
TechCrunch As We Know It May Be Over - ericflo
http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/06/the-end/
======
noibl
_The notion that Mike, or anyone else, investing in a company would dictate
some sort of giant conflicted agenda is laughable. Literally. If Mike tried to
get me to write some unreasonable post about a company he had invested in, I
would laugh at him. But he would never do that._

No, what's laughable is expecting your readership to rely on your
characterisation of your relationship with your editor as a guide to the
editorial standards of your publication.

 _The magic at TechCrunch happens because the writers have very little
oversight. Instead, the emphasis is placed on hiring the right writers in the
first place_

Indeed.

 _Quite often, you never even see what he brings. But it permeates the entire
site._

As readers we have a robust yardstick for presuming bias in reporting:
financial interest in the subject. It's important that we do have one and
writers who claim otherwise should know that they're demanding a serious
indulgence. In contrast to Siegler's tantrum:
hxxp://allthingsd.com/author/kara/#kara-ethics

Edit: Strange, the 'ethics statement' content block has to be revealed by
manual click. The link is in the article tools menu at the top of the page, in
faint text.

Edit2: Traced the content from the AJAX loader to here:
[http://allthingsd.com/index.php?atd_ajax=authorinfo&fiel...](http://allthingsd.com/index.php?atd_ajax=authorinfo&field=ethics&author=kara)

~~~
ig1
The problem is that the TC ethics statement doesn't really help. There's too
many problems of conflict of interest.

I wrote up an article about them prior to Arrington's resignation:

[http://blog.imranghory.org/michael-arringtons-unsolvable-
con...](http://blog.imranghory.org/michael-arringtons-unsolvable-conflict-of-
int)

~~~
noibl
I had just finished reading your post from the link further down and I agree
with its content. This is not a new problem for journalism. The solution is to
leave all that lovely money on the table and keep your reputation intact, or
change career.

From Walt Mossberg's version of the link I posted above:

 _I don’t own a single share of stock in any of the companies whose products I
cover, or any shares in technology-oriented mutual funds. Because of this, I
completely missed the giant run-up in tech stocks a few years back, and looked
like an idiot. However, when the tech stocks crashed, I looked like a genius.
Neither was true._

\--
[http://allthingsd.com/index.php?atd_ajax=authorinfo&fiel...](http://allthingsd.com/index.php?atd_ajax=authorinfo&field=ethics&author=walt)

Obviously, those who adhere to this principle are not saints. It just goes
with the job.

------
ellyagg
Whenever I read one of these TC articles claiming that apparent conflicts of
interest are laughable, I'm amazed, mainly because I accept the claim for a
couple of paragraphs before I blink several times and wonder, _what on earth
am I thinking?!_ It seems passionate and outraged hyperbole can take my eyes
off the rabbit temporarily.

You can't make conflicts of interest go away just by saying, "No, but he's a
really honest guy." That's supposed to be a given. That's the entry fee to
persuasive analysis and distinguished news reporting. You'd better be honest
AND free from conflicts of interest. I don't think there's a world where
people take dishonest reporters seriously, just so long as the agent has no
conflicts of interest.

Beyond that, no matter how honest you think you are, you are subject to the
same cognitive biases that all humans are. As a matter of fact, bias is the
rule, not the exception. We've never seen, nor could we really comprehend what
a person free from cognitive bias would look or act like. It's completely
alien. That's why we have all these checks and balances when apprehending
truth, because some of the smartest of us realize that truth is shrouded in a
dense fog and all we have is a dim flashlight to make out shapes in the mist.

