Fred Vogelstein decided to begin his article about me in Wired last year with the story about the Dutch entrepreneurs who broke into my house, with Starbucks, hoping to pitch me. Since then, at least once a month an entrepreneur shows up hoping to pitch us, usually bringing their saddest eyes and the most extravagant gifts available at the local convenience story.
Usually they manage to get in the front door while I flee out the back, and one of the TechCrunch writers then meets with them. Every once in a while we find an interesting story that way, but we do not encourage random shows ups. And if you break into the house at night time, I’m likely to swing my aluminum baseball bat first and interview you second.
Yesterday Martin Obert showed up at the house and unfortunately I was in the living room - meaning he could see me from the front door and the team couldn’t lie about my whereabouts to protect me. Besides, he brought beer, red bull and dog treats. We let him in for a few minutes to demo Gloofi.
Loren from 1938 Media was here talking with Steve Gillmor, and was immediately on edge. He took the video interview of the whole thing above.
I still say it’s best to make an appointment before stopping by the house. And if you must just show up randomly, prepare to be harassed on video.
So what’s Gloofi? Its a poorly designed but nifty search tool that needs some work. We interviewed him properly on video (not the one above) and it will be put up on their Crunchbase page next week.
I somehow think this is not a good practice to encourage Mike. Only because of the few people who may have less than genuine reasons for doing this. And saying “don’t do it” isn’t good enough, either. Seriously do something about it.
You better get a security system or some dogs.
-Andrew
It look to me like you are OK with it , or encouraging it.
You seem far too nonchalant about the whole situation, nice attitude to have, I would rather be like that then be in constant worry.
Andrew - i have a dog, a hundred pound chocolate lab. she hides.
Lol!
…..I don’t know what is with the Europeans trying to get Mike and his team drunk. When we launched Naubo.com, which is now off line under a facelift development, we also tired to send Mike and his team 6 bottles of vintage reserve Porto Wine straight out of Porto/Portugal. It never arrived because we could not find Techcruch’s HQ address: At the end of the day it’s a good thing that the address is not so public available…because I can only imagine how much stuff would land at their door. I do like Mike’s and his team attitude on the video; they seem humble enough to understand people’s genuine intentions…
lmao, LF getting pissy ’cause somebody else is close to encroaching on his territory as sycophantic lackey in resident
it’s not really a break in though is it? unannounced visit? yes. annoying? check. but you could resolve this by telling people not to show up at your house and refusing to let them in the door (i use a lock myself). and if they do physically break in - call the cops, that’ll set a precedent
all that being said i could never see myself showing up at someone’s home, regardless of whether it doubles as their office or not, uninvited. what piss poor manners!
Loren is such a freeloader.
I have a pitch: “The Real World: TechCrunch”
I’d watch a show about you guy sitting around shaking your fists at Twitter.
“Yeah, it’s TechCrunch buddy, they have a wireless connection.”
lmao
I just tried to use Gloofi to search for my company, twitturly, and I didn’t get any results. What I did get the is a browser that crashed.
Based off of the home page, and the crashing experience this site reeks of a site that was put out in the 90’s era, yet tries to be “web 2.0″ with the poorly done AJAX and CSS modal effects.
They should have worked on it a lot more before they wasted anyones time at TechCrunch HQ.
An interesting video. I really enjoyed the situation comedy. I can understand Martin Olbert’s frustration. If he was looking for exposure in Techcrunch by “any means necessary,” he has certainly achieved it.
Rod.
http://search.galaxyit.com
TC is to be the coolest startup.
Poor Martin (or should we say Lucky Martin)
I admire their dedication, but the site doesnt do much for me
http://www.officesnapshots.com.....echcrunch/
This has happened before. I think Mike must love anonymous people knocking on his personal house door, otherwise why would he post these things on his blog??
If anybody wants to harass me, I will be at Venice beach later today. Simply sign up to sitespaces.net and message your first friend, me, for my cell number and I can tell you all about it.
Loren thinks he is special? it is like the ugly girls who hangs out with pretty girls at school, thinks they are the attention too.
Yawn!
nice article actually i am unaware of this
I LOL’ed. I was still living there back in 05 when you got the first random visit from an entrepreneur. Can’t remember who they were now, actually.
sad but true that young start-ups have to invade michael’s to get coverage as he is too busy meeting the tech entrepreneurs like Ashton and give these guys for no product, no start-up but to glorify himself.
Unfortunately, techcrunch has lost its touch with the readers and is becoming boring mainstream media
Situations like these really prove how much you care about Start ups and your passion about your Work. At least even at this way, Start ups can get the attention they are looking for! Thank you Michael for supporting Start ups! The Greek guy!
Ok, what’s the HQ address? I want to break in next
It took exactly ONE google search to have the address show up on the search results page. So assuming that this address is correct (omitted), it really wouldn’t be that hard to do this.
I am stunned that the Zillow.com Zestimate on this house is $1.9 M ($1,889,500). For a 4-BR 2-Bath 2040 sq foot home? Wow. You guys and your housing bubble are killing the rest of us! (I just bought a comparable-sized home in the middle of nowhere for less than one tenth that price. And I have a wireless connection too!)
seriously, ma, do a reality show.
