MG Siegler Will Become Our Apple Columnist, And Join CrunchFund As A VC | Hacker News Reader

MG Siegler Will Become Our Apple Columnist, And Join CrunchFund As A VC

techcrunch.com

31 pointsukdm39 comments

At least now he's finally getting the official label for what he's always been: an Apple columnist.

Apple columnist seems generous to me. Apple evangelist/advocate seems a lot closer to what he does. He forms what I consider the trifecta of Apple evangelists online: MG, Gruber, Dilger.

I'd throw in Horace Dediu of Asymco and Marco Arment and maybe David Pogue. I don't know who Dilger is.

Fun fact: Marco went to my high school, and was vehemently anti-Apple.

You don't know Dilger? Consider yourself lucky -- until now:

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/

He also write the more partisan "news" items at appleinsider.com. Even the people who register on a site called Apple Insider seem to think he's a bit out-there.

Out of curiosity, what "Apple Columnists" out there would you not consider to be "Apple evangelists/advocates"?

I actually don't know if know of anyone with such a title. But of the people who often write about the Apple I think there's quite a few I don't consider evangelists/advocates. Probably the biggest name is Walt Mossberg. He's very Apple friendly (Jobs described him as a friend of Apple to Apple employees), but I think he does try to generally be fair -- and is not a cheerleader.

There are some others that another poster mentioned -- Pogue and Marco. Pogue is borderline. He performs at MacWorld, writes books about Apple products, and does seem to go out of his way to defend them. But not with the same regularity and gusto of the three. Marco I view as a dev with a specific agenda to make money as a dev, and what he writes is about that -- if indirectly.

Robert Scoble is someone who writes a lot about Apple, but I don't consider him an Apple evangelist or advocate. He will go out of his way to prop them, but he'll also oddly go out of his to dig on them too. Maybe it depends on what side of the bed.

In any case, I hope that helps.

So basically the only person you don't consider an Apple evangelist besides Mossberg is a former paid Microsoft evangelist.

When a company is as phenomenally successful as Apple has been over the last decade it's hard to discern legitimate praise from evangelism.

If you were an Apple-centric blogger and you were just calling balls and strikes your blog should look like John Gruber's or Marco's. That's how dominant Apple has been over these years. If instead your blog is filled with press releases and looks like Engadget's review of the original 7" Galaxy Tab then your blog is bullshit and pushing false equivalence for pageviews.

I could list 100 people that write about Apple at least on occassion that I don't consider evangelists or advocates, but you probably haven't heard of them. I tried to list those that are big names.

I could list pretty much everyone on the staff of the Verge and Engadget and Gizmodo. None of them fit this mold. Geller isn't, Laporte isn't, Lyons isn't, Paczkowski isn't, Om isn't, Block isn't.

My list wasn't meant to be comprehensive, but just meant to attempt to explain how other reporters differ from the trifecta.

Let's recap this conversation:

Request: name an Apple centric writer who isn't an evangelist.

names a bunch of non-apple centric writers

[strike]Come off of it.[/strike] Being an Apple blogger today is like what it would be like if you could be a Celtics blogger in the 60's or a Mongol blogger in the 13th century. If your Mongol blog isn't filled with claim chowder from Kievan princes you're doing it wrong.

edit after 30 min break: Apologies for any inflammatory-ness on my part. I had a simple point that every actual Apple writer looks like a fanboy because when you cover a phenomenally successful subject a legitimate deconstruction of why they are successful can be superficially identical to fanboy praise.

There are a lot of Michael Jordan fanboys. There are also a lot of serious people that think he's the best player of all time. Go back to the 90's and both groups are going to vote for him for player of the month every month. That doesn't make the second group fanboys though, that's just a testament to how successful Jordan was at the time.

names a bunch of non-apple centric writers

I've named almost every other major blogger in the tech industry. How about this, give me a list of the apple-centric bloggers and I'll tell you who are the evangelists and who isn't. Since apparently you don't like my list.

Come off of it.

Don't be a jerk, jerk. And I don't read Mongol blogs.

Edit: Thanks for the apology. I also apologize for escalating. I actually think your Jordan analogy is quite good. But I think also spells out the difference, at least in my eyes.

I also view Jordan as the greatest of all-time. With that said, I didn't gloat when he did well. I was in awe of him, but I wasn't a cheerleader. I'd vote for him as MVP, but I wouldn't cherish Karl Malone never winning it. I wouldn't call Malone a lesser player in order to prop Jordan up as a better player. I wouldn't downplay what Magic or Bird did to recognize that Jordan was still the greatest.

I feel like these three would cheer about Karl Malone getting injured a knee or Magic catching HIV if it meant that it would strengthen Jordan's position as best ever.

