One of the main reasons I came to SXSW was to see Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg speak. I thought he might reveal something new, or talk about something big, or even open his own kimono a bit so that we can get a sense of who this kid really is.
Unfortunately, that’s not what happened. The hour-long keynote interview was profoundly unsatisfying. The audience didn’t have to look far to find a scapegoat in the interviewer — Business Week reporter Sarah Lacy — but her presence on the stage and her style of interviewing seem to me to be symptoms of a much larger problem.
Mark Zuckerberg is almost certainly sweet, shy and utterly brilliant kid. But he hasn’t shown me anything yet that says he’s ready to be the visionary and outspoken public face that an organization needs in its leader. Quite the opposite, in fact. I get the sense that he likes to exist in a bubble. That’s where Lacy comes into the equation.
Lacy seems to value her relationship with Zuckerberg more than a reporter should — a fact she made apparent while onstage by referencing their friendship at every possible turn. This is obviously an age-old, fundamental tension between luminaries and the reporters that cover them. But Lacy and Zuckerberg take it much too far. She is “his” reporter. That’s why she’s allowed to get so close in the first place.
The true story of this keynote is not what was said, but why so much remained unsaid and unasked. Facebook has many fundamental technological hurdles to overcome, which I will address in a separate post. But their single biggest issue is the attitude with which they approach their community and the public: despite all the rhetoric about connecting people, the company and its CEO keep themselves at a distance.
Update: Nick O’Neill posts about the keynote and calls it a “disaster:”
Sarah Lacey, the author of a Newsweek cover article as well as a book on Mark Zuckerberg, appeared to spend more time discussing the personal moments that her and Mark shared before.
Also, Valleywag’s post on the keynote calls me a “typical privacy-and-sharing paranoiac” for asking when we’ll get better data organization and privacy control tools. But considering how many people came up to me after my question to thank me for asking it, I think that I tapped into one of the community’s major concerns about the site. It’s not wrong to repeat something as long as it continues to be correct.
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Sean 03.09.08 at 2:09 pm
well said, thanks for that. not being there I’ve been trying to sort out what went down.
Dan Lester 03.09.08 at 2:18 pm
I wasn’t there, but your comments make sense.
A great reporter-luminary relationship of recent times is that between Larry Ellison and Matthew Symonds (ex-The Economist).
He gets unprecedented access, but still is not afraid to point out his failings and weaknesses.
And you know that’s because Ellison is strong enough. It’s not necessarily because Symonds is naturally more critical than Lacey.
jesse 03.09.08 at 2:38 pm
quote: “it’s fundamentally up to the reporter to do their job and pull the answers from the subject…” -http://twitter.com/cabdaddy/statuses/769012486
Unfortunately, not doing so does journalism a severe injustice. We should expect journalists to forgo niceity and do their job.
Where is Murrow when you need him…
Then again, useful, I suppose, information can be gleaned from a press release, which is what is occuring in this situation, not journalism.
http://jesseloop.blogspot.com
Emily Joyner 03.09.08 at 2:47 pm
While I do agree that Lacy was not the entire problem–I do feel she more than added to the mess of an interview.
Lack of pressing questions (which, I agree with you entirely keep MZ in his safehaven “bubble”), shameless plugs for her own book, incessant giggling, lack of professionalism, the condescending way she brought up his age at every chance, etc., etc., etc. Those are the things that I thought added to the complete train wreck of a “keynote” presenation.
I, like you, was really looking forward to this keynote, but was unfortunately let down. MZ does need to let down his guard and open up. Who is this kid? We need to know more. Someone in my breakout group of the (awesome) session on Utterz put it best when she said–He’s made this incredible thing called Facebook that has blown MySpace out of the water. Come on–brag about it. Let us know you’re proud of what you’ve done.
Emily Joyner 03.09.08 at 2:53 pm
Also, in response to the “typical privacy-and-sharing paranoiac,” I was one of the people in the crowd glad to hear your question. Although I did not personally tell you that, know that there were many in that audience thinking over the same concerns.
Ryan Merket 03.09.08 at 3:02 pm
“a fact she made apparent while onstage by referencing their friendship at every possible turn.” — but don’t blame her for not asking serious questions… never.
Teresa Valdez Klein 03.09.08 at 3:16 pm
Ryan: She did ask some serious questions. She asked about Beacon and the News Feed issue. It wasn’t that she didn’t ask anything serious, she didn’t ask anything new.
