Dave McClure responds to Arrington's post

Having skimmed through that incoherent babbling rant, I know as a founder I will never want to do business with that guy.

Since everyone seems to just be agreeing with the last person whose take on this they've read, think about it this way: If they were indeed colluding, do you think any of them would come out and say "mike's right, we are colluding"? No, they would come back with totally legit sounding blog posts to discredit him.<p>I still think it doesn't make sense for Mike to lie about what he heard, especially when it relates to such big players. Mr McClure's defensive, arrogant, immature rant indicates that a sore spot has been touched. I don't think we should take any of the angels' words at face value.

Let me summarize.<p>"Yes, the meeting described indeed happened. Yes, we talked about what Arrington claimed we talked about. No, Arrington was not welcome. No, it was not the big deal Arrington claimed it was."<p>If it was not the deal that Arrington claimed it was, then why were they so uncomfortable when Arrington sat down? Why did Sundeep delete his tweet? And why did people tell Arrington that they were uncomfortable with the direction the conversation took?<p>This leaves me more, not less, likely to believe what Arrington reported. The side evidence leaves me leaning towards the belief that Dave McClure's judgment is more likely lacking than that there is no fire behind the smoke. However I have no really concrete evidence behind that position.<p>It will be interesting to see this play out.

Arrington has said that many who attended this event were friends of his. I'd think it wouldn't be too difficult to sense a strange vibe and that something unusual was going down. I've seen Arrington make some big claims (last.fm handing over records to the RIAA (unsure if that was resolved)), but these are pretty damaging accusations, and you've got to realize that more than just page views, there are a few other things riding on this recent piece -- like the friendships of those he's accused of colluding, general respect among the angel/vc community and beyond. That coupled with this post, with a tl;dr of HE's WrONg ANd I WanT TO BE AbraSIVE AnD NOT PROviDE REASONABle LEVel-heaDED ARGumEnTS, makes me side with Arrington for now, although Fred Wilson's post does make a lot of sense.

There seems to be a severe case of group think on HN today.<p>Why are so many people raining on Dave? The points he makes seem to make a lot of sense.<p>I'm pretty sure that an agenda that will attract the smartest angel investors for a meeting will stretch far beyond "collusion to bring valuations down".<p>The fact of the matter is that owning 1% of a company that exits for $100mm is far better than owning 10% of a bankrupt startup. These investors know this better than anyone and I'm pretty sure that increasing the size of the pie, attracting more startups, increasing the number of exit channels etc were the chief points of discussion and not "how do we make sure we own 10% instead of 5%".<p>Having said that, it's pretty much Dave's word against Mike's and I'll pitch my tent in the proven serial investor's camp any day.

&#62;- startups &#38; investors bitch &#38; moan about price (aka valuation) all day long, but i don't really give a damn what other people think most of the time. buy or don't buy. negotiate or don't. This is America, This is Capitalism, and it's a Free Fucking Country.<p>I read Arrington's article with a grain of salt, but after that line McClure convinced me he's up to no good. That is <i>exactly</i> what a colluding price-fixer would say to defend his actions. The fact that he denies it is irrelevant.

Did anyone else get a headache just trying to read through that rant?

Request for fact check: If you agree that the definition of collusion is that "collusion takes place within an industry when rival companies cooperate for their mutual benefit." Wikipedia.<p>And you read McClure's post that admits to discussing pricing amongst these industry competitors: "at the dinner, there was a fair amount of kvetching about convertible notes, capped or not, hi/lo valuation, optimal structure of term sheets, where the industry was headed, who was innovating and who wasn't, and 10 million other things of which 3 were kind of interesting and 9,999,997 weren't unless you like arguing about 409a stock option pricing. However, in addition to pricing &#38; valuation..."<p>then how can you not conclude that collusion (which is illegal) did not take place?<p>Where is this argument off-base?

Why?<p>Disregarding all the abusive and offensive language, his points are unnecessary. He could just as well have written "We are not colluding. Mike got it wrong. This is what we talked about: ..."<p>He's leading Arrington's claims ad absurdum and concludes that everything is horse shit and hater shit and a steaming pile of crap, yo, bitches.<p>Why is Dave McClure important again?

