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Dave McClure responds to Arrington's post
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- rsbrown 16y agoMr. McClure's hyperbole about goon squads aside, his public assertion about the nature of the meeting holds a lot more water for me than the frantic whisperings of anonymous sources.
- dirktheman 16y agoAgree. It's nice to see what goes on in the backrooms of SV. And whatever Dave was on, get me some!
- jacquesm 16y agoI think that balloon has been convincingly punctured. There is a hint of the old English society in there, where who would get invited to which parties mattered almost as much as what was actually discussed. (not to mention the seating arrangements). Mike being sore for not being invited to this particular get-together is something straight from the 1890's, he's interpreting it as one of two things, either TC (and his person) is irrelevant, or there is something shady going on. It can't be the former, so it has to be the latter. A bit paranoid maybe.
- lzw 16y agoAnd a huge dose of entitlement.
- muhfuhkuh 16y agoYou caught Ye Olde Merry England from that mess? It sounded like a wanksta (want-to-be gangster) to me. I mean tongue firmly implanted in cheek or whatever, but if this is what lies outside of YCombinator and TechStars, then everyone not in those programs should just bootstrap, because I would get a headache having to hear all that talk from an investor.
- statictype 16y agoWhy would he be sore about not being invited? He's not an investor. He's a journalist/blogger.
- jonknee 16y agoEgo. He wasn't just not invited, but not even welcome for a drink. Normal people wouldn't have tried to crash in the first place, but Mike isn't normal.
- jacquesm 16y agoMaybe they didn't want to read about their talk in TC in the morning so they decided not to invite him.
- jonknee 16y agoThat's certainly reasonable and I wouldn't be amused to have my meeting crashed either. I have the feeling that Mike thinks he's a lot closer "friends" with these guys (and many others) than he really is. They butter him up to get the word out of their new hotness, but when it comes down to it they aren't friends.
- philwelch 16y agoWell that sure seemed to backfire.
- jacquesm 16y agoYep. Damned if you do and damned if you don't.
- Keyframe 16y agoThe boy cried wolf. Even if it is true, who would believe that guy?
- Charuru 16y agoThis is a necessary denial. Why did Sundeep delete his tweet? He should've also made a denial.
- JoelMcCracken 16y agoI could not finish this article. Why does he write like that?
- mahmud 16y agoIt's a "fuck you and your grammar" style of writing. It might come off as ghetto at times, but I think it's a deliberate decision to write that way, as a way to rebel-against or reject whatever that's considered standard. I personally identify with his writing, in a sort of "game recognizes game" way.
- davidw 16y agoWhat with all the things to read and learn out there, I think I'll stick to writers who are able to wield the English (or Italian) language to make their point, rather than those whose web pages look like something from 1998 recounting how their space-brother told them the secret of how to construct a perpetual motion machine that they cannot build because of the Icelandic government's mind control rays. Edit: I'll add that I think Fred Wilson's reasoning is convincing, and written for the people of planet Earth to boot. Even the original article states that some of the people were just there to see what's up. If they're already spilling beans to Techcrunch, the likelihood of managing to get everyone on board with anything really damaging for any significant duration is small.
- mahmud 16y agoSome of the more creative literary figures have taken great liberties with language, as a whole, and convention specifically. You might not like it, but I think the juxtaposition of hard-nodes business insight and MySpace typography is jarring, in a positive sense. He routinely craps all over the industry. But what do I know. I am a 30 year old with a mohawk.
- davidw 16y ago> Some of the more creative literary figures have taken great liberties with language, as a whole, and convention specifically. Certainly. Is he aiming for "great literary figure" status, though? My guess is that in 50 years, people will still read the work of "great authors". A rant about a silicon valley "conspiracy"? My guess is no.
- duck 16y agoDid anyone else get a headache just trying to read through that rant?
- edkennedy 16y agoNope! It was quite a ride and nothing beats a good rant. You the reader chooses the tone in the end anyways. Sometimes you have to yell "I'M MAD AS HELL AND I'M NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE!"
