
Don't read TechCrunch - n1c
http://nicharalambous.com/2012/12/03/dont-read-techcrunch/
======
brudgers
_I’ve learned that glorifying money raising is a massive mistake_

This, in my opinion, is what the metaphor of not reading TechCrunch stands in
for. Each article celebrating a round of fundraising has a backstory about an
entrepreneur who has less ownership of their company. Often that backstory is
that they have less or even no control.

Jobs took outside funding. Gates did not. Both acted like jerks in the 80's.
But nobody could fire Gates because nobody had the shares to bring in an
outside CEO to Microsoft.

Fundraising is a two edged sword. It should often be accompanied by both
congratulations and condolances.

~~~
huxley
They had very different circumstances:

Bill Gates was the son of wealthy parents, his father was a partner in the law
firm Preston Gates & Ellis, his mother was on board of directors for First
Interstate BancSystem and the United Way.

Bill got a sweetheart deal from IBM, in part due to his mother serving on the
United Way board with Jon Opel, chair of IBM.

Steve Jobs was adopted by Paul Jobs, a mechanic and a carpenter, and Clara
Jobs, who was a payroll clerk for Varian Associates. Neither of his adoptive
parents had the opportunity to attend college.

Jobs sold his minivan and Wozniak sold his HP scientific calculator to
initially fund development of the Apple I.

If you have the option of being born to parents with extreme wealth and
connections, I highly recommend it over fundraising.

~~~
brudgers
One may dismiss Gate's success as due to the resources of his parents.
However, Microsoft was not his first foray into entrepreneurship. I suspect
that bootstrapping was always the plan. Just as Apple always anticipated
taking venture capital.

Jobs had the good fortune to be raised in Silicon Valley. Had he been in
Topeka, there would not have been a viable market of hobbyists for Apple I
kits. Then again, he wouldn't have known Wozniak who actually built the damn
thing, either.

Luck played a factor in the fortunes of both men.

The funding of Gates and Jobs is a parable. The extended version includes the
prodigal son's return.

~~~
huxley
I don't completely disagree with you, a good start in life and tons of money
doesn't guarantee you future success, but luck alone doesn't pay the bills
either, that takes money.

You can have a great viable market and if you don't have the money to build
the widgets, you are stuck pounding sand.

BTW if Wozniak hadn't met Steve Jobs, he might have spent the rest of his days
working at HP, being one of hundreds of brilliant engineers nobody has ever
heard about.

Woz is many things, but he is not --and was never-- an ambitious corporate
leader. Wozniak built the Apple I and Apple II but it was Steve Jobs that
built Apple Inc.

~~~
huxley
As for Gates, I would never dismiss him.

He took advantage of his connections and built one of the biggest, most
influential software companies ever.

He then stepped back at the height of his career, listened to his wife, and
the two of them built a very innovative philanthropic organization.

There are plenty of rich kids that don't accomplish anything, Gates wasn't one
of them.

~~~
binarycheese
"There are plenty of rich kids that don't accomplish anything, Gates wasn't
one of them."

Very true!

------
mschaecher
I agree, don't read techcrunch.

Unless you're interested in startups generally.

Or if you want to learn about new companies.

But really only if you're interested in learning about hot new spaces in
trends, yea then it's ok.

Or if you want to see what external thought leaders have to say, reading on
the weekends is ok.

But don't read it for funding.

Unless you're looking for funding, then maybe it's ok to read it to help you
narrow your investor pitch focus by seeing who is active and wear.

But certainly don't read it for product. Yeah, that'd be stupid.

Unless, and only unless, you want to see what early adopters who see more new
products in a month then most people do in a year have to say about new
technology, trends and spaces.

On second thought, yea read TechCrunch.

Just be a good enough entrepreneur to know that reading or not reading
TechCrunch won't make or break your company, and is a really lame scapegoat.

The only thing that will make or break your company is you and your idea.

~~~
crumblan
I think you meant to write

> Unless you're interested in startups (that Arrington has a personal stake
> in) generally.

> Or if you want to learn about new companies (that Arrington has a personal
> stake in).

et cetera.

