Kara Swisher: Tech, Power, and Why You Should Get the F*cking Duck

Summary

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What Now? with Trevor Noah

Guest: Kara Swisher: Tech, Power, and Why You Should Get the F*cking Duck

Release Date: October 2, 2025
Host: Trevor Noah
Guests: Kara Swisher, Eugene

Episode Overview

This episode features renowned tech journalist Kara Swisher, known for her sharp analysis of Silicon Valley power dynamics, privacy, and tech culture. Trevor, Kara, and their mutual friend Eugene engage in a hilarious, provocative, and insightful discussion touching on everything from selfies with Kim Kardashian to the existential risks and rewards of new technology. The conversation weaves through topics like AI, the shifting mythos of tech founders, work-life choices, and the challenge of staying true to oneself—and ordering the “f*cking duck”—in a world obsessed with money, appearances, and power.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Tech, Privacy, and the Evolution of Silicon Valley

• Early Warnings on Privacy:

  • Kara shares her decades-old practice of posting fake birthdays online to protect her privacy, recounting suspicions about AOL’s data practices (06:03-06:54).

    "The minute I saw what AOL was doing, I realized they were scraping and stealing information so they could take advantage of you and sell advertising."
    — Kara Swisher (06:47)

• Infrastructure and Global Access:

  • Kara describes a visualization at Google showing data requests as beams of light, noting Africa's near-absence—underscoring the importance of access, not ‘lack of curiosity’ (08:20-09:50).

    "It would show the amount of questions being asked around the world... and you'd spin around to Africa, and almost no light was coming off of it. And I remember turning to Sergey or Larry... and he said, 'They're not asking questions.' I said, 'No, they're not allowed to ask questions because they don't have access.'"
    — Kara Swisher (08:38)

• Wireless Leapfrogging:

  • Trevor and Kara discuss how wireless technology enabled places like South Africa and India to surpass the U.S. in connectivity (09:50-10:58).

• The Myth of the Tech Titan:

  • The conversation deconstructs how tech founders are mythologized as demigods, and the resulting disconnect from reality and feedback.

    "We have to make these people into gods. Right? They're magicians or gods. They're not gods. They're just people. And very broken people, many of them."
    — Kara Swisher (11:37)

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Tech, Power & Personality: The Elon Musk Effect

• Playful Alien Theories:

  • The trio riffs on the idea of Elon Musk being a marooned alien just trying to get home, using it as a comedic entry point to discuss his otherness and ambition (12:32-14:06).

• Mars Obsession & Delusions of Grandeur:

  • Kara highlights the impracticality of Mars colonization, noting recent science and the egotistical drives behind such projects (14:06-15:46).

    "Literally, the worst day on Earth is better than the best day on Mars... You have to live below ground, protect yourself from radiation... you get shorter, and you get stupider."
    — Kara Swisher (14:11)

• The Fall of Tech Stardom:

  • Kara discusses why the public’s infatuation with tech billionaires like Musk and Bezos is fading—linking it to anti-social behaviors and failed innovation in products like the Tesla Cybertruck (16:24-17:02).

    "He showed his ass and I think you noticed. Wow, he's a little strange. Wow. He's cutting indiscriminately. Wow. He doesn't know what he's talking about."
    — Kara Swisher (16:54)

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Tech’s Shift: From “Nerds” to Market Extractors

• The Rise and Fall of the Inventor Ethos:

  • Trevor laments tech’s shift from “big ideas” to incremental, extractive apps (22:05-23:41).

    "At one point, Silicon Valley became really smart people doing really small things."
    — Kara Swisher (23:41)

• Importance of Design and Use:

  • A deep dive into why the user experience of products (like the iPhone’s camera “bump”) reflects whether tech leaders actually use their own devices—or just follow trends (24:19-25:24, 38:58-41:41).

    "When I saw it, I thought Steve Jobs would vomit on this phone. Like, he would not have let it go like that. No way."
    — Kara Swisher (39:41)

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AI, The Future of Work, and What Now?

• AI’s Promise and Dystopias:

  • Kara suggests that AI, properly wielded, could streamline mundane work while enhancing creativity, if approached thoughtfully rather than selfishly (43:52, 115:24-116:28).

    "AI comes up with... 21 are pretty fucking good... Let the person have the final decision making."
    — Kara Swisher (115:24)

• Innovation vs. Extraction:

  • Discussion surfaces concern that many tech founders have lost their early hope and are now just amplifying their original flaws, insulated from real-world critique (56:17-60:38).

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Personal Agency, Choosing Passion, and “Ordering the Duck”

• Making Life Choices:

  • Kara shares the “duck” metaphor: don’t settle for what you’re offered (the chicken, the pork)—ask for what you really want, or find a different restaurant (90:31-93:06).

    "Go in and they have chicken, pork, and lamb, and you want duck: Ask for the fucking duck… If you want duck, order the fucking duck."
    — Kara Swisher (91:32)

• Reflections on Death, Legacy, and Time:

  • Inspired by losing her father young and influenced by Steve Jobs' Stanford speech, Kara emphasizes living authentically and choosing happiness over hollow wealth (87:49-90:14).

    "Every time I have been successful, I do things that please me... I liked what I did."
    — Kara Swisher (87:55) "You'll be dead in a hundred years. Goodbye... Think about it and then make your choice."
    — Kara Swisher (97:41)

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Technology, Imagination, and the Power of Story

• Tech as Science Fiction Made Real:

  • The group explores how movies (Star Trek, Matrix, Terminator, Fight Club) directly inspired tech innovation—imagination feeding reality (75:20–77:27).

    "People take for granted how much the technology that is made today was made by people who were inspired by the movies they were watching as kids."
    — Trevor Noah (75:32)

• The Risks of Endless Life & the Value of Scarcity:

  • On longevity tech, Trevor argues that knowing life (and moments) are finite gives them value (103:05-104:10).

    "The value of things is often most appreciated in their scarcity."
    — Trevor Noah (103:08)

• The Two Ways to Shape the Future:

  • Trevor relates a lesson from Bhutan and Paris—some build for a future they’ll never see, others imagine they’ll be there forever, with the latter usually making worse decisions (98:40-99:25).

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Humor, Intimacy, and Life Advice

• Iconic Quotes & Memorable Moments:
  • On selfies:

    "So she was teaching me duck face."
    — Kara Swisher (02:33)

  • On Elon Musk as an alien:

    "Maybe his spaceship broke down."
    — Kara Swisher (13:23)

  • On partners everyone dislikes:

    "I've never met her fucking husband. I never hope to. If her husband fell on me, I wouldn't know it was her husband."
    — Kara Swisher (50:00)

  • Ordering the duck:

    "Ask for the fucking duck. And she was like, what if they don't have duck? I said, they have duck. It's back there."
    — Kara Swisher (91:38)

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Relationships, Matchmaking, and Friendship

• Making Lists and Knowing What You Want:

  • Kara encourages Eugene to make a prospective partner checklist — and stack-rank priorities (like privacy, family orientation, flexibility) (46:13-47:54).

• Friends Setting You Up:

  • The value of being fixed up by friends versus dating apps or algorithms, highlighting the nuance, care, and intuition that tech often misses (38:05-44:08).

• The Power of the Inner Circle:

  • Trevor and Kara emphasize that maintaining friendship circles improves longevity and happiness—even more important than romantic relationships (49:56-51:03).

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Reflections on Tech, Power, and Humanity

• Why She Never Got Wealthy Off Tech:

  • Swisher recounts passing on early jobs at AOL, Facebook, Google, and Amazon, reflecting on the contentment found in pursuing passion over wealth (84:00-86:45).

• Critique of Tech Power:

  • Despite her love of tech, Kara explains her anger that the internet, born as a government project, disproportionately enriched a few white men and became shaped by their impulses—failing to benefit humanity broadly (54:11-55:38).

    "The internet was built by the US government… paid for by the US taxpayer. Who made all the money? A small group of largely white men… I don’t understand why everybody doesn’t benefit from the fruits of this technology except for a small group of people."
    — Kara Swisher (54:11)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Segment Topic | Timestamp | |---------------------------------------------|-------------------| | Privacy, AOL, and Google’s early days | 06:00–10:58 | | Visualization of global data requests | 08:20–09:50 | | Tech founders mythologized | 11:37–12:00 | | Elon Musk: Alien, Mars, & public backlash | 12:32–16:28 | | Tech’s lost passion for invention | 22:05–23:41 | | Apple’s design, Jobs, and bad product ideas | 24:18–25:24, 38:58–41:41 | | The “Duck” metaphor for choosing in life | 90:31–93:06 | | The dark side of wealth & power in tech | 56:17–60:38 | | Tech & pop culture—movies shape innovation | 75:20–77:27 | | AI, work, future jobs | 43:52, 115:24–116:28 | | On mortality, making choices | 97:41–99:25 |

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Notable Quotes

• "Ask for the fucking duck."
  — Kara Swisher (91:38)

• "They’re not gods. They’re just people. And very broken people, many of them."
  — Kara Swisher (11:37)

• "If you are using AI to get rid of employees, you're a company that's run out of ideas."
  — Jensen Huang, as relayed by Trevor Noah (105:30)

• "Every time I have been successful, I do things that please me."
  — Kara Swisher (87:55)

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Tone and Feel

Conversational, witty, irreverent, uncensored, and sharply insightful—with plenty of self-aware humor, story-driven asides, and a recurring sense of both hope and frustration around how tech serves (or hurts) society.

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For Listeners Who Missed The Episode

Through a rich tapestry of sharp critiques, personal stories, pop culture references, and comic riffs, Trevor Noah and Kara Swisher dissect the forces shaping the tech world—and our broader culture. You’ll come away with a deeper understanding of how Silicon Valley lost its visionary spark, why power isolates, why “ordering the duck” matters, and why what we choose to imagine (in movies, in life, in technology) shapes the future far more than we realize.

Kara’s ultimate advice? If you have the choice, don’t settle. Be intentional—demand what you really want, in tech, in love, in life. And don’t ever be afraid to be the person who orders the f*cking duck.

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Transcript

[Trevor Noah]

Kara Swisher is widely considered the most.

[Kara Swisher]

Powerful and plugged in reporter in the world of big tech. Kara Swisher knows Silicon Valley as well as anyone. My source tonight is the veteran tech insider, Kara Swisher, the host of the podcast on with Kara Swisher and Pivot. Who do you consider your competitors?

[Trevor Noah]

You tend to go wrong by focusing.

[Kara Swisher]

Too much on competition.

[Trevor Noah]

We want to dominate in the great next global industry.

[Kara Swisher]

Do you feel like it's a backlash or do you feel like you're violating people's privacy? What do you do all day?

[Trevor Noah]

Most people think not enough.

[Kara Swisher]

There is no better expert. So I got to go to you on this. You've been following how these tech companies deal with misinformation, disinformation, conspiracy theories, and you've seen the struggle. If we want innovation in the future in AI, in robotics, in advanced medical stuff, we have to have a robust pipeline of talent from across the globe.

[Trevor Noah]

This is what now with Trevor Noah.

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[Eugene]

The end of this podcast.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, we're taking a self.

[Eugene]

Pictures are amazing.

[Kara Swisher]

He was like, composition and everything. No, he said, where did you learn how to do selfies? And actually, Kim Kardashian.

[Trevor Noah]

No. Are you being serious?

[Eugene]

I didn't expect that.

[Trevor Noah]

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

[Kara Swisher]

I showed you. I showed this one.

[Eugene]

Not, yes, but show him what he taught me.

[Kara Swisher]

So she was teaching me duck face.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay.

[Kara Swisher]

And that time we were together, so she's like, here's how you do it. And she showed me. She has a light, this Lumi light around her camera. It's Right there. That's how the picture looked.

[Trevor Noah]

Kim Kardashian taught you how to take selfies.

[Eugene]

Yeah, but your day to day, she's good at it.

[Trevor Noah]

No, I mean, I'm assuming that she's brilliant at it.

[Eugene]

Pictures of family.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, oh, oh. All right.

[Eugene]

Every time I've tried to take it for. It looks like I'm using a Nokia 3210. That phone did not have a camera, so you can.

[Trevor Noah]

That's what I was about to say. I was like, I don't know why that image was even better for me. Because the Nokia 3210 doesn't have a camera.

[Kara Swisher]

Exactly.

[Eugene]

Well, why are you saying my pictures look like there's someone with a sketch pad and.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, man.

[Kara Swisher]

All right.

[Eugene]

You are so good at pictures.

[Kara Swisher]

That's all four of them with their babysitter both the same.

[Trevor Noah]

You know, I didn't know what to expect, but you're not wrong.

[Kara Swisher]

No. There they are.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. The composition.

[Kara Swisher]

That's them.

[Trevor Noah]

The lighting looking like a pile, but.

[Eugene]

Where you're standing at.

[Kara Swisher]

Pig pile. See, they love doing that. But we just put a sheet up behind us and took the sheet up.

[Trevor Noah]

And then you just jumped in.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Do you think. Do you think the cameras are actually getting.

[Kara Swisher]

They're so good. The new camera on the new iPhone.

[Trevor Noah]

Do you leave your phone portrait unlocked or locked?

[Kara Swisher]

I let it decide. Whatever turns. Yeah. These are amazing, amazing computers. They're astonishing.

[Trevor Noah]

No, I'm just always intrigued by which people keep it locked or keep it unlocked.

[Kara Swisher]

Unlocked. Cause if I want to watch something.

[Trevor Noah]

So if you turn it sideways, does it turn?

[Kara Swisher]

Yes, lock it.

[Eugene]

I've just explained to you now. Do you know pictures that I take?

[Trevor Noah]

Do you know what I'm talking about?

[Kara Swisher]

No, he doesn't.

[Trevor Noah]

Eugene is the perfect person to have this conversation with us because he's like a Mega Luddite, but without trying to.

[Kara Swisher]

There's a thing called the lock screen on this. You lock it, and when you do that, it doesn't do it. You unlock it. And then if you're watching a movie or. Or something on YouTube. Yeah.

[Eugene]

Let's do everything in real time, except you're in.

[Kara Swisher]

You're. You're in. It is now unlocked. Now it's locked. Yeah, there we go. There.

[Eugene]

Keep it unlocked.

[Kara Swisher]

Keep it unlocked in case you're watching.

[Trevor Noah]

Like, if you want to turn your.

[Eugene]

Screen, then it just.

[Trevor Noah]

But I don't like. I don't like my screen turning when I turn the screen.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, okay.

[Trevor Noah]

You know what I mean? I'm Very intentional about those moments. So sometimes what I don't like is it will turn when I'm by itself to turn.

[Kara Swisher]

That's right. That's right.

[Trevor Noah]

I just want to look at my phone from a different angle.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, yes. Then you should lock.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh.

[Eugene]

Sometimes you're just minding your business going.

[Trevor Noah]

And then it turn. I don't like that. So I'm like, don't turn for me.

[Kara Swisher]

Don't turn.

[Trevor Noah]

I will tell you when it's time to turn. Plus, a lot of the apps that have come out now, they. They auto rotate when you go into like a full screen.

[Kara Swisher]

That's right, they do.

[Trevor Noah]

So I feel like it's a.

[Kara Swisher]

You feel like your free will is taking.

[Trevor Noah]

This is. This is exactly what I'm.

[Eugene]

So would you.

[Kara Swisher]

This is autocracy. Really?

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Kara Swisher]

If you really want to get into.

[Trevor Noah]

This is my true challenge in life.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, yeah.

[Eugene]

Keep it.

[Trevor Noah]

No, you do what you want. See what your vibe is. But at least now you know because Kara Swisher has talked. By the way. Welcome to the podcast. And more important, happy birthday.

[Kara Swisher]

It's not my birthday.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, I feel like it's never your birthday.

[Kara Swisher]

No, it's never. I put birthdays all over the Internet, so nobody knows my birthday.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. But then I feel like.

[Kara Swisher]

But then I feel like I should.

[Trevor Noah]

Say happy birthday to you.

[Kara Swisher]

Every month is my birthday.

[Trevor Noah]

You know, when I read this about you, I was like, this is one of the craziest things and most amazing things I've ever. When did you start doing this?

[Kara Swisher]

In 1993. 1992. 3.

[Trevor Noah]

You put up your first fake birthday?

[Kara Swisher]

No, no, I did that later after I realized what was happening with the privacy stuff, which was relatively soon. I just kept telling different things. There's a correct birthday up there. They've found the real birthday. So.

[Trevor Noah]

But you just keep.

[Kara Swisher]

I just change it and tell people different things and just. I put it up in places. I'll change it in different places just to just. Cause I don't want people to necessarily know my birthday. Cause I was really worried about privacy from the get go. When AOL started. I started covering aol in the 90s, and that was the first iteration of where we are today. Popular one. There were others. There was, you know, there were all kinds of message boards and things like that, but it was real complicated. And if you didn't, it was not easy to use. And so AOL was the first commercial interpretation of what we see today. And that wasn't even the Internet. That was a service that was then Attached to the Internet. That was, you know, it was not the Internet. It was like a walled garden approach. And the minute I saw what AOL was doing, I realized they were scraping and stealing information so they could take advantage of you and sell advertising.

[Trevor Noah]

You Knew this in 1993?

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it was obvious what they were doing. What did they need all this information? Why were advertising come back? That were based on my searches and stuff. And then when Google was there, I got it right away. You understood what their. Well, initially, Google's business model was not advertising. They didn't have one. Actually, they came upon advertising.

[Trevor Noah]

This is. I remember using aol, and I don't know what it was like in America, but in South Africa, we didn't really have these services full on. So we would get a cd, a disc.

[Kara Swisher]

Everybody did.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, that was the same.

[Kara Swisher]

Yes, everybody. That was their method of marketing.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. And I could only access it for like, it was like 30 minutes. Like, each disc gave me 30 minutes.

[Kara Swisher]

To try it out. To try it out.

[Trevor Noah]

And then that was. But in my world, I didn't know when the next disc would come. So I'd go in these little chat rooms and these, like, I'd make friends on these chat sites, you know, And I remember it was like, age, sex, location, asl. And you type that in. And then I would go, you know, age, male, and location, South Africa. Then people would be like, you're lying. That was the first thing everyone said. You're lying. Yeah, like, there's no Internet in Africa.

[Kara Swisher]

Ah, yes, there is. Well, there's not as much. I'll tell you that. That was. That's.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes, but they were like, there's no Internet in Africa. And then I would say sort of like your birthday thing. I would go, well, I am the prince of my village. I have the one computer. And you know what's crazy? That's when they accepted it.

[Eugene]

They're like, you're not a prince.

[Trevor Noah]

They're like, that makes sense. The prince of makes sense. Welcome to the Internet.

