When you think of big tech Silicon Valley CEOs, you might think of a young multi millionaire in a hoodie.
Super chilled and a bit nerdy.
But when the biggest names in Silicon Valley, think Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, sit opposite Kara Swisher for an interview, they're no doubt visually nervous, sweaty.
And on their toes.
That's because Cara has been covering this industry since the early nineties. She's seen it all and knew many of the titans in tech when they were just starting out.
Kara is a no nonsense.
Journalist with a reputation for being both the most feared and well like journalist to cover Silicon Valley, and I happen to be a huge fan of one of her podcasts, Pivot, that she hosts with Professor Scott Galloway. So how does Kara prepare for interviewing some of the biggest names in the world, And what's the best piece of advice that she's ever received in her career? And why has Kara
never suffered from imposter syndrome. I'm doctor Ramantha Imba. I'm an organizational psychologist and the founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium and this is how I work, a show that helps you do your best work. So Cara is one of those people with more jobs than seems human. She's an opinion writer for The New York Times and hosts the podcasts Recode, Decode, Sway, and Pivot, along with a
stack of other things. So I wanted to start by understanding how on earth does she fit it all in.
I'm very careful with my schedule. I don't owever schedule myself, and I like, I say no to a lot of things. You know, most people say yes to everything. I don't, I know, as a complete sentence in my life. And I'm okay with that. And I'm very clear about the stuff I want to accomplish. So I set out sort of goals for myself for the week, you know, the day, the week, the month, the year kind of thing. And so I'm always planning it in that way, and I move them up and down. Lit I make a lot
of lists. I'm a list maker. I don't use anything fancy like trello or things like that. I just make a list essentially, and so I'm very strict about, like, here's my priorities, and then I move stack, rank them up and down and make sure I'm sort of doing them. And it's not quite like KPIs or other things that people do, but it's super efficient in terms of how I think about it.
Now, you mentioned that you say no a lot.
Do you have almost criteria, whether that be conscious or unconscious, around what you'll say yes to and what you're saying no to.
I will say yes. I typically say yes to students, you know, stuff like that, sometimes paying things if it's a lot of money, you know, I mean sometimes I say yes to money things. I always say yes to gain lesbian stuff or if I can, I say yes to anything young people ask me to do, like if they want to talk for a few minutes, you know, that kind of thing. I don't like meetings a lot.
I don't. I try to limit the number of meetings I actually I have a day like it's typically a Tuesday now, although sometimes it gets people get creeping into my Tuesday that I leave empty that I won't schedule anything on and so I can like work on writing and things like that.
Is the free Tuesday being always being around or is that something that you implemented.
No, I just have noticed I need a full day because people, if people could you know, a lot of people have access to my schedule, my Google skill. I used a Google schedule, but you could use anything, you know. And if people have access, they'll tend to put things on it, Like someone just put something on my schedule that I didn't ask for, and so, uh, you know I I So I spend a lot of time paying attention to who's who in water is on my schedule?
And do you have a strategy for saying no well or effectively.
I'm very particularly about who I let touch my schedule. You know, I don't have an assistant like most people, I ilk have assistance, but I don't. I don't want anyone to touch my schedule or anything like that or make decisions for me because they don't know everything that's in my head. Like oh, I just I want to leave early to pick up my son, or like today I have to my son is starting lacrosse and so I've got to make time for that. So I have to figure out what else I have to move because
of the driving and this and that. I have to make appointments and I put them up up on my schedule to remind myself. So I'm constantly re evaluating the schedule every week. But I definitely leave a big center day without anything to do. But I do a lot in that day.
So what does that center day look like that you don't have, I guess external bookings.
So I give myself a morning to think, like and like read around and take notes and things like that. So just like nobody gets enough time to think because and then also if you like Twitter or you like whatever here happen, your addictive nature of the Internet is you can go from thinks that you can take up a lot at whether you like watching looking at Instagram or TikTok. You can really suck up time. And it's not bad stuff either, by the way, it's good. It's
kind of interesting. It's news and stuff. So I can do endless sucking of information and I enjoy it, like reading the news quite a bit. So I have to like physically put down my phone. I also like to have to do stuff that isn't digital, like I this morning, I had some time. I didn't realize what happened, so I rearranged my shelves. I was just it makes me happy,
it calms me down. Cleaning calms me down, actually, and I think while I'm doing it, or I listen to music or podcasts or things like that, and so I want it's really important to take space for yourself, even if you I take more space than most people because it's calming, it's you know what I mean, like things that I like, physical things like cooking or cleaning. I tend to like to do myself because I'm an organized person and it's like therapy for me. And it sounds weird, but it is.
