Kara Swisher Is So Much More Than the World’s ‘Musk-splainer’

Summary

Fail Better with David Duchovny: "Kara Swisher Is So Much More Than the World’s ‘Musk-splainer’"

Release Date: February 18, 2025

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of Fail Better, hosted by David Duchovny, Duchovny engages in a profound and candid conversation with renowned tech journalist Kara Swisher. The discussion delves deep into themes of failure, character, and the intricate dynamics of power within the tech industry, particularly focusing on influential figures like Elon Musk and Donald Trump. The episode not only explores the personal and professional struggles faced by these individuals but also examines the broader societal implications of their actions and the environments that cultivate such behaviors.

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The Making of a Musksplainer

Timestamp: [03:05]

Duchovny sets the stage by acknowledging Swisher's esteemed career spanning over three decades in tech journalism. Swisher is introduced as a fierce and influential reporter, known for her direct and unapologetic style. Duchovny expresses his intent to peel back the layers of Swisher's professional persona to uncover the individual behind the journalist.

Notable Quote:

Kara Swisher: "I'm trying in some cases to use their own tactics to show how ridiculous it is."

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Exploring the Roots of Power and Character

Timestamp: [06:27]

The conversation shifts to the psychological underpinnings of prominent figures like Elon Musk and Donald Trump. Duchovny discusses the concept of "the four windows" in understanding a person's true self versus their public persona. Both Swisher and Duchovny ponder whether traits observed in these individuals stem from inherent characteristics or are products of their formative experiences, such as difficult childhoods or abusive parenting.

Notable Quote:

David Duchovny: "What is the shift point where people change?"

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The Impact of Idolatry in Silicon Valley

Timestamp: [16:43]

Duchovny criticizes the culture of idolizing tech entrepreneurs, arguing that excessive adulation can blind society to the flaws and harmful behaviors of these leaders. He contrasts the genuine contributions of innovators like Steve Jobs with the problematic actions of Musk, emphasizing the dangers of unchecked power and the lack of accountability in Silicon Valley.

Notable Quote:

David Duchovny: " Their language is often very vaunted and emotional and bigger, bigger when in fact it's just a small little man making money."

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Failure: Personal vs. Professional

Timestamp: [45:14]

Swisher introduces the core theme of the podcast—failure—and contrasts it with the Silicon Valley mantra of "failing fast." She expresses her disdain for the glorification of failure as merely a stepping stone to success, highlighting the emotional toll it takes on individuals. Duchovny echoes this sentiment, sharing his personal philosophy of resilience and the importance of distinguishing between personal and professional failures.

Notable Quote:

Kara Swisher: "If I fail at being a parent, I feel terrible. But if I fail at work and thing I'm like, oh well, what are we going to do? Something else."

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Navigating the Addictive Nature of the Internet

Timestamp: [56:16]

The dialogue transitions to the addictive aspects of the internet and social media. Duchovny discusses the lack of regulation surrounding tech companies and the resultant unbridled power they wield. He highlights the challenges of raising children in an age where digital addiction is rampant, sharing anecdotes about his own children managing their online habits proactively.

Notable Quote:

David Duchovny: "Every tool is a weapon... That's the ultimate design to pull you in."

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The Unfolding of a New Digital Era

Timestamp: [37:59]

Duchovny and Swisher explore the historical context of technological advancements, drawing parallels between the Gutenberg Press and the modern internet. They discuss how initial utopian visions of connectivity have been overshadowed by the proliferation of misinformation and extremist ideologies online. Duchovny references thinkers like Yuval Harari and Jaron Lanier to underscore the unintended consequences of digital interconnectedness.

Notable Quote:

David Duchovny: "Everything's about the fucking sled."

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The Responsibility of Journalism in the Age of Power

Timestamp: [21:58]

Swisher and Duchovny debate the role of journalists in holding powerful individuals accountable. Duchovny reflects on his experiences reporting on figures like Musk, Zuckerberg, and Bezos, expressing regret over not delving deeper into their personal lives to better understand their motivations and predispositions. Swisher emphasizes the delicate balance journalists must maintain between maintaining access and delivering honest, critical reporting.

Notable Quote:

David Duchovny: "Why do you need to have full control over it? And you can't be fired."

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Reflections on Resilience and Personal Growth

Timestamp: [46:27]

The conversation takes a more introspective turn as Duchovny shares personal anecdotes about losing his father at a young age and the impact it had on his resilience. He discusses the importance of nurturing personal strengths and the role of failure in fostering growth, both personally and professionally.

Notable Quote:

David Duchovny: "No one is coming to save me, and therefore I'm going to."

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Conclusion: Challenging the Status Quo

Timestamp: [83:27]

In the closing segments, Duchovny and Swisher advocate for a reassessment of societal values surrounding power and success. They call for demystifying tech moguls and rejecting the idolization that allows destructive behaviors to flourish unchecked. The episode concludes with a call to action for listeners to remain vigilant and proactive in resisting the negative impacts of unregulated technological power.

Notable Quote:

David Duchovny: "These are not aberrations. They're exactly what we ordered."

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Final Thoughts

This episode of Fail Better offers a nuanced exploration of failure, power, and character within the tech industry. Through insightful dialogue and personal reflections, Duchovny and Swisher challenge listeners to reconsider their perceptions of success and the individuals who shape our technological landscape. By highlighting the intricate relationship between personal history and professional behavior, the episode underscores the necessity of critical thinking and accountability in the face of immense power.

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Produced by: Lemonada Media
Executive Produced by: Stephanie Whittles Wax, Jessica Cordova Kramer, and David Duchovny
Music by: David Duchovny and his band

Follow Fail Better wherever you get your podcasts or listen ad-free on Amazon Music with your Prime membership.

Transcript

[Sarah]

The first 100 days of a new presidential administration have the potential to be the most impactful. Campaign promises and concepts of plans begin to take shape and become reality. I'm Sarah. And I'm Beth. Together we host Pantsu Politics, a podcast where we take a different approach to the news. Join us for this different approach where we ask questions, resist hot takes and have fun no matter what the world serves up. We'll get you through the first 100 days and beyond the new Trump administration. Stay informed without all the anxiety. Join us for new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Wherever you get your podcasts.

[David Duchovny]

It was late past midnight when they.

[Kara Swisher]

Broke into the farmhouse.

[David Duchovny]

Never in a million years would you think that you'd see your parents house taped off by that yellow tape. And they said your mom died of being killed.

[Kara Swisher]

They left behind a wall of blood and the key to a secret.

[David Duchovny]

It was a very brutal crime scene, one of the worst I've ever seen.

[Kara Swisher]

Murder in the Moonlight, a new podcast from Dateline.

[David Duchovny]

Listen now. Lemonade.

[Kara Swisher]

I'm David Duchovny and this is Fail Better, a show where failure, not success, shapes who we are. Kara Swisher has spent the last three decades covering the tech industry and making a name for herself as one of the most influential and feared journalists. Her reporting is direct and unapologetic. She's the author of Burn Book, A Tech Love Story and host of the popular podcasts Pivot and On with Kara Swisher. She's worked for top media outlets throughout her career and she's changed careers many times. And her resilience is something we're interested here in. Fail Better, she's equally recognized for going off on her own, launching successful independent projects. We talk about that willingness to fail fast and where it comes from. Kara is regularly seen as the expert of Silicon Valley and she's a well known critic of tech giants like Elon Musk. Like I said, she's direct and tough. And my goal in this conversation was to get to know the person behind the reporting, behind the Persona and the sunglasses. Hers and my own. Here's our conversation. Hello.

[David Duchovny]

Hi, David. How you doing?

[Kara Swisher]

Nice to meet you. I. I can't.

[David Duchovny]

Nice to meet you.

[Kara Swisher]

You're not wearing your sunglasses. I thought I could wear my sunglasses.

[David Duchovny]

I. I can do it if you want. There's somewhere over here.

[Kara Swisher]

Hold on. I don't need it. But I was going to tell you that those are different than mine.

[David Duchovny]

Go ahead.

[Kara Swisher]

They're different. But I know that you wear sunglasses because of. Of some eye thing and I Do the same thing.

[David Duchovny]

I do, but I have a nice shade going on here.

[Kara Swisher]

I do as well. I have. I have a ruptured sphincter, of all things.

[David Duchovny]

What? Oh, dear.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, from a basketball injury. It's the muscle of the pupil that contracts, so it can't contract all the way. So I'll just change to the regular glasses.

[David Duchovny]

Great. Okay.

[Kara Swisher]

I wanted to. I'm excited. I want to start about talking about your beginnings, you know, because I think you're in this crazy position right now of it is of trying to explain, well, firstly, Musk to the world, in a way. You're all of a sudden put in this position of being this explicator for a person which has got to be both powerful and confusing.

[David Duchovny]

Dangerous.

[Kara Swisher]

Dangerous. Yeah.

[David Duchovny]

Well, it's a little bit unnerving because he's amassing such power.

