Transcription
If I see too much performiveness, it's a clocker for me. I'm like, "Oh, a new a big new headquarters, a lot of interviews, a glow up, a personal glow up, you know, a showing off." That is one thing I always am like, "Interesting."
You know, at some point people lose their mojo, right? Lots of people do. Or they run out of ideas or they, as I said, they get bored with the business that brought them there. Um, and very few people trying to think, "Warren Buffett stuck to his knitting, right? And did rather well doing that." They don't want to sit and perfect the thing they've done because it's not as exciting to be head of Facebook as it is to be head of an AI company.
I guess you know this happened before in the early internet age if you remember Cisco was the darling of everything and then it wasn't, right? Because it was that they were essentially the Nvidia of that era. You know, you sort of want to make those comparisons. Is it OpenAI or is it Google? Or is it Anthropic? Google? And so one of these is going to get out and be enormous, and all of them aren't. And I think that's the question.
Welcome to the Master Investor podcast with me, Wilfred Frost, where we celebrate and learn from the success of the greatest investors, business leaders, and politicians in the world, giving you, our listeners, the edge. The Master Investor podcast is sponsored by LSEG, Interactive Brokers, the World Gold Council, and BMY Investments. Please do remember the views expressed in this podcast are for general information purposes only. Nothing in the podcast constitutes a financial promotion, investment advice, or a personal recommendation. More on that in the show notes.
My guest today is Kara Swisher, the leading tech journalist of our times, the co-founder and editor at large of Recode. Uh, she worked on many storied journalistic institutions from New York Magazine to The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, CNN, and MSNBC. And the host of multiple award-winning podcasts from "On with Kara Swisher" to "Pivot" with Scott Galloway. And of course, those are both part of Vox Media, which has just recently been purchased in large part because of the success of her podcast. Kara, welcome to the Master Investor podcast.
Thank you. Thank you for having me on. That's a lot of things that I am. I I don't know if I...
I know, it's it's it's it's a lot. And and I actually want to get to how you balance all of those things at some point. But...
I I will answer, but who's the guy on the behind you right there? Who's the big British guy?
Yeah.
Yeah. Well, that's my late father. He's also wonderful. David Frost, who had...
I'd say even more media parts to his buy than you do.
Oh, wow. Well, it's a wonderful picture. I just love it. I just keep staring at it. Anyway.
Yeah, he's uh he he looms over me. That that I would I'm obviously biased. I I think he is the greatest interviewer of all time. So, he's that constant, you know, thought...
As I'm as I'm doing my own interviews.
Yeah. Well, fantastic.
Um.
Okay, let's dive in though to to the sort of here and now before we we sort of broaden out. And uh I guess my first question on the current tech environment to you is whether or not two of the key IPOs that we've been waiting for, Anthropic and OpenAI, do now get away in the way that a few months ago, before the SpaceX IPO, even possibly immediately after the SpaceX IPO, everyone was hoping would happen.
Well, I think most people think OpenAI will not go public, and it's largely due to the numbers, which aren't great. I think that's one of the things, and especially in light of what's been happening with SpaceX, which has been going... I know a lot of analysts have a $300 uh number on that thing, but it's what at one, it's a real bargain then because it's 149. It might have gone down more today. I don't know. The stock market just opened um here. Uh, you know, I think people were worried already about the the finances around all these frontier models essentially. And, you know, a lot of economists I know, there was a gathering in Italy that started to talk about the possibility of a bubble here. Um, whether companies are are getting a lot of um ROI from a lot of this stuff and where it's going from here and the enormous costs. Then on top of that, you have the open-source movement, uh especially Chinese open-source models that are much cheaper for companies. And so there's alarms everywhere. There's alarm bells everywhere. And um, and so most people feel as if Anthropic might go public this year because they have better results and better numbers and a better story. And that OpenAI is going to have to delay itself until 2027. That's that's right now the current feeling.
And and what do you think is the risk then that one of them, or more likely OpenAI from what you're saying, is short of capital in the next 12 months?
I I think they they well, 12 months, that's different. But I think they they have certainly have enough capital right now. The question people are like questioning all this enormous spending, right? Because it has knock-on effects to Microsoft, Oracle, you know, all these promises, all these interweaving. Nvidia is at its all-time low, I think right now, again, um, because people are wondering if maybe there was too much overspending before the business. Um, what I really think people have to get in mind is that, you know, this happened before in the early internet age. This is just a quantum level of difficulty in terms of size and numbers. Um, but there was a lot of building in the early internet stages. If you remember Cisco was the darling of, you may not remember, but I do, um, of everything, and then it wasn't, right? Because it was they were essentially the Nvidia of that era. Um, and so everybody, you know, you sort of want to make those comparisons. Is OpenAI Netflix or is it Google? Or is Anthropic Google? And so one of these is going to get out and be enormous, and all of them aren't. And I think that's the question is which one of these um, and if they do an IPO too early and it doesn't perform, that's probably more disastrous, I think, in many in many ways.
