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1:02

Hey,

1:02

everyone. John here, and welcome to Helen High

1:05

Water, my podcast about politics and culture

1:07

on the edge of Armageddon. It's

1:09

determined if dubious, committed

1:12

if KUKU for cocoa puffs often

1:14

wrong, but rarely in doubt exercise, in

1:16

elevated gas baggery. Than

1:18

neither rain nor snow nor heat nor gloom

1:21

of night nor the toxic

1:23

rantings of thenut house right. A

1:25

president attempting to invalidate a legitimate

1:27

election and stage an auto coup complete

1:29

with an armed dissection of the United States capital

1:32

nor more broadly and arguably

1:34

even more disturbingly. The capture

1:36

of a decent sized chunk of our political social

1:38

and civic spheres by a cadre of

1:40

incoherent insidious, conspiracy

1:43

adiled, autocracy craving, authoritarian

1:46

worshiping lunatics, hustlers, grifters, nihilists,

1:48

and nincompups. None of it. None

1:50

of it has kept us from our

1:52

duly sworn duty and obligations.

1:55

Giving you our listeners a fresh

1:57

episode of this podcast week after

1:59

week after week after week. Maybe

2:01

not without fail because,

2:03

you know, hashtag epic fail

2:06

is one of our many Mottos around here, but

2:08

certainly without a pause. We've

2:11

been doing that for more than two

2:13

years. Haven't had a break, all

2:15

of which is to say that I

2:17

am plumb shagged

2:20

out and desperately in need

2:22

of some R and R. And with the midterm

2:24

election now comfortably in the

2:26

rear view mirror in our democracy, Amazingly,

2:29

if I will admit a little unexpectedly, still

2:32

intact, it seems like a suitable

2:34

time for the High Water home

2:36

office to give itself a fucking

2:39

break. And so for the next few weeks,

2:41

that is exactly what we are gonna do.

2:43

And we'll see you back here on the other side of the

2:45

holidays. Tanned, rested, refreshed,

2:48

revitalized, and raring to go.

2:50

Ready to get back to cranking out

2:52

more tasty content. In

2:55

the meantime, Don't despair.

2:57

We're not leaving you entirely in

2:59

the lurch for these weeks. To the contrary,

3:02

every Tuesday morning, per usual, You

3:04

will find a hopefully unfamiliar

3:07

episode of the podcast doing

3:09

the backstroke in your feed. Drop

3:11

there by the Abel AI fact totems

3:13

who'll be mining the store while we're away.

3:16

And while these episodes come

3:18

over the next few weeks, may not be fresh

3:20

or strictly speaking new,

3:22

they will be piping hot, a carefully

3:25

curated series of hell in high water golden

3:27

oldies, which those of

3:29

you who've been around from the start may remember,

3:32

I hope fondly. And those of you

3:34

who came along sometime later may never have

3:36

encountered at all. Given

3:38

our focus on politics these past few months

3:40

and our desire not to take a dump on

3:42

your mood of holiday inspired good cheer, we've

3:44

decided these encore presentations will avoid

3:47

that topic like the plague. And focuses dead

3:49

on culture, entertainment, technology, and such with

3:51

a run of some of our most favorite guests in those

3:53

realms over the past two years, including

3:55

this beauty right here, which

3:57

whether or not you've heard it before, you

3:59

will not want to miss. And so with

4:01

that, we leave it to it with a

4:03

hearty and heartfelt Nalaste. Hey,

4:20

everyone, John Heilman here, and welcome to

4:23

High on my podcast for the recount about

4:25

politics and culture on the edge of our accountant

4:27

with big ups to my pal

4:28

rizah. The presiding genius behind the sound of

4:30

Butane clan and the producer of

4:32

our dope theme music. Between

4:34

the controversy, Royling Spotify

4:36

over Joe Hogan, sudden

4:38

and dramatic loss of faith

4:41

by the stock market in Mark Zuckerberg

4:43

and his company, a crest of confidence

4:45

that has caused the market value of Facebook,

4:47

AKA meta, to plunge by

4:49

more than a third for some

4:51

two hundred billion dollars in

4:53

just the past two weeks, and

4:55

a gaggle of attention grabbing headlines

4:58

about Elon Musk. SEC

5:00

subpoenas Tesla over one of

5:02

Elon Musk's tweets again. Animal

5:04

Rights Group says monkeys, used

5:06

in experiments for Elon Musk's NuroLink

5:08

were subjected to extreme suffering.

5:11

Elon Musk's NuroLink brain chip

5:14

could give users orgasms on

5:17

demand Well,

5:19

give it all a bad. It seemed clear

5:21

that it was time to train our sights on the

5:23

Madcap Manik at times maniacal

5:25

and always make a fascinating world of tech.

5:27

And for that purpose, it seemed equally

5:30

clear that the time had finally come to

5:32

invite an old friend and one time fellow

5:34

try Abler of mine in covering the quarters

5:36

of power in Silicon Valley to make her

5:38

maiden appearance on the podcast. That

5:40

friend happens to be someone who, over

5:42

the past two decades has risen

5:44

far above the pack to become

5:46

the premier chronicler, persistent

5:48

caller to account, and occasional momentor

5:50

of the digital muggles, mavans,

5:52

and mockers who have accrued

5:54

ungodly power over how we

5:56

live, play, and work.

5:58

She also happens to be a hoot to talk with, and one

6:01

of the very few people on Earth who can pull off

6:03

wearing aviators at any time and in any

6:05

place. Indors at night on

6:07

Zoom, whatever, and

6:09

not look like a total asshole. I'm

6:11

talking of course about the one and only

6:13

Cara Swisher. I

6:13

remember writing a story that when they

6:16

had all those phrases that they had for things.

6:18

I think I did a top ten things I know

6:20

they're fucking with

6:20

me, which was we're gonna change the world.

6:23

We don't care about profits. And

6:25

I wrote this in the journal which was a big deal.

6:27

Like, that essentially I'm saying, I don't

6:29

believe you. You know, you're trying to make

6:31

money right. And I think that was one of the things

6:33

that drove me nuts these people. They acted

6:35

like they were saving the world when they were

6:37

just getting rich.

6:42

Kara Swisher and I moved to the Bay Area to cover

6:44

Silicon Valley at almost exactly the same

6:46

time back in late nineteen ninety seven or

6:48

early nineteen ninety eight. Then

6:50

the tech business was hurtling headlong

6:52

into the first phase of the Internet boom,

6:54

which would soon turn into the dot com

6:56

bubble and then the dot com bust. After

6:59

covering that cycle for the New Yorker and coughing

7:01

up a book about Bill Gates in the Microsoft antitrust

7:03

trial, I decided it was time to pull

7:05

up stakes and head back east.

7:08

But Cara stuck around and established herself

7:10

as the gold standard of tech reporters,

7:12

pending the hugely influential boom

7:14

town column on front page of the Wall Street Journal's

7:16

Marketplace section, publishing a

7:18

groundbreaking book about then

7:20

a scathing sequel about the AOL Time

7:22

Warner merger, teaming up

7:24

with the journal's legendary personal tech

7:26

columnist, Walt Mossberg, to start

7:28

up a very successful mover

7:30

and shaker conference called All Things Digital,

7:33

in a spin off website, all things

7:35

d dot com, and then unceremoniously

7:38

leaving the journal, but sticking with Mossberg to

7:40

launch a new venture and conference called Recode,

7:43

which later acquired by Box. Four

7:45

years ago, Swisher took up with The New York Times

7:47

where she is currently a contributing opinion writer

7:49

and host of one of her two

7:52

must listen podcasts, sway.

7:54

The other is pivot, which she cohost with

7:56

Scott Galloway. And not surprisingly

7:58

given her penchant for live events, It

8:00

isn't just a podcast. Indeed this very

8:02

week, Swisher and Galloway are

8:04

co hosting a new conference, Pivot

8:07

MIA, down in Miami,

8:09

which the event's website calls, quote,

8:11

a three day event that captures the raw electricity

8:13

of South Beach, a new type of conference that

8:15

will challenge convention featuring the hottest

8:17

names in fintech, media, education, entertainment,

8:20

climate, and more in America's

8:22

most vibrant and future forward city.

8:26

That kind of florid language is to

8:28

put it mildly, not very swisher esque.

8:30

Her trademark bearing is blunt and brushed and

8:33

utterly allergic to bullshit, which,

8:35

as you know, is kind of my jam too.

8:37

Our conversation covered the waterfront of

8:39

newsy dustups in the world of tech and

8:41

media well as going deeper on the underlying

8:43

questions that companies like meta, Spotify,

8:45

and Twitter are facing

8:47

these days about whether they are publishers

8:49

or mere platforms. Spoiler

8:51

alert, They're publishers for fuck's

8:53

sake. I mean, God couldn't be more

8:55

obvious. We also talked about the

8:57

similarities between Zuck and Bill

8:59

Gates. And the dissimilarities between him and

9:01

Steve Jobs, on the ways in which the

9:03

pandemic has left some tech titans such as

9:05

Amazon and Apple and Alphabet, even

9:07

more powerful than they were in the before times,

9:09

while creating severe challenges for others,

9:12

and swisher's unique career

9:14

trajectory, her unusual for a journalist

9:16

at least, entrepreneurial itch,

9:19

and her assessment of whether being an assertively

9:21

unapologetically out lesbian

9:23

long before it was no big deal

9:26

helped or hindered her aerial

9:28

endeavors in Silicon Valley's notoriously male

9:30

dominated geek bro culture.

9:32

Her answer to that last question may

9:34

surprise you, but it didn't surprise me

9:36

at all. Because of all my colleagues in

9:38

this business, I can't think of anyone who's

9:40

been less faze by prevailing

9:42

orthodoxy that seems stacked against her,

9:44

who in fact has reflexively seen

9:46

biases that would have daunted others as

9:48

tools that she could turn to her advantage

9:50

and who most importantly has

9:52

always been unbleakingly clear

9:54

eyed about the fact that for all

9:56

the wonders and innovations for which the tech

9:58

world can justifiably claim credit,

10:00

It has been one of the prime culprits to blame

10:03

for hurling us all into

10:05

so much, Helen High Water.

10:13

I'm making this video to talk about the

10:15

most regretful

10:18

and shameful thing that I've ever had talk about

10:20

publicly. Now, I know that

10:22

to most people, there is

10:24

no context where

10:26

a white person is ever

10:28

allowed to say that word. Never

10:30

mind publicly on a podcast.

10:32

And I agree with that now.

10:34

I haven't said it in years I

10:36

never used it to be racist because

10:38

I'm not racist, but whenever

10:41

you're in a situation where

10:43

you have to say I'm not

10:44

racist. You fucked

10:47

up, and I clearly have

10:49

fucked up. Curious

10:50

for sure. Welcome to Helen High Water. The the hardest

10:52

working, most prolific, most

10:54

industrious, and most badass

10:56

looking in a parapsyphylaxis journalist I

10:58

know. Thank you. I try

11:00

really hard. What I've known for a long time, and who I haven't had

11:02

you has talked to in a while, so I'm psyched to have you on

11:04

here. There's a lot to say about this

11:06

Spotify road game, but I just wanna open it up at

11:08

the top. There's like wave two controversy.

11:10

Right? First was the COVID part, then there was

11:12

the n word part. And

11:14

I would actually say not only if you had

11:17

to say racist that you fucked up. Usually, when you say I'm not

11:18

racist, it means you're probably a racist. But Wow. That

11:21

means you said something racist. I'm sort

11:23

of more in the Trevor Noah camp of that. You

11:25

know, I think that's he

11:27

understood what was going

11:28

on, I think, and was saying so very plainly,

11:30

actually. Totally. I mean, look,

11:32

in in some ways, he's handled both of these colleges

11:34

pretty well. Mhmm. I would just say if you say that word

11:36

that many times over that many

11:38

years, it's not like you slipped one day and let

11:40

out, you know, let out a racist comment, so it speaks

11:42

to some deeper

11:42

things. Yeah. So just talk to me about what you

11:45

think of how this is unfolded and where

11:47

we are in the story right now, and we'll get to

11:49

Daniel Lack in a second and -- Sure. -- Spotify and

11:51

some of the platform versus are

11:53

they a publisher or are they a platform questions, but just

11:55

how just as you've seen this thing unfold,

11:57

the biggest star on the Spotify platform,

11:59

on the podcasting platform, suddenly

12:01

stumbles into massive controversy. This caused all

12:03

kinds of stuff to happen that I think you and I would both

12:05

agree. When Neil Young first said, I'm gonna take my

12:07

music

12:07

off. We're like, I Okay. Probably not gonna have any

12:10

effect whatsoever. And then there's been kind of a

12:12

snowballs since then. Yeah. I actually wrote that. I

12:14

was like, I wish this would work. But it probably

12:16

won't because it's been tried before in

12:18

these, you know, even with Frances Hogan who had

12:20

sort of devastating commentary about

12:22

Facebook in front of congress and elsewhere.

