← On with Kara Swisher
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- [00:00]
Walter Isaacson
Sam Altman, you know well, and you kind of like them and you kind of don't.
- [00:05]
Kara Swisher
Well, I don't not like him. I don't really care about these people whatsoever. I have a family and friends like. Like. I'm sorry. Hi, everyone.
- [00:23]
Podcast Announcer
From New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
- [00:26]
Kara Swisher
This.
- [00:26]
Podcast Announcer
This is on with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. We've got a special episode for you today. It's an interview I did with journalist and biographer Walter Isaacson, and technically, I'm the guest. Walter interviewed me a few weeks ago in front of a live audience at the New Orleans Book Festival at Tulane University. The last time I spoke with Walter, I chewed him out over his hagiography of Elon Musk. This time, we had a lot more fun. We talked about a bunch of things, including AI, how power is shifting here in the United States, who has it, who's losing it, and how those shifts are reshaping American life. I'm still right about Elon Musk, and
- [01:01]
Kara Swisher
he asked me if I was going
- [01:02]
Podcast Announcer
to give him a hard time with it on stage. And I said, I think we know who's right and who's wrong about what happened here. Anyway, I really like talking to Walter. He's a really interesting person. He's a great journalist, even if I
- [01:13]
Kara Swisher
don't agree with him about some things.
- [01:15]
Podcast Announcer
He's working on a really cool book about Marie Curie.
- [01:18]
Kara Swisher
Anyway, I like talking to him. He's really fun. He's done a lot of stuff, and
- [01:21]
Podcast Announcer
he was very early to digital, as I was, and he's always thinking big
- [01:25]
Kara Swisher
thoughts, which is always a good thing.
- [01:27]
Podcast Announcer
All right, let's get to my conversation with Walter.
- [01:30]
Kara Swisher
Walter Isaacson.
- [01:31]
Podcast Announcer
Special thanks to the New Orleans Book Festival at Tulane University for hosting the event. It's one of my favorite events of the year. It's really well done, and of course, I love New Orleans.
- [01:40]
Kara Swisher
So it's round three with Walter Isaacson.
- [01:42]
Podcast Announcer
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- [02:32]
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- [02:35]
Walter Isaacson
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- [02:45]
Kara Swisher
How many discounts does USAA Auto Insurance offer? Too many to say here. Multi vehicle discount, Safe driver discount. New vehicle discount. Storage discount, Legacy discount.
- [02:55]
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- [03:01]
Walter Isaacson
It is. How you doing?
- [03:05]
Kara Swisher
Hi, everybody.
- [03:06]
Walter Isaacson
Here, pull it up closer. Oh, you got it.
- [03:08]
Kara Swisher
Yeah, yeah.
- [03:09]
Walter Isaacson
So let's start with AI.
- [03:11]
Kara Swisher
Sure.
- [03:12]
Walter Isaacson
Anthropic. You've been doing a lot of reporting on it. What's happening with all the companies doing AI and who should we fear the most and least?
- [03:20]
Kara Swisher
Wow, that's a rather broad question. Let's talk about oxygen. What do you want to hear about what's going on with the Pentagon? They're illegal.
- [03:28]
Walter Isaacson
Yeah. Let's start with the.
- [03:30]
Kara Swisher
Well, okay.
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Walter Isaacson
The Pentagon. You explain what it is he Teg
- [03:33]
Kara Swisher
Seth, who is a moron.
- [03:41]
Walter Isaacson
Stan McChrystal said that last night, but he's much longer, more diplomatic.
- [03:47]
Kara Swisher
The bubble above his head. Moron. So he has gotten into his head. Well, I don't want to pursue that person because he's a waste of our time. But although he's in charge of things that are very serious. Anthropic is an offshoot of OpenAI, as everybody knows. A group of people left led by Dario because they felt the safety issues around AI were so significant, they didn't like where it was going under Sam. And so they created Anthropic. It was funded by, among others, Amazon and many, many others. They're all sort of doing cross investments in each other. Nvidia, Amazon, Microsoft, everybody's doing. It's sort of like a Ron Delay. Some might call it a Ponzi scheme. Some do. And so they're doing.
- [04:33]
Walter Isaacson
But wait, let me interrupt. Is it a Ponzi scheme the way they're.
- [04:37]
Kara Swisher
I don't know. Was the early Internet a Ponzi scheme? In some cases, yes. In others, no.
- [04:41]
Walter Isaacson
So is there a really big bubble that's about to burst?
- [04:43]
Kara Swisher
I have no idea. I mean, it happened in the Internet. There's certainly a lot of spending and no revenue, so that's always an issue. But it didn't hurt the Internet. You could say all these Internet companies that died in the 2000 crash. Well, they were all a Ponzi scheme. But Google. But Meta came later, actually, many years Later. So it's a Ponzi scheme in that one of them is going to survive, one or two, and they're going to be enormous companies or maybe several. In any case, it's an important business and also a Ponzi scheme, if that makes sense. And so Anthropic is backed by big people in Silicon Valley. And the money they need is so enormous because of the cost of compute and data and energy and no revenue. I mean, there's revenue, but not compared to the costs. And so they got lucky because the Trump administration, you know, the coin operated Trump administration, never to miss an opportunity for corruption, understood that this is gonna be an enormous spend and you know, whether it's data centers, whatever, cause it's both physical and not. And so Anthropic is sort of the dark horse of this group and actually the best. And that's why the Pentagon was using a lot of their technology. They used it in Venezuela and elsewhere. And I think most people who use it understand it's the Apple of this group essentially. And compared to OpenAI was more like the Microsoft. And Microsoft actually I think has an investment. And Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella just backed Anthropic in this ridiculous fight, which is great for him. When they're deploying these things, they want to be able to do whatever they want. And Pete Hag says, because he never met a metaphor he didn't mangle was like we buy a plane and we can do whatever we want with it. It's not quite the same thing with this technology. And so Anthropic says, okay, you can use our technology, but if you're going to surveil Americans, we don't want to be part of it. Or if you're going to do drone attacks, which is going to be more and more prevalent in warfare going forward, they cannot be autonomous. They need to have a human interaction, which seems perfectly reasonable and they should be allowed to use their products the way they want to use them. And it seemed to have, you know, chapped hegsest ass. And he has declared them a supply chain risk. Now we have never done that in the history of the United States with an American company. It's usually a foreign company. And so it's unprecedented to try to make an example of this company to do so. Now into the breach, as always, Sam Altman unctuously flowed himself into and said, we'll do it and we'll agree, we'll get that. But it's not clear what he has agreed to. And of course There's a huge backlash. They are under enormous pressure, given they're going to go public this year. They need more money, et cetera, et cetera. And so there's this sort of all the beefs of Silicon Valley are all being played out with the government. And so Anthropic has sued. The government will win, but it will hurt its business.
- [07:45]
Walter Isaacson
In the meantime, Sam Altman, you know, well. And you kind of like them and you kind of don't. Go ahead.
