From Tim Cook to Bill Gates to Mark Zuckerberg, Kara Swisher has interviewed nearly every tech executive imaginable since she began covering the dawn of the internet age at The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal in the 1990s. Known for her quick wit—seasoned with salty language—and hard-hitting questions, she’s constantly questioning the status quo and putting honesty at the forefront of her content. 

Silicon Valley’s top media maven discussed her journey as a truth teller in tech at a recent Dean’s Speaker Series, in conversation with Fernanda Kasper Ortolan, MBA 25, and Ashley Wong, MBA 25. The talk has been released as the debut episode in the new UC Berkeley Haas Dean’s Speaker Series podcast, available this week all podcast platforms.

Swisher’s recent New York Times bestseller, “Burn Book: A Tech Love Story,” published earlier this year, details many of her encounters with the world’s wealthiest and most powerful tech founders—some of whom she’s been following since the start of their careers.  

“I met a lot of them when they weren’t who they are,” she said. “They didn’t have immense wealth that protected them. And when you get immense wealth, you suddenly have a chief of staff or a chef or a driver or this and that. And so, they weren’t protected in that way, and they wanted to tell you about what they were doing. They were founders. They were almost religious about what they were making. And so, I was eager to hear about it.”

Being the “young person” on the team, Swisher said she understood her assignment to the tech beat, where she instantly found herself attuned to the changing digital landscape—both in regard to the content she was reporting on and the very way that content was being covered. 

But being young, she said she often faced pushback from higher-ups who wanted to embrace tradition. 

“I did understand the basic concept that everything…that could be digitized would be digitized,” she said. “And I think I got that before a lot of people and accepted it in the way people in the media—they were perfectly happy to put out a print newspaper. And I was like, ‘I’m sorry, I hate to tell you, but the Gutenberg Bible has just been invented.’”

Known for her no-holds-barred reporting, Swisher added that being “dead honest,” while not always the most well-received, has actually been an asset throughout her career, from commiserating with Steve Jobs over Apple’s failed social network, iTunes Ping, to having her feedback appreciated by executives like Tim Cook and Satya Nadella.

“On some level, these people get licked up and down all day and do not hear the truth,” she said. “And I think they appreciate someone who tells them the truth in an honest way because they’re living in such a bubble of their thing. And if someone says, ‘That’s not good,’ they’re not used to it. And some of them welcome it.”

Swisher bemoaned the time wasted in tech solving “small problem”—such as a “digital” dry cleaning startup—and urged students interested in entrepreneurship to “pick something that has an enormous market that really is of a great need,” such as climate change technology.  

“You could see what’s happening in North Carolina or Florida or anywhere else all the time. We are in the midst of a climate crisis. It’s just going to spin out of control,” she said. “And so, you have to sort of pick something that is meaningful versus something that is meaningless.”

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

KARA SWISHER: I’m willing to change when other people aren’t and I move on from things. I think a lot of people stay, whether it’s jobs or bad marriages or whatever, they happen to stay in. They stay in them, and I just don’t, I’m like, time to go and I go.

[INTRO MUSIC PLAYS]
ASHLEY WONG: From the Haas School of Business at the University of California Berkeley, this is the Dean’s Speaker Series Podcast. I’m Ashley, a Haas MBA student and member of the Dean’s Speaker Series board. Every semester we bring in a diverse mix of top business leaders from across the world to share their stories and lessons on being an effective leader. We’re now sharing them with you in the form of a podcast. If you enjoy this discussion, please subscribe and come back for more. Thanks for listening.

JENNY CHATMAN: Hello. Welcome. Hi. I am your interim dean, Jenny Chatman. Welcome to today’s Dean Speaker Series. I am more than thrilled to introduce our guest, Kara Swisher. I’m kind of a groupie. She’s kind of a hero of mine. And so I can’t believe that she had time to come and see us. We’re so thrilled.
Before I do the introduction, let me just tell you, from a housekeeping standpoint, our logistics, you have cards on your chairs, and you can use those to write down any questions that you have and then pass them out, and we will be picking them up. Sarah and Kerry will be picking them up. When you write your question, please also write your name and what program you’re from because we would like to know that.
OK. So now, to the introduction. We all know Kara from her hard-hitting, fast-talking, and riveting podcasts. I was just listening to an interview with Pete Buttigieg on. He’s incredibly articulate. You matched his level of articulation, I would say. And pivot her former podcast with Berkeley alum and NYU Stern professor–

KARA SWISHER: Current podcast.

JENNY CHATMAN: Oh, current. Sorry.

KARA SWISHER: I have four a week.

JENNY CHATMAN: Oh, god.

KARA SWISHER: Five when I was doing Succession, but that’s over.

JENNY CHATMAN: Yeah. The Succession one I haven’t heard yet. I’m doing one, and it’s like a full time job for me. So I can’t even imagine more. OK. So Pivot is the other one. And then there are more.
So Kara was one of the first journalists to recognize the potential of the internet and the power of its rising stars. And so since the ’90s, she’s been chronicling the rise of tech through writing in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the New York Magazine, Washington Post, and many, many more.
She’s interviewed far more people than I could list here. Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Sheryl Sandberg, Bob Iger, Meg Whitman, Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg, Hillary Clinton recently. It’s earned her a reputation as Silicon Valley’s most feared, but also most well-liked journalist, which is a very, very difficult combination to pull off. And now she’s examining the political domain with the same directness and no nonsense approach that we’ve all come to appreciate.
Kara has written two previous books, including an account of the doomed merger between AONL and Time Warner called There Must Be A Pony In Here Somewhere. Most recently, she published a memoir all about this wild world that she’s been inhabiting and what it means for the future of technology. Appropriately, it’s called Burn Book, A Tech Love Story.
Best of all, Kara is actually optimistic about Tech’s potential. I hope she’ll tell us about what kind of leaders, ideally human, not AI, are necessary now to steer us in the right direction. So thank you Kara, so much for joining us today. Please help me welcome her.
[APPLAUSE]

Sorry. I forgot to introduce our esteemed student interviewers, most important of all, Fernanda Kasper Ortolan and Ashley Wong, who are going to lead today’s discussion. Thank you both.
[APPLAUSE]

FERNANDA KASPER ORTOLAN: I can’t even say how honored but also a little bit scared. Of course, we are to interview you. My name is Fernanda. I’m a full time MBA student from Brazil, and I previously worked in tech startups transitioning to big tech companies.

ASHLEY WONG: I’m Ashley, also a current second year MBA student, exploring innovation and technology in the food systems and sustainability space. We are so excited to have this conversation with you today, Kara, which will undoubtedly be very rich given your expertise in just about everything.

KARA SWISHER: Yeah, everything. I’m good at everything, just so you know.