It doesn't sound wesid all now.
Before we started recording, I mentioned that I'm a huge fan of PI and it's always it's quite surreal, I think when you listen to a podcast and then you actually speak to that voice that is in your ear all the time.
And something I'm really impressed.
About always with you and Scott on Pivot is just you seem to know everything.
Yeah, we do, one of us does.
Yeah, that's right, definitely.
You.
What are your go to sources for staying on top of what's going on in the world.
Well, I'm a voracious reader of news, you know, I really do. I'm always paying attention to making I spend a lot of time making connections between things, and so I save like a long reading list of different articles. I don't read by publication necessarily, but you know, I tend to look at the New York Times several times a day just for news because they just they have a breadth of news, or watch them post and then I look Twitter a lot. Is really my organizational thing
for news. And then I avail myself. I ask people when I get an idea, I ask people directly about different things, or I try to reach them so I can get more information. So I spend a lot of time texting. I spend a lot of time reading and then texting or cent what do you think of this? What do you know about this? And stuff like that. So I'm always collecting information.
And on Twitter, who are some of your go to people that you follow on Twitter?
So when there was high political drama, I smell a lot of time with lots of political people. But I follow everybody in that and I read them very quickly. And now I'm really interested in vaccines, and so I'm following a lot of various vaccine I just interviewed Michelle doctor Michelle Williams of Harvard Today, and so I tend to follow a lot of vaccine experts this week because I'm interested in distribution or things like that. It often
depends on what I'm covering. Like I did a really good interview with Kathy Park Hoong about the attacks on Asian Americans in the United States, and I besides reading her book, which was amazing, I followed lots of discussion about it on Twitter, for example, and I followed lots of I tend to use more digital things than I do television or things like that, but I do avail myself to like I'm very interested in QAnon, and I've watched all the q and and documentaries, the one on
HBO and things like that, and I sort of tend to get deep into a topic and then learn all about it.
I wantn't know with interviews, what's your process for preparing for an interview.
My process is before I did it all myself, but the Times has given me these great producers who tend to produce a background document and I tend to read almost everything and then we then they come up with you know, I give them thing called curiosities, where I said, this is what I'm interested in. If we're interviewing like I just interviewed Don Lemon. Here's the ten things I'm
interested in. And then they make suggestions and then we have a discussion about it, and then they create a question document based on the narrative I want for the interview, and they can suggest you know, actually you said start with this. What about if we start with this? Because of this, it's almost like writing a story together with
a bunch of people. And then we look over the question and we have a meeting about the question document and move that around, and then during the interview, they're talking to me through the Google doc, you know, as I'm going. But I tend to do it many, like many weeks of research depend on several different interviews that are going on.
That's amazing how broad it is. How do you decide on who to interview?
I always have a conceptual idea of what I'm doing. So conceptually it's about power, and so what is power? And that's that's how I That could be anybody, right, It creates a rather large basket of people you can interview, and so I try to find really interesting ways into a broader topic. You know, I tend to another thing. I spend a lot of time is trying to be diverse. And I'm not doing this for virtue signaling or anything else.
But there's plenty of people out there, and you just don't you don't have to have Everyone doesn't have to be a white guy, right, it just doesn't. And so I can find like epine biologists, there's dozens I could find, Like they're all qualified, every one of them. But I tended to look around so I get the most diverse, whether it's a woman, a person of color. Just try to be more diverse in my thinking age geography. It's
not just gender and race, it's everything. Like we try intentionally to try to find a broader range of people for you to meet, right so that you understand the world in a much broader way, because I think that's just more knowledge is better, and so if you have more points of view, you get a lot more you know, you get a lot more perspective. And some people are just just like Nancy Pelosi, I don't really have to
you know. Just this past four weeks, we had doctor Michelle Williams who's an epidemiologist at Harvard, Diana Triheo, who is the Mars Rover person, Apple CEO, Tim Cook you know, we try really hard to mix up people so people will find it interesting.
