Michael Arrington Facts

Michael Arrington Facts – Biography

1) J. Michael Arrington was born in Orange California, United States on 13March 1970.

He has been named as one of the most powerful internet personalities mainly because of his creation of TechCrunch, which covers the detailed happenings of the Silicon Valley.

2) Arrington had a very diverse childhood as far as his academics is concerned; after growing up in Huntington Beach in California and later in Surrey, England, he enrolled in the prestigious University of California Berkeley.

3) Later on Arrington graduated from Claremont McKenna College in 1992 with majors in economics; but that wasn’t the end of education for Arrington, because he went on to study law at Stanford Law School from where he finally graduated from in 1995.

4) Following this legal streak, he worked in two separate law firms;O’Melveny & Myers, and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati where he continued practicing securities and corporate law.

5) While practicing law, Arrington catered to a number of clients including Netscape, Apple, Pixar, Idealab in addition to many start-up investment banks and companies.

6) Arrington is known for involving himself in a number of other endeavors as well including being co-founder of Zip.ca as well as Pool.com (both in Canada), being the founder of Edgeio and Chief Operating Officer of Razogator which was backed by Kleiner.

7) One of his prominent and recent ventures includes being part of the Board of Directors of Foldera that is known for designing a service organizational software tool.

He also worked in an operational role at a startup in London backed by Carlyle and was the consultant of companies including Verisign

8) Once Arrington was done with practicing law, he joined the company Real Names in 1999, which unfortunately went bankrupt and closed down after raising an investment of $100M.

There he worked as the General Counsel as well as Vice President of Business Development.

He was also one of the co-founders of an online payments company called Archex, which became the back end of the online Western Union after being sold to First Data Corp for US$32M.

9) Michael Arrington’s real story of fame started when he founded TechCrunch in 2005, which is a web publication, dedicated to offering all sorts of technology news and detailed analysis from the Silicon Valley.

Recognized now as the official blog for the Valley, it covers all products, websites and startup companies in addition to the major headlines.

The first publication of TechCrunch came out on 11th June 2005 and according to FeedBurner, on 10th April, 2012, it was enjoying 1,628,000 RSS feed subscribers.

10) In September 2011, a lot of mystery was attracted by TechCrunch when it was reported that Arrington was no longer working at TechCrunch and had in fact, been employed by AOL Ventures.

The mystery further deepened when merely days later, it was revealed that Arrington was no longer at AOL Ventures and in October 2012, it was reported that he had gone back to being a TechCrunch blogger.

11) Influential magazines like Forbes and Wired have often called Arrington as one of the most powerful internet people.

Wired went as far as to mention his obsession with Web 2.0 and included him in a flowchart of ‘internet blowhards’.

In 2008, the TIME Magazine selected Arrington among the 100 Most Influential People of The World primarily because of the power he held over the information flowing out of the Silicon Valley.

12) In 2011, Michael Arrington was known for collaborating up with Patrick Gallaghar and M. G. Siegler to found CrunchFund, which is a venture capital firm.

13) Many corporate and internet critics have pointed out the various conflicts of interest that Arrington hold because of his involvement in a variety of investment funds and ventures.

According to Arrington himself, he is a partner at CrunchFund and is a limited partner in other funds, all of which are constantly investing in startups.

That means that at any one point in time, Arrington has a good chance of being a direct or an indirect investor in these startups and owning the public stocks of companies like Facebook, AOL and other top venture funds.

14) Most of these criticisms were addressed by Arrington himself who revealed that he deals with all these various financial conflicts of interested by indulging in transparency and truth and to hiding from clear biases.

15) Michael Arrington also started the Chrunchpad project in July 2008 that was supposed to work as a tablet computer serving the needs of users that are conflicted between desktop computers and laptops.

16) Sometime later in this project, Arrington got involved in a number of disagreements with developers of Crunchpad.

Because of this, the developers left Arrington and released the product themselves however; it did not receive much attention and went bankrupt soon after.

If Arrington had managed to release the product successfully, he would have enjoyed a head start in the market possibly overshadowing the iPad itself, which was released in 2010.

17) Michael Arrington is also known for supporting students who drop out of college.