This is probably most obvious in the tablet space. You'll see some bloggers noting that the iPad dominates. No question about that, but you'll begin to see a split between those who are looking forward to what Android and Windows have in store for the future, versus those who are just outright dismissive that there is or ever will be anything to compete against the iPad. And in fact downplay anything that might actually be even slightly competitive, ala the Kindle Fire.

I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing that they exist. They provide a viewpoint, and there's enough viewpoints to go around. But I think we should call it out so its obvious to those reading it.

Please stop.

Dan Lyons I guess?

But he's more pathological though.

My opinion on MG Siegler cemented after the last fight he had with Dan Lyons. I don't even really like Dan Lyons that much (though I was pretty amused by Fake Steve Jobs). But this post: http://realdanlyons.com/blog/2011/09/28/kindle-fire-and-the-... seemed fair, reasonable, not hostile, and even careful in giving credit where it was due. And it had a great point: that we'll know when we know, and that the value of this type of "scoop" is close to zero.

Siegler's response was a fairly vicious, direct ad hominem with no greater point. http://parislemon.com/post/10774472888/fake-steve-jobs-funny...

Judge for yourself. I did, and I've decided not to read his writing anymore.

I don't think very highly of either although both can commit journalism occasionally. Dan Lyons was an SCO shill for years. MG Siegler's writing style can best be described as a borderline parody of tech journalism meets pro wrestling.

MG's writing is barely passable for a professional, his knowledge about business and finance is lacking, and the subject matter he writes about is generally...Apple.

Granted, he does produce a moderately insightful piece every now and then, but to me, the fact that he's being recruited by old school media is telling; more bad business decisions from people who don't "get it". Personally, I don't get the appeal.

I love MGs writing and from what I know of him (admittedly just online through TechCrunch), he seems like a cool guy.

But I'm failing to see how being a (great) writer translates into being a VC?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Moritz

Mike Moritz' biggest mistake (according to a 2000 interview with Forbes): Not getting into the VC business sooner. http://www.forbes.com/asap/2000/0529/098_4.html

Every VC needs an Apple columnist. He has a good eye for what's hot and lots of leads so that should be useful to a VC, especially with these inflated valuations a service's "hotness" just might be the determinant for high returns. Wouldn't trust his analytical skills though.

yeah agreed, in fact I'd say it's the wrong type of person for the job.

a writer on techcrunch tends to cover hype products with no real value

a VC on the other hand invests money into products that have to make money

That's a pretty cynical view of TC writers and a pretty generous view of VC's. I'd say on balance both tech writers and investors have overlapping considerations. Writers want to cover important / relevant companies, which sometimes means writing about what "everyone is talking about". VCs want to produce returns for their LP's, but just as often get fooled by "hype" by products that are unlikely to make money.

Being a good investor is basically about "deal flow" and good judgment. Seems like writing for the tech press gives you lots of practice at both.

Good point. Definitely makes more sense after some of the points folks have brought up here.

yes, but all of that is brought to the table by Arrington

MG has been a successful Arrington employee/teammate for years, so...

Jessica never sold a startup, but seems to do fine on a VC team.

They'll do well because they'll be able to get into the hot deals.

Access to gossip. Startups helping other startups by integrating the other's or the same technology(s) is a very real force of business. Knowing how the board is wired has investment benefits.

Very true. I suppose the knowledge gained from writing about the companies can be as useful as the knowledge gained having run his own company.

From the outside looking in, it sure seems like TechCrunch is doing this so he sticks around long-term. 2/3 of their most popular writers are gone and they desperately want to hold on to him as TechCrunch moves into the arrington-less era.

This is unfortunate. The rush-to-publish tech blogging format strips away almost personality -- it's just incredibly hard to be fast enough and keep anything.

MG was one of a very few writers who could handle the pace and maintain a distinctive voice. I hope he's a great investor, but if it means less public writing, the industry will be poorer for it.

Both, but only as a limited columnist at TechCrunch.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/03/mg-siegler-will-become-our-...

So who is really left thats a great writer, MG and Micheal were my favorite posts.

To be fair, I really, really enjoy a number of the guest posters on TechCrunch - I find the third-party columns to be refreshing and informative. Tom Anderson, Justin Kan, etc...

But you're right, it will be interesting to see what happens to TechCrunch now without MG in a regular contributing position. With Arrington and Paul Carr gone, most of TechCrunch's editorial "stars" have moved on.

Erick Schonfeld is a great writer. Yes, he might not overuse words and phrases like "brilliant," "mind-blowing," and "game changer" in his headlines as often as MG, but his articles under-promise and over-deliver vs. MG's, in my very humble opinion. I've been reading his stuff since his time at Fortune and I hope, in his new position, he gets a chance to stretch his wings again. Just my two cents.

The one who didn't flame out?

So MG got to follow Arrington and still write for Techcrunch? Talk about exit strategy and lesson in keeping your bridges intact.

Also nice to know that he'll finally be labeled for what he really is, an Apple fanboi.

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