Thank you for this post. I lack the legal background (direct or indirect) to articulate what you have as well as you have.
My point, which was basically what your point is, is that the timeline looks very much like Arrington was positioning for the AOL sale and thus was (arguably) misrepresenting his position in dealings such as dissolving the TC50 conference.
Arrington claims he offered 10% of TC to Jason in 2008. That's interesting because it's a de facto admission that Jason did add value to TechCrunch (or, more accurately, the partnership for TC50 did).
So if the offer of 10% was made, the question becomes: was that a fair offer? Look at it this way: if TC generates $10 million revenue a year but $6 million of that comes from the TC50 conference (these are all made up numbers), then a 50% share in that conference is worth at least 30%, possibly more depending on the profit rather than revenue split.
Arrington's post is very calculated. It basically places all the blame on Jason. Nothing is ever that clearcut so that's what I mean when I say there is a real stink to this post.
Not that I blame Arrington for not being impartial. For something that may end in litigation you don't want to give away anything before you start. He's a lawyer. He knows this. It's why I'm somewhat surprised that he made this post at all since any good lawyer would normally tell you "say nothing".
It makes me think the real audience for this post was AOL.
My point, which was basically what your point is, is that the timeline looks very much like Arrington was positioning for the AOL sale and thus was (arguably) misrepresenting his position in dealings such as dissolving the TC50 conference.
Arrington claims he offered 10% of TC to Jason in 2008. That's interesting because it's a de facto admission that Jason did add value to TechCrunch (or, more accurately, the partnership for TC50 did).
So if the offer of 10% was made, the question becomes: was that a fair offer? Look at it this way: if TC generates $10 million revenue a year but $6 million of that comes from the TC50 conference (these are all made up numbers), then a 50% share in that conference is worth at least 30%, possibly more depending on the profit rather than revenue split.
Arrington's post is very calculated. It basically places all the blame on Jason. Nothing is ever that clearcut so that's what I mean when I say there is a real stink to this post.
Not that I blame Arrington for not being impartial. For something that may end in litigation you don't want to give away anything before you start. He's a lawyer. He knows this. It's why I'm somewhat surprised that he made this post at all since any good lawyer would normally tell you "say nothing".
It makes me think the real audience for this post was AOL.