Season 3, Episode 4: Recode (with Kara Swisher)

[0] That's different.

[1] That's just a bunch of white guys talking.

[2] Apple, Apple, Apple.

[3] Oh, that damn Google.

[4] Facebook.

[5] Welcome to Season 3, Episode 4 of Acquired, the show about technology acquisitions and IPOs.

[6] I'm Ben Gilbert.

[7] I'm David Rosenthal.

[8] And we are your hosts.

[9] We are here today to talk about the acquisition of Recode by Vox Media.

[10] And in fact, broadcasting live from the Recode podcasting studio in the Red Shares nonetheless.

[11] us.

[12] We're here with one of the greatest people, actually probably the greatest person that we could imagine to help us tell this story.

[13] All right, okay.

[14] The one and only Kara Swisher.

[15] Nice to meet you.

[16] This is not really the recodes.

[17] It's just a studio, just so you know.

[18] We're not fancy here at Vox Media.

[19] That's why I'm here.

[20] Listeners don't know that.

[21] Yeah.

[22] Okay.

[23] It's really impressive.

[24] We're in suits.

[25] We had a really nice view of the Bay Bridge before in our other office, but it was too expensive.

[26] So here we are looking at the Trans Bay Terminal, which is buses.

[27] Beautiful in its own, right?

[28] This is what happens after you get acquired.

[29] And then the sat, no, no, that was before we had the night.

[30] Before we acquired, we started the company in my backyard, so this is much nicer than anything else.

[31] Well, we'll get into that.

[32] Yeah, okay.

[33] All right, listeners, Kara needs no introduction, but I'll do one anyway because it was fun to put one together.

[34] Kara is the executive editor and co -founder of Recode.

[35] She is the illustrious host of the Recode Decode podcast.

[36] She's an absolute legend in the technology industry previously founding the All Things Digital Conference and blog at the Wall.

[37] Street Journal, which was a pioneer of legitimizing blogging and creating an actually good technology conference.

[38] Kara has been called one of the greatest interviewers of our time by Ezra Klein and once interviewed Bill Gates and Steve Jobs in their only ever combined interview, actually in the chairs we're sitting in.

[39] I actually vividly remember where I was when I watched this for the first of many times.

[40] She's interviewed President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, The Mooch, and famously made Mark Zuckerberg sweat through his Facebook Illuminati hoodie on stage.

[41] She's an amazing storyteller and a renowned author, and we are so, so lucky to have her with us today.

[42] Gosh, that's nice.

[43] I think we'll stop now.

[44] And scene.

[45] No, you won't get off that easy.

[46] All right, okay.

[47] All right, well, if you're new to the show, you can check out our Slack at Acquired .fm.

[48] It's the place where David, myself, and 1 ,600 of our favorite listeners discuss episodes right after we release him along with real -time hot takes and some of the biggest tech news of the day.

[49] Okay, listeners, now is a great time to thank one of our big partners here at a required Service Now.

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[54] I was at NVIDIA's GTC, earlier this year and Jensen brought up ServiceNow and their partnership many times throughout the keynote.

[55] So why is ServiceNow so important to both Nvidia and Microsoft companies we've explored deeply in the last year on the show?

[56] Well, AI in the real world is only as good as the bedrock platform it's built into.

[57] So whether you're looking for AI to supercharge developers and IT, empower and streamline customer service, or enable HR to deliver better employee experiences, service now is the platform that can make it possible.

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[60] With ServiceNow's platform, your business can put AI to work today.

[61] It's pretty incredible that ServiceNow built AI directly into their platform.

[62] So all the integration work to prepare for it that otherwise would have taken you years is already done.

[63] So if you want to learn more about the ServiceNow platform and how it can turbocharge the time to deploy AI for your business, go over to ServiceNow .com slash acquired.

[64] And when you get in touch, just tell them Ben and David sent you.

[65] Thanks, ServiceNow.

[66] All right.

[67] Well, could we dive in?

[68] Yes, please.

[69] All right.

[70] Let's do it.

[71] OK.

[72] So, Kara, you have a super interesting personal story that we won't get into here today.

[73] But listeners, of course, should go listen to you on the Ezra Klein Show.

[74] Sure.

[75] Great interview where you talk all about that.

[76] Seriously, I think it was one of our carabouts a while back.

[77] Yeah.

[78] It was a great.

[79] It was great.

[80] The Cliff Notes version is out of school.

[81] You work in print journalism to start.

[82] You're a reporter in DC, first at the Washington City paper, then at the Washington Post, brief detour and TV in between.

[83] Again, go listen to the Es for Klein show.

[84] And David's not just saying that, like, so we can save time or something.

[85] It's one of my favorite podcast episodes I've listened to in the last year.

[86] You should go listen to it.

[87] None of that sounds like tech blogging.

[88] No. Because you basically invent tech blogging after that.

[89] Yeah.

[90] But you do me during that time period, your partner, Walt Mossberg.

[91] Absolutely.

[92] How did you first meet Walt?

[93] And, of course, he was also at D .C. I was writing a book because I was working for the Washington Post when I started covering AOL when it was tiny.

[94] It was a tiny little company, which I think I talked about in the Ezra's show.

[95] And so he was an integral part of the early success of AOL.

[96] He had a very powerful column in a print column in the Wall Street Journal and personal technology.

[97] And he wrote a very positive review of AOL.

[98] And so I interviewed it for it because he sort of got a lot of people to use it for the first time.

[99] And he picked it over two very big efforts by Sears and IBM.

[100] Yeah, CompuServe prodigy.

[101] Yes.

[102] And so he said those suck and please use AOL.

[103] And this was a big giant boost.

[104] The reason Steve Kaye owns half of Hawaii is, I think, because of Walt Mossburg today.

[105] Yeah, but did I well invent the GIF?

[106] I don't know about that.

[107] I don't know.

[108] In any case, he was the person who did it.

[109] And so he got what was going on way before other people.

[110] And I had already been very much interested in digital stuff.

[111] And so he was just in my book.

[112] He was beginning of a chapter of a book.

[113] And then we just hit it off.

[114] And both saw things the way print was going the same exact way.

[115] And so he then tried to convince the Wall Street Journal to hire you away from the Post.

[116] He did.

[117] He got me in my job at the Post and at the Journal and they didn't have anyone covering the Internet.

[118] There wasn't the Internet.

[119] Which is crazy.

[120] Well, no, it wasn't because it didn't exist.

[121] It's like covering cryptocurrency a couple of years ago.

[122] There wasn't anyone covering that.

[123] But this was, it was 97 when you joined the Journal, right?

[124] Yeah, but it really wasn't.

[125] It was online services.

[126] You can't, you know, there was no Google.

[127] There was barely an Amazon.

[128] I think I joined in 96 actually.

[129] Somewhere in there.

[130] But it was, it was barely a Netscape had gone public, but it wasn't very big.

[131] You had Microsoft, really, and that was more computing, and it was not internet computing.

[132] And so very few people were using the internet.

[133] Mark Andreessen was a teenager, I think, in creating the Mosaic browser at the University of Illinois.

[134] And so there wasn't.

[135] It wasn't that big.

[136] People think it was, but it wasn't.

[137] But it was real small.

[138] And Yahoo, when I met them, they had just a few people working there on Amazon, just a few people.

[139] So, no, it wasn't big.

[140] Wow.

[141] So did the journal have a tech bureau already?

[142] They did.

[143] They were covering things like Intel, like the chips.

[144] They had chip coverage.

[145] They had Microsoft coverage, obviously, because that was software.

[146] They had Apple coverage, mostly downward, the downward facing Apple, essentially.

[147] And they had, you know, they had stuff like that, but it was all about the hardware, essentially, and also the chips and the innards and stuff.

[148] And it was very technical.

[149] And so I was the first person hired in that bureau to cover the internet per se, like what it was in online services in Yahoo. And so there was no one covering these people.

[150] There was excite.

[151] There was excite.

[152] You don't remember that company.

[153] No, definitely.

[154] John Doer.

[155] Yeah, John Doer was in that one.

[156] And, you know, they just didn't have people.

[157] They just didn't.

[158] I was it.

[159] I was it.

[160] And people made fun of me, as I've said many times.

[161] Well, Carol, what do you think it was about you that, you know, this is this weird corner of society that's clearly not a thing yet, but you're all in on it.

[162] You're saying the internet is money.

[163] I got it right away.

[164] It's sort of like seeing a movie and going, oh, like, you know, I think I just saw it.

[165] And I was very interested in it before when I was at the Washington Post.

[166] I was very interested in.

[167] We had these little trash 80 computers that we used.

[168] I used to write party stories about Washington for the style section.

[169] And I used the trash 80 and we'd put the couplers on telephones.

[170] It was crazy that we did this at like pay phones, if you remember those.

[171] And then I started liking the phones that we had.

[172] We had a portable phone that was in a suitcase, and I was obsessed with it, and I carried it around, and nobody was interested in it.

[173] And I kept saying, this makes total sense.

[174] Why aren't we using this?

[175] Why doesn't everybody have it?

[176] Why do we have a day?

[177] It just started, like, making connections.

[178] And I think I just made connections on just this one thing.

[179] And the minute I saw it, when I saw the browser and the World Wide Web, which you called it the World Wide Web, you have to spell it out all the time.

[180] You knew.

[181] You saw, oh, oh, oh, just a minute.

[182] And so there was all these experimentation going on.

[183] Like, there was AT &T had this thing called Interchange.

[184] There was CompuServant Prodigy.

[185] There was all kinds of stuff.

[186] But I remember thinking this is going to be going to change everything.

[187] And I covered retail for the Washington Post, and you could see classifieds, we're going to get screwed.

[188] You could see, I remember being mad at deadlines at one point.

[189] I'm like, why do we have deadlines?

[190] That's stupid.

[191] People should get news anytime.

[192] And I met a lot of people that thought like I did, you know.

[193] So there weren't that many, but Walt was one of them.

[194] And so I just kept pursuing it.

[195] And even though people made fun of me, until they started to be worse something in the 90s, in the mid to late 90s.

[196] And that was a boom.

[197] That was one of the first boom.

[198] The pre -Crypto boom.

[199] No, it was the boom.

[200] It was several booms.

[201] That was one of them.

[202] The early 90s, in the late 90s, I'm sorry, not the early 90s, were a time when all these companies started to be worth a lot.

[203] And there was like Mark Andreessen was on the cover.

[204] I think he was in 20, the king of something.

[205] He was on a throne, and he had hair at the time.

[206] and was barefoot and like, this guy's going to rule the universe.

[207] And so there was lots of attention to it.

[208] And then Bill Gates got very wealthy.

[209] And that was a big deal.

[210] When I met him, he was wealthy, but not that wealthy.

[211] And Steve Jobs was making his comeback.

[212] So you mentioned deadlines.

[213] You and, well, together, I believe, went to the Wall Street Journal after you've been there for a while and you're like, we should do a blog.

[214] Yeah, yeah.

[215] Yeah.

[216] I got pregnant.

[217] I had a baby.

[218] And when I came back, I was just fat, I read a lot of blogs.

[219] I was away, and especially Andrew Sullivan had one.

[220] There was suck .com, if you recall, suck .com.

[221] It was great.

[222] I forget what that guy's name is.

[223] Anyway, it was very funny.

[224] I saw some others like TechCrunch and others, and I thought, they suck at journalism.

[225] Why can't we do that?

[226] Yeah, they don't have deadlines.

[227] Why can't we do this?

[228] We should do this.

[229] We should have an ongoing conversation.

[230] And we couldn't convince the management of the Wall Street Journal to do it.

[231] Was it the edit side?

[232] Was it the business side?

[233] They were both.

[234] They were just ignorant.

[235] We just kept saying this is like the way of the future.

[236] they didn't agree with us.

[237] They were interested in a Saturday Journal and things like that.

[238] But they did understand conferences, and they had a conference division that was just terrible.

[239] And we said, we'll do a conference the right way.

[240] And so we, you know, it was a money -making thing from the start.

[241] And so it's a good way to get in.

[242] And we started with the conference in the early 2000s, and then we moved to the website, I think, in 2007.

[243] Yeah.

[244] This was a question.

[245] We had five years of the conference going on.

[246] Right.

[247] Did you always intend the conference to be the way to bring management of the journal around.

[248] Yes, yes, 100%.

[249] Like, here's some money.

[250] Here's some millions for you, you know, in profits.

[251] And what reporter brings millions and profits in?

[252] And, you know, they don't bring $10.

[253] And if you bring, you know, more than $1 ,000.

[254] And I can confer.

[255] I was actually a spreadsheet monkey at Dow Jones before I became a B -C.

[256] It made a lot of money.

[257] Yeah, like you guys made like...

[258] Millions.

[259] Like 20 % of the journal's profit.

[260] At some point.

[261] Yeah, we were like 20.

[262] We called itself Mr. and Mr. 20%.

[263] But they weren't making any money, so that's a low bar.

[264] I can confirm that.

[265] It was a low bar.

[266] We did call herself Mr. and Mrs. 20%.

