Why Michael Arrington and MG Siegler Protect Path
As you know, recently, Michael Arrington and MG Siegler are not TechCrunch journalists, but partners and co-owners of the CrunchFund venture fund. At the same time, they remain popular bloggers and position themselves as “agents of influence”. If a startup takes them to share, it can count on a good press.
This is a long-known business model. It used to be used by so-called “independent analysts”, who made their living in much the same way, serving the interests of selected companies.
Readers of English-language IT blogs stocked up on popcorn and watch the squabble (to put it mildly), which unfolded among the most famous techno-bloggers of Silicon Valley. It is best to read the full post of Dan Lyons "The hired killers, clickers and paid apologists: welcome to the cesspool of Silicon Valley" , it is very clear and clearly describes the situation. Dan Lyons - one of these very techblogger, among other things, is known as the author of the diary Fake Steve Jobs .
“It’s hard to be a journalist, especially if you write about technology and you live in Silicon Valley. It seems that everyone around them is becoming fabulously rich, while you are stuck with your work, which never in your life will bring you money. What is worse, all these people around who are getting richer do not seem to be smarter than you at all, and in fact many of them don’t give the impression of talent at all. Of course, you are overpowered by envy, ”writes Dan Lions, explaining the reasons for the recent changes that occurred with Michael Arrington and MG Siegler.
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Michael Arrington and MG Siegler not only write about startups in which they invest, but also with all the passion and professionalism they “destroy” personally those journalists who dare to oppose one of the startups in their portfolio.
This is what happened a few days ago, when the journalist of the NY Times newspaper Nick Bilton wrote a derogatory article about the discordant startup Path, who was accused of copying users' phone books to a remote server (a description of the Habré scandal ). Unfortunately, the CrunchFund Foundation owns shares in the startup Path.
With personal attacks on Nick Bilton made first Michael Arrington , and then MG Siegler . And this is despite the fact that before Michael Arrington highly appreciated Bilton's professionalism, gave him excellent performance and almost invited to work at TechCrunch.
Michael Arrington and MG Siegler blame Bilton for being unprofessional, for “beating the defenseless” —the CEO of Path, who publicly apologized and explained the reasons why Path copied the phone book. Of course, this was done without malicious intent, but only to facilitate the search for new friends and the convenience of working with the service. Michael Arrington and MG Siegler say that with Path criticism, journalist Bilton showed his laziness, unwillingness to understand the topic, populism, a desire to follow the crowd, a thirst for sensation. Like, he just wanted to make a cheap sensation from scratch, generate "more clicks."
According to Dan Lyons, these very epithets are best suited to Arrington himself and MG Siegler, who have been repeatedly convicted of publishing unverified facts and sensational "ducks" ( specific examples are given ). In addition, these two and earlier attacked other journalists. The same MG Siegler advised Dan Lyons to retire because he is too old and does not understand modern technology. He also attacked Josh Topolsky from The Verge because of a dispute as to which one is better: the iPhone 4S or the Galaxy Nexus.
This is a long-known business model. It used to be used by so-called “independent analysts”, who made their living in much the same way, serving the interests of selected companies.
Readers of English-language IT blogs stocked up on popcorn and watch the squabble (to put it mildly), which unfolded among the most famous techno-bloggers of Silicon Valley. It is best to read the full post of Dan Lyons "The hired killers, clickers and paid apologists: welcome to the cesspool of Silicon Valley" , it is very clear and clearly describes the situation. Dan Lyons - one of these very techblogger, among other things, is known as the author of the diary Fake Steve Jobs .
“It’s hard to be a journalist, especially if you write about technology and you live in Silicon Valley. It seems that everyone around them is becoming fabulously rich, while you are stuck with your work, which never in your life will bring you money. What is worse, all these people around who are getting richer do not seem to be smarter than you at all, and in fact many of them don’t give the impression of talent at all. Of course, you are overpowered by envy, ”writes Dan Lions, explaining the reasons for the recent changes that occurred with Michael Arrington and MG Siegler.
')
Michael Arrington and MG Siegler not only write about startups in which they invest, but also with all the passion and professionalism they “destroy” personally those journalists who dare to oppose one of the startups in their portfolio.
This is what happened a few days ago, when the journalist of the NY Times newspaper Nick Bilton wrote a derogatory article about the discordant startup Path, who was accused of copying users' phone books to a remote server (a description of the Habré scandal ). Unfortunately, the CrunchFund Foundation owns shares in the startup Path.
With personal attacks on Nick Bilton made first Michael Arrington , and then MG Siegler . And this is despite the fact that before Michael Arrington highly appreciated Bilton's professionalism, gave him excellent performance and almost invited to work at TechCrunch.
Michael Arrington and MG Siegler blame Bilton for being unprofessional, for “beating the defenseless” —the CEO of Path, who publicly apologized and explained the reasons why Path copied the phone book. Of course, this was done without malicious intent, but only to facilitate the search for new friends and the convenience of working with the service. Michael Arrington and MG Siegler say that with Path criticism, journalist Bilton showed his laziness, unwillingness to understand the topic, populism, a desire to follow the crowd, a thirst for sensation. Like, he just wanted to make a cheap sensation from scratch, generate "more clicks."
According to Dan Lyons, these very epithets are best suited to Arrington himself and MG Siegler, who have been repeatedly convicted of publishing unverified facts and sensational "ducks" ( specific examples are given ). In addition, these two and earlier attacked other journalists. The same MG Siegler advised Dan Lyons to retire because he is too old and does not understand modern technology. He also attacked Josh Topolsky from The Verge because of a dispute as to which one is better: the iPhone 4S or the Galaxy Nexus.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/288266/
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