Kara Swisher on Silicon Valley’s lack of competition

Recode editor-at-large Kara Swisher joins Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel to discuss the possibilities of breaking up big tech companies like Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon. Kara also explains how the dominance of these four giant companies harms competition and innovation in Silicon Valley and why tech companies should be doing more to help. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:01Nilay Patel?

  Hey, everybody. It's Stephen from The Vergecast on this week's interview episode. Very special guest, Kara Swisher, editor-at-large at Recode, New York Times columnist, host of Recode Decode on the Vox Media Podcast Network and Pivot, all great shows. We just came off the Code Conference. I realized I talked to everybody at Code about the Code Conference, but I actually hadn't had a chance to catch up with Kara about it, to talk about the performance of the platform executives onstage as they talked about content moderation, talk about where the tech industry is going, talk about breaking up tech companies. Kara knows everybody. She had a lot to say about that stuff. I love talking to Kara. She's super funny, super smart, ultra-connected, just a great conversation all around. Check it out.

• 1:45Nilay Patel?

  Kara Swisher, thanks for coming on.

• 1:46Speaker 02

  No problem.

• 1:47Nilay Patel?

  You were on a while ago. We talked about AT&T and Time Warner, I think.

• 1:51Speaker 02

  That was a long time ago.

• 1:52Nilay Patel?

  And that happened. It really did happen to us, and now AT&T owns Game of Thrones, which I think is horrifying. Soon there will be one company, and then we're going to merge it with the government.

• 1:59Speaker 02

  Okay, that sounds great.

• 2:00Nilay Patel?

  That's my goal.

• 2:01Speaker 02

  That sounds fantastic.

• 2:02Nilay Patel?

  One sort of cybernetic corporate control. I was just at the Code Conference, which you put on with Peter Kafka and the rest of the Recode team. It was great.

• 2:09Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 2:09Nilay Patel?

  And I realized, I talked to everyone at Code about Susan Wojcicki's performance onstage with Peter Kafka. She was CEO of YouTube. The consensus I got was that she did not do a very good job.

• 2:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, let me give it one thing. As Scott Galloway also says, who I do pivot with, she showed up, and most of these people don't. Like, they don't. You didn't see Jack Dorsey. You didn't see, you know, Mark or Cheryl and stuff. To be fair, we didn't ask Cheryl. And so you, that gives her some credit, like, that she does. And she shows up a lot. She actually does go out there and talk to people and stuff like that. So she is on the firing line, and I think that's pretty good. That gives, I get her credit for that. But the problem is, it's not so much that she did badly, is there's no good answers. What is a good answer? What would you be satisfied with? And I think the reason why there's no good answer is because the situation is bad. For example, today, I was just on the subway, and I was looking at someone on one of the

• 3:02Speaker 02

  one of the Alex Jones shows, the co, the whatever. He is, he was calling for the lynching of Barack Obama on videos. And so Twitter was asked to take him down, or to block him because he was pushing the videos on Twitter. They got on YouTube somehow through, you know, it was Infowars gets on YouTube, but YouTube banned Infowars. And so it's just this big, giant mess of a problem that is, they're constantly playing whack-a-mole. And so I don't know if there's any particularly good answers, or who could do it, unless they change the business drastically. And they're not doing that. And so that's where they are.

• 3:37Nilay Patel?

  I guess what I would contrast it with is, you also had Adam Mosser from Instagram, Andrew Bosworth, he was from Facebook, he was with Casey, you talked to Vijay Gade, and Kayvon Bigpoor from Twitter.

• 3:49Speaker 02

  Who I thought did the best of that gang.

• 3:51Nilay Patel?

  They all have the same problem. That's kind of what I'm getting at. They all have the same problem. They all delivered, in substance, the same answers.

• 3:56Speaker 02

  Right.

• 3:57Nilay Patel?

  Content moderation at scale is hard.

• 3:58Speaker 02

  Right.

• 3:59Nilay Patel?

  AI will fix it.

• 4:00Speaker 02

  Yes, maybe.

• 4:01Nilay Patel?

  But, right. That's effectively what they got.

• 4:03Speaker 02

  There's no good answer to a system that is an open platform, where anybody can post anything. And therefore, in the old days, I mean, you can joke about it, neo-Nazis were in states, and they had news, you know, hand newsletters and things like that. And they could have websites, but it wasn't quite as powerful. And so all these, I'm just using neo-Nazis as a group, because that's the one that everyone points to, are extremists, white supremacy extremists. And they're all white supremacist extremists. So they have now a platform where they can spew this vile racist stuff and there's no governor on it. There's nobody pushing it back and then they suddenly are starting to do that. But there's all kinds of things like that, not just white supremacists, but there's, you know, anti-gay people, there's this and that.

• 4:45Speaker 02

  And then you become the arbiter of society, which government is supposed to do. And they're not really equipped to be governments. And so there's no, and government doesn't do it well, by the way. We struggle, you know, we struggled for years to figure out the right way to handle this. And even then it goes back and forth and back and forth.

• 5:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, we're 200-plus years into trying to write speech laws. We're not very good at it.

• 5:05Speaker 02

  No, and the idea that this is a public square is also set into the mind of people in the public, especially the noisier ones on both sides of the left and the right. They're like, I should be able to say whatever I want. That is what the Silicon Valley has taught people. You can say whatever you want and here's a platform to do it and here's a platform to amplify and weaponize what you're saying. And they're not public squares. They can't, and then when they say, oh, we're taking you down, they're like, what are you talking about? I can say whatever I want. And so it's like you train children to eat sugar their whole lives and then you take away the donuts. They're like, what? You gave me donuts. And so, let's be clear, it is not the public square and these companies can do whatever they want. And they do do whatever they want. And so it becomes haphazard. And one thing, one little, one engineer does could affect millions and millions of people

• 5:49Speaker 02

  and he's not even thinking of it when he's doing it. And he's always a he, by the way.

• 5:52Nilay Patel?

  Almost always.

• 5:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:54Nilay Patel?

  Actually, always. So the one theme there was content moderation.

• 5:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:57Nilay Patel?

  A huge theme at Code.

• 5:59Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 5:59Nilay Patel?

  The other theme was antitrust breakups.

• 6:01Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 6:02Nilay Patel?

  My connection between those two things is pretty simple. It's that Google has gotten so big, we cannot tell it apart from the government.

• 6:09Speaker 02

  Right.

• 6:10Nilay Patel?

