The Tim Ferriss Show - #218: The Most Feared and Well-Liked Journalist in Silicon Valley - Kara Swisher

Episode Date: January 26, 2017

Kara Swisher (@karaswisher) has been called "Silicon Valley's most feared and well-liked journalist" by New York Magazine. Here's just one example: you can graph the impact on Yahoo's stock price by various posts by Kara. That's just the tip of the iceberg. She attended Georgetown's School of Foreign Service prior to changing course to journalism. It turns out many of the skills that would make a good spy are those that make a good journalist: developing sources, asking good questions, scenario planning, and much more. She forged her reputation at the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, and now she spends the majority of her time as Executive Editor of Recode and the host of the Recode Decode podcast. Over the last 11 years and alongside Walt Mossberg, she has also co-produced D: All Things Digital, a major high-tech conference with interviewees such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and many other leading players in the tech and media industries. In this podcast episode, she and I cover a lot of subjects, enjoy quite a few laughs, and dig into details you can readily apply and test yourself. Topics include: The art and craft of good questions Lessons learned and favorite moments from interviewing Steve Jobs What separates good from great journalists War stories, missed opportunities, and "optimistic pessimism" I hope that you enjoy this episode with Kara Swisher! Show notes and links for this episode can be found at www.fourhourworkweek.com/podcast. This podcast is brought to you by Athletic Greens. I get asked all the time, "If you could only use one supplement, what would it be?" My answer is, inevitably, Athletic Greens. It is my all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in The 4-Hour Body and did not get paid to do so. Listeners of The Tim Ferriss Show get $100 worth of travel packs for free when placing an order -- that's twenty free additional travel pouches -- at AthleticGreens.com/Tim. This podcast is also brought to you by MeUndies. Does this year’s Valentine’s Day have you stumped? Skip the cliches and give a gift that looks great, feels amazing, and makes everybody happy: MeUndies. MeUndies knows that your special someone deserves a special fabric, which is why their underwear is made exclusively out of MicroModal, a fabric three times softer than cotton. I’ve spent the last six months wearing underwear from these guys 24/7, and they are the most comfortable and colorful underwear I’ve ever owned. If you don’t love your first pair of MeUndies, they’ll hook you up with a new pair or a refund. They offer free shipping and, for a limited time, listeners get 20% off their first order. Just go to MeUndies.com/tim. That’s MeUndies.com/tim. ***If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. I also love reading the reviews!For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast.Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (“5-Bullet Friday”) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Interested in sponsoring the podcast? Visit tim.blog/sponsor and fill out the form.Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss YouTube: youtube.com/timferrissPast guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, and many more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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to tease out the habits, routines, beliefs, sometimes very strong beliefs that they have, or philosophies that you can apply in your everyday life and take for a test drive. This episode is a treat. It was a lot of fun to do. My guest is Kara Swisher at Kara Swisher on Twitter, K-A-R-A-S-W-I-S-H-E-R. She's been called quote, Silicon Valley's most feared and well-liked journalist, end quote, by New York Magazine, specifically Benjamin Wallace. That is such a good headline and it's an even better piece. So I suggest you check that out as well. Here's just one example of why she is feared and respected. You can grab the impact on Yahoo's stock price of various posts by Kara. That's just the tip

of the iceberg. She attended Georgetown School of Foreign Service prior to changing course of journalism. And as it turns out, many of the skills that would make a good spy, let's say, are the same that make a good journalist. Developing sources, asking good questions, scenario planning, and much more. She forged her reputation at the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, and now she spends the majority of her time as executive director of Recode and the host of the Recode Decode podcast. Over the last 11 years and alongside Walt Mossberg, she's also produced D, All Things Digital, a major high-tech conference with interviewees such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs,

and many other leading players in the tech and media industries. There's almost always, I think it probably is always, a waiting list to attend this event. And in this podcast episode, she and I cover a lot of subjects, enjoy quite a few laughs and dig into details you can readily apply and test yourself. Topics include the art and craft of good questions, lessons learned, and favorite moments from interviewing Steve Jobs, some great war stories, what separates good from great journalists. Then we have more war stories, missed opportunities, and optimistic pessimism. It's very wide ranging and I'll leave it at that. Without further ado, please enjoy my conversation with Kara Swisher. Kara, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Tim. I am so excited to be here. I am excited to be here, even more so. And I would be lying if I said I weren't just a little nervous. Why is that? Because you're so experienced and so good at asking questions. Well, you're saying manipulating people. Yes, I am.

I'm fantastic at it. So just accept that fact. Let's move on. All right. So moving on. What separates, in your mind, a good journalist from a great journalist? You know, it's interesting. People ask me this all the time because I do tend to beat people a lot.

I tend to, it's pretty easy in lots of ways to do better than other people. And I think about it a lot. And a lot of people think there's some special sauce or some magic or you have a particular skill. And I think there are skills that you can develop. But I actually do think I just work harder than people. I just work. I just work harder. And I try harder.

And I am more persistent. I guess that would be it. What do you do more of or less of if you were to say, compare your focus and the way you work to people who are unable to do what you do? They're lazy. I just really don't know how to put it. Two things. It's not just laziness. It's laziness and lack of observation and awareness. Now, the skills that reporters should have are persistence, ability to ask questions, and just an ability to analyze. You know what I mean? Like I talk about this a little bit. I went to the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown. I was going to be a spy. And I do a lot of scenario building

whenever I think about things or when I'm thinking about companies or businesses. And so often when I'm thinking about what some company is doing or what I want to cover, like for example, Twitter and the sale, just anything, it could be any, any errant thing. I go, what would I do? What would, what are those fuckers up to? What could they be up to? And there's 10 things. There's usually, there's not more than 10 things they could be up to. And I follow everyone as if it's the truth. And then I find the right one. And it's really, it's really pretty easy. And I think reporters don't, they're so reactive. Something happens and then they write it and they tend to type it down. And they never take a minute to analyze it. They never take a minute not to react, to imagine what people could be doing. So you can almost create your news if you start to

get smarter about it. And most reporters literally just react and type. And so that's what I find. Why did you not become a spy? I wish I did. I was gay. At the time, it was hard. I'm pretty old, Tim. I'm 54. And at the time, and people forget this, and maybe it'll happen again. I don't think it will. It was hard to be gay. You had to be furtive and hidden. At the time I was somewhat hidden, not completely, but enough. There was a price when you, when you came out and there were all kinds of issues around being out and being in government at the time. And remember we had don't ask, don't tell for a while, which was insane. Before that, a lot of punitive things that would happen, your own family would be awful. And so, you know, I remember talking to someone

at the time and they were like, well, you obviously couldn't be deployed to Saudi Arabia because they hate gay, they want to kill gay people. They want to kill gay people across the world. And I was like, well, I don't speak Arabic, so that wouldn't work out for me. You know what I mean? That kind of thing. And so it was just a constant, like things I couldn't do besides being a woman also. So I think it was that. And I think I would have been a good spy. I would be like Carrie Matheson without the bipolar. That's the kind of spy I would have wanted to be.

What drew you to that and following that track in the first place? I studied at college and then later at journalism school at Columbia, propaganda. I'm really interested in the uses of propaganda and the effectiveness of propaganda. And probably why I'm attracted to the internet, because it has such a huge, it does, it's propaganda in a lot of ways. And so I would study communist propaganda systems, Nazi. I was very interested in how the Nazis managed to, yes, how they, no means admiration, but it was effective.

And so I was really interested how they could take a whole group of people and make them, demonize them. The subtle forms of it, all the different things. And so I was really interested in that. And I was interested in how people are fooled and tricked and how easy it is to manipulate people. And so I wanted to not do that and make things clear for people. I'm both offended by propaganda and fascinated by it. And so I wanted to say, you know, and I'm doing it on a lesser level. I've started to write about Trump a lot, which I think is more meaningful to me, with companies.

Like so-and-so Yahoo tells you this. Well, let me just actually tell you what's going on. Like it's not precisely a lie, but it certainly isn't the truth. And I think Silicon Valley is one of the places that tries to suspend disbelief almost all the time. And sometimes it's great because you have to believe in yourself. And other times it's just pure bullshit, more bullshit lately than anything else. A lot of bullshit out there. Yeah, there is.

Part of, I would imagine discerning the truth and building up these scenarios and traveling down, say 10 paths until you identify the, the, the proper story. The real story is sources, right? How do you, this, this all makes so much more sense.

Now that I'm thinking about the spy context, how have you, right? We've landed in favor of it. How am I going to cultivate my sources? How do you cultivate a couple of things? Yeah. How do you cultivate? A couple things. Yeah. How do you cultivate sources? They're tricks. They're tricks. You know, they're conversational. I think I do them

actually without a lot of thinking about it. But if I had to think, I think I'm pretty charming. I think I'm interesting. I think a lot of reporters are transactional. I'm not transactional. I don't like tell me this, give me this, that kind of thing. I conduct relationships with my sources over years. And I think they appreciate that because I sometimes give them information. I have a lot of information. I have a lot more than anybody actually. And so I don't trade information particularly, but I, like I know things and I have insights. And I had someone call me the other day, who's been a very good source, very well-known person. And they asked about something. I go, no, no, you don't

want to do that because of this. And they didn't know. And they're, oh, thank you. And I think this is the way you should do that. And I don't, I'm not like giving them free advice or anything like that. It just was, I develop relationships the way you would talk to a person that you, anybody, anybody that you have a relationship with. And so I think that, and I'm not ignorant. That's the other part is I know more than they do. And I'll never forget, I was doing the book on AOL with Steve Case.

And he was very restrictive. Restricting information is a trick that everybody uses. I'm going to restrict the information, and then you'll be at my beck and call. And at one point during, what I do is I interview hundreds of people. I interview everyone around him, so I get all the stories. And at one point, he said something, I go, no, no, actually, it happened like this. And he's like, oh, and then we did it again. And I was like, no, no, actually, I talked to this person, and it happened like this. And he's like, oh, and then we did it again. And I was like, no, no, actually I talked to this person and this is what happened. And he goes, I have no control over you anymore, do I? And I go, no.

That would happen weeks ago. You have no fucking idea. So I use that. I use lots more information than other people have. I think I appeal to people's ego sometimes. But I do the opposite version, which is I insult them. Which works beautifully. That's called negging. Negging. I'm a really good negger. But I'm really funny., which is I insult them, which works beautifully. That's called negging.

Negging. I'm a really good negger, but I'm really funny. I'm a funny negger. I don't like, I literally, you know, someone, one of the VCs recently had a facelift and nobody was saying anything, but everyone was talking about it. It was just an open secret. It wasn't open. It was a terrible facelift.

And so, and I went up to him and I went, what the hell's going on with your face? And he goes, what are you talking about? And I said, you had a facelift, clearly, and everyone went up to him and I went, what the hell's going on with your face? And he goes, what are you talking about? And I said, you had a facelift clearly and everyone's talking about it. I'm just asking because I'm curious why you did that horrible thing to your face. And he's like, I never had a facelift. I'm like, come on, stop. Like, please stop. What are you doing?

And so I would, I'll do stuff like that. And I think people either like it, like, because I don't, I'm not like purely like, I don't cut them down. But when they say something dumb to me, I immediately go, you've got to fucking be kidding me that you just said that. Or I was with a tech titan from your book, Titans. I don't know if he was one of the titans you talked about, but I've known this person for years and you've known a lot of people before they were billionaires, right? Saka's one that I've known for many years. Oh, I'll tell you the one I did with him. He goes, we were at a party.

I don't think he remembers this, but he was, whenever he'd introduce him to me, I'd go, I'm sorry, I don't remember you. And I did. Like I did it all the time. And he'd go, Chris, for Saka, we met. I'm like, oh, I'm sorry. I'm just like, I blamed it on myself. He pulled a Willy Wonka.