When you, if you step back from those individual companies and even from the valuations as a whole, how how early do you think we are in this AI tech cycle in terms of the benefits reaching the economy and and and and then the broader stock market as a whole?
Well, there's a lot of talk, right? All jobs are gone. Well, it's not quite there yet, right? There there's not indicate except for tech companies laying people off and hoping for the best. And actually Mark Zuckerberg even said it's not getting the bene, he himself, who who has his own, you know, has his own efforts in AI, is saying the benefits of firing all those people is not clear at this moment um that they they expected to realize. And I think a lot of people got ahead of their skis. That's all AI is going to do everything. It's going to, you know, it's going to wake you up in the morning, make you breakfast, and put you to bed at night. And that's really hasn't been the case for many businesses. And so a lot of CEOs, you know, said to their people, "Oh, we want to AI this, try to lay off people." And, you know, few short bit of time later, the CFOs say, "This is costing us a ridiculous amount of money, and we're not seeing any ROI." And so, you know, everybody sort of rushed into it, tried it out, and is still trying to figure out what's best going forward. And there's other issues too, is data safety, um, whether these these frontier models have your data. This is something Alex Karp Valente brought up in a crazy way, but he was quite co, well, he wasn't cogent. He's never cogent in my in my estimation, but he was bringing up a very about data safety. Um, I and that's a really important thing. And also, you know, that these open-source models are a real pressure on, you know, these five, what are they, $5,000 a seat kind of costs that go up to $50,000. I mean, most businesses can't sustain those costs and see no benefit, at least for the short term.
And and so when that word is thrown out there, bubble territory, what what's your views to towards that in general? Do you think, I guess you said there that not all of them are going to be winners? Yeah. Implication is that a couple of them at least are in bubble territory.
Absolutely. I mean, it's just the same, it's the same story over and over again. This is a very exciting technology. You know, in 2000, everyone was losing their minds, but then Google, you know, came out of it. And they started actually, they were founded right before the bubble, I guess, right, right initially before. But you have to, there were so many companies I can't, you know, someone reminded me of the Internet Capital Group, I had totally forgotten. I've written dozens of stories about them. And, you know, how they were going to do everything, you know, they were, you know, I always call it a turducken. They're going to do everything for everybody, and they're going to invest in everything. And it's the way and it's the future. And then it wasn't. It doesn't exist. And so, you know, toys, you know, there was toy e, toys, whatever, there was a million of these things, right? Whether they were commercial, consumer, whether they business-to-business. There was one company that was had nothing to do with digital, but it fluffed bags of flour, but it did it digitally. You know, when you when you make, when you have massive flour mills, there's giant bags, and you have to fluff bag fluffers, get the air out and get the extra. It sounds crazy, but they were a digital company for a half a second. And so that's what you're kind of seeing here is what what stuff makes sense. Um, in this environment, to especially with the big, the big companies going out for bond offerings. That's, you know, they're looking for money, too. And these are companies with plenty of cash, right? And so that's going to squeeze the capital in the market, too. And I'd rather give my money to Google and Gemini than I would to say, an OpenAI. I mean, if I were an investor, I mean, that's a safer bet for sure.
Um, I want to broaden out and and like lean on your unbelievable expertise, Kara, in terms of tech companies first, and then tech leaders next. But when we talk about the companies, you know, our listeners are always trying to work out how to value the stocks and stuff in their portfolio. But in a sector where innovation is so important, where the future, the long-term future is so important, is valuation less important? What are the key tips you have when you try and assess whether a tech company is is one for the future or not?
Well, yeah, as someone who's gotten it wrong and right many different times, right? Certain companies like I thought at $45, I think it was $45 billion, Facebook was crazy when Microsoft made that investment. I was like, they don't have a business. Well, they then they did, right? Same thing with Amazon. Everyone thought there was a cover of Barron's, I think, Amazon.bomb, you know, and with Jeff Bezos's head as a bomb, which worked rather well actually as an illustration. Um, just saying, just noting, go look at it, you'll see what I mean. Um, uh, and so there was, you know, this this idea of it's not there yet. Now, a lot of those companies benefited from sort of people just believing in it that it was going to, you know, fill in the valuation. But not for every Facebook, there was three and four other companies that were considered big at the time too. And so that's what it is, is which one of these is going to be the one that breaks free. It seems to me the one that's really winning here is Google's Gemini. And that means Google has managed to out-Google Google, right? Because Google was under great threat from OpenAI and other companies too, because search was changing. And now Gemini has very quite beautifully integrated it into its business. And I kind of want to think people, if they think of looking for things, will go to there before. So in this case, maybe some of the the the incumbents will do rather well. But the valuations are, I mean, if you if you paid $45 billion for Facebook back then, that was brilliant. If you did, you know, but if you paid for, I'm Friendster, that amount, you'd be like an idiot. So, I it just depends on the company. Um, but they're all, all even the big ones are struggling. Speaking of Facebook, Meta is struggling with its AI efforts. It still hasn't realized. Um, he gets a lot of space. I mean, he spent $75 billion on the metaverse. That didn't work out. So, you know, he's got a lot of space here, I think. But...
