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Tim Armstrong: We Got TechCrunch
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- thehodge 16y agoIts not, wordpress.com has a habit of doing this with techcrunch posts.. I guess something to do with caching... happens everytime they tweet something for me. Edit : parent comment deleted makes me sound like an arse, parent comment said "its on your end"
- bretthellman 16y agoAnyone know for how much $$$ ?
- uptown 16y agoIt's ironic that the one piece of information TechCrunch always tried to include in their stories is left out when it's about themselves.
- gojomo 16y agoI hope he got a Bebo-like valuation... and can then buy it back for cents on the dollar 2 years later.
- zipzap 16y agoI would love to see this. As much as they say the site will be independent, it's hard to believe AOL won't ask for a few favors every now and then.
- bretthellman 16y agoI'm guessing for $80 million
- mikeryan 16y agoSo weblogs inc went for $25M in 2005. I'm thinking somewhere in between your number and that. maybe $30-35M fun game though ;-P
- raheemm 16y ago$100 million. I figure Mike has no reason to sell unless its a sweet offer - TC has good revenue, its growing, and he has a good team running it.
- aberkowitz 16y agoPerhaps he's just had enough. In the Inc interview [1] he gave the impression that he lived for TechCrunch. After four years of that, he must be exhausted. [1] http://www.inc.com/magazine/20101001/the-way-i-work-michael-arrington-techcrunch.html http://www.inc.com/magazine/20101001/the-way-i-work-michael-...
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- tlb 16y agoI've been privy to some secret acquisition terms in the past, and in most cases the speculation on the web had no connection to reality. When you make up numbers, they can get repeated until they gain credibility and drown out any genuine information about the deal, a disservice to the community.
- aresant 16y agoWonder who's going to scoop the TechCrunch buy out price, since that's usually TechCrunch's job.
- RealGeek 16y agoMay be Venture Beat? or GigaOM
- bvi 16y agoSome rumors on Twitter are saying AOL whipped out $25m. Edit: http://www.businessinsider.com/aol-techcrunch-price-25-million-2010-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/aol-techcrunch-price-25-milli...
- tlrobinson 16y agoWasn't there a rumor awhile ago that someone (AOL?) offered TC $20 million in 2008? If true, $25 million seems low. That article was updated with CNBC's figure of $40 million.
- alain94040 16y agoThere clearly is some kind of earn-out, meaning that the founders get the whole money only if they stay long enough and/or if the business remains healthy. On stage, Mike Arrington mentioned that he'd stay for sure on board for 3 years, due to "incentives." So it's possible that the sale price is $25M upfront, with another $25M in 3 years. That would make both sources (one that says the price was only $25M, and one that says it was in the $40 or $50M) correct.
- pmjoyce 16y agoWould a sale in that region make Techcrunch a "dipshit company" in Arrington's parlance? http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/07/lead-investors-dipshit-companies-and-funding-every-entrepreneur.html http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/07/lead-investors-dipshit-compa...
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- bond 16y agoSo we were right to suspect the move to Seattle was tax based...
- bhiggins 16y agoFellow Washingtonians, let's consider passing I-1098 especially in this light: http://www.seattlepi.com/local/426758_fair16.html http://www.seattlepi.com/local/426758_fair16.html
- ellyagg 16y agoFellow Washingtonians, let's consider not discouraging profitable business from moving to the state and stop encouraging profitable businesses that are already here, e.g., Boeing, to move more of its operations out of state.
- bhiggins 16y agoI agree. I-1098 also cuts the B&O tax and helps fund education. Employers need educated and skilled employees.
- _delirium 16y agoWonder what this'll do for his first-hand reporting on Silicon Valley. If you've moved out of a state for tax reasons, you generally have to be physically absent from the state the majority of the time--- you can't "move" but still live there 11 out of 12 months. (For California, you also have to stay moved for at least 4 years, or else your sub-4-year move might be deemed merely a temporary absence with intent to return.)
- vgurgov 16y agoam I the only one who thinks that IF its really the case, its kinda ... unfair. cmn, MA is good writer and he 100% deserves his money but he made it writing about SV! I think CA certainly deserve its 10,3% back, hey?
