Wow, Nick Bradbury took a post right out of my head – he wrote exactly what I was thinking. I have nothing to add except complete agreement (ok, well I do have something to add, see the end of this post). Dave and Steve are my friends and I always stick by my friends.
Sticking up for my friends
I normally try to avoid getting into public battles, but today I need to make an exception. Yesterday Rogers Cadenhead blogged about a letter sent to him by Dave Winer’s attorney, which caused a bit of an uproar in RSS circles. I honestly have no idea who is right or wrong in this case, and I’ve never had a reason to distrust Rogers, so I’m not going to take sides in this issue. But I was truly bothered by the number of comments made before Dave had given his side of the story. How can anyone possibly take sides when only one side has made their case? The mob mentality shown here, in a word, sucks, and shows why the blog world is no better than mainstream media when it comes to fact-checking.
Also, Steve Gillmor has recently made a couple of rambling posts that suggest he’s not exactly happy with the goings-on in the world of attention. For the record, Steve, you’re the person who introduced me (and certainly countless others) to the idea of attention, and I’ll always give you credit for your pioneering role, no matter how cranky you get.
The only thing I will add is that I was part of the weblogs.com transaction and was also very dissapointed with Rogers Cadenhead’s performance. I have no information on the second part of the dispute.
Disappointed? How?
I’ve been following what Dave has been doing the last little while and he honest has been acting like a bullying asshole towards a bunch of well meaning folk. I do not know if you are just sticking up for a friend because you value loyalty or whether you feel it is advantageous from a business perspective to have Dave continue lobby for your technologies or endeavors. Either way, Dave and at least a couple of his high flong friends are at least somewhat corrupt or at least duplicious. I’m glad I don’t have to kiss your ass to ensure you’ll let me success with my endeavors. I get the general impression that Web 2.0 buzz machine is pretty corrupt in its operation anyhow.
-ben
Mike, now that I’ve figured out how to take posts out of your head, the quality of my blog’s content will hopefully improve
Mike,
Are you aware of Rogers contribution to the “outtage” of weblogs.com? Rogers re-hosted the service off of Dave’s Frontier-based server using software written by Rogers over a weekend. For this Rogers was paid a fee by Dave and publically lauded for his assistance.
Months later the “service” (as coded by Rogers) was sold by Dave (with your involvement, I believe) for $2.15 million. It appears Rogers “tip” for helping Dave keep the service functioning long enough to unload it to Verisign was:
“Don’t bet on the ponies.”
You imply here that Rogers did not behave well in the course of the sale. I can imagine he might have had some indigestion over the outcome but he hasn’t documented those events clearly. He’s too decent to make dirty laundry public until pushed.
He didn’t even hint that he was upset.
You have hinted broadly here. It would now be fair of Rogers to defend himself in the whole story regarding those events but he probably won’t. You might pray that he doesn’t since you’re taking a stance against his “performance” in that matter.
In my estimation Rogers is a decent fellow who is being victimized by a spurned business partner. It happens. It’s often not pretty.
There is a long list of spurned business partners in Dave’s past. Rogers made the mistake of thinking be could work with Dave as others could not. He appears to regret that mistake now.
As a lawyer, you might counsel your friend to avoid using the power of the legal system to salve injuries to his ego… it’s far too costly a remedy when a walk on the beach can do far more good. Lawyers profit from such clients… money is not at the heart of this issue.
FYI, the second part of the dispute is a follow on to the excellent programming work Rogers did to save weblogs.com. Your commission on that sale owes some respect to the programmer that saved the service before it went off line due to poor site maintenance.
Dead site = $0 value
Live site = $2.15 Million
Rogers deserves better treatment in this whole cascade of events. He’s not a bad guy. He just tried to work with a difficult client. Have you ever made such a mistake?
McD – yes, as someone involved in the transaction I am very aware of the facts, and you are incorrect on a number of issues above. And Rogers was wrong to air this publicly. That’s as far as I’m going with this, though.
As the person (outside of Dave and VeriSign) most involved in the sale of weblogs.com to VeriSIgn I can say definitively that the state of the programming of the weblogs.com service had NOTHING to do with the value that was paid for it.
VeriSign’s interest was not in Daves code, but in the inclusiveness of weblogs.com as regards ping data. It was always VeriSign’s intention to re-write the code.
So RC’s coding was actually of zero value to the transcation.
This is not a rebuke to RC but simply a fact
Keith Teare
founder/ceo/edgeio
“Dave and Steve are my friends and I always stick by my friends.”
Until a friend (I’m talking about Dave) turns on you and decides you’re the enemy. You could be next. God knows there’s a long line of people strewn on the highway who’ve been burnt by Dave.
Mike Arrington was Dave Winer’s lawyer for the Weblogs.Com work-for-hire programming project that I did.
I have never suggested that I was responsible for the $2.3 million sale or that I deserved a cut of the proceeds. Dave Winer deserved to profit handsomely from that deal. He put six years of effort into Weblogs.Com, 5.5 of which preceded my limited involvement.
I don’t know why you’d be unhappy about that project, Michael, but I’m not. I was glad to make a little money and develop some LAMP expertise.
It seems unlikely that weblogs.com would have been very inclusive regarding ping data if it had stopped functioning for a period of months before the sale.
Probably also worth noting that while plenty of commenters have said Roger should get a cut of the weblogs.com deal, I haven’t seen Roger say that. I personally don’t think he should, for what very little it’s worth.
Mike,
I didn’t make my point well regarding the essential value of weblogs.com.
