
Hit men, click whores, and paid apologists: Welcome to the Silicon Cesspool - smacktoward
http://www.realdanlyons.com/blog/2012/02/13/hit-men-click-whores-and-paid-apologists-welcome-to-the-silicon-cesspool/
======
VonGuard
Oh... My... God.... Lyons is a fucking god. As a journalist in the valley, I
can just say that the first paragraph he's written here hits the nail right on
the fucking head.

\---"It’s tough being a journalist, especially if you’re covering technology
and living in Silicon Valley, because it seems as if everyone around you is
getting fabulously rich while you’re stuck in a job that will never, ever make
you wealthy. What’s worse is that all these people who are getting rich don’t
seem to be any brighter than you are and in fact many of them don’t seem very
bright at all. So of course you get jealous. And then you start thinking maybe
you could find a way to cash in on this gold rush. But how do you make gobs of
money when your only marketable skill involves writing blog posts?"

I feel this way all the time! But there's a distinct difference between acting
on these feelings and just feeling them. Arrington would be just fine and
above reproach, these days, if he'd keep his fucking mouth shut now that he is
ludicrously compromised and un-objective.

If he'd quite being a "journalist" he'd not look like such a douche...

Perhaps this is why I haven't jumped the fence yet... I don't think I could
give up the journalism. It just gets in your blood. And once it's in, the
thought of compromising yourself is sickening. Unless you're Arrington.

~~~
glyph
But that's the whole point of the article: the whole _value_ of the CrunchFund
(and its ilk) is that Arrington (and his ilk) will be a douche on your behalf.
If it were just the money, it wouldn't be worth it for the companies they
invest in: the amounts are too small. It's an alternative compensation scheme
for a PR flack who masquerades as a journalist. There's no ethical way to run
the fund, because it would be worthless if it were ethical.

~~~
VonGuard
Yah, obviously that's the value he's adding. I think it's a zero sum game,
however. Shilling isn't going to help a crappy product out in the long term,
only the short term.

And it brings up all manner of ethical grey areas: is blogging journalism? Do
influencers lose influence when they lose objectivity? What the fuck is an
influencer, anyway?

If a journalist is ever an influencer, he or she is doing it wrong...

Buh, I could go on a giant rant here about how journalism is dead, or at
least, extremely sick... How am I going to write about people places and
events when those people places and events are writing about themselves?

Fortunately, it would seem there is still a consumer for quality, deep
journalism on specific topics.

I don't even know what I'm really saying here, anymore... Just that Lyons
really hit a nerve. It's super frustrating to be in an interview with someone
who makes 10X what you make, and is completely unaware of what's really going
on in their industry.... All too common an event.

~~~
shrikant
_> And it brings up all manner of ethical grey areas: is blogging journalism?_

I believe the crux of the problem is that 'influential bloggers' want all the
credibility of journalists ("we're writing and reporting on things!"), without
any of the responsibility ("we're just blogging our opinions!").

This is what leads to situations like below:

 _Then there's the post in December where MG [...] thought he'd uncovered some
kind of huge conspiracy when he accused Google's Android chief, Andy Rubin, of
deleting a tweet. A few days later Siegler had to recant (sans apology, of
course) when it turned out that, um, nope, Rubin hadn’t done that. Of course
there’s a simple way to avoid bonehead moves like this — you do the reporting
before you publish the accusation, not after._

~~~
rhizome
There already are bloggers with the credibility of journalists (and more) who
assume all of the responsibility (and more). We all know this and read these
people all day every day.

Dan Lyons is not one of them (SCO), and neither is MG, but MG (and more) is
just telling us he is neither a good VC nor journalist, but his (and his
friends') wallet would like you to think he was.

tl;dr: MG is innovating the huckster niche.

------
martythemaniak
It's tempting to dismiss this as just e-lebrity gossip, but I think that this
kind of rottenness is probably more dangerous to the Valley than threats from
Washington or talk of bubbles. If who you know and how well you can politic
overshadows what you did and the results you got, then you're in trouble.

