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London Mixer Multimedia Report: Q&A With Martin Stiksel, Last.fm Co-Founder

By Robert Andrews - Fri 28 Mar 2008 08:19 AM PST

Ten months after CBS (NYSE: CBS) bought social music engine Last.fm for $280 million, how is the east London-based site fitting in to a US media megacorp? “We are getting to know each other,” co-founder Martin Stiksel told me and several hundred others in our third UK mixer in Kensington, London, last night. “They are interested to get our input in to a variety of other projects that they are doing. They know, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

What about culture clash? At Mipcom in October, sharp-suited CBS president Leslie Moonves told me: “They’re very different from your usual CBS execs - they wear torn t-shirts and don’t wear ties.” Said Stiksel last night: ”We made a point of never shaving when we met these guys. At the end, we didn’t want to shave until we had sold the company - that gave us a really itchy beard because it took much longer than we thought. The CBS Interactive branch that we’re under is like a startup itself; still a relatively young, agile, flexible branch - and whenever the CBS guys come over they wear jeans and t-shirts.”

Thanks to our guests last night plus our sponsors Limelight Networks and IMR Executive.

Hear more of Martin’s thoughts on the acquisition, excessive royalty payments and scrobbling vinyl in the full audio, below. Pics and videos after the jump (also on Flickr)...