The Burn Book Kick-Off with Don Lemon
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On September 28th, the Global Citizen Festival will gather thousands of people who took action to end extreme poverty. Join Post Malone, Doja Cat, Lisa, Jelly Roll, and Raul Alejandro as they take the stage with world leaders and activists to defeat poverty, defend the planet, and demand equity. Download the Global Citizen app today and earn your spot at the festival. Learn more at globalcitizen.org.com.

On September 28th, the Global Citizen Festival will gather thousands of people who took action to end extreme poverty. Join Post Malone, Doja Cat, Lisa, Jelly Roll, and Raul Alejandro as they take the stage with world leaders and activists to defeat poverty, defend the planet, and demand equity. Download the Global Citizen app today and earn your spot at the festival. Learn more at globalcitizen.org slash bots. It's on!

Hi, everyone, from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. I've got some big news to share if you haven't heard already. My latest book, aptly titled Burn Book, a tech love story, came out earlier this week. Over the next few weeks, I'll be on tour around the country speaking at live events with tech CEOs, politicians, and investors, including many of the people I wrote about. It should be interesting to have the tables turned on me. We'll see if they can do it.

Today's guest host is former CNN anchor Don Lemon. Don was one of the network's top stars until he was ousted last year for, among other things, saying that Nikki Haley, quote, isn't in her prime. Well, Don is in his 50s and apparently not too old for a reboot, which is great. He announced in January he's planning to launch his own show on the platform formerly known as Twitter very soon.

Don and I got into it in front of a sold-out audience at New York's 92nd Street Y earlier this week. We'll bring you on stage for Burn Book and more after a short break. This episode is brought to you by Shopify.

Hello, my dear. Hello. How you doing?

Thank you for coming out on a cold night, not for me, but for you. It's an honor to be here with you. Well, thank you for doing it. You have, I have to say, thank you, first of all. She's given me so much advice over the last almost year. Well, even before that, you gave me advice on everything. Very little of which you listen to, but go ahead. No, I listen to...

I listen to a lot of it, and we'll get into that. Okay. But how long have you been doing the whole tech thing? The whole tech thing? Since 1993, I think. Okay, yeah. So 30 years. Yeah. So she writes about, obviously, all of this in her book, and it is really a history lesson. It is. On what's happened with this business. Mm-hmm. It's...

Now they call it new media, right? Right. Well, no, it's media now. That's what I was going to say. Is it old media now? I never liked that designation, like old media, new media. It was weird. I found it weird. And one of the things they used to do with the Washington Post, it was media and digital. Like, I thought they were the same thing all the time. And I think one of the problems that media had was they never...

it's just the change, right? It's transportation, but you're not in a cart, you're in a car, right? And so I think one of the problems for media was is they always thought it was the other and not sort of an adjunct to their business when it was their business. And a lot of people were very slow. Some were quicker than others, but for the most part, they thought technologists were their friends, right? That they were there to help them. And technology people

put themselves out that way. We're here to give you tools for the future, that kind of thing. And I always used to say to media people, I'm like, do you know that old Twilight Zone episode, To Serve Man? Yes. It's a cookbook. Like, they want to eat you, and they want to take what you have. And so, and they were like, no, they're here to give us websites. I'm like, no, they're going to own you someday. You said that to, was it Yahoo about Google?

Yes. You said they're going to eat you. They're going to eat you, yeah. And they did not listen to your advice. No one does. No one does. Perfect example. No, what I said was I was at Google. It was at early Google, and it was a very small company at the time. And one of the things that got them bigger was one is an investment from Yahoo. Yahoo gave them an investment, a very important investment they needed.

And they owned a lot of... They gave them distribution and analytics, right? That's right. They put Google... Yahoo was not an algorithmic website. It was a directory. People hand-put those things in the websites. I did a story for the Wall Street Journal. They hand-put them in, which you can't believe they could do that now. They needed an algorithmic as things got bigger, as it went from 1,000 websites to 10,000 to 100,000. And so they hired Google as a vendor to do that.

And one of the things they did was they put the little Google colorful little logo on the Yahoo page, which was the most important internet page at the time, which is free marketing. And everyone started clicking on the Google logo and going straight to Google and not using the Yahoo directory. You notice that.

