Blognation Meltdown: Writers Never Paid, Promises Not Kept
Duncan Riley
169 comments »
There’s big trouble over at the UK based BlogNation network today with US editor Oliver Starr resigning. In a parting shot to network owner Sam Sethi, Starr alleges that he and other BlogNation writers have not been paid. The following was taken verbatim from a post at BlogNation since deleted:
AN OPEN LETTER TO SAM SETHIPlease Note: This is an open letter to Sam Sethi, Founder and CEO of Blognation. I have elected to write this letter after having been one of the principal Blognation authors since August of this year. In all that time I have not received the pay promised in my contract nor the reimbursement promised for expenses incurred on behalf of Blognation during this period. I am not alone. Every other Blognation author is in the same unsavory situation.
This open letter details in very broad strokes the reasons why I have lost faith in Sam. It makes specific statements as to the veracity of things Sam has said or written as well as things he has failed to do. I do not say these things lightly. Every statement made in this letter can be backed up with verifiable written material from email correspondence, Skype chats, or SMS messages.
The final paragraphs are obviously my opinion and do not necessarily reflect that of the other bloggers that are still members of the Blognation team. For a more detailed history of this sordid story, one includes a considerable amount of the actual Skype chat dialog as well as many paragraphs from dozens of email messages, please visit my new home on the blogosphere, owstarr.com (http://owstarr.com), my new email will be oliver@remove-this-first-owstarr.com
Lastly, this post is likely to be removed very shortly after I post it so please, make a screen capture, download it to an off-line reader, copy and paste it into a document or repost it on your own blog(really). At the end, this is a cautionary tale and the victims are the people that have worked for months on the content many of you have enjoyed but for which Sam Sethi has yet to (and may never) pay.
Oliver Starr
Sam,
In case you are wondering why my sentiments towards you have so dramatically changed over the past few weeks I will be as clear as I know how to be.
I don’t appreciate it when people lie to me and I detest it when people lie to me repeatedly, especially when it is obvious that they are lying and have been given an opportunity to come clean. It insults my intelligence when someone lies to me over and over when it is obvious that this is what they are doing and I don’t enjoy having my intelligence insulted.What you should know about me, Sam, is that I am a truly loyal friend. Ask Marc. I’m the sort of friend that will stand in front of you and take the force of the blow, go to jail, give up my last dollar…there are few limits to what I would do for a real friend. The counterpoint to that is that my friendship and loyalty come with a price. That price is honesty. That price is respect. That price is integrity. I don’t expect my friends to be perfect - God knows, I am far from perfect myself. I don’t even expect my friends to be willing to go to the same lengths for me that I would for them. But I expect…no I DEMAND integrity in the relationship.
When I extend friendship and exhibit loyalty towards someone and they trod all over the respect I have given them it psychically injures me and when I extend the courtesy of a second chance, a pass, and someone that I have treated with friendship and respect ignores me and continues to treat me as if I am a moron it angers me a great deal. It also kills any respect I might have for that individual, destroys any feelings of loyalty, and crushes any sentiments of warmth, sympathy or understanding.
When Nicole was attacking you who had your back Sam? When people first started squawking about the extended delays in payment, who got in touch with you privately to see what he could do to help? Who volunteered their network of connections to aid in raising funds? Or offered to have their good name included in your business plan to help you present a stronger team to prospective investors? Who was the person introducing you to his contacts at companies like SpinVox to help you get more sponsors for Blognation?
I didn’t ask you for anything more than for the truth. The simple, unedited, unembellished, unvarnished truth. I wanted to know the real situation with the funding. I wanted to know the real situation with the funds on hand and I wanted to know the real situation with regards to the payments you said were on the way. That’s it Sam. That’s all I asked you for. Politely.
Te begin with, you told me lies.
When I was in the UK you actually said - to my face no less - that you had already “banked” the funds from the first investment and that you had capital on hand sufficient to cover the operation’s expenses for the first full year.
Then, after I returned home and payments that had been promised failed to arrive and you started hedging about when those funds would actually be coming. I grew concerned so I called you up and got you on the phone.
Do you remember what you said?
You told me that the deal had been “signed” but that the VC was taking some time to complete their process to fund the account. You told me that according to your attorney this process was possible to complete in “four days time” but that because the VC was in the midst of some other deals and that since we were not their sole priority it could take as long as a couple of weeks.
Personally, I thought this sounded a bit peculiar since I have pretty substantial experience from both sides of a VC deal and I’d never heard anything like this before; but then, I considered you a friend and I trust my friends so I told myself that this must be some kind of UK custom that was simply different than how things are done in the US.
Of course this wasn’t anything remotely resembling the reality of the situation and that became clear when the letter you wrote to Wilkins or whatever his name is surfaced. Had the deal been signed and funding eminent, the VC might have found the letter upsetting and been upset with you for failing to divulge something of possible consequence to them but it would have been very difficult for them to have washed their hands of the deal.
