Crypto Scams, Big Tech Tumult, and Tech Optimism— With Kara Swisher

Kara Swisher is the co-founder of Recode, a New York Times columnist, the co-host of Pivot, and the host of Sway. She joins BigTechnology Podcast for a special edition tackling the biggest tech headlines, her major career decisions, and reasons to be optimistic about technology. Kara and Scott Galloway are hosting Pivot MIA, a three-day event in Miami, from Feb. 14 - Feb. 16. You can learn more here: https://voxmediaevents.com/pivotmia Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Alex Kantrowitz?

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• 0:43Alex Kantrowitz?

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• 1:16Alex Kantrowitz?

  Hello and welcome to the Big Technology Podcast, a show for cool headed, nuanced conversations of the tech world and beyond. Well, we are very lucky today because the world's best tech journalist is joining us for an hour long conversation about the world of tech. Talk a little bit about the way that she does interviews in her business and then round it out. You know, maybe looking at some optimistic things about tech. We don't hear about that too often, so I'll ask her about it. Kara Swisher is in the studio with us, well, technically zooming in from Washington DC. Welcome Kara, great to have you here.

• 1:46Speaker 01

  Thanks, thanks for being here. I'm not the best, but go ahead, move along.

• 1:50Alex Kantrowitz?

  I don't know Kara.

• 1:51Speaker 01

  I'm the longest running, how about that? The best over the longest period of time would be the only thing I'll say.

• 1:55Alex Kantrowitz?

  Sounds good, consistently good, yes. Yeah, and you have a conference coming up. It's called Pivot MIA with Scott Galloway, February 14th to 16th. It's going to be in Miami, not too late to register. So I encourage people to go check it out.

• 2:11Speaker 01

  It's our first year, so it's sort of like the first year of code, which was 20 years ago, if you can believe it. So we're trying to form something new and different, a little more future facing, a little more. On topics like crypto and NFTs and where finance and media are going and stuff like that, more like what Pivot talks about. And it's going to be funnier and a little sexier, probably. I guess it's Miami. How can you not be?

• 2:32Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, it'll be exciting. Yeah. And I do love the duo of you and Scott together. Scott's been on the show. Yeah, it's always fun to listen to you guys. So I'm sure the live event will be, you know, just as exciting.

• 2:44Speaker 01

  Or just totally awkward. Anyway, we'll see. We're trying our best.

• 2:48Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, it'll be fun.

• 2:49Speaker 01

  The entrepreneurial.

• 2:50Alex Kantrowitz?

  I mean, yeah, we'll get to it in the second segment, but I love, one thing that I love about watching your career is that you, you know, you are experimental and are willing to try different things where, you know, in the journalism industry, it's a lot of like, do the same. And, you know, well, we'll talk about it in the second segment, but you did mention crypto. So why don't we start with that? We have this big headline that there was a couple that was arrested and $3.6 billion of Bitcoin that was illicitly obtained and they were trying to launder it was seized, all alleged right now, but doesn't look very good for this couple. My perspective is that this is maybe a good thing for Bitcoin. I saw a lot of people who are pro Bitcoin tweeting the Justice Department's line that Bitcoin

• 3:33Alex Kantrowitz?

  is no safe haven for criminals. Obviously, they tracked down the people who had stolen this money with the blockchain. And, you know, there are some people who might say this is bad for the, you know, because it makes it seem like criminals use Bitcoin. But again, the fact that they were caught, probably a good thing. What's your perspective?

• 3:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, reminds me of the early internet. Is it bad or good? Or is it misuse by malevolent players? Sure. All these technologies are. So is the telephone. You know, I'm not comparing it to the telephone because this is quantumly more powerful and difficult to track. But I think when you're, the problem is a lot of the early Bitcoin acolytes, they could do no wrong. It could do no wrong. And that's not true. All these technologies have their various pluses and minuses. And I think one of the things to keep in mind that the first internet was full of grifters, like full of grifters. And actually, Michael Wolff wrote a very good book about this. He even called him, sort of, was calling himself a grifter in a lot of ways, that the book he wrote. And so it was like that then. And, you know, you've seen, you know, different, various Ponzi schemes and various things, you know,

• 4:35Speaker 01

  AOL got in trouble for round tripping, you know, all the way up until today with these social platforms being gamed by malevolent players. And so this is not a fresh new idea that technology gets abused. I think you've got to look at the What is happening and separate it from the hucksters and the grifters and the self promoters and the promoters. I think they just get enthusiastic at the beginning and they're going to be eventually washed out by more substantive companies that are trying really hard to make this a thing. And I think that it just reminds me so much of the earlier net and because I'm old, I remember. And at the time that was there was one story after the next about how email scams and this scam and that scam. And so it's not so much different. It's just the issue is it's so

• 5:20Speaker 01

  closely related to finance, which is a highly regulated industry, especially in governments have particular concerns around it, that you're going to see a lot more regulation a lot quicker. And they're very aware of it, especially around criminal activity, as they should be.

• 5:34Alex Kantrowitz?

  The argument is that Bitcoin is has been known as like fairly untraceable and anonymous. And now that such a large fraud has been caught, it almost gives people more confidence that this is a legitimate financial tool, because you can be busted if you do that.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  Except what's not caught, right? What hasn't been caught, what hasn't been done, including the difficulty of people using it. I mean, I make I have a joke. I was writing about Bitcoin really early and hadn't written about a lot since then. But when I guess Vence Vence Cusaris was kind of turning on to it and said, this is really interesting. And I wrote about and I bought Bitcoin and I've lost my thumb drive it was on or something, whatever it was on, I bought it. It's gone. I don't, you know what I mean? And I don't like misplaced gold or or cash or anything like that. Maybe I have. That's not true. But I think it's really, you know, I think the difficulty level of understanding it as it gets easy. Same thing with the internet until AOL come along, the internet was really hard to use for most people. And and it wasn't consumer friendly. And so I think it will be interesting if there's use

• 6:36Speaker 01

  cases of all different kinds and which we don't, I don't think we've conceived of what they could be yet. And that that's going to be super interesting, I think.

• 6:45Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, I was just down in El Salvador for a wedding and they've made it legal tender.

• 6:49Speaker 01

  Well, in those countries, they need it, right? Those countries, it's really hard to operate. You know, that makes, that's, when this is from, I can't remember, Brazil or Venezuela or something. Anyway, it was much harder to use there where he was than it was. You know, I mean, these are countries that had, had currencies that were up and down and this and that. And so people were losing their life savings and that was one of the impetuses of it was for that, which was interesting.

• 7:16Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, and it was interesting watching them, you know, in everyday transactions, going to the market. For instance, people running markets out of their, out of their, you know, their living rooms. And they have a QR code out front.

• 7:28Speaker 01

  Right, but the problem is government doesn't like control of money. That's a real problem. Government likes to control money, like, mm, I can't get that one up so easily. So that'll, that'll be interesting. And, you know, I think, I think anything is easy. I was talking, someone was talking about money. I like cash and I was like, when's the last time you saw your cash? You didn't, you know, it's, it's a number on a figure on a bank statement. You don't ever, you don't have like a, like a, I always say you don't have like, you know, in Gringotts, they, everybody had their little caves full of money or whatever, all those different wizards. And so then you don't have like this vault where your stuff is, like your, you know, your goblets of gold or whatever. You just, some people do, I guess, but most people have never seen their money. They live, they live in a, in a digital currency environment all the time.

• 8:15Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, it's all on wrapping.

• 8:16Speaker 01

  Maybe I have a $5 bill on me somewhere. And every time someone asks him like, what? Oh, all right, you know.

• 8:23Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  And I wish I could have some, my phone could tip someone, right? That, you know, anyway.

• 8:29Alex Kantrowitz?

