Kara Swisher’s Tales From Silicon Valley
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Rise and shine, fever dreamers. Look alive. I'm V Spear. I'm Sammy Sage. And this is American Fever Dream presented by Betches News. Where we explore the absurdities and oddities of our uniquely American experience.

Today, we have a very exciting switch up for you. We are doing an episode with famous tech journalist, Kara Swisher. V, how excited are you about this one? I am so nervous and so excited. I could like feel every single cell in my body and every single tear in my eye. I'm going to cry at the end of this. So stay tuned for the interview today. This week, we are going to have our main episode out on Thursday. And with that, here is our interview with Kara Swisher.

Today we are joined by Kara Swisher, tech journalist, co-host of one of my personal favorite podcasts, Pivot, and New York Times bestselling author of her new memoir, Burn Book, in which she chronicles her decades-long career, thus far, covering the rise of Silicon Valley and its many characters and villains, what they're really like up close, and how they've helped and harmed us.

Welcome, Cara. Thank you so much for taking the time to be here. Well, thanks for having me. Of course. You have written such a wonderful book. Congrats. So I'd love to just jump right in. Sure. You've obviously been in this industry for quite a while. You could have written this book at really any time. In your mind, has the tech industry crossed something of a Rubicon at this point? And what has changed over the past few years?

I don't know if it's a Rubicon or whatever, but I just wrote it because I thought it was a good time to write it. I had just finished a conference after 20 years where I interviewed a lot of people. There's obviously a shifting of attitude toward these companies now that wasn't there before, so I thought it was a good time. And it's just you have Elon sort of cracking up, sort of was the hero of the recent stories, I guess. People have changed, obviously.

Congress is finally starting to move into some sort of action. We've had all the polarization, obviously. So it was a lot easier to, to focus in on what's happening now than anything else. And so it just was, I just got, I just, I just got around to it mostly in general. Do you have any concern that by the time that the crackdown is actually happening and people are really understanding the harms that these platforms have done, that it's,

Almost like they've consolidated so much power at this point that the mechanisms to take it away are now maybe not as effective. Yes, I talk about that a lot. I think one of the problems is that we didn't move fast enough to deal with these companies.

So we don't, they have, they're more powerful than ever. They're richer than ever. They have lobbying power. It's, you know, a lot of the people who are regulating them are addicted to it in a way, just both for, I don't mean just from an addiction point of view, but from their work perspective, it's a necessary part is the oxygen of the ecosystem. And so it's really hard to ignore the uses of it essentially. And so it's hard to regulate something that you're using. It's such an important part of your future essentially. Yeah.

I think we're obviously at a point where the media industry is contracting and regulators and our legislators are not really, they don't have a handle on the technology in terms of regulation. They don't have any regulation. That's different from having a handle on it or understanding the power. This is not unlike cars or planes or pharmaceutical companies or anything else. So they should be able to regulate it and they should have by now regulated it.

And they haven't. They just haven't. And it has a lot, there's a lot to do with the money and the power of these companies and also the dysfunction right now existing in our legislative branch. Do you think there's a different time in history where there would have been less dysfunction or where regulation would have been something more prioritized? Yeah, I think that, you know, it took a while to get to the

Standard oils and the AT&Ts, of course. We forget because we're historically ignorant most of the time in this country. So yes, yes. You know, it's just, it takes a while to get to things. But you also have a group of people who have come in with a lot of money and power, you

intersect with a time when going right up the middle where we have a lot of dysfunction in our legislation. I mean, you can look at the numbers of laws that are passed. They're like, we're drastically lower than in previous Congresses. Do you think it's like a likability thing? Like the politicians want to be friends with the tech bros and so they don't want to regulate them? No,

No, I think some of it, I think the, as I've said publicly, I think the Obama administration had a bear hug with them for too far too long. I've told this to Obama myself, but I think, you know, yes, I think they, it's a, it's a thing that they use a lot, right? It's like, they like,

You know, they smoke cigarettes a lot, so they didn't regulate them so quickly, right? Or pay attention. You know, they're in love with the money and the power, and they know their own livelihoods depend on using these technologies. And so they can go on and on and decry it. And then the next second they're on Twitter or whatever, Facebook trying to raise money or whatever. On Ted Cruz's podcast. Yeah, right. Exactly. Why does regulating it have to mean that they would lose the use of it?