ASHLEY WONG: So segue into our first question. Across your career, you’ve investigated, written about, and to this day, are able to speak eloquently on topics from tech, finance, politics, media, culture, climate change, sustainability. How do you stay up to date and knowledgeable on cross-industry trends and emerging topics? How do you choose what projects to pursue, given your wide range of interests?

KARA SWISHER: That’s interesting. Obviously, I’m not a genius. I didn’t win the MacArthur Fellowship again this year, which I think I’ve been cheated out of that. But I’m just an interested, curious person. And I think curiosity can get you a lot of places.
I know it sounds kind of glib, but I’ve always been super curious about whatever I happen to do. And I think one of the things that it combines with is I do have an entrepreneurial nature and an interest in changing and shifting, which is what brought me here to Silicon Valley in the 1990s and kept me in the sector as it was growing. I met all the main characters in this when they didn’t have any money or when they were in garages. In fact, Google was in a garage when I met the two founders, in Susan Wojcicki, who just recently died, sadly, tragically, at a very young age.
And so I’m someone who shifts a lot very similar to the stuff I cover. And so I think entrepreneurism is one part of it, is that I’m always interested in sort of, not the next thing, but an interesting thing for me. I’m willing to change when other people aren’t, and I move on from things. I think a lot of people stay, whether it’s jobs, or bad marriages, or whatever they happen to stay in. They stay in them, and I just don’t. I’m like, time to go, and I go.
And so I think that’s a really great quality in general in your life. And at the same time, I try really hard to make substantive content. There’s so much crap out there. And once someone just came up to me in the plane when I was on my way here from Washington, DC, where I live much of the time. I still have a house in San Francisco.
And they said, thank you so much for the word, craplets. And it was a word that Walt Musker and I used to describe shitty products. So we call them craplets. We hate crap blitz on your phone. We hate craplets journalism. We hate this. And so throughout my career, I’ve tried to make substantively good things, very similar to someone who cooks.
Or I think of myself as a maker of things. And so I think that’s probably what keeps me going, is making things that are delicious, or substantive, or nutritious, or whatever. I think about that all the time. I think about the product itself. And that does put me in line with people who make great products in Silicon Valley too. Like I’m very interested in people who make good things. And it doesn’t matter what it is.
And so I just think curiosity and a willingness to change. And the last thing, which is a big theme in my book, is mortality. I have a very keen sense of mortality. And a very close friend of mine is Anne Lamott, who wrote Operating Instructions. She’s amazing. And one of the lines in her books when she was– this friend of hers had cancer, and she was frittering away at some stupid thing that she was concerned with.
And her friend with cancer, who was going to die very quickly, looked at her and said, Annie, you don’t have that kind of time. And it took her a moment to realize, of course, she didn’t either, even though this woman knew her time frame. Annie was acting like she had unlimited time.
And so my dad died when I was five of a cerebral hemorrhage. He was 34. And since then, I’ve had a very keen sense of the amount of time we have on the planet for ourselves and stuff like that. So I don’t have time.

FERNANDA KASPER ORTOLAN: Thank you so much for your very personal response. And you’ve been really successful in industries that are traditionally very male-dominated, all while being an openly gay woman. How has that influenced your leadership style, and how do you navigate the industry? Does it have any influence?

KARA SWISHER: Yeah. It’s interesting you used the word openly gay. I think we need to rest that one because it’s like I’m just gay. That’s it. It’s sort of obvious from this outfit, obviously. Although now, straight ladies are dressing like this, so it’s really hard now. You’re like, what’s happening?
It is a male-dominated– tech is male-dominated, has been male-dominated. Reporting is not necessarily, but tech reporting certainly was. When I arrived at in covering tech, it was all sort of fanboy guys covering it. And they’re like, oh, Mr. Gates, what a giant head you have. How do you think of such great things? And I was like, I think his product is kind of shitty. I don’t know. I feel like it is. And so I think it was an asset for me to be a little different because I could see it out of that.
I also had, I think, a keen sense, and I think I wrote about this in the book, which was of the things– one of the first stories I wrote for the Wall Street Journal when I got here covering this beat, covering the internet beat really at its nascent stages, was that they would say things that weren’t true like a lot of the time.
Like we’re all in this together, but then they would have controlling shares. I was like, if we’re in it together, why do you have controlling shares? That seems to be– well, give me some of your controlling shares, so I can control it with you. But that was never the case.
Or I’m just a simple person. I just wear hoodies, and they were made of cashmere. And I was like, well, that’s a $700 hoodie. So you’re not a simple person. And there was a lot of cosplaying. And so every industry has cosplaying. And so it was really interesting– Or we don’t have titles here. That was one that went on and on in early internet times.
But Jerry Yang was always Chief Yahoo, and they were always juvenile titles too. And like, what are you, 12? Like essentially. And so I was really riveted. And I think if I had been like them, I wouldn’t have noticed how ridiculous it was. And so a lot of my early articles are about pointing these things out.
And they were funny. I did them in a funny way, so it wasn’t just mean. Well, they were mean, but it was mean funny. And so I think it was a breath of fresh air for people reading about it. And at the same time, I was covering something that was really, truly exciting this new shift.
And I did understand the basic concept that everything, and I wrote this in the book, everything that could be digitized would be digitized. And I think I got that before a lot of people and accepted it in the way people in the media didn’t. They were perfectly happy to put out a print newspaper. And I was like, I’m sorry, I hate to tell you, but the Gutenberg Bible has just been invented, and you better get the fuck out of the way, monks. You know what I mean, that kind of thing. And so I had a keen sense of history also. They were monks. And I was like, hey, monks, you’re done.

ASHLEY WONG: Like you mentioned, I think your frankness and your fresh perspective led you to early on success as a journalist and reporter. What else do you think was the secret to your ability to build deep relationships with high level industry leaders and securing their trust and honesty? Do you think that approach still works today?

