Oliver Starr leaves blognation; Says Sethi never paid him

blognation USA » Blog Archive » An Open Letter to Sam Sethi

Oliver Starr writes an Open Letter in Blognation to Sam Sethi, owner of Blognation, accusing Sam of not paying him or any other of the network of talented blogger-journalists that have joined Sam. You may recall that less than a year ago, Techcrunch's Mike Arrington fired Sam during the post-Les Web 3 firestorm in which Mike accused Sam of keeping funds that belonged to TechCrunch.

Oliver subsequently left TechCrunch and joined Blognation. Between these two controversies, Sam also got accused of having also stolen the Blognation name.

This is an ugly story. It is hard enough for a serious blogger to get any compensation, as I well know.  But to have worked for it and not received what you've earned that really sucks. Sam has not yet replied. It will be interesting to see how he explains this one.


Technorati Tags: oliver starr, sam sethi, mike arrington, blognation, techcrunch

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Comments

[James Tippins]

Shel,

It will be interesting to see how this one unfolds. Thanks for the coverage.

[Sam Sethi]

Shel

A number of facts need to be corrected in your post. Much of what you wrote is blogsphere fiction and gossip.

1.I resigned - Mike never fired me on matter of principal.

2.I never stole any money and Arrington knows that as he claimed it from the sponsors. In fact Mike never paid me and still owes me expenses.

3. All the editors knew coming in that the project was seeking funding and would only be paid once we got the funding. That has taken 6 weeks longer than we planned. They will all be paid in full and we will funds in place to trade through to profitability so I guess this short term gain will disappear very soon.

4. I never stole the blognation.com domain. Odd given the owner Tristan is part of the blognation management team.

So please could you correct this post because apart from this is ugly there is little or no actual fact.

And yet I am truly sorry that the editors have had to endure this longer period of fund raising causing them to not being paid as expected. I had the same experience with Arrington and never intended to replicate that but it has happened and all of the remaining editors who were not fired from blognation know directly from the VC's when they expect to be paid and it is before xmas and imminent.

I wish that this dirty laundry never came out publically, it is hard enough building a global startup from scratch in less than 6 months with out Arrington and his friends trying to take you down but I guess that is the naked conversation.