I, they, it wouldn't, it wouldn't. I just, it's just, they can't get it together. And there's a huge array of lobbyists lobbied against, you know, against the, these, these, you know, look, Amy Klobuchar had a bunch of fine bills that got killed because of tech lobbying and also the nervousness to, to push on it. And so they make, so the, where the real action is happening is in the States. You know, it's California right now, who's doing this. You have to pay, you

publishers, news organizations, if you're going to put them in search and things like that. It's not the government that's doing that. In other countries, it's the government, the federal governments that are doing that. Do you think that those types of regulations have been effective in other countries?

Some of them, sure, but it doesn't matter. These are U.S. companies. U.S. should be regulating U.S. companies. We regulate all our other U.S. companies and quite actively. And I agree, some of them are problematic, some of them are not, some of the regulation, but there's not any. So more than zero is what I'm going for.

Well, what do you think about the TikTok ban? I mean, they're all pretty hot on banning TikTok. Well, yeah, but that's a single company. That's not really how you run a country, is it? Like deciding individual countries what we're going to do. And look, I would agree with some of the dangers from China. Years ago, I wrote about the dangers of propaganda and surveillance from communist China by bringing TikTok in. There's no reciprocity of our

companies there. So there's all kinds of issues. And I'm certainly worried about those same issues. It's just that they aren't dealing with the overall, if they had dealt with the overall privacy issue and then they could move on to foreign ownership, that would have been great. So I think they can get all excited when they go anti-China, but not when

you know, just because it's Mark Zuckerberg selling us socks versus the Chinese Communist Party surveilling us, it's still a privacy issue. And so I think they should have a larger overall legislation, which Senator Cantwell and others are working on right now. But this is the fact, this is 30 years into it and we don't have any privacy legislation. It's really quite as, that's just the, to me, that's table stakes. What do you think about the danger of the Chinese government using TikTok as a propaganda tool?

Well, of course they will. Why wouldn't they? I don't think we need a lot of people like, let's see the proof. It doesn't really matter. They can't own CNN. So it's a broadcast network as far as I'm concerned. And, you know, I assume they're going to spy and they're going to try to propagandize. That's the assumption should be. That's what they're doing, because that's what we would do if we were in China. Guess what? That's why we're not in China. They won't let us in because that's precisely what we do. We've done enough damage to our movies that get over there. Right.

which show a different narrative than they're used to being or being fed. And so I understand, you know, why people need proof, but at the same time, I'm sort of like, well, do we really need proof? Cause that's what you would do for an organ. There's no other broadcast network that's allowed to broadcast as much as TikTok is in this country from a foreign adversary. Can you imagine if the, Oh, I don't know. The, the Iranians own TikTok. You're not going to let that would never be allowed to happen.

It's something that I struggle with, honestly, like as a person who considers myself deeply patriotic and an American citizen and also a super TikTok star. But I also struggle with the idea of like, am I participating in something that could be potentially harmful to an American election? And what would that look like? And how would I mitigate any of that?

You know, I think that what you would mitigate is not use it, I guess, right? And abandon it. But it's obviously a very powerful platform. And if it's correctly run, that would be great. It's not like I trust Facebook, but it's an American company, right? This is a Chinese company. And every Chinese company I've ever...

ever, ever covered has always got the overhang of the Chinese Communist Party. And I don't care how much they say they are, they're not there. They may not even know. It's just it's too good. It's too good. It's too like, like, let's not be naive here of what's happening. This is a geopolitical situation. They are a foreign adversary. Let's stop playing games and pretending that that's not the problem. If we were allowed in China, I may have a different opinion, but we're not.

