How Did TechCrunch Start After a Sale Paid Almost Nothing?

Michael Arrington started TechCrunch in 05 after quitting a job and taking a year off. He lived in an apartment on the strand in Manhattan Beach while a girlfriend worked, and he spent the year surfing, playing video games, and eating burritos. The break followed a company he had started and sold. The sale doubled investor money, and he said he did not make any money himself.

He had taken 17 and a half million in investment and sold the company for 35 million. A two X liquidation preference applied back then. He got 150 grand, paid so he would not veto the deal, and bought a Porsche Boxster. He then moved to England and sat in a garage for 10 years.

When he needed a job, the read write web was replacing static webpages with pages a person could interact with and create content on, like a Google doc. Very few places covered the new startups, so he started a blog and posted his research. The first TechCrunch articles were formatted and had no opinion: company name, product description, and fundraising to date.