Ron Conway Drops A Nuclear Bomb On The Super Angels

http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/23/ron-conway-angel-email/

by ssclafani • 16 years ago

558 206 16 years ago

mikeryan• 16 years ago

Ron Conway rocks.

"Dave McCLure…pls try not to blog about this and cause silicon valley more embarrassment with your unprofessional classless writings" OUCH

lotusleaf19873• 16 years ago

I seriously don't understand how people were defending his writing style. Anyone over ninteen would realize the use of multi-colored text, "drop a cap in yo ass" lines, and lack of capitalization looks like you're lazy and incompetent. I realize he's done fairly well in his investments, but does he not have an extra 2-3 minutes to capitalize and think out more coherent analogies?

bretthellman3• 16 years ago

It makes him standout from the crowd which is his goal IMO...

desigooner• 16 years ago

either McClure is a really good troll, just trying to gain attention or just trying to "fit" in with the young entrepreneurs/founders .

codexon3• 16 years ago

Let's be honest here. If you had as much money as Mcclure, would you waste as much time trying to please people by bending over backwards with perfect grammar, lack of slang, and an apologetic tone?

Everyone starts writing to please other people through resumes, cover letters, thank-you cards, and apologies. But once you have enough money like Mcclure, you can say "Fuck you" when you want to and not worry about losing your job.

And that's exactly what he did.

zaidf3• 16 years ago

does he not have an extra 2-3 minutes to capitalize and think out more coherent analogies?

The same way, I fail to realize how people don't understand that he writes in that style not because he lacks a few extra minutes but because that is a style and persona he's built over time.

dmoney• 16 years ago

His writing style's certainly drawing attention away from the issue at hand, so I'd say it works for him.

girlzhack2• 16 years ago

It's crazy that even with Ron telling Dave to stop embarrassing the tech community with his unprofessional classless writing - he still did it! That in itself is truly classless

shadowsun7• 16 years ago

I believe this email was written after Dave posted his defense of the meetup.

davidmurphy• 16 years ago

I gotta say, I find his profanity and weird formatting off-putting. It's nice to know I'm not the only one.

adammichaelc3• 16 years ago

My paraphrased short version:

Ron Conway to the super-angels: I'm in this game because I love seeing entrepreneurs build cool stuff. You guys aren't. Stop worrying about term sheets and valuations and worry about adding value beyond cash. I've wanted to say this for a long time, but have bit my lip in your presence. I no longer want to be involved with any of you. And Dave McClure, quit being a classless embarrassment to Silicon Valley.

waterlesscloud2• 16 years ago

If nothing else, it confirms Arrington's characterization of the purpose of the meeting.

credo• 16 years ago

That is a good summary. However, I'm surprised that so many other comments talk about Conway rocking, being a great individual etc.

When I read his email, my thought was that the email was a great image-building propaganda tool and that he wrote it with the knowledge that the email would be made public.

His email talks how great he is, how he loves entrepreneurs and how other investors are in it for self-serving factors like ego and money. Of course, I have no way of knowing whether that is true or not. However, I'm willing to bet that many unscrupulous investors could easily write a similar email.

adammichaelc3• 16 years ago

I would have similar doubts about Conway's authenticity here except that doesn't fit with what I've heard pretty much everywhere else about the kind of person he is to do deals with and work with.

Maybe he wouldn't have written that email if this story hadn't been aired. Maybe he would have. But the email fits with his past actions, so to me it doesn't matter.

My guess is that he knew the email would be aired, and he wrote it to entrepreneurs as much as to the super-angels. His brand is all about trust-with-entrepreneurs, and if he loses that his deal-flow gets severely cut down.

To solidify that trust, he publicly threw down the line in the sand and said, "I'm on the entrepreneur's side. Always. I'm even willing to give up friendships / partnerships with these other investors to prove that loyalty."

jfornear• 16 years ago

If Conway or any other 'Superangel' or whatever doesn't go public with some sort of response like this, everyone will just assume they were there, which will be bad for their image in itself.

pg• 16 years ago

Ron would not do that. First, he's not the sort of person who would write an email hoping it would be leaked. If he has something to say, he just says it. But also, if he'd written this to be leaked, it wouldn't sound like this; he wouldn't have said some of the things he did, and he would have showed it to his posse, who would have fixed the misspelling of "entrepreneur."

