AllThingsD » Lesley Stahl

Groupon CEO Andrew "Wolverine" Mason Defends His Decisions on "60 Minutes"

Tricia Duryee — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 04:32:25 +0000

Groupon CEO Andrew Mason said there’s things he would have liked to do differently and would have liked to have avoided, but that he’s mostly done a good job leading the rocket ship of a company.

In a piece by Lesley Stahl of CBS news show “60 Minutes,” she interviewed the leader of the Chicago-based social buying company in his first national appearance since the company’s initial public offering.

Of course, Stahl asked hard-hitting questions about the fishy revenue figures and the questionable accounting practices that preceded the IPO.

And, because it is “wacky” Groupon, she also questioned the appropriateness of a CEO who has a video of himself practicing yoga in tighty whities in front of a Christmas tree on YouTube.

Mason, who was often grinning during the interview, tried hard not to come off as defensive.

“The difference between me and other CEOs is that I’ve been unwilling to change myself or shape myself around what’s expected,” said the 31-year-old founder. “Am I as experienced or as mature or smart as other CEOs. No probably not, but there’s something useful about having the founder as a CEO.”

At one point, he acknowledged it wasn’t enjoyable when the criticism was peaking and the company was in its quiet period. He likened the experience to the Wolverine’s skin being melted off.

Stahl had no idea what he was talking about.

Did he wear a tie? Nope. But he thinks he should get credit for asking the producers if it was necessary. Is that a sign the boss is growing up? Maybe.

For the record, he does own more than four.

All-in-all, Mason worked hard not to say anything too revealing.

Here’s the whole interview:

And, here’s Stahl comparing Mason to other tech CEOs she’s interviewed:

Video: Microsoft Co-founder Paul Allen Defends Gates-Bashing on "60 Minutes"

Kara Swisher — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 20:56:31 +0000

BoomTown loves me some Lesley Stahl. The “60 Minutes” correspondent is back in the tech space, grilling Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen about allegations he makes in his new memoir, “Idea Man,” that his partner Bill Gates tried to shanghai him out of stock when he was suffering from a major illness.

I have to say, Gates is one tough customer. But–having interviewed both him and Allen many times over the years–I am going to say gently that perhaps Allen is overstating the incident to sell books and maybe his recollections are, um, cloudy with a chance of sour grapes.

Here’s a video excerpt of the CBS television show, airing this Sunday:

"60 Minutes": Does Mark Zuckerberg Want to "Own" the Internet? (Plus New Profiles on Facebook!)

Kara Swisher — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 19:28:08 +0000

Here is a sneak peak at the “60 Minutes” piece that will air tonight at 7 pm PT on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

In it, he shows off another redo of the profiles on the Silicon Valley social networking site, which puts photos front and center.

(Also, for those in the know, that’s outgoing PR poo-bah Brandee Barker rolling down the hall on the Ripstik.)

Veteran CBS correspondent Lesley Stahl asks Zuckerberg in the clip below of the interview if he wants to own the Internet–which, as usual, Zuckerberg does not exactly answer.

But Stahl–God bless her!–keeps at it!

BoomTown also makes an appearance on the television show, so let me know how you like my smart-lady glasses.

Enjoy the video:

CBS's "60 Minutes" Revisits Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg (And BoomTown Takes Back "Toddler CEO" Title)

Kara Swisher — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 23:49:09 +0000

This Sunday, the CBS television news magazine “60 Minutes” returns to Facebook after several years to check in on co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

In the first interview by correspondent Lesley Stahl in early 2008, Zuckerberg’s social networking empire was much smaller, beset by a series of management snafus and mired in yet another privacy controversy.

Plus, he was more than a lot more awkward. His “was-that-a-question?” response to an obvious question by Stahl was a near classic in geek communications.

Fast-forward to today: Zuckerberg rules an incredibly powerful tech company worth gazillions more (good), has developed into a very polished leader (good) and even had a big Hollywood movie called “The Social Network” made about him (not so good).

Presumably, Stahl will cover all that in her new chat with him, which includes a visit to Facebook’s new Palo Alto, Calif. HQ.

Stahl also interviewed me again and pistol-whipped me–okay, she just asked–until I took back my snarkiest remark from the first one, in which I called Zuckerberg a “toddler CEO.”

My new take, now sporting smart-lady glasses and much grayer hair: The toddler has turned out to be a prodigy!

In other words, the worm has officially turned.

