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Learn more at IBM.com slash WatsonX. IBM. Let's create. Hi everyone, from New York Magazine in the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is on with Kara Swisher and I'm Kara Swisher. Today we're bringing you a bonus episode from my burn book, book tour. It's a conversation with businesswoman and entrepreneur, Lerine
Powell Jobs that we taped in February at six and I along with politics and pros. Powell Jobs is the founder and president of the Emerson Collective and investing philanthropy and advocacy firm that focuses on environmental justice, health, immigration and education. I've really loved Lerine's work at the Emerson Collective. I've known her a long time. She was married to the late Steve Jobs, which is how I met her and I covered him for many
years. Obviously, he was one of the co-founders of Apple, computer and probably the most famous tech visionary in history probably. Through the Emerson Collective, she's also purchased and become majority owner of the Atlantic. She's also invested in other media outlets and non-profit newsrooms, including Axios, ProPublica, among others. I've interviewed her plenty of times, but in this interview, you hear Lerine interview me about my book and my life reporting
on an industry she's very familiar with to say the least. I hope you enjoy the conversation and we'll be back on Monday with a new fresh episode with Julia Louise Dreyfus. Well, it's a pleasure to be here tonight and to talk with the great Kara Swisher about her new book, Burn Book. So Kara, welcome. I'm very excited for this conversation. So I want to begin with the title of this book. As far as I know, Burn Book came into
Lexicon because of the film Mean Girls, right? That's right. That's correct. Just so we're clear on her cultural touchstones. So it essentially means a book where you burn or dish on others, but she modified the title with a subtitle, which is a tech love story. So Kara, which one is it? Which tone did you want to say? Well, it's both of them because I just want to say last time Lerine and I were on stage, you were at Les Bians who tech and she was a huge
hit. I interviewed her there and I got a great Swiss fan. That was fun. That was a good time. That's me and Sue Tech or fun. Les Bians. Anyway, Burn Book, it's because Burn Books are actually true. I mean, that's the thing about Burn Books and if you watched it, it's in the theaters now, The Latest Mean Girls with Renee Rob, who really is fantastic. And it's, they're often true. It's what you really think of people and that outside
and social life, you do nice cities. You're like, oh, hello. But then you go, oh, that jerk and they did this. And so it's actually true even if it's mean or cady or gossipy. So that's one of the things. The other part, the part about the love story is because I really, the reason I'm angry, I wouldn't say, although Elon said I had a heart-seating with hate, we'll get to him. Yeah, look in the mirror, fella. That's what I say. And
it's, I love tech. You know that. I always love tech. In the minute I started using it, I was deeply in love with it. You know, I talk about it in the book about grabbing the giant suitcase found of the Washington Post and running around with it. And people made fun of me. Someone here in the room always used to make fun of me. Lesa Dickie. And I
had, I love tech from the minute I had it. And that's why when Walt is the one that really got me to move to San Francisco, I was thrilled to do it because it was so, it was so up into the right and so exciting. The stuff that was happening, of course you lived it too. And there was so much possibility. And one of the quotes I use, in fact, is from, I had this idea that you were either a Star Wars or a Star Trek person. And Star Wars
is a very dark tale. It's really, it's a very dark tale of humanity. It's evil wins versus evil. I mean, you're always rooting for the resistance. But evil wins. You're on quite a bit. Right. And in Star Trek, it's like I said, it's a, it's a Benetan commercial of space. Like they're all there running around. And it's really great. Everybody of, you know, gets along villains turn. And I had to remember the interview I had done with Steve
where he said he was talking about things that were starting to turn. I think it was about social media, which you didn't love. He didn't love the business plan of it. And he said, I want Star Trek. That's what I want. And I, when I saw that and I thought, that's right. I want Star Trek. I love Star Trek. And we're living in a Star Wars universe with a bunch of men, young adult men who act like toddlers, host playing Darth Vader. And,
you know, that pisses me off. This is me off, I guess. And so it's a love story gone wrong. Yeah. We better make sure it's in the right section of the book store. Yeah. Right. So it's how it's speaking of love. You dedicate the book to Walt Mossberg, the great tech journalist. And so this is an opportunity to give a little love to Walt. So tell us, but tell us a little bit about your partnership because you have, you had such a special, longstanding partnership
with Walt. Indeed. Indeed. He was, Walt was, I met Walt writing my book on AOL because he and I have of the same mindset because he had written a column. I really thought it was great. He's, he talked about seeing around corners. Walt really did. And he, he also was a great reporter, which is very different. He didn't, there's so many pontificators. Walt did the reporting and then came to a conclusion. And you either agree, he, people didn't
