5 ms·

What a messed up article. I don't know this CEO but using a picture taken at a festival two years ago as proof of incompetence seems very cheap.

matt4077 9y ago
Indeed–that image caption serves absolutely no purpose except to beat on someone who is at a low point anyway. And it doesn't even make sense! Taking a vacation every now and then is likely to improve productivity, and for SoundCloud specifically, it seems almost necessary to go to Burning Man and mingle. The criticism is especially rich coming from a guy who looks at least twice as stoned in his official TechCrunch photo than the SC CEO at Burning Man. Creating SoundCloud is more than 99.x% of people ever achieve, including me, the author, and the editor of this shameless excuse of an article. SoundCloud is obviously beloved by many. If they don't find a way to get those people to pay, they're in good company. At least they're not selling to AOL.
- bad_user 9y ago
  How dare you suggest that people should take vacations and have a life?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- gist 9y ago
  Bias actually makes for interesting reading and clickbait. That is what it's all about. It's not about being fair and balanced. And actually given that the truth does not matter to the vast majority of people reading Techcrunch (or honestly any publication) I am not sure it even would be a smart business strategy. People watch wrestling and they know it's fixed. People read fiction. This is another version of it.
- cuckcuckspruce 9y ago
  Ah TechCrunch, deciding to fill the gaping hole of bullshit that ValleyWag vacated.
Insanity 9y ago
I agree. I do not see how going to a festival is such a bad thing to do. It's actually a good thing to be able to still do something in your free time that you like..
welder 9y ago
Tweeted to the author: https://twitter.com/alanhamlett/status/895725907356205056 https://twitter.com/alanhamlett/status/895725907356205056
- function_seven 9y ago
  Looks like they updated the image? Now I'm curious what they were using before.
  - tekacs 9y ago
    This is what it looked like before the change: http://archive.is/j8cns http://archive.is/j8cns
  - fweespeech 9y ago
    They did, it was a picture of the CEO at Burning Man iirc.
mful 9y ago
Also full of dramatic, unsubstantiated claims such as: > Now staff morale is in the toilet, the user experience is a mess, the subscription models are unappealing, competitors are growing rapidly and musicians are fleeing to other upload platform. I really thought TechCrunch was getting better, but man this is bad journalism. It's like a hit piece in a high school newspaper.
- wyager 9y ago
  To be fair, the UX is a mess. The mobile experience is horrible and always tries to drag you to the app (which is not great), and SC is constantly trying to push the "social" aspect. I can't filter out "shares" or whatever from my feed, which means instead of listening to the artists I like, I end up listening to a bunch of random crap they share.
  - unclebucknasty 9y ago
    >always tries to drag you to the app To be fair, this seems to be the unfortunate norm these days.
  - narrowtux 9y ago
    What irked me about that one was that the UX being a mess can't possibly be only caused by the layoff woes 2 weeks ago.
- danso 9y ago
  The OP probably should have been a link to Axios, which is the outlet that broke the news; TC is just reblogging it and adding its own commentary/context: https://www.axios.com/soundcloud-asks-investors-to-support-rescue-deal-2471398461.html https://www.axios.com/soundcloud-asks-investors-to-support-r...
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
danso 9y ago
edit: Apparently the photo was changed within the hour. According to Google Cache, this is what was in the article: http://imgur.com/a/N8OR9 http://imgur.com/a/N8OR9 http://archive.is/hkmkY http://archive.is/hkmkY ---- What was the original caption/photo? Right now, it says: http://imgur.com/a/N5EcV http://imgur.com/a/N5EcV > SoundCloud CEO Alex Ljung would be replaced if the company receives the new funding FWIW, in other articles, it's been insinuated that Ljung went off to Burning Man at a time when Rome was burning: https://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanmac/inside-the-storm-at-soundcloud https://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanmac/inside-the-storm-at-soundcl... > By August 2014, it was abundantly clear that the SoundCloud’s advertising program, which would allow artists and labels to collect royalties, would not launch as planned. Despite Toig’s promises, not a single major label had agreed to a deal. The project launched with a eleventh-hour pivot to focus on independent creators, with Toig later apologizing at an all-hands meeting for failing to sign the majors...Ljung assured everyone in attendance that the label arrangements would eventually get done. A few days later, he flew to California and went off the grid. It was time for Burning Man. Further down in the article: > ...The stalled deals also affected internal operations at SoundCloud headquarters in Berlin. Though the $150 million round never closed, managers had been instructed to double the size of the company’s 150-person engineering team.Meanwhile, Ljung continued to travel the world. In May 2015, he spoke at a Burning Man–esque festival outside of Las Vegas called Further Future. In June, he showed up in an ad campaign for Italian luxury company Salvatore Ferragamo. When SoundCloud employees from around the world flew to Berlin for an August retreat, he was nowhere to be found.
- tequila_shot 9y ago
  Yes. The article you are referring to has been to the top of HN. And I think the buzzfeed article did a good job by speculating on the reasons why Sound Cloud may be doing bad with CEO not being available. This TechCrunch article, however uses just the image with no context to explain something which is _completely_ out of context for what this article is trying to convey.
unclebucknasty 9y ago
Haven't read TC in years, but is this type of "article" now the norm there? The tone is converging on unhinged.
- kleborp 9y ago
  The author has been kind of a joke on underground hockey twitter (long story) about being the stereotypical self-unaware tech evangelist for some time. Not really surprised to see that it came from him.
  - unclebucknasty 9y ago
    Ah. Interesting. Seems like his editor might've noticed. Maybe TC likes the attention that comes with the controversy.
sergiotapia 9y ago
These press prostitutes know exactly what they're doing. Thank God for services like archive.is because otherwise they just blackhole everything scummy they do. http://archive.is/j8cns http://archive.is/j8cns
mikestew 9y ago
Not only am I not surprised that the CEO of a music-based company is at Burning Man, I fully expect him to show up at SXSW as well. Anything less would almost seem like a dereliction of duty.