[267] But the problem the journal made is they made a deal with us where we got a percentage of the profits, so they didn't make that much money, which is good for me and good for Walt.

[268] And Walt does a nice TV set and everything.

[269] Were you an employee of the journal then?

[270] I was originally, and then I became a contractor.

[271] I did.

[272] I didn't want to work for them anymore.

[273] And why is that?

[274] I don't like working for people.

[275] I'm a bad employee.

[276] I'm doing a thing for Forbes on this, being a bad employee.

[277] Like I'm a bad employee.

[278] I hate bosses.

[279] I think they're stupid.

[280] I'm rude.

[281] I'm just not a good employee.

[282] And so I'm a pretty good employee.

[283] Well, Vox is great.

[284] They never bother me. And they're smart enough not to.

[285] But like they were making decisions about the internet.

[286] I thought were stupid.

[287] And I knew more.

[288] And I just was tired of banging against my head against a wall.

[289] And they just didn't want to do.

[290] They were not very into online stuff.

[291] They were later.

[292] And they had some early stuff that Bill Gruskin did a lot of really cool stuff.

[293] But they didn't, they weren't interested in it.

[294] They just, they thought.

[295] They saw it as an adjunct.

[296] They saw it as something to beat.

[297] They thought it was going to go away.

[298] This was not uncommon at newspapers.

[299] When I was at the Washington Post, they had, when they started, they had a separate division in Virginia.

[300] They kept the online people over there.

[301] And I was like, this has to be fully integrated.

[302] And, you know, I just didn't, I didn't want to be in management.

[303] That was the other part.

[304] That was sort of anathom.

[305] So is that way, I'm curious, I was going to save this question until later, but you sort of become a half entrepreneur.

[306] with all things D. Totally.

[307] But it wasn't until much later that you've fully become.

[308] No, but we were an entrepreneur.

[309] We were from the beginning.

[310] We got to do what we wanted to do.

[311] And the way we kept them at bay was we made money, right?

[312] So if you make money, they shut up.

[313] They just bring us the ball.

[314] Just here's the bag of money, leave us alone.

[315] Like that kind of stuff.

[316] And they kind of did.

[317] And Walt had a really big reputation then and was making a lot of money for them in the print publication because his Thursdays, when his column appeared, that's where all the big ads were.

[318] That was the big ad day for the Wall Street Journal, one of them.

[319] he was important for their business from a print perspective they would do what he wanted essentially and should have because he made them a lot of money and so they indulged us in this thing and by the way it made money and also brought attention and then it brought great attention because the first year we had gates we had jobs then we had gates and jobs and then we had this person and that person and did these amazing interviews that got a lot of attention and then we had gates and jobs and so what's to argue with except they did except they did did you guys consider though doing it fully independently to start?

[320] Yes, all the time.

[321] Do you think the timing was wrong in the beginning?

[322] We should have.

[323] We should have, but it wasn't, you know, we could have and we didn't.

[324] You know, Walt had a great franchise there.

[325] I think I was a contractor, so I didn't mind as much to be.

[326] A lot of reporters need to be at a big, that's, their identity as being part of the blank.

[327] And I felt like, it was the first time I realized you didn't need the giant mothership to be famous.

[328] Like, you could do it on your own.

[329] And I'd seen others do it.

[330] There's a lot of people on the internet who'd be.

[331] became, you know, whatever you'd think of Michael Larrington, and I don't think much of him still to this day.

[332] He got a, he got a, his brand.

[333] Andrew Sullivan, great example.

[334] Yeah.

[335] He seems to have gone a little crazy, too, but they got their own thing based on their own work.

[336] And so one of the things I always say to people is, if you do the work, nobody can touch you.

[337] Like, if you do good work, it has to be good work.

[338] It has to either make money or cause attention or something.

[339] It has to some value, whatever that value happens to be.

[340] If you do the work, nobody can hurt you, ever.

[341] Like, a lot of people that come to me with political issues at the company, I'm like, do the work.

[342] And they're like, yeah, what about this guy who doesn't like me?

[343] I'm like, do the work.

[344] Like, trust me when I tell you, if you do the work, aside from various issues of sexism and ageism and things like that, which you do exist at every single company I've worked at, if you actually perform, you tend to get rewarded for it.

[345] You tend to.

[346] And again, women are constrained.

[347] Or at least you get licensed to do whatever you want.

[348] And you also have to not care.

[349] You have to also not care.

[350] I didn't care to be in management.

[351] I didn't care to climb the ladder.

[352] I didn't care if they liked me. And so that helped, that helped a great deal.

[353] And you had the leverage that if you go do it on your own, that's also going to be successful.

[354] Oh, yeah, they would hate that.

[355] They would hate that we succeeded without them.

[356] But I don't, you know, okay.

[357] And by the way, also the important thing, which I hate to do, that's such a trope of Silicon Valley, I didn't care if we failed.

[358] I didn't care.

[359] And I was older at this point.

[360] I was much older.

[361] You were in your 30s already, right?

[362] 40s.

[363] Wow.

[364] Yeah, I'm old.

[365] You had a, you know, profit sharing with them where you guys took most of it.

[366] Did they ever try and renegotiate that?

[367] Well, they originally, you know, it was interesting, the first year we made, I forget it was, it was a good, it was a good sum of money.

[368] It was a million bucks or something like that.

[369] We made a lot of money.

[370] We didn't even try, but nobody was trying at all, and we'd made money.

[371] And I remember calling Walt, and I said, I think I said this on the other show, did you get the flowers?

[372] Because I didn't get the flowers, because I didn't get the flowers.

[373] Like, I'd send you fucking flowers if you made a money.

[374] And the next year, we're like, you're giving us money.

[375] And so I think they gave us $40 ,000 extra.

[376] They thought that was like a big deal.

[377] And then they didn't want to give us.

[378] million.

[379] Yeah, like, I know, and we were like, oh, that's not very much.

[380] And so, I think it was $40 ,000 sticks in my head.

[381] And then the next year, they just didn't want, they were like mad about the $40 ,000.

[382] And we're like, well, give us part of the profits.

[383] Like, I don't know why they did it.

[384] Like, they just did.

[385] And so they gave us a third of the profits, and it was a lot of money.

[386] And they hated it.

[387] They hated it, but they couldn't.

[388] It was like a three or four year contract.

[389] Well, this is their worst nightmare, right?

[390] Is that, like, it's, it's Reporters have broken news from the prison.

[391] You don't need to be part of the X to foreshadowing.

[392] No, they hated it.

[393] I remember one guy is like, we never should have done that.

[394] That was our error.

[395] And I'm like, you were so greedy for this short term.

[396] You didn't understand.

[397] What it did is I unleashed the idea that reporters could go on their own, like Jessica Lesson at the information or Kevin Delaney at Quartz.

[398] Yep, absolutely.

[399] Both great Wall Street Journal reporters.

[400] But they all of a sudden were like, Kara made a break for the border.

[401] Now I'm going to do it.

[402] And so that was the great part.

[403] So you started the trend.

[404] Yes, I did.

[405] We did.

[406] We did.

[407] It was like you could.

[408] You could.

[409] It's worth calling out just how much talent you cultivated there, too.

[410] Yes, we do.

[411] I mean, you're just naming a couple of names now, but you look around the end of the journal.

[412] At the journal.

[413] That was Kevin, and they weren't at All Things D, but we tried to get Kevin to come to All Things D, but he wouldn't take the risk at the time.

[414] He didn't want to leave the journal.

[415] But then he did.

[416] Even to come into D, which was nominally part of the journal.

[417] He knows that.

[418] He knows.

[419] We talked about it the other day.

[420] But there was, I mean, everybody was there at that time.

[421] Yeah, we were.

[422] I mean, it was like you said, Jessica Lesson.

[423] She was Jessica Vescelo at the time.

[424] Yeah, yeah.

[425] At the journal, yes.

[426] That was at the journal.

[427] Not at all things D. We had great, we've had amazing.

[428] Like Mike Isaac is amazing.

[429] Nellie Bowles is amazing there all the times.

[430] Yeah, yeah, everybody was there.

[431] Everybody was there.

[432] Yeah, we had a lot of people coming through.

[433] What was that?

[434] We were good at training people.

[435] Were you and Walt, like, were you out there identifying people?

[436] Were you recruiting?

[437] Yes.

[438] Yes.

[439] Yeah, because people wanted to work for something exciting.

[440] You know what I mean?

[441] And we were doing, one of the things we also were doing, which other places weren't doing is we were running exciting journalism.

[442] We were doing like personality, like Peter Kafka and who.

[443] who's still at Recode, we were doing like, hey, this Comcast deal sucks, and here's why.

[444] Like, that we had that kind of tone.

[445] That was a big part of why you wanted to do the blog, but you wanted to have an opinion, and you didn't, you have this line in another.

[446] We wanted to have an informed opinion based on reporting.

[447] That is very different than mouthing off about something.

[448] We knew, like, when I write columns, Dave, I do checking.

[449] I called Mark Zuckerberg when I'm about to say something terrible about Mark Zuckerberg.

[450] But, you know, we spent a lot of time doing reporting, and so a lot of, we have, had a tone of voice that had, whether it was great features that we did or like look at this or this is a mess over at Yahoo. We would have narratives, the whole Yahoo things.

[451] And we'd have great graphics too.

[452] John Pachkowski, who now works for BuzzFeed, did amazing graphics.

[453] Raise the Yangtanic, which was, you know, the Titanic for Yahoo. We would put a red...

[454] Did you call Jerry and tell him you were going to...

[455] Oh, he laughed.

[456] He didn't care.

[457] Most people, some people cared, but we don't care about them.

[458] But we don't care about them.

[459] But we put put a ball gag in Eric Schmidt's mouth when he kept saying stupid things.

[460] So every time he said a stupid thing, we'd say, Eric Smith, Eric Schmidt said a stupid thing again today and embarrass Google, the ball gag goes up.

[461] And so we don't do that now, but it was great.

[462] And then I had a little camera, a little flip cam that I would like shove in people's face.

[463] That was a precursor to a lot of stuff.

[464] So we would, I'd stick in there, I'm like, hi, hi, how you doing?

[465] How you doing?

[466] Like to whoever I was around.

[467] And you posted on the site.

[468] I just would post them fold on the sites.

[469] And I think people like that.

[470] It was fun.

[471] It sort of, it was, we were trying everything.

[472] different.

[473] One time I did a whole story that just said Apple Twitter, Apple Twitter, Apple Twitter, just to see how many likes, not how many likes, how many, stupid, because nobody cares about anything.

[474] And so we were, and then you would just, it would just be honest.

[475] And I think that's what was great about it.

[476] Like Peter Kafka is a perfect example of that.

[477] Great reporting, because you always got the scoops.

[478] That's right.

[479] We always got the scoops.

[480] That was critical.

[481] But at the same time, and we got the scoops whether we had access or not.

[482] Like, if they gave us access, great.

[483] If they didn't fuck you like you know what I mean like that's the kind of thing we feel like don't give great I'm good without you your help I'm good with with your help but we didn't we didn't cultivate that accessie journalism and yet we got a lot of access which is which I think having worked at the Wall Street Journal it was all about access like then we're going to give it you first as an exclusive I kind of hated that I like I don't mind it but I'm like what am I leaving well it comes with strings attached right it always does and you also You mentioned this on the Ezra Klein podcast, but your strategy is already know everything that's going on and then go talk to them.

[484] And then they have to tell you.

[485] Yes.

[486] Or they think you do.

[487] Like there's a whole thing.

[488] Okay, I always know everything that's going on, but sometimes I don't.

[489] No, I actually do these days.

[490] It's really kind of sad.

[491] I've forgotten things.

[492] Like, I literally have a list of tips people have told me that I've forgotten about.

[493] Like, I have a really good tip on Facebook that I literally am waiting for Kurt Wagner to get back from his honeymoon because I know no one will get it.

[494] Like, I'm just sitting there.

[495] But I would have been in the old days, just typed it right up and shoved it out.

[496] there.

[497] But, you know, things have changed in that way.

[498] The stuff we pioneered, everybody else copied or, and we copied from other people, et cetera, et cetera.

[499] But everyone iterated on a little bit of our model and, you know, BuzzFeed has a similar tone.

[500] Everybody's done a lot of the stuff we did.

[501] And now Jessica's doing these long stories, which people are now iterating on her innovations.

[502] So I think people have caught up to a lot of our tricks.

[503] Who reminds you today of the pioneering you back then that was breaking all the rules?

[504] You know, Jessica a little bit, but she's doing a different thing.

[505] So, you know, she's this long stories.

[506] And I, you know, some of what Axios is doing, kind of, but I think it's, I think it's formulaic and I think it'll get tired after a while.

[507] I think that one's going to exhaust you, although certain people, like, I like Mike Allen.

[508] I like some of the newsletters.

[509] Casey Newton has a newsletter called The Interface that I love recently.

[510] I thought he was, I just, I've always, like, tried to bug him about access journalism, but this thing is great.

[511] It's totally insightful and useful.

