Michael Arrington
Michael Arrington
J. Michael Arringtonis the American founder and former co-editor of TechCrunch, a blog covering the Silicon Valley technology start-up communities and the wider technology field in USA and elsewhere. Magazines such as Wired and Forbes have named Arrington one of the most powerful people on the Internet. In 2008, he was selected by TIME Magazine as one of the most influential people in the world...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEntrepreneur
Date of Birth13 March 1970
CountryUnited States of America
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.
Everything's mobile these days. Let's go mo-bile! But really, that's just an IQ test. When you see bold new startups with nothing but a desktop strategy, you know they just don't get it, and you move on.
For the most part, I've sat on the sidelines over the years during the endless debates about how we need to do more to encourage more women to start companies.
Journalists are supposed to put the people first, even before themselves. Around the world and throughout history, journalists have died to get the truth out.
I have Twitter auto-post to my Facebook page, and I occasionally post things directly to Facebook as well. I've always noticed that the direct-to-Facebook approach generates far more likes, but I've never actually gone back and run the averages.
The problem isn't that Silicon Valley is keeping women down or not doing enough to encourage female entrepreneurs. The opposite is true. No, the problem is that not enough women want to become entrepreneurs.
I dont claim to be a journalist. I hold myself to higher standards of transparency and disclosure.
Sometimes I have so many financial conflicts of interest that I can't even keep them straight.
Talking about Apple v. Microsoft without mentioning the Internet and the browser is like talking about WWII without talking about the nuke. Framing the conversation just in terms of open v. closed operating systems, the quality of the hardware or software or who the CEO was, is silly.
I remember endless Apple v. Windows debates in the early '90s when I was in college. Macs were better machines, everyone said; the whole Office thing was a huge pain. It was difficult to transfer files between operating systems, and generally speaking, if you wanted to do Office stuff, you needed a Windows machine.
If a tech journalist needs financial security before doing what their conscience dictates, I'm not sure they should be calling themselves journalists at all.
If you want to build a startup that has a good chance of succeeding, don't listen to me. Listen to Paul Graham and others who are applying tons of data to the idea of startup success. That will maximize your chance of being successful.