On with Kara Swisher - How did Kara Scoop OpenAI, and More on Burn Book (with Sam Altman)

Episode Date: March 11, 2024

This week, we join Kara on tour as she speaks with some of the most influential names in tech about her memoir Burn Book: a Tech Love Story. Today's stop: San Francisco’s City Arts & Lectures with Sam Altman, OpenAI’s co-founder and CEO (and recently reinstated Board Member). This time, it’s Kara in the hot seat and Altman asking the questions. The two talk about last year’s OpenAI drama, Kara’s live coverage of Sam’s ouster and return, the lawsuit Elon Musk has brought against OpenAI and the public spiral that Musk has taken in recent years. Questions? Comments? Email us at [e-mail] or find us on social media. We’re on Instagram/Threads as @karaswisher and @nayeemaraza Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Claude Sonnet can generate code, help with writing, and reason through hard problems better than any model before. You can discover how Clalawed can transform your business at anthropic.com slash clawed. Hi, everyone from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. This week, I'm on tour for my new book, Burn Book, a tech love story, and you're coming with me. To kick us off, we're going to San Francisco, my favorite city, for a sold-out event on Thursday, March 7th at San Francisco's City Arts and Lectures. that event on Thursday, March 7th at San Francisco's City Arts and Lectures. I'll be sitting down at City Arts and Lectures with OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman. Yes, he's still CEO despite

that failed ouster and ensuing board shakeup at OpenAI last November, which I reported on via ex-Twitter with lots of scoops. Sam has been a guest on the show before, but this will be our first public conversation since that all went down. And while the tables are turned and Sam is interviewing me, I will try to get in a question or two, including about a lawsuit against OpenAI brought by none other than, you guessed it, Elon Musk. Ironically, Elon was an early investor in OpenAI, but now sees the company's actions as, quote, a betrayal of the chat GPT maker's founding aims for benefiting humanity rather than pursuing profits. Note, he's creating his own AI firm, so it's a little complex. Pursuing profits is not exactly a surprise to me. That's the first line of my book. As it turns out, it was capitalism after all. Anyway, let's take a quick break, and when we're back, you'll hear Sam interviewing me on stage.

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Wow. Wow. This is so fun. I know. I'm so excited. I've never done this. This is like a great honor. All right.

Let's see how you do. I know what I'm good at. This is not going to be it, but it's very nice of you. I would say don't quit your day job, but really, you shouldn't quit your day job. Speaking of that. Well, actually, you almost quit your day job, right? You, you, I did quit it.

I got fired, rehired, I quit, I got rehired again. Yeah, I read about it. You, I mean, I have a lot of questions. Actually, I reported it, but go ahead. Yeah, you did. We didn't plan this, but you knew a lot about that whole thing. Yes. And I would like to know how.

Oh, okay. Well, you know, when it was happening, I'll tell you the honest truth. Some of it was, I had retired from beat reporting, and honestly, I was the best beat reporter in tech. I was. But it's true. And I had done Scoops. Scoops, I was well known for

that. And I haven't done it for years. I've been writing columns and everything else. But as it was growing, what was happening, I was hearing, people were calling me to tell me what was going on. Pretty much everybody. And one of the things, I know this sounds crazy, but there were all these crazy rumors about what happened, including about your personal life. And a lot of it was anti-gay. I thought it was anti-gay. And I was like, that's not true. Like people who I knew who should know better were repeating rumors that were absolutely, and I checked them out by the way. And it was bothering me. I was like, this is not accurate. And nobody was doing it accurately yet because it was so confusing at the beginning. And so I didn't really have an outlet because, you know, Recode is gone

and I wasn't writing on a daily basis like that. And I just decided to start posting stuff on both X and Threads about what was happening. And so every time I'd get a little scooplet, I would post it. And someone would say, this is what's happening. I'm like, no, actually, let me clear it up for you. And so I just started getting into it for the weekend. And I just wanted it to be accurate, what was going on. I really was irritated by the lack of accuracy. And not among reporters. It just was, because now it's not just reporters working, most of whom are excellent. But it was also other people weighing in. And they didn't have any knowledge. And it drove me crazy. And it was also a little bit in, and they didn't have any knowledge, and it drove me crazy. And it was also a little bit fun, because I was like,

she's still got it. You know, I was like, I do, I still got it. And I'm not telling you at all who talked to me. I'm not going to tell you, but everybody. I didn't ask, actually. Yeah, not you. You were like, call you back soon, and then you didn't. I think I did.

I think I called you when it settled. Settled, yeah. Thanks for that. Yeah. Not you. You were like, call you back soon. And then you didn't. So I think I did. I think I called you when it settled. Settled. Yeah. Thanks for that. Yeah. You know, there are some people who honor confidentiality obligations, some people who don't. Most people don't. Yeah. Well, you know, that's fine. Which is good for me. Good for my business. What do you think of that whole situation? What did I think? You know, I think a lot of people were trying to play it as if it was a Terminator movie happening.

