The Vergecast - Kara Swisher on Silicon Valley’s lack of competition

Episode Date: June 25, 2019

Recode editor-at-large Kara Swisher joins Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel to discuss the possibilities of breaking up big tech companies like Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon. Kara also explains how the dominance of these four giant companies harms competition and innovation in Silicon Valley and why tech companies should be doing more to help. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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dropping May 14th. Tap in with us. Hey, everybody. It's the Navajov on this week's interview episode. Very special guest. Kara Swisher, editor at large at Recode, New York Times columnist, host of Recode Decode on the Blacks Media Podcast Network and Pivot.

All great shows. We just came off the Code Conference. I realized I talked to everybody at Code about the Code Conference, but I actually hadn't had a chance to catch up with Kara about it, to talk about the performance of the platform executives on stage, They talked about content moderation, talk about where the tech industry is going, talking about breaking up tech companies.

Kara knows everybody. She had a lot to say about that stuff. I love talking to Kara. She's super funny, super smart, ultra-connected. Just a great conversation all around. Check it up. Kara Swisher, thanks for coming on. No problem.

You were on a while ago. We talked about AT&T and Time Warner, I think. That was a lot of time ago. And that happened. It really did happen to us, and now AT&T owns Game of Thrones, which I think is horrifying. Soon there will be one company,

and then we're going to merge it with the government. Okay, that's my goal. That sounds fantastic. One sort of cybernetic corporate control. I was just at the Code Conference, which you put on with Peter Kafka and the rest of the Recode team. It was great. Thank you. And I realized I talked to everyone at Code about Susan Wojcicki's performance on stage with Peter Kafka.

She was the CEO of YouTube. The consensus I got was that she did not do a very good job. Yeah, let me give it one thing. As Scott Galloway also says who I do pivot with, she showed up. And most of these people don't. Like they don't. You didn't see Jack Dorsey. You didn't see, you know, Mark or Cheryl and stuff. To be fair, we didn't ask Cheryl. And so you, that gives her some credit, like that she does. And she shows up a lot. She actually does go out there and talk to people and so like that. So she is on the firing line. And I think that's pretty good. That gives, I get her credit for that. But the problem is, it's not so much that she did badly is there's no good answers. What is a good answer? What would you be satisfied with? And I think the reason why there's no good answer is because the situation is bad. For example, today, I was. just on the subway and I was looking at someone on one of the Alex Jones shows, the co-ho, the whatever. He is, he was calling for the lynching of Barack Obama on videos. And so Twitter was

asked to take him down or to block him because he was pushing the videos on Twitter. They got on YouTube somehow through, you know, the Info Wars gets on YouTube, but YouTube banned InfoWars. And so it's just this big, giant mess of a problem that is, they're constantly playing whack-a-mole. And so I know if there's any particularly good answers or who could do it unless they change the business drastically. And they're not doing that. And so that's where they are. I guess what I would contrast it with is you also had Adam Messeria from Instagram, Andrew Bosworth. He was from Facebook. He was with Casey. You talked to Vigigate and Kvon Beekpur from Twitter. Who I thought did the best of that gang. They all have the same problem. That's kind of what I'm getting it.

They all have the same problem. They all delivered in substance the same answers. Content moderation and scale is hard. Right. AI will fix it. Yes, maybe. Right. That's effectively what they got it. There's no good answer to a system that is an open platform where anybody can post anything.

And therefore, in the old days, I mean, you can joke about it. Neo-Nazis were in states and they had new, you know, hand newsletters and things like that. And they can have websites, but it wasn't quite as powerful. And so all these, I'm just using neo-Nazis as a group because that's the one that everyone points to are extremists, white, white supremacy extremists. And they're all white supremacy, people are extremists. So they have now a platform where they can spew this vile, racist stuff, and there's no governor on it. There's nobody pushing it back. And then they suddenly are starting to do that.

But there's all kinds of things like that, not just white supremacists, but there's, you know, anti-gay people. There's this and that. And then you become the arbiter of society, which government is supposed to do. And they're not really equipped to be governments. And so there's no – and government doesn't do it well, by the way. We struggle. You know, we struggle for years. to figure out the right way to handle us.

And even then, it goes back and forth and back and forth. Yeah, we're 200 plus years and to try to write speech laws. Right. We're not very good at it. No, and the idea that this is a public square is also set into the mind of people and the public, especially the noisier ones on both sides of the left and the right. They're like, I should be able to say whatever I want. That is what the Silicon Valley has taught people.

You can say whatever you want. And here's a platform to do it. And here's a platform to amplify and weaponize what you're saying. And they're not public squares. They can't. And then when they say, oh, we're taking you down, they're like, what are you talking about? I can say whatever I want. And so it's like you train children to eat sugar their whole lives and then you take away the donuts. They're like, what? You gave me donuts. And so let's be clear. It is not the public square and these companies can do whatever they want. And they do do whatever they want. And so it becomes haphazard. And one thing one little, one engineer does could affect millions and millions of people. And he's not even thinking of it when he's doing. And he's always a he, by the way.