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
This to me is the reason not to read TechCrunch (or at least to read it with a
healthy dose of scepticism - even more than usual on the internet).

I'd expect any aspiring entrepreneur to understand the benefits and trade-offs
of the different models for raising funding in the way I'd expect anyone
looking for thousands of dollars for anything to understand the strings that
are attached to it.

The real problem with TechCrunch is that it operates in an unclear space
between journalism and PR (even more than usual) which makes everything on
there questionable.

~~~
gilli
Hear, hear!

------
pavanlimo
I agree TC dishes a lot of rubbish of late. But at the same, the author looks
to me like a headline hogger. I'm not really convinced by his reasoning.

~~~
Dirlewanger
His reasoning is basically "don't read TC because in the times I did read
them, I focused too much on them and not my own endeavors...something that's
completely MY fault."

------
ChrisNorstrom
Long ago I was such a heavy Tech Crunch reader that I was in the top 5 most
liked commenters (below MG and Arrington) back when they still used Disqus.

<http://i.imgur.com/1lgnC.png> Yep that's me. I was in deep.

TC is both good & bad and a LOT of things to different people:

1) TC is for people who dream about becoming entrepreneurs and are seeking
reasons or a "push" to motivate themselves to finally dive in.

2) It's a platform for validation and lifestyle glorification (what Fox News
is to Republican party). It can lead to both encouragement and ignorance. It's
highly Silicon Valley oriented and its addicted readers are mostly wanna-be-
entrepreneurs (myself included, no shame here) who wish they were in Silicon
Valley working on a startup. The same way celebrity wanna-bes browse celebrity
sites all day, wantrepreneurs (like me) would browse Hacker News, Tech Crunch,
Digg, and (the old) Reddit. Even though you couldn't be there in "the action"
you could read about it and pretend and daydream. Pathetic but hey, emotions
are emotions.

3) After a certain amount of time Tech Crunch becomes unhealthy for you. It
portrays an extremely unrealistic view of startups, companies, and success.
And ingores everything else. Because failure is a journey that can lead to
success and all things by default fail, glorifying success is damaging to
entrepreneurs. TC is great for initial motivation but afterwords if you don't
let go of it you'll start to take on its unhealthy attitude towards business.
It's like getting a 12 year old fashion loving girl a subscription to Vogue,
it might be encouraging at first but if she falls in too deep she'll start
taking on Vogue's obsessions. Before you know it she'll be 40 pounds
underweight, with bleached blonde hair, and $12,000 worth of shoes.

4) TC over-rewards VC funded startups and ignores inventors, designers,
hackers, projects, bootstrapping, and non web businesses. To Techcrunch,
success is getting funded or acquired. It focuses on the end-product not the
journey. And for entreprenuers that's just a trap for perpetual day-dreaming.
Fantasizing about success without ever working towards it.

5) TC is also a status symbol and oligarchy. OMG you got on TC!!! Holy Shit
you're going to get so many users and VCs are going to call you and your
server might crash... Piss off Arrington and you'll never be on TC. To be on
Tech Crunch means you have been approved and accepted by an elite group of
Silicon Valley journalists who can make you famous. Once Arrington & friends
left after the AOL aquisition there was no more elite group to seek validation
and fame from. TC went downhill in popularity and visitors.

I feel like TC was initially designed for investors with its generic "who got
funded" articles but was later re-purposed as a lifestyle glorifier. Which
lead to a jump in traffic, Arrington becoming the Godfather of Silicon Valley
reporting. And TC transitioned into a fame-machine. Got acquired by AOL.
Arrington left, friends followed. No more elites, just a news site now.