- [07:51]
Kara Swisher
Well, I don't not like him. I don't really care about these people whatsoever. I have a family and friends like, Like. I'm sorry, I like them. Think about them once I stop talking about them. But, you know, I think I met him when he was 19, when he had a company called Loopt L O O P T. They always had these stupidly clever names for companies, and it failed. And then he went on to do a number of things. And he's a really interesting character. And there's part of. I mean, compared to a lot of people I cover, he's well educated, he has a sense of history, he reads, which is always a plus. And so he's a very complex guy. And some of it, as many people have chronicled, he can be very manipulative, he can be very unctuous, he can be very tricky and mendacious, but maybe not. And so there's a lot of angling that he does all the time. And so I think that's the issue here with a lot of people and Sam. And, you know, you've read stories about people who've left, you know, and Dario's no perfection. He's got the arrogance of a technologist, as you can see from his typing. He writes a lot of, like, manifestos every five minutes, which are pretty good, actually. And so, you know, you have all these personal things playing out in this very serious theater of war. And it's not an excursion, by the way, which is Trump's latest word for this. I think he meant incursion.
- [09:22]
Walter Isaacson
Excursion, yeah. George W. Did it.
- [09:26]
Kara Swisher
No, he did.
- [09:27]
Walter Isaacson
No, no, he said excursion.
- [09:28]
Kara Swisher
I know, yes, but he meant incursion, but he meant war. So, anyway, so you have this happening, and so it's really. There's just. What's happening is all these massive, aggressive companies are fighting each other, using the federal government as their latest battle.
- [09:45]
Walter Isaacson
Let me take the core issue on Anthropic. One of the core issues, Levocide surveill, the other core, which is you can't use our AI to do autonomous Warfare and drones without having a human in
- [09:59]
Kara Swisher
the loop seems reasonable.
- [10:00]
Walter Isaacson
But believe aside whether they have the right to say that because they're a private company and clearly you can say here's how you use the project. Tell me why it seems reasonable to you if you were to see that 19 year old jockeys doing fighter planes get it much worse than AI drones
- [10:21]
Kara Swisher
because it's a person who takes responsibility for it. That's why we can't look at right now we're in the midst of another thing that's related which is all these chatbots, which I think is a very sweet term for synthetic beings. We have to stop calling them chatbots like they're adorable little plush toys, right? They can be malicious and malevolent and they create these things. And I've been spending a lot of time over the past couple of years interviewing all the parents of kids who have died using these chatbots and getting into these synthetic relationships. These people have started to become analysts, lawyers, doctors, these technologists without the guardrails. The rest of us are, you know, as Scott says, they are not bound by the law, but they're protected by it and we're bound by the law and not protected by it. And so one of the things that's really terrifying is like these, if you read these text exchanges between kids and these chatbots, you are going to want to find a tech person and strangle them. Putting this stuff out, I mean as a parent, I have four kids. Even with the stuff with adults is even terrible. Like this psychosis that happens and so it's the same thing. It's like we are relying on this AI and it's fine if you're making a decision how to complete an email of another conference event I don't want to go to, like thank you so much. They do a beautiful job declining for me, but it's not this one. I love you Walter, but these are life and death decisions and they may be better at say finding cancer or. Those are the good things and we should try to find what. We should take things that they do well and supersize them and find a way to mitigate against the dangers. But when there's a person involved, there's someone accountable. There's no one accountable right now. All these companies, whether it's character AI, which is a Google affiliated thing, Gemini chatgpt, nobody's home when you go to say this person died.
- [12:20]
Walter Isaacson
Couldn't it be pretty easily solved if we make the real world laws we have applied in the virtual laws.
- [12:25]
Kara Swisher
Yes, it could be.
- [12:26]
Walter Isaacson
And you could sue somebody for something happens.
- [12:29]
Kara Swisher
There is a big lawsuit going on right now in California around the impact of social media. But they've been largely protected by section 230.
- [12:36]
Walter Isaacson
Right, that's my point.
- [12:37]
Kara Swisher
And so you can't, you can't displace them or fire them because they have full control. They have monarchical control of their companies.
- [12:45]
Walter Isaacson
Should we just get rid of 2:30 and explain?
- [12:47]
Kara Swisher
I don't know, it's too complicated. It has to be reformed in an intelligent way. But they have captive of our Congress. They used to hate Washington as you know, like, I don't care about Washington. You know, Bill Gates, that was his famous thing. I don't care about lobbyists. They are running the government right now and they were standing front and center of Trump's inauguration. And so they have complete control over our elected officials. They absolutely do. Someone like Amy Klobuchar has not been able to pass a privacy bill, an antitrust bill, you know, a transparent algorithm bill. They don't let you. They're doing it right now in California. They've created this super PAC that's gonna try. California's been the most aggressive about regulation. These rich people have just created another PAC because they figured out they hated the government. Oh, we're so smart. We don't need the government. Except the problem is the government is full of ex student body vice presidents with subpoena power. So that's a problem. And so they decided to buy it and they went, oh, we can buy it. Oh, that's easy. And then they plant their people in these positions of power, like someone like Emile Michael, who's the one fighting with
- [13:57]
Walter Isaacson
Anthropic or David Sacks.
- [13:59]
Kara Swisher
David Sacks. I have a lot of experience and of course the reporters who cover this actually don't. I have experience with Emile Michael. I and other people at my website wrote the story that got him fired, which was there was a rape of a woman in India and one of his minions took the medical files trying to prove she was lying. It was all illegal. And he got bounced out of there. And I know these people.
- [14:22]
Walter Isaacson
But wait, explain who he is now to this.
- [14:24]
Kara Swisher
He's the one who's the deputy director of whatever the fuck at the Pentagon, you know. But essentially he's been writing to. This is a government official writing tweets about a company they start. Sack started it because they have beefs that have nothing to do with our safety. These are Silicon Valley beefs that they have decided to move to Washington and they're Pretending they're here to protect us. They're here to protect themselves and their interests. Same thing with Jeff Bezos. Same thing. All of them. All of them. And of course, your good friend Elon Musk, who is the original OG of.
- [15:01]
Walter Isaacson
We had an over and under on how many minutes it would take before. Pretty good knowing Elon Musk.
- [15:08]
Kara Swisher
White acknowledge.
- [15:09]
Walter Isaacson
All the way through.
- [15:10]
Kara Swisher
Lightly acknowledge. I was right.
- [15:14]
Walter Isaacson
Everybody was right.
- [15:17]
Kara Swisher
I'm not going to. I'm going to. I'm going to officially the moratorium on giving Walter a hard time for Elon Musk. I am. It's done.
- [15:24]
Walter Isaacson
How long does it last? Another 44 and a half.
- [15:26]
Kara Swisher
Unless you write another book where you say he's a genius.
- [15:29]
Walter Isaacson
I'm writing on Marie Curie.
- [15:30]
Kara Swisher
Oh, yay, a dead person.
- [15:32]
Walter Isaacson
Going back to the fact that you have.
- [15:35]
Kara Swisher
And I like. Which I like her work.
- [15:37]
Walter Isaacson
Yeah. Yeah.
- [15:39]
Kara Swisher
I'm excited for that book.
- [15:40]
Walter Isaacson
Radioactivity is one of your favorites.
- [15:41]
Kara Swisher
I will have you on my podcast. We will only talk about radioactivity.
- [15:45]
Walter Isaacson
Yes. Going back to you. You have kids. Four of them. One of them almost went to Tulane. So it's that old. And one of them's about a year old, right?
