WIRED's Editor on Elon, Trump & Silicon Valley's War on the Press

[00:00:00] We're talking about a trillion dollar industry. We're talking about an industry that wields an enormous amount of control. Every single facet of the way we live our lives is in some way shaped by the technology industry. It is WIRED's responsibility in this moment to ask serious questions about the incumbents, about this industry, about these companies, how they are being run. How is this technology being commercialized? The narrative that we hate technology is ridiculous.

[00:00:25] As a business, we're doing very well. It may not be the audience that WIRED drew 20 years ago. They were the rebels and the renegades and the creatives and the freaks and the lunatics, right? And I mean all of those things with the highest compliment because I love that kind of person. Every podcast I do, I talk with Claude for a little bit like, oh, what's interesting? And it thought that I was going to interview you and slit your throat, right? And you're asking questions. It thought you were going to come gunning for me.

[00:00:49] Tech wants to take over WIRED magazine. The once friendly cheerleader for all things quirky and tech is now fairly sour. Leading WIRED is Katie Drummond, the global editorial director. She was once in the Gawker empire. I worked with her briefly at Bloomberg. And now she's in the hot seat with tech elite, like Peter Thiel acolyte, Trey Stevens, saying they want to buy WIRED and basically reverse her strategy.

[00:01:16] So we got into what she's trying to achieve at WIRED, the reporting they're doing and the debate about tech journalism. Welcome to the Newcomer podcast hosted by me, Eric Newcomer, author and creator of the Newcomer Substack. Find us at Newcomer.co for an insider's look into venture capital and everything going on in Silicon Valley. Katie Drummond, global editorial director of WIRED.

[00:01:45] Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for having me. Nice to see you again. Yeah, it's been a long time. It's been a long time. We were briefly both at Bloomberg. Yeah, I would say 10 years ago I was there, a little longer. Oh my God, yeah. I guess you were at the beginning of my time there. Yeah. When did you leave? Oh man, I left in 2020 to start Newcomer. Okay. Wow, that was a long time ago. Yeah. So we, there's lots to talk about.

[00:02:11] I think it's funny that I'm fresh off, you know, the most recent podcast episode. I wasn't sure if he was going to show up, you know, this guy, Aron Ping D’Souza, who's funded by Peter Thiel as a whole startup, you know, antagonizing the media, trying to help people subject of its scrutiny respond. And here now it's sort of the, the media sort of class itself embodied, you know, a condo and ass. Oh my God. I don't know about that.

[00:02:36] No, I know you think for yourself, but I'm excited to have sort of the media side of the conversation. Well, and I, I mean, I was at Gawker Media when, uh, when the bankruptcy happened. So I lived it. Thank you to all involved. That was a really special time in my career. What, what was your role at Gawker at the time? I was the editor in chief of Gizmodo.

[00:02:55] And then when Univision, as Univision was acquiring us out of bankruptcy, I took over as editorial director, overseeing the portfolio of brands, um, which previously John Cook had been doing. Um, and that was right as Gawker was being shuttered because Univision didn't want to buy that asset. Um, so I ran the, the brands, the blogs, love a blog. Uh, I ran the blogs through the Univision acquisition and then yada, yada, yada was pregnant.

[00:03:24] And at some point was like, I don't think the baby and I can survive in this environment. Like I was like, I have to leave. It was really a lot of stress. Because of your job or because of the bankruptcy? Because no, no. I mean the, the job stability thing I'm very sort of comfortable with the fact that there is none. Yeah. Um, ever in media, it was like a, like mental health and stress. And just sort of, it was really tough.

[00:03:50] Um, but sorry, brought on by the lawsuit or brought on by the way Gawker as a company? Just the whole thing. I mean, going through the bankruptcy, going through Gawker shutting down the, the level of stress that the, the entire staff was dealing with and the scrutiny and the eyeballs and the commentary and trying to sort of, and then Univision coming in, which was like a very different kind of media company to say the least. Yeah. Um, and trying to sort of like bridge that divide was really tough. I think in this moment in my career, I would have embraced that challenge.

[00:04:20] I think in that moment I was trying to have a baby. Yeah. And it was, it was not going to thrive. I think. I think the writing was on. There was no way to sort of. I think it was a match made in hell. Make that way. Yeah. It was not, not long for this world. Um, you know, I reached out to have you on because it Trey Stevens, you know, one of the top partners at Founders Fund decided to tweet like, I want to buy wired, you know, it's not working. And Gary Tan, I think wrote basically an essay and Palmer lucky.

[00:04:49] It was like, Oh yeah, it's not the wired. I once knew what, what do you, yeah. What was your response is wired up for sale? Are you selling to Trey Stevens? We are not selling to Trey Stevens. I'm not the CEO of Condé Nast. Someone else is lucky enough to have that job, but no wired is not for sale. Um, I love working at Condé Nast. I love working for Anna. I love working for Roger. They're very supportive of the work that we do. We're on a really good run. We're having a lot of success.

[00:05:15] Um, and so I think the narrative that it's, that it's not working, um, it may not be working for some people, right? It was out of touch with the business story of wired. It's like, they might not like the message. As a business, we're doing very well as an editorial operation. We're also finding a really receptive audience. Um, it may not be the audience that wired drew 20 years ago, but that was 20 years ago. It's not 20 years ago today. Today is today. It's 2026.

[00:05:42] Um, you know, look, I, it's funny too, because I, um, am not on X. So my only interaction with this commentary is by way of like screenshot. Um, I simply like, I'm not available to participate in that dialogue. They're welcome to reach out anytime. I'm happy to have a conversation with any of them. Um, we've had many of them, you know, sit down with wired in the two and a half years that I've been running it. Trey sat down for an interview with Steven a little over a year ago. I had Alexis Ohanian on the podcast that I host.

[00:06:12] Um, that's Steven Levy you were referenced. Steven Levy sat down with Trey and that was a great interview. And Alexis and I had a great conversation. Um, I think he was also on board the Trey buys wired train, Twitter train. Alexis Ohanian. Yes. Oh, yes. Um, look, I mean, but yeah, what do you make of it? I mean, fundamentally, I guess the critique is basically wired used to be for the tech industry. Now it's against it. I mean, they're not wrong that wired is fairly skeptical of the tech industry now. Like why, why the turn?

