#218: The Most Feared and Well-Liked Journalist in Silicon Valley - Kara Swisher

Kara Swisher (@karaswisher https://twitter.com/karaswisher) has been called "Silicon Valley's most feared and well-liked journalist" by New York Magazine. Here's just one example: you can graph the impact on Yahoo's stock price by various posts by Kara. That's just the tip of the iceberg. She attended Georgetown's School of Foreign Service prior to changing course to journalism. It turns out many of the skills that would make a good spy are those that make a good journalist: developing sources, asking good questions, scenario planning, and much more. She forged her reputation at the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, and now she spends the majority of her time as Executive Editor of Recode http://www.recode.net/ and the host of the Recode Decode podcast. http://www.recode.net/recode-decode-podcast-kara-swisher Over the last 11 years and alongside Walt Mossberg https://twitter.com/waltmossberg, she has also co-produced D: All Things Digital http://allthingsd.com/20131231/you-say-goodbye-and-we-say-hello/, a major high-tech conference with interviewees such as Bill Gates https://www.gatesnotes.com/, Steve Jobs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs, and many other leading players in the tech and media industries. In this podcast episode, she and I cover a lot of subjects, enjoy quite a few laughs, and dig into details you can readily apply and test yourself. Topics include: The art and craft of good questions Lessons learned and favorite moments from interviewing Steve Jobs What separates good from great journalists War stories, missed opportunities, and "optimistic pessimism" I hope that you enjoy this episode with Kara Swisher! Show notes and links for this episode can be found at www.fourhourworkweek.com/podcast http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/podcast. This podcast is brought to you by Athletic Greens https://www.athleticgreens.com/tim. I get asked all the time, "If you could only use one supplement, what would it be?" My answer is, inevitably, Athletic Greens https://www.athleticgreens.com/tim. It is my all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in The 4-Hour Body and did not get paid to do so. Listeners of The Tim Ferriss Show get $100 worth of travel packs for free when placing an order -- that's twenty free additional travel pouches -- at AthleticGreens.com/Tim https://www.athleticgreens.com/tim. This podcast is also brought to you by MeUndies http://meundies.com/tim. Does this year's Valentine's Day have you stumped? Skip the cliches and give a gift that looks great, feels amazing, and makes everybody happy: MeUndies. MeUndies http://meundies.com/tim knows that your special someone deserves a special fabric, which is why their underwear is made exclusively out of MicroModal, a fabric three times softer than cotton. I've spent the last six months wearing underwear from these guys http://meundies.com/tim 24/7, and they are the most comfortable and colorful underwear I've ever owned. If you don't love your first pair of MeUndies, they'll hook you up with a new pair or a refund. They offer free shipping and, for a limited time, listeners get 20% off their first order. Just go to MeUndies.com/tim http://meundies.com/tim. That's MeUndies.com/tim.

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

• 0:01Tim Ferriss?

  At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Can I ask you a personal question?

• 0:08Speaker 02

  No, this is inappropriate time.

• 0:12Speaker 01

  I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton.

• 0:23Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens. I've used Athletic Greens for many, many years, and I'm asked all the time, if you could use only one supplement, what would it be? My answer is inevitably Athletic Greens. It is my all-in-one nutritional insurance. At least, that's how I think about it. It is much more than greens. It's a complete whole-food supplement with 75 or so ingredients packed into one tablespoon per day. So when I travel, for instance, of course, I would like to follow all of my regimens, all of my pills, all of my supplements, all of my food to the T, but sometimes circumstances intervene, and you're too busy, or things are too hectic. This helps me to mitigate the likelihood of getting sick and to perform optimally. So if I go to, say, South America for an acro-yoga

• 1:08Tim Ferriss?

  intensive, which I did in Colombia at one point, I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off, and I took this every morning, and it is extremely, extremely helpful. And I usually travel with travel packets, among other things. So, you should try it out, is the short version of this. As listeners of the Tim Ferriss Show, you can receive $100 worth of travel packs for free when you order. That's 20 free additional individual travel pouches when you order. Simply go to athleticgreens.com/tim to check it out. So, take a look. Athleticgreens.com/tim.

• 1:44Tim Ferriss?

  This podcast is brought to you by MeUndies. Does this year's Valentine's Day have you stumped? Are you a big dumb animal? Well, skip the cliches and give a gift that looks great, feels amazing, and makes everybody happy. MeUndies. MeUndies knows that your special someone deserves a special fabric, which is why their underwear is made exclusively out of micro modal, a fabric three times softer than cotton. I can feel it on my loins right this very moment, because I've spent the last six months, at least, wearing underwear from these guys 24/7, and they are the most comfortable and colorful underwear. You can add your own character to your own underwear. If you don't love your first pair of MeUndies, they say they will hook you up with a free

• 2:28Tim Ferriss?

  pair, a new pair, or a refund. But are you really an asshole who returns used underwear? If you are, please stop listening to my podcast. That's disgusting. They offer free shipping and for a limited time, listeners of this podcast get 20% off of their first order. Just go to meundies.com/tim. That's meundies.com/tim. Hello, boys and girls. This is Tim Ferriss and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers of all types, to tease out the habits, routines, beliefs, sometimes very strong beliefs that they have, or philosophies that you can apply in your everyday life and take for a test drive. This episode is a treat. It was a lot of fun to do.

• 3:13Tim Ferriss?

  My guest is Kara Swisher, @kara-swisher on Twitter, K-A-R-A-S-W-I-S-H-E-R. She's been called, quote, "Silicon Valley's most feared and well-liked journalist," end quote, by New York Magazine, specifically Benjamin Wallace. That is such a good headline and it's an even better piece, so I suggest you check that out as well. Here's just one example of why she is feared and respected. You can graph the impact on Yahoo's stock price of various posts by Kara. That's just the tip of the iceberg. She attended Georgetown School of Foreign Service prior to changing course of journalism, and as it turns out, many of the skills that would make a good spy, let's say, are the same that make a good journalist: developing sources, asking good questions, scenario planning, and much more.

• 3:58Tim Ferriss?

  She forged reputation at The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, and now she spends the majority of her time as executive director of Recode and the host of the Recode Decode podcast. Over the last 11 years and alongside Walt Mossberg, she's also produced D, All Things Digital, a major high-tech conference with interviewees such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and many other leading players in the tech and media industries. There's almost always, I think it probably is always, a waiting list to attend this event. And in this podcast episode, she and I cover a lot of Subjects. Enjoy quite a few laughs and dig into details you can readily apply and test yourself. Topics include the art and craft of good questions, lessons learned and favorite moments from interviewing Steve Jobs,

• 4:41Tim Ferriss?

  some great war stories, what separates good from great journalists. Then we have more war stories, missed opportunities, and optimistic pessimism. It's very wide ranging and I'll leave it at that. Without further ado, please enjoy my conversation with Kara Swisher.

• 5:00Tim Ferriss?

  Kara, welcome to the show.

• 5:01Speaker 02

  Thank you, Tim.

• 5:02Tim Ferriss?

  I am so excited to be here.

• 5:03Speaker 02

  I am excited to be here even more so.

• 5:05Tim Ferriss?

  And I will, I would be lying if I said I weren't just a little nervous.

• 5:10Speaker 02

  Why is that?

• 5:10Tim Ferriss?

  Because you're so experienced and so good at asking questions.

• 5:14Speaker 02

  Well, you're saying manipulating people. Yes, I am. I'm fantastic at it. So just accept that fact. Let's move on.

• 5:20Tim Ferriss?

  All right. So moving on. What separates in your mind a good journalist from a great journalist?

• 5:26Speaker 02

  Um, you know, it's interesting. People ask me this all the time because I do tend to beat people a lot. I tend to, it's pretty easy in lots of ways to do better than other people. And I think about it a lot. And a lot of people think there's some special sauce, there's some magic, or you have a particular skill. And I think there are skills that you can develop. But I actually do think I just work harder than people. I just work, I just work harder and I try harder and I am more persistent. I guess that would be it.

• 5:52Tim Ferriss?

  What do you do more of or less of if you were to say compare your focus and the way you work to people who are unable to do what you do?

• 6:03Speaker 02

  They're lazy. I just really don't know how to put it. Two things. It's not just laziness. It's laziness and lack of observation and awareness. Now, the skills that reporters should have are persistence, ability to ask questions, and just an ability to analyze. You know what I mean? Like, I talk about this a little bit. I went to the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown. I was going to be a spy. And I do a lot of scenario building whenever I think about things or when I'm thinking about companies or businesses. And so often when I'm thinking about what some company is doing or what I want to cover, like, for example, Twitter and sale, just anything, it could be any, any errant thing. I go, what would I do? What are those fuckers up to? What could they be up to? And there's 10 things. There's usually, there's not more than 10 things they could be up to.

• 6:46Speaker 02

  And I follow every one as if it's the truth. And then I find the right one. And it's really, it's really pretty easy. And I think reporters don't, they're so reactive. Something happens and then they write it and they tend to type it down. And they never take a minute to analyze it. They never take a minute not to react, to imagine what people could be doing. So you can almost create your news if you start to get smarter about it. And most reporters literally just react and type. And so that's what I find.

• 7:13Tim Ferriss?

  Why did you not become a spy?

• 7:15Speaker 02

  I wish I did, I was gay. At the time, it was hard. I'm pretty old, Tim. I'm 54. And at the time, and people forget this, and maybe it'll happen again, I don't think it will. It was hard to be gay. It was, you had to be furtive and hidden. At the time, I was somewhat hidden, not completely, but enough. There was a price when you, when you came out. And there were all kinds of issues around being out and being in government at the time. And remember, we had Don't Ask, Don't Tell for a while, which was insane. Before that, a lot of punitive things that would happen. Your own family would be awful. And so, you know, I remember talking to someone at the time and they were like, well, you obviously couldn't be deployed to Saudi Arabia because they hate gay, they want to

• 7:58Speaker 02

  kill gay people, they want to kill gay people across the world. And I was like, well, I don't speak Arabic, so that wouldn't work out for me. You know what I mean? That kind of thing. And so it was just a constant, like, things I couldn't do, besides being a woman also. So I think it was that, and I think I would have been a good spy. I would be like Carrie Matheson without the bipolar. I would, that's the kind of spy I would have wanted to be.

• 8:20Tim Ferriss?

  What, what drew you to that and following that track in the first place?

• 8:24Speaker 02

  I studied at, at college and then later at Journalism School of Columbia. Propaganda. I'm really interested in propaganda, uses of propaganda and the effectiveness of propaganda. And probably why I'm attracted to the internet, because it has such a huge, it does, it's propaganda in a lot of ways. And so I would study communist propaganda systems, Nazi. I was very interested in how the Nazis managed to, yes, how they, no means admiration, but it was effective. And so I was, I was really interested in how they could take a whole group of people and make them, demonize them. The subtle forms of it, all the different things. And so I was really interested in that. And, and I was interested in how people are fooled and tricked and how easy it is to manipulate people.

• 9:07Speaker 02

  And so I was, I, I wanted to not do that and make things clear for people. I'm both offended by propaganda and fascinated by it. And so I wanted to say, you know, and I'm doing it on a lesser level, although I've started to write about Trump a lot, which I think is more meaningful to me.

• 9:24Speaker 02

  With companies, like so and so Yahoo tells you this, well, let me just actually tell you what's going on. Like, it's not precisely a lie, but it certainly isn't the truth. And I think Silicon Valley is one of the places that tries to suspend disbelief almost all the time. And sometimes it's great, because you have to believe in yourself. And other times, it's just pure bullshit. More bullshit lately than anything else.

• 9:43Tim Ferriss?

  A lot of bullshit out there.

• 9:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, there is.

• 9:46Tim Ferriss?

  Part of, I would imagine, discerning the truth and building up these scenarios, and traveling down, say, 10 paths until you identify the proper story, the real story, is sources.

• 10:00Speaker 02

  Right.

• 10:00Tim Ferriss?

  How do you, this all makes so much more sense now that I'm thinking about the spy context.

• 10:06Speaker 02

  I'm very.

• 10:06Tim Ferriss?

  Have you, right, we've landed in Beirut, how am I going to cultivate my sources? How do you cultivate?

• 10:12Speaker 02

  Couple of things.

• 10:13Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, how do you cultivate?

• 10:13Speaker 02

  There are tricks, there are tricks, you know, they're conversational. I think I do them actually without a lot of thinking about it. But if I had to think, I think I'm pretty charming. I think I'm interesting. I think a lot of reporters are transactional. I'm not transactional. I don't like, tell me this, give me this, that kind of thing. I conduct relationships with my sources over years. And I think they appreciate that. Because I sometimes give them information. I have a lot of information. I have a lot more than anybody, actually. And so I don't trade information particularly, but I, like, I know things, and I have insights. And I had someone call me the other day, who's been a very good source, who's a very well-known person. And they asked about something, and I go, no, no, you don't want to do that because of this. And they didn't know. And they're, oh, thank you. And I think this is the way you should do that. And I don't, I'm not like, giving them free advice or anything like that. It just was, I, I develop

• 10:57Speaker 02

  relationships, the way you would talk to a person that you, anybody, anybody that you have a relationship with. And so I think that, and I'm, I'm not ignorant, that's the other part, is I know more than they do. And I'll never forget, I was doing the book on AOL with Steve Case, and he was very restrictive. Restricting information is a trick that everybody uses. I'm going to restrict the information, and then you'll be at my beck and call. And at one point during, I had, what I do is I interview hundreds of people. I interview everyone around him. So I get all the stories. And at one point, he said something, I go, no, no, actually, it happened like this. And he's like, oh. And then we did it again. And I was like, no, no, actually, I talked to this person, and this is what happened. And he goes, I have no control over you anymore, do I? And I go, no. That would happen weeks ago. You have no fucking idea. So I use that.

• 11:42Speaker 02

  I use lots more information than other people have. I think I appeal to people's ego sometimes. But I do the opposite version, which is I insult them, which works beautifully.

• 11:52Tim Ferriss?

  That's called negging.

• 11:53Speaker 02

  Negging. I'm a really good negger, but I'm really funny. I'm a funny negger. I don't like, I literally, you know, someone, one of the VCs recently had a facelift and nobody was saying anything, but everyone was talking about it.