matt4077 9y ago

Indeed–that image caption serves absolutely no purpose except to beat on someone who is at a low point anyway. And it doesn't even make sense! Taking a vacation every now and then is likely to improve productivity, and for SoundCloud specifically, it seems almost necessary to go to Burning Man and mingle. The criticism is especially rich coming from a guy who looks at least twice as stoned in his official TechCrunch photo than the SC CEO at Burning Man. Creating SoundCloud is more than 99.x% of people ever achieve, including me, the author, and the editor of this shameless excuse of an article. SoundCloud is obviously beloved by many. If they don't find a way to get those people to pay, they're in good company. At least they're not selling to AOL.

bad_user 9y ago
How dare you suggest that people should take vacations and have a life?
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
gist 9y ago
Bias actually makes for interesting reading and clickbait. That is what it's all about. It's not about being fair and balanced. And actually given that the truth does not matter to the vast majority of people reading Techcrunch (or honestly any publication) I am not sure it even would be a smart business strategy. People watch wrestling and they know it's fixed. People read fiction. This is another version of it.
cuckcuckspruce 9y ago
Ah TechCrunch, deciding to fill the gaping hole of bullshit that ValleyWag vacated.

Insanity 9y ago

I agree. I do not see how going to a festival is such a bad thing to do. It's actually a good thing to be able to still do something in your free time that you like..

welder 9y ago

Tweeted to the author: https://twitter.com/alanhamlett/status/895725907356205056 https://twitter.com/alanhamlett/status/895725907356205056

function_seven 9y ago
Looks like they updated the image? Now I'm curious what they were using before.
- tekacs 9y ago
  This is what it looked like before the change: http://archive.is/j8cns http://archive.is/j8cns
- fweespeech 9y ago
  They did, it was a picture of the CEO at Burning Man iirc.

