Kara Swisher Holds Back Nothing - on Bezos, Zuckerberg, Cook, etc. (#198)

3 Takeaways Podcast Transcript
Lynn Thoman

(https://www.3takeaways.com/)

This transcript was auto-generated. Please forgive any errors.

Lynn Thoman: Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Facebook dominate the top 10 companies in the world today. And we spend more hours with these companies on our phones and computers than we do with anyone or anything else. What's the inside story about these companies and their founders? And how have the characters and frailties of the founders shaped the tech revolution? And of course, what's next for tech?

LT:  Hi everyone, I'm Lynn Thoman and this is 3 Takeaways. On 3 Takeaways, I talk with some of the world's best thinkers, business leaders, writers, politicians, newsmakers and scientists. Each episode ends with three key takeaways to help us understand the world and maybe even ourselves a little better.

My guest today is one of the leading chroniclers of the larger-than-life leaders of our new digital age. Kara Swisher has known the tech leaders, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk and the Google founders, from when they were all starting their companies, long before they were successful. As the tech reporter for the Wall Street Journal, Kara moved to Silicon Valley in 1998 because she thought the internet was going to be transformative.

That was almost 10 years before the iPhone was launched in 2007. So she was there for the beginning and she has known and followed the founders of Facebook, Amazon, Tesla, Google and Microsoft over her three-decade career. Her stories about Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and the Google founders are mind-blowing, as is her love affair with tech and how she sees the future of tech.

Kara is the author of Burn Book, A Tech Love Story. 

Lynn Thoman: Welcome, Kara, and thanks so much for joining 3 Takeaways today. 

Kara Swisher: Thank you for having me.

LT: You've known these tech titans from before they became titans, when they were just starting their companies. Let's start with a few sentences about each and a memorable moment that you can't forget. What comes to mind when you first met Mark Zuckerberg and what was a memorable moment?

KS: Well, when I first met him, he said that he heard I thought he was an asshole, the first thing he said to me. And so that was weird, you know, and I was like, well, hello, nice to meet you too. So it was kind of a weird meet that he would immediately try to make me feel bad about. 

And I didn't have any feelings about him because I'm a reporter. I've never met him. I had certainly heard he could be a jerk, but that's different than my own experience.

And so I said, I have no idea if you're an asshole. You very well might be. That was kind of an asshole question, but OK. 

And then we went on from there.  

LT: What do you think about his motto, move fast and break things?

KS: It’s not his motto, it's the company's motto, but it's a technology term which is dealing with code and everything else. But I was interested that that's the one he picked of the many phrases that they have in technology about tech and that he would pick break things. It's meant to be innovate, innovate, innovate.

I think that's the point he was trying to make. But he didn't have a sense of words, why a word “break” would be problematic versus “fix “things or “change” things. 

LT: And is that carelessness a more general characteristic that you've seen?

KS: I think not just him, all of them are very careless about the way they talk, the way they say things. They talk first without knowing what they're talking about on a lot of things. And they're very good at what they do, but they tend to try to slide over into areas they're not good in.

So I think there's a general carelessness about the impact they have and then a lack of accountability of what they do. And they design the system so they have no accountability. 

LT: So, for example, how have you seen that with Facebook?

KS: Well, they just take your information and they shoot first and ask questions later. I think that's their whole policy of everything they do. They don't think about the implications or consequences of things before they do it if it's in their interest. 

And that's how a child behaves. 

LT: How about Jeff Bezos? What are the first words that pop into your head when you think about Jeff Bezos?

KS: I thought he was very feral. I thought he was very interested in making money and dominating immediately. He tried to be dominant, essentially.

I thought he tried to mask it with humor and his laugh, that silly laugh he has. But I was very clear this guy was a killer right away. Just a killer. 

LT: And how did that manifest at Amazon and in the work culture? 

KS: It's an aggressive culture. It was instantly, you know, he was very performative about how hard they worked. He talked about it a lot. He could be very dismissive of people very quickly. You know, this sort of dominant alpha male energy is what he tried to infect the company with. 

LT: How about the co-founders of Google? What were they like? 

KS: Silly and interesting and sort of brainy.

I wouldn't say malevolent in any way. Like they were interested in things just because they were interesting. Same sort of strain of arrogance that a lot of tech people have.

Just I know better. Let me explain the world to you. That kind of stuff.

They had that to it. But it felt more benign in that regard because I was like, oh, sure, whatever, boys. It's sort of like a teenager explaining Sartre to you.

 You're like, oh, you just learned about Sartre? Good to know. And then they talk with a lot of certainty, that they don't possess in reality.

