Gawker: valleywag, d6 live coverage

Rupert Murdoch spits for 23andMe? This we can't swallow

Owen Thomas — Thu, 29 May 2008 12:00:00 EDT

CARLSBAD, CA — In her bid to rob her new boss of all remaining dignity, conference organizer Kara Swisher has arranged to have gene-analysis startup 23andMe map aging media mogul Rupert Murdoch's chromosomes at the D6 conference, AllThingsD's John Paczkowski tells us. Come on. At 77, does he have any left? Leave the man's DNA alone, you mean lesbian! Swisher's DNA is also being tested, as is that of Googlers Eric Schmidt, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin. Brin's wife, Anne Wojcicki, is a cofounder of 23andMe; Brin provided the company a loan to get it off the ground. In a real-world DNA experiment, Wojcicki is expecting the couple's first child.

Why Rupert Murdoch should defrag Bill Gates — and the rest of tech

Owen Thomas — Thu, 29 May 2008 02:23:54 EDT

CARLSBAD, CA — The other night, Gizmodo editor Brian Lam and I were talking about what he'd learned about Bill Gates's brain. Our conclusion: Like an overstuffed hard drive, he needs defragging — the utility that rebuilds a drive bit by bit to put it in proper working order. Buried in software wizardry, Gates has lost touch with what people want to do with technology. But why pick on Gates? None of the speakers at the D6 conference, held in this Southern California seaside town, have shown they have much in the way of ideas.

Jeff Bezos talked about Amazon.com's Kindle e-book; Activision's Bobby Kotick showed off a videogame; Sony's Howard Stringer unveiled a television. Barry Diller charmed everyone with his brilliance long enough that they forgot he really hasn't accomplished what he set out to on the Net. Michael Dell, Jerry Yang, and Jeff Bewkes simply seemed clueless to the realities of their business predicaments. Mark Zuckerberg proved terminally incapable of sharing. Only the last speaker of Wednesday night, Rupert Murdoch, showed any real spark.

Murdoch's one new idea of late — buying a newspaper, the very newspaper that produced the very conference series at which he appeared — was so old media, as one says dismissively in San Francisco coffeeshops. So last century. So over. One couldn't conceive of a bigger raised middle finger to the Valley's innovators. Yet Murdoch argued that he bought the Wall Street Journal because he was attached to news, not newspapers, and talked of delivering customized wireless alerts — just the sort of thing a mogul says at these conferences to seem passably clever, but he pulled it off.

What he is not attached to is journalism as it is practiced today. Today's reporters have brains overflowing with rules and rubrics, archaic practices that isolate them from the notion of writing interesting stories. Write for readers, not the Pulitzer Prize committee, Murdoch said.

How simple! How brilliant. How rather unlike Bill Gates. Perhaps it's not just the Microsoft founder's brain that needs a good working-through. Perhaps it's the entire media-technology complex that needs reformatting. Murdoch's iconoclasm is a good start. But only that. Do you want to defragment your industry? Click "yes" to continue.

(Photo by Asa Mathat/AllThingsD.com)

Mark Zuckerberg: "A technology company is a company that creates technology"

Owen Thomas — Thu, 29 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

CARLSBAD, CA — Mark Zuckerberg has learned nothing. Taking the stage at D6, he uttered nothing but bromides and nonsequiturs. Examples: "Facebook is a technology company ... a technology company is a company that creates technology"; "Religion, that's a big thing around the world". At his South By Southwest keynote, Zuckerberg benefitted from a crowd obsessed with the friendliness of Sarah Lacy's questions. With Kara Swisher, never a kind locutor, Zuckerberg had the spotlight shone on him, and he came off simply blank. Which is why he hired Sheryl Sandberg from Google, right?

Wrong, in practice if not in theory. Sandberg, who now oversees Facebook PR, was Zuckerberg's companion on stage. But she added nothing to the conversation; she wasn't even able to explain why she left Google for Facebook coherently. (Mentioning Google's stock price would have at least gotten some heads nodding.) We'll cut Facebook flack Elliot Schrage slack for not preparing his bosses adequately; he just got there himself. But at some point, Zuckerberg and Sandberg will have to find something to say. They kept saying Facebook is about letting users "share information and share themselves." It's beyond embarrassing that Zuckerberg and Sandberg can't manage to do so.

