tl;dr :

Marshall Kirkpatrick editor Mashable got his start at a content farm while working at a convenience store.

Then got hired by TechCrunch after his stories got lots of traction.

Then got hired as editor of RRW after TechCrunch.

He sees AOL's content strategy creating a similarly powerful platform for great writers to rise from the depths to the top.

Kind of an interesting counter point to current criticisms that AOL is only going to produce "quantity over quality..."