At the UC-Berkeley Distinguished Innovator Lecture Series in 2010, Arrington expressed his belief that one of the best experienced for a bright student was to get into Harvard and drop out after a year something that would convey the world that you are good enough for Harvard.

18) Arrington was also part of a bribery scandal at TechCrunch in 2010 when an intern requested some compensation for a blog post after which Arrington fired him.

Critics commented on the inappropriate handling by Arrington especially when some sources claimed that the intern was actually a part-time employee.

19) In 2010, it was reported that AOL acquired TechCrunch for $30M with Michael Arrington taking a backseat role.

20) Michael Arrington also runs TechCrunch Disrupt, which is a business conference imparting advice to+- investors and entrepreneurs.

21) Arrington has had a reputation for having a hot temper and has even had a few public reactions that reflected badly on his image.

He is not afraid to speak his mind and will speak against those he does not like or holds a grudge against.

22) Recently Arrington has been under hot water for abuse allegations made by a former girlfriend.

His company, TechCrunch has not evaded the media and says they are investigating the matter and takes any accusations very seriously.

23) Arrington is a big fan of entrepreneurs, and calls them his ‘rock stars’.

He is fond of creating and commends those who have the passion and the ability to create something new and innovative.

Arrington admits that he has a bias towards entrepreneurs and will always support them.

24) Michael tries his best to be truthful, especially when he is writing for the blogs.

He tries to find the uttermost truth in every situation.

If he ever makes a mistake in a blog post, he is not afraid to go back and right the wrong, and will apologize for any misunderstandings.

25) Arringtonis one of the most powerful people in Silicon Valley.

His blogging site, TechCrunch has gained such importance amongst the entrepreneurs and companies that news of them on his blog site can ‘make or break’ a company.

In 2008, Arrington was named as one of the most influential people in the world by Time magazine.

26) In response to the abuse allegation against Arrington, he acknowledged them on his blog, stating that he is aware of them and that they are completely false.

He also noted that he has hired a lawyer to help him settle this issue, and reassures his readers that he will try to keep them as updated as possible.

27) Arrington’s work has crossed borders. He has founded two companies in Canada, Zip.ca and Pool.com.

He also has broadened his horizons and co-authored a book on IPOs.

As an avid blogger, Arrington has much to write about and much expertise in many different areas.

28) Arrington participated in ‘This Startups Uncensored’ talk in 2011, hosted by Docstoc CEO Jason Nazar.

He talked about his own experiences as a budding entrepreneur, and his creation of TechCrunch.

He also spoke about what he believes the future of the tech companies to be.

29) Arrington does not like mornings.

His mornings usually consist of someone emailing him or texting him with news that Arrington might be missing, and he does not like the sunlight.

30) Arrington works from his home office most of the time.

He has a spastic routine, which has him working both long hours during the day and at night.

He loves the darkness and prefers working at night, listening to loud music and writing about the latest stories.

31) Early for Arrington is 9 am.

He has been trying to wake up at the same every day as has been advised by his doctor.

Due to a lifelong history of intense work habits, which affected his health and social life, this doctor,recommended that he keep a strict sleeping and work schedule.

Arrington went through a difficult phase, where he gained almost 50 lbs. and lost all contact with his friends and family due to overworking himself.

He has now been trying to get his life back on track and following doctor’s orders religiously.

32) In the morning, the first thing Arrington does is check his email for any important news that needs to be covered right away.

If there is any breaking news, he decides which ones he will write about himself, and which ones he will pass on to other writers.

33) Arrington is very careful about news stories and respects the companies’ wishes to hold off on stories.

Sometimes the news will be about an imminent deal or merger, and if the news leaks out too early, it may be called off.

So Arrington makes sure that he checks with companies before he writes about their stories.

If he knows other journalists are going to grab onto the story, he will push forward, but if not, he usually respects the company’s wishes.

He acknowledges that they lose some important stories with this method, but he believes in building trust.

34) Once he has dealt with the urgent news stories, Arrington gets on with the daily activities of his life.

He has a chocolate and a yellow Labrador, the two dogs that he calls his best friends.

He will take them for a walk and feed them, and then eat himself.

35) During the evening and at night, Arrington says there are fewer distractions and thus he is able to work his best when it is dark.