- [15:54]
Kara Swisher
No, no, no, Walter, you're not keeping up with the swisher family. No, one is four.
- [15:58]
Walter Isaacson
Okay.
- [15:59]
Kara Swisher
One is 23. So I have a 23 year old, a 20 year old, a six year old, and a girl.
- [16:06]
Walter Isaacson
And how has your allowing them or their use of social media and you're dealing with that? How has that been and how has it changed?
- [16:16]
Kara Swisher
Oh, I love the word allowing.
- [16:18]
Walter Isaacson
Yeah. I didn't know how to say.
- [16:19]
Kara Swisher
Doing a lot of work there. My sons actually kind of missed a little bit of the social media age. They're a little older, 20 and 23. But both of my sons have taken social media. It's a real trend among young people, I think off their. Off their phones, they use because they find it. My son took, like, the dating stuff. They both have girlfriends. My son's living in San Francisco now with his girlfriend, but he's a great kid. He took it off and I remember him telling me, I was like, why'd you take it off? And he goes, it makes me feel bad. I was like, excellent reason. You know, just what Salman Rushdie just said. You feel so much better when you remove it. My other son, I mean, I think he. They both use YouTube as television. I think that's. YouTube is television now. But they're not that engaged in social media and not that engaged in their phones. They're very. They're not. My son just went ice climbing. The other was hiking in Berkeley yesterday. So they find it very debilitating to use that stuff. And they'll use it for work and YouTube, definitely for television. They stream, so. And the little kids, all they do is watch K Pop Demon Hunters on repeat. I just interviewed the creators. They just got season two for the parents in the room. Yay. But the next movie, the sequel, and actually Netflix sent me a box with two backpacks in them, and I'm going to accept them. I don't care if it seems corrupt.
- [17:42]
Walter Isaacson
In the age of Trump.
- [17:43]
Kara Swisher
I became the best parent in America the other day when they arrived, along with. Did you see Hillary Clinton's merch Move now.
- [17:50]
Walter Isaacson
What?
- [17:51]
Kara Swisher
Oh, she has a thing. You can hold me in contempt till the cows come home T shirts.
- [17:56]
Walter Isaacson
Oh, okay. That wasn't a bad one.
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Kara Swisher
Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton has run out of fucks.
- [18:02]
Walter Isaacson
So you've created a media empire. An empire, yes, Totally an empire. You have both. Two podcasts, a series, Longevity.
- [18:13]
Kara Swisher
Yeah.
- [18:14]
Walter Isaacson
There's the Audacity, which is not yours, but you're a character in it. It's coming out. I was talking. We were talking about Simon Schuster, your publisher. And Payton is.
- [18:26]
Kara Swisher
Nice to meet. That book is sure coming. I bet. I'll do it.
- [18:30]
Walter Isaacson
She owes you a book, she said. But instead of owing them a book, we were talking last night about how publishing companies to try to get into this space where Vox is and you are. And I don't even know what the word is for it, because podcast minimalizes it too much. What type of media will be the next thing that you're onto?
- [18:56]
Kara Swisher
You know, I think about a lot because Walt. Walt Mossberg, who is actually. I try to do a lot of different things, and I don't usually take people's word for like, media is dying. I don't believe it. It's just not true. I just think what the way it was was dying, and then something else always takes its place. That's historical, right? As you know with most. You've written about innovation so many times, things supplant each other and there's nothing new under the sun, which is an old phrase. But 2002, we started the All Things D conference, and the only reason we started the conference first was because the Wall Street Journal wouldn't let us invest in what they called a blog at the time. I said, you know, kids are using the Internet. I was a young person then, and I was like, you know, the youngs kind of, like, the Internet, so you might want to stop printing. They wanted to do a Saturday journal. And I was like, fine, but give me a million dollars to do this. And they wouldn't. And so we did the conference, which was instantly profitable, which was the famous conference where you had gates and jobs and stuff like that. And they didn't give me money for doing the site, the All Things D site, for five years. And it was just one of these struggles with these old media institutions. And so Walt and I spun off, you know, even after making millions. And one of the things that happened there is they didn't give us any money initially for making the millions of dollars in profit, but then they gave us a percentage of the business, which was stupid, on their behalf. One executive came up to me and was like, I wish we had given that salary raise to you. And I'm like, I'm thrilled that you didn't. But we moved on to. We moved on to get our own money. We got our.
- [20:32]
Walter Isaacson
But not just the business model, but to a new type of media. Yes, everybody is doing podcasts, audio books, visual.
- [20:39]
Kara Swisher
Yes. You know, Martha Stewart called it Omnimedia, and they made fun of her many years ago. That's exactly what it is. I don't know if you want to use the word omni, but, you know, one of the things I think about, like, when I did my last book, Burn Book, which did very well as a book, but what I did on the book tour was instead of doing the regular book tour, I had people in the book interviewing me at every single venue. And we sold out. They were crazy, like, popular. And. And I thought I missed an opportunity to get a sponsor for this. But I did put everything on my podcast, all the interviews. Cause they were all different, whether Sam Altman did one, Ted Sarandos did one, Lorraine Powell Jobs did one, I should have thought strongly about that. It was more than that. And I should have done more in the video space on that at the time. And so when you're making a book or I just announced a series called Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever on cnn, everyone's like, why are you doing cable? I'm like, I'm not doing cable. I'm doing something else. You don't understand that. It's. It's gonna live online. It's gonna be a podcast. There's gonna be a podcast. I may do an event. There's gonna be a book. I'm sure I'll deliver it soon, Simon and Schuster, but there's gonna be. I think about everything. And not necessarily all of them, but just depending on what the product happens to be like, it may be a podcast, it may be this, well, let's take the laundry. Maybe merch. I haven't gone into merch yet.
- [21:57]
Walter Isaacson
No, you know. Yeah, we don't need T shirts with
- [22:00]
Kara Swisher
yes, you kind of do. I'm gonna make a lot of money at it.
- [22:02]
Walter Isaacson
Yeah.
- [22:03]
Kara Swisher
If I have Scott saying, you know, it's good, it'll work. We have plans.
- [22:10]
Podcast Announcer
We'll be back in a minute. Support for on with Kara Swisher comes from Samsara. Companies have to get product from point A to point B, and that means hiring drivers, which in turn means vehicle insurance, dash cams, and accepting the fact that accidents happen. That's exactly where Samsara can help. It brings AI dash cams, vehicle tracking and asset visibility together in one simple platform. Samsara can help you protect your drivers, cut costs, and operate smarter. Their AI dash cams capture real time video that prove when your drivers aren't at fault, protecting them from false claims. Their data shows companies have reduced fuel costs and improved driver retention thanks to better visibility and coaching. Here's a case study for that. DHL's focus on safety and more effective coaching through Samsara help lower driver turnover by 50%. According to Samsara's data, their AI helps reduce crash rates by nearly 75%. It's trusted by over 20,000 customers worldwide, including major companies across transportation, construction and logistics. Don't wait for the next accident to take action. Go to samsara.comkara to request a free demo and see how Samsara brings visibility and safety to your operations. That's samsara.com Cara Samsara operate smarter. Hi everyone, it's Kara Swisher. I'm excited to put something new on your radar from the Vox Media Podcast network. It's called Project Swagger with the one and only Robin Arzon and it's all about helping you trust yourself, level up your mindset, and actually make the changes you've been thinking about. Robin is Peloton's Vice President of Fitness programming and head instructor. She's also a 27 time marathon and ultramarathon runner, founder of Swagger Society media company, and a two time New York Times bestselling author. In under 30 minutes, Robyn shares the rituals, routines and mental shifts that fuel her hustle and show you how to apply them in your own life. In the very first episode, she opens up about the moment that forced her to transform her inner voice and the strategies that helped her become what she
- [24:26]
Kara Swisher
calls a self talk ninja.
