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Burn Book

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Burn Book

By: Kara Swisher
Narrated by: Kara Swisher
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About this listen

 From award-winning journalist Kara Swisher comes a witty, scathing, but fair accounting of the tech industry and its founders who wanted to change the world but broke it instead.

While tech titans bragged they would 'move fast and break things', Kara Swisher was moving faster and breaking news. Covering the explosion of the digital sector in the early 1990s, she developed a long track record of digging up and reporting the truth of this new world order. Her consistent scoops drove one CEO to accuse her of "listening in the heating ducts" and for Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg to once say: 'It is a constant joke in the Valley when people write memos for them to say, "I hope Kara never sees this."'

Burn Book is part memoir, part history and, most of all, a necessary recounting of tech's most powerful players. This is the inside story we've all been waiting for of modern Silicon Valley and the biggest boom in wealth creation in the history of the world.

While still in college, Swisher got her start at The Washington Post, where she became one of the few people in journalism interested in the emerging field of tech. She was among the first to recognize the potential of the internet, accurately predicting that 'everything that could be digitized, would be digitized.' She went on to work for The Wall Story Journal, joining with Walt Mossberg to start the groundbreaking AllThingsD conference, as well as pioneering online tech sites.

It's only a slight exaggeration to say Swisher has interviewed everyone. Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Bob Iger, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Meg Whitman, Peter Thiel, and Mark Zuckerberg are just a few who Swisher made sweat-figuratively and, in one famous case, literally.

Despite the damage she chronicles, Swisher remains optimistic about tech's potential to help solve problems and not just create them. She calls upon the industry to make better, more thoughtful choices, even as a new set of powerful AI tools are poised to change the world yet again. At its heart, this book is a love story to, for, and about tech from someone who knows it better than anyone.

Burn Book includes soaring tales of innovation and brilliant entrepreneurs, as well as Silicon Valley's much more complex history of striving, success, and failure. The book details how the commercial internet came into being and how, for all it has given the world, it now sits at the center of global power, creating a clear and present danger to humanity.©2024 Kara Swisher Business Business Development & Entrepreneurship Engineering Entrepreneurship Professionals & Academics Technology Witty Capitalism

Critic Reviews

Most people in this town stab you in the back, but [Kara] stabbed me in the front, and I appreciate that (John McLaughlin, former host, The McLaughlin Group)
She has a coffee before bed every night, after midnight. This seems somehow emblematic to me. (In a good way) (Ben Smith, media writer guy and other reportrepreneur besides Kara)
A force in the industry (Meredith Kopit Levien, CEO, The New York Times)
It is a constant joke in the Valley when people write memos for them to say, "I hope Kara never sees this" (Sheryl Sandberg, former COO, Facebook (before it was called Meta, in order to hide in plain sight))
She's willing to get into the brawl with me (Ari Emanuel, Endeavor CEO and well-known brawler)
There she was with a front- row seat to the mining of great intellectual property - using technology, really - as a means of creating value [and] in effect turned the results of her own reporting on herself (Bob Iger, CEO of Disney, two times)
Part of the power of her podcast is there's a sense of somebody who has been here the whole time and is kind of fed up (Casey Newton, tech journalist (and former renter of Kara’s guest cottage in San Francisco))
Kara has become so shrill at this point that only dogs can hear her (Elon Musk, Tesla guy, May 2023)
I have rarely seen evil in as pure a form as Yoel Roth and Kara Swisher's heart is filled with seething hate. I regard their dislike of me as a compliment (Elon Musk (who could use a compliment these days), September 2023)
Swisher, the bad-ass journalist and OG chronicler of Silicon Valley . . . takes no prisoners in this highly readable look at the evolution of the digital world . . . Bawdy, brash and compulsively thought-provoking, just like its author, Burn Book sizzles
The most recognizable chronicler of the digital revolution
Nobody straddles the world of tech and media quite like Kara Swisher... This book isn't just a juicy read, it's also a valuable historical document, giving readers an inside look at the architects of some of the biggest tech moments of the last thirty years (Charlotte Alter)
An exposé that also seeks to avert technological calamity on the perilous road still ahead
Funny, smart, chic-y, and insightful (Katie Couric)
Burn Book shows how understanding these leaders' pasts can illuminate their current motivations and aspirations
Swisher has been the most entrepreneurial of reporters, both in the doggedness of her work and the ever-evolving array of venues where it's manifested itself
Unlike the mythological Cassandra whose prophecies were ignored, both the 'children' and adults will pay heed to [Kara Swisher's] warnings
As existential questions confront both the tech and media industries. . . Swisher takes no prisoners, offering readers a behind-the-curtain peek at the industry's most powerful and ego-obsessed titans
All stars
Most relevant
What a ride Kara has had and continues to have in the ever changing tech industry.
The book messages and musings are genuine, cynical and insightful.

I loved Kara’s many tech industry personality reflections and society ripple implications.
It’s hard not to admire Kara for not taking the money and joining the tech bros. She is amazing.
While i finished the audio book in a few sittings the impact for me will be long lasting.
Great read and I recommend the book

amazing chronicle of Kara’s career - what a ride

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I thought it was just superb…fascinating stories of the last 30+ years in this industry.
The author has a great voice but at times seemed to rush the words and her voice was sometimes husky…no one is perfect hey, overall riveting.

Analysis and insight ++

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I learnt so much about the tech industry that I was previously unaware. The author is funny and fun to listen to. Thank you.

Insightful and funny

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Really enjoyed this. Takes you through the history of tech innovation from the 90s with an unflinching take on consequences, egos and characters. The last of which the writer was one herself.

Fun and interesting

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Outstanding memoir from the Queen of questions, Kara Swisher. Listen to the very end, the index is worrh it! A fast paced story from a woman with a fast tongue and faster mind for anyone who wants to begin at the beginning of the age of tech in the US. Completely transfixed from whoa to go. Loved it

Kara loves hard

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