  Right, I mean, it does thing-

• 6:11Speaker 02

  It is quasi-government institution. It feels like that.

• 6:13Nilay Patel?

  I mean, it surveils you.

• 6:14Speaker 02

  It's making decisions, yeah.

• 6:15Nilay Patel?

  It makes decisions about what you may or may not buy. It makes decisions about what you may or may not see. It is a gateway to the economy for most people.

• 6:22Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 6:23Nilay Patel?

  Is the solution just break them up?

• 6:25Speaker 02

  Well, it's interesting because the people of these companies and on stage, what they were saying is, you know what, the only way to solve these problems is, and fight China, they always have and fight China. Let us be big because we need to be big to fight and solve these problems and fight China and whatever. And that's what got us into trouble in the first place. So it's like you were so big that you made a mess and now the bigness is going to solve the mess. I just, I don't buy it. I don't buy it in any way. And I think something again that Scott was telling you about is, and he talked about it on stage, was if you break them up, you unlock a lot of value. Like if you're a Facebook investor and they break up, take off Instagram and WhatsApp, you're going to be richer. Because these are allowed to compete. And his point was, say if they took YouTube off of Google, the first meeting of the YouTube board is let's do search.

• 7:10Speaker 02

  The first meeting of the Google board is let's do video. And there was a Google, you remember, there was YouTube and Google video existing at the same time for a very short time. And so you create a competitive environment. And the fact that we have no new search engines since forever and no new social networks since 2011, which is Snapchat, no substantive social networks, says everything. No one's going to go into those businesses, no one's going to compete, no one's going to try to create. What if someone, no one's going to say, I think I'll create the safe YouTube. I think I'll create the safe of Facebook. Why do it? It's easier to do the unsafe one and make a ton of money.

• 7:47Nilay Patel?

  Or try to sell your content to YouTube kids.

• 7:50Speaker 02

  You can't beat them. You can't beat them at their size. So why not take away some of their power?

• 7:53Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I mean, to me, that's the, it also solves the speech issue. You don't get Ted Cruz tweeting wrongly about the law. If there's a place for conservatives to have their own social network.

• 8:04Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, they do. There are some, like Parler and Gab and some others. But you know what? They're no good. Nobody's on them. Like, they want to not talk to each other, you know, in a rage. They want to talk to, they want to piss off me or you or whoever they want to piss off. The biggest example, obviously, is Trump. I mean, imagine, I was thinking of doing Comfor the Times about. What would happen if Trump came off, if Twitter just decided to take him off? Where would he go?

• 8:29Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 8:29Speaker 02

  Just from a technical point of view, where, Facebook? That's not going to work for him. Parlay, you know, maybe. But nobody cares. Like, it just, it's just, it was, you know, and even though I'm glad, listen, I don't, some of these networks like Gavin Parlay, not my cup of tea, but I'm glad they exist. Like, fine, if that's what we do.

• 8:46Nilay Patel?

  They're all over there.

• 8:47Speaker 02

  There should be as many as possible. That's, you know, that's, that's the thing. And then they can make the rules. But I think one overarching system is always a problem, to me.

• 8:56Nilay Patel?

  Right. And especially when it's connected to these other overarching, I mean, Google, to me, has the most problems, right? Google is a utility for most people in a way that Facebook is not.

• 9:06Speaker 02

  Well, you know, you could make a case for several of them in different ways. And I think it'll be harder, say you get to Amazon, and it's a little bit harder because retail's a huge space. Are they a retailer or are they an online retailer? And then, do they do consumer harm? Do they not? And I think the concept of whether consumer harm is the determination, and so the Justice Department is playing around with that, which is the old way. I think all the old ways, all the old way of deciding what harm is in an antitrust situation, the old way of thinking about free speech in private companies, you know, this is all going to be litigated and be in courts. I think that's really the only way for it to change, unless legislators decide to change. But that's not going to happen, because it's so politicized.

• 9:44Nilay Patel?

  Well, did you see Senator Josh Hawley put out a bill yesterday? It's very not good.

• 9:49Speaker 02

  No. You know, his whole thing is that conservatives don't have a voice, which is just ridiculous.

• 9:54Nilay Patel?

  Measurably not true, actually.

• 9:55Speaker 02

  It's not true. But still, I still want to, I still want to hear from him.

• 9:59Nilay Patel?

  Senator Hawley, he's a freshman senator from Missouri. He used to be the Attorney General of Missouri.

• 10:04Speaker 02

  No dummy.

• 10:05Nilay Patel?

  He proposed a bill yesterday, taking away Section 230 protections from the platform companies, but he would give them back if they applied to the Federal Trade Commission, proving that they moderate in a neutral way with evidence for two years, and then a majority of the FTC commissioners, so. Three Democrats, one Republican, or three Republicans, one Democrat,

• 10:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:25Nilay Patel?

  would have to vote to offer that immunity. And then my favorite part of the bill is if they discover that any moderator has acted in a politically biased way, they wouldn't get punished for it if they named the moderator in a public way and fired them.

• 10:38Speaker 02

  It's really kind of crazy. I think he's not, I think he's being crazy for a reason. He wants to get the discussion going on that issue.

• 10:44Nilay Patel?

  That's kind of my feeling.

• 10:45Speaker 02

  He wants to get it going, just the way they all just want to get the discussion going. And I think to take the, like, even Elizabeth Warren with her breakup, she's gone the furthest you can go. I don't think she's quite, you know, even Marguerite Vestager didn't agree with her, and she's a tough regulator. I think she wants the discussion taught, being now what everybody is talking about it, and she started off the ball rolling, and now every Democratic candidate is like, break them up, break them up.

• 11:08Nilay Patel?

  Well, I think Holly's point, he has an underlying point, which is good, which is no one knows how these companies work.

• 11:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:14Nilay Patel?

  Right? No one knows the mechanism by which they write rules, by which they enforce the rules, by which they roll out rules. Casey Newton wrote a great story for us yesterday about the people who actually push the buttons to make the rules go.

• 11:25Speaker 02

  Right.

• 11:25Nilay Patel?

  I was actually talking to our friend Walt Mossberg yesterday, and I think people want the platforms to change from two directions. I personally would like them to moderate more. I'd like them to remove more harmful things. I think a bunch of conservatives would like them to moderate less because they perceive, incorrectly, that there's bias against their speech on the platform. So moderate less, and I say moderate more. And if you are on my side of that debate, there's a real cost to that. You have to hire more people and give them a worse job.

