This was going to be a video, but frankly I’m too upset and I don’t want my sentiments to be lost while you stare at my good looks and get hypnotized by my command of language and performance.
We are at a crossroads on the web and social media. It’s time to start looking at ourselves with an honest eye. Today’s topic is journalism and transparency.
I’m in no way a journalist but here’s my transparency. I had a falling out last year with ManCrunch founder Michael Arrington. I honestly adored him, and would vigorously defend his general dickish and insane behavior to anyone who ever asked which was essentially everyone. I would say “Mike is just like me, you just don’t get his humor. I would do anything for him, he’s been great to me.”
Then Mike called to cancel his speaking appearance at The Audience Conference. Yeah I was in the car driving to the event when he called, but I tried to laugh it off. I knew all along he was gonna bail, and frankly being a friend and knowing that Mike can be Mike I really didn’t care and was willing to let it slide, even though this was the second time he screwed up. He apologized the first time and we were cool. The second time he wrote some silly post on ManCrunchNotes about friendship and puppies. I like dogs too and considered the matter closed.
Then I watched him do the same thing, only worse and at a much larger scale, to another friend of mine. And then another. Then I heard some other stuff, which everyone else is mumbling about. Then I thought back to the way he treats his staff and realized that even though it makes for great puppet videos that nobody watches, It’s just not my style to hang with a guy like that.
But that was months ago. My thoughts about TechCrunch in this post are not part of some revenge plot between an internet puppeteer who gets a few hundred views per YouTube video and a bigtime lawyer who claims millions of readers yet only generates a few dozen clicks each of the 20 times I’ve been on the front page of his site.
Daniel Brusilovsky, the latest character in the sad tale of TechCrunch, is 17 years old. Excluding Mike’s puppy, this makes him the youngest contributor to the site.
Other TechCrunch contributors include Sarah Lacy, who earned her chops getting laughed off the stage interviewing Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, and fellow auteur Paul Carr, who documented his unethical behaviors in a book you can download for free on TechCrunch. Paul’s other hobbies include Foursquare checkins, and delaying writing the words he’s under contract to write.
One of Sarah’s more popular TechCrunch posts was talking about a juice diet product that costs $95 per day, which she totally paid for herself, which may or may not be repped by people close to Mike and companies that Mike invested in. Paul Carr tried it too. Even Mike gave the juice a go, or at least the puppet did I forget. Sarah also travels a lot which you can tell by the deep international flavor of her TechCrunch coverage and analysis. Or at least the pictures she posts on other sites.
There are other people at TechCrunch that I dig. I’m still mad that Hendrickson left because that threw off my puppet gag. And Schoenfeld did a great job filling in as master of ceremonies for Mike after Mike threw a tantrum and disappeared three hours before his own award show. I did a quick Google and he didn’t call Arrington a total jackass even once for it. So props for that. There are others too but I’ll spare them Mike’s wrath by not mentioning them.
Bringing up the rear is Steve Gillmor who is the oldest TechCrunch employee at 157 years old. He’s basically known for his unique talent for speaking in tongues. Tech style y’all. Yesterday Steve broadcast himself screaming at his assistant while being unable to use the copycat audio/video technology he bought for himself to compete with Leo, after he uh, left Leo’s network amicably.
Since you haven’t heard about Gillmor Gang let me tell you what it is.
The Gillmor Gang may or may not be a TechCrunch production. It consists of non-technical people yelling at each other about technology and runs for what feels like eleven hours. Visuals focus on odd angles of nostril hair, bad cell phone call-in audio, and lighting that makes them look like lizards. Their most popular video is a 90 second YouTube clip where keyboard cat plays jazz organ after Mike acts like an idiot, a Google employee throws his Skype headset down in disgust, and I roll my eyes uncomfortably.
This four screen picture-in-picture view was made possible by Leo’s mastery of the tech that Gillmor still hasn’t figured out how to use. You probably won’t be able to find the site in Google since it changes URLs every ten minutes but you can probably find the keyboard cat clip on YouTube. If you bump into Leo Laporte, don’t mention that you’ve seen it.
