Showdown! Angels, Arrington to Go Mano a Mano

Silicon Valley’s fault lines rumbled this week under accusations from TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington that powerful angel investors were colluding to rip off startups. Next week, we may get to see a showdown between Arrington and two key angels.

According to Arrington, the angels were meeting over pinot noir at in the back room of a San Francisco wine bar to plan out their strategy. Central to their agenda was driving down valuations for entrepreneurs who are increasingly demanding more money and power from their investors. That would be an illegal form of collusion in what should be a free market, Arrington alleged — and his post set off a conflagration of outrage in the Valley.

The firestorm led the Valley’s august and perhaps most successful early investor, Ron Conway, to send an excoriating e-mail to the attendees — which included a member of his SV Angel group, saying that “your motives are driven by self-serving factors around ego satisfaction and ‘making a buck’”. It inevitably leaked onto Techcrunch.

Dave McClure, a brash energetic figure who just raised a $30 million investing fund called 500 Startups and is investing like there’s no such thing as a bubble, is one of the few angels to admit being there. He’s since accused Conway on Twitter (in what appeared to be a private message that he accidentally sent out publicly) of “throwing us under a bus. and it’s chickenshit that he writes that after David Lee comes to both meetings.” That last bit is a reference to Conway’s SV Angel partner. McClure also took on Arrington, calling the collusion allegation “horseshit.”

Oddly enough, the three are scheduled to take the stage simultaneously Monday morning on a panel discussing venture-capital and angel investors. The conference, as you can undoubtedly guess, is Arrington’s own Techcrunch Disrupt.

It’s so perfectly timed one might even think that HeavensGate InvestiGate AngelGate* might be scripted. McClure is a showman and seems to be the one who tipped off Arrington that the angels were confabbing at a Marina District wine bar. After being tipped, Arrington dutifully tried to crash the event, only to retreat when he met with eyes as cold as a bottle of Domain Chandon blanc de noirs.

While in person McClure is rather understated, his blog uses font colors like it’s 1998 Geocities all over again. He Twitters without an internal editor. And he laces his stage performances with expletives as if he were a pirate.

Conway’s not a quiet man, but he’s got old-school poise.

Arrington’s outsized personality hardly needs an introduction.

Which is to say that even if this is all a setup and the venom isn’t as real as it feels, Monday morning’s panel promises to be full of Silicon Valley drama, and somebody’s Tesla might get keyed.

We’ll be ringside, sipping a latte, blogging on a Macbook and noting for you which contender’s got the best phone.

*All credit to Anil Dash for better names for the “scandal.”

Photos: left to right, Michael Arrington, Ron Conway, Dave McClure; Credit for all three, Joi Ito.