Not having signed a deal however this was a very good reason to cool considerably. After all, at a minimum the VCs must have felt that this letter exhibited some very poor judgment on the part of a CEO in whom they were considering an investment. More significantly it demonstrated that the individual appeared to lack a certain amount of self control and this could have the potential to manifest in other surprising and problematic ways. Third, the threat of legal action, action which could at a minimum impede the progress of a company into which the VC was considering an investment was very evident from this communication and might even have been deemed likely.
Even with all these facts before us, you still maintained that things were moving along smoothly. At about this time, since it was clear to everyone that major funding was not happening any time in the next few weeks (and by now had been delayed from the end of September to the Middle of October to October 30th to November 15th to the end of November (maybe)) you told everyone that you were going to take a loan out against your personal assets and make interim payments to everyone.
At this time you told me that you’d be sending me 2000 pounds and I waited for several days, checking the bank each day and even calling the bank a few times to see if any incoming wires could be seen. As you know nothing came in because nothing had been sent.
Others were starting to make noise about this and several of them, Marc included, spoke with me. It seems you had essentially made the same promise to everyone based upon the claim that you were taking a note out against your home to provide cash for interim payments. You made both public statements that funds had been sent and you made private statements to me, too. Here’s an example from our Skype chat:
Oliver Starr “stitch” 5:03 AM
sam are the wires going out today?
Sam Sethi 5:16 AM
yesThat is pretty much as unequivocal as you can possibly get and yet…days go by and still no wire, still no check…still no funds forthcoming in spite of your words above. That is NOT OPTIMISM Sam, that is LYING.
At what point, I began to wonder, does Sam not understand the difference between wanting something to happen and actually making it happen? I asked myself this because you routinely tell people you will call or even that you are actually calling and yet the phone fails to ring. Similarly, you sent a “tweet” that you were “at the bank” implying to all recipients that you were there for the purpose of wiring us some of the money that is owed yet no one received anything.
You made commitments to provide a certain amount of money in the promised “interim payment”. The sole recipient of any funds to date has been Ewan and he’s received half…HALF of what you promised most people and even less than half of what you had promised me. Saying you’re sending 1500 quid and sending only 750 is not telling the truth Sam. I hate to break it to you but you need to get a much more solid grip on reality because the one that you have appears to be tenuous at best.
At any rate, as I think I’ve probably provided enough detail above to illustrate my point, the simple deal is that you squandered my friendship by lying to me over and over again. You disrespected me and my intelligence in the same way. Your inability to own up to your false claims, your broken promises and your refusal to accept responsibility for putting myself, my friends and many other people in a bad situation is another reason why my feelings for you have gone from friendship and respect to distrust, disrespect and zero confidence.
I won’t lie, Sam. I was impressed by your speaking engagement in the UK. You seemed to have it together and I really did believe that this was a project on track to succeed. The only difference between then and now is the mountain of bullshit that you’ve managed to shovel in between us with your inability to tell the simple honest truth.
Frankly, I don’t understand this kind of lying behavior at all because I am clearly not like you. If anything - and Marc can doubtless attest to this - I tend to be a bit too available with the truth. One thing I am not is a particularly good self-censor. Since Marc isn’t here to suggest otherwise or to inject a modicum of additional restraint you’re getting the real nitty gritty accounting of why I went from your ally to someone that holds you in esteem about equal to that in which I hold another blogger with whom I have had an association…
I want you to consider that for a moment as we’ve talked at length about my prior experience and how I was treated and what I am being forced to do about it. I never thought that you would treat me in a manner even remotely resembling the way XXXX treated me but by failing to be honest with me and failing to come clean given multiple opportunities to do so that is exactly what you’ve done.
Incidentally, I’ll have you know that I turned down a VP of Biz Dev position at a top Silicon Valley startup because they felt that blogging for Blognation would put me in a conflicted situation and I told them I didn’t want to leave Blognation as I had made a prior commitment there. It wasn’t the highest salary I’ve ever had or been offered but it was a lot better than what I’m making at the moment and would have done a good deal to defray the losses of the last four months where I received no pay since all I was doing was working on Blognation and of course you know how much that’s made me…
Of course it is important to mention that you’ve also promised multiple times to reimburse me for my out of pocket expenses but as you well know that hasn’t proven to be true to date either.
So… that’s a pretty ugly litany of yours up there; lies, more lies, still more lies, exaggerations, evasiveness, manipulation, usury, fraud even - honestly Sam I think there’s a good chance that what you’ve done is actually criminal not just pathological and antisocial - perhaps even psychotic behavior. Sorry to have to recount it - I never would have expected that I would have had to write anything like this to you. It goes to show that you just never know people until you’ve been down the road with them a few miles, huh?
I know you probably think that I’m the king-hell rat bastard mother-fucker of all time about now, but the truth, Sam, is that I’m no different from anyone else on the BN team…no different that is except that I actually have the sack to say what I’m thinking. Bottom line Sam, you fucked up. Not because the money didn’t come when you expected, but because of the lies you told when you said that it had come…
You made promises that people took to the bank and then you defaulted on them leaving everyone that trusted you to face the consequences. I am not kidding when I say that there are people on Blognation that probably won’t have a Christmas thanks to believing in you. There are people that are going to be late on car payments and there are people that are going to have to think twice before they go to the dentist because they are out some $10, $20 or even $30,000 dollars of income that they were expecting, for which they HAVE A CONTRACT and for which you have an obligation because you told us that you had the money when in fact you never really did!
