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It's.

Beautiful.

Hi, everyone, from New York magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is on with Kara swisher. And I'm Kara swisher. Today you get a bonus episode and a bonus leg of my tour for my memoir, Burn Book, a tech Love story. There's a chapter in the book about the mensches, the Silicon Valley figures I like and respect. It's a short chapter, but today I'm talking to one of them, Mark Cuban, at a conversation taped live at south by Southwest in a session presented by the software company at Lassian. I met Mark decades ago, well before his incarnations as Shark Tank star or his mission to crack the challenge of american healthcare with his latest enterprise, cost plus drugs.

Back then, he was kind of a.

Tech bro when he and his partners sold broadcast to Yahoo for billions of dollars. Over the years, I've seen Mark Evolve and change, and I'm very excited to sit down with him in Austin. You'll hear that conversation right after the.

Break.

For this show comes from Atlassian.

Ah, the chart.

That top to bottom list of who works for whom, but really aren't you working for the customer? So maybe the real question is, whom am I working with? Atlassian wants to make sure that your organization is working together with the same shared language and goals across all departments. Atlassian software, like Loom, gives you instant async video communication across teams, while Atlassian's confluence can help power easy communication, better knowledge capture, and a cohesive company culture. Not only that, Atlassian's Jira can help make sure you're staying on top of any pesky bug. Whether you're a team of 2200 or 2 million, or whether your team is around the corner or on another continent altogether, atlassian software is built to help keep you all on the same page.

From start to finish. So say goodbye to the chart.

It's time to accomplish everything that's impossible together, because individually, we're great, but together, we're so much better. Learn how to unleash the potential of your team@atlassian.com. That's atlassian.com. Atlassian.

Well, tables have turned.

Yeah, as if.

And I've got my questions.

We'll see. We'll see.

Are you nervous?

No.

You should be. I'm terrified.

Not even slightly.

So I just finished a book, and you talk a lot about the men that have built tech and the business world in general.

Right.

But we know most of who they are.

Right.

And everybody knows they're. But what you really didn't talk enough about in my mind were the women in tech.

True.

Because you want to know why, but go ahead.

Well, no, other than the obvious. Right. But there have been women who have had significant impacts. Right. And not just impacts in the tech world, but in the world in general.

Sure.

And I want you to start talking about who's had of the women that you've dealt with.

Right.

Even if they're spouses, who do you think has had the biggest impact in tech and who do you think is now having the biggest impact in the world?

Well, you say even if they're spouses, because some spouses are critically important. Well, that's the whole point. Yes. And I did talk about Mackenzie Bezos when she's now Mackenzie Scott, and has been doing an astonishing job at philanthropy, for example. So what happened in a lot of early Internet people, the spouses. And the reason why it's largely men is because as you know, it's a sausage fest in tech and big different size sausages. But sausages, it's hard when you, so.

When you said I was a mensch.

Well, you started off as a tech pro because you and I did not start off on a. No, I know. You were such a jerk. But he has never been a jerk. To you, you were like, I'm the greatest. I'm fantastic. No, you had a journey, which is good. I'm complimenting. You can't take yes for an answer. Okay, so let me talk about the women. One of the things that happened when, for example, remember when Meg Whitman became CEO of HP? Big company, big important company. And she had previously done an astonishing job at eBay. Very good CEO. We had a beef about her gay stance when she ran for government, but she later recanted it and in fact, became one of the only Trump critics early on. She wouldn't do anything with him, even though she was one of the few Republicans out Republicans in Silicon Valley. When she became head of HP, I called Cheryl Sandberg to tell her. I was like, you're now the second most important woman in tech. And she said, I'd like to be the know, which is really interesting, because if you really. One of the problems we had at code all the time and all things d was we had CEOs on stage.

And it was very hard to, you could find people who were below, like Google had a lot of women below, like Susan Wojcicki, I would say, and I wrote about her in the book, was a very significant person. They started Google in her garage. She was an executive at intel. She was a real steadying force at that company. Later took over YouTube, et cetera. And so she would be someone like that, but she tended not to try to take any spotlight from them.

Right. And that brings up an interesting point. Like, these guys that you wrote about needed babysitters. Those babysitters typically were women sometimes, but.

I always was offended by that idea of. It was more than that. It was adult in the room. Remember that expression they needed carried on to the presidency? Yeah, right, exactly. So I found that offensive. I was like, they are adults. They are adults.

You found because they are adults.

Treating it like that, to me, it gave them an out, like they could act any way they wanted, and then they did. And so they needed an adult when they were adults. Mark Zuckerberg was particularly with Cheryl Samberg. And when she came in, she absolutely stabilized a. It was a goat rodeo at that company, as you know. And they kept firing different people and shifting around. And Mark was very inexperienced, and it was a mess. Like early Google was like that. Most early companies are much more chaotic than people realize, and then later they retell the story as inspirationally wacky.