I could not finish this article. Why does he write like that?

Before I clicked I figured it was going to be yet another "Michael is a great guy but way off base here," and indeed that's pretty much all there is to see here. Coupled with a lot of fist-pumping.

why do people need to use so much f<i>ck sh</i>t and d*ck when defending an argument I'll never understand. It doesn't make it any more influential or cool, if that's what is intended.

OK People. Yes, Dave McClure writes like ee cummings' high school geocities page, but I think I know why:<p>If I'm a high visibility blogger and I'm going to write a piece wherein I intend on relaying a point to the people whose opinions I care about, there's going to be a lot of noise in the responses, no matter what. More often than not (and this happens on HN too) you get people giving long-winded, zero-value-added answers in hopes of being a part of the discussion.(edit: yes, this post kind of falls in that category, but I'm writing it anyways)<p>Writing something you want to talk about underneath a bunch of stoff that's easy to jump on is a good way to flag the worthless posts.<p>For instance, I might start off a blog post about how the White Stripes are shit. They are not good and they are certainly not ushering in a new era of anything. What I really want to talk about is how they got famous because, somewhere along the line, Rolling Stone started bottling their own farts. So then, if I get 100 responses, I can skim past the ones that amount to "OMG The White Stripes are like the best band EVAR! [personal attack] [grammer correction]" and get to the meat of the discussion about what happened to the zine touched by the minds of Hunter Thompson, Lester Bangs, and Patti Smith.<p>Also, I think he likes to give the impression that he's too busy and important for things like style. And, as far as I know, that's true, so I'd just let him get away with it and look what he was actually saying.

So Mike does some investigative work and finds something amiss, people flock and agree (which I still agree) amid some suspicious actions online, then one of those involved deny anything amiss in a horribly written blog post and everyone says, "Oh, Mike, you're so wrong!"<p>Really? Yes, 10 people that are purely angel investors and no one else get together to discuss "stock options" and pretty much give Mike a big F-U when he shows up and jokingly says stuff about sitting down for a drink. This guy doesn't even deny that Mike showed up and they all were silent: that alone is worrisome to me. Furthermore, Mike lead us to believe he got this information from a few of those attending: not anonymous sources as some try to portray.

This is pure rant, not much content.<p>But at least McClure is coming out and identifying himself as one of the people attended the meeting.<p>I wonder where and how this battle is going to end, both sides are equally powerful players.

Mr. McClure's hyperbole about goon squads aside, his public assertion about the nature of the meeting holds a lot more water for me than the frantic whisperings of anonymous sources.

Anytime a bunch of people who sit on the same side of the table, economically speaking, get together, even socially, it's some flavor of collusion. Just forming social ties with people you should be in competition with is a little suspect. That doesn't automatically mean it's cartel-building, but it's not good news for the rest of us.<p>That said, is this a surprise to anyone? VCs are already groupthink-y enough. It is the natural behavior of oligopolies (de facto or otherwise) to seek to erect barriers to entry, and fix prices. We here operate in a sector that is still so wildly dynamic that we have better tools for breaking through that than begging the governmental leviathan to do it for us. We're faster, and can hit harder.

This is just me, but I find this response entirely unnecessary.<p>I think everyone in that meeting should have just kept their mouths shut. Admittedly, there are a bunch of reasons not to. A brief, to the point statement would have sufficed (Like, say a Tweet, or 2). Regardless of personality or writing style, the post seems a bit over the top.<p>But then again, I don't know/follow the guy, so it's probably standard fare.<p>Regardless, his excessive, contrived hip hop/"ghetto" attitude is quite annoying and setting your Twitter display to a bin38 logo says enough to me.<p>Edited cause I missed a word.

You figure he could be a little more professional. I guess a strategy for managing reputation risk is swear like a sailor in response to criticism and always ignore any specific concerns.

Having met Dave, I can say he's one of those people you immediately trust. The guy is set financially, and is only is the investment game for the fun of it.<p>And yeah, his style is bizarre, but that's just the way he likes it.<p>Anyway, if he says this is all much ado about nothing, he's almost certainly telling the truth.