• 11:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, as Casey wrote in that wonderful, amazing, not wonderful piece, it was a terrible piece, but it was beautifully rendered, this idea of how, what we're doing to the people who are doing content moderation.

• 12:05Nilay Patel?

  I guess my question is, like, as you talked to these folks, as you went through code, do you see this as being solvable in a way that these companies are currently constituted? Or do you have to...

• 12:15Speaker 02

  I think it's always solved by competition. I think that's the best way to do it. I think, I think when you try to apply regulatory scrutiny to some, and some regulation is needed, that's not to say there shouldn't be some around privacy, there shouldn't be some where they, where there's real teeth to, to these laws. And certain laws are already in place, you know, that they aren't enforcing. I think our moribund FTC and FCC is a problem, that they're not acting, they're not investigating. There is some, there is some value to fearing the government invest, like, the SEC... You know, they should investigate more. Like, once, when they do, people behave better. It's just, like, if I, there's a place I drive in Washington and I know I slow down, or I got 20 tickets. Now, I do not, you know, if I have a perception, people have a perception, if there's some feeling that the government is watching in, in a fair way, that they will

• 12:59Speaker 02

  behave differently. And so, I do think there's some things that need to be solved by some regulation. Maybe some of the Apple Store stuff, pricing, that kind of stuff. That's not, you don't want to break them up. Like, it's like, figure it out. There is, there are laws, you can apply it smartly to that. And then there are, should they, should they spin some things off? And I think probably Google's a good candidate for that. It, it depends on what you want to spin off there, like, what, what you think should be separated. Uh, probably YouTube from Google, that seems obvious. Besides Google spinning off YouTube, which seems the obvious one, there's a lot of others. Facebook could lose Instagram and WhatsApp. Amazon, I don't know, Prime? Could you pull off Prime? Probably not. Apple, obviously, people talk the App Store, but that makes no sense to me, because it's very important that they have quality assurance, and that's really hard to be in a separate

• 13:43Speaker 02

  company. There's other remedies there. And so, there's all kinds of things you could do with each of these companies. Uh, but I think the principal ones are Facebook and Google.

• 13:51Nilay Patel?

  I think Googlers are pretty annoyed at YouTube.

• 13:53Speaker 02

  Yes, well, the thing is, poor Susan, she got, that, that's why I feel like she's doing, you know, she got, here, here's Susan, here's the bag of crap, like, you know, and then Sundar, wherever he's gone. It's ultimately his responsibility, by the way. Um, she works for him.

• 14:06Nilay Patel?

  You know, Sundar, Sundar wrote the founder's letter for Alphabet yesterday, which is interesting, because he is not a founder of Alphabet, not the founder of Google. But he wrote the founder's letter yesterday, and his, his thesis-

• 14:16Speaker 02

  The founders have disappeared, that's my perception.

• 14:18Nilay Patel?

  Where is Larry Page? I should just ask you, you're probably the person who's the most likely to know.

• 14:22Speaker 02

  I don't know, I haven't, you know, we used to talk quite a lot, years and years and years ago, and, and he was always, uh, odd, then. Um, I think he's, I don't know. Uh, he's not, he's not the most engaged, someone who wants to engage with people.

• 14:34Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 14:34Speaker 02

  I always got the perception he didn't like people. That was my, you know-

• 14:37Nilay Patel?

  Well, it's amazing that he, he is in charge of YouTube.

• 14:40Speaker 02

  I have a feeling they're hardly engaged. I, I, Sergey's not, doesn't seem engaged at all, I don't think. I, I don't think the founders are very much engaged. Except for, I think they're at the Friday things sometimes, and they're not involved in the way they were. It's Sundar and Susan, really, and some others, um, who are running that company.

• 14:56Nilay Patel?

  Anyway, Sundar, to your point, wrote the founder's letter. And his whole thing is, Google is a helpful company. We help you. And to help you, we need your data. This is, it was, if you're listening and you paid attention to like Google I/O, this is a rework of what he wrote. At I/O, it's a rework of what he wrote in the New York Times. It said, "Privacy is not a luxury good." This is his message for this moment. And he got to YouTube, and he's like, "YouTube is our most helpful product because it has how-to videos on it."

• 15:20Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 15:20Nilay Patel?

  And it's like, you just, it's just like, went over.

• 15:23Speaker 02

  Let's sell the, sell the good things. And by the way, they're great, the YouTube, yeah, YouTube videos, right. And, you know, my kid watches it for all kinds of interesting stuff. I mean,

• 15:30Nilay Patel?

  You let your kids watch YouTube?

• 15:31Speaker 02

  I do, I do. I have some issues of where the algorithms go, and I've talked about those. And they go quickly, badly. I've watched him do it. And I don't know why. Like, I don't know, you know, I do know what he's looking at. He's, you know, he looks widely. I feel like if I, if I hinder it, it's a problem. If I monitor it too much, it's a problem. He'll figure it out. He's, I've either done a good job or I haven't. But there is some addictive qualities to it. You can see the autoplay and the things they recommend and stuff like that. There's an addictive nature to it that is, I'm questioned. So I cut him off, like, you don't watch anymore. But, but he does a lot of how-tos, by the way. He does a ton of how-tos. And they're, they're interesting. They are interesting.

• 16:11Speaker 02

  And they're well done. But that's not, that's like saying, you know, except, it's like a big city where everything's a mess. And it's like, "Look, we've shown you how to get around this horrible city." Like, you know, you know, I don't know.

• 16:22Nilay Patel?

  Well, it's also, Google doesn't make the how-tos.

• 16:25Speaker 02

  Right.

• 16:25Nilay Patel?

  It's, it's, it's so strange.

• 16:27Speaker 02

  There's a lot of great videos on YouTube. Let's agree. There's a lot of, I mean, one of the things, one of the things that, that she was saying that I thought was interesting, and I, I see this is sort of a, it's, it's talking points, but I think they do believe this, is, you know, 99% of it is good and 1% is bad. By the way, I don't know where they come up with those numbers. I'm sure it's more than 1%. But that 1% represents billions and billions and billions, and the most vile content. And so, I, I'm sort of like, I'm not, I'm not comforted by that. Like, that's the issue, is the 1% is, it's the real 1%, right? It's really toxic and really bad and really dangerous and really problematic. And so, one of the things that was interesting in Casey's piece is that, that this, what's the cognizant? They've got to have a 98% success rate. I guess 90% of the stuff has to come off.

• 17:12Nilay Patel?

  The accuracy score.

