Dare Obasanjo, a Microsoft employee and the son of a former President of Nigeria, doesn’t like it when people disagree with him. I found that out in 2007 when Obasanjo vandalized the TechCrunch Wikipedia page in response to a post we wrote that was mildly critical of Microsoft’s hiring of a blogger to edit certain Wikipedia entries relating to Open Office standards. His actions as an individual and as a representative of Microsoft were outrageous.
Today he writes a post accusing us of “encouraging…garbage” on TechCrunch because we’ve reported on the market fall over the last week, pointing to three examples (out of over 100 posts last week) where we chronicle the fall of Yahoo and Google stock, and the Seesmic layoffs. A number of other blogs jumped on the bandwagon, calling for the negativity to stop (obviously none of these writers read TechCrunch this last week).
“The last thing we need is popular blogs AND the mass media spreading despair and schadenfreude at a time like this,” he says.
Our job isn’t to cheerlead the startup scene no matter what happens. Our job is to report the news as it happens and add our opinion as we feel is appropriate. So even if we were reporting nothing but doom and gloom, the criticism isn’t appropriate.
But in fact we’ve been fairly cheerful over the last week, reporting on a couple of dozen new startups and products, focusing as much as possible on the positive, and trying to defocus the mobs from blaming the venture capitalists for what’s happening in the markets.
In other words, the tone of our coverage hasn’t changed.
So what happened? You guessed it. We dared to disagree with something the Obasanjo had to say over on TechCrunchIT, which he immediately characterized as a personal attack. A few days later- zap! - he finds three posts that aren’t all roses and butterflies and makes a subtle accusation that suggests TechCrunch may be partly to blame for the hysteria in the market right now.
In fact, his post, which ostensibly calls for everyone to be positive no matter what, is really just a clever way of inciting the mob to blame (in this case) TechCrunch for the market problems.
This isn’t ok from anyone, and it really isn’t ok from a high profile Microsoft blogger. This is the second time Obasanjo has attacked us when we disagreed with him. It’s one thing to disagree. But it’s another to attack (first Wikipedia, then this F’d company comparison) when you face disagreement. And when you represent a company, whether you like it or not, you do it under their brand. In this case, given the weakness of Obasanjo’s argument, and the fact that he just had a one sided flame war with TechCrunchIT, his motives were clear. It’s time for Microsoft to stop this nonsense.
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>No other large companies as far as I know use their employees as attack dogs to silent dissent. It’s time for Microsoft to stop this nonsense.
So you KNOW for a fact that Microsoft has sanctioned Dare to attack TechCrunch
of course they are. he’s still employed by them.
As much as I like your usual tone and subjects covered… without proof, accusing Microsoft of attacking through Obasanjo, when he can do it on a personal level, could be a slanderous remark. (Just playing Devil’s advocate here.)
well, I agree to Michael this time. As a company employed blogger, his voice represents the company’s standing point. It is unquestionable. So it is reasonable to say that Microsoft supports this claim unless the company explicitly clarify it later.
That’s a bit of a stretch. I work Cisco and they have _ZERO_ influence on what I write.
What is the big deal? Maybe you shouldn’t be looking at him as a blogger but as a spin doctor who knows who pays his salary. No reasonable person would blame techcrunch. Asking us to believe techcrunch is the problem with the economy is asking us to believe techcrunch is the blog that changes the world.
Take it as a compliment that someone would think you have that kind of power.
I speak to worried startups every day who turn to TechCrunch as a valid source of what to think about the current situation. Let’s face it, TechCrunch success is owed to startups and entrepreneurs who view it as a place to keep up on current trends, vc news, etc. To be fair, you are not just a market wire for tech news. You are a voice, and to write negative posts that show no hope for 80% of the readers who come here to get excited about what is happening is not right. It’s 2008, and there is so much to come, whether or not their is a financial crisis on our hands. VC’s are still cash rich and innovattive ideas will still raise money through these times. Obasanjo didn’t need to say anything, this is in the minds of everyone.
Mike, Microsoft employees have said things to me over the years which were completely against the will of the company.
I don’t really like MS that much, but you can’t blame them for what people do.
As for Dare, in response, you could have him cash a check for $1,000,000 and give him $300,000 of it as a prize because your dad was the KING of Nigeria, but due to some horrible war, he was forced to flee and now you must cash all of his checks through anonymous people you met on the internet.
