Former TechCrunch CEO Heather Harde Leaves AOL

AOL, Inc. (NYSE:AOL) is having a hard time retaining some of their talent. Within the last couple of days, AOL saw Brad Garlinghouse and Sarah Lacy leave the company. Now former TechCrunch CEO Heather Harde is leaving the company. Harde became an executive at AOL after technology blog TechCrunch was acquired. It is believed that Harde was pissed when a Huffington Post CEO sent out an e-mail bashing TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington.

On the Silicon Alley 100 list, Arianna Huffington was ranked number one in a listing about the most influential people in the New York tech scene. A Huffington Post publicist sent out a company-wide e-mail congratulation Arianna Huffington and it included a citation from Silicon Alley Insider saying “Huffington is more powerful than ever at AOL after she had Michael Arrington of TechCrunch booted for conflicts of interest when he decided to become a VC.”

Harde responded several hours later with her own staff-wide e-mail about the snub:

From: Heather Harde
Date: October 5, 2011 5:29:01 PM EDT
To: Mario Ruiz
Cc: [Huffington Post Media Group]
Subject: Re: Silicon Alley 100 goes live … at #1 … Arianna

Classy inclusion of the full SAI description, thx.

Would be nice also to recognize other folks within the AOL family on the list:
Tim Armstrong, CEO: http://www.businessinsider.com/silicon-alley-100-2011#tim-armstrong-7
Warren Webster and Brian Farnham, Patch: http://www.businessinsider.com/silicon-alley-100-2011#warren-webster-and-brian-farnham-97
Erick Schonfeld, TechCrunch: http://www.businessinsider.com/silicon-alley-100-2011#erick-schonfeld-98

Best,
Heather

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