And there's a reason for it. And so how do we look at it? Is it a broadcast network? If it's a broadcast network, which I think it is, is an entertainment network, we wouldn't allow it in other formats. So why do we allow it here? So I think people are complexifying it. And of course, the Trump administration, which was directionally correct, had to make it racial and make it like all these ridiculous terms that he used for them. And he did it in a cloddish way. I'm always worried about...

doing the right thing for clottish reasons messes up for everybody or for clottish in a clottish manner. And so I don't know what to say to the people creative with TikTok. It's a great service. It's great. But the fact of the matter is they have to go by the rules of our country. I'm sorry. You know, you don't, we're not all children. We don't get everything we want. And there are certain important things for our government and our country to create a, a

broader internet that is more fair and more with more democracy. It's not a democracy in China. Like, I'm sorry, but it's not as much as you enjoy your TikTok. It's not a democracy. It would be totally incongruous with everything else that they do for them to not use TikTok as a propaganda tool actively.

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If you were in the position of being a regulator, what are some core actions, like big swings that you would take? I would pass an overall privacy bill. I would avail myself to foreign ownership rules. I don't think you need a special TikTok rule. It's so open to, it's going to be in the courts. It's just stupid. It's just a dumb way to legislate, right? Even if it's directionally correct. So what is the best way to legislate?

Our goals, which are to minimize foreign propaganda, to minimize privacy violations, to stop dragging it into a First Amendment discussion. This isn't about the First Amendment. It's about something else. And so but, you know, we've got to just have a way to figure it out on a broader basis of these companies that have their tentacles throughout our body politic. And so they need to be governed in that way.

Do you think it's possible with the current business model and with the size of the biggest firms right now? And even the money that it takes to compete with any of them is nearly impossible at this point. Yeah, well, that's another thing. We should be doing antitrust legislation. We should be doing innovation legislation.

You know, we should be pushing innovation of small companies. We should be protecting. We've done this before. This is the thing that we try to, these tech companies try to pretend. We did it with AT&T. We did it with Standard Oil. We did it with Trustbusters. It's just a big company. Like, stop acting like there's some special magical unicorns that we can't touch. It's ridiculous.

course we can. And by the way, innovation always thrives when there's more companies, period. Well, speaking of more companies in the social media space, you've got Truth Social. And a lot of people will be like, oh, why all this heat for TikTok, but not for Truth Social? Tell me your thoughts on Truth Social in the stock right now.

It's not a company. I don't know what to tell you. I make more money on one of my podcasts by far than they do in their revenues. They lose $58 million a year. They're losing users. It's not a business. It's not a business. It's a game and it's a meme stock and it's a scam.

That's what it is. So how do we protect people who are throwing, you know, this is like prosperity gospel almost. They're just throwing their money at them for the hope that I'll see them. Well, intelligence has its limitations and stupidity is infinite. Nothing. They should lose their money. They're stupid. I don't know what to tell you. They're not being, they can look at, they can read as much as I can. And if you can't see, if you want to make things up and say they're not making revenues because the liberal left is stopping them, sure, whatever. They're just incompetent.

They're an incompetent company. And if you want to invest in them, you're an idiot. Go ahead. You might as well. You might as well deliver a bag of cash to Mar-a-Lago. That's what you should do. Honestly, it's a lot cleaner in that regard. If anything, the big story there is that it exposes what a scam is.

the stock market can be, but also just the way that valuations of companies can be completely conjured out of nothing. Yes, but it's right in front of you. It's not conjured. Everything is what people are willing to pay for. And if people are stupid enough to willing to pay for it and bid up the stock,

That's the world. GameStop wasn't worth that much. It was just because it was a bubble. Tulips, I don't know. I want to protect these people. I have no interest in protecting these people from their own stupidity. They're not being tricked. No one's being tricked here. It's all out in the open.

And they're saying what they're doing. And, you know, there's all kinds of lawsuits among and between the founders of this company. It's not a company. It's not a thing. It's it's it's it's a small little nothing. And it just has Donald Trump attached to it. And that's why idiots and fans are buying it. And if they want to lose their money at their hard earned money, that's, you know, they're adults, stupid adults, but they're adults nonetheless. So good luck.