Stahl also wanted to know about the rivalry with Google, the fallout of the movie, my epic de-hoodie-ing of Zuckerberg at D8 conference and what-up with the Winklevii (whom, I believe, I called “hambones.”)

Here is a small taste of the new piece, which airs at 7 pm this Sunday, followed by the entire one from 2008 and the blog post I did about it:

For those who missed it, here is the entire video of the piece CBS’ “60 Minutes” aired on Facebook last night, helmed by veteran correspondent Lesley Stahl.

It is not exactly the big wet kiss I was expecting the hot social networking company would get, but it was also definitely not an ouch-that-hurts piece that could have been done.

For those who don’t know the tale, it hits all the high (and low) points of the Facebook saga, with a button-pushing efficiency that television does so well. Thus, a synopsis:

Web Wunderkind Mark Zuckerberg, who seems genetically unable to smile (unlike, say, his deeply charming sister). Harvard. Ratty hoodies and flip-flops. Mark makes a Facebook profile for Lesley (how much do we love that she blocked her boss Les Moonves?).

Next stop: Silicon Valley! Dropping out and venture funding. Toddler CEO (that one was coined by BoomTown). Crazy HQ with kooky-looking employees, one of whom you know was forced to ride a unicycle through the office by Lesley.

Big growth. Is Mark Google’s Larry and Sergey rolled into one? Inexplicably, ZERO mention of its bigger rival, MySpace, even once. Worth $15 billion?–an insane number Lesley does not question nearly enough.

Oops, Privacy! Oops, Beacon! BoomTown tsks-tsks that stalkerish advertising idiocy and is asked about Mark’s qualifications as CEO (although no one cares what BoomTown thinks). Mark retorts: Hey, we need to make money. Lesley, so give the Wunderkind a break!

Exclusive: Brandee "No Comment" Barker Finally Comments–Longtime PR Honcho Is Leaving Facebook

Kara Swisher — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 19:35:47 +0000

BoomTown usually does not get all weepy over the departure of public relations folks at Internet companies, in that cynical I’ve-seen-’em-come-and-I’ve-seen-’em-go kind of way.

But the leaving of Brandee Barker (pictured here) from Facebook most certainly elicited a small single tear of sadness this morning, when she called into All Things Digital Global HQ to say she would no longer be tossing me her patented–and very endearing–hand-in-the-face “no comment” for the powerful social networking site.

After four long and tumultuous years, she leaves the company on Dec. 10.

(In a changing-of-the-guard theme, Barker follows longtime advertising sales exec Mike Murphy, who also recently resigned, out the door.)

In a statement, Facebook said:

“We can confirm Brandee is leaving Facebook to start a communications consulting business focused on early stage tech companies. We are grateful for her dedication and the company has benefited greatly from her contributions. We suspect Brandee’s future clients will also value her talents and experience and we wish her much success with her new venture.”

Indeed, although the geeks always get the credit, Facebook owes an awful lot to Barker, for helping its products and services stand out in a sea of competitors.

For certain, it was not as influential as it is today when Barker got there as its head of PR, just as the start-up was beginning to make itself known.

There were only seven million Facebook members when Barker joined, compared to 500 million today.

Still, the veteran communications exec was quickly aware of its power when 750,000 of those members protested against Facebook’s introduction of the initially controversial news feed.

“I had no idea when I took the job that it would be like that,” said Barker, who was employee No. 120 at Facebook, in an Interview with me this morning.

In fact, it has been like that ever since then, as she has navigated a series of triumphs and just as many mishaps for the company as it grew and grew.

One of her favorite moments, she told me, was the introduction of the Facebook platform at its inaugural F8 developers event several years ago.

“Mark [Zuckerberg] had a real vision and the craziness that followed it was an incredible experience,” said Barker, who was the one largely responsible for introducing the decidedly quirky co-founder and CEO of Facebook to the world.

For the most part, Barker shepherded him well, even as the fire hose of attention increased in media, consumer and regulatory pressure over issues ranging from the controversial founding of Facebook–Barker has a masters from Harvard University in Winklevii crisis management–to privacy snafus and more.

A lot of her ministrations were funny, though, as she remembered: “Another great moment was when I insisted Mark take a suitcase instead of a backpack to his first Davos in 2007, so I went out and bought him one.”

And let us not even get into the flip-flop controversies or when I snarkily called Zuckerberg “toddler CEO” to Lesley Stahl on “60 Minutes.”

Barker handled it all with grace and humor.