agree with them. He used to get in big fights with gates, would call all of them would call him. But he said what he thought, which I thought was a great thing. But he did it after doing reporting and it was his point of view. And so he wrote this column on AOL at the time. There were better funded businesses, prodigy being one of them, which was run, it was Sears and IBM was an online service. And I had written, it was everything Sears
knows about computing and everything IBM knows about retail. And so he noticed that. And when I went to talk, work on my AOL book, I called him. I said this was exactly what I think. We met at a place that had, it was down in the basement on Connecticut Avenue. And they had, we had French dips, I'll never forget. And we had, it was like Kismet when I met him. It was just, we were just like this immediately. And he's the one that got
me the job at the wall. In fact, he insisted. He's like, I need you to go to San Francisco and deal with these people because they're going to be, they're going to run the world. And you need to be there to make sure they do it right. And he said, he said, go in, parachute in with your cleats on, which I thought was painful. But, okay, which I did. And he said, go and get the truth out of these people because they're going to run the
world. And I did. He got me the job. He changed my life. I moved to San Francisco from here. I was working at the Washington Post. And he changed, and then we started business together because we also saw everything that happened. And we knew that newspapers were troubled to say the least. And so we started all things, D, within the Wall Street Journal together.
And the reason we were allowed to start it was because he was so powerful there because he wrote that tech column that made millions and millions of dollars every week for them. And so he just was, he's just, and he's still here. He lives up, he lives here in Potomac. And he's just a really special person, a mentor. He's kind, generous, talented. And he really,
if I'm even slightly the amount that he was as a journalist, I would be happy. So, and we did the conference together and we did all those iconic interviews, including the very last one, which I did with you and Johnny Ive and Tim Cook. But we did all these iconic interviews over the years. And the most one being the Gates and Jobs interview, which I think was, yeah, that was great. And the Mark Sweating interview, which that was
good. So, that was good. Yeah. You write about it really beautifully. Yeah. Well, as you, you talk about San Francisco a little bit, you start your stories here when you move to San Francisco in 1997. But of course, there was a lot of tech underway in the valley for the 50 years prior to that. And I'm just going to walk through a couple of them. In 1939, HP was founded. In the 60s, we got Intel and other microchip companies.
In the 70s, we had the flourishing of Xerox Park, Atari, Apple, Oracle, Genentech, Adobe, the rise of venture capitalists, Microsoft and Seattle. In the 80s and 90s, we had Sun, Cisco, and Vidya, Netscape, eBay to say a few. So all of that predates even these
stories here. But several of the people that you admire in the book, including Steve, came up during the 60s and 70s, steeped in that earlier world, particularly in the idealism that they saw at the intersection of technology and counterculture or technology and humanities. And something that Steve said that I loved was you can't understand what's happening today without understanding what came before. And that certainly is the case with tech.
So when you think about the 1960s through 90s, the growth of technology companies that really formed the foundation upon which everything else was built, when you think about those companies and those leaders, what stands out for you and what of the values and the underpinnings of that era? Do you see are still existing today in the DNA of tech companies and the ethos
of technology? And what do you think has been lost? Well, a lot's been lost. I mean, I think one of the things that the deleterious effects of wealth is one of the things I think that I talk about a lot. You know that you have this happening. But before that, they were, you know, as you recall, they were computer companies and they were chips companies. And there was
sort of this, it was dramatic. The fight between Apple and Microsoft was a dramatic, one of those dramatic stories there between them with Bill Gates slowly amassing a fortune and control of that. But before that, it was all these companies that were built on each other. Like the graphical user interface, which was from Xerox Park and it moved to that and everybody started
adding things into it. And it was sort of things grew from each other. But when the internet was introduced and both Apple and especially Microsoft was, Microsoft is particularly flat-footed getting what was happening. When it became a communications network and not just a device network, it changed everything. It changed the whole thing because you could then start to imagine it being more like electricity than anything else. Before, you know, sometimes I think, before the internet times,