“[Dare] makes a subtle accusation that suggests TechCrunch may be partly to blame for the hysteria in the market right now”
And how is this different than your subtle accusations in 3 separate posts that those 20-somethings vacationing in Cyprus were in some way responsible for the financial meltdown? You can dish it but can’t take it, Michael.
And I bet Dare loves all the attention you’re giving him. Perhaps I should write some scathing critiques of TechCrunch and get some more traffic over to my blog…
no. Camp Cyprus was just bad judgment. There’s no reasonable way anyone could claim they are responsible for the meltdown.
I can take it, but you have to use some logic and at least one fact.
just take that as a compliment… :). in such a way you’re recognizing his weakness.
Steve B…Speak for yourself buddy. I don’t come to techcrunch for some whitewashed news about how wonderful things are. Seems to be that type of optimism is for politicians. I want the blunt honest truth. I want it like the guy you lock in the server room for having no tact would say it. Some of us are mortgaging our houses, boring money from people who can’t afford to lend it, all to make our dream of starting a web business a reality. We don’t want to fail and rely on the data Mike gives us but it is only useful if it is truthful.
This negativity which is just reality in this case, won’t stop me from doing what I am doing. It won’t make me run and hide like my cat does when the dogs get out. The only affect it has is on how I proceed. Instead of getting rich and the whole world domination thing in 4 months, it might take 8 now.
Plus a smart person will always verify the sources. Well except when it came WMD and Iraq…but who can blame Bush, he isn’t a web geek after all.
Mike, concluding that MSFT has sanctioned him to attack TC because he still works there is simply ludicrous and flies in the face of the spirit of blogging.
Specifically, corporate blogging is supposed to provide all employees with an opportunity to express their own opinions in their own voice, an opportunity to connect with people on levels the corporation itself could never expect to connect.
Agree with him or not, that is exactly what Dare is doing. If MSFT wanted him tow the party line, they’d stick to press releases.
You know this - so why do you conclude MSFT is sanctioning his specific attack on TC?
GT
Mike, when I’m having a togh day at Mircosoft, I turn to this.
1. Take a 10-30 minute walk every day. And while you walk, smile. It is the ultimate anti-depressant.
2. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day. Buy a lock if you have to.
3. When you wake up in the morning complete the following statement, ‘My purpose is to __________ today.’
4. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants.
5. Drink green tea and plenty of water. Eat blueberries, wild Alaskan salmon, broccoli , almonds & walnuts.
6. Try to make at least three people smile each day.
7. Don’t waste your precious energy on gossip, energy vampires, issues of the past, negative thoughts or things you cannot control.
Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.
8. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a college kid with a maxed out charge card.
9. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.
10. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
11. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
12. You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
13. Make peace with your past so it won’t spoil the present.
14. Don’t compare your life to others’. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
15. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
16. Frame every so-called disaster with these words: ‘In five years, will this matter?’
17. Forgive everyone for everything.
18. What other people think of you is none of your business.
19. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
20. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch!!!
21. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
22. Each night before you go to bed complete the following statements:
I am thankful for __________.
Today I accomplished _________.
23. Remember that you are too blessed to be stressed.
I certainly think it’s OK for one blogger to disagree, and even to do so vehemently, with another. Without that, things could get quite boring.
On the other hand, name calling and/or accusations by one to another in the sphere is ridiculous. I’d rather here the Techcrunch view as is — not sugar coated. I read your blog because it’s your view, and I respect your view — whether or not I agree with it. Isn’t that the way it ought to be?
You have got to be kidding me. This company points the finger at TC and tries to blame us for making statements about how we feel. Lets just point the finger somewhere else, its not the companies that were lending money to people that could not pay, it was that blogging site, those rat b@st@rds. What happened to freedom of speech, of the press, and of having our own opinions. It does not matter if Obasanjo is being told what to say or isnt, he is working with Microsoft and what he says will reflect on the company.
No matter what Obasanjo or any other bloggers write, most TC readers are discerning and knows that TC is perhaps one of the most objective tech blogs out there. By recognizing Obasanjo on a TC post, you’re gifting him a wider audience when he clearly doesn’t deserve one. My 2 cents: ignore him.
