Reveling in over-concentration of males in Silicon Valley tech companies, TechCrunch's startup conference kicked off earlier this month with talk about strippers. Penn Jilette regaled the crowd with the story about how one made a ton of money off his magic app, and is set to publish a "Stripper's Guide" to the software, which helped her increase her tips. Twitter groaned. Then came the booth babes, despite organizers' advice against using the scantily-clad female models as a promotional gimmick.

Conference co-host Jason Calacanis also has to admonish attendees not to mock the accents of some presenters, whom he makes a point of culling from around the world. In response to our email, he wrote,

I've asked folks to be tolerant about language issues for three years because 15-year olds in chat rooms can say so horrible things about folks outside of our country. It's frankly embarrassing that I have to do that. When I speak in China, France or Japan they don't give me a hard time and I'm not even attempting to speak their language.

Over at VentureBeat's Demo conference, which ran the week following TechCrunch 50, some male participants freaked out about a presentation from a female fitness entrepreneur with well-toned arms and visible muscles (pictured left, via VentureBeat). "Whoa, presenter on stage has bigger deltoids and biceps than me, and she's wearing a red dress," wrote one participant. "The TotalTrainer presenters scare me," tweeted another. "Those muscles don't belng at Demo." VentureBeat's Kim-Mai Cutler blasted back in a post entitled, Internet spreads sexist tweets faster than ever: "You guys need to shut up."

Demo also featured complains about foreign accents; one columnist, CNET's Rafe Needleman, went so far as to suggest people with "a noticeably weak command of English shouldn't be allowed on stage," a native-language requirement that would see American entrepreneurs like Calacanis, along with their translators, banned from many global stages.

Calacanis said there's only so much an organizer can do about any of these issues:

I love these idiots who blame conference producers for social issues. In related news, terrorism is driven by action films! ...Sexism exists, sure, but a conference producer can't change the statistical conundrum that most of the CEOs in our industry are male (like 90%+ I would guess).

Of course, an organizer can at least set the tone, for example by imploring tolerance of accents, as Calacanis has done, or by avoiding inviting women reporters to serve as "cocktail waitress"es at their poker games, as Calacanis has apparently not done (he insists men get the same treatment and often have to serve drinks to join his games). And Valley geeks can use the tools they've invented, like Twitter, to shame the worst offenders. It would appear that process is, if not in full gear, at least underway.

Calacanis had proclaimed on Twitter and in a YouTube interview the end of the TechCrunch 50, the Web startup conference the Mahalo founder hosts with Arrington. Calacanis had told others at this year's conference about a fight with TechCrunch.com publisher Arrington, VentureBeat reported. Arrington played the blasé diva when we called him for comment, saying, "I'm not going to say I didn't have words with him because I have words with people all the time... life will go on without Jason Calacanis."

Now, Calacanis tells VentureBeat, the conference is back on. The short celebrity gladhander has a vested interest in reprising his odd couple conference routine with Arrington, the tall, beefy self-styled don of the Valley's hopelessly geeky startup scene: In an economic environment where other conferences are struggling, TechCrunch 50 remains a financial success for Calacanis and Arrington and, more to the point, a fantastically powerful vehicle for publicity and influence. And, besides, with the name tied to Arrington's trademark, what's to keep him from doing it without Calacanis?

It must be a bit embarrassing for Calacanis to crawl back to Arrington after so loudly storming off. To salvage his dignity, he's now claiming, to VentureBeat, that he was only kidding around, in part because the YouTube interview was conducted by a puppet:

[16:05] jasoncalacanis: I'm just shocked folks are taking this seriously. I mean… a puppet. It was in fact, a puppet.

[16:05] jasoncalacanis: then again, i guess if you hear mike and i fighting it isn't pleasant.

[16:06] paulboutin@mac.com: You were all too convincing. I think you really were Done With This Baloney when you talked to the puppet.

[16:06] paulboutin@mac.com: The makeup video is cute. I'm running it with your quotes.

[16:06] jasoncalacanis: Truth = we fight like rabid dogs and neither of us have to compromise in any other parts of our business.

[16:07] jasoncalacanis: False = we would throw an amazing event like this out the window.