KARA SWISHER: Some of them. Some of them. Some of them. I met a lot of them when they weren’t who they are, right? Jeff Bezos was wearing pleated khakis and overshirts, and he didn’t have muscles. None. So let’s put a pin in that. But they were all very– Elon didn’t have hair. Now he has hair. They’re all different and wasn’t crazy as now. Beyond crazy now. It’s toxic and horrible.
But they were not who they were. So it’s very easy to get– if you know someone at the beginning of their career, they would welcome you to talk to them. I mean, Jeff would call me all the time. He’d want to be written about in the Wall Street Journal. And so in the power differential, I had the power.
And so a lot of them were very interested in what they were doing. And so they wanted to tell you about it at the time. And they were not surrounded by enablers. They didn’t have immense wealth that protected them. And when you get immense wealth, you suddenly have a chief of staff, or a chef, or a driver, or this and that. And so they weren’t protected in that way.
And they wanted to tell you about what they were doing because they were founders. They were almost religious about what they were making. And so I was eager to hear about it. And so that was one thing. The other thing was I do think, especially some of them were established like Steve Jobs or– it’s interesting. I just interviewed Bill Gates last week. It’s up today. Yesterday, I guess it went up. No. Today or yesterday.
Anyway, we did not get along for much of me covering him and everything else. And we ended up doing a great interview yesterday. He’s doing quite a good series on Netflix about the future. It’s very well done, I have to say. And we did this great interview.
And at the beginning of the interview, he’s like, oh, it’s you again. And at the end he goes, I really enjoyed that. And I said, see, I’m not an asshole. He goes, you’re still an asshole, but I enjoyed it because on some level, these people get licked up and down all day and do not hear the truth. And I think they appreciate someone who tells them the truth in an honest way because they’re living in such a bubble of their thing.
And if someone says, that’s not good, they’re not used to it. And some of them welcome it. But like Bob Iger does, like I’m trying to think of different things. Sundar Pichai does, Satya Nadella certainly does, because they’re adults. Tim Cook does. He and I had a big argument about I was visiting him during the recent iPhone event. And he was saying how something was so great. I was like, not so great. And he’s like, what? And I go, not so great. Like I’m sorry. I know these people are telling you it’s great, but it isn’t.
And they appreciate that because they get new information. And so the adults like it. The children cut you off. Elon, for example. The ones who are the badly raised children, not the children because the children are generally good people. I have four children, so they’re generally good people.

FERNANDA KASPER ORTOLAN: So you’ve mentioned how you embrace change and also how the landscape of tech journalism is evolving. But we see a lot of other changes that have happened over the last few decades. So the rise of social media, media conglomerates, changing how people consume information. How is all of that changing how we see journalism? And mainly as journalists, as a journalist, how do you see the future landscape evolving for people who want to get into the area?

KARA SWISHER: Right. It’s difficult. I mean, I think I recognize it early, which is why I left the mainstream right to create entrepreneurial new media things. Now everybody’s doing it like. I went to dinner with Casey Newton, who does a great platform and newsletter, and I’m the one who urged him to leave a company I also am a shareholder because he had a lot more– he was more entrepreneurial.
And so I think one of the things that Walt and I did very early, Walt Mossberg and I, is we did it initially within the Wall Street Journal. We did a skunkworks within the Wall Street Journal to create all things D. Because we understood that people were going to consume differently.
And this went back to when I was at the Washington Post. And I started covering digital services as it was called at the time, and AOL was the tiny little company. It was a tiny little company. And then now, it’s again a tiny little company. But actually, it’s doing OK under the new configuration it’s in.
But one of the things that was hard for me was they gave me that beat because I was the young person at the time. And I went there and immediately understood what was going to happen. If everything could be digitized and everything could go online, information was the very first thing.
And I had studied propaganda and information systems at Columbia and Georgetown. That was my area. And so it was very easy to understand. This was one of those radio to TV, TV to internet. You could see it. You’re like, oh. And then you could see that– I downloaded a book, and I was like, oh, dear. What’s going to happen to books. I downloaded a song. I was like, oh, you’re going to carry it in your pocket. And so you could start to see that.
And so in journalism, they really didn’t. They loved that print newspaper. And I think being younger and being sort of understanding the way information systems flow was a good thing or understanding historically. And so I would be in meetings at the Wall Street Journal where they would go, like let’s have a Saturday journal. I’m like, why? Why do we want that? Well, how can we get young people to read the newspaper? That was their favorite meeting that they would have.
And in the book, I recount, I go to the meeting. And they’re like, how can we get young people to read– I was the young person at the time. Now I’m not. But they were like, how can we get young people to read newspaper? And I put my hand up, and I’m like, OK, Kara. Like oh, no. What is she going to say?
And I said, you should tape a joint between every page because they’re not fucking going to read the newspaper otherwise. Like, what are you doing? Like, why are you doing it in a system that they’re not consuming? And it kills trees. So bad bad all around. And they were like, well, this is the way we do it. They that was always the way. This is the way we do it. And I said, well, there’s other ways to do it.
And so that kept happening to me at my different meetings. And I’d write a story. Like I wrote a story about Webvan, I did the reporting. It was a fucking clusterfuck. Like I’m sorry. It was going to lose money. And I kept going, math says this is not going to work, but the idea of it was going to work. The delivery, the concept was big, but their particular company was screwed over because of the way they created it. It was too expensive. It was too early. The tools weren’t– it’s like all kinds of reasons.
And I wrote the story saying, clusterfuck, essentially. That’s what I said. I didn’t say it like that because you can’t do that in the Wall Street Journal, although you should be able to. And so they were like, oh, this is interesting, but can you get someone else to say what you just said? And I was like, I did the reporting, and I declared a clusterfuck. Like this is what it is. Can you get someone else?
And I was like, why should I? I have analyzed the situation. I’ve done the reporting. I should be able to tell readers who trust me and my work to think. They wouldn’t let me do that. And then they made me put in a sentence that I said I would never let happen.
And when I created a media company, which was the to be sure statement. Have you read that.? To be sure, some people say Elon Musk is a reasonable person these days. And I’m like, to be sure, that is not true. If you like or don’t like him, he’s not a reasonable person anymore. And let me show you the misinformation he’s spewing on a daily basis. He used to be different, but now he’s this way.
And so I didn’t want to write the to be sure statement anymore because it wasn’t true. It just was. It was an early version of both sides that wasn’t factual. And so I had the idea that Christiane Amanpour, who’s wonderful. Get truthful, not neutral. And I was like, that’s what I want to do. Truthful, you do the facts, you write it down, and you come to a conclusion. And that’s what I created. And that’s what people want, I think. As long as it’s substantive and factual.

FERNANDA KASPER ORTOLAN: As a quick follow-up, is there anything that you see currently in the journalism industry that people just take for granted and also believe that it is how things are done, that you want people to break from?

