Alexia Tsotsis is the co-editor of TechCrunch. She attended the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, CA, majoring in Writing and Art, and moved to New York City shortly after graduation to work in the media industry.
After four years of living in New York and attending courses at New York University, she returned to Los Angeles in order to continue her career in new media, first as LA Weekly’s Internet culture reporter, and then as SF Weekly’s web editor. Before she joined TechCrunch, Alexia ran the SFweekly.com website while staying on top of memes, the tech scene, and human behavior in the digital age.
At TechCrunch, Tsotsis covers early stage startups, and has had the opportunity to interview everyone from Groupon’s Andrew Mason to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. Most recently Tsotsis made the Forbes “30 Under 30: Rising Stars of Media List.” Her Twitter bio reads, “Breaks news, hearts.”
I own Aol stock, diversified investments via ETFs and Mutual Funds, and shares in Facebook. I’m also in a relationship with a VC at General Catalyst Partners. Whenever there is the potential for real or percieved conflict in what I write about, I promise to bring it up, and link back here.
Mailbox launched to much fanfare earlier this year. Heralded as “the best email management app you’ll ever use“, iOS users virtually lined up to try the app. It was a hit. So much so that Dropbox quickly scooped up the team led by CEO and co-founder Gentry Underwood. And now, at the end of April, Underwood will be onstage with us at Disrupt New York. → Read More
With Disrupt drawing closer, we’re pleased to announce that John Borthwick will be back for another Disrupt. As the founder and CEO of betaworks, he has a unique vantage point of all parts of the New York City startup scene and there’s likely no one better to give us a solid pulse on the city that never sleeps. → Read More
Instagram has hired a Director of Operations, the first of what we’re assuming will be many steps to monetize its explosive scale. Facebook’s Director of Mobile partnerships Emily White will be moving over to the more than 20 person team, which just surpassed the 100 million user mark in February. → Read More
Facebook is in the process of acquiring startup Bang With Friends, according to multiple sources, in order to make a foray into the online dating space. According to these same sources, the acquisition will be a $30 million deal in both cash and stock, as that seems to be the standard M&A terms for gimmicky startups these days.
Concerned about what the success of college-friendly dating… → Read More
After I had been running at night for more than a decade, a relatively under-the-radar startup called Nextdoor got me to start running during the day. Almost nobody likes to exercise, and for many, overcoming the motivational hump of putting on your shoes and gym clothes can be trying on even the best of days. One evening late in January I had finally overcome this initial barrier to entry, and… → Read More
Google is finally opening up its Google Shopping Express service to the public today, with the same day delivery service being made available as a test to select users in San Francisco and the Peninsula from San Mateo to San Jose. Participating retailers include, as we’ve previously reported: Target, Walgreens, Staples, American Eagle, Toys“R”Us/Babies“R”Us, Office Depot, San… → Read More
Y Combinator was tougher to get into than ever this season, and the quality showed on stage. 33 startups presented on the record at the incubator’s Winter 2013 Demo Day today. Picking the most promising ones was no easy task. But after a team huddle and taking input from VCs and founders, TechCrunch chose seven startups that could disrupt big businesses and make the world a better place to live. → Read More
Y Combinator Demo Day, where 47 startups are taking the stage to pitch investors and press, continues to roll along. Here are short descriptions of the second group of presenting companies (the descriptions in the headlines come from the companies themselves).
As we mentioned earlier, it’s a smaller batch of startups this time around, and since many of them are presenting on an off-the-record… → Read More
It’s Demo Day time once again for Y Combinator, the startup incubator that has become a Silicon Valley institution since shaping its first class of startups back in 2005.
A handful of us TechCrunch writers are here in Mountain View, California at the Computer History Museum, where the 47 startups that made up YC’s Winter 2012 class are set to pitch to a room filled with tech investors… → Read More
We’re pleased to announce John Donahoe, President and CEO of eBay, as a Disrupt NY speaker. Under his tutelage, eBay and its subsidiary PayPal have grown tremendously, with both companies expecting to do $20 billion each in 2013 mobile commerce. → Read More
It’s our pleasure to announce that TechCrunch and the fundraisers at Causes will take part in Teach For America’s Challenge for Tomorrow’s Leaders campaign. The goal is a lofty $250,000 and we’re asking for your help to fund this worthy cause.
TFA’s latest mission aims to raise funds to recruit, train and support at least 50 Bay Area Teach For America corps members. Team TechCrunch is excited… → Read More
Everywhere you went around Austin this past week, there were people queuing up for things, Grumpy Cat, the GroupMe Grill, the Twitter party, Salt Lick BBQ.
One startup fête was so packed even a founder couldn’t get in immediately. “If only all these people were daily active users,” one person at the same party quipped, on the app’s lack of popularity relative to the line outside. → Read More
Disrupt alumnus Dropbox made the second in a series of super-savvy, super-early stage acquisitions today, picking up hyped-up email management app Mailbox in an acquisition that we’re calling “DropMail.”
