Life Lessons from Tech Titans (Kara in conversation with Brené Brown)
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Hi, everyone. From New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network, this is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. Today, we're back on book tour for my memoir, Burn Book, A Tech Love Story. You already heard me in conversation with Sam Altman, Ted Sarandos, and Mark Cuban. This time, I got to talk to Brene Brown, a refreshing conversation hosted at the Chicago Humanities Festival last week.

Brene is a researcher and author widely known for her work on vulnerability and shame, and she's recently joined the Vox Media Podcast Network with her two hit podcasts, Unlocking Us and Dare to Lead.

I first got acquainted with Brene back in 2020 when we had her on Sway. Since then, she's tried to convince me that I am the vulnerabiliest of the vulnerable. I don't buy it. But I decided to give her a shot to interview me and try to get me a little more vulnerable. See what you think. We'll be back with that conversation in a beautiful church in Chicago after the break.

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Hi. Wow. You look pretty. Y'all look pretty up there. What a beautiful place. Man, what a beautiful place. Yeah. I've been playing lots of churches. Have you? Yeah. I was in an Episcopal church yesterday. Were you? Yeah. It's my jam. Is it? Yeah. Why? No, no, no. We're not doing this. Oh, sorry. No, no, no. I already told you. Don't try to boss me. Okay. Good luck. Good luck. Good luck. Okay. Here's what we're going to do. Okay. Sorry. You ready? Yeah.

I'm going to say someone's name and you're going to tell us what they've taught you. Oh, you mean like learning? Okay. All right. Okay. I'll do it. I'll do it. Yeah. Are you ready? Yeah. Wow. And it can just be, here's the lesson from this person or here's what I learned about myself or... Right. Yeah. Got it. Okay. Good. Steve Jobs. Okay. Just take me a minute. You don't have time. Say more.

I think he lived like he was going to die. I think most people talk about that and sort of cosplay that. I think he lived that. He also did, was dying in the period that he was making the most creative parts of his life. That was the part where he was dying. The stuff that we think about around Steve Jobs. We think about a lot of things, but the really...

big inventions and where he was leading that company came when he knew he was dying. And so he wrote a speech that I read every couple of months that he wrote for Stanford. He's a very good writer himself. And it's all about death and the way it informs life. So you don't have that kind of time.

Do you live by that ethos? A hundred percent. I really, everything I do is a decision. Whenever I'm upset or I feel something and I, or should I do that? I don't really have that anymore. It's already inbuilt now. But whenever I was like that, I'd go, oh, I'll be dead in a hundred years. I'll do it. You know, like, why not? Right. Like when I was just most recently, the thing was having two more kids after age 55, which is something,

you know, I'll be like dead when they're in college essentially, or like wheeled into their college graduation. Um, and I, I thought, Oh, I think I'll do it just cause I'll be dead anyway in 50 years. So why not? And so, um, I just, I do, I have that. I have like, I death informs everything I do in life. How much of that is about your dad? Um,

All of it, I think. At least I think most people live in that place, but they don't pay attention to it. You especially don't pay attention to it when you're younger because you think you can do anything. And as you get older, you start, as people die around you in your age, you start to feel that. But I've had two major incidents. One was my dad's death when I was five and my own stroke when I was older. I think it was 40-some, whatever. And

And those, both of those were sort of signals to me. I'm not, I would say I'm agnostic. I wouldn't say I'm an atheist, but they were signals from the universe to me that I was like, Kara, get on it. Let's get moving kind of stuff. So, and I think it was a bad way to learn what is a very good lesson, which is,

My dad was 34. He had a cerebral hemorrhage. He had just gotten out of the Navy, which had paid for, he was not, he was from modest means. He had three kids. He had just gotten the best job. He got this first big job where it paid him well. He was able to buy a house. He bought a house.

And then he died before he even moved into the house. And so it informed me a lot about that you don't have time, that things could happen randomly. And then secondly, when my son, my oldest son, who is now 21, was five years old,

I realized how well he knew me because you don't remember when you're, I don't remember a lot of my dad, little bits and pieces and flashes, but my son knew me really well at five. My four-year-old daughter knows. We talk all the time. And I don't remember any of those discussions with my dad, but I know how much she knows me. And I knew how much Louie knew me when he was five. And so that's the moment I realized the devastation on me. Like, wow, that was really like a big deal. And so that's how I live. Yeah.

And when I had the stroke, I was like, all right, I get it. I get it, God or whoever. I don't have that much time. So I probably lived till 103, though. I mean, if it just requires tenacity and death fight. Yeah. Oh, my God. It's getting married again, ladies. Too bad you missed him.

He's not on my list to even ask about. No shits are given for me. Well, you know I call him Uncle Satan in the book. Uncle Satan, yeah. But there were several Satan references, so I had to keep them straight. He's the one. He's Uncle Satan. Okay. A lesson? Elon Musk. I'm with you. Whoever made that involuntary noise. Well, I can make a joke, regulate your ketamine, but I think I will...

