Joan Nathan, the “doyenne of Jewish-American food” and a pillar of the DC dinner party scene, joins us to talk about her memoir, “My Life in Recipes.” Nathan has written a dozen cookbooks, but this is her most personal, drawing on family recipes from the old country that go back centuries. She and Kara discuss everything from Golda Meir’s terrible matzo balls, to the limits of gastro-diplomacy, the so-called “Hummus Wars,” and the war in Gaza. Please note that while this discussion touches on ch...
Apr 04, 2024•48 min
Author Geraldine DeRuiter a.k.a. The Everywhereist joins Kara to talk about her new book If You Can’t Take the Heat: Tales of Food, Feminism, and Fury . They talk about some of the author’s viral moments and the backlash she experienced after calling out two famed Italian chefs, the inherent sexism in the food industry (from dining rooms to professional kitchens), and how societal stigmas around beauty and our bodies have distorted our relationship to food. Questions? Comments? Email us at on@vo...
Apr 01, 2024•53 min
Kara sits down with Brené Brown, researcher, author, and vulnerability expert, in this edition of the Burn Book book tour. Brené tries to bring out our host’s vulnerable side, asking about the life lessons Kara has learned from the tech titans she confronts in her memoir. This inevitably leads to a discussion of why Kara believes nice guys (like Mark Zuckerberg) can still be dangerous, and about her disappointment with Elon Musk. This interview was taped at the Chicago Humanities Festival on Mar...
Mar 28, 2024•54 min
The effort to ban TikTok in the US is back in the spotlight as a new bill has passed through the House and is now in the Senate. Today, we have a lively debate with two guests who bring competing analysis to the table. Alex Stamos is Chief Trust Officer at SentinelOne and the former Chief Information Security Officer at Facebook (he can often be heard on Moderated Content ). Taylor Lorenz is a columnist at the Washington Post covering technology and culture and hosts the new VoxMedia podcast, Po...
Mar 25, 2024•58 min
Reddit has been around for 19 years, but today the social media platform goes public and starts a new chapter. Its listing on the New York Stock Exchange also marks the first major social media IPO since 2019. Kara speaks to co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman about money, content moderators and whether the subreddit r/WallStreetBets could make this one a meme stock. Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find us on social media. We’re on Instagram/Threads as @karaswisher and @nayeemar...
Mar 21, 2024•1 hr
For the past decade, the European Commission has taken on Big Tech under the leadership of Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager, inspiring fear and griping from tech CEOs the world over. Today, Vestager reveals why, despite being one of the toughest regulators in the business, she considers herself a tech optimist. She and Kara discuss the impact of EU antitrust lawsuits - including the most recent $2 billion fine against Apple - whether EU tech regulations passed to improve safety and co...
Mar 18, 2024•51 min
We're continuing book tour week in this bonus episode of “On.” Kara takes the SXSW stage with Mark Cuban, the entrepreneur turned "Shark Tank" star who is currently focused on his healthcare venture CostPlus Drug Company. The two have known each other for decades and Cuban was even featured in the "Mensch" chapter of Burn Book — a short chapter at that. On stage, Mark grills Kara on how few women are featured in her book, what makes her so successful and why she didn't just call the book "told y...
Mar 15, 2024•44 min
We continue Kara's tour of her memoir Burn Book: a Tech Love Story as she gets candid with Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos about the nonsensical nature of 1990s/early 2000s tech culture, how technology disrupted media, where Kara's candor comes from and Ted's short-lived career as a journalist. This interview was taped at Live Talks LA on March 4,2024. Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find us on social media. We’re on Instagram/Threads as @karaswisher and @nayeemaraza Learn more a...
Mar 14, 2024•49 min
This week, we join Kara on tour as she speaks with some of the most influential names in tech about her memoir Burn Book: a Tech Love Story . Today's stop: San Francisco’s City Arts & Lectures with Sam Altman, OpenAI’s co-founder and CEO (and recently reinstated Board Member). This time, it’s Kara in the hot seat and Altman asking the questions. The two talk about last year’s OpenAI drama, Kara’s live coverage of Sam’s ouster and return, the lawsuit Elon Musk has brought against OpenAI and t...
Mar 11, 2024•46 min
In high school, Reed Jobs was a summer intern in oncology labs while his dad, the late Apple co-founder and tech icon Steve Jobs, was battling pancreatic cancer. In his biography, Steve is quoted as calling his son’s interest in biotech the “silver lining” of his illness – and making cancer “non-lethal” has become Reed’s life mission. In 2023, he spun off the venture capital firm Yosemite from Emerson Collective (the philanthropy and family office founded by his mother, Laurene Powell Jobs) to f...