[512] What I'm interested in is journalists who make products that people find useful and helpful to their lives, or funny or insightful.

[513] And whatever format it takes, I don't care.

[514] Like, same thing with podcast.

[515] We started this four or five years ago.

[516] I forget it's four years ago.

[517] Well, hold on.

[518] We're going to come back.

[519] Okay.

[520] All right.

[521] In any case, we just decided to do things.

[522] And that's the environment I want to be in.

[523] Like, now I'm going to do this.

[524] Like, too bad.

[525] Same thing with the New York Times.

[526] I'm going to do it.

[527] Like, did I think about that I work for a box?

[528] but I don't care.

[529] Like, I have a plan, like, why I'm doing it that way.

[530] For folks that haven't checked it out, I think a few amazing op -eds recently at the times.

[531] I have one a week.

[532] I have one a week now.

[533] Yeah, there's about five now.

[534] I'm going to have two this week.

[535] Last week was on Trump mouthing off on, you know, about Twitter and Silicon Valley at last.

[536] Oh, God.

[537] It's very good.

[538] So it's just like every week.

[539] They're unfair to him.

[540] They're unfair.

[541] By the way, well, we were going to ask you later, but the mooch.

[542] Yeah, that's my favorite interview.

[543] That was a great interview.

[544] That was so great.

[545] Well, here's a good example of that.

[546] So everyone's like, oh, you can't interview him.

[547] I'm like, why not?

[548] Sure, I can.

[549] So I, what I, what I had done, like, I think that's what I, like, I'm having a big fight today on Twitter about Bannon.

[550] They're like, you can't interview him.

[551] I'm like, yeah, I can't.

[552] No, you can't.

[553] Well, I'm going to go to.

[554] So whatever, like, I get your problems with him, but I'm going to still interview him.

[555] But what was interesting.

[556] What?

[557] You can interview her.

[558] What?

[559] And we said we can.

[560] Yes, you can.

[561] Like, whatever.

[562] Just we're on your show.

[563] Right, exactly.

[564] So is, that's a laugh.

[565] By the way, that's why we like, oh, come on.

[566] You don't want a clear.

[567] Is there a clean?

[568] No one's listening on it.

[569] Tim Cook ain't listening.

[570] And by the way, he did a great interview with me recently on MSNBC.

[571] But what was I talking about?

[572] Oh, mooch.

[573] Oh, so what happened was I trolled him on Twitter all the time.

[574] He just made me laugh, but I also thought it was appalling in many ways.

[575] And so I just kept writing, hey, scaramucci, and then I would make a joke about whatever he had stupid thing he had said.

[576] And I forget.

[577] There were a lot of them.

[578] They went on and on, like hundreds of them.

[579] They were terrible for me to do.

[580] And then I was at this event that John Patel had in Silicon Valley at a restaurant at this restaurant.

[581] There was a thing.

[582] And I don't wear my glasses.

[583] I don't see very well.

[584] And this person was like coming over and his tiny little man was like headed by way with a lot of hair.

[585] And I'm like, I know who is that?

[586] And he comes right in my face and he's scaramucci.

[587] And he's like, oh, you.

[588] I know you.

[589] You're mean to me on the internet.

[590] I'm like, oh my God, scaramucci.

[591] And we ended up talking all.

[592] She's Italian.

[593] I'm Italian.

[594] It was great.

[595] We had a great bunch of drinks.

[596] We laughed.

[597] And I said, you got to come on my podcast.

[598] And he goes, are you kidding me?

[599] I'm like, absolutely not.

[600] And we did it at his office, his crazy office in New York.

[601] And it was fun.

[602] And I think he was surprised, because I'm super liberal on Twitter, obviously, and anti -Trump.

[603] And he thought, why wouldn't she talk to me?

[604] But of course I would.

[605] Why wouldn't I?

[606] He was really interesting.

[607] And actually, it was a good podcast.

[608] Everyone has a story.

[609] It's my favorite interview you've ever done.

[610] Yeah, that's one of them.

[611] Because the narrative on him was, he's the mooch.

[612] He's like caricature.

[613] He's not a human.

[614] But he is and he isn't.

[615] But he's also a caricature.

[616] Well, yes.

[617] Yeah.

[618] But you can tell in your interview that, like, there is a method to his madness.

[619] There is.

[620] There is.

[621] But he's still the mooch.

[622] He's still the mooch.

[623] Of course, he's the mooch.

[624] Hey, you're in New York.

[625] Come to my club.

[626] I went to his club.

[627] Like, why wouldn't I?

[628] Like, are you kidding?

[629] He has a giant steak.

[630] All right, I'll eat it.

[631] I'm a vegetarian, but I'll go for it.

[632] I did.

[633] I ate a steak.

[634] Did you break your rule for her?

[635] Sure.

[636] Why know?

[637] It was a good steak.

[638] He's the mooch.

[639] All right.

[640] Let's pick this back up.

[641] So, D becomes very successful.

[642] Yeah.

[643] You're Mr. and Mrs. 20%, you and Walt.

[644] We get to, towards the end of 2013.

[645] Yeah.

[646] The contract for D is up.

[647] Yeah, we had signed another one with Rupert Murdoch, much to my sugar in that I did that.

[648] But when he bought the company, he loved Walt Mossberg.

[649] I'll tell you that.

[650] He didn't know my name for a long time.

[651] But we signed a first contract with them.

[652] And then the things, just everything at Down Jones.

[653] Was that another three year?

[654] Did you sign it in 2010?

[655] Yeah, something like that.

[656] Right when they bought it, we did.

[657] Oh, that was 2007.

[658] So you signed a long time.

[659] Yeah, we signed a couple with them.

[660] Yeah, I know.

[661] We did.

[662] We were there a long time.

[663] Total aside.

[664] Maybe two contracts, yeah.

[665] But we're, go ahead.

[666] I was my favorite story from my favorite Rupert story.

[667] I never actually met him when I worked there.

[668] But my desk on the eighth floor in 1211 was, I was hired, there was headcount allocated for my job.

[669] My boss had hired me. And Wendy Dang, his then wife, she wanted her personal assistant to take, my desk.

[670] And so your desk was taken.

[671] And so my boss had to go and fight with News Corp Corporate and Wendy.

[672] No, no, no. I won.

[673] I mean, I wasn't even there yet, but my boss won.

[674] Wendy's a tough lady.

[675] I like Wendy.

[676] It was a victory.

[677] I was one time caught between the two of them at dinner and I'll just can't even go into it.

[678] It's quite a night.

[679] Yeah.

[680] I'm sure.

[681] All right.

[682] So when did you know that the separation was coming?

[683] You know, we tried.

[684] And then after that, first of all, they didn't want to invest.

[685] We had an idea of to do all things, finance, all things, whatever.

[686] We had a great idea.

[687] And John Miller, who was the chief digital officer at the time, loved it.

[688] Former AOL president, right?

[689] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[690] And I knew him super well from writing books on AOL.

[691] And I liked him.

[692] I think he's super innovative.

[693] I've done very well since then.

[694] But he wanted to do all.

[695] He liked the idea, all things, this, all things.

[696] Like, you would have a conference.

[697] We thought about newsletters.

[698] Podcasts were not thought of at the time, but that certainly would have worked.

[699] Or events, you know, finance, health.

[700] We were going to, women.

[701] Like, we could have, like, owned a lot of categories, and they just didn't want to invest.

[702] It was such a section of the paper.

[703] You could have your own.

[704] And then you pick out reporters who are well -known.

[705] Like, you make star, they didn't want to make stars of reporters.

[706] I think that might, I don't know why.

[707] Maybe they just were busy with whatever they were busy with, like, sports rights and phone hacking.

[708] Well, exactly.

[709] So that happened.

[710] So we had a lot of pushback.

[711] We got a lot of hostility from the journal people themselves, because we often beat them.

[712] And they didn't like that.

[713] And we weren't that nice to them.

[714] Like, like, when they stole our stories, we were like, hey, you.

[715] You shoplifters, they hated that.

[716] Like, be collegial.

[717] I'm like, we're not your colleagues, so no. Here's my contract.

[718] Yeah, like, I don't work for you.

[719] Like, I don't have to be nice to you.

[720] And so they just had an old school way of thinking that we didn't, and they were resentful.

[721] I think they were aware of how much money we made, I think.

[722] They would say that wasn't an issue, but I'm sure it was.

[723] They didn't like us being famous also.

[724] And so it just was, it was just, they just wasn't ready for us, right?

[725] You know, today they're different.

[726] Or maybe they are.

[727] Are they?

[728] Yeah.

[729] I don't care.

[730] I don't read the Wall Street Journal.

[731] So in any case, exactly.

[732] I do read the New York Times, which is why I'm there.

[733] And then the phone hacking thing happened.

[734] And we were like, oh, God, these people, we're trying to pretend they're not satanic and they are.

[735] All right.

[736] So what's the phone hacking thing for a listener?

[737] What happened was the only good thing was Wendy swatting away the pie, you know, pretty much in that incident.

[738] But they hacked the phone of a dead girl.

[739] News Corp did.

[740] News Corp Internet.

[741] And it was run by this woman.

[742] In the Times of London.

[743] And they.

[744] And they did it.

[745] They did these terrible things that were just so unethical.

[746] And they were like, oh, God, can we hang out with these people anymore?

[747] They're not, they're giving us a hard time.

[748] They're not going to invest in us.

[749] We're too small to invest in.

[750] But if we want to get big, they won't give us the money to get big.

[751] It was just like, they aren't going to get big.

[752] It was just like, it wasn't going anywhere.

[753] And so we went around and interviewed a bunch of people.

[754] We wanted to not have venture capitalists.

[755] So we interviewed media companies.

[756] and we had a list, and we had, you know, A, B, and C people we'd love to invest in us, and we talked to a lot of them, Bloomberg, her, everybody.

[757] What was your hang -up with taking VC?

[758] I just didn't want to listen to a VC.

[759] Like, eventually they'd screw me. Eventually they'd screw me, right?

[760] Like, I know them.

[761] I covered them.

[762] I'm like, eventually they screw you.

[763] So, no, thank you.

[764] And so we wanted to be careful about it.

[765] We wanted media investors.

[766] We wanted media investors who understood media because we weren't going to make a ton of money.

[767] Like, there just wasn't.

[768] You know, we could do okay.

[769] pay, but it wasn't in massively scalable business.

[770] And so we wanted someone who cared about it and who we could experiment with.

[771] And so we went with NBC because we liked the television thing.

[772] And we went with Terry Semmel, who had worked for Yahoo. It actually was originally a media investor.

[773] And he had a media company called Windsor.

[774] He did.

[775] And he was retired and he had a venture, not a venture firm.

[776] It was an investment firm that invested in media.

[777] So you guys raised $12 million.

[778] Yes.

[779] January 2014, you launch RICO.

[780] All things.

[781] Yep.

[782] A hotel.

[783] RICO.

[784] You take all things, well, the journal keeps all things D. They do.

[785] They wouldn't sell it.

[786] We tried to buy it from them, but Rupert wanted $30 million for it.

[787] They were going to sell it to us.

[788] We offered them a million, which was insane at the time.

[789] Because you took every single employee, came with you to RICO.

[790] Yes, they did.

[791] And what would that have even gotten you?

[792] Did people, like, was there RSS feeds that people that would.

[793] Just was a name.

[794] We had a lot of, yeah, we had everything.

[795] It would have been nice to have it.

[796] Yes, we would have been nice to have it.

[797] Yes, we would have kept all things, see.

[798] And we would have kept the brand name.

[799] But they never used it is the thing.

[800] They did WSJD, whatever that is.

[801] And so, but they, they never used it.

[802] I was like, it's just pure peak that they did that.

[803] It was insane.

[804] It was a waste of their money.

[805] They could have had a million bucks from me, but, and that was way too much to pay.

[806] That would have been meaningful to their operating profit.

[807] Yes, exactly.

[808] Yeah, I was like, it was so dumb, and he wanted $30 million.

[809] And I remember thinking, you know, I could buy fuck you, rupert .com for that much money, right?

[810] Like, come on, like, which would have been funny.

[811] And I don't know.

[812] It just was, it was not a good parting.

[813] It was, and they were obnoxious to us on the way.

[814] They tried to say they fired.

[815] us, which was crazy.

[816] But, you know, whatever.

[817] Okay, so we're curious.

[818] Recode.

[819] Where did the name come from?

[820] And originally it was re -slash code and then it's capital R, capital C. What happened?

[821] Are we all lowercase now?

[822] Is that the...

[823] No, it's just recone.

[824] I don't know.

[825] The masthead is all lowercase.

[826] It's all lowercase.

[827] Dan Fromer came and cleaned it up.

[828] But I don't like the slash.

[829] I don't know why.

[830] I just did.

[831] It was stupid.

[832] You should never let me design anything.

[833] But recode came from...

[834] Are you Marissa Mayer who's like on the weekend designing the Yahoo logo?

[835] No, we hired a branding firm, and they came up with lots of names.

[836] And I just found the deck the other day, and this is what RICO means and this and that.