I suspect he is mortified this got out. It must have been leaked by one of the super-angels themselves. Which is a little surprising, considering the things it says about them. There must be at least one super-angel so eager for attention that he believes there's no such thing as bad publicity.

jfb• 16 years ago

That strikes me as a difficult theory to credit, based on my interactions with Conway, to say nothing of his reputation. He's the straightest of the straight shooters.

nkohari3• 16 years ago

As an outsider to Silicon Valley, it really seems like it's full of drama and ego wars. Seeing grown men and women argue like children really makes me happy I resisted the urge to move out there.

zkirill• 16 years ago

Clearly you've never been to Hollywood.

alizaki• 16 years ago

there are no adults in hollywood.

nostrademons2• 16 years ago

You realize that there a few million people in Silicon Valley, and this concerns a few dozen of them?

peteforde• 16 years ago

I think he gets that, yeah.

There really is an overwhelming aura of "you don't get taken seriously unless you're in the Valley" which gets a bit grating when you have legitimate reasons for living elsewhere.

The OP simply means that the grass isn't always greener.

Alex3917• 16 years ago

I think of it like this:

L.A. = High school for adults

New York = College for adults

Silicon Valley = Middle school for adults

That's not meant as pure criticism, I actually kind of like it, but it just gets annoying at times.

nostrademons2• 16 years ago

Boston = Grad school for adults. ;-)

Also, if Silicon Valley were middle school for adults, there'd be more girls here.

timinman• 16 years ago

LA more mature than Silicon Valley!?

Eliezer2• 16 years ago

The important thing is that you've found a way to feel superior to everyone there, I guess.

http://xkcd.com/774/

http://lesswrong.com/lw/yp/pretending_to_be_wise/

nocman3• 16 years ago

Seems to me like you are jumping to a pretty big conclusion about nkohari's comment. Or am I misunderstanding what you were trying to say?

I didn't see any "feeling superior" at all in what nkohari said. You don't have to feel superior to someone who is behaving childishly just because you don't want to be around them. And I don't think he was targeting "everyone there" either. He just said Silicon Valley was "full of drama and ego wars". Now, perhaps "full of" is overly strong. I'm sure there are plenty of level-headed people in the mix too. But I don't doubt from what I've read and seen that there is plenty of "drama and ego wars" to go around.

nkohari3• 16 years ago

The irony in this comment is delicious, in that by posting it, you've found a way to feel superior to me. Congratulations!

You also completely misinterpreted what I was saying, but I suspect you're not interested in that anyway.

jacoblyles• 16 years ago

I just moved here and I think it's awesome. There are so many tech meetups, startup founders, hackathons, and jobs (if your startup doesn't work out) that it's worth it. I still only interact with the drama by reading it on the internet and I get a lot of benefits from living here.

bherms2• 16 years ago

This guy is an upstanding individual and really cares about startups. I'm glad people like him exist. Maybe some day I'll be lucky enough to have him invest in one of my projects.

I really like how he called McClure out. I know McClure is a smart guy and allegedly a great investor, but he is quite classless and the f* this f* that attitude is embarrassing to what are supposed to be a group of intelligent, successful, and perhaps caring individuals.

kalvin• 16 years ago

Lots of shitting on Dave McClure from people who've never met him. If you had a friend who was a great guy but happened to have a ridiculous online writing voice, and terrible taste in fonts, you wouldn't hate on him for it. The few times I've dealt with him, he was incredibly generous and helpful beyond belief. Don't turn real people into hateful caricatures based on your dislike of the way they express themselves online.

bherms2• 16 years ago

I'm sorry, but the way you express yourself is always going to affect others perception of you.

I also wouldn't say I turned him into a hateful caricature. There's no hate in there, I just think his writing style is classless. And if anyone is turning him into a caricature, it's himself.

If I had a friend who would only scream at people in real life, I would think less of him, regardless of how helpful he was. I do, in fact, have a friend who expresses himself like a douche online. I a) call him out for it frequently and b) think that he is a bit douchey. Still a great guy, and one of my best friends, but I would definitely say the way I look at him is changed by his online persona.

staunch2• 16 years ago

He knows more about how these guys act behind closed doors than absolutely anyone. I think it's official now: these guys were being bad and they got an appropriate bitch slap.

