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At My Wit’s End: Jason Calacanis Threatens To Sue Us
- nostrademons 16y agoWhy does TechCrunch seem to attract as much drama as Fandom Wank?
- JCThoughtscream 16y agoGlibly, because TechCrunch itself is a wank outlet for Silicon Valley business drama.
- jakerocheleau 16y agoTC turns everyday tech entrepreneurs into glamorous celebs. Hollywood 2.0, if you will
- michaelhart 16y agoI.... hate.... drama....
- iuguy 16y agoI draw two things from this: 1) Don't do business with Jason Calcanis. This is not the first time I've heard Calcanis-related drama, won't be the last. Not that I ever was going to do business with him, nor him with me mind. 2) Don't do business with Michael Arrington. He washes his dirty laundry on a very public blog without regard for his business associates (in this case, AOL). Drama never leads to good business practice.
- boundlessdreamz 16y agoI think Arrington is very justified. As he said earlier he has been silent until now. Patience does have a limit ?
- dkuchar 16y agoArrington has had his own share of business drama as well: http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/15/status-of-crunchpad-litigation/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/15/status-of-crunchpad-litigat...
- DougBTX 16y agoI understand it as a dramatic device. Being quiet to start with makes the shouting seem louder.
- philk 16y agoIf someone has been publically slandering you and is now threatening legal action I think you're well within your rights to fight back however you see fit.
- redthrowaway 16y agoFrom what I've seen of Mike Arrington, I have little reason to doubt that what Calcanis has said is true. That doesn't make his handling of the situation justified, but I think the hardon HN seems to have for Mike Arrington is entirely unwarranted, and motivated more by the hopes for favourable TC coverage than by rational analysis.
- tyng 16y agoSorry to say this but your baseless accusation of the HN community is also unwarranted.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- redthrowaway 16y agoBased on my experience, it's neither baseless nor unwarranted.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- kbatten 16y agoHow far does "however you see fit" go? Escalation to the nuclear option is rarely, if ever the correct course of action.
- ErrantX 16y agoIt's the option Arrington usually goes for (i.e. Angelgate, Crunchpad collapse etc.)
- dabeeeenster 16y agoBut it IS good business for TechCrunch, isn't it. Isn't that the whole point of him posting this stuff publicly?
- zazi 16y ago"2) Don't do business with Michael Arrington. He washes his dirty laundry on a very public blog without regard for his business associates (in this case, AOL)." Posting this on techcrunch is, to me, an effective way of warning people not to mess with him and preventing future suits. The message I got was "Don't sue Michael Arrington unless you absolutely know you have the right of it". There was a comment by lionhearted about a month ago on how he stopped people from bullying him. (Which seems to be what Arrington is doing to Calcanis.) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1765109 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1765109 "I wished I'd learned that lesson earlier. Some people are animals. The ones that want to hurt you for no reason. Show them that you'll go to self-destructive lengths to defend yourself and avenge yourself upon them, and they'll stop."
- ilamont 16y agoBut surely people must know this by now, and it still goes on. How many private flare-ups and legal notices have been posted on Techcrunch in the past five years? Joojoo was blowing up about this time last year. Yet the bullying/suits against Arrington continue.
- uxp 16y agoAnyone with an ego that rivals Arrington's knows this, but they think that they are going to be the one that finally topples the private empire Arrington has created. Delusion at its finest. Not that I think Arrington is without fault. He probably thinks the same thing against many of his rivals, but they don't publish personal sob stories of how Arrington is trying to screw them on their company blogs, which seem to have less readers than TechCrunch anyways.
- iuguy 16y ago> Posting this on techcrunch is, to me, an effective way of warning people not to mess with him and preventing future suits. I would like to respectfully disagree with you on this point. If I entered into a contract with Mr Arrington and had a dispute, I'd try to resolve through all non-legal means possible. If these fail then as a last resort I'd go to the courts. Posting on techcrunch acts as an effective warning never to enter into a contract with him that could result in a lawsuit. > The message I got was "Don't sue Michael Arrington unless you absolutely know you have the right of it". The message I think you should've got was, "Don't enter into a contract with Michael Arrington unless you absolutely know you have the right of it." To be fair to Mr Arrington, I think this article says a lot about Jason Calcanis as well. I think my point about Drama still stands. It doesn't lead to anything good business wise. It's just not a good move for anyone from where I stand, although YMMV.