Almost always. Yeah. Actually, always. So the one theme there was content moderation. Yeah. A huge theme at code. Sure. The other theme was antitrust breakups. Yes. My connection between those two things is pretty simple.

It's that Google has gotten so big we cannot tell it apart from the government. Right. Right. I mean, it does think... It is a quasi-government institute. It feels like that. I mean, it surveil to you. It makes decisions about what you may or may not buy.

It makes decisions about what you may or may not see. It is a gateway to the economy for most people. Sure. Is the solution just break them up? Well, it's interesting because the people of these companies, and on stage what they were saying is, you know what, the only way to solve these problems and fight China. It's like they always have it, fight China.

Let us be big, because we need to be big to fight and solve these problems and fight China and whatever. And that's what got us into trouble in the first place. So it's like you were so big that you made a mess, and now the bigness is going to solve the mess. I just, I don't buy it. I don't buy it in any way. And I think something again that Scott was talking about is, and he talked about it on stage, was if you break them up, you unlock a lot of value.

Like if you're a Facebook investor and they break up, take off Instagram and WhatsApp, you're going to be richer. Because these are allowed to compete. And his point was, say, if they took YouTube off of Google, the first meeting of the YouTube board is let's do search. The first meeting of the Google board is let's do video. And there was a Google. You remember there was YouTube and Google video existing at the same time for a very short time. And so you create a competitive environment. And the fact that we have no new search engines since forever and no new social networks since 2011, which is Snapchat, no more substantive social networks, says everything.

No one's going to go into those businesses. No one's going to compete. No one's going to try to create. What if someone, no one's going to say, I think I'll create the safe YouTube. I think I'll create the safe of Facebook. Why do it? It's easier to do the unsafe one and make a ton of money. Or try to sell your content to.

You can't beat them. You can't beat them at their side. So why not take away some of their power? Yeah. I mean, to me, that's the, it also solves the speech issue. You don't get Ted Cruz tweeting wrongly about the law if there's a place for conservatives to have their own social. Well, yeah, they do. There are some, like Parlay and Gab and some others. But you know what? They're no good. Nobody's on them. Like they want to not talk to each other, you know, in a rage. They want to talk to, they want to piss off me or you or whoever they want to piss off. The biggest example, obviously, is Trump. I mean, imagine, I was thinking of doing Com for the times about what would happen if Trump came off with, if Twitter just decided to take him off? Where would he go? Just from a technical point of view, where to Facebook? That's not going to work for him. Parlay, you know, maybe.

But nobody cares. Like, it just, it's just, it was, you know, and even though I'm glad, listen, I don't, some of these networks like Gavin Parley had not my cup of tea, but I'm glad they exist. Like, fine. If that's what I want to do. They're all over there. There should be as many as possible. That's the thing. And then they can make the rules.

But I think one overarching system is always a problem to me. Right. And especially when it's connected to these other overarchings. I mean, Google, to me, has the most problems, right? Google is a utility for most people in a way that Facebook is not. Well, you know, you could make a case for several of them in different ways. And I think it'll be harder. Say you get to Amazon and it's a little bit harder because retail's a huge space.

Are they a retailer or are they an online retailer? And then do they do consumer harm? do they not? And I think the concept of whether consumer harm is the determination. And so the Justice Department is playing around with that, which is the old way. I think all the old ways, the old way of deciding what harm is in an antitrust situation, the old way of thinking about free speech in private companies. You know, this is all going to be litigated and be in courts. I think that's really the only way for it to change unless legislators decide to change. But that's not going to happen because it's so politicized. Well, did you see Senator Josh Hawley put out a video yesterday? It's a

very not good. No. You know, his whole thing is that conservatives don't have a voice, which is just ridiculous. Measurably not true. It's not true. But still, I still want to, I still want to hear from him. Senator Holly, he's a freshman senator from Missouri. He used to be the Attorney General of Missouri. No dummy. He proposed a bill yesterday, taking away Section 230 protections from the platform companies, but he would give them back if they applied to the Federal Trade Commission, proving that they moderate in a neutral way with evidence for two years and then a majority of the FTC commissioners

so three Democrats, one Republican or three Republicans, one Democrat, would have to vote to offer that immunity. And then my favorite part of the bill is if they discover that any moderator has acted in a politically biased way, they wouldn't get punished for it if they named the moderator in a public way and fired them. It's really kind of crazy.

I think he's not, I think he's being crazy for a reason. He wants to get the discussion going on that. That's kind of my feeling. He wants to get it going just the way they all just want to get the discussion going. And I think to take the, like even Elizabeth Warren with her breakup, she's gone the furthest you can go. I don't think she's quite, you know, even Margaret Vestager didn't agree with her. And she's a tough regulator. I think she wants to discussion being now what everybody is talking about it.