• 12:04Tim Ferriss?

  It's just an open secret.

• 12:05Speaker 02

  Wasn't open. It was a terrible facelift. And so, and I went up to him and I went, what the hell's going on with your face? And he goes, what are you talking about? And I said, you had a facelift, clearly, and everyone's talking about it. I'm just asking, because I'm curious why you did that horrible thing to your face. And he's like, I never had a facelift. I'm like, come on, stop. Like, please, stop. What are you doing? And so, I would, I'll do stuff like that. And I think people either like it, like, because I don't, I'm not like purely like, I don't cut them down, but when they say something dumb to me, I immediately go, you've got to fucking be kidding me that you just said that. Or, I was with a, with a tech titan, from your book, Titans. I don't know if he was one of the Titans you talked about, but I've known this person for years.

• 12:49Speaker 02

  And you've known a lot of people before that are billionaires, right?

• 12:51Tim Ferriss?

  Sure.

• 12:51Speaker 02

  Sacco is one that I've known for many years. Oh, I did, I'll tell you the one I did with him. He goes, we were at a party, I don't even think he remembers this, but he was, whenever he'd introduce him to me, I'd go, I'm sorry, I don't remember you. And I did. Like, I did it all the time. And he'd go, Chris, Chris Sacco, we met. I'm like, oh, I'm sorry, I'm just such a, like, I blamed it on myself.

• 13:10Tim Ferriss?

  He pulled a Willy Wonka.

• 13:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:11Tim Ferriss?

  That's all right, that's all right.

• 13:12Speaker 02

  What? I just, I, and he fell for it all the time. And he finally caught on, I think, ultimately. And then I stopped doing it. I just thought it was funny, because it's so easy. You know, or like, you go to, someone was like, oh, I went to Harvard. And I go, where's that? And they're like, Boston, I go, oh, MIT is a great school. And they're like, no, Harvard. I'm like, oh, yeah, I've heard of it. Like, do you know what I mean? Because Harvard people always tell you. So I do, it's stuff like that. And a lot of it, I do try to knock them down to size because I think what happens with Silicon Valley people who've gotten wealthy, who I knew before that, they get licked up and down all day. They really do. Come on, let's, you know what I mean? Like, oh, you're so smart. Oh, and they never think they're wrong and they never can be challenged.

• 13:53Speaker 02

  And I was with another one the other day and they, I said, no, I don't agree with that's wrong. Like, by the way, I was right. And so they're like, whoa. And I'm like, you know, I know you get agreed with all day long, but you know, you're not always fucking right. Like, I'm sorry, I knew you before when you were a normal person and nobody was kissing your ass all day. So I'll get back to the tech titan. So we were talking at, I think it was a TED or something like that, which I, which I sometimes like part of it. I like, I like a lot of it, but there's a lot of self-actualization going on aggressively.

• 14:24Tim Ferriss?

  There's a lot of

• 14:26Speaker 02

  Swan.

• 14:26Tim Ferriss?

  Self-back patting.

• 14:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Like, aren't we great? Well, he overprivileged people. And, and so he started doing the downward facing dog in front of me while I was having a conversation.

• 14:38Tim Ferriss?

  Hold on, just, just for context.

• 14:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:40Tim Ferriss?

  This is not in an ashram or

• 14:42Speaker 02

  No, it was like where the water was in the steel bottles, like the area of steel bottle water, like, because his plastic was horrible. And so, so he started doing, while I was talking, yoga. And I like yoga and it's an appropriate place to do yoga, but I was looking at his ass in these horrible Juicy Couture pants. And I was like, what are you doing? And like, he's like, what are you talking about? And I said, you don't, you know, let's finish our conversation and then you can do your stupid downward facing dog. It's fine. And he's like, well, no one seems to mind. I go, that's because you're a billionaire and they don't tell you, you're an asshole, but you're an asshole. You don't do a downward facing dog in front of someone.

• 15:18Tim Ferriss?

  Especially ass facing.

• 15:20Speaker 02

  I know that. It was like, it was so like, but he had lost all perspective of behavior. Like he, because everybody tolerates it because they want to get on his plane or they want to get, they want something from them. And I think the last part in that vein is I don't want things from people. I don't want their, I don't need their love. I don't need their money. I don't need their acceptance or anything like that. And so I was with another guy who who's a big deal in Hollywood and he's like, you want to come to my party? I'm like, no, I really don't. I'm gonna go to the movies. Like, you know, and I didn't. I wasn't doing it on purpose. I wasn't interested in going to his party. He goes, well, do you want to meet this star? And I'm like, no. And he's like, do you want to meet this star? And I go like, no, like, I don't need to go to their house. I don't get, it doesn't help my life. And literally, he goes, there's nothing I have you want,

• 16:03Speaker 02

  is there? And I go, no, no, I don't even want a prostitute. Like, there's nothing I want. Like, it was like, it was funny. And so I, I think being really self-aware of things that you don't, like, don't get sucked into it has been really effective. And so if they don't have anything to hold over you, you really do have a lot of power.

• 16:21Tim Ferriss?

  It's a huge amount of leverage.

• 16:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:22Tim Ferriss?

  Do you, have you always cared so little what other people think?

• 16:26Speaker 02

  Yes. Yes. That's exactly what you're talking about. I was gonna say, um, you know, I think being gay has given me that gift, uh, in terms of, um, I don't think it's formed everything about me, but again, I grew up in an era where there was a lot of pushback and rejection. And so you either had to say, I like who I am, and I'm gonna keep doing that, and then just not care. And so it sort of created a situation where if I cared what people thought about me being gay, I would have been just crushed. And then I just didn't care about that. And I thought it was actually quite nifty. Like, wow, I'm better than you, kind of thing. And so, um, it just, it, I think it started there. It really did. Cause I knew I was gay when I was four. And I was super happy with it. And I stayed happy with it. And I think a lot of gay people of that era, of my era,

• 17:10Speaker 02

  I'm just, I was at the cusp of it being accepted, um, with a lot of struggle. And the people before me, they had went through terrible times. Um, because it's the only thing your family rejects. You know, if you're black or Jewish, people get antisemitism or racism. Your family does. But your family is the one on the attack many of time, many times for people. And so I think it started with that. And then I think I was just like that. I just didn't care what people thought of me. I don't know why. And it's, it's unusual for a woman, too, because women are particularly... Um, pleasing, try, good girl, try to be pleasing person. And I'm always pressing people not to do that, especially women. Um, I always say, I have a thing where a lot of people come to me and ask me about jobs or what they should do or something like that.

• 17:53Speaker 02

  I try really hard to be mentors to people, um, because I had a lot of great mentors. And, um, although I hate that word. And I always say, they always come to me, like someone came to me recently and said, I've gotten this job offer and this job offer and this job offer. And I said, what do you want to do? And they said, well, this job offer is interesting. And I was like, um, I'm not asking, I didn't ask you that question. I asked you, what do you want to do? And they're like, well, this job. I said, no, no, that's like what's being offered to you. That's, that's over the transom, right? Like, that's not, it's like being in a restaurant and they say, we have chicken, we've got pork, and we've got beef, and you can have one of those. And, do you want spaghetti? Like, maybe you want fucking spaghetti. And so, it was really interesting. And they were like, oh, I never thought of it. Like, why are you taking what's handed to you? What would you like to do?

• 18:36Speaker 02

  And at every point in my life where I have said, what, what pleases me? I always get more successful. I, I don't know if you think this, but you don't, you don't, I don't like to take what's offered to me.

• 18:47Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, I think that, um, and you know who, uh, who made this point to me, has made this point to me over and over again, is Matt Mullenweg.

• 18:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:55Tim Ferriss?

  And when someone says, do you want A or B? He goes, well, that's a false dichotomy.

• 18:59Speaker 02

  Right.

• 18:59Tim Ferriss?

  Or, why not C or D?

• 19:00Speaker 02

  Right.

• 19:01Tim Ferriss?

  Or E?

• 19:01Speaker 02

  Right.

• 19:02Tim Ferriss?

  And, uh, I agree with you a hundred percent. I think that if you're constantly choosing from the multiple choice test.

• 19:08Speaker 02

  Right. It does, and people do that. It's amazing. You sort of fall into relationships, like who offered you a date? Like, who, like, instead of what do you like? Most people I've gone out with, I've decided I'd like to go out with them. You know what I mean? Like, it wasn't as if, like, it's not, um, or what the kind of person I wanted, the kind of thing. And I think it's really, it, it limits your choice, essentially, but at the same time, if you, I'll never forget, um, when I walked out of a building once, I was working on the book about AOL. I was in New York, it was one of those beautiful spring days, and I had been working at the Washington Post, and I was on this trajectory to go way high there. I was doing super well, and I'd taken the time to write this book on AOL, at the beginning of the internet, the beginning of digital stuff. And I remember, um, walking out, and it was bright, bright, bright, and I, and I thought,

• 19:53Speaker 02

  and I really believe in these moments, and I think people have to pay attention to them. And I- I thought, I have to leave the Washington Post. I have to leave. Like, I didn't know.

• 20:02Tim Ferriss?

  It was just an epiphany.

• 20:03Speaker 02

  It was an epiphany. And it wasn't like God, like, boom. It wasn't like that. I was like, no, it's time to go. I've got to do something else. I'm not going to grow. And I remember thinking everyone in the building was in the same seat and they weren't going anywhere. And I remember thinking going in, like, nobody's moving. And I have to move. I have to go. And same thing when I left the journal. It was like, I gotta go. It's time to go. It's not, it's not, I want to do something else that's better for me. I'm becoming difficult with people. I started to get super rude to my bosses, which I do periodically. So I thought, I shouldn't have a boss. Not having a boss is a good idea because it makes me a lesser person. And, and I don't like their opinions, kind of, so.

• 20:41Tim Ferriss?

  If you say had a, it doesn't have to be a woman, but you mentioned having had mentors. If a woman came to you, or one of your sons for that matter, and they cared too much about what other people thought.

• 20:51Speaker 02

  I hate that.

• 20:52Tim Ferriss?

  And they asked for help, though. They said, what should I do? How can I train myself?

• 20:56Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 20:57Tim Ferriss?

  What would you say to them?

• 20:58Speaker 02

  Well, you know, what's interesting, I just had this conversation with someone very close to me yesterday, about, two days ago about this, because they were talking about how social media informs them too much. And how, they said, I wonder if I'm more influenced by the outside or the inside. And I'm worried I'm more, you know, like, photos on Facebook, or people being happy. And, and we had discussed this issue before, and it's absolutely true. That's exactly what was happening. And so, you know, I was like, those pictures are not real. It's not what, you know, people, that's their best side. Like, that doesn't mean what's actually going. There's lots of unhappiness in there, and there's lots of, not just necessarily unhappiness, but it's not true. That's the photo. It's not the true, true thing that's happening. And so, I always, just because I'm a reporter, I know that's not the real story.

• 21:43Speaker 02

  And so I'm always thinking that people are, it's a thing I use a lot. When I was a young reporter, I used to think, what are people lying to me about? And then, to become a great reporter, what are people lying themselves about every day? What do they need to lie about to get through the day? And so, I think that's the stronger thing, and I think people do that all the time. And I think I tell myself the truth a lot. Like, that's not true. I'm not feeling that. I'm, like, today I was mad at someone. I was like, I'm fucking pissed. Like, and I think most people, oh, don't be pissed. Don't be, you know. And so what I tell my sons, because my oldest son is a real pleaser. I really don't like about him. He's really worried about people. Now, he's a teenager.

• 22:22Speaker 02

  I get it, but I was like, what this parent person thinks about you, you are never, 20 years from now, you're not going to remember that person. And it doesn't matter what they think about you. And you will see, it's hard to see into the future, but I promise you, what this person said about you doesn't matter even slightly for a second. And so I don't know how you get out of it. If you start to realize that your best instincts is first yourself and then people you really trust, and even people you really trust don't give you, you know what I mean, like great advice sometimes. If you trust in your own self, you often can not feel bad when people come after you.

• 23:01Tim Ferriss?

  I was chatting just yesterday with this gent I'd been hoping to talk to for decades, Dr. Phil Zimbardo. He's a professor emeritus at Stanford. He ran the Stanford Prison Experiment in 1971.

• 23:15Speaker 02

  Oh, wow. You didn't want to talk to him?

• 23:16Tim Ferriss?

  No, no, I'd dreamed of speaking with him for decades, but hadn't pursued him.

• 23:22Speaker 02

  Right.

• 23:23Tim Ferriss?

  It's gonna sound bad. I thought he was dead.

• 23:24Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 23:25Tim Ferriss?

  He's 83, but he's 83. He's not dead. He's very much alive and busier than ever. But he researches and writes a lot about how to mitigate damaging conformity and subservience to power.

• 23:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:43Tim Ferriss?

  And he brought up this exercise that he calls a deviant for a day. And he said, just get an erasable black marker and draw a square on your forehead and walk around all day and resist the pressure that you're gonna get from everyone to take it off.

• 23:57Speaker 02

  Take it off.

• 23:58Tim Ferriss?

  And he has a series of exercises like this.

• 23:59Speaker 02

  That's a great idea.

• 24:00Tim Ferriss?

  And it reminded me of what Cato, thousands of years ago, used to do. He was considered the perfect Stoic by Seneca, but he would wear, for instance, a tunic. So he would wear clothing that was of an unfashionable color to elicit ridicule from other people deliberately to Develop an immunity.

• 24:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:20Tim Ferriss?

  And he did that just routinely to develop that tolerance.

• 24:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, I do that myself. I wear boys t-shirts and I like them. And so a lot of people like my mom, all these people like, oh, why do you have to? I'm like, fuck you. I like it. And they're like, well, I'm like, no, no, fuck you. I like it. I'm gonna wear it. And I think part of me, I wear it because it bothers people sometimes. Or my glasses, I wear my sunglasses. And I have super bad eyes and I can't wear, I have dry eyes, so I can't wear contacts. It's more information than you need. But, and I have light sensitivity a little. I just don't like bright lights. And so I wear my sunglasses a lot of places and they're always aviators, which people know me for. And people are often, they constantly have to comment when I have them on. Well, do you have to have them on? I'm like, yes, I do. And they don't, they expect me to take them off like that minute. Like, well, can't you take them off? I'm like, no, I can't. Like photographers, like, well, can't you take them off for a second? I go, no, I can't.