The site had an “outtage”. Imagine of it stayed out for days or longer. Roger’s efforts stabilized the site while Dave could seek a buyer. It ran well during that stage of the project. You probably didn’t have visibility into that earlier phase of the situation but it would have made negotiations diffferent if the site itself was unstable.
Dave asked for help getting it stable and on-line again. It stopped collecting and reporting “ping data”. As you mention that value to Verisign was in that “ping data”.
Rogers assisted in that effort under a lot of pressure and Dave was very grateful for the assistance.
If Rogers had not assisted is it safe to assume Dave would have got the service up and functional again? Maybe. But I’d certainly have some sense of debt for the guy that protected my assets when the fire broke out. But subsequent events corrupted their relationship. You stand by your friends… some give up a lot more easily on a tested relationship.
Most of us aren’t attacking Dave… we’re questioning his judgement around some control issues with Rogers (related to RSS issues).
Rogers has made it clear here that he didn’t have any ill will over the weblogs.com situation. That’s yet another clue to the backstory.
The rest of us are searching for some understanding of this perturbation in the RSS Community and how to talk Dave into seeking common ground.
There don’t appear to be any villians here… just a lot of broken glass. It still makes no sense. Shelley Powers tried to get input from the parties involved but she also has history with Dave.
As a lawyer you might read the simple agreement Dave sent to Rogers to sign. Dave says he wouldn’t sign it.
It sounds like an agreement that was not crafted in any sense to be fair based upon a snippet of language.
So, stand by Dave, but understand what it means to blindly stand by someone who’s not acting according to businesses ethics and practices you’d personally endorse.
A mediator at this juncture would be wise to give the situation a fresh perspective. Perhaps as a friend you could counsel Dave in that regard privately, as you might counsel a friend dealing with a troublesome divorce. Let cooler headers strike a compromise.
Keith Teare:
“RC’s coding was actually of zero value to the transcation.”
Michael Graves, VeriSign:
“In any event, I appreciate the great resource Rogers has been throughout the acquisition and transition processes, and it’s good to hear that Rogers wants to go further in this area. We’d be happy to work with Rogers on helping him realize his vision for ping. I think our goals for the future of ping are highly congruent.”
http://www.infrablog.verisign.com/2005/10/cadenhead_king_of_ping_1.html
Yes, Keith, no value there.
And Mike, the fact that you did not disclose your work for weblogs.com (lawyering the rewrite deal in June) in your July profile of the site from last year is unfortunate. Perhaps I’m missing something.
It’s ironic that the blog world is no better than main stream media, and in the same post this gem is thrown out:
“The only thing I will add is that I was part of the weblogs.com transaction and was also very dissapointed with Rogers Cadenhead’s performance.”
Nothing ot support it, no details, just a bomb thrown out to do some damage.
I’m sorry – attorney-client privilege prohibits me from discussing certain things. People should know that. it’s not an excuse, I could lose my license to practice law. And I didn’t start this discussion, Rogers did. All I am doing is saying, to the extent I am legally entitled to, that Rogers is manipulating the facts to tell a story that is different than reality. If I were a third party that was interested in this, I would read all of the information available to me, consider various personal incentives and reputations, and draw my own conclusions. But I would NOT simply attack people for writing their opinion.
Ben, I understand your point and today I would certainly do that (actually I would just not write about it at all). But back in July TechCrunch probably had 50 readers, it was a much different animal than it is today and I had no idea of what it would become. I just didn’t think it was important at that time. Remember that hindsight is 20/20.
Thanks for reminding me about that post from VeriSign, Dan. I had forgotten about that. Before VeriSign’s site launched, they invited me to look it over and make sure it included all of the features on Dave Winer’s version of the site, and I did.
I hope that Michael Arrington will correct me if I’m wrong.
I’d say it is pretty unethical behavior for a lawyer to insinuate unethical behaviour by someone they were involved in a legal transaction with, then try and hide behind the shield of attorney-client priviledge when asked what the grounds for that statement are.
A judge or bar committe might well conlude that you have behaved in a manner deserving reprimand.
Mike,
Attorney-Client privlege aside. You could at least show a little respect for the benefit Rogers work did for Dave and you.
I’m going to assume you’re just angry now and won’t budge. A good trate fora lawyer and not a bad one in a friend.
“Rogers is manipulating the facts to tell a story that is different than reality.” We can only surmise which situation Roger’s is manipulating: weblog.com or this new conflagration over feeds.scripting.com.
I have read everything I can on the RSS Advisory Board
manipulating and Rogers recent attempts at negotiations with Dave Winer and I have come to my own conclusions. They are consistent with a pattern of business and blogging behaviors from both Dave and Rogers.
If there are any facts available to indicate that
Dave Winer can negotiate a win-win resolution over feeds.opml.com I’d love to see them. He last message on this point was that Rogers would still have to deal with him.
Long time Winer watchers know how persistent and dedicated Dave can be when he make something a priority. But like the Podshow conclusion to the melt down of his Adam Curry relationship Dave will likely learn once again: “get it in writing”. Anger and malice have little legal standing.
You are a lawyer and might see Dave a small clue in that regard. “feeds.scripting.com” is indeed a web site that could be pointed to in a day or two and life coudl resume as Rogers and Dave agreed verbaly. Dave’s got text on the site indicating his pleasure with Rogers miraculous productivity bring the site into service.
Now Dave wants the work for no compensation. He’s angry again and wants a pound of flesh for Rogers defection over RSS control: likely a by product of their inability to agree on some simple steps.
So, my point to you is: give Winer a call and talk him down from the ledge. He’s just angry and needs an outlet for some of the recent events that have raised his ire. Try to stave off the Jihad on Dave’s short list… and throw a few less bombs into the mix while you’re at it.