Who fears the predators?

Kara Swisher started as a tech journalist at the Wall Street Journal in 1997, where she covered digital issues. Today she hosts tech conferences in Silicon Valley and is a co-editor-in-chief at the blog Re/code.

She has a reputation for breaking news and having some of the best scoops in an otherwise secretive industry. She has even had exclusive interviews with Barack Obama, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg.

Some say it's her discretion, while others attribute her unique access to her sharp tongue. Either way, Swisher is a woman who knows what she wants and what she doesn't. I, for one, want more time with her. She denies my request. I want to watch her work. She says she'd "never let you tape one of my interviews."

It's 11 a.m. in her office in downtown San Francisco. Swisher, sporting aviator sunglasses and exuding something between charm and arrogance, utters a brief hello before turning back to her Macbook. She seems busy and keeps me waiting. By the time the recorder finally starts rolling, I see that I am talking to a professional, one who is both very kind and very shrewd.

DW: You work in Silicon Valley - the center of today's world?

Kara Swisher: It depends on what you mean with center. For tech it certainly is. It is the analog center, like the way Hollywood is the center for entertainment or London is center for finance. And the people here do see themselves as the center of the world.They are incredibly selfish and self-absorbed here in Silicon Valley. But I mean all the big companies are here: Apple, Google, Facebook - all the companies that matter.

You lately wrote about Silicon Valley and how it has to deal with big issues.

The first problem here is the insularity. People are only regarding themselves. Silicon Valley is very provincial if you really break it down, even though they have global customers. But for the most part, Silicon Valley is provincial and focused on itself. Secondly, when you are that way, you tend to do a lot of navel-gazing. Everything here is with regard to everything else versus the wider world. Therefore, your problems are about diversity, your problems are about women's issues, not enough gender diversity, not enough racial diversity.

Do they have European and German companies in mind?

I would not say that Europe is on their mind. They are not thinking of German companies. I don't want to be rude but I don't ever hear them worrying about a German company at all, or about companies coming out of Europe. They do think of Europe as a market - a relatively small market compared to others - similar to markets in South America or the Middle East. But they don't think a lot of the competition that is coming from Europe, there simply is not a significant European company - apart from SAP maybe.

Google and Apple, in Europe they are sometimes seen as...

...predators! Yes, they can be seen as predators. Certainly they are. There are important issues going on with the domination by a Google or an Apple and a Facebook, a domination of all the social network area, the device area, the phone area and the search area.

And soon the self-driving cars? Should German car makers worry about that?

Yes, they should. Because big companies like Apple and Google need to find big new markets, growth. And growth is going to be in the mobility area. That's why both companies are investing in that area and hiring quite heavily.

Apple just hired Johan Jungwirth, the head of R&D in a Mercedes Benz lab in Silicon Valley.

They look for the great car makers and people that are involved there. That means they want to build a car. And they are building a car. They are already on the streets. It is not just taking current cars and putting self driving mechanisms into it, it is a fully new autonomous vehicle, with no steering wheel.

What about ride sharing? That branch has been booming for years.

In the future, you have to imagine that people do not own cars. There will be a limited need for personal ownership of cars. In a very short time car ownership will be unusual. And if people don't buy cars, they don't get insurances, there is not mechanics, there is a whole ecosystem built around personal car ownership that is being eroded by [ridesharing] companies like Uber, Lyft or Kuaidi in China. I don't drive my car anymore. I contemplate selling my car. I don't see the need for it. And so if someone like me, who is a 100 years old, is doing that, just imagine young people.

The case of Uber shows the differences between the US and Europe. In Europe, Uber has had problems entering the market. In some countries it's even banned.

I just was in France. There are protests from taxi drivers against it. I took a taxi there. The drivers made a very good point about fees, saying Uber is cutting corners. In some cases it might be true. But taxis used to be a monopoly; they are not used to competition. I think they can protest as they want - it is coming.