Yeah. Oddly, the the the earnings call where he U-turned on overinvesting in in the metaverse, which I think was late 2022.
I I think I talked about that in 2020, but go ahead.
Yeah, I was going to say that was the bottom. I mean, that weirdly, once he then said, "I'm no longer going to waste money in this area and focus on the core business," it marked the bottom of the stock in that particular part of the...
the cycle.
Um.
Let me just say it's very exciting for these companies to be something else besides what got them, but the date that brought them to the dance. You know what I mean? Like they try, like, Mike, I was talking to someone yesterday about Microsoft. If MSNBC is Microsoft NBC, people don't remember that, but it went into cable for a minute and a half, right? And then it went back to its business and then did a lot of stuff off its main business that was much more successful. But they they ran down all kinds of avenues. Google, forget it. They were do, they were going to put ski lifts in San Francisco. Like they had all, they had a boat off of San Francisco that was going to do, I forget, a store. Anyway, they all go off onto these tangents and then usually come back to their core businesses. Of course, MSNBC when it was spun off uh from NBC had to change its name to MS Now. CNBC didn't.
I don't know why it's MS, but that's Microsoft people, just so you know.
Yeah, I know. But CNBC didn't have to change its name because...
the NBC uh commonality was a coincidence. It was actually originally the Consumer News and Business Channel.
My...
Correct. No, that's your old. That's your old stomping grounds.
My old stomping ground. Exactly. Um.
And uh and we'll talk about the broader Comcast and media environment in a moment because uh there's been a lot of transactions there.
There have.
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Let's talk about tech leaders. Um, and and you've interviewed, I think, every major tech leader of the last last few decades. What what traits do you think people overvalue in the great tech leaders and undervalue?
That they that they know everything, that they're brilliant on everything. They're sometimes just not. They're just good at one thing, you know? Or that they have, well, aside from the the the sort of social and political statements they make, most of which are are nonsensical. Um, that people assume just because they're them, they know, and they don't. They that's one thing is they're they're they're mildly idiotic on most things except for the things that got them there, right? And so I think people overestimate their intelligence. And I I say that like, or is or or that they're necessarily any more intelligent than you. And I don't think that is the case. I spending time with them. They're certainly good at certain things. They've made certain calls that are great. But we we have an idolatry of innovators in a way that is just gotten out of hand. And so don't expect wisdom from most of these people. That's the one thing. The other thing is this idea of you they love the failure, the failure meme and the trope that they, you know, the Edison thing. "I haven't failed. I've just not done it right 10,000 times," whatever. It's it's a version of that. Um, I I I feel I like that idea that you can fail and then get up and continue to innovate and iterate and things like that. Um, but one of the things that happens is when a failure is a failure, it's just a failure. Metaverse was a failure. It just was. And, you know, we we lauded them for like, "Oh, look, he tried that and it didn't work." I'm like, "Nobody else gets that pass, right? You try it and you don't work." In other businesses, if you're running Caterpillar or whatever, or or Cybertruck. "Oh, he tried it." I'm like, "Oh, come on." Like, that's a terrible car. That's a like, and that's the reason Tesla's about to fold itself into to uh to to Star to um SpaceX.
SpaceX.
It's not about like they're so smart. It's like they [ __ ] up and now they're hiding it. So fine. Like it's that to me is what drives me crazy about them.
That's really interesting. I mean, I guess there's another way of thinking about that, which is the last decade or so has given tech leaders in particular unbelievable runway money to to make those mistakes. And and maybe you could have in the 2000s said it to banks and financial institutions, but this has just been the most drawn out and exaggerated version of that we've ever seen.
Yeah. I I'm just saying let's not let's call it for what it is. Like the metaverse is a failure, right? You know, Tesla right now because he didn't innovate on the the original Tesla cars are amazing, but the next big product was Cybertruck. Like maybe he'll make it with the trucks, but, you know, it's just like let's stop pretending that failures aren't failures. And they have the the the runway to do it, which is fine, but I just let's just not assume that everything they're doing is brilliant at every any one time. Um, and that and some of some of them, like I'll tell you a company that gets it right a lot more than it does is Apple, you know, with the same group of people, right? Like look, they you they came out with all these things. They made all kinds of errors and then recovered. And then Steve Jobs died and everyone was like, "It's the end." And then they came out with a watch and the AirPods and the, you know, the iterations of the iPhone. To me, that that shows real management talent to be able to do that over a long period of time with this with this essentially the same group of people. I I have a lot of admiration for that.
And well, it's going to come to that, the importance of operational skill, whatever word you use for it.
We like to call it grinding it out in the United States.
Grinding it out. There we go.