And she started off the ball rolling. And now every Democratic candidate is like, break them up, break them up. You know. Well, I think Holly's point, he has an underlying point, which is good, which is no one knows how these companies work. Yeah. Right. No one knows the mechanism by which they write rules, by which they enforce the rules, by which they roll out rules. Casey Newton wrote a great story first yesterday about the people who actually push the buttons to make the rules go. Right.

I was actually talking to our friend Walt Mossbury yesterday, and I think people want the platforms to change from two directions. I personally would like them to moderate more. I'd like them to remove more harmful things. I think a bunch of conservatives would like them to moderate less because they perceive incorrectly the, that there's bias against their speech on the platform. So moderate less, and I say moderate more. And if you are on my side of that debate, there's a real cost to that. You have to hire more people and give them a worse job. Yeah, as Casey wrote in that amazing, not wonderful piece, it was a terrible piece,

but it was beautifully rendered this idea of what we're doing to the people who are doing content moderation. I guess my question is like, as you talk to these folks, as you went through code, do you see this as being solvable in a way that these companies are currently constituted? I think it's always solvable competition. I think that's the best way to do it. I think when you try to apply regulatory scrutiny to somebody – and some regulation is new. That's not to say there shouldn't be some around privacy. There shouldn't be some where there's real teeth to these laws. And certain laws are already in place, you know, that they aren't enforcing.

I think our moribund FTC and FCC is a problem that they're not acting. They're not investigating. there is some value to fearing the government invest. Like the SEC, you know, they should investigate more. Like when they do, people behave better. It's just like if there's a place I drive in Washington and I know I slow down or I've gotten 20 tickets. Now I do not, you know, if I have a perception, people have a perception if there's some feeling that the government is watching in a fair way that they will behave differently. And so I do think there's some things that need to be solved by some regulation, maybe some of the Apple store stuff, pricing, that kind of stuff.

that's not, you don't want to break them up. Like, it's like figure it out. There is, there are laws you can apply it smartly to that. And then there are, should they, should they spin some things off? And I think probably Google is a good candidate for that. It depends on what you want to spin off there, like what you think should be separated. Probably YouTube from Google. That seems obvious.

Besides Google spinning off YouTube, which seems the obvious one, there's a lot of others. Facebook could lose Instagram and WhatsApp. Amazon, I don't know, Prime. Could you pull off Prime? Probably not. Apple, obviously, people are talking to the, app store, but that makes no sense to me because it's very important that they have quality insurance, and that's really hard to be in a separate company. There's other remedies there. And so there's

all kinds of things you could do with each of these companies. But I think the principal ones are Facebook and Google. I think Googlers are pretty annoyed at YouTube. Yes. Well, the thing is, poor Susan, that's why I feel like she's doing, you know, she got here, here's Susan. Here's the bag of crap. Like, you know, and then Sundar, wherever he's gone. It's ultimately his responsibility, by the way. You know, Sundar wrote the founder. Sundar wrote the founder's letter for alphabet yesterday, which is interesting because he is not a founder of Alphabet, not the founder of Google. But he wrote the founder's letter yesterday. And his thesis... The founders have disappeared. It's my perception. Where is Larry Page? I should just ask you,

you're probably the person who's the most likely to know. We used to talk quite a lot years and years and years ago, and he was always odd then. I think he's, I don't know. He's not the most engaged, someone who wants to engage with people. Yeah. I always got the perception he didn't like people. That was my, you know. Well, it's amazing that he is in charge of you to. I have a feeling they're hardly engaged. Sergei's not, doesn't seem engaged at all. I don't think the founders are very much engaged.

Except for, I think they're at the Friday things sometimes. And they're not involved in the way they were. It's Sundar and Susan, really, and some others who are running that company. Anyway, Sundar, to your point, wrote the founder's letter. And this whole thing is Google is a helpful company. We help you. And to help you, we need your data. This is, it was, if you're listening and you

paid attention to like Google I.O. This is a rework of what he wrote. At I.O., it's a rework of what he wrote in the New York Times. I said, privacy is not a luxury good. This is his message for this moment. And he got to YouTube, and he's like, YouTube is our most helpful product because it has how-to videos on it. Oh, yeah. And it's like, you just went over. Let's sell the, sell the good things. And by the way, they're great. The YouTube, yeah, two videos. Great. And, you know, my kid watches it for all kinds of interesting stuff. I mean. You let your kids watch YouTube? I do. I do. I have some issues of where the algorithms go. and I've talked about those.

And they go quickly, badly. I've watched him do it. And I don't know why. Like, I don't know, you know, I do know what he's looking at. He's, you know, he looks wide. I feel like if I hinder it, it's a problem. If I monitor it too much, it's a problem. He'll figure it out.

I either have done a good job or I haven't. But there is some addictive qualities to it. You can see the autoplay and the things they recommend and stuff like that. There's an addictive nature to it that is, I'm questioned. So I cut them off, like you don't watch anymore. but he does a lot of how-toes, by the way, he does a ton of hotos. And they're interesting. They are interesting.