• 25:05Speaker 02

  Like, and they're not used to people not being cooperative. Like, and it's, it's really interesting because I really like not being cooperative. It's something I don't want to do. And, and you know, I make jokes now. I'm like, I'm trying to avoid intimacy. Like, you know, stuff like that. So they'll get the fuck off my case. But I'm like, I'm not taking off my fucking glasses. It's not happening. It's not, it's not. But it's really interesting how quickly pressure, like how quickly you do to pressure. And I think I have a, I almost feel sometimes that I'm somewhat too rude. Like, it's, it's not a New Yorker thing. I'm from New York, but it's not that. It's just people try to really impose their opinions on you almost continually. And I just, I have this things that sometimes I say things and I literally say something. I'm like, oh, did I just say that out loud? Like, you're an asshole. And I'm sort of like, whoa, I just said it out loud. And so I, I think

• 25:50Speaker 02

  sometimes I should not do that. Sometimes.

• 25:53Tim Ferriss?

  Well, a few things to underscore. Number one, I will defend your Wolverine shirt any

• 25:57Speaker 02

  day. Isn't it great? There's a new movie coming out.

• 25:59Tim Ferriss?

  Logan. I love Wolverine.

• 26:00Speaker 02

  Oh, so do I. He's so bad.

• 26:02Tim Ferriss?

  And I was so worried, I'll digress for a second since you brought up.

• 26:05Speaker 02

  Please.

• 26:05Tim Ferriss?

  I was so worried as a devout comic book nerd for my entire upbringing, that they were going to cast somebody terrible for Wolverine.

• 26:14Speaker 02

  No, it's perfect.

• 26:14Tim Ferriss?

  Then when they got Hugh, oh my god.

• 26:16Speaker 02

  He's perfect, isn't he? He's perfect. He's perfect. I don't like when they make him cute, though. I like him like really unhappy.

• 26:21Tim Ferriss?

  Gruff and surly.

• 26:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm excited about this next one. I watch those over and over again. Those, I love the movies. The last one wasn't so good, sadly.

• 26:28Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, Hugh, Hugh's a, Hugh's a machine. The, the question I want to ask is, you mentioned the

• 26:36Tim Ferriss?

  Saka story. You mentioned a few things that the downward facing dog story.

• 26:41Speaker 02

  Yeah. Oh, God. I'll never forget that ass.

• 26:46Tim Ferriss?

  That seemed to reflect, and I'd love for you to correct me if this isn't accurate, but an ability to throw people off of autopilot that I would imagine helps you do what you do.

• 26:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. I do. I knock. I do it on purpose. I do it. I do it naturally. I don't think I do it. I don't calculate it. In a story written about me in New York Magazine, Marc Andreessen called it Stockholm Syndrome.

• 27:11Tim Ferriss?

  Where you learn to love your captors.

• 27:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, they love. He goes, I don't understand. She literally will call me up and make me insecure and angry. And I tell her exactly what she wants to know. And he goes, I think it's a Stockholm. I'm not sure what's happening. But, you know, I think I think they don't get challenged, a lot of them, you know what I mean? Like, but then I agree when they're right. Like, I don't go, you're an idiot almost continually. But I do, I think smart, I've said this before, smart people like to be challenged and they like smart people challenging them. And if you all day, you get kind of silly, stupid, puffy questions, you're bored out of your mind. And if someone doesn't agree with you, you grow. Like, oh, why don't they? If they're disagreeing with you just to be disputational, that's different. But if, you know, it was, it was something, I think I was having a meeting with someone at Google about Twitter or something.

• 27:57Speaker 02

  I was just asking questions and they were giving me the pap smear. And pap smear, oh, my God, that's a terrible word. You know, the pap, like, oh, like, and I was like, all right, you don't believe any of that, right? Like, can we get to the actual thing? And it was really funny. That minute I did that, it gave them permission to act like a real person. You know what I mean? And I wasn't going to, the other thing I don't do is I don't use everything. And I talk, I will talk off the record with people for hours and stuff, and I don't use it. I file it away for later. I don't like sneak up on them. I think one of the things that's really effective for a great reporter is they see me coming. They don't, I don't, I'm not a sneaky. I don't. There's no reason. I tell them exactly what I'm going to do. Here's what I'm going to do. The only person I haven't been able to do that with is Marissa Mayer, who won't speak to me. Which to her detriment, she should have spoken to me.

• 28:42Tim Ferriss?

  Well, they've been, I've heard.

• 28:43Speaker 02

  Because I've been accurate, by the way.

• 28:45Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, well, I think in the, was this in the New York Mag piece when they talked about how Yahoo's been able to chart their stock price?

• 28:50Speaker 02

  On me.

• 28:51Tim Ferriss?

  In timing with your pieces.

• 28:52Speaker 02

  Well, you know, they've been accurate pieces.

• 28:54Tim Ferriss?

  Sure.

• 28:55Speaker 02

  Like recently, we broke the story about the, I broke the story about the breach, the first breach. And I heard about it, and this was, this isn't some dumb company she bought and frittered away $10 million, which I, offends me as a shareholder too, but this was a serious breach of people's privacy and everything else. And so I called them, and they never call back, which was, which is, drives me crazy. Like, they could say no, they can't even say no comment. And so I called them and I, I left a message for a PR person and I said, listen, this is fucking serious. I was like, this isn't like a game I'm playing right now. This isn't a dumb little acquisition. This isn't someone leaving. This is 500 million people affected. You need to respond to me. You absolutely have to. And if you don't, like, because they had written me an email that was like, we, we can't respond, we can't respond.

• 29:38Speaker 02

  It wasn't no comment, we can't, you know, we, it was some weird comment. I said, I'm going to print this entire email exchange if you do not call me back. Because I'm going to show how ridiculously badly you're managing your company. Because this is not a little thing. This is a material issue. And they did respond, finally. I was just kind of pissed off. And so I, I really don't, we try really hard to get them to respond and to get them to react to things we, we think are accurate. And by the way, everything we've written has been accurate. And it's turned out exactly the way we said it was because we spent a lot of time analyzing and thinking about how it's going to go. And I think non-engagement, non-response is really the worst thing anybody can do to someone like me.

• 30:21Tim Ferriss?

  How do you, as a very smart, very strong-willed person, elicit honest feedback from people? Or perhaps put another way, who do you rely on to tell you when you're wrong?

• 30:35Speaker 02

  Me?

• 30:35Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 30:35Speaker 02

  Lots of people. I listen, I do listen.

• 30:38Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, no, I'm sure you listen. I just, I can, I can imagine people being intimidated.

• 30:41Speaker 02

  Right. You'd be surprised. People will, I think, because I'm forthright, they become more forthright. I think people don't, like, they suddenly get permission.

• 30:48Tim Ferriss?

  They snap out of the dream.

• 30:49Speaker 02

  They snap out of the game.

• 30:50Tim Ferriss?

  Like, oh, okay, real talk.

• 30:51Speaker 02

  Right. So I often, one, one phrase I use a lot when they say something to me that I think is just not accurate or untrue, or it's sort of half-assed, and I say, I don't believe you. And nobody said, what? What do you mean? You think I'm lying? I'm like, no, I, I just think you're not telling the truth. And so, which is the same thing, right? And, and I think once they start to do that, they, they do calculate that they, they have things to say. And I don't think, I think people worry-

• 31:16Tim Ferriss?

  Could you give, I apologize for interjecting, could you give an example of when you might use that "I don't believe you"?

• 31:21Speaker 02

  Oh, with Steve Jobs, all the time. On the stage. He was, he had, they had gone after a blogger over something, some memo, you know what I mean, that had gotten leaked or something. It was accurate, the memo was accurate, but they went after this small little blog who had written about it. I can't even remember the circum, you never remember the circumstances, these dumb, like, ah, crazy crisis at the time. But they had gone after internal memo, or they'd gotten something, but they were really attacking this small thing. And, and the issue was, the thing was totally accurate. That, that pissed me off. It was accurate. It wasn't like they did something wrong, or something like that. And I was on stage asking about this, and he said, "Well, you know, we have internal

• 32:04Speaker 02

  people, we have other things." And he, and I said, "Would you have done that to me"? And he's like, "What"? And I go, "If I had done it, would you have done it to me and Walt"? And he was like, "No." And I said, "So, you're doing it because they're weak, and you can get them, right"? And he's like, "Yes." You know, it was, he couldn't, there was no other way to put it. He wouldn't have done it to me. A place where I didn't do it this year, and I, I regret it every minute, I was interviewing Sheryl Sandberg at Code this year, and it was about Peter Thiel going after Gawker. And I felt like, you know, I don't agree with what he did, obviously, and I didn't like the secretness of it. I thought that was, if he really felt that way, he should have done it publicly, you know, and not given us lectures about journalism, and then did it on the slide, because if

• 32:49Speaker 02

  he hadn't won, you never would have heard he did it. You know that. So I was like, the secretiveness really got to me. And also, Facebook is supposedly friends to publishers, and here's one of their board members killing off a publisher that didn't just have one property, they had 10 property, and hundreds and hundreds of employees working at other places. So he had no thought to that, right? He just wanted to punish this one property in this, in this media group, and this one man, Nick Denton. And so-

• 33:16Speaker 02

  I just wish he had been honest about what he was doing. You know what I mean? Like, I'm an asshole. I'm gonna go after them because I'm rich as fuck. You know what I mean? Or whatever. Just something that was just a little more honest. And I was interviewing Cheryl, and she said, Peter has, this has nothing to do with him being on the Facebook. It's his thing that he's doing. That's what she said. You know what I mean? It was a perfect Sheryl Sandberg answer. She's real good at them. You know, she's super, she sort of answers, and yet, it's not really. You know what I mean? It's, she's fantastic in her control, self-control of herself. And what I should have said right then is, would you have done it? Because they've attacked you a lot. Would you have done it? I think I would have caught her. Like, I think it would have, she would have been like, she would have had to say no.

• 33:52Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 33:52Speaker 02

  She'd have to say no. And I wanted, I should have gotten on the record saying, no, I would not have. So that would have been kind of, even if I hated them, I wouldn't have done it. So I think that would have, that was a missed opportunity.

• 34:03Tim Ferriss?

  So you mentioned Steve Jobs.

• 34:04Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 34:04Tim Ferriss?

  I'd love to get your take on what the components of a reality distortion field are.

• 34:10Speaker 02

  [laughing]

• 34:11Tim Ferriss?

  Or charisma, just more broadly speaking.

• 34:13Speaker 02

  He definitely, charisma is what I'd say. I think people like to do that reality distortion because you don't have to believe him. Like, everyone was like, oh, I had to believe him. Like, he had some magical kind of like mojo. I, I didn't find him that way at all. He was just doing his thing, and he was better at it than other people. You know, I think he was, he was persuasive, I would say, and he was charismatic, aggressively charismatic, I guess. He was also certain all the time. You know what I mean? Whatever he would say. One time on stage, he said, I said, are you gonna do, Walter, I said, are you gonna do a phone? And he said, absolutely not. I'm not good at jumping through, jumping through orifices, which is a great word. You know he had thought about it. Like, because you don't come up with orifice easily. And, and it was like, I don't like to jump through assholes. That's really what he was saying, in a really clever way. And literally, the next year, he introduced the iPhone.

• 34:58Speaker 02

  So it was like, you're a fucking liar. Like, and we, we were like, you lied. And he's like, I did. You know what I mean? It was like, he didn't hide it. Like, I didn't lie, but he didn't even go, I didn't lie precisely. He, he knew what he did. Because they'd been working, they'd been clearly working on it. So, but he went out of his way to lie. Like, that was my favorite part. And so, people sometimes got offended, but I didn't care. Like, he was a showman. He was, you know, didn't matter. I think one of the things that people got wrong about him, and, you know, he was difficult. I didn't work with him, so I didn't know, you know, he definitely had a temper, and had opinions, and very strong opinions. It could be very cutting, but so can a lot of people. I don't think he was any more than anybody else, necessarily. He's just more famous, and therefore, people note it. But he, um...

• 35:42Speaker 02

  I used to think, you know, people were like, he was heartless. They always said, he's heartless, heartless. I think he had too much heart. That's, you know what I mean? Like, he cared too much. And so he had so much heart that he just couldn't stand it when things weren't right. And I think that was more of a, when I started looking at him that way, it made a lot of more sense to me. And I, again, I didn't know him personally very well. I knew him, I interviewed him eight or nine, 10 times. And Walt knew him much better. But I think he just had a lot of heart and it was overwhelming to him. He had a lot of feelings and he'd never hid them. And one time when we were backstage together, I had just, I had had, I have a son and my partner Meghan, at the time, we both, we have two kids, same father, we each had a baby. And he asked a lot of questions

• 36:26Speaker 02

  about it, like, who, do you know the father? Do you know, like, it was unusual. Most tech people don't ask me personal questions. And he was really curious. And I, then I realized, of course, he was foster, he was a, he was adopted and he had lost his, he didn't know his parents. And this was, he told the story of what happened, about finding his father, not liking his father. This is way before the Walter Isaacson book. And he, there was a fascinating story that he told better than it ever was told after he died, about how he found his parents. And he said, you know, your, your, your parents are not, and he talked about hurting, his parents being hurt by his, adopted parents being hurt by his

• 37:07Speaker 02

  seeking the parents, which is totally understandable. And that your, your biological parents aren't necessarily your parents. It was this whole thing. It was fascinating. And, and that you should not, I shouldn't let my kids look for the father necessarily. And it was, it was so unusual. And it wasn't unwelcome. It was really interesting. Because I didn't know him that well. But it was, he was so passionate and heartfelt about it. And then he hugged us all. It was so strange. And I think he was probably in an emotional period around his illness at the time. But it was really fascinating because he was like, your parent isn't your parent. And You should not think that. And one of the things that struck me, I'll never forget, he talked about how he was the only, the good thing that came out of it is he met his sister,

• 37:52Speaker 02

  his full sister, because his parents had had a child after they put him up for adoption. And you really got insight into him because you thought, they never went back for him, did they? You know, they had another kid, so it was even more troubled. And so you do understand that it had to inform, I mean, maybe he would poo poo that, but I think it had to inform him, the anger of not being left behind. And interestingly enough, he was very close friends with Larry Ellison, who had a similar experience with his mother, who left him with, he told me a story of that. And it was really, I do spend a lot of time thinking about people's past, like, and how it impacts them going forward.