For all his awfulness, Donald Trump grinds it out, right? He just day after day, he's terrible. He grinds out himself, and a lot of people don't. Like, you know, when I think about him, I'm like, he's a real grinder, that guy. He really is.
Um, well, it's interesting because I was going to ask about the ability to operate as well as innovate. And I I guess, you know, clearly early-stage companies need innovators. Later-stage companies, correct, need need operators. And...
Some have both. I would say Zuckerberg is one of those people. Um, I would, there's a couple people like that. There's a, there's a few. Reed Hastings was for a long time. Um, there's a couple that are very good at. I think Zuckerberg is very good at operations and and um, Gates, you could say that about, you know, he, same thing, good technical, really strong technical skills and innovation, and also management.
And and where do you think Dario Amodei and Sam Altman of of Anthropic and OpenAI will, when we look back in 20 years' time, where will they rank as as the great innovators of the last 50, 60 years?
I would say the jury's out. But uh Dario seems to be a very good operator. Although he seems like sort of the nutty professor, right? He has this sort of, if you talk to him, you, if you've met him, you understand, like he he doesn't seem as if he could run a tight operation, but he seems like he's running a pretty tight operation. Sam is sort of presiding over a thing where someone leaves every 15 minutes, right? Or in a huff. They all go in a and, you know, all the shifting. Um, you know, I would say probably Dario has seems to correctly uh clocked that it needed to be an enterprise-focused business and not a consumer-focused business. I think all of them talk too much. I hate to say that as an interviewer. It's great for me, but all of them say too many things. And sometimes I'm like, "You need to stop talking." And you see that right now when they're trying to pull back on "AI is going to kill all jobs." They literally said that for a year. And I was like, "Okay, great. So, you're here to kill us. Thanks for that information." And now they're like, "No, actually, it's not." And so I wish they would talk a lot less and just do a lot more. My favorite person is Satya Nadella. I think he's he's one of my favorite executives because he says what he says and then he goes away.
Then he goes away and runs his business.
Yeah. If you if you track his share price impact as well, not that that's the be all and end all, but it's been fantastic.
It's important. Yeah.
Yeah. The the uh by the way, Kara, you know, don't say it too loudly that we don't think they should talk too much. It's it's our business.
Every time they, I'm like, what did you just, like when Sam was saying a baby, he just had a baby too. A baby takes as much energy as compute. Like there was some version of that. Like, "Well, it takes a lot to raise a baby." I was like, "You need to stop." I I almost texted him, "You need to stop talking. You need to stop saying things like that," because stuff like that comes out.
And then you're like, what is wrong? And then, you know, people don't like them either. Like, not him in particular, but like right now, polling on AI, especially with young people and old people, everyone, we all agree in the United States, we don't like them, and we don't like their data centers. And they keep getting pushback. And then therefore Musk has to make up this data centers in space nonsense that he's going on about. But...
The sad thing about those polls, I think the only uh the only people they dislike more are journalists. So...
Right. Well, they've always hated us, but that's not new. We're used to it.
And politicians. So, basically all three sectors where we we revolve around, which is a real shame.
We have always been hated. So have politicians. These people were revered by the general public, revered, you know, especially because of the wealth. And that, look, we we have nowhere to go but up, and they have they have gone down. And so that to me is a real indicative thing, especially because they're so rich, you'd think...
You know, and now they just mock their wealth or insult it. Mitt Romney was just saying they're too rich. The rich guy is saying, "Daddy Warbucks is saying they're too rich." Like he looks like an ad for Daddy Warbucks, and he's saying they're too rich.
Well, it's perhaps because he now feels relatively poor. It might be a factor. I don't think that...
he understands the deleterious impact of seven people who are the wealthiest people. You know, Elon Musk is extrajudicial, extra-government. He's above government. Like, I'd be worried about that, too. And Mitt Romney is clocking it, absolutely right. Is that there's these small group of people that have unlimited power and no accountability.
Bring it back to the impact on the underlying business, the share price. Are there any traits over the decades that you've seen that CEOs often have or sometimes have that leads to value destruction?
Oh, yeah. I mean, getting, if you again, if you see them talking too much, like I, it's like my grandfather ran a a bunch of a coal company and a bunch of stuff, and they had a cable company, and their offices always looked like crap, like always. They looked like the floors were uneven, old, dirty carpet, all this stuff. And I was always, you know, like, "Hey, Grandpa, this place looks like [ __ ]." And he's like, "Yeah, the money, we don't need to put money there." And to me, like the sort of per, I use that only because it was really smart, is like he was making money in operationally and doing really well. But the performative, if I see too much performativeness,
I it's a clocker for me. I'm like, "Oh, a new a big new headquarters, a lot of interviews, a glow up, a personal glow up, you know, a showing off." That is one thing I always am like, "Interesting." Um, a massive change in personality or like a lot of these guys went from right to left. They weren't really left. They were never left. They sort of just embrace the right-wing, hard right-wing, quite a bit. That was that was a shift. And so I pay attention to that. It doesn't always affect the businesses, but um, that's something. Or they're talking about a lot of stuff they don't know about is another thing. Um, you know, at some point people lose their mojo, right? Very lots of people do. Or they run out of ideas, or they, as I said, they get bored with the business that brought them there. Um, and very few people trying to think, "Warren Buffett stuck to his knitting, right? And did rather well doing that." Um, they they don't want to sit and perfect the thing they've done because it's not as exciting to be head of Facebook as it is to be
head of an AI company. I guess...