LT: What were a few of the most bizarre moments with these guys, these founders and leaders of the largest companies in the world? 

KS: Well, it was a world rife with them. I always was in bizarre moments with them.

I mean, I think what's interesting is being around founders, right? You're not around people who've been running companies for years and years. These are the people who created things.

And so most of them were, you know, whatever scheme they were up to that day. Their parties were even strange. There'd be slip and slides or any kind of juvenilia.

They loved scooters and things like that. There was one party where there was a baby shower for [Google co-founder] Sergey Brin's first kid and everybody dressed up like children, like babies. And I thought that was weird. 

They never conducted themselves like adults. That was what I found weirdest of all. 

LT: What attributes did these tech guys have in common?

KS: Four things. I would say persistence. They're persistent. And I kind of like that. I'm persistent myself. So I do admire that.

I think they are able to shift really quickly when things change. And I think that's a real asset for people when they're able to like move on very quickly. So I think that's terrific.

 They do think outside the box and orthogonally, like what about this? What about that? They're more into ideas than you’d think, more creative.

I think people don't think of them as creative, they think of them as automatons, but I find them very creative and able to access their creativity. 

And then most of them are arrogant. They think they own the world and they kind of have to behave like that in order to do what they do, I think.

That's what they think. I think they don't have to be quite as arrogant. 

It's a sign of insecurity to constantly tell people how smart you are. They have to assure you if you knew what they knew, that kind of thing.  

They're very “lectury”,  like you have all these venture capitalists talking about Ukraine and they have no idea what they're talking about, most of them. And so it's just this idea that if you're good in one thing, you're good in everything or other things. And the reason you're better is because you're rich, sometimes you're lucky, sometimes you are better at certain things, but it doesn't give you license to be arrogant in other areas. But they think it does. 

LT: You describe many of them as socially awkward. Can you talk more about that? 

KS: They have a hard time communicating. And so it must be your problem, right?

Some of them are autistic, for sure. I'm not a doctor, but they kind of meet the classic signs. I think some of them had, you know, probably difficulty socially and when they were younger.

And so they have a hard time communicating. But instead of improving their communication, you're wrong. 

LT: You talk about how Jeff Bezos is one of the few that you can have an adult conversation with. 

KS: Yeah, he's an adult. Like, I don't prefer to have a conversation with him. I find him aggressive and, you know, he's very lecturing at me often, so I didn't enjoy them.

But, you know, someone like [Apple CEO] Tim Cook is a better example. You can have a great conversation with him. 

[Airbnb CEO} Brian Chesky, you can talk about a range of things and you don't feel as if he's trying to sell you something. You're just having a normal conversation. 

LT: And so how did that impact their leadership of these companies? 

KS: It's no surprise that most of these companies have dual class shares, so they're always right.

So they set up kingships, right? They don't set up communities, they set up kingships. And that's fine if they want to do it, they founded the company.

 But often they are in positions of overwhelming power where even if they get feedback from other people, they have control over the whole process. So it's really interesting to watch people talk about community when they're the king of the hill. 

LT: And you watch these founders transform from young, idealistic strivers — 

KS: I never thought they were idealistic, but go ahead —

LT: in a scrappy, upstart industry into leaders of some of America's largest and most influential businesses. How did they change? Can you give some examples?  

KS: Money has a deleterious effect and so does constant praise of people where you don't get any pushback.

And so what has happened to far too many of them, not all of them, has been they get in smaller and smaller groups of people who agree with them and then they use their money to insulate themselves. They go from a car to a plane to a... And then they get bored with the thing that made them the money in the first place and they move on to other things because they just happen to be bored, that's all.

And so some of them really think they “hung the moon” because they have money and they think that sets them apart. I never have thought that. There's lots of rich people. 

You know, I don't sit around - and the guy who made all his money from dry cleaning, the biggest dry cleaning empire - I don't find him any more interesting than anyone else. But they think they're more interesting because they're richer. 

LT: You describe them essentially as devastatingly or achingly lonely.

KS: I found a lot of them very lonely. I think in their heart of hearts, they know that the people around them might be there, or enabling them, because they benefit from them. So at some point, they're so wealthy, they can't know who's being honest around them. And I think that's a sad thing for many people.

They don't know who to trust, but that's not a new, fresh thing. That's not something that hasn't happened over time with all kinds of rich people. 

LT: True, true. Kara, you've said that you love tech and you believe in tech. How do you see tech now? 

KS: The problem isn't tech, it's the people using tech, right?

It's never the thing. It's how people are using it as a tool or a weapon. And so I firmly believe it should be used as a tool.

