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Kara Swisher

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Kara Swisher
Swisher at South by Southwest 2019
Born (1962-12-11) December 11, 1962 (age 63)[1][better source needed]
EducationGeorgetown University (BS)
Columbia University (MS)
OccupationJournalist
Years active1994–present
Notable workCo-founder of Recode
Political partyDemocratic[2]
Spouses
​
​
(m. 1999; div. 2017)​
Amanda Katz
​
​
(m. 2020)​
Children4

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 a contributing editor at New York Magazine, the host of the podcast On with Kara Swisher, and the co-host of the podcast Pivot.[citation needed]

In 2014, she co-founded Vox Media's Recode with Walt Mossberg. From 2018 to 2022, she was an opinion writer for The New York Times, before re-joining Vox Media.[3] She has also written for The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, and co-produced the All Things Digital conference,[4][5] and the online publication All Things D.[citation needed]

Early life and education

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Swisher was born on December 11, 1962,[where?][1][better source needed] and lived in Roslyn Harbor, Long Island, New York, until her father died when she was five years old. Her family then moved to Princeton, New Jersey, and she grew up there.[6] In a 2021 interview with Bryan Elliott for Inc.'s Behind The Brand, Swisher said that as a child, she always wanted to work either in the military, with military intelligence, or with the CIA.[6]

Swisher attended the Walsh School of Foreign Service (SFS) at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. At Georgetown, she wrote for The 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 at The Washington Post which solidified her career in journalism.[8] She obtained her undergraduate degree in 1984.[9] In 1985, she graduated from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism with an M.S. in journalism.[10] She "spent some time" at Duke University studying misinformation and propaganda, which Swisher said were "always my area of study".[11]

By her and Scott Galloway's description in a podcast, Swisher received a fellowship,[when?][clarification needed] allowing her to spend almost a year in Berlin, Germany (while living in the Kreuzberg district).[12] Preparing for future employment in the "security apparatus" (Galloway's description), Swisher attempted to learn German, although never mastering the language.[12][better source needed]

Career

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Early career

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After graduating, Swisher first worked at the Washington City Paper in Washington, D.C.[when?][citation needed][verification needed]

The Washington Post

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Swisher returned to The Washington Post in 1986 as a news aid for the Style desk before becoming a reporter covering the local retail beat.[citation needed][13][full citation needed][failed verification][8][failed verification]

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 writing AOL.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 met Walt Mossberg, a veteran tech journalist who would become a close friend and co-owner of the AllThingsD blog.[8][verification needed]

The Wall Street Journal

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Swisher joined The Wall Street Journal in 1997, working from its bureau in San Francisco. She created and wrote Boom Town, a column devoted to the companies, personalities and culture of Silicon Valley which appeared on the front page of the Wall Street Journal's Marketplace section and online. During that time, she was cited as being the most influential reporter covering the internet by Industry Standard magazine.[14]

In 2003, with her colleague Walt Mossberg, she launched the All 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 including Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison.[15]

Books

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External videos
video icon Presentation by Swisher on aol.com, July 8, 1998, C-SPAN
video icon Q&A interview with Swisher on Burn Book, March 1, 2024, C-SPAN

She is the author of aol.com: How Steve 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 with Simon & Schuster.[16] The first, Burn Book: A Tech Love Story, was released in February 2024.

Recode

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On January 1, 2014, Swisher and Mossberg struck out on their own with the Recode website, based in San Francisco.[17] In the spring of 2014 they held the inaugural Code Conference near Los Angeles.[18] Vox Media acquired the website in May 2015.[19] A month later in June 2015, they launched Recode Decode, a weekly podcast in which Swisher interviews prominent figures in the technology space with Stewart Butterfield featured as the first guest.[20]

In September 2018, Recode and Vox Media launched Pivot, a semi-weekly news commentary podcast co-hosted by Swisher and Scott Galloway. In April 2020, New York Magazine announced Pivot would be joining the magazine's properties, dropping the Recode branding, and Swisher would also join as editor-at-large.[21] In May 2020, Swisher wrote on Twitter that she had not been involved in editing or assigning stories on Recode for many years.[22]

The New York Times

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Swisher became a contributing Opinion writer at The New York Times in 2018, her writing being based on a career of "cover[ing] of the technology industry".[23] She has written on topics that include Elon Musk,[citation needed] Kevin Systrom's departure from Instagram,[citation needed] Google and the question of censorship,[citation needed] and the idea of an internet Bill of Rights.[citation needed]

On September 21, 2020, the Times premiered Sway, a Salesforce-sponsored podcast, hosted by Swisher, to "bring listeners smart, substantive, ... revealing conversations... exposing the nitty-gritty of how power and influence really work...",[24] a program in a semi-weekly format.[citation needed] The New York Times podcast webpage tagline for the program was, "A new podcast about power: who has it, who's been denied it and who dares defy it."[25] Nancy Pelosi, then Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, was featured as her first guest.[citation needed]

