Larry Page came to visit

Now I´m about to make another goddam fortune, and that´s because I´m a smart guy.

You may not know this if you're not in the search freak industry but these Yahoo and Google guys are a bit like Roman Catholic nuns. They think they are God. At least close to him.

They never travel in groups of less than 20. I have no idea why except that everything at Google seems to require massive logistics and planning and scheduling, and a series of pre-planning meetings to discuss the later planning meetings to discuss whatever the actual meeting is. I swear the execs there can't take a dump unless it's on their calendar. It´s like with C. And before they go they have to find three other dudes to take with them. Yeah. Anyhoo.

This visit in New York was the top brass, with Page and about two dozen of his thugs and flacks and bodyguards and yes-men and shoeshine boys. They rolled up in armored SUVs and they were all wearing suits but they'd taken off their ties and stuffed them in their pockets in an attempt to be cool. (Like Christina girl dreaming of 500 million bucks for her dump). You could see the bulges.






Page had a guy with him whose job, it appeared, was simply to tell him where he was and the name of whatever guys he was meeting. When I came down the guy was whispering to Page and then Page walked toward me with this big jock smile and I saw him very quickly glance down at a little card in his hand and he said, "Hey, uh," (glance down again), "Jonathan, well, it's great to see you, and thanks so much for making time to see us."

And he gives me the big phony salestard handshake and says, "And I'm here on behalf of the Google Corporation to tell you personally how much we value your business and how much it means to us to have you as a customer." I'm looking at him like, What the frig? Getty customer of Google Image Search? Just because of 60,000 square feet sublease you think you can sound such old familiar with me?

His handler dude grabs his sleeve and they do this little huddle where the handler is whispering to Page and Page says, "Huh? Who? Where? Wait a minute, this is Jonathan Klein? Jonathan Klein of Getty Images? But what's he doing-- oh, we're at Getty? This is Getty? Right here? Oh Jesus." Then he just looks back at me as if I couldn't hear what he just said and he's like, "Well, the famous Mr. Jonathan D. Klein of Getty Images, man oh man, do I like what you're doing out here! Man, with those micro stock images. Wow! My kids love them."

Now someone got a barf bag?

My guys have arranged to take the dweebs on a dopey do-nothing tour of a fake image shoowroom that we've set up, just something to keep them busy and walking around for thirty minutes until we can get rid of them. So we get to this area where we've got our best RM product line on display and Page is looking at an image and gets all excited about these "beautiful micro stock images."

I tell him that they're not micro stock, they're high end RM. He seems kind of confused for a moment. Then he goes, "Wow, are you getting into that game too? Smart move, if you are. But the big money is in consumer space."

So right. Whatever. There's no point to any of this, it's purely a meet-and-greet. Smart ass he is he called in March and introduced himself, "Um, any smaller expenses, like tea or milk and media acquisitions Google can pay out of petty cash, eh?"

Now he stands there shaking his head and whistling, his guys over at Google have told him "stay out of that picture business though. No money there. Just a huge sink hole." And he goes, "Wow. I'm sure you'll do really well with these images, no worries." Common tactical tricks dudes like him play. I´m used to it. I play´em all the time. Hehe.

Right. So we walk along and he asks me if I ever played any football in college, I tell him no, he tells me he played college football and was a lineman and man oh man it was a different game back in the old days, different game, you didn't have the equipment that these kids have today, why the helmets were just these cheap plastic things with barely any padding, can you believe that? I start thinking "Is he dumb or just plain retarded?," so I tell him, Yes, I can believe that, for sure.

By then we're back in the lobby and he says, "Well, uh," (glances down at card in hand again) "Jonathan, thanks again for letting us come visit and thank you again for being such a great partner, and you've got to come visit us in Mountain View sometime and we'll play some golf. You play any golf? Right guys? We gotta get this guy out on the golf course! Don't we?"

Then Tom and I just stood in the lobby watching them all waddle their fat asses out to their armored SUVs, putting their ties back on as they went. You know what? Bad thing is they´ll return soon.

Jonathan XIV

I´m always the nice guy next door.

My HR folks. They´re so goddam touchy. They really take all kind of stuff personally. They hate conflict. Especially ones where people get laid off or disappointed or whatever. They hate me when making hard decisions. I fire someone, they have to retreat from the world and cleanse the soul on a lonely island in Thailand or take zero-gravity flight with vomit comet. Saw me getting touchy in Goldfish Sachs presentation?

I mean, Jesus didn't go around being all humble and pretending that he wasn't who he was, right? He just said, Dude, I'm Jesus, okay? Don't get me wrong. I'm a liberal. I vote for Democrats.

Do you expect me to run our company like it's one big popularity contest? We like this guy, we like that girl, you can´t fire them? Can you imagine what happens if companies chose their executives just by having employees vote? You'd have Billy Bob the forklift operator running sales in EMEA, and Shirley from the cafeteria running marketing in China. I mean seriously. L'État, c'est moi.






Before Christmas retarded ASMP will praise me to the skies for my cleverness and genius. Look how smart this guy was to figure this $49 firecracker out. ASMP? AIPA? ASHRAE? ASP? American Society of Primatologists? I always confuse them. You think this company is the Great Ape Project?

