If you’ve been following the events around the Le Web conference and TechCrunch UK, this might be of interest to you. If not, it won’t. I’m not filling in all the background material to keep this as short as possible.
I’ve thought about the TechCrunch UK issue for a week now, and have come to some conclusions. A lot of public and private anger has been directed at me over putting the blog on hold. For the record I am going to put down the facts as I know them, and then put this thing to bed.
I talk a lot about ethics on our site and how important it is to me to surround myself with “good” people. I certainly make mistakes, but I try to learn from them and I strive to always do what I consider to be the right thing, and treat others fairly. Particularly when they are down.
The situation last week, surrounding the Le Web conference, was in my opinion an example of what can happen when mobs smell blood. People go crazy. I have no personal opinion on the event itself because I wasn’t there. Loic is a personal friend, but frankly I was pretty pissed off at him at the beginning of the conference because he cancelled my trip at the last minute. There’s two sides to that story, but I want to be clear that during the conference I was not very happy with Loic, or the event.
I had no issue with Sam’s first post on the event. He presented why he thought it wasn’t perfect in a balanced way. Since I wasn’t at the event I couldn’t agree or disagree, and regardless I trust our writers to communicate their honest opinions. TechCrunch France Editor Ouriel Ohayon wrote to me saying that the post wasn’t accurate and reflected poorly on us, but my response to him was “I don’t have a problem with that post.”
However, Loic started taking a lot of heat over the event, and he lashed out at Sam, calling him an asshole in the comments. That wasn’t a shining moment for Loic, but these kinds of things happen. Frankly, I far prefer someone who loses their cool every once in a while to people who are always under control and calculating. Being human isn’t a bad thing.
People leave comments like these on TechCrunch all the time. And if I know them personally, I usually email them and ask them if they’d like for me to remove the comment for them. Invariably they say yes after they’ve had a day to cool down, and I delete them. People use blogs to communicate freely, and I want people to know they can speak their mind in our comments section. And if they change their mind later, I’m usually ok with amending those comments.
Loic did two things. He apologized on the blog for the comment, and he emailed back saying if we were willing to remove the original asshole comment, that was great.
I wrote back just to Sam, and said “Please delete his comment and any comments referring to it. Ok with that?”
If Sam had written that we wasn’t ok with that, I would have respected his decision and probably would have forgotten about the whole event by now.
But Sam wrote back saying that he refused to delete the “post.” It was clear that all I asked was that he remove the comment, not the post. This is when things started to get ugly and I realized what Sam’s true intentions might be. He also wrote:
“Sorry Mike unless you respond back to this email telling me to remove the post I will not. I have been asked by several people to run the European event to replace Le Web. Loic has sold out and I don’t think TechCrunch should do the same.”
Now one thing Sam is good at is making money, and events can be profitable. If I went along with this, I’d stand to make a lot of money on a European event.
And frankly I’m absolutely fine competing with Loic. But I’m not fine trashing his conference while promoting our own.
Sam then took another step, highlighting the Loic “asshole” comment and in the same post writing about upcoming events that he would be announcing. That is not ethical.
At this time I was in a blogger meeting at Microsoft, sitting in a room with Bill Gates in a Q&A session. I didn’t have a lot of time to deal with the situation and it seemed to be getting out of control.
I wrote sam an email saying “you realize you just fired yourself, right?” and linked to his new post where he trashed Loic and Le Web while simultaneously promoting his own events.
His immediate response was “Are you asking me to leave? Please confirm”
I responded “Sam, I can’t work with someone who is intentionally cruel. You were, and you did it to gain attention for your own efforts. So, unless you fix this, I won’t be able to work with you any more. The post yesterday was fine. The one today was over the top, particularly after we had discussed removing the comment.”
At that time I assumed that Sam and I would still find a way to work this out. I certainly didn’t expect what came next.
That was the last time we spoke. The next thing Sam did was post on TechCrunch UK that he’d been fired. Based on me saying “fix this or I won’t be able to work with you any more.”
Everything that happened after that is public knowledge. Sam has launched a new site covering European startups. He has a well designed site, and sponsors. After one week.
That tells me that this was all planned long ago, and Sam took this opportunity to create incredible buzz for himself. At my expense. At Loic’s expense.
When I first started working with Sam a number of people emailed me telling me that he was a dishonest person and that I’d regret it. I ignored these emails. Lots of people say lots of horrible things about me all the time, and most of them aren’t true. Perhaps I should have listened.
There is one other matter. Against our policies Sam took direct payment from a number of sponsors for an event he held earlier this year. Despite repeated requests he has never sent the portion of that payment, about $17,000, owed to us. We are never going to see that money.
Could we hire an attorney over all of this? Sure. But even though I’m an attorney, that’s not my style. And frankly, we have better things to do with our time.
So in the end I had the choice between continuing to work with Sam, and possibly making a lot of money on a European event, or being able to sleep well at night. I chose sleeping well.
