AOL and TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington part ways
AOL Inc. officially confirmed that Michael Arrington, founder and co-editor of TechCrunch, no longer works for the company or the popular technology blog.
The formal announcement of his departure was made after two weeks of bickering between Arrington and AOL over his role at TechCrunch. Critics had questioned whether Arrington should continue as an editor after being named to head CrunchFund, a $20-million venture capital fund that might invest in companies that TechCrunch writes about.
“The TechCrunch acquisition has been a success for AOL and for our shareholders, and we are very excited about its future,” Maureen Sullivan, an AOL spokeswoman, said in an email to The Times. “Michael Arrington, the founder of TechCrunch, has decided to move on from TechCrunch and AOL to his newly formed venture fund.”
Erick Schonfeld, who was Arrington’s co-editor, has been named the editor of TechCrunch.
Arrington jabbed back at AOL on Monday by wearing a T-shirt that said “unpaid blogger” at the company’s TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco. After announcing that Arrington was fired, AOL had said he might contribute as an unpaid writer from time to time.
“It’s no longer a good situation for me to stay at TechCrunch,” Arrington said at the conference, according to a report from the website Business Insider. “Effective in a couple of days, I won’t be an employee of TechCrunch or AOL. I will continue to run the CrunchFund, and AOL will remain a partner in CrunchFund. I will continue to support this conference and TechCrunch over time.”
It remains to be seen how Arrington’s departure will affect TechCrunch’s roster of reporters, some of whom have said they would leave if he was no longer editor.