Yeah, but Cheryl's contribution wasn't just being a stabilizing influence. And that's what I want you to.

Talk more about Cheryl Sandberg was absolutely critical to the success of Facebook. She was over at Google. And the reason I was mentioning Google is Google had a lot of women. Marissa Mayer. There was Shona Brown, Susan Wojci. All right. Under the prominent executives, by the way, including my ex wife, Megan Smith, underneath the bottom part, but not the CEO, not the top position. And they were critical to that. And Cheryl, of all of them, was the most critical, I would say, in terms of growing it and stabilizing it and putting in business systems, particularly, especially advertising employees. I mean, she really built that business. And previously she had done it at Google for part of the advertising business, the automated stuff. And so she was absolutely critical and a stabilizing force on Mark. Right. In terms of getting the boy.

She's also a great manager, right?

Absolutely. That's the part that's stabilizing on him on the whole.

Right. Because she put aside the stabilization of Mark Zuckerberg and the hoodieisms and all that kind of stuff. It was more like organizationally setting structure. Because he had no skills there.

No, no, he was so.

He was all product. So when you talk about the history of Facebook, I don't think she gets enough credit for actually defining the organization and setting roles for people below her.

Yes.

Here's what I'd say.

I don't think it's a credit book. I'm saying the damage book. And one of the things I did, and I wrote a column on this in New York Times, is there was a lot of attacks on her when things started to go south, and not him, because he needed adult was, you know, whatever, whatever happens to know Elon's the way he is because of demons. Oh, demons, really? Maybe he's just an animal.

I'm really trying not to mention his name. Right.

Yeah, well, you have your own. Did you know you were a moron? I don't care.

I'm also a racist.

That's right. I heard about that. But one of the things that was important for Cheryl's is she was his full partner in that. I would say they were partners because she didn't have a product background. And he certainly did. And he also had the love of techies. Right? That's how you get people going. And so she did not have that. And I think it's a discounted talent for a lot of these. Absolutely a discounted talent. At the same time, she got a lion's share, to me, of the blame when things went south. It was like, oh, he, he's a genius. Her. She's a dragon lady kind of thing. And I think. Listen, I think she was utterly compromised. I told this to her face at the time when the russian stuff started. I warned her she was going to get double blamed for everything. And I do think the women definitely had a harder time. But right now, Mark, let's think. Lisa sue at AMD. I mean, Dr. Faefei Lee isn't getting the attention. She was brilliant. I wrote at Imagenet. She started imagenet at Google. Women in prominent positions of power. Not the ones you think of them in, but prominent scientists.

I know what you're saying. Yeah.

Running business operations or whatever it happened to be. Because in most of Silicon Valley, and I think you can agree with me, it's always HR, Pr.

Yeah, for sure. Where you have to put the easy hires.

Yes.

Right. Where you don't have to give responsibility to who's going to impact the earnings per share.

But it was also on boards. It was absolutely on boards.

Nonexistent.

Nonexistent. Which is a very easy place to be diverse in some fashion.

The underlying message in your book is these guys are assholes in a lot of respects. Not all. Thank you for not thinking I'm still an asshole or many other.

You were never an asshole. I'm just saying you've evolved and you've gotten better is all I'm saying. That's. I think what I'm saying.

I'll take that as a compliment. Okay.

No, but you have.

Let's talk more about that.

Okay.

But you could have named it I told you so.

Yes, but I could have told you so. Right.

But that's the beauty of you. Right.

Because I did predict the insurrection. But let's move on. Go ahead.

Which one?

Which one? The main one. The most recent one. Not way back in 17. Well, that wasn't insurrection. That was a revolution. But yeah, no, I think I've been right quite a lot of the time.

Which is great. Right. That's why I love you and that's why we do interviews, because you're confident in everything that you do. Right. But confidence is one thing. Being prepared and understanding these things.

That's right.

What do you think makes you capable of the I told you so and the scene around corners.

Right. So it's not that I told you so. One of the things I wanted to be was a spy, essentially, but more an analyst. Like, I wanted to be in the military. I was gay, and I couldn't be because I'm old. You and I are both old. And there was we're young.

We're just getting young.

We're young at heart. But what it was was I couldn't be in the military, and I really wanted to be in military intelligence. I was very interested in propaganda from a young age. And so I spent a lot of time doing what is essentially puzzles, like, what's happening here, what's going on there. Put this together. I know this person to be like this. And so that's what I would often do. Like, this is the way I think it's going to be. And one of the things that Silicon Valley lacks is any ability to anticipate consequences, never ever. And I'm really good at anticipating consequences. And so sometimes I just. Because I have so much knowledge and spend so much time focused on people. I mean, I interview everyone when they leave a job. I do. I go get them. No one wants to talk to them. I'm like, I'm the exit interview. And then they tell you things, right? And then you put it together.

