EP 47: Kara Swisher (Founder, Recode) - Tech journalist and podcaster on the evolution of the tech industry, Propaganda vs Journalism, Elon & Who Should Run Twitter

In the 47th episode journalist and host of the Pivot podcast, Kara Swisher joins to discuss the changes in tech and founders from when she started vs today. Plus the art of interviewing, propaganda vs journalism, the importance of being true to yourself and not caring what people think. (0:00) Introducing Kara Swisher (1:33) Tech industry now vs the past (10:24) Kara’s podcasting history (13:28) On Dolly Parton (16:37) Not caring what people think (18:48) Art to interviewing (25:10) Elon & who should run twitter (29:51) San Francisco (32:00) Tech’s role in future generations (34:54) Succession (41:03) Silicon Valley and other TV (45:53) Fraud (50:15) Media is a hard business (51:58) Seppic/Biohacking Mixed and edited: Justin Hrabovsky Produced: Andrew Nadeau and Rashad Assir Executive Producer: Josh Machiz Music: Griff Lawson 🎙 Listen to the show Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/three-cartoon-avatars/id1606770839 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5WqBqDb4br3LlyVrdqOYYb?si=3076e6c1b5c94d63&nd=1 Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9zb0hJZkhWbg 🎥 Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCugS0jD5IAdoqzjaNYzns7w?sub_confirmation=1 Follow on Socials 📸 Instagram - https://instagram.com/cartoonavatars 🐦 Twitter - https://twitter.com/cartoonavatars 🎬 Clips on TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@cartoonavatars About the Show A Saturday morning podcast hosted by Logan Bartlett (Partner and Managing Director at Redpoint Ventures) covering the tech news with his friends and other people with industry expertise. Executive Producer: Rashad Assir Producer: Leah Clapper Mixing and editing: Justin Hrabovsky Check out Unsupervised Learning, Redpoint's AI Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@UCUl-s_Vp-Kkk_XVyDylNwLA 🎥 Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCugS0jD5IAdoqzjaNYzns7w?sub_confirmation=1 Follow on Socials 📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/theloganbartlettshow 📱 X - https://twitter.com/loganbartshow 🎬 Clips on TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@theloganbartlettshow About the Show Logan Bartlett is a Software Investor at Redpoint Ventures - a Silicon Valley-based VC with $6B AUM and investments in Snowflake, DraftKings, Twilio, and Netflix. In each episode of The Logan Bartlett Show, we sit down with the people behind today’s most important startups and extract the tactics, lessons, and frameworks they’ve learned the hard way. Conversations span hiring to GTM, product, growth, fundraising and everything in between - collectively forming the ultimate playbook to make you a better CEO, investor or board member. Tap follow and enable notifications to stay ahead of the game.

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

• 0:05Logan Bartlett?

  Welcome to the 47th episode of Cartoon Avatars. I'm your host, Logan Bartlett, and on this episode, you're going to hear a conversation that I had with Kara Swisher, who was the founder of Recode, founder of All Things D, Code Conference, in addition to her podcast Pivot with Scott Galloway, as well as On with Kara Swisher. We talk about a bunch of different things. We talk about how the tech industry has changed, talk about her favorite interview, talk about television shows she's watching, a bunch of interesting stuff, a fun conversation. I really appreciate her coming on. So that's what you're going to hear next. And just a reminder, a request that I'm now doing, please like, subscribe, follow, all that stuff on the YouTube page, Spotify, Apple,

• 0:47Logan Bartlett?

  Podcast, wherever it is you listen, it's really appreciated. We're trying to drive view counts. I think last week was one of our best episodes we've ever had. And so really appreciate it if everyone else continues to do that. So thanks, everyone, for listening, and I trust you'll enjoy this episode here now. All right, Kara Swisher, thank you. Thank you for doing this. For people that don't know, I can't imagine too many people don't know Kara Swisher that are listening to this, but just a quick primer. People probably know Kara as the host of Pivot and On with Kara Swisher, co-founder of Recode, the Code Conference, co-founder of All Things D, et cetera, et cetera. Kara, thanks for doing this. No problem. No problem at all.

• 1:28Logan Bartlett?

  You've been in tech, covering tech, for a little while now. A long while, yeah. And you've seen the evolution, I guess, of the industry across a bunch of different generations of founders and all that. Is there something, as you sort of look back to when you started covering it versus today, is there anything that particularly stands out, that's noticeably different about either the founders themselves, the industry at large, anything that jumps out to you?

• 1:55Speaker 01

  Well, they're obscenely wealthy and become more and more away from regular, living a regular life.

• 2:01Logan Bartlett?

  But Bill Gates and Michael Dell were obscenely wealthy back in the day, right?

• 2:05Speaker 01

  Yes, they were, certainly, but I mean, really early. I met them a lot earlier than that. But, you know, yeah, sure, but it's a whole different scene. I mean, I think the wealth and power and size of these companies, they didn't, you know, there wasn't a Facebook. It was very small. I remember Google in the garage and stuff like that. And so they've turned from small startups into enormous conglomerates, essentially. And so it's a very big difference. And as over time, have gotten more and more isolated, I would say. I would say, hard to reach, hard to talk to.

• 2:34Logan Bartlett?

  Are the people that have stayed, I guess, grounded over the course of whatever, the fame and the richness and all of that, are there any commonalities you've seen across the people that have been able to do that?

• 2:46Speaker 01

  Most of them have been adults, like Reed Hastings is the same as when I met him when he started it. He was an adult when he started it, and he's an adult now. And so, you know, a lot of people who started not in their twenties, maybe. Marc Benioff is the same as when he started Salesforce, I remember that. Some like Brian Chesky were just really nice people. He has very nice parents. I know it sounds crazy. I've met many people's parents, and he has very grounded parents. And so I think his mom's a social worker, his dad was some sort of, you know, not construction, but it's something in that area. And so he has a very grounded family. So it just depends. I think a lot of the ones that are most normal are the ones that started off as adults in the first place and were already formed people. And rather than, you know, this is their first job kind of thing.

• 3:31Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah. It's interesting. Now, we've sort of moved to this time period where the CEOs are basically unelected world leaders, right?

• 3:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:41Logan Bartlett?

  With a lot of power and responsibility.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, certainly.

• 3:44Logan Bartlett?

  Is there anything you would do, if you could, to change that construct? Or is it just the state that we're in right now?

• 3:53Speaker 01

  You can't shut them up. Like, you know, you're going to tell them to shut up, except, like, stop weighing in on things. You know, it's sort of, when they tell celebrities to stay in their lane, I never like that. They can say whatever they want.

• 4:03Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah, shut up and dribble.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, whatever. I hate that. They have, they have lives. They have, they're citizens of the United States, and they can say whatever they want or wherever country they're from. I think it's fine. They just don't, you know, like Elon Musk going on about Ukrainian geopolitical issues doesn't seem to be the person I want to listen to on that issue. He just waited on Kevin McCarthy like, whatever. He's a big, he's been a longtime supporter of him. So go ahead, knock, knock yourself out kind of thing. And so, yeah, sure, they can do it. I think they, I don't think, I don't listen to what most of them have to say about politics unless I feel like they have a certain expertise. It's just their opinion, just like it's my mother's opinion, I think.

• 4:41Logan Bartlett?

  Do you have any opinions about the current state of propaganda within tech and how these companies are using it?

