techcrunch Articles

Michael Arrington was the founder of TechCrunch and his tech blogging hobby became a business back in the end of the year 2006. TechCrunch was still a growing force in the tech news world back then, but by 2007 Michael Arrington had taken it to new heights and even recruited an executive from Fox to run his sales team. This executive’s name was Heather Harde and she was the missing piece that TechCrunch desperately needed.

Due to Michael Arrington’s idea to put the success of his site over his own ego, Heather Harde was hired as HIS boss and she began fearlessly leading TechCrunch with a resonating calmness. No matter what troubles Heather faced she was able to efficiently lead TechCrunch through unscathed and better than ever.

There is a thin line which separates two awkwardly different worlds. When it comes to editorial independence, there are a lot of things that come in mind: stress, pressure, money. The highly reviewed and commented conflict between TechCrunch and AOL gives us the same argument once again.

About one year after the TechCrunch was acquired by AOL, their relation started to become a tough one. One year ago Michael Arrington, TechCrunch’s founder and current editor in chief, fiercely defended, even against his own collaborators’ opinions, the fact that the blog could benefit by being sold to AOL in a transaction rounding 20 million dollars. On that occasion Arrington talked about how this deal will help them solving some technical issues so they won’t have to worry about them and the TechCrunch guys could focus on writing. Well, the honeymoon didn’t lasted (as expected?) and recently Arrington announced his imminent retirement from the blog, in other words that means he could be fired from his own creation.