(Photo by Asa Mathat/AllThingsD.com)

Ejected but not dejected, Valleywag to keep blogging

Owen Thomas — Wed, 28 May 2008 23:20:00 EDT

CARLSBAD, CA, BUT NOT AT THE FOUR SEASONS AVIARA RESORT — Was it something I wrote? I can't claim to have been minding my own business at D6, the Wall Street Journal's hoi-polloi-need-not-apply tech conference. After all, my business is to mind everyone else's. But I can't think what exactly I did was that outrageous enough to prompt Ryan Carter, head of security for the Four Seasons Aviara Resort, to ask me to leave the property altogether. (One of Carter's underlings had previously asked me not to venture into the conference itself, a request I respected.) No matter. Eight-D6-ed, unseasonably ushered out, I shall blog on. A bonus of the trip back to my hotel: I had the cabbie detour past the Palomar Airport, where rows of private jets were lined up. Photos of mogul transportation, after the jump:

Valleywag spots secret Yahoo conclave at D6

Owen Thomas — Wed, 28 May 2008 21:20:00 EDT

CARLSBAD, CA — On stage at D6, Sue Decker couldn't offer any explanation why she was qualified to be president of Yahoo. But if you ask Valleywag, she's doing a bang-up job of pursuing Yahoo's strategy of embracing openness. For example, by holding a meeting within camera-lens length of Valleywag in the Four Seasons Lobby Lounge. Our eye was first drawn by Yahoo Media Group chief Scott Moore's blindingly colorful Madras shirt; we then saw he was sitting with Decker. Two of the other participants: Gordon McLeod and Matthew Goldberg, business-side executives at Dow Jones, which means they were likely discussing some kind of news-content partnership between Yahoo and the Wall Street Journal. I'd thought I spooted Brad Garlinghouse, the Yahoo executive who wrote the famous "Peanut Butter Memo," in the group, but I'm told he wasn't there. I later spotted him strolling down the halls with Yahoo board member Bobby Kotick, the CEO of Activision. More pictures of the meeting:

Yahoo's Scott Moore catches Time Warner CEO fudging numbers

Owen Thomas — Wed, 28 May 2008 20:40:00 EDT

CARLSBAD, CA — How rarely can one give one's enemies an in-your-face comeuppance? For Yahoo's Scott Moore, the chance came during Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes's interview at D6. Bewkes claimed that AOL was No. 1 in news, finance, and a host of other categories. "Where are you getting your numbers?" asked Moore during the session's open-mic portion, pointing out that AOL led Yahoo in all the areas Bewkes mentioned. Bewkes offered a feeble parry, suggesting that the numbers were close. Not even, Moore replied, rattling off how many millions of users the Yahoo sites he leads beat AOL. A satisfying moment, but shouldn't Moore be keeping his career options open at a time like this? (Photo by Asa Mathat/AllThingsD.com)

Jerry Yang and Sue Decker try to evade Kara Swisher's clutches

Owen Thomas — Wed, 28 May 2008 19:20:00 EDT

CARLSBAD, CA — For most of their D conference interviews, Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg trade off interview duties. But why was Mossberg the one to do the D6 interview with Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and president Sue Decker? Swisher frequently covers Yahoo in her AllThingsD.com blog; I can't think of the last time Mossberg has typed the letters "y-a-h-o-o" in his gadget reviews. Here's my theory: Decker and Yang agreed to speak at D6, but only if Mossberg was the interviewer, not Swisher. Then Swisher tweaked them by asking a question — not on stage, but on video. If so, serves Yang and Decker right for not nailing down all the conditions. Think they'll be having words with Yahoo flack Jill Nash afterwards? (Photo by Asa Mathat/AllThingsD.com)

Facebook board member lunches with Mrs. Rupert Murdoch

Owen Thomas — Wed, 28 May 2008 18:00:00 EDT

CARLSBAD, CA — Who are those cool cats in sunglasses at D6? Why, it's Jim Breyer of Accel Partners, a board member at Facebook, lunching with Wendi Murdoch, wife of the News Corp. CEO and chairwoman of MySpace China. Also at the table: Martha Stewart, seen here to the left; Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures; and Anne Wojcicki of 23andMe.