• 17:13Speaker 02

  Right, but it has to be 100.

• 17:16Nilay Patel?

  Well, so the accurate.

• 17:17Speaker 02

  Ooh, we let one Ebola in. Like, you know, I don't know. I just feel like it should be 100%.

• 17:23Nilay Patel?

  So that accuracy score is, it is a remarkable piece of like new speak.

• 17:28Speaker 02

  It's bullshit.

• 17:29Nilay Patel?

  Because it's not about accuracy. As you go through, you're a moderator and make $15 an hour. You're looking at 400 pieces of content a day.

• 17:35Speaker 02

  Take it all down.

• 17:36Nilay Patel?

  Memorized all the rules. Yeah, you should take it all. That's what I.

• 17:38Speaker 02

  Take it all down. I just think, no, no, no, no.

• 17:40Nilay Patel?

  So you're hitting yes or no. Some of your decisions are filtered out and sent to another reviewer.

• 17:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:47Nilay Patel?

  And that reviewer agrees or disagrees with you.

• 17:49Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 17:49Nilay Patel?

  That is accuracy.

• 17:51Speaker 02

  I know.

• 17:52Nilay Patel?

  And that it's, that is actually not.

• 17:54Speaker 02

  Also, who are these people?

• 17:55Nilay Patel?

  Not accuracy.

• 17:55Speaker 02

  There was that good, the cleaners was a really interesting, because there are people in the Philippines deciding what people in the United States. It's just like, it makes no sense. It's just impossible because they let anybody do what they want. And that's, when anybody can do what they want, they will do what they want.

• 18:09Nilay Patel?

  So I heard Peter Kafka asked this question 500 times at Code to every platform executive. What if people had to pay to use it? What if you didn't just let anybody do what they want? To me, that's pretty problematic as well.

• 18:21Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 18:22Nilay Patel?

  Right? Like.

• 18:23Speaker 02

  That's their little argument. They did that against Apple, remember?

• 18:26Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 18:26Speaker 02

  We're giving a free product, so take our crap. Like, that's my, that was my.

• 18:30Nilay Patel?

  Well, no, but it is true that you were able to start Recode because you could just start a website.

• 18:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:34Nilay Patel?

  There were no gatekeepers in the way. We were able to start The Verge because there were no gatekeepers in our way. We are doing this podcast because I have to go get permission to publish a podcast.

• 18:43Speaker 02

  Right.

• 18:44Nilay Patel?

  That is a net good.

• 18:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:46Nilay Patel?

  How do you see those companies trying to balance out that?

• 18:48Speaker 02

  They're not going to charge. They're just not going to do it. There's been a talk, there's been talk about a paid Facebook for years and it just, they never going to do it. They, there's, they make too much money in the other way.

• 18:56Nilay Patel?

  Mm hmm.

• 18:57Speaker 02

  So why would they? I just, there's no impetus to do it. Again, they've tried, and others have tried paid versions of it. They don't work.

• 19:03Nilay Patel?

  They don't work.

• 19:03Speaker 02

  They can work if it's some incredible thing, but not this. Not if there's so much good free stuff out there. Why would you?

• 19:09Nilay Patel?

  So you just wrote a piece for the New York Times.

• 19:11Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 19:11Nilay Patel?

  The quote is, if you've built a chaos factory, you can't dodge responsibility.

• 19:15Speaker 02

  That's not my quote.

• 19:16Nilay Patel?

  It's Tim Cook.

• 19:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:17Nilay Patel?

  It's a good quote.

• 19:17Speaker 02

  It's a great quote.

• 19:18Nilay Patel?

  Uh, from Cook. I think Cook sees the problem, right?

• 19:22Speaker 02

  Oh, he articulates. Remember, he articulated it in an interview I did in last March when he said, and I asked him, what would you do if you were Mark Zuckerberg? He said, well, I wouldn't be in this situation. He did. It was so dripping. He was, he was waiting to say it. And I was sort of surprised because he's usually not like that. And then since then, it's been like, let me tell you about these assholes. And he's been sort of the voice of that. And what's really interesting is I've had dinners recently with a lot of Silicon Valley people, and they're like, he's such a scold. You know, he's such a scold. He hates tech. I was like, he runs one of the biggest tech companies, isn't he? Tech people hate tech. Someone was telling me that. I'm like, well, some people don't like our president. Like, you can do that. You can call some things into question. And so he's called a scold.

• 20:04Speaker 02

  You know, Roger, they're trying to paint Roger McNamee as a crank, and he can say some cranky things. You know, Tristan Harris is a goody goody, or just another scold. I'm a bummer.

• 20:14Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 20:14Speaker 02

  Like, it just, that's the whole thing.

• 20:16Nilay Patel?

  I don't think you're a bummer.

• 20:16Speaker 02

  I, I think I'm a bummer. I'm trying to be a bummer. I was saying, I said the other day, yesterday, I like being in Irritton. They can thank me later. They'll thank me later. That's why I'll get some banquet when I'm 65, like, well, carasaw it. You know?

• 20:29Nilay Patel?

  It was coming the whole time.

• 20:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I think that, I think Tim is really right. He's an adult. He's the adult in the room.

• 20:34Nilay Patel?

  Well, so he doesn't have to run these companies. He has some distance.

• 20:36Speaker 02

  That's not his business.

• 20:37Nilay Patel?

  It's not his business. And he can see, oh, it's a problem.

• 20:40Speaker 02

  It could have been their business. They could have gone that way. They could have done that. They could have done all of that.

• 20:44Nilay Patel?

  You know, I talked to the, the Google folks, and they will, they're very timid, which is interesting.

• 20:49Speaker 02

  They are.

• 20:49Nilay Patel?

  They don't want to say it out loud, like, on the record out loud.

• 20:51Speaker 02

  They're very polite, Google people.

• 20:53Nilay Patel?

  They're like, you know, Apple tracks the shit out of you, too. And they're like angry about it. Like, no one, why don't you write that story? I'm like, well, say it on the record. No, like, do it. But, you know, the Google people are, are fairly unhappy.

• 21:02Speaker 02

  They don't track people in the same way. I don't care. We're gonna, we're gonna do it, and then it's gonna be minor compared to what Google does. See, that, that, they should not open that can of worms because...

• 21:10Nilay Patel?

  They want to.