KARA SWISHER: Everything. Like the finance, the economics are crazy. Like that’s what we saw early on. And one of the things that I would just sit there, and I’m like, the Washington Post is going off a cliff. I saw classifieds, and then I saw Craigslist. And I went to Don Graham, and I’m like, hey, Craigslist. And he goes, oh, classifieds will be business forever. I’m like, no, no. They’re static. They are expensive. Customer service experience is shitty. The people are mean when you’re buying an ad. And they don’t work. That’s the last one. I was like, so what a great business. And you’re overcharging people. I don’t even understand why.
Same thing with movie theaters. They’re dirty, they’re expensive. The experience is bad. Oh, please. Let’s foist this on the consumer. Eventually, when the consumer has a choice of being at home, they’ll go home. And so with media, we were delivering, including entertainment.
Like albums. I like an album, but people didn’t want to buy it that way. It’s better to buy individual songs for people. Or it’s in your pocket, and it’s digital. They just were ignoring in the newspapers how people– people didn’t want to print newspaper. They wanted it online. People wanted it in different ways, like TikTok or whatever. This was later.
And the people who made it just didn’t want to provide it. And so the costs at some point were going to hit the revenues. And I just saw that way before it goes. So I created businesses where the revenues and the costs, the costs were always here, and the revenues were always here. And if I couldn’t bring them into that line, I would get out of that business.
Luckily, the conference business was very lucrative. The way we did All Things D was very lucrative. Podcasts are very lucrative. Not for everybody, but if you do– I have three employees on each of my podcasts, right? We make so much money, it’s crazy. And every time the New York Times writes an article, you can’t make money in podcasting, I’m like, you can’t, but I can.
And that was another thing. When Steve Jobs and I did an interview, he explained, podcast– he actually kind of named it. He’s like iPod, broadcasting, podcasting. He literally said that on stage like 15 years ago at least or more. And I was like, oh, yes. And then when you have an intimate relationship, and the phone is in place, and you have really good hearing, it becomes something a really interesting way.
And so I had the conference business, but I was like, oh, no. Let’s move it to the podcast business because I can reach more people. And so the way media is configured right now, it’s really bad. It’s the economics are terrible, and the audience is dropping for traditional.
I had a meeting with some people at one of the cable networks today, CNN, who I work at, I like a lot, and I think they do a great job. But I was literally like, how in the world are you paying your anchors $20 million? What are we getting for $20 million? Because that means you have to make $60 million. You know what I mean? Like are they worth $60 million? Because that’s really the number that you have to pay them out.
And so whenever I’m pitching a business to people, I’m like, with the box, the one I have right now, I own the IP because I want to own it. I’m sick of Rupert Murdaugh owning my IP, for example. And so we do a revenue split. And if we all do well, we all do well. If we don’t, we all don’t. And that seems to be the fairest way to do a business.
And so I think going forward, every media concern has to justify costs and revenues and have interests that are aligned with each other. And that didn’t happen before. And so you have to do that. So most media companies will be small and not these big behemoths. The only exception is the New York Times. But it doesn’t really make that much money if you actually look at the– it’s like a very small amount of revenue.
It’s a decent amount of revenue, but it’s not a big profit. But that’s what’s considered a winner at this point. And they do a great job. But it’s mostly cooking, games, and other things, right? And of course, the reporters are like, that’s not nice. I’m like, well, you should go kiss the people over at games, like yesterday, and say thank you so much for attracting so many customers. They don’t do that. They don’t kiss them. I kiss them. I write them love notes all the time.

ASHLEY WONG: Well, thinking about the consumer, on one hand, we’re seeing astounding levels of information becoming democratized. On the other hand, we’re seeing increased misinformation, deepfakes, privacy concerns. And with this likely reshaping how we consume trust, interact with information, how do you think we can build our muscle to become better consumers of information, or are we doomed?

KARA SWISHER: OK. That’s the choice. I have to say I’m very heartened by younger people. I think the real problem is people 30 to 55 who are fucking nuts online. They really are. Did you see this? I’m like untrue. Like it’s ridiculous. Like can you do any kind of due diligence on anything you read?
My son is like, oh, mom. There was one. Something just happened. I forget which– Anyway, he goes, mom, everyone knew that. He calls me chief. He goes, chief, everyone knows that be stupid. Like everyone know that be sex. It was. It was Pavel Durov at Signal. He’s like, oh, that’s the sex, and weapon, and drug buying place. Like young people know all these things. So I’m not worried about young people, particularly. Teens, I am on some level.
But I am worried about how much information comes in. And I did a good interview with Barry Diller many years ago, and I think he really nailed it. And he said, they’re talking about citizen journalism. And someone’s like, citizen journalism is the best thing. And he goes, yeah, what about citizen surgery? Would you like that happening? And I was like, that’s really mean and great. That was true. He was right.
And so I think some of it’s really good, and some of it’s really interesting, like getting all these photos from North Carolina, from all kinds of people. You really do. Media can’t get there in that way. And you really do get a sense of what’s happening.
I think the problem is with every one of these things, malevolent players come in to take advantage of it, to take advantage of whatever’s happening and will repeat lie, after lie, after lie. And so the lies get mixed in with the truth. And therefore, it’s hard to understand what’s real. And that’s to the advantage of malevolent players.
I think one of the issues is our government has not regulated this ever. I was just on that yell fest that Abby Phillip does, who’s terrific on CNN. And the guy, the Trump guy started going on about all the laws that are constricting free speech on the social media networks.
And first, he named Reed Hastings. He was talking about Reed Hoffman, and he said, Reed Hastings. And I was like, OK, I understand you’re an idiot. So let’s start there. And I said, it’s Reed Hoffman, not Reed Hastings. He goes, oh, did I get it wrong? I go, you didn’t even know what they look like. One’s tall and skinny, one’s shorter and heavier. Like I don’t even know what to say to you.
But he then went on about all the laws restricting social media. And so I said, can I stop you for a second? And I said, how many laws restrict social media? And he’s like, hundreds. And I said, hundreds. Interesting, the number is zero. I was like, there aren’t hundreds. And again, you’re being willfully inaccurate, either because you’re dumb or you’re just a liar. So pick. I don’t know which one you are. And Abby Phillip is loving this.
And I was like, there’s zero laws whatsoever restricting anything. And some of it’s because of the First Amendment, but some of it is because our legislators are unwilling to regulate privacy, and data, and things like that. There’s not a national privacy bill. There’s not an algorithmic transparency law. The antitrust laws are back from 100 years ago when we were worried about the train cartel, which I think we needn’t be worried about anymore.
And so they’ve been unable to update it because of the enormous deleterious effects of wealth on lobbying. And I don’t blame these companies from lobbying. That’s their job, is not to have any laws against them. But for our most, the wealthiest citizens in the history of the world, running the most valuable companies in the history of the world, having no regulation is crazy. It’s astonishing, actually, when you think about it.
When every other industry, whether it’s airlines or pharmaceuticals– not enough. Sometimes, we make a mistake. The regulators make a mistake. Everyone else has laws they have to follow, including media, by the way. Rupert Murdaugh had $1 billion judgment against him because of his shitty, whatever he was doing over there. But he lost. He should have lost. You can’t sue these people even.
And so the only law in existence is a law that restricts suing these companies. So they have no regulations. They can’t be sued. And they control all communications. I don’t know why we wonder why we are where we are.

