Semaforum
Semaforums are occasional short Q&As with authors and other interesting figures, edited and compressed for space and clarity. Kara Swisher is a veteran tech journalist, host of the “Pivot” and “On With Kara Swisher” podcasts, and the author of Burn Book. She spoke here with Ben Smith and other Semafor staffers.
Ben: Because you ignored my email the other day to send me a PDF, I had to buy [“Burn Book”] on Kindle. I found it, but I also found “Kara Swisher: Silicon Valley’s Bulldog,” and “Kara Swisher Book: How She Became Silicon Valley’s Most Influential Journalist,” and “Kara Swisher Biography: Unraveling the Life and Legacy,” by a ‘guy’ who ‘wrote’ four biographies this month.
Kara: There’s a particularly femme-y version of me on the cover, a little porny. These AI versions of me are the way my mother would like me to look, I guess — earrings and too much makeup. I realized this is generative AI. It’s sort of like Gucci, they’re knockoffs — except they’re in the Amazon store, not outside on the street. … I wrote [Amazon CEO] Andy Jassy and I said, ‘You’re stealing my IP! What is going on?’ [And] now they’ve started taking them down for me, but it’s all over Amazon.
Ben: You write about how all these tech moguls developed over time a “victim complex.”
Kara: The ones that are adults don’t feel this way. They are adults and they’re professionals. I don’t think Tim Cook’s ever been offended by anything and I’ve disagreed with him. He’s a professional. He’s selling phones. That’s what he’s doing.
A lot of these people for some reason, they’re a little religious in the way they think of themselves. If you’re insulting them in any way, you are insulting God. And then they have so many stans around them that are licking them up and down that it’s really hard to break through. Elon is of course the king of this thing. … I would say Marc Andreessen was always like this. He had a real distaste for the media and then a very big attraction to it. He couldn’t quit us, essentially.
Ben: Do you think Andreesen is patient zero for this anti-media tech ideology?
Kara: Yes, I do. I think he’s the one I heard articulate it. I think he has a really dystopian view of the world. For a while I thought he infected Mark Zuckerberg. I don’t think Mark is like that. I hate to say this, but he’s kind of a nice guy. A lot of them, it’s what they’re really like underneath, or else they’ve suspended their ability to take any feedback whatsoever. And Elon certainly has a lot of problems, both mental challenges, obviously drug issues are there. [The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk had used acid, ketamine, and other illegal substances.]
Ben: What do you make of the alleged drug use? I think some people would say, “You can’t question results.”
Kara: I would say there’s a whole package of stuff related to drug use and mental challenges. That is unaddressed. He’s talked about it publicly, about being manic-depressive. I think he diagnosed himself. There’s a lot of self medication going on here. He talks about it.
I do think it’s pertinent here because if there was a CEO who had a real drinking problem, and it was obviously affecting his work, you’d talk about it. The Journal finally confirmed everything everyone had been talking about.
Ben: You write in “Burn Book,” confidently, about your own innate self-confidence. Do you think that’s part of what has made you successful?
Kara: Confidence is an interesting thing. And you asked it in a nice way, but a lot of men do not ask it in a nice way. Men say, “I’m surprised how confident you are.” I think some people find it discomfiting in a woman. When I was a reporter at the Washington Post, I’d written a series of fantastic articles. And they’re like, “Well, that was really good.” I said, “I know. It was excellent.”
Ben: Everyone should take notes for their performance reviews.
Kara: I also know what I’m bad at, right? I’m not terrible at management. I just don’t like it. My next book is going to be called “Staff Zero,” because I just don’t want to have any. I don’t want to have to hear anybody’s gripes. I have four kids, there is plenty of management.
Maria: What is it that tech leaders overall have been doing right when working with Congress?
Kara: They have done it exactly right by getting yelled at by them, because that’s all performative bullshit. Nothing happens, so going up there and doing the mea culpa is so effective.
Diego: What’s your reaction to the lawsuit that Elon filed today against OpenAI?
Kara: He’s not here to save humanity. He represents something like that Twilight Zone episode called, “To Serve Man.” It’s a cookbook.
