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Burn Book cover art

Burn Book

By: Kara Swisher
Narrated by: Kara Swisher
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Summary

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 (P)2024 Hachette Audio UK

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Classic Kara

Great tech industry anecdotes in typical Kara fashion, along with some background into why Kara is the journalist she is...she also continues to have a passion for all things tech and holds some positivity for the future, as long as there are still some good folk out there!

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Superb!

Refreshing to read a book from a journalist who clearly knows & understands the tech sector & founders and tells it like it is. Unlike other so called journalists, Kara is not desperate to be best friends with them nor is she bitter or angry - she clearly loves tech & comes across as one of the few adults in the room. If only just one of the tech bros mentioned grows up & begins to use their tech to improve, unite & better lives (instead of putting their egos & insecurities at the forefront of everything in their quest to fight "wokeness" whatever that is), then this book will have done it's job. Well done Kara!

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Riveting stuff

What is the audible equivalent of ‘page turner’ - I don’t know, but this is it.

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Fascinating listening

I would happily recommend this audiobook for three key reasons:
(1) while the focus of the book is Kara’s life as journalist following the tech sector over the last few decades, her insight into they key players and businesses during this period are interesting and informative.
(2) despite being in close proximity to a lot of powerful and successful people, she has managed to avoid being compromised by this access and remained an excellent journalist who has focused on genuine public interest matters rather than be lured into the gossip/click-bait culture that drives a lot of modern media.
(3) Kara reads the book herself for the audio version, which improves the quality of the delivery of her story via this medium.
I would also recommend her Pivot podcast as it is an excellent source of substance based commentary on current events.

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Real tech, no flourishes

I've respected Kara Swisher's knowledge and insights in the tech industry for a long time now, and I listen weekly to her podcasts (plural). So I knew I wanted to read this book for some time, but chose the audio version as it is narrated by Swisher herself. I was surprised at the personal insights, and how the stories are warmer than I anticipated. There's stuff I didn't know about the tech bros, but mostly I did and still couldn't stop listening. Swisher writes beautifully and tells it as it is, and you can tell she deeply loves tech and tries to give everyone a chance, even if she fundamentally disagrees with them. I should be more like her, always after the next challenge and not settling for comfort. Great read, and I'll probably buy the written version too.

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Compelling

If you like Pivot, you’ll love this. I got through it in a few days.

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Love Kara

The book doesn’t dig as deep as I’d like. Her brain and experience is so rich, I felt like it only skimmed the surface

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insights were deceit is the rule of the game

a much needed book at the right time! a must read to those that adore the tech mogules

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Please reject this review

Please reject this review as I can’t figure out how to edit the display of my name and I can’t see how to delete the review now that I’ve started it.

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