Finger-Pointing, Emails, Deleted Tweets, Rage. AngelGate Is Far From Over

http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/23/angelgate/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=FaceBook

by dwynings • 16 years ago

118 46 16 years ago

techcrunch.com

lachyg6• 16 years ago

I've gotta say, that tweet does look scripted. You think he'd be a bit careful about that sort of info.

atomical3• 16 years ago

People said that about the iPhone leak over at Gizmodo. A brilliant piece of PR for Apple they said. Then the police got involved...

lachyg6• 16 years ago

I don't think the whole thing is 'planned' / scripted, I was referring to just that tweet.

itistoday• 16 years ago

That seems pretty far-fetched. What on earth would he gain from intentionally posting that tweet? Mike cut them some slack by not naming any names, and now he's done just that.

I'm leaning more toward the "not the brightest bulb in the valley" theory.

lachyg6• 16 years ago

Yeah, I agree after reading the email. Check this: http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/23/ron-conway-angel-email/ to anyone that hasn't read it.

callmeed• 16 years ago

Considering the way he writes, I don't know. Seems like a fast-talking, shoot-from-the hip kind of guy who could easily make that mistake.

But what do I know.

desigooner• 16 years ago

It's too much of a coincidence that McClure "accidently" tweeted it instead of a DM to someone. If it's that important, one'd call, text or email ... It was tweeted at the right time and deleted within minutes after being sure that it was syndicated.

Brightest bulb or not, he's just trying to play the fiddle here..

JimEngland• 16 years ago

The tweet was via text. Most accidental tweets come from responding to the DM text Twitter sends.

bl4k2• 16 years ago

It is easy for you to make ridiculous accusations or observations, because you don't have to come back here tomorrow and say 'oh, I was wrong'.

Since I started following this story I have seen all manner of ridiculous commentary, regardless of the evidence presented. Each new day disproves almost every comment made from the previous day.

Your accusation is cheap and is not held to the same standards that you expect from the same blogs and people that you criticize.

lachyg6• 16 years ago

I don't think it was too ridiculous before the email was released. I was wrong, and I apologise for that. I made a comment I thought was true, and if everyone held back comments that they thought were true, from fear of being wrong, then no one would post comments at all.

TotlolRon2• 16 years ago

RT: At some point in time a big earthquake will level the bay area. That's a given certainty. It might happen just because of tectonic stuff, or, maybe, it will happen because this place has lost all honor. And god is watching. Maybe. Maybe Not.

(down voting open)

patrickaljord• 16 years ago

From http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> Please don't bait other users by inviting them to downmod you.

TotlolRon2• 16 years ago

Fair enough. If you can't down vote for the content down vote for the guidelines violation.

X-Istence2• 16 years ago

Could someone give me the TL,DR; for all of this AngelGate business? I've been trying to find good information on what is going on and what has happened so far but I am finding it hard to listen to the signal through all of the noise.

minalecs• 16 years ago

started with this article.. http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/21/so-a-blogger-walks-into-a-b...

followed up by this http://500hats.typepad.com/500blogs/2010/09/fire-in-the-vall...

look through this quora topic you can find out more http://www.quora.com/AngelGate

bonzoesc• 16 years ago

Arrington and other people involved in venture donations for possibly successful non-businesses are all drama queens.

As always, you're better off if you run a business and don't pursue funding from anybody except profits.

atomical3• 16 years ago

The gist is a few sentences. There really isn't much to the core of the story yet.

jeromec• 16 years ago

TL;DR: Michael Arrington of TechCrunch is tipped off a bunch of top Angels are meeting in a bar, but he isn't welcome. He drops by since he knows them, but is met with guilty silence. Upon digging he is told the Angels are meeting to (illegally?) resolve complaints like the growing power of YC, and restraining new Angels/deal competition. Dave McClure is the first Angel to publicly counter Arrington writing that he is off base.

X-Istence2• 16 years ago

Okay, so everything I found was the whole story.

From the flinging of poop in various directions I take it that Arrington's story may have had some truth to it after all.

mattmaroon• 16 years ago

A Silicon Valley angel conspiracy without Ron Conway isn't really much of a conspiracy.

aresant• 16 years ago

The silence from Calacanis on this subject is deafening.

