Nah. This is why Arrington got hired in the first place.

Notice there was little criticism of the AOL Way on Techcrunch. That sort of thing gets you fired. This just drives pageviews, lets Arrington act the bad boy, and actually make AOL look like a laidback company with typical HR rules.

Come on didn't you laugh while you read that piece? Don't you think the people at AOL have a sense of humor? I hope so. What would be really cool is if TechCrunch really opened up on AOL on something substantial, not the fact that they drink.

He was opening up on the fact that they routinely break their own rules.

And yes, it was a pretty funny piece. But it also joins a long list of posts that are markedly different from the TechCrunch of yesteryear, where we just read about new and interesting startups. Instead we get to read about Aol's drinking festivals and Sarah Lacy's in-flight movies.

I hate to come off as anti-change, but there was a certain excitement from reading TechCrunch circa 2006 that simply isn't there today. Perhaps it's a reflection of the Internet startup scene as a whole: more mature and more dominated by the big guys.

Knowing Arrington, it wouldn't surprise me he is actually trying to get fired.

I believe he is. There's a chance he has a clause in his contract that gives him him a payout in the event that he gets let go without cause (and firing him for being an annoying reporter probably isn't just cause). Remember, this is the same guy who moved to Seattle right before being acquired (Seattle being a state where he can avoid state taxation on his income).

In any even, it's in Ms. Huffington's hands now.

The fact that Arianna Huffington is Arrington's boss is a source of endless mirth to me.

The same way how he constantly publicly proclaims on TC that he doesn't know why he still pays Paul Carr to write for their site.... and then continues to pay Paul Carr to write for their site.

It's called trolling for pageviews.