Don't read TechCrunch

<i>I’ve learned that glorifying money raising is a massive mistake</i><p>This, in my opinion, is what the metaphor of not reading TechCrunch stands in for. Each article celebrating a round of fundraising has a backstory about an entrepreneur who has less ownership of their company. Often that backstory is that they have less or even no control.<p>Jobs took outside funding. Gates did not. Both acted like jerks in the 80's. But nobody could fire Gates because nobody had the shares to bring in an outside CEO to Microsoft.<p>Fundraising is a two edged sword. It should often be accompanied by both congratulations and condolances.

I agree, don't read techcrunch.<p>Unless you're interested in startups generally.<p>Or if you want to learn about new companies.<p>But really only if you're interested in learning about hot new spaces in trends, yea then it's ok.<p>Or if you want to see what external thought leaders have to say, reading on the weekends is ok.<p>But don't read it for funding.<p>Unless you're looking for funding, then maybe it's ok to read it to help you narrow your investor pitch focus by seeing who is active and wear.<p>But certainly don't read it for product. Yeah, that'd be stupid.<p>Unless, and only unless, you want to see what early adopters who see more new products in a month then most people do in a year have to say about new technology, trends and spaces.<p>On second thought, yea read TechCrunch.<p>Just be a good enough entrepreneur to know that reading or not reading TechCrunch won't make or break your company, and is a really lame scapegoat.<p>The only thing that will make or break your company is you and your idea.

I agree TC dishes a lot of rubbish of late. But at the same, the author looks to me like a headline hogger. I'm not really convinced by his reasoning.

Long ago I was such a heavy Tech Crunch reader that I was in the top 5 most liked commenters (below MG and Arrington) back when they still used Disqus.<p><a href="http://i.imgur.com/1lgnC.png" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/1lgnC.png</a> Yep that's me. I was in deep.<p>TC is both good &#38; bad and a LOT of things to different people:<p>1) TC is for people who dream about becoming entrepreneurs and are seeking reasons or a "push" to motivate themselves to finally dive in.<p>2) It's a platform for validation and lifestyle glorification (what Fox News is to Republican party). It can lead to both encouragement and ignorance. It's highly Silicon Valley oriented and its addicted readers are mostly wanna-be-entrepreneurs (myself included, no shame here) who wish they were in Silicon Valley working on a startup. The same way celebrity wanna-bes browse celebrity sites all day, wantrepreneurs (like me) would browse Hacker News, Tech Crunch, Digg, and (the old) Reddit. Even though you couldn't be there in "the action" you could read about it and pretend and daydream. Pathetic but hey, emotions are emotions.<p>3) After a certain amount of time Tech Crunch becomes unhealthy for you. It portrays an extremely unrealistic view of startups, companies, and success. And ingores everything else. Because failure is a journey that can lead to success and all things by default fail, glorifying success is damaging to entrepreneurs. TC is great for initial motivation but afterwords if you don't let go of it you'll start to take on its unhealthy attitude towards business. It's like getting a 12 year old fashion loving girl a subscription to Vogue, it might be encouraging at first but if she falls in too deep she'll start taking on Vogue's obsessions. Before you know it she'll be 40 pounds underweight, with bleached blonde hair, and $12,000 worth of shoes.<p>4) TC over-rewards VC funded startups and ignores inventors, designers, hackers, projects, bootstrapping, and non web businesses. To Techcrunch, success is getting funded or acquired. It focuses on the end-product not the journey. And for entreprenuers that's just a trap for perpetual day-dreaming. Fantasizing about success without ever working towards it.<p>5) TC is also a status symbol and oligarchy. OMG you got on TC!!! Holy Shit you're going to get so many users and VCs are going to call you and your server might crash... Piss off Arrington and you'll never be on TC. To be on Tech Crunch means you have been approved and accepted by an elite group of Silicon Valley journalists who can make you famous. Once Arrington &#38; friends left after the AOL aquisition there was no more elite group to seek validation and fame from. TC went downhill in popularity and visitors.<p>I feel like TC was initially designed for investors with its generic "who got funded" articles but was later re-purposed as a lifestyle glorifier. Which lead to a jump in traffic, Arrington becoming the Godfather of Silicon Valley reporting. And TC transitioned into a fame-machine. Got acquired by AOL. Arrington left, friends followed. No more elites, just a news site now.<p><i>FYI: I left TC long ago when I outgrew it. The initial encouragement wore off &#38; I wasn't getting anything out of it. I've started outgrowing Hacker News as well. I finally dove in, risked $2,000 made my first 2 products, and am selling them on Ebay. <a href="http://www.ebay.com/sch/purplevioletka/m.html?item=330829651471&#38;pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&#38;hash=item4d06fbde0f&#38;rt=nc&#38;_trksid=p2047675.l2562" rel="nofollow">http://www.ebay.com/sch/purplevioletka/m.html?item=330829651...</a> (shameless link) </i>