Use a doctor when you're using ketamine. Total disappointment. People that you think have more potential can disappoint you badly. Be aware that people disappoint you. Now, I don't mean to get my researcher on, but I'm going to. Okay. There's a really strong correlation between disappointment and expectation. Correct. What were your expectations of Elon?

You know, this is someone I covered. He's not my friend. You know, I don't like say... But if you're disappointed... Yes. I mean, I'm not like, hey, girl, what's up this Saturday? That kind of thing with him. But I do have a relationship with them. And I think that's something that reporters pretend they don't. I have a relationship with Mark Cuban. I have a relationship with a lot of people I cover. And just like you might with anything else because you spend a lot of time thinking about them. And...

I think Steve, of course, was the visionary, and he was, and he had lots of flaws. I don't mind flaws. I'm not someone who, you know, some reporters think, but he was mean to his daughter. I'm like, okay. I know a lot of people are. Let's talk about that. And so I give people a wide swath of certain human qualities, which we don't do anymore, by the way. And he...

I thought the stuff that Elon was working on was really important. I thought the cars were important. He pushed that forward. There's no question that EVs wouldn't be where they are without Elon Musk, 100%. I agree. The same thing with space. I think it is important. I do agree with him. We've got to think, especially because of the climate crisis,

that we have to think about living on other planets. We might not want to keep the human race, but we probably do. So we have to think about that. I thought that was a big thought. And what had happened in Silicon Valley after a while was that it was a lot of smart people coming up with small ideas, and they were super small. And I joke about them, but it was like someone would come to me, and they're like, digital dry cleaning. And I was like, what?

And it was just an app to pick up your dry cleaning. It was like, and one was called Laundret with an E. It's like Target. I know, right? I know. But it was, they had the, it was like, stop it. We're in San Francisco. And so it was not France. And even French would be like, stop it. Mortified. Please stop. Stop using our accent de goût that way.

And they were just small ideas. And then Elon comes along and he does the cars and the space thing and Neuralink. And even the tunnel digging was interesting because it was like, oh, we probably should have things under cities. What a crazy idea, but not a good idea. Kind of big, a big idea. And the same thing with the solar. These are real tangible things. And I was impressed by that, for sure. Impressed by it.

You know, I didn't think he was the only one who could do it. I didn't think he was doing it by himself. I didn't treat him like it was Willy Wonka. But there wasn't someone with that many things that were interesting. In fact, nobody. Just for personal reasons, I would love to understand...

In your experience, in your relationship covering Elon and Tesla and Twitter X, these things, where was the turn? It's interesting. I went back just recently and looked at our texts because we texted. He's a texter. He likes to text. And many of them do. I used to text with Mark Andreessen all the time. And I think he's turned into a really...

He's turned into a ghoul of some sort. He was always kind of a jerk, so let's just put a pin in that. He hasn't changed that much. He's just gotten worse. But in Eli's case, he was really interesting. About 10% of him was kind of penis and boob jokes. A little too much for someone that old, but okay, whatever. You know, everyone's got their thing.

And dank memes. He liked dank memes. I was like, he liked video games. And so that's where it came from, right? He was a video, he's a very- I'm processing, but it's taking me a minute. No, I'm with you, but I'm back on like penis and boob jokes. Well, he attend, he does.

them all the time. Are you watching? I know, but they've elevated to like full-on misogyny. Yes, exactly. But they were just, that was 10% and every now and then he'd pop out with something weird. Like, he'd be like, that's kind of dark. He had a dark side, very clearly. You know, but he was sort of an interesting figure. Like, I had a recollection of being at a party with him and it was an Oscar party and he's a big guy and he came in tall and he's like,

I'm really lonely. Can you introduce me to someone? And he wasn't Elon Musk then. He was lesser than. He wasn't as famous as he is now. And it was sort of like no one did that. He didn't, you know, it was kind of interesting. Vulnerable. I didn't introduce him to anybody, thankfully. And...

And then during, we did an interview during COVID where I think it turned. I feel like that's where it started. And he started to talk about the man and the government and the messing with people and the deep state.

So there was a period there, I think at the beginning of COVID, the beginning of Trump, where, and at the beginning of Trump, Elon was very against Trump. Like, trust me, he was like, this guy is a buffoon and I'm going to stop him. I'm going to deal with him on gay issues. I'm going to push. He was very upset when Trump was going to do an executive order on gay marriage, I think, or something. He was upset. He called me. What should we do? And I was like, I don't know. You're on his council of whatever the hell. Yeah.

And he was very upset about the ban, the Muslim ban. We had an argument about it where I said he's going to do it. Elon said, no, he's not. I said, yes, he is. And I said, when you do, you're going to call me and say I'm an idiot. And he called me and said, oh, I'm an idiot. He did it. And so it was, you know, he was participating. And he was a supporter of Trump.

for sure. I'm not so sure he voted for Hillary. I don't know. I don't believe that when he says that now. But I know he was in support of Obama. I know he thought Trump was an idiot. But he still wanted to participate in those councils so he could have a dulcet effect, presumably. And instead of him, it's like when someone goes into a cult,

To go get someone and they get in, they stay in, that kind of thing. That's what it felt like. And so during COVID, he started about his factories and the man was trying to stop him. And then they increased. And then on Twitter, you could see him

Radicalize. Radicalize, actually, in real time. And now it's so toxic. It's one day it's immigrants, trans people. He is a trans kid, which I was also aware of. Had I been speaking to him, I'd be like, you're a shameful parent to do this. Right.