If somebody is an unscrupulous douchebag, don't to business with them, don't
read their blogs, don't upvote their articles. Treat them like the trolls they
are.

~~~
ChuckMcM
_If who you know and how well you can politic overshadows what you did and the
results you got, then you're in trouble._

For me its just another sign that 'tech' is growing up. Pretty much any
industry creates an economic flow, and the flow is a source of power (some
would argue the only real source in peace time), and one can harness that
power by having influence over the flow.

Back when the Homebrew Computer Club was meeting and Steve and Steve were
there and nerds gathered at the ByteShop to see the latest S-100 board that
Geoge Morrow had dreamed up, the total flow was measured in less than a
million dollars a year. Few 'professional' power brokers even noticed. Today
the total economic impact of 'tech' is approaching a trillion dollars by some
estimates, with that kind of flow comes real power. You also get a different
class of players in the game.

We joke about people who would sell out their families for a million dollars,
however that number gets uncomfortably large as you go up in decimal orders of
magnitude. 10 million, 100 million, a billion ?

The stakes are higher today, some people _are_ the barrier to entry you have
to get past. It hasn't been a "gentleman's game" for some time now. Kinda sad
really.

~~~
cageface
I'm not sure. Sleaze tends to correlate with easy money. Before 1997 or so
most of the people I knew that were in tech were in it primarily for love but
when all the easy capital started flowing in suddenly the quick buck hucksters
started coming out of the woodwork. Very few of the latter stuck around after
the first dotcom crash.

Right now a lot of dumb money is pouring into tech because there's nowhere
else for it to go. I'm seeing a lot of the same kinds of low class
opportunists popping up as a result.

~~~
ChuckMcM
I believe you are thinking about the rent-seekers. About that time when
someone in business school realized 'hey, these guys are defining new
fundamental concepts, if we could patent those we could just sit back and roll
in the cash!' There was a tremendous shift from open disclosure of all the
technology to 'just the necessary bits to operate' around that time. Comparing
the PC/AT technical manual (with BIOS listings!) to the PS/2 manual? DEC went
from publishing system schematics to just 'diagnostic notes'.

I had hoped that the open source wave that hit after the dot com crash would
have reminded people about why openness leads to growth not stagnation but I
don't think it has.

------
jwwest
I've never understood the enormous popularity of M.G. Siegler. His articles
are often published without any attributions or even basic spell checking. Yet
somehow he's ridden on the coattails of Apple's ascent by positioning himself
among the fandom as a "champion of good taste". In interviews he doesn't even
come off as particularly pleasant.

~~~
oldstrangers
Fanboys on either side of the aisle love to pat themselves on the back and
reaffirm--almost daily--that yes, they did buy the best product imaginable.
It's the same reason Gruber makes half a million a year writing snarky one
liners.

Some sort of subconscious need to find superiority in consumer purchases and
brand loyalty. It's kind of disturbing.

~~~
Steko
The "fanboy dismissal" is here, as usal, a cop out. It's the same copout that
2/3 of the commentariat falls back on whenever the subject comes up of why
Apple is so successful. Must be those fanboys, that pixie dust, that RDF...

"Some sort of subconscious need to find superiority in consumer purchases and
brand loyalty. It's kind of disturbing."

Or maybe it's just a good blog?

Despite happily not owning a Mac for almost a decade I've continued to read
Gruber all this time because his signal to noise ratio is off the charts
compared to any other tech blogger. His voice is unique and entertaining. The
entire layout is clean and sparse. It's one of the few tech RSS feeds you know
isn't going to be knee deep in repackaged press releases and bullshit false
equivalence analysis.

If all you had to do to make a half million dollars a year was turn out snarky
one liners there'd be a lot more millionaires in the world.

~~~
asg
I don't think this can be construed as 'fanboy dismissal', though the term
'fanboy' itself is controversial.

Post purchase dissonance reduction is a well known cognitive bias[1]. And what
can be better for dissonance reduction than someone telling you that you have
good taste, and anyone who buys the competition is a philistine?

