We have hours and hours of quality video from this year’s Disrupt SF, and you can browse it all over at TCTV, but there were a few on-stage interviews and discussions that we felt were unmissable.
Whether they’re funny, interesting, or controversial, these show the quality and variety of the guests and topics we get to feature at Disrupt. Click the titles to view the original posts with our summary and commentary, as well as transcripts of the videos. The rest of the conference can be found at our Ultimate Guide to Disrupt SF.
A Year After “AngelGate”, More Angelic Angels Descend Upon Disrupt
This all-star panel of VCs and (perhaps former) angel investors was consistently interesting and entertaining. Arrington moderates as Ron Conway, Dave McClure, Jeff Clavier, Josh Felser, and Aydin Senkut dispute the best way to help and fund entrepreneurs. Capped vs. uncapped, VC vs. angel, due diligence vs. whatever the opposite of due diligence is. The end was inspiring, as Conway instructed anyone there from SV Angel to help the long line of entrepreneurs building up at the question mics. He then went down to the show floor and braved the frenzy himself.
Max Levchin And Peter Thiel: Innovation Today Is Between ‘Dire Straits And Dead’
This talk was controversial among our readers. Could a guy who urged people to drop out of school and a guy who made Facebook games really speak to the question of “hard problems”? The discussion on the stage is interesting whether you buy their premise or not. Our commenters bring up some very salient points as well, which you can read at the original post.
Is Facebook Copying Google+ And Twitter? VP Of Engineering, Mike Schroepfer, Responds
There have been allegations that Facebook has, shall we say, had a spurt of inspiration following the unveiling of Google+. Mike Schroepfer is given the chance to defend their new features here, and to explain some recent decisions to change or eliminate features. And of course, it’s fun to put companies on the spot when we’ve got inside information. In this case Jason brings up the unannounced iPad app and Facebook Music. The subsequent “death stare” is pure gold.
Elon Musk: Starting A Company Is Like Staring Into The Face Of Death
The mega-rich investing in space travel are often written off as modern-day Don Quixotes with too much money on their hands. I myself have done so. But Elon Musk isn’t some lunatic miser, building expensive toys to satisfy his vanity. He and others like Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson are investing where the industry fears to tread. I love the dispassion with which he refers to astronauts as “biological cargo.” And on a more grounded topic, Musk’s comparison of our education system to the vaudeville era is simultaneously esoteric and insightful.
Sequoia’s Doug Leone On Entrepreneurs, Billions, CrunchFund, And His Hatred Of Photographs
For someone who’s been with Silicon Valley veteran Sequoia for over 20 years, you’d think Doug Leone would cut more of a visible profile in the valley. Despite his seeming reticence to publicize himself and his company’s funds, he’s candid here. His perspective is slightly detached, as one who perceives the beginning and end of his investments, and his commentary is astute. More of an insider than many insiders, yet thinking outside the outsiders.
TC Disrupt: Office Hours With YC Partners Paul Graham And Harj Taggar
Paul Graham’s Y Combinator “office hours,” in which YC company founders get brief but to the point advice from this startup wizard, was a hit in New York, so we were looking forward to the sequel. Graham didn’t disappoint, doling out encouragement, criticism, and sage advice in general to entrepreneurs who were at a loss. Worth a watch if only for the looks of intense attention maintained by Graham and YC partner Harj Taggar practically the entire time.
That’s as many videos as I dare embed without risking browser implosion, so if you’re looking for more video, go to TCTV’s Disrupt channel and start scrolling.
Ronald Conway has been an active angel investor for over 15 years. He was the Founder and Managing Partner of the Angel Investors LP funds (1998-2005) whose investments included: Google, Ask Jeeves, Paypal, Good Technology, Opsware, and Brightmail. Ron was previously with National Semiconductor Corporation in marketing positions from 1973-1979, and Altos Computer Systems as a co-founder, President and CEO from 1979-1990. He eventually took Altos public in 1982 and served as CEO of Personal Training Systems (PTS)...
