Kara Swisher

Kara Anne Swisher (born December 11, 1962) is an American journalist.

Swisher studied Propaganda and received a BS in literature and journalism from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service (SFS) at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. in 1984.

In 1985, she received her MS in journalism from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

She also "spent some time" at Duke University studying misinformation and Propaganda, which Swisher stated were "always my area of study".

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Swisher received a fellowship that allowed her to live almost a year in Kreuzberg, Berlin.

Preparing for future employment within "the security apparatus", she attempted to learn German, but never mastered the language.

Swisher worked at the Washington City Paper in Washington, D.C. She interned at The Washington Post in 1986 and was later hired full-time.

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.

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 period, she was cited as the most influential reporter covering the internet by Industry Standard magazine.

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.

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, such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Larry Ellison.

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.

The first, Burn Book: A Tech Love Story, was released in February 2024.

In 2014 she co-founded Vox Media's Recode.

On January 1, 2014, Swisher and Mossberg struck out on their own with the Recode website, based in San Francisco.

In the spring of 2014 they held the inaugural Code Conference near Los Angeles.

Vox Media acquired the website in May 2015.

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.

She has also written for The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, the All Things Digital conference and the online publication All Things D. A self-described "liberal, lesbian Donald Trump of San Francisco" in 2016, she expressed interest in running for political office in San Francisco.

Swisher lived in Roslyn Harbor, New York, until her father died when she was five years old.

Afterward her family moved to Princeton, New Jersey, where she was raised.

From 2018 to 2022, she was an opinion writer for The New York Times, before re-joining Vox Media.

In September 2018, Recode and Vox Media launched Pivot, a semi-weekly news commentary podcast co-hosted by Swisher and Scott Galloway.

Swisher became a contributing writer to the New York Times' Opinion section in August 2018, focusing on tech.

She has written about topics such as Elon Musk, Kevin Systrom's departure from Instagram, Google and censorship, and an internet Bill of Rights.

In a 2019 interview, she said “I grew up very wealthy”.

In a 2021 interview with Bryan Elliott for Inc.'s Behind The Brand, Swisher stated that, as a child, she always wanted to work either in the military, with military intelligence, or with the CIA.

She wrote for The Hoya, Georgetown's original school newspaper, until she left to write for The Georgetown Voice, the university's younger, scruffier, liberal alternative newspaper.

In April 2020, New York Magazine announced Pivot would be joining the magazine's properties, subsequently dropping the Recode branding, and Swisher would also be joining as editor-at-large.

In May 2020, Swisher wrote on Twitter that she had not been involved in editing or assigning stories on Recode for many years.

In September 2020, the Times premiered Sway, a semiweekly podcast hosted by Swisher focused on the subject of power and those who wield it, with Nancy Pelosi featured as her first guest.

Other guests have included Georgia politician and voting rights activist Stacey Abrams, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky, actor Sacha Baron Cohen, Apple CEO Tim Cook, entrepreneur Mark Cuban, Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates, former Presidential candidate Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), United States Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, film director Spike Lee, Parler CEO John Matze, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, USSF CSO Gen. John W. Raymond, and social activist and celebrity Monica Lewinsky.

In June 2022, Swisher announced she'd be leaving the New York Times to pursue a new project at Vox Media's New York Magazine.

Swisher became an editor-at-large at New York Magazine and the host of On with Kara Swisher in September 2022.

The first episode of 'On' premiered September 26.