12:24

Very effective person talking about this.

12:26

It's still, you know, the way our news

12:28

cycle is it floats away, like, or just

12:30

goes away. Churns away, and that doesn't even float away. It

12:32

just blushes away essentially. Speaking

12:34

of toilets this week, I guess, it's big in

12:36

the news. Toilet flushing and

12:39

clogging. And it doesn't even clog it up.

12:41

And so I think what was interesting

12:43

about this one is that, look, everyone's

12:45

been circling around these issues around technology.

12:47

Right? I don't even think Joe Reuben's the point here.

12:49

He's a very popular podcaster. He's

12:51

very good at it. Yes. And

12:54

as I begin to think about it when it's started.

12:56

I was like, oh, this isn't gonna go anywhere. There

12:58

he's too important to Spotify. He's

13:00

too popular. People like

13:02

Neil Young is you know, someone people

13:04

revere, but is not Joe Hogan at this

13:06

moment in our zeitgeist essentially.

13:08

Right. North Sadly is Johnny Mitchell

13:10

or than these other artists who've spoken about

13:12

who we love were were incredibly important, but do

13:14

not have the kind of market power that Joe Ruggett

13:16

has? No. No. Absolutely not. Though class

13:19

level is quite higher, you know.

13:20

That's why I totally agree. Hundred percent. And

13:22

reviewing. We don't revere Joe

13:24

Rogen. The people love him. Or, you know, I hate him,

13:26

I love him, whatever. They don't revere these

13:28

people who who are real artists.

13:30

Yes. Certainly, he's very talented

13:32

in his genre. So what was interesting

13:34

about this is that two

13:36

things that I took away from it is

13:38

that this did snowball because it sort of

13:40

exemplified a problem that was

13:42

already building. Is, what are these

13:44

tech platforms doing? Is anyone

13:46

minding the store? So I don't even think it's

13:48

about Joe Hogan. I came to the

13:50

conclusion at the end of this that I don't think

13:52

Spotify lists into him. Right? They

13:54

obviously didn't do due diligence or anything

13:56

else. Now, you could cherry pick lots

13:58

of people over the years. I'm sure you could find things. In

14:00

my podcast, I doubt you would find anything

14:03

this. But I think they didn't know what

14:05

he was. All they knew was this

14:07

guy was gonna get us to where we need to go

14:09

in our fight to create this new

14:11

center of business which is podcasting and be

14:13

the dominant player here because

14:15

Apple's coming for us, whoever's

14:17

coming, all these different platforms are coming

14:19

for us. Some of which have

14:21

huge resources, and we're gonna

14:23

dominate here. So we're gonna buy the biggest,

14:25

badest guy that we can, which

14:27

they did, they just didn't listen to them. And

14:29

then when controversy ensued as it

14:31

always does because this sort of

14:33

reminds one of Howard Stern many

14:35

years ago and things like that, It's an

14:37

easily comparable situation. Sure.

14:39

They were like, what? No. Not us.

14:41

What are you talking about? And then sort of

14:43

forgot to point out that they're the ones

14:45

that started it. And created that they bought and paid

14:47

for him whether he works or

14:49

not really hardly matters in today's

14:51

environment. They had an exclusive deal

14:53

they media company, and they declined

14:56

to edit him. And

14:58

instead, they would trot out words like

15:00

cancel Heilemann. one

15:02

paragraph, they had them

15:02

all. Which is

15:03

sort of the go to for tech people when

15:06

they fuck up. I will not be silencing

15:08

people, canceling people, whatever.

15:10

And it's so clear that that's not what's

15:12

going on here that I think it was a good moment

15:14

for people who have been pointing out that these are

15:16

media companies of a

15:17

sort. I'll talk about Daniel like in a second,

15:20

but I yeah. I agree with you. All that, I think,

15:22

is true. The parallel that

15:24

seems to me both in terms of how

15:26

the company in the form of their CEO,

15:28

Daniel Leck, responded to it, the

15:30

invitation of cancel culture. And the other things that he's

15:32

appealing

15:33

to,

15:34

is, like, a lot like the Netflix

15:36

controversy around Dave

15:37

Chappell and

15:37

the outrage among the employees which

15:40

drove a lot of this. Right? Chase, almost as much you're

15:42

dealing with the problem of your employees being upset

15:44

as even with, you know, the fact that Crosby stills and

15:46

Nash wanna get off the platform. Right? Mhmm. I wanna

15:48

play this one little piece of sound of Daniel Ak.

15:50

This was before the n word

15:52

controversy, but in the middle of the the COVID controversy.

15:54

So let's hear Daniel

15:55

Ech. I think the big balancing

15:57

act that we're trying to do as a

15:59

company that's just critical is

16:01

balancing creative expression with,

16:04

of course, the one about

16:06

the safety of our users. And

16:08

that's also why we published

16:11

this weekend our policies.

16:13

And really for the first

16:15

time did that. And our

16:17

goal obviously is to have as much

16:19

content as we can and we're gonna

16:21

try to do everything that we can to build

16:23

the best possible experience for

16:25

creators where they can interact and

16:27

engage with their fans and

16:29

monetize those

16:30

relationships. It

16:31

says last three words, monetize those relationships.

16:33

That gives the whole game away. Right? And it was interesting

16:35

that last week, you know, Neil Young came back

16:37

at the company again and was speaking directly to the

16:39

employees and

16:39

saying, you know, These guys don't care about

16:42

creators. These

16:42

guys don't care about art. They care about the bottom line

16:44

that's all they care about. You gotta leave or else your

16:46

soul will rot. Basically, it was like, you know, Young said. And

16:48

the and the reason I raise all the question is that

16:50

the interesting difference with Netflix,

16:52

right, is that you know that

16:54

a sarendos is deeply committed

16:56

to to especially the comedian. Number one.

16:58

Number two, he knows exactly what he

17:00

is. He's he's never under the impression that

17:02

Netflix is a neutral form that they're making -- Yeah. -- all

17:04

kinds of choices and judgments when they produce who to

17:06

pay and who to put up and who to defend and who not

17:08

to. And he recognizes that there'd be

17:10

this terrible fallout in the

17:12

creative community, where he thought that was his calculation, was that

17:14

if you watch watching Chappell, they would be

17:16

bad for him among creators. You

17:19

think that that's, like, the problem with Daniel Eck was for a

17:21

long time he was under that impression that he

17:23

was just invoking that. We're a

17:25

platform. We're a platform. We're a platform. And

17:28

kind didn't really understand what his own company had

17:31

turned

17:31

into. I think he

17:31

knows what he's doing. Right.

17:33

To say these people are unsophisticated, what was

17:35

interesting to me about that phrase was, it's

17:37

the first time we thought about doing it. Shouldn't it be

17:39

the first thing you're thinking about as a media company?

17:41

Look, I don't care. He can keep him

17:43

just like Ted Sarando's. They keep Dave Chappell but

17:45

live with the controversy and accept what you're

17:48

doing. Accept the decisions you make

17:50

and accept the fallout from the decisions

17:52

you make. And I think that's what was

17:54

sort of tender service was saying that, look, I get it, but

17:56

this is our choice. And then, of course, he got a lot of

17:58

pushback and then he sort of stepped back a little

18:00

bit more. And that's what media companies

18:02

do, whether it's Dave Schappeler, Chris

18:05

Cuomo, or whatever. This happens all the time

18:07

in media companies or You

18:09

know, how umpteenth, umpteenth times with

18:11

Swisher? Right? They have to stop a book or keep

18:13

a book or get rid of a book or whatever. This

18:15

is the price of being a media company. Sometimes

18:17

you step in it and then you have to deal with it

18:19

and you either defend the whatever you bought

18:21

or you don't or, you know, or you say,

18:23

sorry, I guess, you're right. Oops, we made a

18:26

mistake. And in this case, they'd like to have it

18:28

both ways. And in Daniel's saying this

18:30

is the first time we thought of it. There were several

18:32

years into this podcasting thing.

18:34

And if you're picking up someone like Joe

18:36

Rogan, you might have some rules of the road, or

18:38

don't and say so. Oh, we just didn't.

18:40

We don't care. Like, I I don't wanna hear

18:42

both things and that they just decided

18:44

maybe we should write some rules now and maybe we

18:46

should reveal them. And what's really astonishing is

18:49

the lack of transparency is if it's

18:51

some big secret to

18:53

know what your rules are of your company. It's

18:55

not a secret. It's not some algorithmic,

18:57

you know, special secret that's gonna

18:59

stop Apple from beating them. It's just a

19:01

question of taste. And whether this is what you

19:03

want affiliated with your company. And if you do, this

19:05

is the price you pay. You don't get to have Neil Young.

19:07

You don't get to have it's like

19:10

an adult thing to do. I've picked Joe Rogen

19:12

over this person. And again, in this controversy,

19:14

Joe Rogen's not really the problem. He is

19:16

what he is. You either defend him or you

19:18

don't or you say, we don't like this or you

19:20

call them up and say, what the heck are you

19:23

doing with this COVID stuff? You

19:25

know, like, that's how life works and they

19:27

just would like to play it both ways and they can't

19:29

any longer. Right. This company

19:31

certainly

19:31

can't. Certainly. And increasingly neither can any

19:33

of the others. I I wanna be clear.

19:36

You know, I'm as much of a cynic about these

19:38

things or at least clear eyed about the mature, which is to say, I

19:40

didn't mean to suggest that Daniel didn't know. Daniel

19:42

liked to know that NetSpotify had

19:44

become a publisher that they were now in the media business. I think

19:46

he obviously knows that. Wrote the check. You

19:48

wrote Yes. And and and not

19:50

a small check. No. You know how, like, I think covered, you know,

19:53

business for such a long time. And and one of the few things I

19:55

learned in the period of time when I was really just covering

19:57

business was that, like, the

19:59

DNA of these companies get set down from the very

20:01

beginning. It's like they are what they are forever. And so

20:03

when you have people who come into a

20:05

company, not from

20:07

that perspective, Even when they know they're making

20:09

strategic choices to change the company, they're aware of

20:11

those things. They're not unsophisticated, as you said.

20:13

But they still haven't quite

20:15

grasped the implications of

20:17

it, maybe. In the way you're talking about, like, what the responsibilities

20:19

are and they're still invoking it's

20:21

like there's a mantra like

20:23

quality to this. We are a platform. We are a

20:25

platform. We can't be your responsible. What's on our platform?

20:27

What? My and you're like, wait. You know you've

20:29

got into this other

20:29

business. Right. And now that you're in this

20:32

other business, there's a bunch of new rules here.

20:34

And it seems like it sometimes stakes these guys

20:36

a surprising amount of time to adapt

20:38

to the implications of the choices they Or

20:40

wouldn't you like a get out of jail free card for

20:42

things you do? Like, why not? And this is what

20:44

this is. This is what section two thirty is. This

20:46

is -- When a day? -- you know, staying away from section two

20:48

thirty in the platform and liability. Yeah.

20:50

You would like a it's a get out of jail

20:52

free card, essentially, by saying that.

20:54

And I think they can't move

20:56

into other areas and not play by the

20:58

rules of that particular row. Now look, they

21:00

could change the rules. They could do all

21:02

kinds of things. But nobody doesn't

21:05

think Spotify isn't affiliated

21:07

with Joe Rogan in an editorial

21:08

fashion. Now if they wrote a contract that says

21:11

Joe Rogan gets to do whatever he

21:13

wants, well, stupid them --

21:14

Right. -- like live with. And then say that, you know

21:16

what? We can't they finally did. We

21:18

can't change it. And I'm like, oh, wow. That's

21:20

that's a choice. You know, this guy's got a

21:22

lot of hooks around him or hair or

21:24

whatever you call it. And so I don't think

21:26

I would give Well, so so they didn't have

21:28

the choice. Right? And so just say it.

21:31

Like, we don't have an ability to control him, but we

21:33

gave him money to do whatever he wants.

