Michael Arrington

Last updated

J. Michael Arrington
Mike Arrington, founder of TechCrunch.jpg
Arrington at the World Economic Forum
Born
Jack Michael Arrington [1]

(1970-03-13) March 13, 1970 (age 54) [1]
Orange, California, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
Occupation(s)Blogger, entrepreneur
Website TechCrunch

J. Michael Arrington (born March 13, 1970) is the American founder and former co-editor of TechCrunch, a blog covering the Silicon Valley technology start-up communities and the wider technology field in America and elsewhere. Magazines such as Wired and Forbes have named Arrington one of the most powerful people on the Internet. [2] [3] In 2008, he was selected by TIME Magazine as one of the most influential people in the world. [4]

Contents

Biography

Born in Huntington Beach, California, Arrington grew up in Huntington Beach and Surrey, England. He attended the University of California, Berkeley for his freshman year and graduated from Claremont McKenna College with a major in economics. [5] He went on to Stanford Law School and graduated in 1995. He practiced corporate and securities law at O'Melveny & Myers and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.[ citation needed ]

Arrington left the practice of law to join RealNames, which failed after raising $100 million. [3] Arrington was co-founder of Achex, an internet payments company, which was sold to First Data Corp for US$32 million and is now the back end of Western Union online. "I made enough to buy a Porsche. Not much more," he said in 2007. [3]

His other entrepreneurial endeavors include co-founding Zip.ca and Pool.com, acting as chief operating officer for Razorgator, and founding Edgeio. He has also served on the board of directors at the startup Foldera, which was designing a software as a service organizational tool. [6]

He identifies as a libertarian, saying, "I just see government as this thing that stops us from doing things." [7]

Michael Arrington with Chamillionaire Chamillionaire and Michael Arrington.jpg
Michael Arrington with Chamillionaire

In 2013, he was accused of physical abuse by an ex-girlfriend. Arrington sued the woman for defamation and she agreed to retract her accusations against him and apologize. [5] [8]

TechCrunch

Arrington rose to internet prominence with his Silicon Valley blog, TechCrunch. TechCrunch covers internet startups and news. In early September 2011, Arrington was reported to be no longer employed by TechCrunch but associated with a new investment company, AOL Ventures. [9] Within days, it was being reported that he was no longer associated with AOL Ventures. [10]

In October 2012, Arrington returned to writing for the Tech Crunch blog. [11]

CrunchFund

In 2011, Arrington founded a venture capital firm called CrunchFund along with M. G. Siegler and Patrick Gallagher.[ citation needed ] In 2014, CrunchFund invested in BlueFly, an online retailer, which was bought, in May 2013, by affiliates of Clearlake Capital for US$13 million. [12] As a result of CrunchFund's investment, former BlueFly CEO Melissa Payner returned to BlueFly. [13]

CrunchPad

In July 2008, Arrington started a project called the Crunchpad, over a year before the iPad was released. The Crunchpad was meant to be an affordable tablet computer that catered to a niche between desktop computers and laptops. However, disputes arose between Arrington and the developers he had chosen for the Crunchpad. The developers broke off from Arrington and released the device on their own but it received few sales, [14] and the developers later went bankrupt. [15]

Arrington Capital

In November 2017, Michael Arrington announced he was starting a $100 million hedge fund. The fund would be denominated in the cryptocurrency XRP, also known as Ripple. It was reported to be the first fund denominated in a cryptocurrency, rather than US dollars or Euros at the time. [16] The fund has invested in more than 50 crypto startups. [17]

Related Research Articles

Benchmark is a venture capital firm founded in 1995 by Bob Kagle, Bruce Dunlevie, Andy Rachleff, Kevin Harvey, and Val Vaden.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jason Calacanis</span> American businessman

Jason McCabe Calacanis is an American Internet entrepreneur, angel investor, author and podcaster.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TechCrunch</span> American technology news website

TechCrunch is an American global online newspaper focusing on topics regarding high-tech and startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare.