Yahoo was losing subscribers to Google. Because at Google, they had a chart. And you asked Google, you said, do they realize this? And they said, no, they don't. They don't realize it. And I had seen it happen before when AOL bought ads on Prodigy. And the Prodigy people called me at that time and said, we got more ads from AOL. I'm like, no, don't give them ads. They're going to compete with you. And it was, it's sort of like Pepsi bragging that Coke gave them

money on the can. And you're sort of like, why are you advertising Coke on a Pepsi can? And so it happened and Netscape put Yahoo on its homepage. It kept, they kept making that

error of letting them in the door. This was the big bad wolf, each of them in each instance. Did you ever think, especially when you started out, you said 1993, writing about tech and all that, that it would end up in this place and making so much money and being such a viable part of the economy, of the world, really? I thought it would be huge. I did. Or I wouldn't have devoted my career because the Washington Post, as you know, I think, was

I had written a series of stories as a retail reporter about a family called the Half Family. It got me really well known. It was a very wealthy family. They were fighting with each other. It was like succession. And, you know, and I, everybody loved this story because it was a crazy rich guy with a pompadour. His son had a, had a, had a lesser pompadour. And,

And they fought with, and there was a gay son. It was like I was doing Dynasty, and people loved it. And every day, Ben Bradley would go, good job, kid. And you'd be like, yay, Ben Bradley called me kid. And so I was on my way to cover the White House. That was the winning thing at the Washington Post, is you get to the White House, or you got to the political coverage. And I couldn't be less interested in it. So did you hate that? I hated it. I would hate it. It was so compromised, and...

I had covered parties for the style section. So I had to be in that and I hated it. I hated it. I thought it was, I called it the velvet coffin, you know, and you're supposed to love it. I'm sorry to say that, but that's what it felt like, you know, and I didn't want to cover that because it was so insular and so small. And I kept thinking as when I started to meet the tech people that these were going to be the rulers of the world, not these guys kind of thing. Well, what's interesting to me is that you, um, I think you're the perfect sort of hybrid, which is the, it,

was the future when you were doing it. Now it's what people must do of journalism and entrepreneurship, right? Being an entrepreneur. And I think you, at a certain point you had,

You know, a realization like, hey, I need to become an entrepreneur and not have to. You said, I could confirm all of these stories for, was it the journal? Washington Post and then the journal. But they wanted you to have someone else confirm the story. You know, you had to be straight. I was a beat reporter. That's what I was. I covered the internet beat and that was my thing. So you couldn't say...

Like, what got to me is I kept seeing all this ridiculousness in terms of valuations and everything else. It was way ahead of its skis in terms of stuff. But you couldn't say it. And some of it, at the beginning of every one of these tech booms, there's a fraudulent part of it. I still thought they were going to be huge. I still thought, like, this is going to be a huge group of people. And so I tried really hard to get the people involved.

that I was writing for interested in it, but I couldn't tell them, like, I couldn't say this is good, this is bad as a beat reporter. You can't do that. You just couldn't at the time. And so one of the things the journal had was this to be sure statement. And if you're a journalist, you know this. To be sure.

To be sure, some people say, you know, like you have to do the counter. You know, some people think Donald Trump isn't crazy. I'm like, who? Except for the magazine. Like, you know, like, no. Like, and so and it was Webvan and I was writing about Webvan and I looked at the math and I can do math and I can do accounting and I'm like, this is not going to work. They're spending four dollars for every 20 cents they make. This is crazy.

how's this going to go for after a while? They're going to run out of money. And it was too early. It wasn't directionally wrong. It was executionally wrong at the moment. And so I wanted to say that. And the editor actually said to me, can you get someone to say what you said? Right. And I said,

No. Why would I do that? Well, we need to put a to be sure. Some people think web van is great. And I was like, to be sure, they're stupid if they say that. And this was me as an employee. It was really not good. You're not a good employee. I'm not. I'm a two. Well, I'm talking to the expert here. Sorry.

This is how she talks to me in person. This is how I talk to him. So there's no filter here. Come on. Did he like, he literally opened the door. Well, we talked about that. We won't mention who. And I said that they were the first example. And you said, yeah, and you're example number two of that. So, yeah. Let's not stack rank who's the worst employee on this one. Now you're working for yourself now, Don. What do you fucking care? But you say in the book that you're a terrible employee. I am a terrible employee because I can't, like I would get meetings and they'd be like,

At one meeting, it was insane. They did a Saturday journal. And I was like, no, take all the money and put it into digital. Give me the money. I'll do a digital site. And I understood why they did it, but they were in love with print. And I was not in love with print. I had stopped reading print publications. And I read them online. And so one of the things that drove me crazy was they had these periodic meetings. And I was still young at the time. And they're like...

How do we get, like it was always old people, like older white men. And they're like, how do we get young people to read the newspaper? And I was like, they ain't. And it doesn't mean they're not liking media. It means they're not reading a broadsheet anymore. They have other ways of accessing media. I said to tape a joint between every page and they kicked me out of the media. Yeah, but I was confused when you said that you went all wireless. I did. At the journal. How long ago was that broadcast?

But it seems like in the book it was before iPhones. Is that? Yes, it was. You went all wireless. Yes, all the time. That didn't mean you didn't have cable in your house. I had no, no, I had a, I had a ricochet. There's called a ricochet. It was a Paul Allen company and I taped it on the back. It was this little flat thing. It was early wireless. It was early wireless.

And he had these big things he hung from certain cities. They did it in San Francisco, so it was easier. They had them in airports. And so I had a ricochet modem. But I got rid of my landline. That was one of my first articles for the Journal in 97. Like, I got rid of it. I was like, we're done with landlines. We're done. I mean, I have one in San Francisco because of earthquakes, so everyone has one there. But...

