Hey, remember how Elon Musk bought Twitter? It's been a chaotic week since then, both on and off the controversial social media platform. There are still a lot of open questions about what's going to happen to Twitter. But the whole strange deal also raises questions that extend far beyond one platform. Like, how might this affect the spread of misinformation online? How might it affect democracy itself? Right now, there's no better person to help answer those questions than powerhouse tech journalist Kara Swisher.
This week on Gadget Lab, Kara joins us to talk all about Twitter, Elon's machinations, Web3, and cryptocurrency.
Show Notes
Listen to Kara Swisher’s Sway podcast. Read even more about Elon Musk and Twitter. Peruse the archives of Kara and Lauren’s old podcast Too Embarrassed to Ask.
Recommendations
Kara recommends the film Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. Mike recommends the book Lost in the Valley of Death by Harley Rustad. Lauren recommends you follow The Center for Reproductive Rights (@reprorights) and the Yellowhammer Fund (@Yellowfund).
Kara Swisher can be found on Twitter @karaswisher. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.
How to Listen
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Transcript
Lauren Goode: Mike.
Michael Calore: Lauren.
Lauren Goode: Mike, now that you've had a little bit of time to get used to the idea that we're all just creating this free content for Elon Musk on Twitter, how are you feeling about it?
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Michael Calore: Apprehensive.
Lauren Goode: Are you going to quit Twitter?
Michael Calore: I don't think so. I'm still too addicted.
Lauren Goode: Well then if you quit, you also wouldn't be able to see tweets from other important people like Kara Swisher.
Michael Calore: Heaven forfo …
Lauren Goode: And she's kind of a big deal. Should we ask her to come on the show?
Michael Calore: I think we should.
Lauren Goode: Let's do it.
[Gadget Lab intro theme music plays]
Lauren Goode: Hi everyone. Welcome to Gadget Lab. I'm Lauren Goode. I'm a senior writer at WIRED.
Michael Calore: And I'm Michael Calore. I'm a senior editor at WIRED.
Lauren Goode: We're also joined this week by a very special guest, the one and only Kara Swisher. She's a longtime reporter, media entrepreneur, New York Times columnist, host of the popular Sway podcast, and cohost of the Pivot podcast with Scott Galloway. She's also my former boss and former podcast cohost, and the person who I could say you never want to get into a parking fight with. She joins us from Washington, DC. Hi, Kara.
Kara Swisher: It wasn't a fight, but go ahead.
Lauren Goode: That's exactly right. Kara was always going to win that one.
Kara Swisher: Yeah. Exactly.
Lauren Goode: All right. So for those of you who might actually remember our old podcast, Too Embarrassed To Ask, which Kara and I did for the Vox Media Podcast Network, in the second half of the show we're going to revisit that format a little bit. And we're going to ask Kara to answer some of the burning questions that you sent to us on the internet. But first, we really wanted to bring you on, Kara, because we wanted to talk to you about Twitter and Elon Musk. You have interviewed Elon at least a few times before, on stage at Code Conference and on your Sway podcast. So you have a lot of insight, not only into his business dealings but who he is as a person and what makes him tick.
Kara Swisher: Well, he's changed. It feels like he's changed a little bit. He's moved over to the Andreessen side of the equation or that way. He's been sort of palling around with the right, right now.
Lauren Goode: Say more about that. What do you mean by that?
Kara Swisher: Well, it's interesting. Because I find Elon to be someone who's very funny, he's sort of unexpected. He tends to surprise you. You never know where he's going to come down on anything, and he's been virtue signaling to the right, definitely sure, the right of Silicon Valley and the right itself, retweeting them, bro-ing it up with them. They're thrilled because they are permanently aggrieved and so, therefore, anyone cool that looks their way is just, you can feel the excitement drip off them sweatingly. And so I think he's surprising me that he's doing this much conspiracy theorying.
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And today, there was a story in the Daily Mail about this group that it seems like they're just against Elon Musk and they're making it into a … He's trying to play it like it's a conspiracy theory. It's a very typical group of people on the left pushing back on what he's saying. And so he's turning them into some global George Soros conspiracy theory. Obviously, one of George Soros' foundations is involved, so that makes it easy.
Lauren Goode: I think we've—
Kara Swisher: He's gotten a little more … I don't know what he's doing, I don't know if it's an actual change or he is just doing it just to piss people off, which is also one of his favorite things to do.