- michaelhart 16y agoBut they do report news. Had they simply ignored it as it blew up, wouldn't it be more childish to not cover it? I think Arrington handled it rather professionally, and didn't sink to the lows that Calcanis has.
- iuguy 16y agoYou raise some very interesting points. I think your point about Arrington not sinking to the lows that Calcanis had is a very interesting thing to say (as Calcanis' side of the story hadn't been heard at the time). What I do believe is that Arrington has 'sunk', perhaps not to the lows he implies or explicitly accuses calcanis of sinking to (and I'm not suggesting calcanis has or hasn't sunk to those lows) but by publishing it separately instead of just waiting for the case he's played his hand early and I think he's at the very least 'sunk', although I could be wrong. That's the great thing about legal judgements, everyone looks like an arsehole, no matter what the truth. I hope that neither you nor I face a major lawsuit, especially over something so frivolous as a disagreement between grown men.
- staunch 16y agoThe only reason TechCrunch50 made so much money is because of the TechCrunch brand. TechCrunch had a dozen events before that, and they were all very popular. Calacanis should have counted himself lucky to make a few million dollars and then moved on. Arrington offering him 10% (of TC stock?) for walking away was more than generous. Calacanis just got greedy. If he was truly convinced he was such a big part of the conference he wouldn't have anything to cry about. He could start his own conference and it would be just as popular and lucrative as TC50. Of course his won't be nearly as popular or lucrative though, and he knows it.
- swombat 16y agoIn addition, TC has had a number of events outside the US which have been successful too and had nothing to do with Jason.
- mentat 16y agoI wonder if Calcanis didn't accept the 10% offering as his eventual intent was go for 50% with this sort of action. It's one reason not to actually accept anything, the belief that by leaving it materially open one can get more later. If he had accepted 10% would he still have the same standing to sue?
- twidlit 16y agoFunny how in last week's episode of This Week in Startups. The founder of Unsubscribe.com and Phonetag.com said to Jason that suing anybody is a big waste of time for everybody involved.
- fletchowns 16y agoWho cares about this other than those directly involved? Why is every bowel movement over at TechCrunch posted on here lately?
- bl4k 16y agoThe 59 people who upvoted it do. The process of promoting stories on HN is democratic, if you don't like it then get your news elsewhere - don't bitch about it.
- zephyrfalcon 16y agoRight now it's not even in the top 25 on programming.reddit.com... but that might be because it has little to do with programming.
- demallien 16y agoI'm guessing it's because both Calacanis and Arrington are important players in the Valley startup scene, and it's good to know what they are like to do business with. Personally, as someone living in Europe, I agree with you, this doesn't seem at all interesting/useful to me, but I can understand how this would be of interest to many HN participants.
- anthonyb 16y agoIt's also a useful case study in how co-founders can try and screw each other over, and how important it is for them to be on the same side. That's a pretty general lesson.
- kevinelliott 16y agoOoh look, a couple of millionaires whining about their little arguments. Update: Bring on the down votes, as I'm sure many of you worship these guys. I won't hold back my opinions with thoughts of losing karma. These guys are having little fits that so many startups have, but using their notoriety to get attention over it. Don't feed into it!
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- ScottWhigham 16y agoI don't think people are downvoting b/c they agree/disagree/love/hate/care about the people or companies in the article; my take on it is that you are getting downvoted because your comment had no substance and was just sarcastic whinging. Your comment could have been straight outta YouTube land and I don't think folks here appreciated it.
- kevinelliott 16y agoPerhaps. YC has a history with TC, so I think it bothers fans of these guys as well. After all, it was posted here, and then up voted. And Calacanis is a contributing member here. None the less, I agree that my comment added nothing of value to the conversation, and that along merits the down votes. But ultimately so did the original article.
- julianz 16y agoI'd really love to see a filtered HN with nothing from or about TechCrunch. Maybe it's just because I'm thousands of miles away and have hardly ever heard of the participants or many of the companies involved, but I deeply don't care about this shit.
