Arrington's Back(techcrunch.com)
techcrunch.com
Arrington's Back
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/02/back-i-am/
37 comments
This already got killed once: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=499909
It'll be interesting to see if he addresses things like the last.fm story, and how things really went without him.
Good he's back, I think the quality of TC dropped there...
Good he's back, I think the quality of TC dropped there...
who the hell cares?!
Obviously quite a few people, especially on Hacker News. Mr. Arrington is clearly a polarizing figure and if you wish to see him marginalized I would advise you to refrain from posting comments such as this one - It only fuels the fire.
I do.
Why?
TechCrunch - it's like choosing to read adverts.
Is your caring about TechCrunch more about the y-Combinator startups it plugs, the general state of news-blogging or interest in the content?
TechCrunch - it's like choosing to read adverts.
Is your caring about TechCrunch more about the y-Combinator startups it plugs, the general state of news-blogging or interest in the content?
Whether or not you like it, TC is the "paper of record" for startups. Most of the new startups I hear about, I hear about there first.
But the reason I said that I cared is that I worry about Michael personally. The new kind of journalism people like him and Om Malik have been evolving is very stressful. They end up being constantly plugged in. It's alarming to watch
But the reason I said that I cared is that I worry about Michael personally. The new kind of journalism people like him and Om Malik have been evolving is very stressful. They end up being constantly plugged in. It's alarming to watch
They have "evolved" a style of "journalism" that involves blind repetition of speculative, often unverified, information. It's like they are playing a game of broken telephone, but with a megaphone in hand. They have to be constantly plugged in because -- guess what -- that is the only value that they offer; the ability to be first at all costs.
There are some things that I'll be a little bit patient about. Cooking my hamburger? You know what, take your time, make sure it's cooked thoroughly. Putting down a concrete foundation for me? By all means, let it cure and set so I don't have to put up with cracks in a few years.
I don't have time to be plugged in 24/7 to hear about the latest startups. But I do enjoy reading about them. So, I'd personally rather read about a story once, and have the information be accurate and thorough rather than be the first to hear about a story but be misinformed.
As I approach my thirties, I remember a funny story an older guy shared with me when I was in my early twenties. There's an old bull and a younger bull walking up a hill. When they get to the top, they look down and see a whole field of female cattle. The younger bull, excited, turns to the older bull and says "I'm going to run down there and have my way with one of them!". The older bull chuckles dismissively and replies, "Okay, well I'm going to walk down there and have my way with all of them!"
Do things correctly. I'm of the opinion -- I fully understand it is simply an opinion -- that the way TC does things is incorrect. I wish they would adopt a style of investigative journalism that held to the profession's ideals a bit more. In fact, I wish more of the mainstream media would do the same these days.
There are some things that I'll be a little bit patient about. Cooking my hamburger? You know what, take your time, make sure it's cooked thoroughly. Putting down a concrete foundation for me? By all means, let it cure and set so I don't have to put up with cracks in a few years.
I don't have time to be plugged in 24/7 to hear about the latest startups. But I do enjoy reading about them. So, I'd personally rather read about a story once, and have the information be accurate and thorough rather than be the first to hear about a story but be misinformed.
As I approach my thirties, I remember a funny story an older guy shared with me when I was in my early twenties. There's an old bull and a younger bull walking up a hill. When they get to the top, they look down and see a whole field of female cattle. The younger bull, excited, turns to the older bull and says "I'm going to run down there and have my way with one of them!". The older bull chuckles dismissively and replies, "Okay, well I'm going to walk down there and have my way with all of them!"
Do things correctly. I'm of the opinion -- I fully understand it is simply an opinion -- that the way TC does things is incorrect. I wish they would adopt a style of investigative journalism that held to the profession's ideals a bit more. In fact, I wish more of the mainstream media would do the same these days.
They have "evolved" a style of "journalism" that involves blind repetition of speculative, often unverified, information.
A fine, ringing denunciation. But let's consider performance. Do you learn more about startups from TechCrunch or the New York Times? I learn much more from TechCrunch. By the time the NYT gets around to writing about a startup, the news is usually pretty old. And they often get the story wrong, despite their supposedly greater professionalism, because they don't understand the domain as well as TC's writers do.
If you think there's a better source of information about startups than TechCrunch, what is it?
A fine, ringing denunciation. But let's consider performance. Do you learn more about startups from TechCrunch or the New York Times? I learn much more from TechCrunch. By the time the NYT gets around to writing about a startup, the news is usually pretty old. And they often get the story wrong, despite their supposedly greater professionalism, because they don't understand the domain as well as TC's writers do.
If you think there's a better source of information about startups than TechCrunch, what is it?