• 38:26Tim Ferriss?

  I never met Steve, but I heard a story that reflects him being a man of strong emotions, but at points, really caring for people. He, this was from an old timer at Apple. I was at, I was in Cupertino, and he said, I see that ATM over there. We're having lunch. I go, yeah, I see the ATM. And there was at one point, there was a story going around about Steve, because this extremely overweight guy who's 300 and something pounds was getting money out of the ATM. And he heard, what are you doing to yourself? You're killing yourself. And he turned around, it was Steve Jobs.

• 39:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:02Tim Ferriss?

  And Steve said, this is my office's number. I want you to call. We're getting you a trainer. You can't do this to yourself.

• 39:06Speaker 02

  Yeah. I love that. I see, I don't mind that. I didn't mind. I mean, you know, he definitely had difficulties. And there's all kinds of things. People like to tear people down. He didn't hide his, he didn't fake any, like, he never pretended he wasn't kind of an asshole sometimes. So I kind of like that. I like people like that. And so people always say, oh, he wasn't as big a hero. I said, I don't think he's a hero. I think he's fascinating. Like, it's, we tend to try to, like, cartoonize people, you know what I mean? And not make them complex and let them have complexity. And I think one of the reasons, again, another reason I'm a good reporter, is I understand complexity and that there's a lot of different personalities at once. And I love that. I did that recently. I was in a, I say things right out loud. Again, I was at an airport, someone in front

• 39:48Speaker 02

  of me was, who was overweight, was, and I shouldn't have done this, but I wasn't calling them fat. I just didn't want them to do it. And they said, They said, "What do you want?" He go, "I'm not gonna have the crueler. Give me the muffin 'cause it's healthy." And I went, "No, it's not." And they're like, "What?" I said, "It's full of sugar, carbs." I said, "It's so much more collag-- just like, get the candy bar. Just get the candy bar. If you want sugar, just get the fucking candy bar. It's better. It tastes better. You don't want that bran muffin 'cause it sucks for you." And I literally was like...

• 40:14Tim Ferriss?

  (laughing)

• 40:15Speaker 02

  And she's like, "What? It's not your business." I said, "No, I just don't want you to, like, don't eat it." Like, "Please, just have the candy. I know you want sugar, so go for it." And I wasn't anti-- I'm like, "I'm not anti-sugar. I should be anti-sugar." But it was like, really fascinating. And I just literally was-- I did the same thing. And I'm thinking, "Okay, I gotta shut up." But then I didn't want her to eat it. Like, you know what I mean? 'Cause I could see, like, the steps, you know? So I kinda liked that, that he did that.

• 40:40Tim Ferriss?

  Have you ever hit someone too hard in coverage or story?

• 40:46Speaker 02

  Physically, I never have.

• 40:46Tim Ferriss?

  No, not physically.

• 40:48Speaker 02

  Not yet, not yet.

• 40:49Tim Ferriss?

  In a story and regretted it or on stage?

• 40:51Speaker 02

  Um, no.

• 40:53Tim Ferriss?

  No, okay.

• 40:54Speaker 02

  No, no. No, I actually do hold back. I mean, a good one with Marisa Mayer is I knew-- remember that story when she slept through the meeting, got a ton of thing? I had that story. I didn't write it. I thought she might be pregnant. I've been tired and pregnant before. I thought she just overslept. Um, I thought it was sexist, 'cause a lot of Google Mail executives skip meetings all the time and nobody gives a fuck. I've held back on stories. That was one I held back on. You'd never know that. But I thought it was-- it wasn't-- same thing with, um, a lot of that stuff around her diva-ness, like, calling her a veta. I never came across that. Nor would I write it. You know what I mean? I wouldn't-- I tend to-- anything that's personal and not pertinent, I don't put in. Like, and I know a lot of stuff.

• 41:36Speaker 02

  So I think, no, I actually don't do the hits. I will only hit on their financial performance. Um, every now, I can make a joke, you know what I mean? Like Jerry Yang, I said, "Raise the Yang Tannic." Like, I have funny headlines, but, you know, they're funny. They're meant to be funny, not necessarily cruel. I don't think-- I don't think anything I've written is necessarily cruel.

• 41:57Tim Ferriss?

  And I don't have anything in mind. I'm just throwing.

• 41:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't. I have to go back. I'm sure someone could find something. I think trample thin skin is funny. You know what I mean? I think it's funny. It's funny. So I tend to go for funny more than stuff like that. And, you know, I think people, I just did a recent piece about Peter Thiel when he was giving that idiotic speech at the National Press Club, and everyone just typed it, like, just typed what he said. And I didn't. I said, he says this, and he, you know, he talks about privacy, and he's invested in, his money is made from two of the most privacy attacking companies around, Facebook and Pal. Like, come on. Like, let's just give some context. So I think, I don't think I let people get away with things. I don't think, I'm trying to go, it's cruel. I can't think of them. No.

• 42:38Tim Ferriss?

  Do you remember the first, the first piece, the first story that you were involved with where you thought to yourself, I think I could really be good at this. I think I could do this full time. I mean, was there a moment?

• 42:50Speaker 02

  A lot of them. I was pretty good. I won the, it sounds crazy. I won something called the Bun Award, B U N, Best Buns, in college when I was a freshman in the newspaper. It was won by a senior, and I won it as a freshman. And I remember thinking, yeah, I'm really good.

• 43:03Tim Ferriss?

  What was the, would you write?

• 43:04Speaker 02

  I wrote a columns. I wrote columns on college life and stuff like that. And they were funny, and they were pointed. And, you know, I didn't let the Jesuits get away with as much as other people did. And so I think, I think when I called the Washington Post, it's a pretty famous story of me calling Larry Kramer, who was the Metro editor at the time, and I had covered a story that they had covered, and theirs was full of errors, and it made me mad. I called him and said, you suck. I could do it. And he goes, do you think you could do it better? I said, I absolutely could. And I went down, and I got a job. I mean, he hired me on the spot. So that kind of thing worked out well. Sometimes, I think I wrote a series of stories for the Washington Post, and Ben Bradley loved them. So that was like, the best thing ever. Talk about crack, you know, having him come over and go, great job, kid. Like, that was like, ah, this is my dream. And it wasn't

• 43:48Speaker 02

  Watergate, but I was writing about a family, I covered retail, and there was a family in Washington called the Hafns. And I did a great job covering their fighting. It was like, I wrote it like King Lear, like it was King Lear. And so I did do it. It was a great job. I really got to the emotions and the complexity and Power and money and there was sex involved. And so it was a great story and I wrote it that way. And I remember, and it was my natural instinct to do it. Like, young reporters didn't do that. And, and I remember him saying, he wanted to know every day what the next chapter was. And I, I began to see that I was super good at narrative, um, which I think reporters aren't. They don't think of it as an ongoing story. So I approach a lot of stories like narratives. Um, like what's the next chapter? And so when he would come in every day and say, what's, what he got for me today? Like, he wanted to know.

• 44:32Speaker 02

  I thought that was a really powerful way to tell stories. So I thought I was good at it from the beginning.

• 44:36Tim Ferriss?

  If you were, and maybe you've taught, I, I don't know offhand, I apologize. But if you were to teach a college freshman seminar in journalism or writing.

• 44:46Speaker 02

  I'm a terrible teacher, but yeah, I did, I taught at Berkeley and I was terrible.

• 44:49Tim Ferriss?

  Why were you terrible?

• 44:50Speaker 02

  Cause I was like, they, they didn't know how to do it. Like, they'd be like, well, how do I do something? I'm not gonna tell you, I learned all by myself, no one taught me. Like, I'm a terrible person, I'm just the worst teacher. I'm just, it's just not my nature.

• 45:01Tim Ferriss?

  Okay, let me, let me, I could take a different angle.

• 45:03Speaker 02

  All right, okay.

• 45:04Tim Ferriss?

  If you were to recommend any, any books, any books to people who are aspiring writers or journalists, are there any that come to mind?

• 45:13Speaker 02

  Um, it's Drunk and White, The Elements of Style, as always. Yeah, I reread it every year. It's a great book, it still is. Um, I think anything by Joan Didion in the early years, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, The White Album are two of my favorite books. Slouching Towards Bethlehem, I read over and over and over again, like three or four times a year, it's so beautifully constructed. She's so wise. She also taught, she involves herself in the stories a little bit more and, and, and has a, has a, is very descriptive. I, I am remembering, when you said, what do you remember? I remember I wrote a story about this come in Washington, when I was at the Washington Post, about a really expensive, just all of a sudden, these luxury grocery stores were getting started. This was not a thing, many men, now they're everywhere. But I covered retail and I said, and my lead, which they didn't want to keep, but I insisted on, was here in the land of the $4 tomato.

• 45:59Speaker 02

  And I loved it. I thought it was funny.

• 46:01Tim Ferriss?

  It was a good lead.

• 46:01Speaker 02

  It was, wasn't it? And the best lead I ever wrote, and I'll never write a better lead than this. Again, I knew, it always worked and a lot of people didn't want me to put it on there. So I, trusting my own instincts on what people like. I was writing about Discovery, which had just gotten started in Washington, the Discovery Channel. This was many years ago and the founder was a guy named John Hendrix. And he, he founded it and he was trying to get on cable systems. And it was all about how he tried to get on cable systems. And at the time, it was super hard to rely on John Malone and stuff like that. And that's kind of a boring, dry story. And I said, what, what's been the secret to your success? Like you do, I ask, what's been the thing that's worked for you? And he goes, sharks and Nazis, Nazis and sharks. Thank God for Nazis and sharks. Because they have Nazi Shark Week and Nazi.

• 46:48Speaker 02

  And I made that the lead. Sharks and Nazis, Nazis and sharks. Thank God for Nazis and sharks. It was literally the best quote I've ever gotten. I'll never get a quote like that again.

• 46:58Tim Ferriss?

  I thought it was gonna be a haiku.

• 46:59Speaker 02

  No, it was like, ah, you're right, Nazis and sharks. But the juxtaposition of Nazis and sharks and not, people love Nazi document. You know, you can't get enough Nazi documentaries, right? People can't. There's something with Nazi documentaries and sharks.

• 47:11Tim Ferriss?

  Or movies in general.

• 47:12Speaker 02

  You gotta watch them. And then sharks are the same thing. So they had Shark Week. And so then I got into the, what happened when Shark Week and Nazi Week happened. So from a business point of view, but it was, it was, that was super good. That was a super good day. But a lot of people didn't want me to do it, which was interesting. And the same thing happened at the Wall Street Journal. Years later, there was a guy named Greg Zachary, who really helped me there. He probably doesn't even remember. But I had, I had been trying to, to differentiate myself. So I wrote a story about, I was trying to get to the culture of Silicon Valley. And this, nobody was covering Silicon Valley then in the early, in 1995, six, something like that, seven, maybe. And I was trying to get to the culture because I thought the culture was super important, not just the business stories. The drive, Yahoo today earns much money.

• 47:56Speaker 02

  And I wrote, everywhere I went, they'd all, two things they did. One was they, whenever I'd go out with them, they'd take me to a crappy taco place. They'd never take me to a real restaurant. I was like, what is wrong with these people? And so I wrote a story about their favorite places to eat. Like this is an unusual culture. They're not like, unlike Hollywood moguls or Wall Street moguls. These people eat at taco joints.

• 48:14Tim Ferriss?

  Not taking Espagos.

• 48:15Speaker 02

  No, but it was taco joints. And so I did a whole thing of taco joints that they, that these up and coming Mark Andreessen or Jerry Yang or Joe Kraus at the time at Excite. And then I wrote another one about their idiotic titles they had to put on themselves. I said, I thought it reflected them, like a lot. They had like Chief Yahoo or Chief Experience Officer. It's some, you know how those dumb titles?

• 48:33Tim Ferriss?

  Sure.

• 48:34Speaker 02

  They have a bunch of dumb fucking titles. And so I wrote a story and the jour-, it wasn't quite like the journal to do that. They were much more, you know what I mean? And Greg just lied and got him in. Like, we're gonna publish these and we're gonna tell them it was approved. Do you know what I mean? Like, he was a pretty powerful reporter at the time and I, I learned a lot from that. Like, fuck 'em. You're gonna like shove that thing right in there. And so I liked that. I liked, he was really helpful to me in that regard.

• 48:59Tim Ferriss?

  What, you, you've been involved with a lot of live events.

• 49:01Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 49:02Tim Ferriss?

  What makes a great event?

• 49:05Speaker 02

  Well, it's theater. People don't think of it as theater. You know, I'm a big theater fan. Um, I used to write a column about theater for the Washington Post on the side. I love theater. And when I, I went from when I was a kid and my mom took me to all kinds of live events. And especially Broadway and stuff like that.

• 49:19Tim Ferriss?

  Any favorite shows?

• 49:20Speaker 02

  All of them. There's nothing I don't like on stage. Um, well, that's not true. There was a rollerblade show that Andrew Lloyd Webber did that was just awful. Um, but it was good in its ridiculousness. Um, you know, I love Angels in America. I've seen it dozens and dozens of times. Um, I love every iteration of Angels in America. And it was long. Remember it was three hours or whatever. Um, I love, um, I did like Hamilton a lot. I was not expecting, I was expecting it not to be as good as I thought it was wonderful. It was very traditional, more, even though it's rap, it was a traditional musical. Um, I liked everything. I liked stage work a lot. And so I think about, again, the narrative of a conversation. Like, you're, you're not, a lot of people ask a question, get an answer. Ask a question, get an answer.

• 50:01Speaker 02

  I have a conversation, um, and it's a narrative conversation and not a, like, it's storytelling. It's, um, I, I come at different, ask questions that people don't expect, like, um, and, and questions that people wanna know. And I don't, it's not Oprah-like, but it's, she's real good. She's, she's an amazing interviewer. Um, and, you know, one time with Steve Jobs, I'll never forget, and I think people remember it to this day, this question. Um, uh, she, she goes, he, he said something and, and it was right near the end, right near. We did the interview months before he died and he was quite, it was interesting. So you'd see him better and worse over the years at Code. If you look at the pictures, there's one year where he's quite, has, has some weight on him. Another year, none of the last year, he was just skeletal.

