Martha Stewart Makes No Apologies for Being Perfect 01:01:18

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Hi, everyone, from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is Martha and Snoop's potluck dinner party, and I'm Martha Stewart. Just kidding. I'm not even close to being Martha Stewart. This is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Naeem Araza, and I guess today I'm Snoop Dogg. I don't think so. Can I be P. Diddy? No. And Araza. No. No. Anyways, here we are. We are sitting in Martha Stewart's

grand estate. Yes, we are. It is grand. Let's set the scene a little bit. Okay. The scene is we come in, we get taken in another vehicle throughout the estate. There's chickens, there's peacocks. There's horses. There's horses. There's stables. There's so many beautiful gardens and trees. She does not disappoint. It's beautiful. And we're in a guest house, which I would actually retire in for the rest of my life. And there's a giant copper pot, which is

The size of you, actually. The size I could get in the copper pot. It's actually perfectly the size of you. That's where I'm going to hide because I'm not leaving here. She could cook us into chili in that thing if the interview gets too tough. And it would be delicious.

And so we're here because she invited us up here. She has her own podcast, and so she has podcast facilities. We've done what's known as a podcast trade. It's not really a trade, but Cara taped with her yesterday on her podcast in Manhattan, and then today we came up here to tape our podcast. And of course, we said yes immediately. Yeah. Because I mean, come on. They were like, do you want to do both in New York? We're like, no, we need to come up here. And then we will never leave. Right, exactly. We're here forever. We're here forever.

So anyway, the reason we want to talk about Martha Stewart is because one, she's had a real renaissance again. It's the 20th renaissance of Martha Stewart with this cover of Sports Illustrated. Age 81. 81. She's the oldest person to be on the cover. She looks fantastic. I've known Martha for a long time. And I've always found her fascinating and intriguing as an entrepreneur, as a media figure, as someone who's very open to ideas, someone who has had a lot of setbacks and yet has sort of survived and thrived.

I've always been fascinated by her. I mean, someone who started as a model and someone who worked in finance a bit to really the first lifestyle influencer. She is. The first kind of creator of the home category. And then to an entrepreneur who's in everything from CBD to NFTs. She's constantly reinvented herself. She never says no to things. I met her at a party at CES, the consumer electronics show that Bill Gates had. Like last place I'd run into Martha Stewart.

And since then, she came to my conferences and she's always called me with questions about tech, been very interested in the whole category and has used it really well. And very few media entrepreneurs did that. By the way, that's like her meeting you in, I don't know, some makeup aisle. Makeup aisle. Yeah, it was. She'd be like, what the fuck are you doing here, Kara Swisher? Yeah, no, yeah. It was an unusual thing. But then immediately you understood that.

that she had a sense of humor about herself. She was able to make fun of herself. And at the same time, she was willing to learn. And I cannot think of anybody else who has been like this in media. Just a few people. Barry Diller is one. Bob Iger is another. But more than anyone who leaped feet first into whatever tech trend happened, she did. And Barry didn't put himself out there like her. No, no. I've been to Barry's house. Very nice house, I gotta say. All right.

Let's just go to rich people's houses. It's our show. It's not the show. Yeah. And then make them mad at us and we go out in the copper pot. Yeah. But she's what we call an early adopter. And she told me yesterday that she loved going to your conference because she learned so much from you and Walt. And this was in the 2000s, 2010s. And she said the only conferences she missed were yours and Teddy Forsman's. Oh, wow. Those were both great conferences. And I think one of the things that I like, I like

someone who wants to learn and she was always willing to learn about things and ask questions and now she asks great questions and I love attendees that get into what we're doing and she was one of those people. One of the critiques of Martha over time has been that she's created this high bar that women can't actually achieve, this perfection, this very difficult to achieve life and

She's standing by that perfection. She does. And even now, she's obviously been prolific for the Sports Illustrated cover, but even recent weeks, she gave an interview to Footwear News where she said America would go down the drain if people don't go back to work. Yeah, we'll ask her about that. Yeah, we'll ask her about that. But she's willing to do that. Very few people are willing to speak their mind. She works all the time, and I think she doesn't understand why people don't work all the time. She does, in this new era, have to understand why others don't want to work, but she doesn't have to work with them.

Yeah. She said in that interview she'd be able to call anyone all the time, even on weekends. And after one of the new employees didn't take her call on a Sunday because they were taking a bath, she said, well, I couldn't work with that person. Yeah. So we're going to ask her about that. Ask her about that. Yeah. She's got a lot of flack. And she's very resilient because she has had these setbacks in her career. And one was that back in 2004, she

she was charged with obstruction and served some jail time. Yeah, lying to the FBI. Yeah. She lied to the FBI. And she admits that she lied. And you can't lie to the FBI. I can't imagine going from a house like this to prison. She did it. But if you went to prison and then you ended up at a house like this. That's true. There you go. That's a better way to do it.

Anyways, let's take a quick break and we'll be back with Martha Stewart. And we're also going to take her bowls before we go, right? Yeah, we'll take her bowls. We'll take her bowls. Should we take some cooking books? Cooking books. What else should we take from here? The coffee room is nice. I wonder who would adopt me. Maybe. Probably not. More likely me. Oh, man.

All right, so we're going to cover a lot of stuff. Are you ready? Yep. Cool. Thank you for doing this. I wanted to start with how you and I got to know each other, which was at my old conference, the Code Conference, and before that, All Things Digital Conference. You were an attendee every year, and you showed up and you sat in the second row and took notes, in the first row, excuse me, and took notes. And you sat next to whoever owned the company at the time. One time you were sitting next to Rupert, before the owners before. Explain to me why you were there. Yeah.