- [24:28]
Podcast Announcer
You can find Project Swagger with Robin Arzahn on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes drop every Tuesday.
- [24:39]
Kara Swisher
Hi, I'm Brene Brown.
- [24:40]
Walter Isaacson
And I'm Adam Grant.
- [24:41]
Kara Swisher
And we're here to invite you to the Curiosity Shop, a podcast that's a
- [24:45]
Walter Isaacson
place for listening, wondering, thinking, feeling and questioning.
- [24:49]
Kara Swisher
It's gonna be fun. We rarely agree, but we almost never disagree.
- [24:54]
Walter Isaacson
And we're always learning.
- [24:55]
Kara Swisher
That's true. You can subscribe to the Curiosity shop on YouTube or follow in your favorite podcast app to automatically receive new episodes every Thursday.
- [25:05]
Walter Isaacson
Let's take the longevity thing you're planning, which is about people in Silicon Valley in particular want to live forever type of things. How are you going to make it? It'll be a book. Will it be a ten part series? Will it be.
- [25:18]
Kara Swisher
It's a six part series. It's already done. The CNN series is done. And the original title before all this happened was Peter Atti as a Schmuck. And that was in my.
- [25:29]
Walter Isaacson
That turned out to be right.
- [25:31]
Kara Swisher
Yes, it did.
- [25:31]
Walter Isaacson
That could be short.
- [25:33]
Kara Swisher
Yeah, you need to pay attention to what I'm telling you. What I was irritated with was one Silicon Valley people lecturing me on all manner of things they didn't know about, including health. And because they are godlike, they think they should live forever or they should hack death. And I think it's just nonsensical. And what I was referencing was this amazing speech that you know about Steve Jobs, which Steve Jobs had a very good sense of death and understood that mortality is what creates innovation. And he gave this amazing speech I recommended which really inspired me about, you know, live your everyday life. It's the last.
- [26:08]
Walter Isaacson
This is the Stanford commencement speech speech which you can find online.
- [26:12]
Kara Swisher
He was sick and then he wasn't sick for a little bit and then he was sick again. In that period he did this amazing, astonishing speech. And so that was my inspiration. The Steve Jobs mentality versus say a Brian Johnson or an Elon Musk idea of like we should let we're so amazing godlike creatures, we should live forever. And so, and part and parcel to this is my obsession with the conspiracy theories all over the Internet, politically and otherwise. But in the healthcare area it's really awful. Like all this nonsensical bullshit that's there. And so the charlatans bothered me, especially online cause they had weaponized health. And then at the same time there's this astonishing blossoming of science happening right now, whether it's someone you wrote about, Jennifer Doudna at crispr, the cancer research MRNA vaccines, like they're gonna have a vaccine for cancer. All this incredible use of AI to detect illnesses, GLP1s. There's all this astonishing stuff happening and then there's all these charlatans. And so I go and try all the charlatan stuff and try to blow it up. And then I try to focus in on people that are doing the real work, so it's substantive and silly at the same time. And then I'm going to do podcasts around it. Then I might do an event. You know, there's going to be a book. You know, I'm going to try to like focus in on the non. The people that are doing the amazing work, but also slap the charlatans wherever I can, slap them out of the picture.
- [27:42]
Walter Isaacson
All right. And tell me about the audacity.
- [27:47]
Kara Swisher
Oh, I, I didn't work with these people, but it's a series that. It's interesting. The Times wrote about this yesterday, but the shift of tech people from very silly and you kind of root for them and they end up at the end of Silicon Valley. They do the right thing. They have a technology that could really hurt people to today you have Mountainhead and this where the technologists are the villains and really ridiculous. Drug taking, sex having villains, essentially.
- [28:16]
Walter Isaacson
How did the techies become both villains and right wing?
- [28:22]
Kara Swisher
Oh, I don't know if they're right wing. I don't think they have any.
- [28:24]
Walter Isaacson
Well, I guess I shouldn't say that. Go ahead.
- [28:25]
Kara Swisher
Yeah, I think they're not right wing. I think they're just people, as I joke with you, they're people who weren't hugged enough as children that now are taking it out on the rest of us. I think whatever is in their financial self interest is what they do. Or they're, you know, even down to Tim Cook, who I happen to like, you know, bringing that golden statue to Trump. I mean, what an embarrassment. To me, there's a level of if you have that much fuck you money and not saying fuck you seems kind of ridiculous. Like on some level now he can do damage to them. That is 100% true. But for how long? And not much longer, I suspect. And so I think some of them very much real. Very real. I think like David Sacks was conservative, he was conservative. Ish.
- [29:12]
Walter Isaacson
And I think they try Libertarian Thiel,
- [29:15]
Kara Swisher
I would call it Libertarian Peter Thiel, honestly, is the only one who was always like this and deserves, you know, his ridiculous Stuff is something he is. He's consistently heinous, essentially, but he's consistently. And very smart person, you know, has consistently sort of espoused this idea that democracy doesn't work and that the Ubermensch should be running everything. You know, you've read all their stuff. Is that the unitary executive theory and, ugh, these women are so irritating. And when they got the vote, that sucked. That kind of stuff. And then you have people who have come along to it and sort of entered the picture. You know, Elon was never. I never knew Elon was somewhat liberal. I remember him call me when they were gonna do this anti trans and anti gay thing in the first Trump administration. What can I do, Kara? And I was. And now today couldn't be worse on the topic, you know, and really terrible. I don't. Lots of things happened with him, including ketamine. But among other things, he just morphed, I think, because the woke mind virus. It's actually not a woke mind virus that affected him. It's a Twitter mind. It's an X mind virus. You know, this Nazi porn bar, he's been hanging in it too much, and therefore he's become.
- [30:33]
Walter Isaacson
Talk about that a little. Because we had Salman Rushdie sitting there a moment ago, and he said his life and mind have been liberated now that he's taking social media of his phone. Because you're living. Let's call it Twitter or. Yeah, but if you're living in that world, you think the world is more dystopian than it actually is in Norway.
- [30:52]
Kara Swisher
I made the mistake of going on it the other day for a second, and I was like, oh, God, this place again. I love Twitter. I did. I did. I was one of the first people. I still have 1.6 million followers on there, and I'm not on it. Like, that would be good for my marketing. Like, but I just can't. It's like a real.
- [31:09]
Walter Isaacson
By the way, you're on Blue sky
- [31:11]
Kara Swisher
and I am on.
- [31:12]
Walter Isaacson
How come those didn't work? They didn't get.