That's amazing.
I've read that you don't feel intimidated or nervous going into interviews.
Is that true? Yes?
Now, except for maybe if I ever got Dolly Parton, But I think I wouldn't it be so happy? I really would like to interview Dolly Parton. She has said yes, yet I will get Dolly Parton to yes at some point. No, I don't feel nervous. Feel nervous, why should I.
I want to talk about the flow of the interview. You talked about almost thinking about it as a story. How how do you plan for it? Like what makes a good for opening part of the interview through to the rest of it.
You know, one of the things interviewers they make a mistake is they reel off a list of questions and don't there. They don't shift from it if things change, If I respond to what people are telling me, it's like it's more than a story. It's a conversation. Like you'd have at dinner with someone you wouldn't go and next, let me ask you about that next. You know what
I mean? You wouldn't do that, you would have a things fork off from each other, and so I spend a lot of time with a basics construct of here's the six things I really want to find out I want to ask this person. But I tend to sort of group them in things that naturally flow from one or another. And sometimes I'm like, let's hit them hard at the top. Sometimes I'm like, let's just wait, let's you know, let's introduce it this way. So you because you want to sort of you want to have people
to be comfortable to talk to you. At the same time, you don't want to not show discomfort with some things you don't like about them, right And in some cases it just goes I mean, I think one of the most successful in reis was this parlor ceo who I got to say the truth, which is he doesn't care about moderating, right like, and you know, it got him fired, it got farther thrown off. But you know, the day
before the interview, everything was fine. The day after they were thrown off every platform, and it was because I was very I was right near the capital. I was very emotional. You know, the capital was being attacked. I love the capital, I live near it, and I was like what the hell what are you talking about? Like and so, and he kept saying false things to me, like the New York Times, you know, promotes riots. I go,
what are you talking about? That is not true? And then he said some people say and I said, no, people say, you just made that up, like you know what I mean? Like so, it was as if I was having a conversation, but I had I had a list of things I wanted to talk to about, and moderation was one of them. And that's why, you know, that's why we that's why it worked. I ultimately got answers to all the questions that people wanted to know about.
It was this platform irresponsible and how it monitors its users. There's one question usually with each person. In case of Tim Cook, there's like six or seven.
How do you deal with people who are evading answering questions?
I say it that you didn't answer the question, like, I don't pretend I don't try a lot of interviews back into questions.
Like so.
There are some people who say, you know, like they back into it. I don't know why. I'm like Tim Cook, I'm like, okay. Lots of people say you're a monopoly in the app store, and they want to shut you down by antitrust? Can I have your reaction? I like I ask very direct questions. I do think people appreciate direct questions. I one hundred percent think that.
How do you shake people out of the talking points?
I say that's a talking point? Can we move on? When precisely I actually say that physically, I say that's a talking point? Are we done with this yet? Because just let me know? Because I'm tired of these talking points? And I don't do it rudely. I'm like, you know, that's a time you don't really want to talk like that, right? Is that how you want to present yourself?
I find your directness very inspiring.
I'm just clear direct. I'm direct. Yeah. I think people like it. I think I think the interviewers like it. By the interviewees like it because they don't have to like they're like, oh, okay, she's going to ask. There's no like idea that I'm not going to be clear. I think we're smart. People respect it. I think that's why they keep coming back for more. I never, like, never catch them like I don't. I'm just direct, and that's easier than people who catch them.
Right, definitely, definitely, I want to know with pivot, what does the preparation process look like. I'm always so keen to know, you know, with podcasts, I listened to what happens before the show.
We have this system. I'm working in a little studio and I set everything up myself. There's nobody here. We do everything virtually, so what the engineer is on the call, we use squadcast, and then we've we've the engineer has walked through the subject on how to set up their things, so there's usually not most of can you hear me?
