Evan Williams founded Blogger, Twitter and Medium, and he's perfected the aw-shucks role of a nice, pleasant choir boy CEO. Nevertheless, last week Williams told angelic role model and hero mom Sarah Lacy to "Fuck off," and now he's Bad Bad Leroy Brown, Baddest Man in the Whole Damn Town. In San Francisco, this is what passes for entertainment.
At first I thought this must be a week for hoaxes. First was Troy Hitch, the guy who claims he's going to wear Oculus goggles non-stop for a year, which has to be a prank, especially since he's the guy who makes those "You Suck at Photoshop" videos. Nevertheless, hit the link and see the video, because it's pretty funny. That's him in the photo above.
Over the weekend, Pando fired two of its hardest-hitting editorial staffers, David Sirota and Ted Rall, both nationally syndicated veteran journalists. Sirota recently broke a big story about Chris Christie's administration awarding pension contracts to hedge funds, private equity groups, and venture capital firms whose employees donated to the governor's reelection.
The crookedest little bloghouse in Silicon Valley just hit a new low, it appears: A negative story about Birchbox, a beauty-product site with which Pando shares investors, was deleted shortly after being published. Unfortunately for Pando and the backers it loves so dearly, this is the internet, and nothing ever disappears.
