Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and other Silicon Valley CEOs blasted in veteran tech reporter’s memoir Burn Book, as it warns about AI and the future
- Kara Swisher is scathing about tech moguls, calling Mark Zuckerberg ‘the most damaging man in tech’ and Elon Musk a narcissist in her memoir Burn Book
- She warns about the rise of AI, adding to the dangers posed by smartphones and social media in an under-regulated industry
Technology is so pervasive and invasive that it’s polarising people, producing feelings of love and loathing for its devices, online services and the would-be visionaries behind them, according to a long-time Silicon Valley reporter.
Kara Swisher unwraps how we got to this point in her incendiary memoir, Burn Book, an exposé that also seeks to avert technological calamity on the perilous road ahead.
Swisher skewers many of the once-idealistic tech moguls who, when she met them as entrepreneurs decades ago, promised to change the world for the better, but often chose a path of destructive disruption instead. And along the way, they amassed staggering fortunes that have disconnected them from reality.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who broke into a sweat during an onstage interview with Swisher in 2010, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who once talked to her regularly before cutting off communications after he bought Twitter in 2022, are painted in the harshest light.
“If Mark Zuckerberg is the most damaging man in tech to me, Musk was the most disappointing,” Swisher writes in her 300-page book.