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Tag: PandoDaily

  • Michael Arrington, MG Siegler Out at PandoDaily

    Out of the AOL / TechCrunch drama factory came PandoDaily earlier this year. The news site launched as one focused on startups and it looked a lot like “TechCrunch All-Stars.”.

    Part of the plan was to have TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington as well as fellow CrunchFund partner and current (sometimes) writer for TechCrunch MG Siegler jump (and stay) on as contributors – a plan that apparently went awry on Monday. According to a post on PandoDaily by Founder and CEO Sarah Lacy, Arrington and Siegler are out at the new site after shareholders voted to yank Arrington as a director.

    As of Monday, April 9 the shareholders of PandoMedia voted to remove Michael Arrington as a director. Given the change in relationship we feel it’s inappropriate for CrunchFund’s partners Michael Arrington and MG Siegler to continue contributing to PandoDaily. We thank MG for his many stellar contributions to date and Michael for his support in the early days of the company.

    The announcement was abbreviated and they disabled comments on the post. There hasn’t been anything more from PandoDaily’s end on the matter.

    But Arrington and Siegler both posted about the move, and they seem to agree on a root cause: their participation in TechCrunch Disrupt.

    Here’s what Arrington had to say on Uncrunched:

    This wasn’t a complete surprise to me, the company notified me last week that they weren’t happy that I and MG Siegler (my partner at CrunchFund) were going to speak at TechCrunch Disrupt this coming May.

    Part of the reason that I’m speaking at Disrupt is that I have a contractual commitment to do so as part of my break with them last year, which Sarah knew about before our involvement in Pando. But MG and I are also speaking there because we still love TechCrunch. And we both speak at many other conferences as well.

    Siegler echoed this on his blog:

    Lots of questions about the PandoDaily situation. To be completely honest, I’m a bit surprised by how this went down. I think Michael’s response is appropriate.

    The problem seemed to be us participating in TechCrunch Disrupt (and I assume more Michael than myself since I’m still a TechCrunch contributor). But we both speak at a lot of conferences. And I view it as valuable that we speak at a wide range of conferences.

    Both Arrington and Siegler also mention that they think PandoDaily has potential to succeed, even though neither will be a part of it. At this point, nobody seems to be shocked by any drama that comes out of this bunch:

    @nikcub
    nik cubrilovic    This whole Techcrunch/Pando/Arrington thing needs an infographic 11 hours ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

  • TechCrunch Sheds Another Of Its Old School Writers

    After AOL acquired TechCrunch, the popular tech blog started going through a lot of changes. They weren’t all immediately noticeable, but it didn’t take too long for things to be very publicly coming apart at the seams.

    That’s no slight on TechCrunch as it stands today. It still has writers that deserve the respect of being taken seriously. Some of the old school TechCrunch writers are still there, for that matter. It’s just that they keep leaving, one by one. Nobody’s saying TechCrunch can’t continue to thrive as a quality tech publication, but there’s no denying that things are rapidly changing.

    It began mainly when founder Michael Arrington had that whole Crunchfund thing blow up in the media. If you care enough to be reading this story, you’re probably already familiar with that story. Other writers followed Arrington out the door. Paul Carr was early to do so. Others that have since left include: MG Siegler, Sarah Lacy, CEO Heather Harde, Robin Wauters, and now it’s Jason Kincaid. Forgive me if I left any out.

    For those who have been reading TechCrunch for a substantial amount of time, it’s easy to see that this is the bulk of the writers that made the blog what it would become.

    Arrington would go on to start his Uncrunched blog. Some of us wondered if this would become the next TechCrunch eventually. That changed when PandoDaily was launched earlier this year, led by Lacy, and also including writing from Arrington, Siegler and Carr. It will not be surprising to anyone if Kincaid and some of the others end up writing for PandoDaily as well (I should point out that Siegler still does contribute to TechCrunch some).

