Legendary tech journalist Kara Swisher has opened up about cash on the debut episode of “The Daily Beast Podcast.”
Swisher, the star of “On With Kara Swisher” and “Pivot,” revealed details of her high-profile split for The New York Times as she told Joanna Coles and Samantha Bee about her career—and exactly how much she has made along the way.
She revealed how she was able to make much more cash pursuing projects on her own than as part of well-established brands—saying that she believed her podcast is performing better financially than Elon Musk’s X.
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Swisher was the first guest on The Daily Beast Podcast, which drops every Thursday. It features top-line guests and the news unflinchingly dissected by the Daily Beast’s Chief Creative & Content Officer Joanna Coles and Emmy-winning comedian Samantha Bee.
Kara Swisher spoke candidly about making more on her own than she did at The New York Times
The Daily Beast PodcastColes asked Swisher where she had gained the confidence to walk away from major brands including The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times to strike out on her own, prompting Swisher to lift the lid on how much money she made both publications.
“I can do math, right?” Swisher answered. “And I don’t make as much money there. I make ten times as much as The New York Times. They may think paying you a certain amount of money’s fine. I think if I make something and create it, I should benefit from it.
“If I make them five million dollars, why are they getting, you know, four point eight, four point nine million of it?”
She told how she used the Times as a platform to warn that “tech is dangerous,” adding, “It came on like a brick s--thouse.”
But she said, she she had got that message out she left the Times because she was simply “done being underpaid.”
And she revealed that when she was at the Wall Street Journal, she and Code conference co-founder Walt Mossberg were making six to seven million dollars for the publisher in profit. “We split that one in a much more advantageous way,” she said.
Swisher also did not hold back when asked for her thoughts on Elon Musk and X.
“As a business, it’s a nothing burger,” she said. “It’s less than a nothing burger. It’s a s---y little business, it just is. I’d have to look at their numbers, but I suspect even my podcast makes more money—is more profitable.”
She went on to say the platform is now a “rich man’s yacht,” but Musk’s use of the platform is nevertheless “powerful” ahead of the election.
“He’s got money and means and he’s demented, right?” Swisher said. She added that the tech mogul dramatically boosted his own profile when he bought the company for $44 billion two years ago.
“He became a global celebrity in owning Twitter,” Swisher said. “Even if it’s a bad business.”
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