Unofficial TechCrunch employees include Robert Scoble, ex-camera salesman and Microsoft Vista evangelist. Today Scoble is again throwing around his journalism credentials (he dropped out of j-school) in defense of Daniel and Mike. I’ll just point out that if you have to constantly tell people you’re a journalist, there might be something lacking from your body of work. Even in this jaded age people tend to be able to smell actual reporting and it’s not coming from building 43 at the Rackspace headquarters. Although it was fun to watch the Rackspace head of social media flop around on Friendfeed after the latest Gillmor Gang episode blew up. Cool site that Friendfeed. Somebody big should buy it and really fix up that community. And way to pick a winner in Scoble, Rackspace. Haven’t seen a play this brilliant since you screwed up Slicehost.
But back to reporting. Closest Scoble ever got to a story was interviewing the guy who sells yogurt to Steve Jobs. Scoble reported that Steve Jobs was in great health. Jobs left Apple four days later for a liver transplant. Scoble was also on the private jet the day John Edwards announced his run for the Presidency, shooting video three feet away from the other video blogger who was John Edwards mistress and who mothered his child. Didn’t pick up on that vibe either I guess. He sure has his thumb on the pulse.
So on the one hand I want to give Daniel Brusilovsky a pass. The kid is 17 and look at the environment he’s working in and the idiots he’s surrounded by. I’m tempted to blame the parents, but hey, there’s no way they’d know this stuff.
Let’s pretend for a moment that Dan is not some privileged little schmuck and that his parents aren’t connected to Silicon Valley in some convenient way for Mike and/or Scoble. Let’s imagine that the parents actually performed due diligence and took five minutes to Google the people their kid would be spending time with.
Wow. Well-adjusted, social, popular people. With lots of “friends.” And friendly Wikipedia entries. And they all love tech!
We all know this is utter bullshit. This is the world we’ve created on the web.
So before you yell at Dan, look at yourself. I know personally that lots of you know lots of things and you don’t say the Stuff That Matters.
It’s okay to call people idiots, or dopes, or morons, or liars when they are. This is part of the process of transparency.
Although it’s probably not that helpful, you can even get away with being mean for no good reason. Here goes. Robert Scoble really is fucking stupid. Every smart person I know thinks so. Shel Israel really is a nasty prick. If you’ve actually tried to work with him, you know this. See? The internet didn’t just collapse.
And yeah, TechCrunch has become a joke.
It’s okay to say this stuff. In fact we have to say this stuff if we want to improve. You’ll badmouth a restaurant for lukewarm fries on Yelp but you won’t say that Rackspace Spokesman Scoble is a fool for thinking a VPN is a Virtual Public Network? One time is a slip of the tongue and we all make mistakes, but this guy has been on the wrong side of history going back a decade and clearly doesn’t know anything.
It’s also okay to promote other people who do great work. I don’t care if it’s Follow Friday or Tumblr Tuesday or ManCrunch Monday, take a minute next time and really find and promote Someone Who Matters. And if you can’t find that someone, perhaps reflect on the web of connections you built and why you’re wasting your time with them. Let alone endorsing them by keeping them in that little grid of profile pictures you’re so proud of.
So yeah, I want to give Dan Brusilovsky a pass given the entire environment. But I can’t.
I’ve met him several times and thought he was a smug little prick. Some kids are kids, some adults like Mike are kids, and some 17 year old kids know exactly what’s up. My opinion is that Dan is a Man and falls into the last category. He knew what he was doing and deserves the consequences.
Should Mike have done a better job mentoring him? Absolutely. But look at Mike. He can’t take care of himself in any way or even show up to the parties and conference circle jerks he throws himself. He seems to do an okay job with the puppies but I wouldn’t trust him with an up-and-coming 17 year old tech reporter.
Mike’s “transparency” post also deserves a little attention. It says nothing. It doesn’t mention the company or companies involved in the alleged laptop-for-coverage scandal. I’m sure it’ll all get figured out eventually, and it might even be a company that’s a friend or sponsor of mine. But in the spirit of saying Stuff That Matters, I’ll close with this:
If you bought a MacBook Air in order to get a 17 year old to write a post on TechCrunch, and you thought this would in any way improve your business, you’re an absolute, total dope.