computers were much more of them of themselves kind of thing. Afterwards, they are everywhere. It doesn't really matter what they are. And so like tonight, I always joke like, did you go, oh, I'm on the electrical grid today? You don't. You don't. Now the internet is like that. You're online. You're always online. So it's like water. It's like water. And so I think what happened was there were all these very hardworking people with a lot of values that were important,
including counter-culture values, changing things. You know, and that was an Apple that was certainly think different. I don't think it was just a marketing term. It was a marketing term, but it was more than that. And there was that ethos in the valley. And then when the money started to come in, and I think it really did in that bubble, it was like a gold rush and all the negativity that
that brings with it. And so you had all these people starting things that were, you know, I'd often go to meetings and they'd be like, and when I heard from some people, I believed, most people I didn't, and I actually found some old articles that I wrote in the Wall Street Journal, we're going to change the world, Cara. We're making a community, Cara. You know, they spoke those words, but they didn't mean those words. And that was what I found, you're increasingly
irritating to listen to. And in fact, one of my first articles in the journal was things they say that aren't true, and I'll tell you what they actually are saying. And so one of them was, we had new titles here, Cara. You know, as if they're the, you know, the Communist Party here. They all had different names. They never had them at the older, because they didn't have it Microsoft or Apple, but all these tech companies that I started covering when they were
startups, Chief Yahoo. Yes, it's true. Chief fun officer. There was one of those. And you're like, and the only person that ever, and I talked about this recently, that had it, I had a title I liked was, Mark's ever had a car that said, I'm the CEO bit. Oh yeah, he did. Oh yeah. And everyone gave him a hard time, and I was like, I get it. I like that. That's good. You are the CEO. But what he would do almost continually was talk. He would call me, and he'd say, you
know, we're here to change things, and we want a community. We want to all decide together. And I said, great. Sounds good to me. And do you think he was actually since here? No, not in any way. Because I said, well, you have, you hone all the stock, and you have all the controlling stock, and nobody can fire you. So it's not all of us. It's you. And that's what I was worried about, is the complete control these people had over very important issues increasingly,
and their lack of experience to deal with what became societal issues. But they inserted themselves in everything. And now you're seeing it in kind of a comical way when venture capitalists talk about Ukraine. Like, I don't care what venture capitalists care. You know, this is what we should do in Ukraine. And I'm like, listen person who invested in a digital dry cleaning service. Sit down. Right? Can you imagine Tim Cook, Tim Cook, winging and a more of a great care? He'd like,
he'd rather like, do almost anything else, honestly. Yeah. There's this strange confusion. Confidence that then bleeds over outside of the area of expertise. It's called frequently wrong, but never in doubt. Thank you. Yeah. More words. I'm really good with the words. I'm good with the words. Do you think that though there are any core values that still persist from from 50 years ago? Yeah, I do. I mean, in certain companies, which is quality, quality of design,
I think Apple does still exemplifies that, but look, they're old guys, right? They're kind of old guys there. Quality, there's certain companies, you know, I love, I very much like Sachin Adele at Microsoft. There's a couple of people quality actually talking about problems. Sam Altman, who you you, I think, good friends with. You know, he's talking about the problems at the same time he's talking about the positives. Now that never happens with a lot of them. Everything's always great,
up and to the right. They never talk about the dangers. So there is a thing of worrying about society, thinking about the implications, thinking about the consequences. And I do think that was a previous era. And then it got easily supplanted by people who had no interest in consequences, or anticipating them like privacy. Privacy is a big issue. And you would, you know, when you say anything to them about it, they'd be like, oh, you're old. You don't understand that I'm like,
I understand surveillance, I understand. You know what I mean? But they would say, you know, everybody wants this. And just the praying on people and giving them things that were theirs anyway. And then having to thank them, that was a really strange shift. Yeah, there's also a level of deceitfulness when you're harvesting people's personal data, monetizing it, and people don't really know what they're collecting. You know, Walt called them one time with the Google
guys. We were talking to them. And you know, they're kind of goofy and that kind of thing during that period. So it sort of covers up a lot of sins, right? And they, and Walt, at one point, an interview said, well, I think you're a rapacious information thief. At first, I thought, I bet they don't know what the word rapacious means. And I agree. They had a sense of them. Like that's a very good example.