At least if they bought his sneakers, they'd get a pair of sneakers. They're not. I don't know what to tell you about Donald Trump. He's a longtime con artist. Well, tell us about Elon Musk. Not a con artist, but certainly, you know, another person who's deeply involved in social media. And some people would claim the dissolution, the destruction of Twitter, which was an incredible space for news at the time. Sure, but it wasn't a very good business. It was a terrible business. It was going to go out of business, too, also, by the way.

Why did he do that then? What was he so interested in that for? Because he's a malignant narcissist and he needs a lot of attention. And so when he walks into the room as the head of Tesla or whatever, he gets kind of claps. But if he's the head of Twitter along with it, when he visits any one autocrat or wherever he goes around the world, he gets attention and he's in desperate need of attention. Now he's more interesting by a factor of 10, right? Is there a world in which...

He has to sell Twitter. No, not right now. I mean, look, Tesla's really far off, but he's got SpaceX. He's rich. No, it's like his yacht.

It's like his ridiculous fucking yacht. Or like if you're, you know, you saw William Randolph Hearst, you know, he had that castle, the Xanadu, whatever. That's his Xanadu. So whatever. I mean, it ultimately broke him, but it wasn't the house that broke him. It was everything else. So no, he can pay for it as long as he has money. And when he doesn't have money, that's when he can't pay for it. But I suspect he'll be in worse trouble if that happens. But he's not right now.

That's a good analogy. Let's talk about meta suppressing news. How do you think this is going to impact the election? And do you think there is a candidate that this is going to help or hurt disproportionately? I think suppressing news is a little far. They just aren't having it, right? They don't have to. It's a private company. They can do whatever they damn well please. I think it's stupid. And I think a lot of people like to consume news on these platforms, but it's too hard for them not to fuck up because they're the worst people.

moderators of all time and they don't feel like doing it. It's expensive. And so they must have made a calculation that they're not, that it costs too much to do it, which it does. Because they've been, when they're irresponsible, they, and it costs too much, they just make a mess. So now they're like, oh, let's just not do it because we're bad at it, which I think is probably a good decision. But I, you know, there's no God-given right to get your news off of Facebook. It just happens that much of the population does. So they've just decided not to be in that business. So.

Right. And that's especially a problem when there's only a few platforms. Well, they killed everybody else. The problem is they killed everyone else by not paying the costs of what news actually costs. And so they've killed off the actual news purveyors by stealing their business model and then they don't do it themselves. So that's not illegal. It's just reprehensible. Those are two different things.

How do you think journalists are going to fare with like all of this diversification now? Because I'm like, I had to try to get on Mastodon and then it was Blue Sky and then it was Substack or Patreon. Everything is kind of everywhere and everything costs $5. And it's like, okay, which $5 am I going to spend this week? Do you think there's a way in which we sort of write this? Nope.

Nope. There's three different business models. One is you right size your costs and your revenues, you know, which I've done many years. All my stuff makes a lot of money. So great until it doesn't. Great. I can make whatever I want. So you have to right size your costs and your revenues. So you can, a lot of small businesses are growing a lot of, there's a really a lot of puck or,

platformer and they have a lot of influence and they're really good stuff. A lot of podcasts are doing well. Ours is doing really well. So you can have a lot of those and then you decide ours happens to be an advertising based business, which is better for us. And once it isn't, I'll charge, right? But I don't, if I don't have to, I won't because I don't feel like that having that competition, but a lot of people are doing well, like information is doing all, they make a product people want to buy. It's not unlike,

you know, donuts. If you make a product, people want to buy, people buy it. Like it's, it's not that hard. I think news has not focused on business as much as they need to. News people act like they don't, they're not, it's called the news business, like show business. It's not just like hand waving. It's that you have to have a business. So, uh, you know, you'll, you'll have sort of, uh, the middle bill be hollowed out, which has been over the many years. And then you'll have, um,

