A Silicon Valley Satire That Feels Uncomfortably Close to Reality

"Raising money off frothy numbers to sugarcoat the rotten apple is what built this town.” That’s according to Duncan Park, the protagonist of "The Audacity," a new dark comedy from AMC about tech CEOs and their relationships with their families, therapists and enablers. Live from SXSW, Kara spoke with executive producer and showrunner Jonathan Glatzer ("Succession," "Bad Sisters," "Better Call Saul"), star Billy Magnussen, and executive producer Gina Mingacci ("Killing Eve," "Orphan Black"). The series follows Duncan, an ambitious, arrogant data-mining CEO determined to join Silicon Valley’s billionaire elite, and holds up a mirror to the greed and ego shaping modern tech culture. They discuss how tech’s obsession with disruption and data has come at the cost of privacy and real human connection. While "The Audacity" is a sharp satire, it also finds surprising humanity in even the most unlikable tech bros — and even made Kara feel empathy for them, despite her best intentions. Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Kara Swisher?

  I never run into a banker that goes, "What we're really here to do, Kara, is community through money."

• 0:19Kara Swisher?

  Hi, everyone. From New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network, this is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. My guests today are the executive producers and the star of The Audacity. It's a dark comedy series from AMC that explores the lives of tech CEOs and their relationships with their families, therapists, and enablers. The show follows Duncan Park, the ambitious, arrogant, and often delusional CEO of a data mining company in Silicon Valley. He's a wannabe tech titan who's set on joining the billionaire ranks of the valley's powerful elite. And like real-life counterparts, his ego, greed, and insecurities help push him towards his goal and also get in the way. Emmy Award winner Jonathan Glatzer is The Audacity's executive producer and

• 1:03Kara Swisher?

  showrunner. He's also written and produced for Succession, Bad Sisters, and Better Call Saul. Billy Magnussen stars in the series as Duncan Park, and the show is executive produced by Gina Mingacci, whose credits include Killing Eve and Orphan Black. I interviewed Jonathan, Billy, and Gina live last Sunday on the Vox Media Podcast stage at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. I was excited to talk to them because this is a really good series. It's sort of the next version of Silicon Valley, which I was an advisor to, but it's a lot darker and a lot more realistic about the mania of these people and the damage they do. In this case, instead of adorable people, the principles in this

• 1:46Kara Swisher?

  series are more villainous, and I think that's appropriate for the time. And a quick note before we get into it, I have a new series from CNN called Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever premiering April 11. We watched the trailer ahead of this conversation at South by Southwest, and you'll hear me make a few references to it during the interview. It was a fun conversation, so stick around.

• 2:22Kara Swisher?

  Support for this show comes from The Guardian and their new show, Stateside, where journalists Kai Wright and Carter Sherman use the entire independent reporting resources of The Guardian to slow down the news and wrestle with the questions we all have about what is actually happening in the world. Join Kai and Carter three times a week as they utilize all the reporting resources The Guardian has across news, international coverage, climate, culture, wellness, and more. And The Guardian's not owned by a billionaire, they fearlessly report the facts without interference. Go to theguardian.com/stateside to learn more. And listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube. That's theguardian.com/stateside.

• 3:05Speaker 01

  Ripple has been powering modern finance for a decade. We're leading the charge to bridge the gap between existing financial systems and the future of finance. You can have it all: legacy, stability, and digital innovation. Systems that work with your other systems. Because with the right partner, the question isn't crypto or traditional finance. The question is simply, why choose? A new standard of modern finance. It's happening with Ripple. For informational purposes only, availability of products can vary and may be provided by different Ripple entities.

• 3:38Speaker 02

  I'm Anna Garten, and each week on Happy Hour, I invite new and old friends for a drink and a fun conversation at my kitchen table in New York City. On this week's episode, I'm joined by Chloe Mal. We talk all about her taking on the top job at Vogue, finding her personal style, and her favorite lunch order in the iconic Conde Nast cafeteria. New episodes of Happy Hour are available every Wednesday. You can watch on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Cheers.

• 4:17Kara Swisher?

  Thank you for joining me on the Vox Media stage at South by Southwest for a live taping of "On" with Kara Swisher.

• 4:28Kara Swisher?

  Okay, so "The Audacity" is full of characters who are greedy, narcissistic, nihilistic, basically assholes essentially. But it's only coming 12 years after HBO's "Silicon Valley", which presented a much more optimistic, value-driven, focus on sort of quirky characters. And it did nail them in a satirical way, but it was sweet. And at the end, the characters want to do the right thing, which never happens in tech. But it also mirrors a larger shift in how people perceive Silicon Valley. So talk about your own perceptual changes in tech for each of you. Let's start with Gina, then Billy, then Jonathan.

• 5:11Speaker 03

  We kind of tried to, and we've said this from like moment one with the show, when Jonathan only had one script, which is, "It really is only about these characters, Kara", like, you know, and we really focused on families and how, you know, these parents do what they do. The kids really just want to be loved, right, by their parents. So we're kind of always trying to show, honestly, in every episode, if everybody sticks with it, good and evil in one scene, right? So we really, we want to show both sides of that, right? There's hope, there's dreams. I'm going to try and make this thing that it might fuck up your kids.

• 5:54Speaker 03

  We hold both of those in each scene because that's real, and we're going to keep doing that.

• 5:59Kara Swisher?

  So why set it in tech?

• 6:00Speaker 03

  Could have been Hollywood, right? Parents making stuff that may or may not be great for you, having their kids, you know, be affected by what you're making and doing and the values and the morals. Could have very easily been Hollywood or, you know. So I think tech provides, I mean, it's what we're all talking about right now. You can't escape it. Jonathan and I said literally from the beginning, we're like, we want our parents to see this show. Like, we want people that wouldn't have watched other shows about tech to watch this show. Because it really is our world right now. And it's a snapshot of, this is the world we're living in. It's the conversation we're all having. It's the conversation a lot of

• 6:42Speaker 03

  us don't want to have, even with our own families, right? Like, too much social media, get off your phone, you know? We can't escape it. So, it felt rich. I mean, one of our characters, even Billy's character, tells his therapist, "You could have come anywhere. You came to Silicon Valley." Right. Right? This is where money, power, largest concentration of the richest people in the world, you know? Yeah. Uh, so it just felt like fertile ground to find stories about how, um, we have a responsibility to the next generation, to not fuck up the world, so that it's, we can't put it back together. Right. Which, right now, we feel like we might be on the verge of not being able to put it back together.

• 7:26Speaker 03

  In fact, we are. Uh, go ahead, Bill.