I stopped reading TC years ago. Was sick of the petulant whining by egomaniacs like Arrington, Tsotsis, and the crown prince of pussies MG Siegler.

The article body doesn't support the headline.<p>A more appropriate title would be the second last line of the post:<p>&#62; It’s good to have context but becoming obsessed and consumed with what TC and other startup blogs and websites report on is problematic.<p>But that would have made the post a whole lot less interesting and click-worthy.

I'll just point out here that nobody holds a gun to people's head and says "Read TechCrunch, or else!" Think about that.<p>Complaining about the content of Techcrunch is akin to complaining about how pornography portrays women. In both cases they are low barrier to entry markets, with a group think driven customer base. TechCrunch is the way it is, because it gets the most page views that way. If it starts deviating off that path into the kind of content 'you' (and by you I mean the critical thoughtful reader) might like, well it is quickly corrected by the connoisseurs of startup porn. TechCrunch has no more control over the editorial direction of the web site than the Government accounting office has over the budget.<p>Phil Lemmons used to run Byte magazine, waaaay back, and it was the 'cool' computer magazine that was above it all. Except it was slipping into becoming a magazine about the IBM PC and its compatibles. I complained, others complained, there was a unity of concern. I got to talk with Phil at the Byte Magazine booth at the Comdex show in Las Vegas and he explained that editorial control was a slippery thing. You could push against the 'bulk' of what people wanted to read but you couldn't push so hard that you left that audience behind, to do so was certain death, so he spent his time putting in enough PC articles to keep the 'bulk' and the other articles to keep the 'faithful'. It was an interesting balancing act.<p>A web site like TechCrunch is in an even more precarious position, people don't even pay to subscribe. So they are very much at risk of losing their readership if they stray too far from what they want. They can try to lead them, but ultimately they are at the mercy of their readers.<p>What this means is that complaining about Techcrunch's Editorial direction is not as powerful as starting your own web site (or patronizing one you like) which is more to your liking.

If he'd read Techcrunch he would have read about Cloudflare and Varnish and other things that keep his site up during HN/Reddit appearances.

Don't read Techcrunch, but still want to keep up with tech news? Try <a href="http://skimfeed.com" rel="nofollow">http://skimfeed.com</a>.<p>You'll get a broad overview of the days tech news, without the fluff or bias of an individual news site.

You've absolutely nailed it!<p>I stopped reading TC a few years ago. However, you made a very interesting point about focusing on your own context and not benchmarking w/ other startups, wise words.

I suspect reading TC and the like satisfies ones entrepreneurial drive through a false sense of being "in the game" and actually leads to less (or no) effort being put into building something. I've noticed this on myself in the past as well as on others that seem so keen to read and share entrepreneurial howtos, know all the dos and donts but ultimately end up being evangelists for entrepreneurship and not taking it up themselves. I stick to HN these days and tend to ignore the various YC stories unless the company in question appears to be doing something cool. OTOH, I'm sure the startup news buzz can be useful in the short term, but I suspect long-term (ab)use of these blogs just bums people out (and leads to anxiety and a feeling of being unfit for the scene if you haven't raised millions and were featured on TC). The focus on funding is also artificial and serves not the hacker but the VCs (it's also more glamorous and fit for pop-culture blogs).