- [31:15]
Kara Swisher
Threads is bigger than Twitter right now, and Mark Zuckerberg's run right over that. So nevertheless, Instagram is massive, what Instagram is. But Instagram and Threads is bigger than X right now.
- [31:27]
Walter Isaacson
Okay.
- [31:27]
Kara Swisher
And growing.
- [31:28]
Walter Isaacson
When you post on Threads, do you get the same.
- [31:30]
Kara Swisher
Oh, absolutely. Actually, you know, listen, I ain't no fan of Mark Zuckerberg, but it's a nice product, I have to tell you. Like, it doesn't like one of the. I shouldn't. I'm not Gonna say the word. They always call me on Twitter, but it starts with C and ends with T almost regularly. It's a really good place. It's a really interesting. You know, sometimes it's not great, but it's sort of a version of what Twitter used to be for me. And actually I'm doing a lot of news discovery on it. Again, I'm not one who loves to compliment Mark Zuckerberg, but it's a good product and there's all kinds of issues with it, like a lot of things. I think bluesky has reached this founding CEO just stepped down. They need to do more that kind of stuff. But I have both of them. I have half a million people on each of them. That's pretty good. And I'll tell you the response rate is great, but X is so polluted with bots and malignant figures that it's useless.
- [32:24]
Walter Isaacson
Since you Talked about Section 230, I want to make sure people know what it is. Which is. It's just the section of the law that says if somebody posts something on social media. Yeah, the company X or Facebook.
- [32:37]
Kara Swisher
It wasn't in addition to social media, it was for chat groups.
- [32:40]
Walter Isaacson
Right. It was way back at the beginning of the Internet. But on X you can say anything you want, including the words that are used about you. Why is it you have no recourse to. To even sue the person who said it?
- [32:56]
Kara Swisher
I don't even care if any.
- [32:57]
Walter Isaacson
I'm gonna leave you aside.
- [32:59]
Kara Swisher
I don't care if an incel calls me that name. Good luck. Enjoy your whatever you're doing. That doesn't bother me at all. I think it's not a recourse. It's what kind of place do you wanna create as a gathering place online? That's really the idea. What kind of business do you wanna run? And again, if Elon wants to do this, he should be able to. Right? I do think it has a deleterious effect on society. I think what it creates is this sort of hateful toxicity. It's a death cult. I don't know what else. You know, having just done this, there's really interesting scientific studies that people who avoid death and try to get away from it create polarized societies of hatefulness. Those who accept it and make it part of their world. To me it's suicidal.
- [33:42]
Walter Isaacson
Is that partly responsible for the type of politics we have now?
- [33:46]
Kara Swisher
Yes, I think it is. I think it's really an interesting moment where dunking on of it top people nobody's talking about, like what do we want to solve. And it's sort of a basic hatred of humanity. Like, ugh, these people. Like, how dare they be different? How dare they be? You know? And you can have a good argument about DEI program. Fine, whatever. But it's really not our biggest issue, is it? I mean, I remember sitting with someone in media where they were like, you know, you can't say what you want anymore. This was a rich white guy. Like, you can't say what you want anymore. I go, I seems like you can. All your direct reports are other white guys. So it seems like you do whatever you want. And he's like, yeah, but I get shit for it. I'm like, oh, sorry, sweetheart. I think I called him sweetheart. I was like, so sorry. You can do it. And he goes, well, I think it's one of the biggest issues of our time. And I go, ugh. I think poverty and child abuse would be my choices.
- [34:40]
Walter Isaacson
But, you know, I don't know if you're proud of this. You actually should be. But if I remember correctly, because I followed you forever.
- [34:47]
Kara Swisher
Oh, you have.
- [34:48]
Walter Isaacson
You were the first person to say, you know what? Trump can win. This is way back in 20.
- [34:53]
Kara Swisher
It was. You remember, we had that discussion because here's why I watched the Apprentice. I watched all. I loved that show. I thought, oh, God, it was. I mean, a terrible show, but it was a great show. I like that kind of thing. I also like anything Gerard Butler is in. So this is my taste. Greenland 2. Everyone's like, go see one battle after another. I'm like, Greenland 2 is where I'm going. So it's really good. So I was watching the Apprentice, and I knew how popular he was when Jeff Zucker created there, even though it was sort of false. And you could see sort of what was happening online with this fake Personas, these Personas, but people who were genuine. And I had just done an interview with Kim Kardashian, who was enormously popular online, not just in the reality TV business, but she had numbers. And I had done an interview with her. She is genuine to who she is right online, sort of erupting beyond media companies, politics, and things like that. And so I thought he was really good online. Like, he's our first Internet troll president, right? And so was Barack Obama, but to a much more sort of hands off. Right? You know? You know, like, everything is like that with him. He's gotten a lot better, I can tell you that. But AOC is the. I did a comparison in the New York Times between AOC and Trump and they're sort of doing a. They're not the same thing. But mom, Donnie, Mom, Donnie's friggin like Olympic level online stuff. And very sweet too. He's got a very. It's a very sweet but pointed kind of thing. Everyone's different to themselves. But Trump was really good at that. And I remember Arianna Huffington's like, we're putting Trump in the entertainment section. I was like, no, no. And I was with a bunch of political people in Washington, reporters. They're like, oh, he's so ridiculous. I'm like, no, he's not. He's a poor person's version of a rich person. At least that I can tell. Like, you know, actually in this audacity, this one of the characters said you're a dumb person's version of a genius. Which I thought was a great line. It's so true for so many people. He was also self deprecating. He used to be. Now he's sort of. Something occurred in his cognitively disabled brain, but he understood the joke. He was using all the. I studied Roy Cohen quite a lot because he was speaking of the original conspiracy theorist and a manipulator of media who was his mentor. You know, I could see that it would work on people. And the Democrats had such a flaccid after post. Obama did not have the same kind of idea and was very much not. And I don't mean listening to people. Like I had this encounter when they were trying to do silicon. Remember they were doing Silicon Haulers, Silicon Beach. They were going to make the Silicon area in Kentucky. I traveled there and they were promising all these software jobs, they did all these tours where they would go. And Trump was promising, I'm going to bring back coal and bring back whatever. And I went there also to speak in front of these people. And they got up and made all these ridiculous. We're gonna make you software and digital and this and that. And I got up, I go, listen everybody, first of all, coal is not coming back. And when it comes back, it's gonna be robotics. You know why? Cause you get black lung and a machine don't. And they work 24 7. So FYI, this guy right here, the owner, he can't wait to replace you. So they were doing that and one of the things. And I said, you are not. This is not gonna happen to you. But one of the people came up to. And I was scared I was gonna get hit by these people. But they came up and said, thank you for telling us the Truth about this. I said, no problem. And they said, it's nice for you to come visit real Americans. And I looked at this guy, he's a big gold miner. And I said, I'm a fucking real American. I don't know what you're talking about. Why don't you come to San Francisco and hang out with me in the Castro? Like, why do you get to be the real American and I don't? I was like, such bullshit. And he liked that. He was like, oh, I'll come. I said, well, make sure you get your thong and it'll be great. And we laughed. Ha ha.
- [38:54]
Walter Isaacson
Careful of it.