• 7:28Speaker 04

  With, uh, change in tech, uh, well, I, I think it's a double-edged sword, more than anything. I, I, again, the original, or genesis of the idea was to help people. Was, it was exciting to, I, I was on the cusp of, after college, finally, tech and social media and these phone devices. I, I think I got, like, one of the iPhones, smartphones, when I was like, 27. Um, and, and remember, you know, before, when you were young, you could be like, "Hey, I want to meet my buddy on the corner here." And you would have to meet him at 8 o'clock that night. But now with tech, you could go like, "Hey, we can meet anywhere, change everything." But also, now they could pull out of meeting you at 8 o'clock. They could, like, get away from you now. Instead of, like, making it better,

• 8:09Speaker 04

  there's this, this double-edged sword of, um, sorry, I'm so nervous at this shit.

• 8:16Speaker 04

  I'm saying like it's these things you have this opportunity to connect us even more, but at the same time it distances us.

• 8:23Kara Swisher?

  Absolutely. When you, what was your, because your character is pretty fucking loathsome at all times, at all times. Like, one of the things I was saying to a friend of mine was, I can't stand him and there's pathos to him. And so, when I was watching it, I thought, I don't want to feel sorry for these fuckers. I don't. And I did. I felt sorry for you.

• 8:44Speaker 04

  Well, I think it's because we're all humans and the humanity of these characters. Again, his intention to go through the valley and punch a hole in the sky was genuine. It was something to make the world a better place. And then with power, with money, with corruption, you know, these people are still innocent, deep down, they're children.

• 9:04Kara Swisher?

  Well, that's certainly true.

• 9:05Speaker 05

  Well, I think that for me, the change is, first of all, any comparison to the show Silicon Valley is an incredible, incredibly flattering compliment. Not that you did that exactly in terms of which one you liked better, but we're gonna work on that. I think it's in the title, The Audacity. It's, it's an attribute that is, is a double edged sword. It, it's, it's, it's something that has fascinated me for a long time in terms of, it's like the superpower that we all have, but most of us don't use because it means crashing through the gates and, you know, moving fast and breaking things.

• 9:50Speaker 05

  And, which makes you a bull in a china shop, which used to be not a good thing, right?

• 9:56Kara Swisher?

  Right. It never was, but go ahead.

• 9:58Speaker 05

  It never was, it still isn't, but it is now regarded, I think the culture in Silicon Valley changed to make breaking things, disrupting things, a positive. And the effects are very clear on, in people's daily lives today. And I think that

• 10:19Speaker 05

  You know, that's, that's a change that seemed inevitable to a lot of people. I've been paying attention to you for many years and you've been calling out this, this is where we're headed, people. But I think that there is a madness that needs to be stopped and I don't know how to do it. And I don't think satire is going to do it. It's the only weapon that I have is to sort of hold up a mirror to them and to ourselves.

• 10:45Kara Swisher?

  What they're doing, one of the interesting parts was in, I'm not supposed to talk about this thing, but there's a character who seems to be based on me because it's the code conference. Not possible, by the way.

• 10:54Speaker 05

  I know, it's a pale comparison.

• 10:56Kara Swisher?

  There's only one Kara Swisher, let's be honest. Red chair, it's code conference. But one of the things, his character, he says explicitly what has been implicit for years. And I think one of the things we're ongoing right now is these tech moguls are saying explicitly, like Sam Altman this week, saying, we're going to take all the intelligence that you have and we're going to steal it and sell it back to you.

• 11:20Speaker 05

  That's right, yeah.

• 11:21Kara Swisher?

  Like, we're just going to do that. Or we're going to take this information. And you, you articulate that. So Billy, again, you play this sort of loathsome tech entrepreneur in Duncan Park and you've got that energy, that sort of.

• 11:33Speaker 05

  Frenetic.

• 11:33Kara Swisher?

  Frenetic and I can't be irrelevant energy. And there's a lot of lines that I just love where you said, belief is affirmed by fuckability, which is, by the way, beautiful writing.

• 11:45Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 11:45Speaker 04

  That's, yeah, very insecure character screaming that out loud.

• 11:49Kara Swisher?

  Yes, exactly. Another one is empathetic is just pathetic with a prefix.

• 11:58Speaker 05

  Jonathan Glazer, everyone.

• 12:00Speaker 03

  When he wrote that, he was so proud of himself.

• 12:04Speaker 03

  He was.

• 12:05Kara Swisher?

  It's because he gets diagnosed as possibly empathetic, which is a problem for him. And then my favorite one is raising money on frothy numbers to sugarcoat the rotten apple is what built this town. Exactly right. Hello, AI. But, but you think your stock's about to crash, which is terrifying for you because your stock price and your dick are, quote, one in the same.

• 12:29Kara Swisher?

  Talk about him under the surface. How do you relate to a character that's deeply flawed and insecure?

• 12:35Speaker 04

  Um, I've always said this with any character I've created, good or bad or whatever, that they're always, they're the hero in their own story. And he thinks he's championing and creating the best idea for the world around him. I love the hypocrisy of the show is someone that's trying to make a perfect product for people, or make the world perfect for people, while at home, he's a trash fire. Emotionally, personally, doesn't know how to take care of things. And I think, building the character around the insecure child he is, deep down, and the love he wanted from his father, and the world, he just wants affection and attention. It could drive people to do crazy, crazy things, just for acknowledgement.

• 13:20Kara Swisher?

  Though people are on to him, they're like, you're in it for yourself, constantly through the show, and he seems not self-aware in any way.

• 13:27Speaker 04

  Not self-aware, but also fighting it. He's trying to put the mask on and create the illusion of the world he believes he should be living in. And I think that's a fascinating character to dive into.

• 13:39Kara Swisher?

  So Gina, you said the show looks at Silicon Valley through a small-town lens, which it is. It is a small, it's a high school. It's a high school cafeteria in a lot of ways. So tiny-town, little bubble, is how you put it. Talk about that approach, for people who don't know much about the Valley, it's probably not, because now they're global, these people are global and famous. And to have met them back then, when Jeff Bezos, I met him when he didn't have any money, I met Sergey and Larry in the garage, although I have to say, jerky people were jerky then, and they're just jerkier now. Talk a little bit about the tiny lens, small bubble, kind of thing.

• 14:16Speaker 03

  Well, we took trips there, right? And we went, you know, we went to Bucks, and we saw a diner, and we saw all the things hanging on the wall. This is the booth where this was, and this was the...

• 14:26Kara Swisher?

  They love that.