Lauren Goode: I think what you're describing is really a broader political climate at Silicon Valley, because there is this perception, and perhaps misperception, that Silicon Valley is very liberal, but it's a different climate, actually.
Kara Swisher: I don't ever think it was a climate. Years ago, I said this. I said, "Silicon Valley is not liberal." I don't know what you mean by liberal. I think they're very selfish. I think they're interested in money. I think they're interested in themselves. I think they're narcissistic. I think they're very much more Republican in the traditional Republican than you think. There were some obvious Republicans like Meg Whitman or John Chambers who were very declared. You know what I mean, who talked about it. And they're more traditional Republicans. And in fact, the Meg Whitmans of the world are allied with Democrats now, which is interesting. And then there's this whole strain of, I used to call it libertarian light, that was represented by Peter Thiel, or Keith Rabois and others. And they've certainly moved further. I don't know where they've moved. I don't even know what to call it. It's called the new right. But I don't even know what to call it. And, J.D. Vance, who was a tech person also for an investor, a venture person who just won in Ohio. And so it's more of the government's at the same old, same old, which is the government is incompetent. "We are the masters of the universe. We know what's good for everybody. Listen to us, we make money. And therefore, you should listen to us." They have a whole bunch of tropes. It's a little bit disappointing to see. And not really caring about women, or people of color, or gay people. Not really caring to comment on these things. You've heard crickets around the abortion thing, for example, from leaders. And just caring about their own little slice of the world, which I always thought they were like this. So here they are being like this.
Michael Calore: So if that's the worldview of the elite, the people who run the companies, what about the rank and file? Have you talked to people at Twitter and gotten their reaction on the sale?
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Kara Swisher: Yeah, they're more liberal, obviously. I would say none of them are super liberal. That's the thing, it's really funny. They definitely give to Democrats. I would say there's very socially liberal and very open-minded in that regard. But I think probably a lot of people at Twitter are upset. They don't just don't know what to expect. And that company's been like a goat rodeo since it was founded. So it's been one big, emotional roller coaster for everyone who's worked there. And so it's just another one. And this guy can seem like a bully, the things he did around Vijay, which were very clever, the way he did it. He pointed to her, but didn't point to her by name. He left it to others to figure it out. And then was like, "What me worry?" Alfred E. Neuman. Like, "What are you talking about? I didn't point to her." Or his supporters did and he didn't, to be fair.
Lauren Goode: This is Elon Musk—for those of you who weren't familiar—Elon Musk pointing to one of the top executives, Vijay Gadde, for making a decision about removing content from the platform a while back. And he called her out on Twitter, and then she was bullied as a result.
Kara Swisher: Right. As if the Hunter Biden thing wouldn't set off the entire group of them that go crazy. Just the way, the same thing with Hillary Clinton's emails. There's lots of topics that send different sides off onto different tangents. And so he's aware of that. And in that regard, my point was, it's trying to get her to leave, that would be my guess, and lots of people to leave so he doesn't have to pay them severance, which they have in their contracts. And secondly, Jack was the CEO. He tries to pretend he wasn't part of this decision, but it doesn't matter. It hangs around his neck, whether he was part of it or not. He wanted to be part-time CEO. He doesn't get a hall pass when decisions were made on his watch, even if he didn't make them, as far as I'm concerned. If he took the job, he had the title, it's his responsibility. Period.
Lauren Goode: Aside from shaking things up at the executive ranks, what do you think are some of the concrete changes that Elon will make at Twitter?
Kara Swisher: Well, there'll be—
Lauren Goode: And to the platform itself?
Kara Swisher: Yeah, there'll be product changes. I think probably, he'll shove editing through. Longer tweets. He's talked about getting rid of bots, which they were already doing. A lot of this stuff, Mike Masek wrote a very good piece called “Reality Check.” Twitter is actually doing a lot of the things he's talking about. And he's making the salient point that bots are free speech too. So you're getting rid of one's free speech for another. So Twitter has been the freest-speech group of all of them, really, in many ways, for a long, long time. And so but they've been making the choice between dangerous stuff and making a good, healthy platform. They call it healthy communities. I think that's the term. They all have different terms for that.