- [38:55]
Kara Swisher
My family's from West Virginia, so I kind of know these people. But with AI, yes, it's going to supplant all kinds of jobs, and it's going to happen at a speed. We've had it happen before. Farmers were the original entrepreneurs. There were 90% of people were farmers. That's an entrepreneurial job. When in the back of the day, figuring out what to do. Now it's 2%, something like that. It's some number that's really low. Manufacturing underwent that, of course, we had the Luddites and everything else, as you know. And then now we have this and the Internet that did.
- [39:28]
Walter Isaacson
But in the previous two revolutions, there were more jobs after they happened than fewer jobs.
- [39:34]
Kara Swisher
There became more jobs, but there was also, which we forget because we have a deficit of memory about history, incredibly socially problematic revolutions and fights. This is happening at such a speed that people don't understand. And so companies are doing layoffs. They did too many hiring during COVID Now they're doing layoffs, and they're using AI as the excuse. But the fact of the matter is you aren't going to need, like, someone. Here's a good example. Barry Diller and I had lunch a couple of years ago. I mean, a year ago, I think two years ago. And he said he had 6,000 programmers. He's like, I bet I have 2,000. So a lot fewer people can do a lot more using AI tools. It's just not clear.
- [40:17]
Walter Isaacson
But that increase in productivity could end up creating.
- [40:21]
Kara Swisher
Yes, but will it create more jobs or less jobs? And what are the other people going to do? If you're a plumber or an electrician,
- [40:28]
Walter Isaacson
that doesn't be in good shape, actually,
- [40:31]
Kara Swisher
which is what the Palantir. Did you see that? Palantir? That guy needs to stop talking. Like, seriously, Alex Karp, he really needs to stop talking. He suddenly is going to pontificate on Salman Rushdie, which then I'm going to tackle him and we're going to please stop talking about things you know nothing about. And so. Or Bill Ackman, the other one. I think I'll start talking about hedge fund investing because I know this much. I know more about hedge fund investing than he knows about almost anything except hedge fund investing. He has an IPO coming up, by the way. Personally, I wouldn't buy.
- [41:05]
Walter Isaacson
How do you personally use AI?
- [41:07]
Kara Swisher
What do I know?
- [41:08]
Walter Isaacson
How do you use AI?
- [41:10]
Kara Swisher
I try to use it every day and I think everyone here should do that and understand where it fits in with your life. You know. I think it's critically important. It's back when the Internet first started. Walter was around at CNN at the time.
- [41:21]
Walter Isaacson
I think Time magazine, I think you have to see. But I'm going to give a shout out to Jim Barksdale came in and he and Tim Berners.
- [41:29]
Kara Swisher
Lee, it's Jim.
- [41:30]
Walter Isaacson
They're both here. There's Jim. Wave your hand or whatever. But Jim was the one who came in 1992. He'll correct me if I'm wrong.
- [41:38]
Kara Swisher
I'll tell you. Quality person of the I really don't like Silicon Valley people. And he's amazing ethics, quality, great business. Knew what he was talking about. Sadly did not reign in Marc Andreessen. But you tried. I really appreciate it. He was an amazing guy. Amazing leader.
- [41:57]
Walter Isaacson
Yeah. And when he came, he said, all right, 1992 web browsers. They were just creating difficult situation.
- [42:06]
Kara Swisher
Yeah, yeah. I mean one of the things that Jim said, and he knows this, he had a bunch of lines. And I found Jim. I found this the other day in a box when you left. They did a party for him and they have a book of his sayings. And one of his sayings was it's important to keep the main thing. The main thing, which I loved. It's such a great idea. But he was trying to bring financial discipline to a business that really was under siege because of Microsoft at the time and tried his best and sold it off correctly to AOL eventually.
- [42:38]
Walter Isaacson
You wrote a book about that.
- [42:39]
Kara Swisher
I did, yeah. He was in it. But one of the things that was important was just because AOL sort of missed the boat, it doesn't mean it wasn't important. And that's what I think about, like which of the ones coming forward are going to be. But getting back to using AI, you've got to figure out if you're in insurance, what does it help you do better. Where does. Like there was a great book by the guy who just died, Daniel Kahneman. Marvelous book about there were 20 insurance adjusters versus AI. AI was more accurate. Something like that. They got 20 different decisions from 20 different people depending on if they had a bad coffee that day or something, or a bad.
- [43:20]
Walter Isaacson
But you keep saying we have to keep humans in the loop.
- [43:23]
Kara Swisher
Yes. So what does it do? It's sort of like, how did the car help us? The car doesn't run everything. The car changed this country, right? Absolutely. So did the plane. I was just at the Air and Space Museum with three of my kids and there was a bunch of quotes nobody ever reads what's on the wall there about when Orville Wright and there was a sister involved that was very critical. FYI, there's a Wright brother's sister who's his right sister and the mother was also critically involved. Very interesting family. There was a bunch of. There was a bunch of quotes of the day. This is going to ruin everything. Like this is going to. Society is now doomed. And then others who said, no, it's going to change everything. Well, it did both those things, right?
- [44:09]
Walter Isaacson
And so will AI.
- [44:10]
Kara Swisher
So will AI. And so what can we do to stress the things that are good about it and what can we do to mitigate the obvious dangers? The ability to do autonomous drones, the ability to make decisions. In the early days of AI, I was at a dinner with a bunch of very well known and they were debating this and they were truly terrified at the possibility. I mean, I hadn't seen them. Usually they're frequently wrong, but never in doubt. But they were very much worried about where it was going. And one of them said to me, you know, if you tell it to solve world hunger, which it probably could pull from all sorts of disparate sources, the number one answer would be kill 100 million people.
- [44:55]
Walter Isaacson
As a paper.
- [44:55]
Kara Swisher
But that's the best answer if you want to solve world hunger. But it's not the best answer. It's a bad answer. But from a logical perspective, it's sort of like Spocks running all over the place. The logical answer is to kill people. The same thing when they just tested nuclear. What should we do in the Mid East? Most of these things said nuclear bomb would work. Well, yes it would, but it would be bad. Speaking of drones and then the other thing that the center for Countering Digital Hate, a group that Elon is trying to put out of business and has been unsuccessful, they just showed that, you know, when they were showing different things of building bombs, causing harm, violence, attacks, all of them recommend the worst thing to do.
- [45:44]
Walter Isaacson
How would you regulate it?
- [45:46]
Kara Swisher
You could start with just based. First of all, we haven't done privacy regulation around our data. You're being used. You know, you seen the Matrix? That's all of you. Just so you know, they're using your data like yesterday, Grammarly. You ever heard of it? It's another AI thing. They took all of my information and were giving advice as Kara Swisher.
- [46:06]
Walter Isaacson
They were saying they were Kara Swisher.
