,
13 tweets,
4 min read
Read on Twitter
Who is John Pinette. the veteran PR man that Facebook has just hired as its VP of global communications? A brief dip into his past tells us a lot about Mark Zuckerberg thinks of Facebook's position right now. cnbc.com/2019/04/22/fac…
On his LinkedIn page, Pinette says that he was director of communications for Microsoft between 1996 and 2007. That means that he was in the hot seat for Microsoft's big antitrust battle – a years-long political and legal confrontation very similar to the one FB is now facing.
Sure enough, here's Pinette in 1997 defending Microsoft against a claim that it's breaking a court order.
"We'll be happy to make our case to the judge," he says. "We were asked to build a car with part of the engine stripped out." sfgate.com/business/artic…
"We'll be happy to make our case to the judge," he says. "We were asked to build a car with part of the engine stripped out." sfgate.com/business/artic…
Here he is again in January, 1998, as Microsoft attempted to bar Lawrence Lessig from testifying as an expert witness on the grounds of "extreme bias". "We will argue [Lessig's status] should be revoked on serious legal and procedural grounds," Pinette tells reporters.
May 1998, however, found Pinette in a more relaxed position. Amidst the conflict, Bill Gates hosts his second "CEO summit". But why isn't Al Gore invited? "We're not doing policy stuff," says Pinette. "It has much more of a business focus this year." products.kitsapsun.com/archive/1998/0…
Btw, the intro to this story is highly instructive. "After weeks of being battered by politicians, pundits, competitors and antitrust attorneys, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates..." Sound familiar?
August 1999 sees a return to the sharp end. Ken Auletta, tech biz journalist extraordinaire (and a star of HBO's recent Theranos documentary), writes a New Yorker piece (we'd call it a "long read") today about the travails of Microsoft... kenauletta.com/hardcore.html
Auletta describes Pinette as "a former Catholic priest" (?!?) who shadows him around MS's Redmond, WA headquarters. But later, he finds out that Pinette has circulated an intelligence dossier about him (!!!), wrongly claiming he's close to the lawyer leading the case against MS
(Fun fact: the lawyer in question, Davide Boies, ALSO features in HBO's Theranos documentary. Only this time he is defending corporate blood-sucking as a lawyer for Theranos, skirmishing with @JohnCarreyou over his reporting)
Anyway, Auletta asks Pinette: "Why are you folks so controlling?" Pinette replies: "Indeed, it is a very aggressive approach to preparing people for interviews." (Imagine getting such candour from a tech PR today...)
There's more out there, but that is enough for now. As many have observed, Microsoft in 1997-2001 was in a very similar position to Facebook today – assailed from all sides – and Pinette was in the thick of it, raising the shield and swinging the sword for his employer.
We already know (via @dseetharaman) that Mark Zuckerberg sought Bill Gates' advice after Cambridge Analytica last year, and that Bill Gates recommended he adopt a similar organisational structure to what Microsoft had (though Zuck eventually rejected this) wsj.com/articles/with-…
How did Zuck characterise FB's position in a meeting with employees? "War". So congratulations to Mr Pinette, whom I imagine, based on his acceptance of this job, must be looking forward to getting back into the fight.
