Banky For President

I wish i would have called it beforehand. The entire ballroom was already filled by 10 til 2 and given the subject, a man who dazzles with his software but not as a speaker, I nearly twittered . . .”There’s going to be lots of disappointed people in about one hour. “

And disappointed they were, but for a very different reason.

It begain okay enough. Zuckerberg talked about how Facebook was making an impression by allowing protest to occur in Columbia and how the world seems less isolated to those in Lebanon who are able to connect with their friends on different continents.

All the while though, Ms. Lacy twirled her hair, leaned back in her chair, and talked about how nervous Mark Zuckerberg can get when he gets interviewed. She called him a kid a few times and honestly didn’t seem to have much respect for him as either a subject she was interviewing or as a man who has built a company that can be valued at over 15 billion dollars.

And as I was sitting there watching all this, after having seen all the anticipation first hand just prior to the keynote, the tension in the air became so palpable, it became another energy entirely. My twitter feed read like this “She’s disgusting,” “She’s flirting with him,” “She ruined his keynote.” And when the energy was sensed by even Zuckerberg himself when he asked innocently enough 45 minutes into the interview, “Did you run out of questions?” the crowd . . . just . . . roared. It wasn’t so much what he asked, but the crowd saw a window of opportunity to react . . . and the crowd did. And the crowd just kept reacting for the rest of the interview.

It went downhill from there for Lacy but when the crowd saw the opportunity to vent, the crowd were immediately more engaged. She said later that she got Zuckerberg to announce the launching of Facebook in France, but actually, Lacy was the one to break the news. Lacy reacted poorly and defensively. “My job is hard!” she exclaimed. She snarked an apology at the end, “I’m sorry it was such torture.”

The criticism poured in on both Valleywag and Cnet. Still in denial hours later she twittered, “seriously screw all you guys. I did my best to ask a range of things.”

And because most had hoped to understand more about Facebook’s roadmap and what was on the horizon for such a monumental company, that sums up exactly how many of us still feel . . . screwed.