- borism 16y agousual McClure style
- kgosser 16y agoBoring McClure style
- borism 16y agowhat a meaningful comment to upvote!
- kgosser 16y agoTo expand, then, borism: Usual McClure style can often bore me compared to the style of writing compared to Fred Wilson, Steve Blank, etc etc. Isn't it ironic that his ironic writing to be interesting and break the mold is the very thing that turns me off? Kudos to his thoughts, though. It's just that his style leaves much to be desired. Is that a bit better?
- msy 16y agoYou know the only other place I've seen where someone uses 14 different type styles for emphasis is the Time Cube guy and other similar nutjobs.
- tlrobinson 16y ago
- jrmxrf 16y agowow, I was not expecting that so much of what Arrington wrote was right
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- juliamae 16y agoSince everyone seems to just be agreeing with the last person whose take on this they've read, think about it this way: If they were indeed colluding, do you think any of them would come out and say "mike's right, we are colluding"? No, they would come back with totally legit sounding blog posts to discredit him. I still think it doesn't make sense for Mike to lie about what he heard, especially when it relates to such big players. Mr McClure's defensive, arrogant, immature rant indicates that a sore spot has been touched. I don't think we should take any of the angels' words at face value.
- Confusion 16y agoIn any meeting of people/businesses with similar interests, there will be talk of 'working together', 'sharing information', 'making deals', etc. Such is mostly just talk, showing each other goodwill and courtesy and generally playing around with ideas that sound good in theory, but won't work that way in practice. Usually nothing comes of it and if it does, it's a severely watered down version, well withing the law and adhering to ethical considerations. When it's not watered down, it usually starts with a few of them sealing the deal in secrecy, with others perhaps joining in later. The story is too much like you hear in the movies and too little like stuff happens in reality.
- rumpelstiltskin 16y agoTo be fair, Dave would reply with a similar defensive, arrogant, immature rant if you said 'hello' to him. That's just his style, and he seems to get off on it.
- joshbuckley 16y agoIn addition, how much further can this story really develop? If there was illegal activity going on, why would any of the parties involved admit to it? Whatever happened, this would have been a huge warning. I doubt we'll see anything exciting develop, like some people may be expecting.
- juliamae 16y agoAgreed. If Mike's story has any real effect, it will happen behind closed doors, where even/especially Mike won't see it.
- pak 16y agoBefore I clicked I figured it was going to be yet another "Michael is a great guy but way off base here," and indeed that's pretty much all there is to see here. Coupled with a lot of fist-pumping.
- lzw 16y agoI'm at a complete loss as to why presumably intelligent people pay attention to technophobes like miek Arrington. It was obvious to me many years ago that lacked integrity. McClure and Paul Graham, for instance, are people who I disagree with on at least one subject, but they have integrity. I cannot say the same for Arrington. He seems to be pathological to me.
- alttab 16y agoHe runs a business, and he tries to keep it relevant. A SV blog about start-ups that has to come out with 5 blog posts a day? You're going to run out of things to write about... why not create them? I personally haven't dug deep enough into any of the flame-baity stories of tech-crunch, but considering more than half of them have typos, grammatical errors that make it difficult to read sometimes, little or no substantiated FACTS, make it all seem like gossip. A Tech-TMZ if you will. It seems like they crank those stories out so fast they don't even bother to proof read them. Some are starting to believe they don't bother to stop and evaluate the merit of the story to begin with. Techcrunch is only relevant because enough people go there to GAWK at MA's posts. Any of the legit stories are on other news sites within a day, usually better written and with more information. Its obvious that TC can be an armpit sometimes because it has the most stories written about itself. I would be willing to entertain the idea that even if Mike was on to something, his reputation and execution on this story is like the boy crying wolf for real but no one takes him seriously anymore.
- alttab 16y agoDon't understand the down votes - look at what other people are writing about this story on their blogs and in the comments. My sentiment seems to be adopted widely. God forbid someone on HN evaluates TechCrunch.
