On with Kara Swisher - The Burn Book Kick-Off with Don Lemon

Episode Date: February 29, 2024

This week marks the release of Kara’s memoir, Burn Book: A Tech Love Story and the launch of her national book tour. At events from New York to Seattle, some of the tech CEOs, politicians and other bold names Kara writes about in her book will be putting her in the hot seat. Today’s episode is the first of these conversations: former CNN anchor Don Lemon interviewed her about her career and the tech giants she’s slain, and drops some intel about his own new show on X. This conversation was taped Monday, February 26th, at NYC’s 92nd Street Y. 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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Over the next few weeks, I'll be on tour around the country, speaking at live events with tech CEOs, politicians, and investors, including many of the people I wrote about. It should be interesting to have the tables turned on me. We'll see if they can do it. Today's guest host is former CNN anchor Don Lemon. Don was one of the network's top stars until he was ousted last year for, among other things, saying that Nikki Haley, quote, isn't in her prime. Well, Don is in his 50s and apparently not too old for a reboot, which is great. He announced in January he's planning to launch his own show on the platform formerly known as Twitter very soon. Don and I

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Shopify.com slash Vox Business to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com slash Vox Business. Hello, my dear. Hello. How you doing? Thank you for coming out on a cold night, not for me, but for you. It's an honor to be here with you. Well, thank you for doing it. You have, I have to say, thank you. First it you have i have to say thank you first of all she's given me so much advice over the last almost year well even before that you gave me advice on very little of what you listen to but i listen to i listen to a lot of it and we'll get into that

okay but um how long have you been doing the whole tech thing the whole tech thing uh since 1993 i think so 30 years yeah so she writes about obviously all of this in her book. And it is really a history lesson. It is. On what's happened with this business. Now they call it new media, right? Right. Well, no, it's media.

That's what I was going to say. Is it old media now? I never liked that designation, like old media, new media. It was weird. I found it weird. And one of the things they used to do with the Washington Post, it was media and digital. Like, I thought they were the same thing all the time. And I think one of the problems that media had was they never, it's just the change, right? It's transportation, but you're not in a cart, you're in a car, right? And so I think one of the problems for media was, is they always thought it was the other and not sort of an adjunct to their business when it was their business. And a lot of people were very slow. Some were quicker than others, but for the most part, they thought technologists were their friends, right? That they were there

to help them. And technology people put themselves out that that way we're here to give you tools for the future that kind of thing and i always used to to say to media people i'm like do you know that old twilight zone episode to serve man yes it's a cookbook like they want to eat you and they want to take what you have and so and they were like no they're here to give us websites i'm like no they're going to own you someday. You said that to, was it Yahoo about Google? Yes. You said they're going to eat you. They're going to eat you, yeah. And they did not listen to your advice.

No one does. No one does. No one does. Perfect example. No, what I said was I was at Google. It was at early Google, and it was a very small company at the time. And one of the things that got them bigger was one is an investment from Yahoo. Yahoo gave them an investment, a very important investment they and then and they owned a lot of distribution and analytics

that's right they put google yahoo did not was not an algorithmic website it was a it was a directory people hand put those things in the websites in i did a story for the wall street journal they hand put them in which you can't believe they could do that now. They needed an algorithmic as things got bigger, as it went from 1,000 websites to 10,000 to 100,000. And so they hired Google as a vendor to do that. And one of the things they did was they put the little Google colorful little logo

on the Yahoo page, which was the most important internet page at the time, which is free marketing. And everyone started clicking on the Google logo and going straight to Google and not using the Yahoo directory. Did you notice that Yahoo was losing subscribers to Google? Because at Google, they had a chart.

And you asked Google, you said, do they realize this? And they said, no, they don't. They don't realize it. And I had seen it happen before when AOL bought ads on Prodigy. And the Prodigy people called me at that time and said, we got more ads from AOL. I'm like, no, don't give them ads. They're going to compete with you. And

it was, it's sort of like Pepsi bragging that Coke gave them advertising money on the can. And you're sort of like, why are you advertising Coke on a Pepsi can? And so it happened and Netscape put Yahoo on its homepage. It kept making that error of letting them in the door. This was the big bad wolf, each of them in each instance. Did you ever think, especially when you started out, you said 1993, writing about tech and all that, that it would end up in this place and making so much money and being such a viable part of the economy, of the world, really? I thought it would be huge. I did, or I wouldn't have devoted my career because the Washington Post, as you know, I think, was, I had written a series of stories as a retail reporter

about a family called the Half Family. It got me really well known. It was a very wealthy family. They were fighting with each other. It was like succession. And, you know, and everybody loved this story because it was a crazy rich guy with a pompadour. His son had a lesser pompadour. And they fought with, and it was a crazy rich guy with a pompadour. His son had a lesser pompadour.

And they fought with, and there was a gay son. It was like I was doing Dynasty, right? And people loved it. And every day, Ben Bradley would go, good job, kid. And you'd be like, yay, Ben Bradley called me kid. And so I was on my way to cover the White House. That was the winning thing at the Washington Post, is you get to the White House,

or you got to the political coverage. And I couldn't be less interested in it. So did you hate that? I hated it. It was so compromised. I had covered parties for the style section, so I had to be in that. And I hated it.

