On with Kara Swisher

Latest Episodes:

Radical Self-Acceptance, Cancel Culture, and Forgiveness with Writer Anne Lamott May 09, 2024

Show notes

Author Anne Lamott has penned novels, but is most famous for her confessional memoirs about sobriety, raising her son as a single mother (Operating Instructions), being a liberal Christian and writing (Bird By Bird). Kara and Anne talk about her 20th book, Somehow: Thoughts on Love, why she thinks love is like Wi-Fi, how she dealt with nearly being canceled over a tweet, how to practice radical self-acceptance, and finding forgiveness — even for Donald Trump.

Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find Kara on Threads/Instagram @karaswisher

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Can Chipotle Founder Steve Ells Strike "Fast-Casual" Gold Again? May 06, 2024

Show notes

Thirty-one years after founding Chipotle, Steve Ells is back with what he hopes will be another fast-casual dining revolution: the highly-automated, plant-based food chain, Kernel. Ells says that streamlining and automation will allow him to pay workers well above minimum wage and give them more benefits – all while reducing labor costs. But don’t call it a robot restaurant! Kara and Ells discuss the mechanics and philosophy underpinning Kernel’s concept and the downstream effects of integrating tech into our food.

Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find Kara on Threads/Instagram @karaswisher

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Wrestling with America’s (Racist) History with Playwright Suzan-Lori Parks May 02, 2024

Show notes

In her latest play, Sally & Tom, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks tackles what is, arguably, one of the most complicated and personal chapters in American history: the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, the enslaved woman who gave birth to at least six of his children.

Kara and Parks discuss the play in the context of her past work, as well as our nation's trend of revising history to sand down its rough edges, and why wrestling with our nation’s past is a sign of love.

Sally & Tom is now playing at the Public Theater. You can buy tickets at: https://publictheater.org/productions/season/2324/sally--tom/

Correction: Suzan-Lori Parks' Plays for the Plague Year begins in March 2020. In a previous version of this episode, we said it began in March 2022.

Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find Kara on Threads/Instagram as @karaswisher

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Time for a Data Privacy Bill + the TikTok Crackdown with Senator Maria Cantwell Apr 29, 2024

Show notes

When Kara first met Senator Maria Cantwell in the 90s, she was a tech executive at an early player in the streaming media industry called RealNetworks. Now, the Democrat from Washington is the chair of the powerful Senate Commerce Committee, and she recently released a draft of the American Privacy Rights Act. For the first time in a long time, it looks like a tech privacy bill might have a decent shot at actually becoming law.

Senator Cantwell joins the podcast to discuss her bill, her approach to tech legislation, and the biggest (and arguably most controversial) tech bill in recent history: the TikTok divestment bill.

Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find Kara on Instagram/Threads as @karaswisher

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How to Prevent War with China with Dmitri Alperovitch and Chris Krebs Apr 25, 2024

Show notes

Kara discusses the “pacing threat” that is China – from TikTok to cyberattacks to semiconductors and Taiwan – with two cybersecurity experts: Dimitri Alperovitch, co-founder and former CTO of CrowdStrike and author of the new book World on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race for the 21st Century, and Chris Krebs, Chief Intelligence Officer at SentinelOne and former Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency under President Trump (until he was fired in a tweet for batting down Trump’s election lies).

The episode features an expert question from a previous On guest: former Congressman Mike Gallagher, the Republican from Wisconsin who chaired the Select Committee on the CCP. If you like this episode, make sure you go back to listen to that conversation as well.

This conversation was taped live at American University on April 19, 2024.

Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find Kara on Instagram/Threads as @karaswisher

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Is the Fight Over Abortion Rights Enough to Beat Trump? with Shefali Luthra, Sarah McCammon and Mary Jo Pitzl Apr 22, 2024

Show notes

Despite a recent uptick, President Biden’s approval rating and his poll numbers against Donald Trump are far from stellar. And with inflation remaining stubbornly high and gas prices moving up, Biden and his party seem eager to focus voters on abortion rights — and Republicans in Arizona and Florida have given him plenty of material to work with.

To understand how the abortion issue might play out in November — and how the Dobbs decision is already affecting millions of people across the country, even in states without bans — we turn to three experts: Shefali Luthra covers abortion for The 19th, and her book, “Undue Burden, Life and Death Decisions in Post Roe America,” comes out in May; Sarah McCammon is a national political correspondent for NPR and the co-host of the NPR Politics Podcast. Her book, “Exvangelicals: Loving, Living and Leaving the White Evangelical Church,” came out in March; and Mary Jo Pitzl is a senior state government reporter for the Arizona Republic who’s been reporting in Arizona for decades. She’s also the host of The Gaggle, an Arizona politics podcast.

Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find Kara on Instagram/Threads as @karaswisher

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Kids and Phones: Moral Panic or Time to Panic? with Jonathan Haidt Apr 18, 2024

Show notes

Is Gen Z’s mental health in decline because their “phone-based childhood” has flooded them with anxiety and ruined their sleep? Or is there a more complex mix of factors at play? Jonathan Haidt makes his case for the former explanation in his latest book, The Anxious Generation.

While many people intuitively agree with his argument that phones and social media are ruining kids, some researchers are accusing Haidt of coming up with a grand overarching theory that isn’t supported by the data. Kara brings the moral psychologist and NYU professor onto the podcast to discuss his ideas, the criticism he’s gotten, and his proposed solutions to the problem.

Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find Kara on Instagram/Threads as @karaswisher

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Can Yahoo Bring Back the "Good Internet"? Apr 15, 2024

Show notes

Yahoo, the one-time "oracle of the internet", has had many iterations in its 30 year history - and private equity is betting that Yahoo CEO and digital media veteran Jim Lanzone can bring back its relevance. Kara has been covering Yahoo since its inception and has known Lanzone - who has had leadership stints at Ask.com, CBS and Tinder - almost as long. They discuss Jim's vision for the new Yahoo, what’s going on with search, how he’s integrating AI, and whether there could be another Yahoo merger or IPO on the horizon.

Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find us on social media. We’re on Instagram/Threads as @karaswisher

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Will Disinformation Doom Our Democracy? with Nina Jankowicz, Sasha Issenberg & Barbara McQuade Apr 11, 2024

Show notes

“Flood the zone with shit.” It’s a zinger and a strategic imperative, from the oh-so-eloquent Steve Bannon, being expertly executed by Donald Trump and the MAGA-fied GOP.

To help us make sense of what our information morass means for the 2024 election, we’re joined by three political disinformation experts: Nina Jankowicz, a disinformation researcher, the former executive director of the Disinformation Governance Board at the Department of Homeland Security, and the author of "How To Lose the Information War"; Sasha Issenberg, a journalist and the author of five books, most recently, “The Lie Detectives”; and Barabara McQuade, a former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan who teaches law at the University Michigan and recently authored “Attacks from Within.”

Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find us on social media. We’re on Instagram/Threads as @karaswisher and @nayeemaraza

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Lessons Learned From Hitler’s Rise To Power Apr 08, 2024

Show notes

There are a lot of Trump/Hitler comparisons being thrown around these days. So we went to the source, as chronicled by historian Timothy Ryback in his new book Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power. Ryback zooms in on the final six months before Adolf Hitler dissolved the government of the Weimar Republic, revealing that Nazi Germany was not inevitable. Kara and Ryback discuss the Berlin power players that misjudged Hitler’s bankrupt party, and the (not just rhetorical) similarities between the ascendance of Hitler and Donald Trump.

Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find us on social media. We’re on Instagram/Threads as @karaswisher and @nayeemaraza

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