New York City | April 27 - May 1, 2013
We’re proud of the fact that some of the tech scene’s most innovative thinkers and problem solvers are going to be speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt NYC this year and are happy to be making our first speaker announcement today.
We’re also psyched to host NYC Startup Battlefield for the fourth year in a row. So hurry up and submit here if you’re working on something great and would like to launch onstage or join our hackathon. Seriously, you could be the next GroupMe or Yammer or even Open Garden.
And speaking of Open Garden fans, well-known and respected partner at Union Square Ventures, Fred Wilson, will be onstage at Disrupt, and whenever Wilson has something to say, people listen. Wilson has sharp insight into a myriad of industry issues, which you can read about on his blog “AVC.” He currently sits on the board of directors for Etsy and DonorsChoose and has invested in startups such as Twitter, Tumblr, Zynga, Foursquare, Meetup, FeedBurner, del.icio.us and Disqus.
Here’s a sampling from one of his latest musings on awards shows:
And what exactly is the point of selecting the best of any of these things? The best movie? Was it really the best? The best social media company? Was it really the best? The best book? Was it really the best?
Why can’t we celebrate the diversity of the work, the many efforts that were made, and all the amazing things that got created in the past year. But instead we focus on the one single very best one. As if there were just one.
Speaking separately will be Ken Lerer, a Managing Director at Lerer Partners and Co-Founder and former Chairman of The Huffington Post. Lerer Ventures‘ companies include: MakerBot Industries, Simple, SideCar, gdgt, Chartbeat and Backplane. Want exits? He has them. How about GroupMe, DailyBooth and Cabana?
Onstage with him will be his son, Ben Lerer, also of Lerer Ventures. Ben serves as a Managing Director at Lerer Ventures and is the Co-Founder and CEO of the digital media company Thrillist Media Group.
His company was included in Inc. Magazine’s 500 fastest-growing private companies in the U.S. Additionally, he leads the board of directors for a New York-based non-profit called the East River Development Alliance.
This is a powerhouse lineup in any city, but even more so on home turf.
As we get closer to the event, we’ll share more, but now’s the time to get your tickets and prepare to hear all about what these luminaries peg as the next big thing.
Our sponsors help make Disrupt happen. If you are interested in learning more about sponsorship opportunities, please contact our sponsorship team here sponsors@techcrunch.com.
[Photo credit: Flickr]
Fred Wilson is a founder and Managing Partner of Union Square Ventures. Fred began his career in venture capital in 1987 and he has focused exclusively on information technology investments for the past 16 years. From 1987 to 1996, Fred was first an Associate and then a General Partner at Euclid Partners, an early stage venture capital firm located in New York City. In 1996, Fred co-founded Flatiron Partners. Fred was the Managing Partner of Flatiron Partners and was responsible...
Kenneth Lerer is a Managing Director at Lerer Ventures. He was the Chairman and Co-Founder of The Huffington Post. Mr. Lerer is Chairman of Betaworks and Buzzfeed, and is Vice-Chairman of Bedrocket. He is a member of Pilot Group LLC, a private investment firm. Mr. Lerer is Chairman Emeritus of the Public Theater in New York City and serves on the boards of directors of several nonprofit organizations, including Association to Benefit Children (ABC), and the Bank Street College...
Ben Lerer is the co-founder and CEO of Thrillist Media Group, a digital media company converging leading men’s lifestyle brand Thrillist.com and members-only shopping club JackThreads.com. The three brands collectively reach over 5 million daily subscriptions, targeting a young, urban male demographic locally and nationally, online and offline, through content and commerce. Since its launch in 2005, Lerer has overseen the growth of Thrillist’s marketing, sales and business development efforts, as well as its expansion into e-commerce with the 2010...
“Union Square Ventures is an early stage venture capital firm based in New York City. We invest in young companies that use information technology in innovative ways to create high growth business opportunities in the Media, Marketing, Financial Services, Telecommunications, and Healthcare industries. Our venture capital firm was conceived as a place where a small number of very experienced investment professionals, working collaboratively from a single office, could build a portfolio of promising startup companies and then put our experience...
Lerer Ventures is a New York-based, seed stage venture capital fund run by Ken and Ben Lerer. LV invests in founders in the earliest stages of a startup’s life, seeking out those entrepreneurs with product vision, consumer insight, focused execution, and unwavering ambition. Its portfolio includes betaworks, chartbeat, Canvas Networks, Simple (formerly BankSimple), gdgt, GroupMe, Greplin, and Venmo.
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