I think the trans stuff was weird. He suddenly got obsessed with pedophiles, which is, of course, down QAnon Avenue. And everyone was a pedo. He got in trouble for that. And so I don't know. I think COVID and now that the journal's written this story, which I was aware of his use of pedophiles.

He likes a party. And the journal did a good job depicting what I had heard from people and the board's culpability and Tesla's board in partying with him and then getting tons of money. So then he had these enablers around him that were laughing at every one of his jokes. I remember walking into a room where we did an interview and he had two or three guys. They were all guys around him. And he said something that wasn't particularly funny. And everyone went, oh, good one, Elon.

And he goes, Carrie, didn't you think it was funny? I said, did you make a joke? Was that supposed to be funny? And he was irritated by me because it wasn't funny. But these guys were sort of saying, well, they were making money from him and I wasn't. Do you see that phenomenon a lot? I mean, I've spent a lot of time there working with leaders where it's almost like at some point...

The CEO looks out of the window and sees this mystical land that they've built, but it's like a Hollywood studio that a lot of people have built to be right outside the window, and their money is dependent on them, the CEO liking what they see. Right, yeah.

I don't know how you deal with them. Yes, it's really, you know, I was once with Mark Zuckerberg and there was a picture where he jogged in Tiananmen Square, right? Jogging in Tiananmen Square. So much going on there in that picture. And China, I had studied China in college and I was like, everything's symbols with them. Everyone's images, symbols.

messages. Well, it's propaganda. Right. They're good at it. They're fantastic at it and they know it. And I had, I studied propaganda. And so I went in and sat down and I said, God, that picture, how did you do that? Cause he had, he took a photographer everywhere. They love taking photographers. They can chronicle their every move that I don't even understand because they're historical figures, I guess. And you know, seriously, can you imagine like, I think I'll have a photographer follow me. I mean, he's not the president, but apparently he is.

So, I mean, I even question it with the president, honestly. I'm like, what do you mean we need all these pictures of so-and-so? But fine, I'll accept it with the president. And he was, I was like, well, how could you take that picture? And he goes, what are you talking about? And I said, that Tiananmen Square picture, jogging, like, what the hell? And he's like, what do you, everyone thought it was a great picture. And I was like,

Really? Who? Well, everyone around here. I go, oh, the people you pay. Got it. And I said, because let me give you a little lesson in China. You ran without a mask and it's a polluted city. So that's a very polluted city. So you're giving the message that it's not polluted, but people are dying. I mean, I had a huge argument when I was in Beijing where I said, oh, look, it's polluted.

smog. And the person who was minding me said, that's fog. And I said, no, it's smog. And they're like, fog. And I go, smog. And they go, fog. And I go, I live in San Francisco. It's not fog. Like, I'm a fog expert. Like, sorry, that's smog and it's pollution and kids are dying from that. So he was not wearing the mask. So that was a message. And then he was jogging through Tiananmen Square and such a symbol. And he's like, what's wrong with that? And I said,

I know you were eight at the time, but there was a tank and a guy with a suitcase and it was a big frigging deal in China. And we don't know where he went, but it was a big, the tanks came in and took away the protesters. And that was the end of democracy in China. And he's like, I know about that. And I was like, but that picture you're saying Tiananmen Square is okay. And it's, there's no, it was just go back to Harvard and finish or something. Yeah.

It was sort of like, but he wasn't being malevolent. He just was like, he was lacking information that he needed to have. But is it lacking information? Yes. Is it? Yeah. Yeah, because when we did... I mean, that feels so generous to me.

Because it feels more like narcissism to me than lacking information. No, I think it is. It's, you know, I call it frequently wrong but never in doubt. And one of the things that... Wait, wait, say that again. Frequently wrong but never in doubt. Yeah. Right, okay. So, which they are because they're not in doubt because everyone tells them they're right. And so, and then it expands to other topics, right? Like...

The other day, Elon was tweeting about cesareans. I've been talking about this because it's driving me crazy. I had a cesarean, and he's pontificating on what a cesarean means. And I'm like, no. No, sir. I don't even talk about cesareans, and I have one. So you may not talk about what cesareans mean. He was talking about the head size, and kids with heads are smarter because they don't come out of the vaginal. It was just like...

I literally was like, kill me now. And I almost was like, you know, one of my kids who was not cesarean is smarter than the other one who was. I don't know what to tell you. But I didn't. I'm glad. You know, it's true. It's factual. So tell me what, speaking of Mark Zuckerberg. Mark. Oh, so what did he teach you? Mark Zuckerberg taught me that you can be a very nice person and still be dangerous. That's what he taught me.