You know what's funny with you saying that, but it's not in the tech space, but next week on the Master Investor podcast, we're I've got Jamie Diamond uh joining us.
Oh, he's a legendary. He's excellent, I would have to say.
Oh, good. I I was going to say he does talk about a lot of things outside his lane, but honestly, I look forward to hearing what he's got to say. I think he's an expert.
Right. Actually, it's not much. It's usually related to banking. It is, you know, he doesn't...
He he talks about when he talks about politics, he talks about how it impacts his business, and he's that's...
I don't ever see him...
I think he talks about his business. If you listen carefully, he's not going on and on about, you know, like Bill Ackman going on about DEI or whatever he's going. I literally was like, "I'm going to do a 10-part series on hedge fund investing because I know exactly nothing." Like, you know, one of these long Twitter diatribes. It's just I just I I it just their their eye is off the ball. And you can feel it. Like either, you know, that happens also with Hollywood people, with singers, like you're like, "Are you making albums or are you?" Because that's really what you're here for. Yeah.
Um, or you doing something else? And so that I do pay attention to their personal lives too. I watch that very carefully.
And if you see drastic changes, you pay attention to it.
Yeah. The thing you said that made me think of Jamie was just cuz when you said the big shiny new building, which is where we'll be recording next week, but anyway.
Well, he gets to have a That's New York. I I don't mind those. I don't mind because they got clients, right? They got so that that actually is worthwhile in that regard. Um, I suspect it it has a lot more ROI for that bank to do it. Um, one person I I think about, one other thing is how accessible they are. Initially, a lot of these people are very accessible, and then they become more and more um separate from regular people, and they're they're sort of isolated in their car, their their fancy cars, and their planes. And they're when they get a chief of staff, I'm always worried. Um, someone who's not like that is um Mark Cuban. Very accessible. You can reach him,
you know, unbelievably wealthy, but is doing all sorts of interesting things that that I look for, like who's doing something super interesting and meaningful, and he's some, the thing about around his drug efforts, his drug price efforts is really interesting. Um, and it's not sort of in his lane, but he learned it learned himself up, and he, you know, he's applying a lot of his other skills to that. Yeah. So...
I was hearing you and Scott on Pivot talking about him and wanting him to run for president. I think an episode two two ago. I know he's not, but the the desire for him to...
Well, I think it's just wish. He probably would be disastrous, but I, you know, I don't know. It just is that he's he's a he's the kind of person who could bring, I think what the US is longing for is to bring people together, even as these tech businesses tear us apart. I think that's what it is, really.
Well, either way, make sure people should subscribe to Pivot and on Kara's solo podcast if they haven't already. Hi guys, it's Wolf. I hope you're enjoying this episode. Just a quick reminder to please hit follow or subscribe on your podcast or video app so that you never miss an episode. And if you've got time, please do give us a five-star rating and leave us a comment. It really helps other people find the podcast, too. Now, back to the episode.
Let's move on and talk about uh regulation. And firstly, like looking backwards a little bit on social media.
Sure. I mean, do you think that the ship has sailed? That there might have been a window? You know, I was there covering it a lot in 2016, 17, 18, where there was bipartisan support for some form of regulation. I mean, will that moment ever come back, or is it is that ship sailed?
I it may come back with AI. You're seeing, you see, it's not coming back from our public officials. Our, you know, our government is so broken in the United States. It has to get back to Trump is really messed. Well, everybody has like, well, Trump mostly. But, you know, they can't pass, you know, they can't agree on lunch anymore, right? That kind of stuff. And these are, you know, child safety, or things like that should be something everyone should agree on. They can't even pass. There's a bill right now that's just sitting there in the House because Mike Johnson is incompetent essentially at wrangling anything but his mouth. Um, uh, another person who says things he doesn't know about frequently and constantly. Uh, you know, you sort of long for the days of Tip O'Neill or Nancy Pelosi, you know, who got [ __ ] done, or, you know, there's there's several Republicans who also did well in that job. Um, but um, I'm getting off course. Um, I think what's happening now is you're seeing it on the ground, whether you're seeing de, like right now in Virginia, a data center was just killed by a bunch of small, a small group of people. Same thing happening in Utah. Same thing. These data center things, to me, is a real primary indication that people have have [ __ ] had it, like with with this nonsense and and energy prices. Now, some data center that M that Meta is involved with seems to have dirtied up the water, right? That kind of stuff. And so you're seeing a lot on the ground activism that is working on a local political level, which is great. The second thing you're seeing are these lawsuits, and they are not a small thing. I think they're one of these quiet uh killers for these companies that they're going to have to start paying. And the they're they're sort of being very innovative in how they're dealing with it with product liability lawsuits. Not they can't get them because of Section 230 about platforming, and they they use their free speech arguments all the time, but product liability or copyright infringement is a great way to go after these companies. And, you know, the woman who had that baby with Elon Musk um when he, she was doing, he, you know, the the Grok was doing uh deep fake pornography with her face, allowing it to happen. She's suing under product liability laws.