Bear with me as when I'm tired and have had a long day, I tend to be verbose. This is one of those times :-)
I've attempted not to visited TechCrunch since the the spring of 2007. The times I have were unintentional visits because I had followed a hyperlink without looking at the target site's domain in the status bar. This happens a few times a month at most. So I think it would be better to answer your question in the context of back when I was a reader of TechCrunch. Did I learn more about startups from TechCrunch than the NYT? Absolutely, I did learn quite a bit. However, I spent an obscene amount of time processing all the information that was coming through looking for stuff that was actually worth investigating.
This work is a worthy trade-off for you. The name of your game is identifying and quantifying value, preferably before anyone else even is aware of the opportunity's existence. A mining company needs to invest great resources in processing dull, repetitive, low signal-to-noise-ratio geological information in order to find gold. Well, reading TC is the equivalent task for VCs.
One has to question why the rest of us, hackers mostly, care about this "geological information". We hackers are essentially just miners. Some of us are better than others at extracting the gold from the mine we work in. The few of us that work in our own startups might want to be aware of competing neighbouring mines, having opened up our own, surely.
But otherwise, what necessitates the speculative, dramatic sort of reporting that TC has popularized? Having grown up in the 1990s, I remember a time when common people -- my teachers, friends' parents, etc. -- listened for any hint of geological information coming from a mining company called Bre-X. I distinctly remember exciting, daily reporting on the subject from all the mainstream papers and television networks (the web was a toddler back then). Bre-X had apparently found a huge gold deposit. Soon, regular people were experts at interpreting geological reports, and the media was feeding this frenzy by reporting any piece of speculation they could, as fast as they could.
I'm sure there are a few Canadians around here that can chime in on just what happened to Bre-X. The Wikipedia article does not even come close to explaining how much a part of popular culture it was for a good year or two. But essentially, the speculation fed itself and the scene became more about the speculative information than the gold that was supposed to be back at the mine; gold that ultimately was not there.
I fear that TC is caught up in this same game. Take away the speculation and there's little gold. You could kill the news.ycombinator.com and paulgraham.com websites tomorrow and people could say "Well, they had a good run. They helped spawn Reddit, Justin.TV, Dropbox, Scribd, etc." I could be wrong -- my ignorance due to avoiding TC the past couple of years may be apparent here -- but what are the startups that people will associate with TC having popularized? I can't think of a single one. But not even having read TC the past couple of years, I know a few myths that they have helped to popularize and dramas that they created.
So is there a better source of information about startups? I'd argue that what TC does well is let us know about the existence of a startup. There, it really is the best source of information. But once that startup is on your radar, going straight to the startups themselves is a pretty good source of information. Most are run in a fairly open manner, with the founders offering candid looks into their operations if you're kind enough to ask and seem genuinely interested. A lot have blogs where they answer your questions before you need to ask. Plus, people seem to enjoy connecting with other like-minded individuals and sharing their growing pains, proud achievements, and listening to advice (and taking it with a grain of salt of course!).
I suppose if everybody adopts this strategy, it would fail as it simply does not scale. So I take back what I said. Everybody else, ahem, get all your information from TC ;)
I've attempted not to visited TechCrunch since the the spring of 2007. The times I have were unintentional visits because I had followed a hyperlink without looking at the target site's domain in the status bar. This happens a few times a month at most. So I think it would be better to answer your question in the context of back when I was a reader of TechCrunch. Did I learn more about startups from TechCrunch than the NYT? Absolutely, I did learn quite a bit. However, I spent an obscene amount of time processing all the information that was coming through looking for stuff that was actually worth investigating.
This work is a worthy trade-off for you. The name of your game is identifying and quantifying value, preferably before anyone else even is aware of the opportunity's existence. A mining company needs to invest great resources in processing dull, repetitive, low signal-to-noise-ratio geological information in order to find gold. Well, reading TC is the equivalent task for VCs.
One has to question why the rest of us, hackers mostly, care about this "geological information". We hackers are essentially just miners. Some of us are better than others at extracting the gold from the mine we work in. The few of us that work in our own startups might want to be aware of competing neighbouring mines, having opened up our own, surely.
But otherwise, what necessitates the speculative, dramatic sort of reporting that TC has popularized? Having grown up in the 1990s, I remember a time when common people -- my teachers, friends' parents, etc. -- listened for any hint of geological information coming from a mining company called Bre-X. I distinctly remember exciting, daily reporting on the subject from all the mainstream papers and television networks (the web was a toddler back then). Bre-X had apparently found a huge gold deposit. Soon, regular people were experts at interpreting geological reports, and the media was feeding this frenzy by reporting any piece of speculation they could, as fast as they could.