Mar 07, 2024•56 min
Tomorrow is Super Tuesday - the nation's biggest primary vote - and hundreds of delegates are up for grabs. But what impact do primaries have when the nation seems resigned to a rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump? David Chalian, CNN Political Director (i.e. the man who makes the call on election night), shares his thoughts on the stakes for 2024, why Nikki Haley is still in the race, and which state he believes matters most this November. Questions? Comments? E...
Mar 04, 2024•55 min
This week marks the release of Kara’s memoir, Burn Book: A Tech Love Story and the launch of her national book tour . At events from New York to Seattle, some of the tech CEOs, politicians and other bold names Kara writes about in her book will be putting her in the hot seat. Today’s episode is the first of these conversations: former CNN anchor Don Lemon interviewed her about her career and the tech giants she’s slain, and drops some intel about his own new show on X. This conversation was tape...
Feb 29, 2024•49 min
Renowned litigator Roberta (Robbie) Kaplan says she’s a born fighter. In January she won one of those fights when a jury ordered Donald Trump to pay Kaplan’s client, E. Jean Carroll, $83.3 million dollars for defamation. Kara and Robbie talk about why Trump’s behavior in and out of the court cost him. They also discuss the state of LGBTQ+ rights more than a decade after Kaplan successfully championed same-sex marriage before the Supreme Court. And Kaplan unpacks how Elon Musk and others with dee...
Feb 26, 2024•59 min
Actor Paul Giamatti seems to have perfected the hyper-articulate, slightly depressed curmudgeon – and this year, it might land him an Oscar. Kara and Paul talk about why his role in The Holdovers hit close to home, the challenges of developing a multi-season TV character like Billions’ D.A. Chuck Rhoades, and how a “chinwag” led him to co-host a podcast about metaphysics, time travel and UFOs. Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find us on social media. We’re on Instagram/Threads...
Feb 22, 2024•44 min
Today, we’re replaying a conversation that Kara taped last spring with none other than Brooke Shields. Shields became a teenage superstar through her roles in “Pretty Baby” and “Blue Lagoon” as well as the famous Calvin Klein ads (“Do you want to know what comes in between me and my Calvins? Nothing.”). In her new Hulu documentary, “Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields,” she talks about how she sees those hypersexualized roles today and how she survived life in an industry that she says did nothing to he...
Feb 19, 2024•54 min
Writer and director Cord Jefferson’s first feature film, American Fiction , has been nominated for five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. Jefferson was once a journalist, but shifted into TV and film a decade ago, working on shows including Succession, The Good Place, and Watchmen , for which he won an Emmy for his writing. Kara and Cord discuss why Percival Everett’s book Erasure spoke to him so personally, how satire helped him break out of the “race beat,” and what p...
Feb 15, 2024•52 min
More than 35 years after its release, Tracy Chapman’s eponymous debut album – and the single Fast Car – hit #1 on the charts last week, fueled by her performance with country star Luke Combs at the Grammy Awards . Kara speaks with Lydia Polgreen of the New York Times’ Matter of Opinion podcast, music reporter Maura Johnston , and Estelle Caswell, formerly of Vox Pop Earworm , about why an album written at the end of the Reagan era, full of songs about social injustice, racial tensions and strivi...
Feb 12, 2024•59 min
Rahm Emanuel is the ultimate political insider: He’s worked closely with three presidents, he’s been mayor of the nation’s third largest city (Chicago), and he’s now “redefining” diplomacy as ambassador to Japan. Kara talks to Rahm about the “new” Japan he sees emerging today, the importance of strong Asia-Pacific collaboration to counter China, his thoughts on a probable Biden-Trump rematch in November, and whether or not Taylor Swift will make it back from Tokyo in time for the Superbowl. Ques...
Feb 08, 2024•50 min
Kara got a sneak peek of the Apple Vision Pro, and sat down before the official launch with tech reporters Joanna Stern , Nilay Patel and Mark Gurman to discuss why it took so long for Apple to get into the world of "spatial computing" headsets, who will buy it at a steep $3500 price tag, and what Steve Jobs might make of this new device. Note: This episode was taped on Wednesday, January 31st. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices...
Feb 05, 2024•1 hr 4 min
Today, our guest is acclaimed director and screenwriter Ava DuVernay, known for the Oscar-nominated films “Selma” and “13th.” Her latest film “Origin” is an adaptation of Isabel Wilkerson’s 2020 bestseller “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.” We explore how she adapted the ideas of a nonfiction book into a gripping narrative film and why – instead of major Hollywood studios – DuVernay secured funding for “Origin” from philanthropists, including the Ford Foundation, Melinda Gates, Laurene Pow...