In June 2022, Joe Pompeo wrote in Vanity Fair of sources reporting that Swisher would be ending her activities at The New York Times—Opinion writing, Sway podcast, and weekly newsletter—to "pursue a new project" with Vox Media, where she had already been splitting time (writing for their New York magazine, and cohosting the Pivot podcast with Scott Galloway).[26][needs update]

Vox Media

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Swisher with Senator Elizabeth Warren at SXSW 2025

Swisher became an editor-at-large at New York Magazine and the host of On with Kara Swisher in September 2022;[citation needed] the first episode of 'On' premiered September 26.[citation needed]

Other activities

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Swisher was a judge in Mayor Michael Bloomberg's NYC BigApps competition in New York.[27] She told Rolling Stone writer Claire Hoffman: "A lot of these people I cover are babies", Swisher says. "I always call them papier-mâché–they just wilt."[28]

Swisher appeared as herself in a 2015 episode of the HBO show Silicon Valley.[29]

Swisher wrote of her experiences working for The McLaughlin Group in a 2018 Slate article, in which she alleged that host John 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."[30]

In January 2019, Swisher told people who disapproved of a Gillette advertisement after the January 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 harassing that elderly man on the Mall: Go __ yourselves."[31] Citing Swisher's comment as an example of how inaccurate many media accounts of the story had been, Caitlin Flanagan of The 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 monolith Procter & Gamble."[32] Swisher apologized in a tweet two days later.[33]

In 2021 and 2023, Swisher hosted the official companion podcast for the third and fourth seasons of HBO's TV series Succession.[34] In 2024, she received criticism for her book “Burn Book: A Tech Love Story," with critics saying that it was "anti-worker."[35]

Plan to Run for Mayor of San Francisco[needs update]

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In 2016, she announced that she planned to run for mayor of San Francisco as a Democrat 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][36][37]

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.[38]

Published works

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  • aol.com: How Steve Case Beat Bill Gates, Nailed the Netheads, and Made Millions in the War for the Web. New York, NY: Random House International, 1999. ISBN 9780812931914, OCLC 313499003
  • With Lisa Dickey, There Must Be a Pony in Here Somewhere: The AOL Time Warner Debacle and the Quest for the Digital Future New York, NY: Three Rivers Press, 2003. ISBN 9781400049646, OCLC 58726021
  • Burn Book: A Tech Love Story. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2024. ISBN 9781982163891, OCLC 1393241009

Awards and recognition

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Personal life

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Swisher married engineer and technology executive Megan Smith in Marin County in 1999 at a time when same-sex marriage was not legal in California.[43][44] They had an additional legal wedding ceremony in 2003 in Niagara Falls, Canada, in 2004 as part of the San Francisco 2004 same-sex weddings, and another in San Francisco in November 2008 in advance of California Proposition 8, which declared same-sex marriages invalid in California.[44] Swisher and Smith had two sons, Louis and Alexander.[45][46][47][48] They separated in 2014,[43] and were divorced as of 2017.[49] Swisher married Amanda Katz on October 3, 2020, with whom she had two children.[50]

In 2011, Swisher suffered a "mini-stroke" while on a flight to Hong Kong where she was soon hospitalized and put on anticoagulant medication. She wrote about the experience in a remembrance of Luke Perry, after a stroke led to his death in 2019.[51][52][53]

Swisher is known for wearing dark aviator sunglasses even while indoors, explaining "I have light sensitivity a little; I just don’t like bright lights."[54][51] She grew up Catholic and identifies as agnostic.[55]