<i>Desktop Tower Defense</i> 2007 video game

Desktop Tower Defense is a Flash-based tower defense browser game created by Paul Preece in March 2007. The game had been played over 15.7 million times as of July 2007, and was one of Webware 100's top ten entertainment web applications of 2007. Desktop Tower Defense is available in an English, Spanish, German, French, or Italian interface. In May 2009, a commercial Nintendo DS version became available.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Songza</span> Free music streaming and recommendation service

Songza was a free music streaming and recommendation service for Internet users in the United States and Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matt Cohler</span> American venture capitalist

Matt Cohler is an American venture capitalist. He worked as Vice President of Product Management for Facebook until June 2008 and was formerly a general partner at Benchmark. Cohler has been named to the Forbes Midas List of top technology investors and in 2019 was named to the New York Times and CB Insights list of top 10 venture capital investors. Cohler made the Forbes 'America's 40 Richest Entrepreneurs Under 40' list in 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">JooJoo</span> 2010 Linux tablet computer by Fusion Garage

The JooJoo was a Linux-based tablet computer. It was produced by Singapore development studio Fusion Garage. Originally, Fusion Garage was working with Michael Arrington to release it as the CrunchPad, but in November 2009 Fusion Garage informed Arrington it would be selling the product alone. Arrington has responded by filing a lawsuit against Fusion Garage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chris Dixon</span> American tech entrepreneur, investor

Chris Dixon is an American internet entrepreneur and investor. He is a general partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, and previously worked at eBay. He is also the co-founder and former CEO of Hunch. He was #1 on the Midas List in 2022. Dixon is known as a cryptocurrency and Web3 evangelist.

Crunchbase is a company that provides information about businesses. Their content includes investment and funding information, individuals in leadership positions, and corporate news.

DAG Ventures is an American venture capital firm based in Palo Alto, California. DAG Ventures works with startups in providing early stage and growth stage funding. Since its founding in 2004, by Tom Goodrich and John Cadeddu, the firm has backed nearly 180 ventures, including Ambarella Inc., Armo Biosciences, Eventbrite, Fireeye, Glassdoor, Grubhub, Nextdoor, Wealthfront, Wix.com, Yelp, and Zettle.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brad Garlinghouse</span> American businessman

Bradley Kent Garlinghouse is the CEO of financial technology company Ripple Labs. He previously was the CEO and chairman of Hightail. Before Hightail, he worked at AOL and Yahoo!

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Listia</span> Online goods trading app

Listia is a free online marketplace and mobile app for trading goods between individuals without using money. The platform has a system known as Listia credits to facilitate the trades. Users earn credits for giving away items they no longer need and can then use credits to get items that other users have listed. The marketplace uses an auction system where users bid on each other's items until the auction ends and the highest bidder wins. The user who listed the item then arranges for a pickup or ships the item directly to the winner.

Andreessen Horowitz is a private American venture capital firm, founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. The company is headquartered in Menlo Park, California. As of April 2023, Andreessen Horowitz ranks first on the list of venture capital firms by assets under management, with $42 billion as of May 2024.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Path (social network)</span> Social network

Path was a social networking-enabled photo sharing and messaging service for mobile devices that was launched on 14 November 2010. The service allowed users to share up to a total of 50 contacts with their close friends and family. Based in San Francisco, California, the company was founded by Shawn Fanning and former Facebook executive Dave Morin.

about.me is a personal web hosting service co-founded by Ryan Freitas, Tony Conrad and Tim Young in October 2009. The site offers registered users a simple platform from which to link multiple online identities, relevant external sites, and popular social networking websites such as Facebook, Flickr, and Google+. AOL acquired the site in December 2010. The company remained at AOL for a little over twenty-five months.

Geoffrey Arone is an American blockchain investor and advisor.

Floodgate Fund is a venture capital firm based in the United States created by Mike Maples Jr. and Ann Miura-Ko. It was originally named Maples Investments, but was renamed Floodgate Fund in March 2010. It is focused on investments in technology companies in Silicon Valley.