  Well, I mean, you know, you can even see buskers in the subway now with their Venmos on their, like, piece of cardboard, here's my Venmo card.

• 8:36Speaker 01

  Right, like, what is the way to do it? It's really hard. There has to be something, some way you can trade value in a way that's a lot, probably via phone, most likely.

• 8:44Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. Okay, I want to get to another big story, which is the Peloton situation. The Peloton CEO is out, they're going to lay off around 3,000 people.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  He put himself out, he had control.

• 8:54Alex Kantrowitz?

  Put himself out. Exactly. Yeah, and yeah, there was this fun instance where activist investors basically made a slide presentation telling him why he should fire himself. And he listened, Matt Levine has something great on that this week at Bloomberg. And they replaced him with CFO. And you say, former tech CFO as CEO says a lot. What does it say?

• 9:16Speaker 01

  It reminded me of sale. I mean, first of all, this guy is great. He's got great, you know, I was talking, I dealt with him a little bit. You don't deal with CFO as much as a reporter, but terrific reputation, knows subscriptions, very well regarded. Everyone has nothing but lovely things to say, which was a surprise, because everybody always has something bad to say about someone. But at both the companies, Netflix and Spotify. So this guy knows his stuff, and he really knows subscriptions and the importance and brand. And, you know, he's got the experience. Sometimes CFOs like to leap into a CEO position. That's certainly true. But it often says to me, hmm, maybe there's a deal here. If there isn't, he will run it. He's an operator, obviously CFOs,

• 9:59Speaker 01

  even though they sort of get dinged as not being operators. They are. CFOs are usually critically important employees at most companies, especially behind the scenes. So I feel like this is someone who could do a deal, or could do the other thing, which is fix it and rehaul it and stuff like that. So that's, that's why it's interesting to me.

• 10:18Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, it's kind of this, it's funny that it's viewed as a tech company. I mean, of course, like, they distribute as a platform, but it really is a media company and exercise equipment. I don't fully understand why the market got so down on Peloton. I mean, yes, the expectations were high.

• 10:35Speaker 01

  Well, it was a pandemic stock. It had such a surge, right? And the stock went crazy. And everyone, like Zoom or any of the others, it was pandemic stock. To me, we had a really interesting Twitter Spaces recently about it. And, boy, do their, their, their, their fans love them. I'm a Peloton user. I wouldn't give it up. You know, I was talking to Dan Primack about it. He also, same way. And what was interesting is all the people on this Twitter Spaces had all kinds of ideas of more stronger relationships they like with Peloton, like healthcare, food. That's why Amazon's interesting to me, Nike, clothing, this and that. So people trust the Peloton brand and like the product. And so that's the good thing. It's a great product. It's a product they like, people they like.

• 11:19Speaker 01

  It's just got to get in the right place in terms of, you know, serving, selling these devices of which there's only a limited number they can sell, but they still haven't gone global, right? They haven't gone global at all to speak of and, and see where it goes from there. It's got a lot of potential and they've built a great brand. I think just, this is what happens to these, like whether it's, you know, sort of all these devices go through this kind of weird period of difficulty.

• 11:45Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. Yeah. I'm a fan of the company and I, it almost seems like unfair.

• 11:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:49Alex Kantrowitz?

  I mean, I know you, you can't say it's unfair that the stock went up so much, but it did just set these insane expectations.

• 11:54Speaker 01

  It was crazy. It was crazy stock. Yeah.

• 11:56Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. Speaking of crazy stuff on the stock market, I just had Josh Brown on the show on Wednesday from Riddhul's Wealth Advisors. We talked about the Meta drop $250 billion of market cap.

• 12:09Speaker 01

  Slightly up now, but not really. It's still standing. It's up a little bit.

• 12:12Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. Yeah. And they dropped under 600 billion in market cap.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  They're sort of hovering around there.

• 12:19Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. Which is interestingly enough, like the level that you need to be subject to some of these regulations that Congress is cooking up, although it's over a two-year span.

• 12:29Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 12:30Alex Kantrowitz?

  You've been following Meta for a long time. Is this company cooked? Because that's the, yes, Facebook and the Meta. The, the narrative is that they're cooked. They still have 3.59 billion people using the products every month.

• 12:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's, yeah, sure. They're cooked, whatever. It's like saying Microsoft was cooked back when. I remember when Microsoft was cooked, I'm like, they are not. I'm sorry.

• 12:49Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yes.

• 12:50Speaker 01

  I'd like to be cooked like them. You know, the cut is 617 today. It's slightly up. Look, over the five days, down 7% over a month. It's down 30% over six months. It's down 37% year to date, 33, one year, 15%. So it's, it's a nice shave. It has, today it's up a tiny bit. I think it's hard to dismiss this company, especially with their online advertising business is, is really kind of like, hmm, I wouldn't necessarily do that. You know, I mean, especially they've got this many people and they've got a committed CEO who's a well-known entrepreneur. Again, I have quibble, not quibbles, I have issues with Mark Zuckerberg, but he's still a talented executive and entrepreneur.

• 13:34Speaker 01

  I think what some of the stuff that hasn't been looked on, obviously the users and you could see that you could if you anyone with a teen knows it like they're not using Instagram. They're using Tik Tok. They aren't using Facebook at all. They'd rather die than use. It's like AOL was went through that trough and Denver returned. And, and you know, all these things have a life expectancy essentially. And so that's one thing is the users is that people don't want to use the big blue app as much or it's and then of course it's been soiled by the whistleblower accusations and, and, and January 6th, etc. And I think probably when this report comes out, it's not going to look good for Facebook. You know, because they were sort of the primary organizer. The congressional. Yeah, the congressional investigation. I mean, Facebook was the primary organizer

• 14:19Speaker 01

  of this. If you're using those tools, even, even compared to Parler, of course, compared to Parler, Parler was a small player, you know, not great, but it's still a small player compared to Facebook. And, and that'll sort of shine on me. Got the FTC investigations and that has now moved forward, now can move forward. Lena Conry filed and they're moving forward. So there's that, although they can point to Tik Tok and say, well, we're not very big anymore and Tik Tok. That's true, but then Tik Tok exists. Like that's an issue with competitors. And then Apple, you know, I think Apple is a really big deal in terms of like what it did. It's the, Apple's become the de facto regulator of Facebook. And when

• 15:01Speaker 01

  the government couldn't step in, Apple did. So that's another thing. And then obviously meta metaverse, like can they succeed here? This is a lot of money they're spending. They're not particularly creative as a company. And so, and there's a lot of great competitors in here and are they going to be the ones to dominate? Oculus is a good product, but it's little, right? It's little. I mean, it's sold a lot, but little kind of thing. And so sort of like Google, I remember when Google started to go into a range of things. Remember they had lots and lots of stuff, these moon shots, this and that. And all I kept thinking was, you know, it's like sort of being, I hate to use this metaphor, but I was like, it's like being a Colombian drug dealer and opening a restaurant in Bogota. It's like, it's really not going to be your business. They could search. And so search

• 15:44Speaker 01

  is still Google's business, right? That's really their strongest business. And no matter how you slice it, and the same thing with. They have to live with the fact that the social network is their business and then what happens to it and it's sort of gotten away from itself. Nobody likes them, you know, that kind of, they're not very well loved in Silicon Valley. Um, you know, Teal stepped off the board and did exactly what we thought he'd do, which is back Trump candidates. What a surprise. He obviously had a big influence on that. You know, go for him, whatever he wants. Whatever Peter Teal wants to do, he can do with his giant sums of money.

• 16:17Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. There, there is this, you've covered Yahoo a lot. There is this view that Facebook is Yahoo now, but to me that seems a little premature.

