<![CDATA[Gawker: valleywag, lesley stahl]]> http://tags.gawker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/gawker.com.png <![CDATA[Gawker: valleywag, lesley stahl]]> http://gawker.com/tag/valleywag/lesleystahl http://gawker.com/tag/valleywag/lesleystahl <![CDATA[Lesley Stahl Investigates Marissa Mayer's Matchless Fashion Sense]]> After having her image frosted by the New York Times and Charlie Rose, Google VP Marissa Mayer, the cupcake princess of search, is hungry for more press. Luckily, Lesley Stahl arrived to spread more on!

In an epic 7,738-word interview, the CBS newswoman probes Mayer on privacy, womanhood, fashion, and cupcakes. She even cites Valleywag! (We would love to have been a fly on the wall and seen Mayer's expression when Stahl uttered the gossip blog's name.)

Stahl, otherwise a close study of Valleywag's reporting on Mayer, mistakenly promotes Mayer to "queen of cupcakes." Mayer, who gushed to San Francisco about how vanilla frosting gave her "brain euphoria," had previously denied having any business interest whatsoever in cupcakes.

But, in what looks like a desperate attempt to make herself look more serious for Stahl, Mayer appears to make up a crazy-sounding story about how her enthusiasm for cupcakes was really just an exercise in exploring it as a business idea. And then, when Stahl asks her if she's going to quit Google to become a cupcakepreneur, Mayer hastily denies it:

LESLEY: Yes. Good analogy. To me, Marissa, you are a really, really interesting person because I think your interests are diverse and unexpected. Let me say that. A surprise. And I guess what I'm specifically talking about now is cupcakes, Marissa. You're the queen of cupcakes. What is that? Tell me what that is. Every time I read anything about you, the cupcakes come up.

MARISSA: I don't think I'm the queen of cupcakes.

LESLEY: No?
MARISSA: I do have a legendary sweet tooth. But I think that, you know, one of the key things I think about here at Google is consumers – what they're interested in, what's a fad right now, what's a basic need. One observation I made a few years ago, just from a business perspective, is that I think the same way we saw the rise of the Krispy Kreme donut, people see the rise of the cupcakes. For example, Crumbs is now franchising. Someone's going to take cupcakes and they're going to figure out how to bake them in Subway-like ovens and frost them up right in front of you and franchise it. Because I think that, especially now because of the economic downturn, cupcakes are simple, they are comforting, they're inexpensive.

LESLEY: They're fattening.

MARISSA: And they can scale. But they're interesting from a business perspective. It's a prediction that I made around the next fad. I do have a sweet tooth. I do like to bake. I have my various spreadsheets analyzing different recipes and looking at the differences between them.

...

LESLEY: You know, The New York Times [actually, Valleywag -Ed.] recently created somewhat of a mini-storm by suggesting that you were thinking of leaving Google. And your job at Google is to think about what's next for Google. Are you beginning to think about what's next for Marissa?

MARISSA: I'm very challenged at Google. I'm very happy at Google. I don't understand where the rumor came from. It really was baseless. I couldn't be happier with my role here, our progress at Google, or my team.

LESLEY: In other words – let's get it on the record at wowOwow.com: You are not about to open Marissa's Cupcake Company?

MARISSA: No. Absolutely not.

But the best part is when the ladyreporter and the ladyexecutive start talking ladyfashion:

LESLEY: OK, so you're a geek, right? That's what you said.

MARISSA: Yes.

LESLEY: But, you know, geeks don't wear clothes that match, as somebody said.

MARISSA: Who makes that rule?

LESLEY: Well you just have to observe -

MARISSA: To me a geek is one who is really enthusiastic about technology, likes to hack on things and we have a lot of attention to detail. Why shouldn't our clothes match?

We could think of many words to describe Mayer's unique, Skittles-inspired fashion sense. But never would it occur to us to use the word "match" in explicating her nouveau gauche way with clothing. Look for yourselves, and discuss how best to summarize Mayer's matchless taste:















And let's not forget her sporty look.


