Is Michael Arrington One of the World's Most Influential People?

In the 19th century, the Bay Area saw the rise of William Randolph Hearst as a new type of media baron. Now the Silicon Valley has Michael Arrington, founder and editor of TechCrunch. The blog has become an influential must-read within the tech industry and claims 884,000 readers. Arrington has been anointed a "Kingmaker" (Fortune) and a "power broker" (Wired) and was recently was included in Time's list of the world's 100 most influential people. Not bad for a guy who runs his blog out of a house where sleeps as late as he pleases and crams his small staff into the spare rooms. Here, Arrington talks about why he's drawn to entrepreneurs, how he decides what to write about, and why Obama is ahead of the curve.

Congratulations on making the Time list of the 100 most influential people on the planet. Were you glad to be there -- or disappointed you had to share space with the other 99?

I think it's funny that I'm number 100. Technically they don't rank them, but my category was last, and I was last within it. It's cool to be the very last one.

Fortune called you the "Walter Winchell of Silicon Valley -- part gossip columnist, part kingmaker, anointing the best of the latest wave of Web 2.0 companies." Do you believe your influence is that great?

I don't think I'm the best person to answer that. I will say that I don't make or break companies. We just cover what's already happening. If every single press outlet ignored YouTube when it launched or just panned it, I don't think that would have reduced YouTube's ultimate liquidity event.

What's the most absurd thing somebody who wanted a writeup has done to get your attention?

One guy sent 20 Fedexes and each one had a different part of his pitch. One of them was opened. The rest are still stacked over there, and I haven't even opened them yet. That stuff rarely works. In fact, it never really works.

What do you look for in deciding what to cover?

I look for something that's new and interesting. A business model that hasn't been tried before is always interesting, even if it's likely to fail. It might give my readers an idea they didn't have before. I like new ideas, even if they're not billion-dollar ideas. Interesting founders -- if you've done something interesting in the past, if you're extremely young or extremely old or from a country that doesn't generate a lot of entrepreneurs or there's something unique about the founder. But if you're a "me too" company, just a small twist on something that already exists, it's unlikely you're going to get written about.

You were a corporate lawyer, then worked for start-ups. Presumably you could make money doing something else. Why do this blog?

Some people are drawn to movie stars and rock stars. To me, entrepreneurs are the interesting people in this time and our society because they drive the economy. They have whacked out marginal utilities for risk in the sense that they seem to value risk instead of trying to shy away from it. They tend to walk away from high-paying jobs to do things that are highly risky just because they want to change the world and hope to make some money even though it's very unlikely they will. That's what's drawn me to this particular beat. I love blogging just because it's a direct channel to your readers that's very raw and unfiltered.

If you were a venture capitalist, who's a person you'd bet on?

Two-time winners are rare. Part of the reason is the best start-ups generally come from somebody needing to scratch an itch. They have a problem, and they realize there's no solution so they make it themselves. Second-time entrepreneurs usually don't have that second itch. Sometimes they don't have the hunger to prove they can do it, so maybe they don't give all they have. Now, there are exceptions. Marc Andreessen is clearly one. A lot of the Pay Pal guys have done interesting things even though they've already made a lot of money. Steve Jobs, on a much different scale, with Apple, Pixar and NeXT clearly has something. It's very rare, and those people I find infinitely fascinating.

What will be biggest stories in the tech world in the next year?

Certainly social networking is interesting. It will be interesting to see how the big companies transform themselves, really as a result of the success of Facebook in particular. Its massive growth over the last 18 months is just going to change how public Internet companies think about their business.