I've got an idea. Maybe you ASMP kids should start your own stock photo firm. You know, like sell your car and beg some money from relatives and buy some components and start putting all together. Work your ass off, hire the best people you can find, work your ass off some more and change the world. Every picture tells a story, a picture is worth ten thousand words, "Un bon croquis vaut mieux qu'un long discours, " said Napoleon to Josephine.

Then, in ten years, when you've created the most beautiful (and powerful, you morons) imagery company ever known to mankind, you can have some punks and pinheads deface your agency and gripe about you being a rapacious exploiter. That's how the world says "Thank you." I´m used to it.


A disastrous good week. Craig met with the BQ folks, created by some stone age ex-Digital Roller Coaster grandpas out of business. Honestly he has never met a bigger bunch of buffoons than these old clowns. But sounds like a great idea. He says he'll get back to me on Monday. Lost a crown after Goldfish presentation. NY dentist, little immigrant from Bulgaria, Transylvania, whatever, bores me to death with schmaltzy folk tales. I hate New York. The taxi drivers. Wall Street. This climate is not good for my skin.


In two billion years balloon head S. will brand their $48.95 all-web-all-eternity-license Getty product clone the C. online-image-trots-channel. Dumbfounded D. will write on creamy Creative whatever how exciting all this is and take his birth control pills. Very funny. I take the heat for it. Now! WTF #&@?! For this micro pay, plus a small bonus.


To my critics: Geniuses have feelings, too. It's easy to be a critic these days. It's easy to snipe. The same folks who admired me for years now piss one me. Remember, there's a human being on the receiving end. To be sure, a very wealthy, brilliant human being, a human being who has changed the course of history and who lives a life you could not even begin to imagine. Friends, we're all brothers and sisters. (Except you JH asshole in Washington DC and wannabe CFA - how ridiculous).

So go easy. Music is in the air.

After official announcement soon, more news from me.

New York pisses me off, and Bill just called

So this is supposed to be confidential but whatever.

Bill-Godfather-of-C. has screwed everyone who ever got close to him, and on top of that he´s been secretly trying to poach away our programmers for our new website for the past 8 months. So what do I owe him? Nothing.

Anyway, booby called me last night after MS put out its lame Q2 financials two months earlier which beat the Street but only because the Street already knows how badly MS sucks ass these days. And our stock?

You know what? You think this is bad? You think this is funny? Q3 and Q4 are gonna look like downtown Beirut and Baghdad compared to this.



For Bill of course, not for us.

So here's the gig. Bill says to me, How'd you like to come run C.? Sell your dump to Prada or Burger King, there are larger movements going on, and you care about visual content and Pimp Audio, are you stupid?

But here at C. with me as backup you can really shake the pagoda tree. This S. thing ain't working out. The guy sits in his office bellowing about how he doesn't need this shit, he can go retire tomorrow and sit on his ass counting his money for the rest of his life, blah blah. A chicken hearted wimp, no semiannual telcos with analysts, WTF!

Basically, he's about to get canned, and he knows it. I thought D. could step in again but it's obvious now that he can't run this place. He's a nice guy and all. But he's a doofball. You need a Saddam Hussein type, someone who can rule through fear.

So how about it, he says. I'm like, Dude, I'm flattered, but I've already got two jobs. Let us talk again when they fire me and Bruce becomes CEO. I hate New York. Maybe you haven't noticed this, but I think your products suck more than ours. You morons have nothing to sell.

See ya, Bill said, hung up on me and griped that anyway, if you need any help, Daddy’s right here, just pick up the phone.

Lot of people ask me why the frig is it taking you guys so long to make a friggin $49 product? I mean, how hard can it be?

But you know what? This is how I do things. This is my process. Valuelined. I can't be hurried. The work comes at its own pace. Call me a perfectionist. Fair enough. I am. Now will someone please see what happened to the friggin chai latte that I ordered a half hour ago? And make sure it is at exactly 165 degrees?

And yes, I mean Fahrenheit, not Celsius. Jesus! Do you realize how hot 165 degrees Celsius would be? It's like a million degrees Fahrenheit or something. You could burn a hole through my desk with it. And no, not Kelvin, either, you assholes. And hurry up because I've got yoga at noon and then Pilates at one and at two we've got some dickwads from our next acquisition coming to visit. Good grief.

What were we talking about? I hate New York. I love the dudes working for us. Sorry D. is no longer with us. Well, good luck, girl. You know everyone in the industry is rooting for you, cause you’ve been so nice to everyone over the years. The office in Seattle is a coop. Have they any clue where they´ll be working in a year? Hehe. Sorry, I get you guys mixed up sometimes. Where is that latte?!

Okay, I get it. I'm the big bad evil guy now. Right? To C. from Weisel Partners and your stupid questions: Look out your window. Right now. See that man across the street? His name is R. from the Teaster SWAT. Take a good look at him. His face will be the last thing you are ever going to see if you throw such stupid questions again at me in your ugly slang, Q3 earnings and call soon, got it?

New York. I am so lonely. Any thoughts?