• 4:50Speaker 01

  Well, they're now letting everything in now. If you noticed, you know, Twitter just changed its political advertising policy that was put in place in 2019. Now anything goes. You saw this football player, this Buffalo Bills football player got hit and they're letting all the COVID misinformation go around. It has nothing to do with COVID, but nonetheless, they're just letting it go. So, I mean, it's essentially propaganda is all this falseness. It's not, you know, it's not necessarily dedicated to being anything but chaotic. And so, you know, now it's just anybody can say anything like, you know, just even, but that has happened forever. It's just more amplified now. And so I think we're just gonna, I have a feeling that a lot of these sites have given up on just content moderation. It's almost an impossible

• 5:34Speaker 01

  task, but I feel like they've given up on it completely. And they're just gonna let things go across their, their platforms and let it go. And that is propaganda and whoever is the loudest and most, I mean, just watching this house thing, everything used to be back door negotiations. Everything's happening in public and in real time. Is that a good thing? A bad thing? I don't know. It's all propaganda in a lot of ways. They're all trying to push their own agendas. But, you know, I think the problem is you don't, it's very hard to take facts out of what's actually happening versus what people are spinning. And so now everyone's doing essentially public propaganda, which you can see, but it doesn't make it any less dangerous.

• 6:15Logan Bartlett?

  What do you think about the role of journalists in, because journalists were for the longest time, kind of the gatekeepers and helped us verify versus the random person spouting off, right? And this isn't necessarily a new trend. I mean, you were pioneering the blog world, but now everyone is a blogger and that's been true for 10, 15 years, but now almost in an unfiltered way, everyone's a blogger.

• 6:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:40Logan Bartlett?

  Is that a good thing? Is there any way the toothpaste goes back in the tube?

• 6:43Speaker 01

  Well, it's good when there's voices you haven't heard of. There's all kinds of really interesting voices. Again, whatever the news of the day, this happens to be what's happening in Congress, but you can, you can look at a lot of people's opinions in real time and some people are very smart that don't work for NBC or CBS or the New York Times and they have very good takes. And so I like that part of it. It's like, oh, I hadn't thought of that. And this person would know because they worked in Congress for this many years. So I think giving voice to more experts is always a good thing. I think the downside is that you give voice to idiots, right? You get voice to people who are just like, this is what I think happened. And you're like, that's not what happened. But so it's sort of a plus and minus thing.

• 7:21Logan Bartlett?

  Where do you encourage, I mean, you have a college age son, is that right?

• 7:25Speaker 01

  I have one of my sons is in college, the other is going to be going next year.

• 7:28Logan Bartlett?

  Where do you encourage him? Or if you do, where would you like for him to get his information?

• 7:34Speaker 01

  Wherever he wants to. I don't, I don't control my kids' information. The older kids, at least. I, they, interestingly, we were just on a vacation with all four kids and the, my son and I were talking a lot about where he gets his information. My oldest son, who's at NYU, and he, he gets a lot, interestingly, from YouTube. He gets, he watches news on YouTube. He watches, he's on Reddit, which I think is much more moderated, which is interesting because he likes seeing some of the videos and memes and what's happening there. And I think that's where he's getting his information. I thought it was fine. I mean, he's very, he's a good connoisseur of information. They, he certainly knows what's happening and is accurate. He watched, my other son, who's 17, watches a lot of videos

• 8:16Speaker 01

  on YouTube and they're, I hear him listening to them and they're quite good, right? They're really good informational news videos. And so they're not, they're not sitting themselves in front of the TV set and watching, you know, like I do. I watched Stephanie Rule interview Lauren Boebert last night, for example. They're not doing that. They're doing, they're finding the news where it's coming through, but they certainly feel, it feels like they know. I haven't found them to say anything that's just like, that's just not true, but they're very good connoisseurs of where they get it. But I find, they get it on, on their phones from a YouTube or Reddit and, and then have a bunch of people, they both watch, for example, John Oliver, they love John Oliver. Um, there's a couple of people they listen to, a couple of reporters they've suddenly liked and they follow them and they're very good reporters.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  And so they're, they're really good. I think younger people are very good at, at getting their information sources, the ones they like.

• 9:08Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah, much easier to go direct or at least, uh, crowdsourced.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  They're journalists. No, they're journalists. They're not, they're, I think they're watching, I mean, John Oliver, what is he? He's a good commentator. He's good synopsizer of the news. I, I think he's accurate. Um, so I don't, and he's funny. And so that's an interesting, he, he, they're very up on the news. And then they, you know, they form opinions he might have, for example, but that's okay. They, they can think for themselves. They don't read newspapers. They certainly don't listen to radio. They list, they sometimes listen to podcasts, but sometimes not. They don't listen to mine, I can tell you that.

• 9:41Logan Bartlett?

  It's interesting. I mean, as a form factor, podcasts and YouTube seem to be converging so much, uh, the video aspect and all, and all this stuff. And so it's, YouTube's done a really impressive job of, uh, being that source of information.

• 9:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think the reason they like it is they find TikTok, which is another source of information for a lot of young people, for sure. A lot of people in general, um, they find it too performative and too slick. And so they sort of like the, the, the looser, uh, the less professionalization of YouTube and Reddit, I think. That's my impression is that they find, uh, they find TikTok a little, just a little, just the way a lot of people find Instagram performative. Uh, I think it's the same thing. They feel the same way about Instagram. They think it's more as a, as a peacocking kind of place.

• 10:24Logan Bartlett?

  I've heard you say that podcasts need to be, uh, e- either useful or entertaining or some combination of, of both, information that you can't get anywhere else. Your, your history with podcasts, you first started doing it when?

• 10:38Speaker 01

  Oh, I started the podcast division at Vox, interestingly, me and an intern. I was running the website and I was doing their, I was doing the code conference for many years. Of course, it was before that, the All Things D conference. And I just was very interested. I wanted someone else to run the website of the news site because I was tired of being an editor. And I just was riveted by podcasts. And so I took an intern and we started it and we started doing interviews because the co-conference, we could only interview just a few people a year, 16 or something like that. And there were so, were hundreds of people and we could do two a week and that was 300 people that we could interview. And so it was, or 100, sorry, 100 and 100, 100 and some people interviewed.

• 11:19Speaker 01

  If we did more, I think we did it three times a week to start. And so we could do really good interviews and I just thought the podcast medium was really interesting. So it was 10, almost 10 years ago. We were very early to the idea of it.

• 11:32Logan Bartlett?

  And what do you think of its current form today and the state, the proliferation? It feels like it's really taken off. I mean, I started doing this a year ago. And so feels like everyone jokingly says that they have a podcast these days.

• 11:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, some are better than others. There's lots of them. You know, it's a question whether they can make money. Ours does, makes a lot of money. But, you know, I think there's, there's going to be a shakeout. And, you know, this idea of buying them for enormous amounts of money is, I never, that wasn't really the point. I mean, I think they can be very good businesses. If you are very serious about making it a business, other people just want to yammer on and that's fine, too. But I do think it's getting, you know, there's definitely, when I started, there was no, we, there was no services to make them. There was no advertising to speak of. There was no, it was really interesting. We did a lot of it on our own. And so now it's quite, you know, it's like any other media or thing. There's ad agencies, there's, you know, guests are very attuned to it. It's not, you don't

• 12:30Speaker 01

  have to explain it to anybody and, and things like that. And so I, I, you know, it's just the professionalization of it and you're going to see a shakeout of that. And people can still make them if they want. It's sort of like internet news websites. There are some that are professional and others that are just for people's. Their own interest.

• 12:47Logan Bartlett?

  Are there any that you particularly have enjoyed listening to in the last couple of years that that have popped up?

• 12:51Speaker 01

  I'm making five a week, so or four a week. So I'm not, I don't have a lot of time and I have four kids. So I don't spend a lot of time doing anything but my own work. But, you know, I listen to various ones. Um, I, of course, everyone listens to it daily, but I don't listen to that daily anymore. Um, I know the news, I don't need them to tell me, but I like it. I think it's really good. You know, I, I, I dabble in various things. I like to do ones that aren't in my genre, like around food and history and things like that. So I tend to do those more than news podcasts. But I don't have time. I honestly don't listen to a lot of podcasts, you know? I listen to the Dolly Parton podcast, obviously.