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And so they've been trying really hard to do things. Not perfectly, and they've made tons and tons of mistakes, by the way. It's going to happen on these platforms, and some of them are really quite egregious, including on the left and the right, by the way. They took a long time to deal with Donald Trump for lots of reasons, good and bad. They take a lot. They sometimes make a mistake like Hunter Biden, which was the Hunter Biden laptop stuff was clearly a mistake to deplatform the New York Post, I think, in that case. And so I think they've been doing a lot of things he talks about. So it's often like, "I'm going to come and do this." And they were doing that. And, "I'm going to do this," and they're doing that. And then you can declare victory and go home and take it public again after he takes it private.
But I think some product things, I think he's going to move away from advertising, do more subscription. He's talked about that, which I think a lot of people thought they should. Lots and lots of people thought they should. I think he'll be able to make the changes if he's the only owner really pretty much. And with a bunch of partners, I assume he'll get some financial partners along with the banks. And so I think that's what he'll do. He'll do the stuff that they were moving in the direction of doing, and they'll call a lot of attention to it, because he uses Twitter as marketing himself and to market his own products. And he'll market Twitter by being Elon, which is a good thing. People pay attention to him.
Michael Calore: So he's obviously going to be a high-profile owner, but Twitter does currently have a CEO, Parag Agarwal. Is Agarwal going to stay? Is he going to get booted? Who's going to be the next CEO? Is it you? Do you want to be CEO?
Kara Swisher: No. No.
Lauren Goode: Are you the next CEO?
Kara Swisher: No, no. They hate me.
Lauren Goode: Tagline of our podcast, Kara Swisher is the New CEO of Twitter.
Kara Swisher: No. Please don't. Please don't write that. No, I wouldn't. I would be totally incompetent, which doesn't make me that different than a lot of tech CEOs.
Michael Calore: Exactly.
Kara Swisher: So I think he seems to be aligned with him. He's been very quiet about defending his current employees, which I think is pretty shitty. I've said so publicly. So I think he's aligned with a lot of stuff that Elon wants to do. I don't know why he would remove him. If he can order him around, he's very confident. People like him at the company. He's got to be careful not to wholly upset the apple cart, but that's what he does. That's what Elon does. Elon goes through staffers quite a bit more than other CEOs and doesn't mind it.
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So, I think a lot of people will be attracted to working for him. Other people will be like, "Fuck this crap," and move along. And that's what's going to happen. That happens in Silicon Valley all the time. He's just a particularly strong strain of leader. So they can either decide to go with him or not. So you either want to work for him or you don't. I personally would stay to just watch it either burn down or do really well. I don't know. I guess, what can you tolerate? I could tolerate a lot just to watch that show.
Lauren Goode: How do you think history's going to remember someone like Elon Musk? Because he is a complicated person.
Kara Swisher: Oh, visionary. Visionary.
Lauren Goode: And he's mercurial and erratic, and he doesn't have a great track record for treating workers super well. But yes-
Kara Swisher: But nobody will remember that.
Lauren Goode: But he's invented these incredibly … So yeah. How do you think we are going to look back on this?
Kara Swisher: I don't think anyone will remember the Covid thing that he did, which I thought was irresponsible, but he said he was—
Lauren Goode: And you pressed him on that in your podcast.
Kara Swisher: I did. I did and he almost walked off.
Lauren Goode: And he threatened to walk away?
Kara Swisher: Yeah. And then he didn't and then whatever, I like him for that. Like, "Go for it, dude." But he didn't. He didn't. I was like, "Oh, calm yourself down." But he's intentionally volatile and he's actually volatile, if that makes sense. Sometimes, I don't ever know which the difference. I could see him stalking off a stage. I could see him doing it. I don't care. I'm not offended if he wants to do that. But I think he'll be remembered. Look, I always say, if you read any books about Thomas Edison, what an asshole. You can't come away with any biography of Thomas Edison and not think, "What an asshole, and what an interesting character, what a show pony he was, very P. T. Barnum, constant lying, underhanded tricks," that kind of stuff.
And so I don't think people will remember anything but the inventions, essentially. And so I suspect, Elon is taking on big topics like solar, or space, or cars, he will be remembered for that. Not the silliness, not his stupid meme tweets. I think it'll be a side show to it, but people won't remember his dumb thing about they and them. I don't know why he has to punch down like that, but he feels he must. I don't like him punching down, but it's his life. He can do whatever he wants.