[00:06:42] You know, I saw, I was reading actually an interview Steven did with Nick Bostrom, um, from last week. And he described himself in that interview as a, as a fretful optimist. And I loved that. And I think that that speaks a lot to who I am and sort of how I identify and, and how I think about wired.

[00:07:00] And I think one of the key distinctions that it's really important for me to make about how we cover the tech industry and technology and how it's commercialized and how it's deployed is that a lot of the people who are feeling anguish about wired and what we do and how we do it in this moment. And the establishment were the insurgents 20 years ago, 30 years ago. They were the rebels and the renegades and, and the creatives and the freaks and the lunatics. Right. And I mean all of those things with the highest compliment, because I love that kind of person.

[00:07:29] They were doing new, big, bold things. They were taking new, big, bold bets. They are now in many cases. And again, this is not a monolith. They are the incumbents. They are running billion dollar VC firms. They are running billion dollar companies. They are the establishment and the establishment vis-a-vis the tech industry. We're talking about a trillion dollar industry. We're talking about an industry that wields an enormous amount of control about how we live our lives.

[00:07:57] Every single facet of the way we live our lives is in some way shaped by the technology industry. It is wired's responsibility in this moment, I believe, to ask serious questions about the incumbents, about this industry, about these companies, how they are being run. How is this technology being commercialized? How is it or is it not being regulated? And what voice does the tech industry have in that conversation?

[00:08:21] Those are really material questions when we think about the way people live now and the way they will live in the future, which is what wired is all about. That doesn't mean that we used to love the tech industry and now we hate it. I think that's a very simplistic and damagingly simplistic narrative. I simply don't think that that's true. What we do aspire to do, though, is champion and celebrate the renegades and insurgents and interesting thinkers and people who are really trying new things.

[00:08:50] I want to stand to hold those people up and champion them and cover them and do so with, of course, rigorous journalism, but with great enthusiasm. And I think you're going to see we have a really interesting project at the end of the year that is designed to do exactly that and to really sort of plant that that stake in the ground for wired is like, no, we are actually a place that does this. The narrative that we hate technology is ridiculous. So you're making an effort to sort of seek out things in tech that you're excited about or what's the effort? Exactly.

[00:09:20] But again, I'm not looking to Amazon. I'm not looking to Meta. Like, that's not where I'm looking for those stories. I'm trying to find the people, the new upstarts who are trying new things. Like, I want to find that. Like, we just we have this package coming out in a couple of weeks about AI and work, and it's all sorts of different stories in all sorts of different formats. It's really fun. But for example, like one of the pieces I wanted in that package was what are people vibe coding?

[00:09:46] Like, just like normal, like teenagers, people in their garages, you know, someone after work on the couch. Like, what is the cool stuff that people are making? Like, I want to cover that. But I don't cover Meta or Amazon or any of these behemoths the same way I would cover sort of one person with a crazy idea. I think we need to look at those two things differently. And I think that's what Wired is doing. In your answer, it's sort of like Silicon Valley. They were the underdogs now sort of they're the big dogs. Obviously, the coverage would be different.

[00:10:15] I think there's also a piece of it that was sort of our reaction in the newsletter. In Newcomer was just the tech set sort of acts like there was these wired people and then there are these new people and they've totally ruined the brand. But in some ways, like people like Steven Levy, it's like their view, people grow. Like they watch the tech industry behave a certain way. Yeah. And their own attitudes have changed over time. Like in some ways, what the tech industry has done has soured some people about certain aspects of how they-

[00:10:43] I mean, I don't know that I would use the word soured, Eric. Sour too many. But I would say like, you know, critical thinking is a really important attribute for a journalist. And I think Steven is such a good example of this. Steven has been in and covering the industry for many, many decades. He's done fantastic work. He's authored books. He's, you know, does all sorts of great journalism.

[00:11:01] He wrote what I think is probably one of my favorite wired stories that we've run in the last two and a half years, which was a cover story last year about how Silicon Valley had transformed itself to more closely align with the GOP and the Trump administration. Steven Levy wrote that story. Steven Levy's view from where he sits, looking at Silicon Valley and saying like, what happened? What happened here? And he just sought to answer that question. And he wrote a fantastic piece about it.

[00:11:30] So I would not say soured, but I think there is a necessity to ask harder questions than maybe we were asking in the early 2000s when social media was poised to connect the world and make everybody happy, healthy and wealthy. And, you know, the Arab Spring and this is the great democratizer and yada, yada, so forth and so forth. I think social media has done a lot of of I think social media has done some good things for it.

[00:11:58] Well, I think social media has been largely very damaging. Right. And I think social media has been incredibly ineffectively regulated. And I think a lot of people, including journalists, have learned hard lessons about what that coverage needs to look like to ask the hard questions now before in 10 years we're all looking backwards and saying like, yeah, I guess that actually didn't work out the way we all said it was going to.

[00:12:20] Right. I wonder if, you know, the poor behavior of social media has unfairly tainted the AI industry from the beginning or, you know, just the fit. I mean, clearly you see it with regulators where they didn't get in front of Facebook early enough. And now with AI, there's much more of a sense there was, but now they're not really doing it. Who knows? But like there was this sort of attitude of like, oh, we need to be much earlier this time. Like, do you think that's fair? I guess.

[00:12:46] I mean, to me, you know, I like a lot of things about AI that I didn't like about social media, like at its best, AI is sort of, you know, these models are judged based on how well they do on truth, you know, tests that assess, assess like true facts about the world. And like, in some ways they can be sort of a consensus builder instead of social media, which is just amplifying the stuff that gets us in grist. Obviously that all could change, but do we need to learn the lessons from social media when it comes, I guess, to the AI age?

[00:13:15] Well, I think that social media is a and sort of what happened there vis-a-vis regulation and sort of public perception, you know, early adoption, having your nine year old on Instagram, like all of these things. I do think it is a very worthwhile cautionary tale, right? And I think that that's really important. And I think that that will affect any new technology that is expected to or does have widespread adoption.