And they're well done. But that's not, that's like saying, you know, except it's like a big city where everything's a mess. And it's like, look, we've shown you how to get around this horrible city. Like, you know, I don't know. Well, it's also Google doesn't make the how-toes. Right. It's so strange. Let's agree.

There's a lot of, I mean, one of the things. One of the things that she was saying, and I thought was interesting. And I see this is sort of a, it's talking points, but I think they do believe this, is, you know, 99% of it is good and 1% is bad. By the way, I don't know where they come up with those numbers. I'm sure it's more than 1%. But that 1% represents billions and billions and billions and the most vile content. And so I'm sort of like, I'm not comforted by that. Like, that's the issue is the 1% is, it's the real 1%, right?

It's really toxic and really bad and really dangerous and really problematic. And so one of the things that was interesting in Casey's piece is that this, what's the cognizant? They've got to have a 98% success rate. I guess 90% of the stuff has to come off. The accuracy score. Right, but it has to be 100. Well, so the accurate. Oops, we let one Ebola in.

Like, you know, I don't know. I just feel like it should be 100%. So that accuracy score is a remarkable piece of like newspeak. It's bullshit. Because it's not about accuracy. as you go through you're a moderator and make $15 an hour

you're looking at 400 pieces of content a day you memorize all the rules yeah you should take it all that's what I can see take it all down I just think no no no

no no so you're hitting yes or no some of your decisions are filtered out and sent to another reviewer and that reviewer agrees or disagrees with you that is accuracy

I know and that it's that is actually not also who are these people not accuracy there was that good the cleaners was really interesting because there were people

in the Philippines deciding when people in the United States It's just like, it makes no sense. It's just impossible because they let anybody do what they want. And that's when anybody can do what they want, they will do what they want. So I heard Peter Kafka asked this question 500 times at code to every platform executive. What if people had to pay to use it?

What if you didn't just let anybody do what they want? To me, that's pretty problematic as well, right? That's their little argument. They did that against Apple, you remember? Yeah. We're giving a free product, so take our crap. That was my message. No, no, but it is true that you were able to start recode because you could just start a website.

There are no gatekeepers in the way. We were able to start the verge because there were no gatekeepers in our way. We are doing this podcast because I don't have to go get permission to publish a podcast. That is a net good. Yeah. How do you see those companies trying to balance out that net good? They're not going to do it. There's not going to do it.

There's been talk about a paid Facebook for years and it just they never are going to do it. They make too much money in the other way. So why would they? There's no impetus to do it again. And others have tried paid versions of it. They don't work. They can work if it's some incredible thing, but not this, not if there's so much good free stuff out there. Why would you?

So you just wrote a piece for the New York Times. The quote is, if you've built a chaos factory, you can't dodge responsibility. That's not my quote. It's Tim Cook, yeah. It's a good quote. It's a great quote from Cook. I think Cook sees the problem, right? He's got...

Oh, he articulates. Remember, he articulated it in an interview I did last March when he said, and I asked him, what would you do if you were Mark Zuckerberg? He said, well, I wouldn't be in this situation. He was so dripping. He was waiting to say it. And I was sort of surprised because he's usually not like that. And since then, it's been like, let me tell you about these assholes.

And he's been sort of the voice of that. And what's really interesting is I've had dinners recently with a lot of Silicon Valley people. And they're like, he's such a scold. You know, he's such a scold. He hates tech. I was like, he runs the biggest tech companies in there. Tech people hate tech. Someone was telling me that.

I'm like, well, some people don't like our president. Like, you can do that. You can call some things into question. And so he's called a scold. You know, Roger, they're trying to paint Roger McNer me as a crank. And he can say some cranky things. You know, Tristan Harris is a goody-goody or just another scold. I'm a bummer.

Yeah. Like, it just, that's the whole thing. I don't think you're a bummer. I'm trying to be a bummer. I was saying, I said the other day yesterday, I like being an irritant. They can thank me later. They'll thank me later. That's well.

I'll get some banquet when I'm 60. like, well, Kara saw it. It was coming the whole time. Yeah, but I think that, I think Tim is really right. He's an adult. He's the adult in the room. Well, so he doesn't have to run these companies. He has some distance.

That's not his business. It's not his business. And he can see, oh, that's a problem. They could have been their business. They could have gone that way. They could have done that. They could have done all of that. You know, I talk to the Google folks and they will, they are very timid,

which is interesting. They are. They don't want to say it out loud, like, on the record out loud. They're very polite Google people. They're like, you know, Apple tracks the shit out of you too. And they're angry about it. Like, no one, why don't you write that story? I'm like, well, say it on the record.

Right. We'll do it. But, you know, the Google people are fairly unhappy. They don't track people in the same way. I don't care. We're going to do it. And then it's going to be minor compared to what Google does. See, they should not open that can of worms because they want to.

