- [voiceover] funding for overheard with evan smith is provided, in part, by mfi foundation, improving the quality of life within our community. also, by hillco partners, a texas government affairs consultancy. and, by the alice kleberg reynolds foundation. - i'm evan smith. she's a pioneering and award-winning technology journalist who serves as the executive editor of re/code, and is the host of the re/code decode podcast. she could also be a future mayor of san francisco. she's kara swisher. this is overheard. let's be honest is this about the ability to learn or is this about the experience of not having been taught properly? how have you avoided what has befallen other nations in africa? you could say that he's made his own bed, but you caused him to sleep in it. you saw a problem, and over time, took it on. let's start with the sizzle before we get to the steak. are you gonna run for president? i think i just got an f from you guys.

(applause) - kara swisher, welcome. - thank you. - nice to have you here. - thank you. - i want to establish the rules of engagement for our time together. what do we mean by tech? tech could be a lot-- - what do you mean what do we mean? - it could be a lot of things. - it's like what do you mean by oxygen. - but tech means big companies, tech means small companies, tech means not only institutions, but it may also be devices like this one. - absolutely. - it could be clothes these days. - right. but i think beyond that, tech is bigger than you imagine. spears and flints were tech. i mean, everything is, arguably. - [evan] back in the day. - everything has been tech, it's just we call it that now 'cause we tend to make it now, it's such a center of our world now, but it tech has always been around in some fashion, no matter what it is. - but is the definition of tech, as we understand it these days, so big that it's impossible to ask the broad question, "how is tech doing?" - i joke about oxygen, but it is the oxygen. tech is the oxygen of everything we do now. we live in a digital world, and we have to operate in it, and everything has become digitized,

as we thought it might become. - and that's a good thing or a bad thing? - it's a thing. - there's no way to qualify it? - sometimes, it's a good thing. the issues around privacy, the issues around how we conduct our lives, the lack of civility online and bullying and stuff is all the negative parts. the great convenience of it, the wonderful information we can find all over the world, the fun of it, the utility of it, those are all great things. - net, we're better for it. - i think so. - so net, my children, who are teenagers, are better for having almost curvature of the spine, hunched over the devices. - in the future, you won't be, that will change. - you won't be? explain. - well, i think right now, when you think about it, we were at our desktops, i guess that was the first thing, and then we're at our laptops, we're a very similar paradigm. then, we got to the phones, and everyone's sort of like this like this kinda thing. when i end speeches, i sometimes say, "i leave you all to your own devices, and i really mean that." - the literal devices. - 'cause that's your best friend. i talk about my best friend, my iphone here, barbara. - your iphone has a name?

- why not? - no, it's great. - exactly, barbara and i have a great relationship. this is gonna change, the paradigm is gonna change, but the tech, the digitization of things, is not. eventually, this will be a screen. say i have a phone here and i want to show you something, i'll throw it to you and it'll pop up and things. it'll be like star trek. i hate to say the geeks were right. - frankly, it'll be like a lot of movies now. - sci-fi, yes, exactly. - where people can kind of go doop-doop-doop on homeland, they just sort of have moving screens that don't really exist. - yeah, that's all available now. - it is now? but not to us. - not yet, it's not consumerized, but what's fascinating, you know that louis c.k. thing about being on a plane when you're using the internet? it's the best thing ever. you're on the plane and you're in this tube of death, flying through the air, it's astonishing that you're flying of all, of course, you're bored and irritated by that, and then you get the internet, and you're like, "i have the internet!" and you're thrilled for a second, and then five seconds later, you're like, "this is fricking slow." - the worst internet. - "what the hell is going on?" i think we get used to the astonishing amount of innovations happened in the past 20 years or less has been amazing.

