Kara Swisher | |
|---|---|
 Swisher atSouth by Southwest 2019 | |
| Born | (1962-12-11)December 11, 1962 (age 62)[1] |
| Education | Georgetown University (BS) Columbia University (MS) |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Years active | 1994–present |
| Notable work | Co-founder ofRecode |
| Political party | Democratic[2] |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 4 |
Kara Anne Swisher (/ˈkɛərə/KAIR-ə; born December 11, 1962) is an American journalist. She has covered the business of the internet since 1994. As of 2023, Swisher was acontributing editor atNew York Magazine, the host of the podcastOn with Kara Swisher, and the co-host of the podcastPivot.[3]
In 2014, she co-foundedVox Media'sRecode withWalt Mossberg. From 2018 to 2022, she was an opinion writer forThe New York Times, before re-joiningVox Media.[4] She has also written forThe Wall Street Journal,The Washington Post, co-produced theAll Things Digital conference, and the online publicationAll Things D.[3][5]
Swisher lived inRoslyn Harbor,Long Island, New York, until her father died when she was five years old. Her family moved toPrinceton, New Jersey, and she grew up there.[6] In a 2021 interview with Bryan Elliott forInc.'s Behind The Brand, Swisher said that as a child, she always wanted to work either in the military, with military intelligence, or with theCIA.[6]
Swisher attended theEdmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service (SFS) at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. At Georgetown, she wrote forThe Hoya, Georgetown's school newspaper and then for the school's news magazine,The Georgetown Voice.[7] During her sophomore and junior years, she interned atThe Washington Post which solidified her career in journalism.[8] She obtained her undergraduate degree in 1984.[9] In 1985, she graduated fromColumbia University Graduate School of Journalism with a MS in journalism.[10] She "spent some time" atDuke University studying misinformation and propaganda, which Swisher said were "always my area of study".[11]
After the fall of theBerlin Wall, Swisher received a fellowship allowing her to live almost a year inKreuzberg inBerlin, Germany. Preparing for future employment within "the security apparatus", she attempted to learn German but never mastered the language.[12] Then Swisher worked at theWashington City Paper in Washington, D.C. She returned toThe Washington Post in 1986 as a news aid for the Style desk before becoming a reporter covering the local retail beat.[13][14][8]
Swisher credits the Post as where she "significantly started to use technology". She used to drag a suitcase cell phone around the office. She received national attention for covering AOL and the beginning of the dot-com era in the 1990s. While working for the business section of the paper, Swisher decided to leave to devote time to writingAOL.com: How Steve Case Beat Bill Gates, Nailed the Netheads, and Made Millions in the War for the Web. It was during this time that she first metWalt Mossberg, a veteran tech journalist who would become a close friend and co-owner of the AllThingsD blog.[8]
Swisher joinedThe Wall Street Journal in 1997, working from its bureau in San Francisco. She created and wroteBoom Town, a column devoted to the companies, personalities and culture ofSilicon Valley which appeared on the front page of theWall Street Journal's Marketplace section and online. During that time, she was cited as being the most influential reporter covering the internet byIndustry Standard magazine.[15]
In 2003, with her colleagueWalt Mossberg, she launched theAll Things Digital conference and later expanded it into a daily blog called AllThingsD.com. The conference featured interviews by Swisher and Mossberg of top technology executives includingBill Gates,Steve Jobs andLarry Ellison.[16]
| External videos | |
|---|---|
 Presentation by Swisher onaol.com, July 8, 1998,C-SPAN | |
| Q&A interview with Swisher onBurn Book, March 1, 2024,C-SPAN |
She is the author ofaol.com: HowSteve Case Beat Bill Gates, Nailed the Netheads and Made Millions in the War for the Web, published by Times Business Print Books in July 1998. The sequel,There Must Be a Pony in Here Somewhere: The AOL Time Warner Debacle and the Quest for a Digital Future, was published in the fall of 2003 by Crown Business Print Books. In 2021, it was announced that she signed a two-book memoir deal withSimon & Schuster.[17] The first,Burn Book: A Tech Love Story, was released in February 2024.
On January 1, 2014, Swisher and Mossberg struck out on their own with theRecode website, based in San Francisco.[18] In the spring of 2014 they held the inaugural Code Conference nearLos Angeles.[19]Vox Media acquired the website in May 2015.[20] A month later in June 2015, they launched Recode Decode, a weeklypodcast in which Swisher interviews prominent figures in the technology space withStewart Butterfield featured as the first guest.[21]
In September 2018, Recode and Vox Media launchedPivot, a semi-weekly news commentary podcast co-hosted by Swisher andScott Galloway. In April 2020,New York Magazine announcedPivot would be joining the magazine's properties, dropping the Recode branding, and Swisher would also join aseditor-at-large.[22] In May 2020, Swisher wrote onTwitter that she had not been involved in editing or assigning stories on Recode for many years.[23]
Swisher became a contributing writer to theNew York Times'Opinion section in August 2018, focusing on tech.[24] She has written about topics likeElon Musk,Kevin Systrom's departure from Instagram,Google and censorship, and an internet Bill of Rights.