Yeah. I'm sorry, I'm right back here. What? I like, I blamed it on myself. He pulled a Willy Wonka. Yeah. I'm sorry, I'm right back here. What? I just, I, and he fell for it all the time. And he finally caught on, I think, all the man. And then I stopped doing it. I just thought it was funny because it's so easy. You know, or like you go to, someone was like, oh, I went to Harvard.

And I go, where's that? And they're like, Boston. I go, oh, MIT is a great school. And they're like, no, Harvard. I'm like, oh, yeah, I've heard of it. Do you know what I mean? Because Harvard people always tell you. It's stuff like that.

And a lot of it I do try to knock them down to size because I think what happens with Silicon Valley people who've gotten wealthy and who I knew before that, they get licked up and down all day. They really do. Come on. You know what I mean? Like, oh, you're so smart. And they never think they're wrong and they never can be challenged. And I was with another one the other day and I said, no, I don't agree with that. That's wrong. By the way, I was right. And so they're like, well, and I'm like, you know, I know you get agreed with all day long, but you know, you're not always fucking right. Like, I'm sorry. I knew you before when you were a normal person and nobody was kissing your ass all day. So I'll get back to the tech titan. So we were talking at, I think it was a TED or something like that, which I sometimes like part of it.

I like a lot of it. But there's a lot of self-actualization going on aggressively. There's a lot of self-back patting. Yeah. Yeah. Like, aren't we great? Well, he overprivileged people. And so he started doing

the downward facing dog in front of me while i was having a conversation so hold on just just for context yeah this is not in an ashram or no it was like where the water was in the steel bottles like the area of steel water water like because his plastic was horrible and so um so he started doing while i was talking yoga and i like yoga and there's an appropriate place to do yoga but i was looking at his ass and these horrible juicy couture pants and i was like what are you doing and like he's like what are you talking about and i said you don't you know let's finish our conversation and then you can do your stupid downward facing dog it's fine and he's like well no one seems. I go, that's because you're a billionaire and they don't

tell you you're an asshole, but you're an asshole. You don't do a downward facing dog in front of someone. Especially ass facing. I know that. It was like, it was so like, but he had lost all perspective of behavior. Like he, cause everybody tolerates it cause they want to get on his plane or they want to get, they want something from them. And I think the last part in that vein is I don't want things from people. I don't need their love. I don't need their money. I don't need their acceptance or anything like that.

And so I was with another guy who's a big deal in Hollywood, and he's like, you want to come to my party? I'm like, no, I really don't. I'm going to go to the movies. And I didn't. I wasn't doing it on purpose. I wasn't interested in going to his party. He goes, well, do you want to meet this star? And I'm like, no. And he's like, do you want to meet this star? And I'm't. I wasn't doing it on purpose. I wasn't interested in going to his party. He goes, well, do you want to meet this star?

And I'm like, no. And he's like, do you want to meet this star? And I'm like, no. Like, I don't need to go to their house. I don't get, it doesn't help my life. And literally, he goes, there's nothing I have you want, is there? And I go, no, no. I don't even want a prostitute.

Like, there's nothing I want. Like, it was like, it was funny. And so I think being really self-aware of things that you don't like, don't get sucked into it has been really effective. And so if they don't have anything to hold over you, you really do have a lot of power. It's a huge amount of leverage. Yeah. Do you, have you always cared so little what other people think?

Yes. That's exactly what you're talking about. I was going to say, you know, I think being gay has given me that gift in terms of, I don't think it's formed everything about me, but again, I grew up in an era where there was a lot of pushback and rejection. And so you either had to say, I like who I am, and I'm going to keep doing that, and then just not care. And so it sort of created a situation where if I cared what people thought about me being gay, I would have been just crushed. And then I just didn't care about that. And I thought it was actually quite nifty, like, wow, I'm better than you kind of thing. And so I think it started there. It really

did because I knew I was gay when I was four and I was super happy with it. And I stayed happy with it. And I think a lot of gay people of that era, my era, I'm just, I was at the cusp of it being accepted with a lot of struggle. And the people before me, they had went through terrible times because it's the only thing your family rejects. If you're black or Jewish, people get anti-Semitism or racism. Your family does, but your family is the one on the attack many times for people. And so I think it started with that. And then I think I was just like that. I just didn't care what people thought of me. I don't know why. And it's unusual for a woman too, because women are particularly pleasing, good girl, try to be a pleasing person. And I'm always pressing people not to do that, especially women. I always say, I have a thing where a lot of people

come to me and ask me about jobs or what they should do or something like that. I try really hard to be mentors to people because I had a lot of great mentors. And I hate that word. And I always say, they always come to me, like someone came to me recently and said, I've gotten this job offer and this job offer and this job offer. And I said, what do you want to do? And they said, well, this job offer is interesting. And I was like, I'm not asking. I didn't ask you that question. I asked you, what do you want to do? And they said, well, this job offer is interesting. And I was like, I'm not asking you. I didn't ask you that question.

I asked you, what do you want to do? And they're like, well, this job. I said, no, no, that's like what's being offered to you. That's over the transom, right? Like that's not, it's like being in a restaurant and they say we have chicken, we've got pork, and we've got beef, and you can have one of those. And do you want spaghetti?

Like maybe you want fucking spaghetti. And so it was really interesting. And they were like, oh, I never thought of it. Like, why are you taking what's handed to you? What would you like to do? And at every point in my life where I have said, well, what pleases me, I always get more successful. I don't know if you think this, but you don't, you don't, I don't like to take what's offered to me. Oh, I think that, um, and you know, who, uh, who made this point to me has made this point to me over and over again, is Matt Mullenweg. Yeah, that's great.

And when someone says, do you want A or B? He goes, well, that's a false dichotomy. Right. Or why not C or D or E? Right. And I agree with you 100%. I think that if you're constantly choosing from the multiple choice test. Right.

It does. And people do that. It's amazing. You sort of fall into relationships. Like who offered you a date? Like who, like instead of what do you, most people I've gone out with, I've decided I'd like to go out with them. You know what I mean? Like it wasn't as if like, it's not, um, or what the kind of person I wanted, the kind of thing. And I think it's really, it's, it limits your choice essentially. But at the same time, if you, I'll never forget, um,

when I walked out of a building once, I was working on the book about AOL. I was in New York. It was one of those beautiful spring days. And I had been working at the Washington Post and I was on this trajectory to go way high there. I was doing super well. And I'd taken the time to write this book on AOL at the beginning of the internet and beginning of digital stuff. And I remember walking out and it was bright, bright, bright. And I, and I thought, and I really believe in these moments and I think people have to pay attention to them. And I, I thought I have to leave the Washington post. I have to leave. Like I didn't know.

It was just an epiphany. It was an epiphany. And it wasn't like God, like, it wasn't like that. I was like, no, it's time to go. I've got to do something else. I'm not going to grow. And I remember thinking everyone in the building was in the same seat and they weren't going anywhere. And I remember thinking going in, like nobody's moving and I have to move. I have to go. And same thing when I left the journal. It was like, I got to go. It's time to go. I want to do something else that's better for me. I'm becoming difficult with people. I started to get super rude to my bosses, which I do periodically. And so I thought I shouldn't have a boss. Not having a boss is a good idea because it makes me a lesser person.

And I don't like their opinions. If you say had a, doesn't have to be a woman, but you mentioned having had mentors, if a woman came to you or one of your sons for that matter, and they cared too much about what other people thought. And they asked for help though. They said, what should I do? How can I train myself? What would you say to them? Well, you know, what's interesting,

I just had this conversation with someone very close to me yesterday, about two days ago about this, because they were talking about how social media informs them too much and how they said, I wonder if I'm more influenced by the outside or the inside. And I'm worried I'm more, you know, like photos on Facebook or people being happy. And we had discussed this issue before. And it's absolutely true.

That's exactly what was happening. And so, you know, I was like, those pictures are not real. It's not what, you know, people, that's their best side. Like that doesn't mean what's actually going. There's lots of unhappiness in there. And there's lots of, not just necessarily unhappiness, but it's not true. That's the photo. It's not the true, true thing that's happening. And so I always, just because I'm a reporter, I know that's not the real story. And so I'm always thinking that people are, it's a thing I use a lot. When I was a young reporter, I used to think,

what are people lying to me about? And then to become a great reporter, what are people lying themselves about every day? What do they need to lie about to get through the day? And so I think that's the stronger thing. And I think people do that all the time. And I think I tell myself the truth a lot. Like, that's not true. I'm not feeling that. I'm like, today I was mad at someone.

I was like, I'm fucking pissed. Like, and I think most people, oh, don't be pissed. Don't be, you know. And so what I tell my sons, because one of my, my oldest son is a real pleaser. I really don't like it about him. He, he's really worried about people. And now he's a teenager. I get it. But I, I was like, what this parent person thinks about you, you are never 20 years from now, you're not going to remember that person. And it doesn't matter what they think about you. And you will see, it's hard to see into the future, but I promise you what this person said about you doesn't matter even slightly for a second. And so I don't know how you get out of it. But if you start to realize that your best instincts is

first yourself and then people you really trust, and even people you really trust don't give you, you know what I mean? Like great advice sometimes. If you trust in your own self, you often can not feel bad when people come after you. I was chatting just yesterday with this gent I had been hoping to talk to for decades, Dr. Phil Zimbardo. He's a professor emeritus at Stanford, but he ran the Stanford prison experiment in 1971. You didn't want to talk to him? No, no. I dreamed of speaking with him for decades, but hadn't pursued him. It's going to sound bad. I thought he was dead. He's 83, but he's 83. He's not dead. He's very much alive and busier than ever, but he researches and writes a lot about how to mitigate damaging conformity and subservience to power.

Yeah. And he brought up this exercise that he calls a deviant for a day. And he said, just get an erasable black marker and draw a square on your forehead and walk around all day and resist the pressure that you're going to get from everyone to take it off. And he has a series of exercises like this. That's a great idea. And it reminded me of what Cato, thousands of years ago, used to do. He was considered the perfect stoic by Seneca. But he would wear, for instance, a tunic. So he would wear clothing that was of an unfashionable color to elicit ridicule from other people deliberately to develop an immunity.

Yeah. And he did that just routinely to develop that tolerance. Yeah. I do that myself. I wear boys t-shirts and I like them. And so a lot of people like my mom, all these people like, Oh, why do you have to do this? I'm like, fuck you. I like it. And they're like, well, I'm like, no, no, fuck you, I like it. I'm going to wear it. And I think part of me, I wear it because it bothers people sometimes. Or my glasses.

I wear my sunglasses. Now, I have super bad eyes. And I can't wear, I have dry eyes, so I can't wear contacts. That's more information than you need. But, and I have light sensitivity a little. I just don't like bright lights. And so I wear my sunglasses a lot of places. And they're always the aviators, which people know me for.

And people are often, they constantly have to comment when I have them on. Well, do you have to have them on? I'm like, yes, I do. And they don't, they expect me to take them off. Like that meant like, well, can't you take them off? I'm like, no, I can't. Like photographers are like, well, can't you take them off for a second? I go, no, I can't.

And they're not used to people not being cooperative. And it's really interesting because I really like not being cooperative. It's something I don't want to do. And I make, you know, I make jokes now. I'm like, I'm trying to avoid intimacy, like, you know, stuff like that. So they'll get the fuck off my case, but I'm like, I'm not taking off my fucking glasses. It's not happening. It's not, it's not, but it's really interesting how quickly pressure, like how quickly you do to pressure. And I think I have a, I almost feel sometimes that I'm somewhat too rude. Like it's not a New Yorker thing. I'm from New York, but it's not that.