So that's interesting, like to me. So you're see some of these cases could be really devastating, very much like the cigarette companies for these for these companies.
And and how's it gone down over there? You know, Australia obviously banned social media for under 16. Means we're 7 months after that. The UK's just, I mean, sort of a legacy thing for Star to announce just before he leaves. We'll see if it is actually followed through on or not. But but, you know, looks like we're heading that way. How's that gone down in in the US, particularly amongst the Silicon Valley community?
Trying someone like Marsha Blackburn, oddly enough, was at the forefront of that. Now she wants to be governor of her state, and she's this very strange character, but um, uh, she, you know, she wants the Trump support, so she's pulling back from it. I think it has to be about child safety. It's something that should be easy to do. It should be safety for all of us, really. It's just easier, it's an easier sell if it's kids. Um, I know there's all the complaints about whether the Australian law works, right? And a lot of they did a test and showed that a lot of these companies aren't doing what they are supposed to do under the law, largely because the fines are minor for them, right? And so, is it not strong enough? Is it not? I am of the feeling that if a society and a government says, "We don't like this. We are against it." How it works is not as important as the statement is, "Stop making our children crazy. Stop making products that are are addictive and dangerous for kids. Stop making products that are dangerous for us." I think like the, you could say like, look, cigarette laws in our country with the with the warnings and this and that. Everyone's like, "Everyone's still going to smoke," but they're not smoking anymore, right? It starts to create a feeling of these products could be dangerous. Be careful. Tread carefully. And I think it says something when we say we're going to just protect our children. They're going to get access to social media, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have drinking laws. We shouldn't have cigarette laws. Driving, like we shouldn't let a 12-year-old drive a car,
right? Like it doesn't work. A 12-year-old can get in a car. I'm like, "Yeah, but we say they shouldn't." And so to me, that's a it's a very strong statement of a society when we say, "You know what, we're sick of you making products we don't understand that are addicting our children and making them feel bad." And while you're not fully to blame for the problem, certainly you're a part of it. And we're going to ratchet you back a little bit and and give make you have some responsibility for your platforms. And that to me seems completely fine. And, you know, I think we spend a lot of time saying it won't work when in fact what we should be saying is it's a statement of our society that we do not want tech companies to build addictive products that hurt our children. It's like it seems like a, you know, a no-brainer to me.
Let's talk about uh media. We're not going to have one in this country though because we're just whatever. We're just not. Today. But it will come.
Yeah. It'd be interesting though if...
these bands here force change. 20 years. It t everything. All these things. When cigarettes are induced, it takes 25 years before like unsafe at any speed. Within within six months, they passed all these seatbelt laws. It started off with a book, and then it went somewhere. I think probably Jonathan Hay had had a big impact in that regard. I think it should be broader. It shouldn't just be child safety. It's everybody's safety. It's product liability and copyright infringement when it comes to AI.
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Let's um let's talk about media and podcasting. And uh I and my producer Katie, who's on this, are going to take notes to your answer on this one because you're the expert. Um, but you know, you've you've created >> many successful podcasts. I mentioned a couple of them, and and you've, you know, just sold your podcasting business to to great success.
I I did not. I...
The company, sorry, the company that makes the podcast that you have a piece of has been sold.
Yes.
But it wouldn't have been sold if not for the success of your podcast. Let me put it that way.
Probably not. Probably not. Um, what what was the core reason for the success of those successful podcasts you've built, do you think?