- tyng 16y agoThis is pure rant, not much content. But at least McClure is coming out and identifying himself as one of the people attended the meeting. I wonder where and how this battle is going to end, both sides are equally powerful players.
- jacquesm 16y agoWhat battle? To me it's all smoke an 0 fire.
- tyng 16y agoWell, the battle between media accusation of 'colluding' and super angels asserting they are doing good for the valley. Arrington definitely burned lots of bridges here to post this story out. While I'm not sure how credible his sources are, I envy his courage.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- kyro 16y agoArrington has said that many who attended this event were friends of his. I'd think it wouldn't be too difficult to sense a strange vibe and that something unusual was going down. I've seen Arrington make some big claims (last.fm handing over records to the RIAA (unsure if that was resolved)), but these are pretty damaging accusations, and you've got to realize that more than just page views, there are a few other things riding on this recent piece -- like the friendships of those he's accused of colluding, general respect among the angel/vc community and beyond. That coupled with this post, with a tl;dr of HE's WrONg ANd I WanT TO BE AbraSIVE AnD NOT PROviDE REASONABle LEVel-heaDED ARGumEnTS, makes me side with Arrington for now, although Fred Wilson's post does make a lot of sense.
- Mystalic 16y agoFrankly, that's more just McClure's style -- to be abrasive and have 9 different colors in his posts.
- crux_ 16y agoI can't wait until I have enough money to have a style!
- tvon 16y agoCan't help but think of: Your shower shoes have fungus on them. You'll never make it to the bigs with fungus on your shower shoes. Think classy, you'll be classy. If you win 20 in the show, you can let the fungus grow back and the press'll think you're colorful. Until you win 20 in the show, however, it means you are a slob. - Crash (Bull Durham)
- armandososa 16y agoGladly, my style is poor written english.
- jacquesm 16y ago> Arrington has said that many who attended this event were friends of his. How apt.
- charlief 16y agoYou figure he could be a little more professional. I guess a strategy for managing reputation risk is swear like a sailor in response to criticism and always ignore any specific concerns.
- Aegean 16y agowhy do people need to use so much fck sht and d*ck when defending an argument I'll never understand. It doesn't make it any more influential or cool, if that's what is intended.
- blantonl 16y agospeaking his mind, like he would speak to you in person, is influential and cool.
- davidw 16y agoAfter a few minutes of someone spouting profanities, you mostly become inured to it and it ceases to have much of an effect. In some cases you wonder if it's simply a verbal crutch. You get a much greater effect if you rarely use that sort of language: when you do, it's quite powerful.
- nickpinkston 16y agoI don't know - I tend to notice that the people who say "smart people don't swear" are offer people who aren't really that smart themselves - or know many smart people. I know a lot of smart people, and they all fucking swear. ;-)
- davidw 16y agoI didn't say "don't swear". I do myself, and have nothing against it in the proper context. But if you overdo it, you come across looking like a bit of a horse's ass.
- sprout 16y agoIt's very much a mistake to say that given words should universally be saved for emphasis or used liberally. In most social contexts, there are a variety of words that can and should be used liberally. In the contexts where profanity is to be avoided,they tend to be things like "please" "thank you" and "that's great" or "I'm looking forward to it." But in contexts where profanity is encouraged, and even a sign of belonging to a social group, there's no point in being elitist about it. I'm not sure I like social stratification, but I've found it's difficult if not impossible to have meaningful social interaction without adopting the social conventions of those around you. That is of course distinct from a style guide for an investor writing about business, who should probably maintain a clear and inoffensive tone to his writing.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- brianmwang 16y agoSounds like you're unfamiliar with Dave's style in general - he's well known for his profanity.
- balding_n_tired 16y agoNot enough colors!
- ax0n 16y agoMcClure's post looks like the emails the whole company used to get from my menopausal VP back in 2001.