It's just people try to really impose their opinions on you almost continually. And I just, I have this things that sometimes I say things and I literally say something. I'm like, oh, did I just say that out loud? Like you're an asshole. And I'm sort of like, whoa, I just said it out loud. And so I think sometimes I should not do that. Sometimes. Well, a few things to underscore.

Number one, I will defend your Wolverine shirt any day. Isn't it great? There's a new movie coming out. Logan, I love Wolverine. Oh, so do I. He's so bad. And I was so worried. I'll digress for a second since you brought up the movie. Please.

I was so worried as a devout comic book nerd for my entire upbringing that they were going to cast somebody terrible for wolverine no and then when they got hugh oh my god he's perfect he's perfect he's perfect i don't like when they make him cute though i like him like really unhappy no gruff and surly yeah i'm excited about this next one i watched those over and over again those i love the movies the last one wasn't so good sadly yeah hugh he was a he was a machine uh the the question i want to ask is you mentioned the soccer story you mentioned a few things that the downward facing dog story yeah oh god uh i'll never forget that ass that that seemed to reflect and i'd love for you to correct me if this isn't accurate, but an ability to throw

people off of autopilot that I would imagine helps you do what you do. Yeah, absolutely. I do. I knock, I do it on purpose. I do it. I do it naturally. I don't think I do it. I don't, I don't calculate it. In a story written about me in New York magazine, Mark Andreessen called it Stockholm syndrome. Like people have a- Where you learn to love your captors. Yeah, they love, he goes, I don't understand. She literally will call me up and make me insecure and angry. And I tell her exactly what she wants to know.

And he goes, I think it's the Stockholm syndrome. I'm not sure what's happening. But, you know, I think they don't get challenged, a lot of them. You know what I mean? But then I agree when they're right. Like, I don't go, you're an idiot, almost continually. But I do, I think smart, I've've said this before smart people like to be challenged and they like smart people challenging them and they if you all day you get kind of silly stupid puffy

questions you're bored out of your mind and if someone doesn't agree with you you grow like oh why don't they if they are not they're disagreeing just to be disputation that's different but if you know it was it was something. I was having a meeting with someone at Google about Twitter or something. I was just asking questions, and they were giving me the pap smear. Pap smear, oh, my God, that's a terrible word. You know, the pap, like, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, all right, you don't believe any of that, right?

Like, can we get to the actual thing? And it was really funny that the minute I did that, it gave them permission to act like a real person. You know what I mean? And I wasn't going to, the other thing I don't do is I don't use everything. And I talk, I will talk off the record with people for hours and stuff.

And I don't use it. I file it away for later. I don't like sneak up on them. I think one of the things that's really effective for a great reporter is they see me coming. They don't, I don't, I'm not a sneaky.

I don't, there's no reason. I tell them exactly what I'm going to do. Here's what I'm going to do. The only person I haven't been able to do that with is Marissa Mayer, who won't speak to me. Which, to her detriment, she should have spoken to me. Well, they've been, I've heard. Because I've been accurate, by the way.

Yeah, well, I think in the, was this in the New York Mag piece when they talked about how Yahoo's been able to chart their stock price in time with your pieces. Well, you know, they've been accurate pieces. Like recently we broke the story about the, I broke the story about the breach, the first breach. And I heard about it and this was, this isn't some dumb company she bought and frittered away $10 million, which I, offends me as a shareholder too, but this was a serious breach of people's privacy and everything

else. And so I called them and they never called back, which was, which is drives me crazy. Like they could say no, they can't even say no comment. And so I called them and I left a message for a PR person and I said, listen, this is fucking serious. I was like, this isn't like a game I'm playing right now. This isn't a dumb little acquisition. This isn't someone leaving. This is 500 million people affected.

You need to respond to me. You absolutely have to and if you don't like because they had written me an email that was like we we can't respond we can't it wasn't no comment we can't you know we it was some weird comment i said i'm going to print this entire email exchange if you do not call me back because i'm going to show how ridiculously badly you're managing your company because this is not a little thing. This is a material issue. And they did respond finally. I was just kind of pissed off. And so I really don't, we try really hard to get them to respond and to get them to react to things we think are accurate.

And by the way, everything we've written has been accurate. And it's turned out exactly the way we said it was because we spent a lot of time analyzing and thinking about how it's going to go. And I think non-engagement and non-response is really the worst thing anybody can do to someone like me. How do you, as a very smart, very strong-willed person, elicit honest feedback from people? Or perhaps put another way, who do you rely on to tell you when you're wrong? Me? Yeah. Lots of people.

I listen to, I do listen. Oh no, I'm sure you listen. I just, I can, I can imagine people being intimidated. Right. You'd be surprised.

People will, I think I, because I'm forthright, they become more forthright. I think people don't like, they suddenly get permission. They snap out of the dream. They snap out of the dream.

okay, real talk. Right. So I often, one, one phrase I use a lot when they say something to me that I think is just not accurate or untrue or it's sort of half-assed. And I say, I don't believe you. And nobody said, what? What do you mean?

You think I'm lying? I'm like, no, I just think you're not telling the truth. And so, which is the same thing, right? And I think once they start to do that, they do calculate that they have things to say. And I don't think, I think people worry. Could you give, I apologize for interjecting, could you give an example of when you might use that I don't believe you? Oh, with Steve Jobs all the time. Okay.

On the stage. He was, he had, they had gone after a blogger over something, some memo, you know what I mean, that had gotten leaked or something. The memo was accurate, but they went after this small little blog who had written about it. I can't even remember the circumstances. You never remember the circumstances. These dumb, crazy crisis at the time.

But they had gone after the internal memo or they'd gotten something, but they were really attacking this small thing. And the issue was the thing was totally accurate. That, that pissed me off. It was accurate. It wasn't like they did something wrong or something like that. And he, I was on stage asking him about this and he said, well, you know, we have internal people. Um, we have other things. And he, and I said, would you have done that to me? And he's like, what? And I go, if I had done it, would you have done it to me and Walt? And he was like, no. And I said, so you're doing it because they're weak and you can get them, right?

And he's like, yes. You know, there was no other way to put it. He wouldn't have done it to me. And a place where I didn't do it this year, and I regret it every minute, I was interviewing Sheryl Sandberg at Code this year, and it was about Peter Thiel going after Gawker. And I felt like, you know, I don't agree with what he did, obviously, and I didn't like the secretness of it. I thought that was if he really felt that way, he should have done it publicly, you know, and not given us lectures about journalism and then did it on the slide. Because if he hadn't won, you never would have heard he did it.

You know that. So I was like, the secretiveness really got to me. And also Facebook is supposedly friends to publishers. And here's one of their board members killing off a publisher that didn't just have one property. They had 10 property and hundreds and hundreds of employees working at other places. So you had no thought to that, right? He just wanted to punish this one property in this media group and this one man, Nick Denton. And so I just wish he had been honest about what he was doing. You know what I mean? Like, I'm an asshole. I'm going to go after them because I'm rich as fuck. You know what I mean? Or whatever. Just something that was just a little more honest. And I was interviewing Cheryl and she said, Peter has this has nothing to do with him being on the Facebook. It's his thing that he's doing. That's what she said. You know what I mean? It was a perfect Sheryl Sandberg answer. She's real good at them.

You know, she's super, she sort of answers and yet it's not really, you know what I mean? It's part, she's fantastic in her control, self-control of herself. And what I should have said right then is,

would you have done it? Cause they've attacked you a lot. Would you have done it? I think I would have caught her. Like, I think it would have tripped. She'd have been like, she would have had to say no.

Yeah. She'd have to say no. And I want it. I should have gotten on the record saying, no, I would have caught her. Like, I think it would have, she would have been like, she would have had to say no. Yeah. She'd have to say no. And I wanted, I should have gotten on the record saying, no, I would not have. So that would have been kind of, even if I hated them, I wouldn't have done it. So I think that would have, that was a missed opportunity. So you mentioned Steve Jobs. I'd love to get your take on what the components of a reality distortion field are. Or charisma, just more,

more broadly speaking. He definitely charisma is what I'd say. I think people like to do that reality because you don't have to believe him. Like everyone's like, Oh, I had to believe him. Like he had some magical kind of like mojo. I,

I didn't find him that way at all. He was just doing his thing and he was better at it than other people. You know, I think he was, he was persuasive, I would say. And he was charismatic, aggressively charismatic,

I guess. He was also certain all the time. You know what I meanasive, I would say, and he was charismatic, aggressively charismatic, I guess. He was also certain all the time, you know what I mean? Whatever he would say. One time on stage, he said, I said, are you going to do, Walter, I said, are you going to do a phone? And he said, absolutely not. I am not good at jumping through orifices, which is a great word. You know he had thought about it because you don't come up with orifice easily.

And it was like, I don't like to jump through assholes. That's really what he was saying in a really clever way. And literally in the next year he introduced the iPhone. So it was like, you're a fucking liar. Like you, and we, we, we were like, you lie. And he's like, I did. You know what I mean? It was like, he didn't hide it. Like I didn't lie, but he didn't even go, I didn't lie precisely. He knew what he did because they had been working, they had been clearly working on it. But he went on his way to lie. That was my favorite part. And so people sometimes got offended by it. I didn't care. He was a showman. It didn't matter. I think one of the things that people got wrong about him, and he was difficult. I didn't work with him, so I didn't know. He definitely had a temper and

had opinions and very strong opinions. He could be very cutting, but so can a lot of people. I don't think he was any more than anybody else necessarily. He's just more famous and therefore people note it. But he, I used to think, you know, people were like, he was heartless. They always said he's heartless, he's heartless. I think he had too much heart. That's, you know what I mean?

Like he cared too much. And so he had so much heart that he just couldn't stand it when things weren't right. And I think that was more of a, when I started looking at him that way, it made a lot more sense to me. And I, again, I didn't know him personally very well. I knew him, I interviewed him eight or nine, 10 times and Walt knew him much better, but I think he just had a lot of heart and it was overwhelming to him. He had a lot of feelings, and he never hid them. And one time when we were backstage together, I had just, I had a son, and my partner Megan, at the time, we both, we have two kids, same father.

We each had a baby, and he asked a lot of questions about it. Like, do you know the father? Do you know, like, it was unusual. Most tech people don't ask me personal questions. And he was really curious. And then I realized, of course, he was foster. He was adopted. And he had lost his, he didn't know his parents.

And this was, he told the story of what happened about finding his father, not liking his father. This was way before the Walter Isaacson book and there was a fascinating story that he told better than ever was told after he died about how he found his parents and he said you know your parents are not and he talked about hurting his parents being hurt by his

adoptive parents being hurt by his seeking the parents which is totally understandable and that your biological parents aren't necessarily your parents it It was this whole thing. It was fascinating. And that you should not, I shouldn't let my kids look for the father necessarily. And it was so unusual and it wasn't unwelcome. It was really interesting because I didn't know him that well, but he was so passionate and heartfelt about it. And then he hugged us all. It was so strange. And I think he was probably in an emotional period around his illness at the time. But it was really fascinating because he was like, your parent isn't your parent and you should not

think that. And one of the things that struck me, I'll never forget, he talked about how he was the only, the good thing that came out of the was he met his sister, his full sister, because his parents had had a child after they put him up for adoption. And you really got insight into him because you thought they never went back for him, did they? You know, they had another kid. So it was even more troubled. And so you do understand that it had to inform, I mean, maybe he would poo-poo that, but I think it had to inform him, the anger of not being left behind. And interestingly enough, he was very close friends with Larry Ellison, who had a similar experience with his mother, who left him with, he told me a story of that. And it was really, I do spend a lot of time

thinking about people's past and how it impacts them going forward. I never met Steve, but I heard a story that reflects him being a man of strong emotions. But at points, really caring for people. This was from an old timer at Apple. I was in Cupertino. And he said, I see that ATM over there. We're having lunch. I go, yeah, I see the ATM.