Again, very goofy and silly. And one of the things, and when you started to tell them what they were doing was wrong, it wasn't just Facebook. It was before that. It was before that. You know, the sucking up of information, there were two moments at Google that are in the book where I was walking around Google with Larry Page. And there was always something weird at Google. Something would pop out of the door. You know what I mean? Suddenly a guy and like a gorilla out, and you're
like, okay, that sounds good. You know, or someone would be doing a pogo stick. That's another issue about juvenileization of these old, these men. But, but one of the things, there was a room, a dark room full of televisions. And he, I was like, what are they doing? What's the circuit city doing here? Essentially, for those who don't remember, it was a store. And they had a wall of televisions. And I said, what are you doing? And he goes, taping television. And I was like,
all of it? And he goes, a lot of it. And I'm like, do you have the rights to do that? Because it's copyright, right? I don't need the rights. I was like, you do need the rights. He goes, I don't need the rights. I go, you do need the rights. It's, you know, it's not yours. But he was doing is he was taking the close captioning and using it for search. He did the same thing with books, you know. And then, and then years later, he tried to buy Yahoo. They tried to buy Yahoo. And then
tried to control Yahoo. And so I, that was enough. I was like, no, no, no, you can't do that. Because they would have had 96% of the market, which seems to be a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so he, I wrote a story. I've talked about this quite a bit because I think it was an important story. And I used the Dr. Sussrime would not could not have it all or something like that. And, but at the end, I said, what's really irritating about these Google people is they, they, they,
with the colorful balls and the Pogo Sticks, at least Microsoft knew they were thugs. Because that's why it was stuggish what they were doing. And in this way, they were disarming. Disarming. Right. And so they, one of them called me and I honestly don't remember because at some point they became one person to me. And you, you know what I'm, she knows, she knows, she knows. Which one are you? And they call me and they said, you know us, Cara, we're really nice people. Right. We're
really nice people, Cara. We're not thugs. You know us. We're not evenly said it in our saying, you know, don't be evil. And I said, and they weren't, they weren't evil. They weren't, of course not. And I said, I'm not, I think you're nice. I'm not scared of you. It's the next. I'm not scared of you. I'm scared of the next person coming. And the next person is bad. And I mistakenly quoted Yates where I said, there is a rough beast louching towards Bethlehem waiting
to be born. And they're coming. And of course, it must have been Larry who's like beast, what beast? I'm like, the one slouching towards Bethlehem. They're baiting to be born. And then I'm like, forget it. A bad person is coming. And that was I worried about. And in a lot of ways, it wasn't the form of all this misinformation now, whether it's Russia, China, Trump, whatever, all the election lies. Exactly. We'll be back in a minute.
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background of the book is the presence of government and politicians. And and caromakes a strong point that social media companies have thus far been spared. Any meaningful legislation or regulatory oversight in the United States. And I'm wondering if you can explore a little bit here. What you think is the right role of government today to encourage the best and slow the worst tendencies that are emerging and existing in in tech systems.
Well, you know, you you exemplify not a food of tech. I mean, most of the attitudes of tech from the early days and I we had Bill Gates here to the Washington Post many years ago for one of those lunches that we had. And he went on and on about government shouldn't touch anything. There shouldn't be any government intervention, which was a very typical attitude. Right. And I think also early on when you have when you have a new technology, you don't know how it's the platform is going to
evolve. And so what's what's supposed to happen is that there's supposed to be a dynamic range of of guardrails that are instituted. But that has never developed. It's never happened at all. And so one of the things whenever I go into Kraz, I'm like, how many laws do you think react specifically to the internet? You know, just the way airlines have them or insurance companies or the banks, you know, zero.
There's zero. It's astonishing. And and the one that exists helps them. It gives it, which was which I wrote about for the Washington Post, which is the communications decency act had a part in a called section 230 that they can't be sued. They can't be sued. They're not regulated. And they're the richest people in the world. Like, how do you think that's going to turn out? Right. And so with and it also creates a situation that there's no privacy laws. There's no algorithmic
transparency laws. There's no antitrust laws. I mean, Amy Klobuchar and I talk all the time and she's like, this year, Kara, I'm going to do it. I'm like, you're not. She promises me on stage. She's a tremendous legislator, right? She really is. She works. She works. She works it. She doesn't. She's just a very basics of things. And in that case, if you really care about innovation, as I do, and I think you do, how can there be innovation right now for the next
group of computing when AGI is controlled by the most powerful company? Where are the small companies that are going to unseat them? You know, like the whole ethos of Silicon Valley is the young eating its old. Like that there's unseating and there's change and there's constant. You can't create anything when it's controlled by as much as I like Sachin Adela Microsoft or Facebook or wherever you can't create innovation without any guide.
And in this particular technology that's coming is dangerous. It's more dangerous than ever. Well, let's talk a little bit about that. I mean, I'm curious about your thoughts around reforming section 230. So please feel free to weigh in about how social media should be at least have some oversight and some regulation.