And then you'll have bigger organizations, which aren't very big, actually, at the New York Times, which is doing very well. But there'll be fewer of those. And then networks, you know, everything's changed in how people consume their news. The cost structure is just look at it. Like if you just do math, you can see why they've been going out of business. Because people don't want to buy what they're selling anymore. And so they've got to make something that people want to buy. And I think news has...

has had a real, like a real easy time in that regard. But, but when there's more and more choices, they have a harder time, especially when they're underwritten by companies, which is not their real business, right? Like Apple can spend all it wants on Ted Lasso. It's not,

looking to make money here not losing to lose a lot of money but it doesn't matter the economics are crazy and so if you're a disney or a you know news corp you're like oh dear i'm competing with people who don't care about making money in my business so that's the problem and so you have to right size your costs and that means smaller organizations and as to paying for things you'll pay for what you want right that's my feelings you pay for what you want

I wanted to ask if you are happy as a journalist. Are you happy that you went this way with tech journalism? Because I know I read about you when you were young. You wanted to go into the military or the CIA or something, which I also wanted to do. I think maybe that's like a young lesbian fantasy or something. I don't know. I guess. I don't know. Yeah. My dad was in the military.

Yeah, I did. No, I'm very happy. I like what I'm doing. I've always changed and morphed in the way I like to. And so I like that. I like that. I like to do what I want. I think I like entrepreneurship. So that's why I like the other people are very disturbed by the entrepreneurship happening and all the change. I'm not disturbed by that. And so I think that's

I'm happy. I'm very happy with journalism right now. I think you bring up an excellent point that to be a journalist is also to be an entrepreneur, a marketer, an independent business, a small business, social media, every other thing. What would be your advice to somebody who's trying to get into journalism now?

Well, it's hard because there's fewer and fewer choices among where I got. I luckily got mentored at the Washington Post, for example. And so there's not that happening anymore. And that's hard. That's really hard because there's not places that exist like that. You know, you just can't do that. The other thing is that, you know, the the call of like a tick being a tick tock influencer. There's a lot of people with not a lot of expertise there.

pontificating about things they don't know about without any mentorship. And that's a real problem. You know, I would start, right. I always say, just start reporting and writing and get yourself all over the place. There's lots more choices. You can, you can have a bigger voice from a smaller platform now than you used to for sure. Like if you were on some blog before you couldn't get noticed, but now you can.

So I think just making excellent work that holds up is really the way to do it and just try to find mentors where you can. There are definitely not as many. There are just not as many. And try to find areas that you're good at and you really know well. I think the expertise is something I stress with younger reporters. They want to just go right from scratch.

five to a hundred right away. And I'm like, sorry, there's all those steps in between. Um, and they tend not to like to, but they're not going to last. They're going to, they're going to flame out if they, if you don't. One last question. Have you gotten any interesting responses from any of the individuals you wrote about in your book? Uh, you know,

You know, what I've had is I've had people I like do interviews with me on tour. So yes, they like it. You know, I mean, I think most people who are secure people who are adults accept my criticisms of the industry because I also love it, right? So I don't, I'm not unfair. And I think adults tend to think that I'm doing a good job, you know, and they appreciate it and they want to hear feedback. Those who are children who live in a perpetual state of toddlerhood, they don't like it.

Well, I'm so sorry, but many of them are in their 50s and 60s and should probably learn how to behave like adults. And so if you're someone who really reads it, you know, it's interesting. I'm getting a lot of feedback from comics. They like it because it's funny. It's actually a funny book in a lot of ways. So I just had, you know, Jerry Seinfeld really liked it, which was weird. All these comics...

are liking it, which is, I kind of like, but Eric Idle, who I love, who's from Monty Python just said, I'm reading this book and it's wonderful and it's funny. And it's this and that. And all these people attacked him. Like, what is your expertise here? He's like, I just like reading fucking books, people. And I'm smart. And it was so funny that he was just doing that, but I'm getting a lot of feedback from what I like is, you know, I get stopped by parents, couples, you

People who don't know a lot about it. And I really, those are my favorite readers because I think I do a good job in explaining if you're just interested in the history of the internet, this is it.