What applies to the OP doesn't apply to everybody. The benefits of reading techcrunch depends on what your interrests are.<p>The reason raising money is such a dominant info is because it is considered as an indirect proof of business soundness. What other objectivable info could be you use for that ?<p>Regarding a problem of focussing and keeping delivering, TechCrunch can't be blamed for that.

I get the feeling that this is a really extreme piece of advice, perhaps made so to make a punchy Hacker News headline (or simply out of being fed up!).<p>I believe that everyone regardless should read widely and as widely as possible, but for entrepreneurs and technologists I believe it is part of the job description, too.<p>Extremes are almost never the right thing. If you're fat, is it best to cut out all fats from your diet? No. If you're info-overloaded, is it best to cut yourself off from the Internet? No. If you're interested in startups, should you read TechCrunch and forget everything else? No!<p>If you're feeling a bit too tied up with keeping-up anxiety from following slightly glorified versions of other startups' progress, is it best to cut yourself from what can be a useful and valuable source of content?<p>I say no - just moderate and keep it broad and wide, like everything else in life.

I stopped reading TC a long time ago for all the reasons mentioned plus their site is so full of widgets, it keeps crashing on my iPad 1 (not a lot of sites accomplish that, well done TC).<p>I also like to avoid Pandodaily as much as possible. Is there a HN extension that can filter out these submissions for me?

They have some great marketing and business guest posts by Mark Suster, James Alutcher, Nir Eyal, and several others. A little entertainment with the occasional insightful post isn't the worst thing. Just ignore the many posts on funding and you won't have AS much distortion.

Stopped reading it awhile ago. It doesn't portray the reality for most startups and tech companies and I think gives the wrong impression that you need to be heavily funded to be successful.

I've been meaning to stop reading TC, but the question is what do I replace it with? Already read th Verge, Ars Technica...found that TechDirty covers a lot about what I'm concerned with

I used to work for a company that got Tech Crunched every few weeks. We had lots of money in funding, but had practically zero traction. And our 'app' was pretty much smoke and mirrors. There were a handful of competitors that I felt had a much better product, yet we were the ones who always had articles on TC... Makes you wonder. I don't work for that company any more, but when I did, I suspected that our CEO was paying TC to promote us, or something of that nature.

I'm reading TechCrunch regularly before entering the startup scene. Nowadays, I'm not reading it like before.<p>TechCrunch may provide misleading information for some. But when you're in a "startup" situation, you know will know what is right and what to believe in.<p>On other side, TechCrunch may mislead you, but they can be a good source of inspiration. They are talking about acquisitions, fundings, and successes. Why not use them as your inspiration? Strive hard, to achieve those.

Reading TC (or any other startup related resource) is kind of procrastination. It's not bad, you get kind of a feeling of the market but usually if just relying on those sources you are too late to the party and it's stops you from doing stuff yourself. You should<p>- do, build stuff 80% of your working day,<p>- meet other likeminded people 15% of your working day,<p>- and read online resources like this one 5% (TC is rather one of the bad ones)

I've stopped reading many of the Aol blogs. HuffPo, TC, Engadget etc., Never liked HuffPo, but I remember Engadget and TC used to be very good.

TC is now just a series of re-written press releases with very little in the way of opinion. The opinion is still there, just to a lesser extent and is camouflaged but all of the other copy they post.<p>I still give it a look every couple of days to make sure I haven't missed anything but I certainly don't value it the same as I used to when the old team were there.

I only read TC when their linkbait titles end up on the frontpage of HN.<p>Stopped following their feed, once I came to the same conclusion as the OP: being overly funded is (almost) the only way to go get featured on TC, these days. The times of roaming the edges of startup-land and posting about the nitty gritty startup struggles are long forgotten.

Those were the days when the news was about the startup itself, not the financial value of it. We are living in a time where companies are valued by their annual turnovers instead of profits. So, totally agree to what he says, don't read TechCrunch. Focus on your startup, the value you provide and the profit you make.

