Kara Swisher on the Rich Guys Trying to Live Forever
Death, Sex & Money
Slate Audio
4.6 • 7.7K Ratings
🗓️ 5 May 2026
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Kara Swisher has built an impressive career reporting on–and forcefully critiquing–the world of tech, especially the ultra-wealthy power players increasingly calling the shots. Since Steve Job’s death in 2011, she’s noticed a sharp uptick amongst those Silicon Valley elite doing all sorts of “wacky shit” to try and defy aging, extend their lifespan, and possibly even stop death itself.
On her new CNN series Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever, Kara cracks jokes and tries out some of the buzziest longevity trends, but she takes very seriously the inequality of it all – how these unproven, but potentially ground-breaking treatments remain squarely out of reach for most of us, while proven medical care continues to get more expensive with worse outcomes.
Listen to our 2024 interview with Kara at the Tribeca Festival here.
Join us on June 10 for our 2026 Tribeca Festival live event with Peter Dinklage and Erica Schmidt. Get your tickets here.
Podcast production by Andrew Dunn
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The series is called Kara Swisher wants to live forever. Right. Is that a joke? Yes, it is. Come on. Yes, it is. It's obviously. I don't. I mean, I think that it was initially called I'll never die and then my wife said, what if you do during the making of it? |
| 0:16.9 | Kara Swisher, tech journalist, interviewer, mother of four, knows she is not going to live forever. |
| 0:24.2 | But she also knows a snappy attention-grabbing line when she sees it. |
| 0:28.2 | So, Kara Swisher wants to live forever is the name of her new series on CNN, where she explores and tries out. |
| 0:36.6 | Some of the busiest wellness, anti-aging, and longevity trends out there, |
| 0:42.5 | particularly those bankrolled and celebrated in Silicon Valley. |
| 0:46.9 | This reporting is an extension of her sweet spot. |
| 0:51.1 | She has access to the dinner parties and invite-only conferences to hear about which IV infusions, supplements, and biohacks they've been trying next. |
| 1:01.7 | And she's also not afraid to tell people when they sound like they've all gone nuts. |
| 1:07.7 | Kara was on the show just a few years ago. |
| 1:09.8 | I interviewed her at Tribeca Festival when she just published her memoir, Burn Book, about coming of age as a tech journalist and how the wonder she felt for technology had started to curdle as the industry became more and more about a small handful of Titans trying to best each other and racing |
| 1:29.3 | to do it without enough regard for safety or consequences. And this CNN series, where she does do |
| 1:37.3 | stunted things like a ketamine trip on camera or time in a luxe hyperbaric chamber, it also has a strong critique embedded in it, |
| 1:47.6 | that we already know what helps people thrive and live longer, healthier lives, |
| 1:52.5 | access to health care, stable and reliable income, and community, being with each other, |
| 1:57.9 | not staring alone at our tech tools. |
| 2:01.1 | So Kara and I talk about that. |
| 2:02.9 | But first, speaking of Tribeca, I want to tell you that we are honored to be invited back for the third year in a row to host a live show during the festival in June. |
| 2:12.5 | Mark your calendars. |
| 2:14.3 | Plan to be in New York City on June 10th, because listen to this. I'm interviewing actor Peter Dinklage of Game of Thrones and one of my all-time favorite films, The Station Agent, along with his wife, Erica Schmidt, a playwright and screenwriter. We're going to talk about making art together and separately and how that all fits |
| 2:35.4 | into the life they've built together. Tickets are available now at Tribecafilm.com slash audio |
| 2:42.4 | or at the link in our show notes. Now let's buckle in for Kara Swisher as we go deep on what she's |
... |
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