Lauren Goode: All right. We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to ask Kara to answer some of the questions that people on the internet, hopefully not trolls, have sent into the show. We'll be right back. All right. Some of you may know Kara and I used to cohost a show together at Vox. It was called Too Embarrassed to Ask. And we answered listener questions about consumer tech. And just for today, we're going to reboot it, at least for this segment. We asked you for your questions on Twitter earlier this week, and now we're going to try to get answers. Do you want to ask the first one, Mike?
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Michael Calore: Sure.
Lauren Goode: Why don't you ask the first one? OK.
Michael Calore: OK.
Kara Swisher: OK.
Michael Calore: Our first listener question comes from a listener named Walt Mossberg.
Kara Swisher: Him. I heard he retired, but go ahead. He's a retiree, Walt Mossberg.
Michael Calore: We all know and love Walt Mossberg, the famous groundbreaking technology columnist from The Wall Street Journal for years and years. Mild job. Let's see. First question comes from Walt Mossberg. Will Nougat be participating?
Kara Swisher: No, I hope not. That cat tried to attack my child. One of my children.
Michael Calore: This is Lauren's cat.
Lauren Goode: Your child's a grown man.
Michael Calore: Lauren—
Kara Swisher: That cat sat on the top of the stairs and hissed at him. I'm still not over it.
Michael Calore: Lauren, you need to know that everybody who loves and cares about you bears physical and emotional scars from this cat that you own.
Kara Swisher: Exactly.
Lauren Goode: I have the best cat in the world.
Michael Calore: No, you don't.
Kara Swisher: Really.
Michael Calore: You have the biggest bully.
Kara Swisher: Are you like Matt Gaetz? Are you a cat loving …?
Lauren Goode: Yes. Yes.
Kara Swisher: Oh my God.
Lauren Goode: I went home from a rally last night and I cuddled with my cat my cat.
Kara Swisher: Overeducated.
Lauren Goode: I'm overeducated. And I'll have you know, I had like 40 options on Bumble and I ignored all of them in favor of my cat. OK? And you know what? And microwave dinners slap.
Kara Swisher: Right. Your cat. The reason is the cat, who's hissy, hissy, hissy. He didn't hiss at me. Hissed at my poor son. I'm just kidding.
Lauren Goode: I think the cat knows who's actually boss, Kara.
Michael Calore: OK.
Kara Swisher: I will show you the text. I will show you the text from my son. They were just devastated.
Michael Calore: Ugh. I've been there. I've been there. All right. Walt actually did send in a good question so I'm going to read—
Kara Swisher: You know, Michael, go ahead.
Michael Calore: Walt Mossberg's actual question. Here it is: Is Twitter really a tech company? Seriously? I know it uses tech tools like software and servers. So do most big companies, but does it create new tech like Google or Apple or Amazon? Where's the Twitter watch? Where's the Twitter smartphone OS? Where's Twalexa?
Lauren Goode: Twalexa.
Michael Calore: That's an excellently phrased question.
Kara Swisher: That's a good question. Yes, it is. It's a software company. It's a services company. Sure. Walt, don't be silly. Of course it is. It doesn't have to make things. And by the way, it was very early to Vine and, what's the other one? The P one?
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Lauren Goode: Periscope.
Michael Calore: Periscope.
Kara Swisher: Periscope. They were very innovative on a lot of stuff that everyone else just copied and did better. So I think, yes, I think they've been very innovative on a lot of things. They've also managed to shoplift some things like Clubhouse, and do Twitter, spaces. And yeah, I think they're a tech company. Of course it is. Sorry, Walt.
Lauren Goode: Yeah. They're information services. They don't make gadgets.
Kara Swisher: Yes, they're information services. They don't make gadgets. They could, but everyone would laugh at them.
Lauren Goode: Yeah. Why would they? Right. And hardware is hard, and in many cases low margin, and it doesn't make sense. It doesn't add to their service.
Michael Calore: Besides, who wants a Twitter car thing?
Lauren Goode: But what if there was a Twitter guide and it was a workout machine that plugged into your Peloton that Tweets to you?
Kara Swisher: All right. All right.
Lauren Goode: OK. All right. Here's another question from Ken Haggerty.
Kara Swisher: Sure.
