Facebook Heckling Rampage By Kara Swisher
As co-host of the Wall Street Journal's $5,000/head D conference, reporter Kara Swisher demands best behavior from her guests. Invite her to your startup, though, and she'll taunt your chef, heckle bizdev and mock your taste.
At least Swisher had the good taste to go after one of her News Corp. colleagues, too, calling MySpace chief (and former Facebook COO) Owen Van Natta a girly penman. On tour with Facebook PR chief Brandee Barker, Swisher also threw in some self-deprecation that doubled as disclosure: thanks to a spouse who works at Google, Swisher dines freely on the search giants vaunted food, making the All Things D editor especially well-positioned to judge Facebook's cafeteria food against the competition.
It also makes her ideally suited to poke fun at Facebook for trying to stay cool despite its move from downtown Palo Alto to a fuddy-duddy old HP office park in the suburbs.
Facebook ought to invite Swisher back for a proper lunch review, if only to clear the name of its poor chef.
Quick highlights reel above; full eight-minute tour below.