How powerful and non-volitional is bias? I read the Four Hour Body the other
day, and there's an anecdote about how the CEO of Evernote, Phil Libin, did a
weight loss experiment. He made no conscious changes to his diet or exercise
routine or usual habits. He did, however, track his weight everyday in a
spreadsheet and charted a line from his current weight to his ideal weight. On
either side of the line he charted boundaries within which his weight should
fall for each day over the period. After 6 months, he'd lost something like 28
pounds. Understand, he made no proactive effort to lose the weight:

“I actually made a conscious effort not to deviate from my diet or exercise
routine during this experiment. That is, I continued to eat whatever I wanted
and got absolutely no exercise. The goal was to see how just the situational
awareness of where I was each day would affect my weight. I suspect it
affected thousands of minute decisions that I made over the time period, even
though I couldn’t tell you which.”

That's why you can't wave your hands over conflicts of interest.

~~~
pbreit
Yeah, MG's comment itself was laughable. And that's not disrespecting TC or
it's writers, it's just human. Whether or not undisclosed conflicts are a
worse problem is orthogonal.

~~~
libraryatnight
MG's comment was typical MG. Which means yes it was absolutely laughable.

------
staunch
TechCrunch's days were numbered the day Arrington sold it to AOL. The
honeymoon rarely lasts more than a year, so this is right on time.

~~~
JoachimSchipper
You're not being entirely fair to AOL here: Arrington _could_ have just said
"no way" to the whole CrunchFund thing and posted a TechCrunch rant if it did
go through. That would have made it much harder to sustain accusations of a
conflict of interest (the critics are certainly less noisy about TechCrunch's
coverage of AOL these days, although that's obviously a no-no according to
classical journalist ethics.)

AOL is in no way perfect, but let's not place all the blame on them.

~~~
vessenes
I think the fundamental issue is that the powers-that-be at AOL that helped
bring the fund into existence wanted to do it IN ORDER TO leverage the
TechCrunch name.

AOL didn't know that, and apparently either didn't care or wished for a
conflict of interest.

Arrington knew there would be no conflict of interest from his own actions,
but has stayed 'blind' to this conflict in approach from his major LP. For
whatever reason, he went ahead with this plan, causing significant agitation
at TC, and also indicating to the TC staff how much influence AOL has right
now; on paper maybe not so much; with only a few 10s of millions of dollars,
though, they can rule Michael's roost.

This isn't going to finish well, but I think we all knew that.

------
alanh
> _TechCrunch As We Know It May Be Over_

Nope, still dramatic and hyperbolic as ever!

~~~
MatthewPhillips
A TechCrunch article about TechCrunch barely raises my eyebrows nowadays.

~~~
josteink
This one is different in the sense that this time the _drama_ over at
TechCrunch is actually about TechCrunch itself.

Not to sound silly, but contrast this to the usual techcrunch drama (and drama
is overly normal over there): Techcrunch being upset that last.fm is calling
them full of shit because Techcrunch had some sensationalistic news about
last.fm which last.fm was not willing to confirm or deny within 10 minutes and
so they went live with the story, unconfirmed, because that is what cutting
edge journalism is, because people deserve to know what may or may not be
there. Sort of. Wait. Why do people hate us all of a sudden?

That sort of drama. Demeaning to the mind and going at a constant rate over at
techcrunch.com.

So... This is still techcrunch and it is still drama, but at least this time
(maybe for the last time?) it's _different_. Feels refreshing, doesn't it?

------
thadeus_venture
Meh, who cares, TC was always yellow press to begin with. An added perceived
conflict of interest doesn't change anything in my eyes, just adds to the
drama of it all which is what the site thrives on in the first place. On a
more practical note, whether the content of the site will be affected with
Arrington leaving - that's to be determined by time only. My guess is it
won't. On a personal note, I briefly met Arrington at one of TC conferences
and he's an arrogant asshole, I would even say douchebag (he wasn't an asshole
to me, that's just his demeanor), so if he doesn't get exactly what he wants
that sounds fine to me.

------
cowboyhero
I generally like Siegler's stuff but he's so far down the rabbit hole now he
can't see the reasoning behind concepts like 'bias' and 'disclosure.' Worse,
he seems to be fully believe these things don't, or shouldn't, apply because
he works in "new media."