I hated it. I called it the velvet coffin. And you're supposed to love it. I'm sorry to say that, but that's what it felt like, you know, and I didn't want to cover that because it was so insular and so small. And I kept thinking as when I started to meet the tech people that these were going to be the rulers of the world, not these guys kind of thing. Well, what's interesting to me is that you, I think you're the perfect sort of hybrid, which was the future when you were doing it. Now it's what people must do of journalism and entrepreneurship, right?

Being an entrepreneur. And I think at a certain point you had a realization like, hey, I need to become an entrepreneur. Yes. After you said, I could confirm all of these stories for, was it the journal? Journal. For Washington Post and then the journal. But they wanted you to have someone could confirm all of these stories for, was it the journal? Journal, for Washington Post and then the journal. But they wanted you to have someone else confirm the story. You know, you had to be a straight, I was a beat reporter.

That's what I was. I covered the internet beat and that was my thing. So you couldn't say, like, what got to me is I kept seeing all this ridiculousness in terms of valuations and everything else. It was way ahead of its skis in terms of stuff. But you couldn't say it. And some of it, at the beginning of every one of these tech booms, there's a fraudulent part of it.

I still thought they were going to be huge. I still thought, like, this is going to be a huge group of people. And so I tried really hard to get the people that I was writing for interested in it, but I couldn't tell them, like, I couldn't say this is good, this is bad as a beat reporter. You can't do that. You just couldn't at the time. And so one of the things the journal had was this to be sure statement. And if you're a journalist, you know this. To be sure, some people say, you know, like you? Except for the magazine. Like, no. And so it was Webvan. And I was writing about Webvan. And I looked at the math.

And I can do math. And I can do accounting. And I'm like, this is not going to work. They're spending $4 for every $0.20 they make. How's this going to go after a while? They're going to run out of money. And it was too early. It wasn't directionally wrong. It was executionally wrong at the moment.

And so I wanted to say that. And the editor actually said to me, can you get someone to say what you said? Right. And I said, no. Why would I do that? Well, we need to put a to be sure. Some people think web van is great. And I was like, to be sure, they're stupid if they say that.

And this was me as an employee. It was really not good. You're not a good employee. I'm not. I'm a two. I'm talking to the expert here. This is how she talks to me in person, so there's no filter here.

Come on. Did he like, he literally opened the door. Well, we talked about that. We won't mention who, and I said that they were the first example, and you said, yeah, and you're example number two of that. So, yeah. Let's not stack rank who's the worst employee on this one. Now you're working for yourself now, Don. What do you fucking care?

You say in the book that you're a terrible employee. I am a terrible employee because I can't, like, I would get meetings and they'd be like, one meeting, it was insane. They did a Saturday Journal. And I was like, no, take all the money and put it into digital. Give me the money. I'll do a digital site. And I understood why they did it, but they were in love with print. And I was not in love with print. I was, I'd stopped reading print publications and I read them online.

And so one of the things that drove me crazy was like, they had had these periodic meetings and I was still young at the time. And they're like, how do we get, like, it was always old people, like older white men. And they're like, how do we get young people to read the newspaper? And I was like, they ain't. And it doesn't mean they're not liking media. It means they're not reading a broadsheet anymore. They have other ways of accessing media. I said to tape a joint between every page and they kicked me out of the media.

Yeah, but I was confused when you said that you went all wireless. I did. Was this, how long ago was that? It seems like in the book it was before iPhones. Is that you went all wireless. I did. Was this... At the journal. How long ago was that? It seems like in the book it was before iPhones. Is that... Yes, it was. You went all wireless. Yes, all the time.

That didn't mean you didn't have cable in your house. I had... No, no. I had a ricochet. It was called a ricochet. It was a Paul Allen company. And I taped it on the back. It was this little flat thing.

It was early wireless. It was early wireless. And he had these big things he hung from certain cities. They did it in San Francisco, so it was easier. They had them in airports. And so I had a ricochet modem. But I got rid of my landline. That was one of my first articles for the Journal in 97. Like, I got rid of it. I was like, we're done with landlines. We're done. I mean, I have one in San Francisco because of earthquakes, so everyone has one there. But I was like, everyone's going to be mobile. It just doesn't.

And I had the little BlackBerry, the first one, you know. And I was actually holding that in my hand when my son was born because I was texting with Walt. And so I had it in my hand. I had an emergency C-section. And they rushed me in. It was in my hand. And my brother's a doctor in the same hospital. And they go, oh, it's Kara's techie sister. And what are we going to do about this? Cause it wasn't clean. And so they wrapped it in plastic and it was buzzing during my entire

cesarean. It was, were you like, no, I couldn't, it was in the plastic. I would have, yeah, I kept writing walls, six centimeters, whatever. I would like, you know, it was, anyway. So I'm going to talk about the book. Let's get to some of the questions that I had. Why burn book? Why call it burn book? Yeah. Because it's funny.