21:35

And so he's got all the leverage here and we don't. Why don't you say

21:37

that? Like, and that's what obviously

21:39

happened here. Do you think they're

21:41

through it? I think

21:43

the news cycle is such that maybe so

21:45

that people will move along, and he has

21:47

enough fans. They're lucky they have him because

21:49

he has so many fans. You know, I think they're good

21:51

at portraying it like a pearl

21:53

clutching liberal. Like, oh, I can't I

21:55

don't have a prop. Look, Ebony wants

21:57

say that stupid stuff he but I can complain about it.

21:59

And so can Neil Young and so like, they

22:01

wanna paint Neil Young as a cancel

22:03

culture person and them

22:06

as responsible They're not responsible. They're

22:08

not being responsible. And has

22:10

every right to protest. Right? That's

22:12

-- Right. -- that's how it works. And

22:14

so I don't love their idea that, you

22:16

know, Liberals, hey, Joe, it's like some I

22:18

like some of his stuff. I don't like other stuff.

22:20

Yeah. I think COVID stuff is

22:23

reprehensible. It's reprehensible. But,

22:25

you know, there's a lot of people I scream at

22:27

at the TV that way too. And so,

22:29

you know, I think the only issue at with

22:31

him is his aw shocks. I'm just

22:33

a little guy when he's making

22:36

this much money. He has this much of an

22:38

audience enough with that. He's not a

22:40

simple guy. He's a powerful guy. And if he

22:42

wants to be responsible with that much

22:44

influence, he should

22:46

be, I'm not his mama. He wants to behave like

22:48

this. I don't know what to say. I

22:50

think it's kinda gross, but at the same

22:52

time, it's his life to do

22:54

this and it's up to Spotify to

22:56

to know whether they want to affiliate with

22:58

them. Obviously, they do because it's good for business.

23:00

So the last question on this matter, you're, you know,

23:02

one of you you have a couple podcasts. One of the is

23:04

sway and the other is his pivot with Scott Galloway said

23:06

that he's taken his his own individual

23:09

podcast off the Spotify platform. Yes. He's done

23:11

that. You I saw wrote somewhere or said

23:13

somewhere that you got rid of premium

23:15

account on the Spotify app. I didn't. So enough of this

23:17

bullshit. Get fact checked or else I'm not paying for this shit.

23:19

Have you thought about going further with --

23:21

Yeah. -- with Scott either on pivot or on

23:22

No. I don't. I get why he did it. We

23:25

talked about it in detail of what we

23:27

did. I don't think it's an empty gesture. It's not

23:29

exactly an empty gesture. I

23:31

don't see the point of it. Right? I don't think

23:33

that's what's effective. I I'm acting like a

23:35

consumer on the other thing. I just don't wanna

23:37

page I don't wanna, like, a

23:39

better job. I like I do that all the time with

23:41

all kinds of media I consume. I don't

23:43

wanna watch this anymore. I don't wanna look at this

23:45

anymore. I don't wanna eat this anymore. That's

23:47

where I was going from. From the platform

23:49

point of view, I think, no. I I

23:51

decided no, and there's lots of reasons.

23:53

I respect the people who did it.

23:56

Again, and I get it. And there may be involvement,

23:58

something on surfaces where I'm like, you know what? Enough

24:00

of this. Enough of this. I

24:03

suppose. And I agree the COVID stuff is

24:06

reprehensible. The other stuff is not

24:08

great. It's not it's pretty bad.

24:10

But I don't think it's effective,

24:12

I guess. Right. It's not like it's a big part the thing is it's not that

24:14

big a part of our it's still,

24:16

you know, the world is Apple right

24:18

now. And -- Sure. -- of course, what's really lost in this

24:20

is that the whole thing a

24:22

lot of the legal cases around this

24:24

is Apple being a giant to

24:26

Spotify. And Spotify has lost

24:28

all its little guy

24:31

Mojo. Mojo and work with me

24:33

and I'm a victim. I I don't feel sorry

24:35

for them at all and I should honestly.

24:37

They they are kind of under siege

24:39

from Apple and

24:39

others. And now I'm like, I don't care. I do have actually one

24:41

more question about this. You're basically sort of saying

24:43

that at this moment, the level

24:46

of offense is

24:48

such that you you make these decisions

24:50

on the basis of efficacy. Right? Where

24:52

it's not so I mean, I'm trying to translate what you just

24:54

said. Basically, like, you could imagine

24:56

there being something so terrible that you would

24:58

pull your stuff off Spotify purely on principle

25:01

regardless of what impact has happened. On the

25:03

basis of what's currently on there, your attitude

25:05

is. Well, it's not bad enough for me

25:07

to pull my stuff on the basis of

25:08

principle. And in terms of efficacy, I'm not gonna have that

25:11

much impact, so why do Is that is that a is that a

25:13

good true up trend? I don't think it's gonna

25:14

I don't think it's the most effective. I think me being

25:17

really

25:17

loud mouth about it is the best way

25:19

to it. And I get what get what Roxanne Gaye did

25:21

it. I get it. Yeah. And it's a good choice. It's

25:23

also a good choice. It was very close. You know,

25:25

it was super close. There

25:27

was no pressure from box or anything. They let me know if they own prop

25:29

g. They would have let us do what we wanted, but

25:32

it didn't seem like I don't know. I just I

25:34

was out on the other side of the

25:36

not that far from Scott, though. I'll tell you

25:38

that. So so here's a good journalism question for

25:40

you that I'm curious what you think about because we're basically

25:42

of the same generation and and maybe of the same

25:44

mindset about this. I don't know. You as we think about

25:46

cutting sound for a podcast like this, you know.

25:49

Sure. I'm looking at the the thing that in

25:51

the area put up, you know, which is the mash

25:53

up. Yes. Rogen, I will say, kind

25:55

of after apologizing profusely, then says it's

25:57

all part of a political hit job and it's gonna Yeah.

25:59

Yeah. He says the next day on the podcast was a little,

26:01

you know, a little cheesy. They're

26:02

such victims. I

26:04

know. So terrible. You know, I wrote it with this hundred million dollar.

26:06

There's

26:06

a whole agreement economy among

26:08

certain people. It's

26:09

ridiculous. And this goes the thing I'm about to

26:11

ask you. Right? So to me, that mashup of

26:14

him saying the n word is on Instagram.

26:16

And a lot of people have seen it there, and it

26:18

sparked this entire controversy. Sure. As a

26:20

matter of basic news judgment, my

26:22

instinct is like, well, let's play that thing. Like, people hear

26:24

it. How bad does it sound? You know, I'm not we're endorsing

26:26

it. We're gonna contextualize it. We're gonna criticize

26:28

it. We're not saying work for it.

26:30

But this was a thing in the news. And for

26:33

anybody who hasn't heard it, this is the thing that

26:35

caused all this controversy. I would, by

26:37

instinct, I would play that sound. And

26:39

yet, I've had many instances on television, you

26:41

know, where it's like, we can't play these things because people

26:43

will get too upset. Right. How do you feel about I mean, the

26:45

n word is obviously a special case. But, I mean,

26:47

if I played that right now, would you think that would be a

26:49

mistake? I'm not gonna play it. But if I play, you think it would

26:51

be a mistake. Would you be offended? No.

26:54

No. I think

26:55

well, some people would. Sure.

26:57

But I think I I treat listeners like

26:59

adults -- Right. -- and they can deal with it.

27:01

And I I realize it hurts a lot of people, and

27:03

it hurts them badly, and it

27:06

I kinda treat listeners like adults and

27:08

warn

27:08

them, say we're gonna play this, I

27:10

guess. And if kids are listening,

27:12

you might wanna move them away or something like

27:14

that. Trigger warning. You know, they have to

27:16

hear what it is. Instead of me telling

27:19

them what it is, I think in a lot of ways we have to have

27:21

more respect for the

27:22

audience. And their ability to make their own judgments.

27:25

Amen. Careerswisher. I'm Swisher Something

27:27

so so delicate and dangerous.

27:30

Sensibilities. Not trauma. Let's Let's

27:32

treat people like they're smart enough to understand when you provide

27:35

context and the proper framework. You know,

27:37

the next topic on my mind is you were to call them

27:39

the other day, which I was waiting for you to

27:41

write about of the moment we're

27:43

in, broadly speaking, about where techy

27:45

is in the post pandemic moment. Mhmm. I I

27:46

think

27:47

I'll summarize this correctly saying, hey, you know what?

27:49

Like I said that on the other side of this,

27:52

get bigger and more powerful, and that's

27:54

not a great thing. And we're about

27:56

to head into this new moment. Mhmm. We we have

27:58

some things to be before you sign that there's even there's a lot

28:00

of innovation out there and stuff. But just kind of tee that up, like, what

28:02

do you think the pandemic did to the

28:04

technology industry? And what are the

28:06

big dynamics going

28:06

forward. Well, let me just back up in the beginning of

28:09

the pandemic of March of twenty twenty

28:11

when it really got started. Yeah. I wrote

28:13

a column And that moment, a lot

28:15

of tech stocks were off quite a bit. And

28:17

everyone's like, oh, no. Everyone's gonna get hit.

28:19

Tech got hit. And I was like, No.

28:21

These people are teed up for a pandemic.

28:23

Yeah. And I said this is such

28:25

an opportunity for tech companies.

28:28

To get bigger because a lot of their competitors

28:30

will get weaker. And so that's what

28:32

happened. They were able to take advantage

28:34

and it accelerated every trend whether it

28:37

was moviegoing, to streaming, whether it

28:39

was physical workplaces to

28:41

virtual workplaces. Everything went forward.

28:43

And I said some of it's a good thing because a lot of

28:45

these trends should accelerate. But it accelerated, it

28:48

moved it from five years to one

28:50

year. And so that was really

28:52

interesting to me. And now right now as we're

28:54

coming out of it, with companies in the

28:56

positions of strength they are, you start to

28:58

understand which ones are going to suffer and which ones

29:00

aren't, that you can start to separate them

29:02

and see where they're going in the challenges

29:04

they face. Gaming companies is a very

29:06

good example. We're moving into this metaverse

29:08

idea or where it's

29:10

gonna require a lot of technology

29:12

and money and creativity and all

29:14

kinds of things. Who is set up to do

29:16

that? And I think Microsoft's purchase of

29:19

Activision was really candy. Coming

29:21

out of the pandemic because that's where the

29:23

first place you're going to see a lot of metaverse

29:25

stuff is. Companies like

29:27

Facebook? Well, guess what their whole

29:29

business is? Online advertising.

29:31

It's under siege from a regulatory point

29:33

of view, from a consumer weariness, from

29:35

a consumer distrust point of view, their

29:38

product is not innovative or changed in

29:40

any way. They didn't use the

29:42

opportunity to move forward with a

29:44

new look. And in fact, during the pandemic, they got

29:46

beat up. Right, in terms of what they've been making.

29:48

And we're we're attempting to put on a new

29:50

costume by turning to meta. Like, now

29:52

we're this. Forget about that. That

29:54

kind of thing. We're gonna put that over

29:57

here. That's not us, even though it's still its

29:59

principal business. And so my hope, Burns, is

30:01

like, look, you've gotta start looking about who

30:03

is advantaged going forward with the trends

30:05

that are

30:05

coming, which include web three.

30:07

Broadly speaking, it's a grab basket

30:09

of things. Yeah. The last one was

30:11

mobile. This one is this. This is a

30:14

virtual, really interesting, possibly

30:16

full of scams, as you know, from the beginning

30:18

of the Internet. Going to be full

30:20

of scams, then there'll be good stuff. Yeah. And

30:22

also

30:22

scams. And It

30:25

was

30:25

important. It was always been sprinkled in there.

30:27

Always porn. There's always gotta be porn in the

30:29

early period. Throughout throughout -- Yes. -- porn

30:31

is persistent in a good and bad way for these

30:33

kind of

30:34

technologies. And Actually, it's good. I don't care

30:37

about porn.

30:38

Well, not not anyway, I'm not

30:40

gonna go into my porn tape. It's like, this

30:42

is a this is a this is a You

30:44

know, I'm into doing Carolyn Spiegel, who

30:46

has a company called Quinn Audio next

30:49

week, and she's actually the sister of Evan

30:51

Spiegel, started Snapchat. It's all audio

30:53

porn. It's super interesting. I have

30:55

to say, So I'm totally

30:57

getting off thing. Anyway, you've gotta start

30:59

looking at where it's gonna go, who are gonna be the

31:01

big players, and who are

31:03

positioned. To do well. Like, I think a Microsoft is really well

31:05

positioned. I think Apple is really well positioned.

31:07

I think Amazon is really well positioned.