Ripple Labs, Inc. is an American technology company which develops the Ripple payment protocol and exchange network. Originally named Opencoin and renamed in 2015, the company was founded in 2012 and is based in San Francisco, California.

Amit Kapur is an American-born internet entrepreneur. He is currently the co-founder and CEO of WhoCo, a technology company focused on hiring and recruiting. He is best known as co-founder of technology start-up Gravity and as the former chief operating officer at MySpace.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arjun Sethi (entrepreneur)</span> American entrepreneur, investor and executive

Arjun Sethi is an American internet entrepreneur, investor and executive. He is co-founder and partner at venture capital firm Tribe Capital. He previously was partner at Social Capital and served as an executive at Yahoo! where he launched Yahoo! Livetext. Before that, he was co-founder and CEO of MessageMe and he was CEO of Lolapps, the developer behind Ravenwood Fair. In December 2023, he became Tribe Capital's chairman and CIO.

References

  1. 1 2 California Births, 1905–1995, Jack M. Arrington
  2. ↑ Ewalt, David M. "In Pictures: The Web Celeb 25". Forbes . Archived from the original on 30 July 2012. Retrieved 28 June 2012.
  3. 1 2 3 Fred Vogelstein (June 22, 2007). "TechCrunch Blogger Michael Arrington Can Generate Buzz ... and Cash". Wired . Retrieved 28 June 2012.
  4. ↑ Huffington, Arianna (12 May 2008). "The 2008 TIME 100: Michael Arrington". Time . Archived from the original on May 2, 2008. Retrieved 28 June 2012.
  5. 1 2 Potter, Maximillian (October 31, 2013). "Relationship Status: Call My Lawyer". Vanity Fair . Archived from the original on May 8, 2022. Retrieved May 8, 2022.
  6. ↑ Gonzalez, Nick (2007-06-29). "Foldera Launches Public Beta with V 3.0 | TechCrunch". TechCrunch . Retrieved 2022-05-16.
  7. ↑ DePillis, Lydia (2013-05-06). "Mark Zuckerberg's Cynical, Necessary Washington Strategy". The New Republic . Retrieved 2013-05-07.
  8. ↑ Wingfield, Nick (2014-06-27). "Michael Arrington Drops Suit After Rape Accuser Recants". New York Times . Retrieved 2016-07-27.
  9. ↑ Henry Blodget (2011-09-02). "ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: Mike Arrington Is Out At TechCrunch". Business Insider. Retrieved 2012-08-08.
  10. ↑ CNNMoney Archived 2011-09-26 at the Wayback Machine , "Arrington out at AOL (For real this time)" by Dan Primack, September 7, 2011
  11. ↑ Jay Kirscht (October 23, 2012). "Arrington (Also MG) Returns". Tech Crunch.
  12. ↑ Karr, Arnold J. (12 February 2014). "Bluefly Gets CrunchFund Investment". WWD. Retrieved 12 February 2014.
  13. ↑ Arnold J. Karr and Rachel Brown (13 February 2014). "Melissa Payner Rejoins Bluefly as CrunchFund Invests". WWD. Retrieved 13 February 2014.
  14. ↑ "JooJoo tablet gets just 90 pre-orders". Electronista (MNM Media, LLC). 2010-03-30. Archived from the original on 2010-04-02. Retrieved 2010-04-02. PayPal documents discovered today as part of the ongoing TechCrunch lawsuit against Fusion Garage have revealed that just 90 pre-orders were submitted before the JooJoo tablet began shipping last week. ... The actual honored pre-orders were even lower as 15 of the orders were cancelled and refunded, although this didn't include pre-orders for the last few weeks before the March 25th ship date.
  15. ↑ "Fusion Garage sinks into liquidation, owes creditors some $40 million". Engadget. 2012-01-09. Retrieved 2015-11-03.
  16. ↑ "Michael Arrington Has a New $100M Hedge Fund That Will Be Valued in Ripple's XRP". Fortune. Retrieved 2020-05-26.
  17. ↑ "Portfolio". Arrington XRP Capital. 2018-03-06. Retrieved 2020-05-26.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.