[Kara Swisher]

Right. But I mean, for you, as, you know, people are coming to you to explain this guy, you know, and it's like when you talk for a living or when you have ideas for a living, or when you. You. You. You have dialogue for a living. One of the things I read early on, when I started this podcast was something by Joyce Carol Oates where she said, you know, when I'm interviewed, I don't know, sometimes I get asked things that I haven't really thought about, and I give an answer, and I'm not sure if I believe that. And maybe, maybe three days later, I realize, you know what? I don't really believe myself in that. And I wonder if you fear that kind of a phenomenon or just for.

[David Duchovny]

Myself or for others. I mean. No, I don't, because I. I'm pretty certain about what I believe. And one of the reasons why is because, you know, before I. Now I'm an explainer, I guess, a mansplainer, I guess.

[Kara Swisher]

Musk Splinter.

[David Duchovny]

Musksplainer. That's kind of a gross word. I did reporting for a living. And so one of the reasons I know all these people is because I spend enormous time doing just basic reporting, which is finding out what happened, telling their stories, doing narratives, figuring out who's lying and who's not. And so one of the things that was really important to me in the development of doing that and then shifting pretty significantly into an interviewer, which I did with my conferences and now with the podcasts for about 10 years. And before that, lots and lots of interviews, and including very public ones, especially with Musk. I've done, I think, the most interviews with him of anybody, probably publicly, although he talks Endlessly now. But it's a lot of. It's lying, constant lying with him. One of the issues I was always interested in is, you know, when you're a reporter, you think, what are they lying to me about? Right. What are they. What are they? What are they hiding? What are they lying to me about? And one of the things that was. That became really interesting is trying to figure out what people were lying to themselves about. Right. Or thinking they knew about themselves wasn't actually true. And what are the tells and everything else. And so you spend a lot of time trying to parse what's real, what's really going on. And when I. In college, I studied these four windows is looking at someone, if they're interviewing someone, what people think of, what people think of you, what you think people think of you, which is different. What you. You want people to think of you, and then what you really are. And it's very hard to figure out each of those windows. And I think the only one that's really important is the fourth window, which is what you actually are.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, I think it comes to something that I wanted to get to you eventually or continue to come back to, which is, you know, character is destiny. Right. And one of the things is, like, if we have these kinds of. It seems like we're all looking for, like, the rosebud now, you know, like, if Musk is like Hearst or if Trump is like Hearst. You know, we have this pivotal, you know, epical movie in our culture, which is that this man who dominated the world, you know, on his deathbed, he's thinking about his childhood sled. Right, right, right. And I think we all believe that. I think we all.

[David Duchovny]

I don't. I think that's. Sometimes I was. I was thinking about that movie the other day because I'm like, it's a little reductive. Everything's about the fucking sled.

[Kara Swisher]

Like, come.

[David Duchovny]

Come on.

[Kara Swisher]

No, it's a movie. A movie has to be reductive.

[David Duchovny]

I get it, I get it.

[Kara Swisher]

A movie's two dimensional, you know, like, if you. If you want non reductive, I think you can go to a novel. But I think. I think the point is, or the symbolism is that we're all. We're all wounded in a certain way in childhood.

[David Duchovny]

Absolutely.

[Kara Swisher]

And whatever we do as men, as women can be not reduced, as you say. You don't want to be entirely reductive, but can be traced back to a certain wound. Sure, yeah.

[David Duchovny]

And with these guys, I mean, I was talking about some yesterday Actually about this because, you know, a lot of people focus in on both their childhoods, both Trump and Musk. A very difficult father for Trump, A very, both of them difficult fathers. Difficult abusive fathers in different ways. And in Trump's case, a mother who was passive. I think that's, I think the sort of take on her allowing the abuse. Essentially similar. Musk has a. I'm not as big a fan of his mother. I think she cosplays a lot, good mother. But I think there's a lot going on there. And of course you have to look back further to his grandparents who are, you know, really significant anti Semites in both Canada and then later especially his grandfather who we did not know. So let me be fair there. But you know, these things do tend to bleed over the.

[Kara Swisher]

Sure.

[David Duchovny]

Over time. And so I think a lot about that. I think about, you know, what the formative. His Musk's particular story is, you know, I think is sort of a classic and Hollywood is certainly written this beat up nerd who takes revenge. Right. That's kind of an easy one. Or someone who was abused himself and therefore becomes abusive, et cetera. I find that only the beginning of the journey of figuring out what's going on here. Part of me when I was thinking about Trump and Musk the other day and someone was, I was being interviewed and I said, I'm using this by way of explanation, not excuse. Right. That's the first thing. You know, he's this way because. And therefore we should thus. And so one of the things I was thinking about is maybe some of these people are just bent from the get. Right. I mean I like there are people who are just bent from the get go. Like, and then things then emphasize those characteristics they innately have and you know.

[Kara Swisher]

Sometimes genetic and epigenetic and this kind of thing.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, but more in that, more in that some people are damaged as people and then it becomes like they have certain, like in Trump's case, narcissistic personality disorder. I don't necessarily think you just make it over time. And so I often think about that like what part. Why did this guy turn into this versus someone else who had difficult. I had a difficult stepfather, I had a difficult. I have a difficult mother. I don't do these things. Like what is the, what is the shift point where, where people change?

[Kara Swisher]

Well, that, that, that's in the storytelling. Right. And that's in the creation of one's character which, which one is both responsible and not responsible for. I suppose on some level. But I think, you know, I didn't want to necessarily talk to you about Musk today, but please do, because that's.

[David Duchovny]

All I'm spending my time doing right now, sadly for me.

[Kara Swisher]

I want to talk about you, you know, and. And your. Your origin story as well. But while we're on Musk, I guess what I'd like to kind of dwell on is in Burn Book, at the end of Burn Book, your book, I wouldn't say you. You. There's an apology at the end of it for.

[David Duchovny]

There is?

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. Okay, let's say it's an apology at the end for. For not believing in Musk, but for, you know, backing him in a certain way or whatever it was, you know, like there was a symbiotic relationship there at some point, which you would have had with. With a lot of these guys that you reported on with Musk, I. I find. I find that. That I am not surprised by what is going on with him or with Trump, for that matter, and that the character was evident from the beginning and that you seem to be telling a story in which Covid played a part in radicalizing Musk in some way, but you seem to be telling a story in which Musk has changed. And my story is that. No, no. That if you look at him, if you listen to him, if you watch him, he's the same guy. It's just. He's got more power or he's figured out a way to use propaganda, which is another thing that you are very familiar with as you studied it in college. So I'd like to jump into that for just a minute, because I do believe the character is destiny, and I do believe that his character was evident from the get go.

[David Duchovny]

From the get go, Meaning character being. What was the character you saw and why did you see that from the get go?

[Kara Swisher]

I don't know why I see it. It's just because I think I see things. It's just my opinion, really. It's just my.

[David Duchovny]

Even before, when people were fetting him.

[Kara Swisher]

Yes. Well, first of all, here's my first clue. Not funny. Never funny. You have said sometimes he's funny or he's been funny. I say never once. Not once. Never been funny. Not funny. Same with Trump. Not funny. Never. One time you might say, that's funny to see a guy who's the President of the United States acting like that.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, that's.

[Kara Swisher]

No, but it's not really funny. It's just fucking bad. So when a person is so deeply unfunny, but yet wants so deeply to be funny.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, it is true. That is, the second part is certainly true.

[Kara Swisher]

I am alarmed, I'm alarmed by that because there's a need there that can't be fulfilled. It goes back to when, when you are a per, when you are a young woman and you say you love tech. I never love tech. I'm, I'm afraid of tech. I'm, I'm bad at it. I, I give up. Right. If you love tech, you had a vision of what it could lead to. Correct my. And, and then you have the reality of where we're at. My sense of tech is, and this goes in. I'm not name calling. And I, I, I don't want to. It's a tough conversation to have when the left is so vigilant against any kind of name calling. But let's say that somebody like Musk is on the spectrum. He will freely admit that somebody like, somebody like Gates now saying he's on the spectrum.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, he always has said that.

[Kara Swisher]

So these are neurodivergent people who have created their vision of the world, which apparently in the, you know, the savior vision of it was we're all going to get connected. But now we're connected in a way that I believe is neurodivergent. We're connected in the way they want it to be, that they like to have human connection.

[David Duchovny]

Right.

[Kara Swisher]

So that's what I saw is like this guy.

[David Duchovny]

And you were troubled by that vision of connection.

[Kara Swisher]

I was, I am, yeah.

[David Duchovny]

Well, it is troubling. It is troubling.

[Kara Swisher]

So I didn't see a change. I never saw a change. I saw it.

[David Duchovny]

How interesting. I think if you had spent a lot of time with him, I mean, one thing is, he wasn't that, if I had to say, great, I wish I had spent more time on his personal life. Right. To understand and including his relationship with his children. And as a reporter you tend not to do that. And I think probably you're a better reporter if you understand family dynamics much more. So I did have some sense of Mark's childhood, Mark Zuckerberg's and Jeff Bezos'but. In general, reporters tend to just cover what's happening at the moment and not try to figure out the psychographic of whoever they're covering. A little bit. You do, you know, people have tendencies. And so if there's one regression, I didn't plumb very deeply enough, deeply into his childhood and his problems, including his marriages, his children, the behaviors around, especially his trans daughter. This is no excuse. It's just an explanation. You don't know.

