"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat".

Now I've got that off my chest, lets get the guns out. 6 million burned over 3 years for 60K in revenue... This is one of the most un-elegant and disgraceful extravagances I've ever seen. But the fun isn't over yet, they are actually having the gal to put the assets (LOL) IP address up for auction starting bid 250K. Now thats funny.

As many have pointed out in the comments the organic traffic is next to nothing, 80% coming from TC. The technology is worthless without the engineers who built it, and to keep 11 employees you need 3 million a year so forget it (someone must have made a fortune!). This fucked company won't make a sale on auction day and the chairs will be sold off from a garage sale on the lawn of the TC office (M.A.'s home).

But why gloat? This is why. M.A has received many such accolades and one has to question is he worthy?:

"The 36-year-old has become one of the most influential people in Silicon Valley. Like a latter-day Henry Blodget, the onetime star Wall Street analyst who helped fuel the late 1990s dot-com frenzy, Mr. Arrington uses his TechCrunch blog to determine the destinies of new start-ups and to fan the flames of the current Internet boom." WSJ.

• Featured on CBS News (again), Technorati 100, Feedster 500, and CNet Top 100 Blogs
• Mentioned in the Wall Street Journal online and print editions on December 7, 2005
• Mentioned in the San Jose Mercury News online and print editions on January 15, 2006
• Discussed at length in the cover story of Business 2.0 magazine (print and online) for September, 2006
• Voted the top blog by Business Week readers in a September 2006 poll
• Featured in the online and print editions of the Wall Street Journal on November 3, 2006
• Featured in a front page story in the San Francisco Chronicle on December 6, 2006
• Written up by the Financial Times in December, 2006
• Named one of the 50 Best Business Blogs by the Times of London in June 2007
• Written up by Wired Magazine in June 2007
• Featured with other blogs in the San Francisco Chronicle’s business section on October 21, 2007

It's unlikely those journals will cover the demise of the 'founder and significant shareholder' of edgeio at all. This one will slip away as a lesson was learned (and it could happen to anyone) category. But could it?

At this point I will refer others to the advice I posted on March 19th, 2007 here: StartUp Maina. Essentially MA headed none of that advice which will increasingly become more haunting to the many other VC backed fucked companies out there as they hit the bottom of their barrels and also make their way over to the deadpool where they belong.

Let this be a lesson to the other fat-cats out there who wish to effectively bully (buy) their way into the top positions, your money will not help you in this arena! The class is at the bottom of the barrel, and very much under the radar that TechCrunch tends to cover!