At the recent TechSurge Deep Tech Summit, journalist Kara Swisher sat down with Celesta Capital's Michael Marks for a wide-ranging fireside chat discussion on current tech trends.

You can read a brief transcript of part of the discussion or watch the full interview with Kara below.

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Q: What are the characteristics in today's entrepreneurs that you like and what is different about the way entrepreneurs are today than they were 5-10 years ago?

A: I like entrepreneurs today. I think they're more cognizant of a lot of things, including their impact of what they make. I think they are cognizant and a little slower in developing. They're not in a mad rush for share or anything like that. I find many of the younger ones I meet, especially around climate change tech, health tech, some of the EV stuff – it's hard, right? It costs a lot of money. So, I find them to be more thoughtful, a little bit more sensible of where it's going.

I think that's one of the things you saw problematically at some of these older companies, where they just didn't think. They just ran right into the breach and filled some need and didn't think of the impact. I think they're much more mission-driven today.

I'm spending a lot of time with EV people and climate change tech people, and I find they're solving real problems. I used to say Silicon Valley was a lot of smart people working on stupid things. But I think a lot of that kind of silliness is gone. It seems a little more serious-minded to me.

Q: Tell us your thoughts on founder-friendly – what do you think about that? Is that concept a good thing or a bad thing?

A: I think it's a good thing a little bit, but mostly not. Most founders are terrible CEOs, and don't have the capabilities that are required to be a good CEO. Most good founders know that. They understand that and put people in to compliment them, or they remove themselves.

Larry and Sergey (at Google) removed themselves. They had control over that company when Eric came in and that was the right move. Pierre Omidyar moved at eBay, and whatever happened to eBay, it was very strong for the while that it was. Meg Whitman came in there as a professional CEO. Some founders are good CEOs. Bill Gates would be one, Mark Zuckerberg would be one, Jeff Bezos – but they're the exception.

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I like entrepreneurs today. I think they're more cognizant of a lot of things, including their impact of what they make.

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Q: Let’s talk antitrust. We've got Microsoft and Google and Amazon – these are real behemoths who can pretty much take over any industry if we let them. Do you have a point of view on the government’s role in these issues?

A: We've not had an overhaul of antitrust legislation in 100 years. Now we have some people, Elena Khan at the FTC and John Cantor. I've just interviewed John very recently, I think he has a point that innovation comes with competition. I think that's the argument the government's making. Whether it's Apple and the App Store, whether it's Google and Search, I think the problem is catching up to them right now.

Search is changing with this ChatGPT and advertising is changing, Amazon's coming in, but Google and Facebook own online advertising, and the competitor is Amazon. I think the Government is correct to pursue this and break some things up, but often they come in too late, and it has to happen on a congressional level.

Congress must make changes or else we're going to be governed by European or California laws because they're moving quickly. Fine, but you can't be governed by a state. You need to have a privacy bill, an antitrust bill, a transparency bill, and they should be easy to pass in this Congress.

 It is an issue for the venture community, for entrepreneurs, that you now must find places that the larger companies won't go because they can take over everything very easily.

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Q: We’re entering into a new phase of technology, potentially more powerful than any other, which is the world of genetic editing and Bioconvergence. What do you see here – will it be bigger than the bit?

A: Yes, because it's us. It's what are we and what do we use AI for? What do we use our brains for? How do we lengthen our lives? I just interviewed Dr. Cindy Bertozzi at Stanford. I've interviewed Jennifer Doudna, who's behind CRISPR. It's an interesting time in that area in terms of investment, and I'm not an expert in this by any means, but I think bioconvergence combined with AI, transportation and energy fuel, that's where we're going. It's about life on Earth, including space. How do we continue to live on this planet?

Q: If you could run any company today, which one would you choose?

A: I think I would work for a climate change tech company. I'm about to take off in a hydrogen fusion plane with no gas, in a couple of weeks. This company is working on replacing gas and oils with hydrogen fusion. There’s an African American founder who's replacing all the furnaces in Newark with heat pumps. Some really diverse companies and founders – that kind of stuff is really interesting to me. That's what I'd work on.

[Discussion transcript slightly edited for brevity and clarity.]