Everyone being perpetually positive, instead of rational, is what got us into this mess.
Sounds like Obasanjo needs a hug, or not be sucha sensitive child.
What Dare Obasanjo suggests in his post is that Mike A. filter out all of the bad news. That would be fairly impossible because the landscape has changed. I am not a fan of “head in the clouds” news reporting. Because that is not news. I am not always a fan of the stories TechCrunch does, but I do respect that Mike has the backbone to post what he wants. The readers have to choice to visit the site or not. That is where the filtering should lie, with the reader. If I decide I don’t want to know what is going on and pretend everything is fine, I wont visit TechCrunch or any of the other sites that post news articles.
If Dare Obasanjo is offended there is a simple fix. Don’t type t-e-c-h-c-r-u-n-c-h-.-c-o-m into your web browser. Problem solved.
Finally. A voice of reason. It’s always been that simple. And Steve Ballmer’s contention that 80% of TC readers would come here and be offended by the doomsday reporting style isn’t giving them much credit for independent thought.
The economy is in crisis. To paraphrase my favorite Texas jurist {Hon. Sam Kent], “you can put a calico dress on it, and call it ‘Florence,’ but at the end of the day, a pig is still a pig.”
If it’s whitewashing I want, and pretty pink frosting, I doubt I’d type http://www.techcrunch.com into my browser’s address bar.
Keep up the good fight, Michael.
Mmm, looks like someone’s going to get fired
Or maybe not. Given his dad former job, I think he will be just fine even in a big company like Microsoft.
Regardless of what Dare/Michael believe, the comments here are far easier to read and participate in. I’d wager it’s unlikely that he’d switch to Wordpress to make things easier to parse.
Little bit surprised to hear that a Microsoft employee would be instructed to do such things, as no company in the world will get involved in such stuff. There are many other ways for them to increase market value. Do you really think they have regular bussiness/blog attack meetings and discuss what to do. Do you think that he will be able to do all this without legal backup that need to review his posts? It sounds as a complete waste of time to me if true.
I pretty much believe what a shady character this guy is. His father was one of the most corrupt presidents nigeria has ever had and thats saying something when you look at the bad governments Nigeria has had.
In most companies a guy like this would not have a job, hopefully come monday all this bad publicity will force Microsoft to Fire his ass. I have alot of respect for Bill Gates but him allowing a guy like this to work in his company lowers my opinion of him.
Bleh… I wouldn’t paint someone with the brush of their father, no matter how “good” or “bad” they are.
I respectfully disagree. Dare grew up in a household under his father’s example and, of course, strong influence. If he was a bloody, extremely corrupt dictator, which he was, his progeny is bound “to be cut of the same cloth.”
Dare has repeatedly shown that he is a twisted ass –and yes, he should be fired immediately.
We live in a free society and enjoy freedom and free speech –Mike has the absolute right to express his disgust with this twisted ass’ underhanded diatribes.
Screw him.
A.
This is not a necessary statement and has nothing to do with Dare Obasanjo.
Mikael, you obviously don’t know much about Nigerian politics to claim that his dad “was one of the most corrupt presidents nigeria has ever had”. But even if that was true, I don’t see what it has to do with the discussion. Otherwise, I’d have to say YOUR dad is probably the most ignorant man that ever lived.
His father was one of the most corrupt presidents nigeria has ever had and thats saying something when you look at the bad governments Nigeria has had.
So that’s where the millions are coming from that I’m helping smuggle out of the country for a measly $50k.
Mike,
You can take on Dare Obasanjo as you would like, but please do not confuse what he says as his employer’s view on the subject. Read the disclaimer at the bottom of his blog:
“Disclaimer
The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer’s view in any way.
© Copyright 2008, Dare Obasanjo - Powered by: newtelligence dasBlog 2.1.8102.813″
You sound hurt, which is understandable, but that doesn’t justify smearing Microsoft’s name all over this. Please consider this between you and a guy who HAPPENS to work for Microsoft … not between you and Microsoft with Dare as the vehicle/messenger. Be a big boy and deal with this fair and square.
I can write “Disclaimer - You’re Not Gullible” in my footer too but it doesn’t make it so. The point is that Dare is 2/2 here, attacking us when someone disagrees with him or his employer. If he’s just an individual looking like a jerk, that’s fine. But right now he makes Microsoft look like a jerk. Which is also fine. But I’m going to write about it.
