Some history: Here is an interesting piece I did in 2016 on David Sacks, who is now one of the leaders at Twitter, in which he apologized calling rape “belated regret” in a book he wrote with Peter Thiel in 1996. Note too $70k to @HillaryClinton campaign: vox.com/2016/10/24/133…
And here is one in which we talk about his laudable attempt to revive the then troubled Zenefits — he was a very different dude back then, as you can see: vox.com/2016/10/18/133…
Lastly, tho there are many, he was apparently at Code Enterprise in 2016, along with other guests like @GavinNewsom but not sure he came as I cannot find the video! But it sure was a much more collegial time when the topic was real biz and not lords & ladies controversy grifting.
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Capitalism is a bitch. Also karma. Also sometimes, if I am being honest, Kara, tho not when calling out this crybaby billionaire nonsense. It’s a business and they’d advertise with Satan Inc. if it sold stuff.
I’ve decided to take my tweet threads many seems to like here & make them into audio essays for On With Kara Swisher podcast, so I can at least not paint the fence for free for people who want to charge me for nothing. Once it is up, will add here for those who prefer to read.
Here’s the latest pod where I have those few choice words. I also did an epic interview with @johnlegend about music, creativity and his now broken relationship with Kanye West from when they came up together: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/on-…
And here’s the essay, tho I added a few things as I spoke so it might not be exact: For those think I don’t want to pay $8 a month for a blue check because I think Elon is an asshole, let me make clear that while his homophobic tweet about Paul Pelosi’s attack tweaked me good …
So essentially lords who can pay get better services and peasants without means to fork over dough to the world’s richest man are screwed as usual. Got it. Pretend it’s some class warfare thing, but I never asked for the blue check and it’s meaningless to me overall.
I’ll leave aside the irony of the world’s richest man who’s been jetting to elite Halloween celebrity parties all week schooling us all on lords & peasants. My Halloween was a little less fancy, like $4.99 for lights on sale at CVS, half as much for blue check I ain’t paying for.
Actually, everyone should get a blue check for the health of the platform. There’s nothing to be done about real assholes except blocking/muting them. Then those who want to remain anonymous would have their activities limited.
Tumescent no. I pay half as much for Apple Music, get all the songs I like including ones that help me put my 1 year old to bed and @tim_cook doesn’t feel the need to tweet homophobic shitty news for laffs. Yeah fuck that.
Stiff no. @amazon Prime costs $5 less, I get all my deliveries of all manner of stuff fast and free, also get free video and @JeffBezos is looking good, has a great ex in @mackenziescott and makes penis-shaped rockets which is always good for a laugh.
I’m not leaving Twitter, where I am an active user and I also am trying to create some substantive content via @TwitterSpaces. But I am def evaluating how actually good it is for my various biz endeavors, like organic marketing for the pod, more than ever. Personal enjoyment too.
But, as with other tech sites I used to use a lot (Instagram), I will leave if it becomes a shitty experience for me. This is a squarely product issue and if it’s not delightful or useful or must have, I tend to move along. If it gets overrun by assholes, it’s an easy choice.
But if it gets out of this navel-gazing and rah-rah the bird is free period — it will — I’d be excited to see some innovation here. I love Twitter and I hope I do not come to hate it.