Why did you come? Well, I was operating a company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, and I had to know about technology. I had to know about what was going on. I was very curious about what was going on in that world. And your conference afforded me the best, best

picture into what was happening then and what was going to happen. I was so pleased with that conference. I really insisted every year to go. I had to make room on my schedule and go down to Southern California to attend. And I really loved it. I loved it. And I would go with a friend or two and sit in on every single session. One of the early things, the memory we talked about when I was on your podcast,

is how you grilled Sony CEO Howard Stringer about too many cords. You were pissed about cords and you pulled out a bag full of a tangle of cords. But these were the chargers that each device had its own particular charger and you had to have that one because you couldn't charge it any other way. I really did have to carry, I had to

camera. I had a phone. Yeah, you outlined this all. You kept pulling it out of the bag. I had a phone. I had the computer. I had my laptop. I had this. I had that. It was like crazy how many cords I had. And everybody laughed. I remember the audience was in hysterics laughing at this whole thing. But it was memorable because that was one of the ways that all these companies actually became profitable immediately. Right. You were pointing out that they were greedy and they were inconveniencing the consumers, essentially. Right.

They didn't care. They didn't care. And so one of the things that I think people, so I actually met you before that, and it was at CES, which is the Consumer Electronics Show, where you showed up at a party that Bill Gates threw. And then you just popped

And Bill Gates had that wonderful conference at his house, the CEO conference. Yeah, I didn't get invited to that, Martha.

And I loved going to that and looking at his house. And we had tours through the house and through his amazing library. And I remember him showing us the walls. It had been designed by a friend of mine, Cherry Despont, his house.

And Terry designed 12-foot corridors in between all the rooms. These were walls, hollow walls, in which they could run all the fibers and all the cables. And nowadays, this is pretty wireless. They don't have it wireless, right. Can you imagine? Cat 5, Cat 6, right? It's so crazy. When I think back on what I saw and how it was being developed. That house was famous for that. Yeah, and he had...

Another thing that was really interesting, frames, he called the frame. Samsung now sells a TV, which is called the frame. And you can reflect in that frame anything you want, any piece of art. And they have a whole library of art that they've licensed, you know, from Picassos to Chagalls to anybody. But in those days, he actually did...

display his art on TVs. On TVs instead, and they kept them somewhere else. Yes. Keep the actual art. That's interesting. So, you know, it's interesting because you had an enthusiasm for it, not just as a

You're kind of a geek, a closet geek in a lot of ways. Yeah, I think I am. Yeah. I think I am. I remember buying my first computer in 1982. I went to the IBM store on 57th and Madison. There was an IBM store there. And they showed me this little tiny computer. IBM PC, yeah. That's it. And then a big, big unit to put under the table. The desk, yeah. And you had to buy the table. Mm-hmm.

Because it had a little hole in it in which the PC sat. Right. And I put it up in my studio in Westport, Connecticut, and I hired my friend, Mariana. She was a software designer, and she lived down the street from Romania. And she taught me how to use the computer and showed me a lot of the things that it could do for us. We were using it basically for bookkeeping. But boy, I...

Just like, this is so fabulous. And you've tried everything. And one of the things, you also were very early to Twitter. I joined in 2007. You joined in 2009, which was very early. It was more than a year before Elon, by the way. I had a hard time convincing anyone

at least well-known or in media to join Twitter. At the time, I was like, you've got to get on this. Oh, I loved it because I was out selling ads all the time for the magazine. And so I would, before I went into a client, like I went out to General Motors and

And I took surveys on Twitter. And you instantaneous, instant, how many of you drive a Suburban? And I would get back thousands of answers. And what do you like about it? What don't you like about it? I remember doing it with Kroger's, I think, grocery stores. And, you know, what do you buy there? What specifically do you like about it? Whole Foods, I did it for Whole Foods early on. But it was an instant survey.

And probably very accurate, and people were responding, and they had the time to do it, and they were responding, and the clients loved it. And then I'm sure they all adopted it as a research tool also. For me, it was a research tool. And I also loved the 180 letters. Remember, that's all you could have. You have 40 characters. 140? I can't remember now. Now you can have 280.

Oh, 280. Okay, it was 140, and I had to write recipes in 140 characters. Right. And that was such a great challenge. And I did it, and people loved it. So I used it, yes. You used it a lot. And you actually, back then, you said you loved it so much more than Facebook, which you also employed a lot. And you got a complaint from a Facebook executive about your comments on Twitter. Yes.

Who was the executive? It's got to be Cheryl. It was probably Cheryl Sandberg. Yes, it probably was. She was very outspoken, but I love her. I just thought she did an amazing job when she was at Facebook. I remember visiting out there, seeing her little desk next to Mark's little desk. I mean, it was a cozy kind of corporate office. It was. It was indeed. But it was a very interesting time. I greatly admire her.

all those people because they did do so much to change the world. And so you were a big Twitter user. You're not as big a Twitter user now. No. And you sold the stock, correct? I did at Elon's high price of $54.35 or whatever it was. I'll take your money. I'll take your offer. Yeah. And it was so strange. Why did you sell it then? Oh,

You didn't believe in his dream? No, I didn't actually like what he was doing. I'm not happy that he bought Twitter. I'm just not. I don't think he's the right person to own a fabulous company like Twitter, a wonderful communications vehicle. I just don't. Why? Well, and I've been proven right since because of the things he said, the things he promotes. I had no idea he was so

conservative in his views. Who's the right person to lead it? Besides Martha Stewart. To lead Twitter at this present time? I have to really think about that. I just don't like it the way it is. So what do you use now? Well, I communicate a lot by Instagram. I think Instagram has done a rather good job, except for the bots that are attacking my posts

every single day. Oh, really? Oh, I have a lot of bots. And I do not like them at all. What do they do? Well, it's money bots. Oh, Adrienne is the most fabulous person I ever did know. And she's made me so much money. Oh, okay. You know, those things, they just come on thousands of them. You look at them. Well, I want to see who's responding to my post. I don't read every single post. But then I see that I tried to delete all of them. There's no way to delete them. So I did. I can see Martha Stewart in her post.

next to her giant fireplace. No, no, no, darling. I'm not going to be able to do that. But I also, I have an argument with Instagram right now. The number of users on my Instagram has not increased. I think it increased like 200,000 in the last three or four years. Yeah. To only 1.8 million. I'm much more popular. So something's wrong with my numbers. Maybe this podcast will get Instagram to... Maybe. I will speak to them directly. But do you use TikTok?

