Tesla is bleeding execs, and it appears to be reaching a crisis point; over at Twitter/X, new reporting shows that Elon uses the platform to cozy up to right-wing leaders around the world and then presses them to enact policies that benefit to his companies; and while SpaceX continues to dominate in space, serious questions remain about the Pentagon’s reliance on the mercurial industrialist with a seeming soft spot for Putin and Xi. So it’s time to gather three of the best reporters covering Mus...
May 23, 2024•56 min
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has been reporting on protests, wars and conflicts for more than 40 years, and he’s used his platform to highlight human rights issues at home and abroad. But despite being a proponent of "ethical journalism", he flinches at being called an “activist”. Kara talks to Nick about the swashbuckling adventures detailed in his new memoir, Chasing Hope: A Reporter’s Life, his take on the situation in Gaza and the student protests against the war, and why he’s m...
May 20, 2024•55 min
David Ignatius, a foreign affairs columnist for The Washington Post and the author of twelve novels, is also a noted expert on Middle East politics, one of the preeminent national security writers in the country, and perhaps, most importantly — the person who first assigned Kara Swisher to cover tech news. Kara talks to her old boss about his new spy thriller, The Phantom Orbit, the upcoming presidential election, the war in Gaza, and the war in Ukraine. Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxme...
May 16, 2024•59 min
To savvy tech consumers, Walt Mossberg and Marques Brownlee, aka MKBHD, need no introduction. Before he retired in 2017, Walt was the undisputed dean of tech reviewers. As Senator Maria Cantwell, a recent guest and former tech executive put it, “all our product reviews lived or died by Walt Mossberg.” MKBHD began reviewing tech products on YouTube, as a high schooler, and he now has more than 18 million subscribers to his channel. He has become this generation’s Walt Mossberg, and as Jimmy Donal...
May 13, 2024•1 hr 1 min
Author Anne Lamott has penned novels, but is most famous for her confessional memoirs about sobriety, raising her son as a single mother (Operating Instructions), being a liberal Christian and writing (Bird By Bird). Kara and Anne talk about her 20th book, Somehow: Thoughts on Love, why she thinks love is like Wi-Fi, how she dealt with nearly being canceled over a tweet, how to practice radical self-acceptance, and finding forgiveness — even for Donald Trump. Questions? Comments? Email us at on@...
May 09, 2024•50 min
Thirty-one years after founding Chipotle, Steve Ells is back with what he hopes will be another fast-casual dining revolution: the highly-automated, plant-based food chain, Kernel. Ells says that streamlining and automation will allow him to pay workers well above minimum wage and give them more benefits – all while reducing labor costs. But don’t call it a robot restaurant! Kara and Ells discuss the mechanics and philosophy underpinning Kernel’s concept and the downstream effects of integrating...
May 06, 2024•48 min
In her latest play, Sally & Tom, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks tackles what is, arguably, one of the most complicated and personal chapters in American history: the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, the enslaved woman who gave birth to at least six of his children. Kara and Parks discuss the play in the context of her past work, as well as our nation's trend of revising history to sand down its rough edges, and why wrestling with our nation’s past ...
May 02, 2024•46 min
When Kara first met Senator Maria Cantwell in the 90s, she was a tech executive at an early player in the streaming media industry called RealNetworks. Now, the Democrat from Washington is the chair of the powerful Senate Commerce Committee, and she recently released a draft of the American Privacy Rights Act. For the first time in a long time, it looks like a tech privacy bill might have a decent shot at actually becoming law. Senator Cantwell joins the podcast to discuss her bill, her approach...
Apr 29, 2024•50 min
Kara discusses the “pacing threat” that is China – from TikTok to cyberattacks to semiconductors and Taiwan – with two cybersecurity experts: Dimitri Alperovitch, co-founder and former CTO of CrowdStrike and author of the new book World on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race for the 21st Century, and Chris Krebs, Chief Intelligence Officer at SentinelOne and former Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency under President Trump (until he was fired in a tweet ...
Apr 25, 2024•57 min
Despite a recent uptick, President Biden’s approval rating and his poll numbers against Donald Trump are far from stellar. And with inflation remaining stubbornly high and gas prices moving up, Biden and his party seem eager to focus voters on abortion rights — and Republicans in Arizona and Florida have given him plenty of material to work with. To understand how the abortion issue might play out in November — and how the Dobbs decision is already affecting millions of people across the country...
Apr 22, 2024•44 min
Is Gen Z’s mental health in decline because their “phone-based childhood” has flooded them with anxiety and ruined their sleep? Or is there a more complex mix of factors at play? Jonathan Haidt makes his case for the former explanation in his latest book, The Anxious Generation. While many people intuitively agree with his argument that phones and social media are ruining kids, some researchers are accusing Haidt of coming up with a grand overarching theory that isn’t supported by the data. Kara...
Apr 18, 2024•1 hr 2 min
Yahoo, the one-time "oracle of the internet", has had many iterations in its 30 year history - and private equity is betting that Yahoo CEO and digital media veteran Jim Lanzone can bring back its relevance. Kara has been covering Yahoo since its inception and has known Lanzone - who has had leadership stints at Ask.com, CBS and Tinder - almost as long. They discuss Jim's vision for the new Yahoo, what’s going on with search, how he’s integrating AI, and whether there could be another Yahoo merg...
Apr 15, 2024•53 min
“Flood the zone with shit.” It’s a zinger and a strategic imperative, from the oh-so-eloquent Steve Bannon, being expertly executed by Donald Trump and the MAGA-fied GOP. To help us make sense of what our information morass means for the 2024 election, we’re joined by three political disinformation experts: Nina Jankowicz, a disinformation researcher, the former executive director of the Disinformation Governance Board at the Department of Homeland Security, and the author of "How To Lose the In...
Apr 11, 2024•50 min
There are a lot of Trump/Hitler comparisons being thrown around these days. So we went to the source, as chronicled by historian Timothy Ryback in his new book Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power. Ryback zooms in on the final six months before Adolf Hitler dissolved the government of the Weimar Republic, revealing that Nazi Germany was not inevitable. Kara and Ryback discuss the Berlin power players that misjudged Hitler’s bankrupt party, and the (not just rhetorical) similarities between the...
Apr 08, 2024•55 min
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@vox...
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, Pow...
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 [email protected] 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 [email protected] 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 th...
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 taped...
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 [email protected] 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 pro...
Feb 15, 2024•52 min