ASHLEY WONG: Glad you brought up regulation because with Congress forming an AI working group, the recent antitrust lawsuit against Google, what long term effects do you see these regulatory pressures having on big tech? Do you think they’ll restore balance or–

KARA SWISHER: It’s like a parking ticket to these people now at this point. I wrote a piece 10 years ago when Google tried to buy Yahoo. I was like, no. Like 98% market share is too much, I feel. And the regulators didn’t step in and do anything when they had the chance. And now, they’re in a lawsuit that does something about the past. Like searches changed and moved on.
And so they didn’t stop this. And now, Google and others are leveraging into the AI business. Most of the AI businesses are owned by these companies now. And so they own the future and the past. And so, again, that’s their job, is to try to be the Borg. On some level, I’m like, yeah, that’s what they’re going to do. They’re in the business of shareholders.
What our elected officials should be doing is understanding and regulating them in a way that preserves innovation, which they scream about. Their big thing is if you regulate anything, our vibe is going to be hit. It’s ridiculous. It’s not true. Like every other business is not constricted by regulation. Sometimes, it is.
But in general, safety issues around AI. We have an opportunity to do safety stuff. I didn’t also like this bill that Scott Wiener did. I like Scott a lot, but it was overreach in a lot of ways. But there is a way to get to AI safer.
But California shouldn’t be regulating AI. It should be the federal government. I mean, there’ll be 50 different AI regulations. And then there’s global AI regulation. It’s crazy. And that makes it difficult to do business well if you have to follow 120 different legislators. Two of whom from, say, Missouri, are as dumb as a box of hammers. Missouri is not a great state for AI regulation. They lost in the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court for once did the right thing in these days around some of these crazy laws they want to put into place.

FERNANDA KASPER ORTOLAN: Talking about the future of tech outside of regulation, in your recent book, Burn Book, you did mention that tech has lost its humanity. Many people in this room want to work in tech or have worked in tech, and maybe will rise to become leaders in this segment. What advice would you give on how to restore humanity back to tech, and what will set tech leaders apart in the future?

KARA SWISHER: Yeah. Well, stop being such an asshole. That’s what I told my kids. Don’t be an asshole. I do think there’s a deleterious effect of wealth, although there’s a lot of people who are– I like Tim Cook. I like Satya Nadella. I think they act like adults. It depends on the person.
But I think the concentration of power into the hands of a very few people in our history has never worked. It’s like this is not a new, fresh thing. If you go back and look at all kinds of different inflection points in history around industry and business, there’s always been a need to concentrate. It’s always a bad impulse. It’s good for the concentrator, but it’s not good for society at large.
And so that’s why we had our antitrust bills. That’s why we had our breaking up of AT&T. And it always results in more innovation. If Microsoft hadn’t been sued by the government, Google wouldn’t have existed. And it always opens up the field for competition. And I think people shouldn’t be scared of competition. Competition makes everybody better.
And when they talk about innovation, they talk about preserving their innovation, not allowing other innovation to flourish. And when you have something like AI, which is so expensive. It’s not like the internet. This is really expensive, what’s happening next. And so it’s natural that the bigger players are going to dominate.
But it shouldn’t be that way. Who knows what idea is going to die in the crib if we don’t do this? I’m not sure what you can do about their humanity. Some of them are just bent people with enormous power. I don’t know what to say. Therapy? You can’t force them to take therapy.
In general, I’m very heartened by meeting a lot of young entrepreneurs because I think they do understand a little better, especially climate change entrepreneurs. It’s much more diverse. What’s interesting about this DEI thing, first of all, everyone has excess. Every push to do anything has excess. That’s true.
But at the same time, there’s never been a bigger beneficiary of government largesse than many tech companies, right? That’s the thing. They benefit from their DEI, but they don’t want anyone else to benefit. So it’s an interesting discussion.
And the other thing I always say about DEI is that if you have a homogeneous group of people creating things, you are going to get– the reason tech is unsafe, a lot of social media is unsafe is because the people who created it have never felt unsafe a day in their lives. And I know this. I have three sons. I get it. They’re like this.
And it was interesting. I was talking to my son, who’s at University of Michigan. And I just hired someone for the thing, and it’s a woman. And he notices these things. And I have a woman investment banker, a woman lawyer, a woman accountant. Most of my staff are women. Just are. I have a man. I have men. I have other different people. And I just go for the qualified person.
And he goes, well, you have a lot of women on your staff. That’s discriminatory. I go, it is. And he goes, well. And I go, yes. Look at that. Isn’t that terrible when people are hired for just their gender? It’s interesting. And we had a great discussion about it.
And he’s like, I think you should hire a White man. And I said, OK, I’ll hire you as an intern at some point. I’ll do nepotism. I’ll do I actually have my son Louis on the podcast, and we call it the Nepisode. But 300 emails after he came on. So therefore, I’m going to do a podcast with him because I can look at market research.
But I don’t know what you– think there’s a deleterious effect of too much wealth. I think if someone’s going to be a trillionaire, they’re going to think they’re god-like. I don’t know what to do about that. Better taxing? I don’t know if that’ll help. And you don’t know who’s going to turn out well and who doesn’t. Mark Cuban used to be such a jackass, and now he’s terrific. Like I don’t know what happened. He had kids. I don’t know what happened.
And so I just think the best thing to do is not concentrate power in the hands of one or two people because you don’t know what you’re going to get and what’s going to happen to them. Like non-concentration of power in the hands of people and sharing it with the rest of the world seems the best way to combat bad actors.
And the last thing is there’s always going to be bad actors. The tech is a tool or a weapon, and it is often a weapon. It’ll always be a weapon. If you don’t think it’s going to be a weapon, you’re wrong. Every single tool has been used as both. So the reason it’s called a Tech Love Story is because it can be used as a tool in so many amazing ways. Whether it’s with AI, whether it’s drug discovery, or cancer research, or all kinds of amazing things.
It could also be used as a weapon very easily. Misinformation, propaganda. And if you don’t think– I had a really interesting discussion this week with a VC, where he started spewing some stuff. And I put up Vladimir Putin’s talking points. I said, you just repeated without knowing Vladimir Putin’s talking points.
He goes, I don’t like Russia. I said, well, you seem to Russia because you literally just said word for word what Vladimir Putin says. And I said, and if you think Russia is our friend, are you fucking kidding me? Like hear me, San Francisco liberal lesbian telling him, Russia’s a problem. Like that’s a weird world we live in.
And so they are not our friend, OK? Let me be clear. Neither is China. They’re not our friend. They have a different system which enjoys autocracy. We are not an autocratic country. And so it what’s really interesting is that they themselves are subject to propaganda and have been bent by it.
And so I always try to point it out to them and then send it to them and say, this is what he said, and this is what you said. Now do you believe that, or has it been repeated to you, or you just want to be in the group that’s become radicalized right now, which they don’t like to look at themselves.
There’s not as many of them as you think. They’re just louder. A lot of the people remain pretty tolerant and pretty open-minded in tech. It’s just the ones that are not have gotten super loud, more than others. So that’s my take.
If you look at the list of sort of I would say Kamala supporters, it would be Reed Hastings, Reed Hoffman, Bill Gates, Vinod Khosla. They’re all stars, every one of them. It’s really interesting. Mark Cuban. They’re all– Sheryl Sandberg is in there. Lisa Su. There’s a whole bunch of them. And they’re all like stars.
When you go to the other side, it’s Elon and Peter Thiel, unquestionably great investor, great entrepreneur, and then it’s the Winklevoss brothers. And you’re like, it drops off rather fast. It really does. David Sacks. Like he had a shitty company, Microsoft closed, and he spent $30 million to speak at the Republican convention. That’s pretty much his entire qualifications. And so it does drop off pretty frigging fast with those people.
And I think most of tech people who are smart really just aren’t political at all. I find them non-political really in a lot of ways. And mostly like, just let me make my stuff. And so they’re just super loud, these other people.
They also have opinions about Ukraine. Do we really want to hear an opinion about Ukraine from a venture capitalist? We do not. We do not. You do not. I know you guys think you want to, but you don’t. Because they don’t know what they’re talking. Neither do I. Don’t listen to my opinions about Ukraine either, although I know more than they do. But I still don’t know much.