I do use TikTok. I met the original marketer of TikTok, and he was fantastic. He invited me to a lunch out in California, and I went to meet him, and he showed me the ropes for TikTok. And I had been in China watching the TikTokers create the TikToks early on, and I just thought it was a fabulous platform for good video, for good information. And I still think that.

And you do them yourself. I do, yes. I do. And we put together a few at the company. But it's a good way to advertise. And it's also a very good way to make money. Because I get paid for some of the posts. I did a campaign for Clay DePauw Cosmetics. So you're like Kim Kardashian. We did fabulously. You're a Kardashian. Oh, I'm a junior Kardashian. Okay.

But we got so much attention. And we won Best Campaign of the Year for that TikTok. It was a series of TikToks. You seem to enjoy the format. You're an influencer. I do. Do you consider yourself an influencer? I think, as some people have said, I'm one of the original influencers. The OG, yeah. Yeah. So when you think about doing this, I'm curious, what drives you to do this? Well, the...

Stuff that we create, the content that we are making each and every day is very valuable content. Everybody should know it, I think. It makes life easier. It makes the homekeeping and homemaking more wonderful. It might sound mindless or something, but it's not mindless. It makes every day nicer.

And so I want people to know that. And that's one reason that I continue to learn how to do things so that I can teach people how to do things. Every day I learn something new. I'm doing a television program now on Roku, three different categories. One is cooking. Yeah, you moved to another platform. Yeah, we did. And it's a streaming platform, but it is free. It's so interesting because one of the things is you yourself are an entrepreneur. You don't ever refer to yourself like that.

No, but I am. I am an entrepreneur. I did something that no one had done before me. That's being an entrepreneur. I created a lifestyle business focused on all kinds of media. My business plan was very curious and very nice. I had studied a lot of art and architecture. So my business plan, the original organization plan for the company was

the sun in the middle, which was content. Around the sun was first print, because that's what we were doing in the magazine. Then around the print was media, which was TV and radio, whatever. Around that was omnimerchandising. So anything emanating from the content through the media, media promoted all the kinds of things we were talking about, like a beautiful table. This is a Martha table.

And then merchandising made the table and sold it. And so all of that was incorporated into my beautiful, beautiful business plan. Your beautiful business plan. It sounded like Trump. It was beautiful. No, but it was beautiful. That's before Donald Trump adopted the word beautiful. It was beautiful because the last word I use in my description of what we do in creating inspirational, informative, practical ideas

And beautiful content. That's what I talk about. That's what you were trying to do. And talk about Omnimedia, because at the time, people made fun of you. Oh, they did. Calling it Omnimedia. And I was like, no, no, everything is going to be Everything Media. You were thinking of it in different terms. This was way back when. And I got upset with Time. Time was my publisher early on. They're the ones who actually agreed to do my magazine. They let me have a certain percent of it, and they were partners.

And they did a very good job in distributing and printing my beautiful magazine. This is Martha Stewart Living. Yes, Martha Stewart Living, which we started in around 1990. But within five years, they started to tell me, oh, we're going to put everything online for free. And I said, you can't do it for free. Every single magazine that you have should be a subscription online. I had many arguments with

Now, this is an entrepreneur speaking. They were not so entrepreneurial. No, they were not. And I went to a lot of meetings and sat in on a lot, and I kept arguing about it. Do not give away what you own. What you own and make. And make. Or everything has a price. Yes. Everything has a price. Yes, and that would have changed the whole subscriptions. You bet. Yeah. And it didn't. They didn't do it. They just went. Because you're comfortable with advertising. Oh, yes. You're not uncomfortable advertising.

advertising. Not at all. You thought content was worth paying for. I absolutely still think that. So one of the things I've admired about your career is that you've owned your own brand and business, something I tried to do also. Time Warner, as you said, used to finance your magazine and media. You bought yourself out as early as 1997.

Could you talk about the decision and why you realized owning a brand was important? Well, arguing with them about, first of all, the internet and realizing that – You're sick of arguing with them. Well, yeah. And it was a pleasant experience being with Chime, by the way. They were okay guys. Mm-hmm.

And as I said, they really did help me. Okay, as a one lady, as I recall. Yeah, one lady. They actually let me produce a really beautiful magazine in great quantity. And then I realized that I had so much with this idea of merchandising and everything. I had other fish to fry. Yeah.

So that's why I wanted to buy back the magazine. We coordinated. Sharon Patrick was my president at the time. I was the CEO. And we came up with this plan to get a huge contract from Kmart, a merchandising contract, which turned out to be a phenomenal deal. And we were able to – I was able to pay time the –

what it was, $40 million or whatever it was. I didn't even blink. I mean, I was not a terribly wealthy woman at that time, but I went public and then I was a terribly wealthy woman at the time. So those are the kinds of things that happened. Time was a big deal, like to walk away from time. Even then, it was...

It was pre-internet. It was pre- But I was an entrepreneur. Right. And I had to express myself in a different way. And that really was the best way to do it. Best way to do it. Yes. When you think about the control of your brand, which I think you have complete control, you eliminate gatekeepers. You are the gatekeeper. I try. Yeah. Yeah.