i don't know how old you are, you look very young. - old. - ok, i'm old too, i'm old as heck. i'm trying not to curse here, so i'm doing my best. - that's ok. - it's difficult, heck. - only abilene will care, actually, if you do that. - i'm not big in abilene, so it's fine. - me neither. - the stuff we've been able to do if you just remember corded phones, pay phones, all kinds of ways we communicate just in a mobile environment. my kids, when they were just slightly younger, we were in los angeles, and try to find one, we saw a pay phone. it was not a working pay phone, but it was a pay phone, and it was sitting there, and my kid goes, "what's that?" - couldn't conceive of what it could be. - couldn't conceive of it. i said, "it's a pay phone." "what do you mean?" and i was like, "you wouldn't have your cell phone, and you'd go over to it and talk into it," and he was like, "that's filthy." - like, literally? like, "i need purell" mean filthy? like gross, non-hygienic? - yes, he was like, "what do you mean you didn't have a thing?" so, you completely move away from a paradigm that you used to live in, which is a corded phone,

a pay phone, not instant access to information. when's the last time when you're at a dinner party, you didn't, like, something happened, and you didn't look it up? - but of course, your kids are a little younger than my kids and your kids and my kids both share this: they grew up only knowing this world. - [kara] digital natives, digital natives. - filesharing, gchatting, social media, they practically have usb ports in the sides of their heads. we, at least, remember, we straddled, and so we're self-reliant. so, if the device goes down, if, as louis c.k. says, "the wifi on one of those tubes of death doesn't work," we know how to live in the world. i wonder if our kids have got that skill. - first of all, we're not here in survivor mode, we're not in the mountains trying to trap a beaver. wifi goes down, i'm certain my children will survive. i feel they will not be, or, if they can't get information, i'm sure they could possibly figure out an encyclopedia. - a book. - and, by the way, guess what? i can probably churn butter if i had to, but why would i? it's kind of ridiculous. - i think you would be good as amish, actually. - like this. no, i don't think so. - but i mean this sincerely, that i think the challenge

for our kids as they go through the world, having only known this world, is that if they hit a speed bump, i'm not certain that they're as prepared to deal with the analog world as we are, having come from it. - but they don't have to. again, it's like saying, "wonder what it was like before the car was around?" you just don't think about it. why thing about it? these are technologies that are moving forward, and so i guess we could, but they're not gonna have to because it's gonna get even more embedded in our environment - you're gonna equally hate this question, too. you have this generation of kids who are constantly on their devices. they have headphones in their ears, they walk down the street keeping the world out, are we making our world less social as a consequence of our use of all these devices, and is that ultimately contributing to how messed up everything is out in the world? - as if people weren't messed up before? - no, i think they were messed up in a different way. - i believe world war two happened in the last era, when we didn't have cell phones. - and no phones. - and all those horrible wars and everything else. i think that it's a different kind of social. i think they have access to more people

and more relationships, which i think is great, you can talk to people all around the world. - fair. - i think you can access more information, i think there's more noise, for certain, but i think the noise is not gate-kept by some bunch of dudes in new york. think about it. - it's been democratized. - most of our media was 17 white guys who lived on upper east side of new york, so it's changed that. you get more points of view, more voices, even if they're very unpleasant voices, you get to see and hear these things. - so, you actually think we're hearing more voices unlike our own, rather than fewer? - well yeah, yes, absolutely. you do hear a lot of your own, but it's available to you. i guess it's available to you, and before, it wasn't available to you. and the second thing is, definitely the screen time, it'll be interesting to see sociologists and also biologists figure out what happens to our brains under it. i know for myself, i don't read books as well as i used to. i have an issue, i have a slower attention span if something doesn't catch my attention quickly, and i'm not a scientist. - so, you don't think that the prospect of having the ability to curate your experience

on these devices means that confirmation bias will kick in and that you will only gravitate to the things you agree with? - i think that's what happened before. when did that not happen? - in a different venue. - yeah, but i do think you can insult the technology all you want, first of all, it's happening and that's what it is, so the question is, how do we curate and create a world where kids pull freely from all these things? because you've never had an opportunity to pull so much freely. and, by the way, this is the dream, of course, is that people that didn't have access to information, health information, financial information, the ability to transact, who were really caught, especially in rural areas, or poor areas, they now have an ability, with a cell phone, to do enormous amounts of things that they weren't allowed to do. they get access that they never had before. - so, focus on the possibilities. - i try to do, but at same time, i'm super worried about privacy, about government intervention, about your lack of civility. it does create a situation with online harassment, which is really worse than you can imagine.

