Ah, PayPerPost. The controversial Florida-based startup that is leading the effort to tarnish the blogosphere makes another PR blunder. And this one’s a whopper.
The company has been chronicling their startup days on a video blog called RockStartup. There have been some embarrassments before with the video blog - such as when a viewer noticed that the company had purchased $700 chairs for employees with investor capital and then yelled at a painter for standing on one (CEO Ted Murphy, pictured above, later said the chairs were purchased used).
But the most recent episode is where the company really takes the cake. All employees of the company were taken on an all-expenses-paid trip to Club Med, where as far as I can tell they spent their time getting drunk and dressing up as Native Americans, complete with lots of red face and body paint (something many Native Americans find both racist and offensive, and which has been equated to Blackface). The company also hired something called a “Creative Thinking Coach” to guide them through the whole experience.
The only question I have is…Did Draper Fisher Jurvetson, the main VC behind PayPerPost, really greenlight this debacle?
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all i can say is wtf
Yikes. Stick Foot in Mouth (or Video Camera) and Twist.
Not something to be proud of.
they are from florida what do you expect.
BFD. So they painted their face, how does that make them “racist”. I’m tired of people walking around on egg shells afraid to do anything without being labeled by some group.
Maybe they’re not racist, but they sure are stupid.
Alex tell me what race you are….and I can definitely find a way to make you feel bad about yourself.
Idiot
I think redface is every bit as offensive as blackface. As in, not terribly, as any African-American or Native American can immediately identify the painted person as a total tool and not worthy of being allowed to offend them.
As for PayPerPost, I love the idea, and the loss of integrity for anyone paid by them is only related to how much they change their views to make a few bucks. Someone with integrity that talks for free is exactly the same to me as someone with integrity that is paid to speak.
Ouch. Yea this probably wasn’t the -smartest- move by the PPP folks, but I would like to think that in context it at least makes sense (I’m cross my fingers). It’s really easy to use photos to draw some rather ludicrous conclusions, especially when we know that Mike has never been a big fan of anyone from the PPP camp.
As for #3, come now, labeling everyone from Florida as well — whatever label made you make that comment — is just as bad as whatever misguided attempt at humor lead to “dress up like a Native American stereotype” day at Club Med.
(disclosure: I’m from Florida and many of us fight hard against this sort of thinking)
Lets hope someone clears this up.
Jon, I’ll take you up on that. I’m party skinflint dirty Scotsman, part some kind of German-Dutch or something. In other words, totally boring white bread and a little overweight besides.
So do your worst. But I don’t know you, and you don’t know me, and I’d have to be an idiot to hand you the power to change my mood. You could mathematically prove that my hygiene is poor by virtue of being a stinky Glaswegian and it would have ZERO effect on my feelings about myself as an individual person, responsible for what and who I am. I am not a product of any amalgamated group of similar genes or looks.
what a bunch of assholes. PPP is a joke– an offensive joke.
I doubt this entire adventure cost that much, Florida is close to many “Club Meds”… probably just a quick boat/flight… anyways, looks like they had fun with other peoples money regardless of the circumstances, if I was the VC or Angel, no way this would have taken place unless the team reached one heck of a milestone.
Jon
Par for the course with these guys. Pay per post and posties = fail. Sadly, I think I would rather hang out with Ted Murphy than any “postie”…. but then again, posties could entertain us by doing stupid human tricks in exchange for rolls of pennies.
This makes me mad. There are hundreds of companies out there doing it tough with little or no VC money - and then you see this.
What a joke
don’t see the problem here. There having a fun time, it’s called team building and my eyes not a wasted of money. If employees have fun and get to know each other in a different way you will see positives results in productivity, creativity and motivation. Besides this im sure the VC will make a huge ROI on PPP at the end. The company is doing a great job in my eyes.
these guys look like idiots to the fullest extent possible
@Alex #4
It may not make them racist, but it does make them inconsiderate and/or unaware.
Walking on eggshells? Maybe, but I do think it’s insensitive, considering what some races have been through, to say they are not allowed to take offense at anything.
c’mon… i think that you Americans just see problems where they don’t exist, why give importance to things that don’t deserve all these attentions? So most of you are racist cause you thing that Italians eat spaghetti meatballs, we all come from Sicily and we are all connected to the Mafia.