And you want people to burn this book. No, because, no, if I wanted to burn this book, I'd call it burn this book, which was already a book by someone. Burn book is, if you see Mean Girls, is the idea that you have this book in high school where you write what you really think in the book, which was already a book by someone. Burn book is, if you see Mean Girls, is the idea that you have this book in high school where you write what you really think in the book. And so it's always funny. It's kind of gossipy. It's been in a bunch of different movies, you know, a burn book. And then the person who writes it always gets, remember at the end, Regina George is throwing the burn book out. And so everybody gets to see what everybody thinks of

them. And so that's what it is to me. It's my burn book over the years. And it's not the burn book out. And so everybody gets to see what everybody thinks of them. And so that's what it is to me. It's my burn book over the years. And it's not all burn. I love tech. So it's not, it's sort of a, and the love story part is because it is a love story gone wrong, which is, I love country music. So there you have it. Well, knowing you, I thought it would have something to do with what's going on with

people wanting to burn or ban books. And you were sort of a play on that. Oh, that's good too. That'll work. Yeah, sure. That works as well? Why not? So all of these people you write about, right,

they're now bull-faced names. They weren't. They were not. For now. So I'm going to call out a couple of names, and then you tell me. Let me guess. I met Jeff when he started the company.

He was very eager. He was older than everyone else I covered. Most people were much younger. And Jeff had a career, had a very successful, he was a very well regarded, fast track, under 30, math geek who was at an investment firm. You call him feral. I did. The internet boys always acted like they were 12. You know, like, oh, hi, I'm wearing soft clothes and, you know, jumping on pogo sticks. That was their game. Jeff was intense and he was really feral. That's the first word I wrote down about him. He was like, he was a business guy. He was a logistics guy. And so I,

he was so aggressive compared to them that it was, they feigned sweetness. He did not. He did not feign sweetness. And so, feral. He wanted to dominate. There have been a number of downturns, especially like tech downturns, and you said he was feral enough to survive them all and smart enough. He did. He was very clever. He was really, he's a math guy.

Right now, he's having the best midlife crisis of anyone's life, right? Come on. You're like, fantastic, again, with the outfit. What are you doing? Everyone made fun of that. I loved every bit of that. Everyone was like, isn't that ridiculous? I'm like, no, it's the best thing ever with the patent.

But you thought, didn't you think like- Good for him. You thought the numbers and the valuation of his, you're like, this is crazy. You didn't believe it. I didn't. And I argued with Henry Blodgett when he made that $400 call on the stock.

Because if you did the math, it didn't make any sense. And so it felt not like a Ponzi scheme, but a bubble, a classic bubble. And so people were paying for their future, not for their present. And in media, you have to live with gravity. The internet people didn't. And they built their way into their fortune. Like right now, Tesla stock, for example, come on. Like it's just, but people are paying that,

so that's what it's worth. But on a comparative basis with Ford, it doesn't make any sense. So they're thinking he's going to do something else, you know, invent unicorns. I don't know. But maybe it'll be true, because if you had shorted it, you'd get in

trouble. I got to tell you, I love a Tesla though. Do you? I do. I love electric cars and I think Teslas kind of drive themselves. Have you seen the others? Don't drive yourself. No, no. He only uses a couple of points. I drive a different car. You write about an interesting thing is Bill Gates, right? And Steve Jobs. Yeah. The greatest interview I think I've done. Let's talk about Gates first. Okay. You said that you think that now that he stepped away that he realizes that life is short, but eternity is longer.

I think he is, you know, he was, speaking of Farrell, this guy was so aggressive. And he, of course, got in trouble for it. And I covered that a little bit at the Washington Post. But he was never one of those techie guys that were show-offs and peacocks. No, he wasn't. They didn't like him. No, he wasn't. He had his own little quirks. But no, he was up in Seattle, very different. He was seen as sort of a Darth Vader character to tech, because everything went through Microsoft.

And he wasn't particularly nice, I would say. He was very difficult to deal with. And same thing with Steve Ballmer, who's now all cuddly, but he was not cuddly at the time. He is, he's like, now, and you're like, yeah, he wrote me, you know, he goes, Hey, Kara, how's it going? I'm like, what? Because you were real mean to me, as I recall. But he was, you know, Bill, what I always thought was that the comparison always had to be with Jobs. Because one of the things I think I wrote at one time is if they died on the same day, sort of like Jefferson and Adams kind of thing, the headline would be Bill Gates, the world's richest man, died today. Steve Jobs, an innovator.

The greatest innovator in tech history. Bill Gates desperately wanted that to be his legacy. And Steve just bested him almost constantly. And Steve was rich enough, but Steve was the guy, right? The visionary. Empath. Yes. And so with Bill, I think the stuff he did on philanthropy has been really interesting. He's very interested in... Let's leave aside the Epstein stuff, which has not, there's been no proof. Like I just, he had bad judgment in spending time with that guy.

