Michael Arrington and Vinod Khosla at Startup Weekend EDU in Seattle. (Photos via: Bootstrapper Studios).

At a talk this evening on the University of Washington campus, it didn’t take long for Michael Arrington to break some news about his newly-formed venture capital fund, CrunchFund.

Arrington was interviewing notable venture capitalist Vinod Khosla as the kick off for Startup Weekend EDU when the outspoken TechCrunch founder — wearing his green Unpaid Blogger T-shirt — disclosed that Khosla was one of the financial backers of the new fund.

“You are a bad ass dude, in general. And not just the things you’ve done, but also in how you look at life,” said Arrington before making the announcement of Khosla’s involvement in CrunchFund. “And, if you don’t mind, I’d like to spend most of our talk, talking about how badass you are.”

“OK,” responded Khosla, who co-founded Sun Microsystems before becoming a venture capitalist.

That introduction set up a fascinating chat between Arrington and Khosla, with the two men discussing a wide-range of topics from lean startups to why the best entrepreneurs are under the age of 25 to new ideas for fixing the educational system. (Khosla — who described himself as a “troll” at one point — suggests getting rid of teachers).

Khosla’s involvement in CrunchFund is significant, in part because he’s one of the most respected venture capitalists in the business. It also speaks to the level of support that Arrington — who left TechCrunch earlier this month in a PR fiasco that played out in the pages of the popular Silicon Valley blog — has been able to line up for CrunchFund.

Other backers of CrunchFund include TechCrunch owner AOL and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman. Arrington’s fund has raised $20 million, and has placed bets in a handful of companies.

Here’s the first 10-minutes of Arrington’s chat with Khosla in which they briefly discuss CrunchFund. Arrington also wonders if he now can get access to Khosla’s private plane as a result of the investment in CrunchFund.

Related on GeekWire: Vinod Khosla on failure, thinking big and why the best entrepreneurs are under 25

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