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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.
Google+playboy a geeks wet dream!
I only buy it for the tech articles.
Bring on the booble jokes...
I can now tell my wife:
"See honey, I buy playboy for the interviews"
This
You might have a bigger problem than Google and the SEC ;)
and this might be one of the only times when geeks are mentioned in the same breath with playboy, hot models, and boobs!
It's been said before (by VCs in my last startup) that an IPO is three things:
- A funding event (which they don't need), and
- A PR event (which is always welcome)
In the meeting they said that, I voluteered that it's also a liquidation event; but they suggested that that doesn't matter to anyone important.Google's IPO is a PR event more than anything; and if this adds controversy, that just makes for better PR.
Note that this interview was done in April - before they filed for IPO.... maybe that makes it a little less difficult for them.
Simpy
Let's have a race to see how many people can make the same joke in the first 100 posts!!!
best interview with kurt vonnegut ever is his one in playboy--yes, i DID read it for the article. interestingly, i hear they let him make up most of the questions himself.
Okay, it's time to show some serious geek/nerd muscle. Let's slashdot the biggest prize of all- PLAYBOY!
My Systems
Google for porn and you get over 8 million hits, buy playboy for google and you get only one issue.
I'd put my money on google...
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
I don't see why the SEC is concerned, I know plenty well you guys don't buy them for the articles; but then again, neither do I.
I may be in soup as I just visited playboy.com
Being tracked for reading an article about google (well it was from playboy)
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.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Don't look down the barrel when it's loaded ;)
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
Are they trying to commit corporate suicide? First they "may have" issued 23 million shares of stock to their own employees illegally and now they "may have" breached the quiet period. Do they even know what they're doing?
Like /.ers would actually read the articles.
who the hell reads playboy for the articles anyway?
--
Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
Here is a link to part of the interview: ...Oh wait, I answered my own question...
http://www.playboy.com/magazine/interview.html
FYI: 2 time Olympian High Jumper, Amy Acuff is on the cover.
Obligatory Dumb Question: How the flying F**K does a Playboy cover girl do the high jump?
...But I digress. TREMBLE PUNY HUMANS!ONE DAY MY SPECIES WILL DESTROY YOU ALL!
They just did it so that they could up their page ranking on words such as "pr0n".
Am I the only one imagining a new "seasonal" logo for the "oo" in google?
Looking through the comments, it seems to be populated by teenagers titillated at the prospect of having geek content in a softcore porn magazine. But the interesting bit here (as the original poster stated) isn't that they're in Playboy but that they're in Playboy during their quiet period.
/.) has read the full article, I think it is a bit sensationalist to instantly go jumping to the conclusion that this is somehow a breach of SEC rules. They would be breaking the rules if they made forward-looking statements such as earnings or market share, or if they discussed new products and research. From what it looks like from the blurb on the linked article, they are talking about history, which they're allowed to do. They're allowed to talk about their childhood, they're allowed to talk about technology, they're allowed to talk about their lifestyle. They're just not allowed to pump up all the cool things that we haven't seen yet.
Given that nobody here on Slashdot (I am assuming that Playboy employees aren't kernel hackers, and Page and Brin have better things to do than blow time on
Anyway, try not to jump the gun on this. Wait till it comes out before you decide they're being evil.
Please do NOT show their nude pictures!
yes it does make it easier, because the quiet period doesn't begin when you know when you're going to file. it explicitly begins *when* you file your s1 of sb2 and extends 25 days after the stock starts trading.
On John Dvorak's blog there is a picture of the founder of google in drag accompanying this headline. Perhaps playboy will include this photo in their article?
Because the story submitter absent-mindedly forgot, here's the link to Playboy. ... Like you didn't know it already, lonely geek! (I bet all the images on the site are "mysteriously" pre-cached.)
- sm
googleporn.com
If it wasn't the Dutch-style auction that marks the beginning of the end, it will surely be this...
Given the nature of the magazine, I have to wonder whether interviewer will bring up the inevitable Booble controversy.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
Playboy has interviews?
I just buy it for the hot nude women...
...appropriate.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Actually i was just thinking. Google has Froogle for cheapos, so Google should have Oogle for sickos, er I mean men.
...32,000 techies lost their jobs at various major software development companies on Friday, August 13th, allegedly for visiting a site contianing pornographic material. An anonymous vice president of information technology at a Fortune 500 company had this to say: "This represents a great step in removing these future pedophiles from our workforce. In our analyses we found that 86% of pedophiles had been exposed to pornography before the age of 18. Plain and simple, this proves that pornography is a gateway drug to sexual deviancy. Thank goodness we found these freaks of nature before they could cause any real harm to our enterprise."
What has *science* done?!? -- Dr. Weird (ATHF)
It gets better -- the alt text for the pics of the two Google guys is "Matt Damon." This is surely the first time geeks have been mistaken for hunky Hollywood stars!
I should buy some cement.
This could just be someone on Wall Street stirring up trouble for Google.
There have been a few articles in the trade press about Wall Street being pissed off at (horror) being treated like normal people and missing out on the customary level of graft that accompanies high profile IPO's.
Microsoft is also working behind the scenes to try and throttle their IPO success. (Remember Microsoft's recent news portal unveiling)?
Larry and Sergey get alot of props though from both computer geeks (for linux) and financial nerds (for following Warren Buffett's advice).
I think the IPO is going to go well.
Go ogle it.
Playboy is not pornography (vulgarly called porn, p0rn, pr0n and/or derivatives), it's erotica.
Are you sure? Maybe I don't like Playboy. According to Wikipedia, "Erotica is what I like. Pornography is what you like, you pervert."
ResidntGeek
Finally a slashdot post where I can RTFA.
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro" -- HST
submitted and rejected today:
Business 2.0 is running a column that speculates that the negative publicity surrounding the Google IPO may be part of a Wall Street campaign to stop more companies from using the Dutch Auction system and bypassing the banks. It quotes such people as Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock.com , who relates what happened to them when they decided to follow the dutch auction method for their IPO.
Suchetha
learn from yesterday, plan for tomorrow, party tonight
or one out of three ain't bad
Try to find a driver got a siemens 1022 USB device. What do you find? 40 pages of resellers for amazon. Google has become freakin worthless.
Zoid.com
What do you think the oo's will look like in Google's logo on when this is issue is released?
gUUgle, I'm feeling lucky
In general the best way to find an updated driver is to contact the hardware vendor. If the hardware is old and no longer supported by the vendor, you may be out of luck. If not, and you were looking for a third party driver, be aware that such a driver might not exist.
However, I think what is happening here is that you are trying to use the product in an environment - like Linux - where the device might or might not be supported. You probably bought an item and are trying to use it in an unsupported manner; now you're getting mad because Google won't help you find a non-existent driver.
Besides, you should learn not to exaggerate. A Google search for 'siemens usb 1022 driver' did return some retail sites. Here's a hint, Sparky: shopping sites/pages generally include the word 'price'. Exclude that from the Google search and you get ~260 pages of what appear to be primarily hints, guides, and how-tos.
In conclusion: Google is fine; you don't know how to use it.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.