Microsoft, AOL talking? Our spy photo says yes

Owen Thomas — Wed, 28 May 2008 17:20:00 EDT

CARLSBAD, CA — Here's Microsoft dealmaker Hank Vigil chatting up AOL COO Ron Grant over lunch at the D6 conference. Why is that interesting? Because we overheard Vigil gabbing away on his cell phone earlier today about the "economic terms" of some deal. Microsoft famously made a run at merging its online businesses with Time Warner's AOL a few years ago. As with its recent talks with Yahoo, Microsoft only succeeded at driving its target into Google's arms; Google has a search deal with AOL, and owns 5 percent of the company. Could AOL be an option once more for Microsoft? Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes is set to take the stage soon. While he's not likely to say anything about talks, it's a safe bet Vigil and Grant will be seeing more of each other.

When flacks attack! Marcy Simon vs. Elliot Schrage

Owen Thomas — Wed, 28 May 2008 16:20:00 EDT

CARLSBAD, CA — I'll be unabashed about it: Part of the fun of a conference like D6 are the casual mogul sightings. Look! Barry Diller in a schlumpy brown sweater! Say, isn't that Jeff Bezos chatting up a Googler? But my favorite happenstances are the reunions of frenemies. Take, for example, this chance encounter between Marcy Simon, the former girlfriend of Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and Elliot Schrage, the head of Facebook PR. (Sandwiched awkwardly in the middle is Google VP Susan Wojcicki.) Simon and Schrage's back story, and more pictures from the hotel lobby at D6, after the jump.

Schrage, we hear, strongly opposed Simon's hiring as a consultant for the launch of the then-secret Googlephone — the collection of wireless software now known as Android. And Schmidt's extramarital relationships, first with Simon and later with Kate Bohner, were a source of friction between him and Schrage, not because Schrage disapproved, but because it hurt the company's image. Or so I've heard. I've run into Schrage twice at the conference, and he's made noises about talking to me, at which point I'll ask him directly about all this.

That's not the only run-in Schrage and Simon have had, though. Before taking her current gig at Thomson Reuters — one that Thomson Reuters PR staff are not very happy about — Simon made a strong play to take over PR at Facebook. She was not very gently rebuffed, and Schrage landed the job instead.

And yet here we see Schrage, smiling, or faking a smile, as he catches up on email as Simon and Wojcicki catch up. His new bosses at Facebook should be pleased they've hired someone so skilled at putting on appearances.

The passive-aggressive passion of Kara Swisher

Jackson West — Wed, 28 May 2008 15:40:00 EDT

Attempting to edit down Kara Swisher's epic two-part behind-the-scenes opus on the making of D6 into something more manageable, it was hard not to note a certain passive aggression. The deadpan delivery of criticisms quickly couched as attempts at humor, the needling of uncomfortable minions with the constant gaze of her camera and, above all, more than a little envy when it comes to the status her colleague at the Wall Street Journal Walt Mossberg enjoys. At one point, she even asks a staffer who grants access to the conference, "Are you dangling hope and then snatching it away, which was our instruction?" Yes, yes they are.

Four Seasons crawling with escorts

Owen Thomas — Wed, 28 May 2008 15:20:00 EDT

CARLSBAD, CA — Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg are doing an excellent job of keeping out gossip-blog riffraff, but they're not doing so well at warding off the camp followers, according to attendees. Overheard in the hotel bar:

"Who was that woman in a blue taffeta dress last night?"
"I'm thinking escort."
"Oh please, there were at least four pros here last night."

Has Kara Swisher drugged John Paczkowski?

Owen Thomas — Wed, 28 May 2008 12:40:00 EDT

CARLSBAD, CA — One of the best things about AllThingsD.com is John Paczkowski, the site's sardonic tech blogger, whom Kara Swisher cleverly poached from the San Jose Mercury News's Good Morning Silicon Valley blog. At the D6 conference, there has been no sign of John Paczkowski — only an overly sincere reporter impersonating him. There is no speaker the normally acidic Paczkowski can't find something nice to say about. Who is this guy, and what has he done with the real John?

In liveblogging yesterday's universally panned Microsoft presentaion, Paczkowski wrote: "Well this is sweet. A multi-touch piano. Seems very responsive." Today, he penned this paean to Amazon.com's CEO: "Jeff Bezos is among the Internet's true pioneers and visionaries, creating one of the Web's greatest brands and one of its most enduring companies." Kara, I know you have Patches tied up in a closet somewhere in the Four Seasons. Let him free!