And accountability, but then I also want us to talk a little bit about whether we're having the right conversations about AGI. You know, it's interesting because all they do with Congress is pass by part have bi-barges and commissions to talk about it or they have hearings or whatever. That's great. I think learning is great. And it's really nice. But at this point, we kind of know. Right? This is like nuclear weapons. This is like nuclear weapons. And I think that's what I'm going to say.
And we're not treating or cloning or any one thing or you know, Jennifer down, no, CRISPR. Like what are we going to do about that as a group in what decisions are going to make together. And unfortunately, all the decisions are being made by private companies. And as much as I love it, the first line of the book is so it was capitalism after all.
But that's because it was. This is what it was. There's not. It is. And one of the things that I don't mind private companies, but they should not be determining. Should we have killer robots. I feel like that shouldn't be decided by Mark Zuckerberg. I feel that it shouldn't.
Nice guy. And he likes MMI fighting, but no, you cannot decide this. And I think our public officials have to as as broken as our system is, we elect them. Right? That's the thing. And so we should have an idea of what we want. We should ask. I think the Biden executive order is pretty good.
That around safety, around preserving innovation, around making sure that there's not you know, one of the issues is what the data is and what it's social, you know, what it could do for discrimination and bias. Those are big issues. I'm real concerned with lots of things. You could we don't know what it's going to be. What's going to happen? Like here's a silly example. And I, you say to the AI, which is going to take over everything, by the way.
It's going to your eye and my are going to talk to each other at some point. And it's going to run a lot of things. So what if we say to the hunger, we have to get rid of hunger. What if it says, well, if we kill a billion people, that'll work. And then goes off and kills a billion people like that, that from them, it's logical. So what are the strictures? And that's just a crude example. Like that's not going to happen.
But it is a concept of like, where does humanity stick into this thing? Yes, yes, that is the question. So if it's made by a small group of homogeneous people, it is not going to be good. It's not going to be good for women. It's not going to be good for people of color. It's not going to be good for marginalized communities.
I'm not being all woke here. It's just not. It's simply not. And you cannot have a diverse, interesting development of this stuff without if you don't have a diverse, interesting, interesting person. That's right. That's right. The people who are actually writing the code. Correct. So what do you think, what do you think should be done now? And in the next several years.
Well, you know, Sam has talked about this. What it is up to the regulators to do something about it, rather than having meetings, you could have safety issues, requires safety around the data sets, the provenance of where the data is coming from. Copyright enforcement. Right now, the New York Times is suing open AI. I think someone else sued them today. I forgot.
But all kinds of things can be taken from you without your permission. Like, that's what happened the first time, by the way. But this is real staff. This is talk about real information, theory. One of the things just happened to me with this book is you go to look up Kara Swisher. And there's 20 AI biographies written by me that aren't me, that are pictures of me in very family pictures of me. You go look for them.
There's a story about it. And so AI generated books, because my book was for sale and it was doing well. And it knew that it was doing well initially. And where are these fake books? Amazon. No. Yes. Yes.
They're on Amazon. And I really am disturbed by them. So one of the things they did, they're AI generated books that are 1699. I was just with Savannah Guthrie. She's written a hit book on Faith and God. Someone created a workbook from AI. And Amazon is selling them together. Savannah had nothing to do with it.
Oh my goodness. And it looks like it's her book. Right? Instantly. They just they just flood news. They flood the zone right now with news. Like when things happen, sites like HelloNews.com just come up and AI generated news happens. Now the real news does surface eventually by real outlets. But the flooding of the zone is a classic technique of fascists to flood the zone with confusion.
So on this AI thing, I did. I wrote the CEO of Amazon. I'm like, what up, dude? Like. And he's and they're like, oh, we're going to take him down for you. And I'm like, I'm not talking about me. What about everybody else? Like, great. I got my boat. I got pulled out of the ocean here. But this may be happening to everything. But think about what you could do for everything and take information and make it totally confusing. That's just a small little.
Right. Taste of what could. That's one example. And so clearly the right conversations are not happening. They aren't. They aren't because, you know, because they because a lot of these tech companies have a lot of money and a lot of lobbying. And the ones that are for privacy are like one apple is apples. The only one who talks about pride because that's not their business. Right? So it's right. It's not part of their business plan.
So these business models are oriented towards taking your information and not asking permission for it and then selling it back to you and asking for your welcome. Yeah. You know. Okay. So now something fun for all of us. Tell us one story that you were tempted to put in the book, but you didn't. Well, so many. You know, one of the things I tried to respect was when people did tell me things were off the record. I did not want to put them in.