I'm sure there are a few Canadians around here that can chime in on just what happened to Bre-X. The Wikipedia article does not even come close to explaining how much a part of popular culture it was for a good year or two. But essentially, the speculation fed itself and the scene became more about the speculative information than the gold that was supposed to be back at the mine; gold that ultimately was not there.
I fear that TC is caught up in this same game. Take away the speculation and there's little gold. You could kill the news.ycombinator.com and paulgraham.com websites tomorrow and people could say "Well, they had a good run. They helped spawn Reddit, Justin.TV, Dropbox, Scribd, etc." I could be wrong -- my ignorance due to avoiding TC the past couple of years may be apparent here -- but what are the startups that people will associate with TC having popularized? I can't think of a single one. But not even having read TC the past couple of years, I know a few myths that they have helped to popularize and dramas that they created.
So is there a better source of information about startups? I'd argue that what TC does well is let us know about the existence of a startup. There, it really is the best source of information. But once that startup is on your radar, going straight to the startups themselves is a pretty good source of information. Most are run in a fairly open manner, with the founders offering candid looks into their operations if you're kind enough to ask and seem genuinely interested. A lot have blogs where they answer your questions before you need to ask. Plus, people seem to enjoy connecting with other like-minded individuals and sharing their growing pains, proud achievements, and listening to advice (and taking it with a grain of salt of course!).
I suppose if everybody adopts this strategy, it would fail as it simply does not scale. So I take back what I said. Everybody else, ahem, get all your information from TC ;)
>If you think there's a better source of information about startups than TechCrunch, what is it?
Both readwriteweb and gigaom have better articles. The only arguable thing TC has going for it is that they're usually the first with the "news", which is only the result of Arrington's refusal to cover startups if they don't go to him first.
Both readwriteweb and gigaom have better articles. The only arguable thing TC has going for it is that they're usually the first with the "news", which is only the result of Arrington's refusal to cover startups if they don't go to him first.
I second ReadWriteWeb as well. Almost as fast, more technical, less sensationalism. I've pretty much stopped reading TechCrunch except for the UK section of late (and there just to keep tabs on Europe-specific stuff since I prefer it to TheNextWeb).
Hm, I blacklisted readwriteweb a while ago for myself when I noticed they had a lot of "submarine articles" (meaning articles somebody paid them for).
"new kind of journalism"? Seems to me about 5 paragraphs of the story are basically an ad for the hotel he stayed in. Adding "full disclosure" does not turn this type of writing into journalism (not a new kind, anyway).
For as much as I dislike TC in general, I can't help but feel a little sorry for Michael... the man looks like he's aged 20 years since he started TC and I think that "constantly plugged in" thing is a big part of it.
They cover internet startup news, people. It's about as on topic here as it can get. There's a lowest common denominator aspect to their coverage, but all of this anger is not justified.
I do too.
Michael isn't just any old tech journalist (although that would be fine). He's a startup founder. Tech Crunch covered startups when it wasn't popular and showed founders around the world that we weren't operating in a vacuum (all before he knew if there would ever be any money in it). The fact is he has worked his ass off writing about our industry and advocating on behalf of startups the past few years.
He's not just writing about us. He's one of us. Michael doesn't just deserve our respect, he deserves our gratitude.
Thanks Michael and welcome back!
Michael isn't just any old tech journalist (although that would be fine). He's a startup founder. Tech Crunch covered startups when it wasn't popular and showed founders around the world that we weren't operating in a vacuum (all before he knew if there would ever be any money in it). The fact is he has worked his ass off writing about our industry and advocating on behalf of startups the past few years.
He's not just writing about us. He's one of us. Michael doesn't just deserve our respect, he deserves our gratitude.
Thanks Michael and welcome back!
I think it's a travesty that he was beaten down so bad by the negativity that he had to leave in the first place. This wasn't a vacation, it was a retreat - for the wrong reasons.
wow i have to say i'm a little astonished at the emotional (and largely negative) responses from people to Arrington simply announcing to his readers that he is back.
he wasn't trying to start a flame war. he simply let his readers know what he had done during his hiatus.
and yes this is noteworthy for the startup community. when the largest start-up related blogger (like it or not) comes back after being a month out of the game (7 months in newspaper years), it's kinda a big deal.
how is a "who the hell cares?!" comment worthy of 65 upvotes? it doesn't even pass the first 2 words in the comment guidelines (http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).
he wasn't trying to start a flame war. he simply let his readers know what he had done during his hiatus.
and yes this is noteworthy for the startup community. when the largest start-up related blogger (like it or not) comes back after being a month out of the game (7 months in newspaper years), it's kinda a big deal.
how is a "who the hell cares?!" comment worthy of 65 upvotes? it doesn't even pass the first 2 words in the comment guidelines (http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).