31:09

And then you look at the things that are gonna

31:11

be problematic for them. In the case of Amazon, I

31:14

think the

31:14

workplace, the amount of workers they have. You

31:16

know, even if they want in Alabama, they're

31:18

gonna have major worker issues going that's

31:20

gonna be their

31:21

thing. Apple, obviously, the

31:23

App Store, but they're really well

31:25

positioned in terms of the AirPods and

31:28

metaverse and stuff like

31:30

that. They're very well positioned. Microsoft

31:32

well positioned Facebook problematic.

31:35

Netflix problematic because everyone's

31:37

getting into

31:37

it. Let's

31:37

pause on that for a second. I mean, I think a lot of people, you

31:40

know, take companies and sort of think them. They're they're the

31:42

FANG stocks. Right?

31:42

Yeah. You

31:43

think, you know. So as you wrote

31:45

Alphabet slash Google -- Mhmm. -- doing great

31:47

-- Mhmm. -- Apple doing great. Not

31:49

that they don't have challenges in the future, but they've come out of the pandemic

31:51

stronger than they were and in well positioned to

31:53

deal with it. Every company always has challenges

31:56

going forward. You know, Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, the three a, big a

31:58

company. It's all in a good

31:59

place. Mhmm. It's

32:00

all in a good place. The

32:02

the Facebook thing though isn't I wanna talk

32:04

about more just because Facebook meta, whatever

32:06

you wanna call that company now. Mhmm. You know,

32:08

as everybody pointed out when the stock plunged in

32:10

a couple weeks ago, still

32:12

plunging. Still plunging. But And

32:14

this notion of the fact that the number of daily

32:17

users dropped for the first time

32:19

ever, what explains that? I

32:21

mean, I get that Facebook's got all kinds of problems. And we've talked about

32:23

them at Blake and Technology, and some of them are

32:25

real problems too. Our political problems, we'll talk

32:27

about that a little bit later. But

32:29

in the business, why would it

32:32

be that a big giant social networking company in

32:34

the middle of the pandemic or more people online all

32:36

the time that's increasing its power in a lot

32:38

of ways all through the pandemic suddenly

32:41

loses

32:41

users. What's that about? Well, I think there's

32:43

three major things going on there. I think that you have

32:45

to really pay attention to. One is the changes Apple

32:47

mate. Apple is the regulator of the Internet, just

32:49

so you're aware. Our government can't do it, but

32:51

Apple certainly can. So Apple has really

32:54

shaved off income from

32:56

Facebook be its new privacy with the opt

32:58

in opt out. It's really affected them because

33:00

Facebook's businesses is to be an information thief.

33:02

That's they are. And Apple has

33:04

put a stop to that. Now others have coped

33:06

like Google has other signals that can deal with

33:08

the app. Facebook does not have as

33:11

many signals. It still has so many, you know, they have so many

33:13

relationships and this and that. But I think that

33:15

that was one thing. Was that the the coping with

33:17

the Apple problem, which

33:19

is a really serious problem for them.

33:21

The second one is competition, you know,

33:23

TikTok. Yep. That's the company of the

33:25

moment. It wasn't Snapchat never got

33:27

to that level -- Right. -- neither did Twitter and neither did

33:30

anybody else. But here's a company. Let's

33:32

put the Chinese stuff aside and

33:35

you shouldn't three years ago, I wrote a piece saying I have a burner phone for

33:37

TikTok because guess what the Chinese are watching

33:39

us essentially. It is a creative

33:41

interesting place where creators

33:43

are moving. Right? And it's run by a really

33:45

interesting former Google -- Yeah. -- person,

33:46

Vanessa Pappas, very

33:49

cany. It has done a lot of things, started

33:51

to address problems on the

33:53

site right away. They're very

33:55

proactive in saying that versus being all

33:57

victimate like Facebook likes

33:59

to do. Like, oh, you're mad at

34:01

us again. They're not like that TikTok. They're

34:03

like, oh, yeah. We have to do this around they

34:05

just did something around gays and

34:06

lesbians. They're just --

34:07

Yep. -- they're very proactive. Active in understanding

34:09

dangers, although not always as effective as people

34:11

would like. It's also a place where

34:13

creators like, where all kinds of interesting things are

34:15

happening in average

34:18

ties in all kinds of interesting things are happening in the creator economy.

34:20

Obviously, they're gonna run into problems,

34:22

but Facebook has not been able to

34:24

make fetch happen with reels. Right?

34:27

Right. It didn't work out with their cryptocurrency thing very well. It

34:29

didn't work out with dating. What happened to

34:31

that? Mhmm. You know, they're

34:33

trying with oculus, a

34:35

very good

34:35

product, but I think

34:38

small right now. That's where they're trying to make

34:40

it big, but still a small

34:42

business for them. It's sort of like Google

34:44

messing around with moon shots. Right? That's

34:46

not a big business yet. So they've

34:48

got that. The the competition,

34:50

Apple, and then they've got just the

34:52

basic problem that they haven't innovated

34:54

that app. And people get tired of

34:56

things. Right? People get tired of using a mass app like that. And they

34:58

haven't done things that have made

35:00

people want to stay when there's alternate

35:04

things to do, whether it's TikTok or whatever you

35:06

want to move. And the last thing

35:08

is, they haven't captured the

35:10

imagination of younger people. You

35:14

know, my sons would rather die than be on Facebook. Right?

35:16

My teen sons. Now that's an anecdote, but

35:18

I think it iterates all over the place.

35:21

Their big calling card was Instagram, and I

35:24

think TikTok has taken the wind out of

35:26

Instagram in many ways. Still

35:28

big, still important.

35:30

Yep. But everyone I know is

35:32

over at the party over at

35:33

TikTok. Right? So and that's what happens. That's

35:35

what happens. So let me just ask you this one question about

35:37

it there's a leadership question here, and then I talk a little

35:39

bit about your past and your history and stuff. But, like, you

35:41

know, one of

35:42

the things I found interesting in the one of these

35:44

exchanges you were having with Galloway. Galloway was

35:46

crashing the oculus and the reality labs

35:47

vision,

35:47

how much

35:48

money they've lost. He called it a flaming bag of shit

35:50

I can give you.

35:51

Flaming bag of shit.

35:53

Very sophisticated analysis.

35:56

Of the situation. Well, it's at

35:57

least it's vivid language. They've taught you that back in when we were young

36:00

riders. But you made this point, which was

36:02

really interesting

36:04

staying. And and it's not, I think, the conventional wisdom about

36:06

this, which is that you said a very quick

36:08

point, you said Mark's also bored with it.

36:11

Right? The core business model. I wanna play just really quickly. I

36:14

wanna play Kramer here. Right? Because I I do

36:16

think it's the board question is

36:18

super interesting in the

36:20

sense that it speaks to a thing that you

36:21

Well, I was listening to I

36:21

was listening to the to the quarter later. I

36:24

he sounded bored. I don't know what else to

36:26

say. But the thing about

36:28

how much the character of these people,

36:30

especially in the entrepreneurial startup tech

36:32

cultures, like the it turns out like the disposition.

36:34

A hundred percent of the founder matters in terms of

36:36

how you can point you back to see jobs into a a lot

36:38

of others. But here's the kind of creamer review, the Jim

36:40

creamer review, you know, but you're you're on the

36:43

side CNBC. Here's Jim

36:44

creamer. I know this is probably out of fashion. I have total faith Zuckerberg.

36:46

I think Zuckerberg's gonna be able

36:48

to pull off both in Metiverse and

36:50

also deal with the Apple privacy problems.

36:54

I think he's a fierce competitor. He has decided TikTok is

36:56

who he's gunning for. I think Mark

36:58

very much recognizes. This is not

37:01

an existential moment. This is

37:03

a strategic and competitive moment. And I think people are

37:06

viewing as existential. I think they're gonna pre be proven

37:08

wrong. So two questions come out of that. One is

37:10

this an existential moment.

37:12

And second, you know, do you

37:14

think that that is maybe a lagging

37:16

indicator of of an

37:18

assessment of I mean, every they're for a long time.

37:20

Mark Zuckerberg is a genius. He might be a moral. He

37:22

might be weird. He might be a lot of things we don't

37:23

like, but he's a visionary. Right? I

37:25

don't think he is. And and you I know you're not

37:27

fighting that. He's like, I'll let by but the

37:29

notion that even if he's a visionary, he's a board visionary, that's not very helpful. So just

37:31

kind of speak to me about what you think --

37:33

Yeah. -- with the Zuckerberg leadership

37:36

question. Swisher Zuckerberg's leadership.

37:38

I do not think Jim

37:40

is right there. I think he's completely wrong.

37:42

Mark Zuckerberg is Bill Gates if I had

37:44

to, like, put someone on. And I don't

37:46

think any of us would consider as

37:49

much as he accomplished as

37:51

a creative, not at all,

37:53

as a visionary sort of as

37:55

an executor, excellent. Right? That's what how

37:58

you would sort of and in fact, not

38:00

always either because of the stuff that happened

38:02

around the monopolies cases. So I

38:04

would say that I never

38:06

saw Steve Jobs up until his death

38:08

board a day in his

38:10

life. Never. He

38:12

was nearly last interview we did with the months before he died, he was very

38:14

excited about television. He was always

38:16

thinking. He was always create he was a

38:18

creative mind. You

38:20

might not have liked him, you might thought he was a pain in the ass, isn't

38:22

that, but always creative, always moving.

38:24

I'd say the same thing about Jeff

38:27

Bezos. You know, until recently he's got other interests. But, you know, he's

38:29

got other interests. But very creative,

38:32

constantly curious, constant he is

38:34

a visionary. He did

38:36

have visions. Visions of what he wanted to do. I think he still wanted

38:38

to. He just he has other things. Like,

38:40

right? That's the way it works. Unfortunately,

38:42

when you get all this money, you have a lot

38:44

more choices. So

38:46

I I think Mark is like Bill Gates, and one of the things

38:48

they've done really well has been to

38:51

copy people quickly. Think of something

38:53

creative out of Facebook. Try. It's

38:55

news feed. That was a long time ago. Right?

38:58

That was a good idea. I wouldn't say it's a

39:00

creative idea. Most things they

39:02

do is a copy. It's

39:04

very hard They've tried their

39:06

very best to put Snapchat out of business. There's

39:08

a creative guy. Snapchat, the

39:10

CEO there. I would say Tim Cook is

39:12

more creative than Mark Zuckerberg. Burg. You know what I mean?

39:14

Like, if I had to, like, saccharine

39:16

creativity, Mark would be at the bottom. And I think

39:18

a lot of what's coming requires

39:20

that. If you can't just copy

39:22

it or buy it. And everywhere

39:24

he goes where he

39:26

copies. He's not as successful. Right? We

39:28

give him like an

39:30

enormous, isn't he a genius? Isn't he a genius? He's really good

39:32

at selling advertising? Yes, he

39:34

is. Fantastic. He's

39:36

really good. At buying

39:38

companies and quashing others.

39:40

Yes, he is. You know, that kind of thing. And

39:42

so I don't agree with that. I I don't find

39:44

anyone at that company

39:46

particularly creative. At

39:47

all. I don't. I don't. I Yeah. But but I've

39:49

you know, it's very Microsoftian. In that way, I

39:51

think I have a thousand

39:54

children. Thousand percent agree with that. one know, have

39:56

read a book about this. Yes. If you don't wanna

39:58

get Bill Gates credit for anything, there was

40:00

a genius in seeing the notion

40:04

that the mainframe era and the MicroPric computer

40:05

app. We did. Yep. That would be

40:07

the stack would get unbundled. And that owning the core

40:09

of the operating system in

40:12

the app a lot of money would be a way to make a ton of

40:13

money. There's a business visionariness to that. One hundred percent.

40:15

That you can't deny, but certainly there's no

40:18

one who's ever written a lot of code with these bill gates. There's a

40:20

computer genius. I think that's

40:22

probably the kind of similar way that some people think

40:24

about

40:24

Mark. Yeah. Well, many years ago, I

40:26

remember Bill Gates was mad at Steve

40:29

Jobs about something, and And I think Steve said, what

40:31

do you think he's mad about? I said, you're Edison and he's Henry Ford,

40:33

and he wants the the I said the day,

40:35

and this was before he was sick.