On a side note, I’m sorry to see writer Mike Butcher caught up in all of this, particularly when his wife is very ill. As far as I know he had no knowledge of the back story: that Sam was trashing Loic to promote his own event, and that I actually never fired him. I hope things work out well with him at Sam’s new startup. And if in the end, Sam screws him over like everyone else he seems to come in contact with, I’ll hire him back at TechCrunch.
yes, we get it. Sam Sethi is completely unethical and used the situation for his own gain. But what does this say about your judgement in picking people to work with?
why is it that the most biting comments are Anonymous? Have a set and use your real identity to ask the tough/biased/leading questions.
None of us are perfect, and when it comes to hiring people, I can’t really think of a tougher job. I think Mike was right to do what he did, if the transcripts of the conversations have been reproduced accurately here, and then I would side with Mike. I think maybe, too much information is being released on this issue, this is an internal dispute in TechCrunch and a lot of the finer details should be kept internal.
I can only imagine that publishing comments like (”Sam took direct payment from a number of sponsors for an event he held earlier this year. Despite repeated requests he has never sent the portion of that payment, about $17,000, to us. He’s flat out stolen that money.”), are extremely dangerous!
anyway, hopefully this saga is coming to an end.
I certainly make mistakes, but I try to learn from them and I strive to always do what I consider to be the right thing, and treat others fairly.
If I were in your position as an employer, I’d be concerned about telling the world about an employee’s fractious termination. I know it’s the ethos of blogging to share everything, but you don’t owe the world the inside dirt on why Sam Sethi’s not the editor of TCUK any more. Accusing him of theft is a pretty inflammatory allegation. If you’re happy he’s gone and he’s happy he’s gone, why put that out there?
Coming from anyone but you, Rogers, that would be a reasonalbe comment. But you certainly aired your relationship with Dave Winer to the whole world with this - http://www.cadenhead.org/workbench/news/2881/letter-dave-winers-attorney
You’ve got to get over that. I was his attorney. I thought you had performance issues. You made everything public and people expressed their opinions. End of story. But you continually flame me in comments and on your blog, and you are losing my attention.
It doesn’t happen often, but I occasionally make reasonable comments.
I don’t have a dog in the fight you’re having with Sethi. But I was once a pro journalist, and I’d be afraid to work for somebody who airs internal stuff about his employees. In your growing media empire, you’re going to need journalists who know they can get into disagreements with you without it going on their permanent record. Journalists argue a lot with their editors.
Regarding Share Your OPML, I was an independent contractor looking out for my rights using the best tool available to me: publicity.
You can argue that I was an asshat for taking it public. But Dave’s happy he got his site and I’m happy I got out from under the disagreement without litigation.
Some of your comments are based on assumptions. Site - its using a standard Wordpress template. My friend uses the same template, apart from the header, hence am very familiar with the look. Doesn’t take a long time to pull a Wordpress site together. Could be pulled together in a couple of hours, nevermind a week.
Sponsors - British people feel a lot of anger about this, and with Sam’s contacts already there sponsors could be pulled together.
I don’t personally know Sam or Mike, and comments are made as an outsider reading about this mess.
[...] Michael Arrington just posted his side of the story on Crunchnotes You gotta admire the guy. I think its a frank and open piece with a little bit too much information for my liking though. I think he has had a crap few weeks and its now time to leave this die down and everyone get on with their lives. Sam and Mike B have their new start-up and I hope to see TechcrunchUK and Ireland back soon. Technorati Tags: Crunchnotes, General, pat phelan, roam4free, TechcrunchShare and Enjoy:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]
Just wondering…
Is deleting (friends) comments (or any comments) a good thing? I would think a more redeeming method would be for the commentor to calm down and post a new (contrition) comment.
Seems like a slippery sloap if some can have their rant removed but others can’t. And if opened to all, it could get messy and some threads wouldn’t make sense at all.
I have to admit, I kind of don’t care about this stuff and I don’t think many others do either beyond the sort of Us Weeklies of the tech world, which seem to move on quickly to other drama once they’re done with yours. Sam or whoever he is sounded like he was being reactive and it obviously burned him a little. It happens.
Unfortunately for you Michael, you’re in that unique spot where you’re either everybody’s punching bag or everybody’s darling - I’m sure it can be difficult to effectively separate yourself from both. It seems that somebody can sneeze around you and people who don’t like you say it’s your fault. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect you to act like other media/journalists, but you could probably use a publicist to buffer you like all the other public figures out there.
Sometimes people respect a person (or business) opening up issues that have occured in public. I think it makes the site more human rather than the ‘giant that makes or breaks a start up company’ (as some have stated).
Without these posts and the time you have taken to post them us Techcrunch UK readers would simply be stratching our heads and some people would no doubt be still e-mailing you asking what’s happening.
Having read the post he made in my feedreader.. I can’t blame you for taking the actions you’ve taken. Anyone else in your position would have done exactly the same thing.
[...] See, in one corner, we’ve got Mike with a big stick, and in the other corner, a dead horse. The initial thrill of the various nerdfights that Mikey has started these past few weeks (on vacation!! the man is a multi-tasking fiend!) has long been over, yet he has resurrected the dead horse and beat it senseless yet again. Oy vey, indeed. [...]
Thanks Mike.
Rogers, I wish you’d stop speaking for me. You always get it wrong. The other day, you said I had sold all my UserLand shares, and I hadn’t.
