Google Creators Interviewed by Playboy

Cristiano wrote in to say that an interview with the creators of Google is appearing in the latest Playboy Magazine. That in and of itself is of little note, until one realizes that the issue of Playboy in question is already en route to subscribers and hits newsstands tomorrow, the same day that their IPO auction begins. News.com.com speculates that the SEC may be interested, since this could be a breach of the "quiet period" companies must endure before going public. It may also be nothing but a mistake in scheduling, but it has cast doubts on Google's IPO for some.

Comments

What was he deal with the journalist?

[JanneM]

You have to wonder if they perhaps had a deal with the journalist or the magazine not to publish until after the IPO happened, and then they decided to print anyway.

I have seen this happen in science reporting, unfortunately. A journalist wanted to know about some current work at our department, and got the interview on condition that she wait to publish for a week, until a set of experiments on volunteers had been done (so the volunteers couldn't read the interview and get clued in on what the purpose was). She ignored the deal and ran it just a couple of days later ("we really needed a piece that day"). The experiments had to be postponed for six months and new volunteers had to be found.

Moral: never, ever, tell a journalist about anything with other than historical interest. If any aspect of your work or personal life could be harmed by the timing or manner in which something is published, don't share it. If it is ongoing work, don't speak about it - let your papers do the speaking. Another good, hard-won lesson is: don't make guesses, and don't share your beliefs or estimates unless they are very well covered by your data already. If you feel the need to add "perhaps", or "in my view", or "one possibility is" - just keep quiet. Far too often, that conditional will be dropped once the piece sees print, and your personal opinion will suddenly stand there as scientific fact.

My rant seems to have gone offtopic a bit; feel free to moderate down.