But that takes a knowledge base, right? So, yes, you do. Someone who wants to be like kara swisher, right. That wants to emulate you as best as possible. There's a process you go through to know these things.

That's right.

That's what I want to understand more.

Let me give you an example. When yahoo bought tumblr, remember that disaster? But at the time, she wanted something hot to make yahoo hot, because yahoo was, like, decidedly uncool. Yeah. And so I had heard a rumor that they were buying something. That's all I heard. They're buying something, and it's a billion dollars. That's all they got. And I was like, okay, this is what I got to work. Sort of like, remember that Apollo movie where they had, here's all the pieces. Let's figure out the solution. So I was like, okay, a billion dollars. Marissa mayer, yahoo, she needs to be cool. That was my first. Because she's desperate to be cool because she wasn't very. She and yahoo wasn't very cool.

That seems to be a recurring theme.

In a lot of. Yes, exactly. And so I said, what could it be? And I made a list of companies worth that at all that could be sold for that and the valuations, because I was aware of those. And I was like, what does she want? Like, I knew her because I'd met her at Google. I'd spent a lot of time with her. I watched her think. And then I thought, well, who would she get along with? What could she buy? What could she get? Now, who are the people she knows really well. And so I made a list, and the top three Tumblr was on it. And I knew they needed money that was well known, that they were sort of running, that they were very popular, had problems with porn and stuff like that, and they needed a bigger thing. And it was not unsimilar when Google bought YouTube. What did they need to get right then? And so I thought, okay, the first three. And I started calling the ventric. I knew who the venture capitalists were for each of them. And so often I bluff people. Like, you're very good at gambling and stuff like that.

I'm not. I don't play poker, but I bluff. Really? Or basically lie. That's what I do super well. And so I said, I call one. I'm saying, did I hear Yahoo's buying this for a billion? Kara, that's. No, that didn't happen. The third one was Tumblr and the venture capitalist, and I call a lot of them, one of whom lied to me. No, absolutely.

It never happens in this business.

I know. Never happens. Oh, my God. Mark Andreessen. So, in any case, it's neither here nor there. Neither is. So you like that, don't you? Yeah, there's an inside joke right here. So then I called the third venture capitalist at Tumblr, and they're like, how did you know everything, Kara? And I was like, I do. They just told me. Right. They just told me.

But underneath that. Right. So there's a question of knowledge accumulation. Right. And relationships.

Right, that's right.

Which are you?

Two things.

Two different things. Right. So part of it is knowing the industry and having to do the work. Do you think you benefited more from developing all these relationships early?

No.

Right. Because you couldn't get those relationships because.

They change over time and then they isolate themselves.

Plus, they didn't know who you were at the time. Right.

Well, except nobody knew who they were, so I was at the Wall Street Journal. So that gave you leverage. So, like, Jeff Bezos was my best buddy until he didn't need me anymore. Right. So I understood that trade. Like, he needed attention because that was a struggling company. Same thing with the Google guys. Nobody was paying attention to them. They weren't.

They were little, which is insane when you think. Because I remember going to the Google office with Patrick Keane.

Oh, wow. Yeah.

And that's how I got my early Gmail account. Right. But it was like 2000, right. When they had just started. Right. And looking at their numbers, and they were just parabolic and up to the.

Right.

And hardly anybody knew who they were.

They didn't. They didn't. And I had gone there much earlier, even, because John Dore, who I'd spent some time with, and Mike Moritz, they were the early investors, and John, who was not. I really liked John a lot, and he was not effusive. He goes, Carrie, you need to go see this. And I go, come on. Another search engine. Because it had been the.

Yeah, there's.

So was. I forget all the names of all the ones. And I was like, a search engine? He goes, I promise you it's not a waste of your time. But he was trying to get in the Wall Street Journal, right? So that was. I had the advantage there. And I went and to the garage where. Susan's garage. And I was. I see. Like he did. He was right. So he turned me onto that. And then I spent a lot of time with, you know, these people, no matter how you slice it, are narcissists for the most part. And so they like the attention of a reporter. Same thing with Amazon. I went with Jeff when he picked one of his first headquarters out in a really crappy section of Seattle because he couldn't afford anything else. And then what they did, which is a mistake on their part, was they thought I was their friend or their pal.

You're trying to tell me something.

No, I like you. You, I like. There's a list I have. Dave Goldberg was one of them. You're one of them, who I very much like. I'm happy to have met and consider a friend, but you just start to develop these relationships, and then sometimes they sort of realize the penny drops. If they're adults, they get it. They sort of get what the trade is here. And when you're a beat reporter, there's a real trade because there's that access versus this and that. After I started all things d, I didn't care anymore. We just said what we felt like, what we want, and most smart people kind of liked it. Like you liked it.