And I'll tell you two things that were interesting. I thought it was just a power struggle, that's all. Just a very typical common power struggle around a company that was really hot, right? And so you have that element to it and you have this open AI thing. What's this open AI thing? It's a company I've heard of.

It's what I'm hoping to be, for you at least, the Google of this century and not the Netscape of this century. So it could happen. Which I covered both. And so you watch companies like that. And so what was interesting about it

was that it was sort of portrayed as this great struggle of civilization. I'm sorry, you're just a company, right, of many companies. And not I've seen them come and seen them go, but I've seen them come and I've seen them go. I agree with this. Don't you think? Like, right, you looped. It's a company.

He and I met at Loop. Do you remember that? Yeah. You were like, what, 12 or 13 or something? 20. 20, right. And that didn't work out for you. That didn't work out.

Yeah, it was kind of a mess. And so it wasn't. It was an interesting, no, that's true. It was, no, it definitely wasn't. But it was, it was an interesting company at the time, but things happen. And so one of the things that I kind of got irritated is it had to be this bigger story than it was. It was a power struggle on a board that's, you know, really, and what happened was this board got too small and and it was much more balanced, and then it wasn't, and then it was completely out of balance, and the people who had power had a certain point of view and had decided to take power. That's all. I don't think it was that much more complicated than that. There was this overpinning of the tech decelerationist versus accelerationist. I think that was entirely true in terms of point of view,

and they've all spoken about it since, so you've heard their points of view. But one of the, on the side against you, Sam, which I thought was interesting, I'd heard this from these groups, and it wasn't just the people, it wasn't people close to your board members and people in that, there's a whole gang of people who are tech decelerationists. And at one point I had heard someone said on that side, on the other side, said, Kara, you've been a critic of tech. I'm like, yeah, I've been a fair critic of tech, I'd say. They said, well, if you don't help stop Sam Altman, humanity is doomed. And I was like, what? Like, huh? Like, really? He's like, you know, you're like the professor in The Terminator that they have to end up killing, essentially. And I was like, this is the plot of The Terminator. You

know what you're saying here. You're just repeating the plot of The Terminator. And I thought that was a little much. I honestly did. I didn't, I was like. You don't want to say which board member said this though. No, I'm not. No, I'm not. Sam, Sam, you're going to have to leave it behind, okay? Move along. You won. Be generous with your win. And then there was, you know, then there's the accelerationist, sort of the Marc Andreessen gang, which is, if you're not with us and thinking it's the best thing ever,

since sliced bread, you're a media elite slash academic slash negative person. You're the elite, the man or whatever, which really irritates me too because the people doing this who are much too enthusiastic and need to be a little more grounded in the dangers of what's coming as well as the benefits, which I think you do a pretty good job of,

they irritate me too, because this with us or against us thing is so irritating in tech, because look, they've had a record of some damage. They might want to stop doing the same thing over and again. But a lot of these people are adult toddlers, so they have no memory of what they've done. Which people? Oh, well. Are they adult toddlers? Yeah, you're good at this. You're good at this. And I will tell you, unlike, say, some tech people I cover who try to parse their words, you know, I think that techno-optimist thing that Marc Andreessen did was terrible. I thought it was a terrible. Why? Because I get, like, you're either, it essentially was, you're either with us or against us, and what we're against is the elites and this and that and

coming from one of the richest people in the world talking about elites honestly really really you know did something happen to your jet this morning that you couldn't get on it properly it was just it was bullshit not to be concerned about things and so what they'd like to paint and i think it's really happening with an unfortunate group of tech people, which, you know, you know, Elon, Mark, all the rest of them. I think they have to decide. I'm going to have some questions about Elon later. Yes, okay, good. I figured. I'd like to know what you think what's happening. I hear he has some issues with you. This is fun. I know. On one point, I was like, did Sam turn you down? I know you could. Did Sam turn you down for a date or something?

