Laurie Segall’s Memoir Confronts Tech Titans, Media Moguls and All Sorts of “Special Characters”
The Dot Dot Dot founder and former CNN correspondent writes about coming of age alongside the companies she covers.
This is 10 Questions, in which we ask tech authors to pull back the covers on their recently released books. Interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity.
“Putting out a memoir is like walking down the street naked. It’s scary and it’s vulnerable and—well, I don’t know if walking down the street naked is rewarding—but it’s also very rewarding, too,” says Laurie Segall of her new book, “Special Characters: My Adventures With Tech’s Titans and Misfits.” Segall was a senior technology correspondent at CNN before leaving in 2019 to found the media company Dot Dot Dot. (She recently released interviews with Andreessen Horowitz crypto chief Chris Dixon and Yuga Labs founder Nicole Muniz.) In “Special Characters,” Segall charts both her career and her personal life, from her days as a 23-year-old CNN news assistant to interviewing Mark Zuckerberg in the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Along the way, she meets a woman who’s in love with a robot, chats with Jack Dorsey and Travis Kalanick, and attends “Silicon Valley’s premier sex party.” “My story is intertwined with this last decade of tech,” she says. “And lord knows there’s so much to say.”