Derek Scruggs 03.09.08 at 3:36 pm
She asked serious qeustions, but then she rescued him by answering for him. “What do you say to those who say Facebook is all about money even though I know that’s not true?” I thought she was terrible.
As for Zuckerberg, he seems like a decent enough guy, but her interview made it hard to really know. Bill Gates isn’t usually a particularly good interview subject either (especially early in his career). I don’t think he has to come across as a visionary on stage to actually *be* a visionary.
Jinsai 03.09.08 at 3:44 pm
She also never followed up on any of his non-answers - when she did bother to ask questions (in her convoluted, unclear way), Zuckerberg failed to reply or dodged the issue, and she let him get away with it every time.
She raised the Beacon issue, for example, and he did not provide any sort of clear response.
She neither asked pointed business questions (”Do you think it hurt the company’s value or perception?”) nor personal ones (”Do you think you fucked up?” or “Did the negative response hurt your feelings?”).
It was a shameless and transparent PR event. Anecdotes to make Facebook seems serious (”Hey, did you know it’s fomenting revolution?”).
Some “humanization” (”Aw shucks, I didn’t make up Facebook, it was the great people on my team”, “Aw shucks, we don’t think about money, we think about products”).
Some product launch (”Did you know we just launched in France?”)
Bah. Waste of everyone’s time.
Michael E. Rubin, GasPedal 03.09.08 at 3:46 pm
Visionary. Feh!
Back in Bubble 1.0, I covered the startups and entrepreneurs in Chicago for a now-defunct online business pub. I remember how frustrated and upset I grew to become over that hype-filled, over-used word — “visionary.” Every Tom, Dick, and Jane who got a VC to pony up a few million to fund a startup whose business plan was scrawled out on the back of a bar room napkin was called a visionary. And we see exactly where that got us, don’t we?
Folks, Zuckerberg isn’t a visionary. He is an inarticulate geek who got lucky. I’m happy for his success, but stop way short of calling him anything close to a “visionary.”
Having a vision means being able to see five steps ahead of everyone else, execute, and be able to communicate about it.
Derek Scruggs 03.09.08 at 3:55 pm
Well, the word visionary is definitely overused, but you don’t have to be Galileo or Newton to lead a successful company. There are lots of companies trying to do with Facebook has done, but Facebook is simply a better product. That requires vision.
Five steps ahead is overrated too. Soon after the Mac launched Bill Gates tried to convince Steve Jobs to essentially make DOS obsolete and take over the PC market (his reasoning was that Microsoft would be more succesful Mac programmers than Lotus, which at that time was the largest software company). He “failed” to convince him. Bill’s lack of vision made him a hundred times wealthier than if Jobs had taken his advice. Jobs lack of vision left a lot of money on the table for Bill to take off.
Derek Scruggs 03.09.08 at 3:57 pm
LOL on the comment about launching in France - SHE did that, not him.
Joseph Hunkins 03.09.08 at 10:27 pm
Teresa this post seems to be a good description of how things went “wrong” in that interview. Looking forward to the video.
April Holle 03.10.08 at 8:37 am
The “just launched in France” comment was the best one out of the bunch for me. You don’t launch websites in countries, you launch them in languages. So instead we should say “just launched in French.”
Including a language is often more powerful for the simple fact that it is inclusive of more than JUST France, lots of smaller countries use the language and it’s being connected EVERYWHERE not just in the larger nation that I feel is the really powerful asset within Facebook.
There were some highlights, such as the stories of enlightenment of youths in at war nations. This really highlighted the this power of sharing knowledge over boundaries, but notice these are happening in smaller nations, not just the super powers of the world.
Not to mention that websites are created in the world wide web and there are no national boundaries, there was nothing stopping the people of France from using the site in English or in German before that point.
I just think that if you’re going to report on the web, at least realize that it’s instantaneously available for all nations regardless, as long as you speak the initial languages that the application is launched in.
Sorry it was just such a Jessica Simpson moment, had to get up and leave after that.
Dean Browell 03.10.08 at 12:09 pm
Seen this yet?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccLJnICdJGI
Teresa Valdez Klein 03.11.08 at 9:01 am
Dean: I have seen it. She’s not really saying anything new.