(Top pic: Andrew Mager)

No one is saying precisely what happened. But Calacanis, a Hollywood internet entrepreneur who tools around in a Tesla Roadster and is buddy-buddy with Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, has tweeted that TechCrunch 50, which the men co-host, is over after its third iteration. He also "openly talked about a fight" with Arrington to others at the conference, Paul Boutin reports on VentureBeat.com.

Calacanis seemed to confirm all this to, of all people, a puppet controlled by New York humorist Loren Feldman (see left).

And Arrington, who publishes the influential Silicon Valley blog TechCrunch, isn't quite denying it either. Arrington cautioned in a phone interview that he wasn't familiar with all of Calacanis' public statements today. But he added, "I'm not going to say I didn't have words with him because I have words with people all the time." Besides, he added, things are crazy at the end of a long conference.

He wouldn't get into details, but did point us, in response to questions about the incident, to a blog post he recently wrote called Let's Not Let Silicon Valley Become Just Like Hollywood, in which he argues that the powers-that-be in the Northern California tech scene should avoid becoming as pompous and hierarchical as the folks in Hollywood, i.e. the people Calacanis likes to hang out with. Cryptic. But Arrington wouldn't be much more specific: "I'm not too concerned Jason is telling people he doesnt want to talk to me. I'm sure life will go on without Jason Calacanis and the drama he creates by talking to puppets."

Sure, life will go on, and in the meantime the rest of us have another tech feud to keep us entertained. It's been too long since one of these flared up.

(Speaking of which, we've logged several emails and instant messages to Calacanis and have yet to hear back. If you have any insights into what happened, please email us.)

(Top pic: Calacanis, left, and Arrington in happier days, by Frank Gruber.)

Yammer is a business-friendly copy of Twitter. It's an offshoot of Geni, a Web-based genealogy site started by former PayPal COO David Sacks, which raised $100 million in venture capital last year. TechCrunch50's prize panel, composed of Arrington and a few TechCrunch insiders (shown here, in a spy photo taken at the event), passed over more promising startups like FitBit, the maker of a wellness-monitoring gadget.

Quality aside, a sense of fairness might have led Arrington to give Yammer the skip: Neither Sacks nor Geni needed the $50,000 prize. Arrington's crush on Geni has been obvious since before its launch. (Most recently, he claimed Geni had close to a million visitors a month in August; according to a link to Compete.com Arrington himself included in his writeup, it's actually 400,000, a fraction of the audience enjoyed by established genealogy sites like Ancestry.com and MyHeritage.)

The problem with events like this is no one is unconflicted. But Sacks is in particularly deep: His former boss at PayPal, Peter Thiel, now runs VC firm Founders Fund, one of TechCrunch50's sponsors. Arrington has long been rumored to favor startups backed by the VCs who sponsor his event. He brags that he doesn't charge startups directly to appear on stage. But he seems to like to have them in his pocket, one way or another.

ROOM AND BOARD AS PAYMENT FOR A FULL TIME RUBY(?) CODER (NE OFF SANDY
Reply to: gigs-832919343@craigslist.org [?]
Date: 2008-09-08, 1:56PM PDT

We are looking for an excellent developer who can work on extending the capabilities of our alpha demo. It was written in ROR, flash, red5 and I think C# You may decide that there is a better, more robust way to code this application. Once we get our alpha demo to the stage where we can launch the product we will qualify for funding. We have already been approached by TechCrunch to be one of their TechCrunch50 companies but we aren't ready to launch yet so we couldn't do it. They are going to do a publicity piece about us as we are so disruptive. We need your expertise.

We need someone who is analytical and can do an architectural study and then write code. Detailed specifications have been written.

We will provide a nice room, wireless access, food, utilities all in exchange for a workaholic (like we are) who can get it done.

No drugs or alcoholics. Must be clean and sober. We will do a background to check for a criminal history.

Your ability to stay here will be based on the work you produce.

If interested, please send a resume and cover letter for consideration.

We hope to hear from you.

* Location: NE OFF SANDY
* it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
* Compensation: no pay

PostingID: 832919343

(Photo, "Internet Stock Certificate," by LiquidShirts.com)

Kutcher's ambitions as an investor may not be returning dividends yet, but like a good serial wantrepreneur he's still out pressing the flesh and lending his flesh for press. And at least with this company, he has some experience in the entertainment industry that actually applies, unlike previous investments in restaurants (Dolce Enoteca), advertising (SaysMe) and Internet phones (Ooma). But calling into question the obession of fans, as Kutcher promises the site will do in episode four, won't have him beating Perez Hilton anytime soon: The masses prefer our celebrities mocked, and our obsessions applauded, not the other way around.