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- aonic 16y agohttp://corp.aol.com/2010/09/28/aol-to-acquire-techcrunch-network-of-sites/ http://corp.aol.com/2010/09/28/aol-to-acquire-techcrunch-net...
- carlos 16y agowill Mike move out from Seattle now?
- maguay 16y agoSo who's going to be the next TechCrunch now that they've been bought out? For that matter, seems like this leaves GigaOm as one of the largest independent blogs right now...
- kloncks 16y agoThis is epic. For all the crap we give AOL, they really did a nice job with the Weblogs acquisition. A lot of those blogs are still around and the leaders in the field. I wonder a) what's happening to the amazing conferences b) and where Mike's future will be like.
- InfinityX0 16y agoHuge props to AOL for showing that a massive company CAN pivot and use their brand equity/buying power to maintain a successful business. Myspace, take notes.
- jrwoodruff 16y agoGannett, take notes. Or continue dying.
- ig1 16y agoNot such a great job with Compuserve, ICQ, Netscape, WinAmp, Bebo, etc. AOL have had more bad takeovers than good.
- ck2 16y agoThe only problem is AOL has driven every acquisition into the ground: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_AOL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_AOL But still, congrats to the TechCrunch bunch.
- mikeryan 16y agoWeblogs Inc seems to be doing okay, not sure if this would be much different.
- thereticent 16y agoI agree. The major difference between Weblogs Inc/TC and many of the other acquisitions is that they serve audience-relevant content (to use Armstrong's words). It makes sense that AOL would focus more on high-quality content than on vehicles for content delivery in light of the Weblogs Inc success.
- mtigas 16y agoAFAIK, Patch http://www.patch.com/ http://www.patch.com/ has been growing by leaps and bounds — but they may have more autonomy than some (all) of the advertising/services acquisitions. (I guess most of which eventually folded into AOL?)
- edw519 16y ago"You've Got Capital Gains"
- martythemaniak 16y agoBlob: "Your shares are worth a hundred and seven dollars a piece!" Leela: "They are? Oh my god! I'm a millionaire! Suddenly I have an opinion about the capital gains tax!"
- melvinram 16y agoThat's called a good problem to have :)
- pierrefar 16y agoI'm of the opinion that people who say something is a good problem to have are people who have never had that problem.
- loewenskind 16y agoI don't think you understand what the phrase means if you think that. Having the "problem" of dealing with capital gains means you made money that is capital gains taxable. The alternative is to not make that money. Get it?
- pierrefar 16y agoOh I understand it perfectly and I think you misunderstood me. Whether you say "scaling is a good problem to have" or "paying CGT is a good problem to have", it just means you never experienced how hard it really is to scale, and how hard it is to deal with taxes/accountants/lawyers and lose money. They're still problems and when you're in the thick of them, they're not good.
- loewenskind 16y agoOf course they are. If you have scaling problems that means you have a ton of users. A hard problem but I'd rather have it than not have it. Same with capital gains tax. I'd rather make enough that I have to pay attention to this stuff then not ever have to think about it because I've never been financially successful enough for it to matter (and with taxes you're not "losing money", you're paying for the services that helped you get there. Of course that's not as clearly the case in the US tax system but that's the idea anyway). If everything were effortless then anyone could do it.
- kevinholesh 16y agoThough I disagree with Arrington quite often, congratulations on the acquisition. He worked his ass off to build TechCrunch to where it is today.
- NHQ 16y agoWe interrupt this disrupt to join AOL's "audience-relavent" department.
- robryan 16y agoIt's interesting that with AOL trying to assemble a collection of new media websites/blogs they probably would have been better off spinning off another company that doesn't have such a bad reputation in media.
- duck 16y agoDid anyone see this coming?
- bond 16y agoThe acquisition? Yes. From AOL? No.
- AlexMuir 16y agoThat post is such a canned press release it's untrue. [insert name] CEO, commented: blah blah natural complement... Blah excited ... Blah great future together.
- henrikschroder 16y ago"Tim Armstrong and his team have an exciting vision for the future of AOL as a global leader in creating and delivering world-class content to consumers" ...and they also had a big wheelbarrow of cash.
- jiganti 16y agoInteresting follow-up to the talk of companies being acquired yesterday at disrupt. Arrington was surprised that Conway et al seemed to not have a problem with companies who were content with being acquired at less than billion dollar valuations and dramatic "change the world" dreams.