[00:13:39] And that creates the kind of industry and the kind of revenue potential that AI does. I mean, AI though, I would also say is separate and distinct from social media in that it is in and of itself an incredibly powerful transformational technology. And so I think, sure, social media offers us and hopefully lawmakers who I think very rarely actually deeply understand the technology that they're regulating. I do think it offers us that cautionary tale and that reminder that we need to get ahead of this stuff, right?

[00:14:09] Like lawmakers are not exactly known for moving quickly and with agility when it comes to regulating tech. But I but I also think that AI sort of stands as a league of its own in terms of how disruptive it has the potential to be. And so in my view, that cautionary tale, if social media provides one, is is a worthwhile tale to be paying attention to, because I think to let AI

[00:14:33] AI continue to be commercialized, be deployed, be introduced in all of these different environments to all of these different populations and cohorts without any meaningful regulation, in my view. And again, I'm sharing my view is a scary proposition. We're talking about the potential for significant job loss rate like workplace disruption that alone merits serious consideration, serious consideration. I just think there's a lot that we could talk about. I really disagree with the let them attitude.

[00:15:00] I mean, it's sort of in America and I feel like we should live in a world where the default is people are allowed to do whatever they want, you know, and there isn't this sort of assumption of the government needs to be in between something that's getting created and and the populace. And it's only if there's sort of actual evidence of significant harm that the government should step in versus an attitude. That is your view. Yeah, that's my view. But when you think about AI, do you see evidence of the potential for significant harm? Certainly. Certainly. Yeah.

[00:15:30] You know, like, I mean, people in the industry, of course, are worried about existential risks. There's certainly things that people should look at. So it's okay. So we agree. I agree that I couldn't tell if we were fighting or not. I disagree with like sort of the, I guess, burden of proof on regulation. I sort of think that it's sort of like it should be a pretty big deal to regulate something rather than a like regular regulator sort of sitting around and waiting for the opportunity. And I would also say. But don't you think that AI is that kind of big deal?

[00:16:00] I think it's. If anything in technology merits a close look from regulators. I just think like social media regulation has largely failed. Right. Like GDPR is like silly. Like it's almost like self parodying. And so I just don't have much optimism. I mean, you say that like the regulators don't really get the technology. So I don't really want to be encouraging people who don't get the technology to feel like, oh, we got to do something. Well, I think we're between a bit of a. When they've had a crack at it before they didn't do a very good job.

[00:16:28] I think we're between a bit of a rock and a hard place in this. I'm not saying that there's an. I'm not saying, oh, group of lawmakers, they're going to get together. They're going to come up with something really smart. And this is all going to be solved. I think it's going to be really messy. But I think to say, hands off, we got a race, race, race and get this everywhere. America, America. I am concerned about that tack. I think that that is concerning. Do I think that the lawmakers, you know, sitting around in D.C. right now are the right people to come together to solve this? No, not necessarily.

[00:16:58] I don't. But I think something meaningful does need to happen here. I mean, even talking about job loss and the potential for mass unemployment. That will, I imagine, require some kind of governmental intervention. If indeed what is being forecast by some of these people comes to pass. And again, that's an if. But it's feeling less and less like an if as things go on. I want to get even like more meta for a second. What's your relationship with like opinion? Right.

[00:17:25] So obviously you offer opinions. You know, you recently had it on Canning Valley, your podcast with the big interview that hacks creators on from the TV show. And you had a line that was like, you know, some of, I don't know if it was the tech industry or our readers want us, want me to be more sort of like gung ho about AI. Yeah. Maybe that I mean you are in this conversation already. You obviously have opinions. Like I love journalists having opinions. Like part of why I left Bloomberg was like, I wanted to say I was anti-Trump.

[00:17:54] I just like I wanted to also within the stuff I cover in Silicon Valley sometimes say, I don't know. And sometimes say, I don't know this story, the boring version of the story could lead you to a conclusion. I'm just gonna say I'm pretty convinced that this this is the thing. But but, you know, you have a publication with lots of different people that is often viewed from nowhere. Like what what is your view on sort of you as an individual hosting a podcast having opinions and then sort of how you think about opinion and the publication? That's a really good question.

[00:18:22] I mean, I think that wired it's interesting that you would say view from nowhere. Little tough. You know, writer like the writers don't you don't you don't like their phrase? Well, I think when I think about view from nowhere, I'm thinking like BBC. I think that one of the joys for me and and the places publications where I have flourished and been happiest is when. When there is the ability for writers to inject voice personality, sometimes point of view into their journalism.

[00:18:52] What I don't like is running a hot take factory and what I don't want wired to be. And I don't think we are by any means is, you know, a group of journalists sitting around like publishing screeds all day. I think that that is like kind of a poor use of everyone's time. I don't think that that's like helpful, but I want voice and personality in our stories. I want our journalists to feel like they can bring themselves to the page or to the video or to the podcast.

[00:19:16] And I like to have a degree of sort of flexibility and looseness with that while always sticking very, very much to the facts. I mean, I think the single most important thing that we can do is be factually accurate in our journalism. But we certainly have an institutional point of view. I mean, we have been very clear about what we think about the Trump administration. We're not offering sort of like a view from nowhere like the president of the United States did this. Right. Like we have things to say about what the president of the United States is doing right now.

[00:19:45] And you've had great coverage of Doge. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. And so it's been very strong. You know, you I feel like you came one of the sort of real accomplishments of your tenure. So thank you. Great. Like political tech. Well, you tell that to the Pulitzer committee because we tried and they didn't listen. But I appreciate it. Other you know, yes, it has been recognized and celebrated in the team did did such amazing work with that. And I'm very happy to bring myself to Wired.

[00:20:10] You know, I'm if people haven't noticed a girl, I'm the first woman to run Wired since 1999. I have points of view. I have, you know, my own considerations that I bring to these really nuanced, complicated issues such as AI. You know, I have a husband who loves AI. He loves it. It's all he does. He covers it professionally. He uses it day in and day out. He is like an avid, avid adopter.