And you said I decided to keep blogging so I could fight with Mike, another Cadenhead fabrication.
People should assume when Rogers talks about me he has no idea what he’s talking about. I don’t share my secrets with him, and he has really bad intuition. I guess he thinks everyone is as much a low-roader as he is.
Mike,
I have no first knowledge of this situation, but didn’t you lock Butcher out of TCUK? Doesn’t that count as ‘firing’ him (as far as you can ‘fire’ a francisee)?
Apparently, people who know Sam from before this say that he tried to start a “Techcrunch UK” type blog before, and get sponsors, and it failed. He likely pulled together the old stuff he had. It’s easy to pull this together in a week if you already have something in mind and have sponsorship contacts.
The other question is, if Sam goes into the conference biz around small startups, what will Innovate do? They are in an out of the way location (Zaragosa) run by Chris Shipley and Guidewire, who are at the end of their Demo contract (after the Feb 07 Demo), have been looking unsuccessfully for funding for 2 years, and have been pushed out of the way by more innovative methods for getting to new startups (like the internet generally, or Techcrunch in particular). Who needs to spend $18k to demo your startup at Demo when you can just get online and blog, or go get Mike to write you up? It’s generally recognized the last couple of years in Silicon Valley that only startups that can’t get traction any other way go to Demo.
Europe is more complicated, and has always been very divided, in terms of products and countries. A product made in Amsterdam, for the Dutch market, is invisible to the rest of Europe, and something made in Madrid is for Spain and no where else. Products don’t spread easily beyond boarders. So there is opportunity for a conference covering all startups in Europe and Israel, but it requires having contacts in all the countries, and working the sponsorships because you won’t get those in Europe unless you know people.
Techcrunch could partner with someone in Europe and own this.
Regarding the conference biz generally, it’s always been pretty corrupt (the commercial conference biz). Loic is feeling that heat, where the blogosphere clashes with the corrupting aspects. Several of the speakers at Les Web told me that they constantly saw Loic, when he wasn’t onstage, out front being interviewed for TV. Some conferences will arrange for the speakers to get that too, but Loic did not. And he’s shocked by the negative online press. But he’s not a deep thinker, didn’t think through the implications of what he’d planned with the politicos, and got nailed by people who are outside his circle and judged his ethics. Sharing the glory and being more humble might have mitigated that more.
Will be interesting to see how Innovate, Les Web, and Sam’s new conference series fight it out, and who survives and prospers. Techcrunch in Europe could beat them all just like that if it wanted to do so. It’s just a matter of committing.
[...] http://www.crunchnotes.com/?p=327 [...]
I don’t think I would have deleted the comment, but I see why you did. Seems Sam went a little haywire, if this is the whole story.
I enjoyed the slap-fight in the comments between our two RSS kings though…
Mike, I came to this thinking we’d now get the - Sam’s an idiot, I’m an idiot - let’s go our own ways and be done with it. But no, it’s a hatchet job. From the bully pulpit. Never thought I’d see such a thing.
[...] Update: New and improved vitriol from Mike Arrington about Sethi here. Includes numerous quotations from private emails. My advice to Sam: don’t respond. Just walk away and concentrate on building Vecosys. This is starting to look a bit undignified. [...]
Wow Mike unbelievable… not often I am left speechless but I am now. Are you suffering from keyboard tourettes or has the bubble finally burst and you really have nothing else to write about!?
The truth the whole truth and NOTHING like the truth comes to mind having read this post. I will blog my full and detailed response elsewhere.
I also suggest you seek legal advice after you have read my blog post but I’ll send you the legal papers through the post if that is ok with you. Some things should remain confidential between dissolving franchise partners, although right now there is not alot left to say.
Oh and to make it clear to everyone reading this NONE of the money has ever been paid to me by the three UK sponsors so far, you can still invoice them for it if you like totalling $30k. But I am not sure they will want to still pay you?
Mike, I have spoken to two of the three sponsors concerned today and I will talk to the other tonight. Both are happy to verify publically and legally that no money has been paid to me at all as am sure the third will. Jennifer Rice who also used to work with you until recently knew this and the monies she and I discussed were part of the planning spreadsheet we put together i.e what revenues we expected in 2007 going forward and what we could invoice now.
I would add that the BarCamp London and BBC Backstage party sponsorship monies on behalf of TCUK came out of my own pocket because TCUK had no money in the bank.
Finally Mike if you had read TCUK at all you would have known that most of the events I mentioned had been discussed and planned openly on the UK blog previously it was not news to the UK readers.
And the Wordpress template on Vecosys, it is off the shelf and took me 2 hours to put up with help from a few friends to host it and a little code customisation from me, not really a plan then.
The thing that really gauls me the most is your belief that I some how screwed you over. I worked damn hard for you to make TCUK a success and I never took a penny out of TCUK, I worked hard to raise the sponsor money but never requested it because TechCrunch could not get their adverts on the site. A little unfair to take the money without giving back some value. Also you never asked me for the money because Jennifer and I knew we had not yet invoiced the sponsors and as for Mike Butcher you objected to him being on the TCUK team from the very start.
