Kara Swisher On The 'Good Guys' and 'Bad Guys' of the Tech World | The View

[Applause] since the very beginning of the tech boom award-winning journalist Caris schwier has done a deep dive inside Silicon Valley her latest book is a stunning truly stunning account of how it's completely transformed the world in just decades and made a handful of tech Titans some of the wealthiest bizarrest people on the face of the planet please welcome author of burn book Caris swisser it's so nice to have you here thank you thank you and I love that we're starting out with a Mean Girls

reference yes yeah I see that and I am Renee rap I mean come on I'm actually representing lesbians here so I I know we do need one at the table let's give that a moment to read okay no but it's it's it's apply name because you pull zero punches in here and you call Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg one of the most carelessly dangerous men in the history of technology and Elon Musk the most disappointing man in Tech you've interviewed and had relationships with all of these very powerful people for yea

rs do you worry about alien alienating them now well obviously not no I I never have I you know I'm a pretty well-known interviewer and I do podcasts I've been interviews for 20 years and I do every interview as if I'm never going to speak to them again that's how I conduct everything because if you you know I was a Beat repor there is a level of access journalism that happens in journalism whether it's politics or anything else and you have to maintain relationships but I'm of the belief that i

f you're a really uh smart interviewer smart people appreciate it and come back and Steve Jobs was a good example we would Wrangle all the time but he was an adult and so he could take it so it doesn't scare the wood bees out there no no no well the the ones that are scared scared right I actually think it makes them more obsessed with you cuz I feel like Elon can't quit you he's like always tweeting at you yes yes yeah my heart is seething with hate according to Elon as you can see I'm seething

um so the book follows the Arc of being somebody who was so excited about the possibilities of tech and what could be done but now you're really highlighting the dangers as well when did sort of that shift happen of being a little bit more concerned about the dangers that could be coming down you know I I covered the Microsoft trial way back you know and so I was concerned then about monopolistic practices lack of accountability and things like that I wrote a lot about Google getting too big in

the search business um I had talked to about Mark Zucker was famous interview where he sweat a lot um about privacy that's what I was arguing with him about he and I had a huge argument about Holocaust deniers who he thought didn't mean to lie and I thought that was the very definition of a holocaust Den was that I missed it Mark Zucker Zucker um so we we were always pushing on people whether it was Travis kinck at Uber and that behavior there um but as it they became more powerful and unaccoun

table and then Regulators did nothing about it there's no rules governing the internet and these are the most powerful richest people in the history fact they gave them cover under that's correct you know this um so there the only law that really covers the internet specifically gives them complete immunity from liability absolutely which is you know you know they could walk down Fifth Avenue and shoot people you know and they do that every day with around young girls and things like that like s

elf-esteem and they're not liable no so that's terrible and there's no there are no seemingly this is a world filled with no women yes Cor because they seem to have no no understanding how anything works right well that that's one of the assertions I make in the book is that the reason that a lot of the stuff isn't safe is because most of the people designing it have never felt unsafe a day in their lives and they look at it you know if you look at the way Tech is in general and a lot of Industr

ies are like this you have to imagine I guess straight white men are the only people who are intelligent in this world like right like that can't be and it isn't true and so what they tend to do is they think they tout a mirit talk when it's a mirror talky right and they feel comfortable with themselves and and they need diversity right thank you thank you yeah I'm a writer I like the words um so uh so one of the part the issues about it is they're also a lot of them and I don't mean some of the

m are innocuous and some of them don't mean to do but it doesn't really matter in the end at all well let's talk about some of the good guys CU you trace the villainous ones like suckerberg and J I don't think Mark is villainous but go ahead you don't no I think that's too easy to call them villains you call them I think he's car I think he is ill equipped to deal with issues when we had that argument Holocaust deniers I was talking about Alex Jones and a bunch of things like need you need to ta

ke them down they're breaking your rules right and he said everyone needs to speak and I said two years three years of this over your transom all this toxic waste is going to have an effect down the line yeah and he said no they they won't and two years later he threw them off so in that two years that's how much toxic waste went through lie you just keep repeating they know that Trump did that Trump did that you learned that back in the 40s 30s you can anticipate this stuff what about a couple

of good guys you mentioned Mark Cuban and Tim Cook at Apple yeah so what what's the difference you think in their personality types that makes some of them you know are doing good stuff for us simply put they're not adult toddlers right essentially or they're grown-ups so you know Tim Cook you don't hear Tim Cook going on about Ukraine or cesarians like Elon Musk just did and I had a cesarian so I don't want to hear his opinion about hello you know you know calling a doctor this is ridiculous an

