Comments on: Why did the media react so strangely to the Mark Zuckerberg keynote?

By: Facebook’s Matt Cohler leaves for Benchmark Capital » VentureBeat

Facebook’s Matt Cohler leaves for Benchmark Capital » VentureBeat — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 17:38:37 +0000

[...] — not only was Cohler one of the first five employees hired by Facebook’s founders, where he helped oversee the company’s growth; he was also part of the founding team at LinkedIn, the professional networking company now valued [...]

By: epc

epc — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 21:16:30 +0000

Why should 2000+ people be expected to know that they had a background? Until I’d walked into the session I’d never heard of Sarah Lacy. That alone isn’t unusual, but she conducted the interview as though we all knew who she was and that she had been writing a book on facebook. There seemed to be a certain set of assumed knowledge in the audience that just wasn’t there. The casual tone just fed the sense that the audience was on the outside somehow.

She did ask a number of good questions, but they were lost in the way she asked them.

By: Matt Marshall

Matt Marshall — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 18:28:15 +0000

There were a lot of misinterpretations, then. I did not think she was intent on humiliating him. If you knew their background, you’d know they have talked frequently, and if you watch Mark during the interview, he seems pretty relaxed.

We all have opinions then.

Liz, I’m not saying this was purely reporter-led revolt against a disliked Lacy. The reporters fed off some discontent they noted from others in the room. I’m saying that there are folks out there, like me, which saw someone in Lacy that was trying really really hard to make it an interesting interview, and if you realize how hard it is to do that with Zuckerberg (who is somewhat reserved), you look at this with different eyes.

I saw in the all-pervasive Pontin quote a smidgen of misogyny that was actually quite ugly.

It’s too bad Lacy also took it badly at the end, and inadvertently added fuel to the fire.

By: epc

epc — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 16:17:33 +0000

I was at the keynote, in the back. My group had five women and one other guy. We were all cringing a couple of minutes into the interview. Perhaps it plays better on the video, but Lacy’s questions came across as incoherent and rambling.

She seemed to be intent on humiliating Zuckerberg with some of the questions and statements. Perhaps that’s the new journalism, but that didn’t go over well at all with the audience.

The audience was agitated well before the twitterstorm, it was a room of 2000 people and Lacy seemed to be having this private “in” conversation with Zuckerberg. Her frequent interruptions of Zuckerberg didn’t help matters, and when the heckling (which we couldn’t hear well, but seemed to start early in the session, not just at the :50 mark) kicked in she lost what little track there was to the questioning.

By: Liz Gannes

Liz Gannes — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:57:38 +0000

Matt, I would just say as a SXSW attendee who missed the keynote (I was still in the air at the time) that the Sarah Lacy crucifying did not originate with the journalists. Your assessment seems pretty far off to me. As soon as I touched down I started hearing about the keynote, and the chatter has not stopped since. Everyone, and I mean everyone, has an opinion about this.

If someone assigned to cover that session of the conference did not cover the controversy, it would have been extremely strange. That said, I think this was a case of mob lynching which Sarah didn’t deserve, but her getting defensive kept the snowball rolling.

By: PO

PO — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:12:13 +0000

Sarah is a sexy girl, if I was a plain & dry journalist I would be jealous of her.. ahah
she was just making the guy comfortable! it was a more informal interview… so what?

By: Private Equity HUB - peHUB First Read

Private Equity HUB - peHUB First Read — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 11:29:40 +0000

[...] Video of Sarah Lacy’s interview of Mark Zuckerberg is now available online. Not the disaster that so many made it out to be. Not perfect, but not a [...]

By: John

John — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 10:54:53 +0000

that was sort of brutal towards the end, but on the whole it was ok. she seemed to focus on all the gossipy aspects of Facebook the business, while neglecting her audience. they don’t want to hear about the yahoo deal, they want to hear about project management and feature sets. useful stuff to people who are concerned with those issues. the q&a seemed interesting. too bad it got cut off mid question.

also it seems Zuckerberg likes specific questions.

By: Kohl

Kohl — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 10:37:47 +0000

Couldn’t agree more. The interview was fine. The hecklers wanted to know relatively low level details about facebook that you do not need to have the CEO answer as you could see from the dull Q&A at the end. The interviewers questions were at the appropriate level for a grown-up audience.