I should point out that this does not impute anything to the quality of the
products themselves. I just posit that blogs such as Gruber's play a active
part in the ecosystem due to our cognitive biases. They are not merely a
passive observer.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-purchase_rationalization>

~~~
padobson
This might be one of the best comments I've ever read on the web.

These gadgets are EXPENSIVE. If you're clearing $15.00 an hour and you buy a
smartphone, that's 15-40 hours of your life that you've dedicated to that
little machine. You can see why there would be fervor over those devices,
especially for those enthusiasts that have to work so hard to afford them in
the first place.

------
grellas
_Silicon Valley once was home to scientists and engineers — people who wanted
to build things. Then it became a casino. Now it is being turned into a
silicon cesspool, an upside-down world filled with spammers, liars, flippers,
privacy invaders, information stealers — and their grubby cadre of paid
apologists and pygmy hangers-on._

Silicon Valley has not fundamentally changed over the decades and I can say
that from the perspective of someone who has lived here for over 40 years and
who has been in the thick of the startup world since the early 1980s.
Opportunism has always existed and always will. But great ventures are not
fundamentally built upon opportunism. They are built upon incredible skills,
daring forms of risk-taking, amazingly hard work, and like traits that are
quite admirable. Those traits showed themselves strongly here in the Valley 30
years ago and they continue to do so today. Indeed, the heart of the Valley
consists of _anything but_ the "upside-down world filled with spammers, liars,
flippers, privacy invaders, information stealers" that the author here
attempts to depict. Sleazy elements exist as they do whenever money is at
stake but to suggest that they are what most defines the Valley is to slander
a lot of good people who are doing great things and who have nothing whatever
to do with the world of which the author writes.

The author is an excellent writer but this piece is seriously flawed by an
intemperate tone, extreme _ad hominem_ attacks, and gross overstatement. In my
view, such flaws seriously weaken it as a piece of advocacy. And the lurid
headline does not help either, especially when one writes to criticize "click
whores." It is not that the piece is bad on substance. It just could have been
so much better had the author chosen to strike a more judicious tone.

~~~
tucson
It seems to me that someone is whistleblowing on mafia-like behavior... and
you comment on the tone.

~~~
apu
Lyons sounds more like a rival mafioso to me.

------
throw911
Investors in PandoDaily:

Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel, Chris Dixon, Saul Klein, Josh Kopelman,
CrunchFund, Greylock Partners, Accel Partners, Menlo Ventures, Lerer Ventures

Many of these are top class investors and certainly don't expect a return on
their money from a startup tech blog. But they might expect favorable reviews
of their portfolio companies when launch time comes or when shit hits the fan.

~~~
dotBen
Exactly, I fear this too. I like Sarah Lacey, and I think she does have
integrity.

But I can't help but feel this is the investors simply moving up the food
chain to protect their startups. Rather than rebutting against the media when
their own startups are attacked, they have obtained an inside position at
source.

I don't believe Sarah thinks this will happen (or she feels she can push back
and mitigate) but I'm [sadly] confident this kind of internal pressure will
occur at some point.

Fuck it, if I'd invested in her media venture I'd want preferential treatment.
And I'm ex BBC with a 'no bias' agenda beaten into me it hurts.

~~~
temphn
But the BBC gives preferential treatment to the BBC. It's not about to print
all of its own internal emails.

All news channels are "biased". You can only integrate and filter.

~~~
dotBen
I spent 6 years reading internal BBC emails. Can't comment for the rest of the
BBC, but nothing comes close to the integrity of BBC News.

>But the BBC gives preferential treatment to the BBC

Go read any BBC news story right now and scroll to the bottom. They even link
out to other news sites covering the same story. I can't think of another news
website that links to competitors like that.

BBC News certainly doesn't give preferential treatment to BBC.

