TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington has shut down TechCrunch UK and terminated editor Sam Sethi after, what Arrington calls, an inappropriate conflict of interest and unethical behaviour on the part of Sethi.
The story behind the suspension of TechCrunch UK and the termination of Sethi is long, somewhat complicated, and an absolute shame that it aired out publicly, however, I will try to sum it up for you as best I can.
TechCrunch is some type partner to the Six Apart event Le Web 3 being held in Paris. Sethi wrote a post on TechCrunch UK that was fairly critical of the Le Web 3. Event organizer, Loic Le Meur, got ticked off about the post and wrote a comment on the post calling Sethi an “asshole”.
Arrington wrote an email to Le Meur stating that he didn’t have a problem with the post put up by Sethi, however, would see about having his comment removed if he wished. Le Meur said yes and apologized for the comment publicly in the post.
Arrington says that he asked, not ordered Sethi to remove Le Meur’s comment, but Sethi instead left the comment in and wrote a second post, which also has been removed, further highlighting the fact that Le Meur called him an “asshole” for his original post, after he made a public apology for the comment.
Even this, according to Arrington weren’t grounds for firing Sethi as editor of TechCrunch UK, however, when Sethi left this comment on his second post stating, “that TechCrunch UK will be doing a series of seminars and a conference next year as well as a series of smaller meetings in conjunction with friends & partners which have been in the planning for sometime now”, this was the last straw.
Arrington felt that Sethi was promoting a competing event while trashing another which is a conflict of interest since TechCrunch is a partner of Le Web is unethical. Arrington states that “Basic ethical behavior is not subjective. We will not associate with individuals who choose to cross the line.”
Believe it or not, this is the short version of what went down. There is a lot more on CrunchNotes and the comments are still flowing.
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