Can you hear me? There's none of that, and then we just go right in and I say this is going to take I often always say, uh, this is going to be an hour, so sit back, like this is not a cable network thing, so you're gonna have to you know, dig deep heer if you don't mind, And so I tend to do that. Sometimes there's banter because sometimes I know someone and I you know, and sometimes we use it. Sometimes we use the the the uh,
the banter, and sometimes we don't. But but I tend to like try to like say something nice to them, you know what I mean, like or something happened in the news, I'm like, oh, what do you think about that? Or if I hadn't seen them in a while, like sometimes like oh we haven't seen each other since this time, and talk about that. But anyway, I try to like have an ongoing relationship with people so that by the time they get to my podcast, we have a relationship.
Yeah.
I read that about you that you're a really big proponent of staying in touch with people that you interview, whereas a lot of reporters are very transactional. What's been your approach for I guess building those relationships in that network.
My approach is I just people don't contact people. I know it sounds crazy, but they just don't.
I just do.
I Like, anyone I want to meet, you can usually get to them through Twitter or whatever, and I don't. I just text them or whatever, or if I if I don't have their email, I go on Twitter and DM them or sometimes publicly like hey it Scara, call me.
What are your favorite podcasts to listen to?
Well, I listen to my own lot. Actually I want to see how they sound and it works. Pivot I listen to every week. I don't listen to sway all the time because they're so long and I remember them so But I listen to Pivolt to see what works and what doesn't work. I have the daily. I don't listen to it every day, though, and I sometimes listen to pod save a matory, you know when when when Kevin rus haad rabbit Hole. I like series, and so I listened to that. I listen to Dolly Partons America.
Of course. I like to listen to interesting podcasts by young people. I was teaching at the University of Chicago this semester, and this one student I thought was super promising podcaster has a podcast called kind Of sort Of Brown, which I really like. I think it's kind of cool. I think she does. She does really, It's just I'm always interested in what she had. She she does with a bunch of young people there Niversity Chicago, and I really like, I really like it.
When you're listening to pivot your own podcast, what what are you listening for when you're you know, listening critically to it?
I guess, well, it's sort of like how many people who listen to shows see what jokes land, you know, with a lot of what works, what goes on too long, if I'm if Scott is interrupting me too much, or I'm interrupting him too much. Everything I listened to everything, how the opening worked, If we should change anything, ideas for the next show. I tend to think of I'm always thinking of new things we can do, length of things. We don't do a lot of editing on this thing.
It's not highly produced. So it's produced. So we have a really good producer, Rebecca, but we don't. It's not highly produced. As you know, The Daily is highly produced.
It is not I would say, hey, there, it's time for a little ad break, but can I ask a favor of you? If you're enjoying how I work, I'd be so grateful if you could hit pause and leave a little review. You might want to hit the star button and leave a star review, or maybe write some kind words thank you in advance. If you're one of the hundreds of people that have done this. It's a great way to help other people find out about how
I work. And it also just brings me lots of warm, fuzzy feelings, so that's nice too.
Okay.
Kara will be back after this short break where she reveals the best piece of career advice she's ever received, and she also gives me feedback on my interview style. I want to talk about social media because Twitter's obviously features in your life in terms of staying on top of things. Yet you are able to, particularly on your Tuesdays you were talking about, stay really efficient and focused. So what is your relationship like with social media?
I just use Twitter. I don't use Facebook at all. I don't use Facebook. I've a giant waste of data, sucking waste of my time. I don't look at Instagram. I don't find it. I don't really want to look at people's lunches all that much. If they're really good, they'll put them on Twitter. I get why people like Instagram. I get it. It's just too performative for me. I like TikTok, but I get sucked into the TikTok hole. If I go in there, I stay there for a long time.
How do you not let it consume me?
Like?
How do you switch off when you've actually got writing to do?
I have to put it away. It's addictive. I love it, it's so fun. I don't I'm not addicted to anything. I don't smile. I don't drink. I don't take drugs, you know what I mean, Like it's a drug, it's a drink. I like news, So it's a perfect app for me because I news. I've just been lately doing you know, I do live twitters after I do certain New York Times stuff, and that's fun to interact with
the audience. But lately we've been trying Twitter spaces, which is essentially not clubhouse, and I like it a lot because my interest graph is there and we've been getting you know, five hundred more people coming in on a Friday night talking about you know, like last week it was Amazon's union stuff, and so we bring in interesting people to talk to and then we let most people on there, so it's sort of like talk radio. I really kind of like it. I'm fascinated by the audio live space.
