She’s been called “Silicon Valley’s most feared and well-liked journalist” (New York Magazine) and the “grumpy lady of tech” (by herself). Kara Swisher, known for hard-hitting interviews with the most influential people in tech, is the executive editor of Recode and host of the Recode Decode podcast.
The Q&A portion of this event will be moderated by Margaret O’Mara, Professor of History at the University of Washington.
This event is for anyone interested in the role of social media in our current political landscape, those who want more accountability in the tech industry, and people who want to be more thoughtful about their own internet usage.
Swisher co-founded Recode and, before that, co-produced and co-hosted The Wall Street Journal’s “All Things Digital” conference with Walt Mossberg, the leading high-tech conference with interviewees such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and many other major players in the tech and media industries.
Swisher worked in The Wall Street Journal’s San Francisco bureau. For many years, she wrote the column, “BoomTown,” which appeared on the front page of the Marketplace section and on The Wall Street Journal Online. Previously, Swisher covered breaking news about the web’s major players and internet policy issues, and she wrote feature articles on technology for the paper. She has also written the weekly column “Home Economics” for the Personal Journal on home issues.
Swisher 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. 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.
Previously, Swisher worked as a reporter at the Washington Post and as an editor at the Washington City Paper. She received her undergraduate degree from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and her graduate degree at Columbia University’s School of Journalism.
Margaret O’Mara is Professor of History at the University of Washington and a widely acclaimed author and teacher of American political and economic history. She is the author of Cities of Knowledge (Princeton, 2005) and Pivotal Tuesdays (Penn Press, 2015). Her next book, The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America, will be published in July 2019 by Penguin Press. O’Mara is a Distinguished Lecturer of the Organization of American Historians and a past fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the National Forum on the Future of Liberal Education. She received her MA/PhD from the University of Pennsylvania and her BA from Northwestern University. Prior to her academic career, she worked in the Clinton White House and served as a contributing researcher at the Brookings Institution. She lives in the Seattle area with her husband Jeff and two daughters.