I was like, everyone's going to be mobile. It just doesn't. And I had the little BlackBerry, the first one, you know, and I was actually holding that in my hand when my son was born because I was texting with Walt. And so I had it in my hand. I had an emergency C-section and they rushed me in. It was in my hand and the doc, my brother's a doctor in the same hospital and they go, oh, care.

Kara's techie sister and what are we gonna do about this because it wasn't clean and so they wrapped it in plastic and it was buzzing during my entire cesarean it was were you like no I couldn't it was in the plastic I would have yeah I kept writing walls six centimeters whatever I would kept like you know it was anyway so let's I'm gonna talk about the book let's get to some of the questions that I okay why burn book why call it burn book because it's funny

And you want people to burn this book? No, because if I wanted to burn this book, I'd call it Burn This Book, which was already a book by someone. Burn Book is, if you see Mean Girls, is the idea that you have this book in high school where you write what you really think in the book. And so it's always funny. It's kind of gossipy. It's been in a bunch of different movies, you know, a burn book. And then the person who writes it always gets...

They remember at the end, Regina George is throwing the burn book out. And so everybody gets to see what everybody thinks of them. And so that's what it is to me. It's my burn book over the years. And it's not all burn. I love tech. So it's not it's sort of a and the love story part is because it is a love story gone wrong.

I love country music, so there you have it. Well, knowing you, I thought it would have something to do with what's going on with people wanting to burn or ban books, and you were sort of a play on that. Oh, that's good, too. That'll work. Yeah, sure. That works as well? Why not? So all of these people you write about, they're now bold-faced names. They weren't. They were not. For now. So I'm going to call out a couple of names, and then you tell me. Let me guess. Bezos.

I met Jeff when he started the company. He was very eager. He was older than everyone else I covered. Most people were much younger. And Jeff had a career, had a very successful, he was a very well regarded, fast track, under 30, math geek who was at an investment firm. You call him Farrell.

I did. The internet boys always acted like they were 12, you know, like, oh, hi, I'm wearing soft clothes and, you know, jumping on pogo sticks. That was their game. Jeff was intense and he was really feral. That's the first word I wrote down about him. He was like...

He was a business guy. He was a logistics guy. And so he was so aggressive compared to them that it was... They feigned sweetness. He did not. He did not feign sweetness. And so feral. He wanted to dominate. There have been a number of downturns, especially like tech downturns. And you said he was feral enough to survive them all and smart enough. Yes, he did. He was very clever. He was really... He's a math guy. If you think...

Right now, he's having the best midlife crisis of anyone's life, right? Come on. You're like, fantastic, again, with the outfit. What are you doing? Everyone made fun of that. I loved every bit of that. Everyone was like, isn't that ridiculous? I'm like, no, it's the best thing ever with the patent.

But you thought, didn't you think like... Good for him. You thought the numbers and the valuation of his... You're like, this is crazy. You didn't believe it. I didn't. And, you know, I argued with Henry Blodgett when he made that $400 call on the stock. Because if you did the math, it didn't make any sense. And so there was this...

It felt not like a Ponzi scheme, but a bubble, a classic bubble. And so people were paying for their future, not for their present. And that was, you know, in media, you have to live with gravity. The internet people didn't. And they built their way into their fortune. Like right now, Tesla stock, for example, come on. But people are paying that, so that's what it's worth. Yeah.

But on a comparative basis with Ford, it doesn't make any sense. So they're thinking he's going to do something else, you know, invent unicorns. I don't know. But maybe it'll be true because if you had shorted it, you'd get in trouble. I've got to tell you, I love a Tesla, though. Do you? I do. I love electric cars, and I think Teslas kind of drive themselves. Have you seen the others? Don't drive yourself in a car. No, no, no. He only uses a couple of points. I drive a different car. You write about...

Interesting thing is Bill Gates, right and Steve Jobs. Yeah at the greatest interview I think you let's talk about Gates first. Okay, you said that you you think that now that he stepped away that he realizes that life is short, but

Yes, I think he is, you know, he was, speaking of Farrell, this guy was so aggressive and he, of course, got in trouble for it. And I covered that a little bit at the Washington Post. But he was never one of those techie guys that were show-offs and peacocks.

And so, and he wasn't particularly nice, I would say. He was very difficult to deal with. And same thing with Steve Ballmer, who's now all cuddly, but he was not cuddly at the time. He is. He's like, now, and you're like...

Who are you? Yeah, he wrote me a note. He goes, hey, Kara, how's it going? I'm like, what? Because you were real mean to me, as I recall. But he was, you know, Bill, what I always thought was that the comparison always had to be with jobs. Because one of the things I think I wrote at one time is if they died on the same day, sort of like Jefferson and Adams kind of thing. Yeah.