• 14:27Speaker 03

  They love that. And, you know, it's not dissimilar to Hollywood, right? So, you know, where we like to, like, hold on to the tradition of the place, right? The classical tradition.

• 14:38Speaker 03

  It's like, I mean, even when we screened this for in San Francisco for a tech crowd a couple of weeks ago, everybody was coming up to us afterwards going, "That's where I get my coffee." "That's where I," you know, and it's, it's, it's, I feel like part of what, you know, we're trying to hold on to is

• 14:57Speaker 03

  the idea that everybody's up in each other's business. Everybody knows what's going on. You can't hide, right? What's dissimilar about, let's say Hollywood in this world is, you know, it's, it's good to have a failed company and get on to your next one, right? Like, we hide from those failures in Hollywood. Right here, it's like, how many, how many empty, like, we were driving around doing location scouting and it was just gigantic, empty buildings everywhere, you know? So it just feels like everyone knows your business. Duncan is trying to make sure that it doesn't come out, that, you know, he needs, he needs to get another fish before it comes out, so.

• 15:38Kara Swisher?

  Right, well, it's always a scheme. It's always a Ponzi scheme, essentially.

• 15:41Speaker 03

  But I do want to say something going back to the, to the Billy thing, because I think this is really important to understanding, like, you know, kind of one of the themes of the show, we're hoping lands. Later in the season, Billy goes to see his ex CFO of his first company, Fafa.

• 15:59Kara Swisher?

  It's a great scene, yeah.

• 15:59Speaker 03

  And Randall Park plays this character. And he's about to maybe screw Duncan over, we don't know. And, and Duncan says to him, like, "We, we, we did this. We built this company together. Don't screw me over." And he's like, "You thought it was a movement and it was a startup," you know? And part of, one of the themes is keeping that alive. It's like, part of what Duncan is maybe struggling with a little bit is, "What, what did bring me here? Why am I in the valley? Did I come here to create something? Am I the man or am I always going to be the co-man? What was my?"

• 16:38Kara Swisher?

  Well, it's the idea that it's supposed to be a greater than kind of thing. You don't, I never run into a banker that goes, "What we're really here to do, Kara, is community through money."

• 16:49Kara Swisher?

  Actually, one of my first stories for the Wall Street Journal was all the bullshit that, when I got there. I had just gotten there and I was a person, and someone said, "Cover it like you're a foreign correspondent." Like, "Go in and just listen." And it was all about, like, We're here for, we're here for the community. We're here together to make decisions. And I was like, well, why do you have controlling shares then if it's for all of us? Or we're here, we're just simple people. And I'm like, well, we're just wearing hoodies and comfortable clothes. I'm like, that's a $600 hoodie, cashmere hoodie. I'm sorry, it just doesn't gel, kind of thing. And so the bullshit that went on from the beginning, I think, was trying to, and they're still doing it. We're just simple people. We just happen to have a yacht, plane, chiefs of staff, cooks, et cetera, et cetera.

• 17:33Speaker 05

  I think, I think the cult-ish aspect of that, though, is starting to come through.

• 17:37Kara Swisher?

  You managed to land that. So you were a writer and producer on Succession. We've talked about this. When you first got approached to write this series, your reaction is, you don't know anything about tech. You don't know shit about tech. But when you went to Northern California, as you said, and spent some time, what did you, what were your observations?

• 17:52Speaker 05

  Well, it was very monoculture. I, embarrassed to say, I was looking for people of color.

• 18:00Kara Swisher?

  Yes, good luck with that.

• 18:01Speaker 05

  And it was difficult.

• 18:02Kara Swisher?

  Try to find a woman. Go ahead.

• 18:04Speaker 05

  That too, that too. It's really is, it is, because I think that, and what they do with everything is they say, well, we put it through an algorithm, and this is clearly the way to go. And it's clearly the way to go because culture and society has, has sort of fed the algorithm. And why so many algorithms come out somewhat racist and misogynistic is because of that. But in terms of what I saw, there was this kind of grinding ambition that masked this utopian vision. And a real kind of like, why are

• 18:43Speaker 05

  these people who have such difficulty communicating about themselves, about their work, and being honest about what they're up to, and putting all of these aphorisms ahead of the truth? Why are they in charge of how the rest of us are going to talk to each other? And I heard a clap. You know, and it's not just how we talk to each other, it's every fucking thing. It's how we, it's how we meet each other, how we eat, how we shop, how we masturbate. And they are paying attention to all of those things and marking how we do each of these things in a way that is genuinely...

• 19:28Speaker 05

  It's terrifying the more you know about it, but it's also, I think, much more terrifying that we don't know about it, that we don't know how they do it.

• 19:35Kara Swisher?

  When Google first put out its version of a social network, which failed miserably, several of them did,

• 19:41Kara Swisher?

  they were like, "We don't know why we can't get it." I'm like, "Because you are the least social people I've ever fucking met in my life." Like, "Why are you telling us how to socialize?" Which was interesting. But it's also, some of the stuff that, say, Facebook did was addictive at the same time.

• 19:54Speaker 05

  Yeah. Look, it's like dermatologists who had acne as kids, they're trying to fix their own problems in a way through us. And it's really fucking, you know, fix thyself physician.

• 20:07Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, a good point.

• 20:08Speaker 03

  I was very struck when we went, we were shooting in Palo Alto. I was very struck one night, like, we went out to get ice cream or whatever, and it was this long line of couples, like, local couples. And like, the guys didn't know, like, they didn't know how to talk to girls. They didn't know how to, like, I was just watching this long line of people that didn't know how to actually communicate.

• 20:29Speaker 05

  And now they're creating a generation of other guys that don't know how to talk to girls either because of the, all they know how to talk to is their phones and each other, yeah.

• 20:41Kara Swisher?

  We'll be back in a minute.

• 20:54Kara Swisher?

  Support for this show comes from The Guardian. Trying to locate news sources that reliably separate fact from fiction can seem like looking for a needle in a haystack these days. Social media feeds, cable news, and subscription-based news outlets might be able to give you one version of the news, but not in the way that you need. You want news fast, but slow enough to actually absorb the information. Stateside with Kai Wright and Carter Sherman is here to do just that. The podcast tries to slow down the news and wrestle with the questions regarding the world at large at your own pace. Three times a week, hosts Kai Wright and Carter Sherman bring their expertise together to showcase different and engaging perspectives regarding the world today. They will use their collective knowledge to discuss the news,

• 21:36Kara Swisher?

  international affairs, climate, culture, sports, lifestyle, fashion, and wellness. Plus, The Guardian wants to emphasize they're not billionaire-owned, meaning they're free to report the whole picture without interference. Go to theguardian.com/stateside to learn more and listen wherever you get your podcasts, or watch on YouTube starting May 13.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  Ripple has been powering modern finance for a decade. We're leading the charge to bridge the gap between existing financial systems and the future of finance. You can have it all: legacy, stability, and digital innovation. Systems that work with your other systems. Because with the right partner, the question isn't crypto or traditional finance, the question is simply, why choose? A new standard of modern finance. It's happening with Ripple. For informational purposes only, availability of products can vary and may be provided by different Ripple entities.