- lylejohnson 16y agoYou might appreciate Giles Bowkett's Hacker Newspaper (http://hacker-newspaper.gilesb.com/ http://hacker-newspaper.gilesb.com/), which among other things skips all links to TechCrunch. See Giles' post about it here: http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2009/04/miniapp-hacker-newspaper.html http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2009/04/miniapp-hacker-news....
- tlrobinson 16y agoAfter watching the latest "This Week in Startups" with Jason hosting Dave McClure (http://thisweekin.com/thisweekin-startups/this-week-in-startups-91-with-dave-mcclure-founder-of-500-startups/ http://thisweekin.com/thisweekin-startups/this-week-in-start...) my opinion of Jason has sunk to an all time low. Jason spent a significant chunk of time trash-talking Arrington, and egging on Dave to do the same. It all came across as very childish to me. That said, my opinion of Arrington isn't much better.
- jacoblyles 16y agoThat, and he runs a "startup" that is a glorified content scraper.
- redthrowaway 16y agoAt this point, I don't even care if Arrington has a legitimate point. His handling of this affair has led me to believe that he is slimy, immature, and petulant. Of course, his handling of other affairs had predisposed me to this conclusion.
- rumpelstiltskin 16y agoArrington hooks up with Fusion Garage to create the CrunchPad. Fusion garage cuts him out and goes ahead with their own version titled the JooJoo. Arrington sues Fusion Garage. Calacanis hooks up with Arrington to launch TC50. Arrington cuts Calacanis out and goes ahead with his own version titled TCDisrupt. Calacanis theatens to sue Arrington. Karma's a bitch no? Edit: Yes, I know there are some subtle but important differences b/w the two scenarios, but couldn't help noticing the similarity. And for the record, this makes them both look bad.
- aberkowitz 16y agoSubtle but important differences make the situations incomparable to each other. Partnership dissolved in bad faith vs partnership dissolved through legally binding agreement.
- ComputerGuru 16y agoAnyone else tired of the seemingly-endless barrage of hissy-fit tabloid-fodder stories related to Silicon Valley bigshots? Things like Musk's marital problems, Arrington's latest enemy of the week, etc.... it's just all such a ridiculous waste of time when there far more important things to concern oneself with!
- hristov 16y agoOk I don't care about Musk's marital problems at all, but Arrington's little dramas are a lot of fun to watch. And very instructive too, as they reveal a lot about the real Silicon Valley.
- xiaoma 16y agoI found Musk's "marital problems", i.e. the nullification of his and his wife's post-nup very instructive. It's useful information to know how flimsy such agreements are in the US (or at least California).
- steve19 16y agoThey keep calling each other friends. WordNet: # S: (n) friend (a person you know well and regard with affection and trust) "he was my best friend at the university" They are not friends. They both need to get over this and move on.
- chickenmonk 16y agoWith friends like these...
- scorpion032 16y agoAlternative definition of friend is being an enemy's enemy. With the number of enemies they have both individually got, I am sure there are more than a handful of common ones!
- scorpion032 16y agoTheir "friendship" comes more out of "common hatred" than "mutual trust".
- cletus 16y agoI wrote a post about the sale of TechCrunch to AOL a month ago: http://www.cforcoding.com/2010/10/did-michael-arrington-screw-jason.html http://www.cforcoding.com/2010/10/did-michael-arrington-scre... In putting together the timeline there was in my opinion a real stink surrounding Arrington's actions. It all just seemed too convenient and coincidental and unsurprisingly to MA's benefit. I read this post and there is a similar stink. Mike is just too much playing the hapless victim of a tyrannical ogre to be credible. TC might have done q lot but Jason brought a lot to the table. Compare and contrast with the far less exciting Disrupt conference. Frankly this sob story has for me made jason's version of events far more credible. EDIT: sigh, and so the down voting just for my opinion begins...
- nailer 16y agoI suspect the downvotes are more for linking to your blog to get the meat of whatever you're saying.