You know, if you, it's a very easy read, I made it that way on purpose. And I think once you read it and you have these, you know, you, you get told by Elon stand. So she's really mean. And you read it. It's like, this isn't that mean this is fair, right? This is tough, but fair. And I think that's all I want. I want people to read, to actually read it so they can have their own reaction to it. And most people who actually read it are like, Oh, I see, you know, she's doing a fair criticism. And I think everyone deserves a fair criticism of, of,

what's happening, especially in an industry that's so important to our government and our history and our society right now. I highly recommend reading it because some of these people are truly clowns. But that's the whole point is I wanted to say this is humans doing this. They're not gods. They're not magicians. They're not special because they're rich. Let me tell you what they were like then. I'll tell you what they're like now and what happened to them. And that was my goal.

I don't know how many times people tell you that they find you very comforting, but I find you very comforting. Many people tell me that. Good. As I hope they do as a reporter, because even though you can use strong language and be faster or, you know, sort of hold people to account, it makes someone like me feel like there's a possibility to talk like that, to recognize the absurdity in the world, what's real and what's not, that these are just people, that they're not

gods and that, you know, we are all sort of in the same situation worthy of criticism and worthy of living in a world that is real. And just you, you are so helpful in anchoring me back into the real world and reading a book and listening to a podcast that is smart. That, you know, for me as a TikToker, a lot of times I'm in this world of absurdity and political hobbyists, and it's so hard to maintain a grasp on reality when you're sort of like chasing down all of this absurdity. So I just appreciate you being a safe place.

Thank you. I try my hardest to, and again, I do try to be fair because I think if you're not fair, like I, I see the pluses in all this. That's why the second word is a tech love story, right? It's a tech love. I also love tech. And so that's where I try to, I come from that. And I try really hard to, I try really hard to be fair to people at the same time. Being fair doesn't mean not telling the truth. And that's what I try to do.

Do your kids think you're cool? Do they think mom gets it? Mom's tech? Yeah, they do actually. Yes, they honestly, they acknowledge it reluctantly. No, actually, I have really great relationships with all my kids. And I did an interview last night with my daughter sitting on my lap and she's four and I said something and she's not technical or she just watches Frozen on her iPad. That's pretty much the extent of her digital experience. And I said something and she goes,

Yeah. And I'm like, yeah. And so it was really, you know, my older kids, I spent a lot more time talking about these issues with. And, you know, I think I've been I treat them like they're intelligent people and can think on their own. And I think they appreciate that. But yeah, I think they think I'm pretty cool. My son, my one son who would not acknowledge it, who's wonderful. He's at University of Michigan. And he called me yesterday and he goes, yeah.

You know, all my, he's in frat now and he goes, you know, all my brothers, they want to meet you. I guess I'll let them. And so I was like, I guess you're cool. And I said, well, just use it for your own advantage there at college. So.

I heard Louie on Pivot. He was great. He was really great. It was obviously very well spoken, but just hearing his perspective, you should have him as like the Gen Z correspondent. I am told that. I'm told that he's, I think he's wonderful. I think he's thoughtful and he thinks by himself. And that's all you can hope for as a parent is they think for themselves and

you know, aren't, um, don't relying on tropes or anything else that they like challenge things that at the same time, aren't just contrary for contrarian sake, which is my greatest dis. I hate that. I hate people who just want to be contrary. And people always say you're kind of, I'm like, no, not for contrary sake. And so I really appreciate their, they're really great kids. I have nothing but great kids things to say about my children.

He's a good rep for Gen Z. He is. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, he is. Dispels a lot of stereotypes. He does. I think that's a trope too. Well, thank you so much, Cara. Congrats on the book. Thank you. And thank you for being here. Thank you so much.