And also a deep relationship with your user, right? Or your audience, essentially. You have a close relationship. Even if they don't like you, they know you or they know of you and they know. They know everything about me. It's just incredible. The fan base is huge and interesting.

because they are really intelligent people. Do you like user-generated content based on your content, or do you feel like you lose control of the brand, or do you care? No, no. You don't mind parodies of yourself either. No, I don't, and you can't. You cannot fight those things. You have to sort of go along with the flow because...

it makes you more likable. And if I fought every single thing, I'd probably be dead by now. But you can't. You can't. And I just recently had a dinner with about 12 or 15 serious Martha fans. And I sat and had a long dinner in Westport, Connecticut. I did a speech at my old house for a charity event. And people paid a lot of money to have dinner with me. They came from all over the country.

And we sat and talked. They know every writer that I've ever used in the magazine. They know every story. They know every photograph. They know everything we've done, every product we've made. They know everything. They could come in and be part of the company. They are that interested in what we have accomplished and created. So you have respect for fans. It's interesting because many years ago I kept telling people fans are what everything's going to be about.

Going forward. And the fan base is- Likes and fans. Huge, yes. Likes. If you don't get likes, what good are you? You better be liked. And it's Donald Trump. He has a very big fan base. One of the things, though, is there's a lot of now lifestyle influencers everywhere. There's influencers on everything, makeup, lifestyle, et cetera. Oh, yes.

Is that a good or bad thing when any normal person can go? And when you see, you know, I think, you know, say on TikTok, there's a million creators or whatever. 1% of them are very good. How do you look at that? Is that a threat to someone like you or not at all? Before you used, there should be one Martha. Now there's dozens. Oh, dozens. But not all of them know as much as I know. Not all of them. Not all of them have done what I've done in the period of years that I've been working on.

But I learned from them, too. I learned recently a hack, they call them hacks, about ripe avocados. And I just did it on my show today. I just talked about it, and I said it was a hack that I saw. I'm not going to say it's my idea because I didn't come up with it, but that I can use it and that you can use it is valuable. Yeah, absolutely. When you think you're going to get into the shift in your brand, when you started off, you put an interview to elevate the job of a homemaker.

What do you imagine you're doing now? Are you elevating the job of who? Right now, I am of anybody. It's anybody. Because there are two male households. There are two female households. There are male-female households. There are binary households. I don't know what they are anymore. They all still need help.

And I have this idea that maybe I should be... Why is there an Alexa? Why is there a, hey, Google? There should be a Martha. Hi, Martha. How do I do this? This is Martha AI that's coming. That's right. This is Martha AI. And I'm working on that. Oh, you are? Oh, yes. Because the content...

Oh, you've made a lot. Hundreds of thousands of pages. Yeah, you would be an LLM, wouldn't you? Perfect. Yeah. Perfect. Yeah, yeah. And so I'm very interested in doing that. Doing that. Yes. Ingesting all your content into an LLM. Yes.

And then creating a Martha AI. Yes. Do you want to work on it with me? No, but you should do it. You should do it. Where should I go? Oh, there's lots of places. I'll help you with that. Okay. I will tell you who to go to. Because I want to go to the right person because I don't want to. I remember wanting to do this a long time ago. Ingesting all your information. Yes. I went to Kleiner Perkins and I wanted to do that. This is a VC firm for people who don't know in Silicon Valley. Yeah. And they underwrote Jeff Bezos. They underwrote Google. They underwrote a lot of the major, major stuff. Yeah.

But they said it was too complicated. Oh, really? Yeah. It's not complicated. Well, it's not now. Yeah. I have some ideas. But why?

But in that case, you're aiming at everything. Because I think the knock on you back when was that this idea of it's too perfect, right? How do you look at that now? I laugh. Why? Because it wasn't too perfect. You do not want your teacher to give you misinformation. Okay. And so I didn't want to be wrong. I wanted to be smart. I wanted to be...

And my nephew, Christopher, he counted how many times I said perfectly perfect in a show that I was doing. And it was kind of embarrassing. So you didn't mind saying that? No. So what if this is hard? I didn't mind. He said, you said it 23 times in an hour. And I said, well, it's okay. That's my thing. And I laughed about it. But I...

Sort of toned it down a little bit. But you didn't mind the idea that this is hard to do, these expectations? No. You didn't expect people to do it necessarily. No, I did. I did want people to know how everything is done. But I knew that there are a lot of people that would then be able to tell their housekeeper or their husband or their wife how to do it. Mm-hmm.

Because they would know how to do it even if they couldn't do it themselves. I see. That's the whole, it's much more complicated than you realize. It's not me just saying, this is the way you bake a cake. Not everybody can bake a cake. They just can't. But they can know that if it's made that way, it will be delicious and beautiful. I see. And usable. You make no apologies for being perfect, so to speak.

But one of the other things you've done is you've confused and fascinated feminists throughout your career, which I find really interesting. In 2000, Joan Didion wrote a feature about you in The New Yorker, which I love this quote. It ends with, "...the dreams and the fears into which Martha Stewart taps are not, quote, feminine domesticity, but a female power of a woman who sits at the table with the men and still in her apron walks away with the chips."

Was she right? Did you like that? I loved that. I thought that was a beautifully written and thoughtful article. And I never really got to say that to her face. And I'm really sorry about that. Because she was, she's a fantastic writer.

She was, yeah.

That's a long time, and many things happened in each decade. And how did I fit into those decades? So we're going to get to your ability to reinvent yourself. But I want to – we were missing – if I didn't start, I want to finish this section. You made recently controversial comments about remote work.

I love them, I have to say. You said people can't, quote, possibly get everything done working two days remotely. You called France's 30-day policy stupid and said that's not a very thriving country. Should America go down the drain because people don't want to go back to work? You got a lot of backlash, in part because women have gained some flexibility working at home, and others note it's a privilege to be able to afford work.

