There’s been no shortage of discussion over the last 24 hours on Sarah Lacey’s on stage interview with Mark Zuckerberg, most of it centered on Lacy’s interview style. Ultimately you can judge for yourself by watching the video above.
(via AllFacebook)
It’s nice to see a more humble Zuckerberg admitting that me made some mistakes in the past year.
INQdrop
Do people really need the bullshit background information and commentary about a site that she herself that she herself stated people should just give up your seat to someone else if you dont know who zuckerburg is.
To think that man is worth over 1.5billion dollars! He could buy her and still have enough left over to match the GDP of a small country!
Too much Mark Zuckerberg in tech stream
So SWSX *hires* a Business Week journalist to come and serve as a PR flak to hype a social-media platform and a gaming conference?
Is that how it works now?
And this is all designed to hype Zuckerberg’s flogging of FB as a 60-million-strong “big grassroots organization” that will “change the world” because um, representative democracy is too “top down”? Huh?
de-interlacing aaagghh!
Mark is a real humble guy. I really admire that. He doesn’t sit on a high horse like the a lot of these other CEO and Presidents of million dollar companies.
http://www.myspace.com/soundbeastdigital
-iTunes, eat your heart out…
*like a lot of these other CEO and Presidents of million dollar companies.
typo, sorry.
That’s a great Keynot interview with Sarah - it was nice of her let let Mark chime in.
Radical liquid-warp intro effect FTW!
Interesting. All of you folks jump on the bashing bandwagon. Zuck is no doubt very intelligent. If he wants to change the world perhaps he can have as a FB app to gather support to do away with the Patriot Act and abolish the Fed Reserve and the IRS. Idealism can only go so far and makes a very strange bedfellow with profit.
That is singlehandedly the worst interview I have ever seen in my life. It plays out like a sixth-grade talent show interview, as opposed to a SXSW keynote. This is a truly embarassing moment for what’s usually a great festival.
Duncan, can we get a summary of what the general comments have been about this? I haven’t heard about this as an issue and I’m not sifting through that full hour interview.
yeah… that was hard to watch. she could have done a better job by observing other interviewers and maybe considering that her anecdotes, although i’m sure fun for her, were not of much value to the conversation.
ah well…
Yeah, she’s hot. But she knows it and she uses it in her advantage.
I wonder how MA felt when she interviewed him at TC headquarters - when she sat on the couch with him in that short light skirt
Sarah’s a smarty - good for her. That covers any gaps that you people see in her talent
am i the only one to notice the subtle flirting there -maybe not so subtle. but it’s there and the kid is drooling!
haha regardless, from the sounds of it, great interest from the crowd!
I’m a little tired of Mark. Nothing against him starting Facebook and being successful, but I haven’t seen him say anything revolutionary or be particularly eloquent.
Watching TED keynotes or even Google tech talks inspires me more than listening to Mark talk on about how he’s going to change the world by connecting people. That’s great Mark, I’m glad someone is in the business of connecting people.
Of course, the idea isn’t new. There were social networks before Facebook and they haven’t done anything to truly revolutionize the space, in my opinion. I’m not slighting their success - they’ve managed to make a clean and functional network that I want to belong to. I just don’t see how it represents a paradigm shift.
Lots of things have changed the way the world works (PCs, Google, Wikipedia) but few ideas have come forward that enabled those advances: semiconductors, ultra-distributed computing, object oriented design.
I want to see more advanced ideas from Mark, and less about how he is changing the world. Facebook will change the world whether or not he says it will. Will his _ideas_ change the world at all?
all her statements starting with “i realized…” should have finished with “…that i’m a idiot”.
This is a pretty good commentary on zuck & fb too:
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/st.....id=6005406
Wow, what a totally overblown reaction to what was no different — qualitywise — than most other interviews we see in the industry these days. Was it a great interview? No. But was it something worthy of the reporter being booed, hissed at, and essentially laughed off stage? Hell no.
As I see it, there were three things that went wrong here:
1. The interview was clearly too long. It didn’t go south until about 45 minutes in, when arguably Q&A should have started.