[Kara Swisher]

It's interesting you said that about Africa, because in the early days, Google had this amazing visualization when you entered the company. It was small company at the time, and it would show a globe where all the information requests were coming from. And it was different colors based on language. And so it was sort of a light visualization. So it would show the amount of questions being asked around the world. And it would be like beams of light, almost like skyscrapers. Right. And you'd see New York, big skyscraper. And Lots of languages. And you'd spin around to Europe and there'd be a lot with lots of light. Like Germany had German, French, whatever they were speaking and you see lots of light and you would spin around to different. Asia was just bright because they were using Internet and cause the cables that went across the seas were linking all these countries. Right. Africa had almost no light coming off of it. And I remember turning to Sergei or Larry, I can't ever tell them apart at this point. And I said, what's going on? And he said, they're not asking questions. I said, no, they're not allowed, allowed to ask questions because they don't have access. They have questions. So you know, this whole asking questions is about modernity. When you ask questions and they weren't. This one continent was not able to ask questions. They didn't have the fiber laid. But when wireless showed up, it grew really fast because then whether it's be satellite or whatever it happens to be, they got, they had. Fiber is a problem ultimately. So when wireless happened, it changed.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, like the physical infrastructure in most developing nations is the hardest to get going.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

But that's why wireless became the revolution. So in, in South Africa, and I think many parts of southern Africa and India, we actually leapfrogged the United States. We did in our connectivity and speed. Like I remember visiting America and 3G wasn't a thing here. And people were still on like old CDMA technology, like a gprs.

[Kara Swisher]

That's for another reason, because the companies didn't want to modernize. And so, you know, one of the things we did, and I didn't interview at the time, the head of the FCC and the US had the most expensive Internet access and the least fast. So I was like, oh, so we're getting shitty service for the most expensive price. And it was because of the way these things were monopolies. And they didn't, you know, whatever the cable, the cable barons didn't owned a certain section. And whether they decided to modernize or not was when things got modernized. And so there was no competition. And they tried to keep satellite out, they tried to keep all kinds of things out in the United States because we let these corporations rule the roost, as we always do. And that's why it was so slow to get here. Competition is what everything is about in general.

[Trevor Noah]

There's two things you've said that just sparked sort of how we should be looking at tech even through today's lens. The first one was when you said you're at Google, you're talking to the two people who've started Google. They have a device that tracks where people are asking questions from in the world. They see no questions from Africa. And they're like. As Africans aren't asking questions.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, that was their first thing. And also what they also had is.

[Trevor Noah]

But what I'm saying to that point, so. And I want to hear what you're gonna say after that. But it's wild to me that the people who are like sort of seen as shaping the world and the most intelligent weren't intelligent enough to come to the conclusion.

[Kara Swisher]

I don't think they're the most intelligent. I don't.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, but that's how they're seen is what I mean.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, of course. Cause we have to make these people into gods. Right? They're magicians or gods. They're not gods. They're just people. And very broken people, many of them. I mean, look at Elon Mus Musk from your country. And wow, wow, wow, wow.

[Trevor Noah]

Damn. Damn. The way she just threw that at us from your country. That was so slick.

[Kara Swisher]

He's a proud immigrant, which happens to be.

[Trevor Noah]

She threw a ninja star at us. And look at Elon Musk, that crazy bastard from your country.

[Kara Swisher]

I meant that as a compliment. I meant that as a compliment. He was an export into this country.

[Eugene]

We'll take that.

[Kara Swisher]

Good for us for letting him in. That was great. You know, maybe not today, but. Yes, for a while. For sure. But yeah, he should. Well, he should go to Mars. Let's just be clear. Let's send him to Mars. Let's move him to another.

[Trevor Noah]

I sometimes think he's just trying to get home.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, to Mars. Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Like if we found out that Elon Musk was an alien who's always just been trying to go home, it wouldn't be the most shocking thing. When you think about it, you're right. You look at his mannerisms, the way he jumps, his vibe, the way he. He doesn't like really understand human empathy the same way.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

What if the guy's just trying to go home?

[Eugene]

So he's a trapped alien who's trying to get home.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. Because he can't tell us he's an alien.

[Kara Swisher]

There's been movies like that, remember, where they're like that.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, yeah.

[Kara Swisher]

Very well done. Yeah, well done.

[Trevor Noah]

Like. So if you were an alien who was trapped on Earth and you knew you had advanced technology.

[Eugene]

So he's the only one here.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes.

[Eugene]

Of his kind.

[Trevor Noah]

You have super advanced technology. How you're not going to come out and tell humans I'm an alien. You know what we do to you.

[Kara Swisher]

Right, right.

[Trevor Noah]

You know, dissect you.

[Kara Swisher]

Obviously.

[Trevor Noah]

Exactly.

[Eugene]

The bigger question should be, why did they send him here?

[Trevor Noah]

No, but who said they sent him?

[Kara Swisher]

Maybe he got stopped.

[Trevor Noah]

I like this.

[Eugene]

He got lost.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, he got lost.

[Trevor Noah]

Maybe his. Maybe his spaceship broke down.

[Eugene]

And where is it?

[Kara Swisher]

He fell in the sea also.

[Eugene]

He was in the sea and then he swam.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. He's a mainland, so he's got fish.

[Eugene]

Like, how do you explain. His race is dead.

[Trevor Noah]

That's a tough one.

[Kara Swisher]

He buys sperm.

[Trevor Noah]

Maybe. Okay, maybe. Maybe it's. Maybe it's like clock and Superman. Maybe his dad, like, found his pod and then has just been raising him.

[Eugene]

So he was out fishing.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes.

[Eugene]

And then all of a sudden, there was a floating.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, and then he. And then he raised him and he was like.

[Kara Swisher]

And then he gave him a meat suit.

[Trevor Noah]

There you go.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

What was he before? Was he like a weird blob?

[Trevor Noah]

We don't know. We'll never know. We'll never know until we get to Mars. We'll never know Elon's true form.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, we actually know what people look like on Mars, if they actually. Today, interestingly, you're talking about, they found some bio on Mars. It was a speckled rock, and it has.

[Trevor Noah]

Wait, what?

[Kara Swisher]

They found something that's akin to life there. It's not a person, but it's a. I think it feels like. It's almost like lichen or something on this rock. It's a speckled rock with bio material. That's what they're calling it on it. Yeah. So that life does exist. Well, water exists there. Lots of stuff exists there. So there's a possibility of further life. That said, interestingly, I just interviewed an astrobiologist and physicist, and he. And he was noting. He wrote a book called. His name's Adam Becker, wrote More Everything Forever, which is the sort of motto of tech people, which is not, you can't have more everything forever. Right. But they think that. And so he was blowing up the Mars idea, because Mars, they've got gravity issues. They've got massive radiation issues. It's constantly hit by comets and asteroids and stuff like that. And so he was like, literally, the worst day on Earth is better than the best day on Mars. Like, because you have to live below ground, like deep into the ground. You have to protect yourself from radiation. Your bones get, I think, more brittle. I'm not sure what happened, but you get shorter is what happens, and you get stupider and you get stupider when you're there. And so you do become, you know, these depictions of Martians as sort of mole people, it's actually kind of accurate. That's what would happen to humans there.

[Trevor Noah]

That could be us.

[Kara Swisher]

Right.

[Trevor Noah]

This is sometimes where I think of like, you know, like the sci fi stories.

[Kara Swisher]

Warm and hot, too.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

At the same time. Different time, definitely.

[Kara Swisher]

No, no. On the same day. Like, they.

[Trevor Noah]

It just like goes. It oscillates between.

[Kara Swisher]

It oscillates, yeah. And you age really quick, which is another thing. So there's no reason to wanna go there.

[Eugene]

Yeah. At all. You didn't sell it well, did you?

[Kara Swisher]

So.

[Trevor Noah]

But what is their obsession with it?

[Kara Swisher]

Cause you can get to it.

[Eugene]

It's closest.

[Trevor Noah]

No, but I mean, like, I wonder if you've garnered an insight, you know, going back to what we were talking about. These men are seen in today's world, at least they're seen as like, demigods. I've talked to people who genuinely believe that you should never ever question Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos.

[Kara Swisher]

Not anymore. Not anymore. That's changed recently.

[Trevor Noah]

Slowly. Yeah.

[Kara Swisher]

I don't know. I think their brand is not great these days. I mean, Elon's brand.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes.

[Kara Swisher]

Was quite high and now it's. I think he was the most hated person in America recently. In a reason.

[Trevor Noah]

I mean, in a.

[Kara Swisher]

In a poll, one of these polls, I was surprised. I was like, not Trump. It's him. It's actually.

[Eugene]

It's actually Elon Musk.

[Kara Swisher]

Musk, yeah. His point.

[Trevor Noah]

Cause he went against Trump.

[Kara Swisher]

That was his mistake. No, that's not why. That's not why it was declined. It was already. Because he acts like an asshole. Like, you know, and he showed himself. He showed his ass. I mean, that's what he did. He showed his ass and I think you noticed. Wow, he's a little strange. Wow. He's cutting without indiscriminately. Wow. He doesn't know what he's talking about. He kept showing his ass. And you were like, oh, wait a minute.

[Eugene]

Yeah, he is.

[Kara Swisher]

You know, and just jumping up and down, saying tweeting things about how we need more white people on the planet and et cetera. You start to be, like, sort of repelled by it. And look at the brand. Look, I don't have to prove it. I don't think it's just because people don't like them that Tesla's sales have been plummeted. I think that's part of it. Other party doesn't have a car Anybody wants anymore. And there's lots of competition. China is tracking him across the globe. BYD making great, innovative cars all across the globe. In this country, a whole bunch of car makers have great. Rivian or Ford has some great cars. Everybody's now competing. And Tesla hasn't innovated in a very long time. Except for the Cybertruck, which, as you know, is the ugliest car in existence. And. No. And it hasn't been able to sell very many, except for men of problematic penis size. Maybe a woman or two.

[Eugene]

How do we have a society of men of problematic penis sizes?

[Kara Swisher]

Because you're a parent of three men. Yes. No. Two young men and one boy. Yes. Yes. I don't know. I think it's really. I think it's been with us forever. That's not a new freshman.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. You know what I actually think? I actually think we are in a cycle. Like, it's a loop of life. We often forget that tech was the domain of the nerd. Right? Like, I know when I was burning CDs, like when I had my first CD ROM, my first CD writer, my modem, when I was building my own little rig. You know what I mean? When I was in that world, I can tell you now, that world did not. Not brush up against anything cool or sexual.

[Kara Swisher]

Yes. No. Okay.

[Trevor Noah]

None of that.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. Fast forward to today.

[Trevor Noah]

There was no world where I could say to you, ah, my PCI slots got me closer to that woman. No. Never happened.

[Eugene]

A lot of things are making sense about you now. So. A lot. And, you know, I'm glad you're opening up about this, because there's times where I have questions.

[Kara Swisher]

You just had them answered like this.

[Eugene]

When he said PCI slides.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, it was.

[Trevor Noah]

It was a.

[Kara Swisher]

Was trying to make a sexual reference. But it didn't come.

[Eugene]

No, No.

[Trevor Noah]

I wasn't at all genuinely see the problem. I wasn't.

[Eugene]

I wish he was.

[Kara Swisher]

We heard it.

[Eugene]

I wish he was.

[Kara Swisher]

I'm teasing you.

[Trevor Noah]

No, genuinely. But I mean, like, it just was.

[Kara Swisher]

There's a lot of tech words that are very sexual, though I've never even.

[Trevor Noah]

Thought of them in that way.

[Kara Swisher]

Put the floppy disk in.

[Trevor Noah]

Wow. Okay. I would go with a stiffy.

[Kara Swisher]

Hard drive, hard drive, hard drive. There's all kinds of stuff on there.

[Trevor Noah]

So when I think of that world, right? There was a community that we would. We would form as nerds, where we, you know, the bullies beat us up. The. It was just not the cool space to be in. Right. Then money comes into. Becomes money. It becomes the force that changes the world. And then what we forget is this is a. Like an entire generation of nerds who were bullied, who were always on the outside. And now society has just told them that they're the coolest people, but they didn't.

[Kara Swisher]

Sort of like, I don't think they've ever been the. I think you're going, no, but I'm saying society. Society likes money and.

[Trevor Noah]

Money. But that's what I mean. Attractive, but that's what I mean.

[Kara Swisher]

And without the money, they would remain uncool.

[Trevor Noah]

And the power.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, right, exactly. And so. And even now, the way, like, for example, that dinner they all had, it was embarrassing to them. Oh, yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Dinner at the White House.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. I was like, you're the richest people in the world and you have to suck this guy's, you know, whatever.

[Trevor Noah]

Pci.

[Kara Swisher]

Scrutiny. Yes, pci. It was really quite something to see. It's like, what's the point of being the richest people in the world if this is what you have to do? Aren't you exempt from. From that? But they're not. And so they. I don't think they look very cool. I thought they looked kind of like toadies. Pathetic toadies. But that's.

[Eugene]

Don't you think maybe that's the side effect of being bullied as a young person?

[Kara Swisher]

Not all of them were.

[Eugene]

You just want to be with a cool guy. Doesn't drop.

[Kara Swisher]

No, not all of them. Mark Cuban's pretty cool. He's pretty cool. He's always been cool. I think, for example, Mark Cuban, was he like tech. Tech nerd in that he's a tech nerd. Yeah, yeah. He's just a different kind, you know, I think. I mean, Mark Zuckerberg is kind of classic, but. But actually he was pretty popular in high school, from what I understand. He was not bullied. And it just depends. I think that, you know, it's. Cause it's formed by Hollywood, like Revenge of the Nerds and those. And all those movies. And I think as tech became so important to all our lives, we began to recognize the importance of these characters in making us understanding it and inventing it. But back in the day, Edison was a hero. All those people, all those inventors, Franklin, they were all heroes. So I think we've always loved the inventor. I think that's not a new thing. But you're right, there were these images, like Bill Gates, for example, sort of was the quintessential nerd. Right.

[Trevor Noah]

But that image is. You know, when you talk about. I love that you Say the word inventors. Cause I watch every single Apple event.

[Kara Swisher]

They just had one.

[Trevor Noah]

Every wwdc, every new launch, every. You know, I watch the Pixel events, I watch the Google this, I watch the. I watched them all. And I don't know if I'm the only one, but I feel like over the past few years, I felt like it's less a club of inventors now.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, yeah. Than marketers. Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

It feels more like it's marketing and extraction. It doesn't feel like when you say these things, Edison, I go, yeah, but look at what Edison was trying to do. You know, Graham Bell. Look what Graham Bell was trying. Look what Tesla, the man was trying to do. None of these people were trying to think of a way for you to get your, like your. Your food 15 minutes faster than you were getting it before.

[Kara Swisher]

Right.

[Trevor Noah]

That's not an invention, in my opinion.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, it was interesting because at one point in. In some of it was inventions. Absolutely. And Steve Jobs sort of personified that. Although he wasn't a technical person, he was just. He was good at marketing and he was good at visionary, being visionary of what it should be. And he had enough technical expertise to. To spur inventors to make what he. What his vision was. But one. At one point during the. It got so, I guess fucked up that they were. Someone came to me with like, digital dry cleaning service. I was like, this is not innovation. This is just.

[Trevor Noah]

What do you mean, a digital dry clean?

[Kara Swisher]

You just ordered on an app. That's all it was just an app and it was still dry clean. I'm like, are you gonna dry clean it digitally? Because that would be cool. But one of the things that I used to. Someone said to me at the time, and I agree with it, was at one point Silicon Valley became really smart people doing really small things. And that's what it felt like.

[Trevor Noah]

Really smart.

[Kara Swisher]

That's why Elon was so interesting, I have to say, and I spent a lot of time with him was because he was talking about cars, he was talking about space, he was talking about neuralink, he was talking about tunneling and hyperloop, whatever you think of those things and whether they work or not, they were big ideas.

[Trevor Noah]

They were.

[Kara Swisher]

And so smart people working on small ideas is really quite deflating in a lot of ways. And I think a lot of it is that right? And Steve Jobs was perfect at making you see the vision of where it was going. Because, you know, this phone, even though it's. They just released the skinny one. I don't know if you Saw it. It's got that bump on it. I saw it last night.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, it's a mega bump.

[Kara Swisher]

The bump is weird.

[Trevor Noah]

It's massive. It's also lopsided. That's my problem. Like, maybe it's just a mega.

[Kara Swisher]

Steve wouldn't have liked that.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, go. Like, if you're gonna make a phone that has a mega bump on the back.

[Kara Swisher]

Makes more bump.

[Trevor Noah]

It make more bump. Because then when I put the phone down, it's flat. Now you have a phone that's one corner and then it wobbles and it does a thing. Like, why am I resting my phone on the camera? I mean, maybe it's just me, but.

[Kara Swisher]

I'm like, right, they have. They have a case for it. But then it's not.

[Trevor Noah]

Then what's the point of the thin film?

[Kara Swisher]

Correct. I sent this to this Apple executive and they're like, God, you're annoying, Steve.

[Eugene]

I had to sit through this lecture last night.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, did you? It is so he's 100% right. The wobble.

[Trevor Noah]

And not just the wobble. You make the thinnest phone.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

And then you put a fat battery on it and you tell me, look, we can put a battery. But then if I've got to put a fat battery on a thin phone, you've got me back to the fat phone.

[Kara Swisher]

Give me back this.

[Eugene]

Okay, but the gains of the fat back and the wobble.

[Kara Swisher]

No, it's no gains.

[Trevor Noah]

There's no gains. So you don't get one camera instead of three. I have less battery life than I would have on the other one. Less battery life. It also charges slower.

[Kara Swisher]

Right, right.

[Trevor Noah]

So it charges slower. I've got fewer speaker grills.

[Kara Swisher]

Yes, that's right.

[Trevor Noah]

Come on.

[Kara Swisher]

I'm not loving this new one. I have to say. You know what? I do love the new AirPods. Now, that's pretty. Those things are cool. Real time station. Well, AirPods should be. If it was a business by itself, it would be a massive business. Right? And everyone made fun of them at the time they came out. If you remember, everyone's like, you look ridiculous. I'm like, no, no. These are fantastic. One of the things that, to me will happen is someday we will have video cameras in them or some sort of camera, and it will start talk. It will be your. Instead of wearing glasses, like, which some people are working on. Meta has some. Apple obviously did Vision Pro. But these are where I think there's gonna be visuals and then it's gonna talk to you like in that movie Her. It'll Be talking to you. And like, okay, up ahead is that person. Go to the left. Go here. And you'll constantly be interacting with some sort of AI that will speak to you all day long.

[Trevor Noah]

What's the first tech that made you feel like you were living in the future? I always love asking this to, like, tech lovers.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, I'm a little older. The browser. The Mosaic browser.

[Trevor Noah]

Really?

[Kara Swisher]

Yes. Because look, you had so not the.

[Trevor Noah]

Computer that was like, okay. Ish.