This came off to me as a boastful post, showing off that he can afford holidays in these credit-crunchy times. Is this just me or am I being grumpy again?
I'm sure he'd be astonished to find that anyone thought that.
It's an interesting data point about what a minefield it is to be a public figure though. People get offended by the stuff you write, so you go off and stop writing for a month, and then they're offended that you were able to go on vacation for so long.
It's an interesting data point about what a minefield it is to be a public figure though. People get offended by the stuff you write, so you go off and stop writing for a month, and then they're offended that you were able to go on vacation for so long.
You just have to deal with it. People _will_ get offended.
Being several (quite a lot of) orders of magnitude less influential than TC (and you), I try hard not to deal with it. I will invariably offend a more or less constant portion of my readership every article I write. I try to be as fair and as truthful as I can and, if that offends, say, 10% of my readers, so be it. There is nothing more I could do without compromising my own integrity.
And that is far more important than how many people I may offend.
Being several (quite a lot of) orders of magnitude less influential than TC (and you), I try hard not to deal with it. I will invariably offend a more or less constant portion of my readership every article I write. I try to be as fair and as truthful as I can and, if that offends, say, 10% of my readers, so be it. There is nothing more I could do without compromising my own integrity.
And that is far more important than how many people I may offend.
I'm not offended by the fact that he went on a long vacation, or even that he wrote an article about it. What bugs me is that somehow it's front-page news. This article has zero content.
You are just being grumpy. The airfare to Hawaii from the bay area is less than $300 round trip. If you are going alone and want to stay in a "surf shack" style apartment, it's probably less money than renting a single room in Atherton or wherever Arrington lives. Plus the down economy means everything else is on sale. It's actually a great time to go to Hawaii IMO. (I am on vacation in Hawaii)
Carl Jung has a fascinating theory of archetypes - you may be familiar with it - that are unconscious processes that impact our conscious mind in ways that are subtle and difficult to detect. One manner of this effect is projection. In that case your Shadow ( a prominent archetype) projects itself onto other people and onto external events and you end up interacting with essentially yourself, even though you think you are interacting with the world. Perhaps you are projecting some aspect onto Arrington's post.
Then again, you could be just grumpy.
Then again, you could be just grumpy.
I think it's just you. I doubt that most people are really much poorer than this time last year.
Oh goody. The web was crashing without him.
Don't worry, it's being rebooted now: http://scobleizer.com/2007/05/01/microsoft-rebooted-the-web-...
Now I know where I might want to stay if I ever go to Hawaii. Thanks for posting this.
[deleted]
He said something about being fully booked, but I offered to pay more than his usual rate and said I’d plug Surfboard House on TechCrunch (consider that a disclosure). He had (and still has) no idea what TechCrunch is, but the dollars did the trick. Schedules were juggled, I stayed.
I take "schedules were juggled" to indicate that other patrons were bumped, which would make MA a world-class shithead.
I take "schedules were juggled" to indicate that other patrons were bumped, which would make MA a world-class shithead.
why? would that make him a shithead? Surely it'd make the hotel a "shithead" or something?
The visitor that got bumped probably got a discount if he comes back in a week or two, or something.
The visitor that got bumped probably got a discount if he comes back in a week or two, or something.
You make a good point, which is that there might have been a discount offered or some other incentive, and the rescheduling might have been entirely voluntary on the part of the patrons. I'm not going to pass final judgment, since I clearly don't know the full story.
My observation is that many hotels aren't so kind about this sort of thing. I was once on the receiving end (sort of) of a similar situation, in Juneau, AK. It's a small city with a short tourism window, so it tends to be packed in the summer. Some rich piece of shit called up one of the major hotels and asked for half of it so he could throw a party. Patrons were booted, regardless of reservations. I wasn't in that hotel, so I wasn't directly booted, but it affected the entire city, because it was impossible to get a hotel due to all the displaced people. My girlfriend and I ended up staying in a "historic" ex-brothel hotel in a room right over a nightclub.
My observation is that many hotels aren't so kind about this sort of thing. I was once on the receiving end (sort of) of a similar situation, in Juneau, AK. It's a small city with a short tourism window, so it tends to be packed in the summer. Some rich piece of shit called up one of the major hotels and asked for half of it so he could throw a party. Patrons were booted, regardless of reservations. I wasn't in that hotel, so I wasn't directly booted, but it affected the entire city, because it was impossible to get a hotel due to all the displaced people. My girlfriend and I ended up staying in a "historic" ex-brothel hotel in a room right over a nightclub.