[837] And we just liked it.

[838] A minute we saw it, we're like, oh, yeah, that.

[839] There were a bunch of really crazy names.

[840] Like, oh, God, I can't remember.

[841] Some of them were wacky.

[842] What was it?

[843] And your parent company was Revere Digital.

[844] Yes, that was because we were, what was that?

[845] Is that Paul Revere?

[846] Paul Revere.

[847] Yeah, Paul Revere.

[848] Yeah, it was Walt, it was from that area.

[849] And it was, I forget, there was an obnoxious reason.

[850] It was originally called Shut Up and Listen, LLC.

[851] That was the original.

[852] I think it was called Shut Up and Listen.

[853] That's good.

[854] Yeah, that was my art. Even you couldn't go with that.

[855] No, we did.

[856] We went with it for a long time.

[857] It was shut up and listened for a long time, and I forget why we changed to Revere.

[858] It was something with Paul Revere.

[859] I mean, now I've forgotten.

[860] Is the Wall Street Journal like the Red Coats or something?

[861] Yeah, something like that.

[862] It was like something like that.

[863] Something like that.

[864] I forget.

[865] Everything we do is based on obnoxious tendencies.

[866] And so we had a naming group and they came up with that.

[867] And then the guy who owned RICO .com.

[868] It was a German guy who wouldn't give it to us.

[869] He wanted a lot of money.

[870] And so we decided to make net sexy.

[871] You and John Gruber.

[872] Like the daring fireball, the two dot net holdouts.

[873] What the hell?

[874] Nobody cares, but nobody.

[875] Everyone's like, you can't do that.

[876] We're like, why?

[877] Who cares about this?

[878] Nobody types.

[879] And nobody types, right?

[880] Hello, Google.

[881] Like, just put recode.

[882] And so then the guy, we're trying to get code .com and it's owned by the kind bar guy, that guy.

[883] What?

[884] Why?

[885] He just had it.

[886] He just, I don't know why.

[887] has it.

[888] He wanted to start.

[889] This is like the rover .com story.

[890] Yeah, he has it.

[891] I think he still does.

[892] But anyway, I ran him to a party.

[893] I'm like, give me your URL.

[894] And he's like, well, if you do a site, a conference about peace, I'm like, no, fuck you.

[895] I'm not doing a conference about peace.

[896] You think he would have said, I know, I was like, if you met me?

[897] We do, actually, by, by choice.

[898] And he wanted, I don't forget what, he wanted to lend it to us.

[899] It just didn't work.

[900] He was very nice.

[901] He was very sweet, but I wasn't going to be doing a peace conference.

[902] And I did not want to rent his URL for any reason.

[903] Anyway, we didn't get that, and it was fine.

[904] It doesn't matter.

[905] It's a great name.

[906] It's a great name.

[907] It's a great name.

[908] So you said something a little while back.

[909] And then it has a code conference and then re -code decode.

[910] It works perfectly.

[911] It's fine.

[912] So you said something a while back that I want to pick back up on.

[913] You said you and Walt knew, like, you'd make money.

[914] You were already making money, but you knew this wasn't going to be like VC scale business.

[915] However, at the pretty much the same time you start recode, all of these new media sites get started.

[916] There's, of course, Vox, which, you know, we're sitting in Vox headquarters right now, which has a fun story to itself, but there's BuzzFeed, there's, you know, all these companies.

[917] They're raising tons of money.

[918] VCs are jumping in.

[919] Yes, all the content companies.

[920] What were you thinking when you saw this?

[921] Oh, Jesus.

[922] Oh, no, like, because I've seen it before.

[923] Like, and it always ends in tears, you know what I mean, and not good tears.

[924] So I was like, oh, damn.

[925] And they were, like, a business insider, they raised a bunch of money.

[926] Then they started getting my, they tried to poach my employees for redonculus.

[927] salaries.

[928] I was like, you know, in one point when I was trying to hire someone, I was offering them a lot, what I thought was a lot of money.

[929] And then they wanted a lot more.

[930] And I'm like, I didn't even want to pay the first one.

[931] I'm not going to pay you the second one.

[932] I really don't want to pay it.

[933] In fact, I'm not paying you the first one anymore.

[934] And so it was, that was that, you saw that happening in these, and then that one, Univision one, what did they, those guys?

[935] Kevin Ruse went there, a whole bunch of Alex Madrigal, Alexis Madrigal went there.

[936] Fusion.

[937] Fusion.

[938] They came in.

[939] and offered, like, here's $3 million reporters.

[940] It was craziness.

[941] It was craziness.

[942] And it was, I just saw.

[943] And again, I mean, the moneymaker for D. And it was the events.

[944] It's the podcast to make a lot of money.

[945] It's the old Jeff Zucker quote, you know, for all of Jeff Secker.

[946] Like, he was right.

[947] Digital dollars turn into, you know, or analog dollars, dimes turn into digital payments.

[948] Now he thinks it's a quarter or more.

[949] It's actually doing okay for some people.

[950] It was once a good.

[951] It was doing great for Facebook.

[952] It was just like, come on, this isn't going to work.

[953] Like, I'm not an idiot.

[954] And so I was sort of.

[955] And then we would have had to turn to VC money.

[956] And I just was like, I can't fundraise.

[957] I can't do my journalism.

[958] Like, I can't, like, do the things that make us going.

[959] And so I thought we got to sell.

[960] Like, I immediately was, like, pushing hard, pushing Walt hard.

[961] And how far into the business was this?

[962] Six months.

[963] Huh.

[964] I was like, no, no, no. This could go very wrong for us with the money we have.

[965] And so, you know, if there wasn't that fundraising, we probably would have stayed independent.

[966] But that was, it was crazy money.

[967] It was being thrown around.

[968] And it wasn't going to stop, and it could really hurt us.

[969] And so I think one of the great things I did learn from tech people was that you move, like, you move, and you don't like stand on ceremony, you don't go, oh, this will work, and you just panic.

[970] By move, you mean, you know, make this, you don't just stand there and say, no, only the paranoid survive.

[971] Like, wait a minute.

[972] And I had seen this story before, and so I was worried.

[973] And I also didn't think it had any economic underpinnings.

[974] And so it was just, it was a race to the bottom as far as you know.

[975] But there were, but in a bigger scale, even if it's hard, you have to be bigger.

[976] I just, I felt that.

[977] And so I looked around and talked to a bunch of people who were like us.

[978] There were several.

[979] Did you talk with any of those that had raised crazy money to sort of combine with them?

[980] One of them.

[981] Yeah.

[982] Yeah.

[983] Yeah.

[984] There were offers all the time.

[985] It was crazy.

[986] Like, reporters deal making.

[987] You know you've got to get off the train if that's happening.

[988] Kara, I've got a deal for you.

[989] I'm like, no, you don't.

[990] And I'm pretty good at deals, but I'm not that good.

[991] And you're really bad.

[992] And so, you know, really serious.

[993] You know what I'm saying.

[994] I mean, you're VC's.

[995] Like, no thank you.

[996] Like, even VCs are stupid, right?

[997] Like, I'm not going to have a reporter, make a deal with me. So Jim Bankoff had talked to me about using their ad system, and I'd known Jim forever because he was at AOL.

[998] And I loved him.

[999] Chorus?

[1000] Corr.

[1001] I forget which.

[1002] Yeah, it was chorus.

[1003] I guess it was chorus.

[1004] No, it was their content management systems.

[1005] They had an ad system, too.

[1006] In any case, he wanted, concert.

[1007] He wanted, it wasn't called that then, but he wanted us to be part of their ad group.

[1008] Like, they sell our ad, one of those deals.

[1009] And I was like, well, why don't we just merge?

[1010] I know about that.

[1011] And you don't have anything fancy.

[1012] Like, we're fancy.

[1013] We're another revenue stream.

[1014] We've got ideas.

[1015] We're well known.

[1016] It adds, we're like your other brands.

[1017] We're like Vox.

[1018] We're like Eater.

[1019] We're like we're in the same zone.

[1020] Especially the verge, but not, but you guys have a very different thing.

[1021] The verge is like, different.

[1022] Right.

[1023] It's, well, but it's like.

[1024] Walt went over there.

[1025] We moved.

[1026] We moved.

[1027] Like, we weren't dumb about it.

[1028] We were like, that's.

[1029] And the consumer stuff really wasn't working on recode.

[1030] Walt's consumer stuff, it wasn't, we were a tech news site, and adding the consumer stuff just didn't, like, we couldn't attract, it just wasn't right from a, from a journalism point of view for the product.

[1031] And so we were doing all this scoop breaking news business stuff, and then we had Walt there.

[1032] And so he was better, to give him a bigger audience, the Verge made more sense.

[1033] And by the way, we do anything again if it makes more sense.

[1034] Like, we're not stupid.

[1035] Like, if things change, we change.

[1036] Nothing is sacred.

[1037] Nothing.

[1038] Nothing.

[1039] Absolutely nothing.

[1040] And so.

[1041] And so Jim wanted to do some kind of commercial deal where he said, let us take this ad sales off your hands, we get this great technology platform, and you're like, nah, it's combined.

[1042] What about this?

[1043] And he thought of it, too.

[1044] Like, he understood how famous Walton I were and how it did add to his brand.

[1045] It adds to it.

[1046] It adds to advertiser interest.

[1047] It adds to buzz.

[1048] It adds to all kinds of things.

[1049] And he's a pretty conservative media mogul.

[1050] Like, you know, if you can compare him to Shane Smith or even the guys over at BuzzFeed.

[1051] And who's Shane Smith?

[1052] Shane Smith runs vice.

[1053] Got it.

[1054] who now is not running vice because they have some issues because of Shane Smith, etc. And so Nancy Dubuque runs that they get the lady to come in and clean it up.

[1055] So anyway, so it was a good match.

[1056] It was a good match.

[1057] We've been thrilled.

[1058] It's been four years almost now.

[1059] So it was May, we announced it a year later.

[1060] We announced it a year later.

[1061] May 2015, you announced you're selling a box.

[1062] Wait, so the deal was done and you announced it a year later?

[1063] Yeah.

[1064] Wow.

[1065] I know.

[1066] Oh, wow.

[1067] How'd you keep that under your hat?

[1068] I just did.

[1069] No, no, no, we didn't come to the conclusion until close to the deal.

[1070] So you spent a year sort of figuring it out.

[1071] Because it was 18 months.

[1072] Yeah, we were running it for, yeah, it was 18 months.

[1073] But it really was six months when you started.

[1074] Yes, absolutely.

[1075] It was pretty soon.

[1076] It was pretty soon.

[1077] And, you know, it was, I thought about the employees.

[1078] I'm like, oh, I promised them this, now I'm doing this.

[1079] And, you know, I don't, it's fine.

[1080] Like, you know what I mean?

[1081] Like, all of them are too well.

[1082] You know what?

[1083] They'll all do well.

[1084] They'll all do well.

[1085] And so they understood that this was an entrepreneurial effort.

[1086] And again, I don't see, there's nothing wrong with saying, we're going to change our tune.

[1087] Like, there's nothing.

[1088] I think, you know, journalists are super risk -averse, and they're very rigid, and I'm not.

[1089] So I will literally change at any moment.

[1090] I was going to save this for our tech team section, but I want to bring it up now.

[1091] Facebook.

[1092] Yeah.

[1093] That was, I think if I had to rewind back to that time and justify all the VC money going into the space, it's that social distribution is eliminating the traditional media gatekeepers.

[1094] You can build new, you know, timing for the digital.

[1095] digital age on the back of social distribution.

[1096] New media was in every article.

[1097] Yeah.

[1098] What is new media?

[1099] What is new media?

[1100] Yeah.

[1101] But the way that's kind of played out is it's great for Facebook.

[1102] It's great for Facebook.

[1103] It's great for racists and anti -Semites.

[1104] It's great for people, Russians, the Russians that worked out well for.

[1105] But not so much for the rest of us.

[1106] No. They didn't come up with a business plan of how to do it.

[1107] I'm not saying there isn't one.

[1108] I just, they haven't come up with it in a way that I think anyone feels happy about.

[1109] And they tried everything.

[1110] We'll get to a podcast in a minute.

[1111] Well, at one point, I remember when they started Facebook, I had all these issues with Facebook Live, including the fact that I thought people would murder each other on it.

[1112] I was like, oh, it seems like a perfect way to kill someone and then show it or do suicide or something like that.

[1113] And I expressed my reservations them about that issue.

[1114] Like, wow, you don't have control of the rest of your platform.

[1115] Now you're going to unleash a video platform.

[1116] All right.

[1117] You incredibly irresponsible people and go right ahead.

[1118] But I remember them saying, you should do Facebook Lives.

[1119] Remember that?

[1120] All the journalists were doing Facebook Live.

[1121] And I go, and it was like from the top.

[1122] They were like, Kara, you should know, Cheryl.

[1123] or whatever.

[1124] You should do Facebook, or Chris Cox or whatever.

[1125] And I was like, I'm not doing your Facebook lives.

[1126] And they're like, why?

[1127] I'm like, where's my money?