Feb 01, 2024•48 min
How does someone with more than five decades of political reporting under her belt assess the current state of the union? For the past year, former PBS NewsHour anchor and current senior correspondent Judy Woodruff has been touring the country for a new project, America at a Crossroads , reporting on the divisions that plague our nation. Kara speaks with Woodruff about the roles that both politicians and the media play in our growing polarization, whether journalists can be “truthful, not neutra...
Jan 29, 2024•53 min
As Pennsylvania’s Attorney General, Josh Shapiro successfully defended the state election process in 2020 against suits brought by former President Donald Trump and his allies. We speak with Governor Shapiro about his administration's preparations for a likely Trump/Biden rematch in November. Plus: how his “Get Sh*t Done” motto is working out with a divided state legislature, why he’s launched a pilot project for using generative AI in government, and his reflections on the surge in antisemitism...
Jan 25, 2024•53 min
Donald Trump is an American figure decades in the making. That’s the argument historian and professor Heather Cox Richardson makes in her latest book: “Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America.” Richardson lays out her case, discusses her change of heart on Biden (whom she’s interviewed twice) and answers a question from former Representative Adam Kinzinger. She also sheds some light on whether she will take her popular newsletter business away from Substack, which has recently come un...
Jan 22, 2024•1 hr 7 min
From therapeutic-assisted MDMA to decriminalized psilocybin and microdosing, movements to legalize psychedelics are everywhere. California-based Joe Green is a prominent voice in the movement, as the co-founder and President of the Psychedelic Science Funders Collaborative (PSFC). Kara asks him about the recent unfavorable headlines (including concerns over Elon Musk’s potential drug use and Matthew Perry’s death from ‘acute effects of ketamine’) and poses a question from Investigative Reporter ...
Jan 18, 2024•49 min
Before the OpenAI Drama which pit AI enthusiasts (accelerationists) against doomers (decelerationists) we had a conversation with Stanford computer scientist and pioneering AI researcher, Dr. Fei-Fei Li. While cognizant of the challenges AI poses — including disinformation, polarization, biases, a loss of privacy and job losses that could lead to unrest — Li is a fierce advocate for the humane development of artificial intelligence and for increased diversity in the field. We taped this episode ...
Jan 15, 2024•1 hr 1 min
Trump’s back. Today, we go to a panel of experts to discuss his 2024 legal woes, dangerously escalating rhetoric, and what he might do if he retakes the White House in 2025. Our guests are New York Times senior political correspondent Maggie Haberman, Vox senior correspondent Ian Millhiser, and ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl, who recently authored “Tired of Winning: Donald Trump and the End of the Grand Old Party.” Plus: former Trump White House communications director Aly...
Jan 11, 2024•59 min
Four years after the start of the global pandemic, COVID-19 is no longer a global health emergency, but in the U.S., every week, the virus is still hospitalizing 15,000 people and killing a thousand. Today, we look back – and ahead – with former New York Times global health reporter Donald G. McNeil Jr., author of the new book The Wisdom of Plagues: Lessons from 25 years of Covering Pandemics . He and Kara discuss the conflicting findings surrounding the virus origin, including the lab leak theo...
Jan 08, 2024•54 min
Kara and Nayeema look forward to the characters and moments that may define 2024 by looking back at the coverage of the last year. We unpack the drama at OpenAI, to the contrast between Biden and Trump and Fox News, to Elon Musk and X with the most revealing interview moments from 2023. Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find us on social media. We’re on Instagram/Threads as @karaswisher and @nayeemaraza Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices...
Jan 04, 2024•47 min
On is off for the holidays, so today we have an episode of friend-of-the-pod Preet Bharara's podcast Stay Tuned with Preet. In this episode, Preet is joined by author Mark Chiusano for a deep dive on our favorite (or least favorite) Washington fabulist: George Santos. Mark Chiusano is the author of The Fabulist: The Lying, Hustling, Grifting, Stealing, and Very American Legend of George Santos. He joins Preet to discuss Santos’s lifetime of lies, and what his ascension to power says about our po...
Dec 28, 2023•22 min
Randy Rainbow is a four-time Emmy and Grammy-nominated musical comedy sensation famous for his viral taunts of anti-LGBTQ+ politicians, hateful celebrities and, of course, George Santos. Rainbow (and, yes: that is his real name) talks about his approach to his work, his inspirations, and why he claims his videos aren’t political. Kara also asks Rainbow what “Elon the Musical” would sound like. Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find us on social media. We’re on Instagram/Threads...
Dec 21, 2023•46 min