That's he's dangerous because of his lack of not curiosity. Cause he's a very curious, he does try to learn. He like invites historians and now to dinner and he does that kind of stuff. He's sort of getting educated on the job. I don't think you should get educated in a job when your job is that important. And I think the best example of that was that interview I did with him, um,

when we were at Facebook headquarters, um, in, um, I think it was Menlo Park. It's, I think that's where they are. In any case, he was, he has these beautiful headquarters and I, I take into interviewing them all at their headquarters because they feel safer there where they're not smart. Yes, it is. They feel safe. Yeah. You're sort of like, you still let the hyena in you idiot. Um, but, um, but they, um, uh, uh,

We were doing the interview and I was very incensed about Alex Jones, who I really could not. Oh, God. I can't even go there with you. I can. He's one of the worst people on the planet and should leave it very soon. It would be a great outcome for us with Alex Jones. I'm sorry. He should. I know you're not supposed to wish people's death, but I do. So the things he did to those parents at Sandy Hook. Oh, I know. I've spent a lot of time in Sandy Hook. Yeah.

Exactly. So on Facebook, he was on that service pushing this stuff out. And he had broken the rules in general hundreds of times. Let me pause you here. Do y'all know what story we're talking about? So let's just catch them up real quick. So Alex Jones, conspiracy theorist.

really put forward the idea that Sandy Hook did not happen. They were paid actors. It was all part of a right-wing conspiracy. Left-wing. Well, his was, yes. It was a left-wing conspiracy about guns. But he inflamed a lot of followers who actually went to Sandy Hook, desecrated funerals, I mean, tombstones of these children. I mean, he's just...

one of the cruelest people that I've ever come across. And one of the things that happened, which was interesting, because I interviewed one of the parents, was two things. One was some of the people were young mothers who couldn't believe it happened, the ones who were into the conspiracy. So they had to believe it didn't happen. And Alex Jones played into their fears of their own children dying. And the other thing is Facebook wouldn't take this stuff down until it was a copyright violation. They wouldn't take it down for any other reason but copyright when he finally figured out

But I had an issue with that. I was like, it takes copyright to get it down, not because it's the right thing to do and not because this guy broke every rule on your platform over and over again. And so we started talking about it and it's not a comfortable place for him because he's got to go, well, Alice Jones, you'd be able to speak. But I said, sure, but you have rules on your platform that he's broken. When does he get kicked off? When is, you know, if you're running the city,

And he's taking a shit in the park every day. Are we not going to stop him? Or you just let him do it all until then? So we were arguing about it, and he wanted to move on because he's not a great arguer, let's just say. And so he goes, let's switch to Holocaust deniers. I know, right? I was like, oh, this is Kara's internal thing. Don't do that. That's a bad idea. Guess what? Guess what Kara's minor in college

The Holocaust. Yes. She knows a lot about the topic. It was literally... He didn't know that about me. And so... And I'd studied it quite a bit. Like, it was... I was obsessed with propaganda, the uses of propaganda, how you take a population and make them into animals, essentially. Dehumanization. Yes. Dehumanization. So I said...

Okay, we'll go there. And I know why he did. I know media training among these wealthy people. And it was, Mark is Jewish. Even I am going to tolerate Holocaust deniers because I believe so much in free speech. That was the thing. And I had already heard him go on about the First Amendment, and I felt that he hadn't read it when he talked about it. Because he's like, we can't do it because of the First Amendment. I'm like, it says government shall make no law, not Facebook. Okay.

It says government. It doesn't say companies could have First Amendment rights and they have rights and they're going to win in the Supreme Court this week, too, because everybody has people and companies have First Amendment rights. The government cannot do it. Anyway, I'm not going to you all get it. I don't need to tell you this.

But he didn't. And so they conflate free speech with responsibility, everything. It's an excuse. It's a blanket excuse for everything, which it isn't. It just isn't. And I said, well, why did you make those rules on your site? And, you know, if you're not going to, why make the rules? Just tell everybody what it is, which is it was a toxic shithouse. That's what it is.

And so let's just say, let's do the advertising. We run a toxic shithouse, so enjoy kind of thing. And so, but they didn't want to do that. They want to talk about community and everyone decides, but except there's only one person who can't be fired in this group of people who are everybody. And there's only one person who actually decides.

And so that used to get, it started to exhaust me. So anyway, we're in this interview. He decides to go down this road. And then he says the most astonishing thing where he says, you know, Cara, Holocaust deniers don't mean to lie. He said a version of that, right? And I was, me and my producer looked at each other. And usually in that situation, this was, I think, my greatest moment of interviewing ever was,

I would go, you fucking idiot. Of course they mean to lie, but I didn't. I said, really? I think they do, but why don't you tell me your theory of this? And I let him explain it, which was worse and worse and worse. Because I wanted people to understand what was in his head, which was not much. And I wanted to understand the decision-making of the single person in charge of this,

didn't have the wherewithal to understand where it was headed, like where this anti-Semitism, which has been around since the beginning of time, was going to become amplified and weaponized and blown out in a way that has never happened before. And so he let him explain it, and I'm like, okay, that's a theory. I don't agree with it, and I think this is very dangerous, the game you're playing here. And

We ran out of that place because I wanted to get that interview up and meet. So people, I wanted people to hear him. And of course it blew up and he had to take it back and say, what I meant to say was they are liars, right? It's not, they don't mean to be liars. And obviously I decry the Holocaust deniers, you know, but then he never took them down. He just didn't, didn't take Alex Jones down until, until Apple did it. And then he followed, he didn't do it himself. Uh,

So he didn't take them down for two years. He did exactly what I said two years later. So there was two years of... But can you imagine the pain? Right. How...