Is this getting through to you loud and clear? I know I’ve repeated myself enough times here that I’m starting to sound like I’m brain damaged but then I thought my other emails were pretty clear and they never even elicited a response from you in spite of them being far, far more cordial; understanding, even.
But I’m through being understanding. You need to understand what it is you’ve done and what you ought to be doing to make it right.
As I see it, your chances of raising funds from a VC as the CEO of Blognation are in the very slim to none category. Not only are VCs highly unlikely to invest in a company such that a large part of their investment must be used to satisfy debt, but the fact that every single blogger is in a position to sue the company (or you personally) for breach of contract would send even the bravest VCs running for the hills. Add to this the fact that you aren’t presenting a management team, have never shown me the presentation or business plan or executive summary (in spite of telling me you’d send them straight over), and cap it all off with the Wilkins correspondence and the fact that you’re going to have to explain why key people are leaving and you would have to be named Merlin to make a deal go through.
Nevertheless (and in spite of apparently starting with a new VC which as you well know would take months in the best of situations) you still haven’t suggested to anyone that it is likely or even possible that they might need to find another source of income because things might not go as planned. That’s pretty freaking selfish if you ask me. You’re basically going to fuck up others quite badly but you don’t care and that’s not only evident, it is what at the end of this diatribe, is the thing that more than anything else has cost you my support and friendship.
Even today, you continue to make false promises and to lie about the potential deal that you claim to be negotiating. Why, for instance did you say that the deal was done and that the they were investing $600,000 for 18% of the company only to come back later and post a note from one of the deal brokers that described a deal of $250,000 for 25% of the company. And what happened to the original $500,000 that you said to my face you had “banked” that was for 25% of the company at an impossible $2.2 Million valuation?
Don’t you realize that you’ve completely screwed with people’s live here? People who have families and real bills to pay. People who don’t have a spouse that works at Microsoft or wherever, people that are going to be seriously, seriously hurt by your actions.
My god, Sam; you have some nerve. In spite of all the demonstrated lying - lying I’ll add that is conclusively demonstrated by virtue of the numerous archived Skype chats and the many dozens of emails you’ve sent to me and the other bloggers. Demonstrated even in your updates to your entire team. How do you think you’ll build trust and loyalty among your people when you’ve proven yourself to be absolutely untrustworthy and disloyal?
Or do you even care? I myself suspect you don’t. I think this whole Blognation scam is all about one thing; Sam Sethi’s ego. You got tweaked by Michael Arrington last year and now you’re hell bent on showing up at Le Web with a dozen bloggers to back you up; your triumphant return to the scene of your demise - that’s right, you’ll show Mike and Loic and the world that no one fucks with Sam Sethi. You’ll show them that you’ve built - in less than a year - a blogging empire with bloggers from all over the world reporting 24 hours a day on all the topics the tech world wants to read about. You’ll talk about your advertising play and your new media properties, you’ll boast about your wine cellar and the possibility of hiring some huge name bloggers to round out your team.
I’m sure this will be punctuated by haughty tweets with what you think are big-brained ideas - your obvious effort - to be one of those smart cool kids who launch companies like twitter or Wua.la. You’ll probably stay at a very nice hotel in Paris and encourage all your bloggers to do so too.
And to get them to do so you’ll have convinced each and every one of them to pull the funds from their own dwindling bank accounts because the funding is in… and only has to be held by the bank for just a few more days…
Yes, I’m sure that Paris will be triumphant for you except for one teeny, tiny, itsy, bitsy little detail. Trivial in your mind but oh so important in the real world. Your big return, your blogging network, the content in every post, and nearly everything you’ve said or written about Blognation; it’s all based upon lies…
And when that dirty truth leaks out - there won’t be anywhere on earth you can run where the truth won’t find you. (not to mention the lawsuits that are sure to follow close behind)
Sincerely,
Oliver Starr
Screenshot:
FINISH HIM!
blak blah blah sour grapes blah blah blah dirty laundry blah blah blah
what a pathetic soap opera … if I wanted to read this garbage I would turn on the TV at 1pm…
can we please return to interest TC news?
Duncan,
What will this type of he said - she said type posting accomplish? This type of situation happens all the time in business (yes there is a world outside of web 2.0 startups) and these situations are not posted in the Wall Street Journal.
Lets please keep TechCrunch focused on tech news versus pay disputes
Roger
The reason I ran Oliver’s words were for others to decide on the validity of what is being said; from my reading of it this is more than just a simple pay dispute, it goes to the core of a startup that was promising a lot to its writers but allegedly failing to deliver. In that regard it is tech news, pay stuff aside, in fact if they cant pay the bills it’s nearly a deadpool story
Sounds like a typical business person.
“can we please return to interest TC news?”