It concerns me that a so-called bastion of tech reporting aspires to have all
the ethics of TMZ or your friendly neighborhood penny stock newsletter pump
and dump scam.

~~~
officemonkey
I think it's because he believes that "real" tech reporters will do all the
disclosure that is necessary.

Is there any evidence that TechCrunch _hasn't_ done necessary disclosure?

------
adolfojp
"This site is about to change forever and we’re in the total fucking dark."

"If AOL tries to bing in their own Editor-in-Chief to run TechCrunch, it will
be a colossal fucking mistake."

I can't believe that rant went live. Somebody is getting fired.

~~~
franze
i always like it when people paint a big "fire me now"-sign on their forehead.
it's bold, it's cool and he will find another job anyway (or maybe start a
startup instead of just bitching about them)

~~~
officemonkey
You can almost see this as testing the limits of the post-Arrington
TechCrunch.

If the post is taken down, it will be re-blogged by every other tech pundit
from Gruber to Dvorak (hello, Streisand effect.)

If AOL repremands MG Siegler, then everyone will know what happened. Either
he'll do another post, or he'll blog about in on his personal blog and it will
take off through the bloggeratti. If he's forced into silence, then it will
leak out through friends and colleagues.

If AOL ignores it and does what it wants, then the writers at TechCrunch will
at least know what they can get away with. It's the Mindsweeper's Dilemma, you
can't make any progress among uncertainty unless you take the first step.

MG Siegler probably thought (correctly, I think) that he's not at risk of
getting fired and the uncertainty is killing morale.

If he is fired, he knows some other tech blog will snatch him up.

So, it may indeed seem unprofessional, but I give him a lot of credit in
trying to "manage up."

~~~
darksaga
There's always the option they expected this reaction and figured they would
let him blow off the steam in a few articles and then move on.

In a few months, everybody is going to forget about this whole the episode
anyway. Firing him or giving him more ammunition is exactly what they don't
want to do.

------
okboy
I started reading TechCrunch again yesterday because I heard Arrington would
be fired. I don't like Arrington.

When I think of TC, I usually think of the CrunchPad drama, Mike's sexist
comments, Mike complaining about the Google kid standing in front of his car
and the CrunchFund conflict of interest.

There are other startup sites that don't have the same arrogance.

~~~
tuhin
Liking Arrington and reading TC have no logical correlation, as far as I see.

~~~
Tashtego
For a history of logical vs human decision making, see Spock v. Kirk

------
zb
He starts off by claiming there's no hidden conflict of interest because
Arrington has no editorial control over the site. Then this:

> _Quite often, you never even see what he brings. But it permeates the entire
> site._

Which is it?

~~~
ghshephard
You can have a huge influence on culture and morale without ever lifting a
single finger of editorial control.

~~~
arn
Agreed. I'd suggest this irreverent style is cultivated/encouraged by
Arrington. Would this have been posted under a more traditional editor's
watch? I doubt it.

------
lwhi
There is no logical reason to believe that an AOL/Arrington backed VC fund
could be anything other than a conflict of interest.

In any sane universe, Mike Arrington would actually step down and announce
_his_ choice to leave TC because of this potential conflict.

~~~
commandar
A somewhat amusing related anecdote here, is the way Arrington managed to get
Leo Laporte to blow up on him a couple of years ago by prodding him about
receiving a review unit and the implications that might have on bias:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsV-lgnAjps>

I'd have to say that's a sight different from having a personal stake in
companies you or your company are writing about.

------
JoeP
I'll be the first to admit that I know very little about the internal
structure of TechCrunch in particular (and AOL's web properties more
generally) but this article strikes me as being enormously counter-productive.

What benefit is there in airing all your dirty laundry like this? Publicly
'shaming' AOL into backing down?

~~~
mooism2
Maybe the author is motivated by their personal reputation?