Hopefully that's the end of it. I'm sure none of them are genuinely bad guys. There's probably just a side of some of them that's a bit greedy and stupid. Hopefully this will be the lesson they all need to keep that side suppressed permanently.

cookiecaper2• 16 years ago

Why are you so sure their intentions are pure or that "none of them are genuinely bad guys"? Do you know the people that were there well? If you don't, you're not really qualified to say this. People put a lot of time into image and posturing and often it has little to do with what's really under the surface.

If they are in actually involved in illegal collusion, they should be charged and prosecuted. I don't think it's sufficient to say the damage to the reputations of those involved is sufficient punishment if accusations of conspiracy are correct.

staunch2• 16 years ago

Good point. I'll get the wood, you get the matches.

techiferous6• 16 years ago

"genuinely bad guys"

Here's my take: generally, people and life situations are very complex and the reality is that people don't neatly fall into categories of "good guys" or "bad guys".

Zoroastrianism really emphasized individual responsibility and thinking of individuals as good or bad. This made its way into Judaism and then spread into Christianity and Islam. Since our heritage as a nation is Christian, we have picked up this paradigm of thinking in terms of "good guys" and "bad guys". It also features heavily in our storytelling (movies). It's so much a part of our way of looking at the world that we actually think it's real.

tl;dr: People are too complex to be labeled "good" or "bad".

dkarl3• 16 years ago

What in the world could "genuinely bad guys" mean if it doesn't include rich people who do something wrong for money, knowing that the consequences will fall on people who are not rich?

jackowayed• 16 years ago

That's pretty linkbaity.

Dropping a "nuclear bomb" would be something like, "I have a recording from the Bin 38 meeting that proves you were colluding. The FTC will start examining it at 9am sharp tomorrow morning."

Sure, it's unusual for someone to so strongly come out and call people out, especially people that he may want to invest alongside someday, but "nuclear bomb" is a serious stretch.

itistoday• 16 years ago

If you think about it, it's really quite remarkable hyperbole. Drama in the valley, TC in the middle of it. People can forget themselves.

klochner3• 16 years ago

Just to be clear on hyperbole: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hyperbole

marknutter• 16 years ago

Right. He's used up his "nuclear bomb" title for the year. What happens when something truly scandalous happens? I suppose he could go up to hydrogen bomb..

pjscott2• 16 years ago

Above that are Tsar Bomba, small asteroid, large asteroid, and antimatter bomb. If events get much more shocking, then we go up to disastrously-located black holes and self-replicating berserker swarms. After that, I guess all that's left is the ultimate menace of a superintelligent and profoundly alien AI that cares only about maximizing the number of paperclips in the universe.

What I'm saying here is that Michael Arrington has plenty of room left for hyperbole, even now.

bl4k5• 16 years ago

MG has only used it once before:

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8...

samstokes• 16 years ago

"Fully operational battle station"?

tkeller• 16 years ago

Pretty damned mild, really. "You guys are greedy and I disagree with you" != "you guys are breaking the law."

gkoberger• 16 years ago

There's one thing I noticed about Arrington at Disrupt- sure, he's a dick, but he's only a dick to people who a) can take it and b) deserve it. I can't think of a single instance where he has called someone out, and it turned out later he was wrong.

For example, some of the panel at Disrupt were being rude (talking amongst themselves during a startup presentation), and he stopped everything and called them out on it. These weren't just random judges- they were some of Silicon Valley's most influential people. He never once took a shot at any of the startups presenting. He may have given people like Carol Bartz a hard time, but they can take it.

I may not necessarily want him as a friend, but I really respect Arrington. This email from Conway basically proves "yet again, Arrington knew what he was doing."

============================

Edits about the people posting below me:

- Leo Laporte: a) Leo Laporte can take it, and b) Arrington was merely asking for a disclosure. I don't think that proves me wrong.

- Last.fm: Linking to the official blog of a company being accused isn't proof. There's much more to the story that came after that (ie http://techcrunch.com/2009/05/22/deny-this-lastfm/; not to say linking to TC is any better)

- I'm sure Arrington has been wrong at some point.. I just said I couldn't think of anything.

wwortiz• 16 years ago

Well here is one instant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsV-lgnAjps

Edit: Leo Laporte and the Palm Pre for those who have seen it

In response to your edit I was only posting because you said a) and b) not a) or b) and I don't think this falls into the category of b).

He wasn't asking for disclosure so much that he did not get a pre review unit so he was strongly biased against those who did since he went on even after disclosure was completed.

protomyth• 16 years ago

The tone of the Gillmor Gang was always more aggressive and Arrington wasn't being particularly aggressive and was trying to make a point about how things work. I get the feeling he wasn't comfortable with the Gillmor Gang on his network and was looking for a way out.