In September 2020, theTimes premieredSway, a semiweekly podcast hosted by Swisher focused on the subject of power and those who wield it,[25] withNancy Pelosi, thenSpeaker of the United States House of Representatives featured as her first guest.[26] Other guests have includedGeorgia politician and voting rights activistStacey Abrams,Airbnb CEOBrian Chesky, actorSacha Baron Cohen,Apple CEOTim Cook, entrepreneurMark Cuban,Microsoft co-founder and philanthropistBill Gates, former Presidential candidate SenatorAmy Klobuchar (D-MN),United States Secretary of TransportationPete Buttigieg, film directorSpike Lee,Parler CEOJohn Matze, Georgia Secretary of StateBrad Raffensperger,USSFCSO Gen.John W. Raymond, and social activistMonica Lewinsky.
In June 2022, Swisher announced that she would leaveThe New York Times to pursue a new project atNew York magazine.[27]
Swisher became an editor-at-large at New York Magazine and the host ofOn with Kara Swisher in September 2022. The first episode of 'On' premiered September 26.[28]
Swisher was a judge[29] for MayorMichael Bloomberg'sNYC BigApps competition in New York. She toldRolling Stone writer Claire Hoffman: "A lot of these people I cover are babies", Swisher says. "I always call them papier-mâché–they just wilt."[30]
Swisher appeared as herself in a 2015 episode of the HBO showSilicon Valley.[31]
Swisher wrote of her experiences working forThe McLaughlin Group in a 2018Slate article, in which she alleged that hostJohn McLaughlin abused staff and sexually harassed women. Reflecting on his death from prostate cancer in 2016, she wrote, "I’m so glad he’s dead. Seriously, I’m glad he’s dead. He was a jackass. He deserved it."[32]
In January 2019, Swisher told people who disapproved of aGillette advertisement after theJanuary 2019 Lincoln Memorial confrontation, "... to all you aggrieved folks who thought this Gillette ad was too much bad-men-shaming, after we just saw it come to life with those awful kids and their fetid smirking harassingthat elderly man on the Mall: Go __ yourselves."[33] Citing Swisher's comment as an example of how inaccurate many media accounts of the story had been,Caitlin Flanagan ofThe Atlantic Monthly observed, "You know the left has really changed in this country when you find its denizens... lionizing the social attitudes of the corporate monolithProcter & Gamble."[34] Swisher apologized in a tweet two days later.[35]
In 2021 and 2023, Swisher hosted the official companion podcast for the third and fourth seasons ofHBO's TV seriesSuccession.[36] In 2024, she received criticism for her book “Burn Book: A Tech Love Story," with critics saying that it was "anti-worker."[37]
Plan to Run for Mayor of San Francisco
In 2016, she announced that she planned to run formayor of San Francisco as aDemocrat in 2023. She was seen as likely to run on a "highly progressive" platform with a focus on more housing, legalizing marijuana and new labor laws for the "on-demand" workforce that dominated (and still dominates) San Francisco.[2][38][39]
We all yammer about politicians and how bad things are, and I think it important that we stop bellyaching and act if we want change. Also this whole election cycle has struck a chord in me that I have always thought about, related to professional politicians and how we need to shift thinking about who should serve and the duty of citizens to be, you know, citizens. There is an important and necessary role for good government and I hate this wholesale tearing down of it. Also the increasing divide between tech sector and the city is something that I think a lot about. Not that I have solutions as yet.[40]
Swisher married engineer and technology executiveMegan Smith inMarin County in 1999 at a time whensame-sex marriage was not legal inCalifornia.[41][42] They had an additional legal wedding ceremony in 2003 inNiagara Falls, Canada, in 2004 as part of theSan Francisco 2004 same-sex weddings, and another in San Francisco in November 2008 in advance ofCalifornia Proposition 8, which declared same-sex marriages invalid in California.[42] Swisher and Smith had two sons, Louis and Alexander.[43][44][45][46] They separated in 2014,[41] and were divorced as of 2017[update].[47] Swisher married Amanda Katz on October 3, 2020, with whom she had two children.[48]
In 2011, Swisher suffered a"mini-stroke" while on a flight toHong Kong where she was soon hospitalized and put onanticoagulant medication. She wrote about the experience in a remembrance ofLuke Perry, after a stroke led to his death in 2019.[49][50][51]
Swisher is known for wearing darkaviator sunglasses even while indoors, explaining "I have light sensitivity a little; I just don’t like bright lights."[52][49] She grew upCatholic and identifies asagnostic.[53]
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