Like, when I was reading that thing, I was like, this is, what's going on with you, dude? Like, well, that's another story. That's a longer story. But I do think there is a happy medium between, and it's not a medium, it's that there are massive dangers. There's also massive dangers of being concentrated in a small group of people and a small group of companies without any guardrails. And I think since what we've seen what's happened without guardrails previously, and these technologies are, it's clearly one of

those inflection points, we really do have to be a little more thoughtful on everything we do. And that's all I was asking for. And it reminds me of the debate, you know, Mark Cuban has gone on to X to argue about DEI, you know, which he's doing a great job of, diversity, equity, and inclusion. And when he started doing it, I texted him, I'm like, Godspeed, like, you're not coming back, like, because you're like, you're going in there with DEI. And he's doing a great job explaining, for example, why he likes it and why it's good for his companies. And, you know, the responses he's getting from someone like Elon,

instead of having a really good debate about a difficult issue, which isn't that difficult, really, and he's getting, you know, boobs. Like, that's the level of debate coming back at you when you're being thoughtful. And so I would prefer to deal with thoughtful people. That's all. Speaking of that, what's the best thing about the tech industry? Obviously, lots of criticism, but you clearly like it. Yes, I do. It says a love story.

It's the little writing. This is Burn Book. At the top, it's bigger. And there's fire in the glasses. So I was going to put little Elons in here. You know how, like... It was too expensive. So it would be so funny. Wait, I'm off thing.

What was your question? Why do I love it? Oh, okay. Because when I came to tech, as you'll read in this book, I really did think it had possibilities of being great. And I've talked about this, this Star Trek vision. I grew up with Star Trek. And there is a vision in the show.

You know, science fiction really does inform a lot of how we feel. And so, like H.G. Wells, I always loved the time machine. And I loved the idea of it. And 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, all these different journeys, even the one where you go into the body, I can't remember the name of that, where the little tiny capsule went into the human body.

What is it? Yes, Fantastic Voyage. So I always loved that kind of stuff, and particularly the idea of possibility, right? That you could do all kinds of things, and Star Trek was like that. And I've talked about this in the book again, which is, you know, it was like a united Benetton people

who go do great things and try to get along. And it's diverse and they all get along and they have struggles, but they always manage to turn the bad people good or come out with a good solution or everyone gets along. And it's a happy vision of what technology can do like discovery right and then there's the the the contrast which is star wars which is a dark dark vision of the future where evil does prevail where the bad guys use technology for bad things

obviously the death star and it is a very and i've talked to george lucas about this when i interviewed him it's a he it's a very dark allegory of what this world is like, of fascism and everything else, that the winners don't always win. And so, interestingly, while I was writing this book, I found an interview I did with Steve Jobs that I didn't even remember, where he talked about wanting Star Trek.

Well, I'm in that camp of wanting that vision of it, where more people are helped, that we're more safe, that we're better. And a lot of what's happened, which is the first line of the book, is so it was capitalism after all. It was just about the money. And they had promised something different. At least this group of people that I started with had promised more. And you think that's what fundamentally went wrong? If you zoom all the way out. No, I think fundamentally they lied to themselves. I mean, one of the things when you're a reporter

that you have to think about, usually when you start and you're younger, you think, okay, what are they lying to me about? What are they not telling the truth? What's the spin? Whatever. And I think a more sophisticated reporter thinks about what they're lying to themselves about

in order to get through the day, right? What's the lie they tell themselves every morning about themselves? What do they need for people to know about them in the world? And I think one of the things that happened very early in tech is they fell in love with the image of it as being different. We're different. We're California. We wear hoodies is what we're wearing. We eat burritos, that kind of thing.

And actually, when I go back, which I'm like, burritos are delicious. Of course you eat them, right? Yeah, exactly. I had one today. It was fantastic. It was this vision of the future. They wanted to be different and iconoclastic, and almost to a weird point. Google took it to an extreme.

Like, here's our primary colors. Here's our pogo sticks, here's our, you know, our jumpy houses in our home, like, that they would take it to extreme, but they were cosplaying a lot of childlike behavior when it was really childish, and one of the things that they did, and I actually went back and found a lot of stories, I wrote a lot about this, like, why they had to have certain costumes, like why they had to have certain costumes and why they had to have certain visions of themselves. And I did one whole story in the journal,

which again, I had forgotten about because I'd written so many, which was 10 things tech people tell, these new tech people, because it was very exciting. They were not like bankers or insurance people or airline people. 10 things they tell you that aren't true.

And one of them was, we're here to change the world. And I don't think it was true for a very small amount of people, but really it was about making money. And once they started making money, that was the, it was the driving force. Nothing wrong with it, but I would have, you know, you don't have a, you don't have a banker going, what I'm here to do is world peace. And you'd be like, come on, stop it. You know, or an insurance person. What I want to do is I want everybody

to feel like they're living in a Taylor Swift concert. I just feel everyone wants to feel good together. And you just don't believe it from those people. They're here to make things. Any of the characters throughout your three decades or almost three decades doing this that you think really have stayed genuine to wanting to change the world? Either they're honest about what they're doing. You know, I don't think, it never came out of Steve Jobs' mouth. He knew it was marketing. He wasn't doing it like when he'd say