Mike,
Peterb has a valid point. This matter is unpleasant, but I doubt Microsoft as a company is behind Dare’s blog entries. I am not sure why you are so stubborn to accuse the company of something an employee of theirs is saying on his personal blog. Virtually every company out there has employees that blog and sometimes make some inflamatory statements on their own accord without the backing of the company that employs them.
It almost sounds to me like there’s some personal grudge against the software giant that you hold and are using this unpleasant situation to manifest it. Deal with the dude, call him out for being a jerk, blog about it - that’s all cool. Blaming his employer, especially without any evidence - not cool at all.
I don’t know that i would go as far as to say that Microsoft is behind the posts. Or even supporting them.
But i also don’t think we as a connected society should be quick to dismiss the perception that one could easily take away from this example. Hence this article.
Like it or not, Dare’s one of the spokes in Microsofts Corporate Vehicle. As such the same rules should apply to his stupidity in judgement as they do when he is recognized for his successes.
Corporations are the sum of their employees. Likewise, employees of organizations are representatives of that institution 24 hours a day. So when your most well known employees run off at the mouth, it’s hard to overlook the reflection it has on that company.
Perception is reality. Regardless if it’s right or wrong.
I would venture to say that if Derek Jeter had a well known personal blog where he criticized Top Baseball industry bloggers, not only would the media/industry bloggers jump all over it, but a lot of poeple would be quick to judge the character of the Yankees and their choices in team members.
As MA pointed out, you can put all of the legal disclaimers you want on these things. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t make one bit of difference in the courtrooms of society.
Stand tall, TechCrunch. You guys did nothing wrong.
TechCrunch is not to blame for the markets at all; but it would seem that TechCrunch has not yet learned the value of not trying to teach a pig to talk. You waste your time and annoy the pig.
Michael Kassing
MarkTend.com
Disclaimer: nothing in this post should be considered as calling one side of this school yard pissing match a PIG. The author expressing his views alone is trying to create an allegory for the seeming waste of time, resources and mental energy on a nice looking Sunday day when said author should be working on his business rather than reading about said pissing match.
I’ve been reading the other national press this week, so from them I KNOW that the answer to troublesome problems like these is government intervention. If there is a venture capital confidence crisis in Silicon Valley, then the Government should step in as the lender of last resort and back stop VC deals. They could do as they’ve done for Wall Street and guarantee the VC investments against loss, they could do like they did for Detroit and provide massive low interest loans for “R&D”, or they could do like they are talking about now for the banks and just make direct VC investments in foundering startups. I think any of those moves would make VC investments once again look lucrative and bring the investors back to the table.
To kick start the process and lead silicon valley out of this freeze-up, I hereby call for the government to nationalize TechCrunch by taking an 80% preferred stake via a massive hundred million dollar capital injection. To pacify our dear neighbor Nancy Pelosi on the CEO salary issue, we will offer Michael the choice between either having his Salary capped at $11/hour or switching to become a card carrying Democrat and making large donations to the party!
Are you out of your mind?
Sorry, I had too much juice today (Jagermeister), run out of weed… and rolled up some cockroaches I found in the kitchen and smoked them. Not pleasant at first, but hell, I know I can get more whithout leaving the house…
In some cultures it is normal to be very free with ones emotions and rage.
It is common to be capricious, to publicly lose ones temper and to blatantly exaggerate and caricature ones enemies during disputes
People who react like that have had those same things done to them all of their lives.
Those reactions may be ingrained as part of their upbringing.
They will probably always be that way even as they enter and try to assimilate into different cultures where at least the facade of public reserve and diplomacy is the norm
Everything turning to crap? Well then let’s get down to some good old mudslinging and recriminations. The response is formulaic.
I guess there just aren’t a lot of interesting web startups to write about any more. But I hate to see this blog self-destruct quite so vividly, and drag down your considerable talents with it.
Constructive suggestion: Buy EnergyCrunch.com and start afresh. The energy/climate crisis is a *real* problem and will be with us long after all the Web 2.0 fanboys and party animals have gone home.
c’mon, there isn’t even a consensus if either energy or the climate is a *real* problem
Not the place for this argument, but yes, among people qualified to express a considered opinion (i.e. who base their opinion on observation rather than ideology) there is nigh close to complete consensus.