d so maybe you should try a cesarian I'm I'll help I'll assist well you assist okay yeah citizen surgery um so you know it just it's really hard to understand why people are better it's just adults I just I don't know what else they're adults and they know their job and they know what they're good at and they don't move out of I think people should move out of their Lane I don't think is it possibly a lack of empathy you know they talk about sociopathy and how people lack empathy and how serious

ly dangerous that is so maybe Mark Cuban and what's his name Tim he runs Apple yeah yeah they I don't know these people does have empathy he does and he's changed Mark and I used to have have beefs all the time but he's changed he's doing a really amazing work on Twitter arguing with Elon Musk about diversity about diversity and and pharmaceuticals right and pharmaceuticals great job there know but years ago he was kind of a bro but he's evolved Evan Spiegel from Snapchat very broy shifted and c

hanged over time and that's what people do they have and which grownups should do let me ask you something um that that you sort of touched upon women and girls seem to be the victims of a lot of the most harmful effects of social media I have a 17-year-old girl it's terrible what they see and they think is actually real right right um the Surgeon General has cited it as a main contributor to depression absolutely anxiety and other mental health problems in teens and there was just really a dist

urbing report in the Wall Street Journal in the new New York Times Two reports about girls as young as nine uh being sexualized and exploited on Instagram some by their own parents correct without the site taking adequate precautions now do you think having more women in the boardroom perhaps and and positions of power could have prevented some of this more women in Tech period no meta was run by Cheryl Samberg you know was one of the top no you know men should think this is important I I really

can't say it when they like for you know I'm doing this for my daughters you should do it for your sons you should it for any children and so one of the issues around self-esteem the levels of self-esteem especially with women and girls and and young men being depressed there's actually an equal and more disturb a lot of disturbing Trends around young boys and depression um is because this social media is coming at them in such a flood and and these these people have no they can do whatever the

y want here and if like look I I would everyone has guard rails media has guard rails insurance companies PL you know it just everybody has guard rails these people don't and so they can do whatever they want and they they take our information in including young people they then gobble it up spit it back out us charge us and ask us to say thank you I'm sorry like that seems like it's it's it's not a scam but the American scam the American taxpayer paid for the internet let's just keep that in mi

nd and so that's gave Elon Musk a loan to save Tesla and then he trashes the government I'm sort of like okay sure well because there are no consequences there's a ton of fears around artificial intelligence and I'm specifically want to ask about the election we've seen deep fakes being used Robo calls of Joe Biden and New Hampshire yeah is there anything that can be done to stop the interference of AI in our elections coming up well you know this has been around since Donald Sr this is not a ne

w Fresh thing it's just faster and quicker and in mass and they can do it targeted U no you're going to see it all over the place and again this is where the government needs to step in in some fashion in order to figure out how to deal with this and force these companies into not not letting their tools be misused what could you what would you what could be done to educate voters on identifying something like AI created images or it's hard it's very hard I do think young people are a little mor

e Savvy I have two older kids and two younger kids but the older ones really get it pretty quickly and they're sort of Savvy about it um I think there's nothing to be done except constant media education on what this is other countries Finland has a deep media education including around Ai and what to look for online so it can be done it's being done it's being everywhere and I the Russians are at it already that's correct the Russians or the Iranians are internally or white supremacists the pro

blem is a lot of this stuff isn't hidden isn't tricky it's right in front of you right they just come out the white supremacists are now like they have their own blogs and shows and podcasts and so really what is it so the the the bull is out of the bullpen and has been for quite some time how do we explain to parents that the behavior that they are indulging in right with their with the phones and and being on the internet and doing all that stuff how do we how do we get them to recognize that

they're not helping because they themselves are addicted yes and it's necessary how dare you yeah exactly I'm sorry if I took that phone you'd probably wrestle me to the ground for she's done that before I try it they're addicted themselves technology is addictive it's necessary you have to do it for your job and it's really unre and so really and I'm not a big I'm a capitalist but you know I've done I've started a lot of startups and media and stuff like that I believe in capitalism but at some

point there has to be guardrails around everything from AI to usage to uh addiction to how these things are made to Providence AI is presenting was an enormous opportunity here to change things and it will which party do you think would solve that problem faster all of them together they cannot do it not together this is impossible to do so and there's who well someone's leaving the the you Mike Gallagher I don't agree with that on anything clar is great on there's lots of people so clearly the

re's much more to talk about but we've run out of time but Cara switcher want you to know that she wants you to have time cuz she's going to be on the behind the table podcast with Alysa and you can also listen to it on any podcast app and the B and burn book a tech love story is out today and you know what y'all you've been so good you've been so poised you look really interested you want to know what's going on too don't you you want the book you want the book so you're all getting a copy of t

he book