That said, the stuff he was doing around philanthropy has been, about vaccines has been really important. The stuff he's doing around climate change is really important. And so he changed his point of view on his legacy. And so he instead, he's sort of being a Carnegie personality. Well, there was a real rivalry between those two guys. And I thought that you were saying in the book, and maybe I'm wrong, is that you thought that Jobs was smarter than Gates. No, different. They were different.

You know, Steve really had a sense of science and art and design combined with technology. He wasn't a technologist. Bill was much more't a technologist. Bill was much more of a technologist. Okay, so let's talk about him. Do you think if he were alive, where would we be when it comes to innovation and what's happening now? Because I think the popular opinion

is that Apple is not as innovative. Except it's worth 10 times more. So from a Strachan perspective, it's doing just fine. Tim Cook is 10x that company. That is very hard to do. It's the most valuable company in the world. And it wasn't when Steve died. You know, you can make fun of him, but the AirPods is an astonishing product.

It could be a company all by its own and be a huge company. I think the watch, when everyone made fun of it, is now an enormous business. So I think it's easy to dismiss Tim Cook. It's just like you could dismiss Satya Nadella, but you can't. Look at these companies. They're killing it. He really moved them into cloud properly at Microsoft, Satya did, who's a terrific guy. And so you have a lot of people who had to take over from legends, right? But they've made them into better businesses, both of those. In Steve's case, though, it was the inspirational stuff. It was the beauty of it.

It's technology that respects privacy. Compared to everybody else, they look like the best people ever on privacy. Someone who talked a lot about the way it could be versus the way it was, that designed beautiful objects that were intuitive. You had to respect that. Listen, he wasn't always a lovely guy and he was very difficult to people. He misparked his car in the handicap space. I get it. Today he looks fine, compared to people that say you might work with.

But he was difficult, but he was also legendary. Don't get mad at me. No, I'm not. Okay. Kara, I could never be mad at you. We are the same person. I texted you that. I'm like, we're very much alike.

So he was just, it was always great talking to him because he also read widely. Like with Steve Jobs, you could talk about poetry, you could talk about art. He understood history and he had a mind that it was it was always interesting to talk to him do you have a same the same type of relationship with tim cook or no he's different he's different he's a very he's a logistics he's much more he's a lovely guy let me say he's he's couldn't be more polite and and affable um well i ask you because it feels like you grew up with the other folks. Tim Cook seems like he's kind of... Yeah, no, I know him pretty well, but

he's not... He's a pro. He just doesn't... He doesn't want to hang out with me. I don't particularly want to... He's really smart. It's great to talk to him. He's super interested in two things, neither of which at the time... I was interested in one of them, but he loves... I think it's Alabama football, which is hard.

I'm like, can we talk about gay things? Like, no. I'm like, can we talk about gay things? Like, no. I like football. Auburn. He likes Auburn. Again. LSU Tigers, Auburn Tigers. Whatever.

I don't know. I'm literally the only lesbian in America who hates sports. So it's like this. And he was like, and then Auburn. I was like, I don't care. And then when you eat with him, it was interesting. He's really fit. He's incredibly fit. And when they bring the food, it's like the most perfect piece of chicken on the most perfect arugula. And then there's just a dusting of quinoa, just not much,

because that would be fattening. The one thing he did talk about was what's right now the vision pro, the idea of spatial computing he he was riveted to that and i find it a really interesting vision too the gates jobs interview was the best interview i ever did you want to talk about that because i thought it was amazing especially when when i told this i i so it was really hard getting them together because they really didn't like each other for they they made up before steve died but they had a real tension a real tension between them of competitors, and Gates particularly. Steve always tried to fuck with him, like always.

It was always like, and he smirked. Do you remember Steve's smirk? He was always trying to, like, get him. And so we had interviewed, that day we had interviewed Steve alone on stage and Bill alone on stage, and in Steve's interview with Walt Mossberg, who was my partner, who really did make that come together, he asked him just an off, just, hey, why is Apple so popular on Windows? Why was Apple one of the most popular? I think it was iTunes. And he goes, well, Walt, when you're

in hell and someone hands you a glass of ice water, you're pretty happy. And we were just about to do this interview and you knew it was going to get to Gates in seconds. He wasn't in the room, I don't believe, but it was like the PR guy from Microsoft was like, like that, like, oh no. And the PR person from Apple was like, oh no. He couldn't resist. So they get on stage and then what happened?

We're backstage and I wanted it to be bigger because I didn't want the little fighting, their little ridiculous, whatever, the history of them together. And so we wanted big ideas. These were the greatest two big names in tech at the time. And still today, I would say, we're among them. And so backstage, Bill walks in. And Bill is already not the most sociable person on the planet. And he was monotone, which is not a good thing when you're going into, like, the legendary interview.

And you're like, hey, Bill. He's like, mm-hmm, like that, like pissed off. And then Steve walks in with the most shit-eating grin on his face, and he's like this. And you're like, fuck you. Like, how could you do that? And so Bill isn't answering. Steve is grinning. And we're like, oh, this was going to be it was

going to be our biggest interview and the PR people are all like what do we do and and then Walt asked him a question and Bill goes suddenly says words and he goes how would I know I run hell like then Steve Jobs I can't believe he did that, somehow in his hand had this, but it was covered with condensation. It was frosty. I don't know where he got the frosty drink, but he did. And he goes, here, let me help you. And he gave it to him. And it was so good.

