How private equity kills companies and communities

"Blade Runner 2049" actor Jared Leto talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about portraying Niander Wallace, a trillionaire tech mogul. By the start of the new movie, Wallace has saved humanity from starvation and rebooted the development of humanlike robots, known as Replicants. Leto, who is also a musician and tech investor, says he chooses to be optimistic about the future in spite of the movie's dystopian tone and explains how he approached playing an antagonist to Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford. (Spoiler warning: This episode discusses the themes and story of "Blade Runner 2049," including the fate of some of the major characters.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

7 Okt 201731min

Investor Ellen Pao talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about her new book, “Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change,” which chronicles Pao’s 2015 court battle against her former employer, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. She reflects on why the gender discrimination lawsuit ultimately failed, and why Pao believes it nevertheless laid the groundwork for future whistleblowers like ex-Uber employee Susan Fowler. She also talks about her ensuing work as interim CEO of Reddit, what she thinks of the controversial memo written by former Google engineer James Damore, and why we shouldn’t take tech companies’ proclamations of “free speech” idealism at face value. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

2 Okt 20171h 7min

Sally Quinn, the author of "Finding Magic: A Spiritual Memoir," talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about her new book and her career in journalism. Quinn got her start covering the Washington, D.C., party circuit for the Washington Post under its then-Editor Ben Bradlee, whom she later married. Quinn became an atheist early in her chilhood, but her views of religion evolved over time, leading her to become the Post's religion columnist and one of its first bloggers. She says the inspiration for her book came from how — in Bradlee's final years, when he developed dementia — she realized that taking care of him gave her life meaning. Plus: The real story behind the now-infamous "hexes" Quinn used to cast on people and why Donald Trump's real religion is the "prosperity gospel." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

27 Sep 20171h 5min

New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman and Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold talk with Recode's Kara Swisher at the 2017 Texas Tribune Festival in Austin. Both known for their coverage of Donald Trump's campaign and White House, they talk about how they accidentally became Trump reporters and what others in the media get wrong about the president. They also explain how they, as journalists, use Twitter — which Haberman calls "the anger video game" — and what they would be reporting on if they were not on the Trump beat. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

25 Sep 20171h 7min

Maha Ibrahim, a general partner at Canaan Partners, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about her more than 17 years in venture capital, joining Canaan right before the first dot-com bubble burst. Ibrahim says a lot of her fellow investors have only ever known tech as an "up and to the right" industry and she's concerned by the intense rate at which many companies are burning capital, even after they go public. She also talks about the recent backlash against men in tech who have sexually harassed women, calling Reid Hoffman's decency pledge "the lowest of low bars." The bigger challenge for women going forward, Ibrahim explains, will be helping other women succeed even though there is no obvious female equivalent in tech of Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

18 Sep 20171h 3min

New York University professor Scott Galloway returns to the podcast to talk with Recode’s Kara Swisher about his first book, “The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google,” which comes out on Oct. 3. Galloway predicts that Amazon will launch a weekly auto-delivery service called Prime Squared to encourage its highest-value customers to buy more, and forecasts that the company’s next logical acquisition after Whole Foods would be the luxury department-store chain Nordstrom. He also talks about why companies want to be seen as politically progressive today, why Airbnb will be worth more than Uber and why, if you boil Apple’s brand down to one word, it's “sex.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

11 Sep 20171h 9min

Chris Urmson, the CEO of Aurora and former CTO of self-driving cars at Google, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about when autonomous vehicles will replace human-driven ones. Urmson, who started working on the technology at Carnegie Mellon University in the mid-2000s, predicts we'll see fleets of self-driving cars on some roads within five years, but that they won't completely take over for at least 30 years. He talks about the remaining challenges to making these vehicles completely safe — including the danger of their operators becoming complacent about the technology — and how their arrival will impact everything from government to public transportation to fast-food jobs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

4 Sep 20171h 5min

Social Capital CEO Chamath Palihapitiya talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about the future of capitalism and investing, which he says will look less and less like traditional venture capital, as firms like his embed themselves at a deep operational level in their companies. Palihapitiya also discusses why investors delude themselves into believing their own bravado, what he thinks of James Damore's Google memo and why Silicon Valley needs to deal with more than just the "low-hanging fruit" of sexual harassment. He evaluates the biggest tech companies of today — including Twitter, Amazon and Facebook — and predicts that the new CEO of Uber will have one of the most important jobs in the country.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

28 Aug 20171h 16min