Home care, talk about this, because I think a lot of people agree with you. Many tech companies are now. Many companies agree with me. Many executives agree with me. What I was talking about was more personal because we are a creative company. We are a collaboration company. We have to see each other, see what we're doing. It doesn't work.

on three days a week. Do you think any of the pushback is fair with people who want to, you know, basically you've worked from home your whole life because your work is your home. My home is my office. And it just happened to be that way. And we have people working with me. But that's the way it is. But I still go to New York to my office several days a week. I work about

18 hours a day, truthfully. And I know how hard it is to work. I know how hard it is to manage a home, make your husband happy or unhappy, raise the child or the children. I know how. I've gone through all of that. So I know how hard it is. And yet I admire so much someone like my mom, who had six children, couldn't

cooked all our meals with a, the minute that the baby, Laura was five years old and in school full-time, mom went full-time back to teaching sixth grade in a Nutley public school and loved it. And, and, and,

She just did it all. Sewed all our clothes. You know, helped my father in the garden. Canned all the tomatoes. She did it all. And so what the heck? What are we complaining about? What about people who can't afford child care and things like that? We didn't have child care. Right, right, right. You know, have another child to take care of the other child. Right, right. And so when you say this,

things that you wear. I'll get in trouble for that. No, yeah, that's okay. One of the things you said is you should be able to call anybody anytime, even on weekends. You've been said after one of your new employees didn't take a call on a Sunday because they were taking a bath, quote, knew I didn't want to work with that person. You do talk about wellness with your audience. You're not Gwyneth Paltrow, let's be clear.

Something's changed at work. There's a lot of pushback from employees now to companies. I know Google's seeing protests. All the companies are trying to get people. They are. Oh, they are. So how does this resolve itself? Mars is like, get the fuck back to work. I do not know. Get out of the bath. I do not know. But we're trying. We're trying hard to accommodate this idea of flex work and all of that stuff. Mm-hmm.

Your eyes just went up with flex work. Yeah, flex work. But that's okay for accountants who have all the stuff on their computers. They have all the spreadsheets. They can do it all at home. But do they do it all at home? You call and, oh, they're out walking the dog. Mm-hmm.

Or whatever. I don't want to keep harping on it. You're standing by. Yes, I am strongly in favor of getting back to work in a regular work week, which was five days. Yeah. And then if you are an entrepreneur, the work week doesn't end on Friday. It does not. It does not.

So let's talk about your own reinvention. One of the things you've been applauded on in your career is your ability to reinvent yourself. In 2004, you were convicted of felony charges in the Imclone Insider Trading case. You served five months in federal prison, had to resign as CEO of the company you'd built. How do you look back on that now when you think about it? I look back on it as kind of a silly thing.

but serious infringement of a person's rights. It seems to me improbable that that could have happened. If...

I had had better advice if I had taken it more... I mean, I took it seriously, but I didn't know how... I didn't know the consequences. Right. I had no idea that that would make such a huge difference. And remember, I was convicted of a crime of lying. Now, that's very different from insider trading. I was not an insider trader. I was a liar. And I have...

rarely lied in my life. I think the biggest lies I have ever told were to my husband when I told him that the price of the dress was $30 instead of $300. And he didn't know what dresses cost. But that is the biggest lie I ever told.

It was insane. One of the things I always thought was that interesting that you're the only woman, person that goes away for insider trading and all those men do it all the time. But it wasn't insider trading. I get it. But I mean, talking about targeting. Yes. Did you feel targeted? Oh, I did. I did. And I think I was. Why? We will get into that in my autobiography in a very serious way. So what are the implications? Can we have a preview of that?

Well, implications were not so serious. It took me away from the operations of the company for a period of time. But when I left prison after five months, we called it Camp Alderson.

It was in West Virginia. Yeah. I made the most of the time there. I wrote a lot. We had no computers or anything. We had not much communication. We had a telephone that we could use. And we had a very small stipend of money that we could spend on evening activities like pottery. But my stock was at a new high. Mm-hmm.

Because people did not stop buying Martha Stewart product. It was still the very highest quality, very, very well liked. The magazine was very popular. And so when I came back to New York and back to the office, it was like just coming home. I had been away for a period of time. So it didn't have implications. No, it did not. Did it make you more popular? I think in some circles, yes. Mm-hmm.

I think the conservative movement in America had just started around that time. And those people sometimes looked askance at me. But no, it was generally okay. And so thank goodness, because I did have a new CEO installed in the company, one of my board members, who was good at making deals and not so good at running the company. Mm-hmm.

And it went on like that for a period of time. I think I was five years without being able to be the CEO. I don't think it's going to be the case with Elizabeth Holmes, though. I don't think when she gets off. Don't compare me to Elizabeth Holmes. I will not. I shall not. That is a very unfair comparison. I agree. I would agree. I would agree. Although the only comparison I would make, it's interesting that only women seem to pay the price. There's a lot of Elizabeth Holmes-like characters in the film.

floating around tech. Oh, of course there are. Yeah. And she's the only one. Of course. Guilty as she may be in that case. Not sympathetic. Not sympathetic. Yes. Do you think you were not sympathetic?

I was this pretty woman coming into, you know, in a strange courtroom with strange jurors and really bad lawyers that was just, it was impossible. It just wasn't meant to be. Wasn't meant to be. But it didn't seem to slow you down. I think the problem in tech is that no one rich and powerful is getting criticism from their inner circles. You kind of have to fail to understand real life. Was that a moment for you? Did that teach you anything? No.

It taught me that if life hands you lemons, make lemonade. Right, right. What was the lemonade then? The lemonade was keeping that company vibrant. I had a lot of revelations, but not religious. Just revelations that you had to watch. Yes.