You know, it's interesting. I was just talking to a bunch of people who are starting one, and I was thinking about it because I have abandoned, I had a bunch of them, and they I keep building them up again, right? And I'm like, what's the core thing that I keep making successful podcasts? Why is that? And I was talking to somebody who's just starting it, and I thought to myself, like, you have to be genuine, right? People want two things. Look, I made a bet. I I remember when someone, a lot of people were doing these sort of fast TikToks or fast, silly men talking podcasts, you know, which are fine. They're perfectly fine. And I made a bet that people really cared about substance. And that's why I did longer interviews, right? They're 60-minute interviews. And I said, and everyone's like, "Oh, they should be 15." I'm like, "Yeah, no, they're going to be I I feel like you can't have a good conversation of under a half an hour. You really can't." Um, and people are are willing to listen if it's interesting. And so one of the bets I made was that one, you had to give them substantive, great information, and not it doesn't have to be easy to eat. It does it doesn't it doesn't also have to be hard to eat. I mean, obviously, but a couple things: being genuine to yourself and who you are, because it's a very parasocial relationship you have with your listeners, and they trust you in a way. Speaking of trusted people, people love podcasters. Like they don't like journalists, but they love podcasters. Like let me tell you, on the street, I get zero [ __ ] you, Kara. I get plenty of, "Thank you so much," which is really interesting. So that's one is you create an environment where people trust you by giving them great information and being right a lot of the time, and caring to get it right, like that kind of thing. Two, be yourself, like who you are. I think people know a lot about my personal life, and I put a lot of myself into it because again, it's a parasocial relationship. Um, I had one fan come up to me and say, um, "I'm your uh," it's an older lady. She kind of crutched up to me and she's like, "You're my friend, but I'm not yours." And I that could have been creepy, but it wasn't. I got it. That I was like, "Exactly. I'm your friend even though I don't know you." Right. That was one thing. Um, the other is admitting when you make mistakes. I think we do that a lot on our on Pivot, for example. The another thing is um...
uh um I don't know, something you can't buy. It's um sort of chemistry. Like Scott and I have chemistry, right? And often the people I interview I have chemistry with. And so I try really hard to think about having a real conversation when we're talking. Um, and then a couple more things are pretty basic. One is um be useful to people. Be really useful. Like, is this useful to someone to hear this? Uh two, um be uh entertaining/interesting/fun/not boring, which is really important. People, some people are really boring. Um, and then lastly, you can't get it anywhere else. Like there can be an interview like your dad. Look at your dad. He was a special interviewer, right? Right now I'm going to go watch everything he's done. So like I always watch uh old interviews to understand how they did what they did. But like you have to, you can't, it doesn't work. Like someone can interview Dario Amodei, and I can mine has to be mine that people like. And that's I think a lot of times people do these sort of dull interviews asking the same questions. And so if you, you can't get Scott and Kara anywhere else except you can't replicate it. And in a world where it's so easy to replicate things, if you do something original and you bring your original self, I think audience response.
That's it.
Well, I will send you a link to the...
Also keep costs low. Keep costs low.
I agree with that as well.
Stupid. But like I go to things and I'm in my house right now. I built a little studio, cost me $25,000. And it's like, "How do you make so much money?" I said, "My studio cost me $25,000. That's why." And it looks great. I think it makes a mess right now. But um, but you know, that kind of I pay attention to costs. I pay attention to moving to keeping a small, smart staff, and I move people in and out when it doesn't work. And so I have a lot of involvement in the business.
I I was going to say I can I'll send you a link to the the series I produced on DAB. So great. I'm excited. I love. I was just finishing up Tom. Do you know Tom Snyder? He was another great interviewer.
I do. And I've studied a lot of those old guys.
I would agree. They're fantastic.
Then know the thing I was going to say, oddly, like all of those things you listed that that have fed into your great success on podcasting, oddly, I would say all applied to broadcasting initially. And and it's just that, you know, obviously I I have a day job as a broadcaster that I love as well, but it's just that has become a bit formulaic and and a bit bureaucratic, and it stops all of those things you've said from from coming to...
I agree is the word I use whenever I'm in one of these cable, I said it to the CNN people, I'm like, "All your studios are airless. There's no people here. There's nothing happening." And, you know, it's really um, and I think people start sick of it. It's like, that's boring. And then you see all this exciting media stuff happening all over the internet. Um, I'm not a doomer about the media. There's so many interesting.
Experiments here in the United States that I, every one of them, I love. Um, even people I don't like, like Megan Kelly. Interesting. Really awful, but interesting. Like, you know, you sort of watch it develop. And I even take, um, I watch a lot of people, even people I don't like, and I, I see what they're doing and what works and what doesn't work and why. You're building an almost a fan base, and that's really hard to do.
And one of the other things is, um, speaking of the deal with James, who I like very much, is, um, what I'm not good at selling advertising. I don't want to manage my staff, and therefore that's what Vox does, and that's a great deal for me. And so I pay them essentially, and they sell the, you know, it's a really keep your interests aligned with whoever you're with. Often, when you were working for a broadcast network, you're like a sal, you're, you're just an overpaid salary person, right? Ultimately, so you don't have a stake in it. And I think everyone should own their own content. That's if you have a stake in it, if it's yours, you do a better job. It just, you just do because and then your all your interests are aligned, and that to me is critically important.
>> Yeah. Well, interestingly, again, not that we planned it this way, but the OG at that was was dad back.
>> Well, I can't wait to watch his stuff. Yeah.
>> The, the I'm, I'm in the moment straddling two very different versions rather than balancing that, you know, the salary job plus the the the podcast that I own. But it's, it's interesting.
>> Well, one of the things probably your dad did well, he let himself be seen. People saw him, right? And they either liked what they saw or they didn't, but he got, he got seen. And that's people pick audiences really want desperately to to hear from people they trust. They really do. And they want the other thing is be [ __ ] accurate. Like that really sucks most of all is how how careless people are about accuracy. And I think it matters.