------
benologist
Although this was a beautiful piece I can't help but feel Dan Lyons just gave
Uncrunched, ParisLemon, TechCrunch and PandoDaily another million pageviews
between them for the many rebuttals we're about to see.

~~~
espeed
It's like the Republican presidential debate rules -- anytime you mention an
opponent, the opponent gets airtime to respond.

------
r00fus
Dan isn't innocent here - some of his older posts are sickeningly obvious
puff-pieces or hit jobs... of course, he's not excusing himself here or
claiming he's not part of the muck he's deriding.

But every once in a while (esp. when he did FakeSteveJobs), Dan hits it out of
the park, and this is one of those articles. The crunchfund conflict of
interest is concerning.

------
beaker
The interesting thing to me here is how the story is no longer about Path and
whether their actions were right or wrong. In the course of attempting to
defend their portfolio company, Arrington and Co. have created a new debate
about the role of journalism in the tech world, pitting the VC-backed insiders
and their well-oiled hype machine vs the hordes of unconnected outsiders
seeking to break down the gates. This dynamic is reflected by the passionate
reactions coming fast and furiously from both sides. It could get ugly, but in
the long run it's probably a good thing for everyone to have this discussion.

~~~
feralchimp
As Lyons notes, the debate around pay-to-play or other more subtle conflicts
of interest in tech journalism has been around for a while, and is probably
here to stay.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that _anyone_ publicly sided
with Path after their app behavior was exposed. There just is no spin spinny
enough for that job. That it was Arrington and MG giving it the old college
try just adds some extra lulz/wtf to the scene.

~~~
onemoreact
People spin things that actually kill thousands of people every year. Why do
you think your privacy is going to be more respected than your life?

EX: Clean Coal

------
davidtyleryork
So basically it's only a matter of time before the ideals of the "gold rush"
go away and everyone's just in it for the money?

I came to Silicon Valley to escape that (the alternative, at the time, was
Wall Street). Unfortunately, this kind of behavior (and these kind of people)
seem to 'follow the money'.

*Note: This is both about the conversation that companies are abusing consumers and then apologizing later, and the tech blogger community and Lyons' accusations

~~~
njharman
"Gold Rush" is the definition of "in it for the money". It means people go
somewhere / do something to "get quick rich".

And Silicon Valley has been "about the money" for 20-30 years now. When
Wozniak left Apple is a good milestone for when it became "about the money".

~~~
siavosh
I think the warning signs of a 'gold rush' are when ethics go out the window
(most recent example is the mortgage industry). Capitalism is all about going
where the money is but if the correct rules aren't in place and the culture
isn't strong enough the whole system goes to hell like a badly moderated news
forum. The key question about SV of today is: are the correct rules and
culture in place to keep the gold rush healthy and sustainable?

------
nextparadigms
I'm really surprised that Google trusts and would still let MG Siegler review
their products before launch (like they just did with Chrome for Android),
when 80% of his posts now are about trashing Google. It's like begging for
attention from an abusive boyfriend or father: "Come on, MG..just one little
nice word about our new product...please?"

They must think that it's better this way, than to give it to someone who
already likes Google, because it's more "fair" and he'd be seen as more
"objective". Seriously, MG objective? Does anyone still think that by now?
There's not a paragraph in his reviews where he doesn't compare anything to
Apple, whether it's necessary or not, and of course Apple always comes out on
top in his view.

Apple on the other hand gives out their products before release only to people
who are totally on their side like Pogue and Walt, so the initial reviews of
the product always come out favorable, and they get to influence other laggard
reviewers, too.

~~~
ChrisNorstrom
Because if they can get him to like their product that would be a huge
achievement for them. They want to be the ones that win him over.

------
smokinn
Hopefully more people will start realizing that this is what techcrunch has
always done.

I remember watching a techcrunch50. I showed some people I knew the swype demo
and everyone was blown away. That's so cool! What won? Yammer. Twitter for the
enterprise.

There's no way Yammer could possibly have won other than silicon valley tunnel
vision/influence circle.

That was the only tc50 I watched. I also only ever read tc very briefly
because the quality was awful. For the occasional scoop they got (and fewer
right) it's just wasn't worth wading through the drivel.

At least now they have a new business model I suppose.

------
deepakprakash
It started stinking from the time CrunchFund was announced and I couldn't
understand all the "moral highground" support bullshit that Arrington was
getting - most notably from the TC staff.