• 16:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would, I agree. And you know, I'm a real critic of them. Um, but you know, uh, they're, they're not, they're, it's a really big, big substantive company. It reminds me a little of AOL. I do have to say AOL was, was, became uncool. And they had all these cool things, like they had, um, their messaging service. I'm totally blanking. Um, right. And, um, they had a lot of cool stuff, but you know, and they were early in the music area. They just couldn't make the, people just moved on and, and I think people move on from this thing. It's too much. It's, and by the way, it's not really well. I, I don't want on it anymore, but every now and then I'm still, I have an account, right? But I sort of, what is it? Cut it off. I sometimes reactivate it and then I'm like,

• 17:08Speaker 01

  oh, what a fucking mess this place is. Right? You know what I mean? But a lot of people use it across the globe. That's the important part. And I think that's, we can't discount that. I don't discount them at all. They're huge. They're huge.

• 17:18Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. And I think that Reels has a much, I mean, I'm writing about that this week in big technology. Reels has a much better future than a lot of people are giving it credit for. I interviewed this, this, um, uh, college student this week who said she went home for break and heard the Tik Tok music coming from her parents' room. And it was just Reels.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  Reels maybe. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe.

• 17:40Alex Kantrowitz?

  So they have the older demographic they can capture.

• 17:42Speaker 01

  I mean, they have, they're going to have a lot of problems. You know, just like Facebook, TikTok too. Well, TikTok's got China overhang, et cetera, et cetera.

• 17:49Alex Kantrowitz?

  Let's talk about that. Yeah. What do you think about the fact that like, you know, I mean, it seems like everyone seems to celebrate Facebook struggling. And I know this is Facebook's like PR line, but when Facebook struggles, it's generally a win by, you know, win for TikTok. And we can't like, we can't have our eyes closed to the fact that the Chinese Communist Party-

• 18:08Speaker 01

  Of course not. I don't. I wrote a column years ago saying I read TikTok on my burner phone because I'm worried about this. This was years ago. I was like, so, you know, here's the thing, Facebook used it so, uh, so much in a cynical way. But the fact of the matter is they are their competitor, right? One of, one of their many competitors. And, um, and they, it's so creative and so interesting and so well done. And then it's so possibly linked to the Chinese government, right? And it's not, that's a real worry. I bet the government has to look into that again. And not in the screamy Trump way.

• 18:40Alex Kantrowitz?

  Not in a Trump way.

• 18:41Speaker 01

  That was stupid. That was just stupid. And then it missed, he kept missing critical opportunities. This guy was directionally correct and executionally an imbecile. Like literally, you can't let these people get away. And so, but one of the things, if they just, if they separated it from China, which I don't think the Chinese will let happen.

• 19:02Speaker 01

  That would be interesting, right? You know, and how do you do that? Well, it would have to be affiliated with a pretty big US company with a lot of cloud cover, so to speak. And, um, and so, you know, the, the Microsoft would be a great owner of TikTok still, I think. And that was the right move, but you know.

• 19:19Alex Kantrowitz?

  You were speaking with Satya Nadella and basically he talked about how he got ghosted by the Trump administration. Once he thought there was a deal in the way.

• 19:25Speaker 01

  I think he was being kind. I think he wanted to say that asshole, but he's, he's not a person that's gonna say that. He kind of saw it above his head. God, what a bunch of chumps, you know? And also, but it was a good idea. It was a great idea. And then now they bought Activision. They're, they're going to be a key player in this metaverse thing. I think quietly, um, gaming is the way into this thing, obviously, um, compared to most things. You know, possibly healthcare, possibly workplace, but gaming sure is already there. You're in a metaverse in a game already. You're used to it. You're, you know, you have your avatars. It's, it's got everything going for it in terms of that. So, you know, gosh, Microsoft with TikTok would be a really powerful situation.

• 20:05Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. And it could still happen. I mean, obviously there's that interest, so we'll see.

• 20:09Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 20:11Alex Kantrowitz?

  Call us when you're ready.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  I think they're very interesting.

• 20:12Alex Kantrowitz?

  You, you, yeah. Sorry, you, you interviewed Lena Khan recently, the head of the FTC along with Andrew Osork, and I watched the interview, really enjoyed it. How, what was your impression of Lena?

• 20:23Speaker 01

  Oh, so smart. So overwhelmed. I think, smart, sharp, knows what she wants to do, doesn't have the resources to do it, and doesn't know where to start. With all these, we talked a lot about the mergers, the amount of mergers that were, you know, I think it rose some enormous, over 4,000, something like that, I don't remember the exact number. But, you know, what does she do with those, their, their, their budget hasn't increased, it's stuck in congressional, whatever the heck Congress is doing with itself. It doesn't have enough, you know, it's got to pick very carefully, it can't lose, it's a raid against a very powerful group of people. And, you know, the energy is hard to sustain, the anti-tech energy is hard to sustain. You don't want to be anti-tech, you want it to be good regulation.

• 21:07Speaker 01

  And so, you know, she's, I, I feel like she should make a big move, but, you know, John Kanter just got there, so they, they don't got a lot of time, right? It's going to make things-

• 21:18Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right, the midterms are coming up.

• 21:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, there's a lot of Republicans who are very happy to go after Facebook and other big tech companies. So, I don't think that, you know, the Texas pagey is the one pushing the Google one, right?

• 21:29Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 21:30Speaker 01

  So, so it's not, it's not necessarily that, it's just what's going to happen and for what reason, you know? You have a different reason from, you know, a persistent numpty like Ted Cruz and a, and a different reason for Mark Warner, etc.

• 21:43Alex Kantrowitz?

  Also, you know, I've listened to your podcast, you've spoken about Sheryl Sandberg, your relationship with her. Have you guys spoken recently? And do you think that she's going to stay at Facebook? What's she doing?

• 21:54Speaker 01

  I'm surprised she's still there, but where's she going to go? She kind of got tarnished, right? She got pulled into, you know, she's, she's got lots of culpability there, but Mark has most of it. That's was my point with her, like, all right, sure, her, but him. Like, everyone was focused on her, and I was a little sexist. That said, she's a very, she's a very, she's the top executive, so all the executives deserve that kind of scrutiny. I have not talked to her lately, I got a text from her not too long ago, but I think she and I, our relationship is-

• 22:25Speaker 01

  I would say tense. I wouldn't say tense. She's not that way. Mark won't talk to me at all, or they never respond and they say no to every request we make. I don't know. I, you know, Cheryl's a good team player over there, I think.

• 22:40Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 22:42Speaker 01

  I think she's a good team player. I like Cheryl personally quite a bit, but I do get the criticism of her. And I have, I was quite critical, I was, when I, we were speaking, I was like, I remember calling her from, I was at JFK, right at the beginning, when they made that statement, when Mark said, there's no impact of the Russians on this platform. What are you talking? Remember that? When he gave David, what's his name?

• 23:02Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 23:04Speaker 01

  Patrick. Yeah.

• 23:05Alex Kantrowitz?

  The pretty crazy idea.

• 23:05Speaker 01

  Pretty crazy.

• 23:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  At economy.

• 23:07Speaker 01

  And then they hadn't, then they had another statement with a number. And I remember calling her saying, where did you get this number? Why are you doing this? Don't say, like, don't, I'm of the people, like, if you don't have all the facts, I'd keep my mouth shut. Right? I don't. And like, like, whether it's Jeff Zucker or whatever, who's today, what's coming out next? Right? I would be very careful before you have all the facts are in. And, and I recently wrote that to some CNN people. I'm like, you know what? You might want to wait. I get your loyalty to this fella, but you gotta wait. Like, I, you know, I know Jeff Zucker, he's not, you know, a very smart guy, but I don't know. Like, let's wait, let's wait and see what comes out.

