The best quotes, tweets, comments and random zingers we heard this week.
“In the past eight years, all of you out there have built the largest community in the history of the world. You’ve done amazing things that we never would have dreamed of, and I can’t wait to see wait you guys all do going forward.” — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg before ringing the NASDAQ opening bell on Friday.
“Married Priscilla Chan.” — Zuckerberg’s Facebook Timeline the next day.
“Stay focused and keep shipping.” — Facebook’s reminder to its employees, emblazoned on a curtain that was sent to its Seattle engineering offices from headquarters in Menlo Park.
“This was not our finest hour” — Nasdaq CEO Robert Greifeld, as quoted by the Wall Street Journal, acknowledging that problems with the exchange’s computer systems hampered the Facebook IPO.
“What is this Facebook thing I am seeing on Twitter today, I should probably sign up for their service. Do they have a website?” — Stephen Gillett on Twitter.
“What’s this new Facebook IPA everyone’s talking about? Is it extra hoppy or something?” — Brent Rose on Twitter.
“Rich businesspeople like me don’t create jobs. Rather they are a consequence of an ecosystemic feedback loop animated by middle-class consumers, and when they thrive, businesses grow and hire, and owners profit. That’s why taxing the rich to pay for investments that benefit all is a great deal for both the middle class and the rich.” — investor Nick Hanauer, in a controversial TED talk.
“We do not comment publicly on reasons to release or not release [a] talk. It’s unfair on the speakers concerned. But we have a general policy to avoid talks that are overtly partisan, and to avoid talks that have received mediocre audience ratings.” — TED curator Chris Anderson, on the question of why the group didn’t initially post the video of Hanauer’s talk.
“This is not a failure. We aborted with purpose. It would be a failure if we were to have lifted off with an engine trending in this direction.” — Gwynne Shotwell, president of SpaceX, speaking to reporters after a faulty valve caused the first unmanned commercial space mission to the International Space Station to be aborted at the last minute. They’re going to try again on Tuesday.
“The headline today should be, there isn’t a cap anymore. We’re out of the cap business.” — Comcast executive David L. Cohen, growing frustrated with reporters who peppered him with questions about Comcast’s motivation for increasing its monthly broadband data limits for its heaviest users.
“Tell ya what, Comcast. You let us set the prices and we’ll let you write the headlines.” — radio host John Moe on Twitter.
“It’s not that I don’t appreciate the $50 worth of delicious food truck lunches they’ve treated me to so far, but at a certain point it started to feel insane. After all, they’re a startup, not a bank.” — Giant Thinkwell CEO Adam Tratt on mobile wallet startup LevelUp, calling the customer acquisition tactics “the most aggressive I’ve seen since the dot-com boom ended.”
“If I remember the book Hard Drive correctly I bet it doesn’t have a radio in it and it has a lot of speeding tickets tucked under the seat.” — Kale Davis, commenting on a story about Bill Gates’ former Porsche 911 going up for auction.
“Very rare you see Huffington’s name considered on par with CEOs of real companies and not the editors-in-chief of blogs run by AOL.” — Joe McGrath, commenting on Arianna Huffington attending Microsoft’s CEO Summit.
“Yes, all she did was build a media brand from nothing to $315m in 6 years ….what’s noteworthy about that?” — GeekWire reader JH in response.