No, for sure. Because I liked doing interviews with you, because you would get me to talk about things I normally wouldn't talk about. Right. And the trade off was that informed people about whatever I was doing, but also made me more introspectful about what I was doing.

Right. Because I think one of the things is I talk to people when I'm not doing a story. I sometimes just call, I write you and, like, what do you think of, like, because I'm interested. So I develop relationships over. I also. I don't trade information. But when Elon made fun and said, fuck you, Bob, from the stage of the New York Times thing, I texted Bob Iger. I have his number. I get everybody's cell phone number, by the way, that's a really good tip. And I texted him, I said, say nothing. Like, say, don't. Just get out of the room. Don't respond. He's crazy. Like, don't say anything. He's trying to get you to respond because somewhere in his life, he didn't get hugged enough. You need to move along. It wasn't a piece of advice. I was like, probably I would like it if I was a beat reporter, if he said something. So then I get a good story. But at that point, I was like, let's not feed the beast, essentially. And so that's the kind of thing I would talk to people when they didn't have things. I developed their relationship.

I would often meet people. I haven't met your parents yet, though. I meet their parents. I meet their brothers and sisters sometimes.

I know who their friends are also.

And their minions scaring me. Just information.

Well, yeah, but one of the things, like, when we go back and forth, like, we dm each other, whatever. Text each other, you're always checking your whole card. That's one of the things I like. So talk about that.

What was that, a call card? Well, it's a poker reference. Okay, fine.

Check your whole card. Like when you play 21.

Okay, good. Okay.

So you want to make sure you're right, right?

Don't make any sports references because I know I'm a lesbian. But it's not going to work for you.

But you do drive a subaru, right?

I did have a subaru. It's called a lesburu. By the way, I have a kia now and a Chevy bolt. I'm a very sexy, too. I love my kia. Yeah, we're sexy people, you and I.

We are sexy people.

We love our kias.

But talk about that, right? Because what you come up, your conclusions are one thing, but how you get there, right? You're always asking, right? What do you think? What do you think? Because particularly when it comes to that guy that owns the company formerly known as Twitter, right. Why do you think he's doing this? So talk about just your process.

In their case, when you went in there, which I admire you for, the Dei stuff, you went in there wanting to have a real debate, and you also didn't go, Dei is just good. You didn't do that. You said, here's what I didn't do. Here's why it worked for me. Here's where it doesn't work. But you did it in a way that this is my experience and why I think it's a good thing and you don't have to do it. I was very proud of you when you did that. And it was long. It wasn't Bill Ackman long, but it was long. Right. But yours was helpful. I was like, oh, this is interesting. And then the response you got from Elon was, you're a moron. Is that a debate?

Me a racist? Then he called me and then deleted.

Then he called me a moron. That was instructive to me because he didn't want to have a debate. He didn't want to have an.

He never does. Right.

Many of them don't. Like. They don't want to have it. You want to have a real discussion about this. Okay. Like, it's okay to touch these third rails of issues. And he didn't. But many people not looking to push.

Anything forward other than himself.

Right. But that's what I like when people do that, when people want to actually have a debate. I just did an interview with Mike Gallagher, who I agree with on a lot of things about, know his gay stuff is off. But I don't love. But we've been having really interesting. He's leading congress. I think he's really smart. I'll have a discussion with anyone. Like, Ken Bach is another person I've spent a lot of time with because he took the time to do the homework on tech stuff, got himself educated. We don't agree on everything, but, boy, is it an interesting discussion. Now he's turned out to be one of the more cogent voices saying the action wasn't stolen. Stop this nonsense. And this is a ruby red conservative from Colorado.

But I saw he's leaving, though, right?

He's leaving. So it's Mike Gallagher. It is heartbreaking.

Would you ever run for office?

Would you?

No, but would you? I'm asking the question. I'm the interviewer.

Yeah, but you're the.

I'm the interviewer.

I think you are running for interview. I do. I believe you are. I'm just saying.

So would you ever run for office?

I would be your press secretary.

Well, let me. Let me ask you a question.

All right, try that. Try again. No. Yes. I thought about it. I thought about running. Talk about that. I thought about running for mayor of San Francisco.

Who once cared to run for mayor of San Francisco?