JENNY CHATMAN: So should we move to questions?

KARA SWISHER: Sure.

JENNY CHATMAN: OK. So here’s one from Darren, full time MBA ’26. That means he started this year. Darren says you’ve often spoken of Silicon Valley as a place where very smart people ask very small questions, i.e. digital drycleaners.

KARA SWISHER: Yeah. I used to call it San Francisco assisted living for millennials because I was like, they’re like, I’ve got a dry cleaner for you, Carol. It’s digital. I’m like, OK. It goes, the clothes are not digital. There’s no fucking way it’s digital. It’s just on an app, right? They tried to pretend everything was digital, so it used to drive me crazy.
And it gets a little vexing after a while. Like can you think of nothing better than to deliver food faster to you in a business that’s losing money? Like, I really don’t think that’s an innovation. I think you’re just using VC money to enjoy yourselves.

JENNY CHATMAN: I haven’t asked the question yet.

KARA SWISHER: I know. I know what the question is. Sorry, go ahead.

JENNY CHATMAN: Should I go on the question?

KARA SWISHER: Yeah. Go ahead.

JENNY CHATMAN: OK. All right. So here’s the question. How would you advise aspiring tech leaders such that we might avoid this trap?

KARA SWISHER: Well, you think of big ideas. One of the reasons I did have a very long term and interesting relationship with Elon Musk because he had big ideas. He was talking about cars, he was talking about solar, he was talking about space. These are big fucking and difficult ideas. And that was great because I was dealing with him and the dry cleaning people. And of course, I would want to talk to him. And he really did accomplish quite a lot in that area. He’s gone off the rails at this point. But that said, it was really interesting.
And so what I would advise is like one of the columns I wrote a couple of years ago in the New York Times was, and I made this up, I said, the world’s first trillionaire is going to be a climate change entrepreneur technologist. And I just made it up. I just said it.
And I really did believe it. It’s like pick something that has an enormous market, like that really is of a great need. And as you can see what’s happening in North Carolina, or Florida, or anywhere else all the time. We are we’re in the midst of a climate crisis that’s just going to spin out of control.
There is all kinds of technological solutions, whether it’s hydrogen power, whether it’s nuclear, whether it’s fusion, whether it’s– to me, you go where the puck is going, and we have to figure out, including space travel, by the way. I’d never leave this planet, but I think we will. I think as a population, we’re going to have to at some point.
And so you have to pick something that is meaningful versus something that is meaningless. Another food delivery service? I’m sorry. I don’t know how innovative you can get. Food systems, absolutely. What an interesting thing. How we make food, how we deliver food, how we get nutrition. The energy efficiency, clothes making, everything has a technological aspect.
And so the link between digital and analog, I think is really interesting. That’s what I’m writing about my next book about, is that– Health care, another area. Incredible strides happening in the health care that are just mind-blowing when you think– the idea of solving cancer in this generation I think is very doable. And you’ve got some amazing academics here and at Stanford. Karen Bertozzi, Jennifer Doudna. Yeah, there’s lots.

JENNY CHATMAN: You said mostly here. OK.

KARA SWISHER: You can spread it around. I know it’s a country club, but Stanford has some very good academics.

JENNY CHATMAN: OK. So we have another full time MBA from class of ’25. Oh, so this is a second year student. Jacqueline Gattuso. Given the way tech changes how our brains work, shifting neural connections, nervous system proportions of neurochemicals, et cetera, do you feel that we can use it responsibly? If so, how?

KARA SWISHER: Well, not without regulation, right? Like lots of products can change us. And then if they’re deleterious, we get rid of them or whatever. Red dye number 3. Like everything that physically affects us, we do that with.
And one of the things I’m most concerned about just as a parent is what’s happening with teens, especially both men and women, by the way. What’s happening to men around porn addiction and loneliness is really a problem because it’ll be a problem for the rest of us. Trust me.
Someone on my show was like, why are you always talking about the difficulties of men? This is Scott’s area of thing. And I was like, because men or bear, we’re picking bear now, right? I mean, we can’t pick bear. We can’t be more scared of sad, lonely, addicted, unsocialized men. That’s a real problem. You have to think about it.
There’s a good story in the New York Times this week about the differences of development of young men and women, which you all should read. It’s really something. Not everybody. But the living at home, the loneliness, the isolation, everything else.
So I do think about why we haven’t regulated any of this, or thought about, or demanded to know from these companies what the actual impact of– we do that with drugs. We do that with food. We do that with everything else. Why not this?
Because they hide behind the First Amendment. It has nothing to do with the First Amendment. It’s foisting a product on us that might be hurting us. And are there ways to mitigate it? And are there ways to stress the positive benefits over the negative benefits.
And the problem is, and I just did a great interview with Vivek Murthy, who’s this surgeon general, who has zero power and a very cool suit, but he’s been calling attention to it, about this idea of how do you stress that the problem with these products is it’s not like all bad. Some of it’s really good. And so how do you separate the two from it?
And it is by nature, addictive. Tristan Harris has written about this. It’s addictive, and it’s necessary. You cannot not have it for your job and for your livelihood. So something that’s both addictive and impossible to separate yourself from is a real thing that our society has to think about.

JENNY CHATMAN: Great. We have one from Haiyun, who is an evening weekend MBA student class of ’27. And they ask, how can business school students ensure that they’re not contributing to craplets? OK, well, that’s the– he actually has a choice of three, so let me go to the second one. He says, in the vein of making tech leaders uncomfortable, what’s the one question that will throw them off despite their PR media training?