Because at one point, there was a story going around about Steve. Because this extremely overweight guy who's 300 and something pounds was getting money out of the ATM and he heard, what are you doing to yourself? You're killing yourself. And he turned around,

it was Steve Jobs. And Steve said, this is my office's number. I want you to call. We're getting you a trainer. You can't do this to yourself. I love that. I don't mind that.

I didn't mind. I mean, you know, he definitely had difficulties and there's all kinds of, people like to tear people down. He didn't hide his, he didn't fake anything. Like he never pretended he wasn't kind of an asshole sometimes. So I kind of like that. I like people like that. And so people always say, oh, he wasn't as big a hero. I said, I don't think he's a hero. I think he's fascinating. Like it's, we tend to try to like cartoonize people, you know

what I mean? And not make them complex and let them have complexity. And I think one of the reasons, again, another reason I'm a good reporter is I understand complexity and that there's a lot of different personalities at once. And I love that. I did that recently. I was in a – I say things right out loud. Again, I was at an airport. Someone in front of me who was overweight was – and I shouldn't have done this, but I wasn't calling them fat. I just didn't want them to do it. And they said, they said, what do you want?

He goes, oh, I'm not going to have the cruller. Give me the muffin because it's healthy. And I went, no, it's not. And they're like, what? I said, it's full of sugar, carbs. I said, it's so much more collaborative. Just like get the candy bar, just get the candy bar. If you want sugar, just get the fucking candy bar. It better it tastes better you don't want that bran muffin because it sucks for you and i literally was like and and and she's like what it's not your business i said no i just don't want you to like don't eat it like like please just have the candy i know you want sugar so go for it and i i wasn't anti i'm like i'm not anti-sugar and i should be anti-sugar but it was like really fascinating and i just literally was i did the same thing and i'm thinking thinking, okay, I got to shut up.

But then I didn't want her to eat it. Like, you know what I mean? Because I could see like the steps, you know? So I kind of liked that, that he did that. Have you ever hit someone too hard in coverage or story? Physically, I never hit someone. No, not physically. Not yet.

And regretted it or on stage? No. No. Okay. Or on stage? No. No. Okay. No. No. No. No, I actually do hold back.

I mean, a good one with Marissa Mayer is I knew, remember that story when she slept through the meeting? Got a ton of thing. I had that story. I didn't write it. I thought she might be pregnant. I've been tired and pregnant before. I thought she just overslept.

I thought it was sexist because a lot of Google male executives skip meetings all the time and nobody gives a fuck. I've held back on stories. That was one I held back on. She would never know that. But I thought it was, it wasn't. Same thing with a lot of that stuff around her divaness, like calling her a Vita. I never came across that. Nor would I write it.

You know what I mean? I tend to, anything that's personal and not pertinent, i don't put in like and i know a lot of stuff so i don't i think no i actually don't do the hits i i will only hit on their financial performance um every now i can make a joke you know what i mean like jerry yang i said raise the yang tanic like i have funny headlines but you know it's they're. They're meant to be funny, not necessarily cruel. I don't think, I don't think anything I've written is necessarily cruel.

And I don't know anything in mind. I'm just throwing. Yeah, I don't, I have to go back. I'm sure someone could find something. I think trumple thin skin is funny. You know what I mean?

I think it's funny. It's funny. So I tend to go for funny more than stuff like that. And, you know, I think people, I just did a recent piece about Peter Thiel when he was giving that idiotic speech

at the National Press Club and everyone just typed it, like just typed what he said. And I didn't, I said, he says this and he, you know, he talks about privacy and he's invested in, his money is made from two of the most privacy attacking companies around Facebook and Palette.

Like, come on, like, let's just give some context. So I think, I don't think I let people get away with things. I don't think, I'm trying to go, it's cruel. I can't think of one, no. Do you remember the first piece, the first story that you were involved with where you thought to yourself, I think I could really be good at this.

I think I could do this full time. I mean, was there a moment? A lot of them. I was pretty good. I won the, it sounds crazy. I won something called the Bun Award, the UN Best Buns in college when I was a freshman in the newspaper. It was won by a senior and I won it as a freshman.

And I remember thinking, yeah, I'm really good. What was the, would you write it? I wrote columns. I wrote columns on college life and stuff like that. And they were funny and they were pointed. And, you know, I didn't let the Jesuits get away with as much as other people did. And so I think when I called the Washington Post, it's a pretty famous story of me calling Larry Kramer, who was the Metro editor at the time. And I had covered a story that they had covered and theirs was full of errors and it made me mad. I called him and said, you suck. I

could do it. And he goes, do you think you could do it better? I said, I absolutely could. And I went down and I got a job. I mean, he hired me on the spot. So that kind of thing worked out well. Sometimes, I think I wrote a series of stories for the Washington Post and Ben Bradley loved them. So that was like the best thing ever. Talk about crack, you know, having him come over and go, great job, kid. Like that was like, ah, this is my dream. And it wasn't Watergate, but I was writing about a family, I covered retail, and there was a family in Washington called the Halves. And I did a great job covering their fighting. It was like, I wrote it like King Lear, like it was King Lear. And so I did do it. It was a great job. I really got to the emotions and the complexity and power and money and there was sex involved. And so it

was a great story and I wrote it that way. And I remember, and it was my natural instinct to do it. Like young reporters didn't do that. And I remember him saying he wanted to know every day what the next chapter was. And I, I began to see that I was super good at narrative, um, which I think reporters aren't, they don't think of it as an ongoing story. So I approach a lot of stories like narratives, um, like what's the next chapter. And so when he would come in every day and say, what's, what, what he got for me today, like he wanted to know, I thought that was a really powerful way to tell stories. So I thought it was good from the beginning. If you were, and maybe you've taught, I don't know offhand, I apologize. But if you were to teach a college freshman seminar in journalism or writing.

I'm a terrible teacher, but yeah, I did. I taught at Berkeley and I was terrible. Why were you terrible? Because I was like, they, they didn't know how to do it. Like they'd be like, well, how do I do this? I'm like, I'm going to tell you, I learned them all by myself. No one taught me like a terrible person. I'm just the worst teacher. I'm just not, it's just not my nature. Okay. Let me, let me take it. I can take a different angle. If you were to recommend any, any books,

any books to people who are aspiring writers or journalists, are there any that come to mind um it's drunken whites the elements of style as always i reread it every year it's a great book it still is um i think anything by joan diddy in the early years slouching towards bethlehem white album are two of my favorite books latching towards bethlehem i read over and over and over again like three or four times a year. It's so beautifully constructed. She's so wise. She also involves herself in the stories a little bit more and is very descriptive. I'm remembering when you said, what do you remember? I remember I wrote a story about this in Washington when I was at the Washington Post about a really expensive, just all of a sudden,

these luxury grocery stores were getting started. This was not a thing. Now they're everywhere. But I covered retail and I said, and my lead, which they didn't want to keep, but I insisted on was here in the land of the $4 tomato. And I loved it. I thought it was funny. It was, wasn't it? And the best lead I ever wrote, and I'll never write a better lead than this again. I knew it always worked. And a lot of people didn't want me to put it on there. So I was trusting my own instincts on what people like. I was writing about Discovery, which had just gotten started in Washington, the Discovery Channel. This was many years ago, and the founder was a guy named John Hendricks. And he founded it, and he was trying to get on cable systems, and it was all about how he tried to get on cable systems.

And at the time, it was super, super hard, and he had to rely on John Malone and stuff like that. And that's kind of a boring, dry story. And I said, what's been the secret to your success? Like you do, I ask, what's been the thing that's worked for you? And he goes, sharks and Nazis, Nazis and sharks. Thank God for Nazis and sharks. Because they have Nazi Shark Week and Nazi. And I made that the lead.

Sharks and Nazis, Nazis and Charts. Thank God for Nazis and Charts. It was literally the best quote I've ever gotten. I'll never get a quote like that again. I thought it was going to be a haiku. No. It was like, you're right, Nazis and Charts. But the exposition of Nazis and Charts and people love Nazi documentaries.

You can't get enough Nazi documentaries, right? People can't. There's something with Nazi documentaries and Charts. Or movies in general. You got to watch them. And the Charts are the same thing. So they had Shark Week. And so then I got into what happened when Shark Week and Nazi Week happened. So from a business point of view, but it was, it was, that was super good. That was a super good day. But a lot of people didn't want me to do it, which was interesting. And the same thing happened at the Wall Street

Journal years later. There was a guy named Greg Zachary who really helped me there. He probably doesn't even remember. But I had been trying to differentiate myself. So I wrote a story about, I was trying to get to the culture of Silicon Valley. And nobody was covering Silicon Valley then in the early, in 1995, six, something like that, seven, maybe. And I was trying to get to the culture of it because I thought the culture was super important, not just the business stories, the drive. Yahoo today earns much money. And I wrote a story, everywhere I went,

they all, two things they did. One was they, whenever I'd go out and they'd take me to a crappy taco place, they'd never take me to a real restaurant. I was like, what is wrong with these people? And so I wrote a story about their favorite places to eat. Like this is an unusual culture. They're not like, unlike Hollywood moguls

or Wall Street moguls, these people eat a taco joint. Not taking to Spago's. No, but it was taco joints. And so I did a whole thing of taco joints that these up and coming Mark Andreessen or Jerry Yang or Joe Krause at the time at Excite. And then I wrote another one about their idiotic titles they had to put on themselves.

I said, I thought it reflected them like a lot. They had like chief Yahoo or chief experience officer. You know how those dumb titles, they have a bunch of dumb fucking titles. And so I wrote a story and the journal, it wasn't quite like the journal to do that. They were much more, you know what I mean? And Greg just lied and got him in. Like, we're going to publish these and we're going to tell them it was approved. You know what I mean? Like he was a pretty powerful reporter at the time. And I learned a lot from that. Like, fuck them. You're going to like shove that thing right in there.

And so I like that. I like he was really helpful to me in that regard. You've been involved with a lot of live events. What makes a great event? Well, it's theater. People don't think of it as theater. You know, I'm a big theater fan. I used to write a column about theater for the Washington Post on the side.

I love theater. I went from when I was a kid. My. I used to write a column about theater for the Washington Post on the side. I love theater. I went from when I was a kid and my mom took me to all kinds of live events, and especially Broadway and stuff like that. Any favorite shows? All of them. There's nothing I don't like on stage. Well, that's not true. There was a rollerblade show that Andrew Lloyd Webber did that was just awful.

But it was good in its ridiculousness. You know, I love Angels in America. I've seen it dozens and dozens of times. I love every iteration of Angels in America. And it was long. I remember it was three hours or whatever. I love, I did like Hamilton a lot. I was not expecting, I was expecting it not to be as good as I thought it was wonderful. It was very traditional, even though it was rap, it was a traditional musical. I like everything. I like stage work a lot. And so I think about, again, the narrative of a conversation. A lot of people ask a question, get an answer, ask a question, get an answer. I have a conversation and it's

a narrative conversation and not a, like it's storytelling. I come at different, ask questions that people don't expect, like, and questions that people want to know. And I don't, it's not Oprah-like, but it's, she's real good.

She's an amazing interviewer. And, you know, one time with Steve Jobs, I'll never forget, and I think people remember it to this day, this question. She,

she goes, he said something, and it was right near the end, right near, we did the interview months before he died and he was quite, it was interesting because you'd see him better and worse over the years at CODE. If you look at the pictures, there's one year where he's quite, has some weight on him, another year, none of the last year he was just skeletal and it was sad. But at the same time, he had more vibrance than anybody on that stage. I'll tell you that. That was really striking. And a lot of people, when someone's dying or sick, try to pretend that's not what's happening. Do you know what I mean? Like, let's pretend you're not very, very ill here. And I asked two questions that people did remember. And I said, what do you do all day? What's a Steve Jobs day like? I just wanted to know. I just was like, he's going to be dead soon, or he looks very sick. And what does he do all day?