If he is not the issue and you would like to have him work for you (again)in the future, then why did you lock him out of TCUK without speaking to him. He was the editor after all and could have continued without me if I was the real issue.
Lastly I did not like somethings about Le Web 3 and having paid out of my own pocket for the flight and my hotel (unlike some) I felt I had every right to blog about it and reflect the feelings of people I networked with while there! Get over it Mike I have …
[...] The incident which caused the two to leave Techcrunch was explained from TC head honcho Mike Arrington today. It sure is a mess. [...]
[...] I hate to say it, but if Mike is telling the truth (and I have no reason to believe he isn’t), then Sam Sethi acted even more unethically than I previously believed. I’m very, very curious to hear Sam’s side of the story. [...]
Mike - you and I have met on several occasions in Spain, SF. I’ve known Sam since his Netscape days. Sam is a sharp and smart operator. He’s done a LOT of good stuff in his time.
Sam and I have stood on opposite sides of the fence a propos ‘hack…flack.’ I recently met Sam while in London for a series of social engagements and while he was a TC franchisee. Sam was showing incredible commitment to encouraging startups in the UK. Terrific.
On the occasions I saw, Sam was - as ever - the accomplished networker and reality checker.
I fear you do yourself a dis-service in washing this kind of dirty linen in public.
Mike - I hope you know I wish you well, TC is a great resource. But this is publishing. This is media. You’re at the vanguard of new media bumps and grinds, which means you’re likely to be the target for the biggest piles of poo going.
Can I suggest you take counsel from those steeped in this stuff. And move on.
A friendly voice even if it doesn’t sound it.
There are certain conversations that shouldn’t take place via email and IM. Your discussion with Sam is one of them. I would also like to back Madeline up - Sam and Mike have a considerable amount of support here in the UK which they obviously galvanised to launch vecosys.com. Mentioning the $17,000 hasn’t done much for your reputation - that should certainly have been kept private.
Hi Mike,
I’ve been following the stories on various blogs for the past few weeks. I’m a nobody in the big bad blogging world out here, but I guess the entire situation could and should have been controlled from the very start.
I think a lot of “human” nature was into play here, not to mention a lot of egos.
This post just adds fuel to the fire and isn’t helping the problem.
I’m sure Sam’s reaction will also be a solution.
Though not simple can’t you folks just call a truce?
[...] There is an open argument happening on the Web, sparking passionate debate (and random flaming) on both sides of the fence regarding Mike Arrington’s recent closure of TechCrunch’s UK blog. It’s getting ugly and there are lessons to be learned from it. [...]
Deleting the comment at that point of time would have fueled at least another round of postings repeating exactly that and pushing it out more in the open.
At that point, the comment was already through and unretrackable. It would have been different if it had been just directly after it and had been unnoticed but it wasn’t.
Fellas, seriously - pick up the phone and talk this over. It is no good dragging this shit through the blog in public.
i am another “neutral” nobody having followed this story and i tend to agree with ajay and ian fenn. in my career i have experienced several incidences of huge personal fights that were conducted via IM and email. all of them could have been prevented if we had picked up the phone and talked it through, or even better met in person.
i think you really jumped to conclusions, mike, when assuming that this was planned by sam a long while ago and he just wanted to screw you. most bloggers can easily tell that the template sam is using on vecosys is one of the most popular wordpress themes. anyone can set this design up within a few hours. and i guess coming up with some sponsors in a week is not an impossible mission, given sam’s contacts and what had happened.
my conclusion is that there are certain things (like such allegations, including the money part) that are still better discussed in private instead of openly in the blogosphere, so they can be properly addressed and misunderstandings sorted out.
i wish both of you good luck with your ventures and may this story soon be put to rest!
It sounds like a lot of this happened because you tried to resolve a contentious issue via email. When your personal relationships, reputation, and business are on the line do the uncomfortable thing: make a phone call. Or a video conference. Or fly to the UK and talk through things. Just don’t try to do nuance via email.
yeah - u never fired him. he fired himself. welcome to Bushworld.
[...] As I understand it, TechCrunch UK blogger Sam Sethi wrote a post about Le Web 3 (a French internet conference) saying that he was less than impressed by a few things, after which a moderate flame war ensued, leading Mike Arrington to basically remove Sam Sethi, delete a subsequent post by Sam that crossed the ethical line, and put TechCrunch UK on hold. Here’s Mike Arrington’s take on the whole thing (and another, updated take), and now it looks like Mike Butcher, an editor of TechCrunch UK is resigning, too. [...]
Don’t blog about this! This kind of thing makes CrunchNotes more interesting than TechCrunch - And that’s not good. Seriously!!
UK gets stand-alone site for Web 2.0 coverage…
Carpe Diem……Sam Sethi and Mike Butcher have now set up on their own now, at Vecosys (that was Sam’s old website, I don’t know if they will change to a new one eventually or keep that as the brand).
No news of any TechCrunch plans to re-launch …
A polémique, polémique et demi…
Je sais qu’en ces périodes de fêtes il y en a encore qui croient au Père Noël, mais ceux qui pensent encore que Loïc Le Meur est responsable du licenciement de Sam Sethi1 feraient bien d’observer de près le gigantesque……
Yawn…. this is getting very petty…. A very good reason to avoid email etc for some subjects.
