Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Way I Work: TechCrunch's Michael Arrington

inc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 74 posts

Re: The Way I Work: TechCrunch's Michael Arrington

#61

Post by jsherry »

An interesting and seemingly revealing article no doubt. I "choose" to buy it depicts Arrington's life genuinely.

That said, a couple weeks ago, Arrington wrote a piece on TC regarding the "psychomanipulative" techniques he uses when he writes to get the reaction he wants from his readers. Here's the link: http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/05/blogging-and-mass-psychoman... but if you don't feel like clicking here is an excerpt:

"But then you start to get really good at what you do. You write something and you get trashed. The next time you try it a little differently and it the commenters love you. You don’t even do it consciously – but over the years you just get better at it. To the point where you pretty much know exactly what the reaction will be to any given post, and how to tweak things to get the reaction you want."

Anyway, based on this, I'm left with a slight bit of skepticism after reading the Inc article. Is this the real Arrington, or simply the Arrington he wants us to believe? I'm not sure there are motives for the latter, which is why I choose to believe that the Inc article depicts his life genuinely, but not without some doubt.

Just food for thought.

Re: The Way I Work: TechCrunch's Michael Arrington

#63

Post by mikeryan »

davalko wrote: post #2

I'm impressed by the honesty. Doesn't seem to be the arrogant guy many people play him up to be.

He's a textbook Type-A personality

Type A individuals can be described as impatient, time-conscious, controlling, concerned about their status, highly competitive, ambitious, business-like, aggressive, having difficulty relaxing; and are sometimes disliked by individuals with Type B personalities for the way that they're always rushing. They are often high-achieving workaholics who multi-task, drive themselves with deadlines, and are unhappy about delays. Because of these characteristics, Type A individuals are often described as "stress junkies." Many business and political leaders have Type A personalities.

Re: The Way I Work: TechCrunch's Michael Arrington

#64

Post by ardit33 »

j79 wrote: post #55
dabent wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I'm surprised at his drive "I’d work until I passed out, and wake up eight or nine hours later, which might be 4 p.m. or 3 a.m. Then I’d work again until I passed out." I don't think I've known many people to push it quite that hard.

I've met plenty of people who have to work two (sometimes, even three) jobs just to make ends meet. They work non-stop, exposed to the elements, doing manual labor - all to make ends meet. The guy sits in front of his computer all day, blasting music. As a developer, I realize sitting in front of a computer IS work. But, it's not hard work...

it can be mentally challenging, depending on what you are working on.

While I agree you are not lifting heavy stuff, or doing anything physical, working on hard problems can be mentally tiring and tasking to your health if not done in moderation.

If you are just doing anything that is easy (a simple web app), then the hard part would be getting motivated to get started, but after that it is more mechanical, your are just cruizing by (and probably not learning much).

BUT if you are working on really technical stuff, beyond your normal comfort level then that is not the case at all. Your brain will fatigue, and you will actually feel the pain of work, (this is a good indicator that you are learning something new and it is tasking your brain).

Also, for people with more responsiblities, the worrying about work doesn't really end when you go home. If you are managing people, or need to learn new technical skills/updating your self, it becomes a bit hard to just switch off. When you are working more normal jobs, once you go home you can just 'switch off' and just worry about your home tasks.

So, it all depends...

Re: The Way I Work: TechCrunch's Michael Arrington

#65

Post by nochiel »

wyclif wrote: post #24
nochiel wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The interstitial pop-up" Surely you meant the "intermittent" pop-up.

No. I meant interstitial: Interstitials - On the World Wide Web, interstitials are web page advertisements that are displayed before or after an expected content page, often to display advertisements or confirm the user's age. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstitials

Aha! Consider me educated. -1 for a stupid question is perfectly justified.

(I naively assumed you used "interstitial" to mean "occupying an intervening space," which would not have made sense.)

Re: The Way I Work: TechCrunch's Michael Arrington

#66

Post by lanstein »

danilocampos wrote: post #35

And with this my opinion of Arrington shifts from "hey, he's kind of a self-important dick" to "huh, this guy is an introvert who's confident and passionate about his work, kind of like me." Guy's all right. And my hat's off to him for building something truly powerful from scratch.

Exactly. He sounds so incredibly human.

Re: The Way I Work: TechCrunch's Michael Arrington

#68

Post by wallflower »

> For example, in July, a CNN journalist was fired for tweeting her opinion about a Hezbollah leader. I wrote a piece about how ridiculous it was that she could not have an opinion.

I know someone who works for CNN. It is in his contract that he cannot blog or otherwise express his opinion (and I assume not Tweet - contract predates Twitter).

Re: The Way I Work: TechCrunch's Michael Arrington

#69

Post by esornoso »

bostonvaulter2 wrote: post #32
btmorex wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some reason on page 2 some javascript kept scrolling the page all the way down like every 20 seconds... so annoying. I ended up copying the text to a text editor.

You should really try readability: http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/ It make reading articles on the web much nicer.

I love this. Thank you.

Re: The Way I Work: TechCrunch's Michael Arrington

#70

Post by thm76 »

bostonvaulter2 wrote: post #32
btmorex wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some reason on page 2 some javascript kept scrolling the page all the way down like every 20 seconds... so annoying. I ended up copying the text to a text editor.

You should really try readability: http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/ It make reading articles on the web much nicer.

Or the Reader feature in Safari.
Post reply on HN