MIT Media Lab, Book Marketing and Wired Magazine Hit Pieces
A host recounts a visit to the MIT Media Lab with Will Hearst, where Nicholas Negroponte allegedly bragged about "pre-selling" books to manipulate bestseller lists. After writing a critical column about the lab's inventions, the host was targeted by a "hit piece" in Wired Magazine written by Paulina Borsuk. The story concludes with a comparison to South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem using campaign funds to buy her own books to inflate sales figures.
mit media lab· nicholas negroponte· marvin minsky· wired magazine· will hearst
43:04 So that's what I'm so that and so that's something of a promotion public relations What I'm nudging towards is you have some friendly group buy up a whole slew of those books and hand them out at conferences Yeah, that's very common. In fact, I had this I busted I was writing for the deck professional when I did there we call him once here We go is this really good story? Yeah So I'm at the Media Lab with the Hearst Corporation. MIT Media Lab? Yes, oh I got an invite to go but Will Hearst asked me if i wanted to go as a group part of the Hearst corporation
43:48 and just hang out with the corporation, the top guys and him. I don't think I know this story. Do i know this story? I don't think I know this story. Ah you should! Anyway so we go to the media lab Unlike reporters, normally when you go to the media lab they always make you sign a bunch of non-disclosures but because they were trying to sell the Hearst Corporation on some project there was no nondisclosures involved because it just assumed that we're not going to be talking about it. And so Frank Bennett was there and Randy Hurst, it was just a bunch of... Which I got to some very funny conversations that I got to have. Will and I. So we'd go in there and take the whole tour and I get to hear the pitch from Negroponte about how they've pre-sought their book on The Media Lab which will be written by Stuart Brand. He bragged about how they're going to do marketing for this book
44:49 and about how they're gonna, they sold the book on a pre-sale basis where you go in there and say look publisher we're gonna sell 50 thousand copies of this book right off the top. We're gonna buy them back from ya after they get printed. It was all part of this scheme to become best seller and you give the books away just what you said. And so were going through the And they're showing us all the crazy inventions they're having, and every time we ask about them they always... Every invention seems to have been invented in Japan or China. But they're showing all this stuff. At the very end what happened was at the final meeting where they were going on about how they should do this and that with technology and the examiner folks aren't there, the Hearst Corporation folks aren't buying most of it
45:44 And then Martin just so there's a kicker they bring in Marvin Minsky. Yeah was Epstein with him? I don't know no he wasn't but Marvin Minsky comes in and He sits down and immediately recognizes me, and he gets very upset And yes, what is this guy doing here? What is he doing here eggs pretty much what he said because I wasn't non-disclosed. I didn't have to do... You're a hater, you're troublemaker, you're troll! And they kicked me out. Will and I both left because it was over anyway so i already got what I needed So later in this story, I wrote this up in a DEC professional column
46:37 Calling out the media lab for being something of a sparse. Now, DEC Digital Equipment Corporation? Yeah they had a magazine. Oh! I was inside...I had the back cover so I wrote this thing up and it was very critical of the whole operation That's why they wanted you out! No wonder! It took like about three months before all of a sudden But Nagroponte was one of the primary publishers, kind of a publisher. I don't know what he really did there but of Wired Magazine so they immediately did a hit piece on me. How can you do that? What is there to hit on you? That's the point!
47:18 So they sent one of their top hit piece writers, Paulina Borsuk. He's got an old Lexus! He's no good I mean what can you do? he likes noise makers... so they have so they sent her after me and it was like and first thing i did is i did a little background she was a vegetarian vegan so i took out to dinner at Green's in San Francisco and got to know her She could not come up with anything the hit piece became a kind of a bio of me and why are you looking at this around? And it's so weak Wow, and it's like they couldn't do it because I'm not hittable. I don't really I'm not an interesting guy No one has been around the block Just boring just bored title potential show title will and I I like that oh
48:04 So anyway, so why just because I know a few people that's for sure. But so that the whole thing was a fiasco and it was like and that's the way it's done is phony. I got boots on the ground to make a long story longer. Yeah well hold on we got boots on the ground from our producer in South Dakota this is exactly how Kristi Noem gets her books on The New York Times bestseller list. Her campaign gives money to right-wing groups to buy them up and give them away to donors Yeah, that's what you do. That's what you do is a good way to go and doesn't make any money and it helps if I put him there that You know you shot your dog that helps? I mean just it's a little better than I got kicked out of MIT It's to be honest