Journalist and podcaster Kara Swisher has been the bear poker and sacred-cow tipper of the tech world. Standing at five feet three inches, with her keyboard as weapon and her aviators as protection, she’s unafraid to throw down with the likes of Elon Musk. (She called him a “petty jerk”; he called her “asshole.”) She once grilled a young Mark Zuckerberg so thoroughly at an onstage interview that he sweated through his hoodie. Now, at 61, Swisher, author of Burn Book: A Tech Love Story, mother (of four!), and podcaster (Pivot, On with Kara Swisher), reveals how she keeps it supremely and unapologetically together.
WAKE-UP TIME: Seven A.M., when my two-and-a-half-year-old son, who has snuck into our bed, kicks me in the head.
Breakfast: Coffee, milk, sugar.
COCKTAIL/MOCKTAIL: Nojito.
SNACK: Call Your Mother matzo with butter.
WORKOUT: My trainer guy.
Tracker: Apple Watch.
AND HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT? There is no privacy.
PRODUCTIVITY HACK: No sleep.
Energy Hack: Sleep.
FIRST BEAUTY PRODUCT: Nivea.
SCENT: Flowering jasmine in San Francisco.
Spa: GoldenEye, in Jamaica.
Skin savior: SkinMedica TNS Advanced+ Serum.
Makeup must: Ha ha.
Beauty tool: A foot massage at Hand Job, in the Castro in San Francisco.
Jet-lag hack: I’m up all night watching bad movies in a lay-flat seat.
MOOD LIFTER: A hardware store, especially Cliff’s Variety, in the Castro.
BUT WHEN YOU REALLY NEED REVIVING, WHAT’S THE PLAN? Any time with my kids.
The one beauty treatment you’ll never do again? A curly perm.
Your favorite thing about your appearance? My fantastic hair, hands down.
But if you could change anything about it… I’d become as tall as I feel.
The best thing about getting older is… Everything.
When do you feel the most beautiful? When I am with my four kids on vacation and we are cracking each other up over something profoundly silly.
Holly Parmelee, formerly an associate publisher at Little, Brown and Company, is an editor and writer for Serendipity magazine