[00:20:39] Who is his media? His name is Carl Franzen. He's the executive editor of VentureBeat. What a power couple. Yeah. Oh, yes, we're very powerful. But we also have an eight year old daughter. And so I'm thinking about it as a mom. I'm thinking as a parent sort of, you know, there's the social media bit of it for her. But also, how am I thinking about the ways she should and shouldn't be interacting with AI? What do I want her to be ready for? And then I have my own personal experiences and use cases. And so I think it's a good thing for journalists to be human beings.

[00:21:07] And I think audiences connect with humans. I think that that is sort of one of the things we have going for us, especially as AI sort of takes on more and more of the creative process and the editorial process in some parts of the Internet and some content operations, not at Wired, is that we're real people. And we're doing journalism and telling stories as real people and we're bringing ourselves to the publication. I think that that's valuable. I think audiences value that.

[00:21:33] So when I started Newcomer and I was like a guy, it is easy to say, like, what is the editorial perspective of Newcomer? Because it's what I believe personally. Yeah. Yeah. But I thought it created positive pressure on me to have like, what is my actual view? Like if I'm criticizing this, what am I sort of recommending?

[00:21:53] And I think as a publication gets bigger and it has sort of different points of view, but sort of a general stance, I guess my concern is that and this is how I get back to the regulation issue, that they're going to be sort of like opposed that we're like, we don't we don't like the tech industry. It should be regulated, but it's not like in one person or like sort of policy wonked in such a way that it's like this is the type of regulation we want from these people.

[00:22:22] And so you create this sort of like pro regulatory like posture that's not fully fleshed out. Like, do you see the critique I'm making or like it feels like you can sort of have like a posture without sort of like owning like, OK, what is what is the answer you're offering in terms like what regulations you want? Sure. I mean, I certainly don't think it's our job to offer policy recommendations or to have sort of a stringent, you know, institutional point of view on tech regulation.

[00:22:52] I think it's our job to have interesting conversations and ask interesting questions and to bring ourselves to those conversations. And I think for me, that's where it where it starts and ends. I think that Wired Big Picture has institutional points of view that that are reflected in the work of our journalists. But I think there's a lot of space in there to explore questions. It's like a conversation starter rather than. Yeah. And and I think that and this is true of many publications, but I think Wired 20 years ago,

[00:23:22] longer, whatever, in previous eras was very happy to position itself as a fortune teller and as a publication that had all the answers and knew where this was all going. Hmm. And I think one of the differences with me, people can like it or hate it, is that I think that that's a lie. And I think that no publication knows where this is all going. I think this is an incredibly complicated, transformational moment.

[00:23:51] And for us to posture as if we can tell the future and that we know where it's all going and how it should shake out would be incorrect and disingenuous. And I don't want to do that. I want to bring our audience along with us as we try to figure this out. I think that's the kind of the best distillation I can give you. I feel like our society like needs heroes.

[00:24:14] I don't know what the answer is, but I think part of why people got so mad at journalists is it was like, oh, quibble with everybody. But it's like, who is the hero? It sounds like maybe this project you're working on, you're like, oh, we're trying to identify some. But what do you see this problem of like we need to build as a society, build up some like this is who you should aspire to be. Or what do you think of the role of the journalists is creating like aspirational type figures?

[00:24:44] Well, never at the expense of accuracy. Yeah. But I do think part of Wired's role and and depending on what you cover as a journalist, part of your role is to say this person or this company or this startup or this institution, this academic institution. This is really interesting. This person is doing something really interesting or this person has a really interesting point of view that's that's different that you haven't heard before. And we're going to introduce you to them. I think that that is certainly within Wired's purview.

[00:25:12] I think candidly in the last two years, especially the last year and a half since Trump was elected. Look, I run a well resourced, healthy newsroom, but we cannot do everything all the time. And so I think I do think a lot of coverage has been very focused rightly on what the fuck is going on over there. Right. And we got to do that stuff. That is of paramount importance to me. And I prioritize that coverage. I do. But I do think there's more space for us to carve out in exactly what you're describing, which is saying like,

[00:25:42] that's really cool. And we're going to introduce you to this person. We're going to tell you about what they're doing. And so, again, we have found sort of like a lane where we can do that in a wired way that we're really excited about. And like, I do agree with you too, just to keep rambling. Um, things can feel really hard right now. Right. Things have felt hard for a long, like 10 years. Things have felt pretty tough. You know, Trump 1.0 COVID. It's just, it's like, ugh. Ugh.

[00:26:08] And I do worry about the sort of narrative around media and journalists as like doom and gloom, doom and gloom, doom and gloom. So dystopian, always so negative. Look, accountability journalism is accountability, ability journalism. And it's really important. It's, it's, it's what I do as a person as it's like in my blood. Um, but I do think finding those moments of levity for an audience, those moments of joy, of humor, of aspiration, um, finding things to celebrate.

[00:26:37] I, I do genuinely think that is really important. Um, and that is certainly something I want people to see with wired. I want them to feel that like, yes, they published that incredible investigation into, you know, Jim Dolan and Madison Square Garden. And then I read this piece about this incredible scientific discovery around Parkinson's disease. Like I want both of those things to exist in one place. And I think they can. And I think they do. I do think there's more we can do over here. And I think we have some fun plans to do it.

[00:27:03] But if I, you know, look at my own writing and some people watching this, we'll see this as a critique. Other people will like it. But I mean, I think our hero is sort of, you know, we do these like story of the cap table piece, which is investor like built up a position in the company and they made a lot of money. Like in some ways, newcomer doesn't cheer for like assholes. Like I've written very negatively about like Chamath, Polly Hoppatea. You know, we certainly snark about Elon plenty, but I think, you know, it's like a pro capitalist publication that celebrates people like doing.