Like you were asking like about people's, what do they do the first 10, 20, 60 minutes of day. I wanted to know, like, what does he do? Does he get up? Does he eat breakfast? And he answered it. It was great. It was like, it was really great. And then I asked, what are you going to do with the rest of your life?

And everyone was like like sharp intake of breath can't you care that's insensitive I was like I want to know and he had a wonderful answer it was about television of all things he wanted to change television and it was so great that he that he had that ambition when it was possibly clear he was who knows when people are going to die but he looked real ill

and so he just started coming live talk about television how to change television. It was great. It was like, and you know, Walt had told me later when he talked to him on the phone right before he died, he was still talking about how it pissed him off. And it was great. He lived right up until he died. And so I really, like not asking the questions that you really want to know. I think reporters, people on stage don't do that. And so, you know, when I want to know something, I'm just curious, you know, and I also treat them like people, not patentates. You know what I mean?

Like, like I imagine every day they have problems like I do. And so I think I don't, I don't treat, I'll treat the president the same as I would a janitor that I'm interviewing. So, and I don't, and I'm not rude to the janitor. I'm not rude to the president. And so that's one thing that's useful. Do you have any particular routines or habits, rituals on a daily basis or otherwise? Yeah, unfortunately. You know, we were just talking before on my podcast about, you know, picking up the phone.

I've got to stop that. I feel it. I feel that I'm really wasting my time. It's addictive. And I'm not an addictive personality. I don't drink. I don't take drugs. I won't go into sex, but that's possibly the most addictive part of my personality. But I have to stop. It's sucking time away. That's such a cliche, but it truly is. There's something happening to my brain that's getting rewired. It's dopamine, I think. It must be, right?

Dopamine? Yeah, there's dopamine involved. There's also serotonin involved in, say, social media hits and so on. But it doesn't feel good. It's not a feel-good feeling. It's not pleasing. So, like, when you have a cookie, I'm happy. Like, it's kind of interesting or something or ice cream.

Like, you know, you can like when I, my kid for the first time, I'll never forget giving him ice cream for the first time. You know, he tasted it and you could see his, what, what? Oh my God. Like you could see the thing and it was like physical, it was mental, it was everything. You don't get pleasure from this stuff. I'm not happier. Like it's, it's entertaining

and it's addictive. And so I feel like I have to stop that. I don't, I've got to figure out how to do it. Cause I do have a job where people do have to get in touch with me. Um, and sometimes immediately. So I'm trying to figure out like the ding ding of your phone. Like I try to turn on the thing and then I don't want to hear from people. And, um, I think I've got to correct things because I fill up my days way too much. Like I feel like I'm over scheduled. Now you may be over scheduled. At the same time, you've been extremely effective in your work and your career.

I'm super productive. And you've made choices along the way to break from certain things, start new projects. Yeah, always. I always break. So how do you choose, if you could walk us through your thought process, how you choose which projects to take on or which to say no to? Well, it's interesting. I think people go through, and maybe you disagree with this, people go through creative periods. Oh, I agree.

Do you know what I mean? Like this month, I'm really creative. I don't know what happened. I've started a column and it's really good. And someone just said, what happened to you? And there's some things that went on in my life, but I don't know what. It's just, I do know. I have some ideas, but it's really interesting to go through those periods.

And just right now, I'm not saying no to any idea because it's super creative. And so I feel like all of a sudden I have a font of really, I have an idea for a book finally that I like. People are always trying to get me to write books. And part of me is like, oh, I'm writing another book, like Uber, like with a Yahoo. And then I'm like, want to shoot myself in the eye. Like I could write that in my sleep, but I don't want to do it. I just, I declined to do it. And so I have an idea that just suddenly hit me and I was like, I'm going to do this. So I was doing that. And then we're working on a TV show and I'm kind of interested in it. So you're saying you said no to the, say the Uber or Yahoo. I've had for the past couple of months. I get offered all the time.

If you got offered that book in January, would you have said yes? No. Why not? What's the thought? Just not stimulating? Myself. I'd be bored out of my, I couldn't do it. You know, when you can't, I actually don't do things I can't do. Years ago I had an assignment for Glamour Magazine, right? 10 things, 10 interesting people. I couldn't do it.

I like refused to do it. It was weird. And I was like, well, if I can't do it, I can't do it. And it was a lot of money. So money doesn't motivate me. So that's hard. And it doesn't motivate me. It never did.

And it doesn't anymore because I got plenty. So it's not like, I've got to be interested in it. Or it's, you know, sometimes I like things because it makes me famous. I like being famous. Like, you know what I mean? Like maybe that's my motivation or I like getting being notorious or whatever is the thing that pleases me is what you have to respond to or that is an interesting puzzle or a question. So it has to like this book is a really I want to know about it. It's the thing I haven't really assumed people will know what it is, but I want to know about it. It's the thing I haven't really, soon people will

know what it is, but I want to know about it. And that's why I want to do it because I'm interested in it. And so, and with a TV show, I really want to figure out how to do a TV show. I know it sounds dumb, but I love television and I've always wanted to do something. And we have this great relation with NBC and there's all kinds of opportunities. I'm not going to get this opportunity too much. With a column, I don't know why. I'm Trump. I'm pissed about Trump. I am.

I can't stand him. And I'm trying to channel it in a way that's not quite as hateful as I feel, as many people feel, because you shouldn't react to idiots. But, you know, he really does. There's something about him that's an er feeling about everything that you might dislike in retrograde people. So I channel it in a really effective, funny, interesting way. And then with, I think it comes from, I know it sounds morbid,

but my dad died when he was 34 from a cerebral hemorrhage. Just died, just pretty quickly. So unexpected. Very, very. Three kids, thought he was on his way. He left the navy he was poor guy maybe put him through medical school he had just gotten a job as head of anesthesia at brooklyn jewish hospital so he was headed out to just bought a new house like everything was starting just died that was it um super affected me like you can't believe like it just creates a situation there's a thing where people whose parents died when they were young become highly functional. I think that's,

there's actually a Stanford professor who's written a lot about this. Nothing bothers you. Like, war? Pestilence? I don't care. I survived my parents' death. And because when you're that young and someone dies, it's like as if half the people you know died, right? Because they're the people you depend on. He was a wonderful parent. And so very attentive, very loving. Those are my memories. And they are true. They're actually accurate.

And so I think it's always made me think I'm going to die young. You know what I mean? It just does. There's not that much complexity to it, psychologically speaking. So my brothers and I are all incredibly successful. We're very functional. We don't get bogged down a lot. After I turned 34, I felt better. Do you know what I mean?

Like once I passed that landmark. But where it really hit me is in two places. One was when my son was five and I realized how well he knew me. I don't remember a lot of my five. You remember little snatches and memories. I've always wanted to get hypnotized to have better memories, but I'm not so sure that'll even work. But he knew me incredibly well at five.

Like we were very close. We had conversations. So I must've had that. And I don't remember it, but it was, I remember being devastated at the time. When you had that realization. That he knew me so well. I realized how devastated I was. Like, oh my God, look what I lost.

You know what I mean? So I lost that relationship and it was more significant than I can recall. Because you tend to just like, you can't remember. You just can't remember. There's only so many things you remember. And I don't remember last week. And so I remember being very devastated for me as a five-year-old, you know what I mean? And I never let myself feel that way when I was younger, most of my life. And

so I really was like, wow, that really did hurt me. And it was a good realization, like to not think you're not weak, you know, or you got hurt. And so again, that's not something I had any control over. It wasn't cruel parent. It wasn't abuse. It wasn't, it just was a bad thing that happened. The second thing is when I had a stroke um which is five years ago i don't know if you know this i had a stroke in on my way to hong kong um i was going for a code all things d asia d d asia and i was flying in coach and should have not been flying a coach and i didn't get up from my seat i didn't drink water i'm I'm like the ad for... So the deep vein. Yeah, exactly. And so as it turns out, I also had a hole in my heart, which 20% of the human race has, apparently, I was told. And it's called a PFO. Interestingly, a lot of people

have them, later told me they had them. And it's super common, but this was like a hole in one. And it also turns out from doing 23andMe that I have... Ann Wojcicki called me in Hong Kong after it happened and told me, said, you need to look at your report because you have this blood disorder. It's also very common. It's called Mediterranean blood. It's thick, thick blood, essentially. My family's Italian. And so I had all these things that I didn't know, and they all conspired to have a stroke. I had a stroke and I was working away, writing about Yahoo. Someone had left. I'm like, oh, this fucking place is like a disaster. And I said it out loud and I came out garbled, super garbled.

And I was like, oh, that's weird. And I had suffered from migraines. I thought it was like a migraine. I was tired and I'd landed and I didn't go to sleep. And so I kept typing and then I went to eat a strawberry and it fell out of my mouth. And I was like, oh, that's weird. And then I felt a tingling and that was it that was the entire range of symptoms i couldn't speak strawberry finger so i couldn't call anyone to tell anyone about this because i was like this is odd like i wasn't totally

disturbed but i was like this is unusual perhaps it's just a bad headache and i wrote an email to my brother who's a doctor who followed my father's footsteps. And he was asleep because the time difference was odd. It was a different time difference. And then I went up to breakfast. I took a shower. I literally didn't do anything. I'm like the worst. I'm like the ad for what not to do when you have a stroke.

And by the time I got to breakfast, I was speaking as if I had dental work. How are you doing? So it was coming back pretty quickly. I was like, oh, see, you know, dental work. How are you doing? Right. So it was coming back pretty quickly. I was like, oh, see, it's just a weird muscle thing. And my brother called me and said, you need to get to a hospital. You're having a stroke. And I'm like, oh, come on, you terrible dog.

I like insulted him. I was like, that's ridiculous. I'm young. You know, I was in my 40s. And he's like, please just do me a favor and go get an MRI, not a CAT scan. Tell them this. Please go right now. And I was like, all right.

Went to the hospital and turns out I was having a stroke, which was amazing, which was like, ah. And it was sort of like I was outside of myself while I was having it. And I wasn't – and I was – by the time I got to the hospital, I'm talking like this. So I wasn't feeling bad. I wasn't tired. There was no – there were no anything.

Symptoms. Nothing. But they did the CAT scan – the MRIri and it turned out it was have i had had one or just finished one and you could see it was really i was fascinated by this i should have been so fascinated but you could see the blood going around the clot like it was it was so cool though your body just didn't terrifying yeah but your body fixed it like your body found another like like you're in traffic right you're in traffic and you find another route it found another route to get the blood through and so so, and I remember all the people in China, they have things over

their faces, right? All the time in the hospitals they do, which is disturbing. It's sort of weird. And the doctor said, you had a stroke. And it's the first time I got upset because I thought about my kids. I thought my kids without me, this is going to be horrible for them. And I remembered how horrible it was for me. And I had like a flash, like a trigger. It was like such amazing. I didn't get upset any other time during that process. And I started crying just then because I thought about my kids.