What benefit is there to keeping it all secret?

~~~
JoeP
I suppose you could argue the benefit of keeping it private is that it doesn't
let their readers see all the personal drama and histrionics that could
impinge their editorial/journalistic credibility e.g. it's their job to report
tech news, not to be a platform to communicate their personal feelings about
internal office politics.

I get the feeling that this article is precisely as a result of the 'new
media' model of content production at sites like TechCrunch. The author
rightly lauds this models dynamism and agility in the article on his personal
site (that was linked in the article) but do you think something like this,
that's so close to verging on unprofessional, would happen at a more
conventional publication? Because I certainly don't.

~~~
mooism2
I agree, this wouldn't happen at a more conventional publication.

Open questions: Will this sort of thing become the new normal, as blogs become
more mainstream and legacy publications take on some of their attributes? And
would it be an improvement if it did?

Yes, TechCrunch should be about tech news and not about their office politics.
But does publishing it _disproportionately harm their credibility_ , or does
not publishing it _give them credibility they don't deserve_? c.f. phone
hacking by UK newspapers.

------
Kavan
I am a big fan of TC and of Arrington. Yes, he is not to everyone's liking,
but he has built an amazing business from nothing. However, I have a problem
with AOL & TechCrunch forming a startup fund.

TC has a huge impact on the startup market. They are the most powerful tech
news business in the world and can literally move the market on a startup with
a single blog post. If it is positive your user numbers sky rocket and the
VC's are calling. If it is negative your investors are on the phone asking
questions.

The CrunchFund gives them skin in the game. TC will determine to a significant
extent the value of the CrunchFund portfolio.

We read TC because we trust them to give an unbiased view of our startup
world. Yes, MG loves Apple and he gets a lot of stick for it. But what if it
came out that all of MG's pension money and savings were in Apple stock. It
changes things, right?

If the journalistic trust between the publication and her readers is lost,
TC's influence and readership will dissipate.

IMHO the greatest threat to TC is not Arrington leaving. It is the CrunchFund,
and the erosion of TCs integrity and credibility that will come with it.

~~~
dasil003
> _TC has a huge impact on the startup market. They are the most powerful tech
> news business in the world and can literally move the market on a startup
> with a single blog post._

In my experience this is exaggerated. What TC can do is put you on the radar
with early adopters for 24 hours. This does not make or break your company.
Awareness is only one small problem you have, and TC readers are some of the
least sticky hits you will get.

~~~
Kavan
Totally agree that TC will not 'make or break' your company. The beauty of
being a startup is that you are judged primarily on your product. It is as
pure a meritocracy as you will find. This is why I love it.

However, TC has become very powerful. Even Googles General Counsel speaks
directly to them (<http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/25/google-patent-fight>). Yes
the influence is not a binary 'pass' or 'fail', but it is significant enough
for the CrunchFund to benefit from their writing.

------
zalthor
I'm just surprised that they actually published that on TechCrunch. I would be
even more surprised if AOL doesn't have that deleted within the hour.

~~~
ghshephard
The entire point of Siegler's/Carr's description of TechCrunch is that the
writers publish their own work. Despite all the fancy(?) trappings, Tech
Crunch is actually one big joint blog.

I wonder if anyone at AOL even _knows_ how to delete a post from TechCrunch. I
guess they could always ask mike to yank that posting... :-)

------
xelfer
Just in case the article is pulled: <http://pastebin.com/jGz78D1G>

------
mbreese
In otherwords: something _might_ happen tomorrow, and it _might_ involve the
ouster of Arrington from TechCrunch. But we don't know, and no one is telling
us. But we like poking bee hives, so we're going to publish this rant
anyway...

Between this and the Carr post from a few days ago
(<http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/02/crunchfund/>), they really do seem totally
out of control over there... which is far worse.

~~~
josteink
_But we don't know, and no one is telling us. But we like poking bee hives, so
we're going to publish this rant anyway..._

You cannot possibly say that this doesn't sound like how things are always
done at techcrunch. Write first, cause drama, then cause more drama by
publishing stories about why you cannot fathom that people has an issue about
your way of publishing stories and your unclear communication. Then repeat.