mful 9y ago

Also full of dramatic, unsubstantiated claims such as: > Now staff morale is in the toilet, the user experience is a mess, the subscription models are unappealing, competitors are growing rapidly and musicians are fleeing to other upload platform. I really thought TechCrunch was getting better, but man this is bad journalism. It's like a hit piece in a high school newspaper.

wyager 9y ago
To be fair, the UX is a mess. The mobile experience is horrible and always tries to drag you to the app (which is not great), and SC is constantly trying to push the "social" aspect. I can't filter out "shares" or whatever from my feed, which means instead of listening to the artists I like, I end up listening to a bunch of random crap they share.
- unclebucknasty 9y ago
  >always tries to drag you to the app To be fair, this seems to be the unfortunate norm these days.
- narrowtux 9y ago
  What irked me about that one was that the UX being a mess can't possibly be only caused by the layoff woes 2 weeks ago.
danso 9y ago
The OP probably should have been a link to Axios, which is the outlet that broke the news; TC is just reblogging it and adding its own commentary/context: https://www.axios.com/soundcloud-asks-investors-to-support-rescue-deal-2471398461.html https://www.axios.com/soundcloud-asks-investors-to-support-r...

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

danso 9y ago

edit: Apparently the photo was changed within the hour. According to Google Cache, this is what was in the article: http://imgur.com/a/N8OR9 http://imgur.com/a/N8OR9 http://archive.is/hkmkY http://archive.is/hkmkY ---- What was the original caption/photo? Right now, it says: http://imgur.com/a/N5EcV http://imgur.com/a/N5EcV > SoundCloud CEO Alex Ljung would be replaced if the company receives the new funding FWIW, in other articles, it's been insinuated that Ljung went off to Burning Man at a time when Rome was burning: https://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanmac/inside-the-storm-at-soundcloud https://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanmac/inside-the-storm-at-soundcl... > By August 2014, it was abundantly clear that the SoundCloud’s advertising program, which would allow artists and labels to collect royalties, would not launch as planned. Despite Toig’s promises, not a single major label had agreed to a deal. The project launched with a eleventh-hour pivot to focus on independent creators, with Toig later apologizing at an all-hands meeting for failing to sign the majors...Ljung assured everyone in attendance that the label arrangements would eventually get done. A few days later, he flew to California and went off the grid. It was time for Burning Man. Further down in the article: > ...The stalled deals also affected internal operations at SoundCloud headquarters in Berlin. Though the $150 million round never closed, managers had been instructed to double the size of the company’s 150-person engineering team.Meanwhile, Ljung continued to travel the world. In May 2015, he spoke at a Burning Man–esque festival outside of Las Vegas called Further Future. In June, he showed up in an ad campaign for Italian luxury company Salvatore Ferragamo. When SoundCloud employees from around the world flew to Berlin for an August retreat, he was nowhere to be found.

tequila_shot 9y ago
Yes. The article you are referring to has been to the top of HN. And I think the buzzfeed article did a good job by speculating on the reasons why Sound Cloud may be doing bad with CEO not being available. This TechCrunch article, however uses just the image with no context to explain something which is _completely_ out of context for what this article is trying to convey.

unclebucknasty 9y ago

Haven't read TC in years, but is this type of "article" now the norm there? The tone is converging on unhinged.

kleborp 9y ago
The author has been kind of a joke on underground hockey twitter (long story) about being the stereotypical self-unaware tech evangelist for some time. Not really surprised to see that it came from him.
- unclebucknasty 9y ago
  Ah. Interesting. Seems like his editor might've noticed. Maybe TC likes the attention that comes with the controversy.

sergiotapia 9y ago

These press prostitutes know exactly what they're doing. Thank God for services like archive.is because otherwise they just blackhole everything scummy they do. http://archive.is/j8cns http://archive.is/j8cns

mikestew 9y ago

Not only am I not surprised that the CEO of a music-based company is at Burning Man, I fully expect him to show up at SXSW as well. Anything less would almost seem like a dereliction of duty.