[1128] Where's my sack of money?

[1129] Because it's a waste of my time.

[1130] You'll get more users.

[1131] I don't need.

[1132] I have 700 ,000.

[1133] Like, they're not making me money.

[1134] Those also aren't your users.

[1135] They're Facebook users.

[1136] And where's my money?

[1137] Like I kept saying, where's the benefit for Gara Swisher.

[1138] It's like a head fake, right?

[1139] Yeah, you'll get more famous.

[1140] I'm like, I am famous.

[1141] But really what was going on was your 700 ,000 users for all the, for all these new media platforms are all just coming from Facebook.

[1142] Exactly.

[1143] I just never saw.

[1144] I literally never saw.

[1145] I was like, I'm not wasting.

[1146] I'd rather watch Law & Order because that would give me pleasure.

[1147] But doing talking to people that put little, like, sometimes I'll do it to get people to read an article, but it doesn't help.

[1148] What's the 700 ,000?

[1149] Is that Twitter followers?

[1150] I don't even know.

[1151] No, Twitter is 1 .3.

[1152] It actually dipped when they did their cleaning, their culling, and now it's back up, the purge.

[1153] When they did the purge, and now it's up again to 1 .3 or so.

[1154] Something I have to work.

[1155] But again, it's like Twitter selling.

[1156] ad dollars selling ad units against your 1 .3 million followers.

[1157] Yeah, I guess I'm sure half of them are bots.

[1158] I'm guessing half of them are bots.

[1159] I was just there early.

[1160] That's all.

[1161] I was a recommended user.

[1162] I didn't buy any of them.

[1163] I was an early user and I was on the early recommended list and I think I just was put on everybody's thing.

[1164] I don't think half the people know who the hell I am.

[1165] All right.

[1166] So speaking of audience size, so when you got bought by Fox Media, what would your audience look like on Recode.

[1167] How big it was?

[1168] Small.

[1169] Small.

[1170] A couple million.

[1171] Has it grown since the acquisition?

[1172] You know, we're not as focused on the website.

[1173] I'm not, again, we haven't been as focused.

[1174] We have been focused on the website, but we don't see it as just the website or the podcast or the event.

[1175] It's all a group of things.

[1176] They all feed on each other.

[1177] Some kind of flywheel or something.

[1178] That's the way you think about it.

[1179] It makes sense.

[1180] It's like all journalism is how we look at it, whether we break news on our podcast.

[1181] Because we broke plenty of news on the Mark Zuckerberg podcast.

[1182] Like, hello, that drove a news cycle for two or three days.

[1183] So is that re -code?

[1184] Is that the recode podcast?

[1185] I don't care.

[1186] Again, the same thing.

[1187] And then, you know, then we had Cheryl on stage a code.

[1188] And then we had, it just, we don't think of it like that.

[1189] We don't think of it like.

[1190] And then the code interviews become news.

[1191] Then they become podcasts.

[1192] All our code interviews become podcasts.

[1193] And then we break them up into pieces and then we make news stories.

[1194] And we sort of at least one every like three or four episodes.

[1195] Yes, yeah.

[1196] Yeah, we did.

[1197] Like, why not?

[1198] It's all content.

[1199] And however people want to consume it is really how I look at it.

[1200] I think we definitely are rethinking what is the traditional web news site because it's changed really.

[1201] I mean, like Bloomberg is doing everything in the world.

[1202] They hoover up every piece of information and vomit it out.

[1203] So, you know, they do, right?

[1204] They have a lot of people, a lot of money to do that because they make all those money from machines.

[1205] And so you have to think really hard is what is your value in each product you're making.

[1206] Like I'm super interested in newsletters recently.

[1207] I don't know why because I think Casey's is so good.

[1208] I'm thinking a lot about it.

[1209] Like, that's an interesting.

[1210] Now, there's tons of...

[1211] It's 2018.

[1212] We're talking about email newsletters.

[1213] I know, but you know what they're good, but they're good.

[1214] But I still think some of them are terrible.

[1215] I start my day with Primac.

[1216] Right, except you don't do all of them.

[1217] So what is it about his that's great?

[1218] What is it about?

[1219] If you had one, I would read yours.

[1220] I would have a different idea.

[1221] I have a new thing I'm cooking up that I think would be interesting.

[1222] I'm not saying that flattery.

[1223] Thank you.

[1224] I want your tone like in my head every morning.

[1225] Yeah, but it's going to be in a different way.

[1226] I think newsletters are great, but they're heavy.

[1227] Like I find they pile up.

[1228] And so I'm like, I still like them.

[1229] They pile up their, like, Sunday newspapers.

[1230] How can I get this in a way that's, there's a way to do it that's different?

[1231] Do you want to break news on the show?

[1232] No, I don't.

[1233] I just, I'm still thinking about it.

[1234] I'm thinking hard about it because I'm reading a lot of them.

[1235] And I'm like, just the way when I started listening to podcasts, I was like, all right, this is what I think is good, what I think is bad.

[1236] And so when we started the podcast, it was the same thing.

[1237] Everyone was like, you can't do an hour.

[1238] And it was two months after the acquisition, you started the podcast.

[1239] Yeah, because nobody was paying attention.

[1240] Did you know how big it was going to get?

[1241] No. No, yes, yes, yes, because I knew we were, because our bet is that people are smart, smart people like smart interviews, people like substantive things.

[1242] It had become a twitchy little universe of content, right?

[1243] And so everyone's getting little pieces of information that made no sense.

[1244] And I thought conversations mattered.

[1245] I always thought conversations matter.

[1246] It's what we do at Code, but only a certain amount of people get to hear it, even though we put them in podcasts.

[1247] At Code, we have the big swinging, you know, dicks, etc. Right?

[1248] You know, that's what we have, and most of them are days.

[1249] But that's pretty much the people have to pay the money to make their revenue.

[1250] There is the formula for code.

[1251] And then when you go down, when you go down the stack a little bit, there's all these fascinating people, you know, who should get attention.

[1252] We didn't have a lot of VCs at code, for example.

[1253] I just, we just didn't.

[1254] Andrew Mason may have been my favorite episode of Recode decode.

[1255] That was a great one.

[1256] That was a great one.

[1257] So blunt, honest, amazing.

[1258] Exactly.

[1259] And so people feel more comfortable in that setting.

[1260] But I could get to people like Chimoth.

[1261] Like he, like, we wouldn't have put Chamath on the Code stage, but boy, is he great in a podcast, or April Underwood.

[1262] Like, you don't know who she is, but she's critically important.

[1263] Or like I had today Nicole Wong, who ran big legal teams at Google and Twitter and was very central to a lot of their early decisions talking about what's happening now.

[1264] Like, who I wouldn't put Nicole, you know, like, I know who she is and now you will know who she is.

[1265] And so I think what's interesting is that you can do all kinds of different things with.

[1266] the medium and that's what I liked about it but that my premise was that you could do an hour and everyone says you can't and I was like yes I can no you can and I was like you know what I'm gonna just do it and I'm not gonna listen what was great about Vox is there was nobody here to say we couldn't like they just didn't they're like oh I try it like it didn't cost that and I think what's cool is everybody's realized you can do an hour and a half oh you can do more if they're good we did 90 minutes with Mark that everybody listened to that 100 percent why not it was good like that's the only thing is It just has to be good.

[1267] That is, again, do the work.

[1268] If you do the work, whatever format, everyone tries to make all these hard and fast rules of, oh, this is going to work.

[1269] That's going to, I don't, that's just bullshit.

[1270] You know that.

[1271] Like, right?

[1272] If it's good, if a product is, I have like a criteria.

[1273] It has to be useful, entertaining, and kind of a must have, like a must have.

[1274] And if it makes money, fantastic.

[1275] If it hits even one of these things, it's great.

[1276] So, you know, I think about the podcast.

[1277] It's useful.

[1278] It's entertaining.

[1279] It makes money.

[1280] And you kind of can't get an interview with Mark Zucker except Kara Swisher's interview.

[1281] Like, I don't care how many people interview them.

[1282] I did the best one.

[1283] And so you can't get it anywhere else.

[1284] So that's a perfect product as far as I'm concerned.

[1285] You know, the conference.

[1286] When you can't get people who guest on podcasts talking like they do on podcasts in any other format.

[1287] Yeah, but it's also I can get them talking like that.

[1288] So it's just like, so I'm, so that's the whole thing.

[1289] It's like Mark Marin is only Mark Marin doing it.

[1290] He cannot replicate it.

[1291] You can't, it cannot.

[1292] It cannot.

[1293] be anything that can be replicated, you really have to not do, like that kind of thing.

[1294] And so Mike Allen can't be replicated.

[1295] Lots of, lots of things can't be replicated.

[1296] To Snapchat's chagrin, a lot of their things can be replicated and quite well by Kevin Sistram and Instagram.

[1297] That's a problem.

[1298] Like, as delightful as I think Snapchat is, and my kids love it, it's, it's replicable.

[1299] And that's a problem.

[1300] You have to create moats around yourself and someone.

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[1320] With podcasts and the future of recode, how important is it to the strategy?

[1321] How much are you saying, like, actually, this is kind of the way forward or not paying attention to the website as much?

[1322] I think, I'm not writing for the website right now.

[1323] I don't think it's not important, by the way.

[1324] We have great journalists doing an amazing job.

[1325] I'm not that interest in that format right now.

[1326] That's all.

[1327] That's just me, Kara Swisher.

[1328] We have a great editor, Dan Fromer, and we've got a great staff and things like that, and they're figuring out what they think is the way to go.

[1329] And they're trying different things.

[1330] Recently, they've been doing a lot of really substantive big articles.

[1331] We're doing less scoops, I think, but that should be the decision of whoever the editor is, not me. I have ideas of the way you would do a news website.

[1332] I just am not interested.

[1333] It's like I paint it over here in paint, and now I'm interested in photography, and now I'm like, that's how I look at it.

[1334] And so whoever's making the website, the RICO website, it has to integrate into everything else we're doing, like our events and the podcast, but it's part of the same branding idea.

[1335] Like, you have to think of that.

[1336] And so the reason I'm interested in podcasts is I, and Peter Kafka has one, and we're starting another one coming, is because we're interested in creatively.

[1337] Ultimately, it's creatively interesting to us, and so therefore we create work that I think is laudable.

[1338] If it wasn't, we'd stop doing it.

[1339] And it also makes a lot of money.

[1340] Like, that's a great, that's, and it makes a lot of more.

[1341] money you keep that Facebook doesn't monetize it.

[1342] It's our money and we make it fair and square pretty much.

[1343] It's a fair and square pretty much business as far as I can tell.

[1344] And it has all kinds of interesting applications.

[1345] We're doing a bunch of live podcasts.

[1346] We're doing a bunch of all kinds.

[1347] There's all kinds of things you can do off of it that are really interesting.

[1348] We also give the opportunity for the Recode reporters to do podcasts like Kurt Wagner did a bunch for Peter.

[1349] Joanna Bouillon is doing one.

[1350] She's doing the, who is she doing the, who is she doing the the guy, the auto guy, Lawrence Burns, you know, they get the opportunity to learn how to be better interviewers and stuff like that.

[1351] So it gives us, gives that opportunity.

[1352] Jason Delray is doing this.

[1353] I can't say what it is, but he's doing a multi -part series, which will be a short version.

[1354] It won't be a show.

[1355] Everyone wants, like, I want a show.

[1356] Like, why do you want to show?

[1357] Why don't you do four episodes?

[1358] Like they are doing on Netflix with certain shows.

[1359] So he's doing one that's really going to be great.

[1360] He's doing two of them that are going to be great, two audio things that are just they're going to be what they are and we're going to have a sponsor for them and that'll be great and so it gives them an opportunity to be the reporters of RICO to be creative why do they monetize so much better I just do right now they might not later I think because people really listen to them and they like them and they download them you could they're very quantifiable I think that people can measure them people talk about them you can see they get a lot of buzz and I don't think I think the idea that that the audience thinks really hard about where they're getting their content is kind of an old school thing.

[1361] Like, if it's not on the website, it's like, well, so what if it's in podcast form?

[1362] So what if it's on the event side?

[1363] So what if it's in a story?

[1364] In the print journal.

[1365] What if it's a tweet?

[1366] Yeah.

[1367] Like, I tweet a lot.

[1368] Like, I tweet a lot of stories kind of stuff.

[1369] And unbelievably in this world, it's the place where you have a direct relationship with that person instead of this, you know, intermediate.

[1370] And you remember, we got, we famously got rid of comments six, five years ago.

[1371] Right.

[1372] Everyone was like, how can you do that?

[1373] I'm like, I hate them.

[1374] Yeah.

[1375] Like, I don't have to stand.

[1376] My website.

[1377] It's my voice.

[1378] Well, it was interesting, because when we took them off, first of all, I was like, you have to have comments.

[1379] I'm like, do we?

[1380] You know, and of course you do.

[1381] I'm like, why?

[1382] Like, they take, they're vile.

[1383] They don't add to the benefit.

[1384] They don't help the website.