- chegra 16y agoI'm trying to figure out who this was aimed at. Was it Mike? Was it PG? or Us the readers? Who is hating on Dave?
- jwr 16y agoHaving skimmed through that incoherent babbling rant, I know as a founder I will never want to do business with that guy.
- fady 16y agothis has to be the ugliest blog post ever, especially coming from a hardass like Dave. +1 nphase. Who writes like this? - I don't care who you are, how much money you have, what companies you've helped...his writing stands on its own, very poorly written.
- jon_dahl 16y agoPersonally, I found his babbling rant highly coherent. That's just his style. He's a really smart guy and a good investor.
- Terretta 16y agoCoherent, yes. And so busy, there's no time for the shift key. I think this came in vogue among the tech affluent during the era of Crackberry supremacy -- easier to just thumb in all lowercase, and a significant portion of communication done from that device made staccato lowercase brevity socially acceptable.
- BrandonM 16y agoBlackBerries automatically capitalize the first letter after a period, so that theory doesn't really hold.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- jeebusroxors 16y agoBut you type in all lowercase (correct?), so typing: the quick brown fox... would turn into The quick brown fox... which would not translate to the PC. It would just stay lowercase.
- aneth 16y agoI know McClure somewhat personally, and while Arrington's speculation was fun, and I'm sure many investors are trying to counteract YC's strength, I think he is an upstanding guy, and one of the most honest, cut to the shit people in the valley.
- bl4k 16y agoI think it was established yesterday on Quora that McClure was actually Arrington's source on where the meeting took place, and judging by the language in Arrington's post - that same source was also one of his post-meeting sources, so it might be him again. McClure was in the TC office right before this dinner took place.
- aneth 16y agoSo you're saying he's playing both sides? Wouldn't Arrington have called him out on that? I don't know the quota discussion you are referring to.
- mbyrne 16y agoRequest for fact check: If you agree that the definition of collusion is that "collusion takes place within an industry when rival companies cooperate for their mutual benefit." Wikipedia. And you read McClure's post that admits to discussing pricing amongst these industry competitors: "at the dinner, there was a fair amount of kvetching about convertible notes, capped or not, hi/lo valuation, optimal structure of term sheets, where the industry was headed, who was innovating and who wasn't, and 10 million other things of which 3 were kind of interesting and 9,999,997 weren't unless you like arguing about 409a stock option pricing. However, in addition to pricing & valuation..." then how can you not conclude that collusion (which is illegal) did not take place? Where is this argument off-base?
- invisible 16y agoSo Mike does some investigative work and finds something amiss, people flock and agree (which I still agree) amid some suspicious actions online, then one of those involved deny anything amiss in a horribly written blog post and everyone says, "Oh, Mike, you're so wrong!" Really? Yes, 10 people that are purely angel investors and no one else get together to discuss "stock options" and pretty much give Mike a big F-U when he shows up and jokingly says stuff about sitting down for a drink. This guy doesn't even deny that Mike showed up and they all were silent: that alone is worrisome to me. Furthermore, Mike lead us to believe he got this information from a few of those attending: not anonymous sources as some try to portray.
- robryan 16y agoYes it is his normal style I get that but given the amount of attention the post was going to get, and the likely way people reading have taken the situation you'd think he would have toned it down a little.
- alexophile 16y agoOK People. Yes, Dave McClure writes like ee cummings' high school geocities page, but I think I know why: If I'm a high visibility blogger and I'm going to write a piece wherein I intend on relaying a point to the people whose opinions I care about, there's going to be a lot of noise in the responses, no matter what. More often than not (and this happens on HN too) you get people giving long-winded, zero-value-added answers in hopes of being a part of the discussion.(edit: yes, this post kind of falls in that category, but I'm writing it anyways) Writing something you want to talk about underneath a bunch of stoff that's easy to jump on is a good way to flag the worthless posts. For instance, I might start off a blog post about how the White Stripes are shit. They are not good and they are certainly not ushering in a new era of anything. What I really want to talk about is how they got famous because, somewhere along the line, Rolling Stone started bottling their own farts. So then, if I get 100 responses, I can skim past the ones that amount to "OMG The White Stripes are like the best band EVAR! [personal attack] [grammer correction]" and get to the meat of the discussion about what happened to the zine touched by the minds of Hunter Thompson, Lester Bangs, and Patti Smith. Also, I think he likes to give the impression that he's too busy and important for things like style. And, as far as I know, that's true, so I'd just let him get away with it and look what he was actually saying.