[00:27:33] I guess the day to day business of Silicon Valley. And, you know, like a lot of these companies, I mean, you know, SaaS is getting destroyed, but, you know, a lot of companies are sort of boring software companies. They're not sort of Palantir. They're sort of like a moral, you know, making, you know, tech workers slightly more efficient or, you know, companies slightly more efficient. Like, do you have a house view or do you have a view against, I guess, the day to day of like the tech industry or sort of like boring software?

[00:28:01] Like, do you think that's like a bad thing for people to be doing? It's a good thing. Like what do you, because I feel like, you know, I had Kara Swisher on the podcast recently. Yeah, she told me. Oh, great. And I got sort of mad at her about like tech bros. I think she got mad at you too. Yeah. Yeah. We went back and forth and she said, you know, what's her version of it or? About what you're saying. Plus or minus a few additional details. I just think, well, you can say whatever you want. She's great. Yeah. No, I mean, I just think, you know, there's certainly people doing things I disagree with in the tech industry. Yeah.

[00:28:31] But I think the rank and file, like, I think the tech bro thing has just been so dismissive that it, like, we could have brought those people along, right? Like some of them have turned to this sort of like MAGA, anti-media, whatever, like anti-elite, just insanity. Partially because we can't say, oh, like, congratulations, you build a business and that's what society depends on. It's not my job though, to bring Mark Zuckerberg along. Not Mark Zuckerberg. It's not my job. That is not my job.

[00:28:56] But I'm asking about like the boring, you know, software CEO, like Mark Benioff. Like he used to be the like... Before he made ill-advised phone calls to the New York Times on his private jet, he was a cool dude. Yeah. I mean, but he was already like, yeah, it was going off the rails before that. I just look, I mean, it's, I just, it's not, it's not my job and I do not believe it is any journalist job to bring along executives. They, they are big boys. They're big guys. They're grownups. I'm a grownup.

[00:29:24] They make their own decisions about their political affiliations. They make their own decisions about how they want to receive the coverage. I want to know more about what Kara said in advance or what? She said you guys bickered. Right. Isn't it good though? She bickers with people all the time. Like I feel like... And then I was like, that's good to know. I better listen to that one. There, there, I just think... She does bicker. I mean, I'm not trying to, you know, I wasn't ready to dig her by surprise. This is going to live rent free in your head now. You're going to be sweating this one. No, no. She sent me a, like, you know, a very Kara response afterwards. I'm not surprised. Yeah. I think she likes to debate. I think that's...

[00:29:53] But I mean journalists, we push other people. Like don't you think journalists, I feel like we've, in some ways have sort of escaped some of the, the back and forth that we expect. Oh, like we push other people, but we don't like to be ourselves. And then we say, oh, I'm just sort of the person asking questions or like telling stories or whatever, you know? Well, sometimes that's true. Look, I'm not, I'm not running a multi-billion dollar conglomerate. Well, this is funny. So people are welcome to ask me questions. Exactly. They can email me. In the air and just use the thing. Just don't send more death threats. It is. Do you get a lot of death threats? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:30:24] That's terrible, obviously. Thank you. It's fine. It's part of the job, but like just email me and we can go back and forth. Like I'm happy to sit down and have coffee with Trey or whoever. Like it's not. Have you engaged with them at all or? Well, no, I'm not on Twitter. You know? It all, this all existed in Twitter. Has it, did it transcend Twitter in any way or? Yes. It transcended Twitter via screenshot into wired Slack. But no, no. But like I'm, I'm available.

[00:30:52] I don't see myself as being sort of like, I mean, look, the job of journalists is to ask questions, find stories, tell those stories. Like that's the job. Um, but for me as the overseer of a newsroom of journalists, like I'm happy to have a debate. I'm happy to sit down with someone and say, okay, you don't like what wired is doing. Let's talk about it. I'll tell you what I think you tell me what you think. You don't have to read it. I had a funny. I'm happy to have a debate. Balaji Srinivasan, you know, who used to work at Andreessen Horowitz and the author of the

[00:31:22] Network State and sort of a media antagonist, um, you know, went on one of the, like the monitoring the situation, you know, the new Andreessen tech show. Ah, yes. It is not, they're monitoring. Yeah, exactly. Not really going well, but Balaji and Taylor Lorenz sat down and it was funny. I felt like a subtext of it was that he was almost sad that like he could, he wasn't fighting with journalists anymore. They're like during the pandemic, we'd all like lost our minds and we're fighting with them.

[00:31:51] And then, but it was like, I, I, I, but they sort of retreated from direct engagement, right? Like Mark Andreessen will occasionally like put in his Twitter account, like, or like not, not up for us answering hard questions or I, you know, he changes it. I guess what I'm saying is that I agree with you that one of the virtues in the corner of journalists is that we're generally game to talk about it. And a lot of these people who actually like wield the levers of power, just like sidestep

[00:32:18] answering any hard questions and are literally like building their own media platforms to evade them. Yeah. They're what they're going direct, you know, they're going direct. Um, and they can do what they would like. I mean, that is their prerogative. I think, I think it is, um, I can understand why that has been the reaction. Like I get it. Um, but we're always here to talk and have conversations, you know, like we're available. We're available. Like you'd interview any of them. Of course. Right. Totally.

[00:32:48] And we have, and we have recently, you know, like we're, we're available. We're down. We're happy to do interviews. We're happy to have tough conversations. We're happy to disagree. Um, and for that to be adult and professional and diplomatic and respectful and all those things, but we're still going to cover the hell out of you. That's the job. To what extent do you think Silicon Valley is like anger that the media turned against it is really angry that like the public turned against it? A lot of it, a lot of it.

[00:33:16] And I think they see media as a vehicle by which that public sentiment was, you know, That it was the media's fault. Yeah. That the media moved it rather than reflecting. That, that, that the media sort of riled up the general public, um, and contributed to negative sentiment. I think what the media by and large, and again, this is not a monolith. I mean, different outlets approach things differently. They told stories that needed to be told. I mean, this is new.

[00:33:40] We publish newsworthy information and we have editors and lawyers and fact checkers to make sure that the information we're publishing is newsworthy information. A company doesn't have to, or an executive, they don't have to like what we're publishing, but the job is to publish it. And so I think this idea that we are as a monolith kind of like the bad guys who sowed public dissent, um, or, or dismay or disgust at this industry. I mean, I think it's a very overly simplistic narrative.

