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TechCrunch is a bully

lanewood.me

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Re: TechCrunch is a bully

#91

Post by robomc »

lmm wrote: post #88
robomc wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leaving aside the fraud question, my gut says if you hire someone as a consultant because you saw them in a bunch of photos with celebrities, or because you heard they went to xyz corporate parties, you deserve what happens. Don't make lazy shallow hiring decisions, and don't make "meeting the right people" the key to your business plan, and this is never a problem for you.

How naive and self-righteous. Such people "deserve" to be defrauded? Because they acknowledged the reality that funding often depends more on who you know than the merits of your product, and tried to work around it and get on with what they actually wanted to do rather than getting sidetracked on all the little injustices of the world? Because you consider the funded model of starting a business to be fundamentally…

I agree it's self righteous, but yeah, basically. Most businesses in the world focus on products, customers and profitability, not trendy lines of funding (and the non-tech "startup" scene has notably better rates of success - no googles, just honest businesses that do useful things for more money than they spend).

Regardless though, all businesses should think long and hard about hires, not just hire pointless people because they give the impression they know everyone in town.

The world is full of injustices, but I'd rather try my luck with those injustices than have to write consulting cheques to people who's bankable asset is how shamelessly they brag about who they party with.

Re: TechCrunch is a bully

#93

Post by kenster07 »

Most programmers are hard-working, relatively honest people. It must be difficult for them to watch people like Shirley pass them on the career ladder.

It's one thing to have people skills, and use it as a lever to add benefit and value to this world. The Shirley's of this world deserve zero sympathy.

That being said, the TechCrunch article wasn't as articulate as it should have been. At the very least, context should have been provided for these pictures.

Re: TechCrunch is a bully

#94

Post by Jgrubb »

mcantelon wrote: post #86
softbuilder wrote: post #54

>It’s like reading a middle school girl’s diary. Exactly this. There was no point to the story. Sure, I'll buy that the lady is a headcase/creeper or whatever. But that's it? No real crimes detailed or list of people screwed over? It was just a finger-pointing "hate this person right here" piece. Cyberbullying doesn't just happen to kids.

Expose fraud isn't bullying. She's a grown woman who chose to risk her reputation by playing a con game. Most con artists get away with it: she didn't. Her being exposed will deter other would-be parasites. Good.

> Most con artists get away with it

Citation needed.

> Her being exposed will deter other would-be parasites.

I don't think this is how it works. I think the parasite or pathological liar or con man will always think they're smarter than that last person who got caught, if they even consider that person at all. They're probably just "playing the game", right?

Re: TechCrunch is a bully

#95

Post by pi18n »

samstave wrote: post #36
steve8918 wrote: post #12

I 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.

It's not even news. The sole purpose of TC is to get traffic for web apps that Arrington and other insiders have a personal stake in.

Re: TechCrunch is a bully

#96

Post by xxiao »

I don't see any bully at all. In fact your title and the way you're describing is bullying. That article showed quite some evidences, where are yours? Plus, you called TechCrunch a bully outright, which is hard to do for any sensible human being, unless he/she is also a photoshop expert and got offended by this article.

Re: TechCrunch is a bully

#97

Post by edm4r »

error54 wrote: post #28

The article does seem a little bullying. I mean, what harm has she really done other than lie (which every business person has done since the beginning time). I could see if she caused some startup to go under or cost some company millions of dollars but to quote the author, "Shirley Hornstein has never done anything bad to me. Except, y’know, lie." It really seems like a bunch of people got together one night and ca…

Quoting the article:

"Sometimes it was mostly just embarrassing, in other cases reputations or deals had been affected by the deception."

However, they don't show what deals and reputations had been affected.

Re: TechCrunch is a bully

#98

Post by Uchikoma »

I'm burning my karma with this, but I appreciate this article. As a startup I'd like to be warned, probably people wasted time with this girl, time to market, time to VCs, time to get there startup somewhere b/c they believed this girl would help them when indeed she didn't. Could they have done better due dilligence? Perhaps. Would others tell how they got burned? Perhaps. But I don't follow the thinking that everything other people do to you is your fault b/c you should have known better. The wrongdoer is the victim stuff. And it's astonishing how HN reacts to guys that fake startups, connections, products compared to this girl that is faking her way around. We'll see if there is coming more.

Re: TechCrunch is a bully

#100

Post by alttab »

mkohlmyr wrote: post #3

Enough people still read TC to where it can be considered a bully? I'm being completely serious. It's been a long time since I paid attention to anything that was written on TechCrunch and it's been even longer since the thing I paid attention to was anything remotely sensible or interesting. I actively avoid visiting links to TechCrunch. Because the people who work there are a poor excuses for journalists - which is…

I was going to make my own top level comment, but this seems relevant, so I'll put it below yours:

TIL People still read Techcrunch.

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