What If Sarah Lacy Had Run Valleywag?
Sarah Lacy, the Silicon Valley author, BusinessWeek reporter and notorious interviewer, worked a bit of grave-dancing into her blog "tribute" to Valleywag, the site gutted by Gawker Media Wednesday. Gawker Media chief Nick Denton was the "best" Valleywag editor, and his posts were "sexy, fun... and important." The site's current editor, Owen Thomas, has had far more time to dutifully torture Valley fixture Lacy and, what do you know, she writes that Valleywag "just stopped being a daily, must-read for" her under his tenure. Perhaps Lacy imagines she could have run the site better, had she taken Denton up on his offer to take the reins a couple of years ago, before Thomas came on the scene.
Denton was impressed with Lacy at the time: She had a big cover story, a book deal, access to hotshot young founders and, oh yes, was "the hottest reporter in the tech world — ever." She passed on the opportunity and now writes for the likes of Yahoo and BusinessWeek.com.
But Lacy can stroke her ego by imagining how well things might have gone — and sending a "shout out" to the scandal-mongering publisher who, in a rare turn, briefly stroked that same ego himself. Fantasyland is the place where bubbles never explode!