So it was really, it was quite a moment. And since then I have been like, I've always been like this. It's tripled and quadrupled my determination to do whatever I wanted to do and keep going. What would you like to be remembered for? I wonder if I will be. I think being forthright and honest. I think being, I think the reason I've done really well is because I,

people are so tired of pushing themselves down in good ways and bad ways. And I think part of the Trump thing, I hate to say I'm like Donald Trump, but of course, cause I think he lies all the time. So he does it and lies all the time. But I think he's sort of id, right? He just is id, pure id. There's no superego stopping anything. And it's just whatever comes to his mind, he just says sort of thing. And I admire nothing about him, but I do think that's fascinating, like the ability to to do it so i'd like to be remembered for someone who told the truth or tried to tell the truth and tried to make people understand things a little better without all the the useless frippery we go around doing do you

know what i mean you know i think that would be good i'd like to be known as a good parent i think i am a good parent i i it's funny because people are like oh you shouldn't say that i'm like why i'm a a good parent. I, I, it's funny because people are like, Oh, you shouldn't say that. I'm like, why? I'm a good parent. Like I have great kids. Like it's funny because parent people, people always want to insult their kids. It's, it's weird. Um, and they're like, you know, you say, how are your kids? I'm like, my kids are great. And they're like, Oh, I said, no, they're remarkable kids. They're wonderful. And they're like, Oh, well everyone has problems. I'm like, no, I don't like, you know, people want, you know, it's funny. So I think I, I have, I'm really, um, pleased with my kids. I'm like, no, I don't. Like, you know, people want, you know, it's funny. So I think I, I have, I'm really pleased with my kids. I'm really, and our parents and Megan's in my parenting. I'm very, I'm very proud of that. And they, like last night, my son Alex called and he

was crying over the Obama speech. He's 11 and was crying, was really crying. And he was like, I can't cry. I'm a guy. Like, you know what I mean? And I was like, I was so proud that he was crying. I know it sounds dumb because he was super upset and I shouldn't be like, I can't cry. I'm a guy. You know what I mean? And I was so proud that he was crying. I know it sounds dumb because he was super upset and I shouldn't be like, I didn't want him to be comforted. I want him to feel that feeling of being so disappointed about what's happened politically.

And it was good for him. And I really loved that he felt like he could do that. That was one thing. And then my other son, Louis, who has a much easier time in life in general because he's like the happiest kid ever. He was born happy. He remains happy. He, so far, knock on wood. And he, he, he and I talked a lot. He, they live, they live away from me right now because Megan's working for President Obama. And I go back and forth and I miss them a great deal. And so we talked a lot over the holidays and he's 14 now, almost 15.

So we really can have great conversations. And sometimes he says dumb things, but we have great arguments and stuff like that. And I say dumb things. And it just was really lovely to talk to him because it was really, I really enjoyed spending time with him. I don't think a lot of people enjoy spending time with their kids. You know what I mean? I'd rather be with him than other people because he's super interesting and, and has a great mind.

And he, I was sad about something and I hadn't said anything to him. I didn't, I don't involve him in everything. Like some people tell their kids too much stuff. And I said, this has been really nice talking to you. I've been a little sad,

but now I feel bad. He goes, I always said was, I know what a great kid, right? You know what I mean? Like I thought it was really, I was very moved by it because I felt like he was so mature that he just was, I know. What a great kid, right? You know what I mean? Like, I thought it was really, I was very moved by it because I felt like he was so mature that he just was, he didn't have to like

over talk it. He just, you know what I mean? I know. Like it was great. And it was, that was all he said. And I was like, I was so proud of me and him for, you know, be getting to that, to be a really smart young man. And he really is. What are the, what are the keys to good parenting for you? It's hard because you'd be surprised, but Megan and I are not very hard on them on school. I find the obsession with school and achievement to be disturbing. Um, I, we do not push that. We are Megan more than I do, but I really don't. I'm like, you don't need to know that. You don't need to know that. Like, I'm always like, this is useless. Don't, don't even bother. Go for a walk. Like I want them to go outside more. You know what I mean? Like, so I think the obsession with making your life better through your

children, I think is really demented and you see it all over the place. You see it really. Vicarious living through your kids. Well, more than that, the achievement, like pushing them when it's, when you know full well, it doesn't matter. Like most of my schooling doesn't doesn't matter like seriously doesn't matter i had an argument with one of his teachers recently they were doing some homework assignment and and they were like i was like this is stupid and they were like no it's not i'm like no it is trust me it's you don't need it and by the way i'm more successful than you and i'm telling you it's stupid like so it was um it was really interesting and i tell that to them and one one of the things, it does manifest itself.

My youngest son is quite brilliant. I really do think he builds. He's a builder. He's a mentor. He's got some special skills that are really quite amazing. And my other son is pretty smart, very smart, very incredibly, but not at school. He's bored by school. And so I'm trying to think of ways to,

but he's like, he'll do great. He'll probably be the president. Like he's like that kind of person. And he got, he can get, he can go from A to D in two seconds and whatever it is, like, it's fascinating. Like, cause he could do it if he wanted to. And so I should have been one of his parents

that's like, you've got to try harder to get that A. Like, you know what I mean? And so he, he, he, he meant, I hate this about him, but I love it. He goes, cause so many of his friends are so like tightly wound, like so tightly wound at a young age. And you're sort of like, don't do that. Don't, you have plenty of time to be tightly wound.

And he, um, he got a D and it was math or something like that. And he's pretty good at math. He could get an A, he could, I guess. Um, or maybe a B, he could definitely could get a get a B. And he gets a D and I go, Louie, a D? And he goes, at least it's not an F. I loved him for that answer. It's horrible. Because at least it's not an F. And I go, it is an F. A D is an F. Just so you know, they don't give Fs anymore. They give you a D and that's an F. And he goes, and I just was like, I can't compliment him for that response, but I love it.

Like, I was like, good for him. Like, fuck you. Like, you know what I mean? And I know he'll be fine. So I feel like I just don't want to get them all like so many kids and the parents are tightly wound. Like they're super early. The kids are living like adults by the time they're 10 years old.

I'd rather them be here. Right. Exactly. Like, you know, he's like, what if I don't go to college? I'm like, eh, whatever. Like, I just, I feel like I'm, people are surprised because I'm so ambitious and so hardworking, but I just feel like I'm happy with what I'm doing. That's why I'm ambitious, not for achievement. And there's like so many parents, like parents, they're in an East Coast school, which is very tightly wound. The East Coast people are just, I grew up on the East Coast. I forgot. I forgot like, and they're just, they're all like in Washington, they're all lawyers. Like, and they're, they're clearly in unhappy marriages. Like you can see it. Um, you know, you're like, Oh, you really never had sex in years. You know what I mean? Like I'm thinking that in my head, I kind of want to say it out loud. And, um, and so, so they, they're just like, they were talking to me at the internet and I just was like, that is not true. It's just not true.

Like, you know what I mean? Like, don't't it's not the tools it's you it's you and your kids and they get over over I don't know it just gets it's funny it's funny one of the things I'll tell this last story he was um he was he's he's on snapchat all the time the oldest one's the youngest one is not on on this stuff right now he's not involved in a lot he's not interested um but my oldest on snapchat a lot he does a lot of videos he likes he likes it obviously like a lot of teens very typical and um he was involved in they had this instagram account where they um uh put post memes with each other and they joke and he did one that was not one kid got really upset about and you know when does a joke not become a joke? Well, it wasn't. And so there was a hubbub at school.

And that's one issue I'm very particular on is how he presents himself about women, about people of color, all kinds of stuff like that. It's not PC. It's just like, he's a white guy in America. He could be a little nicer. You know what I mean? Like that's my whole thing. And he's lucky. He's rich. He's healthy. He's tall. He's got every, he's handsome. Like he should be nicer. Like he really needs to be and kinder. And so he, he had done it and, and, and I, I made him call the parents of the person. I made him talk to the kid and stuff like that. And the school called and he didn't mean it in a malevolent way. He didn't, like, I wasn't trying to say you're an asshole, but I didn't want him not to feel like he was like wrong. And, and, um, and so the school was like, well, you know, we don't want to be punitive here. And I go, no,

I want to be punitive. I want him to feel the consequence. I spent a lot of time talking about consequences with him and cause he's the teen. So 11 year old doesn't matter as much, but I want him to feel consequences of his actions always. So he understands the price of things. And when you do something, I want him to understand that. That's one of the things I don't think parents do nearly enough. Definitely.

You know what I mean? But they're great kids. They're great kids. They're fantastic. And I don't want them to also feel like less thing is special that they're so, you know, like there's a lot in California. It's the opposite problem.

Everybody's special. You know what I mean? They do. You don't have children, but it's, opposite problem everybody's special you know what i mean they do you don't have children but it's it's uh i don't but i you've seen it like awards for everything and stuff like that and so i was in a meeting of um i'm very grammatically accurate i love grammar and i was in a meeting and one of the parents or the teachers or it was like well you know we're, we're all special. They said that, you know what I mean? That, that thing. And I, and I put my hand up, I go point of fact, if we're all special, no one's special. I said, it's a word that means different.

You're like, who let this lady in here again? No, I know. Exactly. And they're like, they were like, excuse me. I go, well, if everybody's special, nobody is just so, you know, the word special, it's like unique. It's just not, there's no such thing as very unique. You know, just like people, when people do very unique, it drives me crazy.

I hate when people modify unique. So they were like, well, you know, we're all special in different ways. I go, no, no, no, we're not. We all know the rules and the status symbols. We know it's either money or job or fascinating or beautifully creative. I said, everybody isn't special. And if we teach kids that everyone's special, they'll think they're special when they're not. Like, you know what I mean? There's special things like, oh, they're the best like little baker or

whatever, but let's set the parameters. But what you're talking about is achievement and wealth and whatever you are. Like, let's just, let's assume that like that once we set the rules, we can say what, who is special. But we can rank people. We can. We absolutely can. You do it every day of your life. Why are you pretending to these kids that we're not ranking all day long and kind of stuff? And, of course, because it's San Francisco, their minds were like, blah.

Like, you know what I mean? And I said, language matters. Like, it matters what you say. And so I was like, and I don't know why I said this. I said, for example, like, and I am successful. So is Megan. Like, Megan worked at Google, and she's the CEO of America. I go, we're more special than everyone else here on jobs.

Probably a lot of people here. Let's be honest. Like, come on, if we're going to rank, if you had to, if you were a gun to your head, you have to rank people here. Come on. Like, and I was like, that might be jobs or it might be money. This person over here is fucking rich as hell. Like they win on that one.

And so it was really, it was this headmaster who I'm good friends with was like, oh, Kara. And I was like, I'm just like, let's define our terms if we're going to use that word. So carelessly. So I want to switch gears a little bit and we'll run through what I guess I call rapid fire questions. They don't need rapid answers. So if you had to give a TED Talk on something you're not known for at all. I gave one of my stroke. I did one of those TED. So if you had to give another one. Okay.

But on something you are not known for, what would you give it on? My obsession with television. I love TV shows. Like bad television. Bad television. What's your favorite bad TV show? Anything with Heather Locklear. Wow, I haven't thought with Heather Locklear. Wow.

I haven't thought of Heather. I love her. She's the best. I did an interview with her once. I was so happy. One of my greatest moments of my life. Anything with Heather. I like bad TV, bad TV actresses.

You know, they always insult her and they're like, oh, she's terrible. I'm like, no, she's brilliant at bad acting. Like that kind of acting, that genre. She's the master. She's like the- Michelangelo of bad acting. Not bad acting. It's bad acting. Like, I don't even think it's bad. It's master she's like the michelangelo of that it's not bad acting it's bad acting like i don't even think it's bad it's just that like the dramatic lines and i even love

like it sounds stupid viola davis who's a really great actress she's like gonna win the oscar for fences and stuff like that but she's in that show how to get away with murder which i love like it's a terrible horrible show it's chanda rhymes at her very best like and um she she had a line that she her husband was sleeping with a co-ed how did your penis get in that white girl's mouth like and she read that like she was Lawrence fucking Olivia how did your penis get in that and I was like that was brilliant like I was like so I was happy for days at that and I was like, oh, that was brilliant. Like I was like, so I was happy for days at that. And I was like, she fucking ate that up. She took that line and she went with it. And it was the work, like who wrote that line?