EDIT - Per 146's comment below Calacanis already comments & denies. Better educating myself on Twitter search now.

zaidf• 16 years ago

If he had anything to do with it, it'd be the ultimate FAIL for someone who has always claimed to be looking out for that struggling entrepreneur.

Hopefully he's clean.

jasonmcalacanis• 16 years ago

I'm not important enough to be invited to collaborate on collusion. :-)

Also, these reports were probably all wildly exaggerated or blatantly fabricated by Mike Arrington--which is his best reporting technique!

146• 16 years ago

Calacanis has already publicly denied being at the meeting:

http://twitter.com/#!/Jason/status/25165977135

> No, I was not at the "super angel summit," and I would never be pro collusion. Sounds like @arrington is stirring the pot to get pageviews

InfinityX0• 16 years ago

JC said he was going to talk about it on This Week in Startups, even discussing it in the intro - but then said nothing. I scanned the transcript and only found the intro bit, there might be something vague elsewhere, but I don't see it.

"Additionally we’ll be talking about Michael Arrington’s ‘AngelGate’, fact or fiction. And we’re going to tell you how you can come to The Launch Conference, that’s my version of TechCrunch 50, on February 23-24, 2011. All this and more on today’s This Week In Startups."

http://thisweekin.com/thisweekin-startups/this-week-in-start...

aberkowitz2• 16 years ago

I don't understand why TechCrunch tries to emulate a tabloid when they do a lot better as a news site.

dschobel2• 16 years ago

It's hard to fault him when the facts of the story are so sensational.

aberkowitz2• 16 years ago

It's hard to know what's fact when it's written like a tabloid.

jacquesm2• 16 years ago

Facts? A bunch of guys met for dinner and one of the regulars was not invited. That's about all the 'facts' that there are so far, the rest is just so much hot air.

If there is a 'smoking gun' then I'm not aware of it, for all we know they discussed golf and fishing.

duck• 16 years ago

Who in the world thinks that deleting a tweet (or blog post, comment, email, vm, memo, letter, etc.) is going to make it disappear? Through out history seemly smart people continue to do this...

bertil• 16 years ago

Deleting twits works most of the time; you just don't notice it… I do it all the time for typos, or playing with time zones.

statictype• 16 years ago

What kind of self-respecting conspiracy that aims to subvert the startup world with collusion among major players discuss their doings over twitter? Someone please buy these guys a copy of Cryptonomicon.

ovi256• 16 years ago

A copy of the Penal Code (or whatever the US equivalent is, you know the big book of laws and especially punishments) is supposedly a much better motivation. Not that I would know.

cubicle67• 16 years ago

I read that as "Tweets of Rage" which I thought summed up the whole impotent fury of the internet beautifully. Make a good band name though

chronomex• 16 years ago

If I could upvote you more than once I would. Thank you. The mention of "deleted tweets" in the article title made me laugh outright.

points• 16 years ago

who cares? Why are you all upvoting this stuff? This is just eyeballs to techcrunch.

junkbit• 16 years ago

The opening panel at Techcrunch Disrupt on Monday 27th is going to be a must see:

9:40-10:10 Super Angels To Super VCs: The Changing Face Of Venture Capital: Ron Conway (SV Angel), Chris Sacca (Lowercase Capital), Dave McClure (500 Startups), Roelof Botha (Sequoia), Chris Dixon (Founder Collective)

http://disrupt.techcrunch.com/2010-sf/agenda/

edw519• 16 years ago

If this keeps up much longer, Hacker News will be banned at Valleywag.

jacquesm2• 16 years ago

For a story with so little actual substance this one is definitely creating a lot of waves.

When someone comes out with a transcript of what was said at the dinner I think we can move to the next phase, until then there is not much more that can either be said or done.

I'm sure that TC will try to keep this (successfully) on the front burner as much as they can but as far as I can see no new newsworthy facts have come out about what this dinner was actually about or who all of the remaining attendants were.

Dave McClure is now berated more for his writing style than for what he actually said, Ron Conway gets involved, it's a true photo opportunity for everybody and their dog to stick their oar in.

Reputations are to be made or broken, but over what, actually?

moxiemk1• 16 years ago

This seriously doesn't need to be called Angel Gate. It took place in it's own venue - the "Bin38 Scandal" is far more appropriate (and sort of brings into perspective how ridiculous the real Watergate scandal's name is)

Finger-Pointing, Emails, Deleted Tweets, Rage. AngelGate Is Far From Over

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