Mike, you’ve effectively made a very serious allegation of theft of $17k against Sam in a very public fashion. If, as is reported on Vecosys, the sponsors confirm that they have not yet been invoiced and hence no monies had yet been paid by them (unless you are next going to allege they are acting in concert in Sam), I hope you will have the decency to publish an apology on the front of each of your publications.
As regards Mike Butcher, his blog (mbites) reports that you’d not had the courtesy to contact him regarding events and he found himself “locked out” of the blog. Furthermore, Mike doesn’t paint a picture of you as someone who took any interest in TCUK. Are these allegations true?
As regards setting up a “rival” blog in a week - I’m astonished you think this is so hard. Other than the sponsorship piece, publishing a blog is relatively easy (but then you should know that). It is also unsurprising that the UK community would seek to back the successor to TCUK and get it going so quickly, given the impressive standing it had already achieved in such a short space of time - in my experience, a week to do a sponsor deal is plenty of time.
Finally, I think you must already realise your comments on the TCUK events are misplaced - readers of the TCUK blog had known of their existence for weeks. Weren’t you amongst the readership?
Wow Mike, you just don’t give up. How can you put this to bed by dragging all of this up again and then adding more wild accusations, we had all forgotten about it.
I’m not going to spend the guts of my time going into every nook and cranny, so I’ll keep it brief – well, I could write a book on this, so this is brief…
Firstly, I think it’s unethical to publish email conversations between you and a colleague – irrespective of the ill feeling you have for them. As a matter of interest, do you think your other colleagues can now trust confidential conversations they have with you in the future? How will they know that their email conversations with you won’t to be badly misrepresented on the Web for the world to see?
Why don’t you address Mike Butcher’s open letter addressed to you? http://mbites.com/an-open-letter-to-mike-arrington - Mike resigned his position at TC due to being locked out without notice. As if taking care of his sick wife who has cancer isn’t difficult enough to deal with… Dude, you need to review the entire situation, join hands with Loic and apologise to the world for this ill feeling. I personally felt very saddened the night it all happened – probably because I knew how dirty it would get. Alternatively, you could stop talking about it and move on like the rest of us.
I have personally witnessed Sam being interviewed by French journalists over the phone and he has been nothing short of professional and diplomatic throughout – no bad comments towards you or Loic. The insults appear to be one-way, which has put you in the same boat as Loic; up the creek and without a paddle. In fact, I think everyone’s forgotten about the conference as you’re now attracting all the attention.
Sam didn’t even bad mouth you on his departure post on TechCrunch, which you subsequently deleted. Have you got a specially designed keyboard with a delete key taking up 50% of real estate?
I’m not writing as ‘Sam’s friend’, in fact, I’m very independent – I feel quite passionate about this situation because of your demonstrably bad interpersonal skills and blatant attempt to tarnish the reputation of someone who has held a torch for you and your brand.
Sam’s second post which you continue to highlight, was in response to Loic’s insult. Sam’s post was not written after Loic’s apology. Also, Loic didn’t apologise until after you deleted his insulting comment (as a personal friend).
Sam forwarded these emails to me in the strictest confidence after he was fired. I have not shown them to anyone, nor will I (you have my word on that also). So, if you’re going to publish quotes for all to see in the hope that it will clear your name and tarnish someone else’s, I suggest you do so accurately because your post doesn’t reflect the actual conversation that I’ve got in my inbox.
Removing one word from a sentence can change its meaning; you seem to be deleting sentences which is unprofessional.
> That tells me that this was all planned long ago, and Sam took this opportunity to create incredible buzz for himself. At my expense. At Loic’s expense.
This is a new personal opinion that you are now expressing – how is this supposed to put things to bed? You are now starting to fling new mud with your wild accusations. I truly believe that you will do yourself more damage with this continued approach. I’d rather you didn’t as TechCrunch has meant so much to so many. I personally loved the brand and the respect you commanded within the community. But you’re now using it as your personal audience.
“to tarnish the reputation of someone who has held a torch for you and your brand. ”
From what I know (rather a lot by the way); most people that have worked with Sam professionally have regretted it big time. I’m finding it hard to remain silent on the issue. All I see here are a bunch of bloggers smelling blood and going for the kill. I wish I could go into more detail but I would be revealing my identity.
When Mike said that many people warned him against Sam in e-mail; I know he wasn’t lying. I can only imagine what some of them said…
This is just a couple of fluffy qualitative comments but I want to show support for Mike in this difficult situation. At least he can sleep well at night now because he isn’t in business with a snake anymore. I also know for a fact Sam owes quite a few people money too. I feel quite sorry for MBites too; I wonder what the life span of that relationship will be.
“Sorry Mike unless you respond back to this email telling me to remove the post I will not. I have been asked by several people to run the European event to replace Le Web.”
That tells me everything I need to know about Mr. Sethi and his cohorts. This guy is pure evil, Mike. And that pit bull Paul Walsh needs to be neutered. He’s loyal to his boss but dumb as hell.