• 50:44Speaker 02

  And it was sad, but at the same time, he had more vibrance than anybody on that stage. I'll tell you that. That was, was, was really striking. And a lot of people, when someone's dying or sick, try to pretend that's not what's happening. Do you know what I mean?

• 50:57Tim Ferriss?

  Definitely.

• 50:58Speaker 02

  Like, let's pretend you're not very, very ill here. And I asked two questions I thought people did remember, and I said, "What do you do all day? What's this Steve Jobs day like? I just wanted to know. I just was like, he's gonna be dead soon, or he looks very sick. And what does he do all day? Like, you were asking, like, about people's, what do they do the first 10, 20, 60 minutes of day? I wanted to know. Like, what does he do? Does he get up? Does he eat breakfast? And he answered it. It was great. It was like, it was really great. And then, and then I asked, "What are you gonna do with the rest of your life?" And everyone was like, "Oh, sharp intake of breath. Like, can't you care? That's insensitive." I was like, "I wanna know." And he had a wonderful answer. It was about television, of all things. He wanted to change television.

• 51:43Speaker 02

  And it was so great that he, that he had that ambition when it was possibly clear he was, who knows when people are gonna die, but he looked real ill. And so, he just started to come alive, talk about television, how to change television. He was great. It was like, and, you know, Walter told me later, when he talked to him on the phone right near, before he died, he was still talking about how it pissed him off, and it was great. He lived right up until he died. And so, I really, like, not asking the questions that you really wanna know. I think reporters, people on stage, don't do that. And so, you know, when I wanna know something, I'm just curious, you know? And I also treat them like people, not potenites, you know what I mean? Like, I imagine every day they have problems like I do.

• 52:25Speaker 02

  And so, I think I don't, I don't treat, I'll treat the president the same as I would a janitor I'm interviewing. So, and I'm not rude to the janitor, I'm not rude to the president. And so, that's one thing that's useful.

• 52:37Tim Ferriss?

  Do you have any particular routines, or...?

• 52:42Tim Ferriss?

  Habits, rituals, on a daily basis or otherwise?

• 52:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, unfortunately, you know, we were just talking before on my podcast about, you know, picking up the phone. I gotta stop that. I know, I feel it. I feel that I'm really wasting my time. It's addictive and I'm not an addictive personality. I don't drink, I don't take drugs. I won't go into sex, but, but it's, that's possibly the most addictive part of my personality, but I don't, I have to stop. It's, it's sucking time away, you know, and it's such a cliche, but it truly is. There's something happening to my brain that's getting rewired. It's dopamine, I think. It must be, right? Dopamine?

• 53:17Tim Ferriss?

  It's, yeah, there's dopamine involved. There's also serotonin involved in, say, social media hits and so on.

• 53:23Speaker 02

  But it doesn't feel good. It's not a feel-good feeling. It's not, it's not pleasing. So like, when you have a cookie, I'm happy. Like, it's kind of interesting or something or ice cream. Like, you know, you can, like, when I, my kid, for the first time, I'll never forget giving him ice cream for the first time. You know, he tasted it and you could see his, "What? What? Oh, my God." Like, you could see the, like, and it was like physical, it was mental, it was everything. You don't get pleasure from this stuff. I'm not happier. Like, it's, it's entertaining and it's addictive. And so I feel like I have to stop that. I'm, I've got to figure out how to do it because I do have a job where people do have to get in touch with me and sometimes immediately. So I'm trying to figure out, like, the ding ding of your phone. Like, I try to turn on the thing and

• 54:06Speaker 02

  I don't want to hear from people. And I think I've got to correct things because I fill up my days way too much. Like, I feel like I'm over-scheduled.

• 54:15Tim Ferriss?

  No, you, you may be over-scheduled. At the same time, you've been extremely effective in your work and what, and your career.

• 54:25Speaker 02

  I'm super productive.

• 54:26Tim Ferriss?

  And you've made choices along the way to break from certain things, start new projects.

• 54:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, always. I always break.

• 54:33Tim Ferriss?

  So how do you choose, if you could walk us through your thought process, how you choose which projects to take on or which to say no to?

• 54:41Speaker 02

  Well, it's interesting. I think people go through, and maybe you disagree with this, people go through creative periods.

• 54:45Tim Ferriss?

  I agree.

• 54:46Speaker 02

  Do you know what I mean? Like, this month, I'm really creative. I don't know what happened. I've started a column and it's really good. And someone just said, what happened to you? And there's some things that went on in my life, but I don't know what. It just, I do know, I have some ideas, but it's, it's, it's really interesting to go through those periods. And just, right now, I'm not saying no to any idea because it's super creative. And so I feel like, all this time, I'm fond of really, I have an idea for a book, finally, that I, like, people are always trying to get me to write books. And part of me is like, oh, I'm writing another book, like Uber, like, with Yahoo. And then I'm like, want to shoot myself in the eye. Like, I could write that in my sleep, but I don't want to do it. I just, I declined to do it. And so I have an idea that just suddenly hit me. And I was like, I'm gonna do this. So I was doing that. And then we're working

• 55:30Speaker 02

  on a TV show, and I'm kind of interested in it.

• 55:32Tim Ferriss?

  So you're saying, you said no to the, say, the Uber or Yahoo?

• 55:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, I've had for the past couple of months. I get offered all the time books.

• 55:40Tim Ferriss?

  If you got offered that book in January, would you have said yes?

• 55:44Speaker 02

  No.

• 55:45Tim Ferriss?

  Why not? What's the thought? Just not stimulating?

• 55:47Speaker 02

  I'd be myself. I'd be bored out of my, I couldn't do it. You know when you can't, I actually don't do things I can't do. Years ago, I had an assignment for Glamour magazine, write 10 things, 10 interesting people. I couldn't do it. I like, refused to do it. It was weird. And I was like, well, if I can't do it, I can't do it. And it was a lot of money. So money doesn't motivate me. So that's hard. And it doesn't, never did, and it doesn't anymore because I got plenty. So it's not like, I've got to be interested in it. Or it's, you know, sometimes I like things because it makes me famous. I like being famous. Like, you know what I mean? Like, maybe that's my motivation. Or I like getting, being notorious, or whatever is the thing that pleases me is what, what you have to respond to, or that is an interesting puzzle or a question. So it has to, like, this book is a really, I want to know about it. It's the thing, I haven't really, soon

• 56:32Speaker 02

  people will know what it is, but I want to know about it. And that's why I want to do it, because I'm interested in it. And so, and with a TV show, I really want to figure out how to do a TV show. I know it sounds dumb, but I love television, and I've always wanted to do something. And we have this great relationship with NBC and there's all kinds of opportunities. I'm not going to get this opportunity too much with a column. I don't know why I'm Trump. I'm pissed about Trump. I am. Can't stand him. And I'm not, I'm trying to channel it in a way that's not quite as hateful as I feel, as many people feel. Because you shouldn't react to idiots, but you know, he really does. There's something about him that's an er feeling about everything that you might dislike in retrograde people. So

• 57:14Speaker 02

  I had to channel it in a really effective, funny, interesting way. And then with, I think it comes from, you know, it sounds like morbid, but my dad died when he was 34 from a cerebral hemorrhage. Just died, just pretty quickly.

• 57:29Tim Ferriss?

  So unexpected.

• 57:30Speaker 02

  Very, very. Three kids, thought he was on his way. He had just left the Navy. He was a poor guy. Navy put him through medical school. He had just gotten a job as head of anesthesia at Brooklyn Jewish Hospital. So he was headed out to, he'd just bought a new house. Like, everything was starting. Just died. That was it. Super affected me. Like, you can't believe, like, it just creates a situation. There's a thing where people whose parents died when they were young become highly functional. I think that's, there's actually a Stanford professor who's written a lot about this. Nothing bothers you. Like, war? Pestilence? I don't care. I've survived my parents' death. And because when you're that young and someone dies, it's like as if half the people you know died, right? Because they're the people you depend on. He was a wonderful parent. And so, very attentive,

• 58:15Speaker 02

  very loving. Those are my memories. And they are true. They're actually accurate. And so I think it's always made me think I'm going to die young. You know what I mean? Like, it just does. It's just, it's not, it's not, there's not that much complexity to it psychologically speaking. So my brothers and I are all incredibly successful. We're very functional. Like, we're very, we really do, we don't get bogged down a lot. After I turned 34, I felt better. Do you know what I mean? Like, once I passed that landmark. But where it really hit me is in two places. One was when my son was five, and I realized how well he knew me. You know, I don't remember a lot of my five. You remember little snatches and memories. I've always wanted to get hypnotized to have better memories, but I'm not so sure that'll even work.

• 58:59Speaker 02

  But he knew me incredibly well at five. Like, we were very close. We had conversations. So I must have had that, and I don't remember it, but it was devi- I remember being devastated at the time.

• 59:09Tim Ferriss?

  When you had that realization?

• 59:11Speaker 02

  That he knew me so well, I realized how devastated I was. Like, oh, my God, look what I lost. You know what I mean? So I lost that relationship, and it was more significant than I can recall. Because I can't, you tend to like, just like, eh, you can't remember. You just can't remember. There's only so many things you remember. And I don't remember last week. And so I remember being very devastated by like, for me, for me as a five-year-old. You know what I mean? And I never let myself feel that way when I was younger, most of my life. And so I really was like, wow, that really did hurt me. And it was a good realization, like, to not think you're not weak, you know, or you got hurt. And so, again, that's not something I had any control over. It wasn't cruel parent. It wasn't abuse. It wasn't, it just was a bad thing that happened. The second thing is when I had a stroke, which is five years ago. I don't know if you know this.

• 59:57Speaker 02

  I had a stroke in, on my way to Hong Kong. I was going for a code, all things D Asia, D Asia. And I was flying in coach and should have not been flying in coach. And I didn't get up from my seat. I didn't drink water. I'm like the ad for-

• 1:00:10Tim Ferriss?

  It's the deep veins, right?

• 1:00:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. And so I, as it turns out, I also had a hole in my heart, which 20% of the human race has, apparently, I was told. And it's called a PFO. Interestingly, a lot of people, so they have them, later told me they had them. And it's super common, but this was like a hole in one. And it also turns out, from doing 23andMe, that I have, Anne Wojcicki called me in Hong Kong after it happened and told me, said, "You need to look at your report, because you have this blood disorder." It's also very common. It's called Mediterranean blood. It's thick, thick blood, essentially. My family's Italian. And so I had all these things that I didn't know, and they all conspired to have a stroke. I had a stroke. And I was working away, writing about Yahoo. Someone had laughed. I'm like, oh, this fucking place is like a disaster.

• 1:00:52Speaker 02

  And I said it out loud, and I came out garbled, super garbled. And I was like, oh, that's weird. And I had suffered from migraines. I thought it was like a migraine. I was tired, and I'd landed, and I didn't go to sleep. And, and so I, so I kept typing, and then I went to eat a strawberry, and it fell out of my mouth. And I was like, oh, that's weird. And then I felt a tingling and that was it. That was the entire range of symptoms. I couldn't speak. Strawberry finger. So I couldn't call anyone to tell anyone about this because I was like, hmm, this is odd. Like, I wasn't totally disturbed, but I was like, this is unusual. Perhaps it's just a bad headache. And I wrote an email to my brother, who's a doctor who followed my father's footsteps. And he was asleep because the time difference was odd.

• 1:01:36Speaker 02

  It was a different time difference. And then I went up to breakfast. I took a shower. I literally didn't do anything. I'm like the worst. I'm like the ad for not what not to do when you have a stroke. And I, by the time I got to breakfast, I was speaking as if I had, you know, dental work. Hi, how you doing?

• 1:01:52Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:01:53Speaker 02

  So it was coming back pretty quickly. I was like, oh, see, it's just a weird muscle thing. And my brother called me and said, you need to get to a hospital. You're having a stroke. And I'm like, oh, come on, you terrible doctor. I like consulted him. I was like, that's ridiculous. I'm young, you know, I was in my 40s. And he's like, please just do me a favor and go get an MRI, not a CAT scan. Tell them this. Please go right now. And I was like, all right. Went to the hospital and turns out I was having a stroke, which was amazing, which was like, ah. And I was, it was sort of like I was outside of myself while I was having it.

• 1:02:19Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:20Speaker 02

  And I wasn't, and I was, by the time I got to hospital, I'm talking like this. So there was, I wasn't feeling bad. I wasn't tired. I, there was no, there were no anything.

• 1:02:28Tim Ferriss?

  Symptoms.

• 1:02:28Speaker 02

  Nothing. But they did the CAT scan, the MRI, and it turned out I was having, I had had one or had just finished one. And you could see, it was really, I was fascinated by this. I should have been so fascinated. But you could see the blood going around the clot. Like, it was, it was so cool, though. Your body just did it.

• 1:02:44Tim Ferriss?

  Cool and terrifying.

• 1:02:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, but your body fixed it. Like, your body found another, like, you're in traffic.

• 1:02:49Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:02:49Speaker 02

  You're in traffic and you find another route. It found another route to get the blood through. And so, and I remember it, all the people in China, they have things over their faces, right? All the time in the hospitals they do, which is disturbing. It's sort of weird. And the doctor said, you had a stroke. And it's the first time I got upset because I thought about my kids. I thought my kids without me, this is going to be horrible for them. And then I remembered how horrible it was for me and I had like a flash, like a trigger. It was like such amazing. I didn't get upset any other time during that process and I started crying just then because I thought about my kids. So it was really, it was quite a month. And since then, I have been like. I've always been like this. It's tripled and quadrupled my determination to do whatever I wanted to do and keep going.

• 1:03:30Tim Ferriss?

  What would you like to be remembered for?

• 1:03:33Speaker 02

  Um, I wonder if I will be. I think being forthright and honest. I think being, um, I think the reason I've done really well is because I, people are so tired of pushing themselves down in good ways and bad ways. And I think part of the Trump thing, I hate to say I'm like Donald Trump, but of course, because I think he lies all the time. So he does it and lies all the time. But I think he's sort of id, right? He just is id, pure id. There's no superego stopping anything. And it's just whatever comes to his mind, he just says, sort of thing. And I admire nothing about him, but I do think that's fascinating, like the ability to do it. So I'd like to be remembered for someone who told the truth, or tried to tell the truth, and tried to make people understand things

• 1:04:18Speaker 02

  a little better without all the useless frippery we go around doing. Do you know what I mean?