 _FYI: I left TC long ago when I outgrew it. The initial encouragement wore
off & I wasn't getting anything out of it. I've started outgrowing Hacker News
as well. I finally dove in, risked $2,000 made my first 2 products, and am
selling them on Ebay.
[http://www.ebay.com/sch/purplevioletka/m.html?item=330829651...](http://www.ebay.com/sch/purplevioletka/m.html?item=330829651471&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4d06fbde0f&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562)
(shameless link) _

~~~
gasull
> _I've started outgrowing Hacker News_

For those who feel that are outgrowing HN, I'd recommend reading only those
posts with more that 150 upvotes:

[http://talkfast.org/2010/07/23/a-cure-for-hacker-news-
overlo...](http://talkfast.org/2010/07/23/a-cure-for-hacker-news-overload/)

~~~
sprobertson
For those who would like to use HN's built-in threshold feature:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/over?points=150>

------
ridonkuloid
I stopped reading TC years ago. Was sick of the petulant whining by egomaniacs
like Arrington, Tsotsis, and the crown prince of pussies MG Siegler.

~~~
chicagohacker
Made me lol. Siegler openly admits to lying in the articles he writes.

------
nikcub
The article body doesn't support the headline.

A more appropriate title would be the second last line of the post:

> It’s good to have context but becoming obsessed and consumed with what TC
> and other startup blogs and websites report on is problematic.

But that would have made the post a whole lot less interesting and click-
worthy.

------
ChuckMcM
I'll just point out here that nobody holds a gun to people's head and says
"Read TechCrunch, or else!" Think about that.

Complaining about the content of Techcrunch is akin to complaining about how
pornography portrays women. In both cases they are low barrier to entry
markets, with a group think driven customer base. TechCrunch is the way it is,
because it gets the most page views that way. If it starts deviating off that
path into the kind of content 'you' (and by you I mean the critical thoughtful
reader) might like, well it is quickly corrected by the connoisseurs of
startup porn. TechCrunch has no more control over the editorial direction of
the web site than the Government accounting office has over the budget.

Phil Lemmons used to run Byte magazine, waaaay back, and it was the 'cool'
computer magazine that was above it all. Except it was slipping into becoming
a magazine about the IBM PC and its compatibles. I complained, others
complained, there was a unity of concern. I got to talk with Phil at the Byte
Magazine booth at the Comdex show in Las Vegas and he explained that editorial
control was a slippery thing. You could push against the 'bulk' of what people
wanted to read but you couldn't push so hard that you left that audience
behind, to do so was certain death, so he spent his time putting in enough PC
articles to keep the 'bulk' and the other articles to keep the 'faithful'. It
was an interesting balancing act.

A web site like TechCrunch is in an even more precarious position, people
don't even pay to subscribe. So they are very much at risk of losing their
readership if they stray too far from what they want. They can try to lead
them, but ultimately they are at the mercy of their readers.

What this means is that complaining about Techcrunch's Editorial direction is
not as powerful as starting your own web site (or patronizing one you like)
which is more to your liking.

------
danielrm26
If he'd read Techcrunch he would have read about Cloudflare and Varnish and
other things that keep his site up during HN/Reddit appearances.

~~~
jonathanjaeger
Ha

------
brador
Don't read Techcrunch, but still want to keep up with tech news? Try
<http://skimfeed.com>.

You'll get a broad overview of the days tech news, without the fluff or bias
of an individual news site.

~~~
jff
Thank you for that blatant advertisement for your site! Am I the only person
who downvotes the most blatant self-promotion on sight?

~~~
brador
This is a hacker community. We make things. It's what we do.

------
Rulero
You've absolutely nailed it!

I stopped reading TC a few years ago. However, you made a very interesting
point about focusing on your own context and not benchmarking w/ other
startups, wise words.

------
vbo
I suspect reading TC and the like satisfies ones entrepreneurial drive through
a false sense of being "in the game" and actually leads to less (or no) effort
being put into building something. I've noticed this on myself in the past as
well as on others that seem so keen to read and share entrepreneurial howtos,
know all the dos and donts but ultimately end up being evangelists for
entrepreneurship and not taking it up themselves. I stick to HN these days and
tend to ignore the various YC stories unless the company in question appears
to be doing something cool. OTOH, I'm sure the startup news buzz can be useful
in the short term, but I suspect long-term (ab)use of these blogs just bums
people out (and leads to anxiety and a feeling of being unfit for the scene if
you haven't raised millions and were featured on TC). The focus on funding is
also artificial and serves not the hacker but the VCs (it's also more
glamorous and fit for pop-culture blogs).