And some of them. I wish I could have right. You know, but I I feel like I should stick with it. And a lot of it is personal stuff. And that's another thing I tend to shy away from, you know, a little bit like what they were personally like. I was going to write more about Elon's drug use. I knew quite a bit about the Wall Street Journal did a series of very good articles because I think it when people are asking me what happened to him. I think it's one of the elements.
And you should read the journal's article. It's quite good. And it links money and influence to it in a way that's very responsible, I think. I was going to write a little bit more about how some of these people have lost the narrative and gone quite conspiracy theory. And I wrote. That is interesting. It is. And I wrote a little bit about it. I'm trying to think of. I knew a lot of their dating habits that I didn't put in here.
I guess, you know, I'm trying to think I wrote less about, you know, personal, you know, a couple of them had drinking problems and things like that. I just left those out. And they were, they were important, but I thought I don't need to do that. So if you're not good, it's divulged. Yeah, we don't want to know personal stuff. But I don't know anything about you. I don't know. I'm curious if that. I'm going to do that. That's not true. A little bit. We'll be back in a minute.
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Paid membership with connected payment account required. In the book, you quote Nobel laureate Maria Ressa when she talks about the marriage of technology and journalism and creating communities of action. And I think also in the book, you weren't quite convinced that that marriage should happen. But then you write, as the dangers of the tech world and its endless power have only grown larger, you now agree with her.
So how do you think about the responsibilities as a journalist and threading that line between advocacy and journalism? Well, you know, it's interesting because I already made that journey when I left the Wall Street Journal as a beat reporter. And you know, you have to, you just do the news like this happened yesterday, this happened yesterday. When we started all things D and then later recode, we had a point of view.
We started to have a point of view towards things like this is too much. This is not happening. We had a very heavy point of view, for example, on Ellen Powell and the trial, Kleiner Perkins, we took a point of view that this was wrong. You know what I mean? And we said so and we oriented our coverage towards it. And so one of the things that Walton I decided is like reported analysis of what we were doing.
I don't know if it's advocacy precisely, but I think probably there were all these little lines, the privacy violations, started to get really troubling and dangerous when I had that interview with Mark about Holocaust deniers, which I thought was the most important interview I did, which was he said Holocaust deniers. We started, I'll just tell them very briefly. We were doing an interview and it was after the sweating one. He decided to do another one with me, mistake on his part.
And then he said, we'll do it at my office and I'm like, sure, you're still in trouble. I don't know. Okay, they feel safe in their office, but that's like sort of like come in Cheetah. Like you know. Sure, I'll come in too. And so we went there. I went there with just a single producer and we started talking and it was about misinformation, which I think is just propaganda under a different name. And he started, I want to know about Alex Jones. I had had it with Alex Jones on that platform.
This heinous piece of shit was talking about was breaking the rules of Facebook over and over again. Like over and over again. They never kicked him off. And I was like, hey, you have rules. Why don't you kick him off? Well, it's very complicated. I go, you have rules. Why do you have rules? Don't have rules. Like I don't understand it. So he was sort of getting into trouble with me because he could see I was furious as a parent, especially.
What are you doing? Your platform, not just platforming someone. He broke your rules. That's it. And you know, I think I was like, this guy is coming into a city and taking a shit in the park every day. And I'm as a concerned citizen. I'd like him to stop. Like, can you please get rid of him? And he was like, unfortunately for him. He, because again, he's, he's a nice person. Like, you know, you've met him. He's a nice person.
He's not gone down conspiracy highway. He's just, you know, doing his MMA fighting, whatever. Yeah, but they do, they have two billion users. Yeah, exactly. He's very powerful. Let me just say. So he starts to go, he goes, let's switch to Holocaust denial. And I was like, first of all, that was my minor in college. I was like, excellent. Like, you know, the use is a propaganda in Nazi Germany. I was like, perfect, perfect preparation.
I know exactly. And I was like, oh, okay, we're going to go there. Oh, this isn't going to be good for you. And this is me in my head. And he goes, he goes, you know, when I think you should go listen to this because it's quite something. And he goes, you know, you know, the lot of people feel that I should kick them off and that, but I don't feel like maybe they don't mean to lie. He said this, Holocaust denial. They don't mean to lie. And so I was like, so there was a moment.
This was the greatest moment in my career. I have to say, because I wanted to say, you fucking idiot. Like, they mean to lie. It's their job description. Like, is they lie about the most one of the absolute serious things. And this happened and they're trying to make people believe it didn't happen. This is the most awful thing you could do. And so I said to him, I go, I think they mean to lie. But why don't you tell me what you think?