Must be good times at Microsoft at the moment
That’s the last straw! I’m deleting Vista off of my computer and switching to Apple, a company that doesn’t try to influence, control, or fight with the press!
Really? Apple doesn’t try to ‘influence, control or fight with the press’?
http://www.macnn.com/articles/.....egal.fees/
“The court’s ruling is a victory for journalists of all mediums and a tremendous blow to those firms that believe their stature affords them the right to silence the media,” said Kasper Jade, the publisher of AppleInsider.com, one of the sites that broke the original “Asteroid” report (the other was PowerPage.org). “Hopefully, Apple will think twice the next time it considers a campaign to bully the little guy into submission.”
In total, Apple was ordered to pay nearly $700,000 — a small amount for a company that reported nearly $1 billion in profit in the December quarter, but a large moral victory for bloggers, journalists and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) which helped defend against Apple’s subpoenas.
David, obviously you are not capable of telling apples and oranges apart. Make an effort and think before posting garbage.
1) this is not front-page news. This is two critics fighting it out over blogs and It’s an easy attempt at TechCrunch staffers trying to get a Microsoft employee fired. It won’t happen as being a lawyer Michael, you of all people know that Microsoft would leave themselves open on that (legally).
2) Each Microsoft blogger lives by their own rules. PR & Legal may intervene if the said Blogger is impacting a brand or trademark. That’s also only if the blog in question is hosted on a MSDN/TECHNET/MS-COM domain. Dare’s blog is off in the wild and all he really said was negative things about TechCrunch. This has nothing to do with Microsoft and at best someone in PR/Legal right now is getting a reactive email to look this post over.
3) The end conclusion to all of this? nothing. TechCrunch just gave Dare more power by outlining his position in the blogging community which in turn went against the grain on what Michael was attempting to portray.
Bad news sells, Good news doesn’t. TechCrunch will always have mixed following and you’ve just given the anti-TechCrunch crowd a peoples champion to rally behind.
This is why bloggers should never fight via their blogs.
I really don’t want to get into the main topic here and I would like to say that, while I don’t agree with him, I’d hate to see Mr. Obasanjo fired over this.
That said, Do you have any idea what you are talking about?
1. Washington is an at-will state with no covenant of good faith clause. So unless they are firing someone because they are part of a protected class they can fire whoever they want without legal issues. Attacking a well known news source in the industry would certainly qualify as valid grounds.
2. Says Who? You act like there’s some kind of rule that says Microsoft has no power over its employees blog if the blog isn’t hosted on MSDN and that’s stupid. Microsoft’s control is in their power to fire which, as pointed out above, they can do so for just about any reason.
I really don’t care that you don’t know what you’re talking about but I do care when you make others think there’s no danger in blogging. There is a significant danger to blogging and anyone who starts one needs to be aware of that.
This is crazy!!!
This means that anybody who dares to express their opinion
which happens to be against TechCrunch should be either
self-employed or unemployed.
Otherwise their employer will get blamed for using a proxy.
The disclaimer saying that it is their personal opinion doesn’t matter.
yes. if you are a blogger, and work for a company, and write about things that are directly about your company (or vandalize a reporter’s wikipedia page), you are impacting the company’s brand, one way or another.
This is utter bullshit! I mean, I use to blog when I was employed had nothing to do with whatever my employer was doing or thinking. I was, am and will be independent and free willed blogger. This whole thing reminds me of the Gaurav Subnis blog case that happened a few years ago.
Dare said wrong things, fine, why blame MSFT for that? Just because he is employed by them (for whatever function.)? Thats just reaping benefits at MS’s cost! What say on this mite?
Atul, MS *PAYS* him! That means that they’re directly funding all this crap against MA and TC!
They need to muzzle him or completely disassociate from him.
That’s pretty lame. The stock market sucks, regardless of how much attention you call to it. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, it still definitely makes noise in this case.
I’m surprised that TechCrunch would stoop to this level.
Corporate Bloggers have faught to have an independent voice — for the right to be truly objective and not be censored by overly cautious corporate PR.
Now you’re basically taking the side of corporate PR flacks. Claiming that Microsoft is attacking you “through” Dare is basically the same claim that corporate PR flacks use to completely muzzle corporate blogging.
