TechCrunch As We Know It May Be Over

We did an interesting experiment on conflicts of interest in Italy with our prime minister and it didn't go very well. Better avoid them.

You can have a huge influence on content without ever saying "print this" or "don't print that."

It's the end of TC as we know it, and I feel fine...

I'm going to take a look at this drama through an organizational behavior lens, as a case study for the decision facing HuffPo:

TC is a blogging organization whose leader has a strong personality and reputation, though he exerts little to no editorial control over the content of the org. Instead, influences the org by his hiring decisions, editorial policies and culture.

Arguably, those hiring decisions, editorial policies and culture are what has brought such success to this org. That, plus a powerful brand that this leader established from the beginning.

To continue the success of this org means replicating these factors. The brand is already established, but the system that sustains its success should remain as much as possible.

The current team also has a wide soapbox and strong opinions. If the owners of this org believes that the current team is necessary for its sustained success, then the owners will need to appease this team and involve them in the recruiting process of a new leader (if it decides to dismiss the current leader).

The risk of not appeasing this team is a loss of talent. It's certainly possible to recruit new blogging talent, though the current team has significant individual brand equity and established relationships. The org's owners will need to weigh the pros and cons of this as they make their decisions.

That sounds like there is a good chance that this was a malicious action, "how can we get rid of Arrington without making everyone hate us?" I have a hard time believing that they set the whole fund up, went through all the motions, and only after Mike publicly announced it did they say, "Oh, maybe there's a conflict of interest here..."

It was probably concocted with the intent to remove Mike Arrington, replace him with AOL's own suit that can squeeze more money out of TC, and look like a white knight while doing so, improving the reputation of AOL's "journalism" properties (which are the only significant part of AOL left, really).

I understand this is a violation of Hanlon's Razor, the incompetence seems a bit far-fetched for me. I would expect at least someone in the company saw this coming.

If the concern is the journalistic integrity of a tech news blog whose founder also funds certain startups likely to wind up in the tech news... one way would be to make those investments subject to an NDA I suppose. None of the blog writers would know which companies were or were not funded by the founder's fund.

Or a news blackout could be imposed on that blog for any companies funded by the founder's VC firm. I suppose the news blackout would be an imperfect solution, since presumably reportage on any competitors to the portfolio companies could be viewed as suspect.

Even if Mr. Siegler insists that the tech blog where he works is a cool place founded by a cool guy, that does not address the perception of the blog from the outside. If there is any perception at all of potential bias, then both the VC fund and the tech blog suffer an erosion of perceived integrity (regardless of whether or not that is actually the case).

Independence is a tricky thing. I think maybe if TechCrunch were not part of AoL, then they could potentially pull off this balancing act. They have enough momentum now that readership won't evaporate overnight, and a few blog posts critical of portfolio companies or complimentary to competitor companies would re-establish their credibility. But a big corporate parent is not going to like that kind of the seat-of-the-pants approach to managing risk. Doubtless somewhere in the bowels of AoL somebody is running the numbers of what would happen if somebody sued along the way, and not liking what they see.

As for Mr. Siegler ranting about his employer on a blog they own, that strikes me as a classic CLM. Big ol' corporations really really tend to hate it when someone down on the front lines starts to think they're irreplaceable and they can do as they please, just because they've taken a lot of bullets and led a few charges over their little piece of the battlefront. A better approach would have been to tactfully address all of the issues he addressed, in the interest of informing the readers, and with the same goal of trying to gin up reader support. But he could have mentioned that he really appreciates the resources at his disposal thanks to the AoL acquisition, and he believes that TechCrunch adds value to the parent firm primarily due to its unique editorial independence policies, etc. As it reads now, he comes off as churlish. Nobody likes to have f-bombs hurled at them, not even dull gray corporate types in upper management. It really burns when those f-bombs are lobbed by someone on the payroll.

IMHO, if Mr. Siegler truly wants to help his boss keep his job, his best move now would be to pull that little rant pronto, and edit it to be a lot more polite and respectful to AoL, throw in some mea culpas about getting wound up too soon, etc. and then re-state his case in terms that corporate can understand and appreciate. AoL might be a bunch of assholes, but they are the assholes that cut his check.