An HR person offered some introductory drivel or other, and then it was straight to the first speaker, my superboss, the head of product for Facebook: Chris Cox. Cox was handsome in the way of a Gosling or Depp: a tempered masculinity encased in a cuddly package, custom-made for female desire. It was a recurring internal joke at Facebook to point out the Twitter storm of oohing and ahhing whenever he took the stage at a Facebook PR event. He had the gift of the gab, which he used to great effect, weaving a seductive narrative around Facebook and the future of media. As the first speaker, he
An HR person offered some introductory drivel or other, and then it was straight to the first speaker, my superboss, the head of product for Facebook: Chris Cox. Cox was handsome in the way of a Gosling or Depp: a tempered masculinity encased in a cuddly package, custom-made for female desire. It was a recurring internal joke at Facebook to point out the Twitter storm of oohing and ahhing whenever he took the stage at a Facebook PR event. He had the gift of the gab, which he used to great effect, weaving a seductive narrative around Facebook and the future of media. As the first speaker, he was clearly there to instill the big-picture vision of what we had been selected to help build. “What is Facebook? Define it for me,” he asked, challenging the rows of attentive faces almost the moment he appeared. “It’s a social network.” “Wrong! It’s not that at all.” He scanned the audience for another answer. Perfectly articulated, to the point I suspected she was a shill, a young, perky intern came out with: “It’s your personal newspaper.” “Exactly! It’s what I should be reading and thinking about, delivered personally to me every day.” He then embarked on a common trope among Valley types, framing a product in some historical continuum of prior technologies, the product currently discussed being the ultimate and inevitable final chapter in the triumphant procession. Radio and TV were depersonalized media of mass consumption, revolutionary for their time, but ultimately lacking. St...
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