TechCrunch CEO Heather Harde Reportedly Leaving AOL

Who would have ever thought that AOL purchasing TechCrunch wouldn’t go down as a completely smooth journey off into the sunset?

If you follow tech journalism news, you know that the journey has been anything but smooth, with the biggest bump in the road being that whole Crunch Fund, Michael Arrington ordeal earlier this year.

Since then, TechCrunch has lost some of its writers (though popular reporter MG Siegler still contributes a bit. He’s had 4 articles on TechCrunch this month).

Now, reports are out that CEO Heather Harde is quitting after disagreements with The Huffington Post, which is running the AOL content show these days. Henry Blodget at Business Insider says he’s heard from a source that Harde has handed in her resignation, but that AOL management is still trying to get her to stay.

It’s been quite interesting to see how the tech blog, which pretty much set the bar for the tech startup news niche seems to be coming apart at the seams since purchased by the online media giant.

That’s not to say that TechCrunch has done a poor job since then, by any means. They still have plenty of the names that have helped build the site into what it has become, and if I said I’ve seen better coverage of the tech startup industry, I’d be lying.

But how long will this last? That’s the real question. With the internal struggles that have been publicized (who knows what hasn’t been?), one has to wonder if AOL is going to run a much-respected tech site into the ground.

Here’s some of what people are saying about the Heather Harde news on Twitter:

I haven’t seen much in the way of praise for AOL. Unless you count something like this:

Everything seemed to be going pretty well with TechCrunch before AOL entered the equation. I’m sure more than a few people are still wondering if Uncrunched will become the new TechCrunch.