2. Sarah’s tone was either unsuccessfully flirty, playfully condescending, or self-indulgent, depending on how you read it, but it did get Mark to answer some of the questions in ways he might not have otherwise. I didn’t care for it overall, but contrary to what people have been writing about this interview, Mark *did* talk for quite awhile in his responses (more so than usual for him, at least).
3. She definitely didn’t keep her cool as well as she should have during the heckling and this made things look even worse.
All in all, I’m sorry, but that performance didn’t warrant the sort of public lynching this story has gotten around the blogosphere. I love our industry, but one thing I really hate about it is the amplification effect given to things like this. Personally, even the *weather* in Austin is a bigger story to me.
Wake me when the tech industry gets over itself. Self included of course.
Hmmm, after watching this I feel okay saying that all the sniping is a bit over the top. Sure, she’s an annoying interviewer…but I don’t think it was so awful. She’s flirting with him, not stealing the stage. There’s a difference.
It’s too bad that her MO is to flirt with her interviewee. It belies her low self-esteem. I feel badly for her, really.
As I see it, MZ missed a big opportunity to answer some good questions on vision, mission, his current and future participation at FB, product, etc. etc. I don’t see why people are so focused on Sarah’s interview style, I personally found it annoying but I would’ve fallen asleep otherwise.
It was like watching a kid play with a dead dog, you see her throw the stick but he never catches on and brings it home. By the end I actually felt for Sarah, the interview sucked because of MZ, not because of her and she bore the brunt of it. Based on this interview, MZ is at best a good product manager, not a CEO.
scratchiti 13
the short version: the response was a virtual lynching of Lacy.
yeah, put bullet points of what was stressed.
I don’t want to watch the whole f’n hour interview.
she should have done a Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct…the slow leg crossover…whoooo, ahhh - lol
Ok she isn’t the greatest interviewer… but cut her some slack. Talking about Facebook is BORING, and Mark is boring. At least she is nice to look at and has a personality. Tough crowd too.
According to Crunchbase, Facebook “helps people communicate more efficiently”. Seriously? It helps you take quizzes and give your friends virtual cupcakes and play scrabble (until MB sues).
I think the description should be “… communicate with more distractions and time wasters”.
Just what is Facebook trying to become? Adding countless “friends” you never met or spoke with is not a social network. It’s a list of names.
Does anyone really use Facebook to build a community or to network? Or is it just a popularity contest like Myspace and a way to share some photos and fun/silly/dumb surveys and games? I have yet to meet anyone who uses Facebook to “efficiently communicate”.
Give it a rest. This interview was fine. You all would wither under similar scrutiny. Especially with some of the smarmy jerks that attend these conventions.
Yea, she’s got an annoying personality and probably drives her friends and family crazy sometimes….but she’s interviewing Mark Zuckerman at SXSW….what the hell are you doing?
@26.
she’s a girl, tech - that goes a long way, regardless of how you look.
and besides, she has personality.
ok, this gets good about 48 minutes in. Anything else early on worth checking out?
@26: “You guys think she’s hot?? My dog’s ass hole is prettier than she is.”
Please provide Flickr link with picture of dog’s ass hole.
Thank you.
The audience seemed disrespectful.
The similarities between the young bill gates and mark zukerberg are striking: both are true geeks in the highest sense of the word. They dress, talk and interact in very similar manners. I wonder if facebook will become a social monopoly.
Cue this clip next to one of Bill G circa 1978.
can somebody turn up the volume knob on the zuckerborg? i can barely hear it.
That was kind of a let down after all of the “worst interview ever” hype.
I would have rather seen Michael, Duncan or me interview him. She was more annoying than having to go to the dentist for a root canal with no novacane. Oyvey
AK
I don’t think its Sarah.. Zuckerberg just sounds incredibly boring.
He comes across as a teenager talking about his latest school summer project.
I mean “Facebooks is about communicating, bringing people together”?? WTF!