They can, but it's sort of like, it's a what aboutism. What aboutism? And of course, you know, I think the problem is their business is fundamentally about tracking people. That is their fundamental business. It's about sucking in all the information possible and chopping it up. and Apple absolutely does those things, but it's not their business. Their business is me, but I don't think I,

I'd never seen a piece of advertising on Apple maybe a long time ago. They had it, and then they closed that business down. Yeah, they didn't do a good job. Their social network ping, remember that? That didn't work out. That was great. It was horrible.

They had another one inside Apple music that was equally bad. But by the way, Google sucks at social networking, so they should talk. They wish they could be good at social networking. So here's my question. Susan Wojiski. Does she see the problem?

Yes. You think she does? 100%. I came away from Code fully thinking that she did not see the problem. I think she does. That she's been at Google for too long, that she's too deep in it. There's elements of that. She's very loyal to that company.

It started in her garage and she's very close. She's very close to the company for years. I think she's agonized. I think she's in fact agonized. I've had lots of off-the-record discussion. I mean, I think she's not someone who's like hard on her sleeve, but of any of the executives, absolutely. I mean, all of them are sort of denial is not a river. Egypt. You know what I mean? I was not tested. I don't even in Egypt. I think she can't say

everything. And that's the problem is she can't, you know, there's all this legal issues. I think, you know, the extremist thing that she did was quite dangerous for people who were. You know, they already had been subject to one of the creators coming in and shooting up their headquarters. I think they're in a much, in this political age right now, there's a lot of dangerous talk and threats and things like that. And as you know, what happened to Carlos? if you think it's not having to Carlos, it's having to all the executives there of all these companies. And so I think that's not,

the personal safety is not the issue. Everything is so heated that I think it's very hard. She says something and it's, she's got to be very careful about what she says. And of course, people want her to say more. And so I sound like an apologist for her. I think the whole system is fucked

because the way it's built. And they won't say that. They will never say that. I don't know a way out for that. I can't, what if you ran it? What would you do? What would you do? Well, I wouldn't be in a situation.

Wouldn't be in this. What would you do? No. So I thought about it's a lot as I watched all the executives from the platform companies. And I think the thing that I'm missing from all these companies, and maybe it's because they believe their public squares. Maybe it's to chase growth. They have to. Well, maybe it's like they sincerely believe their public squares. Or maybe it's they insincerely say it, but really they're chasing growth and they have to appeal to everyone.

I can't tell the difference, right? The focus of all these companies. But what I'm missing, and I get to say this because I'm a, journalists and I think our platform and our company has values and we're very clear about them is these companies are missing a sense of values. They won't tell you what they are. I think, you know, asked a great question of Susan. Are you sorry that the LBGQ community is sad or are you actually sorry? Yeah. Right. Are you going to put the rainbow on the play button and that's your logo for the month? Or do you actually believe that? What's really sad is Google was at the very beginning

and I think were you there when it was started. It was committed to a lot. There's a good Google and a bad Google and something turned at some point. There was a lot of really interesting ideas about how change corporations at the beginning of Google. There's no question. It was, it kind of reminds you, you know, I don't sound crazy, but the Clintons. You remember the early Clintons? Like the hopeful Clinton, like they wanted to change politics and then sort of became creatures of it. That's what it feels like all people. That happens to everyone. And the money and the dripping amounts of money and the attention and the self-righteousness gets involved. And then they, I think that's a disease evolves Silicon Valley. And so when Tim Cook says things that are perfectly sensible,

watch that entire thing, he's not lecturing them. He's saying, look, you have to have values in life. And I don't think Tim was saying Apple was perfect, because it certainly isn't. I think you've got to at least understand the consequences of what you're doing. Or you have to admit what you are. And I think that's the problem. And I don't know what I would do if I'd run. I would run a different, I wouldn't have, I wouldn't let anybody post everything. I wouldn't, I wouldn't have let them in the first place. I would have said you can. Sorry, you. Nazis not here. Yeah.

And I think that the reason I brought up the sincerity of the public square comments is that necessarily caps your scale. Yep. Right? If you, if I ran YouTube and I said, look, this is going to reflect my personal values as a CEO. We're going to spend an awful lot of time talking about, I don't know, HTML cables and Section 230 and copyright law, which is basically the whole

Vergecast. Everything else, like, we're just going to moderate away. Like, it necessarily means it's smaller. Yeah. Right? That's the problem. And I don't think they can do that. I think it's important.

It's already done. It's done. They have to just shut it down. I mean, it was so funny. So many people are like, shut it down, shut it down. I'm like, you know what? Sometimes toxic waste dump is a toxic waste dump. And that's, you just, how do you clean it up?

Maybe it's important. We don't go to Chernobyl anymore for hundreds of years now. We're just going to let set it sit over there. Mistakes all over the place. It's uncleanuppable. And eventually nature will clean it up. Eventually, probably, maybe not. who knows. It makes so much money and there's so much pressure. And the thing is the people in Silicon Valley, for the most part, they feel like they're victims. The incoming I get from them, like, why are you so mean girl? Like you're a bummer. And I'm sort of like, fuck you. Like you awful people. How much money do you need? How much, how right do you have to be? And I think in their heart of hearts, they do understand.

