Hacker News Reader

Comment by adolfojp | Hacker News Reader

"This site is about to change forever and we’re in the total fucking dark."

"If AOL tries to bing in their own Editor-in-Chief to run TechCrunch, it will be a colossal fucking mistake."

I can't believe that rant went live. Somebody is getting fired.

In a way I think that's the point. Siegler is so out of control at this point that he does the one thing TC has always done: if you can't figure it out, light a bomb under it and see what falls off.

Will it still be the old TC? Is this just about Arrington or is it AOL finally digging its heels in and trying to tame the beast? Or are there some kind of dark machinations behind the scenes that nobody's talking about?

The easy way to answer all of it is by writing something that nobody can ignore. AOL's reaction will show their hand. If they torpedo the article, that's that, If they ask Arrington to use his big swinging editor title for real to kill it then that's that. If they let it sit, then they're willing to let their own property hold them to the fire with the entire valley looking on. Either way, hand-wavy secret shadow dealings are out the window.

TechCrunch reports the news. TechCrunch makes the news. It was ever thus.

i always like it when people paint a big "fire me now"-sign on their forehead. it's bold, it's cool and he will find another job anyway (or maybe start a startup instead of just bitching about them)

You can almost see this as testing the limits of the post-Arrington TechCrunch.

If the post is taken down, it will be re-blogged by every other tech pundit from Gruber to Dvorak (hello, Streisand effect.)

If AOL repremands MG Siegler, then everyone will know what happened. Either he'll do another post, or he'll blog about in on his personal blog and it will take off through the bloggeratti. If he's forced into silence, then it will leak out through friends and colleagues.

If AOL ignores it and does what it wants, then the writers at TechCrunch will at least know what they can get away with. It's the Mindsweeper's Dilemma, you can't make any progress among uncertainty unless you take the first step.

MG Siegler probably thought (correctly, I think) that he's not at risk of getting fired and the uncertainty is killing morale.

If he is fired, he knows some other tech blog will snatch him up.

So, it may indeed seem unprofessional, but I give him a lot of credit in trying to "manage up."

agree with you. MG Siegler doesn't worry about that,

There's always the option they expected this reaction and figured they would let him blow off the steam in a few articles and then move on.

In a few months, everybody is going to forget about this whole the episode anyway. Firing him or giving him more ammunition is exactly what they don't want to do.

I do not like it this time, because it is obvious that he is throwing a hissy fit because it does not look like he is going to be the one appointed to fill Arrington's shoes.

I can believe it. I expect the sacking was decided at least some days ago. This smacks of trying to stir up some trouble on the way out when you are sure you are going to be pushed but haven't been officially told to go yet.

As a side note (and a snide note), I do find it really quite sweet that in a couple of the pages linked to by the current article they seem to believe TechCrunch has something to do with the concept of professional journalism.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com