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The Real History of TechCrunch

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Re: The Real History of TechCrunch

#31

Post by dpwm »

vidarh wrote: post #18

I won't say a huge deal about this, as I now work with Keith again, and haven't spoken to Mike for years, but I'm extremely surprised to see this version of events, as when I worked on Edgeio (I built the prototype, and managed the dev team for a while and continued to build the system) while Edgeio's and Techcrunch's offices were both in the house Mike rented in Atherton (Edgeio was largely built from the bedroom ac…

There's also a profile of Arrington in Wired from 2007 [0]. It also gives the impression that Techcrunch grew out of his personal research for new business models whilst he was working with "Arrington's longtime associate and mentor, Keith Teare."

Just in case anyone thinks this was perhaps written without Arrington's knowledge, his blog post would suggest otherwise. [1]

[0] https://www.wired.com/2007/06/ff-arrington/

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20070501222122/http://www.crunch...

EDIT: Removed ambiguity regarding whose research.

Re: The Real History of TechCrunch

#32

Post by telltruth »

majani wrote: post #25

Two sides to every story. One thing that sticks out here is why Arrington of all people would easily cave and give 10% to someone who did "nothing."

Other side seems to be pretty simple: Arrington accepted to be co-founder of Archimedes Labs with 25% ownership. The Archimedes Labs was founded by Keith with him retaining 75% ownership and it was merely a shell company for many future startups. The problem in this arrangement was that whatever Arrington or Keith did would be counted as new or existing startup work under Archimedes Labs umbrella and therefore other co-founder also gets to become co-founder on each others work - even if they had zero contribution. So it was possible for Keith to legally challenge Arrington and grab 75% share in TC even with zero contribution. As litigation is expensive for startups, Arrington decided to settle by giving him 10% share - which technically also established him as "co-founder".

Re: The Real History of TechCrunch

#33

Post by cocktailpeanuts »

ckastner wrote: post #10
cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #6

Regardless of what the legal structure was, it's pretty pathetic to keep calling yourself a "cofounder" when everyone knows you didn't do jack shit for the company. Kind of amusing because that's what that guy seems to be doing on a Twitter thread https://twitter.com/kteare/status/965488545187147776

He's calling himself a "co-founding shareholder" though, which appears to be undisputed. (Not that weasel-wording is much better than outright lying.)

That's because he's replying directly to Arrington. Would be hilarious if he kept insisting he's a "cofounder" on the same thread.

But just do a google search and you'll see that the guy has been really capitalizing on the "TechCrunch Cofounder" brand for almost a decade now.

Re: The Real History of TechCrunch

#34

Post by cocktailpeanuts »

birken wrote: post #28

It seems the one fact that nobody is disputing is that the guy in question owned 10% of Techcrunch. Generally people who own 10% of a company had significant involvement in it. Not always, there are always edge cases, but that is a good general rule. Maybe this is one of those edge cases. But claiming somebody who owns 10% of the company had literally nothing to do with the company is an extraordinary claim that I'd…

Let's say he really deserves the 10%. That doesn't make him a "cofounder". That only makes him a shareholder. If owning some shares in a company made you a cofounder, by that logic any angel investor or VC is a cofounder of ever single company they funded.

And even if the law says you're technically a "cofounder", it's pathetic to call yourself that for a decade and use that false reputation for your personal gains if you didn't really do anything for the company.

Re: The Real History of TechCrunch

#35

Post by telltruth »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #30
majani wrote: post #25

Two sides to every story. One thing that sticks out here is why Arrington of all people would easily cave and give 10% to someone who did "nothing."

TechCrunch was a tech blog which didn't require much "operation". The site was just a wordpress blog and the only work involved was probably blogging and some wordpress maintenance. This Keith guy never blogged, and this guy is no programmer. The best he can claim to be is an "investor", but you really have to be shameless to call yourself a "cofounder" when you really did nothing, and use that reputation everywhere…

TC is not just WordPress blog. There is a lot of leg work that happens to contact VCs, journalists, founders, conduct interviews, verify details etc. I bet 80% of the work that happens at TC is not-engineering. The fact that Arrington carried this entirely on his shoulder while Keith just stayed on sidelines is enough for him not getting credited for TC. However Keith claims on his LinkedIn profile that he advised Arlington and helped him to be successful even initially he did not believed in TC.

Re: The Real History of TechCrunch

#36

Post by vidarh »

telltruth wrote: post #21
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You do something interesting in your space time, your manager jumps on it out of nowhere to take credit This is unfortunate, but not what happened here. Better analogy: you do something interesting; your roommate takes credit to hock junk securities.