think different. He was talking about his products. I don't think he was trying to like, it was all marketing and he was aware of what he was doing. He had something called a reality distortion field, which he did have. It really was strong. But he wasn't, if anyone, I actually think he believed there was a marriage of art and science,

that you could find better things through creativity. He did believe that. I genuinely, he genuinely did. But that was the extent of it. And you can't, I'm trying to think who, Steve, I would say did. I think a lot of people have been very thoughtful. There's lots of different people, but they knew what they did. Like Reed Hastings, you know, he knows what he's making. He's making a movie service really pretty much. And he didn't like act like it was, you know, that he was building the UN or

something like that, you know. Or I think you're very good that way. I think I really enjoy talking to you. Most of the people that I think are good are either, one, adults, which means you can talk to them without having to, like, plumb the depths of their emotional traumas from childhood, which is exhausting. Or they have gotten therapy, I don't know, or something. Or they know what they're doing. This is what I'm here to do. I'm not here to save you. And I think too many of people in tech get a savior complex, and then it turns into an autocrat complex. It moves into that. Savior complex always moves to a very dark place. It tends to.

To rewind a couple of minutes, what do you lie to yourself about to get through this? Oh, nice. Well done. Wow. That I'm not as old as I am? That's an interesting question. I don't think I lie to myself a lot.

I don't. Don't do that. But if you had to. If I had to. For the sake of your closest thousand friends. I really, I think I'm pretty self-actualized. I really honestly believe that. I just, I'm trying to think, Jeff, what do I lie to myself about?

I'm not going to ask you that. Mom. Oh, mom. Mom. Oh, mom. Let. Oh, mom. Let's not get into that. That she's going to, my mother's going to change.

That's what I lied to myself about. She's not going to change, Sam. Probably not. Oh, definitely not. Yeah. I have hopes. You know, we all have hopes that things would be different.

I'll tell you what I lied to myself about. That it was okay that my dad died. That I'm okay. It's not to myself about that it was okay that my dad died that I'm okay it's not okay and it wasn't okay but I think I helped solve that by having a lot of kids and family and friends and stuff like that so I think I'm okay

is one of my things and I have done it for so long I actually am okay and I suspect if I went into therapy there'd probably be a hurt little kid done it for so long, I actually am okay. You know what I mean? And I suspect if I went into therapy, there'd probably be, you know, a hurt little kid. That would be about right. See? That's pretty honest. That's very honest. We'll be back in a minute. Support for this show comes from Constant Contact. You know what's not easy?

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Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. How do you predict what tech or what people are going to do? I think that's something you've done. Yes, I do a lot. You need Indeed. and I think one it was more an analyst I could have been a CIA analyst or whatever and one of the things I still might be I might be a CIA agent now this is the best con ever in history I can believe it I know I am yeah maybe I'm not who knows who's to say but see I'm tricking you right now this is a little psyop as our friend Elon would say whatever the fuck that is everything's a PSYOP what's wrong with him

what do you think we'll get to that in a second we don't have long enough time but it's extensive it starts and begins with him as character but you got me off topic I wanted to be intelligent so I figure things out

and so I'm like whenever I would things out. And so I'm like, whenever I would figure out a scoop, people would be like, how did you get that scoop? I'm like, well, I figured this person wanted to do this and this is who they'd go to and this is who they'd thing

and here's the list of things they could do. No, they don't like that because I know I've talked to them about it. And I did it, I think the best one I did it on most recently was a column I did in the New York Times, which I've talked about, which I did in, which I said, if Trump loses the election, and I was talking about his behavior on Twitter and how he should be taken off because he breaks the rules. And I said, if Trump loses the election,

he's going to get on Twitter and everywhere else, and he's going to say the election was stolen, and he's going to say it was a lie, and people took it from him. And then he's going to make it go up and down the right-wing ecosystem. And then he's going to ask his followers to do something about it in the real world. And I wrote this and I said, this is what's going to happen. And then they're going to try to stop the presidency from being shifted to Biden. And that's what I said, this is what's going to happen. Or not Biden, whoever it was. And I wrote this in 2019. And at the time when I wrote it, I was naming Twitter and executives called me and said, how dare you to say that? And I said, I think you're now becoming handmaidens to sedition is what you're doing. And I think

you're in big trouble in a couple of, when this goes down. And it was right. And so that was me just like thinking, okay, this is how Trump behaves. This is the natural thing, election lies. This is how it works in the right wing ecosystem. And this is the result. Is that ever a good strategy when company executives call you to complain about a story?

