There is a beautiful show in Amazon Prime called The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. It is hilarious and a fantastic take on a woman trying to become a standup comic in the 1950s. It’s funny but a poignant take on a young Jewish woman in New York. It is also excellent peek into a wealthy Jew family and their lifestyle. There is another woman, Susie, who is the manager of Mrs Maisel. She always caught my attention. She is a direct, no-nonsense person. She also has a snarky, biting sense of humour that can unnerve people. I thought the role of Susie was modelled after the tech-journalist and entrepreneur Kara Swisher.
I came to know about Kara in 2012 in an unusual way. A Tweeter gave unsolicited advice to the then new-Yahoo CEO, Marissa Mayer. This advice particularly caught my attention: “Find out what it would take to buy Kara Swisher’s silence forever. Well, it’s worth a shot”. She was a pain in the back of Marissa Mayer (like she is now on Mark Zuckerberg and Travis). She published many essays critical about Yahoo based on her inside sources. I have read many articles and interviews published by Recode (a company co-founded by Kara). I have been listening to Kara's podcast for the past three years. She is bold, undaunting and refreshingly direct to listen. Many of my views about Silicon Valley, company culture, and assessing people was formed by listening to her podcasts. Because unlike now, quality podcasts were rare and she shipped consistently. You can learn how-to-interview-a-person-by cutting-through-all-the-crap and not pandering to their agenda is her speciality. I recommend you to listen to her interviews with people like Steve Jobs, Chamath and Barry Diller.
I gave this preface because I want to recommend this excellent interview with Kara Swisher to the website The Cut. Two things that stood out in the interview:
On Focus:
Being aware of death tends to clear out the brush. Anytime I’m having a minute, I remember, Oh, I’ll be dead in 50 years. Okay. And then I stand up. I’m not death-obsessed, but I’m death-aware. It keeps me focused.
On Work vs Life:
When something bad happens at work, or someone gives me a hard time, I’m like, “I don’t need you to like me. I have dogs. I have kids. I need them to like me.” If I fail at being a parent, I feel terrible, but if I fail at some work thing, I’m like, Oh, well.