<story><title>Inside Nick Denton&apos;s phony, hypocritical class war against tech workers</title><url>http://pando.com/2013/12/26/look-whos-gawking-inside-nick-dentons-phony-hypocritical-class-war-against-tech-workers/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>throwaway_yy2Di</author><text>This is a long and very entertaining read. If you want to skip to the main accusation of hypocrisy, it is:&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    Speaking of facts: While presenting itself as the champion
    of the working classes, the fact is Dentons Gawker empire is
    guilty of almost every crime it accuses the tech industry of
    committing, and several it doesnt. Denton, who now
    encourages others to sneer at Silicon Valleys elite social
    clubs, made his own millions as co-founder of First Tuesday,
    an elite social club which spanned Europe during the first
    dot com boom. While crying foul at the off-shore tax dodging
    of San Francisco tech companies, Gawker Media is registered
    in the Cayman Islands to avoid paying US taxes, an
    arrangement which the New Yorker described as like an
    international money-laundering operation. As Valleywag howls
    that Google interns earn more than you, Gawker Media is
    currently the subject of a class action lawsuit over its
    earlier refusal to pay its own interns a dime for their
    labour. And how about Valleywags mockery of lavish Silicon
    Valley workplaces? Why not ask Denton about that when you
    visit his steampunk office, featuring a lounge area that
    looks like its straight out of the blue pill&amp;#x2F;red pill scene
    in The Matrix, an office surfboard and a rooftop party deck?
    Business Insider claims its one of the 15 coolest offices in
    tech. And while youre there, make sure to also ask him about
    Gawkers Privilege Tournament, a smug little contest in which
    Gawker readers were invited to vote on which underprivileged
    group (choices include: black, blind, transgender, people
    with AIDS, the homeless, overeducated, and fat) should win
    by virtue of its sweet, sweet moral superiority  or as
    Salons Katrina Richardson called the tournament: a
    shamefully racist, sexist, homophobic and classist attempt
    to silence large swaths of people.&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Inside Nick Denton&apos;s phony, hypocritical class war against tech workers</title><url>http://pando.com/2013/12/26/look-whos-gawking-inside-nick-dentons-phony-hypocritical-class-war-against-tech-workers/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>jmduke</author><text>Jesus, this is scathing.&lt;p&gt;I think in an abstract and idealized sense, stuff like Valleywag serves the tech industry by providing the role of watchman and magnifying glass.  But on a post-by-post basis -- and if you think Paul Carr cherry-picked his examples, go on Valleywag, they&amp;#x27;re pretty much all just awful posts of out-of-context tweets -- it fails that goal tremendously.  Just like Gawker itself, there are occasionally very well-put posts and actual newsbreaking -- they broke the Uber financial data a couple weeks back -- but it&amp;#x27;s hard to hold them in high esteem.&lt;p&gt;On a semi-related note: incredibly glad that HN auto-kills Valleywag links.</text></comment>