I've long stopped paying attention to the site at all, but I had to check this
one out. Hopefully TC will vanish and the internet will gain something better.

------
cletus
Look this is all pretty simple: _Mike wants to get fired._

Last year, Mike decided to cash out. According to the AOL CEO there had been
previous attempts to buy TechCrunch. So one day Mike, who largely covers
Silicon Valley, decides to move from San Francisco to... Seattle [1]. His
stated reason? Largely, to "mix things up in my life". Washington state, by
some _amazing_ coincidence also has no state income tax.

Around the same time Mike dissolves the partnership with Jason Calacanis for
the TechCrunch50 conference [2], allegedly a huge part of TechCrunch's income.

Four months later, having established residency in a no state income tax state
and having rid TechCrunch of an external party having a large stake in
TechCrunch's income, AOL out of the blue (honest!) buys TechCrunch [3].

Two months later, Calacanis sues Arrington over TechCrunch50 [4], a suit I
haven't heard anything about since. Honestly, as much as people here like to
rag on Calacanis (and Mahalo, which is basically doomed IMHO), I honestly
think he has a case here.

To quote Mike Arrington, himself a lawyer, regarding the scandalous clawback
clause in the Skype contracts [5]:

> These employees should simply hire a lawyer to sue Skype. There’s a valid
> fraud claim based on what I’m seeing, and the “atmospherics” (how lawyers
> describe the legally irrelevant facts surrounding the story that can
> nonetheless influence a judge and jury) are terrible for Skype.

Honestly I think the "atmospherics" are terrible for Arrington too. The state
of California could probably make a case that Mike changed residency simply to
avoid tax so they could make a claim that the sale was still taxable too.

Of course, most reading HN will know that any acquisition will typically come
with an earn-out over 2+ years. That earn-out, like many vesting schedules,
will have a bunch of conditions on it, probably including an acceleration
clause for getting fired (termination probably without cause).

Mike wants to get fired.

EDIT: to clarify the residency of California [5]:

> (1) California residents pays California tax on all their income.

> (2) California generally taxes California-source income, …

> So, who is a resident? In determining residency, California law provides two
> presumptions. The first presumption is that a taxpayer who, in the
> aggregate, spends more than 9 months of a taxable year in California will be
> presumed to be a California resident. The second presumption is that an
> individual whose presence in California does not exceed 6 months within a
> taxable year and who maintains a permanent home outside California is not
> considered a California resident provided the taxpayer does not engage in
> any activity or conduct within the State other than as a seasonal visitor,
> tourist, or guest.

The point is that there is a subjective test (the last point there). I'm sure
Mike dotted all the i's and crossed all the t's (registering to vote in
Washington, getting a Washington state driver's license, etc) but if he spends
significant time in the Valley it is not clearcut.

[1]: <http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/03/hi-seattle/>

[2]: <http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20004752-93.html>

[3]: [http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/28/tim-armstrong-we-got-
techcr...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/28/tim-armstrong-we-got-techcrunch/)

[4]: [http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2010/11/jason-
cal...](http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2010/11/jason-calacanis-
sues-mike-arrington-over-techcrunch-50.html)

[5]: <http://klapachlaw.com/blog/38-february-13-2010-.html>

~~~
nikcub
you copy and paste the exact same reply every time Arrington is mentioned in a
post - and every time there are numerous rebuttals posted in comments here.

I have no idea what your agenda is, but your comment has been discussed ad
nauseum multiple times in the past and has nothing to do with OP.

if you are interested in this thread, search for one of the dozen other times
it came up with the exact same allegations and exact same characters.

~~~
cletus
Citations, please.

I know I've mentioned it once before, maybe twice. I'll also require citations
on the "numerous rebuttals".

~~~
nikcub
Even one other time is enough - because it was pointed out then that it isn't
illegal to change your residence and that Arrington had bought his house in
WA, the only house he owns, before he started Techcrunch

this having nothing to do with OP doesn't really need a citation

~~~
cletus
I have to question what your agenda is as a (former?) TechCrunch writer. Are
you perhaps trying to curry favour ahead of the launch of your "pre-launch
startup" (from your profile)?