Paula Abdul to get her game on at D6 conference

Owen Thomas — Wed, 28 May 2008 12:00:00 EDT

CARLSBAD, CA — The hot gossip this morning at the Wall Street Journal's D6 conference: American Idol judge Paula Abdul, seen here in the video for "Dance Like There's No Tomorrow," is in the building. My bet: something to do with Activision CEO Bobby Kotick's appearance, since his company's music game, Guitar Hero, was advertised heavily on the show's final week. Could a new American Idol videogame — one that's not utterly horrible, like the one released last year — be on deck? Update: A tipster inside the ballroom reports:

Lame lame lame Guitar Hero world tour demo ... Paula Abdul is judge

So much for that theory!

Bill Gates's presentation at D6, the four-word version

Owen Thomas — Wed, 28 May 2008 02:27:27 EDT

After being kicked out of D6 — kicked out of mere proximity to D6, really — I learned I didn't miss much. Want a summary of Bill Gates's presentation at D6 of Windows Seven, Microsoft's supposedly exciting new operating system with multitouch features similar to the year-old Apple iPhone? "Windows Seven is bullshit," says Gizmodo editor Brian Lam. Here's to more insights like that at the Four Seasons hotel bar! The highlights reel, in case you're in doubt:

(Photo by Asa Mathat/AllThingsD.com)

Who's at D6? Valleywag has the attendee list

Owen Thomas — Tue, 27 May 2008 22:53:25 EDT

CARLSBAD, CA — What's this on my table at the Four Seasons Aviara's Lobby Lounge? Why, it's a copy of the program for D6! How careless for someone to have left it out in a public space, where anyone might read it. And there's even an attendee list! I won't bore you with the name of everyone who's going, but here are some names that caught my eye:

The unaffiliated — job-hoppers or the newly unemployed:
Bradley Horowitz, ex-Yahoo, now at Google
Bruce Jaffe, the former Microsoft dealmaker who's gone startup
Owen Van Natta, the former COO of Facebook

Startuppers
Linda Avey and Anne Wojcicki, 23andMe
Geoff Reiss, Associated Content
Jeremy Allaire, Brightcove
MC Hammer, Dancejam
John Battelle, Federated Media
Shawn Hardin, Flock
Bill Gross, Idealab
Dalton Caldwell, Imeem
Donna Dubinsky, Numenta
David Sifry, ex-Technorati, now Offbeat Guides
Loic Le Meur, Seesmic
Chris Alden, Six Apart
Heidi Roizen, SkinnySongs
Max Levchin, Slide
Shervin Pishevar, Social Gaming Network
Scott Banister, Zivity
Mark Pincus, Zynga

Bigwigs
Bobby Kotick, Activision
Paul Sagan, Akamai
Herb Allen, Allen & Co.
Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com
Ron Grant, AOL
Bill and Melinda Gates
Quincy Smith, CBS
Dean Kamen, Deka Research
Michael Dell, Dell
Sky Dayton, EarthLink
Esther Dyson, EDVenture
Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, Gideon Yu, Facebook
Rupert Murdoch, Les Hinton, Peter Levinsohn, News Corp.
Arianna Huffington
Barry Diller, IAC
Scott Cook, Intuit
Martha Stewart
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft
Mary Meeker, Morgan Stanley
Chris DeWolfe, MySpace (but not Tom!)
Zach Nelson, NetSuite
Tim O'Reilly
Frank Quattrone, Qatalyst Group
Rob Glaser, RealNetworks
Steve Case, Revolution
Marc Benioff, Salesforce.com
Howard Stringer, Sony
Tom Glocer, Thomson Reuters
Jeff Bewkes, Time Warner
Tom Rogers, TiVo
Lowell McAdam, Verizon Wireless
Don Graham, Washington Post
Jerry Yang, Sue Decker, Brad Garlinghouse, Yahoo

