
Welcome To CrunchFund, MG Siegler - olivercameron
http://uncrunched.com/2011/10/03/welcome-to-crunchfund-mg-siegler/
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psychotik
Good for him, but I don't understand what particular set of skills, apart from
his ability to write, he brings to add value as a VC-firm partner. Anyone?

His 'network' is not a skill, and I assume his network is a subset of
Arrington's, so I don't consider that an advantage. Honestly, outside of this
being a reward for his loyalty in the past with Arrington, I don't see how
this makes sense for CrunchFund as a business.

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schraeds
Trendspotter, Visionary, Pundit. All quite relevant to picking which companies
to invest in, I'd say.

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psychotik
Those are important skills for being a VC, I agree. Did reading MG's articles
convey to you that he had those skills?

I really thought everything he wrote was a combination of PR-feed and opinion.
Maybe I didn't follow him as much as you, but it just felt like he had early
access to stuff and was able to formulate opinion (correctly/incorrectly) that
most of us could have. He certainly didn't come across as a visionary or a
pundit to me.

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corin_
My outside view of him is the same as yours, but remember that he isn't being
hired by the outside based on what he is written - he's being hired by someone
who has known him extremely well personally, and presumably therefore knows
him better than readers do.

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richardw
No wonder these guys were so happy to shit all over the asset they sold to
AOL. They didn't need it anymore and loyalty to the TC Don was much more
important. I'm sure AOL wishes they had a few more clauses in the agreement
now.

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mcantelon
Yup. If they'll so blatantly and publicly screw a big company, it seems pretty
likely they'll be willing to do it to any startups that deal with them.

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lwhi
Why? The two are quite different .. and treating one badly doesn't guarantee
the same for the other.

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Kylekramer
What I don't get is why people who go on and on about how the new media is so
much better than the old like Arrington and Seigler (latest example:
[http://parislemon.com/post/10774472888/fake-steve-jobs-
funny...](http://parislemon.com/post/10774472888/fake-steve-jobs-funny-real-
dan-lyons-sloppy-lazy)) are so eager to leave it.

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InfinityX0
One thing that may be awkward to talk about but comes up, here, is that my
imagining of VCs were that of all rich people, even partners. I imagine
Siegler is well taken care of a Techcrunch, but it seems "well taken care of"
is a far broach from having the cash to be a Venture Capitalist. Am I
misinterpreting the needs of such individuals? Is it possible he's just a one-
off exception who has the cash to spend here?

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dwynings
I'm not exactly sure what you mean – he's not investing his own cash here.

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InfinityX0
Apparently I didn't have clarity on the technicalities of a "Partner". Always
imagined it as someone with a percentage stake of the company and/or here,
someone who was also investing their own coin.

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portman
The investors of a VC fund are known as "Limited Partners" or LPs. They put up
the money but do not select the investments, sit on the boards of portfolio
companies, or generally do anything except collect their money at the end of
the fund.

The managers of the VC fund are known as "General Partners" or GPs. They are
the ones who decide on what to invest in, take an active role in advising
those portfolio companies, and are paid a management fee as well as a
percentage of the positive returns (the "carry").

So "Partner" doesn't mean anything, unless prefixed with "Limited" or
"General".

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dr_
Not sure how being a blogger qualifies one to become a VC, but I'm guessing
this is to keep him "in the techcrunch mix". TC doesn't risk losing a solid
contributor, and MG gets to potentially make a good amount of cash.

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epenn
Does this mean MG has quit Techcrunch as well? or will he be able to do both?

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olivercameron
He's becoming their Apple columnist, so he's not full-time anymore.

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rottencupcakes
To be fair, he was pretty much always their apple columnist / fanboy.

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briandear
This TechCrunch/CrunchFund stuff gets confusing. Is TC a news site and CF a
VC? It seems analogous to the New York Times starting NYTFund and then having
reporters cover their companies. While I suppose the lines are clear (to
someone,) it just seems like there's a lot of Crunch and even more confusion
on the part of the unwashed. Maybe I need a shower. Or a big CF investment and
a positive TC review to soothe my skepticism.

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dwynings
For what it's worth, the NYT is an investor in True Ventures and Betaworks.

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briandear
I didn't know that.. Oh well, NYTimes corporate ethics has never really been
their forte. I guess they need to diversify to make up for their increasing
irrelevance in the news space.

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dwynings
My issue is that no matter the source, there are always conflicts of interest.
And frankly, whether or not a blogger is an investor in a company is at least
a lot more obvious than the typical Valley BS politicking where you're afraid
to piss off the wrong person.

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briandear
It's interesting that I saw this article in Chinese, on the China Unicom
portal this morning. Apparently this is even interesting to the tech watchers
in China -- although for the life of me, I can't understand how!

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wavephorm
Techcrunch and everyone involved, including AOL, all seem incredibly shady.

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TomOfTTB
That was my first reaction too but when you think about it there is an
internal logic here. Arrington was the overall editor so he had to go because
he could skew coverage. Siegler is staying on but only covering Apple so
CrunchFund can't influence his writing because Apple is way too big for them
to invest in.

I mean, it's definitely right on the line but I'm not sure it crosses it.

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mcantelon
Yeah, but the thing is Arrington sold, agreed to spend 2 years with AOL, then
did something that is obviously a conflict of interest to get out of his
obligation. As a startup would I want to make an agreement with someone like
that?

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wavephorm
Maybe AOL didn't make them sign any agreements, but the way they've bailed on
Techcrunch, caused a shitstorm, and started up this fund and competing tech
blog all feels really slimey. I can't imagine why any startup would want to
accept money or work with them.