[Kara Swisher]

They hadn't really innovated. I mean, there was that. There were a couple. Not Dells. What was the company. It's gone now. They had some small ones that were pretty cool. Right? Actually, that's not true. There was something called General Magic that created the General Magic device. And it was an iPhone before there was an iPhone.

[Trevor Noah]

Like, how long are we talking about?

[Kara Swisher]

It was a lot of the people who worked on iPhone later. This was the 80s, essentially.

[Trevor Noah]

No way.

[Kara Swisher]

Remember Apple had Newton, if you remember. Yeah, yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

But I didn't know about General Magic.

[Kara Swisher]

Similar. General Magic was before that. And a lot of the people moved to the Newton project. They kept trying to do it. Right. And the guy, Tony Fadell, that ended up being critical to the. The ipod worked at General Magic. Like, they were always trying to figure out this sort of. And it actually goes back to Star Trek. That's what they were trying to make.

[Trevor Noah]

That little device.

[Kara Swisher]

That's right. The communicator. The communicator, right. And so they were always trying to create that, and that was what that became. But General Magic had. And I have one. I have an original. General Magic was a block. It just was too big. And it had pictures of mail on a desk with a mail. With a mailbox and stuff like that. And you would. You'd have stylus. And it was just. It wasn't the right form factor, but it was directionally the correct version. And if you look at that, you're like. You could see a straight line into this Same thing with the glasses and stuff. I have one of the original Google Glasses, which.

[Trevor Noah]

Those massive.

[Kara Swisher]

No, they weren't big. Actually. Google Glass was quite skinny. And then it had this weird little thing. This little. Yes, they were not massive. The Vision Pro is massive. Is still big. And so are most of the meta ones, Oculus and everything else. Google Glass was small. And it sat on your. It sat on like, it was very thin. And then had a little thing. It just wasn't very functional. It didn't do much. Right. And it would sit there. And one of the problems with it. When it first was introduced, I went to. My ex wife worked for Google. So I went to a Christmas party and they had just introduced Google Glass, but nobody had them but the Google people. And so everyone on the boat, she was in that division had the Google Glass on. On a boat. It was such a great scene. And they wouldn't let me have it. They're like, you can't have it. I'm like, thank you. And they're wearing it and they were trying to get it to go. You go, hello Google. Or you said something like hello Google to it.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

And then it was like the.

[Kara Swisher]

Yes, they have an action word, right? And they were all going, hello Google. And they were turning on each other's Google Glass with the same thing.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh my goodness.

[Kara Swisher]

At Google parties they used to have really good food all the time and they had like a mountain of shrimp. Like really good shrimp. Like, and I sat there eating shrimp. Like, this is the worst thing, listening to hello Google.

[Eugene]

Hello Google.

[Kara Swisher]

This is dystopia. But the shrimp is delicious. And they didn't realize nobody would interact like this. And even Sergey, who wore them around all the time, he's one of the founders, Sergey Brin, he'd wear them everywhere. And they were so weird looking and unattractive. And he was wearing them at a Vanity Fair Oscar part. And he came up and he goes, nobody's talking to me. And I'm like, you're wearing those fucking Google Glass. Celebrities don't want a picture at a party where they're smoking pot. Like, are you kidding me? Like, what do you. Take them off?

[Trevor Noah]

She's walking around with a camera.

[Kara Swisher]

Yes, exactly. Super knock. He goes, oh, what should I say? I said, say I'm a billionaire. It'll work with these people. Like, take off the glasses, say I'm a billionaire. But what happened with Google Glass and I think eventually it'll get better was. And I did say this to him and others at Google at the time. I said, congratulations, you've rendered. Remember, they went to Victoria's Secret and they all had them on. Do you remember that?

[Trevor Noah]

No, I don't remember the Secret.

[Kara Swisher]

So they had to introduce it. They did a Victoria's Secret event and all the supermodels had them on.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, wow.

[Kara Swisher]

And so I was there and they go, what do you think? I go, you've just made supermodels unfuckable. How good for you. Well done.

[Trevor Noah]

That is technology.

[Kara Swisher]

It was well done, guys.

[Eugene]

But I think everything she's explained is what I find wrong with Technology. It almost feels like. Like it makes you ignore the giant plate of shrimp in front of you.

[Kara Swisher]

Right.

[Eugene]

Well.

[Trevor Noah]

But yeah, you've never. What shrimp is. Like, what tech? No, but I like asking you. You these things because you've always been my. One of my non techie friends.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

So you'll ask me questions and there's some tech that you'll adopt and then there's some tech that you want.

[Eugene]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

Like, which tech do you think is actually meaningful? Do you. Do you like even care?

[Eugene]

I think after the radio, we should have stopped.

[Trevor Noah]

Jesus, Eugene.

[Eugene]

We pushed it to television.

[Trevor Noah]

I thought, this man's a Luddite.

[Eugene]

I'm sold on television.

[Kara Swisher]

I love the butter ch. You know what I actually like? You might like this. The aura. Although now they're working with the Defense department, so fuck that. But this ring is really. It's the beginning of the idea of monitoring your health a little bit. I find this to be really interesting. And it gives you. I used to call a lot of these things unwearables because it was like your steps. What does that tell you about your health? Does it tell you anything? Oh, I did 10,000 steps. What does that mean? What should you do next? What I always wanted was a device either on your wrist or here in your ear. You'd eat a donut and would go, oh, that was a mistake. Would talk to you and say, what you need to do is get up right now and walk a thousand steps and I'll tell you when you're done. Or what you need to do now is go get a kefir immediately and drink that down.

[Trevor Noah]

Get those probiotics going.

[Kara Swisher]

Get those probiotic going. But I would like something that has actionable information. And this one, especially for sleep, really does. Gives you data that you can actually pay attention to. And they have to start to interpret it. But that's the kind of thing you're hoping for. That would be useful.

[Eugene]

This is more orange. It's good for you and it makes you look committed.

[Kara Swisher]

Yes, it does. Yeah. It's kind of too big though. Cause only guys made this. Let me just say it needs to be this big because of all the.

[Trevor Noah]

You've got all the senses on the inside eventually.

[Eugene]

Where space for your wedding ring.

[Kara Swisher]

I know I'm married. I don't wear it. Don't say anything. Sh. I don't like rings. Rings. I don't like rings. They make me feel like I'm captive. Just. I do this like on the hand.

[Eugene]

The ring itself on your finger makes.

[Kara Swisher]

You feel like I don't like. I don't like rings.

[Trevor Noah]

Some. Some people like jewelry in general. It's on their fingers. Yeah. No, just even. Even like around your neck as well sometimes.

[Eugene]

So you've never had a conversation.

[Kara Swisher]

My wife about it. She would like me to wear it more. And I try. I try my best.

[Eugene]

How many times does this topic come up?

[Kara Swisher]

Because many times. Thank you for bringing up. And now she'll listen to this and we'll have another one. Let me just tell you. Let me give you a little tip for reporting. Ask a man how his wife is. Sometime I always start interviews with some weird personal question. Ask a man how their wife is. Many men do this.

[Trevor Noah]

No, they start.

[Eugene]

They fidget with the ring.

[Kara Swisher]

They fidget and take it off. Like they don't they. It's really interesting. Just try it.

[Trevor Noah]

It's like it's burning them from burning their finger. Anything.

[Kara Swisher]

And they're always like great, great, great. Everything's great. And I'm like, okay now I wonder if you.

[Trevor Noah]

I wonder if you can. Could get all the data and see if there's any correlation between who took the ring off and how their relationship turned out.

[Kara Swisher]

Right. Exactly.

[Trevor Noah]

Cuz maybe that's like a. A tell that someone's giving you. Like how's your relationship? And if they pull the ring off and then answer you and then put it back on y.

[Eugene]

Maybe you can tell us. Cuz you've never had it on because.

[Kara Swisher]

They know when you put it on. Like that said. I'm not subject to that. I'm only. I'm only wearing. Because I'm traveling. I usually take it off in the morning, but.

[Eugene]

So where do you keep the one that. That was black for this union blessed.

[Kara Swisher]

Yes. Because the Catholic church loves a gay marriage. It's in a box. It's in a nice pretty box. It's a pretty box.

[Eugene]

And she.

[Kara Swisher]

Probably from South Africa. From your country.

[Eugene]

Wait, I'm. I'm fascinated by this because earlier on I was telling you that I'm actually entertaining the concept.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

Of getting married.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay.

[Trevor Noah]

What?

[Kara Swisher]

I know. He just said that to me. He just told me. Wow. You see, you didn't know. Sorry.

[Eugene]

Remember when we were together you said maybe ask your friends.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

What did I say?

[Trevor Noah]

No, no, no, no, no.

[Eugene]

The one thing about us, the friends.

[Kara Swisher]

I said have you fix him up.

[Trevor Noah]

Let me explain what. And where the what came from.

[Kara Swisher]

And.

[Trevor Noah]

And the what came from me finding out on a podcast that we are sharing here from Kara Swisher.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

That you are considering getting married.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, I'm a famous reporter, so that's.

[Eugene]

Why I found out that you were a weird nerd who was brushing up against nothing.

[Kara Swisher]

Cool.

[Trevor Noah]

Your whole life, you knew this about me, okay? You've always known this about me.

[Eugene]

Trevor, I didn't.

[Kara Swisher]

He didn't know the shame that you had.

[Eugene]

I didn't know that.

[Trevor Noah]

I had no shame. Yes, there was no shame. I was just a nerd enjoying myself.

[Kara Swisher]

Wished he could date girl.

[Trevor Noah]

Let me tell you. Let me tell you something. Let me tell you how much fun it was. Let me tell you something. Few things were more fun. Friday nights, I would be in my room with my PC. With my PC, I'd have my PC.

[Kara Swisher]

Wow.

[Trevor Noah]

And we had this deal in South Africa at the time where the service provider would give you Internet that, like, the cost of dialing up wouldn't go beyond a certain price from 7pm on Friday night until 7am on Monday.

[Kara Swisher]

Downtimes. Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Right. So the maximum price was something like $1, essentially, which was. Otherwise you could pay like a thousand dollars if you weren't careful. So I'd wait. Friday night would come, and I'd be sitting there with my. With my PC. I had my whole rig. I'd plugged in car speakers that I would find from wrecked cars, and I would. I created my own surround sound in my room.

[Kara Swisher]

Wow.

[Trevor Noah]

Right. So connected them all. Had my Winamp going.

[Kara Swisher]

Winamp.

[Trevor Noah]

Of course, I'd wait for 7pm and wait for 7pm and then 7pm will come. Click that modem. Get going.

[Kara Swisher]

Nice. Nice.

[Trevor Noah]

I would get in, and then my mom taught me how to make a rum and raisin whiskey concoction.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, wow.

[Eugene]

Okay.

[Trevor Noah]

So I'd sit at home with a 5 liter. I don't know what that is. A gallon. I don't know how to convert these things, but of ice cream mixed with whiskey.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh.

[Trevor Noah]

And then I would dip my cup in and I would sip it, and then I would chat to strangers from all over the world.

[Kara Swisher]

Good times.

[Eugene]

That was a normal Friday night for you?

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

The best Friday.

[Eugene]

Who's the person that you wanted me to ask?

[Trevor Noah]

Do you see any shame?

[Eugene]

100%.

[Trevor Noah]

What?

[Kara Swisher]

We're ashamed for you.

[Eugene]

We're ashamed of you. But I was really asking Cara about this. I was like, I really. I really, really want to take that step. But my question to her was, is it better to do it with someone that you've known for a long time or get fixed up?

[Kara Swisher]

No, I got fixed up on a blind date. My. My wife and I. Who fixed you up Lydia Polgreen and her wife, Candy Feit.

[Trevor Noah]

What did they see in you and her that they.

[Kara Swisher]

So I had broken up with someone, and I had not ever been single my entire life. I went out with men too. Many, many years when I was in high school and stuff. And I just hadn't been alone, like, by myself. And I said, I'm gonna be alone for a year. I did one of those things. Yeah. And Candy called me, and she texted me and said, can I fix you up with someone? I have two people. People. I have two different. She was kind of a matchmaker personality. And she said, I'll. I'll said. And I was. I actually was going to a funeral. And I was like, well, how about after the funeral? Right, Exactly. I was wearing all my.

[Eugene]

Yeah, I might intend not of death.

[Kara Swisher]

I know, exactly. And. And I said, okay, but I'm not going out with anyone for a year. I'm not. I'm gonna. Like, I literally. Just.

[Eugene]

How many months were you in now?

[Kara Swisher]

A month. A month. A month.

[Trevor Noah]

One month in. Still strong.

[Kara Swisher]

A month and a half, maybe. And I said, okay, I'll go. I'll start with one. And they had a little dinner party kind of thing in Brooklyn, and I went, and I think we got married. We had a baby a year later.

[Trevor Noah]

Wow.

[Eugene]

You never got to number two.

[Kara Swisher]

Never got to. We did meet. I met number two later. Very nice. It was a very excellent choice, too. 2.

[Trevor Noah]

Wow. So was there a moment when you met number two where you were like, this could have been. Or was it. No, like, you know.

[Kara Swisher]

No, I picked the right. I got the right one. She was. She. She picked the right one. Actually, she picked the right one because.

[Eugene]

That was the first option that she.

[Kara Swisher]

Had for me that she picked up.

[Eugene]

The backup plan.

[Kara Swisher]

Yes. And I really, really trusted her. And I think you should take advice from your friends. If they really care about you, they think about it.

[Trevor Noah]

I got you, boo.

[Eugene]

So you want to drink rum and raisin?

[Trevor Noah]

I got used to Drink rum and raisin.

[Kara Swisher]

Used to. Yeah. Do you have someone for him?

[Trevor Noah]

Used to.

[Kara Swisher]

Do you?

[Trevor Noah]

I can. I can figure it out.

[Eugene]

Ways I got you ways.

[Trevor Noah]

I got you the only way I got.

[Eugene]

I only trust Trevor to pick the menu.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay. All right.

[Eugene]

I would never know, but he's your.

[Kara Swisher]

Best interest at heart.

[Trevor Noah]

I've got his. Thank you, Cara. I have his fully full best interest.

[Eugene]

In fact, puts me through talking about the hump on the iPhone for hours and hours.

[Kara Swisher]

You know what? He's right about that. That's very upsetting.

[Trevor Noah]

That's what I'm talking about.

[Kara Swisher]

I was like, these people, this. The MO is a multi trillion dollar company. They didn't notice the. I said that to the executive.

[Trevor Noah]

So you know what?

[Kara Swisher]

My pretty big executive at this morning show premiere and he goes, what do you think? I'm like, what's with the bump? And he goes, you didn't notice the bump? All your multi billion dollar.

[Trevor Noah]

Can I tell you my theory? What gen. My genuine theory. And I could be wrong on this. I feel like the technology that's being made today, not all of it, but a lot of it is being made by people who are not using it. Using it. So they're sort of like making theoretically, but they're not using.

[Kara Swisher]

No, no. I think they had Samsung Enby, you know. Cause a lot for the thin phone. The thin phone. I think they wanted a thumbnail car.

[Trevor Noah]

There's no way someone was using that and was like, this is right.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, it was interesting because when I saw it, I thought Steve Jobs would vomit on this phone. Like he would not like it. He would not have let it go like that. No way. No way. One of the things that was really interesting many years ago when I was partners with Walt Mossberg for years on our conference, our big code conference where we had Steve Jobs and Bill Gates together and stuff like that, and we had Zuckerber and Elon and everyone else. But Walt brought him the Zune. Remember the Zune from. It was brown. It was like, who picked brown Poop color.

[Trevor Noah]

But it was a pretty good device.

[Kara Swisher]

It was a good device.

[Trevor Noah]

It was a good device. But it didn't look good at all.

[Kara Swisher]

It didn't look good. The color. And it was shaped wrong. It had a wrong. The ipod had the golden means measurements.

[Trevor Noah]

The ratio.

[Kara Swisher]

Right, the ratio. Which was why you found it attractive. And you don't know why you did. But it was very nice to hold. And it's because. Because Jobs used the goal and means ratio, which is interesting. But the Zune was square. Remember? It was hard to hold.

[Trevor Noah]

It was just an ugly device.

[Kara Swisher]

It was an ugly device. So Walt handed Jobs the. He goes, let me see it. And he's like, I'm not supposed to show it to anyone. Jobs was like, let me see the fucking thing. Cause he wasn't able to get it right. And so he put it in Jobs hands. And Jobs went like this. Like this. Cause he was such a drama queen. But I think it actually repelled him. Him. He was like, why do they make so many ugly things? Like why can't they make. Because a lot of them, including at Apple's, the only thing that really did do things that were beautiful were actually beautiful and beautiful to hold. And even Google when they were trying to make, when they made their phone, and my ex wife was a Google executive too, and remember they had the stacks. You had to go, yes. And I was on her, I was, I was using my phone, but she had to use the Android and I was looking for an address and I go, where is. She goes, well, it's in the stacks. I'm like, what the fuck is the stacks? And she's like, the stacks, the stacks. And she's a tech person, she goes, obviously, the stacks. I was like, nobody normal knows what a stack is. And with iPhone, you could pick. A child could pick it up and use it.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, it's the most intuitive device ever created.

[Kara Swisher]

It's intuitive because it's simple. And one thing Steve Jobs used to say, he said it to me at least was it's really, it's very complex to make things simple, but it's very simple to make things complex. Like, and so a lot of people in Silicon Valley make things complex on purpose. Cause it's easy for them, but they're not thinking like a consumer would use it.

[Eugene]

This conversation proves one thing to me, that I should never let him choose anything for me. Because me. Because Cara was busy giving me advice about how option one became so great and you lured her in with your stacks and your ramen raisin breast.

[Trevor Noah]

So. But wait, you know what? Actually, no, I think we'll just help him. No, but I, I. Can I tell you something? That, that actually we're getting to which is, which is, which is important. Okay. That's, that's why I like this triumvirate that we've created here. I think Cara is giving us an insight into the tech industry.

[Eugene]

Right.

[Trevor Noah]

That to me sounds like there are, there are too many like, like, let's just say cables that have, that have been disconnected from people.

[Kara Swisher]

Right.

[Trevor Noah]

Because what you just said is what I think is missing in dating apps and whatever. I think a lot of dating apps have a very simplistic idea of how dating and how relationships are formed. A person finds another person attractive, they link up, therefore.

[Kara Swisher]

Fair enough.

[Trevor Noah]

It works.

[Kara Swisher]

Right?

[Trevor Noah]

But it's like. No, no, no, no, no. If you think of what working relationship is, everyone who's told me a story about being set up, obviously some people have bad stories. But when you even think of matchmakers in India, a great matchmaker in India will tell You. My job is not to just set you up. My job is to understand you and then understand you and figure out why you would or wouldn't work beyond what you may know or not know about yourself. And whenever I hear people talk about someone setting them up, like a friend of theirs or somebody, they go, my, it's. You said the line. And I promise you, everyone says that. They go, they were like a matchmaker type. There's a skill that they possess, right?

