J. Michael Arrington (born March 13, 1970 in Huntington Beach, California) is a serial entrepreneur and the founder of TechCrunch, a blog covering startups and technology news.
Arrington attended Claremont McKenna College (BA Economics, 1992) and Stanford Law School (JD, 1995) and practiced as a corporate and securities lawyer at two law firms: O’Melveny & Myers and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. His clients included idealab, Netscape, Pixar, Apple and a number of startups, venture funds and investment banks. He also co-authored a book on initial public offerings.
In 1999, he left WSGR to join RealNames as VP of Business Development and General Counsel. In 2000, he cofounded Achex, an online payments company, that was later acquired by First Data Corp for $32 million. Achex is now the back end infrastructure to Western Union online.
Arrington worked in an operational role at a Carlyle backed startup in London, founded and ran two companies in Canada (Zip.ca and Pool.com), was COO to a Kleiner-backed company called Razorgator, and consulted to other companies, including Verisign.
In May 2008, Time Magazine named Michael Arrington as one of the world’s 100 most influential people.
Conflicts Of Interest
Updated 10/23/12
I am a partner at CrunchFund, a venture capital firm with investments in many startups around the world. I am also a limited partner in many other venture funds which have their own startup investments.
Because of these investments, if there’s a startup there’s a good chance I’m a direct or indirect investor in it. Many times I won’t even know that I’m an investor, because venture funds that I invest in don’t normally share non public information with limited partners.
Also, CrunchFund’s investors include AOL and many of the top tier venture funds.
That means I invest in a lot of startups. And I invest in a lot of venture funds. And a lot of venture funds have invested in me.
I also occasionally own public company stocks. I currently own shares of Facebook. Until recently I owned shares of AOL. I also own other public company stocks through the management of a third party, although I typically don’t know about those investments and they are primarily not in the tech industry.
Sometimes I have so many financial conflicts of interest that I can’t even keep them straight.
So when you read what I write on Uncrunched, TechCrunch or wherever, understand that I’m conflicted. A lot.
How do I deal with this and still write?
I addressed it in one of my first posts on Uncrunched in 2011:
“Here are the things you can expect from me:
TRANSPARENCY: I will disclose, as I’ve always done, all financial conflicts of interest (I have lots and lots of those). I’ll also disclose other conflicts of interest, like friendships, when I can. I know a lot of you don’t understand why I can’t disclose all conflicts of interest. The answer is that if I did, not that many people would want to talk to me in the direct, honest way that I prefer. As a reader you must remain aware of the inherent bias in everything you read, and form your own opinions accordingly. Read this post on TechCrunch and the links for more about how I see the world.
TRUTH: I always try to find the truth in a situation. That unvarnished, pure nugget of truth at the core of every issue that I write about. Sometimes this takes more than one post, and sometimes I have to go back and correct things I’ve gotten wrong. I’ll continue to do that. For more on this, read my post about process journalism.
BIAS: I have lots of it, and I never try to ignore it or hide from it. The main thing to know about me is that I’m a champion of entrepreneurs and the startups they build. They are my rock stars. If in doubt I side with them, and that’s clear from my writing. For more on this, read my ll always disclose the conflict of interest directly in that post.
Next year, search advertising will be a $15 billion market in the U.S. alone, growing by 14 percent, according to eMarketer. And, if Facebook can capture half the share of that market that Google has today, it could easily add an extra $25 billion or even far more to its value.
For most any CEO who could have even a modest chance of succeeding at it, that payoff would be reason enough to… → Read More
Y Combinator had its semiannual demo day earlier this week, where many of the 63 startups in this batch showed their stuff to investors and press for the first time. It was the largest demo day so far. And they did the same show two days in a row so more people could come.
What struck me about the day wasn’t that so many companies were launching, or how awesome more than a few of them were. → Read More
On Sunday we broke the news that Skype was acquiring group messaging service GroupMe. What we didn’t know was the price, and neither company disclosed any of the terms of the deal other than that GroupMe would remain a standalone brand for now, and the team would stay in New York.
A widely spread report said that Skype paid as much as $85 million for the year-old company. We’ve heard this… → Read More
It was only a year ago that I first wrote about Greplin, the “other half of search” for you online life. It’s an incredibly useful search engine that indexes your online email, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Calendar, Dropbox and other stuff (22 services are currently supported). Greplin is a single search box for all of this, and it’s fast.
