Here’s an interesting tidbit about Aol that’s being whispered around Silicon Valley – Aol is working with recruiting behemoth Spencer Stuart to hire a new business lead for the Huffington Post Media Group. The executive will report to Aol CEO Tim Armstrong, apparently, not Huffington.
Currently Arianna Huffington runs both the business and editorial sides of the group. Running a business is fairly new to her. Before the Aol Acquisition Eric Hippeau was the CEO, but he resigned just before the Aol deal was closed.
Aol exec Jon Brod ran the business after the acquisition, as COO of the group. But a dispute with Huffington led to a reassignment for Brod, who currently runs Patch at Aol.
By far the most interesting part of all this, though, is it’s not clear that Arianna Huffington is aware that the new position will report to Tim Armstrong, not Huffington.
Whatever happens, I’m pretty sure I won’t be getting my old job back.
Uncrunched 
politics at the work place eh? let’s see how long the new hire stays at his/her desk.
You should always be practicing your interviewing skills, even if you’re not in love with the position.
I wish you would come back! The edge that I used to love from TC is no longer prevalent….and as much as I enjoy your new blog, I feel like you posted more frequently on TC.
The edge is still sort of there, but the single biggest thing that’s missing is a rapport with the readership. I got used to Arrington’s occasionally abrasive style and regularly looked forward to Paul Carr’s articles as crass as he was about, well, *everything*. The reason I looked forward to these articles has less to do with the content than it did with my familiarity with the author, knowing what to expect in their writing style / opinions, and a general sense of “getting to know them”. Now, with what seems like every single AOL employee having author permissions on the blog, I’m not inclined to allow an author the privilege of sharing their opinion with me if I don’t know who the fuck you are.
That’s whats missing, IMHO, and I read TC a LOT less these days because of it.
I honestly couldn’t have said that better myself, Brian. That’s exactly my opinion of TC since Arrington left, too.
The Only posts I read on TC now are those by Seigler (yeah, Im an Apple Fanboi too).
Mike I agree techcrunch is not the same without you, it has now become jus another standard tech blog. It has lost its edge. However, I understand that blogging is now a hobby instead of a job. Please take a look at my new blog http://www.legendarymoves.com and tell me what you think. It is mean to give the reader a view into my path from idea to startup to next great tech company. I am also blogging about some web 2.0 observations as well.
Yeah, I’m afraid Techcrunch has become a pretty boring place since you left.. 😦
just curious how has techcrunch been doing traffic wise after the whole arrington/mg/carr/lacey fiasco. i know in the short term it must have sky rocketed…but after all the dust settled ?
Getting your old job back? What sort of remark is that? Didn’t you sell your company? Did anyone force you to? Dude. Move on and get a life, already. Stop selfishly undermining Erick.
@Etrigan With this little news MIke might be looking to get Group President position or happy to see Arianna’s position 🙂
To be clear – is the implication that Arianna is potentially being quietly sidelined?
… what do you think?
AOL top guys knew what they were going to do with both, TC and HuffPost, before they acquired them and, of course, with Michael and Arianna.
They bought the business and money-making potential, not “celebrities.”
Mike has an enormous following and he can create a very, very successful blog again…
Agreed, buying communities built around personalities, then disposing of those personalities doesn’t seem like a great business model.
FYI http://seekingalpha.com/article/313803-the-big-lie-killing-aol
The problem with AOL, as a company, is that the 1% get what they want and the rest pound sand.
Mike, I am not trying to spam your wall here, but I saw alot of traffic from my last comment so I decided to make another one. I recently wrote an article on what it feels like to be a King without a Crown, or a businessman without any programming abilities: http://legendarymoves.com/?p=125
bring mike back to tech crunch!!