There are some headlines making the rounds claiming that TechCrunch is “pulling out of Europe” and shuttering its coverage of European startups. This is
Catherine Shu, a senior reporter at Techcrunch between 2012 and 2024, wrote on Linkedin that she was “shocked by the cruelty of making a post like this weeks after laying off the entire Europe team”.
Robin Wauters, who worked at Techcrunch between 2008 and 2012 and later co-founded Tech.eu, said the site “is, in fact, very much retreating. And it isn’t (and won’t) be doubling down. Benefit of experience is that you can detect that bullshit a mile away… Don’t buy into it, folks.”
John Biggs, editor-at-large at Techcrunch until 2018, wrote: “Europeans: don’t believe this guy. He’s not actually part of TC and he fired literally the best tech/startup news team in the business so he could get cheaper writers. Don’t read their coverage and don’t offer interviews. TC’s value is way down and it will have no material benefit.”
Tech journalist Andrii Degeler said: “To me, the latest update on Techcrunch Europe sounds like classic PE: trying to find ‘synergies’ and ‘efficiencies’ in all the wrong places… Turns out, Regent expects to somehow substitute the European coverage previously done by the in-house team at TC with that of PCWorld, MacWorld, CIO, TechAdvisor, etc.”
Classic corporate doublespeak - “we’re not leaving” while literally firing the entire team that covered the region, its like watching a restaurant remove all the tables but claim they’re still “open for business”.
Some comments on the TC statement can be found here:
https://pressgazette.co.uk/news/techcrunch-owner-says-he-is-doubling-down-on-europe-after-staff-axed/
Some excerpts:
Catherine Shu, a senior reporter at Techcrunch between 2012 and 2024, wrote on Linkedin that she was “shocked by the cruelty of making a post like this weeks after laying off the entire Europe team”.
Robin Wauters, who worked at Techcrunch between 2008 and 2012 and later co-founded Tech.eu, said the site “is, in fact, very much retreating. And it isn’t (and won’t) be doubling down. Benefit of experience is that you can detect that bullshit a mile away… Don’t buy into it, folks.”
John Biggs, editor-at-large at Techcrunch until 2018, wrote: “Europeans: don’t believe this guy. He’s not actually part of TC and he fired literally the best tech/startup news team in the business so he could get cheaper writers. Don’t read their coverage and don’t offer interviews. TC’s value is way down and it will have no material benefit.”
Tech journalist Andrii Degeler said: “To me, the latest update on Techcrunch Europe sounds like classic PE: trying to find ‘synergies’ and ‘efficiencies’ in all the wrong places… Turns out, Regent expects to somehow substitute the European coverage previously done by the in-house team at TC with that of PCWorld, MacWorld, CIO, TechAdvisor, etc.”
Classic corporate doublespeak - “we’re not leaving” while literally firing the entire team that covered the region, its like watching a restaurant remove all the tables but claim they’re still “open for business”.
Thank you for sharing that. It’s good to know.