I can understand complaining about companies who waste investors’ money with $700 chairs but please don’t accuse people to be racist cause they red painted their faces cause this mean that you don’t know what racism is…
@Dave: You are absolutely right, we (Americans) do see problems where they don’t exist…. this is especially true when it comes to matters of race. It is sort of the politics of life in America, if you say the wrong word than you have to go to rehab or something and it makes everything better. I’m just as confused as you.
My feeling is that this is a company with no moral compass, no tact, and the ability to showcase the lowest common denominator in human behaviors…. I think this is the real issue with Pay Per Post and “Posties…. I personally feel that you can only be offended if you allow someone TO offend you, but taste in this matter is a whole different issue….
Yes, agree with 17. I’m always on your side Michel (I mean I tent to see your point) bur here… Camon, tell me you haven´t been drunk…
Only thing I see here is some “very happy” guys having fun.
Not racism, not VC money been burn (I mean, you can see a lot of VC money been burn in a lot of startups, ad least this is a creative way
)
You guys sound like a bunch of Haters…
Seriously, Draper Fisher Jurvetson is a grown-up company and if they invested in a company that uses their money in a way they feel is inappropriate they’ll learn their lesson.
Likewise, if PPP wastes all their VC money on stupid stuff and never gets anywhere its their problem.
Why do you have to drag their name through the mud for doing whatever the hell they want to do with the money they were given? Let them do what they will and if it ends up hurting their business in the long run, it’ll show when they get deadpooled. Until then, try covering some real news instead of turning this blog into a gossip column…
As for the whole bit with them being racist… come on!! Seriously when are we going to get over ourselves and quit yelling “RACISM” every time someone points out a stereotype or makes a joke about a particular race? Are we all really still that insecure?
It’s exactly this kind of extravagance that led to the first dotcom crash. Let’s not do that again.
i am offended by the photo on the bottom left.
i happen to be a pirate, and that photo just makes my people look stupid. we don’t just stand around looking confused, you know - we steal ships and sail the seas and drink rum…and we NEVER, NEVER wear plastic pirate bibs.
All good, larger companies have team building exercises, nothing strange there!! So they get free publicity because you feel like saying that they are wasting their money, im sure they have a budget and stick to it
seriously these ppl probably nvr been through the 1.0 bubble, that’s why they are spending money like no tomorrow. god.. watch the video.. GUESS what they got OUT from their executives’ retreat at 4:03s into the video (”probably 10 times more money burnt than club med”).. a freaking NEW company mission statement…. LOL … these people are like trying to relive 1.0 bubbles since they missed the last one.
wow.. I smell a war coming - watch how Mike called Ted the most evil guy in a roomful of people and Ted questioning Mike’s writing style.. seriously.. looks like this post marks the beginning of the TC vs PPP cold war
http://www.rockstartup.com/epi.....de_31.html
Racism is art of destroying the economy.
If Payperpost enter IPO…. Tsk.. tsk…tsk… It’s going to crash and losing tons of money. Who’s going to buy Payperpost? Europe… hahah in your dreams.
17, 18 are finally some people with common sense. Unfortunately there’s not very much of it going around in the bay area as you can see by some of the comments here that are jumping on the “scream racism” bandwagon. Don’t look for problems where they don’t exist and stop jumping to conclusions.
i think TC is sensationalizing. I’d expect this from valleywag not TC.
I don’t understand why everyone is always coming down so hard on PPP. While some of their marketing is borderline, the actual idea isn’t that bad. It bothers me that people assume that we as bloggers are too fickle to hold our stance even if we are paid to blog.
“in space we all are humman.”
Hmmm, as a partner in a startup I find this reckless and appalling.
At one point in the video, the Director of Human Resources says “I have no idea what to expect” (in reference to the red face event that happens later that night). Whoops. Maybe they should have run this by her.
i would like it if everyone in this thread who says this is not racist would state his/her race in his/her comment.
if you are white and grew up in a white neighborhood in america (like me), your opinion about what is and is not racist is close to irrelevant.
having trouble figuring out whether this is racist? imagine the people in the photos making themselves up to look like the stereotypes of other common minority races.
but don’t take it from a white boy like me: come halloween, dress up like the people in the above photos and visit some people of that particular race. please post back with the results.
Completely Disrespectful.
If they are going for a very small niche market with no credible advertising….they just found it…..forever.