References

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  1. ^ a b Politico Staff & Swisher, Kara (December 11, 2020). "Birthday of the Day: Kara Swisher, Contributing NYT Opinion Writer and Host of the 'On With Kara Swisher' and 'Pivot' Podcasts". Politico. Archived from the original (brief interview) on September 18, 2021. Retrieved January 7, 2026 – via MSN.com.
  2. ^ a b Townsend, Tess (May 18, 2016). "Kara Swisher Is Serious About Running for Mayor, and Soon". Inc.com. Retrieved January 6, 2026.
  3. ^ Carman, Ashley (June 7, 2022). "Kara Swisher Leaves The New York Times to Return to Vox Media". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved June 7, 2022.
  4. ^ Schwab, Katharine (May 28, 2020). "'All the Lanes are Mine': Kara Swisher Remains Tech's Most Outspoken Watchdog". Fast Company. Retrieved December 21, 2020.
  5. ^ Swisher, Kara & WSJ Staff (December 28, 2000). "Kara Swisher" (employee bio). The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved December 21, 2020.[independent source needed]
  6. ^ a b Elliott, Bryan (April 20, 2021). "Behind the Brand With Kara Swisher". Inc.com. Retrieved April 18, 2022.
  7. ^ Dodderidge, Lili (October 5, 2010). "Top Internet Journalists Talk News". The Hoya. Archived from the original on November 29, 2021. Retrieved February 25, 2013.
  8. ^ a b c Klein, Charlotte (March 28, 2023). ""I'll Walk Away From Anything": Kara Swisher Calls the Shots". Vanity Fair. Retrieved March 1, 2025.
  9. ^ Georgetown SFS Staff (January 6, 2026). "Prominent Alumni; Private sector; Prominent alumni in the private sector; Journalism and literature—Kara Swisher (SFS'84)". Georgetown University School of Foreign Service (SFS; SFS.Georgetown.edu). Retrieved January 6, 2026.
  10. ^ Swisher, Kara & CE Staff (January 6, 2026). "Kara Swisher / '85 JRN". Entrepreneurship.Columbia.edu. New York, NY: William V. Campbell Center for Entrepreneurship at Columbia University (Columbia Entrepreneurship, CE). Archived from the original (alumna bio) on February 5, 2020. Retrieved January 6, 2026.
  11. ^ Ting, Dennis & Swisher, Kara (October 19, 2023). "Artificial Intelligence 'Can Be a Weapon, But It's a Tool'—An Interview With Tech Journalist Kara Swisher". VPM.org. Retrieved December 7, 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  12. ^ a b Swisher, Kara & Galloway, Scott (January 13, 2023). Live from DLD: Microsoft's AI Future and the FAA Meltdown (streaming audio and transcript, corrected). Pivot (podcast). Event occurs at 00:01:23-00:01:43. Retrieved January 6, 2026. Hello, Scott. And, and, and, and this is Pivot Live from the DLD Conference in Munich, which is Germany. Good Naden.[sic.; "Abend"] I actually lived in Germany for almost a year. I lived in Berlin. / You were planning to be a workforce security apparatus. You were learning German, / Right? Yes, I was. Yes. I was learning German and I was, I lived here. I had a scholar, I had a fellowship and it was lovely. I had a great time right after the wall fell and it was really, it was really, I lived in Crok[sic.; "Kreuzberg"] and, and I still speak German badly.[independent source needed]
  13. ^ Swisher, Kara (host) & Murphy, Ryan (guest) (May 1, 2020). Ryan Murphy: What if Hollywood Had Welcomed Diversity From the Beginning? (podcast). Recode Decode. New York, NY: Vox Media. Event occurs at an unspecified time. Retrieved January 6, 2026.[full citation needed]
  14. ^ O'Brien, Chris (October 19, 2003), "OPINION: Book Explores What Went Wrong in AOL Time Warner Merger", San Jose Mercury News, retrieved January 27, 2010
  15. ^ Ellison. "Transcript: Kara Swisher, Author, "Burn Book: A Tech Love Story"". The Washington Post. Retrieved April 24, 2024.
  16. ^ "Book Deals: Week of July 27, 2020". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved June 10, 2021.
  17. ^ Wasserman, Todd (January 1, 2014). "Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher Launch Tech News Site 'Re/code'". Mashable. Retrieved October 23, 2016.
  18. ^ Levy, Steven. "Kara Swisher Is Sick of Tech People, So She Wrote a Book About Them". Wired. Wired. Retrieved April 24, 2024.
  19. ^ "Network Radio Executives Spencer Brown and David Landau partner with VC Michael Rolnick to launch new venture called DGital Media to create, distribute and monetize audio programs" (Press release). PR Newswire. Retrieved July 15, 2018.
  20. ^ "What's the Deal With Elon Musk? Ashlee Vance Tells All on 'Re/code Decode' Podcast". Recode. Retrieved July 15, 2018.
  21. ^ "Pivot Podcast Joins New York Magazine". New York Magazine. April 13, 2020. Retrieved October 15, 2020.
  22. ^ @karaswisher (May 20, 2020). "While I typically ignore this type of trolling, FYI I have not edited the recode web site for many years now and am not involved in its editing or assigning at all for that long too but keep up with the bad reporting and worse writing. It's embarrassing and more than a little sad" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  23. ^ Swisher, Kara & NYT Staff (January 6, 2026). "Kara Swisher" (reporter autobiography). The New York Times. Retrieved January 6, 2026.