We had been hearing that Mailbox was raising money, piquing the interest of Andreessen Horowitz among others, which is why today’s news that the company sold to the harmoniously named Dropbox… → Read More
With Disrupt NY just six weeks out, we’re psyched to announce that former Facebook executive and unconventional venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya will be taking the stage at the Manhattan Center.
Palihapitiya started his career at the beginning of last decade at music pioneers Spinner.com and Winamp before going on to work at AOL, where he was the VP and General Manager of AIM and ICQ. → Read More
LeanIn.org, the community website dedicated to women (and men) leaning into their ambitions, recently launched in conjunction with today’s release of Sheryl Sandberg’s conversation-sparking book Lean In. LeanIn.org co-founder Gina Bianchini, who is also the CEO of Mightybell and an advisor to the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University, says her inspiration to start LeanIn.org… → Read More
We’ve been getting all sorts of new info since we first ran our story about Google dogfooding ”Google Shopping Express,” its same-day Amazon Prime and Postmates competitor. While we originally reported that the service would be $10 or $15 cheaper than Amazon Prime – so $69 or $64 a year – we’re now hearing that the pricing is still in flux. While Google irons… → Read More
Much like this gif, Aol added another layer of management last week. Aol Brands got its own CEO, Susan Lyne, to round out the triumvirate of Aol Networks CEO Ned Brody and interim Membership CEO Bud Rosenthal. And, in an impressive sleight of hand, the company also lost a layer of management, with COO Artie Minson out, perhaps due to Patch’s less-than-inspiring performance. → Read More
We’re very excited to announce that Joe Lonsdale, co-founder of Palantir and Addepar, has been added to our roster of Disrupt speakers. After a stint as a PayPal intern, Lonsdale shook up Silicon Valley twice in a row and he now invests and advises startups through Formation 8. Enough said. → Read More
He founded the Atom Factory talent agency. He manages Lady Gaga, and when she wanted her very own social network for her millions of “little monsters”, he co-founded Backplane. And he doesn’t do weekly team meetings. Troy Carter is a general badass, and will be at Disrupt NY.
Carter’s AtomFactory embodies the essence of a lean startup: With its small team, the company is making waves in the… → Read More
Google is stealthily preparing to launch an Amazon Prime competitor called “Google Shopping Express.” According to one source the service will be $10 cheaper than Amazon Prime at $69 a year and offer same-day delivery from brick-and-mortar stores like Target, Walmart, Walgreens and Safeway (though no specifics were mentioned by our sources). → Read More
Fitness technology and hardware startup Fitbit is raising north of $30 million in growth capital at a $300 million-plus valuation, according to multiple sources. The company last raised $12 million in January 2012 from Foundry Group, True Ventures, SoftTech VC and Felicis Ventures. → Read More
There’s no aphorism that describes successful women more than “damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”
Yet, thankfully we keep doing. As we are Millennial women who’ve worked under plenty of women, and are now on our second female CEO, we’ve reaped the benefits of this “doing” firsthand. It was a lot harder to be in the workforce 30, 20 or even 10 years ago — sheerly as a numbers game. → Read More
Aol is really into hiring boss’s boss’s bosses. We’ve had a couple in my brief sojourn in the Aol Brand Group. Now we’ve got another one, former Gilt CEO Susan Lyne, who just sent out the following memo to our Team about her new role, which she doesn’t mention. She will be Brand Group CEO.
I’m bolding the word “brand” in this letter because I hate it. It’s one of those fluffy words people use… → Read More
Marissa Mayer has succeeded. In getting people to have an opinion about Yahoo again. While many are skewering Mayer for not being progressive with her work from home “ban,” people who are more familiar with what exactly is going on are quietly singing her praises.
Mayer will be putting the official smackdown on remote workers come June. People with a work from home agreement will have to… → Read More
You wouldn’t think that a Pinterest where you can buy stuff would be one of the hottest Series A deals of the quarter, but it was.
Wanelo, a site that allows you to bookmark items that you like, and, this is crucial, allows you to buy those items via direct links from the site, has been the prettiest girl at the party for the past month or two, while it completes its raise. → Read More
For the fourth year in a row, TechCrunch Disrupt will take over the San Francisco Design Center Concourse, and we’re bringing the hottest startups and best minds in the industry with us. Block off September 7-11 on your calendar, because you’re not going to want to miss Disrupt SF 2013.
The Disrupt Hackathon kicks everything off the weekend before, where companies like GroupMe and Docracy… → Read More
You know, I’m sort of jealous. Because I’ve eaten something like three Po’boy sandwiches in the past three days, and every single time I’ve wondered, as I was eating, where the odd name Po’ boy originated. But didn’t want to take out my grubby phone during the meal to find out.
I’ve also wondered whether this is a problem that Google Glass could solve … “If I had Google Glass right now, I… → Read More
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Disrupt Europe: Berlin Hackathon
Berlin, Germany