Conference

• Connectivity still an issue. Wifi out on Monday and the major celebs showed up to kowtow to King Arrington and Jason
• There is a secret mutiny going on with startups in the pay-to-play Demo Pit. They gave out poker chips to ticket holders to vote for their favorite startups, there 3 colors one for each day to decide. A single company, through the use of hot and semi naked booth girls has managed to monopolize Day 1's chips (80). The winner of the chips would get a review and extra publicity. So to counter the startup — which does something stupid — there are now alliances going on where other startups are grouping together and sharing their chips so that one company doesn't win. So far about 20 companies are in this coup.

Dinner

• Showed up for Nicole Jordan's dinner party at Lulu's. The bill was like $3k and I had to pay like $100 when I thought the meal was free.
• Calley Nye showed up, brought by Larry Chiang, but very quickly cozied up to Barney Pell of Powerset. They were hugging and cuddling and the guy had his hand on her thigh/knee the entire time.

Party

• Held at club Temple, they intermixed the TC50 crowd with the young kids that just randomly showed up. Music was loud and obnoxious and the crowd was a weird mix of uncomfortable geeks and drunk kids.
• snuck into VIP floor with Mark Cuban and entourage, bought him a beer
• Met [former FuckedCompany blogger] Pud and spoke to him about startups and AdBrite. he's finally very happy with with the way it's working right now.
• Jason calacanis showed up and he was pretty drunk most of the time.

After party

• At the W Hotel bar/lobby with Jason Calacanis, Mark Cuban, Frank Gruber.
• Mark had a gaggle of blondes surrounding him. Most look 18. He kissed and rubbed quite a few them right next to me as I tried to get drinks. One was very upset that Mark wasn't giving her enough attention.
• Jason Calacanis is blizted enough to be stumbling everywhere
• Met a drunk girl that work for Geni/Yammer. She's apparently David Sak's BFF, some major assistant to the producer of Rush Hour or something. Got recruited from LA to handle "book-keeping and HR." says she's under NDA but eventually figured out that she has stock and they're working out a way to sell Yammer, a side project, by the next month.
• Calley showed towards the end of the night and approached Jason Calacanis while his wife was standing next to him but then Mark Cuban.
• As the party ended she's managed to convince him to let her hold his hand while he's hugging and kissing the other blondes.
• When we got kicked she managed to get herself into the front seat of Mark's surburban along with his entourage and left.
• Jason left in a limo at 2:30am with a very disgruntled wife and most likely not able to wake up for TC50 Day 3

Sure, it's just a bunch of disgruntled kids at legendary San Francisco after-work bar House of Shields slinging tech slang and calling into question the reductionism ideal for deal making in the Valley. But few of the ideas presented at interface designer Eris Stassi and author Paul Carr's hastily assembled "Smack My Pitch Up" were so farfetched as to be unbelievable. In the poorly-shot video above, the three finalists join Calacanis Cup winner and founding Valleywag editor Nick Douglas in presenting business ideas to change the world, from prostitute-tracking plans (thankfully preempted by prior art) to a community-oriented embrace of institutional buggery. It wasn't pretty, but then paying for an emo kid's suicide in order to offset your carbon footprint, as winner GreenSuicides.com suggests, never is.

An ode to the military superiority of these United States can only exacerbate tensions with cheap creditor and chip fabricator China and cause the relatively cosmopolitan diplomats in Europe and the Middle East to shake their heads and hard currency in consternation. We hear, second hand, that it was all Calacanis's idea, but Arrington is as much to blame all the same.

You can guess how immigrant entrepreneurs must have felt when they clutched their H-1B visas tightly to their breast — not to mention the service staff at the venue working for subcontractor wages that may or may not be on the books. Please, somebody definitively reveal this as a prank in the comments, because we're saddened and perplexed. (Photo by Frank Gruber)

Wait, wait - this ASSton Kutcher was in the same room as Mikhail Arroganton?! Simultaneously?! Damn, my fist would be so conflicted.