[00:34:09] I think what a lot of the public feels, and I think we're seeing this play out in AI now, is a loss of agency. I think they look at that industry and they feel like I, this is happening to me and I feel like I don't have a say and I'm very, very frustrated by that. Right? I think that a lot of it boils down to agency. And I think that that as, as AI continues to permeate through society, I think that's going to be really interesting. I know you don't love getting into prognosticating, but.

[00:34:39] Just where do you think this like negative sentiment towards AI goes? Like, no, I mean, I'm, that's the thing is I'm not a fortune teller, but I like to think about this stuff. I mean, I think that's, that's kind of the job is to, to think about it. And I think that's a really interesting question because I think there is so much ill will. I think there is so much anger. I think there is such a feeling of, of loss of control and loss of agency. And I think that that's fascinating.

[00:35:06] Um, I also think that if you look at a lot of the language coming out of the executives running these companies, they are not doing themselves any favors. You're not doing yourself any favors by coming out and saying all these jobs are going to be wiped out. Existential threat could be very bad. It's like they're not, they're not helping their case, you know? Well, what do you, yeah, I'm really torn on that issue specifically because at once as a journalist, I sort of root for them being honest.

[00:35:34] It's like, if they think, oh, there's a 10% chance every job is eliminated. They should say that on the other hand, Dario, that clip just like runs endlessly. It's, it's everywhere. I mean, I, I think about him saying that all the time because it just never goes away. And it's just a piece of his answer. I think it's like the full thing is like, if we don't do anything type. Yes. And I, and I think that they are operating unfortunately for them from a, from a place of, of deficit of trust. Right? So if you are in the general public, you already kind of look at the tech industry with, you know,

[00:36:04] kind of like, I don't know about you guys. And then you hear them saying that stuff. Of course, you're going to be upset. Of course, you're going to feel like this is happening to me and I might lose my job or this data center is being built in my town. And there's nothing I can do about it. You know, it's, there's this, this palpable frustration. My hope for where it goes, right? Is that individual people. And again, it's hard to talk about this as such a monolith, but that what I want is for individuals to find the use cases for AI.

[00:36:32] That makes sense for them in their lives. Right? And that will be very different for whoever you are, whatever your circumstances are. What I hope is that there can be a democratizing effect right around access to healthcare or on access to education. That stuff is, is fascinating to me and so promising. And I wish there was more conversation about that stuff. I wish they were spending more time talking about what could it look like from a, from the point of view of, of education and learning.

[00:36:55] Right? If, if this technology was available, not only across the United States, but like around the world, like what's, what is possible there? Because that's really interesting. So I would hope that there can be sort of meaningful moves towards. AI as technology being used by people in ways that is practically beneficial. And that is used at a sort of societal level in a way that has a democratizing effect and that creates access and creates all of the opportunity that we sometimes hear about. That is my hope. Right?

[00:37:25] I think what people are feeling right now. And if you work at any company and you have a CEO, not talking about Condé Nast, but if you, and genuinely not, but if you have a CEO who's saying, you know, I need, you need 40% productivity gains from AI, dah, dah, dah, dah. Of course you're going to feel like this because it's not being handed down to you in a practical, useful way. Right? So I guess I didn't tell you what I think is going to happen.

[00:37:48] But I'm telling you what I hope happens and the path to get there feels very muddy right now. It feels very muddy. And I'm someone who is a control freak and who likes to have all the answers. And I think something that is frustrating for me about the AI conversation is that I just don't, I don't. And I'm curious what you think, like what has to go right for this technology in 10 years to have had a net beneficial impact on the lives of everyday Americans, right?

[00:38:17] Like what, what would that have to look like? I mean, to me, my concerns are probably much more, and this is probably a very Silicon Valley take, but the access to the technology being sort of gate kept to the wealthy, right? Because if you think about what they're fundamentally doing, it's that you spend money and you get out intelligence. So on one, on the one hand, that's an amazing, powerful tool.

[00:38:38] Like I think they should be leading with the fact everybody now has access to this like genius with tons of information who can do lots of work that we're handing to you at great subsidies at the moment. Yeah. You know, and if anything, my concerns are more that like, you know, the people with capital, like in everything, are going to get to sort of have more of that for themselves just because they happen to be rich at the time this technology was created.

[00:39:01] But I think based on everything we've seen for what the technology can actually do, people who use it have access to it. You can figure out like lots of interesting stuff. Like I, I just, we use it regularly for proofreading. Like, I think it's super helpful in just like my strategic planning. I feel like we like dump a bunch of like, I'm like, go through my emails. Like what, what are my priorities right now? And it's like a good sort of like thought partner on that. Like prepping for these every podcast I do. I like talk with Claude for a little bit.

[00:39:30] Like, Oh, what's interesting. And it thought that I was going to interview you and slit your throat. And you're asking questions. I thought you were going to come gunning for me, which you haven't, but obviously you're definitely. And I like it. I wish more people would turn the mic back. I like it, but it's, I'm just curious about your point of view. It was correct that you were more willing than many guests to turn the mic back. Yeah, no, I think this is, I think this is all really interesting. And it's almost like there's an, it's almost like there's a need and our, the package that we're doing has a bit of this as sort of a joke, but like, it's like a national curriculum for this stuff, right?

[00:39:59] Because I think again, if you don't work in tech, if you are not adjacent to tech in some way, like if you don't like work at Wired, and you're just hearing about this stuff, you're reading a little bit about it. Your CEO is sending emails about it that sound kind of vaguely threatening. Like you might lose your job. You see that clip of Dario on Instagram. You read in the newspaper that like, there's a data center being built. You're just freaked out and mad. You're not actually learning. Okay. How do I, how do I use open claw? Like, how does that actually work?