Sethi talks all about the money, but never talks about the main issue - his ethical lapse in promoting his own event, even scheming with you behind the scenes.
I wasn’t going to bother with this until I noticed someone had commented on your digg with the following URI http://samsethi.glaxstar.com/?p=30
As you can see, Sam has hosted his blog on Glaxstar.com. Ian Hayward, CEO and Founder of Glaxstar happens to be a very good friend of mine.
FYI Glaxstar maintain spreadfirefox.com - the Mozilla development community Web site and have been responsible for the development of Firefox extensions for companies such as Google, Yahoo! and eBay.
So what’s the point I’m trying to make?
Answer: It’s feasible that Sam should have a blog based on Wordpress up and running in a few days. The fact that he also has sponsors should demonstrate the support he has within this fine community. It shouldn’t permit you to make accusations in a public forum.
anon: You could be anyone. It’s amazing to see so many supportive comments coming from ghosts. If this goes to court as Sam suggests, you will see the transcript of conversations that really took place and not just the bits that Mike is publishing.
Peter Mann: You are basing your entire opinion on one sentence that has been taken out of context, rather than reviewing the entire situation and conversations that took place. You too could be a ghost for all we know.
I wouldn’t be so quick to say nice things about Mike Butcher, Mike. Read the blogs, he’s trashing you as much as Sam is. They were in on this together and came out quite nicely.
Paul - sorry, you just seem to be a complete nutter.
Sam - Mike says:
“Sam, I can’t work with someone who is intentionally cruel. You were, and you did it to gain attention for your own efforts. So, unless you fix this, I won’t be able to work with you any more. The post yesterday was fine. The one today was over the top, particularly after we had discussed removing the comment.”
And that the next thing you did was post that you were fired.
Is that true? Doesn’t look so great.
If someone has the full emails they should be posted. I’d like to see them.
> If someone has the full emails they should be posted. I’d like to see them.
I personally don’t think that would be ethical and judging by the comments, most people don’t like to see dirty laundry hanging out to dry.
No better time than the present to finally draw an ethical line, right?
You’ve been accused of misdeeds. You respond by saying the full transcripts will prove you right. And then you say you won’t do it for ethical reasons.
Smells bad. The whole thing smells very bad.
Come on, print them.
Oh, I just realised I was talking to Paul the lapdog, not Sam the Man. Sam, does Paul work for you or is he a fool all by himself?
Mike - I think you need to add another crunch site for this garbage: Dramacrunch.
TDavid - Yeah, I know. At least it’s not on TechCrunch.
For anyone interested in an illustrated timeline of events, so far:
‘World War Le Web 3 in pics’ http://liberatemedia.typepad.com/liberate_media/2006/12/world_war_le_we.html
Updated with each new development …
I have no idea what is true, or implied or wildly off the mark in this particular affair. All I can say is I have been on this page for over half an hour and read some great comments. If nothing else, these shennanigans aired in public make for great entertainment.
Peter: why don’t you come up with something constructive instead of hurling insults?
I’m just a guy posting a few comments in the middle of all this mess like everyone else. I’m taking Sam’s side based on the information to hand, but MORE importantly, because of how Sam has dealt with the situation since Mike fired him. That is, to either stay silent, or not say anything nasty about Mike. This is more than I can say for Mike – some people call that defamatory.
So, go make some friends in a “second life” – if you can!
“Mike - I think you need to add another crunch site for this garbage: Dramacrunch.”
CrunchNotes is already dramacrunch. Just point it back here. All this airing of dirty laundry is just not a good thing. Especially when it gets down to the bottom of the barrel and claiming people owe you money, blah, blah, blah.
All good and well for this blogosphere crap, but sometimes keep things off the front pages. Pick up the darned phone, arrange to meet someone, and talk things through. All without going through the melodrama that is this site and parts of the blogosphere.
CruncNotes should be shut down. There’s no need for this stuff. Just be professional and concentrate on your work.. TechCrunch and others. And let the trolls find a new home, ignore them, just keep your head down and do the best work you can.
[...] Michael Arrington puts the story into a new light. [...]
[...] The Truth About TechCrunch UK Arrington tells his side of the story (tags: arrington techcrunch) [...]
Sam
Why don’t you answer the detailed chronology of what Michael is reporting here and your intention to “replace LesWeb”? I can’t see that on your blog either
and in my view it does not really matter if you got the money or not. If you set an event and invoice sponsors without informing your partner this is the same problem…
I write more about this on my blog
Alain
[...] The whole story has erupted into a virtual firestorm on a number of sites. Arrington published his side of the story to CrunchNotes and was heavily criticised for publicising what I imagine started out as private communications over email. Of course Arrington’s implication that Sethi walked off with $17 000 from TechCrunch’s coffers only inflamed matters. [...]
[...] Sam Sethi has been in the news recently with articles reporting on his departure from TechcrunchUK. Sam has recently called Mike Arrington’s interpretation of events a bit of a pantomime, with a lot of “oh no it isn’t”, “oh yes it is” type scenario going on. The whole scenario has rolled on for a while now and definitely does not conform to the second interpretation of a pantomime. My only wish was that the original intention for the Techcrunch sites, i.e to report on web start-ups, be it in Europe or elsewhere remained the primary concern for them, and I didn’t have to be subjected to the arguments that editors of such blogs may have with one another. Then again, I may be perpetuating the whole ordeal by writing this post…. [...]