• 22:28Kara Swisher?

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• 23:13Kara Swisher?

  with your care team, so support is always in reach. Ready to reach your goals? Visit forhers.com/kara to access personalized, affordable care for weight loss, hair, menopause, and more. That's forhers.com/kara. Individual results may vary, and stopping treatment may result in weight regain.

• 23:35Kara Swisher?

  Billy, your co-star, of course, is trying to figure out how to get that way. Your co-star Sarah Goldberg plays a therapist to tech CEOs. It's a little like The Sopranos, right? That relationship, Dr. Melphie and Soprano. Her name is Dr. Joanne Felder. Their fates become intertwined after Duncan blackmails her. Without giving any way, talk about the power dynamic between those tech billionaires on this show and the professional class. I thought you nailed, like, that's the one thing that you always sort of focus in on the billionaires, but there's a whole series Of enablers.

• 24:07Speaker 04

  That live around them.

• 24:08Kara Swisher?

  You know, and it's they're really interesting because they're they're barely seething. You could feel that from them. But I remember being drawn into one among the Google founders of the chiefs of staff of various people fighting with each other. But the chiefs of staff were the ones fighting with each other on behalf of the billionaires. And and literally, they started dragging me and I'm like, you need to get away from me. I don't want to hear about your stupid chief of staff beefs, essentially. But talk a little bit about this relationship because that dynamic.

• 24:38Speaker 04

  First of all, I just would love to say like Sarah Goldberg is a fantastic actor. And every day working with her has been an absolute treat. And I'm sad she's not here on this trip, but God, she is fantastic. I can second that. Yeah, she's wonderful to work with. You know, for me, I think

• 24:57Speaker 04

  the people in your world, if you pay them enough, they're going to tell you everything you want to hear.

• 25:01Kara Swisher?

  That's correct.

• 25:02Speaker 04

  That's that's one thing. But then it's funny that for some reason Silicon Valley has made the importance of these billionaires the most, the top peak of what people have to pay attention to. And it's just made up rules. Everyone in that valley are making shit up. And so for some reason, that's where the money is. The people around them are also saying like, oh, this has to be important because they're making money doing it.

• 25:24Kara Swisher?

  Right.

• 25:24Speaker 04

  And so that is a perpetual like cycle of just bullshit on top of bullshit on top of bullshit.

• 25:29Kara Swisher?

  You do a lot of like drinking different elixirs and things like that. And then throwing them at the assistants who keep bringing you things, whatever you happen to ask for, which is really very funny.

• 25:39Speaker 04

  Of course, of course.

• 25:40Kara Swisher?

  Really good at it.

• 25:42Speaker 04

  No, really?

• 25:42Kara Swisher?

  You would make an excellent billionaire, yeah.

• 25:45Speaker 04

  Thanks, I wish.

• 25:47Kara Swisher?

  Came very easily to him.

• 25:48Speaker 04

  That's not true.

• 25:50Kara Swisher?

  Is there anyone you were focused on that you see publicly?

• 25:54Speaker 04

  Um, yeah, just look at the valley. Again, as an artist, as an actor, like you like to, I like to see the things I love about people and I love hate about people. And I make my own melange. That's like the the gift of acting, I think, is having the freedom to create these characters and build all the kinks and weird things and the unique qualities that they have. So yes, of course, it's based.

• 26:16Speaker 05

  People out there and then it's a melange of the ideas I incorporate myself.

• 26:21Kara Swisher?

  So there's also a Zach Galifianakis character Carl Bardoff. He's fantastic.

• 26:26Speaker 05

  Wonderful.

• 26:27Kara Swisher?

  He's a tech pioneer, former idealist who made money off of spam ultimately, which just hurts because he did.

• 26:35Kara Swisher?

  And everyone knows it, but he tries and he's filthy rich. He's still miserable because he thinks he's underappreciated. Carl tells Joanne in therapy, where's our parade? All I see is pitchforks and ingratitude, which is a great line and just angry about it. He's like a really mean Steve Wozniak. I don't know who else does. And Steve Wozniak is not mean, by the way. What does he represent to you? Because there is a class of early valley. That is so wealthy that they've lost all perspective of everything. And at the same time, they're, one of the things that's always I try to communicate is the victimization. They feel is so profound. I've had so many people say, you're so mean to me. And I was like, you need to get a dog or you need to speak to your parents about hugging, but it's not my problem.

• 27:19Kara Swisher?

  And so talk a little bit about that, the victimization.

• 27:23Speaker 05

  Zach's character, Carl Bardoff, is he's actually the only billionaire in the cast. Billy's character is, wants to be. And I think that part of that desperation to get to that class is what drives our Billy's character and so many of the others. But, but Carl's landed there with spam and he's embarrassed about that. He doesn't like being reminded. Yeah, it's the, he's also about legacy, which is also very important to these guys.

• 27:53Speaker 05

  Carl is stuck between being aware of the bullshit and also wanting to be a part of it.

• 28:04Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, he needs relevance.

• 28:05Speaker 05

  He needs relevance.

• 28:06Kara Swisher?

  Desperate for relevance.

• 28:07Speaker 05

  He does, but he, at the same time, he knows that that's an absurd notion. And so that's sort of that split, that splinter in the brain creates in Carl and really played brilliantly by Zach. This kind of. You know, this, this need to fill the hole.

• 28:26Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 28:26Speaker 05

  And he thinks that maybe Duncan could be.

• 28:30Kara Swisher?

  He's very attracted to Duncan.

• 28:31Speaker 05

  He's very attracted to Duncan.

• 28:32Kara Swisher?

  Wants to kill him essentially at the same time.

• 28:34Speaker 05

  But he's never met anyone as relentless as him. It doesn't matter how many times you knock him down. He keeps popping back up like a inflatable clown that you punch. He just keeps coming back up at you.

• 28:44Kara Swisher?

  And actual punches, actually.