The headline would be, Bill Gates, the world's richest man, died today. Steve Jobs, an innovator. The greatest innovator in tech history. Bill Gates desperately wanted that to be his legacy. And Steve just bested him almost constantly. And Steve was rich enough, but...

Steve had the, was the guy, right? The visionary. Empath. Yes. And so, you know, with Bill, I think the stuff he did on philanthropy has been really interesting. He's very interested in, let's leave aside the Epstein stuff, which has not, there's been no proof. Like I just, he had bad judgment in spending time with that guy. That said, the stuff he was doing around, you know,

around philanthropy has been, about vaccines has been really important. The stuff he's doing around climate change is really important. And so he changed his point of view on his legacy. And so he instead, he's sort of being a Carnegie personality. Well, there was a real rivalry between those two guys. And I thought that you were saying in the book, and maybe I'm wrong, is that you thought that Jobs was smarter than Gates. No, different. They were different. You know, Steve really had a sense of science and art and technology.

design combined with technology. He wasn't a technologist. Bill was much more of a technologist. Okay, so let's talk about him. Do you think if he were alive, where would we be when it comes to innovation and what's happening now? Because

I think the popular opinion is that Apple is not as innovative. Except it's worth 10 times more. So from a shoulder perspective, it's doing just fine. Tim Cook is 10x that company. That is very hard to do. It's the most valuable company in the world. And it wasn't when Steve died.

you know, you can make fun of him, but the AirPods is an astonishing product. It could be a company all by its own and be a huge company. I think the watch, when everyone made fun of it, is now an enormous business. So,

I think it's easy to dismiss Tim Cook. It's just like you could dismiss Satya Nadella, but you can't. Look at these companies. They're killing it. He really moved them into cloud properly at Microsoft, Satya did, who's a terrific guy. And so you have a lot of people who had to take over from legends, right?

But they've made them into better businesses, both of those. In Steve's case, though, it was the inspirational stuff. It was the beauty of it. It's technology that respects privacy compared to everybody else. They look

like the best people ever on privacy. Someone who talked a lot about the way it could be versus the way it was, that designed beautiful objects that were intuitive. You had to respect that. Listen, he wasn't always a lovely guy and he was very difficult to people. He misparked his car in handicapped space. I get it. Today he looks fine, like compared to people that say you might work with. But...

But he was difficult, but he was also legendary. Don't get mad at me. No, I'm not. Kara, I could never be mad at you. We are the same person. I texted you that. We're very much alike. So he was just, it was always great talking to him because he also read widely. Like with Steve Jobs, you could talk about poetry, you could talk about art. He understood history and he had a mind that it was always,

it was always interesting to talk to him. - Do you have the same type of relationship with Tim Cook or no? - He's different. He's different. He's a logistics, he's much more, he's a lovely guy, let me say. He couldn't be more polite and affable. - Well, I ask because it feels like you grew up with the other folks. Tim Cook seems like he's kind of-- - Yeah, no, I know him pretty well, but he's not, he's a pro. He just doesn't, he doesn't wanna hang out with me. I don't particularly wanna, he's really smart. It's great to talk to him. He's super interested in two things.

neither of which at the time, I was interested in one of them, but he loves, I think it's Alabama football, which is hard. I'm like, can we talk about gay things? Like, no. I like football. Auburn. Auburn. He likes Auburn. Tigers. LSU Tigers, Auburn Tigers. Whatever. I don't know. I'm literally the only lesbian in America who hates sports. So it's like this. And he was like, and then Auburn. I was like, I could...

I don't care. And then when you eat with him, it was interesting. He's really fit. He's incredibly fit. And like when they bring the food, it's like the most perfect piece of chicken on the most perfect arugula. And then there's just a dusting of quinoa. Just...

Not much, because that would be fattening. The one thing he did talk about was what's right now the vision pro, the idea of spatial computing. He was riveted to that, and I find it a really interesting vision, too. The Gates jobs interview was the best interview I ever did. You want to talk about that? Because I thought it was amazing. It was. Especially when...

Tell the story. So it was really hard getting them together because they really didn't like each other. They made up before Steve died, but they had a real tension, a real tension between them of competitors and Gates particularly. Steve always tried to fuck with him, like always, was always like...

And he smirked. Remember Steve Smirk? He was always trying to, like, get him. And so we had interviewed, that day, we had interviewed Steve alone on stage and Bill alone on stage. And in Steve's interview with Walt Mossberg, who was my partner, who really did make that come together, he asked him just an off the, just, hey, why is Apple so popular on Windows? Why was Apple one of the most popular? I think it was iTunes.

And he goes, well, Walt, when you're in hell and someone hands you a glass of ice water, you're pretty happy. And we were just about to do this interview and you knew it was going to get to Gates in seconds. He wasn't in the room, I don't believe, but it was like the PR guy from Microsoft was like, like that, like, oh no. And the PR person from Apple was like, oh no, he couldn't resist.

So they get on stage and then what happened?