being anonymous, the ability to misbehave in a digital space in a way that you'd never misbehave in a public space. - do the technology operators, the companies that run social media channels and other things, have an obligation-- - i think so. - to do a better job of policing the world that they've created? - i think so, i think they've done a terrible job. they talk about being a platform, "we're just a platform, who knows what goes on here?" they certainly have control over them, they can set standards. it's like a city, they can say no. - frankly, if you run a roller rink, and you have people in the roller rink harassing other people in the roller rink, the owners of the roller rink can't go, "we have nothing to do with it." - no, exactly. "oh well, that's the way it goes." i think they try and provide tools, but i find the tools confusing, i find them difficult. they always say, "oh, it's super hard." that's what they love to say, "oh, it's real hard, kara." i'm like, "aren't you a genius? aren't you a genius? aren't you supposed to be able to figure this stuff out?" whenever things get thorny, they say, "it's hard." whenever they're doing everything else, they say, "aren't we magical that we've brought this to you?" - they only want to take credit for the good. - yes, exactly. and so, online tools are really,

if you've ever tried to make a complaint on twitter, this is where a lot of this happens, or facebook, it doesn't happen as much there because it's more known environment and you're talking to people you know. it's very hard, and it's very hard for the average user to figure it out. and the tools are not robust enough, and we also tend to being anonymous online is just much too easy to do, still. - the privacy thing you brought up, of course, has been a big national, international issue as it relates to apple, the fbi, the san bernardino terrorists. - well, that's access, that's encryption. - well, but it is an issue, though. privacy, encryption, it has an extension to privacy because all of us have been told if apple gives the federal government the opportunity to jailbreak a phone-- - [kara] they'll jailbreak them all. - they'll jailbreak them all. you can't just jailbreak one phone, apple's been pretty resolute in saying that. now, the issue has been put to the side because the government has figured out other ways to gain access. - no, it's back. - take us back to where it is now. so, where is it right now? - it's confusing right now. it's not going away, let's just say the interest in the government

to access these digital devices and the cloud technology around them is never going to be sated. they're going to want to get into everything, and as more and more things become digitally available, they're going to want access to every single one of them. - and you're skeptical as to whether this is a necessity in this case? - i've said this, it's a bigger issue that is being masked by a single idea. it's a very dramatic situation. the terrorist who kills people. who doesn't want to stop that? families who are grieving, it's a very dramatic situation. - [evan] appealing to emotion, right? - and there's this one iphone that's going to solve the crisis with isis. like, really? really? that's what it's down to? no, i guess the crisis with isis might go back way back when to when we invaded, it might go back to the fact that our cia it's so complicated and they like to boil it down to, "if we don't get this iphone, all of human civilization as we know it is gonna collapse." - so, if you knew, if i could tell you now, that by getting into that iphone, we would have access to names of people who planned future terrorist attacks in this country.

would it matter to you at all? - you just don't know. - or is it the principle? - i think it's the principle. i think it's the principle. you could do those, you could do those forever, you could make a hypothetical until the end of time, and so of course i would like that information, and by the way, the government can hack things. it's a little bit of a connard. i think probably people at the nsa know exactly how to hack that phone. they just don't want you to know that they know how to hack the phone. - they want to go through the front door. - yeah, i think they have an ability to get at it. i think they pretend they don't, they want a legal ability to go at it. it's really interesting 'cause parts of the federal government don't tend to agree with it. the defense department's into encryption, it's very important for a lot of their technologies, even president obama, when i interviewed him, he was very testy about this particular issue, which was before he became president, he was very pro-encryption, and then he changed, 'cause he obviously is seeing reports of horror shows, there's all kinds of things they thwart, so i'm sure he's gotten more conservative on the issue,