You certainly seem eager to mischaracterize my comments and malign my
intentions when we've already gone from "every time" to "once before". While
you're at it, point out where the comment is "copy and paste[d]" elsewhere.
Since you can't, we'll chalk that accusation up to yet more slander.

Nowhere did I say changing residence for tax purpose was "illegal". Someone
else may have characterized it as such. Take it up with them. There's a huge
gap between "illegal" and the state of California making a claim that
Arrington is still technically resident so the sale is subject to California
state income tax.

~~~
nikcub
No - all this comes down to is that your comment has literally _nothing_ to do
with the OP, isn't the first time you have made the comment, and in any other
circumstance would have been downvoted into negative territory because it
doesn't meet a single guideline of this site

~~~
pbreit
How does this have nothing (in italics) to do with the OP? If it's true, it's
the whole story!

Ps I did not down vote.

------
jasonallen
Am I the only one who sees the victimization going on here? MG says "AOL
promised not to interfere" and yet now "they may break their promise to us".
Meanwhile Michael went and created an investment fund that clearly conflicts
with TechCrunch interests.

I think AOL tried to have it both ways. With mainstream media revealing the
distasteful arrangement, however, AOL has to protect their bigger interest:
publishing.

------
angryasian
sorry to be the skeptic, but I don't buy this at all. its in everybody's best
interest for arrington to manage the fund full time, be a guest writer, or
speaker and be an advocate of his startups and aol and arrington both get paid
when his companies exit. so why all the noise ... traffic. From all these
comments people are eating it up. Just like arrington made all that noise
about breach of contract with the joo joo pad and how he has all these
lawsuits. he was fortunate they never held him to a contract.

------
cookiecaper
Can someone tl;dr on this whole situation? I read the linked article but it
doesn't provide a lot of background (basically, just takes a long time to say,
"We will be seriously bummed if AOL fires Mike Arrington") on the situation.
Why is AOL considering canning Arrington? The article says he said or did
something they didn't like; what is that thing?

~~~
alanh
He’s starting an investment portfolio called CrunchFund. The worry is that TC
will write stuff that is pro-"CrunchFunded" companies and slam their
competitors.

~~~
cookiecaper
OK, so AOL doesn't want the potential conflict of interest and that's all
there is to this?

~~~
nknight
AOL backed the fund.

It's exactly as much of a disaster as it sounds.

~~~
cookiecaper
That sounds like there is a good chance that this was a malicious action, "how
can we get rid of Arrington without making everyone hate us?" I have a hard
time believing that they set the whole fund up, went through all the motions,
and only after Mike publicly announced it did they say, "Oh, maybe there's a
conflict of interest here..."

It was probably concocted with the intent to remove Mike Arrington, replace
him with AOL's own suit that can squeeze more money out of TC, and look like a
white knight while doing so, improving the reputation of AOL's "journalism"
properties (which are the only significant part of AOL left, really).

I understand this is a violation of Hanlon's Razor, the incompetence seems a
bit far-fetched for me. I would expect at least _someone_ in the company saw
this coming.

~~~
nknight
Well, first, I think plenty of people already hate AOL. Second, it was AOL's
CEO that explicitly disclaimed journalistic ethics, not Arrington or anybody
at TechCrunch.

Finally, Arrington is good at this, AOL never has been. No rationale person
intentionally picks a public fight with Arrington. If this was intentional on
AOL's part, it backfired badly, and is still attributable to stupidity.

------
joelhaasnoot
Hmm, was just reading "Good to Great"
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_to_Great>) about leadership, simplicity
and doing what you're good at. Something tells me TechCrunch is not a great
company if things are going to collapse this way without Arrington...

Oh, and something tells me little oversight for your writers leads to massive
internal communication issues like these...

