Someone please explain the finer nuances of the law; I can't see how this is different from professional athletes forming their own association/union and stipulating a "minimum fee" e.g. NBA.
So A Blogger Walks Into A Bar…
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Re: So A Blogger Walks Into A Bar…
#132Congratulations to PG & company. When I first met Paul years ago, he was musing about spam filters and the finer points of a well-designed lisp. Now he apparently has the top 10 angels in Silicon Valley running scared of him.
The interesting thing is unlike that group of Angels apparently in the bar PG's interests are less about helping himself, and more about helping entrepreneurs. From an essay by PG entitled "Why YC":
The real reason we started Y Combinator is one probably only a hacker would understand. We did it because it seems such a great hack. There are thousands of smart people who could start companies and don't, and with a relatively small amount of force applied at just the right place, we can spring on the world a stream of new startups that might otherwise not have existed.
In a way this is virtuous, because I think startups are a good thing. But really what motivates us is the completely amoral desire that would motivate any hacker who looked at some complex device and realized that with a tiny tweak he could make it run more efficiently. In this case, the device is the world's economy, which fortunately happens to be open source.
Re: So A Blogger Walks Into A Bar…
#133So a blogger gets a tip from a source, knows the people involved, acts on it and smells a rat. He sticks around and talks to a few people he knows, makes a few calls and gets a breaking story. Sounds to me like bloggers are the new journalists and that traditional media is in big big trouble.
a breaking story would name names...him not naming names just means he can use this as a hammer to get better terms for Techcrunch(either I get exclusive to every deal you guys do...or your names will be posted)
Maybe. This approach shows some integrity too, though. Not everything has to turn into a scandal (at least if inappropriate behavior stops quickly). Call me soft on crime.
Re: So A Blogger Walks Into A Bar…
#134I am late in joining this thread and will add only a few observations to supplement the many good comments already here: 1. Competitor collusion and express agreements to restrict the freedom of each to compete (i.e., horizontal contractual dealings) do indeed expose the colluding parties to potentially serious liabilities under the Sherman and FTC Acts. If that is what is going on here, then Mr. Arrington has fired…
Grellas, would there have to be evidence that the participants were acting anti-competitively, or is being in the room enough? Arrington says that a few of the folks there were uncomfortable with what was going on, and were maybe there just to see what was happening.
Re: So A Blogger Walks Into A Bar…
#135I am late in joining this thread and will add only a few observations to supplement the many good comments already here: 1. Competitor collusion and express agreements to restrict the freedom of each to compete (i.e., horizontal contractual dealings) do indeed expose the colluding parties to potentially serious liabilities under the Sherman and FTC Acts. If that is what is going on here, then Mr. Arrington has fired…
The Wikipedia summary of Section 1 of the Sherman Act is a decent read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act#Violation...
Re: So A Blogger Walks Into A Bar…
#136Re: So A Blogger Walks Into A Bar…
#137Can an admin re-title this link? “Arrington Alleges SF Angel Collusion” or some such?
Re: So A Blogger Walks Into A Bar…
#138Congratulations to PG & company. When I first met Paul years ago, he was musing about spam filters and the finer points of a well-designed lisp. Now he apparently has the top 10 angels in Silicon Valley running scared of him.
The interesting thing is unlike that group of Angels apparently in the bar PG's interests are less about helping himself, and more about helping entrepreneurs. From an essay by PG entitled "Why YC": The real reason we started Y Combinator is one probably only a hacker would understand. We did it because it seems such a great hack. There are thousands of smart people who could start companies and don't, and with a rel…
I don't think anybody's stated interests should be taken as an indicator of their true interests. In this case, with PG, I do believe that his stated intentions are sincere. But there is often so little correlation between actual and stated intentions, that I don't take any such statement at face value.
Re: So A Blogger Walks Into A Bar…
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because Dave, Ron, Jeff, Mike, Josh and Chris would have a defamation suit filed by end-of-day. Clearly MA reached out to the attendees.. I wonder what the other 8 or 9 had to say. That's the other half of the story.
If Arrington lists a bunch of people were at a gathering, and they were, then there is nothing to sue over there. If he says "they were talking about pricing deals and how to club together to avoid convertable notes" , and they were, then there is nothing to sue over even if he has named the people there. I don't actually get your comment. If we DON'T believe this group were talking about what Arrington is claiming t…
You go from lawsuit to settlement in a punctuation mark where in reality it is months/years and millions of dollars.
Never give a person wealthier than you a reason to sue you - regardless of if you are wrong or right.
Re: So A Blogger Walks Into A Bar…
#140So a blogger gets a tip from a source, knows the people involved, acts on it and smells a rat. He sticks around and talks to a few people he knows, makes a few calls and gets a breaking story. Sounds to me like bloggers are the new journalists and that traditional media is in big big trouble.
a breaking story would name names...him not naming names just means he can use this as a hammer to get better terms for Techcrunch(either I get exclusive to every deal you guys do...or your names will be posted)
unlikely. business in the valley is not done by extortion.
more likely is that he doesn't want anyone to get in trouble, he's just putting them on notice.