40:37

So I wasn't, like, talking about

40:39

his death, but I said, the day you die, it's gonna be the

40:41

world's greatest computer vision, you know,

40:43

digital visionary died today. When he dies, the

40:45

world's richest man

40:48

died. Today. Yeah. Now he's been very creative around philanthropy all

40:50

kinds of things. He's changed that headline, but

40:52

I don't think anybody the

40:55

way they think about it, it has all to do

40:57

with money. It has all to do with stock.

41:00

It's not that product

41:02

was great. Like, think about it. You can't. Yeah. Oculus is

41:04

pretty cool, but that's Palmer Lucky. I'm sorry.

41:06

The original idea, whoever, all the people

41:08

around Oculus,

41:10

the metaverse is about creativity. It is not about muscle.

41:13

It's about creativity. And

41:15

also computing muscle, but it it takes

41:17

both. And that's why I think the

41:20

Microsoft think Satya Nadell is a very visionary CEO, actually, and

41:22

it has turned out to be. So the purchases he's

41:24

made have been very smart, very

41:27

strategic, very interesting. Alright.

41:30

We are gonna take a quick break and we will be right back with more cara

41:32

swisher on hell on high water.

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all states. And

42:17

we are back

42:18

with Cara Swisher on Helen High

42:21

Water.

42:21

You know, you're now, you know,

42:23

branched out far beyond the confines of Silicon Valley

42:25

and technology in your some power and

42:27

other things and you do all these things very

42:30

interestingly and very well. But the truth is, you know, for

42:32

a long time, you were really

42:34

synonymous with being the most plugged in and powerful

42:36

in some ways, journalist covering Silicon

42:38

Valley out there. Here's the best sign

42:40

of how important Cara was in Silicon Valley. At

42:42

one period of time, how kind of synonymous that

42:45

She actually made this cameo in the fabulous

42:48

HBO series a look at

42:49

ballot. I counsel any young founder today to

42:51

pursue your dream not

42:54

for or valuation or material wealth, but for

42:56

the good of

42:56

humanity. Which is easy for you

42:58

to say being a billionaire.

43:01

I don't care for your tone, Kara. I'm

43:04

getting a little tired of this

43:06

bias against the leaders of

43:08

our industry. I'm continually

43:10

creating jobs and helping people, and

43:12

I'm tired of getting slapped for it. I

43:14

didn't steal the money I have. And I

43:16

was not being treated like I did. You know, there

43:18

is a climate in this country that

43:21

is very dangerous.

43:22

It's dangerous out there for billionaires.

43:24

Here's that attitude

43:28

again, Kara. Billionaires are people too. It's

43:30

great about that

43:30

clip, of course, is

43:31

that it's a parody in which it's actually not a

43:33

parody. It's just it's just actually the exact kind

43:35

of exchange that could have

43:37

taken place on almost any random And also then he goes on and

43:39

does the Nazi. It's like it's like -- Yeah. -- he makes

43:42

which happened. Right? Right. It's We're

43:44

being

43:45

persecuted. That

43:46

It's it's incredible. And like I said, it could have happened. That exchange could

43:47

have happened on any given Wednesday for a long time

43:50

between you and and some tech season. Probably

43:52

today. Yeah. It happens. Still

43:54

happens today. When you moved to

43:56

Silicon Valley, it was nineteen ninety seven. You moved out

43:58

to the

43:58

Valley? Ninety

43:58

six. Ninety seven. Somewhere in there. Because you

44:00

and

44:01

I basically went out there around the same time. And

44:03

it was a moment, you know, where

44:05

not

44:05

in the industry, but also a moment where, you

44:07

know, of industry that largely been covered by

44:09

the trade press. Suddenly, there were people

44:11

showing up who were kinda

44:13

like, Yeah. You know, I mean, I really like what you're making.

44:15

This is really interesting. This is a super interesting

44:17

story, but I'm not from MacWorld or

44:19

PC Daily

44:20

or whatever. Fanboys. Yes. Right. Boys. Neither us

44:22

were fans. That's correct. It

44:23

was they both, like, a lot of people who fond over

44:25

I'll stop on w probably more than me because you're at The Wall

44:27

Street Journal, but there was a lot of funding

44:29

and a

44:29

lot of fear. Right? Which

44:31

you seem to kind of got how that could work to your

44:34

benefit. Just talk a little bit

44:35

about, like, your early time in Silicon Valley, and

44:37

how it changed over the

44:39

years that you were there and your relationship to it

44:41

changed? Well, there are

44:42

a couple of things. You have to not be a fan I

44:44

mean, a fan buoyantness was very clear, and I was

44:46

sort of appalled by it. And one of

44:48

the two things I thought about when I went there because I wasn't

44:51

as technical as some of the people were writing about it

44:53

who were loving whatever the technical moment and were

44:55

sort of slathering over. That they

44:57

should have just gone into that business. I used to

44:59

say to people, I'm not here to tell you how the

45:01

watch works. I'm here to tell you what time it is,

45:03

you know, because which is really the point. And

45:05

what Mossberg who I ended up doing many

45:08

years of wonderful journalism

45:10

with, said to me, what you've gotta

45:12

do, the way this is covered, is so

45:14

slavish, it's so fanboy,

45:16

it's so they hung the moon. I want you to go in there,

45:18

parachute in with your cleats on.

45:20

Like, I love that image. Yeah.

45:22

that it always stuck with me,

45:24

like, question. Like, why?

45:26

What? And I think that's really what I

45:28

did. One of the things I tried to

45:30

do was not be threatening

45:32

I wasn't I I don't even particularly threatening. I

45:34

think I was fair. I think I tried to be very

45:37

clear. You know, I

45:39

don't understand this or That

45:41

doesn't make any sense to me. I said that a lot. I was talking

45:44

to someone today about my style

45:46

Heilemann know, I have another

45:48

young daughter now. And she's always like, what's that? That's what

45:50

she says all the time now. What's that? What's that?

45:52

What's that? And I'm like, I think that's what I've

45:54

done. Like, I think my question was always, what

45:58

What's with that? Why are you doing that? What are you doing here? Isn't this wrong?

46:00

And I think that's the basics of

46:02

journalism. I think in terms of

46:05

not taking everything at face value.

46:07

I've gotten something's wrong. Something's right.

46:09

I always say when I

46:10

do, and I think you kinda see it coming.

46:13

Like, I don't think I was being

46:15

there's either a really snarky version

46:17

of journalists or a very slaveish version

46:19

of journalists. And I think neither of

46:21

them does a good job about how to

46:23

really depict what's happening because one of the things I

46:26

thought about a lot was how important what

46:28

was happening was. I used to say to

46:30

myself, okay, I'm on the beach at

46:32

Kitty Hawk. And they

46:34

take off, you know, with this plane. Right?

46:36

The Wright Brothers take off. Are you gonna

46:38

be the one on the beach going? Well, It

46:40

was supposed to be higher and longer. And what's that wing?

46:42

Instead, they flew. So you wanna give

46:44

that sense of, oh my god, they

46:48

flew. And at the same time start to talk about the implications of it things

46:50

like

46:50

that. So I I tried to do both.

46:52

I think

46:53

the idea that I'm tough in Maine

46:55

is kind of ridiculous. I

46:58

find it comical. Yeah. Well, I'd beat

46:59

up. They're made of paper, mache, if I'm difficult. I

47:01

just You know, you you could be

47:02

a little difficult. Sometimes in the best way, I mean, I think

47:04

that's a good quality of journalists. They should be

47:07

a little container contrary and and push people in Direct direct

47:09

as well.

47:09

Whatever word you wanna use, I think, you know,

47:11

there are a lot of people in a lot of places that

47:13

are were solicitousness in trying to please

47:15

everyone as the gig. And I think

47:17

for a lot of people, if your job is like, I'm here to hold you to account. I'm here to

47:19

try to find out what's true. I'm here to call bullshit when there's

47:21

bullshit in the room. That's gonna make people think

47:23

that you're

47:24

tough. Fine. If that's the word you wanna use,

47:26

whatever, you know, it's just but it's it's I

47:28

guess, I think it does I think it it changes

47:30

because I'm a woman. It does, like, in yeah.

47:32

I don't mean to say do

47:34

that. Oh, they call me bossy. It's so unfair. Like, I don't care.

47:36

Fine. Call me bossy. But what I think

47:38

it is is that when they say something and there

47:40

was a lot of I I remember writing a

47:44

story when they had all those all those phrases that they had for

47:46

things, you know, like, we're gonna change the

47:48

world here. I think I did a top ten things

47:50

I know they're fucking with me,

47:52

which was we're gonna change

47:54

the

47:54

world. We don't care about prophets. And

47:56

I wrote this in the journal, which was

47:58

a big deal. Like, that essentially, I'm

48:00

saying, I don't believe

48:01

you. know, trying to make money. Right? And I think that was one

48:03

of the things that drove me nuts about these people. They

48:06

acted like they were saving the world

48:08

when they were just

48:10

getting

48:10

rich. I think I made people recognize that about them is that maybe they

48:12

weren't quite so purest. Yeah. And

48:14

and look, I, you know, I think back to that,

48:16

you know, you wrote two books on but

48:19

that first one, you know, was sort of when AOL

48:21

was the Internet to a large extent, to a

48:23

lot of people. And I I just wanna play

48:25

this, you know, that I found a little

48:27

sound with you from way back

48:29

then. There were two different options. One of which is where you were doing kind of the

48:31

Kitty Hawk thing. And but you were being very, you

48:33

know, you had this appreciation for

48:35

the fact that is in

48:37

a few

48:37

important moments. The most significant

48:40

communications media media media created. This is back in nineteen

48:42

ninety nine, and it's gonna change the world and

48:44

you were This

48:44

is the Charlie Rose. There was a whole bunch of them. This was not one of those, basically, like, that

48:46

you said this in a bunch of different places. This is from

48:48

July eighth nineteen ninety eight. I think while you

48:50

were doing book publicity for the

48:54

AOL book, and this is a thing that was was incredibly pressing. You

48:56

weren't exactly ringing the alarm

48:58

bell, but you were identifying a thing

49:00

that a lot of people

49:02

now recognize requires an alarm bell being

49:03

run, so here's Kara Swisher in nineteen eight. The thing that's effective online, which is

49:06

kind of frightening in a way, is that

49:08

they know who

49:10

you are They have a much better

49:12

sense of who's there, demographically. They absolutely know who you are. You're scrolling through

49:14

magazines. They don't know who's looking at that. They have an idea, but

49:16

not an excellent idea. And,

49:19

also, if you even put any

49:22

information into Yahoo, it's free,

49:23

but, you know,

49:24

you're giving up a lot of information about

49:26

yourself. When you start to buy

49:28

things, they can track you like you

49:30

cannot believe. Television is passive and magazines

49:32

are

49:33

passive. This

49:33

is interactive. So I think it's a great

49:36

opportunity for advertisers. Howard Bauchner: Great opportunity for advertisers

49:37

to start out to be a million a

49:40

Heilemann bazillion times

49:42

true.

49:43

But also,

49:43

like, just a note of how frightening it was. This is now

49:46

Right. Right. Yeah. That's

49:46

the thing. People

49:47

did not recognize us back in nineteen ninety eight. You know,

49:49

this is back in time. It was all great. Or you were afraid

49:51

to put your credit card in Amazon dot com.

49:53

Well, you were of the You were either a European in Silicon Valley

49:55

saying, this is all

49:56

fantastic, or you were someone out in America saying,

50:00

Can I really

50:01

trust me? Can I really trust everybody did it? Everyone went in. It was

50:03

so convenient. The convenience was interesting. I

50:05

was really worried about it because I had actually

50:07

gone to the school of foreign

50:09

service at Georgetown, and I studied the

50:12

Holocaust. I studied all kinds of

50:14

propaganda. I spent a lot of time thinking

50:16

about that. And so I

50:18

felt like Oh my god,

50:20

a worldwide network of computers that follow you everywhere.

50:22

That needs to be done very carefully.

50:26

I was very aware of watching, like the watchingness of it. And one

50:28

of the things that I remember happening when mobile

50:30

started to take over. And did

50:34

I gotta find an interview where I talked about this because I was when someone's

50:36

asking, what do I think isn't this great? And

50:38

I believe me, I had a mobile suitcase

50:40

phone before everybody else. I

50:42

had these giant mobile device. I loved the mobile phone.

50:44

But I was like, when you're on your computer,

50:46

you go from site to site to

50:48

site, and they sort of contract that. Right?