Until now, though, you had to use the HTML5 site for… → Read More
Back in the Summer of 2008, when there was still a glimmer of innocence and belief in the fundamental goodness of people in this young blogger’s mind, I decided that I wanted a touchscreen tablet. Something like the screen side of a Macbook Air, plus a touch screen. It would mostly be for “couch” computing, I said. although I also meant “bathroom” computing. Here’s that post, titled We Want A Dead… → Read More
Thrive Capital’s first venture fund was just $10 million, but the fund made 27 investments and more than a couple look like home runs. That fund, closed in 2009, holds stock in GroupeMe (acquired by Skype), Greplin, Art.sy, Warby Parker, Zaarly, Fab, Bank Simple, HotPotato (acquired by Facebook), KickStarter and OnSwipe, among others. Not bad for the sole partner, 26 year old Joshua Kushner, who’s… → Read More
Skype will acquire group messaging service GroupMe, a service that was born at a hackathon at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York in 2010. GroupMe was founded by Jared Hecht and Steve Martocci.
The terms of the deal, including price, aren’t being disclosed.
Just a couple of months after TechCrunch Disrupt the company closed a $850,000 round of financing from Betaworks, SV Angel, First Round… → Read More
Tax the rich. Those bastards.
I get why people who aren’t rich hate those that are. No one really cares what they have, they only care what they have relative to others. When there is inequality, and there always is, even the hyper intelligent call for a redistribution of wealth. It’s an enduring longing for us as a species, and no evidence to the contrary will convince people it just doesn’t… → Read More
WhaleShark Media, which just announced an investment by Google Ventures, continues to acquire coupon sites around the world. Tomorrow they’ll announce the aquisition of eConversions, Ltd., operator of the web sites VoucherCodes.co.uk in the UK and Gutschein-Codes.de in Germany. Vouchercodes is the UK’s largest coupon site, says Whaleshark.
The size of the acquisition isn’t being disclosed… → Read More
We’ve been tracking the twists and turns of the Dropbox mega funding round for over a month now. In July Sarah Lacy wrote that they’d be raising $200 million to $300 million at a $5 billion or higher valuation. A week ago MG Siegler wrote that the auction process was over and Dropbox was considering bids as high as $10 billion.
The company has now chosen which investors will lead and… → Read More
Ah, litigation. Nothing ever really gets done, but the lawyers get paid, and there’s always drama. The Vostu v. Zynga case exemplifies all of this. And it just got weird to boot. Today a U.S. judge just told a Brazilian court that they can’t shut down a Brazilian startup. That’s definitely a new one for me.
Background: On June 16 Zynga sued Brazilian clone Vostu in California for stealing… → Read More
If you’re like me you’ve thought about digging up old 8mm film, or VHS tapes, and converting them to a more modern format. There are a lot of services that fulfill this need – just do a search for “media conversion” or something similar and you’ll see dozens of services. Most of the sites don’t inspire much confidence in sending them priceless childhood videos, though. And generally they focus on… → Read More
The economy is a mess. And while venture capital is still flowing like whiskey during the Prohibition, it’s not right for every business. A year ago we wrote about the birth of a new type of investment fund, Revenue Loan. The experiment has worked, says founder Andy Sack. They’re expanding it, changing their name, and offering $500,000 to the right type of startup.
First, the basics. Revenue… → Read More
DJ Patil, the former LinkedIn Chief scientist who recently left Color Labs, now has a new job. He’s the “Data Scientist in Residence” at Greylock Partners, working alongside his old colleague, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman.
This title’s a new one for me. Venture firms regularly hire experts in particular areas who can help their portfolio companies, like Bessemer’s “Designer in Residence.” And… → Read More
I’ve said this before, but working at AOL is my first experience working at a “big” company. I’ve watched, mostly with amusement, as a Dilbert cartoon has come to life around me. Some of the policies and bureaucracy are useful (I’ll think of some examples, just give me a second).
Some are hilarious (forced drinking events). Some are really annoying. For example, every couple of weeks I get an… → Read More
Two big pieces of news today in the Zynga/Vostu lawsuit (details on lawsuit here and here). In addition to that first lawsuit filed in California, Zynga also quietly sued Vostu on its home turf in Brazil (lawsuit embedded below, but it’s in Portugese).
Zynga dragged Google into that lawsuit, apparently because Orkut, popular in Brazil, is hosting the Vostu games that Zynga says are ripoffs. … → Read More
Have you heard about ZocDoc? The company launched at TechCrunch in 2007. Their goal – to let people find and book appointments with doctors, dentists and other health professionals online.
