TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington Taking “Some Time Off” After Crazed Man Spits On Him

TechCrunch founder and CEO Michael Arrington shocked his readers today announcing that he is taking “some time off” as he tries to “get a better perspective on what I’m spending my life doing.”

TechCrunch, which began in June 2005, dedicates itself to “obsessively profiling” new Internet products and companies. But it was obsessive followers that led Arrington to step aside for a while. He writes that being spat on while leaving a conference in Munich yesterday was the last straw.

I write about technology startups and news. In any sane world that shouldn’t make me someone who has to deal with death threats and being spat on. It shouldn’t require me to absorb more verbal abuse than a human being can realistically deal with. The problem is that I love what I do when I’m not hiding from some crazy fucker who wants to kill me or being spat on by some unhappy European entrepreneur we didn’t write about.

Arrington says he will be covering Davos this week, but then will be taking “most of February off from writing.” He says he’ll sit on a beach somewhere, without…gasp….his iPhone or laptop “and decide what the best future for me is.”

And he has a message for his peers: “I want them to realize that their words influence others who may be inclined to ‘take matters into their own hands’ under the mistaken impression that threatening to kill someone, or physically attacking them, is somehow righteous.”

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