50:50

They could know what you're interested in and sort of feed stuff to you

50:52

when you put in lots of information. So when you're

50:54

in a phone, they know where you went, what you

50:56

did, and then what you did after that,

50:59

and then who you called and they have

51:01

you in motion. And so it it invades

51:03

your personal life in a

51:05

way that's profound. And I

51:07

I remember being particularly worried

51:10

about that because they had a tracker on

51:12

you, like, on your body. And so

51:14

even though I would I often use a joke that my cell phone was the

51:16

best relationship I've ever had, it

51:20

really is

51:22

you you know, a digital version of yourself moving throughout the

51:24

world. And it I was always I

51:26

just didn't think these

51:29

people were serially bad, but I didn't think they were good -- Yeah. -- or had

51:32

your best interest in Well, I'm not gonna go down this

51:34

path,

51:34

but I will say that if someone says that their best

51:36

relationship has been with their phone and

51:38

then says your phone is really

51:39

you. It's a

51:39

kind of this.

51:39

It's almost like a textbook nurse a case like this. It

51:42

is nurses as well. I'm not gonna It's so nice. You

51:44

know, I'm

51:46

an egomaniac. On. I'm not a narcissist. I'm an ego maniac. Try to keep

51:48

up.

51:48

Well, talk I'll talk to you or shrink about

51:50

that. Yeah. I don't know.

51:53

Well, you know, narcissists

51:56

don't do

51:56

well at psych. I just, you know.

51:57

They're very controlling. One of the things

52:00

that I would say that has been true

52:02

about you, and I think you'll agree with me about

52:04

this, that that one of the things in

52:06

our business that makes you unusual. And

52:08

and, frankly, has made me a little unusual to some

52:10

extent, is that, like, we have this very entrepreneurial spirit.

52:12

And I don't necessarily mean starting

52:14

companies. I mean more like you dominated

52:16

your beat for a long time, but you

52:18

were but you were pari I stopped.

52:20

You were pari pedic. You left good jobs to

52:22

go try new

52:23

things. You wanted to start up things, whether

52:24

they were conferences or podcasts or newsletters or you didn't

52:26

you don't like that. I was gonna own this beat and stay here

52:29

for the rest of my life and be told what to do by

52:31

some people. Like, this way, you gotta

52:33

cover today. It's not common in our business, I would

52:35

say. And it's kind of been like the the hallmark of

52:37

your

52:37

career. Right? I mean

52:40

Yeah.

52:41

When And more to go. I have to tell

52:43

you. I I get like, Mark Zuckerberg, I get

52:45

bored. Like, I don't get bored. Here's what I get.

52:47

I I think really hard

52:50

about what like podcasting, I started seven or eight years ago with an

52:52

intern, and thank God, I worked for Jim Bankoff

52:54

because I'm like, I've been running this very

52:56

successful site for you that's high profile. I'm

52:58

not doing

53:00

that anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Can you imagine, oh, what? They

53:02

love to keep you in your little lane. Right?

53:04

Like, oh, this will work. Oh, no. I've gotta do

53:06

something and fix it. so was

53:08

like, this podcast thing is really interesting to

53:10

me. I think, you know, we had code.

53:12

We had sixteen people. I could

53:14

interview hundreds of people. There are hundreds of

53:16

interesting people. And

53:18

he was very accepting of my

53:20

enthusiasm for that. It was just a a notion

53:22

that this could be really big and could make

53:24

some money. I've always been very interested in

53:26

making money. So that's another thing.

53:28

I don't just do these things without

53:30

understanding the business implications or at least

53:32

understanding them. I know it

53:34

sounds crazy, and it's probably

53:36

misleading to say, but I'm really

53:38

selfish. I'm like, I I think if

53:40

you're not my selfishness has helped create jobs.

53:42

They sound like an Internet

53:43

person, but --

53:44

You do. -- when I get creative, things

53:46

get built. Right? So I'm a builder. And so one of things bored with

53:48

is if I feel like there's nowhere to

53:50

go with something or that it's not

53:54

fun, Like, I if if I'm not enjoying myself, I will

53:56

be gone. Like, and I'll try to find something

53:58

I really like and love to get up to. I

54:00

think it it is the hallmarks of

54:02

an entrepreneur. Like,

54:04

I quit the Washington Post when I was on my way up to the, like,

54:06

political beat there. I'll quit

54:08

the Wall Street Journal to start this

54:10

thing with Wall. You know?

54:12

Leave the Wall Street Journal to try this crazy thing again with

54:14

Walt. And then, oh, I'll sell. Like, I sold

54:17

really fast because I was seeing the writing

54:19

on the wall. And so I

54:21

don't mind change and I find it very sad

54:24

especially among young people when they feel

54:26

like they have to be on some

54:28

guinea pig wheel you know, where they have to

54:30

go round and round. And if they get off,

54:32

oh, no. Like, I even say

54:34

it to my kids, my son, you know,

54:36

not wanting

54:38

to he took a year off. And at first, he's like, oh, I don't know mom. I'm like, what's

54:40

the price? There's no price. Go have

54:42

fun. Like, I don't mean he worked. He's

54:44

traveling. He's doing all kinds of things.

54:47

And he's he's able to do that. And so I think

54:49

reporters are the most risk of our group of

54:51

people. Yeah. One of them is on the planet. Right?

54:53

And they they tell me why it

54:56

won't work. That's

54:56

the

54:57

been for your son. I believe it's the case you have a new that right? Yeah.

54:59

Two. I have two new I have I

55:01

have four children now. So I have a daughter

55:03

who's two and an

55:05

and a son who just another son. I have three sons.

55:08

The the son who was just born. Yeah. Yeah. I was

55:10

gonna say, you you have a new you have, like, a new pump. You

55:12

have a very new newborn. Relatively new

55:13

born, at least in the last couple one, three months.

55:15

That's pretty new. That's pretty new.

55:16

Yeah. Three months old. And then a two year

55:19

old daughter, a sixteen year old son, and

55:21

a nineteen year old son.

55:22

And

55:22

a new partner. Right? I do Well, she's been a

55:23

couple of years. Yeah. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.

55:26

Wait.

55:26

Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.

55:28

Wait. We

55:28

got married in the pandemic. We've been going out

55:31

since two thousand nine zero eighteen. Something That's where I

55:33

was simply new though. Exactly. Is there anybody who got married

55:35

in the pandemic? That's new That's

55:37

true. It had children and started

55:39

new business assets. Those are new those are,

55:41

by any normal standards, those big

55:42

things. First of

55:43

all, congratulations. Thank you. It's there some very

55:45

sweet pictures you posted on Twitter of of both

55:48

of those things.

55:48

Yeah. The

55:49

new maybe and the and the

55:49

relatively new spouse. Yeah. You know, you have

55:52

been an innovator in a in a lot of ways

55:54

that we've just kinda talking about on the

55:56

entrepreneurial front, on getting the importance of this

55:58

tech stuff early. You you know, the the

56:00

notion of being kind of an out lesbian

56:02

and

56:03

is still is not as controversial in world, though. It's

56:05

in some course. It's still controversial.

56:06

And in the tech world, especially, which is

56:09

very male, as you know, very dominant

56:11

my male. My god. Silicon

56:12

valleys. It's just one of the most alpha -- Mhmm. -- they're they're dorks. They like

56:15

Les ants, though. But It's

56:16

alfadore. Well, that's the question I wanna ask you.

56:19

I think is is in covering the businesses

56:21

you've covered. Number one. And

56:24

within our industry, what has

56:26

been

56:27

the experience of being one of the first Outliers being able to work your advantage,

56:30

work your disadvantage, a little bit of both? I

56:32

think to my advantage, I think these men want

56:34

to get along with women, have a real

56:37

some of them know, there's not many. There's not many women

56:39

around. And so sometimes it works to

56:41

my advantage. Other times, I'm sort

56:43

of horrified. They're implications. I was

56:45

with a bunch of VCs once, and talking about someone's looks,

56:48

like, in an not a nice way. Like, you

56:50

know, essentially nice boobs, something like

56:52

that. Like, And

56:54

they're

56:54

like, what do you think,

56:55

Kara? And I'm like, still a feminist? Still a feminist.

56:58

You pig. Like, you know, I

57:00

mean, sorry. Okay. And it was super

57:02

funny. So

57:04

they wanna they wanna get along with women

57:06

at the very base.

57:08

They also there's so much I

57:10

wouldn't say it's It's

57:12

misogyny, but it's of a different sort. They don't think

57:14

they are. They don't think they're like, it just

57:16

happens. There's ten white men here. What?

57:18

It just happened that way. And I'm

57:20

like, really? Did it just happen? You

57:22

don't wanna be that sort of

57:24

tis tiskered at them. I just pointed

57:26

out. I did a story. My favorite

57:28

story I ever did was about Twitter's board,

57:30

which had ten white men on

57:32

it. Yeah. Right? Mhmm. And they were having all kinds of

57:34

trouble back then. But they they always do. They're always in a

57:36

state of, like, you know, Go

57:38

rodeo. 12345

57:40

And I wrote a lead for a story. It

57:42

was about the fact that this was the situation

57:44

on the board. And you as you know, as a business

57:46

writer, you can change a board compared to hiring people.

57:48

You can make all kinds of excuses in hiring, but

57:51

you could find some people of color

57:53

and women for a board. You can if

57:55

you really try. And especially Twitter, which had, you know, if you look at

57:57

the statistics, it's a very diverse

58:00

user base, very interesting

58:02

user base. And so the

58:04

lead of my story was, and because I

58:06

ran the site, I could write this lead. And therefore, I

58:08

didn't have an editor telling me no way. I

58:10

wrote it and I'm like, excellent job,

58:12

Kara, and, you know, good job as

58:14

editor. And the lead was

58:16

the board of Twitter, comma, which

58:18

has three peters in a dick. And that the

58:20

that was the and

58:22

Dick Castello called me up. And I then

58:24

I've went to write about the fact that they've had all kinds of

58:26

trouble and what how did this happen mathematically

58:30

impossible. It it makes it

58:32

intentional. And Dick Castello, who's a very

58:34

funny guy who ran Twitter at the time, called me

58:36

up and said, first, as a comic, that was

58:38

very funny. Secondly, it's not true, and then he started to go on about standards

58:40

and this and that. And then we had a really interesting

58:42

discussion. And I said, the only time you bring up

58:44

standards is when it comes to women and people

58:46

of color, And

58:48

I just wanna say your company is a hot friggin mess,

58:50

and you're telling me these guys that, like,

58:52

are the best you could come up with, the

58:55

kind of thing. And we had ended up having a great discussion,

58:57

and they ended up doing more. Right? They are not

59:00

enough by by any stretch. So

59:02

I rather than like get into

59:04

sort of her ranging at

59:06

them. I just I try to pull them

59:08

into discussions about these

59:10

things, as people maybe who don't have a

59:12

clue. I start with they don't have a clue rather than

59:14

its intentional most of the time it is

59:16

intentional what they're doing, but I let them out of that. Can I ask you one question

59:18

though, you, like, piled around with them and smoked

59:22

the cigarettes? And

59:22

stuff. That wasn't ever I always used to just go home. Gotta think to pet children.

59:24

How old around how

59:25

old? But you were able to,

59:27

like, be more, like, die with them. Yeah.

59:29

Like, you were

59:31

the guy. Right. Well, I'm I'm a

59:32

guy. I know. But there was a

59:33

more guy element, like, hell, on which I

59:36

mean, I but aren't you the

59:37

one who, like, throws, like, poker games?

59:39

I do. In your right hand. I told

59:39

him that that wasn't it wasn't me.

59:42

No.

59:42

It's just interesting. Did you find that you had

59:44

a better end because you were a guy rather

59:46

than

59:47

I I don't know if I like, it's hard to compare because you say better.