- [46:08]
Kara Swisher
No, they were taking all. I have said a lot of things and have done a lot of interviews. They were bringing it all together, and then they were offering people advice from Kara Swisher without asking Kara Swisher or paying Kara Swisher or anything else. And Matthew McConaughey has talked about this. Lots of people. They are rapacious information thieves, and they will take whatever Sam Altman talked about. This is we're gonna take all of intelligence and sell it back to you. Well, it's our intelligence, it's not theirs. So basic data. We should have a federal privacy law. We do not have one 20 years in to this day. Algorithmic transparency. Why don't we. What is in there? What is in your little black box? How does it go in? What happens? How do you decide? You know, they pretend they're like. They think they're like Kentucky Fried fucking Chicken. Like, it's not a secret. You can actually, by the way, you can figure that recipe out today using AI, but we need to know what's in there, what is going in, what are the inputs, what is the data you're having. Garbage in, garbage out is one of the famous tech phrases. We need to have an ability to sue these people. And by the way, if they win, good for them. If they lose, great for us. Like, so we should.
- [47:23]
Walter Isaacson
So in other words, if an algorithm amplifies hatred and causes a problem, you should be able to sue the company that created that algorithm. And you can't do that now.
- [47:35]
Kara Swisher
Not in many ways. And by the way, let's have that debate. They don't want to have that debate with us. They don't want to like privacy. Right now we should be debating our tax system. Now, I'm not for that California billionaires tax, but there's a new one they're proposing that's pretty good. Makes sense. Makes it much more fair. The idea, like, rich people don't pay. The numbers are just there, the math is there. They haven't been paying as many taxes. There's a way to do it that doesn't create class warfare. Although maybe a little class warfare is not a bad thing sometimes, right? That these people are advantaging themselves through every single possible means and everybody else gets to pay the bill, whether it's through. And they take you know who paid for the Internet? Everybody. You did. The American taxpayer paid for the Internet. And it's a good and guess what our government did that the government paid for research around these amazing MRNA vaccines, around space travel. Guess who's benefiting? Not us. They are. And so to me, we should get a piece of that.
- [48:40]
Podcast Announcer
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- [50:47]
Walter Isaacson
Tell me about the politicians now. Get you out a bit out of your tech comfort zone.
- [50:52]
Kara Swisher
No, I live in Washington now. I spend a lot of.
- [50:55]
Walter Isaacson
And tell me which ones you think. Get it from Talarico to Ro Khanna.
- [51:01]
Kara Swisher
Who do you like? I just did a long interview with Mark Warner that's great about Iran and cybersecurity and election security and a number of things. I think he's a former venture capitalist, really sharp, especially on cybersecurity issues. I think he's terrific. Amy Klobuchar. I've always. Even though her legislation has not made it, I think she's trying really hard to do the right thing and is. She wrote an amazing book on antitrust that is so big, I used to joke with her, you could throw it at a poodle and kill it. It's like this. I read the entire thing. I know a lot about antitrust now.
- [51:33]
Walter Isaacson
But should we be using the antitrust laws to break up new tech companies?
- [51:39]
Kara Swisher
We need to innovate. The antitrust rules, they're written for an era 100 years ago. You know, they're written for the gilded, like, not.
- [51:48]
Walter Isaacson
Well, they still say if you have a dominance in a field and you leverage it in another field, but then we're letting that happen.
- [51:55]
Kara Swisher
So it's not the same thing. It's very. It's like, what is antitrust today? We need a wholesale rethinking because it doesn't work, like, correctly. I know the judge in the case that Facebook just won because things have changed, right? And so now Facebook has plenty of competitors. Things change really quickly. And government doesn't keep up with law. So a redo of the antitrust bills. To me, the only way is litigation, like, because our government is not gonna respond because of the deleterious effects of Citizens United. I did an amazing interview with Larry Lessig about this other case that is gonna possibly knock the stuffing out of super PACs, which will go a long way.
- [52:33]
Walter Isaacson
That'll never pass the Supreme Court.
- [52:34]
Kara Swisher
No, no, it looks like it will, actually. It looks like it might. And so. So we just have to stop. Having this dark money stuff is really problematic because the tech people are taking advantage of it and causing all manner of nefarious things. And years ago, when The Tea Party was sort of going around. I got a call on the phone from. I like to stay on the line with these callers, right? And they go, you know, our government has never done anything. It's the people. Give it back to the people. And I said, oh, how did World War II work out for you? I was like, because if not, we'd be goose stepping down Pennsylvania Avenue if we didn't have the government who fought the Nazis. I was like, that worked out pretty fucking well. How do you like the road you're on? Guess who built that? The national highway system. Get off the fucking roads. If you don't like, the government don't like. You know, I'm not. I agree there's too much regulation in certain areas. But the deli on my corner should not have more regulations than Elon Musk. It just seems just like, what about
- [53:35]
Walter Isaacson
Palantir and Alex Karp?
- [53:37]
Kara Swisher
Yeah, he said he talks too much. He's insane to me. I mean, it's interesting because everyone who refuses to talk to me, I realize, you know, they all refuse now because I'll do it. I won't lick them up and down anymore. But I think it's fine to do that business. He's in the defense business. And that's been a, you know, Lockheed or whatever. I think they have demented ideas about our society that perhaps they shouldn't be involved in.
- [54:04]
Walter Isaacson
But let me talk about the Defense Department, which can't build anything. It can't get the fight.
- [54:09]
Kara Swisher
Sure.
- [54:09]
Walter Isaacson
That team, it can't get a rocket into orbit.
- [54:13]
Kara Swisher
It's great to work with US companies to do that. That's. There's nothing wrong with it.
- [54:17]
Walter Isaacson
Right. So should there be? I think Palmer Lockey is doing Andoril and Palantir, obviously Musk. Should we have these private tech billionaires be taking over our defense?
- [54:31]
Kara Swisher
I think we should have competent people in the government buying this stuff, just like a good vendor might. I don't think they should be pontificating and involved in. I don't think they should install their minions in positions of power. Now look, I'm not naive. This has happened.
- [54:46]
Walter Isaacson
You don't think Lockheed and Boeing did that?
- [54:48]
Kara Swisher
Of course they did. But not you. Did you know what their personal politics was? Did you know they were tweeting about like white supremacists? The last time we had this problem it was Henry Ford. And by the way, rest in not peace, Henry Ford even. Thanks for the car, but fuck you, essentially.
- [55:08]
Walter Isaacson
But you know, he bought newspapers in new anti Suburban.
- [55:12]
Kara Swisher
He did that's correct. That was the last time. If I recommend anything, Rachel Maddow did an amazing series of podcasts called Ultra, where you get a sense of what happened here. And she just did one on the Japanese internment. It has so many echoes of today, of misinformation, of lies, of the government manipulating things, of business, getting weird billionaires. There was a weird Texas billionaire wandering around doing something terrible. Huey Long, all this stuff. This is something that's happened again and again in our history, but we've never had such wealth. I mean, he's gonna be a trillionaire. If this SpaceX thing goes off as it's supposed to, he's gonna be a trillionaire. There's nothing. It's unprecedented in terms of wealth and power and the ability to overwhelm government. And when you have again, a moron like Pete Hegseth in there who just today said he didn't. This is incredible. This is astonishing. CNN had a chyron. And who reads the chyrons? Except this narcissistic prick said, war intensifies. That's a neutral world. It is intensifying. More service members were killed. It's not going away. Like, let's. We're not stupid. He doesn't like the word intensifies. He goes, the Chiron should have been Iran on its last legs, you know? And then he said, swear to God, he goes, I can't wait till David Ellison gets in charge. He's arguing with the word intensifies. If this doesn't remind you of Brave New World and the rest of it, you really should speak.
