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- They're here to make money

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and they're doing it in certain
ways that take advantage

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of our data and things we paid for

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that we are now paying them for.

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- So Kerry, you've got two podcasts,

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you've started businesses,
you've got a lot going on.

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I do. But now you have a book out. I do.

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What made you want to write a book?

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- I wanted to kill some trees.
That was my goal. You got

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- At least a couple here.

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- Yeah, I just, I, you
know, I took a long time.

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I'm very late on this book. It
actually, as it's turned out,

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it's good timing because
everyone's lost their minds.

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It feels like in tech and it's
a generative. AI is coming.

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So timing wise it's quite good.

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But I was reluctant 'cause
I was still in the game.

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I'm still in it.

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But Walt Mossberg,
who's my longtime mentor

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and partner in the
various businesses we did,

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decided not to write his.

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And when he did, I thought
someone has to tell people

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what these people were like.

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For some reason people
expect me to do a news book,

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but I wasn't interested.

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It was a memoir. This
is what I think of them.

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This is my take. You can disagree with it.

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You couldn't love Elon or
Haiti, whatever. I don't care.

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This is my version of what
I thought they were like.

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And I knew them when bef
then the before, times

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before they were rich,
before they were powerful,

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before it worked.

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And some of them were left along the road.

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Not everybody made it along the way,

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but the ones that did, I
saw them a long time ago.

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- So you don't hear the CEO
of ExxonMobil talking about

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how we're gonna save the world?

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No. You, why is it that the
tech industry is always selling

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us this line about utopia and the,

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and the future that they're
building and how generous they

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- Are?

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You know, without getting
into their personal therapy

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sessions, I think they
really partially believe it.

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You know, the first line of
this book is, it was capitalism

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after all.

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And I wanted to say that because
I always thought a lot of

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that stuff was nonsense.

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I did a lot of articles at the beginning

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saying it was nonsense.

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And at the beginning it was funny.

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It was like, oh, I'm
Chief Experience officer.

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Chief Officer of fun.

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And then I would say, and yet
they own controlling shares.

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And so they're also king.

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So they get to, you know, make up

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stupid titles for themselves.

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Or I'd make fun of their clothes

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that they pretended they were
like a regular PE person when

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they weren't, none of
them were regular people.

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I just thought it, a
lot of it was nonsense.

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But they believed it.

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'cause they couldn't just
say like a banker, I'm here

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to take all your money.

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Right. That kind of thing.
They didn't wanna do that.

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They needed to be heroes
of their own story.

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And that has to do with psychology

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and the idea that they're saviors

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and that we treat them like magicians,

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when in fact they're just
capitalists. That's all they are.

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- Do you think that's gonna happen again,

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that kind of myopia? I

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- Don't think anybody's, I
think the bloom's off the roads,

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everyone gets it that these are
the most powerful companies.

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If you're a parent, you get it.

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You realize if you're a
worker, you're tethered

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to these companies.

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You do see their strength and hugeness

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and I, I think that, I think
nobody's under the impression

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that they're here to help us.

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You know, I, I make the
joke on one of my excerpts

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and it wasn't in the book
actually the famous Twilight Zone

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episode to Serve Man.

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It's a cookbook, you know?
Right. It's a cookbook.

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It's not that they're here
to help us, they're here

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to make money and they're
doing it in certain ways

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that take advantage of our data

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and things we paid for that
we are now paying them for.

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And so I think a lot
of people are onto it.

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Not that it's not, some
of it's not useful,

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but it's just like a product.

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Like any other, it's
like a car. It's a car.

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And I think it, when cars started

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or when electricity happened, you know,

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Thomas Edison was quite a
bit of a jazz hands fella.

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Like he's the wizard of Menlo Park,

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if you remember New Jersey.

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He wasn't a wizard, he was an inventor

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and he was quite aggressive
in his need to control

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that new technology,
which was electricity.

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- You know, you've been a tech
journalist for decades now

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and you've really been a pioneer,

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not just in focusing on the business,

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but also the ways that it's being covered.

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Sure. Starting new companies.

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Is there anything that you regret

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or you wish the industry

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as a whole had done
differently along the way?

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- You know, I was a beat
reporter for a long time.

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I wish I had gotten to being
more of a analysis person,

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which I did in 2007.

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We couldn't start our website early

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'cause the journal was so slow footed

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and we, so we started the conference first

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and that made a lot of money.

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So that's why we did it.

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And I wish we had started
the blog news site in 2002

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'cause we were pretty tough
once we started going.

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So I wish we had done that.

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And we were very early as
it was doing what we were,

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you know, we're doing a version
of lots of people doing now.

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I wish I had been a little more vocal,

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I guess, but I was a beat reporter.

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So it's very, it was a, I think about it,

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you really couldn't do it at the time.

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So maybe that, that's what I would do.