No, I had to buckle down and look around me and be more careful with every single thing I did. I kind of lost my mojo in real estate. I was such a good real estate investor originally, and it slowed me down. Mm-hmm.

on those things. But I focused on other things. Focused on other things, clearly. So talk about comebacks because one of the things that makes entrepreneurs is the ability, and I know you hate this word pivot, but to shift from one thing to the other and take failure as an opportunity. Well, again, I didn't fail at anything. I mean, I just didn't fail at anything. Right, setbacks. A momentary setback in a long, well-lived life. Okay. But

I was very happy to create more things. We got new contracts. Kmart, at the same time that all of this was happening, my fabulous contract with Kmart was coming to an end because of a man called Eddie Lampert. Do you remember Eddie? Yes.

And Eddie wanted to keep me on, but with no royalty. Sounds like Eddie Lampert. Yeah, it was like the craziest deal on earth. You know, Eddie, how can I be designing for you and making product with no royalty? Yeah, yeah. And he just laughed. I mean, it was ridiculous. But I wanted to buy Kmart at the time that he bought it and change it to Kmart. That would have been a good idea. Wouldn't that have been great? Yes, why didn't you?

K Martha. It would have been the best store because I really like mass market. What would that look like? What would K Martha look like? It would have been great. Right. And, you know, it would have just been so great. K Crew. We could have had all of J Crew in there. Uh-huh. K Crew. Right. Got it. It was a...

Kmart was a, that was the biggest retailer in America before Walmart and Target when I signed up with them. And then they just lost their way because they didn't even know what inventory controls were with the new computers. So you would have liked to be a commerce.

Oh, yeah. Of course I would have. I would have loved that. But I loved having all my stuff in there. I still have all my Kmart product. I use it all the time. It's in all my houses. And then we went with Macy's, which also turned out to be a very good thing. But...

And then, oh, and then Mark Burnett came after prison. And he asked me to do The Apprentice, Martha Stewart. I watched it. Yes, with Donald Trump doing his apprentice. Yes, tell me about that. Yeah, that was very interesting. Because I had watched a lot of the Donald Trump apprentices and thought...

You know, he's a bully. He's relying on a kind of odd cast of characters. And I thought I could do a very good apprentice. Now, I didn't go to Mark Burnett. Mark Burnett came to me and asked me. He changed my entire big office downtown into the home for the apprentices. They moved into my offices. I recall. They had bathrooms. They had kitchens. They lived there like apartments in my 150,000 square foot office. It was...

Yeah. And yet I don't think I did a really great job because I didn't pick Bethany Frankel. She was one of my apprentices. She then went on to become a pretty hot shot in TV and all those things. I didn't pick her because I couldn't stand her. Okay. Well, likability shouldn't be your goal. No, I just couldn't. And nothing against her personally, just that.

I just didn't like her. Where she was on The Apprentice. Yeah, yeah. And the girl we did, she was entrepreneurial and attractive and well-spoken and everything. And she's done all right, but nothing like Bethany. Right. The whole thing was in hysteria. And I was supposed to, the big plan was that I was hired by Mark Burnett to fire Donald. Oh, okay.

To say, you're fired. Just like he had said to hundreds of people during his apprentice, I was to fire him and take over. Yeah. But he got wind of it, and he did not want to leave. So he would not be fired by Martha Stewart? No, he would not be. What are your thoughts on him working with him?

I didn't really work with him. I was working with Mark Burnett. Yeah, yeah. And Donald would come by. I remember him coming by in the finale and, you know, like that around the place. But that's all. Nothing much. Do you have any advice for him if he goes to prison? No, sorry. Let's just wait for the note. No, we're not going to talk about Donald Trump. Did you see it coming that he could be president?

No. No, I didn't think about it at that time. Not at that time. He was kind of a laughable figure in New York. Not at that time. He was not who he became. What do you imagine is going to happen to him next?

Speaking of brands. Oh, dear. I don't know. I think he looked extremely uncomfortable at his indictment, that he's not a happy man. Yeah. In general, he's not a happy man. So let's talk about happiness, though. Talking about reinvention, you start off as a perfect homemaker. You've had a lot of partners. And one of the ones that I think people are intrigued by is you and Snoop Dogg.

It's worked out really well. It's worked out really well, it seems. Oh, yeah. Snoop and I just... Talk about that. You two are friends, right? We hit it off on my show originally. On my daily show that I had for, I think, six or eight years...

I liked rap music. I was intrigued by the performers, by the ushers, the Puff Daddies, the Snoop Dogs. I really kind of liked their characters. Why? They were, to me, kind of the future. Mm-hmm.

In entertainment. And I was right about that. And Puff Daddy, now P. Diddy, now whatever, he had a house out in East Hampton. He had a big white party every year I went to. We had so much fun at his parties. He was a likable, very smart businessman. Usher was charming and talented.

Snoop was charming and funny, and he was just an odd, odd character. I thought he was much older than he was. He was 40 when I first met him. Did it start off as a business play to –

No, no, no, no. No, I just liked him and I invited him on the show and we made brownies and talked silly talk about pot and stuff. And then we were invited, both of us were invited just, I think, by the producer of the Comedy Central Justin Bieber roast. Mm-hmm.

And that's where I got to really know him because for two days we were rehearsing. And then on the day of the roast, we had to sit next to each other for hours and hours in rehearsal. And we just talked and laughed and soup smoked the whole day. And I was just...

flying high because of secondhand smoke. And I just, I had the best time with that roast. And I was applauded for it. People, I was told by Susan Magrino, by my company, by the CEO, by everybody, do not go and do that roast. Even my daughter said, mom, don't do the roast. You're uncool. Well, no, yeah, I'm not cool. And it turned out I was really cool. That was a moment. You know, the

It feels authentic. The move was not calculated in any way. I like experiences. I like to try new things. Who else do you want to collaborate with? Who are you interested in now since you seem to see the future?