Oh my God, Sammy. I was like trying to be cool the whole time, but it's weird when you're sitting there just looking at the most iconic tech journalist and lesbian possibility model of our time. Just what an incredible interview. And I'm so grateful that she gave us the time. Oh, totally. I mean, longtime followers of mine know that I am a longtime Kara Swisher fan. She's really just done some great work and she kind of like rules the tech beat.

She rules the tech beat. And what I love about that is the way that she interjects realism, right? Because Elon would have me running mad with conspiracy theories and like Mark Zuckerberg also like building his bunker out in Hawaii. Like the tech bros and the tech world and the things that she's seen over her career have really like she said before, it's like the birth of the internet. She was there for that. She's been there through all these different iterations and she's kind of been this like kindly...

figure that could just snap you out of the absurdity and the mental crisis that the internet can give you. And I just so appreciate that she's been there to help shepherd us through that journey. Yeah, I think there's just this tendency to sort of lionize these figures because they've created very large companies. So they must be larger than life. Like they're all the next Leonardo da Vinci or Benjamin Franklin. And I think that the fact that she saw them come up

It's sort of like, okay, they're just people. They're no smarter or more experienced than necessarily anybody else in this world. And everyone has flaws and needs to be checked. And like, that's okay. But I think in earlier years, like the 90s and the 2000s, just the way that comms around public figures was, it was very easy to like hide all of someone's flaws or turn them into this like demigod based on,

little anecdotes that they slept three hours a night. Oh, all these lies, these lies about sleep. Do you know how many times I tried to sleep four hours a night because that's like what made you a success? I hate that. Why would I want to sleep four hours a night like Donald Trump? He's an insane maniac. There's obviously some issues here.

One thing that we didn't get to talk about today that I also appreciate is she really did this. She did this analysis of Steve Case versus Bill Gates, which when we think about the Internet now, we think of like millennial social media folks. But Steve Case, the founder of AOL, who I have catered for in the past in my D.C. careers. Lovely man. He has a whole house just dedicated to doing parties in because, you know, why wouldn't you? Good tipper. Great guy. So nothing bad to say about Steve Case as a patron.

But I love the idea that those type of tech giants, I mean, Steve Jobs is dead, but Bill Gates, you hear from him when he writes a book or acquires something or he buys all the farmland in America. Steve Case, we're here to tell you he's a wonderful tipper and an excellent party host, right? They kind of gravitate

grew out of wanting the public attention on them, which comes with its own set of dangers because they're not as criticized as publicly and they're not as accessible as someone like a Mark Zuckerberg is. But if you want to know about them, Kara Swisher can tell you about them too. You get a nice consistent, consistent narrative.

Right. The book is really very interesting. I listened to it on an audio book and some of the anecdotes are just absurd. Does she read? She reads the book. She reads it. Yeah. Her voice is incredible. If you're not listening to the book, listen to the podcast on with Kara Swisher. It's fast paced. It's thoughtful. It makes you smarter. It makes me smarter, I think. And Pivot. Pivot is my fave. Karen Scott all the way. Crushing it. Well, now that we've had our fangirl moment. Hi.

How do we top this, Sammy? That's it. The American Fever Dream has come full circle. Look, there's so many amazing epic figures who I think that we're going to uncover, who are going to come to us in our dreams. Write to us. Tell us who's your fever dream interview of the year, and we'll see if we can get them on. If we got Kara Swisher, I feel empowered to get anyone now. Yes, and we also officially have the email AmericanFeverDream at Betches.com, so we no longer are supporting...

the Deutschland German neo-Nazi party. We technically do have AFD at Betches.com still, but if you don't want to use that one, you can use American Fever Dream at Betches.com. It'll go to the same place, which is to us. And we love reading them. Yes, it's our favorite. Until then, I'm V Spear. And I'm Sammy Sage. And this has been American Fever Dream.

American Fever Dream is hosted by Vitus Spear and Sammy Sage. The show is produced by Rebecca Sous-McCatt, Jorge Morales-Picot, and Rebecca Steinberg. Editing by Rebecca Sous-McCatt. Social media by Bridget Schwartz. And be sure to follow Betches News on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Betches.