Featured
VC’s Are Livid With Digg: Wanted Cash For Digg “BlackMarket”, Not “More Bongs and Beer”.
New here? Subscribe to my RSS feed so you don't miss a sarcastic thing in tech news
Stoned. Out. Of. Their. Minds.
Captured on film via Brian Caldwell
Today Digg CEO Jay Adelson announced that Digg was getting a new round of funding of almost $30M, which were going to be used for mainly infrastructure purposes, hiring more behind-the-scenes folk, and other innocent, if mundane purchases, with the usual punditry falling for it. Well, it looks like Om Malik’s the only one with the journalistic cajones, and he only got half of the story right.
In an unprecedent interview with an individual who wants to remain anonymous at Highland Capital Partners, it looks like the group leading the Series C funding are “absolutely livid” at these announced decisions, and are threatening to secretly pull the funding if the original agreements aren’t met.
What were the original agreements?
“Look — I don’t know who the fuck Jay and Kev are fooling. They certainly aren’t fooling us. Do you know what the words ‘infrastructure’ and ‘hiring’ actually mean to Jay and Kev? It means ‘bongs’ and ‘weed’. That’s right. They’re going to blow more of our money on good ol’ Mary Jane. Fuck. At first we were, like, ‘fine, whatever’, because Digg’s doing gangbusters. Millions of impressions a month, right? I mean, we’ve outsourced the entire dev and operations team to a couple of guys out of Hyberabad who work for pennys on the dollar. Literally. What do you think our capital outlay is per month? Can you even guess? Its probably around $200. $300 if Jay and Kev want to go out for lunch a few times in a month when the ‘munchies’ are out of control. That’s not millions or thousands. That’s hundreds. Kev and Jay fuck around with the rest.”
The source went on to reveal where the actual source of the money was meant to go, which was to legitimize the current black market system of paid digging.
“Look, we’ve done our homework. Do you know how much money crosses hands every day in the Digg blackmarket? About $1.6 million dollars. Mr.Babyman, MSaleem, Maki, I could go on. The top 100 motherfuckers are absolutely raking it in. More lucrative than selling coke, actually. Its hard to imagine these guys are getting paid in sums that would make Spielberg cry. And for what? pressing ’submit’ a bunch of times, with their little index fingers.”
“All we want to do is get a cut of that. 20% tops. Make it above board. Let everyone have a chance to be the next ‘Ars Technica’ or ‘Cracked’ if they have the cash — and boy do those guys have the cash. Did you know Arrington barely breaks even on what he has to pay these guys? I heard those new guys he has writing blog posts like that Jason Biggs and Don Reisinger are just interns with titles.”
“I’m digressing. Anyway, this is our thinking: pushing the black market into the open is just democratic, right? Its like when Overture tried to change the game with paid search. Everyone got their panties into a knot with crap like ‘oh, you’re ruining the purity of search results’. Google took the lessons learned from Overture and ate them for lunch. GOOGLE. We could take Digg and make it paid social news. Look, I’m not saying we could be the next Google, but yes. If we could just get out of our own fucking way, then yes. We could be the next fucking Google, and fuck getting acquired.”
“Sorry for the language, but there’s an incredible amount of frustration at Highland Partners. We have an incredible opportunity to take the lead and revolutionize the social news sector again. Instead what do we have? Fuckin Cheech and Chong at the helm with their fuckin’ ‘keywords’ and inside language. Do you know they actually mean they say ‘we need a business analyst and a user-interface designer?’ In Digg-speak that means ‘we need a blow-job and fresh underwear’.”
“Christ, we have a fight with these guys every week about small stuff like this, and we thought we had an agreement with this new level of funding. Then Jay goes and calls a press conferences and basically tells everyone that he and Kev are going to be using the money for new bongs, more weed, a ton of premium imported beer, and that every girl in the Valley is welcome to this awesome party at his place later tonight to make home-made porno’s for Revision3. Oh, he didn’t announce that? Yeah, Revision3 is going blue next January. 100% home-made porn.”
“We could be changing the face of paid and social news, but this … this is what we have to deal with.”
Tags: Highland Capital Partners, Jay Adelson, Kevin Rose, Maki, Michael Arrington, Mr.BabyMan, Muhammad Saleem, Om Malik, Venture Capital Discussion
2 comments for “VC’s Are Livid With Digg: Wanted Cash For Digg “BlackMarket”, Not “More Bongs and Beer”.”
Post a comment
[...] taking extra money, which might explain some of the money. Tek Populi takes the piss with “VC’s Are Livid With Digg: Wanted Cash For Digg BlackMarket, Not More Bongs and Beer,” and although it’s tongue in cheek, there are questions raised that should be [...]
Personally I don’t believe it for a second. Someone is just trying to tarnish their name. I believe there is bongs and weed, but not on the company books. They aren’t idiots, but they are living breathing human beings who will very occasionally have spare time and a personality. I think some individuals are trying to take the character of their percieved outside lifes and mix it in with their business lifes.
The instigators of this are just a bunch of stuffy, frustrated individuals who feel they would do a much better job at the helm. As they are not in that position they are metaphorically kicking their legs in the air, screaming and pointing fingers. Their end goal is to discredit the founders as being incapable and too immature for the job, but in the act of doing so they are the ones who are revealing their own pettiness.