- tyng 16y agoWhile I think Arrington is justified to express his views on the matter, he should certainly start a personal blog that's not affiliated with TC to do it. Lately he is bringing too much of his personal and company dramas (CrunchPad, Angel Gate, Jason Calacanis) to the TC world and it's hard for people not to think he is leveraging TC to his own advantage.
- jwr 16y agoI really wish this kind of tabloid news didn't make it to the top of Hacker News. We are a community of Hackers. We set out to change the world, create things, build value. Why then should we be interested in petty clashes of Silicon Valley drama queens? What difference does it make who hates whom and who sues whom? How does it influence my new startup? Before upvoting something, consider: does reading this story make me a better hacker?
- watty 16y agoEven though I'm not supposed to agree with you disagreeing with what should be on HN, I do.
- RBr 16y agoYou know, this type of tabloid stuff has made me better. Before watching Jason from a distance, I didn't realize how powerful this form of marketing was. I don't think I'd ever want to be known as the type of person I perceive Jason to be. However, this realization has made me stronger. Jason has a soft rule saying "always fight up, don't talk to people below you". I also understand that a lot of the things Jason has accomplished are a result of this tabloid / bickering form of marketing and not his business acumen. Today, for the most part, I ignore this type of stuff. This type of marketing is so powerful that it engages people online on a deep level. Much more effective then a million dollar ad buy, watching Jason and learning how to spot this game is incredibly valuable.
- js3309 16y agoThis story will make you think twice before choosing your next co-founder.
- aneth 16y agoThese are two of the most visible people in tech having a juvenile battle in public. In all truthfulness, Calacanis regularly serves as a warning to me about how not to handle oneself, and how just because your are successful doesn't mean your behavior is always going to be acceptable.
- zephyrfalcon 16y ago
- bbuffone 16y agoArrington is bad at picking his business partners. Enough said
- random42 16y agoI don't believe too much in dispute stories, when there is only one party of the dispute to represent. The stories are inevitably skewed too much in one direction.
- Tichy 16y agoI'm sure they'll sort it out somehow.
- grellas 16y agoFor those interested in some of the legal technicalities, a few thoughts. Timing is very important here. In essence, Mr. Calacanis and TC had formed an LLC to run the TC50 conference, were therefore co-members (i.e., partners) and equal owners of that LLC, and had reached a point in 2009 where they had serious tensions between them concerning the venture. Whatever the true story, it appears that they entered into a formal settlement agreement, with global releases granted to one another, earlier this year by which the LLC was dissolved and the parties were allowed to go their separate ways without either of them being able to make legal claims against the other. That in theory ends it all and should eliminate all future legal claims relating to the venture. Indeed, it is almost certain that the releases included the standard provision found in all California releases by which all parties would have agreed to release all claims, known and unknown and by which each party would have agreed and acknowledged to accept the risk of giving a full release even if later events revealed facts that might have materially altered that person's decision to grant the release in the first place. So what happened? AOL agrees to acquire TC, signs a definitive agreement to do so, and enters into an escrow/due diligence period preceding the closing during which TC and Mr. Arrington must warrant and represent, among other things, that the stock/assets being transferred are free of legal claims or liabilities that might affect AOL as buyer in the deal or, if not, that such claims are disclosed and accepted by the buyer. If serious legal claims arise during this period, (1) the deal might be killed if the prospective acquirer decides that the existence of such claims materially impairs the value of what is being acquired, or (2) the selling parties must agree to indemnify the acquirer from all such claims and (almost invariably) an amount is reserved and held back at the closing to serve as a fund by which to satisfy such liabilities following the closing. While I have no idea about details, this might mean in, say, a $60M deal, that AOL might insist on a hold-back amount of as much as a third of the purchase price to cover this sort of risk (if the value of the TC50 conference is a major part of what it is acquiring in relation to the other TC assets, this percentage could be higher). So what about the legal releases signed by Mr. Calacanis? Shouldn't this end the possibility of legal claims? Yes and no. Yes, in that a court would find that all such claims have been released unless the settlement agreement can be rescinded on some lawfully cognizable ground. But