• TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon BCC Fail. We Apologize #TCLeakers

    Michael Arrington

    J. Michael Arrington (born March 13, 1970 in Huntington Beach, California) is a serial entrepreneur and the founder of TechCrunch, a blog covering startups and technology news. Arrington attended Claremont McKenna College (BA Economics, 1992) and Stanford Law School (JD, 1995) and practiced as a corporate and securities lawyer at two law firms: O’Melveny & Myers and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich... → Learn More

    Monday, May 2nd, 2011

    A couple of years ago RockYou couldn’t seem to send an email to partners without screwing up and cc’ing everyone. We pointed each screwup out, with catchy headlines. I knew that someday, somehow, we’d probably do the same thing. And I knew we’d have to take extra criticism for it because we’ve called out others.

    Today’s payback day. We sent a mass email and we failed to use BCC. It’s Amateur Hour at TechCrunch, and we deserve derision. Consider us rolling over on our backs and showing you our submissive belly. We apologize, sincerely.

    We sent out a simple email to all applicants of the upcoming Disrupt Hackathon in New York. There are a lot of them – 452, I believe, which is more than any of our previous hackathons, and we still have a month to go. It’s going to be a very fun event.

    Anyhow, we sent out the email thanking people for applying and letting them know more information would be coming. Everyone was in the To: field.

    Yes, there have been many humorous responses. Yes, people are annoyed. Yes, there is a hash tag, #TCLeakers, where people can pile on even more. Yes, there is nothing you can say to make us feel worse. And, yes, we can never make fun of anyone doing this again without pointing back to this post.