Categories: OLD Media Moves

The wizard of covering start-up companies

Josh Quittner of Fortune writes in the latest issue about Michael Arrington and his TechCrunch blog, which covers start-up tech companies.

Quittner writes, “That’s because, like any business, blogs must keep growing to thrive. And Arrington intends to thrive. The site brought in $800,000 in 2006 and $3 million in 2007 – and the growth rate hasn’t slowed. But the beast must be fed, and that means hiring more writers to amp up daily output. What started as a passion – a guy in his bedroom writing about startups and the wild go-go gold rush of Silicon Valley – has given way to covering daily tech news.

“I don’t mean to make too much of this. And Arrington certainly doesn’t. He’s too professional for that. A Stanford University-educated attorney, Arrington decamped from a short run at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, the Valley’s best-known tech law firm, to do biz dev at a variety of startups before launching TechCrunch.

“His site hit a few bumps in the road. At one point he took heat for writing about companies in which he had an undisclosed stake. This is verboten in the business press but seems only to have enhanced his street cred in the Valley. A ‘Disclosures’ entry on his blog currently lists investments in six companies, including a social network for dog owners called Dogster. ‘Don’t look for the golden fountain of objectivity,’ he has written. ‘It doesn’t exist.'”

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heywood j says:
March 25, 2008 at 1:41 pm
OK, kids, lesson for the day is to proof-read stories.
Look how sloppy this article is. Josh Quittner obviously quit-nered on copy editing. Is it Arrington or Arlington. The story has Arlington three times and Arrington several others.
Sorry Mr. Quizzner, I mean Quilter, er, um, Quiznos