[Kara Swisher]

Correct.

[Trevor Noah]

Not everybody has it exactly, that enables them to see why you connect with you. But these apps don't necessarily.

[Kara Swisher]

AI can do that. Eventually. Eventually there will, but now they don't. Some of the algorithms do have things that are helpful. I mean, it's. We're on our way to that, and.

[Trevor Noah]

I think on the way.

[Kara Swisher]

List your facial expressions. You know, they're doing a good job in interviews like that. They can watch the facial expressions.

[Trevor Noah]

We don't know what they mean mean yet.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, actually, you know, interestingly, I just. I'm finishing up a documentary about future health right. Right now. Cause it's my next book. Talking about there's amazing things happening around tech and health and figuring out things. And one of the ones is this company in Boston, and it's from Mass. Brigham Young, which is a big hospital there. It's doing testing there. And it's showing incredible promise called face age. And you look at doctors when there's a cancer patient looks at a cancer patient and decides whether they need more aggressive or less aggressive treatment. And they actually. Among the many things they look at is the face. They're like, do they look too much? And a lot of doctors are doing it without actual science. They're just like, I have a feeling this person can take it more. And they use age. They don't even realize they're doing it. They're assessing people. They use the word assessment, but they just look. Well, not at a glance. They're bringing lots of data in to figure it out. But there's this thing called face age. And the AI looks at a face and you will have a chronological age and a biological age. Okay, Your biological age could be a lot lower than your chronological age. And that means you should have more aggressive cancer treatment.

[Eugene]

Cause you can take it.

[Kara Swisher]

Cause you can take it. But doctors don't always see it. Cause they're looking at wrinkles. They're looking at all kinds of things. Or maybe someone's a little creakier. But this AI has been accurate in telling doctors which patients can take treatment more aggressively. And this one woman I met, she's 82 years old. She looked older. She was wearing a wig. She looked older. She was 82. Her face age was 72. And they gave her more aggressive treatment. She's cancer free now. It's incredible. This AI will be able to have a lot of data that we don't quite understand. The decision making. It'll be part of a tool that doctors use. It can't be the decision maker, but it'll be a tool that doctors use going forward. So someone will be. AA will be able to fix you up eventually. Not today. No, I'm not kidding. Here's the thing. Let me ask you a question. What do you want? What are you looking for? Make a list. That's what I did.

[Eugene]

Tara, you know what I love about you? You care.

[Kara Swisher]

I care. I care.

[Eugene]

No one has ever asked me this. I mean, some people wear cardigans and claim to be my friend.

[Kara Swisher]

Wow, wow, wow. I'm having a bad time. This is awkward. This is awkward.

[Trevor Noah]

Wait, what was. What was on your list though?

[Kara Swisher]

What's on your list?

[Trevor Noah]

What was on your list?

[Kara Swisher]

Likes children. Because I had two kids.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay.

[Kara Swisher]

And woman. Well, yes, yes, that was me too. Yeah. Okay, good, Excellent. We have the same list. Now, flexible, like as in dexterity physically is great, but no, no, no. More like flexible isn't like rigid as a person. Rigid as a person. Sense of humor. Okay. With change. I'm a very change oriented person. Like I just sat there and wrote it down.

[Eugene]

Change as in like you change the way you think.

[Kara Swisher]

Not uncomfortable with change location, whatever. Just things happen. Right. I had a whole list. I'd have to find it, but please feel free. I will send it to. But you have to make a list of what's most important to you. And stack rank.

[Eugene]

I like your recommendations.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, Stack rank it. Stack rank it. We going to stack now and then? No. Well, go ahead. Stack to stacks. Okay, go ahead. What's the most spontaneity? Okay, good. Should that be at the top? And you can say looks too. You can be like, I like a good looking lady. Like, whatever. Well, to you, a good looking lady. You sp. What's number one?

[Eugene]

Privacy.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, that's number one.

[Eugene]

Yes.

[Kara Swisher]

Interesting.

[Trevor Noah]

Have you heard of the new iPhone?

[Kara Swisher]

Yes.

[Eugene]

But more than anything, family orientated.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay, there you go.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Kara Swisher]

So look for that. And don't. And if they're not, they don't. It's not on the list. You gotta cut it loose.

[Trevor Noah]

We're gonna continue this conversation right after this short break.

[Kara Swisher]

If you're looking to help your child.

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[Kara Swisher]

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[Eugene]

Is it possible sometimes that you would not want to date someone because you wouldn't think they fit with your friendship circle?

[Kara Swisher]

Yes.

[Eugene]

If that happens, who goes do you dump the person I think is more important?

[Kara Swisher]

I think they have to be able to.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes, I agree.

[Kara Swisher]

I think they are.

[Trevor Noah]

Your friends are way more important.

[Kara Swisher]

Study after study shows you live longer if you have a friendship circle.

[Trevor Noah]

That is very true, Eugene. If you keep your friends close, you will live longer. Wait, wait.

[Eugene]

So was it more helpful for you that she was recommended by a friend?

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

And then you got to keep her and the friendships.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, you don't want your friends at cross purposes. That sucks. Nobody likes it. Look, it was I had the funny. Bad boyfriends are always the worst thing for a group of friends. If a friend has a bad boyfriend, you're like ugh, the bad boyfriend. And you know who that is, right?

[Trevor Noah]

It is always funny when someone has a partner that everyone else is like are they coming with them?

[Kara Swisher]

I had a friend who has someone we don't like and it was very obvious and everyone pretend like doesn't say anything and they're like, you don't like this person? I said, I don't. I really don't. And they were like, well, it's, you know, kind of. You have to. And I'm like. And I named another friend of mine. I'm like, I've never met her fucking husband. I never hope to. Like, I don't have to be friends with your partner. Wait, wait. I said, if her husband fell on me, I wouldn't know it was her husband. So why do I. I've met you.

[Eugene]

For the first time today, and we got on like a house of fun.

[Kara Swisher]

Right? Exactly.

[Eugene]

You are a likable person.

[Kara Swisher]

I am a.

[Eugene]

Like, you are an interesting person. I am an interested person.

[Kara Swisher]

I am an interested person.

[Eugene]

What is it about that guy?

[Kara Swisher]

I don't. I don't know. I just didn't. It was a. It was a woman. I didn't like her. I just. She was mean.

[Eugene]

You just didn't feel her vibe?

[Kara Swisher]

No, I didn't like them. You cannot like people.

[Trevor Noah]

I like this.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. One day. The other I said to someone, I, I. They're like. I said, I can't. Not friends. It was a work thing. And they were like, why are you leaving? And I said, I don't want to talk to you anymore. They were like, what? They said, honestly, why are you leaving? I'm like, honestly, I'm done talking to you. I said, I'm done talking to you. And they were like, what? And I go, I wish I could say it any nicer, but that's really the reason I said, damn, Cara.

[Eugene]

And then what does the opposite of that look like? You're walking into this apartment in Brooklyn.

[Kara Swisher]

I just want to talk to you. I like hanging out with you. Yeah.

[Eugene]

Did you know it was her when you walked into the room?

[Kara Swisher]

I'm sure, because dating people are the TV for couples. Like, they're like, oh, let's see what happens here. You know what I mean? We're entertainment. And we did. So we met before at a bar, so we both understood we would be the entertainment for the evening.

[Eugene]

And everyone was watching you.

[Kara Swisher]

That's right. And so before we met before, so we made sure that we had an initial, like, for each other. Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Was she also in tech?

[Kara Swisher]

No, not at all.

[Trevor Noah]

Was that refreshing.

[Kara Swisher]

Journalism?

[Eugene]

Was that him being tech again?

[Trevor Noah]

No. You know why? Because. Oh, refreshing. Nicely done.

[Kara Swisher]

No, my ex. My ex wife was. Is a techie. She was the CTO of America under Obama.

[Trevor Noah]

Wow.

[Kara Swisher]

I know. She worked at Google. She was CTO of America. Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

No, but no, the reason I'm asking is because I was going, like, is it more refreshing to be with somebody who's in your world or somebody? So, like, I like hanging out with Eugene partly because he doesn't care about half of those things that I'm talking about.

[Kara Swisher]

Right, right.

[Trevor Noah]

And. But then I sometime sometimes go, like, it is fun to be with somebody.

[Kara Swisher]

Where I feel like you two should have a little relationship.

[Trevor Noah]

I wish. I'm not his type. I'm not his type. All the things that he said. All the things that he said. Family oriented.

[Kara Swisher]

What do you hang out with Bill Barr? Is that you're a Bill Bar character?

[Trevor Noah]

Friends first. That's me. No, but, but like, yeah, I just mean, like, you know, the refreshing world because you. How much. How many years have you worked in Texas?

[Kara Swisher]

20. 30. 30.

[Trevor Noah]

30 years.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

And I would say, you know, everyone who has done anything in tech. You know what I mean?

[Kara Swisher]

Well, the, you know, I didn't know Edison, but.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, but I mean, this is. I would assume you didn't know Edison.

[Kara Swisher]

I didn't know the Hewlett Packard people. I met them later when they were older, but from Jobs and Gates on.

[Trevor Noah]

But that's what I mean. That's. That is the tech we know.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, no, there were people before that. There were all these companies that were there.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes, but I'm not assuming you've lived forever. That's what I'm saying.

[Kara Swisher]

Yes, that's right. Yes. Some from Gates and Jobs on.

[Trevor Noah]

Cool. So how much of this do you now see as your career? And how much of it do you see as your passion? Because I. When I'm. When I love you. Speak. Yeah.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay, cool. All right, cool.

[Kara Swisher]

I love it. I wouldn't. You know, one of the reason My book was called Burn Book. A Love Story. A tech. A tech love story. I love tech. I'm just pissed at what they did to it. Like, pissed that they had to take all the juicy bits for themselves, rather.

[Trevor Noah]

What do you mean by that?

[Kara Swisher]

Well, look, look, the Internet was. Was built by the US Government and it was paid for by the US Taxpayer. But who made all the money? A small group of largely white men. Right. That's what happened there. Right. In fact, almost to a person. And I don't understand why everybody doesn't benefit from the fruits of this amazing technology except for a small group of people. And I don't understand why a small group of people gets to decide everything for the rest of us. Why didn't they ever have any regulation? Why wasn't There any input by citizens on so much of this stuff around privacy. Why do they design things that are so damaging to people? Why can't they not do that? And also. And why don't they lean into the good parts and mitigate the bad parts? Why do they not care about the bad parts and don't feel it's their responsibility? So that's what it. I love the amazing things tech can do for people, bringing people. I have a vision of. The way I put it in the book was I have a vision of Star Trek. And we live in Star Wars.

[Trevor Noah]

Damn.

[Kara Swisher]

You know, And Star Trek is an amazing vision of the future about diversity in its best light, in people understanding each other. Where villains are complex.

[Eugene]

Cooperation.

[Kara Swisher]

Cooperation problems too. And everything else common cause. Cool outfits. And Star wars is a very dark and dystopian vision about. About power and evil ultimately succeeding. They never win.

[Eugene]

Yeah, I'd never win.

[Kara Swisher]

The good people never win. You know, at the end, it's just a constant slog. It's a constant slog against the abuse of technology by powerful people. And so I am furious at them for taking something that could bring people together and not caring enough to take out the parts that bring people apart. Right. Like anti Semitism or whatever. And then. And then hiding behind one of the most astonishing amendments in history, the free speech. Right? Pretending they're all about free speech when they're not interested. They're interested in their free speech and nobody else's. Right.

[Trevor Noah]

When you've seen them over the years, I wonder how much you've seen them change. Because I remember having a conversation once with a politician and it was interesting to see how much they didn't recognize themselves in the person that they were. So I met a politician and then 10 years later I was in an interview with them and I asked them about something that they had said 10 years ago, but I didn't say it was them. I just said, this is an idea. What do you think? And they were like, I think that's unrealistic. And you gotta understand that that's not how the real world works. And I was like, you said that? And they were like, I don't know if I said that. I was like, no, no, you said.

[Kara Swisher]

That sounds like Obama, but go ahead.

[Trevor Noah]

But there's so many politicians.

[Kara Swisher]

I had that conversation with Obama.

[Trevor Noah]

Really?

[Kara Swisher]

Oh yeah. About encrypted.

[Trevor Noah]

And what was the conversation?

[Kara Swisher]

He was like, we need to open up the. No, it wasn't encryption. It was about. Yeah, I think it was about. It was something where he had said one thing and then he later said something else. And he goes, well, if you knew what I knew now. And I was like, oh, stop.

[Trevor Noah]

But that's what I wonder with, like the tech guys as well is.

[Eugene]

Look.

[Trevor Noah]

Maybe I'm taking them at face value when I see a lot of them launch an idea. Maybe not today. Cause today the money is really in the forefront. Everything is like, can it scale? Will it be a unicorn?

[Kara Swisher]

Why am I at this dinner with Trump Cook? Am I giving Trump a golden statue? Yes, I know he is dying inside. I know it. I don't care. He can deny it all he wants. I know he is.

[Trevor Noah]

But my question is like, what have they lost that they had in the beginning? Because in the beginning it starts as a hope. You think it's hope?

[Kara Swisher]

Well, it's interesting because, you know, I've known someone like Sam Altman. I knew him when he was 19. He was really interesting as a 19 year old. When he did Looped, which was failure, his company was at Location Circle. I don't even remember what it did, but it was a location pinger kind of thing. And, you know, parts of it remain. I think people are often the way they are when I met them early or the way they are now just with more money. And then money has its deleterious effects or too much money or too much. You know, they have a lot of people licking them up and down and agreeing with them violently about every. Like, oh, right, good job. And I think what happens is they become. Do you remember in succession as you watched that show, which I think that was a fantastic show depicting wealth and power, what happens and the deleterious effects of it. Their worlds kept getting smaller and smaller in their homes. They went from their tight little cashmere homes to their cars to their planes, to their boats, and they never encountered people. Right? Less and less. The last scene of Succession, I thought was. Reminds me of tech people a lot. Think about that last scene. Besides the guy who died, Logan, Roy, everybody, the oldest son, he was alone by himself, by the water, alone with a security guy. The couple was together, Tom and Shiv. They were in an insulated car, expensive car, by themselves. You know what I mean? They were insulated. They went from the hotel room down through the kitchen, through the thing. There was only one person who was with people, real people, was the other son. He's in a bar and he's the only one that's happy in that. And I thought it said a lot. So these people, they go from their cars to their Yachts to their homes. Mark Zuckerberg has a compound in Palo Alto. That means nobody gets in, nobody gets out. And so if you're like that and you're constantly being told you're smart and every idea is right, you never get a feedback of you fucking asshole. What, are you kidding? And you either bring it into your life, like Mark Cuban enjoys feedback. He will listen. He's doing great. He's a great guy because he will listen to people who disagree with him and he'll seek out. He was just with Tucker Carlson. I wrote him, like, what the fuck? He goes, I gotta listen to him. Like, he's open to hearing from lots of different people. And then there's people like Zuckerberg who has a compound, compound. And then he bought half a Hawaii and then he bought this. It's to insulate yourself from everyone else. And if you start off as kind of a bit of a broken person or a jerk, like Jeff Bezos was always a jerk in my memory. Like he was a jerk to start with and he's a bigger jerk now. When you have money and the deleterious effects of wealth, they become worse. It emphasizes the way you were. The way you initially amplifies it. It amplifies.

[Trevor Noah]

It just makes you more of you.

[Kara Swisher]

You know this look at Elon, he was so interesting. And he's not.

[Eugene]

What you've explained about people being insulated from the truth once they acquire a certain amount of power, it's like, are you a big fan of the Sopranos?

[Kara Swisher]

I love the Sopranos. Of course.

[Eugene]

Remember the episode where Tony Bandeto came out of prison and then he was hanging out with Tony and the rest of the goons. Then he made the joke about boy, you're. And then Tony got offended, called him to the side and said, I know we joke around, but I'm the boss now.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, right, because he's changed. He can't be told that. Yes, they're like that. It's. And it depends on the person. Like, you know, when I run into some people, they. And I'll say, what are you talking about? And they're like, oh, my people agree with me. I'm like, oh, really? They work for you and they're dependent on you. They, you know, just. I mean, the board of Tesla is a really good example. They cannot have been running this thing correctly, given what's happened, and then want to give them a trillion dollar pay package. So far, the record in the recent years has been pretty problematic, right? Not just the lack of sales, but everything the drug use, the crazy political posturing. Any other company they would have been like, you need to move along in that job of yours. We need to get someone else to figure out how to get, keep this company going.

[Trevor Noah]

You know, I'm always torn with those types of stories because I go, I know this is, this is a crazy alt take in that. In that way.

[Kara Swisher]

Go ahead.

[Trevor Noah]

But I sometimes wonder if some of these guys are screwed over by the fact that now they're in the public eye in a different way. Because we don't, we don't really know what many of the great inventors in life thought. They didn't have Twitter, they didn't have Facebook. Like maybe they're writing. But I'm saying it wasn't a front facing.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh no. Edison was quite, quite a jerk and also was abusive of tabloids at the time.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh damn.

[Kara Swisher]

He put all kinds of nasty shit out about Tesla.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh yeah. When they were having. Really?

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

He was trying to undermine his.

[Kara Swisher]

He undermined it. But he used tech, he used reporters of the day. They.

[Trevor Noah]

So it's the same old same old, same old.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, he used to. Tesla's a very sad story. What an inventor. But he got mowed under. He got tersed by Edison. Cause Edison knew how to use and manipulate the press.

[Trevor Noah]

But what I'm saying is we didn't own the. We. We weren't there. But do you think it was as easy to know who Edison was? Was for the people.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, yes. No, he was.

[Trevor Noah]

You think people like knew him as like the shady guy?

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, guy. Very famous, very. He was a. He was, you know, look, someone else like Charles Lindbergh. Very famous, most famous person of the day turned out to be, you know, a virulent anti Semite and a lover of Hitler. But yeah, no, some of the people had worldwide celebrity. Celebrity like some people had for their.

[Trevor Noah]

Like the bad side of their.

[Kara Swisher]

They didn't know the bad side.

[Trevor Noah]

No, that's what I mean. Right, sorry, sorry. That's what I'm trying to say is I'm going back in the day. It was a lot easier to obscure who you were and put out who you want people to think you are. That I think that's what I mean.

[Kara Swisher]

No, it is. No, yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

And I'm saying like now someone like Elon gets exposed way more than he would if he was in like 1920.

[Kara Swisher]

Doesn't shut the up. At some point you're like, stop, put, put down. Like I used to. After we stopped getting along, I used to put stuff out Cause I knew he read my stuff at, like, 2 in the morning. Cause I knew he was up.