No, they have a good mayor. So at the time, there was a mayor I thought wasn't good, and then he died in a supermarket, which I feel bad about, but he still wasn't a good mayor. So I lived there, and you could see the issues beginning, especially homeless. There was always a homeless problem, even Gavin, everything else. And one of the things I found myself doing is I found myself griping too much. Like, oh, the politicians. Oh, this. You know, I mean griping. Kara swisher griping. Exactly. No, exactly. I hate griping. I grip it. No, but I don't gripe. I make criticisms, but I was griping. Griping is like that kind of thing that I can't do anything about it. And so I thought, I have to stop friggin griping and run. Like, thank you. Stop that. Stop it. Be a citizen. Don't say why they suck, which I really hate, was this contrarian for the sake of contrarian culture that never wants to solve social media, too. They just want to tell you what's wrong and how right they are kind of thing. And so one of the things I thought about was running for office, because I thought, let me.

Democrat or Republican?

Democrat, obviously. Although Republican would fuck people up, right? Like teleone on madam secretary. But I would have. And then COVID ended up happening, and then I ended up having two more children, which changes things. Changes. Can't I like the children better than being mayor of San Francisco?

So what's the greatest misunderstanding of.

I'm. That's interesting. That's a good question.

Thank you.

That I'm mean. That I'm mean. I don't like that. I don't think I am. I don't think that I often ask. They're like, you are really mean to someone. I'm like, where in the interview was that moment? And they're like, well, you're just mean. I'm like, but where is the actual unfair question?

Okay, well, right there.

Right, right.

There's unfair. But most people won't ask the unfair question.

Right.

Because it's mean.

Right? But it's not mean. It's not a mean question.

I'm not saying you shouldn't ask it.

Right.

That's who you are.

It's like you're an adult person. You should be able to answer a question, like, honestly, these people aren't made of paper machete.

Especially when you agree to an interview with you.

Right.

You know, exactly what do you think.

You'Re going to get? Does this mean when Steve Jobs. We did the last interview Walt and I did, and I asked him at the interview, we were talking about a lot of things, and he was quite vibrant to the end. That was one great thing. He looked very ill on stage. He was skeletal. I don't know if you were at that one, but he was skeletal. He looked like he was quite on the edge of not getting up again, dawing down, not getting up again. But he was vibrant. And so for some reason, I looked at him and I said, what are you going to do with the rest of your life? And everyone in the room was like, oh, no, did she just ask a dying person? But as far as I'm concerned, we're all dying, right? Second of all, question, when he wanted to talk about that, and he gave the best answer, and so he didn't mind that, but the people, they did. The one question I did want to ask that I didn't, because I should have, now that I think about it, was I was interviewing Tim Cook, and he's not as interesting as Steve Jobs.

Let's just be clear. He's very like. Few people are, but he's really not compared to that. I like him. I really like him. But, you know, I'm not mean. You know what I'm talking. You know, you spend time with Tim. So when I was talking to him and it was clear he's gay, I knew it, everyone knew it, and I wish I had asked him about it, but then I thought it was disrespectful, because as a gay person, whether, when and where you choose to come out, at the same time, he was also the most prominent person who I knew to be gay in tech. Right. At all. Right. It's a very small group of people, and I wish I had found a way to talk to him about that publicly, although I don't think it was as big a part of his identity as other parts. Right. So in that case, I thought, it really isn't part of his identity that he wants out there in some fashion. It wasn't that he was closeted so much as it wasn't. He didn't find it to be the most interesting part of his personality. So that's why I made that decision.

We'll be back in a minute. Support for this show comes from Atlassian.

Ah, the chart, that top to bottom.

List of who works for whom. But really, aren't you working for the customer? So maybe the real question is, whom am I working with? Atlassian wants to make sure that your organization is working together with the same shared language and goals across all departments. Atlassian software like loom gives you instant async video communication across teams, while Atlassian's confluence can help power easy communication, better knowledge capture, and a cohesive company culture. Not only that, Atlassian's Jira can help make sure you're staying on top of any pesky bug. Whether you're a team of 2200 or 2 million, or whether your team is around the corner or on another continent altogether, atlassian software is built to help keep you all on the same page.

From start to finish.

So say goodbye to the chart. It's time to accomplish everything that's impossible together, because individually, we're great, but together, we're so much better. Learn how to unleash the potential of your team@atlassian.com. That's atlassian.com. Atlassian.

So now where we are in tech, what scares you?

Oh, a couple things. The continued lack of accountability by the tech industry, the lack of any guardrails by the government.

Okay, let's talk about that right there, because it's a big topic, right?

Yes, of course.

So how do you see AI?

I'm not scared of it like the other. I'm not like, oh, my God, it's going to kill Terminator. I'm not in the Terminator zone with people. I know they are, but it's not true. If you start to do research, if you look at it and you talk to people like Dr. Fafe Lee and others, that a, you get like, okay, here's what could go wrong. Here's what couldn't go wrong about that, right?

Because you see around corners, right?

Right.

This is the whole I told you so in advance.

