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He’s starting an investment portfolio called CrunchFund. The worry is that TC will write stuff that is pro-"CrunchFunded" companies and slam their competitors.

by alanh 15y ago

cookiecaper 15y ago
OK, so AOL doesn't want the potential conflict of interest and that's all there is to this?
- nknight 15y ago
  AOL backed the fund. It's exactly as much of a disaster as it sounds.
  - cookiecaper 15y ago
    That sounds like there is a good chance that this was a malicious action, "how can we get rid of Arrington without making everyone hate us?" I have a hard time believing that they set the whole fund up, went through all the motions, and only after Mike publicly announced it did they say, "Oh, maybe there's a conflict of interest here..." It was probably concocted with the intent to remove Mike Arrington, replace him with AOL's own suit that can squeeze more money out of TC, and look like a white knight while doing so, improving the reputation of AOL's "journalism" properties (which are the only significant part of AOL left, really). I understand this is a violation of Hanlon's Razor, the incompetence seems a bit far-fetched for me. I would expect at least someone in the company saw this coming.
    - nknight 15y ago
      Well, first, I think plenty of people already hate AOL. Second, it was AOL's CEO that explicitly disclaimed journalistic ethics, not Arrington or anybody at TechCrunch. Finally, Arrington is good at this, AOL never has been. No rationale person intentionally picks a public fight with Arrington. If this was intentional on AOL's part, it backfired badly, and is still attributable to stupidity.
- dspillett 15y ago
  For what I can tell AOL were quite happy with it when it wasn't widely reported (or they were to thick to notice it, or the board just OKed its investment into the fund without any due diligence checks at all - lack of due diligence being the most likely explanation as generally ignorance trumps stupidity and stupidity trumps malice). They backtracked when other outlets got hold of the story and started talking about it. The people being back-tracked on, and their friends & partners, are not happy. As a result several prams now contain less toys than they once did.
- wisty 15y ago
  AOL is a big org, and different sections have different needs. The business guys think the conflict of interest is a selling point - take CrunchFund money, or risk TC slamming your business! The people in AOL management who actually care about journalistic integrity (both of them?) think it's bad. It seems the compromise position is to move Mike (the guy who upholds TC's integrity) off TC, so there's no conflict of interest, and move some corporate guy in there to keep things honest.

He’s starting an investment portfolio called CrunchFund. The worry is that TC will write stuff that is pro-"CrunchFunded" companies and slam their competitors.

by alanh 15y ago

He’s starting an investment portfolio called CrunchFund. The worry is that TC will write stuff that is pro-"CrunchFunded" companies and slam their competitors.

cookiecaper 15y ago

OK, so AOL doesn't want the potential conflict of interest and that's all there is to this?

nknight 15y ago
AOL backed the fund. It's exactly as much of a disaster as it sounds.
- cookiecaper 15y ago
  That sounds like there is a good chance that this was a malicious action, "how can we get rid of Arrington without making everyone hate us?" I have a hard time believing that they set the whole fund up, went through all the motions, and only after Mike publicly announced it did they say, "Oh, maybe there's a conflict of interest here..." It was probably concocted with the intent to remove Mike Arrington, replace him with AOL's own suit that can squeeze more money out of TC, and look like a white knight while doing so, improving the reputation of AOL's "journalism" properties (which are the only significant part of AOL left, really). I understand this is a violation of Hanlon's Razor, the incompetence seems a bit far-fetched for me. I would expect at least someone in the company saw this coming.
  - nknight 15y ago
    Well, first, I think plenty of people already hate AOL. Second, it was AOL's CEO that explicitly disclaimed journalistic ethics, not Arrington or anybody at TechCrunch. Finally, Arrington is good at this, AOL never has been. No rationale person intentionally picks a public fight with Arrington. If this was intentional on AOL's part, it backfired badly, and is still attributable to stupidity.
dspillett 15y ago
For what I can tell AOL were quite happy with it when it wasn't widely reported (or they were to thick to notice it, or the board just OKed its investment into the fund without any due diligence checks at all - lack of due diligence being the most likely explanation as generally ignorance trumps stupidity and stupidity trumps malice). They backtracked when other outlets got hold of the story and started talking about it. The people being back-tracked on, and their friends & partners, are not happy. As a result several prams now contain less toys than they once did.
wisty 15y ago
AOL is a big org, and different sections have different needs. The business guys think the conflict of interest is a selling point - take CrunchFund money, or risk TC slamming your business! The people in AOL management who actually care about journalistic integrity (both of them?) think it's bad. It seems the compromise position is to move Mike (the guy who upholds TC's integrity) off TC, so there's no conflict of interest, and move some corporate guy in there to keep things honest.