• 21:11Speaker 02

  They can, but it's sort of like, it's a what about-ism, what about-ism. And of course, you know, I think the problem is their business is fundamentally about tracking people. That is their fundamental business. It's about sucking in all the information possible and chopping it up. And Apple absolutely does those things, but it's not their, their business is me. I don't think I... I'd never seen a piece of advertising on Apple. Maybe a long time ago, they had it, and then they closed that business down.

• 21:36Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, they didn't do a good job.

• 21:37Speaker 02

  They, their social network Ping, remember that? That didn't work.

• 21:39Nilay Patel?

  That's great.

• 21:40Speaker 02

  Ping!

• 21:41Nilay Patel?

  It was horrible. They had another one inside Apple Music that was equally bad.

• 21:43Speaker 02

  But by the way, Google sucks at social networking, so they should talk like that. They wish they could be good at social networking.

• 21:49Nilay Patel?

  So here's my question.

• 21:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:50Nilay Patel?

  Susan Wojcicki.

• 21:51Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 21:52Nilay Patel?

  Does she see the problem?

• 21:53Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 21:54Nilay Patel?

  You think she does?

• 21:54Speaker 02

  A hundred percent.

• 21:55Nilay Patel?

  I came away from Code fully thinking that she did not see the problem.

• 21:58Speaker 02

  I think she does.

• 21:59Nilay Patel?

  That she's been at Google for too long, that she's too deep in it.

• 22:01Speaker 02

  There's elements of that. She's very loyal to that company, you know, it started in her garage and she's, she's very close. She's been very close to the company for years. I think she's agonized. I think she's in fact agonized. I've had lots of off the record discussions. I mean, I think she's not someone who's like hard on her sleeve, but of any of the executives? Absolutely. I mean, all of them are sort of denial is not a river in Egypt. You know what I mean? Denial is not just a river in Egypt. I think she can't say everything, and that's the problem, is she can't, you know, there's all this legal issues. I think, you know, the extremist thing that she did was quite dangerous for people who were, you know, they already had been subject to one of the creators coming in and shooting up their headquarters.

• 22:43Speaker 02

  I think they're in a much, in this, in this political age right now, there's a lot of dangerous talk and threats and things like that. And as you know, what happened to Carlos? If you think it's not happening to Carlos, it's happening to all the executives there of all these companies. And so I think, that's not, the personal safety is not the issue. Everything is so, is so heated that I think it's very hard. She says something and it's, she's got to be very careful about what she says. And of course, people want her to say more. And so I sound like an apologist for her. I think the whole system is fucked because of the way it's built.

• 23:13Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 23:13Speaker 02

  And they won't say that. They will never say that. I don't know a way out for that. I can't, what if you ran it? What would you do? What would you do?

• 23:20Nilay Patel?

  Well, I wouldn't be in that situation.

• 23:21Speaker 02

  Wouldn't be in that situation. What would you do?

• 23:23Nilay Patel?

  So I thought about thought as I, I watched all the executives in the platform companies. And I, I think. The thing that I'm missing from all these companies, and maybe it's because they believe their public squares, maybe it's to chase growth, they have to, well, maybe it's like they sincerely believe their public squares, or maybe it's they insincerely say it, but really they're chasing growth and they have to appeal to everyone. Like, I can't tell the difference, right?

• 23:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, they certainly are the focus of all these companies.

• 23:48Nilay Patel?

  But what I'm missing, and I get to say this because I'm a journalist and I think our platform and our company has values and we're very clear about them, is these companies are missing a sense of values. They won't tell you what they are. I think, you know, ask a great question, Susan. Are you sorry that the LGBTQ community is sad, or are you actually sorry?

• 24:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:07Nilay Patel?

  Right? Are you gonna put the rainbow on the play button and that's your logo for the month?

• 24:11Speaker 02

  Right.

• 24:12Nilay Patel?

  Or do you actually believe that?

• 24:13Speaker 02

  What's really sad is Google was, at the very beginning, and I think, were you there when it was started? It was committed to a lot. There's a good Google and a bad Google, and something turned at some point. There was a lot of really interesting ideas about how to change corporations at the beginning of Google. There's no question. It was, it kind of reminds you, you know, it sounds crazy, but the Clintons. You remember the early Clintons? Like, the, like, hopeful Clinton, like, they wanted to change politics and then sort of became creatures of it. That's what it feels, like, all people, that happens to everyone. And the money, and the dripping amounts of money, and the attention, and the self-righteousness gets involved, and then they, I think that's a disease of all of Silicon Valley. And so when Tim Cook says things that are perfectly sensible, read, watch that entire thing. He's

• 24:56Speaker 02

  not lecturing them. He's saying, look, you have to have values in life. And I don't think Tim was saying he, Apple was perfect, because it certainly isn't. I think it's that you've got to at least understand the consequences of what you're doing. Or you have to admit what you are. And I think that's the problem. And I don't know what I would do if I ran, I would run a different, I wouldn't have, I wouldn't let anybody post everything. I wouldn't, I wouldn't have let them in the first place. I would have said, you can't, sorry neo-Nazis, not here.

• 25:21Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, and I think that the reason I brought up the sincerity of the public square comments is that necessarily captures scale.

• 25:29Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 25:30Nilay Patel?

  Right? If you, if I ran YouTube and I said, look, This is going to reflect my personal values as a CEO. We're going to spend an awful lot of time talking about HDMI cables and section 230 and copyright law, which is basically the whole Vergecast. Everything else, like, we're just going to moderate away. Like, it necessarily means it's smaller.

• 25:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:50Nilay Patel?

  Right?

• 25:50Speaker 02

  That's the problem.

• 25:51Nilay Patel?

  And I don't think they can do that.

• 25:53Speaker 02

  I think it's, but it's already done. It's done, they can't, they have to just shut it down. I mean, it was so funny, so many people are like, "Shut it down, shut it down." I'm like, "You know what? Sometimes a toxic waste dump is a toxic waste dump." And that's, you just, how do you clean it up? Maybe it's important, like, we don't go to Chernobyl anymore. Like, for hundreds of years now. We're just going to let, set it sit over there. Mistakes all over the place. It's uncleanupable. And eventually, nature will clean it up. Eventually, probably, maybe not, who knows? It makes so much money and there's so much pressure. And the thing is, the people in Silicon Valley, for the most part, they feel like they're victims. They, the incoming I get from them, like, "Why are you so mean, Kara? Like, you're a bummer." Like, and I'm, I'm sort of like, "Fuck you."

• 26:38Speaker 02

  Like, "You awful people." Like, "You, how, how much money do you need? How much, how, how right do you have to be?" And I think in their heart of hearts, they do understand.

