Code Conference, Day 1

Some of the biggest names in tech, media and even the agencies that regulate these industries took the stage at Recode’s Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif. And Sunday, the third episode of MSNBC and Recode’s “Revolution” series featured five of the biggest interviews from Code this year: Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky and Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg and CTO Mike Schroepfer.

Want more? You can watch the full interviews of everyone featured on our MSNBC special as well as with leaders like Democratic Senator Mark Warner, Alibaba executive vice chairman Joe Tsai and Momofuku chef and “Ugly Delicious” host David Chang

Evan Spiegel actually wants Facebook to copy part of his business: His company’s privacy policies.

The Snap CEO poured salt on the wound on Tuesday evening when he called out Facebook, which famously copied Snapchat’s Stories feature on Instagram, for its problem with user data in an interview onstage at Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif.

Kara Swisher: Social media is important to our country, as it turns out, so we have a lot to talk about in these next two sessions. The first person I’m bringing out is someone who’s been at Code before, was here many years ago, he just pointed out to me. Someone I think is really creative, a really interesting entrepreneur, has had a tough time since he went public and lots of issues. But he’s here to talk about that.

He just got bothered by my 13-year-old explaining what he did and didn’t like about the app. My 16-year-old just sent me a whole long list of things, so we’re going to get into that. So without further ado, Evan Spiegel, co-founder and CEO of Snap.

Kara Swisher: I don’t think we have to say much. Facebook has been in the news. You may have heard them, seen them, everywhere.

Peter Kafka: Let’s bring ‘em up.

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel has a few things to say about Facebook and the social giant’s decision to copy some of Snapchat’s best features.

1. Thanks, it’s flattering.

An unofficial theme of the 2018 Code Conference was the “Spider-Man” quote (or was it Voltaire?), “With great power comes great responsibility.” Tech is changing and disrupting the world every day — but do its leaders see themselves as responsible for those changes, good and bad?

On the latest episode of Too Embarrassed to Ask, we convened a supergroup of Vox Media podcast hosts — Recode Decode host Kara Swisher, Recode Media host Peter Kafka and Converge host Casey Newton — to recap the conference and dive into that question. They concluded that whether or not tech companies are volunteering for that great responsibility, it is being thrust upon them.

There are still some (big) rocks to be turned over in Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica drama.

Despite suspending the data firm, which collected the personal data of as many as 87 million Facebook users without their permission, Facebook is still trying to figure how big the Cambridge Analytica problem is.

Kara Swisher: Let’s begin with someone I’ve known for maybe 25 years or something like that, Brad Smith. He’s the president of Microsoft. Brad?

Brad Smith: Hey, Kara.

Editor’s note: The following is an unedited transcript from the 2018 Code Conference. It may have spelling or grammatical errors that will be corrected at a later date.

Peter Kafka: Our next guest is someone who said, yeah, I’d come to Code Conference last fall, then he said he was going to sell his company, and now, things are getting even more interesting. So, please welcome James Murdoch from 21st Century Fox.

Editor’s note: The following is an unedited transcript from the 2018 Code Conference. It may have spelling or grammatical errors that will be corrected at a later date.

Kara Swisher: I thought it was really important that tech which is more on the liberal end and more Democratic in general, also hears from lots of things including people in the Trump administration, so I was casting around for somebody who I could invite, and of all things, and I told her this backstage, I did a podcast with Anthony Scaramucci, which was fantastic. We talked for 90 minutes, and he said, he suggested Linda. The minute he did I thought this is great, someone who’s an entrepreneur, someone who is in an area of entrepreneurship in an area of the government, and someone, so far, as The New York Times call her is non-objectionable. I’ll read the piece from The New York Times, but she’s terrific. Linda, come on out.

Last year, James Murdoch pledged to donate $1 million to the Anti-Defamation League after President Trump’s response to the violence that erupted amid protests in Charlottesville, Va.

“I think a lot of people felt sick in the country that week,” Murdoch, the head of 21st Century Fox, said onstage at Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif.

Linda McMahon, who was appointed by President Trump to lead the Small Business Administration in 2016, has known him for over 20 years. She can tell you firsthand what it’s like working with him.

Speaking onstage at Recode’s Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., on Tuesday, McMahon had some takeaways about the president’s character that left-leaning Silicon Valley might not hear every day.

Hulu has three principal owners at the moment, including 21st Century Fox, and, according to the company, about half of Hulu’s 20 million subscribers pay for the ad-free version.

“There’s an option for the limited-ad experience, and it’s about evens, I think,” Fox CEO James Murdoch explained onstage at Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif. The ad-free service costs $11.99 a month. (Update: insiders say a more recent figure for the proportion of subscribers paying for the cheaper, ads version is at more than 60 percent.)

The U.S. needs to lead the way in tech, according to Linda MacMahon, President Donald Trump’s leader for the Small Business Administration. The way the private and public sector will work together to get there, however, is a matter of debate.

“America needs to be the No. 1 tech industry in the world, and we need to continue to invest in that,” she said onstage at Recode’s Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., on Tuesday. McMahon — who was appointed by Trump to lead the Small Business Administration in 2016 — spoke about the role she sees the government taking in helping small tech businesses bring their innovations to market.

Microsoft’s Brad Smith has some lessons for Facebook.

“If you create tech that changes the world, the world is going to want to govern you. It’s going to want to regulate you,” Smith, the president of Microsoft and a 25-year veteran of the company, said onstage at Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif.