In the “best entrepreneur gossip blog post” of the day category, Alan Meckler and the guys from LightReading.com give a public example of the issues in the intellectual exchange that Tom Evslin and I had around Serial Monogamy and No Shop Agreements.
Alan bitterly congratulates the LightReading.com guys for their sale to CMP for $30 million. He then goes on to say how the LightReading founders shafted him out of a deal to invest in the company after he “helped create it.” His feelings are obvious when he ends with ‘Stephen and Peter obviously made the right choice in being dishonest.”
The comments are interesting, especially #7 by Stephen Saunders, the President or LightReading. He challenges and clarifies all of Alan’s assertions, including the offer for investment (which Stephen claims was crappy – and different than the terms Alan claims (I’d love to see that term sheet) which is why they didn’t take it) and the amount of time that Alan spent with them (15 minutes vs. Alan’s claim of hours of time).
Now – I have no clue what the truth is, nor am I interested in taking sides. Alan tries to have the last word (it is his blog after all) and states that he’d rather be tarred with sour grapes than dishonesty. Of course, anyone can assert that anyone else is dishonest, so a data point of one from the accuser is a weak tarring.
Nonetheless, this is a great example of the issue Tom and I cross-blogged about.