Now.
Something I've read about you is that I'm, like quite a few guests I've had on the show, impostera syndrome is not something that you have had.
Can you talk to me about that.
I don't have imposter syndrome. I think I'm great. I don't know why I am. I mean, when I do things wrong, I'm like, oh, that sucked, but I tend not to think that. Most of the time. I have a good assessment of my qualities, is what I would say. I had an interesting talk with my son. I talked to my oldest son and I've been talking a lot lately, which is interesting. He's at NYU for the first year and we've talked a lot about what makes a person like and stuff. And he was, you know, he was
reading me some stuff he wrote. He's a beautiful writer. Don't believe it, but he's quite a good writer. And you know, it's so funny because he goes he goes, no, I'm not, and I'm like, have I ever said you're good at something when you're not? And he goes, no, you haven't. I said, so you must be a good writer, because I wouldn't say so. I'd say nothing, or I would say it's bad. Probably, So I tend to be very clear with my feedback. And I'm good with that
myself about myself too. So if I'm good at something, I say so. If I'm not, I say so. But when I'm good at I'm quite good at so I say that.
Where did you get that from? I feel like that's really unusual. Like particularly when when we're younger.
Well, I have eyes, I can see. I know if i'm good. I know if i'm good against other people. Like I wanted to be an architect, but I was terrible. I was terrible. I loved it. I love drawing, but everything I designed looked like shit. And I was like, I'm not good at this, Like I just knew it. I just didn't. And this other girls that next to me was so good, and I was like everything she designed this is beautiful. Like I'm aware of other people being better at things, even if I wish I were
better at them. I don't know. I'm just truthful about myself and the things around. And that includes being truthful, not necessarily in a negative way. It's always done in a negative way to people. I'm not good at this. I don't measure up that person's richer. I don't think like that. I'm like that was good. I make a lot of money, like you know what I mean, Like you know, and so it's I'm just I'm just pretty clear about my capabilities.
Wow, it's almost like this object comparison.
Well, I just think you know, the world tries to drag down women. You know what I mean, they drag down people are marginalized. I think a little bit has to do with being gay. I guess if I had to pick anything, is that. You know, all the messaging was so negative when I was coming up. When I was I'm an older person, and so it was a lot different than it is today. It's not good today either,
by the way, for transport transgender kids right now. I just was very confident, so you had to be because there were so many negative images, and I kept thinking, I'm great, I'm pretty happy, I'm gay, like you know what I mean, Like I was. It was just like, that's not true, that's not true. And so I think that's how I think you get if you have a lot of incoming in your life and you're able to fend it off, you feel pretty confident about yourself.
I'm fascinated by that.
I don't have. My daughter is really interesting. She's super confident. She's My sons are wonderful guys. They're older, they're sixteen and almost almost sixteen, almost nineteen, and my daughter is one and a half, a little bit over one and a half, and she's so confident. It's so fascinating to watch. She just walks through the world, that's right, you know what I mean? Like, and last night she was just dancing and just she didn't care, She couldn't care less.
She was like, I'm dancing, That's what I'm doing. And then I'm going to just throw myself into it. And so you always wonder what happens to girls. For example, iway keep going with is because I boys is easy. They're always confident by the way most of the time, or the world lets them be confident most of the time. And I was like, where's the point where they're going to try to pull down this enormous confidence this little
girl has, right, what's the moment? And so I want to watch it really carefully because I don't want her to let go of it because it's it's magical, right, Her confidence and herself and her abilities is really quite high. And so where are the little places that, you know, shave an edge off of her? And I'm not going to let that happen. I love that because she's going to do better by staying the way she is, by having wonder confidence and everything else. And I'm not being
being stupidly dangerous. I don't want to run down, run down the steps or anything like that. But but it's it's an interesting I'm watching It's going to be interesting having a daughter over two sons, because sons are alway, They're always like, I'm great, I'm great. I was like, you're not so great. Oh I'm great.
Where does it come from?
Where does it come from?
Now?
With writing, I want to know how can people make their writing better for listeners that are are fans of your work and your writing?