• 23:46Speaker 01

  Before declaring something, whatever. And so I think with, with, I said to her, I was like, why are you really, where did these numbers come from? Why are you saying them? I think it's much more serious. I think it's a political liability. And he, and I remember going, oh, Kara, you're such a worrywart. Like, you're, I'm like, I'm not on your team. I'm just telling you. I just think, I don't believe you. Like, it was, it was, it was an interesting, I'll never forget that conversation. And they were much, they were very much tut tut. Don't you worry, irritating journalist, kind of thing. And again, I wasn't there to help them. I just was like, I, where, why are you saying this? I don't understand where you're getting these facts. And then after a while, I was like, oh, they're, they're making it up. Like, or something, or they're chaotic, is what I thought. And that's always

• 24:30Speaker 01

  my feeling, just like what's happening at Spotify. It's chaotic. It's not, they, they are not, they don't know what they're doing. Right? Like, they're like.

• 24:37Alex Kantrowitz?

  Because Spotify, it's unbelievable to me. You would think that after being in the media business for so long, they're paying for a guy's podcast. Now, look, I, I think there's an argument to be made, let, you know, let Joe Rogan, you know, be the devil's advocate to the health establishment and hasn't gotten it, right?

• 24:52Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 24:53Alex Kantrowitz?

  I don't know if I would pay for, I wouldn't pay for that.

• 24:55Speaker 01

  No, I'm not paying for it anymore.

• 24:56Alex Kantrowitz?

  I just think with Spotify, yeah. With Spotify, you gotta embrace what you are.

• 25:03Speaker 01

  I know what he is, but I don't think they listen to him. I have now decided they didn't listen to him. Like, that's what I, I didn't listen to him that much. You know what I mean? Like, who has four hours to kill on any given day?

• 25:14Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 25:15Speaker 01

  So, you know, it's, I listen to a lot of it, more than most people. Very talented podcaster, but the same, and kind of found his metier, you know?

• 25:28Speaker 01

  But they didn't listen to him. And now they're trying to pretend like, we have nothing to do. What are you talking about? Like, that, that's sort of.

• 25:34Alex Kantrowitz?

  I know. It's amazing.

• 25:35Speaker 01

  It's, you're sort of like, oh, come on, stop. Like, please, I, I literally, I'm sort of like, I think I texted someone, please stop. Please stop. It's really, it's embarrassing what you're doing now. Like, and then, but then I decide, it's chaotic. It's chaotic. That's what it is. It's, there's no, like, secret, like, handshake situation. It's just like, what do we do? Like, that's, I can see that meeting, like, ugh, ah. You know, that's the kind of thing I imagine is going on inside of their company right now.

• 26:04Alex Kantrowitz?

  It just feels like they're so unprepared to handle some of this stuff. They're like, we are not a.

• 26:08Speaker 01

  They don't think about it.

• 26:09Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 26:09Speaker 01

  Assume, assume, not a concern, the worst, assume that, that they don't, that they're lazy and they don't think about it. That's what I now assume about a lot. Not everybody, some people are truly malevolent. But others are just, just don't think about it. So, and then get victimized, then get victimized, and then get victimized. Cause there are victims, the richest people in the world, they really are the victims.

• 26:32Alex Kantrowitz?

  Oh, they love, they do love to play that card.

• 26:36Alex Kantrowitz?

  Kara Swisher is with us. She's the host of Sway, columnist at the New York Times, co-founder of Recode. Don't forget to check out Pivot MIA. It's February 14th to 16th, next week, that you could still register or follow along online. Some great names there. Brian Chesky is going to be their CEO of Airbnb. You also have Meredith Levitt Copian, who's, who runs the New York Times and a bunch of other speakers. So, check it out. After the break, I want to talk to Kara a little bit about her own media company decision. So, if you're a media nerd, stick around. And, you know, we're also going to get into some of her reporting technique, which I'm sure, I'm sure you've, you've witnessed. If you care at all about the tech world, you've probably watched many of Kara's interviews. So, stick around, we'll be back right after this.

• 27:20Alex Kantrowitz?

  This episode is brought to you by Avpoint. Everyone's racing to roll out AI right now. Copilots, chatbots, agents doing real work. But here's the part nobody loves talking about. All that AI runs on your data. And most teams have no single way to see it, secure it, and prove it's under control. That's exactly what Avpoint does. For 25 years, they've been the trusted layer beneath the world's most demanding data, now extended across your entire AI estate. Your data, your cloud, and the agents acting on your behalf. It's how more than 28,000 organizations deploy AI with confidence. So innovation scales without scaling risk. Avpoint, the unifying trust layer for AI.

• 28:05Alex Kantrowitz?

  Head to avpoint.com to see how enterprises deploy AI with confidence. Learn more at avpt.co/bigtechnologypodcast. That's avpt.co/bigtechnologypodcast.

• 28:22Alex Kantrowitz?

  And we're back here on Big Technology Podcast with Kara Swisher. She's the host of Sway, New York Times Podcast. Also going to host Pivot MIA with Scott Galloway, friend of the show, on February 14th to 16th in Miami. I'm sure a lot of good stuff is going to come out of that. Okay, Kara, I want to learn a little bit about the media business from you over the next segment. You started Recode in January 2014 with Walt Mossberg, a new site to cover the tech industry. If you're going to start out your own company today, would you go with the website? Or would you do a Substack type of thing? Would you go straight to podcasts? You have two very popular podcasts. What would your approach be?

• 29:03Speaker 01

  Well, you know, we were doing what Substack is doing. I love when people are like, this is all new. I'm like, WordPress, live, what's that live? What was it, live, something?

• 29:12Alex Kantrowitz?

  Live intent, live.

• 29:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 29:15Alex Kantrowitz?

  Live intent.

• 29:15Speaker 01

  I don't remember. Anyway, there were a lot of these. What we were doing was piecing it together. With what existed at the time. You know, at one point I said, Walt, you and I should do something on a, on a, on a video service where we argue with each other. Like now, of course, we're on Zengcast or Riverside or Zoom. It didn't exist. We were like, how do we do this? How do we get it up? How do we publish it? Like, there was, there was nothing then going on. And that's why we went to live events, kind of thing. We would have done a lot of this in video. You know, there's nothing new under the sun, right? That's a famous saying. And I think that I, I, I would, right now, I, I kind of, I'm one of a person who changes really frequently. There's an expression, I think, in Mary Poppins, I'll wait until the wind changes and then I'll leave, essentially. And so I, I'm like

• 30:00Speaker 01

  that. I'm like, I started podcasting seven, eight years ago, right? Or a long time ago in, in podcast terms. Maybe it was longer than that. Because I was really interested in the fact that, that the iPhone made it possible to do this really easily. And I'm like, I had an intern, just me and an intern, Noah Cohen, who's now writes for various things. But it was the two of us. That was it. And, you know, Jim Bankoff, all credit to him, I was running the website. I'm like, I don't want to do this anymore. I'm going to do this. And he was saying, okay. And then it started their video, their, their podcast business. We, I was the first one. And so, and then they, you know, Ezra Clayman came to me, he's like, I'd like to do a podcast. I'm like, here's how you do it. Like, it was so like artisanal and hand to mouth. And, and so, and the same thing with the

• 30:43Speaker 01

  events is Walt and I went to a lot of events way back when, and they all sucked because they were all sort of beholden to sponsors and there was no news happening and it was a little too much to insider-y, although ours is insider-y, but it was still, it wasn't journalistic at all. And so we said, let's try this and that kind of stuff. And that's sort of done very well for us. And so I think now, I'm, you know, obviously that we're trying, we're working with people, we're doing a lot, we're doing extensions like a live event. We'll see how it goes. It's going pretty well, pretty, so far. We're trying, we're thinking of subscriptions for that because there's things we could add to it. And one of the things that's important to me is think about what's valuable to people? What's, what, what more do they want? And what more would they pay for? Obviously, we could have done this a long time ago. We could have done a paid version of all of

