Kara Swisher and Sam Altman

03/10/24 • 69 min

Throughout every era of digital technology, from the dot com bubble to artificial intelligence, journalist Kara Swisher has been a key figure in understanding the rapid growth in Silicon Valley, whether reporting for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and other major outlets, or as co-host of the podcast Pivot. Swisher is founder of the All Things Digital conference and the technology news website Recode, and the author of three books, including her new memoir, Burn Book: A Tech Love Story.

On March 7, 2024, Kara Swisher came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to be interviewed on stage by one of the technology leaders she frequently covers – Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI.

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Ada Limon

This week, our guest is Ada Limón, he United States Poet Laureate. Limon has published six books of poetry, including The Carrying, The Hurting Kind, and Bright Dead Things. On February 22nd, 2024, Limón came to The Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Alexis Madrigal about the ways in which the natural world inspires her work – from the landscape of her youth in Sonoma County, California, to Kentucky, where she lives today. She also talked about writing a poem to be engraved on a NASA spacecraft that will launch in the autumn of 2024. Limon says that poetry isn’t just meant to be read – it’s meant to be read out loud - and this program also includes her reading several poems.

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Calvin Trillin

Our guest is Calvin Trillin. The journalist, humorist, poet, and novelist started his professional career in the early 1960’s at Time Magazine, and soon after became a staff writer for The New Yorker, where he continues to contribute. He also writes for The Nation. He is the author of 32 books, including memoir, novels, verse, and food writing. His new book,“The Lede: Dispatches From A Life in the Press”, collects writings about journalism and its practitioners. This conversation with writer Steven Winn was recorded at the studios of KQED in San Francisco on February 22, 2024.

This was hardly Trillin’s first appearance on City Arts & Lectures - he’s been on our stage more than any other guest, a total of 19 times since his first appearance in 1982. So we close out this hour with excerpts from three of those programs that showcase some of Trillin’s many talents beyond serious journalism.

Calvin Trillin began writing about regional food specialties during his travels as a reporter, and then in books like “American Fried” and “Alice, Let’s Eat”. In 2008, Trillin was joined by two distinguished women of the culinary world, former Gourmet magazine editor Ruth Reichl. and the founder of Berkeley’s Chez Panisse, Alice Waters - to discuss one of his obsessions – Buffalo chicken wings.
Calvin Trillin also developed a journalistic sideline that he describes as “Deadline Poet” and in 2012, he explained how that got started to Steven Winn.

And finally, no Calvin Trillin City Arts & Lectures program would be complete without the story of the tic-tac-toe-playing chicken of New York’s Chinatown. In a 1998 appearance, Trillin introduced the chicken to actor and comedian Robin Williams and interviewer Wendy Lesser.