[1385] In fact, all we do is try to like knock things off.

[1386] I'm wasting time my copy editors taking off, you know, you fagget.

[1387] Like, I don't need it.

[1388] Like, you know, like awful.

[1389] What do I need these awful anonymous people saying terrible things on a website that I run.

[1390] And so we took it off.

[1391] And I remember there was one.

[1392] guy who was just terrible, vile, homophobic, anti -Semitic, race, everything.

[1393] Like, this guy was the whole package.

[1394] And he, you know, he wrote me an email.

[1395] They somehow find my email and they're like, how dare you end comments.

[1396] I should, it's a First Amendment.

[1397] I have a right to say whatever I want, you know, that stupid trope.

[1398] And I was like, you know, get your own fucking website.

[1399] It's my website.

[1400] Get out of my bar.

[1401] Get out of my bar.

[1402] Get out of my bar.

[1403] Guess what?

[1404] I'm not giving you a beer.

[1405] Like, sorry.

[1406] You're an awful vile human being.

[1407] And so it was really interesting.

[1408] And I said Twitter was our comment section, really.

[1409] And so that's where I engage with people a lot.

[1410] I've recently not done Instagram as much because I don't want you.

[1411] Well, I'm so glad we ended on podcasts.

[1412] How are you like in podcasting, boys?

[1413] What do you think?

[1414] Fun.

[1415] It's not only is like tremendously fun.

[1416] I never thought it enables people who aren't in media and aren't.

[1417] We're not journalists.

[1418] We have things to say, right?

[1419] You're smart, interesting people.

[1420] Like, why not?

[1421] You don't know us?

[1422] I'm just saying you seem so far.

[1423] You haven't said anything too stupid, you know.

[1424] No, you haven't said anything stupid so far.

[1425] That might be the best comment we've ever got.

[1426] Yeah, put that on the website.

[1427] You don't seem too stupid.

[1428] No, but it's creative.

[1429] Like, you matter who you are.

[1430] And I think, again, conversation is really important.

[1431] And people like to hear.

[1432] People love great conversation.

[1433] The other thing is Dave and I do the podcast for a variety of reasons.

[1434] And even though a wonderful sponsor in Silicon Valley Bank, zero of it is to make any money on the show.

[1435] And the number one reason that we do it is because it allows us a creative journey.

[1436] in self -directed education.

[1437] Yeah.

[1438] We get to learn stuff that we otherwise would never learn about and it's awesome to get to share it with people but like it lets us quench this thirst of, you know, we're not in school, we're not going to classes, we get to learn stuff.

[1439] Meet people you want to meet.

[1440] I often like, I'm gonna have your party.

[1441] I was just, I just did a, I did an event where I interviewed Sean Hayes, you know, the guy who was on Will and Grace, he's so great, he's amazing.

[1442] But he's also a very important producer in Hollywood.

[1443] People don't realize he has tons of shows.

[1444] And he was like, I love your podcast.

[1445] I said, come on it.

[1446] And he's like, okay.

[1447] And so I'm going to go, we're going to do that, by the way, Sean Hayes.

[1448] But I want to talk about the entertainment business.

[1449] He's doing all kinds of digital stuff.

[1450] And he's a producer.

[1451] And so it was just like, I want to talk to Sean Hayes.

[1452] And that would be wonderful on lots of levels to talk to him, on lots of things.

[1453] And so it gives you that opportunity to meet people and have people surprise you with thoughts.

[1454] And I think that's my favorite part.

[1455] Like today, the Nicole Wong one was really good.

[1456] She had some thoughts that I, she said things.

[1457] And I was like, oh, I hadn't thought of that.

[1458] Like, you know what I mean?

[1459] And I love that.

[1460] I love, that's my favorite part, is learning from the other people.

[1461] Well, that's the, in a lot of ways, I think podcasts, we're totally like doing tech themes now instead of later, but that's fine.

[1462] We always do that.

[1463] I think podcasts are, have really removed gatekeepers.

[1464] I mean, like, we're two guys.

[1465] Like, we're not journalists, you know.

[1466] Tim Ferriss isn't a journalist.

[1467] Yeah, he does a great podcast.

[1468] It does a great podcast.

[1469] Like, you know, all of the top, with the exception of really Vox podcasts, which we'll get into in a sec. It's Indies.

[1470] Yeah, it is, it is in a lot of ways.

[1471] It will be consolidated.

[1472] Look, it's going to be consolidated.

[1473] You get that.

[1474] One of the things, though, I wouldn't take out print all the time.

[1475] That's why I did the Times thing.

[1476] People are like, what are you doing?

[1477] I'm like, I think print is important.

[1478] I think not just print, but a global brand.

[1479] The written word and a global brand.

[1480] And I felt like one of the things that I thought was happening, and a thing that I kept banging on for the past year was the irresponsibility of the tech sector and how they had misused their platforms and mismanaged them.

[1481] And I've been talking about this for a long time.

[1482] And so it was fine to do it.

[1483] do it at Recode because, but it's like the, it's the house or, you know, it's like the local newspaper.

[1484] And I thought, you know what?

[1485] I'm going to get on a global scale and start whacking at these people.

[1486] Like, you know what I mean?

[1487] Like, and they're going to pay attention because I want them to do something about it.

[1488] And fortunately, there's still a global brand to be able to do that.

[1489] Exactly.

[1490] And but I don't discount it because I've gotten a whole new bunch of people now paying attention to the messages that I think are important.

[1491] And that's why it's important to think holistically about it.

[1492] It's not just podcasts.

[1493] It's not just websites.

[1494] It's not just events.

[1495] It's not just speeches.

[1496] It's all of them together that gives you these tools that you can reach people in different ways.

[1497] And they each require a different skill.

[1498] All right, you talk about consolidation.

[1499] I'm curious more on why you're sure that it's going to, I'm going to consolidate when right now we're sort of in this era of Indies thriving.

[1500] Because it always consolidates everything.

[1501] You know, it's interesting.

[1502] I don't know if you notice I have two tattoos.

[1503] I many tattoos in my hands.

[1504] So it's centripy and entropy, and I could go into like all the ridiculous things about it.

[1505] But It's essentially everything dissipates, everything organizes, right?

[1506] So they're two opposites.

[1507] Bundling and unbundling.

[1508] Right, exactly.

[1509] And so everything moves towards organization.

[1510] Everything moves towards consolidation, and then it moves towards destruction, like in the same way.

[1511] And so I think that that's sort of a cycle you see that will happen.

[1512] And I think podcasts, everyone's like, wait a minute, this makes money.

[1513] And then everyone's going to pile in.

[1514] We should federate these in a bunch of...

[1515] I know.

[1516] Well, federated media.

[1517] You remember that?

[1518] That was John Patel.

[1519] So that didn't work out so well The search was a good book though It was a good idea But you know These things are going to federate They're going to federate And then they're going to unfetterate And then the big companies will get into them And they will suck and then La La La La But I think You matter what Like the reason Mark Merrin's popular Is only one reason is a great podcast Right?

[1520] You cannot make that You cannot make You just can't Like you can't replicate You can't change it And so I think I'm not that worried About the consolidation But I do think there's going to be a few places that are good are creative at making them and therefore like box box box gimlet there's a bunch of them that are really good at making them and some will have a certain style you know the you know like the daily with the new york times michael barbaro is a friend of mine and i think they're great they're so creative there who would have thought that like talking about news media newspaper stories every day telling you how i put together stories nothing could be more boring and i can't stand the ones they have in the newspaper right this is how we put together i'm like i don't I want to hear you.

[1521] I want to hear Michael Barbaro do his, mm -hmm.

[1522] But he goes beyond the story, right?

[1523] So it just works.

[1524] And that team there is so talented, the team of people who put that, not just him, but there's a whole pack of people there that are just so good.

[1525] And tell a story in a great way.

[1526] Well, I think that's our category, consolidation.

[1527] We category is each acquisition.

[1528] Okay.

[1529] All right.

[1530] In a way, I was going to go business line.

[1531] So the way that we do this for people knew the show, we decide what category the acquisition was.

[1532] Was it people, technology, product, business line.

[1533] set or consolidation.

[1534] And I mean, I was going to go business line because for me, it's really like picking up a whole new P &L and running that P &L independently and hoping it expands and, you know, realizing synergies.

[1535] I'm saying that every episode now and is pissing me off.

[1536] That's okay.

[1537] You can use it.

[1538] It's a good one.

[1539] But, you know, with wallet going across and writing at the verge.

[1540] But as effectively, it's still its own business unit that you're buying for hopefully the sum of future cash flows.

[1541] Yeah.

[1542] Yeah, but it's other things.

[1543] There's more things to it.

[1544] Advertiser interest.

[1545] As McLean started his show right around the same time, you did, right?

[1546] Well, you know, he came to me when he was starting it.

[1547] We had done ours.

[1548] No, he did it after.

[1549] After, so there you go.

[1550] But he came and he said, what should I do?

[1551] And he wanted to, like, interview, like, the deputy secretary of agriculture.

[1552] I'm like, can you do some interesting people?

[1553] What about Cory Booker?

[1554] Yeah.

[1555] Yeah, like, yeah, bringing Biden, Biden.

[1556] I kept saying Biden would be good.

[1557] And he's like, well, I'm like, no, Biden, he'd be like, people would love to hear from Biden.

[1558] And he's a very good interviewer.

[1559] And he's more wonky.

[1560] He's definitely a more wonky interviewer.

[1561] call something wonk something he should but there was already wonkette if you remember and wonk blog and things like that and that was at the i think that was at the washington post where they were i believe i believe it was adjacent to them so i don't think they could take that he's like your did he's like i was like trying to make a joke there it landed flat oh sorry anyway i love ezra i are of the same mind i would say of lots of things we'll be doing more together in the future i think he's really great yeah he's great all right well that blows my acquisition category and that's consolidation what would have happened otherwise you would have failed on your own yeah to speculate on that I'm curious that's a good probably maybe not and what has failed me sold to someone else for a different price later we would have sold we might have been smart enough to sell it to someone else yeah yeah I think I was smart I did I sold it but you wouldn't I'm sorry you would have failed to have meet the return thresholds of the $12 million you raised I don't think they cared so I had investors he didn't care that's why you don't When I got money, when I got money from Terry, I called him to thank him for, I think they gave us $5 million to eat at first.

[1562] And I kept not being able to reach him.

[1563] It was, he's such a lovely man. And I go, hey, I finally reached him.

[1564] I figured he was in Sardinia, wherever the hell he was on his yacht.

[1565] And he goes, I go, hey, Terry, thanks for the $5 million we got in the bank.

[1566] And he's like, oh, good.

[1567] Who are you again?

[1568] No, he knows who it was.

[1569] And he goes, oh, good, good for you.

[1570] I hope you enjoy it.

[1571] And it was literally like Uncle gave me 24.

[1572] No, he's like, good luck with that.

[1573] And I was like, okay, and he goes, okay, bye.

[1574] And I was like, all right, see ya.

[1575] And it was really, like, I was like, he's not going to bother me in any way for that money ever again.

[1576] And he actually got his money.

[1577] He got the stock in Vox.

[1578] So, anyway, he was a lovely guy.

[1579] The sale to Vox, more or less than the 12, investors all made their money back.

[1580] Oh, yeah.

[1581] Common.

[1582] They all took Vox stock.

[1583] They all, they could have gotten cash.

[1584] They took Vox stuff.

[1585] I did.

[1586] I think.

[1587] I don't know if all.

[1588] I don't know what everybody did.

[1589] I'm pretty certain they did.

[1590] Yeah, it was more.

[1591] Cool.

[1592] It was good.

[1593] But it's all those, like, content valuation.

[1594] So I don't know.

[1595] I don't know.

[1596] Right.

[1597] Yeah.

[1598] Well, speaking of, we've already covered a lot of tech themes.

[1599] We'll see where it ends.

[1600] We'll see where Vox ends, too.

[1601] That's like, at least successful.

[1602] Should we grading?

[1603] Yeah.

[1604] All right.

[1605] Carrie, do you want to be on the hot seat?

[1606] I mean, you're not sure.

[1607] Okay, go ahead.

[1608] I will.

[1609] I don't know a lot.

[1610] I'm a big shareholder, so.

[1611] This is how we grade in the show.

[1612] So we decide, you know, the acquirer with all their might and resources and interesting things they could do with their shares and their capital.

[1613] Was it a good use to buy this company?

[1614] Yes, it was.

[1615] Well, but you got a great A to F. So A plus Instagram, $1 billion into hundreds of billions of value.

[1616] F, you're familiar with.

[1617] There must be a pony in there somewhere.

[1618] Yeah, yeah, I got that.

[1619] I would say a B plus at least, if not an A. Yeah, I would.

[1620] It benefited in lots of ways, yes, yes.

[1621] There's no downside.

[1622] There's absolutely.

[1623] Podcasts alone, right?

[1624] They made their money back.

[1625] There's no, and also they get a good name, they get good journalism, they get, I think they've done pretty good on most of their acquisitions.