Journalism is a lot about perspective - I dont care if you occupy the highest
moral grounds, your perspective changes dramatically once you have significant
interest and money invested into something you are talking about. What you
would normally call a Spade now becomes a Diamond.

Arrington's and MG's responses to the Path issue is proof enough for this -
can you imagine both of them so mellow and supportive if Path was not CF
funded was not around? I think not. And ohh yeah, I nearly puked reading MG's
"rant" few days back. For someone who is so hypercritical of anything on the
borderline of wrong (except if its from Apple - or any CF company it seems
now), it felt especially nauseous.

To their credit, they do have disclosures - which definitely make a difference
- if that is enough, I'm not sure.

Credibility is built by calling a spade a spade. It also tends to take the
fast route down if you stop doing that.

------
bishnu
Personally, I'm really happy to see the tech blog echo chamber start slinging
mud at each other instead of whatever the tech company to hate du jour is. The
more they make themselves the story the more irrelevant they become.

------
reidmain
"Siegler is constantly mocked by readers as a laughable troll – a mean-
spirited, egomaniacal buffoon who is not very bright but thinks he’s the
smartest guy in the room, and who, in all of his manic blogging, has left a
string of cock-ups and false “scoops” behind him."

I feel you could replace the first word in that with Lyons and it would also
be an apt description.

Is there any better mudslinging match in the tech-blogosphere than Lyons vs
Apple bloggers?

~~~
krakensden
I think the phrase you're looking for is "The unspeakable in full pursuit of
the uneatable."

------
moocow01
I feel like this is a part of the larger conversation of how the dynamics of
Silicon Valley are changing (at least from my insulated perspective). I'm not
going to sit in my arm chair and smatter Silicon Valley but I enjoyed and
respected the culture and environment of SV much more 5 to 10 years ago. It
may be untrue but I feel like SV is becoming increasingly dominated by
hustlers and scheisters and it has become more difficult to effectively
collaborate with the many true technologists there. Actually took a job last
year outside of the traditional SV circle of companies to take a break from
the atmosphere and have found it to be surprisingly more fun from a
technological perspective than the consumer internet products I was building
previously.

------
snowwrestler
Dan Lyons is afflicted with the combination of being a very talented writer,
but a terrible journalist. He's late to a lot of stories--I mean, he's JUST
NOW writing about Arrington's conflicts?? And, he's frequently 180 degrees
wrong about the stories he does cover--see his coverage of SCO for the most
infamous example.

I remember my reaction when it was revealed that Dan was behind the Fake Steve
Jobs blog. It was approximately, "Huh? Who's that?" And every time I read a
non-Fake-Steve-Jobs piece from Dan I am reminded of why I had that reaction.
The guy is just not a good tech journalist.

He's an incredibly entertaining writer though. I wish he would take his
talents south and put out a sitcom or movie or something creative.

~~~
nikcub
> I mean, he's JUST NOW writing about Arrington's conflicts??

That is because he wanted to work at Techcrunch (there was a perennial
discussion within TC on hiring him, and his wage demands were massive). now
that Arrington can't give that to him any longer, he can speak out against
him. Speaking of conflicts.

------
lukeholder
I stopped reading techcrunch about 9 months ago, after realizing that the
majority of articles were friends of the author - and realizing it was almost
impossible to get featured on there unless you were connected in some kind of
monetary way.

~~~
potatolicious
And finally, in 2012, after mocking and lambasting traditional reportage and
journalistic standards for years, the Internet finally learns that
journalistic standards, expectations, and ethics are a set of rules learned
the hard way, that are as relevant on the web as they were in print.

Hopefully this is the beginning of the end for "it's just a blog, man".

~~~
philwelch
It's not that proper journalism is irrelevant, and it's not even that not
everyone should be expected to be proper journalists. It's that proper
journalism is a very small niche, not the norm. There isn't much actual market
demand for proper journalism compared to the other crap; most readers and
viewers are undiscerning and everyone else is willing to pay, so why bother?

It was probably this way even before the internet. I mean, they award
themselves the "Pulitzer Prize"--go look up the guy that one's named after.

------
jfarmer
I agree with the overall argument and sentiment of Dan's article.