Doesn’t this gossipy non-news belong on Valleywag?
Disrespectful and Racist.
It’s one thing dressing up… but a bit overboard when you have to paint your skin another color and act like idiots.
Duh.
You’re really reaching Mike. This first-year anniversary team-building event was a huge success. I, myself, was a pirate with red face/body paint. Others police, others hawaiian, others disco. If any of the costume groups have a concern with PPP’s scavenger hunt, I’ll be glad to take their call.
The reality is that the team came off that retreat and proceeded to deliver August results breaking all company records. I appreciate the continued coverage, but try some real news next time like the unbelievable 10.5% CTR of PPP sponsored social media (compared to
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I appreciate the continued coverage, but try some real news next time like the unbelievable 10.5% CTR of PPP sponsored social media (compared to under 2% for many sites like TechCrunch, Facebook and others). You can do better Mike.
TechCrunch UK Relaunches With One Hell Of A Party
Michael Arrington
Everybody now please stop sucking up to Michael in hopes that he will write favorably about your startup one day.
Nightmare… The freaking video was HIGHLY produced, cut and edited ~ couldn’t someone figure out that this was a mistake? Startups in general should NEVER let video cameras in behind the scenes ~ if your customers only knew how screwed up you were they would surely fire you…
I walked into a Mexican restaurant and they were all wearing tri-cornered hats, powdered wigs, waistcoats, breeches, stockings buckled shoes in honor of the Fourth of July. As a white man, I found that extremely racist and reported them to the INS.
@Alex#4: Oh yeah, that’s what’s wrong today: everyone is overly sensitive and deathly afraid to offend anyone. Uh huh….where do you live anyway? Because here in NY, the sidealks are hardly covered in eggshells.
This is funny. Everyone is racist to a degree. I don’t care who you are. The problem is people hide it and deny it for a buck. They never say what they really think, unless of course they can do it anonymously. Face to face, most people are pussies.
As for the party, well, from an investor point of view, this is not an exercise in teambuilding and I would suggest it would be their ‘ Farewell Party
ENJOY !
Slow news day Mike? A bit of a stretch…. even for you!
Every one of the groups received face paint. 3 different groups had red face paint. It was purely a couincidence that the group with Indian costumes were one of those groups. It clearly wasn’t my intent to offend any group and if I unintentionally did so I extend my heartfelt apology.
This is trash Mike. Have you been hanging with Perez Hilton?
I stand 110% behind our company retreat and the scavenger hunt that we had on one of the nights. We work hard and we play hard. If you were to watch the current episode of RockStartup you would see that people were actually complaining that there was too much work that weekend and they didn’t have enough time to relax.
I don’t consider team building or education a waste of money, if you do you clearly don’t understand all the facets of building a company. Prior to PayPerPost I spent my own money on these annual events. I have found that they directly impact the bottom line in a positive way.
I assume these posts are the seeds for “TechWag”?
TechCrunch UK relaunch party:
“One thing I need to remember for our next party - Londoners drink a lot more and stay out far later than their Silicon Valley geek counterparts. We actually ran out of alcohol completely at around 10:30 but Heather soon had another shipment brought in. I left at 1:30 am to get back to my day job. As far as I know the party is still going strong.”
There is nothing wrong with a party every one in a while, as you can attest to. Stop grasping for straws and try writing some real news.
I’ll take an inside road, as someone who used to work for Ted Murphy. Racist? No.
Myopic? Yes.
Obtuse? You betcha.
Witless fcuk-twit? Ding ding ding…we have a winner.
In regard to the use of investor money, in my experience at least, he seemed to make a habit of squandering money on stupid sh!t - furnishing a temporary office space with a multitude of hanging barrel speakers for optimum tunage - monster truck as a marketing tool
- http://farm1.static.flickr.com.....bce1_b.jpg -
while ignoring the more important things - paying salaries and bills on time.
As for the racism thing, I don’t buy it. He’s definitely not racist, just stupid. He also seems to believe that taking employees on some pseudo-fancy getaway for a couple of days of team-building will overshadow the rest of the year when they are overworked, underpaid, and under-appreciated.
Of course that’s just my opinion.
Why do we bother…its none of our business!!!
Whatever they do is thier “choice” untill they do thier jobs better and satisfy the investors and cutomers.
If the indians were so great they would be #1 like MS!
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com