Jason Calacanis writes an e-mail to his subscriber list on the Mahalo lay-offs and gives some advice on handling lay-offs in general. TechCrunch has the whole e-mail but here's the header (bold by me)...
Location: Mahalo HQ, Santa Monica, CA
Wednesday, October 22nd, 6:10PM PST.
Word Count: 3,381
Jason’s List Subscriber Count: 8,889
List management: http://tinyurl.com/jasonslist
Message type: Startups
Forwarding instructions: startups, VCs
Republishing: PLEASE DO NOT REPRINT
At first I just thought it was funny until I saw this in the comments...
Doesn’t it specifically say not to republish it on the web?
Followed by this reply from TechCrunch's Erick Schonfeld
I don’t work for Jason Calacanis.
Wow...that's...wow.
Now for those who don't know Jason Calacanis and TechCrunch have a friendly relationship. Mr. Calacanis was a co-sponser of TechCruch50 and he seems to have a friendly relationship with TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington.
Given that I have to say If this is how TechCrunch treats its friends, God help its enemies.
On the broader point you really have to wonder about this type of thing. A society functions on the respect it's members have for each other. Mr. Arrington claims to be a Libertarian in his political bent which is a philosophy built around the idea that Government doesn't need to enforce moral rules because people themselves can be trusted to do so. When the employee of a libertarian is so quick to dismiss the explicitly stated wishes of another it makes me wonder if we can expect anyone to respect others.
Don't get me wrong, as sins go, this is pretty light. Mr. Calacanis sends this e-mail to a little under 9,000 people so it isn't like it was a secret. But the blatant nature of the disrespect is still a little surprising.
Addendum...Mr. Schonfeld posts this defense in the comments of the TechCrunch thread....
It wasn’t an easy thing to do. I like Jason and am conflicted, frankly. We are partners on the TC50 conference, which we worked together closely on.
But ultimately my responsibility is not to my friends, colleagues, or sources. It is to you, the people who read TechCrunch.
Is this news? Yes. Is it relevant? Yes. I really had no choice but to post. Jason is a publisher. He should understand that. And I hope you do too.
Honestly, to my eyes that doesn't hold a lot of weight. If that logic were followed by reporters it would be impossible for anyone to speak off the record to them. There has to be a difference between private and public communication.