59:49

I don't know what the what the alternative is. I

59:51

I always thought it would be hard to be. And

59:53

maybe, I mean, I I don't be to oversimplify,

59:55

you just said a thing about how being a

59:58

lesbian in some ways could have helped you in in sort

1:00:00

of

1:00:00

value. You

1:00:00

did a little bit. I

1:00:01

would have always felt that that that it would have been

1:00:03

hard because the culture both so male and

1:00:05

so so weirdly awkward socially. Right? That so many guys in

1:00:07

Silicon Valley, even no one's with a ton of money. At least back

1:00:09

then -- Mhmm. -- were

1:00:12

so, like, kind of reclamped when they came in contact with, like, a

1:00:14

straight woman. It was just like, you know, that it would have

1:00:16

been hard to be that. I I imagined

1:00:18

it would be hard to cover

1:00:20

that business. As a straight

1:00:22

woman. Yeah. And I

1:00:24

I watched you navigate it. Again, I I I'm

1:00:26

not your shoes. You answered the way you

1:00:28

answered. And that story you told a second ago was really illuminating. I think a lot of those of

1:00:30

the movers and shakers and Silicon Valley looked at you as like one of

1:00:32

the guys in a lot of ways, which is why they would say

1:00:34

stuff like that. Yeah. And that benefited you

1:00:37

So I guess I think implicitly the notion of being able

1:00:40

to be a dude -- Yeah. -- around

1:00:42

venture capital firm is all dudes, it's

1:00:44

just a level

1:00:46

of comfort that you were able to get inside in a way

1:00:47

Yeah. I guess. I just always wondered. It was it's an interesting

1:00:49

thing. It gave me a

1:00:50

little more freedom. I would say yes. In general, in

1:00:53

newspe in the media too. In

1:00:55

the media

1:00:55

space. It's not just tech people that were awkward

1:00:58

with women, media. You're for

1:01:00

sure. A hundred a hundred percent. So I don't

1:01:02

know. It's hard to judge against would have been like. I certainly

1:01:04

think it would have been harder to cover some of that stuff

1:01:06

if you

1:01:06

were. I never sat there on a thief. Thanks for

1:01:08

being a straight white dude, but

1:01:10

Like, it's kind

1:01:11

of a They had it was, like, like, comfortable. Yeah. Confirmed. Correct. KII

1:01:13

think

1:01:13

if I climbed up to the thirty thousand foot mountain looked down,

1:01:15

I'd be like, yeah, you know, you got a little better But here's

1:01:17

the thing,

1:01:19

neither of us took a job with them. And you I'm I'm sure you

1:01:21

were offered jobs. I know I was. Both. Yes. Never never

1:01:24

had never interested me. I like

1:01:26

the smart part of it. Like, you the

1:01:28

intellectual challenges of it. But unlike

1:01:29

you, although I'm perfectly happy with money,

1:01:32

it's never been like a main money. No. Exactly.

1:01:34

Because if not, we would have been owning

1:01:36

our islands right now. I was offered some really great jobs. I turned them

1:01:38

back, you

1:01:38

know, you know what? I just I remember every one

1:01:40

of them. What was the best job you were offered?

1:01:43

God, all of them has offered an early Google job. I was off it

1:01:46

was always around editorial when they thought they

1:01:48

were gonna do that.

1:01:50

Amazon, editor, an editorial

1:01:52

kind of thing. Every one of them Facebook,

1:01:54

AOL, Ted Leance is definitely was

1:01:56

and always is like, you could have had a hundred

1:01:58

million dollars geared to it, whatever the number was.

1:02:02

And all of

1:02:02

them. All of them.

1:02:03

Yes. All of them. So he was like

1:02:05

A lot of journalists did that. Right? They went

1:02:07

over. Many did. And and I wonder you

1:02:09

cycle through your entrepreneur opportunities now whether you're just trying to

1:02:11

make up for a lost time.

1:02:12

No. No. No.

1:02:13

No. And lost and lost and lost and lost and lost and

1:02:15

I miss my boat. But honestly, they I just even

1:02:17

Bitcoin, I you know, I was like, someone was like, you should do

1:02:19

this. I was like, I can see this is gonna

1:02:21

be big. I

1:02:24

just I don't have the energy for this money making. I just don't have

1:02:26

the energy for it doesn't interest me. I

1:02:28

make plenty of money. That's what I feel like.

1:02:31

Exactly what I feel like. I think if they the the

1:02:33

entrepreneurial bug for I think for both of us is

1:02:35

more like, there's just so much interesting stuff

1:02:37

to curiosity. And and yeah.

1:02:38

And it's like in some places, it's like, easier

1:02:41

and more fun to to try to to make a new way of getting out

1:02:42

in the

1:02:42

world rather than trying to, like, fit

1:02:44

into some

1:02:44

existing organization because a lot of those existing organizations

1:02:48

We're also bad employees, John. Let's be honest. Yeah. Yeah.

1:02:50

So I think maybe well, yes. We're our bad employees.

1:02:52

We just

1:02:53

We're not I can't imagine

1:02:55

being our bosses.

1:02:57

No. But you

1:02:57

just think you think you just both of us were both

1:03:00

obstrepris. Yes. And -- And

1:03:02

-- really, I

1:03:03

I can't even try anymore. I'm

1:03:05

always like, like,

1:03:06

I literally

1:03:06

am like, that's a stupid idea. It's a

1:03:09

very powerful people in them. Yes. That's

1:03:10

a that's a stupid idea and go fuck yourself.

1:03:12

It's like the it's the it's the Logan Roy employees. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think we're

1:03:14

just And you're not in charge. Bad employees. We should

1:03:16

start a company called Bad employees.

1:03:21

We are gonna take one more break and we'll be back

1:03:23

with more of Swisher Heilemann on

1:03:25

Helen High Water.

1:03:28

And

1:03:33

we are back with Cara Swisher on Hill and

1:03:36

High Water.

1:03:38

Alright. Listen, here's here I wanna talk about a couple of ass things that relate to,

1:03:40

well, one of them just relates to a a human.

1:03:42

I know someone who I well, I have a thought about. I'll

1:03:44

get to this in a second. Let's play this clip

1:03:48

of guy in the news. He's always in the news. Like, he was in the news last week because

1:03:50

the SEC and also because of the

1:03:52

Mars thing and, you know, you can always find an

1:03:54

Elon Musk story to

1:03:54

tell. He likes to keep himself

1:03:57

in the news. He does keep himself the news, but let's just play this Elon

1:03:59

Musk got SNL thing just to remind us what that

1:04:02

was like back about it. A little less than a year

1:04:03

ago. What do you use to

1:04:06

SNL? Mhmm. I believe in a renewable energy future. believe

1:04:08

that humanity must become a multi planetary

1:04:10

space bearing

1:04:11

civilization. Now, I think if I just posted that

1:04:14

on Twitter,

1:04:16

I'd be

1:04:17

fine. But I also write

1:04:19

things

1:04:19

like sixty nine days after

1:04:22

four twenty again.

1:04:24

Look, I know

1:04:27

I still don't want to say or

1:04:29

post strange things. To anyone have offended, I

1:04:31

just want to say I reinvented electric

1:04:33

cars and I'm sending people to Mars in our

1:04:36

rocketship.

1:04:41

Did you think I was also gonna be a chill normal

1:04:44

dude? It's kind of

1:04:46

says it

1:04:47

all. Right. He's very self aware. Certainly

1:04:49

not chilled normal dude. No.

1:04:51

I really want your take on this. The only thing I'll

1:04:53

say is I think that if you think about

1:04:55

all the features of capitalism

1:04:58

in the twenty first century, the

1:05:00

ugly -- Mhmm. -- every element of

1:05:02

it. I'm not sure there's any one person who embodies all

1:05:04

of them. And and the sheer immorality

1:05:07

of it, even when it's wedded to some very noble goals and goals

1:05:09

that, like, a lot progressives and Liberals really like, you know, trying to save

1:05:11

the planet, etcetera. I don't think there's anybody who's more

1:05:14

emblematic

1:05:15

of the moment Yeah. And

1:05:16

the attitude of the moment then Elon Musk. And and I'd love for you just

1:05:18

to give me your your take on him. I don't really care

1:05:20

about them. And the FCC's matter for tweeting whatever.

1:05:22

I don't give a shit. I'm curious

1:05:25

what you think about Elon Musk. Elon Musk friend or foe, good or bad. No. He's

1:05:27

not a

1:05:27

foe. I don't think he's a foe. I don't think he's a

1:05:29

friend either. Neither, actually.

1:05:32

Right. It's really interesting. The SEC thing, like, either do something

1:05:34

or not or stop it. Don't, like, yammer

1:05:36

on about it, investigate it, and then

1:05:38

do nothing. And also, I

1:05:41

think one of the things Elon does is point out

1:05:43

how stupid some things are. Right? You know,

1:05:45

why is this manipulation that's out in the

1:05:47

front of everybody? Like, I think I kind of

1:05:49

like that about him. In terms of pointing

1:05:51

out stupid, like, there's a stop sign near my house. I

1:05:53

hate, and I go through it all

1:05:55

the time. And That's

1:05:57

what he is. He's he he goes through stop signs, and

1:06:00

some of them are dumb. And so he points those out.

1:06:02

And at the other times, he goes through things

1:06:04

we really should

1:06:06

have there. And he also is showing that you can't stop, like, Trump

1:06:08

does the same thing. It's like he he

1:06:10

wadded up paper and oh,

1:06:12

well, someone did it. No one

1:06:14

stopped him. No one can do anything about it.

1:06:16

He's pointing out how weak our laws

1:06:18

are or how weak our fences are, I

1:06:20

guess, in a lot of ways. And so one

1:06:23

of the things I like about Elon is that he's he's correct. He's doing big

1:06:25

things. He has big ideas. He's swinging

1:06:27

for the fences. These ideas are

1:06:29

important. Whether it's space or

1:06:32

hyperloop or cars or anything else.

1:06:34

They're very worthy things to

1:06:36

be working on. I think one of the things

1:06:38

that people forget is Thomas Edison

1:06:40

was also an asshole. Right? He really

1:06:42

was. Go read any book about him. He was a

1:06:44

hype beast. He, you know, PT Barnum

1:06:46

did up. He told Liza, a detective

1:06:49

dives. He did all kinds of shit. And if he

1:06:51

had Twitter, he'd be a jackass. I would

1:06:53

be absolutely certain. And, you know, you'd

1:06:55

have Tesla going, but but but but but

1:06:57

how dare you say those things. Right? That kind of thing you

1:06:59

could imagine. I always say Edison was also

1:07:02

an asshole. That is how I explain

1:07:04

Elon Musk. And at the

1:07:06

same time, he really could, you

1:07:08

know, do less, like, calling

1:07:10

senator Warren

1:07:12

Karen, like, come on. But that said, she gives back

1:07:14

as good as she gets. Right? It's not like she

1:07:16

holds back. She says all kinds of

1:07:18

things about him

1:07:20

that are you know, for her own advantage. And I like senator

1:07:22

Warren, and I think she's right on a lot of

1:07:24

things, but she plays. She does the same kind of

1:07:26

thing. She just is sort of on a higher

1:07:28

horse than

1:07:30

he happens. To be. And he likes to tweak. And so I think

1:07:32

it's beneath him, but I'm not

1:07:34

him. I get it. Creative people

1:07:36

are often like that. Steve Jobs was

1:07:38

not easy. This is not an

1:07:40

excuse for what he does. I think some of the stuff he does

1:07:42

is rude and obnoxious, and

1:07:44

the stuff around COVID, he and I had a real

1:07:46

beef on. He almost walked off

1:07:48

my podcast when I was like, I think I think

1:07:50

it's grotesque what you're doing. And, you know,

1:07:52

even his mom was mad at me even when

1:07:54

I wrote a column saying that,

1:07:57

but I think this is what you get. Did

1:07:59

you think he was gonna be a chill guy?

1:08:01

And so I love talking to him.

1:08:04

I find it delightful to talk to him. It's really interesting. He always

1:08:06

says something that makes me think.

1:08:08

He reminds me a great deal of sort of a

1:08:10

jerky or Steve Jobs. If you can

1:08:12

imagine that,

1:08:14

he's he's sort of puck ish in a lot of ways. Sometimes is kidding.

1:08:17

It's just sixteen year

1:08:19

old boy kidding. Right? Meme.

1:08:22

He's like a meme is perfect for

1:08:24

him. And I I don't know why we look

1:08:26

to him to be our hero

1:08:29

or our moral hero whatsoever. Right.

1:08:30

Right? The

1:08:31

problem is a lot of people, his phantom of his

1:08:33

fanboys are really quite toxic. So it's

1:08:35

interesting that, like, you know, there's been some

1:08:37

of this polling that got done on these billionaires.

1:08:39

And and, you know, he does very well. Yeah. Of the hyper billionaires, he's

1:08:41

like the most popular. So it looks like Joe

1:08:43

Robyn. Right? And while also

1:08:45

very like Democrats really

1:08:48

like him, partly because of all the stuff related to the

1:08:50

green future. But he also skews very heavily male -- Yeah. -- which is in keeping

1:08:52

with you

1:08:54

what you said a second ago. And you mentioned the Warren thing. Right? Where you had

1:08:56

senator Warren on your podcast and and after he had

1:08:58

done the Karen thing and she, you know, went after

1:09:00

him hard on on the

1:09:02

question of the taxes. Right? And didn't rise

1:09:05

to the bait on the the Karen insult. Right? But it it

1:09:07

does open this door to a question that we could

1:09:09

talk all day about, but we

1:09:11

don't have the time. Which is

1:09:13

that when we went to Silicon Valley in the late nineteen

1:09:15

nineties, the protagonist was still a kind of adolescent industry.