[Kara Swisher]

It doesn't sound like an excuse.

[David Duchovny]

It doesn't. This is a regret I have that I didn't do that because I think it would have given me more insight into where it was going. But when, When.

[Kara Swisher]

But then again, it's not. As a journalist, as a reporter, that is also not your job.

[David Duchovny]

Yes, but it is a little bit. It's more information so you can put together, especially with these people holding enormous power. How did they get this way is a really critical question you want to ask. But one of the things that's. That, you know, it's interesting because I. I'll get the criticism I get. I think pretty much boils down to, you didn't you help facilitate this monster? And I get, I get that. I get. I understand that. And I still push back on some of it because me and a lot of other people spent a lot of time with this guy who now don't speak to him. Like, people change, right? And they don't. I think the elements.

[Kara Swisher]

But do they? I guess that's.

[David Duchovny]

That's what I'm saying. I think the elements were all in him. He had a. I would say about 5% of his personality was this sort of heinous, obnoxious, cruel person. And 95% was more the ridiculous dank memes, the creativity, the entrepreneurship.

[Kara Swisher]

What does dank meme mean?

[David Duchovny]

Oh, dank memes are these, you know, stupid memes. He likes. He used to just tweet, like stupid memes. Now he tweets racist and misogynistic and transphobic stuff. They can have an element of that kind of stuff. But he definitely wasn't at least performatively cruel before. Right. Like, now he's performatively cruel. And I think a lot of people. One of the things that was hard and probably a mistake was that when you're in Silicon Valley, you meet a lot of these people that are like him. Not all of them become him. Right. They have the same qualities, which is disassociation, which has, in his case, has become more profound because of his use of ketamine and other psychedelics, which he talks about.

[Kara Swisher]

Also, as you've mentioned, people with more success become more isolated, they become more surrounded by minions.

[David Duchovny]

That's the second part. As you become richer, you're more certain that you are right about everything, because the people around you constantly, you know, I use the expression lick you up and down all day, and you have a sense of that being a celebrity. Right? You're never.

[Kara Swisher]

Yes, I Do.

[David Duchovny]

Yes, I do. Yes, you get special treatment. And so, and this is writ large in a way that you have never experienced. If you have cause, it has to do with enormous amounts of money. Not a little bit of money that you all have, but enormous amounts of money money. And with that come enormous amounts of power. And I think. And then you begin to live in a bubble where nothing touches you. You go from your car, your beautiful car to your beautiful plane, to your beautiful house with all your assistants around you who are always in violent agreement with you. And then you start to formulate a personality where anyone who has normal critical feedback becomes the enemy. Right. Over time, you don't want to hear it. I take Jeff Bezos as a good example of that. I used to talk to him a lot and then when I pushed back, he didn't like it. And then he really didn't like it at all. Right. He didn't like any kind of pushback. So if I had a regret, it would be that I didn't see this one coming. One of them was probably going to break this way and that he was so similar to the others. I think in my, I would say laziness. Assumed he was going to be like the like. There's so many like him. Like, you didn't expect it to break this way. Now, there were signs for sure, the way he would attack people who didn't like Tesla's reporters and reviewers, that was strange and overwrought. Right. But again, I had the similar experience with Mark Zuckerberg. I had a very similar experience with almost every one of these entrepreneurs. If you gave them critical feedback, they'd get angry. Even Steve Jobs could get tetchy if you didn't agree with him on that.

[Kara Swisher]

Sure.

[David Duchovny]

Whatever he made, whatever he happened to make or push back on whatever he happened to do. And so I think what's hard to do is understand what you could have done to show it at the time. Right. Because at the time he was, you know, especially after the death of Steve Jobs, Musk became the next visionary. Right. And I think Silicon Valley sort of likes to have that. You know, it's all, again, it's very similar to Hollywood. It's the next big star, the next big this, and Jobs occupied that space for a long time. Time. And so I think the problem with when you're a reporter is it's not a frog boiling problem. It's that these people are all alike and you live in that world. And so you do not expect it to take such a cruel and evil turn. And when you don't do that, people blame you. And I accept that. I accept that they do. In the case of Mark Zuckerberg, I was always tough on him. I saw that guy clearly. Clear as a fucking bell in the book.

[Kara Swisher]

You're unsparing about him. I think Jobs is your favorite guy.

[David Duchovny]

He is. He is indeed. Not without his flaws, by the way.

[Kara Swisher]

Sure. No. Who isn't? But I would just point out, as I was thinking about the difficult father aspect to these guys, I would point out Obama probably had a. Obama had an absent father. So it's not like this isn't a recipe for correct. That's what I said exactly. How a guy goes. Yeah, but I wonder in sometimes your tone when you attack these guys now and burn book. I was told, I was like, I know that phrase. It's from mean girls, right?

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, it's from a thing that's mean girls. That's the plot it's based around, which is where you tell the actual truth in the burn book, even if it's cruel or actually a burn book is something that's very true. Like what I really think of you, like, versus the way the niceties that you have socially, where you. And I think especially reporters, they tend to shave the edges around, although you may not think that they do that.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, you want to maintain access. I mean, you can't.

[David Duchovny]

Correct.

[Kara Swisher]

You can't be telling people fuck you every day.

[David Duchovny]

Not every day. Just some days. I mean, I have more interviews that are testy than anyone, and we kept getting access. Nonetheless, I don't think you need to be obsequious. You just need to be fair.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, I don't mean obsequious. I just mean, you know. But here's. Here's what I would ask you about, because sometimes the tone of your takedowns of these guys now mocks them for being nerds, mocks them for being betas or cosplaying at being alphas. And I wonder if that doesn't perpetuate the problem.

[David Duchovny]

In a way it does.

[Kara Swisher]

You know that it does to. To shame them, further their. Their grasp for power and masculinity is out of shame and insecurity. And to hit them at their weakest point is not only to make them more dangerous, but it's also to perpetuate the idea that it's a paragon to want to be an Alpha. It's a paragon to want to be a guy that dominates the world because there's real guys out there who could do that it's not you.

[David Duchovny]

Right.

[Kara Swisher]

So I wonder if that's. Good question if you ever wonder about that kind of tone.

[David Duchovny]

I'm sometimes doing it on purpose to.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, I know you'll tweak them.

[David Duchovny]

I'm trying to tweak them to get them to. I think it's hard to understand, but I am trying in some cases to use their own tactics to show how ridiculous it is. And I think maybe it's lost on some people. I don't think this is what masculinity is. I do not think this is. Honestly, I don't even know what masculinity is. I'm not the definer of it. Right.

[Kara Swisher]

Nor am I.

[David Duchovny]

Nobody knows what it is. But I think one of the things that I'm using is the language they use to do that. And I think in sort of basic terms, it's basically called negging. Right? That's you neg someone and you elicit a thing. And unfortunately, with some of these people, it's the only way to elicit the truth from them is to start doing what they do back at them. And one of the. One of the reasons for doing it is to point out the ridiculousness of it, the whole ridiculousness of it. I don't, you know, I don't do that as a normal thing with most people. And I. Most people think you should understand them. I have given up understanding most of them. I don't think they're salvageable. I don't think they're savable. I think, you know, it's sort of in that style of, you punch a bully in the nose. That's just what you do. Now. There's no other way to do it.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, you're kicking them in the balls.

[David Duchovny]

You're not kicking them in the balls. Sorry, I can't even. Ball. It's fine. There's no other way to handle these people. And I tried for the beginning part to understand them. And what I think I came to the conclusion with in the book is it was kind of like someone the other day was like, well, they're winning, Kara, no matter what you do. Right.

[Kara Swisher]

What are they winning?

[David Duchovny]

Well, power, influence, control over all the data of the US Government. Power over people, possibly.

[Kara Swisher]

I guess I have a different. I have a different idea of what winning is, but I get. I get what you're saying.

[David Duchovny]

You know what I mean? In the. In the. In the ability to. To affect your life.

[Kara Swisher]

Yes.

[David Duchovny]

In a really disturbing way. I think that's whether. Whether that's winning or not, it's it puts you at a disadvantage. It puts the average person at a disadvantage.

[Kara Swisher]

But if they are to, if they are to some degree a product of the culture in which they were raised, and they are, and the, and the discussion is about what is masculinity. I'm just, I'm just, I get a little queasy sometimes when I, when I read, you know, these Revenge of the Nerd beta takedowns, cucks, whatever, these guys, because it's perpetuating to me. It's perpetuating both myths about negative and positive masculinity.

[David Duchovny]

I take your point. It's really true.