Do they see the problem? I, maybe not. I don't know. It's depressing. It's a depressing thing because, and then you see people pop out like Kevin Sistram all of a sudden. You see people pop out and or Tristan or Roger or me or Jessica Powell over it who left Google, who's writing some amazing stuff. Or Nicole Wong.

Like we had that insider outside and they pop out and they go, yeah, we know. And then start talking about it. And I think when you get, the other thing is when you get to people from other industries, they get it right away. we had the CTO of Ford. I was like, what's the problems working with Google? And they want to take every piece of information and use it, and we don't. We have a relationship with a customer. We don't want to use their personal information.

And he has problems dealing with tech companies because their inclination is Borg-like in the interest in the information and data. So there's only four big companies, five big companies. Fang. And they have collected a lot of data. There's a lot of theories about... Why is Netflix in there? It's just a movie show. I think because it makes it thing.

Whatever. I know. I really do think it's... Netflix doesn't belong in there. That acronym gets a lot worse if you take Netflix out of there. It's just, well, okay. I honestly think it makes the acronym. Yeah, yeah, you can't gaff.

How about Gaff? That's good. Gap is good. I'll take, that's much better. You really can't do the other one. You can't do the other one. But there's a lot of theories about how they achieve that size, right? That they were better at user interface design.

So all the users came there, and now they've aggregated the demand. This has been Thompson's big theory. And you've aggregated demand. And so now they control supply. Do you buy all that? Do you buy that this is just the way the Internet works? Like it necessarily flows towards big companies. That was the argument with Microsoft, right?

Yeah. There's just doing just fine. There's never been an instance where it's led to bad things. It's always led to good things. And so it just seems to me that you break up a Google, you have all kinds of value unlocked for lots of people, lots of creativity. And you can see that in these startups.

There hasn't been as many startups. There used to just be a lot. And I think, why bother? There's going to be no social networks. There's going to be no photo services. There's going to be no this, no that. And because why do it? Because these are so big.

There's no point. That's actually the one thing about the code stage that I know. So we come in code and then previously D for years. Not as long as some of your extreme regulars, but for a while now. Evan Spiegel was on your, he's like, I just started this thing. It's called Snapchat. Mark Zuckerberg famously, his first pressure-packed interview. I just started Facebook.

Yeah. There are not. I was thinking, what startups did you put on that stage? I was, I can't. There's not, what do I do? Who do you even talk to? And so this year, there isn't, like food startups. And maybe climate, there's no climate change.

I was desperate to find a good climate. There's a couple. There's one or two that, you know, Bill Gates is backing one called carbon, something or the other. But it's hard. It's hard to find what the real breakout stars are. And, you know, I guess Slack, we've had them on. stage. We had them on stage early. Yeah, it's hard. You can't. They can't get around these, these giant companies. Nobody can't. And then they get bought up by them. Right? And that's

the eggs and everybody wants. Someone's going to buy slack, I would imagine. Maybe, maybe not. I mean, maybe. Yes. I would say if it was going to happen, it would have happened a few months ago. Not necessarily. But now that they've listed, it will happen if. Why not? There's a longer. No. Well, now, it's harder to buy them now. It's what I'm saying. No. You just need money. That's all. Now it has a value. It actually has a value. in the stock market. Yeah. I think it's easier by them.

Interesting. There isn't an excitement around startups in Silicon Valley in the same way. Although there are some really interesting. Like, I went to visit a whole bunch of VCs to see what's new and fresh. And actually, there's some really cool stuff

that you don't hear about. A lot of them around climate change, loans, finance. I heard at least 10 companies, I thought, well, that's interesting. I wonder if it'll break out. Yeah. And there was one that was doing loans.

There was one that was doing all kinds of fresh ideas, really fresh ideas. And just yesterday I was in Toronto And this company that's doing a version of Google Glass But not Google Glass, it's called North And it was cool. Yeah, I was like, oh, look, something fresh. We've had the focal, we've had them.

Focal, really interesting. And I was like, I hope this works. Like that's something that's cool. I think heads up display is a cool idea. It's still not there yet, but it's inevitable, I think. We've got to take a quick break for an ad. We'll be right back. Support for the show comes from Framer.

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That's upw-w-rk.com. Upwork.com. All right, we're back with Carousbisher. So the VC community, we're very consumer focused. You have to actually ship the product and show it to us and we review it. You're a little closer to the VC side of things, which is earlier stage. They must be kind of annoyed. that there's only four companies and it's hard to...

Well, they're throwing more money at the ones that are there. They're putting this ungodly. There's so much money washing around the system, especially because of SoftBank, their Vision Fund, which, you know, it was backed by the Saudis, who were just washing money. It's hard. It's hard. It's hard to where to put all the money.