I haven't thought about that right now. I've been so busy doing the new Roku show and other business opportunities. You were in NFTs, too, right? Oh, yeah. Or you started selling these in 2021? Immediately, we sold some of my photographs, some of my Halloween costume photographs as NFTs. And they were successful. Mm-hmm.

I feel sorry for the people who own them right now with the decline in the cryptocurrency world. But you just want to jump in and try it. I do. I think you have to be where it's happening. You have a store with Amazon. Did you strike that partnership with Bezos? No.

No, it wasn't with Bezos. It was with the new management, of course. With the new management. And they're very enthusiastic. Are you worried about it? Many people who have brands are worried about being on Amazon for all kinds of reasons. Well, as retailers get less and less exciting, and there are many of them less and less. I mean, Macy's is in trouble. And that was a very good outlet for me. Mm-hmm.

Many other stores don't want brands. They want their own brands, in-house brands. So you have to find the right place to be at the right time. And Amazon has always been – I remember taking Jeff around my office early on and saying, Jeff, we should be your home. Mm-hmm.

We should be home on Amazon. And he wasn't focused on it. Right. He wasn't thinking home at that time. He was still in books. He was still just starting to get into merchandising. To music and stuff. Yeah. And that was a shame because that would have been like...

That would have been the end all. So it would be Martha-zon. Martha-zon. Or Amazon Martha. I don't quite have that expectation. Right. That doesn't work as well as Kay Martha, which is my favorite thing I've ever heard in my life right now. So let's finish up talking about Sports Illustrated. It said it's taken a lot of attention, but you look fantastic, if I may say. Did they pay you to do this?

How does it work out? How does that explain us? Because I don't know too many supermodels. Sports Illustrated is in the media business of magazines. Right.

This is the 59th year of Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue, which has traditionally been their biggest selling issue. Sure, 100%. I mean, Sports Illustrated is basically a male audience. Yeah. And they created this swimsuit issue 60 years ago to appeal to men. More skin, the better. Less coverage, the better. Sexy, sexy, sexy.

And it's changed a little bit over the years, and especially this year, because I'm the oldest person ever to grace that cover. Yes, you have. But they called in November and asked if I would do it. What did you say when the call came? I said, well, it was at the behest. I think MJ Day is the editor-in-chief of the magazine of that swimsuit issue. And she's always liked me, she said. And she thought I would be a good cover model.

People know you were a model early in your life. Oh, yes. I started modeling when I was like 13 years old. So I'm comfortable in front of the camera. And I've been on many magazine covers and my own covers, whatever. But I was a little nervous because was I fit enough to be in a bathing suit on the cover of the magazine? So I went on a strict diet.

regimen and a very strict Pilates exercise regimen. And I went down to the Dominican and just did it. Just did it. Just did it. I got a spray tan for the first time in years. Oh, how was that? Oh, it was okay. You have to stand there like naked in a tent and they spray you. They do indeed. But it looks good. It looks really good. And then I also had to, what else did I have to do? Oh, first I had to get all waxed. You have to wax your whole body. Of course.

and then you have to get your hair. Because women don't have hair, in case you're interested. No, no, you cannot have any hair. And hair on your head, of course. Yeah. What's the feedback you've gotten over it? Susan Magrino just told me today it's between 90 and 100 billion impressions. And the feedback is

been largely and they went back for a reprint on my cover there were four cover four cover models and so that's exciting people really want the cover and I've been signing a lot of cards I get them in the magazine in the mail every day carefully wrapped FedEx from fans and I sign them and send them back with self-addressed envelopes of course they're very polite these fans are so polite

So it's very exciting. And women have come up to me every day and just said, you made me feel really good about myself. And even Gayle King wrote to me and I said, next year you, Gayle. Yeah, right.

So one of the things, headlines pointed out that at 81, you're the oldest woman to be on the cover, as you said. But you told in today's show, the whole aging thing is so boring. It is. It's very boring, and it doesn't have to be. I don't talk about aging. I talk about living. I started a hospital at Mount Sinai called the Martha Stewart Center for Living, not for aging, even though it is a geriatric-centered hospital.

for patients over 65 years old. But it's about living. So presumably you're not going to retire, correct? Because you think aging is irrelevant. I don't know what retirement is. I have never considered retiring. Have you? No. No. No, I'm going to die. It's not in your DNA. No.

And my mom didn't retire. She was still babysitting in her 90s and trusted, a trusted babysitter. So I want to be able to do whatever I want to do for as long as I can do it. You mentioned that you're having RJ Cutler, Netflix documentary coming out about your life. In making that doc, you must be thinking about legacy. What do you think your legacy will be?

It's hard to tell at this present time other than as a really good teacher with a lot of good ideas that have certainly helped millions and millions of people get through the everyday. And earlier we talked about perfection, which is your favorite word, and about whether women can have it all.

Do you think you have it all? You have a very nice house, by the way. Oh, this is just, this is not my house. Oh, I know. This is a small house where I would live in very happily for the rest of my life. This is our guest house. I get it, Martha. I'm just saying. We feel like schlubs just being here, I have to say. Oh, you do not. Your bowl collection alone has shamed us. Oh, isn't it great? But is there anything missing in your life?

I have a pretty full life. I have a pretty active life. I think the only thing I really, really miss is more travel. I really want to travel more. And I recently got back from a fantastic trip to Saudi Arabia, which was unusual and well done and very informative. I was

I went to Madagascar for Christmas with my grandchildren and my daughter. The year before was Antarctica. The year before that was... Oh, so you do travel. Yeah, but not enough. I want to do more travel. But I don't want to go to places I've already been. I want to go other places. All right. So, Martha AI? Yes. I'm on my way. Okay. Thank you, Martha. It's been a delight. It's been a delight. It's on!