[00:40:29] What's the best way to use chat GPT? Like it's the inequity of access that you're talking about, I think is a real thing. The financial piece of it for sure, but also just like the, the baseline ability to engage with the tools. But they're there. Like to some degree. They're there, but like, come on. We're talking about like two busy parents in Kansas city, Missouri with three kids. You know, like we're not talking about you and me. We're not talking about you and me. They're some responsibility. Like I do. Sure. A modicum of responsibility. But again, this is.

[00:40:58] It's like being subsidized right now. You know, it's like a trillion dollar industry sort of, that feels like it's just encroaching on their lives. So sure. They bear some responsibility for, to educate themselves. So on and so forth. But it's like a self educating tool. It's a tool that if you go to it, you say, what can you do for me? It'll start coming up with ideas. Easy for Eric to say. I think easy for Eric to say. Anyway, this is, this is, it's fascinating. And I wish I could tell you, well, this is exact in 10 years. This is it. I just don't think anyone knows.

[00:41:27] And I think if they say they know they're a liar, I think they're a liar. Do you know where it's going to go? I mean, it's impossible to prick. Exactly. I just continue to come back to, you know, I did a post when I got married, just like thinking about like. Congratulations. Thank you. It was a little while ago now. Now I'm in the, I have a seventh month old. So that's a new milestone host. Thank you. That's the right. The correct. Congrats. But, um, you know, I took stock of like all the technology that was involved.

[00:41:52] And there's like an insane amount, like a lot of it's mundane, but it's like everything from registry to like logistics plan. Like you share it. Like I, I feel so dumb to be like, do you use Instagram? But I do think I'm shocked that there's so much resentment about technology. When I think if you went out and you talk to any random person, technology is like ubiquitous in their lives. Like it's, it's like, you think they don't like the experience when they're using it. They don't count the ones that they do like.

[00:42:21] Like, I just don't understand. I think this is sort of the tech industry's core frustration. It's like, you know, I don't know Mark Zuckerberg, but it's like people use the products. They seem to like them yet. They say they hate the industry so much. Do you use Instagram? I do use Instagram. You don't drive joy from using Instagram. I, I know I do. I, I'm, I am that, that is sort of what I was about to say, which is, um, I think for a lot of people. And I think ultimately like there's a complexity to this.

[00:42:50] I don't think it's as simple as saying, I love Instagram. I hate the tech industry. I think it's, I use Instagram because it's where all of my friends are and I love to follow celebrities or I have to be on it for work or whatever the reason it's hard for me to stop, right? These products are very hard to stop using once you start their addictive and they have consequences, right? Maybe it's, I use Instagram. Instagram, when my 14 year old started using it, she developed X, Y, Z.

[00:43:18] Like the technology, the products are complicated. They are not unequivocally good or unequivocally bad. So I think it's less that people love the products, hate the industry. I think they have a complicated relationship with both. And I think if you don't have a complicated relationship with both, you're probably not asking enough questions. You're probably not curious enough about why am I finding myself on TikTok for two hours every night?

[00:43:42] Or what is the story behind that U.S. acquisition of this product that was from China and now it's not and Larry Ellison's involved? Like, I think if you just love the product, no questions asked, you're probably not asking enough questions about why. And I think once you start to ask those questions and learn a little bit more, it becomes more complicated. So I, sure there are some people who have disavowed all social media and hate the tech industry and want to go live in a log cabin. I think for most people though, it's just a complicated thing.

[00:44:12] It's a complicated thing, right? Like I don't use X anymore. I don't use Facebook. I have not found them to be particularly enjoyable, useful, productive for me personally. Oh yeah. Well, X is like a poison that I consume so that my readers hopefully don't have to. It's like, I will ingest this poison so you can escape it. Like I'm not prescribing it to people. Plenty of wire journalists are still sort of power users on there. But I use Instagram. It's a meta product. I'm aware.

[00:44:41] I have a complicated relationship with it like everybody else. I use TikTok. Are you giving- No, I don't make TikToks. Don't go looking. I just consume passively on the couch. Have you given like corporate guidance on do use AI tools or don't? Or like what's, are people allowed to proofread their stories with AI? Like I assume you've said, AI can't write your stories or what's the line? Yeah. We have actually a new policy rolling out over the summer that's updated. And we're going to publish that on our site.

[00:45:10] So it will be available to our audience and we're going to share it with the staff. So I won't share it here because the staff haven't seen it. The management team are going through it and adding notes, but it's, it's what I think you would expect, which is, can you use it to generate imagery? Can you use it to generate a draft of your story? No. Can you use it for research purposes or interview prep or to suggest, you know, how you might outline a story or, um, to, you know, offer you headline suggestions that you can then like brainstorm and workshop.

[00:45:41] Yes. Like it's a very helpful tool in that regard. So there are certainly some use cases where it's like, absolutely. Like some of you on staff may find this unhelpful in some of these respects for others of you. It might be like transformational in terms of how you're able to do your job. We want to create that for the staff. What we don't want is to publish AI generated work in any regard. If we're going to publish, let's say AI generated imagery, it would because we are using it. It would be because we are using it for illustrative purposes, right?

[00:46:11] The story is about a new image generation tool. We're going to, you know, show how that works. So we're going to, we're writing a story about an AI generated like deep fake, and we're going to show what that is with labels and all the requisite kind of disclaimers for our, our audience. So it's, it's pretty simple. And we are also using AI. I think the more interesting stuff to me is building our own investigative tools with it and sort of our reporting tools. And so we have a team working on that for all sorts of things.

[00:46:40] Do you think AI will get a scoop? Yeah, I think it will facilitate the getting of scoops. I think. And some human gets to take credit for it. I think if you can go through thousands of hours of video footage and, you know, pull out snippets where certain keywords are mentioned, or like, yes, it can absolutely facilitate a reporter, but you have to know how to use it. And so I think what we're working on, I don't think we're working on this. We are working on a suite of tools that will be internal to wired, obviously vetted and approved by my parent company, Condé Nast, that we would then train the staff on. It's a small team.

[00:47:09] And so I think for us, we certainly see it from a reporting point of view as a strategic advantage. If we have really clever, we have really clever people who work at wired. And if we can have tools that are created by those clever people that are as clever as they are, I think it gives us some nice advantages in our investigative work. And so I'm excited about that. But yeah, we're not publishing AI generated stories and we will not be. I think human generated storytelling for humans is what we're going to stick with.