Well, I just did an interview with Reed jobs, Steve's son, who, he's doing a lot of stuff, and we obviously talked about AI and healthcare. Right? It's, every aspect is going to, it's like, is the Internet bad? Or how people used it? Bad. Right. Like the Internet itself in. And it's like electricity. And I think the core of the book is that quote by Paul Verillio. When you invent the ship, you invent the shipwreck. And when you met the great quote.

I highlighted it.

Yes, I know. It's a really wonderful quote. And when you highlighted it, what? Why?

You knew I highlighted it?

No, everybody did. Everyone did. Every person did. They love that quote. It resonates really good. And so I don't find the thing itself scary, although it's certainly, we all have a science fiction in our head. So we're in that zone of 2001 a Space Odyssey Terminator particularly. There's a lot of stuff. Any one black mirror, that whole thing. Right? You have all those. You can imagine the bad outcomes very easily. And you can actually say, this could be used. What I also do is, what could it be used for? Good. Like health care, for example. Come on. Like drug discovery. The list goes on. How's it going to apply to insurance, HR, efficiency in media, stuff like that. You can go, is that a net.

Positive in terms of jobs?

No, I don't know. Yes, it will.

Wait, can we get that on video?

But I don't know. But no. I think most technological transitions end up being a positive. They do eventually, but there's a great deal of pain.

But in your industry, right? If we call it journalism, and I.

Know, apparently it's over.

Right? But you called it when it was over before, right? So you talked about digital.

I didn't say over. I said, you're in trouble. You know the expression one of my favorite movies is ghost when Whoopi Goldville goes, girl, you in danger? That's what I was doing. One of my favorite science fiction shows is the Twilight Zone to serve man. Right, if you'll remember it. And I kept going, it's a cookbook. They want to eat you.

They're the Borg.

I kept using all these science fiction references, and for some reason, most media executives who are of a certain age, it's usually an older white man, just were like, don't worry, honey. I was like, honey says, you're fucked.

So on the honey says type topic, right?

Yeah.

I want to cover AI one more time because you have been pressing so much. Right?

Yes.

Right.

Let me finish that. So there's the accelerationists, which I don't like. That. And the decelerationists.

Okay.

I don't like either of like, I think they're mean. Look, Mark Andreessen wrote this techno optimist thing that I've said over and over again was the stupidest piece of writing I've seen in a while, and that's saying a lot. And so it was because he was like, you're either with us for. Against us, you're positive towards. I know he has to do that for his little cheerleading squad and his stands. I get that. But he's too old for this shit. Like, come on, be honest. It'll be good. It'll be bad. Here's the good thing. I mean, that's what Sam Altman's doing very deftly. But he's a deft person in that regard. Right?

It's been tough for him, but go ahead.

Yes, it has. But he has been at least trying to say, walk the line. Walk the line. It's going to be hard because eventually he's going to go toward the I want to make money side. There's no way he already is there. That's what he's going to do.

When all of a sudden you start a company, there's a billion dollars in revenue in the first year.

A lot of people change their minds right quick. So. But he's still actually saying it, which is interesting, but at least they're saying it. They never did. So Marco has to be like, everything's up and to the right. There's not going to be anyone who says there's a problem is an idiot. That's really you're with. And then the whole rant about elites, of which he is the elite of the elite. Right, right.

What was the laptop class?

That's him. A lot of things these people say about other people are about them, 100%. He's the elite. He's the one that lives. Goes from car to plane to yacht to whatever.

I hate people like that.

Yeah, I don't mind the plane sometimes, I would say, but I know they're carbon. I don't have a yacht. I get it. I ride commercial. Obviously I do. I can't afford that. It's crazy amounts of money. So there's those. Then the decelerations are just this idea that it's over. It's like, are cars good or bad? That's ridiculous. Right. It's just not thoughtful.

So then the next question becomes, are we going to see Kara GPT? You have such a vast library of work that's public, but there's also a vast library of your notes that you alluded to. Right. And the emails and interviews that you've recorded. Would you ever consider putting those into a large language model?

Obviously I would, yes. I think it would be fascinating.

I don't think that's obvious. Right. Very personal.

Yes. But I would because I'd like to understand patterns. I've lost so much stuff. It's like it's there. There's so much. One time I remember being at the doctor's office and I looked at, there was, you know when you go to the doctor's office with all the files on the wall. And I had had an issue with low white blood cells, which I found out when I had a baby, after I had a baby, I had no idea it. And they couldn't figure it out. I did every test in the world, and they never could figure it out, ever. And they still to this day. And then they diagnosed me with neutropenia, which means low weight blood cells, which is not a diagnosis, it's a description, which I told the doctor who said, get out of my office. I was like, I can speak English.

If you need any medications, cost plus drugs.