This is the news.
I have never neglected to pay employees ever. And we have no VC and super high taxes.
In this case, they can legally take any property he has left them, intellectual or otherwise and sell it to reimburse themselves. What to do when this happens?
Source code->sales block
Articles->sales block
You have a right to sell off either intellectual or physical property to settle debts. Storage lockers do it all the time. Remember what happened to Paris Hilton?
Copy all of the content of the website and put it on a new website and continue writing on it and take all the profits for yourselves.
PROBLEM SOLVED.
That could be in the Guiness book of records for the most verbose F-Off ever.
Hell hath no fury like a Blogger scorned,
If they cry copyright infringement, you cry debt collection, and you WILL win.
Just wanted to pass along yes we are very concerned about Oliver deciding to air his concern on the blognation site. Techcrunch certainly has not been without bias in regard to the launch of blognation and we certainly were expecting THIS POST FIRST when we realized Oliver had posted his complaint.
As one of the authors, let me say we are experiencing the difficulties there are when starting a new startup but are fully determined to establish the brand and our own communities in each country (something TC can only rely on 3rd parties for).
Thank you for your support during this difficult time and invite you to contact us directly if you have any questions or comments.
Robert Sanzalone
editor, blognation Japan
http://jp.blognation.com
Well if Blognation’s authors are all of Starr’s calibre - long-winded, repetitive and dull to the point the reader is, like Starr, “psychically injured”, I wouldn’t pay ‘em either.
Honestly the fourth paragraph gets unintentionally funnier every time you read it. Starr: “Where’s my money? I trusted you!” Sethi: “Trust this… HADOUKEN!” Starr: “Help! Help! I’m psychically injured! Call the Ghost Doctors from Living TV!”
Robert Sanzalone,
There’s no excuse for not paying employees. That’s the lowest. When it gets to that point, you should at least temporarily shut down. That’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it.
Slow news day?
Ladies and gentlemen –
1. We express our concern about Oliver deciding to air his own concerns on blognation.
2. Readers may wish to note that reports about blognation on TechCrunch may contain bias. It most certainly is not the “neutral point of view” that we expect from the Wikipedia.
3. As part of the blognation team we are experiencing difficultings in launching and in being with a new startup. Our determination to establish the brand and to aim for victory after victory, however, remains unchanged and will remain unchanged.
4. Quite a bit of content on blognation (and blognation China at that) are unique, as we have good roots in our community. We grow with the community.
5. Please rest assured that blognation (and in particular blognation China) will continue to provide you with news every day of the week like we have been doing for the past two months.
I do realize that some of you have different opinions. We will respect each other’s opinions knowing that responsible freedom of speech is a good thing.
Your support is appreciated.
Best regards,
David Feng
Editor, blognation China
http://cn.blognation.com
can someone sum up this?
“Readers may wish to note that reports about blognation on TechCrunch may contain bias.”
Here outside of China we have something called “freedom”, if it’s not firewalled, you may want to use Wikipedia to look it up.
Whoa!
these Blognation guys have got quite a vocabulary. Does any one have a Blognation to English dictionary?
Chris,
Your post is nonsensical. What does freedom have to do with pointing out a bias? He’s merely alerting the readers who don’t know that Techcrunch is not the neutral journalistic operation that some might expect, but instead they have a long documented vendetta against the founder of blognation.
Sounds like they have good reason to have a bias against the founders of blognation. It sounds more like a deadpool company on its way down. Can’t even pay employees… Where is the money they say they have? Which pockets is the money ending up in?
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/122392.html
Here we can say whatever we want, and have an opinion without the creepy commucops popping up on us. We can have an opinion without Yahoo giving our IP addresses to the govt and having them jail us for eternity.
He is implying that it’s wrong that random opinions do not conform to legal like analyzation.
Point blank, BN didn’t pay the guy. We saw that from his post. He clearly is not lying. The sums of 10,20,$30k mentioned should be a pittance to a world wide corporation. The fact that they won’t pay such a tiny sum appears tell tale to me. You can tell by the letter that he’s being honest.
Where’s the Digg Down Button ?
“Here we can say whatever we want, and have an opinion without the creepy commucops popping up on us. We can have an opinion without Yahoo giving our IP addresses to the govt and having them jail us for eternity.”
Hate to engage further in this nonsensical debate….but you touched a nerve Chris with your crazy comment.
I guess you dont read TechCrunch to often huh?
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007.....t-on-blog/
Maybe this posting about the teacher being put into jail posted just yesterday on TechCrunch happened in China as well huh? Grow Up
nah! too bad. But I think TC has much better stuff to write other than such (as Steve Gibson says) “soap operas”.
“The validity of the charges will come down to whether Buss’ admiration of the Columbine Shooters and use of the phrase “one shot at a time” constitutes a threat or not.”
There’s a difference between cyber threats and an opinion that differs from that of what corporations or the govt would like.
“Maybe this posting about the teacher being put into jail posted just yesterday on TechCrunch happened in China as well huh?”