• 28:45Speaker 05

  And, and he does actually, yes, there's some punching involved as well. But, um, yeah, he's, he's somebody who understands that back in the day, we all talked about when we were making this sausage, making the world a better place. And we all, all the billionaires kind of come to a fork in the road and most of us go Dr. Evil.

• 29:07Kara Swisher?

  Right.

• 29:08Speaker 05

  And he does, he's not comfortable doing that. He's not ready to do that.

• 29:13Speaker 05

  But he also really wants to be in the club.

• 29:16Kara Swisher?

  Of relevance.

• 29:16Speaker 05

  Of relevance.

• 29:17Kara Swisher?

  The next thing, yeah.

• 29:18Speaker 05

  As we're writing season two right now, which we were just greenlit for season two, so we're very excited about that. Thank you.

• 29:28Speaker 05

  He, we, we find out the backstory of like, why he doesn't feel like he's in the, what the incident was that caused him to not feel like he was, you know, part of the gang, the, the, what we call God Mountain.

• 29:40Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 29:40Speaker 05

  The figures of God Mountain.

• 29:42Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 29:42Speaker 05

  And, and it's very, very small and petty.

• 29:45Kara Swisher?

  It is. It's, it's amazing and still angry. I was, I'm in, I'm in Washington now and they followed me there. Cause you can't get enough of me. And I ran into one of them, one of these people, well-known name. And they came up to me and they like, they're in with Trump now, right?

• 30:00Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 30:01Kara Swisher?

  And, and they go, Kara, it looks like we've won. And I looked at him, I said, but you're still an asshole.

• 30:08Kara Swisher?

  And they crumble. I still had him. I'm like.

• 30:11Speaker 05

  Yeah. What, what do you think the, the, like that change of that idea, like there was a time when Silicon Valley started that they kept the separation from the government. They were like.

• 30:19Kara Swisher?

  Oh, cause they, they figured out you can buy things. Um, I think they, they had a real disdain, especially like Bill Gates was always bragging he didn't have lobbyists. And then they realized, especially as they moved into things that were more analog, like cars and things like that. That, oh, wait a minute, we disdain them, but we can buy them. And Trump is the ultimate coin operated president. So as I know, so.

• 30:40Speaker 05

  In, in, in the Michael Lewis.

• 30:42Kara Swisher?

  It's just quicker.

• 30:43Speaker 05

  Sam Bankman-Fried, there's a moment where Sam Bankman-Fried was like, oh, this is actually very affordable.

• 30:48Kara Swisher?

  Affordable. It's affordable. And Trump's explicit about it. Like, give me the money, you get a pardon. Give me the money, you get to stand in front of the Congress. It's very easy. And I think they, privately, they insult him constantly. And just so you know, Kara, I'm like, get the fuck out of here. I'd rather talk to Marjorie Taylor fucking Green than you. Because at least she believed in him. She actually did. Not any longer. She's still terrible. So, just ask her about trans issues and then you'll stop loving her so much. You could have made Duncan the CEO of a food delivery app or social media, but it's data mining what's happening here. It's this godlike omniscient idea, which has been around for a lot, this idea, which

• 31:32Kara Swisher?

  they have now, they really do, and I think you articulate that really well. You're making a point about privacy, obviously, or total lack of it. And, you know, that started back with Scott McNeely, there's no privacy, get used to it, kind of thing. Talk about what that means, why that's such an important thing, because that runs throughout this show, this constant surveillance. And I talk a lot about surveillance culture, it's obviously very key in China, here it's for more selling you shit. But eventually, when you have an administration that feels treacherous, it could be problematic. It feels really problematic. Talk a little bit about that.

• 32:09Speaker 03

  So, yesterday on our panel that you did with us, Rob Corddry, one of the actors in our show, told you about something that was very real that happened with all of us, and that was, you know, one of the characters in a later episode, who works at Cupertino, she's telling her room full of employees that are all, you know, young, in her twenties, you know, you know not to accept cookies, right?

• 32:33Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 32:34Speaker 03

  And they all go, no?

• 32:35Kara Swisher?

  Except for the techie.

• 32:37Speaker 03

  Right? So, and we all kind of looked at each other, like, we didn't know that either.

• 32:42Kara Swisher?

  Right.

• 32:43Speaker 03

  And I'm not afraid to say it. So, that was a big conversation with all of us. Like, oh shit. So, really, I personally, in this, I'm coming through that, like, going to, like, do my parents know that? Every time my mom gets on to shop, does she know that she's, what she's giving away? And the truth is, no. People don't know what they're doing. So... That's a big lens. Also, again, to bring up the kids again, and we get into this a little bit in the season two, which we're, there's a writer's room up now for it, um, which is, I didn't grow up with social media and I'm really glad I didn't, you know, like, imagine

• 33:24Speaker 03

  if every single thing you did could be broadcast to the world, right? It's just a different time we're living in now. And there needs to be a different level of protection that we are not offering right now. So, we kinda just wanna, just from a very sort of, like, in the ground, like, do you know what you're signing up for every time you click that button? And the answer is, no. So that's kinda one of the things that's important to us, yeah.

• 33:50Kara Swisher?

  So, early in the first episode, we see a billboard for a company called Spukel. The names are really great. Uh, what's, yours is, uh, it can, gnosis.

• 33:59Speaker 04

  Hypnosis, too much knowledge.

• 34:01Kara Swisher?

  The names are fantastic. Uh, you could, you could call a company that, actually. Um, but the, the tagline is, "You agreed to this." Yeah. Yes. Yeah. The truth is, we agreed to this, let's be honest.

• 34:14Speaker 04

  Yes, we did.

• 34:14Kara Swisher?

  So Billy, when you're preparing for the role, did you lean into that uncomfortable truth, "We agreed to this"? And you articulate that later, um, because on some level, we have accepted the terms and conditions. Cause you do lean into it as a character, which I suspect you don't believe what you were saying. This guy really says, "Too fucking bad."

• 34:33Speaker 04

  Too fucking bad, but, I think he also has such a need or desire, his want is so gray, uh, grand, that, uh, nothing can stop him. Any steel door is gonna be knocked down either with a pickaxe, a blowtorch, he's gonna keep fighting through it. So you agreed that I'm here.

• 34:49Kara Swisher?

  He never thinks it's a bad thing. You really do deliver on that. That he never questions, uh, I think a lot of the other characters do know what they're doing is vaguely evil.

• 34:58Speaker 04

  Yes. I think it's a, it's a mindset Duncan has, is like, "No, I'm doing this for you. It's the, it's what you need. It's the medicine you don't need. I'm giving it to you. Don't worry. I'm gonna make your life better that you don't even know it." So, and that's a dangerous person, in my opinion.