War is over: http://mbites.com/node/630
[...] The latest development is Michael’s side of the story in which he offers some opinions about Sam’s character and makes a pretty serious allegation concerning missing sponsors’ money. Sam says it’s not true. [...]
[...] Oh dear, just was has Mr Michael Arrington gone and done. Without taking sides myself I must say that overall this fiasco (if I can call it that) could see him putting yet another nail in the TechCrunch Coffin. I would hope not as I discover many new sites and get many new ideas from reading the techcrunch site, but sometimes the way he handles things comes across as being quite arrogant or just plain nasty. [...]
It’s getting increasingly hard to just read about start-ups on both sides of the atlantic without feeling the whole thing is tainted. I’m happy that the presence of this blog means that the main TechCrunch blog has remained on track. I’m sure Vecosys will be the same way once it has found it’s feet, but for now I’m just waiting for all this to die down so I can get back to reading about interesting businesses and technologies.
[...] In a startling follow-up to his post about firing the editor of TechCrunch UK, publisher Mike Arrington accuses his ex-employee of several ethical lapses, including theft of a sizable amount of money. [...]
I had stopped watching TV because I hate reality TV and celeb b/s. Now it’s spreading to the web. Blogging has really come of age
[...] CrunchNotes » The Truth About TechCrunch UK Whatever happened to people resolving disputes over the phone? This public feud is getting ugly. (tags: techcrunch) [...]
[...] Edit: I’d also like to add that it fantastic to be able to have a mature reasoned debate in the ‘blogosphere’. Sometimes events can convince you such things are impossible. These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]
Mike,
Apart from the slightly bad taste aftertaste this post left I had the overwhelming feeling that you know nothing about UK libel laws. Get someone to explain them to you as soon as possible because you have made a couple of serious allegations here that you do not appear to be in any position to defend, should you have finally managed to annoy Sam enough to make him hire a libel lawyer.
[...] “I thought I would miss the end of the Gang more than I have. Mike Arrington’s flareup with Sethi and his revolving news desk door would have made for a lively session or two, but Mike’s week-later wrap of the Sethi situation blew away the bullshit and out-ValleyWagged Denton to boot. I’ve been pitching in with Jason to tighten up his Cast for the Kids, letting me troll the blogosphere for news bites without having to work too hard or miss the roundtable so much. I spent a great three days or so with Doc, Phil Windley, Kaliya, Dick Hardt, and Kim Cameron among others in the Identity Workshop, talked with Mike Vizard and Dana Gardner intermittently, and watched Robert Anderson and Cori Schlegel cross the line and merge GestureBank with the AttentionTrust only a few weeks behind schedule. And Gabe Rivera chimed in a few days ago in email asking what it would look like if I resurfaced. An eight-foot invisible rabbit.” [...]
Mike,
Americans and especially bloggers have to make everything public, don’t they? I respect your decision: you are the employer, you have reasons to be unhappy with your employee, you decide to let him go. And letting go does not include telling the world what the guy did wrong. It means finding another person to do the job. Hell, you could have asked Butcher to take his place. This is business, not a course in ethics. Especially since ethics is not the most precise science.
I’ve met Sam, and have to agree with you that you should never have hired him in the first place. My guess is he considered himself a partner - not an employee. And yes, he made himself a name and connections from TC, and probably planned his own events and things without you. He had a different perspective on the business. So what. Find someone who has yours - and please do it ASAP before everyone migrates to his blog (even though sam’s writing has always been awful). And don’t try to win Mike over now, its kinda lame. Just post a job opening.
And Mike, don’t be afraid to make a *wrong* decision. You’ve made this public because you wanted the world’s approval for firing sam. Just believe you are right, it makes life easier. If Bill Gates had to consult the world for every decision he makes, and I’m sure he’s made some wrong ones, he’d never get anything done.
Take care of yourself, and thank you for bringing techcrunch to the world.
I won’t comment on the Le Web Conference. However, I wanted to tell you Mike, that putting off writing your blog until now was a good idea. If there’s one thing about putting things on paper is that you can’t change it. Writing this after you’ve had time to think and analyze things was a good move.
anon who ever you are please contact me directly if you are man enough but I doubt it. Why hide when you are so sure you are right and I am wrong. Let the world and me know who you are so we can all read your wise words elsewhere and understand why you resent me so much.
I obviously haven’t been following this “story” closely enough - as what I don’t yet understand is why Sam leaving TechCrunch UK means the site requires any kind of closure?