I’m not saying that what happened in Milwaukee is right, but at least he will have a right to a fair trial, and at least he can post bail.
I guess this must be December and it must be Le Web, have twelve months really passed since my last public feud, oh well pantomime season has started early.
Once again thank you Techcrunch for your thoughts and concern about blognation. I am sure you will be equally pleased to publish the closing of our funding.
As for Oliver’s thoughts, I will respond in full on blognation. Suffice to say Oliver was asked to leave blognation last month along with Debi Jones last week.
Marc Ochant and I spoke on Sunday when he blogged about Facebook. Marc along with the other editors are aware of the situation regarding the delays we have had in funding as they are in direct contact with the VC on our “private” backchannel.
Just for the record EVERY editor has a contract and will be paid in full prior to Christmas.
Finally I would add very carefully that when I worked for Techcrunch, I never got paid in the six months, I had significant out of pocket expenses and resigned on a matter of principal.
But Techcrunch beware what you say publically because it might come back to bite you. By all accounts from Oliver Starr himself, he has outstanding debts with you and currently has a lawyer drafting up a legal case against you regarding the payments and certain access to his private email.
I have no idea if that is true or not but then it none of my business. I am sure Oliver will post publically about that soon enough.
Well … not paying is simply wrong and unforgivable. True, Starr has written an overly long post but what do you expect from a writer/blogger … he has just used his best mode of expression to communicate.
“Techcrunch, I never got paid in the six months,”
Does that mean you have to do the same thing?
Did it feel good when it happened to you?
Is that a valid excuse.
I can throw stones because I never did this. I have several medium pay employees and they never missed a pay check. If they were to, I would expect them to berate me on the web.
Just goes to show from the article and Sam Sethi’s comments, how much everyone seems to be out-of-cash in the blogging world. Since advertisements are the only thing that all the bloggers are relying on, I guess the model of working needs to be rethinked…
Lets see how many tech bloggers survive this excitement of web 2.0… Is the Web 2.0 bubble also gonna burst???
“Lets see how many tech bloggers survive this excitement of web 2.0… Is the Web 2.0 bubble also gonna burst???”
It also explains why they blog about these LAME, LAME, web ideas and act as if they were the 2nd coming. I’m sure they don’t even mean 1% of the accolades they write. They just want to hype the industry to keep their own job security regardless of honesty. You know it’s true.
Startups are hard, people put in enormous amounts of effort, things dont go smoothly, many of us take a punt, share risk, etc, etc, for some future greater good and reward. My guess is that only two people know the whole story. And one of them isn’t me. There are always two sides, so I reserve judgement. Sad to see this sort of thing in public. I never think it does anyone any favors.
(But then who’s interested in my opinion? Certainly no-one should be.)
Man, oh man, life as a writer is a bitch. I’d rather dig up the graves of dead people than work for most of you morons.
Here’s what needs to happen….delete this blog post…. and everybody let’s focus on what is important. We probably won’t be going to war with Iran. That is tech news.
why is it that http://blognation.com is no longer accessible?
when I go there I get this message:
“Server Default page
If you see this page it means:
1. hosting for this domain is not configured
or
2. there’s no such domain registered in Plesk
What you can do:
* Using Plesk, you can create domains with web hosting on a single physical server.”
At the end of the day, no matter how hard any techie chases a dream, it all boils down to one thing. A paid job.
WTF is going on? The start ups suck ass!
Are you paid good Duncan? Or the under pay from Mike is the reason, why you seem to highlight this post
Should be called http://www.NOTpayperpost.com
It seems there’s a lot of content missing too, not just that latest post. The last post on the US site is from Oct 19th.
I only noticed this because I’ve been following Marc Orchant’s status there and that post is missing now.
Blognation finally gets the traffic it needs.
My comment on the topic: If Oliver Starr’s accusations are true, which is difficult to verify because I know none of the two participants in this conflict personally, it’s a bad thing.
Not that I personally care a lot for Blognation as a project, but I like the idea. There are some German blogs about the German tech scene, but Blognation Germany is by far the best, and it covers other regions, too.
I see problems, though.
Blognation is a classical management project that should be big from the beginning, different to TechCrunch or GigaOm, which started with their writers and grew because of their success.
It would be a major blow for the blogosphere if Blognation would crash, because it would affect the credibility of the whole “blogging as a business”-idea.
So let’s hope that either there will be somebody who can build a world wide tech blog network successfully or that Blognation will be able to sort out their problems.
Not paying employees is the worst of white collar crimes……
First !
Get a full time job with good pay and benefits
“Are you paid good Duncan? Or the under pay from Mike is the reason, why you seem to highlight this post :)”
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007.....nt-1756870
I know Duncan won’t respond to that, but here you have Techcrunch writer, Mike Butcher, complaining about his TC pay rate:
“Chris R - First move to London where the average house price is 600,000 US (at least). Then take a paycut to the wages of blogger/journalist from being a technical adviser. Then learn to blog and take video *at the same time*. Then criticise. I’ll post what video I have as soon as it’s encoded for online.”