• 26:46Nilay Patel?

  They see the problem.

• 26:48Speaker 02

  I, maybe not. I don't know. It's depressing. It's a depressing thing because, and then you see people pop out, like Kevin Sisgram all of a sudden. You see people pop out and, or Tristan, or Roger, or me, or Jessica Powell over at Who Left Google, who's writing some amazing stuff, or Nicole Wong. Like, we had that insider, outsider, and they pop out and they go, "Yeah, we know." We, and then start talking about it. And I, when you get, the other thing is, when you get to people from other industries, they get it right away. We had the CTO of Ford, I was like, "What's the problems working with Google?" And he like, "You want, they want to take every piece of information and use it, and we don't. We have a relationship with a customer. We don't want to use their personal inform-" And he has problems dealing with tech companies because their inclination is Borg-like in the interest in the information and data.

• 27:32Nilay Patel?

  So, there is only four big companies, five big companies.

• 27:36Speaker 02

  Same. Fat hang.

• 27:38Nilay Patel?

  And they have collected a lot of data. There's a lot of theories about-

• 27:41Speaker 02

  Why is Netflix in there? That's just a movie show.

• 27:44Nilay Patel?

  I think because it makes it-

• 27:45Speaker 02

  Whatever, I know.

• 27:45Nilay Patel?

  I really do think-

• 27:46Speaker 02

  No, Netflix doesn't belong in there.

• 27:48Nilay Patel?

  That acronym gets a lot worse if you take Netflix out of there.

• 27:51Speaker 02

  It's just, well, okay.

• 27:53Nilay Patel?

  I think, I honestly think it's, it makes the acronym-

• 27:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, you can't, GAF. How about-

• 27:57Nilay Patel?

  That's good. GAF is good. I'll take, that's much better.

• 28:00Speaker 02

  You really can't do the other one.

• 28:01Nilay Patel?

  You can't do the other one. Uh, but there's a lot of theories about how they achieve that size, right? That they were better at user interface design, so the users came there and now they've aggregated the demand. This has been Thompson's big theory. And you've aggregated the demand, and so now they control supply.

• 28:17Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 28:17Nilay Patel?

  Do you buy all that? Do you buy that this is just the way the internet works? Like, it necessarily flows towards big companies?

• 28:24Speaker 02

  Microsoft, right?

• 28:24Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 28:25Speaker 02

  They're just doing just fine. Everyone's doing just fine after Microsoft got smacked. Like, it's, it's crap. Breaking up has never been a bad thing. It's never. It's never. There's, it's- There's never been an instance where it's led to bad things. It's always led to good things. And so, it just seems to me that you break up a Google, you have all kinds of value unlocked for lots of people, lots of creativity. And you can see that in these startups. There hasn't been as many startups. There can't, there used to just be a lot. And I think, why bother having, there's gonna be no social networks. There's gonna be no photo services. There's gonna be no this, no that. And because, why do it? Because these are so big. There's no point.

• 29:03Nilay Patel?

  That's actually the one thing about the, the code stage that I notice. When you come in with code and then previously D for years. Not as long as some of your extreme regulars, but for a while now. Evan Spiegel was on your, he's like, "I just started this thing. It's called Snapchat."

• 29:16Speaker 02

  Right.

• 29:16Nilay Patel?

  Mark Zuckerberg famously, his like first pressure-packed interview. "I just started Facebook."

• 29:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:22Nilay Patel?

  There are not, I was thinking, what startups should you put on stage this year?

• 29:25Speaker 02

  I was, I can't. There's not, what do I do? What do I do?

• 29:27Nilay Patel?

  Who, who do you even talk to? And so this year-

• 29:29Speaker 02

  There isn't. Like, food startups. And maybe climate, there's no climate change. I was desperate to find a good climate. There's a couple. There's one or two that, you know, Bill Gates is backing one called Carbon or something. But it's hard. It's hard to find what the real breakout stars are. And, you know, I guess Slack, we've had him on stage. We had him on stage early. Yeah, it's hard. You can't, you can't. They can't get around these, these giant companies. Nobody can. And then they got bought up by them, right?

• 29:54Nilay Patel?

  And that's the act that everybody wants.

• 29:56Speaker 02

  Someone's gonna buy Slack, I would imagine. Maybe, maybe not.

• 29:58Nilay Patel?

  I mean- Maybe.

• 30:00Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 30:00Nilay Patel?

  If it was, I would say if it was gonna happen, it would have happened a few months ago.

• 30:03Speaker 02

  Not necessarily.

• 30:04Nilay Patel?

  But now that they've listed, it will happen a few.

• 30:06Speaker 02

  Why not?

• 30:07Nilay Patel?

  There's a longer.

• 30:08Speaker 02

  No.

• 30:09Nilay Patel?

  Well, now, it's harder to buy them now, is what I'm saying.

• 30:11Speaker 02

  No. You just need money. That's all. Now it has a value. It actually has a value on the stock market.

• 30:17Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 30:17Speaker 02

  I think it's easier to buy them.

• 30:18Nilay Patel?

  Interesting.

• 30:18Speaker 02

  There isn't an excitement around startups in Silicon Valley in the same way, although there are some really interesting, like, I went to visit a whole bunch of VCs to see what's new and fresh, and actually, there's some really cool stuff that you don't hear about. A lot of them are on climate change, loans, finance. I heard at least 10 companies. I thought, well, that's interesting. I wonder if it'll break out.

• 30:38Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 30:38Speaker 02

  And there was one that was doing loans. There was one that was doing all kinds of fresh ideas, really fresh ideas. And, you know, just yesterday, I was in Toronto, and I had this company that's doing a version of Google Glass, but not Google Glass, it's called North, and it was cool.

• 30:53Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 30:53Speaker 02

  I was like, oh, look, something fresh.

• 30:55Nilay Patel?

  We've had the Focal, we've had them.

• 30:57Speaker 02

  Focal.

• 30:58Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 30:58Speaker 02

  Really interesting. And I was like, I hope this works. Like, that's something that's cool. I think Heads Up Display is a cool idea.

• 31:04Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 31:04Speaker 02

  It's still not there yet, but it's inevitable, I think.

• 31:07Nilay Patel?

  We gotta take a quick break for an ad. We'll be right back.

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• 32:15Nilay Patel?

  All right, we're back with Kara Swisher.

• 32:19Nilay Patel?

  So the VC community, we're very consumer focused, right? You have to actually ship the product and show it to us and we review it.

• 32:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:26Nilay Patel?