But there was thank you, but I didn't, they couldn't even medicate it. They didn't know why. And so that's all I wanted them to say. They didn't know. But I remember looking at the vast files, and they were all paper files. And someone who took my blood once said, you know, this happens to a lot of women of your age. And I was like, this person's seen this over and over again, but their knowledge is not getting into the knowledge base. And then I looked up at these papers. I go, the answer is in there. It's in there. They just can't find it because they can't find it. It's in there. And same thing with my notes. I remember thinking that someone's got to get all them in there. And what I would like to see is the ability for me to own it, which is why, unfortunately, most of my, not all of them now, but most of my interviews over the many years, including the gates jobs one, which was a class, many of the ones with you, not all of them now, were owned either by Rupert Murdoch now or Vox Media or whoever in the New York Times.

And that means I don't have control over them. Right. In some have, if I had.

You have your notes, right?

Yes. And the other things were, they'll be hard to do. But definitely the emails, I'd love to input those because then you would find I did go through, one of the things I did was go through interviews with Steve Jobs, for example, that I'd forgotten about. I just forgot. And at one point, he named podcasting. I didn't realize he did it in an interview with Walton, I, where he goes, it's an iPod and broadcasting podcast.

Yeah, but that had been done way before.

It had been, yes, I know. I know you have some experience with broadcast, but I'm just saying. But he was one person to say it, name it loud, out loud kind of thing. And the other thing was going through emails with Elon when he says, I really don't want to be the center of attention. I know, right. But this was 15 years ago, right?

Different than. Yeah, a lot different.

And then. So you saw the evolution or stuff. So you can see the evolution as it goes on. And that's interesting. And I wish I don't have all my emails. I had some spectacular email arguments with everybody or texts. It's an easy step.

Right. Because I look at the bigger picture. Right. So don't think about now. Think about it 75 years from now.

Yes, 100%.

And for your kids, right? Yes. The way, in my opinion, not to get too far afield, we're going to start taking all those things we capture about our kids and put them into a large language model, and they're going to be able to ask us questions about ourselves long after we're gone.

And I have to say, one of the themes in this book is death. I talk about my dad's death and everything. I would have liked that. To been able to be able to see him. Yes. Because I don't know, the memories are very thin, obviously, unless there's some chip someday they'll be able to extract my memories of which are long. Because, as you know, having kids at five, they know you. My dad died at kids. My four year old and I talk, have long discussions. And so where did those go? That would be fascinating.

Incredible.

Incredible. There's a Jen, she wrote, I interviewed her. She talked about that, where you can input your memories into the database. And the only way you get to see other people's memories is if you put input yours and allow them to be shared. It's an amazing book, and it's a fictional book, but it was kind of a fascinating idea, as would you let your. It was a black mirror episode of the recordings, if you remember. But the idea is, what would you want to know? I would like to know what was in my dad's head. Like, I don't know, but maybe I wouldn't, because in that book, someone has a great memory of her dad going to a zoo one day, and then she watches his memory, which was not good.

Candy house.

It's amazing book like that.

Okay, so let's change directions again.

Okay.

One thing that stood out to me early in the book is that when you went back to the post, you took a job that let you work your way up to being an intern.

Yes.

I've never heard that before. I thought you started the intern and.

Work your way up. No, I delivered mail at the Washington Post. I took any job I could because I always knew if you get in there, you know this, too. If you get in there.

First agent thing in Hollywood.

Right. Well, Ari Emanuel did the same thing, interestingly. And he really did. Is you get in there and you can see I was very aware of the politics of the place. Like, one thing that struck me was incredibly talented people. And I don't mean the most famous, by the way. I don't. Were very kind. Less talented people were less kind. It was really interesting. And I was like, that's interesting. And years later, people that I delivered mail for worked for me, which was something else.

That's really cool.

And I never told them, by the way, pick up your mail. But nobody has mail now, right? But we did. Like, I would sit there and do that. I always thought that was a useful way to work your way up. And I loved being in those jobs. And then I worked my way up to the news aid and then the editorial aid, and then they didn't want to give me the internship, which was a big deal. But that's a big deal. The washington Post internship was a big deal. It was a big deal, but they didn't want to give it to me because they'd like to give it to kids from harvard and Yale and stuff like that. And I was an internal person, and I just outrewarded all the other stuff, you know, who was. Ryan murphy was an intern with me who did glee and really amazing director. He was so talented, but he was so mean to all the. He was really a fascinating.

So, kara swisher, working as an intern in the Washington Post.

Yeah.

And you visualize your future. Is this who you thought you would be?