My ideal blog about technology startups would be about Silicon Valley as it
is. It would be hard to run this blog. I'm not even sure it could be
profitable, because most interesting information about what's happening in
Silicon Valley is not written about. It's shared directly between people
working here, and there's very little reason for those conversations to go
public.

You see the same problems with journalists covering Washington and national
politics. The journalists are willing to be used by politicians because it
furthers their careers. It's so tempting to just give in. It's certainly more
profitable.

On the other hand, if you take TechCrunch for what it is, I don't think it's
unethical per se. You just have to know how to read between the lines.

Dan's article would be better if he didn't confuse angel and VC investment,
though. Michael Arrington is certainly an angel investor, and he was one long
before he started CrunchFund. He's probably an investor in CrunchFund's first
fund, but as a General Partner he's acting as a VC, not an angel investor.

The key distinction being whether he's investing his own money (an angel
investor) or LPs' money (a VC).

------
alapshah
How about we start to act on this by not posting and/or flagging every post
from pandodaily, techcrunch, and uncrunched? I think we'd have a better HN
experience all around.

------
ChrisNorstrom
How about a few of us here get together, throw up a wordpress install, and
start a self-serve tech/startup site. I've got RobotSays.com. Basically anyone
can be an author, they create a guest post, upload their content and their
picture, and submit the post for approval and we the editors fix up anything
out of place and approve only the best content for the front page. A lot of
design blogs allow guest post submissions and it works out very well.

Basically when it comes to tech/startup news this is all I want to know:

1 - when new startups launch

2 - important new game changing features that existing startups are
implementing

3 - advice and interviews (Ask me anything) from startup founders

4 - new game changing gadgets coming out

5 - when startups are hiring

6 - when startups are sunsetting and why

That's it, no dirty laundry being aired, no drama, no egos, no kings, no
divas.

~~~
JackdawX
Well, you just invented slashdot. It's fallen by the wayside now, because
places like this, with (largely) unmoderated user generated content, can
distribute news faster.

~~~
ChrisNorstrom
I do agree with you, but if HN were so go at news then why does TechCrunch,
ReadWriteWeb, GigaOm, AllThingsD, Mashable, etc... exist? HN isn't really a
content creator, it's a distributor of content that has already been created
at those sites mentioned. HN is a great community of news commentators, but HN
is terrible at allowing people to generate content and articles themselves.

And those types of content creators (editors) put so much hard work into their
pieces they want to find a good home for their articles, a permanent place of
existence. People writing guest posts for TC, RWW, GO, ATD, Mash, can just as
easily make a post here on HN. But they don't. No one wants to put in so much
hard work and research just for it to disappear into the jungle of links and
never be found again.

------
potch
Glad to see Lyons getting in on the conversation. And by conversation I mean
grab for pageviews.

------
apaitch
This kind of thing - not the exact events or people described, but the
atmosphere conveyed - is exactly what's been turning me off from Silicon
Valley. I've interned here twice, and I know that it's full of the top
engineers in the world. Yet the underbelly seems to be full of these
ridiculous cutthroat business practices and an atmosphere of self-indulgence,
self-importance etc, most likely because Silicon Valley is where the money is.
It seems like it's turning into the Hollywood of the tech industry, and not in
a good way. T'would be a shame.

------
ilamont
I was with him until this:

 _The real secret to Siegler’s traffic, however, is that he is pals with Gabe
Rivera, who routinely drives traffic to Siegler by giving his pieces top
billing on Techmeme. (That’s right, kids. Techmeme is rigged.)_

Unlike his criticism of Siegler, Lacy, and Arrington, the statement about
Rivera and Techmeme is not backed up by any evidence. If he has some -- an
analysis of Techmeme placement of Siegler's posts, sources who have knowledge
of the alleged "top billing", or some other information -- it should be stated
or linked from the post.

------
xpose2000
This is a fantastic article. I think the start-up industry and the bloggers
who report on them is increasingly tiring.

I'm glad this guy had the guts to call people out for who they truly are.
Though I am sure this is far from the end of it all....