[Kara Swisher]

Has nothing to do with the person's sex because I mean, you have a very kind of forceful personality, which, I mean, I'd say you had balls. And I don't know if that's the right way to put it. Right. You know, so it's like that kind of a thing as well. And I think as a culture we're very confused right now about what it means to be a man, what it means to be a woman, what it means to be something in between, you know, and I don't know, I just want to have a different conversation around those guys.

[David Duchovny]

That would be great. That would be great. I think one of the things that has to happen though is another thing I'm trying to do is shave the idolatry off of them, please. You know, that's what I'm attempting to do is, you know, you have say you have. There's a lot of young men that look up to these people and I'm like, you know, he built Tesla. I'm like, no, he didn't.

[Kara Swisher]

Right?

[David Duchovny]

No, he, or he created Tesla. No, he didn't. Or, you know, Tesla stock is soaring, its business is dying.

[Kara Swisher]

But wait, that was the myth from Silicon Valley from the beginning though, wasn't it? Because these people who are now the fruits of Silicon Valley who are coming in, he's going with these 19 year old boys to dismantle many parts of.

[David Duchovny]

The government for a reason. He picked those boys for a reason.

[Kara Swisher]

But the myth is that the government just gets in the way. But the truth is, even going back to Jobs and Gates, is that the original research, because the government has more resources than the American government had more resources than any power in the world. And they made great advances in computers and all that stuff. And then those guys basically took it and monetized it.

[David Duchovny]

That's right. Including the Internet later. I mean, that's what the, one of the things I often like to Point out is that the Internet was paid for by the US taxpayer, Right. And then they monetized it and the US taxpayer didn't get the benefit of that. What they did is.

[Kara Swisher]

So it's not just these guys now who need to be demythologized. It's even guys like Jobs, it's even guys like Gates, it's guys who said, or even guys like Edison, I don't know who apparently ripped off a lot of people.

[David Duchovny]

People who went across the country and took all the resources. Same thing. It's not a, it's not a dissimilar trope about our country.

[Kara Swisher]

Right. So to me that demythologizing can go more into the self made man, American dream kind of vision that these guys are bullshitting about and less like the masculinity thing. That's just my personal like slant of attack would be like, no, just tell, just say bullshit. The same with Trump, you know, he says he's a self made man. Bullshit. He bankrupted every business he's been in. So that's the kind of like the attack that or the unmasking that I, that I.

[David Duchovny]

Well, you want, at the same time you want to acknowledge real innovation, right? Real, you know, doing something nobody had done before. Even if you're using resources from others. Yes, sure. The they saw it and you didn't means there was something there. And many of these are real businesses, right? They're not. Most of them are actual real businesses that have significant value and have been important to society. I think the issue is how much idolatry do we have to give them for doing so? We don't do that for the person who, you know, you don't see big statues to Marie Curie right now. Right? You don't, you don't go, ah, thank God for her.

[Kara Swisher]

I have not seen any.

[David Duchovny]

No, exactly. Or you don't see, you know, there's all kinds. I mean, history's littered with people who've made significant contributions that don't get the credit. And I think what happens is now we're in a much more like a Caesar like state, right. Where we, you know, I keep thinking we do all remember when you read any Roman history, they're always having these, when they come back with things, they have big parties for them and fetes and everything else. And that's where we are in that these. And then it burnishes in a propagandist way their imagery that is quite empty for the most part. One time someone was talking to me about, I did A whole story on words. Why do tech people use these overwrought words for just making things? You don't see Wall street people going, I'm really trying to build community here through money or whatever, or a pharmaceutical company saying, I just want to have people communicate across the world so their lives will be better. They're like, I'm selling drugs. That's what I'm doing. I'm making money, I'm stealing money, whatever. With the Wall street guys, these people have a proclivity to make whatever they're doing seem like it's a bigger, more important thing. And so often what I do.

[Kara Swisher]

Where do you think that comes from?

[David Duchovny]

Oh, deep insecurity. I mean, obviously. And also, these are the founders of these companies. And founders tend to be religious.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, that's a word that I. That I bumped on a lot in your book because of course, it rhymes with the founding fathers. Right. So this idea of founders and finding and all the manifestations that come out of that word.

[David Duchovny]

So they're very religious in a lot of ways. Very intense compared to people who come later, like the original founders of Hollywood or whatever the industry happens to be. But the point I was getting to is that when they say that to me, like Mark Zuckerberg used to call me, what I really want to build as a community, I'm like, why do you control the whole thing? Just question, why do you need to. If it's a real community, why do you need to have full control over it? And you can't be fired or you know, someone.

[Kara Swisher]

But then. But then. But then. Let me just push back in a moment there. It's like, I feel like in your reporting in the book, you will make fun of people that don't monetize on good ideas like LinkedIn or something like that.

[David Duchovny]

Yes, I will.

[Kara Swisher]

Yes. So there's a certain kind of stuff.

[David Duchovny]

No, no, I want him to monetize. I just don't want him to give himself to drape himself and all the honors for doing it. That's all. It's just. So the point I was getting to was like, someone. Another company did this to me. It was a dating service. And they were going on and on about what they were doing for the greatness of humanity. I was like, you make a fucking dating service, right? Is that correct? Let me just boil it down for us. And I think they tend to try to over burnish what they're actually doing as some bigger message for society. Right now Musk is going on about how he's trying to save humanity. I think he's trying to line his pockets and he's a tin horn dictator. That's you know what I mean? And so that is what I want to point out is their language is often very vaunted and emotional and bigger, bigger when in fact it's just a small little man making money.

[Kara Swisher]

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[Kara Swisher]

Well, this is a good time to come back to like, what was the original like? If you love tech, what was your, you know, I feel like you had a vision.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, I did. I think the connectivity and commonality. I think one of the things that, you know, when we would put roads in. Roads are a technology, right? Always have been a technology. You move people out of isolated pockets and they start to see each other and all the negatives that come with that. The idea of not being isolated is really important because terrible things can happen in isolated places because you're ignorant and roads join people. So I think one of the things I saw the early Internet as was a connective, like connective, a road beyond roads, right? That you could connect. And I saw the idea of if we saw our commonality, we could get along a lot better if we understood that people have common problems. And we could also spur each other through better ideas that would flow among and between people that if someone had a good idea over here to improve, I don't know, childhood poverty, it would more easily get there. And so I saw the connect, I think, I guess the overall was the connectivity idea that when you always, and I think I used A quote from E.M. forester, Always connect. That was the heart of it. And this was the ultimate connection. Connective tissue In a way. And what I left out was the addictive nature of it. The ability to game this stuff, the ability for negative users or bad actors.

[Kara Swisher]

You couldn't have seen that.

[David Duchovny]

Oh, I could have. I could have. That's not true. You. It always. Every. Every tool is a weapon. Right?

[Kara Swisher]

Well, I know you say if you invent the ship, you also invent the ship, right?

[David Duchovny]

That wasn't me. That was. That was Paul Virilio. But that's. I was aware of it. I just was hoping for the ship parts to stay there and not so many shipwrecks.

[Kara Swisher]

I guess it wasn't very long before we got to the shipwreck, was it?

[David Duchovny]

It wasn't. It was pretty quick.

[Kara Swisher]

And do you think that comes from these people who were monetizing the system, or do you think this is from human nature?

[David Duchovny]

I think both. I think there's an element of human nature that's attracted to fear and loathing and hate very easily. There's also a part of human nature that's very attracted to the bright, the light, the hope. You know, it works. You know, contrast Obama with Trump. Both were incredibly popular, so couldn't be more different.

[Kara Swisher]

I'm also thinking just, you know, in terms of how we evolved, you know, as animals, we didn't evolve to be involved. That's a bad phrase. We didn't evolve to be involved with billions of people. We evolved to be involved with our village, with our family. We evolved to be small.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, well, that's the Yuval Harari school of thought. The problem we had, but his was that once you do those farms, once you stop moving, you have a lesser society.

[Kara Swisher]

I'm just asking if we have the emotional, mental, empathic bandwidth.

[David Duchovny]

We don't. And I was warned about that.

[Kara Swisher]

To deal with the entire world every second of every day, which is where we're at now with the Internet, right?

[David Duchovny]

I mean, Jaron Lanier, who's a really great thinker, he's done a lot of. He did a lot of early AI researcher. He's about 10, 15 years ago, he said to me, he goes, we've done the greatest experiment in human communication, and it's a failure. At the time he said this and he said, and it's going to be very dangerous because it is this experiment of linking people. You're right. When you start to link, you start to get good ideas, bad ideas. And the bad ideas tend to push out the good ones in many ways. And because they're more attractive, the more interesting.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, usually bad ideas are simpler. You know, and this is this. This is. This is what, you know, the discussion around, you know, why is democracy dying? Why is fascism on the rise? Is because fascism quick. And you don't need a democratic debate.