Leo Laporte takes quite a few shots at other people and can take it. It is often hard to listen to some of his "netcasts" because he does tend to be snarky about those flyover people.

// disclosure: I do contribute the $2/mo to TWIT

andreyf• 16 years ago

Woah. Leo looks like he was having a really bad day or something. Why didn't he just say "I know, I know, it's a review unit, I'm sending it back in 7 days and going out to buy my own, because I like it so much"? However you respond to "did you pay for the device you're about to tell us about?", anything including "fuck you" was not an appropriate answer. It surprises me that people with such a low boiling point can maintain the "personal brand" Leo has.

tworats• 16 years ago

FWIW I've personally dealt with Arrington on a less than pleasant occasion, and despite things not going my way I have to say he acted with integrity and passion, and kept the interests of the entrepreneur in mind the whole time. He won my respect despite screwing me over (on this particular occasion, for reasons that were mostly out of his control).

ianbishop2• 16 years ago

http://blog.last.fm/2009/02/23/techcrunch-are-full-of-shit

Perfect example.

ktsmith• 16 years ago

To be fair that was posted by Shonfeld and not Arrington as can be seen in the by line. http://techcrunch.com/2009/02/20/did-lastfm-just-hand-over-u...

I suppose you could hold him responsible for not preventing it from being published, but this wasn't directly one of his posts.

kn0thing2• 16 years ago

This whole episode was quite an impressive feat by Arrington. As one of the many "not-super" angels in the world, it validated something that was only hearsay until Arrington confirmed it -- which has then given Conway a chance to chastise it appropriately.

Granted, I still wish he'd revise the inaccuracies in this article (http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/29/guy-who-copied-digg-slams-d...) but I'll take the fact that none of you remembered it as a good sign :)

All in all, bravo, Michael.

sachinag• 16 years ago

You may want to consider trying to band together and brand yourselves in the vein of Hacker Angels to get more dealflow past AngelList. It'd be great if this kerfluffle shook up the angel "industry" to make it more efficient and more competitive.

(Disclosure: kn0thing is an angel in Blueleaf, the startup I work for.)

danielnicollet• 16 years ago

I find Ron Conway's follow up courageous (given the fact that he knew it would come out). I think it is very good in its content. It shows that business ethics is about much more than following the law of the land or of your selfish interests. It also shows that there are still some great investors on the block. Thanks Ron! I must say I wonder what favors Arrington exchanges with the very participants of this sad angel bunch to get them to forward all these confidential emails though...

sharjeel• 16 years ago

I'm not sure if a) Twitter could take it b) Twitter deserved it

http://techcrunch.com/2009/07/14/in-our-inbox-hundreds-of-co...

rythie• 16 years ago

Someone else would have published it if they hadn't.

krosaen• 16 years ago

I found this post from a year ago convincing that arrington jumps the gun sometimes, examples include "google apps free is done" to the last.fm debacle http://www.somebits.com/weblog/culture/blogs/techcrunch-wron...

jcnnghm• 16 years ago

My respect for Arrington keeps going up, and I can't help but admire what Ron Conway has to say about this. The no-bs approach works for him. I'm glad he called out the writing, I guess McClure's money is still green, but I don't think I could take anyone that writes like that seriously.

Edited for clarity.

mberning• 16 years ago

You are going to criticize a guy based on a single private letter that he wrote? Maybe he was feeling anxious and frazzled and wrote this email quickly to help resolve his feelings. I know I certainly have, and I'm sure it was not the most elegant prose ever constructed.

sparky• 16 years ago

The parent meant that he is glad Ron Conway called out Dave McClure's response to the original TechCrunch piece (http://500hats.typepad.com/500blogs/2010/09/fire-in-the-vall...). Took me a couple times to parse too :P

faramarz• 16 years ago

No one other Ron could have wrote this piece and I respect him all the more for coming out and being clear about his position (as if you didn't know it already).

I can predict two things;

1) The younger angels react and further split themselves from the Ron way of doing business. or

2) You will hear no more about this public debacle. It's clearly bad for business and any smart investor will shut up now.

JoeAltmaier5• 16 years ago

These guys appear to be a bunch of ego-driven alpha males. They can no more stop talking about this, than piss up a tree.