• 13:26Logan Bartlett?

  That's, that's one I'll need to search for.

• 13:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, Dolly's America, Dolly Parton's America. It's great. It's really.

• 13:31Logan Bartlett?

  She had a Netflix, uh, or there was a documentary of hers on Netflix.

• 13:35Speaker 01

  There was, this was a, this was a podcast. It was by the son of the man that she worked with at Vanderbilt to give all that money to Vanderbilt around COVID. Uh, and it was great. The only part, she, she talked on it a lot. That was what I liked is I got to hear from her. The only part of it just one is he was a bit of a fan and I want to hear about her business a little bit more because I think she's quite a business mind. That's one thing I'm super interested in. She sort of, she sort of defaults to this adorable Dolly thing, like little corn pony. And I like that, but she's a very savvy businesswoman and I'd like to hear her talk about that more than, you know, you know, shouldn't we all get along? Sure, but let me talk about your IP, like you kind of thing. I would be more interested in that. Um, and also he, he talked more than she did. And I was like, you need to stop talking and let her talk. That's all.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  I just, I would just let her talk. That's what I would do.

• 14:21Logan Bartlett?

  It's a, uh, it's a good, um, thing to keep in mind oftentimes.

• 14:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:26Logan Bartlett?

  That, uh, you're, you're here to interview someone else.

• 14:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's, I'm perfectly fine for the questions, but at some point I was like, I don't care how you feel about Dolly Parton. I would like me to feel about, but it was funny. I was, I, I yelled, I yelled at the podcast quite a bit.

• 14:40Logan Bartlett?

  Is she the coolest person in America?

• 14:42Speaker 01

  Oh, there's a lot of cool people. But yeah, she's one of them. She's

• 14:45Logan Bartlett?

  Right up there. What? Have you always been a fan of hers? Is it the music? Is it who she is?

• 14:50Speaker 01

  No, early days. I love her music. I love her very early music when she was with Porter Wagner. And I followed her for a long, long time. I'm a big country music fan, especially early, early stuff. But I like pop, pop country music, too. I like most of it. But I like the old stuff. And a lot of her old stuff is just amazing.

• 15:07Logan Bartlett?

  The old stuff, when you say country, what do you think the the prime of it is? What time?

• 15:13Speaker 01

  Oh, you know, I early Johnny Cash. I listened to bluegrass. I had, we're living in the Washington area. I spent a lot of time at at different bluegrass venues here and just old country, you know. Oh, gosh, my son listens to it all now. Just everybody, Loretta Lynn.

• 15:30Logan Bartlett?

  Does he like the the older stuff?

• 15:32Speaker 01

  He does. He likes. He does. He likes the older stuff. Yeah, he listens to a lot of early Johnny Cash. He listens to a lot of early Loretta Lynn, a whole bunch of people that I hadn't actually heard of. But he's found and sent me and stuff like that. And so we listened to it together, actually. We were just on a trip and listened to a whole bunch of country music.

• 15:50Logan Bartlett?

  I've struggled with the newer pop country. I I sort of had, I was very, my family's from the South, Alabama and Tennessee. And so I really grew up in the 80s and 90s with like the Garth Brooks and George Strait and like that whole

• 16:03Speaker 01

  I love Garth Brooks. Yeah, I like Trisha Yearwood, everything else. Yeah. But there's earlier than that. But go ahead.

• 16:09Logan Bartlett?

  Sure. Yeah, that was that was my coming of age. Well,

• 16:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, Conway Twitty is someone I really like. George Jones and, you know, it's just you can go way back. You know, and I think I bluegrass was something and a lot of names you don't know as well. I just, I've always followed it. I just love it. I just find it very moving and beautiful. And she was, she was quite, you know, very early Dolly Parton. I like later Dolly Parton, too. I think I like all Dolly Partons, every Dolly Parton there is. So.

• 16:37Logan Bartlett?

  Now, one unique thing I feel like in having watched, you know, your videos and listened to your podcast and all over the years, I feel like you uniquely, I would say, do not give a fuck what people

• 16:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's about right.

• 16:51Logan Bartlett?

  think. And I don't know if you would characterize it as that, but is that something that came innately to you? Or is that something that was developed over time? Just thick skin?

• 17:01Speaker 01

  No, I think that one of the things that's important in podcasting and anywhere in life is you have to be genuine to yourself, right? A lot of people try to put these ideas of yourself on that aren't familiar to you yourself. And so I am, this is the way I have been since I've been in fourth grade. And so, you know, very outspoken, very much, I don't understand that. What are you doing?

• 17:21Logan Bartlett?

  I'm sure your fourth grade teacher

• 17:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, she didn't.

• 17:24Logan Bartlett?

  had interesting notes for your

• 17:26Speaker 01

  I walked out of, my mom has a, I walked out of fourth grade and I said, I already learned this. Why are you boring me with this kind of thing? So that's who I was in fourth grade. So it's not a new, fresh personality trait for me. But one of the things that was really important was, is important in any medium, and even if you're like the Kardashians, you're genuine to yourself, right? They are genuinely themselves. And so I think that's what, that's how you get successful in, in, in media in general, is how your, your, people really do respond to genuine self, your selfness. And I think it's really important. And that's, you know, you can't, you can't fake that. And so I am the way I am, and they either like it, or you don't, right? And so that's the

• 18:11Speaker 01

  thing, is if they don't like your, your act, essentially, or the way you are, then they're not going to like your podcast, if that makes sense. They're not going to like, you know, so I tend to try to be myself.

• 18:25Logan Bartlett?

  You also have a ability to get people to want you to like them too, which I don't know exactly what, what that is. But what was it Mark Andreessen called it? I forget.

• 18:37Speaker 01

  Stockholm syndrome.

• 18:38Logan Bartlett?

  Stockholm syndrome, yes. Your, your, your captors are who you're ultimately trying to win over.

• 18:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. He called it, I thought that was silly, but whatever. He can say whatever he wants.

• 18:48Logan Bartlett?

  Now, is there something that you would say uniquely, is it obvious in? That that has led to your success, or if there was a young enterprising person looking at you and saying, you know, this is someone I want to emulate?

• 19:02Speaker 01

  I think I was a really good reporter, you know what I mean? That's really, I was a really good reporter, a beat reporter for many years. And I think that's the most important part of me. Like, that's where I got it. So I'm able to say things about things because I reported on them for years. Like, I have a very long history of being a reporter for, you know, for all the internet companies, and it gave me a certain insight to what was happening there. And I think that's really helpful. And so a lot of what I say is not off the top of my head. It's because I've covered these people. I know what they're doing. I'm aware. Now, I'm not a daily news reporter anymore. I'm much more of a columnist, opinion analyst, but it's based on reported information. And so it gives it, you have to really know your stuff.

• 19:45Speaker 01

  And I think expertise is critically important, whether I'm listening to someone talk about, you know, I really hate cable because a lot of people on cable don't know what they're talking, like, they just talk on any topic. And I find that offensive. I'm often invited onto cable and they'll have a topic. And I'm like, I don't know anything about that. And they're like, still come on and talk about it. I'm like, no, I refuse. I refuse to talk about something I don't know, like Kevin McCarthy. I just, I'm a, I'm a citizen and I can watch it. And I could talk about the, the implications for how it's being in real time on social media. That I get, but I'm not gonna, I don't know the ins and outs of what's happening there. It just seems like chaotic to me. And that's, that's the only thing I can, insight I can have. I don't think it's a fresh one. And so I think it's important to have expertise in whatever you're doing.

• 20:28Logan Bartlett?

  And when you're interviewing people, you, you tend to not script the conversation, right? And just sort of let it go in what? So, so when you're coming into a conversation with someone, is there something that you want to hit these particular things? Or how does that actually work?

