From Feud-Prone Blogger To Startup Ally: Can Michael Arrington Make The Shift?

Arrington's path from writer to investor is not entirely new; several former journalists, including Michael Moritz and Stewart Alsop, have reinvented themselves as successful venture capitalists. Still, what Arrington is trying to pull off seems like more of a challenge, for reasons of both personality and timing. While blogging rewards speed, critical insight, self-promotion, and head-knocking (all Arrington strong points), funding startups requires a different set of skills. The ability to massage the frayed egos of company founders and patiently advise them as they try to build their companies into the next Facebook -- the business version of nurturing -- can be critical to success. In the coming months many young entrepreneurs will get to decide whether they think Arrington's bag of hammers is likely to work as well at building long-term value for their fledgling companies as it was at securing page views on behalf of his own. (Arrington declined to be interviewed for this article.)

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