When I got up this morning before my flight I was shocked to read this announcement at TechCrunch and Daniel’s response. Adam Jackson wrote one of the most reasoned responses with some good advice for Daniel.
I’ve known Daniel Brusilovsky for several years and I work with him as CTO of Teens In Tech Networks. I know he’s a good person and I find it hard to believe he would do this. I’ve heard several conflicting stories and I haven’t talked to Daniel yet, so I don’t know the real story. I’ve also heard from more than one source that it didn’t actually involve a MacBook Air.
I’m not a fan of Michael Arrington or TechCrunch. He loves to create drama (see the CrunchPad/JooJoo). When he has an axe to grind he’ll go out of his way to dig up unfavorable stories about a company and he usually ends up looking more like the Drudge Report than an impartial news source.
I wasn’t too thrilled when Daniel started working for TechCrunch for that reason. I was afraid he’d get caught up in some of Arrington’s drama and that’s exactly what happened.
What he allegedly did was wrong, but he’ll learn from it and move on. It’s not an isolated incident. There have been several Pay Per Post schemes which are very similar to what he supposedly did.