no, in that any agreement can be set aside if it was entered into based upon fraudulent misrepresentations, mutual mistake and a few other grounds justifying rescission. And that is what Mr. Calacanis is asserting here: that he would never have entered into the settlement had he known the material facts concerning the impending AOL acquisition, which he claims were not disclosed to him in connection with the settlement. He takes this a step further by asserting that Mr. Arrington and TC had fiduciary duties under laws pertaining to LLCs to disclose whatever material facts they knew about that impending acquisition. In other words, this was not a mere arms-length negotiation by which each party could go for maximum advantage by employing any sharp tactics available to it. When fiduciary duties apply, one party is deemed to repose trust in another and that other party has a duty not to abuse that trust. Put all this together and Mr. Calacanis is basically claiming that he was taken advantage of and misled into signing the settlement document, that he has a right to rescind it, and that it is therefore open season on his right to file a lawsuit over the whole mess. I don't believe, in this context, that Mr. Arrington is publicizing this in order to get hits for his site or simply because he is a "drama queen." I believe he sees this sort of claim, timed in this way, as something that can have a large impact on his potential for closing the AOL deal or at least for closing it on favorable terms and, therefore, his tactic seems to be to attempt to portray it as a shakedown suit and to use that to gain leverage for his position. Mr. Arrington is a fighter and I'm sure means it when he says he intends, in effect, to take this to the mat. He might be undercut in this effort, though, if AOL uses this as a reason to pull or modify its offer. This is where the true drama lies in this matter, in my view. I believe this puts Mr. Arrington under enormous pressure and probably explains why the claim is being asserted in this context. If it threatens to disrupt the deal, it might take a significant sum of money to make it go away. By the way, the law firm asserting this claim on behalf of Mr. Calacanis is a first-class firm. If this does get filed, it will be seen as a legal threat that must be taken seriously by AOL if it is to go through with this deal.
- edw519 16y agoThank you for this wonderful post! I was beginning to feel left out. While the rest of the U.S. is consumed with mid-term election results, World Series celebrations, fantasy football, Survivor, and Justin Bieber thinking he can dance with 5th graders, we hackers pay little attention and keep on working. Then you guys come along with fresh hacker-friendly drama. Thank you! It's been 3 weeks since Angelgate, and things were beginning to get monotonous alt-tabbing between my IDE, my debugger, my test runs, email, and hacker news. </sarcasm> Now that the sarcasm tag has been lifted, let me say what I really think: Why is it that those of you who have so much spend so much energy being drama queens? We hackers struggle every day, sometimes for years, building stuff, but if we fart wrong during a pitch, you send us on our way as if nothing we ever did matters. Anyone who comes to this board can bitch and moan about a million different things, but most of us don't; we just keep on working. Why don't you all just STFU and do the same. There's already too much drama and too much work to be done. When Silicon Valley turns into Hollywood or Washington, D.C., we should all start worrying.
- vaksel 16y agobecause they aren't hackers, but reporters, and drama = more clicks for them.
- mattmaroon 16y agoBecause this is what drives traffic to blogs. He's hacking here, just not code. It's also a little game theory, as Arrington's willingness to publish anything anyone does to screw him probably also makes people think twice about doing so. Also, it's not unimportant to startups. Jason is an angel investor. If this is even half true, I'd avoid having Jason invest in my startup. You can divorce your wife more easily than you can divorce your investors.
- w1ntermute 16y agoHere's a mirror in case Mike takes the post down or modifies it: http://ompldr.org/vNjEzOA/tc-jasongate.mht http://ompldr.org/vNjEzOA/tc-jasongate.mht I tried to take a screenshot using extensions in both Chrome and Firefox, but got various issues with parts of the page being missing or the extension giving me an error, so I made an MHT archive using Opera. Perhaps someone with better luck with the screenshot extensions can use the UnMHT extension to open the file in Firefox, take a screenshot, and post it.
- mcantor 16y agointernet | grep -v Calacanis
- spinlock 16y agoLooks like a good reason to really know the people you decide to partner with before you go into business together.
- rbanffy 16y agoIt's the second time in my memory TC is in the middle of a soap-opera-style tech drama. I am starting to suspect the common thing between both stories is the source of the drama. Either they have a knack for choosing bad partnerships or they are the unluckiest company on Earth.