Bill walks in and Bill is already not the most sociable person on the planet. And he was monotone, which is not a good thing when you're going into like the legendary interview and he's, you're like, Hey Bill. He's like, like that, like pissed off. And then Steve walks in with the most shit eating grin on his face. And he's like,

And you're like, fuck you. Like, how could you do that? And so Bill isn't answering. Steve is grinning. And we're like, oh, this was going to be it. It was going to be our biggest interview. And the PR people are all like, what do we do? And then Walt asks him a question. And Bill goes, suddenly says words. And he goes, how would I know? I run hell. Like...

Then Steve Jobs, I can't believe he did that, somehow in his hand had this

This, but it was covered with condensation. It was frosty. I don't know where he got the frosty drink, but he did. And he goes, here, let me help you. And he gave it to him. And it was so good. It was even better. Sounds like an episode of Dallas. It was. It was fantastic. But then when they got on stage, they really did rise to the occasion. That was some moment to do that in person. But I decided to throw them a softball. And the question was, so what is something people don't know about your relationship? And

And Steve couldn't help himself. And he goes, well, for a long time now, we've been married and lovers or something like that. And Bill Gates, you could watch his face because he's like, I can't be anti-gay. I'm not gay. I'm not gay, but I don't want to be anti-gay. And like, you could see him not able to do it. And he went,

And Steve was like, nice one, Steve. Like he literally would do that. And then at the end, of course, there was that beautiful exchange about them being together. Steve did this very sentimental send off. They had they were really a pair, I would say. We'll be back in a minute.

Okay. We're going to talk about a whole bunch of things, but I want to talk to you about AI, right? Sure. Because that's where I was going with the old media, new media, right? Because AI is the future. That's what everyone is saying. Yeah. Do you believe that AI can actually take over for humans? For what?

Well, I mean, do my job. Do your job as a podcaster. No, no, no, no, no. I think you have to look at it as a tool to start with. Like, what does it do to change things? If you compare it to other things that have happened, the mechanization of farming, the mechanization of manufacturing, it's not unsimilar. What the internet did to...

what Amazon did to delivery. It's going to replace the things that can be digitized. And as you know, in the book, I say everything that can be digitized will be digitized. Anything that can be used in AI can be used in AI. And so it'll hit everything. It's not going to just hit media. It's going to hit every job.

Yeah, but, Karen, I think... What would it replace you doing, precisely? Some things. I mean, if it can predict, if it can adapt to... Well, we don't know if it can now. No, it can't. I mean, didn't you see... Because things haven't happened yet. Didn't you see 2001 Space Odyssey? Yes, I did. That was a movie. It was fictional. Yes.

Yes, I believe it was fictional. No, but here's what it can do. It can guess. It's a really good guesser. And it inputs data, but it's only good as the data that goes in it. So there's an expression, crap in, crap out. So it's not warm. They say it's cold. It can't take the place of humans. But I mean, this is not warm, but people spend more time with this than they spend with humans now. That's right. So imagine...

We're not going to have this, by the way. This is going at some point. And even though I know you like yours and I, this is a great relationship of mine. I think you're going to have, it's going to be here. You're going to have spatial computing. You're going to have the AirPods will have a video in them. And it will say,

Don wants to have lunch with you. And I'll go, oh, that asshole. And they'll be like, I know, but you have to do what you promised. Because you said it in that email. And you'll be like, okay, schedule a lunch. And my AI will talk to your AI and do that. That's an example of what you could happen. Or it could say, you know, here's a newspaper. Here's 25 headlines that I think will work. And then the human picks one. But it will do it in seconds, what you could do. It will replace...

There's a lot of things you could see. Like law associates, not a good job. I don't know what they're going to do. It's going to replace just a newsreader. There will be a computerized person or an AI version of me. There already is. But I mean, it's going to proliferate. But there has to be news reporting in the first place. So where does that, on certain things, it absolutely will. On other creative things, it won't.

Well, I think it will take headlines or it will take whatever Google spits out to it. It does that now. And it'll put it in the news form and it'll be a person reading the news and you won't have to tune in to that. Well, but there's an element of interesting and creative that you're leaving out. It can only replicate what's put in it. And you keep thinking because of science fiction. I'm not saying it's bad. No, not necessarily, but that it's going to think and it's going to want to do something. And I have to say on this...

Elon was the first person to talk about this as a danger to me, like absolutely in interviews. He had invested in open AI. He had a falling out with them. But he had said this is a real problem. The first time he talked about it was much more in a Terminator-like sense. It will kill us, right? It will kill us.

And he was terrified of it. A lot of people were. A lot of people are. And they discuss it. Like, it could do all kinds of things. It's the Terminator movie version of it. Then, in another interview later, he came more around, which I think is the correct idea, which is...

It doesn't care about us. It will do what's most efficient. And so the example he gave is when we build a highway and we go over an anthill, we're not trying to kill that anthill. We just go over the anthill. It's because we don't know it's there. We don't know if it's not there. If, say, we gave it the instruction, let's get rid of hunger.