It was even better. But then when they got on stage. Sounds like an episode of Dallas. It was. It was fantastic. But then when they got on stage, they really did rise to the occasion. People, that was some moment to do that in person. But I decided to throw them a softball.

And the question was, so what is something people don't know about your relationship? And Steve couldn't help himself. And he goes, well, for a long time now, we've been married and lovers or something like that. And Bill Gates, you could watch his face because he's like, I can't be anti-gay. I'm not a gay. I'm not gay, but I don't want to be anti-gay.

And like, you could see him not able to do it. And he went like that. And Steve was like, nice one, Steve. Like he literally would do that. And then at the end,

of course, there was that beautiful exchange about them being to get Steve did this very sentimental sendoff. They had, they were really a pair, I would say. We'll be back in a minute. Thank you. and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast. Listeners of this show can get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash podcast. Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and say you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply.

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to get 10% off any LegalZoom business formation product, excluding subscriptions and renewals. Expires December 31st, 2024. Get everything you need from setup to success at LegalZoom.com and use promo code VoxBiz. LegalZoom.com and use promo code VoxBiz. LegalZoom provides access to independent attorneys and self-service tools. LegalZoom is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice except we're authorized through its subsidiary law firm, LZ Legal Services, LLC. Okay. We're going to talk about a whole bunch of things, but I want to talk to you about AI, right? Because that's where I was going want to talk to you about AI, right? Sure.

That's where I was going with the old media, new media, right? Because AI is the future. That's what everyone is saying. Yeah. Do you believe that AI can actually take over for humans? For what? Well, I mean, do my job. Do your job as a podcaster. No, no, no, no, no. I think you have to look at it as a tool to start with. Like, what does it do to change things? If you compare it to other things that have happened, the mechanization of farming, the mechanization of manufacturing, it's not unsimilar what the internet did to what Amazon did to delivery.

It's going to replace the things that can be digitized. And as you know, in the book, I say everything that can be digitized will be digitized. Anything that can be used in AI can be used in AI. And so it'll hit everything. It's not going to just hit media. It's going to hit every job. Yeah, but, Karen, I think— What would it replace you doing, precisely? Some things.

I mean, if it can predict, if it can adapt to... Well, we don't know if it can now. No, it can't. I mean, didn't you see... Because things haven't happened yet. Didn't you see 2001 Space Odyssey? Yes, I did. That was a movie.

It was fictional. Yes. Yes, I believe it was fictional. No, but here's what it can do. It can guess. It's a really good guesser. And it inputs data, but it's only good as the data that goes in it. So there's an expression, crap in, crap out. So it's not warm inputs data but it's only good as the data that goes in it whatever

there's an expression crap in crap out so it's not warm they say it's cold it can't take the place of humans but i mean this is not warm but people spend more time with this and they spend with humans right so so imagine you were not going to have this by the way this is going at some point and even though i know you like yours and i this is a great relationship of mine um i think you're going to have it's going to be here great relationship of mine. I think you're going to have, it's going to be here. You're going to have spatial computing. You're going to have the AirPods will have a video in them. And it will say, Don wants to have lunch with you.

And I'll go, oh, that asshole. And they'll be like, I know, but you have to do what you promised. And because you said it in that email and you'll be like, okay, schedule a lunch. And my A will talk to your AI and do that. That's an example of what you could happen. Or it could say, you know, here's a newspaper, here's 25 headlines that I think will work, and then the human picks one,

but it will do it in seconds, what you could do. It will replace, there's a lot of things you could see, like law associates, not a good job. I don't know what they're going to do. It's going to replace just a newsreader. There will be a computerized person or an AI version of me. There already is. But I mean, it's going to proliferate.

But there has to be news reporting in the first place. So where does that, on certain things, it absolutely will. On other creative things, it won't. Well, I think it will take headlines or it will take whatever Google spits out to it. It does that now. And it'll put it in the news form and it'll be a person reading the news and and you won't have to tune in to that.

Well, but there's an element of interesting and creative that you're leaving out. It can only replicate what's put in it. And you keep thinking because of science fiction. I'm not saying it's bad. No, not necessarily, but that it's going to think and it's going to want to do something. And I have to say on this, Elon was the first person to talk about this as a danger to me, like absolutely in interviews. He was, he had invested in open AI. He had a falling out with them, but he, he had said, this is a real problem. The first time he talked about it was a much more in a Terminator-like

sense. It will kill us, right? It will kill us. And he was terrified of it. A lot of people were, a lot of people are, and they discuss it. Like it could do all kinds of things. It's the Terminator movie version of it. Then in another interview later, he came more around, which I think is the correct idea, which is it doesn't care about us. It will do what's most efficient. And so the example he gave is when we build a highway and we go over an anthill, we're not trying to kill that anthill. We just go over the anthill. It's because we don't know it's there. We don't know if it's not there. If, say, we gave it the instruction, let's get rid of hunger, one of the answers might be, we need to kill a billion people. That might be an answer. But then you have to say, but let's

not kill a billion people. Let's not do that. so it's a question of what we give it permission to do that it's gonna not unplug itself i find that ridiculous i find that it's just it's just a fantasy that it'll do that it'll learn so much but if you give it the wrong instructions the wrong input including right now like facial recognition the reason why it's so flawed is because the input in it is is flawed by humans in the first place. You know, arrest records. If you put all those arrest records into AI, it'll say, well, you need to look for a person of color because they get mostly arrested. That's what happens. It just takes the data, and that's the problem with it.