But as Facebook has grown to more than 1,500 employees and its business has boomed, Barker–who recently returned to the company after having a baby–decided that bigger was not better, at least for her.

“I had a pretty deep evaluation when I was away from the company that what I am good at and what I like is working with early-stage companies and their teams,” said Barker, who will start a communications consultancy. “At this point in my career, that’s what I want to do.”

Barker noted, in fact, that there were a lot of companies started by former early Facebook employees like her that might become clients, although she declined to be more specific.

In the end, another “no comment” for me from Barker!

I don’t mind, because here is my comment, on the record and for attribution: It’s a sad day for Facebook, and I’ll miss Brandee Barker very much.

Speaking of no comment, here is Barker in one of my favorite no comments, from behind a plant at a 2008 Silicon Valley luncheon for the German DLD conference:

[ See post to watch video ]

Peggy Noonan, Lesley Stahl and Friends Raise More Money: Wowowow.com Gets Another $1.5 Million

Peter Kafka — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 00:40:07 +0000

The purse strings haven’t completely closed for start-ups looking to raise money–even niche Web sites that hope to stay afloat by selling advertising.

Wowowow.com, a site launched earlier this year, which targets women over 40, has raised a $1.5 million round led by Bob Pittman’s Pilot Group and the Rhime Group.

No word on valuation, but I’d guesstimate Wowowow.com’s investors peg its value in the high seven-figure range. The company has now raised $3.1 million in less than a year.

The five founders–former publisher Joni Evans, “60 Minutes” reporter Lesley Stahl; New York Post gossip columnist Liz Smith; ad exec Mary Wells; and Wall Street Journal political columnist Peggy Noonan–contributed $200,000 each in an initial round. Some of the company’s high-profile pals, like Whoopi Goldberg and Candice Bergen, later kicked in another $600,000.

Is that money well spent? We’ll see. Publishing is a tough business, even for lean Web operations, and advertisers generally steer clear of small sites. The company launched with a series of high profile sponsors; from what I can tell, at least some of them–like Citigroup (C) and Sony (SNE)–are still there.

And Pittman, the former MTV and AOL executive, has garnered new respect as a Web investor (Full disclosure: Pittman’s company invested in Silicon Alley Media, my former employer), so presumably he sees something there.

One plus: Wowowow.com is boasting rapid growth. The site, which launched in March, says it attracted 600,000 unique visitors last month. That number is much higher than outside estimates from outfits like Compete and Quantcast, but that kind of discrepancy is par for the course for any Web publisher.

In any case, if Wowowow.com wants to make a go of it, it’s going to need to attract at least one million uniques a month, a goal the company says it will achieve “early next year.”

BoomTown’s Kara Swisher dropped by the company’s New York offices earlier this year; here’s a video that documents her visit.

Kara Visits Wowowow!

Kara Swisher — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 09:46:57 +0000

So when I met “60 Minutes” reporter Lesley Stahl when she was interviewing me for the CBS News (CBS) show’s piece on Facebook that aired in January, she told me about a Web site she was working on with a bunch of close women friends in New York.

That site, Wowowow.com–The Women on the Web–is now up and running, aimed at women over 40. The site is designed to be a kind of digital conversation among Stahl and her friends, in the form of blogs, questions, interviews and letters.

Wowowow’s five high-powered founders, each of whom contributed $200,000 to the effort, include: Stahl; well-known book publisher Joni Evans; gossip columnist Liz Smith; ad exec Mary Wells; and political columnist Peggy Noonan.

A lot of the fare is pretty glamorous, given that they have also recruited some flashy regular contributors, including Candice Bergen, Whoopi Goldberg, Judith Martin, Sheila Nevins, Joan Juliet Buck, Lily Tomlin, Marlo Thomas, Julia Reed and Jane Wagner.

The impetus for the site came from Evans, CEO of Wowowow, who had gotten bored with the lack of sites aimed at smart, savvy women like herself and her friends. Although she had spent her career in an analog world, Evans was intrigued by the idea of using digital tools to create a kind of virtual cocktail party.

Topics will range from politics to fashion to relationships and more. The appeal, presumably, is that it is all mixed in with the glamor and celebrity of the partners and contributors.

Eventually, the site will jack up the interactivity, with more contributions from users, and also a social-networking element.

The business plan? Well, advertising, of course. So far, the site has gotten sponsorships from Tiffany (TIF), Sony (SNE) and Citi (C).