• 31:28Speaker 01

  these things. But I just, I, our advertising was doing really well. So why not? Like, the podcast advertising, at some point, one, someone was like, oh, no one can make money in podcasts. I'm like, yeah, don't do it. I was like, we were making so much money. Right. I was like, what are you talking? Okay. Okay. That makes sense. Don't do it. Of course you can. And so, you know, I spent a lot of time thinking like, what's the next thing that interests me? And most things I do is what interests me. When I become bored, or I hate to say this, unhappy, and I don't mean, or not happy, that's a better word. When I'm like, I don't like to deal with this, I just leave. I just am like, goodbye, gonna do something else. A lot of it centers on doing stuff I want to do. I always make the

• 32:12Speaker 01

  joke that I'm a bad employee, and so I try not to put myself in a position where someone tells me who I am. Different people work well with other people. I work well with people, but not bosses very well. And it's not their fault. Sometimes it is, but it's often I just don't want to hear it. I just don't, you know, at this point in my life, and even when I was young, I didn't want to hear it. I wanted to take risks, and if I screwed it up, it was on me. And if it wasn't, if it was success, it was on me. That was how I felt like it. And by the way, we've had amazing people along the way, too, that have been like this, like Peter Kafka, you know, has done amazing things. Mike Isaac, who's now at The Times, you know, we have tons and tons and tons of people who aren't good. I mean, we have

• 32:54Speaker 01

  so many amazing people who have gone from Rico to other things. And obviously Walt was astonishing. But I just sort of take opportunities when I see them, like Scott Galloway. People don't realize he was, I saw him at DLD, which was an event in Germany, and I thought, that guy's funny. And also, guy's insightful. He said some things I hadn't thought of, which is not often. Usually I'm like, that kind of thing. And so I went up to him, I'm, you're really funny and insightful. And he, I don't know, we had some rapport right away. I brought him onto Recode Decode, which was my podcast at Vox. And we had such chemistry immediately. And also, the numbers were crazy. And I was, nobody knew who he

• 33:38Speaker 01

  was. He wasn't well known at all. Didn't have his stuff at all. And I went, huh, that's interesting. Let's try that again. And same numbers. They were close to Elon Musk numbers. And I was like, wow, that's interesting. And so immediately, when they wanted me to look at some other hosts for that, for another show, I was like, him, him, I'll take him. And so, and it's worked out really well. It's worked out really well. And so that's why we're trying to extend it. But one of the things that Scott, as you know, signed a deal with CNN, Plu, I make fun of it on Pivot all the time. But I'm interested in TV, video right now. I really am. Yeah. Because you know, this whole Zucker thing and a lot

• 34:21Speaker 01

  of what's going on at the other places, like, they just announced a fourth hour of Morning Joe on MSNBC. I have a contract with NBC. But let me just say this. Could they not think of a new thing? Or do they need to do four hours of the same thing? I literally, my, my wife wrote me that, like, can they not think of a new thing? And I was like, you're right. Can they not be creative? So when I look at like cable news and, and broadcast, I'm like, why are they so not innovative? Like, same, like, I was working out and same four people came on the screen, like, that you see, you know, whether it's CNN or MSNBC or Fox News or whatever. And I'm like, it's because it's cheap. They're doing it because it's cheap. What could, what could you do here that makes it better? Or maybe it's a lost cause, but it intrigues me to think about video. Like, what could

• 35:04Speaker 01

  work? It's different than what working now. Like, it can't be for, you know, talking heads. Like, I hate it. I hate it. Like, I don't watch it.

• 35:13Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 35:13Speaker 01

  And so I'm wondering.

• 35:14Alex Kantrowitz?

  So what do you think?

• 35:15Speaker 01

  I don't know. I'm thinking about it. I'm, I sit and think all the time. You know, obviously, it's easy to, to, to define what's not working. You know, these talking heads that don't know. I think journalism. I think more journalism. I think, I, I hate to agree with John Malone, but journalism. Real, people are dying for good, real news that is substantive. And that's what I'd say. Journalism.

• 35:36Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, I also think that, like, they oftentimes will watch TV and just don't really think that they're getting the whole truth. Or they, they're getting a slanted version of it.

• 35:43Speaker 01

  There's a reason they don't. Besides, the, you know, the pummeling. The Donald Trump stuff wouldn't have worked if people didn't think that a little bit.

• 35:50Alex Kantrowitz?

  Exactly. Yeah, it's like the fake news thing. It's, it's, you know, you believe fake news if you don't trust institutions.

• 35:56Speaker 01

  Well, there is, there is an ability to, to make you, if you repeat some lie over and over again, it does, it does sink in. But there is a, an elitism and a, and I don't mean visiting people in the Midwest at a diner, because I think that's bullshit, too.

• 36:11Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right, that's ridiculous.

• 36:12Speaker 01

  I literally, I was, I was, I actually went to Kentucky to talk about, they were going to do Silicon Holler and this and that. And I got up, I said, nobody's coming here to help you with technology. We don't need you. They don't, not we, it wasn't me. I was like, the minute they're, and they were talking about coal coming back and this and that. And I'm like, the minute they can automate this, you're gone. Like, you think these people sitting here, your bosses, give a fuck about you? They don't. It was really quite a speech. I remember them being like, kind of mad, but sort of like, huh, she might have a point.

• 36:41Alex Kantrowitz?

  Someone squared with us.

• 36:42Speaker 01

  Right. I was like, I'm sorry. And then what we talked about, they were like, you know, this bunch of people are much more conservative than me by a lot. And, and obviously I was from San Francisco and they're like, you don't come here and listen to us and this, you know, that thing, you know, that anger kind of thing. And I said, hmm, I didn't notice you come to San Francisco and hear what my life is like. Why don't you want to know what my life is like? Like, you don't understand me. Why do I have to understand you more? Why am I pandering and coddling you? You should come to where I live. And I said, come anytime. I'll show you the naked people on the street, the this, why we're liberal like this, why we like good produce, like whatever you want. I was, I'm happy to talk. And so that's one of the reasons, actually, I have two things I do. I have

• 37:23Speaker 01

  a lot of people I don't agree with on my podcast, a lot, like, more than most people, which sometimes a New York Times audience doesn't love. And I also don't like, not push back, like, you know what I mean? But not in a rude way. I end up having, we did Jonah Goldberg recently, who I couldn't agree with on most things. And, and it was good. It was a really good discussion, right? Because it was about policy and different things. And anyway, I think we, I think there's something, I don't know, I think people are dying, there's a silent majority in the center who just want like, good information, who do not want to scream about masks with each other, who want to take care of their

• 38:05Speaker 01

  family, who want to be safe, who like science, who, you know, who are just regular people who are tired of the screaming edges. And the screaming edge on the right has really lost its fucking mind. But also, they don't want to hear the screaming from either side. And they definitely like democracy. And so what can, would be done in that regard? I think it's just interesting.

• 38:28Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, I think there's an opportunity to do that in podcasts in particular because you can have these longer nuanced conversations and you don't need a headline that's going to trigger half the population on Twitter.

• 38:37Speaker 01

  Right, yeah, it's easy to trigger people, you know.

• 38:39Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yes, it is. You mentioned, you know, the people that you had worked with over time. And yes, there, you know, nothing new under the sun. Of course, a lot of these tools had been there. It's not like Substack invented email. I'm curious why you wanted to build a team and whether like, you know, being an independent individual, you know, maybe you would have considered that, you know, if that was like these media companies in a box existed, or is there something about having a team that's, that's in particular enticing to you?