She was unapologetically perfect. She is. I love that. She didn't back down on anything. Remote work? Fuck you. Fuck you, says Martha. Get into the office. I'm there. And she is. That's the thing. She does work. Can't take care of your children? Have another child. Another child. You know, I also struggle with this work from home thing. From my perspective, work from wherever, but work. Yeah, it's an interesting challenge. And I think it's become a thing that isn't

It's not about work from home. It's about work. It's about that they think they work too much. And that's a different thing. And then you have to make decisions for yourself, for sure. But Martha Stewart works all the time. Let's be clear. She works all the time. In this house, you can see that. By the way, if you work a lot, you can have a house like this. That's right. And then you can work from home. I work a lot and I don't have a house like this. So I don't know what you're talking about. You have a pretty nice house, Kara. Not like this house. Yeah, this house is very fancy. We're in Martha Stewart's house. We're going to say that. Yes. I mean, she is a force. And I appreciate that she's authentic and she says what she thinks. Mm-hmm.

in that world of perfection, and she kind of mentioned, I didn't fail. But you could try to smooth over everything, paper over everything. She definitely doesn't do that. She reminds me a lot of tech entrepreneurs. And she was a techie because she had that attitude, like, just keep going. And I think that's her. She drove and drove and drove. And you could see that from the very beginning of her career, was constantly achieving. And just having a drive and an ambition that met together. You could often have ambition without drive, and it never works. And she has both. That's great.

That's why she's constantly reinventing herself despite what are clear setbacks. Notice she didn't like the word fail. She didn't. She said, I didn't fail. It's not perfect to fail. But she has had what one would consider failures and she doesn't see them as that. And that's often what you see in entrepreneurs. It's not a failure. It's a setback.

or it's a pivot, even though she doesn't like that word. She's got the soul of an entrepreneur, for sure. I love that story of her taking the money from the Kmart deal and buying out the okay guys from Time. Like I can picture it in an Italian leather bag. And people didn't do that. I think to appreciate what she did at the time...

She was often pilloried for being aggressive and grabby because she was a woman. And I remember hearing that. I'm like, what's so grabby about she made it? She should do it. Yeah. Including the complaints about like, she's too perfect. I'm like, well, then don't look at it. Like, I used to think, okay, whatever.

So? But I liked her rationale for that. It's like, not everyone maybe can make this cake, but you could know how to make that cake. You could know, or someone near you could. And so that was, you know, she's unapologetic. It's a very good way of putting it. And yet she also did seem to care about being liked. I mean, she mentioned if you don't get liked, what good are you? Here's who she likes is her audience.

Her fans and audience is who she likes. She noted that her fans are very polite. She minds her fans. And I think she's almost populist in a weird way. And not unlike a lot of people like that is that they don't care about the critics. They care about their fans and whatever they're making for the people that consume their stuff. She's resilient. Her brand has been resilient. She just does what she does and she does it beautifully. And you can either like it or not. And I do think she got a lot of things very early right about her.

genuineness or authenticity. I think she got it on excellence. I think she got it on fan base. She was always super early to ideas and she's not scared of new ideas at all. And I think very few people in media have the openness that she does. And that's why I've always liked Martha. When you think about meeting her for that first time and kind of knowing her over the many years, her attending code in the early aughts to now,

She's the same? She's the same. She's the same. The first thing I said to her is, what the fuck are you doing here? Like, what? Because everyone sort of walked around her because nobody wanted to go up to her, but I went right up to her. I had our magazine. I swear I put this to her. Yes, I swore. Can I just say, I for a second took my glass off the coaster. Oh, okay. You thought, oh, no. Martha picked it up and put it back. Oh, did she? She put it back. I was surprised she was there, but she was curious. And nobody else was. So let me say, she was there.

She did the work. I love that she was early on to tech. And I think Martha AI, she's got a great idea. It's a great idea. I mean, if I could be in my kitchen talking to Martha AI. She's got so much content. She has so much good content. I remember when, I think it was Time started Real Simple, which was sort of a knockoff of Martha. I'm sure she was furious. I didn't ask her about it. I used to call it Really Simply Stupid because it was all stupid things. It's like, you should take bleach to make things white. And I was like, Martha would not do this. I think a

I think a lot of influencers and people like that owe a debt of gratitude to someone like her. There's several people like her that didn't have the tools at the time, but if she was 20 years old today, she'd be a TikTok star. Yeah. I mean, she helped create a category that has become the defining category. Influencer and fan base and-

Also, home. Home. Home has become a huge category in a big way. But she's got to get that Martha AI before someone else does it. And people like her because you get to an old lady position in life as I am moving into. You're not an old lady position. I'm moving into it. People tend to like you better. And she's playing that well. Yeah. She's like, yeah, whatever. I'm a hip old lady. People don't like young ladies. I can tell you that. They do not like young ladies.

She's getting into that hippo lady territory. She has to do the Martha AI before someone else does it because- She'll do it. Don't worry. With Esther Perel, a friend of ours. I feel like she would do it. Someone went rogue and made an Esther bot. Well, they're going to get sued. An Esther AI. They're going to get sued. It's kind of quietly. Yeah. But it's a better idea than Kay Martha, that Martha AI, I think. I love Kay Martha.

Really? Like who would have thought of that? Her. She thought of that. She would have thought of that. She is creative and she's always working. She came up with 10 ideas here. I know. It's really interesting. I'm going to have to go monetize some of them right now. All right. You want to read us out? Yes. Here from the beautiful guest house of Martha Stewart, which is just not the real house. It's the tiny, tiny guest house. But it's a good thing.

Thank you.

You're stuck in aisle eight of K Martha. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for on with Kara Swisher and hit follow. Thanks for listening to on with Kara Swisher from New York magazine, the Vox media podcast network and us. How do we just stay in this house forever? We're going to just stay. We're not leaving. Not leaving. This house is much better than my apartment. We're going to be squatters at Martha Stewart's estate in Bedford, New York. Be odd when our guests come here for tapings, but it's okay.