14th
Question: For the last couple of months, you’ve had a Twitter account and you’re very active on it and it’s very popular (more than 70,000 followers). Are you an investor in the company, are you a hyper toe-tapper type or just what’s your interest?
Lance Armstrong: I don’t have a financial stake in Twitter, no. I didn’t even know about it three months ago. But sometimes I feel like I work for them. I get asked about it and it’s unbelievable what gets written in regards to me and Twitter (laughter). But, hell, I wish I had a little piece of the action. But I don’t. But in the end, it’s profitable or beneficial for me and it’s beneficial for the foundation and for the team.
Look, in the last 10 years, primarily 1999 to 2005 I wasn’t the most openly transparent person in the world. And it led people to say, ‘Well, hmm. We don’t know where he is. We don’t know what he’s doing. He won’t talk to us. So, he must be up to no good.’ And even if they didn’t write that you’re up to no good, they would think that you’re up to no good and it would lead to speculation and rumor.
Something like Twitter comes along or accessibility to video blogs, you say, F-it. I’m going to come back and you may not care, but I’m going to tell you what I had for breakfast and I’m going to take a picture of it. I’m going to tell you when I’m on a training ride. I’m going to tell you when I’m at my son’s flag football game. I’m going to tell you when I just cracked a bottle of bad-ass red wine.
You can take my biggest detractor in the press room and if they read that, then after awhile they’ll realize, man, this is really him telling us what he’s doing. And then they realize, ‘You know what? This guy is not secluded in a dark room with a team of mysterious doctors up to no good. This guy is a regular f-ing guy.’ So, I’ve got no stake in Twitter, but Twitter has helped.
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