Here is a video I made of my visit to Wowowow’s new offices in Manhattan:

[ See post to watch video ]

Facebook: The Entire '60 Minutes' Segment

Kara Swisher — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 08:04:06 +0000

For those who missed it, here is the entire video of the piece CBS’ “60 Minutes” aired on Facebook last night, helmed by veteran correspondent Lesley Stahl.

It is not exactly the big wet kiss I was expecting the hot social-networking company would get, but it was also definitely not an ouch-that-hurts piece that could have been done.

For those who don’t know the tale, it hits all the high (and low) points of the Facebook saga, with a button-pushing efficiency that television does so well. Thus, a synopsis:

Web Wunderkind Mark Zuckerberg, who seems genetically unable to smile (unlike, say, his deeply charming sister). Harvard. Ratty hoodies and flip-flops. Mark makes a Facebook profile for Lesley (how much do we love that she blocked her boss Les Moonves?).

Next stop: Silicon Valley! Dropping out and venture funding. Toddler CEO (that one was coined by BoomTown). Crazy HQ with kooky-looking employees, one of whom you know was forced to ride a unicycle through the office by Lesley.

Big growth. Is Mark Google’s Larry and Sergey rolled into one? Inexplicably, ZERO mention of its bigger rival, MySpace, even once. Worth $15 billion?–an insane number Lesley does not question nearly enough.

Oops, Privacy! Oops, Beacon! BoomTown tsks tsks that stalkerish advertising idiocy and is asked about Mark’s qualifications as CEO (although no one cares what BoomTown thinks). Mark retorts: Hey, we need to make money. Lesley, so give the Wunderkind a break!

But here is the entire segment for your viewing enjoyment:

Facebook's 60 Minutes of Fame?

Kara Swisher — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 08:23:49 +0000

CBS’s “60 Minutes” will air its Facebook piece on Sunday, and BoomTown is curious to see what take the iconic new magazine show will have on the hot and hyped social network and its founder, Mark Zuckerberg.

In clips it has released, Zuckerberg tells veteran correspondent Lesley Stahl that its stalkerish ad product Beacon–a half-baked ad scheme Facebook cooked up that sends information about your purchases on partner Web sites back to your profile on the service–needs work.

Really? I had no idea! Oh, wait, I did.

Zuckerberg goes on to assure Stahl and the viewing public that Beacon will be a good tool someday. “It might take some work for us to get this exactly right,” said Zuckerberg in the interview. “This is something we think is going to be a really good thing.”

Since the 23-year-old is no Martha Stewart, we would like to take his word for it, but will not for now.

Zuckerberg also tells Stahl not to expect an IPO in 2008–well, I was not expecting one, but thanks for the confirmation–meaning that Facebook would have to make do with the $300 million it recently got from Microsoft and Chinese rich man Li Ka-shing for small stakes in the company.

The investments, as faithful BoomTown readers know, gave Facebook an insane $15 billion valuation. Despite the start-up’s fast growth and impressive record of building a pretty good service, I hope Stahl gives that wacky number her patented dubious eyebrow raise she always throws at various and sundry midrange dictators talking democracy.

We’re also interested in seeing the piece for you’re-so-vain reasons, because I was also interviewed by Stahl for the segment.

No surprise, Stahl asked if I was biased because of my partner, the Google exec (see my voluminous disclosure about that and more here), and because Rupert Murdoch now owned both Facebook rival MySpace and Dow Jones (owner of this site).

Well, no to both, since I was slapping around Facebook long before Google declared Open Social war on it and also before News Corp. was our corporate pooh-bah (also, the idea of me doing Rupe’s social-networking dirty work is laughable).

But most of the interview was about the many challenging issues I and others have raised about Facebook. In her lean-forward style, Stahl asked me a range of questions, mostly having to do with my many pieces on the start-up and Zuckerberg.

An old pro at the shake-up game, she noted at the start that some had called me “nasty” and “mean” for my sharpish reporting on Facebook.

I confess! I confess! It’s all true!

That is, if by mean, Stahl meant my thinking the valuation was undeserved thus far, raising questions about the need for a magic business plan to support that valuation and, of course, my wondering if Zuckerberg was experienced enough to be Facebook’s CEO.

Then, of course you can call me Cruella De Poke.

How I wish CBS–paging Quincy Smith!–would allow embedding of its videos, but here is a link to one clip from the interview where Zuckerberg talks about Beacon. And here is another about Zuckerberg’s wacky days as a hacker at Harvard.

The show airs at 7 p.m.