Other people have used it as weapons. And so I think we have to be cognizant of the weapons and the negative aspects of it and mitigate against that and then lean into the things that are good about it. And there's tons and tons of good things about it.

LT: Are you holding these tech leaders and companies to a higher standard? 

KS: Yes, I am, because they're the richest and most powerful people. That's why.

LT: Fair enough. We have access to so much more information now. Are we wiser?

KS: No, I hope we are, but I doubt it because there's something new every day. And so I think it's really important to keep in mind that they're getting more and more powerful and we have to really understand what role we should play in this next round, as we move into the AI [artificial intelligence] era and everything else. That we should have more control and not just give control to a small group of homogeneous people. 

LT: You have a wonderful quote, “I leave you to your own devices. I mean that. Your phone is the best relationship you all have now. The first thing you pick up in the morning and the last thing you touch at night.”Can you talk about that?

KS: Yeah, I think we have to have relations with people, not phones. 

And I love my phone, by the way.

I'm not someone who doesn't. And so I think we have to look up. That's what my whole point was, look up.

They should not control you. You should control them and use them for all kinds of amazing things that you couldn't have done before, such as the access to information across the globe.

They're addictive by nature, but you should do everything you can to understand you're the person who should be in charge, and not them, or the people behind them. 

LT: What do you see as the harm of tech? How is it hurting?

KS: It isolates us. It brings us apart. We're already moving in that direction and COVID made that even worse.

So that if we stick inside our own little bubbles, we're not going to be as good. I think real life interaction will always be the most important things for humanity. And I worry that you get sucked down these technology rabbit holes.

And it's lonely. It's sad. It's isolating.

LT: It is. And I think it's so much easier to scroll through a phone or... 

KS: It is. Because they're cool. There's all kinds of information. There's no question of that they're cool. 

It's just the question of where you should put it in your life and with your family and everything else. 

LT: How can these tech companies improve all of our experiences online and the effects on our politics, our democracies, our countries? 

KS: How can they improve? More information. You know, everything has a negative and positive aspect. And the positive aspect is you can find out more about people all around. 

The information is there for you. Good information. And so I think the more we explore our commonalities, the better our world is.

LT: Is there anything that you believe that some of these leading tech companies can do that would be positive? 

KS:  No, I don't think we should rely on them. Why would they?

All they care about is shareholders. They're not our saviors. We have to stop thinking of them that way.

You know, the idolatry of innovators has to end. 

We have to respect them and think they're great. But they're no better than the person who made vaccines or anything else.

And so we should be in control of our destiny, digitally speaking. 

LT: Do you hold them responsible at all? Many of these companies have addictive technologies that keep us scrolling.

KS: Yes, I hold them responsible. Yeah, I hold ourselves responsible, especially our elected leaders for not doing anything about it. They're doing what they do, which is to run companies.

And that's what they do. I never expected them to help us. I expect them to make money.

And so I think that one mistake we make is that we think they're here to help us. They're not here to help us. 

LT: How have your knowledge of and relationships with these tech leaders changed you?

KS: Oh, I don't know. I don't know if it has. I think I'm just a reporter.

It hasn't. I love technology, and I'm much more innovative because of covering it. But I was that way to start with.

And in that way, they've taught me some nice things about taking risks and pivoting and not staying in the same place and always changing. 

And those are valuable lessons for everybody. 

LT: You created a panel long ago about the future of tech, and it was titled, Where Do We Go From Here? Let me ask you that question, Kara. What's next for tech? 

KS: I think we're moving into the AI era, and we already were.

AI has always been around. But I think it's really important that we understand that these technologies are only going to surround us even more. They're going to be ubiquitous.

They're going to be in the air. We have to have as much control of them as we can and make group decisions about them versus letting large companies make decisions about things. 

LT: What are the 3 takeaways you'd like to leave the audience with today? 

KS: Have kids. They'll get you out of yourself. 

Step out of line whenever you can.

And you're going to be dead someday, so you might as well do it. 

LT: Wow. 

KS: Well, it's true. Truth.

LT: Hard truths. 

KS: Hard truths. Exactly.

LT: Thank you. I really enjoyed your book, Burn Book. 

KS: Thank you so much, Lynn.

LT: If you're enjoying the podcast, and I really hope you are, please review us in Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps to get the word out. If you’re interested, you can sign up for the 3 Takeaways newsletter at 3takeaways.com where you can also listen to previous episodes. You can also follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. 

I'm Lynn Thoman, and this is 3 Takeaways. Thanks for listening.

This transcript was auto-generated. Please forgive any errors.