Lauren Goode: Hi, Lauren. In yours and Kara's opinion, but really we just want to hear Kara's opinion here, does Twitter still have the cultural relevance, at least here in the US, for tweets to still be news? So for example, if Elon Musk were to replatform Donald Trump and other conservative voices, would they drive the conversation like before?
Kara Swisher: I don't think Twitter's that big. I think it's big among the media and politicians in the US. And I guess Ted Cruz has to have someone pay attention to his ridiculous ramblings. But I don't think it's that big. I think people overestimate. Maybe it'll be bigger under Elon, but it's very popular in some countries among the autocrats, for sure. It's popular in some places, but it's not very big. Compared to Facebook and other sites it's quite small. It's small compared to TikTok. It's small compared to Instagram. I think it's small compared to Snapchat. So I don't think it's that … It's the dirty secret of Twitter is it's not that big. But Donald Trump brought a lot of attention to the company, you know what I mean? To the company and the uses, and that was that. That's what I think was important.
Michael Calore: OK. Next question for you, Kara, do you own any crypto?
Kara Swisher: I did. I do. I don't know where it is in my house. I bought 10 cryptos for $50 each at the very beginning because I was doing a story about when Wences Casares from Xapo and he made me buy it to do the story. And he told me to buy 25,000, I think, bitcoin, at the time. It was very cheap, and I was like, "Well, I don't think it's going to that be big." You know what I mean? I was one of those people. But I put it on a little thumb drive, I guess, is where it was, I think. And then I lost it.
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Michael Calore: So it's kicking around somewhere?
Kara Swisher: There's 10 of them. I know. It's—
Lauren Goode: Would anyone like to go on a scavenger hunt this weekend?
Kara Swisher: I know, I know. I don't know where it is. I don't.
Michael Calore: OK. Follow up to that, is Web3 the actual next web or just a buzzword or a collection of buzzwords that enable the already rich entrepreneurs to speculate on a bunch of digital assets?
Kara Swisher: No, I think it's a thing. It's a shift. Just the way mobile was. Yeah, I do. I think it's a collection of some different technologies around NFTs, and the blockchain, and crypto. Yeah, I do. I think it's another iteration of … It's more like … Yes, yes, yes. I'll just say yes.
Lauren Goode: What's the best example you've seen of that so far?
Kara Swisher: I think it's super early, and the grifters of course are there as they are. The crypto, I think crypto is full of grifters, so was the early internet. And so I would say crypto. Crypto. Yeah, especially Bitcoin.
Lauren Goode: Next question from Liz. Would like to hear her, Kara's, thoughts, on the kerfuffle regarding health and menstruation tracking apps in lieu of the Supreme Court draft opinion. I know that Lara's not a data privacy expert, but hey. Additionally, and then she wrote E2EE, end-to-end encryption in a post-Roe world, but let's talk about the first one. There have been some articles published in the past few days expressing concern about what's going to happen to all of the data that women might be sharing in these health menstruation tracking apps.
Kara Swisher: Yeah. Remember we debuted one at Code? Remember we talked about—
Lauren Goode: That's right. It was Max Levchin's.
Kara Swisher: Max Levchin's. Yeah.
Lauren Goode: That's right. I wrote the story for that. It was called Glow. And I remember my lead, I never forgot my lead. I said he went from tracking payment cycles to tracking menstruation cycles.
Kara Swisher: Right. Yeah.
Lauren Goode: Ba-dum-pum.
Kara Swisher: And he thought he had all these pregnancies.
Lauren Goode: Yeah.
Michael Calore: Oh, boy.
Lauren Goode: Yeah. So I mean, how concerned do you think people should be at this point in time?
Kara Swisher: Very. I mean, I always worry about … Today, someone was sending me something pretty confidential, and I made the muse a variety of methods that I didn't use to use. I now worry about DMs on Twitter. I don't know why. There's no sense. I just don't trust Elon. I'm worried about it. I should have been more worried before, I suspect. And I think you should worry about everything you do with your phone, like every single thing and being tracked. You're being tracked everywhere. And so I would worry about putting more health care information.
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I know there's definitely some strictures around HIPAA and things like that around these things. But if everything's digitized, you're very easy to track. And so I would think about it. The other day, someone asked me for my … I was going in somewhere and they wanted my birthday. And I said, "Absolutely not. Why?" And they're like, "Because we're supposed to collect it." I'm like, "If you can't give me a reason, I'm not giving it to you. I don't know why. I'm not giving you my address. I'm not giving you. There's no reason for it in this particular case." But I think that horse is out of the barn now for almost everybody.