- hop 16y agoI wonder if TC was owned 100% by Arrington. That would be a big check in the mail. Hope the rest of the writers there get some dough.
- joshfinnie 16y agoI have heard that Arrington is the majority owner (by a large scale). I think the CEO and a third person own a small share. I will look for the source I am remembering...
- razin 16y agoAccording to Scoble (http://scobleizer.com/2010/09/28/techcrunch-disrupted-by-aol-the-end-of-an-era-in-tech-blogging/ http://scobleizer.com/2010/09/28/techcrunch-disrupted-by-aol...), Arrington owns a "...majority share, with Heather (Harde) owning a healthy share, and Keith (Teare) owning a far smaller share."
- bearwithclaws 16y agoI'm absolutely certain I will be downvoted for this, but I'm really saddened about this deal. Well... Congratulation to the TechCrunch team; my condolences to TechCrunch. http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2565-acquisition-condolences http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2565-acquisition-condolences
- josefresco 16y agoWhat a troll. And no I don't mean you bearwithclaws I mean 37 Signals. Cherry picking two failed acquisitions to support your knee-jerk reaction to this deal is just lazy. I don't think I need to point out that AOL has done just this before (bought popular blogs) with great success. The shot at AOL's 'age' is just icing on this lame attempt at getting some free press cake.
- jimboyoungblood 16y agoNot a "knee-jerk reaction"- the 37s post was written two weeks ago..
- alphadog 16y agoBut I thought Yahoo! were making content plays . . . . Perhaps they only make moves for blue collar content?
- rishi 16y agoNot sure what to think. I really like TechCrunch and hope it stays awesome.
- benologist 16y agoComing soon ... more ads, less journalizm!
- kloncks 16y agoBest comment from TechCrunch: "Shouldn't Techcrunch be acquiring AOL?"
- skinnymuch 16y agoSure AOL is not what is was before, but even when you put aside it's dying internet subscription model, it's media branch(es) still do well over a billion in revenue per year. I had a college-bound relative bring up some random web startup he heard about from Engadget's comment section. I'm sure he has no idea that Techcrunch even exists.
- pedalpete 16y agoYou probably don't realize how many AOL sites you interact with regularly. They don't do a lot of 'hey this is an AOL site', so I suspect just like TC, you won't be aware of any major changes.
- vaksel 16y agoit's kinda funny....Techcrunch makes it a point that they don't accept press releases...and they announce their acquisition with a press release.
- rewind 16y agoI read it more as Tim saying "this is now our company and I'm letting you know", so any previous rules are already out the window ;-)
- djacobs 16y agoHe doesn't even mark up the press release with semantics. Not even header tags for subheadings. What is this?
- lachyg 16y agoI call it a 'rushed post'.
- davidmurphy 16y agoArrington handed Armstrong his laptop on stage and had Tim press the "publish" button. Armstrong didn't write the post, let alone even read it before he hit publish, it seems. I think it was done by Techcrunch. Watch the video and you'll see.
- markkat 16y agoThis bums me out. A TC that can't call AOL a pile of dung isn't TC to me. I really enjoyed TC, and have a lot of respect for Michael Arrington. I don't blame him at all for cashing in. But this will decrease the quality of TC.
- josefresco 16y agoAOL owning Engadget and Autoblog, two blogs I visit daily, hasn't affected the quality one bit.
- kalid 16y agoBut gadgets and cars aren't areas AOL is heavily involved in, as far as I know. How would reporting of something like AOL's search privacy leak (http://techcrunch.com/2006/08/07/aol-this-was-a-screw-up/ http://techcrunch.com/2006/08/07/aol-this-was-a-screw-up/) go?
- markkat 16y agoNot that those are bad blogs, but they are very different from TC, IMO. Arrington infused TC with a 'devil-may-care' personality that made for a dramatic read. I don't think AOL (their PR dept) will be able to stomach such behavior. I think this will tame TechCrunch.
- DevX101 16y agoAnyone have any thoughts on the impact of leaks on accelerating/killing deals?
- samratjp 16y agoLet's hope Arrington will continue to be loud even after the acquisition and not have to worry about pissing off some advertiser with AOL or something.
