By: Hajar Lababidi I Published: December 2, 2025
In a world that’s being turned upside down by rapid developments in technology, famous tech journalist Kara Swisher provided a welcome perspective for Kean. Known for her stubborn insistence on the truth in Silicon Valley, and for her gift in provoking prominent politicians and businesspeople of the day, Swisher spoke to a mixture of students and staff and members of the community as the first of the President’s Distinguished Lecture Series.
On Tuesday, October 21, on the warmly lit stage of the auditorium in North Avenue Academic Building, Senior Vice President of Student Affairs Katherine Gallagher discussed several relevant issues with Swisher. Gallagher opened the talks with a tribute: “It is not every day that you get to introduce someone who was once dubbed ‘the queen of all media’ by no less than Wall Street Journal legend Walt Mossberg—and was later called an a-hole by Elon Musk.”
She continued, “Kara Swisher is many things: a fearless journalist, a truth teller, barrier breaker, one of the most formidable forces of media and tech… she continues to push for honesty, equity, and ethics in a space that so often runs on hype and hubris.”
The so-called ‘Queen of Tech’ provided perspective on the potential and peril of artificial intelligence and highlighted her memoir Burn Book: A Tech Love Story. The book describes itself as a “witty, scathing, but fair accounting of the tech industry and its founders who wanted to change the world but broke it instead.”
The two women ran through Swisher’s most memorable moments in her career. Swisher began by sharing anecdotes of her experiences with tech moguls, exposing their surprising sensitivity to criticism and even weaponizing their insults as a marketing tactic for her new book. She also discussed her unorthodox, often confrontational approach to interviewing. “I’m very honest about where I’m coming from, and I don’t hide it,” she said.
The discussion then took on a more serious tone as the issue of technology regulations was brought up. Swisher highlighted the structural barriers to regulation, largely arising from the presence of wealthy lobbyists in D.C. She was especially alarmed by the influence of AI chatbots on child safety, which she says she’s “taken up as [her] cause.”
The journalist went as far as to liken the current situation to dystopian themes of the novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, drawing parallels between the collective tech addiction to the fictional drug soma found in the book.
“There’s only one other industry where customers are called ‘users’,” she said, with a pointed look.
When conversation shifted to Swisher’s role in advocacy as a journalist, she rejected the concept of neutrality, calling it “nonsense.” This thinking is reflected by her “no-BS” style as a journalist and her strong positions on the tech industry.
Before pivoting to questions, Swisher addressed the students in the audience. Amidst the recent embroilment of government involvement on college campuses, she said, “I don’t care who’s in office. No government should tell you what to teach. No government should tell you anything the way he [president Donald Trump] is.”
The discussion wrapped up with Swisher turning on political institutions like the Supreme Court and Congress, calling the former a political game and the latter dominated by aging leaders disconnected from younger generations. She advised students, particularly future journalists, to always “be entrepreneurial, or you’re not going to make it” and to “find an opening, whether it’s climate change, robotics—learn something really well, and become an expert in it.”
As Gallagher put it, “As the world around us transforms, fueled by AI and ever faster innovation, Kara’s voice is more essential than ever. Her work sits at the interception of power, technology, and accountability. She asks the tough questions—the ones that forces to reflect on not just what we want to do with technology, but what we actually want our future to look like.”
Despite her seemingly morbid predictions, Kara Swisher was able to provide insights from her decades-long experience as a respected journalist that left audience members, if not more optimistic, then at least pragmatic about the future of the tech industry, and their role in a rapidly changing world.
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