And she didn't even like, she didn't even flinch. She did that line reading, like you can't believe it. And I thought, I love you, Baila Zavas. Cause like you have no, you can act up a fucking storm over here, but over here, you're just like, you're taking that, you're biting it, you're going for it. And I love that mentality. You've met a lot of people, many, many, many, many hundreds, probably at this point, certainly

that are held up on a pedestal as successful. When you hear the word successful, who comes to mind and why? Among tech people? No, any across the board board that's a good question um again it's how you define the terms right right yeah that's why i'm leaving it open so i'd like to hear how you define it i really i thought steve jobs was great i do there's just no i thought he was he was who he was i like someone who's like that so i thought he was successful at being the person he was and go and and dealing with like that. So I thought he was successful at being the person he was

and dealing with the issues he had going forward. He could have been nicer, I guess. I don't care. I wasn't married to him. Although he seemed to have a good relationship with his kids. I don't know. I don't know. Of the people I've met, I like Pierre Omidyar.

I think he's a lovely guy. I think he's been very successful and he's kind. I tend to like the kinder people. I think he's a lovely guy. I think he's been very successful and he's kind and he's, I tend to like the kinder people. I think he's true to himself. He's kind of quirky and unusual and has unusual, you know, things he invests in, it's all do-gooder. And I'm not a do-gooder, trust me, but I like that about him. I really like, I do like Sheryl Sandberg. We get along very well. I mean, some of her, some of the stuff I tweak her a lot about lean in. I always say I lean in and fall over. It's a big joke I have with her. I really

I think she's true to herself again. She's like she That seems to be the common thread. Yeah, true to themselves. I do like Mark Zuckerberg a lot. I didn't when I first met him. I did not like him. When I first met him, I didn't want to go down there when it was early, early, early. And Owen Ben-Otta, who was the president of Facebook at the time, this was a million years ago,

and nothing was successful. It wasn't public. It wasn't doing well or was doing okay. It wasn't an upward trajectory the whole time. And he came in the room and I said, I don't want to meet him. I heard he's an asshole. Like, oh, do I want to meet another little shitty little startup white dude? Like, ugh, kind of thing. And he walked in the room and he goes, I heard you think I'm an asshole, which I liked. I was going to say, I knew you were going to like it. I liked it. And I go, well, I don't know you well enough. You might very well be an asshole, but I really should get to know you before I call you an asshole. And it was great. We had a great talk. And I like him because he learns. He seems to learn.

I don't like everything he says. Like this last thing about fake news, I thought he was being inane. And he said a lot of inane stuff, but I like that he seems to learn. I like people who learn and improve. He's still learning. He is.

And it's very earnest, but I kind of like it. Who else do I like that I wasn't expecting? There was some the other day where I walked in the room and I expected he was wearing, like, khakis in a way that I hate. Like, you know what I mean? Those, you know, Sansa Bell, like, golf man khakis and a golf guy shirt. And I'm like, oh, this guy. Like, you know what I mean?

I have an allergy to those, too, after Princeton. Yeah, but here what I was doing was like, okay, he looks like a person I wouldn't like. And we had the best time. I'm blanking on who it was. It was just I was sort of like, oh, I like this guy. He's fantastic. Like I wasn't expecting to have such a great mind. And so I was surprised and I kind of was like, oh, Kara, don't be so easily judgy. So I'm trying to, who else do I like? I like a lot of people. I like more people than you think. No, I don't assume you dislike people. Yeah. I like a lot of people. I like the guy

in the corner store, Sammy. He's fantastic. I'll ask the billboard question because I like this question. If you had a huge billboard and you could put a short message on it or an image to get it out to millions of people, what would you put on it? Stop. Stop. And for you, what does that mean? One of my favorite books was, I read a lot. One of the ones that had the most effect on me was I took a course in freshman year, Georgetown, which I didn't love for Georgetown because I don't, I'm Catholic, but I was not. I grew up in a very progressive school.

And so I got there and there were all these kids from Catholic school. They just went wild. So they drank too much and vomited and date rape everywhere. You know, it just was so sexist and so horrible and anti-gay. So it was not a great time to be at Georgetown. And I was in a course called Problem of God. Problem. Problem of God. Problem of God. Right. Okay. It's a great title for me. It was an existentialism. It's taught by Jesuits. Jesuits are amazing. When you get a great one, Jesuits are amazing teachers.

And it was perfect. I was 17, I think, when I went to college. I was a little younger. And it was a mind-blowing course because I read Sartre, Camus, Kafka, all those, Dag Hammarskjold, which I'm not a religious person, but it really had an impact on me because he became, he was seen as a technocrat. He turned out he was quite religious. Markings, I think, was his book. And so I was just blown. It was just so mind-blowing for us. I had never thought of these issues. And so I was just blown. It was just so mind blowing for us. I mean, I'd never thought of these issues and it really impacted me. I'll never forget the first day that the chorus, the guy's name was Father Chiaffi. I'll never forget him. He goes, is it God's problem with man or man's problem with God? I was like, whoa. Like it was like,

it's true. Like, what is it? Probably man's problem with God is more the thing. So we read all these texts, and we read The Trial, one of my favorite books. I read it again and again. That's another book I read again and again. And the first line of the book of The Trial is, I'm not saying it right, someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K. because he was arrested one fine morning. It's something like that. That's the first line. Everybody thinks it's about totalitarian states, but it's not. It's not about Russia.

It's not about China. It's not about communism. It's about stopping in your life. And it's about stopping, like being stopped, being arrested. The word arrested is not arrested here. It's being stopped and considering what you're doing. And this is a man who would not stop and consider what he was doing. And the last line, you do get it. He taught it so well. Like when someone teaches you a text really well, or it shows you a painting that you didn't understand and then opens it up to you is

really, I think that's what I do with writing sometimes. I make people think differently, like, oh, wait a minute. I hadn't thought of that. Maybe that's the truth. And so this guy taught so well. And the last part of the book, he's supposedly about to be executed, but he's not. He's about to go to the execution because he's not getting it. God is trying to get through to them, but God can't impose himself on Joseph K., but he won't hear God. You know what I mean? So it was a lot about that. And the last part of the book, there's someone throws a window, as he's going to the gallows or wherever he's supposedly getting killed, someone throws up in the window and puts their arms out,

and it's God saying, stop. Just stop for a fucking second. And nobody does that, and so I'd say stop. Do you know what I mean? I totally didn't know that. Nobody, just a second. Just stop. Like you know what I mean? Like, you know, like nobody, just a second, just stop. Like what you're talking about, meditate in the morning, just stop. What's the rush?

Not just what's the rush. There is a rush. Well, there is a rush, but there's, not to interject. I mean, I have memento mori all over my house, constantly reminded of death. Yeah. Oh, that's important. And so I recognize the value of time, but I recognize how when I rush or when I feel rushed, I'm not present. I'm constantly stuck somewhere else. I think the same thing with stop, no. Yeah.

No. No. Everyone say yes. No. No, no, no. No, no, no. And the best part is there's a great line from shakespeare i think it's uh henry the fifth maybe i waste town time and now death time waste me i've always

loved that quote that is a good line it's a great line it's a great line do you have a favorite failure meaning a failure something that didn't go the way you hoped that set you up for later success in some way? I think a lot of relationships. You know what I mean? I wish I could go back. You know, again, that's why I like La La Land. It was really interesting.

It's all about mistakes, right, that we make with each other. I think in work, no. I think I've been very, very, I haven't asked questions that I wanted. I maybe didn't move fast enough, but I think. You've charted the path well. I think, you know, I was thinking the other day, someone was talking about their career. And I'm like, I've timed my career beautifully.

Like it's nowhere but up now. And then I just leave. You know what I mean? Like I can't be, I was looking at all the interviews I've done with all the different people over the years, like over 10, 15 years. And I could leave right now. Like, that's how I feel.

Like, wow, I've done a lot. My body of work is excellent. I'm leaving behind all these amazing interviews with the greatest minds of our day. Like I interviewed whoever was Edison. I did that. Whoever was Tesla, whoever was Lincoln, I did it like that moment. So I feel good on the work stuff and the work, there's some stuff I want to do and try and think I could get to another plane. Probably, probably I haven't tried very hard in relationships as I should. I haven't been as smart as I should have been, like as I am at work. So that probably in that, and I guess, I guess in failure, it's not, um, no, cause when I

wanted to leave the post, I left. I'm trying to think of where I didn't, I always leave when I should leave. I'm good at leaving, like realizing I'm not going anywhere and stopping. So I'm good at that. Um, I think I, I probably, no, I didn't stay. I left. Well, you're good at stopping. I'm good at stopping and saying, looking around and saying, no, not this anymore.

No more of this. And so, and that's in a career sense. I'm good that way with my kids. So I've been, I think, a great parent. I think probably I've been, I don't leave quickly enough in relationships. And I think I'm getting really good at that because, you know, I just recently got separated from Megan, who I love. We have a great family, but I think I did that well. We did that. It was a good thing. It's good for both of us. And we were much happier because of

it. And I feel good. That's the first time I've gone, huh, I, this has to change. And it had to do with my stroke, too. When you stop and leave, say, The Post or a given publication company or a relationship, is there a way you frame it to the other side when you have that conversation? Yeah, I do. Yeah, I think the relationship was interesting. I'm sure Megan doesn't mind me talking about it, but I was fascinated by the reaction of people because they liked us as a couple. They liked us. We love each other. Again, we are, we are the best not married couple ever. We're happier than most married people. In fact, we don't even have lawyers, but they're like, why are you divorcing? You get along so well. I'm like, you know, well, just cause we have other things to do. And so, um, I think what was interesting to me, not so much because Megan's really wonderful and kind and good, um, was reaction. People, we bothered, what I did bothered people. I remember watching reactions to people. Um, and a lot of them was like, you can't do that. Like, no, you're great together. I'm like, how do you know?

Like, you know what I mean? First of all, how do you know? Like I was talking about social media before. How do you know what's really going on here? And there was nothing awful going on, but it was like, how do you know? And then I realized, oh, it's about them. Like it's about they are vaguely unhappy, and I've actually done something about it.

You know what I mean? And I said, I'm not happy. And I said, I'm not unhappy. I'm just not happy. And I want to be happy. That's what I want. And so it really bothered a lot of people. It was really like, and a lot of us like you've invested all this time. I said, it's not an investment. Marriage is an investment that you lose it if you stop it. You know what I mean? We have wonderful children. We've got wonderful times. We still like each other. We're not mean to each other. I was like, it's not an investment. It just is done.

It's done. It's done. And it's not done in a cruel way. It's not done in any way. It was really, it's not perfect, but it's because it's leaving. But it was fast. My favorite response, I had lots of, a lot of them where they liked us as a couple because we were a famous lesbian couple.

They love that. Iconic. I get that. We were always on the power lists and stuff, which I hate. One lesbian couple I have to find and now they don't have one. It's true, though. I get it. You know what I mean?

We were always like, oh, you're on a power list. I'm like, I know I'm on a power couple. I'm always on it. We're always on it. We're it. It's like sometimes Megan and I get lesbian awards. I'm like, we're it. Like they've run out to give people awards too. And so, um, so we were, I was a friend of mine called me and I told them. And, and so, uh, they were like, I've never forgotten this. They're like, how many, how many

percentage unhappy were you? Right. How many percentage? I'm like, what? I hadn't even thought about it in a numerical way. And I was like, I don't know. She's like, 50%, 40% were you unhappy? Were you 60% unhappy? What's the percentage? And I was like, I can't answer that. I guess 60, 70, I don't know. It was weird to try to quantify it. And I wasn't really that unhappy. It just wasn't where I wanted to be. And so I hung up the phone and called another friend. I'm like, she's getting divorced. I knew it.

That was good because she started to reflect. Otherwise, people get disturbed by it because then they have to compare it to their own experience and what they're willing to tolerate. And that I wasn't apologetic about it. I wasn't. Neither Meg and I were apologetic about it.