• 20:43Speaker 01

  I prepare a little bit more. I, I, most of the people I, I'm interested in, if that makes sense, I really do. I am interested in. The people, right? So I don't interview people I'm not interested in, and that's really important. So one of the things I try to do is, is really pick people I like, or I'm interested in talking to them in some fashion. And that's, that's, that's the most important part. It just is. Then we spend a lot of time reading up on people. I listen to some interviews, not all of them, of what people have done to find out what their little shtick is. So I don't, they don't fall into their, into whatever they want to say over and over again. I think that's important. I also spend a lot of time trying to do something different. What is interesting to me?

• 21:27Speaker 01

  And so it's my interview, not the interview. And I think a lot of people do the same interview over and over and over again. And so I try to do different interviews, again, by using the lens of me versus anybody else, essentially.

• 21:40Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah, interesting. It's, have you found a difference of interviewing people in person versus remote? Like, do you get more out of people?

• 21:46Speaker 01

  Sometimes my live interviews, I'm talking about with an audience, work better because I'm good in front of an audience. And it can be funnier. Like, I did a great interview with Bob Iger at, in Richmond, which, when he left Disney for the first time. And that was a really good interview because we get along, we have a great rapport, and it worked really well in front of people. But in general, remotes worked rather well. I'm surprised how well, you know, this, we use Riverside also, has been. I'm surprised how intimate you could get. Although I think probably my best interviews have been, I did, I'm trying to think. Anyone I do in person tends to be a little better of, of an, of an interview.

• 22:27Logan Bartlett?

  Are there interviews that you're particularly proud of that when you look back? Like, what immediately comes to mind in terms of interviews that you, that you would direct people towards or that you're particularly proud of?

• 22:38Speaker 01

  Oh, a lot of them. I, I, I think it's really, there's a lot of interviews I've done that are, that are great. You know, I, I tend to say my last interview was, was great.

• 22:50Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 22:51Speaker 01

  You know, I thought, I thought I did one with Monica Lewinsky that was fresh because she'd been interviewed a lot, but I think I had a different take on her. And it turned out to be a very emotional, interesting interview about someone who really got the short end, who acted the best in this entire saga and ended up. With the worst outcome, right? And I thought that was a really interesting interview. I did a, I did an interesting interview with Kathy Griffin in person in South by Southwest. Now, she's known as sort of like the shock jock of comedians, but she was in a very vulnerable position because she had been, you know, she couldn't fly anymore. She was on the no fly list over just a stupid photo. It was a tasteless photo, but a stupid photo. I thought that was a very insightful, much more serious. People are expecting her just to kid all the time.

• 23:33Speaker 01

  And I got her to a place. I thought that was good. Obviously, the interview I did with,

• 23:41Speaker 01

  with the, the, the CEO of Parler on the day of the, of the insurrection on January 6th was very emotional. Often when I'm emotional or I have, I reach people emotionally, they tend to be better. And often that's in person. That's, I like to do certain people in person because you think you get a better interview with them.

• 24:01Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah, interesting. Have you, tactics wise, if you're not getting out of someone what, what you'd like, or if something's just totally going off the rails, how do you handle those, those situations of trying to bring them back in?

• 24:14Speaker 01

  I'm okay with them going off the rails. I, I think it's fine. I, I'm, I'm good with that. I think it's really important to, to let that happen. Like I, when I was talking to Elon in one, he got mad over my opinions about his ridiculous behavior around COVID. And so I, I was very much pushing back on the way he behaved around the factories and what he was doing to local, local regulators and stuff. And he threatened to leave and I was like, okay, bye. Like, you know what I mean? Like, so there's been a bunch like that that have been super tense, often with him, because he's very, he's speaking of emotional.

• 24:54Speaker 01

  He's highly emotional. And, and so that was interesting, like that back and forth. He didn't end up leaving, of course. They never do. And so that was, he, those interviews have been very good when we have them because they're, because he's right there with me.

• 25:10Logan Bartlett?

  Because you bring him up, you had said when he took the job that you, he would rank high on your list of people that could, that could help fix Twitter.

• 25:19Speaker 01

  I did, I did think that. I do not think that now.

• 25:21Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah, I, I think you said it's one of the biggest disappointments, or I forget the exact quote, but who else was on that list of people that could have been good at running Twitter?

• 25:32Speaker 01

  You know, a lot, there's a lot of, not just because he's like, everyone, I'm not in the, he's such a genius mode. I just think he was an active user of it and he's got the means and money and contacts, right? So he's got a lot of support. So he, and he loves the product, or whatever he has with the product, relationship he has with the product. Um, you know, I didn't think there was a lot of people. I thought in the hands of a Microsoft, it might've done okay. Disney, not so much. Um, I thought it would've been interesting if Google bought it, you know? I thought those were kind of interesting owners. Um, you know, there's certain CEOs I've named that I thought would be good. I thought Susan Wojcicki, who runs YouTube, would have been good. Um, I thought Brett Taylor, who was the chairman, might've done a good job. Stuart Butterfield, who ran Slack. These are people who have the, you know, I'm very interested in if they have the actual expertise in media.

• 26:17Speaker 01

  Um, I think one of Elon's problems is he just doesn't understand media in any way. He just understands loudness, uh, which is not media. And so I think Twitter's a media organization. And so, um, and of course, a technical organization, but less that than a media organization. And so I think he's had a real hard time doing a good job of it. And he's also, it's also about him. I, I did a really interesting interview just this week with Tony Fadell, who's written a book called Build. He's of course, father of the iPod, etc. Um, and one of the lists he has is list of assholes in tech. And, you know, he calls himself one too. Um, and he said there's a difference between an ego-driven asshole and a mission-driven asshole, which meaning the, the second is more useful. And

• 27:02Speaker 01

  Elon has shifted from a mission-driven asshole to an ego-driven asshole. And it's not, it's never a good thing.

• 27:07Logan Bartlett?

  Do you feel like the media obsesses a little too much about Twitter?

• 27:11Speaker 01

  No.

• 27:12Logan Bartlett?

  In this nihilist attitude of, of what all is going on over there?

• 27:15Speaker 01

  No, I think it's, I think, you know, listen, people are like, oh, too much. I'm like, the world's richest man with the most important platform for politicians. And, um, are you kidding me? It's, it's important. I don't care how you slice it. It's an important thing. And so you could say it's not important, but it's not, just not true. It's just not true. It's, it's a very, um, It captures the attention of politicians and media across the world, less so celebrities. It may be small, but it's influential. And so, and again, it's the world's richest man doing it, who also happens to be knee deep in Ukraine, is knee deep in China stuff, is doing cars,

• 27:56Speaker 01

  is doing rockets. It's not, it's not a trivial story. It's not. It's about influence and power and propaganda. It's, there's no way this is an uninteresting story.

• 28:06Logan Bartlett?

  If you were 22 years old and back in your Washington Post days, where, what area would you be hunting out? Would you, would you still go to tech or because it's kind of become

• 28:21Logan Bartlett?

  fossilized in some ways, or like the big players are in their spots? Are there different areas?

• 28:26Speaker 01

  They're not fossilized. Boy, they're very powerful. I mean, it's interesting that, you know, they're not, they're not losing a step necessarily.

• 28:34Logan Bartlett?

  Maybe locked in is a, or the big players seem to be somewhat positioned as incumbents with not quite the same level of disruption that there was when you originally got on the beat. Would you want to cover? Because it seems you, you moved away from politics, right? Like that was something you didn't want to do. And in some ways.

• 28:53Speaker 01

  Well, you have to now, right? You kind of have to.

• 28:56Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah. Tech has sort of doubled back around to politics. Is there another area that you would pursue? Or do you think this is?