I mean COME ON… say something more substantial… like “facebook is growing a lot faster than the competition because we offer developers a way to develop apps that are more in tune with the population instead of building a walled garden.. blah blah blah…
BAH.. even I could come up with shit that is more interesting that his generic spiel.
As I see it, MZ missed a big opportunity to answer some good questions on vision, mission, his current and future participation at FB, product, etc. etc. I don’t see why people are so focused on Sarah’s interview style, I personally found it annoying but I would’ve fallen asleep otherwise.
It was like watching a kid play with a dead dog, you see her throw the stick but he never catches on and brings it home. By the end I actually felt for Sarah, the interview sucked because of MZ, not because of her and she bore the brunt of it. Based on this interview, MZ is at best a good product manager, not a CEO.
Pleaaaase, Mark explaining how facebook is fighting terrorism, Peeeuuuk
This is definitively one of the worst interviews i have seen in my life. Because of Sarah Lacy of course.
Well, I wasn’t in the room to witness what was going on, but as a former stand-up comic I know what it’s like to deal with unruly crowds. So for those of you who might be faced with a similar situation in the future, I wrote the following post:
How to deal with rough crowds: A stand-up comic’s advice for Sarah Lacy
http://www.sparkminute.com/?p=276
get over yourselfes, silicon valley nerds. seriously, relax. he’s not God. he won’t tell you the secret to life. Facebook is a simple site at its core, theres not much to talk about past 10 minutes. its amazing how you all tolerate so much incompetence from your political leaders, but go crazy bashing this woman for not perfectly executing an hour long interview with the most awkward and boring CEO on the planet.
OMG…that was painful to watch(no didn’t finish it).
It was hard for me to watch this after having already sat through it in person. What you missed with this video were the more subtle crowd interactions. She was getting signals from the crowd the whole time, and I just don’t think she is experienced enough with this particular type of speaking to read and play the crowd well. The crowd in the room certainly caught the flirting. How can you kepp your credibility as an interviewer when you are twirling your hair?
I could continue this narrative some more, but it’s not worth it. If you read this Sarah, next time turn the crowd towards you with some self deprecating humor. You will get a much better reaction than getting defensive.
I want to meet him,
Nothing like nerds turning into drama queens and web “journalists” trying to make a story out of nothing. I applaud Mike A’s level headed view of this (non)event.
Slow news night? Springer generation learns how to type, yawn.
Facebook Lube — coming soon to an application near you!
Sarah could learn from the founders she interviews. http://foundread.com/2008/03/11/sarah-lacy/
My last message was deleted, not sure why…
Painful to watch both of them, IMO.
Both are painful to watch. Zuckerberg maybe moreso. He’s sort of insufferable. I’m thankful for his tutelage on terrorism though.
Saw this linked at http://music.epicureforum.com and yeah…that was pretty bad. Cringe-worthy.
I don’t think the issue was Sarah not knowing the audience or asking bad questions. The questions were, IMHO, pretty good. The problem was that she didn’t understand the medium. She’s a print journalist and this was a print journalist interview. Live interviews call for a different style. Zuckerberg was being nonresponsive and, well, downright boring. Had she been more adept at live interviews, she probably could have salvaged the effort.
IMHO, Sarah is behaving like she has a narcissistic personality disorder - indicated by her inability to deliver a professional interview without constantly beinging interrupted by her need to drive attention to herself. Mark seems to be very uncomfortable with her, and she seems to be very uncomfortable with herself.
Perhaps we should be asking what’s wrong with Sarah - with some compassion for her private story.
Or this was just a bad day.
-mt
Not to pile on, but this truly was a poorly conducted interview. MZ looked uncomfortable throughout the conversation b/c Sarah flirted with him throughout the conversation. I don’t know if it was nerves on her part or more flirting, but her leg never stopped moving. On more than one occasion she referred to “when we were talking last night …”, coupled with a giggle and a tilt of the head. When MZ finally scored a point by suggesting she “ask a question”, she threatened to throw water on him. She lost her cred with the crowd when she whined that her job isn’t as easy as it looks, and then called a Q&A session (SOP with an interview) “mob rule”. She even went so far as to decide who could and could not answer questions. Overall, unprofessional; a J-school 101 class in what not to do in an interview. Too bad for BW that Sarah mentioned her affiliation there.