[David Duchovny]

And there's a lot of answers. There's a lot of get into the weeds, right? One of the things that I was getting back to Yuval Harari, I did an interview with him recently. He wrote Sapiens, but the new one is really interesting, the newest book, because I think he was sort of fetid in Silicon Valley. They became fanboys of him. And his latest book is not very complimentary to them. And they're like, what? Nexus. I think it is Nexus. Nexus, yeah, it's quite good. It's all it's about. Let me just give you the whole titled A Brief History of the Information Networks and From the Stone Age to AI and one of the things that he pointed out to me and I thought was really important to understand was one of the. One of the great moments in technology was the. Was the Gutenberg Press, right? The ability to have. Sure to not have monks doing everything and keeping them away. And it was a critical technology. One of the most important technologies, I think if you could pick. You pick a few that would be right up there. And initially the take on looking back historically is that it was good for humanity because all the science stuff started happening.

[Kara Swisher]

It's democratizing, right?

[David Duchovny]

And the science, the illumination, started happening to more people when in actuality the very first book that was science stuff didn't happen till much later.

[Kara Swisher]

Was it pornography? Was it pornography?

[David Duchovny]

No, it was not. Well, a little bit. A little bit, no. It was a book called the Hammer of Witches was the most pop, was the first bestseller in history. And what it was was a guy named Heinrich Kramer who was insane, probably bipolar, hateful, misogynist, et cetera. It was an instruction manual of how to find and kill witches. Previous to this book, there had not been witch hunts. There had not been attacks like this. When this book came out, everyone started to think there were witches. It was never in people's brains. It wasn't there until this guy wrote this book. And it got widespread release all over the place. And then suddenly you had witch hunts. And hundreds of thousands of women mostly died because of this book. And in one, some of. Some of the stuff is just when you look at it, you're like, amazed. It's very akin to Qanon right now. It's the same ideas persisted over the ages. This was the first book that worked out well, it wasn't even the Bible that did well, it was this book. And so one of the things that they had in it, which was funny was the idea that these witches would steal men's penises. Right. So that goes to the heart of things. Men are always scared of being de penis, I guess, and I don't know why, but fine. And she would take.

[Kara Swisher]

Never really occurred to me, but I'll take your word for it.

[David Duchovny]

Well, this was a story in this book. Was.

[Kara Swisher]

I guess it's castrated. I just hope that I can use the word de penis later on in the day. I'm going to tell you.

[David Duchovny]

Castration or whatever. Anyway, so this witch would take the penises and put them in nests in her tree. A penis tree.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay, that makes sense.

[David Duchovny]

And this one hero in the book goes and gets his penis back, and he tries to take a bigger one, which is funny in the book because there's always humor with these things, and they hide in humor, which is interesting.

[Kara Swisher]

Penises are funny.

[David Duchovny]

Funny. They are. But this is the kind of stuff that was in this book, but most of it was about how to kill people and why you should and to create a permission structure around attacking women and different people. And so to me, you know, here we are in the age we're in, and it's happened before that, except this has been weaponized, amplified, and made larger because we're subject to the people that are doing it, are the most powerful people on earth who don't care about safety of anyone whatsoever.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. This is not new, and I think that's important to know. And one of the things I love about your book is that you obviously have a soft spot for the poets, and the poets.

[David Duchovny]

I do.

[Kara Swisher]

The poets are always there before any of us. Not. Not the fucking founders. It's poet.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Kara Swisher]

And.

[David Duchovny]

And I think they often cut to the chase. They often cut to the chase. I like philosophers, too.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. Yeah. You like. Louise Gluck is a good. I love her. Oh, she's the best. But what I'm really struck by in you is, you know, and this podcast is called Fail Better. But, you know, I rarely ever talk about failure in a way that is just specific. But one of. One of the inspirations for the podcast was my distaste for the kind of Silicon Valley ethos of like, we're going to fail, we're going to fail, we're going to fail. Shit's going to break. It's going to be fucking come to D.C. january 6th. Going to be wild. You know, pivot right. It's all that shit which is failure is just another step on the way to glory.

[David Duchovny]

Well, that's an Edison. That's the famous Edison quote. I know, right?

[Kara Swisher]

I know. What is it?

[David Duchovny]

We have not failed. We've found of 10,000 ways that don't.

[Kara Swisher]

Work or 10 other inventors that I can rip off.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, yeah.

[Kara Swisher]

That's the part of the, that's the part of the quote. He didn't, he didn't know.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, he was an. People don't understand that very as well as they should.

[Kara Swisher]

But you have, you had a, a great quote that I'm looking for where you said something like, oh yeah, when something bad happens at work, I'm like, I didn't, I didn't need you to like me. I have dogs, I have kids, I need them to like me.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, that's it.

[Kara Swisher]

If I fail at being a parent, I feel terrible. But if I fail at work and thing I'm like, oh well, what are we going to do? Something else.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah.

[Kara Swisher]

And so to me that's an amazing feat of resilience because I see it, it's not just a quote, it's something that you've lived. And I'm, I just wanted to kind of dwell for a moment on the differences of failure for you. Personal parental. You've talked about. I mean, you know, I think you're an amazing optimist. You had another child in your 50s, so two more. Two. So to me that says, yeah, yes.

[David Duchovny]

I believe in the future.

[Kara Swisher]

Right.

[David Duchovny]

You know, Interestingly, I have two older kids and two younger kids just for people to understand. 3 and 5, 19 and 22. And my oldest is just finishing at NYU, the other one's at Michigan, the other's in preschool and the others in pre preschool, essentially preschool three and preschool four. And I always wanted to have kids because I thought it's largely because of my. When I was young, my dad died when I was young, my very beloved dad died when I was young. And the loss.

[Kara Swisher]

How old were you?

[David Duchovny]

Five. I was five. I was five. And the loss is forever. It is a loss that never stops. You never stop losing it. And so one of the things that I thought was important, when you have a parent that dies, especially a critical parent at a young age, you tend to become, I think the phrase they use, psychologists use is highly functional. And both my brothers are yourself in a way. We're fine, we're fine.

[Kara Swisher]

No, I mean you have to parent yourself.

[David Duchovny]

Yes, exactly. And I had a very non parent mother who wasn't A very good parent was a very bad parent. Actually, I would say what made her a bad parent, narcissism, selfishness, et cetera, et cetera. Married someone who was cruel to us, et cetera. Just didn't take care of us. That's all. It pretty boils down to that. Spend a lot of time taking care of themselves versus dude.

[Kara Swisher]

Do you see that? Without getting too personal, but we kind of started with musk and the lack of a father. Do you see these kinds of young events informing the person and the kind of professional you have become?

[David Duchovny]

Yes. No, because I'm not doing what he's doing. I probably had as difficult a childhood as he did in many ways. You know, being gay, being, you know, being scared of coming out, especially at a time when it was not good. I mean, today it's not good, but it really wasn't good back then. It was, it was dangerous. It was hurtful for your business, for your, for your career, for your personal relationship. So, you know, lots of people have terrible things happen to them and end up being wonderful. Like, you know, I don't think it's. I don't think it's predestined.

[Kara Swisher]

No, no, I wasn't saying it was predestined. I was just. I was just ask. In terms of people who are denied access to the system for whatever reason. Let's just say you being gay in your mind, you can see, oh, that system is not made for me. The affinity becomes to punk music. Whatever your affinity. Oh, these guys are breaking things. These guys are fucking up the system. These, these guys are going to make a new system.

[David Duchovny]

No, I. Because I thought this, See, I had took a different take. I thought I could take that, what they were doing and change it in a positive way versus a negative. I didn't have an anger at the system. I was like, I don't like stimulating.

[Kara Swisher]

I wasn't saying anger. I'm just saying there's another vision here.

[David Duchovny]

In their case, they wanted to break when they had move fast and break things. I'm like, move fast. I like that. That seems you need to move fast. We have a limited time on this planet.

[Kara Swisher]

Which you got from losing your father.

[David Duchovny]

Yes, exactly. That certainly gives you a sense of urgency. But you, you move fast and you change things. And that's where I was like, you could use these to change and okay, change the system or improve things, not break them. I'm not a breaker. I don't think that's the way to do it. I think that's what Children do, right? But getting back to children, I mean, sometimes things need to be broken, obviously, but most things don't. Or I get why people want to. I remember during the AIDS crisis, you know, everybody was all mad at the time at ACT up, right? Because they were, like, getting arrested. They were being noisy, and the regular, yes, you know, silence equals death, et cetera. I kind of like those people. All those people. I'm not one of those people, but I like them because I'm like, looking back, without their anger, it wouldn't have changed. And the regular gays were like, oh, as long as we're quiet, they'll give us what we want. I'm like, they actually won't. Like, we can't be quiet. And so the reason I had kids was because of that, I'm not gonna be quiet. Not being. I think me having kids is the loudest thing I could do to say, I believe in the future, obviously, for having kids. If you cannot have kids and not believe in them, you can, but I think it's an act of belief in the future. And I'm not going away. You cannot erase me. And I think that's one of the reasons I had kids. And what I'm saying through that is. And it's also something that matters to me to get right, which is what you quoted me at work. I can do something. I can always do something else. You cannot. If you damage a kid, you know what happens. And you can see, you can see it in real time when that happens with your own children, for sure. And so I wanted to do that part with a kind of care that I might not have. Have cared about when it came to work.

