You could feel it in the air, and yes today this bubble burst.
Sam Sethi, former chief editor of Techcrunch UK, decided to close down Blognation, exactly one year after Michael Arrington (Editor in Chief TechCrunch) fired him.
First of all I have to say that I know both guys pretty well and that I’ve always had fun catching up with both.
Loic Lemeur
So a very short recap of what happened (as far as I know).
Sam Sethi started TechCrunch UK in 2006 together with Mike Butcher, covering UK based and European startups.
TechCrunch was partner of LeWeb3 conference in Paris and Sam Sethi posted a blog about The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Loic LeMeur (initiator of LeWeb3) wasn’t amused with this post and commented “Sam, there is just no justification for you or this post, you’re just an asshole”. The whole blogosphere jumped on it instantly. Then Arrington requested to delete the comment and Sethi refused. In the end he got fired, apparently because of a lot of other things that have happened.
Afterwards Sam Sethi started Blognation and hired a team of journalists to write for Blognation. He claimed to have had funding, but in the end he didn’t have any cash to pay his journalists.
Well both parties have written about it, decide for yourself.
Arringtons story is here: The Fact and Fiction of Sam Sethi
Sam Sethi’s story is here: Here’s to You Mr(s) Arrington, Goodbye and Good Luck Startups
Blogging and the web are about openness and transparency, not about lies, scams and taking other people down. I think this ‘storm’ will pass by and that everybody will forget about Blognation and this whole mud throwing thing. We’ll get back to normal life and write about all the cool things going on in the tech scene.
Update: Please take a look at the comment of Oliver Starr, who was one of the many victims of Sethi.
Both Sam Sethi and Arrington agree that Sam didn’t get fired but decided to quit Techcrunch UK.
I wonder if someone will write a book about this one day.
@Boris – well I hear there are a lot of unemployed writers around with knowledge of these matters – so you may get your book. Meantime, as a brief victim of Sam’s at the start of Blognation, I am astonished the number of people who are still prepared to give Sam the benefit of the doubt – and to depart by blaming his fraud on Mike Arrington – what a load of tosh. I think Sam has done the blog movement a huge disservice which will take a long time to recover from – and that’s aside from the personal disservice he has done to his editors and other creditors.
Hi Triona, don’t get me wrong, I’m not defending Sam. It is just hard to get all the facts. As for the whole ‘fired’ thing: At first Sam said he was fired by Arrington. Arrington told the world he didn’t fire him. Sam then announced he wasn’t fired after all.
Do you know Sam’s new nickname? ‘Scam Sethi’
@triona I know of a Dutch woman who’ve had the same experience as Oliver Starr. I have a rule in life: Never lie. The whole blogosphere’s fundamentals are based on that rule.
As long as your clear about your intentions (I’m not paying bloggers or I’m paying them) and you can follow through it is good. In the Blognation case it is clear that that didn’t happen. Still hoping that somebody is going tow rite a thriller on this :)
“As long as your clear about your intentions” – I think Sam was clear about them from day one – to lie, steal and cheat his way to defeat of Mike Arrington and glorious return to Le Web. I do wonder why bloggers keep talking about the honesty and moral fibre of the blogosphere – bottom line is it is like any other community – most people are inherently decent but there are also the creeps, the criminals and the insane. Which type is Sethi I wonder?
Patrick,
Like Triona, I have to take exception to your post above. Not only because it feels more or less like you are still giving “Scam” Sethi the benefit of the doubt to a certain degree but also – and even more specifically – because you seem to have come to the conclusion that in a few weeks this will all blow over like it should.
The reason I take exception is that you seem to have completely overlooked (or disregarded) the fact that there are some very real victims here; victims that should not be forgotten.
In your words you say:
In this brief passage you basically disregard so much of what is important about blogging that I don’t think it is an exaggeration to call your words callous, heartless, ignorant and disrespectful.