[Trevor Noah]

That is hilarious.

[Kara Swisher]

And I would. I put up. You told him Kanye west put up the fat picture of him with Ari Emanuel. Remember that one?

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, yeah.

[Kara Swisher]

And Kanye west is the one that did that. And it was like, oh, man, what happened? And I never. And I'm not on Twitter anymore, even though I have 1.5 million followers. And he wrote something really awful, as always. And then I was like, oh, man. I just did that. I just said, oh, man. And five seconds later, Elon blocked me. It was so funny. But I knew. He's so easy. I was like, oh, my God, you're a billionaire. If I was a. Let me tell. Remember when he was at Mar a Lago for New Year's Eve?

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. For the big party.

[Kara Swisher]

Here's what I thought to myself. I'm the richest man in the world, and I'm fucking at Mar a Lago with all these stiffs, like. And this guy dancing to ymca. Like, if I'm the richest person in the world, you know where I am. I just bought France, and I've given everybody free wine, and we're all. You know what I mean? And Beyonce is there.

[Trevor Noah]

We need to give Cars Fisher all the money in the world. This sounds like a fun world.

[Kara Swisher]

Wouldn't you?

[Trevor Noah]

Buy a country, Give everybody the wine. You know what's funny about that story is, do you remember, like, I don't know why? There's some moments that are seared into my brain. Do you remember when Trump was like, basically saying, elon's annoying and he's sick of him being around?

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

So there was. But this is, like, in public. This is not a secret thing.

[Eugene]

Not on the side.

[Trevor Noah]

No, no, no. You can see this. They were talking to him about Elon and his work and whatever. And Trump was like, yeah, you know, Elon, very smart. He's doing big things. Doing big, big things. Very smart. He's. He's been around, always here, always. Sometimes I wonder when he's gonna go. But he doesn't go. He's here every day. I go, don't you have to run a company or something? But he stays.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. Nice welcome.

[Trevor Noah]

Good old Elon. Good old Elon.

[Kara Swisher]

Get the f. You know, get the fuck out of here. He needed the money. He needed the money. He needed the money.

[Trevor Noah]

I was like, for Trump to be like, who is this loser who I can't get rid of? He's like, you've done your Job. You gave me the money. You help me win the election. Move on now.

[Kara Swisher]

You know when he first started showing up there, like. And he was. Cause after the election, they're like, oh, he'll go. I'm like, oh, he's not gonna go. He has nowhere to go.

[Eugene]

You called it.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, oh, the fact that he's gonna stay. Oh, I thought he was gonna stay. And so I ran into a Trump person pretty high up. And. And he goes, oh, you're so mean about Elon. I go, he's fucking nuts. You'll see. I said, he has a drug problem, as has been well reported by New York Times. He's got. Well, he doesn't consider it a problem. Whatever. He likes the ketamine. And so.

[Trevor Noah]

He likes ketamine.

[Kara Swisher]

He talks about it. He likes the ketamine. And I said, and he's really irritating. Like, he really is. Just so you know. And he's become more irritating now. And you can see it. And they were like, oh, you're just jealous. We have musk. I'm like, okay, good luck. Look, four weeks later, this person I ran into, they're like, oh, my God. And I was like, I told you. And they're like, you were right. He won't leave. And I was like, he's not leaving. I said, he goes, when we move up to White House, he'll leave. I go, he won't leave. And he didn't remember. He was always.

[Trevor Noah]

He didn't go anywhere.

[Kara Swisher]

He didn't go out. He's like, no, in the White House. We can keep him out. I'm like, you can't keep him out.

[Trevor Noah]

He became the White House mascot, like.

[Kara Swisher]

Next to the base with that kid. That poor kid.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

Wait, so how could they not keep him out of the White House?

[Kara Swisher]

Cause Trump said it's not.

[Eugene]

They could have easily just blocked someone.

[Kara Swisher]

Trump is like Tony Spruce. He likes people hanging around.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. And also, remember, like Trump, if you go back in his life, I think it was his dad who taught him a lesson. He said, always stay close to the richest, most powerful people that you can.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

So Trump faces that dichotomy.

[Kara Swisher]

I also think he likes a crew.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. But he likes cool. And I think he has. He actually has an acute sense of what cool is. But sometimes he's stuck with the uncool, but it's attached to the rich or the powerful. And he's like, ah, I gotta hang out here.

[Kara Swisher]

He just said it recently. He said, he's gotta come back.

[Trevor Noah]

Back.

[Eugene]

Who, Elon?

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. Trump did now, I thought he shouldn't have said that. He won't come back now.

[Trevor Noah]

He won't come back.

[Kara Swisher]

No, because. Because also they were. When they were saying, you know, we got Elon, I go, oh, it's going to break up bad. I said it publicly. I was like, this is going to be like, there can be only one. It's Highlander time here, everybody. And it's going to be Trump. FYI, I love that. They're making it again. They're making it again.

[Trevor Noah]

We're the princes of the universe. Oh, what a time.

[Kara Swisher]

Who is that? Christopher Lambert. Lambert.

[Trevor Noah]

Lambert, I think, yes.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. And of course, Sean Connery. No, they're making it. I forget who the star is. Do you think it's gonna be any good? Oh, yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Well, you think so?

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, yeah. It's a good cast.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay. Yeah. But the cost for me doesn't sell well.

[Kara Swisher]

The first one's great. It's like Roadhouse, right? Like, you just trust that it has the original. Roadhouse is the finest movie in the land.

[Trevor Noah]

I don't know, Kara. I feel like movies are in the same world tech is right now.

[Kara Swisher]

They're recopying themselves.

[Trevor Noah]

And also nothing feel. Not nothing. Nothing. There's a few things that pop out, don't get me wrong, but for the.

[Kara Swisher]

Most part, if I look at the weapons or sinners.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, exactly. Weapons, sinners. It's funny, yesterday we were talking about those exact same movies. Yeah. But I. I just feel like it's less adventurous, it's less edgy, it's less interesting, it's less imaginative. It's less.

[Kara Swisher]

Yes. It's limited. But I think there. There's always been sequels. There's always. I think we always say that, like, ah, this donut's not as delicious as it used to be. And it kind of is. It wasn't very good before. Like we have memories that maybe. Because, you know, what did you. What was your formative movie?

[Trevor Noah]

My formative movie?

[Kara Swisher]

I'm guessing Star Wars.

[Trevor Noah]

No. The Matrix.

[Kara Swisher]

Matrix. Okay.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. Nothing has shaped how I perceive and not like, is it real? Is it not real? Not like that. Not like, ah. Red pill blue. No, actually that stuff I think is dumb in the way people interpret it, to be honest. You with. Right, it. It was first of all the computer world.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. Also amazing.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. The way.

[Kara Swisher]

Great story. That's why you liked it. It was not because it was the tech. It was.

[Trevor Noah]

No, but I. But I did love the aspects of tech. And remember for me, I was this little kid watching this Guy who's, like a loser in his world.

[Eugene]

Which guy?

[Trevor Noah]

And then you go, no, no, I meant this person. Not you, not you. So I was watching Keanu Reeves, this, like, sort of loser who's in his bedroom the whole time, and he do. And I was like, man, bedroom.

[Kara Swisher]

There's a world where you could PCI slot.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, you could. You could become cuz. Remember, he's like in there. And they come and they come and buy the Go back.

[Eugene]

Hyper loop.

[Kara Swisher]

I could be a rapper, except for being a. Yeah, but it was, I don't know, White woman.

[Trevor Noah]

There was that element of it.

[Kara Swisher]

You can't sing. Do you know, my sons have really good. I'm going to take it aside. My sons have really good musical taste. And I had. They were using my Spotify at one point and just making playlists and stuff like that. And I think the guy who was head of Spotify was like, you have great musical taste. I'm like, what are you talking about? He goes. And they said, someone. And I was like, who's that? Cause I didn't know my sons were making.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, they were like, making your playlist. They were making your playlist.

[Kara Swisher]

So I look cool.

[Trevor Noah]

Nice.

[Eugene]

So you love the Matrix?

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, because it was just. It was everything. It was like, everything, everything, everything. But the most important thing. Okay, this is why I think it's formative. And this is. I have this theory and, you know, I say this to you. I. I apologize for saying it to you again, Eugene. I'll say it to you. I've never said it to you. I think we take for granted how powerful the stories we are told can be and what they can do to us because they shape how we then perceive the world and what we think is or isn't possible. Do you know what I'm saying?

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

And so that's what, like, the Matrix forced me to think of the world.

[Kara Swisher]

Differently and what the world is really like.

[Trevor Noah]

Exactly.

[Kara Swisher]

And about the layers of it.

[Trevor Noah]

Who's in, who's not in? Who are you?

[Kara Swisher]

Who do you pretend to be?

[Trevor Noah]

What's real? What's not real, What's. You know? And for me, one of the most powerful scenes in the Matrix, the one that, like, really, really got me, was the scene of Agent Smith with Morpheus, where Morpheus is sitting in the chair and he's restrained. And Agent Smith comes up to him, you know, and he's like, wiping.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

You know, he kicks the other agents out of the room, and then he's like, get out, get out. And then he Talks to him and he goes. And he says, like, you want to know what it is about this place? It's the smell. If there is. And he goes, oh, they hated being. Yeah, but what I loved was how like, to what you said earlier, complicated villains.

[Kara Swisher]

Yes, that's right. He was a complicated.

[Trevor Noah]

I was like, imagine this guy hates that he's there. He hates that he has to be there. He hates that he has to. And it was one of the first.

[Kara Swisher]

Like the D.C. national Guard right now.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, he was.

[Kara Swisher]

No, they just released a report and they're like.

[Trevor Noah]

They were like, we hate being there.

[Kara Swisher]

We hate. We're embarrassed.

[Trevor Noah]

There you go.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. It was an internal report that just got out.

[Trevor Noah]

Wow.

[Kara Swisher]

The guards themselves, I never mean to. They don't wanna be there.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

But there you go. And what it did for me was it opened my eyes to the possibility that the prison guard could also sometimes hate being in the prison.

[Kara Swisher]

Right, Right. Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Do you know what I mean?

[Eugene]

Absolutely. Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

And then it's like the way I thought of all of it. He wanted to be free. And it was. And that's why it shaped it. Like, what was your. What was your one?

[Kara Swisher]

Terminator. I loved Terminator.

[Trevor Noah]

Which one?

[Kara Swisher]

Terminator. The first one. All of them I like.

[Trevor Noah]

But was the first one the formative one?

[Kara Swisher]

The first one was the formative one.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay, what was it about Terminator?

[Eugene]

The same maker, right?

[Kara Swisher]

Same.

[Trevor Noah]

No, no, no. No.

[Eugene]

Matrix and.

[Trevor Noah]

No, no, Cameron and Wachowskis.

[Eugene]

No, the writer. I'm saying the creator.

[Kara Swisher]

No, no, no, no, no.

[Trevor Noah]

Cameron and Wachowski. I think the person that wrote Cameron wrote Terminator.

[Eugene]

Terminator.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

And then. No, then the Wachowskis wrote the Matrix.

[Kara Swisher]

Similar. Probably influenced. I bet they were.

[Trevor Noah]

I mean, you have to be influenced. Yes.

[Kara Swisher]

I just love that movie. It was so. I love time travel. I love time travel movies. I love time travel books. I think I would love to be able to time travel. And I always was attracted Ray Bradbury stories. You know, I even like Time Cop with John Claude Van Damme. I like. I'll watch any Time Cop.

[Trevor Noah]

Time Cop was what a movie.

[Kara Swisher]

What a fucking fantastic movie. And so it was. Anyway, I loved it. And I just. The idea of can you change time? Was always really interesting. And just. The Schwarzenegger was amazing. The visuals were amazing. The ideas, they were fucked up ideas. They really fucked up ideas of what the future is. And what was really interesting was the idea that it wasn't the machines that are the problem. It was people, right? People not understanding the power of the Machines. And so it was always resonated. And of course, Gladiator. Who doesn't love Gladiator? But that's just the finest movie in the land, too. Another. Well, Roadhouse. Roadhouse is my favorite movie.

[Trevor Noah]

Formative movie.

[Kara Swisher]

We just watched it again. I do the annual Roadhouse watching and not the Jake Gyllenhaal pathetic version.

[Trevor Noah]

Terrible. Original Shots fired. Original formative movie.

[Eugene]

It has to be Norton and Pitt Fight Club.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, really?

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, I like that. That's a nice one.

[Eugene]

It almost feels like it made you see the world in a different way through the characters that played in that world. For example, Meadows Loaf.

[Kara Swisher]

Right.

[Eugene]

He wasn't a rock star there. You were just a guy with huge man boobs. And then for a long time in the movie, you're caught up thinking, Tyler Durton and the other guy the same are two different people.

[Kara Swisher]

Right.

[Eugene]

And all along, he was having a conversation with himself.

[Trevor Noah]

Spoiler alert. You're supposed to say that.

[Kara Swisher]

You're supposed to. Well, that's all right. It's old. It's too late.

[Eugene]

You know what would happen to you if we're in fight club? You know what would happen to him if we're in fight clubs? I'd go. Then flood with. Seeped in my teeth.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, wow. Okay. Wow. Okay.

[Trevor Noah]

So. Okay, you know what? Actually, this. So this is why I'm. You know, some people think it's a stretch, but you did bring it up with Star Trek. People take for granted how much the technology that is made today or the technology that has been made over the past few years.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Was made by people who were inspired to make it by the movies they were watching as kids.

[Kara Swisher]

That's right. That's right.

[Trevor Noah]

Like they watched something and they went.

[Kara Swisher]

Elon is deeply impacted by sci fi.

[Trevor Noah]

Exactly.

[Kara Swisher]

Deeply. Like, we've had so many discussions about sci fi and the stuff he is interested in. It's crazy. Like, many of them are.

[Trevor Noah]

And that's. That's what. So this is why I hop on about, like, art. Yes. Not in the highfalutin sense. I just go, you know, people be like, who cares if movies become terrible stories, too? Yeah. Stories, books, whatever it is. Whatever the stuff that's getting out.

[Kara Swisher]

Cartoons, all of it. Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

That stuff tells a kid what to imagine and what to think about. That kid grows up into a man or a woman who is now going to try and create a certain type of future based on the imagination that they have inherited. And then if they don't have a good enough imagination, like, I think of all the movies and TV shows now that make the best thing. You can be a billionaire. Rich, rich, money, money, rich, rich, money. No, no. Creativity, really. It's just like, money, money, rich, rich, power, power, rich, rich, money, money, money. And then I go, what does that mean for. For, like, the generation that grows up watching that? If they aspire to just be.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, maybe they're not getting the art from there. There's a lot of television shows that are really powerful.

[Trevor Noah]

Definitely.

[Kara Swisher]

Look.

[Trevor Noah]

I hope so.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. So now, I mean, like, listen, what I watched was like, Gilligan's island and, you know, Love American Style, Love Boat, so. And somehow I made it through. Like, sometimes I think we overestimate the negative effects of some of this stuff.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, not the negative. I just. I don't. I don't underestimate the inspirational effects.

[Kara Swisher]

Right, right. But look, go back and look at H.G. wells. Read that sometime. That guy. Guy clocked Leonardo da Vinci, clocked a lot of stuff. Right. I mean, if you go look at his drawings, you're like, how did he.

[Trevor Noah]

Know that you do?

[Kara Swisher]

Right. How did he get.

[Trevor Noah]

They might have been time travelers, maybe.

[Kara Swisher]

So where would you go in time.

[Trevor Noah]

If you could travel definitely forwards?

[Kara Swisher]

You can't go forwards.

[Trevor Noah]

What do you mean I have to go backwards?

[Kara Swisher]

You made the rule. I'm. Now.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay.

[Eugene]

You can't. Thank you.

[Kara Swisher]

You can't go.

[Trevor Noah]

All right, so I have to go backwards.

[Eugene]

Backwards.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay, let me think. This is a difficult. Okay, let's establish a few. A few rules. If I'm going backwards in time, am I going. Am I going to meet me. How does your time travel work?

[Kara Swisher]

Am I going to see yourself? You blow up.

[Trevor Noah]

Like, do I exist in the back?

[Eugene]

No, you.

[Kara Swisher]

You do.

[Trevor Noah]

I do. In your. Okay, no, no, these are rules. It's fine.

[Kara Swisher]

Rules.

[Eugene]

You have to wait. But I need to. But I'm going to get into your can go.

[Kara Swisher]

Me. Let's just go say, you can't.

[Trevor Noah]

No, that's why I'm trying to establish the. Okay, so in your rules, I do exist there. Okay, Then that changes quite a few things.

[Eugene]

You see, I knew this was gonna happen. He had a completely.

[Kara Swisher]

You can mail yourself a letter and say, buy Apple.

[Eugene]

There we go.

[Trevor Noah]

You see, I wouldn't. You see, I. Honestly, I'm just saying you can do that. Can I tell you, I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking of time travel, and I worry about it because for me, at least, is. I go. I don't know what the butterfly effect would be of changing any one aspect of My life. And I worry so you.

[Eugene]

But it won't matter. Cause you're not coming back.

[Kara Swisher]

Back?

[Eugene]

No, into the present. So whatever change happens is what is.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes, but my point is, I don't know how that turns out. So to your point, let's say I tell myself at a young age, buy Apple stock. First of all, I'll go, what is Apple? What is stock? What is buying? What is money?

[Eugene]

Like, don't go too far back.

[Trevor Noah]

No, but. No, no, but even at that age, I didn't.

[Kara Swisher]

I remember.

[Trevor Noah]

Yo, let me tell you how crazy I remember when Alibaba was listing. It was. It had its ipo. I was in South Africa. For some reason, I'd been deep in reading about Alibaba as a tech company. And then I went to, like, a bunch of people in banking and stuff, and I was like, can I. Can I get in on the ipo? And people were like, what are you talking about? I said, there's Alibaba ipo. And they're like, hey, Baba, what are you talking about?

[Kara Swisher]

So you didn't get in?

[Trevor Noah]

No. And I didn't. And now we have, like. Now you can buy, you know, derivatives, shares, stocks. You can do different things that you could back then. You could back then. But what I mean is, I don't know. I go back and then what happens? You know what I might do? I might use my time travel power, hours. To go back.

[Eugene]

Like a few hours conversation.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, hours. Oh, nice.

[Eugene]

How about that? Maybe five minutes from now.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, five minutes back.

[Eugene]

Yes, because you added the complication of, am I there? Am I not? What is money?

[Trevor Noah]

You know what I would go back to if I could time travel? I would go back to the moment when I met you. That's the moment I'll go back to. That's the moment I would go back to.

[Eugene]

Thank you so much.

[Trevor Noah]

And then I would turn around and not walk into that building. You, Eugene. Because I'd be like, this person is going to roast me for the rest of my life.