------
chmike
What applies to the OP doesn't apply to everybody. The benefits of reading
techcrunch depends on what your interrests are.

The reason raising money is such a dominant info is because it is considered
as an indirect proof of business soundness. What other objectivable info could
be you use for that ?

Regarding a problem of focussing and keeping delivering, TechCrunch can't be
blamed for that.

------
jmedwards
I get the feeling that this is a really extreme piece of advice, perhaps made
so to make a punchy Hacker News headline (or simply out of being fed up!).

I believe that everyone regardless should read widely and as widely as
possible, but for entrepreneurs and technologists I believe it is part of the
job description, too.

Extremes are almost never the right thing. If you're fat, is it best to cut
out all fats from your diet? No. If you're info-overloaded, is it best to cut
yourself off from the Internet? No. If you're interested in startups, should
you read TechCrunch and forget everything else? No!

If you're feeling a bit too tied up with keeping-up anxiety from following
slightly glorified versions of other startups' progress, is it best to cut
yourself from what can be a useful and valuable source of content?

I say no - just moderate and keep it broad and wide, like everything else in
life.

------
melvinmt
I stopped reading TC a long time ago for all the reasons mentioned plus their
site is so full of widgets, it keeps crashing on my iPad 1 (not a lot of sites
accomplish that, well done TC).

I also like to avoid Pandodaily as much as possible. Is there a HN extension
that can filter out these submissions for me?

------
jonathanjaeger
They have some great marketing and business guest posts by Mark Suster, James
Alutcher, Nir Eyal, and several others. A little entertainment with the
occasional insightful post isn't the worst thing. Just ignore the many posts
on funding and you won't have AS much distortion.

------
lackiem
Stopped reading it awhile ago. It doesn't portray the reality for most
startups and tech companies and I think gives the wrong impression that you
need to be heavily funded to be successful.

------
cdooh
I've been meaning to stop reading TC, but the question is what do I replace it
with? Already read th Verge, Ars Technica...found that TechDirty covers a lot
about what I'm concerned with

~~~
hayksaakian
I've added PandoDaily to my list -- which contains the same sources you've
listed.

~~~
tatsuke95
Only an opinion, but PandoDaily seems to have adopted the _worst_ parts of
TechCrunch. It's practically VC backed advertising.

~~~
cdooh
I don't want another TC type, I've found I've become tired of hearing who was
acquired or who raised how much

------
freework
I used to work for a company that got Tech Crunched every few weeks. We had
lots of money in funding, but had practically zero traction. And our 'app' was
pretty much smoke and mirrors. There were a handful of competitors that I felt
had a much better product, yet we were the ones who always had articles on
TC... Makes you wonder. I don't work for that company any more, but when I
did, I suspected that our CEO was paying TC to promote us, or something of
that nature.

------
MojoJolo
I'm reading TechCrunch regularly before entering the startup scene. Nowadays,
I'm not reading it like before.

TechCrunch may provide misleading information for some. But when you're in a
"startup" situation, you know will know what is right and what to believe in.

On other side, TechCrunch may mislead you, but they can be a good source of
inspiration. They are talking about acquisitions, fundings, and successes. Why
not use them as your inspiration? Strive hard, to achieve those.

------
tferris
Reading TC (or any other startup related resource) is kind of procrastination.
It's not bad, you get kind of a feeling of the market but usually if just
relying on those sources you are too late to the party and it's stops you from
doing stuff yourself. You should

\- do, build stuff 80% of your working day,

\- meet other likeminded people 15% of your working day,

\- and read online resources like this one 5% (TC is rather one of the bad
ones)

------
rwbt
I've stopped reading many of the Aol blogs. HuffPo, TC, Engadget etc., Never
liked HuffPo, but I remember Engadget and TC used to be very good.

~~~
sharkweek
Pretty great documentary called Page One on Netflix about the NYTimes that has
some running commentary on modern journalism.