How many hours are in two years of pain? If you're a parent at Sandy Hook or you're a Jewish person, I mean, like, two years is a long time. Because Facebook had become the way people got their news. Before, it used to be an information desert for most people, especially in the United States. Now it was an information flood, and what was flooding was toxicity at scale. And that's what is dangerous. That is my—it's like—

What are we going to do about that? And then you have these companies who have no interest in accountability. They have no accountability. They have unlimited funds.

And they want all the benefits of their media business, which it is, with none of the negatives. They can't be sued. They can't be stopped. They don't have to listen to the government. I mean, look, even Uncle Satan got sued and he lost and he paid $786 million and he's going to pay it again in the next lawsuit. Donald Trump got sued by Eugene Carroll and he lost and he had to put $90 million in the bank account and he now has to put this...

Even those people are subject to liability. This guy, like just the other day in Congress, those parents that were putting up those pictures of their kids, who were clearly, at the very least, there is some culpability on behalf of these social media companies. And he doesn't have to say he's sorry, even if he's culpable. That is just, and he's one of the richest people on earth. It's just a prescription for trouble, I think. I mean, let me ask you this. What did this teach you? Because you've come across this a lot. Right.

Let's go break some things. Mm-hmm. That's, well, move fast and break things. That's a software term. But it is interesting that that's what they— So move fast and break things all over Silicon Valley. Yes. That's all over Facebook. It's Facebook's motto. It was. Google's was don't be evil, which, of course, you're like, evil? We're going to go right to evil? How about don't be just— I mean, it's a low bar. No, it's like, wow. Wow.

I remember when they... You could be nefarious. Right. I mean, like, there's a lot of shit before evil. How about don't steal all our data, you assholes? Like, that's what I would say. A snappy tagline. I like it on a business card. Yeah. Well, you assholes is on there, on the back of that book. Have y'all seen this?

where she has like all the shitty things that people say about her. She's quoting them as her blurbs on the back of the book. The bottom says, the bottom of the last blurb says, you're an asshole, Elon Musk, 2022. Yeah. He also said, my voice is so shrill, only dogs can hear me. I was like, can you do better than that? Come on, man. Up your game. I know, up your game if you're going to insult me. Tell me about the prick-

to productivity ratio. Yes. Yes. It's very scientific. Do you like that? You know I love it. You know you love it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to be honest with you. I don't like staying in a church. Like, I know I'm old school, but like, you know.

I grew up in Catholic school and, you know, I'm like, tell me about your language. Okay, but prick to productivity. Okay, think of it in terms of if I prick you to do not bleed, keep in that area. That's not what it means. I know it doesn't. Just pretend. That won't make me feel better. Okay, just pretend. Prick to productivity. I like it. I love it. Pretend it doesn't mean penis. Okay, what it means is, you know, people are pricks. They're such a prick. There's a lot of pricks in Silicon Valley. And so I was like,

I got it. Like all of them are broken in some way, or there's some fault. Steve jobs yells at people over thing over products. So I have a ratio of their productivity, which is the stuff they contributed. The giver, the, what they gave to society versus their prickishness. So if they're very productive, uh,

I excuse a little more of their prickishness. Not every prickish thing. I'm talking about just prickish stuff, not evil malevolent stuff. So Elon Musk has fallen off my ratio because he can't, you can't count all his... There's not enough productivity. Well, no, there's, well, no, he has a lot of productivity. It doesn't matter because his prickness... Oh, okay, got it. He's moved beyond prick. Yeah. He's become a malevolent villain, really. A villain is what he's become. And so he doesn't have that. So that was my ratio. I'd sit there, I'm like...

Especially when I was interviewing people, I'm like, oh, that person's such a prick, but that's a really interesting thing they're doing, so I'm going to talk to them. And it usually was more on their attitude or their arrogance or stuff like that, more minor stuff. So that was my reaction. I really loved it. Thank you. I just made it up. Yeah, I liked it a lot. Completely. We'll be back in a minute. I wonder, and you definitely say this about Facebook. Mm-hmm.

This has been my experience for sure. I am always in a social media existential crisis. Could it be true that they're all just too big to be safe? Like they're just too big to monitor and moderate themselves. That is one element of it. It's too many. There's hundreds of millions of things, posts come over these things. And my feeling on that is one,

Why did you build it that way? If you knew it was... If you were building a factory that was spewing stuff, put a frigging filter on it, right? You didn't have to build it so that it spewed stuff. And they don't have to build it this way. Over on Reddit, they have contextual advertising, which if it's skiing, it has skiing ads. There's different ways to do it. There's different ways to build it. They decided to build it...