[Kara Swisher]

Ah, that's good. No, you wouldn't. You'd be so sad.

[Trevor Noah]

That's what I would go back to.

[Eugene]

You would never.

[Trevor Noah]

I would never erase this.

[Kara Swisher]

I would literally go back and meet Jesus.

[Trevor Noah]

Wow.

[Eugene]

Would he know he's Jesus at the time? Or Jesus.

[Kara Swisher]

I don't know. I need to find out.

[Trevor Noah]

Jesus knew he was Jesus?

[Eugene]

No, but there was times where people have been saying, he didn't know he was Jesus. He was rolling with his uncle, going to other places.

[Trevor Noah]

So you would go what age Jesus would You want to go back to meet.

[Kara Swisher]

Right as he started. Started, Right.

[Eugene]

Started being Jesus.

[Trevor Noah]

You could have been then one of the wise men, because that's basically what they did.

[Kara Swisher]

They didn't let men do that.

[Trevor Noah]

We don't know that they let men or not.

[Kara Swisher]

You're right. The Gnostic Gospels. I got it right, okay.

[Trevor Noah]

Also, we don't even know what. Wait, wait.

[Eugene]

They don't let women.

[Trevor Noah]

Because here's the thing. There's two things.

[Eugene]

Wasn't Mary Magdalene.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, but no, no, no.

[Kara Swisher]

She was not a whore. She was not. She was not. That was men writing the history.

[Trevor Noah]

There's two things we also forget, though, and one of the big ones is we forget how many times in the Bible it was possible to just, like, cover yourself in a certain way. And people like, oh, you're a man or you're a woman. You could have snuck in.

[Kara Swisher]

Gospels show that there are a lot of women involved. It's just the ones that survived are the ones we're using as a history. We survived. So I would want to meet Jesus most probably one of the more significant people.

[Eugene]

Formative years or when he's flipping tables at the temple.

[Kara Swisher]

Right. When the historical. I'm talking about the historical Jesus. Like, who was this person? And to meet that person.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, you don't mean Bible Jesus.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, is Bible Jesus. I want to see, like, what happened. I'd like to see it. I'd like to see what happened.

[Trevor Noah]

And what age are you thinking?

[Kara Swisher]

Whatever. 20. What was he? 20.

[Trevor Noah]

20.

[Kara Swisher]

20, right. 25, 24, 23.

[Eugene]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

Because would you tell Jesus that he's going to get crucified?

[Kara Swisher]

No. Damn, no.

[Eugene]

Would you like to meet confident Jesus.

[Kara Swisher]

Or confident Jesus, it was always.

[Eugene]

Or insecure Jesus because it was Jesus where he's like, no, no.

[Trevor Noah]

There was Jesus way with doubt.

[Kara Swisher]

In the thing.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, like you couldn't go to the Garden and go, run, run. Like, get out, get out.

[Eugene]

Then he turns to Joseph, go, you're not my dad.

[Kara Swisher]

That guy's not your friend. I would actually, like, go to history in lots of places. Like Caesar. Don't go to work today.

[Eugene]

Just let me go to Cleopatra. Don't get in the carpet.

[Kara Swisher]

Get. Get on that chariot and head out of Rome.

[Trevor Noah]

Just going back and forth, like, spoiling every moment from history.

[Kara Swisher]

I know. Like Lincoln. Don't go to the theater. Don't go to the theater tonight. Just go. Go to Abraham Lincoln. Crazy wife.

[Trevor Noah]

Spoil the end of the. Of the play. Just be like, oh, in the end of the play, they find out that the woman had another family. Oh, why did you do that? I don't want to watch it anymore.

[Kara Swisher]

Yes, but then nobody could do the. Other than that. Mrs. Lincoln, how is the play?

[Trevor Noah]

You know, we lose a great joke.

[Kara Swisher]

We lose a great joke. Wouldn't that be funny to wander through history and be like. Like, don't go to.

[Trevor Noah]

It would be so cool to do. I mean, if we don't think about what it would. Cause it would be really fun to just.

[Kara Swisher]

Amelia Earhart. Don't get on that plane. Yeah, don't get.

[Trevor Noah]

Just go like, just don't.

[Eugene]

What do women think about Amelia Earhart?

[Trevor Noah]

Do they think.

[Kara Swisher]

Women think got together last week.

[Trevor Noah]

You like her more women than me?

[Kara Swisher]

I don't know. I don't think people think of her that much. I think they probably think she's really interested.

[Trevor Noah]

Eugene thinks about it all the time. How is Eugene's Roman Empire?

[Kara Swisher]

She's a little more complex than people. You know, they have this vision of her, but actually she had a lot of. Some not so great things about her. I mean, she was complex. She was very complex.

[Trevor Noah]

She was a human being. What would you. Where would you go in time?

[Kara Swisher]

Sh.

[Eugene]

I would. I would go hang out with David Chase when he was still thinking about.

[Kara Swisher]

Making oh, wow, okay.

[Eugene]

The Sopranos out would just be his friend. I would just contribute because I love. Cuz I love the Sopranos so much. I even watched how they were doing the casting and who would have gotten which role before which role. And he was at the precipice of making some of the best television.

[Kara Swisher]

The Sopranos.

[Eugene]

I love the Sopranos.

[Trevor Noah]

You don't. You don't worry that you would throw it off by being there, knowing what it's going to be?

[Eugene]

What do I care? It's me time traveling here now. I must care about everyone's feelings.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, but then there's no Sopranos is what I'm saying. So you don't care.

[Kara Swisher]

It's like Back to the Future. Yes, Here you go, Biff. Or no or whatever.

[Eugene]

Because every time after I land in LaGuardia.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, you do. And then that's why immigration always pulls him aside some.

[Kara Swisher]

Every now and then I go. I go back in time and I'd say yes to those job offers at tech companies. Like why?

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, why did you never get into tech?

[Kara Swisher]

There were so many of them. So it must go back. I might say yes, because then I would have a. Billions, billions of dollars right now. And then I would able to be like, really?

[Eugene]

But getting France drunk, like, you know.

[Trevor Noah]

No, but actually, let's talk a little bit about that. Like, you were in tech.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

When tech was still, like, it was really small. The wild, wild West.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. No, I was offered a job at AOL in the early days. I was offered a job at Facebook in the very early days. At Google in the very early days. And Amazon in the very early days.

[Trevor Noah]

Do you know how many billions you've just talked about?

[Kara Swisher]

That's correct. And I kind of would be, like, interesting. Like, it would be a really. It would be a different world. Like, I would have used it politically for sure.

[Eugene]

But let's pretend we're 10 years from now and we're going back in time. Which decisions would you make now to get us wealthy?

[Kara Swisher]

To get us wealthy?

[Eugene]

What would we buy now?

[Kara Swisher]

See, I'm gonna do it again. I'm gonna fuck up again. But I'd probably do something in AI in an area I knew about. Like what? It'll be hard to know which one's gonna win, though, right? You never know which one's going to win.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes. We don't know until the next.

[Kara Swisher]

There were seven or eight Googles before there was Google, right? There was Excite. There was a bunch of them that were all search engines. They just didn't. I'm blanking on all the names. I covered them all. But there were a lot like Google before there was Google.

[Trevor Noah]

I'm still.

[Kara Swisher]

There was MySpace before there was Facebook. There was MySpace before that. There was another one. And I'm blanking on that name. But there was a bunch of.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, but I want to know why. Like, you love tech, right? You still love tech. And you kept saying, do you know why? You said no.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, you know, at one point, I think it was Ted Leonsis, who was. He's now a billionaire and he owns a bunch of teams and stuff. And he used to send me the amount of money I would have had had I taken his job.

[Trevor Noah]

Dad.

[Kara Swisher]

His favorite trolling. But he doesn't do that so much anymore. But I think at one point, I said to one of them, I think it might have been at Amazon. They wanted an editor. Editor job. They had an editor job free. And I said, why would I want to do that? I work for the Washington Post. Something like that. I think I. I liked what I did. And I, you know, at some point, where was this job that was an Amazon job?

[Trevor Noah]

I think that is crazy irony. What a loop. Why would I want this job at Amazon? I work at the Washington Post. And then Amazon goes and buys the Washington Post.

[Kara Swisher]

Jeff does.

[Trevor Noah]

It's almost like Jeff Bezos heard that.

[Kara Swisher]

I could have bought the one I still could buy.

[Eugene]

Then all you have is to.

[Kara Swisher]

I think I was just. I. I think there is a point where there is a number where more money doesn't matter. It really does. It doesn't make you any happier. Right. Unless you want to buy France and buy everybody a glass of wine. And you do need that money. But there is actually. And there's study after study about this. There's a number where people.

[Trevor Noah]

You've also seen it, though, like, you've been on the inside, seeing these people become some of the richest men in the world and still be very.

[Kara Swisher]

I would have to say on my hand, I can count the people who are happy, who I consider really a Cuban would be one of them that are really, truly happy.

[Trevor Noah]

What do you find the other people show you that you deem unhappy?

[Kara Swisher]

What is it that they're deeply insecure. They are constantly aggrieved. There's a lot of aggrievement among the wealthy people. Have you noticed that?

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Kara Swisher]

Zuckerberg, to me, is the most worst. Like, everyone's always attacking me. I'm like, oh, Trump is the same way. He's always being under. He's under siege. Live like that. That's a terrible way to live. Very few are, I would say, really happy people in a lot of ways. And the people that stop sort of being so ultra competitive and demented are happier people. Right. I suspect Bill Gates is a happier person now after he did all the philanthropy than before.

[Eugene]

I like this. When I met you there, you looked like the kind of person who always chooses passion and happiness.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

So when you were young, who.

[Kara Swisher]

I like making money, who did you.

[Eugene]

Look at and go, I love being happy.

[Kara Swisher]

I don't have any heroes. No, no. My dad died when I was young, and my mom's kind of complex, but I would say I just like doing what I like to do. I know it sounds dumb, but when I think about every time I have been successful, I do things that please me. Right. I think I like doing this. And I was very formed by Steve Jobs speech that he gave at Stanford, which I recommend to everybody. He was sick, and then he was well, for a little bit, and then for quite a few years, and then he got sick again. And one of the things I think about was he invented or he was critical to inventing the most important things when he was sick. He really was. If you think, you know, the iPhone, the ipod, everything like that. And one of the things. He gave this speech at Stanford that I read and I listen to all the time. And it basically says, you know, remembering you're gonna die someday is the single greatest motivator for me. When I'm doing things day after day that I don't like, I know I have to stop. Right. And I think I really. It really resonated with me when my dad died. I was like, you know What? He was 34 years old. He just got out of the Navy. He just started to make money, and he died just like that. Now, he didn't know. He didn't. Obviously. He had three kids. He was beginning his life, really begin, you know, his life. It's fine. And he came from a. Not a rich family. He worked his way up by going in the Navy and everything else. And I do. I think about that. I'm like, is this the way I wanna. And Jobs talked about this. Is this the way I wanna spend my day? Like, with that? And so I remember when I was, like, offered. I think it was one of the Facebook people, it was Owen Van Otta who said, come to Facebook. And I was like. And I happen to like him, but I was like, I don't want to be with you people all day. Like, I just don't. I just don't want to. I don't want to be here. And I think that was what it is. And so everything I do now, I stop doing things when I don't want to be there anymore. And it's very easy. Same thing with having kids. When I was older, I was much older, I was like, yes, I would like some kids. I'm gonna do that. And so I think that's. And I have the choice. I have the luxury of choice that other people don't. And that's the other thing. Other people don't have a choice. And to be whiny and bitchy about things when you have all these choices seems.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, but I often think the great responsibility that everybody has is knowing when they have the choice. Choice. Because I think. I think a lot of people in life don't have the choice. And you'll be surprised at how many people do have the choice, but then still live like they don't have the choice.

[Kara Swisher]

They don't. They don't.

[Trevor Noah]

And if you don't know that you have the choice and you're living like you don't have it, I almost go, you've.

[Kara Swisher]

You've.

[Trevor Noah]

You know, you've sort of done yourself a disservice because you have the thing that most people don't have, and you're not using it.

[Kara Swisher]

And I think that's. I think that's sort of where you're in a society, especially with women. And it's interesting because a lot of women come to you now. A lot of media people come to me for advice, like, how did you do it? I want to do it. And I like that they want to do it. And sometimes I'm like, maybe not you, but sometimes, well, you can tell who's entrepreneurial and who's not, right? And often, I'll never forget this one woman came to me and she said she was an executive, always number two. Often women are number two in a lot of these companies or three or something, but never one, right? Men are very easy to step up to one, very easy. And you notice that it's very clear. And she's like. She goes, I want your advice. What should I do? And I said, what do you want to do? That's what I said, what do you want to do? And she said, well, I've been offered this, this and this. And I said, huh? And she goes, and I'm thinking this. I go, I didn't ask you what you were offered. I asked you what you want to do. You didn't hear me what I said to you. She goes, what's the difference? I go, oh, it's a huge difference offered. It's is like, this man wants to marry me. This man wants to marry me. That's what you got offered. That's not who you wanna marry. Maybe you do, maybe you don't. And I said the metaphor to me is a restaurant. You go in and they have chicken, pork and lamb, and you want duck, Ask for the fucking duck. And she was like, well, what if they don't have duck? I said, they have duck. It's back there. And she goes, what if they don't have duck? I said, they have fucking duck. And she goes, what if they don't have duck? I said, then leave the restaurant and go find the duck restaurant. Like, I don't know what to tell you. If you want duck, have fucking duck. And she's like, what are you talking about? I was like, I am a genius. I said, I am giving you this pearl of fucking wisdom. I was like, order the duck. Just do it. Like, don't have the chicken if you don't want the chicken. You have the ability to choose. And most people in this world, I have to say, are stuck in places they don't like. Whether you're in Syria, whether you're a woman and Sudan. Like you don't have a choice or you're poor or you're in deep poverty without education. Even in this country, people don't have choices that other people have. And to be that's why it drives me crazy with the Democrats. Like, what do we do? I'm like, what are you fucking talking about? Lots of things. Let's start with the thing instead of just wallowing in oh no, Autocracy. Really? Does it have that has to be the choice. No, it doesn't.

[Trevor Noah]

Don't press anything. We've got more. What now? After this.

[Kara Swisher]

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[Trevor Noah]

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[Eugene]

You know what you're saying reminds me of a conversation we had with one of our friends in an episode here who said when you asked him, why are you always so happy, Joe? Then he says I'm hashtag winning because do you know where I come from? He says, in Uganda, all of this is not here. So I get to enjoy all of this and I have no time to and moan and complain when other people are feeling a little bit inconvenienced. And I think of you and, and, and how you speak of your father.

[Kara Swisher]

Mean, like, come on. Right, right.

[Eugene]

And how you speak of your father and, and I'm like you.

[Trevor Noah]

He's long gone now.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, he's dead.

[Trevor Noah]

I think he's dead.

[Eugene]

Gone, gone, gone.

[Kara Swisher]

Long, long, long. You never know what these dicks.

[Eugene]

I think either the gout got lost forever. I think the story that you mentioned about your dad, I stopped myself from being choked up a little bit because I. I lost my dad two years ago.

[Kara Swisher]

You're going to weep. This documentary march.

[Eugene]

Yeah, I lost my dad two years ago. And there was so many occasions that I could have gone and spent time with him. Because I've told Trevor the story before you were.

[Kara Swisher]

Was.

[Eugene]

He was an alcoholic, so he was really struggling.

[Kara Swisher]

It was hard for you too.

[Eugene]

So I never knew which guy I'm gonna get when I go meet him. But when he passed away, I felt a certain loss. And I thought maybe if I don't go to the funeral, we'll never feel like he's really, really gone. And as time went on, I really, really feel like he's gone. And it influenced how I. What I think of alcohol. I'm not really a big fan of alcohol. And I try to be as. And I try to be as most. As present as possible. And I looked at your family pictures today and it spurred on that thing that I told you that I think this is one, one thing that I would like to try because I'd never seen a working version of it. I've attempted. It didn't work. But I think with hindsight, you get to have a bit of, you know, experience in it without actually living it. So I understand completely when you say you don't have time to, you know, do something that you don't have.

[Kara Swisher]

Nobody has time. And I think that's a really. By the way, this zig I'm working on is about longevity and the health span versus versus lifespan and how to have a better, longer, healthier life. Because we spent 90% of our medical money in the last 10 years. And it's all horrible. Even in the best of circumstances, it's horrible. And so why are we spending 90% here and not over here? Like, why are we living in a six. Six? I'm not a Maha person, trust me. I think they're crazy. But why are we spending all this time and in the sick place and spending all our money and resources when there's all these incredible breakthroughs that we could end obesity, end like cancer, end this stuff. And we spend all our time in the worst possible situation at the end of our lives, which I think is terrible. Like barring accidents, barring things that you can't avoid, right? Earthquakes, whatever it happens to be. And so it's really. I think about that all the time. And whenever I saw. I was at this event this morning and these young people came. Cause I. I thought I was pretty good on stage. And all these young People came up to me and said, that was so incredible. And they said, can you give us a piece of advice? I go, you'll be dead in a hundred years. Goodbye. They were like. And I'm like, think about it and then make your choice. Make your choice. You'll be actually dead in a hundred years.

[Eugene]

What is the film gonna be? No, I'm interested.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, you'll have to wait and see. I'm not supposed to talk about it. It's embargoed. I hate embargo. It's for cnn. Fine, whatever. But it's actually gonna be a podcast and an event and a book. So I really think people have. About our time here. I don't know. I do. I think about it all.

[Eugene]

I think about it all the time.

[Kara Swisher]

It's not an obsessed thing. There's a great app called WeCroak. It's such a good appreciate.

[Eugene]

Yeah, we croak eventually.

[Kara Swisher]

We croak. It's called we croak. It's little frog too, which is a little thing. And let me read this to you. It's really interesting. So it's my favorite app that I have. It's right on the front and it's about, we croak. Five quotes a day. In Bhutan, they say contemplating death five times a day brings happiness. Happiness, right. And then they have a quoted the five quotes. And this one is from Jimi Hendrix. I'm the one that has to die when it's time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to. Jimi Hendrix. I just read that. I'm like, good, good point. Jimi Hendrix. And so I read them and then I'm like, okay. And then it makes you do things.

[Trevor Noah]

When I was in Bhutan and we were doing that.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, you're in Bhutan.

[Trevor Noah]

I didn't at the time. At first I was just like, this is a. Like really not a vibe. And then you get into it and you're like, oh, yeah, it's. It's. It's the. It's the embracing of the impermanence.

[Kara Swisher]

That's right, right.