[1626] It seems like all the, you know, they ran into trouble with one, but it still was a great journalistic product racked that they, still a great journalistic product.

[1627] And I think they did the right thing with it, so I don't consider any of those a failure.

[1628] I think they have very good taste in how they do things.

[1629] Yeah.

[1630] I do.

[1631] company, they're going to run into the same issues of content companies.

[1632] Like, they're in the same, they're not exactly in the same boat, BuzzVie's spent more money, but they're in the same content.

[1633] Media is hard.

[1634] Like, that's their problem.

[1635] That's the problem they have.

[1636] Media, she is hard.

[1637] Real quick, just to throw out.

[1638] Like, do either you know what the valuation of Vox Media was at the recode acquisition and then what it is now?

[1639] So it was something, they've raised it.

[1640] Like, it's a unicorn now.

[1641] I think they announced it at $1 .1 billion?

[1642] Yeah, it was in several hundred millions when they acquired you, and now it's much higher.

[1643] And who knows if they could ever sell it for that?

[1644] Like, all of them.

[1645] I think Bud's Feed was 1 .5.

[1646] Vox was 1 .1, if I remember from the news stories.

[1647] And then it was Mashable.

[1648] And Ashe was some ridiculous sum.

[1649] And then it sold for like a song kind of thing.

[1650] So to the extent that.

[1651] Vice is also, I believe, in a billion -ish range.

[1652] No, no, they're higher.

[1653] They're up higher.

[1654] Yeah, they're up higher.

[1655] They're up way higher.

[1656] I'm glad to be down in low lands with the Voxpeep.

[1657] And although it still is up.

[1658] But entrepreneurs know, you know, the lower your valuation, the more upside there is for you.

[1659] Well, you know, I don't know who would buy any, any of these companies.

[1660] It's hard.

[1661] Right now, it's not the greatest time.

[1662] Well, it's not like any content companies.

[1663] Comcast, I don't know.

[1664] I guess.

[1665] Yeah, they're a big NBC.

[1666] Yeah, sure, but why?

[1667] Like, if I had to go write a news, see, the way I think about, like, I remember writing about Tumblr being bought.

[1668] And they were on the edge of, like, death, essentially.

[1669] And all the tip I got was it was being acquired by a company for a billion.

[1670] It's a, I didn't hear it was Tumblr.

[1671] a digital content company is being acquired by Yahoo for a billion dollars.

[1672] That's just somebody intentionally encrypting it just enough.

[1673] They just said that.

[1674] That's all I got.

[1675] And I was like, okay.

[1676] And I call myself Sherlock Homo.

[1677] And so I was like, all right, Watson.

[1678] What do we have here?

[1679] Who's your Watson?

[1680] I just made.

[1681] My cat, my cat.

[1682] And I was like, okay.

[1683] And I made a list.

[1684] And I was like, this is what they would buy.

[1685] This is what they'd be interesting.

[1686] This is what I know she likes.

[1687] You know what I mean?

[1688] I know her tastes and stuff like that.

[1689] And Tumblr was third on the list.

[1690] because she wants to be helplessly hip.

[1691] You know what I mean?

[1692] Even though she's not.

[1693] Twitter was on there.

[1694] You know, and I started making calls as if I knew.

[1695] And so I called up, I knew all the investors of Tumblr, and I knew they were in trouble.

[1696] And I was like, she could possibly spend this amount of money on this.

[1697] You couldn't be this stupid.

[1698] And but I will try it.

[1699] And I literally went, I said, oh, so, yeah, I was buying you.

[1700] And they're like, how did you know?

[1701] And I'm like, thank you.

[1702] I have my ways.

[1703] I know.

[1704] I was like, I'm so smart.

[1705] You're so good care.

[1706] I'm like, mm -hmm, I'm not good.

[1707] You're so stupid.

[1708] Why did you tell me?

[1709] Can you phrase that in a direct quote, please?

[1710] Yeah, but it was really fast.

[1711] But all I did was I thought about it.

[1712] Like, I strategized it.

[1713] So I think about, like, Vox and those things all the time.

[1714] Like, Vox, Comcast, yeah, but why?

[1715] Like, what is Steve Burke?

[1716] Like, why would he need this?

[1717] What would it add?

[1718] Like, you know, same thing if you bought BuzzFeed or if you bought any of these companies or anything.

[1719] That's how I think about everything.

[1720] Like, who would buy, when Twitter was the rumors were, who would buy Twitter?

[1721] This and this.

[1722] Would they want to buy this?

[1723] And everyone was like, Google's going to buy Twitter.

[1724] I'm like, no, they're not.

[1725] They don't want to buy that mess.

[1726] Like, but, you know, that's how you have to think.

[1727] I could see like a Verizon, someone that has distribution who can marry great content with the distribution they have.

[1728] Well, yeah, one didn't work out like.

[1729] That works in theory.

[1730] In theory.

[1731] Or it will work one day.

[1732] The platonic form of that will be realized.

[1733] Okay.

[1734] Like, look at, we'll see.

[1735] Maybe.

[1736] Clear Channel.

[1737] I don't know.

[1738] Yeah.

[1739] I don't know.

[1740] News Corp. News Corp. Back to New Rupert.

[1741] How would, how.

[1742] What would that have to be?

[1743] The most thing, Rupert isn't really running these corp anymore.

[1744] I think he's quite lively, I suspect.

[1745] I've heard.

[1746] We had James Murdoch on stage the other day.

[1747] I don't think he's staying with that.

[1748] I think it's going to be Lachlan and Rupert at the other place.

[1749] Jerry said become a VC, I think.

[1750] That's what he said.

[1751] I think that's what he said.

[1752] No, no, no, he said it on stage at Recode Media.

[1753] I think he did.

[1754] Scooped.

[1755] He's doing investments.

[1756] He said it.

[1757] He said it publicly.

[1758] I'm not telling you anything you don't know.

[1759] Well, there we go.

[1760] Oops, that one of my scoops, I forgot.

[1761] My little pie, it's like a bag.

[1762] I'm like Hermione Granger.

[1763] That's amazing.

[1764] I think it's an A -minus because I, this is my own narrative.

[1765] My head has clearly been evident in the episode.

[1766] But like, I just, I don't think Vox is like the biggest player in podcast right now.

[1767] No, NPR.

[1768] No, NPR is not doing podcast.

[1769] Okay, NPR distributes radio shows on podcasts.

[1770] Yeah, yeah.

[1771] That's the idea.

[1772] They're not making native podcasts.

[1773] Not new ones.

[1774] Everyone's trying to copy the Daily is really pretty much just going on.

[1775] And they just announced one, I think.

[1776] NPR just announced.

[1777] Plus, I think, as we've talked about a little bit on this show, the whole podcast business model is about to go through a lot of positive disruption where people are going to pay creators directly.

[1778] Yes.

[1779] And Vox now has probably the biggest aggregated audience of podcast listeners in America, outside of NPR, which already monetizes through direct payments.

[1780] So for whatever they paid for, Recode, to help jumpstart that, like, I think it's fantastic.

[1781] Is it an Instagram?

[1782] Sorry, Carrie, I don't think so.

[1783] No, but on a lot of levels, sometimes I think should I have just done those on my own?

[1784] Well, right, yeah.

[1785] I would have had a lot.

[1786] Like, I'm thinking of, like, that guy who does the, Ben Thompson or other.

[1787] That's what I was going to bring up, yeah.

[1788] Then some days it's like, oh, that would even be, I have more money.

[1789] Could you write that much?

[1790] How does Ben Thompson write that much every day?

[1791] He lives in Taiwan.

[1792] He lives in Taiwan.

[1793] It doesn't mean, it gives him more than 24 hours.

[1794] It just gives him a jump in the morning.

[1795] It gives him no distractions.

[1796] I could do it.

[1797] I could do it.

[1798] I could do it.

[1799] I could do it.

[1800] stop doing other things.

[1801] But yeah.

[1802] Do you pay for Stretcary?

[1803] I do.

[1804] Yeah.

[1805] I think I do.

[1806] Yeah.

[1807] I do.

[1808] I think we have one through Rico.

[1809] I think he's really interesting.

[1810] I think all those people are interested.

[1811] I think about those things.

[1812] Like, what do you need anything?

[1813] Like, I always am trying to go for like, I'm not trying to Maria Kondo everything.

[1814] And I'm definitely, look, when I did the Times thing, I didn't leave Fox, did I?

[1815] Like, there's ways to do it.

[1816] I think what these tech, all these media companies have to think about it is how do you keep really creative people interested all the time?

[1817] How do you keep a like an Andrew Ross Sork in interest in the New York Times.

[1818] How do you keep a star?

[1819] Because they're stars now.

[1820] Yeah.

[1821] How do you keep them?

[1822] But why not keep them creative?

[1823] They create more great things that make more money.

[1824] Like how do you do that as any, like if you're vanity fair anything?

[1825] How do you keep creative people interested and reward them in the way that if they make money?

[1826] How do you help reward?

[1827] I think that's an interesting thing.

[1828] None of this is scalable, obviously, because it's all human.

[1829] You can't AI this thing.

[1830] Right.

[1831] So that's the only issue.

[1832] But if you're interested in media, I think it's going to be a lot more.

[1833] more, I'm not a sports person, what's it called when someone is a free agent?

[1834] There's going to be a lot more free agents.

[1835] Yeah, yeah.

[1836] And you'll see contracts for, but kind of like you had, you and Walt had with the journal.

[1837] Yeah, I have three contracts now.

[1838] I have one with NBC because I do my MSNBC show.

[1839] It's periodic interviews I do based, like Tim Cook, we did the Google guys.

[1840] I've got a contract with the New York Times and I employed by Vox Media, so.

[1841] There you go.

[1842] Yeah.

[1843] Yeah.

[1844] It's better than sports.

[1845] You can play for three teams.

[1846] I know, right.

[1847] Yeah.

[1848] Interesting.

[1849] I just think about it.

[1850] You wouldn't have been able to do that many years ago.

[1851] That's interesting.

[1852] I find that fascinating.

[1853] My logic isn't any different, but, like, I can't be anywhere close to an A because we know of, like, on the show, A's mean, like, insane multiples on billions of dollars.

[1854] So, you know, I have a B. You have a high curve, then.

[1855] You're just grading on an Instagram curve, really?

[1856] Well, none of us.

[1857] Then we're all Fs.

[1858] We're all friggin' Fs.

[1859] Well, you got a, it's logarithmic.

[1860] My son got a, speaking of grades, my son got a D in math a couple years ago.

[1861] and he's got nays in math, too, so it's kind of a...

[1862] He just didn't like this teacher at one point.

[1863] And remember him saying to me, I go, Louis, a D. I'm not that hard on my kids about grades.

[1864] I was like, but a D, come on.

[1865] And he goes, well, at least it's not an F. And I was like, it is an F. A D is an F in this household.

[1866] A D is an F, period.

[1867] It's just the schools just won't go to F, though D is like, you got an F, but I'm giving you a D. You can tell him we gave AOL Time Warner a D. D. Oh, D. Yeah, we didn't actually.

[1868] No, that wasn't enough.

[1869] That wasn't enough.

[1870] I've written an entire book on, yes, exactly.

[1871] But I'm telling you, it was the right idea.

[1872] It was absolutely the right idea.

[1873] It was the wrong time and the wrong people.

[1874] But it was certainly the right idea.

[1875] Well, we're talking about media and the internet here.

[1876] It was the right idea.

[1877] It was just early and a bunch of assholes running the show.

[1878] So I wrote a book on it.

[1879] They were assholes.

[1880] All sides.

[1881] Ben, do you want to do?

[1882] Lightning round?

[1883] Yes, lightning round.

[1884] We'll finish up.

[1885] So we got a, we got on.

[1886] know, what's a day in the life of Kara Swisher like?

[1887] Hmm.

[1888] I wake up.

[1889] I wrote a column this morning, and then I came in here and did a whole bunch of podcasts.

[1890] I'll spend some time tonight thinking about some live events we're going to do and some, the next MSNBC thing.

[1891] I make a lot of calls.

[1892] I call around.

[1893] I talk to a lot of people.

[1894] Now that I'm doing the column, I spend a lot more time talking to people.

[1895] I'm starting to plan.

[1896] Peter and I just went to Phoenix to look at some hotels for code.

[1897] We have to move the hotel.

[1898] And then we, so I'll work on that.

[1899] I'll work on some hotel stuff and thinking about that.

[1900] I'll work on code speakers.

[1901] We have a new list of who we want for next year.

[1902] Often I'll fly places to meet different people.

[1903] I'm going to meet some pretty well -known people going to fly to see them.

[1904] I try to ask people in person to come to code a lot of times.

[1905] I think they have a hard time saying no to me in person.

[1906] That's good to take great.

[1907] We should steal that.

[1908] Yeah.

[1909] Do you just show up?

[1910] I know I'm coming.

[1911] I'm coming for lunch.

[1912] A few people turn down lunch.

[1913] One of the things that I think is a big clue.

[1914] Everyone's always like, how did you talk to them?

[1915] I'm like, I called them.