• 35:12Kara Swisher?

  Absolutely. He's terrifying, actually.

• 35:14Speaker 05

  I was just gonna say, I mean, I think that it is, in, in, in the end of the season, and I don't think I'm getting, giving too much away, Duncan does basically confront all of Silicon Valley at a conference, um, that Kara did not host. Um, but...

• 35:32Kara Swisher?

  I would never wear those chunky glasses, but go ahead.

• 35:36Speaker 05

  Uh, but there is a sense of you all already, they're, they're, they're angry at him for basically that he's going to market people's personal, personal data, commodify it. And I, they're angry at him for what is really going to happen is a disruption of their profit center, which is us. And that's the thing, when I, when I first went up to Silicon Valley, one of the things that, that I asked about was what should this guy, what's this company? And I didn't get the answer, but I then said, what about data? And they're like, oh yeah, that's evergreen. That's not going away.

• 36:12Kara Swisher?

  Right.

• 36:12Speaker 05

  And then

• 36:13Kara Swisher?

  Especially with AI.

• 36:14Speaker 05

  Especially with AI. And then I, I did more research into it. And the truth is, it is how they make their money is off of us through advertising, how they sell to third parties, all of that stuff. And so if there's a guy that comes along and is going to sort of pull back the curtain and

• 36:33Kara Swisher?

  And say, this is what we're doing.

• 36:34Speaker 05

  This is what we're doing. You're, and, and you guys, you're such hypocrites. You're already doing this. You, you know when women's menstrual cycles are, you know when to sell them sweatpants and when to sell them stilettos. Like that's what, that, that is what they're doing.

• 36:47Kara Swisher?

  You're already doing it. I'm just explicitly saying, I mean, there's one, um, Sam Altman, as I said, reasons said, we see the future where intelligence is a utility like electricity or water and people buy it from us on a meter. And of course, the intelligence comes from, which is an astonishing thing. He also talked about, um, he went on to say, intelligence needs to become, quote, too cheap to meter. Um, and of course he also said that it takes a lot of energy to, to raise humans. So what's the problem with data centers? Which is unusual coming from someone who just had a baby, but that's another, we're not going into that. Uh, but when you think about that idea, this, the sort of, I, Walt Mossberg named them rapacious information thieves 15 years ago on stage with Sergey.

• 37:31Kara Swisher?

  He said to Sergey and Larry, you're rapacious information thieves is what you are. And just this week, Grammarly, uh, was stealing me. They were, they were selling me to people without asking me if it was okay by pulling in all my stuff. What how do we not agree to this, Gina? What is the? We do agree to this for convenience, as you noted. It's really a trade of ourselves. We are the product for convenience of a cheap free map or a dating service or a piece of information that we actually paid for in the first place.

• 38:06Speaker 03

  Yes. Yeah. You know, going back to Duncan's first company that he had, which was called Fafa, you know, we hear a character go, "Yeah, I bought my first Subaru on Fafa." And I bought, you know, there was a moment when it really was that, like, you know, it really was something that, you know...

• 38:25Speaker 05

  Candles and canoes and shit.

• 38:27Speaker 03

  Yeah. We have another character, Anushka, who is the Cupertino executive, say, "Okay, great. We can get Q-tips delivered overnight, but really, what have we done? What are we doing?" We actually go there in one of those scenes and we have someone saying exactly what you're saying, which is, "Let's take this moment and know the world we're living in." And it's like, "But really, what have we done?"

• 38:51Kara Swisher?

  Right.

• 38:52Speaker 03

  "What have we done other than we can get shit delivered in 24 hours, really?" You know, and that's a question. That's really a question.

• 38:58Speaker 05

  Less than 24. Yeah, and it is, it's also, you know, did we set up, did we do anything that we set about to accomplish? Are we a more tolerant society? Of course not. Did we do anything positive for our kids? Provenably, no. Did we, you know, help the environment? No, these data centers are, you know, run more than a city.

• 39:18Kara Swisher?

  Right. One of the things, I'm going to talk about the business, the larger Hollywood business in a second, but one of the things that's most poignant here are the kids.

• 39:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:27Kara Swisher?

  I happen to know a lot of these kids that you're depicting, and I feel for them. You know, and a lot of them, I actually, some of their parents aren't talking to me anymore, but the kids are, just FYI. And I went out with one of them and one of their parents took an ugly turn, I would say. And he asked me, he's 16 years old, and we had dinner, and his mom asked me to have dinner with him, and he goes, "What do we do?" I said, "Here's what we do. When your parent, when your dad dies, we're going to take the money and give it to the Sierra Club. That's what we're going to do. We're going to do good things." Like, very much like the people who ran the gas companies, the Rockefeller Foundation turned around. I was like, "You have an opportunity."

• 40:10Kara Swisher?

  To shift it into something better, like that kind of thing. But the kids, I think, are the key to this entire show.

• 40:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 40:17Kara Swisher?

  All the kids and the way they're hurting in ways. That scene, there's a scene where they're at dinner, which is devastating as they're not paying any attention, kind of stuff.

• 40:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 40:27Kara Swisher?

  So that, to me, is the heart of the show.

• 40:30Speaker 05

  I agree, yeah. And it is, you know, one of the, one of the main characters is Kit Orson, kind of based on me, I grew up in a house with two psychiatrists and I could, I could hear them.

• 40:43Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 40:44Speaker 05

  And, but he, in, in our story, he, he moves from Baltimore into this bubble where everyone is optimizing their brains and their bodies and he is an awkward pubescent with IBS.

• 40:59Kara Swisher?

  Mm-hmm.

• 41:00Speaker 05

  And the idea of like, can we come up with a bet, you know, of some, somebody who is so genuinely human, genuinely, you know, his corporal self is betraying him in this culture that is basically saying, hey, you could take this, you could take that, you know, you can be a better person mentally and physically. And seeing it happening all around, and there really are literal billboards for...

• 41:29Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 41:30Speaker 05

  I'm sure.

• 41:30Kara Swisher?

  No, that's what my whole series is about.

• 41:32Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly, yeah.

• 41:32Kara Swisher?

  It doesn't, none of it works, but you're gonna die in the end. Just, plot spoiler for my series, but you're all gonna die someday.

• 41:39Speaker 05

  And thank goodness, too.

• 42:02Speaker 06

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• 43:10Kara Swisher?

