Wow this whole exchange depresses the hell out of me. Can't we just build cool shit and leave this kind of lame drama for other industries?
TechCrunch is a bully
31–40 of 119 posts
Re: TechCrunch is a bully
#32I'm pretty sure if you misrepresent yourself that blatantly time and time again you deserve what is coming to you. "she has the top media company in the tech industry trying to take her down." Oh please, she blatantly lied many times about many things to high profile people. That is a story and its going to get written about by someone whether its Techcrunch or someone else.
What am I missing? What do you know that you're not saying? I can't find anything in the original TC article that said "she blatantly lied many times about many things to high profile people". Who did she lie to? What was the lie? Was it a lie or just an exaggeration? The TC article mentions Founders Fund a bunch, and not much else.
That's my thought. I have no time for people who bullshit and lie. I've been burned before. But that's my fault for not doing due diligence. I just don't think that a TC article was really called for for a nobody. Not unless you're going to provide more context than was in the story. I mean it's hard to care either way, but I certainly felt rubbed the wrong way by the tone of the TC article and the subject matter - attacking an individual publicly when as far as I can see no serious harm was done. She needs help, I'll agree to that, but I doubt this kind of thing will prod her to get it.
Re: TechCrunch is a bully
#33I'm pretty sure if you misrepresent yourself that blatantly time and time again you deserve what is coming to you. "she has the top media company in the tech industry trying to take her down." Oh please, she blatantly lied many times about many things to high profile people. That is a story and its going to get written about by someone whether its Techcrunch or someone else.
What am I missing? What do you know that you're not saying? I can't find anything in the original TC article that said "she blatantly lied many times about many things to high profile people". Who did she lie to? What was the lie? Was it a lie or just an exaggeration? The TC article mentions Founders Fund a bunch, and not much else.
So, photoshopping yourself into pictures with several different people is "an exaggeration" to you?
Re: TechCrunch is a bully
#34The moral of this blog post seems to be that most tech companies' execs are all as big of tools as this gal.
Okay.
So I'm supposed to somehow trust someone's company that's trying to be some fake Silicon Valley star effer? I dunno man. Maybe she has the best social kitten mashup ever but I can't imagine if I had a million dollars to invest that I'd let this one anywhere near it.
Re: TechCrunch is a bully
#35I know this might come as a surprise to some.. but no one outside the valley cares. :)
In fact, I'd bet very few inside the valley care.
Re: TechCrunch is a bully
#36I have no real interest in either side of this story, and Techcrunch isn't really on my rolodex of sites to read from. That being said, I don't think the original Techcrunch article was being a bully at all. The fact that she allegedly has gotten away with the simplest of social engineering tactics against a group that most likely thinks of themselves as at least smarter than average, was fairly interesting to me. It…
While I agree with your not being on a side - my personal opinion is this:
Techcrunch was founded and run by a douchebag - thus douchebaggery is in its DNA.
Re: TechCrunch is a bully
#37I'd like your leave to go a bit meta here, hope you don't mind.
What I find interesting about this exchange (the original TC article and Lanewood's response) is the message "don't do this because it hurts."
Yes, it does. But my experience is that pain is a signal you listen to, it's one of those things that says "stop doing what you are doing." It is a corrective force.
Making exaggerated claims about your influence or connections or importance to folks is wrong. It is wrong because it abuses the trust the other person put into the person lying, which then causes great hurt and shame when they realize they have been "duped" or "fooled" or "lied to". Calling someone on it, is hurtful too, but its important to do as well. That pain going the other way is a signal to moderate behavior, or change it.
So this conversation is "Shirley is a liar" / "You shouldn't do that because it hurts her feelings" seems to want to shut down a force working for good, which is better behavior.
I know I would love it if people were more honest about themselves, but I also know that some folks have convinced themselves that their own self worth is tied up in how influential they perceive themselves to be. Thus exaggerating that influence is like make-up, or fancy bling, its a crutch to prop up their self image.
I think there is pain on both sides of this conversation, at least a couple of kilo-snarks. If it helps someone to become a better person, its beneficial. But if they don't have the mental tools to process it they can (and sometimes do) become simply depressed by it. I don't think either party in this conversation represented themselves particularly well. If Shirley is young now would be a good time to come to grips with the way she presents herself. TC should work at doing better at informing rather than blaming (it did read like it came right out of Valleywag). Continuing acting this way on both parties will only hurt them going forward.
Re: TechCrunch is a bully
#38One Word About the attacks on Shirley Hornstein...
Schadenfreude
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schadenfreude
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Re: TechCrunch is a bully
#39I have no real interest in either side of this story, and Techcrunch isn't really on my rolodex of sites to read from. That being said, I don't think the original Techcrunch article was being a bully at all. The fact that she allegedly has gotten away with the simplest of social engineering tactics against a group that most likely thinks of themselves as at least smarter than average, was fairly interesting to me. It…
While I agree with your not being on a side - my personal opinion is this: Techcrunch was founded and run by a douchebag - thus douchebaggery is in its DNA.
Unfortunately this is true. I'm not sure all that many people know where the founder came from, i.e., the type of stuff he was doing before TechCrunch, and the company he worked for - a company responsible for a very large portion of some of the purest douchbaggery to be found anywhere on the web. The lowest of the low. They do some very dirty work. I'd even guess there are "innocent" people working at TC who do not know the history.
I wanted to see TC as some sort of redemption for this guy, a stepping away from the sort of douchebaggery he was doing previously. But, after watching TC for a number of years, it clearly was a progression to an even more potent form of sleaze. If people are using underhanded tactics with TC, then I can only conclude that they've succeeded in attracting the very same type of people which they are themselves (excluding anyone working there who is naive and unaware).
Re: TechCrunch is a bully
#40I seriously am considering swearing off TechCrunch because of this article. True or not, their hegemony gives them so much power, and to see it foolishly used in this way was disturbing. The people she was claiming to know are big boys/girls. This should have been handled socially in the valley.
As someone who stopped reading them years ago, let me tell you an incontrovertible fact of the Internet: if it's worth reading, it will show up in every aggregator you still pay attention to, three times on the front page of HN if necessary. Propagation is a cue for importance, which is why TC (and RWW, and...) spend so much effort manually posting these stories all over the place themselves. They're faking it, too.
But there are so many things that are propagated that aren't important. Consistently negative world news, for starters.