Standing at 1.57 meters and wearing aviator sunglasses, Kara Swisher is America's most feared technology journalist. For years, she's kept Silicon Valley tycoons talking, even though they're well aware of her quick wit, taste for scoops and scathing criticism. "I think I'm fair and I do really good interviews. And I think smart people like smart interviews," she said via Zoom. But today, technology no longer amuses her. With too much concentrated in the hands of a few who are accountable to no one: Money has had its usual corrupting effect, she believed.

In her new book published on February 27, the 61-year-old columnist has not hesitated to burn what she once loved. The title, Burn Book, refers to the practice of American teenage girls, illustrated in the film Mean Girls, of writing in a book what they really think of their peers. The subtitle speaks of a "tech love story," but the disillusionment is obvious from the very first line: "As it turned out, it was capitalism after all."

The star of tech journalism doesn't blame the Silicon Valley tycoons for making billions, but for claiming to want to improve the human condition. In the end, they built multinationals without conscience or law, with little regard for the social consequences of their inventions. Like eternal teenagers absorbed in their video games, each considering himself or herself "Player One."

"They lie not only to the press, but also to themselves," she wrote. But no one can lie to Swisher for long. When she was little, her mother called her "Tempesta," because of her propensity for confrontation. One Sunday morning, her world came crashing down when her father, chief anesthesiologist at the Jewish Hospital in Brooklyn, New York, didn't wake up. She was only 5 years old. She thinks about it every day, but, underneath her armor, she "never stopped moving forward."

Her career began at the student newspaper at Georgetown University in Washington. She was tempted by the CIA, but homosexuals were not welcome. A graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism, she cut her teeth in Washington alongside the star of a conservative talk show at the time, John McLaughlin, a boor whom she quickly rebuffed and criticized. "Most people in this town stab you in the back, but [Kara] stabbed me in the front," he later remarked. The journalist placed this assessment at the beginning of her book, next to a comment by Elon Musk from May 2023, almost like a badge: "Kara has become so shrill at this point that only dogs can hear her."

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