• 29:03Speaker 01

  You know, I'm very interested in climate change tech. I'm very interested in climate change in general and the innovation around it. We have to do. I spent a lot of time, spending a lot more time on EVs, a lot more time on carbon issues or a battery, everything, you know, efficiency. And so we did a whole day of that at Code this year because I happen to be interested in it. And so there's that. And I also spend a lot of time thinking about healthcare, as most people do, would never, not as interested in that right now. But there's some really interesting things happening around that. And so if I was younger, I'd cover climate change tech.

• 29:42Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah. You could do yoga with Chris Sacca as well.

• 29:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. Does he do yoga? I don't know. I can't imagine. So.

• 29:49Logan Bartlett?

  No, interesting. Okay.

• 29:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:51Logan Bartlett?

  So you left San Francisco a couple of years ago?

• 29:56Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, I still have the house there. I was

• 29:58Logan Bartlett?

  You still have the house there?

• 29:58Speaker 01

  Several, several weeks there recently.

• 30:00Logan Bartlett?

  What's, what's your perspective on the state of San Francisco, Innovation Valley, all that stuff? It seems to have been.

• 30:06Speaker 01

  Well, it's moved everywhere. It's, it's definitely moved everywhere. Right? It's not just, and I actually had a great time in San Francisco. I love the people that just have to pile. The people who have left that have to pile on. I'm like, just leave, like, just goodbye. Go, go to your little weird home in Miami and enjoy it when it gets covered by, uh, water someday. Like, cause that's what's happening. Like, we may have earthquakes and wildfires.

• 30:27Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 30:28Speaker 01

  But I, I think, you know, there, there doesn't have to be one place. And actually, it's a very different city with all the tech bros moved out. It certainly is. Um, so I don't think there has to be one place, but nonetheless, the big companies still exist in that area. The whole wider Bay area and Pacific Northwest, they still, you know, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Netflix, they're all in the same place. They're all in the same, close to the same places. And so that where they were before. And so all the big companies continue. The big power up Apple continue to be located in that area, but people have obviously dissipated. And that's, that's totally normal.

• 31:06Logan Bartlett?

  It seems like maybe you've given up on your ambitions of potentially being a local politician in San Francisco.

• 31:11Speaker 01

  I don't know. I was just there and I did a session about with Casey Newton about what was going on in tech for the year. Um, and I love San Francisco so much. And someone said, I really like you to run for mayor. And I was like, I really would like to run for mayor, but probably not. Uh, I'm old. I had more. Instead of having, running for mayor, I had two more kids. So that's taken up a lot of my time. So I, I think it's hard to have. I'm really not young. And so having kids at an older age and four of them is, is, seems to be what I'm doing instead of being mayor of San Francisco.

• 31:41Logan Bartlett?

  You're awfully ambitious.

• 31:43Speaker 01

  I am.

• 31:43Logan Bartlett?

  Both kids and new projects and all that.

• 31:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, I do a lot. I have a lot of jobs. And so I have four podcasts a week. I've got a book I'm working on. I've got lots of stuff. And so I, I, I would like to get back to San Francisco to start with, and then see where we go from there. But I think it's still a wonderful, wonderful city.

• 32:00Logan Bartlett?

  Now, are you optimistic about the role tech's gonna, I mean, you just had two kids over the course of the pandemic.

• 32:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, two more kids.

• 32:05Logan Bartlett?

  Are you optimistic about the role tech's gonna play in their lives over the next, whatever, 15, 100 years?

• 32:11Speaker 01

  You know, watching my older kids, I'm fine. They're, they have a very healthy relationship with technology. And, and interestingly enough, their other mom I'm divorced from was the chief technology officer of the United States under Obama, worked for Google. And you'd think we were, that they would be more tech interested, but they're just not. My kids are not that interested in tech. They, they use it as a tool. I think they have a very healthy relationship with tech, actually. A relatively healthy one. I don't find them as addicted as I am, for sure. And so, I, I, I feel kind of good about their, about their relationship. I don't know about the younger kids. I mean, the most they do in tech right now, they're three and one. The one-year-old doesn't use tech at all. But the three-year-old watches Frozen on endless loop. So is that tech, or is it just

• 32:55Speaker 01

  the evilness of Disney that it insinuates itself into every aspect of a child's life?

• 33:00Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  I like Disney. But there's something going on.

• 33:03Logan Bartlett?

  We share a skepticism of Disney World.

• 33:08Speaker 01

  Oh, my brother loves it. I've been a lot, you know, I've been a lot of.

• 33:11Logan Bartlett?

  We did an offsite two years ago, or a year ago there.

• 33:15Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 33:16Logan Bartlett?

  They asked my opinion, and I said, are you actually asking my opinion? Because that sounds like the worst thing. But if you're asking if I, if I will go, I will be there.

• 33:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, everything smells vaguely of cinnamon rolls. Like, I asked, I called Bob Iger when I was there once. I'm like, why does everything smell like cinnamon rolls? He wouldn't tell me, but I found out that apparently they pump in the smell. It's not actually cinnamon.

• 33:37Logan Bartlett?

  It's like oxygen in Vegas and cinnamon rolls.

• 33:39Speaker 01

  Whatever. Yeah, it's, yeah, it was cinnamon rolls. I was like, I do not want to be a place that smells of cinnamon rolls. But, you know, they're fine. I, you know, I've been to all of them. I, I've been on a Disney cruise even, oddly enough. He wouldn't do an interview with me until I went, so I could talk.

• 33:54Logan Bartlett?

  Wow.

• 33:55Speaker 01

  Well, you know, but I needed to understand it. I it was flawless. It was endless soft serve and flawlessly executed, I have to say.

• 34:03Logan Bartlett?

  I assume not something you'll do again.

• 34:05Speaker 01

  Never again. I'm not going to. The other kids are not going to get the benefit of that. So, you know, I appreciate how good they are actually in terms of how they do things. So that's all. I wanted to see them their business in action. And you can't talk about it. Someone's business unless you've actually either understood it really closely. Again, it's being an expert on it. And I am an expert on soft serve on a Disney cruise, for sure.

• 34:27Logan Bartlett?

  We all we all have our domain areas. They're trying to get you to talk about Kevin McCarthy. They should have been asking about soft serve ice cream.

• 34:34Speaker 01

  Although I have to say what's really interesting, you know, social media can be so reductive and so could, you know, cable media. All they talk about is the pizza that's being delivered to Congress. I'm literally like it has nothing to do. They're eating. What a shock, you know, because they're up late at night. And I wish they would actually talk about what's actually happening versus what they're eating. Anyway, that's just my little.

• 34:54Logan Bartlett?

  Now, what are your other podcasts or has been succession, which I am a big fan of? Are you going to do that again for season?

• 35:03Speaker 01

  I am. I am. I just I just agreed to do it. I'm doing it purely as a fan. And so I love the show and I love the creators. I've done something with HBO every year, whether it was Silicon Valley, or I did something else for another. I got to know Richard Puppa really well. And so I would interview the cast of Silicon Valley every year at their opening event. Or and so this was just presented to me as the next thing. And I love it. And I'm a big fan. And so I agreed to do it.

• 35:29Logan Bartlett?

  Is it really inspired by the Murdochs?

• 35:32Speaker 01

  Well, they try to pretend it isn't. They definitely like, not the Murdochs. It's a lot of people. They say that. They spent a lot of time saying that. But I'm like, it's the Murdochs. Yeah, I know. I know the Murdochs. It's the Murdochs. So they they I don't work for them. And I don't, you know, it's about the Murdochs, as far as I can tell. And maybe a little bit of, you know, some of the redstone thrown in, you know, knowing these people, you can see bits and pieces. The guy who's the the internet guy is a little Elon, for sure. So you can see bits and pieces. They've done that a lot, even on Silicon Valley. You could see characters where Marissa Mayer or. Peter Thiel, you know, there were bits and I know that because I was actually a consultant to them on that show.