Well, it seems Arrington was right...

I think that balloon has been convincingly punctured.<p>There is a hint of the old English society in there, where who would get invited to which parties mattered almost as much as what was actually discussed. (not to mention the seating arrangements).<p>Mike being sore for not being invited to this particular get-together is something straight from the 1890's, he's interpreting it as one of two things, either TC (and his person) is irrelevant, <i>or</i> there is something shady going on.<p>It can't be the former, so it has to be the latter.<p>A bit paranoid maybe.

Dave: when you're talking about the changing world, your tone smacks of bravado and is refreshingly blunt. But when you're responding to somewhat serious allegations, that same tone comes off as Vicky Pollard. (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLd3-cfLlvU" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLd3-cfLlvU</a>)<p>My humble advice? Have jeans and a suit; know when to wear what.

Reading this post and Arrington's yesterday, I am starting to wonder about the meaning of the word "friend". If these guys are really all friends, maybe they ought to turn to their enemies because I wouldn't want friends like these as my own enemies ;-)

Anyone who starts a post with "Unfortunately i probably have more balls than sense" is worth reading, if only for laughs. The typography and grammar leave a lot to be desired... but I'm in two minds about the content.<p>It's possible that this is a case of multiple perspectives, multiple interpretations. Some insiders think they're sitting down for a bit of kvetching, others think it's heading for a cartel (and blow the whistle). It'd be interesting to hear the perspective of a few of the other people around the table, especially the ones who tipped off Arrington.<p>Is there any other informed reaction to this stuff out there? Anyone else 'at the table' who's commented yet?

Yes it is his normal style I get that but given the amount of attention the post was going to get, and the likely way people reading have taken the situation you'd think he would have toned it down a little.

Anyone else notice the lack of denial of the wiki that Arrington spoke of?<p>Don't you think you'd mention there was no wiki if there was no wiki? There must be a wiki with something on it.

I can't think of a time when Arrington was seriously wrong. His leads get in way before the news breaks and his stories have even altered what was to be announced.<p>I doubt Mike just made this all up. Especially how everyone in that room has feed him stories for the past 5 years. Do you think Mike (a lawyer) would seek legal advice unless this was real.<p>Funny enough, both sides of this story are trying to win over startups! Either way, we win.

Not enough colors!

All this drama begs 2 questions from my POV: Are we seeing the end of the net startup ecosystem as it's been since Netscape? Is this happening because too much transparency, too much blogging, tweeting, and spewing your guts publicly all the time only creates negative emotions: jealousy, fame obsessions, arrogance, hate?

I'm trying to figure out who this was aimed at. Was it Mike? Was it PG? or Us the readers? Who is hating on Dave?

Here's how the next Arrington/McClure interview will pan out:<p>-<p>Arrington: Did you order the (code red) meeting?<p>McClure: I did the job I ...<p>Arrington: Did you order the (code red) meeting ? [shouting]<p>McClure: You're God damn right I did. [shouting]<p>-<p>A Few Good Men. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104257/quotes?qt0470412" rel="nofollow">http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104257/quotes?qt0470412</a><p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOYGbM3nK9k#t=3m59s" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOYGbM3nK9k#t=3m59s</a>

McClure's post looks like the emails the whole company used to get from my menopausal VP back in 2001.

This is a necessary denial. Why did Sundeep delete his tweet? He should've also made a denial.

I know McClure somewhat personally, and while Arrington's speculation was fun, and I'm sure many investors are trying to counteract YC's strength, I think he is an upstanding guy, and one of the most honest, cut to the shit people in the valley.

Isn't the real question: Does he get results? That's all HN cares about, right? Not the outer trimmings?

I'm at a complete loss as to why presumably intelligent people pay attention to technophobes like miek Arrington. It was obvious to me many years ago that lacked integrity.<p>McClure and Paul Graham, for instance, are people who I disagree with on at least one subject, but they have integrity. I cannot say the same for Arrington. He seems to be pathological to me.

Agree. It's nice to see what goes on in the backrooms of SV. And whatever Dave was on, get me some!