Well, I'm glad that the transition, because I've asked you about almost everyone. There are others, but let's talk about Elon Musk, right? Yeah, sure. Because you have a very special relationship with him. Yes, very. No, you have that now, not me. Well, no, I mean, actually, I don't really have that kind of a relationship. No, I know that.

I'm not as close as you. I don't talk to him as much as you do. I'm not close to him at all. He called me an asshole and told me my heart was seething with hate. But you probably communicate with him a lot more than I do. Not now. Okay. No.

But he is consequential to the world. He was. I think so. I agree. The reason why I was attracted to him is because when all these other dudes were making digital dry cleaning services, which you're like, when you get the fifth of those, you're like, kill me now. Right?

When someone comes out, Kara, I'm doing a dating service, but get this. It's people who like shoes. And you're like, oh, no. But it's digital. And you're like, get off of my porch right now. Like, you're sort of like, this is what the geniuses of our world are coming up with. And at one point, I got so repulsed by it, I said, everything in San Francisco that's being invented is assisted living for millennials. Like, dry cleaning, food, bike delivery, this and that, right? That's

what it was. And so when you meet someone who goes, I'm going to change electric cars, I'm going to build electric cars, I'm going to build new spaceships, I'm going to build, even his dumb tunnel underneath LA, it's kind of cool, right? The Hyperloop is kind of cool. You got to say, you know, solar, at least he was doing something interesting and consequential, right? And so that's why it was interesting. And nobody was doing that. Nobody, like nobody. And so he was unusual in that regard. And very ambitious in a really one of the things that someone had told me that struck me at the time was Silicon Valley was full of really smart people doing really stupid things. And he was not doing stupid things. Now the problem is you have an unaccountable richest man in the world who's now kind of turned into a Bond villain, right?

Like he literally is the, I'm a Bond aficionado. I'm like, which one are you like of these people? If he gets a white cat, we're fucked. Like essentially, but he would, he'd do that. He would do that because that's his personal. One million dollars. Yeah, one. Yeah, like a scar. It'd be really funny. But that's not really funny, but it is funny. So, you know, you worry about someone who's unaccountable.

Do you think he's the most powerful person in the world now? Among them, yes. Among them, sure. I think Twitter is not as consequential as people think it is. It's always been a small business. I don't mean just Twitter. I just mean that's part of it. I think he's space in certain areas. Absolutely. Starlink, we need competitors to Starlink.

Sorry, he can't be the only one deciding. What if he shuts down communications that U.S. troops need in the Taiwan Straits? Like, this guy? Like, I'm sorry. This guy who tweets boob jokes? No. Like, and even if our elected officials are flawed, I'm sorry. He didn't get elected.

He did not get elected. So that worries me. Do you think he's the, well, he's among, but do you think he's the most innovative person? No. No. He's smart about finding businesses. And he didn't invent Tesla, but he saw the potential. He's a very good business person. Excellent. But not so much at Twitter. smart about finding businesses and he didn't invent tesla but he saw the potential he's he's

a very good business person excellent but not so much at twitter you said you don't talk to him now but if you did what would you ask him what happened to you what what is going on like can i get you a therapist like i think you know i i'm concerned about his health his mental and physical health i'm concerned about it i mean i'm and physical health. I'm concerned about it. I mean, I'm not that concerned, but you know what I mean? I think to watch him spin out of control and gaslight people all the time, oh, I didn't. Right before, when he took over Twitter, I was thinking he could probably do a good job here

because he was innovative and interesting and push and very aggressive. And Twitter was always the loser company of the internet. The business was terrible. It needed a jolt by someone who would take risks, right? And he was on the list. There's a list of people who could have done it. And he and I had a back and forth because I was doing a lot of stuff on Twitter and Twitter spaces. I was actually making a little business there. Do you think the relationship will ever be repaired? No. No. After he did, I mean, this- Because we would have you on CNN all the time to ask you about your interviews with the- Yes, right. That's why I'm asking you all this. Exactly. No, no, because the stuff he's done is unforgivable

to me. The Paul Pelosi thing, when he tweeted, when he just bought Twitter, when he tweeted an anti-gay conspiracy, a very vile one, that Paul Pelosi was part of a gay love triangle after this poor man had gotten the shit beat out of him by a crazy person radicalized by the internet. Are you kidding me? Why would you do that? It's so needlessly cruel.