Like, give me Google, for example, just the search engine. It's accurate. It's built. The architecture is accuracy, speed. It's always speed because you want it fast. And context. That's how it searches. It pulls in, like, when you search ADL, you get ADL, right? That's the example I always use. Uber, you call an Uber, you're not sitting there addicted to it. You just call it, it's done. It's a utility. Very utilitarian kind of. Those are both apps. Right.

something like Facebook or Twitter or anything like that is built for speed, virality, and engagement. What do you think that's going to happen? Hate is going to happen. Danger is going to happen. Outrage. Outrage is going to happen. And so to me, they built it that way, one. So the excuses that they can't do anything about it means their businesses don't want to pay the cost to

to do it. And the reason their businesses look so good is because they're not paying the cost. If airlines didn't have, well, didn't have to have doors. Let me not use that example. Yeah, I got to get home, so I don't want to talk about that. Let me just say, guess what happened after that happened? They grounded the planes. People were fired. There's lawsuits. There's investigations.

Does anything happen when young girls lose their self-esteem on a site like Facebook? Right now on Instagram, there's a whole thing around girls...

eating disorders where they celebrate it. Do they really need to not... Why can't they take that down? Oh, there's too many of them. Why did you build it so there's too many of them? It's too bad you built it. There's too many. It's still your job to take that stuff down because you're causing pain in society. But let me ask you this question. Do we have like a pod door Dave situation? No. Like we...

I don't know. I've been interviewing all these researchers who study the algorithms and they're like, it would take 48 hours to put an algorithm in that would do 80% help. That's right. They did it around the elections. They did it calming everything down. Now they've taken it off because it's not good for business. It's a choice. It's not a good for business. It's a 100% choice because what it does is it creates costs for them and then their businesses don't look so frigging good anymore.

Because the rest of us pay liability costs. The rest of us get in court if we do something. We have regulations. They have no...

They have zero regulation, zero. And the one they have protects them, immunity, Section 230. They're not liable. They can't be sued. Like that, I just don't even understand it. And one of the things that just drives me nuts, and, you know, we can stay with Facebook, but because it's the biggest and it's growing like crazy, and I like a lot of their products, by the way. I like a lot of their things, but they do not, the reason they're unsafe is

is not because it's so hard, because it is hard. I don't really care if it's hard. They have all the money. So they should pay, like they're billionaires. They can handle it, right? They took the money. They took the power. They don't want to take the responsibility. And I just, that is just, that is just bullshit as far as I'm concerned. And the reason it's not safe is,

I am, which I talk about in this book is because the people who designed it never felt unsafe a day in their lives. So they don't understand lack of safety. They don't understand. And you don't want to be the person, oh, I'm just whining because, you know, because I'm a marginalized person, but they don't think of those people. They don't think of their experience. And when they, when it does get to them, when they do get like, just a second, sir, they're like,

We've got to stop complaining and move on. You just saw that. Let me just say, go watch that Don Lemon interview with Elon Musk. Oh, I watched it. It was tough. We were all slaves once, so why don't we just all move along? What? But that's the mentality. Listen to what he's saying, besides being just completely ass backwards. I called him a retromenchant troll, which is a backward-paying troll. Yeah.

What he's saying is that if there's a minute of friction for these people, they want to move on as opposed to maybe we don't want to move on just right yet. Maybe we want to have a minute to say what you've done. That's okay. But they get annoyed by anyone who complains about it. They get annoyed by saying maybe you shouldn't do that. And when he said that, I was like, there you have it.

Everybody was a slave, so let's everyone move on. Not saying, hey, some people were slaves more recently than others, and you've never—I don't recall the last time a white guy like you was a slave. I think—I don't know. Let's go back forever. Like, you know, you have to go back real far, right? And so— Yeah, I'm still trying to track back. I haven't hit it yet, and I'm like, way back. Way—

I don't even know when. So the equalizing is so, it's so inbred in them that it's really hard. They just don't care. Like the scaling of the pain of privilege. They don't care because it doesn't affect them. And in the end, they're going to get in their spaceships.

and they're going to their bunkers and everything else. And one time when I said to someone about income inequality, I said, "We've got to do something about income. This is crazy how much money you people have. It's like insane." Not that again, I'm a capitalist, I like money. But I was like, "You have to do something about income inequality or you have to armor plate your Tesla, 'cause that's where we're going. Just so you know, it's gonna be that kind of world." Like we've all seen it in science fiction.

And as I said it, I realized the person I was talking to wanted to armor plate his Tesla. That's what he wanted, right? I thought, he doesn't mind that kind of world. I was going to say, I don't know that that was a threat. No, it wasn't. And the second thing that drives me crazy is when they... The whole DEI thing. And I urge you all to listen. Someone I like. Let me end on someone I like. Mark Cuban, who's evolved rather nicely as a person. He did this thing where he was talking about DEI, which has been...

controversial for Bill Ackman because he's the expert on it, obviously. Like, when did that happen? We don't even have enough time and we cannot talk about him in a church. I was joking. I'm going to do a 90-part series on hedge fund investing because I'm not an expert. So that's so typical, like seriously. So when I say DEI, and I want you to take this away, we have to reclaim the words from these people because they think they know everything, right? So when they say woke, you say, what's the opposite of woke? Asleep. Wow.

