andrus, Nicole

36:27

Pessaroo, and Lisa Namaril. Special

36:30

thanks to Katie Hinman. I'm

36:32

Audie Cornish, and thank you for listening.

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