1:09:20

It wasn't quite a baby industry. Yeah. It was adolescent.

1:09:22

It wasn't adult. It wasn't mature. And it did had an adolescent relationship

1:09:24

for sure with

1:09:25

Washington, which is still kind of

1:09:27

like somehow we can we

1:09:29

can The

1:09:29

gates was the personification of that as well. We can exist with, like, separate from even though we're the biggest

1:09:31

most important part of the new economy, we can

1:09:34

somehow not be -- Yeah. -- people

1:09:36

Washington at

1:09:38

arm's length. Yeah. Well, that's clearly not true anymore. And they all

1:09:40

have armies of lawyers and lobbyists in Washington and

1:09:42

so on. I guess I ask this question

1:09:44

as, you know, all of these billionaires

1:09:47

have become way more powerful. And you and

1:09:49

I are both in different ways. You more frequently than me, but whenever I'm

1:09:51

asked, I'm always like, Washington is hopeless. It's, you know, about

1:09:53

trying to regulate these industries.

1:09:55

Yes. They haven't. Do you

1:09:57

think there's any prospect for that changing? And how do you see that relationship

1:09:59

having evolved between how

1:10:03

the tech sphere seize Washington with the same

1:10:05

kind of stain that they used to twenty years ago? Are they more at all more respectful? Certainly, Elon

1:10:07

Musk doesn't seem to be. Yeah.

1:10:10

But is the industry more respectful

1:10:13

And does Washington ever have any hope of being

1:10:15

able to kinda get a handle on some of the things that we all agree whether it's in Facebook, misinformation, disinformation,

1:10:20

monopoly -- Mhmm. -- all that or it's

1:10:22

it's always just destined to be really behind in fighting the last war. I think they're fighting the

1:10:24

last

1:10:25

war. I think it's very difficult. I

1:10:27

think they're under resource She

1:10:30

just did an interesting interview with Lina Khan, who's the head of

1:10:32

the FTC, and she essentially said the US government isn't

1:10:34

powerful enough to fight these people. Like, we don't

1:10:36

have enough resources. Now, of course, she's gonna say

1:10:38

that, but it's actually true because she wants more resources, but all their resources are up some congressional bill

1:10:41

that's never gonna

1:10:44

get passed. You know, they were

1:10:46

put five hundred million more dollars toward the Justice Department and the FTC. I think it's more of a speed bump

1:10:48

to people in tech. They've learned how

1:10:50

to play the game. They've hired their lobbyists

1:10:54

some are better than others. Microsoft's particularly good

1:10:56

now, the best, I think. Facebook

1:10:58

certainly got an operation here.

1:11:01

Google's got an operation here. You know, even

1:11:03

Musk has an operation. She deals with the defense department as as

1:11:05

gesturey as he can be. He has people.

1:11:07

You know, he

1:11:09

gets these contracts. With defense or NASA, which

1:11:12

loves him, it seems like. And

1:11:14

why wouldn't you? He's about resources,

1:11:16

essentially. And so I think it's

1:11:18

much more of a speed bend at this point, you know, with the whole Warren thing, it was something I I asked her, she about

1:11:20

Elon and this and that.

1:11:22

And I said, well, why should

1:11:25

he pay the taxes? Your rules? He's

1:11:27

your stop yelling

1:11:31

at him. Right? You're not gonna

1:11:33

tell him to be a better citizen. He can do it or not. He can be a better, so he

1:11:35

can pay taxes or not. I

1:11:40

it really At this point, it's your fault. And

1:11:42

I this is how I feel about Washington is if you're worried about privacy and misinformation, do something

1:11:44

about it. You actually have the

1:11:46

power to do something about it.

1:11:49

And they don't. And so, you know,

1:11:51

you have really smart people like senator Klobuchar. I think she's quite effective she's moving stuff

1:11:56

slowly through in a

1:11:58

bipartisan fashion. You have senator Warner. You have Ken Buck. You have David Cicilini. You have a

1:12:01

lot of

1:12:04

really smart legislators and you have

1:12:06

a lot of really smart regulators like Lina Khan and others. The question is,

1:12:08

do they have the

1:12:10

ability to get this stuff

1:12:13

through. I think they need to aim at

1:12:15

privacy and stop with this free speech discussion. Just go to their business Go to their

1:12:17

business model and go

1:12:20

to liability. A lot

1:12:22

of things will clear out once that's the case. And so if they're responsible for stuff, a little bit

1:12:24

more, certain stuff,

1:12:27

not all this stuff, maybe

1:12:29

that would make them think and

1:12:32

change their business model. They regulate chemicals, they regulate banks,

1:12:34

they regulate trains, they regulate planes, they can regulate

1:12:36

this. They

1:12:39

can. They just don't. And so, at this point,

1:12:41

it's their fault, not -- Yeah. -- technology. And I

1:12:43

don't feel I must

1:12:45

tries to find a way not to pay

1:12:47

taxes. Okay. But he's

1:12:47

following the rules, their rules, not his,

1:12:50

so whatever. Are you are you actually

1:12:52

at DC right now? Yes,

1:12:54

I am.

1:12:54

Indeed. Do you live there?

1:12:55

I have to. Yes. My son goes to school here. My ex

1:12:57

wife was the chief technology officer -- Yep. --

1:12:59

for Obama, they stayed

1:13:02

And I I'm gonna stay here at least until my son graduates

1:13:04

high school. He's in elementary. How long have you been living

1:13:06

in

1:13:06

D. C.

1:13:06

Through the You got a lot of track to be

1:13:09

I just I feel like you're, like, you're in the air

1:13:11

in the winter. I Mary Nice to meet you. I'll I'll

1:13:13

stay until the wind changes. I will stay here for

1:13:15

a little while. I lived in San Francisco. I

1:13:17

miss San Francisco, and everybody loves to jump

1:13:19

on San Francisco. But

1:13:21

I think it's a wonderful place. I'm gonna move to New or San Francisco, would

1:13:23

But here because my my

1:13:26

son is here and

1:13:28

because My

1:13:30

other son was also here and for

1:13:32

the pandemic with small children that you really

1:13:34

can't commute. You couldn't

1:13:35

commute. Is your newest daughter with you there?

1:13:37

Or is she

1:13:38

supposed to be here? Yep. That's good. That'll for some reason, I'd put in because I

1:13:40

thought I thought the wedding pictures were here. No. We don't

1:13:42

need New York. Yes. In New York. Because

1:13:45

I'm saying we're here in New York. New York. And got married. You know, I haven't

1:13:47

been in New York in a while. I've been in there a

1:13:49

couple times in the past couple months, but I suspect

1:13:52

we'll probably not state

1:13:54

you've lived in DC.

1:13:56

Right? Yeah. It's lovely. Right. In a way.

1:13:58

It's a nice

1:13:58

place to visit,

1:13:59

not any place. I I

1:14:00

decided to take a place to

1:14:02

raise

1:14:02

children. I could tell you that.

1:14:05

Excited

1:14:05

back in nineteen ninety seven that it was a great place to visit, not a great place for me to

1:14:07

live. I don't like monocultures care in the future. That's the problem. Yeah. The problem is like, I don't like company towns.

1:14:09

It was part of

1:14:10

why I

1:14:10

didn't want us to live

1:14:11

in San

1:14:11

Francisco forever because it's just Yeah.

1:14:15

Too many people all talk about the same thing. Yeah. Except I had

1:14:17

other friends in San Francisco. There's other

1:14:19

there's other

1:14:21

in San Francisco. Here, there is another. And

1:14:23

I like it. It's listen. It's a lovely -- Yep. -- city. And with

1:14:26

children, it's easy. And so that's

1:14:28

fine, but I suspect

1:14:30

I will not probably be staying here. Although, it's a good time to be here

1:14:32

because I can talk to all the regulators. And I

1:14:34

think it's a critical time for tech around regulation.

1:14:37

So So I

1:14:38

will say this just as we get ready to sign off here. Like

1:14:40

I said, I have a million things more that I could talk to you about,

1:14:42

and I know you gotta go. But I will say this, you've

1:14:44

a the next iteration of a pivot conference that's happening --

1:14:47

Yeah. -- these podcasts will come out right in the

1:14:49

middle of it --

1:14:49

Right. -- in Miami. Mhmm.

1:14:50

And I wanna give you one opportunity just to,

1:14:52

like, just talk about when it's about I will say

1:14:55

this. The website says the following, which I thought.

1:14:57

So a rare moment. Almost a hundred percent

1:14:59

certain that you would not say these words

1:15:01

that they were put in your mouth, which

1:15:03

is that there's that Miami is the perfect backdrop for

1:15:05

the event that you might say. But it claims that Miami is America's,

1:15:07

quote, most vibrant and future

1:15:10

forward city. Yeah. Would you like to stand by that quote? What was truth? Like my

1:15:13

you know, all these people are saying most

1:15:15

future forwards in

1:15:15

this country? Probably right now.

1:15:18

Yes. I would stand by

1:15:20

that. I think it's interesting.

1:15:22

I think a lot of people are going there.

1:15:24

There's a lot of interesting stuff going on. And, you

1:15:26

know, Rhonda Santa's aside, it's there's some interesting

1:15:29

a lot of Silicon Valley people that are actually trying to

1:15:31

make that happen there as I as I've been saying before. It's Florida. Let me just

1:15:33

explain something to

1:15:36

you. It's freezing

1:15:36

here, and I'm going to Miami to do my conference. How about that? You're just

1:15:39

you're basically just stucking up to the you're sucking up to the host.

1:15:40

They have the

1:15:42

most fast forward weather. In

1:15:45

the future for in in the

1:15:47

middle of February, my end is the most future for We're doing some crypto stuff. We're doing

1:15:51

NFT stuff. We're doing, you know, audio porn. We're doing

1:15:54

YouTube media. It's a good place to do it. It's a very good

1:15:56

place to Magic Leap is down there.

1:15:58

We're gonna have the CEO of Magic Leap.

1:16:00

So a

1:16:02

little bit more in the pivot. You know, code is

1:16:04

kind of like the the more stately one,

1:16:06

and this is more like Roman on

1:16:09

succession. That's the conference we're having, Roman's conference. We're gonna be a lot of Dick Picks

1:16:11

being this pastime. I hope not. Talk

1:16:11

to your son.

1:16:11

I'm gonna try to rein Scott

1:16:13

in as much

1:16:15

as possible. So It's

1:16:18

the only

1:16:18

thing I can think of on someone since we have a rumbling

1:16:20

tolerance. PIVots like that. PIVots a little more of a party. It's more of a like an Italian

1:16:22

family yelling at each other. I don't know. It's all kinds of things.

1:16:27

But it's it's looser. looser. I know people that in Miami are

1:16:29

looking forward to it, and I will say that if

1:16:31

you could please -- Mhmm. -- figure out for

1:16:34

me whether there is a way for me

1:16:36

to pay with

1:16:38

either crypto or particularly with with valueless NFTs for my audio porn. If that's, like, one of the things

1:16:40

you could find out later.

1:16:42

I will ask Caroline Spiegel. I'm

1:16:46

she'd be happy to take your Bitcoin or whatever, your

1:16:48

stable coin or your doze coin or

1:16:50

whatever. And I'm sure Elon will lend it

1:16:52

to you because he's got

1:16:53

plenty. Like, god.

1:16:54

That's the whole crypt. I think we can talk about that

1:16:56

all

1:16:56

day long, but That's

1:16:57

another topic. That's a whole other kettle of fish. Very

1:17:00

important despite all the douchebags

1:17:02

involved is a very important trend. We

1:17:04

can talk about that

1:17:05

later, but

1:17:05

it is. That's a great sign off. It's very important despite all the douchebags involved in that.

1:17:07

Could have said that about

1:17:09

the Internet in

1:17:11

nineteen ninety six John's because

1:17:12

that's true of Silicon Valley for the past forty

1:17:14

years. Side of

1:17:14

the douchebags,

1:17:15

it's a big idea. Big. Charles Thank you.

1:17:19

Thank you, John. a Thanks again to Carol Swisher for

1:17:21

being with us. If you like this episode, please

1:17:23

subscribe to Helen High Water and

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