Posts Published May 2011

Yeah, I know: My PR people got busted trying to plant bad stories about Google in the press, in places like Politico (I don’t read it, either) where big-government types would see them. The idea was to get Washington to turn up the heat on the Googlers over privacy, an issue we’ve managed to avoid at Facebook by completely ignoring it.

The problem isn’t that my flacks tried to smear a so-called competitor. Everyone does it. The problem is they got caught. I told them: Start a fake company called, oh, Privacy Foundation. Don’t tell the schmucks who run it where their funding comes from. Then stay out of the picture while the sock puppets passionately pitch USA Today that Google is an Orwellian nightmare. Make it a non-profit, I said. Reporters won’t bother to fact-check a word.

I’ve learned an important lesson: Never hire a publicist over thirty. Thank god she’s gone.

The backlash to what should have been an awesome prank is ruining my week. Not like anyone’s quitting Facebook. Good luck with that. But I’m stuck in emergency meetings with investors who need me to personally assure them that no, I’m not scared that Google Social Circle, formerly Google Buzz, formerly Google Wave, formerly Orkut (look it up) is a threat to Facebook.

Really. »