In fact, being part of a macho secret conspiracy will probably inflame them to further stupidities.

quesera2• 16 years ago

Seriously, Ron Conway doesn't know how to spell "entrepreneur"?? If that's possible, it's awesome, don't get me wrong, but it seems fishy.

waterlesscloud2• 16 years ago

It made me happy to see that someone who must have typed the word 50 jillion times in his life can still get it wrong. It's a weird word.

quesera2• 16 years ago

Indeed. Actually, the more I think about it, the more I like it. I have to believe it's intentional -- perhaps a conscious progression of the fluid language. Or maybe he just has a thing against the French.

Either way, if anyone gets the privilege of defining a new spelling for the word, Ron is a good candidate.

I think the community should embrace the new spelling, in appreciation. :)

girlzhack2• 16 years ago

Ron only needs to help them, and he does so who cares about spelling! Besides, have you seen the atrocity that McClure calls a blog post?

lachyg2• 16 years ago

Possibility that he just made a typo :)

relix• 16 years ago

Ten times exactly the same? Occam says it wasn't a typo ;)

mhartl3• 16 years ago

I made a comment to the same effect on this same story, but I've realized that it's actually phonetic given the (mis)pronunciation often heard 'round the Valley. Most people I know say "ahn-treh-preh-noo-er" instead of the more Frenchified "ahn-treh-preh-ner". It's easy to see how one might misspell the former (as RC apparently did).

mthoms• 16 years ago

Nitpick: I wouldn't say the second form has been Frenchified so much as the first form has been Americanized.

mhartl3• 16 years ago

Two reactions: (1) Ron Conway is a man of great integrity. (2) It's astonishing and fascinating that the world's most prolific angel investor apparently doesn't know how to spell "entrepreneur". But he sure has helped a lot of them, and that's what really matters.

ojbyrne• 16 years ago

The President of the United States managed to miss the fact that the word derives from french.

tomhoward2• 16 years ago

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/bush.asp

wensing• 16 years ago

He probably wasn't focusing on his spelling/typos when he wrote this.

bootload2• 16 years ago

"... he world's most prolific angel investor apparently doesn't know how to spell "entrepreneur" ..."

There is another (sneaky) explanation.

Ron simply sent out many of these emails to different people with another word with incorrect spelling. This allows you to identify exactly who leaks the message. This is an old "intelligence" trick used to identify the source of information leaks.

mahmud2• 16 years ago

That would only work if he controlled the mailing-list server, assuming this is an actual mailing list, and not a "CC all" ad-hoc solution.

slowpoison• 16 years ago

Hmm... interesting! I think I should start running spell-check on the emails I forward too.

sahillavingia• 16 years ago

Can someone get a shirt printed that says "I ♥ Ron Conway"? Thanks.

mandeepdhami• 16 years ago

http://bit.ly/d0uHHX ;-)

nphase• 16 years ago

The only thing that makes me seriously wonder if this is a fake is the repeated misspelling of the word entrepreneurs: "entrepenuers"

Edit: I just realized I read the posts backwards. I suppose it's not fake if that's actually what Dave McClure was referencing in his deleted tweet. Still. Perhaps these "super angel" could do with some spelling and grammar lessons. (Yes, I could probably use some too.)

cletus• 16 years ago

Arrington has has obviously lit a match to a powderkeg with "So a blogger walks into a bar...". McClure's response came across (to me) as defensive, which at least confirms that there is a concern about the appearance of impropriety.

I would love to know who was at this meeting and who got this email from Conway.

There are some useful short-term consequences of this:

1. These super angels probably don't trust each other anymore ("who tipped off Arrington?"). This is a good thing;

2. Meetings like this are less likely to happen in the short term. If they do, they'll probably be somewhere private (the back of a restaurant is not private); and

3. It highlights the importance and value of reputation and integrity (of which Conway's cup overfloweth).

Further to (3) there is this quote from JP Morgan:

> Asked: "Is not commercial credit based primarily upon money or property?"

> "No sir," replied Morgan. "The first thing is character."

> "Before money or property?"

> "Before money or anything else. Money cannot buy it...Because a man I do not trust could not get money from me on all the bonds in Christendom."

j_baker3• 16 years ago

McClure's response wasn't defensive. Defensive would have been keeping quiet and not admitting to have been there in the first place.

spoondan• 16 years ago

Calling TechCrunch's reporting a "bullshit superangel conspiracy theory" is, if nothing else, a prime example of defensiveness.

rjurney• 16 years ago

I'm having trouble believing this is not a hoax. This doesn't feel real to me. The entire thing feels like it is staged by Arrington and McClure.

