TechCrunch writers Paul Carr and Sarah Lacy explore taking this to the next stage: he’s just brought out a memoir, The Upgrade, which breaches confidentiality pledges he made to her. Their unguarded video chat exposes intriguing differences between his blogger and book-writer personas. The book’s film rights have just been sold: so who will play Mike Arrington?
They both have books out. Sarah‘s is called Brilliant, Crazy, Cocky: How the Top 1% of Entrepreneurs Profit from Global Chaos.
Here’s an interview with Brian Solis, where she talks about it:
Here’s Paul on techfluffTV telling you about The Upgrade (he’s shamelessly intriguing us with the prospect of learning from it how he got fired from The Guardian and The Telegraph, as well as (almost) from TechCrunch on various occasions). He also appears at the end of the clip with a bit of reading from the book (the latter with almost unintelligible sound).
Here’s the official blurb on The Upgrade:
“Bored, broke and struggling to survive in one of the most expensive cities on earth, Paul Carr comes to the surprising realisation that it would actually be cheaper to live in a hotel in Manhattan than in his one-bedroom London flat.
Inspired by that possibility, he decides to sell most of his possessions, abandon his old life and spend a year living entirely without commitments, as a modern-day nomad.
Thanks to Paul’s highly developed blagging skills, what begins as a one-year experiment soon becomes a permanent lifestyle – a life lived in luxury hotels and mountain-top villas.
A life of fast cars, Hollywood actresses and Icelandic rock stars.
Of 6,000-mile booty calls, of partying with 800 female hairdressers dressed only in bedsheets, and of nearly dying at the hands of Spanish drug dealers.
And, most bizarrely of all, a life that still costs less than surviving on cold pizza in London.
Yet, as word of Paul’s exploits starts to spread – first online, then through a newspaper column and eventually a book deal – he finds himself forced constantly to up the stakes in order to keep things interesting.
With his behaviour spiralling to dangerous – and sometimes criminal – levels, he is forced to ask the question: is there such a thing as too much freedom?”
No fear, no loathing, just loving Las Vegas
If you liked the format in the first video (I love it, the conversation is focussed but lively) here’s Paul and Sarah working together reviewing Zappos boss Tony Hsieh being very social in Las Vegas.
Here’s a LeWeb conference with both Paul Carr and Mike Arrington on stage, members of the Gillmor Gang (it’ll definitely help contextualise Paul’s book: I’m not sure how it relates to the exact time period, but I don’t think that it makes much difference, there are plenty of important resonances).