KARA SWISHER: They aren’t very good at PR, I’ll be honest with you. One of the reasons I think I’m successful, I think a lot of reporters ask questions in ways because they want to stay in a relationship with these people. Like they’re very scared about access. That’s a real– And I’ve had a lot of access, by the way.
But I think the best way to do it is to be dead honest with people. And often, I’ll be like, if you’re dead honest with them, it seems to me I’ve done really well by doing that. I don’t know why it works, but it does. And like at one point, Steve Jobs, who was a real prickly character, although now, he looks like a sweetheart.
But he was. He was in a lot of ways– He was a very complicated guy but very interesting and passionate person. When he came out of the back, they had just introduced Ping, this product. It was a social network that Apple did well. It was terrible. It was called Ping. It was around music, et cetera.
What they were doing was chasing Facebook and chasing– Apple never chases people, and they were. So it was a weak moment for them to chase in an area they had no expertise in. They were hardware makers and software makers. They were not social media makers.
And so he came out, and he’s like, what did you think of Ping? And I said, it sucks. And he goes, well, that’s not very nice. I said, well, it sucks. I don’t know what to tell you. It sucks. And he goes, it does suck. And I said, how did you let it happen? He goes, I know. I’m a fucking asshole. Why did I let it happen? And I was like, you should kill it. And he goes, I should kill it. And it like it was he knew it, right?
And so one of the things I tend to do is say when I’m in interviews, we sit down, and I was just at Apple. And Tim was like, what do you think of the new phone? I went, eeh, like a Larry David. And he goes, he goes, what do you mean eeh? I go, I like it. I like what you added. But eeh, the phone paradigm has to change rather drastically because we’re at the end of the cycle of how phones are.
Like I don’t think we’re going to need apps going forward because of AI. It’ll come and pull it for us, right? I said the whole phone paradigm has to change. So it’s fine. And he’s like, well, that’s not very nice. I said, what do you want? Like what do you want? Like a medal? What are you, a 12-year-old who wants a metal for everything you do? You stand up, you get a medal. I’m sorry. You don’t get a metal for adding a click thing on it. Like it’s a nice click thing. I’m happy it’s there. But I don’t know.
And so I think that works better. He did invite me back. He actually wrote me. He’s like, oh, that was interesting what you said about apps. And I was like, good. I got that through. So I think being honest is the best way. Just don’t make shitty stuff. Like you know what shitty stuff is, right? You all know, right? Not all of you. Some of you may be stupid. But some of the people–
Like when I was running my staff, I had a guy who would write all the time, all the time. Like he confused activity with productivity. That’s what he did. He was very active, but a lot of it was crap. It was just like a nothing burger of stories.
And so I said to him, I said, how can I explain to you what you’re doing? I said, here’s the deal, is you’re making a hot dog, right? I happen to like hot dogs, but a hot dog is not very good for you, and it’s not the finest food in the land.
And I said, you’re making hot dogs, and it’s a better hot dog than other hot dogs, but it’s still a fucking hot dog. Like I don’t care what you put on it, it’s a hot dog. Like it can be like a Chicago dog, I love them, But not good for you. Not good. Stop making fucking hot dogs. I was like, make something good. And so I think that’s what I say to people. You know it. You know when it’s bad. You just do. I know you know. And stop doing that. That’s what I said.

JENNY CHATMAN: Great.

KARA SWISHER: Stop making hot dogs. But eat them. They’re delicious.

JENNY CHATMAN: This is from Judy, who’s a marketing faculty member, who asks, how might as socially conscious future tech leaders reform the cultures of the places we go to work? Can we do it from the inside, or are we better off starting our own tech businesses?

KARA SWISHER: I think starting a business is better. I like that because I don’t like working in established organizations because I end up– I’m like, do I have to listen to you anymore? Like at one point, I left an organization. I tell this story, and they said, why are you leaving? I said, I don’t want to talk to you anymore. I can’t talk to you. You keep talking to me about things you don’t know about, and I’m barely concealing my rage at you.
And like I don’t want to be rude, but I just was rude by telling you I don’t want to talk to you anymore. And then I said, life’s too short, and you just took up 5 minutes that I don’t want to give you anymore. And so– she forced me into it, let me just say. I didn’t want to do this. I wanted to leave quietly out the back. But one of the– I got off my thing. What was the question, sorry?

JENNY CHATMAN: Can we change the culture from the inside?

KARA SWISHER: You can. I think what’s been difficult about, and you have narcissism as one of your topic areas, that a lot of people who are in tech right now. One is I do think it suffers from lack of diversity. And I don’t mean in the traditional sense of diversity.
I think of like I was always pushing to have more conservatives there. Age differences, places differences, economic differences. Homogeneous societies die. They do. In nature, they do. Heterogeneous societies are better, of all kinds of people. We have all kinds of people I disagree with on. I was telling backstage, I talked to Liz Cheney now all the time. I don’t know. I can’t believe it. Liz Cheney? Liz fucking Cheney? Here I am, like texting with her.
And one of the things that’s important to do that is to get the points of views into your thing. So you can go, oh. And that’s one of the beauties of pivot. Scott and I disagree all the time, but we do it in a civil way. We learn from each other. We change, him more than me, because he obviously needs to. But it’s a journey, we always say. But it’s really important.
And when I think about the attacks on DEI, I get the attacks because they can’t do whatever they want all the time now, some of these guys. I always say to them, I’m like, what’s the opposite of diversity, equity, inclusion? Lack of diversity, non-diversity, like this homogeneity. inequality. Exclusion. Is that any way to run a pizza joint? Like, I’m sorry. It’s not. It’s just not, if you start to take it apart.
And so I’m talking about many more voices versus just a few. Because you end up– Twitter was like this in the early days. I did a story, which I think I write about, which they had a board with 10 of the same exact White men. Now nothing wrong with White men. I have three sons. I love White men. But 10 of them of the same?
And so the lead I wrote was– and Twitter’s audience was so diverse. It was so interesting, the demographics of Twitter. Women, men, people of color. It was a very interesting mix of people on that platform once. Now it’s a Nazi porn bar, but that’s different. But it was really interesting if you looked at the audience statistics. And I was like, why don’t they have a board that reflects– because it’s easy to get board members compared to, whatever.
And so I wrote a lead that I said, on the board of Twitter, which has three Peters and a Dick, there’s some problems. And so the CEO called me, and it was a great lead. It was all about penises. And he called me, Dick Costolo. And he was the Dick I was speaking of. And he’s a comedy person. He laughed. He’s like, that’s really funny, but it’s so untrue.
And I go, no, no. Literally, how mathematically could you get to that group of people? And he goes, well, Kara, it’s about standards. That’s what he said to me. And he’s a good one, let me just say. And I said standards. It’s really interesting you only mentioned standards when you’re talking about women and people of color. You never mention it with you group who have driven Twitter into a wall over, and over, and over again, and you get to do it all the time. Your business is in a free fall. So it’s not standard. What’s the standard? Stupidity? And so I think diversity in all its forms is a better way to behave.

JENNY CHATMAN: You said there’s 10 of the same people on the board. My daughter would call that a broverdose.

KARA SWISHER: I call it a sausage fest. My sons hate when I do that. My poor sons. They’re so cool.