Michael Calore: I have an internet birthday and an actual birthday.
Kara Swisher: I have seven.
Michael Calore: Yeah. That's smart.
Lauren Goode: Wow. That's really smart.
Kara Swisher: I get birthday wishes all the time.
Michael Calore: It's so nice.
Lauren Goode: Nice.
Michael Calore: A great little prank to play on your friends.
Lauren Goode: It's a good way to get like 10 percent off throughout the year too. It's your birthday.
Michael Calore: OK. One last question for you. As somebody who's been known to podcast occasionally, what is your favorite episode of any of the podcasts that you've hosted that you have ever recorded?
Kara Swisher: Oh, I don't know. The last one I did. I don't remember any of them. They go out of my head. I mean, I guess. I'm trying to think—
Lauren Goode: What's your favorite episode ever of Sway? Your favorite person you've interviewed.
Kara Swisher: I think the Monica Lewinsky one, I really enjoyed doing.
Lauren Goode: I was going to say that one. That one was really good.
Kara Swisher: Yeah. I thought that was really good. I like the Matthew McConaughey one. Oh, just recently, I did Michelle Yeoh. I love that one.
Michael Calore: Nice.
Kara Swisher: I love her. So I don't even remember the one. I've done thousands of interviews. So it's like saying, "Which is your favorite child?" I don't know.
Michael Calore: If you had thousands of children—
Lauren Goode: What was your favorite episode ever of Pivot with Scott Galloway?
Kara Swisher: I don't know. They're all the same formula. I hit him and then he says something.
Lauren Goode: I loved seeing Scott Galloway in WeCrashed.
Kara Swisher: Yeah, he was good. I don't know.
Lauren Goode: What was your absolute favorite episode from Too Embarrassed to Ask?
Kara Swisher: I don't remember ever doing it, so I don't know. Things pop out of my … Everyone I go out with says to me, "Literally, you don't even …" They're like, "Remember when we had that fight?" I'm like, "No, I do not. So I do not remember. I don't.
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Lauren Goode: Your brain is starting too much info. OK. But do you want to know what the actual best episode we did was?
Kara Swisher: What?
Lauren Goode: Walt's retirement episode.
Kara Swisher: Oh, that was good. That was good.
Lauren Goode: That remember we had everyone call in.
Kara Swisher: Yeah. They were funny. Mark Cuban did. That's right. And—
Lauren Goode: Jack Dorsey did it too, I think.
Kara Swisher: Yeah. Elon and I got in a beef over that. I asked him to do it and then he was mad at Walt for some tweet.
Lauren Goode: That's right. That's right. He was mad at Walt.
Kara Swisher: I don't even remember that beef. I don't know why.
Lauren Goode: Do you still have those emails? I'm do you have those receipts?
Kara Swisher: I'm sure I have all of them. I don't even want to talk to you about the Sean Parker ones. They were—
Lauren Goode: We have time if you'd like to.
Kara Swisher: No, he was upset. Let's just say he was upset about his wedding.
Lauren Goode: Oh, the wedding. That was the wedding of the, the redding. The Wedding of the Redwood Forest.
Kara Swisher: I think I just retweeted two different stories, one pro and one con. He got mad about the pro one or the con one. I don't remember.
Michael Calore: What can you do?
Lauren Goode: What is—
Kara Swisher: I got a bunch of VA injuries and texts that are funny. I don't want to tell you.
Lauren Goode: Does he block you on Twitter?
Kara Swisher: Yes, he does now. I have no idea why.
Michael Calore: Well, join the club. Welcome to the club.
Lauren Goode: I know. We're all in the club. What's your favorite non-Kara Swisher podcast right now?
Kara Swisher: I don't have time to listen to podcasts. Whew. I don't know.
Michael Calore: You can say Gadget Lab.
Kara Swisher: Gadget Lab, I don't listen to a lot. I listen to history podcasts when I listen to them. I find them really interesting. I listen to books, actually, more than podcasts. I know it sounds terrible, but I listen to books more than anything. I just finished the Hamilton book after four years of listening. It was great. It was great.
Lauren Goode: All right, we're going to take another quick break. And then Kara, we're going to ask you for one more recommendation and then we'll wrap it up.