  I'm Kara Swisher, and I like people who say the quiet part out loud. In fact, I love it. That's Tiger Sisters, a new podcast that recently joined the Vox Media Podcast Network. Cherie Brooke Lu and Jean Lu are real sisters who built their careers at LinkedIn and Goldman Sachs. On their weekly podcast, they're giving the next generation practical tips on how to get ahead, how to write emails people actually answer, how to make your LinkedIn profile stand out, and how to keep learning as an adult. It's straight talk about money, career, and relationships every Monday. Follow Tiger Sisters wherever you get your podcasts.

• 43:47Speaker 07

  Hey, y'all. It's a stud from [email protected]. We know that you have big questions about the world, and so do we. At Vox, we focus on covering the things that matter in your life and the things that make you curious, whether that's the big politics questions of the day, climate solutions that might actually work, or hopeful news in cancer or Alzheimer's research. We believe that journalism made for the everyday curious person can make a difference in making a better world. And if that sounds like something you want to be a part of, Vox now has a brand new app, and it brings all of our journalism together in one place. Go to vox.com/app to download today.

• 44:29Kara Swisher?

  I want to move to the industry in general because it's also affecting all of you. All of this, what you're depicting here is what's, the rest of us are being pulled around by the nose by this industry. So I just had Matt Bellamy on the podcast, who's a journalist, very good journalist. He told me the biggest question in Hollywood is, will I lose my job? For a lot of people, the answer is yes. Actors, we'll see. At least in the short term, you're okay, Billy.

• 44:56Speaker 04

  Thanks, thanks.

• 44:57Kara Swisher?

  Not for long. But there's a lot of joblessness. Billy, first, talk about, you've been working as an actor for 20 years. What do you think the next 20 years is going to be like with AI and other? What is the top of mind for each of you on, right now? The mood you have?

• 45:13Speaker 04

  The mood I have is...

• 45:15Kara Swisher?

  Sometimes, always?

• 45:16Speaker 04

  Rarely, never.

• 45:18Kara Swisher?

  It's a line from the...

• 45:19Speaker 04

  All I could relate it to is kind of like the music industry, weirdly. I think of like, the idea of like, being in touch, the original idea of Napster or like, all these things is to have access to all these beautiful programs, or songs, I would say. And then slowly over time, you realize these artists that were creating this music couldn't make it anymore because the money never made it to them. They couldn't sell an album. And I think it's happening in our industry where like, you used to be able to do DVD sales or have part of the VHS sales and you had backend and you could support a life as an actor. Because of this technology and like, I applaud AMC to not having a tech company supporting them. They're doing it against all this shit.

• 46:03Kara Swisher?

  Today?

• 46:04Speaker 04

  Today, today, yeah. But, you know, I hope they keep strong. Yeah, they're just stealing all the pot and not giving the resources to the people that are actually creating these pieces of work and these pieces of art. And that scares me.

• 46:18Kara Swisher?

  What do you think about when the tech companies are buying, which I wrote about many years ago, they're going to, this is the next thing, their healthcare and this?

• 46:29Speaker 04

  If they're gonna organize it properly, we already know like AI has the ability to, if I have a bottle in a scene, and if they're gonna show this movie in like Thailand, they could put whatever product out in Thailand is the best selling product in my hand at the same time. Shouldn't that performer or people that created that show get a cut of that profit?

• 46:48Kara Swisher?

  Yes.

• 46:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, they should.

• 46:50Kara Swisher?

  You won't.

• 46:50Speaker 04

  I don't know who's fighting for it. I want to, but.

• 46:53Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 46:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, that shit scares me.

• 46:55Speaker 05

  What if it's Hitler beer?

• 46:58Speaker 04

  You don't even know.

• 46:59Speaker 05

  Say in it too.

• 47:00Kara Swisher?

  That's just on Grok and they're not doing very well, but go ahead.

• 47:06Speaker 03

  Um, well, I came up in a nineties independent film in New York in the Miramax world, which is a whole other podcast. Um, and, um, at that time, we were working with, you know, lots of filmmakers that were a tours and we shifted from film to digital in that, in that time. And that was a huge conversation, right? What does this mean? This is not real filmmaking. This is not, this is, this is, we're gonna, this is gonna, we're gonna die from this, right? And, you know, I'm a creative producer. I view my, my job as a producer of bringing other people's story, helping them bring their stories to life. Um, so I kind of saw

• 47:51Speaker 03

  at that time that, you know, there's a, as any innovation, especially with, in the creative industry, there is a reluctance to, um, change, right? Like, this is how film is made. We need to carry cans around and we need to, you know, have it with our hands. Gradually, everybody accepted it and they accepted it because some of the old guard like Scorsese and Coppola started saying, no, this is great. This is, this is a new democracy for filmmaking. This is now everybody can do it. It's not just this specialized thing for, you know, a certain group of people. Not anyone can be a filmmaker. So we found a silver lining then, which was then.

• 48:33Speaker 03

  Shooting a phone, on my phone. I can be a filmmaker, I can be a kid making a film in my backyard in anywhere in the world, right? I don't know what that silver lining is yet for this, what the phase we're about to be in. I believe we will find one because we always have. As creative people, we've always found a way to hold on to the stuff that's most important, to keep telling the stories, to keep putting it out there. But we have to do that, and we do it together. We find it together.

• 49:02Kara Swisher?

  Jonathan? I mean, are you, there's, look, tech companies are gonna own these things. We don't know how AI is gonna transform Hollywood. We've seen what happened. I don't know if you've watched the Doge staffers. It's really disturbing to watch them. There are these kids who are, use ChatGPT to cancel over a hundred million dollars in humanities grants without any reason, just because they were doing searches and replacements, essentially.

• 49:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 49:29Kara Swisher?

  What is, what is that, how do you think of it as a producer? I would be worried if I were you.

• 49:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, sure.

• 49:35Kara Swisher?

  I'm warning you.

• 49:36Speaker 05

  No, I, first of all, I feel incredibly fortunate to be able to be making this show and to be working. A lot of my friends are in trouble. The amount of shows that are being made is reduced just because attention spans are going elsewhere. Maybe that's the natural flow of economy and art, you know, the format being adjusted as it always has over time. I do have some faith in that storytelling is not gonna go away. We've been doing it for thousands of years. I don't expect that we're going to stop. I think

• 50:15Speaker 05

  that the desire to see a story that plays out for more than 60 seconds is also not gonna go away, although it will be diminished. It has already been diminished. Attention spans. I mean, one of the most frightening articles that I read recently was how film schools are having, film schools are having a difficult time getting their film students who are paying to go there to watch a full feature film. God. They just, they, you know. Books, same thing. Was it with books? With books. For sure, that's been going on since I was in school, anyway. But, um, but my refuge was the movies. And, and, you know, two, three hours in a movie was a fantastic place and way to spend my time.