The company has raised $50 million in a new round with DST. The company was valued at $700 million or more in this round, we’ve heard from various sources. ZocDoc won’t comment, though, on valuation.
They… → Read More
Whaleshark Media had already raised $120 million in capital to roll up the online coupon space. Now they’ve raised $10 million more in a round led by Google Ventures, with some participation from previous investors. They’ve also added Homeaway CEO Brian Sharples to the board of directors.
Sharples will be useful. He grew HomeAway into a monster. He raised half a billion dollars from Austin… → Read More
It’s never too late to fix bad press with a straightforward, unconditional apology. That’s what the world got from Airbnb today. It was the first time that the company addressed the robbery/ransacking issue on its blog, and CEO Brian Chesky offered an unconditional apology. From the post: → Read More
Earlier this year SV Angel and Yuri Milner partnered on a new venture fund, called Start Fund, to invest $150,000 in every new Y Combinator startup. All but one company from that class took the money. And LikeALittle, the holdout, had already taken funding from both Milner and SV Angel.
At TechCrunch Disrupt in New York a couple of months ago SV Angel said they were making the same offer to the… → Read More
This last week we’ve all watched in horror as the story unfolded about an Airbnb user who had her home ransacked a month ago.
Other than the sideshow of us getting dragged into the story, it seemed to be winding down yesterday. The company appears to be bending over backwards to compensate the victim and avoid another of her blog posts where she writes about how scared she is, still homeless… → Read More
After 3.5 years, I’ve finally re-joined the community of car owners.
Between February 2008 and last week, I was car-less. I borrowed and rented cars, took taxis and Zip cars, and occasionally biked. I also bummed a lot of rides (thank you very much – you know who you are). It had started when the warranty on my fancy German gas guzzler expired; I sold the thing, and never really found the… → Read More
You’ve doubtless heard about the Airbnb fiasco – being dubbed #ransackgate by some – that’s been exploding the last couple of days. If you’re not familiar with the story, we first covered it here, and there’s some terrific source material from the woman who’s home was ransacked and robbed here and here.
Today Y Combinator founder (and Airbnb investor) Paul Graham wrote this: → Read More
Yesterday we wrote about “EJ,” a woman who had her San Francisco apartment burglarized and vandalized by someone who rented her home for a week via Airbnb.
There was some confusion about how Airbnb was and is dealing with the situation. See the updates to that post above, and CEO Brian Chesky’s post here on TechCrunch later yesterday talking about the situation.
The event happened, which is… → Read More
Until now everything has been just great for Airbnb, a service that lets people rent out their homes and become a sort of mini-hotel. The company launched in 2008 and has grown rapidly. They’ve been cloned by the Germans, which is always a mark of success. And they’re now a part of the billion dollar valuation club. Even the clone raised $90 million.
Which is all super great. But now the story… → Read More
If that headline looks familiar to you, you’re probably remembering our story about Google offering to buy Path for $100+ million from earlier this year. Path turned that deal down.
About the same time, multiple sources have confirmed, Google was also making a run for Color, the mobile social network founded by Bill Nguyen. This was well before Color launched, and Google was looking at the… → Read More
Zynga hit Brazilian gaming startup Vostu with a massive lawsuit last month, alleging that the company was copying Zynga’s games so closely that they even inadvertently included the bugs. Today, Vostu responded with a 368 paragraph document of their own (embedded below). It’s a longer version of Vostu’s press statement immediately after the lawsuit was filed, which boils down to “I Know You Are But… → Read More
Game development startup Unity Technologies, founded in Copenhagen and currently headquartered in Silicon Valley, has raised a second round of financing – $12 million from Asian firms WestSummit Capital in China and iGlobe Partners in Singapore. Previous investor Sequoia Capital has also participated in the round, and Raymond Yang from WestSummit has joined the company’s board of directors.
We… → Read More
Gogobot is a truly special startup. Beautifully designed and very useful are two things that are rarely found together, but Gogobot has both.
We first covered them last year. But they didn’t unveil the product – a place to create and consume reviews and photos from real people about places they’ve traveled to – until November 2010. → Read More
Santa Barbara and New York based FindTheBest has nearly doubled in size since February, so it’s no wonder Kleiner Perkins is putting another bet down on the company. They invested $2 million last December. And now they’ve invested $4 million more.
I’ve been a fan of the company since I first heard about it. It’s a very useful comparison engine for large data sets (see ski resorts or nutritional… → Read More
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