[Trevor Noah]

You know, and. And what it does, funny enough, is I remember going on a. A guided tour in Paris with a fantastic tour guide. Always shout him out, Jean Manuel, if you're ever in Paris, look him up. And he gave this tour. And one of the main things that I learned from that tour was there are two different kinds of people who get to shape the future. There are people who shape the future knowing that they will not be a part of it, but they Know what they wish they would have gotten to be a part of. And then there are people who shape the future as if they will always be there.

[Kara Swisher]

That's right.

[Trevor Noah]

And the latter is oftentimes the worst person to shape the future because they don't know that they'll have to let it go. And when I think about some of these tech guys that you're talking about.

[Kara Swisher]

For this series, because I was at endless dinner parties where they talked about living forever.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, they love it.

[Kara Swisher]

Living their brain.

[Trevor Noah]

No, they love it.

[Kara Swisher]

And I was like, for what?

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, they love it.

[Kara Swisher]

But I honestly, honestly believe there's more stuff going on. But that was the original. Cryogenics was, of course, the idea to preserve your brain. And by the way, we're moving into areas that some of this. You stop Xi and Putin talking about.

[Trevor Noah]

Doing organ transit and living forever.

[Kara Swisher]

So their impetus is so narcissistic. And it's not about making better lives for people on this planet and extending life. One guy I interviewed for this thing who wrote a fictional book called Elixir, and I'm blanking on his name, but he was terrific. So what if you were? The premise of this book is pretty simple. There's a pill you can take that for every year of your life, every five years of your life. It only ages you one year. So you can be 100 and look 20. Right. Would you take it one? And then he starts to contemplate the impact on society. Well, young people would be up in arms because all the old people would stay young longer and never get out of the fucking way. Right. That's one. Which they don't do now, as aged as they are in Congress. And then two, what if the person who made it would become the real first trillionaire of the thing? Who would control that? Should it be an individual who's selling it to you? And what if it was expensive enough that only wealthy people could take it? It was such a great. It's a great idea, this elixir. And the idea of elixir has been with us forever. There's a magic, a fountain of youth elixir, or there's always been that theme. And so would you take it? What if you took it and your kids didn't want to? They get older than you. I mean, it's so mind fucking right. It's so interesting to think about. And a lot of these tech people who want. Whether it's Larry Ellison, who's now become the world's richest man today, he's just surpassed Elon Wow Also Elon, Sam Altman, they're all investing in longevity stuff because. And in some cases it's an interesting thing. Sam Altman's stuff is about health span extension. So you don't waste your time. I kind of. I'm down with that. Others are like, how can I live longer than other. What can I do to live to stop telomeres and sentient cells and all this stuff. Other people like Jennifer are funding people like Jennifer Doudna with crispr, which will remove, for example, sickle cell anemia. They may be able, they are able to solve it now. It's just expensive to do so. Cause it's a single gene that you remove via crystals, right?

[Trevor Noah]

So you just edit that gene out.

[Kara Swisher]

Most diseases are multi gene and so it's much harder. But it costs $2 million every time they do this. Wow. Too expensive. But they can eradicate it now, which is largely eradicated for the most part. And so the question is, who gets to have it and when? And is there a way to do it that's democratic and not as usual for the world's richest people? They're all approaching it as. As if I should not die because I am this unique individual. What if you approached it like you are gonna make the world better for all these people, like everybody that people don't have to die of obesity, they don't have to die of heart disease, they don't have to. Of many, many, many cancers. It just goes away. It's a really interesting idea. And so I wanna get rid of all the charlatans of which there are so many and narcissistic characters, charlatans. And then let's look at what really is working, which is it's an amazing field, you know, and remove it. And so again, the same thing. It's a love story in the benefits of technology. And it's also a nightmare if it goes another direction. Would you take that pill?

[Trevor Noah]

No, I wouldn't.

[Kara Swisher]

You wouldn't?

[Trevor Noah]

No. I've thought about this a lot and I wouldn't.

[Kara Swisher]

No, you wouldn't.

[Trevor Noah]

So the reason I wouldn't take it is because I think one of the greatest lessons I've learned in life is that the value of things is often most appreciated in their scarcity. So I've seen this through my friends who have children. I've watched them appreciate time differently. You know me, I've never said the phrase time flies. I've never felt like time flies, ever, ever, ever. But every single friend of mine who is a parent will go, I Mean, you look up and you're like, where did the time go? And I see them yearn for the time, but they never cared for it in the same way before. Before.

[Kara Swisher]

Right.

[Trevor Noah]

You know, and I think we take that for granted. We. We don't understand. And that's where some people have hacked us, like food companies and stuff. But, like, there is something magical about the last chip in a bag. There really is.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

But, you know, when there's infinite chips, it doesn't care. Yeah. It doesn't. It doesn't have the same anything. There's. There's something to A moment of Highlander. Exactly.

[Kara Swisher]

Or all the vampire movies.

[Trevor Noah]

Exactly.

[Kara Swisher]

Which I also love a vampire movie.

[Trevor Noah]

There's just something that you lose. And I think there's a stage in life that you don't get to experience that's beautiful. Like, you start slow, you speed up, and then you get slow again. And I think there's something beautiful in that loop.

[Kara Swisher]

What if you could take your brain and put it in another robot or a cyborg or something like that? That's going to happen.

[Trevor Noah]

So here's what I will say to that. I find it particularly interesting that a lot of these people who are doing this will say they have the greatest imaginations, but then they don't imagine the possibility that there's something beyond what we're in now. And not necessarily an afterlife, but just like, what if you just locked yourself in this forever? And what you don't get to get out, you don't even. Out or in. What if there's an in? What if there's another? I don't know. What is there or isn't there?

[Kara Swisher]

That's a really good point.

[Trevor Noah]

But why would you limit yourself from possibly experiencing. Then you're like, oh, but what if you just did?

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, well, you won't know because they don't believe there is. They don't believe there is something.

[Trevor Noah]

And that's. But I'm saying, why would you. That to me, is when ideas and imagination start to die.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

You know, one of my favorite things someone ever said, and I hope he sticks to this, was Jensen Huang, Nvidia CEO. I was talking to him about jobs and AI and, you know, all these things that are going to happen. And I said to him, what do you think about all the companies who are firing people because they've got AI?

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

And he said to me, I think every single one of those companies should die. And I was like, whoa, wait, what? And he said, if you are using AI to get rid of employees. You're a company that's run out of. Out of ideas.

[Kara Swisher]

Ideas.

[Trevor Noah]

And he said, because AI should enable you to do more of what you were trying to do, because now you can, you can expand it to get.

[Kara Swisher]

Rid of all the mundane tasks.

[Trevor Noah]

And Nvidia has shown that they were like, we make chips. And they were like, maybe we could. Could make software. And also maybe we could make robots, and maybe we could make warehouses, and maybe we could make cars. And maybe we could make the. And maybe we could. And maybe. And you go like, oh, he's living that ethos. Do you know what I mean? They're not. There's no mass layoffs. There's no.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, he. Today. Let me just.

[Trevor Noah]

No, but that's what I'm saying to you. I hope he sticks to this.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

And whether he does or doesn't, I do believe the message is correct.

[Kara Swisher]

It's true. It's like, why do. Why is what you're using. We were just talking this on pivot this week. It's like, why is what you're using AI for is too limit. And by the way, there are mundane tasks people shouldn't do. Like, when's the last time you look at a map? When's the last time you turned butter? When's the last time you, you know, you could go through all kinds of technologies and time saving is okay for a lot of those. And a lot of, like a lot of jobs are so rote and machines do do them better. And so what, what, what the challenge of our society is in the next few governments will be is what do you do when things like we had a drastic change. Farmers were the original entrepreneurs. You get it. Deciding what crops to pick, whatever to do with the weather. So much like such an entrepreneur. Which plow to use? Did you do have the innovative new plow or. I always go look at old plows. I'm fascinated. And as they made the progression and how they ease time for people and backbreaking work. And one of the things that's interesting is the of one. What part of that do you. When we went from farming to not farming, it was the right decision, Right. Because that was artisanal and done in a small way. So what is that right now? And then what can we do to help people transition to the better job?

[Trevor Noah]

Right.

[Kara Swisher]

Or what is the better job? Like, I think a lot about self driving. I love ev. I love, like Waymo. I've been in it.

[Trevor Noah]

They're really fun.

[Kara Swisher]

I was in the original, original, original one.

[Trevor Noah]

The one when they first you went like the.

[Kara Swisher]

This was 10 years, 10, 12 years ago when Google had it in the parking lot. I ran over there, I'm like, put me in this fucking thing and let me see who I can run over. Because I wanted to see how good you guys are.

[Trevor Noah]

No, you can't get in the car. We do have shrimp.

[Kara Swisher]

The guy who started it now runs a company called Aurora, which is a self driving, which is an autonomous trucking company. He's great, he's a great, great entrepreneur. But I made him stand in front of it. I'm like, let's see if you're up to what you just invented. And he did it, he stood in front of it and his car stopped. Oh well. But I kept going, go, go, go. So anyway, so I love them and I know people will be put up jobs. I do, I do. But I'm thinking, for example, trucking is such a dangerous profession for people. It's not a good profession, it's not good for your family. It's not everything. I know there's a romantic around trucking, but it shouldn't be done by, by people. It really shouldn't. Coal mining shouldn't be done by people. Like things like that. And so, okay, you have the autonomous trucks and a lot of our nation's is pretty flat. And so they're not going to get in accidents, they get in fewer. The problem is people, not the trucks.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, the people are the anomaly.

[Kara Swisher]

The anomaly, right, exactly. And the trucks. Once one truck makes a mistake, all the trucks learn. When one person makes a mistake, nobody learns. Right. That's how it goes. Unless we have to figure something, something out to get people the matrix and the chip in their head. So what was interesting to me is I was like, okay, let's talk about the jobs thing. He goes, here's the thing I'm thinking because he happens to be a very thoughtful entrepreneur, this guy. He's like, right now, long haul trucking is really dangerous. It's bad for people. Physically, it's dangerous. What if all these autonomous trucks went to the edges of cities and that's the only place they don't go into cities anymore. And by the way, it solves a problem. And then you get smaller trucks driven by people that bring it into the cities.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, nice.

[Kara Swisher]

You know, of course the idea of putting them under cities is actually a great idea. Or all the people that are running the fleet, who's monitoring the fleet and where it goes. But you create a situation where the truckers then live near where they work rather than drive. And I was like, thank you. You just thought of. Really. I don't know if that's gonna work. But you could sit there and start to think, okay, if the people. People of Google aren't coding anymore, you know, or if people Vibe code. You know what Vibe coding is, right? If people.

[Trevor Noah]

Eugene is.

[Kara Swisher]

Do you know what Vibe coding is?

[Trevor Noah]

No. Do you know? I'm assuming you don't. That's what I'm saying.

[Eugene]

I just figured out today I can rotate my.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay, so Vibe. So Vibe coding is. The original coding was you had to know the language that a computer speaks, and there were multiple different languages. You know, Java, C. Yeah. Coding languages. And then Vibe coding now is you're using an AI to basically code on your behalf, and you're saying what you want the code to be and what you want the program to be.

[Kara Swisher]

I find me a wife. And this is my criteria. And not just. It's the prompt. Prompt is the big word now. Everything is a prompt. What is the prompt? And everything will be created by the. It's a question. Yes, it is. Answers are things progress because of questions in this world. And so you're like, I want an app that will make me find a wife, and here are my criteria, and here are. Here's where I want you to search, and it will make you the app. It will just happen.

[Trevor Noah]

So it's Vibes, Right.

[Kara Swisher]

It's like on Star Trek when you said, I would like a turkey sandwich, and then it just appeared. That kind of stuff.

[Trevor Noah]

But you see that, you know, when you go back to the world of. Yes, Vibe coding and what we look for as a future, I think what makes this business person thoughtful for me is I don't know them, but I think they understand the nature of work. And I think this is what most people in business have forgotten.

[Eugene]

And the significance of it is they.

[Trevor Noah]

Forget that a company is a fake thing. They forget that Wall street is a fake thing. All of these things are imagined is what I mean. You know, to use the correct word, it's more imagined. It's more imagined, okay? The purpose of it is to give people something to do, to move value around. However we assign it, whether it's time or currency or a product, whatever it is, is. But that's what generally keeps societies moving and happy and flowing. But once you stop them, once you create a dam, that's when things die. You know what I mean? That's when the sand builds up. That's when. But that's exactly it. And I think they don't realize this. It's funny, you talk about the truck thing. I remember talking to somebody who was also in autonomous trucking, and I said, what if there's a bridge? You think trucks should be autonomous? There are many people who drive trucks for a living who are gonna lose their jobs.

[Kara Swisher]

Right. Oh, so we don't have enough truck drivers, but go ahead.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. No, no. But I was like, there are many people who will. But I said, what if you found a bridge in between where the person could drive the truck from home?

[Kara Swisher]

Mm.

[Trevor Noah]

Like, you have an autonomous truck and they're there, but it's guided by a truck driver at home. It's very different driving a truck. And then I saw the other day, my youngest brother sent me a video of this. There's some people now who work in, like, quarries and stuff.

[Kara Swisher]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. They're at home and they're using, like, the excavation.

[Kara Swisher]

The human element is important in decision making. Right. And it's the same thing with drones. It's the same thing with, like, at some point there will be drones that will operate on their own, like, autonomously, like, of course. And make autonomous decisions. Same thing with sentencing, justice. I mean, that's what's interesting. Like, every single industry will be affected this. The thing about AI is everything. Because what it does is you had Google where you went and put a thing in the box, and then it brought you the answer, but it didn't really bring you the answer. It brought you lots of answers to find. And so it's like, here's a pile of library books. Good luck. That's what Google is like, you know, like, oh, God, there's 10 books here. Where is the answer in these 10 books? Well, it could be here is sort of gave you a suggestion. Maybe look at this one first, you're feeling lucky. Yeah, I'm feeling lucky.

[Trevor Noah]

That was my favorite thing on a Google page. It was, I'm feeling lucky.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, do you often had the right answer?

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, but I was just like, what a crazy button to I'm feeling lucky.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. They were a funny gang back then, let me tell you.

[Eugene]

Wasn't that Dirty Harry?

[Kara Swisher]

No. They were a weird group of people then, I have to say. And they remain the same to this very day. But one of the things that's interesting about that idea is with AI is it. Doesn't it actually. And I know hallucinations, blah, blah. It will get it right. Like, the original Internet, if you recall, was quite ugly and stupid and did it. AI will get it right. At some point, because it will learn and figure out. It could provide you with things, it could really give you great answers and cut the time it requires you to get it and get rid of things that were lots of steps along the way, like making butter or whatever. There's a better way to do it. And so I think we have to approach it like it's a better way to do it. And now what can people do do? What's the human element in deciding these? And I think what I get really worried about is people who really not resist it. I was with a bunch of journalists or the most risk averse people on the planet. I was with a group of people and I was talking about AI coming up with headlines, right? Just for writing headlines. They're very good at it. They can spit out 100 headlines in five seconds. And it takes some creaky old guy to come up with two terrible ideas in three hours. Right? Well, we gotta keep him in the job. I'm like, but he's bad at it. Like, why is he doing that job? Taking small points. Yeah, right. And they were like, we can't have people do that. I said, but it's headlines. Like, why? Why do people have to do that? Well, cause people have decided. I said, well, then spit out a hundred headlines and then a person picks the one. But let the person have the final decision making.

[Trevor Noah]

The person doesn't have to be out of the loop.

[Kara Swisher]

That's right, exactly.

[Trevor Noah]

But the person also doesn't have to be doing the grunt labor.

[Kara Swisher]

Right? Like, why not? And by the way, AI comes up with, I would say 79 bad ideas, but 21 are pretty fucking good. Like, they are like, I have to say, you're like, not bad. Yeah. And they were like, well, that's this group of people that's terrible. I'm like, why are you. The hill you're dying on is headlines when I'm telling you you need to focus on making products that people want and figure out what the creativity part is. Headlines are not the create. It's the grunt work. It's the input work. It's the stuff that computers should do. Right. Why are people inputting? Why? I don't even understand it. And it's really interesting. The resistance is, you know, in media as, you know. I mean, what's happening now at Mural? Well, that's another story you'd like to get into that. I'm happy to, but what in the actual. Fuck. God. Yeah, Anyway, but like, for example, I was just with the person who's Running Ms. Now, which I don't particularly like the name.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, yeah.

[Kara Swisher]

I don't really care what they call it. They can call it Phyllis, I don't really care.

[Trevor Noah]

But as long as it's a great name for networking.

[Kara Swisher]

I know. I know, right? It doesn't matter. If it's good, it's good.

[Trevor Noah]

Did you see what happened on Phyllis? Phyllis, Yeah, I like that. Actually, Barbara, are you the guy from Phyllis?

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Excuse me, ma'.

[Kara Swisher]

Am.

[Trevor Noah]

Did I see you. Did I see you on Phyllis the other day? I actually like that.

[Kara Swisher]

A. Barbara. Barbara.

[Trevor Noah]

Barbara's the nice one. But Phyllis is really Phyllis. That's like a cool.

[Kara Swisher]

It is a cool.

[Eugene]

I can't hear the word. This is Phyllis.

[Kara Swisher]

Phyllis Diller.

[Eugene]

Syphilis.

[Kara Swisher]

Syphilis. Okay.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, okay. Wow.

[Kara Swisher]

You went there.

[Trevor Noah]

Is that the fool? Wow. Eugene. Huh?

[Kara Swisher]

Syphilis.

[Eugene]

As you were.

[Trevor Noah]

No, please, Cara.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay, so one of the things I was talking. It's called Versant, which I'm like. Also causes rash in your. You know, causes vaginal. Also solves your vaginal rash problems. And they. And this executive's like, that's not funny. I go, no, that's funny. Come on. The name Versant, you walked right into it by calling the stupid thing Versant. So anyways, AI came up with that name. And so half the people there. It's really interesting. Are like, oh, no. Oh, no. And I was like, no, this is a golden fucking opportunity. Be creative and make things people want. And if you don't, you get to leave. Like, if you can't. And to me, the people I really like are the ones that are like, okay, this is a. We're now freed of all this other shit. Now we can make cool stuff. Same thing. You know, at so many of these places, they now have the opportunity. I have a rule when I make companies I've made. Everything I've made has been pretty successful. Very successful, actually. And someone was like, what's your secret sauce for making things? And I go, I make things people want. Want. And I sell them. And they're like, what? And I said. And I asked myself this one question when I'm making something and it's whether I know it's right or not. Did anyone ever ask for this? Like, a lot of people make, a lot of corporations make. Did anyone ever ask, like, Washington Post did, let's let sources make comments in the stories that our reporters write. They think it's brilliant, this one.

[Trevor Noah]

But did anyone ever ask for that?

[Kara Swisher]

Did anyone ever fuck. I said, did anyone ever fucking ask for this? They're like, no, but it's cool. I'm like, but it's not like, who wants that? Like, who except the sources who get to, like, clap back at the reporters. So they wanted it. But does that make you more money?