Dave McClure is a venture capitalist & the founding general partner at 500 Startups, an internet seed fund and startup accelerator program in Mountain View, CA. Dave has been geeking out in Silicon Valley for over twenty years, and has worked with companies such as PayPal, Mint, Founders Fund, Facebook, LinkedIn, SlideShare, Twilio, Simply Hired, O’Reilly Media, Intel, & Microsoft. He also likes to play ultimate frisbee when his knees don’t hurt. Dave has been an investor in over 100...
Based in Palo Alto, California, Jean-Francois “Jeff” Clavier is the Founder and Managing Partner of SoftTech VC, one of the most active seed stage investors in Web 2.0 startups. Since 2004, Jeff has invested 110+ consumer internet startups in areas like social media, monetization, search, gaming or B2B/B2C web services. These investments are typically located in Silicon Valley, New-York and Boulder. With over 20 years of operational, entrepreneurial and venture capital experience, Jeff is able to add relevant perspective...
Max Levchin the founder and CEO of Slide, which creates and distributes popular Web applications on Facebook, as desktop widgets, and elsewhere. He is also the chairman of local review site Yelp. Prior to Slide he was the co-founder and CTO of PayPal, which was sold to eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002.
Peter is Clarium Capital’s President and the Chairman of the firm’s investment committee, which oversees the firm’s research, investment, and trading strategies. He is also a managing partner at The Founders Fund. Before starting Clarium, Peter served as Chairman and CEO of PayPal, an Internet company he co-founded in December 1998 and was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion in October 2002. Prior to founding PayPal, Peter ran Thiel Capital Management , the predecessor to Clarium, which started...
Elon Musk (born June 28,1971) is an entrepreneur and a co-founder of PayPal, Tesla Motors and Space Exploration Technologies. He is chairman/CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX, and chairman of SolarCity. Musk was born and grew up in South Africa, the son of a South African engineer and a Canadian-born mother who has worked as a New York City dietitian and modeled for fun. His father inspired his love of technology and Musk bought his first computer at age 10...
Paul Graham is a partner at Y Combinator. He is also the author of On Lisp (1993), ANSI Common Lisp (1995), and Hackers & Painters (2004). In 1995, he and Robert Morris started Viaweb, the first ASP, which in 1998 became Yahoo! Store. In 2002 he discovered a simple spam filtering algorithm that inspired the current generation of filters. Graham has a B.A. from Cornell. He earned an M.S. and a Ph.D. in Applied Sciences (specializing in computer...
Josh founded and sold two successful Internet businesses for a combined $400mm and is now making early stage investments through Freestyle Capital. Josh is a founding partner in Freestyle Capital, an early stage venture fund focused on the Internet and technology sectors. Mr. Felser was the CEO and co-founder of Crackle (formerly Grouper), an Internet video community, acquired by Sony for $65 million in 2006. Until February of 2001 he was General Manager of AOL Time Warner’s music brands’ Spinner,...
Douglas Leone is a venture capitalist at Sequoia Capital focusing on internet, software and communication investments. Doug currently sits on the boards of Aruba Networks, Aster Data Systems, Alion, Birst, CafePress, Color, Hayneedle, MedExpress, Meraki, RingCentral, Service-Now and Zirmed. Doug’s previous investments at Sequoia include Agitar Software and SourceForge Inc. Prior to joining Sequoia Capital in 1988, he held sales and sales management positions at Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard and Prime Computer. Doug is a true powerhouse in the world of venture...
Aydin Senkut is the Founder and President of Felicis Ventures. He’s been an angel investor in promising start-ups since the end of 2005. His current portfolio emcompasses over 30 companies including Buzzlogic, Cake Financial, Dogster, Meraki Networks, Mint, Social.im Shopittome, Yapta, Yume Networks, Webs.com, Weebly and others. Prior to starting Felicis Ventures, he was a Senior Manager at Google, responsible for strategic partner development and account management in Japan and Asia Pacific.
Partner at Y Combinator. Previously founder of Auctomatic, a YC funded company acquired by Live Current Media.
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