Since when is using a widget on your page being a partner? If I embed a youtube clip in my site, does that make me a youtube partner?
I understand he is an investor, but come on.
Seesmic is still in closed alpha so those who are using it are very much partners.
If the problem is as Michael described - a blocking call to fetch a remote file for every page request with no timeout, then it would seem the "bad judgment" has been going on for a while.
maybe Mikey didn't invest enough money to be important to seesmic :)