Sometimes he will artificially create a darker atmosphere during the day using blinds and covering the windows.

Arrington prefers to use a Mac computer, and uses two monitors, one on which he is able to do research and the other on which he writes.

36) Most of Arrington’s day consists of talking to different people and getting information.

He does not waste time with ‘useless’ chit chat and gets straight to the point.

He boasts that he knows almost everyone in Silicon Valley.

Arrington loves chasing a good story.

He tries to research as much as he can and then begins to write his story.

37) Michael says his company’s main advantage is their dedication to entrepreneurs.

He says he understands how hard it is to be a budding entrepreneur, reminiscing that he had to suffer four failures before he was successful with TechCrunch.

Arrington says he meets successful and non-successful entrepreneurs, and says that he has learned the most from the ‘losers’, stating that failure is a great teacher.

38) Arrington blames his age for not being able to keep up with sources and information.

He now uses Google voice to record all phone calls and conversations that way he has something he can refer back if he forgets something important.

This also helps Arrington keep a record of all the information he is given and his research, and helps him avoid mistakes, particularly with quotes.

39) Arrington likes to use different ways to communicate with his sources.

Text messages and phone calls are the no nonsense techniques, but he also likes to use Skype often.

He says it creates an atmosphere as though the person were in the same room as you.

Video calls are much better than phone calls, according to Arrington.

He uses Skype to keep in touch with friends and family, as well as for business conversations.

40) When Arrington is seeking information, he likes to go directly to the main source of information, such as the CEO of the company and not the PR person.

He doesn’t like to waste time discussing ‘useless’ information with PRS and wants the facts straight away from the direct source, to avoid any misunderstandings.

41) Arrington likes to write quality posts and is not worried about quantity.

He will post several times a week, which is different from his early day with TechCrunch when he used to post several times in one day.

Arrington says that his love for blog writing is what eventually created success for him, he kept writing until someone noticed his work.

He loves indulging in comments, and sees them as rewards to his work.

42) Arrington loves mingling with people, and TechCrunchis known for the parties they enjoy holding.

Arrington says this was the best way for him to meet sources and create social networks.

They will have a few large parities, and then smaller events throughout the year.

Arrington loves attending these events.

His parties started small, and eventually grew into larger and larger bashes, which now can have more than 1000 attendees.

43) Arrington has his fair share of ‘enemies’.

He recalls that in Germany once, someone spit on him in 2008.

A more serous hate incident occurred before this, when Arrington was sent a death threat.

He hired security to stand guard 24/7 and went through a stressful time.

He decided to take some time off and went on vacation to clear his mind and relax.

44) The evening is usually when Arrington will work on opinion pieces, which he puts a lot of effort and thought into it, and takes him around two or three hours to complete one post.

He writes about controversial issues and issues that have meaning to him.

45) Interestingly, Arrington needs to have loud music around him when he is working on his posts.

He listens to music he calls ‘not happy music’ such asa heavy rock band, Metallica.

Other artists Arrington tunes into are Eminem and Rage Against the Machine.

46) Arrington makes sure to read something before he goes to bed, even if he is exhausted from a long day of work.

He makes sure to read an actual book, even if he only gets a few pages in.

His favorite book isCatch 22.

47) Recently the Department of Homeland Security confiscated Arrington’s boat.

The boat was the first thing Arrington bought after selling TechCrunch in 2010.

He named the boat, Buddy, and had to go through a tough time due to the boat coming from Canada.

The records had mistakenly recorded the value in Canadian dollars, which created issues and the DHS said they had to keep the boat until the matter was resolved.

48) It seems Arrington is used to being deterred by security officials When Arrington was going to Canada for to visit a company, he was stopped by border officials, who checked his trunk and confiscated his phone.

49) Arrington’s previous girlfriend who has started the abuse allegations is Jenn Allen.

Arrington has a history of dating glamorous and beautiful women.

Allen herself is a famous entrepreneur, and is the founder and CEO of RTist.com.

RTist.com is a service for artists and buyers in which they can connect with one another directly.

50) Although Arrington has done work in Canada, he wrote about the country in a mocking manner on his blog, and referred to the country as a ‘frozen wasteland’.

The remarks were completely comical, many Canadian readers were offended by them.