(Photos via El Pais, Trends der Zukunft, CNET News, Sydney Morning Herald/Brendan Esposito, New York Social Diary, Wall Street Journal, Beet.tv, San Francisco Magazine, Rafael Mizrahi, Keso via Blogoscoped, SFLuxe,

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<![CDATA[$4 billion doesn't do much for Zuck's wardrobe]]> With his 27 percent stake in the company, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is worth about $4 billion. (In an interview aired last night, 60 Minutes put the figure at $3 billion, but the venerable show is — how to put this delicately? — incorrect.) So what does a billion here, a billion there do for the 23-year old founder? Not much to improve his wardrobe, apparently. "You don't look like you're buying expensive clothes," interviewer Lesley Stahl tells him. Ouch. And it sounds like that paper wealth isn't doing much to improve Zuck's housing situation, either.

"I have a little one-bedroom apartment with a mattress on the floor," he told Stahl.

OK, so maybe we got it wrong when in early December we reported Zuckerberg cashed out. But Zuck's taste in Italian leather loafers — his only upscale apparel — tells us maybe he wishes we'd gotten it right.

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<![CDATA[Facebookers are late for everything]]> "Facebook headquarters in downtown Palo Alto looks like a dorm room," Lesley Stahl narrated during last night's 60 Minutes piece on the company. "Facebook employees," Stahl also tells us, "show up late, stay late, and party really late." At the end of the the montage, it cuts to a darkened room where an employee continues to grind out work on his laptop while several others sit scrunched shoulder to shoulder on a red couch. There's also a DJ in the room. "Get down!" the music exhorts, 'cause it's totally like party planet down in Palo Alto. Woo. Wake us when they start taking their clothes off or putting on Viking helmets.

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<![CDATA["60 Minutes" scoop: Zuckerberg remains awkward with humans]]> "You seem to be replacing Larry and Sergey as the people out here who everyone is talking about," 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl told Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg during his interview last night. In response, Zuckerberg sniffs. Then there's a beat. He blinks. Then Zuckerberg asks: "Is that a question?" He looks off camera and chuckles. Here's to another 100 years of puff pieces turned sour by petulance.

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<![CDATA[Mark Zuckerberg gets off scot free in "60 Minutes" interview]]> No one expects the fannish inquisition. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg can breathe easy; he has nothing to fear from 60 Minutes after all. From the looks of the teaser CBS News is running for his upcoming interview, the hardest question Zuckerberg got asked was if he got in trouble at Harvard for launching Facemash, a predecessor of Facebook built from photos he hacked out of school servers. The venerable news organization even got his net worth wrong — he owns 27 percent of Facebook, making him worth $4 billion on paper, not $3 billion. So much for factchecking. Here are the questions we wish CBS's Lesley Stahl had asked — but doubt she bothered:

  • Why were Facebook employees allowed to access private user profiles for their own amusement? What have you done to stop that practice?
  • Why did you bother to launch Beacon ads, and endure a roiling PR crisis over Facebook's disrespect for users' privacy, when you don't even charge for those ads?
  • How badly, exactly, did you rook Microsoft when you renegotiated your ad deal and took their $240 million?

On that last point, there will be an answer soon. And on Valleywag, not 60 Minutes.

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<![CDATA[Facebook faces "60 Minutes" inquisition]]> Facebook has bigger problems than the possibility of an FTC inquiry. 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl recently visited the company's Palo Alto offices, says Kara Swisher of AllThingsD. According to Swisher, Stahl interviewed CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Chris Kelly, the network's chief privacy officer. Which can only mean one thing: A major exposé on Facebook coming soon on the hard-hitting CBS news show. Don't think it's serious?

Then just remember Razorfish. What's that? You don't remember Razorfish? Exactly. Jeff Dachis, former CEO of the online ad agency, was crucified on television by a 60 Minutes episode in which he proved unable to define what, exactly, his dotcom did to earn its keep. "We've asked our clients to recontextualize their business," said Dachis. Gotcha. While the 60 Minutes appearance wasn't the only thing that did Razorfish in, Dachis's company, once worth $4 billion, was soon sold for $8.2 million. Let's hope Zuckerberg fares better on camera.

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