- Psyonic 16y agoThat is an interesting way to look at it. Didn't Zed Shaw say something very similar in a post a few months back?
- steve19 16y ago"Also, I think he likes to give the impression that he's too busy and important for things like style." His blog post looked to me like he spent an awful lot of time messing around with fonts and embedding videos. Not spending time on style, grammar or spelling looks sloppy, but intentionally making your writing look like horseshit comes across a lot worse.
- adrianwaj 16y agoHere's how the next Arrington/McClure interview will pan out: - Arrington: Did you order the (code red) meeting? McClure: I did the job I ... Arrington: Did you order the (code red) meeting ? [shouting] McClure: You're God damn right I did. [shouting] - A Few Good Men. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104257/quotes?qt0470412 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104257/quotes?qt0470412 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOYGbM3nK9k#t=3m59s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOYGbM3nK9k#t=3m59s
- dangero 16y agoAnyone else notice the lack of denial of the wiki that Arrington spoke of? Don't you think you'd mention there was no wiki if there was no wiki? There must be a wiki with something on it.
- nchlswu 16y agoThis is just me, but I find this response entirely unnecessary. I think everyone in that meeting should have just kept their mouths shut. Admittedly, there are a bunch of reasons not to. A brief, to the point statement would have sufficed (Like, say a Tweet, or 2). Regardless of personality or writing style, the post seems a bit over the top. But then again, I don't know/follow the guy, so it's probably standard fare. Regardless, his excessive, contrived hip hop/"ghetto" attitude is quite annoying and setting your Twitter display to a bin38 logo says enough to me. Edited cause I missed a word.
- bond 16y agoWell, it seems Arrington was right...
- jhuckestein 16y agoWhy? Disregarding all the abusive and offensive language, his points are unnecessary. He could just as well have written "We are not colluding. Mike got it wrong. This is what we talked about: ..." He's leading Arrington's claims ad absurdum and concludes that everything is horse shit and hater shit and a steaming pile of crap, yo, bitches. Why is Dave McClure important again?
- j_baker 16y agoJust because he does a bad job of making his argument doesn't make it wrong.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- DJN 16y agoThere seems to be a severe case of group think on HN today. Why are so many people raining on Dave? The points he makes seem to make a lot of sense. I'm pretty sure that an agenda that will attract the smartest angel investors for a meeting will stretch far beyond "collusion to bring valuations down". The fact of the matter is that owning 1% of a company that exits for $100mm is far better than owning 10% of a bankrupt startup. These investors know this better than anyone and I'm pretty sure that increasing the size of the pie, attracting more startups, increasing the number of exit channels etc were the chief points of discussion and not "how do we make sure we own 10% instead of 5%". Having said that, it's pretty much Dave's word against Mike's and I'll pitch my tent in the proven serial investor's camp any day.
- kingsley_20 16y agoYeah seriously. So much of the criticism is about his style and attitude that it made me wonder if this was really HN? Dave is a great guy in person. Yes, he's aggressive, super-cynical, outspoken,has a sense of humor and a good track record. These are all good reasons why he's one of the few investors (along with Mark Suster) that I would actually want to do business with.
- joecode 16y agoHaving met Dave, I can say he's one of those people you immediately trust. The guy is set financially, and is only is the investment game for the fun of it. And yeah, his style is bizarre, but that's just the way he likes it. Anyway, if he says this is all much ado about nothing, he's almost certainly telling the truth.