Besides the conflict of interest, I find the fact that a significant portion of their articles are about themselves, or other tech journalists, extremely irritating. Like when a documentary is about the filmaker making the documentary instead of the subject matter.<p>I wish people weren't so obsessed with celebrity.

TechCrunch has mostly good writers, gets many stories first and writes about topics germane to the tech startup community. I'm guessing most of the hate is driven by distrust or dislike of leaders.<p>Raising money is not remotely and end result but is clearly an important milestone for a growing business.

Exactly.<p>A few of my posts on HN on that: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4852081" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4852081</a> <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3538189" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3538189</a> - that was an year ago!

As somebody who's been pretty successful with fundraising, I can relate... the only things that matter are customers and revenue, and fundraising is just one tool to get there. Necessary for some business models, admittedly, but there's many business models you can choose from.

Better yet, read only posts that are useful to you. Often thought leaders, IE Mark Suster, would release some tips on TC and reading them can help you become more successful. New companies may also have services that can give you an advantage.

There is nothing inherently wrong with reading TC - if nothing else, it gives you a better feeling what your vision/goal might be. With that said, what you need NOT to do is follow it blindly. Use it for what it is: a news medium;

"when douglas crockford went to paypal, they churned out their normal thin tosh, but topping it off: thinking java and javascript are the same thing (since been corrected)." - from Chris, one of the commenters.<p>Damn. That's pretty inexcusable!

I don't read TechCrunch because it's not worth reading. It's not helpful to me. It may be helpful to others.<p>Although TC sometimes feels like a tech-tabloid, I do believe it serves a better purpose.

TechCrunch is like People Magazine. Old Arrington was entertaining, but let's be real about it -- it's just a regular news site that hit on some key points for a niche market.

I think the comment should be "don't believe techcrunch" ... rather than "don't read techcrunch"<p>There's a lot of value in keeping a pulse of what's going on. But you need a filter ...

I used to read it when it started.<p>They used to only have about 5 articles a day, and then only post the next day.<p>Once they removed that limit I stopped. I use that filter on most sites except for HN.

I stopped reading it when Mike A got all dramatic and made it all about himself. Haven't gone back but I'd imagine it can't be any worse than it was then.

100% on point.. No one has ever gone down the exact same path your going down. What works might not work again and what never works might work once..

Wrote a Response here -<p><a href="http://statspotting.com/2012/12/read-techcrunch-daily/" rel="nofollow">http://statspotting.com/2012/12/read-techcrunch-daily/</a>

I don't. For a while now. And advise the same.

Are there better alternatives to TC - without drama, fluff etc? Mashable is not good, RWW is just okay.

I boycotted TechCrunch for two reasons: 1) Quality of journalism degraded 2) Michael Arrington sold TC

TC died when AOL bought it (AOL kills all things it touches) and the @Arrington left.

i see at TC as guide for trends , best practices for start ups, of course there will be challenges, it's upto you, how do you want to handle them, blaming TC or not reading TC you will miss few things man!

The only reason I read (skim) TC is to get a feel for what's hot. That's it.

I agree with this so much I upvoted this post before I even read the article

At first, I thought this was someone under the svbtle network. Then I realized it was a lame ripoff wordpress theme. Whats even worse is that a company, obox themes, is selling this ripoff for $60 a copy, and claiming they came up with the clean minimialistic design.

Agreed. 95% of the stories on TC are about fundraising.

but is it not important to know what's happening in your space? How will you move in the right direction or pivot right ?

As recaptcha.net says: stop TC, read books.

My problem with TechCrunch (which I don't read regularly, because reading about unqualified hucksters getting $8-million acq-hire welfare checks for IUsedThisToilet apps is not going to improve my life) is that it seems like an attempt to create the old, broken social regime within the new one. Instead of focusing on <i>potential</i>, it seems to document the whims of these wizard-priests called "venture capitalists" who, as a class, don't seem to be doing better than they would if they selected startups randomly.<p>For example, if you think velvet-rope parties at SxSW are a good thing, you're not a technologist and you don't belong in this century. Technologists want to make the world inclusive and prosperous, not exclusive and shitty.