Kara Swisher: OK.
Lauren Goode: Kara, as our guest of honor, what is your recommendation for our listeners this week?
Kara Swisher: What to listen to right now?
Lauren Goode: No. Anything. Could be anything.
Kara Swisher: Anything.
Lauren Goode: Anything you're into this week.
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Kara Swisher: I think Michelle Yeoh's movie Everything Everywhere All At Once is or all the time, whatever it is, is a wonderful, wonderful movie. In this really shitty time, it's a beautiful and hopeful movie. But it's not scared of difficulty, I would say. And it's joyful and wonderful, and funny, funny, funny, and people have hot hands, hot dog hands, which were at first I was questioning, but then completely enjoyed it.
Michael Calore: Like hands made out of hot dogs?
Lauren Goode: So it's absurdist?
Kara Swisher: Yes. Yes, they were. Yes, they were. And still, they could love each other anyway.
Michael Calore: Is this a theaters-only jam?
Kara Swisher: I don't know where … I think it's doing really well. It's shockingly doing well. It's the most beautiful movie. And so it's about multiverses, so it's also got a tech element to it, like people living in different times and there's a lot of technology in it. Of course, there's a lot of fighting and it's wonderful. It's a wonderful movie. And she is finally the star of the movie and so deserves it. I think she's an elegant and beautiful, and it turns out, very funny actress. And it has a lot going on about technology, about how we think about our lives. And so I like it a lot.
Lauren Goode: Did you take anything away from the film that made you want to change your own relationship with technology?
Kara Swisher: No. I thought I should give people more of a break.
Lauren Goode: In what way?
Kara Swisher: See the movie. It's just that your life could have gone a lot of different ways. That's all. It makes you realize where you are and how your life could have been different. And this shows a number of ways this woman could have lived her lives. And in fact, they were going on all at once. The multiverse, as you know, Spiderman, the Multiverse and stuff like that. This idea of different worlds and lives you could lead was very … You think about the Metaverse. We're talking about the Metaverse all the time and stuff like that. This is the multiverse, and it's the same thing. It's like, what lives could you live? And so I thought this was interesting and creative way to talk about what was was a really technical thing, in a lot of ways. So I liked it a lot. And also some kick-assing by Michelle Yeoh. So that's always fun.
Lauren Goode: Cool.
Kara Swisher: She's so great and heartfelt.
Lauren Goode: All right. So everyone should watch the movie and then check out your interview on Sway with her.
Kara Swisher: Stick with it, stick with it. Because at first, you're like, "What the fuck is going on here?" And stick with it. It's wonderful. It's like Being John Malkovich. Remember how you felt when you watched that?
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Lauren Goode: Mm-hmm.
Kara Swisher: Great. That was a great movie too.
Lauren Goode: Mike, what's your recommendation this week?
Michael Calore: I'm going to recommend a book that I just finished listening to actually this morning, it's called Lost in the Valley of Death by Harley Rustad. It is a book, a beautiful piece of journalism, actually about a man named Justin Alexander, who's an adventurer and a traveler and a photographer. He has like 40,000 followers on Instagram, travels around the world. Everybody loves him. He's a survivalist. He decides that he wants to go find himself in India. So he goes to India. He goes to the Parvati Valley, which is this valley up north in the Himalayas. He lives in a cave for three weeks. And then he goes to a sacred temple site up by a lake and disappears. And—
Kara Swisher: Oh, so he is gone?
Michael Calore: People don't know if he did it intentionally, or if he was kidnapped, or if he was murdered. His family mounts this huge search that goes on for months. And the book is about his story and about how he ended up where he was. It's also just a really good book because it came from a long-form journalism article in Outside magazine. And I remember reading the article.
Kara Swisher: It sounds like an Outside magazine.
Michael Calore: It does. But the thing is, the book doesn't read like that, because there's a lot of times when you read journalism books and you're thinking to yourself the whole time you're reading it-
Lauren Goode: Could have been an article.
Michael Calore: This could have just been an article. This could have just been 12,000 words and I would've been totally happy. But Harley Rustad, the author, really goes very, very deep into a lot of the different aspects of the story. Not only the Justin Alexander's personal life, but also India. Why do people go to India to find themselves? Influencer culture, just adventure and survivalist literature, and W. Somerset Maugham, and this whole world that he paints for you. So it's actually one of those books that makes a great book, even though it came from a piece of long-form journalism. So, yes, I can highly recommend it. The audio book is read by the author. The actual book book is also really good. So that's my recommendation.