  You're a little closer to the VC side of things, which is earlier stage. They must be kind of annoyed that there's only four companies and it's hard to.

• 32:33Speaker 02

  Well, they're throwing more money at the ones that are there. They're putting this ungodly, there's so much money washing around the system and, you know, especially because of SoftBank, their Vision Fund, which, you know, was backed by the Saudis who are just awash in money. It's hard. It's hard to put all the money. Where do you put it all?

• 32:49Nilay Patel?

  Are they on the VC side of things? Are they like, maybe it wouldn't be so bad if we broke this up?

• 32:53Speaker 02

  I think they would like that. I would, I don't, why would they want a bigger company? They want, the only thing that's good for VCs is someone to sell their stuff to, like, unload it. And I think the fact that there's no breakouts, why are there no breakouts? Like, you can't name one. Like, I just can't think of one off the top of my head. For years now, what is, what is the hot, hot company? What is the one I have to have on stage? I don't, there isn't one.

• 33:14Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I mean, literally, today, I would tell you it's Slack. Because Slack is like an enterprise chat company.

• 33:21Speaker 02

  Years, years. They've been around for a while.

• 33:24Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 33:25Speaker 02

  And so that's the problem. And there used to be dozens of them. If you, there used to be dozens. And that's, I think the startup numbers are pretty low over the past, this is the lowest point in 30 years or something. And so it was interesting, I did an interesting interview with Mark Cuban and Steve Case, and Mark, as usual, says, he's like, Silicon Valley's done, he's toast, toast. You know, it kind of is right. It's kind of played out. And so he was talking about finding companies elsewhere all across the country, solving other problems, not necessarily, I was hearing about a company that solves foster care problems for foster kids and stuff like, there's all kinds of really interesting problems. And so that's what it would be nice to get back to, is solving real problems instead of sort of reacting to these big giant companies.

• 34:06Nilay Patel?

  And this is Steve Case, and it's like bus tour across America.

• 34:10Speaker 02

  It's a tour where they're looking for talent elsewhere. I think that's the thing is how do you sort of flywheel of talent and innovation elsewhere solving real problems hard?

• 34:19Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. You've lived through a few cycles of regulatory pressure and big companies being dominant and falling apart and coming. What happens next? Right? History doesn't repeat.

• 34:28Speaker 02

  Things fall apart.

• 34:30Nilay Patel?

  Center cannot hold.

• 34:30Speaker 02

  Center cannot hold. Things, I mean, that's my tattoos, you know, entropy and centropy.

• 34:35Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 34:36Speaker 02

  Everything falls apart and then it grows and then from the destruction, I mean, that's sort of the plot of Harry Potter. Every time the phoenix, oh. Yeah, I think things are gonna, we're gonna go through a period of falling apart and then hopefully something emerges, probably in the health space, maybe in the life length. That kind of stuff is really interesting. Some, maybe food, maybe client, I'd love them to get involved in climate change. Like, boy, there's some problems there. What can you solve? Rather than just removing emissions, that's really where the focus is. Removing, removing carbon from the air is where they're investing. But that's not a solution. That's not a solution. Like,

• 35:17Speaker 02

  where are the new engines? Where are the new, like, who's inventing carbon-free jet fuel? Jet fuel is a big problem. Who's inventing, who is that person? I want to meet that person. Who's inventing how to deal with immigration? Like, what could tech do besides surveil these people? You know, which is, I think, the solution. Let's surveil them.

• 35:37Nilay Patel?

  We built databases and now we can put stuff in the databases.

• 35:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. So what would be the solutions for that? I just, there's all kinds of problems in this country, you could probably, in the world, that you could solve through better technology.

• 35:48Nilay Patel?

  What do you think happens next? Is it full-on privacy regulation from the government? Is it they realize, they wake up one day and realize it's a shit show? Is it?

• 35:57Speaker 02

  Well, you can see people leaving. Like, the talent is leaving. Like, they're just not there. They're just being run like corporations now. And, you know, Mark is there. Like, he really is present. And actually, but you see them, Chris Cox peeling off, they peel off. And that's what's gonna, you're gonna see a peeling off of the big people happen at Microsoft and then they're gonna run them like they are. And I think the issue is where's the innovation? Where's the new fresh thing? And obviously with Facebook, and I said this in the column, this was kind of a gangster move to do Libra. Like, that was like, oh, that was, I was kind of like, hmm, that's a little innovative, but could be dangerous. And these people, you know, it's from the people that brought you the end of democracy, we're gonna now do currency.

• 36:35Nilay Patel?

  We're gonna take over the world's money supply.

• 36:37Speaker 02

  I thought that, I still was like, good for them, in a weird way, even though I'm like, not them, but good for them, like.

• 36:42Nilay Patel?

  I had an argument with some Facebook folks, off the record.

• 36:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:46Nilay Patel?

  Because it, to me, it appeared, Facebook was not prepared for the obvious pushback from every government in the world.

• 36:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:52Nilay Patel?

  When they suggested that it would replace all the world's currencies.

• 36:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, they did, of course they said that.

• 36:56Nilay Patel?

  And so, you know, Facebook were like, of course we, of course we talked to them.

• 36:59Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 37:00Nilay Patel?

  We, we actually, we like honeypotted them.

• 37:02Speaker 02

  Right.

• 37:03Nilay Patel?

  We gave them this avenue of attack, so that they would take it.

• 37:06Speaker 02

  Right.

• 37:06Nilay Patel?

  And we know we can defend it.

• 37:08Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 37:08Nilay Patel?

  Which seems five steps too smart for Facebook.

• 37:12Speaker 02

  They're so aggrieved. They're such victims.

• 37:15Nilay Patel?

  But I don't think they, they anticipated Maxine Waters saying, I need a moratorium on this product until I can hold hearings.

• 37:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:21Nilay Patel?

  I don't think they anticipated the Finance Minister of France being like, we cannot allow another sovereign currency in our country to happen.

• 37:28Speaker 02

  They created it. Everyone gets their say. Thank you, Facebook. You're welcome. You're reaping what you sow.

• 37:34Nilay Patel?

  Do you, do you think that they knew that was, that was, I mean, that's their contention to me.