Please keep your accusations to what you actually know. You don’t like what Dare said, fine - but to claim that it’s MS attacking you through him seems to me like you’re just selling all corporate bloggers out to your own vindictiveness.
No. I disagree. People need to be responsible for their words. And an employee is speaking for his/her employer when they blog about their company.
[Disclaimer: I work for Microsoft but these are my personal opinions, not endorsed by my employer in any way, yada, yada. Not sure whether that is valid in this thread]
Mike - your argument here is disturbing. Dare != Microsoft. If everything any Microsoft employee says (that too with a disclaimer) is going to be interpreted as Microsoft’s opinion, there is no way anyone can say *anything*. This is true for any large company - IBM, Google, Sun, you name it.
Does this mean that if I have any commentary to make about the technology industry, I need to leave Microsoft first?
If you and Dare disagree , that’s fine. IMHO (and the stress on the M there), you shouldn’t be extrapolating this to Microsoft. And in this situation, I cannot see even a remote connection to why Microsoft would want to comment on your journalism. Dare’s post doesn’t even mention Microsoft!
Do you really want every tech employee out there to run every post by their PR/legal department first?
You lost a fan today. This would have been a different comment if you had chosen to attack the message and respond to the criticism rather than go after the messenger and his employer
Only when an blogger with a decent pagerank makes it so, I’m afraid.
Take a look at the post Dare made today, a scant day after he took it to TechCrunch.
http://www.25hoursaday.com/web.....pport.aspx
Talk about spreading Schadenfreude!
great find
What irony! Surely you don’t believe that employee blogs, especially those with a disclaimer like Obasanjo’s (quoted above), are the same thing as a company speaking directly through the mainstream media? I thought the whole appeal of blogs was to enable *individuals* to reach their audience, with all the variation in opinion that implies. Putting aside the fairly trivial nature of the argument between Obasanjo and TechCrunch (or is it just Michael Arrington?), this article makes TechCrunch look like a mainstream media outlet.
Michael, I think he has a point about not reporting bad news. I further suggest that we ban selling in the stock market.
It worked for these guys…right?
please ignore that idiot - he always talks thru his trap.
I see what the criticism is saying, but even I don’t think journalists should stop reporting the news for the sake of not knocking the economy.
From Dares blog:
“Disclaimer
The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer’s view in any way.”
This is ONE persons view of you and TechCrunch, not MS as a company.
Everyone enjoys personal battles but when you drag MS into the argument just because its one of their tens of thousands of MS employees, you start to look childish.
Bash Dare, and disagree, just leave MS out of it, it’s irrelevant.
that’s not how real life works.
So Mike, if you think that Microsoft is going after you, what is this guy saying on their behalf that matters? For the most part your treatment of Microsoft products is reasonably even handed and there’s nothing negative that you could say that isn’t already out there on slashdot or some apple or linux boards.
Why do you think that Microsoft even cares what you think? You’ve got a real big ego if you think that Microsoft’s biggest concerns next to Apple, Google and IBM is Mike A.
that’s how our real lives work … yours is either not real or it doesn’t work
All interesting - except for that two words: “Microsoft, through” decend from a solid provable piece to something that looks like paranoia. You’d be better to edit and delete those words.
Of course, my being paranoid, I don’t expect this post to last either. Let’s see?
come to think of it… this guy just happen to love MS so much… or, he just want MS to recognize him so that he will not be included in the next list of “to-be-sacked-employee”
Something is definitely wrong…
“The last thing we need is popular blogs AND the mass media spreading despair and schadenfreude at a time like this,” he says.
You guys can REALLY feal lucky for having Techcrunch and the Amercian mentality encouraging Entrepreneurs in general.
“Schadenfreude” is german for a reason, because here in Germany, you get this negative feeling you experience for some weeks ALL THE TIME.
Jez, what a joke….
Thanks for putting it in perspective. We’re still the good ol’ US of A - the land of eternal optimists.
Yahoo, google and many other stocks were overevaluate. So do not call it crisis. Call it simply clean up.
Seesmic is a less usefull application than planned (how many video vs text comments do you read on this page? And we are the target audience…). Call these layoff rationality. (Loic made a good decision).
The fundamentals of most of the company are good.