No, they do though. It's shocking. But they think it might work. Yeah, one of the things is, you're so mean to me. Then I'm like, you're an idiot. Like, what are you, two? Like, they think, you know, the only one that I sort of felt sorry for was the Google guys. And I've talked about this when they were trying to buy Yahoo or control

Yahoo. And I thought 97% of the search market was too much. I don't know. That was unreasonable for me to think. But I had written about the Microsoft trial, and, you know, they didn't even have that much, and so I said at least, you know, and Google was so, was real cute about it, like, that it was, no, we're really good, you know, we should have it, because we're good stewards, and I was like, I don't care who it is, 97% is too much, and, I mean, 60% is too much, and so he, I said at least Microsoft knew they were thugs. This was my line in the story, which, you know, stop pretending what you're doing is not totally trying to dominate you wacky Borg people.

And so I said something like that. Microsoft knew they were thugs. They called me all hurt. You know, one of them. Microsoft did. No, Microsoft knew they were thugs. They were like, yeah, we were thugs. They were like, yeah, we're thugs. I think they're nice. She's got it. The Google guys, I can't remember. It's

got to be Larry Page because it's something he would say. And he was like, we're nice people. We're not thugs. And I was like, yeah, but you are. I'm sorry. That's what you're doing is thuggish at the very least. We're nice people. He kept saying, we're nice people. You know us. Don't you like us? And I thought, what do you fucking care what I care? Sorry. What do you care what I think of you? And I was like, you know, one of the things I know from history, and I quoted poetry, didn't try to make them understand it, which they didn't, the slouching towards Bethlehem poem, Yates, where I said, slouching towards Bethlehem, there's a beast, there's a beast, it's coming, there's a bad person coming to run Google someday, if you have this much power, which they didn't get.

And I said, there's a bad person coming, because they always come for powerful technology, it's never not happened. And they were like, but we're not like that. I'm like, I'm not talking about you, you narcissistic person. I'm talking about what happens when power concentrates in smaller ways with powerful weapons. And I just, they were like perplexed that I didn't like them or whatever, that I wasn't nice to them. And I was always like, that one I sort of felt, oh, okay, I don't like you. I don't know what to say. Get a dog. I don't know. I didn't know what to say. So yes, people call all the time. You know, Jobs used to call Mossberg all the time, Walt, when he was mad about a review or Gates did. They all did. It was

sort of like, get over it, whatever. I don't know. But they did. What do you think about the state of tech journalism now relative to when Jobs was calling Mossberg? I think it's much better. I think it's really good. I think there's amazing people doing all kinds of innovative stuff before most people worked for a publication. And then you sort of had the blogs like us, Tech Crunch and stuff like that. I think it's evolved very nicely. I know some people think it's a little too mean, but that's because of Twitter, right? That's because everyone has to get on there and dunk. But I think a lot of the journalism is quite good, like excellent and interesting. I think, you know, a friend of mine, Casey Newton, who used to live in... He's great. He's great. He's in my...

He used to live in my cottage in San Francisco. Now he got his own place because he's doing so well with Platformer. You're welcome, Casey. And he's doing amazing things, you know, like Jessica Lesson and the information. There's all these innovative... Puck, I think, is really good. They're not doing as much tech. They probably will add it. They're doing a little tech stuff.

They should be adding a tech person at some point. I think a lot of it's really good and strong and a little bolder, and it's a little fairer before it got a little snarky. But now I think it's... I agree. I think it is pretty good. It's strong. It's very strong. I think the problem is the business of journalism or media is tough

because of, like you, you know. No, not you, not you. I don't blame you. But I think, you know, the decimation of advertising and then digital advertising being dominated by meta and I'm going to call them their names, Facebook and Google. But you do call it X, interestingly. I don't. I try not to. I did say Twitter. I switch it back and forth.

You know, I should call it Phyllis or something just to drive him crazy. I was on Phyllis the other day. That would drive him crazy, wouldn't it? Can we talk about him now? Certainly. Anytime. Whatever. What you want.

It's your stage. I think everyone can see it's not really, but I'm happy. It's nice of you to say that. If you come around opening eye for the day, you know. Aren't you the man of the hour? Okay. No. Yes. Elon. Yes. What do you think? What do I think? What part? He's doing me right now. I heard that. I heard that. What do

you think? What do I think of that lawsuit? My stage. It's a, it's a, okay. What do I think of that lawsuit? I think he is an open wound and we have to feel it every day. Like, I think it's really, I think that lawsuit is nonsense. I've said it. I've talked to a dozen lawyers, by the way, before I began. What do they think about it? They think it's nonsense. It's not a contract. It's an open wound of a past hurt that he had. He made a mistake. No, even worse than that, he was the first person to talk to me about a agi you were the second maybe i forget there was a couple reed was another one but elon was the absolute first to discuss it at length and including the dangers of it by the way he was very concerned and what he

was particularly concerned with wasn't so much the terminator ending because he kept shifting his version of that first it was going to treat us like a house cat and then we were an anthill you know he had all his different metaphors like oh it oh, it's just an anthill, and we're building a highway. That's how they feel. And you're like, okay, but those are not going to kill us. Not really. They don't know why. But he was really interesting about it, as you know, because you spent time with him. And I think he was early to it, and he funded with, you know, he did the funding and everything else. And he, as usual, because he can't help himself, because he has a God complex, he thinks he's readily player one in the video game of life. That's what I think he thinks.