Astro9k2• 16 years ago

Could be all fake and disinformation. Stirring up controversy is how people get attention (and therefore money) nowadays.

smoody• 16 years ago

It's going to feel A LOT more surreal in the coming days I suspect. A lot of people are going to go into serious a$$-covering mode to distance themselves from these people as quickly as possible. It's not just a matter of reputation, it's a matter of landing on the preferred side of the law.

Ron's email is great. I do wonder why he didn't write it before this whole thing broke. I'm guessing it would have been even tougher.

Astro9k2• 16 years ago

Maybe this is the first a$$ covering salvo

j_baker3• 16 years ago

This had me up until the McClure part. I'll need something more than an anonymous source to believe it.

yurylifshits2• 16 years ago

By the way, can this meeting be connected to Angel List (http://angel.co/) in any way?

As far as I understand, Angel List is an effort to create a centralized curated marketplace for angel investing. Seems very similar to AngelGate. Even if these are unrelated, I wonder, whether Angel List can be viewed as something against competition.

On the other hand, Angel List simplifies angel fundrising a lot and therefore is beneficial for entrepreneurs.

jimboyoungblood• 16 years ago

AngelList has about as much in common with AngelGate as it does the Hells Angels.

AngelList is the single most democratizing, pro-competitive thing that has happened to tech startup investing in a long time.

(Disclaimer: i'm one of the angels on the list)

yurylifshits2• 16 years ago

Happy to get my doubts answered :) And looking forward to use Angel List some day in the future.

Batsu• 16 years ago

I'm going to pistol whip the next person that says "AngelGate"

(Worth it.)

HowardRoark• 16 years ago

Ron Conway rocks but the email almost feels like it was intended to be leaked.

akjetma• 16 years ago

He also could have been the one to tip Arrington to the meeting in the first place. Then, after alleging that it was one of the others who had tipped Arrington, he inspires mistrust among the colluding angels. This is all speculation, obviously, and a little too ''evil' mastermind' to be based on reality, I think.

gaius• 16 years ago

I have stated consistently for year that I invest because I love helping entrepenuers and watching them learn and succeed.

Oh please! We're all capitalists here, nothing to be ashamed of.

nocman3• 16 years ago

Conway didn't say that he's not interested in making lots of money. Sounded to me like he was just pointing out that making money is not his primary motivation for investing. Now, I don't know him at all, so I can't vouch for whether he's being honest or not. However, I'd like to point out that there are plenty of free-market-loving capitalists in this country (present company included) who do the things they do with "making lots of money" quite a ways down on their priority lists. In fact, many of us would be perfectly content with just loving what we do, making enough to pay the bills, support our families, and have a little bit left over to do some fun and meaningful things with.

JoeAltmaier5• 16 years ago

Agreed. I was asked by my boss to "examine my priorities" when I came in 5 after 8 from driving by son to his new school (we were moving, I wanted him to be in same school for the whole year).

Next morning I delivered my prioritized list to him - work was #12. Try it, you will be surprised.

Don't get me wrong, money is part of the equation for me, but certainly I won't sacrifice health, family, security etc for a little bit more of it (or for a particular job etc).

bl4k5• 16 years ago

Conway helps entrepreneurs he is not invested in as much as he helps those he is invested in. You may not know the guy, but those who do will tell you that is a very genuine sentiment.

davidw• 16 years ago

And Ron Conway appears to be a capitalist with slightly more long-term thinking. By being actually concerned with the people he's dealing with, he's likely to help create better outcomes for them, and, in the end, make more money than if his goal was simply to squeeze as much as possible in the short term.

jrockway• 16 years ago

It would have been better.

If each sentence was not.

Its own paragraph.

lanstein• 16 years ago

With some missing periods

jyothi• 16 years ago

It is very difficult to be what Ron Conway is. Respect. He is not preaching but living an example & telling others that it can be done. The problem is that this mail was meant only for super angels to possibly introspect and be influenced. Not to be beaten around in public forums embarrassing the investors. Sometimes confessions in private work better as a fix. It is hard in public.