JENNY CHATMAN: I think we have time for one more. I’ll read the PS first. This is from Stephanie Doiron, who’s in the executive MBA program. They say, myself and many I know are so grateful for your voice, that your voice exists, especially for women. You use your platform to inspire and spread intelligent thought.

KARA SWISHER: Thank you.

JENNY CHATMAN: And then she has a question. What’s the most under-discussed trend in tech that would have a significant impact in five to 10 years? I think everyone’s going to take note and invest based on what you say. So

KARA SWISHER: I would say climate change tech. I’m really, really interested in that. And it has peripheral issues, but the threats we face on this planet are massive. Like massive. And I’m worried that we’re not putting enough shoulder into it, including from the government. There used to be incredible government industry cooperation, which I really like. I really do like that. It’s fallen off astonishingly. It’s either private or public.
And so climate change is one of these things that’s going to be so costly of how we live. And we have got to think of new ways of farming, of water maintenance, of food production, of clothes production.
The analog and digital need to meet somewhere in a really interesting place. The amount of data we’ve now uploaded to this. We really could start to understand what’s happening, like a much better way and have the AI, for example, give us better answers. It really is going to give us better answers. It does a better job.
And so to me, if I were starting coverage, and my next book is about– climate change tech is in this book, but it’s about all the health stuff, all the stuff around the unnecessary costs of people being overweight, of being like diabetes in this country. Bill pointed out correctly. People in other parts of the world are dying of other things. I mean, typhoid is back, which is incredible and shocking. Polio is back in some places, which I cannot even believe, given we have the ability to eradicate it. Malaria still continues to be an issue.
But in this country, it’s around diabetes, and heart conditions, and stuff like that. There’s all kinds of really fascinating drug discovery happening in that area, and we need to lean into that to try to cut costs. How we live, how we build buildings. It’s artisanal how we build buildings now. Really, it’s like crazy. It makes no sense from an economic or a climate point of view.
And this isn’t just like, hey, we’re in California. We love talking about climate– It’s not. It’s an existential threat to the way we’re going to live. And anybody– and by the way, you don’t have to have children no matter what fucking that JD Vance says. If you don’t want to have children, don’t have children. It’s fine. It’s such a sick way of looking at the world.
And he and I got– and see, you know what’s really funny? Let me tell you a story. When he was a venture capitalist, he was a bad one, just so you know. Like he had five minutes doing it, and he was bad at it. And let me tell you, a squirrel could have made money during that period, and this squirrel didn’t, just so you know. Just pointing out, he was bad. I call him Peter Thiel’s failed intern, which Rachel Maddow made up, which I think is a great thing.
That said, his children thing is so offensive. And many years ago I did an interview with John Fetterman, and he was struggling because of his stroke. I had a stroke. I had a similar stroke to John Fetterman. He was struggling, but I knew he would recover. He’s a young guy. I had gone through it myself. I had aphasia. I messed up words. It’s very easy, especially under stress. So I had actually gone through it.
I did an interview with him. He was fine. I knew just where he was in the process because it’s exactly the same thing I had. And of course, the Republicans were all attacking him. He was a vegetable, all this and that. Because they were ignorant. They wanted to win that seat. Whatever you want to do, if you want to be a terrible person and do it that way and not win fair and square, up to you, you terrible person.
And so I had done an interview, and I said, I’m sorry. I think he’ll be fine in like a year. That’s what happened to me. And of course, he is. He’s as sharp as a frickin’ tack now. You can see him. He’s fantastic on social media.
And so for some reason, JD Vance got on this thing like crazy because he has nothing else to do because he had no legislative career in the Senate whatsoever, just so you’re aware. He had passed nothing. And there’s lots of Republicans, I think, do good legislation. Tons of them. Ken Buck, others, many others.
And so he for some reason came at me on Twitter about the whole thing and like that I was lying about the stroke. And I was like, JD, sorry, I had one. You didn’t. And as usual, you’re speaking without any information, which seems to be your MO. And then he goes on and on. He starts going on about liberals don’t believe in the future. And that’s why you want to hire vegetables to be your Senator. Something really offensive like that.
And he was like on and on about children. He was obsessed with it. It was weird. And of course, now it’s all come out. You’re seeing quote after quote. And so he was on and on about children, and liberals don’t believe in the future. You don’t have children. I was like, you really need therapy, sir. But whatever.
So I wrote him back. I go, well, JD, I have four children, and you have just two. You’re a straight guy with a wife, and I have double the amount of children, which is really hard to do. So do you have a problem you need to talk about with your wife about having children? And I said, because if a lesbian has twice as many children about you, I would worry about your masculinity. I was trying to get him.
And I said, I believe in the future twice as much as you do, but it shouldn’t matter. Anyone who lives on this planet should believe in the future. So I’m just giving my thing. The Vice Presidential debate, this is in his head, this fucked up version of how people should live.
So I’m sorry. I just did that on the side. But it’s really, he’s a dangerous character, and Donald Trump is old. And so this might be your President. So just think about that. I’m just, he’s old. Sorry. The actuarial tables. He has a 20% chance of dying in office. So think about that. Like think about that when you– just think about it. Even if you’re a Republican, think of this as the guy who attacks women and people without children. Sorry, that’s me just going crazy.

Anyway, climate change. Climate change. Climate change tech, if you believe in the future. And anyone can believe in the future. And I do believe in the future a lot because of my kids. But that doesn’t have to be the reason. If you believe in the future of all humanity, climate change tech would be the area. I would go into food tech, health care tech. Those are the areas that are really important now and where I think actually money can be made too.
It’s not make money by doing good, but these are good things for our planet. Versus making another dry cleaning app or whatever shitty product they want to foist on us. Make something good. That’s the only thing you can do. And digital has created a situation where anybody can do that. And that’s a really exciting thing, and it continues to be.

JENNY CHATMAN: OK. Well, thank you. So we’ve had a raucous couple of Dean Speaker Series. Tony Fadell was here. And at least he apologized the first two times that he used the f-bomb.

KARA SWISHER: Oh, he’s like that. He’s a funny guy. He’s a great guy. He was early. He did the iPod and stuff like that. He calls himself sort of the father of the iPod. But he is. He’s a really great guy, and he did Nest and everything else. He had a birthday party. He’s a rich person I can get behind.
He had a party at one of the San Francisco art museums. And he hired, it was Macy Gray for his– when she was having troubles. I don’t know where she is right now, but he hired her as the singer because that’s what rich people do. They hire like Elton John or whoever the fuck.
And she didn’t show up because she was having problems. And so he had to bring in some local singer. And I go, nicely done, Tony Fadell. He had to do it. But he’s a great guy. He’s a guy who’s made great products, FYI. That’s a perfect example. And he’s a laugh riot too.

JENNY CHATMAN: So listen, as billed, irreverent and brilliant. Thank you.

KARA SWISHER: Thank you. Thank you. [APPLAUSE]
I hope I offended at least 12% of you.