Someone, Ben Mesrick, made that point to me, that he made a power play, as he always does. It's a very common tactic of his, if you watch a lot of things. And again, that same thing kind of just happened with you at OpenAI. He wanted control. He tried to of things. And again, that same thing kind of just happened with you at OpenAI. You wanted control. He tried to get it. And if he couldn't get it, he stamped his feet and left. And he took away your money. He didn't realize you had Reid Hoffman in the corner with a lot of money, right? Like, oh, well, there's a lot of rich people that could help fund you. And he thought he was the reason it exists when when in fact, all the things he's done, as good a business person as he is,

and I would say visionary on certain subjects, but space, he's had a lot of help. I miss the old Elon. Yes, I miss the old Elon. You and I both. So does Reid Hoffman. He was really interesting. That said, he did it with a lot of people, right?

There's a lot of, like, Gwen Shotwell at SpaceX, all kinds of people at Tesla, but he did it with a lot of people, right? There's a lot of like Gwen Shotwell at SpaceX, all kinds of people at Tesla. But he did his typical foot stamping. And I saw the jackass thing. He said, this guy questioned something and then he walked out of the room. But that's the disease he has now is that. It's really weird.

It's really strange. And there were flashes of it before. There were, no question. And there were flashes of that. Everyone's all, one of the things that drives me crazy is, you know, I don't look at Twitter anymore because it's exhausting. But it's, well, you didn't know he was bad. I was like, he wasn't. I'm telling you, he was, he had flashes of problems. He had problems at the factories, no question. But so did Travis Kalanick. So did, you know, Kleiner Perkins. So did lots of companies. Google had some issues. They had all kinds of lawsuits. I get it. I get it. I understand that. But he wasn't, he had a

level of real, at the time he was coming up, and I met him when he did Zip2. That's when I met him, way back when. His first company, really. And then he did X.com, and they merged with PayPal. And he was the only person among all those people who really was, they all did interesting things, but he, especially Reid Hoffman, but he started doing space and cars and significant things when everyone else was doing. And I'm using this example on this tour, of a digital dry cleaning service. Like, you'd have someone really smart come to

you and like, wait, Kara, digital dry cleaning. And I'm like, get the fuck out of my house. Like, I don't want to hear it. Oh, sorry, I cursed again. I'm not that sorry. I'm not sorry at all. We were told not to curse on stage. Yes, but it's too late now. That didn't really work. It's out of the bag. So he was really visionary, and it was really something to see,

because it was cool. Yeah, I grew up with him as an absolute hero. Right, cool. It was super cool. And so, but he had an element of dank memes. He had an element of juvenile humor. He had always a penis joke, always a boob. But I live with Scott Galloway, so what do I know?

So I was used to that. And it was about, I'd say, 7% of his personality. And now something happened during, when he did that first Thai diver thing, calling him a pedo, I was like, that's a weird thing to accuse someone of, you know. It was too over the top. And I thought, that's strange.

And, you know, of course, I the top. And I thought, that's strange. And, you know, of course, I was kidding. Everything's I'm kidding, but it's all the same malevolent crap. And so that happened. And then during COVID, we had an interview, which was always, they would always be interesting and challenging. And he's always a challenging person. but he threatened to leave the interview because I had challenged him on the COVID protocols that they were putting in place at the beginning of COVID. And I was like, well, we don't know what's going to happen, right? We don't know what's going to happen. So maybe safety is the best move immediately. And he started going on.

It was really strange. It was very, very strange. And then it got more and more and more. And then once he got Twitter, and I thought he would actually do a good job initially. I thought, oh, here's someone who's going to shake things up. He has a lot of money. He loves it, this and that. And then when his very first thing, two things he did, was accuse Yoel Roth, who's the loveliest man on the planet, of being, Again, pedophile. I was like, listen, QAnon, you need to stop with this,

calling everyone a pedophile, because it's a terrible thing to do. Also, Yoel's a gay man. Same thing. It was very, there was an anti-gay element to it. There was an anti-trans element. It was, and as everyone knows,

he has a trans child, which was heinous then. Then it's really heinous. And then with Paul Pelosi thing, that was it for me. That was, I'm out. This is ridiculous. Where he tweeted as owner of Twitter that maybe Paul Pelosi had gotten beaten up, largely by someone who was radicalized online and also had mental challenges,

that he was possibly part, he tweeted a story about it being a gay love triangle or something like a prostitution ring. I could not believe believe that that was so astonishing and hateful i i don't know who that was i was like it was shocking because out of it i'd never heard i never really knew his politics i never really he never really talked about it he kind of liked obama as i recall um and and then he started ranting at one point with me about Biden not inviting him to the car thing, the car. I did think that was bullshit. I did, but come on, so what? Like, he really took it to an, he's still angry about it, right? It was bullshit, but welcome to politics. It's not a union shop. He couldn't, like, really grow up. Like, you know, I get why he didn't.