I don't even know who would do that. And if you just bought this platform, you're the most powerful and richest person on the planet with hundreds of millions of followers. Do you know the damage you just did? I don't care how platform, you're the most powerful and richest person on the planet with hundreds of millions of followers. Do you know the damage you just did? I don't care how many drugs you're taking. You have no excuse for doing that. And everybody has their breaking point.

And there were a number of them, the anti-trans stuff, the anti-Semitic stuff, which he pretends isn't. Right? Like, I'm just promoting free speech. Like, why do you only promote terrible speech? I'm going to arrange a summit with you guys. No, you're not. Oh, no, you're not. Do not get in the middle of that.

You know what? You break up some people. And there's several people I've broken up with. I've never seen them again, and I hope never to. So someone in the audience wants to know, and this is breaking news, because we talked about this a bit. How should the Supreme Court rule on the First Amendment issues

with online social media platforms? that they're censoring. They love to trot out that word because Americans go a little nutty when they hear the word censor. But it's not. There are private companies that have First Amendment rights to run their... It's like telling CNN that they have to have these people on. Or in the New York Times, if you interview Biden, you must interview Trump.

Now, they will make that decision themselves. They may do that. That was an equal time thing. That doesn't exist any longer. No, equal time. There's no such thing, right? And so that was really problematic. So they want to do that because they are weaponizing the First Amendment almost continually. But it's not the government's job to tell social media companies or anyone else what to put up. Now, that said, they're doing a terrible job doing content moderation, but they're still private companies. And when they wander over there, it's a problem. So I hope they, I'm hoping they took it up because there was a, one of the two

appeals courts were disagreeing. So they're going to solve it, solve the disagreement. They have to take it up. The second one that's coming is whether the Biden administration coerced social media companies from taking things down, or should the government be able to speak to social media companies? I think they should be. If there's a threat, say an al-Qaeda threat, and the government often knows about things the tech companies might not, there should be a robust communication. They can't coerce them to take it down. They can say, and the thing that they point to that the Twitter files, which was nothing, was a big zero, the things the Biden campaign asked to take down

were naked pictures of Hunter Biden. Now, we don't need to discuss his issues, but that's a good request, I feel. Penis pictures, only Marjorie Taylor Greene should have those. It's Kara Swisher, everyone. Okay, so lightning round this is what is wrong with her

do you do you still think that threads too many steroids but sorry do you still allegedly do you still think

that threads is going to overtake X yes I think it's quite a good product I cannot believe I'm saying that but finally Mark Zuckerberg has created a product I like

but it's from it's Instagram it's Instagram for text. I like it a lot. They're handling it well. It's kind of fun. Not that my wife hates it, right? Do you hate it still?

Mine's terrible. Mine's fun as heck. There's like this guy who does flower arranging that I love desperately. There's like these cool dog videos I like. I like it. I'm enjoying it quite a bit. There's a longer question, but

I think you kind of answered this. The question is, are there blind spots now in the models we're using to bring AI to the mainstream that you've noticed? Yeah, absolutely. I think there's going to be a big fight over what data it is. I think tech, I mean, media companies have to pay a lot of attention. New York Times is suing OpenAI because of the scraping. And so we have to figure out where the provenance of this data is critically important, understanding where it came from. And they have to have a system to be able to track it. They've done it before on YouTube with music, all kinds of things. So how do we track the data? And how did the output come? How did we get that output? And I think that's critically important.

So we have to have a tracking and a safety system. The Biden executive order has a lot of this in it. You have been very prescient on a lot of things, and you've seen into the future. Yes. So then where do we go from here? I miss Cleo. I feel like I'm just getting into this whole streaming thing,

but I feel like it's old media. I know you don't like that term. But what's going to replace that? What's next? I think what you're doing is really interesting. You've given up the town cars and fancy things for your own entrepreneurial sense, right? I still have some of that, but yes. Yes, you still have that. I'm sure you still have that. No, but I was in what was considered sort of the old studio system. Yes, you were. It was so funny. Last night, Don was like on the street. I'm like, where's his town car? It's gone.

Like, I was kind of thrilled. I was like, yay, he can't get a car. I didn't call a car, but actually, I've never really liked that. I got it. I got it. I know, but I like public transportation. I love taxis. I think it's, I feel very New York about that.

I get it. You're a man of the people. I know that, Don. But one of the things. But I do love a good town car. Yeah, you do. You're a man of the people. I know that, Don. But I do love a good town car. Yeah, you do. You do. One of the things that's important to think about is you have a voice, and you have now tools to get out anywhere.

What do you need that for? And you should have an interest in the outcome, which means the revenues and profits. Right. So you're going to do the best job if your interests are aligned with the people you're doing business with. Before, you were just paid or whatever. I don't know about that. No, but you know what I mean. You know what I mean.

It's like you were not linked exactly to your entrepreneurial efforts. And so you have a voice. Not everybody can do this. But I cared about the product I was putting out. I cared about the information I was giving out. I didn't say you didn't. I'm saying now you're responsible for it. And so you can make the mistakes. And if you about the product I was putting on. I cared about the information I was giving out. I didn't say you didn't. I'm saying now you're responsible for it

and so you can make the mistakes and if you make mistakes it won't work. So can we have a vote of the name of the show that I thought you should do versus your name? Oh, what was it you said?

