techcrunch
How a Startup Went from Hype to Clusterfuck
Sam Biddle · 11/12/13 01:40PM
Before Kno, an education startup, was sold for chump change yesterday, it was on its way to the top. Don't take my word for it: just look at all the "smart" "tech" "experts" who poured $100 million and thousands of fawning words into the turkey.
Watch Mike Arrington Talk About Trading Favors for Blog Posts
Sam Biddle · 11/04/13 11:47AMIn 2011, TechCrunch founder and Bully-in-Chief Michael Arrington gave an off the record talk to an audience of powerful tech CEOs. Details of unsavory comments leaked. Later that year, he did it again, and now we have the closed-doors video of Arrington's corruption, in his own words.
Mike Arrington Blasts TechCrunch
Sam Biddle · 10/29/13 11:34AM
TechCrunch is wrapping up another Disrupt conference (this time in Berlin), and the man who started it all has some very public, very not-nice things to say about the website he created.
Don't Wear This Onstage at a Major Tech Conference
Sam Biddle · 10/28/13 01:02PM
Live, at this week's TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin 2013. I guess this is still a step up from Titstare, but still not the best way to represent yourself.
21 Things TechCrunch Covered This Month Instead of Disadvantaged Kids
Sam Biddle · 10/28/13 11:08AM
This weekend, the Level Playing Field Institute brought together a group of middle and high school students "from minority groups underrepresented in computer science" for a brainstorming meetup and tech project competition. Here's what TechCrunch wrote about instead:
Michael Arrington: A Crooked Judge Since 2011
Sam Biddle · 09/13/13 02:15PM
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.
Michael Arrington Gives Himself an Award
Sam Biddle · 09/12/13 08:56AM
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?
TechCrunch Disrupt Kicks Off with "Titstare" App and Fake Masturbation
Sam Biddle · 09/08/13 04:24PMAs a lovely followup to recent discussions of gender inclusivity in tech, here's the first presentation from the AOL-owned TechCrunch Disrupt 2013 startup conference: an app called Titstare, presented by two grinning Australian dudes, exactly as tasteless as it sounds.
TechCrunch Now Writing Imaginary Press Releases
Sam Biddle · 08/26/13 10:19AM
The team at AOL's intrepid startup newsroom never shies away from thinly rewritten press releases—don't mess with a good formula. But today, TechCrunch reaches new heights/depths in the art: the press release as corporate fan fiction, imagining a cool new world in which Google replaces humans.
Startups Are Just Lying About Spam Now
Sam Biddle · 07/25/13 11:59AM
Every app wants to be like Snapchat: it came out of nowhere, without much planning, and now devours attention spans across North America. It's also worth $800 million, mostly through word of mouth. Most companies can't copy this, but they'll sure lie about it.
TechCrunch's Facebook Ambassador Pens 400 Words About one Sentence
Sam Biddle · 07/24/13 05:18PMFor the past couple of years, bored tech writers have been telling this spooky ghost story about teens bored with Facebook. Today, during Facebook's latest earnings report, Zuckerberg denied the youth exodus, and TechCrunch's resident Facebook sleeper agent can barely keep it in his teen pants.
Google's MG Siegler: Apple Is "Boring"
Sam Biddle · 06/03/13 10:47AMThis is why stuff like this matters: less than a month after investor MG Siegler announced his move to Google, he's written a TechCrunch column pillorying Apple for looking dull. There's no mention—by Siegler or TechCrunch—of the fact that he works for Apple's rival.
TechCrunch Blames Flopping Facebook Home on iPhone
Sam Biddle · 05/13/13 10:48AM
No, it's not just you—this headline doesn't really make any sense. And yet that's explanation from TechCrunch's Josh Constine, the FB communications team who moonlights as a blogger. It's not Facebook's fault that nobody wants to phone Home. Blame those seductive iPhones.
MG Siegler Just Became the Most Blessed Shill in The Entire World
Sam Biddle · 05/06/13 12:31PM
Apple shopper, ever-conflicted TechCrunch blogger and venture capitalist MG Siegler just took on a third job: partner at Google Ventures. But don't worry, he says, everything is going to stay just the way it was: blogging about the industry he bankrolls, not a scruple in sight.
Update: Michael Arrington Showed Up at TechCrunch Disrupt After All
Sam Biddle · 04/30/13 10:57AM
Last week, we reported that TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington would skip his Disrupt conference for the first time ever. We were wrong: Yesterday, he showed up on stage. It seems that whatever hiccups were getting in the way of his making an appearance have been resolved. One of those hiccups: Our own Adrian Chen.
Ex-Facebook Exec: Startup World Should Be "Utterly Ashamed" Of Itself
Sam Biddle · 04/30/13 10:12AMFormer Facebook bigwig and current investor Chamath Palihapitiya isn't pulling any punches at this week's TechCrunch Disrupt, where many a punch is typically pulled. He's disgusted with what's called tech innovation now, saying "we are at an absolute minimum in terms of things that are being started."
TechCrunch Says I Can't Come to Their Party Anymore
Sam Biddle · 04/29/13 10:01AM
As the sun began to rise in New York, Katie Clark-AlSadder, Senior Account Manager at SHIFT Communications, broke my heart: my press credentials to Disrupt 2013 are revoked for no reason. It's time for the healing to begin—but what'd we do wrong?
TechCrunch Forced to Reconsider Its Own Existence for 60 Seconds
Sam Biddle · 04/28/13 02:10PM
As a preamble to this week's Disrupt conference in New York, TechCrunch is hosting a "hackathon"—one of those dire geek sweatshops wherein coders create small snippets of ideas, and then hawk them before people with money. It's sort of like speed dating meets department store liquidation sale. But one chose to use his time to basically tell everyone to fuck off.