I also think you’d feel considerably differently if you were one of the editors that had a contract in hand and went about your job in as conscientious and professional a manner as possible only to discover after several months of broken promises, exaggerations, evasion and lies that the money you were expecting and which you had been promised over and over was just a few days away was not there and was never going to be there.
Lest it slip your mind (as well as the collective consciousness of the tech community) the content that people professed to enjoy, claimed to find interesting, and which in some cases was directly beneficial to entrepreneurs and companies was created by a group of dedicated and hard working individuals. These folks (myself included) put their time, intellect and in many cases forwent other opportunities to create this content – much of which is time sensitive and basically expires within a day or two of publication.
Scam promised to pay and backed that promise with a contract. He defaulted on his word and his legal obligation. Luckily for him, most of the people he robbed (and lets make no mistake about it, when you do what Scam did it is robbery) are so financially damaged from going four or more months working full time for him without receiving a penny for it that they are in no position to initiate litigation – it’s tough to pay an attorney when you’re worried about making next month’s mortgage payment of buying Christmas gifts for your kids.
I really think you need to rethink this post and your sentiment that this should all blow over and be forgotten. It should not be forgotten; ever.
People should never allow Scam Sethi the least bit of opportunity to perpetrate this sort of crime again. The community should hold him accountable for his actions and this cannot occur if everyone forgets what transpired.
I’m sorry if this issue has caused ripples across your happy little blogosphere pond, and I’m sorry if you don’t like being reminded of the ugly side to this business, but you chose to weigh in on the subject and I don’t think you gave fair and proper consideration to the real issue when you did.
Maybe none of what I’ve said here will influence your thinking one bit. Perhaps you still feel that this whole noisome event should trouble, as Barbara Bush says “your pretty little mind no more”. On the other hand, perhaps while you’re watching your kids open presents on Christmas morning, or maybe when you come across an article that was originally published on Blognation, you’ll give a thought to the people that created that content and ask yourself how merry their Christmas morning was and it it’s really fair and right and just that this whole thing be forgotten.
If by some misfortune you found yourself in such a situation, how would you feel if someone else wrote “everybody will forget about Patrick and we can get back to the normal talk of things that are cooler and not messy or human.”
Personally, I don’t think you’d be quite so quick to want the topic banished but that’s just my opinion and like Dennis Miller says, I could be wrong.
Oliver Starr
Hi Oliver, I don’t think anyone in the blogosphere missed what happened, including Patrick. I just don’t think that he, rightly so, wants to take part in the public lynching of ‘Scam’ Sethi.
Sethi might be guilty of a lot of things but the place to actually FIND him guilty is in court, not on this blog. It is time to stop throwing mud and actually take legal action. If Sam is found guilty, officially, Patrick will be the first to write about it.
Hi Oliver, thanks for your extensive comment. It was not my intention to be heartless, callous, ignorant and or disrespectful in any way.
I feel for you and all others who thought they had a great job to build a European TechCrunch and who put all their enthusiasm, knowledge and time into it, without getting a dime. That sucks! and therefore I’m really gald that you posted the open letter. It had to stop.
And yes we can not forget about this, this will always be a classic case of how not to do business, but I was pointing at the throwing the mud thing.
My point was to please forget about ‘scam’ Sethi (not his victims and to focus on the great things the web can give us. To go on with our lives. Leave the bad things behind and go on with the good ones, how hard that may be for some of the people involved.
All the best
Boris, one of my points, in case you missed it, is that in part by virtue of starving people for four or more months, Sam is actually more insulated from being legally held accountable than he might otherwise be.
You might be surprised how difficult it is to bring suit against someone from an ocean away and particularly if you have limited financial resources with which to do so.
The courts can only find someone guilty if they’re brought to justice, unfortunately to initiate a civil trial requires lots of money which is what Sam has managed to prevent from reaching the people doing the actual work at Blognation.
Patrick, you’re a blogger so I have to assume you are a reasonable writer as well. You may have meant to say what you just said above in your comment, but I assure you, that was not clear in your original post.
Oliver
Thanks for making this more clear Oliver!