• 1:04:26Tim Ferriss?

  Definitely.

• 1:04:26Speaker 02

  You know, I think that would be good. I'd like to be known as a good parent. I think I am a good parent. I, it's funny, because people are like, oh, you shouldn't say that. I'm like, why? I'm a good parent. Like, I have great kids. Like, it's funny, because people always want to insult their kids. It's weird.

• 1:04:39Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:40Speaker 02

  And they're like, you know, you say, how are your kids? I'm like, my kids are great. And they're like, oh, I said, no, they're remarkable kids. They're wonderful. And they're like, oh, well, everyone has problems. I'm like, no, I don't. Like, you know, people, you know, it's funny. So I think I have, I'm really pleased with my kids. I'm really, and our parent, and Meghan's in my parenting. I'm very, I'm very proud of that. And they, like, last night, my son, Alex, called and he was crying over the Obama speech. He's 11. And was crying, was really crying. And he was like, I can't cry, I'm a guy. Like, you know what I mean? And I was like, I was so proud that he was crying. I know, it sounds dumb, because he was super upset and I shouldn't be like, I didn't want him to be comforted. I want him to feel, I want him to feel that feeling of being so disappointed about what's happened politically. And it was good for him. It was, and I really

• 1:05:25Speaker 02

  loved that he felt like he could do that. That was one thing. And then my other son, Louis, who has a much easier time in life in general, because he's like the happiest kid ever known. He was born happy. He remains happy. He, so far, knock on wood. And he,

• 1:05:41Speaker 02

  He and I talked a lot. They live away from me right now because Meghan's working for President Obama and I go back and forth and I miss them a great deal. So we talked a lot over the holidays and he's 14 now, almost 15. So we really can have great conversations and sometimes he says dumb things, but we have great arguments and stuff like that and I say dumb things. It just was really lovely to talk to him because it was really, I really enjoyed spending time with him. I don't think a lot of people enjoy spending time with their kids, you know what I mean? I'd rather be with him than other people because he's super interesting and has a great mind. And I was sad about something and I hadn't said anything to him. I don't involve him in everything. Like, some people tell their kids too much stuff. And I said, "It's been really nice talking to you. I've been a little sad,

• 1:06:26Speaker 02

  but now I feel bad." He goes, "All I said was, 'I know.'" What a great kid, right? You know what I mean? Like, I thought it was really, I was very moved by it because I felt like he was so mature that he just was, he didn't have to like over talk it. He just, you know what I mean? I know. Like, it was great. And it was, that was all he said. And I was like, I was so proud of me and him for, you know, getting to that, to be a really smart young man. And he really is.

• 1:06:50Tim Ferriss?

  What are the, what are the keys to good parenting for you?

• 1:06:54Speaker 02

  It's hard because you'd be surprised, but Meghan and I are not very hard on them on school. I find the obsession with school and achievement to be disturbing. We do not push that. Meghan more than I do, but I really don't. I'm like, "You don't need to know that. You don't need to know that." Like, I'm always like, "This is useless. Don't even bother. Go for a walk." Like, I want them to go outside more, you know what I mean? Like, so I think the obsession with making your life better through your children, I think, is really demented. And you see it all over the place. You see it really on these kids.

• 1:07:24Tim Ferriss?

  Vicarious living through your kids.

• 1:07:26Speaker 02

  Well, more than that, the achievement, like pushing them. When you know full well it doesn't matter. Like, most of my schooling, it doesn't matter. Like, seriously, doesn't matter. I had an argument with one of his teachers recently. They were doing some homework assignment and they were like, I was like, this is stupid. And they were like, no, it's not. I'm like, no, it is. Trust me. It's stupid. You don't need it. And by the way, I'm more successful than you and I'm telling you it's stupid. So it was, it was really interesting. And I tell that to them. And one of the things, it does manifest itself. My oldest, my youngest son is quite brilliant. I really do think he's, he builds, he's a builder, he's a mentor. He's, he's got some special skills that are really quite amazing. And my other son is pretty smart, very smart, very, very incredibly.

• 1:08:08Speaker 02

  But not at school. At school, he's bored by school. And so I'm trying to think of ways to, but he's like, he'll do great. He'll probably be the president. Like, he's like that kind of person. And he got, he can get, he can go from A to D in two seconds and whatever. Like, it's fascinating. Like, because he could do it if he wanted to. And so I should be one of his parents that's like, you've got to try harder to get that A. Like, you know what I mean? And so he, he, he meant, I hate this about him, but I love it. He goes, because so many of his, his friends are so tightly wound, like so tightly wound at a young age. And you're sort of like, don't do that. Don't, you have plenty of time to be tightly wound. And he, he got a D. It was math or something like that. And he's pretty good at math. He could get an A. He could, I guess.

• 1:08:49Speaker 02

  Or maybe a B. He could definitely could get a B. And it gets, he gets a D. And I go, Louis, a D? And he goes, at least it's not an F. I loved him for that answer. It's horrible. Because at least it's not an F. And I go, it is an F. A D is an F. Just so you know, they don't give Fs anymore. They give you a D and that's an F. And he goes, like, and I just was like, I, I can't compliment him for that response, but I love it. Like, I was like, good for him. Like, fuck you. Like, you know what I mean? And, and I know he'll be fine. So I feel like, I just don't want to get them all, like so many kids are, and the parents are tightly wound. Like, they're super like-

• 1:09:26Tim Ferriss?

  The kids are living like adults by the time they're 10 years old.

• 1:09:28Speaker 02

  I'd rather them be here. Right, exactly. Like- You know, he's like, what if I don't go to college? I'm like, eh, whatever. Like, I just, I feel like I'm, people are surprised because I'm so ambitious and so hardworking, but I just feel like I'm happy with what I'm doing. That's why I'm ambitious, not for achievement. And there's like, so many parents, like, they're in an east coast school, which is very tightly wound. The east coast people are just, I grew up on the east coast and I forgot. I forgot. Like, and they're just, and they're all, I'm watching, they're all lawyers, like, and they're, they're clearly in unhappy marriages, like, you can see it. Um, you know, you're like, oh, you've really never had sex in years. You know what I mean? Like, I'm thinking that in my head, I kind of want to say it out loud. And, um, and so, so they, they're just like, they were talking about something about the internet, and I just was like, that is not true. It's just not true. Like, you know what I mean?

• 1:10:13Speaker 02

  Like, don't, it's not the tools, it's you. It's you and your kids, and they get over, over, I don't know, it just gets, it's funny. It's funny. One of the things, I'll tell this last story, he was, um, he was, he's, he's on Snapchat all the time, the oldest one's on, the youngest one is not on, on this stuff right now. He's not involved in a lot, he's not interested. My oldest is on Snapchat a lot, he does a lot of videos, he likes, he likes it, obviously, like, a lot of teens, very typical. And, um, he was involved in, they had this Instagram account where they, um, uh, put, post memes with each other and they joke, and he did one that was not, one kid got really upset about. And, you know, when does a joke not become a joke? Well, it wasn't.

• 1:10:54Speaker 02

  And so, there was a hubbub at school, and that's one issue I'm very particular on, is how he presents himself about women, about people of color, all kinds of stuff like that. It's not PC, it's just like, he's a white guy in America, he could be a little nicer. You know what I mean? Like, that's my whole thing. And he's lucky, he's rich, he's healthy, he's tall, he's got every, he's handsome, like, he should be nicer. Like, he really needs to be, and kinder. And so, he, um, he had done it, and, and, and I, I made him call the parents of the person, I made him talk to the kid and stuff like that, and the school called, and he didn't mean it in a malevolent way, he didn't. Like, I wasn't trying to say you're an asshole, but I didn't want him not to feel like he was, like, wrong. And, and, um, and so the school was like,

• 1:11:39Speaker 02

  Well, you know, we don't want to be punitive here. And I go, no, I want to be punitive. I want him to feel the consequence. I spent a lot of time talking about consequences with him. And because he's a teen, so 11 year old, it doesn't matter as much. But I want him to feel consequences of his actions always. So that he understands the price of things. And when you do something, I want him to understand that. That's one of the things I don't think parents do nearly enough.

• 1:12:01Tim Ferriss?

  Definitely.

• 1:12:02Speaker 02

  You know what I mean? But they're great kids. They're great kids. They're fantastic. And I don't want them to also feel like nothing is special, that they're so, you know, like there's a, in California, it's the opposite problem. Everybody's special. You know what I mean? They do, you don't have children, but it's, it's a

• 1:12:15Tim Ferriss?

  I don't, but I

• 1:12:16Speaker 02

  You've seen it, like awards for everything and stuff like that. And so I was in a meeting of, I'm very grammatically accurate. I love grammar. And I was in a meeting and one of the parents or the teachers was like, well, you know, we're all special. They said that, you know what I mean? That, that thing. And I put my hand up, I go, point of fact, if we're all special, no one's special. I said, it's a word that means different.

• 1:12:40Tim Ferriss?

  They're like, who let this lady in here again?

• 1:12:42Speaker 02

  No, I know, exactly. And they're like, they were like, excuse me? I go, well, if everybody's special, nobody is. Just so you know, the word special, it's like unique. It's just not, there's no such thing as very unique. You know, you know, just like people, when people do very unique, it drives me crazy. I hate when people modify unique. So he, so they were like, well, you know, we're all special in different ways. I go, no, no, no, we're not. We all know the rules and the status symbols. We know it's either money or job or fascinating or beautifully creative. I said, everybody isn't special. And if we teach kids that everyone's special, they'll think they're special when they're not. Like, you know, I mean, there's special things like, oh, they're the best, like little baker or whatever, but let's set the parameters. But what you're talking about is achievement and wells and whatever you are, like, let's

• 1:13:27Speaker 02

  just, let's assume that, like, that once we set the rules, we can say what, who is special, but we can rank people, we can, we absolutely, you do it every day of your life. Why are you pretending to these kids that we're not ranking all day long and kind of stuff? And of course, this is San Francisco, their minds were like, bah, like, you know what I mean? And I said, language matters. Like, it matters what you say. And so I was like, and I don't know why I said this. I said, for example, like, and I, I am successful, so is Meghan. Like Meghan's worked at Google and she's the CEO of America. I go, we're more special than everyone else here on jobs, probably a lot of people here. Let's be honest. Like, come on, if we're going to rank, if you had to, if you were gun to your head, you have to rank people here. Come on, like, and I was like, that might be jobs, or it might be money. This person over here is fucking rich as hell. Like, they win on that one.

• 1:14:11Speaker 02

  And so it was really, it was, this headmaster who I'm good friends with was like, oh, Kara. And I was like, I'm just, like, let's define our terms if we're gonna use that word so carelessly.

• 1:14:21Tim Ferriss?

  So, I want to switch gears a little bit, and we'll, I'll run through what I guess I call rapid-fire questions. They don't need rapid answers.

• 1:14:28Speaker 02

  Oh, I like rapid-fire questions.

• 1:14:29Tim Ferriss?

  So, if you had to give a TED Talk on something you're not known for at all?

• 1:14:33Speaker 02

  I gave one on my stroke. I did one of those TEDs.

• 1:14:36Tim Ferriss?

  So, if you had to give another one?

• 1:14:37Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:14:38Tim Ferriss?

  But on something you are not known for, what would you give it on?

• 1:14:42Speaker 02

  My obsession with television. I love TV shows. Like, bad television.

• 1:14:46Tim Ferriss?

  Bad television. What's your favorite bad TV show?

• 1:14:48Speaker 02

  Anything with Heather Locklear.

• 1:14:50Tim Ferriss?

  Wow, I haven't thought of Heather.

• 1:14:53Speaker 02

  I love her. She's the best. I did an interview with her once, I was so happy. One of my greatest moments of my life. Anything with Heather. I like bad TV, bad TV actresses. You know, they always insult her, and they're like, oh, she's terrible. I'm like, no, she's brilliant at bad acting. Like, that kind of acting, that genre.

• 1:15:08Tim Ferriss?

  She's the master.

• 1:15:09Speaker 02

  She's like the...

• 1:15:10Tim Ferriss?

  Michelangelo of bad acting.

• 1:15:12Speaker 02

  Not bad acting, it's that acting. Like, I don't even think it's bad, it's just that, like, the dramatic lines. I even love, like, it sounds stupid, Veela Davis, who's a really great actress. She's like, gonna win the Oscar for Fences and stuff like that. But she's in that show, How to Get Away with Murder, which I love. Like, it's a terrible, horrible show. It's Shonda Rhimes at her very best, like, and she, she had a line that she, her husband was sleeping with a coed, how did your penis get in that white girl's mouth? Like, and she read that like she was Lawrence fucking Olivia. How did your penis get in that? And I was like, oh, that was brilliant. Like, I was like, so, I was happy for days at that. And I was like, she fucking ate that up, she took that line and she went with it, and it was the work, like, who wrote that line?

• 1:15:57Speaker 02

  And she didn't even, like, she didn't...

• 1:15:59Tim Ferriss?

  Didn't even flinch, just...

• 1:16:00Speaker 02

  She did a, she did that line reading, like, you can't believe it. And I thought, I love you, Veela Davis, because, like, you have no, there's, you can act up a fucking storm over here, but over here, you're just like, you're taking that, you're biting it, you're going for it, and I love that mentality of hers.

• 1:16:15Tim Ferriss?

  You've met a lot of people, many, many, many, many, hundreds probably at this point, certainly, that are held up on a pedestal as successful. When you hear the word "successful," who comes to mind and why?

• 1:16:29Speaker 02

  Um, among tech people?

• 1:16:31Tim Ferriss?

  No, any across the board.

• 1:16:33Speaker 02

  Hmm, that's a good question. Um, again, it's how you define the terms, right?

• 1:16:39Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, that's why I'm leaving it open. So I'd like to hear how you define it.

