Have you ever wondered how people get those sweet, swt two or three letter Twitter handles? It's not just early adopters. With the right connections, someone at Twitter will secretly get help you nab a better, inactive Twitter handle—like, say @dc instead of @dickcostolo—from some unsuspecting noob.

In 2011, TechCrunch founder Mike Arrington was fired from his own website for reasons including flagrant conflicts of interest over his newly hatched VC firm, CrunchFund. But he never really left. For every year since his firing, Arrington's used the TechCrunch Disrupt conference to help his wallet.

Ding-dong, it's official: Silicon Valley's dream of a meritocracy—where innovative ideas from scrappy entrepreneurs hustle their way to the top—is dead. A new analysis from Reuters reporter Sarah McBride found that the startups getting funded by top venture capitalists have one thing in common: pedigree.

On stage at TechCrunch Disrupt yesterday, after signing Michael Arrington's copy of Vogue, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer offered an odd defense of tech companies silence over PRISM. "We fought, we lost. If you don't comply it's treason."

In the not too distant future you'll be able to buy a share of TWTR—the company has confidentially filed for a secret IPO in the hopes of dodging the Facebook's IPO expectation disaster. Start getting your pension ready, bubble fans!

After a steady spell of buying its way to the top of download charts, Path is plummeting out of even the top thousand iPhone apps—which makes sense, given that the app has never become popular outside of geek niches. But, guys wasn't Path supposed to be worth half a billion dollars, at least?

Enjoy your life this very moment, because there is real suffering in the world: a tipster tells us LinkedIn's luxury shuttle is suffering from a mechanical failure. Its riders are sitting on the curb—will they have to interact with the homeless? How will they get to Mountain View?

Conflict of Interest 3.0: the winner of TechCrunch's vaunted Disrupt Battlefield startup competition is financially backed by TechCrunch's pugnacious founder, Michael Arrington—it is a matter of pure coincidence that Arrington judged the competition. How much longer are we going to take this seriously?

Lean In author and Facebook executive has to fend off rumors that she'll ditch her post to be a full-time literary celeb—and maybe even run for office. Seen here on a recent visit to China's State Council Information Office

Mock their JUST ONE CHARTs all you want: news website Business Insider has raised $18.6 million in funding from powerful tech investors like Marc Andreessen, Jeff Bezos, Kevin Ryan, Institutional Venture Partners, and even Facebook underwriter Allen & Company. (It’s also omnipresent in your search engine results. Go ahead, Google something... businessy.) After the latest $5 million cash injection, founder, editor and CEO Henry Blodget said its goal was to “become the best digital business publication on the planet.”

Two summers ago, Turntable.fm, a place to virtually listen to music with your friends, was everyone's favorite website. Many hours of American Office Productivity were sucked away. Then, we all moved on to new distractions—but Turntable sealed a $7 million investment round, and gradually torched it.

During one of today's TechCrunch Disrupt interviews, no one pretended to jerk off, and no tit jokes were made, as far as we can tell. But a prominent set sat down to discuss Bitcoin, and painted a vision of society they think is within our reach:

In the future, you'll barely need to move: food, cars, and laundry will all arrive directly at your door. Think of how much society will save on sidewalks. But this future isn't here yet, as gofer startup Exec learned the hard way—it turns out no one wants on-demand servants.

New York magazine reports Pax Dickinson was "forced to resign as chief technology officer at Business Insider" after the internet read his tweets. We're waiting for confirmation from Business Insider CEO Henry Blodget.

What has two thumbs and a homophobic, racist, misogynistic, classist worldview? Pax Dickinson. We just noticed this vile Twitter account from Business Insider's chief technology officer today. But he's been at it for awhile.

Earlier today, Michael Arrington solemnly vowed to "face down the evil at TechCrunch Disrupt," the tech blog's biannual conference. Not the vulgar sexism permitted on stage, but rather the tech industry's see-no-evil attitude towards the NSA using its products to spy on American citizens. (Complacency seems to be common theme.)

When Aussie abomination Titstare went on stage yesterday, the internet collectively retched. But at Hacker News, an erudite discussion board run by the venture capitalists at Y Combinator, discourse is a special kind of toxic—and its users rushed to defend Titstare.

Larry Ellison makes 2,236 times more than the average American worker and more than twice as much as a Exxon Mobil's CEO. But what does he make compared to his employees at Oracle? The SEC is finally expected to issue a proposal requiring companies to disclose the pay gap.