- [56:47]
Walter Isaacson
Speaking of David Ellison and the media and stuff, you've been working with cnn.
- [56:51]
Kara Swisher
I have.
- [56:52]
Walter Isaacson
What should happen to cnn?
- [56:54]
Kara Swisher
I don't think he should own it. I don't.
- [56:56]
Walter Isaacson
Barry Doer.
- [56:57]
Kara Swisher
I'd love Barry Doer to own it. That'd be a lot of fun. He's a really smart programmer. I don't agree with Barry on lots of stuff, but at least he likes journalists. I just don't think he's qualified. I don't think because you're born to a rich person you should pontificate on media.
- [57:12]
Walter Isaacson
Wait, you talking about Barry Diller or Ellison?
- [57:14]
Kara Swisher
No, Barry Diller is a pro. No, David Ellison. He's a nice guy. He's a very nice guy. I did a podcast with him, but the fact of the matter is he was born on third base and hit a home run. Thinks he hit a home run. And that's great, but I don't know why. This is a lot of Media properties in one person's hand. Now, I think these are. Some of them are declining media properties. So I'm not as worried. But he has shown a proclivity to suck up to Trump. He happens. I knew him as pretty Democratic, but I don't really care. But he's shown a proclivity to suck up to Trump, and Trump is very aggressive.
- [57:48]
Walter Isaacson
Why does that keep. I mean, what. What is Trump's power to get people all over? You said Tim Cook at the beginning. You got Ellison there.
- [57:57]
Kara Swisher
Tariffs he wants to get out of. Everyone has a different.
- [57:59]
Walter Isaacson
Everybody's just doing it for money.
- [58:01]
Kara Swisher
Money. Yeah. Yes. Like I say, they're so poor, all they have is money. They're so poor, they don't have a sense of civic duty and about a bigger picture. So they want shareholders. And I appreciate that. I'm a capitalist. I like making money. I make a lot of money. But, you know, I also can make decisions. And so depending on what they do at cnn, I'll leave. I don't make that much money from them. And I can wander over to. And so we all have to make our decisions. And I've said I'll leave. And I've spoken to some of their executives and they're like, will you really leave? I go, I'll really leave, and really loudly. And there'll be a lot of fuck you. So I don't know what to tell you, but I do that, right? And I can't. I have the choice to do that because I have choices. A lot of people don't in those situations.
- [58:51]
Walter Isaacson
Well, none of the people we're talking about lack choices. Tim Cook. Correct.
- [58:56]
Kara Swisher
But I get his argument. I do get his argument. I get why they all have to do it. But again, they also have. There's a. Like, Dario said no, you know, and then Sachin, he's been banned as well. But you know what? You know who then said no? Satya Nadella said no. Guess what? There's gonna be a lot more no's. Lisa Murkowski just said no to this stupid save act. You know, it's a really good word. You should all use it and we can all say it. And by the way, there's gonna be a price. You know what? Maybe I won't have season two of Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever, but guess what? I'm gonna do something called Kara Swisher Wants to Not Die. I don't know. I'll call it something else. I don't care.
- [59:37]
Walter Isaacson
It's like, all right, since we're at a book festival.
- [59:40]
Kara Swisher
Yeah.
- [59:40]
Walter Isaacson
Talk to me just a little bit. Let's just finish up with what did come out.
- [59:46]
Kara Swisher
When is your book coming out?
- [59:47]
Walter Isaacson
The Marie Curie?
- [59:49]
Kara Swisher
Yeah, that one probably.
- [59:51]
Walter Isaacson
I don't know. Priscilla. When is it coming up, baby? I'm supposed to go home right now and type. She said.
- [59:59]
Kara Swisher
I thought so. Yeah, I know.
- [60:01]
Walter Isaacson
That was a hand signal for go home and type.
- [60:04]
Kara Swisher
Yeah, yeah.
- [60:05]
Walter Isaacson
Now tell me what you read and whether the.
- [60:08]
Kara Swisher
I tend to read fiction now. I'm doing a lot. I just reread the Underground Railroad. I just reread that amazing book.
- [60:17]
Walter Isaacson
Oh, yeah, Colson.
- [60:18]
Kara Swisher
Yes. I just reread it. I don't. I had read it quickly, and I spent a lot more time on it. I love north woods, which. I love that. I love that author. He's amazing. I just love it. It's such a beautiful book about time. And I love time travel. It's a little bit. It's just wonderful. I just finished the Piano Tuner. I tend to read everybody. I'm now gonna read all of Salman Rushdie's books. And I was just.
- [60:41]
Walter Isaacson
I was about to say, I recommend Salman Rushdie.
- [60:43]
Kara Swisher
Yeah, I would. I've always felt like my wife was a book editor at the Boston Globe and was an editor. Was also an editor.
- [60:52]
Walter Isaacson
Amanda.
- [60:52]
Kara Swisher
Amanda at a publisher. She's an incredible. Has incredible taste. I'm kind of dumb. Like, I feel like I'm dumb around nonfiction. And so I always felt Salman Rushdie was too hard for me. I know it sounds like. And I have a lot in my head. And so I tend to. I'm reading mostly fiction right now, and when I get recommendations, I try to read it. And I Actually, right before this, I went online and I said, what's the easiest Salman Rushdie book to start with?
- [61:20]
Walter Isaacson
Apparently, you should go to ChatGPT.
- [61:22]
Kara Swisher
Well, it gave me a good recommendation.
- [61:24]
Walter Isaacson
I'll recommend David Eggers books.
- [61:26]
Kara Swisher
I have interviewed him. I've read all his books.
- [61:28]
Walter Isaacson
It's all about what you write about.
- [61:30]
Kara Swisher
No. When that circle came out, I did a great interview with him. Those are sort of in my genre, so I tend not to want to read in my genre book. I probably will read the book Hail Mary as Project Hail Mary is based on, because it looks like an amazing movie. And I will note that what's really interesting about the Oscars are coming up. And I just did a great show with Matt Bellany. All the speaking of humans and not AI. There's all this controversy in Hollywood about AI Slop and AI replacing. And there's going to be definite changes in Hollywood because of this. But the two most important movies, three or four most important movies, were all from original artists, whether it was Sinners One Battle After Another or Ryan Coogler's Brilliant or Weapons, all the popular movies with regular people, humans, not AI. And so that, to me, was really important.
- [62:23]
Walter Isaacson
Kara Switcher, thank you.
- [62:24]
Kara Swisher
Thank you.
- [62:30]
Podcast Announcer
Today's show was produced by Christian Castro Wisel, Michelle Eloy, Kathryn Millsop, Megan Birney and Kalen Lynch. Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Special thanks to Madeline LaPlante, Duby, Corinne Ruff and the New Orleans Book Festival. Our engineers are Fernando Arruda and Rick Kwan, and our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following the show, you're building an omnimedia empire like Martha Stewart and me, and you're a genius. If not, you're a moron like Pete Hegseth. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for on with Kara Swisher and hit follow. Thanks for listening to on with Kara Swisher from Podium Media, New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us. We'll be back on Thursday with more.