------
thewisedude
<Quote> Not big investments — maybe $100,000. They don’t need your money; they
can raise money from anyone. </Quote>

I dont agree with this. Many startup companies have to prove their mettle to
get an investor want to invest in them. Also, there are significant chance of
any startup going bust. He does not supplement what the odds are in making
10x/100x returns. So its difficult to buy the concept that just investing in
them will make you richer in a few years. However, I do think Michael
Arrington is doing what he can to protect his investment. But I dont think its
the other way round..i.e -> Startups are not necessarily filtering investors
based on the influencing ability of the investor.

~~~
alain94040
The real question is whether CrunchFund is leading or following. If they just
follow, once other big names are committed, then frankly the value-added for
startups is close to 0.

------
faithful_droog
Michael Arrington's response: <http://uncrunched.com/2012/02/13/we-are-better-
than-this/>

~~~
fatbat
MG's here: <http://parislemon.com/post/17587323277/bat-shit-crazy>

------
justinlau
Good piece. I think of Arrington, Siegler, et al. as the Swift Boaters of tech
journalism. They just throw FUD everywhere and they never clean up after
themselves.

------
mrbill
Somewhere, Gruber, Lyons, Arrington, and Siegler are sitting back, smoking
cigars around a poker table, and laughing at all the income from ads that
their little "dispute" and junior-high name calling is earning them.

------
mattdeboard
Cool, so for the billionth example, makers make something -- good or bad --
that creates a commotion and the chattering class gets to ride the waves. This
time, it's Path. What is this article in the OP, 3rd, 4th degree of separation
from the actual event in question?

It's enough to toss it all in the shitter and just judge things on their own
merits: products, apologies and whatever else. Journalists bickering at each
other over what exactly? Who cares.

Ugh. I think my work life frustration is spilling over into my comments.

------
tlrobinson
Tech journalists sure do love writing about themselves.

------
heyrhett
How do I pitch my startup to the Dan Lyons angel fund?

------
PaulAnunda
let's get back to hacking/the technology.

------
javajosh
The key question that arises in my mind is simply this: why is perception so
important in Silicon Valley? It seems clear that money influences tech
reporting to a fairly high degree, but what is the economic incentive? In a
universe of makers, shouldn't the things made speak for themselves?

~~~
cbs
_but what is the economic incentive?_

Getting users. Tech isn't the meritocracy everyone likes to pretend it is.

------
yuhong
I wonder how do you think about Arrington being forced out of AOL now, after
reading this.

~~~
mcantelon
They conned AOL... committed to staying there in exchange for a big pay then
violated the spirit of their agreement by launching a tech fund: a clear
conflict of interest.

~~~
nikcub
you have no idea what you are talking about.

------
orthecreedence
This is why I feel like a lot of startups raising their hands in a "ohhh write
about me!!! write about me!!" frenzy of desperation seems to get them the
users and followers (edit: and investors) they deserve. Sure, if your market
is the tech crowd, go for it. If you're market is not the tech world, then I
believe it makes sense to avoid the shitty tech press altogether.

Getting a Techcrunch piece about your app doesn't mean you're successful in
any measure. Having a business model and making a profit _does_ make you
successful. Sure Techcrunch is marketing, but in most cases it's the wrong
kind...not all eyeballs are good ones. Know your market.

~~~
AznHisoka
I totally agree. There's also hidden dangers involved. If you're a company
like AirBnB or Path, and something disastrous PR-wise happens, it'll appear
all over TC if you're a Silicon Valley darling. If you're not known among SV,
maybe 1-2 minor publications will pick up the story, but there won't be a huge
commotion. If they're not your target audience, is it really worth a write-up
in TC?

------
heyrhett
Can anyone explain why this post got buried on reddit? I thought they live for
controversial stories like this. Is Arrington a reddit investor too?

------
mycodebreaks
Brave article by Dan. Please keep them coming.

------
angelortega
Very funny, but... isn't Lyons himself click-whoring with articles like this?
He is (or has become) a part of the circus.

------
callmeed
I'm curious how close this resembles the Payola scandal and if it would ever
warrant legal/political intervention.