Wow, what a great way to live your life, asleep. That's another thing. But DEI is perfect. And now I think it's been tarnished so much it's going to be hard to recover it because they're good at tarnishing things. But if you think of the word DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion, what are the opposites of those words? Homogeneity, which is Silicon Valley, all white guys. I'm sorry. I have three white guys as sons. I like white guys. But honestly, they can't be the smartest people on earth. They aren't, right? And they've had a good run. They've had a good run.

And I love my sons. I mean, and look where we are. Right. So diversity, so homogeneity, which is bad for populations from a scientific perspective. The second one, equity, unfairness. Let's have some unfairness. The opposite of equity is unfairness, right? Being inequitable.

The opposite of inclusion is exclusion. So homogeneity, unfairness, exclusion. Well, that's a motto that we can all get behind. Like, think about it. Like, think about it. What is that? H-U-E-H-U.

Phew. It's my new motto for my company. Don't attribute it to us. Just be like, we heard it for the first time here. Anyway, I just think that we can expect more. You all paid for the internet. The American taxpayer paid for the internet. They benefited from it. They take your data. They eat it up.

They vomit it back to you and they charge you and ask you to say thank you. That's enough. They've made enough money off of it. It's time for them to pay the price for what is happening. And I don't mean just every price, the price they owe. And that's why I wrote this book because they need to pay it back because there's so much good you can do with tech. There's so much good.

And what's coming could be miraculous. We could solve cancer. We could solve life extension, health span. We can do all kinds of really amazing things. And instead, this is what we're doing. I mean, I believe it. We just have to change the hue. Hue. Change the hue. That's right. A new color. Yeah. Anyway. All right. Audience questions. We have time for a couple. Okay. Oh, hi. Hey. Curious. We're going into an election this November. Do you think— Yes, I've heard.

TikTok is...

Has the potential to be Cambridge Analytica on steroids having an anaphylactic reaction? There has actually been no actual proof that the Chinese... There just hasn't been. It's not true. You know, I wrote a column saying, I love TikTok. It's the best new app I've ever seen. I use it on a burner phone because of the Chinese Communist Party. I think it's a threat. I do. And I think that we don't have reciprocal ability to put our companies there, says everything.

And so setting that aside, I think all these companies have pulled back on content moderation and doubled down on enragement. They have done that. And I think they all...

They all need to be addressed and they're not going to be there's not enough time. I think the Republicans have spent a lot of time attacking agencies like CISA, which protects our elections. They've attacked right now. There's the two cases for the Supreme Court, which are egregious. I'm pretty I think the Supreme Court is going to do the right thing here and say you're a bunch of idiots, Florida, Texas and Missouri, that guy.

But they're trying very hard so misinformation will thrive. So the Republicans are trying very hard to make misinformation a thing so to get it worse. These companies are faced with a flood of misinformation and no reason to fix it necessarily. So I think what I'm worried about is more sophisticated AI that will do things like, the scenario I have is one of them's dead on election day, one of the candidates died.

And for a second, it's going to take a minute for the real media to catch up. But that's enough minutes, that kind of thing. Or if they just shave, you know, what people look like, Biden or Trump or whatever. I'm going to use both sides, but they'll probably do it against Biden. You know, I think one of the problems that the Republicans had recently because of what they were doing, saying, essentially they were saying Biden was weak-ended Bernies.

And then he shows up at the State of the Union and he looks like pretty lively to me. He's not dead. And so I think that was stupid of them to have done that because the expectations were so low. But I think they could start to do like that. They could try the age thing again and make it real by making it fake.

You could just sit here and think all the things. I don't think our government's equipped to deal with it in any way, and there's no laws that will stop these companies from doing it. And I think they're just not going to. They had such a bad time with the insurrection.

And I'm a big defender of free speech, but it's, you know, some of it, if they have rules they need and people break them, people should be thrown off these platforms. I just do. I just, sorry. It's just, that's my feeling. But they, you know, they do free speech for dummies as far as I'm concerned. Okay, one more question.

Hi. I'm in education, and I'm curious about what your advice would be to the budding journalist in high school. What's the path for them in this current climate? By the way, education is going to—some of this Genervea is really interesting around education, some of the things that could help, right? I know all the focus is on kids cheating, but that's not really—kids have cheated since the dawn of time.

So it's just another way to cheat kind of thing. I think there's a lot of cool stuff in education, by the way, lots of stuff and lots of cool companies. But with journalists, look, I'm a media entrepreneur, I would say. And so I didn't, I was worried about the economics of journalism a long time ago when Craigslist showed up. I was like, oh no.

And I was covering retail for the Washington Post. And when local retailers died and Walmart came in, that wasn't even a technical company, but it was. It used technology. It didn't do advertising to get customers.