Exactly. I used to tell people in grammar school, I'm going to be famous someday and I'm going to impact the world. And I was like, I really did, largely because, as you know, once you get in somewhere, you can see pathways. Right? And one of the things I did have was this. I knew I was really good at it. Listen, I wanted to be an architect, and I was a bad to junior year. I went to an architecture program. I think it was Harvard or one of them, a summer program. And everything I designed was ugly. Everything. It was terrible. And I was like, I love it so much, and I design ugly things, and it wasn't even ugly in a good way. It was ugly in a bad. And I knew it. I knew it. As much as I loved it. I wasn't going to be that. The minute I started writing for the college newspaper in my freshman year, I knew I was the best. I knew it. I was like, I'm good at actually, and I'm not just good. I'm better than other people.

But now you're not just a writer. Right. Did you see yourself as an entrepreneur?

Yes. Because that's what you've know. I think going to Silicon Valley prompted me to become. That's one thing that I wish people would get through. Walt and I pioneered so much of what was happening. Know, it was funny. Someone's like, kara Substac is new and fresh. I'm like, are you fucking kidding me? That's what we did at all things d. Like, that's what we were doing. And so I thought that was a hard thing to do. And that, to me, is my great. My kids are my greatest accomplishment. And I don't mean that. And just like, oh, I'm saying it. I believe it. But that is entrepreneurial, too. Being a lesbian, having kids 20 years ago was very entrepreneurial. And being pregnant also was like a challenge. It was a challenge to get pregnant at the time. And there was all the prejudice. But the things I have made, I feel absolutely great about. That's the things.

Are you a great entrepreneur?

I think I'm a meaty entrepreneur, which is I should have taken the job at Google that I was offered or the job at Facebook or the job at AOL.

Are you a great entrepreneur?

I am a great entrepreneur.

And why weren't your companies bigger?

Because I like media. Because media is not a big. It's not a big business market. Isn't.

I don't know.

Sounds like, why don't I go on Shark Tank and I'll figure it out?

I just had to nail you with one thing.

I'll tell you why. Because I didn't like. I liked what other people then did with what we started. Like Jessica Lesson, doing the information you put shoot upon in subscriptions. I still don't think that's big a business. And even the New York Times, I say this all the time. Their revenues are 2.4 billion and they're the biggest success. Is that big? It's not. It's just not. Their profits are not that big. So it's just not a good business, is the thing.

You're the one who picked it.

All right. Okay. I don't know what to say. I should have taken.

I just wanted to mess with you. Okay, so real quick. TikTok.

TikTok. Yeah.

Kill it. Sell it. What? I'm sure you're kill Mary.

No. Fuck, no. I think you've got to be looking at buying it. Wouldn't you want to get a hold of that?

Oh, I'd love it. Right. No, but there's just no way.

Right? Why not?

I just don't think they get to that point.

They are.

But I think if I walked in, I told this to TikTok, right?

Yeah.

And I said, the only way that you save yourself is you create history files of all the videos you show and make them available to parents of any minors and make it available to the government.

Gone too far?

No, but see, but at that point, you can reverse engineer the algorithm so we know whether there's influence from the external source.

See, I don't think anyone cares about proof now, this narrative of China spying on us.

But the reason they said no when I talked to them about it is because you could reverse engineer the algorithm. And that's what they care about more than anything. Because even if we bought it, if I bought it, the algorithm still would have to be rewritten, and you can't do that.

But I think that the overhang, the chinese government is not going away with both.

No, but that's the whole point, right? So someone, whoever buys it, has to rewrite the algorithm. Otherwise there's no point in buying it. Right, but the whole value of TikTok is the algorithm.

Right?

That's the catch 22. You're buying something you can't.

Oh, that's a fair point. But this bill is going to pass.

Right again. But what is the one salvation? And that is just complete transparency. But anyways, more importantly, buy the burn book, buy the carriage wisher.

Thank you.

It was fun.

On with kara swisher is produced by Naeem Araza, Kristin Castro, Roselle kateri yokum, and megan bernie. Special thanks to sheena ozaki, Mary mathis, kate Gallagher, Andrea Lopez, grizado Ode White, and Michelle berg. Our engineers are fernando Aruda and Rick kwan. And our theme music is by trackademics. If you're already following the show, you get to be in the next chapter of people. I like another short chapter. If not, it's just all burns for you and possibly some singing. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for on with kara swisher and hit follow. Thanks for listening to on with Kara swisher from New York magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us. You can subscribe to the magazine@nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back on Monday with more support for this show comes from Atlassian. What do you think when you hear the word flow? How about a smooth river of collaboration culminating in a shared ocean of positive outcomes across your organization? Atlassian software like loom, confluence, and Jira can help you achieve maximum flow among your teams by enabling fast and easy communication and connection, no matter what time zone you're in. Atlassian helps teams excel together so they can accomplish everything that's impossible together, because individually we're great, but together, we're so much better.

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