Michael Arrington, Amateur Cardiologist

Two founders of blogging networks, Michael Arrington of TechCrunch and Sam Sethi of the recently folded BlogNation, have been taking shots at each other ever since Sethi either quit TechCrunch a year ago or was fired. You can read the full story on WebProNews, but it's old news to anyone who's ever been pulled under with a sinking business. Employees went unpaid, bosses broke promises, investors never showed, mean people suck.

On Friday, Arrington publicly accused Sethi of causing his worker's fatal heart attack:

... Marc Orchant had a massive heart attack. And the reason he had a heart attack may have been because he was working for Sam, not being paid, and massively stressed out about supporting his family.

Orchant, a tech journalist in Albuquerque, N.M., who wrote for BlogNation, died earlier this month at age 50.

I've lost a coworker in his twenties and an uncle at age 50 to catastrophic, unexpected heart troubles. We struggled to find medical reasons why their ailments weren't caught in time to save them. The answers were skimpy and provided no comfort.

How stupid with anger must you be to diagnose somebody's heart attack from afar and use it to score points in a business feud? Arrington should muster up some decency, for the sake of Orchant's family and friends if not his own reputation, and keep him out of a stupid slapfight between two people who should celebrate the fact they no longer work together.

· 2007/12/15 · 6 COMMENTS · Link

Comments

Arrington jumped the shark at least as early as when he launched his own ridicously massive awards and conference, if this wasn't the event to do it. In the vein of Superman, his ego is taller than the tallest buildings, all from starting a popular-ish blog.

#1 · ArringtonPal · 2007/12/15

Thank you for this post ... I've been a close friend and colleague of Marc's for nearly 18 years, and have found the rapid diffusion of this stupid and insulting fiction to be onerous at best.

#2 · Dr. Steve · 2007/12/15

Mike Arrington is the Rupert Murdoch of blogging.

If you love good journalism then you might get the comparison.

Arrington is amazingly successful using methods a lot of people find pretty reprehensible.

Marc Orchant has family that is grieving and Mike's conjectures are extremely insensitive but entirely consistent with Mike's "journalistic" standards.

Another example from this week: Robert Scoble is on stage at Le Web and Mike hits submit on a post disclosing that Scoble is leaving his current start-up (PodTech) for Fast Company. Mike then (or maybe someone else) suggests in a video casted IRC chat that Scoble look at Mike's blog post while on stage.

Scoble reads the post (his laptop is also being displayed to the audience) and Scoble writes a reply while on stage. Winer is in the audience and asks Mike if he thinks Robert knows he's being monitored.
Arrington thinks he does not.

Such methods do drive extra hits to the Crunch World Empire but they leave me disgusted that people actually use this guy's properties for news and opinion. I can find better sources and just skip empowering someone that has so little regard for who might be harmed by our "right to know" as he sees it.

OK... I judge people by their words and acts. So, shoot me.

#3 · McD · 2007/12/15

Blaming Bush would get more hits.

#4 · Uncle Mikey · 2007/12/16

"How stupid with anger must you be to diagnose somebody's heart attack from afar and use it to score points in a business feud?"

Pretty damn stupid and grossly insensitive.

He does this to score attention. You can't trust any of that gang anymore, because they are so desperate for attention.

#5 · Shelley · 2007/12/16

His post is certainly for Dumbest Blog Post of the Year. With the end of 2007 almost upon us, it looks like he may very well win the award. Congratulation, Mike! :P

#6 · Diego · 2007/12/16