• 36:14Speaker 01

  So, um, so they're, you know, they try to pretend it's all fictional, but okay, sure, whatever.

• 36:20Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 36:21Speaker 01

  I, I love when they do it. Well, not the Murdochs. I'm like, no, not the Murdochs. It can't possibly be the Murdochs. It's fun.

• 36:27Logan Bartlett?

  Do you have any predictions for what, what's, uh, who's?

• 36:29Speaker 01

  I don't. I'm gonna see it earlier than everybody else because we're doing the show, we're doing the podcast. So I'll, I'm not gonna let you know because they'll kill me. Um, but, uh, I don't know where they're gonna go. It'll be interesting with the kids on the outs, uh, but still, you know, financially benefiting from this deal. Um, and what they do and how Goj, I guess Gojo takes over and what does this Rupert Murdoch like character do? Now that he's not really in power, the other guy is that that's gonna be tough for him. And you know, and he's also in his waning days, whether he likes it or not, even if he wields a lot of power, he remains. And is the end of his life, not the beginning.

• 37:06Logan Bartlett?

  Between Logan Roy and Logan Paul, uh, my name was pretty innocuous for like 20, 20 years of my life. Logan or the first 35, 32 or so, it was pretty innocuous to be named Logan. And then now we have Logan Roy and Logan Paul, uh, doing, doing some damage to all the Logans out there.

• 37:23Speaker 01

  Apparently his NFT thing wasn't all that was maybe there was some bad actors. Oh God. That's a bad Logan. I like Logan's run.

• 37:31Logan Bartlett?

  Um, yes.

• 37:32Speaker 01

  I love that Brian.

• 37:33Logan Bartlett?

  And Wolverine as well, right?

• 37:35Speaker 01

  That's right. Logan. That's right.

• 37:36Logan Bartlett?

  So that's a good one.

• 37:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a good one. Although he's trouble, trouble.

• 37:40Logan Bartlett?

  Yes.

• 37:40Speaker 01

  Um, the guy, Brian, what's his name? Who plays Logan Roy?

• 37:44Logan Bartlett?

  Um, Cox.

• 37:45Speaker 01

  Cox is amazing as a person. I have interviewed him and ah, what a fantastic guy. He, he is so, you know, he's written two very good books. Um, just a funny, he's just like the, I'll tell you, he's not, he's chan, he's, he's not channeling Rupert Murdoch. He's channeling Brian Cox in a lot of ways.

• 38:02Logan Bartlett?

  Is that right?

• 38:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. As, as, as if he was Logan Roy, but he's what, what a hell of a actor he is and what a hell of a person. He's a great guy.

• 38:10Logan Bartlett?

  He was on with, uh, Andy Cohen and, uh, uh, for Anderson Cooper for New Year's.

• 38:17Speaker 01

  Oh, he was?

• 38:18Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  Tell him to fuck off.

• 38:19Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah, they, they had him on and he was, uh, he was, he was entertaining.

• 38:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's really such a clever man. I just did a, I did an event, a live event, uh, for the show, um, with the whole cast, which was so funny. It was wonderful. They were all lovely, every one of them. And he was exact, he was just. He's, he's, I was really loved. I love talking to him. He was fantastic.

• 38:42Logan Bartlett?

  Everyone says, uh, what's his name that plays Kendall Roy, Jeremy Strong is, uh, there were, there were a lot of reports initially that he was like very method actor.

• 38:52Speaker 01

  He really is. He's, I have to say, he's definitely like that. He's very, he's a very specific person, to put it. He was very like, he's just, he's, they're a lot like their characters, um, in a weird way, although the guy who plays Greg is really very, he's a lovely, funny, funny guy, serious. He's not, he's very, he's not like Greg. He's not like Greg. He's

• 39:17Logan Bartlett?

  I think he actually owns a bar. I live on the Lower East Side and he owns a bar.

• 39:20Speaker 01

  He's very hip.

• 39:21Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah, he owns a bar around the corner and he'll, he'll be, uh, you know, I'll get a text at 11:30 on a Saturday night.

• 39:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's very hip. He seemed very hip to me. I was like, whoa, you're pretty hip. And shit, the woman who plays Shiv, uh, is really wonderful. Really smart.

• 39:35Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 39:36Speaker 01

  Jay Smith Cameron. I've gotten to know her on, uh, on Twitter of all places and she plays Jerry and she is funny as can be. They're all great. Matthew McFadden is great. The whole cast is superb and Kieran Condon, you wouldn't have expected of him, you know?

• 39:51Logan Bartlett?

  He's fantastic. Maybe, maybe, maybe one of the best, most interesting characters. I, it's, uh, yeah.

• 39:57Speaker 01

  Oh, everybody is, even the minor characters like, uh, Dagmar as a Dominique's, uh, Carolina, just the Pierre person. Everybody is Stewie, they're Marcia Roy, they're all. Frank, the guy who plays Frank, I love him. And Fisher Stevens is good. They're just all, they take care for every minor character to be spectacular at the same time.

• 40:19Logan Bartlett?

  Stewie's a familiar character in the world of hedge funds. I feel, I feel like I know.

• 40:23Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 40:24Logan Bartlett?

  I know Stewie. Stewie's definitely in my world a little bit.

• 40:26Speaker 01

  Yep, yep, yep, yep. A hundred percent. Well, yeah. Oh, yeah. Right?

• 40:30Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 40:31Speaker 01

  That's why I had, when they were doing that one deal, uh, where they had a billionaire, I, I talked to Mark Cuban about it because he, it seemed like it was like a lot like him, like that kind of guy.

• 40:41Logan Bartlett?

  Oh, the one when they were out on the beach, uh, doing that?

• 40:44Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 40:44Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 40:44Speaker 01

  Yes. Yeah, that was great. And then the, the, what I really liked was the, um, when Cherry Jones was playing the family of media people, where it's a lot like the, was a lot like the Grams. It was interesting because I worked at Washington Post.

• 40:57Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 40:57Speaker 01

  Uh, so that was, they've got it right. They certainly, certainly know media for sure.

• 41:01Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah, they've, they've done a good job with it. What about Silicon Valley? Did you, so you, you did a show for that? Did you enjoy, I've had Dick Costolo on and he talked about how much fun he had doing-

• 41:11Speaker 01

  I got him that job, by the way.

• 41:12Logan Bartlett?

  Oh, is that right?

• 41:13Speaker 01

  When he was jobless, I helped put him together with those people. Yeah.

• 41:17Logan Bartlett?

  Did you, uh, did you find it to be, uh, an accurate representation and entertaining? I ultimately stopped watching it because it made me uncomfortable. It was a little too close to home.

• 41:27Speaker 01

  It was on the nose. It was on the nose, but it was, it was, it was a satire, obviously. Um, but I thought they had a lot of on that. The, the conjoined triangles of success, I thought was very, so Eric Schmitty. Um, there was so much, and Matt Ross, who's played Gavin Bellson, I got to know pretty well and he's wonderful. What a, he's also a playwright and a really talented director. Um, Susan Cryer is someone I've stayed in touch with who played Lori. I thought she was brilliant. She was channeling Marissa, like three or four VCs and Marissa Mayer at once, which I thought was great. Uh, Ben Feldman, who played the, the lawyer was great. Mr. 10%, whatever, 10, 10 commas, three, Trey Commas.

• 42:09Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah, Trey Commas, yeah.