And I didn't say anything else and I let him spool it out for, I don't know, five minutes. And it was so nonsensical and stupid and not thought out. And this was a guy in charge of the population. That was what it was. And I was like, why are you running this place if you don't understand it? And my producer and I, this young guy, looked at each other and he didn't realize what he was saying.
Like, how badly he came off. And I wasn't trying to catch him. I just wanted people to see that he didn't know what he was doing. And he was in charge of something so important that all this toxic waste was flowing through the system. And he thought it should just go right through and poison our world. And I was like, okay, and I published it. And of course he had gotten huge trouble and he had to apologize and everything else never done an interview since.
They did a lot of apology towards. They do. They do. That's their favorite thing. Two years later, he took them off. Now, two years, if you want to understand why antisemitism is on the rise. Yeah, two years. They took him, the penny to drop in the head of Mark Zuckerberg, two years. That's two years of more and more. And it's not just, you know, garden variety antisemitism.
It moves deeply into the brainstem. It's a different kind of ability to scale and make it even worse and harden it among certain populations. And, you know, I just, I find that unforgivable that he didn't, that if you make rules, you kick them off. So that was, that was a moment. And the Trump thing was a moment for me when they all went, and this is an area, you know, that you have been doing a lot of great work on immigration issues, which now or just speaking,
I'm thinking over the meetings we had talking about this now. It's just become, it's worse. It's absolutely worse. It's a lot worse. It's including, especially how people feel about immigration. And I felt they went to these, these executives went to Trump Tower, and they, it was a scoop I had, but they didn't tell anybody they were going.
And they slid in the back, and I wrote the news story that they were going. And they did not publicly say anything about him talking about Muslim ban, immigrate immigrants or rapists, all his terrible, terrible comments about it.
And they went in there and were part of the richest and most powerful people were part of a photo app that organized by Peter Teal. And that was it for me. I think that was the, I was like, that's enough with these people. They're not going to, they're not here to save us. They're here to take for themselves. Yeah. That's friendly. I really like the Vision Pro. Did I tell you that?
I love technology. I do. I know you do. It's the sub title. I like what they've done with the place. I have a couple of rapid fire questions. You don't have to think about this at all. And then I know we have a couple of questions from the audience today. Okay. Who's the most underestimated living person in tech?
The rain, pal, jobs. That's funny. No, you are doing. I, I must point, I don't know. She's doing a lot of amazing stuff quietly. I think some quiet. Thank you. I have to say some of your projects are really astonishing. This is really not a fishing question. Okay. Okay. Okay. Who's, but it's who's the most doing amazing thing? No, the most underestimated living person in tech under underestimated. That's a good question.
I got to say Tim Cook. Here's why and such and a deli put them together in a lot of ways.
When Steve died, everyone was like, it was curtains. I never think it's curtains. He built a team. And one of the things Steve said to me, which he, it was really interesting because everyone was like larger than life. He's the center of attention. But one time he said to me, I said something and he said, what do you think I'm Willy Wonka and everybody else is like the Oampa Loompas. That's a whole team here doing this whole thing.
Which was interesting when he said that. And I think Tim Cook has 10X the value of that company. He's created a lot of like a lot of really great products. And to keep acting like he's a logistics manager is kind of weird. Do you know what I mean? He's good at logistics. I'm like, well, he's really good at logistics because that fucking I know. I know. Yes. And I mean, you must be happy about that. He's been CEO. But he's been CEO for almost 13 years.
13 years. And I think it's really he's done a nice. He's done a nice job. Okay, here's the next one. The other one is such an adela who's done the same thing at Microsoft really transformed that company into a much better company, a more ethical company. Really. And then the investments they're making in open AI very sharp. And for you know, two older guys, big and early. That's why we pick two older guys. Okay. Who's the most overestimated living person in tech?
Elon. Yeah. I figured. Okay. Who's first on your interview wish list? Well, I really want to interview Dolly Parton and Taylor Swift together. Oh. And here's why. That's an interview. Here's why. Because and I've written to tree pain. All of them. I've written to Dolly's. That's a winner. I do not. I want to enter it together because besides being songwriters, great songwriters.
Yeah. These are kick-ass business. Right? Yeah. Dolly Parton particularly by the. To us if we know we can see what she's doing from a business point. Dolly Parton is the really shones IP. She's doing all kinds of AI stuff I understand. So I really want to talk to them. And I literally written a note that goes, listen, I could care less about your boyfriend's or your sweet Kentucky home.