One of the answers might be, we need to kill a billion people. Like that might be an answer, but then you have to say, but let's not kill a billion people. Like, let's not do that. So it's a question of what we give it permission to do that. It's going to not unplug itself. I find that ridiculous. I find that it's just, it's just a fantasy that it'll do that. It'll learn so much, but

if you give it the wrong instructions, the wrong input, including right now, like facial recognition, the reason why it's so flawed is because the input in it is, is flawed by humans in the first place, you know, arrest records by, if you put all those arrest records into AI, uh,

It'll say, well, you need to look for a person of color because they get mostly arrested. That's what happens. It just takes the data and that's the problem with it. Well, I'm glad that the transition, because I've asked you about almost everyone. There are others, but let's talk about Elon Musk, right? Because you have a very special relationship with him. Yes, very. No, you have that now, not me. Well, no, I mean, actually, I don't really have that kind of a relationship.

No, I know that. I'm not as close as you. I don't talk to him as much. I'm not close to him at all. He called me an asshole and told me my heart was seething with hate. But you probably communicate with him a lot more than I do. Not now. Okay. No. But he is consequential to the world. He was. I think so. I agree. The reason why I was attracted to him is because when all these other dudes were making digital dry cleaning services, which you're like, when you get the fifth of those, you're like, ah.

Kill me now. Like, right. When someone comes out, Kara, I'm doing a dating service, but get this. You know, it's people who like shoes and you're like, oh, no. Like, but it's digital. And you're like, get off of my porch right now. Like, you're sort of like, this is what the geniuses of our world are coming up with. And at one point I got so repulsed by it. I call I said everything in San Francisco that's being invented is assisted living for millennials. Right.

Like dry cleaning, food, bike delivery, this and that, right? That's what it was. And so when you meet someone who goes, I'm going to change electric cars. I'm going to build electric cars. I'm going to build new spaceships. I'm going to build even...

Even his dumb tunnel underneath LA, it's kind of cool, right? The Hyperloop is kind of cool. You got to say, you know, solar, at least he was doing something interesting and consequential, right? And so that's why it was interesting. And nobody was doing that. Nobody, like nobody. And so he was unusual in that regard and very ambitious in a really, one of the things that someone had told me that struck me at the time was Silicon Valley was full of really smart people doing really stupid things, right?

And he was not doing stupid things. Now, the problem is you have an unaccountable richest man in the world who's now kind of turned into a Bond villain, right? Like, he literally is the, I'm a Bond aficionado. I'm like, which one are you, like, of these people? If he gets a white cat, we're fucked, like, essentially. But, you see, he would. He'd do that. He would do that because that's his personal. One million dollars. Yeah, one. Yeah.

Yeah, like a scar. That'd be really funny. But that's not really funny, but it is funny. So, you know, you worry about someone who's unaccountable. Do you think he's the most powerful person in the world now?

Among them, yes. Among them, sure. I think Twitter is not as consequential as people think it is. It's always been a small business. I don't mean just Twitter. I just mean that's part of it. I think he's space in certain areas. Absolutely. Starlink, we need competitors to Starlink. Sorry, he can't be the only one deciding. What if he shuts down communications that U.S. troops need in the Taiwan Straits? Like this guy? Like, I'm sorry. This guy who tweets boob jokes? No. And even if our elected officials are flawed—

I'm sorry. He didn't get elected. He did not get elected. So that worries me. Do you think he's the, well, he's among, but do you think he's the most innovative person? No. No, he's smart about finding businesses. And he didn't invent Tesla, but he saw the potential. He's a very good business person. Excellent. But not so much at Twitter. You said you don't talk to him now, but if you did, what would you ask him? What happened to you?

What what is going on? Like can I get you a therapist? Like I think you know, I I'm concerned about his health his mental and physical health I'm concerned about it. I mean, I don't that that concerned like but you know what I mean? like I I think he's in a I to watch him spin out of control and and

gaslight people all the time. Oh, I didn't. Right before when he took over Twitter, I was thinking he could probably do a good job here because he was innovative and interesting and push and very aggressive. And Twitter was always the loser company of the internet. The business was terrible. It needed a jolt by someone who would take risks, right? And he was on the list. There's a list of people who could have done it.

And he and I had a back and forth because I was doing a lot of stuff on Twitter and Twitter Spaces. I was actually making a little business there. Do you think the relationship will ever be repaired? No, after he did... Because we would have you on CNN all the time to ask you about your interviews with Elon Musk. Yes, right, exactly. That's why I'm asking you all this. No, because the stuff he's done is unforgivable to me. The Paul Pelosi thing, when he tweeted, when he just bought Twitter, when he tweeted...

an anti-gay conspiracy a very vile one that Paul Pelosi was part of a gay love triangle after this poor man had gotten the shit beat out of him by a crazy person radicalized by the internet and

Are you kidding me? Why would you do that? It's so needlessly cruel. I don't even know who would do that. And if you just bought this platform, you're the most powerful and richest person on the planet with hundreds of millions of followers. Do you know the damage you just did? I don't care how many drugs you're taking. You have no excuse for doing that. And everybody has their breaking point. And there were a number of them, the anti-trans stuff, the anti-Semitic stuff, which he pretends isn't.

