Martha, Martha, Martha!
This evening, I went to hear Martha Stewart talk about herself. The place where I live always has lots of speakers giving talks and today it was Martha Stewart. She was being interviewed by the chief editor of the magazine, Business Week. There were tons of interesting things that were said:
- She's close friends with Charles Simonyi, former Microsoft exec who oversaw development of Word and Excel, and will be going with him on a ride on the "vomit comet" (plane that simulates weightlessness).
- When asked what home improvement task she couldn't handle, she said carpentry. She had actually tried her hand at building a kitchen, but didn't like the way it turned out, and so ripped it out! She actually enjoyes plumbing and electrical work :O
- She's a movie freak and had recently seen the movie "Pride and Prejudice" but thought it was over-acted
- She was a stock broker in the 60's
- There is now a Martha Stewart-brand line of houses
- She has an assistant that archives every bad article written about her (Martha doesn't read them) and she says she hopes to use them someday. She mentioned a web site listing 500 ways to kill Martha Stewart.
- I submitted a question asking what her first job was. It turned out to be a modelling job when she was 13. She got paid $75/hour!!
- Her ethnic background is Polish
- Martha: "Today was animal-husbandry day where we take care of the animals" Interviewer: "You and I have very different days..."
- She thought all the candidates were "completely inappropriate" for the job, and couldn't believe the things they did
- She had very little input into the show
- She couldn't remember the last time she had actually fired anyone in real life. She prefers letting people figure out for themselves that the job isn't right for them
- She wants to cut Donald Trump's hair whenever she's near him
- She decided, against her attorney's recommendations, that it made better business sense to go to jail rather than to appeal. If she had appealed, she would still be going through trials now
- After being convicted, she was in a K-Mart checking out the display of her product line when she overheard a husband telling his wife that she shouldn't buy Martha Stewart-brand sheets, because she was a convict. Martha went over to them and explained to the husband that regardless of her being convicted, they were still good sheets and that they should buy them, which they ended up doing
- All the prison inmates were very excited when they found she was coming to their jail, and many of them asked her advice about business ideas