The original “Burn Book” from Mean Girls was used to spread rumors and gossip about other girls (and some boys) at North Shore High School. Kara Swisher’s new memoir, Burn Book, tells true stories about men (and some women) who ruled Silicon Valley. In the 1990s, Swisher was a political reporter in Washington, but tuned into the dot-com revolution early and moved to California to cover it. As a handful of tech titans grew in fame and power, so did she, styling herself as “the best-connected of the tough reporters, and the toughest of the insiders,” writes the Atlantic staff writer Helen Lewis. Swisher became an innovator herself, starting a famous tech conference, launching several successful podcasts, and building a small media empire along the way. Her book collects those decades of stories and insights.
On this week’s Radio Atlantic, Swisher recounts some of the most cringey moments of the early dot-com boom, including strange antics at parties she never really wanted to go to. (“I’ll admit I’m not that much fun.”) But mostly she traces how the idiosyncrasies, blind spots, and enthusiasms of the tech leaders she reported on have created our world. “It’s like Edison’s living right now, so I felt it was really important for you to understand how they got here and who they have become.”
Listen to the conversation here:
The following is a transcript of the episode:
[Music]
Hanna Rosin: Kara, I finished your book. It is surprisingly dishy. You called it the Burn Book after Mean Girls. So this is supposed to be what you really think about everyone—like Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, all of them.
Kara Swisher: That’s right.
[Music]
Rosin: I’m Hanna Rosin. This is Radio Atlantic, and Kara is Kara Swisher. The most straightforward way to describe her is “veteran technology journalist.” But the bigger truth is that she was put on this Earth to cover the rise of Silicon Valley.
From the minute that Kara got a giant, prototype cell phone in her hand, she knew that she had to move west.
So there she was, at the beginning of the dot-com era, in the makeshift garage-offices where everyone coded all night, and at the parties where they drank and then told her things. And as they became more famous, she became more famous for being both incredibly well connected and a journalistic bulldog. Not sure how those two things held together but they did, and she kept it up for years.
And at this point, when it’s way, way harder to get access to these tech titans, Kara Swisher is one of the only journalists who can say that she knew them—and many of their parents—way back when, which explains the book’s dishy vibe.
And P.S. There will be cursing.
[Music]
Rosin: It’s not about, like, people’s dating lives. That’s not what you mean. You’re talking about their actual personalities, right?
Swisher: Yes, exactly. I want you to understand how they got from one place to another. What happened to Elon Musk? Like, how did he go from being a relatively quirky, odd billionaire, with a bunch of negative characteristics that were small, to a massive asshole? Right? How did that happen?
Rosin: Why do I care if he’s an asshole?
Swisher: Well, you should, because he’s very powerful. That’s why. He’s not just a little powerful. I’m like, literally, he’s running space, and he is involved in the Ukraine thing, and he runs one of the biggest social-media platforms on the planet. This is not a little person. He’s had an enormous influence on the world.
Rosin: Right. So it’s, like, gossip we should enormously care about because these guys’ personalities essentially make our world.
Swisher: Yeah, but I’m not going like: “Elon’s fat.” There was famous pictures of him looking very fat, right? I don’t care if he’s fat. I pushed back on gossip, but this is what they’re like. I’m telling you. I was there. I saw it.
I don’t know if that’s gossip, because I’m not talking about their dating lives, unless it’s pertinent, by the way, and which it usually isn’t. Sometimes it is. Certainly, you know, you’ve just seen the series of stories in The Wall Street Journal about, in his case, drug use, right? Is it affecting him? And I think it’s pertinent in this case.
Rosin: Right, right. It’s just odd because we, as people who live in this world, are subject to the incredible idiosyncrasies and particularities of these people’s personalities. I mean, that’s the impression I got from your book. I mean, you essentially write that there’s this pattern: These are powerful men. Most of them are men. They go from being idealistic strivers to these compromised, insulated rich people, and we live in their world.
Swisher: And we do, right? What companies have been more important over the last two decades than tech companies? They’re also currently still the richest—not just the richest people, but the most powerful companies. And we’re poised to yet another wrinkle in the tech space around generative AI.
They’re laying waste to major entertainment companies. They’ll lay waste to insurance companies. They’re starting to dabble in healthcare. They’re in space. They’re in cars. And it’s the same group of people, and so don’t you want to know?
It’s kind of like Edison’s living right now. So is Carnegie. We’re living with those people right now, and so I felt it was really important for you to understand how they got here and who they’ve become. That was my goal.
Rosin: So let’s focus on the “become,” because truly we cannot remember them as evolving humans anymore.
Swisher: Right. They’re cartoons.
Rosin: They’re cartoons now, and one advantage you have is that you actually can. So if you c...
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