

Jason Kincaid Resigns From TC - ed
http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/24/jason-may-the-force-be-with-you/

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inmygarage
I am a big fan of Kincaid's style. At least from my interactions with him, he
has always taken time to actually learn about your product and why it's
special or different. Will be interesting to see what he does next.

His departure also speaks to a bigger trend re: AOL/HuffPo, which is their
apparently flippant attitude toward talent retention. The steady stream of
departures not only at TC, but also Engadget, shows an unwillingness to create
an environment where top writers/journalists/media innovators can thrive.
Though as an outsider, it's tough to tell if this is really the case.

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paulbjensen
I used to work in AOL's UK office. You have a point, talent retention is a
problem, and it's not because the staff are being poached, it's because this
company has political battles with massive knock-on effects on employee morale
and loyalty which is causing people to flee.

This has happened (and continues to happen) at AOL UK, and I feel for Jason
because when you read his post, you see how sad he is to be leaving TC.

There are some really lovely, funny, supportive, and wonderful people at AOL,
and to leave them behind is really hard. At times it makes you angry, and you
want to blame someone for it, and sometimes you want to write a massive rant
about all the shit you saw at AOL and email Business Insider and watch corp
comms go into overdrive. But in the end what does it give you?

It's better to say "onto better things" - just look at the Verge... I'm sure
Topolsky is glad about leaving Engadget and doing this project.

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ChrisNorstrom
I think Alexia is the only one left now. No offense but her stories were
awful.

My theory is that TC got so popular because its value was similar to that of a
Daily TV Show where we'd tune in everyday to hear from our favorite characters
(Arington the "villain" and Alexia the "girl we love to hate"). It wasn't just
about the articles or the stories it was the editors and their take on it. We
fell in love with watching them and their viewpoint, not necessarily staying
up to date. Because there's lots of sites with up to date tech news, opinion
pieces, and gadget reviews, many of which where much better than TCs content.
But TC put a lot more emphasis on the editor and the personality they injected
into their pieces. Even when they were wrong or biased we soaked it all up.
Normal news shows have the editor stand behind their piece, almost invisible
(which is the goal of journalism) but with TC the editors were proudly in
front of their articles, you knew exactly who the article was from just by
reading the first paragraph. It wasn't transparent at all. The focus wasn't
the news, it was the editors themselves. The human element.

This furthers my theory that above all else, we are addicted to people. It's
the human connection. Everywhere you look, social networks, online
multiplayer, everything having to do with connecting people has grown
immensely over the last few years. We emote by watching others emote, and we
form opinions by listening to others' opinions. This is why Fox News has grown
so much and why a lot of professional unbiased journalism has faded away.
Because deep down inside we don't want "balanced" we don't want "both sides of
the story" we want OUR side. When "Journalists" tell us what we want to hear
we call them "fair and balanced" and are completely oblivious to their biases.
And when their opinion didn't match ours we complain about the network or blog
and call it biased, agenda driven, unfair, awful news, etc...

Psychologically, we don't want "mom and dad" telling us what to do and what to
think, that's no fun. We want a fun loving neighbor that's just our age and
does the same things we do and likes the same things we like. We also don't
really want to be educated, doing so requires us to admit that we were wrong,
or that we don't know something, and that we have to change our thinking. To
seek education would mean that we admit that we are incorrect or inferior or
stupid. We want our opinion to be validated. We want "us" to be validated.

We are looking for ourselves in everything (brands cater to us, news caters to
us, video games caters to us, movies are whitewashed and stereotyped for us).
Look very carefully at Tech Crunch, it had "us" all over it. Arrington the
arrogant and dominating alpha male (what every man wants to be), Sarah Lacy
the hip, globe trotting, educated girl we wish we knew, Alexia for the high
school crowd, MG Siegler for the mac crowd, Jason Kincaid the awkward nice guy
/ best friend we never had, Paul Carr the opinionated smart guy, and so on and
so on. TC wasn't news at all, it was a tech themed personal blog aggregate.
Almost like a nonsexual dating site for techies. And it seduced us all, very,
very well.

Of course, now that everyone knows it'll be very interesting to see what
happens next, now that everyone knows the secret...

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nikcub
Of the people who were at TC while it was at the house, where it went from
blog to big business, I believe only Leena is remaining and some of the guys
from the gadget blog such as John.

Other blogs have successfully churned their writing staff and managed to
maintain popularity (Engadget, Gawker). But I think a lot of that unique voice
that Techcrunch had is no longer there, replaced with a style that is more
mainstream. That said, the audience for insider-style silicon valley startup
stories is only so big and the broader tech market is both larger and more
lucrative.

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swombat
So, how long before TC loses all its original headline writers? Surely the
growing number of leavers must massively decrease the value of the site...

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mattwrench
This is exactly why I don't think we'll see any media companies like Mashable
being bought anytime soon. Writers can move on too easily. Why would you
invest in something with so little retainable value?

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pluies
Well, that's the very definition of a talent acquisition, isn't it? Software
developers can move on just as easily.

~~~
harryh
<http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2011-10-04/>

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deepakprakash
Jason was my favorite at TC. Although not as prolific as the other, his
stories were well written and in an unassuming style.

More than anything, I enjoyed TC Cribs the most since they were the closest
thing to really see Valley startups at work - unless you worked for one of
them. :)

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pbreit
I actually like (or liked) TC (and MG and Mike, and Jason, et al) but all this
back-patting is getting a little ridiculous.

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fvryan
really enjoyed the TC cribs bits. onward and upward!