[Kara Swisher]

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[David Duchovny]

Mistakes all the time.

[Kara Swisher]

Mistakes. Yeah. And how do you, how do you deal with that? And, and how do you deal with your kids involvement with the Internet? And you have. I saw a reference at some point with regards to you with the Internet Bill of rights. I'm very interested in.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah. About 10 years ago on the New York Times. I think it was a while ago that we needed to have to. One of the things that people don't realize is there's no regulation on Internet tech companies compared to any other company and not a at all. So the most powerful people on earth have no restrictions, no guardrails, no nothing. And you can debate all you want regulation, but they have none. So let's start with that. And that's a dangerous thing when people have no guardrails. There's no no's, there's no insistence on safety or anything else because then if you do what you want, you get what we got essentially. And so because it will always be in the service of shareholders and when it's in the service of shareholders, you're always going to do whatever it takes. It's just, and I listen, I'm not angry about it. It's just that's the way when you are focused on profits, you will do things. Not safely. You will do things. And if you're not able to be sued, you will do things that other people who are, who have that hanging over them won't do. It's, it's, you know, it's a way to stop people from just losing. Murdering. Right. You'd murder if it wasn't illegal. Right. Lots of people would, that's for sure. So, so with my kids, one of the things I do, the older ones, cause the little ones don't have access to, you know, they watch Frozen on the iPad when we're on the train going to New York or on A.

[Kara Swisher]

Plane different kind of brainwashing.

[David Duchovny]

OK, yeah, I just, it's just TV. I don't see it as anything but TV.

[Kara Swisher]

And by the way, interesting because you know, 30, 40 years ago you would have had.

[David Duchovny]

You and I. Right.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, you would have had people up in arms about how television was ruining kids.

[David Duchovny]

Right. And it kind of. Did it ruin you really? I don't think so. I think it was fine, you know, or like Fruit Loops ruined you more than TV did.

[Kara Swisher]

I'll tell you that Gilligan's island might have. Might have had a.

[David Duchovny]

It's such a great show. And by the way, there's clips coming back of it all over the Internet. And my son sent me one and he goes, mom, this is the coolest show. And I'm like, yes, it was, it was the coolest show, you know, they were doing. And you always would sit there and wonder how they got all their clothes and everything else. But you know, I'm not the immediate parent that goes, everything's bad about it. I don't think that's the case. I think there's a lot to. There's a lot there and it's a lot of interesting stuff and it gives you access to knowledge all across when it's used correctly. And some of it, I think knowledge or facts.

[Kara Swisher]

Knowledge or facts, just the.

[David Duchovny]

The ability to access a lot of things is really. Could be a very powerful thing. The problem with that is the ability to access everything is it quickly degenerates into to idiocy in a way that television. You could only have so many television stations now it's an endless panoply of stuff. And then people who are bad news tend to take advantage of it and put all, you know, you can get quick. The people that used to be hidden and under the ground, the anti Semites, the white supremacists, now have a place where you can find them. Before it was very hard to find a white supremacist, you know, if you really wanted to go in that direction, now they can grab you and take you down a path, you know, down the alleyway towards either QANON or anti Semitism very quickly. And it tends to proliferate like mold. And so I was very aware of the things my kids did and where it went, right. That I was very like, if you want to try this, you were checking.

[Kara Swisher]

Up on their histories.

[David Duchovny]

No, I didn't do that. I said, listen, you're going to go if you want to. One of my sons wanted to look at something that was more right Wing than to my taste. And I said the thing that disturbed me wasn't that because I think you should be exposed to ideas like that and then decide whether you agree or disagree with them and pursue it. Right. And I don't mind that. But it immediately went very quickly and it wasn't the fault of this particular website, but this YouTube channel. But it went to. It started to offer him up things that were increasingly bad, bad like and more and more incorrect and inaccurate. And so that was my worry is that this had an endless grab on you along with being addictive. And that was the issue I had was the addictive nature of it. And then pretending it wasn't. It was like cigarettes or drugs or what is.

[Kara Swisher]

What, what do you feel is the exact nature of the addiction?

[David Duchovny]

You can't look away. It's, it's.

[Kara Swisher]

It has to. Why is that?

[David Duchovny]

There's tons of studies of this. I mean, Tristan Harris at the center for Human Technology, you know, it grabs your brain stem and you cannot. There is, there is. Why when you go into a casino, once you start doing one of those things, why can't you stop. You have to really physically stop yourself.

[Kara Swisher]

It just comes back to dopamine in some way.

[David Duchovny]

Dopamine? Yeah, there's some. There's all kinds of studies around that. But it's the problem with these devices that you have. And 1. Adults have the same problem that kids have.

[Kara Swisher]

Sure.

[David Duchovny]

More so in some ways. The real problems are 30 to 55 people as far as I can tell.

[Kara Swisher]

I've always said.

[David Duchovny]

Said that put them down. And. And one of the things that's hard is that it's addictive and yet you need it for work and communication. So it's a necessary item. That's cigarettes. You can. You don't need. You might get addicted to them, but you don't need them. You need this. And it's utilitarian at the same time that it's addictive. And that's where. And necessary. And so therefore it's really hard. It's like a gun you can't put down. And so that's aimed at yourself. Aimed at yourself. And so. And they do. They have all manner of tricks that they use that is very similar to a casino or the way, you know, casino, you know, all the tricks, the bright lights, the darkness, the free food clocks the free food. It's designed to pull you in. Well, this is the ultimate design to pull you in. And so that was another thing I was very much aware of with my kids. And interestingly, My kids. Kids were aware of it. At one point, my son bought a box, a clear box that he puts his phone in and it locks for two hours.

[Kara Swisher]

Really?

[David Duchovny]

Because he couldn't get his. He's a computer science person. He couldn't think. He couldn't think because he was always doing this.

[Kara Swisher]

That is such a powerful move on his part. I don't see a lot of other kids doing that.

[David Duchovny]

I don't either. I was pretty proud of him. My other one, my older son went off of all the social media and also dating sites. He has a girlfriend right now, but he didn't like them because the social media sites he thought were deadening him to things. The way the endless scrolling kind of thing. And the dating sites I thought was really interesting. He said, I just feel bad. It makes me feel bad, all of this. And particularly the dating sites that were gamified had no connection. And it felt like connection then when there wasn't. And he put them all off. He never used them. And so he did initially. But he rocked right away, the feeling bad part of it. And so I was happy that he was, you know, that he had access to knowing that this is what's making me feel bad. And I think that was a good thing.

[Kara Swisher]

So are we ever gonna be able to put the genie back in the bottle?

[David Duchovny]

No. It's interesting because. Well, I don't know. Because young kids really have a much better sense of the problems than older people.

[Kara Swisher]

That's good to hear.

[David Duchovny]

It is. And they are going back to more community things. Cause they sense the lack of happiness. Happiness. They sense the emptiness that as you said, one of the things that is great about humans is they like to connect with each other right face to face. And I think a lot of people feel that and maybe going, maybe I should be doing that. You know, I think they have that because as family disintegrates and it does. It has. As church disintegrates, if you like that. It does. As sports, as school. And I think Covid in many ways showed us that that like showed us that everything that was progressing in technology, whether it was buying online or doing takeout or studying online, the one thing that didn't work was school online for kids really declines in everything. The you're going to be buying stuff from Amazon slash Walmart slash whatever. It is easier than a retail store that is going to get affected.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, it's a good business. Business.

[David Duchovny]

It is. Because it's better. It's better. It's better. It just is.

[Kara Swisher]

And I'LL I'll agree.

[David Duchovny]

And. But school was not better, and that was interesting.

[Kara Swisher]

No, no, no, no, no. It's the same. It's the same as having an. You know, I think the reason why the white supremacist, the anti Semitism stuff could work on the Internet is because it wasn't face to face. It was many, many, many ways anonymous. And you can, right, you will say shit that you would never say to somebody's face and you will be a certain way that you would never be in somebody's face.

[David Duchovny]

Right. And the same with online porn. Same thing too. Humanizes people in a way that's very easy and clean as opposed to going to like the place at the mall and the bad mall that you go to, whatever to get your dirty.

[Kara Swisher]

I don't know. I don't know what you're talking about.

[David Duchovny]

There is something nice about that dirty mall place. Right?

[Kara Swisher]

Well, it showed commitment. You got out of your house at least. You know, I think I'm very interested to. I think it would be an amazing thing to try to make an Internet Bill of Rights. I don't know if it could ever.