• 1:16:42Speaker 02

  I really, I thought Steve Jobs was great. I do. I just know, I thought he was, he was who he was. I like someone who's like that. So I thought he was successful at being the person he was and, and dealing with the issues he had going forward. He could have been nicer, I guess. I don't care. You know, I wasn't married to him. And so, um, although he seemed to have a good relationship with his kids. I don't know. I don't know. Of the people I've met, like I like Pierre Omidyar. I think he's a lovely guy. I think he's been very successful and he's kind and he's, I tend to like the kinder people. Um, I think he's true to himself. He's kind of quirky and unusual and has unusual taste, you know, things he invests in, it's all do-gooder. And I'm not a do-gooder, trust me, but I like that about him.

• 1:17:25Speaker 02

  Um, I really like, um, I do like Sheryl Sandberg. We got along very well. I mean, some of her, some of the stuff, I tweak her a lot about leaning in. I always say I lean in and fall over. It's a big joke I have with her. Um, I really, I, I think she's, she's true to herself again. She's like she-

• 1:17:41Tim Ferriss?

  So it seems to be the common thread.

• 1:17:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, true themselves. I do like Mark Zuckerberg a lot. I didn't, when I first met him, I did not like him. When I first met him, I didn't want to go down there when it was 2000, early, early, early. And Owen Van Otte, who was the president of Facebook at the time, this was a million years ago, and nothing was successful. It wasn't public, wasn't doing well. Uh, or was doing okay. It wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't an upward trajectory the whole time. Um, and, um, and he came in the room and I said, I don't want to meet him. I heard he's an asshole. Like, oh, do I want to meet another little shitty little startup white dude? Like, ugh, kind of thing. And he, he walked in the room and he goes, I heard you think I'm an asshole.

• 1:18:20Speaker 02

  Which I liked.

• 1:18:20Tim Ferriss?

  I was gonna say, I knew you were gonna like.

• 1:18:22Speaker 02

  I liked it. And I go, well, I don't know you well enough. You might very well be an asshole, but I really should get to know you before I call you an asshole. And it was great. We had a great talk. And so, and I like him because he learns. He seems to learn. He, I don't like everything he says, like this last thing about fake news. I thought he was being inane. And he said a lot of inane stuff, but I like that he seems to learn. I like people who learn and improve.

• 1:18:41Tim Ferriss?

  Very focused on learning.

• 1:18:42Speaker 02

  He is. And I, I kinda, it's very earnest, but I kind of like it. Um, who else do I like that I wasn't expecting? There were some the other day where I, I walked in the room and I expected he was wearing like khakis in a way that I hate. Like, you know what I mean? Those, you know, sansabell, like golf man khakis and a golf guy shirt. And I'm like, oh, this guy. Like, you know what I mean? Like.

• 1:19:03Tim Ferriss?

  I have an allergy to those too, after Princeton.

• 1:19:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, but here what I was doing was like, okay, he looks like a person I wouldn't like. And we had the best time. I'm blanking on who it was. It was just, I was sort of like, oh, I like this guy. He's fantastic. Like, I wasn't expecting to have such a great mind. And so, I was surprised and I kind of was like, oh, Kara, don't be so easily judgy. So, I'm trying, who else do I like? I like a lot of people. I like more people than you think.

• 1:19:27Tim Ferriss?

  No, I don't assume you dislike people.

• 1:19:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, I like a lot of people. I like the guy in the corner store, Sammy. He's fantastic.

• 1:19:32Tim Ferriss?

  I'll ask the billboard question.

• 1:19:34Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:19:34Tim Ferriss?

  Because I like this question. If you had a huge billboard.

• 1:19:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:19:37Tim Ferriss?

  And you could put a short message on it, or an image, to get it out to millions of people, what would you put on it?

• 1:19:42Speaker 02

  Stop.

• 1:19:44Tim Ferriss?

  Stop. And for you, what does that mean?

• 1:19:47Speaker 02

  One of my favorite books was, I read a lot, um, one of the ones that had the most effect on me was, I took a course in freshman year Georgetown, which I didn't love Georgetown, because I don't, I'm Catholic, but I was not, I grew up in a very progressive school. And so, I got there and there were all these kids from Catholic school. They just went wild. So, they drank too much and vomited and date rape everywhere. You know, it just was, and so sexist and so horrible and anti-gay. So, it was not a great time to be at Georgetown. And I was in a course called Problem of God.

• 1:20:16Tim Ferriss?

  Problem.

• 1:20:17Speaker 02

  Problem of God.

• 1:20:18Tim Ferriss?

  Problem of God.

• 1:20:19Speaker 02

  Right. Okay. It's a great title for, it was existentialism. It's taught by Jesuits. Jesuits are amazing. When you get a great one, Jesuits are amazing teachers. And it was perfect. I was seventeen, I think, when I went to college. I was a little younger. And it was mind blowing, of course, because I read Sartre, Camus, Kafka, all those, Dag Hammerschold, which I'm not a religious person, but it really had an impact on me because he became, he was seen as a technocrat. He turned out he was quite religious. Markings, I think, was his book. And so I was just blown, it was just so mind blowing for us. I'd never thought of these issues, and it really impacted me. I'll never forget, the first day that the course, the guy, his name was Father Chiafi, I'll never forget him, he

• 1:21:02Speaker 02

  goes, "Is it God's problem with man, or man's problem with God?" I was like, whoa. Like, it was like, it's true. Like, what is it? Probably man's problem with God is more the thing. But so we read all these texts, and we read The Trial, one of my favorite books. I read it again and again. That's another book I read again and again. And the first line of the book, of The Trial, is, I think, I'm not saying it right, something must have, someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K. because one, because he was arrested one fine morning. It's something like that. That's the first line. Everybody thinks it's about totalitarian states, but it's not. It's not about Russia. It's not about China. It's not about communism. It's about stopping in your life. And, you know, it's about stopping,

• 1:21:47Speaker 02

  like, being stopped, being arrested. The word arrested is not arrested here. It's being stopped and considering what you're doing. And this is a man who would not stop and consider what he was doing. And the last line, you do get it. He taught it so well. Like, when someone teaches you a text really well, or shows you a painting that you didn't understand, and then opens it up to you, is really, I think that's what I do with writing sometimes. I make people think differently, like, oh, wait a minute, I hadn't thought of that. Maybe that's the truth. And so this guy taught so well. And the last part of the book, he's supposedly about to be executed, but he's not. He's about, he's about to go to the execution, because he's not getting it. They're trying, God is trying to get through to them, but God can't impose himself on Joseph K. But he won't hear God. You

• 1:22:30Speaker 02

  know what I mean? Like, he, so it was a lot about that. And the last part of the book, there's, someone throws a window, as he's going to the gallows, or wherever he's getting, supposedly getting killed, someone throws up in the window and puts their arms out, and it's God saying, "Stop." Like, just stop for a fucking second. And nobody does that. And so I'd say, "Stop." Do you know what I mean? I totally know. You know? Like, nobody, just a second. Just stop, like you're talking about meditate in the morning, just stop.

• 1:22:58Tim Ferriss?

  What's the rush?

• 1:22:59Speaker 02

  Not just what's the rush, there is a rush.

• 1:23:01Tim Ferriss?

  Well, there is a rush, but there's

• 1:23:05Tim Ferriss?

  not to interject, I mean, I have memento mori all over my house, constantly reminded of death.

• 1:23:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:23:11Tim Ferriss?

  All of them.

• 1:23:11Speaker 02

  Oh, that's important.

• 1:23:12Tim Ferriss?

  And so I recognize the value of time, but I recognize how when I rush, or when I feel rushed, I'm not present. I'm constantly

• 1:23:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:23:23Tim Ferriss?

  stuck somewhere else.

• 1:23:24Speaker 02

  The same thing with stop, no.

• 1:23:26Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:26Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:23:26Tim Ferriss?

  No.

• 1:23:27Speaker 02

  Everyone will say yes, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And, and the best part is, there's a great line from Shakespeare, I think it's Henry the Fifth, maybe? "I waste town time, and now doth time waste me." I've always loved that quote.

• 1:23:39Tim Ferriss?

  That is a good line.

• 1:23:39Speaker 02

  It's a great line. It's a great line.

• 1:23:41Tim Ferriss?

  Do you have a favorite failure? Meaning a failure, something that didn't go the way you hoped, that set you up for later success in some way?

• 1:23:52Speaker 02

  Um, I think a lot of relationships. You know what I mean? I wish I could go back, you know? Again, that's why I liked La La Land, it was really interesting, it's all about mistakes, right? That we make with each other. I think in work, no, I think I've been very, very

• 1:24:07Speaker 02

  I haven't asked questions that I wanted, I maybe didn't move fast enough, but I think

• 1:24:10Tim Ferriss?

  You've charted the path well.

• 1:24:12Speaker 02

  I think, you know, I was thinking the other day, someone was talking about their career, and I'm like, I've timed my career beautifully. Like, it's nowhere but up now, and then I just leave. You know what I mean? Like, I can't be, I, I was looking at all the interviews I've done with all the different people over the years, like, over 10, 15 years, and I could leave right now. Like, that's how I feel, like, wow, I've done a lot. My body of work is excellent. I'm leaving behind all these amazing interviews with the greatest minds of our day. Like, I interviewed whoever was Edison, I did that. Whoever was Tesla, whoever was Lincoln, I did it, like, that moment. So I feel good on the work stuff, and the work, there's some stuff I want to do and try, and think I could get to another plane. Probably, probably, I haven't tried very hard in relationships as I should. I haven't been as smart as I should have been, like, as I am at work.

• 1:24:56Speaker 02

  So that, probably in that, and I guess, I guess in failure, it's not, um, no, because when I wanted to leave the post, I left. I'm trying to think of where I didn't, I always leave when I should leave. I'm good at leaving, like, realizing I'm not going anywhere and stopping, so I'm good at that. I think I

• 1:25:14Speaker 02

  I probably s- no, I didn't stay. I left. I left.

• 1:25:17Tim Ferriss?

  Well, you're good at stopping.

• 1:25:18Speaker 02

  I'm good at stopping and saying, looking around and saying, no, not this anymore. No more of this. And so, and that's in a career sense, I'm good that way with my kids. So I've been, I think, a great parent. I think probably I've been, I don't leave quickly enough in relationships. And I think I'm getting really good at that because, you know, I just recently got separated from Meghan, who I love. We have a great family. But I think I did that well. We did that. It was a good thing. It's good for both of us. And we are much happier because of it. And I feel good. That's the first time I've gone, huh, this has to change. And it had to do with my stroke, too.

• 1:25:52Tim Ferriss?

  When you stop and leave, say, The Post or a given publication company or a relationship, is there a way you frame it to the other side when you have that conversation?

• 1:26:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, I do. Yeah, it's, it's, this is, I think, interesting, the relationship, it was interesting, I'm sure Meghan doesn't mind me talking about it, but I was fascinated by the reaction of people because they liked us as a couple. They liked us. We love each other. But again, we are, we are the best not married couple ever. We're happier than most married people. In fact, we don't even have lawyers, but they're like, why are you divorced and you get along so well? I'm like, you know, well, just because we have other things to do. And so I think what was interesting to me, not so much Meghan, because Meghan's really wonderful and kind and good, was reaction. People, we bother, what I did bothered people. I remember watching reactions to people. And a lot of them was like, you can't do

• 1:26:49Speaker 02

  that. Like, no, you're great together. We're like, I'm like, how do you know? Like, you know, and first of all, how do you know? Like, I was talking about social media before. How do you know what's really going on here? And there was nothing awful going on, but it was like, how do you know? It was, and then I realized, oh, it's about them. Like, it's about they are vaguely unhappy and I've actually done something about it. You know what I mean? Like, And I said, I'm not happy. And I said, I'm not unhappy. I'm just not happy and I want to be happy. That's what I want. And so it really bothered a lot of people. It was really like, and a lot was like, you've invested all this time. I said, it's not an investment. Marriage is an investment that you lose it if you stop it. You know what I mean? We have wonderful children. We've got wonderful times. We still like each other. We're not mean

• 1:27:32Speaker 02

  to each other. I was like, it's not an investment. It just is done. It's done. It's done. And we're not, it's not done in a cruel way. It's not done anyway. It was really, it's not perfect, but it's because it's leaving. But it was fascinating. My favorite response, I had lots of, a lot of them where they liked us as a couple because we were, you know, famous lesbian couple. They love that, like iconic. And I get that. I get, you know, we were always on the power lists and stuff, which I hate because they had one lesbian couple they have to find and now they don't have one. So now, I don't, you know, it's true though.

• 1:28:03Tim Ferriss?

  I get it.

• 1:28:04Speaker 02

  You know what I mean? Like, we were always like, someone's like, oh, you're on a power, I'm like, I know, I'm on a power couple. I'm always on it. We're always on it. Like, we're it. Like, it's, it's like, sometimes Megan and I get lesbian awards. I'm like, we're it. Like, they run out to give people awards to. And so, so we were, I was, a friend of mine called me and I told them. And so they were like, they'd never forgotten this. They're like, how many, how many percentage unhappy were you? Right? How many percentage? I'm like, what? I hadn't even thought about it in a numerical way. And I was like, I don't know. Like, she like, 50%, 40% were you unhappy? Were you 60% unhappy? What's the percentage? And I was, I was like, I can't answer that. I guess 60, 70? I don't

• 1:28:49Speaker 02

  know. Like, it was like weird to try to quantify it. And, and I wasn't really that unhappy. It just, I wasn't where I wanted to be. And so I was, I hung up the phone and called another friend. I'm like, she's getting divorced. Like, I knew it. Like, she was like, all, that was good because she started to reflect. Otherwise, people get disturbed by it because then they, they have to compare it to their own experience and what they're willing to tolerate. And that I, I wasn't apologetic about it. I wasn't, we, neither Megan and I were apologetic about it. We didn't feel sorry for ourselves. There was no drama. Like, there was no anger. We were great to the kids. We talked to the kids, really. It was bothersome. It was fascinating to watch. And so first, it was really, it was really interesting because people do tolerate being just okay, happy. And I don't want to be.

• 1:29:35Tim Ferriss?

  So on that note, and this will be probably the last question, maybe the second to last. If you reflect back on one of the toughest periods in your life, one of the darker periods, if you can place us when and where that is, and what advice would you give that person?

• 1:29:54Speaker 02

  Um, gosh, that's a good question. I haven't had that many dark periods.