which he should. i think for the technology industry to say there's no concern is ridiculous, for the government to say there's no concerns about democratic process is also ridiculous. so, it's a question of how can tech and the government work together to really figure this out, and i think apple's just gonna become more and more pro-encryption and more stringent encryption so it's gonna be a real traffic accident. - you've been a tech reporter for a long time, almost 20 years. - at least, more. - but you came to the wall street journal, you started covering tech at the washington post, but you began covering digital matters for the wall street journal in 1996. how has that changed? has it changed because the industry has changed? has it changed because media has changed? - well, media now uses it. it's so important to the survival of media, and the decline of media. - was it a boutique beat back then? - i used to joke, when i was at the post, i covered aol, the beginnings of aol, the steve case, who you'll have on later,

and i was very struck by two things that happened to me: one, i was at the university of north carolina, i was somewhere, duke, maybe, and netscape browser was just coming to existence, it was called mosaic at the time. it was the university of indiana, i think, or illinois i was using the browser and i downloaded an entire book of calvin and hobbes, and i slowed down the whole system in doing it. and the people were mad at me. the geeks were like, "what did you do?" and i'm like, "i downloaded a book." and they were like, "yeah, you messed up everything." and i'm like, "but i downloaded a book." and then were like, "but you messed up." and i go, it was the most ridiculous conversation. my whole point was, wow, you can download a book, that's something. i was really taken by that, for some reason, it really struck in my head that you can reach anywhere, anything, and i thought, "wow, this is gonna change and upend media in a massive way if you can digitize books, if you can digitize entertainment, if you can digitize anything,

the whole economic underpinnings of your business is problematic. and i had covered retail for the washington post, and i saw all these retailers going under, and they were the ads, they were the ads, they were keeping these companies alive, and then classifieds, which had always been static, bad customer service, no efficacy, they didn't work, and just horrible, classifieds, think about it. when's the last time you looked at classifieds, right? it's all online. and i thought, the minute that becomes digitized, and it's so perfect for digitization 'cause of search, screwed. so every bit of the economic underpinnings of newspapers to me worried me, and that's why i went to the wall street journal, 'cause i was worried. - and you believe that the wall street journal might be able to withstand that? - no, at the time when i left, don graham, who is one of the most wonderful people, publishers - former to the washington post - said, "oh, why are you leaving?" and i said, "they're on higher ground, the flood is coming." i didn't say they're not going to be affected by the flood, it's just they're on higher ground, and i'm going to higher ground. - and were you right? - so far, yeah. - the wall street journal actually among the big newspapers was one of the only--

- they went back and forth. - maybe in fact the whole media properties, but by and large, they went a different way in terms of their strategy online. - yeah, they had the pay wall. - the pay wall. and a lot of people went, "oh, pay wall, content wants to be free," but in fact, wasn't that the right decision, it turns out, for them? - it may be, it could change. it's changed a lot. they've gone back and forth on it. but i think, probably, you have to value your content, and i think there's gonna be other ways they monetize, so that's not gonna really be. - ok, so i'm gonna have to value my content, or i should value my content. how come re/code is free? - because we don't value our content. no, we have an advertising paradigm, we have other revenue streams through events, which are quite lucrative. - right, the conference business. - we don't think of it as one thing. - and the history here is that there was allthingsd, which you and your partner, walt mossberg, at the wall street journal, who is now your co-founder of re/code. you started the allthingsd website - [kara] within the journal. - within the journal, as well as the d conference, which is the forerunner to the code conference. - [kara] right, exactly. - which you are now the executive producer, co-creator of this annual deal.

the conference business has become a revenue stream for you. - huge revenue stream, enormous. - [evan] why are more people not doing what you're doing? - they are, everyone's copying it. - [evan] you think so? - yeah, it's really bad, i wish they'd stop (laughs) - your code conference as we sit here for 2016 is sold out. - it is. - why do you care? if you sold out, what do you care if other people? - 'cause ultimately, sponsors, it's like anything else. everyone sees. we did it very early, and first, and best, and then everyone copies it. no matter how you slice it, whenever there's competitors in a space, there's competitors for sponsors, one of the things we run into, for example, is the other day, i had to do deal with it, there's a lot of conferences that, it's called pay to play. if you pay, you get to be onstage. well, we don't do that. we don't let anybody on stage. we let them on stage purely out of a content editorial decision. - so at this conference, people on the program are no slouches. it's bill gates, melinda gates, elon musk, jeff bezos, sundar pichai, who's the ceo of google. - sheryl sandberg - sheryl sanberg, these are all enormous people. what do they get out of it? in many cases,