[David Duchovny]

Well, it was an element. No, none of the ones I proposed and they've all been proposed, passed. Well, they tried to pass them. Amy Klobuchar tried to do an antitrust thing. Many people have tried to do a privacy bill, an algorithmic transparency bill. What I was putting together was six or seven things that we should pass to protect us, the rights to your data. They have tried to pass all these things. And the tech companies, because they're not restricted, have done so much lobbying and so much meddling. And Elon Musk is just the, you know, the peak of what they've been trying to do in other ways. And so over time, especially as polarization started, which was caused by these services. No other industry has able to gotten this powerful at a time when Congress has been so polarized and incapable of agreeing. So they, they ran right through the middle. I'm not a sports person, but I believe that's what it's called. They ran right through the empty middle. And, and, and they, they got what they wanted. And this is where we are with Musk right now.

[Kara Swisher]

They found the hole. They found the hole is what you're.

[David Duchovny]

They found the hole. I think it was massive hole. I think everyone was sitting on the sidelines.

[Kara Swisher]

I think, you know, you're. Again, your resilience is remarkable. Your ability to pivot from one business to another. You say you hate managing, which I totally Relate to. But you like the connection that intervention. You like the human.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah. I'm talking about big staffs. I don't like. I. I was joking. My next book is going to be called Staff Zero. I was with a pretty billionaire who. They had a lot of staff around them and they're like, who's your assistant? I'm like, I don't have one.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. If I have. If my staff grows, it's just more people that I have to hide from.

[David Duchovny]

That's right. That's right. I don't. I have nothing against it, but I just am not. That's not the greatest use of my time. And so one of the things that.

[Kara Swisher]

Where did your resilience come from? Was it losing?

[David Duchovny]

I think my dad died. I think my dad dying. I think it was. I'm on my own. It wasn't. My brothers and I are very close, but I. No one's coming to. No one's coming to save me was a very early message to me that I. Nobody is coming to save me, and therefore I'm going to. Interestingly, I just. Someone pretty well known, I can't say who it is, written a memoir and had the same experience and has a very similar personality to mine. And I think when he was writing this, he said no one. It was a scene he has where his mother doesn't show up, which I had over and over again. And he said it was then I realized, no one is coming to help me. And instead of making him weak, it made him stronger. Right. He took that, which was a devastating and heartbreaking thing, and he decided to make it a strength. And so I think I probably, like, the other day, everyone right now with Trump and. And all this sort of flood the zone approach that he's using, which is exhausting to everyone. Everyone's like, ugh, I'm overwhelmed. And, you know, especially you all in Los Angeles, the wildfires, everything is so, like, coming at you all the time. And I said, you know what this is. Their goal is to exhaust you and so you don't get up, so get the fuck up. Like, sorry, it's not a choice. Or they will run right over you. And do, you know, whatever they feel like. And you're seeing the. And the other part they're doing is the distraction element, like dei and the plane crash has nothing to do with dei. It has to do with you not looking at Robert Kennedy, whoever you happen to not look, whatever they happen to be having trouble with.

[Kara Swisher]

I think they're nihilists. And it's Very. And if you actually do believe in something or if you have a moral code of any kind, it does get exhausting to have to fight that battle. They don't get exhausted fighting that battle because they don't give a shit. They don't really care.

[David Duchovny]

Want to govern, they don't want to. They, they do not want to govern. They want to destroy government. And so because it's better, it suits them better for their money making. Right. And ultimately comes down to that is the money making is.

[Kara Swisher]

It really is.

[David Duchovny]

It's a, it's what money does. It's what money does versus what it is. Yes. I do think more it's about the control and money making. And so I think that's. Money is a way to communicate power. Right. And I think that's the idea. And of them actually have a lot of theories on the way the world works. And even though Musk is getting a lot of the attention, I would urge everyone to read Peter Thiel's books. He talks about Peter Thiel, who started this thing with Trump among the tech people. His book is all about democracy doesn't work and let's destroy it. And I think one of the things that.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, he tried to destroy journalism. He tried to destroy.

[David Duchovny]

He did. He was the first to innovate that way. But yeah, he did. They made a mistake and he ran right through the middle. That's what happened there. They made a stupid mistake and he got them. And one of the things that I pay a lot of attention is someone like him because he's been consistent. Musk, I don't think believes any of this right wing stuff at all. It's just useful for him at the moment to use it. In Peter's case, I think he does, and he does believe that democracy is no longer a viable way to run it and believes in this universe, unified executive, unified CEO kind of idea.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, yeah, this is an interesting question to me and I know, you know, it's not an aberration to have somebody elected president who has, who apparently shows expertise in some other form of life, not government. I mean, historically, we're always electing generals, right? So, yeah, that makes sense. They're well known before television and movies. You know, that was, that was a star, was a, was a general. They obviously have some kind of delegating capacity or leadership capacity. So from Washington on, you know, like, okay, generals, that kind of makes sense. As a, as a president, I can see a successful businessman also making a case. I'm, I'm a CEO. I run A big company. You know, in Trump's case, it's an absolute lie. He's.

[David Duchovny]

Yes, it is.

[Kara Swisher]

He lost more money than anybody in the history of the world in the 1980s. 80s. I don't know if you saw that New York Times article, but it's stunning.

[David Duchovny]

Yes, it's stunning. Yes. And Craig and others, how bad he is.

[Kara Swisher]

It's stunning. It's not just that he's bad, he's the worst. But there is an argument to be made that Curtis Yarvin is making now, which is like, the government is just a big company. It's just a big business. And we need a CEO. We need a. We need a. A talented CEO. Enter. Enter musk. But my question is to somebody like Curtis Yarvin is if. If Karl government is to be run like a business, what's the product?

[David Duchovny]

Correct. That's a very good. That's the. That is the question you want to ask. And I think, you know, they. They like to dress it up in this. Other terms when. And I heard this for the first time from the Teal Gang and everything else. And this is, you know, we can. This is how it needs to be done. Needs to be. Hardcore is a word they like to use. It's. I call it. I call it hustle porn. Like, don't. Don't show me how hard you work. If you. Once you're doing that, it's like the.

[Kara Swisher]

Tom Cruise of CEOs.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, right, right. He does work hard, though. That is clear.

[Kara Swisher]

I know, but he doesn't. Don't show me.

[David Duchovny]

I know that. Let me run down. Let me show you how fast I run. Like, okay, sure, that's always a tough one.

[Kara Swisher]

I can see it on my own. I can see it on my own.

[David Duchovny]

But when the one. There's two things I recently. One of them was. Was talk. When they first showed me this unified CEO theory, because they're proud of it. Because they had an idea in their fucking head, like, as if it's a new thing.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, right.

[David Duchovny]

And. And they go, unified CEO. I go, so a dictator, right?

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. Or king.

[David Duchovny]

And they're like, well, no. And I'm like, yeah, but that's what you're saying. And of course, none of them studied it. And I was like, this is a dictator. That's all. I was like, we've had those. We know what those are. And when they get things wrong, when they succeed despite it being wrong, for example, or they somehow make it seem like they're succeeding when they aren't. But everybody thinks So I often get, you know, look at car. Look how well he's doing. And I'm like, but he's still an asshole. So that's. And then they get mad. They're like, well. And I'm like, yeah, well, he, he's successful, but he's still an asshole, so he has to live with that.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, well, I see.

[David Duchovny]

That's me negging them, but it's actually the truth. I'm telling the truth.

[Kara Swisher]

No, but you're getting back to character, right? And, and if character.

[David Duchovny]

It's not my character. I do think that.

[Kara Swisher]

No, no, not your character. Their character. Their character is asshole. Like, another word for narcissist is asshole, because you can't change it. You can't. Narcissist, to me is a redundant term because it's just like, there is no cure.

[David Duchovny]

Right.

[Kara Swisher]

Yet.

[David Duchovny]

Yep.

[Kara Swisher]

So, yeah, but, but my, my, my answer to if, if government is to be run like a business, what is the product? Yes. The stock market. You know, all these, all these numbers that we have to go by, how successful we're doing, unemployment, whatever. But there is a human element, and this gets back to the beginning of our conversation, which is when you break things and when you destroy things, things, people will suffer. Not just things will suffer, but people suffer. So one of the products of good government has to be human happiness or human togetherness or love or something. And that's never, that's not part of the CE of the American CEO, as he's come to be seen. That's not part of his zone of attention.

[David Duchovny]

Yes, absolutely. I mean, I think. And that's, that's why Donald Trump is kind of a perfect, perfect person for this age, which is continuous partial attention, exhaustion, overwhelming, being flooded with information, both physical and digital. Sometimes people, when people were like, oh, Trump isn't really what America is. I'm like, he's precisely what America is in this moment, talking about and for its history. Like, it's a, it's a complex and up and down history. And people tend to want to excuse the negative parts and overemphasize the, you know, the positive parts of which there are many. And so when calling any of these people an aberration, I'm always like, they're not an aberration. They're exactly what we ordered. Right. And so one of the things I want to do with the rest of my career, that's left of it, is keep pointing out when they. That these are not aberrations and also that we can do something about it. And I think hopelessness is really, you know, I'm kind of heartened by certain politicians, and I don't think politicians are our savior either. But certain politicians, like, I would have to say someone who's rising to the occasion here, like someone like aoc, where she keeps stressing, you know, the need to keep going despite this slow. And also not agreeing, not complying, slowing things down. Because I think the proclivity of most people, and not just Democrats, Democrats, is to one, cooperate, two, try to reach common ground. Right. Try to figure out a place where it's human nature that, that can come later. Right now is not that moment. Right. You know, it's. There's a time to reap and a time to sow, a time to embrace. And there's a time to not embrace. Right. Refrain from embracing. That's that famous song. But that song is about not co. Also that it does. You don't have to.