And there's, I told the Biden administration, there's someone there, and I said, you didn't invite him, he's the pioneer. He really should get the credit for it. And they're like, they're non-union, we can't. And I, I'm sorry, grow up, grow up and accept it. And by the way, you're the richest man in the world, so somehow you can be comforted by,

you're rich in everything else, so what do you care if you missed one thing? You know, I don't know. It felt really, something happened. I don't know what happened. I don't. Do you? No.

No. But I think his suit against you is going to go away, I suspect. But he'll keep suing. He's suing everybody. The CHDC, everywhere. Everywhere. There's a lawsuit. Disney, he's obsessed with Bob Iger.

He's just, like, it's like someone doing this with a lot of money, who has a lot of money. And I don't think it's going to end well. I really don't. I don't. I had to predict. It feels very Howard Hughes to me. I genuinely hope for the best for him.

Yeah. Like, in spite of everything. I don't know. What do you think will help? I don't know. There's a lot of enablers around him who are incredibly unpleasant people who are in it for the best for him. Yeah. Like, in spite of everything. I don't know. What do you think will help? I don't know. There's a lot of enablers around him who are incredibly unpleasant people who are in it for the money.

You saw that journal story that was about the drug use, which is fine. It should be noted. It should absolutely be noted. But the big story about that was how much money people around him are making from him on the board

and therefore are not responsible and therefore let him do whatever he wants, which sometimes isn't in his interest. And again, he's a grown man, so this is the way it's going to go. But it feels dark to me. It feels like a very dark story. And the ugliness, just this week, it's something else. It's someone who needs attention. He needed to sue you because he needs attention. I did it. I was the first. That's what those emails read like. And the whole lawsuit felt like, you know, I'm the first boy. That's what he feels like, that we're in succession. I'm the first boy. I was like, okay, you're the first boy. You got it. You know how that ended. Tom got the job. Right here. There's Tom right here. I should never watch Succession. I don't know what that

means. Succession. I did a podcast on it. You should listen to it. It was great. I love that you don't know Succession. I don't really watch TV at all. Oh my God. I mean, I watch like TikTok and stuff. You do? Oh, you young people. I'd like to talk a little bit about AI. Who? AI. Do you remember? AI. Who? AI. AI. Oh, yes, AI. Yes, the thing you're working on. Okay. I saw you said Ahab.

I'm like, we just talked about the white whale in Elon. Oh, my God, I shouldn't say that. I wasn't doing that, but it works. Yeah. I'm going to leave that one alone. Yeah, please. I tend not to make personal statements. You don't.

I appreciate that. Thank you. But you look good, I have to leave that one alone. Yeah, please. I tend not to make personal statements. You don't. I appreciate that. Thank you. But you look good. Thank you. There's nothing going on between us. We're both gay. I wish. No, you don't.

You really don't. What are you talking about? You just got married. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. What do you think about AI? What do you think about this relative to other sort of tech?

Oh, I think it's the biggest. I think, you know, there's a lot of, when crypto came out, I was like, currency, okay. I think it was important, and I think it was interesting, blockchain, and it is. But it was sort of like, money is digital, okay. You know what I mean? I get it. I get it, right? It's already, like, who sees their money anymore, right? I haven't seen my money in years. But, you know, that was interesting. But it was smaller. I felt like that was smaller and interesting, and it sort of captured people here because, ooh, you know, that was interesting. But it was smaller. I felt like that was smaller and interesting. And it sort of captured people here because, ooh, the man. Let's get away from the man again.

I don't know what happened. The father-son relationships among these people is really interesting to contemplate. But it's true, though, in a lot of cases, actually. You want to say anything about that? Oh, Larry Ellison, for example, I think motivated. His mom left, his dad, he didn't know his dad. Steve being adopted, I think it motivates. Not everybody.