There's a clip with David Simon (The Wire creator, former editor of the
Baltimore Sun) arguing with Ariana Huffington about the legitimacy of HuffPo's
encroaching empire.

~~~
rwbt
Thanks for the tip. Will watch it.

------
anthonys
TC is now just a series of re-written press releases with very little in the
way of opinion. The opinion is still there, just to a lesser extent and is
camouflaged but all of the other copy they post.

I still give it a look every couple of days to make sure I haven't missed
anything but I certainly don't value it the same as I used to when the old
team were there.

------
ndemoor
I only read TC when their linkbait titles end up on the frontpage of HN.

Stopped following their feed, once I came to the same conclusion as the OP:
being overly funded is (almost) the only way to go get featured on TC, these
days. The times of roaming the edges of startup-land and posting about the
nitty gritty startup struggles are long forgotten.

------
matte2
Those were the days when the news was about the startup itself, not the
financial value of it. We are living in a time where companies are valued by
their annual turnovers instead of profits. So, totally agree to what he says,
don't read TechCrunch. Focus on your startup, the value you provide and the
profit you make.

------
tetomb
Besides the conflict of interest, I find the fact that a significant portion
of their articles are about themselves, or other tech journalists, extremely
irritating. Like when a documentary is about the filmaker making the
documentary instead of the subject matter.

I wish people weren't so obsessed with celebrity.

------
pbreit
TechCrunch has mostly good writers, gets many stories first and writes about
topics germane to the tech startup community. I'm guessing most of the hate is
driven by distrust or dislike of leaders.

Raising money is not remotely and end result but is clearly an important
milestone for a growing business.

------
aravindc
Exactly.

A few of my posts on HN on that:
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4852081>
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3538189> \- that was an year ago!

------
arbuge
As somebody who's been pretty successful with fundraising, I can relate... the
only things that matter are customers and revenue, and fundraising is just one
tool to get there. Necessary for some business models, admittedly, but there's
many business models you can choose from.

------
ayh2
Better yet, read only posts that are useful to you. Often thought leaders, IE
Mark Suster, would release some tips on TC and reading them can help you
become more successful. New companies may also have services that can give you
an advantage.

------
tzaman
There is nothing inherently wrong with reading TC - if nothing else, it gives
you a better feeling what your vision/goal might be. With that said, what you
need NOT to do is follow it blindly. Use it for what it is: a news medium;

------
ErikAugust
"when douglas crockford went to paypal, they churned out their normal thin
tosh, but topping it off: thinking java and javascript are the same thing
(since been corrected)." - from Chris, one of the commenters.

Damn. That's pretty inexcusable!

~~~
sounds231
...This is the second Java/Javascript mixup I've seen on TC in the last two
days.

The first one was here - [http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/30/why-enterprise-
apps-are-mov...](http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/30/why-enterprise-apps-are-
moving-to-single-page-design/). The third subheading originally read
"Transitioning Developers From HTML To Java."

The worst part? These two articles aren't even by the same author. So
TechCrunch has multiple writers that don't know the difference.

~~~
ErikAugust
Damn. That's a bit nutty. So they obviously don't hire devs-turn-journalists.
Probably cost too much.

------
scottmagdalein
I don't read TechCrunch because it's not worth reading. It's not helpful to
me. It may be helpful to others.

Although TC sometimes feels like a tech-tabloid, I do believe it serves a
better purpose.

------
stevewillows
TechCrunch is like People Magazine. Old Arrington was entertaining, but let's
be real about it -- it's just a regular news site that hit on some key points
for a niche market.

------
dquail
I think the comment should be "don't believe techcrunch" ... rather than
"don't read techcrunch"

There's a lot of value in keeping a pulse of what's going on. But you need a
filter ...

------
drudru11
I used to read it when it started.

They used to only have about 5 articles a day, and then only post the next
day.

Once they removed that limit I stopped. I use that filter on most sites except
for HN.

------
theklub
I stopped reading it when Mike A got all dramatic and made it all about
himself. Haven't gone back but I'd imagine it can't be any worse than it was
then.

------
oisino
100% on point.. No one has ever gone down the exact same path your going down.
What works might not work again and what never works might work once..

------
npguy
Wrote a Response here -

<http://statspotting.com/2012/12/read-techcrunch-daily/>

------
znowi
I don't. For a while now. And advise the same.

------
vijayr
Are there better alternatives to TC - without drama, fluff etc? Mashable is
not good, RWW is just okay.