- kemiller 16y agoAnytime a bunch of people who sit on the same side of the table, economically speaking, get together, even socially, it's some flavor of collusion. Just forming social ties with people you should be in competition with is a little suspect. That doesn't automatically mean it's cartel-building, but it's not good news for the rest of us. That said, is this a surprise to anyone? VCs are already groupthink-y enough. It is the natural behavior of oligopolies (de facto or otherwise) to seek to erect barriers to entry, and fix prices. We here operate in a sector that is still so wildly dynamic that we have better tools for breaking through that than begging the governmental leviathan to do it for us. We're faster, and can hit harder.
- sprout 16y ago>- startups & investors bitch & moan about price (aka valuation) all day long, but i don't really give a damn what other people think most of the time. buy or don't buy. negotiate or don't. This is America, This is Capitalism, and it's a Free Fucking Country. I read Arrington's article with a grain of salt, but after that line McClure convinced me he's up to no good. That is exactly what a colluding price-fixer would say to defend his actions. The fact that he denies it is irrelevant.
- btilly 16y agoLet me summarize. "Yes, the meeting described indeed happened. Yes, we talked about what Arrington claimed we talked about. No, Arrington was not welcome. No, it was not the big deal Arrington claimed it was." If it was not the deal that Arrington claimed it was, then why were they so uncomfortable when Arrington sat down? Why did Sundeep delete his tweet? And why did people tell Arrington that they were uncomfortable with the direction the conversation took? This leaves me more, not less, likely to believe what Arrington reported. The side evidence leaves me leaning towards the belief that Dave McClure's judgment is more likely lacking than that there is no fire behind the smoke. However I have no really concrete evidence behind that position. It will be interesting to see this play out.
- tghw 16y agoI agree. It seems likely that at least some of the people in the meeting might just be talking about things that would benefit them without fully realizing that the whole setup and the conversation they were having was actually collusion. Under that premise, I can believe that both Arrington and McClure are telling the truth, but only Arrington saw a spade for a spade.
- dhs 16y ago...saw a spade for a spade I haven't seen that one in a while :-)
- danielnicollet 16y agoAll this drama begs 2 questions from my POV: Are we seeing the end of the net startup ecosystem as it's been since Netscape? Is this happening because too much transparency, too much blogging, tweeting, and spewing your guts publicly all the time only creates negative emotions: jealousy, fame obsessions, arrogance, hate?
- danielnicollet 16y agoReading this post and Arrington's yesterday, I am starting to wonder about the meaning of the word "friend". If these guys are really all friends, maybe they ought to turn to their enemies because I wouldn't want friends like these as my own enemies ;-)
- jamesshamenski 16y agoI can't think of a time when Arrington was seriously wrong. His leads get in way before the news breaks and his stories have even altered what was to be announced. I doubt Mike just made this all up. Especially how everyone in that room has feed him stories for the past 5 years. Do you think Mike (a lawyer) would seek legal advice unless this was real. Funny enough, both sides of this story are trying to win over startups! Either way, we win.
- david927 16y agoDave: when you're talking about the changing world, your tone smacks of bravado and is refreshingly blunt. But when you're responding to somewhat serious allegations, that same tone comes off as Vicky Pollard. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLd3-cfLlvU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLd3-cfLlvU) My humble advice? Have jeans and a suit; know when to wear what.
- onan_barbarian 16y agoAnyone who starts a post with "Unfortunately i probably have more balls than sense" is worth reading, if only for laughs. The typography and grammar leave a lot to be desired... but I'm in two minds about the content. It's possible that this is a case of multiple perspectives, multiple interpretations. Some insiders think they're sitting down for a bit of kvetching, others think it's heading for a cartel (and blow the whistle). It'd be interesting to hear the perspective of a few of the other people around the table, especially the ones who tipped off Arrington. Is there any other informed reaction to this stuff out there? Anyone else 'at the table' who's commented yet?
- ahoyhere 16y agoIsn't the real question: Does he get results? That's all HN cares about, right? Not the outer trimmings?