Look, Brian Chesky's got the loveliest family in America. They're lovely, right? So I don't think it, well, he's a great guy. He has great character, I think, because of his family. But, you know, different people. It doesn't always track, but sometimes it does. But AI, I think it's, you know, there people, it doesn't always track, but sometimes it does. But AI, I think it's the, you know, there's a lot of trends that come along. And I think this is,

I was trying to put it, someone was asking me where it's, you know, the iPhone and the mobile phone was critical, was a big moment. But I think this is much bigger. I think probably it's like the internet, like the creation of the internet. It's one of those big moments. I think it's even more important than say, you can pick a bunch, graphical user interface, the laptop, you know, different things as you go along. And I do think this is a huge, important shift and is going to affect so much more of the world. And every industry is going to be impacted by this. And it's kind of, I kept trying to come up with metaphors. It's like the explosion of the supernova of the internet. It's now going to be everywhere around us, right?

In a way that had not happened. And one of the themes of the book is everything that can be digitized will be digitized. Now it really will, like everything. And so, you know, I think the imaginative possibilities, you know, when the iPhone first came out, you wouldn't have imagined Uber. You wouldn't have imagined, you just wouldn't have, right? Some of it you might have. Yeah, I always think that's the most interesting is what the new things that can happen that you just couldn't

think about before, not doing this thing a little bit more efficiently, but you just couldn't have imagined Uber. Some of them you can. Like I I remember really liking mobile phones, and I used to, you know, stand in front of editors. I'm like, you're not going to have that phone at your desk. It's not going to be there. It's going to be gone. And they'd be like, get away from me, Kara Swisher, young Kara Swisher. Or I would stand in front of the teletype machine at the Washington Post, and I'm like, what is this here for? It needs to go, because computers will have it. It'll be on the World Wide Web, you know. And so in this case, I don't know. I could imagine some things.

Like, I could pick one or two things. But, like, what's the AI of insurance of, like, cars, autonomous vehicles it'll be used for? It'll be used for health care. I just interviewed Reed Jobs, Steve Jobs' son today on my podcast. And he's doing all this investment, not in AI necessarily, although it's adjacent for sure, but cancer research, drug discovery. You know, you've talked about these things.

Like, you could imagine all these things, where it could go. You could also imagine very easily as well you should be doing, as should our government, as should all the leaders in this area, of dangerous stuff, really, truly dangerous stuff. And the uses of it, we should try to imagine every possible thing an autocrat could do with this, and it's massive, right? And I go to the heart of the book, which is the quote by Paul Virilio, which is, when you invent the ship, you invent the shipwreck. When you invent the plane, you invent the plane crash. And too much of our world with this technology,

at least in this era, has been shipwrecks. Too many shipwrecks. Why don't we have a lighthouse? Too many plane crashes. Why don't we have radar? You know, I just, or electrocute, when you invent electricity, you invent electrocution. Why are all the wires on the ground, like, electrocuting us? And every technology does sort itself out eventually. They really tend to do that. I mean, in New York, when they first had the trolleys, it would run over people, you know, all the time. And then they figured out, they put it, they elevated it, which had its own set of challenges because it made the city less beautiful and all kinds of problems. But I just feel like there's not enough. I think if there's a theme of the book, it's lack of accountability and lack of

forethought of where we're going. But I also don't think you can imagine what's going to happen. I'm not sure. I can guess. I guess. I can guess. And you can guess jobs, and you can guess areas. If I was a legal associate, I'd worry. I'd worry. So something like that, just off the top of my head. Okay. I know we're over time. This was, I was nervous to do this. Were you? Kara's like, you know, the most legendary tech interview. Can I ask a question? What do you think of the lawsuit? I mean, that's what I think of the lawsuit. You really? Like that? Did you call him? I texted him. What did you say? I don't know.

I mean, some trivial... You know what you said. No, I don't. I mean, it was like... Yeah. WTF? It was like a little bit nicer than that. I don't remember. Some, you know, the spirit of that.

And what was the response? We sent some emojis back and forth. Really? And then everyone had ketamine and it was okay anyway allegedly uh this was a real honor this was fun thank you sam for doing this i appreciate it thank you on with kara swisher is produced by naeem Araza, Christian Castro-Rossell, Kateri Yoakum, and Megan Burney. Special thanks to Sheena Ozaki, Mary Mathis, Kate Gallagher, and Andrea Lopez-Cruzado,

and also to the team at San Francisco's City Arts and Lectures. Our engineers are Fernando Arruda and Rick Kwan. Our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following the show, your P-Doom is low. If not, Elon's next lawsuit may be against, well, me. That's okay. I have Roberta Kaplan as my lawyer. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On with Kara Swisher and hit follow.

Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. And we'll be back on Thursday with more. Autograph Collection Hotels offer over 300 independent hotels around the world, each exactly like nothing else. Hand-selected for their inherent craft, each hotel tells its own unique story through distinctive design and immersive experiences, from medieval falconry to volcanic wine tasting. Autograph Collection is part of the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio of over 30 hotel brands around the world.

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