Burn Book cover art

Burn Book

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

Try for £0.00
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Burn Book

By: Kara Swisher
Narrated by: Kara Swisher
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

From award-winning journalist Kara Swisher comes a witty, scathing, but fair accounting of the tech industry and its founders who wanted to change the world but broke it instead.

While tech titans bragged they would 'move fast and break things', Kara Swisher was moving faster and breaking news. Covering the explosion of the digital sector in the early 1990s, she developed a long track record of digging up and reporting the truth of this new world order. Her consistent scoops drove one CEO to accuse her of "listening in the heating ducts" and for Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg to once say: 'It is a constant joke in the Valley when people write memos for them to say, "I hope Kara never sees this."'

Burn Book is part memoir, part history and, most of all, a necessary recounting of tech's most powerful players. This is the inside story we've all been waiting for of modern Silicon Valley and the biggest boom in wealth creation in the history of the world.

While still in college, Swisher got her start at The Washington Post, where she became one of the few people in journalism interested in the emerging field of tech. She was among the first to recognize the potential of the internet, accurately predicting that 'everything that could be digitized, would be digitized.' She went on to work for The Wall Story Journal, joining with Walt Mossberg to start the groundbreaking AllThingsD conference, as well as pioneering online tech sites.

It's only a slight exaggeration to say Swisher has interviewed everyone. Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Bob Iger, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Meg Whitman, Peter Thiel, and Mark Zuckerberg are just a few who Swisher made sweat-figuratively and, in one famous case, literally.

Despite the damage she chronicles, Swisher remains optimistic about tech's potential to help solve problems and not just create them. She calls upon the industry to make better, more thoughtful choices, even as a new set of powerful AI tools are poised to change the world yet again. At its heart, this book is a love story to, for, and about tech from someone who knows it better than anyone.

Burn Book includes soaring tales of innovation and brilliant entrepreneurs, as well as Silicon Valley's much more complex history of striving, success, and failure. The book details how the commercial internet came into being and how, for all it has given the world, it now sits at the center of global power, creating a clear and present danger to humanity.

©2024 Kara Swisher (P)2024 Hachette Audio UK
Business & Careers History Journalists, Editors & Publishers Social Sciences Witty Business
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

Extremely Hardcore cover art
What This Comedian Said Will Shock You cover art
Invisible Rulers cover art
Beyond the Big Lie cover art
Dark Wire cover art
Deep Utopia cover art
Attack from Within cover art
On Call cover art
Democracy or Else cover art
Cuckooland cover art
Unit X cover art
The Coming Storm cover art

What listeners say about Burn Book

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    67
  • 4 Stars
    17
  • 3 Stars
    7
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    3
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    65
  • 4 Stars
    17
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    2
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    64
  • 4 Stars
    16
  • 3 Stars
    5
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    3

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Superb!

Refreshing to read a book from a journalist who clearly knows & understands the tech sector & founders and tells it like it is. Unlike other so called journalists, Kara is not desperate to be best friends with them nor is she bitter or angry - she clearly loves tech & comes across as one of the few adults in the room. If only just one of the tech bros mentioned grows up & begins to use their tech to improve, unite & better lives (instead of putting their egos & insecurities at the forefront of everything in their quest to fight "wokeness" whatever that is), then this book will have done it's job. Well done Kara!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Riveting stuff

What is the audible equivalent of ‘page turner’ - I don’t know, but this is it.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Fascinating listening

I would happily recommend this audiobook for three key reasons:
(1) while the focus of the book is Kara’s life as journalist following the tech sector over the last few decades, her insight into they key players and businesses during this period are interesting and informative.
(2) despite being in close proximity to a lot of powerful and successful people, she has managed to avoid being compromised by this access and remained an excellent journalist who has focused on genuine public interest matters rather than be lured into the gossip/click-bait culture that drives a lot of modern media.
(3) Kara reads the book herself for the audio version, which improves the quality of the delivery of her story via this medium.
I would also recommend her Pivot podcast as it is an excellent source of substance based commentary on current events.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Good gripping listen

A good gripping listen. Kara is honest and straight and gives a good insight into the upper echelons of the tech industry.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Classic Kara

Great tech industry anecdotes in typical Kara fashion, along with some background into why Kara is the journalist she is...she also continues to have a passion for all things tech and holds some positivity for the future, as long as there are still some good folk out there!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Real tech, no flourishes

I've respected Kara Swisher's knowledge and insights in the tech industry for a long time now, and I listen weekly to her podcasts (plural). So I knew I wanted to read this book for some time, but chose the audio version as it is narrated by Swisher herself. I was surprised at the personal insights, and how the stories are warmer than I anticipated. There's stuff I didn't know about the tech bros, but mostly I did and still couldn't stop listening. Swisher writes beautifully and tells it as it is, and you can tell she deeply loves tech and tries to give everyone a chance, even if she fundamentally disagrees with them. I should be more like her, always after the next challenge and not settling for comfort. Great read, and I'll probably buy the written version too.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Compelling

If you like Pivot, you’ll love this. I got through it in a few days.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Love Kara

The book doesn’t dig as deep as I’d like. Her brain and experience is so rich, I felt like it only skimmed the surface

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

insights were deceit is the rule of the game

a much needed book at the right time! a must read to those that adore the tech mogules

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Klassic Kara!

The best tech journalist in the biz didn’t disappoint with this insightful, fascinating and entertaining memoir. It felt like she’s loads more stories to tell but for a dive into the self-indulgent, silly and often murky world of social media gurus and tech overlords, this can’t be beat…

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!