~~~
valisystem
You took a shortcut. I don't think that TC wouldn't work without Arrington,
and i don't think it is what Siegler wants to tell us. The problem is not that
Arrington is leaving, the problem is that he will be replaced, and not likely
by someone that will follow Arrington's way of leading TC. More like pleasing
AOL.

------
QuantumDoja
I'd really like to see a timeline graph of:

(real startup stories) vs (product reviews/facebook news) over time

That's where you'll find the problem, I have a feeling it will be sloping in a
certain direction.

------
mikeleeorg
It's the end of TC as we know it, and I feel fine...

I'm going to take a look at this drama through an organizational behavior
lens, as a case study for the decision facing HuffPo:

TC is a blogging organization whose leader has a strong personality and
reputation, though he exerts little to no editorial control over the content
of the org. Instead, influences the org by his hiring decisions, editorial
policies and culture.

Arguably, those hiring decisions, editorial policies and culture are what has
brought such success to this org. That, plus a powerful brand that this leader
established from the beginning.

To continue the success of this org means replicating these factors. The brand
is already established, but the system that sustains its success should remain
as much as possible.

The current team also has a wide soapbox and strong opinions. If the owners of
this org believes that the current team is necessary for its sustained
success, then the owners will need to appease this team and involve them in
the recruiting process of a new leader (if it decides to dismiss the current
leader).

The risk of not appeasing this team is a loss of talent. It's certainly
possible to recruit new blogging talent, though the current team has
significant individual brand equity and established relationships. The org's
owners will need to weigh the pros and cons of this as they make their
decisions.

------
dasil003
I actually believe Siegler here. Arrington does have integrity in my eyes, and
I don't see investing and reporting on startups to be some insurmountable
conflict of interest. Most of the time the interests are in alignment—you
wouldn't invest in something that you don't like. Granted there is a
potentially more serious conflict of interest in the case of negative press,
but TC is far from the only tech news source, they aren't a regulator or
someone with real power to suppress a story. And contrary to popular
mythology, TC coverage does not make or break a startup.

That's all my personal opinion though (I just don't take TC that seriously).
In the public sphere you can't afford even the appearance of impropriety, and
Arrington wants to have his cake and eat it too. If he really wanted to give
all his detractors a big "Fuck You" on the ethics front then he never should
have sold to AOL. Just in general, you can't sell to a major corporation and
believe that you'll still be a scrappy upstart. They might have a hands-off
policy as long as it's profitable, but when the chips are down their
collective asshole will pucker up so hard it'll pop the old head off like a
dandelion.

Siegler needs to grow up and realize that TC was _done_ the day Arrington sold
out.

------
erikb
Kudos for being so open. I was always impressed how open and truth commited
these guys actually are. And like most people I love that.

But I also think this article reads a little naive. Probably AOL has other
plans for the future. Probably since before they acquired Tech Crunch. All
that is and never was about the community or the company. Maybe they wanted to
buy the talent Arrington. Maybe they just wanted to shut them up. But I think
activating the community now will not help at all. If they are together in a
VC fund with Arrington they maybe bought him off to help him let TC die. It's
exactly what I would do, if I wanted to kill them (and if I would have the
money, of course). First buy the company, make Arrington more rich. Tell
everybody nothing changes. Wait until everybody calmed down. Then try to
motivate Arrington to do something else and give him some more cash to do it.
Then wait a little more. Then turn off the lights and close the doors.

 _edit_ I see someone disagreed with that. Why not argue instead of downvote?
I really would appreciate your opinion. (Leave the downvote, that doesn't
matter. I only want your thoughts!)

------
tommorris
And nothing of value was lost.

------
languagehacker
I was at the Crunchies this year, and you could cut the tension with a knife
between the TechCrunch and AOL people. AOL presenters were blatantly decrying
how the event was organized -- everything from how TC used paid sponsorships
to the overall tenor of the event. Shots were fired back and forth pretty
regularly between the presenters and the AOL folks, but the TC people were
clearly the most hostile.

