Perhaps Arrington trusts his judgement and expects that he would be nice to have around as "another set of eyes" when brainstorming, making decisions, etc. Even if their skillsets and networks are pretty similar, it's often better to have two people than one.

Michael Moritz (Google, Yahoo, Apple, among others) of Sequoia was a reporter.

pattern recognition? My favorite investors were entrepreneurs once, but those that can at least identify attributes of companies that tend to wine can add value.

Trendspotter, Visionary, Pundit. All quite relevant to picking which companies to invest in, I'd say.

Those are important skills for being a VC, I agree. Did reading MG's articles convey to you that he had those skills?

I really thought everything he wrote was a combination of PR-feed and opinion. Maybe I didn't follow him as much as you, but it just felt like he had early access to stuff and was able to formulate opinion (correctly/incorrectly) that most of us could have. He certainly didn't come across as a visionary or a pundit to me.

My outside view of him is the same as yours, but remember that he isn't being hired by the outside based on what he is written - he's being hired by someone who has known him extremely well personally, and presumably therefore knows him better than readers do.

Visionary? ...

That's not even a stretch, its an intergalactic leap.

psychotik is right, this is just a reward for his "loyalty".

I don't think any of those things describe him. I always imaged his next move would be to go to an apple rumor blog, because his real skill is obviously churning out fluff pieces on Apple and Arrington doesn't have to chase ad revenue on uncrunched.

Everyone and their dog has an opinion on Apple, and they are floated far and wide on the internet. Yet despite the fact that Apple isn't really even part of TechCrunch's core focus, Siegler has managed to cut through this pundit overload to become one of the most influential voices regarding Apple on the internet. That speaks to skills far beyond a typical internet purveyor of puffery.

None of us here know him any better than Mike Arrington does, and apparently Arrington believes in him completely, or he wouldn't have made the offer. It certainly makes sense for Arrington to add people that he believes he can rely on to his team, though -- all good businesses do that.

Of course, how this (or CrunchFund in general) will pan out is still anyone's guess, though.

Moritz wrote a tabloid-ish book about Steve Jobs and Apple in the 80s and look at him now. :)