Lauren Goode: That's great.
Michael Calore: Lauren, what is yours?
Lauren Goode: I'm going to recommend The Metaverse by Matthew Ball, just because last week I said that on the show and it must have triggered his Google alert because he got a real kick out of that. I'm just kidding. I still haven't read that yet, but it's on my nightstand. I'm going to recommend two Instagram accounts for people to follow this week. One is at @reprorights. That's the Center for Reproductive Rights out of New York City, a 501(c)(3) that supports reproductive rights. And then the Yellow Fund, @yellowfund on Instagram, which is short for the Yellowhammer Fund, which funds abortion and promotes reproductive justice in Alabama and other states in the deep South. And I'm recommending those for obvious reasons.
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Michael Calore: Are these organizations that you can also give money to if you want to?
Lauren Goode: You can. You can donate money to them, but I know that giving money these days, I mean, you don't want to just do it willy-nilly without thought, because you want to make sure that your money is going to places that may need it the most, that it's going to places that can actually support the sort of efforts that you want them to support. And so the first step is just education. And I think in order to do that, you have to start reading about the organizations that you want to give to and have a better understanding of what they're actually doing to support reproductive justice. And so I'd say, just start there. There are also a lot of really great Google Docs out there right now that people are sharing that collate a lot of different resources and places for you to give money to. But yeah, I'd say start there.
Michael Calore: Excellent.
Lauren Goode: All right. That's our show for this week. Kara Swisher, thank you so much for joining us.
Kara Swisher: No problem. I'm so glad to hear from that retiree, Walt Mossberg, too. And that cat.
Lauren Goode: Walt Mossberg misses you. The cat, maybe not so much. But, gosh—
Michael Calore: The cat hisses you.
Lauren Goode: … everyone hates the cat. My own mother doesn't really like the cat either.
Kara Swisher: Just try to listen. Try to listen.
Lauren Goode: You know what I realize? I'm like the parent who has the asshole kid at school. But I'm like, "No, he's so sweet."
Kara Swisher: Open the door, let the cat go outside.
Lauren Goode: He's so sweet.
Kara Swisher: Let the cat go outside. He will be a better cat for it. And then we'll all be happy when we're there. OK?
Lauren Goode: Kara really does want me to let the cat outdoors.
Kara Swisher: Let the cat outside.
Lauren Goode: There are coyotes in the neighborhood, Kara. There are coyotes.
Kara Swisher: Oh, come on.
Michael Calore: I think he can take a coyote.
Kara Swisher: Everyone has to die of something. And that would be an incredible death, if that was the case.
Michael Calore: Oh, wow.
Kara Swisher: I'm kidding you. There's there's nothing going to happen. Oh my God. Raccoons are worse. They're crazy, those raccoons.
Michael Calore: He could totally take a raccoon.
Kara Swisher: He could take a raccoon.
Lauren Goode: He's bigger than raccoons.
Kara Swisher: I'll be honest with you, one of the raccoons tried to attack me once.
Lauren Goode: Really? How did that go?
Michael Calore: Did you Tweet at it?
Kara Swisher: Not well for the raccoon, but nonetheless.
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Lauren Goode: Did you Tweet at it?
Kara Swisher: No. No.
Lauren Goode: Did you give it the death stare?
Kara Swisher: No.
Lauren Goode: Did you put your sunglasses on and you were like, "Back away, raccoon."
Kara Swisher: No. Yeah. The title of this should be, "We've Got to Talk about Nougat."
Lauren Goode: Poor Nougat.
Kara Swisher: So glad to have an ally, Michael. I appreciate it. Yeah. Anyway, I got to go. I'm hearing my daughter in background yelling.
Lauren Goode: Thanks, Kara.
Kara Swisher: All right. Thanks a lot, you two.
Lauren Goode: Too. And thanks to all of you for listening and for sending in your questions. If you have feedback, you can find all of us on Elon Musk's Twitter. Just check the show notes. This show is produced by the excellent Boone Ashworth, our own Charlie “Chip” Black. Goodbye for now. We'll be back next week.
[Gadget Lab outro theme music plays]
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