Yesterday–in a somewhat rambling and also riveting blog post about charging for content–serial entrepreneur and perennial gadfly Mark Cuban made a very important point that execs at every large media company should take to heart as they try to cope with the digital challenge.
Use your noggins, why dontcha?
He also threw out some very good ideas for doing so.
What can one say about Mark Cuban that he can’t say himself?
Not much, as you will see from this sassy onstage interview he did with Walt Mossberg and me at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference, where he talked about everything from the idiots of the Internet to the subsidization of Web video by Google.
Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal did a special Technology Report section, made up of excerpts of selected interviews from the seventh D: All Things Digital conference, including Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer ringing in Bing and Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz looking for the primo opportunity to curse at BoomTown.
Here are the online links to the transcripts, as well as video highlights.
We’ll be posting the full video of all the sessions on this site soon.
Last week, Walt Mossberg and I interviewed entrepreneur, high-definition television fanboy, dancing fool and reliable gadfly Mark Cuban at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference.
After our onstage interview, BoomTown also got him to be more specific about his thoughts on a variety of things he discussed, including Google’s underwriting of its YouTube video subsidiary, the problems with broadband and the Internet as a “utility.”
While getting ready for the spate of interviews at our seventh D: All Things Digital conference in just seven days, BoomTown has been doing a lot of research on the people taking the stage.
Some interviews will be quite serious (Eve Ensler, talking about the dire situation in the Congo) and some possibly funny (Mark Cuban, who simply defies definition).
But this picture that Twitter founder and CEO Evan Williams posted today on his Flickr page is easily the most unusual bit of research I have come across.
It is aptly titled, “This doesn’t seem awkward at all.”
Incredibly, this is the seventh year of the D: All Things Digital conference.
We feel very lucky to get here, especially in the midst of what our own site’s Digital Daily scribe, John Paczkowski, has so perfectly dubbed the “econalypse.”
Ironically, Walt Mossberg and I planned to launch the very first conference in the middle of the last major downturn for tech, in 2001. But, in the carnage of the Web 1.0 meltdown, we actually held off for two years, with our first D gathering taking place in 2003.
Well, we’re still going–making the same long-term bet that the digital revolution will keep rolling as we did at D1. Here’s our lineup for D7.
BoomTown is handing over the stage today to hyperactive entrepreneur Mark Cuban, who just weighed in on what Yahoo should do. Literally, his post yesterday on his Blog Maverick site is titled “What Yahoo Should Do,” and he lays waste to a lot of the conventional wisdom about the Internet portal’s fate. Cuban and Yahoo have a rocky history and, let’s just say, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang is not a fan. Ironically, in the piece, Cuban seems to be a big fan of Yahoo, or–more precisely–of its potential.
Well, it will not be nearly as interesting as it would have been had activist shareholder Carl Icahn been attacking full-throttle in a proxy fight.
But Yahoo’s annual meeting on Friday will be more of a humdinger than usual.
So many moving parts, including who, who, who will Yahoo and Icahn decide on for the two other new board members besides Icahn?
Actually, BoomTown mostly wants to know who gets to sit next to Icahn at the first board meeting. I vote Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang!
“Where’s Jerry here? He is like a ghost,” said a Yahoo exec to me last week.
The exec was referring to the plans for a major overhaul of the management structure of the troubled Internet company–the dreaded and inevitable reorg that BoomTown wrote about in detail last week that is expected to be announced this week.
Many execs have told BoomTown that Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang has been strangely absent from the communications around the reorg, which has been driven largely by President Sue Decker.
Well, ghosts aren’t real, but fear and uncertainty clearly are at Yahoo these days.
As Yahoo continues to be in limbo, pressure is sure to mount heavily on its CEO and Co-Founder Jerry Yang, and it is not a stretch to imagine he will not remain in the top job at the troubled company for the long term.
So who would be good to replace him?
I have six candidates I like, so here’s my short list (and remember, the last time I made one for the job of the No. 2 leader for Facebook, its current COO Sheryl Sandberg was high on my list).
It’s clear that Yahoo and its CEO and Co-Founder Jerry Yang have got to be a little more than miffed that billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban is on billionaire investor Carl Icahn’s board as he begins a proxy fight to control the troubled Internet company.
As BoomTown noted in a post yesterday, there is no love lost at Yahoo for Cuban (pictured here), who sold Broadcast.com for $5.7 billion in cash to the company at the peak of the bubble in 1999, skedaddled quickly and then made bank by hedging his Yahoo shares and enjoying the proceeds extravagantly.
But, it is actually quite unfair, given it was Yahoo that did precious little with its Broadcast.com’s assets after paying so much for the company.
Of the amazingly Internet-experience-free board that billionaire investor Carl Icahn has proposed to replace Yahoo’s current directors in this proxy fight, there is one name who does have a lot of Web-related experience, especially with regards to Yahoo.
Specifically, in how to make bank from Yahoo’s desperation.
That would be entrepreneur and all-around bon vivant Mark Cuban, who sold Broadcast.com to Yahoo in the heady days of 1999 for $5.7 billion in Yahoo stock.
BoomTown’s most favorite part of the Yahoo takeover circus?
The dueling letters, of course! How the lovely practice of missives has fallen out of favor, as soulless emails have grown in use.
Well, not in the land of hostile takeovers!
So here’s our decoding of billionaire investor Carl Icahn’s thankfully brief letter to Yahoo’s Chairman Roy Bostock, informing Yahoo that he begins bombing in five minutes.
You have to hand it to Slide Founder and CEO Max Levchin, who has just launched a new blog.
The title of the blog? “You’ve Gotta Be Kidding Me: The Official Press Organ of the Maxist Revolution.”
Very funny, Max!
By spooky coincidence, “you’ve gotta be kidding me” is the working title and guiding principle of a post I am preparing on Slide’s recent $500 million valuation!
Predictions, schmedictions.
As a holiday gift to all readers, BoomTown will refrain from making any big pronouncements about what’s coming in 2008 in the tech sector, because, um, well, I have no idea what’s coming in 2008 in the tech sector. No one could have Miss Cleo-ed all the twists and turns of 2007, for certain.
Could [...]
Kara Swisher started covering digital issues for The Wall Street Journal's San Francisco bureau in 1997 and also wrote the BoomTown column about the sector. With Walt Mossberg, she co-produces and co-hosts D: All Things Digital, a major high-tech and media conference.
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
D is unlike any other executive conference. Since its debut in 2003, D has brought to life the energy and excitement of the digital revolution in an unscripted, upfront and unparalleled way. Read more »
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