I know that Michael Arrington wasn't on the cc: list for the email that he quite accurately states was sent out to a bunch of folks working on the upcoming Under The Radar conference. But he has obviously seen it, since he wrote a post about it tonight, quoting Christen O'Brien's email to the group, and then my response back, after I had posted about the TechCrunch20 conference. And then, he offers his perspective on this (presumed) private conversation:
[from TechCrunch20 Bashing by Michael Arrington]In my opinion this was a bad idea. In a day where more and more of us are striving to achieve greater transparency and openness, seeing something like this makes me realize how far we still have to go. IBD is run by two people that I consider to be friends - Debbie Landa and Alison Murdock. I assume they approved this email or at least knew about it. I don’t understand why they didn’t just pick up the phone and call me, and perhaps ask for a clarification.
I want to make it clear that I will continue to support DEMO, UTR, Stirr and other events and conferences where startups are asked to attend and present their stuff. These events are run by people that I have a lot of respect for and admire, and they can choose whatever business model they like. What Jason and I are trying out is a new business model - one where companies get in solely on their merit with no other issues to possibly cloud our judgement. That’s it.
Hmmm. Let's see. Personally, I think it's a bad idea to snoop on people's email. It should be at the least frowned upon. I guess he meant it was a bad idea to suggest that someone might want to comment on Michael's arguments about the Techcrunch20 conference. After all, musn't argue with Michael.
Let's replay this whole thing. Various people affiliated with a conference send email to each other, which gets sent to Michael, in some fashion but -- despite all his talk about openness and transparency-- the specifics of how he got the email are left unsaid. He comments about the email -- which was, in principle, private. He posts it at his blog, suggesting that this email interchange was somehow public, alluding to the noble principles of openness and transparency. But in fact this plea is kind of slippery, since the comments he's talking about were private email that someone unknown (and not disclosed) forwarded to him (for who knows what reasons).
I personally don't want to find out who sent this along to Michael, or to even sketch out the myriad reasons someone might think that think this minor transgression of confidence was worth whatever might be gained by it. I still have my youthful illusions, after all.
Then Michael wonders why the authors of a private email -- not a public post -- didn't call him to "ask for a clarification." A clarification of what? This was a private interchange via email, opinions, but he makes it sound like something painted on a billboard.
More reasonably, I could suggest that he might have contacted Debbie, Alison, Christen, or me for "clarification" before publicly posting this stuff. Although in general I am not a great advocate of asking people to clarify public remarks. But wait: these were private emails, after all. Oh, forget that! There is no privacy, anymore! That's dead!
On top of all that, Michael doesn't actually reference or link to the post I made, where I said the following, extolling the conference (emphasis mine):
[from Michael Arrington on The TechCrunch20 Conference]I am glad to hear that Arrington and Calacanis are doing a conference. Two of the smartest and most connected tech warriors will undoubtedly put together a worthwhile event.
However, I think that Michael's positioning of the event -- theoretically driven by a Olympian disintestedness and untouched by commercial needs -- perhaps does a disservice to the many other conferences that have helped launch companies in the Web 2.0 arena, suggesting that they are letting in those with the green stuff as opposed to those with the right stuff.
[...]
I have attended DEMO, Web 2.0, Under The Radar, and numerous other conferences where demoing companies have to pay a fee to participate. And yes, some companies can't muster the cost of entry, or opt to apply their capital elsewhere. I have seen great companies and duds selected to show, or languishing in the hallways. And a large number of even the best-demoable companies still won't make it in the real world, where factors more powerful than first-look attractiveness come to bear.
My bet is that the real value of the TechCrunch conference will prove not to be this lowering of the barrier to participation and the supposed meritocracy involved: after all, a selection process still goes on at all the other conferences, too. My hunch is that Arrington and Calacanis -- great showmen with a sense of the times -- will pull together a great event where the tectonic issues of the day will find a large and receptive audience. The fact that they can afford to forego the $15,000 (or $5000, or whatever) from the 20 participating companies means that they believe that they can make it up elsewhere: in registration, sponsorships, or repurposing the feeds. After all TechCrunch is a for-profit business, right? And Jason is an entrepreneur in residence, not a zen monk.
So, yes, I am guilty of saying that Arrington and Calacanis are likely to pull together a great conference, that will be of central importance to the marketplace, and they will make money doing so. And then writing an email to alert folks in the Under The Radar mailing list to read the post. Shoot me! Shoot all of the folks on the cc: list! I admit that I said "Zing!" Stone me!
But seriously, I disagree with Michael as to why the conference might be important, and I don't think that the price of entry issue is really that relevant: the central point that I made, that Michael doesn't address at all. Instead, he wants to slyly suggest that a "Zing!" email from me back to the organizers of the Under The Radar conference somehow is an attack on the TechCrunch20 conference. It was -- after all -- just an email pointing to a post where I argue against his position that all those other conferences that ask start-ups to pay to play are somehow weeding out the good ones: those with better ideas but less money.
He points out himself that Digg, YouTube and StumbleUpon all avoided the DEMO/launchpad events: maybe the whole format is irrelevant for the killer companies; maybe its not a question of merit, maybe the whole system is broken, or useless. I think that is a worthy discussion to have: in private emails or publicly in the blogosphere.
As I wrote in my post, however, I don't think that the financial barrier is that critical, really; and I think Michael and Jason will create an important and must-attend conference for reasons completely independent of this financial issue.
But instead of arguing about these subjects and focusing about what I said in my public post, Michael is writing about emails that people sent to each other, not addressed to him. Not that there is very much in there of interest, really. Is there? And even if there was, it's none of Michael's goddamn business. Is there no notion of privacy left? But even if I had written an email saying something horrible about Arrington (like he was reading people's email without their knowledge) wouldn't it still be a matter of private discourse? Do I have no rights of privacy left? Have the media moguls become Big Brother now?
[Update: Michael Arrington comments on this post: "They sent it to Nik Cubrilovic, a techcrunch writer." So, therefore, I am left to reason that Nik forwarded it to Mike, and then Mike figured it was public property. But what about the issues I am raising in this and the previous post, Mike? Hello?]
They sent it to Nik Cubrilovic, a techcrunch writer.
Posted by: michael arrington | February 01, 2007 at 09:09 PM