Duncan Riley Leaves TechCrunch

Right before I thought I'd turn in for the night, a little blip came across my reader that included "last post at TechCrunch" that made me sit up and take notice. The stable of writers at TechCrunch has been fairly consistent lately, and Duncan started there about the same time I started here at Profy. I headed right over to the podcast with Duncan at The Blog Herald (which he owned once upon a time) to get the story on his exit.

The story isn't very complicated; this is a job with a very high burnout rate. Bloggers change sites or quit blogging about tech all the time. It's competitive, hard to break into the "top" ranks, and moves so fast you feel guilty some days for sleeping in case you might miss something. Working seven days a week for a year can get to a person, and while it's de rigeur for most start-ups, it's harder to maintain that level of commitment when you aren't a founder.

And while others like Steven Hodson wonder who will step into the slot that's been occupied for a year by the tech blogger with the most cuss words per Tweet than most anyone, it's hard to keep a good blogger down, and as Duncan already has his next project planned: The Inquisitr. I have no idea how to describe this new site other than to say it looks pretty much like my OPML file: tech news, pop culture, and a bunch of weirdness that doesn't fit in anywhere else.

It takes a lot of guts to leave a job that most bloggers would probably kill to have, and I wish Duncan all the best with his new venture. I'm not entirely convinced he's writing it, though, since I haven't seen a single swear word in the articles I've read so far.