~~~
ilamont
VentureBeat.com. Very strong reporting in a few areas, with staff who
previously worked at San Jose Mercury News, WSJ, etc.

Ironically, TC has hired away several VB writers.

~~~
vijayr
thanks. any idea why? more money? visibility?

------
rhokstar
I boycotted TechCrunch for two reasons: 1) Quality of journalism degraded 2)
Michael Arrington sold TC

------
chris123
TC died when AOL bought it (AOL kills all things it touches) and the
@Arrington left.

------
pradeep89
i see at TC as guide for trends , best practices for start ups, of course
there will be challenges, it's upto you, how do you want to handle them,
blaming TC or not reading TC you will miss few things man!

------
zipop
The only reason I read (skim) TC is to get a feel for what's hot. That's it.

------
simonswords82
I agree with this so much I upvoted this post before I even read the article

------
paultannenbaum
At first, I thought this was someone under the svbtle network. Then I realized
it was a lame ripoff wordpress theme. Whats even worse is that a company, obox
themes, is selling this ripoff for $60 a copy, and claiming they came up with
the clean minimialistic design.

------
massarog
Agreed. 95% of the stories on TC are about fundraising.

------
npguy
but is it not important to know what's happening in your space? How will you
move in the right direction or pivot right ?

~~~
benologist
There are probably much better news sources for most industries.

------
adrian_pop
As recaptcha.net says: stop TC, read books.

------
michaelochurch
My problem with TechCrunch (which I don't read regularly, because reading
about unqualified hucksters getting $8-million acq-hire welfare checks for
IUsedThisToilet apps is not going to improve my life) is that it seems like an
attempt to create the old, broken social regime within the new one. Instead of
focusing on _potential_ , it seems to document the whims of these wizard-
priests called "venture capitalists" who, as a class, don't seem to be doing
better than they would if they selected startups randomly.

For example, if you think velvet-rope parties at SxSW are a good thing, you're
not a technologist and you don't belong in this century. Technologists want to
make the world inclusive and prosperous, not exclusive and shitty.

~~~
caseysoftware
I have nothing against TechCrunch but if that's your _main_ news source on
startups, you have a problem.

I attend a _lot_ of entrepreneur events, Startup Weekends, etc and one of the
common threads is the navel-gazing or me-too startups. If I have to sit
through yet another "social sharing for X" or "group-curated Y" presentation,
I'm going to kill someone.

They focus on the follow-on startups and think "because so-and-so did it, I
can too!" instead of actually looking at the problem and trying to understand
it. They appear to be startups for startups sake.

If you read TechCrunch as if it's the center of the world, it's easy to get
into that mindset. Instead what you have to realize that it is a tiny piece of
the whole world and will never cover 99.99% of the startups out there who are
solving major life-changing, make-everyone-rich sorts of problems.

Go out, kick ass, and don't worry about what that 0.001% of the world is up
to.

~~~
SilasX
>They focus on the follow-on startups and think "because so-and-so did it, I
can too!" instead of actually looking at the problem and trying to understand
it. They appear to be startups for startups sake.

I saw this mentality when I went to a Mountain View meetup (for a semi-related
hobbyist group). One young woman there was a nurse (or related medical
professional) and announced that she wanted to get involved in a startup, and
could someone point her in the right direction. Immediately a group member
asked her what kind of start up and she looked completely surprised by the
question and said "something in medicine ... front ... end?"

I've also gone to a Startup Weekend where something like 95% of the ideas were
things I had literally thought of myself already but dismissed long ago
because of obvious problems, or that the proposers couldn't answer the most
basic questions about. When it came time to cast our three votes, one of mine
was basically to say "not really exited by this, but ahead of virtually
everyone here".

~~~
chris123
That's why you should go to startup weekends :) Just start up or shut up, as
they say. (Do they say that? If not, they should :))