- iamdave 16y agoI've always kind of disliked Arrington, thought he came off as a douche on a lot of occasions. And yet, I'll give the man props. He started a business, hustled his arse off and made a big sale. Haters gonna hate, but good job.
- jim_dot 16y agoI wonder how many more Armstrongs can show up on HN's front page? Maybe get something about Hellcat Records on here and we can have two Tim Armstrongs!
- jw84 16y agoConsensus amongst my hacker community: sellout. But we all drunk some haterade this morning.
- pedalpete 16y agoIs that a consensus of one? From a business perspective, this is a successful exit, though I seem to recall $100m valuation about a year ago. From a hacker perspective, I don't really think much about TC. They aren't a technology company, though they've done a really nice job with open data on the crunchbase.
- jw84 16y agoCute. The consensus is of six successful and pretty popular serial entrepreneurs/hackers and five of my high up tech hacks contacts that's been reading TechCrunch even before '05, when Arrington published on his first site. The hackers thought he was a startup hero but this is a sellout move to give it up like this. The hacks think the flacks must be effing elated. Now the process to get their bullshit published is streamlined when there's shareholders to account for.
- jrockway 16y agoWhat's great about selling out is that he doesn't have to care that you think he's selling out. He has a hundred million dollars now...
- jw84 16y agoYou don't need money to not care. That's a childish notion.
- pedalpete 16y agoI don't think you deserve -points for this response, but I clearly it seems your sample isn't representative of the overall community. Though I've become curious, what would your group have considered a positive result for MA and TC? Is there an exit strategy that your group would have preferred? Why? Or do you feel that any exit would have been selling out? Is there some inherent value you see to TC being independent?
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- Mystalic 16y agoCongrats to the TechCrunch team.
- olalonde 16y agoI couldn't help myself from laughing when I noticed AOL's first post was one of those press releases that Michael Arrington despises.
- steve19 16y agoTechcrunch is dead. Long live Techcrunch.
- bond 16y agoVideo of the deal: http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/28/the-aol-techcrunch-disrupt-tcdisrup-videos-tctv/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/28/the-aol-techcrunch-disrupt-...
- thought_alarm 16y agoSend your comments to arrington1970@aol.com
- aberkowitz 16y agoDid AOL acquire the rights to the CrunchPad as well? It was never clear whether it was completely spun off as a separate entity.
- chc 16y agoIIRC, TechCrunch didn't even acquire the rights to the CrunchPad.
- aberkowitz 16y agoTo clarify: I am leading to whether or not AOL would represent the interests of Michael Arrington's Crunchpad v. joojoo d/b/a Fusion Garage Pte Ltd in their current legal battle.
- alttab 16y agoThe title says "We Got TechCrunch" like a general coming back from battle.
- paolomaffei 16y agoWill they now stop with gossip or do even more?
- michaelhalligan 16y agoThis seems like a good fit, certainly an equivalent quality of editorial content.
- danielnicollet 16y agoI was at Netscape 8 years ago when AOL spent $4.2B on it so that TC deal seems like peanuts and AOL might be on the up and up but it sure isn't as grand as it once was! AOL and Web were never friends.
- wiks 16y agoI wonder what Mike Arrington will be doing after this? 1) Go for pilgrimage 2) Run for public office 3) Start another tech blog 4) open a law firm
- erickhill 16y agoSo, content-based sites can make money after all. TC apparently made decent profits off of their events business, and the site was basically a large marketing spend. Arrington's legendary workaholism paid off nicely.
- templaedhel 16y agoI am worried about the long term of this deal as well. Can techcrunch post AOL leaks anymore (Not that AOL really has leaks anymore)? Will the upper echalon corporation politics effect the writings? Will the Disrupt and TC50 events still happen? I would assume they would, who knows. I am also curious about the crunchpad/jojo lawsuits going on. Will the added aol resources help? Not effect it? Hopefully techcrunch stays roughly the same, or I will need a new main news source.
- jlees 16y agoI just hope AOL starts paying all TC writers the ridiculously low monkey writer rate that it pays Weblogs writers. Ooh, and TC posts now get entered into the digg voting ring too!
- omouse 16y agoI hope the hack writers get fired...