So my guess would be not much. Otherwise Mr. Butcher would have been praising the song of Mike A. Back to kernel hacking I go. Must… reboot… into new… kernel, …now.
#38: Oliver Starr’s access, and all his content, was removed from the US blog (as, apparently, was Marc Orchant’s, which is totally tasteless).
This is an interesting post to me because it shares the nastier side of business which is still very a much a side of business. It is insightful to see how these situations are handled and what the outcome ends up being.
I can’t say what TechCrunch should or shouldn’t be posting considering I am not an expert in the web 2.0 news posting field. For all of the other trolls who can do nothing more than complain, go somewhere else to get polyanna updates and posts.
Moral of the story: always get paid upfront.
This was the longest whine I’ve ever read. I think it came full circle about four or five times. Brevity is a virtue.
Now SOME of Oliver’s posts are back, as are Marc’s.
All this is about money, no ?
To those who are still whining that this story is being reported: get over it. It’s an interesting and moderately dramatic story that deals with real people’s lives and the ‘other side’ of startups, and small businesses in general. More of this sort of thing!
For those of you that are bored by my lengthy letter, my apologies. I felt the need to catalog some of the commitments that Sam made and failed to honor.
I expected the letter to be deleted from Blognation, however it seems awfully suspicious that Sam has also deleted every single post I’ve ever authored there including the post with information about Marc Orchant’s condition post his recent heart attack (which took place at 7:30AM on Sunday, making Sam’s coversation with him questionable at best).
Further, for those that think that it is unreasonable that I write something public, let me ask you this; how reasonable is it to have worked for four months - with a contract no less - and been lead on, cajoled, and even promised that wire transfers for past due payments were forthcoming?
I wrote numerous very pleasant letters to Sam requesting that he be straightforward with me concerning the status of Blognation. He never replied to these emails save for one where I asked him point blank if I needed to take another position to protect my finances and whether Blognation was in a position to pay my stipend and expense reimbursements as per my contract on a timely basis and he replied “it’s no issue.”
He never replied to the others and he never came clean with regards to the status of the invested funds that he claimed were in the bank.
Sam claims he terminated me “last month” so why, I ask was I able to post up through this morning?
It can’t be that it’s because he “forgot” that I had access. I just posted on Marc Orchant’s heart attack on Monday at 4AM and Sam commented on the post.
As I said in the letter, it isn’t that funding hadn’t come in that caused me to lose confidence in Sam Sethi. It wasn’t even that payment hadn’t been made. The simple fact is that Sam cannot distinguish between fact and fiction and his constant lying (even including his comment above) is simply intolerable.
Oliver Starr
wow…
I don’t know what’s worse…him writing that entirely-too-long post, or me actually taking the time to read it all. haha…
Another internet first, the longest email EVER. Awesomeness. As #1 said, Finish Him!
There is a writer born every minute!
lol
mmmm reminds me of the last spat at TCUK, is this a revenge post for that I wonder?
Tough break for Oliver I enjoyed reading his stuff.
Sam, please do stop digging the hole you’re in deeper and deeper. The problems with Blognation are not a he said, she said situation. And sadly, at this late date you are incapable of telling a single truth.
You did not dismiss me, and what you should be focusing on now is how you will respond to the months of Skype transcripts and emails that do exist. Not only do they exist, but multiple copies exist that can be compared to show authenticity.
I’m glad you’ve chosen to respond, but I’m disappointed that you continue to lie. It’s irrational Sam…completely irrational.
“Sam claims he terminated me “last month” so why, I ask was I able to post up through this morning?
It can’t be that it’s because he “forgot” that I had access. I just posted on Marc Orchant’s heart attack on Monday at 4AM and Sam commented on the post.”
I find that in many of these situations with VCs, that they will say one thing and then do another. In one deal I won’t go into, it was 185k, then it went down to 175k, then it was 175k plus 2 apple xserves. I never got the xserves. And why would xserves be part of a deal anyway?
VC’s treat large sums of money as if they were nothing, and for that, they disrespect the needs of regular people that they deal with that do not deal on the financial scale that they do.
This is not unique to your situation. This is they way people get at that stage. That’s why it’s important to deal with companies that have infrastructure to deal with it. Those companies are harder to get jobs for. Fortunately for our employees, I don’t think that way.
@ #8 Josepth
“Hell hath no fury like a Blogger scorned”
Classic! (imagine a WOMAN blogger, and you have real fury!)
I can’t help but wonder if Bernie Lomax is handling the books for Blognation… dun dun dun
Sorry for the additional comment, but Sam deleted an update on the Marc Orchant story that had a link to the page I’ve created specifically to provide updates on Marc’s condition: http://owstarr.com/marc-orchan.....formation/
I’m also working to establish a trust for Marc and his family, so for those of you that have enjoyed Marc’s work, or simply wish to help out a truly excellent human being, check back at that page sometime later today or tonight if you wish to make a donation.
Thanks,
Oliver Starr
When I first read Sam’s comment above I really started to question the whole situation - maybe it was just growing pains.
