I’ve had a lot of questions following yesterdays announcement, and I’ve tried to respond to all of them where I can (the direct ones anyway, haven’t worked through the comments yet). Ed Sutherland at Problogging News wanted to interview me so I responded to his questions; there was a slightly odd angle but I never gave it a second though, and it resulted in this post.
I’m don’t hate it, but his angle seems to be trying to whip up some scandal or controversy where there really isn’t one.
For the record here’s my actual responses to Ed, you’d note the how the full response wasn’t used and instead bits were picked: fair call I guess reporting wise.
Hi Duncan,
Since you’ve left TC, I had a few questions for a piece I’m writing at PBN.
Michael Arrington kiddingly said Inquistr will compete with TC – will it? Or, do TC bloggers agree to some sort of non-compete?
He was joking. Only completely insane people think they can compete with TC, besides that the site isn’t strictly tech, it’s pop culture and odd/ funny stories as well. I was essentially a contractor as opposed to an employee, so no, I’ve never signed a non-compete, the full time staff may have non-competes, to be honest I don’t know.
Do you know who will fill your shoes at TC? Schonfeld is the most recent addition, but Arrington and a few other bloggers are writing there now.
Jason Kincaid started just before I tendered my resignation a month ago, he’s young and still a little raw but he has a lot of potential. I’m not sure what Michael’s plans are in terms of hiring someone else: when I started I was the only f/t writer besides Michael (Nick Gonzales did write, but he also did tech/ coding for TC as well), and now there’s Mark, Jason and Erick, and a couple of occasional guest writers (including me).
Is TC like Gawker in that there is base pay plus advances based on traffic bloggers generate?
Not at all. I was always paid a flat rate per month irrespective of the traffic. There’s obviously a culture that encourages success, be that with traffic, Digg mentions, Techmeme, even Yahoo Buzz and Yahoo itself (I managed a story on the front page of Yahoo once, insane). Michael has always had a strong emphasis on quality and originality: sure, the site covers major news that others are covering, but if you watch it carefully you’ll see it still covers startups other people haven’t covered, it still covers funding announcements first, and it still breaks a lot of news.