• 39:07Speaker 01

  Um, you know, I don't like managing at all anymore. I, I, I never am going to manage. That's one of the things. I'm not a bad manager, I just don't want to. Uh, I don't like it. Um, it takes up a lot of my mind space that I don't want to and, um, and other people are better at it, kind of thing. Um, editor, same thing. Like, other people, I'm okay. I'm good, not bad. Editing copy, but I'm not interested. Um, so I, I think what was interesting was there was all these voices of people that were unusual that I thought were talented. Like, I remember when we hired Mike Isaac, there was someone else we were going to hire instead of him. You know, he knows this at the time. And he was sort of, he was back basement of Wired, I think, or something like, or whatever, wherever, dot com.

• 39:49Speaker 01

  And I thought he just was, had such a spark and that he deserved more, more attentions put on him because he was so talented. You could just see it. One of the things Walt and I did, we really were able to find talent all, all over the place, right? In different places that would have, may not, may not have been considered by the New York Times's or the Wall Street Journal's of the time. Um, you know, they wouldn't have gone to them first. And of course, they all ended up getting hired into those places, which is interesting. But I, or Bloomberg or whatever. And so I liked creating sort of a motley crew of people who would try different things and do odd and like Ina Freid's another good example. Um, I think she, where was she before that? CNET, right? She was at CNET.

• 40:36Speaker 01

  He found people in unusual places, or not unusual places, but that they deserve to shine. And I'm of the feeling, there's an expression, everything that can shines does. So why not put people in a position to shine? And I like that. I liked making decisions on our own. Obviously, I was the boss, so was Walt, so it's not like it was like a collective. But at the same time, these people got to really show who they were in really interesting ways, I thought.

• 41:04Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, that's cool. I'm not going to name names, but I know someone who interviewed with you for a job. And I think eventually got, no, I know eventually got it. I think your pitch to them was like, I want a nobody for this role. You know, essentially like, I will help you.

• 41:19Speaker 01

  Yes, Jason Del Rey is another example, someone, so I forget where I met him, but I'm like, I like him. He's, you know, I didn't mind difficult people so much. Um, you know, I just, it was, it was a lot of fun. We had a lot of fun and it was different. And people who did it were entrepreneurial and that's what I liked about them. Like they, it was a risk to come to these things, despite Walt being, you know, Walt had much more of a profile than I did. Uh, but it was, uh, it was kind of cool. And obviously we were attached to the journal, but they were somewhat hostile to us throughout our entire time there, so.

• 41:54Alex Kantrowitz?

  I want to ask you about this. So you, you sell Recode to Vox Media. We've talked about Jim Bankoff, the CEO of Vox Media.

• 42:00Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. He's wonderful.

• 42:01Alex Kantrowitz?

  I like the guy too. Um, how do you successfully go to them and be like, listen, I've built this like successful media property for you. I've built these podcasts for you. I now want to write a column for the New York Times and do a podcast for the New York Times and still remain attached to you. Like, how did you pull that off?

• 42:18Speaker 01

  This is funny. People ask me on the, how do you pull it off at the Times too? Cause they, you know, they wanted me to be an employee. I think it's pretty well known, Jim Bennett, uh, who is now doing the Palin Trail. Uh, I remember, um, meeting up at one of the South by South. I think I was talking to Michael Barbero, who's a friend of mine. Um, and I was talking to him about how, how they have to make another hit and this and that. Whereas I was just theorizing with him and there was a guy there and he was like, oh, you've got a lot of opinions. I'm like, yeah, I do. I was, and I think I said something like, the New York Times, think small and then think smaller. That kind of thing. I made some offhand beer. Beer goggle remark, although I wasn't really drunk. And at all, in fact, I don't drink.

• 43:00Speaker 01

  And it was Sam Dolnick, who's the head, who's one of the owner families, very talented guy, the family member. And I'm happy, I love working with family, a newspaper family. I love Don Graham, for example, The Washington Post. And worked with him quite a bit and thought he was wonderful.

• 43:17Speaker 01

  Anyway, so we ended up talking and they definitely wanted me to be employee. And I'm like, well, I don't want to work for you. Like, I don't want to be an employee. And they were like, everyone wants to be an employee of The New York Times. And I was like, well, apparently not everybody. Like, I don't know. I think I sort of set it going with a lot in people's minds. And so, and they were like, well, you have to be employer. You can't do this. And I was like, okay, bye, see you. Like, I don't know what to say. I'm not, I don't want to, I, I, I just don't. And, and I want to do this. And if you want to do this, this is great. If it works, fine. If it doesn't, fine, too. Like, you know, and by the way, that's how I feel all the time with, with anyone I work with. Not working out, it's okay, move along, kind of thing.

• 43:54Speaker 01

  And so, I was, I went to Jim, and Jim is wonderful in terms of, he saw it as an opportunity, not a negative. He didn't love that Recode was making a lot of money. But then I, I'm doing, I pivot, I started Pivot. And so, that was doing really well. So, I was like, I'm giving you this nice apple, I'm taking that orange. Like, you got the apple, stop complaining. I'm not leaving completely. And he was super flexible in that regard. And so, I think one of the things people don't do is they don't ask, so they don't get. And so, I always ask. And if it works for me, great. If it doesn't, I don't mind, I can do something else. And so, I think that's how I look at most of these things. Like, it's not that big a risk if I, I can, I can write for anybody. You know what I mean?

• 44:39Speaker 01

  Like, I can get a job. Like, I don't feel like I can't get a job. And so, or I'll think of something, right? I'm very entrepreneurial, so I'll think of something. And so, I, I just proposed it to him and then just did it. Like, I just don't think you can not behave like that in life. Like, I don't understand why people, well, I can't do it because they'll be mad at me. Well, if you don't care if they're mad at you, then that sort of makes it easier. I'm not, it's not work. I don't want to do this anymore. Now I want to do this. Like, if you don't say that, you're sort of stuck. And then also, like I said, when you don't want to do it anymore, you do something else. Like, I don't know, people are so agonized about their careers and ways that exhaust me. I just don't understand. I remember talking to someone recently. A lot of people come to me for advice and I was like, do you like your?

• 45:24Speaker 01

  How do you, they were offered a job at a big place and were very on the fence about it. It was very clear they were not sure what to do. And I said, how do you feel the day after you take the job with these people? Because they had been very trying to meddle. They were like, you gotta tell us now. You gotta do, you know, that kind of thing that employers do.

• 45:44Speaker 01

  And, and they, I said, how do you feel the day after you took the job? How do you feel? And they said, terrible. I said, don't take the job. Like, I don't know, I just put yourself in that situation. Or if you don't agree with someone, something, especially employers who try to make you feel bad and pay you little. Like, they want to pay you less. I think this Substack thing is great because it's like, fuck you, I can make more money. For whoever, you go, no. I say no a lot. I say no a lot. Like, someone was trying to get me, you can't do, like, we don't want you to do that. We want you to do this. And I just wrote a single email back. I said, no.

• 46:21Speaker 01

  Like, what? And I go-

• 46:21Alex Kantrowitz?

  Sometimes those old things-

• 46:22Speaker 01

  You know, of course, they were like, nobody says no. Like, and I was like, no. And they said, I'd like an explanation. I go, no. Just no. That's it. And then what do people do? Like, it's funny. And maybe it's because I can do it, but I think anyone can do it. I think anyone can do it.

• 46:37Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. I think there's way too much fear at times.

• 46:40Speaker 01

  And by the way, you're not getting paid that much in journalism to be like that. It's not like the money's so fantastic. So, really? Like, this is, this is, especially with young people. I think about young people a lot. You know, if I do this, then, just in any job, you know, then, my son, when he was, wanted to take a year off. He's like, what if I do this? What about my life? I'm like, really? Like, I'm the best parent in that regard. I'm like, don't worry about it. It'll be fine. You'll be fine. You can, like, cook. You can do whatever. And same thing with my other son who gets all these As in school. You know, he's all agonized right now about college and like, is working on a Saturday. I'm like, why are you working on a Saturday? And he's like, well, because of this, this, this. I go, it's not gonna matter. Let me give you the big secret of adulthood. None of this matters.