[1916] Like, people will talk to you.

[1917] Like, if you get their emails and you write them, they will write you back.

[1918] Like, it's really interesting.

[1919] And anyone, anyone, if you get their emails, we'll write you back.

[1920] And if you asked the question.

[1921] I mean, we emailed you.

[1922] Yes.

[1923] Did I write you back?

[1924] You did write it?

[1925] Thank you.

[1926] There you have it.

[1927] If you seem like not crazy.

[1928] we'll write you back.

[1929] So I'll go visit people.

[1930] I'll do a lot of lunches.

[1931] I'm trying to think in the next couple of days.

[1932] It's a lot of podcasts in the next couple days.

[1933] Some events, a bunch of events.

[1934] Like next week I'm interviewing Maggie Haberman at Lesbians Who Tech.

[1935] We're going to make a podcast out of that again.

[1936] And I'm doing Jane Lynch, who's a friend of mine actually, we're going to make a podcast out of that.

[1937] So a lot of events I do outside of Vox, we make it podcast because that's the price of admission for me doing it.

[1938] We're doing a 90 Second Street Y thing.

[1939] So we do a lot of live events.

[1940] I do a lot of live events.

[1941] And I'll always do panels with, I don't even have to do with women's issues or young people.

[1942] That's it.

[1943] That's it.

[1944] Then I have my kids, hang out with my kids, hang out with my different people, family, my mom.

[1945] So not busy at all?

[1946] Not busy at all.

[1947] I'm real busy.

[1948] I have a great family.

[1949] All right.

[1950] You're running for mayor of San Francisco in 2023.

[1951] Give us an update.

[1952] I don't think I am.

[1953] No?

[1954] No. I think Lindenbreed is good.

[1955] I think she's good.

[1956] I don't want to like.

[1957] I think she's good.

[1958] I don't think anyone expected it to die.

[1959] And I think I'm going to give her a chance.

[1960] She seems like she deserves one and not big trouble.

[1961] I was just doing that because my point I was trying to make is someone's got to fix this frigging mess here.

[1962] It's a mess.

[1963] And so I think I was trying.

[1964] And at the time I really meant it, it was like someone's got to get away from all these career politicians.

[1965] She seems some of her stuff I'm really interested in.

[1966] We'll see.

[1967] We'll see.

[1968] I mean, it's an incredibly difficult job that she's got.

[1969] But I like some of her moves visiting the homeless things.

[1970] I like her whole PR thing.

[1971] I like it.

[1972] I like it.

[1973] I'm going to have her.

[1974] She's bringing scooters back.

[1975] She's bringing scooters.

[1976] She seems sensible.

[1977] She seems sensed.

[1978] Just like, same thing with like Stacey Abrams in Georgia.

[1979] I'm really interested in politicians like that.

[1980] I think she's really sensible and she comes to compromises.

[1981] She's not angry.

[1982] She's not like partisan.

[1983] I don't mean angry.

[1984] I mean partisan, like in a way that's inflexible.

[1985] And I like, I like politicians like that.

[1986] So we'll see.

[1987] I'm hoping to have her mayor breed on the show.

[1988] I would hope that would happen.

[1989] We've asked.

[1990] Best of luck.

[1991] Oh, we'll get.

[1992] All right, one more.

[1993] There's nobody we don't get.

[1994] Across your whole career.

[1995] Trump, I'm going to get.

[1996] You think?

[1997] You trying?

[1998] I'm going to try.

[1999] Why not?

[2000] Heard it here first.

[2001] Well, then we'll have an answer to this next question.

[2002] Across your whole career, what work are you the most proud of?

[2003] The Gates jobs, the interview was great.

[2004] I think it's hard not to top that.

[2005] I think it was great because lots of reasons.

[2006] It was historic.

[2007] It was important.

[2008] It was a great interview.

[2009] It was revelatory.

[2010] I think it was emotional.

[2011] I think that was really great.

[2012] I think some of our coverage of Uber was great, what we did.

[2013] Getting him fired was if we were just one small part in that effort.

[2014] I thought that was good.

[2015] That was time well spent.

[2016] A lot of the interviews of code and recode and all things D are going to be historic.

[2017] I know it.

[2018] Like, nobody has done those interviews.

[2019] Our Elon Musk ones, although I think he did something crazy today.

[2020] But you had him, he was speculating on the multiple universes on stage.

[2021] Yes, the simulation, not multiple, simulation.

[2022] simulation we're a pawn of other creatures um that was a great interview that was a fantastic interview that was a real insight to him when he you know even my kim car dashing interview was great i you know some it just i think there's a body of work there i was thinking the other day like someone's like you know oh you've got to keep trying i'm like i can retire right now like we have a i have a like walt did he had a body of work that was so substantive and so important um and these interviews were going to go down like if a hundred years people were going to look at those things and interview, some of them, not all of them, some of them.

[2023] And they're going to matter.

[2024] They're going to matter.

[2025] And so everything we do now is just gravy as far as, you know what I mean?

[2026] And so that's a really good way to look at it is there's no downside to anything we're doing.

[2027] And so we can continue to push upward.

[2028] So your jobs and Gates interview was so formative to me. It was, yeah.

[2029] I think I said something about it earlier, but I watched it a dozen times, first in a bunch of tiny clips as it dribbled out and then eventually the whole thing.

[2030] I put that free on iTunes.

[2031] Yeah.

[2032] News Corp didn't want that.

[2033] We snuck it up.

[2034] they came back later when we were using some of those clips or something else and they're like that's our IP I'm like no you gave it away we got you to give it away years ago was so great such a moment we got Rupert just signed it away and it was great that was a great and we wanted to put that on for all of humanity I mean in lieu of doing carve -outs today that that to me I think you asked Steve about he and Bill's friendship yeah and he responded with the Beatles line the Beatles at the end you and I have memories yeah longer than the road that's It almost made me cry.

[2035] I knew he planned it.

[2036] He was such a manipulative person.

[2037] I've been a good way.

[2038] But I like the one where I said, what, what, we ask good questions.

[2039] Actually, there's two interviews.

[2040] That one, we asked him, what is the thing you don't know about your relationship with Gates?

[2041] And he said, oh, we, for a long time, we've been married.

[2042] Yes, I remember that.

[2043] It was so good.

[2044] And Gates was so disturbed by it because you could see like flickering.

[2045] I'm not anti -gay, but I am, but I can't.

[2046] Like, oh, my God.

[2047] What is he just?

[2048] got him.

[2049] That was a great moment.

[2050] And then I have to say the last interview he did Gates did, I mean, Jobs did with Walt and I, right before he died.

[2051] It was pretty close before he died.

[2052] And he was just skinny as can be and just emaciated and very weak.

[2053] But I got to tell you, go watch that interview.

[2054] Go physically watch it because you can't get it by the voice.

[2055] He is so vibrant as a person.

[2056] I know there's all these controversies about his daughter and everything else.

[2057] He was a shitty father and And, you know, everyone, he's a shitty father.

[2058] Like, it looks to her, at least.

[2059] I don't know about his other kids.

[2060] And obviously, she has to talk about it.

[2061] And, but that interview, I have to say, he was so vibrant and full of life about, he really exemplified a lot of the good things I like about Silicon Valley, about, like, keeping going.

[2062] And the relentlessness of him was there.

[2063] And he had more energy than anybody in the room, and he was about to die.

[2064] And I thought that was kind of cool.

[2065] That's a real, and he answered, and I think I asked him, I think one of the best questions I asked him ever was, what do you do?

[2066] What are you going to do for the rest of your life?

[2067] I think that's, I just, and you could see everyone like, did she just ask that?

[2068] That guy's about to die.

[2069] And I was, and I did it on purpose.

[2070] What are you going to do the rest of your life?

[2071] And he started, he knew what I was doing.

[2072] And it was great, because he couldn't believe I asked it, I think, but no, he couldn't.

[2073] He didn't mind.

[2074] He never minded, stuff like that.

[2075] And he said, he was like, okay, this is what I'm going to do with TV, like, as if he was going to live for 20 more years.

[2076] And I thought that was a great answer he didn't go like on my waning days I shall contemplate the universe or whatever he knew he was he had to know he was dying maybe he didn't I don't know but it was a great that was my favorite interview I think I thought that was in terms of but you know just the recent Zuckerberg interview I thought was very good I thought it changed things I got him to say things we all knew he thought that he never said and I think I wasn't unkind and I don't think I snarked at him and I thought I allowed him to speak and he just, I thought that was a really good and revelatory interview.

[2077] So that seemed to, and the next one, whatever I do the next one, we'll see.

[2078] Maybe Elon next.

[2079] Elon, the final day.

[2080] I don't know.

[2081] We'll see with him.

[2082] I'd like to interview him again.

[2083] He needs to get some sleep first.

[2084] I don't know.

[2085] Something's going on.

[2086] Yeah.

[2087] Something's got something, something, something.

[2088] Who knows?

[2089] I don't know.

[2090] We all have our crosses to bear, right?

[2091] I mean, I think that's the, like, the big thing is, like.

[2092] They're people.

[2093] They're people.

[2094] Yeah.

[2095] They're people.

[2096] Do anything else you want to leave our listeners with?

[2097] Just do the work.

[2098] Please, just do the work.

[2099] And then you'll be just fine.

[2100] Again, there's so many ways that people get in your way, whether you're a woman, it's sexism or a person of color, it's racism, or anti -Semitism.

[2101] You were absolutely going to face those things.

[2102] And don't let anyone tell you that's not holding you back.

[2103] But if you keep doing the work, I do think you can succeed.

[2104] You can succeed in a way and be very happy with your work.

[2105] I know that's easy to say, but I think it's always helped me. I think that's it.

[2106] Thank you, Kara.

[2107] Thank you.

[2108] That was a great interview.

[2109] I appreciate it.

[2110] You guys are very talented.

[2111] Our sponsor for this episode is a brand new one for us.

[2112] Statsig.

[2113] So many of you reached out to them after hearing their CEO, Vijay, on ACQ2, that we are partnering with them as a sponsor of Acquired.

[2114] Yeah, for those of you who haven't listened, Vijay's story is amazing.

[2115] Before founding Statsig, Vijay spent 10 years at Facebook where he led the development of their mobile app ad product, which, as you all know, went on to become a huge part of their business.

[2116] He also had a front row seat to all of the incredible product engineering tools that let Facebook continuously experiment and roll out product features to billions of users around the world.

[2117] Yep.

[2118] So now Statsig is the modern version of that promise and available to all companies building great products.

[2119] Statsig is a feature management and experimentation platform that helps product teams ship faster, automate AB testing, and see the impact every feature is having on the core business metrics.

[2120] The tool gives visualizations backed by a powerful stats engine unlocking real -time product observability.

[2121] So what does that actually mean?

[2122] It lets you tie a new feature that you just shipped to a core metric in your business and then instantly know if it made a difference or not in how your customers use your product.

[2123] It's super cool.

[2124] Statsig lets you make actual data -driven decisions about product changes, test them with different user groups around the world, and get statistically accurate reporting on the impact.

[2125] Customers include Notion, Brex, OpenAI, FlipCart, Figma, Microsoft, and Cruise Automation.

[2126] There are, like, so many more that we could name.

[2127] I mean, I'm looking at the list, Plex and Versel, friends of the show at Rec Room, Vanta.

[2128] They, like, literally have hundreds of customers now.

[2129] Also, Statsig is a great platform for rolling out and taking.

[2130] testing AI product features.

[2131] So for anyone who's used Notion's awesome generative AI features and watched how fast that product has evolved, all of that was managed with Statsig.

[2132] Yep.

[2133] If you're experimenting with new AI features for your product and you want to know if it's really making a difference for your KPI's Statsig is awesome for that.

[2134] They can now ingest data from data warehouses.

[2135] So it works with your company's data wherever it's stored.

[2136] So you can quickly get started no matter how your feature flagging is set up today.

[2137] You don't even have to migrate from any current solution you might have.

[2138] We're pumped to be working with them.

[2139] You can click the link in the show notes or go on over to stat sig .com to get started.

[2140] And when you do, just tell them that you heard about them from Ben and David here on Acquired.

[2141] If you aren't subscribed and you want to hear more, you can subscribe from your favorite podcast client.

[2142] You can follow Kara on Twitter.

[2143] Kara, can follow you on Twitter.

[2144] They can find me at Kara Swisher.

[2145] Excellent.

[2146] Yep.

[2147] I got one of the early ones.

[2148] What was it going?

[2149] I have ads.

[2150] I have Swisher at Gmail, I think, or one of them, one of those early ones.

[2151] I think my type of Swisher at Gmail.

[2152] Email tips to Swisher at Gmail.

[2153] Whatever.

[2154] I'm not going to answer that one.

[2155] I never use it.

[2156] But I have a lot of the early everythings, which is because I was there.

[2157] Awesome.

[2158] Well, if you like the show, review us on iTunes.

[2159] Come join the Slackacquire .fm.

[2160] Or don't, and enjoy whatever podcast you listen to in the future.

[2161] Thanks, everyone.