[Trevor Noah]

Like, you know, does it even make the product better?

[Kara Swisher]

Right.

[Trevor Noah]

You know what I mean? Does it serve your reader more? Does it inform them? Does it create?

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, right, right, exactly. And so often they try to make. They don't think about what people want. And that's what I think about that all the time. So I think they'll do great if they make things people want and they keep the costs in the line.

[Trevor Noah]

Doesn't seem very amazing. Yeah, I love this.

[Kara Swisher]

Do you miss tv? I'm curious.

[Trevor Noah]

Do I miss tv? Yeah, I don't think I ever liked tv.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, really? Interesting.

[Trevor Noah]

No, like, you like live. No, no. But what I mean is this is like, I hope I'm not getting too didactic with this answer, but it's like, please do the. So even, like, let's say podcast, I always laugh at that. I go, what does that mean? If there's a camera? If there's a. Then is it a podcast? Is it not?

[Kara Swisher]

It's a vlogcast. Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

People love giving things names. It's a TV movie. It's a movie, right? Not a TV movie. It's a movie. He's just watching it on tv.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

All of these things. So for me, what I genuinely. The thing that I miss, the only thing that I miss is engaging with the human beings that I engaged with. So I loved working on problems and ideas with a team. I love the jokes that we would tell each other in the writers room. I love the meetings that we would have. I love meeting, meeting with the audience and having them ask questions. That's all that I miss, genuinely. And my friends, I think, can account for this. If you told me that none of that actually ended up on TV and I was just, like, being scammed, I would go, like, man, I still had a great time.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

And I, I, that's how I think of it for my life is I go, I wish to be partaking in the activity of creativity with the people that I love. And then I'll, I'll enjoy that and I'll come out on the other side with an experience. But the actual TV side of it.

[Kara Swisher]

Doesn'T really matter either. That's something a lot of people don't get. I used to say one of the things, they were always like, oh, if this goes and that's always like, no, if you make great stuff, it'll sell every single fucking time. And I think they get stuck into the system more than anything rather than what they're actually making. And so process always takes over. And one of the things that I've just recently started doing a series of podcasts. A media that works. I'm so sick of the doom scrolling and oh, media. All I talk to is people who are. And some of them work. Like the woman who's running Wired. She's kicking ass because she's making great stuff. She decided to double down on Doge. She has really interesting stories. She's part of a corporation. I'm not just doing entrepreneurs. Her descriptions are up like a hundred percent. Why? Because she's making things people want. So I interviewed her. Oliver Darcy, who does media writing, he left CNN to do it. I interviewed him. There's a guy at the Post that I helped figure out how to leave who does videos on TikTok. Like all kinds of people are approaching it from different ways and using technology to do so. And I think it's really important to keep at heart all that's important is what you're making. Like what's the thing you're saying or doing or writing or what's the story you're telling. That doesn't change. And technology doesn't make it any better. Like, doesn't. It just doesn't. People do. 100%. No question.

[Trevor Noah]

I love this. Thank you so much.

[Kara Swisher]

All right. Thank you.

[Trevor Noah]

I hope we see you again.

[Kara Swisher]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

Come and join us again.

[Kara Swisher]

His wedding, obviously.

[Trevor Noah]

Ah.

[Kara Swisher]

When you fix him up walking down the aisle.

[Trevor Noah]

Here comes Eugene Cosa this morning.

[Kara Swisher]

You need a Sopranos fan, obviously. That's, That's. That should be a top.

[Trevor Noah]

Or even better, you need somebody who's never watched the Sopranos, because that'll be the greatest joy.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

There's nothing better than introducing somebody. No.

[Kara Swisher]

Introducing someone like it.

[Trevor Noah]

No, they'll. They can't not like it.

[Kara Swisher]

What if they don't?

[Trevor Noah]

But that's how you'll know that they love you. No, that's how I mean it, honestly, is. That's where I feel like you'll. You'll explore something. They'll. They'll be like, through your eyes. Why do you love it so much?

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Or they'll hate it and you'll still be a great couple.

[Kara Swisher]

Actually, you can. You can. Like, my wife is like, I'd love to live in Brooklyn. I said, I'd rather poke my eye with a dry snack.

[Eugene]

The Whole entire eye.

[Kara Swisher]

The entire eye.

[Eugene]

Like, totally.

[Kara Swisher]

If I have to go in a co op, I'll kill myself. I'm like, Give me the $4 Apple and leave me the phone. I don't want to talk. I don't want to work for it. I would like. But I'm not a Burning man gal, so. Do you go to Burning Man?

[Trevor Noah]

No, I've never been. I want to go, though.

[Kara Swisher]

Why?

[Trevor Noah]

Because I want to experience everything in my life. It doesn't matter.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay.

[Trevor Noah]

I've been in dirty before.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. I can't. You know why.

[Trevor Noah]

No, I have been in dirty before.

[Eugene]

Tell us more.

[Trevor Noah]

I've even told you this. I want to experience.

[Eugene]

You see what's happening now.

[Trevor Noah]

How am I comping you?

[Eugene]

He's like, I told you about my dirty.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay.

[Eugene]

But what. No, what.

[Trevor Noah]

What is.

[Kara Swisher]

You can learn more about each other.

[Trevor Noah]

What is the dirtiest thing about Burning Man? Dirt. Like, the actual dirt?

[Kara Swisher]

Actual dirt.

[Trevor Noah]

Cara, have you been to Haman's? Karl, have you been to Haman's?

[Kara Swisher]

Kral? No.

[Trevor Noah]

What is that exactly?

[Kara Swisher]

Is this your country again? Is this your country?

[Trevor Noah]

No, like, what I mean is, like, the thing. The thing.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Thank you, Eugene. The thing that people. I like. I loved going to the homelands, and, like, when someone goes Burning Man, I'm like, this is not.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, that's true. It's kind of a wimp thing.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Kara Swisher]

Here's why I can't go to Burning man, because a lot of tech guys go there. They're gonna slip me, like, ayahuasca, and then I'm gonna end up in some trailer in Reno married to a man. Like, something will happen.

[Trevor Noah]

I like that the end of the bad story was married to a man.

[Kara Swisher]

Man, I will end up.

[Eugene]

There will be pictures.

[Kara Swisher]

There will be pictures. They will. I will not. I do not. When I go to these companies now, I'm like this. I'm like, don't touch.

[Trevor Noah]

Just cover everything.

[Kara Swisher]

Cover everything.

[Trevor Noah]

No, man, I would like.

[Kara Swisher]

They do that without presidents. When I was interviewing Obama, they put a thing on the.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, no, they don't.

[Kara Swisher]

And I went to touch it, and the Secret Service lost their mind.

[Trevor Noah]

They wouldn't even want to. When you interview, like, presidents and that, they. They don't even let you have the water. They don't. They. Yeah, no, no. They bring everything. Cover them. They. Yeah, of course.

[Kara Swisher]

What's the first thing I did was like, can I tell.

[Trevor Noah]

Can I tell you one. Can I tell you one of the funniest moments I ever had? Like, that was. It was Gail King invite. This is like, early, early, early. When I was, like, just in the US Hosting the Daily Show, Gail King invited me to the Kennedy Center Honors.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, they're fun. They're fun. I covered them as a young.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, but in Obama's box. What. What Ex. You see? Now you're with me.

[Kara Swisher]

Gail, she's always up to things, that Gail.

[Trevor Noah]

I. I remember. I remember. I remember going, wait. She was like, trevor, come with me. And you know how Gail, she's like, trevor, you don't love it. She's like, you do. Do you know Gail from tv?

[Eugene]

Yes. Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

Then you know Gail.

[Kara Swisher]

Exactly right.

[Trevor Noah]

Gail is the most personal Gail person. The most. Gail. She's the most.

[Kara Swisher]

Gail person.

[Trevor Noah]

Gail is like, Gail. So Gail, she was like, trevor, you got to come, Kenny. I was like, okay, okay. We get there. We don't go to the main section. We go into President Barack Obama's box, walk in. There he is, Secret Service. Trevor, you coming to watch the show? We're gonna have a good time. Good time. It's gonna be good. You ever been here before? So we're in there we go, we sit down, and then the show starts. And I'm sitting right behind him, and the Secret Service is like. Like, way back there, and I'm to your point of, like, the glass. I'm, like, staring at his head, and I was looking at, like, the. The. Just, of course, the hairs on the back of his head and the. And. And I was just like, when was the last time somebody, like, hit his head?

[Eugene]

That's how William Booth became who he was.

[Trevor Noah]

No, let me explain.

[Kara Swisher]

John Wilkes.

[Eugene]

Booth. No, because. No, but I.

[Trevor Noah]

Let me explain. Let me explain.

[Kara Swisher]

So you thought about hitting his head?

[Trevor Noah]

No, I did not. I did not think about hitting his head.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay.

[Eugene]

This is not the first time you're gonna get.

[Trevor Noah]

You're gonna get the Secret Service coming. No, I. I just thought to myself, cuz I always. I want this for people.

[Eugene]

I've got a visa. I have two.

[Kara Swisher]

I can't wait to see where this is ending.

[Trevor Noah]

Go ahead. I love for people to have human experiences, and I've asked President Obama this in person. I've gone, do you miss being called by your name? Do you miss somebody not knowing you? He does share that. He. He does miss many of those things. He has dreams of being on a park bench. Like, literally, that's his dream.

[Kara Swisher]

That anymore? Never again.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, but that's what I mean. He dreams of that. He's like, oh, man. I. You know, and when I was there, I Like, I was like, will Sputhy, I imagine. No, I imagine, like, wow. When was the last time in his life that somebody just went pap on Barack Obama's head?

[Eugene]

Michelle probably does it.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, maybe. But I just thought that would be so cool for him to be like, what? Like in that. But then I was like, how close is the Secret Service? Would they think I'm trying to kill him?

[Kara Swisher]

Would they?

[Trevor Noah]

Would.

[Kara Swisher]

They would.

[Trevor Noah]

That's the problem.

[Kara Swisher]

They would.

[Trevor Noah]

So I was an able to afford him the experience.

[Kara Swisher]

You didn't touch him. I'm glad you didn't touch him.

[Trevor Noah]

I did not touch him.

[Kara Swisher]

Can I tell you a very brief Obama story?

[Trevor Noah]

Go, go.

[Kara Swisher]

So we did a interview and he's talking to digital people that, you know, they decided, let's get some digital people, you know, that, you know, some stupid marketing person or PR person in a room. So I get one of the things. And the other one was, remember the woman with the green lips on mtv? And I'm blanking on her name. She had green lips and she was an MTV dvd.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, she was a vj.

[Kara Swisher]

Vj, right. So she gets an interview, I get an interview. But then they cut my interview by ten and give it to her. And I was like, are you fucking kidding me? Like, I'm sorry. I mean, you know, I don't mean to say, don't you know who I am? But you just cut my interview by 10 minutes. So that's hard when you have it planned out in your head, right? And everything, so.

[Trevor Noah]

Cause you've planned the whole thing.

[Kara Swisher]

I planned the whole thing. And I'm like, now I gotta do something. So we sit down and the glass is there. And I'm thinking of touching the glass, but then that'll take off another five minutes off, because it'll be five minutes of moving the glass around. So he. So he sits down. He's really right. Need a name with me. And I go, listen, they just cut 10 minutes off my interview. And here's the problem I have with you is you talk too much. And you never have a paragraph. You talk in paragraphs. You never stop talking. I understand you've been president for six years. Everyone listens to you. But I'm going to interrupt you. And I'm sure you're not used to that because no one interrupts you. But I'm about to interrupt you a lot because they cut my fucking 10 minutes. So just be aware. You're maybe not used to it, but try to remember when people used to interrupt you. Okay? Okay. Great. And he looks at me and goes, I heard you were obnoxious. And I go, I am. And we started the interview, the whole interview. He was so pithy. I totally like, mind fucked him to do it. So later I totally mind. He completely fell for it. And so, and I was always. I got in an argument with him too, because you have to figure out what in an interview is the thing. And he does not like getting mad. And I kept trying to get him mad. Cause he's resisting anger, right? Cause he doesn't want to be angry, black guy, I guess. I don't know. Of course. Yeah, whatever. I kept trying to get him mad. And so we do the interview. It was very testy, actually. It was a very testy interview because everyone sort of is not testy to him. And I was like, I'm going for testy. So months, months and months later, when he was leaving office, my ex wife worked for him as the cto. And when he ends his administration, it's such a lovely thing. You go into the Oval Office and meet him and you get, get a handshake and a picture. Everything from Susan Rice on down gets this.

[Trevor Noah]

Every single question.

[Kara Swisher]

It's lovely. It's a lovely tradition. So my ex wife goes, hey, come with us. It'd be really nice to have the whole family there. The sons would love it. It would be really great. So we go. I go, I don't know. He doesn't like me very much.

[Trevor Noah]

He doesn't, for good reason.

[Kara Swisher]

Yes, no, but he does.

[Trevor Noah]

I poked and prodded him.

[Kara Swisher]

Prodded him. And so we walk into the Oval Office and he goes, how do you. You get in here? So then it gets worse. So I was like, I didn't want to be here either. Trust me, I don't really want to spend time with you either. And so he goes, fine, we'll take the picture. And he knows everything about everybody, must be given cards or little factoids. You know how they know. Like, so you take. So he goes to my oldest son and he goes, louis, I hear you're such a good cook, and if you open a restaurant someday, can you come? And Louis goes, yeah, yeah, sure. Absolutely, Mr. President. I'll cook you a great meal. And my other son, who's a techie, and he goes, alex, do you, you know, you want to, you want to do. When I, when you're a company, would you let me invest in your company? And my son goes, maybe that's your boy. And he goes, this is your son? I was like, yes, he is. Maybe we'll see if he'll let you on the cap table. We're not sure if you're worthy. And I just look, we had a recent back and forth because I had said I thought he should step a little more and stop hanging out with celebrities and go say something because Trump was problematic and I thought he hung back too much. And so I got all this pushback cause they're like, oh why should he come in and do it? I'm like, cuz he's the most important Democrat in existence and it's a compliment to him, which I don't tend to pay him. So I would say he's the one who has to stand up until they figure out who the next leader. And I got a text from their office, they're like, we don't think he has to, you know, he doesn't have to step up. I'll be like oh no, he has to step up. I don't care.

[Trevor Noah]

What, I don't know. I think there's a paradox that I talked about this with my friend. No, no, no, here's what I think it is. I think damned if you do, damned if you don't. Right. So if Obama continues to step in, there will never be somebody else who steps in and then you sort of don't create no genuine. I genuinely believe this. I think like people, people will often say, and I, I've seen this happen when there was like the rallies even when Biden was running, Kamala was running all, all of these things, he would come out and then people would be like well why isn't it that guy?

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

And you know where you're, you're sort of not helping.

[Eugene]

So he, he would end up cock blocking the next person.

[Trevor Noah]

That's what I mean.

[Kara Swisher]

You are cockblocking right now. We're under extenuating emergency circumstances.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, but I would argue in this moment in time, and I mean everyone will disagree or agree. I would argue in this moment in time, time, I don't know that he would have necessarily the best impact. I actually think, you know, like Star Trek, a New Generation type thing. I think like the Zorans and the whatever people are not going to be. If Obama was to step in now, I can very quickly see people turning around and going like how did you let this happen? And all of a sudden it becomes like this like maybe. Do you know what I mean?

[Kara Swisher]

I think he should, I think, I think he has so much, much gravitas and it's an emergency situation and he will help the Transition. And it's a different media world now. Everything's operating as if it's the same thing and it's not the. It is indeed not the same thing.

[Trevor Noah]

It is not the same thing for sure.

[Kara Swisher]

And so acting like the Democrats are peacetime, like, I like to keep it. Stop it. Like, stop Chuck Schumer, turn off the social media cameras right now because you suck. But like what Zoran Mandami is doing, what Newsom is doing, that's. That's what's required. Which is muscular. And I don't mean that in a gender specific way. It's like, it's muscular, it's aggressive, it's promiscuous and it's constant from a thing and it's a very different thing. And Obama has an incredible charisma and charm. Completely.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Kara Swisher]

Will take it to the next thing that needs to be to counter. And he is the counter at this moment. And then he brings up people. I don't know. I just. Anyway, if you noticed, he's been saying a lot more. More lately.

[Trevor Noah]

He has no idea.

[Kara Swisher]

I irritated him like a lot of rubbed him. Like I was like, don't you think? And you know, I think it's. I think he's. And I was like, I'm paying you a compliment for once. So don't.

[Trevor Noah]

This was fun.

[Eugene]

You got Barack activated. Trevor almost hit him at the back of the head.

[Trevor Noah]

I mean, no, there's no almost.

[Kara Swisher]

I wasn't trying to physically.

[Trevor Noah]

Don't ever do that.

[Kara Swisher]

You thought about it?

[Trevor Noah]

No, for a second thought about it. I thought about whether or not had experienced.

[Kara Swisher]

No, he, you know what? He didn't think about hitting.

[Eugene]

He wanted to rub the.

[Trevor Noah]

I wondered when was the last time he had a very human experience of somebody sitting behind you and just doing that on your head.

[Kara Swisher]

Touched his ear. Next time you see him, will you touch his ear for us?

[Trevor Noah]

I will not. I will not. Because I want my pictures and I do not want to be on enemy terms with Barack Obama. Now when I walk in the room, he's going to be like, are you?

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, you and car.

[Kara Swisher]

What I'm going to do.

[Trevor Noah]

Get in here. How did you get in here?

[Kara Swisher]

Next time I see him, I'm going to touch his ear. Can I? And I'm going to ask because I'm not. I'm a consent kind of girl. May I touch your ear?

[Trevor Noah]

I want no part of this.

[Kara Swisher]

I'm going to say it was your idea.

[Trevor Noah]

No part of this. No part of this. He'll know it was not my idea.

[Kara Swisher]

No. I'll say no, it was. He'll tell you it was for a fact. Was his idea.

[Trevor Noah]

He will know for a fact.

[Eugene]

Remember when he told us?

[Kara Swisher]

I'll put the doubt in his mind.

[Trevor Noah]

Let me tell you something. Let me tell you something to do. If there's one thing he will know is that it was not my idea.

[Kara Swisher]

No, it was.

[Eugene]

Remember when Trevor said he wants to hold both of his ears? I'm out. You remember that?

[Trevor Noah]

I'm out. What Now With Trevor Noah is produced by Day Zero Productions in partnership with Sirius xm. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaz Yamin and Jess Hackle. Rebecca Chain is our producer. Our development research researcher is Marcia Robio. Music mixing and mastering by Hannis Brown. Random other stuff by Ryan Harduth. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next week for another episode of what now.

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[Trevor Noah]

I need a coffee.

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