Seriously - wtf? Do a twitter search right now for DanielBru and take a look at this humdinger of an affair. Daniel is a 17 year old Entrepreneur in the Valley who seems to run his own successful conference, Teens in Tech, and until recently was an intern at TechCrunch. Daniel, however, has just been ousted for soliciting a Macbook from one or more Startups looking for a favourable review on TC.

I think this was an idiotic thing to do from Daniel's point of view - TechCrunch's reputation is based on the integrity of its news and support for what is 'right' in Startup Land, and for an intern to abuse their link in such an organisation is pretty nasty. This particular case could be seen as bribery too.

But I am totally perplexed by how this situation is being massaged out of proportion. THIS IS A 17 YEAR OLD KID PEOPLE. Young. People. Make. Mistakes. Old people too.

Daniel's mistake is extremely serious, and now very public, but he should not deserve the hounding he is getting on Twitter at the moment from some individuals who are demanding he makes an extra-grovelling apology above and beyond this statement on his blog. He fucked up, and a culture of being able to fuck up, dust yourself off and start again is one of the things I'm envious of America for. He has been stripped of his internship and had all his content deleted. If his actions were illegal, I am sure he will be dealt with by the law. He has publicly said sorry on his blog. For a few entrepreneurs to carry on baying for some kind of  'Tech Justice' above that shows a lack of perspective.

I find it all a bit bonkers really.