• 37:38Speaker 02

  I think you have, I think you were under the mistaken impression that these people are thoughtful. I'm sorry. I just, I, that, that, they, Silicon Valley don't do consequences. They don't do anticipation. And, you know, I tell the same joke over and over, and I'm waiting for someone to like, literally, they're so non-reflect, self-reflective, it's a mirror they can see, it's a miracle they can see in mirrors. They're like vampires. I don't know what's going on. They just don't self-reflect. And I do know, I think what they do is they do it in these position papers, like, let's anticipate this, but it's all, it's not real. It's not, they don't have, you know, they live in their comfort zones, they go from their cars, to their planes, to their rich houses, to their kombucha stands, to their antiseptic, every.

• 38:18Nilay Patel?

  Jack Dorsey's EMF tent.

• 38:20Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly. Like, they do not live in a world that is real that other people live in. And there is a reason why people hate the elites and that they think they personify it. And, believe me, I live an elite life, but not like that. Like, you know, I took the subway here. So, it's just a different way of looking at things. And so, they have to... I think I suggested in a tweet yesterday, "Why don't Cheryl and Mark work for a couple of weeks in one of those content moderate..." I think things would change fast, right? And instead, it's like, "We know it's hard. We're trying our best." But like, go, go down. And, you know, dig a ditch down there and see what happens. You would, I think you would see a very different kind of leadership. But the self-reflection part is just astonishing. And so, they never... They're always on their back foot. They're always on their back foot. Because they, and they never anticipate it.

• 39:05Speaker 02

  And then they can't imagine, when they say, "We're here to save the world's currency," that we don't say, "Thank you. Thank you, Facebook." I don't know. It's working okay. And it can be changed, and it can be disrupted, but maybe not by you. You know, in your relentless grab for power. Maybe let's let someone else do that.

• 39:24Nilay Patel?

  We assure you, we won't use your payment data for...

• 39:26Speaker 02

  Well, they say that. Like, they, it seems like they've set it up a calique. I don't even understand it.

• 39:30Nilay Patel?

  It's Libra is the currency and Calibra is the wallet.

• 39:32Speaker 02

  And there's an independent body in Switzerland.

• 39:33Nilay Patel?

  Oh, yeah. And they made a flag of a... I mean, it literally looks like the EU.

• 39:37Speaker 02

  Right.

• 39:37Nilay Patel?

  Right? Like, they made...

• 39:38Speaker 02

  It's, listen, currency could be changed. Like, that's something that hasn't changed, sure. But, and by the way, you need, in a company that has a lot of people, you can use it. If they wanted to have their own little thing inside their company, they could do that. Like, right? That's what, that's what I thought it was gonna be. Like, by... They've been, they've failed at commerce so many times at Facebook. They're probably just, to me, it seemed like a big attack on Amazon. Now, Amazon, I might want a shot at currency. I might want Amazon to try it. See, I'd rather have them do it than Facebook.

• 40:06Nilay Patel?

  We did this survey last year. We're gonna do it again this year. About just sort of people's attitudes for these big tech companies.

• 40:12Speaker 02

  They like Bezos more.

• 40:13Nilay Patel?

  They love Amazon. They love Google. They sort of love Microsoft. And then it's Apple, and then like way down the bottom is Facebook. And you can just sort of rank it by, how much utility do you provide?

• 40:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're good at what they do.

• 40:24Nilay Patel?

  Amazon is terrifying. And they, they know, they know a lot about me, as much if not more than Google, because I buy everything from Amazon. Amazon definitely knows we had a kid. Amazon definitely knows how old that kid is, what her preferences are.

• 40:37Speaker 02

  It's sort of a safe way, by the way.

• 40:38Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that's true. But that's another place I buy things from. Whereas Google would have to like infer it, right? So like, Amazon definitely knows more, but they provide me with this like, very tangible utility. I push the button, the diapers show up.

• 40:49Speaker 02

  Well, let me say what Margaret Vestager said, "You're trading convenience for the good." Is it good, or is it convenient? So just think about that.

• 40:57Nilay Patel?

  But I don't think there's any trade with Facebook.

• 40:58Speaker 02

  I love, what are you talking about? I can't buy from Amazon all the time.

• 41:01Nilay Patel?

  I just don't think there's any trade with Facebook.

• 41:03Speaker 02

  I would like them to do currency. If I had to pick among the giant evil tech companies, I would pick them.

• 41:09Nilay Patel?

  Amazon bucks coming to you here.

• 41:11Speaker 02

  Amazon, I might buy, I will never buy Libra. I will never buy, I would not, I will not do it. And I would do it with it. I definitely do it with Apple. I definitely, I trust them.

• 41:22Nilay Patel?

  Are you gonna get the Apple credit card?

• 41:23Speaker 02

  Probably. I have a Prime credit card.

• 41:25Nilay Patel?

  Oh, wow.

• 41:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:26Nilay Patel?

  You're in it.

• 41:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm in it. I like it, whatever. I get points, whatever, I get paid for things I own on Amazon.

• 41:31Nilay Patel?

  I need to get better.

• 41:31Speaker 02

  It's useful.

• 41:32Nilay Patel?

  We need to, um, get, you know, the points guy. I gotta, I gotta get in my, he needs to be in my life.

• 41:37Speaker 02

  You need to do that.

• 41:38Nilay Patel?

  Optimize.

• 41:38Speaker 02

  All right.

• 41:39Nilay Patel?

  All right, Kara, thank you so much for coming by. Always a pleasure.

• 41:42Speaker 02

  Thank you so much.

• 41:43Nilay Patel?

  All right, that was Kara Swisher from Recode. If you want to hear more from Kara, she hosts two podcasts for Vox Media, Recode, Decode, and Pivot. Probably heard me say them at the end of every Vergecast episode. She's also opinion columnist for the New York Times. We mentioned her column in the episode. You can just go read her column, it's great. I want you to listen to Why Did You Push That Button? They've been doing this incredible series about death online. I hope you listened to their episode about Gibo, the robot who's dying. They've got a new episode coming out, it's about people mourning celebrities online. I may or may not have been totally clowned in this episode for something I tweeted when Anthony Bourdain died. It's great that you told me about that first. Anyway, check it out, it's in the feeds now, it's great. Go listen to that. Make sure to subscribe to the Vergecast for free in your favorite podcast app, or just tap the link in the show notes. And please leave us a rating interview on Apple Podcasts, which we want you to send you, so go there.

• 42:28Nilay Patel?

  You can talk to me on Twitter, I'm at Reckless. I'd love hearing your feedback on the show. Tweet at me, tell me who you want to interview, give me more feedback, I love it. Talk to me. I'm also with you back on Friday with Dieter and Paul to discuss the weekend.

• 42:47Speaker 05

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