I want to talk about your your incredibly killer business sense. And I want to know business. I don't think they could turn you down. Yes, they have. Several times. You know, like the person who's a piervers root. So, which is really nice tree pain. And she's like, no. I probably want to interview Trump. I probably, but it's kind of a I don't know. Oh, I do it at Mar-a-Lago. Listen, this is my idea. You do it at Mar-a-Lago. You get the velvet ropes. You get the audience. So he feels safe.
A comfy velvet cow. No, seriously has he turned you down? Not yet. No, I don't think he hasn't. I think he's I'm irresistible to him. Yeah. He likes to try to he doesn't like a tough woman. He doesn't. He's going to try to turn you to his side. Yeah, he's going to turn me. I'm sure that's how it's going to end up. I would ask him the first question I'd ask him is about what happened to you as a kid. And did your parents hug you much?
I'm guessing no. I'd start to really bug them about that. But Esther Porelle, whose therapist said you can't therapist a narcissist. I don't know. I don't know. I think you have skills. Yes, you got skills. Favorite Star Trek episode? Well, Tribbles. Obviously. Obviously. Tribbles. No, I like the one. I got to think that's a good question. I like the one when Spock loses his mind and has to do the fight on that thing with Kirk.
And then he cuts his chest. He always takes his shirt off when he's shot. And I like that one. There's a fight. He loses his mind in order to marry someone or whatever. I liked it. It was. It was. Yeah, it was good. It was good support. The car. I just got invited on a trip with William. Shatner. I may go. Yes, what? I don't know to the Arctic. He's going to the Arctic. And William. Shatner wants to come to the Arctic with him. How long would it take?
I don't know. No, don't do it. Okay. I'm going to call you if it goes south. I'm going to scramble the jet. No, that's going to be trapped up here. Be careful when you meet your heroes. Okay. Okay. A device you can't live without. Oh, my, this. Yeah. I mean, really, I mean, honestly, I this is the most important conspmental device right now. When it came out in 2007, it changed everything. It was, you know, there were things before it at general magic and lots of different places.
But this was the most, this has been the my, it's not going to be the most conspmental device. But one of the things is when my son was born, I actually had a blackberry in my hand, which is one of those little ones. And I was text, I was texting with walls, of course. And I was like six centimeters, whatever I was doing. And then I had an emergency C section. And they rushed me in. And my brother is a doctor at this hospital.
And, and the doctor goes, oh, we heard about you because it was because I had a, you know, I had a, you've had children. You know, I had a thing in the back. Thank you. And so I didn't know it was there because I couldn't feel because they didn't. So you didn't let it go. No, they wrapped it in plastic. So it was actually in my hand during the caesarian. And it kept buzzing because wall buzzing.
And I should tell this story, I'm going to tell the story, I should not tell this story, but I did. Same thing happened with wall when I was actually artificially inseminated wall called me and he goes, what you doing? And I'm like, and I told him he goes, I'm hanging up. So I love my phone. I love that phone. I do. Oh my gosh. What's your favorite device? What is it? What is it? What is it really seriously? What's your favorite device?
I like to watch a lot. I do. But if I could, if I could only have one, it would definitely be the phone. All right. Let me ask you this question. People ask it sort of like that game you play. If you had to give up the phone. Okay. Let me think. Let me think. This child. No. Well, I got a lot of them. But no. The phone. A TV or let's see what's the third thing name something else? Something you wouldn't want to give up. What? Internet. Internet. Phone.
Or TV. TV. Give up one. No. Give up. Keep only one. Oh. Keep one. Wait. So you have the phone with no internet? Yeah. Or you'd have the internet and no device. You have a computer. Brains I have in it. All right. Let's move on. All right. That's the perfect note to end on. Orlando. Right here. And maybe so good. Thank you. Thank you. On with Carousel. It's produced by Christian Castro Rocell, Katari Yokum, Jolly Myers and Megan Bernie.
Special thanks to Kate Gallagher, Andrea Lopez, Crisato and Kate Furby. Our engineers are Rick Juan and Fernando Aruda. And our theme music is by Prachademics. Special thanks to sixth and I and politics and pros. If you're already following the show, you get a free burn book. Not really. You have to buy it. If not, go buy a book because I need the money. Go wherever you listen to podcast search for on with Carousel and hit follow.
Thanks for listening to on with Carousel from New York Magazine, the box media podcast network and us. We'll be back on Monday with more.