Michael Arrington/TechCrunch desperate for traffic.

You remember when you were a kid, right? Remember all those pithy fights you had, where you’d make friends with the person in question and then out of nowhere get slammed with the most stupid thing ever.

I don’t think Ted or PayPerPost ever really made friends with Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, but out of nowhere last night he came out with a stupid, non-factual and wholly inaccurate post that paints us out to be racist and financially reckless in one go.

The whole ‘article’ stems from a video on RockStartup.com documenting the company’s retreat a couple of months back, and a team building scavenger hunt we all took part in. The idea of the scavenger hunt was simply to run around the resort (sober I might add), dressed silly, getting photos and videos of things on a list. The event kicked off with everyone in each team having to put on a randomly assigned costume and using up a complete tin of randomly assigned face paint. Ted’s team got the Native American Indian costumes, and red paint. Cue Michael Arrington going on a rampage that we are wasting investors money, and insulting Native Americans by dressing up as them with red paint on our faces. I honesty hadn’t even thought about any of that until he pointed it out - that’s how completely innocent the whole deal was.

Arrington is just wrong on so many levels with his piece. There was never any attempt to offend, or caricature anyone at the retreat. The combination of red paint and a native American Indian costume was pure coincidence. His claim that we are squandering our investment funds is also complete bullshit. If he’d done his research (hey Michael, load up your web browser and go to www.google.com next time you decide to write utter lies about something) he’d have seen numerous interviews with the exec team at the company stating very clearly that most of our investment is still in the bank. PayPerPost is the first company Ted has ever run with VC funding - he’s completely uncomfortable with running companies at a loss and is probably one of the most frugal CEO’s I’ve come across. In addition, the retreat was done on a Friday and weekend, and the vast majority of the time was spent working very hard indeed. That’s very important. Everyone in the company gave up their own time, and spent time away from their own families, because the agenda of the retreat was so very important to the success of the company. The scavenger hunt was the actually the only company organized ‘fun’ event that took place, and it was a team building exercise. There are some that would assert that ‘team building’ is a waste of time, a touchy-feely HR phrase that means nothing. The combination of training we received at the retreat, brainstorming, and team building meant that when we went back to work we actually broke all sales and revenue records for the company for both of the next two months.

Arrington also cites an early Rockstartup episode where the value of the chairs we have in the office was mentioned as being 700 dollars each. That’s an approximate new price though. PayPerPost is so frugal with money that every single piece of furniture in the office was bought used. The only new things we got are the computers we need to do our jobs. I’ve worked at companies where you were given two computers, one just for watching live TV news feeds. I’ve worked at companies that gave away cars to employees once a month. PayPerPost is positively miser-like when it comes to spending cash. Our conference room has a multi-piece cheap table, not some grandiose walnut affair hand crafted to create a good impression. At least one of the chairs in that room has no armrest on one side, because it’s old and past its prime. Our executive team sit with everyone else, with cubes the same as everyone else, not in flashy image-conscious offices in some ostentatious executive suite. We have nerf guns in the office, bought and paid for by the staff themselves. We supply our own food and drink each day, and don’t have the company spend on such things. Those chairs are fairly comfy, but they need to be since most of the people at PayPerPost work extremely long hours, many 7 days a week. Contrast that with all the startups in the first tech bubble where companies blew cash on everything imagineable.

As always with these things, the comment thread on TechCrunch descended into a feeding frenzy of attention seeking muppets pitching in to agree with Michael, including one chap by the name of ‘Lee’ (not the name he usually uses day to day). ‘Lee’ apparently used to work for Ted, but he doesn’t point out specifically which of Ted’s companies he worked for. He claims he has experienced Ted wasting investor money in the past, and ignores important things like paying bills and salaries on time. ‘Lee’ also cites, interestingly, barrel speakers in the office, and the Monster Truck we had wrapped as a promotional tool.

As I just said though, PayPerPost is the first VC funded company Ted has run, and we don’t have ‘barrel speakers’ in the office, which Lee claims investor money is wasted on. As for the Monster Truck - it was a PR exercise to launch the company and get a strong user-base. Attached to the truck and its activities were clear goals. When it failed to meet those goals the truck was sent back (it was a short term lease) and the team whose duty it was to use the truck to promote the company were let go. The exercise lasted about 4 months I think, and the truck cost less per month than the average cost of employing someone in the office. It did help raise awareness of the company and it did undoubtedly contribute to the massive user-base we now have. As for paying bills and salaries on time, I’ve never ever experienced any problem with getting paid, and never had a bill submitted to me ignored by Ted or the finance team when it came up for payment.

‘Lee’ also says that we’re all underpaid, overworked and underappreciated and that’s complete bull too. We’re all paid at market rate. Yes we’re overworked, but rewarded for that work. As for appreciation we have team recognition events in the office every month. We all vote on our peers and the winner gets a reward and bonus. We have ’shout-outs’ every single Tuesday where we all publicly acknowledge great work our peers have done. The teams are regularly given free time off to recuperate after a hectic period of work. On two occassions I’ve been completely shocked to come into the office and find a ‘Thankyou’ card from Ted thanking me for little more than doing my job. Hard work is recognized at the company very publicly, and rewarded. But ultimately, since we all have options in the company itself, we are all working our tails off for ourselves. We all have a vested interest in making PayPerPost a HUGE success and we all work hard freely and of our own accord.

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