>> I think it absolutely matters. And I do think regular, more people, even though there's been a prevalence of conspiracy theories and and the and the rest. I don't think people like that. I don't think they do. I think they love it when they finally get good information for themselves and their families. So,
>> we I know we're really tight on time, so just two two more final questions to bring it back to to investing, you know? Um, how how active are you? Do do you are you active and short-term stock picking or are you passive and long-term with your portfolio?
>> I wish I cared more about money because I would have been a lot richer. Like, I was offered every job at every internet company. I was like, "Yeah, no." And I knew it. I knew it. I don't care about money enough. I just, I hate to say it. It's sort of like whenever I start thinking about investing, I I care about the money and then I'm like, uh, I make enough money. So I'm one of these people that is very satisfied with the money I make. And most people have seeing all these wealthy people unhappy, and they're the richest people in the world, so many of them are unhappy. It's a real object lesson for me. And so no, I don't. And I think I probably would be pretty good at it. Just would it would tap into a part of my soul I don't want to tap into. Is and Scott does it and he wins and loses and it's a game for him. Uh, but I'm not a, I'm not, I'm not interested enough in money or the game to do it that much. So I just put my money in. Every now and then I'll buy something like, of course, even when I buy something that ends up going up. Like there's a famous story. I I bought 10 Bitcoin for $50 each at the beginning of it when I was writing a story and I put it on a thumb drive, which is where you put it back then, and I lost it. Like I lost the thumb drive. So, I like understood that it was going to go up like and I was correct and then I forgot. See, that's how much I care about money. That's, you know, I'm an idiot. I'm a [ __ ] idiot.
>> I'm sure your kids search the house to see if they can find that thumb drive.
>> They should.
>> Yeah. I also also spend a lot of time reading people I think are smart about investing. And every now and then I make, I just don't, I just don't have, I have four kids. I don't have time to like sit around and pour the stock table. I just, and I have no interest. So.
>> Our final question, um, for you Carrie, you know, often we ask for investment advice, which I won't follow up with, but, but what's your overriding piece of career advice then for our listeners?
>> Uh, I think it's really important to, you know, I said this thing to New York magazine, was it's really good to step out of line. Like, a lot, a lot of people are in line all the time, like you wait and wait and in your personal life, everything else. And I'm like, if you don't like what you're doing, and this is from Steve Jobs, leave it. You have, if you have the ability to. Many people across the world do not have the ability. Like if you're a single mom here in the United States, you got to stay at that stupid shitty job, you know, at Chick-fil-A, you stay there, right? That's a very different choice than I have. So if you have choices, and most many, many people do, they tend to stay in jobs they hate and then just gripe about them. And so whenever I find myself griping, I leave. Like it's like it's my fault. It's not their job. It's not, you know, whatever some cable like, I'm going. I don't like it here. I'm going, kind of thing. And so I think people should step out of line. Now, the only problem with that is if you actually don't have talent, you shouldn't step out of line. So you should know your talents. You should understand your skills. Um, and then I think I think leaving is a really good quality, like understanding when you're not growing and and moving along and not being mad about it. Not just doing a lot of bygones with people, like bygones, we're going to move on. And so I, I think I do that more, and that's why I'm more successful is because I'm always like, today's the day. And that is from Steve Jobs in a in a speech I recommend if you want to think about your career that he gave in front of Stanford, which is a famous speech. It's mostly about him dying, but it's about, it's also about living. So that's what I would say.
>> I'm going to, I have actually watched that, but I'm going to rewatch it.
>> Rewatch it or read it. Read it. And the other thing is, this is what I say to everyone. You're going to be dead in a hundred years. So point, put that into your mathematical calculations, cuz it doesn't matter. So there you have it.
>> Cara, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us today.
>> I'm glad I saw ran into you in London too. That was great.
>> Well, you please come back on on the morning show on Sky.
>> Spinning out. We didn't get a chance to talk about Comcast and those things. But next time, Cara Swisser, a pleasure to have you here on the Master Investor podcast. Thanks so much. Next week on the Master Investor podcast, uh, we're on the road in New York, uh, sitting down with the JP Morgan, uh, chairman and CEO, Jamie Diamond. Very much looking forward to that episode. So, please do hit follow or subscribe on your podcast app if you have not done so already. We'll see you next week from New York. Until then, thanks for listening. The Master Investor podcast is sponsored by Else, Interactive Brokers, the World Gold Council, and BMY Investments. Please do remember the views expressed in this podcast are for general information purposes only. Nothing in the podcast constitutes a financial promotion, investment advice, or a personal recommendation. More on that in the show notes. This podcast is produced by Paradine Productions and Master Investor Limited in association with Birdline Media. If you've enjoyed the show, please do subscribe on YouTube or click follow on your podcast platform and you'll be automatically notified each time a new episode drops.