Right? Like, I'm just promoting free speech. Like, why do you only promote terrible speech? I'm going to arrange a summit with you guys. No, you're not. Oh, no, you're not. Do not get in the middle of that. You know what? You break up some people. And there's several people I've broken up with. I've never seen them again, and I hope never to. All right.

So someone in the audience wants to know, and this is breaking news because we talked about this a bit. How should the Supreme Court rule on the First Amendment issues with online social media platforms? You guys know about this case they heard today, relatively. So it's a case that Florida and Texas have put together these laws where they're going to force social media and tech companies that

That they can't take down anything, essentially, especially that they're censoring the right wing, right? That they're censoring. They love to trot out that word because Americans go a little nutty when they heard the word censor. But it's not. There are private companies that have First Amendment rights to run their... It's like telling CNN that they have to have...

These people on or in the new york times that you if you interview biden you must interview trump now They will make that decision themselves. They may do that. That was an equal time thing that that doesn't exist. What? No equal time. There's no such thing, right? and so, um So that was really problematic. So they want to do that because they they want they are weaponizing the first amendment almost continually um

But it's not the government's job to tell social media companies or anyone else what to put up. Now, that said, they're doing a terrible job doing content moderation. But they're still private companies. And when they wander over there, it's a problem. So I hope they... I'm hoping they took it up because there was a...

one of the two appeals courts were disagreeing, so they're going to solve it, solve the disagreement. They have to take it up. The second one that's coming is whether the Biden administration coerced social media companies from taking things down, or should the government be able to speak to social media companies? I think they should be. If there's a threat, say an Al-Qaeda threat, and the government often knows about things the tech companies might not, there should be a robust communication. It's

They can't coerce them to take it down. They can say... And the thing that they point to, that the Twitter files, which was nothing, was a big zero, the things the Biden campaign asked to take down were naked pictures of Hunter Biden. Now, we don't need to discuss his issues, but that's a good request, I feel. Penis pictures of... Only Marjorie Taylor Greene should have those. LAUGHTER

It's Kara Swisher, everyone. Okay, so lightning round. What is wrong with her? Do you still think that threads... Too many steroids, but sorry. Allegedly. Allegedly.

Do you still think that Threads is going to overtake X? Yes. I think it's quite a good product. I cannot believe I'm saying that. But finally, Mark Zuckerberg has created a product I like. But it's Instagram. It's Instagram for text. I like it a lot. They're handling it well. It's kind of fun. Not that my wife hates it, right? Do you hate it still?

Mine is fun as heck. There's like this guy who does flower arranging that I love desperately. There's like these cool dog videos I like. I like it. I'm enjoying it quite a bit. There's a longer question, but I think you kind of answered this. The question is, are there blind spots now in the models we're using to bring AI to the

mainstream that you've noticed. Yeah, absolutely. I think there's going to be a big fight over what data it is. I think tech, I mean, media companies have to pay a lot of attention. New York Times is suing OpenAI because of the scraping. And so we have to figure out where the provenance of this data is critically important, understanding where it came from. And they have to have a system to be able to track it. They've done it before on YouTube with music, all kinds of things. So how do we track the data and

How did the output come? How did we get that output? And I think that's critically important. So we have to have a tracking and a safety system. The Biden executive order has a lot of this in it. You have been very prescient on a lot of things and you've seen into the future. Yes. So then where do we go from here? Because I feel like I'm just getting into this whole streaming thing, but I feel like it's old media. I know you don't like that term. Right. But what's going to replace that? What's next?

I think what you're doing is really interesting. You've given up the town cars and fancy things for your own entrepreneurial sense, right? I still have some of that, but yes. Yes, you still have that. I'm sure you still have that. No, no, but I was in what was considered sort of the old studio system. Yes, you were. It was so funny. Last night, Don was on the street. I'm like, where's his town car? It's gone. I was kind of thrilled. I was like, yay, he can't get a car. Fantastic.

I didn't call a car, but actually I've never really liked that. I got it. I know, but I like public transportation. I love taxis. I think it's, I feel very New York about that. I get it. You're a man of the people. I know that, Don. But I do love a good town car. Yeah, you do. You do. One of the things that's important to think about is what,

You have a voice and you have now tools to get out anywhere. What do you need that for? And you should have an interest in the outcome, which means the revenues and profits. So you're going to do the best job if your interests are aligned with the people you're doing business with. Before you were just...

You were just paid or whatever. I don't know about that. No, but you know what I mean. You know what I mean. It's like you were not linked exactly to your entrepreneurial efforts. And so you have a voice. Not everybody can do this. But I cared about the product I was putting out. I cared about the information I was giving out. I didn't say you didn't. I'm saying now you're responsible for it. And so you can make the mistakes. And if you make mistakes, it won't work. Yeah.

