How on earth did it take over 3 hours for someone at Color or Sequoia to confirm the company is in-fact not dead? You'd think employees/founders/investors would have been tweeting like crazy to deny the rumor.
Because the last thing you want to do is have employees (even execs) shooting their mouths off in the heat of the moment and saying something stupid.
You want to regroup, figure out WTF is going on and how the rumor started, and figure out a sensible statement that is going to calm this down instead of rile it up some more.
Because people have work to do, rather than sitting around checking Twitter, HN, and TC all day long? It's not like something's going to happen if they don't respond ASAP. As long as they'd gotten something out by the end of they day, they'd've been fine.
Yeah, people have work to do... like the PR people whose job is to handle bad news about the company. And yes, part of their job is to monitor tech news sites like the Verge.
and then get a hold of investors to see what is going on, then wait while they figure out what is going on and tell you, then meet with management to determine a proper statement.
theoretically, could it have happened way faster? yes, but who knows how hard it was to get a hold of everybody and make sure whatever information they had was accurate. 3 hours isnt that big of a deal.
I'm guessing because it took 3 hours to find someone who knew whether the company is dead or not. Since the founder is off vacationing/thinking in exotic places, I wouldn't be surprised if the employees heard the news and assumed it to be true.
You want to regroup, figure out WTF is going on and how the rumor started, and figure out a sensible statement that is going to calm this down instead of rile it up some more.