• 42:10Speaker 01

  That guy was funny. I just think, I thought it was very on the nose, uh, but at the same time, obviously a joke. And what was funny about it in the first season, when they were clearly making fun of everybody, um, they, the people in Silicon Valley, it's like, it's so funny. It's really like, you know, but it's, it's, you know, it's a comedy. And I was like, they are utterly mocking you and you don't even see it. Like, that was my favorite part is how mocking they were of this group and, um, and how much the people of Silicon Valley thought they weren't being mocked. That was my favorite part.

• 42:44Logan Bartlett?

  Do, do, do you think that, is Silicon Valley more in on the joke? Or are there more people that are self-aware than there were once upon a time? Or you think it's the same?

• 42:52Speaker 01

  No, I think they have no sense of humor.

• 42:54Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 42:54Speaker 01

  Look at Mark Andreessen these days. He has no sense of humor whatsoever. He used to be an interesting person. Let me just say, he used to be.

• 43:02Logan Bartlett?

  Do you think ultimately, I sort of call it the Kanye West thing, that like, everyone in your life treats you differently? I mean, Kanye has been

• 43:09Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 43:09Logan Bartlett?

  and all that. But do you think that's ultimately the impact here is too much power and money?

• 43:13Speaker 01

  Yes, they got licked up and down all day, and they used to be able to sustain disagreement, or people who said, I don't agree with you about that. And now it's like, you're, you're an enemy if you say, ah, that's, that doesn't seem right to me. Or you make a gentle criticism, even. They get angry, and it's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. They're, it's, it's a question of, that they, they're pre-offended. Their, their grievances, their, they, their grievance is high. Not all of them, for sure, but a lot of them are like, how dare you? I'm so smart, and everyone thinks I'm rich, and, you know, I'm rich, and how dare you question my, um, uh, they used to be a lot easier to deal with. And they're now, they do not tolerate dissent. They surround themselves by people that lick them up and down. It's

• 43:56Speaker 01

  full of enablers and minions, who never go, what the hell are you doing? What that, what's going on here? So therefore, they feel unfettered, and, you know, frequently wrong, but never in doubt. That seems to be.

• 44:09Logan Bartlett?

  Any trash television you're watching that, that you would recommend?

• 44:13Speaker 01

  A lot. I'm watching, um, what did I just finish? Oh, Sex Lives of College Girls, with Mindy Kaling, Mindy Kaling's show.

• 44:19Logan Bartlett?

  That's on HBO, right?

• 44:20Speaker 01

  Oh, so good. It's so good. It's such a funny, funny, funny. I've just started to watch White Lotus. I just met the creators. They're, they, they like my podcast, and so I started listening. I just started that.

• 44:33Logan Bartlett?

  How far into that are you?

• 44:34Speaker 01

  I just started the second season. I didn't even watch the first season. I just, that's one I didn't write. I just watched Glass Onion. I thought it was very funny. The Ed Norton's portrayal of the idiot billionaire was wonderful. The whole Janelle Monae was amazing.

• 44:48Logan Bartlett?

  I love White Lotus. I, uh,

• 44:50Speaker 01

  Do you? People do.

• 44:51Logan Bartlett?

  It's a unique, dark sense of humor about a certain class of people.

• 44:58Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 44:58Logan Bartlett?

  Right?

• 44:58Speaker 01

  It's on the nose.

• 45:00Logan Bartlett?

  There's some level of like, schadenfreude and gallows humor.

• 45:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. Jennifer Coolidge is amazing. You know, I just, I, I, I like that. I just finished League of Their Own, which I thought was quite, I was shocked about how gay it was, lesbian it was. I was like, whoa, that's real lesbian. I was surprised. I didn't expect it to be. Because I just interviewed Gina Davis, who's, it's an upcoming podcast. And I'm trying to think of the things I watch a lot of stuff. I watched a great, a great thing on Netflix just recently with my sons. Let me look at it's called The Edge of Infinity. It's wonderful. It's a documentary that was, other documentaries, it's called A Trip to Infinity. I thought that was great. It was really, you know, it's sort of pop science, pop physics,

• 45:47Speaker 01

  but I liked it. I watch a lot. I just, I watch a lot of stuff. We watch a lot of stuff.

• 45:52Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 45:52Speaker 01

  I watched Dope Sick. I thought that was really fantastic.

• 45:55Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 45:55Speaker 01

  And I loved The Dropout. I have to say, I thought that was also on the nose about Elizabeth Holmes. I thought that was, she was amazing.

• 46:03Logan Bartlett?

  Because you bring it up, do you think that's a, how much of an indictment should Theranos be on the Valley and innovation or the, the complex of Silicon Valley? Because in my world, a lot of people said, hey, there weren't really venture capitalists in the company, right? That, that, you know, institutional investors. It was, it was a lot of.

• 46:26Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't think it is. I think it wasn't a tech company. We didn't cover it at Recode at all, you know, she, we didn't bring her on stage at Code. She wasn't a tech person. So, I mean, there was Tim Braper was involved, Larry Ellison certainly who handed it, forked over bucks, but it, and Rupert Murdoch was in there, but wasn't, I didn't think, I thought it was a medical devices company. So we didn't cover it at all. So I don't think it was an, it was an indictment of stupid older men, I guess, like for falling for it. It's an, you know, it's just sort of like what's happening at FTX. It's just fraud, right? What do you do if someone's just gonna lie like that and try to buy influence? It's not, it's really hard and, and then take advantage of FOMO around this could be the next big thing, right? If you lie enough, you can succeed until you don't,

• 47:08Speaker 01

  right? And so I don't think that's a new, fresh story. I don't think it's about Silicon Valley. You had Bernie Madoff, you had all kinds of stuff. So I don't find that to be that interesting in that regard. I do think that, that the one I really liked a lot was We Crash. I thought Jared Leto, who I think is terrific, I've interviewed him several times. He did a great, Adam Newman and Hathaway was quite good as his wife Rebecca. I loved that show and I thought that was exactly the right tone about what happens. People are suspending economic beliefs, you know, over like, yeah, it's gotta work. Oh, Mas is in it and this and that's the son. And at the time, Scott and I on Pivot were very, we're like this.

• 47:48Speaker 01

  This filing, this federal filing is full of bad math. It can't work, you know? And what's this number? And what's here? And we were very critical of it and got sort of a lot of pushback. But we were like, you know, there's an expression, there's a YouTube, there's an, excuse me, a TikTok star who says the math ain't mathing? And the math wasn't mathing. And we kept going, math ain't mathing. And they're like, oh, it's a new, you have to, you know, it's going to be big, this and that. And I'm like, no, it's, there's no way this is going to work. Like, there's no way it's gonna, it's gonna, it's gonna zero out, a pencil out. And so, I thought that show was quite good in depicting that. And so that I do think is indicative of a Silicon Valley.

• 48:28Speaker 01

  Like, everyone's on board with it. And to an extent, FTX is, but I think that's more about FOMO and greed. I mean, the ability of liars to take advantage of that.

• 48:37Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah, that was the, I sort of put on like a spectrum to some extent where you have willful fraud, which is FTX and Theranos. And then you have like abuse of power and God complex and enablement and Uber and WeWork sort of on that side of it.

• 48:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think they knew what they were doing. I think they could see the economics of it. Like, I remember getting up at one thing. I'm like, I'm sorry, this Uber's never gonna make money. It's cool. Right? So is WeWork. Cool. But not a very good business.

• 49:09Logan Bartlett?

  I, I always feel badly when, when I love a service or a product or something, and then I'm like, well, I don't know if it's a great business, right? Like, I don't know if, there's a big difference between those two things. It can be an amazing service, but not a great business.

• 49:23Speaker 01

  You can also make money in that delta between when it's like, everyone loves it and when it's, you may really realize it's not a very good business.

• 49:31Logan Bartlett?

  Totally.

• 49:32Speaker 01

  That you can make money like that, but that's kind of icky money, right?

• 49:35Logan Bartlett?