You can't just say we don't want it here when consumers want it. At the airport of Paris, the taxi drivers were protesting, sitting there, drinking wine, blocking the airport. Just idiots! The people they are trying to get, the consumers, now they hate them. They should offer good alternatives that are better, like apps, what they never have. They didn't catch up and now they want to use the government.

Is there a lack of innovation in Europe?

Yes. I mean what company has made a global impact? None! Zero! I am sorry, I wish there was but I can't even think of one. OK, the car companies for sure and some pharmaceutical stuff obviously. Biotech is very interesting and fascinating.

Where does this gap between the US and Europe come from?

You could say American entrepreneurialism? I don't know why there are more entrepreneurs here than in Europe. I guess mean Napoleon was an entrepreneur right? (She laughs.) There seem to be more entrepreneurs in Asia, in China especially, in India, in Russia. Some of it, not so good. The North Koreans are sure down to the Internet, even though it's for nefarious purposes. They are certainly good at it. In Europe? Maybe there is too much government, too much handholding, that's what people here would say.

What can Americans learn from Europe?

I think our governments are incredibly lax with these digital companies, because they are successes. There is a big problem in this country of embracing business if it is a successful thing. We want jobs, we are proud of it. We don't scrutinize these companies closely enough. Not to say that I want regulations, but I think the issue is that the ongoing government organizations should have a better sense of what they are doing with this information. And I think that is laudable that the EU and others are.

What about tech developments in emerging markets and countries of the third world?

The tech development in these countries is fantastic because they can use mobile devices. Everything changes with these very powerful super computers in your hands. (She pulls out her smartphone.) These things are getting cheaper and cheaper, which is great for the third world in terms of being able to conduct a lot of health care information or monetary transactions. No need for cash. Think about ridesharing, all these kinds of things. I saw a phone in India which is quite a good phone for like a penny. They are just disposable. You might carry a device still for a while, but in the future it can be everywhere: in your clothing, in your car, things in your eyes, chips under your skin. It gets really creepy but it is not completely unheard of that we have things on our person that will record everything, locate us or give us what we want.

You mean smartphones, wearables, services could help creating companies?

Yes, it doesn't cost much. There is talent all over the globe. Some people think there are only talented people here. But don't you think that there are talented entrepreneurs in Afghanistan, in Sudan, in all of Africa? They just don't have access. I think one of the things that's a shame is that a lot of super talented people have not been able to rise over their location or their circumstances.

Do you see any threats coming from this digitalization?

I do see lots of threats! I think Google, Facebook, even Apple have enormous caches of information about people. And regulators don't know what to do. They are ignorant about these things and have almost no regulatory oversight. This was one of the things I was talking about with the founders of Google. And he said: "Oh you think we are evil?" And I said: "No I just don't know who's going to run Google in 20 years. I don't think you are evil necessarily, I am not sure. But who is going to run this company in 20 years?" I mean, I always worry about the next people. There is so much rich information about who you are. You are being tracked - everyone is being tracked on a daily basis.

That is something Europeans criticize. Will they catch up in the future?

I really don't know. I just see a lot of reaction rather than innovation - a lot of "let's stop them" versus "let's create things." Look: Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, even Microsoft - why are they all here? You can stop a lot of them, but you can't stop all of them. Companies like Tencent, Alibaba - there are millions in China! And there are so many in India, of all kinds, really interesting, innovative. Who can be the global player in future? Will there be a European global player? I don't know.

Will there be women in future?

Oh, we will see. Women using the services sure, women are using more than the half of them. The general question is: Can companies become more diverse? As someone put it: It is not a meritocracy, it is a mirrortocracy. They see themselves in the mirror and then they recreate it. We can't make everyone entrepreneurial but we certainly can do a better job. Look at our math system, that's where we are going to lose. We've been in great math and science culture and we've lost it. We are now graduating a lot of people who want to be popstars. That's a real problem. Look at the math and engineering graduates in China and India - like crazy. There are really dynamic companies coming out of China and going global.