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Comment by sabertoothed | Hacker News Reader

Kara Swisher is a terrible interviewer. She was terrible here [1], and she was terrible in this interview. You have an hour with Elon Musk and you ask what BFR means again (knowing the answer) and don't know that they attempt to catch fairings? Why does she always look like she did not do her research? Why do I never learn anything new if she interviews?

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsixsRI-Sz4

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Agreed. She always seems to me to be far more interested in herself than in the person she's interviewing. Previously I thought it was runaway narcissism, but I think you may have nailed it in saying she doesn't do her research. Perhaps everything is phrased as "Well when I did this...how does that relate to you", because she didn't prepare and is just vamping. (Good old Hanlon's Razor...)

She's done her research. She is trying to ask questions ordinary (more uninformed) people would ask.

I'll never forget the train wreck the Bill Gates and Steve Jobs interview was. She kept interrupting them and adding nonsensical meta commentary ("oh that was sweet"). You can see in their faces that both were uncomfortable with her poor professionalism. At the end Jobs seemed to be ignoring her fully. One small example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76mVGGlFGRA

Hadn't seen this. Wow.

Yeah I thought she was really bad as well. Kept interrupting him and also seemed disinterested in things he was saying. Like she was looking for certain answers and he wouldn't give them so she would just interrupt. She also asked really irrelevant questions, and in some cases condescending.

Oof, I didn't listen originally, just read the transcript, and I thought everyone was overreacting, but it comes of a lot worse in audio format.

Yes, all the interruptions, and trying to lead to the answers she wants to hear. Pretty cringeworthy.

I personally think both of the RECODE interviewers (don't know their names) try to be a little too cool for school when interviewing these once-a-generation people.

Your reaction is understandable. It's obvious Kara prides herself on being a grouch and a hard-ass. I remember thinking the same during the D5 interview with Steve Jobs, where she mouthed off to the point that Mossberg shushed her.

In retrospect, I've changed my mind. It isn't healthy for an industry to only have reporters who softball every interview, who just parrot crap from press releases. In tech, that's close to what we have. It's allowed companies to get away with a lot of shady nonsense.

So these days I'm really thankful that tech has a Kara Swisher.

>Kara Swisher is a terrible interviewer.

Agreed, I used to listen to her podcast but she can be very agenda-pushing and condescending if someone even remotely has a different belief than her.

I mean, if you want to do that that's fine be like Adam Carolla, a comedian, and market yourself as such, but if you're doing it as a 'journalist' you need to be impartial.

An interview is supposed to be about the subject. Kara makes the interviews about herself by being the biggest personality in the room.

Yeah, I've been frustrated with that ever since the Gates & Jobs interview in 2007.

Here's the question I've been wondering: How does such an interviewer manage to keep getting these historically important interviews?

I don't know if she was trying to act naive to relate to a common denominator audience or just was clueless and did not do her research.

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