As a woman in tech sitting in the room, I was embarrassed for her. She did no favors for other women working to be taken seriously in such a male-dominated world. The interview was by far the most inappropriate I have ever witnessed in my life,
She did no favors for Zuckerman either for that matter. She interrupted him, belittled him, and cut him off in a condescending manner on more than one occasion. He was left repeating basically the same answer over and over again, because how else could he respond to such a disaster of an interview?
This is adolescent. Look at her body language. She either wants to or has slept with him.
He’s DUUUULLLLLL! Its not her fault this is a train wreck, but who ultimately cares.
There is something completely missing from this video!
For the audience, the close-up views of the faces of Lacy and Zuckerberg were projected 20+ feet high on two enormous video displays to the left and right on the similarly enormous wall behind them. The audience saw every detail of their facial expressions and body language, a constant stream of subtleties that you can’t pick up on by watching the video posted on this site, and possibly not even in the professionally shot production of the interview.
It was these subtleties that led the audience to harrassment. And it was Lacy’s response that surprised them and kept them from letting it go. The audience felt they deserved an apology, not an overly defensive retaliation, for building up an interview that 1) wasted the their time and bored them all to tears 2) showed off far too much of Lacy’s legs which were strategically placed to take up as much of the screen as possible, too much of her hair twirling, and too much of her “uh huh”-ing 3) came off as insulting to Zuckerberg, unprofessional, awkward and untrustworthy. The fact is that the audience wouldn’t have erupted if Zuck himself had not accused Lacy of failing to ask him questions.
Attendees come to SXSW to meet like-minded people, learn and share new ideas, and become inspired. They want to get as much out of the conference as possible. This audience saw no value in the keynote, and they wanted to make sure everyone knew it.
After hearing all of the fuss about this interview, I decided to view it for myself. The people who are attacking the Sarah Lacy are way off base. She asked Mark open ended questions that provided him an opportunity to present his message. As I understand it, this was a type of keynote address and that means it is his platform for presenting his company’s message.
I am not a Facebook user. Since the site requires that you register before you can see what it is about, many people are unaware of its purpose. I think that Mark and the rude audience members need to learn some basic skills in getting along with people. Mark is representing a company and he needs to learn how to communicate. He needs to learn how to hold up his end of the conversation. His attempts to prove he is smart, at the expense of his interviewer who was being very kind to him, gives me a general negative impression of him and thus the company he leads.
Granted I am a 46 year old man and I may be missing the importance of Facebook, but common courtesy goes a long way in this world. I feel the audience and Mark need to apologize for their behavior.
I find her more interesting than that boring jerk with his valley girl uptalk. At least she has some personality.
Probably those geeks in the crowd don’t like girls
The Twitter annotated video by TechnoSocial blogger Kee Hinckley is fascinating to watch. 2000 tweets from hundreds in the audience bored and frustrated by Lacy’s inept approach that day.
http://www.marrowbones.com/com.....zucke.html
Kee’s mob rule analysis aside, as someone who has been reporting for 20 years - mostly about tech from Silicon Valley - Lacy’s style clearly doesn’t translate to public speaking (including her Yahoo! Finance video blurbs). A reporter has got to demonstrate respect and knowledge of her audience and topic, ask hard-hitting, well researched questions, put aside any personal admiration of a subject’s accomplishments and remember her job.
Zuckerberg didn’t demonstrate he knows how to control an interview or sensitivity to SXSW audience of developers. (ok he’s only 23 but geez get some coaching when you’re running a business). He should have started by addressing Beacon and privacy issues - which are the most controversial - as soon as he sat down. Both failed on many levels.
But all that blows over and it’s onto the next hot topic of the day. Meanwhile the most interesting pheonomen is not those personalities, but the unified persona that rose up in protest by using a social media tool.
interest