What can ask me immortals do to be better writers?
Well, you're not. I am also immortal. To give you some infidet I know you think I'm a god from another planet, but now just be clear, just I think people tend to be performative in their writing, right, they're not. They like they imagine what a writer is supposed to sound, like you should develop your own voice and stick to it, and like there's certain things don't like write run on sentences. There's like a bunch of rules. One of my favorite
books is Drunk and White's Elements of Style. Still just read that and don't do those things like that. They say not to, but I think most people don't. They tend to get very flourishy or performative instead of just writing simply into the point. And I think if you get to that, then you can later It's like learn to draw on apple, and then later you can be Picasso. Picasso drew a beautiful apple, by the way, before he was Picasso, he could draw an apple right, or he
could do like the basics. So master a couple of things. The essay is, if you're a news reporter and knew a good news report, master a longer form piece, and then you know, then you can get more challenging and experimental. It's like skiing, like start on the bunny slope, then do intermedia, then go down the other one, you know, the black diamond or whatever. And so I think people don't spend enough time thinking about like a craft, right, do it over and over and over again, just like
dancing or anything else. How did you I was always writing? I wasn't I wasn't a bio. I wasn't a diary person at all. I just I don't know. I just started writing. I was good at it. I just was good. I was very articulate as a child about anything. I had a very I had a very easy time talking. And then I just typed what I was saying. You know, I just don't. I just I learned. I had great teachers.
I had several teachers who were just in especially sixth and seventh grade, who were very encouraging and creative and the way they taught. But I also had one ture who was just a grammar. I don't want to say grammar Nazi, because Nazis shouldn't be used for things like that, but she was a grammar. She was just a very strong on grammar and she drilled into me proper grammar. And I know it sounds dumb, but it gives you
a structure. And so I'm not always perfect, but I definitely think about how important that structural stuff was to being a good writer.
A couple more questions for you.
I always feel, I'm not sure if nervous is the right word, but when I'm interviewing someone that interviews other people for a living, I'm always curious as to what they're thinking. Given you're so direct with feedback, give me some feedback, Kara, for how this interview is in you.
You're an excellent interviewer. You ask good questions, You're flowing nicely, You're asking things are following you're actually listening to what I'm saying and then following up with questions about what we're talking about. I think you're curious. I think that's the most important part for an interviewer, is to be curious. And you're not doing rote like here's my list of questions. I'm going to get through them, so it feels like
question answer, question answer, question answer. And that's where most interviewers go wrong is they're not hearing what the person is saying. You know, you keep you're doing an interesting conversation. That's how you should think of it. An interesting conversation.
Okay, give give me some constructive feedback. What can I do better?
I'd up the aussy accent. People love a charming Australian. Yes, I'm gonna use it next time. You probably try to please me too much, so you're not saying anything really mean or tough, not unfairly, but like, I don't think you want to be too tough on me. Probably you're nervous because because I'm probably faster than you and probably
could slap you down really hard. That would be my guest. Yeah, probably you're nervous about saying anything too I didn't like that I didn't like when you did that, and so those are hard questions. Like when I was in reading Tim Cook the other day, I forgot. I didn't not forget, but I enough time to ask about China. But I was pretty tough when I'm bearing the app and I made sure that I had like, I think you're wrong, like we so we could have a point of and
I thought that too. I wasn't doing it just to be pointlessly difficult. I was like, I have a problem with this, and so do a lot of people. But I don't say other people say. I usually say I have a problem with this. So you probably don't want to be mean to me. But I haven't never really done anything deserving meanness. I'm not sure you know what I mean, Like.
Yeah, no, I appreciate your feedback, and that's very true. I think I would feel nervous to disagree because I have such a high opinion of you.
That's why Scott works so well, because we disagree all the time, and we both are good at pushing back. You know, people are. It's so funny. Someone said to me, he's so offensive. He said that to me. I was like, uh huh. And they're like aren't you angry all the time. I'm like, no, no, he's offensive. Yeah, I don't agree with them. And then I push back, like and they're like, well,
I think you should find someone who's less offensive. I'm like, the whole friggin point of the show is that we disagree on a lot of stuff and we agree on some stuff. I said, it's a whole that's the whole formula. Is that there's people really like civil disagreement. And because there's so much partisanship down that's so mean. If people could have debate over issues that isn't political and isn't partisan,
it's it's a pleasure. Also. The last thing is you can have a point of That's what I would say. I have a point of view and I get it through and so I think that's the reason I think I'm really successful is I'm very clear about my point of view, and I think some interviews pretend they don't have one, and I think it's really helpful to listeners to have one.