This is the Don Lemon show. Of course. Yes, but you had another... When life gives you. When life gives you, yeah. Dot, dot, dot It's still time We haven't launched yet

By the way You know Elon would like that one I know So we may do that I might just do that Boob joke By the way We

Kara is going to be One of the first guests On the show I shall Which launches on March 11th Yeah this is news by the way Yeah this is news Yeah it's coming

And explain You're not I gave you a hard time On Twitter I just thought you should do it launches on March 11th. Yeah, this is news, by the way. Yeah, this is news. Yeah, it's coming. And explain. You're not, I gave you a hard time on Twitter. I just thought you should do it by yourself, whatever you do, but you're not just on Twitter. Everyone's like,

oh, I was with someone and they're like, oh, he has a Twitter show. I'm like, No, it's not. It's a distribution partner. And here, this is what, I was listening to you and Scott the other day. I don't remember the specifics of the conversation,

but you guys were saying you have to get in the ring. Yes. And I think you were talking about going on and responding to people or whatever. Oh, yeah. So that's how I feel about X, is that I don't think that you should cede that platform. It's such a huge and powerful platform to extremists.

And I think you've got to get in there and fight. Fair. And if someone says something that you don't like or you think is off base, then you have to challenge them and that may even mean challenging the person who owns that. That's true, but I think everything he does is going to hang around your neck.

That was my worry for you and you shouldn't have to worry about that. We'll see. Right, but everyone will say something terrible and they'll be like, Don, your thoughts? And I will be in front doing that. I know you will. You know, one of the things about this book is, look, this is my recollections of what it is. You

don't have to agree with me. The only thing I say is I talk about my faults, my achievements, and thus, you can have a totally different opinion. I just want you to, one of the things that drives me crazy about this internet age is everyone has a hot take in two seconds. If you don't read my book, I'm not listening to a word you say. If you have an opinion after you read it, I'm open to it. But I really, that's in everything in life. Let's stop having so many hot takes so quickly without really doing the work. And it's a real disease of our time is this this instant necessity to respond and i it's hard for me too um and i think it's really important that that these tools can be great they can be wonderful for conversation and reflection like you're that's your ideal on x i

think you're it's not going to work there right now because of the way it's degenerated but that's the ideal is that you can argue with people. I think you're going to be swarmed with trolls. Well, I will choose who I, you know. Right, exactly. But they're now running the place. And so that's the problem for me. So what I would urge everyone to do is instead of complaining, like let me reference Jon Stewart.

When he was at the end of one of his shows recently, he was like, look, there's all this noise. There's all this partisanship. end of one of his shows recently he was like look there's all this noise there's all this partisanship and everyone has to reduce everyone into tribes which i think the internet has done a lot of damage in that regard is putting us apart when it should be bringing us together but it is up to people to make the choices of what they but the last ones words his book or look up like start to look up and to consider stuff and i I love tech, but it is a tool. It is not your life. And so. You probably didn't mean for this to be so profound, but for me, the one thing that I, because I'm, I'm writing, I'm writing a book. This is not to tease my book, but I, I write in the

book. Perhaps you could come to the stage. It's about, I told you it's about God. I started writing it in 2022. And then after, you know after my exit from CNN, my life changed. So I left the book. And then when I came back, it was a different book. So I hope you guys buy it. So it is a tease now. But I write, I said, if you're not in transition, then what are you doing? And you have a very similar thing in the book where you say your biology teacher says,

everybody's moving towards. Everything's on its way to something else. That was my extent of my science. And it's true. Everything's on its way to something else. was my extent of my science and it's true everything's on its way to something else something you are made of stars don lemon so you should this book it it it is um i shouldn't say it's simple because it's smart but the way it breaks down what's happening in society as it relates to show the back that's my favorite part is amazing her beautiful wife is right no right here this on back. I hate blurbs or asking people for them.

There was no frigging way I was going to ask Reid Hoffman for a blurb. And I like Reid Hoffman. But so I put insults of the internet people to me on the back. So praise for Kara Swisher. The first one, by the way. Well, you are right. Who said that? Elon Musk.

When he was talking to me. The queen of all media. That was some of them. Do the insulting ones. Not a single more vitriolic voice in the tech ecosystem. David Sachs. She would sit on Instant Messenger all day and harass the shit out of people. Mark Andreessen.

The last one. The last one. Oh, you're an asshole. Elon Musk. Thank you. Thank you. On with Kara Swisher is produced by Naeem Araza, Christian Castro-Rossell, Kateri Yochum, Megan Cunane, Megan Burney, and Michael McDowell. Special thanks to Mary Mathis, Kate Gallagher, Andrea Lopez-Cruzado, and of course, to all the folks at the 92nd Street Y. Our engineers are Fernando Arruda and Rick Kwan, and our theme music is by Trackademics.

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