A Playful Chat With Katie About WIRED's New Big Interview Series

WIRED: Hey there.

Katie: Um… hello?

WIRED: It’s us. The collective consciousness of the entire WIRED editorial team, here to walk you through our new Big Interview series.

Katie: Wait, is this an AI talking to me?

WIRED: Katie, cut to it: What even is a Big Interview?

Katie: Is it weird that I’m getting interviewed by my own publication?

WIRED: C’mon, you built this thing. Just answer the question.

Katie: Alright, fine. It’s an intimate conversation with people that both you (the all-knowing WIRED collective) and I find fascinating, people who are actively shaping the shared future we all live in. That doesn’t mean every guest is a tech executive or a celebrity scientist—these conversations cover every beat WIRED has ever reported on.

WIRED: Give us an example.

Katie: Wait, you’re WIRED. Shouldn’t you already know this? Alright, fine: tech and science, obviously, but also internet culture, politics, digital security, entertainment, and every form of innovation you can think of. We cover all of that, and we love getting to know the misfits, geniuses, oddballs, and icons—literal and figurative—who are leading the charge building what’s next.

WIRED: The WIRED collective would like to go on record: we don’t run free PR for famous people.

Katie: These interviews are nothing like PR. They also aren’t inherently adversarial. We aren’t out here trying to trick guests into saying something dumb or clickbait-worthy—though I can’t stop them if they end up doing one or both! I’d like to think WIRED has always been a place for thoughtful curiosity, and that’s exactly what these are: thoughtful, connected conversations between two people that make sense as a pairing. We want audiences to walk away feeling like they actually know the guest: their hopes, their biggest fears, what they ate for breakfast, even whether they’ve ever hallucinated full-length work meetings with their team after getting nitrous oxide at the dentist.

WIRED: You good over there, boss?

Katie: It’s been a long year.

WIRED: Speaking of the existential stress of running a media business right now: does anyone even read anymore? Why publish a whole interview series when everyone’s just scrolling TikTok these days?

Katie: Plenty of people still love reading, actually—good for them. But we aren’t just sticking to text this time around, even though that’s how we’ve run The Big Interview since 2022. We’re also releasing these conversations as episodes of a brand new YouTube series. On top of that, we’re hosting a full one-day live event called The Big Interview in San Francisco this December. Mira Murati’s coming, Jensen Huang’s joining, and we’ve got Olympic gold medalist Phil Wizard on the lineup too.

WIRED: Wow, all three are huge names.

Katie: I know.

WIRED: What kind of big interviews can we expect from the upcoming slate, on the site and YouTube?

Katie: Wait, didn’t one of your editors commission and cut these interviews already?

WIRED: Just play along, Katie. We’re having fun here.

Katie: Right, okay. We’ve sat down with so many incredible people already. We chatted with Mark Cuban about his new push to disrupt the pharmaceutical industry. We talked to The Daily Show’s Josh Johnson about politics and the future of comedy. We sat down with Signal Foundation president Meredith Whittaker to unpack surveillance and AI—that’s one of my favorite conversations, honestly. We even got to chat with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken about cybersecurity. We’ve got so many more on the way, too. We’re even dropping a special standalone print issue for the series.

WIRED: That does sound exciting. We’ll check back in with you in a few months to hear how it all went.

Katie: Wait… will we actually be speaking again?

WIRED: Your next dental cleaning is mid-February. We assume you’ll be indulging in the nitrous oxide off the dentist’s comfort menu again, right?

Katie: After this interaction, honestly? I’m not so sure anymore.

WIRED: Happy editing, boss. Until we meet again.