God I can’t wait to go to Venice Beach, but. I did a little research on Google just now.
wiki.techcrunch.com/second_meetup_bbq
It’s on techcrunch’s own wiki. And it looks like Mr. Arrington is in fact a multimillionaire
http://www.zillow.com/search/R.....rton%2C+CA
I can totally see why he would do it at home as a 1.8 Million dollar tax partial tax deduction can really save money.
At any rate, it looks like a nice estate. Like the 3rd estate, or the 4rth or the 5th. I actually live in a home that’s almost as expensive but I don’t have the pleasure of owning it or being able to deduct anything. I had to get an office suite in Long Beach like the rest of the bottom feeders.
>> And if you break into the house at night time, I’m likely to swing my aluminum baseball bat first and interview you second.
At least that way I’ll definitely get an interview!
Mike - perhaps you could create a “break-in meter” - the frequency of attempted break-ins could relate to the level of froth in web startups…
The first link was here
http://wiki.techcrunch.com/second_meetup_bbq
and the 2nd phrase should read
“I can totally see why he would do it at home as a 1.9 Million dollar partial tax deduction can really save money.”
Happy encounters Mike!!!
OMG!! TechCrunch has a wireless connection at their HQ?! I knew there was a reason why this company was so cool.
I guess pitching arrington and feldman at the same time after breaking into a house with an alpha product, requires a nicely balanced mix of guts and unconsciousness, I somehow tend to respect that!
Not all Germans are like him!
@chris I think he’s said recently that he rents that place
I seriously hope you have a panic button or some sort of home security system, Arrington. Not everyone out there is a good person.
Wow, Michael Arrington hangs around the same guy who most people in tech find to be a racist and who harasses Shel Isreal?
Attitude, attitude and attitude ….
@34
http://www.zillow.com/HomeDeta.....p=15580885
The last sale of the home was June 1, 1973 for $72,500, a modest price.
Mike was born in 1970 according to Wikipedia. That makes me think that this is a parent’s home that may have been passed down to Mike or that they are renting him.
I could be wrong. If he was going to rent for a business and the home did not belong to him, it would make much more sense to get an office suite.
See officesnapshots.com
Ok, so Gloofi doesn’t really have a 6 billion-pages index. They get that from Amazon’s A9.com. So what does he have? A lot of guts, I have to admit. But technologically? Basically nothing.
Want to see what other Germans can do? Take a look at http://www.acoon.com. That is a REAL index with 137 million pages done on just two machines. Will be about 225 million pages by wednesday or thursday. And it’s open-source. Sources and binaries on http://www.openacoon.de. Sorry, that page is only in German yet, but you will be able to find the “Download” Link
LOL @Loren “it’s tech crunch buddy, yeah they have wireless”
House addresses are public record …
Just because you know where Bill gates or Oprah lives dosn’t mean you should go there to talk ..
For Example . Here is one of Oprahs Houses
http://www.zillow.com/HomeDeta.....p=15878567
Um, on an unrelated note, while messing around with some code yesterday, I found a patch to send screen data to Flash.
So you can do seesmic but with screencasts. So far I can do it for X server, but it shouldn’t be that hard to do for windows.
With this new hack, You could do a Seesmic for screencasts.
Again, I have a MSDN professional subscription.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8.....1/sizes/o/
Since I have just found a way to do this, I have no business plan made up right now for it. But I could whip one up if you want to through some cash behind it right now.
To recap, it would be like the seesmic button on this blog enabling you to record a screencast instead of your webcam. This is possible through a hack, but the patch could be made more robust and cobbled into a service of it’s own.
I am in the process of writing up an e-file provision patent right now. Don’t worry. I can whip up patent docs faster than anybody, it’ll be filed by early tomorrow morning. USPTO efile lets you submit at any hour.
Again I am leaving for the beach now, and yes, my genius knows no boundaries. Again, just contact me if you are interested.
@JJ - not “who most people in tech find to be a racist”… Feldman _is_ a racist, I think that much is obvious from his “TechNigga” video.
The fact is he’s a hanger on and attention whore who’ll do anything to get his 15mins.
@sd - exactly right! I couldn’t put my finger on it but you’re spot on. The ugly girl.
should read “throw some cash”
Toodles, and good luck Mike. Nobody likes being home invaded.
Um, on an unrelated note, while messing around with some code yesterday I found a reason to write a rambling and pointless post on Tech Crunch…and now I’m going to wander down to Michaels house with some donuts and 2-liter bottle of Mountain Dew and see if I can spot him through his front window.
If there are people with the balls and determination to break in, I don’t see why there wouldn’t be folks that go door by door until they find TC’s hq.
On a side note, I wonder if anyone has hired a call girl yet, send her to Mike and have her pitch him a startup. How do you like em, Mike?
I mean, I thought it was funny.
$x = “lets set the the bar real low”;
$y = “you wasted my time, I’m going to waste other peoples time”;
$z = “let me show you my half baked idea”;
if (($z == “lame”) || ($y) || ($x))
echo “Poorly designed but nifty $impressmike that needs some work.