Mike Arrington: Turning the drama down on Y Combinator v. Google Ventures | Hacker News Reader

Mike Arrington: Turning the drama down on Y Combinator v. Google Ventures

uncrunched.com

64 pointskloncks23 comments

There's something ironic about combination of "Mike Arrington" and "turning the drama down".

When I read "Mike Arrington" and "turning down the drama", I thought this must certainly be The Onion.

After being on this site for 5 years, I am still surprised to not see a blacklist solely for techcrunch submissions.

I upvote this. Let's make it happen.

I wish this could happen, if only so their stupid splash screen stops breaking my iPad. I doubt it will ever happen though, YC and techcrunch seem to enjoy a very symbiotic relationship

They should disclose it. It's clearly there, every YC company gets a TechCrunch splash, and assuming Mike was involved in setting up such an arrangement, then Mike is looking after both his past and future interests.

Read like that, Mike's post is then clearly just a little bit of politics. It's not turning the drama down, it's looking after someone that looked after him at some point and may do in future.

Viewed from outside the valley, whenever I see stuff like this I wish we had journalistic standards rather than blogger opinions. Declare your interests, state any arrangements you've got in place. Then I'll read the opinion without feeling I am being duped. Without that you just get noise chambers.

> After being on this site for 5 years, I am still surprised to not see a blacklist solely for techcrunch submissions.

This particular article is from Uncrunched, not Techcrunch.

so instead of addressing the points you talk about drama?

and <i>he</i> is the one to blame?

Haha, you just reminded me the classic "So A Blogger Walks Into A Bar..." http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/21/so-a-blogger-walks-into-a-b...

You read my mind.

> I also think VentureBeat should fully disclose any other issues they have that might be affecting their judgement about Y Combinator, but I’ll leave it at that.

Strong hint that there is more to this.

My outsider guess: VB is unhappy YC companies seem to favor other outlets with their announcements.

I can't see how opining that YC is 'predatory' will help VB/O'Dell here. (Such a derogatory allegation would seem to require some on- or off- record aggrieved sources, rather than just an appeal to "acknowledge the obvious"... at least in the non-Marxist business press.)

"Turning the drama down..." Mike says with a nudge and a wink.

Mike knows how to stir the pot in more ways than Rachael Ray.

...while positioning himself as the adult.

Yep, there seems to be a theme in tech world at the moment. Semi-fashionable bloggers jumping on hot topics and taking the high-road. I won't name names, but there are a few name brand VC's who are just writing columns for the sake of getting their name out there, adding no value what so ever and then doubling down on Twitter.

Tiresome at best, misleading at worst.

To note, I'm not talking about Arrington here.

An aside – Most stuff like this from Y Combinator doesn’t leak. The fact that this did leak is the most interesting part of all this for me. It may be because there are so many companies coming out of YC now that there isn’t the same sense of loyalty to the program. Or it may be a sign of stress because some of the startups may be finding it much more difficult to raise funding than previous classes.

This is the second time I recall seeing any kind of leak from a pg email. The first being the "warning of bad times" email in regards to Facebook's IPO.

Anyone know if there's any credence to Arrington's theory?

Ha! He's just perpetuating it by giving it more attention.

This feels like one of those eonline stories.

The fact that pg actually took the time to explain himself on HN (even though he didn't have to) is enough explanation i think. VB wrote the article, it was inaccurate, but everyone went on with their lives. Now mike comes back to stir the pot again.

Mike Arrington is a limited partner of SV Angel.

SV Angel (along with Yuri Miller) is the fund that offers the 150k convertible note to all YC startups.

Mike Arrington has a clear undisclosed conflict of interest here.

I had no idea there was "drama" to turn down. I saw a headline, I read some comments, I moved on. Did I forget to come back after more comments had been posted? I seriously don't get it.

I don't have much to add, but pg clearly made a mistake by not cc'ing Google Ventures on the original email. GV got sucker punched by the press because of that mistake and now the drama is playing out publicly. If pg had the foresight to cc Google Ventures, then he likely would have edited out the 'm.o.' in the original email.

That being said, what is more interesting is that pg will now have to be more reserved about communicating with his people. That is sad, because honest and unfiltered communication is a hallmark of startups. Has YC grown too big for unfiltered communication?

> I don't have much to add, but pg clearly made a mistake by not cc'ing Google Ventures on the original email.

Why would he do that? He is advising the startups which has sought his/firm's mentorship that taking gv's investment will irk existing investors and will make people think you are deep down in the drains as you are devaluing yourself. This wasn't a negotiation with GV.

> If pg had the foresight to cc Google Ventures,

I don't see how gv would have appreciated this foresight. GV is in talks with X, pg comes in and asks X not to take the investment and cc'c GV. GV won't like it and now X which might or might need GV's money is in difficult position.

Also, the foresight he should have is mails can be leaked(even those addressed to people he personally knows), and write mails as if they are public.

The combination of Tech Crunch and Mike Arrington is deadlier than the plague.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com