I like that, Yeah, it's funny. I've received that feedback before from Adam Grant. Actually, more about sharing more of my own strategies, which I sometimes do, but I do kind of stay away from that because I'm like, no, no, no, this is about the guest, and that's what listeners that.
People are tuning into you, not the guests. It's your interview. I'll tell I'll give you one piece of ass. I got the best piece of besse I ever got my life from a professional. Thing is I was writing my first book on AOL and I was overwhelmed. I was a young reporter and I was good, but I still was very early in my career, and I was just beside myself because I interviewed all these people and there was so much information. There's just so much coming in,
and I didn't know quite how to organize it. And I called a friend of mine who wrote true crime novels of all things. I love those book kind of books. You know, she'd cover a trial and then write a novel and not a novel, a nonfiction book about some crime or whatever. And I said, I don't know what to do. I'm just going crazy. The only person I know who's written a book, and she said, it's not because it's not the whole. It's not the story of AOL. It's your story of AOL. What's your story? What do
you want to say about it? And I was like, Oh, it's not the story, it's a story. And I was like, oh, oh that's easy. I'll tell you what I think of this. So that was a really helpful thing. That's still to this day, it's twenty thirty years on whatever, I'm still like, what is my story?
My final question for you is for listeners that want to consume more of what you're doing, what's the best way for them to do that?
Oh, lots of ways. Very I make a lot of content. Well, some of it's free, some of it, all of it's free. You just have to listen to an ad. You can listen This Way podcast at the New York Times if you want, and you could listen you can dig into things you like or not whatever. They're very long and they take commitment on your on behalf. I assume you're a smart person, So if you're tuning in, you're not going to get reductive, twitchy bullshit. Secondly, pivot you'll get reductive,
twitchy bullshit. No, No, it's more fun. It's news topical. It's really fast and funny, and we sometimes have interview. We have interviews every week on a Friend of pivot and different things, and it's really fun. It's easy to consume. It's super easy consume. We might column in the New York Times, I write, I have an events that I do, and I'm always I do Twitter lives and Twitter spaces a lot, and I wander around my neighborhood a lot.
You can find me DC. I was coming out of a target yesterday, yesterday, Yeah, and I was wearing a mask in my sunglasses because people know me by my sunglasses right as I always do. And I was coming. Then this guy's gone, and he goes, it's you. And I was like, what. He goes, you go to stores? You said you went to stores. And I was like, oh my god, Hi, And he goes, it's great to meet you. And like he felt like he had a relationship with me, which was great, and I really thought, good,
good for me, good for him. Like that he said something, and then we ended up talking about retail. Where it was going.
That's awesome.
I will link to old in the show notes as well as your local target.
Find me in the local target. In friendship, heates, I don't live up there. I was up there doing something, but you can find me wandering around it. I'm often in hardware stores. Hey love hardware stores.
Good to note.
We'll link to some of your local ones in the show notes. Kara, It's been an absolute joy. Thank you so much for your time.
All Right, thank you so much.
That is it for today's show.
If you haven't already, hit subscribe or follow on this podcast, you might want to do that. Next week, I'm very excited to share an interview with a tech entrepreneur called Sam Carcos, who is the founder and CEO of a company that you probably haven't heard of called Levels, who are doing some awesome, awesome stuff in the area of health tech. And I got to say, after interviewing Sam, I can definitely conclude that he is one of the nerdiest productivity people that I've spoken to, and I mean
that in a very very complimentary way. It is jam packed with practical tips to get better at your work. So hit subscribe or follow if you haven't already. How I Work is produced by Inventium with production support from Dead Said Studios.
The producer for this.
Episode was the marvelous Jenna Koda, and thank you to Martin Nimba, who does the audio mix for all of How I work and makes everything sound awesome.
See you next week.