And so I just was always worried about the economic underpinnings of the news business. And I was worried that the people running the news business didn't stress the business part of it very well. And so I think there's a lot of opportunity for smaller operations, a ton of them. We did that at All Things D and there's tons of them now on SubSpec. I mean, Heather Cox Richardson is not a journalist, but she's a writer.

she's swimming in money. Like she's doing great. Like, but she has a very small operation. So you're gonna see a lot more smaller operations that are very impactful and

And then they'll grow. Like someone I mentor, Casey Newton, has something called Platformer News. I kind of shamed him into quitting his job and trying it out because he was so good. And now he's just hired three people. Like small, but it's the best one in the business, right? So you see that everywhere. There's all kinds of activity in that way. And there's lots of other ways to make money. Podcasts. I know they say you can't make money, but do

but do not believe them. You can't make money. You just have to do it right. And you have to keep costs in line with revenues. That's all. It's not math is math, right? That's the whole issue. I think there's a canard that people don't, that young, especially young people don't like substantive stuff. I think that's a lie. It's a, I know I have kids. I know it's not true.

They don't want to watch endless makeup videos. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. Who cares? But they also want to consume great content no matter what it is. And you see that in the way television has evolved so beautifully. Remember when the TV was the boob tube?

Now it's like art every day. You're like, it's astonishing some of the stories that are being told on television. And so I'm really, I'm much more positive. I'm not positive about the way it was, big newspapers. Like the New York Times is the success signal for everyone, except it's a small business. It's 2.4 billion. That's a little business. It's not a big business. It doesn't make that much in profits.

And that's our success story compared to Facebook's and everything else. And I think, again, with regulation, Google and Facebook control the digital advertising, period. There's got to be something done about that. And there's all these fights over paying people for the content on their sites. And so Facebook is just taking news off of their site.

I think that's a mistake on their part. I think people, and the last thing I'll use a story from my son is you have to be really flexible about where people are listening. I think it's a real disservice to people to tell them how and when to watch. And I think that's over the consumers took it taken over media and they're not giving control back.

And that's a good thing. I've always thought that newspapers talk down to people. I thought media talked, like, you will be buying an album with 10 songs and I don't care if you don't like seven of them, you're going to buy them. Like, why should I? You don't do that. You know, here's a loaf of bread and you have to eat this bread that you don't like because we want to sell it that way. It just doesn't make sense in other economics.

And so I was doing an interview with Frontline. I like Frontline. This guy does these great shows on the internet and I don't usually sit for a lot of these, but I like these guys a lot. And the phone rang and my oldest son, Louie, called and he said, what are you doing, mom? And I'm like, I can't talk to you right now. I'm doing this interview. He goes, oh, what are you doing now? And I said, oh, it's Frontline. And he said, oh, I love Frontline. And I was like, really? Interesting. I didn't know that.

And I had arguments with PBS about putting Frontline everywhere. So I was like, oh, look, I've got a young one on the line. And I put it on speaker and I go, Louie, tell me about why you like Frontline. And he started going on about all the shows. I didn't know this about all the shows he watched. He liked this show. He didn't like this show. He thought this one was great. They were substantively long shows. And he went on and on. And I said, I didn't know you watched PBS. Yeah.

And he said, "I don't watch PBS. I watch it on YouTube."

But he watched it all on his phone. So what is, there's got to be a way to monetize that, right? Like there is a way to monetize that. And these guys were like, oh, and I said, he's watching it. And there's never been more good content out there. So you've got to be creative and flexible, I think, if you're going to do that. The thing that's lost, the last thing I'll say is training and mentorship, which I think Renee can talk to also is, that's the hard part. When I was in a newsroom, I learned a lot from,

reporters and people like that. And that's kind of gone, including with COVID and remote work. That's an issue permanently.

we all face. Like how do we mentor young people? How do we bring people up and train them? And how do we not isolate them? And that's, there's lots of studies. We just did a big show on that on, on pivot about that. So that's the thing we've all got to think about very hard. Like, can we have intentional gatherings? Can we, because I think there's no question that, and I think the studies now are showing that, that while there's some benefits to remote work, including childcare, et cetera,

and flexibility, there's also some real negatives, including gathering and being together and creativity. And I'll leave you with that. That's the one thing that will not be digitized is creativity. Just can't. They can't do it. And that's where you have to lean. So I'm so glad that you are here. And I want to thank Renee, who did not manage to ask me about being vulnerable, which is her thing. Oh!

We have a whole podcast on it. Yeah. Yeah. She thinks I'm vulnerable. She's okay. Sure. Brene, whatever. Um, anyway, I gotta say she's one of my favorite people. She's a real teacher. Thank you for doing this. Um, and let me just tell you, your prick to productivity ratio is off the fucking charts. Let's go. Let's go. All right. Thank you.

On with Kara Swisher is produced by Naima Raza, Christian Castro Rossell, Kateri Yochum, Megan Burney, and Sheena Ozaki. Special thanks to Mary Mathis, Kate Gallagher, and Andrea Lopez Cruzado. Our engineers are Fernando Arruda and Rick Kwan. And our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following this show, you get to learn something from me.

If not, you get a copy of Life Lessons from Mark Zuckerberg. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On with Kara Swisher and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back on Monday with more.