Kara Swisher, whose early and no-holds-barred coverage of the technology industry earned her a reputation as “Silicon Valley’s most feared and well-liked journalist,” will give the 2023 commencement address at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art on Wednesday, May 24, 2023 at 10:30 a.m. The program from Cooper’s historic Great Hall stage will also be livestreamed for public viewing at youtube.com/cooperunion.

“Kara Swisher is an incisive and critical voice at the intersection of tech, politics, business, and media. She has built some of the most enduring and influential spaces that track and analyze technology and its ever-evolving impact on our lives,” said Laura Sparks, president of The Cooper Union. “Kara exemplifies for our graduates the spirit of innovation, creativity, and purpose that is at the heart of our educational mission, and the Class of 2023 will benefit greatly from her views on the agency and power they have to define their own paths.”

“I am excited to return to The Cooper Union, where I spoke in 2022 on the importance of democratizing access to tech,” said Swisher. “In the many decades I’ve been reporting on tech, I’ve seen plenty of high highs and low lows, but one thing that has remained constant has been my deep belief in the power of creativity and innovation to make change. It’s an honor to get to speak to the Class of 2023 as they prepare to embark on their next chapter and make their own marks on the world.”

Swisher, who has been reporting on the industry since the early 1990s, is considered the top reporter in the tech game. She was there when Amazon was looking for its first headquarters in Seattle, when Google was in its garage, and when Netflix was just a small startup. Currently, she is host of On with Kara Swisher and co-host of the Pivot podcast, as well as editor-at-large of New York Magazine. Previously she hosted the Sway and Recode Decode podcasts and was co-founder of the technology website, Recode, as well as a contributing New York Times opinion writer. Swisher was also one of the founding producers and hosts of Wall Street Journal’s "D: All Things Digital" conference (now called the Code conference) which is one of the country's leading conferences on tech. She authored the books aol.com: How Steve Case Beat Bill Gates, Nailed the Netheads and Made Millions in the War for the Web and There Must Be a Pony in Here Somewhere: The AOL Time Warner Debacle and the Quest for a Digital Future. Swisher received a B.S. from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and an M.A. from Columbia University’s School of Journalism.

Listen to the 2023 Commencement Address as part of Kara Swisher's podcast On here.