If Arrington had any sense he would have kept quiet and not divert attention to a debacle through TC at the cost of start-up community.

adammichaelc3• 16 years ago

I don't agree that Arrington should have kept quiet. When you shine a light in a dark room you are able to see what people do when they think nobody is looking.

In Arrington's case, he gave the world a front-row seat in a meeting where the participants thought they were in private -- this is a very good thing in my opinion. With few exceptions, transparency is a win for society and business because it keeps people honest.

Arrington's report puts the "secret-meeting participants" on notice that they can't get away with this kind of thing, and it also alerts entrepreneurs to watch out for it. Both very good things.

dasil003• 16 years ago

I agree with this assessment. Sure it's linkbaity and Arrington has an ulterior motive of stirring up drama for page views, but at the end of the day it passes the smell test. Not necessarily that collusion occurred, but just that things may have been heading in that direction... it's probably a pretty gray area when you think about all the way that angel investments are structured and the diverse opinions among angles.

All the drama will probably blow over in a few days, and in the end both the super angels and entrepreneurs will be better off for this ethics-check having occurred.

fady• 16 years ago

via a comment on TC by "Hhhmmm":

This email reeks of someone trying to steer clear of trouble and keep their name clean.

It also reads more like a public blog post, not a private email.

I wouldn't be surprised if Conway tipped TC himself.

Am I right in thinking Conway attended two meetings? If he disagreed so strongly with what was being discussed, why return for the 2nd?

kyro• 16 years ago

With the reply to that saying he never attended either of the meetings.

narrator• 16 years ago

It almost reminds me of what happened with derivatives, securitization and HFT on wall street. The game became all about bamboozling the regulators and investors with complicated financial games instead of creating real wealth.

There's this ugly thing in American business where money is made on making things overly complicated. Where instead of trying to solve economic problems people are just trying to win at chess.

sinzone• 16 years ago

Here the real-time debate: http://office.mashape.com/question/debate.html

joelmichael• 16 years ago

Arrington feeds on drama, quite literally.

bl4k5• 16 years ago

McClure dug himself into a hole with his first response. He didn't think two moves ahead. In poker parlance what McClure did was to bet the turn on a semi-bluff not anticipating an all-in shove from his opponent on the river.

McClure's post - through both its style and its content, left an opening for Conway to come out with this email. Dave is stuck now, and his only response from here is to come clean in some way and clear the air.

McClure has made all sorts of mistakes, first the blog post, and then the accidental tweet. He is not handling this very well and I feel for him because he is the only person from the dinner who is speaking out. The other people in attendance are suspiciously quiet (and giving away that they were there by being quiet) and leaving it to Dave to do the talking (and not doing a very good job for himself or for the rest of them).

iamwil2• 16 years ago

Which kinda sucks, since re-reading his post, it seems like he was invited there. To me, it seems probable that he wasn't the ring leader(s), but merely the one that's talking the loudest. Doesn't excuse the guy, but he's getting the spotlight shone on him while the others sneak off into the night unnoticed.

bl4k5• 16 years ago

this defense is not a whole lot better: http://twitter.com/jeff/status/25358068083

flocial• 16 years ago

Ron Conway wasn't at the dinner in question. If you read all the information out there, it all comes down to Mike got snubbed, made wild allegations in anger, the first person to stand up (Dave) got ran over by the collective truck, TechCrunch posts suggestive information and the party goes on. The ball is still in Mike's court to produce something of substance.

At first, I admired Tech Crunch for having the guts to post something like it but looking it over there's no substance to it. It's just yellow journalism for the digital age. Complete rubbish that feeds into the collective psyche.

sachbh• 16 years ago

F(orget) this s(tuff)! Lets go build great products and businesses. Its taking away 15 mins we don't have.

devmonk• 16 years ago

As others said, I don't think I've ever see entrepreneur spelled entrepenuer quite that many times before. If the nuclear bomb was mispelling entrepreneur, it has been dropped.

Though, I appreciate Ron's willingness to speak out against the collusion of these investors to wreak havoc on their competition.

annajohnson• 16 years ago

I don't think there's anything suspect about Ron Conway's misspelling of 'entrepreneur'. He probably just banged out the email without doing a spell-check. Let's remember it was a private email. Had he intended to have it published he probably would have taken more care. I can't speak for Ron, of course, but I will say that I frequently write the word "entrepreneur" (i.e. in blog posts, emails, etc). I'm not sure why - maybe it's the way I touch-type - but I often miss the second 'r'. I typically don't even notice until I do a spell-check. All in all, I think it was just an innocent mistake.