Where do you put it all? Are they on the VC side of things? Are they like, maybe it wouldn't be so bad if we broke this up? I think they would like that. Why would they want a bigger company? The only thing that's good for VCs is someone to sell their stuff to. Like unload it. And I think the fact that there's no breakouts.

Why are there no breakouts? Like, you can't name one. Like, I just can't think of one off the top of my head for years now. What is the, what is the hot, hot company? What is the one I have to have on stage? I don't, there isn't one. Yeah. I mean, literally today, I would tell you it's Slack.

Because it's, but Slack is like an enterprise chat company. Years, years. We've been, they've been around for a while. Yeah. And so that's the problem. And there used to be dozens of them. If you, there used to be dozens. And I think the startup numbers are pretty low over the past.

This is the lowest point in 30 years or something. And so it was interesting. I did an interesting interview with Mark Cuban and Steve Case. And Mark, as usual, he's like, Silicon Valley's done. He's toasts. You know, he kind of is right. It's kind of played out. And so he was talking about finding companies elsewhere all across the country,

solving other problems, not necessarily. I was hearing about a company that solves foster problems for foster kids. And so, like, there's all kinds of really interesting problems. And so that's what it would be nice to get back to is solving real problems instead of sort of reacting to these big giant companies. And this is Steve Kaste and it's like bus tour across America. It's a tour where they're looking for talent elsewhere. I think that's the thing is how do you sort of flywheel of talent and innovation elsewhere solving real problems hard? Yeah.

You've lived through a few cycles of regulatory pressure and big companies being dominant and falling apart and coming. What happens next? Right. History doesn't repeat. Things fall apart. Center cannot hold. Center cannot hold. I mean, that's my tattoos, you know.

Entropy and entropy. Yeah. Everything falls apart. And then it grows. And then from the destruction creed. I mean, that's sort of the plot of Harry Potter. Every time the Phoenix. Yeah.

Yeah, I think things are going to, we're going to go through a period of falling apart. And then hopefully something emerges, probably in the health space, maybe in the life length. That kind of stuff is really interesting. some, maybe food, maybe climate. I love them to get involved in climate change. Like, boy, there's some problems there. What can you solve? Rather than just removing emissions, that's really where the focus is.

Removing carbon from the air is where they're investing. But that's not a solution. That's not a solution. Like, where are the new engines? Where are the new? Like, who's inventing carbon-free jet fuel? Jet fuel is a big problem. Who's inventing car?

Who is that person? I want to meet that person. Who's inventing, how to deal with immigration. Like, what could tech do besides surveil these people, you know, which is, I think, the solution. Let's surveil them. We built databases and how we can put stuff in the databases.

Yeah, exactly. So what would be the solutions for that? I just, there's all kinds of problems in this country you could probably, in the world that you could solve through better technology. What do you think happens, X? Is it full-on privacy regulation from the government? Is it they realize they wake up one day and realize it's a shit show? is it? Well, you can see people leaving. Like, the talent is leaving. Like, you know, they're just

not there. It's, they're just being run like corporations now. And, you know, Mark is there. Like, he really is present. And actually, but you see them Chris Cox peeling off. They peel off. And that's what's going to, you're going to see a peeling off of the big people happen at Microsoft. And then they're going to run them like they are. And I think the issue is, where's the innovation? Where's the new fresh thing? And obviously with Facebook, and I said this in the column, this was kind of a gangster move to do Libra. Like, that was like, oh, we're going to. Yeah. That was, I was kind of like, hmm, that's a little innovative, but could be dangerous.

And these people, you know, it's from the people that brought you the end of democracy. We're going to now do currency. We're going to take over the world's money supply. I thought that. I still was like, good for them in a weird way, even though I'm like, not them, but good for them. I had an argument with some Facebook folks off the record. Yeah. Because to me, it appeared Facebook was not prepared for the obvious pushback from every government in the world.

Yeah. When they suggested that it would replace all the world's currencies. Yeah, they did. Of course they said that. And so, you know, Facebook people are like, of course we, of course we talked to them. Mm-hmm. We actually, we honey-potted them. Right.

They might have. We gave them this avenue of attack so that they would take it. Right. And we know we can defend it. Okay. Which seems five steps too smart for Facebook. They're so aggrieved. They're such victims.

But I don't think they anticipated Maxine Waters saying, I need a moratorium on this product until I can hold hearings. Yeah. I don't think they anticipated the finance minister of France being like, we cannot allow another sovereign currency in our country to happen. They created it. Everyone gets their say. Thank you, Facebook. You're welcome.

You're reaping what you sowed. Do you think that they knew that was, that was, I mean, that's their contention to me. I think you were under the mistaken impression that these people are thoughtful. I'm sorry. I just, I just, I said that, they, Silicon Valley don't do consequences. They don't do anticipation. And, you know, I tell the same joke over and over. I'm waiting for someone to like, literally, they're so non-reflect, self-reflective.