Until I read the comments from the Japan/China Blognation Editors - they are damn near word for word mirroring of one another! Does Blognation have an intraweb in which they are copying, butchering in their native tongue, then pasting to blogs covering this story?
Oliver’s post above highlights it even more - Sam is nothing more than a liar. Blognation will deadpool in 3-4 months when the rest of the editors realize it’s a scam.
“Oliver’s post above highlights it even more - Sam is nothing more than a liar. Blognation will deadpool in 3-4 months when the rest of the editors realize it’s a scam.”
I doubt it. Those types of people are usually the most successful.
Starr’s post was verbose but if he hasn’t been paid and he gets no feedback from Sethi, he has a right to get his own back. Further, his point above about being fired last month is valid. Sethi is clearly lying about that and if he is, he almost certainly hasn’t been paying people. That sucks.
It’s hard to be successful when your entire business revolves around bloggers. When those bloggers don’t get paid and jump ship - you deadpool.
@Jeremy Wright we removed Oliver’s access and it removed some of the posts. As you can see they are all restored without his access.
@Oliver I will respond to you privately, suffice to say from a man who believes in UFO’s, men on mars and government conspiracy theories - what was it you told me the driver shot JFK? I’ll leave it there.
As for speaking with Marc I am sure you can ask Sue and as for your access you will need to ask Marc why that remained after we spoke.
Who is left to write at Blognation besides Sam? I’ve read more about people leaving (for whatever reason) today than seen bylines attributed to published posts on the site.
Whatever the case, whether or not authors are leaving, the posts on the blog shouldn’t be removed en masse when an author leaves. That’s a self-defeating policy and one can’t change history on the web with caches being everywhere. That alone is way beyond lame and will make others pause before linking to blognation.com under going forward.
Stupid.
Man this guy sure does know what’s going on with his company… who do I need to call to invest?
Sam: Glad to see it’s back. I’m not commenting on this issue publicly, both because we tendered an acquisition offer for BN and because I’m an outsider on this. My only feedback is that running a business is hard, and bloggers suffering for the “hard” sucks.
“@Oliver I will respond to you privately, suffice to say from a man who believes in UFO’s, men on mars and government conspiracy theories - what was it you told me the driver shot JFK? I’ll leave it there.”
Is that really called for?
http://uncutvideo.aol.com/vide.....fc2bf9f372
put that in your pipe and smoke it. I don’t like you. I hope you’re not driving hot cars and going to fancy restaurants while your writers are missing payments.
@65 ahhh, blame it on the software, how convenient!
What a bunch of sniveling babies.
Reminds me of Junior High.
To Sam Sethi:
You are a retard. If you asked Oliver to leave over a month ago, why then does he still have access to post on your blog? Stop you bullshit lies. You’re not even good at it. Go pound sand.
#42 “Get a full time job with good pay and benefits”
Yeah, I learned that a long time ago. And today’s post shows why I got me one.
I was one of sam’s early victims - and no doubt my stating it here will draw his wrath and lies on me also. However, like other editors, I also have transcripts and emails to support the fact that sam promised to pay me and then did not do so. I could write a long post on the bulls**t - schmoozing around launch parties and private clubs in london, living the good life, walking the walk - while his “staff” pay their own expenses and even have to pick up the bar tab. This pattern has been there since day 1 of blognation - this is not a temporary glitch in startup finances.
Great article, if a bit bloody long. Scratch the surface of the blogosphere and you get to the dark underbelly of lies and deceit.
@Sam, Your responses seem a little overly defensive, even bordering on personal attacks, wouldn’t it be better to release a counter-statement and leave it at that?
All this back biting isn’t showing either side in a good light.
Blognation - One dispute, many lawyers.
To Chris R.
Dude - I beg you to please stop commenting on TC articles. You totally kill me with the dumb shit you say. You say you are a programmer or something like that but it seems all you do is read TC and write comments as if you are some big swinging d1ck. I don’t mean to berate you - you might even be a great guy - but please go grab a drink or something.
It sure is telling that the people on the Blognation side don’t dispute that people were not paid.
“Dude - I beg you to please stop commenting on TC articles.”
Seconded.
“@Oliver I will respond to you privately, suffice to say from a man who believes in UFO’s, men on mars and government conspiracy theories - what was it you told me the driver shot JFK? I’ll leave it there.”
When you can’t defend your own position, just attack the credibility of (i.e. smear) your opponent.. Mr Sethi would do wonder in US politics. I heard Karl Rove left is job, so there must be an opening.
Oliver, you may feel like Sam insulted your intelligence, but you’re guilty of the same thing (insulting your own intelligence) by believing this guy would come through for so long.
There are two kinds of people: those who will pay, and those who will promise to pay. There are way too many of the latter type. If someone owes me money, I give them one “I’ll pay you later”. The next time, I take a sledgehammer to their knees. No, just kidding… but I don’t give them another chance, because I’ve dealt with way too many people of that type who will say anything to get you to go away.
You should have told Sam to go F himself a long time ago. I didn’t read your whole post because oh my god it’s way too long, so I don’t know how long this has been going on. But if you let it go on for more than a month or so, you have yourself to blame for being in this situation. Hopefully you will learn well from it. Don’t put up with this type of shit from anyone, ok?