[Kara Swisher]

It's from the Bible. The lyrics are biblical.

[David Duchovny]

Yeah, they are. And so one of the things I think about now is the ability with what's happening right now, despite the overwhelming nature, is to say no over and over and over again and not feel that you have to fix it. Right. And I think that's hard for people of good will to do at this moment. And so I want to remind them that when you get back to nagging them, I'm going to neg them until they fucking go, you know, go away. And there's a story in the book where the Travis Kalanick who was just an abhorrent CEO of Uber, one of the original CEO of Uber, just a bad seed, just a bad guy. We did a lot of stories about the behavior, his behavior at work and how he ran the company, which was misogynistic. There was all kinds of sexual harassment going on, et cetera. And we wrote all those stories and eventually us and others led to his being fired from that job, which I think people were angry that we did that, that we did that like today. I'll finish on that in just a second. And One of these VCs came up to me at this very fancy bar in San Francisco and he said, when are you gonna stop? And I said, when he stays down then. But of course he has, and he's still as rich as hell. But JD Vance did the same thing today about this kid. He's not a kid. Excuse me? J.D. vance called him a kid. He's 25 years old. I don't think 25 year olds are kids in my estimation. So this Guy who's working for Doge. They uncovered a reporter, uncovered a series of texts and social media, which. He insulted Indian Americans. He insulted all kinds of just really heinous racist bile. And he got fired or he left the doge thing today. J.D. vance is like, well, he was just a kid, and these reporters are just terrible. And he has Indian American children. Like, talk about a bad parent. Right? How could you? I kept thinking, there's no bottom with you people. And that's the real danger we're in, is that we're in no bottom. And if people don't continue to resist this, and I use the term resist specifically or say what there's.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay, I'm 100% agreement with you on getting rid of that kind of person. But I'm also, I, I, I'm of two minds sometimes, because I don't know that that kind of abhorrent thinking has anything to do with the job he's doing. You know, and I think we on the left sometimes will attack somebody's beliefs or moral stance that has nothing to do with their ability to do the job that they're doing.

[David Duchovny]

He is, he's in the, he's the guts of all kinds of. He's killing things that might protect them.

[Kara Swisher]

His character is destiny. Oh, you. So you would think that he is actually targeting those specifically.

[David Duchovny]

That's correct. But who's to. He's very explicit in his racism. And so I don't think they have a place in, in government. I don't, I don't. And I'm not talking about, you know, dumb things like boobs, nice boobs. This is not what.

[Kara Swisher]

I just, I just think it's dangerous when we start to have perfect people.

[David Duchovny]

We don't want to have perfect people. This is by no means. Yeah, you know, people do stupid things all the time.

[Kara Swisher]

Y. People say stupid things. Let people say stupid things.

[David Duchovny]

Correct.

[Kara Swisher]

I don't care what you're saying. What are you doing?

[David Duchovny]

Although, think about it. If you were on a movie set and someone started spewing, like, huge amounts of anti Semitic. They're not staying there. They don't get to stay. No, they don't get to stay. And maybe, and you could say, oh, we should forgive them for their trespasses, you know, if you feel like doing it.

[Kara Swisher]

You want to educate them or involve them in a debate.

[David Duchovny]

Sure. But you certainly don't want them in a position of cutting programs that might help those people.

[Kara Swisher]

You don't want to do what Trump does, which is give somebody power, and then Vet them, Right?

[David Duchovny]

That's correct. And so you just want. You want people that are. That have better character, that have certain qualities of kindness. And to me, when you're looking to cause people harm, when you're saying racist things about them, I don't think you have very good character. And I think the left shouldn't shy away from saying, that's not the kind of people we want governing us, you know, especially in positions that are unelected. Now, when they're elected, if people want to hire that Mark Robinson, the people of North Carolina, they didn't. But if they want to, that's on them. Right. Marjorie Taylor Greene's constituents seem to want her. And as much as I think she's a heinous piece of shit, they picked her. So I. I would agree she should get to keep her job as long as she can keep getting along. Elected. I'm good with that. What I'm not good with is. Speaking of which, nameless bureaucrats whose agendas we don't know, controlling us without our permission.

[Kara Swisher]

I guess you could call that the deep state, couldn't you?

[David Duchovny]

Correct. That's what these people, you know, I always say every accusation is a confession with these people, every one of them, they do what they say. They don't they. What we're doing. And that's. That always makes me laugh. Like, once again, it's you, isn't it? So.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, since I know you love literature, I'm going to leave you with a quote that I thought you would like. It's a. It's a Kafka quote and it kind of. It's a. It's one of his aphorisms. And it. To me, it sums up the moment that we're in right now. It's the leopards in the temple. I don't know if you know that parable. It's very quick. Leopards break into the temple and drink all the sacrificial vessels dry. It keeps happening. In the end, it can be calculated in advance and it's incorporated into the ritual. So I think that's what we're witnessing.

[David Duchovny]

Yep, absolutely.

[Kara Swisher]

Destruction becomes part of the ritual.

[David Duchovny]

That is correct.

[Kara Swisher]

Part of the establishment.

[David Duchovny]

Then that racist kid is back. That. That Doge today you just got that from? Yeah, I just saw it. I just thought, he will be brought back to heir is human to forgive divine according to each Elon musk. Well, thanks, Jesus. Good to know.

[Kara Swisher]

I think it's. Was it Shake? That was Shakespeare, but it's whatever. Maybe. I don't know.

[David Duchovny]

But feels Jesusy.

[Kara Swisher]

I just, you know, I'm just scared of like I'm an old fogy. I'm scared of like kids that young having that much power.

[David Duchovny]

Yes, I would agree. We were worried about the old people. Now we're worried about the young people. Children of the, I call them children of the corn.

[Kara Swisher]

But thank you so much for, for this.

[David Duchovny]

All right, David, thank you. What a lovely chat. I really appreciate it.

[Kara Swisher]

Forgive the background music. I'm out outside in public. But she said as much that at the end of the book, Burn Book. It's an apology specifically around Musk, I think, and having misunderstood him or underestimated him in some vile way. And then I guess, you know, the, the whole tenor of the conversation becomes after that. And so that's a response to failure. This book is in effect a response to a failure of perception. And how brave to say that on her part, how honest to say that and how it's kind of a textbook example of how to not sink in to a helplessness after quote unquote failure. In this case, underestimation of Musk's lack of character. Easy to just self flagellate and say, my bad, I got it wrong. But she's actively trying to address the wrong, the fail. And you don't see that a lot. Life in art, in public. I applaud it. I admire it. Thanks so much for listening to Fail Better. If you haven't yet, now is a great time to subscribe to Lemonada Premium. You'll get bonus content like my thoughts on card conversations with guests including Alec Baldwin and Rob Lowe. Just hit the subscribe button on Apple Podcasts or for all other podcast apps, head to lemonadapremium.com to subscribe. That's lemonadapremium.com Failbetter is production of Lemonada Media in coordination with King Baby. It is produced by Keegan Zema, Aria Brachi and Donnie Matias. Our engineer is Brian Castillo. Our SVP of Weekly is Steve Nelson. Our VP of New content is Rachel Neal. Special thanks to Carl Ackerman, Tom Kupinski and Brad Davidson. The show is executive produced by Stephanie Whittles Wax, Jessica Cordova Kramer and me, David Duchovny. The music is also by me and my band, the lovely Colin Lee, Pat McCusker, Mitch Stewart, Davis Rowan and Sebastian Modak. You can find us online at Lemonada Media and you can find me at David Duchovny. Follow Fail Better wherever you get your podcasts or listen. Ad free on Amazon Music with your prime membership.

[David Duchovny]

Hi everyone. Gloria Riviera here. And we are back for another season of no One Is Coming to Save Us, a podcast about America's child care crisis. This season we're delving deep into five critical issues facing our country through the lens of child care, poverty, mental health, housing, climate change and the public school system. By exploring these connections, we aim to highlight that child care is not an isolated issue, but one that influences all facets of American life. Season 4 of No1 Is Coming to Save Us is out now, wherever you get your podcast. Podcasts Are you looking for ways to make your everyday life happier, healthier, more productive and more creative? I'm Gretchen Rubin, the number one best selling author of the Happiness Project, bringing you fresh insights and practical solutions in the Happier with Gretchen Rubin podcast. My co host and happiness guinea pig is my sister, Elizabeth Craft. That's me, Elizabeth Craft, a TV writer and producer in Hollywood. Join us as we explore ideas and hacks about cultivating happiness and good, good habits. Check out Happier with Gretchen Rubin from Lemonada Media.