  Oh, yeah. I mean, the top decile vintage of this past year were probably, or two years, there are going to be people that got out of crypto.

• 49:42Speaker 01

  It's a greater fool theory, right? That's not a great, I wouldn't love to make this money, but people do, whatever, they can do that. I like, people make things that actually are really great business. And one of the things around Twitter, for example, has just not been a great business. Like, it's a great influence platform. Again, it's one of those things. It's like, how's he actually gonna make money from this? I mean, he could make a little, I guess, but so far, I don't see it as being like. Google advertising, like, you know what I mean?

• 50:08Logan Bartlett?

  Like, there's clearly inherent things to the medium, to how it advertises, to how people use it, right? It just

• 50:15Speaker 01

  Media is a hard business. I, you know, when, when, remember when Andreessen and they started Future?

• 50:19Logan Bartlett?

  I do.

• 50:20Speaker 01

  Now, like, we're gonna displace tech. I was like, media is really hard.

• 50:23Logan Bartlett?

  And then launched with a blog.

• 50:25Speaker 01

  No, I was like, it's hard. It's hard to make any money. If you make money, you're actually really good. It's not a very lucrative business anymore. So I don't know what you're doing here with the rest of us, but we just happen to like it and we managed to get by. But it was, you know, it was interesting.

• 50:39Logan Bartlett?

  Well, that's what's advantageous. I actually, because my job is investing, I get to do this as a fun side thing and I get to wave my hands and say, hey, I'm not a journalist or this isn't my business, right?

• 50:49Speaker 01

  That's great to improve illumination. There's lots of reasons to do it. I just was sort of like, we're gonna, we're gonna displace you. I'm like, good luck. Like, fucking luck. Good luck.

• 50:57Logan Bartlett?

  Well, that's the getting licked up and down syndrome.

• 51:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was like, okay, sure, you can do, because you can do one thing, you could do the other thing. This is just not the case. I'm not, I wouldn't be a good investor at all.

• 51:06Logan Bartlett?

  What would you do if, if not journalism?

• 51:09Speaker 01

  I've said this before, I would own a donut store in Hawaii. That's what I would do, just like a little business, like run a little business.

• 51:16Logan Bartlett?

  I think you'd be too restless doing that.

• 51:18Speaker 01

  No, I would not. You're wrong. You're 100% wrong. I'd be perfectly happy. I was actually, I'd be, I'd be happy to disappear. And I would, I would, I was saying in a recent podcast, I was like, someone would come in and like, are you Kara Swisher? I'd be like, no, never heard of you.

• 51:33Logan Bartlett?

  I get that all the time.

• 51:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. Uh, yeah, it's weird. You know, I gain a lot of weight. That's what I do.

• 51:38Logan Bartlett?

  Well, you're in a donut shop, right?

• 51:40Speaker 01

  Facts. People love donuts. People love donuts. People are happy buying donuts. They're never angry buying donuts.

• 51:47Logan Bartlett?

  It's a better business than fraud or

• 51:49Speaker 01

  Fried dough isn't always a good business for the, till the end of time. And now that people can take Asmpic, it's even better. That's kind of weird.

• 51:58Logan Bartlett?

  Well, on that note, Kara Swisher, thank you.

• 52:00Speaker 01

  Are you taking Asmpic? Is it a big in the VC world?

• 52:03Logan Bartlett?

  No, I'm not. I

• 52:04Speaker 01

  It's big in your little world, isn't it?

• 52:06Logan Bartlett?

  I know. Listen, I am excited that there are people innovating on stuff like this. It's a

• 52:12Speaker 01

  It's not innovation, it's It's just

• 52:15Logan Bartlett?

  It's something else.

• 52:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, let me just make this point about this is something thing. Everyone's like, oh, this is groundbreaking, whatever. It's literally you. When teenage girls have weirdness around eating, it's called bulimia. You know, when it's when it's rich, white men, it's like, oh, I'm a body hacking.

• 52:31Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah, it's vital hacking is what it is. Yeah.

• 52:33Speaker 01

  Whatever. It's it's bulimia for white, old white men.

• 52:36Logan Bartlett?

  That's right.

• 52:37Speaker 01

  Sorry, whatever. Okay, sure.

• 52:39Logan Bartlett?

  Listen, I I'm glad other people are out there figuring this stuff out. I don't want to be doing these things to my body, but

• 52:45Speaker 01

  Yes, that's true.

• 52:46Logan Bartlett?

  No one's going to figure this stuff out.

• 52:47Speaker 01

  They are 100%. And they'll be a great business. Agreed. But it has to be healthy.

• 52:51Logan Bartlett?

  It actually, and again, I, you know, not to go off the rails a little bit on this, but it's interesting. We have all these different treatments or healthcare things that we do when we have a disease, but there really isn't anything, be it a vitamin or anything we take that is anti-aging or just widespread consensus belief that it actually makes you healthier, live longer, or anything like that. So

• 53:16Speaker 01

  Yes, I agree. I agree. If it's healthy, I'm all for anything that helps you not die of heart disease at a young age because you eat too much, you know, anything like that.

• 53:24Logan Bartlett?

  By the way, how are you? You had surgery recently?

• 53:27Speaker 01

  Oh, good. Yeah, I had heart surgery. Yeah. Uh huh. Good. Really good. It was amazing. I had a stroke 10 years ago, and it's because I have a hole in my heart, which is very, it's actually common. Roger McNamee had the same thing. 20% of people have this thing. It's a hole that is there when you're born, and then it closes up for most people, and 20% of people, it doesn't. And you only find out when you have a stroke or something like that, or a pulmonary embolism.

• 53:47Logan Bartlett?

  Is there any way to get an MRI, like any preventative way of?

• 53:50Speaker 01

  No, not. I guess you could. It's called a bubble test, but nobody gets it. It's very expensive, and you don't get it just because you, you know, you think you have it. And so I found it by a by a stroke. And so I I had 10 years ago, when I had it, it was open heart surgery, and I refused to do it. I was like, they kept saying, oh, it's minor, but open heart. I'm like, yeah, no, like

• 54:11Logan Bartlett?

  Those two words are at odds with what

• 54:13Speaker 01

  I was like, there's no such thing as minor open heart surgery. And so now it went, it literally, they did a vein through your groin area, the vein, it goes, whatever, the vena cava, whatever, it goes, it's a big vein. It goes up through there. It put this little device, this little plastic, essentially, it's not plastic, but it's a version of plastic device in there. It attaches in balloons and closes up the hole. It's fascinating. 20 minutes, I was out that day. I went in the morning, 9 o'clock, I was out by 3. Crazy. And I'm fine. I had no repercussions whatsoever.

• 54:47Logan Bartlett?

  Wow.

• 54:48Speaker 01

  I know, right?

• 54:49Logan Bartlett?

  Good. I'm glad.

• 54:49Speaker 01

  Medicine. Amazing, amazing shit going down.

• 54:53Logan Bartlett?

  Healthcare, climate tech.

• 54:54Speaker 01

  Right, exactly. It was amazing. And I feel great. I had nothing. And now I'm have a cyber, I have a cyber heart and I will be living forever.

• 55:01Logan Bartlett?

  You're gonna be doing this for a long time.

• 55:03Speaker 01

  That is correct. Yeah, that is correct.

• 55:05Logan Bartlett?

  Well, thank you for doing this, Kara.

• 55:06Speaker 01

  All right. Thank you so much.

• 55:12Logan Bartlett?

  So that'll do it for the 47th episode of Cartoon Avatars. Uh, thank you to Kara Swisher for coming on. Thank you to everyone for listening, for subscribing, for liking, for sharing, for reviewing all of that stuff. Uh, and, uh, look forward to seeing everyone next week on the 48th episode of Cartoon Avatars. Thank you, everyone, for listening. Have a good weekend.