    Here are a few tweets from TechCrunch editor Erick Schonfeld and Kincaide himself. Kincaid’s links to his explanation.

    @erickschonfeld
    Erick Schonfeld    Yes, @jasonkincaid is leaving TechCrunch. A terrific writer who is ready to do something else. I’ll let him explain why. 50 minutes ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @erickschonfeld
    Erick Schonfeld    @sarahcuda @eldon Maybe he wants to say goodbye in his own way instead of grandstanding like some other former TC writers. 41 minutes ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @jasonkincaid
    Jason Kincaid    A Farewell Ahoy. Thank you to TechCrunch — and all of its readers — for an amazing four years. http://t.co/BRuJEQvh 10 minutes ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    @jasonkincaid
    Jason Kincaid    I should add that @erickschonfeld graciously offered to let me publish this on TC, but I thought it would be better suited for my own blog. 10 minutes ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    In other AOL Tech publication staff loss news, Engadget Editorial Director Joshua Fruhlinger is reportedly leaving for TMZ.

  • PandoDaily: New Tech News Site From TechCrunch All Stars

    The “four biggest voices” who left TechCrunch (Sarah Lacy’s words) have started PandoDaily, a new tech site aimed at covering start-ups that sounds, well, exactly like TechCrunch.

    Lacy is leading the charge, and the site will also feature writing from Michael Arrington, MG Siegler and Paul Carr.

    In a post by Lacy, called “Why I Started PandoDaily,” Lacy says:

    We have one goal here at PandoDaily: To be the site-of-record for that startup root-system and everything that springs up from it, cycle-after-cycle. That sounds simple but it’ll be incredibly hard to pull off. It’s not something we accomplish on day one or even day 300. It’s something we accomplish by waking up every single day and writing the best stuff we can, and continually adding like-minded staffers who have the passion, drive and talent to do the same.

    As a founder, I have a personal goal that’s just as important and just as core to our culture: I do not want to sell this company. I have opened nearly every meeting by telling potential investors and potential employees this, so I guess readers should know it from the beginning as well.

    Of course, there’s the caveat that if someone calls me tomorrow and offers $1 billion, I might cave. I do have investors after all, and everyone has a price. And I’ve been around enough entrepreneurs to know the journey changes you in ways you can’t expect. I’m as aware as anyone this resolve might soften over time.

    Arrington adds on his Uncrunched blog:

    Pando Daily has a single overriding goal – to be the paper of record for Silicon Valley. That means every story of importance will be covered with an unbiased look at the facts. Along with a healthy dose of the analysis that you’ve already come to expect from her and the people she works with.

    There’s a big void in Silicon Valley right now, and I believe readers are aching for something to fill that void. Pando Daily is going to do that.

    Speaking about TechCrunch in a video interview with AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher, Lacy said, “I think it’s on a downward path obviously or would have stayed. They’re not breaking news as much as they used to be…”

    It’s certainly going to be interesting to see how the new site competes with the established TechCrunch, which does still retain some of its writers from the pre-AOL days.

    They’re also going to have a monthly series of events (with fireside chats).

    Arrington’s CrunchFund, by the way, is also an investor in PandoDaily. Other investors include: Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel, Tony Hseih, Zach Nelson, Andrew Anker, Chris Dixon, Saul Klein, Josh Kopelman, Jeff Jordan, Matt Cohler, Greylock Discovery Fund, Accel’s Seed Fund, Menlo Ventures Talent Fund, Lerer Ventures, SV Angels and Ooga Labs.

    One more interesting aspect of PandoDaily is that it says it will honor embargos to put stories in its “PandoTicker,” but will require something exclusive for the main blog part. TechCrunch has been known to break an embargo or two in the past, under Arrington. Granted, Arrington was very up front about this in a post called “Death to the Embargo“.

    It will be interesting to see how this strategy plays out. My guess is that it will work pretty well, given the fame its writers already have within the industry.