Seems like buyer's remorse to me, as they've put themselves on par with the
rest of AOL's content farm, even though we all know their content is more
well-researched and valuable than that. If they didn't want AOL's money, they
shouldn't have taken it. They could have found alternate sources of funding,
but maybe not to grow as much or as fast as they would have liked.

------
benjoffe
I've never reviewed any journal contracts before, but wouldn't there be some
clause that forbids publishing content that intentionally damages the
publisher's brand? If so couldn't TechCrunch sue the author here?

------
the_gws
We did an interesting experiment on conflicts of interest in Italy with our
prime minister and it didn't go very well. Better avoid them.

------
adw
Key question: would a more, let's say, considered leading voice in tech be a
good or bad thing? Genuinely unconvinced either way.

------
schiptsov
Is this situation somehow related to 'improper' coverage of recent airbnb's
issues at the time of its 1 billion valuation? ^_^

------
danbmil99
Jeez that's 5 minutes I'll never get back.

------
ggwicz
Fuck TechCrunch

------
r4nd0m
Good riddance!

------
ramanean12
Oh that's good..I would be able to bribe someone to get my site pitched if
Mike is not there..

------
kb101
If the concern is the journalistic integrity of a tech news blog whose founder
also funds certain startups likely to wind up in the tech news... one way
would be to make those investments subject to an NDA I suppose. None of the
blog writers would know which companies were or were not funded by the
founder's fund.

Or a news blackout could be imposed on that blog for any companies funded by
the founder's VC firm. I suppose the news blackout would be an imperfect
solution, since presumably reportage on any competitors to the portfolio
companies could be viewed as suspect.

Even if Mr. Siegler insists that the tech blog where he works is a cool place
founded by a cool guy, that does not address the perception of the blog from
the outside. If there is any perception at all of potential bias, then both
the VC fund and the tech blog suffer an erosion of perceived integrity
(regardless of whether or not that is actually the case).

Independence is a tricky thing. I think maybe if TechCrunch were not part of
AoL, then they could potentially pull off this balancing act. They have enough
momentum now that readership won't evaporate overnight, and a few blog posts
critical of portfolio companies or complimentary to competitor companies would
re-establish their credibility. But a big corporate parent is not going to
like that kind of the seat-of-the-pants approach to managing risk. Doubtless
somewhere in the bowels of AoL somebody is running the numbers of what would
happen if somebody sued along the way, and not liking what they see.

As for Mr. Siegler ranting about his employer on a blog they own, that strikes
me as a classic CLM. Big ol' corporations really really tend to hate it when
someone down on the front lines starts to think they're irreplaceable and they
can do as they please, just because they've taken a lot of bullets and led a
few charges over their little piece of the battlefront. A better approach
would have been to _tactfully_ address all of the issues he addressed, in the
interest of informing the readers, and with the same goal of trying to gin up
reader support. But he could have mentioned that he really appreciates the
resources at his disposal thanks to the AoL acquisition, and he believes that
TechCrunch adds value to the parent firm primarily due to its unique editorial
independence policies, etc. As it reads now, he comes off as churlish. Nobody
likes to have f-bombs hurled at them, not even dull gray corporate types in
upper management. It really burns when those f-bombs are lobbed by someone on
the payroll.

IMHO, if Mr. Siegler truly wants to help his boss keep his job, his best move
now would be to pull that little rant pronto, and edit it to be a lot more
polite and respectful to AoL, throw in some _mea culpas_ about getting wound
up too soon, etc. and then re-state his case in terms that corporate can
understand and appreciate. AoL might be a bunch of assholes, but they are the
assholes that cut his check.

------
jonaldomo
Article deleted from TechCrunch in 3.2.1..

------
pace
Wondering that nobody gets it: that's just a desperate post to AOL/Schoenfeld
that he wants to become TC's new head

<http://i.imgur.com/t81Lt.gif>