• 47:23Alex Kantrowitz?

  True.

• 47:23Speaker 01

  And so, I tried to think about that throughout my career.

• 47:29Alex Kantrowitz?

  Is Pivot bigger or Sway bigger?

• 47:31Speaker 01

  Pivot, probably.

• 47:33Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, wow.

• 47:34Speaker 01

  Pivot's big.

• 47:35Alex Kantrowitz?

  Very cool.

• 47:35Speaker 01

  Pivot's big. It's growing like crazy.

• 47:37Alex Kantrowitz?

  That's always a fun.

• 47:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're.

• 47:38Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 47:39Speaker 01

  We're marking it a lot.

• 47:39Alex Kantrowitz?

  It's a fun listen. I remember listening to those early Recode/Decode episodes with you and Scott and, you know, hearing you mention about how well they've done.

• 47:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:48Alex Kantrowitz?

  And of course, like, it's turned into a great franchise.

• 47:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, Pivot's really doing well. We have lots of ideas, some of them insane, but you know, that's what I like about working with Scott and the team we have, which is really great is like, nothing's too insane. Like the other, we did an 800 number, like 1-855 to listener questions and, you know, I'll tell you, no other media organization had done this, but we did a little thing on Twitter where we're like, "Keep it clean. Do not put dirty things on our thing." Like, we just like, but people liked it because it was within our brand, right? It was within our brand of doing that. And so you can tell we're having fun, you know? You can tell it. You can tell it. We're having a great time. And when we don't, and inevitably, as all things will do, it'll crash, like, or whatever, not crash, maybe die slowly.

• 48:33Speaker 01

  I don't anticipate that for a while, but I enjoy myself doing it and therefore I'll keep doing it. That's how I look at it. I look forward to it every day, every time we do it. If you can believe it.

• 48:45Alex Kantrowitz?

  Great. I can believe it, yeah. Pivot MIA is February 14th to 16th. Kara Swisher is here. We'll come back after another quick break to talk a little bit about optimism for tech. Yeah, mention that. We'll talk about that. So we'll do that right after the break.

• 49:31Alex Kantrowitz?

  And we're back here with Kara Swisher for one final segment. Again, Pivot MIA is February 14th to 16th in Miami. I'm sure you can hear a lot about it next week. You can even go. You can check it out at voxmediaevents.com/pivotmia. Kara, I'm curious, you know, there's an article by Cade Metz in The Times about how all these big pie in the sky ideas for tech haven't really panned out recently. You talk about quantum computing, self-driving cars. Is there anything in the tech world that you're optimistic about that we should be paying attention to?

• 50:02Speaker 01

  I think self-driving cars will pan out. Just haven't panned it yet. That drives me crazy. Like, it's like, you know, look, you can have your opinions about Elon Musk all you want, all day long. Everybody has them. But the fact of the matter is, like, he said 2021, and now it's 2023. I don't care. He's building it. Like, I don't think it's fake. He's kind of built everything he said he was gonna do, so I'm gonna give him benefit of the doubt. And I kind of like his whack ideas. Like, okay, sure. You know, if he says space elevator, I'd be like, huh, interesting. So I think I kind of like that. But then reporters get all like, well, he said this, but this. I'm like, okay, well, ding him on Wall Street. I don't know what to say. But I do think autonomous cars are

• 50:43Speaker 01

  coming, and coming big. Changes in transportation are obvious. Changes in workplace are obvious. The pandemic has become the biggest experiment in human history on how to work at home, which was coming, because I've worked at home for 25 years, right? So the other day, I was at a school, and they're like, what do you think of the new workplace? And someone's like, I think everyone's... I'm like, I've been... Everyone's like, oh, I wear sweatpants. And I'm like, I have not worn sweatpants for 25 years. Like, I didn't put on pants, pants, when I need to, when I'm at an event. And I think the workplace is changing in a really cool way, in interesting ways. The idea of commuting seems, right now, kind of crazy. How to help... You know, I have a lot of kids, as you know, and so childcare and how you

• 51:27Speaker 01

  deal with that, and anyone who's a parent, it's like, it's terrible. No matter what level of income you're at, it's difficult. And when you're at the bottom levels, it's terrible. Now, a lot of people have to go to physical places to work, especially service workers and hospital workers, lots of places. You have to be physically present. But how we do work and the way we do work is going to be radically rethought. I think that's really great. I think it's positive. Um, healthcare, same thing, telehealth. I think there's a lot of big movements in that direction that are really interesting and I'm excited to see what kind of investments people make. Um, the healthcare system for everyone is broken. Um, and again, the people at the bottom suffer the worst, but anyone in any, you know, try to make a doctor's appointment,

• 52:11Speaker 01

  try to avail yourself to your information, everything else. So that to me seems like a big area ripe for change and the pandemic has moved that forward. Um, I think, um, how, uh, how the, the physical and anal, anal, analog and digital merging is really, all those areas interest me, except for in schools. As it's turned out, the great experiment of remote learning sucks, just sucks. And we either were going to make it better, right? And change that around, or we're going to say, you know what, some things are better analog, but how can we use technology to help that kind of thing? You know, again, my kids suffered for, in the, in the pandemic. That said, I wanted to keep them safe. Um, I could be one of those screaming parents who, you know, masking is so interesting.

• 52:56Speaker 01

  They're fine. They're fine. I'm sorry.

• 52:59Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 53:00Speaker 01

  You know, I'm just, the, the focus on it is nothing to do with the mask, has everything to do with something else that's going on, but I don't know.

• 53:07Alex Kantrowitz?

  What's the something else?

• 53:08Speaker 01

  Control over yourself, feeling like life is out of control. I have to, you know, I have to assert, I have to be able to say whatever I want, do whatever I want, and don't tell me I'm racist. Well, you said something racist, or you know what I mean? Like, you know, it's something else. It's about self, it's about powerlessness, I think, in a lot of ways, in a weird way. And experts being a little too, like, tsk tsky, I guess, but that's not really it, is it? It's people feeling that they don't have control of their lives. I think that would be my guess. Um.

• 53:40Alex Kantrowitz?

  Weird stuff happens when you go through this trauma like we have with COVID.

• 53:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is a trauma. It'll be, it'll be, it could be good, not, not good. There're good things can come out of a terrible tragedy.

• 53:50Alex Kantrowitz?

  Absolutely.

• 53:51Speaker 01

  Right? What's, what is it?

• 53:52Alex Kantrowitz?

  Often do.

• 53:53Speaker 01

  You know, this, this tech, vaccine technology, some of it looks really promising. Um, you know, there's all kinds of stuff. I think climate change tech, I'm, I've spent a lot of time focused on it. I read a really amazing story in the New Yorker about the permafrost, um, and what's happening. And, you know, it wasn't this hopeless, it's interest, it's what's happening, it's change. This is, we don't, we may, you know, decry it, but boy, do we have to figure out how to live with it. And.

• 54:19Alex Kantrowitz?

  At this point, technology.

• 54:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 54:21Alex Kantrowitz?

  It's gonna be half the thing.

• 54:22Speaker 01

  So all these buildings are crushing down because the land goes up and down and mostly down, right, as it starts to unfreeze and it goes miles down. It was all these facts I didn't know. And they're putting these heating things within the, they use technology to be able to build there by putting things on blocks so the heat from the building didn't melt the permafrost. It was really back when, when they had less technology. And now they're putting things to regulate that to keep the cold. Anyway, it was really interesting and I thought this is all technology. You know, a lot of, something we're gonna talk about in Miami, of course, with the mayor, Miami Dade, the woman who's running Miami Dade, which is a whole large area is, you know, what do you do about rising sea levels? Like, what are you gonna build a seawall?