It's a mirror they can see. It's a miracle they can see in mirrors. They're like vampires. I don't know what's going on. They just don't self-refile. And I do know, I think what they do is they do it in these position papers. Like, let's anticipate this, but it's all, it's not real. It's not, they don't have, you know, they live in their comfort zones.

They go from their cars to their planes, to their rich houses, to their kombucha stands, to their antiseptic. Yeah. Jack Dorsey's EMF tent. Yes, exactly. Like, they do not live in a world that is real that other people live in. And there is a reason why people hate the elites. And I think they person about it. And believe me, I live an elite life, but not like that.

Like, you know, I took the subway here. So it's just a different way of looking at things. And so they have to, I think I suggested in a tweet yesterday, why don't Cheryl and Mark work for a couple of weeks in one of those content moderate? I think things would change fast, right? And instead it's like, we know it's hard. We're trying our best. But like, go down and, you know, dig a ditch down there and see what happens. you would, I think you would see a very different kind of leadership, but the self-reflection part is just astonishing.

And so they never, they're always on their back foot. They're always on their back foot because they, and they never anticipate it. And then they can't imagine when they say, we're here to save the world's currency that we don't say thank you. Thank you, Facebook. I don't know. It's working okay. And it can be changed and it can be disrupted, but maybe not by you. you know, and your relentless grab for power.

Maybe let's let someone else do that. We assure you we won't use your payment data for... Well, they say that. It seems like they've set it up Calique. I don't even understand it. It's Libra is the currency and Calibra is the wallet. And there's an independent body in Switzerland. Oh, yeah.

And they made a flag of a story. I mean, it literally looks like the EU. Right. Like they made... Listen, currency could be changed. Like, that's something that hasn't changed. Sure. And by the way, you need a company that has a lot of people or you can use it.

If they wanted to have their own little thing inside their company, they could do that. Like, right? That's what I thought it was going to be. Like, buy, they've been, they've failed at commerce so many times at Facebook. They're probably just, to me, it seemed like a big attack on Amazon. Now, Amazon, I might want a shot at currency. I might want Amazon to try it. See, I'd rather have them do it than Facebook. We did this survey last year. We're going to do it again this year. But just sort of people's attitudes for this big tech companies.

They like Bezos more. They love Amazon. They love Google. They sort of love Microsoft. and then it's Apple and then way down the bottom of Facebook. And you can just sort of rank it by how much utility do you provide? Yeah, they're good at what they do. Amazon is terrifying and they know a lot about me as much, if not more than Google, because I buy everything from Amazon.

Amazon definitely knows we had a kid. Amazon definitely knows how old that kid is, what her preferences are. Yeah, that's true. But that's another place I buy things. Whereas Google would have to like infer it, right? So like Amazon definitely knows more. But they provide me with this like very tangible utility. I pushed the button, the diapers show up.

Well, let me say what Margaret Vestager said. You're trading convenience for the good. Is it good or is it convenient? So just think about that. But I don't think there's any trade with Facebook. I love, what are you talking about? I can buy it from Amazon all the time. I just don't think there's any trade with Facebook.

I would like them to do currency. If I had to pick among the giant evil tech companies, I would pick them. Amazon bucks coming to you. Amazon. I might buy, I will never buy Libra. I will never buy. I will not do it. and I would do it with Apple. I definitely do with Apple. I definitely. I trust that.

Are you going to get the Apple credit card? Probably. I have a prime credit card. Oh, wow. Yeah. You're in it. Yeah, I'm in it. I like it. Whatever. I get points. Whatever I get to pay for things I've found Amazon. I need to get better. It's useful. We need to get, you know, the points guy. I got to get in my, he needs to do that. You need to do that. Optimized. All right. All right. Kara, thank you so much for come by. Always a pleasure. Thank you so much. All right. That was Kara Swisher from Recode. If you want to hear more from Kara, she hosts two podcasts. box media, recode, decode, and pivot. Probably heard me say them at the end of every Vergecast episode. She also opinion

columnist for the New York Times. We mentioned her column in the episode. You can just go read her column. It's great. I want you to listen to why did you push that button. They've been doing this incredible series about death online. I hope you listened to their episode about Gibo, the robot, who's dying. They've got a new episode coming out to people mourning celebrities

online. I may or not have been totally clown in this episode for something he tweeted when Anthony Borden died. It's great that they told me out that first. Anyway, check it out. It's in the feeds now. It's great. Go listen to that. Make sure to subscribe to the Vergecast for free in your favorite podcast app or just tap the link in the show notes. And please leave us

rating your interview on Apple Podcasts. It's where the research wants me to send you. So go there. You can talk to me on Twitter. I'm at Reckless. I'd love hearing your feedback on the show. Tweet at me, tell me who you want to interview. Give me more feedback. I love it. Talk to me. And I'll see you back on Friday with Dieter and Paul to discuss the weekend.