Sukotto• 16 years ago

I find it hard to tell if this is a heartfelt attempt to "tell it like it is", or masterful damage control to pull his buddy's ass out of the fire.

PG vouches for him (which counts for a lot) so maybe it's completely legit and heartfelt.

If so, it does indicate a certain lapse of judgment on the author's part. Why on Earth would he think something this inflammatory would stay secret? It must be obvious to everyone involved that they have serious operational-security issues. There's no way something like this would be kept private when the members of the group couldn't even keep the existence and location of their meeting a secret from a notoriously trigger-happy (and widely read) blogger.

If it isn't heartfelt, then it walks through the checklist of everything you should do for damage control when you or someone in your circle faces an accusation of collusion / conspiracy:

- Loudly and vehemently disagree with the "bad group"'s philosophy;

- Explain the presence of the buddy in "bad group" in terms of how he didn't want to be involved but was sucked in and unable to escape. (Don't wave this type away as "bad judgment" since it implies guilt);

- Completely disavow the "bad" group;

- Keep focus on how you only care about "good group";

- Repeatedly assert that you always look out for "good group" and you would never allow anything bad to happen to "good group"

(Incidentally, the spelling errors were a particularly nice touch.)

rfugger• 16 years ago

Notice how he admits that the group is guilty of bitching about deal structures with entrepreneurs, while drawing attention away from the greater crime of collusion. My thought is that this is an attempt to draw attention away from the real crime here by throwing up more distraction.

sliverstorm• 16 years ago

It DOES have many grammatical flaws and the writing style strongly reminds me of the unvetted typing of a classic older user who 'adopted' the net in his later years.

The profile that his letter draws to mind strongly suggests to me that it was either:

1) authentic and written by him and only him

2) Masterfully manipulative and two steps ahead of me

ahoyhere2• 16 years ago

I'm personally convinced that it's both.

ahoyhere2• 16 years ago

It's been my experience that the more often a person says "I'm honest" "I'm transparent" "I'm doing this for the good of xyz" - the more they're lying. Certainly, using words like "honestly" in a negotiation is a popular type of 'tell.'

You're right, the whole email did seem calculated to make himself look good. It sounds more crafted for its future audience (the whole web) than the mailing list.

varjag• 16 years ago

> Please keep this confidential even though I know that will be hard since two of you let your egos take over and show Arrington how important you are by telling him you were headed to a “secret” angel gathering.

So true.

to_jon• 16 years ago

As entrepreneurs, we need both Conway and the Super Angels. It's time for everyone to get over these unfortunate meetings and forgive the participants. Enough is enough.

Did they do something wrong? Hell yes. But it's been exposed, examined, and discussed. Publicly stoning a group of angels represents the worst kind of mob behavior and reflects poorly on entrepreneurs as an investment class. Let's not forget that wealthy individuals have many different options for investing their money that historically have higher rates of return (i.e. make more money) than investments in startup companies. Many angels invest in startups because it's more fun than profitable. Let's not change that dynamic in spite of ourselves.

At the end of the day, we want angel investing to be the biggest game possible. It's a surplus of angel money that has put entrepreneurs in the driver's seat and made term sheets extremely favorable to founders. Fewer angels in the mix and the scenario can change quickly.

It's time to prove that we're better than a small group of angels who engaged in such unfortunate behavior. It's time to forgive and move on.

JoeAltmaier5• 16 years ago

Ok, forgiveness is keen, but its not possible to forgive criminal acts. It's not up to this community.

Personally I look forward to the shakeup. The money will find its own level, whether its this group of idiots or some other.

livando• 16 years ago

it's not a memo, it's a mission statement.

JabavuAdams2• 16 years ago

With all the money and resources at these peoples' disposal, why the hell would they meet at a bar / restaurant to plan their nefarious nefariousness?

Wouldn't this kind of business be better transacted on a yacht or submarine?

paramendra• 16 years ago

My take home word from Conway's email: binary. Angelgate rolls on. http://goo.gl/fb/PpyhK

rblion• 16 years ago

the godfather has spoken.

leif• 16 years ago

Man, sometimes I find it hard to express how much I love watching awkward dudes with enough money to think they're important get into catfights across blogs.

Ron Conway Drops A Nuclear Bomb On The Super Angels

Related Stories