Hacks, bloggers, and other media types
A whole passel of Dow Jones and AllThingsD minions
Norman Pearlstine, Bloomberg
Jon Fine, Steve Wildstrom, Sarah Lacy, BusinessWeek
Larry Magid, CBS News
Jim Goldman, CNBC
Dan Farber, Ina Fried, Rafe Needleman, CNET
Ryan Block, Engadget
Quentin Hardy, Forbes
Adam Lashinsky, Fortune
Om Malik, GigaOm
Brian Lam, Gizmodo
Dan Gillmor, Knight Center
Joseph Menn, Los Angeles Times
Therese Poletti, MarketWatch
John Markoff, New York Times
Ken Auletta, New Yorker
Steven Levy, Wired
Rafat Ali, PaidContent.org
Mark Golin, People.com
Paul Steiger, ProPublica
Eric Auchard, Reuters
Peter Kafka, Silicon Alley Insider
Michael Arrington, TechCrunch
Alan Citron, TMZ.com
Scott Rosenberg, Wordyard

Venture capitalists and other investors
Jim Breyer, Accel Partners
Ron Conway
Bill Elkus, Clearstone Venture Partners
Marc Bodnick, Elevation Partners
Rob Hayes, First Round Capital
Sean Parker, Founders Fund
Alan Patricof, Greycroft Partners
David Sze, Greylock
Ann Winblad, Mitchell Kertzman, Hummer Winblad
Vinod Khosla, Khosla Ventures
Allen Morgan, Mayfield Fund
Geoff Yang, Redpoint Ventures
Eric Hippeau, Ron Fisher, SoftBank Capital

Security ejects Valleywag from D6 conference

Owen Thomas — Tue, 27 May 2008 21:46:02 EDT

CARLSBAD, CA — I wasn't just eighty-sixed, folks. No, I was eight-D6'd. There I was, charming my way through the crowd at the Wall Street Journal's D6 conference — why hello, Sir Howard Stringer of Sony! Oh, was that Steve Case? — when a woman announced herself as "in-house security" and informed me that "the client" had asked that I be shown the door. "The client" being Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg, the conference organizers, and "the door" actually just the way to the hotel bar, where I'm having a lovely fruity beverage. And Swisher and Mossberg were too late with the bum rush. I'd already been working my camera for hours. While Bill Gates bores attendees with a preview of Windows Seven, Microsoft's latest attempt to annoy the majority of computer users, you can enjoy the snapshots I took. Among the nerdspotting: Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Max Levchin of Slide.

Bill Gates's valedictory: Windows Seven

Owen Thomas — Tue, 27 May 2008 18:00:00 EDT

CARLSBAD, CA — Next month, Bill Gates is retiring from his day job at Microsoft. That means his appearance tonight at the D6 conference is his last hurrah. To go out with a bang, he is debuting Windows Seven, John Paczkowski reports on the conference's AllThingsD website. Details are scant, but we've heard Microsoft was rushing out Seven to make up for the failures of Vista. Gates, Paczkowski writes, will demonstrate an "all new user interface." Which speaks to Microsoft's problems. Users are not demanding new interfaces; corporations are uninterested in retraining their staffs, and consumers are unmotivated to learn the quirks of a new operating system. Gates would have been better served by simply improving the operating system's reliability and performance — but that does not make for an interesting show.

Invading D6, the Wall Street Journal's posh pooh-bah conference

Owen Thomas — Tue, 27 May 2008 15:40:00 EDT

CARLSBAD, CA — D, the Wall Street Journal schmoozefest which opened today with a round of golf at the Four Seasons Aviara Resort, is not the conference for the rest of us. It attracts a host of tech and media CEOs who agree to be harangued onstage by Walt Mossberg, the sexagenarian of sexy gadgets, and Kara Swisher, the diminutive media commentaterrorist of AllThingsD.com. In exchange, they get to seem classy and witty, if only by comparison. It is the sort of elite event to which Valleywag is not invited. We showed up anyway.

Security may prevent me from attending the formal program. But the hotel bar is lovely, I hear, and I intend to camp out there, to overhear what I may and hold court with brave (or incautious) tipsters. Folks I'm looking forward to running into:

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, who threatened to shoot me
Thomson Reuters CEO Tom Glocer, or rather, his rumored chaperone at the event — Marcy Simon, Google CEO Eric Schmidt's ex-girlfriend
Yahoo president Sue Decker, who is negotiating a divorce at the same time as a merger

And that's just for starters. See why I don't get invited to these things?

For you, gentle reader, I can endure a few awkward conversations and more. Peruse the list of speakers, think of questions you'd like me to ask, and I'll do my best to buttonhole them for you.