Musings of an Inappropriate Woman

If you follow the tech scene at all, you’ve probably already heard about the “now infamous” keynote interview between Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and BusinessWeek’s Sarah Lacey at SXSW today.

If you haven’t heard about it, basically a portion of the audience chucked a hissyfit (think heckling, hissing, boo-ing and general complaint) because they didn’t think Lacey’s interviewing skills were up to scratch.

Personally, I found both Zuckerberg and Lacey to be quite likeable: she in a sassy, cheeky, girl-friend kind of way and he in an earnest, calming intellectual way. I’d be friends with either of them. It’s true that the interview had its awkward moments, and I agree that Lacey inserted herself into the story too much - you could argue that she didn’t target her questions and style to the audience well enough, or that the organisers didn’t pick the right interviewer for their audience - but the arrogance from some of the audience was totally uncalled for and, frankly, disgusted me.

There are some awesome, incredible, creative people here at SXSW (a small portion of whom I met tonight at the Gawker and Google parties, including kimtranell), but there’s also an arrogance to some elements of the tech world that I’m only picking up on being here. Think Jakob Lodwick’s political rants if you want to know what I mean.