[00:47:39] I think it's a good brand to have. I think that will have staying power. What about you? Yeah, I mean, I think very similar. I think I'm less certain on the how much I need to like sort of pound my fist and say there will never be AI pros in this. On the one hand, I think we're already starting to see subsecs. Absolutely. They're using it. And so differentiating from them. I mean, I think it's clear that it's validated by me, but I don't know if I have some fundamental problem if like I put a story in a Claude and it like says, you know, this line would be more clodier.

[00:48:09] And if I agree, like I'm publishing the best story. So I don't have a strong, I don't know, like human only sort of, I guess, point of view on this. But I definitely see myself as sort of, you know, the one creating it and need to be sort of primarily creating it and think that that will be a differentiator. And part of being premium over time, which obviously your brands are meant to be premium is that it comes from a human. They are premium. Yes, they are premium. Yes, sorry.

[00:48:38] But it is also your strategy that they are premium. But yes, this is going back to some and we're getting towards the end. But I why do you think some people so much of tech turned MAGA? Like, what is your sort of diagnosis of like what happened? Because I don't want this interview to come across like I'm deeply upset about that.

[00:48:58] Like in some ways, my view is like I'm so mad about the fascist tendencies and the Trump support that I'm almost like, well, was all this sort of like, I don't know, piddling negativity that just sort of like push some of them away. Not worth what we got, which is like such a souring. And I do think talking to I had Matt Mahan on the podcast, who's not doing very well in his run for California governor. But in some ways, it's just like, I mean, Daniel Lurie is the most popular mayor.

[00:49:26] I know, I interviewed him in December last year. And literally, I think what he succeeds is like, he says thank you to tech. He says like, good job. Like, yeah, he still criticizes them some but it's like, oh, yeah, you're in a like, okay endeavor. And so I do think like they're insanely sensitive to just like, not I get it. They're like, we're a students in many cases trying to build like the life I was supposed to build and then they get to the end of it. And like, you know, the media class myself included are sort of like, no, we don't like you anyway. And they're like, what the heck?

[00:49:56] And like, so I guess do you do disagree with that narrative that we like the by being sort of negative, we lost ones that we could have kept. I mean, obviously, there's something deeper and darker to like support sort of a fascist agenda. But what is your gloss? Well, again, I come back to it is not my job, Eric, to keep anyone. It is not my job to keep a grown man. They make their own decisions. So I just I reject that premise, but I will answer the question. And it's a good question. It's one I tried. I've tried to ask a lot of people this, too, because I'm genuinely curious.

[00:50:27] And I think it's a few things and I think it's not all the same answer for every individual that we would be talking about. I think some of it is hurt feelings for sure. Thin skin, hurt feelings, anger, animosity, not only towards the sort of perceived like progressive left wing media, but towards the Biden administration. Right. I think they found the Biden administration really difficult for them. And I think there's a lot to that. I don't dismiss that out of hand by any by any measure. So I think it's sort of hurt feelings.

[00:50:54] The crypto industry should have been able to buy the SEC as the American way. No, I think they were notoriously thorny and uncooperative and just like tough to even get time with. Like I've heard that a lot. And I and there is something there. So I think sort of frustration and anger and hurt feelings. And then I think the second bit of it for some of them is is just sheer opportunism. Right. And I don't even necessarily mean that in the worst way. You're the CEO of a company.

[00:51:24] You're Tim Cook. Right. What do you do is your responsibility is to who your shareholders? You're going to do what? Well, you're going to present that tchotchke in the Oval Office. Right. And you're going to like be mortified, presumably. But it's it's opportunism. If you're someone like Sam Altman and you and you see the window to get in and start to sort of shape things the way you wanted them to be shaped or it's fiduciary duty. Right. They're running businesses. So I think some of it was that just like we got to play with the hand that we've been dealt and that looks disgusting.

[00:51:54] And traditionally, like, you know, the business owners have been supportive of fascism like throughout history. It's like if it's good for business. And I'm not saying that I agree with that, but I think that that that is what we're seeing. I call Tim Cook a Quisling. So I think he should have taken a stand. I mean, the tchotchke thing was crazy. What's the point of having sort of one of the most powerful companies in the world, being the CEO of that company, having such a reputation for being a thoughtful leader and then like throwing it all away? You've said it better than I coach.

[00:52:21] But it's they're running companies and they see that as their primary duty. And the third one is maybe some of them were just kind of always like that. And now they get to be who they really are and they feel very comfortable. They are not sort of dressed up as a Republican for four years and not even a Republican, a fascist. They just like always sucked in that way. And now they can just suck very publicly.

[00:52:47] So I think it's like those three things, some or all of them are true for most of those people. But I think this narrative of like media did this is come on. Come on. Yeah. I mean, it gives us too much power. But in some ways the tech set is convinced media, you know, most powerful force in the world. Well, the good thing for them is they can start their own and it seems like they are. Right. I do think that's the answer. It's funny, like to bring this full circle on the wired, you know, acquisition idea.

[00:53:17] I think it's just like build your own successfully. Like they don't really seem to be able to. Totally. We're doing our thing. Right. They can go do their thing. Right. Nobody's stopping them. That's capitalism. You know what? Build your own. Don't destroy a brand that has evolved into a particular thing. Like maybe, maybe we'll do Trey Stevens wired. Maybe we'll do a special issue. Are you, are you doing that or? Maybe we will. I don't know. I can't say. He's going to commission or like he's going to. People aren't going to know. He can guest edit the issue. Are you, is this an invitation? Trey call me.

[00:53:47] All right. Katie Drummond. This was so much fun. This was really fun. Thank you for having me. That's our episode. Thank you so much, Katie Drummond for coming on the show. Enjoy the conversation. This is the Newcomer podcast. Please like comment, subscribe, support the channel. Please follow along for more at the sub stack, Newcomer.co. Otherwise I'll see you in a week or so for the next Newcomer podcast. Thanks for listening.