these are people who don't do these sorts of things, except at gunpoint, and maybe not even then. - yes, right, i don't know. i am not sure what i do to that they like to come back and be pummeled by me. - because you're not exactly-- - nice, no. - well, i wasn't gonna say nice, but we'll go there if you want to. you're a tough interview. - here's, i think, why: i think smart people, like these people, enjoy a good discussion. we had steve jobs on eight times. he never appeared anywhere else but the code conference, except his own events, where he ran everything. - and this was the precursor to the code conference? - yes, exactly. he died before we started the second one, but he went there eight times. think about that. that guy never went anywhere. he went because he was a smart guy, and he liked great discussion. i think if you're a super smart person, and you're confident in yourself, you like someone who has an intelligent discussion. i think they like intelligent discussions. we have a crowd of people that's the top, elite people, and the elite media, and everything else. - they're speaking to their people. - yes, but they also want to show that they can keep up. i don't know why they do it, maybe they're gluttons for punishment,

but that's my take, that they sit all day and have to spew pap to people, and say stupid things. this is the most vibrant industry, it's a us industry, really, for the most part, although it's shifting, but it's the most vibrant industry that's been created since cars. here in this country. - and it really is a b-to-c industry, it's a b-to-c industry we are all affected by it. - and it's the founders. you may not want to compare thomas edison to mark zuckerberg but they're founders. these are the people someday we're gonna read about. - right, they're at the beginning. - the great one we did, i think, that'll go down in history, and it will be a historical document, is the one we did with gates and jobs together. the two great icons. - [evan] one time only. - they'd never done an interview together. they've been written about in such a dry way in history, but you're gonna see their relationship in this interview. at one point, which was great 'cause steve jobs was always poking at gates, it was sort of like kids, teenage kids. one was like this sort of nerdy guy, the other was like the jokester, the guy who pantsed everybody all the time.

at one point, i said, "what's something about," i'll never forget this, this was the best answer ever, i go, "what's something about your relationship that people don't know about?" and gates is always super careful, and jobs goes, "well, we've been married for many years now" (laughter) and he did it in such a dry sense, and gates was like "ah!" and you could see his mind, the bubble over his head went, "ok, i don't want to be anti-gay, and yet, what am i gonna say? and oh my god, was that a joke? i think that was a joke." you know what i mean? (laughter) it was such a great moment. - when do you ever see these guys as humans? - yes, exactly. at one point, right before steve died, i asked him, it sounds like a dumb question, but i thought it was a great question, "what do you do all day?" - no, it's a great question. - and he was like, "what?" and i'm like, "what do you do all day? what does a steve jobs day look like?" and it was a great answer. and then, at one point, which was sad because he died relatively soon after, i asked him, i said, "what do you want to do with the rest of your life?" i was saying it like that

'cause it was clear he was very ill, but he thought he was gonna live, he didn't think he was gonna die, you could tell that the way he answered, he was like, "i want to do this, i wanna do this, i wanna do this," and it was just a wonderful answer. he's a genuine person, and the people that don't do well at our conferences are the people that are not genuine, who don't want to come to talk. - you enjoy doing these? - yes, i love interviewing. - why do you want to be mayor of san francisco if you like doing this? you have more power now. - because i'm a bit of a fascist, no, so-- - perfect for san francisco. - no, i'd have to work on that, on the listening part. it's interesting, i've been thinking about it a lot, i've been thinking about civic duty. - you've never run for office before, never been involved in public service. - no, i hate to say it, but i think i'm inspired by trump. sharp intake of breath. - but you have at least one thing in common. - again, not the racist, misogynist part. - but the speak my mind and damn the torpedoes. - i think a lot about our culture and our community, and you do feel it, that there's a lack of civility,