  24. ^ NYT Staff; Szuchman, Paula & Swisher, Kara (September 10, 2020). "Introducing "Sway," a New Interview Podcast Hosted by Kara Swisher". NYTCp.com (Press release). New York, NY: The New York Times Company. Retrieved January 6, 2026.{{cite press release}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  25. ^ NYT Staff & Swisher, Kara (September 10, 2020). Introducing 'Sway' With Kara Swisher. The New York Times. Retrieved January 6, 2026.
  26. ^ Pompeo, Joe (June 7, 2022). "Kara Swisher, Tech and Media Star, to Leave The New York Times". Vanity Fair. Retrieved January 6, 2026.
  27. ^ "Mayor Bloomberg Announces Winners of NYC BigApps 2.0 Competition". NYC.gov. March 31, 2011. Retrieved June 5, 2013.
  28. ^ "Recode's Kara Swisher, Silicon Valley's Disrupter, Plots Political Move". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on November 8, 2017. Retrieved November 8, 2017.
  29. ^ Marantz, Andrew (June 9, 2016). "How "Silicon Valley" Nails Silicon Valley". The New Yorker.
  30. ^ "I Just Knew I Was Going to Surpass These Guys I Was Working For". Slate. October 18, 2018. Retrieved May 31, 2020.
  31. ^ @karaswisher (January 19, 2019). "And to all you aggrieved folks who thought this Gillette ad was too much bad-men-shaming, after we just saw it come…" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  32. ^ Flanagan, Caitlin (January 23, 2019). "The Media Botched the Covington Catholic Story". The Atlantic.
  33. ^ @karaswisher (January 21, 2019). "I was a complete dolt to put up this..." (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  34. ^ "Succession - HBO's Succession Podcast".
  35. ^ Council, Stephen (April 4, 2024). "Famed journalist Kara Swisher's book reflects Bay Area tech's huge anti-worker problem". SFGATE. Archived from the original on April 4, 2024. Retrieved June 13, 2024.
  36. ^ Green, Emily (April 14, 2016). "Tech journalist Kara Swisher plans to run for San Francisco Mayor". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved October 23, 2016.
  37. ^ Baram, Marcus (May 31, 2016). "Recode's Kara Swisher really wants to run for mayor: 'I'm the liberal lesbian Donald Trump of San Francisco'". Fast Company.
  38. ^ "Tech Writer Kara Swisher Announces Plan To Run For SF Mayor... In Seven Years: SFist". SFist - San Francisco News, Restaurants, Events, & Sports. April 15, 2016. Archived from the original on December 21, 2024. Retrieved March 1, 2025.
  39. ^ "Loeb Award Winners". UCLA Anderson School of Management. June 28, 2011. Archived from the original on April 1, 2019. Retrieved February 2, 2019.
  40. ^ Kelly, Adam (May 28, 2020). "Announcing Fast Company's first-ever Queer 50 list". Fast Company. Retrieved June 3, 2021.
  41. ^ "Announcing Fast Company's second annual Queer 50 list". Fast Company. Retrieved June 3, 2021.
  42. ^ "Ms. Swisher". AMACAD.org. Retrieved February 8, 2023.
  43. ^ a b Wallace, Benjamin (July 15, 2014). "Kara Swisher Is Silicon Valley's Most Feared and Well-Liked Journalist. How Does That Work?". New York.
  44. ^ a b Swisher, Kara (November 10, 2008). "My Four Weddings. How getting gay married became an Olympic sport for me". The Daily Beast. Retrieved September 29, 2023.
  45. ^ McCluskey, Eileen (October 15, 2007). "Megan Smith '86, SM '88: Pioneering change from PlanetOut to Google Earth". MIT Technology Review. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ISSN 1099-274X.
  46. ^ Hopkins, Jim (June 21, 2000). "PlanetOut CEO taps gay market Exec becomes power player in elusive $450B industry". USA Today. p. 7B. Retrieved June 1, 2012.[dead link]
  47. ^ Schubarth, Cromwell (September 16, 2011). "Google working on social, news reader". San Jose Business Journal.
  48. ^ "Susan Ann Ventre". Scranton Times (Obituary). January 24, 2012 – via Legacy.com.
  49. ^ Swisher, Kara (2017). "Kara Swisher Biography and Ethics Statement". re/code. Archived from the original on December 30, 2017.
  50. ^ Sherman, Jake; Palmer, Anna; Ross, Garrett; Okun, Eli (October 6, 2020). "Weekend Wedding". Playbook PM. Politico. Retrieved June 3, 2021.
  51. ^ a b Ferriss, Tim (June 21, 2018). "The Tim Ferriss Show Transcripts: Kara Swisher (#218)". The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.
  52. ^ Nicholas Carlson, Kara Swisher Suffered A "Mini-Stroke," But She Seems To Be OK Oct 19, 2011 businessinsider.com
  53. ^ Swisher, Kara (March 5, 2019). "Opinion | Luke Perry Had a Stroke and Died. I Had One and Lived". The New York Times.
  54. ^ "Kara Swisher Is Silicon Valley's Most Feared and Well-Liked Journalist. How Does That Work?". Intelligencer. July 15, 2014.
  55. ^ "Apple goes 5G, the Feds want to break up Google Chrome, and Fareed Zakaria on lessons from 2020". Pivot--Voxmedia Podcast Network. October 13, 2020.
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