As of Monday, April 9 the shareholders of PandoMedia voted to remove Michael Arrington as a director. Given the change in relationship we feel it’s inappropriate for CrunchFund’s partners Michael Arrington and MG Siegler to continue contributing to PandoDaily.

via pandodaily.com

Why?

Arrington has taken the news well, saying:

[…] the company notified me last week that they weren’t happy that I and MG Siegler (my partner at CrunchFund) were going to speak at TechCrunch Disrupt this coming May.

and

Even when I’m being thrown out, I support the entrepreneur. If Sarah feels that they’re better off without our involvement, I support her completely.

both quotes from Arrington’s post about the issue

Apparently, the fact that Arrington and fellow CrunchFund (< irony alert Re: that link…) partner MG Siegler are speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt was a firing offense. Siegler seemed as confused as Arrington, because PandoDaily founder Sarah Lacey knew about Arrington’s contractual obligation to speak at the conference when she took him on as an investor.

What confuses me though is that Lacey disabled comments on her post announcing Arrington’s removal.

Why? Well, it’s stupid to speculate, but I’m feeling stupid at the moment. Maybe comments were disabled…

1. Because they’ll be largely negative? Maybe. Arrington and Siegler are full of a fire and insight that command pageviews like few other writers in the tech space.
2. Because they would have been pointless? Maybe. After all, the deed is done.
3. Because they would have been positive as in you-don’t-need-‘em, casting aspersions on Arrington and Siegler, former colleagues and still friends of Lacey’s? Maybe, but that’s the nature of the beast.
4. Because Lacey got some advice about minimizing speculation and keeping the focus on the content, not what goes on behind the scenes.
5. Because Lacey got some advice about maximizing speculation and keeping the focus on both the content and what goes on behind the scenes.
6. Because the Pando’ board didn’t want to allow a potentially mean-spirited conversation about a decision they made on the site about which they made that decision.

I like PandoDaily. The writers are great, the focus is great, the content is great. And they have a healthy commenting community.

All parties concerned are too thick-skinned for 1 or 3 to be accurate. 2 has never stopped a popular website from leaving comments enabled before.

4 and 5 are doubtful because Lacey is smart enough to know both are good suggestions, depending on the topic in question and the nature of your publication.

6 would just mean Lacey isn’t truly in control over there, and I find that very hard to believe.

So, my speculation seems to have turned out just as stupidly as I had expected. Turns out I wasn’t the only one engaged in stupid speculation, though.

Incidentally, Business Insider's Matt Rosoff claims the Arrington/Siegler tag team at Disrupt “pissed off PandoDaily CEO Andrew Anker,” implying that Arrington’s post about the issue suggested that. It didn’t, and Rosoff doesn’t mention any other potential source for the Anker line at all. Stupid speculation FTW!

At the end of the day, people are talking about Pando, and that can’t be a bad thing.