We didn't feel sorry for ourselves. There was no drama. Like, there was no anger. We were great to the kids. We talked to the kids, really. It was bothersome. It was fascinating to watch. And so, first, it was really interesting because people do tolerate being just okay happy.

And I don't want to be so on that note this will be probably the last question maybe the second to last if you reflect back on one of the toughest periods in your life one of the darker periods if you if you can place us when and where that is and what advice would you give that person um gosh that's a good question i haven't had that many dark periods um or just yeah difficult um it's always been around relationships breaking up i've gotten breaking up broken up just as many times as i've broken up with people and so so one thing I do do in relationships that I don't do in life, I'm very good about cutting things loose. I'm not good at that. I'm not good about leaving the relationship.

I always hope for better. Like, I can fix it. So that's my problem. They only understood my fantastic argument. And you can't. There's a really good Cheryl Strayed quote about it. You can't make people love you, right? You can't.

But I think, of course you can't, there's a really good Cheryl Strayed quote about it. You can't make people love you, right? You can't. And so, but I think you, of course you can. And so I think probably, and now when I look back on it, it's like the same thing with school. Like that didn't matter. It didn't. I mean, I'm sure it got me somewhere else, but when I, I can't even recall that emotion when I think back on that. You know what? One thing that really made me sad, and I shouldn't have done this.

Maybe I should have. I probably should have, but I still wonder if I should have, was I went out with someone. We were very much in love, and we broke up anyway because we wanted different things. You know, you just have to know that when you're with anybody. She didn't want kids. I wanted kids. I wanted to live a loud life. She wanted a quiet life. We were too different. But we really loved each. Just some people just spark and stuff like that, but really just not for the longterm. And it was devastating to me because you, you find someone you connect with, it's hard in life and I couldn't be around her. You know what I mean? It was, it was relatively mutual. And I always kept trying to come up with solutions like an idiot, like, oh, if we only, like, how do you, how do you get beyond, I don't want kids, right? You don't, you know, but, but if only, and then I would have had to give up kids, which I would never have wanted to do. And so I kept trying to figure it, trying to figure it and figure it. And sometimes you just drop something. You just say it's not fixable. And so I didn't speak to this person at all. I

just couldn't. I didn't want to be friends. I had lots of friends and it wasn't, we weren't friends, you know what I mean? And so what was really interesting is I didn't contact her for years and years and years. I had kids afterwards. Time passed. And I remember the time I didn't want to talk to her. I just didn't. I knew that I didn't. I don't think she wanted to talk to me.

And then I just let time go, and I wasn't mad anymore, and I didn't call her. And I wrote an email. I was thinking about it. I was with a bunch of friends, and I wrote an email call her. And I, and I, I wrote an email. I was thinking about it. I was with a bunch of friends and I wrote an email to her. I started to write an email and said, we should talk finally. Like, I really like, we really love each other and we loved each other. And so I would love to see you. I'd love to catch up on your life. And I wrote the email and I started it. And cause I was with some friends that reminded me of her. And so I, and I wanted wanted to meet my kids and i was like oh it's time time it's time and um and i didn't finish it and i was getting on a plane it was like days later i was getting on a plane

and i get a call i was at walt mossberg at the time and she had drowned like oh god it was like shocking like it was you know in her basement it was this weird she did books on tape for a living and so she had was going down to collect some of her recording equipment. She's a wonderful, beautiful actress and beautiful reader. And she'd gotten caught. It was a terrible death. I'm not going to go into it in detail, but she drowned in her own house. It was like it threw a flood and it was just like so fucking random. It was weird and random and kind of like, oh my, it wasn't like a car accident or something like cancer. It was just like random as shit. Like God just said, you're going to die today. It was like, I was just, I literally had an email sitting there waiting to send and I didn't.

And I think I felt sick to my, I felt sicker than I've ever felt that I didn't send it. Not that I would have seen her necessarily, but I kept, I'm, you know, as you know, I'm into time travel and change of time. I love that Ray Bradbury story, the one where he goes back and steps on the butterfly and suddenly we have Nazis kind of thing, you know, in the future. And so I was like, what if I had written and gone this year? Could I have stopped? Like, cause I'm such an egomaniac, but I still was thinking of all that.

Like, why didn't I do that? Like, why did I, so I'm super interested in past not taken. Like if you don't turn this left, today, if I go out here and I take a right instead of a left, what happens? Like, I'm very interested in that kind of stuff. That's another surprising thing. I'm super interested in that concept. And like that movie with Gwyneth Paltrow was not a great movie, you know, doors, subway doors or something like that. She takes two different moves and it changes everything. And they, they show you both of them. And so, so anyway, so I didn't, I felt not because I didn't write her,

but I remember thinking I should have done that. Like I felt terrible for a long time. I still feel terrible at the same time. It was the right thing not to come. You know what I mean? Like, so I felt it was just a weird thing. Very.

And I felt I was surprisingly upset by it. Like, why didn't I do what was what was and i thought about it a lot why i didn't and whether it was i come to conclusion now that it was the right thing not to be in touch but i part of me wishes i had sent that email and gone up to visit and said hello because you just didn't know like same thing with my dad you just didn't know what was going to happen so in a world where so much is hard to predict or impossible to predict, and with so much cynicism out there, how do you remain hopeful?

I don't know if I'm hopeful. Or optimistic? Well, I'm a, you know, I have my little, I have all these little rules and motto, not rules, I have these rules that I have. I have a, I think there's optimistic pessimists, which I think I am. There's pessimistic optimists, which I'm not. There's optimistic optimists, that's Megan, for example. And then there's pessimistic pessimists. And so I don't think I'm hopeful at all.

What is an optimistic pessimist? The world will be blowing up at some point, and none of it matters. Like, it's meaningless. It's like, you know what I mean? I'm not religious, so that's harder. I wish I was religious. I think all of us do a little bit. Like, although religion has brought more pain and suffering to this planet than almost anything.

Like, right. So, I mean, organized religion. And so I think that you I really do believe the sun is going to blow up and it's all going to melt. And worrying about recycling or the elephants or donald trump isn't going to matter one big one bit someday just one day where does the optimism fit in them the optimistic you should live every day like that like i'm in the steve jobs school that that speech really impacted my listening to that speech the stanford commencement i have that in my calendar to watch every sund. It's Sunday?

Every week. Wow. It's true. That is the most beautiful piece of writing. There's two beautiful. I love that. I love that speech and the way he delivered it. It was very hard.

That's why I like Steve Jobs. I don't care if it's fake. It was fucking fantastic. It's not fake. It wasn't fake. He knows. And the thing is, he created some of the most amazing things in the years he was dying. Not the other years.

The years he was dying is when the great stuff happened. So his being cognizant of that was really important. And the other one, people would be surprised to know, but I'm very patriotic and very, U.S. stuff, every time a flag comes out, I'm like, oh, U.S. of A, even though a lot of it's a lie, and a lot of it's, we've done horrible things in the name of our flag. And I love the Gettysburg Address. I go to Lincoln Memorial all the time when I'm in D.C. and I go read it again and again. And it's one of my favorite. It's the most beautiful, it's 800 words. I actually, in my bag right now, I have a copy of it. The Gettysburg Address. Yes. And how many, all the rewrites of it. Because I love it. It's

just, it's so heartfelt about how people aren't going to remember. Of course, everyone remembered it, but the sacrifices these people made. Any kind of military cemetery, I go crazy, and I'm like, there's one up in San Francisco that's amazing, that has an amazing quote from Auden, I think. Maybe not Auden. W.H. Auden. It might be Auden. I don't think it is, actually.

It's up above the Presidio. There's a little area there with these amazing quotes about young men dying. So I find sacrifice really profoundly moving. The stuff like that. And so that one was there's a line in the Jettiesburg Address that's really, let me get it. I have it right here.

Sure. I carry it with me. Which is interesting. I carry very little with me. There you go. See? Look it. I carry the 14th Amendment. I carry very little with me. There you go. See? Look it. I carry the 14th Amendment.

I carry the 14th Amendment, and it gets equal rights under the law because of gay things. So when anyone argues me on gay rights, I'm like, hello, it's in the Constitution, equal rights under the law. But this is all about the history of it and newspaper accounts. I just found this. But there's four different copies. Where's the original copy? I like the whole thing. It's such a short, it's like 800 words or something.

It's like the most beautiful. Where is it? Take your time. I'm not an English. I made my sons memorize it by the way. I did. Gettysburg Address. Yeah.

It's the whole thing, but not that the world will live, note, and long remember. But we said, when he goes, living and dead have struggled, have consecrated far above the poor power to add or detract. The world will live, note, and long remember. People remember that part. This is a line I love. I love the whole thing. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us,

that from these honored dead we take increased devotion, that the cause for which they gave their last full measure of devotion, it's death, right, that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that the nation under God have a new birth of freedom, the government of the people. The last part I know got the famous part, but it's this last level of devotion. And that honoring that I,

for some reason, this just moves me, this piece of writing, because it's really, and then, you know, that he's going to die. The sky's going,

you know what I mean? Like what a narrative, you know, you know, what's going to happen to him and, and, and that he was able to pull this out and talk about something well beyond himself, I thought was just, given all this carnage,

was really quite beautiful. This is my favorite thing. Cara, I think that's a great place to put a button in it. Everybody should get a copy. They should. It's a great speech. And you can memorize it. 800 words.

Yeah. Did you ever see the Ken Burns documentary about this? I haven't. He gets autistic kids to memorize this passage. It's a great, it's a great, I don't love everything Ken Burns has done, but it's because they can take forever.

And the, and the twonkety twonk confederacy music gets to me after a while. But the, he did a thing about autistic, autistic people with learning disabilities, learning to memorize this. And I thought, and it was great.

It was so moving. It was beautiful. And it was great because they got it. Well, Cara, this has been so much fun. I really appreciate you taking the time. Thank you. Where can people find everything more about you? Say hello on the internet.

Yes. At Cara Swisher. If you don't like insults of Trump, please don't tune in. Me and the Trumpkins are yelling at each other pretty much 24 seven at this point. I enjoy, they don't get that I'm enjoying tweaking them. And they're, they like think I, I call them sore winners. They go crazy. They're fucking sore winners.

Like, and they think I'm one of these liberals. Like when, let me just answer, liberals just really have to like stop, like, and start to really tweak. Like, you know, they make, they get all offended by things. I'm never offended by things he says. I'm like, what a fucking douche. Like, you know, getting like all like, can you believe it? Like they always do. That's how I operate with, you know, writing. Like, can you believe this person does? I'm like, yeah,

I can believe it. Yes. People have done horrible things to each other. If you're a student of history, you should believe it, like kind of thing. And so I like to get into it with Trump people because they bite every time. They're so stupid a lot of them are but they just bite every like it's so easy it's like it's enjoyable and easy and there's such so if people want to watch your your sport at Kara Swisher at Kara Swisher um I think uh you can write me at Kara at recode.net um and recode.net is our site I write weekly columns and then the podcast recode decode which I that's the most enjoyable thing I've been doing lately as As you know, and you do a great, are you having a good time? I'm having a great time.

I love it. Podcasts are great. It's so much fun. They're fun. Yeah, you can get past the satellites and really dig in. Absolutely. We had James Corden on recently. He wouldn't leave.

I was like, you have to go. And he's like, I'm having a good time. I'm like, because you get interviewed by dumb Hollywood reporters all the time. And so what suit are you wearing? Anyway. Well, I will are you wearing? Anyway, well, I will let you get back to your day. This has been great.

And for everybody listening for links to the Gettysburg address and documentaries, everything that we talked about in the show, as well as how you can reach Cara, you can tune into the show notes. They can be found with the show notes for every other episode of for our workweek.com forward slash podcast. And until next time, thank you for listening. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one,

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