On with Kara Swisher

Kara and Nayeema take a field trip to Martha Stewart’s 156-acre estate for an interview with the media mogul and O.G. influencer. On the menu for this conversation? The media maven’s early interest in tech, parties with Bill Gates (and the artist formerly known as Puff Daddy), doing Sports Illustrated at age 81, big ideas like “KMartha” or “MarthaAI,” and why nothing — not prison time nor the idea...

This Juneteenth, we’re sharing an episode of The Weeds, a Vox Media podcast where host Jonquilyn Hill breaks down the policies that shape our lives. This episode digs into school discipline and the achievement gap with Francis Pearman of Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education. For many Black children, their first encounter with the discrimination that will trail them their whole lives...

After Kara and Nayeema debate the pros and cons of AI personal assistants vs. human personal assistants vs. fake personal assistants, we turn to Mustafa Suleyman, the man who co-founded DeepMind. Now, he and his co-founders Reid Hoffman and Karén Simonyan have started Inflection AI, a startup that creates “personal AIs,” and they're launching with a chatbot called Pi. Kara talks to Mustafa about w...

Donald Trump signed the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency into existence in 2018 with the mandate to protect America’s infrastructure from threats digital and physical. Trump also made CISA a household name when he fired the department’s head in 2020 for noting that, no, the election was not stolen. Today, we hear from Jen Easterly, the woman who now runs CISA and has the job of preve...

After Kara and Nayeema discuss recent moves at CNN and the ducking cool innovation at Apple, we launch into part two of “Car Week” and an interview with Tekedra Mawakana. The Co-CEO of Waymo (formerly the Google self-driving car project) discusses trying to change how society moves while dealing with obstacles to the autonomous vehicle transition, like angsty Teamsters and tetchy regulators. And K...

Tesla’s self-driving ambitions (and the company’s recent recall) may dominate the conversation when it comes to autonomous driving, but they’re not the only players in the space. This week, Kara’s talking to CEOs whose driverless vehicles are being roadtested. First up: Chris Urmson, co-founder and CEO of Aurora, which will launch its driverless truck service next year in Texas. They discuss safet...

After Kara and Nayeema discuss the Succession finale and their theories on a spin-off, we turn to Kara’s interviews with Alexander Skarsgård and Jeremy Strong, aka Lukas Matsson and Kendall Logan Roy.  SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t watched the finale yet, do not listen to this episode. Also, ADVICE ALERT — Do you have burning questions on career, love or life you’d like Kara or Nayeema’s advice on...

Today, Kara talks to USAID Administrator Samantha Power and Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Information Mykhailo Fedorov about the role of tech in the war, and the power of an app called Diia. Among its capabilities: accessing medical information, filing claims for war damage to property and helping track Russian troop movements.  Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or f...

After Kara and Nayeema review the week’s A.I. news, including Sam Altman’s Senate testimony and the viral AI-generated image of the Pentagon in flames, we turn to Tristan Harris — co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology and a key voice among the calls for slowing down the A.I. arms race. BTW, do you have any burning questions on career, love or life you’d like Kara or Nayeema’s advice on? I...

After an update on efforts to rein in TikTok from Montana to Washington DC, we turn to Lilly Singh, a creator who rose to fame in the early generation of YouTube stars and has since made the jump to linear TV. On the agenda: why creators are itching to go from the booming medium of social to a struggling landscape of linear TV, diversity in Hollywood and Kara’s texts with famous people. Questions?...

Twitter rose to prominence as a global public square that helped enable the Arab Spring, but Elon Musk has changed all that. The platform is complying with governments more, and a murky algorithm and blue check jungle makes it feel less relevant and less reliable than ever before. Nayeema and Kara break down how the fruit has fallen and where it may eventually land (Yahoo Mail, anyone?) with Zoë S...

After a discussion about Elon and the new “Chief Twit,” Linda Yaccarino, we turn to a woman who has refused to meet with Musk: Lina Khan. The Chair of the Federal Trade Commission has tech giants from Meta to Amazon on the defensive. Now she’s got the agency’s eyes set on the next big gorilla: artificial intelligence. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From the verdict in Trump’s sexual assault case to the Santos indictment and the Supreme Court saga, scandal is rife in Washington. Today we turn to the OG: Watergate, as examined in the new HBO series, “White House Plumbers.” Writers and creators Peter Huyck and Alex Gregory and director David Mandel discuss how the show compares to their last collab (“Veep”), trace a line between the blind alleg...