• 1:30:00Tim Ferriss?

  Or just difficult?

• 1:30:03Speaker 02

  Um, it's always been around relationships, breaking up. I've gotten broken up just as many times as I've broken up with people. And so I, one thing I do do in relationships that I don't do in life, I'm very good about cutting things loose. I'm not good at that. I'm not good about leaving relationships. I always hope for better, like I can fix it. So that's like, that's my problem. Like I try, I can, if I, they only understood my fantastic argument, like, and you can't, there's a really good Cheryl Strayed quote about, you can't make people love you, right? You can't. And so, but I think you, of course you can. And so I think probably, and now when I look back on it, it's like the same thing with school. Like that didn't matter. It didn't. I mean, I'm sure it got me somewhere else, but when I, I can't even recall that emotion when I think back on that. I, you

• 1:30:47Speaker 02

  know what? One thing that really made me sad, and I shouldn't have done this, maybe I should have, I probably should have, but I still wonder if I should have was, I went out with someone, we had a, we, we were very much in love and we broke up anyway because we wanted different things. You know, you just have to know that when you're with anybody. She didn't want kids, I wanted kids. I wanted to live a loud life, she wanted a quiet life. It was just, we were too different. But we really loved each other, just some people just spark and stuff like that, but really just not for the long term. And it was devastating to me because you, you found someone you connect with, it's hard in life. And I couldn't be around her, you know what I mean? It was, it was relatively mutual. And I was kept trying to come up with solutions like an idiot, like, oh, if we only, like, how do you, how do you get beyond, I don't want kids, right? You don't, you know? But I kept

• 1:31:30Speaker 02

  saying, but if only, like, and then I would have had to give up kids, which I would never have wanted to do. And so I was, I kept trying to figure it, trying to figure it and figure it. And sometimes you just drop something, you just say it's not, it's not fixable. And so I didn't speak to this person at all. I just couldn't. I didn't want to be friends. I had lots of friends and it wasn't, we weren't friends, you know what I mean? And so what was really interesting is I didn't contact her for years and years and years. I had kids afterwards, like, time passed. And I remember the time I don't, I didn't want to talk to her, I just didn't. I knew that I didn't. I know, I don't think she wanted to talk to me. And

• 1:32:04Speaker 02

  And then I just let time go and I wasn't mad anymore and I didn't call her and I wrote an email. I was thinking about it. I was with a bunch of friends and I wrote an email to her. I started to write an email and said, "We should talk finally." Like, I really like, we really love each other. We loved each other. And so, "I would love to see you. I'd love to catch up on your life." And I wrote the email. I started it. And because I was with some friends that reminded me of her. And so, I wanted her to meet my kids. And I was like, "Oh, it's time. Time. It's time." And I didn't finish it. And I was getting on a plane. It was like days later. I was getting on a plane. And I get a call. I was in Walt Mossberg at the time. And she had drowned. Oh, God. It was like shocking. Like, it was, you know, in her basement. It was this weird,

• 1:32:49Speaker 02

  she did books on tape for a living. And so, she was going down to collect some of her recording equipment. She's a wonderful, beautiful actress and beautiful reader. And she'd gotten caught. It was a terrible death. I'm not going to go into it in detail. But she drowned her own. It was like through a flood. And it was just like so fucking random. It was weird and random and kind of like, oh my. It wasn't like a car accident or something like cancer. It was just like random as shit. Like, God just said, "You're gonna die today." It was like, I was just, I literally had an email sitting there waiting to send. And I didn't. And I think I felt sick to my, I felt sicker than I've ever felt that I didn't send it. Not that I would have seen her necessarily, but I kept, you know, as

• 1:33:31Speaker 02

  you know, I'm into time travel and change of time. I love that Ray Bradbury story, the one where he goes back and steps on the butterfly and suddenly we have Nazis kind of thing, you know, in the future. And so, I was like, what if I had written and gone, "Here, could I have stopped?" Like, because I'm such an egomaniac. But I still was thinking of all that, like, why didn't I do that? Like, why did I? So, I'm super interested in past not taken. Like, if you don't turn this left, today, if I go out here and I take a right instead of a left, what happens? Like, I'm very interested in that kind of stuff. That's another surprising thing. I'm super interested in that concept. And like, was that that movie with Gwyneth Paltrow? It was not a great movie. Doors, Subway Doors, or something like that. She takes two different moves and it changes everything. And they show you both of them. And so, so anyways, I didn't, I felt, not because I didn't write her,

• 1:34:16Speaker 02

  but I remember thinking, "I should have done that." Like, I felt terrible for a long time. I still feel terrible. At the same time, It was the right thing not to come. You know what I mean? Like, so I felt it was just a weird thing.

• 1:34:27Tim Ferriss?

  Conflicted about it.

• 1:34:28Speaker 02

  Very. And I felt I was surprisingly upset by it. Like, why didn't I do what was what was and I thought about it a lot, why I didn't and whether it was the right I come to the conclusion now that it was the right thing not to be in touch. But I part of me wishes I had sent that email and gone up to visit and said hello because you just didn't know. Like, same thing with my dad. You just didn't know what was gonna happen.

• 1:34:47Tim Ferriss?

  So in a world where so much is hard to predict or impossible to predict, and with so much cynicism out there, how do you remain hopeful?

• 1:34:56Speaker 02

  I don't know if I'm hopeful.

• 1:34:58Tim Ferriss?

  Or optimistic?

• 1:34:59Speaker 02

  Well, I'm a you know, I have my little I have all these little rules and motto not rules. I have these rules that I have. I have a I think there's there's optimistic pessimists, which I think I am. There's pessimistic optimists, which I'm not. There's optimistic optimists. That's Meghan, for example. And then there's pessimistic pessimists. And so I don't think I'm hopeful at all.

• 1:35:21Tim Ferriss?

  What is an optimistic pessimist?

• 1:35:24Speaker 02

  The world will be blowing up at some point, and none of it matters. Like, it does. It's meaningless. It's like, you know what I mean? I'm not religious, so that's harder. I wish I was religious. I think all of us do a little bit, like, although religion has brought more pain and suffering to this planet than almost anything like, right? So, I mean, organized religion. And so I think that you I really do believe the sun is gonna blow up and it's all gonna melt. And worrying about recycling or the elephants or Donald Trump isn't gonna matter one big one bit someday. Just one day.

• 1:35:56Tim Ferriss?

  Where does the optimism fit in, then?

• 1:35:58Speaker 02

  Okay, it doesn't.

• 1:35:59Tim Ferriss?

  The optimistic pessimist.

• 1:36:00Speaker 02

  You should live every day like that. Like, I'm in the Steve Jobs school. That that speech really impacted him. I listened to that speech.

• 1:36:06Tim Ferriss?

  The Stanford commencement. I have that in my calendar to watch every Sunday.

• 1:36:11Speaker 02

  Every it's Sunday? Every week? Wow. It's true. That is a that is the most beautiful piece of writing. There's two beautiful I love that. I love that speech and the way he delivered it. It was very hard. That's why I like Steve Jobs. I don't care if it's fake. It was fanfuckingfantastic. It's not fake. It wasn't fake. He knows. And the thing is, he created some of the most amazing things in the years he was dying. Not the other years. The years he was dying is when the great stuff happened. So his being cognizant of that was really important. And the other one, people will be surprised to know, but I'm very patriotic and very US stuff. Every time a flag comes out, I'm like, oh, US of A, even though a lot of it's a lie. And a lot of it's we've done horrible things in the name of our flag. And I love the Gettysburg Address. I go see, I go to Lincoln Memorial all the time when I'm in DC and I go read it again and again.

• 1:36:56Speaker 02

  And it's one of my favorites. It's the most beautiful, it's 800 words. I actually, in my bag right now, I have a copy of it.

• 1:37:01Tim Ferriss?

  The Gettysburg Address.

• 1:37:02Speaker 02

  Yes, and how many, all the rewrites of it. Because I, I love it. It's just, it's so heartfelt about how people aren't going to remember, of course, everyone remembered it, but what the sacrifices these people made. Any kind of military cemetery, I go crazy and I'm like, oh. There's one up in San Francisco that's amazing, that has an amazing quote from Auden, I think? Maybe not Auden.

• 1:37:24Tim Ferriss?

  W.J. Auden.

• 1:37:25Speaker 02

  It might be Auden, I don't think it is actually. It's up above the Presidio. There's, there's a little area there with these amazing quotes about young men dying and stuff like that. So I find sacrifice really profoundly moving, you know, the stuff like that. And so that one was, there's a line in the Gettysburg Address that's really, let me get it, I have it right here.

• 1:37:43Tim Ferriss?

  Sure.

• 1:37:44Speaker 02

  I carry it with me. Which is interesting. I carry very little with me. There you go, see? Look at, I carry the 14th Amendment. I carry the 14th Amendment and it gets equal rights under the law because of gay things. So when anyone argues me on gay rights, I'm like, hello, it's in the Constitution, equal rights under the law. But this is all about the history of it and newspaper accounts, I just found this, but there's four different copies. Where's the original copy? I like the whole thing. It's such a short, it's like 800 words or something. It's like the most beautiful. Or is it?

• 1:38:21Tim Ferriss?

  Take it down, I'm not an Irish.

• 1:38:23Speaker 02

  I will. I made my sons memorize it, by the way.

• 1:38:27Tim Ferriss?

  Gettysburg Address.

• 1:38:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's the, it's the whole thing, but not that the world will little note and long remember. But we said, "When he goes, living and dead have struggled, have consecrated, far above the poor power to add or detract, the world will little note and long remember." People remember that part. This is the line I love. I love the whole thing. "It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us that from these honored dead we take increased devotion that the cause for which they gave their last full..." I love the last full measure of devotion. It's death, right? "That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that the nation under God have new birth of freedom, the government of the people..."

• 1:39:10Speaker 02

  The last part, I know, the famous part, but it's this last level of devotion and that honoring that. For some reason, this just moves me, this piece of writing, because it's really... And then you know that he's gonna die. This guy's gonna... You know what I mean? Like, what a narrative.

• 1:39:25Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:26Speaker 02

  You know, you know what's gonna happen to him. And that he was able to pull this out and talk about something well beyond himself, I thought, was just... Given all this carnage was really quite beautiful. This is my favorite thing.

• 1:39:39Tim Ferriss?

  Kara, I think that's a great place to put a button in it. Everybody should get a copy.

• 1:39:43Speaker 02

  They should. It's a great speech. And you can memorize it. You can memorize it. Yeah. Did you ever see the Ken Burns documentary about this?

• 1:39:49Tim Ferriss?

  I haven't.

• 1:39:50Speaker 02

  He gets autistic kids to memorize this passage. It's a great... It's a great... I don't love everything Ken Burns has done, but it's because it can take forever and the twonkety twonk Confederacy music gets to me after a while. But the... He did a thing about autistic people with learning disabilities, learning to memorize this. And I thought, and it was great. It was so moving. It was beautiful. And it was great, because they got it.

• 1:40:14Tim Ferriss?

  Well, Kara, this has been so much fun.

• 1:40:17Speaker 02

  Good.

• 1:40:17Tim Ferriss?

  I really appreciate you taking the time.

• 1:40:19Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:40:19Tim Ferriss?

  Where can people find everything more about you? Say hello on the internet.

• 1:40:23Speaker 02

  Yes, @KaraSwisher. If you don't like insults of Trump, please don't tune in. And me and the Trumpkins are yelling at each other pretty much 24/7 at this point. I enjoy... They don't get that I'm enjoying tweaking them. And they're... They like think I... They call them sore winners. They go crazy. They're fucking sore winners. And they think I'm one of these liberals. Like, let me just... Liberals just really have to, like, stop, like, and start to really tweak. Like, you know, they get all offended by things. I'm never offended by things he says. I'm like, what a fucking douche. Like, you know, getting like all like, "Oh, can you believe it?" Like, they're always... That's how I operate with, you know, writing. Like, can you believe this person did this? I'm like, yeah, I can believe it. Yes. People have done horrible things to each other. If you're a student of history, you should believe it, like, kind of thing.

• 1:41:05Speaker 02

  And so I like to get into it with Trump people because they bite every time. They're so stupid. A lot of them are, but they just bite every, like, it's so easy. It's like, it's enjoyable and easy and they're such dumb kids.

• 1:41:19Tim Ferriss?

  So if people want to watch your sport hunting.

• 1:41:20Speaker 02

  At Kara Swisher. I think you can write me at [email protected]. And recode.net is our site. I write weekly comments and then the podcast, Recode Decode, which I, that's the most enjoyable thing I've been doing lately, as you know, and you do a great, are you having a good time with them?

• 1:41:34Tim Ferriss?

  I'm having a great time. I love it.

• 1:41:35Speaker 02

  Podcasts are great.

• 1:41:36Tim Ferriss?

  It's so much fun.

• 1:41:37Speaker 02

  They're fun.

• 1:41:37Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, you can get past the seven bites and really dig in.

• 1:41:39Speaker 02

  Absolutely. We had James Corden on recently, he wouldn't leave. I was like, you have to go. And he's like, I'm having a good time. I think I, like, I'm like, because you get interviewed by dumb Hollywood reporters all the time and, Sal, what suit are you wearing? Anyway.

• 1:41:54Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I will let you get back to your day. This has been great. And for everybody listening, for links to the Gettysburg Address and documentaries, everything that we talked about in this show, as well as how you can reach Kara, you can tune into the show notes. They can be found with the show notes for every other episode at fourhourworkweek.com/podcast. And until next time, thank you for listening.

• 1:42:19Tim Ferriss?

  Hey, guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the, the world of the esoteric, as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short.

• 1:43:01Tim Ferriss?

  It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out, just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's four hour work. Workweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it. This podcast is brought to you by MeUndies. Does this year's Valentine's Day have you stumped? Are you a big dumb animal? Well, skip the cliches and give a gift that looks great, feels amazing, and makes everybody happy. MeUndies. MeUndies knows that your special someone deserves a special fabric, which is why their underwear is made exclusively out of micro modal, a fabric three times softer than cotton. I can feel it on my loins

• 1:43:45Tim Ferriss?

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• 1:44:29Tim Ferriss?

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• 1:45:12Tim Ferriss?

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