• 50:59Speaker 05

  And that is a difficult thing to get people to do. It, it, generational.

• 51:04Kara Swisher?

  Especially when you can minimize it and do it quickly, as you say, point people to it. Although I don't think AI could write lines like cheaters never lose and losers, they never cheat. And information is not insight. I thought that was one of the best lines.

• 51:18Speaker 05

  Thank you, yeah.

• 51:19Kara Swisher?

  And I, you know, going back to Succession, I don't think any AI could write, you are not serious people and have it mean so much.

• 51:25Speaker 05

  I, I think right now, AI can do a procedural pretty well.

• 51:31Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 51:31Speaker 05

  Especially something that's been around, uh, you know, has 20 seasons. You know, 20 seasons of Law and Order, I'm sure that that can be replicated. Um, I'd like to think, as a viewer and as a fan of storytelling, that, um, most people, at some point, after there's a, I'm sure there's going to be a fat, I'm sure there's going to be something that comes out there the way it is now in music, where there are actual AI celebrity singers and songwriters, if you can call it a writer. There's going to be something that comes out that is going to have that, you know, AI, the newness of that. But at some point, when you're being asked to emotionally invest in characters and story, do you really want it to be written by a fucking computer?

• 52:16Kara Swisher?

  Mm-hmm.

• 52:17Speaker 05

  I don't.

• 52:18Kara Swisher?

  I don't know.

• 52:19Speaker 05

  I don't. I, I, I, I, I think that we have to acknowledge the, and this is, I think, in many ways, the, the, the, the real thesis of this show is that we are losing touch with our humanity. And that no matter how good they get, they're only going to get good because they are.

• 52:41Speaker 05

  Absorbing our experiences and then spitting them back, as

• 52:46Kara Swisher?

  It does get better. In the series I have, I create a bot of myself, a 3D bot, and it gets better and better. I hate to say it, but at first it's creepy and then it's like, I had a real conversation, just like you do in the show. And I was like, wow. And they're like, what, what do you, what do you think about me? I said, I'm trying to figure out a way to kill you. Like, that's my

• 53:06Speaker 05

  But that's your instinct. And I think that that's the instinct of, perhaps it doesn't come out as bluntly in others, but I think that

• 53:13Kara Swisher?

  I did kill, I did kill it.

• 53:14Speaker 05

  You did? That's exciting. That's exciting. I want to see that.

• 53:18Kara Swisher?

  I made it. I am the creator and the destroyer.

• 53:23Kara Swisher?

  Last question from me. I'd like to know if you think this series is hopeful, dystopian? What word would you use to describe it? Billy first, then Gina, and then Jonathan?

• 53:36Speaker 04

  Oh, man.

• 53:40Speaker 04

  What word would I describe it? Like, it's, I can't encapsulate everything that's in Jonathan Glaser's mind and the talent that has been putting this show together in one word, because like, human life, you can't

• 53:51Kara Swisher?

  How do you feel doing it?

• 53:54Speaker 04

  For me, it, I love it. It's, it's every, every day waking up and showing up to set was a gift. The people I work with, the language that I get to speak, it was always a gift. It was a feat. And I feel the responsibility, like the, as an artist, is like, you are supposed to put the mirror up to reality. And like, I'm not saying we're good or bad or whatever, but this is what's out there, and this is how we see it. And it's your, it's your choice as an observer or someone who digests it, to interpret it your own way. That's the point of art, is like, I have a feeling, you have response. If we can connect on an emotional level about it, out of it,

• 54:35Speaker 04

  that's the magic of art. And I don't think an AI model can paint a photo that will touch my soul, like someone who could just draw a line, like fucking Picasso, you know? It means something.

• 54:49Kara Swisher?

  Hopeful, hopeful. The kids in our show Yes. are hopeful. And They're redeemable. And that's, that, that, hopeful. By the end of the series, they're not gonna be their parents, I don't think. That's absolutely true today, I have to say.

• 55:06Speaker 05

  I also struggle to come up with the word and hopeful is not it.

• 55:12Speaker 05

  I'm sorry to say.

• 55:13Kara Swisher?

  That's why we're great together.

• 55:14Speaker 05

  I know, I know. It's true, it's true. You know, hope to me is, I think I said to you yesterday, you know, the old line that satire is the protest of the weak, and it is. I am weak. And I don't have the ability to change society. But if we can just remind people of what is unique about our species and how much of that is being diminished by this tech, and remind them, you know, that they're gonna

• 55:53Speaker 05

  die, as you say, you know, the brackets of life that we have for, you know, millions of years understood, when, you know, fairly soon after we're born, that we're gonna die. That's what gives life meaning, and it is something that I would love for them to understand, that their own fallibility is a gift.

• 56:15Kara Swisher?

  Which was interestingly the message from Steve Jobs when he did that speech before he died about that. We talked about death as the great, it's actually a big theme in this, how it shifted, like, as you say, the fork in the road, which is important to understand.

• 56:29Speaker 05

  It's everything. It is. And that, I have a great allergy to certainty. I think anybody who claims absolute knowledge of any particular topic is, you know, about to step in a bucket of shit.

• 56:48Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 56:49Speaker 05

  And they just don't know it.

• 56:50Kara Swisher?

  And you often do.

• 56:51Speaker 05

  And he often does.

• 56:52Kara Swisher?

  Your character, not you. I don't know what you do in here really, but...

• 56:55Speaker 05

  Myself as well, that's fine.

• 56:57Kara Swisher?

  Anyway, this is a wonderful show. I truly, I watched it all last night. It was wonderful. And I have to say, I don't want to spend another minute with these people, not these people, but the people in tech. And I really felt for them. And I'm furious that you made me feel for them in any empathetic way, because it's just pathetic with a prefix. Anyway, I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for joining me. Jonathan Glaser, Gina Mangachi, and Billy Magnussen. Thank you so much. Thank you. Audacity premieres on April 12 on AMC and AMC Plus. Thank you.

• 57:33Speaker 05

  Thank you. Thank you.

• 57:42Kara Swisher?

  Today's show was produced by Christian Castro-Weissel, Michelle Alloy, Catherine Millsop, Megan Burney, and Kalen Lynch. Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Special thanks to Catherine Barner. Our engineers are Rick Kwan and Fernando Aruda, and our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following the show, we're glad you agreed to this. If not, all we see are pitchforks and ingratitude. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On with Kara Swisher, and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from Podium Media, New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us. We'll be back on Monday with more.