Autopsy of the private meeting
The private meeting was pronounced dead last night, approximately 7:39pm est. The autopsy report showed some signs of struggle. There are several suspects, but none have been apprehended yet.
It all began when Michael Arrington wrote an entertaining post about a meeting he wasn’t invited to of about a dozen unnamed early stage investors. Allegedly these well known angels are colluding to set terms for future deals with startups.
This accusation unsurprisingly set off a wave of controversy over what the topic of the meeting was, but what I’ve found most interesting is the ability to piece together who’s at a private meeting using social media. A thread started on Quora that now lists everyone who’s thought to have been there along with sources. Business Insider pointed out that one of the angels tweeted he was there and then deleted his tweet “to try to cover his tracks”.
This story really uncovers that it will be almost impossible to have a meeting that only invitees know about in the future. Someone will unintentionally spill the beans using Twitter, fourSquare, Tungle.Me or Plancast. And even if they don’t, they may be tagged by any friend they run into on the way using Facebook Places.
Last December I predicted the end of lying. I’m adding private meetings to my list of things that the next generation will never experience.