So can we have a vote of the name of the show that I thought you should do versus your name? Oh, what was it you said? This is the Don Lemon Show. Of course. Yes, but you had another... When Life Gives You. When Life Gives You. Dot, dot, dot. It's still time. We haven't launched yet. By the way... You know, Elon would like that one. I know. So we may do that. I might just do that.

Boob joke. By the way, Cara is going to be one of the first guests on the show. I shall. Which launches on March 11th. Yeah, this is news, by the way. Yeah, this is news. Yeah, it's coming.

And explain, you're not, I gave you a hard time on Twitter. I just thought you should do it by yourself, whatever you do, but you're not just on Twitter. Everyone's like, oh, I was with someone and they're like, oh, he has a Twitter show. I'm like, no, it's not. It's a distribution partner. And here, this is what, I was listening to you and Scott the other day. I don't remember the specifics of the conversation, but you guys were saying that

You have to get in the ring. Yes. And I think you were talking about going on and responding to people or whatever. Oh, yeah. So that's how I feel about X is that I don't think that you should see that platform. It's such a huge and powerful platform to extremists.

And I think you've got to get in there and fight. Fair. And if someone says something that you don't like or you think is off base, then you have to challenge them. And that may even mean challenging the person who owns that. That's true. But I think everything he does is going to hang around your neck. That was my worry for you. And you shouldn't have to worry about that. We'll see. Right. But everyone will say something terrible and they'll be like, Don, your thoughts? And I will be in front doing that. I know you will.

You know, one of the things about this book is, look, this is my recollections of what it is. You don't have to agree with me. The only thing I say is, I talk about my faults, my achievements, and thus, you can have a totally different opinion. I just want you to, one of the things that drives me crazy about this internet age is everyone has a hot take in two seconds. If you don't read my book,

I'm not listening to a word you say. If you have an opinion after you read it, I'm open to it. But I really, that's in everything in life. Let's stop having so many hot takes so quickly without really doing the work. And it's a real disease of our time is this instant necessity to respond. And it's hard for me too.

And I think it's really important that these tools can be great. They can be wonderful for conversation and reflection. Like you're, that's your ideal on X. I think you're,

It's not going to work there right now because of the way it's degenerated. But that's the ideal, is that you can argue with people. I think you're going to be swarmed with trolls. Well, I will choose who I... Right, exactly. But they're now running the place, and so that's the problem for me. So what I would urge everyone to do is instead of complaining, like let me reference Jon Stewart when he was at the end of one of his shows recently. He was like, look, there's all this noise, there's all this partisanship, and everyone has to reduce everyone into tribes, which I think the internet has done well.

a lot of damage in that regard is putting us apart when it should be bringing us together. But it is up to people to make the choices of what they, but the last words of this book are look up.

like start to look up and to consider stuff. And I love tech, but it is a tool. It is not your life. And so you probably didn't mean for this to be so profound, but for me, the one thing that I, because I, I'm, I write it, I'm writing a book. This is not to tease my book, but I, I write in the book. Perhaps you could come to the stage. It's about, I told you.

It's about God. I started writing it in 2022. And then after my exit from CNN, my life changed. So I left the book. And then when I came back, it was a different book. So I hope you guys buy it. So it is a tease now. But I write, I said, if you're not in transition, then what are you doing? And you have a very similar thing in the book where you say your biology teacher says, everybody's moving towards... Everything's on its way to something else. That was my extent of my science. And it's true. Everything's on its way to something else. You are made of stars, Don Lemon. So you should...

This book, it is, I shouldn't say it's simple because it's smart, but the way it breaks down what's happening in society as it relates to tech and everything is amazing. Her beautiful wife is... No, right here, this on the back, I hate blurbs or asking people for them. There was no frigging way I was going to ask Reid Hoffman for a blurb. And I like Reid Hoffman, but so I put insults of the internet people to me.

On the back. So praise for Kara Swisher. The first one, by the way. Well, you are right. Who said that? Elon Musk, when he was talking to me. The queen of all media. That was some of them. Do the insulting ones. Not a single more vitriolic voice in the tech ecosystem, David Sachs. She would sit on Instant Messenger all day and harass the shit out of people. Mark Andreessen.

The last one. The last one. Oh, you're an asshole. Elon Musk. Thank you. On with Kara Swisher is produced by Naeem Araza, Christian Castro Rossell, Kateri Yochum, Megan Cunane, Megan Burney, and Michael McDowell. Special thanks to Mary Mathis, Kate Gallagher, Andrea Lopez Cruzado, and of course, to all the folks at the 92nd Street Y.

Our engineers are Fernando Arruda and Rick Kwan. And our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following the show, you'll be featured in my next Burn Book. If not, you'll be featured in my next Burn Book. 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.