• 55:07Speaker 01

  You're gonna just let Miami go and move inland? Or what is the, what are the, what are the technological solutions to that or warning systems? You know, I just interviewed Neil Stephenson, who wrote Snow Crash, obviously, and his, which was where Metaverse came in, the first idea of Metaverse came in.

• 55:27Speaker 01

  He was talking, and before that it had, but he was the one that really popularized it. And one of the things, his new book is about a sort of billionaire that shoots sulfur into the atmosphere to stop global warming, but everyone lives with global warming, right? And how do they cope? There's a lot of feral pigs in Texas, all these repercussions of global warming and how you cope and how you change it. And it just, it's just a really interesting time in that regard, I think, climate change tech. And then probably employment, how people work, like how people actually work, like whether they're journalists or, like, what is work now? Not just commuting and offices, but what is, how do we conceive of work? Do we have, are we wasting enormous amounts of our time being less productive because of various things?

• 56:12Speaker 01

  Is there a better way of work? I think that's interesting. And from a technological point of view, one of my most interesting. I think climate change tech, I'm really, I'm suddenly very interested in it. So not suddenly, I wrote about it two years ago, making, I made something up. I said, the world's first trillionaire was going to be a climate change tech. I just made that up. It was like, hmm, interesting. I'm like, I just made that up. I was like, hoping. It makes sense.

• 56:36Alex Kantrowitz?

  It could happen.

• 56:37Speaker 01

  Right?

• 56:37Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, there's such a big need for it. And it's like, like with COVID, we weren't going to get out of it with natural solutions. We needed technology to get us out of there.

• 56:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, it did. And we'll see.

• 56:47Alex Kantrowitz?

  And it's going to be the same with climate.

• 56:48Speaker 01

  The reprogress of that too. And so, you know, and then, you know, the body, I think I've been doing a lot of interviews around the body. Like I have from Jeanette Winterson, who talked about taking your brain out and putting it in a different sentient being. To, you know, I'm really interested in that. I'm interested in like healthcare and what, how you change the body and the food stuff is interesting. I mean, I'm not going full, full, like whatever Jeff Bezos is doing to himself.

• 57:11Alex Kantrowitz?

  Would you transfer? Oh, my God, what is he doing to himself?

• 57:14Speaker 01

  Let's not discuss. Let's allegedly. No, no. Well, some facial, some facial surgery, clearly. Yeah. Whatever. You know, there was a VC, I'm not going to say who it is. Two people, two men, and it's always looks bad on a man. It just does. I'm sorry. I don't know what's wrong with face. I'm like, plastic surgeons, get it with it. Cause some women.

• 57:35Alex Kantrowitz?

  Jeff Bezos had a fine face. It was a good face.

• 57:38Speaker 01

  I don't, you know what? Good for him. If he wants to do, thinks he looks better. That's terrific for him. Congratulations. But there was a guy who had facial, it was a facelift. It was a lot of extensive facial nose. His nose was different, everything. And we were at a party and everybody was talking, Silicon Valley was, it was at a big, one of these big investor houses thing. And everyone was talking about his face left, right? And so I went up to, like, everybody was, but nobody would say anything to him. And they were acting like he didn't have a facelift. And so I went up to him and I literally, I put a circle around my face. I'm like, what the fuck happened? Like, what were you doing?

• 58:17Speaker 01

  And he goes, excuse me, what, what are you talking? I knew him pretty well. And he goes, what? And I go, with your facelift? What? Why? Why did you do this? What is going on here? He's like, I didn't have a facelift. I'm like, you're a big fucking liar. You completely, I said, everyone at this party is talking about it. So you might as well tell me. Then he filled me out on this whole facelift. It was crazy. It was like so funny. There'll probably be another way to do that. That's not quite technologically speaking.

• 58:43Alex Kantrowitz?

  Exactly. Yeah, I hope so. Would you, um, would you put your?

• 58:46Speaker 01

  I would not have a facelift, but.

• 58:47Alex Kantrowitz?

  I was gonna ask about the brain transfusion.

• 58:49Speaker 01

  Oh, that stuff's cool.

• 58:50Alex Kantrowitz?

  Put your brain in someone else's body?

• 58:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe.

• 58:52Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 58:53Speaker 01

  I don't know. Sure, why not? I'd rather do that than go to space if I had to pick, you know?

• 58:57Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, it sounds like a better option.

• 58:58Speaker 01

  It does. If I was dying, I think some of this cryogenic, well, this was in this permafrost thing because all this stuff is coming up. Like, they pulled up a whole woolly mammoth that was still bleeding. Like, so they were trying to figure out cloning, etc. But I thought, but it's a lot of, like, there was one thing, this was incredible, and then we'll finish, is they pulled out a piece of the sod or whatever, the permafrost, it's called something else, I don't remember, and they were, put it in some box, some sterile box, and they were able to grow an invertebrate that, like, from 24,000 years ago, from what was ever the heck was mess, like, it was like a chicken gone bad in the refrigerator. I don't know. You know what I mean? Like, it was, the organisms were doing this. But it wasn't like, it was one thing to create, like, a cell

• 59:40Speaker 01

  or, or, you know, whatever. This, this had, like, organs and all kinds. It was a real thing, right? It was a real creature that was from 24,000 years ago. It's some, something, part of it had been frozen, whatever. It was crazy. And I thought, then, and they said, this is gonna have implications for cryogenics, finally. You know what I mean? Like, this is really interesting. Of course, you have to be under the permaf, it's like, that's the plot for Captain America. I get it. But, um, but it is the plot for Captain, didn't he? That's right, he went down into the permafrost. Um, but it was really interesting. I thought, wow, this is really, like, that's really, it's really interesting. I'd rather do that than space, for sure, for me.

• 1:00:18Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:18Speaker 01

  But I like space.

• 1:00:19Alex Kantrowitz?

  Same here.

• 1:00:20Speaker 01

  I like space.

• 1:00:20Alex Kantrowitz?

  Space is okay.

• 1:00:21Speaker 01

  We have to have a moon base. We have to have a moon base, 100%.

• 1:00:26Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. Awesome, Kara. Thank you so much for the time. Really great chatting with you, as always.

• 1:00:31Speaker 01

  Thank you, Alex.

• 1:00:32Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yep. Pivot Miami, gotta mention it one last time. February 14th to 16th, Kara's gonna be there, so will Scott Galloway, and lots of great guests.

• 1:00:40Speaker 01

  Lots of tequila.

• 1:00:41Alex Kantrowitz?

  Thanks so much.

• 1:00:41Speaker 01

  Lots of tequila.

• 1:00:42Alex Kantrowitz?

  And tequila.

• 1:00:43Speaker 01

  I guess, I don't know, what are they doing? Rum? Whatever. Scott?

• 1:00:46Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:46Speaker 01

  Scott with liquor.

• 1:00:47Alex Kantrowitz?

  They drink a lot there.

• 1:00:47Speaker 01

  Scott with a special cocktail will be there.

• 1:00:51Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, sounds like an amazing event, the first of its kind, probably not the last. So go check it out. It's at voxmediaevents.com/pivotmia. Thanks again to Kara. Thank you, Nick Guatney, for doing the edits and turning this around quickly. Thank you to Red Circle for hosting and selling the ads. And thanks to all of you, the listeners. We will be back next Wednesday with a show about CRISPR and other technology that there's a lot of optimism around. Trevor Martin, who's the CEO of Mammoth Bioscience, is going to be here with us. So for all the talk about how journalists are too pessimistic about tech, a heck of a lot of optimism to end this one. And so we hope that keeps you going and that you're here for the next one. Thanks again, and we'll see you on Wednesday.

• 1:01:45Speaker 02

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the House Majority PAC dot com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.