The Michael Arrington era at TechCrunch may have finally come to an end.
Over the past several days, the biggest controversy in the blogosphere has been with what’s happening over at TechCrunch. When Michael Arrington, the founder, Editor-in-Chief, and lead writer of TechCrunch, announced that he was forming an investment fund, CrunchFund, that was going to invest in technology start-ups, people went ape shit. TechCrunch, which Arrington sold to AOL for $30 million about a year ago, reports on technology start-ups and, arguably, no one does it better. Michael Arrington is the most (in)famous, most powerful tech writer in the world. That being said, a firestorm has erupted over what many are saying is a massive fucking conflict of interest. And now AOL may be on the verge of kicking Michael Arrington out of TechCrunch completely.
Early this morning, MG Siegler posted an article on TechCrunch that basically told everyone that he believed the end of the Arrington-era at the blog was about over. His post, which was extremely impassioned and blasted AOL for the decision to remove Arrington, went on to say that if Michael Arrington leaves TechCrunch, that the blog will become a shell of what it has become. To quote from his post, which is titled, “TechCrunch As We Know It May Be Over“…
“This is a post I never thought I’d have to write. Unfortunately, I do. And the worst part about it is that it should be Michael Arrington writing this post, not me.
But he can’t.
TechCrunch is on the precipice. As soon as tomorrow, Mike may be thrown out of the company he founded. Or he may not. No one knows. And if he is, he will be replaced by — well, again, no one knows. No one knows much of anything. Certainly no one at TechCrunch. This site is about to change forever and we’re in the total fucking dark. I’ve been able to piece together little bits of information here and there, and it’s not looking good. Hence, this post.
By now, if you read TechCrunch, you likely know about the nuclear situation that has exploded over the past several days. Mike unveiled an investing entity known as the “CrunchFund” with full AOL support — so much support, mind you, that they’re the largest backers of the fund — only to have his legs kicked out from under him due to what can only be described as nonsensical political infighting and really poor communication. To make matters worse, some Journalists (with a big “J” and even bigger senses of entitlement) have proceeded to pile on, despite having no real knowledge — at all — of the way TechCrunch actually works. And now here we are.”
So, before we move on, here are the facts:
- Michael Arrington sold TechCrunch to AOL last year for a sum of $30 million.
- Michael Arrington, while still employed by AOL and as the head of TechCrunch, established The CrunchFund, a fund that will invest in technology start-ups, many of which are reported on by TechCrunch.
- AOL invested $10 million into The CrunchFund, contributing about half of the money invested in the fund.
- After announcing the fund, no one at AOL, Michael Arrington included, seems to know if he does or doesn’t still run TechCrunch or even if he still works for AOL.
Okay, so now that we all know what’s going on, let’s move into the question of whether Michael Arrington should be forced to leave TechCrunch. Last week, Arrington made the statement that, “TechCrunch is me and I am TechCrunch.” And, as MG Siegler said in his TechCrunch post, TechCrunch is what it is because of Arrington and if he leaves, it will fall down quite a few pegs. All of that considered, I do believe that AOL has no choice but to remove Arrington. And, really, its all Michael Arrington’s fault.
Everyone wants to keep making the argument that TechCrunch is “different”, that it doesn’t need to operate on the same journalistic standards that everyone else operates by. That may have been absolutely true when TechCrunch was still owned by Michael Arrington. Now, however, TechCrunch is owned by AOL and the unfortunate truth is that when Arrington signed over his blog to AOL, TechCrunch was no longer Michael Arrington. TechCrunch is now AOL, and AOL is TechCrunch. Everyone involved may have pretended otherwise (up until now), but that’s the way it is. And while Arrington’s TechCrunch was “different”, it is now just another AOL owned property and as a company that wants to be taken seriously as a media outlet, it must uphold basic journalistic standards across its organization.
And, yes, this will no doubt result in TechCrunch becoming something different, possibly something not as good as it once was. And that’s fine with AOL, because AOL didn’t buy TechCrunch for $30 million for any other reason than because it wanted to make a shit-ton of money off of the site. Which it will. Because, at the end of the day, advertisers will still pay top dollar to have an ad appear on the blog. And the site will still attract hundreds of millions of hits, as it has for some time, now. The people who will miss the Arrington culture the most will be the TechCrunch staff, like MG Siegler, who now work for a corporate media giant, as opposed to a hip, independent technology blog. And, again, it was Michael Arrington’s decision to sell TechCrunch that caused all of this. If Michael Arrington wanted to run both TechCrunch and CrunchFund, he shouldn’t have sold the blog to AOL. And now, yes, he needs to decide if he’s going to be in charge of a tech blog or a tech investment fund. Because he can’t, and shouldn’t, be both.
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