[...] “I thought I would miss the end of the Gang more than I have. Mike Arrington’s flareup with Sethi and his revolving news desk door would have made for a lively session or two, but Mike’s week-later wrap of the Sethi situation blew away the bullshit and out-ValleyWagged Denton to boot. I’ve been pitching in with Jason to tighten up his Cast for the Kids, letting me troll the blogosphere for news bites without having to work too hard or miss the roundtable so much. I spent a great three days or so with Doc, Phil Windley, Kaliya, Dick Hardt, and Kim Cameron among others in the Identity Workshop, talked with Mike Vizard and Dana Gardner intermittently, and watched Robert Anderson and Cori Schlegel cross the line and merge GestureBank with the AttentionTrust only a few weeks behind schedule. And Gabe Rivera chimed in a few days ago in email asking what it would look like if I resurfaced. An eight-foot invisible rabbit.” [...]
As a complete outsider (and someone very slow to respond), allow me to offer my thoughts:
Blogging is about transparency, but too much of a good thing will always get you in the end. Just like you wouldn’t want someone to know every thought that goes through your mind, perhaps we all shouldn’t have been made privy to this information.
It’s obvious that the tech industry has its own set of pariahs that feed off drama. That snowballs into low-brow anonymous comments and more insult slinging. It doesn’t do good for anyone.
Your product is more than strong enough to stand up to competition. In any place, competition will only strengthen TC and cause it to innovate. Continue reporting on startups with fresh insight and pushing the social evolution of the internet.
In the end, your actions will speak louder about your ethics than any CrunchNotes post ever will.
Sam,
Whoever said I was a man? Contacting you directly - for what? It may possibly be even more childish than this situation already is.
My point was the opposite: it’s not about right or wrong, nor do I claim to know who is. My words are far from wise, I’m just hoping to end this useless war so the public can continue to enjoy TC UK, and make you and Mike come down from your thrones of blogger-kingdom and discuss this in private.
anon writes:
> I’m just hoping to end this useless war
Yeah, I can see how writing your post would end this ‘useless war’ - it’s people like you continuing to fuel the fire that’s keeping it going.
Why is it that so many pro-Mike posts come from phantom commentators? How do we know it’s not Mike…
That wasn’t a question to Mike, nor am I suggesting Mike has phantom commentators.
The reason for my post is to highlight a situation I talked about a few years ago as something which will likely impact brands. That is, bandits behind masks pretending to be someone they’re not and commentating positively or negatively about something in order to persuade people’s opinions. I wonder if we can come up with a solution to help mitigate this.
anon, may I pl_e_ase ask that you reply only before the bells chime for 2007 – get whatever crap you have off your chest before the 31st and let that be the end of it. Mike A, Mike B (new spice girls?) and posh Sam have forgotten about it – it’s time you did too.
[...] Michael Arrington had a follow-up post recently where he looked back at what actually happened. It would seem that Sam Sethi, the then-editor of TechCrunch UK had used the flame wars as a publicity stunt to generate “incredible buzz” for a new project he’s just launched. It’s amazing how far people would go just for publicity. It seems like competition in today’s new media outfits (blog networks included) is getting tougher by the day. [...]
Happy New Year.
“Sam has launched a new site covering European startups. He has a well designed site, and sponsors. After one week.
That tells me that this was all planned long ago, and Sam took this opportunity to create incredible buzz for himself. At my expense. At Loic’s expense.”
Well designed? Not really.. Looks like the default wordpress template. No sponsors too.
I am convinced now more than ever that if these are the kind of problems you have, you all have way too much money. The ‘haves’ crack me up. Where’s Rodney when you need him?
The problem here is that Sam has right. The conferece was a spoof and a egocentric showoff for Luic. He wanted politicians, we wanted innovative net solutions. So he deserved the critique and more. He wasted our time and money. Of course we will not attend LeWeb4.
LOL, what a bunch of kids, your professional reps are at stake so if neither of you take it to court then there is an admission of guilt IMHO.
One of you is a liar and only a court will set that straight so till then both you and your blogs are tarred with the same brush.
[...] Second note placed on Crunchnotes [...]
[...] I thought I would miss the end of the Gang more than I have. Mike Arrington s flareup with Sethi and his revolving news desk door would have made for a lively session or two, but Mike s week-later wrap of the Sethi situation blew away the bullshit and out-ValleyWagged Denton to boot. I ve been pitching in with Jason to tighten up his Cast for the Kids, letting me troll the blogosphere for news bites without having to work too hard or miss the roundtable so much. I spent a great three days or so with Doc, Phil Windley, Kaliya, Dick Hardt, and Kim Cameron among others in the Identity Workshop, talked with Mike Vizard and Dana Gardner intermittently, and watched Robert Anderson and Cori Schlegel cross the line and merge GestureBank with the AttentionTrust only a few weeks behind schedule. And Gabe Rivera chimed in a few days ago in email asking what it would look like if I resurfaced. An eight-foot invisible rabbit. Rashi [...]
[...] Second note placed on Crunchnotes [...]
[...] Some people have commented on TC and to me via IM regarding the announcement that they find it a bit odd that Mike B would come back given all the hoopla/drama that surrounded the TC closure last December. It looks like the post has been removed from the UK site, but there appeared to be a large number of UK loyals mad at the entire situation. Butcher posted his side of the story and I can only guess that Butcher made certain editorial and monetary demands this time around. Arrington did note that he was "sorry to see" Butcher get caught up in the mess. In my opinion, so much of the mess could have been avoided if the disagreement was taken offline. [...]
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