Michael, if journalists continue to write dark articles, they are responsible for scaring most of the entrepreneurs and letting only a few new Onasis to make their fortune now (Remember how and *when* they made so much money).
*But* if some journalists have credits invested in Google stocks, I understand why they are so scared today…
Did you buy Google stocks with someone else money? Erick seems to be in that case when you see the number of articles he writes about stock prices…
“Stand tall, TechCrunch. You guys did nothing wrong.”
QFT ^^
Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life:
TechCrunch Turns Into F**kedCompany 2.0 — Some of my readers who missed the dotcom boom and bust from the early 2000s may not be familiar with F**kedCompany, a Web site that was dedicated to gloating about layoffs and other misfortunes at Web companies as the tech bubble popped.
TechCrunch Has Acquired FuckedCompany.com
262 Comments
by Michael Arrington on March 31, 2007
Just sayin
… and I’m out of beer… Damn you Techcrunch
Waldo, your out of beer and i may have had too much, Retraction, i am in no way affiliated with musicextreme.com a slip of the post. TC wrote about this, should have reviewed prior to hitting send. My apologies to them for using their domain.
Michael, please more respect with Dare. If you were in Nigeria now, you would be dealt with according to our venerable traditions. Hanging from a tree, upside down, without a computer. Take note my friend.
Maybe he will resort to 419 letters after he gets a boot from MS.
I just think the Chihuahua picture is fabulous.
Is that Arrington mad at Dare Obasanjo in the photograph?
“Much ado about nothing.”
Blaming Microsoft for Dare’s blog entry is like me blaming parents for their truant childrens actions. Some responsibility is to be put onto there shoulders BUT the ultimate blame lies on the shoulders of the independent!!
What did you think Microsoft were going to do if they did indeed censor his blog? What comes to mind is the chinese government? You’re treading on very dangerous grounds here!
Yawn. Attacking just TechCrunch is old-school. The Bitching 2.0 method is to name a co-defendant…
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008.....ersonally/
right… two (not one) co-defendants have been named… Microsoft and the President of Nigeria.
I am not sure why Mike added a piece about the blogger being the son of Nigerian president. Why dragging personal identity?
Looks like someone is deleting negative comments. All this freedom of speech stuff is a bunch of baloney.
it sure is.
this is your blog and you can do whatever you want on it, like deleting negative comments.
Just like Dare has his own blog, he can do whatever he wants! GET THE POINT!!
I’m just glad to know you personally read my negative comment, Mike. Hope you take it to heart as my sole interest here is keeping TechCrunch awesome.
North Korea style. Ask the right question and be deleted.
I had my comment deleted too
Its sad he cant face siding with the other side. A good arguement consists of two sides. It should be healthy to hear what the other side has to say. At the end of the day Mike can delete comments … but he cant take our FREEEEEEEEDOOOOOMMMMM (from Braveheart if you missed it :))
So I appreciate hearing different point of views as long as its what people believe because collectively it reflects what the general public thinks. At the end of the day, we all have to keep in mind that no one has the answer. Look at the Fed, the blew it. They said housing was contained. On the other hand, we can’t just accuse Microsoft for the actions of an employee with evidence. I’m not an expert but that’s not the American way.
Where can I find the “Related topic” section in TC? I’m expecting this to be linked to the video about the parody song for Nigerian Scum, er, I mean, Scam. But again that depends on the algorithm it uses to find related posts, but I figured word matching has its merits
When a guy has “Smoke like a hippie, drink like a pirate” in his blog’s banner, I tend to take what he says with a pinch of salt.
I’m a big fan of TechCrunch, but let’s face it, commenting on a bunch of silly kids having a bit of harmless fun in so called “Camp Cyprus” was lame. You set yourself up for criticism, although clearly some of the criticism was misdirected and inappropriate. You could have picked many examples of stark contrast closer to home, but every now and again TechCrunch seems to act like a teenage, groupie, rather than a professional blog.
The Camp Cyprus folks are so insignificant in the grand scheme of the Wall Street melt down,the global credit crisis, VC investment strategies and Silicon Valley companies in general. With all that was going on, these kids were hardly noteworthy, unless you have an unhealthy obsession with them and wanted to somehow spin them into the blog.
Keep up the great work, and don’t loose sight of the big picture.