<http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payola>

------
myspy
Funny to see that much praise for Lyons, which is far away from being a good
writer. Many things coming from him are link bait articles and insulting for a
reader trying to make up his mind.

------
davidu
It's as if people think that any journalist is unbiased. At least MG, MA, and
SL all share their bias so openly. You don't think Dan is biased in his
reporting? Please.

~~~
justinlau
I don't think Dan shares a direct financial stake in the targets of his
punditry like MG, MA, and SL do.

Money makes for a powerful conflict of interest.

~~~
davidu
MA already pointed out that Dan wanted to work for TechCrunch numerous times.
How much more direct do you want?

------
aakarpost
I fully agree with Dan!

------
GigabyteCoin
This post sure struck a chord. Good job, Dan.

------
andrewhillman
Brilliant piece.

------
functionform
Needed to be said. Bravo Dan Lyons.

------
dgregd
You get what you paid for.

TC blog is free so all you get is simply product placement blog.

------
vl
And this is a click-bate title I'm not going to click out of principle.

~~~
functionform
It isn't click bait. If you follow the network of blogs Dan talks about you
saw the blatant self-interest machine hard at work in realtime. I was
disgusted by it, but I'm not a tech writer, thus no platform to weigh in on.
I'm glad someone picked up on it and gave it to them, and you only have to
glance at the comments he got to know that I'm not the only person who felt
this way.

~~~
vl
Article might be worthy, but this title gives me no insight into the content
of the article and thus doesn't allow me to decide if I want to see it or not
in a first place. How would I guess that it's about "network of blogs with the
blatant self-interest machine"?

------
Jayasimhan
And now these writers occupy HN. 597+ upvotes. Seriously? Sigh.

~~~
felipemnoa
Is probably more a sign that HN now has a much bigger diverse audience. Not so
long ago it would be really rare to get 597 upvotes in a single story.

~~~
Jayasimhan
We should start flagging users who post sensationalist stories on HN. Not
reward them with karma.

------
cenuij
Nasty little ankle-biting Matty the Angry Chihuaha, hoho how wonderfully droll
:) It may very well be verging on the meta-hypocritical but unlike Siegler at
least this man has a flair for the written word.

------
mkramlich
I view all of that kind of thing as noise and try to filter it out.

------
ericflo
I'm surprised by the amount of cheering going on over this article. I found it
in very poor taste, resorting to ad hominem attacks and slander. Even if it
were in good taste, I don't agree with the general idea behind the post.

I don't understand this pent up hatred for Arrington, M.G. Siegler, and the
other TechCrunch writers who, despite what people continually say, do
genuinely seem to care about startups. Is this a case of wanting to knock
successful people down a peg? Is it jealousy? What is it?

Sure, they are biased, but everyone is. At least they make it clear where
their biases lie.

Please help me to understand this anger.

~~~
bri3d
I think a lot of this anger stems from the way many tech bloggers write - a
combination of a "fuck the haters" and a "told ya so" attitude. It's easy to
breed hatred with thinly-veiled disdain for those who criticize you, and I
think that's a good part of what's happening here.

A lot of dislike for TechCrunch and affiliates also forms because these
bloggers are part of a "good ol' boys" crowd in Silicon Valley. While the
article casts this effect as one of VCs indirectly paying for stories and
conflict of interest, I think personal ties are more important. Most of these
tech bloggers spend a lot of time with a small group of VCs and founders-
turned-investors, and it shows in what they choose to write about (and in who
funds them when they go to found their own sites). For many, especially those
outside this close network who are founding a startup or those who choose to
eschew venture funding, it's frustrating to watch an already quite small echo
chamber (tech startups in general) grow even smaller thru the lens of the VC-
affiliate media.

------
jfruh
[http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxjlw4AnIX1rn1xxfo1_250.gi...](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxjlw4AnIX1rn1xxfo1_250.gif)

~~~
bdhe
Please don't resort to these kinds of comments. Its hard enough to keep the
signal-to-noise ratio high in "gossip stories" posts such as this one.

~~~
mdg
garbage in, garbage out