“Dude - I beg you to please stop commenting on TC articles. You totally kill me with the dumb shit you say. ”
If I killed you then why are you still alive and posting here?
I happen to be working on kernel code in chroot, and I am waiting for it to compile. This is a better alternative to watching lines and lines of gcc verbose output scroll down the terminal. What can I say?
“you might even be a great guy”
I am.
“but please go grab a drink or something.”
I already have a few here at my desk. The tax people robbed us so bad I can’t even get our office another TV for our game console. So there. They took like 50k from us this year, and for nothing. Until I can get this company away from Canada, which is in the works. I will be stuck here posting on TC.
Besides, in my opinion, this guy is a jerk. I bet he’s sitting in a luxury condo sipping on Champaign and eating icky caviar on imported crackers with Oliver’s money right now.
While it’s kind of unfortunate that Oliver’s ‘protest’ was reported here, given the prior spat between Mike and Sam, I fully support Duncan’s placing of it in public view.
I have no axe to grind but Sam’s alleged conduct and his bland comment here do not enhance the reputation of Blognation, a site I’ve visited regularly since day 1.
I’d recommend Sam should swallow some pride and be very open about the financing of the project rather than simply glossing over the disputed past.
In particular, does Sam agree that he made several incorrect and false statements to Oliver (and others?) regarding payment of dues?
And what will Sam do if the now publicly-aired promise that “EVERY editor … will be paid in full prior to Christmas” fails to materialise?
Come on, Sam. Openness is next to godliness…
=~ s/Champaign/champagne/;
The other spelling is the town. Sorry about that.
@76 Thirded.
It adds weight to services like Disquss that they might enable me to block a certain user; for I have no desire to keep hearing the misguided & pretentious outpourings of ChrisR.
I love how Sam gets caught lying directly in the comments that he makes on here, and then later resorts to a childish personal attack against Oliver. When it comes to blacklisting yourself in the web 2.0 community, I can’t really think of a better way than pissing off the bloggers who cover it. And when money is involved–four months worth of missing money–people tend to get pissed.
Chris R. - I don’t know what your problem is, but you have taken my comment out of context. I am actually damn F£1king happy at TechCrunch, I was was actually annoyed at the guy (you, right?) criticizing my post in question for not being ‘technical’ enough. My point was that if you are a tech / developer you probably make more money than a blogger/journo. I am NOT a developer, but I am very happy journalist. Do what makes you happy, right? And for your information TechCrunch UK is going great, come visit: techcrunch.co.uk.
Stop this LamoRama Duncan, you guys at TC need to grow up. Although, I’m not debating what Oliver has to say. Please don’t re-gurgitate and the news on a tech blog, this shows how low a blog network can go to make a point or prove somone wrong. Are you guys running out of items?! Lame
Is Sam Sethi the new Terminator?
Shame that everything is going down the pan. Perhaps they should name it Bognation.
@Mike Butcher
Your job is safe!
“And for your information TechCrunch UK is going great, come visit: techcrunch.co.uk. :-)”
How very informative, I will go do that now. Thanks for the heads up!
I skimmed through the first part (bored as hell) and then got to the letter. When I read, “It insults my intelligence …” I had to quit.
People who say, “It insults my intelligence,” are people you don’t want to listen to, read, or even look at. Their self-absorption will literally burn a hole into your very soul!!!!
I don’t think this is just sour grapes. Take the dude to court!
I think this is really low. This mud slinging should happen within the confines of your private email inboxes. We have a legal system to take care of these issues. The Skype logs and emails should be for your lawyer - not for public publishing in the media.
This whole thing really discredits the reputation of everyone involved. I hope TechCrunch will steer clear of it from here on out. Come on guys! Keep your nose clean, don’t air your dirty laundry, and just concentrate on producing good content for goodness sakes!
No offence Oliver, but i’ve been trying to get my startup going since last January and along with a small team who have since gone separate ways (due to financial reasons), it has been done with close to zero cash. I also have a family and do consultancy when i can to make ends meet.
It’s amazing that people forget what starting up is really like… zero salaries, chancing your arm and dodging bullets.
The story being reported on TechCrunch makes the absolute truth around the whole thing very hard to grasp, but my core point is that my view is that you work like hell to MAKE the company work rather than arguing over a salary which sounds like it was fairly high.
Wish my startup could give even *me* a decent salary….
- you should read “Starting Something”
This guy’s job is an author, and yet his letter is long-winded, rambling, full of misspellings, bad grammar and in general reads as if it were written by love-scorned 9′th grader. At one point, he states that had written enough to make a his point, but then continues on for a few dozen more paragraphs.
@93 Of course he was upset about the money–who wouldn’t be?–but I think he was equally upset that someone who he considered a friend was constantly lying to him.
Anyone working for a startup, even a low-level employee, who doesn’t expect to make sacrifices is just foolish, but wouldn’t you be upset about making them for someone who lies to you?