Relationships are hard. When do you know it’s time to marry? When do you know it’s time to break up? We get inside those questions with Kara, Nayeema and our guest today: Maggie Smith. The poet’s viral 2016 poem “Good Bones” was accompanied by professional success, and cracks in her personal life. Smith talks about that fallout, documented in her new memoir “This Place Could be Beautiful” – and wh...

After a look inside a writers' strike that could upend Hollywood, Kara and Nayeema turn to today’s guest: writer and comedian Roy Wood Jr. Fresh off his performance at the White House Correspondents Dinner, Wood breaks down how he chose his jokes for the president, what (if anything) was considered off limits and why we need to start engaging with viewpoints we don’t like. You can follow Kara and...

The Snap CEO talks about the challenges facing the company’s AI chatbot, how augmented reality glasses could change how we compute the real world and why a TikTok ban would “help” Snap.  You can follow Kara and Nayeema on Instagram. Search for @karaswisher and @nayeemaraza. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It’s looking like 2024 will be another round of Biden vs. Trump. But will the sequel end in the same result? Here to discuss the prospective race — and the many issues at stake from abortion to gun control to Ukraine and China — is President Biden’s former Chief of Staff, Ron Klain. You can follow Kara and Nayeema on Instagram - search for @karaswisher and @nayeemaraza Learn more about your ad cho...

To make sense of a turbulent and important week in media, we turn to Ben Smith who was the founding Editor in Chief of Buzzfeed News (2012 to 2020) and the former New York Times media critic (from 2020 to 2022). On the agenda: the shuttering of Buzzfeed News, the meaning of Murdoch's settlement with Dominion and what Ben is working on these days, including his news organization Semafor and his for...

We turn to economist and former Treasury Secretary, Lawrence Summers, to help us make sense of inflation, Silicon Valley Bank and what Biden should do next. Also on the agenda: why Summers believes in a politics and economics of opportunity — “not of envy.” Plus, why he thinks America needs more people like Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates. Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find us on T...

After a quick rundown of how the 2024 presidential race may shape up, we turn to today’s guest: Jen Psaki, the former White House Press Secretary and host of the new MSNBC show, “Inside with Jen Psaki.” On the agenda: Biden’s Achilles’ heel, the Trump bump and how Psaki will parlay her insider status to journalism.  Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find us on Twitter @karaswishe...

Last week, Elon kicked off a feud with both Substack and his very own former Twitter Files ingénue (and Substack star), Matt Taibbi. Kara and Nayeema break down the battle of the bros before turning to an interview with those at the center of the storm: Substack co-founders Chris Best and Hamish McKenzie. The two address questions about Substack Notes (which Elon dubbed, and they deny, is a “Twitt...

Today, after Kara and Nayeema discuss what the Dominion defamation lawsuit might mean for Rupert Murdoch and News Corp, we turn to a fictional media story of Logan Roy and HBO’s Succession. Our guests are Brian Cox, series creator Jesse Armstrong and director Mark Mylod. SPOILER ALERT: there are lots of spoilers in this episode, starting at about 10 mins in so go watch the show first.  Questions?...

WeightWatchers recently announced a $132 million deal to acquire telehealth company Sequence and enter the prescription drug space (think: GLP-1 drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic). It begs the question: why is a company built on personal accountability facilitating medical interventions? We ask our guest, WeightWatchers CEO Sima Sistani. Before and after the interview, Nayeema and Kara discuss their o...

After a brief discussion about the impact of social media on the mental health of teenage girls, Kara and Nayeema turn to today’s guest: Brooke Shields. She became a teenage superstar through her roles in “Pretty Baby” and “Blue Lagoon” as well as the famous Calvin Klein ads (“Do you want to know what comes in between me and my Calvins? Nothing.”). In her new Hulu documentary, “Pretty Baby: Brooke...

As she pens her memoir, Kara’s been thinking about legacy, but on this episode we reflect on the legacy of another powerhouse reporter: Audie Cornish. After hosting NPR’s flagship “All Things Considered” for a decade, Audie Cornish took a risk and left for the greener pastures of CNN+ — only to see that venture get unceremoniously squashed by CNN’s new CEO less than a month after it launched. Yet...