This is exactly what happened here. Keith Teare had 75% equity in Edgeio. So he was majority shareholder - similar power that managers have. He basically said he wanted to start N number of startups under the umbrella of Archimedes Labs. This meant that when Arrington accepted to become "co-founder" as minority shareholder, he implicitly accepted that whatever he does can be accounted as building new startup under Ar…

Do you have first hand knowledge of what went down? Because if so I would suggest it is unfair to make these characterizations without making your biases known (as I did elsewhere). Especially as you've made at least one clear error (the "umbrella" was Archimedes Labs) which would be odd if you have sufficient knowledge to be able to say "this is exactly what happened here".

Re: The Real History of TechCrunch

#37

Post by cocktailpeanuts »

telltruth wrote: post #35
cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TechCrunch was a tech blog which didn't require much "operation". The site was just a wordpress blog and the only work involved was probably blogging and some wordpress maintenance. This Keith guy never blogged, and this guy is no programmer. The best he can claim to be is an "investor", but you really have to be shameless to call yourself a "cofounder" when you really did nothing, and use that reputation everywhere…

TC is not just WordPress blog. There is a lot of leg work that happens to contact VCs, journalists, founders, conduct interviews, verify details etc. I bet 80% of the work that happens at TC is not-engineering. The fact that Arrington carried this entirely on his shoulder while Keith just stayed on sidelines is enough for him not getting credited for TC. However Keith claims on his LinkedIn profile that he advised Ar…

Advisor is not a founder. The best he could call himself is a "TechCrunch advisor" or "TechCrunch early investor".

There's a huge difference, especially when he's using that fake reputation to deceive naive people to invest in some scam ICOs.

Re: The Real History of TechCrunch

#38

Post by bonesss »

ktamura wrote: post #11
biztos wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree with you, but I call BS on the OP: 1. 20-hour days are not actually worked, not even by slave labor. 2. Sacrificing your personal life for your employer is pathological, not heroic.

I agree on both. Honestly, much of my long hours were due to my inexperience rather than supernatural productivity. If I were to do the same work with what I know now, I'd do it very differently with far fewer hours (probably). That said, the point OP was making is that in a startup origin story, there's a significant perception gap between those who actually moved the needle and those who claim to have done so. Thos…

> ... much of my long hours were due to my inexperience rather than supernatural productivity.

It takes a fair bit of experience with long days to know that the feeling of doing work and doing 'stuff' pales in comparison with the productivity of doing that work well while rested and focused...

Overtime creates 'undertime', cleaning up tired mistakes takes longer than doing them, and when it comes to coding nothing is worse than wasting 15+ hours implementing something you didn't think clearly enough about to start with, and realizing it was all wasted/could have been done in 1.

> this dedicated early employee surely seemed like she worked 20+ hour days

I feel the discussion of this line is perhaps conflating "worked 20 hour days [on the rare occasion something crazy was happening]", vs "worked 20 hour days [from 0400 hours to midnight every day]". Just because someone worked some 20 hour days does not mean they worked 20 hours every day :)

Re: The Real History of TechCrunch

#39

Post by vidarh »

dpwm wrote: post #31
vidarh wrote: post #18

I won't say a huge deal about this, as I now work with Keith again, and haven't spoken to Mike for years, but I'm extremely surprised to see this version of events, as when I worked on Edgeio (I built the prototype, and managed the dev team for a while and continued to build the system) while Edgeio's and Techcrunch's offices were both in the house Mike rented in Atherton (Edgeio was largely built from the bedroom ac…

There's also a profile of Arrington in Wired from 2007 [0]. It also gives the impression that Techcrunch grew out of his personal research for new business models whilst he was working with "Arrington's longtime associate and mentor, Keith Teare." Just in case anyone thinks this was perhaps written without Arrington's knowledge, his blog post would suggest otherwise. [1] [0] https://www.wired.com/2007/06/ff-arrington…

That picture brings back memories. That room used to be the Edgeio office.

Re: The Real History of TechCrunch

#40

Post by aaron-lebo »

erikb wrote: post #4

This is a very important lesson for Michael Arrington and many people reading this can learn from it without losing too much emotions or money themselves: Someone, who claims this to be a cofounder of your business even once, is not your friend! Don't support their claims, don't pity them. They try to exploit you. This kind of person is really good at keeping you emotionally hooked, and therefore even let you find ex…

Based on the comment below yours, it seems like a good way of lying to yourself. Not all situations call for what you are saying. Sometimes they are right and you are in the wrong, and you need to correct it. Not necessarily this situation, but many.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16411597

We're really good at justifying our actions. Really, really good. I'd imagine Keith is on the other side of that, and correct or not, has talked himself into believing he's the good guy. But one of them has to be wrong, so the advice that "your interpretation is not wrong" is often wrong.

Similar example: what Jobs did to Kottke in refusing to give him any stock, for valid reasons to Steve, certainly, doesn't mean Steve wasn't wrong. Would rather not say these things because it's not going to win friends, but you are encouraging destructive behavior yourself. There's no easy rule.

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