is really disturbing, and how the lack of corporations. san francisco's a microcosm of that to me. we have this astonishing wealth creation going on, unprecedented in history, and astonishing innovation going on in this city. astonishing. it's one of those places that you're going to go, "that's where that happened," like detroit. you've got this city that is declining in infrastructure, you've got all this incredible economic inequality. if you on the streets of san francisco, you feel it. you feel the haves and have-nots so acutely, and the fact that this group of people can't come up with a solution to create a great city, around innovation, around cars, around transportation, it just seems like san francisco could be an iconic-- - tell me three things that you would do if you could wave your wand now as mayor swisher. - housing. - affordable housing. - not just affordable housing, all housing. what happens is the rich people buy out the middle size apartments and price out. housing for everybody. - but what can you do? donald trump has said, again, not to compare you,

but donald trump has made pronouncements about things he would do in office that are just wildly impractical, if not outright impossible, because the president can't do that. - well, i'm not building walls, i build bridges, 'cause it's san francisco. - use that one again, that was good. - i will, no walls, bridges, thank you. - i'm going to build a big, beautiful bridge, and i'm gonna oakland pay for it. - but there are bridges. (laughter) - that's a good idea, oakland, marin. don't be dumb, marin. - we're gonna make marin pay for it, that's it. - they won't even know. it'll be like in their drawer, we'll just take it. - they'll be like, "i think i left my change in my other pants." - marin has plenty of money. there's a great story in the new york times today, it's called yimby: yes in my back yard. i think those issues around affordable housing, not just affordable housing, all housing, the lack of density in san francisco. i know you want to keep an adorable little city, but we need housing for people to live there of all income levels. - yimby's not a bad frame for your campaign. - yeah, yimby. there's all this fighting over it, and it get the issues.

there were a lot of activists that stopped a lot of really horrible developments in san francisco, years ago. but it's not the same thing. there's not enough housing. there's just not enough housing for the people living there. - ok, so housing, we have two minutes, housing, what else? - i think the income inequality and how to deal with the terrible drug issues in san francisco, and mental health issues. - is there something that could be done that you're aware of? - i don't have a good answer so i'm not going to give you one. so i don't know, i could make it up, but i wouldn't want to do that, but it's very clear that the mental health issues are severe among the homeless in san francisco, and so, i think that's something that has to be dealt with. also, making the city a more civil society, in terms of coming together, there's just so many differences that don't need to have happen. - let me give you one suggestion. fix the broadband divide in the community. - agreed, that's part of it. - honestly, here we sit, talking about technology. - google, years ago, tried to do this. they tried to put in, and there was a big fight, there was a big, ridiculous political fight to put in because it was google, it was this,

and we don't have widespread. why shouldn't san francisco be the place where broadband? north korea has, not north korea, but north korea probably does. south korea has better broadband. everyone has better broadband. why is the greatest city in the world for technology have not broadband? at one point, the google guys did, gavin neeson told me this want to put in a chairlift on the hills, but i'm not gonna do that. to keep people up the hills. - a chairlift? - no, the two google guys, they're a little kooky. but they want to put a chairlift up the (laughs) - well, mayor, if you get elected-- - there are no chairlifts in my administration. - in the swisher administration, there will be no chairlifts - possibly hover boards, but not chairlifts. - ok, i'm down with that, that's good. nice to see you. - thank you so much. - good luck with your campaign. - well, i'm gonna do my journalism for a while longer first. - [evan] this would be mayor in what year? - after my kids get out of the age where they get arrested. - save that one for the next year. kara swisher, thank you very much. - thank you you so much. - kara swisher. (applause) - [voiceover] we'd love to have you join us in the studio. visit our website at klru.org/overheard to find invitations to interviews,

q&as with our audience guests, and an archive of past episodes. - there's something gone wrong there, in the way the government is set up to deal with that kind of thing. they don't know how to send emails, some of them know how to use twitter, some of them know how to use facebook, and things like that, and they understand the importance of "let's get a young person to help them," but if you're a politician in this day and age, and you do not understand digital media, you really, you should not be making legislation about it. - [voiceover] funding for overheard with evan smith is provided, in part, by mfi foundation, improving the quality of life within our community, also by hillco partners, a texas government affairs consultancy, and by the alice kleberg reynolds foundation.